Cary, Mary Ann Shadd, 1823-1893

Mary Ann Shadd Cary (b. Oct. 9, 1823, Wilmington, DE–d. June 5, 1893, Washington, D.C.) was the eldest of 13 children to Abraham Doras Shadd (1801–1882) and Harriet Burton Parnell, who were free African-Americans. Her father was a conductor in the Underground Railroad and Mary Ann grew up with many freedom-seekers in her house. The family moved to Pennsylvania and she attended a Quaker Boarding School before relocating to Ontario, Canada.

While in Windsor, Ontario, Mary Ann founded a racially integrated school with the support of the American Missionary Association, and published a pamphlet encouraging emigration of Blacks to Canada. She also ran an anti-slavery newspaper called The Provincial Freeman, which made her the first female editor in North America, in 1853. She married Thomas Fauntleroy Cary, a Toronto barber who was also involved with the Provincial Freeman in 1856 and had two children. After her husband's death in 1860, Mary Ann moved back to the United States.

During the Civil War she served as a recruiting officer to enlist Black volunteers for the Union Army in the state of Indiana. After the Civil War, she taught in Black schools in Wilmington, before moving to Washington, D.C., where she taught in public schools and attended Howard University School of Law. In 1883, at the age of 60, Mary Ann becoming only the second Black woman in the United States to earn a law degree. She organized the Colored Women's Progressive Franchise in 1860.

Shadd Cary joined the National Woman Suffrage Association, working alongside Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton for women's suffrage, testifying before the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives, and becoming the first African-American woman to vote in a national election. She died in Washington, D.C., on June 5, 1893.

In 1994, Shadd Cary was designated a Person of National Historic Significance in Canada.