William Stanley Braithwaite (1878-1962) was a leading light in American literature in the early 20th century. As one of the very few Black critics employed as a regular columnist and reviewer for a mainstream newspaper in the 1910s and 20s, Braithwaite had outsized importance as a literary critic in his day. He wrote regularly for the Boston Evening Transcript between 1905 and 1931, and his positive reviews were eagerly sought by then-aspiring peers like Robert Frost, Ezra Pound, or Amy Lowell. Between 1913 and 1929, Braithwaite edited a series of poetry anthologies called the Anthology of Magazine Verse. Braithwaite also published two books of poetry in his own right.