Women and African American History: 1850-1859
1850
• (around 1850) Johanna July born (cowgirl)
• Fugitive Slave Act passed by Congress
• (January 13) Charlotte Ray born (first African American woman lawyer in the United States and the first woman admitted to the bar in the District of Columbia)
• Hallie Quinn Brown born (educator, lecturer, clubwoman, reformer, Harlem Renaissance figure)
• Mary Ann Shadd and her family, free blacks, moved to Canada to avoid capture and enslavement under new US policies and laws
• (1850-1852) Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe ran as a serial in National Era
1851
• Sojourner Truth gave her "Ain't I A Woman" speech to a women's rights convention in Akron, Ohio, in reaction to male hecklers
• Harriet Tubman made her first trip back to the South to help members of her family to freedom; she made a total of 19 trips back to help slaves escape
1852
• (March 20) Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe published, in book form, in Boston, selling more than 300,000 copies the first year -- the book's success in highlighting the evils of slavery prompted Abraham Lincoln later to say of Stowe, "So this is the little lady who made this great war."
• Frances Wright died (writer about slavery)
1853
• Mary Ann Shadd Cary began publishing a weekly, The Provincial Freeman, from her exile in Canada
• Sarah Parker Remond tried to integrate a Boston theater and was hurt when a policeman pushed her. She sued the officer and won a $500 judgment.
• Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield appeared at the Metropolitan Opera, New York
1854
• Francis Ellen Watkins Harper published Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects which included an anti-slavery poem, "Bury Me in a Free Land"
• Katy Ferguson died (educator; ran school in New York City for poor children)
1855
• Maria Weston Chapman published How Can I Help to Abolish Slavery
1856
• Sarah Parker Remond hired as a lecturer for the American Anti-Slavery Society
1857
• Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court declared that African Americans were not US citizens
1859
• Our Nig; Or Sketches from the Life of a Free Black by Harriet Wilson published, the first novel by an African American
• (June) Sarah Parker Remond began lecturing in England, Scotland, and Ireland for the American Anti-Slavery Society. Her lectures on slavery probably helped keep the British from actively entering the American Civil War on the side of the Confederacy.
• (October 26) Lydia Maria Child wrote to Governor Wise of Virginia, regretting the action of John Brown but asking for admission to nurse the prisoner. Published in the newspaper, this led to a correspondence that was also published.
• (December 17) Lydia Maria Child's response to a Mrs. Mason, who had defended the South's caring attitude towards slaves, included the famous line, "I have never known an instance where the 'pangs of maternity' did not meet with requisite assistance; and here at the North, after we have helped the mothers, we do not sell the babies."
[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-]
