Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was born free on September 24, 1825, in Baltimore, Maryland. She was one of the most well-known African American writers of the nineteenth century. An only child, Harper was orphaned at the age of three and raised by her uncle, William Watkins who was a minister and a reformer. She studied the Bible and the Classics at his Academy for Negro Youth until she was thirteen years old, when she began to work as a domestic servant. Harper’s literary productions were heavily influenced by her own politics. She was a dedicated political activist and leader and prominently involved in major social reform movements of the 1800s, supporting abolition, women’s rights, and temperance.

Harper was well known during her lifetime and only later was her writing “forgotten” or dismissed.

In 1892, Harper published Iola Leroy, or Shadows Uplifted, her only full-length, separately published novel, in which she depicted slaves as active participants in the struggle for freedom and called upon African Americans to improve themselves. In this call to action lies Harper’s definition of what it means to be a patriot. Claiming and taking pride Black identity/culture and service to community is how Harper frames Iola as a patriot. Only through these seemingly individual deeds is Iola able to change the nature of her surroundings as a whole. She had no control over her past or upbringing as a white woman which made her choice in claiming her Blackness in a society that privileges whiteness even more powerful. Iola’s community, comprised of biological family, friends, and acquaintances all work to uplift her in reaching her highest potential. She serves her community by returning to the south in order to teach new Black generations how to be productive and morally just members of society.