Mary Ann Shadd Cary - Abolitionist and Journalist

Mary Ann Shadd Cary - Abolitionist and Journalist About Mary Ann Shadd Cary Dates: October 9, 1823 - June 5, 1893 Occupation: teacher and journalist; abolitionist and womens rights activist; lawyer Known for: writing about abolition and other political issues; second African American woman to graduate from law school Also known as: Mary Ann Shadd More About Mary Ann Shadd Cary: Mary Ann Shadd was born in Delaware to parents who were free blacks in what was still a slave state. Education even for free blacks was illegal in Delaware, so her parents sent her to a Quaker boarding school in Pennsylvania when she was ten through sixteen years old. Teaching Mary Ann Shadd then returned to Delaware and taught other African Americans, until the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850. Mary Ann Shadd, with her brother and his wife, emigrated to Canada in 1851, publishing A Plea for Emigration or Notes of Canada West urging other black Americans to flee for their safety in light of the new legal situation which denied that anyone black had rights as a U.S. citizen. Mary Ann Shadd became a teacher in her new home in Ontario, at a school sponsored by the American Missionary Association. In Ontario, she also spoke out against segregation. Her father brought her mother and younger siblings to Canada, settling in Chatham. Newspaper In March of 1853, Mary Ann Shadd began a newspaper to promote emigration to Canada and to serve the Canadian community of African Americans. The Provincial Freeman became an outlet for her political ideas. The next year she moved the paper to Toronto, then in 1855 to Chatham, where the largest number of escaped slaves and emigrant freemen were living. Mary Ann Shadd opposed views of Henry Bibb and others who were more separatist and who encouraged the community to consider their stay in Canada as tentative. Marriage In 1856, Mary Ann Shadd married Thomas Cary. He continued to live in Toronto and she in Chatham. Their daughter, Sally, lived with Mary Ann Shadd Cary. Thomas Cary died in 1860. The presence in Canada of the large Shadd family meant that Mary Ann Shadd Cary had support in caring for her daughter while continuing her activism. Lectures In 1855-1856, Mary Ann Shadd Cary gave anti-slavery lectures in the United States. John Brown held a meeting in 1858 at the home of Carys brother, Isaac Shadd. After Browns death at Harpers Ferry, Mary Ann Shadd Cary compiled and published notes from the only survivor of Browns Harpers Ferry effort, Osborne P. Anderson. In 1858, her paper failed during an economic depression. Mary Ann Shadd Cary began teaching in Michigan but left for Canada again in 1863. At this time she obtained British citizenship. That summer, she became a recruiter for the Union army in Indiana, finding black volunteers. After the Civil War At the end of the Civil War, Mary Ann Shadd Cary earned a teaching certificate, and taught in Detroit and then in Washington, D.C. She wrote for The National Era, Frederick Douglass paper, and for John Crowells the Advocate. She earned a law degree from Howard University, becoming the second African American woman to graduate from law school. Women's Rights Mary Ann Shadd Cary added to her activism efforts the cause of womens rights. In 1878 she spoke at the National Woman Suffrage Association convention. In 1887 she was one of only two African Americans attending a womens conference in New York. She testified before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on women and the vote and became a registered voter in Washington. Death Mary Ann Shadd Cary died in Washington, D.C., in 1893. Background, Family Father: Abraham Doras Shadd, shoemaker and abolitionistMother: Harriet Parnell ShaddSiblings: twelve younger siblings Education Prices Boarding School, Chester, Pennsylvania (1832-1839)Howard University, B.A. Law, 1883 Marriage, Children husband: Thomas Cary (married 1856; he died in 1860)one child: Sally Cary