Title: Remember the distance that divides us : the family letters of Philadelphia Quaker abolitionist and Michigan pioneer Elizabeth Margaret Chandler, 1830-1842 /
Authors: Chandler, Elizabeth Margaret, 1807-1834.; Mason, Marcia J. Heringa.
Publisher: Michigan State University Press,
Year: 2004
Subjects: Chandler, Elizabeth Margaret, Correspondence.; Women abolitionists United States Correspondence.; Abolitionists United States Correspondence.; Quaker women Pennsylvania Philadelphia Correspondence.; Women pioneers Michigan Correspondence.; Women social reformers Michigan Correspondence.; Frontier and pioneer life Michigan; Antislavery movements United States History; Women's rights United States History; Michigan Social life and customs
Abstract: "Born in Delaware's Brandywine Valley in 1807, Elizabeth Margaret Chandler was a young woman fully engaged in her time. Leaving comfort and middle-class Philadelphia behind, she headed west in 1830 with her brother, Thomas, and an aunt to begin a new life in the wilderness of the Michigan Territory. During the next four years, until her untimely death in November 1834, Chandler became a tireless local activist. At the same time, she participated aggressively in national political discussions about pressing social issues, particularly the dialogue about the nascent women's movement and the debates about Abolitionism as they began to develop in the 1820s and the early 1830s. She was ladies' editor of Benjamin Lundy's Abolitionist Journal and a contemporary of William Lloyd Garrison. She wrote letters, articles, and poetry that appeared in the Abolitionist press, but at the same time she was a champion for public education at the local level. Within two years of her arrival in Michigan she established the territory's first anti-slavery organization, the Logan Female Antislavery Society." "This collection of personal letters, most written to family members during Chandler's brief life in Michigan, provides a view of the Northwest frontier in the 1830s, as well as profound insights into the ideology and origins of Abolitionism. Her letters also reveal much about the beliefs, attitudes, and actions of a remarkable young woman who some have seen as a precursor to the Grimke sisters."--BOOK JACKET.
Contents: Preparing to remove, 1830 -- Arrival and adjustment, 1830 -- Settling in, 1831 -- A year of growth, 1832 -- A year of waiting, 1833 -- Major changes, 1834 -- Matters of life and death, 1835-1837 -- Life goes on, 1838-1842.