Maria W. Stewart

Biography

Maria W. Stewart (née Miller) (1803 – December 17, 1879) was an African American writer, lecturer, teacher, and activist from Hartford, Connecticut. She is widely recognized as the first woman in the United States to give a public speech and the first American-born woman to speak publicly about abolition and women's rights, breaking barriers for both Black and female voices in the early 19th century. Stewart's work appeared in The Liberator, where she published two influential pamphlets: "Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality, The Sure Foundation on Which We Must Build" (1831) (which urged the abolition of slavery and called for Black self-determination and autonomy) and "Meditations from the Pen of Mrs.

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