Margaretta forten biography examples

African-American abolitionist and educator. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1808; died of pneumonia on January 14, 1875; daughter of James Forten and his second wife Charlotte (Vandine) Forten; aunt to Charlotte Forten Grimké (1837–1914); educated at home and at the school set up by her father and Grace Douglass; never married; no children.

Born in 1808 as the eldest child of James Forten and Charlotte Vandine , Margaretta was named for her paternal grandmother Margaret Forten who died two years before her grand-daughter's birth. Both James and Charlotte, his second wife, were freeborn. Charlotte, a native of Pennsylvania, married James in 1805 when he was 39 and a widower. James' great-grandfather arrived in Pennsylvania as a slave brought from West Africa in the 1680s. James' grandfather became a free man, most likely by self-purchase, and James' father Thomas was a skilled artisan who worked as a sailmaker. James learned the trade from his father who also made sure that his son was educated. In 1796, James took over the business of Robert Bridges, a white sailmaker who had employed both James and his father. Soon well established in the trade, Forten was known for the quality of his workmanship and fair dealing, and he refused to fit out vessels that he suspected were employed with the slave trade. As Philadelphia prospered in the 1790s and early 1800s from trade, James Forten too prospered and invested his profits in real estate, moneylending, and in time in railroad and bank stocks.

By 1808 when Margaretta was born, the family lived in an elegant brick house on a main thoroughfare in Philadelphia, at 92 Lombard Street. The three-story house was home to Margaretta, her parents and siblings as well as domestic servants and apprentices and journeymen from James' sail loft. The number of occupants grew during the early 19th century, with the federal census recording 15 members in 1810 as compared to 22 in 1830.

In recognition of the centennial of the 19th amendment, the BWSA blog is publishing a series on Black women’s relationship to voting from the nineteenth century to the present. The third segment in this series is “Multi-Generational Activism: Lifting as They Climb” by Helene Balcerac, independent scholar.

Looking back at the 19th amendment and the history of Black women in the women’s suffrage movement, what strikes me is the significant role that foremothers played in shaping the legacies of prominent suffragists.

Although the 19th amendment was ratified in 1920, the fight for women’s right to vote started in the 1840s. Twice excluded due to both sexism and racism, Black women created their own organizations to achieve their goals and advocate for themselves, as no one else would: they financed schools for Black children, they hosted literary salons to discuss ideas and improve their own writing, they formed anti-slavery societies and later fought for women’s suffrage, racial justice, and civil rights.

The Forten family, a prominent family from Philadelphia, is a great example of Black women’s multi-generational activism: Charlotte Vandine Forten (1786-1886); her daughters Margaretta Forten (1808-1875), Harriet Forten Purvis (1810-1875), Sarah Forten Purvis (1814-1883); and her granddaughters Charlotte Forten Grimké (1837-1914) and Harriet “Hattie” Purvis (1839-1904) were all involved in activism, from anti-slavery to women’s suffrage. [1]

The Forten women were founding members of the interracial Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1833 (whose prominent members included Lucretia Mott and Sarah Mapps Douglass) and their abolitionist activism spanned multiple decades: Sarah Forten Purvis’ first poem in the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator was published in 1831 (“The Grave of the Slave”) while poems by her n

When the American privateer Royal Louis was captured in 1781 by the British ship HMS Amphion during the Revolutionary War, one of the prisoners taken was fifteen-year-old James Forten, an educated free Black resident of Philadelphia. Forten might have been sent into slavery in the West Indies, but instead the captain of the Amphion, impressed by Forten’s intelligence, made him the companion of his young son on board. Later, the captain even offered to send Forten to England to further his education. Forten declined, saying that he could not renounce his allegiance to the American cause. When the Amphion reached New York, Forten was sent to confinement in one of the fetid British prison ships floating in the harbor.

Forten was rewarded for his loyalty. Over the following years, he would become one of the most respected citizens of Philadelphia—a prosperous business owner, a leading abolitionist, and an eloquent political writer. His wife and several of his children would also become prominent activists in the anti-slavery movement, as well as in the fight for women’s suffrage. They are all the subject of a current exhibition at the Museum of the American Revolution, Black Founders: The Forten Family of Philadelphia.

The Fortens were a truly remarkable family. After the war, James Forten returned to the sailmaker’s loft where he had worked as an apprentice, rose to the job of foreman, purchased the firm when the owner retired, and made a fortune. He began his career as a civil rights activist writing a pamphlet in a successful effort to defeat a bill in the Pennsylvania legislature to place special legal burdens on free Blacks, then worked against the American Colonization Society’s campaign to “re-settle” free American-born Blacks in Liberia. Through those efforts, he met and befriended the abolitionist leader William Lloyd Garrison and helped fund his newspaper, The Liberator. The influential American Anti-Slavery Society—led by Garrison and w