Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that answer the question.
Query: What are Harriet Ann Jacobs accomplishments?
Harriet Ann Jacobs (February 11, 1813 – March 7, 1897) was an African-American writer who escaped from slavery and was later freed. She became an abolitionist speaker and reformer. Jacobs wrote an autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, first serialized in a newspaper and published as a book in 1861 under the pseudonym Linda Brent. It was a reworking of the genres of slave narrative and sentimental novel, and was one of the first books to address the struggle for freedom by female slaves, explore their struggles with sexual harassment and abuse, and their effort to protect their roles as women and mothers.
Three months before she died in 1825, Jacobs' mistress Margaret Horniblow had signed a will leaving her slaves to her mother. Dr. James Norcom and a man named Henry Flury witnessed a later codicil to the will directing that the girl Harriet be left to Norcom's daughter Mary Matilda, Horniblow's five-year-old niece. The codicil was not signed by Margaret Horniblow.[2] Norcom became Harriet's de facto master.
According to records, Louisa Jacobs worked in a hospital throughout the Civil War.[2]
In the early years of the war, abolitionists were disturbed that Lincoln directed troops "to avoid any destruction of property," and they did not know what he was going to do about slavery. Unsure of what was to come, John S. Jacobs did not want to return to the United States until the government decided to abolish slavery. Many English had strong business ties to the South; southern cotton supplied British textile mills; and in addition to economic ties, aristocrats and others had some sympathies for the South. There was a threat that Great Britain might enter the war on the side of the Confederacy. John Jacobs stayed in London until the US government indicated it was serious about ending slavery. By January 14, 1862, John had already sold fifty copies of the narrative and stayed only two more weeks in England.
Harriet Jacobs became less active in her later years, but supported her daughter and others in working for education of African Americans. Recently discovered letters written by her daughter, Louisa Matilda Jacobs, reveal aspects of her later life in 1880s and 1890s Washington, D.C.[17] She died in 1897 in Washington, DC. and was buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her headstone reads: "Patient in tribulation, fervent in spirit serving the Lord".[18]
On 10 June 1808, Harriet Keyser, Isaac Jacob's daughter, wrote to David Samuels, manager at her father's glass factory. Harriet is planning a party, and asks David to send her a set of glassware. What was a party plan two hundred years ago is now an important historical document. The letter tells what glass Jacobs' company was manufacturing. The list includes blue and clear glass, as well as 'gilt-edged' glass. Harriet asks for a decanter, a jug, champagne glasses and 'finger cups', as well as glassware for lemonade and jelly. This might be the 'Dessert set' that Isaac's advertising campaign describes as 'burnished gold upon royal purple coloured glass', which they 'had the honour of sending to their Majesties'. Isaac's purple glass is on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
In February, 1867, Charles Lenox Remond, a prominent abolitionist, and Jacobs spoke to audiences in Johnstown, New York, thanks to arrangements made by Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
Details of Charlotte Forten Grimké's health and travels during the 1880s and 1890s are documented in the recently discovered letters of Louisa M. Jacobs, daughter of fugitive-slave-narrative author, Harriet Ann Jacobs.
Boston publishing house Phillips and Samson agreed to print Jacobs' autobiography, if she could convince Willis or Harriet Beecher Stowe to provide a preface, which they thought would help sales. She refused to ask Willis for help and Stowe turned her down. As it happened, the Phillips and Samson company soon closed shop.[14]
Norcom sexually harassed Harriet when she was still a child. He refused to allow her to marry, regardless of the man's status. Hoping to escape his attentions, Jacobs took Samuel Sawyer, a free white lawyer, as a consensual lover. Sawyer was later elected as a member of the US House of Representatives. With Sawyer, she had two children, Joseph and Louisa Matilda Jacobs. Because she was enslaved, their biracial children were enslaved at birth by Norcom.[4] Harriet later wrote that Norcom threatened to sell her children if she refused his sexual advances, but she continued to evade him.
In May, 1864, Jacobs wrote to the editors of American Baptist requesting help with the "Free Mission", an anti-slavery group. She wanted to collect clothing and basic necessities for the freedmen.[2]
Shockley, Ann Allen. Afro-American Women Writers 1746–1933: An Anthology and Critical Guide, New Haven, Connecticut: Meridian Books, 1989. ISBN0-452-00981-2 Yellin, Jean Fagan. Harriet Jacobs: A Life. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Basic Civitas Books, 2004. ISBN0-465-09288-8
Starting in January, 1861, the United States suffered break-up; South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas all seceded from the Union. The first six were the states that had the highest percentage of slaves to the total population among the 15 slave-holding states. In February, representatives from the southern states elected Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederacy. At this time, Harriet Jacobs and her editor, Lydia Maria Child, were trying to sell Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. They wrote to authors and editors of newspapers, to bookstore owners and to friends or frequent correspondents; they wanted anyone to advertise or sell Jacobs' narrative.
In late 1852 or early 1853, Amy Post suggested that Jacobs should write her life story. She also suggested that Jacobs contact the author Harriet Beecher Stowe, who was working on A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin. When Stowe wanted to use Jacobs' history in her own book, Jacobs decided to write her own account.[8] She wrote secretly at night, in a nursery in the Willis' Idlewild estate.
In May, 1861, John S. Jacobs, Harriet's younger brother, was in London to publish a condensed version of her narrative called A True Tale of Slavery. This book covered much of Harriet Jacobs' story, but it excluded the account of sexual harassment. John Jacobs' goal was to focus on slavery as an institution, trying to convince the people of England to support the Union. Not long after he published his narrative, the Civil War began in April, 1861 with the firing on Fort Sumter in South Carolina.
After being overshadowed by the American Civil War, the book was rediscovered in the late 20th century, when there was new interest in minority and women writers. One scholar (Jean Fagan Yellin) researched the book, identifying Harriet Jacobs as the author and documenting many events and people in her life that corresponded to this autobiographical account.
Harriet Ann Jacobs was born into slavery in Edenton, North Carolina, in 1813.[1] Her father was Elijah Knox, an enslaved biracial house carpenter owned by Andrew Knox. Elijah was said to be the son of Athena Knox, who was enslaved, and a white farmer, Henry Jacobs.[2] Harriet's mother was Delilah Horniblow, an enslaved black woman held by John Horniblow, a tavern owner. Under the principle of partus sequitur ventrem, both Harriet and her brother John were enslaved at birth, as their mother's status was passed to her children. Paternity from a free person—of any race—would not alter their status, according to law. Harriet lived with her mother until Delilah's death around 1819, when Harriet was six.[3] Then she lived with her mother's mistress, Margaret Horniblow, who taught Harriet to read, write and sew.
Author Robin Hazard Ray cited Harriet Jacobs' Incidents as an inspiration for her own 2015 novel The Strangers' Tomb, set in 1850s Massachusetts.[22]
Thiselton-Dyer was also known as an accomplished gardener. In 1905 the Thiselton-Dyers moved to the Cotswolds. When her husband died in 1928, Harriet moved to Devonshire, where she died in 1945.
On October 1, 1850, John S. Jacobs' speech was quoted in Meetings of Colored Citizens. Following Congressional passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, both John and Harriet Jacobs feared for each other's safety, as legally they were still escaped slaves. The new law increased pressure to capture people who escaped slavery and required cooperation from officials and citizens of free states. The Jacobs' siblings left Rochester and returned to New York City. Furious about the act, John wanted to leave the country. When he heard that the new state of California did not enforce the act, he decided to go there. He worked in the gold mines during the Gold Rush, where he was joined in 1852 by Joseph Jacobs, Harriet's son and his nephew.
Jacobs was born in Edenton, North Carolina, on October 19, 1833, to Samuel Tredwell Sawyer (a congressman and newspaper editor) and Harriet Ann Jacobs (mistress of Sawyer), at a time when Harriet was a slave under the ownership Dr. James Norcom. Louisa also had an older brother, Joseph Jacobs, born in 1829. Harriet Jacobs had been sexually harassed by Norcom for many years, but she continually refused his advances and mistakenly hoped that her relationship with Sawyer would be a deterrent to Norcom. As Harriet continued to refuse Norcom's advances, Norcom began to threaten her children in anticipation of coercing Harriet into a sexual relationship, and she became increasingly fearful for them. Harriet chose to escape when Louisa was two years old in hopes that Norcom would sell Louisa and Joseph into a safer situation. Harriet's hopes proved correct when Samuel Sawyer (the children's father) purchased the children from Norcom and sent Louisa to live with her great-grandmother Molly, then taking her to Washington, D.C. before sending her to live with a cousin in Brooklyn, New York. From Brooklyn, Harriet located Louisa and fled to Boston with her. 
In 1860 Jacobs signed an agreement with the Thayer and Eldridge publishing house, which requested a preface by Lydia Maria Child.[14] Child also became involved in editing the manuscript, and the company introduced her to Jacobs. The two women remained in contact for much of their lives. Thayer and Eldridge published the book in 1861.
In 1865, Lydia Maria Child presented pages of Harriet Jacobs' narrative in The Freedmen's Book. She modified and republished certain passages from Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Child emphasized the role of Jacobs' grandmother, focusing on her devotion and hard work. Such an account gave newly freed people an uplifting view to help them deal with their freedom.[2]
Harriet Jacobs: A Life was published in 2004 by Jean Fagan Yellin.
In 2017 Jacobs was the subject of an episode of the Futility Closet Podcast, where her experience living in a crawlspace was compared with the wartime experience of Patrick Fowler.[23]