Frank J. Webb

Born free in Philadelphia in 1828, Frank J. Webb grew up in a family deeply involved in Black civic and abolitionist life. He became known as a novelist, poet, essayist, and lecturer, and his writing drew on the racial tensions and everyday realities he witnessed around him.

His 1857 novel The Garies and Their Friends is the work he is remembered for most. Often noted as the second novel published by an African American, it was especially groundbreaking for its portrayal of free Black communities in the North rather than plantation life in the South.

Webb later lived and worked beyond Philadelphia, including periods in Britain, Jamaica, and Texas. His life was wide-ranging and sometimes difficult to trace in full, but his reputation has steadily grown as readers and scholars have recognized how early and how powerfully he wrote about race, class, and belonging in American life.