Questions to think about:
What is the purpose of your timeline?
To tell a story?
To argue an interpretation?
To show cause and effect?
To show relationships in a complex environment?
Who is your audience?
Your classmates?
Others who've read the same works?
The general public?
What should the time range be?
The lifespan of the author?
A century?
A political timespan?
What time units should you choose?
Decades?
Years?
Months?
What are the relevant contexts?
Biographical?
Cultural (literary, artistic, genre)?
Political and social movements?
Local, national, or international?
Each of the library resources listed below will help you contextualize Harriet Jacobs's narrative. Each resource (or source within each resource) may provide a different disciplinary or interpretive angle; pay attention to these differences!
A good starting point for finding information in reference sources, including Africana, Encyclopedia of African American History 1619-1895, Encyclopedia of African American History 1896 to Present, Black Women in America, African American National Biography, Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature, Oxford Companion to Black British History, and selected articles from other sources.
What additional primary sources do you think might complement Incidents in the LIfe of a Slave Girl? Explore the collections listed here!
Literature Resource Center is a full-text database of author biographies, selected literary criticism and reviews, and topic overviews. Some literary texts are also available. This database will be especially useful for looking at the cultural and literary contexts of Harriet Jacobs's life and work.
