Lydia Maria Child, American Abolitionist and Author

Lydia Maria Francis Child (February 11, 1802 - October 20, 1880), was an American abolitionist, women's rights activist, Native American rights activist, novelist, journalist, and opponent of American expansionism. Child 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. Her journals, both fiction and domestic manuals, reached wide audiences from the 1820s through the 1850s. 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. Child was a women's rights activist, but did not believe significant progress for women could be made until after the abolition of slavery. She believed that white women and slaves were similar in that white men held both groups in subjugation and treated them as property, instead of individual human beings. During the 1860s, Child wrote pamphlets on Native American rights. The most prominent, An Appeal for the Indians (1868), called upon government officials, as well as religious leaders, to bring justice to American Indians. Child is most remembered for her poem, Over the River and Through the Wood. She died in 1880 at the age of 78. Photographed by John Adams Whipple, 1865

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Abolition Abolitionist Activist Advocate Anti-slavery Antislavery Campaigner Crusader Feminist Lydia

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