original drawing by Anne Sassoon

African-American abolitionist, lecturer, suffragist, doctor.

6 June 1826 – 13 December 1894

Black American Doctor Sarah Parker Remond: a tribute by Sirpa Salenius

Sarah Parker Remond was from Salem, Massachusetts, where she was born into a family of free Black Americans. Her father, John Remond, was a famous local caterer and her mother, Nancy Lenox, was a fancy-cake maker. Remond’s sisters ran hairdressing salons, manufactured wigs, and prepared a medicated lotion against hair loss. The entire family was active in campaigning against slavery, and Remond’s brother, Charles Lenox, was a well-known abolitionist lecturer who was among the first Black Americans to speak in England and Ireland raising awareness of the horrors of slavery. In 1856, Sarah Remond became a speaker for the American Anti-Slavery Society. She toured with other activists, including her brother, Susan B. Anthony, and Abbey Kelley, who were also campaigning for women’s emancipation. Between 1856 and 1858, Sarah Remond spoke with other abolitionists at anti-slavery meetings in New York City, Rochester, Utica, and Montreal, and in New England, Michigan, and Ohio. The audience at their lectures, as Remond observed, was ‘closely packed’ (Remond, qtd. in Porter, p. 289).

In December 1858, Sarah Remond left for England where she continued to speak against slavery, at times lecturing together with such prominent figures as Frederick Douglass. She was well received and newspapers praised her as ‘one of the best female lecturers’ they had heard (“Lecture on American Slavery”). In London, she became friends with Clementia Taylor and her husband, Peter Taylor, member of Parliament. Their home, the Aubrey House, was one of the central gathering places of London radical reformist circles. Sarah Remond became a member of the London Emancipation Committee and the executive committee of the Ladies’ London Emancipation Society established in 1863. She also enrolled at the Bedford Ladies’ College, where she studied such topics as French and Latin. In London, she met Giuseppe Garibaldi and became friends with Giuseppe Mazzini, both of whom were working toward the unification of Italy. Remond participated in fundraising events to support Mazzini’s cause of Italia Unita. When Remond moved to Florence, she carried letters of introduction written by Mazzini.

Sarah Remond arrived at Firenze La Bella in August 1866. She established herself at Casa Iandelli, a centrally located respectable pension and signed up for a one-month membership at the Gabinetto Vieusseux newsroom and lending library. She wrote that she was not ‘here [in Florence] for pleasure but for study’ (Reyes p. 159). Remond was preparing to start her studies at the medical school. Her request to be admitted to the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital School, dated 30 October 1866, was written in Italian.

The Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence, Italy was founded in 1288. It was one of the most prestigious medical schools of Europe. When Remond applied to be admitted to the school, first merely to audit classes, then regularly enrolled to study for a degree, she had already trained to become a nurse in London. Her request letter was accompanied by two recommendation letters and a letter from B[enjamin].B[arnard]. Appleton, M.D., a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society. Appleton had graduated from Harvard Medical school in 1839 and was one of Harvard’s medical instructors in 1845-46. The recommendation letters testify that Remond had studied at University College London in the departments of midwifery and surgery and had graduated as a nurse. She had had an excellent training for starting her studies in Florence.

The name of ‘Sarah Parker Remond, negra d’America’ appears among the students admitted to the Department of Obstetrics at the Santa Maria Nuova hospital for the academic year 1866-67. After the first year of auditing classes, she took the entrance examination, which she passed with excellent marks (‘benissimo’).

The hospital school documents reveal that she Italianised her name to ‘Sara’: on 2 July 1868 ‘Remond Sara di America (Stati Uniti)’ had completed her studies as well as practical work and requested to be admitted to take the final examination. The hospital school documents testify that on 29 July 1868, ‘Remond, Sarah Parker, figlia di John nativa di Salem Stati Uniti’ (Remond, Sarah Parker, daughter of John, native of Salem, the United States) had been given a permission to take the final habilitation examination, despite the fact that she had attended classes for eight out of the sixteen required months of study. She had completed all required study obligations with rare diligence and remarkable skills.  Remond took the practical test on Tuesday 4 August 1868 and the habilitation examination on 11 August 1868. She most probably passed the examination with excellent marks. She graduated as obstetrician in 1868.

An American newspaper article confirms that ‘After a regular course of study and also of hospital practice, she [Sarah Remond] has recently passed the necessary examination, and received a diploma for professional medical practice.’ Her prospects in Florence were good, as testified by an American newspaper, the Revolution: ‘Miss Remond is said to be not only well received everywhere in Florence but she has friends among the very best people there’ (The Revolution, 5 August 1869). She knew the poet Francesco dall’Ongaro, the Greek author Margherita Mignaty who held a salon on Via Cavour, and American art collector James Jackson Jarves, among many other prominent people visiting or residing in Florence. In Florence, she married an Italian from Sardegna, Lazzaro Pintor, in 1877. According to the marriage certificate, ‘Sara P. Remond’ was a housewife (‘atta a casa’). She seems to have stayed married to Pintor until her death.

Sarah Parker Remond is buried at the Non-Catholic Cemetery for Foreigners in Rome. According to her death certificate, she passed away on 13 December 1894. Her residence at the time of her death was Florence and her profession, according to the death certificate, was surgeon (‘medico chirurgo’).

Sirpa Salenius, PhD, is Associate Researcher at Laboratoire de Recherche sur les Cultures Anglophones (LARCA) (Paris, France), External Affiliate at University College London (UCL) Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation (London, UK), and is affiliated with the University of Eastern Finland (Joensuu, Finland). She was 2020-21 Terra Foundation for American Art Senior Fellow at Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington DC. She is dedicating her time to doing research in Florence, Italy where she resides. 

links: https://larca.u-paris.fr/en/membre/salenius-sirpa-2/ and interview in Black Maple, The Scholar’s Couch: https://blackmaplemagazine.com/category/the-scholars-couch/

Sources:

“Lecture on American Slavery by a Colored Lady.” Warrington Times, 29 January 1859; reprinted in the Liberator, 11 March 1859.

Porter, Dorothy B. “Sarah Parker Remond, Abolitionist and Physician.” Journal of Negro History, Vol. 20, No. 3 (1935), pp. 287-293.

Reyes, Angelina. “Elusive Autobiographical Performativity: Vicey Skipwith’s Home Place and Sarah Parker Remond’s Italian Retreat.” In Loopholes and Retreats: African American Writers and the Nineteenth Century. Eds. John Cullen Gruesse and Hanna Wallinger, special issue of Forecaast Vol. 17 (2009), pp. 141-168.

Salenius, Sirpa. An Abolitionist Abroad: Sarah Parker Remond in Cosmopolitan Europe. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2016.

—. “The Radicals: Sarah Parker Remond.” The Guardian, March 2023.

—. “On Archival Research: Recovering and Rewriting History. The Case of Sarah Parker Remond.” Transatlantica Vol. 1 (2021). http://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/16939

—. “Sarah Parker Remond’s Black American Grand Tour.” In Women and Migration: Responses in Art and History. Eds. Deborah Willis, Ellyn Toscano, and Kalia Brooks Nelson. Open Book Publishers, 2019. 265-272.

—. “Transatlantic Interracial Sisterhoods: Sarah Remond, Ellen Craft, and Harriet Jacobs in England.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Vol. 38, No. 1 (2017), pp. 166-196.

—. negra d’America Remond and Her Journeys.” CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, Vol. 14, No. 5 (2013). “negra d’America Remond and Her Journeys” by Sirpa A. Salenius (purdue.edu)

B: Salem, Massachusetts – came to the UK aged 32.

Education 

Initially self-educated, then at segregated schools in the US.

1859 Enrolled, aged 33, at Bedford College (believed to be the first black student) studying Languages and Liberal Arts.

1865 Studied Nursing at London University College before training further as an obstetrician in Italy. 

Some Key Achievements and Interests

First woman to lecture publicly against slavery in the UK attracting large audiences.

Raised large sums of money for the anti-slavery cause.

Involved in radical social movements in London, a founding member of the Ladies’ London Emancipation Society.

Believed to be the only black woman to sign 1866 petition for women’s voting rights.

Issues

Broke barriers for women by travelling around the US and UK making speeches about slavery without a male chaperone.

Faced many barriers by those who opposed her causes, particularly those relating to black women slaves.

Connection to Bloomsbury 

Lived in Bloomsbury with Elizabeth Jesser Reid (Founder of Ladies’ College renamed Bedford College 1859).

Attended Bedford College and London University College.

Female networks 

She networked with prominent abolitionists and women’s rights activists including Elizabeth Jesser Reid, women’s education pioneer and anti-slavery activist.

Writing/Publication

1861 Autobiographical Essay.

1864 Sarah P. Remond, The Negroes & Anglo-Africans as Freedmen and Soldiers. London: Emily Faithfull.

Legacy

In 2020 UCL renamed its Centre for the Study of Racism & Radicalisation the ‘UCL Sarah Parker Remond Centre’.

Listen to Sirpa Salenius talking about elements of Sarah Parker Remond’s life in Europe and showing why her name was used for the Centre: https://soundcloud.com/ucl-arts-social-science/short-takes-sarah-parker-remond

In March 2022 a plaque produced by the Nubian Jak Community Trust was unveiled in Grenville Street, near Brunswick Square Gardens.

Further reading/listening:

Salenius, Sirpa A; negra d’America Remond and Her Journeys Salenius; CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 14.5 (2012)

Salenius, Sirpa A; On Archival Research: Recovering and Rewriting History. The Case of Sarah Parker Remond (openedition.org)

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/racism-racialisation/about-us/sarah-parker-remond

https://www.suffrageresources.org.uk/resource/3216/sarah-parker-remond

https://www.london.ac.uk/news-and-opinion/leading-women/a-voice-freedom-life-sarah-parker-remond