On June 6, 1893, Paul Laurence Dunbar in Chicago wrote an enthusiastic letter to his mother Matilda in Dayton. Paul was in Chicago for the World's Columbian Exposition, where he hoped to find employment and a broader audience for his writings. He had been in the city more than a month, but mistakenly wrote "Dayton" at the top of the letter, then crossed it out and wrote "Chicago." Paul's letter described his first encounter with Frederick Douglass, the most influential African American in the country.
Mr. Douglass has known of me for about a year. And Sunday night his nephew took me to call upon him. We went up to the house where Mr. Douglass was taking dinner. The old man was just finishing dinner; he got up and came tottering into the room. "And this is Paul Dunbar," he said, shaking hands and patting me on the shoulder. "Paul, how do you do? I've been knowing you for some time, and you're one of my boys." He said so much Ma that I must wait until I am with you before I can tell you all. He had me read to him my "Ode to Ethiopia," and he himself read to us with much spirit, "The Ol' Tunes," with which he seemed delighted. Mr. Douglass invited me to visit him at his home in Washington city next winter and stay a while. He says, "It would do my heart good just to have you there and take care of you. I have got one fiddler there (his son) and now I want a poet; it would do me good to have you up there in my old study just working away at your poetry."
Paul Laurence Dunbar to Matilda Dunbar, June 6, 1893. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 1).
Douglass served as the representative of Haiti during the Exposition, and he gave Paul a job working at the Haitian Pavilion.
While he was still a mere boy, Dunbar met Frederick Douglass, who greatly admired him. He was subsequently employed by Mr. Douglass as clerk in the Haitian building at the world's fair, when the great ex-slave acted as commissioner for the black republic.
"Writes Good Verse," by James D. Corrothers. Unidentified newspaper clipping [Chicago, Illinois. December 19, 1895]. Paul Laurence Dunbar collection, New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (Microfilm edition, Roll 3).
Mary Church Terrell, a prominent spokesperson for the rights of Black women, was acquainted with Douglass and later became Paul's neighbor in Washington, D. C. In her autobiography, she wrote about the powerful concern Douglass felt for Paul.
Frederick Douglass was the commissioner in charge of the exhibit from Haiti at the Fair, and he employed Paul Dunbar to assist him. The great man had become deeply interested in Paul Dunbar, because his struggle for existence and recognition had been so desperate. "Have you ever heard of Paul Dunbar?" I told him I had not. Then Mr. Douglass rehearsed the facts in the young man's life. "He is very young, but there is no doubt that he is a poet," he said. "He is working under the most discouraging circumstances in his home, Dayton, Ohio. Let me read you one of his poems," said Mr. Douglass. I can see his fine face and his majestic form now, as he left the room. He soon returned with a newspaper clipping and began to read "The Drowsy Day." When Mr. Douglass had read several stanzas, his voice faltered a bit and his eyes grew moist. "What a tragedy it is," he said, "that a young man with such talent as he undoubtedly possesses should be so terribly handicapped as he is."
A Colored Woman in a White World, by Mary Church Terrell. Randsell, Inc. (Washington, D. C.). 1940. Page 145.