Author Archives

By Lisa Giordano of Virginia NOW A dedicated activist who helped forge change in America’s political and economic inequalities, Dr. Caroline E. Spencer was born in Philadelphia in 1861. Following her 1880 graduation from the Philadelphia Normal School for Girls with the Mrs. Hannah M. Dodd Medal of Merit, sheRead more

A lifelong women’s rights advocate, author, and friend of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Matilda Joslyn Gage was born to physician Hezekiah and Helen Leslie in Cicero, New York. The daughter of a nationally known abolitionist, she was raised in a household dedicated to eradicating slavery and grew upRead more

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 inRead 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 atRead 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 changedRead 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. Harriet Forten married Robert Purvis in 1832 and made a home for their children in Philadelphia, where both Harriet and Robert ledRead 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 toRead more