
Sarah Mapps Douglass (September 9, 1806 – September 8, 1882) was an American educator,
abolitionist
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the political movement to end slavery and liberate enslaved individuals around the world.
The first country to fully outlaw slavery was Kingdom of France, France in 1315, but it was later used ...
, writer, and public lecturer. Her painted images on her written letters may be the first or earliest surviving examples of signed paintings by an
African American
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
woman.
These paintings are contained within the Cassey Dickerson Album, a rare collection of 19th-century friendship letters between a group of women.
Douglass was the first African American student at the
Female Medical College of Pennsylvania and was a founding member of the Female Literary Association and the
Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society
The Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society (PFASS) was founded in December 1833, a few days after the first meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society (in Philadelphia), and dissolved in March 1870 following the ratification of the 14th and ...
.
Early life and family
Sarah Douglass was born in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
,
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...
, to a prominent abolitionist family, the only daughter of abolitionists Robert Douglass, a baker, and
Grace Bustill Douglass, a milliner and teacher. Douglass' grandfather,
Cyrus Bustill
Cyrus Bustill (February 2, 1732 1806) was an African American brewer and baker, abolitionist and community leader.
A notable business owner in the African American community in Philadelphia, he also became a founding member of the Free African ...
, a
Quaker
Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...
who owned a bakery and operated a school run from his home, was an early member of the
Free African Society
The Free African Society (FAS), founded in 1787, was a benevolent organization that held religious services and provided mutual aid for "free Africans and their descendants" in Philadelphia. The Society was founded by Richard Allen and Absalom ...
. Douglass grew up among Philadelphia's elite, and according to C. Peter Ripley "
e received extensive
rivatetutoring as a child."
She is part of the
Bustill family
The Bustill family is a prominent American family of largely African, European and Lenape Native American descent. The family has included artists, educators, journalists and activists, both against slavery and against Jim Crow.Woodson, C.G.The ...
in Philadelphia. Her brother was artist
Robert Douglass Jr., with whom she shared advertising space at his shop on Arch Street, where their family lived.
Her cousin was artist
David Bustill Bowser
David Bustill Bowser (January 16, 1820, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – June 30, 1900, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) was a 19th-century African-American ornamental artist, portraitist, and social activist. He designed battle flags for eleven African ...
.
Education and career
Teaching
In the early 1820s, Douglass attended college, and then taught briefly in New York City.
In 1825, she began teaching in Philadelphia at a school organized by her mother with
James Forten
James Forten (September 2, 1766March 4, 1842) was an American Abolitionism in the United States, abolitionist and businessman in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A free-born African American, he became a sailmaker after the American Revolutionary War. ...
, a wealthy African American sailmaker, which she had also attended as child.
Starting in 1833, she taught briefly at the
Free African School for Girls, before establishing her own school for African American girls. She was soon recognized as a talented teacher of the sciences and arts, and for holding her students to high standards. In 1838, the
Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society
The Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society (PFASS) was founded in December 1833, a few days after the first meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society (in Philadelphia), and dissolved in March 1870 following the ratification of the 14th and ...
took over the school, retaining Douglass as the headmaster. In 1854, the school merged with the
Institute for Colored Youth
The Institute for Colored Youth was founded in 1837 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It became the first college for African-Americans in the United States, although there were schools that admitted African Americans preceding it. ...
(now
Cheyney State University
Cheyney University of Pennsylvania is a public historically black university in Cheyney, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1837 as the Institute for Colored Youth, it is the oldest of all historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs ...
) on
Lombard Street, and Douglass become the head of the primary department, a position she held until her retirement in 1877. As a teacher, she was committed to giving girls equal opportunities to learn subjects which had previously been reserved primarily for boys, including mathematics and sciences.
She was interested in various sciences herself, and kept her personal natural history cabinet in her classroom, which included a collection of various shells and minerals for her students to study.
Douglass's role as an activist began as early as 1831, when at twenty-five, she organized the collection of money to send to
William Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison (December , 1805 – May 24, 1879) was an Abolitionism in the United States, American abolitionist, journalist, and reformism (historical), social reformer. He is best known for his widely read anti-slavery newspaper ''The ...
to support ''
The Liberator'', which she also served as a contributor to.
Female Literary Association

Douglass also helped found the
Female Literary Association (FLA) in 1831, a group of free African American women dedicated to improving their skills and deepening their identification with
enslaved black women.
Black literary societies like this one began forming in urban Northern cities in the late 1820s and early 1830s. These societies turned to reading as an invaluable method of acquiring knowledge and to writing as a means of asserting identity, recording information, and communicating with a black public that ranged from the literate to the semi-literate to the illiterate. Societies were based on the idea that for the welfare and survival of the community, individuals had to come together in larger groups that would both create a sense of national identity and collective spirit and would extend essential knowledge to the black community, both free and enslaved.
Douglass was one of the FLA's leaders, and the FLA was the first social libraries specially for African American women.
The FLA provided a space for Black women to share important readings they found as well as their own writings.
The Female Literary Association encouraged self-improvement through education for both the literate and illiterate and to both the free and enslaved. Education was to challenge white beliefs in the intellectual inferiority of African Americans. Douglass and the women of the Association believed that the "cultivation of intellectual powers" was the greatest human pursuit, because God had bestowed those powers and talents. It was their duty as women and African Americans to use those talents to try to break down the existing divides between African Americans and Whites, and to fight for equal rights for people of color.
The members of the Female Literary Association met every Tuesday with meetings devoted to reading and recitation for the purpose of "mutual improvement in moral and literary pursuits."
[McHenry (2002), p. 58.] According to their supporter
William Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison (December , 1805 – May 24, 1879) was an Abolitionism in the United States, American abolitionist, journalist, and reformism (historical), social reformer. He is best known for his widely read anti-slavery newspaper ''The ...
, nearly all of the members would weekly write original pieces, put anonymously into a box, that a committee afterwards criticized.
Douglass herself often wrote prose and poetry, much of it published in "Ladies' Department" of ''
The Liberator'', ''
The Colored American'', and the ''
Anglo-African Magazine'' under the pseudonym Zillah and possibly also "Sophonisba."
In an address to the Association in 1832 at a "mental feast," Douglass shared how the call to activism with the Female Literary Association came about:
Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society
With her mother, she was a founding member (1833) of the biracial
Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society
The Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society (PFASS) was founded in December 1833, a few days after the first meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society (in Philadelphia), and dissolved in March 1870 following the ratification of the 14th and ...
.
The Society, from the beginning, was interracial, including members of African American descent like Douglass along with white women members, like
Lucretia Mott
Lucretia Mott (née Coffin; January 3, 1793 – November 11, 1880) was an American Quakers, Quaker, Abolitionism in the United States, abolitionist, women's rights activist, and social reformer. She had formed the idea of reforming the position ...
. The purpose of the society was to secure the total abolition of slavery as soon as possible, without any compensation to the slaveholders, as well as to procure equal civil and religious rights with the white people of the United States.
On December 14, 1833, the society finalized their Constitution, which stated that they deemed it their duty "as professing Christians to manifest
heir
Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, titles, debts, entitlements, privileges, rights, and obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ among societies and have changed over time. Offi ...
abhorrence of the flagrant injustice and deep sin of slavery by united and vigorous exertions." Membership in the society was open to any woman who subscribed to these views and contributed to the Society.
The members of the Society subscribed to several antislavery journals such as Garrison's ''The Liberator'' and ''
The Emancipator'' to circulate among the members and their friends. The Society also accumulated a small library of antislavery books and pamphlets for dissemination. "Within its first year, it also established a school for African American children. The Society also promoted the
boycott
A boycott is an act of nonviolent resistance, nonviolent, voluntary abstention from a product, person, organisation, or country as an expression of protest. It is usually for Morality, moral, society, social, politics, political, or Environmenta ...
of goods manufactured by slaves and lobbied for emancipation. This included circulating petitions to Congress for the abolition of slavery in the
District of Columbia
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...
and other federal territories and for suppressing the slave trade between the American states." By 1840, Douglass had served in the group as a member of the board of directors, of the committee on annual fairs, of the education committee, recording and corresponding secretary, librarian, and manager.
Later life and death
From 1853 to 1877, Douglass studied anatomy, female health and hygiene, and acquired medical basic training at the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania, becoming the first African American student,
and at the Ladies' Institute of Pennsylvania Medical University. Her work at the medical institutes influenced her decision to lecture and teach evening classes to African American women at meetings of the
Banneker Institute on issues of physiology and hygiene.
In 1855, she married
William Douglass, the African-American rector of
African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas and a widower with nine children. After her husband's death in 1861, Douglass resumed her antislavery activities and teaching full-time.
She died in 1882 in Philadelphia and was buried in
Eden Cemetery in
Collingdale, Pennsylvania
Collingdale is a borough in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 8,908 at the 2020 census.
Local governance
The Borough of Collingdale follows a council-manager form of governance.
The Borough Council is composed ...
in an unmarked grave.
In popular culture
*Sarah Mapps Douglass appears as a main character in
Ain Gordon's 2013 play ''If She Stood'', commissioned by the
Painted Bride Art Center
The Painted Bride Art Center, sometimes referred to informally as The Bride, is a non-profit artist-centered performance space and gallery particularly oriented to presenting the work of local Philadelphia artists, which presents dance, jazz, wo ...
in Philadelphia.
[Salisbury, Stephen]
"Painted Bride productions on 19th century women touch familiar issues"
''Philadelphia Inquirer
''The Philadelphia Inquirer'', often referred to simply as ''The Inquirer'', is a daily newspaper headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded on June 1, 1829, ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'' is the third-longest continuously operating da ...
'' (April 26, 2013).
See also
*
List of abolitionists
*
List of African-American abolitionists
References
Notes
Further reading
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Rusert, Britt. (2017). ''Fugitive Science: Empiricism and Freedom in Early African American Culture''. New York: New York University Press.
*Morgan, Tabitha A. (2020) "Revolution and Roses: The Voice and Aesthetic of Sarah Mapps Douglass." Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies. Vol. 87, No. 4, SPECIAL ISSUE: WOMEN'S AND GENDER HISTORY IN PENNSYLVANIA, PART 2 (Autumn 2020), pp. 657-663 (7 pages) Published By: Penn State University Press
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/pennhistory.87.4.0657
External links
*Sarah Mapps Douglass correspondence in th
Josiah White papersheld a
Haverford College Quaker & Special Collections*Sarah Mapps Douglass correspondence has been digitized and is available at th
In Her Own Right project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Douglass, Sarah Mapps
1806 births
1882 deaths
Abolitionists from Pennsylvania
Artists from Philadelphia
19th-century American educators
19th-century African-American educators
African-American women educators
African-American activists
African-American abolitionists
African-American women artists
19th-century American artists
19th-century American women artists
Educators from Pennsylvania
19th-century American women educators
African-American college graduates before 1865
19th-century American writers
19th-century African-American writers
19th-century African-American women writers
19th-century American women writers
Burials at Eden Cemetery (Collingdale, Pennsylvania)
Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania alumni