Mary Ann Shadd was born in 1823 in the slave state of Delaware. Her parents were dedicated to helping the refugees and were dedicated to abolitionism. They then moved to Pennsylvania, when Shadd was 10 and she got an educated and became a teacher.
When they got to Pennsylvania, her parents helped freedom seekers, but when the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 passed, which said that anyone that was caught trying to help a runway slave could be fine or punished, it became very dangerous for them.
In 1850, after the Act was passed, her and her brother moved to Canada. She met and married a barber, Thomas J. Cary. While living in Canada, she decided to open up a school for black and white students. She also wrote and lectured about the importance of freedom while living in Canada with her husband.
Because of her writings and lectures, she wanted to start a newspaper. So, on March 24, 1853, she became the first black, female newspaper editor in North American history when she published Canada's first antislavery newspaper called The Provincial Freeman. Their slogan was "devoted to antislavery, temperance, and general literature".
During the Civil War, she decided to move to Washington D. C where she helped in the war effort. She also kept teaching at public schools. In 1863, she worked as a Recruiting Officer for the Union Army and encouraged African Americans to join the war.
She then wrote for a local African American newspaper The New National Era and gave speeches to African Americans to recover from the slavery era. She is also the founder of the Colored Women’s Progressive Franchise Association.
In 1998, Mary Ann Shadd Cary was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. Also for her work as a newspaper editor and for her community leadership, she was recognized as a Person of National Historic Significance by the Government of Canada in 1994.
