Black Girlhood and Institutions of Higher Learning

This paper argues that in her novel, The Curse of Caste; or The Slave Bride, serialized between February 25, 1865 and September 23, 1865 in the Christian Recorder, Julia C. Collins couples a representative black girl figure... [ view full abstract ]

This paper argues that in her novel, The Curse of Caste; or The Slave Bride, serialized between February 25, 1865 and September 23, 1865 in the Christian Recorder, Julia C. Collins couples a representative black girl figure – the recent school graduate – and scenes with edifying language to teach racial and class hierarchies. Collins promotes formal education a year prior in her essay “Mental Improvement,” published on April 16, 1864 in the Recorder, in which she argues, “Among all persons distinguished for refinement and cultivation of the mind, the art of reading is the most prevalent and important.” However, in Curse, Collins prioritizes alternative ways of “reading” to navigate the violent, racial climate in the post-Civil War era. The young protagonist Claire Neville must “school” herself to withstand the prejudices she will surely face as she embarks upon the world. Despite her formal education, Claire’s options for employment are limited, so she travels south to work as a governess in the home of Colonel Tracy, a white man. Collins continues to reevaluate institutions of learning through Colonel Tracy’s library, which becomes a violent site where racial secrets are shared, a twist on the sense that libraries are positive, peaceful places where knowledge is learned. Collins joins Frances E. W Harper and Anna Julia Cooper in their use of recently graduated black girl figures to convey that knowledge attained through institutions of higher learning does little to protect against the greater evils that mankind enacts upon others through hierarchies, status and violence.