She had an ardent thirst for knowledge: Recovering Frances Ellen Watkins Harper's 'Forest Leaves'

Frances Harper was one of the most well known nineteenth century black women writers and activists and studies by historians and literary scholars alike have uncovered her legacy over the last thirty years. While many of her literary productions have been recently rediscovered and republished, her first book of poems titled Forest Leaves was deemed lost to history. Having unearthed her pamphlet in the Maryland Historical Society’s archive, my paper will discuss this find and the implications it has not only for the field of early African American literature, but also for black women’s history and black intellectual thought. Forest Leaves is the earliest known primary source by Harper and allows us to analyze her as an emerging writer and activist during the 1840s. Born free in 1825, Harper was raised by her uncle William Watkins, an abolitionist and educator in Baltimore, Maryland. His influence on Harper’s early life and her emerging intellectual thought is crucial to understanding how family legacies and generational family activism furthered the goal of the black freedom struggle. Watkins’ letters, which were published in various anti-slavery newspapers during the 1840s and 1850s also discuss the importance of black women’s rights to education. Thus, examining both Harper’s and Watkins’ primary documents, allows this paper to not only present a more nuanced depiction of Harper’s early life and the environment that shaped her emerging intellectual thought, but also aids in the recovery of early African American literary history.