Child, Lydia Maria, 1802-1880

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Lydia Maria Francis Child (born Lydia Maria Francis) (February 11, 1802 – October 20, 1880), was an American abolitionist, women's rights activist, Native American rights activist, novelist, journalist, and opponent of American expansionism.

Her journals, both fiction and domestic manuals, reached wide audiences from the 1820s through the 1850s. At times she shocked her audience as she tried to take on issues of both male dominance and white supremacy in some of her stories.

Despite these challenges, Child may be most remembered for her poem "Over the River and Through the Wood." Her grandparents' house, which she wrote about visiting, was restored by Tufts University in 1976 and stands near the Mystic River on South Street, in Medford, Massachusetts.

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Source Citation

Lydia Maria Child, née Lydia Maria Francis, (born February 11, 1802, Medford, Massachusetts, U.S.—died October 20, 1880, Wayland, Massachusetts), American author of antislavery works that had great influence in her time.

Born into an abolitionist family, Lydia Francis was primarily influenced in her education by her brother, a Unitarian clergyman and later a professor at the Harvard Divinity School. In the 1820s she taught, wrote historical novels, and founded a periodical for children, Juvenile Miscellany (1826). In 1828 she married David L. Child, an editor. After meeting the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison in 1831, she devoted her life to abolitionism.

Child’s best-known work, An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans (1833), related the history of slavery and denounced the inequality of education and employment for blacks; it was the first such work published in book form. As a result, Child was ostracized socially and her magazine failed in 1834. The book succeeded, however, in inducing many people to join the abolition movement. Child’s further abolitionist efforts included editing the National Anti-Slavery Standard (1841–43) and later transcribing the recollections of slaves who had been freed.

In 1852 the Childs settled permanently on a farm in Wayland, Massachusetts. They continued to contribute liberally, from a small income, to the abolition movement. Child’s other work included once-popular volumes of advice for women, such as The Frugal Housewife (1829), and books on behalf of the American Indian. Among her later books were three volumes of Flowers for Children (1844–47), Fact and Fiction (1846), The Freedmen’s Book (1865), and An Appeal for the Indians (1868). Her letters have been compiled in Lydia Maria Child, Selected Letters, 1817–1880 (1982).

Citations

Source Citation

Lydia Maria Francis Child; born 11 Feb 1802, Medford, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, USA; died 20 Oct 1880 (aged 78)
Wayland, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, USA; Burial
North Cemetery, Wayland, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, USA

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Unknown Source

Citations

Name Entry: Child, Lydia Maria, 1802-1880

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Note: Contributors from initial SNAC EAC-CPF ingest

Name Entry: Child, Lydia Maria Francis, 1802-1880

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Note: Contributors from initial SNAC EAC-CPF ingest

Name Entry: Child, David Lee, Mrs., 1802-1880

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Note: Contributors from initial SNAC EAC-CPF ingest

Place: New York (N.Y.)

Found Data: New York (N.Y.)
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Place: South Natick (Mass.)

Found Data: South Natick (Mass.)
Note: Parsed from SNAC EAC-CPF.

Place: Massachusetts

Found Data: Massachusetts
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Place: United States

Found Data: U.S.
Note: Parsed from SNAC EAC-CPF.