Lydia Maria Child (February 11, 1802 – October 20, 1880) was an American abolitionist, women's rights activist, opponent of American expansionism, Indian rights activist, novelist, and journalist and Unitarian.

Her writing in journals and anti-slavery fiction reached wide audiences from the 1830s through the 1850s. She at times shocked her audience, as she tried to take on issues of both male dominance and white supremacy in some of her stories.

Despite these challenges, Child was later most remembered for her poem, Over the River and Through the Woods about Thanksgiving. (Her grandfather's house, restored by Tufts University in 1976, still stands near the Mystic River on South Street in Medford, Massachusetts.)

* Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction 1

Suggestions for Classroom Use and Explanation of Editorial Policy 20

Pt. 1 The Indian Question

The Church in the Wilderness 31

Willie Wharton 47

An Appeal for the Indians 79

Pt. 2 Children's Literature and Domestic Advice

Louisa Preston 101

Extracts from Management during the Teens 112

Letter from an Old Woman, on Her Birthday 123

Education of Children 129

Pt. 3 Slavery, Race, and Reconstruction

Jumbo and Zairee 153

Prejudices against People of Color, and Our Duties in Relation to This Subject 160

The Black Saxons 182

To Abolitionists 192

Annette Gray 200

Letter from New-York, Number 12 209

The Iron Shroud 216

Talk about Political Party 223

Letters from New-York, Number 33 230

Slavery's Pleasant Homes. A Faithful Sketch 238

Reply of Mrs. Child [to Mrs. Mason] 243

Mrs. L. Maria Child to the President of the United States 254

Emancipation and Amalgamation 262

A Tribute to Col. Robert G. Shaw 267

Advice from an Old Friend 273

Through the Red Sea into the Wilderness 279

Homesteads 284

William Lloyd Garrison 288

Pt. 4 Journalism and Social Critique

Letters from New York, Number 1 302

Letters from New York, Number 11 306

Letters from New York, Number 14 314

Letters from New York, Number 29 319

A High-Flying Letter 328

Pt. 5 Sexuality and the Woman Question

Extracts from African Women 343

Speaking in the Church 354

Letters from New York, Number 34 358

Uncollected Letter from New-York 365

Hilda Silfverling. A Fantasy 374

Woman and Suffrage 396

Extracts from Concerning Women 402

Women and the Freedmen 409

Pt. 6 Religion

The Intermingling of Religions 419

Suggestions for Further Reading 435

Index 445