Description: Harriet Ann Jacob's autobiography documents her life as a slave and how she attained freedom for herself and her children. Harrowing in its descriptions of sexual abuse, Jacob's slave narrative is notable for the appeal it made to abolitionist women to open their eyes to the realities of slavery. Deemed too shocking for reading audiences at the time, the book was shelved before it was published in 1861 near the start of the Civil War.
Brief description: Harriet Ann Jacobs (1813-1897) was an African-American writer who escaped from slavery and became an abolitionist speaker and reformer. Her autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, was one of the first slave narratives to explore female slaves' struggles with sexual harassment and abuse and described their efforts to protect themselves and their children.