3.01.2017

Abolitionist, Writer Grace Greenwood 1878

[WOMEN-LITERATURE] ALS, Handwritten Letter by 'Grace Greenwood', pseudonym of Sara J. Lippincott, Sara Clarke: writer, activist, abolitionist. Washington DC: 1878. Two sided letter, dated April 9, 1878 on chain lined paper, lightly foxed. She writes from Washington DC to unknown recipient:

Dear Friend, Thanks for your kind good letter of yesterday - I wish I had applied to you in better time. As it is I cannot well wait til June 20th - besides not hearing from you for [..]. I have written to engage passage on our favorite German, the City of Berlin for June 8th [ed. likely referencing SS Berlin, debut 1875, known as fastest liner on Atlantic]. Believe me dear friend of old time, as truly yours now as ever S. J. Lippincott.

Lippincott/Grace Greenwood's earliest writing was poetry and children's stories, publishing locally. In 1844 at the age of 21, she was published in the New York Mirror and she would go on to receive significant critical attention and be published widely, while rising within the NYC literary circles.

Greenwood was the first woman reporter on the New York times. She joined the National Era, a weekly abolitionist newspaper, and copy edited the original, serialized version of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin.

She lectured extensively before and during the Civil War, emphasizing her abolitionist stance and social issues as prison and asylum reform, and a call to end capital punishment. President Abraham Lincoln referred to her as "Grace Greenwood the Patriot". After the war, women's rights became a focus. By the 1870s, the majority of her writing was done for the New York Times, with articles on Fanny Kemble's right to wear trousers, Susan B. Anthony's right to vote and equal pay for equal work. Very good. Letter. $225.00

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