Category: Abolitionists
Abolitionists, American Women Editors, Journalists, Poets and Writers, Social Reformers

Lydia Maria Child

• Maggie

Lydia Maria Child ranks among the most influential nineteenth-century women authors, and was one of the first American women to earn a living from her writing. She was renowned in her day as a crusader for truth and justice and a champion of excluded groups in American society – especially Indians, slaves and women. She then turned her energies to reform and became a leading abolitionist. Maria Child is probably best remembered today for the Thanksgiving children’s poem, “Over the River and Through the Woods.” But in her lifetime she published more than fifty books, plus short stories, poems and articles for periodicals. The North American Review, the leading literary periodical of the time, commented: “We are not sure that…

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Abolitionists, African Americans, Humanitarians, Slavery in America, Women in Religion

Sojourner Truth

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Sojourner Truth was an African American abolitionist and women’s rights activist who escaped from slavery in New York in 1826. She began as an itinerant preacher and became a nationally known advocate for equality and justice, sponsoring a variety of social reforms, including women’s property rights, universal suffrage and prison reform. She was born Isabella Baumfree in 1797 on the estate of Colonel Johannes Hardenbergh in Swartekill, a Dutch settlement in upstate New York. She was one of 13 children born to Elizabeth and James Baumfree, who were slaves on the Hardenbergh plantation. Both the Baumfrees and the Hardenberghs spoke Dutch in their daily lives. After the colonel’s death, ownership of the Baumfrees passed to his son Charles.
Abolitionists, Activists, African Americans, Civil War Women, Feminists, Poets and Writers, Women in Education

Maria Stewart

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First African American Woman to Lecture in Public Maria Stewart was an essayist, lecturer, abolitionist and women’s rights activist. She was the earliest known American woman to lecture in public on political issues. Stewart is known for four powerful speeches she delivered in Boston in the early 1830s – a time when no woman, black or white, dared to address an audience from a public platform. Childhood and Early Years She was born free as Maria Miller in 1803 in Hartford, Connecticut. All that is known about her parents is their surname, Miller. At the age of five, she lost both her parents and was forced to become a servant in the household of a white clergyman. She lived with…

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Abolitionists, Civil War Women

Elizabeth Packard

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Advocate for the Rights of Married Women Elizabeth Packard was a social reformer whose experiences in a mental hospital began her quest for protective legislation for the insane and improved married women’s rights. She wrote numerous books and lobbied legislatures literally from coast to coast, advocating more stringent commitment laws, protections for the rights of asylum patients, and laws to give married women equal rights in matters of child custody, property and earnings. Marriage and Family Elizabeth Parsons Ware was born on December 28, 1816 in Ware, Massachusetts. At the insistence of her parents, she married minister Theophilus Packard on May 21, 1839. Like many other women of her era, Elizabeth settled into domestic life as a wife and mother…

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Abolitionists, African Americans, Civil War Women

Mary Ellen Pleasant

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Successful Businesswoman and Humanitarian Mary Ellen Pleasant was a civil rights activist and entrepreneur who used her fortune to further the abolitionist movement. She worked on the Underground Railroad in several states, including California during the Gold Rush and won significant civil rights in the courts, earning the name ‘Mother of Civil Rights in California.’ Mary Ellen Pleasant altered and embellished her story in several memoirs to offset the criticisms levied against her toward the end of her life, making it difficult to separate fact from fiction. By her own account she was born Mary Ellen Williams on August 19, 1814, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to an African American mother and Louis Alexander Williams, a well educated merchant from the Sandwich…

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Lucretia Mott
Abolitionists, Feminists, Humanitarians, Suffragists, Women in Leadership

Lucretia Mott

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Quaker Feminist and Social Activist Lucretia Mott (1793-1880) was a Quaker minister, abolitionist and social reformer who dedicated her life to the goal of human equality. Mott was a major figure in the reform movements of the nineteenth-century: abolition, women’s rights, school and prison reform, temperance, peace and religious tolerance. Childhood and Early Years Lucretia Coffin was born on January 3, 1793 on the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts, the second of eight children born to Thomas and Anna Folger Coffin. At the age of thirteen, Lucretia was sent to the Nine Partners Quaker Boarding School in Millbrook, New York. There she learned of the horrors of slavery from visiting lecturers such as Elias Hicks, a well-known Quaker abolitionist.
Abolitionists, Social Reformers, Women in Education

Myrtilla Miner

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Educator of African American Girls Myrtilla Miner (1815–1864) established the first school in Washington, DC to provide education beyond the primary level to African American girls in 1851 – at a time when slavery was still legal in the District of Columbia. Although the school also offered other courses, its emphasis from the outset was on training teachers. Miner’s progressive methods in education, her struggles against considerable opposition, and her dogged determination have earned her a place in American history. Childhood and Early Years Myrtilla Miner was born on March 4, 1815, near Brookfield, New York of humble parentage. Though always frail in health, she earned enough by working in the hop fields near her home to further her education….

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Abolitionists, Civil War Women, Famous Firsts

Maria Weston Chapman

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Author and One of the First Female Abolitionists Maria Weston Chapman was a writer, editor, abolitionist, and right-hand woman of prominent abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. She served as editor of the anti-slavery newspapers, the Non-Resistant and the National Anti-Slavery Standard. Although she shunned public speaking, Chapman organized bazaars and other fund-raising events for the movement, and was described by Lydia Maria Child as “one of the most remarkable women of the age.” Early Years Maria Weston was born on July 24, 1806 in Weymouth, Massachusetts, the eldest of eight children born to Warren and Anne Bates Weston, descendants of the Pilgrims. Maria’s birth was followed by those of Caroline in 1808, Anne in 1812, Deborah in 1814, Hervey in 1817,…

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Abolitionists, Women in Education

Prudence Crandall

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Connecticut Educator of African American Girls Prudence Crandall (1803-1890) was controversial for her education of African American girls in Canterbury, Connecticut. In the fall of 1831, she opened a private school, which was boycotted when she admitted a 17-year-old African-American female student in fall 1833. This is widely regarded as the first integrated classroom in the United States. Crandall is Connecticut’s official State Heroine. Prudence Crandall was born in Hopkinton, Rhode Island on September 3, 1803 to a Quaker family. In 1820 her father moved the family to the small town of Canterbury, Connecticut. Most women during the early 1800s did not receive much education, but Quakers believed in equal education, regardless of gender. Prudence Crandall attended the New England…

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Abolitionists, Civil War Women

Abigail May Alcott

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Social Reformer and Early Social Worker Abigail “Abby” May Alcott (1800–1877) was an abolitionist, women’s rights activist, pioneer social worker and one of the first paid social workers in the state of Massachusetts. Abigail was also the wife of transcendentalist philosopher and educator Bronson Alcott and mother of four daughters, including Civil War novelist Louisa May Alcott, providing the model for “Marmee” in Louisa May’s novel, Little Women. Early Years Abigail May was born October 8, 1800, the youngest child of Dorothy Sewall May and prominent Unitarian layman Joseph May. Abigail was given a largely informal education, though like the rest of her family, she was well-read. As a young adult she studied history, languages and science by her tutor…

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