She didn’t even put her own name on her book, although it was well known she was its author, wrote University of Cincinnati associate professor of English Sharon G. She referred to her clients and employers, for example, as Miss J, Mrs. She employed discretion by not naming the names of the upwardly mobile Cincinnati women and traveling families for whom she worked. The 30-something hairdresser brushed over very little, wielding a “bold if not polished pen,” noted Nikolas Huot in his essay about Potter in “American Authors, 1745-1945.”Īnd although she was described by another historian as being “reckless and sometimes rash,” Potter was cautious enough to protect her delicate position of working in a world to which she could never fully belong. She is remembered, albeit by few outside a niche of historians, as the writer of a unique and poignant book. Potter also “dressed and combed” the rich at trendy retreats in the mid-19th century in New Orleans, Saratoga, N.Y., and Newport, R.I.Īnd even more impressive for a young “mulatto” woman – as she was described in the 1860 Census – she spent three months in a Louisville jail before defeating court charges that she broke the law by telling a Kentucky slave how to escape to Canada and freedom. Known as “Iangy,” she traveled as a maid with rich families to Europe, where she witnessed the baptisms of the Prince of Wales and the Count of Paris as well as the funeral of the Duke of Orleans. She was a free black woman, a homeowner and a single mother of two stepchildren whose father gave them their last name but apparently little else.
Potter, however, was much more than a groundbreaker for the future authors of salacious, tell-all tales. Her book included criticism of slave-holders, the nouveau riche and undignified and immoral people as well.
It became a quick best-seller among whites who were curious if they were the subjects of Potter’s sharp, witty descriptions of the brides, belles and beautiful ladies of Cincinnati who, in Potter’s view, postured for social position and shared what one reviewer described as “absurd and tragic secrets.” The book startled and then captivated Cincinnati. Potter became the first African-American woman in Cincinnati to publish her autobiography almost 160 years ago when she penned “A Hairdresser’s Experience in High Life.” Look for the fascinating stories of the hairdresser, the photographer and the landscape painter on on Thursdays this month.ĬINCINNATI - Eliza C. February is Black History Month, and our Name in History series will feature mixed-race Cincinnatians who ran successful businesses and lived in the same neighborhood during the middle of the 19th century.
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