White, Mary Avery ___ n/a-1861 ___ American ___ craftsperson

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
There is limited information about Mary on the internet, other than that contained within her diaries. She was born at Boylston, Massachusetts and lived in a small rural community. She married Aaron White and had at least six children. She was a committed abolitionist, organising concerts of prayer and sewing quilts to raise money for the cause. She is known to have opened her home to abolitionist lecturers including African-Americans. Three volumes of Mary White's diaries are in the Research Library at Old Sturbridge Village. The same library also holds the diary of her son, Charles, while the Massachusetts Historical Society holds the diary of another son, Aaron. And the American Antiquarian Society has the diary of Mary's sister, Nancy Avery White. Mary B Fuhrer has put together selections and commentaries on the White family in 'Letters from the 'Old Home Place': Anxieties and Aspirations in Rural New England, 1836-1843'.
A biography link
No Wikipedia bio

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1805-1844 ___ religious social family farming health slavery

WEB TEXT LINKS
extracts on slavery
extracts

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
University of Delaware Librar
Old Sturbridge Village Collections

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
 

May 2005, August 2008, April 2013
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.