Abolitionist and Women's Rights Autograph Album compiled by Lucy Colman and her daughter Gertrude with inscribed copy of Lucy Colman's Reminiscences.
Colman, Lucy. Abolitionist and Women’s Rights Autograph Album compiled by Colman and her daughter Gertrude.
8vo; 107 unprinted pages; black leather boards elaborately stamped in gilt and in blind; at the front panel, a bold interlace frame sets off a gilded vignette of an autograph album with a quill pen and inkwell surrounded by a laurel wreath; flower and vine motif at the spine with “Autographs” all in gilt; rear cover blindstamped with frame and cartouche; ends a bit worn, hinges tender but sound; one leaf has a small square excised from it, not affecting any signatures; generally attractive and in very good condition.
Together with:
Colman, Lucy. Reminiscences. Buffalo, N.Y.: H.L. Green, Publisher, 1891.
Narrow 8vo, 86pp; frontispiece portrait of Lucy N. Colman with tissue-guard; ex-library copy with “withdrawn” stamped in red below the authorial inscription; the library’s blind embossed stamp at the title page; pencil notations at verso of title page; dark green cloth with blind rules at front and rear covers and “Reminiscences by Lucy N. Colman” in gilt at the front cover; edges burnished red; discreet repair with Japanese hinges to hinges; mild overall wear to binding; about very good.
First and only edition. Inscribed at a preliminary leaf, Mrs. Hannah L. Quinn, / with good wishes from / The Author.\ (with a flourish).
An autograph or commonplace book, first compiled by Gertrude Colman, the teenage daughter of anti-slavery and women’s rights activist, Lucy N. Colman. Gertrude died in November 1862 while a student at the New England Woman’s Medical College. Her mother continued to collect signatures and sentiments even as she continued to work with such notable women as Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth. The 76 autographs, often with abolitionist or Union sentiments (as would be expected given the timeframe), date almost entirely from the 1860s, either in Washington, DC (where Lucy worked during the war) or Rochester (her longtime home), with a few from New York City. The signatures suggest the wide-ranging impact of the abolitionist movement, the significance of women within the movement and the close ties between abolitionist and women’s rights leaders. Among the signatories are abolitionist/women’s rights, military and political notables such as William Wells Brown, John Brown, Jr., Frederick Douglass and Ottilia Assing, Josephine Griffing, Gen. Oliver Howard, President Andrew Johnson, Wendell Phillips, Parker Pillsbury, President Abraham Lincoln, Jane Grey Swisshelm and Theodore Tilton.
Lucy Danforth Newhall Colman (1817-1906), antislavery and women’s rights activist, teacher, lecturer and free thought advocate remains a shadowy and all but forgotten figure. Born in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, Lucy grew up questioning a God who allowed people to be chattels, religions that supported slavery, and ministers who deemed themselves morally superior to their flock. At 18 the young woman married, only to be widowed four years later when her husband died of consumption. In 1843 she married for a second time, and moved to Rochester, New York; two years later she bore her only child, Gertrude. Soon after, Colman began her work as an abolitionist in earnest. An accident killed her husband in 1852. Forced to seek work, she found teaching was one of the few occupations considered appropriate for women. She accepted a position for Rochester’s sole school for African American children, located in the basement of an African American church. Appalled by the racism that segregated the children into a separate school, she convinced parents to enroll their children in neighborhood schools and the church to withdraw the space from city use. She succeeded in eliminating segregation (and her teaching position). Fellow teacher Susan B. Anthony obtained permission for a woman to speak at the State Convention of Teachers and asked Colman to be that woman. Colman accepted and used the occasi
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