And the Spirit Moved Them
The Lost Radical History of America's First Feminists
-
- 85,00 kr
-
- 85,00 kr
Utgivarens beskrivning
The New York Times–bestselling author of Getting the Love You Want sends out a ‘call for renewed feminist action, based on “the spirit and ethic of love’” (Kirkus Reviews).
A decade before the Seneca Falls Convention, black and white women joined together at the 1837 Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women in the first instance of political organizing by American women for American women. Incited by “holy indignation,” these pioneers believed it was their God-given duty to challenge both slavery and patriarchy. Although the convention was largely written out of history for its religious and interracial character, these women created a blueprint for an intersectional feminism that was centuries ahead of its time.
Part historical investigation, part personal memoir, Hunt traces how her research into nineteenth-century organizing led her to become one of the most significant philanthropists in modern history. Her journey to confront her position of power meant taking control of an oil fortune that was being deployed on her behalf but without her knowledge, and acknowledging the feminist faith animating her life’s work.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Philanthropist and therapist Hunt (Faith and Feminism) addresses elements of early feminism, primarily its interracial and religious aspects, which she asserts were lost in the century. The origin of modern feminism is its Christian bedrock is a central theme in the book, as Hunt revisits all-women antislavery conventions held in America in the late 1830s. Notable but not necessarily forgotten figures appear (generally referred to by their first names), among them Lydia Maria Child, Sarah and Angelina Grimke, and Lucretia Mott, and the lesser-known Mary Grew and Abby Kelly. Hunt is attentive to the involvement of black women, particularly Grace and Sarah Douglass and Sarah Forten. The book is framed by accounts of Hunt s personal history and involvement with women s organizations. Unfortunately, factual inaccuracies (e.g., she names Frederick Douglass as one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833) and unsubstantiated claims (she writes that a group of organizers took to heart the words written decades earlier by Phillis Wheatley but does not provide evidence of them having ever read Wheatley s work) plague this lighthearted treatment of a well-known segment in the history of the women s movement.
