An Uncommon Woman: The Life of Lydia Hamilton Smith (INSCRIBED COPY)
by: Kelley, Mark

Softcover. University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2nd pr., 2023, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 266 pages, b&w illustrations. INSCRIBED BY KELLEY on the title page. Lydia Hamilton Smith (1813-1884) was a prominent African American businesswoman in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and the longtime housekeeper, life companion, and collaborator of the state's abolitionist congressman Thaddeus Stevens. In his biography of this remarkable woman, Mark Kelley reveals how Smith served the cause of abolition, managed Stevens's household, acquired property, and crossed racialized social boundaries. In the last years of Stevens's life, as his declining health threatened to short-circuit his work, Smith risked her own well-being to keep him alive while he led the drive to end slavery, impeach Andrew Johnson, and push for the ratification of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. Clean copy.