ABSTRACT
Child dealt with argumentative factions seeking to direct the antislavery movement — Nonresistance, Immediatism, New Organization, Third Party, Calvinists, Quakers, Channingites, Henry Clay Whigs, abolitionists, slaveholders, and Democrats, to name the most prominent. Child’s appointment was attractive also because it gave public credence to Garrison’s radical determination to break with tradition and place women in responsible roles. Perhaps most reprehensible to an abolitionist was the city’s acquiescence with the trafficking in slaves. In trusting the tactic of petitions in 1841, the radical political abolitionists might have had cause enough to ridicule the Garrisonians. Concerning the public role of women as activists, Child was enigmatic. Child was also sensitive to publications and utterances which demeaned women. Her exposure to the rhetoric of pro-slavers disposed her to be all the more repelled by stories with sexist language which depreciated or discounted women.
