Harriet Ann Jacobs (February 11, 1813 – March 7, 1897) was an African-American writer and abolitionist who began life as a slave, escaped, and was finally freed, and is best known today as the author of her autobiographical novel Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. She was born into in Edenton North Carolina. After her mother’s death when she was six she lived with her mistress, who taught her to read, write and sew. When she was 12 her mistress died and she passed into the ownership of Dr. James Norcom, who pursued her sexually. Jacobs evaded his attentions by associating with a neighboring white lawyer, Samuel Sawyer, and bearing two children. She escaped in 1835, seeking refuge in the attic of her grandmother’s shack, where she lived for seven years before escaping by boat to Philadelphia and then to New York in 1845, where she became a nursemaid to the family of Nathaniel Parker Willis. After a journey to England and a stay in Boston she moved to Rochester, NY in 1849 to join her brother, who had escaped and was active in the abolition movement. After the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 she and her brother returned to New York City. In 1852 she was threatened with capture by her owners and fled to Massachusetts; in her absence, Willis’ second wife bought her freedom.  Her memoir was published in 1861 to good notices and became popular with abolitionists. During and after the Civil War she was active in support of schools, hospitals, orphanages, and the general plight of freedman as the country grappled with the new reality, dividing her time between the Boston and Washington areas.