ABSTRACT
Despite their co-ordination of key aspects of the anti-slavery campaign, the women who formed the mainstay of ladies’ anti-slavery associations in the 1825-38 period are not well-known historical figures. Women campaigners did not seek or gain fame, working collectively rather than as public individuals and often publishing their writings anonymously. Their work is celebrated in the memoirs compiled by their relatives or the obituaries written by their co-religionists rather than in the public monuments and major biographies which commemorate the male leadership. Nevertheless, a picture may be built up of the women who became the committee members and officers of ladies’ anti-slavery associations and the authors of anti-slavery pamphlets. This section looks at the family, religious and socio-economic backgrounds of these women, the pattern of their personal lives, the scope of their philanthropic and other public activities, their political outlooks, the nature of their antislavery work, and their networks of abolitionist friends and contacts. In short, it explores the place of anti-slavery in the fabric of their lives.
