Listen and read

Step into an infinite world of stories

  • Read and listen as much as you want
  • Over 1 million titles
  • Exclusive titles + Storytel Originals
  • 7 days free trial, then €9.99/month
  • Easy to cancel anytime
Subscribe Now
Details page - Device banner - 894x1036

Lola Leroy: I don't take much stock in white folks' religion

Language
English
Format
Category

Short stories

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was born free on 24th September 1825 in Baltimore, Maryland which, at that time, was still a slave state.

By age 3 Frances had been orphaned and thereafter raised by her maternal aunt and uncle who also gave her her surname; Watkins.

At 13 she was working as a seamstress and then as a nursemaid for a white family that owned a bookshop. Here any spare time was used to read books in the shop and work on her own writing which from 1839 included pieces in anti-slavery journals.

By the age of 20 Frances had published her first poetry book ‘Forest Leaves, or Autumn Leaves’, marking her out as an abolitionist voice of note. Her second book, ‘Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects’ followed and was reprinted many times. It was the beginning of a remarkable career both for her literary pursuits and also her social activism.

In 1850, at age 26, she moved to teach domestic science at Union Seminary, a school for Black students near Columbus, Ohio. She was its first female teacher.

After joining the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1853, Frances began her career as a public speaker and political activist.

In 1858, Frances refused to vacate her seat or ride in the ‘colored’ section of a segregated trolley car in Philadelphia. That same year her poem ‘Bury Me in a Free Land’ was published in The Anti-Slavery Bugle. She created literary history in 1859 when her short story ‘Two Offers’ was the first short story published by a Black woman.

In 1860 she married a widower named Fenton Harper. They had one daughter together in addition to his three children from a previous marriage. When her husband died four years later she kept custody of their daughter and moved to the East Coast.

Frances founded, supported, and held high office in several national progressive organizations. In 1886 she became superintendent of the Colored Section of the Philadelphia and Pennsylvania Women's Christian Temperance Union. A decade later she helped found the National Association of Colored Women and served as its vice president.

Throughout her activist activities she continued to write, weaving politics into her fictional narratives. Although her canon is small it contains work that advanced thinking on the roles of black women in society.

Frances E W Harper, abolitionist, suffragist, poet, teacher, public speaker, and writer, died of heart failure on 22nd February 1911 in Philadelphia. She was 85. Women were still not permitted to vote.

© 2021 Miniature Masterpieces (Ebook): 9781839679926

Release date

Ebook: August 1, 2021

Others also enjoyed ...

  1. Inseparable: A Never-Before-Published Novel Simone de Beauvoir
  2. War and Peace Leo Tolstoj
  3. Summary of Jenn Granneman and Andre Sólo's Sensitive IRB Media
  4. Jung Anthony Stevens
  5. Summary of Richard P. Rumelt's The Crux IRB Media
  6. The Secret Lives of Introverts: Inside Our Hidden World Jenn Granneman
  7. Travels in Blood and Honey Elizabeth Gowing
  8. To You We Shall Return: Lessons about Our Planet from the Lakota Joseph M. Marshall III
  9. Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times Azar Nafisi
  10. The Day the World Ended at Little Bighorn: A Lakota History Joseph M. Marshall
  11. To the River: A Journey beneath the Surface Olivia Laing
  12. The Soul of the Indian and Seven Native American Tales Charles Alexander Eastman
  13. The Lakota Way: Stories and Lessons for Living Joseph M. Marshall III
  14. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West Dee Brown
  15. Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation Octavia E. Butler
  16. Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History Robert D. Kaplan
  17. The Trip to Echo Spring: On Writers and Drinking Olivia Laing
  18. Crudo Olivia Laing
  19. Pandora’s Lab: Seven Stories of Science Gone Wrong Paul A. Offit
  20. Turning the Flywheel: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great Jim Collins
  21. How Tea took over India and Why Coffee couldn't Amit Schandillia
  22. The Art of Communicating Thich Nhat Hanh
  23. The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate Peter Wohlleben
  24. Bad Feminist: Essays Roxane Gay
  25. Great Spirit Told Me Michael Looking Coyote
  26. Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency Olivia Laing
  27. Mating in Captivity: In Search of Erotic Intelligence Esther Perel
  28. 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think Brianna Wiest

This is why you’ll love Storytel

  • Listen and read without limits

  • 800 000+ stories in 40 languages

  • Kids Mode (child-safe environment)

  • Cancel anytime

Unlimited stories, anytime
Time limited offer

Unlimited

Listen and read as much as you want

9.99 € /month
  • 1 account

  • Unlimited Access

  • Offline Mode

  • Kids Mode

  • Cancel anytime

Try now