Elleanor Eldridge: A Woman Before Her Time

Today’s blog post is about Elleanor Eldridge, a woman of color born in Warwick who owned property on Spring Street in Providence. In 1827. Wow!

The life of Elleanor Eldridge is amazing. She was likely born in 1784, her father was a freed slave and  her mother was part Narragansett Indian. Elleanor’s mother died when Elleanor was only 10. Elleanor went to live as a servant for a local family and learned spinning, weaving, and cheese making. From these humble beginnings, she worked to become a domestic entrepreneur by doing laundry, painting, wallpapering, boiling soap, and weaving cloth. She saved money and purchased property on Spring Street in Providence. She borrowed a sum of money to purchase additional lots in the city. When a cholera epidemic broke out in Providence, Elleanor fell behind on the loan payments.

The Rhode Island Historical Society describes what happened next as “a confusing array of manipulations, culminating in the seizure and sale of her biggest house. The circumstances of the sale remain suspicious: The creditors could have easily sold her smaller house or one of her plots of land to pay off her debt. Instead, they seized the largest, never legally advertised it, and sold what was likely a $4,000 home for $1,500. It was a case of collusion, an abuse of power directed at a woman they believed couldn’t defend herself.” 

Elleanor, however, fought back in the courts and got creative. With Frances Harriet Whipple, a prominent Rhode Island woman dedicated to radical causes, Elleanor published two memoirs about her life that brought attention to the injustice she faced and raised funds to support her fight. Ultimately, the case settled and she was able to buy back her wrongly taken property. The first volume of the memoirs called the Memoirs of Elleanor Eldridge can be found online. The memoir, republished by the West Virginia Press, “because of Eldridge’s exceptional life as a freeborn woman of color entrepreneur…constitutes a counter-narrative to slave narratives of early nineteenth-century New England, changing the literary landscape of conventional American Renaissance studies and interpretations of American Transcendentalism.” 

Sadly, Spring Street in Providence no longer exists. It was about a block from where Classical High School is currently located.

Image courtesy of Library Company of Philadelphia.