American Feminist Literature

Greta Ertzgard, Katie Kloos, And Laura Hungerford

The Importance of American Feminist

Writers…Books added to reform movements…like that of women’s suffrage and independence

Shed light on subjects like abuse, tolerance, individuality, equality, etc.

Influenced other women to write

Feminist Writers…

Maya Angelou

Lorraine Hansberry

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Louisa May Alcott

Maya AngelouBorn: April 4, 1928

Parents divorced when she was 3 and she and her brother were sent to live with her grandmother in Arkansas.

Visiting her mother and her boyfriend

High School (scholarship, dropped out, pregnant)

Guy

At age 16 she left home with her son and worked as a waitress to raise her son.

She still had a passion for dance, music, and drama.

Maya Angelou (cont.)Married Tosh Angelou, the marriage did not last long.

Maya Angelou was the name she used when she started singing at a nightclub.

First album in 1957

Moved to New York to work on writing

Very involved with Civil Right Movements (Martin Luther King Jr.)

I Know why the Caged Bird Sings: Arkansas- Guy

National Figure

Lorraine HansberryMay 19, 1930- January 12, 1965

Parents active in civil rights

1938 move to new neighborhood

University of Wisconsin

Freedom the newspaper

Robert Nemiroff

Lorraine Hansberry (cont.)

Writing

The Raisin in the Sun

Cancer

divorce

Harriet Beecher Stowe

1811-1896

Most famous work: Uncle Tom’s Cabin

What People Influenced Her Life

Harriet’s family of abolitionists definitely influenced her

Her father was a minister, president of Lane Theological Seminary, was strong in his faith and believed in education

Youngest sister, Isabella, was involved in the suffrage movement

Catharine Beecher (sister) had a huge impact. She founded schools for young women and was an author

Who influenced Harriet (cont.)

Husband Calvin Stowe supported her writing (unusual for her time). He was also a minister.

“God has written in His book that you must be a literary woman, and who are we to go against God?”

-Calvin Stowe

Events that inspired Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Civil War tension

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

Death of Harriet’s son, Charley, in 1850

Louisa May Alcott

1832-1888

19th century writer of Little Women

Louisa May Alcott

Born: November 29, 1832 in Germantown, PA

Had three sisters…Anna, Elizabeth, and May

Educated by her father, a transcendentalist, and her mother, a well-known abolitionist, suffragist, and the first paid social worker in MA

Grew up in Boston and Concord because of her parents transcendentalist friends

Tomboy…

A passion for writing…

Began story-telling with her sisters

She would always play the vivacious characters

Family’s poverty caused her to vow to help them out with her story-telling

Had many jobs to support her family

1st works published in magazines

Themes included family relationships, self-reliance, and perseverance

Alcott… (cont.)Famous Works

1st book- Flowers and Fables (1854)

Hospital Sketches

• Most well-known book, Little Women, written when her publisher requested her to write a “book for girls”

Influences

• Experiences as a nurse during the Civil War, at Union Hospital

• Growing up with her sisters

• Family poverty

Works Cited• http://www.fofweb.com/NuHistory/default.asp?

ItemID=WE42&NewItemID=True

• http://www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/life/#writer

• http://www.fofweb.com/NuHistory/default.asp?ItemID=WE42&NewItemID=True

• www.mayaangelou.com

• http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/ang0bio-1

• http://womenshistory.about.com/odlaframewriters/p/hansberry.htm

• http://afroamhistory.about.com/od/lorrainehnsberry/p/bio_hansberry_1.tm