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Joshua Henry Jones

African-American poet and novelist

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 31, 2026
Entity authorityQ110907605
Source-derived summary

Joshua Henry Jones Jr. (? - December 14, 1955) was an American composer, poet, and novelist. He was photographed in 1923. His poem "To a Skull" was included in James Weldon Johnson's 1922 book The Book of American Negro Poetry. Robert Thomas Kerlin included him in his 1923 poetry anthology Negro Poets and Their Poems.

Early life

He was born in Orangeburg, South Carolina and grew up in South Carolina. His father was a bishop in the A.M.E. church.

Career

His poems were published, including one collection called "Poems of the Four Seas". He also wrote the novel By Sanction of Law about a marriage between an African American man and a Caucasian woman.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Joshua Henry Jones” is african-American poet and novelist. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Joshua, Henry and Jones, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1955, 1923, 1922—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1876. For this dossier, Joshua, Henry and Jones is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “african-American poet and novelist” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q110907605. VIAF identifies the subject as 277529156. The Library of Congress control number is n85342438. None of the 3 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1955, 1923 and 1922.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Joshua Henry Jones”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Joshua Henry Jones primary sources, Joshua Henry Jones archive and Joshua research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Joshua Henry Jones”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Joshua Henry Jones” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.