Anthony, Susan B. (15 February 1820–13 March 1906), reformer and organizer for woman suffrage, was born Susan Brownell Anthony in Adams, Massachusetts, the daughter of Daniel Anthony and Lucy Read. Her father built the town’s first cotton mill. When Susan, the second of eight children, was six, the family moved to Battenville, New York, north of Albany, where Daniel prospered as manager of a larger mill and could send Susan and her sister to a Friends’ seminary near Philadelphia. His good fortune, however, collapsed with the financial crisis of 1837; the mill closed, Susan left boarding school, the family lost its house, and for nearly a decade the family squeaked by, assisted by Susan’s wages as a teacher. Looking for a new start in 1845, Daniel moved to a farm near Rochester, the city that would be Susan’s permanent address for the rest of her life....
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Anthony, Susan B. (1820-1906), reformer and organizer for woman suffrage
Ann D. Gordon
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Anthony, Susan B. (1820-1906)
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Bailey, Hannah Clark Johnston (1839-1923), philanthropist, reformer, and peace advocate
Barbara L. Ciccarelli
Bailey, Hannah Clark Johnston (05 July 1839–23 October 1923), philanthropist, reformer, and peace advocate, was born in Cornwall-on-the-Hudson, New York, the daughter of David Johnston, a tanner, and Letitia Clark. In 1853 her father moved the family to Plattekill, New York, where he became a farmer and minister of the Society of Friends (Quakers). She attended public school and a Friends’ boarding school and taught in rural New York from 1858 to 1867. Accompanying a female Quaker preacher on a mission to New England churches, almshouses, and prisons, Bailey met her future husband, Moses Bailey, a fellow Society member and prosperous manufacturer of oil cloth. They were married in 1868 and settled at his Winthrop, Maine, home. They had one child....
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Belmont, Alva Erskine Smith Vanderbilt (1853-1933), social leader and suffragist
Katheryn P. Viens
Belmont, Alva Erskine Smith Vanderbilt (17 January 1853–26 January 1933), social leader and suffragist, was born Alva Erskine Smith in Mobile, Alabama, the daughter of Murray Forbes Smith, a cotton merchant, and Phoebe Ann Desha. As a child, Alva summered with her parents in Newport, Rhode Island, and accompanied them on European vacations. In 1857 the Smiths moved to New York City, where they settled in Madison Square. Murray Smith later went to Liverpool, England, to conduct his business, and Alva, her mother, and her sisters moved to Paris. Alva attended a private boarding school in Neuilly, France, for one year....
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Blankenburg, Lucretia Longshore (1845-1937), suffragist and reformer
Olive Hoogenboom
Blankenburg, Lucretia Longshore (08 May 1845–29 March 1937), suffragist and reformer, was born near New Lisbon, Ohio, the daughter of Thomas Ellwood Longshore, a Quaker schoolteacher, and Hannah E. Myers, who also was from a Quaker family and who became the first woman doctor in Philadelphia. She was named for ...
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Boissevain, Inez Milholland (1886-1916), lawyer, feminist, and suffrage activist
Marilyn Elizabeth Perry
Boissevain, Inez Milholland (06 August 1886–25 November 1916), lawyer, feminist, and suffrage activist, was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of John Elmer Milholland, a reporter and editorial writer, and Jean Torrey. Her father supported many reforms, among them world peace, civil rights, and woman suffrage. It was probably through his influence that Inez acquired her sense of moral justice and her activist stance....
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Boissevain, Inez Milholland (1886-1916)
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Bowen, Louise deKoven (1859-1953), philanthropist, social reformer, and suffragist
Cynthia R. Poe
Bowen, Louise deKoven (26 February 1859–09 November 1953), philanthropist, social reformer, and suffragist, was born in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of John deKoven, a successful banker, and Helen Hadduck. Louise grew up with all the pleasures and privileges of wealth and power. She graduated from the prestigious Dearborn Seminary at the age of sixteen and soon thereafter began teaching Sunday school and dabbling in charity work. She established the Huron Street Club, one of the first boys’ clubhouses in Chicago; helped to create a kitchen garden association for girls; and regularly visited the hundred families of the boys in her church class, offering help when needed. In 1886 she married Joseph Tilton Bowen, a Chicago businessman. She gave up her Sunday school class and other church-related social work so that she would have time to care for their four children. Unwilling, however, to give up all philanthropic activities when her children were very young, Bowen joined the board of managers of the Maurice Porter Memorial Hospital. She later held board positions with other hospitals and helped establish the Visiting Nurse Association of Chicago....
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Breckinridge, Madeline McDowell (1872-1920), woman suffragist and Progressive reformer
Melba Porter Hay
Breckinridge, Madeline McDowell (20 May 1872–25 November 1920), woman suffragist and Progressive reformer, was born at Woodlake in Franklin County, Kentucky, the daughter of Henry Clay McDowell, a lawyer and businessman, and Anne Clay. Members from both sides of her family had been prominent since Kentucky’s earliest years. In 1882 her family moved to Ashland, the estate of her great-grandfather ...
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Breckinridge, Madeline McDowell (1872-1920)
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Decker, Sarah Sophia Chase Platt (1855-1912), clubwoman, suffragist, and community activist
Diane Harrison Werne
Decker, Sarah Sophia Chase Platt (01 October 1855–07 July 1912), clubwoman, suffragist, and community activist, was born in McIndoe Falls, Vermont, the daughter of Edwin Chase, a lumber dealer, paper manufacturer, and Baptist abolitionist known as the “Fighting Deacon,” and Lydia Maria Adams. The family moved to Holyoke, Massachusetts, when Sarah was quite young. She graduated from high school in Holyoke and while still in her teens became active in community work as a trustee of a fund to aid the poor. In 1875 she married a Holyoke merchant, Charles B. Harris....
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Decker, Sarah Sophia Chase Platt (1855-1912)
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Dock, Lavinia Lloyd (1858-1956), nurse, suffragist, and social reformer
Kathryn Kish Sklar
Dock, Lavinia Lloyd (26 February 1858–17 April 1956), nurse, suffragist, and social reformer, was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Gilliard Dock and Lavinia Lloyd Bombaugh, landlords. Dock, who later came to think of herself as a feminist, received what she called an “oldfashioned and conventional” education at a local female academy. Her life was basically carefree until her mother died when Dock was eighteen, leaving her and her older sister with the responsibility of raising their four siblings....
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Dodge, Josephine Marshall Jewell (1855-1928), leader in the day-nursery movement and antisuffragist
Robert D. Cross
Dodge, Josephine Marshall Jewell (11 February 1855–06 March 1928), leader in the day-nursery movement and antisuffragist, was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the daughter of Marshall Jewell, a successful businessman, and Esther Dickinson, an early suffragist. Her father was elected governor of Connecticut three times and was appointed by President ...
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Ferrin, Mary Upton (27 April 1810–11 April 1881), suffragist and women's rights advocate
Michelle Brattain
Ferrin, Mary Upton (27 April 1810–11 April 1881), suffragist and women's rights advocate, suffragist and women’s rights advocate, was born in South Danvers (now Danvers), Massachusetts, the daughter of Jesse Upton, a farmer and tavern keeper, and his second wife Elizabeth (or Eliza) Wyman Wood. Other than her marriage at age thirty-five to Jesse C. Ferrin, a union that inadvertently led to her personal crusade for married women’s property rights, few details of Ferrin’s personal life have been recorded. Jesse Ferrin, identified on the marriage certificate only as a grocer, and Mary Upton were married in 1845 in Danvers. Just three years later, in 1848, Mary sought the advice of a Salem lawyer, Samuel Merritt, regarding her rights to a divorce and her ability to keep her own property. Merritt advised Ferrin that under common law her husband held legal rights to all her personal property including improvements on real estate she brought to the marriage....
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Field, Sara Bard (1882-1974), suffragist, social reformer, and poet
Beth Shalom Hessel
Field, Sara Bard (01 September 1882–15 June 1974), suffragist, social reformer, and poet, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the daughter of George Bard Field, a purchasing agent for a wholesale food company, and Annie Jenkins. In an interview, Field recalled her father as a staunch Baptist whose “puritanism spread like a cloak over everybody, a dark cloak” (Fry, 1979). While in high school, Field attended classes at the University of Michigan with an older sister. She hoped to enroll after her high school graduation, but her father, afraid that further education would damage her faith, refused to support her through college. Field married Albert Ehrgott, an older Baptist minister and family friend, in 1900; they had two children....
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Field, Sara Bard (1882-1974)
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Fleming, Lethia Cousins (7 Nov. 1876–22 Sept. 1963), suffragist, Republican party organizer and civic activist
Carol Lasser
Fleming, Lethia Cousins (7 Nov. 1876–22 Sept. 1963), suffragist, Republican party organizer and civic activist, was born Lethia Henrietta Elizabeth Cousins in Tazewell, Virginia, the first of the eight children of James Archibald Cousins and Fannie Taylor Cousins. Her father, a free-born man of color, had been impressed into the Confederate army; after the Civil War he moved to Tazewell, where he prospered as a brick mason. Lethia attended high school in Ironton, Ohio, and Morristown College in Tennessee. On completing her studies, she became a teacher, first in Virginia, then in McDowell and Cabell counties, just across the state line in West Virginia. In these predominantly African American communities, where black political participation belied the rise of Jim Crow, Lethia Cousins taught for around two decades, joined women’s organizations, and began her work for women’s suffrage....
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Foltz, Clara Shortridge (1849-1934), first woman lawyer on the Pacific Coast, suffrage leader, and founder of the public defender movement
Barbara Allen Babcock
Foltz, Clara Shortridge (16 July 1849–02 September 1934), first woman lawyer on the Pacific Coast, suffrage leader, and founder of the public defender movement, was born in Lafayette, Indiana, the only daughter of Elias Shortridge and Talitha Harwood. Trained as a lawyer, Elias Shortridge turned instead to preaching among the Disciples of Christ and in 1860 became pastor to a well-established church in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. For a few years, Clara attended the progressive Howe’s Academy until her father was expelled from his congregation for unorthodoxy. She then became a teacher herself in nearby Illinois before eloping—at the age of fifteen—with a handsome Union soldier, Jeremiah Foltz. During hard years on an Iowa farm, she bore four children....
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Freeman, Elisabeth (12 September 1876–27 February 1942), suffragist and civil rights activist
Peg Johnston
Freeman, Elisabeth (12 September 1876–27 February 1942), suffragist and civil rights activist, was born Sara Elisabeth Freeman in Chesterfield, England, to Mary Hall Freeman and John Francis Freeman. She came to the United States with her mother, sister Clara Jane, and brother John Francis at an early age. Her mother worked at St. Johnland Orphanage on Long Island, New York, and the children were placed there for a time, which they found odious. Jane became a portrait painter in New York and Rockport, Massachusetts, and John became a union typesetter for the ...
