Margaretta Forten

Margaretta Forten (1806-1875) was an African-American suffragist and abolitionist. Her parents, Charlotte Vandine Forten and James Forten, were abolitionists, and her father founded the American Anti-Slavery Society, which did not allow women to be members. In 1833, Margaretta, Charlotte, and Margaretta's sisters Sarah and Harriet co-founded the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society with fourteen other women. Margaretta often served as recording secretary or treasurer of the Society, as well as helping to draw up its organizational charter and serving on its educational committee. She offered the Society's last resolution, which praised the post-civil war amendments as a success for the anti-slavery cause. The Society distinguished itself at the time as the first of its kind in the United States to be biracial. Although the Society was predominantly white, historian Janice Sumler-Lewis claims the efforts of the Forten women in its key offices enabled it to reflect a black abolitionist perspective that oftentimes was more militant.

Margaretta toured and gave speeches in favor of women's suffrage, as well as helping petition drives for the cause. She also worked as a teacher, teaching at a school run by Sarah Mapps Douglass in the 1840s, and opening her own school in 1850.

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