Mary Ann Shadd Cary

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Mary Ann Shadd, still unmarried

Mary Ann Shadd Cary (born October 9, 1823 in Wilmington, Delaware ; died June 5, 1893 in Washington, DC ) was an American-Canadian anti-slavery activist, journalist, publicist, teacher, and lawyer. She was the first black publisher in North America and the first female publisher in Canada .

Shadd Cary was an abolitionist who became the first female African American newspaper editor in North America when she published The Provincial Freeman magazine in 1853 .

Origin and early life

Mary Ann Shadd was born on October 9, 1823 in Wilmington, Delaware, the eldest of 13 children of Abraham Doras Shadd (1801-1882) and Harriet Burton Parnell, who were free African American. Abraham D. Shadd was a grandson of Hans Schad, alias John Shadd, a German from Hessen-Kassel who came to the United States as a Hessian mercenary with the British Army during the Seven Years' War in North America . Hans Schad was wounded and left to the care of two African American women, mother and daughter, both named Elizabeth Jackson. The Hessian mercenary and daughter married in January 1756 and their first son was born six months later.

AD Shadd was a son of Jeremiah Shadd, the younger son of John, a butcher in Wilmington. AD Shadd was a trained shoemaker and had a shop in Wilmington and later in the nearby town of West Chester, Pennsylvania . In both places he was an active member of the American Anti-Slavery Society as a conductor (escape helper) of the Underground Railroad and for other civil rights activities. In 1833 he was named "President of the National Convention for the Improvement of Free People of Color in Philadelphia" (German: President of the national meeting for the improvement of the life of the free people of color in Philadelphia).

As she was growing up, Mary Ann's family residence often served as a refuge for fugitive slaves. However, when it became illegal to teach African American children in Delaware, the Shadd family moved to Pennsylvania, where Mary Ann attended a Quaker boarding school . After finishing school she returned to West Chester in 1840 and established a school for black children. She later taught in Norristown , Pennsylvania , and New York City .

Three years after the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 was passed , AD Shadd moved with his family to Canada , where he settled in North Buxton, Ontario. In 1858 he became the first black man to be elected to political office in Canada. He was elected to the position of Counselor for the City of Raleigh, Ontario.

Social activities

Moved to Canada

When the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 threatened to bring the free blacks and the escaped slaves back into bondage in the United States, Shadd and her brother Isaac moved to Canada and settled in Windsor, Ontario, just across the border from Detroit . It was there that Shadd's symbolic effort to create free settlements for black people in Canada began. While still in Windsor, she founded a racially integrated school with the support of the American Missionary Association and published "Notes on Canada West", a pamphlet that dealt with the advantages of emigration as well as the local opportunities for blacks in this area.

The Provincial Freeman magazine

Mary Anna Shadd Cary became the first North American editor to publish the anti-slavery magazine The Provincial Freeman . Her brother Isaac ran the daily business of the newspaper and continued to organize meetings at his home to plan the Harper's Ferry raid .

Shadd Cary was an early proponent of African American immigration to Canada. Her magazine appeared from 1853 to 1860 and provided important editorials, cultural news and information on events in other regions. Shadd Cary published her news paper in Canada, but it was also circulated in the major northern cities of the United States.

The "black press" and its influence

By observing the emergence of the "black press" during this period and the efforts of the editors to promote their race and attempt to liberate all African American people, much can be discovered about this period of history. It was the first newspapers to target African Americans rather than whites, and it was the first time that African Americans were sane and able to appreciate culture and education. These papers provided them with the means to take on their own political fate.

These newspapers worked to strengthen the race and change the views white Americans had about ex-slaves. Black community leaders stressed that upbringing, strict moral values, honest work, and thrift would change the myths that whites still held about the inferiority of blacks. Essentially, this meant the rise from ignorance to education. Cary and Douglass both used their newspapers to promote this mindset.

The role of African American newspapers from 1850 to 1860 remains to be explored. The simple fact is fascinating that these newspaper owners were able to buy and work with the equipment to produce a weekly newspaper edition during an era when no one had a journalism degree or training.

Further activities in the 1850s

Shadd Cary traveled through Canada and the United States, advocating full racial integration through education and self-reliance. She advocated emigration to Canada for the free people by writing A Plea for Emigration in 1852 ; or Notes of Canada West, in Its Moral, Social and Political Aspect: with Suggestions respecting Mexico, West Indies and Vancouver's Island for the Information of Colored Emigrants .

She tried to attend the Colored National Convention of 1855, but the assembly debated whether she should have a seat as a delegate at all. Her advocacy of emigration made her a controversial figure and she was only allowed with a narrow majority of 15 votes. According to Frederick Douglass' writing , she was well received by the delegates, who granted her 10 minutes more speaking time, even though she gave a speech at the convention in which she advocated emigration. Her presence, however, was largely measured in minutes, presumably because she was a woman.

Civil War and Cary's activities afterwards

"Mary Ann Shadd Cary House" in Washington, DC

In 1856, Mary Ann married a Toronto barber named Thomas F. Cary, who also worked for Provincial Freeman magazine. She had a daughter named Sarah and a son named Linton. After her husband's death in 1860, Shadd Cary and her children returned to the United States. During the Civil War , she served (at the request of abolitionist Martin Delany) as a recruiting officer to recruit black volunteers for the Union Army in the state of Indiana. After the Civil War, she taught in schools of color in Wilmington before moving to Washington, DC , where she taught in public schools and attended the School of Law at Howard University . She graduated from the bar in 1883 at the age of 60, becoming the second black woman in the United States to earn a law degree. She wrote for the National Era and The People's Advocate .

Women's suffrage

After organizing the Colored Women's Progressive Franchise movement in 1880, Shadd Cary joined the National Woman Suffrage Association and worked side by side with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton on women's suffrage . She testified before the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives and became the first African American woman to cast a vote in a national election.

Death and burial

She died in Washington DC on June 5, 1893 of stomach cancer. She was buried in the former "Columbian Harmony Cemetery" in Washington, which was closed in 1960.

Heritage and remembrance

  • Mary Ann Shadd Cary's former home in the "U Street Corridor" was declared a protected historic building ( National Historic Landmark ) in 1976 .
  • In 1987 it was designated for a "Historical Women's Month", an honor by the "National Women's History Project"
  • In 1998, Mary Ann Shadd Cary was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame .
  • She was also honored by Canada as a "Person of National Historic Significance".
  • In 2018 the New York Times published a late obituary for her.

See also

literature

  • Beardon Jim and Butler Linda Jean: Shadd: The Life and Times of Mary . Toronto: NC Press Ltd, 1977.
  • Rhodes Jane: Mary Ann Shadd Cary: The Black Press and Protest in the Nineteenth Century . Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998.

Web links

Commons : Mary Ann Shadd  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Provincial Freeman, ed. from "Archives of Ontario" ( Memento of the original from January 26, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved on ? @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.archives.gov.on.ca
  2. ↑ Mary Ann Shadd Cary . A&E Networks Television. Retrieved March 15, 2013.
  3. ^ Daniel G. Hill: The Black Press . In: Polyphony: The Bulletin of the Multicultural History Society of Ontario, Spring – Summer 1982, Volume 4. p. 43.
  4. ^ P. Scott: Abraham Doras Shadd. In: The Mill Creek Hundred History Blog. Retrieved April 29, 2019
  5. ↑ Mary Ann Shadd Cary, Historical Marker Database Accessed on April 29, 2019
  6. ↑ Gail Ito: Shadd, Abraham Doras (1801-1882). Retrieved April 29, 2019
  7. ↑ Aboard the Underground Railroad - Mary Ann Shadd Cary House. Retrieved April 29, 2019
  8. ↑ Jane Rhodes Indiana University Press, 1999: Mary Ann Shadd Cary: The Black Press and Protest in the Nineteenth Century . Indiana University Press, 1999.
  9. ^ Conaway, Carol B., "Racially Integrated Education: The Antebellum Thought of Mary Ann Shadd Cary and Frederick Douglass." Women's Education 27, no.2 (2010): 86.
  10. ^ Conaway, Carol B., "Racial Uplift: The Nineteenth Century Thought of Black Newspaper Publisher Mary Ann Shadd Cary." Paper presented at the National Communications Association's Annual Convention, Chicago, Ill., November 15-17, 2007.
  11. ↑ Goddu, Teresa A., "Early African American Print Culture in Theory and Practice." Early American Literature 45, no.3 (2010): 733.
  12. ^ Aboard the Underground Railroad - Mary Ann Shadd Cary House . National Park Service, US Department of the Interior. Retrieved May 2, 2019.
  13. ^ The Elevator, "The National Colored Convention," 1869.
  14. ^ Census of Nova Scotia, 1851 . Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada: Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management, Nova Scotia Board of Statistics, 1851
  15. ↑ Adrienne Shadd: Mary Ann Shadd Cary: Abolitionist . Library and Archives Canada.
  16. ↑ Cary, Mary Ann Shadd - National Women's Hall of Fame Retrieved on April 29, 2019
  17. ↑ Savage, Beth L. and Shull, Carol D .: African American Historic Places. Washington, DC: Preservation Press 1994, p. 136.
  18. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from June 24, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved April 29, 2019 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / nwhp.org
  19. ^ National Women's Hall of Fame, Mary Ann Shadd Cary
  20. ↑ How One Woman Shook Up the Abolitionist Movement, from the series "Overlooked No More". Accessed April 29, 2019
personal data
SURNAME Cary, Mary Ann Shadd
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Shadd, Mary Ann (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American abolitionist, journalist, teacher, lawyer, suffragette
DATE OF BIRTH October 9, 1823
PLACE OF BIRTH Wilmington, Delaware
DATE OF DEATH June 5, 1893
Place of death Washington, DC