Reconstructing an Abolitionist Voice

Abstract Chapter 3 considers Harper’s re-entry into a full public career after her husband Fenton’s death in 1864, with emphasis on how, as the Civil War ended, she shifted from war-centered speeches to discussion of what might follow. In this, it asks how an abolitionist lecturer—especially a Black woman abolitionist lecturer—might pivot after the United States abolished chattel slavery. It uses lectures like “The Mission of the War” and “The Perils of Victory and Peace” to explore how Harper began to sketch a vision of Reconstruction, and it examines how Harper reconfigured her networks and engaged with Black and reform print venues to create occasions for her lectures. It concludes by discussing her reissue of Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects in the new, postwar cultural moment. In all, it explores Harper’s use of neighborliness and intersectional mutuality as she focused more and more on broad civil rights work beyond abolition.