Lucretia Mott

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Lucretia Mott in a photograph by Frederick Gutekunst (around 1870–80)

Lucretia Mott (born January 3, 1793 on Nantucket , † November 11, 1880 near Philadelphia ; née Coffin ) was an American abolitionist and suffragette .

Life

Origin and education

Lucretia Coffin was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts, the second of eight children to Anna (Folger) and Thomas Coffin. She grew up in an environment in which female independence was a matter of course. Her father was the captain of a whaling ship and her mother ran her parents' estate independently. The family belonged to the Quakers , whose belief includes the equality of all people before God. At the age of thirteen she was accepted into the boarding school of the Quaker Nine Partners in what is now Millbrook , New York State. After finishing school she became a teacher. She became interested in women's rights when she discovered that male teachers at the school were paid three times as much as female colleagues.

marriage and family

On April 10, 1811, Lucretia Coffin and James Mott, a fellow teacher at Nine Partners, were married . Their second child, Thomas Mott, died at the age of two. Their surviving children all became active in anti-slavery and other reform movements.

Preacher and theologian

In 1821 Lucretia Mott became a preacher in the Quaker Church in Philadelphia, where the young family had meanwhile moved. With the support of her husband, Lucretia Mott traveled extensively as a preacher; in her sermons she emphasized the inner light of the Quakers or the presence of the divine in each individual. In accordance with the principle of inspiration from the divine inner light, she did not write down her sermons and speeches. However, in 1849 she published her Sermon to the Medical Students .

She developed her theology under the influence of William Penn and some Unitarians , including Theodore Parker and William Ellery Channing . With Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise , Ralph Waldo Emerson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson , she belonged to the Free Religious Association founded in 1867 .

As a Quaker, Mott was a pacifist, and she rejected the war of conquest against Mexico .

The fight against slavery

Historical marker (memorial plaque) in Philadelphia. Acknowledgment of the commitment of women from the Anti-Slavery Society

Like many Quakers, Mott thought slavery was an evil. She followed Elias Hicks ' call to boycott goods produced by slaves (cotton cloth, cane sugar, etc.). The home of James and Lucretia Mott became a center for the anti-slavery movement in Philadelphia. They took fugitive slaves into their home and made it a station on the Underground Railroad . James Mott was a co-founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society . Mott's sister-in-law, Abigail Lydia Mott, and her brother-in-law, Lindley Murray Moore, were co-founders of the Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester .

At that time, women were considered unsuitable for public appearance from birth, which is why they were reluctantly accepted as activists in the national anti-slavery organizations. Now a seasoned pastor and abolitionist, Lucretia Mott was the only woman to speak at the founding convention of the American Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia in 1833. After the meeting, Mott and other white and black women formed the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society . This maintained close relationships with the black church congregations in Philadelphia. Mott himself often preached in black churches.

Despite the hostility of the abolitionists and painful illnesses, Mott continued her work for the abolition of slavery. One newspaper wrote: "It is the proof that it is possible for a woman to expand her sphere without leaving it." The participation of women in the anti-slavery movement threatened societal norms. Many members of the abolitionist movement opposed women speaking in public. At the general assembly of the Congregational Church , the synod agreed to a pastoral letter warning women not to violate the direction of St. To defy Paul, to be silent in the church ( 1 Tim 2,12  LUT ). Others turned against women speaking in front of mixed groups of men and women in what they termed "frivolous". Some were unsure of what was appropriate, as the growing influx of Angelina Weld Grimké and her sister Sarah Moore Grimké, as well as other female speakers, contributed to the common cause of the struggle for abolition.

Mott participated in all three American women's national anti-slavery conventions (1837, 1838, 1839). During the 1838 convention in Philadelphia, a mob destroyed the Pennsylvania Hall, a convention facility recently opened by abolitionists. The white and black female delegates hooked themselves to safely exit the building through the crowd. The mob then turned against their homes and against black neighborhoods and facilities in Philadelphia.

The world meeting against slavery, 1840

Lucretia Mott (1842), oil painting by Joseph Kyle

In June 1840, Mott attended the General Anti-Slavery Convention (better known as the World Anti-Slavery Convention ) of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society in London. Before it began, the men voted to exclude the six female delegates from the US from participating; they were asked to sit in a separate area. Because the fight against slavery should not be associated with the fight for women's rights and thereby "weakened". An Irish journalist called Mott, who was not stopped by the neglect, the lioness of the convention . Encouraged by encounters in England and Scotland, Mott returned to the United States with renewed vigor for the anti-slavery movement. She gave numerous lectures in cities in the north as well as in the slave states . In Washington DC, Mott timed her lecture to coincide with the return of Congress from the Christmas break; more than 40 MPs listened to her. President John Tyler was impressed with her speech.

The Seneca Falls Convention 1848

At the World Anti-Slavery Convention, Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton got to know each other better. In 1848 they organized a women's rights conference in Seneca Falls : the first public women's rights meeting in the United States. Despite initial concerns about demands that women be allowed to vote, Mott signed the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments . In 1850, Mott published her Discourse on Woman , a pamphlet against restrictions on women in the United States.

The American Equal Rights Association

After the Civil War , Mott was elected first president of the American Equal Rights Association , an organization that campaigned for universal suffrage. In 1868, Mott resigned when Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan Brownell Anthony teamed up with eccentric businessman George Francis Train . Mott tried to reconcile the two factions that had fallen out over the question of whether the right to vote for released (male) slaves or the right to vote for women first had to be fought for.

Swarthmore College

In 1864, Mott and some Hicksite Friends founded Swarthmore College not far from Philadelphia, which is still one of the most important liberal arts colleges in the United States.

death

Lucretia Mott died of pneumonia on November 11, 1880 at her home in Cheltenham, Pennsylvania. She was buried in the Quaker Fairhill Burial Ground in north Philadelphia. It is commemorated with a sculpture by Pablo Picasso in the Carrier Dome in Syracuse , unveiled in 1997 .

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Commons : Lucretia Mott  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Mott, Lucretia
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American suffragette
DATE OF BIRTH January 3, 1793
PLACE OF BIRTH Nantucket
DATE OF DEATH November 11, 1880
Place of death near Philadelphia