Born in Salem, Mass in 1826
died in Rome, Italy in 1894
Sarah Parker Remond (1826-94) was born in Salem and was the daughter of John Remond and Nancy Lenox. John Remond was a free person of color who was brought from Curacao at the age of 10. Her mother, Nancy, was born in Newton, the daughter of a Revolutionary War veteran. Financial security for the family was provided by successful food catering, provisioning and hair salon businesses. Sarah’s sisters continued successfully in the catering and hair salon businesses.
The Remond family supported equal rights, campaigned for antislavery causes and was dedicated to the abolition movement. Sarah gave her first public antislavery speech in 1842 when she was just 16 years old. Along with her mother and sisters, Sarah was a member of numerous state and county female anti-slavery societies. Her brother Charles Lenox Remond was a gifted orator and was active in anti-slavery meetings. Charles was a close confidant of abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison and spoke at many anti-slavery conferences across the country and abroad. Sarah was one of the founders of the Salem Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1834. She later became an internationally renowned antislavery lecturer and toured the New England states. In 1858, she appeared at the National Women’s Rights Convention in New York City.
Ms. Remond was invited to accompany Samuel May, Jr. and delivered her first anti-slavery lecture in Liverpool, England, in 1859, which was then followed by lectures in Ireland and Scotland. She was able to raise large sums of monetary support for the anti-slavery cause with her lectures. At the end of the U.S. Civil War, Sarah lectured for the benefit of the freedmen and raised funds and clothing for the ex-slaves. She was an active member of the London Emancipation Society and the Freedman’s Aid Association in London.
While in England, Remond studied at the Bedford College for Women (later the University of London) and her studies followed a course of classical study including French, Latin, English literature, music, history and elocution.
Remond had traveled to Rome and Florence while a student in England and later moved to Florence in 1866 at the age of 42. She entered the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital in Florence and began her medical studies. Remond married Lazarro Pinto in April of 1877 and settled permanently in Florence, practicing medicine for twenty years until her death in Rome in1894. She never returned to the United States after moving to Italy.
In 1999, Sarah Parker Remond was included among six women to be the first honorees of the State House Women’s Leadership Project. To commemorate the contributions made by the six honorees an art memorial to women called “Hear Us” hangs prominently outside Doric Hall where tours of the State House begin.
In 2014, through the efforts of Marilyn Richardson, retired MIT professor and attorney Francis Mayo, a plaque honoring Sarah Parker Remond has been placed in the cemetery in Rome where she was buried.
The city of Salem, Mass is honoring Sarah Parker Remond and her brother Charles Lenox Remond by naming a new ‘Remond Park’ being constructed on the waterfront at the end of Bridge Street on the site of the former Beverly/Salem bridge. The park is expected to open in 2016.
Sources:
Salem Library Wiki: http://www.noblenet.org/salem/wiki/index.php/Remond,_Sarah_Parker
The Salem Evening News: Remond Park landscape Plan January 18, 2015
Salem Women’s History: http://www.salemwomenshistory.com/
Available at the Library:
Salem Women’s Heritage Trail by Bonnie Hurd Smith : 917.445/Smith
http://evergreen.noblenet.org/eg/opac/record/1958881?locg=63
Salem place, myth, and memory / edited by Dane Anthony Morrison, Nancy Lusignan Schultz : 974.402/Salem
http://evergreen.noblenet.org/eg/opac/record/2406826?locg=63
Notable American Women 1607-1950; a biographical dictionary. Edward T. James, editor. Janet Wilson James, associate editor. Paul S. Boyer, assistant editor. R/920/Notable
http://evergreen.noblenet.org/eg/opac/record/2242017?locg=63
ONLINE
The Remonds of Salem, Massachusetts: a Nineteenth Century Family Revisited
Porter, Dorothy Burnett
American Antiquarian Society, 1985.
Portrait of Sarah Parker Remond courtesy of the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA