Who Was Melanie Darkinboddy?

     On July 13, 2013, the papers of Melanie Darkinboddy* were anonymously delivered to my home. 

     Contained in an ancient, cracked leather satchel were six copybooks, ca. 1870s, and ninety-three 20th century composition books, the earliest one dating from 1926 and the last one with a final entry dated May 16, 1954. Written in a tightly-scrawled long-hand, the papers were verified as having been written by the hand of Melanie Darkinboddy.  

     At the bottom of the satchel was a small drawstring burlap pouch, with a narrow, cylindrical glass tube inside. I opened the tube and found a thin rolled-up sheet of slightly frayed, yellowing paper (which I later discovered were several sheets rolled together).

      In unraveling those tiny sheets of paper, I have also begun to slowly uncover the mystery of Melanie Darkinboddy, the once prominent but now forgotten Grand Doyenne of Harlem, whose Baked by a Negro Cookie Company** operated from 1896 to 1931. The new interest in Melanie's life and work also prompted a renaissance for cookie company, which ran under new ownership from 2012-2017. The long-awaited web publication of her unusual memoir, which I have entitled The Life and Strange, Surprising Adventures of Melanie Darkinboddy, An American Negro: A Tale of Race, Cookies, and Theft,* has been a labor of love. The first part of this chronicle, much of which I have been reconstructing from rough notes, sketches, and jottings, is being recorded here in serial form. 

Rebecca

*Melanie Darkinboddy is a fictional character and The Life and Strange, Surprising Adventures of Melanie Darkinboddy, An American Negro: A Tale of Race, Cookies, and Theft (with excerpts published here) is a work of fiction.

**Baked by a Negro Cookie Company was later renamed The Darkinboddy Bakery.