Influenced by David Walker's Appeal, William Lloyd Garrison, and prominent Black abolitionists, Child's pursuit for freedom for Black Americans and Native American Indians became her literary trademark for social justice.

The epic documentary, Over the River… looks at the tumultuous times of the 19th century and how Lydia Maria Child's major literary contribution helped trigger the Civil War. Child also raised the public's consciousness on many cutting-edge issues regarding African Americans, women, religious freedom, and domestic advice. Many of the northern abolitionists as children that read Child's magazine The Juvenile Miscellany, such as Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Col. Robert Gould Shaw, became military infantry leaders during the Civil War.