Lydia Maria Child

Novelist, scholar, and activist for women’s rights, Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880) became an abolitionist after she began reading Garrison’s news journal, The Liberator. In 1833, Child wrote “An Appeal to that Class of Americans Called Africans,” an anti-slavery tract in which she declared her willingness to battle for emancipation. Her new abolitionist rhetoric so repelled readers that Child's books sold poorly, and she could not find a publisher willing to accept her work. From 1841-43, Child was the editor of the National Anti-Slavery Standard, the American Anti-Slavery Society’s newspaper. She later resigned because of infighting among the society's members, who were divided in their support for the diverging philosophies, “moral suasion” and political persuasion. Child revitalized her role as an opponent of slavery after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850 and John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry in 1859. She continued publishing letters, edited Harriet Jacob’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and wrote primers and anti-slavery tracts to combat racial injustice.

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• William Lloyd Garrison
• Wendell Phillips
• Lydia Maria Child
• Samuel J. May
• Lucretia Mott
• Sojourner Truth
• Lewis Tappan
• William Seward
• Frederick Douglass
• Gerrit Smith
• Pennsylvania Hall