Ann Plato:
Writer, Poet, Teacher
Ann Plato authored a book called Essays: Including Biographies and Miscellaneous Pieces, in Prose and Poetry that was published in 1841, making her the second African American in U.S. history to publish a book of poetry and the first African American woman to publish a book of essays. Sadly not much is known about her historically. Born around 1824, she is presumed to be of both African American and Native American ancestry, based on a poetry piece titled: The Natives of America, wherein the speaker asks her father to tell his story of “how my Indian fathers dwelt.” She was greatly influenced by the Bible and the Talcott Street Church, as well as Lydia Sigourney, a renowned American poet and a fellow Hartford resident dubbed the “Sweet singer of Hartford.” Ann found inspiration in such Sigourney writings as Letters to young Ladies and The Girl’s Reading Book, a work which can be seen in relation to Ann’s own. The Talcott Street Church—a mountaintop for black Americans living in Connecticut in Ann’s time–was a platform from which she wrote and spoke of her piety as well as the haven in which she could share the gift of education. She served as teacher in the black school established in the church basement before becoming headmistress of the Elm School, a black school established after the Talcott school. She was dedicated to teaching and molding young minds, and, according to her pastor, Reverend James W. C. Pennington in his introduction to her volume of poetry and essays, she was “devoted to the glory of God, and the best good of her readers.”
Talcott Street Church catalogue, with Ann Plato’s signature
Courtesy of the Hartford History Center, Hartford Public Library
Daguerreotype of Lydia Howard Huntley Sigourney done by Augustus Washington
Courtesy of Watkinson Library, Trinity College Hartford