User:Ljk.0414/Lucretia Mott

Personal life
On April 10, 1811, Lucretia Coffin married James Mott at Pine Street Meeting in Philadelphia. James was a Quaker businessman who shared her anti-slavery interests, supported women's rights, and helped found Swarthmore College. They raised six children, five of whom made it to adulthood.

Mott died on November 11, 1880, of pneumonia at her home, Roadside, in the district now known as La Mott, Cheltenham, Pennsylvania. She was buried at Fair Hill Burial Ground, a Quaker cemetery in North Philadelphia. At her funeral, a long silence took place. It was broken when someone asked, "Who can speak? The preacher is dead."

Ministry
In 1821, at age 28, Mott was recognized by her Friends Meeting ("recorded") as a minister. By then she had been preaching for at least three years.. She summarized her perspective by stating: "I always loved the good, in childhood desired to do the right, and had no faith in the generally received idea of human depravity." Mott traveled throughout the United States — New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, Ohio, and Indiana — and to England. Rare for the time, Mott was among a group of single and married women, including Jane Fenn Hoskens and Elizabeth Fry, who traveled as part of their Quaker ministry. She was described as a woman of "gentle and refined manners and of great force of character." Her sermons emphasized the Quaker inward light or the presence of the Divine within every individual, as preached by Elias Hicks. Mott and her husband followed Hicks' theology, which became the focus of a schism among Quakers who divided into either Hicksite or Orthodox. The Hicksites, the liberal branch, were sometimes considered to be Unitarian Quakers. The Hicksites were more prone to be part of social reform moments, including abolitionism and the fight for women's rights. Other Hicksite Friends were Susan B. Anthony and Alice Paul. Mott's sermons included her free produce and other anti-slavery sentiments.

Mott's theology was influenced by Unitarians including Theodore Parker and William Ellery Channing as well as early Quakers including William Penn. She believed that "the kingdom of God is within man" (1749). Mott was among the religious liberals who formed the Free Religious Association in 1867, with Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson.