Lydia Maria Child
Lydia Maria Child, who was born in 1802 in Medford, Massachusetts, was a novelist, journalist, abolitionist and life-long activist.  Her first novel, Hobomok: A Tale of Early Times, was published in 1824.  It was the first historical novel in the United States, and featured a Native American hero in love with a white woman.  She later wrote "An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans called Africans," and edited the National Anti-Slavery Standard.  She spoke up strongly for John Brown at the time of the Harper's Ferry raid.  After the Civil War, she was a founder of the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association, and worked to defend the rights of Native Americans.  She died in 1880.
>> Learn more: http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/lydiamariachild.html