Editing Lydia Maria Child

{{short description|American abolitionist, author, and activist (1802–1880)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2024}} {{Use American English|date=June 2024}}
{{Infobox writer
| image         = Lydia Maria Child engraving.jpg
| alt           = An 1882 engraving of Child
| caption       = An 1882 engraving of Child
| birth_name    = Lydia Maria Francis
| birth_date    = February 11, 1802
| birth_place   = [[Medford, Massachusetts]], U.S.
| death_date    = {{death date and age|1880|10|20|1802|2|11}}
| death_place   = [[Wayland, Massachusetts]], U.S.
| resting_place = North Cemetery<br>Wayland, Massachusetts, U.S.
| occupation    = {{hlist|[[Abolitionism in the United States|Abolitionist]]|activist|novelist|journalist}}
| movement      = Abolitionist, feminism
| notableworks  = {{ubl|''[[An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans]]''|"[[Over the River and Through the Wood]]"|''[[Hobomok, a Tale of Early Times.]]''}}
| spouse        = {{marriage|[[David Lee Child]]|1828|1874|end=died}}
| relatives     = [[Convers Francis]] (brother)
| signature     = Signature of Lydia Maria Child.png
| signature_alt = L. Maria Child
}}
'''Lydia Maria Child''' ({{née}} '''Francis'''; February 11, 1802{{spaced ndash}}October 20, 1880) was an American [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionist]], [[women's rights]] activist, [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] rights activist, novelist, journalist, and opponent of American [[expansionism]]. Her journals, both fiction and domestic manuals, reached wide audiences from the 1820s through the 1850s. At times she shocked her audience as she tried to take on issues of both male dominance and [[white supremacy#Academic use of the term|white supremacy]] in some of her stories.

Despite these challenges, Child may be most remembered for her poem "[[Over the River and Through the Wood]]." Her [[Grandfather's House|grandparents' house]], which she wrote about visiting, was restored by [[Tufts University]] in 1976 and stands near the [[Mystic River]] on South Street, in [[Medford, Massachusetts]].

==Early life and education==
Lydia Maria Francis was born in Medford, Massachusetts, on February 11, 1802, to Susannah (née Rand) and Convers Francis. She went by her middle name, and pronounced it Ma-RYE-a.<ref name="Lydia Maria Child">{{cite web |title=Lydia Maria Child |url=http://staging.nyhistory.org/sites/default/files/newfiles/cwh-curriculum/Module%202/Life%20Stories/Lydia%20Marie%20Child%20Life%20Story.pdf?_ga=2.195030565.962624527.1533043200-405908906.1500492903 |website=Center for Women's History |publisher=New-York Historical Society |access-date= July 31, 2018 |archive-date= July 31, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180731213319/http://staging.nyhistory.org/sites/default/files/newfiles/cwh-curriculum/Module%202/Life%20Stories/Lydia%20Marie%20Child%20Life%20Story.pdf?_ga=2.195030565.962624527.1533043200-405908906.1500492903 |url-status=live }}</ref> Her older brother, [[Convers Francis]], was educated at [[Harvard]] College and Seminary, and became a [[Unitarianism|Unitarian]] minister. Child received her education at a local dame school and later at a women's seminary. Upon the death of her mother, she went to live with her older sister in [[Maine]], where she studied to be a teacher. During this time, her brother Convers, by then a Unitarian minister, saw to his younger sister's education in literary masters such as [[Homer]] and [[John Milton|Milton]]. In her early 20s, Francis lived with her brother and met many of the top writers and thinkers of the day through him. She also converted to Unitarianism.<ref name="Lydia Maria Child"/>

Francis chanced to read an article in the ''[[North American Review]]'' discussing the field offered to the novelist by early [[New England]] history. Although she had never thought of becoming an author, she immediately wrote the first chapter of her novel ''[[Hobomok]]''. Encouraged by her brother's commendation, she finished it in six weeks and had it published. From this time until her death, she wrote continually.<ref name="appletons"/>

Francis taught for one year in a [[seminary]] in Medford, and in 1824 started a private school in [[Watertown, Massachusetts]]. In 1826, she founded the ''[[Juvenile Miscellany]]'', the first monthly periodical for children published in the United States, and supervised its publication for eight years.<ref name="appletons">{{Cite Appletons'|wstitle=Child, David Lee|year=1900}}</ref> After publishing other works voicing her opposition to slavery, much of her audience turned against her, especially in the South. ''The'' ''Juvenile Miscellany'' closed down after book sales and subscriptions dropped.<ref name="Lydia Maria Child"/>

In 1828, she married [[David Lee Child]] and moved to Boston.

==Career==
===Early writings===
Following the success of ''Hobomok'', Child wrote several novels, poetry, and an instruction manual for mothers, ''The Mothers Book''; but her most successful work was ''The Frugal Housewife. Dedicated to those who are not ashamed of Economy''. This book contained mostly recipes, but also contained this advice for young housewives, "If you are about to furnish a house, do not spend all your money.... Begin humbly."<ref name="Lydia Maria Child"/> First published in 1829, the book was expanded and went through 33 printings in 25 years.<ref>{{cite web|title=Lydia Maria Child|url=http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/html/books/book_06.cfm|website=Feeding America|access-date= July 5, 2015|archive-date= August 19, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150819130126/http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/html/books/book_06.cfm|url-status=live}}</ref> Child wrote that her book had been "written for the poor&nbsp;... those who can afford to be [[wikt:epicure|epicures]] will find the best of information in the ''Seventy-five Receipts''" by [[Eliza Leslie]].<ref name="The American Frugal Housewife">{{cite web|title=The American Frugal Housewife|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D3AEAAAAYAAJ&q=intitle:The+intitle:American+intitle:Frugal+intitle:Housewife|access-date= July 5, 2015|last1 = Child|first1 = Lydia Maria|year = 1841}}</ref>

Child changed the title to ''The American Frugal Housewife'' in 1832 to end the confusion with the British author [[Susannah Carter]]'s ''[[The Frugal Housewife]]'' first published in 1765, and then printed in America from 1772. Child wrote that Carter's book was not suited "to the wants of this country".<ref name="The American Frugal Housewife" /> To add further confusion, from 1832 to 1834 Child's version was printed in London and Glasgow. Around this time she also published in ''[[The Token]]'' annual [[gift book]].<ref>{{cite book | url = https://www.bartleby.com/lit-hub/volume-xvi-american-early-national-literature-part-ii-later-national-literature-part-i/18-the-token/ | title = The Cambridge History Of English And American Literature | volume = 16: Early National Literature, Part II; Later National Literature, Part I  | chapter = Magazines, Annuals, and Gift-books, 1783–1850 § 18. The Token | access-date = January 31, 2025 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20240615064931/https://www5.bartleby.com/lit-hub/volume-xvi-american-early-national-literature-part-ii-later-national-literature-part-i/18-the-token/ | archive-date = June 15, 2024 | last = Cairns | first = William B. | editor1-first = W. P. | editor1-last = Trent  |editor2-first =J. | editor2-last = Erskine | editor3-first = S. P. | editor3-last = Sherman | editor4-first = C. | editor4-last = Van Doren | year = 1918 | url-status = live}}</ref>

===Abolitionism and women's rights movements===
[[File:Lydia Maria Child.jpg|thumb|Child in 1870, reading a book]]
In 1831, [[William Lloyd Garrison]] began publication of his influential abolitionist newspaper,'' [[The Liberator (newspaper)|The Liberator]].'' Lydia Child and her husband read it from the beginning and began to identify themselves with the anti-[[slavery]] cause. Personal contact with Garrison was another factor.<ref name="eb1911" /><ref name="appletons" /> Child was a [[women's rights]] activist, but did not believe significant progress for women could be made until after the [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolition of slavery]]. She believed that white women and enslaved people were similar in that white men held both groups in subjugation and treated them as property, instead of individual human beings. As she worked towards equality for women, Child publicly said that she did not care for all-female communities. She believed that women would be able to achieve more by working alongside men. Child, along with many other female abolitionists, began campaigning for equal female membership and participation in the [[American Anti-Slavery Society]], provoking a controversy that later [[American Anti-Slavery Society#Division and Aftermath|split the movement]].{{cn|date=March 2024}}

[[File:An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans 190.png|thumb|left|Illustration from ''An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans'']]
In 1833, she published her book ''[[An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans]]''. It argued, as did Garrison, in favor of the immediate emancipation of the enslaved people without compensation to their legal owners. She is sometimes said to have been the first white woman to have written a book in support of this policy. She "surveyed slavery from a variety of angles—historical, political, economic, legal, and moral" to show that "emancipation was practicable and that Africans were intellectually equal to Europeans."<ref name="Samuels, Shirley. ''The Culture of Sentiment: Race, Gender and Sentimentality in Nineteenth-Century America.'' New York: [[Oxford UP]], 1992: 64-70.">Samuels, Shirley. ''The Culture of Sentiment: Race, Gender and Sentimentality in Nineteenth-Century America.'' New York: Oxford University Press, 1992: 64–70.</ref> In this book, she wrote that "the intellectual inferiority of the negroes is a common, though most absurd apology, for personal prejudice."<ref name="Lydia Maria Child"/> The book was the first anti-slavery work printed in America in book form. She followed it with several smaller works on the same subject. Her ''Appeal'' attracted much attention, and [[William Ellery Channing]], who attributed to it part of his interest in the slavery question, walked from Boston to Roxbury to thank Child for the book. She had to endure social ostracism, but from this time was considered a conspicuous champion of anti-slavery.<ref name="appletons" />

[[File:LydiaMariaChild1910.png|thumb|Lydia Maria Child, from a 1910 publication]]
Child, a strong supporter and organizer in anti-slavery societies, helped with fundraising efforts to finance the first [[anti-slavery fair]], which abolitionists held in Boston in 1834. It was both an educational and a major fundraising event, and was held annually for decades, organized under [[Maria Weston Chapman]]. In 1839, Child was elected to the executive committee of the [[American Anti-Slavery Society]] (AASS), and became editor of the society's ''[[National Anti-Slavery Standard]]'' in 1840. While she was editor of the ''National Anti-Slavery Standard'', Child wrote a weekly column for the paper called "Letters from New-York", which she later compiled and published in book form.  Child's management as editor and the popularity of her "Letters from New-York" column both helped to establish the ''National Anti-Slavery Standard'' as one of the most popular abolitionist newspapers in the US.<ref>Mills, Bruce, "Introduction," in Childs, Lydia Maria, ''Letters from New-York'', Mills, Bruce, ed., Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1998.</ref> She edited the ''Standard'' until 1843, when her husband took her place as editor-in-chief. She acted as his assistant until May 1844. During their stay in New York, the Childs were close friends of [[Isaac Hopper|Isaac T. Hopper]], a Quaker abolitionist and prison reformer. After leaving New York, the Childs settled in [[Wayland, Massachusetts]], where they spent the rest of their lives.<ref name="appletons" /> Here, they provided shelter for runaway slaves trying to escape the [[Fugitive Slave Act of 1850|Fugitive Slave Law]].<ref name="Lydia Maria Child"/> Child also served as a member of the executive board of the American Anti-Slavery Society during the 1840s and 1850s, alongside [[Lucretia Mott]] and [[Maria Weston Chapman]].{{cn|date=March 2024}}

During this period, she also wrote short stories, exploring, through fiction, the complex issues of slavery. Examples include "[[The Quadroons]]" (1842) and "Slavery's Pleasant Homes: A Faithful Sketch" (1843). She wrote anti-slavery fiction to reach people beyond what she could do in tracts. She also used it to address issues of sexual exploitation, which affected both the enslaved persons and the slaveholder family. In both cases she found women suffered from the power of men. The more closely Child addressed some of the abuses, the more negative the reaction she received from her readers.<ref name="Samuels, Shirley. ''The Culture of Sentiment: Race, Gender and Sentimentality in Nineteenth-Century America.'' New York: [[Oxford UP]], 1992: 64-70." /> She published an anti-slavery tract, ''The Duty of Disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act: An Appeal to the Legislators of Massachusetts'', in 1860.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Child |first1=Lydia Maria |title=The Duty of Disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act: An Appeal to the Legislators of Massachusetts |publisher=American Anti-Slavery Society |location=Boston |date=1860 |url=https://archive.org/stream/ASPC0001966300#page/n0/mode/2up |access-date=September 20, 2017 |archive-date=May 3, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180503155651/https://archive.org/stream/ASPC0001966300#page/n0/mode/2up |url-status=live }} {{free access}}</ref>

Eventually Child left the ''National Anti-Slavery Standard'', because she refused to promote violence as an acceptable weapon for battling slavery.{{cn|date=March 2024}} 
[[File:Over The River And Through The Wood.ogg|thumb|"[[Over the River and Through the Wood]]" (1844) as performed by Grant Raymond Barrett, 2006]]
She did continue to write for many newspapers and periodicals during the 1840s, and she promoted greater equality for women. However, because of her negative experience with the AASS, she never worked again in organized movements or societies for women's rights or [[suffrage]]. In 1844, Child published the poem "The New-England Boy's Song about Thanksgiving Day" in ''[[Flowers for Children]]'', Volume 2, that became famous as the song "[[Over the River and Through the Wood]]".{{cn|date=March 2024}}

In the 1850s, Child responded to the near-fatal beating on the Senate floor of her good friend [[Charles Sumner]], an abolitionist Senator from Massachusetts, by a South Carolina congressman, by writing her poem entitled "The Kansas Emigrants". The outbreak of violence in Kansas between anti- and pro-slavery settlers, prior to voting on whether the territory should be admitted as a free or slave state, resulted in Child changing her opinion about the use of violence.  Along with [[Angelina Grimké Weld]], another proponent for peace, she acknowledged the need for the use of violence to protect anti-slavery emigrants in Kansas. Child also sympathized with the radical abolitionist [[John Brown (abolitionist)|John Brown]]. While she did not condone his violence, she deeply admired his courage and conviction in the [[John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry|raid on Harper's Ferry]]. She wrote to Virginia Governor [[Henry A. Wise]] asking for permission to travel to [[Charles Town, West Virginia|Charles Town]] to nurse Brown, but although Wise had no objection, Brown did not accept her offer.<ref>{{cite news
|title=Extraordinary address of Wendell Phillips on the insurrection
|date=November 2, 1859
|newspaper=[[New York Daily Herald]]
|page=1
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/57064476/the-harpers-ferry-affair-john-brown/
|via=[[newspapers.com]]}}</ref>

In 1860, Child was invited to write a preface to [[Harriet Jacobs]]'s slave narrative, ''[[Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl]].'' She met Jacobs and not only agreed to write the preface but also became the editor of the book.<ref>{{cite web |title=Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written By Herself |url=https://nmaahc.si.edu/object/nmaahc_2015.97.6 |website=National Museum of African American History & Culture |publisher=Smithsonian}}</ref>

===Native American rights work===
[[File:Hobomok 1824.jpg|thumb|Title page of ''[[Hobomok]]'', 1824]]
Child published her first novel, the historical romance ''[[Hobomok, A Tale of Early Times]]'', anonymously under the gender-neutral pseudonym "an American". The plot centers on the [[interracial marriage]] between a white woman and a Native American man, who have a son together. The heroine later remarries, reintegrating herself and her child into Puritan society. The issue of [[miscegenation]] caused a scandal in the literary community and the book was not a critical success.<ref>Samuels, Shirley, ''The Culture of Sentiment: Race, Gender and Sentimentality in Nineteenth-Century America'', 1992: 59.</ref>

During the 1860s, Child wrote pamphlets on Native American rights. The most prominent, ''An Appeal for the Indians'' (1868), called upon government officials, as well as religious leaders, to bring justice to American Indians. Her presentation sparked [[Peter Cooper]]'s interest in Indian issues. It contributed to the founding of the U.S. [[Board of Indian Commissioners]] and the subsequent Peace Policy in the administration of [[Ulysses S. Grant]].

===Freethought beliefs===
Born to a strict Calvinist father, Child slept with a bible under her pillow when she was young.  However, although she joined the Unitarians in 1820, as an adult she was not active in that, or any other, church.<ref name="WWS">{{cite book |last1=Gaylor |first1=Annie Laurie |author-link=Annie Laurie Gaylor |title=Women without superstition |date=1997 |publisher=Freedom From Religion Foundation |location=Madison, WI, USA |isbn=1-877733-09-1 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/womenwithoutsupe00gayl/page/55 55–60] |url=https://archive.org/details/womenwithoutsupe00gayl/page/55 }}</ref>  In 1855 she published the 3-volume "The Progress of Religious Ideas Through Successive Ages", within which she rejected traditional theology, dogma, and doctrines and repudiated the concept of revelation and creeds as the basis for moral action,<ref>{{cite web |title=Give Thanks Where Thanks Is Due (podcast) |url=https://player.fm/series/freethought-radio/give-thanks-where-thanks-is-due |website=Freethought Radio |publisher=Freedom From Religion Foundation|date=November 22, 2017}}</ref> arguing instead "It is impossible to exaggerate the evil work that theology has done in the world" and, in commenting on the efforts of theologians, "What a blooming paradise would the whole earth be if the same amount of intellect, labor, and zeal had been expended on science, agriculture, and the arts!"<ref name=":0">{{cite book |last1=Child |first1=Lydia Maria |title=The Progress of Religious Ideas, Through Successive Ages, Volume 3 |date=1855|publisher=Ulan Press reprinted 2012 }}</ref>

Child's ''An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans'' pushed for emancipation by highlighting the life of an enslaved Muslim man named Ben Solomon. In underscoring Ben Solomon's excellence and intelligence as an Arabic teacher and a man of Muslim faith, Child not only drove racial acceptance but religious acceptance as well.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Islamic Lineage of American Literary Culture: Muslim Sources from the Revolution to Reconstruction |website=Oxford Scholarship Online|url=https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com//mobile/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199397808.001.0001/acprof-9780199397808|access-date=April 30, 2021|year=2016|doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199397808.001.0001|last1=Einboden|first1=Jeffrey|isbn=9780199397808}}</ref>

==Personal life==
Lydia Francis taught school until 1828, when she married [[Boston]] lawyer [[David Lee Child]].<ref name="eb1911">{{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Child, Lydia Maria|volume=6|pages=135–136}}</ref> His political activism and involvement in reform introduced her to the social reforms of Indian rights and Garrisonian abolitionism. She was a long-time friend of activist [[Margaret Fuller]] and frequent participant in Fuller's "conversations" held at [[Elizabeth Palmer Peabody]]'s North Street bookstore in [[Boston]].

{{Anchor|Later life and death}}Child died in [[Wayland, Massachusetts]], aged 78, on October 20, 1880, at her home at 91 Old Sudbury Road. She was buried at North Cemetery in Wayland.<ref>{{cite book|author=Ehrlich, Eugene and Gorton Carruth|title=The Oxford Illustrated Literary Guide to the United States|location=New York|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1982|page=[https://archive.org/details/oxfordillustrate00euge/page/63 63]|isbn=0-19-503186-5|url=https://archive.org/details/oxfordillustrate00euge/page/63}}</ref> At her funeral, abolitionist [[Wendell Phillips]] shared the opinion of many within the abolition movement who knew her, "We felt that neither fame, nor gain, nor danger, nor calumny had any weight with her."<ref name="Lydia Maria Child"/>

==Legacy==
* Child's friend, [[Harriet Winslow Sewall]], arranged Child's letters for publication after her death. 
* The first volume of ''[[History of Woman Suffrage]]'', published in 1881, states, “THESE VOLUMES ARE AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED TO THE Memory of [[Mary Wollstonecraft]], [[Frances Wright]], [[Lucretia Mott]], [[Harriet Martineau]], Lydia Maria Child, [[Margaret Fuller]], [[Sarah Moore Grimké|Sarah]] and [[Angelina Grimké]], [[Josephine Sophia White Griffing|Josephine S. Griffing]], [[Martha Coffin Wright|Martha C. Wright]], [[Harriot Kezia Hunt|Harriot K. Hunt]], M.D., [[Mariana W. Johnson]], [[Alice Cary|Alice]] and [[Phoebe Cary|Phebe Carey]], [[Ann Preston]], M.D., [[Lydia Mott (activist)|Lydia Mott]], [[Eliza Farnham|Eliza W. Farnham]], [[Lydia Folger Fowler|Lydia F. Fowler]], M.D., [[Paulina Wright Davis]], Whose Earnest Lives and Fearless Words, in Demanding Political Rights for Women, have been, in the Preparation of these Pages, a Constant Inspiration TO The Editors”.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/28020/pg28020-images.html|title=History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I|website=[[Project Gutenberg]]}}</ref>
* The [[Liberty ship]] ''Lydia M. Child'', named after Child, was launched on January 31, 1943, and saw service during [[World War II]].
* Child was inducted into the  [[National Women's Hall of Fame]] in 2007.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.womenofthehall.org/inductee/lydia-maria-child/ |title=National Women's Hall of Fame, Lydia Maria Child |access-date=November 19, 2018 |archive-date=November 20, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181120055204/https://www.womenofthehall.org/inductee/lydia-maria-child/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
* In 2007, Child was inducted into the [[National Abolition Hall of Fame]], in [[Peterboro, New York]].

==Writings==
{{Library resources box|by=yes|onlinebooks=yes|viaf=73891035}}
* ''[[Hobomok]], A Tale of Early Times.'' 1824
* ''Evenings in New England: Intended for Juvenile Amusement and Instruction''. 1824
* ''The Rebels; or, Boston Before the Revolution'' (1825). [https://archive.org/details/rebelsorbostonbe00chil 1850 ed.]
* ''The Juvenile Miscellany'', a children's periodical (editor, 1826–1834)
* {{cite book|title=The First Settlers of New-England: Or, Conquest of the Pequods, Narragansets and Pokanokets As Related by a Mother to Her Children|year=1829}}
* {{cite book|title=The Indian Wife|year=1828}}
* ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=ksNgAAAAcAAJ&q=intitle:The+intitle:Frugal+intitle:Housewife The Frugal Housewife: Dedicated to Those Who are Not Ashamed of Economy]'', a book of kitchen, economy and directions (1829; 33rd edition 1855) 1832
* ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20030223083214/http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/eaf/authors/first/lmfc.html The Mother's Book]'' (1831), an early American instructional book on child rearing, republished in England and Germany 
* {{cite book|title=Coronal|year=1831}} A collection of verses 
* ''[https://archive.org/details/americanfrugalh00chilgoog <!-- quote=intitle:The intitle:American intitle:Frugal intitle:Housewife. --> The American Frugal Housewife: Dedicated to those who are not ashamed of Economy]'' (1832) 1841  
* {{cite book|title=The Biographies of Madame de Staël, and Madame Roland|year=1832}}
* ''The Ladies' Family Library'', a series of biographies (5 vols., 1832–1835)
* {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gYEEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR5|title=The Girl's Own Book|year=1833|last1=Child|first1=Lydia Maria}}
**''The Girl's Own Book'', new ed. by [[Laura Valentine|Mrs. R. Valentine]]. London: William Tegg, 1863
* ''[[An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans]]'' 1833
* {{cite book|title=The Oasis|year=1834}}
* {{cite book|title=The History of the Condition of Women in Various Ages and Nations|year=1835|url=https://repository.wellesley.edu/object/wellesley30510}} (two volumes).
* {{cite book|title=Philothea|year=1836}} A romance of [[Ancient Greece|Greece]] set in the days of [[Pericles]]
* {{cite book|title=The Family Nurse|year=1837}}
* {{cite book|title=The Liberty Bell|year=1842}} Includes stories such as ''[[The Quadroons]]''
* {{cite book|title=Slavery's Pleasant Homes: A Faithful Sketch|year=1843}} A short story
* ''[http://www.ugapress.org/index.php/books/letters_from_new_york Letters from New-York]'', written for the ''[[National Anti-Slavery Standard]]'' while Child was the editor (2 vols., 1841–1843)<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/99/05/09/bib/990509.rv110353.html|title=Letters from New-York|newspaper=The New York Times|first=Beverly|last=Gage|date=May 9, 1999|access-date=November 18, 2016|archive-date=November 19, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161119062723/http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/05/09/bib/990509.rv110353.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/clementsmss/umich-wcl-M-1497chi?view=text|title=Lydia Maria Child papers 1835–1894|website=quod.lib.umich.edu|access-date=November 18, 2016|archive-date=November 19, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161119063612/http://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/clementsmss/umich-wcl-M-1497chi?view=text|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2001.05.0190:chapter=3|title=Lydia Maria Child, Letters of Lydia Maria Child, Introduction.|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu|access-date=November 18, 2016|archive-date=May 10, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170510065843/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2001.05.0190:chapter=3|url-status=live}}</ref>
* "The New-England Boy's Song about Thanksgiving Day" (1844), later known by its opening line, "[[Over the River and Through the Wood]]". A poem originally published in ''Flowers for Children'', vol. 2. [https://archive.nytimes.com/learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/21/poetry-pairing-the-new-england-boys-song-about-thanksgiving-day/?_r=0 Text of poem]
* "Hilda Silfverling: A Fantasy". 1845
* ''Flowers for Children'' (3 vols., 1844–1846)
* {{cite book|title=Fact and Fiction|year=1846}}
* {{cite book|title=Rose Marian and the Flower Fairies|year=1850}}
* {{cite book|title=The Power of Kindness|location=Philadelphia, Pennsylvania|year=1851}}
* ''The Progress of Religious Ideas, Through Successive Ages'', an ambitious work, showing great diligence, but containing much that is inaccurate (3 vols., New York, 1855)
* {{cite book|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11859/11859.txt|title=Isaac T. Hopper: A True Life|year=1853}}
* {{cite book|title=Autumnal Leaves|year=1857}}
* A Few Scenes from a True History. 1858.
* {{cite book
|title=Correspondence between Lydia Maria Child and Gov. Wise and Mrs. Mason, of Virginia
|last=Child
|first=Lydia Maria
|author-link=Lydia Maria Child
|year=1860
|location=Boston
|publisher=[[American Anti-Slavery Society]]
|url=https://archive.org/details/aberpa.childlm.1860.letters/mode/2up}}
* {{cite book|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50020|title=The right way the safe way: proved by emancipation in the British West Indies, and elsewhere|year=1860}}
* {{cite book|title=Looking Toward Sunset|year=1864}}
* {{cite book|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38479|title=The Freedmen's Book|year=1865}}
* {{cite book|title=A Romance of the Republic|year=1867}} A novel promoting interracial marriage
* {{cite book|title=An Appeal for the Indians|year=1868}}
* {{cite book|title=Aspirations of the World|year=1878}}
* A [https://archive.org/details/lettersoflydiama00chil/page/n7/mode/1up volume of her letters], with an introduction by [[John G. Whittier]] and an appendix by [[Wendell Phillips]], was published after her death (Boston: [[Houghton, Mifflin]], 1882)
* ''Lydia Maria Child: Selected Letters, 1817-1880'' ([[Milton Meltzer|Meltzer, Milton]], and Holland, Patricia G., eds.). Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1982
*[[Louis Masur|Masur, Louis P.]], ed. "Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880)," in ''"... the real war will never get in the books": Selections from Writers During the Civil War'', New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993, pp.&nbsp;39–55.  Contains twelve letters from Childs about slavery, written from 1861 to 1865, and the chapter "Advice from an Old Friend" (to the freed slaves) from Childs' ''The Freedmen's Book''.

==See also==
*[[Edward Strutt Abdy]]
*''[[Over The River...Life of Lydia Maria Child, Abolitionist for Freedom|Over the River...Life of Lydia Maria Child, Abolitionist for Freedom]]'' (2008). Documentary, narrated by Diahann Carroll.

==Notes==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* Baer, Helene Gilbert. ''The Heart is Like Heaven: The Life of Lydia Maria Child''. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1964. 
*Karcher, Carolyn L. ''The First Woman in the Republic: A Cultural Biography of Lydia Maria Child.'' Durham: Duke University Press, 1994. [https://journals.psu.edu/pmhb/article/view/45075/44796 Review] by Louise L. Stevenson, ''The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography'', Vol. CXX, Nos. 1/2 (January/April 1996), pp. 145-147.
*[[Stanley Harrold|Harrold, Stanley]]. ''American Abolitionists.'' Essex, England: Pearson Education Limited, 2001.
*[[Thomas Wentworth Higginson|Higginson, Thomas Wentworth]]. [https://archive.org/details/eminentwomenage00partgoog/page/38/mode/2up "Lydia Maria Child"] in ''Eminent Women of the Age; Being Narratives of the Lives and Deeds of the Most Prominent Women of the Present Generation''. Hartford, Connecticut: S. M. Betts & Company, 1868, pp.&nbsp;38-65.
*Higginson, Thomas Wentworth. "Lydia Maria Child", in ''Contemporaries''. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1899. This is a revised version of the chapter in ''Eminent Women of the Age''.
*[[Milton Meltzer|Meltzer, Milton]]. ''Tongue of Flame: The Life of Lydia Maria Child''. New York: Crowell, 1965. Aimed at children.
*Moland, Lydia. ''Lydia Maria Child: A Radical American Life''. University of Chicago Press, 2022. [https://theamericanscholar.org/freedom-tales/ Excerpt] [https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2022/11/03/living-in-words-lydia-maria-child/ Review by Brenda Wineapple], ''The New York Review of Books'', November 3, 2022.
*Salerno, Beth A. ''Sister Societies: Women's Antislavery Organizations in Antebellum America''. DeKalb, Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, 2005.
*[http://www.anb.org/articles/15/15-00127.html Teets-Parzynski, Catherine. "Child, Lydia Maria Francis." ''American National Biography Online'']
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20110608131818/http://womenshistory.about.com/od/thanksgiving/a/child_thanks.htm?p=1 "A Boy's Thanksgiving Day." ''Women's History: Poems by Women.'' Jone Johnson Lewis, editor]

==External links==
{{Library resources box|by=yes|onlinebooks=yes|viaf=73891035}}
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*[https://findingaids.library.columbia.edu/ead/nnc-rb/ldpd_4078598/ Finding aid to the Lydia Maria Child papers at Columbia University] [https://library.columbia.edu/libraries/rbml.html/ Rare Book & Manuscript Library]
* {{Gutenberg author |id=2732| name=Lydia Maria Child}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Lydia Maria Child}}
* {{Librivox author |id=3089}}
* [http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/search?author=lydia+maria+child&amode=words&title=&tmode=words Works by Lydia Maria Child] listed at [[The Online Books Page]]
* [http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/lydiamariachild.html Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist:Lydia Maria Child] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131122095401/http://www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/lydiamariachild.html |date=2013-11-22 }}
* {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030223083214/http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/eaf/authors/first/lmfc.html |date=February 23, 2003 |title=UVA: Etexts for Lydia Child }}
* [http://www.spartacus-educational.com/USASchild.htm Biography from Spartacus Educational]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20021002021001/http://www.lib.virginia.edu/speccol/exhibits/rec_acq/lit/child.html UVA: Freedman's Book]
* [http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/html/books/book_06.cfm Page images and transcript of ''The Frugal Housewife, Dedicated to Those Who Are Not Ashamed of Economy'']
* [http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20100407155203/http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/html/authors/author_child.html Biography at Feeding America: The Historic American Cookbook Project]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20030223083214/http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/eaf/authors/first/lmfc.html ''The Mother's Book''] by Lydia Maria Child. Boston: Carter, Hendee, and Babcock, 1831, at [http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/ A Celebration of Women Writers]
* [http://www.anb.org/articles/15/15-00127.html Biography from American National Biography]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20180314065518/http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/gcarr/19cusww/lb/index.html Selection of writings] by Lydia which were in [[The Liberty Bell (annual)|The Liberty Bell]], an abolitionist [[gift book]],  at the website of [[Bucknell University]], edited by Glynis Carr
*[http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:RAD.SCHL:sch00223 Lydia Maria Francis Child Correspondence.][http://www.radcliffe.edu/schles Schlesinger Library] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120509153246/http://www.radcliffe.edu/schles |date=2012-05-09 }}, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
*[https://archive.org/details/lettersoflydiama00chil Letters of Lydia Maria Child], arranged by Harriet Winslow Sewall, from the [[Internet Archive]]
*[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/child Lydia Maria Child papers], William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan.
*[http://pem-voyager.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=4&ti=1,4&Search_Arg=MSS%2091&SL=Submit%26TYPE%3Dp%3F|1&Search_Code=FT*&CNT=10&PID=Huyc_qeYt9RE--hVoB9fGeU1xilr&SEQ=20121119143026&SID=1 Lydia Maria Child Letters], [http://www.pem.org/library/ Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum]
*[http://hdl.library.upenn.edu/1017/d/pacscl/PRIN_MUDD_C1032 Lydia Maria Child Collection, 1857-1878] from [https://library.princeton.edu/special-collections/ Princeton University].

{{National Women's Hall of Fame}}

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