EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: MARY AND EMILY EDMONSON P/162

                                                           Read Part One HERE

In this story I will continue to focus on sisters Mary and Emily Edmonson. Mary lived from 1832 - 1853  and Emily lived from1835 - 1895. Both Mary and Emily were emancipated on 4 November 1848. Plymouth Congregational Church continued to contribute for their education. They were enrolled in the co-ed and interracial New York Central College in Cortland, New York, in August 1850. 

While there, they attended the Slave Law Convention In Cazenovia, New York, to protest the proposed Fugitive Slave Act in 1850. There they met Frederick Douglass and were introduced to the abolitionist movement.

Mary and Emily continued their education at Oberlin College in Ohio in 1853. Six months after entering Oberlin, Mary died of tuberculosis at the age of twenty. Emily returned to Washington, D.C. and continued her studies at the Normal School for Coloured Girls.

In 1860 Emily married Larkin Johson and, after living 12 years in Sandy Spring, Maryland, they moved to Washington, D.C., purchasing land in the Anacostia neighbourhood in the souteastern section of the city and becoming founding members of the mostly black Hillsdale community. Emily maintained her relationship with fellow Anacostia resident Frederick Douglass, and both continued working for African American civil and political rights.

Emily died in 1895.

Read Part One Hundred And Sixty-Three HERE

 

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800; MARY AND EMILY EDMONSON P161

                                                          Read Part One HERE

In this post I will focus on two women named Mary Edmonson and Emily Edmonson. Mary lived from 1832 - 1853 and her sister Emily lived from 1835 - 1895. They were the daughters of Paul and Amelia Edmonson, a free black man and an enslaved woman. They lived in Montgomery County, Maryland, USA. At the ages of 15 and 13, Mary and Emily were hired out to work as servants in two elite private homes in Washington D.C. under a lease agreement that required their wages to go to their owner.

On 15 April, 1848, Mary and Emily and four of their brothers joined 71 other slaves on "The Pearl" in what was the largest escape attempt by enslaved people in U.S. history. A posse organised by Washington, D.C. area slave owners captured "The Pearl" on Chesapeake Bay at Point Lookout, Maryland, and towed the ship and its cargo back to Washington, D.C.

Mary and Emily together with the other slaves were sold and sent to New Orleans where their new owners, slave trader partners Bruin & Hill displayed them on an open porch facing the street hoping to attract buyers. A yellow fever epidemic struck New Orleans, forcing Bruin & Hill to send the two girls back to Alexandria, Virginia, to protect their investment.

Their father meanwhile continued his campaign to free his daughters. When Bruin & Hill demanded $2,250 for the sisters' release, he travelled to New York City and met with members of the American Anti-Slavery Society who told him to take his plea to Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, a prominent abolitionist and pastor of the Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn,New York. Their father convinced Reverend Beecher and church members to raise funds to purchase the girls and free them.

Read Part One Hundred And Sixty-Two HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: ELIZABETH CADY STANTON P/160

                                                                              Read Part One HERE

In this post I continue my focus on a woman named Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She lived from 1815 - 1902.

Although Elizabeth remained committed to efforts to gain property rights for women and ending slavery, the women's suffrage movement increasingly became her top priority. Elizabeth met Susan B. Anthony in 1851 and the two began collaboration on speeches, articles, and books. Their intellectual and organisational partnership dominated the woman's movement for over half a century. When Elizabeth was unable to travel due to the demands of raising her seven children, she would author speeches for Susan to deliver.

In 1862, the Stantons moved to Brooklyn and later New York City. There she also became involved in Civil War efforts and joined with Susan to advocate for the 13th amendment, which ended slavery. An outstanding orator with a sharp mind, Elizabeth was able to travel more after the Civil War and she became one of the best-known women's rights activists in the country, Her speeches addressed such topics as maternity, child rearing, divorce law, married women's property rights, temperance, abolition and presidential campaigns. She and Susan opposed the 14th and 15th amendmentss to the US Constitution, which gave voting rights to black men but did not extend the franchise to women.Their stance led to a rift with other women's suffragists and prompted Susan and Elizabeth to found the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) in 1869. Elizabeth edited and wrote for the NSWA's journal The Revolution. As NWSA president, Elizabeth was an outspoken social and political commentator and debated the maajor political and legel questions of the day. The two major women's suffrage groups reunited in 1890 as the National Woman's Suffrage Association.

By the 1880's Elizabeth was 65 years old and focused more on writing that travelling and lecturing. She wrote three volumes of the History of Woman Suffrage with Anthony and Matilda Joslyn Gage. In this comprehensive work, publised several decades before women won the right to vote, the authors documented the individuals and local activism that built and sustained a movement for woman suffrage. She also wrote an autobiography "Eighty Years And More" about the great events and work of her life. Elizabeth died in 1902, 18 years before women gained the right to vote.

Read Part One Hundred And Sixty-One HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: ELIZABETH CADY STANTON P/159

                                                                               Read Part One HERE

In this blog I focus on a woman named Elizabeth Cady Stanton.She lived from 1815 - 1902. Elizabeth was born in Johnstown, New York. She was the daughter of Margaret Livingston and Daniel Cady, Johnstown's most prominent citizens. She received her formal education at the Johnstown  Academy and at Emma Wllard's Troy Female Seminary in New York. Her father was a noted lawyer and state assemblyman and young Elizabeth gained an informal legal education by talking with him and listening to his conversations with colleagues and guests.

A well-educated woman, Elizabeth married abolitionist lecturer Henry Stanton in 1840. She, too, became active in the anti-slavery movement and worked alongside leading abolitionists of the day including Sarah and Angelina Grimle and William Lloyd Garrison, all guests at the Stanton home while they lived in Albany, New York and later Boston.

While on her honeymoon in London to attend a World's Anti-slavery convention, Elizabeth met abolitionist Lucretia Mott, who, like her, was also angry about the exclusion of women at the proceedings. Lucretia and Elizabeth, now fast friends, vowed to call a woman's right convention when they returned home. Eight years later, in 1848, Lucretia and Elizabeth held the first Woman's Right Convention at Seneca Falls, New York. Elizabeth authored, "The Declaration of Sentiments," which expanded on the "Declaration of Independence" by adding the word "woman" or "women" throughout. This pivotal document called for social and legal changes to elevate woman's place in society and listed 18 grievances from the inability to control their wages and property or the difficulty in gaining custody in divorce to the lack of the right to vote. That same year Elizabeth circulated petitions throughout New York to urge the New York Congress to pass the New York Married Woman's Property Act.

P.S. I will contine my story on Elizabeth Cady Stanton in my next post.

Read Part One Hundred And Sixty HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMAN IN EARLY 1800; SARAH PARKER REMOND P/158

                                                                                   Read Part One HERE

In this post I will continue to focus on a woman named Sarah Parker Remond. She lived from 1826 - 1894. From October 1859 to June 1861, Sarah undertook studies at what was then called Bedford College. At the same time she continued to be involved in the abolitionist movement in Britain. She was a member first of the London Emancipation Committee, and then helped found and served on the executive committee of the Ladies' London Emancipation Society, which was organised in 1863.

Sarah continued her studies at the London University College, graduating as a nurse. In 1866, she left England and moved to Florence, Italy. She entered the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital School, one of the most prestigious medical schools in Europe, as a medical student. Sarah graduated in 1868. After completing her studies and becoming a doctor, she remained in Florence for many years, then resided in Rome. Sarah practiced medicine for more than 20 years, never returning to the United States.

In 1877, Sarah married Lazzaro Pintor, an Italian office worker originally from Sardinia. She died in 1895.

Read Part One Hundred and Fifty-Nine HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800; SARAH PARKER REMOND P/157

                                                                                    Read Part One HERE

In this post I will continue to share the story of a woman named Sarah Parker Remond. She lived from 1826 - 1894. As a good speaker and fundraiser, Sarah was invited to take the cause of the American abolitionists to Britain. Accompanied by the Reverend Samuel May Jr, she sailed from Boston for Liverpool on 28 December 1858, on the steamer Arahia.

On 21 January, 1859, at the Tuckerman Istitute, Sarah gave her first anti-slavery lecture in England. Her second lecture took place a few days later. During these speeches, she spoke eloquently of the inhumane treatment of slaves in the Unites States, her stories shocking many of her listeners. She also described the discrimination endured by free blacks throughout the United States.

For the next three years, Sarah lectured to crowds in several town throughout the British Isles, raising large sums for the anti-slavery cause. Between 1859 and 1861, she gave more than 45 lectures in England, Scotland and Ireland.

In 1860, at the invitation of the Edinburgh Ladies' Emancipation Society, she gave a lecture in Edinburgh that was "crowded to the door by a most respectable audience, number upwards of 2000," whose consciences she awakened to a deepened "abhorrence to the sin of slavery." 

Read Part One Hundred And Fifty-Eight HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800; SARAH PARKER REMOND P/156

                                                                                    Read Part One HERE

In this post I will continue to focus on a woman named Sarah Parker Remond.She lived from 1826 - 1894. Salem in the 1840s was a centre for anti-slavery activitiy, and the whole family was committed to the rising abolitionist movement in the United States. The Remond's home was a haven for black and white abolitionists, and they hosted many of the movement's leaders, and more than one fugitive slave fleeing north to freedom. 

Sarah was an active member of the state and county female anti-slavery societies, including the Salem Female Anti-Slavery Society, the New England Anti-Slavery Society, and the Massachusettes Anti-Slavery Society. She also regularly attended anti-slavery lectures in Salem and Boston.

With the support and financial backing of her family, Sarah became an anti-slavery lecturer, delivering her first lecture against slavery at the age of 16.

in 1856, the American Anti-Slavery Society, hired a team of lecturers, including Sarah, to tour New York State addressing anti-slavery issues. Over the next two years she and others also spoke in Massachusetts, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania. She and other African Americans were often given poor accommodation due to racial discrimination. Although inexperienced, Sarah rapidly became an effective speaker. Over time she became on the society's most persuasive and powerful lecturers.

Read Part One Hundred And Fifty-Seven HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800; SARAH PARKER REMOND P/155

                                                                                    Read Part One HERE

In this post I will focus on a woman named Sarah Parker Remond. She lived from 1826 - 1894. Sarah was born in Salem, Massachusetts. Her parents were John Remond and Nancy Lenox. 

Sarah's parents tried to place her in a private school, but she was rejected because of her race. When she was accepted at a local high school for girls which was not segregated, she was expelled because the school committee was planning to found a separate school for African-American children.

In 1835, the family moved to Newport, Rhode Island, where they hoped to find a less racist environment in which to educate Sarah and their other children. However, the schools refused to accept black students. Instead, some influential Africans Americans established a private school, where Sarah was educated.

In 1841, the Remond family returned to Salem. Sarah continued her education on her own, attending concerts and lectures, and reading widely in books, pamphlets and newspapers borrowed from friends, or purchased from the anti-slavery society of her community, which sold many inexpensive titles. 

Read Part One Hundred And Fifty-Six HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: ELLEN CRAFT P/154

                                                                  Read Part One HERE

In this post I will continue to focus on a woman named Ellen Craft. She lived from 1826 - 1891. Aided by their supporters, Ellen and her husband decided to escape to England. They travelled from Portland, Maine to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where they boarded the Cambria, bound for Liverpool, England. They were aided by a group of prominent abolitionists, one of whom arranged for their schooling at the village school in Ockham, Surrey.

Ellen and her husband spent 19 years in England, where she participated in reform organisations such as the London Emancipation Committee, the Women's Suffrage Organisation, and the British and Foreign Freedmen's Society. She turned their home into a hub of Black activism: she invited fellow Black activists to stay and supported other abolitionists.

In 1868, after the American Civil War and passage of constitutional amendments granting emancipation, citizenship, and rights to freedmen, Ellen and her husband returned to the United States. They raised funds from suporters, and in 1870, they bought 1800 acres of land in Georgia, near Savannah, in Bryan County. There they founded the Woodville Co-operative Farm School in 1873, to educate and employ freedmen. However, the school had to close in 1878.

In 1890, Ellen and her husband moved to Charleston, South Carolina.

Ellen died in 1891. 

Read Part One Hundred And Fifty-Five HERE