Anna Gardner

Anna Gardner (January 25, 1816 – February 18, 1901) was an American abolitionist and teacher, as well as an ardent reformer, a staunch supporter of women's rights, and the author of several volumes in prose and verse.

Gardner, of Quaker ancestry, was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts, in 1816, and died there in 1901. When a girl, she read ''The Liberator'' and became interested in the antislavery cause. In 1841, she published the call for the first antislavery meeting in Nantucket, at which Frederick Douglass made his first public speech and electrified his audience. She delivered many lectures during the years immediately preceding the American Civil War, and after the war, she taught in freedmen's schools in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. In 1878, she returned to New York, where soon afterward, she was severely injured in a carriage accident. After many weeks of suffering and a partial recovery, she returned to her old home in Nantucket. She lectured several times before the Nantucket Athenaeum. Gardner was a fluent writer, and in 1881, she published her best work in a volume of prose and verse entitled ''Harvest Gleanings''. Provided by Wikipedia