Ann Plato

Ann Plato (c. 1823 – unknown)[1] was a 19th-century African American educator and author. She was the second African-American woman to publish a book in the United States and the first to publish a book of essays[1] and poems. As a young African-American girl writing in the 19th century, Plato has been described as an heir to Phillis Wheatley, who wrote her first published poem at the age of 13 in 1766.[2] There is little biographical information on Plato, and most of her life is known from her only published work, Essays; including Biographies and Miscellaneous Pieces, in Prose and Poetry, which included the preface written by Reverend James W. C. Pennington, an abolitionist leader in Hartford, Connecticut, and a pastor.[3]

  1. ^ a b Wright 736.
  2. ^ O’Neale, Sondra A., "Phillis Wheatley", Poetry Foundation.
  3. ^ Ivy Linton Stabell, "Innocence in Ann Plato’s and Susan Paul’s Black Children’s Biographies". In Katharine Capshaw and Anna Mae Duane (eds), Who Writes for Black Children?: African American Children’s Literature before 1900, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2017, pp. 75–93.