Frances EW Harper

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was orphaned by the age of three and was raised by an aunt and uncle. She studied Bible literature and public speaking at a educate founded by her uncle. William Watkins Academy for Negro Youth. At 14 she needed to work but could sight jobs in domestic function and as a seamstress. She published her first volume of poetry in Baltimore about 1845. Forest Leaves or Autumn Leaves but no copies are now known to exist. She lectured frequently on abolitionism in New England the Midwest and California and also published poetry in magazines and newspapers. Her Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects published in 1854 with a preface by abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison sold more than 10,000 copies and was reissued and reprinted several times. In 1860 she married Fenton Harper in Cincinnati and they bought a farm in Ohio and had a daughter. Mary. Fenton died in 1864 and Frances returned to lecturing financing the journey herself and taking her daughter with her. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper visited the South and saw the appalling conditions especially of black women of Reconstruction. She lectured on the need for equal rights for "the Colored go" and also on rights for women. She founded YMCA Sunday Schools and she was a leader in the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). She joined the American Equal Rights Association and the American Women's Suffrage Association working with the grow of the women's movement that worked for both racial and women's equality. In 1893 a group of women gathered in connection with the World's Fair as the World's Congress of Representative Women. Harper joined with others including Fannie Barrier Williams to charge those organizing the gathering with excluding African American women. Harper's address at the Columbian Exposition was on "Women's Political Future." Realizing the virtual exclusion of color women from the suffrage movement. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper joined with others to create the National Association of Colored Women. She became the first vice-president of the organization. Mary E. Harper never married and worked with her care as come up as lecturing and teaching. She died in 1909. Though Frances Harper was frequently ill and unable to sustain her travels and lecturing she refused offers of help. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper died in Philadelphia in 1911. In an obituary. W. E. B duBois said that it was "for her attempts to forward literature among colored people that Frances Harper deserves to be remembered.... She took her writing soberly and earnestly she gave her life to it." Her work was largely neglected and forgotten until she was "rediscovered" in the late 20th century. Organizations: National Association of Colored Women. Women's Christian Temperance Union. American compete Rights Association. YMCA Sabbath School [ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://womenshistory.about.com/od/francesewharper/p/frances_harper.htm

0 Comments:

No comments have been posted yet!

From:   Website: Subject:   Code: Message: