Nancy Gardner Prince

Nancy Gardner Prince (September 15, 1799 – c. 1856) was an African-American woman born free in Newburyport, Massachusetts,[1] who wrote about her travels in Russia and Jamaica. The date of her death is uncertain. Her published autobiography includes an account of how her marriage led her to the Russian Courts of Alexander I and Nicholas I.[2] "The author vivdly describes local Russian customs, as well as her experiences of the Saint Petersburg flood of 1824 and the Decembrist Revolt."

Little is known about Prince's family life. Her father, a seaman from Nantucket, died when she was an infant, leaving her in the care of her mother, who subsequently married several times, so that Nancy had six younger siblings.[3] They sold berries to support the family and she eventually went on to work as a servant for white families.

On February 15, 1824 she married Nero Prince, one of the founders of the Prince Hall Freemasons in Boston.[4] They traveled to Russia, where she opened a boarding home and made clothing for infants, while her husband was a footman to the czar in St. Petersburg. When they returned to Boston, she started her own seamstress business and gave lectures about her travels to Russia and Jamaica.

References
  1. Afro-American women writers, 1746-1933 : an anthology and critical guide. Shockley, Ann Allen. New York, N.Y., U.S.A.: New American Library. 1988. p. 48. ISBN 0-452-00981-2. OCLC 19066213.CS1 maint: others (link)
  2. Kaganoff, Penny. "A Black Woman’s Odyssey Through Russia and Jamaica: the Narrative of Nancy Prince". 'Publishers Weekly, June 28, 1990: 95. Gale Biography in Content.
  3. Yee, Shirley, "Prince, Nancy Gardner (1799-c.1856)", Black Past, February 22, 2007.
  4. "History of Prince Hall". Shelton D. Redden Lodge #139. 2017-03-20. Retrieved 2019-10-16.

Further reading
  • Bolden, Tonya. Biographies. Digital Schomburg, African American Women Writers of the 19th Century (accessed November 18, 2011),
  • "Nancy Gardner Prince", Notable Black American Women. Gale, 1992. Gale Biography in Context. Web. September 13, 2012.
  • Yee, Shirley. "Prince, Nancy Gardner 1799-c 1856", BlackPast.org (accessed January 12, 2012)
  • Kaganoff, Penny. "A Black Woman’s Odyssey Through Russia and Jamaica: the Narrative of Nancy Prince". Publishers Weekly, June 28, 1990: 95. Gale Biography in Content. Web. September 13, 2012
  • Prince, Nancy, A Narrative of the life and travels of Mrs. Nancy Prince, accessed November 18, 2011)
  • Yee, Shirley J., Black Women Abolitionists: A Study in Activism, 1828-1860 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992)
  • Loewenberg, Bert James, and Ruth Bogin, eds, Black Women in Nineteenth Century American Life (University Park: Penn State University Press, 1978).
  • Australia Tarver Henderson, "Nancy Gardner Prince" in Darlene Clark Hine, ed., Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, vol. II (New York: Carlson, 1993): 946–47.
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