Rosetta Douglass-Sprague
(1839-1906)
Founding member of the National Association of Colored Women
Frederick Douglass’s oldest child, Rosetta, was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, shortly after her parents settled into freedom. Having a daughter made her father more aware of the complexities of racial and gender oppression. He sent her away for private tutoring from age seven through her teenage years. In 1848 Rosetta passed entrance exams and was admitted to the prestigious Seward Seminary in Rochester, New York.
Rosetta and her father shared a close relationship. He liked hearing her play the piano for visitors at his home. Society expected high standards of her for she was the activist daughter. She attended Oberlin College’s Young Ladies Preparatory and New Jersey’s Salem Normal School, but did not attend college. She worked as a teacher before becoming a wife and homemaker.
She was very much her father’s daughter and lived by the same principles of racial equality. She advised Frederick Douglass against accepting the presidency of the Freedman’s Bank and did not support his interracial marriage, after her mother’s death.
Rosetta was a founding member of the National Association of Colored Women.