Susan Anne Ridley Sedgwick

{{short description|American writer}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2022}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Susan Anne Ridley Sedgwick

| birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1788|05|24}}

| birth_place = Stockbridge, MA

| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1867|01|20|1788|05|24}}

| death_place = Stockbridge, MA

| resting_place = The Sedgwick Pie

| nationality = American

| known_for = Children's novels

| occupation = Author

}}

File:Mumbett70.jpg, aged 70. Painted by Susan Ridley Sedgwick, aged 23. Watercolor on ivory, painted circa 1812.]]

Susan Anne Ridley Sedgwick (1788–1867) was a 19th-century American writer specializing in children's novels. She also painted a watercolor-on-ivory portrait of an ex-slave who came to work for her family.

Sedgwick was born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, daughter of Matthew Ridley (1746–1789) and Catherine Livingston (1751–1813), his second wife.{{Cite web | title = Matthew Ridley Papers 1717–1812 | work = Library Collection Guides | publisher = The Massachusetts Historical Society | url = http://www.masshist.org/findingaids/doc.cfm?fa=fa0042 | access-date = 10 January 2011 }} Sedgwick's mother, Catherine Livingston, was the daughter of William Livingston, governor of New Jersey. She married Theodore Sedgwick Jr., (1780–1839).{{Cite book | editor-last = Brown | editor-first = John Howard | title = Lamb's Biographical Dictionary of the United States | publisher = Federal Book Company of Boston | year= 1903 | location = Boston | url = https://archive.org/stream/lambsbiodic07browrich#page/4/mode/2up }} Her husband's father, Theodore Sedgwick (1746–1813), was a delegate to Continental Congress, a United States Representative, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, a United States Senator from Massachusetts, and a state supreme court judge.{{Cite book | editor-last = Baynes | editor-first = Thomas Spencer | title = Supplement to Encyclopædia Britannica 9th Edition A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and General Literature | publisher = J. M. Stottar | year= 1889 | location = New York | pages = 463 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=hmpHAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA463 }} As a lawyer, Sedgwick, Sr. represented Elizabeth ("Mumbet") Freeman, who had been a slave for forty years,{{Cite web | title = Elizabeth Freeman ("Mumbet") | work = African Americans and the End of Slavery in Massachusetts | publisher = The Massachusetts Historical Society | url = http://www.masshist.org/endofslavery/?queryID=54 | access-date = 10 January 2011}} and won her freedom. Mumbet came to live as a servant in the Sedgwick household, and Susan Sedgwick painted her portrait (watercolor on ivory).{{Cite web | title = (Portrait of) Elizabeth Freeman ("Mumbet")| work = African Americans and the End of Slavery in Massachusetts | publisher = The Massachusetts Historical Society | url = http://www.masshist.org/database/25use-onview-id | access-date = 10 January 2011}}

Sedgwick's sister-in-law was Catharine Sedgwick (1789–1867), also a novelist. Before she married Catharine's brother, Susan was Catharine's schoolmate.{{Cite book |author1= Lucinda L. Damon-Bach |author2 = Victoria Clements |title = Catharine Maria Sedgwick: critical perspectives |publisher = Northeastern University Press |year = 2003 |page= xxvi |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=vZlvgas5yWcC&pg=PR26 |isbn = 1-55553-548-8}}

Sedgwick was one of the 139 people buried in the large circular family burial plot in Stockbridge, Massachusetts known as the Sedgwick Pie.