Antislavery Biographies Project Assignment
History 147
Fall 2000

This class has introduced you to a very small number of women active in the antislavery movement before the Civil War. This is your opportunity to read more about an additional antislavery woman activist, and to present her biography to the class. I am particularly interested in how you evaluate the activism of your subject not only in the period before the Civil War, but (if she lived long enough) in the years following the conflict.

You should write a brief (4-6page) paper on your subject.

Your sources must be cited, and must include the following:

• one full-length biography (when you choose your subject, you MUST make sure that you have access to a full-length biography; in using the biography as a source, please take into account when and by whom it was written
• one article on your subject from a biographical encyclopedia such as:
  • Notable American Women
  • Black Women in America
• one citation of your subject in a reasonably recent (post 1960) historical study
• one web citation

You will have approximately 10 minutes to make a class presentation based on the information you have assembled for your paper. Please remember that, while you have written a report, you will be making a presentation. PLEASE PRACTICE! and be aware of the length of your presentation!!!!

Your paper and your presentation must both include the following information:

• Name, birth and death dates of your subject;
• Place of childhood residence, education, and any other important background information;
• Can you explain how she came to be active in the antislavery movement?
• For what types of antislavery activism is she best known?
• How did she react to the coming of the Civil War?
• Was she actively involved in any significant social movements during and after the Civil War? How would you characterize her activism?

Please provide appropriate background information, but focus your presentation on your subject's activism in the years following 1850.

Below is a list of available biographies. I encourage you to choose an individual from this list:

• Dorothy Sterling, Abby Kelley Foster: Ahead of her Time
• Nell Irvin Painter, Sojourner Truth
• Gerda Lerner, The Grimke Sisters from South Carolina
• Anna Davis Hallowell, James and Lucretia Mott: Life and Letters
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Eighty Years and More
• Kathleen Barry, Susan B. Anthony
• Catherine Birney, The Grimke Sisters
• Elizabeth Cazden, Antoinette Brown Blackwell
• Andrea Kerr, Lucy Stone
• Alice Stone Blackwell, Lucy Stone
• Sallie Holley, A Life For Liberty
• Randolph Runyon, Delia Webster and the Underground Railroad
• Jane Rhodes, Mary Ann Shadd Cary
• Susan Strane, A Whole Souled Woman: Prudence Crandall
• Margaret Bacon, Abby Hopper Gibbons

Your class presentation is due October 4; you must submit your written report by October 9