Lucretia Mott

Lucretia Mott (1793–1880)

In an age when most women were not expected to think about issues of the day, Lucretia Mott not only contemplated them, but also spoke out on them. By the early 1830s, having distinguished herself as a Quaker minister, she was founding Philadelphia’s Female Anti-Slavery Society, and her regally erect figure was becoming a familiar sight on the abolitionist podium. Mott’s commitment to freeing blacks deepened her awareness of the constraints society placed on her own sex. In 1848, though still devoted to the abolitionist cause, she was in Seneca Falls, New York, helping to organize the first American gathering called in the name of female equality. A letter of 1841 suggests that this portrait of Mott was begun in the spring of that year. It had been commissioned by a New York publisher, who intended to make prints from it. But apparently that never happened, and the likeness remained in the subject’s family until it came to the National Portrait Gallery in 1974.

Joseph Kyles (1815–1863) Oil on canvas, 1842 National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution Gift of Mrs. Alan Valentine