• CIVIL WAR SPY
• Born a slave, she was purchased by the wealthy Van Lew family to be a companion for their daughter, Elizabeth (known as Bet)​
• Granted her freedom when Mr. Van Lew died, Bet sent her to join thousands of other freed slaves who had been sent to Liberia, but Mary, along with many others, returned to the U.S., which had been her home her entire life
• Received some education in the North
• Bet Van Lew was an undercover abolitionist, helping slaves and Union soldiers escape the South, and she eventually recruited Mary​
  
• Not only did Mary help soldiers imprisoned in Richmond, VA, she also conducted reconnaissance missions in the Confederate senate
• Based on faulty memories by Bet's niece several years later, much of the information now available regarding Mary's life is inaccurate: she never even actually went by the name "Mary Bowser," and it is highly unlikely that she infiltrated the home of the Confederate president
• After the war, Van Lew received payment and honors from the U.S. government, but Mary's contributions went unacknowledged, and she struggled to find steady employment
• Wrote and spoke out about the racism that continued to pervade the country, facing significant personal attacks when she married a white man, John Denman
• Inducted into the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame in 1995

No pictures of Bowser exist. This is an artistic rendering produced by the CIA. [Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons]

Bibliography: Harrison, Vashti. Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2017. Print.
Maggs, Sam. Wonder Women: 25 Innovators, Inventors, and Trailblazers Who Changed History. Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2016. Print.
Leveen, Lois. (2019, June 19). She Was Born Into Slavery, Was a Spy and Is Celebrated as a Hero - But We're Missing the Point of the 'Mary Bowser' Story. Time Magazine. https://time.com/5609045/misremembering-mary-bowser/

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