Mott, Lucretia

Mott, Lucretia

 orig. Lucretia Coffin

(born Jan. 3, 1793, Nantucket, Mass., U.S.—died Nov. 11, 1880, near Abington, Pa.) U.S. social reformer and women's rights advocate. She attended a Quaker boarding school near Poughkeepsie, N.Y., where she later taught. In 1811 she married a fellow teacher, James Mott, and she became an official Quaker minister in 1821. The Motts were active in the antislavery campaign, and Lucretia lectured widely on social reform. In 1848 she and Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the Seneca Falls Convention, and she thereafter devoted her attention primarily to women's rights, writing articles and lecturing widely. After the American Civil War, she also worked for voting rights for freedmen. See also abolitionism; woman suffrage.