February 4, 2023 - Anna Murray Douglass

The popular saying, “Behind every great man there's a great woman,” first appeared in print in 1945 and was popularized twenty years later as a feminist battle cry, but it perfectly describes the relationship between Frederick Douglass and his wife Anna Murray Douglass. Today on February 4, 2023, Lyles Station Historic Schoolhouse and Museum recognizes the woman who made Frederick Douglass a reality. Without Anna, Frederick likely would have remained a slave his whole life.
Before Frederick Douglass became Frederick Douglass, he was Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, a slave Anna Murray first met in Baltimore where he had been “hired out” by his owners in Maryland.
In 1813, Anna Murray was born free in Caroline County, Maryland, to two former slaves. At seventeen, she left Caroline County, moving to Baltimore, Maryland. Despite being born free, she still had to apply for a certificate of freedom in 1832 which allowed her to journey away from home for work.
In Baltimore, Anna established herself as a hard worker who found work as a domestic helper and began saving money, money that would later help free Frederick.
Despite having grown up approximately three miles apart in Maryland, Frederick and Anna never met until 1838, probably at church, in Baltimore. The couple made plans for Frederick to escape, and Anna sold her feather bed in order to pay for his expenses to travel to New York City by train. He had to borrow a friend’s freedman’s papers and disguised himself as a sailor in a uniform Anna sewed for him. Anna joined him in New York a week later, and the couple married in the home of David Ruggles, an abolitionist based in New York. Shedding his slave name of Bailey, the couple became Mr. and Mrs. Douglass.
Anna arrived in New York prepared, for she brought everything they needed to set up housekeeping. In addition to her own clothing, she brought dishes, cutlery, a feather bed, pillows, and linens. Had he been apprehended as a runaway, she would have been charged with assisting him, so maintaining his freedom was essential.
The newlyweds moved to Massachusetts and began working with the Anti-Slavery Society. They later moved to Rochester, New York, where Anna provided safe refuge for runaway slaves making their way to Canada. One of the first Underground Railroad agents, she continued to provide fugitives with safety through the years, even when she was left alone while Frederick was gone on speaking engagements or exiled in England.
Frederick’s involvement with the abolitionist movement intensified, taking him away from home for long periods of time, including two years in England. Anna maintained the household, raised the children, supported the family, lodged their guests-and runaways-while saving all the money he sent back to her, relying upon her income earned by mending shoes to support the family. Always financially savvy, she saved money that enabled them to buy two row houses in 1872 and their final home, Cedar Hill, in 1877. She may have fried the bacon in their family, but she also brought it home.
A very private woman, Anna preferred to work in the background, raising her children and serving as an agent on the Underground Railroad. While her husband was famous for his speeches, public appearances, and books, she purposely stayed in the background where she could be more effective.
Historians have not been kind to Anna, referring to her as illiterate and unsophisticated, considering her not grand enough to be married to the renown Frederick Douglass. However, her daughter Rosetta told of passing the family Bible around the dinner table with each person reading a passage-not omitting her mother from the experience. Also, Anna’s financial prowess points to her intelligence, along with managing a household where she had to serve as hostess to Frederick’s many abolitionist companions.
The Douglasses were also the target of vicious rumors accusing Frederick of having affairs with white women who had been guests in their home, verbal attacks made to discredit his work in the abolitionist movement. Anna chose to ignore these attacks and not dignify them by publicly defending herself or her husband in order to maintain her privacy and respectability.
Many have noted that Frederick did not mention Anna in his writings and have taken that as a dismissal of her worth; it is actually quite the opposite. At that point in time, women’s names were to appear in print twice-when they married and when they died. By not writing about her, he was showing her the respect she had earned. Most of what we know about Anna comes from work written by her children, letters and books that present her as a strong woman who made it possible for Frederick Douglass to be Frederick Douglass. Historians have dismissed her as stupid, ugly, and too dark, thinking her “not good enough” for Frederick.