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 →

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 →

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 →

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 Ellen Watkins Harper

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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 →

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 →

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 →