The Lioness of London

“She was a woman whom people came to hear,” says Jamie Stiehm ’82, a Lucretia Mott scholar and journalist, describing the extraordinary power of the Quaker activist and Swarthmore founder’s spoken words. Stiehm is one of several Mott experts tapped to describe Lucretia Coffin Mott in the lead webisode for The Women of Philadelphia, a new documentary series produced by History Making Productions.

“This woman, who stood about 4-foot-11 inches, spent 70 years shaking up the world,” proclaims another Mott commentator, Christopher Densmore, curator of the Friends Historical Library. With the support of her “co-conspirator” husband James, Mott sought freedom for slaves and equal rights for women. She also was instrumental in the establishment of the American Anti-Slavery Society and the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, N.Y. 

Though the webisode is subtitled Philadelphia’s Revolutionary, Mott’s influence extended far beyond the city and long after her own lifetime. As Stiehm says, “She had a place in the pantheon of American history that was too little known.” 

Learn why Lucretia Mott was called “The Lioness of London”.