Priscilla Jane Thompson (1871–1942), was an American poet and public reader. She has been widely anthologized as an example of early female African-American poetry. Priscilla Jane Thompson was born in in

Rossmoyne, Ohio Rossmoyne is a census-designated place (CDP) in Sycamore Township, Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, northeast of downtown Cincinnati. The population of Rossmoyne was 2,230 at the 2010 census. History Rossmoyne was originally known as Mill ...

. She was one of four children of John Henry Thompson and Clara Jane Gray, both former

slaves Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

from

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

. She came from an artistic family: her siblings

Clara Ann Thompson Clara Ann Thompson (1869–1949) was an African-American poet, teacher and civil rights advocate. Thompson was born in Rossmoyne, Ohio. Thompson's parents, John Henry and Clara Jane Gray Thompson, were previously enslaved in Virginia. Thompson' ...

and Aaron Belford Thompson were also poets, and her brother Garland Yancey Thompson was a sculptor. Poor health prevented her from becoming a schoolteacher, but she wrote, lectured, and taught Sunday school. She never married, and lived with Clara and Garland in Rossmoyne her entire life. Thompson self-published two books of poetry, '' Ethiope Lays'' (1900) and ''Gleanings of Quiet Hours'' (1907). Her poetry covers a variety of subjects, including religion, slavery and the African-American experience, and small-town life. Her love poems include both

chivalric Chivalry, or the chivalric code, is an informal and varying code of conduct developed in Europe between 1170 and 1220. It was associated with the medieval Christian institution of knighthood; knights' and gentlemen's behaviours were governed by ...

poems and love poems addressed to other women. She used

African-American dialect African-American English (or AAE; also known as Black American English, or Black English in American linguistics) is the set of English sociolects spoken by most Black people in the United States and many in Canada; most commonly, it refers ...

in a number of poems, including the 72-stanza long “The Favorite Slave’s Story." Thompson died on May 4, 1942. A profile of her was published in

Wendell Phillips Dabney Wendell Phillips Dabney (4 November 1865, in Richmond, Virginia – 3 June 1952, in Cincinnati) was an influential civil rights organizer, author, and musician as well as a newspaper editor and publisher in Cincinnati, Ohio. Career Dabney was b ...

's 1926 book on the ''Cincinnati's Colored Citizens''.File:Cincinnati's colored citizens historical, sociological and biographical p 319.pdf

References

External links

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Works by Thompson
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thompson, Priscilla Created via preloaddraft 1871 births 1942 deaths African-American poets American women writers People from Hamilton County, Ohio American poets