Witnesses for Freedom: Negro Americans in Autobiography.

First edition of this pioneering study of African American life as revealed through autobiography. Octavo, publisher’s green cloth stamped in gilt. From the personal library of Paul and Julia Child, with a gift inscription on the front pastedown, “Julia and Paul C. Child en route à Paris from Helen and Leonard C. Rennie 10/24/48." Julia Child was a chef, author, and television personality. She is recognized for having brought French cuisine to the American public with her debut cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and her subsequent television programs, the most notable of which was The French Chef, which premiered in 1963. The friendship between Julia and Paul Child and Helen and Leonard C. Rennie was one forged in the crucible of wartime OSS service and deepened by the shared ordeal of McCarthy era suspicion that haunted former intelligence officers throughout the 1950s. The Rennies were close friends of the Childs. Leonard, a former colleague of Paul's in the Office of Strategic Services, had been dismissed during the McCarthy-era loyalty investigations, whose reach would also come to touch Paul's own career. Paul was afraid he might be in the same position as Leonard Rennie, who was among a group of employees dismissed by the State Department during the loyalty investigations that spread paranoia through the ranks of former OSS officers, many of whom had served with distinction in the Far East during the war only to find their patriotism called into question in peacetime. Very good in a very good dust jacket with bumping, chipping, and a few small closed tears. Foreword by Alain Locke. A notable association copy.