Fanny Wright, who was born in Scotland in 1795 and came to the United States in 1818, was a woman at odds with the conventions of her time. In 1825 Wright became the first woman in America to act publicly to oppose slavery. In 1828 she was the first to speak in public to a large secular audience of men and women, and the first to argue that women must be granted an equal role in the business of public life.
She was an associate of Robert Dale Owen at New Harmony and established an experimental colony in Tennessee to foster racial equality. Loved and hated with equal extravagance, she worked tirelessly for racial and sexual equality, leaving the comforts of her ancestral home to risk her health, fortune, and good name to support what she saw as the promise of the Declaration of Independence.
She was an associate of Robert Dale Owen at New Harmony and established an experimental colony in Tennessee to foster racial equality. Loved and hated with equal extravagance, she worked tirelessly for racial and sexual equality, leaving the comforts of her ancestral home to risk her health, fortune, and good name to support what she saw as the promise of the Declaration of Independence.
