Week Five- The Ladies' Voice: Truth and Stewart
In a time when women had few rights, Maria Stewart and Sojourner Truth expounded woman's rights and the evils of slavery. Both women were very intelligent, and yet Maria W. Stewart was provided greater opportunities to refine the way to deliver her remarks. In considering the works of the two women, we are also given the opportunity to consider how both were effective in spite of challenges.
Maria Stewart was born in the North and orphaned as a child. Because there was no one to take care of her, she became a minister's servant. In this home, she was religiously educated as well as provided an opportunity to obtain a minimal education. However, she did not allow the obstancles of her life to hold her back. As a teenager she took her education into her own hands and learned enough to allow her to understand and participate in the anti-slavery debates in the North. She married, but her husband died a few years later. Seeking a way to provide for herself, she began writing religious tracks intended to spread the Gospel, and then later switched to pamphlets about secular concerns such as abolition and women's suffrage. Some of her lectures and essays were published in Garrison's The Liberator. In Stewart, a Christian belief system and the need for change forged a unified message calling for abolition and women's rights, as well as education and economic opportunties as a means for the African American community to succeed. When she took the stage to speech to a mixed gender, mixed race crowd, she elevated the place of African American women from the traditional "women's place" to a place of prominence. Stewart is considered the first female African American
By contrast, Sojourner Truth, legally named Isabella, was born a slave and forced to endure the beatings and hardship by her masters. She was born in New York and was finally made legally free when New York abolished slavery and emancipated their slaves in 1827. A physically as well as emotionally strong woman, Isabella changed her name to Sojourner Truth after deciding that the Lord was leading her to leave her home in New York City and travel the countryside sharing the Gospel with others. She believed that as a traveler (Sojourner) spreading God's truth (Truth) the name spoke of her mission as well as her life choice. She was not an eloquent speaker like Maria Stewart or Frederick Douglass, but her more down to earth approach reached many audiences with not only the Gospel, but also the need to end slavery and grant women's rights. Perhaps it was the familiar qualities that allowed Truth to cut through the rhetoric and have an impact traveling with Douglass and Garrison and couseling Abraham Lincoln during the war.
As you consider these two ladies messages and approaches, pay close attention to the Biblical wisdom woven through their words and the way in which the abolition and women's suffrage movements were becoming intertwined.
Maria Stewart was born in the North and orphaned as a child. Because there was no one to take care of her, she became a minister's servant. In this home, she was religiously educated as well as provided an opportunity to obtain a minimal education. However, she did not allow the obstancles of her life to hold her back. As a teenager she took her education into her own hands and learned enough to allow her to understand and participate in the anti-slavery debates in the North. She married, but her husband died a few years later. Seeking a way to provide for herself, she began writing religious tracks intended to spread the Gospel, and then later switched to pamphlets about secular concerns such as abolition and women's suffrage. Some of her lectures and essays were published in Garrison's The Liberator. In Stewart, a Christian belief system and the need for change forged a unified message calling for abolition and women's rights, as well as education and economic opportunties as a means for the African American community to succeed. When she took the stage to speech to a mixed gender, mixed race crowd, she elevated the place of African American women from the traditional "women's place" to a place of prominence. Stewart is considered the first female African American
By contrast, Sojourner Truth, legally named Isabella, was born a slave and forced to endure the beatings and hardship by her masters. She was born in New York and was finally made legally free when New York abolished slavery and emancipated their slaves in 1827. A physically as well as emotionally strong woman, Isabella changed her name to Sojourner Truth after deciding that the Lord was leading her to leave her home in New York City and travel the countryside sharing the Gospel with others. She believed that as a traveler (Sojourner) spreading God's truth (Truth) the name spoke of her mission as well as her life choice. She was not an eloquent speaker like Maria Stewart or Frederick Douglass, but her more down to earth approach reached many audiences with not only the Gospel, but also the need to end slavery and grant women's rights. Perhaps it was the familiar qualities that allowed Truth to cut through the rhetoric and have an impact traveling with Douglass and Garrison and couseling Abraham Lincoln during the war.
As you consider these two ladies messages and approaches, pay close attention to the Biblical wisdom woven through their words and the way in which the abolition and women's suffrage movements were becoming intertwined.