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

Repository” to promote women’s organizational activity in the United States and Britain,
encouraging women to organize and participate in anti-slavery societies.
Many abolitionist women questioned the value of a separate rhetorical space for
women. Lydia Maria Child, for example, questioned the limitations of female anti-
slavery societies and conventions. In a letter to Lucretia Mott, Child compared gender-
specific associations to “half a pair of scissors.” 49 Lucretia Mott, speaking in 1848 at a
meeting of the Woman’s Rights Convention, noted approvingly that the “sickly
sentimentality of the ‘Ladies’ Department, is fast disappearing, it being perceived her
mind requires more substantial food.” 50 Lundy stopped publishing the “Ladies’
Repository” after Chandler’s death in 1834. Garrison ended the “Ladies’ Department” in
1837. As more and more items that would have appeared in the women’s column were
incorporated into the body of the Liberator, the column became irrelevant. 51 This shift
away from gendered space reflected the increased activism and radicalism of many
female abolitionists, an intellectual development made possible by Chandler’s use of
feminine literary space to educate and encourage women in support of the cause of
emancipation.
49 Lydia Maria Child to Lucretia Mott, March 5, 1839, Lucretia Mott Manuscripts, FHL.
50 Liberator, September 5, 1848.
51 Bacon, “The Liberator’s ‘Ladies Department,’” 16.
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