Author: Child, Lydia Maria
Biography:
CHILD, Lydia Maria, formerly Francis (1802-80: ANBO)
She was born in Medford MA on 11 Feb. 1802, the daughter of Convers Francis, a baker, and his wife Susanna (Rand) Francis. She attended public schools and spent one year in a seminary; her brother Convers, who encouraged her literary talent, went to Harvard and became a Unitarian minister. Her first novels, Hobomak (1824) and The Rebels (1825), launched her writing career. In 1825-8 she kept a private school in Watertown NY, and in 1826 she started a magazine called the Juvenile Miscellany. Probably the most successful of all her books was a practical guide to keeping house in America, The Frugal Housewife (1829). In 1828 she married the Boston lawyer and journalist David Lee Child. There appear to have been no children from the marriage. They both became active abolitionists: the sales of her books suffered as a consequence. From 1841 to 1843 she edited the National Anti-Slavery Standard, contributing weekly "Letters from New York" which were later collected as a book. She died at Wayland MA on 20 Oct. 1880 and was buried in the North Cemetery there. (RPW; ANBO 7 Mar. 2018; ancestry.com 31 July 2025) HJ
Other Names:
- Mrs. Child
- Mrs. D. L. Child
- Mrs. Lydia Maria Child