Throughout time authors, with either the itch to scribble or a burning desire to document fleeting moments of human history, have put down the marks by which we judge past events. Whether we choose to credit luck or the phenomenal insight of select men and women we must be thankful that their efforts have survived.

This journal will look at the lives of eight writers from the American Renaissance period. They all share one thing in common; they all wielded the pen to make a difference in the lives of the oppressed. More importantly, they all did so for members of another gender, race, or economic sphere than their own. These eight men and women possessed the enlightenment to see the injustices of their nation and scope of imagination to find ways to effectively combat prejudice. They chose to speak out against social injustices when doing so made them unpopular.

There is timeless inspiration in the works of writers who push past their social boundaries in order to use their talent to shape unpopular change. This journal will seek to find the “spark” in each writer that lit the inner flame they possessed. Our society will never be a utopia. I believe it is worth the effort to examine the conditions that produced these activists. These authors wrote brilliant arguments, fiction that tugs at the heart, poetry, tracts, hymns, and even personal letters, which all give testament to their dedication to humanity. Despite personal desires and social pressures these authors, for one reason or another, all felt a burden to bare their souls through their writing in hopes that it would effect a positive change. Mrs. Lydia Maria Child’s wrote:
My natural inclinations drew me much more strongly towards literature and the arts than towards reform, and the weight of conscience was needed to turn the scale. (Higginson)
Thomas Higginson wrote the following in response to her life and work:
In a community of artists, she would have belonged to that class, for she had that instinct in her soul. But she was placed where there was as yet no exacting literary standard; she wrote better than most of her contemporaries, and well enough for her public. She did not, therefore, win that intellectual immortality which only the very best writers command, and which few Americans have attained. But she won a meed which she would value more highly, -- that warmth of sympathy, that mingled gratitude of intellect and heart which men give to those who have faithfully served their day and generation. (Higginson)
Lydia Maria Child certainly did serve her day and generation faithfully, as did the rest of the seven writers in this journal and countless other American authors spanning several centuries.

Fanny Fern 1811-1872

Fanny Fern was the pseudonym used by Sarah Willis. Her first husband died of typhoid fever and she and her second husband divorced. Fanny Fern began writing as a means of supporting herself in the early 1850’s. She was a champion of the working girl as we can readily read in “The Working-Girls of New York.” She was educated at Catharine Beecher’s seminary in Hartford, Connecticut from 1828-1829 (Canada 1). Her father established a religious newspaper in Boston and it is from him that she learned about journalism—even though she always attributed her literary talents to her broadminded mother (White 2030).

Even though Fern was close to being a working girl, I believe she can still be classified as a vicarious author writing about conditions that she was personally unfamiliar with. She describes the horrors of the New York workingwomen from the perspective of a person who has watched and investigated—not as one that has lived that life. In fact, according to Mark Canada, she was making $100 a week writing her column for the New York Ledger . This amount was greater than that any other columnist was making in 1855 (1). Barbara White says, “I believed it is also important to emphasize Fern’s treatment of class, since she is unusual for her time in portraying domestic servants and factory workers as well as middle-class women.” Interestingly, Fern also calls attention to the plight (if you can name it such) of middle-class women in the first half of her essay “The Working-Girls of New York.” She asks the reader to consider their place:
Jostling on the same pavement with the dainty fashionist is the care-work working-girl. Looking at both these women, the question arises, which lives the more miserable life—she whom the world styles “fortunate,” whose husband belongs to three clubs, and whose only meal with his family is an occasional breakfast, from year’s end to year’s end: who is am much a stranger to his own children as to the reader;… Or she—this other women—with a heart quite as hungry and unappeased, who also faces day by day the same appalling question: Is this all life has for me? (White 2037)
Fern had a heart for all women and their situations, no doubt about it. Barbara White concludes with:
…Fern became more conscious of urban social and economic conditions. She began to express her empathy with working women, which had earlier revealed itself in pieces like “Soliloquy of a Housemaid,” in greater detail, depicted poverty, prostitution, exploitation of workers, and prison life. (2)

A picture of the working conditions during Fern’s time.

Harriet Stowe 1811-1896

Harriet Beecher Stowe definitely didn’t lack exposure to religion. Along with being the daughter of a minister she had seven brothers who became ministers as well. Stowe’s family had strong roots in education and religion. Her brother, Henry Ward, was a well-known pulpit orator; her sister, Catharine, established a school in Hartford, Connecticut (the one attended by Fanny Fern), and her half-sister, Isabella was, “an outspoken advocate of women’s suffrage” (Tompkins). Stowe later went on to marry a theologian named Calvin Stowe. For all the intellect in her family Stowe got a late start on her own fame. By the time she reached her thirties Stowe had amassed six kids and a husband who traveled and left the responsibility of dealing with home life to Harriet. According to Jane Tompkins there was little money for Stowe to acquire domestic help and her burden became significant. Letters between Stowe and her husband give insight into the comic insanity that must have ruled her life. While living in Cincinnati Stowe was introduced to the world of runaway slaves and the Underground Railroad . In response to what she saw she wrote a paper entitled, “Immediate Emancipation” and her family nearly buckled under the lack of funds caused by students hot to disassociate themselves with Lane Theological Seminary—which was, unfortunately, the sole source of the Beecher-Stowe family income.

In light of the extraordinary influence of religion in her childhood, and life, it isn’t surprising that Stowe began to give the credit for her abolitionist efforts to God. When referring to Uncle Tom’s Cabin Stowe began saying that, “God wrote it” (Tompkins). In a letter to Eliza Cabot Follen dated December 16,1852, Stowe wrote:
I have been the mother of seven children, the most beautiful and most loved of whom lies buried near my Cincinnati residence. It was at his dying bed and at his grave that I learned what a poor slave mother may feel when her child is torn away from her. In those depths of sorrow which seemed to me immeasurable, it was my only prayer to God that such anguish might not be suffered in vain.
It doesn’t take genius to make the connection between her maternal anguish and the inspiration she found to sympathize with black mothers. I can well imagine her realizing that the anguish she felt might not be in vain, but that the anguish so many thousands of black mothers felt was in vain…that there was no reason they should ever feel what she felt outside of God’s providence.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Sarah Grimke 1792-1873 & Angelina Grimke 1805-1879

While Sarah and Angelina Grimke were individual beings they worked so well in tandem that they deserve to be as close to one another in print as they were in life. The sisters were thirteen years apart, Sarah the eldest. The Grimke family was both wealthy and very large (fourteen children in all). Sarah Grimke had a young slave “companion” during her early years and grew so close to her that when the slave girl died at the age of eight Sarah would not entertain the idea of another “companion.” She was fortunate to have a father who believed she should learn along with her brother Thomas, but unfortunately she was not allowed to attend a secondary education.

While no immediate members of the Grimke family were ministers, the family was deeply religious. Young Sarah’s convictions ran deep enough that she defied the laws of South Carolina to secretly teach her waiting-maid to read at night. Unfortunately, she was caught and both girls were punished. The incident was quite a blow to Sarah and the birth of Angelina greatly revived her. Sarah begged to become her sister’s godmother and was granted permission (Edwards 1-2). From that point on it is fair to say the two were inseparable.

The sisters shared a profound moment of pain and frustration when Sarah was called to the seminary that young Sarah attended because he sister had fainted. The reason for her collapse was the sight of a young black slave boy’s bloodied back and legs (Edwards 2). Perhaps that was the moment that sowed the seed in Sarah, which would one day influence her interest in the non-violet, passive Quakers. While in Philadelphia nursing her dying father Sarah became acquainted with the Quaker religion.

Angelina Grimke Sarah Grimke

Quakers—Chasing a Rabbit Hole:

The relationship between Angelina Grimke, Catharine Beecher, and Harriet B. Stowe is an odd, but interesting one. Angelina applied to Catharine Beecher’s Seminary, but was unable to attend when her Quaker community denied her request. Members were not allowed to act without the permission of the elders. That decision, based on discrimination, was something that history needs to give resounding thanks to the Quakers for.

Catherine Beecher was a progressive woman-- sort of. While she did found her famous seminary to further female education, she had very fixed ideas about the role of women in society. She believed women had no place in front of vulgar (see men) crowds speaking up about issues such as slavery and equality of the sexes. Had Angelina bucked the Quaker edict or had they approved her new position history might have lost one phenomenal activist.

While the Quakers were busy trying to suppress an eager Grimke it was Catharine’s sister, Harriet, who was glorifying Quaker ways in her book Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The connection between Harriet and the Quaker community is very difficult to trace. Robert Buffum wrote in his article “Impressions of Light” that “In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the Quakers are represented as angelic figures that are the refuge for the black slave.” Surely Stowe was familiar with the passivity of the Quakers and their movement to aid slaves. It is worthy to note that the Quakers were simple people close to nature and nature was, in American Romanticism, viewed as a haven for slaves. It stands to reason that a people close to the land might have resonated in Stowe’s mind as representative of a new home for slaves.

Catharine went through a crisis of belief after the death of her future husband. He died without making a public confession of faith and Catharine suffered immensely wondering after his immortal soul. She once stated, “It seemed to me that my lost friend had done all that unassisted human strength could do and often the dreadful thought came to me that all was in vain […]”(Buffum 2). Perhaps Harriet was paying close attention this reaction in her sister—all the while watching her have trouble reconciling religion, salvation, and good works. Maybe she saw in the Quakers a perfect (at least better than in Puritanism ) blending of the three and sought to work that idealistic marriage of works and faith into her book. Whatever Harriet’s connection to or conception of the Quakers was, it must have had a profound influence on her.

Catharine Beecher

The Grimke’s Continued:

Sarah was compelled to join the Quakers because of their anti-slavery doctrine and because she perceived that they were more lenient about women taking leadership roles. Soon after Angelina joined her sister followed; she grew tired of clashing with her mother and society over issues of slavery. Angelina was drawn to the group because they refused to act violently (Edwards 3-4). The vision of the beaten black boy in her classroom must have left an indelible mark on her mind. A compelling reason to be drawn to a blatantly passive doctrine.

Not long after joining the Quakers the sisters became disillusioned with them. They were not allowed the intellectual freedom they had expected or the ability to lead. Angelina forever altered the course of the sisters’ lives when she penned a letter to William Lloyd Garrison’s newspaper The Liberator claiming that abolitionism was, “[…] a cause worth dying for” (Edwards 5). This letter was published without her knowledge and it threw the Grimke sisters into history’s spotlight.

The two began producing pamphlets and books written by southern women for southern women. This allowed them to stick the proverbial foot in the door. The sisters were from families of consequence and as such their words were given credence that others wouldn’t have been granted. The sisters also used a literary tactic I saw employed by Thomas Higginson. They used examples of women in the bible who took issue with problems during their time and spoke out. Higginson did something similar when he wrote about powerful women throughout the ages as testament to the power and ability of women as thinking creatures worthy of respect. Both employed history and precedence to make their cases—and strong cases they were.

Interestingly enough, the Grimke sisters’ greatest critic was Catharine Beecher. The three had a literary throw-down during 1837 and 1838. Beecher wrote, "It involves the greatest evils" an essay condemning abolitionism in 1837 and Angelina Grimke fired back with “Why should not all this be done immediately?” Sarah responded to Beecher’s “A subordinate relation in society,” which discussed the duty of American women with an essay entitled “The equality of the sexes” (Old). It seems that rebuttal essays like this were popular during the American Renaissance. With so many transcendentalists and writers around the scene was ripe for this type of proclamation and response, which is, unfortunately, seen rarely these days.

John Greenleaf Whittier 1807-1892

Angelina Grimke’s letter was printed along with Quaker abolitionist John Whittier’s antislavery poem Stanzas for the Time (Edwards 5). Whittier’s family was heavily indebted and he struggled throughout his early years to aid them in holding their homestead. It isn’t difficult to discern where his empathy for slaves might have originated:
Heavy physical labor in childhood broke Whittier’s constitution, and in later life he would be subject to chronic headaches and, on several occasions, severe physical breakdowns. (Apthorp 1613)
Whittier’s belief in the Quaker tradition and his introduction to William Lloyd Garrison combined to create a man who placed a, “higher value on [his] name as appended to the Anti-Slavery Declaration…than on any title-page of any book” (Apthorp 1614-1615). Apthorp goes on to explain that Whittier believed, “his versus should not be ends in themselves but means to the ends of spiritual understanding and practical piety […]” (1615).

Despite his humble beginnings and rustic education Whittier learned to influence readers through writing:
In the poetry Whittier devoted to the struggle against slavery, the occasion demanded not just expression but persuasion ; to achieve his goal, the poet learned in some degree to discipline his language for effect, and, by lacing his verse with small inversions of language and eerily ironic impersonation, he hoped to stimulate thought and encourage the reader to examine his or her conscience. (Apthorp 1615)
Evidently he did an excellent job of stimulating thought because I found a fairly recent article by Chuck Fager in which he uses the writings of Whittier in a 1996 conference of the Quaker Theological Discussion Group.

John Greenleaf Whittier

Moncure Daniel Conway 1832-1907

Like the Grimke sisters Conway also had a father involved in justice and was a prominent slaveholder. It was Conway’s mother who exposed him to abolitionist views. Conway was educated at Dickinson College and after graduating he became a circuit minister in 1851. Even while riding the circuit he suffered religious doubt. He left the Methodist church for the Unitarian church and seven years later he married his wife, Ellen Dana, a well-educated woman. Both he and his wife experienced disillusionment with Unitarianism and left the church completely in 1862. Circumstances of family and the Civil War prompted Conway to relocate to London in 1863. His wife soon followed and there he found a different environment, one filled with intellectual freedom. He became a part of the freethinking groups in London and found fulfillment (Conway).

It isn’t hard to fathom the effect an intellectual setting would have on a intelligent, thinking man weaned on his mother’s abolitionist views. London was an entirely different setting than 19th century America. Leaving the United States during the Civil War must have given Conway a perspective of gross proportions about the unrest in his homeland. Emerson was Conway’s friend and mentor; what else could Conway do but write about the plight of blacks given his circumstances?

It’s a sad commentary that a minister was compelled to leave his pulpit because his views about slavery were too radical and disturbing to his congregation. Unfortunately, Moncure Conway wasn’t the only minister placed in that compromising position. A religiously trained man it is hopeful that the mercy Conway’s mother taught him outweighed the justice that his father represented.

Moncure Conway

Lydia Maria Child 1802-1880

Lydia Maria Child was also discontent with organized religion—as were so many of her contemporaries. She was the daughter of a man whose house reflected his stern Calvinism. She was able to attend school and was free to use Rev. David Osgood’s library. She once wrote to her brother, “I wish I could find some religion in which my heart and understanding could unite […]” (Goodwin 1). Just as the Grimke’s, Catharine Beecher, and Moncure Conway saw a huge discrepancy between the teachings of the church and the practice of society, so did Lydia Child. She, like others, became disenchanted with Unitarianism, claiming that she found it, “a mere half-way house, where spiritual travelers find themselves well accommodated for the night, but where they grow weary of spending the day” (Goodwin 2).

Like Whittier, Child’s encounter with William Lloyd Garrison in 1831 altered her life. She later said of Garrison that he, “got hold of the strings of my conscience, and pulled me into Reforms […] (Goodwin 2). He grabbed her strings so tightly that when John Brown raided Harper’s Ferry she wrote to him and offered to come help him recoup his wounds. In addition to her writing for the National Anti-Slavery Standard she completed a reading primer, the Freedmen’s Book, for former slaves. A visit to a Penobscot settlement was all that was needed to spark her interest in Native Americans. Wherever she saw need she responded.

Her unflagging pursuit for equality for women, blacks, and Native Americans led Wendell Phillips to state in her eulogy that she was, “ready to die for a principle and starve for an idea” (Goodwin 3).

Lydia Child

Thomas Wentworth Higginson 1823-1911

Higginson also gave the Unitarian pulpit up when, he too, was judged too radical and asked to leave. Higginson was a man who didn’t just talk the talk , but walked the walk . He later volunteered during the Civil War, a move that placed him in command of the Fifty-first Massachusetts Regiment. He left this position to serve as the Colonel of the United State’s first African American regiment, the First South Carolina Volunteers. They would later become the thirty-third U.S. Colored Troops (Picker 1).

Although it might seem an odd couple, Higginson corresponded with Emily Dickinson for decades. He is, in fact, credited with helping to bring her poetry to the public after her death. Dickinson wasn’t the only prominent woman Higginson was connected with. He also felt, and expressed, admiration for Margaret Fuller and was the author of a glowing biography about Lydia Maria Child. He described Child as “some kindly and omnipresent aunt, beloved forever by the heart of childhood” (Higginson 1).

A review of Higginson’s essay about Child reveals vital information; details that indicate where her fervent ideals and desire to help her fellow man might have originated. He wrote that while Child’s father, Convers Francis, was without “much cultivation” he was a voracious reader. According to Higginson Francis Convers had, “antislavery convictions [that] were peculiarly zealous.”

Higginson also tells us that Mrs. Child once told him that all the “humble friends” of the household were invited to a preliminary celebration the night before Thanksgiving. Perhaps it was this example set by her parents that molded Mrs. Child into the adult that she was.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson’s Grave

The picture above is something of a disappointment to me. It seems a sad commentary for a man who contributed so much to America that he has a trash can set directly behind his grave marker.

Helen Hunt Jackson 1830-1885

Helen Hunt Jackson grew up in a literary environment. She was born and raised in Amherst, Massachusetts and was an intimate friend of Emily Dickinson as well as Harriet Beecher Stowe. She shared a concern for Native Americans with Lydia Child. In 1879 she heard a lecture by Chief Standing Bear describing the forcible removal of the Ponca Indians in Nebraska. The account angered her and spurred her to raise funds and write letters to the New York Times on the Poncas’ behalf (Greenstein 1).

Jackson is best known for her historical romance novel titled Ramona. This was the result of her attempt to “move people’s hearts” for the Indian experience. Jackson said that she found inspiration in her friend Harriet Stowe’s book Uncle Tom’s Cabin for her own effort. Of that inspiration she said, “If I can do one hundredth part for the Indian that Mrs. Stowe did for the Negro, I will be thankful” (Greenstein 2).

One can only wonder what conversations Jackson and Dickinson might have had. Even though Dickinson’s poetry does not reflect overtly political or social views, she was an incredible insightful woman. Dickinson’s attention to nature and the human connection to it very well might have influenced Jackson’s concern for Native Americans, a society closely tied to nature and in a desperate struggle to maintain their land.

American threads; some are silk, some synthetic, others bloodstained and threadbare. All are woven together to create a tapestry of human events in which we all have a place. The loom is large and the piece far from complete. These eight men and women worked their own unique patterns during their time and left just enough thread dangling for future generations to grasp.

Buffum, Robert. University of Houston—Clear Lake. 2001. Impressions of Light. 9
April 2001. http://www.cl.uh.edu/itc/course/LITR/4232/papers01/p1rb.htm

Canada, Mark. University of North Carolina at Pembroke. 2003. Fanny Fern (Sarah Willis), 1811-1872.
http://www.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/allam/17841765/lit/fern.htm

Conway, Moncure Daniel. Conway Archives and Special Collections, Dickinson College. http://library.dickinson.edu/archives/collections/MC1999.6_1.html

Edwards, Sylvia. Longview Community College. 2002. American abolitionists and social activists. August 2002. http://www.edwardsly.com/grimkes.htm

Fager, Chuck. Quaker. 1996 Whittier still relevant today. 24 June 1996.
http://www.quaker.org/~cf/abbott.html

Fern, Fanny “The Working Girls of New York.” The Heath Anthology of American Literature . Ed. Paul Lauter. 4th ed., Vol. 1. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002. 2037-2038.

Goldman, Rob. “Thirty-fifth United States Colored Troops (First North Carolina Colored Volunteers). http://extlab1.entnem.ufl.edu/olustee/35th_USCI.html

Goodwin, Joan. Unitarian Universalists Association. 2003. Lydia Maria Child.
http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/lydiamariachild.html

Greenstein, Albert. Historical Society of Southern California. 1999. Helen Hunt Jackson. http://www.socialhistory.org/Biographies/hhjackson.htm

Higginson, Thomas W. “Lydia Maria Child.” Ed. Lewis, Jone Johnson. 2000. http://womenshistory.about.com/library/etext/bl_lmch_a.htm

Old Sturbridge Village. The Grimke sisters debate Catharine Beecher about anti-slavery and women’s rights. http://osv.org/education/docs/antislavery/debate.htm

Picker, John M. University of Virginia.1996. American Hypertext Workshop.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/TWH/TWH_bio.html

Random House Webster’s College Dictionary. New York: Random House, 1996.

Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Harriet Beecher Stowe to Eliza Cabot Follen.1852.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA97/riedy/hbs.html

Tompkins, Jane. “Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896). The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter. 4th ed., Vol. 1. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002. 2475.

White, Barbara. Fanny Fern (Sarah Willis Parton) (1811-1872).
http://college.hmco.com/english/heath/syllabuild/iguide/fern.html

White, Barbara. “Fanny Fern (Sara Willis Parton) 1811-1872. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter. 4th ed., Vol. 1. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002. 2030-2031.