4.—A good account of the "Know-Nothings" is to be found in the "Magazine of American History," Vol. 13, p. 202, in article "Political Americanisms," by Charles Ledyard Norton.
6.—That antiquarian scholar, Samuel Gardner Drake, made an exhaustive study of the Massachusetts Indians, which is embodied principally in his "Book of the Indians," the "Old Indian Chronicle" and the "Particular History of the Five Years' French and Indian War." Much Indian history is also given in notes, introductions, and appendices, in his editions of Church's and Mather's "King Philip's War," and Mather's "Early History of New England."
7.—There is no extended biography of Robert Rantoul, Jr., but sketches of him may be found in the "North American Review," Vol. 78, p. 237, and the "Democratic Review," Vol. 27, p. 348; the latter containing a portrait.
3.—A lady thoroughly identified with the Anti-Slavery cause, and abundantly able to answer the query "Who was the first American woman to publicly espouse the cause of Anti-Slavery," writes as follows in response to a request for her opinion:—
The question 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 Grimké, afterwards married to Theodore D. Weld, and her sister Sarah M. Grimké. 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 Boston, was obtained for a course of five lectures by these ladies, and was filled every evening by a dense crowd. Angelina was the finer speaker and gave three lectures out of the five. This was the only time the Odeon was ever opened to Anti-Slavery. They were members of the Friends' Society, which undoubtedly prevented them from embarrassment in addressing mixed audiences.
Wendell Phillips says of them, "No man who remembers 1837 and its lowering clouds, will deny that there was hardly any contribution to the Anti-Slavery movement greater or more impressive than the crusade of these Grimké sisters from South Carolina, through the New England States."
You see my answer to the question would be emphatically Angelina and Sarah M. Grimké.