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Sarah Garnet was the oldest child of a large and prosperous Long Island family. A student in the New York public school system, at age fourteen she was appointed monitor under the supervision of John Peterson. Like Maritcha, she spent her entire… Read More

Susan McKinney Steward was Sarah Garnet's younger sister, and equally energetic and ambitious. Admitted to the New York Medical College for Women, a homeopathetic school founded by a wealthy white abolitionist woman, Clarence Sophia Lozier, McKinney… Read More

Victoria Earle Matthews was born a slave, the child of a Georgia slaveholder and one of his female slaves. Her mother escaped north during the Civil War, returning after emancipation to claim her children. By 1873 the family had settled in New York… Read More

Ida B. Wells was the galvanizing force that propelled Brooklyn’s black women into public activism. Originally from Mississippi, Wells moved to Memphis in the early 1880s and embarked on a career in journalism. In 1889 she became editor and… Read More

This is a photograph of Maritcha as an adult.

In adulthood, Maritcha was able to fulfill her lifelong ambition of becoming a school teacher. In her memoir, she credited the many people who helped her at every step of the way. In childhood, there… Read More