Frances Harper’s Religion of Responsibility in Sowing and Reaping

Abstract

What emerged as a goal for Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825—1911) was no less than making a paradise on Earth—beginning with the United States. She embraced a socioreligious mission fueled by two concerns: First, material success should not stand as the major focus of one’s life; second, reform had to begin with the individual but expand to the community. Especially in Sowing and Reaping (1876), she emphasized these ideas and the necessity of excluding oppression and selfishness by acting as Christ’s followers— namely, by sacrificing the self for others. Harper paralleled three issues in their power to kill the soul: slavery as sin, intemperance (of any kind) as sin, and gold-seeking materialism as sin. She offered the same solution for the elimination of all three: a life spent doing good deeds.