Mary Ann Shadd
| Mary Ann Shadd Cary | |
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| Born | October 9, 1823 Wilmington, Delaware |
| Died | June 5, 1893 (aged 69) Washington, D.C. |
| Occupation | Anti-slavery activist, journalist, publisher, teacher, lawyer |
| Spouse(s) | Thomas F. Cary (m. 1856) |
Mary Ann Shadd Cary (October 9, 1823 – June 5, 1893) was an American-Canadian anti-slavery activist, journalist, publisher, teacher and lawyer. She was the first black woman publisher in North America and the first woman publisher in Canada.[1]
Mary Ann Shadd Cary was an abolitionist who became the first Female African American newspaper editor in North America. She started and edited the "Provincial Freeman."[2] In 1840, Shadd returned to West Chester and established a school for black children. She also later taught in Norristown, Pennsylvania and New York City.
Social activism
When the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 in the United States threatened to return free northern blacks and escaped slaves into bondage, Shadd and her brother Isaac moved to Canada and settled in Windsor, Ontario, across the border from Detroit. In Windsor, she founded a racially integrated school with the support of the American Missionary Association.
Civil War and postbellum activism
After her husband died in 1860, Shadd Cary and her children returned to the United States. During the Civil War, at the behest of the abolitionist Martin Delany,[3] she served as a recruiting officer to enlist black volunteers for the Union Army in the state of Indiana. After the Civil War, she taught in black schools in Wilmington, before moving to Washington, D.C., where she taught in public schools and attended Howard University School of Law. She graduated as a lawyer at the age of 60 in 1883, becoming only the second black woman in the United States to earn a law degree. She wrote for the newspapers National Era and The People's Advocate.
Shadd Cary joined the National Woman Suffrage Association, working alongside Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton for women's suffrage, testifying before the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives and becoming the first black woman to cast a vote in a national election.
She died in Washington, D.C., on June 5, 1893. She was interred at Columbian Harmony Cemetery.[4] Her former residence in the U Street Corridor was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1976. In 1987 she was designated a Women's History Month Honoree by the National Women's History Project.[5] She was also honoured by Canada, being designated a Person of National Historic Significance.[3]
See also
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References
- ^ "Provincial Freeman", Archives of Ontario
- ^ "Mary Ann Shadd Cary". A&E Networks Television. Retrieved March 15, 2013.
- ^ a b Adrienne Shadd, "Mary Ann Shadd Cary: Abolitionist", Library and Archives Canada
- ^ Savage, Beth L. and Shull, Carol D. African American Historic Places. Washington, D.C.: Preservation Press, 1994, p. 136.
- ^ "Honorees: 2010 National Women’s History Month". Women's History Month. National Women's History Project. 2010. Retrieved 14 November 2011.
Further reading
- Beardon, Jim and Butler, Linda Jean, Shadd: the Life and times of Mary Shadd Cary. 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.
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Mary Ann Shadd |
- Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
- Biography from the site of Professor Scott Williams of the University of Buffalo
- Breaking The Ice, the Story of Mary Ann Shadd, documentary film
- Biography
- National Park Service
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