Acknowledgments ix
A Note on Language xv
Introduction 1
1. The Politics of Sex and Representation in Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl 19
Eenie, Meenie, Minie, Moe, Abuser, Victim, Ally, Foe? 21
Confession and Commodities, Silence and Sale 24
Sexual Truth, Testimony, and Tyranny 29
Flint, Sands, and Willis: South to North, Daddies to Dandies 33
Aunt Martha's Mask 36
2. Naming Our Nig's Multivalent Mothers 43
Extended Family: Aunties' Place and Property 51
Ma' Nig and Maternal Abandonment 57
Multivalent Mulattas and Legal Racing 60
(Un)Trustworthy Narrators and Multiple Starts 65
3. Reading White Slavery, Sexuality, and Embedded History in Frances E. W. Harper's Iola Leroy 73
Cultural Literacy, Legible Transcripts, and Reading "Aright" in the 1890s 76
Forced Prostitution, Rape, and White Slavery's Double Meanings 80
Ida B. Wells, Frances Harper, and the Two Iolas 90
Martin Delany, Lucy A. Delaney, and Iola's Lucille Delany 96
Petitioning Science, or Martin Delany and Dr. Frank, George and Lewis Latimer 102
4. Reading/Photographs: Emma Dunham Kelley-Hawkins's Four Girls at Cottage City, Victoria Earle Matthews, and the Woman's Era 113
Reading/Photographs 116
Women's Clubs and Literary Critique 126
The Woman's Era Photographic Bylines 129
Victoria Earle and Vera Earle 132
Optic History 137
5. Home Protection, Literary Aggression, and Religious Defense in the Life and Writings of Amelia E. Johnson 138
Public Standing and Civic Action of Amelia E. Johnson 141
Women, the Law, and Baltimore's Brotherhood of Liberty 148
Racial Inequalities, or Snatching the Whip and Switching the Script 157
Temperance and Bad Parental Temperaments 164
Coda: On Burials and Exhumations 173
Notes 179
Bibliography 221
Index 241