Category: Feminists
Civil War Women, Feminists

Georgiana Bruce Kirby

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Feminist and California Pioneer Georgiana Bruce Kirby was a woman with ideas far ahead of her time – an early suffragist, educator and a California pioneer. In a world dominated by men, Kirby’s intelligence and questioning mind would not allow her to accept a traditional life in which she could not pursue her ambitions and goals. Georgiana Bruce Kirby Preparatory School in Santa Cruz was named in her honor. Early Years Georgiana Bruce was born in Bristol, England on December 7, 1818. She immigrated to the United States when she was only twenty. Living in Boston, Massachusetts, she became fascinated with Transcendentalism, and eventually drifted to Brook Farm, a utopian experiment in communal living based on Transcendentalist ideals. It was…

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Authors, Civil War Women, Feminists

Caroline Dall

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Author and Women’s Rights Activist Caroline Wells Healey Dall was an author, journalist, lecturer and champion of women’s rights. A feminist and Unitarian Church liberal, Dall played a significant role in the antislavery movement and as spokesperson for woman’s access to education and employment. Caroline Healey was born on June 22, 1822, the oldest of eight children born to wealthy Bostonians, Mark and Caroline Foster Healey. Her father was a successful merchant, banker and investor in railroads who taught 18-month-old Caroline to pick out letters from the large type on the front page of the Christian Register. At a time when most parents did not take girls’ education seriously, Mark Healey insisted on the best possible education for his daughter….

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Civil War Women, Famous Firsts, Feminists

Paulina Wright Davis

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Editor of the First Feminist Periodical, The Una Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis (1813–1876) was an abolitionist and feminist whose work in social reform extended over forty years. A wealthy and independent woman, she organized the First National Women’s Rights Convention in 1850, and another on the 20th anniversay of that occasion, at which she read from her written work, A History of the National Woman’s Rights Movement (1871). Early Years Paulina Kellogg was born on August 7, 1813 in Bloomfield, New York to Captain Ebenezer Kellogg and Polly Saxton Kellogg. The family moved to the frontier near Niagara Falls in 1817. Both of her parents died, and in 1820 Paulina went to live with a strict orthodox Presbyterian aunt in…

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Feminists, Philanthropists, Social Reformers, Suffragists

Elizabeth Smith Miller

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Feminist, Philanthropist and Social Reformer Image: Elizabeth Smith Miller (right) with daughter Anne Fitzhugh Miller Elizabeth Smith Miller (1822–1911 ) was a lifelong advocate and financial supporter of the women’s rights movement. Miller was well known for her hospitality and often opened her home to raise money for the women’s suffrage campaign. She is best known as a dress reformer, developing the practical knee-length skirt over pantaloons that became known as bloomers after activist Amelia Bloomer popularized them in her periodical The Lily.
Authors, Civil War Women, Feminists

Abigail Scott Duniway

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Champion for Women’s Right to Vote Abigail Scott Duniway (1834–1915) was a true pioneer who rose from simple beginnings as an Illinois farm girl to become a nationally known champion of women’s suffrage in the Pacific Northwest, as well as a significant author, and editor and publisher of a pro-women’s rights newspaper. Well-read, well-informed, and interested in public issues, Duniway was particularly concerned about women’s economic plight. She fought for a woman’s right to own property in her own name and to secure that property from her husband and his creditors. She objected to the moral double standard, early marriages of young girls, and debilitating ‘excessive maternity.’ Early Years Abigail Jane Scott was born in a log cabin on October…

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Civil War Women, Famous Firsts, Feminists

Frances Willard

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First Woman College President in the United States Frances Willard was an author, educator, public speaker, social reformer and suffragist. A pioneer in the temperance movement, Frances Willard is also remembered for her contributions to higher education. From the time she assumed presidency of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union in 1879 until her death, Willard used her powerful position to pursue her broad vision for sweeping social reforms to benefit women, including women’s suffrage, women’s economic rights, as well as prison, education and labor reform. Willard captivated the imaginations and mobilized the sentiments of countless women. Her vision progressed to include federal aid to education, free school lunches, unions for workers, the eight-hour work day, work relief for the poor,…

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American Women Editors, Feminists, First Women, Journalists, Poets and Writers

Margaret Fuller

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America’s First True Feminist Author, editor, and journalist, Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) holds a distinctive place in the cultural life of the American Renaissance. Literary critic, editor, author, political activist and women’s rights advocate – she was also the first full-time American female book reviewer in journalism. Her book Woman in the Nineteenth Century is considered the first major feminist work in the United States. Her death at sea was a tragedy for her family and colleagues, and the loss of her many talents to womankind, then and now, is immeasurable. Childhood and Early Years On May 23, 1810, Sarah Margaret Fuller was the first-born child of Margarett Crane and Timothy Fuller, Jr. of Cambridgeport, Massachusetts. A lawyer and a Republican…

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American Women Editors, Feminists, Social Reformers, Suffragists

Amelia Bloomer

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Feminist, Suffragist, Newspaper Publisher and Social Reformer Amelia Bloomer (1818–1894) was a feminist, social reformer and women’s rights activist. Amelia Bloomer owned, edited and published the first newspaper for women, The Lily, in which she promoted abolition, temperance, women’s suffrage, higher education for women and marriage law reform. Although she did not create the women’s clothing style known as Bloomers, her name became associated with it because of her early and strong advocacy. Early Years Amelia Jenks was born May 27, 1818 into a family of modest means in Homer, New York. Although she received only a few years of formal schooling, Amelia was thought to be remarkably intelligent by her peers. She became a teacher, at first in the…

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Civil War Women, Feminists

Isabella Beecher Hooker

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19th Century Women’s Rights Leader Isabella Beecher Hooker (1822–1907) was prominent in the movement to secure equal rights for women. She was a leader, lecturer and activist for women’s suffrage (the right to vote) who refused to succumb to society’s standards of what a woman’s role should be. When she discovered that a married woman had no legal rights independent of her husband, Hooker dedicated her life’s work to the empowerment of women. Early Years Isabella Holmes Beecher was born February 22, 1822 in Litchfield, Connecticut, the second child of the prominent family of Harriet Porter and the Reverend Lyman Beecher. As her father was called to new congregations, Isabella and her family followed him to Boston, and then Cincinnati….

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Feminists, Poets and Writers, Women in Education, Women in Theater

Susanna Rowson

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Early American Educator, Novelist and Actress Susanna Rowson’s novel Charlotte Temple became the first bestseller in America when it was published in 1794 by Matthew Carey of Philadelphia. Rowson (1762–1824) was a British-American novelist, poet, textbook author, playwright and actress. She was also a pioneer in female education, opening the Academy for Young Ladies in Boston in 1797, offering an advanced curriculum to young ladies, and operating the school until her retirement in 1822. Childhood and Early Years Susanna Haswell was born in 1762 in Portsmouth, England to Royal Navy Lieutenant William Haswell and Susanna Musgrave Haswell, who soon died from complications of childbirth, an event that surely influenced Rowson’s fiction. Her father left Susanna in England in the care…

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