Portrait from The Afro-American Press and Its Editors. Springfield, MA: Willey & Co., 1891.
Born to a free black family in Baltimore, poet Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911) later moved to Ohio and Pennsylvania to pursue a teaching career. In 1853, the Maryland legislature passed a law which prohibited the return of free blacks to the state, effectively exiling her from her home and spurring her to join the antislavery cause. In addition to writing, Harper worked as a lecturer for the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery and the Maine Anti-Slavery Societies. She participated in the Convention of the Colored Men of Ohio, held in Cincinnati in 1858, helping to organize the newly created Ohio State Anti-Slavery Society.
Although the death of her husband in May 1864 left Harper destitute, she attended the Syracuse convention, where she was one of only two women who were allowed to address the audience. Following the Civil War, she continued to write as well as tour the North and South giving lectures on education, suffrage, and temperance.