Born: 1800
Birthplace: Virginia
Died: 1884
Location of death: Philadelphia, PA
Cause of death: unspecified
Remains: Buried, Fair Hill Burial Ground, Philadelphia, PA

Gender: Female
Religion: Quaker
Race or Ethnicity: White
Occupation: Activist

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Abolitionist and suffragette

Sarah Pugh was a 19th century schoolteacher and abolitionist, and co-founder and leader of the influential Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, a women's group open to all races. At the 1838 Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women in Philadelphia, the meeting hall was torched by an angry pro-slavery mob, and the women escaped the building in pairs -- black women arm-in-arm with white women, which left would-be attackers bewildered long enough for all the women to escape. The next day the convention reconvened in Pugh's schoolhouse.

With Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Pugh attended the World Anti-Slavery Conference in London in 1840 -- or more accurately, they crashed the meeting. Female delegates had been officially denied registration, but Pugh had written to protest this and advise the organizers that at least three women would be attending.

After the US Civil War she established several schools for freed slaves and their children, and became a prominent suffragette. In her mid-70s she signed the Declaration of Rights for Women in 1876. Her closest friends included Lott and Susan B. Anthony, and she was aunt and inspiration to women's and children's rights activist Florence Kelley. She never married.

    High School: Westtown Boarding School, Philadelphia, PA
    Teacher: Friends School, Philadelphia, PA (1821-1860s)

    Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society President (1833-1870)
    Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society

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