Monster
Topic: Poetry

Sometimes,
though less often now that I'm older,
I feel like a monster--as sure as Frankenstein
of my complete alienation from humanity.
It is probably a lie--I am as ordinary
as any Scotch-Irish-Dutch-German-Cherokee mutt
`round here, the same gray skin and crooked teeth
as the rest of my herd, the same weak movement.

I could make it so--become a monster,
build myself piece by piece into the stuff of old fiction,
the cauldron of story, rake the pit of my brain for ideas;
a scaly tail, like a favored feather boa, feels familiar.
Yes, I want wings too! Not the feathered froth of angels,
but real, human wings, naked with skin, alive--a maze of veins
apparent through the milky stretch, dry patches like ash-piles.

And I could move them--that's how far we've come.
I could roil my tail along the floor or aloft,
shaking it with fury and passion, an imposing figure
to be sure, behinded by such a monolith,
though nothing compared to the unfurling
of my massive wings, misplaced rib bones
and sculpted artificial kelson,
pressed with ass flesh, no doubt, it's always ass flesh,
some malleable magic in those fatty mounds.

I couldn't fly, of course, that's just going too far.
No science to support it--too much weight for wingspan,
marrowed bone-veins, a defiance of natural law.
Limbs can be mapped; attach a tail and a tiny tail-shaped
portion of the brain lights up, permanently decorated for Halloween,
tiny neural connections stitching out the path to adaptation.
Shelley's mistake was patching cadavers.

To live my alienation, instead of the cheap imitation
we call feeling--that is behind the desire for wings,
my want of a tail and coral horns, grown ever larger
as my magnificently ordinary brain connects with primordial
substance, something ancient in me recognizing
and integrating, creating, propelling my own evolution,
playing my own god; illuminating my own dark cowardice,
frail human form etched in relief on the floor of my brain.

The Thing Itself: Part One
Topic: Stories
This is the hour when worry butts up against the day. The teeth ache, the skull feels strapped tightly, as if by a belt, the stomach is filled with spongy stones, like lava rocks, abrasive and shifting. It hardly seems worth the effort of continuing, Sallie thinks, and wouldn't it be nice if one could just switch off, like any ordinary appliance, like a television, or the clock radio, flashing its digital time at her menacingly. 10:00 in the morning, the hour Lorca's jovencilla kills himself on the white divan. She feels out of proportion--without geometry, circular, pierced. She can hear Hugh tiptoeing about the bedroom, now in the bathroom, the scrubbing sound of his toothbrush meshing with the soft dribble of water, just barely on, so as not to be so loud as to wake her. She shifts and a lock of hair, half gray, half fading blond, comes to rest perfectly between her eyes. She looks at the closed blinds; clean, mechanical silver (Hugh's choice) back-dropped brilliantly by morning sun. He is such a man, that Hugh, she thinks. So straight, so defined, so damned rigid and angular. Even his features are hard and sharp, coming to him by way of his British ancestry, traced back through this Lord or that. How he was proud of his pedigree! Sallie had no such pedigree. She was common as a daisy (though she had once been a great beauty, and her mind was still one of the sharpest in the field of psychology). No, her parents had only made their way to America during WWII, and what history they may have had had been left in the battle fields of Europe, to be burned, or bombed, or shat upon by vultures. Hugh's family had been here since before America was America, which made him feel connected, grounded, confident in ways she could only imagine, and long for. She felt as if she hovered above life, un-tethered, subject to being sucked off into space without notice.

As the slug starts, so must Sallie begin her day. Slimy, without even the protection of a snail's house, must she start to inch her away across the dark room, to the now vacant bathroom, the light glaring at her from behind the half-closed door. Closing the door with a sigh, she flips off the strong light over the sink at the same moment she flips on the softer lights over the shower. These are not so bright and thus do not hurt her eyes. She prefers this half-darkness, this life of shadow, for it makes the unintentional glances into the mirror less startling. She loathes the mirror, is afraid of it. Mirrors aren't like people; they won't lie, just to be nice. They don't care about kindness or niceties, or the frail feelings of feeble women. They don't care about anything at all, for they are of the same, metallic substance as Hugh's blinds, which is why Hugh loves the blinds and loves mirrors. Hugh loves Truth; Sallie loves Compassion. The metallic substance of which Truth is made has no use for Compassion, thinks it weak, which it is.

Reluctantly Sallie turns the knob on the faucet, sits on the edge of the tub, waits for the water to warm. She is thinking back to Princeton, back to Warren Smitty, her first love, as she jerks the shower knob up, releasing the valve that holds the water from bursting through the showerhead. The water falls softly, like new rain. Hugh must be watering his hostas, she thinks, plunging into the stream. Warren Smitty, now there was a no-man, she thought, lathering her sponge. He was opposite Hugh in every way; dark where Hugh was light, quiet, thoughtful, full of feeling. Hugh was boisterous, arrogant, emotionally dull to the point of being cold. Tracing the sponge down the length of her arm, she thinks how deliciously they had made love in a shower once, in Warren's dorm, at 4:30 in the morning. The sponge slowly edges her left nipple, recalling the sensation of his mouth on her, and stands neatly at attention, willing to go along with this memory as far as Sallie wants. She wants to go all the way, if the sponge that caresses the skin above her right ovary is any indication. Slowly she slips the soapy sponge between her legs, to nudge gently her already hard clitoris. She smiles, thinking perhaps this June day will not be lost after all.

The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
Topic: Creative Non Fiction
I was supposed to read half of this book this weekend, in preparation for the presentation we have to give shortly. Well, I couldn't put it down! I read through the weekend, finishing up at 2 A.M. this morning. I was so moved I wrote up sort of half-review, half blog-style piece of prose this morning, which I'm posting here. I can't wait to see the movie now! Copied verbatim:

Geez, I have soooo much to say about this book!

First, I've read a lot by Alice Walker, but not TCP until now. In my early twenties I became enamored with several female African American writers and tore through the works of Zora Neale Hurston, Maya Angelou, & Alice Walker. The world opened up to me reading these works, a world I was marginally familiar with, being both female and poor for my entire life up to that point. Angelou's work affected me particularly with regard to my views on raising children, for she is the one that taught me that one can have a life and children too.

Of Alice Walker's works, I have read Meridian, The Temple of My Familiar and Possessing the Secret of Joy. An interesting point for those familiar with TCP, the characters of Adam, Tashi, Samuel and (I think) Nettie turn up again in The Temple of My Familiar, and Tashi's story is told in its entirety in Possessing the Secret of Joy. Of all her books, Possessing the Secret of Joy touched me the most, perhaps because I was newly feminist and politically interested in the lives in women when I read it, or perhaps because I identified in some small way with Tashi, who had her sexual being shattered at a young age, and spent a good deal of her life dealing with the consequences. Imagine my surprise to see the genesis of these characters! I had no idea and it will certainly become of focal point of the presentation I will eventually give the class I'm reading TCP for.

As for TCP itself, WOW! How skillfully this tale is told through a simple scheme of diary entries and letters. How tragic a story and yet how redemptive, how transformative it was. I really came to care about these people and of course was outraged when they were treated badly, which they often were. How I adored Shug Avery!! How I deplored and hated Pa.

I thought Celie's transformation was most remarkable. Damn, can you imagine her life? Not to spoil too much, but her story grabbed me by the teeth from the get-go, what with the opening scene of incest, and would not let me go.

This story is fiction, and yet, it is not. This is a tale, told with brutal honesty (my favorite kind), of what it was really like at a certain point of time for poor black women in the rural south, and to a lesser extent, poor white women as well, at least with regard to sexual abuse and exploitation. I've lived in the south or on its border for most of my life, and I know the brutality and openness of racism here. Yes, it has changed significantly in the last half-century, but some southern white men have had the legacy of slavery to overcome as much as blacks: whereas blacks have had to work their way through the generational victim aspect of it, white men have had to recondition themselves with regard to generational and violent oppression. This psychological aspect is rarely explored--the psychological effects of slavery on the population from generation to generation. It's as if it didn't even occur to us that this might be propelling some cycles of racism and poverty.

Oh my, I've digressed, haven't I?

Back to Celie, Nettie, Sofia (!) & Mr. _______. Well, just some damn fine nuanced characters. I really appreciate how Walker even gave Mr. _______ a redemptive touch as well. There comes a time for most of us when we must look back with the pain of regret in our hearts. As I imagine Shug Avery might say, "Ain't none of us perfect."

God. This aspect has stirred all sorts of contemplation within me. Shug Avery's god, the one Celie eventually comes to adopt, is positively the most freeing spiritual experience I've ever witnessed. If there is a god, this is what I want it to be like. This is the god of love, of freedom, a god I could love if I were so inclined. FTR--I'm not. But I love the decidedly Buddhist feel of it. God, I don't believe in; connection is something else, though. I know there is a plug-in to the spirit of the world because I have felt it, and I have recognized it in others--Walt Whitman to name one. It's a wonderful feeling of wild abandon to love--but not denying the pain, rather loving it too, for its value as an agent of growth and change. In short, something to be celebrated, along with all the goodness.

This is getting quite wordy, so I better stop. If you've read this far, you're a peach!

Songchild
Topic: Poetry

You sang that song.
You know the one,
the silly American one that
made my voice quiver
and made you ask,
"what's wrong mommy?"

You've been my siren
as long as you've been alive child.
Your very first wail
was a song, child.

I knew who I was then
and where I lived and
what my purpose was
and all the while I was losing
confidence, never knowing,
like so much water down the drain.

These times are bad child,
and I don't feel so equipped
to protect you anymore.
As you slip away and become
sure in your song
I long for those days myself.

Take care, little one,
with your dedicated heart,
and your confident song,
and never mind my silly tears.
I lost the illusion long ago.

Now I must watch as you build yours.
And I know...oh God how I know
that it's not an impenetrable tower,
and how useless flags and songs are
to protect you.

Written 11/12/2001

A little background on this piece. This poem was born in an experience I had with my daughter shortly after the September 11th attacks.

I was driving my daughter across the 2nd Street Bridge to her fathers' house, where I would leave her for the weekend. I was already feeling a vague sense of loss for whatever reason, perhaps the separation anxiety I feel with every goodbye. Anyway, she had a program at school, in which the second grade class had practiced a number of patriotic songs to sing in response to the US situation. You know these songs...America The Beautiful, When the Flag Goes By, etc. She'd been practicing these songs for weeks and she decided to practice again on the drive. We got through America the Beautiful with me barely holding back the tears, but when she sang God Bless The USA, I just lost it. For those who don't know, the chorus is:

And I'm proud to be an American,
where at least I know I'm free
And I won't forget the ones who died
and gave that right to me.
And I gladly stand up next to you
and defend her still today
'cause there ain't no doubt
I love this land
God Bless the USA

Silly, stupid little propagandist type song, see? And I don't even believe in god!! So, why was I so moved? I'm not your typical American; I question my government constantly and often disagree with its policies and politics. I think this "war" as they call it is utter nonsense that effects far more innocent civilians than it does its real targets.

But when I was a child, I bought it, hook, line and sinker. I recall weeping at the National Anthem in the third grade. I loved my country, I loved my flag. I still love my country, but not in the nationalistic sense that songs like these would have us, and not with the sincere, earnest reverence I did back then. Now I simply feel grateful that I live where I do, and no matter how unfair it is (and it is really unfair) I'm relieved I live here and not under Taliban control or in Serbia or Somalia or Jakarta or any place that experiences these conflicts.

And then I know that it's because of where I live and all that I enjoy that many of these conflicts take place. War is, after all, the result of lack of resources. They can say it's God, or Allah, or the Wizard of Oz--in the end the world suffers while we live in relative comfort.

So maybe that was it, maybe, as a friend said, it's dichotomistic. Maybe I feel grateful and hateful at the same time. Maybe I feel like a glutton by virtue of birth and maybe I feel helpless. What I know is that I have struggled with the idea of how to keep this child alive and protect her from harm since day one, when I regretted giving birth because she was out there, unfettered and so easily lost.

WHM: Dorothea Lynde Dix, Advocate (1802-1887)
Topic: Women's History Month
Fiercely independent, Dorothea Dix left her dysfunctional home in then upper Massachusetts (later to become Maine) at the age of twelve. Arriving in Boston and the security of her wealthy grandparents, Dix took advantage of the greater educational opportunity. While only fourteen years old, she started a successful school for young children in Worchester, which she ran for three years. Dolly, as she was known, started a dame school in 1821, when she was only 19 years old. She a strong disciplinarian, but was also known as a great beauty. The dame school placed a special emphasis on botany, an uncommon curriculum for girls at that time.

Struggling with life-long lung problems and intermittent exhaustion, Dix was forced to take time off occasionally to recuperate. During her lulls, Dix kept busy by writing books about everything from science to church hymns.

Quite unexpectedly, Dix found her calling in 1841 at age 39. Already a "spinster", Dix taught Sunday school at various places around Cambridge. On one such visit to the women in jail, she found a site that horrified and haunted her the rest of her days. Many of the women in the jails had only been guilty of "mental illness", and they were a group that was kept in filthy cages, those cages in cells without any heat. The jailer explained that the women could not feel anything due to their condition, but Dix begged to differ. She begged all the way to the local authorities and the newspaper, and did so loud and often. This effort led to public indignation, and efforts were made to accommodate the women in a more comfortable manner.

After two years of studying the phenomenon of mental illness, Dix again defied the conventions of the day by traveling alone throughout the northeast to research and draw attention to the treatment of mentally ill people. The memorial she wrote as a result of this experience, which she presented to the Massachusetts State legislature in 1843, is called the "first piece of social research conducted in America". In it, she gave a detailed account of the conditions of 958 "insane paupers" in the hands of the penal system. The state responded within weeks with hospital beds, and Dix took her cause on the road. Traveling through New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, Dix was able to get her writing published in newspapers because of her easy-to-read form and the obvious attention scandals brought even then.

In 1844, she was instrumental in helping found the Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane, a landmark in the unnamed field of psychiatry at the time. She eventually traveled through fifteen states and Canada, providing impetus for thirty-two new institutions. She also worked as nurse during the Civil War and was appointed as Superintendent of United States Army Nurses, a first in formal command for that area.

Dorothea Dix died at age 85 in the Trenton, NJ hospital she helped build, just as words like sociologist and psychologist were coming into use. She had been both, without benefit of title for over half her life. Her political activism laid the groundwork for the likes of Nelly Bly and others who worked to reform the American Justice system.

Victoria Claflin Woodhull (1838-1927)
Topic: Women's History Month

Victoria Woodhull was one of those wild and feisty women who defied all the conventions of her time, and did so publicly and audaciously. She is the stuff of legend, the sort of person whose life reads like a novel.

Woodhull grew up in her father's (Buck Claflin) traveling medicine show. In these early years, she learned how to hold s?ances, read palms, practice psychic medicine, and she held a supernatural belief in the occult for the rest of her life. In this traveling medicine show, Woodhull cultivated the charisma that would help her get around breaking just about every taboo known to humanity regarding women.

She married Dr. Canning Woodhull ay the tender age of fifteen and they had two children, a daughter, Zulu Maud and a retarded son, whom she ultimately abandoned to her family. She and her sister, Tennessee, took Zulu Maud and blazed a trail of criminal notoriety across the Midwest. In the process they were charged with such crimes as prostitution and blackmail, but rather than serve jail time, law enforcement officials just ordered them to leave town.

After divorcing Dr. Woodhull, she married Colonel James Blood, but kept her previously married name. Both believed in the concept of "free love" and the marriage was an open one.

Woodhull and her sister might not even be footnotes in history were it not for Cornelius Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt had an interest in the occult and a sizable fortune to blow exploring it. As Vanderbilt's relationship with the sisters developed, he began to finance some investments for them in real estate then the stock market. In 1870 they opened their own brokerage firm (Woodhull, Claflin & Co.) with the wealth they'd accumulated, and the firm did very well financially. Living with her odd extended family with an open marriage and a successful brokerage firm, Victoria Woodhull was a hot topic for discussion in NYC.

She decided to capitalize on her notoriety and declared herself a candidate for President of the United States that same year. This news hit the nation and, in particular, the suffragist movement, like a bullet, violently splitting opinion both within and outside the movement. For two years she campaigned on a platform that included dress reform and suffrage. She advertised this campaign through her newspaper, Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly, which, incidentally, was the first newspaper to offer an English translation of Marx' Communist Manifesto. Woodhull ran under the party she created, the Equal Rights Party.

Woodhull was able to use her charisma to overcome much of the initial rejection of the suffragist movement, but made a fatal mistake of declaring Frederick Douglass her running mate despite his protests. That, coupled with her publication of an affair between Henry Beecher--a Boston reverend who had publicly rebuked her for allowing her ex-husband, Dr. Woodhull to reside with her and her then-husband Colonel Blood--and Elizabeth Tilton. Both Beecher and Tilton were married and Woodhull claimed she was just revealing Beecher for the hypocrite he was. It effectively ended her campaign, however, as a young Anthony Comstock began his lengthy censorship career by arresting the sister within hours of publication of the article. They spent the next seven months in jail. Shortly after their release, they sailed for England, where the sisters married wealthy Englishmen and lived until their deaths, visiting America occasionally. The continued their political radicalism in London, and continued to successfully publish their unusual ideas.

Ladies Firsts
Topic: Women's History Month
1916
Jeanette Pickering Rankin (1880-1973)- The first woman elected to congress, she was elected before women had the right to vote in federal elections- Montana.

1924
Mary Teresa Hopkins Norton (1875-1951)- One of the first women elected to the House after passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. She was the first to be elected from an eastern state (NJ) and the first female democrat who was not preceded by her husband.

1924
Nellie Taylo Ross (1876?-1977)- The nations first female governor- Wyoming. She was elected the same day as Miriam Ferguson of Texas, but she was inaugurated first and thus claims her place in history.

1926
Bertha Ethel Knight Landes (1868-1949)- First woman elected as mayor of a major city- Seattle.

1928
Ruth Bryan Owen (1885-1954)- The first woman elected to the House from south-Florida.

1942 & 1948
Margaret Madeline Chase Smith (1897-) -The first woman elected to both the House and Senate-Maine.

1972
Barbara Jordan (1936-1996)- The first black woman elected, and re-elected, to the House of representatives- Texas.

1978
Nancy Landon Kassebaum (1932-)- The first woman elected to the US Senate who was not preceded by her husband-Kansas.

Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge (1866-1948)
Topic: Women's History Month
Kentucky Daughter

Born just after the Civil War to a distinguished Kentucky family that included a number of elected officials, "Nisba" Breckinridge is one of many successful women who were clearly influenced by their fathers. A liberal lawyer, William Campbell Preston Breckinridge supported both abolition and women's suffrage, and paid his daughter's tuition at Wellesley College.

After graduating in 1866, Breckinridge taught high school mathematics in Washington D.C. while her father was a congressman, and then read law upon their return. In 1895 she became the first woman to pass the Kentucky bar exam, but was not really interested in practicing law. At the invitation of a friend, she attended the University of Chicago and became the first woman in the world to earn a Ph. D. in political science.

In 1907, Breckinridge moved into Jane Addams' Hull House (the first Settlement House, birthplace of modern Social Work) and befriended Grace and Edith Abbott. There she found her life's work and, with Edith Abbott, began to write and publish several books on various aspects of social study. The Delinquent Child and the Home came first (1912), and she published an average of one book every other year in an age when that was the average of births for many other women. Two books, Women and the Twentieth Century, and Marriage and the Civil Rights of Women were written specifically on women's issues.

Dr. Breckinridge focused mainly on her academic career at the University of Chicago, however, and was awarded with a full professorship in 1925. Many of her students were the innovators behind Roosevelt's New Deal policies, but she remained in Chicago to teach, despite being appointed by Roosevelt to the 1933 Pan-American Congress in Uruguay. She taught a full course load until her retirement in 1942 at the age of seventy-six. Professor Breckinridge died on April 30, 1948.

Carry Amelia Moore Gloyd Nation (1846-1911)
Topic: Women's History Month

Ax-wielding Temperance Leader
It is important to remember several factors in any discussion involving the temperance movement and the Eighteenth Amendment (aka Prohibition). The temperance movement was motivated by the lack of married women's property rights, the lack of accountability in the emerging west, and the abandonment and violence against many frontier wives as a result of alcoholism. Also important to remember is that, while women are often blamed for the 18th Amendment, it was passed and ratified a full year before women got the right to vote with the 19th Amendment. Therefore, women cannot be held accountable for the votes that resulted in the "Great Experiment," though they were the driving force behind the movement. That said, THE most fascinating participant in the temperance movement would have to be Carry Nation.

Nation was profoundly effected by her unstable early life with an alcoholic father and an insane mother. Her first husband, Dr. Charles Gloyd was also an alcoholic, though Nation was unaware of Gloyd's condition prior to their marriage. Little more than a year after the marriage, with a new baby to care for, Nation was widowed at twenty-one. After a four-year stint as a teacher, Nation was left without employment and felt obliged to marry David Nation. Very much like her father, Nation moved his family continually to avoid political feuds he had a hand in creating. David Nation eventually divorced Carrie Nation years after she left him for temperance crusading.

Exasperated by the instability that characterized her previously dependant life, Nation turned to the temperance movement and founded her first chapter of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in 1892 at the age of 46. In May of 1900 she began the crusade that would give her national notoriety. At a saloon in Kiowa, KS, Nation, who had armed herself with rocks she'd hidden in secret pockets sewn into her dress, and bricks and proceeded to destroy the illegal establishment (Kansas was ostensibly a "dry" state). When she ran out of ammunition, she grabbed a hatchet, and her reputation was thus secured.

A six-feet tall, 175 lb woman engaged in the willful destruction of property was such a spectacle that witnesses were paralyzed. In disbelief, patrons and employees stood by as Nation wrecked taverns and saloons. Bolstered by her success in Kiowa, Nation soon moved to Wichita where she expected to find much greater resistance in a town with a reputation for fast and accurate gunmen. She chose the Hotel Carey because if its national fame, arriving at 9:30 in the morning, and proceeded to destroy the fifty-foot cherry bar, antique mirrors and what she considered an offensive nude that hung above the bar. Finally, Nation was arrested and jailed, but nothing could persuade her from her mission and the disarming method she had stumbled upon. During that two week stint in jail, large groups of women sang and prayed outside her cell while word spread quickly about Nation and her deeds.

Jailed time and again, Nation continued her crusade for the next ten years. Not known for her politeness, Nation often referred to judges as "Your Dishonor" and appealed to the governor of Kansas to enforce its laws, which prohibited the sale of alcohol, so the women would not have to. Ironically, her temperance career came to an end when a female "joint" owner in Montana beat her so severely that she never recovered fully. She died a year and a half later. Eminent psychiatrist Karl Menninger commented, "What I have always admired about Carry Nation was the fact that she could not stomach hypocrisy... .I wish there were more people today who felt the same way."

WHM: Sarah Moore Grimke (1792-1873) & Angelina Emily Grimke Weld (1805 - 1879)
Topic: Women's History Month

Like much of the history that lead up to and directly influenced the Civil War era, Sarah and Angelina Grimke have received little attention despite their enormous contribution and sacrifice.

Born into a slave-owning family in Charleston, South Carolina, the sisters saw first-hand the treatment of slaves and the brutality the institution of slavery wrought on the entire community. The sisters were well educated by private tutors, but Sarah protested early when she was not allowed to learn Greek, Latin, philosophy and law like her brothers.

At age twenty-six, Sarah Grimke could no longer tolerate the politics of the south, and she moved from Charleston to Philadelphia in order to join the predominately abolitionist Quakers. Eight years later Angelina Grimke joined her and the two were never to return to the south. Their names would be anathema in their homeland soon thereafter and they were warned never to return, under threat of arrest.

In 1829, William Lloyd Garrison, a leading abolitionist and publisher of The Liberator, published a letter Angelina Grimke had sent him, which gave powerful testimony to the reality of life under slavery. Publication of the letter changed their lives forever, and made them heroines in the north and treasonous villains in the south. So began two lifetimes worth of tireless work and sacrifice for the causes of abolition and women's equality.

The sisters faced opposition even from within Quaker circles and they were publicly rebuked numerously, especially Sarah Grimke, for speaking out on the politically charged topic of abolition. They would not be silence, however, and they became the first women in America to give public lectures on the abolition of slavery. In 1838 Angelina Grimke became the first woman in America to publicly address a legislative body in Massachusetts.

Shortly after this address, Angelina Grimke married abolitionist Theodore Weld in Philadelphia, in a ceremony unusual for its time--the guest list included black friends. This incited a riot in Philadelphia two days later and considerable damage was suffered by abolitionists and their property. Appalled, frightened and discouraged, the Welds moved, with Sarah Grimke, to a farm and effectively retired from public life after this incident.

Later in life, the two women discovered two young mulatto boys who turned out to be their nephews, born of a slave raped by their brother on the family's old plantation. They took these two children in and educated them along with the several children of abolitionists and feminists.


Among the Grimke's literary contributions are Angelina's Appeal to the Christian Women of the South and Appeal to the Women of the Nominally Free States. Sarah Grimke published, along with Theodore Weld, Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses. All three continued to write and publish on political issues until their deaths. The sisters carried on a correspondence with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, as well as several other important feminist leaders at the time. In 1872, the frail older sisters went with Susan B. Anthony and 42 other women to cast their vote--a challenge to the 15th amendment and an effort to get the vote for women.