Sarah Blake Sturgis Shaw

Sarah Blake Sturgis Shaw
Portrait from 1835 by Francis Alexander
Born August 31, 1815
Died December 31, 1902
Spouse(s) Francis George Shaw
Children Robert Gould Shaw, Josephine Shaw Lowell

Sarah Blake Sturgis Shaw (August 31, 1815 – December 31, 1902) was an abolitionist, women's rights supporter, anti-imperialist and philanthropist. She married Francis George Shaw on 9 June 1835. Shortly after their marriage, the Shaws became members of the Boston Society of the New Jerusalem—a "part of the 'evangelical' wing of the Unitarian Church."[1] In 1838 they joined the American Anti-Slavery Society and would later become founding members of the Unitarian Church in Staten Island.[2]

Sarah was the mother of Robert Gould Shaw and Josephine Shaw Lowell.

Of Mrs. Shaw's personality and intellect, author William Rhinelander Stewart writes, "Whatever things were best in art, literature, or music instantly appealed to her, and were loved from the time she first saw or heard them; and with the aid of a retentive memory, she was able even towards the close of a life prolonged to her eighty-seventh year to recite whole pages of Shakespeare and Milton, her favorite poets."[3] And from the pen of Century Magazine editor Richard Watson Gilder, a poem[4]—

Mother of heroes, she—of them who gave
Their lives to lift the lowly, free the slave.
Her, through long years, two master passions bound:
Love of our free land; and of all sweet sound.
'T was praising her to praise this land of grace;
And when I think on music—lo, her face!

Sarah Blake Shaw died at the age of eighty-seven on 31 December 1902.

References

  1. ↑ Waugh, Joan (1997). Unsentimental reformer: the life of Josephine Shaw Lowell. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. p. 27. ISBN 0674930363. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  2. ↑ "Leadership". The Unitarian Church of Staten Island. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  3. ↑ Stewart, William Rhinelander (1911). The philanthropic work of Josephine Shaw Lowell. New York: The Macmillan Company. p. 4. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  4. ↑


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