No. 1326 Arch St.
Phila. J[une]. 7. 1874

Dear Frederick Douglas,

You think me a correspondent worth having,—& a friend who appreciates kindness, I know!

You are not to write me down a wretch—I went over

to New York, after writing to you, & did not have my letters sent after me,—& so knew not of your prompt, & most friendly offer.

I have not seen Mr. PurvisPurvis, Robert

Robert Purvis (1810-98) was a prominent leader of antebellum Philadelphia's black community and one of the most influential African Americans in the Garrisonian wing of the abolitionist movement. He was the son of Harriet Juda, a free black woman, and William Purvis, a white cotton broker of Charleston, South Carolina. In 1819 Robert moved north with his family to be educated. Upon his father's death in the mid-1820s, Purvis inherited a substantial fortune, which he used to support a wide array of benevolent causes, including temperance, women's rights, penal reform, and integrated education. He helped launch the Liberator in 1831, became a charter member of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, and served as both president and vice president of the Pennsylvania Anti- Slavery Society. From the 1830s onward, he actively assisted fugitives to escape slavery. Still, Underground Rail Road, 711; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 24-25, 55-56; Joseph A. Borome, "Robert Purvis and His Early Challenge to American Racism," NHB, 30:8-10 (May 1967); Pauline C. Johnson, "Robert Purvis," NHB, 5:65-66 (December 1941); NCAB, 1:413. since I returned, but I understand from my SisterDickinson, Susan Evelyn

Susan Evelyn Dickinson (1832-1915) was an American journalist and the older sister of abolitionist Anna Elizabeth Dickinson. that he has written you, & that his Son Dr P.Purvis, Charles Burleigh

Charles Burleigh Purvis (1842-1929) was the son of Douglass's old black abolitionist associate Robert Purvis and Harriet Forten, a daughter of the wealthy black Philadelphia sailmaker James Forten and herself an active abolitionist. Raised on his family's farm in Byberry, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, Purvis attended Oberlin College for two years and then the Western Reserve Medical School, where he graduated in 1865. He served as an assistant surgeon and chief administrator (1881-94) of the Freedman's Hospital in Washington, D.C. As a trustee of the Freedman's Bank, Purvis, more than any of his colleagues, criticized the activities of men later found guilty of fraud. When the trustees elected Douglass president in 1874, they chose Purvis as his first vice president. Purvis's career in Washington ended in 1905 when he moved to Boston, where he practiced medicine. Simmons, Men of Mark, 691; Herbert M. Morais, The History of the Negro in Medicine (New York, 1967), 50-52; Gerri Major and Doris E. Saunders, Gerri Major's Black Society (Chicago, 1976), 169; Fleming, Freedman's Savings Bank, 83; Osthaus, Freedmen, Philanthropy, and Fraud, 165-66; James Forten, "The Forten Family," NHB, 10:75-79, 95 (January 1947); DANB, 507-08. has called on you concerning the table, & has settled the matter,—as I understand, it was some smaller article he wanted,—& he has been able to secure it,—Is that so?

I already owned one of the precious [relics?] from that sacred house, Mr. Sumner's favorite easy Chair,—& I am, & shall be for a year or so to come, with out a home, or I should

be tempted to be awfully selfish, & beg for the table for myself.—I will, if you will agree to that, compensate myself, by coming to see you when I am next in Washington, putting my hand upon, & talking to you across that same table.

MotherDickinson, Mary Edmundson

Mary Edmundson Dickinson (1799-1889), a Quaker abolitionist, was married to John Dickinson, a cousin of Founder of John Dickinson. They married in 1832 and had three children, including Anna Elizabeth Dickinson (Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Papers of Anna E. Dickinson; Delaware Gazette and State Journal, 16 May 1889) is out of town, or she would have a message for you; she often complains that never any more come to see her,—in which

complaint I join, for myself—loudly.

—And I am going away soon, too,—"over Seas" for some rest & change.—I hope you are well & happy, & that the summer does not put its hot hand too heavily on you.

SueDickinson, Susan Evelyn

Susan Evelyn Dickinson (1832-1915) was an American journalist and the older sister of abolitionist Anna Elizabeth Dickinson. desires to be kindly remembered & I am always faithfully your friend.

Anna E. DickinsonDickinson, Anna Elizabeth

Philadelphia-born and Quaker-educated Anna Elizabeth Dickinson (1842-1932) began her career as a working woman, employed first as a copyist, then as a schoolteacher, and finally in the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia. At the age of eighteen she first appeared on lecture platforms as a feminist and anti-slavery crusader. After she lost her job at the mint in December 1861 for accusing General George B. McClellan of treason, she became a full-time lecturer. Throughout the Civil War, Dickinson delivered Republican campaign speeches in New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania, and on 16 January 1864 she spoke before a distinguished audience of statesmen and military officials, including President Lincoln, in the hall of the House of Representatives. At the end of the war she joined the lyceum lecture circuit, speaking on behalf of Radical Republican Reconstruction measures and women's rights, and against Mormonism, large corporations, and craft unions. In the early 1870s Dickinson's popularity as an orator waned, and her attempts at comebacks, first as a playwright and actress in the late 1870s and early 1880s and then as a political orator during the 1888 election, proved unsuccessful. She spent the last forty years of her life in obscurity. Giraud Chester, Embattled Maiden: The Life of Anna Dickinson (New York, 1951); NCAB, 3:109; DAB, 21:244-45; NAW, 1:475-76.