History
Publication Date
Spring 5-1-2023
Document Type
Honors Thesis
Faculty Sponsor
Drew McCoy
First Advisor
Drew McCoy
Second Advisor
Amy Richter
Major
History
Abstract
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was an influential nineteenth-century activist and writer. She was active in the antislavery lecture circuit and the suffrage movement. She developed a conception of Black womanhood through her writing that culminated in a richer understanding of equal rights in the United States. This thesis reexamines her work from an interdisciplinary standpoint. She developed her vision of Black womanhood over time through the character of the enslaved mother in the Antebellum era, the nuances of freedom during the Civil War and Reconstruction era, and finally through home as a personal space and as a nation in the post-Reconstruction United States.
Keywords
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, African American Studies, women
Recommended Citation
Walcott, Christina Rose, ""Enlightened Motherhood": Frances Ellen Watkins Harper and the Conception of Black Womanhood" (2023). History. 1.
https://commons.clarku.edu/undergraduate_history/1
Included in
Africana Studies Commons, American Studies Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons, Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Commons, United States History Commons, Women's Studies Commons
