Maria Stewart is an abolitionist, women’s rights leader, and author. Stewart was orphaned at five years old, and served as an indentured servant until the age of fifteen. Eventually she moved to Boston, worked as a domestic servant, and was educated through Sunday school classed. Deeply influenced by religion, activists like Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, David Walker among her own experiences as a Black women, Stewart published Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality, the Sure Foundation on Which We Must Build in 1831, which lead her to give several public recorded lectures. She was one of the first Black women to speak publicaly in the United States in September 1832 at Franklin Hall. Much of her lectures used Christianity and the Bible to oppose enslavement. Eventually she moved to New York, and spent her time teaching while also being part of a  Black "Female Literary Society.” Later, she moved to Baltimore and Washington DC where she served as Matron of the Freedmen’s Hospital.