2280731Woman of the Century — Lucretia Mott

MOTT, Mrs. Lucretia, reformer, born on Nantucket Island, Mass.. 3rd January, 1793, and died near Philadelphia, Pa., nth November. 1880. Her father, Capt. Thomas Coffin, was a descendant of one of the original purchasers of Nantucket Island. In 1804 her parents removed to Boston, Mass. LUCRETIA MOTT. She was educated in a school in which her future husband, James Mott, was a teacher. She made rapid progress, and in her fifteenth year she began to teach in the same school In 1809 she went to Philadelphia, whither her parents had gone, and there, in 181 1, she became the wife of Mr. Mott. In 1817 she took charge of a small school in Philadelphia. In 1818 she became a minister in the Society of Friends. Her discourses were noted for clearness, refinement and eloquence. When the split occurred in the Society of Friends, in 1827. she adhered to the Hicksite party. From childhood she was interested in the movement against slavery, and she was an active worker in that cause until emancipation. In 1833 she aided to form the American Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia. Later, she was active in forming female anti-slavery societies. In 1840 she went to London, Eng., as a delegate from the American Anti-Slavery Society to the World's Anti-Slavery Convention. It was decided nut to admit women delegates, but she was cordially received and made many telling addresses. The exclusion of women from the convention led to the establishment of woman's-rights journals in France and England, and to the movement in the United States, in which she took a leading part. She was one of the four women who, in 1848. called the convention in Seneca Falls, N. Y., and thereafter she devoted much time and effort to the agitation for improving the legal and political status of women in the United States. She was deeply interested in die welfare of the colored people, and held frequent meetings in their behalf, or several years she was president of the Pennsylvania Peace Society. During her ministerial tours in New England. New York, Pennsylvania. Virginia, Maryland, Ohio and Indiana, she often denounced slavery from the pulpit. She was actively interested in the Free Religious Association movement in Boston, in 1868, and in the Woman's Medical College in Philadelphia. She was the mother of several children. One of her grand-daughters, Anna Davis Hallowell, edited the "Life" of Mrs. Mott and her husband, which was published in Boston in 1884. Lucretia Mott was a slight, dark-haired, dark-eyed woman, of gentle and refined manners and of great force of character. She was a pioneer woman in the cause of woman, and the women of to-day owe much of their advancement to her efforts to gain equality for the sexes in every way.