EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: JOSEPHINE SOPHIA WHITE GRIFFING P/135

                                                         Read Part One HERE

In this post I will continue to focus on a woman  named Josephine Sophia White Griffing. She lived from 1814 - 1872. Shortly after President Abraham Lincoln gave the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, Josephine joined the Women's Loyal National League as a lecturing agent, where she helped collect thousands of signatures for a women's anti-slavery petition that was eventually presented to the United States Congress by Charles Sumner 

Josephine was also active in the temperance movement. While in Washington, she maintained her dedication to women's rights and the cause of suffrage. In 1866 she helped found the American Equal Rights Association, whose purpose was to promote equality and suffrage for all people no matter their race or sex; she also served as its first vice-president.

Josephine becamse the president of the District of Columbia woman Suffrage Association in 1867, where she helped monitor suffrage activities in Washongton D.C.  In 1869, she joined the National Woman Suffrage Association and acted as its corresponding seretary. 

Josephine died in 1872.

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800; JOSPHINE SOPHIA WHITE GRIFFING P/134

                                                         Read Part One HERE

In this post I will continue to focus on a woman named Josephine Sophia White Griffing. She lived from 1814 - 1872. During the Civil War Josephine was struck by the plight of the recently freed slaves, especially those who were fleeing to Washington, D.C. Determined to help the freedpeople establish themselves, Josephine moved to Washington, D.C. in 1864.

Josephine became an agent for the National Freedmen's Relief Association of the District of Columbia, where she opend up two industrial school for freedwomen in order to teach them marketable skills such as sewing. She also worked with her government contacts to help freedpeople find jobs in  the north, and sometimes travelled with them to make sure they arrived safely. 

In addition to her work for the freedpeople of Washington, D.C. Josephine was also a woman's rights activist. Throughout the 1850s, she joined various organisations, such as the Ohio Women's Rights Association, of which she became the president in 1853.

Read Part One Hundred And Thirty-Five HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800; JOSEPHINE SOPHIA WHITE GRIFFING P/133

                                                         Read Part One HERE

In this post I will focus on a woman named Josephine Sophia White Griffing. She lived from 1814 - 1872. Josephine was born in Hebron, Connecticut. Her parents were Joseph White and his wife Sophia Waldo.

In 1835, at the age of twenty, Josephine married Charles Stockman Spooner Griffing. By 1842, the couple moved to Litchfield, Ohio. By 1849, she had become a active member of the Western Anti-Slavery Society, and by 1851 she had become a traveling agent, preaching "no union with slaveholders." 

Josephine also began going on lecture tours on abolitionism throughout the West, becoming one of the most prolific anti-slavery speakers in the region. She also wrote articles for The Anti-Slavery Bugle, a newspaper published out of Salem, Ohio.

Josephine opened her home as a stop on the Underground Railroad. During the Civil War, she acted as the western agent for the Women's Loyal National League, an organisation that worked to outlaw slavery in every state. 

Read Part One Hundred And Thirty-Four HERE

 

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800; CLARISSA DANFORTH P/ 132

                                                                 Read Part One HERE

In this post I will focus on a woman named Clarissa Danforth. She lived from 1792 - 1855. Clarissa was born in Weathersfield, Vermont. She heard Rev. John Colby preach in 1809 on his way to Ohio and had a conversion experience. After her ordination in 1815, Clarissa became an itinerant preacher throughout nothern New England.

She began preaching in Chepachet, Rhode Island and the surrounding area in 1818 after taking over as pastor of the Chepachet Baptist Church when Rev. Colby died. She was apparently very popular, so much so that in fact there was difficulty in finding large buildings that could hold all the people

Clarissa spent most of her career in Rhode Island and helped lead the revival in Smithfield emanating from the Greenville Baptist Church. She, in fact, led many revivals, and one of them drew in a large crowd when about 3000 people were converted, old and young.The relevance of this is that regardless of any harrassment she could have received in her position, she held her ground and did the Lord's work.

 She also preached for periods in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont. In 1822 she married Danford Richmond, a Baptist minister from Pomfret, Connecticut, and they moved to New York, where she preached only occasionally.

Clarissa died around 1855.

Read Part One Hundred And Thirty-Three HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800; JARENA LEE P/131

                                                Read Part One HERE

In this post I will continue to focus on a woman named Jarena Lee. She lived from 1783 - 1855. Jarena began preaching in 1820 and preached throughout New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York. Her first journey as a itinerant preacher was back to her birthplace in Cape May, New Jersey to visit her mother. She travelled to Ohio to preach, and made an extensive trip to preach her way through Canada.

She became a travelling minister, travelling thousands of miles on foot. In one year alone, she"travelled two thousand three hundred and twenty-five miles, and preached one hundred and seventy -eight sermons."

During all her travels, she always returned to her home in Philadelphia to rest and recuperate.

Jarena was also heavily involved in the abolitionist movement and joined the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1839. 

To share her experiences in ministry, Jarena decided to pen her autobiography titled, "The Life and Religious Experience of Jarena Lee." She completed her autobiography in expanded form in 1849.

Jarena died in 1855. 

Read Part One Hundred And Thirty-Two HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800; JARENA LEE P/130

                                               Read Part One HERE

In this post I will continue to focus on a woman  named Jarena Lee. She lived from 1783 - 1855. In 1811, Jarena married Pastor Joseph Lee. However, her husband died in 1818. Jarena's desire to proclaim the word of God grew even stronger. This caused her to renew her advocay for women in ministry.

In 1819, during a worship service at Bethel Church, a guest preacher began struggling with his message and abruptly stopped preaching. As he stared into the congregation at a loss for words, Jerena sprang to her feet and began preaching, picking up where the minister had left off. 

After her sermon, she was afraid that Bishop Allen would punish her for preaching without permission. On the contrary, he was so impressed by Jarena that he officially gave her authorisation to preach the gospel. He asserted that God had called her to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

She was granted permission first to preach on the itinerary circuit and then to hold prayer meetings in her home, both huge concessions to be given to a nineteenth century woman of any race. However, despite the bishop's blessings, Jarena faced hostility because she was black and a woman.

Read Part One Hundred And Thirty-One HERE

 

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800; JARENA LEE P/129

                                               Read Part One HERE

In this post I will focus on a woman named Jarena Lee. She lived from   1783 -1864. She was born into a free black family, in Cape May, New, Jersey. However, from the age of 7, she began to work as a live-in servant with a white family. As a teenage, she moved from New Jersey to Phildelphia, Pennsylvania, where she continued in domestic service.

One afternoon Jarena attended a worship service at Bethel Church where Bishop Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, was scheduled to preach. After hearing the powerful sermon delivered by Allen, Jarena became a believer. 

In 1807, Jarena sensed a calling to preach the Gospel. She was initially reluctant to pursue ministry, given the male-dominated nature of the church. However, she decided to confide in Bishop Allen and revealed to him her call to preach. Allen told Jarena that he could not grant her permission to preach because he was required to uphold the A.M.E Church's ban against female ministers.

Read Part One Hundred And Thirty HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: JANE JOHNSON P/128

                                                                     Read Part One HERE

In this post I continue to focus on a woman named Jane Johnson. She lived from 1814 - 1872. Jane emancipated herself and her children by walking away from her former "master," John Hill Wheeler, into the free city of Phildelphia, Pennsylvania. On 18 July, 1855, Jane passed a word to a black porter in Bloodgood's Hotel, where Wheeler had locked her in with her children, that she wanted to escape her master's custody. He got word to William Still, chairman of the Vigilance Committee of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, who helped fugitive slaves. Later that day, as the full Wheeler party prepared to board the ferry, Still and abolitionist Passmore Williamsons, secretary of the Society reached the docks. Still told Jane that she could choose freedom according to Pennsylvania law. While Wheeler argued, offered her a promise of freedom, and tried to prevent Jane from leaving, five black dockworkers restrained him, and Williamson explained the state law to him.William Still quickly escorted Jane and her children away by a coach, later taking them secretely to his house.

Jane and her children were soon helped to get to Boston, where they were safeguarded by northern abolistionists, including Lecretia Mott. They continued to live free, settling in Boston. She sheltered fugitive slaves in Boston on at least two occasions. 

Jane died in 1872.

 Read Part One Hundred And Twenty Nine HERE

HAPPY EASTER

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                   

                                                             HE IS RISEN!! 

 

                         HE IS RISEN INDEED!!

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: JANE JOHNSON P/127

                                                                     Read Part One HERE

In this post I will focus on a woman named Jane Johnson. She lived from 1814 - 1872. Jane is believed to have been born into slavery under the name Jane Williams in or near Washington, D.C. Her parents were John Williams and Jane Williams. Little else is known of her early life. She married a man named Johnson and had children with him.

About 1853, Jane and her two children had been sold to John Hill Wheeler, a planter from Noth Carolina and politician then working in Washington, D.C. She worked as a domestic slave in his household. Her oldest son had been sold by a previous master to someone in Richmond, Virginia, and she never expected to see him again.

In 1855, Jane and her sons Daniel and Isaiah, accompanied their master Wheeler and his family by train from Washington, D.C. en route to New York. There Wheeler planned they would take a ship to Nicaragua where he had been appointed as the U.S. Minister. They stopped overnight in Philadelphia on the way. From there, they would proceed by steamboat to New York City to get the ship to Nicaragua.

Pennsylvania was a free state that did not recognise slavery. By its laws, slaves could choose freedom if brought to the state by their masters. At the end of the 18th Century, it had made compromises that enabled Southern members of the national government to keep their slaves in the city for up to six months; past that, they could choose freedom. At that time, the national capital was temporarily in Philadelphia.

Jane emancipated herself and her children by walking away from her former "master", John Wheeler, into the free city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Read Part One Hundred And Twenty-Eight HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: HARRIET JACOBS P/126

                                                       Read Part One HERE                                                                                                                

In this post I will continue to focus on a woman named Harriet Jacobs. She lived from 1813 - 1897. From 1862 - 1866 Harriet devoted herself to relief efforts in and around Washington, D.C, among former slaves who had become refugees of war. 

With her daughter she founded a school in Alexandria, Virginia, which lasted from 1863 to 1865, when both mother and daughter returned South to Savannah, Giorgia, to engage in further relief work among the freedmen and freedwomen. 

The spring of 1867 found Harriet back in Edenton, actively promoting the welfare of the ex-slaves. This sense of dedication and solidarity with those who had been enslaved kept Harriet at work in the South until racial violence ultimately drove her and her daughter back to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where in 1870 she opened a boarding house. 

By the mid-1880s Harried had settled with her daughter in Washington, D.C. where she died in 1897. 

Read Part One Hundred And Twenty-Seven HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800; HARRIET JACOBS P/125

                                                        Read Part One HERE                                                                                                                  

In this post I will continue to to focus on a woman named Harriet Jacobs. She lived from 1813 -1897. For ten years Harriet lived the tense and uncertain life of a fugitive slave. She found her daughter in Brooklyn, secured a place for both her children to live with her in Boston, and went to work as a nursemaid to the baby daughter of Mary Stace Willis. Dr Norton, in whose home Harriet had worked as a slave, made several attempts to locate her in New York, which forced her to keep on the move. 

In 1849, Harriet took up an eighteen-month residence in Rochester, New York, where she worked with her brother in a Rochester anti-slavery reading room and bookstore above the offices of Frederick Douglass's newspaper "The North Star." In Rochester she met and began to confide in Amy Post, an abolitinist and pioneering feminist who gently urged the fugitive slave mother to consider making her story public. By the summer of 1857 Harriet had completed " a true and just account of my own life in slavery," an account of the sexual abuse of her and other slave women and their mothers' attempts to protect them.

Harriet's book was published by a Boston printer in 1860. The British edition appeared a year later. The anti-slavery press in the US as well as the anti-slavery press in the UK praised her book. However, the success of the book was quickly overshadowd by the gathering clouds of civil war in the US.

Read Part One Hundred And Twenty-Six HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800; HARRIET JACOBS P/124

                                                        Read Part One HERE                                                                                                               

In this post I will focus on a woman named Harriet Jacobs. She lived from 1813 - 1897. Harriet was born in Edenton, North Carolina, USA.  She was the daughter of Delilah, the slave of Margaret Horniblow and Daniel Jacobs, the slave of Andrew Knox. Until she was six years old, Harriet was unaware that she was the property of Margaret Horniblow. Before her death in 1822, Harriet's kind mistress taught her to read and sew. In her will, Margaret bequeathed eleven-year old Hariet to a niece, Mary Matilda Norcom. Since Mary  was only three years old when Harriet became her slave, Mary's father, Dr James Norcom became in fact her master. Harriet soon realised that her master was a sexual threat.

From 1825, when she entered the Norcom household, until 1842, the year she escaped from slavery, Harriet struggled to avoid the sexual victimization that Dr Norcom intended to be her fate. In desperation she formed a clandestine liason with Samuel Redwell Sawyer, a white attorney with whom she had two children.

Hoping that by seeming to run away she could induce Norcom to sell her children to their father, Harriet hid herself in a crawl space above a storeroom in her grandmother's house in the summer of 1835. In that little hole she remained for the next seven years, sewing, reading the Bible, keeping watch over her children as best she could, and writing occasional letters to Norcom designed to confuse him as to her actual whereabouts.

Although Sawyer had purchased their children in accordance with Harriet's wishes, he moved to Washington D.C. without freeing them.In 1842 Harriet escaped to the North by boat, determined to reclaim her daughter from Sawyer, who had sent her to Brooklyn, New York, to work as a house servant.

Read Part One Hundred And Twenty-Five HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: ANNA MURRAY DOUGLASS P/123

 

                                                           Read Part One HERE

In this post I will continue to focus on a woman named Anna Murray Douglass. She lived from 1813 - 1882. After Anna's future husband, Frederick, reached New York City and found a safe place to hide, he sent word to Anna, who joined him there. The two were married on September 15, 1838. Fortified with household items purchased by Anna, the couple moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts. From that time until Frederick's freedom was purchased in 1846, Anna was technically harbouring a fugitive slave, making her an accomplice in his flight to freedom.

While at first Frederick worked as a common labourer, he soon became a successful author and public figure of increasing renown. His rise to fame included certain risks and hardships for his family. He was still a fugitive when he published his first autobiography. His book's publishing success necessitated his taking an extended tour to the UK from 1845  to 1847 to avoid being recaptured by his former owner. Anna managed the household in his absence, and supplemented the family's income by mending shoes.

Anna took an active role in the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society. She, futhermore, donated to abolitionist societies. After the family moved to Rochester, New York, she established a headquarters for the Underground Railroad from her home, providing food, board and clean linen for fugitive slaves on their way to Canada. She and her husband moved to Washington, D.D. in 1872.

Anna suffered a series of strokes in 1882 and died that year. 

Read Part One Hundred And Twenty-Four HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800; ANNA MURRAY DOUGLASS P/122

                                                            Read Part One HERE

In this post I will focus on a woman named Anna Murray Douglass. She lived from 1813 - 1882. Anna was born in Denton, Maryland to Banbarra and Mary Murray. Unlike her seven older brothers and sisters, who were born in slavery, Anna and her younger four siblings were born free - her parents having been freed by their slave owners just a month before her birth. When she was seventeen years old, Anna left home to  work as a domestic helper in Baltimore, Maryland. 

Baltimore boasted a diverse population that included a community of more than 10,000 enslaved people and 17,000 free people of colour. While slavery remained legal in Maryland until 1864, free black men and women in Baltimore organised churches, established school, and maintained several stops on the Underground Railroad.

It was withing this activist community of free Blacks that Anna met her future husband Frederick Douglass in 1838. He was still enslaved so Anna enabled his escape by, among other things, sewing him a sailor's uniform as a disguise and borrowing a freedman's protection certificate so that he could leave Maryland. In addition, she financed Frederick's travels with savings from her domestic work and from the proceeds from the sale of personal items.

Read Part One Hundred And Twenty-Three HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800; PAULINA KELLOG WRIGHT DAVIS P/121

  

                                                                       Read Part One HERE

In this post I will continue to focus on a woman named Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis. She lived from 1813 - 1876. The Second national Women's Rights Convention was again held in Worcester, Masachusetts on October 15-16, 1851 and was once again presided over by Paulina. It drew an even larger audience than the first.

The third convention was held in Syracuse, New York, on September 8-10, 1852, Paulina attended and contributed but did not preside over it. There were additional annual conventions held from 1853 through 1860. However, the Civil War brought an end to the annual Womens' Rights Conventions, as women turned their hands to support emancipation and the northern war effort.

After the Civil War, Paulina helped found the New England Woman Suffrage Association. Beginning in 1869 she made many of the arrangements for the twentieth anniversary of the First National Women's Rights Convention, which was held at the Apollo Hall in New York City on October 21, 1870. Paulina was asked to preside over this meeting.

During the 1860s and 1870s Paulina travelled abroad with other family members.

She died in 1876.

Read Part One Hundred And Twenty-Two HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800; PAULINA KELLOGG WRIGHT DAVIS P/120

                                                                      Read Part One HERE

In this post I will continue to focus on a woman named Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis. She lived from 1813 - 1876. In the late 1840s Paulina met widower Thomas Davis, an anti-slavery Democrat from Providence, Rhode Island. They got married in 1849. Thomas supported many of Paulina's causes, including women's equality in marriage.

In May 1850 a meeting was held to plan for the first National Women's Rights Convention - two years after Seneca Falls- to be held on October 23-24 in Worcester, Massachusetts. Paulina became the organiser and president of the convention.

For two days, more than 1000 delegates from 11 states filled Brimley Hall to overflowing. Speakers, most of them women, demanded the right to vote, to own property, and to be admitted to higher education, medicine, the ministry and other professions. 

At the end of the convention, the participants insured annual national meetings by appointing a central committee, including Paulina, Samuel May, Lucretia Mott, to co-ordinate efforts and call conventions.

Read Part One Hundred And Twenty-One HERE                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800; PAULINA KELLOGG WRIGHT DAVIS P/ 119

                                                                      Read Part One HERE

In this blog I will focus on a woman named Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis. She lived from 1813 -1876. Paulina was born in Bloomfield, New York, USA. Her parents were Captain Ebenezer Kellogg and Polly Saxton Kellogg. The family moved to the frontier near Niagara Falls in 1817. In 1820 Paulina went to live with an Presybyterian aunt in LeRoy, New York, where she was educated and attended church regularly. She wanted to become a missionary but the church did not allow single women to become missionaries.

In 1833 she married Francis Wright. Both Paulina and her husband had similar values and were involved in various reform movements - anti-slavery, temperance and women's rights.

In the late 1830s, Paulina met Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She worked with others on a petition to the New York state legislature that eventually led to the passage of the Married Women's Property Acts in 1848, giving married women control of their own personal property and real estate.

Her husband's death in 1845 left Paulina desolate but independently wealthy and free to embark on a career as a lecturer and educator.

Read Part One Hundred And Twenty HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800; SARAH HARRIS FEAYERWEATHER P/118

                                                                                   Read Part One HERE

In this blog I continue to focus on a woman named Sarah Harris Fayerweather. She lived from 1812 - 1878. As for Miss Crandall, at whose school Sarah taught,  she was arrested three times for violating the Black Law, and spent a night in jail. The students testified on her behalf at the trial. Miss Crandall was convicted, but on July 1834,  her case was overturned by the Connecticut Supreme Court on a technicality. Shortly thereafter, the Canterbury Female Boarding School was attacked by a mob. For the safety of her students, Miss Crandall decided to permanently close the school.

By this time, Sarah had left the school. She had married George Fayerweather in 1833. The couple moved to New London, Connecticutt in 1841 before moving to Kingston, Rhode Island, in 1855. Sarah supported abolitionism and racial equality. She joined the Kingston Anti-Slavery Society, attended anti-slavery meetings held by the American Anti-Slavery Society in various cities acrosss the North, and maintained a correspondence with former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass. She also maintained an active church life, joining the Sunday School class at Kingston's Congregational Church.

Sarah died in 1878.

Read Part One Hundred And Nineteen HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: SARAH HARRIS FAYERWEATHER P/117

                                                                                   Read Post One HERE

In this post I will continue to share the story of Sarah Harris Feayerweather. She lived from 1812 - 1878.

Sarah was admitted to Miss Crandall's school, but this caused an immediate furore among the parents of white students in the school and the Canterbury townspeople. Parents withdrew their daughters from the school, forcing Mis Crandall to briefly close it. After consultations with a number of black and white abolitionists, Miss Crandall re-opened her Academy in April 1833, exclusively serving "Young Ladies and Little Misses of Colour."

This created another furore in the town: stores refused to sell to students, churches refused admittance for services, doctors refused to provide medical services.The young girls, who averaged fifteen years old, experienced frequent harrassment and taunting whenever they appeared in public.

In response to Miss Crandall opening her school to black girls, the Connecticut Legislature passed the infamous Black Law of 1833, making it illegal to educate black children from out of state without permission from the state.

Read Part One Hundred And Eighteen HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: SARAH HARIS FAYERWEATHER P/116

                                                                                   Read Part One HERE

In this post I will focus on a woman named Sarah Harris Fayerweater. She lived from 1812 - 1878. Sarah was born in Norwich, Connecticut, USA. Her parents were William Monteflora Harris and Sally Prentice Harris. She was of African and French West Indian descent and the second oldest of twelve children. She was raised in the Orthodox Congregational Church of Canterbury.

Sarah's father understood the importance of education for the advancement of his race, and he ensured that all his children received schooling. Initially, that meant that the Harris children would all attend the Sabbath School and the district school in their home town of Norwich.

In January 1832, shortly after Prudence Crandall had opened her Canterbury Female Boarding School, Sarah's parents purchased a farm in Canterbury. In September 1832, Sarah asked: "Miss Crandall, I want to get a little more learning, if possible, enough to teach coloured children, and if you will admit me to your school I shall forever be under the greatest obligation to you." Miss Crandall intitially declined to give an answer, stating she would take time to think about it. But Sarah made repeated requests, and was admitted later in the Fall of 1832. 

Read Post One Hundred And Seventeen HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: JANE MASTER HUNT P/115

                                                                 Read Part One HERE

In this post I continue to focus on a woman named Jane Master Hunt. She lived from 1812 - 1889.

On July 19, 1848, people crowded into the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls for the two-day historic event that catapulted the women's rights movement into a national battle for equality. Although the convention was for women, men were not turned away. Therefore, forty-two men became part of the 300-member assembly. James Mott, womens' rights advocate and husband of Lucretia Mott, chaired the event. Both Jane and Richard Hunt attended the Convention.

The Seneca Falls Convention advertised itself as "a convention to discuss the social, civil and religious condition and rights of women." For the occasion Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote a Declaration of Sentiments, which she modeled on the Declaration of Independence. to formally assert the equality of men and women and propose resolutions, including female suffrage.

On the first day, Elizabeth read the Declaration of Sentiments to formally assert the equality of men and women and propose resolutions including female suffrage. 

On the second day, abolitionist Frederick Douglass made a powerful speech that unified the two causes of abolishing slavery and women's rights. It was also the day that the convention voted on the Declaration of Sentiments. After 68 women and 32 men signed the document making it legitimate, the women's rights movement officially began.

Richard Hunt died in 1856, leaving Jane a wealthy widow, but she remained active in community affairs and gave generously to the town of Waterloo. 

Jane died in 1889, while visiting her daughter in Chicago. 

Read Part One Hundred And Sixteen HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: JANE MASTER HUNT P/114

                                                                Read Part One HERE

In this post I continue to focus on a woman named Jane Master Hunt. She lived from 1812 - 1889.

Lucretia Mott arrived at Jane's home with her sister Martha Wright from Auburn, New York. Mary Ann McClintock of Waterloo was also there. The only non-Quaker was Elizabeth Cady Stanton, from nearby Seneca Falls. As the women drank their tea, Elizabeth shared her frustration about women's subservenient place in society.

Elizabeth had first met Lucretia at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, England, in 1840 , when Elizabeth was on her honeymoon. When the London meeting refused to admit women delegates from the United States, the two women had agreed to hold a meeting to discuss the rights of women when they returned home, but real life intervened, and they never did. Seeing Lucretia again after eight years apart inspired Elizabeth once more, and she poured out her long-standing discontent.

They discussed the misfortunes imposed upon females - they could not vote or own property, and there were few social or intellectual opportunities. These women decided they wanted change. Without that gathering of Quaker women who were experienced in the strategy and tactics of the abolition movement, energized by Elizabeth, there would have been no Seneca Falls Convention.

Read Part One Hundred and Fifteen HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: JANE MASTER HUNT P/113

                                                                Read Part One HERE

In this post I focus on a woman named Jane Hunt. She lived from 1812 - 1889. Jane was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Quakers William and Mary Master. At age 33 Jane married Richard Hunt and moved to Waterloo, New York.

Jane and Richard opposed slavery and their home served as a station on the Underground Railroad.

Traditional Quakers tenets held that men and women should meet separately when making religious decisions. In 1848 the Hunts and other Quaker families formed a more radical Quaker group known as the Yearly Meeting of Congregational Friends, or Progressive Friends. They intended to further elevate the infuence of women in affairs of the faith. They introduced joint meetings of men and women, giving women an equal voice.

After a Quaker service on Sunday 9 July, 1848, several women decided to invite Lucretia Mott, a well-known Quaker minister and social reformer from Philadelphia, to visit Waterloo. Lucretia was most famous for her oral ability, which was rare during an era in which women were often not allowed to speak in public. Jane offered her home for the meeting.

Read Part One Hundred And Fourteen HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: ABBY KELLEY P/112

                                                                Read Part One HERE

In this post I will continue to focus on a woman named Abby Kelley. She lived from 1811 - 1887.  In 1845, Abby married fellow abolitionist Stephen Foster, with whom she had a daughter Paulina. She and her husband lectured together throughout Ohio. Their home became a station on the Underground Railroad.

In 1850, Abby was one of the many abolitionists who supported the first National Women's Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts. The ideals for freedom for slaves applied equally to the new women's reform movement. Early women's rights activists used the existing abolitionist networks for support. Abby became more active in the women's movement after the Civil War.

Abby believed that the problem of slavery was a moral one, and that only moral weapons would free the slaves.

Abby always struggled to balance her anti-slavery and women's rights work with her role as a wife and a mother. She devoted over 50 years of her life to fight for the rights of all humanity. 

Abby died in 1887.

Read Part One Hundred And Thirteen HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: ABBY KELLEY P/111

                                                               Read Part One HERE

In this post I will continue to focus on a woman named Abby Kelley. She lived from 1811- 1887. In 1845, Abby receivd a request from the Ohio American Anti-Slavery Society, asking her to attend the annual meeting of the society and to present their program at conventions throughout Ohio during the summer.

On June 5, Abby arrived at the annual meeting, which was held in the New Lisbon's Disciples' Church. She lectured to an audience of 500 people, mostly Quakers and blacks, who filled the church to overflowing. Many people had to be content with sitting on benches outside.

Even those opposed to abolition of slavery often spoke of Abby's power as a speaker. In May 1845, the New York Herald, an anti-reform newspaper, praised her address at an American Anti-Slavery Society meeting.

In the summer of 1845, Abby attended an annual Quaker meeting at Mount Pleasant, Ohio. These were not abolitionist Friends, but were Orthodox Quakers. Abby waited for most of the day before speaking. She had hardly begun her lecture when she was ordered to stop disturbing the meeting. She tried to go on, but the men physically carried her out of the building.

Read Part One Hundred And Twelve HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: ABBY KELLEY P/110

                                                               Read Part One HERE

In this post I will continue the story of Abby Kelley. She lived from 1811 - 1887. Abby's career as a lecturer began in 1838, when she gave her first speech for the American Anti-Slavery Society to an audience of men and women at Pennsylvania Hall in Philadelphia. She would go on to become one of its most popular speakers and its most successful fundraiser. Through her influence, many women became abolitionists and supporters of women's rights.

Frederick Douglass, a slave who escaped to freedom and fought to free his people from bondage, sometimes joined Abby on the lecture tours. She liked to work with black speakers, who could give first hand accounts of the horrors of slavery.

Abby went to Seneca Falls, New York, in 1843 to give an abolitionist lecture, and initiated a chain of events that founded a congregation and a host for the First Women's Rights Convention five years later.

Read Part One Hundred And Eleven HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: ABBY KELLEY P/109

                                                                Read Part One HERE

In this story I will focus on a woman named Abby Kelley. She lived from 1811 - 1887. Abby was born in Pelham, Massachusetts. She was raised as a Quaker and in 1826, she was sent to the New England's Friends Boarding School. Then she worked as a teacher for a few years.

Abby began to read William Lloyd Garrison's paper, the Liberator, and became a devoted abolitionist.. She was elected secretary of the Lynn Female Anti-Slavery Society, and she was one of the founding members of the New England Non-Resistance Society, which supported non-violent social reform.

At a time when society demanded that women be silent, submissive and obedient, Abby was vocal, assertive and headstrong. Despite harassment and ridicule, she never compromised her belief that all people are created equal and deserve to be free. 

Read Part One Hundred And Ten HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800; ELIZABETH BULTITUDE P/108

 

                                                      Read Part One HERE

In this story I will focus on a woman named Elizabeth Bultitude. She lived from 1809 - 1890. Elizabeth was born in Hardwick, Norfolk, England. She came from a large Wesleyan Methodist family and they were poor. She had a spiritual experience when she met Samuel Atterby, who was a Primitive Methodist. She joined that denomination in 1829.

Elizabeth's talents for preaching were spotted and she was given a "note" which gave her the church's authority to preach. She did not find it easy although she noted that in all her time of preaching she only failed to turn up on two occasions. In both cases it had been due to rain which meant that turnout would be poor and it was unwise to preach outside in torrential rain.

Male preachers were poorly paid and women preachers were paid just half that amount. When she was preaching at Soham in 1847 she was criticised for the poor quality of her dress. In reply she noted that even if she spent all of her money on clothes she would not be able to meet any standard of smart attire.

She retired in 1862. There were at least 40 itinerant women preachers and no one in the church gave them a senior position or paid them. Women did not stop preaching but Elizabeth is considered to be the last one who became itinerant to preach. After her the only authorised preachers were male. Elizabeth was the last of a group of women who preached with authority. Her church did not prevent women being preachers -  it just stopped authorising any more.

Elizabeth died in Heigham in 1890 after a long illness.

Read Part One Hundred And Nine HERE

 

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: BETSY MIX COWLES P/107

                                                      Read Part One HERE

In this story I will continue to focus on a woman named Betsy Mix Cowles. She lived from 1810 - 1876. Like many women who participated in the abolitionist cause, Betsy became interested in women's rights as well. While serving as principal and superintendent of a girls' school in Canton and Massilon, Ohio in the late 1840s and early 1850s. Betsy also served as the president of the first Womens' Rights Convention in Ohio at Salem in 1850, which reflects her prominence and the respect she had earned by this time.

Delegates learned that later in 1850, the state of Ohio was planning to convene a new constitutional convention, and the women wanted to have input into what rights women would be granted within the new Constitution of 1851. Later that year, Betsy attended the Akron Womens' Rights Convention and gave a speech about the inequalities in the wages of men and women and became a member of the executive committee of the newly formed Ohio Womens' Rights Association.

By the late 1850s, Betsy became interested in higher education for women teachers and normal schools, which specialised in educating women specifically for the teaching professsion. From 1856 through 1858, she was supervisor of practice teachers at the McNeely Normal School in Hopedale, Ohio. In 1858 she was an instructor at the Illinois State Normal School in Bloomington.

Betsy server as superintendent of public schools in Painesville, Ohio from1858 to 1860, then taught for two years in Delhi, New York.

In 1862, she retired to Austinburg, because of an eye ailment, end then completely lost sight in one eye in 1865, ending her careeer in education. 

Betsy died in 1876.

Read Part One Hundred And Eight HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: BETSY MIX COWLES P/106

                                                      Read Part One HERE

In this story I will continue to focus on a woman named Betsy Mix Cowles She lived from 1810 - 1876. Betsy became actively involved in a number of abolitionists organisations, often serving in leadership positions. Beginning in 1835, she served as the secretary of the Ashtabula County Female Anti-Slavery Society, which was one of the largest in the state with more than four hundred members. In 1846 and 1847 Betsy helped produce anti-slavery fairs and attended anti-slavery fairs and meetings in Boston, Massachusetts.

Betsy began speaking in public about the evils of slavery, and gained a reputation for her ability to articulate the importance of the anti-slavery cause. Not everyone approved of her popularity, however, Many people believed that women should not speak in public, and she was openly criticised for her speeches. Despite this concern, she continued to participate in the anti-slavery movement and opened her home to fugitive slaves as a station on the Underground Railroad in Ohio.

African American were not treated as equals to white people in the new state of Ohio (1803). Enacted in 1804 and 1807, Ohio Black Codes were meant to discourage Blacks from moving to Ohio. One of these laws required Blacks to pay a $500 bond signed by two White men within 20 days of arrival in order to remain in the state. Betsy spoke out against the Black Laws, and resigned one teaching position when the school at which she was working refused to admit black students.

Read Part One Hundred and Seven HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: BETSY MIX COWLES P/105

                                                      Read Part One HERE

In this story I will focus on a woman named Betsy Mix Cowles. She lived from 1810 -  1876. Betsy was the eighth child of Giles Hooker Cowles and Sally White Cowles. In 1811 the Cowles family settled in the town of Austinburg in Ashtabula, the most norteastern county in Ohia, where her father was a minister.

In the later 1820s, Betsy and her sister began opening infant schools, advocating the creation of programs to instruct the very young. In 1827 she began teachig in area schools, and in 1832 she studied in New York City, as part of the infant school movement. When Betsy was 28, she was one of the first students in the Ladies Course at Oberlin College and a member of the third graduating class in 1840.

Betsy did not marry and supported herself as a teacher and principal, and as one of the first women to serve as a school superintendent, which was very rare in the mid-19th centurty. She was involved in establishing a number of public schools and normal schools in the Ohio towns of Austinburg, Massillon, Canton, Hopedale and Painesville, as well as in Bloomington Illinois.

Read Part One Hundred And Six HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: SUSAN PAUL P/104

                                          Read Part One HERE

In this post I will focus on a woman named Susan Paul. She lived from 1809 - 1841. Susan was the youngest daughter of Baptist minister Thomas Paul and his wife Catherine Waterhouse Paul. Her father was an outspoken social activist who introduced his daughter to the anti-slavery movement and many of the movement's most prominent leaders, including David Walker and Lydia Maria Child.

Susan was a primary school a teacher and began her abolitionist career in 1833 with the New England Anti-Slavery Society, a group that was significantly more receptive to women than other anti-slavery societies.At that time she was invited to participate in a meeting of that sociey. She did not speak at that meeting but led a group of about 30 African American childdren from her school in song.

That same year, an assembly of men from the New England Anti-Slavery Society, led by William Lloyd Garrison, visited Susan's classroom, and were overwhelmed by the musical performances that Susan's students provided. Known as the Juvenile Choir of Boston, Susans African American students ranged from ages three to ten and sang patriotic and anti-slavery songs. By teaching her students songs about slavery, Susan was able to inform young African American children about Northern abolitionism and expand the African American anti-slavery movement.

After the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society was formed as an auxiliary of the New England Anti-Slavery Society, Susan became one of the first African American members of the group.

In 1837, she was one of two black women delegates at the Anti-Slavery Convention in New York

Susan, together with Jane Putnam and Nancy Prince founded a temperance society in the 1830s.

Unfortunately, Susan died of tuberculosis at the age of 32, in 1841.

Read Part One Hundred And Five HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: MARTHA STEARNS MARSHALL P/103

                                                      Read Part One HERE

In this post I wil focus on a woman named Martha Stearns Marshall. She lived from 1726-1793. Martha and her husband Daniel Marshall converted to Christianity during the First Great Awakening. The couple migrated from New England to Virginia, where they were introduced to Baptist beliefs. Concluding that Scripture taught believers' baptism, Martha and her husband were soon baptised and joined a Baptist Church, and Daniel was licensed to preach. But both Martha and her husband were preachers and Martha's zeal apparently equalled that of her husband. In 1755, Martha and her husband, together with her brother Shubal Stearns and his small congregation in Virgina, moved to North Carolina. The group settled at Sandy Creek and established a Baptist Church, which became the most influential Seperate Baptist Church in the South, and Martha often stood alongside her brother Shubal to preach at church meetings. Around  1760 Martha and her husband moved to nearby Abbott's Creek and founded a new church, and in 1771 they moved to Columbia County, Georgia, where they establised in Kiokwee Creek, Richmond County, the first missionary Baptist Church. In all these churches Martha provided excellent leadership.

Martha died in 1793.

Read Part One Hundred and Four HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: SARAH MAPPS DOUGLASS P/102

                                                               Read Part One HERE

In this story I will continue to focus on a woman named Sarah Mapps Douglass. She lived from 1802 - 1882. Sarah repeatedly stressed the need of African American women to educate themselves. In 1831 she had helped to organise the Female Literary Society and on the eve of the Civil War she founded the Sarah M.  Douglass Literary Circle.

After the passing of her husband in 1861, Sarah devoted her time to anti-slavery activities and continued teaching. Throughout her abolitionist career she gave as well numerous lecturers.

After the Civil War Sarah became a leader in the Pennsylvania Branch of the American Freedman's Aid Commission, which worked to protect and provide services to the former slaves in the South.

Through the 1860s and 1870s Sarah continued her work of reform, lecturing, raising money for Southern freedmen and women, helping to establish a home for elderly and indigent black Philadelphians and teaching at the Institute for Coloured Youth. 

Sarah died in 1882.

Read Part One Hundred and Three HERE