“The dream of my life is not yet realized…I still long for a hearthstone of my own.” (Harriet Jacobs in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861).
In 1852, Harriet Jacobs became legally free, but not independent as she yearned. She continued her job as nursemaid for the family of Nathaniel Parker Willis, then editor of the trend-setting magazine Home Journal and one of the country’s most famous authors. The needs of the Willises usually took precedence over her own.
When the family moved to Cornwall, in Orange County, NY, she went too. There, in fits and starts, over the course of more than five years, she wrote the book about her life still read today – Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. [Read more…] about ‘Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl’: Harriet Jacobs in Orange County, New York (Conclusion)