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The Quadroons
"The Quadroons" is a short story written by American writer Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880) and published in '' The Liberty Bell'' in 1842. The influential short story depicts the life and death of a mixed-race woman and her daughter in early nineteenth century America, a slave-owning society. Child originated the trope of the "tragic mulatta", which became well-known in the anti-slavery literature of the time, was taken up also by many other writers. Years later, Harriet Jacobs's autobiography ''Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl'' (edited by Lydia Maria Child) featured the same theme, but with important changes, effectively giving her an agency Child's main characters never had. Background Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880) was an influential writer who advocated for Native Americans, women, and enslaved people. Already an abolitionist, she and her husband joined a group of antislavery reformers under the influence of William Lloyd Garrison in the 1830s. Scholars credit Child wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lydia Maria Child
Lydia Maria Child ( Francis; February 11, 1802October 20, 1880) was an American abolitionist, women's rights activist, Native American rights activist, novelist, journalist, and opponent of American expansionism. Her journals, both fiction and domestic manuals, reached wide audiences from the 1820s through the 1850s. At times she shocked her audience as she tried to take on issues of both male dominance and white supremacy in some of her stories. Despite these challenges, Child may be most remembered for her poem "Over the River and Through the Wood." Her grandparents' house, which she wrote about visiting, was restored by Tufts University in 1976 and stands near the Mystic River on South Street, in Medford, Massachusetts. Early life and education Lydia Maria Francis was born in Medford, Massachusetts, on February 11, 1802, to Susannah (née Rand) and Convers Francis. She went by her middle name, and pronounced it Ma-RYE-a. Her older brother, Convers Francis, was educated at H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Wells Brown
William Wells Brown (c. 1814 – November 6, 1884) was a prominent abolitionist lecturer, novelist, playwright, and historian in the United States. Born into slavery in Montgomery County, Kentucky, near the town of Mount Sterling, Brown escaped to Ohio in 1834 at the age of 19. He settled in Boston, Massachusetts, where he worked for abolitionist causes and became a prolific writer. While working for abolition, Brown also supported causes including: temperance, women's suffrage, pacifism, prison reform, and an anti-tobacco movement. His novel ''Clotel'' (1853), considered the first novel written by an African American, was published in London, England, where he resided at the time; it was later published in the United States. Brown was a pioneer in several different literary genres, including travel writing, fiction, and drama. In 1858 he became the first published African-American playwright, and often read from this work on the lecture circuit. Following the Civil War, in 186 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uncle Tom's Cabin
''Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly'' is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in two volumes in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U.S., and is said to have "helped lay the groundwork for the mericanCivil War". Stowe, a Connecticut-born woman of English descent, was part of the religious Beecher family and an active abolitionist. She wrote the sentimental novel to depict the reality of slavery while also asserting that Christian love could overcome slavery. The novel focuses on the character of Uncle Tom, a long-suffering black slave around whom the stories of the other characters revolve. In the United States, ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' was the best-selling novel and the second best-selling book of the 19th century, following the Bible. It is credited with helping fuel the abolitionist cause in the 1850s. The influence attributed to the book was so great that a likely ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jerome B
Jerome (; la, Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Christian priest, confessor, theologian, and historian; he is commonly known as Saint Jerome. Jerome was born at Stridon, a village near Emona on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia. He is best known for his translation of the Bible into Latin (the translation that became known as the Vulgate) and his commentaries on the whole Bible. Jerome attempted to create a translation of the Old Testament based on a Hebrew version, rather than the Septuagint, as Latin Bible translations used to be performed before him. His list of writings is extensive, and beside his biblical works, he wrote polemical and historical essays, always from a theologian's perspective. Jerome was known for his teachings on Christian moral life, especially to those living in cosmopolitan centers such as Rome. In many cases, he focused ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Sojourn In The City Of Amalgamation, In The Year Of Our Lord, 19--
''A Sojourn in the City of Amalgamation, in the Year of Our Lord, 19--'' is a dystopian novel written by Jerome B. Holgate (1812–93) under the pseudonym of Oliver Bolokitten. It was self-published by the author in New York in February 1835. The novel criticizes abolitionists by describing them as endorsers of "amalgamation", or interracial marriage. The narrator encounters a future city, Amalgamation (which is thought to be a future Philadelphia), where white people and black people have intermarried solely for the sake of racial equality, resulting in "moral degeneration, indolence, and political and economic decline." The work is one of the first uses of a satirical novel, speaking against interracial marriage and for black recolonization. The novel is also one of the earliest pieces of dystopian fiction. Characters * Bolokitten: the narrator and main character of the story * Wildfire: the preacher of the church of Amalgamation; frees his slaves, but is tarred and feathered ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sheriff's Children
"The Sheriff's Children" is a short story written by Charles W. Chesnutt in his collection ''The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color-Line''. Chesnutt's work was written during the era of post-bellum literature in which themes of racism were explored, specifically in southern American states. One of Chesnutt's more famous works, along with "The Passing of Grandison", the story focuses on issues of race, miscegenation, and identity. Characters Sheriff Campbell is the sheriff of Branson County who is the father of Polly and the mulatto prisoner named Tom. He is one of the more educated and wealthy townspeople of Troy based on his wealth within slavery before the Civil War. He feels a sense of duty to protect Tom as a prisoner from the lynch mob, and later on as a father once he finds out that Tom is his son. Tom is the illegitimate son of the Sheriff who was sold to another owner in Alabama. He was accused of killing Captain Walker by the people within the town of Troy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Mayne Reid
Thomas Mayne Reid (4 April 1818 – 22 October 1883) was an Irish-American novelist, who fought in the Mexican-American War (1846–1848). His many works on American life describe colonial policy in the American colonies, the horrors of slave labour and the lives of American Indians. "Captain" Reid wrote adventure novels akin to those by Frederick Marryat and Robert Louis Stevenson, and set mainly in the American West, Mexico, South Africa, the Himalayas, and Jamaica. He was an admirer of Lord Byron. Biography Early years Reid was born in Ballyroney, a hamlet near Katesbridge, County Down, in present day Northern Ireland, the son of Rev. Thomas Mayne Reid Sr., who was a senior clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. His father wanted him to become a Presbyterian minister, and in September 1834 he enrolled at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. He stayed for four years, but lacked motivation to complete his studies and graduate. He headed back ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Passing (novel)
''Passing'' is a novel by American author Nella Larsen, first published in 1929. Set primarily in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City in the 1920s, the story centers on the reunion of two childhood friends—Clare Kendry and Irene Redfield—and their increasing fascination with each other's lives. The title refers to the practice of "racial passing", and is a key element of the novel. Clare Kendry's attempt to pass as white for her husband, John (Jack) Bellew, is a significant depiction in the novel and a catalyst for the tragic events. Larsen's exploration of race was informed by her own mixed racial heritage and the increasingly common practice of racial passing in the 1920s. Praised upon publication, the novel has since been celebrated in modern scholarship for its complex depiction of race, gender, and sexuality, and the book is the subject of considerable scholarly criticism. As one of only two novels that Larsen wrote, the novel has been significant in placing its auth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frances Harper
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (September 24, 1825 – February 22, 1911) was an American abolitionist, suffragist, poet, temperance activist, teacher, public speaker, and writer. Beginning in 1845, she was one of the first African-American women to be published in the United States. Born free in Baltimore, Maryland, Harper had a long and prolific career, publishing her first book of poetry at the age of 20. At 67, she published her widely praised novel ''Iola Leroy'' (1892), placing her among the first Black women to publish a novel. As a young woman in 1850, she taught domestic science at Union Seminary in Columbus, Ohio, a school affiliated with the AME Church. In 1851, while living with the family of William Still, a clerk at the Pennsylvania Abolition Society who helped refugee slaves make their way along the Underground Railroad, Harper started to write anti-slavery literature. After joining the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1853, Harper began her career as a public speake ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Imitation Of Life (novel)
''Imitation of Life'' is a popular 1933 novel by Fannie Hurst that was adapted into two successful films for Universal Pictures: a 1934 film, and a 1959 remake. The novel, which deals with issues of race, class and gender, was originally serialized in 1932 in the magazine ''Pictorial Review'' under the title "Sugar House". Plot summary Set in the 1910s at "the Shore" of New Jersey, the novel explores issues of race and class in early 20th-century America. Bea Chipley is a quiet, mousy Atlantic City teenage girl whose mother dies, leaving her to keep house for her father (Mr. Chipley) and Benjamin Pullman, a boarder who peddles ketchup and relish on the boardwalk and sells maple syrup door-to-door. Within a year, her father and Pullman decide that she should marry Pullman; she soon becomes pregnant and has a daughter named Jessie. Her father suffers an incapacitating stroke, confining him to a wheelchair, and Pullman is killed in a train accident. Bea is left to fend for her fath ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maria Weston Chapman
Maria Weston Chapman (July 25, 1806 – July 12, 1885) was an American Abolitionism in the United States, abolitionist. She was elected to the executive committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1839 and from 1839 until 1842, she served as editor of the anti-slavery journal ''The Non-Resistant''. Early life Maria Weston was born in 1806 in Weymouth, Massachusetts to Captain Warren Richard Weston and Anne (née Bates) Weston. Eventually she had seven younger siblings—five sisters and two brothers. Though the Westons were not wealthy, they were well connected through her uncle's patronage. She spent several years of her youth living with family in England, where she received a robust education. Weston returned to Boston in 1828 to serve as principal of a newly-founded, socially-progressive girls' high school. She left the field of education two years later to marry. Abolitionism Maria and her husband Henry were both "Garrisonian" abolitionists, meaning that they belie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
