Sarah Mapps Douglass and Sojourner Truth

The lives and witness of Black American Quaker women are far too little known, both in academic scholarship and in the broader society. Through fine-grained comparison and contrast of the lives of two nineteenth-century Black Quaker women, Sojourner Truth—closely associated with Progressive Friends—and Sarah Mapps Douglass—closely associated with Orthodox Friends—this essay partially remedies that lack, while deeply rooting both women firmly in their varying contexts of social class, race, gender and caste. It also considers the ways that Douglass and Truth were remembered by male observers during an era in which exceptional women often seemed to be rendered as honorary men. It moves toward a conclusion that sets forth possible new research questions relating to Black Quaker women in the nineteenth century

Caste · Political science · Scholarship · Social class · Sociology · Witness · Gender Studies · History · Law · Marriage and Sexual Relationships · Philosophy · Religion, Gender, and Enlightenment