African American History and Women

What's included? See note below timeline.

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Women and African American History: 1830-1839

1830

1831

• (September) men and women of the slave ship Amistad demand that the US recognize their freedom

• (-1861) Underground Railroad helped thousands of African American men, women, and children to freedom in the Northern states and Canada

1832

• Female Anti-Slavery Society was founded in Salem, Massachusetts, by and for African American women

• Oberlin College founded in Ohio, admitting women and African Americans as students along with white men

1833

• Lydia Maria Child published An Appeal in Favor of the Class of Americans Called Africans

• American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS) founded, with four women attending, Lucretia Mott spoke

• Lucretia Mott and others founded the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society

• Oberlin Collegiate Institute opened, the first coeducational college and the first to accept African American students (later renamed Oberlin College)

• in Connecticut, Prudence Crandall admitted an African American student to her girls' school, reacted to disapproval by dismissing the white students in February and, in April, reopened it as a school for African American Girls

• (May 24) Connecticut passed a law forbidding the enrollment of black students without own permission, under which Prudence Crandall was jailed for one night -- the county jury did not reach a decision on the case and the Superior Court dismissed the case

1834

• (September 10) Prudence Crandall closed her school for African American girls in the face of harassment

• Maria Weston Chapman began her work as an abolitionist -- she's known for her work with the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society

1835

1836

• Angelina Grimke published her antislavery letter, "Appeal to the Christian Women of the South"

• Lydia Maria Child published her Anti-Slavery Catechism

• Maria Weston Chapman published Songs of the Free, and Hymns of Christian Freedom

• (-1840) Maria Weston Chapman edited the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society annual reports, titled Right and Wrong in Boston

• Fannie Jackson Coppin born (educator)

1837

• William Lloyd Garrison and others won the right of women to join the American Anti-Slavery Society, and for the Grimke sisters and other women to speak to mixed (male and female) audiences

• Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women held in New York

• Angelina Grimke published her "Appeal to the Women of the Nominally Free States"

• Charlotte Forten born (educator, diarist)

1838

• Angelina Grimke spoke to the Massachusetts legislature, the first woman to address an American legislature

• Grimke sisters published American Slavery as It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses

• (and 1839) Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women met in Philadelphia

1839

• (-1846) Maria Weston Chapman published Liberty Bell

• (-1842) Maria Weston Chapman helped edit The Liberator and Non-Resistant, abolitionist publications

• women permitted to vote for the first time at an annual convention of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS)

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[1492-1699] [1700-1799] [1800-1829] [1830-1839] [1840-1849] [1850-1859] [1860-1863] [1864-1869] [1870-1879] [1880-1889] [1890-1899] [1900-1909] [1910-1919] [1920-1929] [1930-1939] [1940-1949] [1950-1959] [1960-1969] [1970-1979] [1980-1989] [1990-1999] [2000-]
[Biographies of Notable African American Women]

Events in this timeline include:

• events featuring African American women
• birth and death dates for many notable African American women
• general African American events which had significant impact on African American women and families as well as men
• events involving key women whose work influenced African American history, for instance the involvement of many European American women in anti-slavery work
• birth and death dates for key women whose work was important in African American history, for instance in anti-slavery or civil rights work