Lucretia Coffin Mott

Lucretia Coffin Mott 1793-1880, American feminist and reformer, b. Nantucket, Mass. She moved (1804) with her family to Boston and later (1809) to Philadelphia. A Quaker, she studied and taught at a Friends school near Poughkeepsie, N.Y. After 1818 she became known as a lecturer for temperance, peace, the rights of labor, and the abolition of slavery. She aided fugitive slaves, and following the meeting (1833) of the American Anti-Slavery Society, she was a leader in organizing the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. Refusal by the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London (1840) to recognize women delegates led to her championship of the cause of women's rights. With Elizabeth Cady Stanton she organized (1848) at Seneca Falls, N.Y., the first women's rights convention in the United States.

Bibliography: See biographies by O. Cromwell (1958, repr. 1971), D. Sterling (1964), and G. Kurland (1972).

Her husband, James Mott, 1788-1868, whom she married in 1811, was also a Quaker who worked constantly for the antislavery cause and for woman suffrage. He was a delegate to the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, and he presided (1848) at the first national women's rights convention at Seneca Falls. He also aided in the founding (1864) of Swarthmore College.

Bibliography: See A. D. Hallowell, ed., James and Lucretia Mott: Life and Letters (1884).

Mott, Lucretia (1793–1880), Quaker (Society of Friends) minister, peace activist, abolitionist, and women's rights pioneer.Born in Nantucket, Massachusetts, the daughter of sea captain Thomas Coffin and his wife Anna, Lucretia in 1808 became an assistant teacher at Nine Partners Quaker boarding school in Dutchess County, New York. There she met James Mott, a teacher/businessman. They married in 1811 and settled in Philadelphia. Five children survived infancy. In 1821 Lucretia was officially recognized as a Quaker minister. Devoted to social justice, she challenged Quaker rules and doctrine, violent means of protest, and the oppression of women and African Americans. The Motts were ardent “Non‐Resistants” (pacifists), believing that “moral force” alone could end slavery. Lucretia helped organize the Anti‐Slavery Convention of American Women in 1837.

At the 1840 World's Anti‐Slavery Convention in London, where she and other women delegates were refused recognition, Mott conversed with Elizabeth Cady Stanton about women's unequal status. This led them, with Mott's sister Martha Coffin Wright, to call the first American women's rights convention at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848.

Remembered today for her advocacy of women's rights and abolitionism, Mott was equally known in her time as a pacifist and as one of the most effective and recognized American reformers. Her speeches and sermons frequently appeared as pamphlets. She harbored runaway slaves; presided over the 1852 women's rights convention in Syracuse, New York, and the first annual convention of the American Equal Rights Association (1866); spoke regularly on women's and African‐American rights, including addresses to state legislatures; and raised funds for her causes, including Swarthmore College, a Quaker school.
See also Antebellum Era; Antislavery; Pacifism; Peace Movements; Seneca Falls Convention; Women's Rights Movements.

Bibliography

Margaret Hope Bacon , Valiant Friend: The Life of Lucretia Mott, 1980.
Margaret Hope Bacon , Lucretia Mott: Pioneer for Peace, Quaker History 82 (Fall 1993); 63–78.

Susan Gonda