Ruth D. Todd

Ruth D. Todd (1878–?) was an African-American writer, who contributed short stories and a serialised novella to The Colored American Magazine, but about whom scant biographical information has been discovered. She is noted for providing an 'interesting counterpoint to... the "domestic fictions" written by her more well-known contemporaries.' This record indicates that Todd was born in September 1878 in Virginia. Another census entry, for 1880, suggests that as a young child, she lived in Fairfield, with her parents Edward P. and Mattie Todd. Palumbo-DeSimone compares Todd's story to Frances Harper's "The Two Offers", noting that while "The Folly of Mildred" in some ways echoes Harper's much earlier story, it makes "the context of the black female community and its role in women's 'uplift'... more overt." ) to argue that the story, "in which a biracial subject's blackness triumphs over her whiteness," serves to unsettle "dominant assumptions about the desirability of whiteness."

Works Published in the Colored American Magazine

"The Octoroon's Revenge" (March 1902) "Florence Grey: A Three-Part Story" (August, September, October 1902) "The Folly of Mildred: A Race Story with a Moral" (March 1903) "The Taming of a Modern Shrew" (March 1904)