Back to the Cabin: Race, Space, and Girlhood in Mary White Ovington's Hazel

Abstract

Hazel (1913), by NAACP co-founder Mary White Ovington, was one of the first novels specifically written for black children in the United States. By examining the novel's spatial concerns, this article argues that Hazel was an important transitional text in the development of African American children's literature. As a transitional novel, Hazel reproduces the spatial layouts and protocols of antebellum plantations for two competing purposes: to reinforce enslaved experiences and to critique racial inequality in the Jim Crow South. Ovington, therefore, constructs Southern black girlhood in both discriminatory and empowering ways.