The Poem on the Anti-Slavery Cradle Quilt

The cradle quilt attributed to Lydia Maria Child is on the cover of

Mary Babson Fuhrer's recent book A Crisis of Community,

a good image for a study of a New England town.

Read a post about this antislavery quilt from the collection

of Historic New England here:

http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2014/12/cradle-quilt-from-historic-new-england.html

And an article about the quilt by Historic New England's Curator Nancy Carlisle here:

http://digital.turn-page.com/i/63094/4

Lydia Maria Francis Child

1802–1880

Child is remembered as an anti-slavery activist, but she first achieved fame in the 1820s at the age of 22 with a novel Hobomok, A Tale of Early Times, remarkable in being an early historical novel, one written by a woman and one told from a woman's point of view.

Hobomok was published anonymously in 1824,

 "By an American."

She supported herself and her husband author David Lee Child with her literary successes, including childrens' books with moral themes, womens' advice books, political columns for newspapers and editing a childrens' periodical.

The Juvenile Miscellany, 1832, edited

by Mrs. D.L. Child

As antislavery activists in Massachusetts became more radical, Child did too. Her 1833 essay An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans was one of the books that influenced the growing antislavery movement. But it also ruined Child's literary career. Her books were boycotted and she lost her editorial job. She continued to edit radical books, among them the 1834 gift book The Oasis, a miscellany of stories and poems with an antislavery theme.

The Oasis contained a poem called Remember the Slave. It's first two verses are inked onto the cradle quilt made two years later, which is now in the collection of Historic New England.

REMEMBER THE SLAVE.

Mother! when around your child

You clasp your arms in love,
And when with grateful joy you raise

Your eyes to God above, —

Think of the negro mother, when

Her child is torn away,
Sold for a little slave, — oh then

For the poor mother pray!

The table of contents (a portion here from an edition on Google Books) indicates that

Mrs. Follen wrote "Remember the Slave". Lydia Maria Child ("Editor") wrote "Malem-Boo" and the editor's husband David Lee Child wrote "Henry Diaz." 

But over time the poem was reprinted with credit to the editor rather than to Mrs. Follen,

as in this 1837 reprint in Thomas Price's compilation

  Notices of the Present State of Slavery where the poem

is published as "By Mrs. Child."

Who was Mrs. Follen? 

Eliza Lee Cabot Follen

(1787-1860)

She was a good deal like Mrs. Child, a little bit older and much wealthier (one of the Boston Cabots,) She married poet Charles Follen, a German immigrant forced to leave Hesse-Darmstadt for his radical ideas. He continued to act upon them in the United States where he and Eliza were outspoken in their antislavery beliefs.

Like Lydia Child, Eliza Follen published essays, compilations

and books for children...

and anti-slavery poetry.

Twenty years after the 1836 Fair, Charlotte Forten wrote about meeting Mrs. Follen at the annual anti-slavery fair. On Christmas Day, 1856:

"Spent the day very delightfully at the Fair.—Saw many beautiful things and many interesting people. Had the good fortune to be made known to three of the noblest and best of women;--Mesdames Chapman, Follen, and Child; who were very kind and pleasant to me. [Charlotte was a free black so could not count on Bostonians being kind and pleasant to her.]

...Mrs. Follen has a real motherly kindness of manner. She is a lovely looking silver haired old lady."

See the full text of Mrs. Follen's "Remember the Slave," here:

http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/23459/

See The Oasis online at Google Books:

http://books.google.com/books?id=mLl3Yq4xROcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=lydia+maria+child+oasis&hl=en&sa=X&ei=APQqVKOOGJKuggSF1wI&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=lydia%20maria%20child%20oasis&f=false

Read more about Lydia Maria Child here:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/lydia-maria-child

And view Eliza Follen's letters here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/99902797@N03/sets/72157636903883783/

Click on the link to see more about the cradle quilt at Historic New England:

http://www.historicnewengland.org/collections-archives-exhibitions/collections-access/collection-object/capobject?gusn=GUSN-10459&searchterm=quilt