ePub America's Revolution by Patrick Griffin in History

Description

In his extensive writings; Frederick Douglass revealed little about his private life. His famous autobiographies present him overcoming unimaginable trials to gain his freedom and establish his identity-all in service to his public role as an abolitionist. But in both the public and domestic spheres; Douglass relied on a complicated array of relationships with women: white and black; slave-mistresses and family; political collaborators and intellectual companions; wives and daughters. And the great man needed them throughout a turbulent life that was never so linear and self-made as he often wished to portray it.In Women in the World of Frederick Douglass; Leigh Fought illuminates the life of the famed abolitionist off the public stage. She begins with the women he knew during his life as a slave: his mother; from whom he was separated; his grandmother; who raised him; his slave mistresses; including the one who taught him how to read; and his first wife; Anna Murray; a free woman who helped him escape to freedom and managed the household that allowed him to build his career. Fought examines Douglass's varied relationships with white women-including Maria Weston Chapman; Julia Griffiths; Elizabeth Cady Stanton; and Ottilie Assing--who were crucial to the success of his newspapers; were active in the antislavery and women's movements; and promoted his work nationally and internationally. She also considers Douglass's relationship with his daughter Rosetta; who symbolized her parents' middle class prominence but was caught navigating between their public and private worlds. Late in life; Douglass remarried to a white woman; Helen Pitts; who preserved his papers; home; and legacy for history. By examining the circle of women around Frederick Douglass; this work brings these figures into sharper focus and reveals a fuller and more complex image of the self-proclaimed "woman's rights man."