Hobomok

The publication of this work in 1824 was met with an immediate scandal. Mary, the novel's protagonist and a Puritan settler in the New World, falls in love and marries a Native American. The author confronted directly issues of religious oppression, gender stereotypes, and racial prejudice directly in this book of equality and social expectations.

Mrs. Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880) was widely read and extremely well informed. She was the successful and popular author of a novel (Hobomok) and several how-to books (The Frugal Housewife, The Mother's Book, The Girl's Own Book), and editor of the Juvenile Miscellany. She was also a former educator and a member of the learned and reform-minded intellectual circles in Boston, both in her own right and as the younger sister of Convers Francis (1795-1863), a Unitarian minister, Harvard professor, and member of the Transcendental Club. In 1828 she married David Lee Child (1794-1874), another Harvard graduate, schoolmaster, diplomat, and lawyer. Their association with William Lloyd Garrison prompted Mrs. Child to publish this Appeal, for which she paid the price of alienating a significant portion of her previous audience. She did not waver but went on to edit the National Anti-Slavery Standard in New York City (1840-1844) and continued to write in support of emancipation, women's rights, and native rights as well.