▓PARA ¬PAR@ ` TEXT ` GrimkÄ, Sarah Moore and Angelina Emily
1792╨1873 and 1805╨1879
social reformers
Born in Charleston, South Carolina, Sarah on November 26, 1792, and Angelina on February 20, 1805, the GrimkÄ sisters came of a wealthy and aristocratic family. They early developed an antipathy toward both slavery and the limitations on the rights of women. Sarah, who had early objected to the rather thin education made available to her, made a number of visits to Philadelphia, where she became acquainted with the Society of Friends; at length, in 1821, she became a member and left her Southern home permanently. Angelina followed in 1829 and also became a Quaker. In 1835 Angelina wrote a letter of approval to William Lloyd Garrison that he subsequently published in his abolitionist newspaper, the Liberator. From that time on, the sisters were deeply involved in the abolitionist movement, Angelina always taking the lead. In 1836 she wrote a pamphlet, An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South, in which she urged those addressed to use their moral force against slavery. The institution, she argued, was harmful not only to African-Americans but to women. Sarah followed with An Epistle to the Clergy of the Southern States. Their public identification with the abolitionist cause rendered them anathema in their native city and state and even strained their Quaker friendships.
Under the auspices of the American Anti-Slavery Society, the GrimkÄ sisters began to address small groups of women in private homes; this practice grew naturally into appearances before large mixed audiences. The General Association of Congregational Ministers of Massachusetts issued a pastoral letter in July 1837 strongly denouncing women preachers and reformers, and the sisters thereafter found it necessary to crusade equally for women╒s rights. Their fellow abolitionists split over the question of whether this was an extraneous issue, but the sisters were firm in their belief that it had to be dealt with if women were to be of effect in the abolitionist or any other cause. Their lectures at Odeon Hall, Boston, in the spring of 1838 attracted thousands. There followed Angelina╒s Appeal to the Women of the Nominally Free States, 1837, and Sarah╒s Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Woman, 1838. In May 1838 Angelina married the abolitionist Theodore Dwight Weld. After collaborating with Angelina╒s husband on Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses, 1839, the sisters retired from public activity. They assisted in Weld╒s school in Belleville and later Perth Amboy, New Jersey, in 1848╨1862. In 1863 the three moved to West Newton, Massachusetts, and in 1864 to Hyde Park, now in Boston. There the sisters died, Sarah on December 23, 1873, and Angelina on October 26, 1879.
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