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.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....Lydia Maria Francis Child (born Lydia Maria Francis) (February 11, 1802 - October 20, 1880), was an American abolitionist, women's rights activist, Native American rights activist, novelist, journalist, and opponent of American expansionism.Her journals, both fiction and domestic manuals, reached wide audiences from the 1820s through the 1850s. At times she shocked her audience as she tried to take on issues of both male dominance and white supremacy in some of her stories.Despite these challenges, Child may be most remembered for her poem "Over the River and Through the Wood." Her grandparents' house, which she wrote about visiting, was restored by Tufts University in 1976 and stands near the Mystic River on South Street, in Medford, Massachusetts.................Plot summaryBorn into slavery in Edenton, NC in 1813, Linda has happy years as a young child with her brother, parents, and maternal grandmother, who are relatively well-off slaves in good positions. It is not until her mother dies that Linda even begins to understand that she is a slave. At the age of six, she is sent to live in the big house under the extended care of her mother's mistress, who treats her well and teaches her to read. After a few years, this mistress dies and bequeaths Linda to a relative. Her new masters are cruel and neglectful, and Dr. Flint, the father, takes an interest in Linda. He tries to force her into a sexual relationship with him when she comes of age. The girl resists his entreaties and maintains her distance.Knowing that Flint will do anything to get his way, as a young woman Linda consents to a relationship with a white neighbor, Mr. Sands, hoping he can protect her from Flint. As a result of their relations, Sands and Linda have two mixed-race children: Benjamin, often called Benny, and Ellen. Because they were born to a slave mother, they are considered slaves, under the principle of partus sequitur ventrem, which had been part of southern slave law since the 17th century. Linda is ashamed, but hopes this illegitimate relationship will protect her from assault at the hands of Dr. Flint. Linda also hopes that Flint would become angry enough to sell her to Sands, but he refuses to do so. Instead, he sends Linda to his son's plantation to be broken in as a field hand.When Linda discovers that Benny and Ellen are also to be sent to the fields, she makes a desperate plan. Escaping to the North with two small children would be nearly impossible. Unwilling either to submit to Dr. Flint's abuse or abandon her family, she hides in the attic of her grandmother Aunt Martha's cabin. She hopes that Dr. Flint, believing that she has fled to the North, will sell her children rather than risk having them escape as well. Linda is overjoyed when Dr. Flint sells Benny and Ellen to a slave trader who unbeknown to him, secretly represents Sands...