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Title
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Shining Stars: African American Women Authors of the Civil War Era
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Read Online
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Abstract
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Through its extensive collections of primary sources (over 140 full-text publications; over 100 images; over 130 full-text newspaper articles), Shining Stars: African American Women Authors of the Civil War Era introduces and expands the user’s knowledge of lesser-known Civil War-era African American women authors. While it was illegal for the vast majority of African Americans to learn how to read or write during this time (1861-1865), an early African-American print culture did exist and Black women played a foundational role. This project categorizes and makes fully-accessible lesser-known historic African American texts, speeches, essays, and periodicals, all authored by Civil War-era African American women. These diverse women produced works that embraced their individual challenges, triumphs, politics, and spirituality. As activists during a time when challenges seemed insurmountable, these women stood up, spoke up, and responded to difficult circumstances. They had no rights, no encouragement, and no role models; yet, their lives and writings are a source to encourage women today to continue to fight for social justice. The lives and writings of the women collected in this project reflect the struggles of their day and serve as a contemporary inspiration for activism.
Shining Stars also offers an exhibit, “Three Freedom Seekers.” The exhibit looks at the autobiographies of Lucy Delaney, Ellen Craft, and Elizabeth Keckley to illustrate the forward thinking and resilience of these women and expand our knowledge of African American history by documenting their business savvy to gain their freedom. These texts identify in previously unseen ways the experience of Black women in the 19th century.
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Keywords
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Historical Studies, Literary Studies, African American Studies, Women Studies, Documents, Images, Database
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Author
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Lavonda Kay Broadnax
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Bio
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Lavonda Kay Broadnax is an independent researcher who retired from the Library of Congress. The catalyst for this project was a desire to create a “handout” for FREED (Female Re-enactors of Distinction). This is an organization of women associated with the African American Civil War Memorial Museum. Her initial compilation of African American women authors of the Civil War-era won the American Library Association’s Zora Neale Hurston Award, which is granted for leadership in promoting African American literature. The winning compilation resides on the Library of Congress website as African American Women Authors of the Civil War Era: A Resource Guide. Ms. Broadnax was a participant of the Black Book Interactive Project's Scholars III, which focused on digital humanities concepts and provided access to the HBW Novel Corpus of Black-authored texts. She earned her B.A. from Oberlin College and her M.S.L.S. from Case Western Reserve University.
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African American Women Authors of the Civil War Era Resource Guide
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Platform
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Omeka S
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Bibliographic Citation
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Broadnax, Lavonda Kay. “Shining Stars: African American Women Authors of the Civil War Era.” Illinois Open Publishing Network, 2025. https://doi.org/10.21900/pww.27
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Review
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“Shining Stars…is a welcome and important addition to a growing constellation of projects focusing on Black women authors, Black women’s intellectual history, and Black women’s writing during the Civil War Era. Broadnax’s opening gambit, “it is unusual to anticipate the existence of publications written by African Americans” from the Civil War era, echoes a tradition of bibliographers challenging scholarly presumptions about absences….Broadnax has provided a wonderful service to the fields of African American literary studies, Civil War studies, print culture, and digital humanities.”
Derrick R. Spires, University of Delaware
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