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 in the 1840s. In 1850 she opened her own school, which included boarding facilities. A founder of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, she was one of fourteen women who drafted its constitution in 1833. She remained active in the group until it disbanded in 1870 following the ratification of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. She lived her whole life at 92 Lombard Street, remaining unmarried. After her father died, she took charge of the home where she lived with her mother and two younger brothers. She died in 1875 at the age of 68.
Margaretta Forten (1807?-1875)