By Lucy Buck, '08

Dan Curtis, '08

and Matthew Johnston, '07

Her controversial views on slavery and abolition cost her dearly, as a “once-adoring public immediately canceled subscriptions to her children’s magazine, forcing her to resign as editor-in-chief,”
said Corrine Martin.

Corinne Martin announces the induction of Lydia Maria Francis Child at the National Abolition Hall of Fame Jan. 31. Child was one of four inducted into the hall of fame.

Photo by Nicole Davis, '08

Lydia Maria Francis Child’s major achievement came in 1833, when she published her book “An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans,” said Corinne Martin, a graduate student at Syracuse University and a  NAHOF cabinet member.

In the book, Child talked about the history of slavery and its present condition. The work was extensively researched, and its arguments were intelligently presented to the reader, says Martin. The book was praised for its “willingness to address the issues many would not, such as racial prejudice in the North, the difficult position of female slaves with male masters and integration and interracial marriage,” says Martin.

Child’s proposed an end to slavery through the mixing of ex-slaves into society.  She advocated education for blacks as a means of achieving equality in society, writes Jone Johnson Lewis, a professor at Meadville/Lombard Theological School.

Child was a popular writer of advice books and publisher of a children’s magazine, the “Juvenile Miscellany”. The subject of the magazine’s stories was often the mistreatment of Indians by New England settlers and further back Spanish colonists.

Lydia started out writing a novel about early Americans called “Hobomok” in  1824.Even in this early novel, Child’s sense for equality shined through with her respectful depiction of Native Americans, writes Lewis.

She lost most of her readership after “An Appeal in Favor…” was released. Her controversial views on slavery and abolition cost her dearly, as a “once adoring public immediately canceled subscriptions to her children’s magazine, forcing her to resign as editor-in-chief,” said Martin.

Child eventually began working with her husband, David Lee Child, and wrote in a weekly black press newspaper called the “Anti-Slavery Standard” based in New York. With this paper, she was able to voice opinions that she wasn’t able to in certain books.

David Child was politically connected in Massachusetts, having served for a short time in the State Legislature and spoken at several political rallies. Through him Lydia met William Lloyd Garrison ,  a fellow inductee into the National Abolitionist Hall of Fame. Garrison was influential in involving Lydia in the antislavery movement. Before committing herself to the movement, Lydia spent three years researching the subject, says Martin.

She began writing many of her children’s stories about slavery at that time, says Lewis.

Along with her strong abolitionist views, Child became a strong supporter of the advancement of women’s rights as well as the rights of Native Americans.

After writing “An Appeal in Favor…” Child continued to write about antislavery anonymously. In 1835 she published “Authentic Anecdotes Of American Slavery.” In 1836 she wrote “Anti-Slavery Catechism,” Lewis writes. People continued to boycott her earlier, non-controversial works, and the works afterward.

In 1861, Child assisted Harriet Jacobs in the publication of a book called “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,” which  was a work that dealt with the sexual abuse some young female slaves endured. The book was highly criticized for its graphic content.

Child died in Wayland, MA in 1880, on the farm she and her husband had shared since 1852.