Mary Ann Shadd Cary

Abstract

This volume compiles writings by and about Mary Ann Shadd Cary, a nineteenth-century Black radical feminist. Shadd Cary was one of the first Black woman newspaper editors in North America. She used Black print culture, Black internationalism, and other forms of Black activism to advocate for abolition, women’s rights, and Black economic self-determination. This book includes letters, newspaper articles, organizational records, and never-before-published handwritten notes and essay drafts that illustrate how Shadd Cary participated in nineteenth-century Black radicalism. Her work as an editor and antebellum perspectives on emigration tend to dominate her intellectual framing. However, this book shows how Shadd Cary participated in discourse on several issues beyond emigration, including labor, women’s suffrage, and education from the 1840s to 1880s. It argues that Shadd Cary shaped Black radical thought, Black feminist thought, and Africana philosophy throughout her lifetime. By interrogating Shadd Cary’s Black radical ethic of care, this book reveals how Black women’s centuries-long struggle for rights and freedom has shaped African American intellectual thought.