Elizabeth Keckley and Freedom’s Labor

This essay examines the way in which Elizabeth Keckley uses references to physical labor to narrate a shift from the oppression of enslavement to freedom by her own agency. Following the arguments that gaining social recognition helped her to be able to purchase herself and her son, the article examines the culture of labor she describes as freedom “by her own hands” as she accounts for her life story and argues that her narrative of labor allows her to assess and assert her freedom in society.