Conclusion

CONCLUSION

When An Appeal was published, the abolitionists still had three decades of struggle before emancipation. Though Child’s book had a modest circulation, her contributions were an important part of the countless efforts which made up the antislavery movement. The abolitionist convictions of Charles Sumner, Wendell Phillips, and Thomas Wentworth Higginson were influenced by Child’s writings and by her correspondence with them during the 1850s and 60s.

Child’s Appeal began a chain of events and changes which helped prepare the North “for the final great crisis,” as she called it. At age sixty-three, Mrs. Child witnessed the abolition of slavery in America. She had helped to break the barrier of Northern resistance to abolition, making emancipation possible.

Lydia Maria Child, 1865, John A. Whipple. [Courtesy of the Library of Congress.]

“Her pen was never idle. Wherever there was a brave word to be spoken, her voice was heard, and never without effect. It is not exaggeration to say that no man or woman at that period rendered more substantial service to the cause of freedom, or made such a ‘great renunciation’ in doing it.” — John G. Whittier, Introduction from Letters of Lydia Maria Child, 1883.

“It is certainly something for one small mouse to do, to gnaw open the nets of prejudice or custom, which might have obstructed the action of such great lions; and no wonder the little mouse rejoices over her work, with infinite satisfaction.” — Lydia Maria Child, to Charles Sumner, 7 Jul 1856.