Women and African American History: 1864-1869
1864
• Rebecca Ann Crumple graduated from the New England Medical College, becoming the first African American woman M.D.
1865
• slavery ended in the United States with the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution
• American Equal Rights Association founded by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglass, Lucy Stone, and others, to work for equal rights for African Americans and women -- the group split in 1868 over which group (women or African American men) should take priority
• Charlotte Forten published "Life on the Sea Islands" about her teaching experiences as an African American northerner who went south to teach former slaves
• sculptor Edmonia Lewis produced a bust of Robert Gould Shaw, who led black troops in the Civil War
• (March 9) Mary Murray Washington born (educator, founder of the Tuskegee Woman's Club, wife of Booker T. Washington)
• (April 11) Mary White Ovington born (social worker, reformer, NAACP founder)
• (-1873) many women teachers, nurses, and physicians went to the South to help former slaves by founding schools and providing other services, as part of the Freedmen's Bureau effort or as missionaries with religious or more secular organizations
1866
• President Andrew Johnson vetoed funding for and extension of the Freedmen's Bureau, but Congress overrode the veto (more)
• Old Elizabeth died
1867
• Rebecca Cole graduated from medical school, the second African American woman to do so. She went on to work with Elizabeth Blackwell in New York.
• Edmonia Lewis created sculpture "Forever Free" communicating the response of African Americans when they heard of the end of slavery
• (July 15) Maggie Lena Walker born (banker, executive)
• (December 23) Sarah Breedlove Walker (Madam C.J. Walker) born
1868
• 14th Amendment to the US Constitition granted US citizenship to African American men -- for the first time explicitly defining US citizens as male. Attitudes towards the importance of this change split the American Equal Rights Association within the year. Much later, the 14th Amendment became the basis for various equal protection cases advocating for women's rights.
• Elizabeth Keckley, dressmaker and confidante of Mary Todd Lincoln, published her autobiography, Behind the Scenes; or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House
• sculptor Edmonia Lewis produced Hagar in the Wilderness
1869
• biography Harriet Tubman: The Moses of Her People by Sarah Bradford published; proceeds funded a home for the elderly founded by Harriet Tubman
• National Woman Suffrage Association founded (NWSA), with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as first president
• (November) American Woman Suffrage Association founded (AWSA), with Henry Ward Beecher as first president
[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-]
