Nazera Sadiq Wright's study of Black Girlhood in the 19th Century leads us to see the emphasis that 19th Black women writers placed on characters who built authentic lives for themselves.
These characters lived their lives according to “their inner thoughts, their plans, their dreams and aspirations.” Within the context of environments that betrayed, harmed, and marginalized them, they had “determination and grit” and “formed successful strategies for fighting and rejecting oppression" (Wright, Chapter 4).
They visioned themselves into new lives, often outside of the trajectory families and society would have set for them. Their lives were led from an inner drive to be authentically who they were. These trajectories “led to adulthoods that did not necessarily include wifehood and motherhood" (Wright, Chapter 4).
We have found that in 1871, many remarkable Black women in Philadelphia were living according to their own inner guidance and creativity, just as Wright points out to us.
Incredibly, some of the most well-known were literally around the corner from each other in South Philly, centered around 9th and Bainbridge.
Let's dig into just a few of these incredible lives.
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Take Frances Ellen Watkins Harper for example.
Harper did not have an easy start to her life. Born in Baltimore in 1825, her parents died when she was young and she was taken in by her uncle, who was an AME preacher, and ran his own school - the Watkins Academy for Negro Youth. But while this offered Harper an education, her uncle was also known for hitting students with a strap to enforce disciplined learning. Even with this family connection to schooling, she was forced to work at age 13, taking care of the children of a family of booksellers. But she was aware, even at 13, that she wanted to be a poet. Her employers took note of her talent and encouraged her, giving her access to a richly stocked library.
By the time she was 16 she was already publishing poems and she wrote her first book of poetry by the time she was 20 (Wright, Chapter 4).
She began teaching and then went on the anti-slavery abolitionist speaking circuit prior to the civil war.
And she was a great speaker.
Wright describes how she “melt[ed] her audience into sympathy and tears for the poor slave.” She was incredibly fluent and could speak without notes. “Her voice was remarkable - as sweet as any woman’s voice we ever heard, and so clear and distinct as to pass every syllable to the most distant ear in the house.” (Wright, chapter 4).
After being on the anti-slavery speaking circuit and teaching for a few years, in 1860, at the age of 35, Harper married Fenton Harper, a widower with three children. Investing all her savings in her new family, she purchased a farm in Ohio and had her only child, Mary, there. But in 1864, her husband died. And he was deeply in debt. Creditors came and took away all of her possessions, which represented all of her life's savings (Bacon, 32).
She made her way back to Philadelphia and stayed with William Still’s family. She continued to write poetry and prose and worked as an agent on the Underground Railroad, making Philadelphia home after 1865. Harper is famous for her leadership in community groups both in Philadelphia and in the South. But that is well documented and we encourage you to google her to learn more about all the incredible things she did.
Starting in 1870, Harper lived at 1006 Bainbridge, where she continued to be extremely active and prolific, producing books and poetry from her home, until her death at the home in 1911.
We imagine that Harper had choices growing up, that there may have been pressure to live a traditional life as a wife and a mother, or take on a traditional "womans" occupation like dressmaking. Instead, she established a life based on her own inner creative yearnings - to use words as poetry and prose that centered the rights of Black people in America.
The Two Rebeccas
This energy of choosing to follow your inner guide manifested itself physically in a community of Black women who lived openly queer and lesbian existences literally right around the corner from Harper.
Rebecca Cox Jackson and Rebecca Perot were life partners who started a Black women’s Shaker community on what was then Erie street and is now S. Warnock. Referred to as the ‘two Rebeccas’, they lived a block away from Harper and during the same time period. Read our blog on them here.
Fanny Jackson Coppin
But then we find a similar extraordinary inner life driven experience one block to the west of Harper. Harper could throw a stone and hit the Institute for Colored Youth. And starting in 1865, ICY was the domain of Fanny Jackson Coppin. At the age of 28, after graduating as one of the first Black woman graduates of Oberlin, Coppin came to Philadelphia to take on a towering responsibility - the girls principalship of the Institute for Colored Youth - the premier academy of higher education for Black students in the country.
Coppin also had an incredibly difficult early life. She was born in enslavement 1837 in Washington, DC. Her grandfather made enough money to purchase himself and 5 of his 6 children, but because Coppin's mother Lucy had a child (Fanny), he refused to purchase her. So Fanny and her mother remained enslaved while the rest of the family were freed.
She suffered severe burns early in her life.
“In my childhood, I had two severe burnings. I understand that at my christening the old folks gave a large party, and I was tied in a chair and placed near the stove. At night, when they took off my stocking, the whole skin from the side of the leg next the stove peeled off.
"At another time, when mother was out at work for the day, mammy had charge of the baby. When mother returned, mammy exclaimed: "Here, Lucy, take your child, it's the crossest baby I ever saw." When I was undressed at night, it was found that a coal of fire from mammy's pipe had fallen into the baby's bosom, and had burned itself deep into the flesh. There were no Day Nurseries then.” (Coppin, 10)
She indicates that she would also suffer from seizures that would be followed by fever and headaches. When she turned 12, her aunt purchased her freedom and she was sent to work in New Bedford, Mass. But she found that she had too much work to be able to properly complete school. For a short time she lived with an aunt, but at 14, she decided that she no longer wanted to be a “burden” to her family and went and found a job in the household of the Calvert family, descendents of Lord Baltimore, where she had “one hour every other afternoon” to take private lessons (Coppin, 13).
At 14, Coppin had already made adult decisions to set out on her own to follow her intense desire for more education. Eventually she prepared for and passed the exam to go to the Rhode Island State Normal School. But when she heard about Oberlin, she “made up my mind to try and get there.” (Coppin , 11). At 23, she applied and was accepted to Oberlin where she excelled in languages and math, speaking Latin and Greek and eventually 4 other languages.
In Philadelphia, Fanny Coppin was the rock of ICY shepherding it through the Civil War. She taught scores of graduates who birthed new schools. Like Cordelia Jennings and Carolyn LeCount, who started their own schools in Philadelphia.
In that sense, Coppin was the mother at the mother school!
Then in 1871, she led the school through one of its worst tragedies, the assassination of beloved teacher Octavius V. Catto. When Catto was murdered, he was principal of the boys school and she was principal of the girls school. We can only imagine the shock and grief she must have felt. Catto was engaged to be married to Carolyn LeCount and he was murdered one block away from ICY. We wonder if they heard the gunshots.
Here again we see a young woman, emerging from a difficult situation, and deciding on a non-traditional path for the time. Oberlin was just accepting Black students in 1860. Coppin was one of the first. Similarly, ICY had just started to become a premier institution - and she moved into a leadership position there right away.
Later in life she literally wrote the education textbook used by HBCUs throughout the country.
As with all the women we have mentioned here, we are only touching the surface of their many successes and we encourage you to continue to find out more about them.
Fanny was leading ICY one block away from where Harper was writing her novels, which was one block away from where the Two Rebecca’s were thriving in a Black feminist Shaker collective.
This is a crazy set of coincidences; powerful Black women living authentically, having impact regionally and nationally, living so close to one another at the same time.
We have come across one more coincidence with this energy in the enclave.
Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield
Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield called this area home too.
Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield was born in Mississippi in enslavement. In 1820 she moved to Philadelphia with her enslaver, also called Elizabeth H. Greenfield, who manumitted her but sent her mother and two sisters to Liberia, leaving little Elizabeth alone. She grew up in Philadelphia and attended the Clarkson school. While she had a close relationship with E.H. Greenfield, when E.H. Greenfield died she was on her own, though she did have relatives in Philadelphia. At some point people became aware that Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield had an exceptional voice. She sought lessons but was refused by white teachers. She stepped into the national limelight after a concert in Buffalo (Wikipedia).
After the Buffalo concert her career took off but she was constantly beset with untrustworthy managers, and racists who attended her concerts and made fun of her during concerts, or threatened to attack venues. Her fame increased however, and she was given the moniker ‘Black Swan’. She went to London to perform in 1853, but her manager wound up leaving her stranded. She turned to British abolitionists for help and this is where her career took a turn for the better. She was able to gain a wealthy patron and eventually performed before Queen Elizabeth. (wikipedia)
We are fortunate that we have so many incredible Black classical singers today, but 171 years ago, Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield was forging a new path. Facing oppression at every turn, Greenfield stayed singing. She eventually moved back to Philadelphia where she continued to teach and sing for the community.
Here’s the thing. Greenfield lived at 1013 Rodman Street, which is two blocks away from Harper. In 1871, when Harper moved into her house on Bainbridge, Greenfield was leading the choir at Shiloh Baptist church, which is *also* in this neighborhood. The historian of Shiloh Baptist, Franklin Guinn recalls how Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield taught him to sing (btw see our new early church histories page):
“She sang before all the crowned heads of Europe and on her return home she entered upon her active work in Shiloh Church and took an active part in the Sabbath school. She organized a singing class, of which the writer was a member and from this wonderful woman he received his first lesson in music. This noted woman died in the triumph of faith April, 1876, and was buried from Shiloh Baptist Church, of which she had long been a member” (Guinn, 314).
Hetty Reckless and Carolyn LeCount
Two other incredible women I have to mention because they are also in this neighborhood. Hetty Reckless, 1015 Rodman, across the street from Greenfield, and who started a shelter for Black women by Black women and was an abolitionist leader. and Carolyn LeCount (mentioned above), who is known as the Rosa Parks of Philadelphia. We've provided her story here.
This begs the question: did these women know or influence each other? We do have this document from 1865 that shows Harper and Greenfield on the same program, so it's possible.
A Black Feminist Enclave that Contains One of the Oldest Parcels of Continuously Black Owned Land in Philadelphia
One last thought…
Shiloh Baptist Church is now Waters AME. The piece of land that Shiloh purchased in 1845 has been continuously used a Black space for praise and worship since that time. This has to make the church one of the oldest continually Black owned parcels of land in Philadelphia, if not the country.
And the building is still pretty much as it appeared in 1845 when it was built. There have been facade upgrades, but it still has the same frontage to South street that it did when it was built. Which is unusual because so many of our church buildings were sold and repurposed into houses and condos.
What is it about this spot? We kind of think it's mystical.
We need a good name for this incredible enclave. Help us come up with the right name for this historic Black Feminist neighborhood full of authenticity, creativity, and leadership.
Sources:
Bacon, Margaret Hope. "One Great Bundle of Humanity: Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825–1911)." The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 113:1 (January 1989): 21-43.
Conyers, Charine Fay Howard. Dissertation: A History of the Cheyney State Teachers college, 1837-1951. NYU, 1960
Coppin, Fanny Jackson. 1913. Reminiscences of School Life, and Hints on Teaching. Philadelphia: A.M.E. Book Concern. https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/jacksonc/jackson.html
Guinn, Franklin B. 1905. Rise and progress of Shiloh Baptist Church of Philadelphia +
Wright, Nazera Sadiq. 2016. Black Girlhood in the Nineteenth Century. Urbana ; Chicago ; Springfield: University of Illinois Press.
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