Frank J. Webb
His parents and older siblings were among thousands of free African Americans who had left the United States in 1824 and returned in 1826, as part of the failed Haitian emigration experiment.
[1] As a young man, Frank Webb worked in Philadelphia's vibrant community of free African Americans as a commercial artist.
[1] In 1845, at the age of 17, Webb married Mary Espartero,[2][5] who had been born in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1828, shortly after her mother had escaped from slavery in Virginia.
[6] Through her mother's efforts, Mary was admitted to a school where her education included poetry and dramatic literature, and developed a talent for performance.
Stowe was so impressed by the readings that she acted as her patron, adapting scenes from her best selling novel Uncle Tom's Cabin expressly for Mary Webb's performance.
[7][8] In late 1855 and 1856, Mary Webb toured the north-eastern United States,[2]: 170 including a performance of Uncle Tom attended by Longfellow, who wrote, "A striking scene, this Cleopatra with a white wreath in her dark hair, and a sweet, musical voice, reading to a great, unimpassioned, immovable Boston audience.
While in London, Webb asked his friend, Charles Sumner, to write an introductory letter for his wife during her reading tour in Liverpool.
Webb dedicated his book to supporter Lady Noel Byron, who had encouraged him, and Henry, Lord Brougham wrote an enthusiastic introduction.
[13] While in Washington writing for The New Era in 1869–1870, Webb lived with his niece, teacher Sara Iredell, who had recently married Christian Fleetwood, recipient of the Medal of Honor for his military service during the Civil War.
[14] Webb worked in Galveston first as a newspaper editor, then as a postal clerk, and finally for thirteen years as principal of the Barnes Institute, a segregated school for "colored children".
In the later 20th century, following the Civil Rights Movement and renewed appreciation for the works of minority authors, Webb's novel was reprinted in 1969 and critically appraised.
[16] It had been a major destination of Irish immigrants since the mid-century and, faced with their own struggles against discrimination, they competed with blacks for jobs, housing, and respect.
Gardner believes the novel demonstrates that Webb was well-educated, as it shows influences from literature and Anglo-American culture, as well as a large sense of black history, both in the United States and the Caribbean.
For instance, he notes that Webb discusses Toussaint Louverture, leader of the slave revolt in Haiti, in early passages of the book.
Gardner notes that Webb deeply explores the phenomenon of "passing" through the experiences of different characters in the North and South, and others' reactions to them.
As the novel opens, the couple are visited by Emily's cousin George Winston, a mixed-race man who was educated and freed when young and is now passing for white.
[1] The Garies are initially contrasted with a working class African American family living in Philadelphia: carpenter Charles Ellis, his wife Ellen, and their three children: Esther, Caroline (also called Caddy), and Charlie.
Worried that she and her children might suffer in slavery if anything happened to Clarence Garie, Emily persuades him to move to Philadelphia so they can gain freedom and what she believes will be better education and opportunity.
A white friend warns Garie that while his circle in the South may accept men with their mixed-race mistresses, he will encounter more prejudice as a couple in the North.
He makes a list of properties to be attacked, including that of Walters, a black man who has become one of the wealthiest businessmen in the city, abolitionists, and Garie, even contracting for him to be murdered.
Garie is shot and killed as the mob attacks his house; his wife Emily dies in childbirth in hiding with their children, who survive.
The boy Charlie Ellis has been spared from the events, as he has been in the country for the summer at the home of Mrs. Bird, a wealthy white woman who acts as his patron.
Stevens' daughter had overheard McCloskey's blackmail threats and her father talked with her about turning over his ill-gotten fortune to the Garie children as rightful heirs.
She dies a few years later, "passed away to join her lover, where distinctions in race or colour are unknown, and where the prejudices of earth cannot mar their happiness.
