The Collected Meditations of Mrs. Maria W. Stewart

Maria W. Stewart was one of Boston's most prominent lecturers on abolition and women's rights, passionately condemning the institution of slavery while calling attention to the racism faced by free African Americans living in the north. This collection places some of her best-known speeches alongside her highly regarded meditations, personal reflections on life as a Black woman in nineteenth century America.

Maria W. Stewart (1803-1879) was an African American teacher, journalist, abolitionist, and women's rights activist. Born Maria Miller to free African American parents in Hartford, Connecticut, she was orphaned at the age of three and sent to live with a local minister as an indentured servant. She was educated at Sabbath School and married James W. Stewart, a merchant, in 1826. Following his death in 1829, she was excluded from his will and left to fend for herself. Around this time, she began lecturing to audiences of men and women of all races. She was the first known African American woman to lecture publicly on women's rights, religion, and abolition, publishing some of her speeches and meditations in pamphlets with the help of William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberator. After a poorly-received speech at Boston's African Masonic Lodge, Stewart abandoned lecturing to move to New York City and later Washington, DC, where she found work as a schoolteacher and head matron of Freedmen's Hospital.