Phillis Wheatley

Phillis Wheatley gained fame as a poet around the time of the American Revolution. Her best-known poem, “His Excellency George Washington,” can be found here: https://poets.org/poem/his-excellency-general-washington. Washington was so impressed with the poem that he invited Wheatley to his headquarters.

Image: “Phillis Wheatley” (1773). From the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution