Frances Watkins Harper

Frances Watkins was born in Baltimore on September 24, 1825, orphaned at age 2 and raised by an uncle, Williem Watkins, a self-educated minister, shoemaker, teacher and friend of William Garrison. Frances read at every opportunity; in 1850 she taught sewing at a work-study seminary near Columbus, Ohio and then taught school in Pennsylvania. Unable to return to Maryland because of the danger of being sold into slavery, she began lecturing and writing for anti-slavery societies. Her first lecture in 1854, "The Elevation and Education of our People," was delivered in states from Maine to New Jersey. She also wrote poems and stories. Her 1859 story, "The Two Offers," is thought to be the first short story by an American black. A book of her poems in 1854 sold 12,000 copies; she was the best-known black poet since Phillis Wheatley. She married an Ohio farmer in 1860; after his death in 1864 Harper turned her attention to the need for education, suffrage, temperance to fight white racial violence. She lectured mostly to women's groups in every southern state except Arkansas and Texas. In 1896 she helped organize the National Association of Colored Women and was a vice-president the next year. Harper died on February 22, 1911.