Martha Waldo Greene and Frederick Sherman Collection of Frederick Douglass papers (MS.2016.007)

Biographical/Historical note

Martha Waldo Greene (née Brown) was born in Rhode Island around 1822 into an abolitionist family active in Anti-slavery movements. The Brown family associated with well-known abolitionists and social reformers like Stephen Symonds Foster (1891-1881), Parker Pillsbury (1809-1888), and Abby Kelley (1811-1887). She married William Arnold Greene around 1842, and died sometime after 1895. Greene appears to have been a close confidant of Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), writing him from at least 1861, up until a month before his death in 1895. Her daughter, Martha Gertrude Greene (born circa 1848), married William Frederick Sherman (born circa 1850) in 1872.

Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, women’s rights advocate, and statesman, born into slavery in Maryland around 1818. He did not know his actual birthdate, so he celebrated the day he escaped slavery as his date of birth. His route on the Underground Railroad took him through Delaware, New York, Newport, Rhode Island and finally to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he received the help of Nathan and Polly Johnson, prominent African American abolitionists. He published the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass in 1845, and My Bondage and My Freedom in 1855; both autobiographies were best sellers. Douglass held several public offices throughout his lifetime, including Federal Marshal and consul-general to the Republic of Haiti from 1889-1891. He had previously traveled to the island as a part of the Santo Domingo Commission in 1871. Douglass lived in New Bedford, Massachusetts soon after his escape from slavery in 1838, but later moved to Washington, D.C. He married Anna Murray (1813-1882), an abolitionist and member of the Underground Railroad, in 1838, and they remained married until her death in 1882. In 1884, he married Helen Pitts (1838-1903), a suffragist and abolitionist. He had five children in total. Douglass died on February 20, 1895.