Harriet Jacobs and Harriet Wilson Contributed to the Women's Cannon

In the 1850's, historians claimed a diversified literary realm saw realism competing with romanticism, popular sentimentalism influencing public policy and private thinking as much as utopian cultural analysis appeared to do, and the writing of women achieved an insight equal to that of the writing of men. In spite of such claims, American literature tradition became synonymous with white male writing. During this time, out of thousands of slave narratives written and orally transmitted, fewer than thirty pieces were written by black women and published during their lifetimes. Two of the most influential women authors are Harriet A. Jacobs and Harriet E. Wilson. Some historians agree that Harriet Jacobs was the only black woman author to publish a book-length slave narrative; whereas Harriet Wilson was the first published black woman novelist. Such a privileged position in the history of American literature would appear as an acceptance into the canon. However, others maintain that skeptical scholars excluded Jacobs and Wilson from the African American canon because of their "self-conscious appropriation of the nineteenth century fictional conventions" which was familiar to women readers (Samuels 260).

Today, scholars are unearthing and reevaluating a number of works of African American women. Harriet Jacob's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself and Harriet Wilson's Our Nig or Sketches From the Life of a Free Black, are two works which have been rediscovered. These two women were nearly obliterated because of the ultimate restriction placed upon authors: question of authenticity. Most critics questioned the authorship because the point of view and the excellent style used by both Harriets were considered to be more like white women work (Samuels 260). Such an unproven restriction nearly destroyed their work.