Women's Work

"This anthology aims to bring together writings by African-American women between 1832 and 1920, the period when they began to write for American audiences and to use history to comment on political and social issues of the day. The pieces are by more familiar nineteenth-century writers in Black America--like Maria Stewart, Francis E. W. Harper, and Alice Dunbar-Nelson--as well as lesser-known mothers and teachers whose participation in their local educational systems thrust them into national intellectual conversations. Each piece will have a headnote providing biographical information about its author as well as contextual information about its publication and the topic being discussed. The volume will contain a substantial introduction to the overall enterprise of Black women's historical writings. Because the editors are both trained in American studies and religious history, their introduction will particularly highlight religious themes and venues in which these writings were presented. This book should appeal to general readers of books like those in the Schomburg Library series, as well as those who work and teach American history, African American studies, women's studies, American literature, and American religious history"--Provided by publisher.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction, Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.