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
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