Eliza Ann Gardner (May 28, 1831 – January 4, 1922) was an African-American

abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...

, religious leader and women's movement leader from

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, Massachusetts. She founded the missionary society of the

African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church African or Africans may refer to: * Anything from or pertaining to the continent of Africa: ** People who are native to Africa, descendants of natives of Africa, or individuals who trace their ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa *** Ethn ...

(AMEZ), was a strong advocate for women's equality within the church, and was a founder of the

National Association of Colored Women's Clubs The National Association of Colored Women's Clubs (NACWC) is an American organization that was formed in July 1896 at the First Annual Convention of the National Federation of Afro-American Women in Washington, D.C., United States, by a merger of t ...

Early life

Eliza Ann Gardner was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

to James and Eliza Gardner. As a child she moved with her family to Boston, where her father had a successful career as a ship contractor. Their West End neighborhood was an important center of Boston's African-American community and the abolitionist movement. The school she attended, the only public school for black children in Boston at the time, was taught by abolitionists. Her parents were politically active, and the family home at 20 North Anderson Street was a stop on the

Underground Railroad The Underground Railroad was a network of clandestine routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early- to mid-19th century. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into free states and Canada. T ...

. She was also a relative of W. E. B. Du Bois. Gardner was a gifted student and won several scholarships, but because academic and professional opportunities for black women were limited, she trained as a dressmaker.

Career

As a young woman, Gardner became active in her church and in the anti-slavery movement while making her living as a dressmaker, and later as keeper of a boarding house. As an activist she knew and worked with many abolitionist leaders including

Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 1817 or 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became ...

William Lloyd Garrison William Lloyd Garrison (December , 1805 – May 24, 1879) was a prominent American Christian, abolitionist, journalist, suffragist, and social reformer. He is best known for his widely read antislavery newspaper '' The Liberator'', which he found ...

, and

Wendell Phillips Wendell Phillips (November 29, 1811 – February 2, 1884) was an American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, orator, and attorney. According to George Lewis Ruffin, a Black attorney, Phillips was seen by many Blacks as "the one whi ...

. Meanwhile, she also taught Sunday school for the African Methodist Episcopal Zion church, eventually being named Boston's Sunday school superintendent. In 1876 she founded the Zion Missionary Society in New England to raise funds to send missionaries to Africa. Gardner is referred to as the "mother" of the organization, which later came to be known nationally as the Ladies' Home and Foreign Missionary Society. Gardner's fundraising efforts met with resistance in 1884, when members of the male-dominated AMEZ Church objected to the creation of a women's society. At the church's quadrennial conference, Gardner successfully defended the role of women in the church:

I come from Old Massachusetts, where we have declared that all, not only men, but women, too, are created free and equal....If you commence to talk about the superiority of men, if you persist in telling us that after the fall of man we were put under your feet and that we are intended to be subject to your will, we cannot help you in New England one bit.

She was instrumental in persuading the church to allow women to be ordained as ministers, urging them to "strengthen omen'sefforts and make us a power." In 1895, when female chaplains were a rarity, she served as the chaplain of the

First National Conference of the Colored Women of America The First National Conference of the Colored Women of America was a three-day conference in Boston organized by Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, a civil rights leader and suffragist. In August 1895, representatives from 42 African-American women's club ...

. She was a founding member of the Woman's Era Club of Boston, the city's first black women's club. She was involved in the formation of the

National Association of Colored Women The National Association of Colored Women's Clubs (NACWC) is an American organization that was formed in July 1896 at the First Annual Convention of the National Federation of Afro-American Women in Washington, D.C., United States, by a merger of ...

, and was featured as an honored guest at their biennial convention in New York in 1908. Alongside other black Bostonians, she opposed segregated schools, supported fugitives, and advocated for abolition of enslavement. Gardner never married, and had no children. She died in Boston in 1922. The Gardner Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church in

Springfield, Massachusetts Springfield is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States, and the seat of Hampden County. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers: the western Westfield River, the ...

is named in her honor.

Publications

* ''A Historical Sketch of the A. M. E. Zion Church of Boston'', 1918

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gardner, Eliza Ann 1831 births 1922 deaths Abolitionists from Boston Activists from New York City African-American abolitionists African-American history in Boston African-American Methodists American women's rights activists Methodist abolitionists People from Boston People of the African Methodist Episcopal church Women Protestant religious leaders

Early life

Career

Publications

See also

References