Iola Leroy by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

First published: 1892

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Social criticism

Time of work: The last months of the Civil War through early Reconstruction

Locale: North Carolina; Mississippi; Georgia; northern United States

Principal Characters:

• Iola Leroy, a mulatto who refuses to pass into white society
• Robert Johnson, Iola’s uncle
• Dr. Gresham, a white physician
• Dr. Frank Latimer, a black doctor from the South
• Tom Anderson, a heroic former slave
• Aunt Linda, a matriarch of the black community

The Novel

Iola Leroy: Or, Shadows Uplifted, a novel set at the close of the Civil War, is a tale of racial uplift loosely developed around the fortunes and misfortunes of the title character. The opening chapters focus on conversations among the slaves and highlight the masking in which they engage around whites to conceal their joy as they follow the progress of the Union Army. Robert Johnson, the most literate of the slaves, provides leadership and counsel as the Union Army approaches and the folk prepare for their lives of freedom. When the army arrives, Robert, Tom Anderson, and many others join in the fight for freedom. After Iola’s rescue from slavery, she is assigned to the field hospital as a nurse. Iola refuses Dr. Gresham’s proposal that she marry him and move to the North as his white wife.

Harper follows these chapters with a flashback to nearly twenty years before the war. Iola is the daughter of Eugene Leroy, owner of a large plantation, and Marie Leroy, his former slave. When her father dies of yellow fever, Iola learns that she is black. She is sold into slavery along with her mother. After the war, Iola, in keeping with her sense of duty, opens a school for the freed, later destroyed by fire, and discovers that Robert Johnson is her uncle. They unite forces in their search for lost family members. During their search, they meet with the folk from the former plantations and learn that they are all thriving. Aunt Linda, a former cook, comments on the need for education, temperance, and moral training. All of Robert and Iola’s family members are eventually reunited, and with the exception of Iola’s brother Harry, who remains in Georgia, they move north to live with Robert.

Harper uses their time in the North as an opportunity to comment on the racial prejudices existing there. Both Robert and Iola have difficulty finding places to stay, and Iola is fired from her job once it is learned that she is black. It is also in the North that the characters engage in a “conversazione,” a forum for presenting key areas of concern among black intellectuals: emigration, patriotism, education of women, and the moral progress of the race. The texts of some of Harper’s own speeches are incorporated into these discussions. Iola meets Frank Latimer, a black doctor from the South. They soon develop an attraction for each other and marry. A romance also develops between Harry Leroy and Lucille Delany, a schoolteacher from the South, who have both come north to visit.

At the close of the novel, all the key characters return to the South and settle in the same area where many were once slaves. Dr. Latimer sets up a medical practice, and Iola becomes a Sunday school teacher. Harry and Lucille marry and return to Georgia to head a large school. Robert purchases a large plantation and resells it to his people as small homesteads. Thus, all the major characters devote their lives to the educating, healing, and training of the members of their race; they devote their lives to the “grand and noble purpose” of racial uplift.

The Characters

The protagonist, Iola Leroy, is light-skinned enough to pass as white, but she refuses to do so, choosing instead to devote her life to the improvement of conditions for all African Americans. Iola is the daughter of a Creole plantation owner and one of his former slaves. Iola is sent to school in the North, but when she returns to the family estate, she discovers that her father has died suddenly of yellow fever, that her sister Gracie is near death, and that she and her mother have been reduced to the status of slaves. Iola is rescued from slavery by Union soldiers and becomes a nurse at a field hospital. After the war, Iola and her uncle search for their lost family, which is eventually reunited and moves to the North. Her experiences with discrimination even in the North, however, heighten her awareness of the race problem, and after she marries Frank Latimer, she chooses to return to the South with him to continue the struggle for racial uplift. Her steadfast refusal to pass as white and her devotion to the causes of African Americans are clear indications of the strength of her character.

Robert Johnson, Iola’s uncle, emerges as a leader in the novel’s first chapter, when, as one of the few literate slaves on the plantation, he provides information about the progress of the war. Robert joins the Union Army and becomes a lieutenant in a “colored company”; like his niece, he refuses to pass as white. Robert is an exceptionally admirable character; after the war, he sells his property and purchases a large North Carolina plantation, which he converts into a community of homesteads for the poor.

Dr. Gresham, the white New England physician with whom Iola works in the field hospital, is a likeable character who helps to illuminate Iola’s integrity. He falls in love with Iola and proposes marriage to her on the grounds that she not reveal her race. She rejects the proposal, and when he encounters her again after the war, he accepts her final rejection lovingly and with respect for her fortitude.

Dr. Frank Latimer, an African American doctor from the South who meets Iola in the North, succeeds where Gresham does not. Like Iola, Latimer is offered a life of ease (in his case, by a grandmother) if he will consent to pass for white. He refuses, giving many of the same reasons Iola gives to Gresham when she rejects his proposal. Their shared convictions make them a perfect match, and they marry and work together for the cause of racial uplift.

Tom Anderson is among the first liberated slaves to join the Union Army, and he appeals to the post commander for the release of Iola. Although he lacks the literacy of Robert, Tom is well aware of the events unfolding around him and is eager to serve the cause of freedom. Tom dies as honorably as he has lived, saving a boat filled with Union soldiers by exposing himself to enemy fire.

Aunt Linda, a former cook on the Johnson plantation, becomes the matriarchal leader of the local black community after the war. She furthers the idea of community among the newly freed, chastising those who sell their votes or drink excessively. Her entrepreneurship allows her to purchase property. As a successful woman, she introduces feminist ideas among the folk.

Critical Context

William Still, in his introduction to the first edition of Iola Leroy, admitted his initial concern that Harper would ruin her good reputation by writing on the subject of slavery, but he asserted that after reading the manuscript his fears were allayed. Iola Leroy, Harper’s first and only novel, was written when she was sixty-seven and had already enjoyed a distinguished career as a poet, essayist, and lecturer. Her decision to write a novel was based on her prevailing drive to do all she could in lasting service for her race. Originally conceived as a book to be used in black southern Sunday schools, the novel has much broader appeal as an extension of Harper’s rhetorical career. She spent much of her early life giving lectures on many of the same issues raised in the novel: abolition, temperance, education, women’s rights, and general racial uplift. Iola Leroy is important as one of the earliest attempts in African American literature to address this combination of issues in fictional form. One might claim that the novel is essentially a lecture dressed in a thin fictional garment. Harper’s purpose never changed, whether she was writing poetry, delivering speeches, or producing fiction. With such a strong didactic agenda, it should surprise no one that Iola Leroy’s primary purpose in the context of Harper’s life and the prevailing social exigencies was, in Harper’s own words, to “awaken in the hearts of our countrymen a stronger sense of justice and a more Christlike humanity in behalf of those whom the fortunes of war threw, homeless, ignorant and poor, upon the threshold of a new era.”

Bibliography

Carby, Hazel V. “ ‘Of Lasting Service for the Race’: The Work of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper.” In Reconstructing Womanhood: The Emergence of the Afro-American Woman Novelist. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Discusses Iola Leroy as a logical extension of Harper’s political activism rather than an aberration. The novel can be viewed as a continuation of Harper’s lifelong crusade against slavery, racism, and the suppression of black women. An examination of her speeches reveals that all the issues raised in Iola Leroy have already been addressed in her earlier speeches and poetry. Thus, the novel should not be evaluated in formal literary terms but in terms that locate it squarely within the political debates of Harper’s time.

Christian, Barbara. “Shadows Uplifted.” In Black Women Novelists: The Development of a Tradition, 1892-1976. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980. Focuses on the contradiction between Harper’s public life as a lecturer and the concerns of the novel. After the war, Harper traveled extensively throughout the South, lecturing to and about impoverished black women, yet the novel centers on a refined and educated octoroon who advocates the right of women to work. For most black women, work was necessary for survival. This contradiction could be a consequence of the author’s attempt to write a novel that would help to break down the numerous stereotypes associated with black women.

Foster, Frances Smith, ed. A Brighter Coming Day: A Frances Ellen Watkins Harper Reader. New York: Feminist Press, 1990. Provides the literary, social, and biographical context out of which Iola Leroy and Harper’s other writing emerged. Harper’s literary canon begins with her poetry and extends to lectures, letters, essays, speeches, and finally a novel. By the end of her career as a writer, she was optimistic that, because of such intellectual activities, the race was experiencing progress.

Washington, Mary Helen. “Uplifting the Women and the Race: The Forerunners—Harper and Hopkins.” In Invented Lives: Narratives of Black Women, 1860-1960. New York: Doubleday, 1987. Focuses on the pressures under which black women at the turn of the century wrote, as they responded to the prevailing negative images of blacks and women. The characters in the novel are given political rather than emotional or social roles. In all instances, their choices are based on the extent to which those choices enable them to articulate a political position.

Watson, Carole McAlpine. “ ‘I Have Woven a Story …’: Uplift and Protest, 1891-1920.” In Prologue: The Novels of Black American Women, 1891-1965. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985. Identifies Iola Leroy as a novel with strong emphasis on the courage, intelligence, and morality of African Americans that exhorts readers to engage in activities designed to improve the conditions of black people. Sees Harper as offering numerous positive images of blacks who unsel-fishly work for the betterment of their race.