Practical Righteousness, 1854–1861

As the WNYASS dissolved, the Posts turned to less visible ways of advancing social justice. They became more involved with the Congregational Friends, now known as Progressive Friends, which promoted practical righteousness. A series of economic and medical crises also fostered more personal forms of action. The Posts assisted the increased flow of fugitives following the Fugitive Slave Act, but questioned Douglass’s and Nell’s support of armed resistance. Nell eventually persuaded Amy of its necessity. The Posts regularly housed abolitionists, spiritualists, and other activists; cared for friends and family who were ill or impoverished; aided abused wives; and joined protests against capital punishment. Amy accompanied Lucy Stone on two lecture tours, but she spent far more time corresponding with her extensive network of friends and family, keeping them apprized of political and personal developments. Harriet Jacobs, who was finishing Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl, regularly sought Amy’s advice and support. After John Brown’s 1859 raid, the Posts helped Douglass escape to Canada, reigniting their friendship. By spring 1861, with the nation at war, Amy helped organize a gathering with Douglass and other speakers to help direct “this bloody struggle, that it may end in Emancipation.”

Coming Together, 1862–1872

The eruption of Civil War led activists who had pursued distinct strategies to coalesce around support for emancipation and aid to escaped slaves. Rochester’s competing networks of women abolitionists worked together to support the labors of Harriet Jacobs and Julia Wilbur in the contraband camps of Alexandria, Virginia. With the Post children grown, former household workers and widowed friends filled the Post home; and family and fellow activists visited regularly. The outbreak of war ignited intense debates among Progressive Friends, in which Amy participated. None of the Post sons enlisted. In 1863, Amy worked with the Women’s Loyal National League, which petitioned Congress to emancipate all slaves. That December, she visited Jacobs and Wilbur in Alexandria, writing Isaac of the horrible conditions there. After the war, the Posts worked with Truth to assist newly-freed blacks. When suffragists divided over the Fifteenth Amendment, Post insisted on universal suffrage but refused to join either newly-formed women’s suffrage organization. Consumed with caring for sick relatives in the early 1870s, she was devastated when Isaac died in May 1872. By November, however, she rallied to join dozens of women trying to register and vote in Rochester.

Abolitionist Bonds, 1842–1847

By 1842, Quakers played leading roles in the Western New York Anti-Slavery (WNYASS). When Abby Kelley, Frederick Douglass, and Erasmus Hudson stopped in Rochester and spoke at African Bethel Church, the Posts joined the interracial audience and hosted Douglass at their home. Over the next five years, Amy and Isaac deepened their commitment to abolition and their role in the underground railroad while continuing to advocate women’s rights and Indian rights. Both became officers in the WNYASS, though Amy participated in more behind-the-scenes efforts, such as organizing fundraising fairs and hosting visiting lecturers. Her family obligations influenced this choice as she gave birth to a daughter in 1840 and a son in 1847. However, she now had household help and the aid of her sister Sarah. Still, the continuing economic panic threatened to unravel the Posts’ life. They were forced to rent out their house in 1844, the same year in which their young daughter died. The following year, they joined other radical Quakers who withdrew from the Hicksite Meeting as it increasingly sanctioned those who participated in worldly activism. That decision was inspired in part by their growing friendships with black and white activists, including Kelley, Garrison, William Wells Brown, and especially Frederick Douglass.

Orchestrating Change, 1847–1848

In 1847-1848, the Posts participated in numerous efforts to advance social justice and religious liberty. When Douglass launched the North Star in Rochester, the Posts were drawn further into interracial circles. Douglass’s co-editor, William Nell lived with the Posts; and he and Amy became fast friends. Douglass’ coverage of European revolutions and critiques of he Mexican-American War tied local radicals to international struggles. The Posts’ daughter Mary and her husband William Hallowell and Amy’s sister Sarah joined in activist ventures. They also helped with housework and childcare as Amy participated in dozens of WNYASS antislavery fairs and annual Emancipation Day celebrations; joined Douglass, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton at the Seneca Falls Woman’s Rights Convention; embraced spiritualism and the newly-established Yearly Meeting of Congregational Friends; assisted fugitive slaves; and led efforts to organize the Rochester Woman’s Rights Convention and a local Working Women’s Protective Union. The Posts lived their politics at home, boycotting slave-produced goods and inviting their household workers to join in their activities. Although Douglass and Nell joined Post in advocating woman’s rights, Amy was unable to induce local African American women to participate in these activities.

Worldly Associations, 1836–1841

Rochester’s boomtown atmosphere attracted a diverse population and allowed Isaac Post to open an apothecary shop to support his still growing family. As importantly, the Posts engaged new groups of activists even as they immersed themselves in Hicksite debates over abolition, Indian rights, women’s rights, and the appropriateness of Friends participating in worldly (that is, cross-denominational) social movements. Locally, antislavery efforts were led by local blacks and by white evangelicals. Amy signed her first antislavery petition in 1837; and she and Isaac attended antislavery conventions where national leaders spoke. In 1840, they joined evangelical, Hicksite and Orthodox Friends in founding the Western New York Anti-Slavery Society (WNYASS). The WNYASS, auxiliary to the American Anti-Slavery Society, was interracial and mixed-sex. In January 1842, William Lloyd Garrison spoke at its annual convention and stayed with the Posts. That February, Amy helped organize a worldly antislavery fair. The funds were intended to help fugitives seeking refuge in Canada, suggesting that she and Isaac were also involved in the underground railroad. Clearly Amy Post’s activist worlds were expanding, complicating her relationship to the Hicksite meeting and opening up new possibilities for transforming society.

Sustaining Visions, 1873–1889

Amy Post remained active in numerous causes until her death in 1889. These included women’s rights, women’s suffrage, and spiritualism as well as new organizations devoted to industrial workers and to religious liberty and free speech. The last issues were addressed by the National Liberal League, for which Amy served as a founding officer. Although Post suffered a variety of ailments in later life, she regularly attended Progressive Friends’ meetings and other conventions, hosted lecturers in her home, joined spiritualist circles, and continued her friendships with Nell, Jacobs, Truth, Douglass, and other early co-workers. Post was also honored at woman’s rights anniversary celebrations. Her son Willet joined her in many activities, and her sister Sarah, her children and grandchildren provided joy and solace. Amy mourned the deaths of many fellow activists, and when she died in 1889, the Frederick Douglass League of Rochester, spiritualists, radical Quakers, friends and family gathered to celebrate her life. Although well-known in her time, Post’s activism and her broad vision of social justice slowly faded from memory. The Post Family Papers bring her social justice legacy and her diverse circle of friends and co-workers vividly back to life.

Family and Faith, 1790–1828

Amy Kirby Post’s life as a social activist was rooted in the Quaker farm community in which she was raised. Born in 1802 in Jericho, New York, Amy Kirby was surrounded by grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, all of them birthright members of the Society of Friends. Friends embraced a diverse range of views, but the local Jericho and Westbury Friends Meetings were noted for their peace and antislavery testimonies. Elias Hicks led antislavery efforts in the area and insisted that individuals act according to their “inner light” rather than the Quaker Discipline or even the Bible. Friends’ separate women’s meetings and acknowledgement of women ministers provided Amy with a strong sense of female independence. Yet she also learned about the fragility of family ties and of life itself. Her closest sister Hannah married Isaac Post and moved to central New York in 1823; Amy’s fiancé died in 1825; and two years later Hannah died far from home. Hannah’s death occurred just as the Society of Friends split into Hicksite and Orthodox branches. While twenty-five-year-old Amy was certain about her spiritual commitment to the Hicksites, in most other ways, her future felt deeply unsettled.

Shifting Alliances, 1849–1853

In 1849, Harriet Jacobs joined Posts’ household after Nell returned to Boston, and Sojourner Truth befriended Amy in 1851. The Posts invited black and white friends to their home, and Amy helped organize an interracial dinner during a WNYASS convention. Still aiding a flood of fugitive slaves, the Posts became increasingly involved in woman’s rights, spiritualism, temperance, and the Congregational Friends. Susan B. Anthony settled in Rochester in 1849 and joined Amy in woman’s rights and temperance efforts. As Isaac became absorbed in spiritualism, Amy travelled to antislavery and woman’s rights conventions, visited William Nell in Boston, and toured fugitive communities in Canada. While honing her skills as a conductor across movements, Post also confronted her limits. In 1849 Julia Griffiths arrived from Scotland to aid Douglass’s work. More attracted to political abolitionism and affluent supporters than to radical activists, Griffiths nonetheless hoped to gain Post’s support. Instead, as Douglass grew closer to Griffiths, he became more critical of Post. The gulf widened when Griffiths organized the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society and Douglass embraced political abolitionism. Still, Post remained close with Nell, Jacobs, and Truth, who shared her spiritualist and women’s rights views as well as her radical abolitionism.

Frontier Friends, 1828–1836

Despite Friends’ rules against marrying a deceased sister’s husband, Amy Kirby married Isaac Post in 1828 and became stepmother to Hannah’s two children. Escaping disciplinary action, she moved to Isaac’s farm in Ledyard, New York, and immersed herself in the Scipio Hicksite Meeting. While Amy forged fast friendships with young married Quakers with whom she shared pregnancy and motherhood, she wrote regularly to family and friends back home. She remained especially close to her cousin Mary Robbins who married Isaac’s brother Joseph. Amy loved life in Ledyard, but the death of Hannah and Isaac’s son Edmund in 1830 and of Isaac’s brother Edmund in 1832 made the distance from Jericho loom large. As the Post family continued to grow, Amy cultivated her medical skills and nursed friends and traveling Quakers as well as family. The Posts were also active in Genesee Yearly Meeting (GYM), established in 1834 to meet the needs of Friends from Central New York to the Midwest and Upper Canada. GYM members testified against slavery, sought even greater equality for women in the meeting, and advocated the rights of Indians. Then in 1836, as many Friends migrated further west, the Posts relocated to Rochester, New York.

Introduction

The life of Amy Kirby Post reveals an egalitarian, interracial, and mixed-sex network of activists who worked across the nineteenth century to achieve a democratic vision of social justice. Ties of family, friendship, and faith solidified this network, which was forged by radical Quakers like the Posts and the Motts, and free and fugitive blacks, including Frederick Douglass, William C. Nell, and Sojourner Truth. Amy and her husband Isaac Post were integral to this network and incorporated their social justice ideals into their family life, household, and business. In promoting racial justice, religious liberty, and the rights of women, Indians, and workers, Amy Post served as a conductor across diverse movements, orchestrating events and meetings and transmitting resources, ideas and tactics from one campaign to another.