WISHING YOU A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS

                                               AND GOD'S BLESSINGS FOR 2024

 

 

                                                              🔔🔔🔔

                                           

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: SARAH MAPPS DOUGLASS P/101

                                                              Read Part One HERE

In this story I will continue to focus on a woman named Sarah Mapps Douglass. She lived from 1802 - 1882. In 1852, now reconciled with the Quakers, Sarah closed her school and accepted an appointment to supervise the Girls' Preparatory Department of the Quaker-sponsored Institute for Coloured Youth. From 1853 - 1877 she served as principal of that department. 

During this time, she also  acquired basic medical training at the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania and at Pennsylvania Medical University, where she studied female health and hygiene.

In 1855 Sarah married the Reverend William Douglass, Rector at St Thomas Episcopal Church, a widower with nine children. Her husband died in 1861.

A cause Sarah had long championed was the education of women on health issues. In 1858 she embarked on a career as a lecturer, confronting topics that would have been considered unseemly for an unmarried women to address. Her illustrated lectures to female audiences in New York City and Philadelphia drew praise for being informative and "chaste."

Read Part One Hundred and Two HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: SARAH MAPPS DOUGLASS P/100

                                                               Read Part One HERE

In this story I will continue to focus on a woman named Sarah Mapps Douglass. She lived from 1802 - 1882. Around 1827 Sarah established a school for black children. She also was an active abolitionist and joined her mother as a founding member of their bi-racial Female Phildelphia Anti-Slavery Society in 1833. Sarah served on the Society board of directors, the committee of annual fairs, the education committee, and as librarian and corresponding secretary.

Sarah and her husband forged social and political networks with both black and white abolitionists She maintained a long and close friendship with Angelina and Sarah Moore Grimke, daughters of South Carolina slave holders. 

At the urging of the Grimke sisters, Sarah attended the Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women in New York in 1837. This was the first national convention of American anti-slavery women to integrate black and white members.

During the 1830s and 1840s Sarah was beset by financial problems. Her school never operated at a profit, and in 1838, deciding that she could no longer accept the financial backing of her parents, she asked the Female Anti-Slavery Society to take over the school. The experiment proved unsatisfactory, however, and in 1840 she resumed direct control of the school, giving up a guaranteed salary for assistance in paying the rent.

Read Part One Hundred And One HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: SARAH MAPPS DOUGLASS P/99

                                                               Read Part One HERE

In this story I will focus on a woman named Sarah Mapps Douglass. She lived from 1806 -  1882. Sarah was the daughter of renowed abolitionists Robert Douglass Sr and Grace Bustill Douglass and lived in Philadelphia. Like many prosperous families, the Douglasses educated Sarah and her brother Robert at home with private tutors.

Raised as a Quaker by her mother, Sarah was alienated by the blatant racial prejudice of many white Quakers. Her concern with discrimination within the Religious Society of Friends began when she was a child and observed that her mother was asked to sit either under the stairs or on a back bench at the nearby Arch Street Meeting.

Although she adopted Quaker dress and enjoyed the friendship of Quaker anti-slavery advocates like Lucretia Coffin Mott, she was highly critical of the Religious Society of Friends. Her mother continued to attend but Sarah eventually stopped. 

Read Part One Hundred HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: MARIA WESTON CHAPMAN P/98

                                                                  Read Part One HERE

In this post I will continue to focus on a woman named Maria Weston Chapman. She lived from 1806 -1885. In 1839 Maria together with Lucretia Mott and Lydia Maria Child were elected to the executive committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society, which upset male members of the society. Lewis Tappan, the president of the society, argued: "To put a woman on the committee with men is contrary to the usages of civilised society." However, members Williamd Lloyd Garrison, Theodore Weld, Wendell Philips, and Frederick Douglass were as committed to women's rights as they were to the abolition of slavery.

In 1835, Maria assumed the leadership of the Boston Anti-Slavery Fair, the chief fundraising instrument of the American Anti-Slavery Society. For the next 23 years Maria and her sister Anne were chief organisers of the fairs.

Maria also contributed to numerous anti-slavery periodicals during those years and was on the editorial committee of the National Anti-Slavery Standard, the official mouthpiece of the AAS.

After President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, Maria and Garrison closed down the anti-slavery organisations. She devoted the rest of her life to educating former slaves.

Maria died in 1885. 

Read Part Ninety-Nine HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: MARIA WESTON CHAPMAN P/97

                                                                   Read Part One HERE

In this post I will focus on a woman named Maria Weston Chapman. She lived from 1806 - 1885. Her parents were Warren Weston and Nancy Bates Weston from Weymouth, Massachusetts. She grew up on the family farm and attended local schools. Maria's uncle was a prosperous banker in London, England. He invited her over to complete her education. When she returned to Boston in 1828, she was hired as principal of the Young Ladies High School.

When Maria was 24, she married Henry Grafton Chapman. Both soon began to work for the abolition of slavery and supported a radical call for immediate abolition of slavery.

In 1848, Maria and her sisters Caroline, Anne and Deborah joined eight other women to form the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society - an abolitionist, interracial organisation. They believed slavery to be the direct violation of the law of God.

Members of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society circulated petitions, raised money, wrote and edited publications, and corresponded with each other frequently. 

Read Part Ninety-Eight HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: MARGARETTA FORTEN P/96

                                                                     Read Part One HERE

In this post I will continue to focus on a woman named Margaretta Forten. She lived from 1806 -1878. Margaretta continued her work with the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society and served as Recording Secretary. She also served on the Society's Educational Committee, which "dedicated itself to improving the quantity and quality of local black schools" and was successful in assuming the financial obligations of a primary school in Philadelphia for which Margaretta supervised the finances.

Margaretta was also active in support of womens' suffrage. With her sister, Harriet Forten Purvis, she helped to organise the Fifth National Woman's Rights Convention that met in Philadelphia in 1854, was a co-founder of the interracial Philadelphia Suffrage Association in 1866, and subsequently a member of the American Equal Rights Association.

Margaretta continued her emphasis on education  to assist in the anti-slavery movement and worked as a teacher in many black schools for thirty years. She eventually opened up her own school.

Margaretta passed away in 1878.

Read Part Ninety-seven HERE