Helen Pitts was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 suffragist and the second wife of Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing...

. She also created the Frederick Douglass Memorial and Historical Association.

Early life

She was born in Honeoye, New York

Honeoye, New York

Honeoye is a hamlet in the town of Richmond, county of Ontario, New York, 33 miles south of downtown Rochester, New York. The community is at the north end of Honeoye Lake, one of the minor Finger Lakes. It is primarily situated along U.S. Route 20A between Ontario County Roads 33 and 37...

. A descendant of John Alden

John Alden

John Alden is said to be the first person from the Mayflower to set foot on Plymouth Rock in 1620. He was a ship-carpenter by trade and a cooper for Mayflower, which was usually docked at Southampton. He was also one of the founders of Plymouth Colony and the seventh signer of the Mayflower Compact...

 and Priscilla Alden

Priscilla Alden

Priscilla Alden , , noted member of Massachusetts's Plymouth Colony of Pilgrims, was the wife of fellow colonist John Alden . They married in 1623 in Plymouth.-Biography:...

, who sailed to America on the Mayflower

Mayflower

The Mayflower was the ship that transported the English Separatists, better known as the Pilgrims, from a site near the Mayflower Steps in Plymouth, England, to Plymouth, Massachusetts, , in 1620...

, Pitts graduated from Mount Holyoke College

Mount Holyoke College

Mount Holyoke College is a liberal arts college for women in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It was the first member of the Seven Sisters colleges, and served as a model for some of the others...

 (then called the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary) in 1859. After the U.S. Civil War, she taught at the Hampton Institute. In 1880, Helen moved to Uniontown and lived next door to Douglass' home, Cedar Hill.

Abolitionist work

She was active in the women's rights movement

First-wave feminism

First-wave feminism refers to a period of feminist activity during the 19th and early twentieth century in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. It focused on de jure inequalities, primarily on gaining women's suffrage .The term first-wave was coined retroactively in the 1970s...

 and co-edited The Alpha, with Caroline Winslow, in Washington. In 1882, Douglass hired Helen as a clerk in the office of the Recorder of Deeds in Washington, to which he had just been assigned. Because he was writing his autobiography, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass and was often lecturing, Helen aided him frequently in his work.

Marriage to Frederick Douglass

Douglass' first wife, Anna Murray Douglass, died on August 4, 1882. After a year of depression, Douglass married Helen on January 24, 1884. They were married by Rev. Francis J. Grimké

Francis J. Grimké

Francis James Grimké was a Presbyterian minister who was prominent in working for equal rights for African Americans...

, who was also of mixed ancestry. Despite the fact that Helen's parents, Gideon and Jane Pitts, were abolitionists

Abolitionism

Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...

, they were against the marriage because Douglass was the son of a white father and a black mother. The marriage was generally the subject of scorn by both white and black residents in the town, though the Douglasses were firm in their convictions. "Love came to me, and I was not afraid to marry the man I loved because of his color," she said. Douglass laughingly commented, "This proves I am impartial. My first wife was the color of my mother and the second, the color of my father." A main source of support was Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an American social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early woman's movement...

. Helen and Frederick were married for eleven years until his sudden death from a heart attack in 1895.

Building a memorial to Frederick Douglass

Douglass' will left Cedar Hill to his wife, but it lacked the number of witnesses needed in bequests of real estate and was ruled invalid. Helen suggested to his children and their spouses that they agree to set Cedar Hill apart as a memorial to their father and deed it to a board of trustees. The children declined, insisting that the estate be sold and the money divided among all the heirs.

With borrowed money, Helen bought the place, and then devoted the rest of her life to planning and establishing the Frederick Douglass Memorial and Historical Association. Besides effecting passage of the law incorporating the association, she worked to raise funds to maintain the estate. For eight years, she lectured throughout the northeast.

During the last year of her life, Helen was ill and unable to lecture, as well as discouraged by the falling off of contributions for her cause. She begged the Rev. Francis Grimke not to let her work fall by the wayside in her absence. He suggested that if the mortgage on Cedar Hill should not be paid off in her lifetime, money from the sale of the property should go to two college scholarships in her and Frederick's names. She agreed, on the condition that the scholarships be in Douglass' name only.

After her death, the $5,500 mortgage was reduced to $4,000, and the National Association of Colored Women

National Association of Colored Women

The National Association of Colored Women Clubs was established in Washington, D.C., USA, by the merger in 1896 of the National Federation of Afro-American Women, the Women's Era Club of Boston, and the National League of Colored Women of Washington, DC, as well as smaller organizations that had...

, led by Mary B. Talbert of Buffalo, New York, raised funds to buy Cedar Hill. Administered by the National Park Service, the Frederick Douglass Memorial Home conducts tours to inform visitors of Douglass' contributions to freedom.

External links

• Helen Pitts Douglas biography - from the Anna Murray Douglass History of Rochester NY at Mt. Hope Cemetery
• The Many Lives of Frederick Douglass
• Douglas Timeline
• Photo Gallery