Abstract
Late nineteenth-century regional American literatures invite inquiries into spatial transformation, because these texts signal the interplay between social and physical spaces. Frances E. W. Harper’s Iola Leroy; or, Shadows Uplifted establishes Southern black communities as representational social spaces that actively transform the Reconstructed South’s landscape by converting former plantations into small homesteads; these Southern black characters reshape the land into a new narrative. Rather than working the land through an oppressive sharecropping system, the black community of C—, North Carolina own their land, participating within a local and regional economy. The decision to emphasize the role of land ownership and community involvement, Harper implicitly recalls the U.S.’s earlier determiners for political enfranchisement; effectively, she argues for the African American community’s inclusion into the national citizenry and its imaginary construction.
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Notes
- 1.
Koritha Mitchell, introduction to Iola Leroy; Or, Shadows Uplifted, ed. Koritha Mitchell (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2019), 13. Like Mitchell and other literary critics, I will use Watkins Harper to note the author’s professional life before and after her marriage to Fenton Harper.
- 2.
Mitchell, introduction, 30–31.
- 3.
Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 1991), 33.
- 4.
Lefebvre, Production, 33.
- 5.
Clifton Ellis and Rebecca Ginsburg, introduction to Cabin, Quarter, Plantation: Architecture and Landscapes of North American Slavery, ed. Clifton Ellis and Rebecca Ginsburg (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 6.
- 6.
Katherine McKittrick, “On Plantations, Prisons, and a Black Sense of Place,” Social & Cultural Geography 12, no. 8 (2011): 948.
- 7.
Lefebvre, Production, 42.
- 8.
Carolyn Finney, Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014), 52.
- 9.
McKittrick, “On Plantations,” 950.
- 10.
Katherine McKittrick, “‘Freedom is a Secret’: The Future Usability of the Underground,” in Black Geographies and the Politics of Place, eds. Katherine McKittrick and Clyde Woods (Cambridge: South End Press, 2007), 102–103.
- 11.
Rebecca Ginsburg, “Escaping Through a Black Landscape” in Cabin, Quarter, Plantation: Architecture and Landscapes of North American Slavery, ed. Clifton Ellis and Rebecca Ginsburg (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 56.
- 12.
Frances E. Watkins Harper, Iola Leroy; Or, Shadows Uplifted, ed. Koritha Mitchell (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2019), 67.
- 13.
Ginsburg, “Escaping,” 63.
- 14.
Watkins Harper, Iola Leroy, 69.
- 15.
Watkins Harper, Iola Leroy, 72.
- 16.
Finney, Reimagining, 55, 64.
- 17.
Watkins Harper, Iola Leroy, 180.
- 18.
Watkins Harper, Iola Leroy, 184.
- 19.
Watkins Harper, Iola Leroy, 89.
- 20.
Watkins Harper, Iola Leroy, 73.
- 21.
Watkins Harper, Iola Leroy, 89.
- 22.
Watkins Harper, Iola Leroy, 69.
- 23.
Finney, Reimagining, 37.
- 24.
Finney, Reimagining, 37.
- 25.
McKittrick, “On Plantations,” 948.
- 26.
Rebecca Edwards, “Politics, Social Movements, and the Periodization of U.S. History,” The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 8, no. 4 (2009): 472.
- 27.
Nina Silber, The Romance of Reunion: Northerners and the South, 1865–1900 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), 140.
- 28.
Watkins Harper, Iola Leroy, 165.
- 29.
Watkins Harper, Iola Leroy, 165.
- 30.
Watkins Harper, Iola Leroy, 167.
- 31.
Elizabeth Young, Disarming the Nation: Women’s Writing and the American Civil War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 229.
- 32.
Watkins Harper, Iola Leroy, 166.
- 33.
Watkins Harper, Iola Leroy, 167–167. Salters/John Andrews has two names within the text. The former is his preferred, “home” name. The latter is his slave name that he used when he enlisted and continues to use in his economic dealings. In this chapter, I will refer to him as Salters.
- 34.
Finney, Reimagining, 37.
- 35.
Koritha Mitchell, footnote to Iola Leroy; Or, Shadows Uplifted, ed. Koritha Mitchell (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2019), 178–179.
- 36.
Watkins Harper, Iola Leroy, 178.
- 37.
Watkins Harper, Iola Leroy, 166–167.
- 38.
Mitchell, footnote to Iola Leroy, 167.
- 39.
Harry L. Golden, “The Jewish People of North Carolina,” The North Carolina Historical Review 32, no. 2 (1955): 204.
- 40.
Watkins Harper, Iola Leroy, 176.
- 41.
Watkins Harper, Iola Leroy, 179.
- 42.
Watkins Harper, Iola Leroy, 167.
- 43.
Watkins Harper, Iola Leroy, 250–251.
- 44.
Leslie Petty, Romancing the Vote: Feminist Activism in American Fiction, 1870–1920 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2006), 66. See also Silber, Romance of Reunion, 181, 185–186; and Young, Disarming, 217.
- 45.
Elizabeth Young, “Warring Fictions: Iola Leroy and the Color of Gender,” American Literature, 64, no. 2 (1992): 287.
- 46.
Watkins Harper, Iola Leroy, 161.
- 47.
Watkins Harper, Iola Leroy, 177
- 48.
Watkins Harper, Iola Leroy, 197.
- 49.
Marilyn Elkins, “‘Reading Beyond the Conventions: A Look at Frances E. W. Harper’s Iola Leroy, or Shadows Uplifted,” American Literary Realism, 1870–1910 22, no. 2 (1990): 50–51.
- 50.
Elkins, “Reading Beyond,” 47.
- 51.
Watkins Harper, Iola Leroy, 201.
- 52.
Watkins Harper, Iola Leroy, 228.
- 53.
Watkins Harper, Iola Leroy, 236.
- 54.
Watkins Harper, Iola Leroy, 249.
Works Cited
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Elkins, Marilyn. “‘Reading Beyond the Conversations: A Look at Frances E. W. Harper’s Iola Leroy, or Shadows Uplifted.” American Literary Realism, 1870–1910 22, no. 2 (1990): 44–53.
Ellis, Clifton, and Rebecca Ginsburg. Introduction to Cabin, Quarter, Plantation: Architecture and Landscapes of North American Slavery, edited by Clifton Ellis and Rebecca Ginsburg, 1–15. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010.
Finney, Carolyn. Reimagining the Relationship of African-Americans to the Great Outdoors. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014.
Ginsburg, Rebecca. “Escaping Through a Black Landscape.” In Cabin, Quarter, Plantation: Architecture and Landscapes of North American Slavery, edited by Clifton Ellis and Rebecca Ginsburg, 51–65. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010.
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Harper, Frances E. W. Iola Leroy; Or, Shadows Uplifted. Edited by Koritha Mitchell. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2019.
Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith. Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 1991.
McKittrick, Katherine. “‘Freedom is a Secret’: The Future Usability of the Underground.” In Black Geographies and the Politics of Place, edited by Katherine McKittrick and Clyde Woods, 97–114. Cambridge: South End Press, 2007.
McKittrick, Katherine. “On Plantations, Prisons, and a Black Sense of Place.” Social & Cultural Geography 12, no. 8 (2011): 947–963.
Mitchell, Koritha. Introduction to Iola Leroy; Or, Shadows Uplifted. Edited by Koritha Mitchell, 13–50. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2019.
Petty, Leslie. Romancing the Vote: Feminist Activism in American Fiction, 1870–1920. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2006.
Silber, Nina. The Romance of Reunion: Northerners and the South, 1865–1900. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993.
Young, Elizabeth. Disarming the Nation: Women’s Writing and the American Civil War. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
Young, Elizabeth. “Warring Fictions: Iola Leroy and the Color of Gender.” American Literature 64, no. 2 (1992): 273–297.
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Lemon, M. (2021). Turning the Earth, Changing the Narrative: Spatial Transformation in Frances E. W. Harper’s Iola Leroy; or, Shadows Uplifted (1892). In: Beck, C. (eds) Mobility, Spatiality, and Resistance in Literary and Political Discourse. Geocriticism and Spatial Literary Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83477-7_8
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