Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911) was a prolific abolitionist poet, public speaker, writer, and journalist. She was a clerk at the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, where she helped freedom-seekers through the Underground Railroad, and a member of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Her work ranges from the "The Two Offers" in The Anglo-African Magazine (the first published short story by an African American woman in the United States), the novel Iola Leroy, and her potry collection Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects. Harper was published widely in variuos newspapers and periodicals, with her novels and poetry collections undergoing numerous reprintings throughout the 19th century. Her speaking tours were praised for their emotional impact and skillfull dissection of topics such as abolition, suffrage, and the struggles of black women.