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Sojourner's Place is proud to present this series entitled: Ain't I a Woman? A Sojourner's Salute. Each post will present an African-American woman whose greatness and impact was or is largely overlooked by the history books or media. I hope you will find this series to be enlightening, educational, and inspirational in celebration of the lives of African-American women who made and are making a difference.

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Sojourner's Place is proud to present this series entitled: Ain't I a Woman? A Sojourner's Salute. Each post will present an African-American woman whose greatness and impact was or is largely overlooked by the history books or media. I hope you will find this series to be enlightening, educational, and inspirational in celebration of the lives of African-American women who made and are making a difference.

Born a Virginian slave, Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly found herself being moved around or loaned out to different members of her master's family. After being moved to St. Louis, MO, Elizabeth was able to buy her freedom and move to Baltimore where she dreamed of making dresses for upper-class white women and opening a school for young African-American women.

Unfortunately, Elizabeth's dreams were not realized in Baltimore so she relocated to the Capital to find work. Destitute and without enough money to for a license to remain in the city for more than 30 days, her luck took a turn as some of her patrons who knew the mayor of the city provided her with the help she needed. She was able to find a place to stay and was eventually granted a license.

After making a dress for Mrs. Robert E. Lee, Elizabeth's business grew under the watchful eyes of many upper-class white women - including those of First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln. After receiving a request from the First Lady for an interview, Elizabeth was hired to be Mrs. Lincoln's seamstress for the March 4, 1861 inauguration of her husband, Abraham Lincoln.

Elizabeth became a very close friend and confidant of the First Lady and was very involved with the First Family. Her counsel was a source of comfort to Mrs. Lincoln during her time of bereavement with the death of her sons as well as when dealling with the day-to-day difficulties of living under the "First Lady microscope". The relationship between the First Lady and her modiste (or seamstress), however, would be severed following the President's assassination when an act of kindness and support would be construed by Mrs. Lincoln as a betrayal.

With her book, "Behind the Scenes: Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House," Keckly intended to show the world that Mary Todd Lincoln was misunderstood. But advertisers labeled it as a 'literary thunderbolt' and a tell-all book by a black woman who had no business talking about the former first lady. Lincoln felt betrayed, and Keckly's sewing business suffered.

Elizabeth continued to work as a seamstress and taught young African-American women the trade. Later, she accepted a faculty position at Wiberforce University where she organized a dress exhibit for the Chicago World's Fair.

Note: During the inauguration of President Barack Obama we learned quite a bit about the Lincoln Presidency as well as presidential history. Many waited with baited breath to see the gown that First Lady Michelle Obama would wear knowing that it - like all other inaugural gowns worn by First Ladies - would be displayed in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. I wonder if Mrs. Obama's gown is in close proximity to those of Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly currently on display in the Smithsonian.

Obliged to you for hearing me,
and now old SjP ain't got nothin' more to say...
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
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Sojourner's Place is proud to present this series entitled: Ain't I a Woman? A Sojourner's Salute. Each post will present an African-American woman whose greatness and impact was or is largely overlooked by the history books or media. I hope you will find this series to be enlightening, educational, and inspirational in celebration of the lives of African-American women who made and are making a difference.

Janet Harmon Bragg 1907 -1993

We know about Elizabeth “Bessie” Coleman the first African American to become an airplane pilot, and the first American aviator of any race or gender to hold an international pilot. But, little is known about Janet Harmon Bragg who was the first African American woman to not only purchase an airplane but she along with Bessie Coleman and others became the first African Americans to actually purchase an airport. The airport, located in Robbins, Illinois - a small predominantly Black suburb south of Chicago, was a training site for Tuskegee airmen in the early 30s.

The granddaughter of a freed slave, Janet Harmon Bragg used her education and business savvy to leave the pile higher for all who followed. Born in Georgia and trained as a nurse at Spelman College, she to Chicago and worked as a nurse until enrolling at Chicago’s Curtiss Aeronautical University ground school in 1933. Although she studied she lacked the primary tool necessary for aeronautical training - an airplane. So what did she do? She bought one!

After the purchase, however, she soon came to realize that there were no airports which allowed Black pilots to fly. So, what did she do? She along with Bessie Coleman and other in her class purchased land and built and airfield in the all-black town of Robbins, Illinois.

Earning her private pilot's license, Janet wrote a weekly column called “Negro Aviation” for the Chicago Defender newspaper. Denied entry into the Women’s Auxiliary Service Pilots (WASPs) during World War II, Janet eventually earned her commercial pilot's license, launched a successful nursing-home business, and became a successful entreprenur. In addition to being a speaker at aviation events across the country, she was also a world traveller. Overlooked in American history books, she was welcomed and honored by royalty in Africa.

To learn more about Janet Harmon Bragg, I encourage sojourners to read a summary of a 1989 interview with Janet conducted by Joan Rogers.

In Janet's own words:

I hope that my experiences and the experiences of others will serve a two fold purpose: 1) to convey the price that had to be paid to lay the foundation for today; but more importantly: 2) (I hope Black youth will realize) the kind of strength of character, the kind of determination and the importance of setting a goal, and [not] allowing anything to deter one from achieving that goal.

Sources: Geerkellas and In the Steps of Esteban

Obliged to you for hearing me,
and now old SjP ain't got nothin' more to say...
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
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Sojourner's Place is proud to present the first in a series of posts entitled: Ain't I a Woman? A Sojourner's Salute. Each post will present an African-American woman whose greatness and impact was or is largely overlooked by the history books or media. I hope you will find this series to be enlightening, educational, and inspirational in celebration of the lives of African-American women who made and are making a difference.


Born on March 15, 1825, little was known about Harriet E. Wilson until "discovered" by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Gates, a Harvard Professor Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, authenticated and facilitated the 1983 publication of Our Nig, or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black (1859), by Harriet E. Wilson. As a result of his "discovery", Wilson is now acknowledged as the first African-American novelist to be published in the United States.

For many years, William Wells Brown was considered to be the first African-American novelist to be published. His book, entitled Clotel: The President's Daughter, although published six years before Wilson's novel, was published in the United Kingdom rather than in the United States. Thereby, anointing Harriet as the recipient of this "first" in American and African American history. An account of the injustices of the indentured servitude system in the North, "Our Nig" fell into obscurity soon after it was published until being rediscovered in 1982. It is widely considered to be an autobiographical account of Wilson's life as the novel coincides with much of what is now known about Harriet's life, as provided by the Harriet Wilson Project:

1825 (March 15): Harriet E. Adams born in Milford, NH
1830 -31: Abandoned by mother at the Nehemiah Hayward family farm
1840 (June 1): Census locates Harriet Adams at the Hayward's 1850: Harriet E. Adams appears as a 22-year-old black woman living with the Boyles on the federal census for Milford
1851 (October 6): Harriet E. Adams marries Thomas Wilson in Milford, NH
1852 (May or June): Harriet E. Wilson gives birth to son George Mason Wilson
1855 – 1859: Harriet Wilson and/or her son appears on the Reports of the Overseers of the Poor for the town of Milford
1859 ( August 18): Harriet Wilson copyrights Our Nig, with a copy deposited in the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts
1859 (September 5): Our Nig is published by George C. Rand and Avery in Boston
1860 (February 16): Wilson’s son, George Mason Wilson, dies in Milford, ages seven years, eight months
1863: Harriet Wilson appears on the Report of the Overseers of the Poor for the town of Milford
1867: Harriet Wilson listed in the Boston Spiritualist newspaper Banner of Light as living in East Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is known in Spiritualist circles as "the colored medium" 1870 (September 29): Marries John Gallatin Robinson in Boston
1870 - 1897: Mrs. Hattie E. Wilson listed in the Banner of Light as a trance reader and lecturer 1900 (June 28): “Hattie E. Wilson” dies in Quincy Hospital, Massachusetts. She is buried in the Cobb family plot in Mount Wollaston Cemetery in Quincy, plot number 13337, "old section.

"In Harriet's own words, the impetus for writing this novel appears in the Preface.

In offering to the public the following pages, the writer confesses her inability to minister to the refined and cultivated, the pleasure supplied by abler pens. It is not for such these crude narrations appear. Deserted by kindred, disabled by failing health, I am forced to some experiment which shall aid me in maintaining myself and child without extinguishing this feeble life. I would not from these motives even palliate slavery at the South, by disclosures of its appurtenances North. My mistress was wholly imbued with southern principles. I do not pretend to divulge every transaction in my own life, which the unprejudiced would declare unfavorable in comparison with treatment of legal bondmen; I have purposely omitted what would most provoke shame in our good anti-slavery friends at home.

My humble position and frank confession of errors will, I hope, shield me from severe criticism. Indeed, defects are so apparent it requires no skilful hand to expose them. I sincerely appeal to my colored brethren universally for patronage, hoping they will not condemn this attempt of their sister to be erudite, but rally around me a faithful band of supporters and defenders. H. E. W.

Literary critic Francis Browne states: "Wilson's art might indeed be defective, but her imaginative effort ... has proven itself worthy and signally prophetic." While Henry Louis Gates argues "... that Wilson is the most accomplished and subtle black novelist of the nineteenth century." I encourage all Sojourner's visiting here to take some time to learn more about this amazing African-American icon - Harriet E. Wilson Project whose purpose to raise awareness her literary work, to educate the public on her contribution to American history and her contribution to American literature, and to publicly honor her for her accomplishments.

Obliged to you for hearing me,
and now old SjP ain't got nothin' more to say...
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
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