Amy Post
Amy Kirby Post (December 20, 1802 – January 29, 1889) was an activist who was central to several important social causes of the 19th century, including the abolition of slavery and women's rights.
Post's upbringing in Quakerism shaped her beliefs in equality of all humans, although she ultimately left the Religious Society of Friends because of her desire to actively support social change efforts that called upon her to collaborate with non-Quakers.
A friend of many prominent activists including Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony, Post provided key support to the causes that she believed in both publicly and in less-public ways.
This blended activism approach sets Post apart from many other activists of her time who advocated for a single issue in the hopes that doing so would lead to sufficient social change.
Thanks to the increasing infrastructure of the Erie Canal, railways, and telegraph lines, Rochester welcomed traveling lecturers and the city was the site of various conventions, protests, and movement presses.
The meeting drew together a wide range of attendees from various religious denominations including Baptists, Presbyterians, and Hicksite Quakers.
[1]: 7 Post also supported Jacobs's publication, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, by attesting to the character of the writer, an expectation for certain authors at this time.
[6] The piece, which both praised and described Underground Railroad efforts, was composed for the book Semi-centennial History of the City of Rochester edited by William F.
[7] As part of the New York Western Anti-Slavery Society fundraising fair she helped to organize in 1846, Amy Kirby Post and other women abolitionists sold copies of Reverend Samuel J.
A planning meeting chose Amy Kirby Post as temporary chair and designated a nominating committee to propose a slate of officers.
When the convention assembled in the Rochester Unitarian Church on August 2, Amy Kirby Post called it to order and read the suggested slate of officers.
[10] Amy Kirby Post had an early influence on suffragist Susan B. Anthony through her encouragement and support of women's rights activities.
[4] Anthony relied on Post to support petition efforts, host traveling lecturers visiting Rochester, and organize conventions.
[2] During the United States Civil War, Amy Kirby Post supported National Loyal League efforts to petition for emancipation of enslaved people.
[2] The bleak conditions of these camps, chronicled by Harriet Jacobs and Julia Wilbur, enabled Post to raise awareness about the encampments' inadequacies, which included insufficient food, shelter, and medical aid.
[1]: 12–13 Calling for an end to capital punishment and to the exploitation of indigenous people were other activist causes that Amy Kirby Post directly supported during her lifetime.
By September 1828, Amy Kirby married Issac Post, the widow of her late sister, Hannah, thus becoming the stepmother to Mary and Edmund.
[4] Amy Kirby Post has been remembered for being an early model of "lifestyle politics" that blended activist efforts with daily living.
These lifestyle politics included one's everyday practices of marital relations, language use, childbearing, methods of healing, choice of clothing, style of worship, and use of leisure time.
