Child, Lydia Maria Francis

Life Span
to
Full name
Lydia Maria Francis Child
Place of Birth
Medford, MA
Burial Place
Wayland, MA
Birth Date Certainty
Exact
Death Date Certainty
Exact
Gender
Female
Race
White
Sectional choice
North
Origins
Free State
No. of Siblings
6
No. of Spouses
1
No. of Children
0
Family
David Convers Francis (father), Susannah Rand (mother), Convers Francis (brother), Mary Francis Preston (sister), David Lee Child (husband, 1828)
Occupation
Journalist
Writer or Artist
Relation to Slavery
White non-slaveholder
Church or Religious Denomination
Unitarian or Universalist
Other Affiliations
Abolitionists (Anti-Slavery Society)
Women’s Rights
Other
Other Affiliation
Native American Rights

Lydia Maria Francis Child (American National Biography)

Scholarship
Child continued to demand equal treatment for blacks, and so in 1861 she willingly edited former slave Harriet Jacobs's novel Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. She followed this in 1865 with The Freedmen's Book, a collection of short poems, biographical sketches, and essays created with the hope of inculcating pride in newly freed blacks. Aspirations of the World: A Chain of Opals, the final anthology of her work, was published in 1878, two years before her death in Wayland.

Although best known for her antislavery writings, Child evinced an interest in all areas of social reform. Throughout her long career she commented on such issues as Indian rights, equal rights for women, educational reform, and religious toleration. She sacrificed a burgeoning national career in the 1830s by remaining true to her own conscience and becoming one of the first Americans to speak out against the institution of slavery.
Catherine Teets- Parzynski, "Child, Lydia Maria Francis," American National Biography Online, February 2000, http://www.anb.org/articles/15/15-00127.html.
Harpers Ferry Raid
Date Title
Lydia Maria Child to Henry Alexander Wise, October 26, 1859
Lydia Maria Child to John Brown, October 26, 1859
Date Title
Carlisle (PA) American Volunteer, "Gov. Wise to Mrs. Child," November 17, 1859
William Wilkins to James Watson Webb, March 26, 1860
Date Title
Eliza Margaretta Chew Mason to Lydia Maria Child, November 11, 1859
Chicago Style Entry Link
Child, Lydia Maria Francis and Carolyn L. Karcher. An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1996. view record
Child, Lydia Maria Francis, Angelina Emily Grimké, and Grace Douglas. An Appeal to the Women of the Nominally Free States. 2nd ed. Boston: I. Knapp, 1838. view record
Child, Lydia Maria Francis, Milton Meltzer, Patricia G. Holland, and Francine Krasno. Lydia Maria Child, Selected Papers, 1817-1880. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1982. view record
Child, Lydia Maria Francis. Aspirations of the World: A Chain of Opals. Boston: Roberts Bros., 1878. view record
Child, Lydia Maria Francis. The Freedmen's Book. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1865. view record
Child, Lydia Maria Francis. The Rebels; or, Boston before the Revolution. Boston: Cummings, Hilliard, and Co., 1825. view record
Clifford, Deborah Pickman. Crusader for Freedom: A Life of Lydia Maria Child. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992. view record
Karcher, Carolyn L. The First Woman in the Republic: A Cultural Biography of Lydia Maria Child. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994. view record
Meltzer, Milton. Tongue of Flame: The Life of Lydia Maria Child. New York: Crowell, 1965. view record
Osborne, William S. Lydia Maria Child. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1980. view record
How to Cite This Page: "Child, Lydia Maria Francis," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/5383.