Month: September 2014

Little is known about Ada Howell Hinton. She was born in approximately 1840 to Frederick Augustus Hinton, a very successful barber and perfumer originally from Raleigh, North Carolina. Frederick Hinton was a member of St. Thomas’ African Episcopal Church and

Mary Isabella Forten, the daughter of James Forten and Charlotte Vandine Forten, was born in 1815. An invalid at home suffering from tuberculosis, she did not attend school. Because of her illness and homebound existence there is little information to

Margaretta Forten, the daughter of James Forten and Charlotte Vandine Forten, was a part of her family’s activist tradition and worked as a school teacher and an orator. Margaretta Forten taught at Sarah Mapps Douglass’ school for African American children

James Forten Jr., the son of James Forten, Sr. and Charlotte Vandine Forten, was born in 1816 or 1817 and educated at the Pennsylvania Abolition Society Clarkson School. An artist, he lived in the Forten family home and worked in

James Forten was one of the most central figures of Philadelphia’s black elite in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Born free in 1766, he worked as an apprentice in one of the city’s largest sail lofts. At the

William Douglass was born free in Baltimore, Maryland in 1804 or 1805. He lived and studied in Maryland, becoming proficient in Latin, Greek and Hebrew. In 1834, he was ordained as the first African American Episcopal deacon. Shortly after which,

The owner of one of the Library Company’s friendship albums, Amy Williams was born ain New York City to Peter H Williams Jr., a prominent Episcopalian minister, and his wife Sarah. At the age of 17, she married Joseph Cassey,

Born in 1782 in rural Rhode Island, Arnold Buffum was a Quaker, abolitionist, and temperance advocate. He and his wife Rebecca Gould Buffum had five daughters, including Rebecca Buffum Spring and Elizabeth Buffum Chace, who also became social reformers and