Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society facts for kids
The Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society (PFASS) was a group of women who worked to end slavery. It was started in December 1833 in Philadelphia. This was just a few days after a larger group, the American Anti-Slavery Society, also met there for the first time. The PFASS stopped its work in March 1870. This was after the 14th and 15th Amendments were added to the U.S. Constitution. These amendments helped give rights to formerly enslaved people.
Eighteen women founded the PFASS. Important members included Lucretia Mott, Mary Ann M'Clintock, Margaretta Forten, her mother Charlotte, and Charlotte's daughters Sarah and Harriet.
The PFASS was linked to the American Anti-Slavery Society. That group was started by William Lloyd Garrison and other male leaders. The PFASS was formed because women were not allowed to be full members of the male group. This women's group was mostly white but also included Black members. It shows how important women's roles were behind the scenes in the fight against slavery. It also shows how society at the time expected women to stay at home and not be involved in public life.
Who Joined the PFASS?
Historians often say the PFASS was one of the few anti-slavery groups that included both Black and white members before the Civil War. This was rare, even among other women's anti-slavery groups. Most members of the PFASS came from middle-class families.
Lucretia Mott is the most famous white woman linked to the PFASS. Other important white members were Sarah Pugh and Mary Grew. Sarah Pugh was the president, and Mary Grew was the secretary for most of the group's history. Angelina Grimké, another well-known woman who fought against slavery, also joined. Most white women members were Quakers, a religious group. Historian Jean R. Soderlund says that 13 of the 17 white founding women were from a Quaker group called Hicksite Quakers.
Free Black women also helped start the society. Important Black members included Grace Bustill Douglass, Sarah Mapps Douglass, Hetty Reckless, and Charlotte Forten. Charlotte was the wife of a famous abolitionist named James Forten. Her daughters Harriet, Sarah, and Margaretta were also members. These women were part of the leading African American families in Philadelphia. Historian Shirley Yee says that seven of the eighteen women who signed the PFASS rules were Black. Ten Black women regularly appeared in the group's records. Many Black women members also held leadership roles.
Sarah Forten helped start the Society and served on its board for three years. Margaretta Forten also helped found the Society. She often worked as the recording secretary or treasurer. She also helped write the group's founding document and served on its education committee. Margaretta Forten also offered the group's last official statement. It praised the new amendments after the Civil War as a victory for the anti-slavery cause. Historian Janice Sumler-Lewis says that the Forten women's efforts helped this mostly white group also show a Black anti-slavery viewpoint. This view was often more active and forceful.
Historian Julie Winch suggests that free Black middle-class women in Philadelphia first formed groups to help women learn to read and write. They did this before joining the PFASS. She says these groups helped Black women and their children get an education. They also helped them learn skills for community work. According to Winch, it was not a surprise that members of these reading groups also joined the PFASS. These groups were a key part of the fight against slavery.
Writer Evette Dionne points out that this level of mixing and working together between Black and white women was very rare. This was true even in a free city like Philadelphia. Black members helped write the group's rules and decide its main goals.
What the PFASS Did to Fight Slavery
In the 1830s, the PFASS mainly focused on a few things. They gathered signatures for anti-slavery petitions. They held public meetings and organized ways to raise money. They also gave money to help free Black people in the community. Between 1834 and 1850, the PFASS sent many petitions to the Pennsylvania state government and to Congress.
The PFASS asked the Pennsylvania legislature to allow trials by jury for people thought to be runaway enslaved people. They asked Congress to end slavery in Washington, D.C. They also asked Congress to stop the trade of enslaved people between states. Black women leaders in the PFASS worked on committees that organized these efforts.
At this time, women could not vote. So, asking for signatures on petitions was one of the few ways women could express their political views. Petition campaigns brought women out of their homes and into their neighborhoods. There, they spread their message to many people. Women talking face-to-face and going door-to-door challenged the usual ideas of what women should do. It also helped the anti-slavery movement become more about politics than just morals. Petitions like these eventually led the U.S. House of Representatives to pass the gag rule. This rule stopped Congress from discussing anti-slavery petitions.
Congress refused to consider these petitions. Also, people were afraid of violence from angry crowds. This led the PFASS to change its plans in the 1840s. As the group grew, it spent less time on petitions. Instead, it spent more time raising money.
The main way the PFASS raised money was through an annual fair. At these fairs, they sold handmade items. These included needlework with anti-slavery messages and books against slavery. For example, the famous book The Anti-Slavery Alphabet was printed and sold at the 1846 Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Fair. PFASS meetings were often about planning for the fair and organizing sewing groups. By the 1850s, the fairs became big events. Besides selling items, the fairs had speeches by famous abolitionists. These speeches attracted many people who paid to get in.
The group's successful fundraising helped it gain power and influence in the state anti-slavery society. The PFASS provided a large part of all the money given to the state society. From 1844 to 1849, the money raised by the Philadelphia women covered about 20 percent of the state anti-slavery society's budget. It made up 31 to 45 percent of all donations. This meant women could stay visible and show their leadership in the statewide anti-slavery movement.
Supporting the free Black community with money was also part of the PFASS's work. Led mostly by its Black women members, the PFASS gave money to Sarah Douglass's school for free Black girls. According to Gayle T. Tate's book, Unknown Tongues: Black Women's Political Activism in the Antebellum Era, 1830-1860, the group continued to give money every year through the 1840s. Tate says the Forten women's leadership and support led to these regular contributions to the school. This shows that Black women played a key leadership role within the PFASS.
The PFASS also raised money for clothes, shelter, and food to help runaway enslaved people. Black women members, led by Hetty Reckless, worked closely with the Vigilance Association of Philadelphia. This was a group of men who helped runaway enslaved people. Reckless "convinced group members to give to community projects and to make donations... to give runaway people a place to stay, food, clothes, medical help, jobs, money, and advice about their legal rights."
However, white women members of the group were divided on whether helping runaway enslaved people was truly anti-slavery work. Lucretia Mott believed this was not the role of the PFASS. This difference shows how the goals of Black and white abolitionists started to differ. Black women, in what Tate calls "practical abolitionism," saw secret ways of helping runaway enslaved people as fitting with the open challenges preferred by white abolitionists. White women abolitionists, on the other hand, tended to see these actions as "possible distractions from the main goal of fighting slavery."
How Women's Rights Began
Women played an important role in the anti-slavery movement. Both white and Black members of the PFASS supported the new idea of giving women the right to vote. They also supported women doing jobs usually done by men, like speaking in public.
Historian Ira V. Brown wrote in the late 1970s that the women of the PFASS were key to the start of American feminism. She called it the "cradle of feminism." Brown mainly focused on the white women leaders of the group. She looked at the important roles these women played in the start of the women's rights movement, which began at the Seneca Falls Convention. More recent historical writings about women's anti-slavery groups also include the important role of free Black women. Shirley Yee says that Black women community activists, like those in the PFASS, helped shape Black women's community work for future generations. This was especially true in the modern civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
