“The ‘Spirit of Sectarianism’ within the Anti-Slavery Movement: Lydia Maria Child’s Editorship of the National Anti-Slavery Standard”

Terri Amlong

This paper is based upon my dissertation research on American women editors of reform periodicals in the nineteenth century. As part of the politics and reform theme of the conference, I will address Lydia Maria Child’s editorship of the National Anti-Slavery Standard and the difficulties she faced in her tenure as editor of the Standard. As the first woman editor of a mainstream anti-slavery periodical, Child encountered first-hand the deep divisions within the anti-slavery cause over the “woman question,” the political focus of the cause, and the place of religion within the movement. In my analysis, I trace the efforts of Child to overcome these divisions by first asserting her own individuality in an attempt to remain neutral between the warring factions. This focus on individuality represents Child’s application of the Transcendental concept of self-culture to the job of formulating the reform rhetoric of the anti-slavery movement. Next, I explore Child’s use of fiction and the dialogic essay as a means of educating her readers about this reform rhetoric. In well-structured arguments relying upon emotion and logic, Child furthers this reform rhetoric in her editorials for the Standard.