Woman’s Era: A Catalyst for Literary Activism and the Social Evolution of Nineteenth-Century Black Clubwomen

Abstract:By the late nineteenth century, Black women used poetry, short stories, novels, and nonfiction to confront a white, patriarchal society and protest the lynchings of Black people and voting disenfranchisement of Black women. Woman’s Era became the first periodical written by and for Black women, which preserved a piece of intellectual strategy as elite Black clubwomen’s marketplace of ideas. This article explores the contributions of Woman’s Era, which also was the first to integrate into one journal various literary forms, thereby lending credence globally to many voices regularly overlooked by the white and male-dominated Black press. Their writings were a form of literary activism helping to legitimize Black women as change agents who fought socially and politically for their communities and collective rights as enfranchised citizens. This article complements the historical canon about Black clubwomen’s social and political contributions through literary interventions in their communities, states, nation, and the world.