Eliza Potter's 1859 autobiography expresses her indignation, abolitionist sentiments, fiery temper, and sheer joy of life as she reveals the private selves of the white women whose heads she "combed." As an insider on the margins, her identity provides a unique vantage point for her story and that of the elites of nineteenth-century Cincinnati society.

Four of Ida B. Wells-Barnett's moving anti-lynching essays are presented in this volume. Written during the height of the lynching craze at the turn of the century, they elegantly speak to the pain and loss caused by racist thought and action.

The book contains the biography of an American bondman William Wells Brown, which was written by his daughter Josephine Brown. It also presents the precedent-setting biography of Martin R. Delany, which helped to introduce an analytical approach to biography writing in African-American letters. An unabashed success story of one man's military career during the Civil War and his subsequent work in the Freedman's Bureau during Reconstruction, this book, written at a crucial juncture in American history, creates a vivid portrait of a man who comes to represent the voice of national union,...

Amanda Berry Smith was a trail-blazing black woman evangelist of the nineteenth century. She became a member of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal congregeation in Philadelphia in 1865, a time when women were denied positions of authority in the denomination. By the time of her death in 1915 the church had conceded to women the positions of congregational stewardess, conference evangelist, and denominational deaconess. Her autobiography, first published in 1893, not only captures the spirit of the woman who became a celebrity of Christian evangelism around the world; it also tells us much...

These volumes present the works of eleven poets writing in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Volume 1 contains work by Mary E. Tucker Lambert and the notorious Adah Isaacs Menken. The other three volumes contain works by nine other poets. Surprisingly, only one of them (Lizelia Moorer) protests at the treatment of her race during this period of social upheaval and injustice. The other poets treat the traditional themes - love, nature, death, Christian idealism and morality, family - in conventional forms and language. As interesting for the themes that they address as for those that they...

This bibliography of writing by and about African-American women provides a much needed research tool to scholars and researchers in the field. The bibliography lists writing by African-American women whose earliest publication appeared before 1910; a supplemental bibliography lists writing published as of 1911.

The Colored American Magazine, first published in 1900, was a pioneering forum for black literary talent. Pauline Hopkins was not only a prolific contributor, but one of its powerful editorial forces. These stories reveal her commitment to fiction as a vehicle for social change, weaving themes such as white oppression, the heroism of black women, and the need for organized resistance to persecution, into the narrative formulas of popular fiction.

A fiery speaker, Sojourner Truth was among the foremost women evangelists. This reprint of her original 1878 publication sheds light into the life of this well-known ex-slave and ardent abolitionist.