The American poet Elizabeth Margaret Chandler lived a very short life during the early part of the 19th century but made a name for herself championing the cause of the abolitionists of slavery through her poetry. No other female writer had done so before her. She was born on the 24th December 1807 in the town of Centre, Delaware to Quaker parents. The whole ...
Frances Dana Barker Gage was a 19th century American writer of poetry and hymns, often known as Fannie D. Gage for this work, and also as Aunty Fanny when writing her children’s poetry and stories. Besides her literary output she was, perhaps, even better known as a staunch campaigner on behalf of women’s rights in particular and the rights of all citizens ...
Charlotte Forten Grimké was an anti-slavery activist, African-American poet and school teacher who devoted much time during the Civil War to former black slaves in SC, USA, making sure that they had at least a rudimentary education. She felt it necessary to record the details of her life in diary form and these were eventually published many times over. These journals are acknowledged as being ...
Mitsuye Yamada is a Japanese/American writer now in her nineties who spent many years as a English professor in California. She has been a keen activist during her lifetime, having had the misfortune to be incarcerated during the Second World War when all those thought a threat to the US government were rounded up and put into camps. She wrote extensively about this experience. She ...
Martha Wadsworth Brewster holds a unique place in the records of 18th century US born poets in that she published her work using her own name, rather than a pseudonym which was more common among female writers. Additionally she was one of a select band of colonial women, numbering only four, who wrote poetry in pre-Revolutionary days. Her life is little documented but it is ...
