Sarah Louisa Forten Purvis

Sarah Louisa Forten Purvis (1814–1883) was a poet and abolitionist.

Sarah Louisa Forten Purvis
Born
Sarah Louisa Forten

1814 (1814)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Died1883 (aged 68–69)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
NationalityAmerican
Other namesAda, Magawisca
OccupationWriter, abolitionist
Spouse(s)Joseph Purvis
Parents
RelativesHarriet Forten Purvis (sister), Margaretta Forten (sister)

Biography

Purvis née Forten was born in 1814 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[1][2] She was one of the "Forten Sisters" consisting of three of the daughters of Charlotte Vandine Forten and James Forten: Sarah, Harriet Forten Purvis (1810–1875), and Margaretta Forten (1808–1875). The sisters, along with their mother, Charlotte Vandine Forten, formed the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1833.[3]

Sarah was a poet. She used pen names, "Ada" and "Magawisca", as well as her own name.[4] She is credited with writing "The Grave of the Slave" which was published in 1831 in the abolitionist newspaper the Liberator. That poem was subsequently set to music by Frank Johnson.[5] The song was often used as an anthem at antislavery gatherings.[4] She is also credited with writing "An Appeal to Woman," published in the Liberator in 1834.[3]

In 1838 Sarah married Joseph Purvis with whom she had eight children.[3] Joseph Purvis was the brother of Robert Purvis, who was the husband of Sarah's sister Harriet.[1]

She died in 1883.[5][6]

Education

Sarah and her sisters received private educations and were members of the Female Literary Association, a sisterhood of Black women founded by Sarah Mapps Douglass, another woman of a prominent abolitionist family in Philadelphia. Sarah began her literary legacy through this organization where she anonymously developed essays and poems.[7]

Misattribution of some works

The pen name "Ada" was taken up by another poet, Eliza Earle Hacker (1807–1846), a Quaker abolitionist from Rhode Island. A case has been made that the two poets have been confused on occasion because, although of different races, both women were ardent abolitionists writing during the same era, on the same topic. Specifically, Ada's poem "Lines: Suggested on Reading 'An Appeal to Christian Women of the South' by Angelina Grimké," was most likely written by Hacker but often attributed to Forten and included in African-American writing anthologies.[4]

References
  1. "Sarah Louisa Forten Purvis (1814–1883)". FineAncestry. Retrieved February 21, 2019.
  2. "Purvis, Sarah Louisa Forten : African American National Biography". African American National Biography. Oxford Index. doi:10.1093/aasc/9780195301731.013.1713 (inactive January 10, 2021). Retrieved February 21, 2019.CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of January 2021 (link)
  3. "Purvis, Sarah Forten (c. 1811–c. 1898)". Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved February 21, 2019.
  4. Gernes, Todd S. (June 1998). "Poetic Justice: Sarah Forten, Eliza Earle, and the Paradox of Intellectual Property". The New England Quarterly. 71 (2): 229–265. doi:10.2307/366504. JSTOR 366504.
  5. "The Forten Sisters". History of American Women. January 25, 2017. Retrieved February 21, 2019.
  6. "Africans in America/Part 3/The Forten Women". pbs.org. Retrieved February 21, 2019.
  7. American poets and poetry : from the colonial era to the present. Gray, Jeffrey, 1944-, Balkun, Mary McAleer, McCorkle, James. Santa Barbara, California. ISBN 978-1-61069-831-3. OCLC 890912391.CS1 maint: others (link)
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.