1880 – Lydia Maria Child, an ardent Unitarian, feminist, and abolitionist, died at age 78. Born in Medford, Massachusetts, she joined the church served by her Unitarian minister brother, Convers Francis, in Watertown, Massachusetts. Child found success as a popular writer, producing a romantic historical novel and practical household manuals. She became vice president of the Women’s Anti-Slavery Convention of New York and edited the National Slavery Standard. Later she turned to religious issues and published The Progress of Religious Ideas through Successive Ages, which contended that all religions had sacred insights. She also espoused women’s suffrage and the cause of Native Americans. Read more about Lydia Maria Child.
