African American Women's Writings in the Woman's Building Library

This article surveys six African American women whose work was represented in the Woman's Building Library exhibit at the Columbian Exposition: Elleanor Eldridge, Victoria Earle, A. Julia Foote, Frances Harper, Henrietta Cordelia Ray, and T. T Purvis. These women's writings cover a variety of genres and styles from novels, short stories, poems, sketches, autobiographies, rhymes, and essays that address such topics as suffrage, partnership, a woman's marital rights, and black enterprise and entrepreneurship.