The Grimké sisters

- Sarah Moore Grimké and Angelina Emily Grimké, known as the Grimké sisters, were
the first nationally-known white American female advocates of abolition of slavery
and women's rights. They were speakers, writers, and educators.
- They became well-known in the 1830s.
- The Quaker community had a significant impact on their views.
- The Grimké sisters were among the first female public speakers in the United States.
They first spoke to "parlor meetings," of women only. Interested men frequently
sneaked into the meetings. The sisters gained attention because of their class and
background in having slaves and coming from a wealthy planter family.
- As they attracted larger audiences, the Grimké sisters began to speak in front of mixed
audiences (both men and women).
- They were criticized for speaking about slavery, and for the very act of doing public
speech as women.
- A group of ministers wrote a letter citing the Bible and criticizing the sisters for
stepping out of the "woman's proper sphere," which was characterized by silence and
subordination. They came to understand that women were oppressed and, without
power, women could not address or right the wrongs of society. They became ardent
feminists.
- Angelina Grimké wrote her first tract, Appeal to the Christian Women of the South
(1836), to encourage Southern women to join the abolitionist movement for the sake
of white womanhood as well as black slaves.
- When the educator Catharine Beecher attacked them by arguing that women should
restrict themselves to the domestic sphere, Angelina responded in Letters to Catherine
Beecher.
- Sarah responded to the ministers' attacks by writing a series of letters addressed to the
president of the abolitionist society. These became known as Letters on the Equality
of the Sexes, in which she defended women's right to the public platform. By 1838,
thousands of people flocked to hear their Boston lecture series.
- The letters of the sisters were connected to local and state petitions/campaigns
(abolition, racism) which were circulated by men and women.
- Sarah was rather interested in abolition and she used more religious arguments than
Angelina was focused on feminism and politics.
- They wrote about: the value of housework, wage differences, women’s education, and
fashion and demanded that women be allowed to preach.
- The sisters are relevant because they summarized the abolitionist arguments which
would eventually lead to the Civil War. Sarah's work addressed many issues that are
familiar to the feminist movement of the late 20th century, 150 years later.
- The writings of two women became the grounding of later feminist works and the
thinking of the women who established an American Feminist movement at Seneca
Falls in 1848.