Jacobs is best known for her autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, published in 1861 under the pseudonym Linda Brent. Born enslaved in Edenton, North Carolina, she was taught to read and write by her mother’s white mistress. Her autobiography details the seven years she lived in her grandmother’s attic crawlspace to escape the sexual abuse of her master, before escaping to Philadelphia in 1842. She found work as a nursemaid in New York (1845 – 1949), after which time she attended the Young Ladies Domestic Seminary School, and began a career of public speaking for the American Anti-Slavery Society. She was also able to re-unite with her daughter and brother in New York. She moved to Alexandria briefly in 1862, returning permanently to the region in 1863.
This address, in Old Town, was where Jacobs lived in 1863 – 1865 while working for the Freedman’s Bureau. The house also was used as a medical dispensary and the adjoining house was a temporary contraband hospital (sometimes referred to as Bigelow’s Hospital). Several volunteer teachers lived at this address during the war’s housing shortage, sharing rooms. While living here, Jacobs established the Jacobs School, a free school for formerly enslaved students with her daughter Louisa Jacobs and two other teachers from New England (located at the corner of Pitt and Oronoco Streets, now razed).
In addition to her autobiography, Jacobs contributed articles and essays to several newspapers. She ran two boarding houses in the 1870s and 1880s on K Street in DC, both now razed. Jacobs died in DC and was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.