Elizabeth Chandler

Elizabeth Margaret Chandler
Elizabeth Margaret Chandler, The Poetical Works (pub. 1836) - frontispiece
Born	(1807-12-24)December 24, 1807 Centre, Delaware, U.S.
Died	November 2, 1834(1834-11-02) (aged 26) Michigan, U.S.
Occupation	Writer

Elizabeth Margaret Chandler (December 24, 1807 – November 2, 1834) was an American poet and writer from Pennsylvania and Michigan. She became the first female writer in the United States to make the abolition of slavery her principal theme.

Chandler was born in Centre, Delaware, on Christmas Eve, 1807 to Thomas Chandler (1773–1817) and Margaret Evans (1778–1808). She had two older brothers, William Guest Chandler (1804–1873) and Thomas Chandler (1806–?). They were members of the Religious Society of Friends (or Quakers), and they lived the strict, orderly and disciplined life of a Quaker family.

By the time she was nine years old she had lost both her parents, she and her brothers were living with their grandmother, Elizabeth Guest Evans (1744–1827), in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Elizabeth attended a Quaker school and there embraced the Quaker view of antislavery. Elizabeth started writing poems at a very early age. She left school when she was about twelve or thirteen (sources differ), but continued to read and write with a passion.

At the early age of sixteen, Elizabeth Chandler's romantic verses on nature were first published. In 1825, when she was eighteen years old, her emotional poem, "", was published and drew national attention. After reading that poem, she was invited by Benjamin Lundy, a well known abolitionist and publisher, to write for his periodical, The Genius of Universal Emancipation. She wrote for and edited the "Ladies' Repository" section of his newspaper. She used her appeal to women to demand better treatment for Native Americans and the immediate emancipation of slaves. She became one of the most powerful female writers of her time. She often used the tragic example of female slaves being torn away from their children and their husbands to gain sympathy from her female readers. When told that women did not have the power to abolish slavery, Chandler responded that, as mothers, women are in the unique position: