Mary Ann Shadd

Abolitionist, educator, journalist, lawyer

• Born: October 9, 1823
• Birthplace: Wilmington, Delaware
• Died: June 5, 1893
• Place of death: Washington, D.C.

Significance: Mary Ann Shadd was the first Black woman in North America to edit and publish a newspaper. She was also one of the first Black female lawyers in the United States and an advocate for the abolition and women’s suffrage movements.

Background

Mary Ann Shadd was born on October 9, 1823, in Wilmington, Delaware. She was the eldest of thirteen children of formerly enslaved parents Abraham Doras Shadd and Harriet Parnell. Because her parents were abolitionists, the family home was a stop on the Underground Railroad, aiding escaped enslaved people on their way to Canada. While Shadd’s parents were free, they still faced isolation and prejudice. Her father was the first African American abolitionist on record. Shadd and her family moved in 1833 to West Chester, Pennsylvania, where Black children could be educated, unlike in Delaware. She completed Quaker boarding school and became a teacher. She then returned to Wilmington where she opened a school for Black youths. She would also teach in New York City, New Jersey; and West Chester and Norristown, Pennsylvania. Shadd and some family members moved to Canada when the Fugitive Slave Act was passed in 1850. The act mandated that all escaped enslaved people must be returned to their enslavers, even if they had escaped to a Northern state where slavery was banned.

Life’s Work

In 1848, noted abolitionist Frederick Douglass asked readers of his abolitionist newspaper The North Star to write in and share what would improve he lives of African Americans. In response, Shadd wrote to him, “We should do more and talk less.” When Douglass published her letter, it was the first time Shadd was featured in print, but it would not be the last. Shadd was the first Black woman in North America to edit and publish a weekly newspaper for African Americans – she founded The Provincial Freeman in 1853. The paper was first published in Windsor, Ontario, and Toronto, and then in Chatham, Ontario. She would also bring her paper over the border to the United States, where she would travel to different communities and discuss what life was like in Canada, hoping to promote emigration there. While Shadd was the force behind the newspaper, the masthead never revealed her name. Instead, publisher and abolitionist Samuel Ringgold Ward was its editor to the public. Publication of her paper stopped in 1859 for financial reasons. She would continue to pursue her advocacy work while teaching in Chatham.

Shadd returned to the United States when the Civil War began in 1861, and helped recruit Black men from the North to fight for the Union Army. Following the war, she set up a school in Washington for children of freed enslaved people. She then sought to move on to Howard University School of Law, but women were not allowed at the time. She filed a lawsuit on sex discrimination and won.

Shadd taught and attended classes at Howard, where she was Howard’s first black female law student and one of the first black women to earn a law degree. Although she earned her degree at age sixty, Shadd spent the last ten years of her life practicing law mostly to help family, friends, and neighbors with legal issues.

In January 1874, Shadd was one of six-hundred citizens who signed a petition to the House Judiciary Committee urging a women’s right to vote. She stood along with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in that effort. She was a member of the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) and spoke at its 1878 convention. She also advocated for the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments at a House Judiciary Committee hearing. The Fourteenth Amendment gave Black Americans citizenship and the Fifteenth Amendment granted Black men the right to vote. While Shadd spoke in support of the Fifteenth Amendment, she was also critical of it as it did not give women the right to vote. In addition, she founded the Colored Women’s Progressive Franchise Association.

Impact

Shadd once said, “I’d rather wear out than rust out.” She was a woman ahead of her time and refused to conform to the gender roles of that time period. She championed many causes right up until her death. She was particularly savvy at pushing boundaries ascribed to her race and sex by society. Her greatest contribution was that she was a trailblazer not only for Black people but for women as well.

Personal Life

Shadd married Thomas Cary, a Toronto barber, in 1856. The couple maintained two residences and often lived apart during their almost five year marriage. Thomas Cary died in 1860. At that time, Shadd was pregnant with their second child, Linton. The couple also had a daughter, Sarah Elizabeth. Shadd moved her family back to the United States. She died of stomach cancer on June 5, 1893, in Washington, D.C. Her home there still stands as a National Historic Landmark.

Bibliography

Atari, Bayan. “Mary Ann Shadd Cary.” The Dig: Howard University, 30 Mar. 2023, thedig.howard.edu/all-stories/mary-ann-shadd-cary-howard-universitys-first-black-female-law-student-0. Accessed 28 June 2023.

Hassan, Huda. “How Mary Ann Shadd Cary Set the Blueprint for Abolitionist Feminist Writing.” CBC, 27 Oct. 2022, www.cbc.ca/arts/how-mary-ann-shadd-cary-set-the-blueprint-for-abolitionist-feminist-writing-1.6631709. Accessed 28 June 2023.

“Life Story: Mary Ann Shadd Cary.” New York Historical Society, wams.nyhistory.org/expansions-and-inequalities/politics-and-society/mary-ann-shadd-cary/. Accessed 28 June 2023.

“Mary Ann Shadd Cary.” National Women’s Hall of Fame, 2023, www.womenofthehall.org/inductee/mary-ann-shadd-cary/. Accessed 28 June 2023.

Shadd, Adrienne. “Mary Ann Shadd.” The Canadian Encyclopedia, 25 May 2023, www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/mary-ann-shadd. Accessed 28 June 2023.

Silverman, Jason H. “Shadd, Mary Ann Camberton.” Dictionary of Canadian Biography, 1990, www.biographi.ca/en/bio/shadd‗mary‗ann‗camberton‗12E.html. Accessed 28 June 2023.

Specia, Megan. “Overlooked No More: How Mary Ann Shadd Cary Shook up the Abolitionist Movement.” The New York Times, 6 June 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/06/06/obituaries/mary-ann-shadd-cary-abolitionist-overlooked.html. Accessed 28 June 2023.