Lucretia Mott
Lucretia Coffin Mott (1793-1880) was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts. Her family were Quakers, and she taught at a Quaker school near Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1808 and 1809. She moved to Philadelphia in 1809. Mott became a Quaker minister in 1821 and, like many other Quakers, was active in the abolitionist movement. She became known for her eloquent speeches against slavery. In 1833, Mott helped found the American Anti-Slavery Society and the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. She helped organize the Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women in 1837.
After the Seneca convention, Mott began to speak widely for both abolition and women's rights. She also wrote a book, Discourse on Woman (1850). It discussed the economic, educational, and political restrictions on women in the United States and other Western nations. After slavery was abolished in the United States in 1865, Mott supported the movement to give blacks the right to vote. In 1864, she and other Quakers founded Swarthmore College.
Excerpt adapted from the "Lucretia Coffin Mott" article, The World Book Encyclopedia © 1999