Accomplished: African-American Women in Victorian America (Abridged, Annotated)

"A race, no less than a nation, is prosperous in proportion to the intelligence of its women." (M.A. Majors, 1893)

Reconstruction after the Civil War was a fraught with overwhelming new challenges for millions of African Americans, not all of whom were recently-emancipated slaves. The next 100 years would see a struggle for American citizens to claim full citizenship and to end the reign of terror that accompanied emancipation.

Yet flourishing in this cauldron of oppression were people who, d...