Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Who is Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (September 24, 1825 – February 22, 1911) was an American abolitionist, suffragist, poet, teacher, public speaker, and writer. Beginning in 1845, she was one of the first African-American women to be published in the United States.
Born free in Baltimore, Maryland, Harper had a long and prolific career, publishing her first book of poetry at the age of 20. At 67, she published her widely praised novel Iola Leroy (1892), placing her among the first Black women to publish a novel.As a young woman in 1850, she taught domestic science at Union Seminary in Columbus, Ohio, a school affiliated with the AME Church. In 1851, while living with the family of William Still, a clerk at the Pennsylvania Abolition Society who helped refugee slaves make their way alo...
Read Full Biography
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper Poems
- A Rallying Cry
Oh, children of the tropics,
Amid our pain and wrong
Have you no other mission
Than music, dance, and song?
...
- He "had Not Where To Lay His Head."
The conies had their hiding-place,
The wily fox with stealthy tread
A covert found, but Christ, the Lord,
Had not a place to lay his head.
...
- The Refiner's Gold.
He stood before my heart's closed door,
And asked to enter in;
But I had barred the passage o'er
By unbelief and sin.
...
- Our Hero.
Onward to her destination,
O'er the stream the Hannah sped,
When a cry of consternation
Smote and chilled our hearts with dread.
...
- The Crocuses.
They heard the South wind sighing
A murmur of the rain;
And they knew that Earth was longing
To see them all again.
...
Read All Poems
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper Quotes
Read All Quotes
Comments about Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
- Re7382: ‘we are all bound up together’: the 19th’s fellows on the life and legacy of frances ellen watkins harper
- Skydog811: frances ellen watkins harper’s “learning to read”
- Poetsorg: welcome children of the spring,
in your garbs of green and gold,
lifting up your sun-crowned heads
on the verdant plain and wold.
—frances ellen watkins harper
- Edsitement: "but some of us would try to steal
a little from the book,
and put the words together,
and learn by hook or crook."
-from “learning to read” by frances ellen watkins harper
analysis resource here:
- C19americanists: domestic/sentiment division, quarterfinals
frances ellen watkins harper’s iola leroy vs louisa may alcott’s little women
Read All Comments