Endings and Not

Abstract Challenging how traditional biography treats “endings” and reflecting on the comparative dearth of source material from the mid- and late 1870s, Chapter 7 considers how, as key Reconstruction initiatives were swept aside, Harper seemed to turn away from commenting on race and toward emphasizing temperance—seen most notably in the lack of overt discussion of race in her serialized novel Sowing and Reaping (1876–1877). However, rereading Sowing alongside Harper’s series of “Fancy Etchings”/“Fancy Sketches” for the Christian Recorder and her repeated delivery of a lecture titled “The Colored Women of America” confirms suggestions by scholars of Black print culture like Frances Smith Foster and DoVeanna Fulton that Harper’s temperance work was all about linking an ethos of neighborliness, intersectional mutuality, caring, and restraint to a broad palette of sociopolitical issues, especially those facing African Americans—issues she would revisit long after Reconstruction, including in Iola Leroy.