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Being very desirous that one of the raceso long distinguished in the cause of freedom for her intellectual worth as Mrs. Harper has had the honor of beingshould not at this late date in life make a blunder which might detract from her own good nameI naturally proposed to await developments before deciding too quickly in favor of giving encouragement to her contemplated effort. ... Read more

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Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was an African American abolitionist and poet. Born free in Baltimore, Maryland, she started writing early and had her first book of poetry published when she was 20 years old.
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Customer Reviews (1)

Rediscovered novel of a black protest poet
Frances Harper was the most popular black woman poet of the nineteenth century. Before the Civil War, she was a much admired abolitionist lecturer on the anti-slavery circuit. Afterwards she championed education for blacks, women's rights and universal suffrage.

Some years ago I read and enjoyed Harper's novel Iola Leroy (1892), which has become a classic of African American literature. Minnie's Sacrifice (1869), recently rediscovered by a Harper scholar, is an earlier, less polished work. Some chapters have been lost because the book was only published in serial form. Nonetheless I found Minnie's Sacrifice well worth reading.

The story follows the lives of a boy and girl born to black slave women and their white masters. The children are sent North to pass for white and only discover their mixed blood by force of circumstances.

The descriptions of the Underground Railway in Minnie's Sacrifice recall Harper's own experience helping slaves escape to Canada.

Frances Harper was born in 1825 of free black parents, but she was not content with just her own freedom. She dedicated her life to defeating slavery and righting other injustices. Her passionate commitment to helping others is reflecting in Minnie's character and the whole tenor of Minnie's Sacrifice. It may not be great literature, but it brings us the voice of a great humanitarian.

I'd recommend Minnie's Sacrifice to any reader interested (as I am) in the literature created by slaves and free blacks in the nineteenth century. ... Read more

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Books for All Kinds of Readers. ReadHowYouWant offers the widest selection of on-demand, accessible format editions on the market today. Our 7 different sizes of EasyRead are optimized by increasing the font size and spacing between the words and the letters. We partner with leading publishers around the globe. Our goal is to have accessible editions simultaneously released with publishers' new books so that all readers can have access to the books they want to read. To find more books in your format visit www.readhowyouwant.com ... Read more

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This is a pocket edition (4.25" x 3") miniature reprint of the book of poetry by Frances E. W. Harper. ... Read more

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The period between 1880 and 1918, at the end of which Jim Crow was firmly established and the Great Migration of African Americans was well under way, was not the nadir for black culture, James Smethurst reveals, but instead a time of profound response from African American intellectuals. The African American Roots of Modernism explores how the Jim Crow system triggered significant artistic and intellectual responses from African American writers, deeply marking the beginnings of literary modernism and, ultimately, notions of American modernity.
In identifying the Jim Crow period with the coming of modernity, Smethurst upsets the customary assessment of the Harlem Renaissance as the first nationally significant black arts movement, showing how artists reacted to Jim Crow with migration narratives, poetry about the black experience, black performance of popular culture forms, and more. Smethurst introduces a whole cast of characters, including understudied figures such as William Stanley Braithwaite and Fenton Johnson, and more familiar authors such as Charles Chesnutt, Pauline Hopkins, and James Weldon Johnson. By considering the legacy of writers and artists active between the end of Reconstruction and the rise of the Harlem Renaissance, Smethurst illuminates their influence on the black and white U.S. modernists who followed.
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