Mary Ann Shadd (1823 - 1893) started the first integrated school in Canada and was also the first female newspaper editor, establishing "The Provincial Freeman" in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, in 1853. This was a weekly paper designed to cover the lives of Canadian blacks and promote the cause of black refugees to Canada.

Mary Ann Shadd was born a free black on October 9, in Wilmington, Delaware. When the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 in the United States threatened to return free northern blacks and escaped slaves to bondage, Shadd moved to Windsor, Ontario. In 1856, Mary married Thomas F. Cary of Toronto. They had two children, Sarah and Linton, and lived in Chatham, Ontario, where Mary continued to work on her newspaper and teach school. After Thomas died in 1860, Mary and her children returned to the United States.

Mary Ann Shadd died in Washington, DC.

See also

• Black Canadian
• Underground Railroad