Fast Facts: Lucy Stone
- Known For: A major figure in the North American 19th-century Black activist movement and women's rights movements of the 1800s
- Born: August 13, 1818 in West Brookfield, Massachusetts
- Parents: Hannah Matthews and Francis Stone
- Died: October 18, 1893 in Boston, Massachusetts
- Education: Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, Oberlin College
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What is Lucy Stone best known for?
A leading suffragist and abolitionist, Lucy Stone dedicated her life to battling inequality on all fronts. She was the first Massachusetts woman to earn a college degree and she defied gender norms when she famously wrote marriage vows to reflect her egalitarian beliefs and refused to take her husband's last name.
What were Lucy Stone's last words?
Lucy Stone died at her home in Dorchester on October 18, 1893. Her last words sum up her life's work: "Make the world better," she whispered to her daughter. She was mourned around the world.
What did Lucy Stone do during the Civil War?
During the Civil War, Stone supported the Women's National Loyal League founded by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. In 1866 she helped found the American Equal Rights Association. In 1867 she helped organize and was elected president of the New Jersey Woman Suffrage Association.
What did Lucy Stone write?
Stone supported the amendment. She had expected, however, that progressive forces would push for the enfranchisement of African Americans and women at the same time and was distressed when they did not. In 1867, she wrote to Abby Kelley Foster, an abolitionist, to protest the plan to enfranchise black men first.
What speech did Lucy talk about?
At the convention Lucy talked about women suffrage. A copy of her speech was sent to England. These women, from the convention, wanted England to know that women in their country should have rights.
Who disagreed with Lucy Stone?
After the Civil War, Stone found herself at odds with fellow suffragists Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, both former allies who deeply opposed Stone's support for the 15th Amendment.
Why was Lucy Stone an abolitionist?
In 1848, she joined the American Anti-Slavery Society and traveled across the North, urging people to oppose slavery. Some abolitionists opposed Stone's views on women rights and contended that Stone took support away from African-American rights by linking them to women's rights.
Where is Lucy Stone buried?
Forest Hills CemeteryShe was also the first person in Massachusetts to be cremated. Unfortunately, Forest Hills Cemetery, where she is buried, did not respect her last wishes and they used the last name “Blackwell” on her stone.
Who founded the women's Journal?
Lucy StoneWoman's Journal, American weekly suffragist periodical, first published on January 8, 1870, by Lucy Stone and her husband, Henry Blackwell, to address a broad segment of middle-class female society interested in women's rights.
How old was Lucy Stone when she died?
75 years (1818–1893)Lucy Stone / Age at death
Where did Lucy Stone live?
MassachusettsLucy Stone / Places livedMassachusetts, officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. Wikipedia
What did Awsa do?
American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA), American political organization that worked from 1869 to 1890 to gain for women the right to vote. Based in Boston, Massachusetts, the AWSA was created by Lucy Stone, Henry B.
How did the actions of the suffragettes fix a social problem?
Some teams of women lobbied congress to pass a constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote. Meanwhile, other teams used the new referendum to process to try to pass state suffrage laws. This strategy helped women win the right to vote.
Who Was Lucy Stone?
Lucy Stone dedicated her life to improving the rights of American women. She supported the Women's National Loyal League, which was founded by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony (though Stone and the two would later be at odds), and in 1866 helped found the American Equal Rights Association. She also organized and was elected president of the State Woman's Suffrage Association of New Jersey, and spent her life serving the cause. Stone died 30 years before women were finally permitted to vote (August 1920), on October 18, 1893, in Dorchester, Massachusetts.
Where was Lucy Stone born?
Early Life & Family. Influential women's rights activist and abolitionist Lucy Stone was born on August 13, 1818, in West Brookfield, Massachusetts. One of Francis Stone and Hannah Matthews's nine children, Stone was steeped early on in life the virtues of fighting against slavery from her parents, both committed abolitionists.
Who was Lucy Stone?
Lucy Stone (August 13, 1818 – October 18, 1893) was a prominent U.S. orator, abolitionist, and suffragist, and a vocal advocate and organizer promoting rights for women. In 1847, Stone became the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree. She spoke out for women's rights and against slavery.
Why did Lucy Stone sign her name?
Stone viewed the tradition of wives abandoning their own surname to assume that of their husbands as a manifestation of the legal annihilation of a married woman's identity. Immediately after her marriage, with the agreement of her husband, she continued to sign correspondence as "Lucy Stone" or "Lucy Stone – only." But during the summer, Blackwell tried to register the deed for property Stone purchased in Wisconsin, and the registrar insisted she sign it as "Lucy Stone Blackwell." The couple consulted Blackwell's friend, Salmon P. Chase, a Cincinnati lawyer and future Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, who was not immediately able to answer their question about the legality of her name. So while continuing to sign her name as Lucy Stone in private correspondence, for eight months she signed her name as Lucy Stone Blackwell on public documents and allowed herself to be so identified in convention proceedings and newspaper reports. But upon receiving assurance from Chase that no law required a married woman to change her name, Stone made a public announcement at the May 7, 1856, convention of the American Anti-Slavery Society in Boston that her name remained Lucy Stone. In 1879, when Boston women were granted the franchise in school elections, Stone registered to vote. But officials notified her that she would not be allowed to vote unless she added "Blackwell" to her signature. This she refused to do, and so she was not able to vote. Because her time and energy were consumed with suffrage work, she did not challenge the action in a court of law.
How old was Lucy Stone when she died?
Having "prepared for death with serenity and an unwavering concern for the women's cause", Lucy Stone died on October 18, 1893, at the age of 75. At her funeral three days later, 1,100 people crowded the church, and hundreds more stood silently outside.
Why did Stone work against Stanton?
In the process of planning for women's rights conventions, Stone worked against Stanton to remove from any proposed platform the formal advocacy of divorce. Stone wished to keep the subject separate, to prevent the appearance of moral laxity. She pushed "for the right of woman to the control of her own person as a moral, intelligent, accountable being." Other rights were certain to fall into place after women were given control of their own bodies. Years later, Stone's position on divorce would change.
Where did Lucy Stone give her first public speech?
Stone gave her first public speeches on women's rights in the fall of 1847, first at her brother Bowman's church in Gardner, Massachusetts, and a little later in Warren.
Where was Lucy Stone born?
Early life and influences. Lucy Stone was born on August 13, 1818, on her family's farm at Coy's Hill in West Brookfield, Massachusetts. She was the eighth of nine children born to Hannah Matthews and Francis Stone; she grew up with three brothers and three sisters, two siblings having died before her own birth.
Who was the first person to speak out on the women's issue?
Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote that "Lucy Stone was the first person by whom the heart of the American public was deeply stirred on the woman question .". Together, Anthony, Stanton, and Stone have been called the 19th-century " triumvirate " of women's suffrage and feminism.
Who was Lucy Stone?
Updated June 18, 2019. Lucy Stone (August 13, 1818–October 18, 1893) was the first woman in Massachusetts to earn a college degree and the first woman in the United States to keep her own name after marriage. While she started out on the radical edge of women's rights at the beginning ...
What was Lucy Stone's job?
The American Anti-Slavery Society. A year after she graduated, Lucy Stone was hired as an organizer for the American Anti-Slavery Society. In this paid position, she traveled and gave speeches on North American 19th-century Black activism and women's rights.
Why did Lucy Stone refuse to write a speech?
She was asked to write a commencement speech for her class, but she refused because someone else would have had to read her speech because women were not allowed, even at Oberlin, to give a public address.
What did Lucy write to Henry?
She wrote to him, "A wife should no more take her husband's name than he should hers. My name is my identity and must not be lost." Henry agreed with her. "I wish, as a husband, to renounce all the privileges which the law confers upon me, which are not strictly mutual. Surely such a marriage will not degrade you, dearest."
What was Bellamy's vision in Looking Backward?
Bellamy's vision in the book "Looking Backward" drew a vivid picture of a society with economic and social equality for women. In 1890, Alice Stone Blackwell, now a leader in the woman suffrage movement in her own right, engineered a reunification of the two competing suffrage organizations.
Where was Lucy Stone born?
Early Life. Lucy Stone was born on August 13, 1818, on her family's Massachusetts farm in West Brookfield. She was the eighth of nine children, and as she grew up, she watched as her father ruled the household, and his wife, by "divine right.".
Who were the women who helped to organize the American Woman Suffrage Association?
Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, and Henry Blackwell led those who sought to keep the causes of Black people and women's suffrage together, and in 1869 they and others founded the American Woman Suffrage Association .
Who was Lucy Stone?
Lucy Stone, (born Aug. 13, 1818, West Brookfield, Mass., U.S.—died Oct. 18, 1893, Dorchester [part of Boston], Mass.), American pioneer in the women’s rights movement. Stone began to chafe at the restrictions placed on the female sex while she was still a girl.
Who was the woman who founded the American Woman Suffrage Association?
Stone was one of the major actors in the 1869 schism that occurred in feminist ranks. Together with Julia Ward Howe and other more conservative reformers who were put off by the other faction’s eclectic approach and by its acceptance of such individuals as the notorious Victoria Woodhull, Stone formed in November the American Woman Suffrage Association. While serving on the association’s executive board, Stone raised money to launch the weekly Woman’s Journal in 1870, and in 1872 she and her husband succeeded Mary A. Livermore as editors.
Where was Lucy Stone born?
Born near West Brookfield, Massachusetts in 1818, [1] Stone graduated from Oberlin College in 1847, becoming the first Massachusetts woman to earn her bachelor’s degree.
What did Lucy Stone say about the abolition of slavery?
In 1893 as she lay dying of stomach cancer, Stone reflected, “I am glad I was born, and that at a time when the world needed the service I could give.” [11]Her words remain a statement truly befitting the woman, suffragist, and abolitionist who worked relentlessly to secure freedom for the enslaved and rights for women. With the dying words, “Make the world better,” the indefatigable Lucy Stone departed this world, a bone fide pioneer of her time.
What was the name of the organization that Stone worked for?
In 1848, Stone began working as a paid lecturer for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. During that first year, she established herself as an exemplary abolitionist lecturer, a cause she continued to champion throughout her life.
What did Stone and Blackwell say at the marriage ceremony?
At the ceremony Stone and Blackwell read a Marriage Protest, a statement the two wrote together denouncing all legal portions of marriage in which a woman became subservient to and property of her husband. [7] . Stone retained her maiden name, a decision which often proved controversial and left an ongoing legacy. [8] .
Who was Lucy Stone?
Library of Congress. Lucy Stone (1818-1893) was an early advocate of antislavery and women’s rights. She was born in Massachusetts. After she graduated from Oberlin College in 1847, she began lecturing for the antislavery movement as a paid agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society. She said in 1847, “I expect to plead not for the slave only, ...
What did Lucy Stone say in 1847?
She said in 1847, “I expect to plead not for the slave only, but for suffering humanity everywhere. Especially do I mean to labor for the elevation of my sex.”. Lucy Stone did not participate in the First Woman’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, but she was an organizer of the 1850 Worcester First National Woman’s Rights Convention. ...
Who was Lucy Stone married to?
In 1855 Stone married Henry Blackwell. At the ceremony the minister read a statement from the bride and groom, announcing that Stone would keep her own name.
Who was the woman who spoke at the Women's Rights Convention?
It is her 1852 speech at the National Woman's Rights Convention in Syracuse, New York, which is credited for converting Susan B. Anthony to the cause of women’s rights. Lucy Stone participated in the 1852, 1853, and 1855 national woman’s rights conventions, ...
Who was Lucy Stone?
Elizabeth Cady Stanton later wrote that “Lucy Stone was the first speaker who really stirred the nation’s heart on the subject of woman’s wrongs. ”. Image: Lucy Stone’s Home. West Brookfield, Massachusetts.
What did Lucy Stone do in 1846?
In the fall of 1846 Lucy Stone informed her family that she intended to become a women’s rights lecturer. Her father and brothers were supportive, but her mother and sister tried to dissuade her. Stone knew that she would be reviled, even hated by some.
What college did Lucy Stone graduate from?
Lucy Stone received her baccalaureate degree from Oberlin College on August 25, 1847, becoming the first female college graduate from Massachusetts. Women’s Rights Activist. Stone gave her first public speeches on women’s rights in the fall of 1847.
What did Lucy and Henry agree to?
They agreed to run the marriage like a business partnership. They would share their earnings and each could will their property to whomever they chose unless they had children. However, Lucy refused to be supported and insisted on paying half of their mutual expenses. Lucy and Henry also agreed that each would enjoy personal independence and autonomy:
Why did Lucy and the Sentinels meet?
At first they held their meetings secretly in the woods, with sentinels on the watch to give warming of intruders. When the weather grew colder, Lucy asked an old colored woman who owned a small house, the mother of one of her colored pupils, to let them have the use of her parlor.
Why did Lucy leave Mount Holyoke?
She left after only one term because the founder Mary Lyon was intolerant of abolition and women’s rights. The following month Lucy enrolled at Wesleyan Academy, which she liked much better.
When did Lucy Stone start the women's suffrage movement?
In 1836 , at age eighteen, Lucy Stone began noticing newspaper reports of a controversy that some referred to as the woman question.
On the Right to Education
"Whatever the reason, the idea was born that women could and should be educated. It lifted a mountain load from woman. It shattered the idea, everywhere pervasive as the atmosphere, that women were incapable of education, and would be less womanly, less desirable in every way, if they had it.
On the Right to Vote
"You may talk about Free Love, if you please, but we are to have the right to vote. Today we are fined, imprisoned, and hanged, without a jury trial by our peers. You shall not cheat us by getting us off to talk about something else.
On Occupations and a Woman's Sphere
"If a woman earned a dollar by scrubbing, her husband had a right to take the dollar and go and get drunk with it and beat her afterwards. It was his dollar."
On Enslavement
"If, while I hear the shriek of the slave mother robbed of her little ones, I do not open my mouth for the dumb, am I not guilty? Or should I go from house to house to do it, when I could tell so many more in less time, if they should be gathered in one place? You would not object or think it wrong, for a man to plead the cause of the suffering and the outcast; and surely the moral character of the act is not changed because it is done by a woman.".
On Identity and Courage
"A wife should no more take her husband's name than he should hers. My name is my identity and must not be lost."
Overview
Petitioning and hearings
In addition to being the women's rights movement's most prominent spokesperson, Lucy Stone led the movement's petitioning efforts. She initiated petition efforts in New England and several other states and assisted the petitioning efforts of state and local organizations in New York, Ohio, and Indiana.
Early life and influences
Lucy Stone was born on August 13, 1818, on her family's farm at Coy's Hill in West Brookfield, Massachusetts. She was the eighth of nine children born to Hannah Matthews and Francis Stone; she grew up with three brothers and three sisters, two siblings having died before her own birth. Another member of the Stone household was Sarah Barr, "Aunt Sally" to the children – a sister of Francis Stone who had been abandoned by her husband and left dependent upon her brother. Al…
Oberlin
In August 1843, just after she turned 25, Stone traveled by train, steamship, and stagecoach to Oberlin College in Ohio, the country's first college to admit both women and African Americans. She entered the college believing that women should vote and assume political office, that women should study the classic professions, and that women should be able to speak their minds in a public f…
Antislavery apprenticeship
Stone gave her first public speeches on women's rights in the fall of 1847, first at her brother Bowman's church in Gardner, Massachusetts, and a little later in Warren. Stone became a lecturing agent for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in June 1848, persuaded by Abby Kelley Foster that the experience would give her the speaking practice she still felt she needed before beginning her w…
National Woman's Rights Convention
In April 1850, the Ohio Women's Convention met in Salem, Ohio, a few weeks before a state convention met to revise the Ohio state constitution. The women's convention sent a communication to the constitutional convention requesting that the new constitution secure the same political and legal rights for women that were guaranteed to men. Stone sent a letter praising their initiative and said, "Massachusetts ought to have taken the lead in the work you ar…
Woman's rights orator
In May 1851, while in Boston attending the New England Anti-Slavery Society's annual meeting, Stone went to the exhibit of Hiram Powers's statue The Greek Slave. She was so moved by the sculpture that when she addressed the meeting that evening, she poured out her heart about the statue being emblematic of all enchained womanhood. Stone said the society's general agent, Samuel May, J…
Marriage
Henry Blackwell began a two-year courtship of Stone in the summer of 1853. Stone told him she did not wish to marry because she did not want to surrender control over her life and would not assume the legal position occupied by a married woman. Blackwell maintained that despite the law, couples could create a marriage of equal partnership, governed by their mutual agreement. They co…
Early Life
Education
- Her father would not support her education, so she alternated her own education with teaching to earn enough to continue. She attended several institutions, including Mount Holyoke Female Seminaryin 1839. By age 25 four years later, she had saved enough to fund her first year at Oberlin College in Ohio, the country's first college to admit both White women and Black people. After fo…
The American Anti-Slavery Society
- A year after she graduated, Lucy Stone was hired as an organizer for the American Anti-Slavery Society. In this paid position, she traveled and gave speeches on North American 19th-century Black activism and women's rights. William Lloyd Garrison, whose ideas were dominant in the Anti-Slavery Society, said of her during her first year of working wi...
Radical Leadership
- Stone's radicalism on both North American 19th-century Black activism and women's rights brought large crowds. The talks also drew hostility: according to historian Leslie Wheeler, "people tore down the posters advertising her talks, burned pepper in the auditoriums where she spoke, and pelted her with prayer books and other missiles." Having been convinced by using the Greek …
Marriage and Motherhood
- Stone had thought of herself as a "free soul" who would not marry; then she met Cincinnati businessman Henry Blackwell in 1853 on one of her speaking tours. Henry was seven years younger than Lucy and courted her for two years. Henry was anti-enslavement and pro-women's rights. His eldest sister Elizabeth Blackwell (1821–1910), became the first woman phy…
Split in The Suffrage Movement
- Inactive in the suffrage movement during the Civil War, Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell became active again when the war ended and the Fourteenth Amendmentwas proposed, giving the vote to Black men. For the first time, the Constitution would, with this Amendment, mention "male citizens" explicitly. Most woman suffrage activists were outraged. Many saw the possible passa…
The Women's Journal
- The next year, Lucy raised enough funds to start a suffrage weekly newspaper, The Woman's Journal. For the first two years, it was edited by Mary Livermore, and then Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell became the editors. Lucy Stone found working on a newspaper far more compatible with family life than the lecture circuit. Alice Stone Blackwell attended Boston University, where …
Last Years
- Lucy Stone's radical move to keep her own name continued to inspire and enrage. In 1879, Massachusetts gave women a limited right to vote for the school committee. In Boston, however, the registrars refused to let Lucy Stone vote unless she used her husband's name. She continued to find that, on legal documents and when registering with her husband at hotels, she had to sig…
Death
- Stone's voice had already faded and she rarely spoke to large groups later in her life. But in 1893, she gave lectures at the World's Columbian Exposition. A few months later, she died in Boston of cancer and was cremated. Her last words to her daughter were "Make the world better."
Legacy
- Lucy Stone is less well known today than Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, or Julia Ward Howe, whose "Battle Hymn of the Republic" helped immortalize her name. Stone's daughter Alice Stone Blackwell published her mother's biography, "Lucy Stone, Pioneer of Woman's Rights," in 1930, helping to keep her name and contributions known. But Lucy Stone is still remembered to…