Maude Trotter Steward

Steward was born to Virginia Isaacs and James Monroe Trotter, a member of the United States Colored Troops 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry and later, a civil servant.^[3] Steward had two siblings, William Monroe Trotter and Virginia Elizabeth (Bessie) Trotter. The Trotter family lived in the South End of Boston and then in the Hyde Park neighborhood.^[4]

Steward attended Wellesley College. She was a member of a number of local civic organizations including the St. Mark's Musical and Literary Union, the Boston Literary and Historical Association, the Women's League, and the Boston Equal Rights League.^[5] Steward married Dr. Charles Steward, son of Theophilus Gould Steward, novelist and chaplain of the 25th Regiment, in 1907.^[6][7][8] Steward and Monroe Trotter were staunchly against Booker T. Washington and heckled him during his 1903 visit to Boston.^[9] She, her husband and her brother were known as the last of the Boston Radicals.^[10]

Steward, and her husband, Dr. Charles Steward, continued to edit William Monroe's newspaper, The Boston Guardian, after his death in 1934.^[11][12] At the time of Steward's death, she was the oldest active African American woman journalist.^[13]

In 2023, she was recognized as one of "Boston’s most admired, beloved, and successful Black Women leaders" by the Black Women Lead project.^[14][15][16]