to the ministers' attacks by writing a series of letters addressed to the president of the abolitionist society which sponsored their speeches. These became known as Letters on the Equality of the Sexes, in which she defended women's right to the public platform. By 1838, thousands of people flocked to hear their Boston lecture series. In 1839 the sisters, with Weld, published American Slavery as It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses, a collection of eyewitness testimony and stories from Southern newspapers. Until 1854, Theodore was often away from home, either on the lecture circuit or in Washington, DC. After that, financial pressures forced him to take up a more lucrative profession. For a time they lived on a farm in New Jersey and operated a boarding school. Many abolitionists, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, sent their children to the school. Eventually, it developed as a cooperative, the Raritan Bay Union. Although the sisters no longer spoke on the lecture circuit, they continued to be privately active as both abolitionists and feminists. Neither Sarah nor Angelina initially sought to become feminists, but felt the role was forced onto them. Devoutly religious, these Quaker converts' works are predominantly religious in nature, with strong Biblical arguments. Indeed, both their abolitionist sentiments and their feminism sprang from deeply-held religious convictions. Both Sarah, who eventually emphasized feminism over abolitionism, and Angelina, who remained primarily interested in the abolitionist movement, were powerful writers. They neatly summarized the abolitionist arguments which would eventually lead to the Civil War. Sarah's work addressed many issues that are familiar to the feminist movement of the late 20th century, 150 years later. Before the Civil War, the sisters discovered that their late brother Henry had had a relationship with Nancy Weston, an enslaved mixed-race woman, after he became a widower. They lived together and had three mixed-race sons: Archibald, Francis, and John (who was born a couple of months after their father died). The sisters arranged for the oldest two nephews to come north for education and helped support them. Francis J. Grimké became a Presbyterian minister who graduated from Lincoln University (Pennsylvania) and Princeton Theological Seminary. In December 1878, Francis married Charlotte Forten, a noted educator and author, and had one daughter, Theodora Cornelia, who died as an infant. The daughter of Archibald, Angelina Weld Grimké (named after her aunt), became a noted poet. When Sarah was nearly 80, to