NHD PAPER

Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society

`Imagine women talking in whispers, with their hand over their mouth. Think back to the time when African Americans were treated like they were worthless. In the 1800s women did not have the same rights or power as the men did, and Africans Americans were told what to do and if they didn't follow directionns they were beaten. Until 1833 when the first female abolition group started in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Society helped expand the rights of women all nationalities and African Americans.

Life for Women in the 1800s

In the 1800s women were different than women today, they were expected to be the typical housewife cook, clean, take care of the children and to please their husbands. “Women were considered unequal to their male companions legally and socially” (123helpme.com). If there was a election taking place only the men were allowed to vote, not women. It was discrimination, but the nineteenth amendment for discrimination against sex wasn’t made until over a century later. The nineteenth amendment states “The rights of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the Untied States or any state on account of sex”.. Even though the Constitution really made no law for women rights, to vote , it was said by the society that women women just didn’t have the right (U.S. Constitution.org).

Life for African Americans in the 1800s

Life in the 1800s for African Americans was hard for them, they lived day by day. "Thousands of African Americans worked against their will every day on sugar and cotton plantations. "Even when the government stepped in and abolished the importation of enslaved Africans, the ban was widely ignored. Between 1808-1860 approximately 250,000 African American slaves were illegally imported into the United States "(blackpast.org).. When African Americans gained some freedom they were left without money, education and no place to go. It even got as far as to blacks can’t walk into a certain store" (libertinage.com).

How the PFASS began

In 1832 a man named William Lloyd Garrison born December 10, 1805 in Newburyport, MA (nnbd,com), was inspired by the ideas of several female activists including Lucreta Mott (Spartacus Education). He then decided to help Lucreta Mott start the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society known as the PFASS, because he felt as though women can help end slavery too. "By 1833 they had began to be known as the first female abolitionist group in Philadelphia. Also the organization was serving as a model for scores of other female abolitionist groups and catalyzing the nascent women’s right movement" (hsp.org).

Public Ledgers

Having fairs would help them spread the news to the public and raising money. At the fairs the women would show their traditional skills by hand making goods and selling them or auctioning them off. The women would also make refreshments, give each other information and literature in a clam and social environment. A festival to remember is on January 17, 1867, the wind and the snow made it hard to continue with the festival, but the PFASS festival was a great success. That same day, PFASS members joined a convention for universal equal rights at the Franklin Institute (hsp.org).

The next step for the society was, working on women rights. "So PFASS member Angelina Grimke Weld stated, “I want to be identified with the Negro until he gets his rights, we shall never have ours.” Some members of the PFASS also felt that the authority of black suffrage would be reinforced by female suffrage. Robert Purvis, black and male, even claimed that he would stop his right to vote until his wife, could do the same. In 1870 the fifth tenth Amendment was past giving African Americans the right to vote" (hsp.org). The fifth tenth Amendment says,” The right of citizenship of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on the account of race, color or previous condition of servitude” (infoplease.com). "The Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society were excited to see African Americans rights expand but still waited for the day to come when woman would have the rights they deserved" (hsp.org)

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Effects that the PFASS had/has torward the World

It took many years to get the right to vote and citizenship for African Americans. Much patients came with the work they put in to be an activist. They kept trying and trying. The women from the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society even took their own rights away to show that they will do anything to have equal rights. The PFASS did not have a immediate effect but it gave many women across the world confidence to stand up for their selves.

The long term change that happened as a result of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society is the unity between the people today. We now can all vote as long as you’re a citizen (USConstitution.org). Women today talk and address the same issues that men do without being pitied upon by the community. African Americans are allowed to walk amoung us receive a education like everybody else. They can vote and even run for president like Barack Obama if they would like. The most important step that we need to continue taking is working together and being patient it can take a century or more to see a change happen.

The Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society assisted women and African Americans with their rights and they also assisted us with coming together. So in the next twenty years you can watch your love one grow old and do the things they love, and watch the world become a better place for everybody.. Look around you, you can see the change now, we have the first African American President that’s never happened before and wouldn’t be able to happen if we lived in a time like the 1800s. Lastly, ask your self if you want to be apart of that change going on around you, if you want to go out in your neighborhood and make sure your peers know what’s going on around them, because remember anybody can make a change.

Paper

In my paper i will describe what the PFASS is and what they did and who invented the society. In my paper I want to focus on women rights because not only were they actvists but they were women all race.

project titles

The Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society : Fighting for the rights of womenz

Primary Source

http://www.swarthmore.edu/Images/academics/friends/womansister2.jpg

This image shows women in the movement.

Primary Sources

http://www.oberlin.edu/library/special/political/anti-slavery.html

Antislavery, Books Pamphlets & Newspapers


A Brief History of the Anti-Slavery Collection
Founded in 1833, Oberlin's early supporters, students, and settlers actively pursued the Christian ideals of men like Charles Grandison Finney and William Lloyd Garrison. Oberlin College was the first co-educational institution in the United States, as well as the most influential of the early institutions that admitted African-Americans. The town was major stop on the Underground Railroad. Oberlin College has, and continues to embrace many social and political causes, and the foremost among these was the crusade to end slavery in the United States.

During the years 1838–1840, travelers to England made appeals to British anti-slavery sentiment and collected books for the school's fledgling library. Their trip was marvelously successful, and among the 2000 or so volumes they brought back with them were several British books arguing against slavery representing the oldest portion of our collection.

When the Spear Library building opened in 1885, the librarian, Rev. Henry Matson, recognizing the role which Oberlin had played in the abolitionist struggle, made an appeal to local residents for anti-slavery literature.

It is proposed to make in the college library an anti-slavery collection, complete as possible, for the future historian, in which shall be gathered every book, every pamphlet, every report, every tract, every newspaper, and every private letter on the subject. For such a collection nothing is unimportant. Scattered here and there these documents are all but worthless, but gathered in one collection they would be priceless. (Oberlin Weekly News, Feb. 29, 1884)

Among the generous contributions made at this time was the original draft of the Anti-Slavery Declaration of 1833 in the handwriting of William Lloyd Garrison. In 1931/32 Geraldine Hopkins Hubbard compiled a catalog of the Anti-Slavery Collection of which published copies and later appendices are available in Special Collections. In 1968, the Lost Cause Press in Louisville, Kentucky, realizing the national importance of Oberlin's holdings, made the entire collection available in a microcard edition, which is also available for use in the Oberlin College Library. The set is now on microfiche cards available from Primary Source Media.

Scope of the Collection
The Anti-Slavery Collection now consists of around 2500 or more items, most of which have been cataloged and so can be searched using the online catalog. In the collection you will find:

• Anti-slavery societies' documents: annual reports, addresses, and publications. Books, pamphlets, and other documents outlining the moral, religious, economic, and legal aspects of the slavery debate.

• Travelers' observations of slavery.

• Slave narratives — autobiographical, biographical, and fictional.

• Biographies of leaders of the anti-slavery movement.

• Children's literature.

• Poetry, songs, anthologies, and gift books.

• Newspapers and periodicals, including The Abolitionist, The American Anti-Slavery Reporter, The Emancipator and Republican, The Gerrit Smith Banner, The Liberator, Liberty, and many others.

• Political works, including documents related to the Missouri Compromise, the Fugitive Slave Law, the Kansas-Nebraska Controversy; party propaganda; and speeches made in and out of Congress.

• Some pro-slavery literature.

• Ephemera, including bills of sale for slaves, manumission papers, slave shackles, etc.

Gravestone of Lee Howard Dobbins
One of the most compelling artifacts in Special Collections is a gravestone of a four year old escaped slave. In March of 1853, a slave woman named Miriam arrived in Oberlin from Kentucky, with her entire family—her children and grandchildren and a sickly four-year-old foster child named Lee Howard Dobbins. Miriam had fled her master in a desperate attempt to save her daughters, whom she had learned were going to be sold.

By the time they arrived in Oberlin, little Lee Howard was extremely ill. Miriam and the rest of her family couldn't afford to wait for his convalescence — since she and her family were the only slaves their master owned, he was no doubt in hot and angry pursuit. A family in Oberlin promised to care for the child, and Miriam and her children were safely delivered to Canada, where her brother was awaiting them.

Lee Howard Dobbins died of consumption a week later. The whole town mourned his death — a thousand people were reportedly crammed into First Church for his funeral, where all grieved not only the loss of this child, but the horrors of slavery. The collection at the funeral was used to buy this gravestone for him.

The stone has weathered badly, and so it was put in the Oberlin College Library Special Collections for safekeeping in 1938. The Inscription reads:

Let Slavery perish!
LEE HOWARD DOBBINS
a fugitive Slave orphan.
brought here by an
adopted mother in her
flight for liberty
MAR. 17, 1853
left here wasted with
consumption, found
a refuge in death
MAR. 26, 1853
Aged 4 Years
Related Material in the Oberlin College Archive
Among the rather extensive mid-nineteenth century documents held by the Oberlin College Archives are papers relating to the anti-slavery movement and Black education. These documents are of both an institutional and a non-institutional nature.

The Philadelphia Female Society

Maria Diaz
National History Day
Topic Selection Essay
November 24, 2009

Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society


`Imagine women talking in whispers, with their hand over their mouth. Think back to the time when African Americans were treated like they were worthless. In the 1800s women did not have the same rights or power as the men did Africans Americans were told what to do and they didn't follow they were beaten. Until 1833 when the first female abolition group started in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Society helped expand the rights of women all nationalities and African Americans.

In the 1800s women were expected to be the typical housewife cook, clean, take care of the children and to please their husbands. “Women were considered unequal to their male companions legally and socially” (123helpmen). If there was a election taking place only the men were allowed to vote, not women. It was discrimination, but the nineteenth amendment for discrimination against sex wasn’t made until over a century later. The nineteenth amendment states “The rights of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the Untied States or any state on account of sex”(U.S. Constitution). Even though the Constitution really made no law for women rights, to vote , it was said by the society that women women just didn’t have the right (U.S. Constitution).

Life in the 1800s for African Americans was hard for them just living day by day. Thousands of African Americans worked against their will every day on sugar and cotton plantations (). Even when the government stepped in and abolished the importation of enslaved Africans, the ban was widely ignored. Between 1808-1860 approximately 250,000 African American slaves were illegally imported into the United States (libertinage). When African Americans gain some freedom they were left without money, education and no place to go. It even got as far as to blacks can’t walk into a certain store (libertinage).

In 1832 a man named William Lloyd Garrison born December 10, 1805 in Newburyport, MA (nnbd), was inspired by the ideas of several female activists including Lucreta Mott (Spartacus Education). He then decided to help Lucreta Mott start the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society known as the PFASS, because he felt as though women can help end slavery too. By 1833 they had began to be known as the first female abolitionist group in Philadelphia. Also the organization was serving as a model for scores of other female abolitionist groups and catalyzing the nascent women’s right movement (hsp).



Having fairs would help them spread the news to the public and raising money. At the fairs the women would show their traditional skills by hand making goods and selling them or auctioning them off. The women would also make refreshments, give each other information and literature in a clam and social environment. A festival to remember is on January 17, 1867, the wind and the snow made it hard to continue with the festival, but the PFASS festival was a great success. That same day, PFASS members joined a convention for universal equal rights at the Franklin Institute(HSP).

The next step for the society was working on women rights. So PFASS member Angelina Grimke Weld stated, “I want to be identified with the Negro until he gets his rights, we shall never have ours.” Some members of the PFASS also felt that the authority of black suffrage would be reinforced by female suffrage. Robert Purvis, black and male, even claimed that he would stop his right to vote until his wife, could do the same. In 1870 the fifth tenth Amendment was past giving African Americans the right to vote (HSP). The fifth teenth Amendment says,” The right of citizenship of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on the account of race, color or previous condition of servitude” (infoplease). The Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society were excited to see African Americans rights expand but still waited for the day to come when woman would have the rights they deserved.

It took many years to get the right to vote and citizenship for African Americans. Much patients came with the wok they put in to be an activist. They kept trying and trying, the women from the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society even took their own rights away to show that they will do anything to have equal rights. The PFASS did not have a immediate effect but it gave many women across the world confidence to stand up for their selves.

The long term change that happened as a result of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society is the unity between the people today. We now can all vote as long as you’re a citizen. Women today talk and address the same issues that men do without being pitied upon by the community. African Americans are allowed to walk amoung us receive a education like everybody else. They can vote and even run for president like Barack Obama if they would like. The most important step that we need to continue taking is working together and being patient it can take a century or more to see a change happen.

The Philadelphia Female Anti Slavery Society assisted women and African Americans with their rights and they also assisted us with coming together. So in the next twenty years you can watch you love one grow old and do the things they love. Watch the world become a better place everyday. Look around you, you can see the change now we have the first African American President that’s never happened before and wouldn’t be able to happen if we lived in a time like the 1800s.Lastly, ask your self if you want to be apart of that change going on around you, if you want to go out in your neighborhood and make sure your peers know what’s going on around them, because remember anybody can make a change.

Philadelphiia Female Anti-Slavery Society

Imagine women talking in whispers with their hands over their mouth. Imagine African Americans being told what to do by the white man. Majority of the women in the 1800s wereIn the 1800s women did not have the chance to speak the way men did. Their words did not count they spoke in whispers. Until William Garison thought that women should be allowed to help free slaves as well. So he created the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society with the help of Lucreata Mott. The Philadelphia Female Anti-slavery Society helped expand the rights of women and African Americans.