In the years leading up to the Civil War, Lucretia Mott was considered the greatest woman in the nation, she was deemed more important than the Grimke sisters and other women in the abolitionist movement, who looked up to her. Leading Light captures Lucretia Mott's remarkable life in conversational prose informed by scholarship and a firm grasp of her historical period.
Mott was born into a Quaker community, where The Friends actively opposed slavery and practiced equality for women and girls within the walls of their faith. She would live her life with these principles as her guiding light, fighting slavery and working on behalf of women's rights alongside the likes of Frederick Douglas, who said of her, “She spoke to the world through every line of her countenance... bearing a message of light and love.” America in the 19th century would not have been the same without her.

Jamie Stiehm is a Washington syndicated columnist, historian, and author whose work has appeared in newspapers, large and small, in 40 states across America. She is the author of numerous essays and columns on national politics and history.
Jamie Stiehm's newspaper column appears throughout the United States. She was an opinion contributor to US News & World Report and has appeared frequently on TV news shows.