History of American Women Abolitionists

19th Century Anti-Slavery Activists Image: The Underground Railroad, 1891 painting by Charles Webber, depicts Catharine and Levi Coffin leading a group of fugitive slaves to freedom on a winter morning. The setting of the painting may be the Coffin farm in Cincinnati. White Women Abolitionists The increase in religious revivals known as the Second Great Awakening of the 1820s and 1830s led abolitionists to see slavery as a sin against humanity. By the 1830s, thousands of American women were involved in the movement to abolish slavery, and some became prominent leaders in the abolition movement. They wrote articles for abolitionist papers, circulated pamphlets and delivered petitions to Congress calling for abolition. Since the days of William Penn, Quaker practice had…

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Civil War Women Soldiers

Women Who Fought in the Civil War They were determined to fight, no matter the cost. They dressed in men’s clothing and assumed masculine names; bound their breasts; rubbed dirt on their faces to simulate whiskers; learned to talk, walk, chew and smoke like men; and hid in every conceivable way that they were female. They were soldiers in the Civil War. Both the Union and Confederate Armies forbade the enlistment of women, but historians have estimated that some 400 women went to war (there were probably more), some without anyone ever discovering their gender. Because they passed as men, it is impossible to judge how many women soldiers served in the Civil War. Some joined the army out of…

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Women in colonial America

Women’s Rights After the American Revolution

Status of Women in the New United States In the American colonies it was not uncommon for women to pursue various occupations, such as printers, innkeepers, merchants and teachers. Women were excluded from political activities, but a few women, like Mercy Otis Warren and Abigail Adams, entered the political arena as public figures. Were women always treated fairly? Remember the Ladies On March 31, 1776 Abigail Adams wrote a celebrated letter to husband John, who was in Philadelphia serving in the Continental Congress, which would produce the Declaration of Independence three months later. In an age when women were seen as strictly domestic beings, the letter shows Abigail’s boldness and insight as she urged her husband Remember the Ladies, to…

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Lillie Devereux Blake

19th Century Author and Women’s Rights Activist Lillie Devereux Blake was a leading feminist and reformer, as well as a prominent fiction writer, journalist, essayist and lecturer, who worked with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony for women’s suffrage (the right to vote). She was born Elizabeth Johnson Devereux on August 12, 1833 to planters George Pollock Devereux and Sarah Elizabeth Johnson Devereux in Raleigh, North Carolina, but spent much of her early childhood on a plantation in Roanoke, Virginia. George Devereux called his daughter Lily because of her fair complexion, and she continued through life as Lillie. When her father died in 1837, her mother decided to leave Roanoke and return with her daughters to her family in…

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Biddy Mason

California Landowner and Philanthropist Biddy Mason was an African American slave and midwife, who petitioned the court for her freedom, and became a wealthy Los Angeles landowner and philanthropist. As the town grew, her property became prime urban lots and she accumulated a fortune of nearly $300,000. Early Years Bridget Mason, known to everyone as Biddy, was born a slave on August 15, 1818 on a plantation in Hancock, Georgia. As a child, she was separated from her parents and sold several times, working on plantations in Georgia, Mississippi and South Carolina. She spent much of her childhood working on John Smithson’s plantation in South Carolina, where she assisted the house servants and midwives.

Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad

The Savior of Hundreds of Slaves Image: Harriet Tubman Leading The Way After Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery, she returned to the South nineteen times and escorted hundreds of slaves to freedom along the Underground Railroad, a secret network of brave abolitionists and safe houses where runaway slaves could rest during their journey north to the free states or Canada. Backstory She was born Araminta Ross around 1820 in Dorchester County, Maryland, on the plantation where her parents were enslaved. She later took her mother’s name as her own: Harriet. At age five or six, she was “hired out” by her master as a nursemaid for a small baby. She had to stay awake all night so that the baby…

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Women in Publishing

American Women Newspaper Publishers In the eighteenth century, women often worked alongside their husbands and brothers to publish a newspaper as a family business. In some cases, the wife became the publisher after her husband took ill or died, usually until a son could take over the paper. The influence of these women in publishing as active participants in the business is an enduring feature of newspaper history to the present day. Image: Elizabeth Timothy, America’s first female newspaper publisher, 1738 The South Carolina Gazette, Charleston, South Carolina 18th Century Women Publishers In the 1700s, women edited approximately 16 of the 78 small, family-owned weekly newspapers circulating throughout the American colonies. Even if they did not run the printing operations,…

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Civil War Women Spies for the North

Women Spies for the Union Image: Illustration of Sarah Emma Edmonds on horseback dodging a bullet fired by a southern woman. American society was still quite Victorian in many ways during the 1860s. Therefore, women spies were not as likely to be roughly interrogated or hanged when their true identity was discovered. These heroines exhibited great courage and were willing to suffer imprisonment or death in the service of their country. Elizabeth Van Lew From a wealthy family well-known in Richmond society, Elizabeth Van Lew was educated in Philadelphia and returned home an ardent abolitionist. Elizabeth was in her forties when the War began, and steadfastly loyal to the Union. She started writing to Federal officials to tell them about…

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Elizabeth Margaret Chandler

Advocate of the Immediate Abolition of Slavery Elizabeth Margaret Chandler was a noted author and abolitionist poet in the early 19th century who became the first woman in America to make the abolition of slavery the principal theme in her writing. Her brief life was marked by a series of literary achievements that can only be described as impressive, given the virtual invisibility of women at that time. Childhood Elizabeth Margaret Chandler was born December 24, 1807 in Centre, Delaware to Thomas and Margaret Evans Chandler. She had two older brothers, William Guest and Thomas. The Chandlers were members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and they lived the strict, orderly and disciplined life of a Quaker family.

First Women Lawyers

Pioneer Women in the American Legal Profession Though women lawyers did not enter the legal profession until after the Civil War, that does not mean that women did not want to become lawyers in the antebellum period. It only means that there were no records kept. First, women were denied admission to law schools, and then they were denied permission to practice law. Either the legislature or the supreme court of each state determined the requirements for admission to the state bar, and as a rule they were not keen on changing the status quo. The entrance of American women into the practice of law formally began in 1869 when Arabella Mansfield was admitted to the Iowa bar. She was…

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