Born free in Baltimore, Maryland, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was a trailblazing African American writer, activist, and orator. She began her prolific literary career early, publishing her first volume of poetry at age twenty. In the early 1850s, while teaching and living with the family of Underground Railroad organizer William Still, Harper began writing anti-slavery literature. Her involvement with the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1853 launched her prominent career as a public speaker and political activist.
Harper achieved significant literary success during her lifetime. Her 1854 collection, Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects, was a major commercial success, establishing her as the most popular African American poet of her era. In 1859, she made literary history by publishing "Two Offers" in the Anglo-African, which is recognized as the first short story published by an African American woman. Later in life, at age 67, she published her celebrated novel Iola Leroy (1892), cementing her status as one of the first Black women to publish a novel.
Beyond her writing, Harper was a dedicated reformer who advocated for civil rights, women's suffrage, and temperance. She held leadership roles in several progressive organizations, serving as the superintendent of the Colored Section of the Philadelphia and Pennsylvania Women's Christian Temperance Union and co-founding the National Association of Colored Women in 1896, where she served as vice president. Her multifaceted career bridged the gap between literature and social justice until her death in 1911.
