Sarah Louisa Forten Purvis facts for kids

Sarah Louisa Forten Purvis (1814–1884) was an American poet and abolitionist. An abolitionist is someone who worked to end slavery. Sarah was from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She helped start the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. She also wrote many poems for The Liberator, an important anti-slavery newspaper. Sarah Louisa Forten Purvis was a key person in the history of ending slavery and in the early fight for women's rights.

Who Was Sarah Louisa Forten Purvis?

Sarah Louisa Forten was born in 1814 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was one of the famous "Forten Sisters." Her mother was Charlotte Vandine Forten. Her father was James Forten, a well-known African-American abolitionist. Sarah's sisters were Harriet Forten Purvis and Margaretta Forten.

Starting the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society

In 1833, Sarah, her sisters, and their mother helped create the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. This group was very important. It played a big role in the early days of American feminism, which is the movement for women's equality.

Sarah's Poetry and Pen Names

Sarah Louisa Forten Purvis was a talented poet. She sometimes used pen names like "Ada" and "Magawisca." A pen name is a fake name used by a writer. This was often done to protect their identity. She wrote many poems about the harsh experience of slavery and about being a woman.

Two of her most famous poems are "An Appeal to Woman" and "The Grave of the Slave." Both were printed in The Liberator newspaper. "The Grave of the Slave" was even turned into a song by Frank Johnson. This song became an anthem at meetings against slavery. Her poem "An Appeal to Woman" was used in pamphlets for an anti-slavery meeting in New York in 1837.

Family Life

In 1838, Sarah married Joseph Purvis. They had eight children together, including William B. Purvis. Joseph was the brother of Robert Purvis. Robert was married to Sarah's sister, Harriet.

Sarah Louisa Forten Purvis passed away in 1884 in Philadelphia. There is some confusion about her death date in older writings. This might be because some of her poems were wrongly thought to be by other authors.

How Sarah Was Educated

Sarah Louisa Forten Purvis and her sisters received private lessons at home. They were also part of the Female Literary Association. This was a group of Black women writers started by Sarah Mapps Douglass. Sarah Douglass was from another important abolitionist family in Philadelphia. Sarah Forten Purvis began her writing journey in this group. She wrote essays and poems without using her real name at first.

What Sarah Wrote About

Sarah Forten Purvis's poems often explored what it was like to be a mother or daughter during slavery. These ideas came from her own background and deep thoughts. Even though she was never enslaved herself, her poetry showed the deep pain of enslaved women. She wrote about the idea of kinship (family connection) among people. Her poems also highlighted how being a woman of color led to extra challenges and unfair treatment.

Her poems showed that the experience of racism was often made worse by being a woman. Examples of this can be seen in poems like "An Appeal to Women," "The Slave Girl's Address to her Mother," and "A Mother's Grief."

Published Poems by Sarah Louisa Forten Purvis

Here is a list of some of Sarah Louisa Forten Purvis's published poems:

How Sarah Contributed to Feminism

Sarah Forten Purvis's poems are seen as important contributions to intersectionality. This is the idea that different parts of a person's identity, like race and gender, combine to create unique experiences.

Poetry and Women's Rights

For example, her poem "An Appeal to Women" is studied for how it connects race and womanhood. This poem was shared and read aloud at a women's anti-slavery meeting in 1873. It mainly spoke to white women of that time. It asked them to join Black women in a "sisterhood" to fight against slavery.

The poem showed that being Black and female was different from being a white woman. It also talked about how white women's "fairness" (meaning their light skin) was seen as a sign of their social worth. Forten Purvis urged white women to use their "virtue" or privilege to help their Black sisters. Her poetry aimed to inspire women to become agents of change.

The idea that being Black and being a woman were connected was a common theme in her poems. These ideas helped develop early feminist thought. One historian called the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society "The Cradle of Feminism" because of how much its members, like Forten Purvis, helped the movement grow.

Letters and Equality

Sarah Forten Purvis believed that everyone, no matter their gender, had a duty to help end slavery. She wrote a letter to Angelina Grimke in 1837. In it, she said that men and women should both work equally for the cause. She felt that women, even though they faced political challenges, must think of their "sisters" and act to help them.

Art and Symbols

Forten Purvis also helped create images for the society's emblem. The emblem showed a kneeling woman asking for help. Many women drew their own versions of this symbol. Sarah Forten Purvis drew her own sketch of the emblem in Elizabeth Smith's album.

Why Some Works Were Misattributed

As mentioned, some of Forten Purvis's works might have been published under the pen names "Ada" or "Magawisca." Some experts believe that a Quaker abolitionist named Eliza Earle Hacker (1807-1846) might have written some poems that were later thought to be Forten Purvis's.

It's hard to know for sure which poems belong to whom. However, Forten Purvis's "Ada" poems often mentioned the place where they were written, usually Philadelphia. Hacker's "Ada" poems did not. This small detail helps tell their works apart. Many anti-slavery writers used pen names to stay safe. This makes it tricky to know who wrote what.

For example, the poem "Lines: Suggested on Reading 'An Appeal to Christian Women of the South' by Angelina Grimké" was likely written by Hacker. But it was often thought to be by Forten Purvis and included in collections of African-American writing.