Harriet Hosmer, Sculptor

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Long forgotten, American sculptor Harriet Hosmer (1830-1908) successfully challenged the role of women to become one of the most popular artists of the nineteenth century, but she had to leave the country to do so. Early Life After losing her mother and three siblings to tuberculosis, Harriett’s physician father encouraged his last remaining child to pursue vigorous outdoor activities including horseback riding, fishing, and hunting, stuffing many of the animals she killed. She spent many hours in a clay pit modeling animals and figures and determined she would be a sculptor. A wild child, she was expelled from three schools until her father enrolled herRead More →

Ida C. Craddock

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

In honor of Banned Books Week, I am sharing more about Ida Craddock , the heroine of my novel Censored Angel. Bright and studious, Ida was an unlikely woman to become the enemy of Anthony Comstock. Upon rejection from the University of Pennsylvania, she decided to carry out her own research. She chose as her topic Female Sex Worship, motivated by the question of why there were no women ministers. This research and the pain and abuse women at the time experienced in their marriages, led her to write, lecture, and distribute a series of sex education pamphlets, intended to help men and women experienceRead More →

Jane Grey Swisshelm

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

JANE GREY SWISSHELM (December 6, 1815 -July 22, 1884) was a journalist, abolitionist, publisher, and advocate for women’s rights. Early Life Born in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, she was raised by her widowed mother. Bright and energetic, she began as a teacher, but was drawn to journalism. After a difficult marriage to a farmer and a subsequent divorce, she moved to Minnesota and became editor and publisher of the St. Cloud Visiter. She was outspoken in her support of abolition, women’s rights, and against capital punishment. She was known to be full of righteous fury. For example, she hounded a Southerner who had moved to Minnesota withRead More →

Anna Cora Mowatt

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In: 19th Century Women, Actresses, Authors, Playwrights

American author, playwright, and actress, Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie (1819–1870), challenged the mores of her era by acting on the stage at a time when the theater was railed against by the clergy, when female actresses were considered lewd, and when women, especially upper-class women such as herself, were supposed to remain at home caring for husband and children. Early Life Anna Cora Mowatt’s early life set the stage for her later accomplishments. Born tenth in a family of fourteen children, Mowatt spent her first six years in France. Her aristocratic, wealthy parents had links to the first families in New York and cherished writingRead More →

Dr. Anna Elizabeth Broomall

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In: 19th Century Women, Activists, Medicine, Motherhood, Women's Rights

Anna Elizabeth Broomall (1847-1913) suffered name-calling, spit wads, and the anger of fellow male students in her battle to become a renowned physician of obstetrics. Anna Broomall was born in Upper Chichester, Pennsylvania to a well-to-do Quaker family. Her mother died in her infancy, and Broomall was raised by an aunt and uncle. Her father, John Broomall, a successful lawyer, and later U.S. Congressman, sent her to private academies in the area. She, at first, wanted to become a lawyer, but no opportunities existed at the time to study law. Instead, she decided to become a doctor. Her father, a supporter of women’s rights, encouragedRead More →

Elizabeth F. Ellet American writer

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In: 19th Century Women, Authors, Playwrights, Poets, Writing

Throughout history, many important accomplishments by women have been overshadowed by the so-called scandalous things they have reportedly done. Elizabeth Fries Ellet (October 18, 1818 – June 3, 1877) is a perfect example of this. A noted writer and historian of her time, whose wide-ranging work is still consulted today, Ellet has gone down in history, not as a gifted writer, but as one contemporary blog maintains, “a bad woman.” This is despite the fact that all accounts of her “nasty” behavior were recorded by the men directly involved in the scandal. Ellet’s Background Born in Sodus, New York to a well-to-do physician’s family, ElletRead More →

Dorothy Levitt

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In: 19th Century Women, 20th Century Women, Authors, Sports

Called the “Fastest Girl on Earth”‘ and the “Champion Lady Motorist of the World, Dorothy Levitt (1882-1922) was Britain’s first female racing car driver. At a time when women were supposed to marry and stay at home, the unmarried Levitt offered a role model for the new independent Edwardian woman. Her opportunity to race came in 1902 when she was a secretary for the car-maker Napier and Son. The director, Selwyn Edge had a car salesman teach her to drive as a publicity stunt. But he didn’t reckon on her success as a race car driver. With her petite figure and stylish feminine dress, sheRead More →

Colonial era black woman

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In: 19th Century Women, Authors, Poets

The women most often forgotten are those who come from times and places where they and their people are outcast and discriminated against. A resident of Hartford, Connecticut, Ann Plato (c. 1823 – ?) is one of these women. Although she was the first African American to publish a book of essays, very little is known about her. Researchers have identified her father, Henry Plato, as Native American, perhaps of the Algonquin, and her mother, Deborah, as African American. What little else we know of her comes from Reverend W. C. Pennington, pastor of the Colored Congregational Church of Hartford and first black graduate ofRead More →

Harriet Martineau

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In: 19th Century Women, Abolition, Activists, Authors, Education, Journalists, Women's Rights

Meet the woman who sold more novels than Charles Dickens. Harriet Martineau (1802 – 1876) was a British novelist, feminist, abolitionist, philosopher, travel writer, journalist, and more. She is considered the first female sociologist. Martineau struggled with ill health all her life. She had no sense of taste or smell and became partially deaf starting at age twelve. In her forties, she developed a uterine tumor that affected her for many years of her life. Nevertheless, she traveled widely and wrote extensively for over seventy-years, with major journeys to the United States and to Egypt and the Middle East. As girl, her mother tried toRead More →

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 →