Lucretia Mott | Philadelphia Women’s History Month All-Star

All-Star #6: Lucretia Mott

Lucretia Mott | Philadelphia Women’s History Month All-Star

All-Star #6: Lucretia Mott

By The Citizen
TODAY'S ALL-STAR FULL 2021 ALL-STAR LIST

06

Lucretia Mott

Feminist / abolitionist

Lucretia Mott

Feminist / abolitionist

1793-1880

Lucretia Mott, a Quaker feminist and abolitionist, is best known for her contributions to the women’s suffrage movement and her collaboration with Elizabeth Cady Stanton in organizing the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. After the convention she continued speaking on women’s rights and published a book, Discourse on Women, a history of women’s oppression.

In addition to her advocacy for women’s rights, Mott also fought for the end of slavery, helping to found the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society and, later, becoming the first president of the American Equal Rights Association.

Mott was one of the founders of Swarthmore College, instrumental in the college being co-ed from its start.

EDUCATION

  • Quaker boarding school in upstate NY


ACCOMPLISHMENTS

  • Published Discourse on Women (1850)
  • Helped form Free Religious Association in Boston 1867
  • Helped found Philadephia Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1833
  • First president of American Equal Rights Association
  • Helped found Swarthmore College in 1864


FINAL WORDS: A fierce advocate for women’s rights, Mott once said “The world has never yet seen a truly great and virtuous nation because, in the degradation of women, the very fountains of life are poisoned at their source.”


RELATED READING

From Women's History Month All-Stars
Mary Ann M’Clintock Biography
Quaker activist Mary Ann M'Clintock was a founding member of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, and a prominent suffrage leader.
From Black History Month All-Stars
Jessie Redmon Fauset Biography
Known as “the midwife” of the Harlem Renaissance, Jessie Redmon Fauset was a writer who used her pen to further the African American voice.
From Black History Month All-Stars
Caroline LeCount Biography
A teacher in Frankford, LeCount was Philly’s Rosa Parks 100 years before the Montgomery bus boycott, defiantly riding street cars and filing petitions to have a law against black riders repealed.
From Black History Month All-Stars
Fauset was the first African-American woman elected to a state legislature in the country. In that role, she introduced legislation that addressed public health, low-income housing and women’s workplace rights.

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