Profile: The Grimké Sisters
Sarah (1792–1873) and Angelina (1805–1879) Grimké Weld were abolitionists
and suffragists who spent part of their lives in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. Born into a
slaveholding family in South Carolina, the sisters converted to Quakerism, which inspired
American Anti-Slavery Society, leading them to be ostracized by their Quaker community
for taking such a public role. In 1836, Angelina published Appeal to Christian Women of
the Southern States, urging white women to join the abolition movement. She argued that
white women have a natural bond with female slaves, a position thought to be extreme,
even for abolitionists. From 1837 to 1838 the sisters lectured throughout the country,
including New Jersey. When they were criticized for speaking in public, Angelina wrote
that petitioning was women’s political right and “Christian duty.” In 1838, Sarah’s Letters
on the Equality of Sexes and the Condition of Woman, was published. She argued that
Adam and Eve were created equal and that the idea of separate spheres for men and
women was not scripturally sound.
Angelina, her husband Theodore Weld, and Sarah moved to Fort Lee, New Jersey, in
1838, and then to Belleville in 1840, where they started a small boarding school in their
home. In 1853, they were invited by Marcus and Rebecca Buffum Spring to run the school
at the Raritan Bay Union, a new cooperative community near Perth Amboy, New Jersey.
The Raritan Bay Union was founded by a splinter group from the North American Phalanx
utopian colony in Red Bank, of which the Springs were chief stockholders. The Raritan
Bay Union was designed “to solve individual and family problems and to serve as a model
for the less perfect society around it.” It had a greater religious and individualist emphasis
than the North American Phalanx.
The school, known as Eagleswood, was the main focus of the community. Some of
the most renowned radicals of the day such as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo
Emerson visited. Coeducational and interracial, the school was a pioneer for its time
Angelina Emily Grimké, undated
Library of Congress
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