THERE IS DEATH IN THE POT - The University of Texas at Arlington

As editor of the “Ladies’ Repository” in the Genius, Chandler introduced American
abolitionists to the work of British women. In his memoir of Chandler, Lundy compared
her to Heyrick, noting in 1836 that the two women were heretofore the leading female
abolitionists. 8 In addition to the Genius, her poems and essays were published in the
Liberator, the Atlantic Souvenir, the Saturday Evening Post, William Lloyd Garrison’s
Juvenile Poems for the Use of Free American Children of Every Complexion, and, in the
1840s, set to music by George W. Clark in his widely published abolitionist songbooks,
The Liberty Minstrel and The Harp of Freedom. Though her works were directed
primarily to women and children, Chandler’s anti-slavery literature had broad appeal
making her the most widely read abolitionist author in the antebellum period. 9
8 Lundy, Poetical Works, 12-13.
9 For a list of publications in which Chandler’s work appeared, see Mary Patricia Jones, “Elizabeth
Margaret Chandler: Poet, Essayist, Abolitionist,” Ph.D. diss., The University of Toledo, 1981, 266-268.
Significantly, in her history of the American free produce movement Nuermberger fails to note the wide
distribution of Chandler’s work. Rather she dismisses Chandler as the movement’s lone poet and as an
author of “highly moralistic” prose. See Nuermberger, The Free Produce Movement, 112. George W.
Clark was a preacher and a teacher as well as a political abolitionist. The Liberty Minstrel was first
published in 1844 and reprinted seven times. Clark also published The Free Soil Minstrel, which was The
Liberty Minstrel adapted for the Free Soil Party. Chandler’s works were included in other anti-slavery
hymnals and songbooks including A Selection of Anti-Slavery Hymns, for the Use of Friends of
Emancipation compiled by William Lloyd Garrison; Songs of the Free and Hymns of Christian Freedom
compiled by Maria Weston Chapman; and Freedom’s Lyre: Or, Psalms, Hymns, and Sacred Songs for the
Slave and His Friends compiled by Edwin F. Hatfield for the American Anti-Slavery Society. For more
information about anti-slavery hymnals and songbooks, see Jon Michael Spencer, Protest and Praise:
Sacred Music of Black Religion (Minneapolis, Mn.: Fortress Press, 1990, 36-46). For more on George W.
Clark, see Geraldine Hopkins, “A Rare Abolitionist Document,” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review
18 (June 1931), 60-64. Hymnals and songbooks kept Chandler’s work before anti-slavery supporters
throughout the antebellum period regardless of their opinions about moral suasion or political abolitionism.
Her works were widely anthologized beyond the field of abolitionist works. See Rufus Wilmot Griswold,
ed., Poets and Poetry of America (Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, 1842); Rufus Wilmot Griswold, ed., Gems
from American Female Poets, with Brief Biographical Notes (Philadelphia: H. Hooker, 1842); Rufus
Wilmot Griswold, ed., The Female Poets of America (Philadelphia: Moss & Co., 1849); Evert A. and
George L. Duyckinck, eds., Cyclopaedia of American Literature Embracing Personal and Critical Notices
of Authors, and Selections from Their Writings, from the Earliest Period to the Present Day, Vol. II (New
York, Charles Scribner, 1855); Sarah Josepha Hale, ed., Woman’s Record (New York: Harper and Bros.,
1842); Caroline May, ed., The American Female Poets: With Biographical and Critical Notices
(Philadelphia: Lindsay and Blakiston, 1853); Thomas Buchanan Read, ed. The Female Poets of America
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