Episode Description
In 1838, a young Quaker schoolteacher named Abby Kelley climbed onto the platform of a brand-new Philadelphia hall to argue against slavery, becoming one of the first women in America to address a mixed audience of men and women. Within days, the hall was burned to the ground by a mob---not for what she said about slavery, but for who had said it. Harmonia traces Abby Kelley Foster's thirty-year journey from that scandal through decades of hostile lecture halls, a split in the national anti-slavery movement, and a lifelong refusal to pay taxes without representation, revealing how her fight for the enslaved quietly became a fight for her own voice and worth. This episode opens a series exploring the women who carried the nineteenth century's awakening toward justice across continents and generations.