The Racial Politics of Women’s Labor:
Work, Self, and Nation in Nineteenth-Century African American Women’s Autobiographies
Course Description
“The enormous space that work occupies in Black women’s lives today follows a pattern established during
the very earliest days of slavery. As slaves, compulsory labor overshadowed every other aspects of
women’s existence. It would seem, therefore, that the starting point for an exploration of Black women’s
lives under slavery would be an appraisal of their roles as workers.”
Angela Davis
Women, Race, and Class
Nineteenth-century racial uplift ideology held that African American women served their race best by
preaching, lecturing, and writing on issues such as religious evangelicism, abolition, moral reform, and
temperance. In doing so, they left an oral and literary legacy thus contributing to African American cultural
production. Together, we will journey back to the nineteenth century; we will look beyond this racial uplift
ideology and instead investigate another—still understudied—contributing factor to African American
cultural production: women’s wage labor.
This course focuses on the autobiographies of four nineteenth-century black women—Sojourner Truth,
Eliza Potter, Harriet Wilson, and Elizabeth Keckley—and moves their labor to the center of our discussion.
These former slaves and freeborn black women valorized their labor at a time when women’s work, and
especially black women’s work, was increasingly devalued and disparaged. As we read these
autobiographies, we will consider the following questions: how do these writers characterize the nature of
their labor? How do they posit the relationship between themselves, their work, and national identity? In
what ways does their wage labor double as cultural labor? Our readings of these texts will be supplemented
with secondary sources that will ground us both in history and in literary criticism. Using Xiomara
Santamarina’s 2009 Belabored Professions as our frame of analysis, we will work to uncover how these
texts offer, what Santamarina calls, “new perspectives on the emergence of the vital African American
autobiographical tradition, dramatizing the degree to which black working women participated in and
shaped American rhetorics of labor, race, and femininity.”
Toward the end of the semester we will turn to the twentieth-century and to the archive. We will partner
with the Department of Special and Area Studies Collections at UF’s Smathers Library to try our own hand
at working with the personal papers of one early twentieth-century black working woman: author,
folklorist, anthropologist, and native Floridian Zora Neale Hurston. We will explore the correspondence,
newspaper clippings, articles, manuscripts, photographs, and miscellaneous personal papers of Hurston. We
will place ourselves in the positions of the literary scholars and historians whose work we have studied
throughout the semester and we will ask ourselves: How does Hurston represent the labor of black women
in her work? What kind of cultural work did she herself perform?
Required Texts
The Narrative of Sojourner Truth
A Hairdresser’s Experience in High Life by Eliza Potter
Our Nig by Harriet Wilson
Behind the Scenes by Elizabeth Keckley
Belabored Professions by Xiomara Santamarina
Course pack
Course Objectives
This course is designed to do the following:
 Make students familiar with terminology, texts, and ideologies that are foundational to nineteenthcentury black women’s literary studies;
 Give students an understanding of the historical development of black femininity;
 Trace the historical relationship between race, gender, and labor in the United States;
 Offer a sustained study of nineteenth-century black women writers’ autobiographical practices; and
 Introduce students to the archives; supplement the theoretical component of the course with a
hands-on archival exercise designed to illustrate the relationship between theory and practice.
Course Assignments
Glossary Entries: Glossary entries are 3 short essays due throughout the semester that are organized around
a key term or concept emerging from our readings. Examples include “hegemony,” “ideologies of
womanhood,” “labor,” “autobiographical tradition,” or “literary authority.” In these essays, you will
define the term and trace its intellectual genealogy through the readings from the course, drawing
connections between texts and engaging in the debates and dialogue engendered by the concept at
hand. (Approximately 3 pages per entry; 9 pages over the course of the semester.)
Annotated Bibliography: This assignment asks you to select a topic uniting your own interests with the
history and literature of African American working womanhood. You will research your topic and
select approximately 10 reputable, scholarly sources with bearing on their topic. You should write
an annotation for each source including a summary and critical assessment. (Each annotation will
be approximately two paragraphs. The entire annotated bibliography will total approximately 7
pages.)
Anthology Project: This final project asks you to imagine yourself as the editor of an anthology of essays
related to the history of and literary scholarship on African American working womanhood—
drawing from the essays they focused on in their annotated bibliography. As the editor, you need to
choose essays for your anthology, arrange them in a coherent way, and provide a table of contents.
Furthermore, you need to write an introduction to your anthology that explains its significance,
situates the essays in context, and creates connections between them. (Approximately 12-15 pages.)
Archival Research Project: I am currently working with Special Collections librarian Florence Turcotte in
Smathers Library to develop this assignment.
Presentation: Once per semester, in groups of two, you will serve as a discussion leader for a class period.
Each presentation will, at minimum, include: 1. A brief summary of the reading for the day,
focusing on its core argument. 2. Five questions to serve as starting points for discussion. 3. A
visual aid, such as a handout or PowerPoint. 4. An interactive activity.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------COURSE SCHEDULE
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Unit 1: Literary History and Historical Background
This course begins with a cultural history of literature by African American women prior to the 20th
century. From the oral histories of the colonial-era slavewoman known only as Alice to the literary tradition
of the nineteenth century, we will explore the trajectory of black women’s oral and written production. As
we turn to historians Juliet E. K. Walker and Jacqueline Jones for context on black business in the United
States, we will pose the questions that will guide the rest of the course: how do we define black women’s
work? Where does the black working woman fit in American literary tradition? And how does this figure
“dramatize the degree to which black working women participated in and shaped American rhetorics of
labor, race, and femininity?”
Week 1
Tuesday:
 Hazel Carby, “‘Women’s Era’: Rethinking Black Feminist Theory,” “Slave and Mistress: Ideologies of
Womanhood under Slavery,” and “‘Hear My Voice, Ye Careless Daughters’: Narratives of Slave and
Free Women before Emancipation” from Reconstructing Womanhood (3-61)
Thursday:
 Frances Smith Foster, “Testing and Testifying: The Word, the Other, and African American Women
Writers” from Written by Herself (1-22)
Week 2
Tuesday:
 Juliet E. K. Walker, “Introduction” from The History of Black Business in America (xiii-xxiv)
 Jacqueline Jones, “‘My Mother Was Much of a Woman’: Slavery” from Labor of Love, Labor of
Sorrow (11-43)
Thursday:
 Juliet E. K. Walker, “Antebellum Free Black Women Enterprises” from The History of Black Business
in America (164-193)
 Xiomara Santamarina, “Introduction” from Belabored Professions (3-31)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Unit 2: Narrative of Sojourner Truth
Santamarina argues that, in the oft-cited “Ain’t I a Woman?,” Truth represented herself as entitled to
equality, not simply on the basis of being a woman, but as a formerly enslaved working woman (Belabored
4). Truth takes up the theme of black women’s work again in The Narrative of Sojourner Truth. Because
scholars have, for the most part, studied her speech in the context of her speaking career, little connection
has been made between the speech and her later autobiographical literary effort. As you read both texts and
think about their relation to one another, also consider how the concept of work is presented in oral form
versus written form. What does the relationship between the two allow us to see differently?
Week 3
Tuesday:
 “Ain’t I a Woman?” by Sojourner Truth
 Carla L. Peterson, “‘Doers of the Word’: Theorizing African-American Women Speakers and Writers
in the Antebellum North” from Doers of the Word (3-23)
Thursday:
 Narrative of Sojourner Truth, all
Week 4
Tuesday:
 Narrative of Sojourner Truth, review all
 Xiomara Santamarina, “Race, Work, and Literary Authority in The Narrative of Sojourner Truth” from
Belabored Professions (35-63)
Thursday:
 Carla L. Peterson, “‘A Sign Unto the Nation’: Sojourner Truth, History, Orature, and Modernity” from
Doers of the Word (24-55)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Unit 3: Eliza Potter’s A Hairdresser’s Experience in High Life
Many literary scholars read Eliza Potter as something of a sociologist and, in fact, argue that Potter sees
herself as a social critic. If we agree that she is a social critic, consider how Potter credentials herself as a
critic through her professional work. As you read, think about how she constructs her authorial point of
view—towards the people of her inquiry, towards her topic (what is her topic?), towards the findings of her
inquiry, and towards her readers. As her professional career is ever-present through her book, note the role
it plays in Potter’s various findings as you read.
Week 5
Tuesday:
 Potter, Chapters 1-2 (9-52)
 Sharon Dean, “Introduction” from Eliza Potter’s A Hairdresser’s Experience in High Life (xxxiii–lix)
Thursday:
 Potter, Chapter 3 (53-96)
Week 6
Tuesday:
 Potter, Chapters 4-6 (97-143)
 Xiomara Santamarina, “Black Hairdresser and Social Critic: Eliza Potter and the Labors of
Femininity,” American literature 77.1 (March 2005): 151-177.
Thursday:
 Potter, Chapter 7 (144-194)
 Xiomara Santamarina, “Enterprising Women and the Labors of Femininity: Eliza Potter, Cincinatti
Hairdresser” from Belabored Professions (101-138)
Week 7
Tuesday:
 Potter, Chapter 8 (195-242)
 Lisa Ze Winters, “‘More desultory and unconnected than any other’: Geography, Desire, and Freedom
in Eliza Potter’s A Hairdresser’s Experience in High Life.” American Quarterly 61.3 (2009): 455-475.
Thursday:
 Potter, Chapter 8 (242-end)
 Xiomara Santamarina, “‘. . . so you can see, color makes no difference’: Race, Slavery, and Abolition
in A Hairdresser’s Experience in High Life,” Legacy 24.2 (2007): 172-186.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Unit 4: Harriet E. Wilson’s Our Nig
As has been proven, many of the details of Wilson’s personal life—the terms of her birth, her indentured
servitude, her marriage, and her employment—run parallel with those attributed to the character of Frado in
Wilson’s Our Nig. It is at the intersection of the historical details of Wilson’s life and the novel’s plot
where much is revealed about the black working woman’s place in nineteenth-century American society.
What does Wilson’s/Frado’s story reveal about the relationship between about agency, labor, and race in
the historical moment of the late 1850s? How does this relationship shift from the first half of the book to
the second? As we work our way through this text, we will read with an eye toward the social issues that
Wilson uses her labor to explore.
Week 8
Tuesday:
 P. Gabrielle Foreman and Reginald H. Pitts, “Introduction,” “Chronology I and II,” and “Notes” from
Our Nig (xii-l)
 Xiomara Santamarina, “The View from Below: Menial Labor and Self-Reliance in Harriet Wilson’s
Our Nig” from Belabored Professions (64-99)
 Foreman, P. Gabrielle. “Mrs. H.E. Wilson, mogul? - The curious new history of an American literary
original” from The Boston Globe, 15 Feb 2009 (C4)
Thursday:
 Wilson, Preface-Chapter 7 (1-43)
Week 9
Tuesday:
 Wilson, Chapters 8-12 (44-72)
 John Ernest, “Economies of Identity: Harriet Wilson’s Our Nig.” PMLA 109.3 (1994): 424–438.
Thursday:
 Eric Gardner, “‘This Attempt of their Sister’: Our Nig from Printer to Readers.” New England
Quarterly 66.2 (1993): 226-246.
 Ellen Pratofiorito, “‘To Demand Your Sympathy and Aid’: Our Nig and the Problem of No Audience.”
Journal of American & Comparative Cultures 24.1-2 (2001): 31-48.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Unit 5: Elizabeth Keckley’s Behind the Scenes
Elizabeth Keckley’s reputation as a successful modiste earned her work with politically elite white women
in Washington DC, including First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln. She also worked as a businesswoman,
community leader, educator, and writer and, in many ways, found success in each of her endeavors. How
does Keckley use her vast work experience to craft a rhetoric of labor? In what ways—and to what ends—
does she deploy this rhetoric? In the preface to her text, Keckley tells us that while “everything [she has]
written is strictly true; much has been omitted.” How does that which “has been omitted” complicate our
reading of labor in Keckley’s autobiography? As you read, note passages or textual moments that provide
useful illustrations of your ideas.
Week 10
Tuesday:
 Francis Smith Foster’s “Historical Introduction” to Elizabeth Keckley’s Behind the Scenes, xi-lxvii
 Jacqueline Jones, “Freed Women? The Civil War and Reconstruction” from Labor of Love, Labor of
Sorrow (44-78)
Thursday:
 Keckley, Chapters 1-7 (3-91)
 Xiomara Santamarina, “Behind the Scenes of Black Labor: Elizabeth Keckley and the Scandal of
Publicity” from Belabored Professions (139-164)
Week 11
Tuesday:
 Keckley, Chapters 8-10 (92-128)
 Rafia Zafar, “Dressing Up and Dressing Down” from We Wear the Mask (170-183)
Thursday:
 Keckley, Chapters 11-14 (129-191)
Week 12
Tuesday:
 Keckley, Chapters 15-Appendix (192-260)
 Michael Berthold, “Not ‘Altogether’ the ‘History of Myself’: Autobiographical Impersonality in
Elizabeth Keckley’s Behind the Scenes, Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House.”
The American Transcendental Quarterly 13.2 (1999) 105-118.
Thursday:
 “Review of Behind the Scenes, Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House by
Elizabeth Keckley.” Cleveland Daily Plain Dealer 23 Apr. 1868: 1.
 “Review of Behind the Scenes by Elizabeth Keckley.” Hours at Home June 1868: 192.
 “Review of Behind the Scenes, Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House by
Elizabeth Keckley.” The New York Times 19 Apr. 1868: 10.
 “Review of Behind the Scenes by Elizabeth Keckley.” Putnam’s Magazine July 1868: 119.
 Xiomara Santamarina, “Coda: Moving Beyond Antebellum Reform: African American Working
Women and Their Traditions” from Belabored Professions (165-169)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Unit 6: Archival Work on Zora Neale Hurston
“I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality,
rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions.”
Letter from Zora Neale Hurston to Countee Cullen
Archives serve as society’s collective memory; they provide evidence of the past and promote
accountability and transparency of past actions. Similarly, Zora Neale Hurston’s four novels and two books
of folklore (which resulted from extensive anthropological research) have proven to be invaluable sources
on the oral cultures of African America. In this unit, we will visit the Hurston Collection that is archived at
UF. We will explore Hurston’s documents in their original form in an effort to uncover how such primary
source materials might allow us to draw conclusions on “the degree to which black working women
participated in and shaped American rhetorics of labor, race, and femininity.” Finally, we will ask
ourselves, what does the Hurston Collection offer our collective memory in regards to the relationship
between labor, race, and womanhood?
Week 13
Tuesday:
 Understanding Archives & Manuscripts by James O’Toole and Richard Cox
 Alice Walker, “In Search of Zora Neale Hurston” from Ms. Magazine (74-79, 85-89)
 Pearlie M. Fisher-Peters, “‘Ah got de law in mah mouf’: Negotiating Respect in the Hurston Mold”
from The Assertive Woman In Zora Neale Hurston's Fiction, Folklore, And Drama (3-16)
Thursday: Meet in Smathers; Introduction to archive with Librarian Florence Turcotte.
Week 14
Tuesday: Meet in Smathers; Work in archive
Thursday: Meet in Smathers; Work in archive
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Conclusion: Writing Workshops, Course Wrap-Up
Week 15
Tuesday: Group discussion on Hurston archive; In-class Writing Workshop
Thursday: Peer Review
Week 16
Tuesday: Final Discussion; Final Paper Due