Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911)

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Library of Congress photo. 

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was an African American author, educator, and activist, well-known in the mid-19th century for her lectures, poetry, novels, and essays on the themes of abolitionism and women’s rights. An original copy of her highly successful 1857 book, “Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects,” is held in the Stimson Collection at the Marietta College library. In December of 1860, Frances spent a week in Marietta, lecturing at the Washington County Courthouse and at the Methodist Church on Putnam Street, where “a room full of hearers” learned more about “the Progress of Freedom.” She was described in local newspapers as “a woman of considerable talent.” 

Home News [Marietta, Ohio], Saturday, December 15, 1860

"Frances Ellen Watkins, a colored lady, will give a free lecture at the Methodist Church, Putnam street, on Monday evening next. She is a woman of considerable talent, so we are informed, and has written and published a number of poems highly creditable to her."

Home News [Marietta, Ohio], Saturday, December 22, 1860

"Frances Ellen Watkins, a semi-daughter of Ethiopia, delivered a lecture in the kitchen of the Centennary Methodist Episcopal Church, on Monday evening last, on the subject of the wrongs of her race. There was a room full of hearers, many of whom think she is rather smart. Her discourse was of the intense abolition order, as might be expected. She held forth again last night at the Court House, as Mrs. Harper."


Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1857)





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