Elizabeth margaret chandler biography

The American poet Elizabeth Margaret Chandler lived a very short life during the early part of the 19th century but made a name for herself championing the cause of the abolitionists of slavery through her poetry.  No other female writer had done so before her.

She was born on the 24th December 1807 in the town of Centre, Delaware to Quaker parents.  The whole family stuck rigidly to the Society of Friends faith but tragically she was orphaned by the age of nine.  Elizabeth and her brothers were forced to move to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to live with their grandmother.  She was enrolled into the local Quaker school which is where she first became aware of the anti-slavery attitude of her church, although it is believed that she only stayed in school until the age of 12 or 13.   She began writing poetry on this subject and devoured anything she could find in books or other publications.

Her poem The Slave-ship was published and came to the attention of BenJamin Lundy, the owner of a periodical called The Genius of Universal Emancipation.  He invited her to become a regu

Elizabeth M. Chandler. The Poetical Works (1836), frontispiece.


ELIZABETH M. CHANDLER (1807 – 1834)

After both of Elizabeth Chandler's parents died during her early childhood, she grew up in the homes of strict Quaker relatives in , where she attended a Friends' school and embraced the Quakers’ antislavery stance. When she was eighteen, her antislavery poem "The Slave Ship" won a prize as well as the attention of abolitionist Benjamin Lundy, who encouraged her to write for his periodical, the Genius of Universal Emancipation. She contributed to and edited the "Ladies' Repository" section of the paper, in which her articles advocated pacifism, better treatment for American Indians, and immediate emancipation for slaves. In particular, she appealed to women to take up the abolitionist cause.

In 1830, Elizabeth Chandler moved with her aunt and brother to a farm in , where they organized meetings which eventually grew into 's first antislavery association, one of the few in her day which called for the total integration of blacks into A

Chandler, Elizabeth Margaret (1807–1834)

American abolitionist and writer. Born on December 24, 1807, at Centre, near Wilmington, Delaware; died of fever on November 22, 1834; daughter of Thomas Chandler (a Quaker farmer); educated at the Friends' schools in Philadelphia; never married.

Elizabeth Margaret Chandler's writing called upon women to stand beside men in the battle against slavery, "the only means of avoiding participation in guilt." She was born near Wilmington, Delaware, in 1807. After the death of both her parents when she was still a child, Chandler was raised in Philadelphia by Quaker relatives. She was 18 when her poem "The Slave Ship" won a literary prize and was spotted by anti-slavery leader Benjamin Lundy. Chandler began writing for his paper, the Genius of Universal Emancipation, to which she contributed for the rest of her short life. A supporter of the free produce movement (in which women refused to purchase goods produced by slave labor), she called upon women to think independently from men. While her writing touched upon a variety of reform issu

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