On Various Subjects: 250 Years of Phillis Wheatley (2023)

August 28, 2023 – December 22, 2023

Exhibit celebrating the 250th anniversary of the first book of African American poetry and exploring its author’s long legacy

In September 1773, Phillis Wheatley published Poems on Various Subjects Religious and Moral in London, becoming the first African American writer to publish a book of poetry, and only the third colonial American woman of any race to publish a book. It included a copperplate engraved portrait of her seated at a writing desk with pen, paper, and book, the first individual portrait of an African American woman. This exhibit celebrates the semiquincentennial of Poems on Various Subjects and traces how Wheatley’s poetry, image, and name have been reprinted, recirculated, and remixed by and for educators, activists, artists, and readers of all ages in every era over the last 250 years. In this exhibit, Wheatley’s 18th-century publications, highlighted by the first edition of Poems on Various Subjects Religious and Moral, were put in conversation with the two and a half centuries of Black art, thought, and action that she directly inspired. 

On Various Subjects: 250 Years of Phillis Wheatley invited all to witness how Wheatley’s legacy has been held out as an example of excellence among Black people (particularly girls and women), celebrated as an inspiration for artists and intellectuals, and presented as evidence in arguments against the degradations of slavery and racism.

On Various Subjects: 250 Years of Phillis Wheatley was curated by UW-Madison professors Brigitte Fielder and Jonathan Senchyne in collaboration with the Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture and the Department of Special Collections in UW-Madison Libraries. 

Exhibit highlights included: the 1773 first edition of Poems on Various Subjects Religious and Moral including an engraved portrait of Phillis Wheatley, an array of other Wheatley publications from her lifetime and the early nineteenth century, children’s books telling Wheatley’s life story and poetry, writing by Black feminists drawing inspiration from Wheatley, and more.