3.3: “Learning to Read” -- Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Before Reading

1.

What do you know about the poet Frances Ellen Watkins Harper?

2.

What does the title of her poem “Learning to Read” make you think of? Reflect on your own experiences.

3.

Read to find out about Frances Ellen Watkins Harper and her message withing the poem “Learning to Read.”

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper - 1825-1911

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was born on September 24, 1825 in Baltimore, Maryland, and raised by her aunt and uncle. A poet, novelist, and journalist, she was also a prominent abolitionist and temperance and women's suffrage activist. She traveled to multiple states to lecture and give speeches about these issues.

In May 1866, she delivered the speech, "We Are All Bound Up Together" at the National Women's Rights Convention in New York, sharing the stage with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. "You white women speak here of rights," she said. "I speak of wrongs."

With Margaret Murray Washington, the wife of Booker T. Washington, Harriet Tubman, and other prominent African American women, she helped found the National Association of Colored Women and served as its vice president in 1897.

She authored numerous books, including the poetry collections Forest Leaves (1845) and Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects (Merrihew & Thompson, 1854), the novel Iola Leroy, or Shadows Uplifted (Garrigues Brothers,1892), and several short stories. Before marrying Fenton Harper, a widower, with whom she had a daughter, she worked at Union Seminary in Ohio, where she taught sewing.

She died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on February 22, 1911.

“Learning to Read”

Very soon the Yankee teachers

Came down and set up school;

But, oh! how the Rebs did hate it,—

It was agin' their rule.

Our masters always tried to hide

Book learning from our eyes;

Knowledge didn't agree with slavery—

'Twould make us all too wise.

But some of us would try to steal

A little from the book,

And put the words together,

And learn by hook or crook.

I remember Uncle Caldwell,

Who took pot-liquor fat

And greased the pages of his book,

And hid it in his hat.

And had his master ever seen

The leaves up on his head,

He'd have thought them greasy papers,

But nothing to be read.

And there was Mr. Turner's Ben,

Who heard the children spell,

And picked the words right up by heart,

And learned to read 'em well.

Well, the Northern folks kept sending

The Yankee teachers down;

And they stood right up and helped us,

Though Rebs did sneer and frown.

And, I longed to read my Bible,

For precious words it said;

But when I begun to learn it,

Folks just shook their heads,

And said there is no use trying,

Oh! Chloe, you're too late;

But as I was rising sixty,

I had no time to wait.

So I got a pair of glasses,

And straight to work I went,

And never stopped till I could read

The hymns and Testament.

Then I got a little cabin—

A place to call my own—

And I felt as independent

As the queen upon her throne.

After Reading

1. Why do you think Frances Ellen Watkins Harper titled the poem “Learning to Read”?

2. What was Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s message?”

3. What parts of the critical literacy framework do you see in the poem?