Block by Block: Reimagining Toronto
A hands-on city-building experience where creativity meets community. Help reimagine Toronto—one block at a time.
Mary Ann Shadd Cary
Image: Museum of Toronto.
Shadd Cary left a lasting legacy of abolition and education in Toronto’s fight for racial equality and social justice.
1823 - 1893 | Abolitionist, Educator, and Publisher
Mary Ann Shadd Cary was born in Delaware to abolitionist parents. She moved to Pennsylvania at the age of 10, where she attended school and became a teacher. Active in the Underground Railroad, she and her family moved to Ontario in the 1850s after the passage of the Slave Fugitive Act. Shadd Cary became the first Black woman publisher in North America and the first woman publisher in Canada, founding and editing The Provincial Freeman in 1853. She also established a racially integrated school for Black refugees in Windsor, Canada.
Shadd Cary left a lasting legacy of abolition and education in Toronto’s fight for racial equality and social justice.
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The 52: Live Theatrical Experience
The 52 Live is a powerful performance of monologues and music spotlighting Toronto women who transformed the city — staged in partnership with Luminato Festival.
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Block by Block: Reimagining Toronto
A hands-on city-building experience where creativity meets community. Help reimagine Toronto—one block at a time.
The 52: Live Theatrical Experience
The 52 Live is a powerful performance of monologues and music spotlighting Toronto women who transformed the city — staged in partnership with Luminato Festival.
The 52: Exhibition
The 52: Exhibition Building on a multi-year research project, our newest exhibition will celebrate the lives of 52 women who have shaped Toronto as we know it. Spanning from the
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