Jane Grey Swisshelm

By:
On:
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 →

Harriet Martineau

By:
On:
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 →

Anna Elizabeth Dickinson

By:
On:
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

By:
On:
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 →

Sojourner Truth

By:
On:
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 Ellen Watkins Harper

By:
On:
In: 19th Century Women, Abolition, Civil War, Literature

 “I ask no monument, proud and high to arrest the gaze of the passers-by; all that my yearning spirit craves is bury me not in a land of slaves.” Inscription, Contemplative Court,  Smithsonian‘s National Museum of African American History and Culture. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911) was a poet, abolitionist, and suffragist who first achieved renown through her antislavery poetry. Born in 1825, a free woman in Baltimore,  she published her first book of poems at around the age of twenty. Before the Civil War, she moved to Pennsylvania, where she joined the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society and worked with William Stills helping slaves escape via theRead More →

Charlotte Forten Grimke

By:
On:
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

By:
On:
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 →

Harriet Tubman

By:
On:
In: 19th Century Women, Abolition, Civil War, News, Writing

Harriet Tubman (1822-1913) was recognized as a hero in her own day. An escaped slave, she repeatedly went back to the south and led other slaves to freedom, saving thousands. Outspoken and fearless, she was a passionate and influential speaker in both the abolitionist movement and in the fight for women’s rights. It is very hard to know for sure if the words attributed to Harriet Tubman are truly hers. Dr. Sernett, author of Harriet Tubman: Myth, Memory, and History (Duke University Press, 2007) says, “Because she was illiterate, we have mediated histories of her — stories always told by others — that leave it open toRead More →