Female Genius reconstructs Eliza Harriot’s transatlantic life, from Lisbon to Charleston, SC paying particular attention to her lectures and to the academies she founded, inspiring countless young American women to consider a college education and a role in the political forum.
By 1792 Eliza Harriot experienced struggles that reflected the larger backlash faced by women and people of color as new written constitutions provided the political and legal tools for exclusion based on sex, gender, and race.
In recovering this pioneering life, the richly illustrated Female Genius makes clear that America’s framing moment did not belong solely to white men and offers an inspirational transatlantic history of women who believed in education as a political right.
