In 'The Gloom of Evening': Margaret Bayard Smith's Hew in Black and White of Early Washington Society.

This article identifies Margaret Bayard Smith (1778-1844) as the author of early antislavely, children's stories in the early republic. Juvenile literature is considered as an avenue for women's entering the literary, marketplace and for their voicing social criticism. Discussed are Smith's Diversions of Sidney (1805) and particularly American Mother; or the Seymour Family (1823). Smith embedded in these stories her vision of racial relationships from her perspective as a resident of Washington, D.C. Through literary production Smith critiqued American society's power structure.