Though She Had Never Reced A Formal Education, She Taught Reading, Writing, Spelling, Arithmetic, Geography and Grammar. In 1835 She arranged for the Publication of Her Speeches, Essays and Religious Meditations As “Productions of Mrs. Maria W. Stewart ”; It had an immediate influence. Within a Year, According to the historian Marilyn Richardson, Other Women, Black and White, Ascended the Podiums of Churches and Meeting Halls across the Country to Proclaim A “Social Gospel of Liberation and Justice for All.”
In the Early 1860s Stewart Moved to Washington, Where She Opened Her Own School. It attracts Prominent Members of the Black Community Who Paid Tuition; She also Welcomed Those who Couldn’t Afford It Free of Charge. In Her Last Job She worked as a Matron at the Freedmen’s Hospital (Now Howard University Hospital), Which Provided Aid to Formly Enslaved People and Their Families.
Toward the End of Her Life, Stewart Learned that the Government was offering Pensions to Veterans of the War of 1812, and Applied As A Veteran’s Widow. She used the Income to Underwrite A New, Greatly Expanded Collection of Her Speeches and Writings, “Meditations from the Pen of Mrs. Maria W. Stewart, ”Which Guaranéed That Her Voice and Ideas Would Be Preserved for Future Generations.
She died at Freedmen’s Hospital in December 1879. She was 76.
Maria W. Stewart Had a profound influence on the activists. Richardson, The Historian, observed that her command of sophisticated oratory techniques such as call-end-lossee, anaphora, parataxis and the use of powerful and affing rhythms proven she was “a clear forerunnner” to sojournner truth, frances ew harper, frederick douglass, henry highland Garnet and Many Others. And Waters, her biographer, Credits Stewart with Laying the Groundwork for Today’s Conversations Around Intersectionality with her pioneering writer on race, gender and class.
In 2024, After the Boston State Senate Announced That It Would Honor A Woman With A Bust in Its Chamber, the Journalist Kimberly Atkins-Stohr Published an Opinion Piece in the Boston Globe Arguing That It Should Be of Stewart. In an interview, stohr said she draws strength from Stewart’s Determination Whenever She encourage vitriol in her inbox or on social media, following the examination of America’s first black women political Writer: “If Stewart Had the Ability to Find It Within Herself To Do that Work, then i can, too. ”
