More about Lucretia Mott:
http://www.nps.gov/wori/historyculture/lucretia-mott.htm
Sue Monk Kidd’s historical references are continuous throughout the entire novel. A unique reference is one to another strong female like both Sarah and Handful. When Sarah is brought in front of the Quakers because of whether she should be forced to leave the Morris family only one-person sticks up for her, a female minister named Lucretia Mott. When Mott spoke up Sarah felt like “[she] might cry at the sight of it,” clearly showing her gratitude and also admiration for this total stranger that just took her side when no one else would, not even the man she thought had cared about her (234). I think that Kidd strategically placed this reference to Mott, because historically Lucretia Mott would have been the exact person that Sarah would aspire to be like. Mott, as mentioned was a Quaker minister, but was one that felt a deep passion for anti-slavery and the abolitionist movement, similar to Sarah. Mott also was one of the organizers of the Seneca Falls Convention, one of the first major meetings for the women’s rights movement, in which the women chose the abolitionist movement to be their main goal to fight for. While in the story Mott is only briefly mentioned, I feel like her one action that she did for Sarah opened Sarah’s eyes and showed her that what she had learned in the north was great, but that her home, the south needed her strong abolitionist ideas even more.
More about Lucretia Mott: http://www.nps.gov/wori/historyculture/lucretia-mott.htm
1 Comment
Dr.Moreland
3/17/2014 08:45:00 am
Thank you for the research on Lucretia Mott. Coming across her name gave this work of historical fiction additional verisimilitude because there she was--this important woman in history. Having forgotten what I once knew (or thought I knew!), I researched Mott further to find her obituary in the New York Times of 1880. The article begins, "Lucretia Mott died last evening at her residence, near Philadelphia, in her eighty-eighth year. Mrs. Mott, whose name was probably as widely known as that of any other public woman in this or the preceding generation, was born in the old whaling town of Nantucket on the 3d of January, 1793" (here's the link: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0103.html) Leave a Reply. |