EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800; ELLEN CRAFT P/153

                                                                  Read Part One HERE

In this post I will continue to look at a woman named Ellen Craft. She lived from 1826 - 1891. Soon after the Crafts arrived in the North, having travelled all the way from Macon, abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison encouraged them to recount their escape in public lectures to abolitionist circles in New England. They moved to the well-established free black community in the north side of Beacon Hill in Boston, where they were married in a Christian ceremony. 

During the next two years, Ellen and her husband made numerous public appearances to recount their escape and speak against slavery. Because society generally disapproved of women speaking to public audiences of mixed gender at the time, Ellen typically stood on the stage while William told their story.  However, an article of 27 April 1849, in the abolitionist paper, the Liberator, reported her speaking to an audience of 800-900 people in Newburyport, Massachusetts.

In 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, which increased penalties for aiding fugitive slaves and required residents and law enforcement of free states to co-operate in capturing and returning formerly enslaved people to their owners. A month after the new law took effect Collins sent two bounty hunters to Boston to capture Ellen and her husband. These two men then travelled to Boston where they were met with resistance on the part of both black and white Bostonians. Abolitionists in Boston had formed the bi-racial Boston Vigilance Committee to resist the new Slave Bill; its members protected the Craft by moving them around various "safe houses", until they could leave the country.

Read Part One Hundred And Fifty-Four HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800; ELLEN CRAFT P/152

                                                                  Read Part One HERE                                                                                                   

In this post I will focus on a woman named Ellen Craft. She lived from 1826 - 1891. She was born in Clinton,Georgia, to Maria, a mixed-race enslaved women, and her wealthy plantation owner, Major James Smith. At least three-quarters European by ancestry, Ellen was very fair-skinned and resembled her white half-siblings, who were her enslaver's legitimate children. Smith's wife gave the 11-year old Ellen as a wedding gift to her daughter, Eliza Cromwell Smith, to get the girl out of her household and remove the evidence of her husband's infidelity.

After Eliza Smith married Dr Robert Collins, she took Ellen with her to live in the city of Macon where they made their home. Ellen grew up as a house servant to Eliza, which gave her privileged access to information about the area,

At age 20, Ellen married William Craft in whom her enslaver Collins held a half interest. Not wanting to have a family in slavery, the couple planned an escape during the Christmas season of 1848.

Ellen planned to take advantage of her appearance to pass as white while the pair travelled by train and boat to the North; she dressed as a man since, at the time, it was not customary for a white woman to travel along with an enslaved man. She also faked illness to limit conversation, as she was prevented from learning to read and write with the threat of death because she was enslaved. William was to act as her personal servant. During that time, enslaved people frequently accompanied their enslavers during travel, so the Crafts did not expect to be questioned. To their surprise, they were detained, but only temporarily. An officer had demanded that William was indeed Ellen's property. They were finally let on the train due to sympathy from passengers and the conductor. 

In preparation for her trip, Ellen dyed her hair and bought appropriate clothes to pass as a young man, travelling in a jacket and trousers. William cut her hair to add to her manly appearance. Ellen also practiced the correct gestures and behaviour. She wore her right arm in a sling to hide the fact that she could not write. They travelled to nearby Macon for a train to Savannah. They then boarded a steamship for Philadelphia, in the free state of Pennsylvania, where they arrived early on the morning of Christmas Day.

Read Part One Hundred And Fifty-Three HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: EMILY HOWLAND P/151

                                                   Read Part One HERE

In this post I will continue to focus on a woman named Emily Howland. She lived from 1827 - 1929. Emily returned to Sherwood, New York, after the death of her father in 1881. She then began to run the Sherwood Select School until 1926 when it becam a public school and was renamed the Emily Howland Elementary School by the state of New York.

Emily was also active in womens' suffrage, peace and temperance movements and was a member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. In 1858, she began organising women's rights lectures and meetings with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. In 1878, she spoke at the 30th anniversary of the Seneca Falls Woman's Rights Convention and in 1894 the New York State Legislature.

When the suffrage movement split into two groups, the National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Associaten, Emily did not take sides, but attended meetings of both groups. 

In 1904, she spoke in front of Congress and attended the 1912 and 1913 suffrage parades in New York.

She has been credited with persuading Ezra Cornell that, as a Quaker, he should make Cornell University, a co-educational institution.

In 1926, she received an honoary Litt.D. degree from the University of the State of NY, in Albany, the first women to have this honour conferred upon her from this institution. 

She was also the author of an historical sketch of early Quaker history in Cayuga County, New York: "Historical sketch of Friends in Cayuga County."

In 1890, Emily became one of the first female directors of a national bank in the United States, the First national Bank of Aurora in Aurora, New York. She served in that function until her death in 1929, at the age of 101.

Read Part One Hundred And Fifty-Two HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800; EMILY HOWLAND P/150

                                                   Read Part One HERE

In this post I will focus on a woman named Emily Howland. She lived from 1827 - 1929. Emily was born at Sherwood in Cayuga County, New York. Her parents were Slocum and Hannah Tallcott Howland, who were prominent in the Society of Friends. She was educated in small private schools in the community, and the Margaret Robinson School, a Friends' school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Emily was an active abolitionist, who taught at the Normal School for Coloured Girls (now the University of the District of Columbia) in Washington, D.C. from 1857 - 1859. 

During the Civil War she worked at the contraband refugee settlement of Camp Todd in Arlington, Virginia, teaching freed slaves to read and write as well as administering to the sick during the small pox outbreak and ultimately serving as director of the camp during 1864 - 1866.

Beginning in 1867, Emily started a community for freed people in Heathsville, Northumberland County, Virginia, called Arcadia, on 400 acres purchased by her father, including a school for the education of children of freed slaves, the Howland Chapel School. She continue to maintain an active interest in African-Amercian education, donation money and materials as well as visiting and corresponding with administrators at many schools.

P.S. I will continue my story of Emily Howland in my next post.

Read Part One Hundred And Fifty-One HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800; ELIZA SPROAT TURNER P/149

                                                        Read Part One HERE

In this post I will continue to focus on a woman named Eliza Sproat Turner. She lived from 1826 - 1903. Eliza joined the Philadelphia Union of Associationists in 1847, and the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society in the 1850s. She helped found the Pennsylvania Woman Suffrage Association in 1869, and was its first corresponding secretary. 

At the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876, Emily was a leader of the Women's Congress and distributed the newspaper "New Century for Women" that she wrote and edited at the Women's Pavilion. 

The New Century Club women's club was founded in Philadelphia in 1877 following a stirring paper that Eliza delivered at the Women's Congress. Eliza was president from 1879 - 1881 and the first corresponding secretary of the literary, social and community organisation. 

Evening classes were held for working girls and women and the success of the endeavour led to the founding of the New Century Guild of Working Women in 1882. It held vocational classes, philosophy and history study groups and activities.

Eliza brought poor children from the city to stay in the summer at her country estate for a week. In 1875, she developed a formal program, the Children's Country Week Association of Philadelphia based on her efforts. She was a founding member of Philadelphia's consumer league and director of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Eliza died in 1903.

Read Part One Hundred And Fifty HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800; ELIZA SPROAT TURNER P/148

                                                         Read Part One HERE

In this post I will begin to focus on a woman named Eliza Sproat Turner. She lived from 1826 - 1903. Eliza was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her father was a writer and a farmer fromVerrmont. Her mother, Maria Lutwyche, came to the United States with her parents and two sisters in 1818 from Birmingham, England and settled in Philadelphia. 

Eliza was raised a Quaker and attended Philadelphia public schools. She taught for several years at the Philadelphia public schools and from 1850 -1853 at Girard College.

While working as a teacher she wrote poetry and prose, which was published in magazines and newspapers. Her writing began to reflect her interest in the femine movement and suffrage.In one of her writings she lamented over having "a mind that is never consulted, a will that is never respected."

Eliza married Nathaniel Randolph in 1855. He was a wealthy lumber merchant and a devout Quaker. Sadly, he died in 1858.

During the civil war Eliza met Joseph C. Turner when both volunteered to assist the wounded at Gettysburg. They married in 1864 and lived at a country estate in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, called Windtryst.

Read Part One Hundred And Forty-Nine HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800; GRACE ANNA LEWIS P/147

                                                          Read Part One HERE

In this story I will focus on a woman named Grace Anna Lewis. She lived from 1821 -1912. Grace Anna was born into a Pennsylvania Quaker family. Her mother had been a teacher before her marriage so she began Grace's education at home, then sent her to a Quaker Boarding School located two miles from the farm where they lived.

Social awareness was also a strong trait in her family, and Grace Anna grew up a staunch abolitionist, viewing slavery as "one of the greatest crimes against humanity." Their home was frequently a refuge for fugitive slaves.

Upon completing her education in 1842, Grace Anna became a teacher. Her first job was at a small boarding school in York, Pennsylvania, run by her uncle Bartholomew Fussell. Afterwards she taught at a school in Phoenixville.

In 1845, she moved back home, devoting herself to the farm and abolition activities. As the 1850's progresssed.she began to organise meetings and procure speakers for local anti-slavery organisations. 

Around that time Grace Anna moved to Philadelphia, living within the close-knit community of Quakers active in science. She began to apply for numerous scientific positions both at the academy and in the private sector. However, her lack of formal education beyond high school was a stumbling block, as was her gender. She ended up teaching for several years at the Friends' School in Philadelphia, then at the Foster School for Girls in Clifton Springs, New York.

In 1885, Mary Anna returned to Media, Pennsylvania, where she remained for the rest of her life. She became active in several community organisations, including the Media Women Suffrage Association, serving as a secretary for a number of years. She was also active in the Women's Christian Temperance Movement and was a member of the Women's Club of Media, which she deemed "a very useful organisation, taking hold of questions of real importance and giving courses of valuable lectures."

Grace Anna died in 1912.

Read Part One Hundred And Forty-Eight HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800; ELIZABETH WIGHAM P/146

                                                          Read Part One HERE

In this post I will focus on a woman named Elizabeth Wigham. She lived from 1820 -1899. Her parents were Jane Richardson and John  Tertius Wigham. They lived in Edinburgh, Scotland. The family was part of a network of leading Quaker anti-slavery families in Edingburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle and Dublin.

Elizabeth, together with her some of her friends, set up the Edinburgh chapter of the National Society of Women's Suffrage. She and her friend Agnes McLaren became the secretaries. Priscilla Bright McLaren was the president, and Elizabeth Pease was the treasurer.

In 1840, Elizabeth and her friend Elizabeth Pease Nichol travelled to London to attend the World Anti-Slavery Convention. Also in attendance at this event were Lucy Towsend, Mary Anne Rawson as well as Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The female delegates were obliged to sit separatedly.

In 1863, Elizabeth served on the committee of the Clementia Taylor's Ladies' London Emancipation Society with Mary Estlin.

She, furthermore, played an active role in the British Women's Temperance Association Scottish Christian Union, becoming a national vice president.

Elizabeth died in 1899. 

Read Part One Hundred And Forty-Seven HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800; ELIZABETH HOBBS KECKLEY P/145

                                                                                    Read Part One HERE                                                                                       

In this post I continue to focus on a woman named Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley. She lived from 1818 - 1907. Elizabeth continued to work as a dressmaker in St. Louis until 1860. She and her son then moved to Washington, D.C. The city had a growing and vibrant African American community, despite the strict rules that were in place for them. 

With the help of her clients in St.Louis, Elizabeth was able to settle in and create a new client base in this city. She started making dresses for the wives of the most well-connected and powerful men in Washington and quickly gained a reputation for being the best dressmaker in the city.

One of Elizabeth's clients suggested to First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln that she ask Elizabeth to make her inauguration gown.This dress became the first Elizabeth made for the First Lady.

Elizabeth was also deeply involved with Civil War relief efforts. In 1862, Elizabeth joined 40 other members of the 15th Street Presbyterian Church to found the Ladies' Contraband Relief Association. As president, she raised money and rallied support for the enslaved men and women who had self-emancipated and come to Washington.

Elizabeth also continued to be a successful businesswoman. By 1865, she had a dress shop on 12th Street and employed 20 women.

Around 1890 Wilberforce University in Ohio, appointed Elizabeth as head of their Department of Sewing and Domestic Science. She had to resign in 1893 due to ill health.

Elizabeth died in 1907. 

Read Part One Hundred And Forty-Six HERE