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One of 8 children born to Quaker parents on the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts, Lucretia Coffin Mott (1793-1880) dedicated her life to the goal of human equality. As a child Mott attended Nine Partners, a Quaker boarding school located in New York, where she learned of the horrors of slavery from her readings & from visiting lecturers such as Elias Hicks, a well-known Quaker abolitionist. She also saw that women & men were not treated equally, even among the Quakers, when she discovered that female teachers at Nine Partners earned less than males. At a young age Lucretia Coffin Mott became determined to put an end to such social injustices.
In 1833 Mott, along with Mary Ann M’Clintock & nearly 30 other female abolitionists, organized the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. In 1840 she was one of several American women chosen as delegates to the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention in London by the American Anti-Slavery Society & by other abolitionist groups.
Arriving in England with her husband, she found the convention controlled by the rival American & Foreign Anti-Slavery Society -known to Garrisonians as the “New Organization”& its opposite number, the British & Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, both opposed to public activity by women. Despite vigorous protests by Wendell Phillips & others, the American women delegates were refused recognition & assigned seats “behind the bar.” Though Lucretia Mott was deprived of a voice in the proceedings, she was nevertheless described by a journalist as “the lioness of the Convention” (Liberator, Oct. 23, 1840, p. 170).
It was there, that she 1st met Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who was attending the convention with her husband Henry, a delegate from New York. Mott & Stanton were indignant at the fact that women were excluded from participating in the convention simply because of their gender, & that indignation would result in a discussion about holding a woman’s rights convention. Stanton later recalled this conversation in the History of Woman Suffrage: As Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton wended their way arm in arm down Great Queen Street that night, reviewing the exciting scenes of the day, they agreed to hold a woman’s rights convention on their return to America, as the men to whom they had just listened had manifested their great need of some education on that question. Thus a missionary work for the emancipation of woman…was then and there inaugurated.
Eight years later, on July 19 & 20, 1848, Mott, Stanton, Mary Ann M’Clintock, Martha Coffin Wright, & Jane Hunt acted on this idea; when they organized the First Woman’s Rights Convention.
Two weeks after Seneca Falls, a 2nd convention was held in the Unitarian Chapel at Rochester, N.Y. From this time on, woman’s rights claimed as much of Lucretia Mott’s attention as any of the other reforms with which she associated herself. In a closely reasoned Discourse of Woman (1850) she attributed the alleged inferiority of women to the repressions under which her sex had always labored -unequal educational opportunities, a lower standard of wages, restricted employment, & denial of political rights.
Throughout her life Mott remained active in both the abolition & women’s rights movements. She continued to speak out against slavery; & in 1866, she became the first president of the American Equal Rights Association, an organization formed to achieve equality for both African Americans & women.
For nearly 20 years the Motts lived & reared their children in a red brick house at 136 North Ninth Street in Philadelphia. In 1850, they moved to 338 Arch Street, a spacious house; where they entertained on a simple but generous scale during the Quaker Yearly Meeting & the annual sessions of the reform societies & where they sometimes harbored runaway slaves. Unlike some “strong-minded” female reformers, Mott was a conscientious housekeeper who never laid herself open to the charge, that she neglected her domestic duties. In 1857 she & her husband, now retired from business, moved to Roadside, a plain, rambling country house on the Old York Road, north of Philadelphia, where Lucretia continued her efficient housewife concerns: sewing carpet rags, cooking Nantucket blackberry pudding, raising vegetables in her kitchen garden.
Always a strong believe in the Quaker peace testimony, she regularly attended meetings of the Pennsylvania Peace Society, of which she was vice-president. She seldom missed a woman’s rights or suffrage convention & seldom failed to be called upon for an address. At the 1st convention of the American Equal Rights Association in 1866, she was named president at the insistence of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. When in 1869, the movement split into rival factions, one led by Mrs. Stanton & Susan B Anthony, the other by Lucy Stone, Mary Livermore, & Julia Ward Howe, she sought earnestly but unsuccessfully to overcome the division.
During her last 12 years she was without the faithful support of her husband, for James Mott died on Jan. 26, 1868. She herself lived to the age of 87, active to the end, publicly & privately, in good causes. National Park Service
In 1833 Mott, along with Mary Ann M’Clintock & nearly 30 other female abolitionists, organized the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. In 1840 she was one of several American women chosen as delegates to the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention in London by the American Anti-Slavery Society & by other abolitionist groups.
Arriving in England with her husband, she found the convention controlled by the rival American & Foreign Anti-Slavery Society -known to Garrisonians as the “New Organization”& its opposite number, the British & Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, both opposed to public activity by women. Despite vigorous protests by Wendell Phillips & others, the American women delegates were refused recognition & assigned seats “behind the bar.” Though Lucretia Mott was deprived of a voice in the proceedings, she was nevertheless described by a journalist as “the lioness of the Convention” (Liberator, Oct. 23, 1840, p. 170).
It was there, that she 1st met Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who was attending the convention with her husband Henry, a delegate from New York. Mott & Stanton were indignant at the fact that women were excluded from participating in the convention simply because of their gender, & that indignation would result in a discussion about holding a woman’s rights convention. Stanton later recalled this conversation in the History of Woman Suffrage: As Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton wended their way arm in arm down Great Queen Street that night, reviewing the exciting scenes of the day, they agreed to hold a woman’s rights convention on their return to America, as the men to whom they had just listened had manifested their great need of some education on that question. Thus a missionary work for the emancipation of woman…was then and there inaugurated.
Eight years later, on July 19 & 20, 1848, Mott, Stanton, Mary Ann M’Clintock, Martha Coffin Wright, & Jane Hunt acted on this idea; when they organized the First Woman’s Rights Convention.
Two weeks after Seneca Falls, a 2nd convention was held in the Unitarian Chapel at Rochester, N.Y. From this time on, woman’s rights claimed as much of Lucretia Mott’s attention as any of the other reforms with which she associated herself. In a closely reasoned Discourse of Woman (1850) she attributed the alleged inferiority of women to the repressions under which her sex had always labored -unequal educational opportunities, a lower standard of wages, restricted employment, & denial of political rights.
Throughout her life Mott remained active in both the abolition & women’s rights movements. She continued to speak out against slavery; & in 1866, she became the first president of the American Equal Rights Association, an organization formed to achieve equality for both African Americans & women.
For nearly 20 years the Motts lived & reared their children in a red brick house at 136 North Ninth Street in Philadelphia. In 1850, they moved to 338 Arch Street, a spacious house; where they entertained on a simple but generous scale during the Quaker Yearly Meeting & the annual sessions of the reform societies & where they sometimes harbored runaway slaves. Unlike some “strong-minded” female reformers, Mott was a conscientious housekeeper who never laid herself open to the charge, that she neglected her domestic duties. In 1857 she & her husband, now retired from business, moved to Roadside, a plain, rambling country house on the Old York Road, north of Philadelphia, where Lucretia continued her efficient housewife concerns: sewing carpet rags, cooking Nantucket blackberry pudding, raising vegetables in her kitchen garden.
Always a strong believe in the Quaker peace testimony, she regularly attended meetings of the Pennsylvania Peace Society, of which she was vice-president. She seldom missed a woman’s rights or suffrage convention & seldom failed to be called upon for an address. At the 1st convention of the American Equal Rights Association in 1866, she was named president at the insistence of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. When in 1869, the movement split into rival factions, one led by Mrs. Stanton & Susan B Anthony, the other by Lucy Stone, Mary Livermore, & Julia Ward Howe, she sought earnestly but unsuccessfully to overcome the division.
During her last 12 years she was without the faithful support of her husband, for James Mott died on Jan. 26, 1868. She herself lived to the age of 87, active to the end, publicly & privately, in good causes. National Park Service
Bibliography
Books:
Bacon, Margaret Hope. Valiant Friend: The Life of Lucretia Mott. New York: Walker and Company, 1980.
Bacon, Margaret Hope. Lucretia Mott: A Guide to Research on Her Life and Work. New York: Garland Publishing, 1989.
Bacon, Margaret Hope. Lucretia Mott: Valiant Friend. Philadelphia: Friends General Conference, 1999.
Baker, Jean H. Sisters: The Lives of America's Suffragists. New York: Hill and Wang, 2005.
Block, Sharon. Lucretia Mott’s Heresy: Abolition and Women’s Rights in Nineteenth-Century America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017.
DuBois, Ellen Carol. Feminism and Suffrage: The Emergence of an Independent Women's Movement in America, 1848–1869. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999.
Faulkner, Carol. Lucretia Mott's Heresy: Abolition and Women's Rights in Nineteenth-Century America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011.
Ginzberg, Lori D. Women in Antebellum Reform. Wheeling: Harlan Davidson, 2000.
Griffith, Elisabeth. In Her Own Right: The Life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984.
Kraditor, Aileen S. Up from the Pedestal: Selected Writings in the History of American Feminism. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1968.
Sterling, Dorothy. Ahead of Her Time: Abby Kelley and the Politics of Antislavery. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1991.
Wellman, Judith. The Road to Seneca Falls: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the First Woman's Rights Convention. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004.
White, Deborah Gray. Too Heavy a Load: Black Women in Defense of Themselves, 1894-1994. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999.
Articles:
Bacon, Margaret Hope. "The Quiet Revolution: The Legacy of Lucretia Mott." Quaker History, vol. 70, no. 2, 1981, pp. 75-91.
Bacon, Margaret Hope. "Lucretia Mott: Negotiating the Struggle for Black Equality." Pennsylvania History, vol. 55, no. 3, 1988, pp. 159-180.
Faulkner, Carol. "Lucretia Mott and the Abolitionist Network in the United States." Journal of Women's History, vol. 21, no. 1, 2009, pp. 10-33.
Faulkner, Carol. "A 'Volunteer Family': Lucretia Mott's Reform Networks in the 1840s." Journal of the Early Republic, vol. 31, no. 1, 2011, pp. 51-80.
Ginzberg, Lori D. "The 'Joint Education of the Sexes': The Transformation of Women's Education in the United States, 1820-1870." History of Education Quarterly, vol. 21, no. 2, 1981, pp. 193-211.
Ginzberg, Lori D. "Lucretia Mott: Abolition and Women's Rights in Antebellum America." The Journal of American History, vol. 75, no. 2, 1988, pp. 484-486.
Gordon, Ann D. "The Transformation of Feminism: From Quakers to Suffragists." Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, vol. 15, no. 2, 1990, pp. 241-266.
Kerrison, Catherine. "Lucretia Mott and the Quaker Influence on American Women's Rights." Quaker History, vol. 78, no. 1, 1994, pp. 1-16.
Ryan, Mary P. "The Public and the Private Good: Across the Great Divide in Women's History." Journal of Women's History, vol. 15, no. 1, 2003, pp. 10-27.
Wellman, Judith. "The Seneca Falls Women's Rights Convention: A Study of Social Networks." Journal of Women's History, vol. 3, no. 1, 1991, pp. 9-37.