In this story, Jean Fagan Yeliin talks about Harriet Jacob's slave narrative, and how until recently it was critisized for being false.  People believed that Harriet Jacob's Incindents in the Life of  a Slave Girl: Written by Herself  was a questionable slave narrative until the discovery of a cache of her letters.  The discovery of her letters helps to "enrich our literary history by presenting us with a unique chronicle of the efforts of an underclass black woman to write and publish her autobiography in antebellum America.".  Yellin tells of how without the help of a few white abolitionist women, Jacob's autobiography would never have been published.  Not only did they encourage her to write, but they provided the help and some of the funding she needed to actually publish her autobiography.  Also, at the time, the content of Jacob's autobigraphy was considerably racy; as it talked about her as a woman and her struggles against the oppression of slavery as a sexual object and as a mother.  Her book was eventually published "with the help of black abolitionist writer William C. Nell and letters from white abolitionist woman L. Maria Child." Without the help of those two people and many others along the way, Harriet Jacob's autobiography would never have been published, and her amazing story never told.

  In this passage, there are two book reviews by two different authors.  I will only be discussing the first review as it relates closely to the topic being discussed, where the second one does not. 

   The first review is done by  Venetria K. Patton, who is discussing Women in Chains: The Legacy of Slavery in Black Women's Fiction.  In this Patton analyzes seven texts by African American Women  whose representations of sexuality and motherhood that are symbolic of the nineteenth century and slavery.  Patton also substantiates that "nineteenth century African American women's gender representations were informed by African cultural concepts that recognized the centrality of women as mothers and sexual beings".  Patton believes that African American women wrote so much about their sexuality and motherhood because that is what their culture designates as important roles for them.  Many African American writers who look back on their slavery as a subject for their story use these themes of motherhood repeatedly.  By doing this, writers such as Harriet Jacob and Harriet Wilson "employ sentimental discourse to critique racial and gender constructs and depict African American women as self defined subjects".
  

    Once again, this passage contains two book reviews by two completely different authors.  I will be discussing the first review by Angelyn Mitchell and her take on The Freedom to Remember: Narrative, Slavery, and Gender in Contemporary Black Women's Fiction. 

    From the start of her analysis, Mitchell states that she believes that the difference between African American Men's writings and African American Women's writings is that " African American women's writing focuses on healing and liberatory practices in ways that African American men's works do not".  She isnt there to compare the two in her analysis but wants the reader to have the same common understanding as her. Aside from that comment, Mitchell's main arguement is that "African American women writers have addressed the seemingly insurmountable nature of trauma, a concise theoretical model remains slightly buried in her rigorous readings.".  African American women talk about things that men wouldn't.  The women not only dealt with the physical torture, but emotional and phsycological as well.  Mitchell also sees Harriet Jacob's book as paving the way for libratory themed books by other female African American Authors.  She specifically states that Jacob's book "introduces key themes of the liberatory tradition, such as the relationship between individualism and communalism, the threat of violation to a vulnerable black female body, and the ways in which the sexuality of the heroine can serve as an impetus for enlightenment."  Female African American writers each took Jacob's book as a starting point for their own.  They too could write about their story and have it published if they workedhard enough to do it.