Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Published in 1861 under a pseudonym, this autobiography is a unique account of the struggles and sexual abuse that enslaved women faced. Up until the 1980s, the book was widely dismissed as fiction. But it is not. For decades now, Harriet Jacobs has been recognized as a central figure of abolitionist literature, but her book is also filled with radical feminist ideas. She is an icon of female resistance.