{"id":4337,"date":"2025-05-14T02:01:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T02:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coloredconventions.org\/women-economic-power\/?page_id=4337"},"modified":"2026-08-28T14:30:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T18:30:24","slug":"serena-peter-gardiner","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/coloredconventions.org\/women-economic-power\/boarding-houses\/serena-peter-gardiner\/","title":{"rendered":"Serena and Peter Gardiner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Serena and Peter Gardiner ran a boarding house on Elizabeth St. Although Peter supplemented their income by doing odd jobs (botanical doctor and boot cleaner), Serena appears to be entirely in charge of the house. This is not unusual; as Gary B. Nash points out, by 1820s and well into the1830s, \u201cblack households directed by women outstrip the number of female-headed white households.\u201d1<\/sup> Only Serena Gardiner\u2019s name appears on their ads in Freedom\u2019s Journal<\/em> and The Liberator<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cGenteel Private Boarding House.\u201d The Liberator<\/em>, 25 Apr. 1835. From Accessible Archives \u00a9 2016 Accessible Archives Inc.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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A section of The Liberator <\/em>promoting Dr. Gardiner’s cures. Source: Gale. 19th Century U.S. Newspapers. \u00a92008 Gale, a part of Cengage Learning, Inc.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Card Thanking Serena Gardiner<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA Card.\u201d The Liberator, 11 July 1835. Accessible Archives \u00a9 2016 Accessible Archives Inc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Gardiners hosted many boarders and provided excellent service. In 1835, their boarders\u2014mostly delegates from the Fifth Annual Convention<\/a>\u2014published a thank you note addressed to Serena Gardiner. Among those named was William Whipper, a well known activist and convention attendee. Peter Gardiner was not mentioned though he participated in many political meetings. His name appears in the minutes and proceedings of two Philadelphia conventions: the Constitution of the American Society of Free Persons held in 1830<\/a>, the Third Annual Convention in 1833<\/a>, and the Fourth Annual Convention for the Improvement of the Free People of Color in 1834<\/a>. His political engagement pre-dates the Colored Conventions movement. In 1829, along with Whipper and Charles Short, he participated in the founding of the newspaper Rights of All<\/em>. The Gardiners maintained an enduring friendship with Whipper throughout his residence in Philadelphia. The Gardiners were also connected to a prominent Black elite family, the Hintons<\/a>. The Gardiners lived with Peter\u2019s sister, Elizabeth Gardiner Howell, who was married to Richard Howell, an oysterman and a delegate at the 1830 Colored Convention. Both the Howells and Gardiners raised the Howells\u2019 granddaughter Ada Howell Hinton<\/a> when her parents died2<\/sup>. Ada grew up to be an activist as well. This is not surprising as she grew up in a household that hosted many political discussions. By situating the Gardiner boarding house as an important place where African Americans lived, organized, and strategized, we gain a better understanding of the shape of Black activism in the nineteenth century.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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“A Card.” The Liberator, 11 July 1835. Accessible Archives \u00a9 2016 Accessible Archives Inc.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Sources<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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  1. Gary B. Nash. Forging Freedom: The Formation of Philadelphia\u2019s Black Community, 1720-1840. (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2003), 162. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Julie Winch. The Elite of Our People: Joseph Willson\u2019s Sketch of Black Upper-Class Life in Antebellum Philadelphia. (University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 2000), 146-147.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
    <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Serena and Peter Gardiner ran a boarding house on Elizabeth St. Although Peter supplemented their income by doing odd jobs (botanical doctor and boot cleaner), Serena appears to be entirely in charge of the house. This is not unusual; as Gary B. Nash points out, by 1820s and well into the1830s, \u201cblack households directed by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":2962,"parent":4328,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":"[]"},"class_list":["post-4337","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coloredconventions.org\/women-economic-power\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coloredconventions.org\/women-economic-power\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coloredconventions.org\/women-economic-power\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coloredconventions.org\/women-economic-power\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coloredconventions.org\/women-economic-power\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4337"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/coloredconventions.org\/women-economic-power\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4946,"href":"https:\/\/coloredconventions.org\/women-economic-power\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4337\/revisions\/4946"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coloredconventions.org\/women-economic-power\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4328"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coloredconventions.org\/women-economic-power\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coloredconventions.org\/women-economic-power\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}