Turning the World Upside Down

The Anti-slavery Convention of American Women

Plot

Held in NYC, May 9-12, 1837

When 200 women from nine northern states came together 150 years ago "to constitute the first Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women," as Dorothy Sterling writes, "they were uncomfortably conscious of violating a powerful taboo." The meeting was "not only the first public politcal meeting of U.S. women. It was also the first interracial gathering of any consequence." This small volume documents that historic meeting, reprinting the actual proceedings of each day of the convention and recording the participation of such now well-known nineteenth-centruy feminists and abolitionists as Anna Blackwell, Lydia Maria Child, Mary Grew, Angelina Grimké, Sarah Grimké, Abby Kelley, Lucretia Mott, and Ann C. Smith. In addition to Dorothy Sterling's introduction, the book includes excerpts from the convention pamphlet "An Appeal to the Women of the Nominally Free States" outlining the responsibilities of the northern woman - through "her voice, her pen, and her purse" - to influence the overthrow of American Slavery.