In this episode, we speak with Joe Lockard, an associate professor of English at Arizona State University.  Joe is a specialist in nineteenth-century American literature, particularly the literature of U.S. slavery and early African American literature.  Joe talks about his groundbreaking research recovering the life and work of Mattie Griffith, a young Kentucky poet.  In the 1850s, when Sarah was breaking out as famous teen poet Sallie M. Bryan, she shared social circles with Mattie by way of their shared mentor, Louisville Daily Journal editor George D. Prentice.  Mattie’s hatred of enslavement led her to leave Kentucky for the North, where she published a pseudo-slave narrative titled Autobiography of a Female Slave—which made her famous in the abolitionist movement and a pariah back home.

Interview date: 2 February 2024