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charlotekerstenauthor's review against another edition
(Cw abuse and sexual violence) I'm taking a whole star off of this because of how mad it made me when Yellin stated that Jacobs' impassioned hatred for her master -the man who sexually, emotionally, verbally and physically abused and harassed her and her family for years, in addition to, you know, owning her and exerting control over every aspect of her life- was probably so intense because of the psychological side effects of her time in hiding. Are you kidding me with this, Yellin? Fuck right off.
Other than that one bewilderingly stupid take, this is a great biography of a remarkable woman - Harriet Jacobs was a formerly-enslaved black woman who fought for her freedom and that of her children and authored the first American female slave narrative. In addition to this, I learned in this biography that she was also incredibly active in the support of black refugees during and after the Civil War. For years people assumed that Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was a fictional work, until Yellin made the connection between Jacobs and Incidents and dedicated decades to studying her life.
Other than that one bewilderingly stupid take, this is a great biography of a remarkable woman - Harriet Jacobs was a formerly-enslaved black woman who fought for her freedom and that of her children and authored the first American female slave narrative. In addition to this, I learned in this biography that she was also incredibly active in the support of black refugees during and after the Civil War. For years people assumed that Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was a fictional work, until Yellin made the connection between Jacobs and Incidents and dedicated decades to studying her life.
shiradest's review against another edition
5.0
Prof. Yellin has not only brought to life a remarkable woman whose daughter could have 'passed,' but chose not to. Yellin has brought to light, through the life of Harriet Jacobs a series of community connections from the Deep South to Boston which were created and used to help people in the most desperate of circumstances during the overcrowded wartime Federal City.
bloodhoney's review
3.0
The first part was really good; I was excited to learn the real stories behind Jacobs' occasionally simplified or diluted biography. The second part could have been better--quite often I got lost, as it became a "this-then-that-then-she-moved-here" and I lost the thread more easily. I also wish that Yellin had speculated on parts of Jacobs' life, the parts that were not passed down to us, more--she hints that perhaps Jacobs took a lover after she went to freedom, but then also contradicted that view. I was hoping she would delve into Jacobs' narrative a little and speculate on Jacobs' relationship with her children's father and also her relationship with her master--the parts that she skipped over in her original biography and the parts that always worried me as a reader in the 21st century.
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