Almanac of Story Tellers: Lydia Maria Child

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to the art of story telling -- in prose and poetry, in music, on the stage, on the screen, in podcasts, and in books. 

Today is a story of February 11th

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    It is the 42nd day of the year, leaving 323 days remaining in 2023.

    On this date in 1802, Lydia Maria Child, an author, abolitionist, and advocate for American Indians, was born in  Massachusetts.

    She wrote stories about those who were outcasts from society, rejected for their sex or race, subjected to discrimination, slavery, or slaughter. At a time when a woman was relegated to a private existence, and stories about Americans were positive and gung-ho, she wrote poems and books and leaflets about the horrors of slavery and the massacre of natives.

    Her first novel, written at the age of 22, was Hobomak, A Tale of Early Times. It tells the story of the early Puritan settlers of Massachusetts from a woman's perspective -- a woman who rebels against religious and racial bigotry by marrying a Native American, and later an Episcopalian. Its subject matter scandalized her friends and neighbors, but somewhat surprisingly, also helped to make it a success.

    For a time, Child edited a children's magazine, The Juvenile Miscellany. She wrote a popular collection of advice for women under the title, The Frugal Housewife. Throughout her long life, she wrote stories for children, poems about American traditions such as Thanksgiving, and books and articles decrying slavery and the treatment of the natives. 

    In one book, The First Settlers of New England; or, Conquest of the Pequods, Narragansets and Pokanokets, she told the story -- in the voice of a mother to her child -- of the atrocities the colonists committed on the native tribes. It was not your typical treatment of the historical narrative, either then or now.

    She handled her anti-slavery activism in a similar way. In one book, she helped write one of the first stories from the perspective of a slave girl. Working with Harriet Jacobs, Child edited and promoted Jacobs's memoir, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, which is exactly what it presents itself to be. 

    After the Civil War, she worked for and wrote about efforts to assist former slaves to move into a free and equal life with their enslavers. One of her books was The Freedmen's Book, written in 1865. It has been called a primer, anthology, history, and self-help manual that includes stories and biographies of prominent Black people in history.

    

    Child died in 1880.