Sarah H. (Sarah Hopkins) Bradford

Born in 1818 and dying in 1912, Sarah Hopkins Bradford was an American writer remembered above all for her books about Harriet Tubman. She wrote Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman and later Harriet, the Moses of Her People, works that helped introduce Tubman’s life and achievements to a broad public.

Bradford wrote during a period when biographical and reform literature often aimed to move readers as well as inform them. Her Tubman books are especially notable because they appeared while Tubman was still alive, making them early and influential records of her story.

Today, Bradford is often valued not just as an author in her own right, but as someone who helped preserve important historical memory. For many readers, her name remains closely tied to the survival and spread of Harriet Tubman’s story.