By the time she was thirty, Lydia Maria Child was a beloved novelist and children's author, but she shocked her readers in 1833 by publishing a book-length condemnation of slavery that was so radical that polite society turned against her. My book, "Lydia Maria Child: A Radical American Life," tells the story of how she came to this moment and how she lived as a result.
Fun fact: I am actually a philosopher! I teach philosophy at Colby College, and my earlier books were on the political and aesthetic philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel. But after the election of 2016, I decided I wanted to turn to my own history and to women. That's when I discovered Lydia Maria Child and the riveting and imperfect example she set of how to fight racial injustice. I read Child's life as a way of learning about our moral moment and of figuring out how to live my own life. So even though, as we learned on "The Good Place," everyone hates professors of moral philosophy, I'm hoping you'll love hearing more about Lydia Maria Child. Her life intersected in fascinating ways with John Brown's raid, Robert Gould Shaw's death, and the women's suffrage movement.
You can find more of my writing on LMC at the Washington Post (here and here), the Boston Globe, the American Scholar, and the Paris Review. I've given an interview about her on National Public Radio. The book is available for pre-order here or wherever you get your books!
Also find me on Twitter, lydia_moland.
Update at 12:09: Thank you to everyone for a wonderful AMA--I so appreciated all the questions and the opportunity to share some of LMC's life. Thanks to the moderators too! More soon, I hope.
Hey there Dr. Moland and thank you for doing this AMA!
What were the criticisms directed at Lydia Maria Child by "polite society" when they turned on her after her publication? Was the abolitionist cause at the time just not something that was powerful enough, even in polite society in the North to counteract this sort of political statement?
Thanks so much for doing this! AMA! I'm a huge fan of Child and she's long been one of my historical "if you could invite anyone to a dinner party" people.
To a certain extent she could be described as an intersectional feminist and that particular mindset wasn't especially common in her era. Do we know what or who inspired her to adopt such an expansive view of human rights?
Hello Dr. Moland, and thank you for doing this AMA.
I am aware that Child was a prominent abolitionist, but what was her opinion of the Lincoln administration during the war? Was she critical of it, or did she support it in spite of its moderation? Did she stay aloof from politics, or was she a full-blown Republican? I'm at least aware of one quote where she says that they should be thankful that Lincoln was willing to grow, but I'm interested in knowing more about her participation in politics, given how abolitionists tended to shun open partisan politics and also the sad idea that women shouldn't get involved prevalent in that era.
I had never heard about Lydia Maria Child before and this is very interesting. Thank you for introducing me to such an incredible person Dr. Moland. I have a double question for you if you have the time.
Do you see, or could you speak on, any connection between philosophy and history? I've always felt in many ways they're very close, but I'd love to hear the thoughts of an actual expert on the matter.
Could you tell us about your methodology when it came to researching this? I have no idea how much material would be available for Maria Child, or how difficulty it would have been to get into her life, but I'd be interested to hear about the as much of the research process as possible.
Professor thank you for your time how did Ms Child view her place within the struggle? Did she see it as an eternal battle or something that had an endpoint?
Hi Dr Moland, thanks for doing this AMA. I just had a peek at Lydia's Wikipedia page and saw that she was also involved in activism for Native American rights by publishing an important pamphlet. Can you expand on her role in Native American rights activism and compare it with her work in abolitionism? Did she see these two struggles as linked? What exactly did she agitate for in terms of Native American rights - did she oppose the seizure of their land, or did she advocate for policies such as residential schools (common among "progressive" white people in the 19th century as I understand it)?
I see that LMC lived until 1880... what were her thoughts on Reconstruction and its end?
Has it ever been odd researching someone you share a first name with?
Thank you so much for doing this AMA Dr. Moland!
How was Lydia Maria Child influenced by the events of the Haitian Revolution? She would have come of age with the Haitian Revolution as recent history. I am curious as to how she felt about, or how her philosophy was shaped by the refusal of the United States to recognize Haiti, the massacre(s) perpetuate by Jean-Jacques Dessalines, and the perpetual fear by slave holders that abolition would simply lead to racial genocide using the Dessalines as an example.
Did she ever have a partner or get married? Given the politically charged nature of her book, I doubt she had to answer to anyone before making the decision to publish.
Also, how did her family feel about her and remember her?
Thank you for your scholarship and attention to this unsung hero
Thank you for joining us with this fantastic AMA! I'm very interested in how someone would go from writing popular children's books, and then transition into the fight for abolition. Could you speak a bit more on that? What inspired her to take such a step?
Thank you for joining us here Dr. Moland, this is a super interesting topic. How did her life intersect with John Brown's Raid, and what did she think about some of the other prominent abolitionists?
Hi Dr. Moland, Hegel famously had…opinions…about African history (or the lack thereof, per his schema). Did Child ever interact with Hegelian scholarship on this point? To what extent did Hegelian racial theory influence American racism? I’ve read a bit of how his thought was involved in the European colonial justifications for the Scramble for Africa, but not about American.
Hi Dr. Moland! Love your book on Hegel's aesthetics.
Since Child was writing about slavery and abolitionism in the early 19th century, does she engage in or have an intellectual place within debates in Africana/African-American philosophy at the time? I was wondering if she was a part of the kind of philosophical genealogy that David Walker or Maria Stewart were working in. Did she also have views on the early 19th century Black back-to-Africa colonization debates (like the American Colonization Society)? Thank you!
Thank you for this most informative AMA, Dr. Moland. A lot of the questions I wanted to ask have been asked. I don’t think I saw the answers to these questions. Did Lydia face any death threats or other threats of bodily harm because of her views? Also, was there any interaction or communication between Lydia and Harriet Tubman?