By Miriam Intrator, Special Collections Librarian, Mahn Center for Archives & Special Collections

Honoring the Legacy of Early Black Women Writers: A Faculty Roundtable took place March 21, 2023, in Alden Library and online. The inspiration for the event was the acquisition for the rare book collection of Ohio University Libraries’ Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections of a copy of the rare first edition of Anna Julia Cooper’s book, A Voice from the South by a Black Woman of the South, published in Xenia, Ohio in 1892, and inscribed by the author.

The panel was organized in honor of this truly exciting acquisition and of Women’s History Month, and in collaboration with lorraine wochna, the subject librarian for English, African American Studies, and numerous other departments. Our intention was to highlight early Black women published authors, their lives, accomplishments, contributions, and legacies. Some of these authors and books have been in the rare book collection since well before my time. Many, however, are a result of a very intentional collecting policy, pursued with vital support from colleagues like lorraine, that seeks to acquire and ensure the preservation and representation of voices, perspectives, experiences, and identities that have for too long been marginalized if not entirely excluded from both collecting and scholarship. The roundtable created an opportunity to learn, from our own faculty experts, more about these women, their writings, their impact, and what we have lost and continue to risk losing when so many are left out of the historic and academic records. 

The faculty speakers were Dr. Theda Gibbs-Grey, associate professor of literacy education in the Patton College, Department of Teacher Education, Dr. Uzoma Miller, visiting professor of African American Studies, public historian, and ethnomusicologist, Dr. Marilyn Judith Atlas, Professor of English specializing in American literature, particularly experimental, ethnic, and literature of place, and Dr. Mariana L. R. Dantas, associate professor of history and specialist in the history of slavery and African diasporic peoples in the Atlantic World.

Dr. Gibbs-Grey focused her remarks on the life, writings, and work of Frances E.W. Harper, and in particular on her contributions as an early womanist and anti-racist educator.

Dr. Miller explained how Anna Julia Cooper was not only an author and noteworthy educator, but also a philosopher who reflected on and engaged with conversations on race, education, literature, and more on an international level, including by completing her PhD at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Dr. Atlas discussed Cooper as an author and also as a highly engaged reader and fearless critic, an activist who we must also situate within the particular time and place in which she lived and wrote.

Dr. Dantas spoke about the importance of collecting and preserving the original texts by these Black women authors and other marginalized writers, particularly in today’s society in which there are local and national movements increasingly seeking to both dictate and restrict what is taught to students of all ages and at all levels.

For more information:

View the recording of the roundtable on the Libraries’ YouTube channel.

Explore a powerpoint of some of the featured authors and links to additional resources.

Read a news article about the event.

Browse the following checklist of items from the rare book collection that were on display throughout the roundtable:

• Phillis Wheatley, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral …  London, Printed for A. Bell, bookseller, Aldgate; and sold by Messrs. Cox and Berry, King-street, Boston, 1773  

• Frances Harriet Green, Elleanor’s Second Book, Providence, B.T. Albro, Printer, 1839 
• Sally Williams, Aunt Sally: or, The Cross the Way of Freedom; A Narrative of the Slave-life and Purchase of the Mother of Rev. Isaac Williams, of Detroit, Michigan, Cincinnati, American Reform Tract and Book Society, 1859
• Harriet Ann Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, Boston, Pub. for the Author, 1861  
• Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes; or Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House, New York, G. W. Carleton & Co, 1868  
• Sojourner Truth, Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Bondswoman of Olden Time … Boston, Published for the author, ©1875  
• Julia A.J. Foote, A Brand Plucked from the Fire: An Autobiographical Sketch, New York, George Hughes & Co, [1879]  
• Anna Julia Cooper, A Voice from the South, By a Black Woman of the South, Xenia, Ohio, The Aldine printing house, 1892  
• Frances E.W. Harper, Iola Leroy, or, Shadows Uplifted, Philadelphia, Garrigues Brothers, 1892  
• Amanda Smith, An Autobiography: The Story of the Lord’s Dealings with Mrs. Amanda Smith, the Colored Evangelist, Chicago, Meyer & Brother, Publishers, 1893
• Monroe A. Majors, Noted Negro Women: Their Triumphs and Activities, Chicago, Donohue & Henneberry, [©1893]  
• Pauline E. Hopkins, Contending Forces: A Romance Illustrative of Negro Life North and South, with illustrations and cover design by R. Emmett Owen, Boston, Colored Co-operative Publishing Co., 1900  
• Mrs. N.F. Mossell, The Work of the Afro-American Woman, Philadelphia, Geo. S. Ferguson Company, 1908  
• Hallie Q. Brown, Homespun Heroines and Other Women of Distinction, Xenia, Ohio, Aldine Pub. Co., circa 1926
• Mary Church Terrell, A Colored Woman in a White World, Washington, D.C., Ransdell Inc., [©1940] 
• Pleschette Robinson, Historical Women [bound with] My Life, Racine, Wis., Arcadian Press, c1995  
• Kara Elizabeth Walker, Freedom: A Fable: A Curious Interpretation of the Wit of a Negress in Troubled Times, [Santa Monica, CA], Peter Norton Family, 1997
• Alisa Banks, Emergence, Dallas, A Bee Press, 2006
• Tia Blassingame, Colored: A Handbook and African American: A Handbook and Black: A Handbook, Primrose Press, 2020, 2022