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As a young woman, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper experienced profound national upheavals from the 1850s through the 1860s, a period marked by intense conflict and dramatic social change. The 1850s saw escalating tensions over slavery, exemplified by events like the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry. These tensions culminated in the Civil War (1861-1865), which reshaped the nation through the abolition of slavery and the strengthening of federal power. Harper was deeply enmeshed in her time’s national debates and conflicts, publishing poems and giving lectures about the Union cause and rallying the public to support abolition. Likewise, she was active in federal efforts to remake the South. She was directly involved in Reconstruction’s project of integrating formerly enslaved persons into the free labor market and political community, traveling throughout the South and working with the Freedmen’s Bureau. As such, she witnessed the rise of white terrorist groups like the Ku Klux Klan and increasing resistance to racial equality. Harper saw and understood the challenges that Black Southerners faced in their bid to control their own lives and labor, as she assessed post-war conditions and actively aided formerly enslaved people. Her writings, notably Sketches of Southern Life,<\/em> during this period reflected upon the status of formerly enslaved people.<\/p>\n In her late adulthood, Harper, saw the severe deterioration of conditions for African Americans. The 1880s and 1890s are often referred to as the “nadir of race relations” in the United States, as the era witnessed\u00a0 the rollback of many civil rights gains made during Reconstruction, with the implementation of Jim Crow laws enforcing racial segregation and disenfranchisement across the South. The Supreme Court’s 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson<\/em> decision sanctioned the “separate but equal” doctrine, legitimizing segregation at the federal level. Simultaneously, there was a dramatic increase in white terrorism against Black communities, including lynchings and race riots. Harper’s devotion to securing the vote for\u00a0all\u00a0<\/em>citizens made her a notable suffragist and women’s rights activist, well-respected in both Black and white circles.\u00a0<\/p>\n Relentless in her activism, Harper, approaching her seventies in the 1890s, remained an emblematic race woman\u2014a term used to describe African American women who dedicated their lives to advancing the cause of racial uplift and social justice for Black Americans. The Progressive era, roughly from 1890s\u20131920s, was a period of dynamic social activism and political reform, and both Harper and her daughter Mary were deeply entangled in the activist networks that fought for women’s suffrage, equal rights, temperance, and many others. Harper continued writing and lecturing, inspired and informed by the national, political, and social changes around her.<\/p>\n Explore the timeline below to learn about the historical context of some of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s works.<\/strong><\/p>\n