Abolition Hall of Fame to induct 3

PETERBORO, N.Y. >> The National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum (NAHOF) will induction three 19th century abolitionists on Saturday, Oct. 20, in Peterboro.

The Inductee Committee recommended these three inductees to the NAHOF Cabinet of Freedom according to the results of reviews of public nominations by scholars in the field:

Frances E. W. Harper (18251911), nee Watkins, was a prom- inent African-African female social reformer and writer of 19th century America. Watkins became an abolitionist orator after the passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law. In 1854, while teaching at a school in York, Pa., she was scandalized by the wrongful enslavement and death of a free black laborer named Edward Davis

Watkins entered the anti-slavery lecture circuit in EasternMassachusetts and Rhode Island. She published the first edition of her bestseller, “Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects” in 1854. Watkins wove anti-slavery pieces such as “The Slave Mother,” “Eliza Harris,” “The Slave Auction,” “AMother’s Heroism,” and “The Fugitive’s Wife” into a broader religious and moral framework. Watkins also published numerous abolitionist poems, speeches, essays and editorials - such as “Be Active” (1856), “CouldWe Trace the Record of Every Human Heart” (1857), “Miss Watkins and the Constitution” (1859), and “Our Greatest Want” (1859). Known by this time as the “bronze muse,” Harper also concerned herself with the broad re-

Frances Ellen Watkins