Women's Rights Emerges Within the Anti-Slavery Movement, 1830-1870 A Short History with Documents

by Sklar, Kathryn Kish

• ISBN13: 9780312101442
• ISBN10: 0312101449
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-03-24
• Publisher: Bedford/St. Martin's

Summary

Combining documents with an interpretive essay, this book is the first to offer a much-needed guide to the emergence of the women's rights movement within the anti-slavery activism of the 1830s. A 60-page introductory essay traces the cause of women's rights from Angelina and Sarah Grimke's campaign against slavery through the development of a full-fledged women's rights movement in the 1840s and 1850s and the emergence of race as a divisive issue that finally split that movement in 1869. A rich collection of over 50 documents includes diary entries, letters, and speeches from the Grimkes, Maria Stewart, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Theodore Weld, Frances Harper, Sojourner Truth, and others, giving students immediate access to the world of abolitionists and women's right advocates and their passionate struggles for emancipation. Headnotes to the documents, 14 illustrations, a bibliography, questions to consider, a chronology, and an index are also included.

Author Biography

KATHRYN KISH SKLAR is Distinguished Professor of History at the State University of New York, Binghamton. Her writings focus on the history of women's participation in social movements, women's voluntary organizations, and American public culture. Her books include Catharine Beecher: A Study in American Domesticity (1973) and Florence Kelley and the Nation's Work: The Rise of Women's Political Culture, 1830-1900 (1995), both of which received the Berkshire Prize. She has received Ford, Rockefeller, Guggenheim, and Mellon Foundation Fellowships, as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Center for Advanced Study in the Social and Behavioral Sciences.

Table of Contents

Foreword	vii
Preface	ix
List of Illustrations	xxi
PART ONE Introduction: ``Our Rights as Moral Beings''	1	(76)
Prelude: Breaking Away from Slave Society	2	(4)
Seeking a Voice: Garrisonian Abolitionist Women, 1831-1833	6	(10)
Women Claim the Right to Act: Angelina and Sarah Grimke Speak in New York, July 1836-May 1837	16	(12)
Redefining the Rights of Women: Angelina and Sarah Grimke Speak in Massachusetts, Summer 1837	28	(12)
The Antislavery Movement Splits Over the Question of Women's Rights, 1837-1840	40	(7)
An Independent Women's Rights Movement Is Born, 1840-1858	47	(25)
Epilogue: The New Movement Splits Over the Question of Race, 1850-1869	72	(5)
PART TWO The Documents	77	(1)
Seeking a Voice: Garrisonian Abolitionist Women, 1831-1833	77	(7)
Life and Letters, 1884	77	(1)
Lucretia Mott
Mott remembers the 1833 founding of the American Anti-Slavery Society and the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society
Constitution of the Afric-American Female Intelligence Society, 1831	78	(1)
African American women organize for mutual assistance in Boston
Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality, 1831	79	(2)
Maria Stewart
An African American Bostonian urges her people to organize
Lecture Delivered at the Franklin Hall, Boston, 1832	81	(1)
Maria Stewart
Stewart urges black and white women to reflect on their social status
Farewell Address to Her Friends in the City of Boston, 1833	82	(2)
Maria Stewart
Stewart reviews her leadership efforts and the ridicule she faced
Women Claim the Right to Act: Angelina and Sarah Grimke Speak in New York, July 1836-May 1837	84	(26)
American Anti-Slavery Society, Petition Form for Women, 1834	84	(2)
Appeal to the Christian Women of the South, 1836	86	(3)
Angelina Grimke
Grimke offers specific actions southern women can take
Letter to Jane Smith, New York, December 17, 1836	89	(3)
Angelina Grimke
Grimke expresses difficulties and hopes in response to the prejudice against women speaking in public life
Letter to Jane Smith, New York, January 20, 1837	92	(1)
Angelina Grimke
Grimke describes her growing love for the work
Letter to Jane Smith, New York, February 4, 1837	93	(1)
Angelina Grimke
Grimke begins to mention women's rights in her talks
Letter to Sarah Douglass, Newark, N.J., February 22, 1837	94	(4)
Sarah
Angelina Grimke
Mingling with free blacks, the sisters express caution and hope
Angelina and Sarah Grimke, Letter to Sarah Douglass, New York City, April 3, 1837
The sisters encourage black women's activism, and speak to men as well as women	96	(2)
Letter to Angelina Grimke, Philadelphia, April 15, 1837	98	(2)
Sarah Forten
Forten considers her experience of racial prejudice against free blacks
An Appeal to the Women of the Nominally Free States, 1837	100	(4)
Angelina Grimke
Grimke's women's rights arguments become available in print
Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women, Proceedings, New York City, May 9-12, 1837	104	(3)
An unprecedented event with an unprecedented resolution
Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism, with Reference to the Duty of American Females, 1837	107	(3)
Catharine E. Beecher
The first printed opposition comes from a woman
Redefining the Rights of Women: The Grimke Sisters Speak in Massachusetts, Summer 1837	110	(43)
Letter to Jane Smith, Boston, May 29, 1837	110	(2)
Angelina Grimke
Grimke is amazed by their success
``To Female Anti-Slavery Societies throughout New England,'' Boston, June 7, 1837	112	(3)
Maria Chapman
Chapman requests support for the sisters as they begin to tour Massachusetts
Letter to Jane Smith, Danvers, Mass., June 1837	115	(2)
Angelina Grimke
The sisters address large audiences of men and women
Letter to Jane Smith, new Rowley, Mass., July 25, 1837	117	(1)
Angelina Grimke
Grimke expresses radical views on government as well as women's rights
Letter to Amos Phelps, Groton, Mass., August 3, 1837	118	(1)
Sarah
Angelina Grimke
The sisters stand up to the clergy within the American Anti-Slavery Society
Pastoral Letter: The General Association of Massachusetts to Churches under Their Care, July 1837	119	(2)
The Massachusetts clergy condemn women's speaking in public
Lecture by Albert Folsom, Pastor, Universalist Church, Hingham, Mass., August 27, 1837	121	(1)
A fashionable clergyman adds to the rebuke
Letter to Jane Smith, Groton, Mass., August 10, 1837	122	(2)
Angelina Grimke
Thousands hear the Grimkes' message
Letter to Theodore Weld, Groton, Mass., August 12, 1837	124	(3)
Angelina Grimke
Grimke appeals to a friend for support in her struggle
Letter to Sarah and Angelina Grimke, August 15, 1837	127	(2)
Theodore Weld
Weld argues for putting the antislavery cause first
Letter to Angelina and Sarah Grimke, New York City, August 14, 1837	129	(1)
John Greenleaf Whittier
Whittier cautions the sisters not to divert their energies
Letter to Theodore Dwight Weld and John Greenleaf Whittier, Brookline, Mass., August 20, 1837	130	(4)
Angelina Grimke
Grimke argues that women's rights must be defended now
Resolutions Adopted by the Providence, Rhode Island, Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society, October 21, 1837	134	(1)
The society publicizes its support for women's rights
Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, Annual Report, 1837	135	(7)
A powerful organization reviews an eventful year
``Human Rights Not Founded on Sex'': Letter to Catharine Beecher, August 2, 1837	142	(3)
Angelina Grimke
``Legal Disabilities of Women'': Letter to Mary Parker, September 6, 1837	145	(5)
Sarah Grimke
``Relation of Husband and Wife'': Letter to Mary Parker, September 1837	150	(3)
Sarah Grimke
The Antislavery Movement Splits Over the Women's Rights Question, 1837-1840	153	(12)
Speech at Pennsylvania Hall, Philadelphia, May 16, 1838	153	(4)
Angelina Grimke Weld
Grimke is undeterred by the mob trying to disrupt the assembly
Letter to The Liberator, New York, May 15, 1840	157	(3)
Henry Clarke Wright
Wright describes how and why the ``new organization'' was formed
Letter to Anne Warren Weston, Fort Lee, N.J., July 15, 1838	160	(1)
Angelina Grimke
Grimke emphasizes the importance of domestic life for women's rights advocates
Letter to Angelina Grimke, Boston, September 2, 1839	161	(2)
Lydia Maria Child
A prominent woman abolitionist reviews the split
The Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, Annual Meeting, October 1839	163	(2)
A leading women's association splits
An Independent Women's Rights Movement Is Born, 1840-1858	165	(26)
On Meeting Lucretia Mott, London, June 1840	165	(4)
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Letter to Sarah Grimke and Angelina Grimke Weld, London, June 25, 1840	169	(1)
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Stanton describes her immersion in reform culture
Planning the Seneca Falls Convention, 1848	170	(2)
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Report of the Woman's Rights Convention, Seneca Falls, N.Y., July 19-20, 1848	172	(7)
Speech at Akron Women's Rights Convention, Ohio, June 1851	179	(1)
Sojourner Truth
A charismatic black woman defends women's rights
Address to the ``Woman's Rights Convention,'' Worcester, Mass., October 1850	180	(3)
Abby H. Price
Women's rights conventions flourish in antebellum public culture
Proceedings of the Colored Convention, Cleveland, September 6, 1848	183	(2)
Three cheers for woman's rights within the Colored Convention Movement
``Woman's Rights,'' October 1, 1849	185	(2)
Women claim their rights in the temperance movement
``Just Treatment of Licentious Men,'' January 1838	187	(3)
Women assert their rights in the Moral Reform Movement
Marriage and parentage, 1858	190	(1)
Henry Clarke Wright
An abolitionist supports women's reproductive rights
Epilogue: The New Movement Splits Over the Question of Race, 1850-1869	191	(20)
The Saturday Visiter, November 2, 1850	191	(2)
Jane Swisshelm
Swisshelm argues that race is not a women's issue
Letter to Jane Swisshelm, November 18, 1850	193	(2)
Parker Pillsbury
Pillsbury defends the rights of black women
``Woman's Rights and the Color Question,'' November 23, 1850	195	(1)
Jane Swisshelm
Swisshelm replies to Pillsbury
Speech at the Eleventh Woman's Rights Convention, New York, May 1866	196	(4)
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
A leading black writer addresses the race issue
Equal Rights Association, Proceedings, New York City, may 1869	200	(3)
Black and white delegates debate the relationship between black rights and women's rights
Founding of the National Woman Suffrage Association, New York, 1869	203	(8)
APPENDICES
Questions for Consideration	205	(2)
Selected Bibliography	207	(4)
Index	211