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Female Freedom Fighters Marc Napolitano English Villanova University On December 31, 1832, William Lloyd Garrison’s groundbreaking abolitionist newspaper The Liberator ran an article about the formation of the very first female antislavery society in New England. The editorial, which was written by an anonymous female author, vigorously put forth the idea that women living in the United States had been too complacent in allowing the practice of slavery to continue unchecked: It appears to us that the females of this land are without excuse for their heartless indifference to the miserable condition of so many of their countrymen… They behold thousands of their sisters degraded, and terribly wretched, exposed to all the cruelties of capricious tyranny…yet still so many of them remain passive and indolent spectators, and, painful as it is, we fear we must add abettors, of this cruel oppression. (“Another Female Anti-Slavery Society” 189) Like many of the Liberator’s articles, this piece of writing was not simply meant to inform people about developments in the antislavery movement. Rather, it was a rallying call to readers, specifically women, to band together and work to end slavery. The female element of the abolitionist movement is an intriguing subject due to the fact that it revolved around a disenfranchised group of people working to help an even more oppressed faction of Americans. In her article on the contributions made by the Concord Female Anti-Slavery Society, Sandra Petrulionis writes that Garrison himself believed “the destiny of the slaves is in the hands of the American women” (1). It was doubtlessly heartening for the publisher to learn that within five years of the aforementioned issue’s printing, there were literally hundreds of female antislavery societies in the United States. 2 Though the numerous female abolitionist organizations in the United States varied in size, they all had a significant impact on the movement as a whole. Today, a great deal of research is being done on the specific contributions made by these societies. Surprisingly, very little work has been done on the Concord Female Anti-Slavery Society, despite the fact that Concord, Massachusetts was one of the centers of abolitionist activity in the North. What makes this deficiency all the more surprising is the fact that certain members of the Society played a role in inspiring some of the town’s most famous citizens to take up the abolitionist cause. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, two of Concord’s greatest thinkers, eventually became committed abolitionists. Nevertheless, each one was somehow motivated and encouraged in this regard by the women in their lives. Emerson, who made the dramatic transition from a passive critic of the slave system to an assertive abolitionist, was urged to become more involved in the movement by his wife Lidian, his brother’s fiancée Elizabeth Hoar, his friend and neighbor Mary Merrick Brooks, and his devoted aunt Mary Moody Emerson. Each of these women did what they could to speed along the lecturer’s abolitionist evolution. Thoreau did not undergo the exact same transition that his mentor did, as he was open to the more radical ideas of abolitionism early on in his life. Nevertheless, there was a certain progression in Thoreau’s passionate views regarding the slavery question, as can be seen in his antislavery writings. Like Emerson, Thoreau was inspired in this line of thinking by the women to whom he was closest. His mother, Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau, along with his sisters, Sophia and Helen, were founding members of the Concord Female Anti-Slavery Society. They exposed him to a fairly extreme side of the movement while he was still a student. This laid the foundations for Henry’s radical views on the subject. Though the women in the lives of Emerson and Thoreau doubtlessly helped shape their roles as antislavery activists, it seems rather fitting that the essayists’ fellow Concord writer Nathaniel Hawthorne did not fall into the same line of thinking. Like Emerson and Thoreau, there were several pro-abolitionist women in Hawthorne’s life, most notably his wife Sophia’s two sisters: Elizabeth Peabody and Mary Mann. Hawthorne never became an abolitionist, however. Instead, he viewed the antislavery activists as rabble-rousers intent on destroying the country. Though Peabody and Mann repeatedly tried to change his opinion, Hawthorne wanted nothing to do with the abolitionists and eventually grew fed up with his sisters-in-law. In addition, Sophia maintained the same views as her husband regarding the antislavery movement, thus creating a rupture in the relationship with her 3 sisters. In spite of Hawthorne’s contradictory position on the subject, it is interesting to assess how the women in the lives of these three writers helped shape their views on the abolitionist movement. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s involvement in the abolitionist movement has repeatedly been seen as an enigmatic component of the transcendentalist’s life. This is in part due to the fact that Emerson underwent a significant alteration regarding his views on the subject. Though he had always been turned off by the slave system, he was similarly disturbed by the blind fervor of the abolitionist movement. In The Emerson Dilemma, Michael Strysick assesses several of the factors that contribute to the conundrum of Emerson’s social activism. Strysick claims that many academics have labeled the great lecturer’s involvement with the abolitionists as “an anomaly inconsistent with his larger transcendental project” (139). To some, it is strange that Emerson became devoted to a cause advocating social change through group activism when the central part of his transcendental philosophy revolved around individual transformation via personal reflection and action. Emerson himself always seemed concerned about getting too involved with the abolitionists. Strysick claims that Emerson feared “becoming a single-issue thinker; he wanted to be no one’s ideologue for it would transgress his emphasis upon self-reliance and…place too much emphasis upon the group” (160). The fact that several of the significant women in his life were devoted abolitionists doubtlessly played a part in his eventual loyalty to the cause, however. These zealous ladies kept Emerson exposed to the antislavery position even when he had doubts about the cause. Among these ladies was Emerson’s aunt Mary Moody Emerson, the woman many scholars view as his philosophical mentor. In Robert D. Richardson’s exceptional biography Emerson: The Mind on Fire, the author states that Mary Moody Emerson provided Ralph Waldo with “the single most important part of his education” (23). According to Richardson, Mary set the intellectual standards for her nephew, and the biographer asserts that, “Her correspondence with him is the single best indicator of his inner growth and development” (23). The fact that she held such an important place in Emerson’s life is critical to the subject of his abolitionist development due to the fact that she was an ardent abolitionist herself. It is somewhat ironic how committed Mary Emerson was to encouraging her nephew’s participation in the abolitionist movement. Initially, she had an unfavorable view of the Garrisonian abolitionists as incendiary firebrands, a view that Ralph Waldo himself held with for many 4 years. A fateful meeting with antislavery lecturer Charles Burleigh in 1835 drastically changed her opinion on the subject, however. In her engrossing biography on Mary Moody Emerson, Phyllis Cole recounts the meeting between the two, which revolved mainly around the subject of Garrison himself. While Mary labeled the antislavery publisher as a dangerous radical, Burleigh vigorously defended his fellow abolitionist. Intrigued, Mary opened herself up to a new perspective on the founder of the Liberator, and her opinion of him changed almost instantly. The shift was remarkable; Cole states that a few years earlier, Mary “had written to her friends in Maine to have nothing to do with Garrison’s paper” (234), but she quickly decided to write them again and inform them of her conversion to his side. It was a true turning point for Miss Emerson. According to Cole, Mary “was taking on a public and communal cause for the first time in her life” (234). She became devoted to drawing others to the antislavery movement. The conversion of her nephew Ralph Waldo thus turned into an important undertaking for the eccentric Miss Emerson. In Len Gougeon’s book Virtue’s Hero, the author recounts an amusing story of how Emerson’s aunt subtly tried to transform Ralph Waldo into an abolitionist sympathizer by organizing “a breakfast for George Thompson at the home of her nephew” (26). Thompson, a famous British abolitionist, had been speaking at various antislavery society meetings in the area, and Miss Emerson hoped that the meeting between him and her nephew would help stimulate a conversion in Ralph Waldo. Unfortunately, the plan backfired, as Waldo found his guest to be “unbearably egocentric and closed minded” (Gougeon 26). Emerson viewed many abolitionists in the same way, claiming that they were so consumed with changing society they failed to see the need to change their own hearts and minds first. In spite of the Thompson debacle, Mary Emerson refused to give up on trying to sway her nephew to the abolitionist side. One of the more effective techniques she employed was to encourage her nephew’s wife Lidian, who became a passionate abolitionist long before her husband did. Cole states that although Thompson had no effect on Ralph Waldo, his visit to the Emerson household did not go wholly unnoticed. Rather, the abolitionist’s words resonated deeply with Lidian Emerson. This was a victory in itself for Mary. Miss Emerson knew that by strengthening Lidian’s abolitionist resolve, her nephew would be continually exposed to the views and actions of the antislavery movement.

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