Rose Winslow American Suffragette

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In: 19th Century Women, Women's Rights

“God knows we don’t want other women ever to have to do this over again.” Rose Winslow Rose Winslow  was brought as a baby to the United States by her Polish parents so that she could grow up in a free democratic country.  Her father labored as a coal miner and steel worker and as a child Rose suffered from tuberculous which left her in poor physical health all her life. She became a union organizer  and joined Alice Paul in the suffrage movement. In November 1917 she was the first to join Alice Paul in a hunger strike to demand the passage of the 19th amendment givingRead More →

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

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In: 19th Century Women, Literature, Poets

How would you feel if you were once an acclaimed poet, but long after your death all that is remembered of your writings are a few clever lines from your poems? Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1900) did not expect to become a writer, but when her family fell on hard times, and they could no longer afford a subscription to her favorite magazine, The New York Mercury, she came up with the idea of submitting three poems. In return, she hoped to earn a subscription. Instead, she received a check for ten dollars. “The check from Leslie was a revelation,” she wrote in her diary. “IRead More →

Sojourner Truth

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In: 19th Century Women, Abolition, Civil War

Which is more important – the words or how they are said?   Born a slave in Hurley in Ulster County, New York around 1779, Sojourner had little chance to learn to read and write. She passed through the hands of numerous owners, many of them cruel, before she was given her freedom at age 30 when New York State abolished slavery in 1827.  In 1844, she joined the Utopian community, The Northamption Association of Education and Industry, a 200 member silk-growing cooperative founded by abolitionists. There she met noted abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass who provided support for her efforts.Read More →

Frances Burney

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In: 18th Century Women, Literature, Writing

At the age of fifteen, Frances Burney (1752-1840) tossed the plays, poems, and first novel she had written into a bonfire. Why? She was consumed with guilt. After all, in 1767, women were not supposed to spend their time writing anything but private letters. Better they perform useful household chores and fine needlework. Luckily, Frances Burney’s resolve to be a proper lady did not last more than nine months at which time she began a journal which is remarkable recounting of the history and personages of the late 18th and early 19th century. Over a lifetime that took her from England to France and back toRead More →

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In: 19th Century Women, Religion, Spiritualism

From Ghosts to Palestine Many 19th century women turned to occultism and spirituality as a way to escape the patriarchal bent of the major religions of the time. An example of this is Ada Goodrich Freer. Born in 1857, Ada Goodrich Freer was a British psychic, poet, and folklorist. Orphaned at a young age and fostered by an aunt who ran a girls’ boarding school, little is known of Freer’s early life other than that she was a very talented student. Much of what is available are stories she told about herself. For example, Freer claimed she had psychic premonitions and phantasmal experiences from childhood,Read More →

Anna Maria Jarvis Mother's Day Founder

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In: 19th Century Women, Civil War, Motherhood

The Mother’s Day that we celebrate today with cards, candy, and flowers is not the same as the Mother’s Day that was first conceived of by the women who worked to establish it. Ann Reeve Jarvis (1832-1905) was one of four women (including Juliet Ward Howe, Juliet Calhoun Blakely, and Mary Towles Sassen) who advocated for a day for mothers. These women wanted to see mothers become a political force as community organizers. As mothers themselves, they believed that other mothers, out of concern for their own children, would be strong advocates for peace and justice and addressing vital community needs. The story of howRead More →

Charlotte Forten Grimke

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In: 19th Century Women, Abolition, Civil War, Writing

 Charlotte Forten Grimke was born in 1838 to a wealthy black family in Philadelphia. All her life she was a lover of books and a vociferous opponent of prejudice based on skin color. When she was twenty-two she became ill and had to give up her job as a teacher in Salem, Massachusetts. Unable to be active, she read voraciously, often a book a day, recording her thoughts in her journal. “…how blessed it is to know that all the wealth of the ages can be ours, if we choose to grasp it! That we can live, not in this century, this corner of theRead More →

Lucretia Mott

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In: Abolition, Education, Women's Rights

The Quaker minister, Lucretia Mott, lived from 1793 to 1880. During that time she fought to reform society in every way she could. She believed that forming organized groups and taking action against social injustice was the way to bring about change. She founded the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society(1833), was the impetus behind the Seneca Falls Woman’s Rights Convention (1948), founded The Female Medical College of Pennsylvania (1850), and Swarthmore College in 1864. In a very busy life time she fought for temperance, peace, equal rights, woman’s suffrage, common schools, improved prisons, and the abolition of slavery. I desire to escape the narrow walls of a particular church, to liveRead More →

Augusta Evan Wilson

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In: Civil War, Writing

Born in 1835 in Columbia, Georgia, Augusta Evans Wilson was the first American woman author to earn over $100,000 until Edith Wharton did so in the 1920s.  She wrote the first of nine novels, Inez: A Story of the Alamo, at the age of fifteen, and her second novel, Beulah, written at eighteen, sold 22,000 copies and established her as a professional writer.  Typical of her times and following the pattern of the inspirational romance genre, her novels featured spunky heroines who succumbed to traditional values and happily-ever-afters written in the sentimental style of the period.  During the Civil War, she supported the Confederate cause, working tirelessly in theRead More →