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National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Charles Brockden Brown
William Dunlap, Artist
1806
Watercolor on Ivory
1806
Watercolor on Ivory
Charles Brockden Brown was a renowned novelist and literary professional. Born into a Quaker family in Philadelphia, he was raised as a supporter of women’s rights. In his 1798 publication Alcuin, a dialogue on women’s rights, Brown advocated for women’s equal access to education, equated marriage to a form of slavery for wives, and criticized women’s exclusion from politics.