BLANCHE K. BRUCE - DEED SIGNED 07/18/1890 - HFSID 309249

BLANCHE K. BRUCE
The first Black American to have his signature printed on US currency signs here as Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia.
Deed signed: "B. K. Bruce" as Recorder of Deeds, 5 pages, 3½x8½ folded, 8½x14 open-flat. District of Columbia, 1890 July 18. He signs approval of a document transferring title a specified lot of land in the District. Blanche Kelso Bruce (1841-1898), the son of a white Virginian planter and a black slave, was educated and emancipated by his father. Refused for Civil War service, he worked as a printer's assistant and steamboat porter, attended Oberlin College, and founded a school for black youths in Hannibal, Missouri. During Reconstruction, he became a wealthy landowner in the Mississippi Delta, and was elected to several local offices, including Sheriff of Bolivar County. In 1874 he was elected to the US Senate, becoming the first African-American to serve a full term there. (Fellow Mississippian Hiram Revels preceded him in the Senate, but did not serve a full term. On February 14, 1879, Bruce became the first black person to preside over the Senate, and the only former slave ever to do so. He received 8 votes for the Republican Vice-Presidential nomination at the 1880 Republican Convention, and was appointed Register of the Treasury by President Garfield in 1881. In this office he became the first African-American to have his signature on US currency. He was appointed again as Register of the Treasury by President McKinley (1897), serving until his death. He was Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia (1890-1893). In 2002, Temple University scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Blanche Bruce as one of the 100 greatest African Americans. Corners and edges worn and chipping. Multiple notches at edges. Multiple folds. Staples at top edge. Cover detached from main document. Pages with list of items have separated at folds. Otherwise, fine condition.