Author Archives

Organizer, writer, speaker and early supporter of a movement that would become the NAACP, Mary Morris Burnett was born in Oberlin, Ohio, to Cornelius and Caroline Nicholls Burnett. The only African-American woman in her graduating class at Oberlin College, she assumed a teaching position at Bethel University in Read more

A national and state leader in the women’s suffrage movement, Anne Dallas was the daughter of a prominent Nashville family. She attended Ward Seminary High School and Price’s College in Nashville before marrying Guilford Dudley, who founded an insurance company in Nashville. The couple raised their family at Read more

Although Frances Willard was known for her leadership in the temperance movement, she was also a prominent suffragist and social progressive who battled against gender inequality and fought to give a voice to society’s disenfranchised. Lifting her own strong voice against the status quo, she forever changed Read more

The daughter of leading African-American abolitionists James and Charlotte Forten, Harriet Forten Purvis was a powerful 19th century voice for equal rights for all—including women. Harriett Forten married Robert Purvis in 1832 and made a home for their children in Philadelphia, where both Harriett and Robert led Read more

Born into wealth and privilege in New York City in 1819, Julia Ward was a self-educated woman whose modern (considered by some to be radical) ideas clashed with those of her puritanical Calvinist father, Samuel Ward.  Although restrained by her father, her status as a wealthy heiress gave her access to Read more

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was among the best known and most independent advocates for women’s rights of the 19th century. According to historian Elisabeth Griffith, “She set its agenda, drafted its documents, and articulated its ideology. Her followers grew from a network of local reform groups to a national Read more