Lydia Maria Child was one of the most influential women from the 1800s. She was a writer, abolitionist, and women’s’ rights activist, and in 2001 was honored by the National Women’s Hall Of Fame. She was born Lydia Francis on February 11, 1802, in Medford, Massachusetts, to parents Susannah Rand Francis and Convers Francis, and was the youngest of their seven children. However, her time with her parents was cut short when, in 1814, her mother died. Lydia’s father chose to send her to live with her sister, Mary Francis Preston, in Norridgewock, Maine. Near the town was a Penobscot settlement, which started her interest in Indians. Lydia stayed with her sister until 1820, and her time was spent studying to become a teacher. In 1821, she moved back to Massachusetts and lived with her brother, Convers, who was a Unitarian minister. There she founded a school for girls and wrote her first four books.
Lydia married David Lee Child in 1828, and he would later introduce her to social reformers and abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison. While she became famous from her books, which helped to keep her household with David Child afloat, she was much more famous because of her reputation as an abolitionist. In 1833, she published An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans in which she asked for the emancipation of slaves and racial equality. People such as Wendell Phillips (abolitionist), William Ellery Channing (preacher), and Charles Sumner (politician and Massachusetts senator) said that it helped them to develop their own anti-slavery views; however, with the publication of An Appeal, her popularity plummeted and she was forced to stop publishing her bimonthly periodical, Juvenile Miscellany.
Eight years after pu...
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... a principle and starve for an idea”. She is buried in the North Cemetery in Wayland, Massachusetts.
Works Cited
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Goodwin, Joan. "Lydia Maria Child." Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography . N.p., 28 2 2001. Web. 22 Apr 2014. .
Teets-Parzynski , Catherine. "Lydia Maria Francis Child."American National Biography Online. N.p.. Web. 22 Apr 2014. .
Child, Lydia Maria. Letters Of Lydia Maria Child. Boston, New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Company, 1883. 135. Print.
...mes, and Paul Boyer. Notable American Women, 1607-1950. Volume III: P-Z. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971. Print.
In her book, First Generations Women in Colonial America, Carol Berkin depicts the everyday lives of women living during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Berkin relays accounts of European, Native American, and African women's struggles and achievements within the patriarchal colonies in which women lived and interacted with. Until the first publication of First Generations little was published about the lives of women in the early colonies. This could be explained by a problem that Berkin frequently ran into, as a result of the patriarchal family dynamic women often did not receive a formally educated and subsequently could not write down stories from day to day lives. This caused Berkin to draw conclusions from public accounts and the journals of men during the time period. PUT THESIS HERE! ABOUT HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT THE BOOK.
Grace Abbott was born November 17, 1878 in Grand Island, Nebraska. Grace was one of four children of Othman A. and Elizabeth Abbott. There’s was a home environment that stressed religious independence, education, and general equality. Grace grew up observing her father, a Civil War veteran in court arguing as a lawyer. Her father would later become the first Lt. Governor of Nebraska. Elizabeth, her mother, taught her of the social injustices brought on the Native Americans of the Great Plains. In addition, Grace was taught about the women’s suffrage movement, which her mother was an early leader of in Nebraska. During Grace’s childhood she was exposed to the likes of Pulitzer Prize author Willa Cather who lived down the street from the Abbott’s, and Susan B. Anthony the prominent civil rights leader whom introduced wom...
The small community of Hallowell, Maine was no different than any other community in any part of the new nation – the goals were the same – to survive and prosper. Life in the frontier was hard, and the settlement near the Kennebec Valley was no different than what the pioneers in the west faced. We hear many stories about the forefathers of our country and the roles they played in the early days but we don’t hear much about the accomplishments of the women behind those men and how they contributed to the success of the communities they settled in. Thanks to Martha Ballard and the diary that she kept for 27 years from 1785-1812, we get a glimpse into...
While attending the Quaker boarding school she met James Mott, her future husband. The couple married in 1811 and moved to Philadelphia. Soon after they had six children. Five of which grew into adulthood. In 1817, Lucretia’s youngest son passed away at the age of three of disease. A couple of years before her son’s death, a family tragedy happened in 1815 when Lucretia’s father died, leaving her mom in debt and the whole family in financial hardship. While in financial need, James Mott found a job in his Uncle Scott’s cotton mill, sold plows and afterwards became a bank clerk. His boycott of slave products lead him to selling mainly wool, rather than cotton because he too believed that ...
Her children greatly shaped her life; she gave birth to eight children and loved them deeply. In, "In Reference to My Children", she writes about neutering her children: “great was my pain when I you bread, great was my care when you I feed" (Bradstreet 55). She recorded her struggles about being a mother in troubling times. In her poem, "Before the Birth of One of Her Children" she records the last moments before giving birth: "and when thy loss shall be with gains, look to my little babes, my dear remains."(Bradstreet 21), she writes this thinking it would be her last thinking that childbirth would kill her, proving that her love for her children is greater than any other love she has, and that she would die for them. Her husband also is a theme in her poems, she writes about her bond with him and that "if ever two were one, then surely we" (Bradstreet 1) in "To My Dear Loving Husband". Bradstreet Is constantly writing about her husband and her love for him when he is far telling the reader that she is close with her husband and that she loves him deeply. Not only does her poems reflect her husband but also the roll that women had in the 1600's. In "A Love Letter to Her Husband" she tells him to "post with double speed, mark what I say, by all our loves contour him not to stray" (Bradstreet 39). One of her most prominent themes would be her devotion to her religion and God. She
Weisgall, Deborah. “The Mother of All Girls’ Books.” The American Prospect. n.p. 11 June 2012. Web. 29 March 2014. .
However, while embracing the often axiomatic freedoms of today, women everywhere should take time to acknowledge the struggles of previous generations. If one were to delve into the history of early American society, they would surely discover a male-dominated nation where women were expected to tend to their kitchen rather than share the responsibility of high government. During this time, a woman was considered the property of her husband, and was to remain compliant and silent. Nevertheless, two brilliant writers, Lydia Marie Child and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, resolved to confront and address the oppression afflicting America’s women. Although these two women have different styles of writing, they both advocate similar contentions.
Mary Wollstonecraft was a British feminist writer and intellectual person from the eighteenth century (“Who Is Mary Wollstonecraft?”). Raised by a violent and physically abusive father after her mother's death, Mary eventually left home to pursue a better life (“Who Is Mary Wollstonecraft?”). Though not receiving much education herself, Mary established a school for girls with her sister Eliza and friend Fanny, but it was shut down a year later because of financial issues (“On National Education”). Then taking up a job as a governess, she realized that an existence revolving around domestic labor did not suit her (Tomaselli). She next took up a position as a translator and publisher, and ultimately became an author with books such
Mary Wollstonecraft lived with a violet and abusive father which led her to taking care of her mom and sister at an early age. Fanny Blood played an important role in her life to opening her to new ideas of how she actually sees things. Mary opened a school with her sister Eliza and their friend Fanny Blood. Back then for them being a teacher made them earn a living during that time, this made her determined to not rely on men again. Mary felt as if having a job where she gets paid for doing something that back then was considered respected than she wouldn’t need a man to be giving her money. She wasn’t only a women’s right activist but she was a scholar, educator and journalist which led her to writing books about women’s rights.
Dorris, Michael. "Mothers and Daughters." Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 59. Ed. Roger Matuz. Detroit: Gale, 1990.
Child’s birth name was Julia Carolyn Williams on August 15, 1912 in Pasadena, California. She was the eldest of three children; Dorothy Dean and a brother John III. She attended three boarding schools growing up. Child enjoyed playing sports including tennis, basketball, and golf. She attended Smith College and graduated in 1934 with a major in English. Julia moved to New York and had several different jobs that included her major, which included working for an advertising company and also in publications.
Susan learned to read and write at the age of three. In 1826, the Anthony’s moved from Massachusetts to Battensville, New York. Where Susan attended a district school, when the teacher refused to teach Susan long division, she was taken out of school and taught in home school set up by her father. A woman teacher, Mary Perkins, ran the school. Perkins offered a new image of womanhood to Susan and her sisters.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Rappaccini’s Daughter.” Sam Houston State University. Sam Houston State University, n.d. Web. 30 Jan. 2014.
Rachel McMillan (1859 - 1917) and Margaret McMillan (1860 - 1931) were born in Westchester, New York. In 1865 there was an outbreak of scarlet fever, which caused their father and youngest sister to die, leaving Margaret deaf till she regained her hearing at age 14. After the death of her husband, Jean McMillan decided to take her daughters back to Inverness, Scotland where her family lived. In the 1880’s both sisters moved to London and became governesses and later on made a major impact on children’s welfare.