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

to radical racial identification, suggesting that objectors to free produce might see the
issue differently if those “dear to them, were writhing beneath the gory lash of a cruel
task-master or loaded and bowed down with the galling chains of slavery.” While
principles of abstention and abolition must “have a moral bearing on political action,”
women should “take them also to the grocers, and dry-goods store, to the tables of our
friends, and into every social circle and thus make them have a moral bearing on the
social and commercial interests of the whole community.” Abstention, she suggested,
“should not breathe . . . forth in words only, but interweave [in] every action of our
lives.” 64
Radical Hicksite women embraced the opportunities afforded by the separation
among American Friends to actively pursue the demands of their conscience. In the early
nineteenth century, religious questioning nurtured women’s critical skills, leading them to
critique more than the issues that had initiated their search. Thus, religion served as a
important element in women’s self-definition. From Hannah Barnard to Elizabeth
Heyrick to Elizabeth Margaret Chandler and Lucretia Mott, women who engaged with
religious thought had little patience for social, religious, or political norms. 65 The women
who organized and participated in free-produce and anti-slavery societies — regardless of
sectarian or racial boundaries — challenged the basis of American political, economic,
social, and religious culture. The women of the PFASS, in particular, rejected traditional
64 Pennsylvania Freeman, August 30, 1838.
65 Rycenga, “A Greater Awakening.” [[page numbers]]
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