Frances E. W. Harper

An active lecturer and author in support of abolition, women's rights, and racial equality in the mid-nineteenth century, FEWH was, according to Henry Louis Gates, Jr , the first African-American professional woman of letters. She published eleven volumes of prose and poetry and a novel, and composed hundreds of speeches, letters, and essays which appeared in independent periodicals, and most of which remain uncollected. The full extent and significance of her oeuvre therefore awaits full assessment.