Black Female Intellectuals in Nineteenth Century America: Born to Bloom Unseen?

Drawing on letters, personal testimony, works of art, novels, and historic Black newspapers, this book is aninterdisciplinary exploration of Black women’s contributions to the intellectual life of nineteenth-century America.

Black Female Intellectuals in Nineteenth Century America reconceptualizes the idea of what the term "intellectual" means through its discussions of both familiar and often forgotten Black women, including Edmonia Lewis, Harriet Powers, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Tubman, amongst others. This re-envisioning brings those who have previously been excluded from the scholarship of Black intellectualism more generally, and Black female intellectuals specifically, into the centre of the debate. Importantly, it also situates the histories of Black women participating in the intellectual cultures of the United States much earlier than most previous scholarship.