Chapman, Maria Weston, 1806-1885 Right and Wrong in Boston. Annual report of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Soc.

Subtitle: "Annual report of the Boston Female Anti-slavery Society, with a sketch of obstacles thrown in the way of emancipation by certain clerical abolitionists and advocates for the subjection of women." Printed by Isaac Knapp. 16mo. Rebound. Women formed their own anti-slavery societies in Philadelphia, Boston, Andover and elsewhere. The report chides clergy for hobbling anti-slavery efforts and digresses from anti-slavery to address "the sphere of women," a major issue in that year. In 1837, the societies held a national convention in New York and were widely ridiculed in the press. The right of the Grimke sisters to speak in public had been questioned in New York, and ministers had argued for the importance of women being dependent. Maria Chapman's three pages on the subject of "a woman's sphere" are among the most early printed statements on women's equality in the U.S. "[Woman] is fettered in body and in mind by commentators and translator and partial reasoners, but by revelation never. What is the sphere and duty of woman, it rests with each one for herself to determine...." Dumond p. 29, NAW 1: 324, Women's Writing p. 162, Blockson 9158. Not in Sabin.