Freedom Narratives of African American Women

Janaka Bowman Lewis is an associate professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She has published on Elizabeth Keckley and other African American women writers of the nineteenth century. Currently, she researches Black girlhood and material culture.

• Table of ContentsPreface Introduction: Black Women and the Materiality of FreedomOne. Women Writing Black: Literary Glimpses into African American HistoryTwo. Moving Free: Black Women’s Bodies and FreedomThree. Elizabeth Keckley and Freedom’s LaborFour. “Fiction”ing Freedom: Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s Novelistic TraditionFive. Reflections on Freedom, or Freedom RetoldEpilogue: Freedom’s Promise: Coming of Age Narratives in African AmericaChapter NotesBibliographyIndex

“In this compelling book, Lewis explores freedom narratives written by African American women from 1861 to the 1890s.... Crucially contributing to feminist recovery work and scholarship in African American studies, Freedom Narratives of African American Women is required reading for those interested in 19th-century America.... essential”—Choice