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Mary Ellen Pleasant (August 19, 1814 [a] – January 11, 1904 [b]) was an American entrepreneur, financier, real estate magnate and abolitionist. She was arguably the first self-made millionaire of African-American heritage, preceding Madam C. J. Walker by decades.
Teresa Percy flees her abusive husband, a gambling addict, from New York City to San Francisco in the mid-1800s. Her new friend Lizzie, a prostitute, introduces her to Ms. Mary Ellen "Mammy" Pleasant, a mysterious local socialite infamous for having "rescued" and gainfully employed numerous black people who were former slaves and part of southern America's African-American diaspora.
Bell was a decades-long bachelor [4] when Pleasant introduced him to Teresa Percy Hoey, [3] [10] who had been one of her "protégés". [11] [d] Teresa's maiden name was Harris and she was a widow when she married Bell. [10] Home of Mary Ellen Pleasant and Thomas Bell's family, 1861 Octavia, San Francisco, California
Woodworth and his brother were abolitionists, his brother having served in the Atlantic to end the slave trade. A fugitive slave named Mary Ellen Pleasant had come to San Francisco in 1852 aboard the steamer Oregon. Initially she took employment working as a cook and housekeeper at the house belonging to the Case, Heiser & Company, Woodworth's ...
Members of the organization included Lucy Stanton Day, [6] James Henry Harris, G. W. Brodie, [7] Ann Shadd Cary, Thomas Cary, Isaac Shadd, William Howard Day, Martin Delany, Osborne Perry Anderson, [2] John James Pleasant, and Mary Ellen Pleasant. [8]
A New Mexico hotel commissioned 695 lamp bases. The City of San Francisco commissioned a ceramic plaque honoring Mary Ellen Pleasant who ran the San Francisco terminus of The Underground Railway and was also a madam. Lark Creek Inn in Larkspur, California commissioned hundreds of serving platters and plates.
Mary Pleasant and Teresa Bell oversaw the family finances together, but by 1897 the family was deeply in debt. Fred Bell blamed Pleasant, and he filed a series of lawsuits directed at gaining control of the estate. The litigation perpetuated the image of Pleasant, a light-skinned woman who had once passed for white, as a devious "mammy."
The Image used is not of Mary Ellen Pleasant but of the Queen of Hawai'i. Emalani Na'ea Rooke. they do look similar however, there are actually no images of Mary Ellen Pleasant in her younger years. all images that have depictated her as such are actually that of the Hawaiian queen. now, I have seen mentions of Mary Ellen Pleasant stating her ...