Literature of the United States

Harriet A. Jacobs (Linda Brent) (1813–1897) ran away from slavery to make a new life for herself in the North; the story of her life under slavery, her protracted flight towards freedom, and the conditions she found once she got there, make up the structure of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Today, it is regarded as the most in-depth and textured pre-Civil War slave narrative written by a black woman in America.
Booker Washington (1856–1915) between the last decade of the nineteenth century and the beginning of World War I, no one exercised more influence over race relations in the United States than did Booker T. Washington; some contemporary historians of the African American experience in America call the period the «Era of Booker T. Washington». His influence continues to th present day. He wanted to help African Americans enter mainstream white society with the least possible violence and thus advocated an educational program of vocational rather than intellectual or professional training. His works have been contrasted with the dynamic and militant efforts of Frederick Douglass and the intellectual and professional initiatives of the fiercely independent W.E.B. Du Bois, but Washington was able to institutionalize his power to a far greater degree than either of these two. He owed no small part of his power to extraordinary skill with written and spoken language. To his sense of calling Washington added the command of memory and the detail of living as a racial «other’, all of which he expressed in an unforgettable voice.
In his brilliant autobiography, «Up from Slavery» (1901), a masterpiece of the genre that was widely praised in the United States and popular in translation around the world. The early chapters reveal the physical and psychological realities of Washington’s origins, realities that were shared by so many millions of the slaves set «free» at the conclusion of the Civil War. Later chapters show Washington at the peak of his success as an African American spokesperson, particularly as a master of rhetoric that allowed him to appear both as sincerely humble and as force to be reckoned with, both as a man of selfless industry and as one of considerable political know-how.
In his works he urges African Americans to emulate the proverbial ship captain who urged his crew to «cast down your buckets where you are» even though they were still at sea, and who thus found fresh water at the mouth of a river. He argued that by seeking improvement African Americans would inevitably rise as individuals. Yet he also urged whites not to judge African American children against white children until they had had a chance to catch up in school. In short, Washington proposed a middle ground wherein African Americans would rise themselves by individual effort and white Americans would appreciate the efforts being made and judge accordingly. Up from slavery is as important as a literary production as it is a record of time, place, and person. Washington’s skillful use of metaphor and symbol, his deftly masked ironies, and the art of his artlessness have been addressed by such critics as William Andrews, Houston A. Baker, and James M. Cox.