The Elizabeth Keckley Reader, Vol. 1: Writing Self, Writing Nation
The Elizabeth Keckley Reader: Volume One--Writing Self, Writing Nation, edited by Sheila Smith McKoy, offers a collection of essays and other works inspired by the life of Elizabeth Keckley, a slave in Hillsborough, North Carolina, who eventually bought her freedom. She became a noted seamstress in Civil War-era Washington DC, and was most famously the confidante of Mary Lincoln. Keckley s memoir, Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House, is considered one of the seminal narratives of mid-19th century African American women. Scholar Sheila Smith McKoy assembles a wide variety of works published about Keckley. The Elizabeth Keckley Reader examines her life as a determined woman who overcame the horrors of the institution of slavery to become a successful entrepreneur, community leader, educator, author, and friend to the First Lady of the United States. In essays, articles and creative works, Keckley is viewed through the lens of entrepreneur, advocate, civic leader, educator, author, as well as a former slave. The comprehensive volume illuminates the life and work of this remarkable 19th-century African American woman.
Earn by promoting books
Earn money by sharing your favorite books through our Affiliate program.
Become an affiliate
LYNN DOMINA is Assistant Professor in the Department of Humanities, Social Science, and Individual Studies at SUNY-Delhi. She has published articles on Zora Neale Hurston, Mary McCarthy, N. Scott Momaday, and others. Her first book of poetry, Corporal Works, was published in 1995.
The Elizabeth Keckley Reader, a magnificent collection of creative and scholarly works, examines and honors the heroic life of a courageous and defiant African American woman who overcame slavery, economic privation, and brutal physical punishment to free herself, own her being, speak with her own voice, and lead an independent life as entrepreneur, educator, and civic leader. Elizabeth Keckley's remarkable autobiography reveals the anguished connection between black and white lives in nineteenth-century America with focus on her uncommon relationship with President Abraham Lincoln's wife, Mary Todd Lincoln. This evocative and erudite collection speaks to women everywhere for it lays bare the soul of an unforgettable woman whose indomitable spirit caused her to rise again and again to face whatever comes, to take the journey, to show the way, and to make her contribution to life and to history.
--Barbara Paul-Emile, PhD, Maurice E. Goldman Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences, Professor of English, Bentley University
The writer has produced the first of her two-part work on Elizabeth Keckley, resulting in a compelling account of a strong and determined slave girl whose contributions in later life sealed her legacy. As Sheila Smith McKoy notes, Keckley refused to be "erased" from history and became an entrepreneur of enduring fame. She also takes her place among the nineteenth-century black women writers of acclaim.
--Jessie Carney Smith, Dean of the Library and Camille Cosby Distinguished Chair in the Humanities, Fisk University
Presented in a series of two volumes, the Elizabeth Keckley Reader breaks new ground in recovering late nineteenth-century texts and contexts, and promotes literary historical inquiry by way of essays, poetry, and drama contributed by an impressive group of scholars. Indeed, the Keckley Reader is an innovative project, a crucial contribution to ongoing studies of African American autobiographical acts and American culture.
--Jerry W. Ward Jr., author of The Katrina Papers: A Journal of Trauma and Recovery, Trouble the Water, Black Southern Voices, and The Richard Wright Encyclopedia
