Strangers and Neighbors

Abstract This initial chapter introduces the methods, materials, and thematic frames of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s Civil War and Reconstruction and summarizes the other chapters. It argues for a comprehensive archival approach that avoids the traps of traditional biography. It considers how, using a method of “stranger biography” and gathering traces of Harper’s life during the Civil War and Reconstruction from diverse underutilized sources can allow insight into her public voice in print and oral modes. Using examples drawn from Harper’s “National Salvation” (a lecture she gave in 1867 that was not rediscovered until 2017), as well as her struggles against transit discrimination and information surrounding her estate, it argues that Harper’s public work centered on conceptions of itinerancy, neighborliness, friendship, and intersectional mutuality. Harper hoped that the United States would use Reconstruction to create a nation that would function as an ideal neighborhood—a center of diversity, equity, care, and progress.