Mary Webb

Mary Espartero Webb (1828 – June 17, 1859) was an American actress and orator known for her dramatic readings of poetry and literature. She toured the northern United States and performed in Europe as a protégée of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Early life and family Mary E. Webb was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, three weeks after her mother succeeded in escaping there from slavery in Virginia. Her father, who was described as "a Spanish gentleman of wealth [who] had made many efforts to purchase the freedom of her mother", provided financial support for Mary until age 6 or 7. Through her mother's efforts, Mary was admitted to a school where her education included poetry and dramatic literature, and developed a talent for performance. In 1845, at the age of 17, she married Frank J. Webb (1828–1894), who had been born into Philadelphia's community of free African Americans. His maternal grandfather, according to the family's oral history, was former U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr. Frank Webb initially worked as a commercial artist, but would become known as a novelist, poet, and essayist. His novel, The Garies and Their Friends (1857), was the second novel by an African American to be published, and the first to portray the daily lives of free blacks in the North.