Roberts, Robert. The House Servant’s Directory.

Boston: Monroe and Francis, 1827. The how-to guide for those “in service” is reputed to be the first book ever written by an African-American author and published by a commercial publisher in the U.S. Roberts, who had come to Boston with his employer, Nathan Appleton and later served as a butler for U.S. Senator and Massachusetts governor Christopher Gore, is a prominent member of Boston’s African-American community, and the father of Benjamin Roberts and grandfather of Sarah Roberts, who become plaintiffs in an important school segregation case in 1845.*