Overview

In 1867, Frances Anne Rollin, a Black writer and teacher from South Carolina, traveled to Boston to seek a publisher for her biography of famed Black abolitionist, writer, and Civil War veteran Martin R. Delany—the first full-length biography written by an African American. Beginning in January 1868, Rollin kept a diary while in Boston documenting her progression on Delany’s biography, negotiations with publishers, visits from friends, attendance at lectures and readings, and her marriage to William J. Whipper, a Black politician and jurist. Rollin’s diary is one of the earliest known diaries by a Southern Black woman. In this critical edition Jennifer Putzi offers the first complete transcription and annotation of Rollin’s diary, along with a robust introduction providing important biographical, historical, cultural, and literary contexts for readers. Rollin’s diary provides one of the fullest pictures of an African American woman as an author, activist, and well-connected and politically involved individual during the Reconstruction era—filling a gap in the literature and scholarly analysis of such preserved works by nineteenth-century African American women.

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9781469690018

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Reviews

""Bringing to light Frances Anne Rollin's diary in full for the first time, Jennifer Putzi provides readers with a rare, intimate perspective on the life of a free Black woman navigating Reconstruction-era Boston. Meticulously edited and richly contextualized, this edition is both a scholarly landmark and an accessible resource for teaching and research.""--Rebecka Rutledge Fisher, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Author Information

Jennifer Putzi is the Sara and Jess Cloud Professor of English and Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies at William & Mary.

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