2017 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders and Sexualities

June 01 - 04, 2017

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was a seminal figure of nineteenth century black women’s history and while she is most famously known and studied as a poet and novelist, her career as a black woman activist and intellectual has been often overlooked. The focus of this panel is centered on Frances Harper’s career as a writer and intellectual, at a time when the country was still divided over slavery. Harper thus stands as an example of early black women’s intellectual views on societal, economic and political issues pertaining to the enslavement of America’s black population. The call for social justice from women like Harper needs to be highlighted in order to conceptualize the importance of black women’s activism during this era. The goal of this panel is to discuss the evolving of black women’s intellectual thought as a response to slavery. Using Harper as an example of black women’s determination to critique and shape American politics, one can center the gendering of political thought by black women activists as a crucial weapon against slavery during the antebellum period. The overarching questions will focus on how Harper’s access to education and her family background positioned her as an intellectual and political activist and how she, as a free black woman, critiqued issues such as slavery, colonization, and capitalism in her writings and through religious and political terms. We will further ask how Harper’s work allows for a better understanding of the writing of gendered histories.