Josephine Brown

Biography of an American Bondman, by His Daughter (Dodo Press) Josephine Brown

Josephine Brown (1839-? ) was the youngest child of the abolitionist and author William Wells Brown (1814-1862) and his wife Elizabeth. Josephine joined her father on his lecture tours, during which she transcribed his correspondence. She, not quite fifteen, found a position at a school in Woolwich, where several of her pupils were older than she was. During these days, Josephine also kept quite busy as an assistant to her father's extensive antislavery activities. In 1854, Josephine was again in France for additional schooling. In 1855, she returned to the United States, where she completed the biography of her father she had begun in France: Biography of an American Bondman, by His Daughter. As Josephine Brown explained in her preface to the book, she was moved to finish the book when she discovered that her father's autobiography Narrative of William W. Brown: A Fugitive Slave (1847) was out of print.