Women's History Month 2020: Suffrage and Abolition

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sojourner_Truth#/media/File:Carte_de_visite.jpg

The suffrage movement, or the movement for women's rights, grew out of the abolition movement. There's a good chance if your female ancestor was involved in the abolition movement, she may have also been interested or was a part of the suffrage movement. However, while nearly all suffrage advocates supported abolition in the early 19th century, not all abolitionists agreed with women's suffrage. [1] Women abolitionists faced discrimination and ridicule in trying to do things that were considered "unladylike" such as  speaking in public.

"While individuals expressed their dissatisfaction with the social role of women during the early years of the United States, a more widespread effort in support of women’s rights began to emerge in the 1830s." As women participated in the abolition movement and experienced sexism there, they started to be concerned with equal rights via suffrage. [2]

According to the companion website for the Ken Burns documentary Not for Ourselves Alone, those women involved with William Lloyd Garrison and his American Anti-Slavery Society did  everything from speak publicly to hold office. "Garrisonian [American Anti-Slavery Society] women did not necessarily oppose woman suffrage, but they emphasized instead the right of women to gain equal access to education and employment; equality within marriage, the family, and religion; and a married woman’s right to property, wages, control over her own body, and custody of her children. They advocated similar rights for African Americans and focused particularly on the sexual abuse of slave women as one of the strongest arguments for eradicating slavery." [3]

So, were your ancestors members of the abolitionist movement? Did they participate in the Underground Railroad? Did they speak out about slavery? What records have you found?

Resources

Accessible Archives - Abolition newspapers including the Liberator and National Anti-Slavery Standard
FamilySearch - FamilySearch Catalog - Abolition
Library of Congress - The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship. Abolition, Anti-Slavery Movements, and the Rise of the Sectional Controversy
FamilySearch - FamilySearch Research Wiki- Quick Guide to African American Records.



**I chose the Sojourner Truth CDV for this blog post because there's a great chapter in the book, Why They Marched: Untold Stories of the Women Who Fought for the Right To Vote,  about how she "seems to be the only person who ever copyrighted her own image on a carte de visite." She used this image and sales of it to finance herself. (pg 32). 

[1]"Not for Ourselves Alone," PBS (https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/not-for-ourselves-alone/abolition-suffrage: accessed 8 March 2020).
[2] "Women's Rights Emerges with the Abolitionist Movement," National Women History Museum (http://www.crusadeforthevote.org/abolition: accessed 8 March 2020).
[3]"Not for Ourselves Alone," PBS (https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/not-for-ourselves-alone/abolition-suffrage: accessed 8 March 2020).