Read Part One HERE
In this story I will focus on a woman named Anna Elizabeth Dickinson. She lived from 1842 - 1932. Her parents were John and Mary Edmundson Dickinson and lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They were Quakers. Mary was educated at the Friends Select School of Philadelphia as well as the Westtown School. At age 14, she converted to the Methodist Church, and remained active in the church throughout her life.
In 1857, at the age of fifteen, Mary went to work as a copyist. In 1859 and 1860, she was a teacher in Berks County, Pennsylvia. And in May 1861, she obtained a clerkship for the United States Mint; she was one of the Mint's first female employees.
In 1857, she began to give public speeches on abolition, reconstruction, women's rights and temperance. Her success led the way for future women speakers. In her first public speech, she addressed a man who derided women at a Progressive Friends Meeting. In 1861, she spoke in Philadelphia at the Friends of Progres meeting at Clarkson Hall about "The Rights And Wrongs Of Women" and she addressed the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society in the fall of that year. Lucretia Mott arranged for a lecture tour, sponsored by the Massachusets Anti-Slavery Society for Mary, who quickly became a popular speaker. The series of speeches helped lead the Emancipation Movement.
Read Part Five HERE
No comments:
Post a Comment