estion is on some accounts rather a difficult question to
answer, as I do not quite understand its intent. You doubtless
know that until the Anti-Slavery movement and some time after,
no woman, except those of the Society of Friends, ever spoke or
even prayed in public. If women wished to show their interest
on any question, it was in societies and meetings exclusively
for women. And this was the case with the Anti-Slavery women.
Women's Societies were very early organized, and a great many
women were active in them.

But I suppose the question relates to the women who addressed
_mixed_ audiences of men and women.

At the convention held in Philadelphia, 1833, to form the
National Anti-Slavery Society, all the delegates were men, but
a large number of women were present, and Lucretia Mott, who
was a minister of the Friends' Society, and consequently was
used to speaking to both sexes in Friends' meetings, spoke at
the convention, but did not make any formal address. Several
other women, also "Friends," spoke; and several years after,
Samuel J. May, in speaking about it, said he was ashamed to say
that though the convention passed a vote of thanks to the women
for their interest, no one thought of asking any of them, not
even Lucretia Mott or Mary Grew, to sign the "Declaration of
Sentiments." I think the first women, undoubtedly, who
addressed a _mixed_ audience of men and women of _all_
denominations were Angela Grimke, afterwards married to
Theodore D. Weld, and her sister Sarah M. Grimke. Being
Southerners, and having been slaveholders, being allied to the
best families of Charleston, S. C., their knowledge was
considered authentic, and a great interest was shown to hear
them. They too began by addressing meetings of women, but when
they spoke in Boston, in 1837, so great was the desire of the
_men_ to hear them, that they were persuaded to hold public
meetings of both sexes. I well remember the crowded audiences
which listened to them with rapt attention.

One can judge somewhat of the interest they excited from the
fact that, at a time when no large halls or churches could be
obtained for any kind of an Anti-Slavery meeting, the "Odeon,"
at the corner of Federal and Franklin Streets, then the largest
and most popular hall in