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

major cities. 45 James Mott was a founding member of the Free Produce Society of
Pennsylvania, thus it seems likely that Lucretia Mott was among the women who
organized the Female Association. As a supporter of free produce and as a Philadelphia
Quaker, Chandler was also most likely at the meeting. 46 Her probable involvement in the
Female Association is supported by a poem written by Chandler after her move to
Michigan in 1830. In the opening stanza of “To the Ladies Free Produce Society,”
Chandler laments that it is the association’s meeting day and “I am not, as erst, amid you
set.” 47
After her move to Michigan, Chandler worked with fellow-abolitionist Laura
Smith Haviland to establish the first female anti-slavery society in Michigan. Chandler
had encouraged Haviland to study the works of well-known abolitionists. In the fall of
1832, Chandler and Haviland organized the Logan County Anti-Slavery Society, the first
anti-slavery society in Michigan. The group pledged to hold monthly meetings and add
twelve new members each month. The group also pledged to abstain from the products
of slave labor to the extent practical. 48 Chandler used the space of the “Ladies’
45 American Convention for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and Improving the Condition of
the African Race, Minutes of the Proceedings of the Twenty-First Biennial American Convention for
Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, and Improving the Condition of the African Race. Convened at the
City of Washington, December 8, A.D. 1829. And an Appendix Containing the Addressed from Various
Societies Together with the Constitution and By-Laws of the Convention (Philadelphia, 1829), 57-60.
46
Unfortunately, the men’s report and the few reports of the association that appeared in the
Genius do not include a membership list.
47 Elizabeth Margaret Chandler, “To the Ladies Free Produce Society,” in Poetical Works, ed.
Lundy, 175. The poem was not published in the Genius. Most likely the poem was composed between
1830 and 1833. Chandler moved to Michigan in 1830, and the women’s free produce group dissolved in
1833. For more about the Female Association, see Nuermberger, The Free Produce Movement, 16-18.
48 Ruth Evans to Jane Howell, October 22, 1832, RTD, 147; Laura S. Haviland, A Woman’s Life
Work: Labors and Experiences of Laura S. Haviland (Chicago: C.V. Waite & Company, 1887), 32.
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