Trial and Triumph (1888–1889), were published in
the Christian Recorder. Her Iola Leroy: Or, Shadows
Uplifted (1892) is one of the first novels published
by a black woman in the United States. Considered
a classic among African-American novels today,
Harper’s most popular full-length novel focuses
on the issues of race, gender, and class and embod-
ies a number of themes and techniques.
Set during the Civil War and Reconstruction
periods, Iola Leroy weaves the melodramatic tale of
the beautiful mulatto slave Iota Leroy, who initially
passes for white, but when her true “black” iden-
tity is discovered, she is sold into slavery. When
she later becomes an army nurse in a Union camp,
Iola meets Dr. Gresham, the wealthy white hospital
physician who falls in love with her, but she refuses
to marry Gresham because he is white. Later, she
meets and marries Dr. Latimer, a black physician
who shares her devotion to social reform and ra-
cial uplift. Throughout the novel, Harper brings
together many of the themes found in her poetry
and oratory presentations, including the themes
of temperance and education. In addition, she il-
lustrates the complexity of African-American life
during the post–Civil War period, particular the
search for family members through various reli-
gious organizations.
Hailed as one of the most gifted writers among
her contemporaries, Harper, like FREDERICK DOUG-
LASS, WILLIAM WELLS BROWN, HARRIET JACOBS,
and IDA B. WELLS-BARNET, changed the course of
American history with her activism and oratory.
Combining pragmatic idealism, courageous ac-
tion, and lyrical words, she continued to argue for
freedom, equality and reforms in all of her works
until her demise from heart disease on February
22, 1911. Harper’s legacy as a writer has lived on
well into the 20th century through the works of
such literary descendants as SONIA SANCHEZ, NIKKI
GIOVANNI, AUDRE LORDE, ALICE WALKER, GLORIA
NAYLOR, MARGARET WALKER, RI TA DOVE, Patrice
Gaines, and JILL NELSON.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Boyd, Melba Joyce. Discarded Legacy: Politics and Po-
etics in the Life of Francis E. W. Harper, 1825–1911.
Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994.
Foster, Frances Smith. ed. A Brighter Coming Day: A
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper Reader. New York:
Feminist Press, 1990.
Still, William. The Underground Railroad. Chicago:
Ebony Classics, 1970.
Loretta G. WoodardHarper, Michael S. (1938– )
When he was 13, Brooklyn-born Michael Harper’s
family moved to a predominantly white neighbor-
hood in Los Angeles, California. The move, Harper
would recall later, along with the latent postwar
racial tensions bubbling in this West Coast me-
tropolis, were distressing enough to make Harper,
who would later be called “Chief ” by his friends
and students, devote his life to writing poetry.
After graduating from a local public high school,
Harper first attended Los Angeles City College and
later Los Angeles State College, where he gradu-
ated in 1961 with both bachelor’s and master’s
degrees. While in Los Angeles, he took a job as a
postal worker, a position central to Harper’s devel-
opment as a poet of the American experience. The
system of the postal service would “play against
your dreams, where you came from and where you
wanted to go” (Rowell, 786). In the many long and
monotonous hours, socializing with “nonstop talk-
ers and monosyllabic wits” (Rowell, 786) taught
Harper “the silences inherent in speech, and how
to pace, by duration, a given story” (Rowell, 786).
Such lessons have become manifest in much of
the conversational musicality of Harper’s poetry.
The jazz that would inflect so much of Harper’s
poetry might have found its impetus in Billie Hol-
liday, playing piano for the Harper household, or
in Charles Mingus’s sister, who worked long shifts
alongside Harper at the post office.
In 1961, Harper moved east to attend the pres-
tigious Iowa Writer’s Workshop at the University
of Iowa, where he was the only black student in
both his poetry and fiction classes. He received an
M.F.A. in 1962. After completing his work at Iowa,
Harper went on to teach writing at various uni-
versities, including Pasadena City College (1962),
Contra Costa College (1964–1968), and California234 Harper, Michael S.