Frances Ellen Watkins was born free on September 24, 1825[3] in Baltimore, Maryland (then a slave state), the only child of free parents.[4][5] Her parents, whose names are unknown, both died in 1828, making Watkins an orphan at the age of three.[3] She was raised by her maternal aunt and uncle, Henrietta and Rev. William J. Watkins, Sr., who gave her their last name.[6]
Frances Watkins's uncle was the minister at the Sharp Street African Methodist Episcopal Church. Watkins was educated at the Watkins Academy for Negro Youth, which her uncle had established in 1820.[7][3] As a civil rights activist and abolitionist, Rev. Watkins was a major influence on his niece's life and work.[8][9]
At 13, Watkins became employed as a seamstress and nursemaid for a white family that owned a bookshop.[10][3] She stopped attending school but used her spare time to read from the books in the shop and work on her own writing.[7][3]
In 1850, at age 26, Watkins moved from Baltimore to teach domestic science at Union Seminary, an AME-affiliated school for Black students near Columbus, Ohio.[11] She worked as the school's first female teacher. Union closed in 1863 when the AME Church diverted its funds to purchase Wilberforce University, the first Black-owned and operated college. The school in Wilberforce was run by the Rev. John Mifflin Brown, later a bishop in the AME Church.[12] The following year Watkins took a position at a school in York, Pennsylvania.[11]
