African American Women's Writings in the Woman's Building Library

Abstract

This article surveys six African American women whose work was represented in the Woman's Building Library exhibit at the Columbian Exposition: Elleanor Eldridge, Victoria Earle, A. Julia Foote, Frances Harper, Henrietta Cordelia Ray, and T. T Purvis. These women's writings cover a variety of genres and styles from novels, short stories, poems, sketches, autobiographies, rhymes, and essays that address such topics as suffrage, partnership, a woman's marital rights, and black enterprise and entrepreneurship.