How beautiful is this book cover for Nazera Sadiq Wright’s 2016 book?! The beauty of this young black girl, her elegant pose, her twists, the texture and colorfulness of the flower in her hair. I love it all. Before I even opened the book to read the first page I was smitten by this cover. The introduction, chapters one and two did not disappoint either. I was so happy I found this book as I research the education of black girls in the 18th and 19th century urban north. In this text, Wright hoped to trace the literary tradition of writings on black girlhood in nineteenth century literature. In chapters one and two, Wright gives compelling evidence for her argument that black male writers often wrote black girls as two dimensional, idealized characters possessing values and mores of white, Christian middle class society. In comparison, black women writers wrote from their own personal experiences introducing readers to young black girls with hopes, dreams, goals, grit, and determination to survive despite their tumultuous surroundings.
Chapter two was most compelling for Wright’s reading of Harriet Wilson’s 1859 novel, Our Nig. In the novel, Frado, transitions through a girlhood of involuntary servitude with an abusive mistress, from a playful prankster to a book learning, seamstress. Frado was determined to excel when she becomes aware of the independence attainable with this new knowledge. Frado leaves her abuser’s home and supports herself by sewing clothes and weaving straw bonnets. Wright cited Frado’s transition as Wilson’s suggestion that “refinement through formal education was as necessary as spirited resistance in order for black girls to survive in the antebellum North.” Wilson, additionally, characterized the knowledge of sewing as an alternative form of education and a profitable source of income for poor black women. [1] Wright gives several other examples of black women writers who write about spunky, determined, flawed young black girls and their educational pursuits. However, it would have been equally helpful to understand if these sentiments of sewing as alternative form of education and a profitable source of income for poor black women were truly prominent with this population of black women in the urban north. From previous readings I understood sewing or needlework to be a part of the educational curriculum in schools and by tutors for girls in learning domestic arts. This was the first source I have read which considered sewing an “alternative” form of education. I still want to finish the Epilogue for this book and will be probing Wright’s bibliography for additional sources to continue my research.
If you have a moment, please check out this book for Wright’s thoughtfully researched and crafted intervention into nineteenth century African American literature through a black girlhood lens. I assure you it will be worth the read!
[1] Nazera Sadiq Wright, Black Girlhood in the Nineteenth Century (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2016), 83.
