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.
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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.
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 ...
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.
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.
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
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.
The Abolitionist Movement transformed the role of women in American History. Prior to the abolitionist movement, women were viewed as invisible icons in society. A typical woman would only be responsible for motherhood duties, cleaning, and preparing food. While many women agreed with this, others did not. The desire to be heard and treated equally was something numerous women shared. Astonishing women like, Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Grimke sisters became prominent leaders in the abolitionist movement and made a pathway in history by initiating speeches, participating in female politics and supporting their personal opinions of women’s rights through religious doctrines.
Born on December 25, 1921, Clara grew up in a family of four children, all at least 11 years older than her (Pryor, 3). Clara’s childhood was more of one that had several babysitters than siblings, each taking part of her education. Clara excelled at the academic part of life, but was very timid among strangers. School was not a particularly happy point in her life, being unable to fit in with her rambunctious classmates after having such a quiet childhood. The idea of being a burden to the family was in Clara’s head and felt that the way to win the affection of her family was to do extremely well in her classes to find the love that she felt was needed to be earned. She was extremely proud of the positive attention that her achievement of an academic scholarship (Pryor, 12). This praise for her accomplishment in the field of academics enriched her “taste for masculine accomplishments”. Her mother however, began to take notice of this and began to teach her to “be more feminine” by cooking dinners and building fires (Pryor, 15). The 1830’s was a time when the women of the United States really began to take a stand for the rights that they deserved (Duiker, 552). Growing up in the mist of this most likely helped Barton become the woman she turned out to be.
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.
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.
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.
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