Classic stories of the author Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

One of the first African-American women to be published in the United States, especially for novels (Iola Leroy, 1892), she was also a poet, an abolitionnist and a suffragist. Very popular and prolific writer, she died at age 85, nine years before women gained the right to vote.

Classics

The Slave Mother

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Heard you that shriek? It rose
So wildly on the air,
It seemed as if a burden'd heart
Was breaking in despair.

Saw you those hands so sadly clasped--
The bowed and ... [+]

Classics

19th Century 20th Century African American Literature 1 min

The Slave Auction

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

The sale began—young girls were there,
Defenceless in their wretchedness,
Whose stifled sobs of deep despair
Revealed their anguish and distress.

And mothers stood with ... [+]

Classics

19th Century 20th Century African American Literature 1 min

The Fugitive’s Wife

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

It was my sad and weary lot
To toil in slavery;
But one thing cheered my lowly cot—
My husband was with me.

One evening, as our children played
Around our cabin door,
I ... [+]

Classics

19th Century 20th Century African American Literature 2 min

Eliza Harris

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Like a fawn from the arrow, startled and wild,
A woman swept by us, bearing a child;
In her eye was the night of a settled despair,
And her brow was o'ershaded with anguish and care.
... [+]

A New Kind of Literary Pulse

A New Kind of Literary Pulse

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

The Slave Mother

The Slave Auction

The Fugitive’s Wife

Eliza Harris