Overview

"When Angelina Grimke pleads with her brother Henry not to punish a household slave, she does not anticipate her ""stony road"" ahead as a remarkably effective abolitionist speaker. Leaving behind their illustrious slave-holding family, she and her sister, Sarah, take their northern audiences by storm. Yet the very fact of their speaking in public, as women, doubles the opposition they face and leads them to become among the earliest American voices for women's rights. As they and their fellow abolitionists experience violent riots and the burning of their lecture hall, they wonder if their efforts have been in vain. Romance and marriage lead them to a less public life, but in the aftermath of Emancipation and the Civil War, a formidable challenge awaits them in the discovery of their unknown nephews. After their father's death and prior to the war, these promising nephews, children of Henry and his slave mistress, Nancy Weston, are enslaved by their half-brother. Mistreated, abused, and beaten nearly to death, they eventually escape and find their way north, seeking a full education. But will their eventual encounter with their abolitionist aunts redeem the suffering they and their mother experienced at the hands of their southern family?"

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Reviews

"""Rosemary Curran's exquisitely researched novel puts flesh on the lives of the Grimke sisters, who played a major role in the American abolition movement, served as pioneers in the campaign for women's rights, and challenged the ecclesiastical patriarchy of their times. They published tracts that were read across the country, suffered persecution and harrowing attacks, and testified to the horrific conditions of slavery in their native South Carolina."" --Thomas Trzyna, author of Pornography and Genocide: The War against Women ""After reading volume 1 of Stony the Road We Trod, we find ourselves caring deeply for the Grimke sisters and their work. Rosemary Curran narrates their lives within the religious, political, and social conditions that made Grimke's work both so difficult and so brave. By weaving together the extant historical record with an imagination that speaks truth, Curran makes us feel as if we are part of the story too."" --Debra Hull, retired professor of psychology, Wheeling Jesuit University ""Based on skillfully dramatized, up-to-date research, Rosemary Curran brings to life in two volumes the intersecting stories of Sarah and Angelina Grimke and of their two nephews. The sisters' story reveals the arduous journey of rebelling against crucial values of their upbringing, becoming advocates against slavery and for women's rights. We see the fighting power, discipline, and strength of their nephews who survive slavery and remarkably make their way to Harvard and Princeton Seminary."" --Diana L. Villegas, scholar of Christian spirituality ""Rosemary Curran's Stony the Road We Trod sweeps us into the intimate lives of a slave-holding Southern family and the courageous daughters who refuted the white supremacy into which they were born. The abolitionist Grimke sisters come alive in these pages as both exceptional public figures and vulnerable women caught up in domestic conflicts and heartbreak. This book vividly reveals what it means and costs to make an ethical stand against family and state."" --Linda Mizejewski, professor of women's, gender, and sexuality studies, Ohio State University ""The abolitionist saga, the saga of women's rights, and the rising tide of the Civil Rights movement come alive in this very personal rendering of the lives of the Grimk� sisters and their nephews Archibald and Francis Grimk�. Curran has crafted a thoroughly researched and well-written historical novel detailing a complex period of United States history."" --Rose Gatens, retired director, Center for Holocaust and Human Rights Education, Florida Atlantic University ""Rose Curran transports the reader to nineteenth-century America in a compelling and sweeping family saga. With the backdrop of the Antebellum South and Abolitionist Northeast, the Grimke family sprang to life! The Grimkes were full of bold, remarkable people who tirelessly advocated for not only the abolition of slavery but also women's suffrage. Curran masterfully portrays a dense and complex history in a superbly written narrative. I look forward to many pore publications from Curran."" --Laura Grosso, international program manager"

Author Information

Rosemary T. Curran is an author, theologian, and educator who has taught philosophy, ethics, and religious studies at Wheeling University, Smith College, Phillips Andover Academy, and Seattle University. She was a Fulbright Scholar in Ethiopia in 2005-2007 and in 2012-2013, where she taught urban and environmental planning. She is the coauthor of Loving and Working: Reweaving Women's Public and Private Lives. A graduate of Fordham University and University of Washington, she lives in Seattle.

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