*Lydia Maria Francis Child was born on this date in 1802. She was a White American abolitionist writer.
From Medford, Massachusetts, Child began to write popular historical novels in her twenties. In 1826 she established a periodical for children called Juvenile Miscellany and her book, The Frugal Housewife 1829, was particularly popular. After hearing William Lloyd Garrison speak at a public meeting in 1831, Child began her involvement in the campaign against slavery. This included her book An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans 1833.
learn moreDavid Hunter was born on this date in 1802. He was a White American soldier and abolitionist.
He was born in Washington D.C. He graduated from the Military Academy at West Point in 1822 and saw action in the Seminole War (1838-42) and the Mexican War (1846-48).
A strong opponent of slavery, after the outbreak of the American Civil War, he joined the Union Army. He became a colonel and was severely wounded at Bull Run. In March 1862, Hunter was appointed Commander of the Department of the South.
learn moreElijah Parish Lovejoy was born on this date in 1802. He was a White American abolitionist.
learn more*Mary Minor Blackford was born on this date in 1802. She was a white-American abolitionist. A native of Fredericksburg, VA, Mary Berkeley Minor was the daughter of John Minor and his second wife, Lucy Landon Carter Minor. She was the only daughter of eight children; her father died when she was thirteen. She received education […]
learn more*Nathan M. Thomas was born on this date in 1803. He was a white-American doctor and abolitionist. He was born in Mount Pleasant, Jefferson Co., Ohio, the son of Jesse and Avis (Stanton) Thomas, both devout Quakers. He studied medicine with local practitioners and at the Medical College of Ohio in Cincinnati. In June 1830, […]
learn more*The birth of Maria W. Stewart in 1803 is celebrated on this date. She was a Black abolitionist, feminist, author and educator.
Maria W. Stewart was born in Hartford, Connecticut, as Maria Miller. Her parents’ first names and occupations are not known. Stewart was orphaned by age five and became an indentured servant, serving a clergyman until she was fifteen. She attended Connecticut Sabbath schools and read alot in the clergyman’s library, teaching herself how to read and comprehend. When she was fifteen, she began supporting herself by working as a servant.
learn more*Prudence Crandall was born on this date in 1803. She was a White American abolitionist.
learn more*Theodore Weld was born on this date in 1803. He was a white-American writer, editor, speaker, and organizer. He was an early architect of the American abolitionist movement during its formative years from 1830 through 1844. Born in Hampton, Connecticut, Theodore Dwight Weld was the son of Congregational ministers Ludovicus Weld and Elizabeth Clark Weld. His brother, Ezra Greenleaf Weld, […]
learn moreWilliam Whipper, a Black businessman and abolitionist was born on this date in 1804.
Born in Lancaster, PA, he later lived in Columbia, SC, and Philadelphia. Whipper was the Black son of a White Pennsylvania businessman and a Black woman who was his servant. He inherited his father’s lumber business, and, with another free Black business partner, Stephen Smith, they created one of the state’s leading lumberyards where Whipper made a sizable fortune through joint ventures.
learn more*George Thompson was born on this date in 1804. He was a white-British anti-slavery orator and abolitionist. George Donisthorpe Thompson was from Liverpool, England, and had little formal education; he was largely self-taught. In early adulthood, he began a life of professional activism, starting with his role in founding a mutual improvement society at eighteen and his […]
learn more*Angelina Emily Grimké was born on this date in 1805. She was a white-American political activist, women’s rights advocate, and supporter of the women’s suffrage movement. She and her sister Sarah Moore Grimké became abolitionists. While raised in Charleston, South Carolina, Angelina and her sister spent their entire adult lives in the North. Between 1835, Angelina Grimke greatest fame worked with William Lloyd Garrison, who published a letter of […]
learn more*Henry Stanton was born on this date in 1805. He was a white-American abolitionist, social reformer, attorney, journalist, and politician. Henry Brewster Stanton was born in Preston, Connecticut, the son of Joseph Stanton and Susan M. Brewster. His father manufactured woolen goods and traded with the West Indies. He remembered his first desires for […]
learn more*On this date, in 1805, The African Meeting House was founded. Also known as First African Baptist Church, First Independent Baptist Church, and the Belknap Street Church, it is now the oldest black church edifice still standing in the United States. Before 1805, although black Bostonians could attend white churches, they generally faced discrimination. They […]
learn moreWilliam Lloyd Garrison was born this date in 1805. He was a White American abolitionist and newspaper publisher.
The son of a seaman from Newburyport, MA., Garrison was indentured at the age of 14 to the owner of the Newburyport Herald where he became an expert printer. The struggles of all oppressed peoples for freedom built his kind character as a youth. He expressed this in articles he wrote anonymously or under the pseudonym Airsides, in the Herald and other newspapers. He tried to awaken Northerners from their apathy over the question of slavery in America.
learn more*Charlotta Gordon Pyles was born on this date in 1806. She was a Black abolitionist and lecturer. Born into slavery in Tennessee, Pyles also lived on Hugh Gordon’s plantation near Bardstown, Kentucky, along with her children. After Gordon’s death, his daughter Frances inherited the Pyles family and moved from Kentucky to Iowa, where she freed Charlotta and some of […]
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