Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women.
“I Ask No Favors For My Sex.
I Surrender Not Our Claim To Equality....”
Grimké, Sarah M. Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women. Addressed to Mary S. Parker, President of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society. Boston: Knapp, 1838.
12mo., front and rear endpapers lacking; plain brown boards with patterned linen spine; label on cover; a couple of light damp-stains to the cover; a fine, bright copy.
First edition of this series of letters, dated over a period of two months, examining sexual inequality in the United States, attacking male-dominated institutions, and drawing the parallel between women and black slaves: American Imprints 50640; Krichmar 466.
Sarah Moore Grimké (1792-1873) was born to slave-holding parents in the South. After moving to Philadelphia, she became involved with the Quakers and accompanied her sister Angelina (who later married Abolitionist Theodore Weld) on the Abolitionist circuit. The two sisters were among the earliest to urge women suffrage and the rights of women in the abolitionist movement. Early reports of abolitionist meetings show the futility of their introduction of positions on the rights of women. It wasn’t until 1840, when Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were denied representation at the world abolitionist meeting in London, that these two recognized the need for an independent woman’s movement.
The present work apparently is a response to the annual Pastoral Letter of the General Association of Congressional Ministers which accused Sarah Grimké of “trying to entice women from their proper sphere.” Grimké rebuts: “I ask no favors for my sex. I surrender not our claim to equality. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet from off our necks, and permit us to stand upright on the ground which God has designed us to occupy.”
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