Lydia maria francis child biography book

Biographies of good wives: Bookreader Item Preview. It appears your browser does not have it turned on. Please see your browser settings for this feature. EMBED for wordpress. Want more? Advanced embedding details, examples, and help! Book digitized by Google from the library of Harvard University and uploaded to the Internet Archive by user tpb.

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Lydia maria francis child biography book: A compelling biography of Lydia Maria

Child continued to demand equal treatment for blacks, and so in she willingly edited former slave Harriet Jacobs's novel Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. She followed this in with The Freedmen's Booka collection of short poems, biographical sketches, and essays created with the hope of inculcating pride in newly freed blacks. Aspirations of the World: A Chain of Opalsthe final anthology of her work, was published intwo years before her death in Wayland.

Although best known for her antislavery writings, Child evinced an interest in all areas of social reform. Throughout her long career she commented on such issues as Indian rights, equal rights for women, educational reform, and religious toleration. She sacrificed a burgeoning national career in the s by remaining true to her own conscience and becoming one of the first Americans to speak out against the institution of slavery.

Harpers Ferry Raid. Wise to Mrs. Lydia Maria Francis Child. Lydia Maria Francis Child, detail. Lydia Maria Francis Child, circa At times she shocked her audience as she tried to take on issues of both male dominance and white supremacy in some of her stories. Despite these challenges, Child may be most remembered for her poem " Over the River and Through the Wood.

She went by her middle name, and pronounced it Ma-RYE-a. Child received her education at a local dame school and later at a women's seminary. Upon the death of her mother, she went to live with her older sister in Mainewhere she studied to be a teacher. During this time, her brother Convers, by then a Unitarian minister, saw to his younger sister's education in literary masters such as Homer and Milton.

In her early 20s, Francis lived with her brother and met many of the top writers and thinkers of the day through him. She also converted to Unitarianism.

Lydia maria francis child biography book: Lydia Maria Child (née

Francis chanced to read an article in the North American Review discussing the field offered to the novelist by early New England history. Although she had never thought of becoming an author, she immediately wrote the first chapter of her novel Hobomok. Encouraged by her brother's commendation, she finished it in six weeks and had it published. From this time until her death, she wrote continually.

Francis taught for one year in a seminary in Medford, and in started a private school in Watertown, Massachusetts. Inshe founded the Juvenile Miscellanythe first monthly periodical for children published in the United States, and supervised its publication for eight years. The Juvenile Miscellany closed down after book sales and subscriptions dropped.

Inshe married David Lee Child and moved to Boston. Following the success of HobomokChild wrote several novels, poetry, and an instruction manual for mothers, The Mothers Book ; but her most successful work was The Frugal Housewife. Dedicated to those who are not ashamed of Economy. This book contained mostly recipes, but also contained this advice for young housewives, "If you are about to furnish a house, do not spend all your money Begin humbly.

Child changed the title to The American Frugal Housewife in to end the confusion with the British author Susannah Carter 's The Frugal Housewife first published inand then printed in America from Child wrote that Carter's book was not suited "to the wants of this country". InWilliam Lloyd Garrison began publication of his influential abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator.

Lydia Child and her husband read it from the beginning and began to identify themselves with the anti- slavery cause. Personal contact with Garrison was another factor. She believed that white women and enslaved people were similar in that white men held both groups in subjugation and treated them as property, instead of individual human beings.

As she worked towards equality for women, Child publicly said that she did not care for all-female communities. She believed that women would be able to achieve more by working alongside men. Child, along with many other female abolitionists, began campaigning for equal female membership and participation in the American Anti-Slavery Societyprovoking a controversy that later split the movement.

It argued, as did Garrison, in favor of the immediate emancipation of the enslaved people without compensation to their legal owners. She is sometimes said to have been the first white woman to have written a book in support of this policy. She "surveyed slavery from a variety of angles—historical, political, economic, legal, and moral" to show that "emancipation was practicable and that Africans were intellectually equal to Europeans.

She followed it with several smaller works on the same subject. Her Appeal attracted much attention, and William Ellery Channingwho attributed to it part of his interest in the slavery question, walked from Boston to Roxbury to thank Child for the book. She had to endure social ostracism, but from this time was considered a conspicuous champion of anti-slavery.

Child, a strong supporter and organizer in anti-slavery societies, helped with fundraising efforts to finance the first anti-slavery fairwhich abolitionists held in Boston in It was both an educational and a major fundraising event, and was held annually for decades, organized under Maria Weston Chapman. While she was editor of the National Anti-Slavery StandardChild wrote a weekly column for the paper called "Letters from New-York", which she later compiled and published in book form.

Child's management as editor and the popularity of her "Letters from New-York" column both helped to establish the National Anti-Slavery Standard as one of the most popular abolitionist newspapers in the US. She acted as his assistant until May Hoppera Quaker abolitionist and prison reformer.

Lydia maria francis child biography book: Titled “The First and Last Book,”

After leaving New York, the Childs settled in Wayland, Massachusettswhere they spent the rest of their lives. During this period, she also wrote short stories, exploring, through fiction, the complex issues of slavery. She wrote anti-slavery fiction to reach people beyond what she could do in tracts. She also used it to address issues of sexual exploitation, which affected both the enslaved persons and the slaveholder family.

In both cases she found women suffered from the power of men. The more closely Child addressed some of the abuses, the more negative the reaction she received from her readers. Eventually Child left the National Anti-Slavery Standardbecause she refused to promote violence as an acceptable weapon for battling slavery. She did continue to write for many newspapers and periodicals during the s, and she promoted greater equality for women.

Lydia maria francis child biography book: Lydia Maria Child was an American

However, because of her negative experience with the AASS, she never worked again in organized movements or societies for women's rights or suffrage. In the s, Child responded to the near-fatal beating on the Senate floor of her good friend Charles Sumneran abolitionist Senator from Massachusetts, by a South Carolina congressman, by writing her poem entitled "The Kansas Emigrants".

The outbreak of violence in Kansas between anti- and pro-slavery settlers, prior to voting on whether the territory should be admitted as a free or slave state, resulted in Child changing her opinion about the use of violence.