num_pages: 224
description: The Elizabeth Keckley Volume One--Writing Self Writing Nation  edited by Sheila Smith McKoy offers a collection of essays and other works inspired by the life of Elizabeth Keckley a slave in Hillsborough North Carolina who eventually bought her freedom. She became a noted seamstress in Civil War-era Washington DC and was most famously the confidante of Mary Lincoln. Keckley s memoir Behind the Or Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House  is considered one of the seminal narratives of mid-19th century African American women. Scholar Sheila Smith McKoy assembles a wide variety of works published about Keckley. The Elizabeth Keckley Reader examines her life as a determined woman who overcame the horrors of the institution of slavery to become a successful entrepreneur community leader educator author and friend to the First Lady of the United States. In essays articles and creative works Keckley is viewed through the lens of entrepreneur advocate civic leader educator author as well as a former slave. The comprehensive volume illuminates the life and work of this remarkable 19th-century African American woman.
language: English
title: The Elizabeth Keckley Reader: Volume One
publisher: Eno Publishers