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How did Frances Ellen Watkins Harper contribute to African American poetry and fiction?

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Phillis Wheatley's first book of poetry — African American literature Frontispiece and title page of *Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral* (1773) by Phillis Wheatley, the first Black woman to become a poet of note in the United States. The portrait on which the frontispiece's engraving is based is often attributed to Scipio Moorhead, an Black artist and writer who, like Wheatley, was enslaved and living in Boston.

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was a pivotal figure in African American literature, utilizing both poetry and fiction as tools for social reform and racial advocacy.12

Her poetry, notably Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects (1854) and Sketches of Southern Life (1872), often employed conventional rhymed quatrains, simple rhythms, and biblical imagery. Drawing on the oral tradition, her verses addressed themes of motherhood, death, and the injustices of slavery, including the famous poem "Bury Me in a Free Land".1

In fiction, Harper transformed the novel into an instrument of social analysis. Her 1892 novel, Iola Leroy; or, Shadows Uplifted, challenged romanticized depictions of plantation life and presented models of socially committed, middle-class African Americans. Additionally, she is credited with publishing "The Two Offers" (1859), considered the first short story by an African American author. Through these works, Harper confronted racial mythologies and championed the ideals of social uplift and self-determination.21