Tolerance, temperance, and a number of other social causes of her day. I am going to talk about her, but i am doing a couple other things for you. The premise of this course is the idea that you must understand women reformers in the context of their day. So i am going to trace her personal context, which is important, she was a quaker and i will talk about what that means, but also her social context, social, political and religious contexts, the things that were going on around her. And it is my argument, the city, the domestic second great awakening which i have mentioned, was a part of what helped to radicalize her, contributed to her effectiveness. So both her personal and social contexts are part of this. And i want you to see this as modeling for your own thinking about your own reformers. Each of you is working on a reformer, and i want you to weigh what is in her personal context as a reformer and in her larger context that shapes are issues and effectiveness. Think about it on both those levels. Ok. So in order to understand Lucretia Mott, you have to understand stuff her day were understand what some of the other feminists of her day were like, or women who were interested in womens opportunities. I define feminism quite broadly as someone who believes women ought to have equal opportunities, that they ought to have influence. So lets look at two or three others of these women. Some are people you will be looking for later this week as well. Catherine beecher was a member of the famous beecher family. Her father and her siblings were famous for their reform activism. Her sister was Harriet Beechers stowe, who wrote uncle toms cabin, which was published in 1852, supposedly when lincoln met Harriet Beecher stowe, he said, you are the woman who started this war, the civil war, he meant, because the popularity of her book was so important in stimulating the cause against slavery. That was Harriet Beecher. Catherine beecher was also opposed to slavery, but never married and was really more famous for her arguments about womens education. She wrote a book called the treatise on the domestic economy, which was published in 1840 and republished in the 1870s, which was widely sold. I have a copy of it. And it was how to operate in your family. As a mother and housekeeper. Beechers premise was that womens capabilities in the domestic role and as mothers, suited them for influence in the home, and as teachers. She argued women ought to have influence only in the realm classrooms and households, as mothers, and how they raised their children. Alone amongst her family and other women of the day, beecher opposed womens suffrage. She thought that if women got the vote, that they would lose their influence. We think of her as thinking of womens power coming around to the feminist realm. The second person i want to talk about is maria stuart, again keeping Lucretia Mott in context. Maria stewart was born free in connecticut in 1803. Her family was not wealthy. Early on, she took on a job as a domestic servant in the household of a clergyman. He had an extensive library, and she was a self educated, so she learned to read, developed an adeptness for writing, and she moved to boston in her early 20s and met an africanamerican shipbuilder, someone who outfitted ships. That was james stewart. They married, they did not have children and unfortunately, he died at a young age. In the arbitration of the will afterwards, she was taken advantage of and again found herself having to support herself. So for the rest of her life, she never married again. She took on a career as a public speaker, teacher and as an activist, as a journalist, and on occasion, she found yourself on at least one other occasion having to take work as a domestic servant, because her own ability to get jobs, she couldnt get one. So Maria Stewart reflects the notion of intersectionality, not a phrase of the day that would have been used in the antebellum period, but what she was saying was that her causes centered on womens ability and rights to speak optically against the causes of slavery, that womens voices were needed to end slavery and to push back against slavery. So while she was arguing for the idea that women ought to have a public voice, it was in this cause because mainly of slavery. The third woman i want to put in this context is louisa mccord, the daughter of a famous South Carolina politician. He was a wealthy planter, and she grew up on a wealthy plantation with several brothers. The story goes that she hid when her brothers tutor came so that she could hear the lessons is welcome and convinced her father that she ought to be formally included in the education her brothers were receiving, counter to the expectations that young women of her day, most young women of her day in the south were taught watercolor and embroidery and french. But she was taught much more. Louisa published frequently, she didnt have to make a living publishing, she married and had children and continued publishing. She had plenty of domestic servants. Her husband actually supported her public voice, although she often wrote under a pseudonym, historians believe. Her theories were embedded in her own dependence and the dependence of a region on racial slavery. And in her mind, the idea that racial slavery, which reflected the context of a natural order, that black was naturally subordinate to white, if you questioned that natural subordination, then you are also questioning the natural subordination of women to men. Lets put that the other way around, if you question the subordination of women to men, you are questioning the subordination of black to white. That made no sense, god made a natural hierarchy for a reason, womens influence was as a subordinate within households. They had duties, not public responsibilities, according to mccord. So Lucretia Mott was born in 1793 in nantucket, in massachusetts. She was both the doctor and eventually the wife of merchants, so she had a relatively comfortable life. But she was raised as a quaker, and her parents sent her initially to a private school, but didnt like the way the private school was giving her airs above others, so then they sent her to a preschool a free school early on, to give you an idea about quaker modesty and the notion we are all equal and we all have an inner light. We need to be free of the trappings, this is quaker theology, free of the trappings of this world so we can hear gods message to us, what god is telling us to do and what he needs for us to do. So quaker meetings were often marked by silence so that people could listen, and there were mens and womens sessions. And women could speak, mostly to other women, but they could speak at all quaker meetings. There wasnt a notion that women didnt have a voice to be heard. Mott was sent to a famous Quaker School known as the nine partners school. She did two things, finished her education and also met her future husband, james mott. The picture i am showing you here, this is the two images that were on the wall of her classroom at nine partners school. I want you to think about what it would be like if you were in a mostly barren classroom with these images. The image on the left is an britain,ry image from a rendering of what a slave ship looks like. Its not an actual picture of what a slave ship looks like, but it is a political tract to demonstrate the inhumanity of transporting slaves from africa to the new world, that the transportation, the trade itself, was inhumane. The other picture in the classroom is a picture of william penn, the preeminent quaker in the United States, who was in the period in which pennsylvania was a colony, worked with native americans in the colony. This is a famous painting of a treaty signing between william penn and the native americans in pennsylvania. These are the kinds of images that as a young girl, Lucretia Mott would have been exposed to and would have been a part of her world. After she graduated from nine partners school, she became an instructor there, as did james mott. She became incensed when she learned her salary was 40 a term and his salary was 100 a term. She married him anyway, i guess she didnt think it was his fault he was paid so much more, and this inconsistency in quaker egalitarianism did extend to salaries as well, but they married and moved to philadelphia, where they bought a dwelling. They had six children, five that lived to adulthood. Mott was famous for her housekeeping and for rolling out pies as people were meeting in her living room, and listening and contributing even as she carried on her domestic responsibilities. She began speaking publicly at quaker meetings, well, publicly in the meetings, in 1818, when she was only 25 years old. She continued with other charitable work, typical with middleclass women of her day. By 1821, she was formally recognized as a minister in the philadelphia meetings and began traveling to give public lectures on abolition, nonviolence, peace, native american rights, the immorality of indian removal, freedom of religion and any other number of causes she spoke to. As a minister, she was not allowed to be paid when she spoke publicly, so she depended on the income of her husband, james mott. In 1838, she and her husband were part of the founding of the American Antislavery Society, which had a philadelphia chapter. Note in this image that there are several women in the founding. She helped to draft the mission statement, although as a women, she was not allowed to sign it. You will notice she is sitting beside james horton, an africanamerican sail maker and abolitionist in the philadelphia community. She went on a few days after the founding of the American Antislavery Society to the philadelphia female antislavery society. It lasted until 1870, when the 14th and 15th amendments were ratified. They were noted not only for being, acting and speaking in the language of the day with they called as promiscuous audiences, promiscuous men and women were in the audience is, but also the ppas was also interracial, and the original members were africanamericans. And they rarely challenged racism, even within their own movement. Antislavery people in general work for the end of slavery. Abolitionists wanted slavery abolished immediately. Lucretia mott was an abolitionist and also someone who thought africanamericans should be given civil rights immediately upon abolition. This put her on the far left fringe of the Antislavery Movement of the 1830s. Despite being on the far left fringe, she was a really good speaker, wellliked. So she was chosen as one of the, i think, seven delegates to the World Antislavery Convention in 1840. She arrived in london along with her husband, james mott, to discover that this convention, despite vigorous protests by the americans, decided not to seek women. So it is a convention in which all the people who are trying to organize to figure out how to persuade people around europe and the americas to oppose slavery, to politically organize against it, to do with the could to end the system of slavery because of its human rights violations, and yet women were secondclass members of the organization. This did not bother her as much some people, but William Morris garretson was also a delegate, the famous abolitionist, protested and sat in the gallery with her. The other person she met in the there tohile sent up not be on the floor this convention was Elizabeth Cady stanton. Elizabeth cady stantons husband was also a member of the delegation. They had recently become married. This was their honeymoon. For their honeymoon, they went to this Antislavery Convention in london, and the two of them begin to develop a friendship. Later, stanton said it was this meeting that led to the development of the womens Rights Movement per se, at least her part in the leadership. There is eight years between this and seneca falls, so there is probably a lot more going on here. And i think also there is a lot more to the womens Rights Movement than just this idea of womens civil rights, which stanton tended to focus on. Lets jump ahead to 1848. In her travels, sticking mostly speaking mostly on native american issues in new york in 1848, mott was visiting this woman, another quaker, jane hunt, in 1848. They invited over Elizabeth Cady stanton, who lived in the neighborhood. And Martha Wright is actually Lucretia Motts sister, a woman who lived in new york. They got together and decided they should have a Convention Like the Antislavery Conventions of the day, but it should be dedicated to womens rights. So they had this convention. By the way, i like to point this out when you get involved, this is an era before any major technology, they decided to have the meeting, they put out the call, and they held the meeting in less than one month. Late in the summer of june 1848, they had the seneca falls convention. Her husband shared the hairedtion shared c the convention because there would be men and women in attendance on the second day, and there they passed the declaration of sentiments and resolutions, and it was signed by 100 attendees. I have asked you to look a little at that resolution, and i am going to ask a question about it in a minute. This was produced afterwards, and you can see the prominent place of Lucretia Mott, at the top of the list here. These are the women who signed the resolutions after they were passed. And mott, although she is at the top of the list and agreed to pass the resolutions, was not the advocate of the resolution that caught the most attention, and is one of the most who we remember seneca falls four, and that was the resolution that asked for the womens right to vote. Why it Lucretia Mott not support necessarily the right to vote . Part of this is quaker aestheticism. A lot of quakers thought that being part of a public system like the United States that also in its other branches supported racial slavery made you less pure. So they opposed it on those grounds. They also opposed it because she also thought that it wasnt where attention needed to be. Some people thought asking the vote made you look silly. That wasnt mott, she didnt think it made you look silly to ask for the vote, but she thought women ought to be concentrating on a more basic level at what the inequalities in their society were, that a solution like the vote that the state would grant you was not deep enough, not systemic enough to change the status of women. And now we are at the heart of why i called her a radical. Radical means that you are challenging the system, the systems that grant you the privileges, the racial, the marriage systems, the gender systems, all those things, almost all the major systems of the day she really thought were at their heart that the problem of women and slavery was built upon. So she saw the vote as a little too superficial, although she did sign on to the cause. Here she is in one of her most preeminent, primary causes, womens rights. So 1848 seneca falls was the first womens rights meeting. They were held every year from 1857 until the war, and then they began again in 1865 to 1869, so seneca falls was the first in about 15 womens rights meetings. Here is a quote because she says it so clearly here, one of her major causes. What do you think she means here when she says that it is priestcraft that is the problem . Anybody have any idea about what she is talking about here . Go ahead, nick. It is saying that in the core teachings and tenets of christianity, there isnt actually any encouragement of subjugation of women. That is more a product of men, and the people who are spreading and preaching a certain view on christianity that they endorsed that would maintain and continue a status quote with which they are benefiting from, or at least comfortable with. Professor cole yeah, it is the operators, it is not the ideas. And in particular, she is talking about the Catholic Church here. But at this point, the only people beyond quakers that allowed women to speak publicly are some of the methodists, some of the baptists allowed women to speak, but those are the groups that mostly allowed women to speak. And she says, you know, morality is a key issue, theology is a key issue, and you need womens voices. If you dont upend the rules that keep women from being able to speak and think and engage in the ideas of christianity, then you have made a systemic decision to keep women silent and helped sustain the problem. So there is one idea that is really important, it is that she really thought women ought to have more influence in the religious realm than they did. Anybody else . I think it is kind of interesting that she is mentioning this, because i have taken some naval history classes and women were allowed for a very long time in the medieval era to be part of the church and religion, and then it changed. So i see where she is coming from, that it became almost corrupted, and that is not how it was originally. That it was equal, almost. Professor cole and even if it was originally meant that way, or not originally meant that way but created that way, as you said, it is ill used and part of the problem itself. The point i am trying to make is that mott has a religious perspective established before the rise of other protestant revivals that happened in this time. She is ahead of this curve. But i want to suggest that part of the context that made motts popularity possible and create a radical potential for her age comes from a widespread religious revival from the 1820s to the 1850s, the second great awakening. I have mentioned this for as being partly responsible for the cult of domesticity. But i want to make sure we understand the theology of this moment and the religious revivals of the 1840s and 1850s, that the new millennium and the Second Coming of christ is imminent and we must be preparing for christs arrival. The idea is that christ almost certainly will come to the United States, this new, special