Child, Lydia Maria, 1802–80, American author and abolitionist, b. Lydia Maria Francis, Medford, Mass. She edited (1826–34) the Juvenile Miscellany, a children's periodical. She and her husband (David Lee Child, whom she married in 1828) were devoted to the antislavery cause; she wrote widely read pamphlets on the subject in addition to editing (1841–49) the National Anti-Slavery Standard, a New York City weekly newspaper. Selections from her Standard essays were published in 1999 as Letters from New-York. Other writings include several historical novels and a book on the history of religions. Her Frugal Housewife (1829) went through many editions.

Bibliography

See her letters (with introduction by J. G. Whittier, 1883, repr. 1970); biographies by H. G. Baer (1964), M. Meltzer (1965), W. S. Osborne (1980), D. P. Clifford (1992), and C. Karcher (1994).

Child, Lydia Maria

orig. Lydia Maria Francis

(born Feb. 11, 1802, Medford, Mass., U.S.—died Oct. 20, 1880, Wayland) U.S. abolitionist and author. She was raised in an abolitionist family and was greatly influenced by her brother, a Unitarian clergyman. She wrote historical novels and published a popular manual, The Frugal Housewife (1829). After meeting William Lloyd Garrison in 1831, she became active in abolitionist work. Her Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans (1833) was widely read and induced many to join the abolitionist cause. From 1841 to 1843 she edited the National Anti-Slavery Standard. Her home was a stage on the Underground Railroad.

Child, Lydia Maria (b. Francis) (1802–80) abolitionist, writer; born in Medford, Mass. After teaching for a time she began writing fiction (1824) and started a children's educational periodical, the Juvenile Miscellany; then came her popular domestic advice books, notably The Frugal Housewife (1829), and biographical essays about women. Following her marriage to attorney David Lee Child (1828), she wrote a classic antislavery tract (1833) that offended many and depressed sales of her other books; she also joined in abolitionist activities and was editor of the National Anti-Slavery Standard (1840–44). After a hiatus devoted to other writing, including widely read newspaper columns on arts and society, she returned to her antislavery polemics shortly before the Civil War; she also turned to such causes as women's rights and civil service reform.