188 44 78MB
English Pages 844 Year 1994
The First Woman in the Republic
New Americanists A Series Edited by Donald E. Pease
The First Woman in the Republic A Cultural Biography of Lydia Maria Child
..
CAROLYNL.KARCHER
DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS DurhamandLondonI994
© 1994 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 00 Typeset in Janson Text by Keystone Typesetting, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book.
Quotations from letters in the Anti-Slavery Collection, Boston Public Library by courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library; quotations from Child manuscripts at Cornell courtesy of the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library; quotations from Child's uncollected letters to Charles Sumner, bMS Am I, by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University; quotations from David Child family letters courtesy of Milton Emerson Ross; quotations from letters about spiritualism to Charles Follen, Martha Griffith Browne, and Lucy Ann Brooks in Child's Collected Correspondence courtesy of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection, Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin; quotations from letters in the Washburn, French, Stearns, Horace Mann, and Horace Mann II Papers courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society. An earlier version of Chapter I appears as the introduction to HOBOMOK and Other Writings on Indians, Carolyn L. Karcher, ed. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers the State University, © 1986. Reprinted by permission Rutgers UP; a small portion of Chapter 13 appeared in "Censorship, American Style," Studies in the American Renaissance 1986: 283-303, ed. Joel Meyerson (Charlottesville: UP VIrginia, 1986); part of the "Hilda Silfverling" section of Chapter 14 was published in different form as "Patriarchal Society and Matriarchal Family in Irving's 'Rip Van Winkle' and Child's 'Hilda Silfverling,'" Legacy 2 (Fall 1985): 31-44; the antislavery fiction section of Chapter 14 appeared in substantially the same form in Shirley Samuels, ed., The Culture of Sentiment: Race, Gender, and Sentimentality in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Oxford UP, 1992) 58-72 and in an earlier version in Women sStudies International Forum 9 (1986): 323-32; a portion of Chapter 16 appeared in "From Pacifism to Armed Struggle: Lydia Maria Child's 'The Kansas Emigrants' and Antislavery Ideology in the 1850'S," ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance 34 (3rd Qt. 1988): 141-58; the first section of Chapter 17 appeared in substantially the same form in Race Traitor I (Winter 1993): 21-44; a significant portion of Chapter 19 appeared in preliminary form as "Lydia Maria Child's A Romance of the Republic: An Abolitionist Vision of America's Racial Destiny," in Deborah E. McDowell and Arnold Rampersad, eds., Slavery and the Literary Imagination (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1989) 81- 103. Permission to reprint is gratefully acknowledged.
To H. Bruce Franklin and Jane Morgan Franklin Beloved Mentors
Contents
+
Illustrations
ix
Preface and Acknowledgments
Xl
Chronology Abbreviations Prologue: A Passion for Books I
The Author of Hobomok
2
Rebels and "Rivals": Self Portraits of a Conflicted
XIX
xxvi 1
Young Artist 3
The Juvenile Miscellany: The Creation of an American
Children's Literature
57
4
A Marriage of True Minds: Espousing the Indian Cause
80
5
Blighted Prospects: Indian Fiction and Domestic Reality
101
6
The Frugal Housewife: Financial Worries and Domestic Advice
126
7
Children's Literature and Antislavery: Conservative Medium, Radical Message
151
8
"The First Woman in the Republic": An Antislavery Baptism
173
9
An Antislavery Marriage: Careers at Cross Purposes
195
10
The Condition of Women: Double Binds, Unresolved Conflicts
214
II
Schisms, Personal and Political
249
12
The NationalAnti-Slavery Standard: Family Newspaper or
Factional Organ?
Vlll
Contents
13 Letters from New York: The'Invention of a New Literary Genre
295
14 Sexuality and Marriage in Fact and Fiction
320
15 The Progress ofReligious Ideas: A "Pilgrimage of Penance" 16 Autumnal Leaves: Reconsecrated Partnerships, Personal
35 6
and Political
17 The Example ofJohn Brown 18 Child's Civil War
384 4 16 443
19 Visions of a Reconstructed America: The Freedmen sBook and A Romance ofthe Republic
20 A Radical Old Age 21 Aspirations ofthe World
4 87 53 2
Afterword
573 608
Notes
61 7
Works of Lydia Maria Child
757
Index
773
Illustrations (following page 486)
Lydia Maria Francis, age 24, engraving after the portrait painted by Francis Alexander in 1826; courtesy Library of Congress David Lee Child in his early thirties, portrait said to be by Francis Alexander, ca. 1828 Engraving of Convers Francis and his parsonage at Watertown, where Child wrote Hobomok; by pennission of the Boston Athenaeum Child's sketch of the view from her home at Cottage Place (1832-35), from the manuscript "Autobiography" she compiled in 1875; by permission of Cornell University Library Ellis Gray Loring and Louisa Gilman Loring; by permission of the Massachusetts Historical Society Daguerreotype of Child at age 54, made in 1856, while she was writing "The Kansas Emigrants"; by permission of the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College Photograph of] ohn Brown by James Wallace Black, 1859; by permission of the Boston Athenaeum Cabinet Photograph of Harriet Jacobs by Gilbert Studios, Washington, D.C.; by permission of the owners, courtesy of]ean Fagan Yellin Carte de visite photograph of Child at age 63 by John Adams Whipple, 1865; by permission of the Boston Athenaeum Engraving of Child at age 63, by F. T. Stuart, Boston, after the photograph by John Adams Whipple, 1865; by pennission of the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College Photograph of David Lee Child at age 75, taken in 1870; courtesy Library of Congress Photograph of the Child cottage in Wayland, Massachusetts; by permission of the Wayland Historical Society
Preface and Acknowledgments
'*' For half a century Lydia Maria Child (1802-80) was a household name in America. The famous antislavery agitator William Lloyd Garrison hailed her as "the first woman in the republic." The Radical Republican Senator Charles Sumner credited her with inspiring his career as an advocate of racial equality and sought her advice on Reconstruction policy. Samuel Jackson, an Mrican American correspondent of Garrison's newspaper, The Liberator, proposed enshrining her alongside John Brown in the pantheon of his people's white benefactors. The suffragist leader Elizabeth Cady Stanton cited Child's encylopaedic History of the Condition of Women (1835) as an invaluable resource for feminists in their battle against patriarchal ideology. The Transcendentalist theologian Theodore Parker pronounced her monumental Progress ofReligious Ideas (1855) "the book of the age; and written by a woman!" A newspaperman ranked her popular weekly column of the 1840s, "Letters from New-York," "almost at the head of journalism in America .... " Edgar Allan Poe praised her novel Philothea (1836) as "an honor to our country, and a signal triumph for our countrywomen." The National AntiSlavery Standard proclaimed her Romance ofthe Republic (1867) "one of the most thrilling books ... ever written, involving the rights of the colored people - not excepting Uncle Tom's Cabin." And Child's earliest biographer, the abolitionist Thomas Wentworth Higginson, converted by her 1833 Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans, paid tribute to it as the "ablest" and most comprehensive antislavery book "ever printed in America." Tracing her "formative influence" on the activists of his generation back to the "intellectual provision" she had furnished them in their youth, he reminisced: "In those days she seemed to supply a sufficient literature for any family through her own unaided pen. Thence came novels for the parlor, cookery books for the kitchen, and the 'Juvenile Miscellany' for the nursery."! Secure though her reputation seemed in the wake of the Civil War, Child was erased from history when the backlash against Reconstruction that began even before her death destroyed almost everything she had fought for. She survived in public memory only through a children's Thanksgiving song whose authorship none but specialists
xii
Preface and Acknowledgments
could identify: "Over the river and through the wood, I To grandfather's house we gO."2 Ironically, it projects a cozy image of New England family life belied by the poverty, hardship, and isolation Child endured over a long career of self-sacrificing political advocacy. No less ironically, she is most often reintroduced to the public these days not as an author in her own right, but as the editor of a slave narrative which had originally required her endorsement and authentication before a publisher would print it: HarrietA.Jacobs's Incidenti' in the Life ofa Slave Girl (I86I). Child herself might have relished this status reversal as the consummation of her life's work. When the African American minister Hiram R. Revels won a U.S. Senate seat in I870, she exulted: "His election is an epoch in our history. It marks the first great step in the emancipation of the white race from the enslavement of an unjust and absurd prejudice."3 But contrary to her hopes, the overturn of Reconstruction in her last years marked a giant step backward, relegating the prospect of the white race's emancipation from prejudice to an indefinite future and sweeping the antislavery movement into near oblivion. Child would languish in obscurity for nearly a century. Not until the Civil Rights movement created a more favorable climate for reassessing the abolitionist legacy would reprints of her works begin to appear, and then only in facsimile editions for libraries. The first biography to bring Child back before the public in the mid-I960s, Helene G. Baer's The Heart Is Like Heaven (1964), reflected the fashionable distaste for radical reformers, sentimentalizing Child as an adoring wife who took up antislavery politics solely to please her husband. The second, Milton Meltzer's Tongue of Flame (I965), honored her courage as a reformer and held her up as a role model; written primarily for the audience Child herself had addressed in the Juvenile Miscellany, however, it necessarily smoothed out complexities beyond the grasp of youthful minds. 4 Although a trickle of scholarly articles and book chapters followed in the 197os,5 no doubt stimulated by second-wave feminism and the birth of Women's Studies, the real breakthrough came with Milton Meltzer and Patricia G. Holland's expert editing of Child's complete correspondence, issued both in microfiche and in a beautifully annotated one-volume compendium (1980, 1982). Arranged in chronological order, some 2,600 letters, hitherto scattered in more than sixty libraries and private collections, laid the basis for a solid biographical study. With Deborah Clifford's Crusader for Freedom (1992), Child's multifaceted life finally received the full-length scholarly treatment it had so long cried out for. 6 Meanwhile, feminist literary critics were starting to anthologize Child's fiction and journalism. 7 Encouraged by this development Rutgers University Press launched its American Women Writers Series with Child's HOBOMOK and Other Writings on Indians (1986), an editing project I undertook while conceptualizing The First Woman in the Republic. Child attracted me because she boldly tackled problems of racial, sexual, and economic justice that our society has yet to resolve - problems she never allowed cynics to dismiss as insoluble. Fittingly, I first encountered her through "Prejudices against People of Color, and OUf Duties in Relation to This Subject," the most controversial chapter of the antislavery Appeal whose publication in 1833 had cost her the patronage
Preface and Acknowledgments xiii of the literary establishment and subjected her to boycott and ostracism. In it she charged: "[N]o other people on earth indulge so strong a prejudice with regard to color, as we do." And she urged an end to all forms of racial discrimination, from employment bans to antimiscegenation laws. 8 Reading this powerful call for redress at a historical moment that paralleled Child's-the early 1970s, when the Vietnam war was still raging and the Black Panthers, the American Indian Movement, and antiwar activists were under siege - I could not help recognizing its continuing relevance. Besides playing a major role in the crusade against slavery and racism, Child campaigned for justice toward Native Americans. From 1829, when she took up th(;! cause of the Cherokee, to the 1870s, when she championed the beleaguered Plains Indians, she dissented from the widely held theory that the Indians were "destined to disappear before the white man." The term "savages," she maintained, applied better to whites than to Indians. 9 Child also participated in the movement for women's rights. Though she preferred at first to defy patriarchal ideology implicitly, by transgressing the bounds of woman's sphere to speak on behalf of the slave, rather than explicitly by denouncing the restrictions imposed on her sex, she took an increasingly militant stand as she resolved the personal conflicts that inhibited her at the outset. In one of her many public testimonials on the issue, she wrote: "[S]ociety can never be established on a true and solid foundation so long as any distinction whatsoever is made between men and women with regard to the full and free exercise of their faculties on all subjects, whether of art, science, literature, business or politics." 10 As a writer, Child showed an uncanny ability to pinpoint and respond to new cultural needs. She pioneered almost every department of nineteenth-century American letters: the historical novel, the short story, children's literature, the domestic advice book, women's history, antislavery fiction, and journalism. Not least among her accomplishments, she anticipated an acute need of our own time by publishing an anthology for the elderly, designed to promote positive images of old age (Looking toward Sunset, 1865). Her corpus amounts to forty-seven books and tracts (including four novels and three collections of short stories), with enough uncollected journalism and fiction to fill one or two more, not to mention a correspondence rivaling Garrison's in extent. Despite their nineteenth-century resonances, many of her writings strike familiar notes today. The homeless derelicts she described so movingly in Letters from New York roam our streets in greater numbers than ever. The diagnosis and remedy Child offered as she contemplated the slums and prisons of 1843 - "If we can abolish poverty, we shall have taken the greatest step towards the abolition of crime" - remain timely in 1994. 11 Even her advice on infant care, sex education of adolescents, and psychological health for the aging often has a startlingly modern ring. Child's life, too, has much to teach. She acted on her principles, no matter what the cost; when her conscience prompted her to fight for the iiberation of African Americans, she sacrificed the fame she had dreamed of and the livelihood she depended on. Poverty did not discourage her, nor did she ever yield to the temptation to recapture
XlV
Preface and Acknowledgments
her lost popularity by renouncing the abolitionist cause. Chronic depression induced her not to retreat into her own misery, but to seek comfort in working for others. Through decades of setbacks, she faced ugly realities unflinchingly and never deluded herself with shams. Yet she died confident in the ultimate triumph of justice. Though consistent in living out the ethic she preached, Child suffered from deep emotional splits that produced endless contradictions for her. Born a baker's daughter, she proudly identified herself with the "middle class" of "farmers and mechanics, who work with their hands." "Aristocracy is always my aversion, whether in the form of English noble, Southern planter, or Boston respectable," she liked to say.12 Still, her tastes drew her to the milieu she professed to scorn, and with few exceptions, her closest friends belonged to the upper classes. Elevated by her domestic manual, The Frugal Housewife (1829), to the status of a national authority on homemaking, Child yearned in vain for a home of her own as she and her husband moved from one cheap boarding house to another, driven by the poverty to which his debts and the couple's abolitionist politics consigned them; even when she inherited her father's cottage at age fifty-four, she vacillated between her love of rural tranquillity and her hankering for metropolitan stimulation. A children's writer and purveyor of advice to mothers, she grew up motherless and remained childless. A professional author who supported her husband on her earnings, she celebrated the old-fashioned virtues of "good wives." An extraordinarily passionate woman who violated all sorts of sexual taboos in her fiction, hotly defended the sexual instinct as natural to both women and men, and privately justified divorce, she resigned herself to a sexually unsatisfying marriage. And for the sake of protecting that marriage, strained by her husband's financial irresponsibility, Child held back from involvement in women's rights agitation that her own example had helped spark. An artist rather than a reformer by temperament (or at least so she claimed), she craved beauty and abhorred strife and controversy, yet her emotional identification with the oppressed and her fierce sense of justice propelled her into the "rough work of reform."13 Simultaneously visionary and practical, she could soar into the realm of the imagination while shrewdly managing her everyday business. Mystic and skeptic rolled into one, Child longed for religious faith, but her wide-ranging research in religious history only fortified her doubts. The First Woman in the Republic covers all these facets of Child's career, focusing on the central problems in nineteenth-century American culture that she worked out in her life and writings: the creation of a national literature reflecting the experiences and aspirations of both sexes and all races; the redefinition of womanhood and the struggle to reconcile the conflicting demands of domestic responsibilities, sexual desires, professional ambitions, and political commitments; the extension of the country's egalitarian creed to disfranchised groups; and the quest for a faith free of sectarian dogmatism and enriched by the most commendable teachings of the world's diverse religions. By vocation Child was a woman of letters. She made her greatest contributions as a reformer through her writings, and it is her writings that best distill the lessons her life continues to offer on the social problems with which she wrestled. Thus, I have cen-
Preface and Acknowledgments
xv
tered this biography on Child's works and structured it to spiral around and flow from the key texts in her corpus. Her writings and her life are, of course, inextricably twined. She regularly translated personal concerns into political and literary insights, and repeatedly meshed her own deepest needs with those of her culture. I have tried to explore the biographical ramifications of her works as fully as possible, but without submerging Child the cultural critic in Child the individual. I have also tried to preserve the vitality of Child's own voice, to quote directly rather than to dilute her language through paraphrase and summary, and to adapt my analysis to the tone of her prose, unobtrusively interweaving text and commentary. The extensive quotation and detailed literary analysis distinguishing this biography from most others serve several purposes. First, I wish to stimulate interest among literary scholars, historians, and publishers in recovering Child's writings, so that they can be studied, assigned in courses, and enjoyed by the wide audience they deserve. Second, I have sought to provide the close reading necessary to establish the significance of Child's fiction and cultural criticism. Third, I have aimed to furnish a potential model for analyzing the works of other neglected literary figures. Accordingly, I have contextualized Child's writings by reconstructing the historical and cultural matrix out of which they grew, by restaging the debates surrounding the specific issues she was addressing, and by comparing Child's achievements with those of her contemporaries in all the genres she practiced. Such contextualization is indispensable to restoring authors like Child to their rightful place in our literary canons and historical textbooks. We can neither grasp their nuances nor attune ourselves to their idioms without immersing ourselves in the cultural production of the period. The process of close reading and contextualization I have adopted is new only in the sense that I have applied it to an author hitherto deemed unworthy of serious study. I have merely treated Child with the same respect that "major" authors like Melville and Hawthorne generally receive. Just as critics have shown that even the "minor" works of Melville and Hawthorne repay careful analysis, I have assumed - and I hope demonstrated - that this is no less true of Child's works, from her domestic manual The Frugal Housewife (1829) to the novel she considered the capstone of her career, A Romance of the Republic (1867). When studied attentively, Child's fiction exhibits a structural complexity and symbolic richness akin to her more famous literary peers'. Similarly, her Letters from New York (1843), which exemplifies Transcendentalist literary style at its most innovative, challenges comparison with the essays of Emerson and Thoreau. Child was much more than a literary woman, however, and my project is consequently larger than that of the traditional literary biography. Instead, as the subtitle "A Cultural Biography" is meant to suggest, I have attempted to view nineteenth-century America through the window of Child's mind. Child presents an exceptionally revealing perspective on that tumultuous era. Engaged in the leading intellectual and social movements of her time, she devoted her life and writings to transforming the United States into a multiracial egalitarian republic. In the process, she articulated penetrating critiques of nineteenth-century America's dominant ideology and formulated alterna-
XVI
Preface and Acknowledgments
tive cultural possibilities, particularly in the domains of race and gender relations. Through her eyes, we can recapture both the America she struggled to change and the America she envisioned in its place. 14 The dedication of this book to H. Bruce Franklin and Jane Morgan Franklin represents more than the acknowledgment of a personal debt. It pays tribute to the courage, selfsacrifice, and principle with which Bruce and Jane have been carrying on the unfinished revolution of Lydia Maria Child and her abolitionist comrades. Like Child's, their example inspires continued struggle for freedom, justice, equality, and human dignity. Bruce andJane have also contributed to this book in countless ways, direct and indirect. It is not too much to say that I owe my career as a scholar to Bruce, whom I had the good fortune to have as my freshman English teacher at Stanford. He andJane encouraged me to undertake this biography, helped me reconceptualize key chapters, and rigorously critiqued the manuscript, Bruce in its entirety and Jane several sections of it. The debt I owe to my husband, Martin, is equally immeasurable and longstanding. Without his unstinting support - intellectual, moral, financial, and domestic - none of my books would have been possible. By inviting me to read drafts to him while chapters were in progress, he helped catch stylistic infelicities and problems of focus at early stages. He also read every chapter, providing many helpful suggestions. The book has further benefited from the criticisms of numerous friends and professional colleagues, who saved me from embarrassing errors and forced me to refine my ideas. Milton Meltzer, Deborah Clifford, Joan Hedrick, Andrea Kerr, and Joyce Sparer Adler read the whole manuscript (Andrea and Joyce twice). Jane Tompkins, Celia Morris (Eckhardt), Dorothy Sterling, Jean Fagan Yellin, Lucy Freibert, LisaJohnson Ponder, Ira Berlin, Gordon Kelly, Patricia G. Holland, and Rodney Olsen read significant portions of it, as did Amy Kaplan, Donald Pease, Robert McGrath, Nancy Bentley, Shalom Goldman, Keith Walker, and other members of the Dartmouth Institute on "The U.S. and Its Others." I would also like to acknowledge the invaluable critiques of Richard Slotkin and Milton Sernet, who read the manuscript for Duke University Press, and two anonymous scholars who read it for another press. Fellow scholars working on Child have shown extraordinary generosity toward me. Milton Meltzer and Patricia Holland sent me all the files they had compiled while editing Child's letters, as well as one containing letters discovered since the publication of their microfiche edition. Deborah Clifford shared with me her notes on the Massachusetts Journal and her list of the books Child borrowed from the Boston Athenaeum, even lending me her apartment in Cambridge for two weeks while I was doing research in Boston area libraries. And as this book was going to the press, she put me in touch with Megan Marshall, who supplied me with transcripts of Peabody family letters that discuss Child and the reception of Hobomok and The Rebels. Lisa Ponder sent me her M.A. thesis and course papers on Child, photocopied several of Child's rare works for me, and pooled ideas. Stimulating discussions with Margaret Kellow, Bruce Mills, and Susan Koppelman have also enriched this book. In addition, all of us are greatly indebted to Milton Emerson Ross, grandson of Child's niece, Lydia Maria
Preface and Acknowledgments xvii Child Haskins, who has kindly made his treasure trove of family letters available to visiting scholars. Besides putting up with the invasion of his privacy by a stranger and giving me an oral history of the Child and Haskins families, he allowed me to borrow and mail back to him the letters I could not finish perusing during my brief stay. Librarians at many institutions have greatly facilitated my research. Elizabeth Miller of the Norridgewock Library wrote a long and detailed reply to my inquiries about the Preston family and Child's years in Maine.Jo Goeselt, Curator of the Wayland Historical Society, took Deborah Clifford and me to see Child's cottage and the family tombstones and sent me photocopies of many documents in her collection, as well as a photograph of the Child home. At the Boston Public Library, Dr. Laura V. Monti, Keeper of Rare Books and Manuscripts, translated a letter David Child had written in Spanish, and Giuseppe Bisaccia, Curator of Manuscripts, helped decipher several illegible letters, while Eugene Zepp furnished a desk lamp and expedited the delivery of manuscripts. At the Boston Athenaeum, Catharina Slautterback and Sallie Pierce, Curator of Prints, located the photographs ofJohn Brown, Convers Francis, and Child in old age that appear in this book. At the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Jennie Rathbun and other reference librarians searched the Sumner Papers and sent me photocopies of Child's uncollected 1872 letters. I am also grateful for the courtesy of Eva Mosely, Curator of Manuscripts, and Marie-Helene Gold, Head of Prints and Photographs at the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College; Peter Drummey, Head Librarian of the Massachusetts Historical Society; librarians at the New York Public Library, who sent me the manuscript of "The Kansas Emigrants"; and the American Antiquarian Society. Diane Arecco, Research Associate at Prints and Photographs of the New York Historical Society, and Barbara Hatcher of Words & Pictures Research turned up an unpublished story by Child while unavailingly trying to find a youthful portrait of David Child. lowe most, however, to the Library of Congress, where I carried out the bulk of the research for this book (and its predecessors). I particularly wish to thank Bruce Martin, Head of Stack and Reader Services, Barbara Natanson of Prints and Photographs, and the staff in the Rare Book Room: Robert Shields, Anthony Edwards, Charles Kelly, Peter Van Wingen, and above all Clark Evans, for their patient assistance. Several historians gave me especially valuable guidance. Dorothy Ross, Rodney Olsen, and Ira Berlin not only pointed me toward many primary and secondary sources, but challenged me to reconceptualize important issues, while Ira's superb courses at the University of Maryland on the comparative history of slavery laid the foundation for my research. I am further indebted for a number of insights to the students in my course on nineteenth-century American women radicals, particularly Donald Dingledine, Carolyn Sorisio, and Esther Schwartz-McKinzie. The task of verifying the quotations and footnotes in this book required a large team of researchers in several cities. I am grateful for the conscientious work of Arnie Martin and Anne-Marie Kent at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, who checked citations to manuscripts in Boston area collections and to the Massachusetts Journal, which Anne-Marie also searched for additional stories or articles by Child; Noreen Groover
xviii
Preface and Acknowledgments
Lape and Donald Dingledine of Temple University, who checked all the other quotations and notes; Mark Taylor; and Andrea Kerr, who took time out from her own research to check sources Noreen and Don were unable to obtain in Philadelphia. I also wish to thank Lydia Maningas for retyping ten chapters in WordPerfect. At Duke University Press Reynolds Smith and Bob Mirandon have both earned my undying gratitude. Bob's meticulous and sensitive copyediting strengthened the manuscript without disputing stylistic preferences. Reynolds committed the Press to publishing this book unabridged, worked hard to procure the subventions needed to do so, helped me to improve the afterword, and put his personal imprint on the references to Child's Thanksgiving song, "Over the River and through the Woods." Finally, I wish to thank the institutions whose financial support made this book possible and the individuals whose recommendations proved crucial to winning that support: the American Council of Learned Societies for fellowships in 1982 and 198687; Temple University for a funded Study Leave in 1989-90; the Dartmouth Institute on "The U.S. and Its Others" for a fellowship in spring 1993;Jane Tompkins, Annette Kolodny, Sacvan Bercovitch, Dorothy Ross, William W. Freehling, Richard Slotkin, Sterling Stuckey, and Deirdre David; and the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities, whose subsidies kept this book affordable.
Chronology of Lydia Maria Child
+
1802 18II
1814
1815
1817 1819
1820
1821
1822 1824 1825
February I I: Lydia Francis born to Convers Francis and Susannah Rand Francis in Medford, Massachusetts, the youngest of five surviving children. Convers Francis, Jr., matriculates at Harvard University. Susannah Francis (sister) marries and moves to Charlestown, Massachusetts. Susannah Rand Francis (mother) bedridden with tuberculosis. May: Susannah Rand Francis (mother) dies of tuberculosis. August: Susannah Rand (grandmother) dies. September: Mary Francis (sister) marries Warren Preston and moves to Norridgewock, Maine (still a province of Massachusetts). Lydia Francis enrolls in Miss Swan's Academy, Medford. March: Susannah Francis (sister) dies. Summer: Lydia Francis sent to Norridgewock to live with Mary Francis Preston. Father Rale's church bell disinterred in former Indian village of Norridgewock. June: Reads Paradise Lost; writes first surviving letter to Converso Reads Scott, Gibbon, Addison, Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson. Maine inhabitants vote for independent statehood. Moves to Gardiner, Maine, to teach school; reads Scott's Ivanhoe, Byron's Don Juan, Thomas Moore's Lalla Rookh; introduced to Swedenborgianism. Maine statehood made contingent on admission of Missouri as slave state. Late summer: Moves in with Convers Francis, Jr., now pastor of First Church (Unitarian) of Watertown, Massachusetts; is baptized in her father's church in Medford (Congregational) and takes the name Lydia Maria. February 17: Joins the Swedenborgian Society of the New Jerusalem in Boston. Summer: Writes Hobomok in six weeks; first review appears inJuly. December: Publishes Evenings in New England, meets David Lee Child (DLC). June: Attends public reception in Boston for General Lafayette. December: Publishes The Rebels.
xx
Chronology
1826 January 3: DLC reviews The Rebels in inaugural issue of Massachusetts Journal, which he edits until 1832. Spends winter of 1825-26 boarding at Madame Canda's academy in Boston; meets Emily Marshall and the artist Francis Alexander, who paints her portrait. Fall: opens school in Watertown; starts publication of Juvenile Miscellany (1826-34); publishes her first short story, "The Rival Brothers," in The Token for 1827. 1827 October. Engaged to DLC. Gives up her school, boards at Madame Canda's academy; publishes Emily Parker, The Juvenile Souvenir, and six stories for the annuals, including "The Lone Indian" (The Token for 1828). 1828 October I9: Marries DLC. Publishes "The Indian Wife," "The Church in the Wilderness" (The Legendary), Moral Lessons in Verse, and Biographical Sketches of Great and Good Men, writes The First Settlers of New England, begins editing literary columns of the
1829
1830
1831
18J2
Massachusetts Journal. November: Andrew Jackson elected, resulting in a falloff of subscriptions to Massachusetts Journal. Early January (or late December I828): The First Settlers privately printed. January IS and I9: DLC convicted of libel in two lawsuits. August: Reviews a lecture by Frances Wright for the Massachusetts Journal, writes "Chocorua's Curse." October-November: William Lloyd Garrison reprints Child's "Comparative Strength of Male and Female Intellect" in the Genius of Universal Emancipation and hails her as "the first woman in the republic." November I2: Publishes The Frugal Housewife. February: DLC loses his appeal of his libel conviction and is jailed for about six months. Teaches school in Dorchester, Massachusetts, for several months. June or July: Meets Garrison. September. Publishes her first antislavery story in The Juvenile Miscellany, "The St. Domingo Orphans." January: Publishes The Little Girl's Own Book and a second antislavery story in the Miscellany, "Jumbo and Zairee"; Garrison founds the Liberator. June IS: Publishes The Mother's Book. August: Editorializes against racial prejudice in the Massachusetts Journal; Garrison praises Child's "Noble Commentary"; DLC responds to the Nat Turner revolt by defending the right of the oppressed to rebel. January: DLC attends founding meeting of New England Anti-Slavery Society. February: Massachusetts Journal fails. The Childs move to Cottage Place. Publishes The Biographies of Madame de Stae1, and Madame Roland and The Biographies ofLady Russell, and Madame Guyon.
Chronology
XXI
1833 April: Publishes Good Wives. August 5: Publishes An Appeal in Favor of That Class ofAmericans Called Africans December: American Anti-Slavery Society founded in Philadelphia. 1834 January: Joins Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS). May: Mass cancellation of subscriptions forces LMC to give up editorship of Juvenile Miscellany. October: Publishes The Oasis; DLC undertakes defense of the Panda crew, charged with piracy. December: Organizes first Knti-Slavery Fair with Louisa Loring. 1835 February: LMC goes to Washington to plead for clemency to the Panda crew; appeal fails and case closes in May. May: Boston Athenaeum cancels Child's free library privileges; Maria Weston Chapman's attempt to purchase her a paying membership apparently fails. August I: Helps save George Thompson from an anti abolitionist mob. August 8-I4: The Childs accompany George Thompson to New York, en route to England, where they are to serve as agents for British antislavery societies; instead, DLC is arrested for debt on the quay; they spend the next six months boarding with Quaker farmers, Joseph and Margaret Carpenter, in New Rochelle; there LMC helps desegregate a village school. Fall: The Childs attend a meeting of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, where they encounter Angelina Grimke; in Philadelphia, Benjamin Lundy persuades DLC to join his projected free labor colony in Mexico; LMC publishes History of the Condition of Women and Authentic Anecdotes ofAmerican Slavery; Boston mob attacks BFASS and nearly lynches Garrison. 1836 January: Publishes The Evils ofSlavery, and the Cure of Slavery and Anti-Slavery Catechism; writes Philothea (finished by spring and published in late summer). May: Conquest of northern Mexico by proslavery Texans forces Lundy to abandon plans for colony; the Childs stay with DLC's parents in West Boylston, Massachusetts; LMC later moves in with her father in South Natick, Massachusetts. August: LMC collects evidence that helps Ellis Loring win the case of the slave child Med, an important precedent for abolitionists. October: DLC goes to Europe to study beet sugar production. 1837 Spends winter with father in South Natick, publishes The Family Nurse. May 9-I2: Represents BFASS at first Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women (New York). Fall: DLC returns from Europe; the Childs board with the Lorings. 1838 May: New England Anti-Slavery Convention overrules protests by orthodox members and votes to allow official participation of women in its proceedings and committees; the Childs move to Northampton to start beet farming; they circulate antislavery petitions. 1839 May: LMC participates in New England Anti-Slavery Convention, serves on the business committee; opponents of women's full membership found rival Massachusetts Abolition Society.
XXII
1840
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845
Chronology Spends winter of I 839-40 in Boston, where DLC later joins her; participates in BFASS schism and serves as president pro tern; attends Margaret Fuller's Conversations and Emerson's lectures; publishes four pieces, including "Charity Bowery," in inaugural issue of Liberty Bell. May: LMC returns to Northampton; DLC attends American Anti-Slavery Society Meeting in New York, which splits over appointment of women as officers and committee members. Convers Francis, Sr., buys the Childs a farm and lives with them until March. December: LMC publishes "The Black Saxons" in Liberty Bell for 1841. May: LMC moves to New York to edit National Anti-Slavery Standard; boards with Quaker Isaac T. Hopper and begins visiting New York with his son, John Hopper. June: Vacations in Brookline, Massachusetts, with the Lorings; visits Brook Farm. August 19: Inaugurates "Letters from New-York" ("LNY") column in Standard. October. Visits DLC in Northampton. December. Publishes "The Quadroons" in Liberty Bell for 1842. February-May: Editorializes in favor of disunion; fracas with Garrisonians. December: DLC files for bankruptcy in Northampton and goes to Washington as correspondent for Liberator and Standard; LMC publishes "Slavery's Pleasant Homes" in Liberty Bell for 1843. February: Separates financial affairs from DLC's and decides to remain in New York regardless of his plans; writes first "LNY" in favor of women's rights; begins editing "LNY" for publication as book. May: Resigns from editorship of Standard after months of dissension; DLC replaces her as editor in August, but he spends winter in Washington again. Late August: Publishes Lettersfrom New-York; first edition sold out by December. December. Inaugurates new "LNY" column in Boston Courier. February: In uncollected "LNY" defends Amelia Norman for having attempted to murder her seducer; helps to rehabilitate her. May: DLC resigns editorship of Standard, returns to Northampton. October: Meets Ole Bull. December: Margaret Fuller arrives in New York as correspondent for Greeley's Tribune; Child and Fuller renew intimacy; LMC publishes two volumes of Flowers for Children. Begins circulating in a milieu of literati, musicians, and artists that includes Poe,James Russell Lowell, Parke Godwin, Ole Bull, and William Page. January: With "Thot and Freia," begins publishing short stories in Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine and occasional pieces in Poe's Broadway Journal. February: Publishes Lettersfrom New York. Second Series; reviews Fuller's Woman in the Nineteenth Century for Broadway Journal. December: Ole Bull leaves for Europe.
Chronology
XX111
1846 July: Visits father in Wayland, Massachusetts. August: Fuller leaves for Europe. December: Publishes Fact and Fiction and third volume of Flowers for Children. 1847 March: John Hopper elopes with Rosa De Wolf. May: Publishes "The Man That Killed His Neighbors," her last story for the Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine; moves to New Rochelle farmhouse ofJoseph and Margaret Carpenter. July: Begins publishing stories in Union Magazine ofLiterature and Art. September: Mary Francis Preston (sister) dies. December: Visits family and friends in Massachusetts. 1848 April: Begins research for The Progress ofReligious Ideas; meets Dolores. Late foil: DLC hired by his brother John Childe to supervise railway construction in Tennessee. 1849 March: Thinking she is about to die, burns 339 letters; renews contact with the Lorings; returns to the Hoppers', where she rents attic room. September: DLC returns from Tennessee and is not rehired by John Childe; the Childs enjoy second honeymoon. 1850 June: The Childs move with Dolores to West Newton, Massachusetts, where they rent a farm from Ellis Loring. 1852 May 7: LMC summoned to deathbed ofIsaac T. Hopper, promises to write his biography. 1853 August: Publishes Isaac T. Hopper: A True Life, vows proceeds to Hopper's family; Dolores returns to New York. December: The Childs move into her father's home in Wayland, where she nurses her father for the next three years; LMC attends Anti-Slavery Fair for first time in many years. 1855 November-December: Publishes The Progress of Religious Ideas; A New Flower for Children; and "Jan and Zaida" in Liberty Bell for 1856. 1856 Early spring: Writes four stories for her collection Autumnal Leaves. May 22: Charles Sumner caned in the U.S. Senate by Preston Brooks; civil war rages in Kansas between anti- and proslavery settlers. October-November: Serializes "The Kansas Emigrants" in New York Tribune during last week of 1856 electoral campaign; writes "Song for the Free Soil Men"; organizes sewing circle in Wayland for antislavery settlers in Kansas; DLC campaigns for Fremont; Fremont loses to James Buchanan; LMC publishes Autumnal Leaves. Thanksgiving Day: father, Convers Francis, dies. 1857 Summer: Meets Mattie Griffith. December: Publishes "The Stars and Stripes. A Melo-Drama" in Liberty Bell for 18 58 . 1858 May: Publishes "Loo Loo" in Atlantic Monthly; Ellis Loring dies on May 24. 1859 May: The Childs attend New England Anti-Slavery Convention; John Brown walks out of it.
xxiv Chronology
1860
1861
1862
1863
1864
October I6-I8:John Brown and his men raid Harpers Ferry, Virginia. October 26: LMC writes to John Brown and Governor Henry Wise, asking permission to nurse Brown in prison. November-December: Publishes exchanges with Brown, Governor Henry Wise, and Mrs. Margaretta Mason in Tribune and answers dozens of letters a day; raises funds for the families of Brown and his men; helps Garrison organize Tremont Temple ceremony to honor Brown; attends all-day prayer meeting for Brown at a black church. January: Publishes Correspondence between Lydia Maria Child and Gov. Wise and Mrs. Mason. February: Completes The Right Way the Safe Way, personally addresses and mails more than a thousand copies over the next year. Late summer: Edits HarrietJacobs's Incidents in the Life ofa Slave Girl. October: Publishes The Patriarchal Institution and mails out hundreds of copies; publishes The Duty of Disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Law, sending copies to newly elected Massachusetts legislators; raises funds to free Thomas Sims. November: Lincoln elected; the Childs board for the winter with Lucy Osgood in Medford. December: Attends two antislavery meetings mobbed by conservatives; South Carolina secedes. January 24: Attends another antislavery meeting mobbed by conservatives. February: Possibly attends Convention for the Indians, writes "Willie and Wikanee" and submits to &ickerbocker (not published). April: The Childs return to Wayland; the Civil War breaks out with the capture of Fort Sumter by the Confederacy. July: Attends party for Harriet Beecher Stowe; Union defeat at Battle of Bull Run. Writes anonymous pro-emancipation articles for newspapers, sends relief supplies to "contrabands," knits for abolitionist-led regiments. August-September: Publishes "Emancipation and Amalgamation" and "L. Maria Child to the President of the United States." Winter: Starts and puts aside A Romance of the Republic, begins work on Looking Toward Sunset. March: Publishes "Willie Wharton" in Atlantic Monthly. April 7: Convers Francis (brother) dies. June: Ell-wing of Wayland cottage bums down. July: New York draft riots; Massachusetts 54th decimated in attack on Fort Wagner, Robert Shaw killed. January: Meets Edmonia Lewis at Anti-Slavery Reception. Lobbies for education and training programs for freedpeople, redistribution of confiscated plantations to freedpeople and poor whites, reelection of Lincoln. Begins work on Freedmen's Book. November: Publishes Looking Toward Sunset.
Chronology xxv
I865 January 31: House of Representatives passes Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery. April: Frances E. W. Harper lectures in Wayland; Lee surrenders to Grant at Appomatox, ending Civil War; Lincoln assassinated. May: Begins writing articles for Independent. November: Publishes The Freedmen:r Book, begins outlining A Romance of the Republic. I866 March: Publishes "Poor Chloe" in Atlantic Monthly. Publishes articles in Independent criticizing Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction policies. I867 July: Publishes A Romance ofthe Republic. I868 April 11 and 18: Publishes "A Plea for the Indian" in Standard; reissued as An Appealfor the Indians. May: Louisa Loring dies. Writes many articles over the next few years for Standard, Independent, Woman:r Advocate, and Woman:r Journal advocating black suffrage, land redistribution, protection for the freedpeople, woman suffrage, Indian rights. I870 January 27: Attends closing meeting of Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society and last Anti-Slavery Festival. April 16: National Anti-Slavery Standard ceases publication after ratification of Fifteenth Amendment, enfranchising black men; replaced by monthly Standard, then weekly National Standard, again monthly through December 1872. December: Publishes "Resemblances between the Buddhist and Catholic Religions" in Atlantic Monthly. I87I October: Publishes "The Intermingling of Religions" in Atlantic Monthly. I872 Tries to dissuade Sumner from supporting Greeley in 1872 election, publishes articles urging voters to support Grant. I874 March: Charles Sumner dies. September 17: DLC dies in Wayland. November: Democrats recapture Congress, ushering in end of Reconstruction; LMC visits with the Sewalls and goes to spend winter with the Shaws on Staten Island, returning to Wayland in the spring. I876 May: Attends Free Religious Association meeting, visits the Alcott family. Winter: Begins spending winters in Boston, where she regularly attends Free Religious Association meetings. I878 May: Publishes Aspirations ofthe World. I879 May: Shortly after a visit with LMC, Garrison dies. August: Publishes tribute to Garrison in Atlantic (her last article). I880 October 20: Dies in Wayland.
Abbreviations
+
BPL
Boston Public Library, Anti-Slavery Collections
CC
The Colleaed Correspondence ofLydia Maria Child, 1817-1880, ed. Patricia G. Holland, Milton Meltzer, and Francine Krasno (Millwood, N.Y.: Kraus MicrofornI, 1980) The Colleaed Works ofAbraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, 8 vols. (New Brunswick, N.).: Rutgers UP, 1953)
CWL
DAB
GL
]M
LIFE
Diaionary ofAmerican Biog;raphy The Letters of William Lluyd Garrison, ed. Walter M. Merrill and Louis Ruchames, 6 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap P of Harvard UP, 1971-81) Juvenile Miscellany William Lluyd Garrison, 185°-1879: The Story ofHis Life Told by His Children, 4 vols. (1885-1889; New York: Arno P, 1969)
MHS
Massachusetts Historical Society
NAR
North American Review Lydia Maria Child: Seleaed Letters, 1817-1880, ed. Milton Meltzer, Patricia G. Holland, and Francine Krasno (Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1982)
SL
Prologue A Passion for Books
..
My Dear Brother, - I have been busily engaged in reading "Paradise Lost. " ... I could not but admire such astonishing grandeur ofdescription, such heavenly sublimity ofstyle. I never read a poem that displayed a more prolific fancy, or a more vigorous genius. But don't you think that Milton asserts the superiority ofhis own sex in rather too lordly a manner? Thus, when Eve is conversing with Adam, she is made to say, "My author and disposer, what thou bid'st Unargu'd I obey; so God ordained. God is thy law, thou mine: to know no more Is woman shappiest knowledge, and her praise. "1 This precocious letter, written at age fifteen, aptly introduces one of nineteenthcentury America's most original writers and reformers, Lydia Maria Francis Child. 2 When it was first published in a selected edition of Child's correspondence, two years after her death in 1880, reviewers familiar with her controversial career as an advocate of racial, sexual, and religious equality immediately recognized it as casting her "mental horoscope."3 Addressed to her elder brother, Convers Francis, then finishing his studies at Harvard Divinity School, Child's comments on Paradise Lost reflect the mind of a young woman sensitive to literary genius but unawed by patriarchal authority, impatient of the restraints placed on her sex, and already prone to reject orthodoxy and think for herself. Her letter to Convers also gives a foretaste of the rhetorical strategies that would enable Child to exert such a powerful influence on her contemporaries during her half century as a cultural spokesperson. Not only does this largely self-educated fifteen-year-old bolster her interpretation by citing chapter and verse, as she would in the many polemical works she would go on to write, but under the guise of tactfully deferring to her university-educated brother, she firmly reasserts her independence. "Perhaps you will smile at the freedom with which I express my opinion concerning the books which I have been reading," she writes ingenuously, hastening to assure Convers that she "willingly acknowledges the superiority of [his] talents and advantages, and ...
2 Prologue fully appreciates" the "condescension and kindness" he has shown toward her. Nevertheless, she remains undaunted by his insistence that her criticism of Milton is unfounded. "I perceive that I never shall convert you to my opinions concerning Milton's treatment to [sic] our sex," she replies jauntily, confident that truth lies on her side, whatever Convers's claims to greater erudition. 4 The same reliance on her own inner convictions would again and again lead her to challenge time-honored institutions - in the I820S by exploring the tabooed subject of interracial marriage and championing the cause of the Indians, 5 in the I 830S by calling for the immediate abolition of slavery and denouncing all forms of racial discrimination, in the I 840s by taking up the defense of "fallen women" and demanding the extension to women of sexual as well as civil and political rights, in the I 8 50S by denying the historical truth of Christianity and urging respect for the world's other religions, and in the 1860s and 1870S by crusading for a genuine Reconstruction of American society on the basis of universal equality. The intellectual boldness and self-assurance Child reveals in her earliest surviving letters are all the more remarkable in the light of her background. As she informed her brother's biographer, her parents had been "hard-working people, who had had small opportunity for culture," and during her childhood, there had been "nothing like literary influences in the family, or its surroundings."6 An autobiographical fragment Convers left among his papers likewise conveys the impression of "intensely industrious and rigidly economical" folk, whose arduous struggle against the poverty they had known in their youth had forced them to dispense with education and to limit their reading to didactic works. 7 The "little book-case" that graced the Francis home offered only the plainest fare: "an odd volume of Cowley, Orton's 'Expositions of the Old Testament,' Forbes's 'Family Book,' some histories of England and of the Revolution, and Watts's 'Improvement of the Mind.' "8 Yet ever since Child could remember, she and Convers, six years her senior, had shared "a passion for books" that had differentiated them from their parents and three older siblings, James, Susannah, and Mary. Long after Child had made a name for herself as the author of more than thirty works, many of them best-sellers, she went so far as to ascribe her own "literary tendencies entirely to [Convers's] early influence." "When I came from school," she reminisced, "I always hurried to his bed-room, and threw myself down among his piles of books. As I devoured everything that came in my way, I, of course, read much that was beyond my childish comprehension. I was constantly calling upon him to explain: 'Convers, what does Shakespeare mean by this? What does Milton mean by that?'" The picture she conjured up of her brother no doubt applied to them both: "Whatever work he was set about, he always had a book in his pocket; and he was poring over it, at every moment ofleisure."9 Moments of leisure were few, however. By trade a baker, whose famous "Medford crackers" were sold widely in the region and even exported to England, their father, Convers Francis, Senior, did not encourage the intellectual aspirations that his two youngest children had somehow developed. Although he had built his bakery into a "flourishing" business by the time his youngest daughter was born on February II,
Prologue
3
he remained a "great believer in manual labor" and "a somewhat severe exactor of labor from his children." Musing on his father's death at age ninety, Convers still marveled at the old man's tenacious industry: "He devoted himself to his work with an eagerness and an unsparing exertion of strength which used to seem to me prodigious," he noted in his diary.lO Mr. Francis also set an "unsparing" pace for the rest of the family. No matter how deeply "buried" in their books, young Convers and Lydia had perpetually to be "unearthed" for the performance of the innumerable tasks involved in running a thriving household enterprise and family farm: "[1lhe farm-work and bakehouse-work followed [them] up sharply; ... [they] had to make hay, weed the garden, set the hens, tend the shop, turn the 'dumb-betty,' and hang out the clothes." 11 Despite such obstacles, Child recollected, Convers had "early manifested an earnest desire to go to college." Initially, their father had not been "inclined to favor his wishes; for he ... considered a college-education something out of the line of himself or his family." He yielded to the persuasion of two eminent figures in their native Medford, Massachusetts: the Reverend David Osgood, pastor of the Congregationalist Church the Francis family attended; and Dr. John Brooks, the family physician and future governor of Massachusetts. According to Child, Brooks had insisted: "'Mr. Francis, you will do very wrong to thwart the inclinations of that boy. He has remarkable powers of mind; and his passion for books is so strong, that he will be sure to distinguish himself in learning; whereas, if you try to make anything else of him, he will prove a total failure.' "12 Thanks to this intercession, Convers entered the sacred precincts of Dr. Hosmer's college preparatory academy, reserved for the elite of Medford's 1,400 inhabitants: "There was an air of aristocracy about it," he recalled in his autobiography; "sons of rich men from other towns came to it as boarding-scholars; and only 'the better sort,' in the town, sent their children to it.... so that when I, the baker's boy, was transferred from the town school to it, it was a promotion which made me tremble."13 In an era preceding the establishment of colleges for women, there was no one to intercede for Convers's equally promising sister, who was obliged to fend for herself once her brother matriculated at Harvard in 181 I. After outgrowing the "dame school" where she and Convers had learned their letters, Child had to content herself first with the meager offerings of the "common town school, where Tom, Dick, and Harry, everybody's boys, and everybody's girls, went as a matter of course," then with the hardly more stimulating regime of Miss Swan's Female Academy, which she attended for a year at age twelve. 14 The divergence of the siblings' paths had far-reaching consequences. Convers, whose "promotion" enabled him to marry a woman of "the better sort," would continually shy away from embracing causes likely to offend his new associates. No such inhibitions would trouble his sister, who would take pride in her identity as a baker's daughter and retain her fierce hatred of "aristocracy" to the end of her life. Indeed, the experience of being denied the education lavished on her brother sowed the seeds of a feminist consciousness in Child, as it did in two women's rights leaders of the 1830S and 1840S who acknowledged her as a forerunner- Sarah Grimke and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. 15 Equally formative, the experience of being cast 1802,
4
Prologue
on her own intellectual resources liberated Child from dependency on the authority of the conservative professors who dominated the universities and vocally opposed the radical reforms she would later champion. Of course, as a nine year old, Child could not have foreseen that she would learn more from making her own education, in defiance of a father "alarmed at her increasing fondness for books," than Convers would from his courses at Harvard. 16 The loss of her cherished brother and mentor must simply have felt overwhelming. Scenes of brothers and sisters torn apart in early youth recur obsessively in Child's fiction. 17 Exacerbating the young girl's misery was her mother's slow decline. Susannah Rand Francis had borne seven children in twelve years, of whom five had survived and the sixth had been stillborn. By age thirty-six, when her last baby arrived, the strain of repeated childbearing, prolonged hard times, and incessant domestic drudgery had fatally sapped her health. Perhaps already laboring under the first symptoms of the tuberculosis to which she would succumb at forty-eight, Susannah seems to have greeted her baby daughter with scant enthusiasm. Unlike Convers, Child would never write fondly of "the devoted, anxious care with which [my mother] watched over my welfare," or of the "blessed power for good" that the bond between them exerted over her life. Apparently, Susannah had "heaped the full measure of her love" on Convers and her older children and had "little left for her youngest daughter."18 All her life Child would suffer from an unfulfilled craving for love, intensified by a passionate temperament for which New England decorum allowed no outlet. Until Convers's departure for Harvard, Child had relied on him and on her favorite sister Susannah for the affection she so desperately needed. But the very year Convers left home, Susannah married and moved away, and their mother withdrew into her final illness. For the better part of three years, just when the lonely preadolescent girl required most mothering, Susannah Rand Francis lay bedridden with tuberculosis. "[S]o much accustomed" did Child grow to her dying mother's "pale face, and weak voice" that she could hardly remember a prior state. 19 Guilt and ill-concealed resentment haunt the only direct account Child left of her mother - an autobiographical story entitled "My Mother's Grave" (1828), published in her children's magazine, The Juvenile Miscellany. What that story reveals is the inner turmoil of a girl who cannot forgive her mother for not having had the strength to nurture her during the most critical period of her youth. "At first, it is true, I had sobbed violently-for they told me she would die," Child confides, "but when, day after day, I returned from school, and found her the same, I began to believe she would always be spared to me" (3 I I). Was she also unconsciously denying that her mother's illness had reversed their proper roles - that it was now her responsibility to care for the mother who could not care for her? The wrenching incident Child proceeds to relate would suggest so. She had come home one afternoon "discouraged and fretful," having done her work "wrong-side-outward" and consequently forfeited her place at the head of the class. Although she had found her mother "paler than usual," she was in no mood to supply an invalid's wants. That day she needed more than the "affectionate smile, that always
Prologue
5
welcomed [her] return." Thus, when her mother requested her to "go down stairs, and bring her a glass of water," Child reacted "pettishly" by demanding "why she did not call the domestic to do it" (312). Nor was she melted by the "look of mild reproach" her mother gave her as she asked, "And will not my daughter bring a glass of water for her poor sick mother?" She performed the task grudgingly: "Instead of smiling, and kissing her, as I was wont to do, I sat the glass down very quick, and left the room." She did not even return to bid her mother goodnight. Alone in the "darkness and silence" of her room, however, Child could not sleep. Her mother's pale face and trembling voice pricked her conscience, as those never-to-be-forgotten words of reproach echoed in her ears. She determined to ask forgiveness, but it was too late - her mother had "just sunk into an uneasy slumber," from which she would not awaken. 20 Child would spend a lifetime coping with the psychic wounds left by her mother's illness and death: unresolved anger toward her parents, the guilt and chronic depression that typically result from anger deflected inward, and an insatiable yearning for love. Consciously and unconsciously, she would keep trying to compensate for having failed her mother at the hour of her death. Forty years later, for example, she would all but drop her writing to nurse her irascible father through his protracted last illness. She would make similar sacrifices for her husband, not only by nursing him in his old age, but by subordinating her professional and emotional needs to his for most of their married life and repressing the anger this generated in her, with disastrous psychological consequences. Though Child seems never to have recovered from the trauma she commemorated in "My Mother's Grave," she did succeed in turning her compulsive quest for atonement and her thwarted desire for nurture to productive uses. In assuming the vocation of a writer for mothers and children, she would step symbolically into her mother's role and offer a generation of young readers the mothering she herself had not received. She would even devote one of her domestic advice books, The Family Nurse (1837), to the household care of the sick - the very service she had rebelled against rendering. Ultimately, Child would extend her nurturing far beyond the domestic sphere to embrace nearly all the wronged and oppressed of her society: Indians threatened with dispossession; enslaved, fugitive, and free but ostracized African Americans; martyred abolitionists;21 "fallen women"; prisoners; the urban poor; Irish and Chinese immigrants; the elderly. The need for atonement that helped prompt a career of self-sacrificing advocacy for others is undisguised in "My Mother's Grave," written explicidy so "that those children who have parents to love them, may learn to value them as they ought" (311). Significandy, that story remained Child's sole tribute to her mother. The painful memory of her unfilial conduct - and the poignant, if unreasonable, anger she acted out toward her mother for abandoning her by dying-overclouded her girlhood. As an adult, Child rarely spoke of her years in Medford, except to say that they were "cold, shaded, and uncongenial." "Whenever reminiscences of them rise up before me, I turn my back on them as quick as possible," she told her friend Lucy Osgood, daughter of the pastor who had helped send Convers to Harvard. 22
6 Prologue Twelve years older than Child, Lucy Osgood took the place of a mother after Susannah Rand Francis retreated into invalidism. Perhaps as important in the long run, Lucy and her elder sister Mary furnished Child with the only positive role models of intellectual women she encountered in her youth. Educated at home by their father, they had learned Latin, Greek, and Hebrew and ranged widely in his well stocked library. "Their extensive reading," their erudition, and "their depth and independence of thought" had made them "objects of [her] childish veneration," teaching her that women, too, could master the subjects she longed to study. At the same time, the Osgood sisters' "old-fashioned skill and diligence" in the womanly arts of "sewing, knitting, netting, and crocheting," which they took "especial satisfaction" in consecrating to the production of "comfortable articles for those who were in need," counteracted the stereotype of the unfeminine pedant,. held up to deter girls from intellectual pursuits. 23 The Osgoods' example must have gone far to immunize Child against the anxieties generated by the most notorious local embodiment of the female intellectual- an "aged" spinster named Hannah Adams, who had authored a history of the Jews and supposedly "unsexed herself by her learning." Looking back on the obstacles literary women had once faced, Child remarked wryly of Hannah Adams: "She was said not only to be unconscious of a hole in her stocking, but to be absolutely unable to recognize her own face in the glass; and if that was not being unfeminine, pray tell me what could be. "24 When she followed Hannah Adams into authorship, she avoided such strictures by modeling her deportment on the Osgood sisters'. If her own parents did not manage to satisfy Child's hunger for love and thirst for education, they did nonetheless bequeath to her many of the principles she would defend so eloquendy. The habits of tireless industry and rigid economy they inculcated in her would stand her in good stead during a struggle against poverty as taxing as any her parents had known, and she would transmit their lessons to a wide audience in The Frugal Housewife and The Juvenile Miscellany. Child's parents also showed her that thrift and self-denial must go hand in hand with generosity toward poorer neighbors. Every week they sent a Sunday dinner to their children's first teacher, the old, tobacco-chewing spinster Ma'am Betty, who held a "dame school" in her untidy bedroom. And every Thanksgiving eve they invited "all the humble friends of the household - 'Ma'am Betty,' the washerwoman, the berry-woman, the wood-sawyer, the joumeymenbakers" - for a festive meal. In the ample, old-fashioned kitchen, the gathering of twenty or thirty working folk "partook of an immense chicken-pie, pumpkin-pies (made in milk-pans), and heaps of doughnuts.... and went away loaded with crackers and bread by the father, and with pies by the mother, not forgetting 'turnovers' for their children."2s The one memory of her youth that she liked to recall, Child would immortalize this picture of a traditional New England Thanksgiving in her poem, "Over the river and through the wood, / To grandfather's house we go," which generations of American children have sung without knowing the name of the author.26 Commenting on the Francis family's Thanksgiving bounty, the abolitionist Thomas Wentworth Higginson surmised in his 1868 biographical sketch of his old friend: "Such homely applications of the doctrine 'It is more blessed to give than to receive'
Prologue
7
may have done more to mould the Lydia Maria Child of maturer years than all the faithful labors of good Dr. Osgood, to whom she and her brother used to repeat the Westminster Assembly's Catechism once a month."27 Child would in fact rebel aggressively against the dour Calvinist creed Dr. Osgood preached, to which her father clung till his dying day, despite Osgood's own capitulation to Unitarianism. But her parents' Christian ethic would inspire her deep commitment to relieving the suffering of the poor. Child's parents also taught her political principles that went beyond Christian charity. The elder Convers Francis prided himself on being the son of a "liberty man, ... reported to have killed five" redcoats at the battle of Concord: "The sound of the old Revolution ... was still in his ears, and he detested slavery, with all its apologists and in all its forms."28 He kindled the same ardentlove of "right and freedom" in his daughter. From an early age, stories about slavery in Massachusetts - and about local heroes who had fought against it-shaped Child's consciousness. One incident her parents must often have related to her had occurred when she was three years old: the rescue of the escaped slave Caesar in 1805, which had earned Medford the honor of being the first American town to shield a fugitive against recapture. Like the Francises, Caesar, a tailor, and Nathan Wait, the blacksmith who took primary credit for the rescue, were "mechanics," or artisans, the class Child identified as the backbone of the antislavery movement in Massachusetts; hence, it is quite possible that her parents were among the Medford "friends" who informed Caesar of his right to "be a free man if he chose. "29 Child may also have learned from her mother of another incident she recounted in both her Authentic Anecdotes ofAmerican Slavery (1835) and her Atlantic Monthly sketch "Poor Chloe" (r866). Illustrating the callousness slavery produced, it involved a workingwoman in Gloucester, Massachusetts, who had received a black infant as a present from a wealthy slaveholder and had nourished it with her own milk, only to sell it into Virginia at age five in order to buy herself a brocade gown for Sabbath wear.30 The hatred of slavery such stories aroused in Child no doubt predisposed her to embrace the abolitionist cause. 3\ Yet of the five Francis siblings, Child alone seems to have inherited her parents' Revolutionary creed. Her eldest brother, James, a farmer, would espouse the racist politics of the Democratic party, and her beloved Convers would take almost a decade to follow her timidly into the abolitionist camp.32 If her sister Mary sympathized any earlier with her antislavery views, she left no record of it, though Mary's daughters, Sarah Preston Parsons and Mary Preston Stearns, would be committed abolitionists by the 185os. Ultimately, perhaps as decisive a factor as her parents' teachings in transforming Child into an antislavery activist was the marginal position she occupied in both her family and her society. Denied the rewards of parental approbation and professional recognition, she learned to seek instead the reward of her own conscience. Unfortunately, the senior Convers Francis's exemplary qualities did not include the ability to comfort a desolate twelve-year-old girl grieving for her dead mother. Gloomy and withdrawn by temperament, he seemed to turn his back on her. And when she sought consolation in her books, he fretted. "He was a good man, and meant to be
8
Prologue
kind, - but he was not used to showing tenderness," Child would write of her father in her thinly disguised autobiographical novella, Emily Parker (1827): When he came in from work, he would always inquire what she had done during the day. If she had accomplished a great deal, he would praise her industry; but he did not talk with her, during the long winter's evenings, - and it was only by the subdued tone of his naturally stern voice, and the prolonged kiss he sometimes gave her, when she bade him good night, that Emily knew he blessed her in his heart, both for her own, and her mother's sake. 33 Under his grim exterior, of course, her father was wrestling with his own sorrow. As a devout Calvinist, he may have been undergoing the crisis of faith common to so many New Englanders, who struggled in vain to reconcile themselves to the possibility that God might choose to damn their loved ones. Child would later attribute the "especial grudge" she developed against her parents' "fierce theology" to her father's incurable terror of "going to hell" -and to his insistence that she, too, would "have to burn hereafter" for her apostasy.34 Adding to the disconsolate widower's cares was the severe economic depression that the War of 1812 had triggered throughout New England as a result of the embargo on trade with Britain. What finally enabled him to decide how to solve his domestic problems was the marriage of his daughter Mary, who had been running the Francis household and serving as a surrogate mother to her younger sister for the past three years. Devastated at the prospect of losing her last mainstay, Child had refused to attend Mary's wedding and secluded herself with her kitten "until all was over."35 Mary's departure for Norridgewock, Maine (then a province of Massachusetts), had left her widowed father to cope by himself with a straitened business, a large house and farm, and a wayward, bookish adolescent daughter. The solution he settled on was to sell the bakery, move in with his son James, and dispatch Lydia to her newly married sister in Norridgewock, who could cure her of her notions and initiate her into the domestic avocations befitting a woman. Meanwhile, as if to complete the disintegration of the family, both Child's favorite sister, Susannah, and her grandmother, Susannah Rand, died. 36 Bereft of intellectual companionship and maternal tenderness; barred from the portals of knowledge through which the baker's son, but not his daughter, might enter the realm of refinement and culture depicted in the books both of them cherished; and banished like an unwanted burden from the only home she had known - Child must have felt abandoned by the entire world. Ten years later, she poured her unassuaged grief over her mother's death and her "desperate resentment" toward her father into her first novel: Hobomok, A Tale ofEarly Times (1824). Her heroine, Mary Conant, too, endures the pain of being deprived one by one of a friend's "cheering influence," a role model's "firm support," and a mother's "mild, soothing spirit." Unlike Child, however, Mary plays the part of a dutiful daughter, choosing to nurse her dying mother rather than return with her lover to England. Through her heroine's sacrifice, culminating in an emotionally resonant deathbed farewell of mother and daughter, Child granted
Prologue
9
herself absolution from shame and guilt. But she vented her anger against her surviving parent, whom she blamed for having rejected her. Refusing to remain isolated in an atmosphere of "unreciprocated intellect" with a morose, austere father, Mary spites him by fleeing into the wilderness with an Indian - a parody of the exile from civilization that Convers Francis, Senior, like his fictional representative, Roger Conant, had chosen for his daughter. 3? Actually, as Child seems to have realized by the time she wrote Hobomok, the move from Medford to Norridgewock turned out to be as liberating as her heroine's sojourn in the wilderness. True, Norridgewock lacked the advantages that Medford's proximity to the cultural centers of Boston and Cambridge afforded. Yet it also lacked the rigid class structure of the older town, which reserved those advantages for an elite the Francis family did not belong to. In Norridgewock, Child drew her social identity not from her father the baker, but from her brother-in-law, Warren Preston, a respected lawyer and future county probate judge. Thus, she could mingle freely with the cultured Massachusetts families, university graduates, and professional men comprising the village's one thousand inhabitants. 38 Moreover, as the shire town of Somerset County, Norridgewock became a hub of activity when court was in session. During those three busy months, lawyers and judges from all over the region converged on the little town. Many gathered in the Prestons' parlor, where Child could eavesdrop on legal and political debates. Chief among the issues raging in that turbulent period following the War of 1812 was whether the District of Maine should seek independent statehood, or secede from the U.S. government as well as from Massachusetts. The question of statehood was intimately connected with the dispute over slavery that erupted into the open in the Missouri crisis of 1819-20; for Maine's admission to the Union as a free state became contingent on granting Missouri admission as a slave state, contrary to the provisions of the 1787 ordinance banning slavery from the Northwest Territory. These discussions must have played a key role in initiating Child into the legal and political complexities of the slavery controversy. She would devote an entire chapter of her 1833 Appeal in Favor of That Class ofAmericans Called Africans to the "Influence of Slavery on the Politics of the United States," citing the case of Maine and Missouri as a prime illustration of how the South's ruling oligarchy held the entire country hostage to proslavery interests. 39 Besides intellectual stimulation and political education, the Preston household provided emotional sustenance. The close bond Child formed with her sister Mary is evident in the affectionate letters through which she attempted to maintain their intimacy after leaving Maine in 1821. "I have a million things, which I wish to say to you, every day- but I cannot put them in a letter," she writes in one, begging for a long, newsy reply. "Do not feel that your letters are uninteresting to me," she pleads. "I assure you that you would not, if you could read my heart when I receive them."4O "I do wish you could find it in your heart to write oftener," she complains in another letter, reporting a conversation with a recent visitor from Maine, whose gossip about "a pretty-black-eyed sister of mine" had overwhelmed her with nostalgia. 41
10
Prologue
From Mary, Child learned the domestic skills she would impart to thousands of readers in The Frugal Housewife (1829). Like the heroine of her novella Emily Parker, "Before she was fifteen ... she could spin more yarn, and weave more cloth in a day, than any girl on the Kenebec" [sic]. Nor was this all: she could make the best "butter and cheese ... in the country" and display her "ingenuity" by stitching quilts and braiding carpets "which a Bostonian might have mistaken for Marseilles" manufacture. 42 (A specimen of Child's handiwork preserved in the Medford museum - a christening dress she sewed for one of her nieces-makes good her boast.) The experience of helping to bring up the Preston children also taught her much of the wisdom she distilled into The Mother's Book (1831) and the Juvenile Miscellany (1826-34), which together made this motherless child and childless woman a national authority on childrearing. The Miscellany, for example, regularly featured dialogues between Aunt Maria and her charges and even referred to the young Prestons by their own names in one story ("The Little Traveller").43 Child's years in Norridgewock had their greatest impact, however, in awakening her sympathy for the Indians, who would inspire some of her best early fiction and draw her into her first political cause. Despite the amenities on which it prided itself, Norridgewock was still unmistakably a frontier town in the second decade of the nineteenth century. Bears, wolves, and foxes made o CC 30/857a. 10 LMC to Francis Shaw, 3 June 1854, CC 30/866. II LMC to Henrietta Sargent, Lucy Osgood and Anna Loring, 29 Jan. and 5 June 1855 and [II?-19? Feb. 1856J, CC 31/878,884, SL 27712 LMC to Lucy Osgood and Sarah Shaw, [II?-19? Feb.J and 27 Oct. 1856, SL 277 and CC 34/952. 13 LMC to Ellis Loring, [27 Nov. 1856J,CC34/961. 14 LMC to Henrietta Sargent and Anna Loring, 29Jan. and 5 June 1855, CC 3r1878, 884. 15 LMC to Sarah Shaw, 23 Mar. 1856, CC p/9I1. 16 LMC to Marianne Silsbee, 27 Aug. 1855, CC 31/886. 17 LMC to Sarah Shaw, 3 Aug. 1856, CC 33/93318 David Lee Child, The Taking ufNaboth ~ Vineyard, or History ofthe Texas Conspiracy, and an Examination ofthe Reasons Given by the Hon. J. C. Calhoun, Hon. R. J. Wtllker, and Others, for the Dismemberment and Robbery ofthe Republic ofMexico (New York: S. W. Benedict, 1845). See also David's 1844 campaign plea for Henry Clay, An Appealfrom David L. Childs, [sicJ Editor ofthe Anti-Slavery Standard, to the Abolitionists. (Albany, N.Y.: Albany Evening Journal, [1844]); it urged abolitionists to support Clay on the strength of his statement opposing annexation (Clay's statement was in fact extremely equivocal). On David's role in the anti-annexation struggle, see Samuel J. May, Some Recollections of Our Antislavery Conflict (Boston: Fields, Osgood, 1869) 316-2 I. 19 For a detailed account of the 1850 Compromise and how it was engineered, see James M. McPherson, Battle Cry ofFreedom: The Civil Wtlr Era (1988; New York: Ballantine, 1989) 68-77. 20 LMC to Francis Shaw, 3 June 1854, SL 269. On public opinion of the Kansas-Nebraska Act as a betrayal of the 1820 and 1850 compromises, see Stanley W. Campbell, The Slave Catchers: Enforcement ofthe Fugitive Slave Law, 1850-1860 (1968; New York: Norton, 1972) chap. 4. 21 LMC to Marianne Silsbee, 6 Feb. 1849, CC 261746; also LMC to Ellis and Louisa Loring, 28 Jan. and 8 Mar. 1849, CC 26/744, SL 244-45. 22 LMC to Marianne Silsbee, 27 Mar. 1851, SL 257-58. For a summary of the Fugitive Slave Law's provisions, see Campbell, Slave Catchers 23 - 25.
Autumnal Leaves 23
24 25 26 27
28
29 30 31 32 33
34 35
36
705
LMC to Francis Shaw, 3 June 1854, SL 269-70; also LMC to Charles Sumner, 12 Feb. 1855, CC 3I /8 79. The model Child probably had in mind was Boston blacks' dazzlingly successful rescue of the slave Shadrach, whom they had whisked out of the courtroom and sped on his way to Canada under the astonished noses of the officers in charge. Meltzer and Holland conjecture that Shadrach was the fugitive whom Nathaniel Silsbee had been involved in apprehending (SL 257n). Shadrach was rescued on 15 Feb. 1851, and Child's letter to Marianne Silsbee is dated 27 Mar. 1851. Accounts of the Shadrach case do not mention Silsbee, however. See Campbell, Slave Catchers 148-5 I. For details of the rescue plan, see the reminiscences of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays (1898; New York: Arno P, 1968) 147-60. LMC to Marianne Silsbee and Francis Shaw, 27 Mar. 1851 and 3 June 1854, SL 257, 269. LMC to Susan Lyman Lesley and Francis Shaw, 29 Mar. and 5 Sept. 1852, SL 264-65. Child wrote A New Flower for Children in late 1855 and published it in time for Christmas. It was already being reviewed in Dec. 1855 (New York Tribune, 25 Dec., p. 7). "TheAdventures ofJamie and Jeannie" is an expanded version of "The Bewildered Savage," originally published in the Union Magazine of Literature and Art 2 Gan. 1848): 23-26. The Liberty Bell "for 1856" came off the press in Dec. 1855, in time to be sold at the Anti-Slavery Fair. LMC to Marianne Silsbee and Henrietta Sargent, I Jan. 1854, CC 3o/857a and 29 Jan. 1855, CC 31/878; see also LMC to DLC, 20 Dec. (1857], CC 38h041: "I am having the same sort of time thatl usually have at the Fair. A great deal of hurry and discomfort, with snatches of pleasant intercourse with old friends .... I am at (Mrs. Greene's] house .... She almost kills me with kindness, but the arrangements are so elegant, and the ways so different from my ways, that I don't like it so well as I do 'my nest and my mate.' " LMC to Sarah Shaw, 20 Mar. 1857, SL 307. LMC to Anna Loring, 7 Aug. 1856, CC 33/934. LMC to Charles Sumner, 7 July 1856, SL 285. See also LMC to Sarah Shaw, 9 Nov. 1856 and 20 Mar. 18 57, SL 299-300, 307-8. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 20 Mar. 1857, SL 308. The Liberty party had siphoned enough votes away from the Whigs in 1844 to throw the election to the expansionist DemocratJames K Polk. In 1848, disaffected Whigs and Democrats had joined with former Liberty party members in a broader antislavery coalition, the Free Soil party, whose platform called for containing rather than abolishing slavery. David, who had opposed the Liberty party for tactical reasons, had enthusiastically supported the new coalition and even tried to enlist his old idol Henry Clay as its presidential candidate (a colossal misjudgment of the politician who would sponsor the Compromise of 1850 and its Fugitive Slave Law). See DLC to Henry Clay, 26 July 1848, BPL Ms. A+2, p. 23. In this letter, David blames the defeat of the Whigs in 1844 on their failure to take an "unambiguous" stand against annexation. Had Clay won the election, he would have been "the best President that has administered the government since the great Washington," David asserts. Like its predecessor, the Free Soil party had failed at the polls, but it furthered the process of realignnrent, which culminated in the founding of the Republican party in 1854. For a more detailed account of these realignments, see McPherson, Battle Cry ofFreedom 60-64> chap. 4 passim, and 153-62. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 3 Aug. 1856, SL 291. "The Kansas Emigrants" was serialized in the 23, 24, 25, 28 Oct. and 4 Nov. numbers of the daily New York Tribune and in the 25 Oct. and I Nov. numbers of the weekly Tribune. The first two pages of the daily are taken up with advertisements; Child's story fills from one and a half to three colurns of p. 3, the equivalent of the front page, where it is the lead item. "The Crime Against Kansas" was the title of Sumner's speech. Child included the story in her last collection of fiction, Autumnal Leaves: Tales and Sketches in Prose and Rhyme (New York: C. S. Francis, 1857) 302-63. For an excellent article on the struggle in Kansas, which led me to many of the primary sources cited below, see Michael Fellman, "Rehearsal for the Civil War: Antislavery and Proslavery at the Fighting Point in Kansas, 1854-1856," Antislavery Reconsidered: New PerspectTves on the Abolitionists, ed. Lewis
706
37 38
39 40
41
42 43
44
45
46
47 48 49
50
Chapter Sixteen Notes Perry and Michael Fellman (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1979) 287-307. Also extremely useful are Allan Nevins, Ordeal of the Uniun, vol. 2, A House Dividing, 18p-18)7 (1947; New York: Harper and Row, 1960); and McPherson, Battle Cry ofFreedom chap. 5. Child uses the phrase "wiped out" in quotation marks in "The Kansas Emigrants" 358. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 3Aug. 1856, SL 21)0. Besides articles in the Tribune, the Liberatur, and the National Anti-Slavery Standard, Child's main sources for "The Kansas Emigrants" were William Phillips's The Cunquest ofKansas, by Missouri and Her Allies. A History of the Troubles in Kansas, from the Passage of the Organic Att Until the Close ofJuly, 1856 (Boston: Phillips, Sampson, 1856); and the anonymous Six Munths in Kansas. By a Lady (Boston: John P. Jewett, 1856). Phillips was the Tribune's special correspondent in Kansas. Child refers to some incidents mentioned in his book, but not in his Tribune dispatches. The anonymous lady's narrative of her sojourn in Kansas, extracts of which appeared in the Liberator 27 June 1856, pp. 101-2, under the title "Scenes in Kansas," provided Child with many of the details that make "The Kansas Emigrants" such a surprisingly vivid and realistic rendering of life in a western frontier town. "The Kansas Emigrants," Autumnal Leaves 303. Subsequent citations are to this edition and are given parenthetically in the text. Phillips, Cunquest of Kansas 90-91. For a fuller discussion of the role Child accords this proslavery settler in the story, see Carolyn L. Karcher, "From Pacifism to Anned Struggle: Lydia Maria Child's 'The Kansas Emigrants' and Antislavery Ideology in the 1850's," ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance 34 (3rd quarter, 1988): 141-58. "The Civil War in Kansas," Liberator 4 Jan. 1856, p. 2. Child's niece, Mary Preston, had married George Luther Steams, one of the "Secret Six" who later helped finance John Brown's raid on the Federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. The distant relationship between Charles and George Luther Steams can be traced in Willard E. Steams, Memoranda ofthe Stearns Famity, Including Records ofMany ofthe Descendantr (Fitchburg, Mass.: Sentinel, 190 I). For an extensive discussion of Charles Steams and the debate among Garrisonians over whether or not to adhere to their peace principles, see Lewis Perry, Radical Abolitionism: Anarchy and the Government of God in Antislavery Thought (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UP, 1973) chap. 8, "Accommodation to Violence." "Remarks," appended to "The Civil War in Kansas," Liberator 4Jan. 1856, p. 2. WLG to James MiIIer McKim, 14 Oct. 1856, rpt. in the Standard 25 Oct. 1856 and included in The Letters of William Lluyd Garrisun, vol. 4: From Disunionism to the Brink of War, 1850-1860, ed. Louis Ruchames (Cambridge, Mass: Belknap P of Harvard UP, 1975) 404- I 0, hereinafter abbreviated as GL. LMC to Charles Sumner, 7 July 1856, SL 285; the quotations that follow are also from this letter; for another expression of the conflict Child was undergoing at the prospect of relinquishing her peace principles, see LMC to Lucy Osgood, 9 July 1856, CC 33/928. For the incident Child used as her source, see "The Civil War in Kansas," Liberator 4Jan. 1856, p. 2; Six Munths in Kansas r 34-37; and the extracts from the latter published in the Liberator under the title "Scenes in Kansas," 27 June r856, pp. ror-2. For a fuIIer discussion of the parallels between this incident and Bruce's murder, see Karcher, "From Pacifism to Anned Struggle" 149. The words "stem adherence" are Garrison's, GL 4: 409. The Fremont campaign slogan is quoted in McPherson, Battk Cry ofFreedom 161. The best and most comprehensive analysis of Republican ideology is Eric Foner's Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology ofthe Republican Party before the Civil War (New York: Oxford UP, 1970). Phillips, CunquestofKansas 12-19. Steams, "Letter from Kansas," LiberatorlzJan. 1855,P. 10. Liberator 26: 42, as quoted in Wendell Phillips Garrison and Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lluyd Garrison, 18°5-1879: The Story ofHis Life Told by His Children (1885-1889; New York: Amo P, 1969), hereinafter abbreviated as Life 3: 438-39. LMC "To the Women of Kansas," 28 Oct. 1856, CC 34/954; rpt. from the Herald of Freedom in the Standard, 3 Jan. 1857.
Autumnal Leaves 51 52
53
54
55 56 57 58
59
60
61
62 63
64 65 66 67 68 69 70
707
LMC to DLC, 1.7 Oct. 1856, SL 295. See LMC to Marianne Silsbee, 27 Aug. 1855, CC 31/886: "The strong affections, which have made me expend all my resources so unreservedly for those I love ... [have] been the source of my greatest virtues, and my worst mistakes." Child apparently changed her heroine's name to Alice at a late stage of composition. She sometimes calls Alice "Ellen" or "Mary" in the manuscript draft of "The Kansas Emigrants," Child Papers, New York Public Library. See DLC toLMC, 18 Oct. 1856, CC 34/948; and LMC to Lucy and Mary Osgood, 28 Oct. 1856, CC 34/953. For historical background, see Ralph Volney Harlow, "The Rise and Fall of the Kansas Aid Movement," American Historical Review 4 I (Oct. 1935): 1-25. David's services were no doubt engaged by George Luther Steams (husband of Child's niece Mary Preston), the head of the Massachusetts Kansas Aid Committee. LMC to Charles Sumner and Sarah Shaw, 7 July and 3 Aug. 1856, SL 1.83, 289. Phillips, ConquestofKnnsas 209. Phillips, Conquest oflVlnsas 1.08-9· I am indebted to Roger Stein for pointing out the sexual connotations of this passage. On the sexual connotations of "luggage" or "baggage," see Eric Partridge, Shakespeare's Bawdy: A Literary & Psychological Essay and a Comprehensive Glossary, rev. ed. (New York: Dutton, 1969) 134. LMC to Charles Sumner and Sarah Shaw, 7July and 3 Aug. 1856, SL 285, 291. Child also wrote anumber of openly political articles on the Kansas question, which she sent to newspapers "far and wide" (see LMC to Louisa Loring and Sarah Shaw, 26 and 27 Oct. 1857, CC 3¥949, 952. These articles have not been located. By its own account, the Weekry Tribune boasted a circulation of 175,000 in 1856. On Henry B. Stanton's role in launching the Liberty party, see Aileen S. Kraditor, Means and Ends in American Abolitionism: Garrison and His Critics on Strategy and Tactics, 1834-1850 (New York: Vintage, 1969) chaps. 5-6. On the radical significance of the demand for woman suffrage, see Ellen Carol DuBois, Feminism and Suffrage: The Emergence ofan Independent Women's Movement in America, 18481869 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UP, 1978). LMC to Sarah Shaw, 12 Jan. 1859, CC 40ho92. Child expresses this opinion repeatedly; see, for example, her editorials in the Standard warning against forming an abolitionist political party (cited in chapter 12 above). LMC to Sarah Shaw, 3 Aug. 1856, SL 291. In her punning reference to the table-rappings through which departed spirits supposedly manifested their presence to the living, Child was associating the women's rights movement with the womandominated spiritualist cult, coincidentally inaugurated in the same vicinity the very year of the Seneca Falls Convention. On the spiritualist cult and its connection with women's rights, see Howard Kerr, Mediums, and Spirit-Rappers, and Roaring Radicals: Spiritualism in American Literature, 1850-1900 (Urbana: U of lllinois P, 1972); Cindy S. Aron, "Levitation and Liberation: Women Mediums in Nineteenth-Century America," MA. thesis, University of Maryland, 1975; R. Laurence Moore, In Search of White Crows: Spiritualism, Parapsychology, and American Culture (New York: Oxford UP, 1977); and Ann Braude, Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Women's Rights in Nineteenth-Century America (Boston: Beacon P,1989)· LMC to Sarah Shaw, 3 Aug. 1856, SL 290-91. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 14 Sept. and 9 Nov. 1856, SL 293 and CC 34/956. LMC to Lucy and Mary Osgood, 20July 1856, SL 289. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 3 Aug. 1856, SL 291. DLCto LMC, 18 Oct. 1856, CC34/948. LMCtoDLC, 27 Oct. 1856,SL294-96. LMC to John Sullivan Dwight, 18 Oct. 1856, CC 34/947; LMC toDLC, 27 Oct. 1856, SL 295; DLC to LMC, 18 Oct. 1856, CC 34/948. A copy of the song has been preserved in the Child Papers, New York Public Library.
708 71 72 73 74 75 76 77
78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88
89 90 91 92 93
94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101
Chapter Sixteen Notes LMC to Ellis Loring, 3 July 1856, SL 282. On the sale of the Northampton farm, see LMC to Ellis Loring, 17 Feb. 1856, CC 321905. LMC to Ellis Loring, 24 Feb. 1856, SL 279. LMC to Ellis Loring, 6 Feb. 1852, SL 263, and 5 Mar. 1854, CC 30/862. Rent from the Northampton farm also tided them over until its sale in Feb. 1856. DLC to Lydia Bigelow Child, 29 May 1858, Ross Collection. LMC to DLC, 27 Oct. 1856, SL 296. See also LMC to Parke Godwin, DLC, and Louisa Loring, 18, 19, and 23 Nov. 1856, CC 341958-60. LMC to Sarah Shaw and Parke Godwin, 9 and 18 Nov. 1856, CC 34/ 956, 958. McPherson, Battle Cry ofFreedom 162. A third candidate, Millard Fillmore, the vice president who had succeeded Whig president, Zachary Taylor, on Taylor's death in the second year of his term, also ran in 1856 on the ticket of the nativist "Know-Nothing" or "American" party, winning 44 percent of the southern vote and 13 percent of the northern. LMC to Louisa Loring, 23 [and 24] Nov. 1856, CC 34/960. LMC to DLC, 19 Nov. 1856, CC 34/959. LMC to Louisa Loring, 23 [and 24] Nov. 1856, CC34/960. LMC to Ellis Loring and DLC, 16 and 19 Nov. 1856, CC 34/ 957, 959. LMC to Louisa Loring, 23 [and 24] Nov. 1856, CC 34/960. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 8 Dec. 1856, SL 300-301. See also LMC to Ellis Loring and Marianne Silsbee, [27 Nov.] and 9 Dec. 1856, CC 34/961, 965. LMC to Lucy and Mary Osgood, 12 Mar. 1857, CC 361997. LMC to Susan Lyman Lesley and Lucy Osgood, 7 Aug. 1857, CC 361r017, 371ro18. LMC to Charles Follen, 3Jan. 1857, CC 351976. LMC to Lucy Osgood, 7 Aug. 1857, CC 371r018. For histories of the spiritualist movement, see Frank W Podmore, Modern Spiritualism: A History and Criticism, 2 vols. (London: Methuen, 1902); Moore, In Search of White Crrrws; and Braude, Radical Spirits. Garrison's letters frequently reiterate his belief in the authenticity of spirit manifestations and refer to many of the seances he attended. See, for example, WLGto LMC, 6 Feb. 1857, GL 4: 421-22, and WLG to Helen E. Garrison, 16 Feb. 1854, 17 Feb. 1857, and 18 May 1857, GL 4: 293,431,442. Higginson described his seance experiences in The Rationale ofSpiritualism (New York, 1859), a pamphlet Child specifically requested him to send her. See LMC to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 4July 1859, CC 411r1I3. LMC to Charles Follen, 3 Jan. 1857, CC 351976. LMC to Willianr Lloyd Garrison, I Feb. 1857, CC 351986. LMC to Marianne Silsbee and Sarah Shaw, 4 and 12 Jan. 1859, CC 401r091-92. The spirits who allegedly manifested themselves at this seance were those ofJeannie Barrett and Ellis Loring. Alfred Sereno Hudson, "The Home of Lydia Maria Child," New England Magazine n.s. 2 aune 1890): 407. James is said to have belonged to the pro-southern Copperhead faction during the Civil War. LMC to Ellis Loring, 12 Feb. and 14 Dec. 1856, and zzJan. 1857, CC 32/902 and 351967,983. Child quotes the sum of $4,000 in LMC to Sarah Shaw, 3 May 1857, CC 361r00I. For records of the settlement, see Loring Papers, Schlesinger Library, A-160, Box I, Folder 25 and Box 2, Folder 42. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 3 May 1857, CC 36lrooI. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 20 Feb. and 3 May 1857, CC 361992,1001. LMC to Sarah Preston Parsons and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 29 Dec. 1850 and 4 July 1859, CC 28/798 and4I1r113· LMC to Sarah Shaw and Lucy Osgood, 20 Feb. 1857, CC 361992, and 7 Aug. 1857, CC 37/1018. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 20 Feb. 1857, CC 361992. LMC to Marianne Silsbee and Sarah Shaw, 27 Aug. 1855 and 8 Dec. 1856, CC 31/886, SL 300-301. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 9 Nov. 1856, SL 298, and [18June to 22 July? 1859], CC 41/1 114. DLC to LMC, 27 June 1858, CC 391r066.
Autumnal Leaves I02 103
104 105
I06 I07 I08 I09
IIO
II
I
I I2 I
13
I14
709
LMC to DLC, 20June 1858, CC 38/1063. The particularlove letter referred to here does not seem to have survived. DLC to LMC, 17 Mar. 1859, CC 40/rI04' See also DLCto LMC, 17 Sept. 1857, CC 37/1024, where he urges Child (then on a visit to Marianne Silsbee in Salem) to "stay as long as you find it entertai[ni]ng" and assures her that "My bones are really better, tho far from being good ones." LMC to Sarah Shaw, 20 Mar. 1857, SL 306-307. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 20 Feb. 1857, CC 36/992. This is the only mention Child makes of Fuller after her drowning in 1850. It seems to reflect the image of Fuller projected in the bowdlerized Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, ed. Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke (2 vols., 1852). LMC to DLC, [IS July 1857], CC 36/r0IIa. LMC to Anna Loring and Marianne Silsbee, 4Jan. 1859, CC 40/r090-91; cfLMC to Ellis Loring and Sarah Shaw, [27 Nov.] and 8 Dec. 1856, CC 34/961,964. "The Rival Mechanicians" was first published in the Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine 7 Gan. 1847): 13- 18. "The Catholic and the Quaker," "The Man That Killed His Neighbors," and "The Juryman" all have real merit. "The Juryman" is especially remarkable for its insights into the violent impulses that the partisans of capital punishment share with the criminals they would chastise. I am indebted to H. Bruce Franklin's brilliant interpretations of these stories, and of the driven inventor figure in nineteenth-century science fiction. See his Future Perfect: American Science Fiction of the Nineteenth Century, rev. ed. (New York: Oxford UP, 1978) 15-18, 141-50. See chap. IS above for a brief discussion of "The Hindoo Anchorite," Union Magazine ofLiterature and Art 2 (Apr. 1848): 151-53. Its omission is doubly suggestive because all but one of the other stories Child published after Fact and Fiction found their way into Autumnal Leaves; the other exception, "The Bewildered Savage" (Union Magazine of Literature and Art 2 [Jan. 1848]: 23-26), reappears in A New Flower for Children, where Child incorporated it into "The Adventures ofJamie and Jeannie." "Home and Politics" and "The Ancient Clairvoyant" (originally titled "The Prophet of Ionia") appeared in Sartain's Union Magazine ofLiterature and Art 3 (Aug. 1848): 63 -68 and 4 (Feb. 1849): 94-97. "The Prophet ofIonia," Sartain's Union Magazine of Literature and Art 4 (Feb. 1849): 94-97. Comparison between the magazine and book texts indicates that Child made only minor revisions in the other stories she collected in Autumnal Leaves. LMC to Ellis Loring, 16June 1843, CC 17/499' See also LMC to Louisa Loring, 21 Oct. 1849, SL
25°· See LMC to Louisa Loring, I5Jan. 1847, SL 235. See, for example, LMC to Susan Lyman, 7 Aug. 1848, CC 26/735, where Child says of Dolores's "tropical exuberance": "I am guilty of being rather partial to the excessive warmth of foreigners .... I ought to have been a foreigner, myself." Also LMC to Sarah Shaw, 9 Nov. 1856, SL 299: "my last letter ... seemed cool to you because I have accustomed you to such tropical heat.... " Dolores may well have been the model for Praxinoe, since the story dates from the period of Child's most intense identification with her young Spanish friend as an unappreciated wife. I 17 Asked about how she has spent her time since completing The Progress ofReJigious Ideas, Child mentions having written A New Flowerfor Children and ':Jan and Zaida," both published late in 1855, and having been tied up with her father's "severe illness" in Jan.-Feb. 1856. By late May, her preoccupation with the beating of Sumner and the events in Kansas were tuming her toward the composition of "The Kansas Emigrants." That would leave the intervening months as the most likely period of composition for the four other prose selections in Autumnal Leaves, which Child describes in a prefatory note as having been "recently written, during the hours that could be spared from daily duties." See LMC to Lucy Osgood and Sarah Shaw, [11?-19? Feb.] and 3 Aug. 1856, SL 276-77, CC 33/933. II 8 Child uses this phrase in her discussion of "Woman's Rights," Letter 34 of Letters from New York (1843; Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries P, 1970) 250. lIS II6
710
Chapter Sixteen Notes
119 Reviews of Autumnal Leaves appear in the "New Publications" column of the Liberator, the Standard, and the Tribune on 12 Dec. 1856, p. 198; 13 Dec. 1856, p. 3; and 17 Dec. 1856, p. 7, respectively; and in the Knickerboeker 49 (Feb. 1857): 199· 120 LMC to Convers Francis, 8 Aug. 1858, CC 39/1073, SL 317. The original of this letter has been lost, and two different printed versions have heen preserved of it. 121 LMC to Francis Shaw, 5 Sept. 1852, SL 265. This letter refers to Stowe and to the young sculptor Harriet Hosmer. 122 LMCto Susan Lyman Lesley and Peter Lesley, 29 Mar. [I852],SL 264, and 2 May 1859, CC 4°/1107. 123 LMC to Louisa Loring, (26? Oct.? 1856], SL 294. 124 LMC to Marianne Silsbee, Peter and Susan Lesley, and Sarah Shaw, 9, 12, and 20 Dec. 1856, CC 34/965,351966,969; and LMC to Marianne Silsbee and Peter and Susan Lesley, I Feb. and 10 Mar. 1857, CC 351987, CC 361996. 125 LMC to Lucy and Mary Osgood, I2June 1858, SL 315, and pJan. 1859, CC 401I099. 126 LMC to Francis Shaw, 5 Sept. 1852, SL 265. 127 LMC to Sarah Shaw and Marianne Silsbee, 25 Oct. 1857, CC 371I026, 1027. 128 LMC to Harriet Hosmer, 21 Aug. 1858, CC 39/x074. 129 LMC to John Gorham Palfrey? and Louisa Loring, 28Jan. and 8 Feb. 1857, CC 351985,99°. 130 LMC to Charles Sumner, 17 June 1860, SL 354. 131 LMCto Sarah Shaw, 20 Mar. 1857,SL307. 132 Lydia Maria Child, "The Stars and Stripes. A Melo-Drama," Liberty Bell 15 (1858): 122-85. 133 "Loo Loa. A Few Scenes from a True History," Atlantic Monthly I (May 1858): 801-12 and 2 aune 1858): 32-42. Fora brief discussion of the story and its relationship toA Romance ofthe Republic (1867), see chap. 19 below. 134 LMC to Lucy and Mary Osgood, I2June 1858, SL 314-15. See also LMC to Sarah Shaw and Louisa Loring, 29 May 1858 and 4 May 1859, CC 38/1058, 4III 109. 135 LMC to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 4July 1859, CC 411I1l3. 136 LMC to Louisa Loring, 19 Sept. 1852, CC 29/829. See also Loring Papers, Schlesinger Library A-16o, Box I, for letters that Ellis, Louisa, and Anna wrote to each other. 137 LMC to Sarah Shaw, I I Oct. 1858, CC 39/1083. After trying in vain to cheer Louisa, Child eventually stopped writing to her and corresponded with Anna instead. 138 LMC to Sarah Shaw and Henrietta Sargent, 3 May 1857, CC 36/rOOI, and 2 Aug. 1858, CC 39/1072. See also LMC to John Greenleaf Whittier, 2 Dec. 1856 and 20June 1858, CC 34/962, 391I065. 139 LMC toJohn Greenleaf Whittier, Henrietta Sargent, and Sarah Shaw, 20 June and 2 Aug. 1858, 16 Sept. 1860, CC 391r065, 1072, and 461I252.
17 The Example ofJohn Brown I LMC to Maria Weston Chapman, I I Jan. 1860, CC 43/1181. 2 LMC to Charles Sumner, 7 July 1856, SL 283. 3 LMC to Mary Ann Brown, 2 Dec. 1860, CC 47h271. 4 LMC to Sarah Shaw, 17 June 1859, CC 411I I 12. By 1859 Garrison had moved much closer to the position Child had held in 1856. He, too, now acknowledged that the Republican party had played an important role in preventing the extension of slavery and that it was helping to lead the country in the right direction. See Wendell Phillips Garrison and Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 18°5-1879: The Story ofHis Life Told by His Children (1885-1889; New York: Arno p, 1969) 3: 483-85, hereinafter referred to as Life; and Garrison's comments at the convention, as reported in "New England Anti-Slavery Convention," Liberator 3 June 1859, pp. 85-87. Most of the speakers noted the changed temper of public opinion and the great advances in the antislavery cause. Child served on the business committee. 5 Brown's words have been rendered differendy by different sources. See Franklin B. Sanborn, ed., The
The Example ofJohn Brown
6
7 8 9
10
1I
12 13
14 I
5
16
17
711
Life and Letters ofJohn Brown, Liberator of Knnsas, and Martyr of Vtrginia (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1891) 131,421; Garrison and Garrison, Life 3: 488; and Stephen B. Oates, To Purge This Land with Blood: A Biography ofJohn Brown, md ed. (Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1984) 271 -72. The other two members of the "Secret Six" who backed Brown were Samuel Gridley Howe, also personally known to Child, and Franklin B. Sanborn. By May 1859 Parker was dying of tuberculosis in Rome, but he had helped fund Brown until his departure and "wished to see [Brown's plan) tried, believing that it must do good even ifit failed" (Sanborn, Life and Letters ofJohn Brown 440). In addition to Sanborn, see Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays (1898; New York: Amo P, 1968) 216-34; and Frank Preston Steams, The Life and Public Services of George Luther Stearns (1907; New York: AmoP, 1969) chaps. 10, 12, 13. LMC to John Brown, 16 Nov. 1859, SL 328. LMC to Charles Sumner, 7 July 1856, SL 285. See Frederick Douglass, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1892; New York: Collier, 1962) 314-15, 319; and Sanborn, Life and Letters ofJohn Brown 425, 434-36, 438-40, 450, 466,541-42. Quotation from Sanborn 542. A letter to Sanborn of 24 Feb. 1858 suggests that Brown may even then have been conceiving of a suicide ruission like "the last victory of Samson" (Sanborn 444). Sanborn, Life and Letters ofJohn Brown 552, 554; Osborne P[erry) Anderson, A Voicefrom Harper's Ferry (1861; New York: World View, 1980) 68. Brown's letter of 7 Mar. 1858 to Theodore Parker indicates that he was already planning to use hostage-taking as a means of educating slaveholders, first by making them "virtually slaves themselves," and then by trying to appeal to their consciences through "abolition lectures" and "kindness and plain dealing, instead of barbarous and cruel treatment, such as they might give .... " (quoted in Sanborn, Life and Letters ofJohn Brown 449). Some historians have suggested that Brown may have been waiting for slaves to join him; see Oates, To Purge This Land with Blood 294, and James M. McPherson, Battle Cry ofFreedom: The Civil Wilr Era (1988; New York: Ballantine, 1989) 206. The first to "infer" this was James Redpath in The Public Life of Capt. John Brown, by James Redpath, with an Auto-Biography ofHis Childhood and Youth (1860; Sandusky, Ohio: Kinney Brothers, 1872) 251. Anderson's Voice from Harper's Ferry indicates that "many colored men" did in fact join the raiders and that several anonymous slaves were killed in the battle (71-73, 96-98). See also Redpath 254, 267-68. Sanborn, Life and Letters ofJohn Brown 562. This is the conclusion I have drawn from comparing the reminiscences of Brown's acquaintances and the surviving participants in the raid, and from reading the letters Brown addressed to them (cited throughout this chapter). My interpretation differs from most other historians'. Sanborn, Life and Letters ofJohn Brown 559, 568; Anderson, Voice from Harper's Ferry 79; Oates, To Purge This Land with Blood 300. For biographical sketches ofFran cis Jackson Merriam and the other raiders, based partly on interviews with the survivors, see RichardJ. Hinton, John Brown and His Men: With Some Account ofthe Roads They Traveled to Reach Harper's Ferry (1894; New York: Amo P, 1968). Child refers to Merriam's role in the raid in letters to Francis Jackson and Anna Loring, 4 Nov. and 13 Dec. 1859, CC 41irI30, 42ir 146. Sanborn, Life and Letters ofJohn Brown 565-68, 584. Originally published in the New York Herald, this interview was reprinted in newspapers across the country, including the Liberator, and in most early biographies of Brown. Oates flatly asserts that Brown lied about his purposes (To Purge This Land with Blood 278-81,306,326-27,345). I have decided to take Brown's denial seriously, since it accords with the testimony of Douglass, Higginson, and others to the effect that Brown may have envisaged a series of guerrilla raids, rather than a massive slave insurrection on the model of Nat Turner's or the Santo Domingo revolutionaries'. After drafting the original version of this chapter, I came across Herbert Aptheker's Abolitionism: A Revolutionary Movement (Boston: Twayne, 1989), which similarly gives credence to Brown's denial and holds that he was still planning to "set up ... maroon bases, throughout the Alleghenies and thus shake the slaveholding edifice to its foundations" (13 2- 33). LMC to William Lloyd Garrison, 28 Oct. 1859, SL 326.
7I 2
Chapter Seventeen Notes
18 Whittier refused because his pacifist convictions did not allow him to "lend any countenance" to violence; see John Greenleaf Whittier to LMC, 21 Oct. 1859, CC 41/1122. Child's letter to Whittier has not been preserved, but its contents can be inferred from his reply and from her 28 Oct. 1859 letter to Garrison. The quotation is from Emerson's "Concord Hymn." 19 LMC to John Brown, 26 Oct. 1859, SL 324-25. 20 LMCtoLucretiaMott, 26 Feb. 1861, SL 377. 21 LMC to Mary Ann Brown, 2 Dec. 1860, CC 47/1271. 22 "Letters of L. Maria Child to Gov. Wise and Capt. Brown," Liberator I I Nov. 1859, p. 179, ed. headnote; LMC to Henry Wise, [1859, after 29 Oct.], CC 41h 128. 23 LMC to Governor Henry Alexander Wise, 26 Oct. 1859, SL 325-26. 24 Henry Wise to LMC, 29 Oct. 1859, CC 41/U27. I am quoting the manuscript letter, which differs slightly from the printed version. 25 John Brown to LMC and LMC to the Editor of the New York [Daily} Tribune, 4 and IO Nov. 1859, CC 42hI32-33. Child's letters to Brown and Wise, with Wise's reply, appear in the New York Weekly Tribune of 12 Nov. 1859, p. 7, under the title "MRS. CHILD, GOV. WISE, AND JOHN BROWN." Her own letter to the Tribune, with Brown's reply, appears in the New York Weekly Tribune of 19 Nov. 1859, p. 6. The entire body of correspondence was published in the tract CorreSfXJndence between Lydia Maria Child and Gov. WISe and Mrs. Mason, of Virginia (Boston: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1860). Page references to the letters in this tract are given parenthetically in the text. 26 Child is no doubt referring to Mary Steams, who had corne to love the old man intensely over the course of his many visits with her family. See the reminiscence by Mary Steams, rpt. in Sanborn 5091 I. Child's reference to her niece seems surprisingly indiscreet, considering that George Luther Steams and several of Brown's other supporters had fled to Canada after the discovery of letters implicating them in the Harpers Ferry attack. 27 John Brown to LMC, 4 Nov. 1859, CC 42h132; the page numbers cited are to Correspondence between LMCandGov. WISe. 28 LMC to Edward Fitch Bullard,Aaron Stevens and Oliver Johnson, 19 and 20 Dec. 1859, CC 42/IISI5pnd SL 335. 29 "LYDIA MARIA CHILD'S REPLY TO GOV. WISE," New York Weekly Tribune 26 Nov. 1859, p. 4. 30 LMC to Parke Godwin, 27 Nov. 1859, SL 330. 31 LMC to Horace Greeley, 18 Dec. 1859, SL 333. 32 Review of Correspondence between Lydia Maria Child and Gov. Wise and Mrs. Mason, of Virginia, Liberator 27 Jan. 1860, p. 14. 33 LMC to Parke Godwin, Maria Weston Chapman, and Daniel Ricketson, 27 Nov. 1859, SL 330; 28 Nov. and 22 Dec. 1859, CC 42hI41,43/U56. 34 "Mrs. Child's Humanity," rpt. in Liberator 30 Mar. 1860, p. 49. 35 Rpt. from WOrcester Bay State, Liberator 27 Jan. 1860, p. 13. "Fragrant" is misprinted as "fragment." 36 LMC to Peter and Susan Lesley and Parke Godwin, 20 and 27 Nov. 1859, SL 329-30. Child preserved only a small fraction of the letters she received, which averaged fifteen to twenty a week for several weeks. She refers to answering as many as twenty-three letters in a single week. See LMC to Sarah Shaw, 22 Dec. 1859, CC 43h157. 37 William H. Annstrongto LMC, 25 Dec. 1859, CC 431r166. 38 Samuel Johnson toLMC, [1-3] Feb. 1860, CC 44/1196. 39 Eliza Lee Cabot Follen to LMC, [7 Dec. 1859], CC 421 1144. 40 Watkins [Harper]'s letter is quoted in LMC to Mary Ann Brown, 23 Dec. 1859, SL 337-38. Child told Mrs. Brown that she had received letters "from colored people in various parts of the country." 41 Samuel Jackson to LMC, "Letter from a Colored Man in Ohio to L. Maria Child," Liberator 23 Dec. 1859, CC 431r 158. 42 Review of Correspondence between Lydia Maria Child and Gov. fVise and Mrs. Mason, of Virginia, Liberator 27Jan. 1860, p. 14; SL 333·
The Example of] ohn Brown
7I 3
43 LMC to Maria Weston Chapman, 7 and I I Jan. 1860, CC 43/II77, II8I. 44 LMC to Sarah Shaw, 28 Dec. 1859, CC 43/II69. This letter comments directly on the letter to Mrs. Mason. 45 A number of historians have commented on the many violations of due process committed during the hasty trial- among others the anomaly of trying Brown for treason against a state of which he was neither a citizen nor a resident. See, for example, Richard Morris, Fair Trial (1953), quoted in Louis Ruchames, A John Brown Reader: The Story ofJohn Brown in His Own Words, in the Words of Those Who Knew Him, and in the Poetry and Prose of the Literary Heritage (New York: Abelard-Schuman, 1959) 29. 46 LMC to Peter and Susan Lesley, 20 Nov. 1859, SL 329. 47 Quoted in Hinton, John Brown and His Men 362-63. Like Brown's interview with Wise, Mason, and Vallandigham, this statement to the court was widely reprinted in the newspapers. Garrison read it to the audience at the Tremont Temple commemoration on 2 Dec .. See "Great Meeting in Boston on the Day of the Execution of Captain John Brown," Liberator 9 Dec. 1859, p. 194. 48 LMC to [Maria Weston Chapman?), 28 Nov. 1859, CC 42/II4I. 49 LMC to Peter and Susan Lesley, 20 Nov. 1859, SL 329. 50 On Child's role in organizing the meeting, see LMC to [Maria Weston Chapman?], 28 Nov. 1859, CC 42/1141. "Speech of Wm. Lloyd Garrison, At the Meeting in Tremont Temple, Dec. 2d, relating to the Execution of John Brown," Liberator 16 Dec. 1859, p. 198; partial rpt. in Truman Nelson, ed., Documents of Upheaval: Selections from William Lloyd Garrison's THE LIBERA TOR, 183 I - I 865 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1966) 263-67. 51 LMC to Sarah Shaw, 22 Dec. 1859, CC 43/II57. See also LMC to Sarah Preston Parsons, 25 Dec. 1859, CC 431r 165. 52 "Great Meeting in Boston on the Day of the Execution of Captain John Brown. Speech of Rev. J. S. Martin," Liberator 9 Dec. 1859, p. 194, rpt. in Benjamin Quarles, ed. Blacks onJohn Brown (Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1972) 25-31. The quotation is on p. 28. Anderson implies a similar critique in his comments on the confusion Brown seemed to be showing on the morning of the attack (Voice from Harper's Ferry 73, 75). 53 LMC to Sarah Preston Parsons, 25 Dec. 1859, CC 431r 165. Sarah Parsons and Mary Stearns were the daughters of Child's sister Mary Francis Preston. 54 Comments appended to "Letter from a Colored Man in Ohio, to L. Maria Child," Liberator 23 Dec. 1859, CC 43/II58. 55 LMC to [Maria Weston Chapman?), 22 Dec. 1859, CC 421r 155. 56 LMC to Mary Ann Brown, 2 Dec. 1860, CC 471r271; also 23 Dec. 1859, SL 337-38. 57 LMC to Edward Fitch Bullard and Sarah Shaw, 19 and 22 Dec. 1859, CC 42/ II SI, 43/II57. 58 LMC to Edward Fitch Bullard, 19 Dec. 1859, CC 42/II51. 59 LMC to Sarah Shaw, 22 Dec. 1859, CC 43h157. 60 LMC to Aaron D. Stevens, 19 Dec. 1859 and II Jan. 1860, CC 42h I 52, 431r 183. 61 Aaron D. Stevens to LMC, 15 Jan. 1860, CC 44/ 1190. 62 LMC to Rebecca Spring, 19 Mar. 1860, CC 45/1210. 63 Eliza Lee Cabot Follen to LMC, [7 Dec. 1859], CC 42/ 1144. 64 LMC to Richard Webb, 30 Apr. 1861, CC 48/13°3. Apparently the Irish abolitionist Webb had added his voice to the chorus. 65 LMC to Mary Ann Brown, 2 Dec. 1860, CC 47h271. 66 See Eugene D. Genovese, The Political &onomy ofSlavery: Studies in the Economy and Society ofthe Slave South (1965; New York: Vintage, 1967), esp. chaps. 4 and 10. 67 For a splendid historical analysis of the terms "wage slavery" and "white slavery," see David R. Roediger, The wages ofWhiteness: Race and the Making afthe American Working Class (London: Verso, 1991) chap. 4. I will be citing the second ed. ofL. Maria Child, The Right Wily the Safe way, Proved by Emancipation in the British West Indies, and Elsewhere (New York: 5 Beekman Street, 1862). Page numbers are given parenthetically in the text. Quotation from LMC to Samual May, Jr., 26 Feb. 1860, SL 342.
714
Chapter Seventeen Notes
68 LMC to Samuel May, Jr., 26 Feb. 1860, SL 342. 69 LMC toJohn Curtis Underwood, 26 Oct. 1860, SL 362. 70 Of all the Caribbean islands, Jamaica turned out to be the one most relevant to the American South. Like their Jamaican counterparts, American slaveholders revealed a "violent and unyielding" spirit and a "stubborn determination to make [abolition) operate badly" (55). But learning a lesson from the Jamaican experience, they made it virtually impossible for their ex-slaves to purchase land and thereby rise into the "middling class" (81). American freedpeople had to accept the very conditions of peonage against which their Jamaican analogues had rebelled: "If the tenant expressed dissatisfaction, or gave offence in any way, or ifhis capricious landlord merely wanted to make him feel that he was still in his power, he was ejected at once, and obliged to take for his crops whatever the despotic employer saw fit to value them at" (70). A recent historian has also pointed out that the islands on which sugar production remained the most profitable were those on which the ratio of population to land was too high to make landownership an option for significant numbers ~f former slaves. On the other islands, landowners ended up replacing slave labor with indentured immigrant labor. See William A. Green, British Slave Emancipation: The Sugar Colonies and the Great Experiment, 1830-1865 (Oxford: Clarendon P, 1976), esp. the chaps. "Free Labour and Plantation Economy," "Immigration," and "Free Society: Progress and Pitfalls." 71 James M. McPherson, "Was West Indian Emancipation a Success? The Abolitionist Argument during the American Civil War," Caribbean Studies 4 Guly 1964): 28-34; quotation on 29. Of the other tracts McPherson lists, two are extremely rare, and the others are scatrered through newspapers and periodicals. None comes anywhere near the length of Child's: 96 pages, with a 12-page appendix added in the second edition of 1862. 72 LMC to Wendell Phillips, [Oct.? 1860), SL 364- In letters to Robert Folger Walcutt of the AntiSlavery office, Child mentions having received two hundred names from Underwood by 15 Nov. and two hundred more by S Dec. (CC 47/1267, 1272). The Hovey Fund underwrote Child's mailing expenses. 73 LMC to Sidney Edgerton, 6 July 1860, CC 4S/1232. I am grateful to Donald Dingledine for this conjectural reading. 74 Underwood's letters have not survived, but Child quotes portions in her letters to Robert F. Wallcut, 15 Nov. and 5 Dec. 1860, CC 47/1267,1272. 7S For an analysis of the many factors that led to emancipation in Maryland, see Barbara Jeanne Fields, Slavery and Freetknn on the Middle Ground: Maryland during the Nineteenth Century (New Haven, Conn.: Yale UP, 1985) chap. 5. Fields makes no mention of Child's tract, but as in West Virginia it was presumably cited in debates by some of the pro-emancipation legislators who received copies of it. 76 LMC to Robert F. Wallcut, 20 Apr. 1862, CC 521I405. The same letter mentions that Child has been trying in vain to obtain names and addresses of Missouri and Kentucky legislators. 77 L. Maria Child, The Patriarchal Institution, As Described by Members ofIts Own Family. Compiled by L. Maria Child (New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 186o). Page references to this edition are given parenthetically in the text. 78 LMC to Wendell Phillips, 22 July 1860, SL 3S6. 79 See Child's The Evils ofSlavery, and the Cure ofSlavery ... (1836) and Theodore Dwight Weld, American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses (1839). Child draws heavily on Weld's tract for quotations from southern newspapers, though she also supplements it with many new quotations from newspapers of the 1840S and 1850s. Child was not the first to exploit such quotations. On the capital that Republican newspapers made of them, see McPherson, Battle Cry ofFreedom 196-98. 80 LMC to Charles Sumner and Wendell Phillips, 17 June and 22 July 1860, SL 355-56. 81 For David Child's correspondence relating to these pamphlets, see DLC to Henry Wilson, 13 Mar. 1860, BPL Ms.A.4-2.pp. 45-46; and a series of letters addressed to George Luther Stearns, who was underwriting publication of the tracts, Steams Collection, MHS. The first pamphlet was supposed to be ready in time for the May nominating convention in Chicago, but David appears to have attempted
The Example of John Brown
82
83 84
85
86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95
96 97 98
99
7I 5
a pamphlet too ambitious to meet the deadline; the last letters to Stearns find David apologizing for having taken until the end of September to finish the job. LMC to Henry Wilson, 10 Mar. 1861, CC 471r 293. Child compliments Wilson on showing himself to be an exception to that generalization. See also LMC to Lucy Osgood, 8Jan. 1862, CC 50/1365. The last quotation is from LMC to Wendell Phillips, 10 Oct. 1860, CC 9612547. LM C to Wendell Phillips, 10 Oct. 1860, CC 96/2547. L. Maria Child, The Duty of Disobedience tD the Fugitive Slave Act: An Appeal to the Legislators of Massachusetts (Boston: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1860). Page references to this tract are given parenthetically in the text. The quotation is from LMC to Sarah Shaw, 28 Dec. 1859, CC 431r 169. Harriet A. Jacobs, Incidents in the Life ofa Slave Girl, ed. Lydia Maria Child (1861), rpt. ed.Jean Fagan Yellin (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1987) 1-2. Further page references to this work are given parenthetically in the text. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin or Life Among the Lrrwly (1852; New York: New American Library, 1966) 102. Notice of The Duty ofDisobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act, Liberator 16 Nov. 1860, p. 182, listed under "New Tracts." LMC to Wendell Phillips, 22 July 1860, SL 355. LMC to Robert F. Wallcut, 13 Oct. 1860, CC 461r 259. LMC to Samuel Sewall, 20 Sept. 1860, CC 46/ I 253. LMC to Lucy Searle, 4 Feb. 1861, CC 47/u82. LMC to Lucy Osgood, 8 Aug. 1860, CC 46/1241. HarrietJacobs to Amy Post, 8 Oct. [1860], Incidents 246-47. LMC to John Greenleaf Whittier, 4 Apr. 1861, SL 378. LMC to HarrietJacobs and Lucy Searle, 13 Aug. 1860, SL 357, and 4 Feb. 1861, CC 47/ 1282. From Child's comment to Jacobs - "the remarks are also good, and to the purpose" - it is clear that passages of antislavery moralizing were already in the text, contrary to what many readers have assumed. LMC to Daniel Ricketson and Lucy Searle, 14 Mar. and 4 Feb. 1861, CC 471r295, 1282. LMC to Lucy Searle, 4 Feb. 1861, CC 471rz82. See chaps. 12 and 13 for examples of the way Child edited both her own writing and that of others. For a more extensive discussion of Child's revision of Letters from New York for commercial publication, see Carolyn L. Karcher, "Censorship, American Style: The Case of Lydia Maria Child," Studies in the American Renaissance 1986: 283-303. For another illuminating example of Child's editorial practice, see her letter to her friend Caroline Sturgis (10 July 1847, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, courtesy of Patricia G. Holland, Amherst) explaining the modifications she was making in the manuscript of Sturgis's Rainbrrws for Children: "If you find a sentence of mine inserted now and then, you must not attribute it to the vanity of authorship .... The truth is, half a page must be left blank at the end of every story, or they cannot insert the tail-piece. The printer's types are inexorable .... Therefore, 1 add a sentence, when it is necessary to stretch over on a new page." Child also patronizes Sturgis, who was seventeen years her junior and a novice in the literary profession: "Please attend to this matter soon, that's a good girl; otherwise, you will not merely make me wait, but the printer and engraver likewise." LMC to HarrietJacobs, I3 Aug. 1860, SL 357. Unfortunately, just before Jacobs's scheduled meeting with Child to go over the manuscript, her employer, Cornelia Willis, went into premature childbirth on 31 Oct. Already committed by then to a November publication date, Child delivered the manuscript to Thayer and Eldridge without waiting until Jacobs could find time for a later meeting. This, too, was consistent with her usual practice. For example, when James T. Fields agreed to publish her own The Freedmen sBook, after Child had sought in vain for a publisher, Child dropped everything else to rush the book through the press in time for the Christmas market. See LMC to Sarah Shaw and Eliza Scudder, 3 Sept. and 15 Oct. 1865, CC631r680, 1688. In the latter Child writes: "I engaged to do something for Ticknor & Fields, and, being death on engagements, I must keep my word, or per-
7I6
100 101 102
103 104 105 106
107
108 109
110 III
1I2 113 114 II5
II6 117 1I8
Chapter Seventeen Notes ish .... " For other opinions of Child's editing, see Karen Sanchez-Eppler, Touching Liberty: Abolition, Feminism and the Politics of the Body (Berkeley: U of California P, 1993) chap. 3; Bruce Mills, "Lydia Maria Child and the Endings to HarrietJacobs's Incidents in the Life ofa Slave Girl," American Literature 64 Gune 1992): 255-72; Yellin, Incidents xxii; Alice Deck, "Whose Book Is This?: Authorial Versus Editorial Control of Harriet Brent Jacobs' Incident< in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself," Women's Studies International Forum 10 (no. I, 1987): 33-40; and F. Elaine De Lancey, "Harriet Jacobs's Narrative, Lydia Maria Child's Bump of Mental Order on It, and Critical Response to This Collaboration," unpublished paper, Temple University. LMC to Wendell Phillips, 2 and 9 Dec. 1860, CC96h549-50. LMCto Daniel Ricketson and John Greenleaf Whittier, 14Mar. and 4 Apr. 186], CC 47ir295,SL 378. See LMC to RobertF. Wallcut, William Lloyd Garrison, and Stephen Salisbury, 15 Dec. 1861, 10 Apr. 1863, and 14 Dec. 1864, CC 5oir358, 551r475, and 601r605a; and HarrietJacobs to LMC, 18 Mar. 1863 and 26 Mar. 1864, CC 551r474 and 581r552, Liberator 10 Apr. 1863, Standard 16 Apr. 1864. LMC to Lucy Osgood, [Nov.? 1866]?, CC661r748. LMC to Lucy Osgood, I Apr. 1866, CC 641r715; Harriet Jacobs to Ednah Dow Cheney, 25 Apr. [1867], Incidents 250. LMC to John Fraser, 20 Nov. 1866, CC 661r 746. John Fraser was the husband of David's niece Ruth Child, daughter of his brother Levi (SL 447). The extant correspondence indicates that Child and Jacobs regularly exchanged letters, at least during the Civil War. For example, Child quotes a letter she had received from Jacobs about Roberr Gould Shaw in LMC to [Francis Shaw], 18 Oct. 1863, CC 561I508, and Jacobs thanks Child for a letter and refers to earlier correspondence in Harriet Jacobs to LMC, 18 Mar. [1863] and 26 Mar. 1864, CC 551r474 and 581r 552, Liberator 10 Apr. 1863, Standard 16 Apr. 1864. See also Jacobs's letter to Child about the Emancipation Proclamation, which Child quotes in Looking tlnvard Sunset. From Sources Old and New, Original and Selected (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1865) 361 and in The Freedmen's Book (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1865) 218. Jacobs's only surviving letters to Child are the ones cited above, from which private portions, if any, were deleted before publication. Of Child's letters to Jacobs, only the ones relating to the editing of Incidents have been preserved. LMC to Samuel Sewall and Sarah Shaw, 27 Sept. and [after 20 Nov.] 1860, CC 46/1256,47/127°. Child had received a long and detailed letter of 9 Sept. 1860 from Francis Jackson, answering her request for information about the rendition of Sims (CC 46ir249). Jackson knew Sims's sister and included an extract of Sims's letter to his sister in his reply to Child. "A Letter from Mrs. L. Maria Child," Independent 26 Oct. 1865, CC 631r689. Brown added: "I had, as I now think vainly, flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done." As quoted in Sanborn, Life and Letters ofJohn BrllWn 620. See Oates, To Purge This Land with Blood 351 for an accurate reproduction of Brown's idiosyncratic punctuation and italics. For an analysis of the election, see McPherson, Battle Cry ofFreedom chap. 7. LMC to Henrietta Sargent, 27 May 1860, SL 352. LMC to Rebecca Spring and Lucy Osgood, 19 Mar. and 10 Apr. 1860, CC 45irzlO, 1213. "Senator Seward on the Crisis," Liberator 18Jan. 1861, p. 10; McPherson, Battle Cry 256. For an excellent account of "The Counterrevolution of 1861," see McPherson, Battle Cry chap. 8. The phrase "triggered a chain reaction" appears on p. 235. "Hon.(!) Lucius Slade on the Crisis. An Infamous Letter," Liberator 8 Feb. 1861, p. 21. Slade was "a prominent member of the Massachusetts Legislature," and his letter to a confrere in Georgia had been published in the Literary and Temperance Crusader (Georgia), of 3 Jan. and widely reprinted. "Mayor Wightman and the Abolitionists," Boston Pilot, rpt. in Liberator 8 Feb. 1861, p. 21. "To the Citizens of Massachusetts," Liberator 28 Dec. 1860, p. 205. LMC to Lemuel Shaw, 3 Jan. 1861, SL 367-68. Among the signers whom the Childs had once known as literary or political patrons were Benjamin Curtis, George Ticknor, Jared Sparks, Levi Lincoln, and Emory Washburn. Also on the list is Edward Dickinson of Amherst, father of Emily Dickinson.
Child's Civil War
717
119 LMC to Lemuel Shaw, 3Jan. 1861, SL 367-68. 120 "Hon. (!) Lucius Slade on the Crisis," rpt. in Liberator 8 Feb. 1861, p. 21. See also "Freedom of Speech Violated in Boston. AJ ohn Brown Meeting Broken Up," New York Weekly Tribune 8 Dec. 186o, p. 1: "A determination to prevent this proposed public expression of anti-Southern feeling in Boston had been very noisily avowed by the merchants and bankers of this city.... " IZI "Freedom of Speech Violated ... ," p. I, cited in n. I20 above. Except where otherwise noted, quotations in this paragraph are drawn from the above article. 122 E. Heywood to Samuel May, Jr., 19 Dec. 1860, BPL Ms.B.1.6.vol. 13, p. 81; LMC to Henrietta Sargent and Charles Sumner, 9 Feb. and 28Jan. 1861, SL 375,373. 123 "Another Bell-Everett Mob," Liberator 21 Dec. 1860, p. 203; E. Heywood to Samuel May, Jr., 19 Dec. 1860, BPL Ms.B.1.6.Vol. 13, p. 81. 124 LMC to Sarah Shaw, 25 Jan. 1861, SL 370-72. The description that follows is taken from this letter, except where otherwise noted. Maria and David Child are listed among the seventeen members of the business committee in "Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society," Liberator 1 Feb. 1861, p. 17. 125 Quoted in Hinton, John Brrrwn and His Men 345; see also Sanborn, Life and Letters ofJohn Brown 500. 126 "Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. Speech of Wendell Philips," Liberator 1 Feb. 1861, p. 18. 127 LMC to Charles Sumner, 28 Jan. 1861, CC 471r281. McPherson presents a more charitable interpretation of Adams's "maneuver": "to divide the upper and lower South and cement the former to the Union by the appearance of concession on the territorial question" (Battle Cry 256). 128 LMC to Sarah Shaw, 25 Jan. 1861, SL 371. 129 "Boston Under Mob Law-Mayor Wightman Enforcing It," Liberator 1 Feb. 1861, p. 19. See also pp. 18-19 for an account of "Proceedings of the Evening," based on extracts from the Boston Jou17lal. 130 LMC to Sarah Shaw, 28Jan. 1861, SL 371. 131 LMC to Henrietta Sargent, Charles Sumner, and Maria Weston Chapman, 9 Feb. 1861, SL 374-76, and II Jan. 1860, CC 43/II8I. 132 LMC to Charles Sumner, 9 Feb. 1861, SL 375-76. 133 LMC to Henrietta Sargent, 9 Feb. 1861, SL 374· 134 McPherson, Battle Cry 256. 135 LMC to Lucretia Mott, 26 Feb. 1861, SL 377. 136 LMC to Francis Shaw, 8 Jan. 1861, SL 369. 137 LMC to Henrietta Sargent, 9 Feb. 1861, SL 374. 138 LMC to Maria Weston Chapman, I I Jan. 1860, CC 431r181;John Brown's valedictory as quoted in Sanborn, Life and Letters ojJohn Brrrwn 620.
I8
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Child's Civil U'llr
"LetterfromMrs. L. M. Child, 23 July 1865, Independenq Aug. 1865, CC631r672. LMC to Parke Godwin, [Maria Weston Chapman?], and Sarah Shaw, 27 and 28 Nov. and 22 Dec. 1859, SL 330, CC 4ziII41, 431r157. LMC to Lucy Osgood, 7 May 1861, SL 381. Child is quoting an editorial in the Boston Advertiser. LMC to Lydia Bigelow Child, 11 Feb. 1864, CC 571r535' LMC to Sarah Shaw, 12 Jan. 1859, CC 40/1092. LMC to Eliza Scudder, 8 July 1869, CC71/1901: "Wayland has always been a prison to me." LMC to Lucy Searle and Henrietta Sargent, 9June and 26July 1861, SL 384, CC 491r321. See "Letter from L. Maria Child to Gen. Gantt," 7 Feb. 1864, Standard 22 Apr. 1865, p. 4, CC 57/ 1531. Child refers to these articles in her correspondence. See, for example, LMC to Mary Steams, 22 Dec. 1862, CC 541r444: "I write emancipation articles, and find them readily accepted by the Wheeling,
718
Chapter Eighteen Notes Virginia, Intelligencer, and the St. Louis Democrat." Also LMC to Sarah Shaw, [after 18Jan. 1862], CC
50/ 1368. I have succeeded in tracking down two of Child's anonymous and pseudonymous articles in the New York Weekry Tribune: one signed "Straight Line," discussed in this chapter below, and "Can Emancipated Slaves Take Care of Themselves?" 25 Jan. 1862, p. 2, an account of a McDonough's slaves. A systematic search through contemporary newspapers would surely uncover many more. loOn the political activism and lecturing of Stanton, Dickinson, and others, see Wendy Hamand Venet, Neither Ballots nor Bullets: Women Abolitionists and the Civil Wilr (Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 199 I), esp. chaps. 3, 5, and 6. I I LMC to James Freeman Clarke, 16 Feb. 1863, CC 55/1471. 12 LMC to Peter and Susan Lesley, 81;'eb. 1861, CC 47/1284. 13 LMC to Lucy Osgood, 8 Aug. 1860, CC 461r241. 14 LMC to: Anna Loring, 26 Aug. 1858, CC 39/1076; Lucy Osgood, 8 Aug. 1860, CC 461r241; Sarah Shaw, 16 Sept. 1860, CC 46/1252; Convers Francis, 28July 1862, CC 53/1421; and Samuel Sewall, 21 June 1863, CC 551r484. Lucy Osgood toLMC, 4 Sept. 1860, CC 46/1248. 15 LMC to Peter and Susan Lesley and to Lucy Searle, 8 Feb. and 4 Feb. 1861, CC 471r284, 1282. 16 LMC to Lucy Osgood, 8 Aug. 1860, CC 46/1241. 17 LMC to Lucy Osgood, I4July 1861, CC 481r317· 18 LMC to Lydia Bigelow Child, 3 Oct. 1862, CC 531r4p. 19 For an excellent summary of the crisis over Fort Sumter and the choices Lincoln and Confederate President Jefferson Davis faced, see James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil Wilr Era (1988; New York: Ballantine, 1989) 264-75; see also Kenneth M. Stampp, "Lincoln and the Secession Crisis," in his The Imperiled Union: Essays on the Background of the Civil Wilr (New York: Oxford UP, 1980) 16 3- 88. 20 "The Result," New York Weekry Tribune, 20 Apr. 1861, p. 2. 2 I LMC to Lucy Osgood, 26 Apr. 1861, SL 380. 22 LMC to Lucy Osgood, 26 Apr. and 7 May 1861, SL 380-81. 23 LMC to Lucy Osgood, 7 May 1861, SL 381-82. 24 LMC to Lucy Osgood, 26 Apr. 1861, SL 380. I have not succeeded in finding any mention of the Fort Pickens incident in the Liberator, the Standard, or the New York Weekry Tribune. However, Ira Berlin has generously located formea letter of 18 Mar. 1861 from Lt. A.J. Slemmer to Lt. Col. Lorenzo Thomas announcing that eight fugitive slaves had come to the fort on 12 Mar. "entertaining the idea that we were placed here to protect them and grant them their freedom" and that he had done what he could "to teach them the contrary" by delivering them to the Pensacola "city marshal to be returned to their owners." See The Wilr of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, I28 vols. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1880-19°1), ser. 2, vol. I, P·75°· 25 LMC to Lucy Searle and Henrietta Sargent, 28 and 26 July 1861, CC 49/1322,1321. 26 James M. McPherson, The Struggle for Equality: Abolitionists and the Negro in the Civil Wilr and Reconstruttion (princeton, N.].: Princeton UP, 1964) 69-70,72; [Edward L. Pierce], "The Contrabands at Fortress Monroe," Atlantic Monthry 8 (Nov. 1861): 626-40; "General Butler on the Contraband Question," New York Weekly Tribune 10 Aug. 1861, p. 2. 27 McPherson, Battle Cry 222, 506. 28 Meltzer and Holl:Jnd, SL 393; McPherson, Struggle for Equality 75-79. The campaign was initiated by Samuel Gridley Howe and included two other members oEJohn Brown's "Secret Six," George Luther Stearns and Frank Sanborn. Also participating were Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Edmund Quincy, the Childs, the reformist Unitarian minister William Henry Channing, and Republican Frank Bird. 29 LMC to John Greenleaf Whittier, 10 Sept. r861, SL 39+ I am inferring Child's influence on the group's strategy from two facts: (I) the resemblance of this strategy to the one Child had recommended for distributing The Right Way the Safe Way; (2) her independent initiative of sending an anonymous letter to the Tribune several weeks before the group's first meeting.
Child's Civil War 7 I 9 30 3I
LMC toJohn Greenleaf Whittier, 10 Sept. 1861, SL 394. David Lee Child, Rights and Duties of the United States Relative to Slnvery under the Laws of Ttar. No
Military Power to Return Any Slnve. "Contraband ofTtar" Inapplicable between the United States and Their Insurgent Enemies (Boston: R. F. Wallcut, 186 I) 6. The pamphlet is an expanded version of the articles David published in the Liberator under the title "Gen. Butler's Contraband of War," 26July, 16 and 23
32 33 34
Aug., and 6 Sept. 1861. David considered Butler's "contraband of war" doctrine legally "unfounded" as well as "narrow and impracticable ... because it applies to property only, and does not recognize men and women as persons" (28). His aim was to supply a sounder legal basis for emancipation and, in the long run, for amending the Constitution. His pamphlet was one of three studies produced by abolitionists to prove that a presidential emancipation decree would be constitutional under the war power. It was ultimately superseded by William Whiting's more thorough and influential The Ttar Powers of the President, and the Legislative Powers ofCongress in Relntion to Rebellion, Treason, and Slnvery (1862). See McPherson, Struggle for Equality 67-69. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 24 Nov. 1861, CC 50iI350, and I I Aug. 1861, SL 390-91. LMC to Sarah Shaw, I I Aug. 1861, SL 391. "Straight Line," "What is to be done with the Contrabands?" New York Weekly Tribune 17 Aug. 1861, p. 5. This letter to the Tribune can be identified as Child's because it is almost identical with her letter to Sarah Shaw of 11 Aug. (SL 39°-91), in which she says that she has just sent the Tribune a brief statement "to that effect."
35 36
LMC to Oliver Johnson, 3 June 1861, CC 48/1310. LMC to Samuel and Harriet Sewall, 16 June 1861, CC 481r 314. See also LMC to Sarah Shaw, 14June 1861, SL 386. 37 LMC to Samuel and Harriet Sewall, 16 June 1861, CC 481rJI4. On Scott's opposition to a "war of conquest" against the South and on the criticism his strategy generated in the Tribune and other northern newspapers, see McPherson, Battle Cry 333 - 35. 38 LMC to Oliver Johnson and Samuel and Harriet Sewall, 3 and 16June 1861, CC 48/1 310, 1314. 39 LMC to Henrietta Sargent, 26July 1861, CC 491r321. 40 For these alternative explanations, see "The Battle of Bulls Run," New York Weekly Tribune 27 July 1861, p. 8; and McPherson, Battle Cry 344. For a full account of the battle and an analysis of its impact on northern and southern public opinion, see Battle Cry 334-50. 41 "Brutalities of the Rebels," New York Weekly Tribune, 3 Aug. 1861, p. 3. 42 LMC to Lucy Searle and Henrietta Sargent, 28 and 26July 1861, CC 491r322, 132 I. 43 Meltzer and Holland, SL 385, n. I; LMC to Sarah Shaw, 11 Aug. 1861, CC 491r324; Russell Duncan, ed., Blue-Eyed Child ofFortune: The Civil Wtlr Letters ofCobmel Robert Gould Shaw (Athens: U of Georgia P,1992). 44 LMC to Lucy Searle, 28 July 1861, CC 491rp2. 45 LMC to Henrietta Sargent, 26 July 1861, CC 49/132 I. For a fine historical summary of intellectuals' reactions to the war in 1861, see George M. Fredrickson, The Inner Civil Wtlr: Northern Intellectuals and the Crisis ofthe Union (1965; New York: Harper and Row, 1968) chap. 5. 46 "Straight Line," "What is to be done with the Contrabands?," New York Weekly Tribune 17 Aug. 1861, P·5· LMC to Lucy Searle, 28July 1861, CC 49/1322. LMC to Sarah Shaw and to Theodore Tilton, 21 July 1861, SL 388-89. LMC to Sarah Shaw and Henrietta Sargent, I I and 24 Aug. 1861, SL 391-92, CC 491r 328. In the latter, Child writes of telling the anecdote at a gathering of abolitionists. 50 LMC to George William Curtis, 1 Sept. 1861, CC 491rJ29. 51 "General Fremont's Proclamation," New York Weekly Tribune 7 Sept. 1861, pp. 4, 5, 7. Child would first have seen the news announced in a daily paper, however, since she mentions it in letters dated I Sept. 52 Caption to "Gen. Fremont's Proclamation," Liberator 6 Sept. 1861, p. 143· 53 LMCtoLucyOsgood, 1 Sept. 1861, CC491r330.
47 48 49
720
Chapter Eighteen Notes
54 55 56 57
For an analysis of Fremont's and Lincoln's motives, see McPherson, Battle Cry 352-54. LMC to John Greenleaf Whittier, 22 Sept. 1861, CC 491I337. LMC to William Cullen Bryant, 19 Sept. 1861, CC 49 II 336. "A Letter from Mrs. Child. To 'Our Jessie,'" New York Evening Post 1 Oct. 1861, rpt. in the Liberator I I
58
Oct. and the Standard 19 Oct., CC 49/1335. "Fremont might be thanked for his energy and bravery, without saying anything against the Presi-
59 60 61 62 63
dent," Child wrote to Whittier, 22 Sept. 1861, CC 491IB7. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 24 Nov. 1861, CC 501I350. LMC toJohn Greenleaf Whittier and Sarah Shaw, 22 Sept. and 24 Nov. 1861, CC 491IB7, 501I350. LMC to John Greenleaf Whittier, 22 Sept. 1861, CC 491I337. For an excellent analysis of the economic and political factors governing British policy toward the two sides in the Civil War, see McPherson, Battle Cry 382-91. Quoted in "England and America. A Letter from Mrs. L. Maria Child," Standard 18 Jan. 1862, p. 2, CC
66 67 68
so1r 36 3· Quoted in LMC to Sarah Shaw, 24 Nov. 1861, CC S0lr 350, and in William Lloyd Garrison to George Thompson, Liberator [21 Feb. 1862], rpt. in The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison, vol. S; Let the Oppressed Go Free, 1861-67, ed. Walter M. Merrill (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap P of Harvard UP, 1979) 66, hereinafrer abbreviated as GL. This was the first of a series ofletters to Thompson in which Garrison defended the Lincoln government against criticism by British abolitionists. McPherson, Battle Cry 390; LMC to Lucy Searle and Lucy Osgood, 3 and 8 Jan. 1862, CC 50/ 1362, 136S. Child was responding to "Letters from Harriet Martineau. LIX," Standard 28 Dec. 1861, p. 2. Martineau begins by acknowledging "the great fact that the free states were in antagonism with the slave States, and that slavery must go down when the people of the North had gained strength and wisdom by suffering." The bulk of her letter is devoted to presenting the British point of view on the Trent incident. Her tone is indeed chauvinistic: she finds it "inconceivable" that the seizure of the Trent was not authorized beforehand by the Lincoln administration; she calls it an act of "piratical audacity"; she asserts that "there is no hope of peace but in immediate retraction and apology from Washington"; and she says that "[t)he temper and manners of the Northern people towards England" have destroyed "the confidence of your European well-wishers" at least for the present generation. Martineau's biographer defends her against her American abolitionist critics and asserts that during the Trent affair "she sought to placate ruffled British pride rather than to further inflame it." See Valerie Kossew Piehanick, HarrietMartineau: The Woman and Her Work, 1802-76 (Ann Arbor: U ofMiehigan P, 1980) 216. "England and America. A Letter from Mrs. L. Maria Child," Standard 18Jan. 1862, p. 2, CC 50/1363. W. L. Garrison to George Thompson, [21 Feb. 1862), GL S: 64. See Betty Fladeland, Men and Brothers: Anglo-American Antislavery Cooperation (Urbana: U of Illinois P,
69 70 71 72 73
1972) chap. 16. LMC to Fanny Garrison, 5 Nov. 1861, SL 397-98. See Paulo Freire, Pedagogy ofthe Oppressed (New York: Herder, 1970). LMC to Lucy Searle, 19 Nov. 1861, CCSO/1349. LMC to Col. James Montgomery, 26 Dec. 1861, CC solI 360. LMC to Mary Stearns, Robert F. Walleut, and Col. James Montgomery, IS and 26 Dec. 1861, CC
64
65
74 7S
76 77
50/1357,1358,1360. LMC to Sarah Shaw, IS Dec. 1861 and [afrer 18Jan.? 1862], CC 50/13S6, 1368. LMC toJohn Greenleaf Whittier, 2I}an. 1862, CC 5I1I370. Tubman was then in Boston, where she had been summoned by Governor Andrew, who wished to send her to South Carolina as a spy and scout for Union troops-a commission she accepted and discharged without ever receiving payor pension from the U.S. government. See Sarah Bradford, Harriet Tubman, The Moses of Her People (1886; Secaucus, N.Y.: Citadel P, 1974) 94-95. LMC to Lucy Osgood, 24 Feb. 1862, CC 511I390. See Willie Lee Rose, Rehearsal for Reconstruction: The Port Royal Experiment (Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-
Child's Civil War
78
79
80 81
82 83
84
85 86
87 88
89 90
72 I
Merrill, 1964). For contemporary accounts, see [Edward Pierce], "The Freedmen at Pott Royal," Atlantic Monthly 12 (Sept. 1863): 291-315; Charlotte L. Fotten [Grimke], The Journals of Charlotte Forten Grimki, ed. Brenda Stevenson (New York: Oxford UP, 1988) 382-5II; and [Charlotte L. Fotten (Grimke)], "Life on the Sea Islands," Atlantic Monthly 13 (May-June 1864): 587-96,666-76. LMC to John Greenleaf Whittier, 17 June 1864, CC 591r569; Charlotte L. Fotten, "New-Year's Day on the Islands of South Carolina, 1863," in L. Maria Child, The Freedmen's Book (1865; New York: Amo P, 1968) 2SI-56. Child refers to Fotten and the "intelligent productions of her pen" in LMC to William P. Cutler, IOJuly 1862, SL 414. LMC to Sarah Shaw, [Mar.?] 1862, CC sr1r398, and 18 May 1862, SL 4II, CC plr410 (the earlier letter is a transcript in another hand dated only "Wayland 1862"; the second half is identical with the letter of 18 May, but the first half seems to date from the second week of March, since it refers to Lincoln's speech of6Mar.). Also LMC to Lucy Osgood, 29Jan. 1865, CC611r630. LMC to Lucy Osgood, [10-17 Aug. 1861], CC 491r326. In joining the educational commission, Child pointedly took "the liberty to suggest that no person even suspected of a pro-slavery bias ought to be employed." LMC to William Endicott, 2 Mar. 1862, Atkinson MSS, Massachusetts Historical Society, quoted in Rose, Rehearsal for Reconstruction 39. LMC to Sarah Shaw, [Mar.?) 1862, CC 511r398. LMC to Gerrit Smith, 7 Jan. 1862, CC so/ 1364. Child attributes the desire to play the role of Divine Providence to Madame Roland; see Lettersfrom New York (1843; Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries P, 1970), Letter 12., p. 87. See Frederick Law Olmsted, A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States, with Remarks on Their &onomy (1856; New York: Negro Universities P, 1968); A Journey through Texas; or, a Saddle- Trip on the Southwestern Frontier (New York: Dix, Edwards, 1857); and A Journey in the Back Country, I8H-54 (1860; New York: Schocken, 1970); see also The Cotton J(jngoom: A Traveller's Observations on Cotton and Slavery in the American Slave States, a one-volume abridgment of these three studies (1861; New York: Modern Library, 1984). Olmsted's Seaboard Slave StIlteswas one of the few books Child allowed herself to purchase "[i]n the low state of [her) finances," and she was "much pleased with its candid goodnatured tone toward the masters, and its obvious sympathy with the slave"; see LMC to Lucy and Mary Osgood, I I May 1856, SL 280-81. LMC to Francis Shaw, 28Jan. 1862, SL 401-2. LMC to Anna Loring, 7 Dec. 1862, CC 531r440. Child's friend, the wealthy abolitionist Francis Jackson, had died in Nov. 1861, leaving her a legacy of $100, which she devoted in its entirety to the "contrabands." See SL 401. LMC to Sarah Shaw, [after 18Jan.? 1862), CC 50/1368. McPherson, Battle Cry 498. Lincoln's message was dated 6 Mar. The full text was reprinted in the New York Weekly Tribune, 15 Mar. 1862, p. 6, under the headlines: "Message from the President. Highly Important Proposition. The Gradual Abolition of Slavery. A Vigorous Blow at the Hopes of the Rebels." See also the editorial "The Message of Freedom," p. 4. For an accessible modern text (slightly different in wording) see Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works ofAbraham Lincoln (hereinafter abbreviated as CWL), 8 vols. (New Brunswick, N.].: Rutgers UP, 1953) 5: 144-46. CWL 5: 145-46. LMC to Horace Greeley, 9 Mar. 1862, SL 407; also LMC to Sarah Shaw, [Mar.?] 1862, CC SI1r398. The Weekly Tribune editorial of 15 Mar. 1862, p. 4, "The Message of Freedom," may have been a response to Child's letter, since it offers an interpretation of Lincoln's message quite similar to hers. Although the weekly Liberator reprinted it on 14 Mar. ("Message from the President. Proposal to Aid the States in the abolishment of Slavery," p. 43), Garrison was among the editors who evidently did not grasp the ''full import" of Lincoln's message. Instead of recognizing that it indicated Lincoln was already seriously considering emancipation as a war measure, Garrison roundly excoriated Lincoln for "perversely" recommending gradual rather than immediate emancipation ("The President's Message," p. 42). Child was not alone in her hopeful interpretation of the 6 Mar. message, however. See
722
91 92 93 94 95
96 97 98
99
100 101
102 103 104
105 106
Chapter Eighteen Notes also the editorial in the Anglo-African, rpt. in James M. McPherson, The Negro's Civil War: How American Negroes Felt and Acted during the War for the Union, 2nd ed. (Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1982) 45-46. LMC to Horace Greeley, 9 Mar. 1862, SL 406-7. LMC to Sarah Shaw, [Mar.?] 1862, CC 5I11398. McPherson, Strugglefor Equality CJ7; Battle Cry 498. LMC to Anna Loring, 20 Apr. 1862, CC 521r402. McPherson, Battle Cry 499; Ira Berlin,Joseph P. Reidy, and Leslie S. Rowland, Freet:lom: A Documentary History ofEmancipation, r86r-r867= Series 2, The Black Military Experience (New York: Cambridge UP, 1982) 38. LMC to Charles Sumner, 22 June 1862,SL412. "Faithful Champions of Freedom in Congress," Standard 5 July 1862, CC 52/1416. LMC to William P. Cutler, 10 July 1862, SL 413, CC 5211417. Child also wrote to Congressman George Washington Julian of Indiana, who had made a key speech on "Confiscation and Liberation," and, of course, to Sumner. See herletters ofI6 and 22 June 1862, CC p1r414, 1415, and SL 4II-12. "Address on Colonization to a Deputation of Negroes," CWL 5: 370-75; "The President on African Colonization," Liberator 22 Aug. 1862, p. 134; Lincoln's address is reprinted in full under the Liberator's Refuge of Oppression column, p. 133. See also the excellent chapter on "The Colonization Issue" in McPherson, The Negro's Civil War 77-97. Historians disagree as to whether Lincoln himself believed in Colonization or was merely using the proposal to deflect criticism of emancipation. For the former view, see David M. Potter, Division and the Stresses ofReunion, I 845- I 876 (Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman, 1973) 159-61; George M. Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817-1914 (New York: Harper and Row, 1971) 149-51; Benjamin Quarles, Lincoln and the Negro (New York: Oxford UP, 1962) 108-16; and the testimony of Lincoln's navy secretary, Gideon Welles, Civil War and Reconstruction: Selected Essays by Gideon Welles, ed. Albert Mordell (New York: Twayne, 1959) 234, 250-51. For the latter, see McPherson, Battle Cry 509; LaWanda Cox, Lincoln and Black Freet:lom: A Study in PresidentialLeadership (Columbia: U of South . Carolina P, 1981) 22-24; and Don E. Fehrenbacher, "Only His Stepchildren" (1974), rpt. Lincoln in Text and Context: CoJJected Essays (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford UP, 1987) 110-1 I. McPherson, Battle Cry 509, quotes a Republican politician who admitted that Colonization "is a damn humbug. But it will take with the people." "A Letter from L. Maria Child. Emancipation and Amalgamation," New York Daily Tribune 3 Sept. 1862, p. 9; rpt. in the Standard 13 Sept. 1862, p. I, CC 531r423' In a letter of IS Sept. to Oliver Johnson, editor of the Standard, Child complained that she had sent the article to the Tribune "[a]bout four weeks ago" and that she had neither seen the article in the Tribune nor heard from editor Horace Greeley that he could not use it (CC 53/1428). Child subscribed to the much more widely circulated Weekly Tribune and probably expected Greeley to publish her article there, rather than in the Daily, where she evidently did not catch it, if indeed she regularly read the Daily. LMC to William P. Cutler, IOJuly 1862, SL 414. "A Letter from L. Maria Child. Emancipation and Amalgamation," New York Daily Tribune 3 Sept. 1862, p. 9, rpt. in the Standard 13 Sept. 1862, p. I, CC 531r423' "Mrs. L. Maria Child to the President of the United States," National Republican 22 Aug. 1862, p. I; rpt. in the Liberator29Aug. 1862, p. 139, and in the Standard 6 Sept. 1862, p. 4, CC 531r426. The National Republican featured Child's letter in the most prominent position on the front page, and Garrison printed it in the column adjacent to Lincoln's famous statement of 2 2 Aug. that his "paramount object is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery" (a statement Lincoln made in reply to a pro-emancipation letter of 19 Aug. by Horace Greeley, "The Prayer of Twenty Millions," New York Daily Tribune, 20 Aug. 1862, p. 4). See the useful distinction made by George M. Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817-1914 (New York: Harper and Row, 1971) chaps. 3-4. "Mrs. L. Maria Child to the President of the United States," CC 53/1426.
Child's Civil War
723
107 The following paragraph is based on McPherson, Battle Cry 504-5, which led me to the reminiscences of Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, "The History of Emancipation," originally published in Galaxy 14 (Dec. 1872), rpt. Civil War and Reconstruction 228-55; see esp. 235-40. See also Cox, Lincoln and Black Freedom 14-15; and CWL 5: 337n. 108 LMC to Sarah Shaw, 9 June 1862, CC SZ1r413. Child quotes Sarah's letter in CC 521r4I2 to Lucy Searle, written the same day. For Robert Shaw's accounts of the incident, see Robert G. Shaw to Francis and Sarah Shaw, 27 May and 13 June 1862, Duncan, ed., Blue-Eyed Child of Fortune 203-6, 209- I I. For press accounts quoted in this paragraph, see "From Gen. Banks's Department" and "Gen. Banks's Retreat," New York Weekly Tribune JI May 1862, p. 5, and 7 June, p. 3· 109 For accounts of these battles, see McPherson, Battle Cry chaps. 15, 17. Quotation on 5 I I. 110 LMC to Sarah Shaw, 18 May 1862, CC 52/1410. I was unable to find any account of this incident in the New York Weekly Tribune, the New York Daily Tribune, the Liberator, or the Standard. III LMC to Lucy Searle, 10 Aug. 1862, CC 531r422. I I 2 McPherson, Battle Cry 544. 113 "The Pursuit of the Enemy-Illness of Gen. McClellan-the Rest on Thursday-the Casualties on Both Sides - The Gallant Conduct of Our Army," New York Weekly Tribune 27 Sept. 1862, p. 3. 114 Quoted in McPherson, Battle Cry 545. I IS LMC to Charles Sumner, 3 Oct. 1862, SL 416-17. 116 LMC to Sarah Shaw, 30 Oct. 1862, SL 418. Both the Tribune and the antislavery press were full of antiMcClellan articles during this period. See also McPherson, Battle Cry 504-6, 524-25, 559-60. McPherson's rendition of the admission Child quotes is even more damning: "Lee's army had not been 'bagged' at Sharpsburg because 'that is not the game. The object is that neither army shall get much advantage of the other; that both shall be kept in the field till they are exhausted, when we will make a compromise and save slavery'" (559). II7 McPherson, Battle Cry 557. For the complete text of the 22 Sept. Emancipation Proclamation, see CWL 5: 433-36. 118 LMC to Eliza Scudder, 30 Sept. 1862, CC 531r430. II9 LMC to Eliza Scudder, 30 Sept. 1862, CC 531r430' See also the "Remarks" Garrison appended to the text of the proclamation in the Liberator, 26 Sept. 1862, p. 154. 120 LMC to Charles Sumner, 3 Oct. 1862, SL 417. Most abolitionists agreed that the Union would have been better off without the border states, but historians generally maintain that the border states were militarily essential to the Union's survival. See, for example, McPherson, Battle Cry 284: "Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri ... would have added 45 percent to the white population and military manpower of the Confederacy, 80 percent to its nanufacturing capacity, and nearly 40 percent to its supply of horses and mules." Also Potter, Division [57. 121 LMC to Sarah Shaw, 30 Oct. 1862, SL 419. For an interesting explanation of Lincoln's refusal to put the Emancipation Proclamation on "high moral grounds," see Cox, Lincoln and Black Freedom 13-14. 122 Quoted in McPherson, Battle Cry 559-62. 123 LMCto Sarah Shaw, I I Nov. 1860, SL 420. 124 CWL 6: 28-30. The complete text of the I Jan. Emancipation Proclamation was reprinted in the Liberator 2 Jan. 1863, p. 3, under the headline "The Proclamation. Three Million of Slaves set Free' 'Glory, Hallelujah!'" In an untitled editorial note Garrison called the Proclamation "a great historic event, sublime in its magnitude, momentous and beneficent in its far-reaching consequences, and eminently just and right alike to the oppressor and oppressed .... " 125 See LMC to Lydia Bigelow Child, 14 Dec. 1862, CC 54/1442, in which Child mentions having written to George and worries about having received no reply. I am indebted to Milton Emerson Ross, grandson of Lydia Maria Child Haskins, for information about George's death. On the diseases that decimated Civil War soldiers, see McPherson, Battle Cry, 485-88: "twice as many Civil War soldiers died of disease as were killed and mortally wounded in combat." Black soldiers suffered even higher rates of death from disease. See Berlin et aI., Black Military Experience chap. 15.
724
Chapter Eighteen Notes
126 LMC to William Lloyd Garrison Haskins, 28 Dec. 1862, SL 42 3. 127 "L. Maria Child to the President of the United States," CC 53/1426; LMC to William Lloyd Garrison Haskins, 28 Dec. 1862, SL 424. 128 For the inside story of Robert Shaw's reluctant acceptance, see Duncan's introduction and Robert G. Shaw to Annie Kneeland Haggerty, 4 and 8 Feb. 1863, Duncan, ed., Blue-Eyed Child ofFortune 21-27, 283-86. From these and other letters, it seems clear that fear of his fiancee's objections and his racist acquaintances' mockery were his main motives for initially refusing this assignment. 129 LMC to Willie Haskil}s, 30 Apr. 1863, SL 427-28. 130 LMC to Lucy Osgood and Mary Stearns, I I Jan. 1863, CC 541r452, and 22 Dec. 1862, CC 54f1444. 131 LMC to Ticknor and Fields, 22Jan. 1863, CC 54/1458. 132 LMC to Lucy Osgood, I I Jan. 1863, CC 541r4SZ. 133 LMC to Ticknor and Fields, 22 Jan. 1863, CC 541r458. In LMC to James T. Fields, 22 Feb. 1863, CC 55/ 1472, Child further explains how she has grouped the selections and discusses possible illustrations (none of which ultimately appeared in the book, perhaps due to financial constraints). 134 LMC to Sarah Shaw, [Apr?] 1863, CC 551r478. 135 See "Departure of Fifty-Fourth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers," Traveller, rpt. in Liberator 5 June 1863, p. 91; and "The Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts, New York Weekly Tribune, 6 June 1863, p. 2; also Duncan, Blue-Eyed Child ofFortune 39-40, 33 1, 335, 336. 136 LMC to Sarah Shaw and Samuel Sewall, 16 and 2I June 1863, CC 55/1483, 1484. LMC to Anna Loring, 24 May 1862, CC 52/1411, explains the circumstances under which Child became "monarch of all I survey" and describes the redecorating she and David have been doing with their own hands. 137 LMC to Samuel Sewall and Francis Shaw, 21 and 25 June 1863, CC 551r484, 1486. 138 LMC to Samuel Sewall, 2I June 1863, CC 551r484. 139 Sarah Shaw to LMC, [2 1June? 1863], CC 5S1r48S; LMC to Francis Shaw, 25June 1863, CC 551r486. Francis's letter has not been preserved, but its contents can be inferred from Sarah's and from Child's response. 140 LMC to Francis Shaw and Samuel Sewall, 25 and 29June 1863, CC 55/1486,1487. 141 LMC to Sarah and Francis Shaw, 14 and 17 July 1863, CC 561r489-90; also LMC to Samuel Sewall, 29June 1863, CC 551r487· 142 LMC to Eliza Scudder, 8 July 1869, CC 71/1901. 143 "The Fourth Last Past," New York Weekly Tribune I I July 1863, p. 4. 144 Alfred Wayland Cutting, Old-Time Wayland (privately printed, 1926) 46. I am grateful to Deborah Clifford for generously drawing my attention to this anecdote and to Jo Goeselt of the Wayland Historical Society for sending me a photoC! Ipy of Old-Time Wayland. 145 LMC to Sarah Shaw, 5 May 1861, CC 48/13°5. 146 LMC to Sarah Shaw, 5 May 1861, CC 48/1305. In the wake of the Emancipation Proclamation and the recruitment of African American soldiers, Child was naturally less critical of official policy than when army officers were following orders to surrender fugitive slaves to their masters. But on learning that the government had reneged on its promise of equal pay to African American troops and was paying them $3 a month less than white troops, deducting an additional $3 for their uniforms, she wrote: "the mean conduct of the government toward the negroes fills me with shame." See LMC to Eliza Scudder, 22 Apr. 1864, SL443. 147 McPherson, Battle Cry 602. See also the interesting analysis that follows, showing that in fact, cities, counties, Democratic ward committees, factories, businesses, and railroads all contributed to funds to buy exemptions for drafted workers, tending to equalize opportunities to buy substitutes. 148 LMC to Francis Shaw, [25? July 1863], CC 56/1492. Quotations describing the depredations of the mob and the attack on Gibbons's home are drawn from "The Draft. Riot in the City of New-York. .. ," and "The Riot," New York Weekly Tribune 18 July 1863, pp. 3-5. For full-scale accounts of the New York Draft Riot and historical analyses of its causes, see Adrian Cook, The Armies ofthe Streets: The New York City Draft Riots of I 863 (Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 1974); and especially Iver Bernstein, The New
Child's Civil War
149 ISO 151
152
153
154 ISS 156 157
158
159
160 161
162
725
York City Draft Riots: Their Significance for American Society and Politics in the Age of the Civil Uilr (New York: Oxford UP, 1990). LMC to Anna Loring and Francis Shaw, 9 Aug. and [2 5? July) 1863, CC 56/1494, 1492. LMC to Henrietta Sargent, 14 Aug. 1863, CC 56II497. LMC to Francis and Sarah Shaw, 17 July 1863, CC 561r490; and to Oliver Johnson, printed as "Parts of Two Private Letters," in the Standard 22 Aug. 1863, SL 435-36. On the anti-immigrant views Child expresses in The First Settlers, see chap. 4. "Fort Wagner" (editorial) and "The Attack on Fort Wagner -A Bloody Night-Assault and Repulse" (news dispatch), New York Weekly Tribune I Aug. 1863, pp. 2-3; Luis F. Emilio, A Brave Black Regiment: History of the Fifty-Fourth Regiment ofMassachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 1863-1865, rev. ed. (1894; New York: Arno P, 1969), chap. 5, esp. pp. 79, 82, 84, 90-91; Duncan, ed., Blue-Eyed Child ofFortune 48-56; Lawrence Lader, The Bold Brahmins: New England's Uilr Against Slavery: 1831-1863 (New York: Dutton, 1961) 289; Fredrickson, Inner Civil Uilr IS I -56. See also "Testimony by a Special Correspondent of the New York Tribune before the American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission," Black Military Experience 534- 36, which quotes General Truman Seymour as having suggested putting "those d - d niggers from Massachusetts in the advance," since "we may as well get rid of them, one time as another." "Later from Charleston," New York Weekly Tribune, 8 Aug. 1863, p. 3; Lader, Bold Brahmins 290; Emilio, Brave Black Regiment 95-I03. Actually, the fate of the black soldiers did not become known until much later, "the enemy absolutely refusing information" (Emilio 97). The question of what to do with the black soldiers was hotly debated among Governor M.L. Bonham of South Carolina, Confederate Secretary of War J. A. Seddon, and President Jefferson Davis. Bonham wanted the black soldiers turned over to the state of South Carolina to be tried and executed for supporting slave insurrection. Seddon and Davis feared retaliation by the Union and decided instead to return former slaves to their masters but to hold the free black soldiers without formally recognizing them as prisoners of war. See Black Military Experience 567-68, 579-81. LMC to Henrietta Sargent, 14 Aug. 1863, CC 5611497. LMC to Anna Loring, 9 Aug. 1863, CC 5611494. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 25 July 1863, CC 561r49I. "A Tribute to Col. Robert G. Shaw," New York Evening Post, rpt. in the Standard IS Aug. 1863, CC 561 1498; "Parts of Two Private Letters," Standard, 22 Aug. 1863, CC 561r499. Actually, as Duncan shows, Robert Shaw fell far short of his parents' abolitionist ideals, and often expressed racist views in his letters, even using the word "nigger." See Duncan's introduction and Robert G. Shaw to Sarah Shaw, Mimi (Elizabeth Russell Lowell), Effie (Josephine Shaw), Francis Shaw, and Charles Fessenden Morse, Blue-Eyed Child ofFortune 7, IO, 12-13, 35,42-43,289-90,292,299-301,304-5. Child could not have known this, however, and Sarah Shaw indicated her own disappobation by editing out offensive statements in the selection of her son's letters that she published after his death. "A Tribute," cited in n. 157 above; "Parts of Two Private Letters," Standard 22 Aug. 1863, CC 56/1499; McPherson, Battle Cry 794. No such policy was ever adopted, of course. Indeed Lincoln never implemented his order. Though the U.S. government ended all prisoner exchanges rather than acquiesce in the Confederacy's exclusion of black prisoners from exchanges, the net result was to leave soldiers of both races in enemy hands for the duration of the war. LMC to Anna Loring, Eliza Scudder, and Louisa Loring, 9 Aug., 6 Nov., and 9 Nov. 1863, CC 561 1494, IS 10, 151 I. Child had to forgo attending another antislavery wedding, that of Garrison's son William. See LMC to Fanny Garrison, 26 Oct. 1863, CC 561r509. LMC to Lucy Osgood and James T Fields, 18 and IO Dec. 1863, CC 57/1521,1519. LMC to Eliza Scudder and Lydia Bigelow Child, 6 Nov., 23 Nov. and 13 Dec. 1863, CC 56II5IO, 57/1517, 1510. Also to [Louisa Loring?, 1-27 Jan.? 1864), CC 571rS28. Compare LMC to Lydia Bigelow Child, 3 Oct. 1862, CC 531r432. "Employments in 1864," Child papers, Slavery Collection, Cornell University Library.
726 163 164 165 166 167
168 169 170 171 172
173
Chapter Eighteen Notes LMC to William Lloyd Garrison and [Louisa Loring?] 27 Dec. 1863 and [1-27 Jan.? 1864], CC 57 iI p5,1528. LMC to Sarah Shaw, [Feb. 1864], CC 581 I 548. "Letter from L. Maria Child," LiberatorI9 Feb. 1864, Standard 27 Feb. 1864, CC 58iI538. LMC to Henrietta Sargent, 2 Aug. 185R, CC 39h072. See McPherson, Struggle for Equality chap. 13; James Brewer Stewart, Wendell Phillips: Liberty:r Hero (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1986) 243-55. The developing schism can also be followed through vol. 5 of Garrison's letters. "Letter from L. Maria Child," Liberator 19 Feb. 1864, Standard 27 Feb. 1864, CC 58h538. Child makes this explicit in "A Chat with the Editor of the Standard," 14Jan. 1865, CC61h616, rpt. in Liberator 20Jan. 1865, quoted in chap. 19 below. "Letter from L. Maria Child," Liberator 19 Feb. 1864, Standard 27 Feb. 1864, CC 581I538. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 3 Nov. 1864, SL 446. On Child's efforts to assist Lewis, see LMC to Robert Wallcut and James T. and Annie Fields, 26 Aug. 1864,13 Oct. and 25 Nov. 1865, CC 59h582, 63h685, 1695; for her promotion of Lewis's work in newspapers, see "A Chat with the Editor of the Standard," 14Jan. 1865, CC611I616, and "Letter from L. Maria Child. To the Editor of the Independent," 5 Apr. 1866, Independent, CC64/1716. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 8 Apr. 1866, CC 64/1717, and [Aug.? 1870], CC 741I958; LMC to Harriet Sewall, IO July 1868, SL 480-81. Child's letter to Sarah of 8 Apr., which reveals her sensitivity to the twin dangers of unreasonable expectations and condescension in judging the work of black artists at this transitional stage, deserves extensive quotation. Sarah had not liked the bust of Robert and objected to what she called Lewis's "self-conceit." Child replies: "I do not think she has any genius, but 1 think she has a good deal of imitative talent, which, combined with her indomitable perseverance, 1 have hoped might make her something above mediocrity, if she took time enough. But she ... is in too much of a hurry to get up to a conspicuous place, without taking the necessary intermediate steps. 1 do not think this is so much 'self-conceit,' as it is an uneasy feeling of the necessity of making things to sell, in order to pay for her daily bread. Then you must remember that youth, in its fresh strength and inexperience, naturally thinks itself capable of doing anything. How contemptuously 1 smile now to read things which seemed to me very beautiful when I wrote them, years ago! .... I agree with you that, looked at in the light of Art, nothing she has produced is worth a second glance; but 1 am more disposed than you seem to be to give her time for a fair trial. ... I doubt whether we can treat our colored brethren exactly as we would if they were white, though it is desirable to do so. But we have kept their minds in a state of infancy, and children must be treated with more patience and forbearance than grown people. How can they learn to swim, if they don't dive into the water? Theywill sprawl about, at first, doubtless, but they will find the use of their limbs by dint of trying." Child drew the line, however, at praising work she considered inferior. She refused to review Lewis's statue of the Freedman and his Wife, saying: "Art is sacred, as well as Philanthropy; and I do not think it either wise or kind to encourage a girl, merely because she is colored, to spoil good marble by making it into poor statues" (CC 74/1958). Unfortunately, Child's correspondence with Lewis herself has been lost. Lewis went on to make a very successful career for herself. "Her works have gained several gold medals and diplomas," reported the Woman:rJournalin an article of 22 Nov. 1873 ("Edmonia Lewis," p. 375). She exhibited a statue in the 1876 Centennial Exposition and produced a statue of Lincoln for New York's Central Park, one ofJohn Brown for the Union League Club, and one of Longfellow for Yale College (Woman:r Journal, untitled note, 7 Dec. 1872, p. 387). She remained in Italy for the rest of her life, returning to the United States for periodic visits. See LMC to Lydia Bigelow Child, 12 Feb. 1866, CC 64/1708 for an example of similar advice Child gives her nephew Willie (to tend store while studying bookkeeping, so as to be "earning something"). Revealingly, Child proceeds to contrast her own attitude with David's: "David is very prone to look ahead to prospective advantages; but my way has always been to earn money by any honest means that came to hand, and be prepared to do something better, as soon as anything better presented itself."
Child's Civil War
727
174 McPherson, Battle Cry 698-7 I 3; Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863- I 877 (New York: Harper and Row, 1988) chap. 2. 175 Quoted in McPherson, Battle Cry 700, 716. See also David Child's vehement criticism of the "Louisiana scheme" in a letter of 20 Apr. 1865, apparently to Sumner, BPL Ms.A.4.2.P.53. Cox, Lincoln and Black Freedom 36-43, 75-81, 93-100, 103-4, 1I2, offers a convincing refutation and argues persuasively that the alternative Wade-Davis bill, which Lincoln angered radicals by pocket-vetoing in July, did not embody a more thoroughgoing approach to reconstruction. 176 McPherson, Battle Cry 716. 177 McPherson, Struggle for Equality 284-85. 178 LMC to John Greenleaf Whittier, 19June 1864, CC 591rS69. 179 LMC to Gerrit Smith, 23 July 1864, SL 446. 180 LMC toJohn Greenleaf Whittier, 19June 1864, CC 591rS69' 181 LMC to Gerrit Smith and Charles Sumner, 23 and 3 I July 1864, SL 445, CC 59ir 577; also to Sarah Shaw, [May-June? 1864], CC 59irS70. 182 Private letter quoted in McPherson, Battle Cry 762; see Battle Cry, 758-60 for a description of the fiasco at Petersburg. 183 LMC to Eliza Scudder, Lucy Osgood, Lydia Bigelow Child, and Anna Loring, 3 and 2 I Aug., 18 Sept., and I I Oct. 1864, CC 59ir578, 1580, 1583, 1584. 184 LMC to John Fraser, 10 Nov. 1864, SL 448. Fraser had married David's niece Ruth Child, and the couple had recently moved to Australia. 185 LMC to Eliza Scudder and Gerrit Smith, 22 Apr. 1864, SL444, CC 5811562. 186 LMC to John Fraser, 10 Nov. 1864, SL 448-5°. For details on these conspiracies, see McPherson, Battle Cry 762-65. 187 McPherson, Battle Cry 804-5. 188 LMC to Eliza Scudder, 14 Nov. 1864, CC 601rS93. 189 LMC to Parke Godwin, 13 Dec. 1864, CC601r605. 190 LMC to John Fraser, 10 Nov. 1864, SL 449. 191 LMC to Sarah Parsons, 27 Nov. 1864, CC 601I598. 192 LMC to Theodore Tilton, editor of the Independent, 7 Mar. 1865, Independent 16 Mar., CC 61/1640; partially published in Liberator 24 Mar. 1865 . For her criticism of the First Inaugural, see LMC to John Greenleaf Whittier, 22 Sept. 1861, CC 49/1337. For complete texts of the First and Second Inaugurals, see CWL 4: 262-71, and 8: 332-33. 193 LMC to Eliza Scudder, 22 Apr. 1864, SL 444. 194 LMCtoJohnFraser, 10 Nov. 1864,SL449. 195 LMC to Eliza Scudder, 22 Apr. 1864, SL 444. 196 See "Gen. Gantt at Cooper Institute. Slavery the Cause of the Rebellion, and a Nuisance-Necessity ofIts Destruction," and "Gen. Gantt's Converts" (editorial), New York Weekly Tribune 6 Feb. 1864, pp. 6 and 4. 197 "Letter from L. Maria Child to Gen. Gantt," 7 Feb. 1864> published in the Standard 22 Apr. 1865, p. 4, CCS7 1I 53I. 198 LMC to George WJulian, 27 Mar. 1864, SL 439. 199 See Julian's speech, "Homesteads for Soldiers on the Lands of Rebels," U.S. House of Representatives, I 8 Mar. 1864, rpt. in George Washington Julian , Speeches on Political Questions (1872; Westport, Conn.: Negro Universities P, 1970) 212-28. Child wrote an introduction to the volume. 200 LMC to George WJulian, 27 Mar. 1864, SL 439-40, and 8 Apr. 1865, CC621r65I. 201 LMC to Gerrit Smith, 4 and 22 Apr. 1864, SL44I, CC 58ir562. 202 LMC to John Greenleaf Whittier, 19June 1864, CC 591r569. 203 LMC to Gerrit Smith, 4 Apr. and 23 July 1864, SL 441, 445. 204 LMC to Henrietta Sargent, 8 Jan. 1865, CC 611r614. Quotations are from LMC to Ticknor and Fields, 22 Jan. 1863, CC 54/1458.
728 205
206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217
Chapter Eighteen Notes [Thomas Wentworth Higginson), review of Looking trrward Sunset, Atlantic Monthly 15 (Feb. 1865): 255. David Hackett Fischer, in Grrrwing Old in America, rev. ed. (New York: Oxford UP, 1978), cites Child's Looking trrward Sunset as "representative of a genre of 'gathered gems for the aged' which appeared in the mid-nineteenth century" (12 I). All but two of the nine works he mentions appeared after Child's. The two exceptions, John Stanford's The Aged Christian's Cabinet (1829) and Joseph Lathrop's The Infirmities and Comforts ofOld Age (1802), typified the earlier literature for the old against which Child was reacting in attempting to compile a "cheerful" and undoctrinal work. In The Journey of Life: A Cultural History of Aging in America (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1992), Thomas R. Cole describes Stanford's Aged Christian's Companion (1829) as having "initiat[ed) the genre of American advice literature for older people" (67). According to Cole, the late Calvinist view of aging and death articulated in Stanford's book gave way in the mid-nineteenth century to an ideal of" 'civilized' old age," which he finds typified by Lydia Huntley Sigourney's Past Meridian (1854), Child's Looking toward Sunset, Cora S. Nourse's Sunset Hours of Life (1875) and S. G. Lathrop's Fifty Years and Beyond; or, Gathered Gems for the Aged (1881). He takes a highly critical view of the "sentimental" advice literature of the mid- to late-nineteenth century and its advocacy of an active, cheerful, and useful old age, arguing that it tended to promote unrealistic expectations of being able to control aging and escape bodily decrepitude by forming good moral and physical habits. Of these works, none approached Child's in popularity. Sigourney's went through eight printings, Nourse's one printing, and Lathrop's four printings (NUC). Sigourney's resembles Child's in spirit but not in form (it is an advice book, rather than an anthology). The latter two differ strikingly from Child's in promulgating doctrinal religious views (Nourse's was published by the American Tract Society). Child's thoroughgoing religious tolerance and advocacy of radical causes are unique among these works addressed to the aged. I am grateful to Rodney Olsen for bringing Cole's and Fischer's books to my attention. L. Maria Child, Looking toward Sunset. From Sources Old and New, Original and Selected (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1865) v. Further page references are given parenthetically in the text. Review of Looking trrward Sunset, Liberator 16 Dec. 1864, p. 202. For historical analyses of these trends and their consequences, see Cole,Journey ofLifo chaps. 4-7; and Fischer, Growing Old chap. 2. William Cullen Bryant, Lucy Osgood, Stephen Salisbury, Wendell Phillips, and Louisa Loring to LMC, 26 Dec. zo Nov., and 21 Nov. 1864, and 10 Feb. [1865), CC 601I608, 1595, 1596, and 6r11632. LMC to Parke Godwin, 13 Dec. 1864, CC 601r605. LMC to Anna Loring, 18Jan. 1865, CC 61/1619. LMC to Lydia Bigelow Child and Henrietta Sargent, 8Jan. 1865, CC 611I613, 1614. Quoted in LMC to Lucy Osgood, 12 Feb. 1865, CC611r634. Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the Civil VVtlr (1953; Boston: Little, Brown, 1969) 326-27; LMC to George W.Julian, 8 Apr. 1865, CC6z1r65I. Lucy Osgood to LMC, 9 Apr. 1865, CC621r65z; McPherson, Battle Cry 846-47. LMC to Harriet Sewall, 4 Apr. 1865, CC 6z1r649. LMC to George Julian, Lucy Osgood, and Sarah Shaw, 8, 13, and [after 15 Apr.], 1865, CC 621I651,
SL451-54· CWL 8: 399-405. On the implications of the speech, see McPherson, Battle Cry 851-52; Foner, Reconstruction 74; Cox, Lincoln and Black Freedom 150-52. 219 "Letter from Mrs. L. M. Child," to Theodore Tilton, editor of the Independent, 6 May 1865, Independent I I May, reprinted in Liberator 26 May 1865, CC 6z1 1659. 220 "Letter from Mrs. L. M. Child," to Tilton, cited in n. Z 19 above. See also LMC to Sarah Shaw, [after 15 Apr.) 1865, SL 453-54. Child's erroneous appraisal ofJohnson was shared by most abolitionists and Radical Republicans; see Foner, Reconstruction 177-8z. One of the few exceptions was Frederick Douglass, who "caught a glimpse of the real nature of this man" from the "bitter contempt and aversion" Johnson inadvertently revealed toward him on Inauguration Day; see Douglass, Lifo and Times ofFrederick Douglass (1892; New York: Collier, 1962) 364. z18
Visions of a Reconstructed America
I9
4
5
6
7
8
9 IO
729
Visions ofa ReconstructedAmerica: The Freedmen's Book and A Romance of the Republic
"Through the Red Sea into the Wilderness," Independent 21 Dec. 1865, p. I; rpt. Liberator 29 Dec. 1865, p. 205 (not included in CG). Except where otherwise indicated, all quotations from Child in the next few paragraphs are taken from this article. On the history and circulation of the Independent, see James M. McPherson, The Struggle for Equality: Abolitionists and the Negro in the Civil Wtzr and Reconstruction (Princeton, NJ.: Princeton UP, 1964) 8788. Founded as a Congregational antislavery journal of conservative cast, the Independent became "for all practical purposes ... an abolitionist organ" in 1863, when Theodore Tilton took over the editorship from Henry Ward Beecher. Child was invited to contribute to the Independent as early as 1859, when it was controlled by orthodox clergymen, but she refused on three grounds: (I) "I never write for a periodical that restricts my liberty"; (2) "the thing I detest most, next to Slavery, is Calvinism"; and (3) she objected to the Independent's supercilious treatment of Garrison and Theodore Parker; see LMC to Sydney Howard Gay, 2 I Dec. 1859, SL 335. She began writing regularly for the Independent in 1865. "The Liberator and Its Work," Independent 28 Dec. 1865, p. I, CC 641r698. Tilton printed both this article and "Through the Red Sea into the Wilderness" in the lead column generally reserved for the pronouncements of Congregationalist clergymen. For contemporary reminiscences of the hostile public reception of the Appeal, see "Remarks of Wendell Phillips at the Funeral of Lydia Maria Child, October 23, 1880," published as an appendix to Letters of Lydia Maria Child red. Harriet Winslow Sewall] (1882; New York: Negro Universities P, 1969) 263-68; and Edward Everett Hale, Memories ofa Hundred Years, 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1902) 2: 118. See also chap. 8 above. See McPherson, Strugglefor Equality chap. 14; Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (New York: Harper and Row, 1988) chap. 5; and Ira Berlin,Joseph P. Reidy, and Leslie S. Rowland, Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 186r-1867, Series 2: The Black Military Experience (New York: Cambridge UP, 1982) chap. 17. On Johnson's promise to be a Moses to African Americans, see the famous speech quoted in LMC to John Fraser, 10 Nov. 1864, SL 449. It is important to realize that Congress was not in session during the entire period when Johnson was defining Reconstruction policy through presidential proclamations. As Eric Foner explains: "It was a peculiarity of nineteenth-century politics that more than a year elapsed between the election of a Congress and its initial meeting. The Thirty-Ninth Congress, elected in the midst of war, assembled in December 1865 to confront the crucial issues of Reconstruction.... " See Reconstruction 228. "Through the Red Sea into the Wilderness," Independent 2 I Dec. 1865, rpt. Liberator 29 Dec. 1865, p. 205. Johnson's Annual Message of 4 Dec. 1865 is reprinted in Edward McPherson, The Political History of the United States ofAmerica during the Period of Reconstruction . ... , md ed. (1875; New York: Negro Universities P, 1969) 64-66. Besides "Through the Red Sea into the Wilderness," these include "Letter from Mrs. Child," 5 July 1865, Boston Transcript, rpt. Liberator 2I July, CC 631r669; "Letter from Mrs. L. M. Child," 23 July, Independent 3 Aug., CC 631r672; "A Letter from Mrs. L. Maria Child," Independent 26 Oct. 1865, CC 63/1689; "Letter from L.Maria Child," Independent 29 Feb. 1866, CC64/17Io; "The President of the United States," Independent 8 Mar. 1866 (not included in CC); "Letter from L. Maria Child," Independent 5 Apr. 1866, CC 641r716; and "Woman and Suffrage," Independent 10 and 17 Jan. 1867, CC 66/1759, 1760, SL 468-72. I am omitting Child's tributes to "The Liberator and Its Work" and "Friend Joseph," CC 641r698, 66/1751, since neither deals explicitly with Reconstruction. Her articles on woman suffrage are discussed in chap. 20 below. "A Letter from Mrs. L. Maria Child," Independent 26 Oct. 1865, CC 631r689. Interestingly, many African American leaders appear to have followed the same trajectory. See the views quoted in Leon F. Litwack, Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath ofSlavery (1979; New York: Vintage, 1980) 528-30.
730 II
I
2
13
14 15
16
Chapter Nineteen Notes LMC to Eliza Scudder, 15 and 22 Oct. 1865, CC63h688; "Letter from Mrs. L. M. Child," Independent I I May 1865, p. 4; rpt. Liberator 26 May 1865, CC 62h659: "How completely [Lincoln] transferred the laboring oar into the hands of those refractory Border States, when he gave them a chance to make a good bargain out of Emancipation, if they would but accept the generous terms! Perhaps he took it for granted that they would reject them; but, doubtless, he also foresaw that, if they did so, circumstances would eventually compel them to give up slavery without pecuniary recompense, while at the same time they would have silenced, by their own act, the sympathy of Democrats at horne and aristocrats abroad." McPherson, Struggle for Eq'/Ullity 336- 37; Frank Preston Steams, The Life and Public Services ofGeorge Luther Stearns (1907; New York: Arno P, 1969) 360-61. McPherson, Strugglefor Equality 329-30. See Phillips's editorials "The Fatal Step," "The Administration," and "The President Tylerizes," on p. 2 of Standard 3 and 24June and I July 1865, which reflect his own progression from reserving judgment to bitterly denouncing Johnson. LMC to Henrietta Sargent, 18June 1865, CC 621x667. For example, Child wrote only one letter to Sumner (27 Nov. 1865) and one to Julian (22 Jan. 1866) during this period; see CC 64/ I 697, 1704. In neither letter did she urge any particular course of action or express any difference of opinion on policy. "Letter from Mrs. L. M. Child," 23 July 1865, Independent 3 Aug., rpt. in Liberator I I Aug., CC
63 iI6 72· 17 "Letter from Mrs. L. M. Child," 23 July 1867, Independent 3 Aug., rpt. in Liberator I I Aug., CC 63/ 1672 • 18 LMC to Sarah Shaw and Eliza Scudder, 29 Oct. and 15 and 22 Oct. 1865, CC 63h690, 1688. 19 "A Letter from Mrs. L. Maria Child," Independent 26 Oct. 1865, CC 63h689. 20 "A Letter from Mrs. L. Maria Child," Independent 26 Oct. 1865, CC 63iI689. See LMC to Eliza Scudder, IS and 22 Oct. 1865, CC 63iI688 for comments on the "fuddkd sound" of the "prosy repetitions" inJ ohnson's "Address to the Colored Soldiers." The speech, which is indeed rambling and repetitious, is reprinted in McPherson, Political History ofReconstruction 49- 5 I. 2 I "Interview with a Colored Delegation respecting Suffrage," rpt. in McPherson, Political History of Reconstruction 52 - 5 5. 22 "Letter from L. Maria Child," Independent 29 Feb. 1866, p. I, CC 64iI71O. Quotations in the next paragraph are also from this letter. 23 Child also mentions General John A. Palmer, who had defended black soldiers and their families against abuse by their Kentucky masters; and General Charles Devens, whom she had elsewhere praised for volunteering to pay $1,800 for the freedom of Thomas Sims. On Saxton's vigorous protest against the expulsion of the freedpeople from the lands they had been cultivating, see Foner, Reconstruction 159. On Palmer, see Berlin et al. Black Military Experience 278. 24 LMC to Theodore Tilton, 14 Feb. 1866, CC64/1711. She need not have worried that he would object to her severity; his own editorial in the Independent 15 Feb., p. 4, "The President's Re-statement of His Views," took a similar position: "In its political significance, the President's speech [to the Black delegation] is a turning-point in affairs. It draws a definite line between the President's Policy and the Negro's Rights - putting the President and his partisans on one side, and the Negro and his friends on the other. Good men are called to take sides." 25 Both Phillips and Tilton pointed out early signs that Johnson was contemplating such a move. See their respective editorials, "The Administration" and "The President Tylerizes," Standard 24June and I July 1865, p. 2; and "The Present Political Aspect," Independent 24 Aug. 1865, p. 4. In his editorial "Courage in Politics," Standard 20 Jan. 1866, p. 2, Phillips complained that Republican politicians were still paralyzed by this fear. He argued that if the president were capable of being driven into the hands of Democrats, "he ought to be. If he means to betray his party, the sooner the better." For modem historical analyses ofJohnson's motives, see F oner, Reconstruction 184, 19 I, 248-5 I; LaWanda Cox and John H. Cox, Politics, Principle, and Prejudice, I86S-I866 (New York: Glencoe P, 1963), esp.
Visions of a Reconstructed America
26 27 28 29 30
31 32 33 34 35 36
37 38
39 40 41
42
73 I
chaps. 5 and 8; and W. R. Brock, An American Crisis: Congress and Reconstruction, 1865-1867 (London: St. Martin's, 1963), esp. chap. 2 and 172-75. Cox and Cox also provide an extremely illuminating and detailed account of the struggle between conservative Republicans and Democrats for control over the new party each group hoped to build around Johnson. F oner, Reconstruction 68-69 and chap. 4; McPherson, Struggle for Equality 347-48. "Speech of 22d February 1866," rpt. in McPherson, Political History ofReconstruction 58-63. "The President of the United States," Mrs. L. Maria Child, to the Editor of the Independent, 8 Mar. 1866, p. 1. Foner, Reconstruction 243-44. Johnson vetoed ten bills between Feb. 1866 and Mar. 1867. See McPherson, Political History ofReconstruction 68-82, 147-81. Brock's American Crisis provides a fascinating blow-by-blow account of the jockeying between Johnson, moderate Republicans, and Radicals for control of Reconstruction policy. Brock also argues throughout that the success of the Radicals in mobilizing support for their aims cannot be understood without taking into account the northern public's strong desire to secure the fruits of the war. "Letter from L. Maria Child," Independent 5 Apr. 1866, p. I, CC 64/1716. I am grateful to H. Bruce Franklin for helping me to arrive at and formulate this perception. LMC to Henrietta Sargent, 18 June 1865, CC 621I667. LMC to Ednah Dow Cheney and William Lloyd Garrison, 22 Oct. 1865, CC 631I687, and 7 July 1865, SL 456-57; WLG to LMC, loJuly 1865, CC 631I671. LMC to James T. Fields, 27 Aug. 1865, SL 458-59. LMC to James T. Fields and Ticknor and Fields, 27 Aug. and 3 Sept. 1865, SL 459, CC 631I68r. See also LMC to Sarah Shaw and Ednah Dow Cheney, 3 Sept. and 22 Oct. 1865, CC 631r680, 1687. Cheney's letter, quoted by Child, has not been preserved. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 3 Sept. 1865, CC 63/1680. See, for example, Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Herder, 1970); James Lynch, Multicultural Education in a Global Society (London: Falmer, 1989); and Paul Lauter, ed., The Heath Anthology ofAmerican Literature, 2 vols. (Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1990). James M. McPherson, The Negro's Civil Wtlr: Hrrw American Negroes Felt and Acted during the Wtlr for the Union (1965; Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1982) 157. Page references to The Freedmen's Book (1865; New York: Arno P, 1968) are given parenthetically in the text. LMC to James T. Fields, 27 Aug. 1865, SL 459. At one point Child apparently planned to include Gustavus Vassa (Olaudah Equiano) as well as Ignatius Sancho. See LMC to Robert Morris, 19 June 1864, CC 591I 567, in which she asks to borrow The Life ofOlaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African, which she had presented to Morris many years earlier. It is not clear whether she omitted it because she could not find a copy of the work or because she decided that space limits precluded using it. Child requested Douglass's permission to write an abridged version of his narrative and asked if he would now supply the details of his escape from slavery, which he had hitherto refused to divulge. Her letter has been lost, but it can be reconstructed from his reply: "Use the story of my life in any way you see fit. I am sure it will not, in your hand, be employed to the injury of myself or the cause of my people .... I have always read with grateful pleasure what you have from time to time written on tire question of slavery." Douglass felt "[nlo good end could be served" by revealing the manner of his escape, however. See Frederick Douglass toLMC, 30JulY1865, CC631r673. Child follows Douglass's 1845 Narrative and 1855 My Bondage and My Freedom very closely, faithfully reflecting his political viewpoint, but neglecting to preserve his voice - a defect irritating to a modem reader. Her dramatic account of the Crafts is drawn from many sources, including "verbal information," as she told Fields. Garrison supplied her with their 1860 narrative, RU'MIing a Thousand Miks for Freedom. See LMC to William Lloyd Garrison and James T. Fields, 7 July and 27 Aug. 1865, SL 456-60; and William Lloyd Garrison to LMC, IOJuly 1865, CC631r67I.
732 43
Chapter Nineteen Notes See the often anthologized poem "On Being Brought from Africa to America": 'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land, Taught my benighted soul to understand That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too: Once I redemption neither sought nor knew. Some view our sable race with scornful eye, "Their colour is a diabolic die." Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain, May be refin'd, and join th'angelic train.
Instead, Child reprints Wheatley's poem to the Earl of Dartmouth, which explains that her "love of Freedom sprung" from her experience of being kidnapped, which led her to "pray / Others may never feel tyrannic sway." Elsewhere in the anthology she also reprints Wheatley's "The Works of Providence" (90, 94-96). 44 Theodore Tilton singled it out for praise in his review of The Freedmen's Book, Independent I Feb. 1866, 45 46
47
48
49
50
P·3· LMC to Charles Sumner, 27 Nov. 1865, CC 6411697. This letter accompanied the copy she presented to Sumner of The Freedmen's Book. For a vivid account of the obstacles the freedpeople faced when they tried to assert their rights in the ways Child suggests here, see Litwack, Been in the Storm So Long 274-91 and chap. 7. Child's "Advice from an Old Friend" invites comparison with Clinton B. Fisk's Plain Counsels for Freedmen: In Sixteen BriefLectures (Boston: American Tract Society, 1866). Despite his evangelical abolitionist background, Fisk bettays more sympathy for the former master than for his slave. He admonishes the freedpeople: "Now it is natural that he [the former master] should feel sore; that he should grieve over his loss; that he should be slow to adapt himself to the new state of things .... It is natural, too, that he should feel severe toward you .... [W]henever he sees you he can not but think of the great change, and can not avoid blaming you for it, although his better judgment tells him he ought to praise, rather than blame you" (ro- I I). Fisk follows up his plea to "think kindly of your old master," with a similar appeal to "avoid every thing you can which will inflame" white people's "sttong prejudices": "You know how easy it is to hurt a sore toe. Prejudices are like tender toes. Do not step on them when it is possible to avoid it" (13). Child's revisions of the story for The Freedmen's Book shed much light on her ideological purposes, racial sensibilities, and perceptions of different audiences. Consonantly with her aim of promoting "mutual friendliness of feeling" between blacks and whites, she abridged and toned down the speeches of slaves advocating "[b]lood for blood" (FB 107). Yet she also eliminated the racial comments she had made in the earlier version, which had credited mulattoes with greater militancy and ascribed it to their Anglo-Saxon blood. Finally, to reorient the story from a white to a black audience and to make it more accessible to uneducated freedpeople, she shifted the focus from the slaveholder Mr. Duncan to the slaves themselves and dropped the entire analogy with Saxon history. For comparison, see "The Black Saxons," Fact and Fiction: A Collection ofStories (New York: C. S. Francis, 1846) 190-204. Martin Delany's Blake; or the Huts ofAmerica was not published in book form until 1970 (ed. Floyd J. Miller; Boston: Beacon P), but it was serialized in the Anglo-African Magazine Gan. to July 1859) and the Wjekly Anglo-African (26 Nov. 1861 to late May 1862). Child subscribed to the latter. See LMC to Oliver Johnson, [after 16 Apr. r86I], CC 481r301, in which she asks to have it sent to Wayland again. The Freedman's Third Reader (Boston: American Tract Society, 1866); For an excellent discussion of this and other texts used in the freedmen's schools, see Robert C. Morris, Reading, 'Riting, and Reconstrw:tion: The Education ofFreedmen in the South, 1861-187° (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1981), esp. chap. 6. I do not agree with Morris's judgment that Child's book was "almost as moderate as those published by the American Tract Society," however (206). Freedman's Third Reader II, 227, 235.
Visions of a Reconstructed America 51 52
53
54
55 56 57 58
59 60
6r 62 63
64 65
66 67
68 69 70 71
733
Freedman's Third Reader 237-38. Freedman's Third Reader 83-86; LMC to Charles Sumner, 27 Nov. 1865, CC64/I697. "The Freedmen's Book," Freedmen's Record 2 (Apr. 1866): 69; Sarah E. Chase, "From Columbus," Freedmen's Record 2 Gune 1866): II9;Joshua E. Wilson to Ednah D. Cheney "From a Native Teacher," Freedmen's Record 5 (Feb. 1870): 6r-62. I am indebted to Morris, Reading, 'Riting, and Reconstruction
chap. 5, for guiding me to these sources. Child quotes at length from Abby Francis's letter in "Letter from L. Maria Child," Independent 5 Apr. r866, CC 641r716. LMC to James T. Fields, 27 Aug. 1865, SL 459; LMC to Lewis Tappan and Lucy Osgood, 30Jan. and 28 Mar. 1869, CC 701r875, 71/r893; Lewis Tappan to LMC, [after 30 Jan. 18691, CC 70h876. Revealingly, Tappan pleaded "lack of funds" as a reason for being unable to purchase five hundred copies at cost, but he claimed that had Child "seen fit to make the alterations ... the AMA would have circu[lat)ed thousands of copies." Morris, Reading, 'Riting, and Reconstruction 243-49. LMC toJamesT. Fields, and Ticknor and Fields, 27 Aug. and 3 Sept. 1865, SL 459, CC631r68I. LMC to Francis Shaw, 28 July 1867, CC 671r789. LMC to Oliver Johnson, 3 June 1861, CC 481rpo, requests him to take back from the Knickerbocker a story then titled "Willie and Wikamee," which they had not published as promised. The story seems to have been written during Child's stay with Lucy Osgood in the winter of 1860-61. She would eventually submit it to the Atlantic Monthly, adding a prefatory note at Fields's request, and it would appear in the Mar. 1863 number. See LMC toJamesT. Fields, 26 Feb. 1862, CC sr1r391. See chap. 20 below for an analysis of this story. LMC to Lucy Osgood, 24 Feb. 1862, CC 5 III 390. LMC to Francis Shaw, 28 July 1867, CC 671I789. Child dates this early draft back "four of [sic) five years ago," that is, in midsummer of r862 or r863. The former seems the more likely date, since in the spring of 1863 Child was preoccupied by the death of Convers, and in June the burning of her house drove everything else from her mind. She may have turned to her other project of 1862-63, Looking t(JWard Sunset, as a means of counteracting the "discouragement" produced by her inability to continue with the novel. LMC to Lucy Searle, 9June r862, CC 52/1412. LMC to Lucy Osgood, 5 Sept. r866, CC65/r737. LMC to Lucy Searle and Sarah Shaw, 9June and 18 May 1862, CC 521I4I2, 1410. In these two letters Child was referring in particular to The Pearl of Orr's Island. Though she pronounced it inferior to The Minister's Wooing, she found much to admire in it. LMC to Lucy Osgood and Sarah Shaw, I Sept. r86I, 5 Sept. 1866, and 16 Oct. 1866, SL 392, CC 651I737, 1742. The 1866 letters refer to Eliot's latest novel, Felix Holt. LMC to Sarah Shaw, undated, CC 66/r 757. The attractions of these novels are deducible from the plot summaries furnished by Sally Mitchell, Dinah Mulock Craik (Boston: Twayne, 1983). The Woman's Kingdom depicts a marriage of equals that "fills both physical and emotional needs" while leaving "the balance of power ... in the woman's hands" (69). A Brave Lady, written in support of a Married Women's Property Act giving women "legal right to their own property and earnings," provides a "realistic pictnre of a confined, hopeless, emotionally unsatisfYing married life" (69, 7 I). LMC to Sarah Shaw, undated, CC661r757. LMC toJames T. Fields, r9 Oct. 1865, CC63/I686. In a letter written three days later, Child confirms that she is still correcting proof sheets of The Freedmen's Book, which Ticknor and Fields was mailing in small batches several times a week. See LMC to Ednah Dow Cheney, 22 Oct. 1865, CC 63/r 687; LMC to Harriet Sewall and Sarah Shaw, 9 and 29 Oct. 1865, CC 631r683, r690. LMC to Louisa Loring, 10 Dec. 1866, CC 661r752. LMC toJamesT. Fields, 9 Sept. 1866, CC65/r739. LMC to James T. Fields, r8 Feb. r867, CC 661r764. LMC to James T. Fields, 9 Sept. 1866, CC 65/r739.
734 Chapter Nineteen Notes 72
73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84
85
86 87 88 89 90 91 92
"Letter from L. M. Child" and "A High-Flying Letter" by Mrs. L. M. Childs [sic], Independent 2 I and 28June 1866, CC651I726, 1727. See also "Illustrations of Human Progress," IndependentJIJan. 1867, CC 68/ 1809, which salutes the invention of "chromo-lithography" as a sign of the democratization of art and proceeds to comment on Edmonia Lewis, "half Indian and half African" as the embodiment of the coming new era when artists of color will "warm up our colder tastes. " In addition to these letters for the Independent, Child wrote another story for the Atlantic in Oct. 1865 - "Poor Chloe" (published in Mar. 1866)-and three stories for Fields's children's magazine, Our Young Folks: "Freddy's NewYear's Dinner" Guly 1865), "Grandfather's Chestuut-Tree" (Oct. 1865), and "The Two Christmas Evenings" Gan. 1866). LMC toJohn Sullivan Dwight, 13 Oct. 1866, CC65h74I. LMC to Anna Loring, 13 Feb. 1866, CC64/1709. LMC to Anna Loring and Harriet Sewall, 13 Feb. 1866, 30July 1868, CC641I709, 69h843. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 7 and 25 Sept. 1866, CC6S/1738 and SL 466. LMC to James T. Fields, 18 Feb. and I Mar. 1867, CC 66h764, 1766. LMC to James T. Fields, 30 Mar. 1867, CC66h768. LMC toJamesT. Fields, 14 and 17 May 1867, SL473, CC67h775' This is also the theme of Child's last story for the Atlantic, "Poor Chloe" (Mar. 1866), which depicts the harshness of slavery in New England. Lydia Maria Child, A Romance of the Republic (1867; Miami, Fla.: Mnemosyne, 1969) 401, 403, 409, 412,428-29,433. Further page references to this edition are given parenthetically in the text. LMC to Caroline Weston, 27 July 1838, SL 80. See chap. I I above for an account of Child's unsuccessful attempt to enable the slave woman Rosa to claim her freedom. For one of Child's tributes to the role of "mechanics" and working people in the abolitionist movement, see "Through the Red Sea into the Wilderness," cited and discussed at the beginning of this chapter. For an allusion to David's singing of "The Star Spangled Banner," see Alfred Wayland Cutting, Old-Time Wayland (privately printed, 1926) 47, quoted in chap. 18 above; Child also refers frequently in her Civil War correspondence to David's singing of the anthem. For Child's retort that she had "rather be a beast of burden, than a beast of prey," see LMC to William Cutler, 10July 1862, SL 413. Thanks to Donald Dingledine for tracking down this quotation for me. See LMC to Louisa Loring, 22 June 1845, CC 22/623: "Don't grudge me my enthusiasm about Ole Bul .... Such a gushing bubbling nature always had great charms for me .... " Also LMC to Anna Loring, 13-14 Oct. 1844, CC 20/578: "[Y]our father ... does not admire free, gushing, spontaneous characters so much as I do." LMC to George Kimball, 10 Apr. 1835, Cornell University Library Anti-Slavery Collection (not included in CC); LMC to Francis Shaw, 28 July 1867, CC67h789. Compare "Romantic Story: The Beautiful Slave," Liberator 7 July 1837, p. lIZ, with "Loo Loo. A Few Scenes from a True History," Atlantic Monthly 1-2 (May-June 1858): 801-12,32-42. "A Chat with the Editor of the Standard," Standard 14Jan. 1865, Liberator 20Jan. 1865, CC 61h616; "Illustrations of Human Progress," Independent 3r]an. 1867, CC 681I809. See Rebecca Harding Davis's Waiting for the Verdict (1867), Albion Tourgee's Toinette (1874), and William Dean Howells's An Imperative Duty (189 I), discussed at the end of this chapter. LMC to Caroline Weston, 7 Mar. 1839, SL 109. See chap. 14 above for an analysis of the harem trope in "Slavery's Pleasant Homes." Child based her description of the island scenery on Fanny Kemble's Journal ofa Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839 (1863; New York: Knopf, 1961). Praising it as "one of the most powerful of the agencies ... at work for the overthrow of slavery" during the war, she wrote of Kemble: "For a woman of her transcendent powers, accustomed to ease, elegance, and the excitement of perpetual adulation, to sympathize with those poor loathsome slaves as she did, and persist in rendering them such personal services as were in her power, indicates great nobility of soul. Then she saw through all
Visions of a Reconstructed America
93 94 95
96
97 98
99
roo lor
r02 103 104 105 106 107 108
109
735
the apologies for slavery with such clear, practical good sense!" See LMC to Oliver Johnson, published in the Standard 22 Aug. 1863, SL 435. Kemble's husband, Pierce Butler, may have been one of Child's models for Gerald Fitzgerald. See Child's account of the Circassians and her comments on the practices of the Turkish sultans in The History ofthe Condition ofWomen, in Various Ages and Nations (Boston: John Allen, 1835) I: 43-47. "Woman and Suffrage," Independent lOJan. 1867, CC 661I759. See chap. 20 below for a discussion of these articles and of the part Child took in the campaign for woman suffrage. John Bell, a Tennessee slaveholder, was the Constitutional Union candidate for president in 1860, and Edward Everett of Massachusetts was his vice presidential running mate. By naming her Massachusetts merchant Bell, Child is identifying him as a northern man with southern principles and underscoring the North's complicity in slavery. Child's use of this device should be compared with Twain's in Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894). She is careful to avoid the "blood will tell" interpretation of the two men's characters, not only by stressing the influence of environment more heavily than Twain does, but by portraying Gerald as an essentially good-hearted young man capable of outgrowing the defects of his slaveholder's upbringing. In contrast, Twain's Tom is an irredeemable villain. The device nevertheless remains double-edged, since the mechanical ingenuity, intelligence, and drive exhibited by Gerald's half brother could still be attributed by racist readers to his white identity. The body of criticism on Pudd'nhead Wilson is vast, and critics are divided as to whether Twain is exposing or succumbing to racist theories, or simply reflecting his own and his culture's confusion about race. See, for example, the essays collected in Susan Gillman and Forrest G. Robinson, eds., Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson: RPce, Conflict, and Culture (Durham, N.C.: Duke UP, 1990). LMC to Theodore Tilton, 7 Mar. r865, CC 61/1640. For an extended discussion of Child's relationship with Dolores, see chap. 15 above. Child was still corresponding with Dolores in the 1860s. Indeed, what may have helped suggest the idea of using her as a model for a fugitive slave was the fact that Dolores because of health problems requiring a warmer climate had moved to Charleston, South Carolina, with her husband and children just before the outbreak of the war. Willis's death occurred while Child was writing A Romance of the Republic, reawakening her memories of their courtship; see LMC to Marianne Silsbee, 5 Feb. [1867], CC661r761a, quoted in chap. 2 above; on Willis's reviews of The Frugal Housewife, see chap. 6 above. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 7 Sept. 1866, SL 464. LMC to Eliza Scudder, 6 Feb. r870, SL 488-89. See also LMC to Sarah Shaw, 18June 1876, SL 535: "There have been many attempts to saddle and bridle me, and teach me to keep step in respectable processions; but they have never got the lasso over my neck yet; and 'old hoss' as I am now, ifI see the lasso in the air, I snort and gallop off, determined to be a free horse to the last, and put up with the consequent lack of grooming and stabling." LMC to Sarah Shaw, 20 Feb. 1857, CC 36/992. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 7 Sept. 1866, SL 464. See LMC to Louisa and Anna Loring, 24June 1849, CC 271753, and I3 Feb. 1866, CC 641r709. LMC to Marianne Silsbee, 1 Feb. 1857, SL 303-4' Responding to a peace overture from Marianne, Child is recalling the circumstances of their estrangement. I am indebted to Jean Fagan Yellin for pointing this out in her commentary on a paper that provided the basis for the present chapter. "Illustrations of Human Progress," Independent 31 Jan. 1868, CC 68/ 1809. I am indebted for this insight to H. Bruce Franklin's critique of an early draft of this chapter. "Qlla podrida" is the phrase Child uses to describe the mixture of English, Spanish, and French that Flora and Rosa speak between themselves (32,149). LMC to Louisa Loring, 24 May 1867, CC67/1776. The occasion for the letter was the ninth anniversary of Loring's death.
736 I 10 III 112 I I
3
114
115
116 17 118
I
119
120
121
122
Chapter Nineteen Notes See LMC to Louisa Loring, 15 Jan. 1847, SL 235; quotations are from LMC to Louisa Loring, 24 May, 1867, CC 671r 776. [Theodore Tilton], review of A Romance of the Republic, Independent 10 Oct. 1867, p. 2. LMC to Lucy Osgood, [rr?-I9? Feb. 1856], SL 276. See chap. 15 above on the feelings of guiltfor illicit sexual desires that lie behind this "pilgrimage of penance." Mary V. Dearborn, Pocahontas's Daughters: Gender and Ethnicity in American Culture (New York: Oxford UP, 1986) 151. For a brief account of Loring's relationship with Morris, see James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton, Black Bostonians: Family Life and Community Stroggle in the Antebellum Nonh (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1979) 56. I have also drawn on notes compiled by the research assistants who worked on Meltzer and Holland's edition of Child's letters. I am grateful to Milton Meltzer for passing them on to me. Morris met the Lorings while working as a "table boy" for the King family, and they subsequently hired him from the Kings. Loring first promoted Morris to the status of law copyist in his office, then of law clerk, and finally trained him for the bar. In 1849 Morris helped Charles Sumner argue the desegregaton case of Sarah C. Roberts vs. The City ofBoston before the Massachusetts Supreme Courta case decided against them by ChiefJustice Lemuel Shaw. Child knew Morris well and presented him with a copy of Olaudah Equiano's narrative while he was clerking for Loring. See LMC to Robert Morris, I9June 1864, CC 591r567. LMC toJohn Greenleaf Whittier and Henrietta Sargent, 22 Sept. 1861 and 3 Mar. 1865, CC 4911337 and 611I639. The "intelligent colored friend" mentioned in the letter to Sargent may be another person Child helped, but she was certainly involved in the abolitionist community's efforts on Morris's behalf. Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology ofthe Republican Party before the Civil T-Vtzr (New York: Oxford UP, 1970) 25. See Berlin et a!., Black Military Experience, chaps. 6 and 8. [Thomas Wentworth Higginson], "Negro Spirituals," Atlantic Monthly 19 Gune 1867): 685-94; William Francis Allen, Charles Pickard Ware, and Lucy McKim Garrison, Slave Songs of the United States (New York: A. Simpson, 1867). For a superb discussion of those songs and their reception by nineteenth-century white audiences, see H. Bruce Franklin, The VICtim as Criminal and Anist: Literature from the American Prison (New York: Oxford UP, 1978) 73-98. See the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. Written by Himself(I845; New York: Doubleday, 1963), chap. 2; Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855; New York: Dover, 1969) 252-53, 278-79; Narrative of William W Brown, A Fugitive Slave. Written by Himself (Boston: Anti-Slavery Office, 1847) 51-52; and [Charlotte L. Forten], "Life on the Sea Islands," Atlantic Monthly 13 (May/June 1864): 587-96,666-76. See Child's letter to Ellis Loring of 24 Feb. 1856, expressing her "towering indignation" at the legal necessity of having her will signed by David: "[I]f you had been by, you would have made the matter worse by repeating your old manly 'fling and twit' about married women being dead in the law.... I was indignant for womankind made chattels personal from the beginning of time, perpetually insulted by literature, law, and custom. The very phrases used with regard to us are abominable. 'Dead in the law,' 'Femme couverte.' How I detest such language!" (SL 279). Three recent interpretations of A Romance of the Republic arrive at similar conclusions by different routes. See Dana D. Nelson, The Word in Black and White: Reading "Race" in American Literature, r 638r867 (New York: Oxford UP, 1992) 78-89; Shirley Samuels, "The Identity of Slavery," The Culture of Sentiment: Race, Gender, and Sentimentality in Nineteenth-Century America, ed. Shirley Samuels (New York:· Oxford UP, 1992) 157-71; and Mark R. Patterson, "Redefining Motherhood: Surrogacy and Race in American Reconstruction," paper presented at the American Studies Association convention, Baltimore, fall 1991. See Frances E. W Harper,lola Leroy; or, Shadows Uplifted (1892; Boston: Beacon P, 1987) chaps. 8, 13, and 25. Quotations on 233, 235.
Visions of a Reconstructed America
737
123 C[harlotte] L. F[orten], "Waiting for the Verdict," Standard zz Feb. 1868, p. 3. 124 Rebecca Harding Davis, Waiting for the Verdict (1867; Upper Saddle River, NJ.: Gregg P, 1968). Quotations from prefatory note and on 10, 295, and 310. In her review Forten points out these and other passages implying that "prejudice against color is instinctive in and natural to the whites." She also criticizes Davis's portrayal of Broderip as unrealistic: a man of Broderip's attainments "is not 'cowed' before a white skin, even ifhis own be black. Imagine Frederick Douglass (and he was a slave until manhood) cringing before a man because his skin is white!" Writing to Charlotte Forten to thank her for her "beautiful allusion to 'The Romance of The Republic,' " Child commented of Davis: "I have not read 'Waiting for the Verdict.' ... [A]II her writings excite more or less antagonism in my mind. In her views of things she seems to me to drift about, without any rudder or compass of moral principles. It is a pity, for she has a powerful intellect. I have thought several times that she was confused in her ideas as to which was the right side, the U.S. or the Rebellion; a thing not to be wondered at, considering she is a Virginian." See LMC to Charlotte Forten, 6 Mar. 1868, rpt. in Anna J[ulia] Cooper, ed., The Life and Writings of the Grimki Family (privately printed, 1951) 14-15; not included in CC. Child was probably referring particularly to Davis's stories "John Lamar" and "Blind Torn," Atlantic Monthly 9 (Apr. 1862): 411-23 and 10 (Nov. 1862): 580-85. For a similar reading of Waitingfor the Verdict, which concludes that the novel offers "no hope for mulattoes," short of "avoiding the miscegenation which produces them," see James Kinney, Amalgamation! Race, Sex, and Rhetoric in the Nineteenth-Century American Novel (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood P, 1985) 106-9. For a reading that presents Davis as critiquing rather than endorsing her heroine's prejudice, see Sharon M. Harris, Rebecca Harding Davis and American Realism (Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1991) 133-36. Judith R. Berzon, Neither White Nor Black: The Mulatto Character in American Fiction (New York: New York UP, 1978), also finds Broderip sympathetically treated (146-48, 195-96). The most nuanced and sensitive reading of Verdict to date is Donald Dingledine's introduction to the forthcoming NCUP edition. 125 Anna E. Dickinson, What Answer? (1868; Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries P, 1972) 9-II, 174-75, 185,237-38,264-65,297-98; LMC to the Editor of the Independent, Independent 8 Oct. 1868, CC 701r856. Chief among the "merits" Child found in What Answer? was that Dickinson's "terribly graphic account" of the Draft Riots would deter voters in the upcoming election from supporting the Democratic candidate, Horatio Seymour, an "accomplice" of the mob. The anonymous review of What Answer? in the Nation by young Henry James provides yet another telling instance of the ideological forces (here masquerading as aesthetic principles) arrayed against Child's efforts to use fiction as a means of transforming her readers' political consciousness. See "Injurious Works and Injurious Criticism," Nation 29 Oct. 1868, pp. 346-47 . James begins by deriding "Mrs. Stowe and Mrs. Lydia Maria Child" for having "praised [What Answer?] lavishly on the ground that, whatever it may be as a novel, it is, as 'a deed,' a noble deed and a brave one." I am grateful to Joan Hedrick for bringing this review to my attention and identifying its author asJames. 126 Toinette, by Henry Churton (New York: J. B. Ford, 1874), chap. 50; Albion W. Tourgee, A Royal Gentleman (1881). Tourgee's squeamishness is all the more disconcerting in view of the extraordinary insights he displays in his powerful novels about Reconstruction, A Fool's Errand (1879) and Bricks without Straw (1880). For Child's reaction toA Fool's Errand, see chap. 21 below. 127 William Dean Howells, An Imperative Duty (1891; New York: Harper and Brothers, 1893) 25-26,38, 44,85,87,142,148-49. Howells's title refers ostensibly to the duty Rhoda's guardian feels to disclose her racial identity, but it seems to have broader implications. Harper may well have intended lola Leroy as an answer to Howells's misplaced condescension. Other critics have interpreted An Imperative Duty more charitably. Kinney, for example, argues that "Howells debunks the romantic emotionalism surrounding miscegenation" and "ridicules the stereotypic characters and situations found in" earlier novels on the subject (Amalgamation 137). Berzon claims that "Howells manages to transcend ... formula ... and produce a genuine satire which exposes the racist assumptions and ideology of the tragic mulatto novel" (Neither White Nor Black 114). Edwin H. Cady, The Realist at War: The Mature
738
128 129
130 131
132 133
134
Chapter Nineteen Notes Years, r885-1920, ofWilliam Dean HoweJls(Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse UP, 1958), concedes that Howells "was devoted to ideas about race which now seem outmoded," but he argues that "Howells' views were not limited to those of Dr. Olney. Howells does not hope that the Negro will disappear into the general nation via miscegenation or any other route" (16o, 162). See also Anne Ward Amacher, "The Genteel Primitivist and the Semi-Tragic Octoroon," New England Quarterly 29 aune 1956): 216-27; and Thomas W. Ford, "Howells and the American Negro," Texas Studies in Literature and Language 5 (Winter 1964): 530-37. Scenes in which characters react with physical revulsion to blacks after discovering their hidden ancestry abound in white-authored fiction, however, and are rare or nonexistent in black-authored fiction. For another example, see Sarah Barnwell Elliott, "The Heart of It," The Signet Classic Book of Southern Stories, ed. Dorothy Abbott and Susan Koppelman (New York: New American Library, 1991) II6-3 I. LMC to Francis Shaw, 28July 1867, CC67iI789. LMC to Eliza Scudder and Louisa Loring, I I Aug. 1867 and I Jan. 1868, CC 67/1791, 681r806. The views of Child's friends, quoted above, are all drawn from these two letters, since Child unfortunately did not preserve the originals. LMC to Robert Purvis, 14 Aug. 1868, SL 482-83. Again, Child is quoting from Purvis's letter, which she did not preserve. [Theodore Tilton], review of A Romance of the Republic, Independent 1O Oct. 1867, p. 2. In her letter thanking Tilton for "so complimentary" a review, Child nevertheless expressed some annoyance that he had confessed to preferring the "agreeable" Fitzgerald to the high-minded King, on whom he complained that "his broadcloth sits a trifle stiffly." Child replied that she had deliberately accentuated King's "Bostonian" primness and "conscientiousness" as a "contrast to the impulsive and slippery S. Carolinian." She added: "That you prefer the latter is a proof of your total depravity" (a joking reference to his Calvinistic belief in Original Sin). See LMC to Theodore Tilton, 27 Oct. 1867, CC 67 1r 797· Thomas Wentworth Higginson, "Lydia Maria Child" (1868), in Contemporaries, vol. 2 of The Writings ofThomas Wentworth Higginson (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1900) 137-38. Higginson had written to the Shaws and Louisa Loring to ask whether he might have access to Child's letters for the purposes of preparing his biographical sketch of her. Although Child liked and admired Higginson, she reacted with outrage to "[t]his mousing round after my private sentiments" and complained: "I don't think anybody has a right to make a biography of a person who does not wish to have it done." She later offered mollifyinglyto leave her papers to him as a legacy (a pledge she did not keep). See LMC to Sarah Shaw and T. W. Higginson, 18 Feb. 1868,21 Feb. 1871, SL 477, 499. Review of A Romance of the Republic, Standard 10 Aug. 1867, p. 3. The novel also received a favorable review in the Nation, a moderate abolitionist journal. See "Two Books by Mrs. Child," Nation 15 Aug. 1867, pp. 127-28 (the second book was, appropriately, a new edition of Fact and Fiction). However, the reviewer judged that neither book was fit for young readers.
20
A Radical OldAge
LMC to Sarah Shaw, 7 Sept. 1866, SL 464. For similar statements, see LMC to Sarah Shaw, 18 May 1862, CC 52iI4IO; LMC to Parke Godwin, 13 Dec. 1864, CC6o/1605; andLMC to [Lucy Osgood?], 14 Aug. 1865, CC 63/1677, and 9 July 1869, CC 711I902. This chapter has benefited from the helpful criticisms of Deborah Clifford and members of the 1993 Dartmouth Spring Institute on the U.S. and Its Others, especially Amy Kaplan, Donald Pease, Nancy Bentley, Shalom Goldman, and Keith Walker. 2 In addition to the many included in Meltzer and Holland's microfiche edition of Child's Collected Correspondence, I have found the following important articles on Reconstruction, Indian policy, woman suffrage, the annexation controversy, economic issues, and the Franco-Prussian War in the Standard, the Independent, the Woman sAdvocate, and the Woman sJournal: "Indian Civilization," Independent 1I
A Radical Old Age
3
4 5 6 7
8
9 10
II
12 I3
739
Feb. 1869, p. I; "Hon. Geo. W. Julian vs. Land Monopoly," Standard 13 Mar. 1869, p. 2; "Homesteads," Standard 20 Mar. 1869, p. 2; "The Radicals," Independent 19 Aug. 1869, p. I, rpt. in Standard 28 Aug. 1869, p. I; "Women and the Freedmen," Standard 28 Aug. 1869, p. 2, rpt. in Woman's Advocate I (Oct. 1869): 190-92; "Concerning Women," Independent 2 I Oct. 1869, p. I, rpt. in Standard 30 Oct. 1869, p. I; "Women and Minors," Standard 23 Oct. 1869, p. 2; "The Indians," Standard n.S. I (May 1870): 1-6; "Letter from Lydia Maria Child, 15 Dec. 1870, Woman's Journal 24 Dec. 1870, p. 405; "Dominica and Hayti," National Standard 28 Jan. 1871, pp. 4-5; "The Franco-Prussia War," Independent 9 Feb. 1871, p. I; "Rejection of the Hon. Charles Sumner," National Standard 18 Mar. 1871, pp. 45; "Economy and Work," National Standard 5 Aug. 1871, pp. 4-5; "Two Significant Sculptures," Woman's Journal 9 Mar. 1872, p. 76; "Diamonds in the Ditt," Woman's Journal 30 Mar. 1872, p. 99; "A Glance at the State of Things," Boston Journal 16 July r872, p. 3; "The Present Aspect of Political Affairs," Woman's Journal 10 Aug. 1872, p. 252; "Physical Strength of Women, " Woman's Journal IS Mar. 1873, p. 84; "A Mistake Corrected-Letter from Mrs. Child," Woman'sJournalz2 Mar. 1873, p. 92; "Is Intellectuality the Bane of American Women?," Woman'sJournal I9July 1873, p. 228; "Samuel J. May," Woman's Journal 30 Aug. 1873, p. 276. This list does not include articles on miscellaneous nonpolitical subjects, nor does it include the letters and articles Patricia G. Holland has kindly made available to me from her file of those found since the microfilming of CC. Child showed great sympathy for Irish immigrants in the 1840s; see, for example, her story "The Irish Heart," in Fact and Fiction: A Collection ofStories (New York: C. S. Francis, 1846) 77-90; also Letter 33 of Lettersfrom New York (1843; Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries P, 1970), in which she proclaimed: "I love the Irish. Blessings on their warm hearts, and their leaping fancies!" (243). Like many abolitionists, she turned against them only after Irish Americans embraced the Democratic party's implacable hostility to abolition and blacks. The increasing power they acquired as a voting bloc may also account for her change of attitude. LMC to Lucy Osgood, 9 July 1869, CC 71/x902. "Letter from L. Maria Child," National Standard 17 Sept. 1870, CC 74/ 1959a. LMC to Harriet Sewall and Sarah Shaw, 27 Nov. and 12 Dec. 1871, CC 76/2017,2018. The NationalAnti-Slavery Standard ceased publication on 16 Apr. 1870, to be replaced on 30 Apr. 1870 by the monthly Standard (May-July 1870), subsequently retitled the National Standard and reissued as a weekly through Dec. 1871, then as a monthly throughout 1872, after which it merged with the National Temperance Advocate. Child's last article for the monthly National Standard dates from Aug. 1872. By then, however, she had shifted to such concerns as the "intermingling of religions," temperance, and the ill effects of tobacco smoking, in addition to woman suffrage (though she reserved articles on suffrage for the Woman's Journal). I will continue to refer to the National Anti-Slavery Standard simply as the Standard, but I will use the title National Standard in footnotes referring to the latter. LMC to Samuel Sewall, 2 I Mar. 1868, SL 478. See chaps. 18 and 19 above for more discussion of the factional dispute between Garrison's and Phillips's adherents; for a full-length study, see James M. McPherson, The Struggk for Equality: Abolitionists and tbe Negro in the Civil Uizr and Reconstruction (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1964) chap. 13. LMC to Oliver Johnson, 22 Sept. 1868, Medford Public Library. I am grateful to Patricia Holland for making available to me the file of newly discovered Child letters that contains this one. "Letter from Mr. and Mrs. D. L. and L. Maria Child," I Jan. 1868, Standard 15 Feb. 1868, p. 2, CC 681r807. Child details her income in LMC to Sarah Shaw, 2 Feb. 1868, SL 475. On the lessons that abolitionists drew from the West Indian experience during Reconstruction, see Eric Foner, Nothing But Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1983). McPherson, Struggle for Equality 382; William Gillette, Retreat from Reconstruction, 1869-1879 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1979) 7-10. McPherson, Strugglefor Equality 383-84; "The President's Message," Standard 14 Dec. 1867, pp. 1-2. LMC to Samuel E. Sewall, 21 Mar. 1868, SL 478; also LMC to Louisa Loring, 6 Mar. 1868, CC 681I8r6.
740
Chapter Twenty Notes
14 "Letter from Mrs. Lydia Maria Child," Standard 28 Mar. 1868, p. 2, CC 6811822. 15 See, for example, Gillette, Retreat from Reconstruction 11-12; and Hans L. Trefousse, The Radical Republicans: Lincoln's Vanguard for Racial Justice (New York: Knopf, 1969) chap. I I. For less negative interpretations of the impeachment attempt, see Eric F oner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, r863-1877 (New York: Harper and Row, 1988) 333-38; and McPherson, Struggle for Equality 384-85. 16 "Letter from L. Maria Child," [before 13 May 1868], Standard 23 May 1868, p. I, CC 6911831. 17 "Hon. Geo. WJulian vs. Land Monopoly," Standard 13 Mar. 1869, p. 2; "Homesteads," Standard 20 Mar. 1869, p. 2; LMC to George W Julian, 27 Mar. 1864, SL 439-40, quoted in chap. 18. "Homesteads" is especially effective, using as a vehicle the story of a freedman named Moses Fisher, who "after wearing out his muscles with incessant toil for three years, will not own one rood of the land he has cleared." See also "Letter from L. Maria Child," National Standard 8 Apr. 1871, pp. 4-5 CC 751I989a, discussed at the end of this chapter. 18 "Letter from L. Maria Child," Standard 23 May 1868, p. I, CC 69/1831. 19 LMC to Lucy Osgood, 4 and 28 Feb. 1869, SL 484, CC 7011886; LMC to Theodore Tilton, 7 Mar. 1865, CC 6111640. 20 "The Importance of One Vote," Independent 8 Oct. 1868, CC 70/1857; "A Word to Voters," Standard 26 Sept. 1868, p. 2, CC 691x853. 2I LMC to Anna Loring and Sarah Shaw, 10 Nov. 1868 and [before 17 Jan. 1869], CC 7011860, 1872. 22 "Letter from L. Maria Child," Standard 12 Dec. 1868, p. 2, CC 70/1862. 23 McPherson, Struggle for Equality 424-27; Theodore Tilton, "The New Architecture of Reconstruction," Independent I I Feb. 1869, p. 4; Wendell Phillips, "Congress," Standard 20 Feb. 1869, p. 2. Phillips was instrumental in encouraging abolitionists and Radicals to settle for pragmatism; he astutely predicted that under Grant, whose tendency was toward moderation and reconciliation, Radicals would not succeed in mobilizing as much support for their programs as they had under Johnson, whose bitter hostility had polarized Congress and driven moderates into the Radical camp. 24 D. L. Child and L.Maria Child, "A Few Words about the Standard," Standard 25 Dec. 1869, CC 97 1z 562 . 25 "Letter from D. L. and L. Maria Child," Standard 16 Apr. 1870, p. I, CC 7311942. 26 Note the continuities with The First Settlers of New-England (1829), where Child had argued that incorporating Indians into the American body politic would serve as a buffer against hordes of ignorant white immigrants (see chap. 4 above). 27 On the views of elitists like Charles Francis Adams and E. L. Godkin, see Richard Slotkin, The Fatal Environment: The Myth of the Frontier in the Age oflndustrialiZtltion, r800-1890 (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan UP, 1985) 298-99; and Foner, Reconstruction 492-93. For a succinct expression of Godkin's views, see his article "Legislation and Social Science," Journal ofSocial Science 3 (1871): I I 5-32. 28 "Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society," Standard 5 Feb. 1870, pp. 1-2; C[harlotte] L. F[orten], "The Festival," Standard 12 Feb. 1870, p. 2. 29 LMC to Sarah Parsons, Eliza Scudder, and Lucy Osgood, 5, 6, and 14 Feb. 1870, CC 72lx924 and 1926, SL 489-90; Lucy Osgood to LMC, 9 Feb. 1870, CC7211927. 30 "Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society," Standard 5 Feb. 1870, pp. I -2. Wendell Phillips and Aaron M. Powell, editor of the Standard, both stressed the importance of securing land to the freedpeople, as did the business committee's resolutions. On Osgood see n. 20 above. 31 LMC to Abby Kelley Foster 28 Mar. 1869 SL 485-86; also LMC to Harriet Winslow Sewall, 5 Dec. 1869, CC 7211917; see also Child's articles "Hon. Geo. W Julian vs. Land Monopoly," Standard 13 Mar. 1869, p. 2; and "Homesteads," Standard 20 Mar. 1869, p. 2. Abby and her husband Stephen Foster were members of the business committee that drafted the society's resolutions on land, which went even further than Child was prepared to by specifying that the freed people needed "pecuniary aid" to purchase land. See also Wendell Phillips's editorial, "The Negro's Claim," Standard 29 Jan. 1870, p. 2, which argues (against Tribune editor Horace Greeley's dictum that "Root, hog, or die" was
A Radical Old Age
32
741
the best advice to give blacks): "The Nation owes [blacks) one-seventh of all the wealth we hold. Freedom is only an instalment of the debt we owe the Negro. Every Negro family can justly claim forty acres ofland, one year's support, a furnished cottage, a mule and farm tools, and free schools for life." On the reasons for the failure to achieve the goal of land redistribution, see Foner, Reconstruction 153-
70 . 33 LMC to Sarah Parsons and Eliza Scudder, 5 and 6 Feb. 1870, SL488-89, CC721I924. 34 For different versions of this internecine conflict, see Elizabeth Cady Stanton et aI., History of Woman Suffrage (New York: Fowler and Wells, 1882) 2: chaps. 17-19,21; Ellen Carol DuBois, Feminism and Suffrage: The Emergence of an Independent Women's Movement in America, 1848-1869 (Ithaca, N.¥.: Cornell UP, 1978); Elisabeth Griffith, In Her Own Right: Tbe Life ofElizabeth Cady Stanton (New York: Oxford UP, 1984) chap. 8; and Andrea Moore Kerr, Lucy Stone: Speaking Out for Equality (New Brunswick, N.].: Rutgers UP, 1992) chaps. 8-9. I am grateful to Kerr for making her manuscript available to me before its publication. 35 See LMC to Sarah Shaw and DLC, 3 Aug. and 27 Oct. 1856, SL 289-91, 294-96, and other letters cited in chap. ,6 above; see also "The Kansas Emigrants." 36 DuBois, Feminism and Suffrage 60, 62; Stanton et aI., History of Woman Suffrage 2: 96-97. Meltzer and Holland report that "[n]othing in Child's papers or the National Archives collection of such petitions either supports or refutes the claim," SL 467. 37 "Mrs. L. M. Child, in a letter to Mrs. E. C. Stanton, thus expresses her sentiments ... ," Independent 6 Dec. ,866, SL 467-68. 38 "Woman and Suffrage," Independent 10Jan. 1867, p. 1, and 17 Jan. 1867, p. I, CC 661I759-1760, SL 468-72. The article Child was refuting was by Tayler Lewis, "Household Suffrage," Independent 6 Dec. 1866, p. ',and 20 Dec. 1866, p. 1. Lewis favored black suffrage, but not woman suffrage, which, he warned, would endanger the unity of the family and the authority of the husband and father. 39 Quoted in DuBois, Feminism and Suffrage 63; History of Woman Suffrage 2: 94ll. 40 "Letter from Mrs. L. Maria Child" to Caroline Severance, 16 Oct. 1868, "The New England Woman's Rights Convention," Standard 5 Dec. 1868, p. 3. Interestingly, the version of this letter reprinted in the Jan. 1869 Woman's Advocate deleted the references to black suffrage (I: 58-59). Child's letter was also quoted by Theodore Tilton in his Editorial Notcs, Independent 3 Dec. 1868, p. 4. 41 Kerr, Lucy Stone, 127-29, 13' (my quotations are taken partially from the original manuscript; the published version omits a description of Train's clothing). For accounts of the Train alliance from Stanton's and Anthony's point of view, see DuBois, Feminism and Suffrage chap. 3, and Griffith, In Her Own Right chap. 8. 42 LMC to Samuel Sewall and Sarah Shaw, 21 Mar. 1868, SL 478; [Sept.? 1869], CC 721r 909. 43 LMC to Samuel Sewall, 2 I Mar. 1868, SL 478; "Women and the Freedmen," Standard 28 Aug., 1869, p. 2; rpt. in Woman'sAdvocate 1 (Oct. 1869): 190-92. For a similar viewpoint, see the response of Abby Kelley Foster to Lucy Stone, quoted in Dorothy Sterling's splendid biography Ahead ofHer Time: Abby Kelley and the Politics of Antislavery (New York: Norton, '991) 347. Stone eventually abandoned her own opposition to a Fifteenth Amendment that did not include women. For corroboration of Child's assertions regarding the "sneering" racist tone of Stanton's attacks on the Fifteenth Amendment, her opportunistic appeal to southern white women, and her characterization of the freedmen as antifeminist, see Stanton et aI., History of Woman Suffrage 2: 316, 318, 333-35, 353-55. 44 LMC to Sarah Shaw, [Sept.? 1869], SL 486-87. 45 "Concerning Women," Independent I5July 1869, p. 1, CC711I903, and 21 Oct. 1869, p. 1 (not in CC';. The latter is the lead article. 46 "Concerning Women," Independent 15 July 1869, p. I, CC 711r903. 47 "Concerning Women," Independent 2 I Oct. 1869, p. 1. See also "Physical Strength of Women," Woman's JOUT7Ul1 15 Mar. I 873, p. 84, in which Child develops this theme in greater detail. 48 "ConcemingWomen," Independent 21 Oct. r869,P. 1 (notinCC';. 49 LMC to Charles Sumner, 4July 1870, SL 495. Child expressed herself even more strongly in a letter of
742
50 51 52
53 54 55
56
57 58 59
60 61 62 63 64
Chapter Twenty Notes 9July 1872, Sumner Papers, Houghton Library, bMS Am I (not in CC): "If! were to give free vent to all my pent-up wrath concerning the subordination of women, I might frighten you . ... Either the theory of our government is faise, or women have a right to vote." LMC to Lucy Stone, II Nov. 1870, published in Cleveland Daily Leader 24 Nov. 1870, p. I, under "Woman Suffrage, Second Day's Proceedings," not in CC, courtesy of Patricia Holland. LMC to Francis Shaw, 2 Aug. 1846, SL 229; LMC to Louisa Loring, 15Jan. 1847, SL 235. For evidence that other feminists did not view the issue of interracial marriage as less controversial than divorce, see Anthony's caution to Stanton against publicly approving of Frederick Douglass's marriage to a white woman: "I do hope you won't put your foot into the question of intermarriage of the races. You know very well that if you plunge in ... your endorsement will be charged upon me and the whole association." Quoted in Griffith, In Her Own Right 184. On the two suffragists' marriages, see Griffith, In Her Own Right chap. 6, and Kerr, Lucy Stone chaps. 910. "Letter from Lydia Maria Child," 15 Dec. 1870, Woman~ Journal 24 Dec. 1870, p. 405 (not in CC). "Concerning Woman Suffrage," WomansJournal I July 1871, p. 204 (not in CC); Mary Livermore to LMC, I Aug. 1871, CC7612OO7. Child was replying to Joseph P. Thompson, "Lessons from the Fate of Paris, " Independent 8 June 1871, p. I. As its tide indicates, Thompson's article was aimed primarily at drawing lessons from the Paris Commune; in fact, his analysis of the Franco-Prussian War was very similar to Child's, except that one of the lessons he drew from the French troubles was that government would be further degraded, rather than purified, by the conferral of political power on women. Besides praising Child's refutation of Thompson, Livermore asked Child to "furnish four articles" she could use as editorials for four successive weeks beginning 12 Aug. Child apparently tried to comply-she furnished two. Here, Child was simultaneously replying to the author of the Liberal Christian article and to Clarke, whose theories the former was invoking. Child does not seem to have undertaken a direct refutation of Clarke, though she praised Elizabeth Stuart Phelps for cutting him up "with a sharp knife" in an article in the Independent. "With regard to Dr. Clarke, I do not believe his theory," she wrote to her niece. She added in language echoing her reply to the Liberal Christian polemicist: "Doubtless, women who are so much engrossed with study as to neglect physical exercise, will lose their health; and so will men. I have known many more cases of young men who have injured their health in that way, than I have of young women." See LMC to Sarah Parsons, 31 Jan. 1874, CC 811zI32. On Clarke, see Kerr, Lucy Stone 181. "Is Intellectuality the Bane of American Women?," Woman~Journal 19July 1873, p. 228 (not in CC). Quoted in Kerr, Lucy Stone 168-69. On the long-term impact of Victoria Woodhull and the Beecher-Tilton scandal, see Kerr, Lucy Stone 175-77,188-89; Griffith,ln Her Own Right 147-53, 156-58; and Nancy Woloch, Women and the American Experience (New York: Knopf, 1984) chap. I 3. For a fascinating inside view of the scandal from the different perspectives of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Isabella Beecher Hooker, see Jeanne Boydston, Mary Kelley, and Anne Margolis, eds., The Limits ofSisterhood: The Beecher Sisters on Women S Rights and Woman ~ Sphere (Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1988). The scandal dragged on until 1875, when a hung jury in effect exonerated Beecher. Child eventually became convinced of Beecher's innocence, though she found his behavior "very deficient in common sense." She especially deprecated the effect of the scandal on "public morals." See LMC to Sarah Shaw, Sarah Parsons, and Sarah and Francis Shaw, 7 Aug. 1874, SL 525-26; 3 Sept. 1874, CC831z 174; and I I and 18 Apr. 1875, CC851z227, 2229. LMC to Lucy Osgood and Anna Loring Dresel, 12 Feb. and I Mar. 1872, SL 504, CC 78/2041. LMC to Harriet Sewall, 27 Nov. 1871, CC761zo17. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 12 Dec. 1871, CC 761z018; also LMC to Harriet Sewall, 27 Nov. 1871, CC 761zo1 7· "A Soul's Victory over Circumstances," Woman'sJournal 16 Sept. 1871, pp. 294-95. See David A. Nichols, Lincoln and the Indians: Civil Wtlr Policy and Politics (Columbia: U of Missouri P, 1978), esp. chaps. 3-7,9, and 12.
A Radical Old Age 65 66 67
68 69 70
7I
72
743
See the discussion of "The Kansas Emigrants" in chap. 16 above. LMC to John Greenleaf Whittier, 2Jan. 1857 and [May? 1865], SL 301, CC62/1666. Child also tried to persuade Wendell Phillips to do a lecture on Osceola: 5 July 1868, CC 9612 56!. On Beeson's Indian advocacy work, see Robert Winston Mardock, The Reformers and the American Indian (Columbia: U of Missouri P, 1971). According to Mardock, "Beeson's pre-Civil War crusade reached its climax on October 9, 1859, at a public meeting in Boston's Faneuil Hall," at which Wendell Phillips likewise spoke (I I). The Liberator of 8 Mar. 186 I, p. 40, also reports that Beeson presided over a "Convention for the Indians" on 26 Feb. 1861 (not mentioned by Mardock). Child refers in her "Appeal for the Indians" to hearing Beeson's "public testimony concerning the outrages committed within his own knowledge" (in Carolyn L. Karcher, ed. HOBOMOK and Other Writings on Indians [New Brunswick, N.].: Rutgers UP, 1986] 224). She also reports a conversation with Beeson in "The Indians," Standardn.s. I (May 1870): 4. Whether Child attended the 1859 or the 1861 meeting or both is not clear, but by mid-October 1859 she would have been too preoccupied by John Brown to turn her attention to the Indian question. The composition of "Willie Wharton" in early 1861 suggests that it may have been inspired by the Feb. 1861 convention, or possibly by a personal encounter with Beeson during his visit to Boston at that time. Child was unusually active in attending meetings during the winter of 1860-61, when she was staying in Medford with Lucy Osgood. Although "Willie Wharton" was not published until 1863, Child reports having submitted a story titled "Willie and Wikanee" to the Knickerbocker, which she expected to appear in the Mar. or Apr. I 86 I number, and which she asked to have returned to her when it did not. See LMC to Oliver Johnson, 3 Jun. 1861, CC 481I 310. She resubmitted the story, now titled "Willie Wharton," to James T. Fields, publisher of the Atlantic, by Feb. 1862 and added an introductory paragraph at his request. See LMC to James T. Fields, 26 Feb. 1862, CC 5Iir391. On the composition of A Romance ofthe Republic, see LMC to Francis Shaw, 28July 1867, CC 67ir789, cited and discussed in chap. 19 above. "Willie Wharton," Atlantic Monthly I I (March 1863): 324-45. Quotation on 335. Further page references to the story are given parenthetically in the text. Child airs her theories about clairvoyance in many works, among them Philothea; Letters from New York. Second Series, Letters 4,22; "The Ancient Clairvoyant" and "Spirit and Matter" in Autumnal Leaves 269-301; and The Progress of Religious Ideas. She submitted another article about clairvoyant phenomena to the Atlantic at the same time as "Willie Wharton." See LMC to James T. Fields, 26 Feb. 1862, CC ph 391, and "Spirits," Atlantic Monthly 9 (May 1862): 578-84. See also her article "Things Unaccountable," Independent 25 Mar. 1869, CC 7 I II 891. Child's leaning toward mysticism gave her an intuitive synrpathy for the visionary aspect of American Indian culture. For an American Indian analogue to the simultaneous visions of}enny Wharton and her son, see Black Elk Speaks: Being the Lifo Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux, as Told Through John G. Neihardt (Flaming Rainbow) (1932; Lincoln, U of Nebraska P, 1988) 226-29. Child's views on assimilation and intermarriage should be compared with those of the writers cited by Brian W Dippie, The Vanishing American: White Attitudes and U.S. Indian Policy (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan UP, 1982) chap. 15. According to Dippie, a few writers of the late nineteenth century maintained that" 'the harmonious blending of the two races' was 'the great solution of the Indian question,''' and this opinion became quite "widely accepted" at the turn of the century (248). Dippie points out, however, that "red-white amalgamation was being proposed in a context of racial segregation in the South, imperialism abroad, and nativism at home" and that it was never extended to other racial groups; nor was it ever "generally condoned," even in the case of Indians: "Acceptance was almost always conditional on circumstances and the pairings involved" (250, 257). For a description of the "bloomer costume" and a brief account of mid-nineteenth-century dress reform efforts, see Griffith, In Her Own Right 71-72. A very similar costume, minus the belt, is still worn today in Turkey, Pakistan, and India. The only American Indian features of A-Iee-lah's costume are the gaiters.
744 73
74 75
76
77
78 79
80
81
Chapter Twenty Notes "'Friends' among the Indians. Letter from Mary B. Lightfoot," Standard 4 Sept. 1869, p. 1. The tumof-the-century Sioux writer Zitkala-Sa describes the traumatic effects of such forced "civilization" in "The School Days of an Indian Girl," Atlantic Muntbly 85 (Feb. 1900): 185-94, rpt. in her American Indian Stories (192 I; Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1985) 47-80. For a splendid analysis and critique of this forced schooling in "civilization," see Laura Wexler, "Tender Violence: Literary Eavesdropping, Domestic Fiction, and Educational Reform," Tbe Culture ofSentiment: Race, Gender, and Sentimentality in Nineteentb-Century America, ed. Shirley Samuels (New York: Oxford UP, 1992) 9-38. Karcher, ed., HOBOMOK and Other Writings on Indians 137. "A Plea for the Indian," Standard I I Apr. 1868, p. 3, and 18 Apr. 1868, pp. 2-3, rpt. as a pamphlet retitled An Appeal for the Indians (New York: William P. Tomlinson, 1868). Page references are to Karcher, ed., HOBOMOKand Other Writings on Indians 2 16-32. A thorough canvassing of the Standard reveals no articles on the Indian question before Child's I I Apr. "Plea." Instead, the impeachment question dominated the paper. The next article after Child's is an exchange of "Correspondence on the Enslavement of the Indians" between John Beeson and George M. Hanson, Standard 27 June 1868, p. 3. On I8July 1868 a communication "From the West," signed L.B.C., quotes some corroborating statements about Indian honesty, which "might be worthy to place beside some of Mrs. Child's testimonies regarding the Indians" (Standard, p. 3). Thereafter, articles begin to appear at regular intervals, though they do not become numerous until the following year. In Reformers and tbe American Indian Mardock indirectly confirms Child's role in initating the new abolitionist crusade by beginning his discussion of it with her 1865 letter to Whittier and citing her" Appeal for the Indians" as the earliest response to the peace commission's report (I 5,31-32). Mardock, Reformers and tbe American Indian 25, 30-32; U.S. Cong., House of Representatives, Annual RejHJrt oftbe Commissioner on IndianAffairs, 40th Cong., 3rd Sess.; 1868, "Report to the President by the Indian Peace Commission, January 7, 1868," House Executive Document I: 486-510, hereinafter cited as Annuai Report (1868). Annual Report (1868): 504. This passage is not quoted in Child's "Appeal." Page numbers given in the text refer to Child's quotations from the report in her "Appeal," marked by double quotation marks. Child also devoted another article to this theme: "Indian Civilization," Independent I I Feb. 1869, p. 1. In that article she cited as evidence of the Indian's capacity for civilization the progress made by Indian students at the Quaker-run Asylum at Cattaraugus for Orphan and Destitute Indian Children, as well as the specimens of Indian achievement at an Iroquois agricultural exhibition. See the western newspapers quoted by Mardoek, Reformers and tbe American Indian 22, 94-100, 14445. See also A. J. Grover, "The Indians. A Plea for the Sheridan Policy," Standard 19 Mar. 1870, p. I (Grover was a consistent critic of the "sentimental" policy advocated by the Standard). According to Mardock, in June 1869 Wendell Phillips "demanded that the government abandon the railroad and give the Great Plains back to the Indians" (62), but there is no evidence that Phillips seriously pursued this demand. Nor does Phillips explicitly exhort the U.S. government to give the Great Plains back to the Indians in any of the newspaper articles Mardock cites as sources. In his editorial "The Pacific Railroad" (Standard 12 June 1869, p. 2), Phillips urges the Indians to continue disrupting railroad traffic until their rights are respected: "We would tell [every Indian chief], lay down your gun, but allow no rail to lie between Omaha and the mountains .... The Pacific Railway is the Indians [sic] Alabama. Every blow struck on those rails is heard round the globe. Haunt that road with such dangers that none will dare use it." Phillips goes on to say that Indians should continue to use their "right to make war ... and never yield it till 'Citizenship' means more than it does now." In 1864 John Beeson also offered a "radical citizenship proposal" suggesting the "formation of four Indian states to be governed by laws made and administered by their own authority ... to be subject to the United States only as 'dependent friendly allies' [and] ... to be represented in Congress by delegates of their own choice." He abandoned this plan by the mid-1870s, however, replacing it "with the more realistic one of citizenship for the Indians" (Mardock 57). These are the only proposals I have encountered that go further than Child's.
A Radical Old Age 82
83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90
91 92 93
94 95 96 97 98 99 IOO
IOI
I02
745
Marx and Engels are no exceptions. Although Marxist theory recognizes the virtues of "primitive communism," it still posits the necessity of historical evolution toward higher stages of socioeconomic development. See, for example, Frederick Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, ed. Eleanor Burke Leacock (1884; New York: International Publishers, 1972). Edward Said has similarly pointed out the extent to which Marx shared the Orientalist assumptions of his day: "In article after article [Marx] returned with increasing conviction to the idea that even in destroying Asia, Britain was making possible there a real social revolution"; see Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1979) 153-55. For a broader context in which to place Child's evolutionary assumptions about the relationship between Indian cultures and "civilization," see Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr., The White Man's Indian: Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the Present (1978; New York: Vintage, 1979) 49-55. Throughout the book Berkhofer argues that the assumption of Indian deficiency and European cultural superiority has persisted from Columbus to the present, creating more similarities than differences among "friends" and "enemies" of the Indian. Wendell Phillips to LMC, 24 Apr. 1868, CC 68/1826. On Whipple's activities in Minnesota, where he had tried to prevent the 1862 Sioux war, see Mardock, Reformers and the American Indian 9- 14LMC to Gerrit Smith, 18 Feb. 1869, CC701I885. SaralI Van Vechten Brown to LMC, 2 Mar. 1869, CC 711r887. Another portion of this long and moving tribute to Child has been quoted in chap. 7 above. LMC to Charles Sumner and Harriet Sewall, 8 and IO May 1868, SL 479-80, CC691r829. Mardock, Reformers and the American Indian 21-22,26. Annual Report (1868): 489. Mardock, Reformers and the American Indian 37-38, 62, 147; "Sheridan and the Indians," New York Evening Post, rpt. in Standard 19 Mar. 1870, p. I. Sheridan's report to Sherman, as quoted in A.J. Grover, "The Indians. A Plea for the Sheridan Policy," Standard 19 Mar. 1870, p. 1. For a brilliant analysis of this incident and of the rape charges "Sheridan deploys as his most powerful argument against the supporters of the Peace Policy," see Slotkin, Fatal Environment 391-92,398-4°4Mardock, Reformers and the American Indian 67; "The Indian Massacre. Sheridan's Reports, and a Letter from Mr. Colyer," Standard 19 Mar. 1870, p. I. "The Indians," Standard n.s. 1 (May 1870): 2. Subsequent page references to this article are given parenthetically in the text. Slotkin, Fatal Environment 401-2; see also Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History ofthe American West (New York: Holt, 1970) 87-92. Brown portrays Black Kettle as doing all in his power to maintain peaceful relations with whites and as being the victim, rather than the perpetrator, of atrocities such as those with which Sheridan charged Black Kettle's band. LMC to Charles Sumner, 4July 1870, SL 496-97. See also Child's First Settlers ofNew-England 168-69, quoted in chap. 3 above. Linda K. Kerber also makes this point in her splendid article, "The Abolitionist Perception of the Indian," Journal ofAmerican History 62 (Sept. 1975): 271-95, esp. 288-89. "Letter from L. Maria Child," National Standard 27 May 1871, p. 4, CC 75/1995a. Quoted in Dippie, vanishing American 144. Dippie, vanishing American 174-75, 189-96; Berkhofer, White Man's Indian 166-75· See, for example, Zitkala-Sa's "The School Days of an Indian Girl," cited in n. 73 above; also Luther Standing Bear, Land of the Spotted Eagle chap. 9, rpt. in The Portable North American Indian Reader, ed. Frederick W. Turner III (New York: Penguin, 1974) 567-77. For a historical overview of post-Civil War Indian educational programs and of the erosion of Indian land holdings under the allotment in severalty policy, see Dippie, vanishing American 113-21,273-81. Mardock, Reformers and the American Indian II5-z8. Four Modoc chiefs including "Captain Jack" (Kintpuash) were ultimately executed. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 22 June and [July?) 1873, SL 514-17.
746 103
104 105 106 107
108 109 10 III
I
II2 13 II4
I
115 116 117
118 II 9 120
121
Chapter Twenty Notes Since so many new articles by Child have turned up, it is not inconceivable that one on the Modoc case may yet be found. I have checked the Independent from Apr. through Aug. 1873 and found nothing by Child (except an obituary for Lucy Osgood), though there were several sympathetic articles by others about the Modocs. Child seems to have stopped publishing regularly in the Independent after 1869. I found only two articles in Feb. and Mar. 1870, both about kindness to animals, and one article on the Franco-Prussian War in Feb. 1871 (see n. 2 above). I checked systematically from Jan. through June 1871 and from June through early Nov. 1872 without turning up anything at all by Child. After Theodore Tilton was forced to resign from the editorship of the Independent in Dec. 1870, it reverted to its original character as an evangelical weekly. Although Garrison continued to write for the Independent, Child, who had objected strenuously to contributing to the Independent when it was under evangelical domination, may have felt that it no longer provided a hospitable vehicle for her (see LMC to Sydney Howard Gay, 21 Dec. 1859, SL 335). I also checked the Boston Journal for all ofJune 1873 without turning up any articles by Child on the Modocs. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 22 June 1873, SL 515. D. L. Child and L. Maria Child, "A Few Words about the Standard," Standard 25 Dec. 1869, CC 97 12 562 . Foner, ReClJ'TlStTuction412-I4, 422-23, 425-30. "Letter from L. Maria Child," National Standard 8 Apr. 1871, pp. 4-5, CC 751r989a. The attack on the Crafts' industrial school is mentioned in a note by Meltzer and Holland, SL 490. At the time the Crafts established the school, Child wrote to Lucy Osgood: "I think they will do a great and good work, provided the devilish Ku Klux Klan does not murder them" (14 Feb. 1870, SL 490.) The Crafts rebuilt the institution and ran it until 1878, when they sold the land in small tracts to the freedpeople. Foner, ReclJ'TlStTuction chaps. 9-10. Quotations on 488, 492-93. See also Slotkin, Fatal Environment 298-99, 310- I I. "Letter from L. Maria Child," National Standard 8 Apr. 187 I, CC 751r 989a; F oner, ReClJ'TlStTucti01l45455; Gillette, Retreatfrom ReClJ'TlStTuction 26. F oner, Reconstruction 494. "Dominica and Hayti," National Standard 28 Jan. 1871, pp. 4-5 (not in CC) and "Annexation of Domiuica," National Standard 4 Mar. 1871, CC 751r985a. Quotations in the following paragraphs are drawn from these two articles. LMC to George William Curtis, 22 July 1872, CC 7812056. Foner, Reconstruction 496. Foner, ReclJ'TlStTuction 495-96; "Letter from L. Maria Child," National Standard 8 Apr. 1871, CC 75 h 989a. LMC to Charles Sumner, 8 May 1868, SL 480. Quoted in Foner, Reconstruction 503. LMC to Sarah Shaw and Sarah Parsons, 23 June, 13 July and 26 Sept. 1872, CC 7812051, SL 508, CC 7912064. See also LMC to Charles Sumner, 2 I June 1872, Sumner Papers, Houghton Library, bMS Am I. I am grateful to Jennie Rathbun and the reference librarians at the Houghton for locating these letters, inexplicably omitted from CC, and mailing me copies of them. My search for the missing letters, to which Child refers in her correspondence with other friends, was initiated by a quotation from one of these letters in F oner, Reconstruction 507. F oner, Reconstruction 500, 506-7. Foner, ReclJ'TlStTuction 506-7. LMC to Eliza Scudder,s Aug. 1872, CC 781zoS8. See also LMC to George Julian, 31 Jan. 1872, CC 7712°34. To Sumner, Child writes: "If you are persuaded to [endorse Greeley], I believe you will regret it the longest day you have to live; for the consequences will be the undoing of all your life's great work" (9July 1872, Sumner Papers, Houghton Library bMS Am I; not in CC). LMC to Sarah Shaw, IJJuly 1872, SL 507-8. See also LMC to Charles Sumner, z8June 1872, Sumner
A Radical Old Age
122
123
124 125 126
12 7
128 129 130 131 132 133
134 135 136 137 I 38 139
140
747
Papers, Houghton Library, bMS Am I (not in CC): "There is no mistaking the fact that Greely [sic] manifests [an?] unprincipled readiness to make any concessions to Rebels and Democrats, for the sake of obtaining their votes." LMC to Sarah Shaw and Eliza Scudder, 13 and 24July and 5 Aug. 1872, SL 507-8, CC 78/2057,2058; LMC to Charles Sumner, 9 and 24July 1872, Sumner Papers, Houghton Library, bMS Am I (not in CC). In her letters to friends, Child reports what she has said to Sumner, often repeating the same sentences or phrases verbatim. LMC to Eliza Scudder and Sarah Shaw, 5 Aug. 1872 and [after I I Mar.] 1874, CC78/2058, SL 519-20. Only four of the six letters Child claimed to have written to Sumner have survived in the Sumner papers; none of Sumner's six replies is extant. Child lovingly preserved all of Sumner's earlier letters to her, but she seems to have destroyed these. "A Glance at the State of Things," BostonJournal I 6 July 1872, p. 3. This article reiterates all the points made in Child's letters to friends. LMC to George William Curtis, 22 July 1872, CC78h056. "Address of the Republican Women of Massachusetts, to the Women of America," Woman sJournal 28 Sept. 1872, p. 308. This "friendly, but vague and ... noncommittal" gesture toward the American Woman Suffrage Association was so minimal that "some suffragists called it a 'splinter' rather than a plank" of the party's platform. See DuBois, Feminism and Suffrage 199. "The Present Aspect of Political Affairs," Woman sJournal 10 Aug. 1872, p. 252; Child also heads a list of forty notable women who supported Grant, in contrast to four who supported Greeley. See "A Contrast," Woman sJournal 2 Nov. 1872, p. 349. A comparison of Child's rhetoric and arguments in her electioneering articles for the Boston Journal and the Woman ~ Journal once again reveals her finetuned sense of audience. The Boston Journal article says nothing about a debt of gratitude toward blacks but concentrates on the sectional arguments that had helped mobilize northerners unsympathetic to blacks to go to war against the South. Gillette, Retreat from Reconstruction 69; F oner, Reconstruction 5 I o. LMC to Lydia Bigelow Child and Sarah Parsons, 13 Nov. and I Dec. 1872, CC 7912070,2071. LMC to Sarah Shaw and Sarah Parsons, 17 and 24 Mar. 1873, CC 8012096, 2098-99, SL 512-13; compare Foner, Reconstruction 468, 484-88,5 ro. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 24 Mar. 1873, SL 512-13, CC 80/2099' See Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War (New York: Oxford UP, 1970), esp. chap. 1. Quotations on I I and 29. See, for example, The Patriarchal Institution . .. , discussed in chap. 17 above, and "Through the Red Sea into the Wilderness," Independent 21 Dec. 1865, discussed in chap. 19 above. For a contemporary corroboration of Child's claim, see Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays (1898; New York: Arno P, 1968) I 14-15' For more recent historical studies substantiating it, see David Montgomery, Beyond Equality: Labor and the Radical Republicans, 1862 - I 872 (1967; Urbana: U of Illinois P, 198 I) I 18; and Edward Magdol, The Antislavery Rank and File: A Social Profile of the Abolitionists' Constituency (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood P, 1986). Montgomery, Beyond Equality 25-44, 119. LMC to Ellis Loring, 22 Jan. 1857, CC 351983. LMC to Harriet Sewall, 19June 1871, CC 751r998, and 3Jan. 1873, SL 510-11. "Letter from L. Maria Child, National Standard 27 May 1871, p. 4, CC 751r99Sa; LMC to Lucy Osgood, 13 Apr. 1870, CC 731r939. For a detailed account of the eight-hour movement, see Montgomery, Beyond Equality chaps. 5-8. LMC to Charles Sumner and GeorgeJulian, 4July 1870, CC 731r95I, 12 July 1871, SL 500-501. On Sumner's and Julian's support for the eight-hour movement, see Montgomery, Beyond Equality 240-41, 3I 3, 3 I 8. Julian pioneered eight-hour legislation in Congress, but Sumner did not convert to the cause until 1872. Montgomery, Beyond Equality 273, 275-76.
748 141 142 143 144 145 146 147
148
149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156
157
Chapter Twenty Notes "Letter from L. Maria Child," National Standard 17 Sept. 1870, p. 5, CC 741r959a. On free-labor ideology, see Montgomery, Beyond Equality 14; also Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor 18-23. See the discussion of early bourgeois ideology in chap. 3 above on the Juvenile Miscellany. "Letter from L. Maria Child," National Standard 17 Sept. 1870, p. 5, CC 741r959a. Quoted in Montgomery, Beyond Equality 15; see also Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor I2, 16, 23,29-30. "Economy and Work," National Standard 5 Aug. 1871, pp. 4-5 (not in CG). See Slotkin, Fatal Environment chaps. 13 - I 5, 19. Quotation from "Economy and Work." LMC to George Julian, 12 July 1871, SL 500; "Letter from L. Maria Child," National Standard 17 Sept. 1870, p. 5, CC 741r959a; Montgomery, Beyond Equality 313. George William Curtis similarly argued in Harper's Weekly that "[n)o law of a Legislature can outwit the law of nature and society," i.e., the law of supply and demand (II [25 May 1867]: 323; quoted in Montgomery, 304). "Letter from L. Maria Child," National Standard 17 Sept. 1870, CC 741r959a. Compare the report of the 1865 Griffin Committee on the hours of labor, which "condemned any state action designed to interfere in 'the bargain between [the worker] and the capitalist, and give him a larger share of the value that is or may be produced, than the capitalist is willing to agree to' as 'subverting the right of individual property, and establishing communism'" (Montgomery, Beyond Equality 267). "Letter fromL. Maria Child," National Standard 31 Dec. 1870, p. 4, CC 74/I966a, and 27 May 1871, p. 4, CC75 1r 99sa· "Letter from L. Maria Child," National Standard I July 1871, p. 4, CC 76/2000a. "Letter from L. Maria Child," National Standard 17 Sept. 1870, p. 5, CC 741r959a. "Letter from L. Maria Child, National Standard I July 1871, p. 4, CC 7612000a. LMC to Lucy Osgood, 4 Feb. 1869, SL 484. "Economy and Work," National Standard 5 Aug. 1871, pp. 4-5 (not in CG). On Whig-Republican docttine, see Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor 20. "Letter from L. Maria Child," National Standard 27 May 1871, p. 4, CC 75ir995a. Foner,Free Soil, Free Labor 20; "Letter from L. Maria Child," National Standard 31 Dec. 1870, p. 4, and I July 1871, p. 4, CC 74ir966a, 76/2000a. The particular model of a cooperative business Child had in mind was the dry-goods store of the abolitionist Charles Hovey, who willed the proceeds of his business to abolition, women's rights, and other progressive causes. Similar cooperative enterprises were currently being tried in England, France, and Germany. Economic "partnerships" or "profitsharing" relationships between employers and workers were the form of "cooperation" favored by some Liberals, notably E. L. Godkin. See Godkin's articles, "The Labor Crisis," North American Review 105 Guly 1867): 177-213; and "Co-operation," North American Review 106 Gan. 1868): 15075. As Montgomery shows, however, "Sentimental" labor reformers and working-class labor leaders were also attracted to "cooperative" and "profit-sharing" schemes, and "no clear line of distinction was drawn" between these approaches to solving the conflict between capital and labor. Liberals, "Sentimentalists," and labor reformers, he argues, were all "committed to the illusion of harmonious society." See Beyond Equality 383-84, 437-46. Montgomery's analysis of the differences between Liberals and "Sentimentalists" tends to confirm that Child's antielitist beliefs and class origins aligned her much more closely with the "Sentimentalists"; see esp. Beyond Equality 410-14. LMC to Anna Loring Drese!, 25Jan. 1871, SL 498-99, and 5 Apr. 1872, CC78/2044. Child also wrote three articles championing Prussia: "Letter from L. Maria Child," National Standard 10 Sept. 1870, p. 4, and 24 Sept. 1870, p. 5, and "The Franco-Prussia [sic) War," Independent 9 Feb. 1871, p. I.
2I
Aspirations of the World
LMC to Francis Alexander, I July 1877, CC 8812 329. LMC to Francis Alexander, Sarah Shaw and Sarah Parsons,
I,
7, and 8 July 1877, CC 8812 329,2331,
2332· 3 Child uses the phrase "Eclectic Bible" in a lettertoJames T. Fields, 28 Oct. 1877, SL 545.
Aspirations of the World
749
4 See Child's assertion in the preface to Aspirations o/the Wor/d(Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1878): "All the people on earth, from the beginning of time, have been 'feeling afrer God, if haply they might find him' ... " (13). Quoted passage on 5. 5 Lydia Maria Child, HOBOMOK and Other Writings on Indians, ed. Carolyn L. Karcher (New Brunswick, N.).: Rutgers UP, 1986) 48,76. 6 For analyses of the various factors behind the dismantling of Reconstruction, see Eric Foner, Recontruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (New York: Harper and Row, 1988), esp. chaps. IO-II; William Gillette, Retreat from Reconstruction, 1869-1879 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1979), esp. chap. 10; and David Montgomery, Beyond Equality: Labor and the Radical Republicans, 18621872 (1967; Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1981), esp. chaps. 7-11. 7 LMCtoSusanLymanLesley, 18 Feb. I869,CC70/I884· 8 LMC to Francis Shaw, 28 July 1867, CC 671r789; "The Standard," Standard 20 June 1868, p. 2. This advertisement was regularly carried in the Standard and its successor. Until the demise of the successor, those who renewed their subscriptions and brought in at least one new subscriber received free copies of either A Romance o/the Republic, Wendell Phillips's Speeches, or Caroline Healey Dall's Colkge, Market and Court. 9 LMC to Eliza Scudder, 8 July 1869, CC 7I1r90I. 10 LMC to Susan Lyman Lesley, 18 Feb. 1869, CC 701r884. II LMC to Eliza Scudder, 8 July, 1869 and 10July 1870, CC 7111901 , 731r9SZ. 12 LMC to Louisa Loring, 6 Mar. 1868, CC 681r8I6. 13 LMC to Henrietta Sargent and Eliza Scudder, 16 Mar., 12 and 14 Apr., and 10 May 1868, CC 681r8I8, 1824,69/1828. 14 "Gone," Standard 6 June 1868, CC691I837· IS LMC to Harriet Sewall, 30 Sept. 1869, CC 72/1908. 16 "Another Friend Gone," National Standard 28 Jan. 1871, p. I (not in CC); LMC to Anna Loring Drese!, 25 Jan. 1871, CC741I972; LMC to Eliza Scudder and John Greenleaf Whittier, 17 and 24July 1871, CC 76izoo5, 2006; "Samuel}. May," Woman'sJournal 30 Aug. 1873, p. 276. The latter is not an obituary, but an article occasioned by George B. Emerson's Life o/SamuelJ. May. 17 LMC to Anna Loring Dresel, 26 Sept. 1873, CC8I/2 II3. 18 LMC to Anna Loring Drese!, 26 Sept. 1873, CC 8IIzII3; L. Maria Child, "Dr. Osgood and His Daughters," Independent 17 July 1873, pp. 1-2. See also LMC to Sarah Shaw and Sarah Parsons, 22 June and 8 July 1873, CC 80iz 106, 2107. 19 LMC to Stephen Salisbury and Sarah Shaw, 12 June 1874, CC82/2I5¥, and 27 Jan. 1876, SL 532. 20 LMC to Anna Loring Dresel, 26 Sept. 1873, CC 8r 12 I 13. 2 I LMC to Harriet Sewall, 16 Dec. 1873, SL 517; George Eliot to LMC, 30 Mar. 1879, CC 92iz44oa. 22 LMC to Eliza Scudder, IQJuly 1870, CC I8731r952; and LMC to Sarah Shaw, Samuel and Harriet Sewall, and John Greenleaf Whittier, [after II Mar.], 2 Apr., 6, 12, and 18 June 1874, SL 519-20, CC 82/2146,2155,2156. 23 See Gillette, Retreat from Reconstruction chaps. 10-1 I; and Foner, Reconstruction chap. I I. 24 LMC to Lucy Osgood, 21 Dec. 1871, I2Jan. 1872, CC 771202 1,2031; LMC to Eliza Scudder, 29Jan. 1872, CC 7712033. 25 LMC to Anna Loring Dresel, Sarah Shaw, Sarah Parsons, Lucy Osgood, and Susan Lesley, 16, 24, and 3I Oct., 6 Nov., and I Dec. 1872,8 Jan., 14 Feb., and IS June 1873, CC 7912065, 2066, 2067, 2069, 2071,2082;80/2087,2105. 26 DLC and LMC to Lydia Bigelow Child, 30 July 1873, CC 8112 109; LMC to Harriet Sewall, 3 Jan. 1873, SL 510; "The Intermingling of Religions," Atlantic Monthly 28 (Oct. 1871): 385-95, extracted in the National Standard 30 Sept. 1871, p. 3, 7 Oct., pp. 2-3, and 14 Oct., pp. 3, 6. "Temperance in Eating," National Standard June 1872, p. 5; "Physical Strength of Women, " Woman'sJournal IS Mar. 1873, p. 84; also concerned with religious and health-related subjects are "Resemblances between the
750
27 28
29 30
3I 32 33 34 35 36 37
38 39
40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53
Chapter Twenty-One Notes Buddhist and the Roman Catholic Religions," Atlantic Monthly 26 (Dec. 1870): 660-65; "A Memory" and "Tobacco," National Standard Feb. and Mar. 1872, pp. 1,4-5. LMC to Harriet Sewall, 16 Dec. 1873, CC81h123. LMCto Sarah Shaw, 2 Apr. 1874, SL 521-22 and 25 Apr. 1875, CC85h230; Meltzer and Holland, SL 522 n. I. Child's will is reprinted in Helene G. Baer, The Heart Is Like Heavtm: The Life ofLydio Maria Child (philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1964) 3I I - I 6. LMC to Anna Loring Dresel, 5 Aug. 1874, CC8312168. Itis not clear in what capacity Mrs. Pickering worked for the Lorings. LMC to Lydia Bigelow Child, Anna Loring Dresel, Sarah Shaw, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Susan Lesley, 22 July, 5 and 7 Aug., 16, 18, and 24 Sept., and 7 Oct. 1874, CC 8212 164, 8312168,2170,2175, 2176,2177,2181,2187. LMC to Sarah Shaw and Anna Loring Dresel, [Aug.?] 1870, and 18 Sept., and 7 Oct. 1874, CC 74/1957,83/2177,2188. LMC to Sarah Shaw, Anna Loring Dresel, and Lydia B. Child, 18 Aug. and 18 and 24 Sept. 1874, CC 83/2172,2177,2181. WLG to Anne Weston, 22 Sept. 1874, BPL MS.A.I.I.v01.8, p. 63(a-b); WLG to LMC, 25 Oct. 1874, CC83/219I. LMC to Lydia Bigelow Child and James T. Fields, 29 and 30 Sept. 1874 and II Feb. 1875, CC 8312182,2184, SL 530. LMC toJohn Greenleaf Whittier, 30 Oct. 1874, CC 8412 19S. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 29 Oct. 1874, CC 8412 192. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 4 Nov. 1874, CC84/2197; compare Looking tiYlJJard Sunset (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1865) 166-67: "In this world of sorrow and disappointment, every human being has trouble enough of his own. It is unkind to add the weight of your despondency to the burdens of another, who, if you knew all his secrets, you might find had a heavier load than yours to carry.... If you habitually try to pack your troubles away out of other people's sight, you will be in a fair way to forget them yourself ... because an effort made for the happiness of others lifts us above ourselves." LMCto Sarah Shaw, I! Apr. 1875, CC851z227; LMC to Hannah Baldwin,John B. Wight, and Emily F. Damon, 6,12 and 22 Dec. 1874, CC84/2202, 2204> 2206. LMC to Martha Wight, 24 Feb. 1875, CC 851222 3; LMC to Sarah Parsons and Harriet and Samuel Sewall, I and 10Jan. 1875, CC 84/UI!, 2212. See chap. 15 on the breach between Child and John Hopper. LMC to Marianne Silsbee, 7 Mar. 1875, CC85/2224. LMC toJohn B. Wight, 12 Dec. 1874 CC84iz204LMC to Sarah and Francis Shaw, 4, II, and 18 Apr. and 13 May 1875, CC 85iz226, 2227, 2229, 2232. LMC to Anne Whitney, 14 Aug. 1878, CC 9oiz406. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 13 May and 8 June 1875, CC85iz2P, 2236. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 31 May 1875, CC 851z234. This letter ostensibly refers to the recent death in a shipwreck of the Shaws' niece, Bessie Green, but Child is clearly expressing her own feelings. LMC to Harriet Sewall, 1 July 1875, CC 85iz24I. "Extracts from aJoumal by David Lee Child," WomansJournal I I Sept. 1875, p. 289. LMC to Stephen Salisbury, 13 June and 12 Oct. 1875, CC 85/22 38a, 86/225 la. Manuscript "Autobiography," Lydia Maria Child papers, Anti-Slavery Collection, Cornell University Library. Quotations on IJ-14. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 31 May 1875, CC85iz234. WLG to Fanny Garrison Villard, 9 Feb. 1877, BPL Ms.A. I. I.Vo1.9, p. 19, a-b. LMC to Mattie Griffith and Epes Sargent, 12 Jan. 1875 and 14 Mar. 1879, CC 8412213, 92iz439. LMC to Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Lucy Ann Brooks, 9 Sept. 1877 and I and I I Apr. 1879, CC 88iz 340, 9212441, 2442. By 1879 Child had stopped frequenting mediums, but she agreed to accompany Brooks at Brooks's insistence.
Aspirations of the World
751
54 LMC to Harriet Sewall and Francis Shaw, II June 1875 and I Apr. 1871, CC 8512237,8712311. 55 LMC to Francis Shaw, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and Epes Sargent, 17 June 1875, I Apr., 20 June and 9 Sept. 1871, 19 Dec. 1878, and 15Jan. 1879, CC85/2240, 87h 31 I, 8812325, 2340,9112418, 2426. 56 LMC to Francis Shaw, 17 June 1875, CC 85/2240. 57 LMC to Sarah Shaw, I3July 1871, CC881z333. 58 LMC to Sarah Shaw, 7 and 13 July 1871, CC88h331, 2333. 59 "Mrs. L. Maria Child on Taxation," Wrrman'sJaurnalz8 Aug. 1875, p. 276; LMC to Abigail May and Sarah Shaw, 15 Mar. 1874 and 4 Oct. 1875, SL 521, 531. On the courageous crusade waged by Abby and Stephen Foster, see Dorothy Sterling, Ahead ofHer Time: Abby Kelley and the Politics ofAntislavery (New York: Norton, 1991) 367-72. 60 This scrapbook, one of several Child put together over her lifetime, is also preserved among her papers in the Anti-Slavery Collection, Cornell University Library. 61 LMC to Sarah Shaw, 6 Dec. 1875 and 27 Jan. and [14) Mar. 1876, CC 86/2256, 2261, 2267; LMC to Anna Loring Dresel, 18 Sept. 1874, CC 8312171. 62 "One of Our Benefactors," Wrrman'sJournal25 Mar. 1876, p. 100. Compare Margaret Fuller, Wrrman in the Nineteenth Century (1845), in Jeffrey Steele, ed., The Essential Margaret Fuller (New Brunswick, N.).: Rutgers UP, 1992): "Male and female represent the two sides of the great radical dualism. But, in fact, they are perpetually passing into one another.... There is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine woman. History jeers at the attempts of physiologists to bind great original laws by the forms which flow from them.... Nature provides exceptions to every rule. She sends women to battle, and sets Hercules spinning.... Let us be wise, and not impede the soul" (310-1 I). Fuller had also argued that "[h)armony exists in difference, no less than in likeness, if only the same key-note govern both parts"; and she had predicted that if "every arbitrary barrier" against women's free development were "thrown down ... a ravishing harmony of the spheres would ensue" (260, 288). 63 Quoted in "Letter from L. Maria Child," 20 July 1868, Standard 25 July 1868, CC 691r842; LMC to Louisa Loring and Abigail May Alcott, lZ Feb. 1868 and 7 June 1876, CC 681r812, 8712274a. 64 LMC to Abigail May Alcott, Sarah Shaw, Susan Lyman Lesley, and Louisa May Alcott, 3, 7, and 18 June 1876 and I9June 1878, CC8612273,871227¥, SL 534-35, and CC9012398; Sarah Elbert, A Hungerfor Home: Louisa May Akott's Place in American Culture (New Brunswick, N.).: Rutgers UP, 1987) 41. 65 LMC to Lucy Stone, I July 1876, SL 536; "Letter from Mrs. Child," Woman'sJournal 15 July 1876, p. 225· 66 L. Maria Child, "Equality of the Sexes," Woman's Journal 5 Aug. 1876, p. 252. 67 "Letter from Mrs. Child, on the Present State of the Anti-Slavery Cause," Liberator 6 Sept. 1839, CC 8/186. See chap. IO above for a fuller discussion of Child's differences with the Grimkes on this issue. 68 LMC to Sarah Shaw, Wendell Phillips, and Sarah Parsons, 8 Apr., 4June, and 28 Dec. 1876, SL 533, CC87/2274, 2293; Child refers to Garrison's letter toJames Freeman Clarke, 2 Dec. 1876, published in the Boston Jaurnal4 Dec. and rpt. in The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison, vol. 6: To Rouse the Slumhering Land, r868-r879, hereinafter abbreviated as GL, ed. Walter M. Merrill and Louis Ruchames (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap P of Harvard UP, 1981) 428-37. 69 LMC to Francis Alexander, Sarah Shaw, and Sarah Parsons, I and 7 July 1871 and I2 Feb. and 20 Nov. 1878, CC8812329, 2331, SL 549, and CC9112415. Because Child referred so rarely to public events in her letters of this period, it is difficult to pinpoint the date of her disillusionment with Hayes. Her vehement assertion that Wade Hampton was "totally incapable of doing justice to the colored citizens of South Carolina," unless he had "gone through some wonderful process of regeneration," is also difficult to reconcile with her "delighted" acceptance of Hampton's claim that he had indeed changed his sentiments. The first occurs in an undated fragment (CC89/2 356), the second in a letter written in July (CC 8812 33 I). In contrast, from the moment of Hayes's inauguration, Garrison expressed "the gravest apprehensions as to what is to be the 'policy' of the new administration," and by mid-April he was already publicly attacking it as a "policy of compromise, of credulity, of weakness, of subserviency, of surrender," though he credited Hayes with "the best intentions." See WLG to Neal Dow, 16 Mar.
752
70 71 72 73
74 75
76 77 78 79 80 81
82 83
84
85
86 87 88 89
Chapter Twenty-One Notes 1877, and WLG to Editors of the Boston Daily Advertiser, 20 Apr. 1877, GL 6: 460-62, 469-75' For historical analyses of the "Compromise of 1877" and its aftermath, see Foner, Reconstruction 575-87; Gillette, Retreat from Reconstruction chap. 14; and Rayford W Logan, The Betrayal of the Negro from Rutherford B. Hayes to Woodrow Wilson (rev. ed.; New York: Collier, 1965) chap. 2. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 3 I July 1877. SL 542-43. LMC to Francis Alexander, I July 1877, CC88/2329. LMC to James T. Fields, Sarah Parsons, and Francis Shaw, 28 Oct. 1877, SL 545, and 2I May and 7 June 1878, CC 90/2386, SL 551-52. LMC to Francis Shaw, 16 Dec. 1877, CC 89/235°. Child identifies the Rev. Mr. Wight and discusses her boarding arrangements with his son and daughter-in-law in LMC to Sarah Shaw, 19 Nov. 1875, CC86/2253· LMC to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 9 Sept. 1877, CC 881234°' The letter is mutilated at its middle fold, and one or two words may be missing. James Freeman Clarke, Ten Great Religions: An Essay in Comparative Theology (Boston: James R. Osgood, 1871). For a brief comparison of this work with Child's Progress of Religious Ideas, see chap. 15 above. L. Maria Child, "Resemblances between the Buddhist and the Roman Catholic Religions" and "The Intermingling of Religions," Atlantic Monthly 26 (Dec. 1870): 661-65, and 28 (Oct. 1871): 38595. Quotations are from "Resemblances" 660 and "Intermingling" 387. LMC to Sarah Shaw, [Nov.?] 1876, SL 537-38. LMC to Susan Damon, [Sarah] Wight, Marianne Silsbee, and Sarah Parsons, 12 Nov. and 10 Dec. 1876,6 Feb. 1877, and 20 Nov. 1878, CC871n87, 2289, 2303, and 9112415. LMC to Sarah Shaw, undated, 1877, CC8912 356. A reference in the letter to President Hayes's promise to "sustain Wade Hampton's government of South Carolina" would date this letter around Apr. 1877. LMC to Sarah Shaw, 20June and 7 and 13 July 1877, CC8812p6, 2331, and 2333. LMC to James T. Fields, 28 Oct. 1877, SL 545. LMC to James T. Fields, 3 Feb. and I I Mar. 1878, CC89/2364, 9012377; A. W Stevens to LMC, 27 Apr. and 19 June 1878, CC 9012 384, 2399. Stevens describes himself as a former Unitarian minister who had outgrown his profession and been led "out of conservative, partisan Christianity into the 'large place' of universal appreciation and charity." It is not clear whether he was an editor at Roberts Brothers or simply an acquaintance Child met at Free Religious Association meetings. L. Maria Child, Aspirations of the World. A Chain of Opals (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1878) 2, 257. Subsequent page references are given parenthetically in the text. See Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1978). Actually Child's assertions about Buddhism need to be qualified. Religious wars and persecution have occurred under Buddhism, though not to anything like the same extent as under Christianity. Child also includes a significant number of extracts from the Koran, and the Muslim Sufis are well represented among her Persian texts. In addition, she cites a handful of inscriptions from Egyptian tombs and verses from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Surprisingly, in view of the anti-Judaic biases Child showed in The Progress ofReligious Ideas, Jewish texts outnumber Christian, though many of them are from the Talmud and Apocryphal books, rather than from the Old Testament. Anna Loring Drese! and WLG to LMC, 21 May and 25 Aug. 1878, CC 90/2387,2407; LMC to Francis Shaw, George Julian, and Epes Sargent, 7 June, 28 Sept., and 19 Dec. 1878, SL 551, CC 9 I 1241 I, 2418 (their letters to her have not been preserved); review of Aspirations ofthe World, Woman}Journal 29 June 1878, p. 205. Review ofAspirations ofthe World under "Editor's Literary Record," Harper's New Monthly Magazine 57 (Oct. 1878): 786-87. LMC to Francis Shaw, 16 Dec. 1877, CC89h350. LMC toJamesT. Fields and Anne Whitney, I I Mar., 22 May, and 28 Sept. 1878, CC 90h 377 SL 55051, CC 9112412, Ingersoll is identified as the "Great Agnostic" by Meltzer and Holland, SL 550 n. 3. LMC to Anne Whitney and WLG, 8 Apr. 1877 and 28 Feb. [1878], SL 540-41, CC891237I.
Aspirations of the World
753
90 LMC to James Redpath, IOJan. 1878, SL 547-48. 9 I L. Maria Child, "Anne Whitney's Model of Charles Sumner's Statue," Woman sJournal 5 May 1877, p. 137. Child makes the same point in her letter to Redpath. 92 LMC to WLG, 28 Feb. [1878], CC8912371; WLGto Wendell Phillips Garrison and Fanny Garrison Villard, 29 Mar. 1878,28 Mar. 1879, GL 6: 515,572. 93 LMC to Anne Whitney, 18 Apr., 14 Aug. and 28 Sept. 1878, CC90i2383, 2406, 9I124I2. 94 LMC to Anne Whitney, 28 Sept. 1878, CC 9112412. 95 LMC to Anne Whitney and Sarah Parsons, 25 Nov. 1878, SL 555, and I9Jan. 1879, CC9I12427. 96 Sarah S. Russell to LMC, 21 May [1878], CC9012388; LMC to Sarah Shaw and Sarah Shaw Russell, 14June 1878, 28 May 1879, CC901z397, 9212453. 97 LMC to Annie Fields, 22 Jan. 1877, CC87/2300; LMC to Francis Shaw, 16 Dec. 1877, CC901z350. 98 Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Chapters from a Life (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1896) 182 -85. 99 LMC to Theodore Dwight Weld, IOJuly 1880, SL 563; LMC to John Greenleaf Whittier, 25 Oct. 1878, CC 9112413. IOO LMC to Weld, IOJuly 1880, SL 562-64. This letter was written in response to the memorial that Weld had just published of Angelina. Child had also written a letter of condolence on 16 Nov. 1879, immediately after Angelina's death, enclosing a check for $ 100, which she had accepted as a gift from a friend "only on condition that I might transfer it to Theodore Weld, who had lost his earnings [in the aftermath of the Panic of 1873], while mine were yielding a good per cent." An extract from this letter, reprinted in Paul Richards, Catalog 184, item 43, was graciously made available to me by Patricia Holland from her file of material accumulated since the publication of CC. 101 See Garrison's letters to Robert Morris and George T. Downing, 22 Apr. 1879, GL 6: 578-81. I02 WLG to Fanny Garrison Villard, 19 Mar. 1879, GL 6: 569. In a letter to John A. Collins the following day, he also quotes extensively from a letter of Child's that seems to have been lost, in which she thanked him for his "strong and earnest words about the wrongs done to the Chinese"; 20 Mar. 1879, BPL Ms.A.I. I.Vo1.9, p. 71 (a-b). Child briefly described their visit in letters to Sarah Russell and Sarah Shaw, 28 May and 30June 1879, CC9212453, 2462. 103 LMC to Anne Whitney, 25 May 1879, SL 558. 104 L. Maria Child, "William Lloyd Garrison," Atlantic Monthly 44 (Aug. 1879): 237-38. 105 LMC to Susan Damon, Sarah Parsons, and Lydia Bigelow Child, 12 Nov. and 28 Dec. 1876,8 Dec. [1877],20 Nov. 1878, CC 87/2287,2293,8912 349,9112415. 106 LMC to Sarah Parsons and Sarah Shaw, 8 and 22 July 1877, and 29 Apr. and 21 May 1878, CC 88/2332,2334,9°/2385,2386. 107 LMC to Sarah Shaw, 20July 1879, CC 9212464. I08 LMC to Harriet Se';Vall, II July 1880, CC 9412510. 109 LMC to Sarah Shaw, 20 Mar. 1879, SL 557. IIO LMC to Sarah Shaw, 28 Dec. 1879, CC 9312486, and 6 Sept. 1880, SL 567. III "Letter to Bear's Heart from Mrs. Lydia Maria Child," Sept. r879, Southern Workman (Dec. 1879): 12 3- 2 4, CC93 1247 2. II2 LMC to Theodore Weld and Francis and Sarah Shaw, 10 July and 10 and 23 Aug. r880, SL 564, 56566, CC 94125 17. 113 LMC to Francis Shaw, 10 Aug. 1880, SL 566. II4 LMC to Anne Whitney, 22 June and 6 Sept. 1880, CC941z506, 951z520. II5 LMC to Marianne Silsbee, Sarah Shaw, and Harriet Sewall, 27 July and 23 and 24 Aug. 1880, CC 94/25 13,25 17,25 18. II6 LMC to Maria S. Porter and Sarah Shaw, circa Feb. and mid-Aug. 1880 and 23 Aug. 1880, CC 971z 566, 9412 SI 7, 97 12 569; Maria S. Porter, "Lydia Maria Child," National Magazine: An Illustrated American Monthly 14 (May 1901): 161-70; Mortimer Smith, The Life of Ok Bull (1943; Westport, Conn.: Greenwood P, 1973), pp. I 56-6r, 199-203, 209; Sara C. Bull, Ok Bull: A Memoir (1882; New York: Da Capo P, 1981) 256-57, 299-305'
754 Chapter Twenty-One Notes 117 118 119 120
121
122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130
131
132 133 134
135 136
LMC to Harriet Sewall and Anne Whitney, 24 Aug. and 6 Sept. 1880, CC 9512518,2520. LMCtoAnneWhitney,I6JulYI880,CC941z51I. Anne Whitney to LMC, 22 Sept. 1880, CC 95/252 I. Deborah Pickman Clifford, Crusaderfor Freedmn: A Life ofLydia Maria Child (Boston: Beacon P, 1992) 297; Letters ofLydia Maria Child with a Biographical IntroductilJ'fl by John G. Whittier and an Appendix by Wenden Phillips, led. Harriet Winslow Sewall] (1882; New York: Negro Universities P, 1969) xxiii; LMC to Samuel and Harriet Sewall, 15 June 1880, CC 9412 505. Phillips slightly misquotes Child's epitaph; see "Remarks of Wendell Phillips at the Funeral of Lydia Maria Child, October 23, 1880," Appendix, [Sewall, ed.], Letters of Lydia Maria Child 263-68; "In Memoriam. L. Maria Child," Woman's Journal 30 Oct. 1880, p. 345; Anna D. Hallowell, "Lydia Maria Child," Medford Historical Register 3 Guly 1900}: 117. Child's will strikingly illustrates the connection between her "rigid economy" and the charity she liked to practice. She left an estate valued at over $36,000, which she willed to "needy ftiends and relatives and a variety of worthy causes." Mrs. Pickering received one of the largest bequests: $8,000. As Clifford notes, the size of Child's estate testifies to "her ability to prosper on her own" and "raises the tempting, if speculative, question of what her life would have been like if she had never married David" (Crusader for Freedom 298); also Baer, Heart Is Like Heaven 311-16. Whittier Introduction, Letters ofLydia Maria Child xxiii. Curtis's obituary is reprinted as part of a longer retrospective incorporating other tributes in "Lydia Maria Child," Woman'sJournal 13 Nov. 1880, p. 366. Untitled article, NatilJ'fl 31 (28 Oct. 1880): 309. "L. Maria Child," rpt. in Woman's Journal 6 Nov. 1880, pp. 354-55. "Lydia Maria Child and Gov. Andrew," Woman's Journal 20 Nov. 1880, p. 374. "Lucretia Mott and Lydia Maria Child," Woman's Journal 18 Dec. 188o, pp. 409- 10. Tlhomas] W[entworth] H[igginson], "Lydia Maria Child," Woman'sJournal 27 Nov. 1880, p. 377. "Maria Edgeworth and Lydia Maria Child," The Critic 2 (2 Dec. I882): 325. [Wendell Phillips Garrison], "Mrs. Child's Letters," Nation 36 (25 Jan. 1883): 87-88; "Maria Edgeworth and Lydia Maria Child" 325; [Horace Scudder], "Lydia Maria Child," Atlantic MlJ'flthly 50 (Dec. 1882): 839-44; [George William Curtis], "Editor's Easy Chair," Harper's New MlJ'flthly Magazine 66 (Feb. I883): 471-72. "Lydia Maria Child," review of Letters ofLydia Maria Child, New York Times I Dec. 1882, p. 3; actually the Letters went through five editions, the last dated 1888. The reviews in the Atlantic Monthly and the NatilJ'fl also comment on Child's personality as revealed in her letters, illustrating it by quoting extensively. George William Curtis's review in Harper's regrets that "much of the 'spice' must be omitted from purely personal and intimate letters when they are published, or these would be still more piquant and graphic." For full citations, see n. 130 above. LMC to Anne Whitney, 16July 1880, CC941zsrI. Child, "William Lloyd Garrison," Atlantic MlJ'flthly 44 (Aug. 1879): 237-38. Pauline R. Hopkins, "Reminiscences of the Life and Times of Lydia Maria Child," Colored American Magazine 6 (Feb. 1903): 279. As Carla Peterson pointed out to me, this article, part of a series of biographical sketches of notable women, is the only one in the series devoted to a white woman, as well as the only one to occupy more than one issue. Hopkins, "Reminiscences of Lydia Maria Child, " Colored American Magazine 6 (Mar. 1903): 354. Hopkins, "Reminiscences of Lydia Maria Child," Colored American Magazine 6 (May and June 19°3): 454; 6 (Feb. 1903): 280.
Afterword I
For a reprint of Child's "The Quadroons," see Susan Koppelman, ed., The Other Woman: Stories ofTwo Women and a Man (Old Westbury, N.Y.: Feminist P, 1984) 1-12; for a reprint of "The Neighbour-in-
Afterword
755
Law," see Koppelman, ed., Women's Friendships: A Collection ofShort Stories (Norrnan: U of Oldahoma P, 1991) 3-15; for selections from Hobomok, see Lucy M. Freibert and Barbara A. White, eds., Hidden Hands: An Anthology ofAmerican Women Writers, 1790-1870 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers UP, 1985) 116-32; for selections from Letters from New York, see Judith Fetterley, ed., Provisions: A Reader from 19th-Century American Women (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1985) 159-z02; for a reprint of "Slavery's Pleasant Homes" and selections from An Appeal in Favor afThat Class ofAmericans Called Africans and "Letters from New-York" (the column rather than the book), see Paul Lauter, ed., The Heath Anthology ofAmerican Literature (Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1990) I: 1795-181Z. For passing references to Child, see Ann Douglas, The Feminization ofAmerican Culture (1977; New York: Avon Books, 1978) 6566,72,81,101, II3, II4, 184, 185,404-5; Nina Baym, Woman's Fiction: A Guide to Novels by and about Women in America, I8zo-I870 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UP, 1978) 52-53; Mary Kelley, Private Woman, Public Stage: Literary Domesticity in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Oxford UP, 1984) IS, 204, 3l9-zo; and Susan K. Harris, 19th-Century American Women's Novels: Interpretative Strategies (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990) 18-19. The one exception to this pattern, significantly, is a study that focuses on women intellectuals, among whom Child figures prominently: Susan Phinney Conrad's Perish the Thought: Intellectual Women in Romantic America, 1830-I 860 (New York: Oxford UP, 1976). Z For studies of abolitionism that frequently cite Child's opinions, see Louis Filler, The Crusade Against Slavery, 1830- I 860 (New York: Harper and Row, 1960); James M. McPherson, The Struggle for Equality: Abolitionists and the Negro in the Civil War and Reconstruction (princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1964); Aileen S. Kraditor, Means and Ends in American Abolitionism: Garrison and His Critics on Strategy and Tactics, 1834-1850 (New York: Vintage, 1969); Carleton Mabee, Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil "Wtzr (New York: Macmillan, 1970); Jane H. Pease and William H. Pease, Bound with Them in Chains: A Biographical History of the Antislavery Movement (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood P, 1972); Merton L. Dillon, The Abolitionists: The Growth ofa Dissenting Minority (DeKalb: Northern Illinois UP, 1974); Ronald G. Walters, The Antislavery Appeal: American Abolitionism After 1830 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1976); James Brewer Stewart, Holy Warriors: The Abolitionists and American Slavery (New York: Hill and Wang, 1976); and Herbert Aptheker, Abolitionism: A Revolutionary Movement (Boston: Twayne, 1989). For discussions of Child in studies that focus on the connections between abolitionism and women's rights, see Blanche Glassman Hersh, The Slavery of Sex: FeministAbolitionists in America (Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1978); and Jean Fagan Yellin, Women and Sisters: The Antislavery Feminists in American Culture (New Haven, Conn.: Yale UP, 1989) chap. 3 and passim. 3 For a pioneering expose of the racist historiography that took over the universities in the post-Reconstruction era, see the chapter "The Propaganda of History" in WE. B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America: 1860-1880 (1935; New York: Atheneum, 1977) 71I-z9. Until the 1960s the scholarship on abolitionists remained largely hostile, caricaturing the movement as "extremist" and "fanatic." Although Gilbert Hobbs Barnes's The Antislavery Impulse, 1830- I 844 (1933) partially rehabilitated Evangelical abolitionists, it did so by shifting the onus of "extremism" and "fanaticism" to the Garrisonians. Louis Filler's The Crusade Against Slavery, 1830- I 860 (1960) marked the beginning of a more balanced approach to the movement as a whole. Not until Kraditor's Means and Ends in American Abolitionism (1969) did Garrisonians receive genuinely sympathetic treatment, however. Meanwhile, most studies of abolitionism paid little attention to the role of women in the movement, except to blame them for precipitating the schism between Evangelicals and Garrisonians. The pioneering feminist scholarship of Gerda Lerner and the emergence of women's history in the I970S helped tum the tide. As indices of the Grimkes' status as feminist heroines, see Gerda Lerner, The Grimki Sisters from South Carolina: Rebels against Slavery (Boston: Houghton Miffiin, I967); and Katharine DuPre Lumpkin, The Emancipation ofAngelina Grimki (Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1974); also Larry Ceplair, ed., The Public Years ofSarah and Angelina GrimM: Selected Writings, 1835- I 839 (New York: Columbia UP, I 987). 4 Lois W Banner, Elizabeth Cady Stanton: A Radical for Woman's Rights (Boston: Little, Brown, 1980); and Elisabeth Griffith, In Her Own Right: The Life ofElizabetb Cady Stantrm (New York: Oxford UP, 1984). 5 Dorothy Sterling, Ahead ofHer Time: Abby Kelley and the Politics ofAntislavery (New York: Norton, 1991);
756 Afterword Notes
6
7
8 9 10
I I
12
13 14 15
Andrea Moore Kerr, Lucy Stone: Speaking Outfor Equality (New Brunswick, N J.: Rutgers UP, 1992); and Deborah Pickman Clifford, Crusader for Freedom: A Life ofLydia Maria Child (Boston: Beacon P, 1992). Both Hersh, Slavery ofSex, and Kirk Jeffrey, "Marriage, Career, and Feminine Ideology in NineteenthCentury America: Reconstructing the Marital Experience of Lydia Maria Child, 1828-1874," Feminist Studies 2 (2/3, 1975) I 13-30, treat the Childs' marriage as a case study, but Hersh tends to underplay its problematic aspects, and Jeffrey underestimates the degree to which Child did in fact criticize marriage as an institution. See, for example, Kathryn Kish Sklar, Catharine Beecher: A Study in American Domesticity (New Haven, Conn.: Yale UP, 1973); Mary P. Ryan, The Empire of the Mother: American Writing about Domesticity, 1830-1860 (New York: Haworth P, 1982); and the chapter "Sarah Hale and the Ladies Magazine," in Nancy Woloch, Women and the American Experience (New York: Knopf, 1984) 97- I 12. I have borrowed the term "cultural biography" from Sacvan Bercovitch, who originated it to describe his work in progress on Melville. Clifford, Crusader for Freedom 4. For influential articulations of these theories, see Richard Chase, The American Novel and Its Tradition (New York: Doubleday, 1957); and Leslie Fiedler, Love and Death in the American Novel (New York: Criterion Books, 1960). lowe this formulation and inquiry to Richard Slotkin. Quotations are from "Self-Reliance," Stephen E. Whicher, ed., Selections from Ralph Waldo Emerson (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957) 150; and from Nathaniel Hawthorne, "The Hall of Fantasy," The Pioneer I (Feb. 1843): 53. In a letter to Jonathan Phillips, Child refers to the common "assertion that we abolitionists live 'but for one idea'" (26 Feb. 1838, CC 9612 533. LMC to Jonathan Phillips, 26 Feb. 1838, CC 9612533; "To Abolitionists," Standard 20 May 1841, P·19 8. Both quotations are from LMC to Sarah Shaw, 2 Mar. 1880, SL 561. LMC to Francis Shaw, 10 Aug. 1880, SL 566. I would like to thank Richard Slotkin and Milton Sernett for suggesting this Afterword and H. Bruce Franklin, Jane Morgan Franklin, Martin Karcher, and Reynolds Smith for their incisive criticisms of earlier drafts.
Works of Lydia Maria Child
+
No bibliography of Child's writings can yet claim to be definitive. New articles of hers keep turning up, not only in hitherto unexamined journals but in those already searched by other scholars. Child also published a large number of articles anonymously or pseudonymously, both in her husband's newspaper, the Massachusetts Journal (ca. 1828 until 1832), and during the Civil War, in mainstream political newspapers. Many of those articles remain to be located. In addition, newspapers, magazines, and gift books often reprinted her stories, articles, and extracts from her longer works under different titles. Space limitations preclude listing these reprints, but they can be found in the following publications: The Lady's Cabinet Album; The Borton Book;
The Rover; The Slave's Friend; The Anti-Slavery Record; Rural Repository; The New World; The Gem ofthe Season; The Casket; Gems by the wayside; The Dew-Drop; The Gem Annual; The Marriage Offering; and Merry's Museum. A complete listing of all Child's publications in The Juvenile Miscellany, the Liberator, the National AntiSlavery Standard, the Boston Courier, and the Independent, including her weekly editorials and "Letters from New-York," would require a volume in itself. Hence, I have adopted the following principles of selectivity: (1) of the stories and sketches Child published in the Juvenile Miscellany, I have listed only the ones cited in this biography; (2) of the innumerable newspaper articles Child published in the form of letters, I have listed only those omitted from the microfiche edition of her Complete Correspondence; (3) of her "Letters from NewYork," I have listed only those omitted from the book versions of the First and Second Series; (4) of her weekly editorials, I have listed only those mentioned in chapter 12. With these exceptions, I have listed both the periodical and the book publication of Child's stories and essays. In the case of her uncollected fiction and journalism and her unpublished manuscripts and letters, I have tried to provide a complete bibliography of all items found to date. This bibliography is arranged chronologically to allow readers to follow the development of Child's career. Annuals and gift books have been listed in the order of their actual publication date (or date of deposition for copyright), rather than by the year announced in their title (e.g., The Token "for" 1828 was actually published in October 1827 and is listed accordingly). For easier reference, the bibliography is also subdivided into the categories of books and pamphlets; stories, sketches, and anecdotes; journalism and miscellaneous nonfiction; poems; unpublished manuscripts; collected letters; and uncollected letters.
Books and Pamphlets Hobomok, A Tale ofEarly Times, By An American. Boston: Cummings, Hilliard, 1824. Evenings in New England. Intended for Juvenile Amusement and Instruction. By An American Lady. Boston: Cummings, Hilliard, 1824.
758 Works "Preface"; "Personification"; "History"; "General Lee. A Drama"; "Trees"; "Riddling Forest"; "The Uneasy Oak. A Fable"; "The Rainbow"; "The Adventures of a Dandelion"; "Gobelins Tapestry"; "The Man with One Bad Habit"; "Oracles"; "The Hospitable Dog of St. Bernard"; "Conversation on Wealth"; "The Triumphal Arch. A Drama"; "Process of Making Sugar"; "The Indians Ourwitted"; "Indian Tribes"; "Botanical Hints"; "Flax and Dodder. A Fable"; "Association of Ideas. Anecdote of a Horse"; "Origin of Names, Phrases, Customs"; "The Sailor and His Babe"; "Trees" (cont.); "Aurora Borealis"; "Flora's Timekeepers.-A Fable"; "The Morning Adventures of a Stupid Schoolboy"; "Gems, Fossils, &c."; "The Little Master and His Little Slave"; "Astronomical Hints"; "The Young Bookseller"; "Anecdote of a Parrot"; "Heraldry"; "The Young Hero"; "Key to the Riddling Forest"; "Farewell." The Rebels, or Boston before the Revolution. By the author of Hobomok. Boston: Cummings, Hilliard, IS2 5; rpt. Boston: Phillips, Sampson, IS50. Emily Parker, or Impulse, Not Principle. Intended for Young Persons. By the Author of Evenings in New England, and Editor of the Juvenile Miscellany. Boston: Bowles and Dearborn, 1827. The Juvenik Souvenir (edited, with the following anonymous contributions by Child). By the Editor of "The Juvenile Miscellany." Boston: Marsh & Capen, and John Putnam, IS27. "Emma Forsyth"; "Anna and Her Dog"; "The Little Irish Girl"; "The Young Adventurers"; "The Happy Family"; "George and Georgiana"; "The New Year." Biographical Sketches of Great and Good Men. Designed for the Amusement and Instruction of Young Persons. Boston: Putnam & Hunt/Philadelphia: Thomas T. Ash, IS2S. "Benjamin Franklin"; "Captain John Smith"; "General Israel Putnam"; "Christopher Columbus"; "John Ledyard"; "Sir Benjamin West"; "William Penn"; "Rev. John Elliot"; "Baron De Kalb." Moral Lessons in Verse (ed.). Cambridge: Hilliard and Brown, IS2S. The First Settlers ofNew-England: or, Conquest ofthe Pequods, Narragansets and Pokanokets: As Related by a Mother to Her Children, and Designed for the Instruction ofYouth. Bya Lady of Massachusetts. Boston: Munroe & Francis/New York: Charles S. Francis, [IS29). The Frugal Housewife. Boston: Marsh & Capen, and Carter & Hendee, IS29; revised and enlarged, 1830; retitled, from the Sth ed. on, The American Frugal Housewife. Boston: Carter & Hendee, IS32. Editions from IS30 on include "Hints to Persons of Moderate Fortune," rpt. from Massachusetts Journal. The Little Girl's Own Book (rpt. eds. occasionally titled The Girl's Own Book). Boston: Carter, Hendee and Babcock, 183 I; London: Tegg, 1832; enlarged ed. Boston: Carter, Hendee, IS34. Includes two children's stories: "Mary Howard" and "The Palace of Beauty." The Mother's Book. Boston: Carter, Hendee & Babcock/Baltimore: Charles Carter, 1831; Glasgow: Griffin/London: Tegg, IS32; revised and enlarged ed., New York: C. S. Francis/Boston: Joseph H. Francis, IS44· The Coronal. A Collection ofMiscellaneous Pieces, Written at fiarious Times. Boston: Carter and Hendee, 1832; slightly enlarged as The Mother's Story Book; or, Western Coronal. A Collection ofMiscellaneous Pieces. By Mrs. Child . .. To which are added, a few tales, by Mary Howitt, and Caroline Fry. London, Edinburgh, Dublin, and Glasgow: T. T. &J. Tegg, IS33. "Caius Marius. Lines, Suggested by Vanderlyn's Fine Picture of Caius Marius among the Ruins of Carthage"; "The Lone Indian"; "The Sagacious Papa"; "To a Lady celebrated for Music"; "The Rival Brothers"; "You've been Captain long enough"; "On hearing a Boy mock the Bell"; "Thoughts"; "La Rosiere"; "Address to the Valentine"; "Blessed Influence of the Studies of Nature"; "Recluse of the Lake"; "Spring"; "Lines to Beauty"; "Harriet Bruce"; "Miseries of Wealth"; "To the fringed Gentian"; "The Bold and Beautiful Convict"; "Romance"; "Lines to a Wealthy Lady"; "The Indian Wife"; "Fable of the Caterpillar and Silk-Worm"; "Lines occasioned by a beautiful Thought"; "Stand from Under"; "Adventures of a Rain-Drop"; "The Young West-Indian"; "A New-Year's Offering to a Friend"; "Nature and Simplicity"; "Chocorua's Curse"; "Lines to a Husband"; "The First and Last Book." The Biographies ofMadame de Stael, and Madame Roland. Vol. I of Ladies' Family Library. Boston: Carter and Hendee, 1832; rpt. in part as The Biograpby ofMadame de Stan. Edinburgh: Thomas Clark, IS36; IS32
Works
759
ed. rpt. as Memoirs ofMadame de Stai!l, and ofMadame Roland. New York: C. S. Francis/Boston,]. H. Francis, 1847. The Biographies of Lady Russell, and Madame Guyon. Vol. 2 of Ladies' Family Library. Boston: Carter, Hendee, 1832; rpt. in part as The Biography ofLady Russell. Edinburgh: Thomas Clark, 1836. Good Wives. Vol. 3 of Ladies' Family Library. Boston: Carter, Hendee, 1833; rpt. as Biographies of Good Wives. New York: C. S. Francis/Boston:]. H. Francis, 1846; London: Griffin, 1849; rpt. as Celebrated Women: Or, Biographies of Good Wroes. New York: Charles S. Francis, 1861; rpt. as Married Women: Biographies ofGood Wives. New York: Charles S. Francis, 187 I. An Appeal in Favor ofThat Class ofAmericans Called Africans. Boston: Allen and Ticknor, 1833; rpt. New York: John S. Taylor, 1836. The Oasis (edited, with the following contributions by Child). Boston: Allen and Ticknor, 1834. "To the Public"; "Preface"; "William Wilberforce"; "How to effect Emancipation"; "Malem-Boo"; "llIustration of the Strength of Prejudice"; "I thank my God for my humility"; "Safe Mode of Operation"; "The Hottentots"; "Conversation between the Editor and a Colonizationist"; "Contrast"; "Voices from the South"; "Scale of Complexions"; "Dangers of Emancipation"; "Knowledge in the United States"; "Old Scip"; "Arguments and Men"; "Derivation of Negro"; "Mobs in Jamaica." The History of the Condition of Women, in ~rious Ages and Nations. Vols. 4 and 5 of Ladies' Family Library. Boston: John Allen, 1835; London, 1835; rev. ed. retided Brief History of the Condition of Women, in ~rious Ages and Nations. New York: C. S. Francis/Boston:J. H. Francis, 1845. Authentic Anecdotes ofAmerican Slavery (edited anonymously, with unspecified contributions by Child). Nos. I -2. Newburyport, Mass.: Charles Whipple, 1835. Ami-Slavery Catechism. Newburyport, Mass.: Charles Whipple, 1836. The Evils of Slavery, and the Cure ofSlavery. The First Proved by the Opinions ofSoutherners Themselves, the Last Shawn by Historical Evidence. Newburyport, Mass.: Charles Whipple, 1836. Philothea. A Romance. Boston: Otis, Broaders/New York: George Dearborn, 1836; rpt. as Philothea: A Grecian Romance. New York: C. S. Francis, 1845. The Family Nurse; or Companion ofThe Frugal Housewife. Boston: Charles]. Hendee, 1837. Authentic Anecdotes ofAmerican Slavery (edited anonymously with unspecified contributions by Child). NO.3. Newburyport, Mass.: Charles Whipple, 1838. Memoir ofBenjamin Lay: Compiledfrom ~rious Sources (ed.). New York: ArnericanAnti-Slavery Society, 1842. American Ami-Slavery Almanac [for 1843) (ed.). New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1843. Letters from New-York (First Series). New York: C. S. Francis/Boston: James Munroe, 1843; London, Bendey, 1843. Flowers for Children. I. (For Children Eight or Nine Years Old). New York: C. S. Francis/Boston:]. H. Francis, 1844; rpt. as The Christ Child, and Other Stories. Boston: D. Lothrop/Dover, N.H.: G. T. Day, 1869. "The Christ-Child and the Poor Children"; "The New-York Boy's Song"; "Mannikins, or Little Men"; "George and His Dog"; "The Squirrel and Her Little Ones"; "The Young Artist"; "How the Birds Make Their Nests"; "The Present. A Drama"; "The Indolent Fairy"; "Little Bird! Little Bird!"; "Deaf and Dumb"; "Louisa Preston"; "Life in the Ocean"; "The Sister's Hymn." Flowers for Children. II. (For Children from Four to Six Year Old). New York: C. S. Francis, 1844; rpt. as Good Little Mitty, and Other Stories. Boston: D. Lothrop/Dover, N.H.: G. T. Day, 1869. "Good Little Mitty"; "The Saucy Little Squirrel"; "The Visit"; "The New-England Boy's Song"; "The Impatient Little Girl"; "Little Runaways"; "Robins"; "The Spring Birds"; "Little Mary Is Cross ToDay"; "Little Lucy and Her Lamb"; "Little Francis"; "The Autumn Bird"; "Happy Little George"; "The Donkey"; "The Sailor's Dog"; "Father Is Coming"; "Anna and Her Kitten"; "The House of Little Tom Thumb"; "The Unlucky Day"; "The Hen and Her Ducks"; "The Little Glutton"; "The Twins"; "The Parrot"; "Who Stole the Bird's Nest?"; "The Little White Lamb and the Little Black Lamb"; "May-Day"; "Little Jane"; "My Sister Mary"; "Discontented Dora"; "Little Emma"; "The Young Traveller"; "Gertrude and Her Birds"; "Our Playthings." Letters From New York. Second Series. New York: C. S. Francis/Boston:]. H. Francis, 1845.
760 Works Fact and Fiction: A Collection ofStories. New York: C. S. Francis/Boston:). H. Francis, 1846; London: WIlliam Smith, 1847; rpt. as The Children ofMt. Ida, and Other Stories. New York: C. S. Francis, 1871. "The Children of Mount Ida"; "The Youthful Emigrant. A True Story of the Early Setdement of New Jersey"; "The Quadroons"; "The Irish Heart. A True Story"; "A Legend of the Aposde John"; "The Beloved Tune"; "Elizabeth Wilson"; "The Neighbour-in-Law"; "She Waits in the Spirit Land"; "A Poet's Dream of the Soul"; "The Black Saxons"; "Hilda Silfverling. A Fantasy"; "Rosenglory"; "A Legend of the Falls of St. Anthony"; "The Brothers." With M. Kendrick. The Gift Book of Biography for Young Ladies. London: Thomas Nelson; and Edinburgh, 1847. Fluwers for Children. III (For Children ofEleven and Twelve Years ofAge). New York: C. S. Francis/Boston:). H. Francis, 1847; rpt. as Making Something, and Other Stories. Boston: D. Lothrop/Dover, N.H.: G. T. Day, 1869. "Making Something"; "The Tulip and the Ladies' Delight"; "Lines to Annette"; "Musical Children"; "A Dream"; "William Button, the Boy who would be a Sailor"; "Aunt Maria's Swallows"; "Lariboo. Sketches of Life in the Desert." Sturgis, Caroline. Rainbows for Children. Ed. Lydia Maria Child. New York: C. S. Francis, 1848. Rose Marian and the Fluwer Fairies. New York: C. S. Francis/Boston:]. H. Francis, 1850' Sketchesfrom Real Life. 1. The Power ofKindness. II. Home and Politics. Philadelphia: Hazard & Mitchell, 1850; London: Collius, 1850; rpt. as The Power of Kindness; and Other Stories. Philadelphia: Willis P. Hazard, 18 53. The Childrens' [sic] Gems. The Brother and Sister: And Other Stories. Philadelphia: New Church Book Store, 18 52 • Isaac T. Hopper: A True Life. Boston: John P. Jewett/Cleveland: Jewett, Proctor & Worthington/London: Sampson Low, 1853. The Progress ofReligious Itkas, Through Successive Ages. 3 vo!s. New York: C. S. Francis/London: S. Low, 1855. A New Fluwer for Children. New York: C. S. Francis, 1856. "Jamie and Jeannie"; "The Sagacious Cat. A True Story"; "Willie Wild Thing"; "The New England Boy's Answer to a May-Day Invitation"; "Rosy O'Ryan"; "A Welcome to June"; "The Boy's Heaven"; "The Boys of the Old Times"; "Secrets of Nature"; "The Real Giants"; "The Royal Rose Bud"; "Farewell to the Birds." Sturgis, Caroline. The MagiL'ian sShowbox. Ed. Lydia Maria Child. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1856. Autumnal Leaves: Tales and Sketches in Prose and Rhyme. New York: C. S. Francis, 1857. "The Eglantine"; "A Serenade"; "The Juryman"; "The Fairy Friend"; "Wergeland, the Poet"; "The Emigrant Boy"; "Home and Politics"; "To the Trailing Arbutus"; "The Catholic and the Quaker" (earlier tided "The Power of Love" and "The Power of Kindness"); "The Rival Mechanicians"; "A Song"; "Utouch and Touchu"; "The Brother and Sister"; "The Stream of Life"; "The Man that Killed His Neighbours"; "Intelligence of Animals"; "The World that I am Passing Through"; "Jan and Zaida"; "To the Nasturtiums"; "The Ancient Clairvoyant" (earlier tided "The Prophet of Ionia"); "Spirit and Matter"; "The Kansas Emigrants"; "I Want to go Home." Correspondence between Lydia Maria Child and Gov. Wise and Mrs. Mason, ofVtrginia. Boston: American AntiSlavery Society, 1860. The Right Way the Safe Way, Proved by Emancipation in the British West Indies, and Elsewhere. New York: 5 Beekman Street, 1860; rpt. and enlarged, 1862. The Patriarchal Institution, As Described by Members ofIts Own Family (ed.). New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1860. The Duty ofDisobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act: An Appeal to the Legislators ofMassachusetts. Boston: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1860. Jacobs, Harriet A. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Ed. Lydia Maria Child. Boston: Privately published, 1861.
Looking toward Sunset. From Sources Old and New, Original and Selected (edited, with the following contributions by Child). Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1865. "Preface"; "The Friends"; "Old Folks at Home"; "The Mysterious Pilgrimage"; "Unmarried Women"; "Moral Hints"; "Letter from an Old Woman, on Her Birthday"; "Old Bachelors"; "Old Folks at Home" (another poem by the same tide); "Hints about Health." The Freedmen's Book (edited, with the following contributions by Child). Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1865. "Ignatius Sancho"; "Benjamin Banneker"; "William Boen"; "Toussaint L'Ouverture"; "Phillis Wheatley"; "Kindness to Animals"; "James Forten"; "The Meeting in the Swamp" (abbreviated and simplified version of "The Black Saxons"); "Progress of Emancipation in the British West Indies"; "Madison Washington"; "Frederick Douglass"; "William and Ellen Crafts" [sic]; "Education of Children"; "John Brown"; "The Laws of Health"; "Advice from an Old Friend." A Romance ofthe Republic. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867. An Appealfor the Indians. New York: W m. P. Tomlinson, 1868. Aspirations of the World. A Chain of Opals (edited, with introduction by Child). Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1878.
Periodical Stories and Sketches (Uncollected Items Marked with Asterisk) "The Rival Brothers. A Tale of the Revolution." The Atlantic Souvenir for 1827. Philadelphia: H. C. Carey & L Lea: 1826.208-26; rpt. American Traveller 28 Nov. 1826: 4; rpt. The Coronal 32-57. ·"Adventure in the Woods." Juvenile Miscellany I (Sept. 1826): 5- I 3. ·"Adventures ofa BelL" Juvenile Miscellany 2 (Mar. 1827): 24-30; rpt. MassachusettsJourna/8 Mar. 182 7: 4. ·"The Indian Boy." Juvenile Miscellany 2 (May 1827): 28-31. "The Recluse of the Lake." The Token for 1828. Boston: S. G. Goodrich, 1827.59-76; rpt. The Coronal 87119· "The Adventures of a Rain Drop." The Token for 1828. Boston: S. G. Goodrich, 1827. 78-83; rpt. MassachusettsJournal29Jan. 1828: I; rpt. The CoronaII90-2°O. "The Lone Indian." The Token for 1828. Boston: S. G. Goodrich, 1827. 101-10; rpt. The Coronal 3-19. "The Young West Indian." By the Author of Hob omok. The Atlantic Souvenir for 1828. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, & Carey, 1827. 230-69; rpt. The Coronal 201-62. "Conversation Between a Little Boy of Olden Times, and a Boston Boy of 1827." Juvenile Miscellany 3 (Sept. 1827): 105-10; revised and rpt. as "The Boys of the Old Times" inA New FJowerjor Children 200-215. ·"The Brothers, or ... The Influence of Example." Juvenile Miscellany 3 (Nov. 1827): 209-26. ·"My Mother's Grave." Juvenile Miscellany 3 Oan. 1828): 310-13. ·"The Little Traveller." Juvenile Miscellany 3 Oan. 1828): 365-69. "Louisa Preston." Juvenile Miscellany 4 (Mar. 1828): 56-81. ·"Lealea Hoku." Juvenile Miscellany 4 (May 1828): 206-17. ·"The Church in the Wilderness." The Legendary. Ed. Nathaniel P. Willis. Boston: Samuel G. Goodrich, 1828.1-23. "The Indian Wife." The Legendary. Ed. Nathaniel P. Willis. Boston: Samuel G. Goodrich, 1828. 197-208; rpt. Massachusetts Journal 28 June 1828: 1-2; rpt. The Coronal 162-80. ·"The Orphans." Juvenile Misce/lany 4 Ouly 1828): 314-26. "The Cottage Girl." Juvenile Miscellany n.s. I (Sept. 1828): 3-19' ·"Annals of a Village. Marian Russell." Massachusetts r#ekly Journal 7 Jan. 182 9: 4. ·"KirbySimpson." MassachusettsJournalz9Nov. 1828: 1 [authorship uncertain]. "You've been Captain long enough!" Massachusetts r#ekly Journal 18 Feb. 1829: 4; rpt. The Coronal 58-60. "Harriet Bruce." MassachusettsJournalz 3 May 1829: 2; Massachusetts r#ekly Journal 27 May 1829: 2; rpt. The Coronal 125-42. "The Bold and Beautiful Convict." Massachusetts r#ekly Journal I Apr. 1829: 2; rpt. The Coronal 148-55.
*"Annals of the Village. The Sudden Match." Massachusetts WeeklyJournal 15 Apr. IS29: 2. "Stand from Under!" Massachusetts Weekly JournalS Aug. IS29: 4; rpt. Liberator 2S Jan. IS32: 16; rpt. The Corona/IS4-S9· ·"Captain Gregg and His Dog." Massachusetts Daily Journal 24 Aug. IS29; Massachusetts Weekly Journal 29 Aug. and 10 Oct. 1829: I. "Chocorua's Curse." The Token for IS30. Ed. Samuel Goodrich. Boston: Carter and Hendee, IS29· 257-65; rpt. The Coronal z 70-S0. *"Black Dennis." Massachusetts Weekly Journalz 7 Feb. IS30: I. *"The Rivals." Massachusetts Weekly Journal 20 Feb. IS30: I. *"The Favorite Guest." Massachusetts Weekly Journalz7 Feb. IS30: 2. *"Aunt Betty." Massachusetts Weekly Journal 14 Mar. IS30: 2. *"The School Mistress." Massachusetts Weekly Journal 10 Apr. IS30: 3. "La Rosiere." Massachusetts Journal 17 Apr. IS30: 3; Massachusetts Weekly Journal 17 Apr. IS30: Ij rpt. The Coronal 67-77 . *"Caroline Swan." Massachusetts Weekly Jour1l4l I May 1830: 2. *"The St. Domingo Orphans." Juvenile Miscellany n.s. 5 (Sept. IS30): 81-94. "The Sagacious Papa." Massachusetts Journal and Tribune 4 Sept. I 830: I; rpt. The Coronal 20-29. "The Indolent Fairy" (IS 30)' Youth s Keepsake; a Christmas and New Years Gift for Young People. Boston: Carter and Hendee, ISJI. 199-206; rpt. Flowersfor Children. 1130-38. "The Spider, Caterpillar and Silk Worm." Massachusetts Journal and Tribune 27 Nov. 1830: 2; rpt. and retitled "Fable of the Caterpillar and Silk-Worm." The Coronal IS I -S2. *"Firstand Last Thanksgiving." Massachusetts Journal and Tribune 4 Dec. 1830: 2. "The Palace of Beauty. A Fairy Tale." Massachusetts Journal and Tribune 25 Dec. 1830: 3; rpt. The Little Girls Own Book 271-80. ·"Pol Sosef. The Indian Artist." Juvenile Miscellany n.s. 5 Oan. IS3 I): 27S-84. *"Jumbo and Zairee." Juvenile Miscellany n.s. 5 Oan. 183 I): 2S5-99' *"Letter from a Native of Tonga taboo." Juvenile Miscellany n.s. 5 Oan. IS3I): 307-10. ·"DarbyandJoan." MassachusettsJournaland Tribune 26 Feb. IS3I: 2. ·"The Gipsey Wife. Founded on Facts Stated in an English Law Book." Massachusetts Journal and Tribune 16 Apr. 1831: I. ·"The Sultana of the Desert. Translated for the Massachusetts Journal from Le Courier des Etats Unis." Massachusetts Journal and Tribune 23 Apr. IS3 I: I (possible source for LMC's "Life in the Desert"). "Life in the Desert." n.s. 6 (May IS3 I): 160-S9; retitled "Lariboo" and revised for Flowers for Children. III I 54-S4. *"The Slave Trader." MassachusettsJournaland Tribune 7 and 14May IS3I: I. ·"The Industrious Family." Juvenile Miscellany n.s. 60uly 1831): 217-30. "William Burton; or the Boy Who Would be a Sailor." Juvenile Miscellany 3rd ser. I (Sept. 183 I): 1-45; rpt. Flowers for Children. III. 97-143' *"The Despot's Favorite." Massachusetts Journal and Tribune 29 Oct. IS 3 I: 2. *"The Stage Coach." Massachusetts Journal. [Pasted into a scrapbook, LMC Papers, Schlesinger Library, date unknown]. ·"Annals of a Village. Founded on Fact." Massachusetts Jour1l41. [Pasted into a scrapbook, LMC Papers, Schlesinger Library, date unknown.] ·"Annals of a Village. The Blacksmith's Daughter." Massachusetts Journal. [Pasted into a scrapbook, LMC Papers, Schlesinger Library, date unknown.] ·"Annals of a VIllage. The Runaway Marriage." Massachusetts Journal. [Pasted into a scrapbook, LMC Papers, Schlesinger Library, date unknown.] ·"Buffalo Creek." Juvenile Miscellany 3rd ser. 4 Ouly IS33): 255-75. ·"William Peterson, the Brave and Good Boy." Juvenile Miscellany 3rd ser. 5 (Mar. IS34): 66-67. ·"Mary French and Susan Easton." Juvenile Miscellany 3rd ser. 6 (May 1834): 186-202.
"The Black Saxons" (1840). The Liberty Bell. Boston: Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Fair, 1841. 19-404; rpt. Liberator 8Jan. 1841: 5-6; rpt. Fact and Fiction 190-204; rpt., revised and retitled "The Meeting in the Swamp." The Freedmen's Book 104-10. "The Quadroons" (1841). The Liberty Bell. Boston: Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Fair, 1842; rpt. Fact and Fiction 61-76. *"Slavery's Pleasant Homes. A Faithful Sketch" (1842). The Liberty Bell. Boston: Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Fair, 1843. 147-60. "The Remembered Home." The Present 1 (Sept. 1843): II-18; rpt. Letters from New York. Second Series 3247· "Thot and F rela." Columbian Lady 's and Gentleman's Magazine 3 (Jan. 1845): 1-7; included in Letters from New York. Second Series 176-95. "Elizabeth Wilson." Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine 3 (Feb. 1845): 79-85; rpt. as "Lizzy. A Thrilling Story." Philadelphia Saturday Courier 1 Feb. 1845: I, 4; rpt. Fact and Fiction 128-48. "The Children of Mt. Ida." Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine 3 (Apr. 1845): 145-54; rpt. Fact and Fiction 9-39. "The Youthful Emigrant." Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine 3 (June 1845): 241-47; rpt. Fact and Fiction 40-60. "The Irish Heart. A True Story." Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine 4 (July 1845): 17-21; rpt. Fact and Fiction 77-90. "A Legend of the Apostle John." Columbian Lady 'sand Gentleman's Magazine 4 (Sept. 1845): 123-30; rpt. Fact and Fiction 91-115. "Hilda Silfverling. A Fantasy." Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine 4 (Oct. 1845): 169-78; rpt. Fact and Fiction 205-40. "The Beloved Tune." Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine 4 (Nov. 1845): 193-96; rpt. Fact and Fiction II6- 25· "She Waits in the Spirit Land." Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine 5 (Mar. 1846): 97-101; rpt. Fact and Fiction 163-76. "The Neighbour-in-Law." Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine 5 (June 1846): 241-45; rpt. Fact and Fiction 149-62. "A Poet's Dream of the Soul." Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine 6 (Sept. 1846): 117-20; rpt. Fact and Fiction 177-89. "Rosenglory." Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine 6 (Oct. 1846): 181-86; rpt. Fact and Fiction 24160. "The Rival Mechanicians." Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine 7 (Jan. 1847): 13-18; rpt. Autumnal Leaves 143-64. "The Fairy Friend." Columbian Lady's and Gentleman sMagazine 7 (Mar. 1847): 97-98; rpt. Autumnal Leaves 65-71. "The Man That Killed His Neighbours." Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine 7 (May 1847): 193-97; rpt. Autumnal Leaves 203-20. "The Emigrant Boy." Union Magazine ofLiterature and Art I (July 1847): 4-8; rpt. Autumnal Leaves 79-95. "The Brother and Sister." Union Magazine ofLiterature and Art 1 (Oct. 1847): 155-59; rpt. Autumnal Leaves 181-99· "Utouch and Touchu." Union Magazine of Literature and Art I (Dec. 1847): 241 -44; rpt. Autumnal Leaves 166-80. "The Bewildered Savage." Union Magazine of Literature and Art 2 (Jan. 1848): 23-26. Incorporated into "The Adventures of Jamie and Jeannie." A New Flower for Children. New York: C. S. Francis, 1856. 9102. *"The Hindoo Anchorite." Union Magazine ofLiterature and Art 2 (Apr. 1848): 151-53. "The Power of Love." Union Magazine of Literature and Art 2 (May 1848): 213-18; rpt. and retitled "The Power of Kindness." Sketches from Real Life. 1. The Puwer of Kindness. II. Home and Politics. Philadelphia:
Hazard & Mitchell, I850; rpt. as The Power ofKindness; and Other Stories. Philadelphia: Willis P. Hazard, 1853; rpt. and retided "The Catholic and the Quaker," Autumnal Leaves 12I-42. "Horne and Politics." Sartain's Union Magazine ofLiterature and Art 3 (Aug. 1848): 63 -68; rpt. Sketches from RealLife.I. The Power ofKindness. II. Home and Politics. Philadelphia: Hazard & Mitchell, I850; rpt. as The Power ofKindness; and Other Stories. Philadelphia: Willis P. Hazard, 1853; rpt. Autumnal Leaves 96- I 18. "The Prophet of Ionia." Sartain's Union Magazine of Literature and Art 4 (Feb. 1849): 94-97; revised and retided "The Ancient Clairvoyant." Autumnal Leaves 269-90. '''The Stars and Stripes. A Melo-Drama" (1857). The Liberty Bell. Boston: Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Fair, 1858.122-85. ·"Loo Loo. A Few Scenes from a True History." Atlantic Monthly I (May 1858): 80I-I2; Gnne 1858): 32-42. ·"Willie Wharton." Atlantic Monthly I I (Mar. 1863): 324-45. ·"Freddy's New-Year's Dinner. A Story for Small Young Folks." Our Young Folks I Guly 1865): 421-29. ·"Grandfather's Chestnut-Tree." Our Young Folks I (Oct. 1865): 613-27. ·"The Two Christmas Evenings." Our Young Folks 2 Gan. 1866): 2-13. '''Poor Chloe. A True Story of Massachusetts in the Olden Time." Atlantic Monthly I 7 (Mar. 1866): 352 -64. ·"A Soul's Victory over Circumstances." Woman'sJournal 16 Sept. 1871: 294-95. ·"A Woman Who Made Good Use of Her Tongue." Trans. from the German. Woman's Journal JI July 1875: 246 -47; 7 Aug. 1875: 254-55·
Journalism and Miscellaneous Nonfiction (Uncollected Items Marked with Asterisk) "The American Traveller." Juvenile Miscellany I (Sept. I826): 14-20; rpt. Biographical Sketches of Great and
GoodMen 49-55. ·"Mother and Eliza." Juvenik Miscellany I (Sept. 1826): 45-47. "Sir Benjamin West." Juvenile Miscellany I Gan. 1827): 19-25; rpt. Biographical Sketches ofGreat and Good Men 56- 63. ·"Wonders of the Deep." Juvenile Miscellany I Gan. 1827): 66-80. ·"Value of Time." Juvenik Miscellany 1 Gan. 1827): 103-5. "Benjamin Franklin." Juvenile Miscellany 2 (Mar. 1827): 18-23; rpt. Biographical Sketches of Great and Good
Men 9-14' "William Penn." Juvenik Miscellany 2 Guly 1827): 40-49; rpt. Biographical Sketches ofGreat and Good Men 6475· "Rev. John Eliot." Juvenile Miscellany 3 (Nov. 1827): I40-44; rpt. Biographical Sketches of Great and Good Men 76- 80. ·"On the Importance of Mental Resources." Massachusetts Journal. Pasted into a scrapbook, LMC Papers, Schlesinger Library; may date from ca. 1827-28; rpt. as "The Importance of Resources among Ourselves. Written fourteen years ago, by L. M. Child." National Anti-Slavery Standard 20 May I 84I: 19S. ·"American History." Juvenile Miscellany n.s. 1 (Sept. I828): 99-1OS. "Romance." Massachusetts Journal 20 Nov. 182S: 1; rpt. The Coronal 156-60. ·"Review of Frances Parkes, Domestic Duties. Massachusetts Weekly Journal 17 Dec. IS2S: 3. "Philosophy and Consistency." Massachusetts Weekly Journal 7 Jan. 1829: 2; rpt. Frugal Housewife from 1830 ed.on. ·"Politeness." Massachusetts Weekly Journal 18 Feb. 1829: 4. ·"Comparative Strength of Male and Female Intellect." Massachusetts Journal 3 Mar. 1829; Massachusetts Weekly Journal 4 Mar. 1829: 2. ·"Fish." Massachusetts Weekly Journal 25 Mar. IS29: I. ·"Rambling Thoughts." Massachusetts Weekly JournalS Apr. IS29: 2. ·"American History." Juvenile Miscellany n.s. 2 (May 1829): 199-205. "Hints to People of Moderate Fortune." Massachusetts Weekly Journal 27 May IS29: 2; rpt. Frugal Housewife from IS30 ed. on.
Works
765
·"Criticisms on the Gallery." Massachusetts Weekly Journal 3 June 1829: I. "Hints to People of Moderate Fortune." Massachusetts Weekly Journal 17 June 1829: 4; rpt. Frugal Housewift from 1830 ed. on. ·"Hints." Massachusetts Week~'Y Journal I July 1829: 2. "More Hints to People of Moderate Fortune." Massachusetts Weekly Journal 15 July 1829: I; rpt. Frugal Housewiftfrom 1830 ed. on. '''Filial Piety." Massachusetts Weekly Journal 22 July 1829: 4 (authorship uncertain). ·"Satire." Massachusetts Weekly Journal 22 July 1829: 4 (authorship uncertain). ·"Letter from a Lady, concerning Miss Wright." Massachusetts Weekly Journal 14 Aug. 1829: 3. ·"Chinese Children." Juvenile Miscellany n.S. 3 (Sept. 1829): 3-6. "More Hints to People of Moderate Fortune." Massachusetts Weekly Journal 12 Sept. 1829: 2; rpt. Frugal Housewift from 1830 ed. on. ·"Letter from a Lady in Boston to her Friend in the Country." Massachusetts Weekly Journal 19 Sept. 1829: 2. ·Review of The Token [for 1830]. Massachusetts WeeklyJournal 24 Oct. 1829: 2. "More Hints to People of Moderate Fortune." Massachusetts Weekly Journal 24 Oct. 1829: 2; rpt. Frugal Housewift from 1830 ed. on. ·Review of The Wept ofWtsh-ton-Wish. Massachusetts Weekly Journal 2 I Nov. 1829: 4. "More Hints to People of Moderate Fortune." Massachusetts Weekly Journal 30 Jan. 1830: 2; rpt. Frugal Housewife from 1830 ed. on. ·"Wealth." Massachusetts WeeklyJournal 14 Mar. 1830: 3. ·"Rules for a Young Lady." Massachusetts Weekly Journal I May 1830: 4. ·"Hints on Education." Massachusetts Weekly Journal 15 May 1830: 3. '''Straw Bonnets." Massachusetts Weekly Journal 22 May 1830: 3. '''Popular Manners." Massachusetts Weekly Journal 3 July 1830: 2. ·"Prudential Matches." Massachusetts Weekly Journal 2I Aug. 1830: 2. '''Domestic Happiness - Its Influence, &c." Massachusetts Journal and Tribune I 8 Sept. 1830: 1-2. '''Hiding in the Sand." MassachusettsJournal and Tribune 2 Oct. 1830: 1-2. ·"Female Labor." Massachusetts Journal and Tribune 9 Oct. 1830: I (authorship uncertain). '''News and Newspapers." MassachusettsJournaland Tribune 9 Oct. 1830: 2. ·"Comfort." MassachusettsJournal and Tribune 30 Oct. 1830: 2. ·"New Zealanders." Juvenile Miscellany n.s. 5 (Nov. 1830): 189-95' "The First and Last Book." Massachusetts Journal and Tribune 13 Nov. 1830: I; rpt. The Coronal. 282-85. '''Literature below Stairs." Massachusetts Journal and Tribune rJ an. 183 I: I. '''The Mismanagement of Children." Massachusetts Journal and Tribune 22 Jan. 183 I: 2. '''Polar Regions." Juvenile Miscellany n.S. 6 (Mar. 183 I): 89-101. "Thoughts." Massachusetts Journal and Tribune II June 183 I: 2; rpt. The Coronal. 63 -66. ·"Man-Traps." MassachusettsJournaland Tribune 16July 1831: I. ·"Novel Incident." MassachusettsJournal and Tribune 6 Aug. 1831: 3. '''Woman's Love Strong in Death." MassachusettsJournal and Tribune 24 Sept. 1831: 2. '''The Moral of an Alarm Watch." Massachusetts Journal and Tribune 17 Dec. 1831: I; rpt. Liberator 2 I Jan. 1832: 12; rpt. and retitled "The Alarm-Watch." Juvenile Miscellany 3rd ser. 6 (May 1834): 210-II. '''To the Public" (letter in response to accusation of having copied idea for Little Girl's Own Book from Eliza Leslie). MassachusettsJournaland Tribune 14Jan. 1832: 3. ·"The Miseries of Knowledge." Massachusetts Journal [pasted into scrapbook in LMC Papers, Schlesinger Library; date unknown]. '''The Winds." Massachusetts Journal [pasted into scrapbook in LMC Papers, Schlesinger Library; date unknown). '''Leaf from a Reviewer'sJournal." Massachusetts Journal [pasted into a scrapbook, LMC Papers, Schlesinger Library, date unknown). ·"New Books." Juvenile Miscellany 3rd ser. 2 (March 1831): roS.
766 Works '''All about Cuba." Juvenile Miscellany 3rd ser. 2 (May 1832): 198-21S. ·"New Books." Juvenile Miscellany 3rd ser. 2 Ouly 1832): 320-21. "Some Talk about Brazil." Juvenile Miscellany 3rd ser. 3 (Sept. 1832): 47-So; partially incorporated into An Appeal 189-92. ·"A Few Words about Turkey." Juvenile .Miscellany 3rd ser. 5 Oan. 1833): PO-II. "Kindness of the Africans." Juvenile Miscellany 3rd ser. S (Nov. 1833): II4-18; partially incorporated into An Appeal 198-99. "Charity Bowery." The Liberty Bell. Boston: Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Fair, 1839. 26-43; rpt. Letters from New York. Second Series 43-56. "Anecdote of Elias Hicks." The Liberty Bell. Boston: Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Fair, 1839. 6S-68. Incorporated into Isaac T. Hopper 274-82. ·"The Emancipated Slaveholders." The Liberty Bell. Boston: Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Fair, 1839.71-74. ·"To the Readers of the Standard." National Anti-Slavery Standard 20 May 1841: 198. ·"To Abolitionists" [inaugural editorial]. National Anti-Slavery Standard 20 May 1841: 198. ·"Prospectus of the Anti-Slavery Standard for 1841 -42." National Anti-Slavery Standard 20 May 1841: 199. "The Deserted Church." National Anti-Slavery Standard 27 May 1841: 203; partially incorporated into Letters from New York. Second Series 144-50. ·"The Third Political Party." NationalAnti-SlaveryStandard 24June 1841: 10-11. ·"Speaking in the Church." National Anti-Slavery Standard I S July 1841: 22. ·"Annette Gray." NationalAnti-Slavery Standard 22 July 1841: 203. '''They have not wit enough to take care of themselves." NationalAnti-Slavery Standard 5 Aug. 1841: 41. ·"Rev.Jonathan Davis." NationalAnti-Slavery Standard 26 Aug. 1841: 46. ·"Moral Influence." NationalAnti-Slavery Standard 2 Dec. 1841: 102. ·"Letters from New-York." No. I 2 [on the Amistad captives]. National Anti-Slavery Standard 2 Dec. 1841: 103. ·"Letters from New-York." No. 14 [interview with an ex-slave woman]. National Anti-Slavery Standard 16 Dec. 1841: III. ·"The Press." National Anti-Slavery Standard 23 Dec. 1841: II4. ·"Independence of the Press." NationalAnti-Slavery Standard 30 Dec. 1841: 119. '''Address to their Fellow-Citizens, by the Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society." NationalAnti-Slavery Standard 27 Jan. 1842: 13S. ·"Peterboro Convention." NationalAnti-Slavery Standard 10 Feb. 1842: 142. ·"Gerrit Smith's Address to the Slaves." National Anti-Slavery Standard 24 Feb. 1842: 150-5 I. ·"The Union." National Anti-Slavery Standard 24 Feb. 1842: 151. '''The Iron Shroud." NationalAnti-Slavery Standard 3 Mar. 1842: IS4-SS. ·"Letters from New-York." No. 18 [description of Delevan Temperance Institute]. National Anti-Slavery Standard 3 Mar. 1842: ISS· '''The Press." National Anti-Slavery Standard 24 Mar. 1842: 166-67. ·"The Conscientious Slave," NationalAnti-Slavery Standard 7 Apr. 1842: 174-7S. ·"Our Anglo-Saxon Ancestry." National Anti-Slavery Standard 28 Apr. 1842: 186-87. ·"The Auniversary." National Anti-Slavery Standard 19 May 1842: 198. ·"Great Race between the North and the South." National Anti-Slavery Standard 9 June 1842: 2. ·"Talk about Political Party." NationalAnti-Slavery Standard 7 July 1842: 18-19. ·''The Decision of the Supreme Court." National Anti-Slavery Standard 7 July 1842: 18-19. ·"Follow the North Star." National Anti-Slavery Standard 2I July 1842: 25. '''Colonization.'' National Anti-Slavery Standard 28 July 1842: 31. ·"Letters from New-York." No. 33 [on antiabolitionistmob at George Thompson's lecture of! Aug. 183S]. NationalAnti-Slavery Standard 18 Aug. 1842: 43. ·"Colorphobia." NationalAnti-Slavery Standard 18 Aug. 1842: 43. '''Letters from New-York. " No. 36. National Anti-Slavery Standard 22 Sept. 1842: 63.
'''Lewis Clark." NationalAnti-Slavery Standord 20 and 27 Oct. 1842: 78, 83. ·"Arthur Tappan." National Anti-Slavery Standord 15 Dec. 1842: I I I. ·"Unwritten Wrongs." NationalAnti-Slavery Standord 29 Dec. 1842: Il9. '''The Slaveholder Seeking Light." National Anti-Slavery Standord 26 Jan. 1843: 134-35. ·"Sects and Sectarianism." NationalAnti-Slavery Standard 16 Feb. 1843: 146. '''Farewell.'' NationalAnti-Slavery Standard 4 May 1843: 190-91. ·"The Missionary of Prisons." The Present I (Dec. 1843): ZIO-I2. ·"Progress and Hope." The Present lOan. 1844): 230-34. ·"Letter from New-York." [on Amelia Norman]. Boston Courier 6 Feb. 1844; rpt. National Anti-Slavery Standard 22 Feb. 1844. "Letter from New-York." No.8 [denunciation of Nativism). Boston Courier 19 Apr. 1844. "Ole Bul's Niagara." Broadway Journal I (4Jan. 1845): 9-10; rpt. Letters from New York. Second Series 272-79. ·Review of Woman in the Nineteenth Century by Margaret Fuller. Boston Courier 8 Feb. 1845: 2. 'Review of Woman in the Nineteenth Century by Margaret Fuller. New York Daily Tribune 12 Feb. 1845: 1. ·Review of Woman in the Nineteenth Century by Margaret Fuller. Broadway Journal I (IS Feb. 1845): 97. '''Monsieur Edouart's Silhouette Rooms." Broadway Journal I (IS Feb. 1845): 101-2. '''LetterfromNew-York.'' [on Julia Northall and New York church architecture]. Boston Courier 2 Oct. 1845. '''Letter from New-York." [on Antony Philip Heinrich]. Boston Courier 7 Nov. 1845; New York Evening Post I I Nov. 1845. '''The Beauty of Peace." Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine 4 (Dec. 1845): 251 - 53. '''The Self-Conscious and the Unconscious." Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine 5 Oan. 1846): 43. "Letter from New-York." NO.3 [on the Prison Association]. Boston Courier 30Jan. 1846. '''Recollections of Ole Bull." Columbian Lady's and Gentleman sMagazine 5 (Feb. 1846): 72-76. '''Letter from New-York." [on prison reform]. Boston Courier 12 Mar. 1846. '''Letter from New York." [on John Sullivan Dwight's lectures, Christopher Cranch's paintings, Dickens's letters against capital punishment, and the achievements of women]. Boston Courier 2 Apr. 1846; partial rpt. National Anti-Slavery Standord 30 Apr. 1846. '''Letter from New-York." [on concerts in New York]. Boston Courier 27 Oct. 1846. '''Letter from New-York." [on a fugitive slave case]. Boston Courier 3 1 Oct. 1846. '''Letter from New York." [another installment on the same case]. Boston Courier 3 Nov. 1846. '''Letter from New-York." [on Art Union, Horace Kneeland, and Edward L. Walker]. Boston Courier I 1 Nov. 1846. '''The Northmen." Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine 6 (Dec. 1846): 241 -47. '''Letter from New-York." [on Viennese dancers]. Boston Courier 14 Dec. 1846. '''Letter from New-York." [on prison reform]. Boston Courier 23 Feb. 1847. "Correspondence between Mrs. M. J. c. Mason, of Virginia, and Mrs. L. Maria Child, of Massachusetts. Echoes ofHarper's Ferry. Ed. James Redpath. Boston: Thayer and Eldridge, 1860. 333 -47. ·"Spirits." Atlantic Monthly 9 (May 1862): 578-84. '''Through the Red Sea into the Wilderness." Independent 21 Dec. 1865: I; rpt. Liberator 29 Dec. 1865: 205. '''The President of the United States." Independent 8 Mar. 1866: I. '''All Soul's Day." NationalAnti-Slavery Standord 9 May 1868: 3. '''Letter from Mrs. L. Maria Child" [included in article on "The Woman's Rights Convention"]. National Anti-Slavery Standard 5 Dec. 1868: 3; partially rpt. Woman's Advocate I Oanuary 1869): 58-59. ·"About Santo [sic] Claus." Independent 24 Dec. 1868: 1. '''Indian Civilization." Independent 1 I Feb. 1869: I. ·"Hon. Geo. W. Julian vs. Land Monopoly." NationalAnti-Slavery Standard 13 Mar. 1869: 2. ·"Homesteads." NationalAnti-Slavery Standard 20 Mar. 1869: 2. ·"The Radicals." Independent 19 Aug. 1869: I; rpt. National Anti-Slavery Standard 28 Aug. 1869: I. ·"Women and the Freedmen." NationalAnti-Slavery Standard 28 Aug. 1869: 2; rpt. Woman's Advocate I (Oct. 1869): 190 -92.
768 Works *"The Byron Controversy." Independent 14 Oct. 1869: I; rpt. NationalAnti-Slavery Starulard 23 Oct. 1869: 4. *"Concerning Women." Independent 2I Oct. I 869: I; rpt. National Anti-Slavery Standard 30 Oct. 1869: I. *"Women and Minors." National Anti-Slavery Standard 23 Oct. 1869: 2. *"Little Dog Pink." NationalAnti-Slavery Standard 12 Feb. 1870: 4. *"Tbe Relations of Man to Animals." Independent 3 Mar. 1870: 3; rpt. National Anti-Slavery Starulard 12 Mar. 1870: 1. *"The Indians." The Starulardn.s. I (May 1870): I. *"Resemblances between the Buddhist and the Roman Catholic Religions." Atlantic Monthly 26 (Dec. 1870): 660-65. *"Lrtter from Lydia Maria Child" (IS Dec. 1870)' WomansJournal24 Dec. 1870: 40S. *"Another Friend Gone." National Standard 28Jan. 1871: 1. *"Dominica and Hayti." National Standard 28Jan. 1871: 4-S. *"Tbe Franco-Prussia War." Independent 9 Feb. 1871: 1. *"Rejection of the Hon. Charles Sumner." National Starulard 18 Mar. 187 I: 4-S. *"Concerning Woman Suffrage." Woman's Journal I July 187 I: 2°4. *"Chromos." Woman'sJournal IsJuly 1871: 2ZI. *"Economy and Work." National Standard S Aug. 187 I: 4- S. *"The Intermingling of Religions." Atlantic Monthly 28 (Oct. 1871): 38S-9S' *"AMemory." NationalStarulardFeb. 1872: I. *"Tobacco." National Standard Feb. 1872: I; Mar. 1872: 4-S. *"Two Significant Sculptures." Womans Journal 9 Mar. 1872: 76. *"Diamonds in the Dirt." Woman's Journal 30 Mar. 1872: 99. *"TemperanceinEating." NationaiStarulardJune 1872: S. *"AGlance at the State ofTbings." BostonJournalr6July 1872: 3. *"Tbe Present Aspect of Political Affairs." Woman'sJournal 10 Aug. 1872: 2S2. *"Physical Strength of Women." Woman's Journal IS Mar. 1873: 84. *"AMistake Corrected-Letter from Mrs. Child." Woman'sJournalzz Mar. 1873: 92. *"Dr. Osgood and His Daughters." Independent 17 July 1873: 893-94' *"Is Intellectuality the Bane of American Women?" Woman's JournaJr 9 July 1873: 228. *"Samuel). May." Woman's Journal 30 Aug. 1873: 276. *"Mrs. L. Maria Child on Taxation." Woman'sJournal28 Aug. I87S: 276. *"One of Our Benefactors." Woman's Journal 2S Mar. 1876: 100. *"Letter from Mrs. Child." Woman'sJournai IS July 1876: 22S. *"Equality of the Sexes." Woman'sJournals Aug. 1876: 252. *"Anne Whitney's Model of Charles Sumner's Statue." Woman's Journal S May 1877: 137. *"WiIliam Lloyd Garrison." Atlantic Monthly 44 (Aug. 1879): 237-38. *"The Underground Railroad." Pasted into a scrapbook in LMC Papers, Anti-Slavery Collection, Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library; journal and date unknown.
Poems (Uncollected Items Marked with an Asterisk) "The Valentine." By the Author of Hobomok. The Atlantic Souvenir for 1828. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, & Carey, [Aug.] 1827. 3-4; rpt. and retitled "Address to the Valentine." The Coronal 78-79. "Beauty." The Token for 1828. Boston: S. G. Goodrich [Oct.] 1827. 282-83; rpt. and retitled "Lines to Beauty." The Coronal 123-24. *"Introduction." George W[ashington] Julian. Speeches on Political Questions by George W Julian. With an Introduction by L. Maria Child. New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1872. v-xvii. "Stanzas occasioned by hearing a Little Boy, just let loose from School, mocking the Bell, as it struck the hour of Twelve. " Atlantic Souvenir for 1829. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, [August] 1828. I S9-60. [signed L. M. Francis]; rpt. and retitled "Lines To a little boy mocking the Old South Bell, as it rung the hour of
twelve," By the Author of Hobomok." Massachusetts Weekly Juurnal 8 Oct. 1828: 4; rpt. and retitled "Lines, Occasioned by Hearing a Little Boy Mock the Old South Bell Ringing the Hour of Twelve." The Coronal 61-62. "A New Year's Offering." Atlantic Souvenir for 1829. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, [Aug.] 1828. 246-47 [signed L. M. Francis]; rpt. as "A New-Year's Offering to a Friend" The Coronal 263-64. "To the Beautiful Flower, Called the Fringed Gentian." Juvenile Miscellany n.s. I (Sept. 1828): 49-50; rpt. Massachusetts Journal 20 Sept. 1828: 4; rpt. and retitled "The Fringed Gentian." The Coronal 143-46. '''Lines Suggested by a very pretty picture of Cupid filling his quiver with dollars." Massachusetts Weekly Journal 20 Dec. 1828: 4'''The Snow- The Snow!" Massachusetts Weekly Journal 25 Feb. 1829: 3. '''Suggested by the Play called 'The Bottle Imp.' " Massachusetts Weekly Journal 25 Feb. 1829: 4'''Auld Lang Syne." Massachusetts Weekly Journal 25 Mar. 1829: 4. '''Turn Out." Massachusetts Weekly Juurna/8 Apr. 1829: 2. ·"May Day." Juvenile Miscellany n.s. 2 (May 1829): 211-15; rpt. Massachusetts Weekly Journal 6 May 1829: 4. '''The Dandy Poet's Appeal." Massachusetts Weekly Journal 22 July 1829: 4. '''The Caravan of Animals." Massachusetts Weekly Juurnal IO Oct. 1829: 3. "Lines, Occasioned by seeing an Indian employed as a Sawyer in Boston." Massachusetts Journal. [pasted into a scrapbook, LMC Papers, Schlesinger Library, date unknown.] "Lines, Suggested by Vanderlyn's Fine Picture of Caius Marius among the Ruins of Carthage." rpt. The Coronal 1-2. The Token for 1828. Boston: S. G. Goodrich [Oct.] 1827.255-56. '''To George Thompson." Liberator 14 Nov. 1835: 183; rpt. "Letters from New-York. -No. 33." National Anti-Slavery Standard 18 Aug. 1842: 43. '''Lines to Those Men and Women, Who Were Avowed Abolitionists in 1831, '32, '33, '34, and '35." The Liberty Bell. Boston: Massachuserts Anti-Slavery Fair, 1839. 5-9. "A Welcome to Ole Bull, on his return from Canada." U.S. Magazine and Democratic Review 15 (Sept. 1844): . 285; rpt. Lettersfrom New York. Second Series, Letter No. 25, 232-35. '''Lines. Suggested by a Lock of Hair from Our Departed Friend, Catherine Sargent." The Liberty Bell for 1856. Boston: National Anti-Slavery Bazaar, 1856. 159-60. '''The Hero's Heart." Echoes ofHarper's Ferry. Ed. James Redpath. Boston: Thayer and Eldridge, 1860. 348. '''God Bless Our Soldier Boy." The Prairie Chicken I (Nov. 1864): I. '''The Woodland Poet's Alchemy." The Prairie Chicken I (May 1865): 4. '''Our Legion of Honor." The Prairie Chicken I Gune 1865): I. '''A Voice from Memory. Written on the 24th of May, the Anniversary of the Day on which Ellis Gray Loring Departed from This Life." The Standard I Gune 1870): 1-2.
Unpublished manuscripts in LMC Papers, Anti-Slavery Collection, Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University. "How a very small Mouse helped to gnaw open a net that held a great Lion." 1860. "Employments in 1864." "Autobiography" (1875). "To the Spirit of my Beloved Old Mate. Copied in the Summer of 1875." "Duplicity. A tale from real life" (date unknown). "A Song in Gold" (date unknown). "Simplicity of the Olden Time" (date unknown; seems to be part of a longer mss.). "Short pieces to be put in to fill up pages, if needed" (date unknown; seems to be part of a longer mss.). "From her lone path she never turns aside" (poem fragment, date unknown; seems to be part of a longer mss.) "The child counted I, 2, 3 ... " (mss. fragment, date unknown). "Mr. Graeter told a story ... " (mss. fragment, date unknown). "Aspirations of the World" (draft).
770
Works Unpublished manuscripts in Other Collections.
"Bring flowers for the artist's brow." Unpublished poem, [Francis] Alexander Family Papers, Vol. 2, p. 6. Schlesinger Library. "The Kansas Emigrants" (draft). Lydia Maria Child Papers, New York Public Library. "Song for the Free Soil Men," Lydia Maria Child Papers, New York Public Library. "The Colored Mammy and her White Foster-Child. A True Story." Lydia Maria Child Papers, New York Historical Society. "Negro Song, During the War of The Rebellion." Unpublished manuscript, provenance unknown, Patricia G. Holland File, Amherst, Mass.
Collected Letters [Harriet Winslow Sewall, ed.]. Letters ofLydia Maria Child with a Biographical Introduction by John G. Whittier and an Appendix by Wendell Phillips. Boston: Houghton Miffiin, 1882. The Collected Correspondence ofLydia Maria Child, 1817-1880. Ed. Patricia G. Holland, Milton Meltzer, and Francine Krasno. Millwood, N.Y.: Kraus Microform, 1980. Lydia Maria Child: Sekcted Letters, 1817-1880. Ed. Milton Meltzer, Patricia G. Holland, and Francine Krasno. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1982.
Uncollected Letters (Copies ofMost on File with Patricia G. Holland, Amherst, Mass.; Items Listed in Dealers' Catalogs Can Be Traced through the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass.) LMC to Catharine Maria Sedgwick. 21 Aug. 1826. Catharine Sedgwick Papers, Section 3, Folder 3, item 5, Massachusetts Historical Society. LMC to Catharine Maria Sedgwick. [I826?]. Catharine Sedgwick Papers, Section 3, Folder I, item IS, Massachusetts Historical Society. LMC to Francis Alexander. [18z6?]. Francis Alexander Papers. Vol. 2, p. 5. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College. LMC to Francis Alexander. [18z6?]. Francis Alexander Papers. Vol. 2, p. 7. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College. LMC to Catharine Maria Sedgwick. 5 June 1828. Catharine Sedgwick Papers, Section 3, Folder 3, item 8, Massachusetts Historical Society. LMC to Messrs. Carey & Lea. 2Jun 1830. Paul Richards, Inc. Catalog I7S, item 108. LMC to Catharine Maria Sedgwick. 16July 1831. Catharine Sedgwick Papers, Section 3, Folder 3, item 12, Massachusetts Historical Society. LMC to William D. Ticknor. I Apr. 183S. Benjamin Holt Ticknor Papers, Vol. 3, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. LMC to [George] Kimball. 10 Apr. 1835. Lydia Maria Child Papers, Anti-Slavery Collection, Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library. LMC to William D. Ticknor. 18 Apr. I83S. Benjamin Holt Ticknor Papers, Vol. 3, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. LMC to Benjamin Lundy. 14 Mar. [1836]. William Clinton Armstrong. The Lundy Family and Their Descendants of Whatsoever Surname, with a Biographical Sketch of Benjamin Lundy. New Brunswick, NJ.: J. Heidingsfeld, 1902. 39 1 -92. LMC to [Ellis Loring]. 25 Mar. 1844. Rare Books and Special Collections, Pennsylvania State University. LMC to William D. Ticknor, 28 Dec. 1844, Benjamin Holt Ticknor Papers, Vol. 3, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. LMC to Caroline Sturgis. IOJuly 1847. Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College.
Works
771
LMC to [Convers Francis). 18 Sept. 1847. Olive Kettering Library, Antiochana, Antioch College. LMC to Isaac T. Hopper. [after 15 Aug. 1848). L. Maria Child. Isaac T. Hopper: A True Life. Boston: John P. Jewett, 1853.462-64. LMC to Susan Hopper. 19July [1854?). David Schulson Autographs. Catalog n.d., item 2 I. LMC to ? 30 Mar. 1856.]. W. Johnson Collection, Beinecke Library, Yale University. LMC to Progressive Friends? 14 Apr. 1856. Proceedingr of the Pennsylvania Yearo/ Meeting of Progressive Friends, 1853-94. Meeting of May 1856, p. 69. Haverford College. LMC to? 7 July [1856). Schlesinger Library AlC 536b, Radcliffe College. LMC to Rudolph Lehman. 24 Oct. 1856. Diana]. Rendell, Inc. List No.6, item 22. LMC to [Edmund H. Sears). 2 I Apr. 1859. Wayland Historical Society. LMC to Progressive Friends? 2 May 1859. Proceedingr ofthe Pennsylvania Yearo/ Meeting ofProgressive Friends, 1853-94. Meeting of May 1859. Haverford College. LMC to [Edmund H. Sears). I I May [1859]. Wayland Historical Society. LMC to James Manning Yerrinton. 25 Jan. 1860. Anti-Slavery Collection. Boston Public Library. LMC to A. F. Green. 7 Feb. 1861. Essex Institute[?). LMC to Henry Wilson. IO Mar. 1861. SclIlesinger Library, Radcliffe College. LMC to Mrs. Sears. 16 Feb. 1862. Wayland Historical Society. LMC to William Endicott. 2 Mar. 1862. Atkinson MSS, Massachusetts Historical Society. LMC to Mr. Lasar. 4 Sept. 1862. Walter R. Benjamin Autographs. The Collector 1987: 5. LMC to? 5 July 1863. David SclIulson Autographs, Catalog 4, item 31. LMC to ? 5 Aug. 1863. Sotheby's Fine Printed and Manuscript Amcricana ... Auction Wednesday, May 13, 1987. ... New York, 1987, in lot 154. LMC to Theodore Tilton. I Oct. 1865. New York Herald I I Aug. 1874. From Beecher-Tilton Scrapbook 7: 13. New York Public Library. LMC to Edmund H. Sears. undated, after publication of The Freedmen's Book in Dec. 1865. Wayland Historical Society. LMC to Elizabeth Cady Stanton. 28 Apr. 1866. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage, History of Woman Suffrage 188 z; New York: Arno P and New York Times, 1969. 2: 910. LMC to Charlotte Fotten. 6 Mar. 1868 (extract). The Life and Writings of the Grimki Famio/. Ed. Anna Julia Cooper. 2 vols. in I. Privately printed, 1951. 1: 14-15. LMC to American Anti-Slavery Society Annual Meeting [paraphrase]. New York World. 14 May 1868. LMC to Oliver Johnson. 22 Sept. 1868. Medford (Mass.) Public Library. LMC to Caroline Healey Dall. 30 Aug. 1870. Caroline Healey Dall, review of Letters of Lydia Maria Child, source unidentified, clipping in Scrapbook 5, n.p., Caroline Healey Dall Papers, MassaclIusetts Historical Society. LMC to Lucy Stone. 22 Nov. 1870. Cleveland Daio/ Leader 24 Nov. 1870: I. LMC to Mary ? 19 Feb. 1872. Paul Richards, Catalog 239, item 132. LMC to Charles Sumner. 2 I June 1872. Sumner Papers, Houghton Library, bMS Am I, Harvard University. LMC to Charles Sumner. 28June 1872. Sumner Papers, Houghton Library, bMS Am I, Harvard University. LMC to Charles Sumner. 9 July 1872. Sumner Papers, Houghton Library, bMS Am I, Harvard University. LMC to Charles Sumner. 24July 1872. Sumner Papers, Houghton Library, bMS Am I, Harvard University. LMC to Charles Alfred Cutting. I Jan. 1873. Wayland Historical Society. LMC to Mrs. Cole. 12 Feb. 1873. Index I Mar. 1873: 108. LMC to Progressive Friends? Proceedings of the Pennsylvania Yearo/ Meeting of Progressive Friends, 1853-94. Meeting of May 1873, p. 6. Haverford College. LMC to Thomas Wentworth Higginson. 10 Nov. 1873. Inscription in James Smith. The Divine Drama of History and Civilization. London, 1854. Harvard University Library. LMC to Lucinda Hinsdale Stone. 20 Apr. 1874. Proceedings of the Michigan State Woman-Suffrage Association, at its Fifth Annual Meeting, Held at Lansing, May 6 and 7, r874. [Kalamazoo]: State Woman Suffrage Association, 1874. 23 -2 5. Galatea Collection, Boston Public Library.
772
Works
LMC to [Charles Alfred Cutting]. 16 Dec. 1874. Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities. LMC to Mrs. Sears. 3 Jan. 1875. Wayland Historical Society. LMC to Middlesex County Woman Suffrage Association. Clipping, source unidentified, Robinson-Shattuck Papers, Scrapbook 48, following p. 82, reel 6. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College. LMC to Agnes W. Lincoln. 20 Oct. 1877. Medford (Mass.) Public Library. LMC to Charlotte Fotten. 16 Dec. 1878. The Life and Writings o/the Grimki Family. Ed. Anna Julia Cooper. 2 vols. in 1. Privately printed, 1951. I: 14LMC to Gov. Talbot of Massachusetts. 19 Mar. 1879. Paul Richards, Catalog 204, item 234. LMC to Theodore Dwight Weld. r6 Nov. 1879. Paul Richards, Catalog 184, item 43. LMC to [Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.] 17 Dec. 1879. Oliver Wendell Holmes Papers, Container I, Letterbooks alphabetically arranged. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. LMC to? [draft fragment]. Anti-Slavery Collection, Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library. The Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities also holds a large collection of letters, too numerous to list individually, addressed to young "Allie" (Afred Wayland Cutting), dating from ca. 1865 to ca. 1875.
Index
In lieu of a bibliography, the index includes citations in the notes of important secondary sources and of full references to frequently used primary works and biographical sources. "A, B, C, of Abolition" (in National Anti-Slavery Standard, reprinted from Anti-Slavery Catechism) (LMC), 275-76 Abbott, John, '40, '4' Tbe Cbild at Home, 138 Tbe !tiotber at Home, 138, '42
Abbott, Lawrence, 85 Abenaki, 10, '2, 26, 107-12, II3, 153 ,~bolitionist movement, 175-76, 18T, 182, 6" activism of, during the Civil War, 447 African Americans in, dh, 256, 268, 270, 282, 283, 668n. 15 attacks against, 170, 199-200, 212, 227-28, 255, 439-41 British involvement in, 176, 186-87, 2II, 423-24, 453 "come-outism" in, 288-89 commemorated in A Romance of tbe Republic, 510 comradeship among members of, 199 during Reconstruction, 487-88 , 490, 533-40 early history of, 176 and eight-hour movement, 567-68, 574 ends, 574 fund-raising fairs for, 218-19, 474 and Indian removal question, 88, 100 influence of Appeal on, 183, 187, 192-94, 195-96, 383,55 6 as moral vs. political issue, 280, 282 and proliferation of societies after 1832, 200 religious aspects of, 232, 254, 255-57, 274 schisms in, 227, 253-57, 259-62, 268, 279-80,
288-89,372 women in, 186, 190, 193, 214-20, 225-29, 232, 242-43,244-47,25°-51,253-54,258-62, 335 See also Garrisonians; Liberty party, Slavery, names of individual antislavery societies
Adams, Charles Francis, 441,569 Adams, Hannah, 6 Adams,John Quincy, 47, 81, 84, 87, 174,237,27', 276 "Address of the Republican \Vomen of Massachusetts, To the Women of America," 565 "Adventure in the Woods" (LMC), 1.53-54 "Adventures of a Bell" (LMC), 10, 107 "Adventures of a Rain Drop" (LMC), 84 Africa Wakingfrom Sleep (VV'hitney), 5'3 African Americans in abolitionist movement, 182, 256, 268, 270, 282, 283, 668n. 15 achievements of, 497, 513 and Andrew Johnson, 492-93, 729n. 10 on Brown Gohn), 425-26 and conventions, anti-slavery, 268 education and literacy of, 189-90, 202, 454, 45'5, 475,496,501,5°4,536, 615. See also Freedmen's Book (L\!C) and free labor, 184-85, 275, 456-57, 525-26 on LMC, 270, 423, 435, 5'27-28, 5'3 1, 539,6°7, 73 m ·42 opportunities for, 5'24-25' as soldiers, 458, 464, 465-66, 471-72
774 Index status during Reconstruction, 487-89, 534 suffrage campaign for, 488-89, 490-91, 492, 534, 535, 53 6-3 8 as Union "contraband," 447, 454, 455 writers. See also individual names ofwriters included in The Freedmen's Book, 496-97 reprinted in Liberator, 177 reprinted in National Anti-Slavery Standard, 279 See also Slavery; Reconstruction African Sibyl (Story), 513 Alcott, Abba May, 181, 325,589 Alcott, Bronson, 181, 325,589 Alcott, Louisa May, 58, 170, 589 Little Women, 589
Alcott, William, The Young Housekeeper, 129, 142 Alexander, Francis (painter), 50-51, 573, 629n. 48 Alexander, William, History of Women, 221-22, 223 Allen, Paula Gunn, no The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions, 643n. 19 Allyn, Abby Bradford. See Francis, Abby Bradford
Allyn (sister-in-law) Alongside (Dall), 648n. F Amalgamation. See Interracial marriage,
19th-century attitudes toward; Racial issues, amalgamation American Anti-Slavery Society, 231, 255, 281, 423 African Americans in, 270 Declaration of Sentiments, 200-201 disbanding of, 533, 539 during Reconstruction, 490 finances of, 289 founding of, 200, 215, 613 New York convention of 1842,285-86 Philadelphia convention, 200-201 women's roles in, 216-17, 246, 261-62 See also American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society; "Gag-rule"; Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society; Reform League American democratic ideology, contradictions in, 18-19,63-64,15 2-53 American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 267 American Jou17lal of Education,
140
American Missionary Society, 504 American Monthly Magazine, 96, 134 American Notes (Dickens), 273-74 American Phrenological Journal, analysis of LMC in, 295-96 American Tract Society, The Freedman's Third Retlder, 502 Amn'ican Traveller, 78-79, 96, 139, 169
American TVhig Review, reviewing Letters from New York, 310
American Woman Suffrage Association, 544, 546 Amistad (ship), 275, 281, 502, 503
"The Ancient Clairvoyant" (LMC), 406, 407, 4 08 -9 Anderson, J ourdon, 497 Anderson, Osborne Perry, 417-18 A Voice from Harper's Ferry, 7nn. 10 Andrew, John (Massachusetts governor), 440, 465 "Annals of a Village" (LMC), 120 Annuals. See Gift books Anthony, Susan B., 541-42, 543, 544, 547, 742n. 52 Anti-SlavelY Catechism (LMC), 196, 231-32, 254, 276 compared with Garrison's statement in 1836 Almanac, 67m. 61 Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women of 18 37 (New York), 243, 244-47 "Anti-Slavery Reminiscences," 276 Antietam, Maryland (Civil War battle), 463 Antigua, emancipation in, 429 Antislavery fiction. See Child, Lydia Maria, antislavery fiction of; Slavery, fiction about Antislavery movement. See Abolitionist movement Antislavery societies. See names of individual societies Appeal in Favor of That Class ofAmericans Called Africans (Appeal) (LMC), xii, 9, 147, 160,
165,182,183-91,220,269,615 amalgamation issues addressed in, 94 compared to Despotism of Freedom, 187, 66m. 44 compared to other antislavery tracts, 186-87, 660n·38 composition of, 176-77 as first full-scale slavery analysis, 183, 287 and History of the Condition of Women, 222-25 influence of Liberator on, 176-78 influence of on Channing (William Ellery), 203-4 on Higginson, xi, 194, 606 on other abolitionists, 172, 192-94 and Juvenile Miscellany, xi, 142, 158 "Moral Character of Negroes," 337 negative reactions to, xii-xiii, 44, 96, 170, 19094 praise for, among abolitionists, 192-93, 195-96, 214-15, 662nn. 60, 61, 63 and The Progress of Religious Ideas, 383 reprinted in National Anti-Slave1J Standard, 275 and Romance of the Republic, 514 sources and precursors of, 186-87, 660-6m. 42, 66m·50
Index An Appeal for the indilills (LMC), II7, 172,545,552-
56 influence of, on abolitionists, 556, 744n. 76 Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of tbe World (D. \Valker), 177 Appleton, John James, 48, 238 Aptheker, I Ierbert, Abolitionism: A Revolutioll111Y Nlovement, 71Ill. 16, 755n. 2 Arch, Stephen, 624n. 40, 625n. 48 Aries, Philippe, Centuries of Childhood: A Social Histmy of Family Life, 63Ill. 10, 632n. 12 "The Artist of the Beautiful" (Hawthorne), 406 Arts Union, 3'6 Aspirations of the World. A Chain of Opals (LMC), 37, .573-74 composition of, 591-93 inclusion of modern thinkers in, 595 and Progress of Religiolls Ideas, 593, 594 reception and reviews of, 595-96, 752nn. 85, 86 sources of, 591-93 Atlanta, ·Georgia, Sherman's capture of, 477, 485 Atlantic lvlonthly, 7, 481, 507, 591, 600 Atlantic Souvenir (annual), 53, 84, 102, II6 Austin, James T., 192 Authelltic Anecdotes ofAmerican Slave,)' (LMC), 7, 196, 231 Autobiography ofa Femille Slave (tv!. Griffith), 413 Autmmlfll Leaves: Tales and Sketches il1 Prose lind Rbyme (LMC), 400 autobiographical aspects of, 407-9 composition of, 405-11, 709n. II7 and Fad am/ Fiction, 4°6,4°7, 4II reviews of, 41I, 7IOn. II9 sent to Aaron Dwight Stevens, 427 Axtell,james, 623n. 13, 644n . 30 Bahcock-Abrahams, Barbara, "A Tolerated Margin of Mess," 698nn. 94,95, 699n. !0O Bacon, Leonard, 191 Baer, Helene G., The Heart Is Like Heaven: The Life of Lydia Maria Child, xii, 6I7n. 4, 62111. 38, 6221l. 51, 636n. 15, 654n . 46, 666n. 45, 75 on . 28 Baez, Buenaventura, 562 Ball, Lucy, 259 Banks, Ronald F., 62Ill. 39 Banneker, Benjamin, 497, 499 Banner, Lois, 755n . 4 Barbauld, Anna Letitia, Evenings at Home, 60-61, 62 Barnes, Gilbert H., 676n. 35, 755n . 3 Barnett, Louise K., The Ignoble Savage: American
775
TJterilJY Racism, 623Iln. 9, n, 6241lIl. 24, 4 2, 625Iln. 43, 52, 53, 642nn. 5, 7 Barrett, Jeannie, 312, 321, 329 Baym, :\Tina, Woman's Fiction, 608, 755n. 1 Bear's Heart (Indian student), 602 Beecher, Catharine, Treatise 011 Domestic Economy, 129, 131, 142, 143, 274, 610 Beeson, John, 549, 557-58, 743n. 67, 744n. 81 Bell, James Madison, "Emancipation in the District of Columbia," 503-4 Bell, John, 438 Bell, Michael Davitt, HtnL'tiJorne and the HistoriCilI Romance ofNew England, 623nl1. 9, II,
628n·3° Bell-Everetts, 438, 439, 440, 441, 517 "The Bell-Tower" (Melville), 406 "The Beloved Tune" (LMC), 330, 331 "Benito Cereno" (Melville), 342 Benson, Lee, lhe Concept ofJaLkwnian Democracy: New York as a Test Cllse, 635n. 5, 636n.2o, 639 n ·44 Bemon, Edmund, 316, 327, 577-7R Berkhofer, Robert F., Jr. The White jUan '.I" Indian: Images of the AmeTiCiln Indian from Columbus to the Present, 745nn. 82, 99 Berlin, Ira, 718n. 24 Blad;: JJilitm) Experience (with others), 7 2211. 95, 723n. 125, 725nn . 152,153, 729n. 5, 73 on . 23, 73 6n . Il7 Bernal, Martin, Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, 66911. 34, 672n. 66, 7°3 n . 106 Bernstein, Iver, Tbe New York City Draft Riots, 72425n. 148 Berzon, Judith R., 737nn. 124, 127 BFASS. See Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS) Bi/~y Budd (Melville), 342 Biograpbical Sketches afGreat al1d Good l\![w (LMC), 84 The Biographies of Laely Russell, find !vIadame Guyon, 147 Bird, Robert Montgomery, 19 Birney,James G., 99-100, 261, 268, 488 Black Kettle (Cheyenne chief), 557,558 "The Black Saxons" (LMC), 329, 330, 333-35 Blackett, R. j. M., Building an Antislavery Wall: Black Americans in the Atlantic Aholitionist iilovement, 657n. II, 65911 . 32 Blacks. See African Americans Blackwell, Antoinette Brown, 590 Blair, Montgomery, 462
776
Index
"Boat Song" (J. G. Whittier), 526 Boen, William, 497, 499 Boston antiabolitionist mob of 1835, 228, 600 Boston Athenaeum, 44, 192, 220-21, 468 Boston Courier, 296, 311, 326, 686n. 4 Boston Daily Advocate (newspaper), review of The Oasis, 207-8 Boston Emancipation League, 447-48, 454 Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS), 217, 218, 228-29, 241, 389, 488 and feud involving fund-raising, 259-60 reaction of to History of the Condition of Women, 228-29 to Philothea, 237 Bourgeois ideology, 59-63, 68-75, 77-78, 82, 127, 130, 141-42, 151-53, 154-55, 171, 303, 499, 526, 568, 610 See also Class issues; The Juvenile Miscellany (LMC) Boydston, Jeanne (with others), The Limits of Sisterhood: The Beecher Sisters on Women's Rights and Women's Sphere, 742n. 59 Brackett, Edwin A., 475 Bradley, James, contributed to The Oasis, 205 Braude, Ann, Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Women's Rights in Nineteenth-Century America, 707n. 63, 708n. 88 A Brave Lady (Craik), 506 Breckinridge,John c., 441 Bricks without Straw (Tourgee), 602, 737n. 126 Briggs, Charles F., 300, 310 Bright, Jacob, 603 British Westlndies 1834 emancipation of slaves, 201, 211, 227 See also The Right Way, the Safe Way, Proved by Emancipation in the British West Indies, and Elsewhere (LMC) Broadway Journal, 300, 310, 326, 354 Brock, W. R., An American Crisis: Congress and Reconstruction, 731nn. 25,30 Brodhead, Richard H., "Sparing the Rod: Discipline and Fiction in Antebellum America," 650n. 51 Bronte, Charlotte, Jane Eyre, 325 Brook Farm, 251, 304, 306, 368 Harbinger, 354 Brooks, Dr. John, 3 Brooks, Peter, 85 Brooks, Preston, 384 "The Brother and Sister" (LMC), 406, 410 "The Brothers" (LMC), 330, 332 "The Brothers, or...The Influence of Example"
(LMC), 73-74, 78 Brown, Charles Brockden, 17 Edgar Huntly, 17 Brown, David, 87 Brown, Dee, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, 745n ·93 Brown, John, 416, 417-21, 442, 611, 614 African-Americans on, 423, 425-26, 713n. 52 bust by Whitney of, 597 hanging of, 425-27 and suicide mission plan, 711n. 9 See also Child, Lydia Maria, and Brown (John); Correspondence between Lydia Maria Child and Gov. Wise and Mrs. Mason, of Virginia; Harpers Ferry raid Brown, Richard H., "The Missouri Crisis, Slavery, and the Politics ofJacksonianism," 638n. 41, 688n. 39 Brown, Sarah Van Vechten, 171-72,556 Brown, William Wells, 527 Clotel,336 Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 411-12 Bryant, William Cullen, 52, 310, 451, 484 Buckingham, Joseph T., 311 Bull, Ole, 296, 312-19, 326, 355, 369-70, 511, 578 death of, 603 influence of, on "Hilda Silfverling," 348 Bull Run, Virginia (Civil War battle), 449-50 Burns, Anthony, 388- 89, 434, 437 Burnside, Ambrose, 476 Buder, Benjamin, 210, 446-47 Cady, Edwin H., 737-38n. 127 Caesar (escaped slave), 7 "Caius Marius" (LMC poem), 104 Calloway, Colin G., 62In. 44 Calvinism, 7, 8, 13-14, 30, 37, 41-42, 93, 95, 98, 252 Cameron, Kenneth, edition of Phi/othea, 672nn. 65, 67, 72 Campbell, Stanley W., The Slave Catchers: Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, I850-I860, 7041m. 20, 22, 705n. 23 Canda, Madame Angeline, school, 50, 84 Carabasset (Deering), 113 Carey & Lea (publishers), 124 Carlton, William Tolman, Midnight Watch for Freedom, 513 Carlyle, Thomas, 212, 575-76, 595 Carpenter, Frederic Ives, Emerson and Asia, 703n. 10 3 Carpenter, Joseph and Margaret, 231, 233, 357,530 Carter and Hendee (publishers), 124
Index "The Catholic and the Quaker" (LMC), 406 Chadwick,John White, 605 Chandler, Elizabeth Margaret, 186 Channing, ~Tilliam Ellery, 194, 203-4, 277, 6lI Slavery, 203
Channing, William Henry, 309, 325, 485 The P"esent, 309
Chaplin, Leola BO'wie, The Life and Works of Nathaniel Deering (179[-[881), 644n. 22 Chapman, Henry, 199, 203 Chapman, Maria Weston, 199, 203, 218, 229, 278, 389-90, 416, 6n addressing mayor of Boston, 228 and BFASS feud, 259 elected to business committee of New England Anti-Slavery Convention, 258-59 The Liberty Bell, 209, 330, 333 and LMC, 217, 245, 259-60, 288-89, 291, 292, 323, 333, 38 9-9 0 , 4 16 , 6II raising funds for LMC, 220-21 and National Anti-Slavery Standard, 288-89, 291, 292 Right and W"ong in Boston, 67on. 48 Right and Wrong in Massachusetts, 676n. 35 Characteristics of Shakespeare" Women (Jameson), 324 Charlotte Temple (Rowson), 17
Charvat, William, 626n. 2, 632n. 30 Chase, Salmon P., 202 "A Chat with the Editor of the Standard" (LMC),
51 3 Cheney, Ednah Dow, 495 Cheney, Harriet Vaughan, A Peep at the Pilgrims in Sixteen Hundred Thirty-Six, 34 Cherokee, xiii, 87-90, 94, 9R, 106, 155, 613 Cherokee Phoenix, 87, 96 Cheyenne, 553 1864 Massacre at Sand Creek of, 553, 557, 558 The Child at Home (Abbott), 138 Child, David Lee, 47 and abolitionist movement, 88, 180, 187, 188, 198, 201-2, 230, 242, 259, 291-92 as vice president of Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 202 ambiguous gender identity of, 82 antislavery writings of, 176, 201-2, 448, 663n. 4 background and education of, 48, 81-82 and campaign against annexation of Texas, 237, 70 4 n . 18 career of application to editorship of The Emancipator, 240, 241, 292
777
apprenticeship with brother John in Tennessee, 361, 363 at National Anti-Slavery Standrlrd, 291-93 beet sugar project, 241-42, 248, 249-50, 25758, 262-63, 276 business speculations, 369, 7oon. 27 as editor of i11assachusetts }our1lal, 47,49, 81, 85,137,196-97,24° effect on LMC's career, 102, 124-25, 146,210, 231, 238, 248, 264-65, 361- 65, 364-65 failures, 197-98, 265-66, 361-62 financial problems, 49,85,96-97, II7, 265, 290,293,331,368,582 as lawyer, 49, 148, 209-10, 241 character of, 82-83, 362-63, 508-9 on Cherokee, 88-89, 99 on Clay (Henry), 331, 686n. 94, 694n . 43, 70411· 18 on Colonization, 66311· 4 contributed to The Oasis, 201, 205 courtship of LMC, 49 death and funeral of, 580 The Despotism of Freedom, 187, 197, 202,581, 66m·44 eclipsed by LMC, 197-98, 219-20, 241, 271, 66768n.12 on Garrison (\Villiam Lloyd), 174 illnesses of, 405, 445, 473, 507, .576, 578- 80 imprisonment of, 126, 136 on Jackson (Andrew), 88 and libel cases, 84, 86, 97, 126, 292 and National Anti-Slavery Standard, 271, 292-93, 299 and New England Anti-Slavery Society, 181, 182, 187, 201 and the Noyes Academy, 202 and Panda case, 209-10, 666n. 45 papers of, 584 and politics, 81-82, 84-85, 174, 202, 331, 396, 566, 694 nn . 4 2,43 as public speaker, 81, 216 and relationship with father-in-law, 83, 191, 26364,400-401 Rights and Duties of the United States Relative to Slavery under the Laws of War, 448, 455
and sectarianism, 292-93 and Snelling lawsuit, 21}, 228, 242 The Taking ofNaboth's Vineyard, 387
and Tamaulipas (Mexico) settlement project, 229-30,237 travels of, 48, 241-42, 244 on Turner (Nat), 180, 197, 658n. 21
778
Index
on Walker (David), 658n. 14 See a11"O w7der Child, L. "'1., marriage ot; and places lived Child,John. See Childe, John Child, Lucretia. See Haskins, Lucretia Child (sister ofDCL) Child, Lydia Bigelow (sister of DLC), 84, 473,579, 581- 82 Child, Lydia Maria and abandoned trip to England, 2II-13, 237-38 as abolitionist, 192, 194,231-32,301-2, 344 against sectarianism, 290-91,545 antislavery mailings to politicians, 430-31, 433-35 campaign to educate British, 453-54 elected to society business committees,
2)8-
59'.44 0 evolution toward abolitionism, 142, 152, 15658, 161, 170, 175-81, 178,183-84, 218, 180-81 and female antislavery societies, 217-20, 22829, 242-43, 259-60 return to antislavery cause, 3SS-87, 389-90,
4 17 temporary break with movement, 290-9', 343 writing antislavelY tracts after Harper's Ferry, 427-35 See also undo' Child, L. M., antislavery fiction of; influence of, on abolitionists; on slavery on acculturation and interracial marriage, 9496, 179, 18 9-90, 250-5 ' ,505, 545, 549-53, 554-55,559,595 on Africa and African culture, 188, 223-24, 497-
98 on African Americans bourgeois virtues of, 499 education for, 190, 232, 475, 536. See also The Freedmen's Book (LMC) as soldiers, 466 suffrage for, 488-91, 536, 538 ambiguous gender identity of, 16-17,38, 82, 1012,214,219-20,271,384,396-97,537 and anger against men, 220, 322-23, 328, 3994 00 , 74 ' -42n . 49 on annexation of Cuba, 566-67 on annexation of Dominican Republic, 562-63 on anti-Semitism, 380, 483, 683n. 61 antislavery fiction of, 205-7, 333-43, 389, 39'-97, 50 9-3 ' abandoned antislavery newel, 244, 333, 695n. 57 in Evenings in New England, 64-65
in Juveuile ;'vIiseel/any, '59-170,333 slave trade, 162-65, 206-7 slavery and patriarchy, 340-42, 5'4, 516-17, 525-26 slavery and sexual exploitation, 319-30, 33536,5 10 ,5 14 See also under Child, L. M., as abolitionist; on slavery; themes in fiction of as art patron, 50-51, 3Il- 13, 597 autobiographical elements in writings of. See titles of individulll works biases of against Calvinism, 7-8, 37, 41-42, 93, 95, 98, 252, 729n. 2 against Catholicism, 100,533,563 against the French, 563 against Judaism, 379-80, 638n. 40 anachronistic values, 532-33, 568-72 cultural ethnocentrism, 156,334-35,461, 470-71,513,533,538-39,551-52,554,55556 and Boston Athenaeum, 192, 220-21 and Brown 00hn), 17' correspondence regarding, 418-21, 423-25, 4 26 - 27 influence of, 419-25, 442 plan to write his biography, 427 career changes of, 102, 136, 196, 220, 290, 29394, 3Il , 319 career predicted by fiction of, 37, 43-44 on censorship, 276 on childrearing, 138-4', '42 and the Civil War, 449 activities during, 444 ambivalence toward, 443, 446, 449 anonymous articles during, 444, 717-18n. 9, 71 9n ·34 depression concerning, 462-63 helping "contrabands" during, 454-56 helping soldiers during, 454-55 on surrender of Lee, 485-86 class identity of, xiv, 9, 14, 24, 38, 43, 51,134, 136, 324, 372,405,520-21,583,598 death, funeral, obituaries of, and tributes to, 604-6, 754nl1. 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129 depictions of by phrenologist L. N. Fowler, 295-96 by Poe (E. A.), 310 by Russell 0ames Russell), 3Il, 68911. 48 portrait by Alexander (Francis), 51, 629n. 48 self-portrait, 484-85
Index
779
depression and writer's block, 243-44, 314, 320, 354-55, 358-59,358-60,364-65,371,374, 387,443-44,489,5°7,5730 587- 88 domestic advice of, TO, 127-28, 129-32, 148-49, 4 82 , 499-5 00 as editor of Incidents in the Life ofa Slave Girl,
on Larcom (Lucy), 58, 170 on Palfrey (John Gorham), 194, 68II1. 38 ,IS religious thinker, 171, 383,593,605-6 on Stanton (Elizabeth Cady), 3, 227, 383 on Sumner (Charles), xi, 194, 384-85,556,
xii, 416, 433, 435-37, 715nn. 95, 98, 99 as editor of National Anti-Slave7J Standard, 249, 256, 262, 264, 267-94 education of, '-4, 12 egalitarian values of, 6-7, 142-43, 145, 151-52, 156,167,274,316,372,480-81,482,5°6-7, 50 9-13,570 -7 2,5H empowering African Americans, 444-45, 454, 456-57,495-96,501,525-26 on Fourierism, 3TO, 316, 321, 571,603, 688n. 34, 69 II1 · 4 on free labor ideology, 184-85,275,456-57,52526 on Fuller's Woman in the Nineteenth Centwy, 226, )26-27, 588 on girls' education, 70-71, 130, 138-)9, 140, 143,
on women abolitionists, 193, 215 interest in art of, xiv, So, 1 598 Fifteenth Amendment, 537-38, 560 causing split in women's movement, 541-43 Fifty-fourth Massachusetts regiment, 465, 467, 471-72,485,5°2 Filler, Louis, 755nn. 2, 3 Financial aspects of publishing, 38-39, 98, 126-27, 145, 150, 20 9, 308-9, 343, 368, 374, 382, 43 6-37,4 81 ,4 84, 495-9 6 ,5 0 4 "The First and Last Book" (LMC) See The Coronal (LMC) The First Settlers ofNew-England (LMC), 22, 23, 42, 86-87, 89-96, 98-100, 102, 103-4, 104, 107, II7, 151-52, 156, 157, 158, 179, 471 Fischer, David Hackett, G1'owing Old in Amaica, 728nn. 205, 208 Fladeland, Betty, ]Vfen and Brothers: Anglo-American Antislavery Cooperation, 653n. 18, 657n. 12, 720n.68 Flint, Timothy, "The Indian Fighter," 121 Flowers for Children (LMC), 170, 172, 296, 364 Follen, Eliza Lee Cabot, 205, 215, 219, 423 Foner, Eric, 563, 567 Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men, 66m. 45, 706n. 4 6, 736n. 116, 747n. IF, 748nn. 141, 154, 156 Nothing But Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy, 739n. 10 Reconstruction, 727n. 174, 728nn. 218, 220, 729nn.
5,6, 730n. 25, 73 mn. 26, 29, 740n. 15, 74m. 32, 746nn. 106, 108, 109, 110, 113, 114, 116, 117,118,119, 747nn. 128, 130, 749nn. 6, 23,
786
Index 75 2n· 69
A Fool's Errand (Tourgee), 601-2, 737n. 126
"Forest Life" (Kirkland), 273 Forrest, Edwin, II3 Forsyth, W. A., 577 Fort Monroe, Virginia, and Civil War "contrabands," 447, 454-55, 456 Fort Pickens, Florida, escaped slaves at, 446-47 Fort Sumter, S.c., outbreak of Civil War at, 44546 Forten, Charlotte, 455, 459, 527, 528, 539, 614 in Freedmen's Book, 496 review of Waitingfor the Verdict (R. H. Davis), 528, 737nn. 123, 124 Forten,]ames, 497, 499 Forten, Sarah, 186 Foster, Abby Kelley, 229, 253, 268,278, 288, 291, 292,540,587, 609, 6II, 740n. 31 Foster, Edward Halsey, 625n. 54 Foster, Stephen S., 288 Fourier, Charles, 316, 321, 368, 571, 603, 688n. 34, 69 m ·4 Fourteenth Amendment, 540-41 Fowler, L. N., 295-96 Francis family, 14 attitudes toward slavery of, 7 disintegration of, 8 farm and bakery, 2-3 poverty of, 2, 69 Thanksgiving with, 6-7, 77 Francis, Abby Bradford Allyn (sister-in-law), 14, 4 8,5 1 Francis, Abby (niece), 503, 530 "Francis Alexander" (Pierce), 629n. 47 Francis, Charles S. (cousin), 309,374 Francis, Convers (brother), 3, 7, 47-48, 107, 323, 382,3 83 on change of attitude toward slavery in Cambridge, 450 death of, 467 and DLC, 47-48, 81, 220 education of, 3, 381 The Journal ofConvers Francis, 619n. 10, 622n. 64, 653n. 20 library of, 15, 107 Life ofSehastian Rale, Missionary to the Indians,
107, 643n. 17 marriage of, 14 "Memoir," 619n. 7 as mentor for LMC, 1-2,4, 12, 14-15, 16, 219-20, 234,323 nursed by LMC, 357
ordained as Unitarian minister, 14 and Progress ofReligious Ideas, 381, 382 reaction to Appeal, 191 Francis, Convers (father), 2-3, 7-9, 81, 83, 137, 366 death of, 402 interest in 1856 election, 401 living with the Childs, 263-64, 373-74 loaning the Childs money, 263 nursed by LMC, 5, 150, 373-74, 385, 386- 87, 397, 4 01 - 2 relationship with DLC, 83, 191, 263-64, 4004 01 Francis,]ames (brother), 7, 14, 191, 263, 403, 620n. 32,662'56,708n'92 death of, 576 Francis, Lydia. See Child, Lydia Maria Francis, Mary. See Preston, Mary Francis (sister) Francis, Susannah Rand (mother), 4, 149, 359 Francis, Susannah (sister), 4, 8 Franklin, Benjamin, 69-70, 173, 569 Franklin, H. Bruce, 635-36n. II, 655n. 47, 663n. I, 73 m . 32, 735n. 108, 756n. 15 Future Perfect: American Science Fiction of the Nineteenth Century, 709n. IIO The Victim as Criminal and Artist, 736n. II8
Fredrickson, George M. The Black Image in the White Mind, 722nn. 99,
105 The Inner Civil War, 719n. 45, 725n. 152
"Free love" doctrines, 546-47 Free Religious Association, 588, 592, 593, 601 Freedman, Estelle, Their Sisters' Keepers: Women's Prison Reform in America, 693n. 25 The Freedman's Third Reader (American Tract Society), 502-4 The Freedmen's Book (LMC), 444-45, 481, 485, 488,489,491,495-502,524, 614, 615 African American history in, 496-97, 497-98 African American writers in, 496-97 article by Forten (Charlotte) in, 496, 527 biographical sketches in, 497, 499, 507 bourgeois virtues expressed in, 499 compared with The Freedman's Third Reader, 502-4 compared with Plain Counsels for Freedmen (Fisk), 732n. 46 Douglass's Narrative summarized in, 497, 73m. 42 as empowerment for African Americans, 44445,454,495,498-99,500-501 essays by LMC in, 499-501 essays by Wilson and Kelley in, 499
Jacobs's description of grandmother included in, 437,497,499 reviews of, 7pn. 44 revisions of "The Black Saxons" for, 732n . 47 Freedmen's Bureau, 493 Freedmen's Relief Association (New York), 456 Freibert, Lucy M., 688n. 34, 697n. 75 Hidden Hands (v.'ith Barbara 'White), 608, 6I7n. 7, 625n. 43, 755n . I Freire, Paulo, 454, 614 Fremont, Jessie Benton, 398, 451-52 Fremont, John C. and 1856 campaign, 390, 394, 398, 401 and 1864 campaign, 476 and emancipation, 451, 458 and Mexican War, 398, 476 Friedman, Lawrence J., Gregariolls Saints, 664nn. ro, 12, 676n . 35 Frothingham, Octavius Brooks, 583 The Frugal Housewife (English book), 129 The Fl"ugal HOUSI"' lind Gift Book.>', 642n. 4, 644n. 24, 665n. 32 , 666n·44 Thoreau, Henry David interest in Philothea, 237 ~V{/tden, 6I2
"Thot and Freia." See "The Romance of Thot and Freia"
Thoughts on African Colonization (Garrison), '79, 657n. Il "Through the Red Sea into the \Vilderness" (LMC),487-91 Ticknor & Fields (publishers), 466, 472, 488 Ticknor, George, II', 39-40, 43-44, 82, 97-98, 192, 627n.17 Tilly, Louise, Woman, Work, aud Family (witlrjoan Scott), 63111. II, 646n. 4 Tilton, Theodore, 524, 531, 547, 730nn. 24, 25, 73 8n . 13 ' Timm, Henry Christian, 3'2 "To tire Women of Kansas" (LMC), 395 Tocqueville, Alexis de, Democracy in AmC1'ica, 274 Todd, Francis, 174
Index
803
Toinette (Tourgee), 529, 737n. I26 The Token (annual), 84, 102, 106, I20, 121, 125, I27
Waitingfor the Verdict (R. H. Davis), 528, 737nn.
Tomplcins,Jane, 608, 624n. 41, 663n. I Tourgee, Albion, 529, 601-2 Bricks without Straw, 737n. I26 A Foor, Errand, 737n. 126 lI)inette, 737n. 126 Toussaint L'Ouverture, 188, 274, 281, 496, 497, 49 8,499,5 02 ,5 0 3 Train, George Francis, 541-42 Transcendentalism, xv, 25, 234, 237, 251, 258, 274, 325, 612 "The Travelling Tin Man," 166 Travels in the Interior Districts ofAfrica (M. Park), 164 Treatise on Domestic Economy (C. Beecher), 129, 131, 142, 143, 274, 610 Trefousse, Hans L., The Radical Republicans, 740n.
Walden (Thoreau), 612
I)
Trent Affair, 453
Trickster (folk figure), 349-52 Trolloppe, Frances, Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw, 273 Tubman, Harriet, 455 Tuckerman, Jane, 575 See also King, John and Jane Tudor, William, biography of James Otis, 41 Turner, Nat, 188, 658n. 21 See also "'at Turner rebellion Tyack, David B., George Ticknor and the Boston Brahmins, 626n. 5, 66211. 59 Uncle 7im,'s Cabin (Stowe), 336, 389, 433, 434, 451 Underground Railroad, 388 Underwood, John Curtis, 428, 430 The Undiscovered Commy,
601
Union, campaign for repeal of, 283-86, 424 Union lHagazine of Literature and Art, 296, 407 LT nitarian ministers. See individual names Unitarianism, '4, 193, 358, 588, 609 Utopian socialist communities, 251, 304, 306, 36869, 615 Van Kirk, Sylvia, Many Tender Ties, 643n. IS, 644ll. 28 Venet, vVendy Hamand, Neither Ballots nor Bullets: Women Abolitionists and the Ch·il Wm·.
718n. 10 Vermont, and Fugitive Slave Law of 185°,433 Vicksburg, Miss. (Civil vVar battle), 469 "Voices from the South" (LMC), 205 \Vait, "'athan, 7
12 3, 12 4 Walker, David, 187, 658n. 14 Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, 177 Walker, Edward, 312 Walters, Ronald G., The Antislavery Appeal, 676n. 35, 755 n . 2 ~Vil1' Power See
Rights and Duties of the United States Relative to Slavery under the Lau's of War
(DLC) Washington, Madison, 497, 507 Watkins, Frances Ellen. See Harper, Frances Ellen Watkins Wayland, Mass., 137, 373-74, 400, 403-4, 437, 44344,445-46,45°,467-69,472-73> 567, 583, 591, 600-601 fire at Childs' home in, 467-69 Webb, James Watson, 285 Weber, Max, 59,69 vVehster, Daniel, 47, 81, 82, 85, 118, 137, 271, 387, 450 Weiss, John, Discourse Occasioned fry the Death of C071vel'S Francis, 6I9n. 8 Weld, Angelina Grimke. See Grime, Angelina \Veld, Theodore, 245, 247, 248, 252,253,2)5,431, 474,599,600,6°9, 614,675n. 22 Wells, Anna Maria, 67 The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish (Cooper), 36, II8 \Vest, Benjamin, 70, 156 West Virginia, influence ofLMC in, 430-31 Weston, Anne Warren, 212, 259, 268-69,278, 29I Weston, Caroline, 158, 2II, 212, 247, 256,262,278, 29 0 ,29 I Wexler, Laura, "Tender Violence:" Literary Eavesdropping, Domestic Fiction, and Educational Reform," 744n. 73 iVhat Answer? (Diclcinson), 528-29, 737n. 125 \Vheatley, Phillis, 497, 499, 502 \Vhipple, Bishop Henry Benjamin, 556 vvbite, Barbara. See Freibert, Lucy M. \\bite, Maria, 310 \\bite supremacy, 21, 33, 95-96,153,3°8,394,491 vvrutney, Anne, 596-98, 604 Africa Wllkingjro'lll Sleep, 513
Whittier, Elizabeth, 205 \Vhittier, John Greenleaf, 100, II3, 181, 205, 4I5, 418,474,476,526,549 "Boat Song," 526 Civil VV'ar songs of, 447-48 "J\1ogg Megone," II3 songs for emancipation, 448
804
Index
Wight, John B., 591 Wightman, Joseph M., 44' Wilkins, Thurman, Cherokee Tragedy, 637n. 28, 638n. 33, 64 m . 56 "William Lloyd Garrison" (LMC in Atlantic Monthly), 600 "William Penn" letters (Evarts), 99 "William Peterson, the Brave and Good Boy" (LMC), '59 "Willie Wharton" (LMC), 505, 549-52 composition of, 549, 733n . 58, 743n. 67 Willis, Nathaniel, 50, 67-68, 162, 163, 6n The Youth's Companion, 67-68, 162, 6,0 Willis, Nathaniel Parker, 50, 67, 84,96, 102, 107, '33-34, 135, 149,5 20 on The Frugal Housewife, '33-34, '35, '49 The Legendary, 84, 102, 107, "4, u6 portrayal of, in A Romance of the Republic, 735n. 99 \Vilson, Amelia, 329 Wilson, Henry, 194, 432, 499, 566 "The Winds" (LMC), 120 "rise, Governor Henry, 4'9-20, 421, 422, 423, 424, 432 Witchcraft, 26, 30, 44 WL. Garrison and His Time (Oliver), 659n. 24 Wolf, Rosa De. See Hopper, Rosa Wollstonecraft, Mary, n9, 328 Woloch, Nancy, 647n. 22, 742n. 59, 756n. 7 "Woman and Suffrage" (LMC), 516 Woman in the Nineteenth Century (Fuller), '44, 22527,320, 326-27, 326-28,588, 670n. 39 "A Woman \-Vho Made Good Use of Her Tongue" (LMC),587 The Woman's Bible (Stanton), 383 Woman's Journal (Stone), 532, 545, 546,565,584, 587,588,589,595,597,6°5 on LMC, 595-96, 605 The Woman's Kingdom (Craik), 506 "Women and the Freedmen" (LMC), 542 Women's antislavery societies, 216-20, 242 Women's rights movement, 75, 225-27, 228-29, 245,246-47,54°-45,589,615 suffrage as issue in, 540-45 taxation argument for, 587 See also Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS); Seneca Falls Women's Rights Convention 1848 Women's roles, 20, 61, 72, II9, 127-28, 133, 135, '414 2 ,143 in Africa, 224
in antislavery movement, 186, '90, '93, 214-20, 225-29,242-43,244-47,250-51,253-54, 25 8- 62, 335, 389,433, 439 and education, 3, 129-3 0 , 138-39, '43-45, '90, 4 10 ,54 6 effect of industrialization on, 78, 127 among Indian tribes, lo-n, 109-10, "5, u6, 224 as public speakers, II9, 215, 444 Woodall, Guy R., The Journal of Convers Francis, 6'9n. 10, 62211. 64, 653n. 20 Woodhull, Victoria, 546-47 Worcester, Thomas, 200 Workers and LMC, 73-77, 95-96, 302-5, 43 ' -33, 470-7 ' , 488,5",526,567-71,591 northern white during Reconstruction, 561 possible partnership with blacks, 526, 567-68 and white supremacy, 95, 308, 431-32, 469-70 Wright, Frances, u7, 118, 119, 123-24, 135, 216, 235, 236, FI, 611, 645n. 38, 669n. 30, 692n. 8 Wright, John B., 591 Wright, Theodore S., 255 Writers, 19th cenmry, 17-21, 35-36,46-47,52,58, 66-67, 102-4, 106, u3-14, 116-17, 121, 306, 333,336, 346, 4 06, 411-12,527-30, 6u women writers, 17, 20, 33-34, 35-36, 46, 47, 58, 66-67,225-27,3°6,333,346, 4 U - 12, 50 5, 527-29, 608-9 See also African Americans, writers; individual names Yamoyden, A Tale of the Wars of King Philip, in Six Cantos (Eastburn and Sands), 20-21, 33, 36 Yellin,Jean Fagan, 225, 6pn. 25, 735n. 106 Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Jacobs), 716n.
99 The Intricate Knot, 696n. 65 Women and Sisters: The Antislavery Feminists in American Cu/tw'e, 658n. 14, 660n. 41, 670nn. 37,43, 696nn. 64, 67, 755n . 2 The Young Housekeeper (W. Alcott), 129 "The Young West-Indian" (LMC), 84 "The Youthful Emigrant" (LMC), 332 The Youth's Companion (N. Willis), 67-68, 162 Zagarell, Sandra A., 645n. 41 Zanger, Jules, "The Tragic Octoroon in Pre-Civil War Fiction," 696n. 64 Zhinga (Angolan queen), 188, 281 Zitkala-Sa, 643n. 19, 744n. 73> 745n. 100
Carolyn L. Karcher is Associate Professor of English, American Studies, and Women's Studies at Temple University. She is author of Shadow over the Promised Land: Slavery, Race, and Violence in Melville:S- America and the editor of HOBOMOK and Other Writings on Indians by Lydia Maria Child.
Karcher, Carolyn L., 1945The first woman in the republic: a cultural biography of Lydia Maria Child / by Carolyn L. Karcher. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8223-1485-1 (cl) I. Child, Lydia Maria Francis, 1802-1880.2. Women social reformers - United States - Biography 3. Authors, American - 19th century - Biography. I. Title. HQ I 4 13·C45 K 37 1994 303.48' 4'092 -dc20 [Bj 94-9151 CIP