Lucretia Mott's Biography
Born in 1793 in Nantucket, Massachusetts, Lucretia Mott became a prominent leader in the anti-slavery and women’s rights movements in the United States of America.
She married James Mott at the age of 18, and after their first child died at age 5, became more involved in her Quaker religion. By the age of 25, she was serving as a minister. She and James had 6 children together. Being Quakers, she and James believed that no man should be enslaved and that women deserved equal rights.
Because she was diminutive in stature, a wife, a mother, and a devout Christian minister, she gained more access to powerful male-dominated groups than male abolitionists at the time. She was highly intelligent and articulate, and she took these opportunities to express her views
She spoke out against Christians who used the bible to support the oppression of women and slaves. She believed this was a perversion of the teachings of Jesus: “Those who read the Scriptures and judge for themselves, not resting satisfied with the perverted application of the text… that theology and ecclesiastical authorities have made.”
“There is nothing of greater importance to the well-being of society at large -- of man as well as a woman -- than the true and proper position of woman. A new generation of women is now upon the stage"
-Discourse on Women, Lucretia Mott, 1849
Anti-Slavery Commitment
Lucretia Mott lived according to the Quaker belief that all lives are created by God and are therefore equally valuable. This belief leads Quakers to oppose oppression in all forms. Mott saw the owning of slaves as a true form of evil, and she believed that anyone who benefitted from slavery was participating in this evil. She cited the North's engagement in the economy of slavery as a contributing factor... She said Northerners “ought not to use the products of slaves’ unrequited toil,” for to do so would be contributing to the maintenance of slavery in the US. Quakers refused to use cotton cloth, cane sugar, and other slavery-produced goods. Her skills in ministry lent nicely to her abolitionist cause and she began to make public speeches against slavery. She and her husband traveled to spread the word of the abolitionist movement, and they would often shelter runaway slaves in their home in Philadelphia.
Women's Rights
Lucretia Mott’s dedication to the anti-slavery cause also led her to be a leader in the women’s rights movement. In 1833, with other black and white women, Lucretia started the ‘Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society’ because the abolitionist societies that existed did not permit women to join. In 1840, because she was such a passionate and convincing speaker, she was selected as a delegate to the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention in London. However, when she got to the convention she realized that even though the leaders of the London convention were anti-slavery, they were against any public speaking by women or any political engagement of women at all. While seated in the segregated women’s section, she met Elizabeth Cady Stanton. It was during this convention that Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott started to hatch their plan to hold a mass meeting to address women’s rights.
It took 8 years, but they did not give up, and in 1848 they brought together a local women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls and wrote the “Declaration of Sentiments” which purposefully paralleled the “Declaration of Independence,” starting with the statement “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal.”
Lucretia Mott Never Stopped
At the age of 73, Lucretia Mott was elected as the first president of the American Equal Rights Convention created after the end of the Civil War. At this point, her cause had split into two factions: those who wanted only to grant rights to black males and not women, and those who believed in freedom for all. Lucretia worked to bring these two factions together.
At the age of 80, when Mott learned President Ulysses Grant was staying in her Nantucket neighborhood, she put on the bonnet she was known for and announced she was going to see him. Grant had recently ordered the removal of Indians from a California reservation, and Lucretia Mott had something to say.
Lucretia Mott died on November 11, 1880, twelve years after her beloved husband's death. At her funeral, there was a very long silence, as often happens in Quaker meetings. Finally, someone broke the silence, saying, "Who can speak? The preacher is dead.”
And who can speak now? We can: The Daughters of Lucretia Mott.