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...
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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. ...
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Top 10 most used topics by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Life 57 Light 52 Heart 48 Bright 44 I Love You 40 Love 40 God 37 Death 33 Earth 30 Away 29


Frances Ellen Watkins Harper Quotes

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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
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Poem of the day

Edgar Albert Guest Poem
The Killing Place
 by Edgar Albert Guest

We're hiking along at a two-forty pace
We 're making life seem like a man-killing race,
With our nerves all on edge and our jaws firmly set
We go rushing along; with our brows lined with sweat
And our cheeks pale and drawn every minute we dash,
And the goal that we 're after is merely more cash.

We 're out for the money, the greenbacks and gold,
...

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