Mary Ann Shadd

Term Paper # 105027

African-American Studies > Historical Figures
Canadian Studies > Gender, Race, Class issues
Women Studies > Historical Figures

Mary Ann Shadd

A look at the life and work of Mary Ann Shadd and her important place in North American history.

1,651 words () | 7 sources | MLA | 2008 United States

Paper Summary:

The following paper looks at Mary Ann Shadd and assess her important place in North American (not merely Canadian or American) history. To wit, the ensuing several pages look at Shadd's prominent role as the first Black woman in North America to edit and publish a newspaper when she brought into existence the 'Provincial Freeman' in Windsor, Ontario, during the 1850s. Moreover, the paper looks at how Shadd vehemently rejected the strictures imposed upon her by virtue of being female and black and how she self-consciously carved out for herself a very public position on a wide array of issues. To determine what precisely it was that made Mary Ann Shadd so different from so many other women, the paper begins first by looking at her upbringing in a home wherein both her parents played integral roles in the early nineteenth-century Underground Railroad. Additionally, this paper explores her education and inquires into the role Quakerism played in shaping her vigorous intellect and her determination to use "common sense" - via the written word - to awaken revulsion against slavery and racial inequality. Finally, some time is devoted to looking at her many accomplishments as a publisher and as an educator.

From the Paper:

"Shadd's work as an editor and publisher is only one small part of her contribution to history - both Canadian and American. In addition to her involvement in the newspaper industry, Shadd was also a teacher who, while not even in her 30s yet, organized a school for black children in Wilmington, Delaware - the same slave-holding state her family had fled from not so many years earlier. She also somehow found time to teach in New York City, West Chester, and Norristown, Pennsylvania. More significantly, Shadd opposed school segregation and, upon arriving in Windsor, Ontario, somehow scraped together the money from bemused parents to found a private school (with her at the head of course) that, ostensibly, rejected educational segregation. "

Sample of Sources Used:

Cimbala, Paul A. "Mary Ann Shadd and Black Abolitionism." Against the Tide: Women Reformers in American Society. Ed. Paul A. Cimbala and Randall M.Miller. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1997. 19-41.
Dorsey, Bruce. "A Gendered History of African Colonization in the Antebellum United States." Journal of Social History, 34.1 (2000): 77+. Questia.com. 1 Aug. 2007 <http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5001087867>
Horton, James Oliver. "Freedom's Yoke: Gender Conventions among Antebellum Free Blacks." Feminist Studies, 12 (1986): 55-59.
Jordan, Ryan. "The Dilemma of Quaker Pacifism in a Slaveholding Republic, 1833-1865," Civil War History, 53.1 (2000): 5, 26-28.
MacDonald, Cheryl. "Last Stop on the Underground Railroad." Beaver, 70.1 (1990): 32-38.