People, Locations, Episodes

Maria W. Stewart, Author, and Abolitionist born

*The birth of Maria W. Stewart in 1803 is celebrated on this date. She was a Black abolitionist, feminist, author and educator.

Maria W. Stewart was born in Hartford, Connecticut, as Maria Miller. Her parents’ first names and occupations are not known. Stewart was orphaned by age five and became an indentured servant, serving a clergyman until she was fifteen. She attended Connecticut Sabbath schools and read alot in the clergyman’s library, teaching herself how to read and comprehend. When she was fifteen, she began supporting herself by working as a servant.

William Whipper, Abolitionist born

William Whipper, a Black businessman and abolitionist was born on this date in 1804.

Born in Lancaster, PA, he later lived in Columbia, SC, and Philadelphia. Whipper was the Black son of a White Pennsylvania businessman and a Black woman who was his servant. He inherited his father’s lumber business, and, with another free Black business partner, Stephen Smith, they created one of the state’s leading lumberyards where Whipper made a sizable fortune through joint ventures.

George Thompson, Orator, and Abolitionist born

*George Thompson was born on this date in 1804. He was a white-British anti-slavery orator and abolitionist. George Donisthorpe Thompson was from Liverpool, England, and had little formal education; he was largely self-taught. In early adulthood, he began a life of professional activism, starting with his role in founding a mutual improvement society at the age of […]

Angelina Emily Grimké, Abolitionist born

*Angelina Emily Grimké was born on this date in 1805. She was a white-American political activist, women’s rights advocate, and supporter of the women’s suffrage movement. She and her sister, Sarah Moore Grimké, became abolitionists. While raised in Charleston, South Carolina, Angelina and her sister spent their entire adult lives in the North. Between 1835, Angelina Grimke’s greatest fame worked with William Lloyd Garrison, who published […]

Henry Stanton, Abolitionist born

*Henry Stanton was born on this date in 1805. He was a white-American abolitionist, social reformer, attorney, journalist, and politician.   Henry Brewster Stanton was born in Preston, Connecticut, the son of Joseph Stanton and Susan M. Brewster. His father manufactured woolen goods and traded with the West Indies. He remembered his first desires for […]

William Lloyd Garrison, Abolitionist born

William Lloyd Garrison was born this date in 1805. He was a White American abolitionist and newspaper publisher.

The son of a seaman from Newburyport, MA., Garrison was indentured at the age of 14 to the owner of the Newburyport Herald where he became an expert printer. The struggles of all oppressed peoples for freedom built his kind character as a youth. He expressed this in articles he wrote anonymously or under the pseudonym Airsides, in the Herald and other newspapers. He tried to awaken Northerners from their apathy over the question of slavery in America.

William Goodridge, Businessman, and Abolitionist born

*The birth of William Goodridge is celebrated on this date in 1805. He was a Black businessman and abolitionist.

Charlotta Gordon Pyles, Abolitionist born.

*Charlotta Gordon Pyles was born on this date in 1806. She was a Black abolitionist and lecturer. Born into slavery in Tennessee, Pyles also lived on Hugh Gordon’s plantation near Bardstown, Kentucky, along with her children. After Gordon’s death, his daughter Frances inherited the Pyles family and moved from Kentucky to Iowa, where she freed Charlotta and some of […]

Silvia Hector Webber, Abolitionist born

*Silvia Webber’s birth is celebrated on this date, c. 1807. She was an enslaved Black woman and an abolitionist. Born Sylvia Hector, she was from the Spanish West Florida parishes that became part of eastern Louisiana. There are few records of her childhood, except for a bill of sale dated March 10, 1819. The twelve-year-old […]

Charles B. Ray, Minister born

*Charles B. Ray was born on Christmas Day in 1807. He was a Black minister, journalist, and abolitionist.   Born a free man in Falmouth, Massachusetts, Charles Bennett Ray was the son of mail carrier Joseph Aspinwall Ray and his wife, Annis Harrington. He attended Wesleyan Seminary in Wilbraham, Massachusetts, studying theology, and then in 1832, enrolled as the first Black student at Wesleyan […]

Stephen S. Foster, Abolitionist born

*Stephen Foster was born on this date in 1809.  He was a white-American abolitionist.   Stephen Symonds Foster was born in Canterbury, New Hampshire. His parents, Sarah and Asa Foster, had twelve children; Stephen was the ninth. The family attended the local Congregational church and participated in Canterbury’s anti-slavery society.   Foster apprenticed to a carpenter but left at age 22 to […]

Fanny Kemble, Actress, and Abolitionist Writer born

Frances “Fanny” Kemble was born on this date in 1809. She was a White British actress, author, and abolitionist.

Frances Anne Kemble was a member of the famous Kemble theatrical family, and the oldest daughter of actor Charles Kemble and his actress wife Maria Theresa De Camp, and the niece of noted tragedienne Sarah Siddons. Fanny was born in London, and educated chiefly in France.

Clarina Nichols, Abolitionist born

*Clarina Nichols was born on this date in 1810. She was a white-American journalist, lobbyist, and public speaker involved in temperance, abolition, and the women’s movement. Born in West Townshend, Vermont, into a prosperous New England family, Clarina Irene Howard fell on hard times after a disastrous early marriage. Supporting herself and her children on […]

Charles Remond, Abolitionist, and Orator born

*On this date in 1810, Charles Lenox Remond was born. He was a Black abolitionist.

From Salem, Massachusetts, he was the son of free Blacks, John and Nancy Remond. He joined the Anti-Slavery Society and in 1838 became its first African American lecturer. An outstanding orator, Remond spoke at public meetings in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, New York and Pennsylvania. In 1840 Remond went on a lecture tour of Europe and while in England attended the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention in London.

Harriet Purvis, Suffragist born

*Harriet Purvis’s birth is celebrated on this date in 1810. She was a Black abolitionist and first-generation suffragist.  Harriet Davy Forten was born in Philadelphia and was one of eight children of James Forten and Charlotte Vandine Forten, who lived at 92 Lombard Street. James Forten was a wealthy investor, businessman, and abolitionist born free. The Forten’s, a well-known […]