Status Updates From Inventing Victoria

3.5 stars

"We will always have to be twice as good to get half as far."

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress," she whispered. "That is what Frederick Douglass has said."

"I like my world small. No chance I get lost."

". . . do make something of yourself," she urged. "True, life is hard on us colored, but any chance come your way to rise in life, you must be like a dog with a bone so you don't end up all broke down when old."

Washington DC
Mrs Keckley

Baltimore

Victoria finds love and place in the world that she is comfortable with.

Victoria's heart is broken but there is always two sides to a story! Will the young man realize that there is more to a person than the outward person, their connections? Will she decide to leave the glamourous life she has found herself in, and return to her humble and poor roots?

Essie meets a fashionable, world-traveling woman, named Dorcas Vashon. She offers Essie a life-changing deal - travel with Dorcas, learn to be a lady, and education, but leave her old life behind - no contact with any of those she cares for. Essie goes, but quickly learns what she has to sacrifice and do to be Victoria! Miss Hardwick arrives - to educate Essie about the world, deportment, and etiquette.

Essie/Victoria is a young black woman in he 1880s. Her mother is a prostitute in Savannah. Ma Clara, takes Essie under her wing, to provide guidance, schooling, and love. Essie ends up going to Miss Abby's boarding house, as a cleaner. She is exposed to a better life, with caring people. She makes her first friend, Binah, who is uneducated but sweet and innocent. Essie's mother dies, leaving her the house.