OpenGLAM Pick of the Week: The Poetess

February is African American History Month, and this week’s OpenGLAM Pick of the Week celebrates the first African-American woman to have her work published: Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784).

Wheatley was born in West Africa in 1753, and arrived in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States via a slave ship named Phillis, on July 11, 1761. She was owned by a wealthy couple, John and Susanna Wheatley, who named the eight year old slave girl after the boat she arrived on. Phillis was tutored by the couples children, learning how to read and write. She started writing poetry, which was published by local Boston newspapers. Her work was celebrated by George Washington, who invited her to the White House in 1776, to thank her for her poem, “To His Excellency, George Washington.”

While Wheatley’s poetry was celebrated and recognized, she would go on to live a life of struggle and poverty. She became a free woman in 1778, married, and her two infant children died. She could not financially afford to get her work published. Her husband was put in prison for debt, and Wheatley was forced, for the first time, to work as a domestic laborer, which she had not experienced while enslaved (unlike most enslaved women). She died at the age of 31, in 1784.

Her legacy leaves us with unique insight into the life and interests of a woman who found more support and celebration while shackled by slavery, than she did when she was free. Her poetry features elements of Christianity, pagan religion that she brought with her from Africa, and classical elements, which she discovered as a young woman learning to read Greek and Latin classics.

You can learn more about Phillis Wheatley at our sister project, the Public Domain Review, and through her Wikipedia article.