Lydia Maria Child (1802–80,) née Lydia Maria Francis, was an American social campaigner, essayist, and novelist. Her popularity and moral force furthered the influence that radical abolitionists wielded on the anti-slavery dispute that heralded the Civil War.
Born into an abolitionist family in Watertown, Massachusetts, Child dedicated her life to abolitionism after meeting the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison in 1831.
Child’s best-known work, An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans (1833) chronicled the history of slavery and condemned the inequality of education and employment for blacks. The History of the Condition of Women in Various Ages and Nations (1835) advocated women’s equal capacity in the workplace. As editor of the National Anti-Slavery Standard 1841–43, she published many essays on political and social issues and transcribed the reminiscences of freed slaves.
Child also published several novels, including Hobomok (1824,) portraying the conflict between the Puritans and Native American tribes in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, The Rebels (1825,) a romance, Philothea (1836,) set in Ancient Greece, and A Romance of the Republic (1867,) a 19th-century anti-slavery story.
Child’s later books include Fact and Fiction (1846,) The Freedmen’s Book (1865,) and An Appeal for the Indians (1868.) A memorial volume, Letters (1883,) was introduced by the Quaker poet and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier and included abolitionist Wendell Phillips’s address at her funeral.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Lydia Maria Child
But men never violate the laws of God without suffering the consequences, sooner or later.
—Lydia Maria Child
Topics: Judges, Judgment, Judging, Consequences
Home—that blessed word, which opens to the human heart the most perfect glimpse of Heaven, and helps to carry it thither, as on an angel’s wings.
—Lydia Maria Child
Topics: Home
Gratitude is the memory of the heart; therefore forget not to say often, I have all I have ever enjoyed.
—Lydia Maria Child
Topics: Enjoyment
Misfortune is never mournful to the soul that accepts it; for such do always see that every cloud is an angel’s face. Every man deems that he has precisely the trials and temptations which are the hardest of all others for him to bear; but they are so, simply because they are the very ones he most needs.
—Lydia Maria Child
Topics: Fortune, Misfortune, Misfortunes
Usefulness is happiness, and… all other things are but incidental.
—Lydia Maria Child
Topics: Helping, Happiness
An effort made for the happiness of others lifts us above ourselves.
—Lydia Maria Child
Topics: Giving, Kindness, Service
Not having enough sunshine is what ails the world.—Make people happy, and there will not be half the quarreling, or a tenth part of the wickedness there now is.
—Lydia Maria Child
Topics: Cheerfulness
It is my mission to help in the breaking down of classes, and to make all men feel as if they were brethren of the same family, sharing the same rights, the same capabilities, and the same responsibilities. While my hand can hold a pen, I will use it to this end; and while my brain can earn a dollar, I will devote it to this end.
—Lydia Maria Child
Topics: Equality
Nature made us individuals, as she did the flowers and the pebbles; but we are afraid to be peculiar, and so our society resembles a bag of marbles, or a string of mold candles. Why should we all dress after the same fashion? The frost never paints my windows twice alike.
—Lydia Maria Child
Topics: Originality, Individuality
The cure for all the ills and wrongs, the cares, the sorrows, and the crimes of humanity, all lie in that one word “love.” It is the divine vitality that everywhere produces and restores life. To each and every one of us, it gives the power of working miracles if we will.
—Lydia Maria Child
Topics: Love
A comfortable old age is the reward of a well-spent youth. Instead of its bringing sad and melancholy prospects of decay, it would give us hopes of eternal youth in a better world.
—Lydia Maria Child
Topics: Age, Aging
Thy treasures of gold
Are dim with the blood of the hearts thou hast sold;
Thy home may be lovely, but round it I hear
The crack of the whip, and the footsteps of fear.
—Lydia Maria Child
Topics: Slavery
No snow falls lighter than the snow of age; but none lies heavier, for it never melts. It is a rare and difficult attainment to grow old gracefully and happily.
—Lydia Maria Child
Topics: Age
I was gravely warned by some of my female acquaintances that no woman could expect to be regarded as a lady after she had written a book.
—Lydia Maria Child
Topics: Writing
Society moves slowly toward civilization, but when we compare epochs half a century or even quarter of a century apart, we perceive many signs that progress is made.
—Lydia Maria Child
Topics: Progress
Great is the strength of an individual soul, true to its high trust; mighty is it, even to the redemption of a world.
—Lydia Maria Child
Topics: Self-reliance
The desire to be beloved is ever restless and unsatisfied; but the love that flows out upon others is a perpetual well-spring from on high.
—Lydia Maria Child
Topics: Love
Nature is beautiful, always beautiful! Every little flake of snow is a perfect crystal, and they fall together as gracefully as if fairies of the air caught water-drops and made them into artificial flowers to garland the wings of the wind!
—Lydia Maria Child
Topics: Nature
Whosoever quarrels with his fate does not understand it, says Bettine; and among all her sayings she spoke none wiser.
—Lydia Maria Child
Topics: Fate
Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father!
—Lydia Maria Child
Topics: Fathers, Father
How the universal heart of man blesses flowers!—They are wreathed round the cradle, the marriage altar, and the tomb.—They should deck the brow of the youthful bride, for they are in themselves a lovely type of marriage.—They should twine round the tomb, for their perpetually renewed beauty is a symbol of the resurrection.—They should festoon the altar, for their fragrance and beauty ascend in perpetual worship before the most high.
—Lydia Maria Child
Topics: Flowers
Childhood itself is scarcely more lovely than a cheerful, kindly, sunshiny old age.
—Lydia Maria Child
Topics: Aging, Age
Music is a prophecy of what life is to be; the rainbow of promise translated out of seeing into hearing.
—Lydia Maria Child
Topics: Music
Reverence is the highest quality of man’s nature; and that individual, or nation, which has it slightly developed, is so far unfortunate. It is a strong spiritual instinct, and seeks to form channels for itself where none exists; thus Americans, in the dearth of other objects to worship, fall to worshiping themselves.
—Lydia Maria Child
Topics: Religion
The nearer society approaches to divine order, the less separation will there be in the characters, duties, and pursuits of men and women. Women will not become less gentle and graceful, but men will become more so. Women will not neglect the care and education of their children, but men will find themselves ennobled and refined by sharing those duties with them; and will receive, in return, co-operation and sympathy in the discharge of various other duties, now deemed inappropriate to women. The more women become rational companions, partners in business and in thought, as well as in affection and amusement, the more highly will men appreciate home.
—Lydia Maria Child
Topics: Men & Women, Women, Men
Flowers have spoken to me more than I can tell in written words. They are the hieroglyphics of angels, loved by all men for the beauty of the character, though few can decipher even fragments of their meaning.
—Lydia Maria Child
Topics: Flowers
Whatever is highest and holiest is tinged with melancholy. The eye of genius has always a plaintive expression, and its natural language is pathos. A prophet is sadder than other men; and He who was greater than all the prophets was “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”
—Lydia Maria Child
Topics: Genius
You find yourself refreshed in the presence of cheerful people. Why not make an honest effort to confer that pleasure on others? Half the battle is gained if you never allow yourself to say anything gloomy.
—Lydia Maria Child
Topics: Cheerfulness, Joy, Friendship
Every human being has, like Socrates, an attendant spirit; and wise are they who obey its signals. If it does not always tell us what to do, it always cautions us what not to do.
—Lydia Maria Child
Topics: Integrity, Instincts, Caution
A reformer is one who sets forth cheerfully toward sure defeat.
—Lydia Maria Child
Topics: Defeat, Reform, Correction
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Wendell Phillips American Abolitionist
Harriet Beecher Stowe American Abolitionist
Frederick Douglass American Abolitionist
William Lloyd Garrison American Abolitionist
Helen Hunt Jackson American Novelist
John Weiss American Author
Louisa May Alcott American Novelist
Henry Ward Beecher American Protestant Clergyman
John Greenleaf Whittier American Poet, Abolitionist
Thomas Wentworth Higginson American Reformer, Editor