Noted Negro Women: Their Triumphs and Activities is a compilation of biographies of African-American women by Monroe Alpheus Majors published in 1893 in Chicago.Appiah, Anthony, and Henry Louis Gates Jr (eds). Africana: The encyclopedia of the African and African American experience. Oxford University Press, 2005, p. 696. Majors sketched the lives of nearly 300 women, including Edmonia Lewis, Amanda Smith, Ida B. Wells, and Sojourner Truth.Sernett, Milton C. Harriet Tubman: Myth, Memory, and History. Duke University Press, 2007, p. 165. Majors began to compile the book in Waco, Texas, in 1890.Smith, Jessie Carney. Black firsts: 4,000 ground-breaking and pioneering historical events. Visible Ink Press, 2012, p. 619. He hoped to show the worth of black women for themselves and as an expression of the value of all African Americans.White, Deborah Gray, "The Cost of Club Work", in Hewitt, Nancy A., and Suzanne Lebsock. Visible women: new essays on American activism. Vol. 112. University of illinois Press, 1993. A significant omission from the book was Harriet Tubman. The book sought to shape contemporary attitudes and historian Milton C. Sernett hypothesizes that including Tubman would invoke memories of the pain of slavery.
Majors' work was perhaps the first of its kind, although in the same year another anthology of biographies of African-American women was published, Women of Distinction. Women of Distinction was edited by Lawson A. Scruggs and included contributions by 15 writers.Powell, William S. (ed.), Dictionary of North Carolina Biography: Vol. 5, PS. University of North Carolina Press, 2000, p. 307. These works coupled with the increased prominence of African-American woman, and particularly the 1892 publication of Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases by Ida B. Wells, led to 1893 being proclaimed "Year of the Black Women".McMurry, Linda O. To keep the waters troubled: The life of Ida B. Wells. Oxford University Press on Demand, 2000, p. 188. Noted Negro Women and Women of Distinction were volumes about notable African-American women that were a part of a group of biographical anthologies about African Americans published in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Majors' work was meant to inspire women and serve as a manual of feminine behavior.Des Jardins, Julie. Women and the historical enterprise in America: gender, race, and the politics of memory, 1880–1945. UNC Press Books, 2003, pp. 127–128. These books by Majors and Scruggs reflected fresh optimism about the future of African Americans. Frederick Douglass was skeptical about the project, stating in regards to an inquiry by Majors for his book that he did not know of any women who could be called famous.Schechter, Patricia A., Ida B. Wells-Barnett and American Reform, 1880–1930. University of North Carolina Press, 2003, p. 38.
List of individuals with biographies in anthology
Lucinda Bragg Adams Octavia V. Rogers Albert Caroline Still Anderson Naomi Anderson Flora Batson Maria Becraft Rosa Dixon Bowser Martha Bailey Briggs Mary E. Britton Hallie Quinn Brown Pauline Powell Burns Katie Chapman Lulu Vere Childers Mary Cole Lucretia Newman Coleman Anna J. Cooper Fanny Jackson Coppin Julia Ringwood Coston Olivia A. Davidson Henrietta Vinton Davis Georgia Mabel DeBaptiste Louise De Mortie Dr. H. T. Dillon Sarah Jane Woodson Early Ida Gibbs Ida Gray Elizabeth Greenfield Charlotte Forten Grimké Olivia Hamilton Frances Harper Myrtle Hart Julia Hayden Della Irving Hayden Josephine D. Heard Joan Imogen Howard Hyers Sisters Amelia E. Johnson Anna H. Jones Matilda Sissieretta Joyner Jones Sarah Gibson Jones Sophia B. Jones Elizabeth Keckley Lucy Craft Laney Nellie A. Ramsey Leslie Edmonia Lewis Eva Lewis Lillian A. Lewis Alice E. McEwen Harriet Gibbs Marshall Nellie Brown Mitchell Louise De Mortie Gertrude Bustill Mossell Mary Ella Mossell Lucy Ella Moten Ednorah Nahar Effie Lee Newsome Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba Zelia Ball Page Mary Virginia Cook Parrish Georgia E. L. Patton Washington Mary S. Peake Meta E. Pelham Sarah Dudley Pettey Ida Platt Frances E. L. Preston Ranavalona III Charlotte E. Ray Emma Ann Reynolds Martha Ann Erskine Ricks Celia Dial Saxon Mary Ann Shadd Susie Lankford Shorter Amanda Smith Christine Shoecraft Smith Lucy Wilmot Smith Lavinia B. Sneed Susan McKinney Steward Elizabeth Stumm Mary Church Terrell Lillian Thomas Fox Clarissa M. Thompson Amelia Tilghman Katherine D. Chapman Tillman Sojourner Truth Josephine Turpin Washington Frankie E. Harris Wassom Ida B. Wells Julia Williams Marie Selika Williams Phillis Wheatley Ione Wood Gibbs Josephine Silone Yates Jessie Young
References
External links Majors, Monroe Alphus. Noted Negro women: Their triumphs and activities. Donohue & Henneberry, 1893.