{"id":4363,"date":"2025-05-14T03:02:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T03:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coloredconventions.org\/women-economic-power\/?page_id=4363"},"modified":"2026-08-28T14:15:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T18:15:14","slug":"margaret-court","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/coloredconventions.org\/women-economic-power\/dressmakers-milliners\/margaret-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Margaret Court"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n
\n

At 20, Margaret Court was already working as a milliner while tending to her children. She and her husband, Edward Court, were members of the free Black community. Margaret Court\u2019s profession complemented her husband\u2019s job as a clothes seller. It was crucial for both to work at the same time to support their growing family. The couple would eventually have three children. In the 1830s, the Courts lived in the center of Philadelphia\u2019s Black neighborhood but moved to Camden, New Jersey, sometime before 1850. In the 1860s, Margaret Court ran her business in Philadelphia while her husband worked in Camden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Delegates recognized the importance of the work of women like Margaret Court. The first convention<\/a> held in 1830 lauded their improvement: \u201cTheir specimens in writing, needlework &c. &c. made a deep impression on the Convention,\u201d they declared.1<\/sup> Margaret Court\u2019s work as a milliner spanned 30 years; it is likely that her craft sustained her family\u2019s survival. She fully recognized the significance of her craft and provided her customers the ability to \u201c[tailor] their public appearances to directly counter slavery\u2019s visual culture, to reclaim rights to covering and to sacredness.\u201d2<\/sup> Apart from securing her children\u2019s future, Margaret Court also donated money to church projects to support her community. Her name appears numerous times in The Christian Recorder\u2019s<\/em> \u201cDollar Money Record\u201d from Camden, New Jersey.3<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\"Portrait
“Portrait of an unidentifed woman,” 1855. Courtesy of African Americana Collection, Library Company of Philadelphia. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Sources<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  • Minutes and Proceedings of the 1830 \u201cConstitution of the American Society of Free Persons of Colour, for improving their condition in the United States; for purchasing lands; ad for the establishment of a settlement in upper Canada.\u201d <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Jasmine Nichole Cobb. Picture Freedom: Remaking Black Visuality in the Early Nineteenth Century. (New York: New York UP, 2015), 121.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • \u201cCamden, NJ-Rev. F.J. Cooper, Pastor. -Mary L. Bell, Thomas F.\u201d The Christian Recorder, 4 Jun. 1874. Accessible Archives. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
    <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    At 20, Margaret Court was already working as a milliner while tending to her children. She and her husband, Edward Court, were members of the free Black community. Margaret Court\u2019s profession complemented her husband\u2019s job as a clothes seller. It was crucial for both to work at the same time to support their growing family. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":2962,"parent":4357,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":"[]"},"class_list":["post-4363","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coloredconventions.org\/women-economic-power\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4363","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=4363"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/coloredconventions.org\/women-economic-power\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4933,"href":"https:\/\/coloredconventions.org\/women-economic-power\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4363\/revisions\/4933"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coloredconventions.org\/women-economic-power\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4357"}],"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=4363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}