HARPER AT 200

MARY HARPER

A photograph of Mary E. Harper appears in the 1895 version of Atlanta Offering. See Harper, Frances Ellen Watkins. Atlanta Offering: Poems. Philadelphia: 1006 Bainbridge Street, 1895. HathiTrust. Digitized by Emory University.

When Mary Harper was born in 1862, the Union was experiencing one of the worst economic downturns in decades. The Civil War had depleted the Union’s reserves a year into the conflict. Two years later, with the war still ongoing, Fenton Harper died, leaving the Harper family in severe financial distress. Frances Harper left Ohio with Mary to go back to the East Coast, and for the rest of their lives, they lived together.

As Martha S. Jones notes, Mary studied elocution at National School of Elocution and Oratory and later traveled across the country, giving addresses and reciting poems.[1] Mary Harper thus followed her mother’s footsteps literally and figuratively, as she too built a career as a teacher and speaker. Her addresses were well received; one newspaper article notes that her address at the AME Zion Church in Philadelphia “was a complete elocutionary success.”[2] Another report noted that “All present were more than pleased with the entertainment, and Miss Harper [Mary] can well feel flattered with her success as an elocutionist.”[3] Mary accompanied her mother as the Frances gave speeches in her old age, at times reciting Frances’s poems and introducing her before she took the podium. 

Mary Harper died at age 46 on November 18, 1908 in Pennsylvania Hospital. Her death certificate notes “enlargement of the liver” and “oscites oedema” as causes of death.[4] Both were possibly caused by an underlying cancer although the certificate does not confirm this. With no children of her own, Mary’s death meant that Frances Harper has no direct descendants. Frances died three years later, perhaps still racked by the sorrow of losing her only family and companion. 

REFERENCES

[1] Kate Clark Lemay and Martha S.Jones, “The hidden story of two African-American women looking out from the pages of a 19th-century book,” The Conversation, September 9, 2019, https://theconversation.com/the-hidden-story-of-two-african-american-women-looking-out-from-the-pages-of-a-19th-century-book-118243.  

[2] “Miss Mary E. Harper,” The Democratic Age, March 31, 1885. 

[3] “Miss Mary E. Harper,” The York Daily, March 31, 1885. 

[4] Harper, Mary E. Death Certificate for Mary E. Harper, November 18, 1908. Certificate no. 110683. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Bureau of Vital Statistics. Digital Copy. 

CREDITS

Written by Samantha de Vera