Mary Putnam Jacobi

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In: 19th Century Women, Education, Medicine

When I was in high school, girls who had their period were allowed to sit out of gym. While that has certainly changed, the practice grew out of the 19th century belief that women were deathly sick during their menses. Most physicians believed that women did not have the strength to attend institutions of higher learning or pursue physical activity when menstruating and that they risked serious illness and even infertility unless they rested completely. One physician of the times did not. Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi (1842-1906) was one of the few women to become a physician in the 19th century. Despite her father’s beliefRead More →

Josephina St. Pierre Ruffin

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In: 19th Century Women, Civil War, Journalists, Women's Rights

Born in Boston, Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin (1842-1924) grew up in a family of fighters for justice, her father a leader in the Black community. So, it is not surprising that she devoted herself to bettering the standing and power of 19th century black women throughout her life. As a young, newly married woman, she and her husband, the first black graduate of Harvard Law School, resettled in Liverpool, England to protest the Dred Scott decision, which solidified slavery in the United States. They returned at the start of the American Civil War to speak out for abolition and to recruit black men to serveRead More →

The Westbrook Drives

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In: 19th Century Women, Activists, Authors, Medicine

Henrietta Payne Westbrook (1834-1909) was a physician, reporter ,and author, who was also a close friend and early supporter of Ida Craddock, the heroine of my new novel Censored Angel: Anthony Comstock’s Nemesis. A believer in the right of a woman to choose her own husband, she was the free-love wife of the American secular advocate, Richard Brodhead Westbrook, a former minister, and later a lawyer and judge in Philadelphia. (Note: In a free-love marriage a couple choose to live as a married couple without benefit of a marriage license. For a definition see Free Love.) In 1880, Henrietta Westbrook graduated from Women’s Medical CollegeRead More →

Ida C. Craddock

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In: 19th Century Women, Activists, Authors, Education, Motherhood, Spiritualism, Women's Rights

Ida Celenire Craddock (1857-1902) was born into a world where middle class women were expected to have little ambition, dutifully marry, and keep their mouths closed about sex. Brilliant and constrained by a domineering mother, Ida wanted more from life. She wanted a career, and she wanted to be heard. So, she left home to teach stenography at Girard College, a school for orphaned boys and write stenography textbooks. She also applied to the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Arts and Sciences. In 1882, she passed the exams and was accepted by the faculty to be the first female undergraduate, but her application was rejectedRead More →

Carrie Burnham Kilgore

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In: 19th Century Women, Lawyers, Women's Rights

Carrie (Caroline) Burnham Kilgore (1839-1909) was a woman of firsts. Born in a remote Vermont village, at age twelve, she was taken out of school when her parents died and put to work in the family woolen mill. But her desire to learn was too strong. At fifteen, she began teaching at local schools and doing domestic work to pay the tuition to study the classics at a local academy and then two seminaries. Illness from typhoid, sent her to live with her sister in Wisconsin, where she recovered and took up teaching again. When a male high school teacher fell ill, she took overRead More →

Georgiana Houghton abstract expressionist artist

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In: 19th Century Women, Artists, Spiritualism

Georgiana Houghton (1814-84) is credited with being the first abstract expressionist. A well-educated middle-class British woman, she devoted her life to spiritualism and hypnotism. One of her practices was to create spirit paintings using watercolor and pen and ink. On the back, using automatic writing, she wrote the symbolic meaning and attributions to her spirit guides who represented famous artists. For example, “The Eye of God” was attributed to Italian Renaissance artist Correggio who “endeavored through Georgiana’s hand, to represent The Eye of God, in the Three Persons of the Trinity.” In 1871, Houghton was encouraged to put on an exhibition of her works. ImpoverishingRead More →

Dora Jordan Actress

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In: 18th Century Women, Actresses

Guest post by Elf Ahearn During the Georgian era, the United Kingdom’s most famous and notorious actress was Mrs. Dorothea Jordan (Dora), whose curly brown hair, tiny waist, perfect legs, and brilliant comic timing made her the Jennifer Aniston of her day. Dora, born Nov. 22, 1761, was the granddaughter of a Welsh clergyman named Phillips. Being poor, this man of the cloth persuaded his three daughters to become actresses, though “we know from unquestionable authority, that they were all respectable in the profession.” That said, one daughter, Grace Phillips, succumbed to the advances of Mr. Francis Bland, an Irish lad not yet of legalRead More →

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In: 19th Century Women, Business, Women's Rights

Not Just a Madam: Lula White of Basin Street Getting to know Lula White (c.1868-1931) means getting to know her world. In the thirty-eight block New Orleans “red light district” of Storyville, and between 1897 and 1917, there were too many houses of prostitution to come up with an accurate count. Reigning over them all was Lula White’s house, Mahogany Hall. Reigning over Mahogany Hall, was Lula.  Lula seized the crown of the New Orleans sex trade because she put her eye to the keyhole that was New Orleans and shrewdly assessed the world she saw through it. She had to have noted: Women asRead More →

Sophia Peabody Hawthorne

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In: 19th Century Women, Artists, Authors

Sophia Peabody Hawthorne, (1809-1871) was the devoted and artistically gifted wife of the American author, Nathaniel Hawthorne. All through her life, before her marriage to Nathaniel Hawthorne, Sophia suffered from migraines brought on by mercury treatments as a child. Because of this, her mother and sisters believed her to be an invalid and treated her like one. They told her she’d never marry. She heard her mother say ‘Sophie will never leave me.’  She was constantly told ‘It’s a woman’s lot. It’s God’s will…’ but she refused to believe she was doomed to this fate. Sophia was lonely growing up—her sisters ignored her, her motherRead More →

Anna Elizabeth Dickinson

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In: 19th Century Women, Abolition, Activists, Civil War, Women's Rights, Writing

Anna Dickinson (1842-1932) was a major celebrity of her time. She drew crowds of thousands, headlined newspapers, and consorted with the major figures of the day. For an ordinary girl from a nondescript family, this was a heady experience, especially since she found this fame at a young age. She was only sixteen when newspapers started taking notice of her. Early readers of my forthcoming novel have said the character of Anna is arrogant and hard to like. And she is. As a writer, I felt that this was the truest way to represent her personality and explain the choices she made. My characterization ofRead More →

Anna Dickinson

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In: 19th Century Women, Abolition, Activists, Civil War, Women's Rights

Once upon a time, Anna Elizabeth Dickinson (1842 to 1932) was one of the most well-known women in America. She was an intrepid abolitionist and believer in women’s rights. During the Civil War, she gave rousing anti-slavery speeches and was hired by the Republican party to campaign on behalf of their candidates, something unheard of for a woman of her time. The spectacle of a diminutive girl spouting fiery words drew large crowds. The newspapers called her America’s Shining Star, the Woman of the Hour, and America’s Joan of Arc. Today, she is forgotten. My upcoming novel That Dickinson Girl tells the fictionalized story ofRead More →