Basic Information
Thomas Wentworth Higginson was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on December 22nd, 1823. Higginson lived to the age of 87 and died on May 9th, 1911. Higginson conducted most of his work near his home in Massachusetts, and was married twice in his life, raising three children in total, including one that was adopted.
Background Information
To start Thomas Wentworth Higginson’s professional career, he graduated from Harvard University in 1841. From there he went to attend ministry school and was called to becoming a pastor. This is where he began his lifelong advocacy against injustice, starting with the treatment of workers and slaves. Higginson invited fugitive slaves to speak at the church, and his conduct as well as positive dispositions to those who were oppressed were seen as too radical for the church. As a result of this, he was forced to resign after not having served over a year as a pastor (Duffy, 2000).
Higginson was clearly a vocal person with a progressive opinion. In his time he advocated for the abolition of slavery, the rights of workers and importantly suffrage and rights for women. Higginson was even a part of the “Secret Six” who supported abolitionist John Brown in his attempted rebellion to slavery. He was also an avid writer and mentored the poet Emily Dickinson.
Contributions to the First Wave
When discussing the first wave of the feminist movement, it is impossible to take away the connection it had to abolitionism. Feminists and suffragists largely agreed with the movement and gave support to abolitionism. Thomas Wentworth Higginson was a devout suffragist and abolitionist. He gave equal dedication to both issues, for feminism he wrote several publications supporting women to have the rights they deserved. For the abolitionist movement, he commanded an all-Black regiment during the Civil War.
Higginson went on to produce major pieces of literature that were very important to the first wave. First, he wrote an address to the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention backing a petition to allow women to vote with the ratification of the constitution titled “Woman and Her Wishes,” (Million, 2004). With the feminist leader Lucy Stone, Higginson’s friend, Higginson compiled The Woman’s Rights Almanac for 1858, which highlighted key issues to the time period of inequalities between men and women. Higginson also performed the marriage ceremony for Stone and her husband Henry Browne Blackwell. With this ceremony he also made famous the “Marriage Protest” Stone and Blackwell made by contributing to the publishing of it. The Woman’s Journal newspaper founded in 1870 featured Higginson as one of its original editors and contributor for 14 years.
“Can your clear moral sense justify our holding our tongues in order to save ourselves from the reprobation of society, even as that nobler man whom we did provoke to enter into danger becomes the scapegoat of that reprobation, going for us even to the gallows?”
– Thomas Wentworth Higginson (Clark, 2015)
Analysis and Conclusion
Higginson was clearly a brilliant thinker guided by his strong grounding in theology. The common theme of Higginson’s life was that he was convicted in his beliefs of equality for women and people of color. Starting out as a pastor wealthy enough to go to Harvard at thirteen years old, it is astonishing that Higginson would eventually risk so much for what he believed in. He wrote controversial articles and books defending the rights of women, fought in the Civil War defending the rights of Black people, and attempted to rebel against his own federal government with the “Secret Six.”
The amount of writing dedicated to the causes Higginson believes in shows he is intelligent enough to attempt to fight the battles women, workers, and minorities faced on paper with his words. His attempt to rebel with John Brown and his military commandment shows he was also willing to risk his life for those causes. In conclusion I believe Thomas Wentworth Higginson is a diamond in one of the roughest and most politically chaotic times in our nation’s history. With wars of feminism and wars of slavery going on at the same time, it is admirable that Higginson contributed so much to both.
References
Clark, T. F. (2015). The Significance of Being Frank: The Life and Times of Franklin Benjamin Sanborn. Xlibris.
Duffy, T. P., Broaddus, D. C., & Williams, G. (2000). Genteel Rhetoric: Writing High Culture in Nineteenth-Century Boston. The Journal of American History, 87(1), 223. https://doi.org/10.2307/2567967
Library of Congress. (1890–1911). Thomas Wentworth Higginson, head and shoulders portrait [Photograph]. https://www.loc.gov/item/2016645011/?loclr=blogpoe
Million, J. (2003). Woman’s Voice, Woman’s Place: Lucy Stone and the Birth of the Woman’s Rights Movement. United Kingdom: Praeger. pp. 136-137
Oberlin’s Women: The Woman’s Rights Almanac for 1858. Containing Facts, Statistics, Arguments Records of Progress, and Proofs of the Need of it. (2019). Oberlin’s Women: A Legacy of Leadership & Activism. https://scalar.oberlincollegelibrary.org/suffrage/media/womens-rights-almanac