On this day in ...... 1802, Lydia Maria Child (right) was born in Medford, Massachusetts. Raised in an educated family, she'd published 2 novels and founded annual publication, Juvenile Miscellany, by age 25. Married a year later, she and her husband became active in the slavery abolition cause; she "startled conventional circles with her Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans (1833)," and later became the editor of an abolitionist newspaper. She was a vocal opponent of capital punishment. A women's rights activist as well, another notable publication of hers was History of the Condition of Women in Various Ages and Nations (1835). Child "also helped Harriet Jacobs publish her compelling autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)." Child died in 1880. (photo credit) Perhaps the creation of hers that's best known today is the Thanksgiving ditty, "Over the River and through the Woods."
(Prior February 11 posts are here, here, and here.)
