Margaretta Forten

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Margaretta Forten
BornSeptember 11, 1806
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US
DiedJanuary 14, 1875(1875-01-14) (aged 68)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US
Known foractivism, suffragist, abolitionist
Parents
RelativesSarah Louisa Forten Purvis (sister),
Harriet Forten Purvis (sister)

Margaretta Forten (September 11, 1806 – January 13, 1875) was an African-American suffragist and abolitionist.[1]

Biography[edit]

Margaretta Forten was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 11, 1806. Her parents, Charlotte Vandine Forten and James Forten, were abolitionists, and her father founded the American Moral Reform Society.[2]

Because women were excluded from the American Anti-Slavery Society, Forten, with her mother Charlotte and sisters Sarah and Harriet, co-founded the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society with ten other women in 1833.[2][3] The goal of this new society was to include women in the activism being done for the abolition of slavery, and "to elevate the people of color from their present degraded situation to the full enjoyment of their rights and to increased usefulness in society." (Brown, 145)[4] Forten often served as recording secretary or treasurer of the Society, as well as helping to draw up its organizational charter and serving on its educational committee.[3][5] She offered the Society's last resolution, which praised the post-civil war amendments as a success for the anti-slavery cause.[2] The Society distinguished itself at the time as the first of its kind in the United States to be interracial.[6] Although the Society was predominantly white, historian Janice Sumler-Lewis claims the efforts of the Forten women in its key offices enabled it to reflect a black abolitionist perspective that oftentimes was more militant.[7]

Forten toured and gave speeches in favor of women's suffrage, as well as helping petition drives for the cause.[1][2][8] She also worked as a teacher, teaching at a school run by Sarah Mapps Douglass in the 1840s, and opening her own school in 1850.

Later life and death[edit]

Having never married, Forten returned to her childhood home in Philadelphia following the death of her father. She continued to reside there until her death at the age of 68 in Philadelphia on January 14, 1875. She is buried at the Saint James the Less Episcopal Churchyard Cemetery in Philadelphia.[9]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Alexander, Leslie. Encyclopedia of African American History, Volume 1, ABC-CLIO (2010), p. 1045.
  2. ^ a b c d Smith, Jessie Carney and Wynn, Linda T. Freedom Facts and Firsts: 400 Years of the African American Civil Rights Experience, Visible Ink Press, 2009, p. 242.
  3. ^ a b Christian, Charles Melvin, and Bennett, Sari J. Black Saga: The African American Experience : a Chronology, Basic Civitas Books, 1998, p. 1183.
  4. ^ Brown, Ira V. "Cradle of Feminism: The Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, 1833–1840." The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 102, no. 2 (1978), 143–66.
  5. ^ Gordon, Ann Dexter, and Collier-Thomas, Betty. African American Women and the Vote, 1837–1965, University of Massachusetts Press, 1997, p. 33.
  6. ^ Hine, Darlene Clark (1998). A Shining Thread of Hope: The History of Black Women in America. New York: Broadway Books. pp. 38. ISBN 0-7679-0110-X.
  7. ^ Sumler-Lewis, Janice (Winter 1981–1982). "The Forten-Purvis Women of Philadelphia and the American Anti-Slavery Crusade". Journal of Negro History. 66 (4): 281–288. doi:10.2307/2717236. JSTOR 2717236. S2CID 152092689.
  8. ^ Fels, Anna. Necessary Dreams: Ambition in Women's Changing Lives, Random House Digital, 2005, p. 173.
  9. ^ Rachlin, Morgan. "Biographical Sketch of Margaretta Forten, 1806–1875". Bethesda, Maryland: Alexander Street, 2017.
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