Frances Ellen Watkins: Teacher, Writer and Underground Railroad Conductor

Abolitionist John Brown, 1859. Image by Black & Batchelder, courtesy of the U.S. Library of Congress

Frances Ellen Watkins Writes to John and Mary Brown

Frances Watkins punctuated the years of the war of words between the North and South, which later erupted into the Civil War, with her own writing. In the September-October 1859 issue of the Anglo-African Magazine, her story, The Two Offers, earned her the distinction of being the first African-American to published in the magazine.

The Two Offers is a sermon in the guise of fiction that traces the impact that the choices of two young women has on their lives. In her story, Frances argued that marriage should not be the only option for a woman. She believed that “a woman’s conscience should be enlightened, her faith in the true and right established, and scope given to her Heaven-endowed and God-given faculties.”

Abolition work continued to occupy Frances Watkins. Passionate Abolitionist John Brown, one of her more famous friends, along with twenty of his followers, led an unsuccessful raid on the Federal Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, from October 16-18, 1859. Colonel Robert E. Lee led Federal troops in capturing Brown. Brown and his men were tried and hanged on December 2 1859.

Bravery in Defense of Others

Frances Watkins, herself a courageous fighter in the war on classism and racism, consoled Mary Brown during her husband’s trial and execution. Frances also smuggled a letter into John Brown’s prison cell. In this letter, she said, “In the name of the young girls sold from the warm clasp of a mother’s arms to the clutches of a libertine or profligate- in the name of the slave mother, her heart rocked to and fro by the agony of her mournful separations- I thank you, that you have been brave enough to reach out your hands to the crushed and blighted of my race.”

Resources:

Books/Collections by Frances Harper:

Forest Leaves. (1845), Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects (1857), Moses: A Story of the Nile (1869); 2d edition (1870), Achan’s Sin (1870,1879), Sketches of Southern Life (1872, 1873, 1887, 1888), Light Beyond the Darkness (1890, 1899), Iola Leroy, or Shadows Uplifted (1892), The Martyr of Alabama and Other Poems (ca. 1894),  Atlanta Offering Poems (1895), Poems (1895, 1898, 1900), Poems (1895, 1896, 1898, 1900),  Moses: A Story of the Nile (1889), Idylls of the Bible (1901), In Memoriam, Wm. McKinley (1901), Complete Poems of Frances E.W. Harper (1988), A Brighter Coming Day: A Frances Ellen Watkins Harper Reader (1990), Minnie’s Sacrifice; Sowing and Reaping; Trial and Triumph: Three Rediscovered Novels (1994),  Liberty for Slaves, The Sparrow’s Fall and Other Poems (n.d. ).

Other Resources

Berlant, Lauren. Cultural Struggle and Literary History: African-American Women’s Writing. Modern Philology: A Journal Devoted to Research in Medieval and Modern Literature. (1990).

Carby, Hazel V. Reconstructing Womanhood: The Emergence of the Afro-American Woman Novelist. New York: Oxford University Press. (1987).

Diggs, Marylynne. Surveying the Intersection: Pathology, Secrecy, and the Discourses of Racial and Sexual Identity. (1993). In Critical Essays: Gay and Lesbian Writers of Color. Ed. Emmanuel S. Nelson. New York: Haworth.

Elkins, M. Beyond the Conventions-A Look at Frances E.W. Harper. (1990). American Literary Realism.

Ernest, John. From Mysteries to Histories: Cultural Pedagogy in Frances E.W. Harper’s Iola Leroy. (1992). American Literature 64.3: 497-513.

Foster, Frances Smith. A Brighter Coming Day: A Frances Ellen Watkins Harper Reader. (1990). (edited and introduction by Foster) New York: Feminist Press.

Hill, Patricia Liggins. Let Me Make the Songs for the People: A Study of Frances Watkins Harper’s Poetry. Black American Literature Forum, 15 (1981): 60-65.

Peterson, Carla L. ‘Doers of the Word’: African American Women Speakers and Writers in the North (1830-1880). (1995). New York: Oxford University Press.

Riggins, Linda N. The Works of Frances E.W. Harper. Black World (Dec. 1972): 30-36.

Young, Elizabeth. Warring Fictions: Iola Leroy and the Color of Gender. American Literature: A Journal of Literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography 64.2 (1992): 273-297.

California State University Stanislaus. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. Accessed September 15, 2013.

University of Pennsylvania. Frances Harper: Abolitionist, Activist, Poet. Accessed September 15, 2013.

Washington State University. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911). Accessed September 15, 2013.

Find a Grave. Frances Harper. Accessed September 15, 2013.

History Matters. Speech-A Heritage of Scorn- Harper Urges a Color Blind Cause. Accessed September 15, 2013.

National Women’s History Museum. Francis Harper. Accessed September 15, 2013.

Oddesky, M. A Reading on the Life of Francis Ellen Watkins Harper. (1995). Accessed September 15, 2013.

Watkins, E. The two offers. (1859). History Tools. Accessed September 15, 2013.

Logan, S. Frances Ellen Watkins – Women’s Political Future – May 20, 1893. University of Maryland. Accessed September 15, 2013.

Church of Evansville. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. Accessed September 15, 2013.

Frances Harper. Minnie’s Sacrifice. Full Books. Accessed September 15, 2013.

Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania Abolition Society Papers. Accessed September 15, 2013.

Archives of Maryland. William Watkins (b. circa 1803 – d. circa 1858). (2011). Accessed September 15, 2013.

National Park Service. The Wives and Children of John Brown. Accessed September 15, 2013.

Archives of Maryland. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911). (2007). Accessed September 15, 2013.

University of Minnesota. Frances Ellen Watkins. (2009). Accessed September 15, 2013.

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