Child, Lydia Maria

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.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.