Category: Feminists

First Woman to Run for President of the United States Victoria Woodhull (1838– June 9, 1927) was a leader of the women’s suffrage movement. She was the first woman to own a brokerage firm on Wall Street, the first woman to start a weekly newspaper, and an activist for women’s rights and labor reform. At her peak of political activity in the early 1870s, Woodhull is best known as the first woman candidate for the United States presidency, which she ran for in 1872 for the Equal Rights Party, supporting women’s suffrage and equal rights. Childhood and Early Years Victoria California Claflin was born September 23, 1838, the seventh of ten children, in the rural frontier town of Homer, Ohio….

One of the First Feminists in the United States Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826-1898) is the forgotten mother of the women’s rights movement. She was a contemporary of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, with whom she co-authored the first three volumes of The History of Woman Suffrage. Gage was always one of the more radical leaders of the movement and her writing focused on the significant accomplishments of women in invention, military affairs and in history. Early Years Matilda Joslyn Gage was born on March 24, 1826 in Cicero, New York. An only child, she was raised in a household dedicated to antislavery. Her father Dr. Hezekiah Joslyn was a nationally known abolitionist, and the Joslyn home was a…

One of the First American Feminists and Women’s Rights Activist Susan B. Anthony played a pivotal role in the 19th century women’s rights and women’s suffrage movements in the United States. Working closely with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Anthony was a primary organizer, lecturer and writer for the movements, especially the first phases of the long struggle for women’s right to vote. She traveled the United States, averaging 75 to 100 speeches per year. Image: Susan B. Anthony on the Occasion of her 80th Birthday, 1900 By Sarah J. Eddy Childhood and Early Years Susan Brownell Anthony was born on February 15, 1820 in Adams, Massachusetts and raised in a Quaker family with long activist traditions. She was the second oldest…

One of the First Feminists in the United States Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) was a social reformer, editor, writer and leading figure in the early women’s rights movement. Her Declaration of Sentiments, calling for a full spectrum of rights for women, was presented at the first Women’s Rights Convention in 1848. For many years thereafter Stanton was the architect and author of the movement’s most important strategies and documents. Image: Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1856, with daughter Harriot Elizabeth Cady was born on November 12, 1815, in Johnstown, New York. The daughter of a lawyer who made no secret of his preference for another son, she showed at an early age her desire to excel in intellectual and other ‘male’…

One of the First American Feminists Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton met at the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention in London, where the two discussed the need for a convention about women’s rights. Mott and Stanton then became the primary organizers of the Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York in July 1848 – the first women’s rights meeting ever held in the United States. Childhood and Early Years Lucretia Coffin was born on January 3, 1793, to Quaker parents in the seaport town of Nantucket, Massachusetts. She was the second child of seven by Thomas Coffin and Anna Folger Coffin. In 1804, the Coffins moved to Boston, where Thomas was an international trader with warehouses and wharves. He bought…