{"id":621,"date":"2022-04-17T15:28:09","date_gmt":"2022-04-17T19:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/lmoland\/?page_id=621"},"modified":"2026-07-03T09:33:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T13:33:08","slug":"lydia-maria-child-a-radical-american-life","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/lmoland\/lydia-maria-child-a-radical-american-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Lydia Maria Child: A Radical American Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<!--themify_builder_content-->\n<div id=\"themify_builder_content-621\" data-postid=\"621\" class=\"themify_builder_content themify_builder_content-621 themify_builder tf_clear\">\n    <\/div>\n<!--\/themify_builder_content-->\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/lmoland\/files\/2019\/09\/Child-from-PR-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Lydia Maria Child\" class=\"wp-image-104\" style=\"width:515px;height:345px\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-medium-font-size\">By 1830, Lydia Maria Child had established herself as something almost unheard of in the American nineteenth century: a beloved and self-sufficient female author. Best known today for the immortal poem \u201cOver the River and Through the Wood,\u201d Child had become famous at an early age for spunky self-help books and charming children\u2019s stories. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-medium-font-size\">In 1833, Child shocked her readers by publishing the first book-length argumentation against slavery in the United States\u2014a book so radical in its commitment to abolition that friends abandoned her, patrons ostracized her, and her book sales plummeted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-medium-font-size\">Yet Child soon drew untold numbers to the abolitionist cause, becoming one of the foremost authors and activists of her generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-medium-font-size\"><em>Lydia Maria Child: A Radical American Life<\/em> tells the story of what brought Child to this moment and the extraordinary life she lived in response. Through Child\u2019s example, philosopher Lydia Moland asks questions as pressing and personal in our time as they were in Child\u2019s: What does it mean to change your life when the moral future of your country is at stake? When confronted by sanctioned evil and systematic injustice, how should a citizen live? Child\u2019s lifetime of bravery, conviction, humility, and determination provides a wealth of spirited guidance for political engagement today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-1 wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link has-text-align-center wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/lmoland\/198-2\/\">Purchase options here<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-medium-font-size\">You can find more of my writing and speaking on Child, including in the <em>Boston Globe, Paris Review, Washington Post, <\/em>and<em> <\/em>on National Public Radio<em>, <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/lmoland\/198-2\/media\/\">here<\/a><em><a href=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/lmoland\/198-2\/media\/\">.<\/a><\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By 1830, Lydia Maria Child had established herself as something almost unheard of in the American nineteenth century: a beloved and self-sufficient female author. Best known today for the immortal poem \u201cOver the River and Through the Wood,\u201d Child had become famous at an early age for spunky self-help books and charming children\u2019s stories. In [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2293,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/lmoland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/621"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/lmoland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/lmoland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/lmoland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2293"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/lmoland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621"}],"version-history":[{"count":51,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/lmoland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1462,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/lmoland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/621\/revisions\/1462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/lmoland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}