In 1837, Concord, Massachusetts was not a town recognized for its great abolitionist stance against slavery. During the 1830s and the 1840s, Concord was a town of nearly 2,000 residents with only a few dozen giving abolitionism much thought — let alone taking any action against slavery.

Concord’s transformation from a town that considered abolitionism as something of little concern to a town internationally recognized as a strong hub in the abolitionist movement began in the home of Mrs. Samuel Barrett. For years, prominent Concord women would rotate meeting in each other’s homes and talk of whom and how to help Concord’s neediest residents. They called themselves the Concord Female Charitable Society  and the charitable work they accomplished was admirable. The Charitable Society also served as a political voice for these Concord women — a welcome outlet given the prescribed and narrow roles for women at that time. 

In 1837, during a meeting at Mrs. Samuel Barrett’s home, the Concord Female Charitable Society became the Concord Female Anti-Slavery Society. At that historic meeting were Mrs. Lidian Emerson (wife to Ralph Waldo Emerson) and her daughter Ellen; the indomitable Mrs. Mary Merrick Brooks, the Society’s primary organizer who would become a legendary figure in Concord history; Mrs. Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau (mother of Henry David Thoreau) and her two daughters Helen and Sophia (sisters to Henry David); Mrs. Abigail Alcott (mother of Louisa May); Susan Garrison, resident of Concord’s Robbins House and the sole woman of color, and Mrs. Lucy Brown.  

Concord Anti-Slavery Ball

| Courtesy of Concord Free Public Library

Female anti-slavery societies were gaining footholds in much of the Northeast, with strong societies in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Vermont. The Societies held the common conviction “that slavery was a sin that, as women, they had a religious duty to eradicate.”¹ 

The Concord Female Anti-Slavery Society would evolve into one of the most active and influential of all the female antislavery societies throughout the country. 

What distinguished the Concord Female Anti-Slavery Society was the women that founded and supported the organization. These were the wives, mothers, aunts, sisters, and neighbors of some of the most revered and prominent Transcendental writers. The women of the Concord Female Anti-Slavery Society used their close relationships to influence the thinking of these writers. Although Emerson had reached international recognition for his remarkable essays and public thought, at the time the Society was founded, Emerson had never spoken nor written about slavery. Given the tenor of the times, not discussing slavery was a noticeable absence in Emerson’s work. It was not until 1844, after the relentless lobbying of his neighbor, Mrs. Mary Merrick Brooks, and of the innumerable abolitionist meetings organized by his wife Lidian that dominated their home, that Emerson spoke out against slavery at one of the annual fairs the Society would hold for fundraising. From that moment on, Emerson became one of the country’s leading abolitionists.

When Henry David Thoreau arrived home to Concord after his years as a Harvard student, he would find some of the town’s most radical abolitionists in his own family homestead, including his mother Cynthia and his sisters Helen and Sophia, his aunts Maria and Jane Thoreau, and the family’s great friends, Mrs. Prudence Bird Ward and her daughter, Prudence Ward. Little wonder then, where Henry David Thoreau received his influence and fortitude during the years before the Civil War. Although Thoreau soon found himself craving solitude in this busy household of radical women and embarked for Walden Pond,  without them would he have written Civil Disobedience and spent his historic night in jail?

Concord Anti-Slavery Invitation

| Courtesy of Concord Free Public Library

Mrs. Abigail Alcott and her husband Bronson, parents to Louisa May Alcott, were known as  stalwarts of anti-slavery thought and action throughout Concord and New England. Abigail and Bronson Alcott undertook some very risky actions, including visiting the historic abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison in a Boston jail after he was almost lynched and welcoming the famous abolitionist John Brown to their dinner table. Abigail hosted many meetings of the Concord Female Anti-Slavery Society and, like the Thoreaus, the Emersons, and Mrs. Mary Merrick Brooks, was personally distraught when John Brown was executed for his actions at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. Abigail Alcott wrote in her diary, “John Brown’s martyrdom has perhaps been the event of 1859…The hour and the man both came at last to reveal to the south their sins - and to the slaves their Savior, He came to them with a Sword, but he has slain thousands by his Word.”²

Mrs. Mary Merrick Brooks, wife of the Concord lawyer Nathan, earned a reputation as an effective organizer and leader, but also something of a pest. Mrs. Brooks envisioned her abolitionist work as a great Christian endeavor, as a moral imperative, and thus would not consider “no” whenever she asked someone to give their time and money to the abolitionist cause. Mrs. Brooks would then offer suggestions - but never relented with her request - to arrive at a favorable resolution. For example, Mrs. Brooks knew that gaining Emerson’s support would be critical to the success of the Society, and although it took seven years she did not relent in her friendly harassment of Emerson. 

The charitable and political work of the Concord Female Anti-Slavery Society continued during and after the Civil War. Abigail Alcott worked with Harriet Tubman collecting essentials for the impoverished African American citizens of Concord. Lidian Emerson brought attention to the Concord townspeople regarding the brutal treatment of Native Americans and Concord’s responsibility to change its stance on Native Americans.

A few years after the Society was formed, one of its members wrote about its founding, “an event noticed but little by the inhabitants of the town, or noticed but to be ridiculed; nevertheless, an event which is destined to have an immense bearing on the temporal and eternal interests of its founders, and to do not a little towards swelling that great tide of humanity, which is finally to turn our world of sin and misery into a world of purity, holiness, and happiness.”³  

¹Petrulionis, S. (2001) “Swelling That Great Tide of Humanity”: The Concord, Massachusetts, Female Anti-Slavery Society. The New England Quarterly, 74(3), 385-418. doi:10.2307/3185425 ²Ibid ³Ibid