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During the nineteenth century, Lydia Maria Child was widely recognized for her contributions to American non-fiction, literature and journalism during a career that spanned six decades. She was an activist, abolitionist, and champion of equal rights for all. Today, Child's accomplishments are known to few but the most ardent scholars of the period, yet her enlightened approaches to issues of race, gender and cultural equality are as vital in our time as they were when she penned them. Much of what Child wrote nearly two centuries ago can be directly applied to the social challenges of the twenty-first century. For this reason, she is the object of study for this thesis, which this author fervently hopes will help to reacquaint the American reading public with messages from another time that must also be heeded in our own.
