Mary
Weston
was
born in Weymouth , Massachusetts on 24th July,
1806. When she was twenty-four she married Henry Grafton Chapman,
a Boston merchant. Both became campaigners against slavery
and in 1832 Maria joined with twelve other women to form the Boston
Anti-Slavery Society.
Chapman worked closely with William Lloyd
Garrison and helped him edit The
Liberator. In 1836 she compiled Songs
of the Free and Hymns of Christian Freedom. Three
year later she published Right
and Wrong in Massachusetts, a pamphlet that discussed
the divisions in the Anti-Slavery
Society that was being created over the issue of woman's
rights.
In 1839 Chapman and two other women, Lucretia
Mott and Lydia Maria
Child were elected to the executive committee of the Anti-Slavery
Society. This upset some members of the society were extremely
upset by this decision. Lewis Tappan, the brother
of Arthur Tappan, the president of the
society, argued that: "To put a woman on the committee with men
is contrary to the usages of civilized society."
Whereas one leaders, such as William Lloyd
Garrison, Theodore Weld, Wendell
Phillips and Frederick Douglass
were as committed to women's rights as they were to the abolition
of slavery. Others disagreed with this view and in 1840 a group including
Arthur Tappan, James
Birney and Gerrit Smith left the Anti-Slavery
Society and formed a rival organization, the American and Foreign
Anti-Slavery Society.
Chapman was editor of the anti-slavery journal, Non-Resistant
(1839-1842). Other books written by Chapman included Memorials
of Harriet Martineau (1877). Her grandson, John
Jay Chapman, was also a campaigner for social reform and an outstanding
literary critic. Maria Weston
Chapman died on 12th July, 1885.
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