Julia Ringwood Coston
{{Short description|Afro-American publisher and magazine editor}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Julia Ringwood Coston
| image = Julia Ringwood Coston, 1893.jpg
| image_size =
| alt = Julia Ringwood Balch
| caption = 1863
| birth_place = Warrenton, Virginia
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1931|06|01|1863}}
| death_place = Washington, District of Columbia
| resting_place =
| occupation = Magazine Editor
| nationality = American
| citizenship =
| period =
| genre = Biography
| subject =
| movement =
| notableworks = Ringwood's Afro-American Journal of Fashion
| spouse = William Hilary Coston
| children =
| relatives =
| signature =
| signature_alt =
| ethnicity =
| influences =
| influenced =
}}
Julia Ringwood Coston ({{circa|1863}} – June 1, 1931) was a 19th-century African American publisher and magazine editor. In 1891, she founded Ringwood's Afro-American Journal of Fashion, the first illustrated paper for black women.{{sfn|Majors|1893|p=251}}{{sfn|Appiah|Gates|2005|p=240}}{{sfn|Heinemann|1996|p=293}}
Early years and education
Coston was born on the Ringwood Farm in the town of Warrenton, Virginia. She was given the name "Ringwood" because of a promise her father made to her mother; if their first-born were a girl, she would be named after the farm. She was brought to live in Washington, D.C. as an infant.{{sfn|Scruggs|1893|p=140-42}} Until her mother's failing health caused her to leave school and serve as the family breadwinner, Coston attended public schools until the age of thirteen.{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/ladiespagesafric0000rook|url-access=registration|page=[https://archive.org/details/ladiespagesafric0000rook/page/33 33]|title=Ladies' Pages: African American Women's Magazines and the Culture that Made Them|last=Rooks|first=Noliwe M.|date=2004-01-01|publisher=Rutgers University Press|isbn=978-0-8135-3425-1|language=en}}
Career
File:William Hilary Coston & Julia Ringwood Coston.png
Accepting the position as governess in the family of a general of the United States Army, she found time and received both assistance and encouragement to continue her studies. In the spring of 1886, she married Rev. William Hilary Coston, B. D., then a student at Yale University, the Right Rev. J. M. Brown officiating. The couple had two children, the older, a girl named Julia R., and the younger, a boy named, W. H. Coston. Mr. Coston was the author of "A Freeman and Yet a Slave."{{sfn|Scruggs|1893|p=140-42}}
As a girl, Coston reportedly longed to see a images and stories of people of color in magazines, leading her to establish Ringwood's Journal. The initial editorial of the journal stated: "Ringwood's Journal of Fashion, published by Mrs. J. R. Coston, makes its advent to satisfy the common desire among us for an illustrated journal of our own ladies. The injury of the absence of the cultivating influence which attaches to a purely published, illustrated journal devoted to the loving interests of our homes, and to the weal of our daughters, was felt by me when a girl, and is recognized by me now when a woman. Knowing that this injury of absence could only be overcome by the presence of such a journal, without measuring the intellectual ability required, we have published Ringwood's Journal."{{sfn|Scruggs|1893|p=140-42}}
References
{{reflist|30em}}
=Attribution=
- {{Source-attribution| {{cite book|last=Majors|first=Monroe Alphus|title=Noted Negro Women: Their Triumphs and Activities|url=https://archive.org/stream/notednegrowomen00heargoog#page/n272/mode/2up|year=1893|publisher=Donohue & Henneberry}} }}
- {{Source-attribution| {{cite book|last=Scruggs|first=Lawson Andrew|title=Women of Distinction: Remarkable in Works and Invincible in Character|url=https://archive.org/stream/womenofdistincti00scru#page/140/mode/2up|edition=Public domain|year=1893|publisher=L. A. Scruggs}} }}
=Bibliography=
- {{cite book|last1=Appiah|first1=Anthony|last2=Gates|first2=Henry Louis Jr.|title=Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TMZMAgAAQBAJ&pg=RA1-PA240|date=16 March 2005|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-517055-9}}
- {{cite book|last=Heinemann|first=Sue|title=Timelines of American Women's History|url=https://archive.org/details/timelinesofameri00hein|url-access=registration|page=[https://archive.org/details/timelinesofameri00hein/page/293 293]|year=1996|publisher=Berkley Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-399-51986-4}}
External links
{{wikisource|Page:Women of distinction.djvu/192}}
{{Portal|Biography}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Coston, Julia Ringwood}}
Category:African-American publishers (people)
Category:American magazine editors
Category:Writers from Washington, D.C.
Category:American magazine publishers (people)
Category:American women magazine editors
Category:People from Warrenton, Virginia
Category:19th-century African-American women writers
Category:19th-century American writers
Category:19th-century American women writers