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Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands
Nurse and businesswoman Mary Seacole was born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1805 to a Scottish officer in the British Army and a free Jamaican woman. In Seacole’s autobiographical Wonderful Adventures, she relates her extensive travel and medical contributions, including her work as a nurse during the Crimean War. She had applied to participate in wartime initiatives, including joining a group of nurses organized by Florence Nightingale, but was rejected. Instead, she and a business partner gathered their own supplies, booked passage on a Dutch ship, and established quarters for sick officers between Balaclava and Sevastopol. -
Rights of Women under the Late Constitutional Amendments
Judge Henry R. Selden advised Susan B. Anthony that she had the right to vote. When she was subsequently arrested for voting, he represented her in court. He later published the text of his argument. This is Judge Selden’s personal copy. -
Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin's mother Mary Wollstonecraft died following her birth. She was largely educated by her father William Godwin. She was not quite seventeen when she eloped with Percy Bysshe Shelley. Frankenstein is considered to be the first work of science fiction. In this third edition, she recounts for the first time the story of its origin during a ghost story writing contest in a villa on Lake Geneva. The novel explores what it means to be human and the ethical implications of scientific research. This edition is the first with a preface by Mary Shelley and the first with illustrations. -
Deed of emancipation, Court held for Norfolk County, Virginia
This deed attests that Thomas Smith used Susannah Mallory’s own money to purchase her freedom from attorney Charles King Mallory of Elizabeth City County, Virginia. Susannah Mallory paid sixty dollars to emancipate herself. Some enslaved persons in Virginia were permitted by their masters to earn money from work done on their personal time, including hiring out their labor. Smith notes he acted only as her “Friendly agent,” and he resigns any legal right to her service. Susannah was then about fifty-five years old. -
On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences
Mary Somerville was one of the foremost British scientists of the nineteenth century. Though forbidden by her father to study mathematics, she taught herself geometry and algebra in secret, pursuing her interests during a time when scientific education was not yet formalized and scientific pursuits were considered beyond women’s abilities. In 1835 Somerville and Caroline Herschel were the first women elected as honorary members of the Royal Astronomical Society. On the Connexion comprehensively summarizes contemporary knowledge in all areas of the physical sciences. It was publisher John Murray’s best-selling science title to date, was published in ten editions in Britain, and translated widely. -
The Slave’s Appeal
On the eve of the Civil War, Elizabeth Cady Stanton published The Slave’s Appeal, in which she applied the Ten Commandments to the institution of slavery and exhorted New Yorkers to defy the Fugitive Slave Act. The Slave’s Appeal included petitions to be circulated so that the signatures collected could be sent to state legislatures to demand an end to slave hunting. Stanton and Susan B. Anthony would later oppose the Fifteenth Amendment, which granted suffrage to black men, because it did not enfranchise women. -
Letter to Sarah M’Clintock
Mary Ann M’Clintock was a Quaker and founded the Western New York Anti-Slavery Society. Her house in Waterloo, New York, was a stop on the underground railroad. In her home, over tea, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth M’Clintock, Martha Coffin Wright, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton met in 1848 and decided to call a convention for Women’s Rights. They drafted the Declaration of Sentiments on M’Clintock’s tea table over the course of two days. At the end of this letter to M’Clintock’s daughter, Stanton inquires “Would you sell the table on which the Declaration was written and what would you ask for it?” She did purchase the table. -
The Revolution
The Revolution (1868–1872) was the first weekly newspaper devoted to women’s rights. Founded by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton as the official publication of the National Woman Suffrage Association, The Revolution helped bring national attention back to the women’s rights movement in the aftermath of the Civil War. The paper’s circulation was modest, but its impact was broad. It was an important part of the NWSA’s efforts to attract working-class women, using columns on unionization, discrimination against female workers, and other pertinent topics to attract and hold their interest. The collection holds the most complete run of this groundbreaking publication. -
[Portrait of Emily Faithfull]
English publisher and printer Emily Faithfull dedicated her career to fighting for women’s right to work. She wrote extensively on the issue and established the Victoria Press for the Employment of Women in 1860. The Press and its goal of women’s employment in the printing trade was a controversial labor and class issue at the time. The Press’s early business was contract printing for organizations aligned with its mission like the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women. Faithfull traveled extensively in America, publishing her book, Three Visits to America, documenting her observations of working women throughout the United States. -
Manuscript blurb for Sojourner Truth’s Narrative
Harriet Beecher Stowe rocketed to celebrity with the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), selling 300,000 copies during its first year in print. Abolititionist and feminist Sojourner Truth saw an opportunity. Truth asked Stowe to write a promotional statement that would bring notice to her autobiographical Narrative. She and Stowe met for the first and only time in 1853. This signed statement appears as an introduction in some copies of the 1853 edition of the Narrative. -
The Gospel of Slavery: A Primer of Freedom
This illustrated juvenile alphabet book by Unitarian minister Abel Thomas is unsparing in its depiction of slavery. It includes an image and verse for each letter, with prose lines written in response to the defenders of slavery. “W stands for woman,” and the explicatory prose below the verse speaks to the selling of children from their mothers. The Gospel of Slavery is one of only two anti-slavery alphabets published during the antebellum period. The other, The Anti-Slavery Alphabet by Hannah Townsend (1847), is also in the collection. This copy is in its original wrappers. -
On the Plains, and Among the Peaks, or, How Mrs. Maxwell Made her Natural History Collection
Naturalist Martha Maxwell brought Western fauna into public view through her skills at taxidermy. She defined the art of creating natural history dioramas with animals displayed in their natural habitats. Maxwell’s half-sister wrote a biography recounting her contributions as a scientist and documenting her correspondence with Spencer Fullerton Baird, the second Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Despite the quality of her work, Martha Maxwell struggled to make a living and died destitute. A few of Maxwell’s original specimens survive and are in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution. -
Appeal of one half the human race, women, against the pretensions of the other half, men: to retain them in political, and hence in civil and domestic, slavery; in reply to a paragraph of Mr. Mill's celebrated "Article on government"
Philosopher Anna Wheeler was self-educated, reading Diderot, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Mary Hays. Known as the "Goddess of Reason," she was ideologically aligned with French utopian socialist Charles Fourier. After leaving an abusive marriage with an alcoholic husband, she was critical of marriage and proposed cooperative community living as an alternative. In 1825 she collaborated with William Thompson on the socialist feminist Appeal. Thompson considered the text their joint property. Wheeler was among the first women to lecture publicly on the “Rights of Women.” She wrote using the pseudonym Vlasta, publishing articles on subjects such as the enslavement of women for men’s sensual pleasure and advocating the use of contraception. Wheeler's great-granddaughter was Lady Constance Lytton, the comrade of Emmeline Pankhurst. -
A portraiture of domestic slavery, in the United States: with reflections on the practicability of restoring the moral rights of the slave, without impairing the legal privileges of the possessor; and, a project of a colonial asylum for free persons of colour, including memoirs of facts on the interior traffic in slaves, and, on kidnapping: illustrated with engravings
In November 1815, Ann Williams and her daughters were torn from their family and sold to Georgia slave traders. In desperation, Williams jumped out a third-story window. Jesse Torrey, a physician visiting Washington, hearing her story, sought to interview her. He found her in bed with a broken back and broken arm. Her daughters had been taken south to be sold. Torrey subsequently published this account along with other narratives that he chronicled. In 1816 Williams’ suicide attempt prompted a Congressional inquiry into interstate slave trade. Williams later successfully petitioned for her freedom and for that of her children. -
[Reward of merit for neatness and order given to Mary Morgan]
Following her husband’s financial losses, historian, educator, and writer Emma Willard established a boarding school in her home in Middlebury, Vermont. In 1821 she opened the Troy Female Seminary, offering women a college preparatory education on par with that available to men. The curriculum included science, mathematics, geography, and philosophy. The school was funded by the Common Council of Troy, New York. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was educated at the Troy Female Seminary, although Willard did not support the suffrage movement. The school remains open today as The Emma Willard School. -
Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave, Emancipated from Bodily Servitude by the State of New York, in 1828
Feminist and abolitionist Sojourner Truth was one of the towering figures of nineteenth-century America. She was born into slavery in 1797 on a rural farm in Ulster County, New York. At age thirty, she drew strength from her Christian faith and found the courage to escape with her infant daughter. A spiritualist, in 1843 she had a vision and changed her name from Isabella Baumfree to Sojourner Truth. She became a preacher, earning her living as she moved through Long Island and Connecticut, eventually joining a Garrisonian, abolitionist, utopian community, the Northampton Association of Education and Industry in Massachusetts. In 1850, noting the success of Frederick Douglass’ autobiography, Truth dictated her life story to her friend Olive Gilbert, who was a fellow member of the Northampton Association. Truth wrote, published, and distributed the book herself. She used the proceeds to support herself and to buy a house of her own in Northampton. -
I Sell the Shadow to Support the Substance [cabinet card]
Feminist and abolitionist Sojourner Truth was one of the towering figures of nineteenth-century America. She was born into slavery in 1797 on a rural farm in Ulster County, New York. At age thirty, she drew strength from her Christian faith and found the courage to escape with her infant daughter. By the 1860s, Sojourner Truth had moved to Battle Creek, Michigan. Between 1863 and 1875, Truth had at least fourteen different photographic portraits made. She sold them to provide income for herself. These cartes-de-visite and cabinet cards were portable and far cheaper to produce than copies of her Narrative. She controlled every aspect of the way she is depicted in these images—genteelly, in cap and shawl, often with her knitting, a book or photograph in her lap, obscuring her disabled right hand. -
[Poems and illustrations]
This lovely hand-bound manuscript was made by Mary B. Tuckey and others in Cork, Ireland, to be sold at the Boston Anti-Slavery Fair to raise money for the abolitionist cause. The beribboned floral page dedicated to Maria Weston Chapman was drawn by Mary Mannix, the secretary for the Anti-Slavery Societies of Cork. Chapman, organizer of the fair and a Garrisonian abolitionist, wrote Right and Wrong in Massachusetts and edited the annual the Liberty Bell. Frederick Douglass’ acclaimed visit to Cork is commemorated in the volume with a poem in his honor. The strong international bonds of the Abolitionist movement are made evident in this small book. -
Fanaticism: its source and influence, illustrated by the simple narrative of Isbella, in the case of Matthias, Mr. and Mrs. B. Folger, Mr. Pierson, Mr. Mills, Catherine, Isabella, &c. &c.: a reply to W.L. Stone, with descriptive portraits of all the parties, while at Sing-Sing and at Third street, containing the whole truth, and nothing but the truth
Feminist and abolitionist Sojourner Truth was one of the towering figures of nineteenth-century America. She was born into slavery in 1797 on a rural farm in Ulster County, New York. At age thirty, she drew strength from her Christian faith and found the courage to escape with her infant daughter. A spiritualist, in 1843 she had a vision and changed her name from Isabella Baumfree to Sojourner Truth. In 1842, she came under the influence of a self-styled prophet, Robert Matthews, who established his “Kingdom of Matthias” on an estate in Sing Sing, New York. It was a questionable enterprise. Isabella was attracted by Matthias’ spiritualism and the promise of egalitarianism, which was unfulfilled. The community disbanded after a trial for murder and sexual impropriety. -
Telescope teachings: a familiar sketch of astronomical discovery: combining a special notice of objects coming within the range of a small telescope, illustrated by the author's original drawings: with a detail of the most interesting discoveries which have been made with the assistance of powerful telescopes, concerning the phenomena of the heavenly bodies, including the recent comet
Irish naturalist and artist Mary Ward wrote and illustrated bestselling books on astronomy, microscopy, and entomology. Her exceptional illustrations were admired by some of the leading male scientists of the day, who helped her gain access to equipment and commissioned her to illustrate their publications. She made time for her scholarly work after her children were in bed. Her publications provided critical income for the family. Telescope Teachings includes Ward’s detailed description of Donati’s Comet.
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