Letter writer, women's rights advocate, farmer, and patriot. Educated by her grandmother and by her own readings from the family library, Adams took almost complete responsibility for running the family farm while her husband, John (who would later become President of the United States), was away attending to his political interests. Probably Abigail's best known letter implored her husband to "Remember the Ladies" by improving their legal rights in the new country.

To quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, pp. 58-59 )

References: Davidson, pp. 8-9

Agrippa argued the absolute equality of men and women on the grounds of religious, moral, and natural rights. Agrippa used some of the same arguments that Christian de Pizan, a woman, had used a century earlier although he did not credit the ideas to her. Like her, he also made a list of exemplary female worthies who had come before him. Published in 1529, Agrippa's work was translated into English as The Glory of Women (1652). Recently, this work has been reprinted as Declamations of Nobility (University of Chicago, 1996).

In Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 55), Gage wrote, "In 1509, Cornelius Agrippa, a great literary authority of his time, published a work of this character. Agrippa was not content with claiming woman's equality, but in a work of thirty chapters devoted himself to proving 'the superiority of woman.' "

References: Lerner, p. 214

Author of the 2 volume work The History of Women from Earliest Antiquity (1779) wherein he compiled a list of illustrious women. Born in New York City, Alexander served in the French and Indian War. In 1756 he went to England in part to press a claim to the earldom of Stirling before the House of Lords . With his claim rejected, Alexander returned to America in 1761. He enlisted as a colonel in a New Jersey regiment in November 1775. In 1776 he was promoted to brigadier general; as such he took part many major battles of the American Revolutionary War. Alexander was a founder and the first governor of King's College (now Columbia University)

To quote in Preceding Causes

References: Lerner, p. 326 footnote #43, "Alexander, William," Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright (c) 1994 Microsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1994 Funk & Wagnall's Corporation

Legendary warrior women who created a society devoid of men. According to legend, once a year the Amazon women would enter a neighboring town to copulate with the men to become pregnant. They would also leave their year-old boy children in the town for the townspeople to raise as their own.

Fact or fiction? I can imagine that a group of women, women who had been abused, or women who weren't satisfied with their restricted lives in the company of men, or women who were lesbians, decided to form their own community. Such a community would require women to fill all necessary jobs including military ones. I think that they would become so notorious that legends about them -- embellished legends perhaps -- could survive for thousands of years. So, yes, in that sense, I believe that there were Amazons. But true or false, I sure do like the story.

In The Matriarchate; or, Woman in the Past, Gage writes, "The Amazons, of whom all nations give trace and to whose existence Humbold gave credence, had broken from domineering patriarchal rule, founding the first republic known under that system."

Marguerite's parents, Louise de Savoie and Charles d'Alecon, raised her with the ideals of the Italian Renaissance and provided her with an excellent education. She had some knowledge of Latin and Italian and began to study Hebrew. She was interested in all aspects of philosophy. When Francis became king in 1515, Marguerite helped set the tone in the French court, encouraging gifted poets and supporting translations of classical works into French. Her first work Le Mirror de l'ame pecheresse (Mirror of the Sinful Soul 1531), was a religious tract that showed her adherence to the principles of sola fides and sola scriptura. Marguerite also wrote poems, dramas, and plays-- mostly of a religious nature. She is best known for Heptameron, a collection of 80 stories in the manner of Boccaccios's Decameron. Although Heptameron is not a feminist work, it does portray women in a sympathetic manner.

In Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 55), Gage wrote, "Margaret of Angouleme, the brilliant Queen of Navarre, was a voluminous writer, her Heptameron rising to the dignity of a French classic."

References: Wilson, vol 2, pp. 903-904

Queen of Great Britain and Ireland (1702-14), the last British sovereign of the house of Stuart. Faithful to her Protestant heritage, Anne supported her sister Mary and Mary's husband, William of Orange, during the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Becoming Queen upon William's death in 1702, Anne led England into a Golden Age of the arts and nearly opened the first institution of higher education for women in Europe. During Queen Anne's reign the kingdoms of England and Scotland were united (1707). Having no surviving children, Anne was succeeded by her German cousin, George, elector of Hannover, as King George I of Great Britain.

To quote in Preceding Causes

References: "Anne," Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright (c) 1994 Microsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1994 Funk & Wagnall's Corporation

German writer, feminist, Social Democrat, anti-slavery campaigner. Editor of the Neue Kölinische Zeitung (New Cologne Times), which she renamed the Frauen-Zeitung (Woman's Journal). After her husband's arrest following the unsuccessful 1848 revolution, she fled to America with her family. She immediately met Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and joined the women's movement. She is the author of numerous poems and several books. Her works include the play, Oithono (1842), and the anti-slavery novellas Die Sclaven-Aution (The Slave Auction 1862) and Gebrochene Ketten (Broken Chains, 1864).

Widowed and in need of support, in 1865 Anneke opened the Milwaukee Tochter Institute (Milwaukee Girls School), a German-language school for girls. Winning praise from German language educators throughout the country, she operated the school alone for 18 years.

In Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 68), Gage wrote, "The active part women took in the Polish and German revolutions and in favor of the abolition of slavery in the British West Indies, all taught their lessons of woman's rights. Madam Mathilde Anneke, on the staff of her husband, with Hon. Carl Schurz, carried messages to and fro in the midst of danger on the battle-fields of Germany."

References: Buck, entry for Anneke, Matilde Franziska
Notable American Women, James, et. al., vol 2, pp. 50-51

Pioneer woman's rights leader. Educated in the school her father ran for his children and the children of his mill's employees, Anthony was raised on the Quaker ideal of the inherent equality of men and women. Early in life, she taught school but later joined the temperance movement. In 1852 she joined both the abolition and woman's rights movements. After the Civil War and with the help of Matilda Joslyn Gage and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Anthony formed the National Woman's Suffrage Association. The three also collaborated on writing the first 3 volumes of the History of Woman's Suffrage. Although she was interested in all areas of reform early in life, in her later years her sole interest was in woman's suffrage. Her speeches have been collected in Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: Correspondence, Writings, and Speeches (1981) edited by Kathleen Barry.

for quote, see entry for Rachel G. Foster

To Quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 67)

References: Davidson, p. 54

First widely read, expressly feminist English woman writer. Her great feminist polemics, A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (1694) and A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, Part 2 (1697) advocated opening institutions of higher education to women where women could devote their lives to learning and teaching as an alternative to marriage. In Some Reflections on Marriage (1700), Astell analyzed marriage and methods of picking a suitable husband from a feminist perspective. She also published Letters Concerning the Love of God (1695), her correspondence with Rev. John Norris discussing how humankind owes one's love to God rather than his [sic] creatures; 3 politcal works, Moderation Truly Stated (1704), A Fair Way with Dissenters and Their Patrons (1704), and An Impartial Enquiry Into the Causes of Rebellion and Civil War (1704); and 2 religious works The Christian Religion as Profess'd By a Daughter of the Church (1705), Bart'lemy Fair, or, An Inquiry After Wit (1709).

To quote in Preceding Causes

References: Todd, pp. 17-20

Anne Austin (mother of 5 children), Mary Fischer (who had spent 2 years in an English prison for her Quaker beliefs), and Anne Hutchinson (who was banished from Massachusetts for her Quaker beliefs) were part of the Quaker circle which included Mary Dyer. Dyer had returned England from Boston (where she had emigrated in 1635). She meet and came under the influence of George Fox, the founder of the Quaker religion, at Swarthmore, the home of Judge and Margaret Askew Fell. (Askew Fell would marry Fox 16 years have Judge Fells death and would play a significant role in making the Quaker religion so hospitable to women's preaching (see her Women's Speaking Justified) Along with perhaps a dozen others, the little band set off for Boston and Gage tells us what happened when they arrived.

To reference in WCS

Reference: Mary Dyer, Biography of a Rebel Quaker, Mary Plimpton, Branden Publishing Co., Boston, 1994, p. 131, 136

Author of Myth, Religion and Mother Right (originally published as Das Mutterrecht: Eine Untersuchung Uber Die Gynaikokratie der Alten Welt Nach Ihrer Religiosen und der Rechtlichen Natur, 1861; reissued in translation 1967.) Bachofen was an early proponent of an early matriarchy where women originally had high status and inheritance followed the mother's line. Cited by Fredrick Engles as an authority on numerous occasions in The Origin of Family, Private Property and the State (1884).

To quote in The Matriarchate; or, Woman in the Past

References: The God Idea of the Ancients or Sex in Religion by Eliza Burt Gamble

Scottish poet and playwright. Welcomed into London literary society after being revealed as the author of the anonymous Plays on the Passions (1798, 1802, and 1812), Baille intended a her plays to be a series of works, one comedy and one tragedy, for each emotion. She was especially admired by Sir Walter Scott. Although her works today seem melodramatic, at the time, they were considered to contain striking treatments of the female character. Late in life, she took part in religious and philanthropic projects.

In her 1852 speech to the Syracuse Woman's Rights Convention, Gage said, "Joanna Baille had been termed the woman Shakespeare."

References: Parry, p. 47, Blain p. 50-51

In The Matriarchate; or, Woman in the Past, Gage writes, "Marco Polo found similar customs [tracing descent through the mother] in his voyages of exploration; it is the same with the Indians of our continent, not alone of the Pacific coast, as Herbert Bancroft shows, but Eastern writers upon Indian customs note the same thing. "

In 1869, the Washington University School of Law admited its first female students, Phoebe Couzins and Lemma Barkeloo. Couzins became the university's and the law school's first female graduate in 1871. Missouri's first woman lawyer, Barkaloo attended the law school for one year, but chose to take the bar exam in 1870 without finishing law school. In 1870, M. Lemma Barkeloo became the first woman lawyer in St. Louis and in Missouri. She was the first woman trial lawyer in America, and the first woman lawyer to try a case in federal court. She died a few months later of typhoid fever.

In her speech, "On The Progress Of Education And Industrial Avocations For Women" (1871), Gage writes, "Missouri recently lost by death her first woman lawyer, Miss Lemme Barkaloo , a native of your neighboring city of Brooklyn."

References: Breaking the Barriers: The St. Louis Legacy of Women in Law 1869-1969
Lemma Barkeloo

Teacher, founder of New Jersey's first "free" school, clerk for the patent office. During the Civil War, Barton witnessed the horrors of the battlefield at the Battle of Bull Run. Determined to help the wounded soldiers, she began raising money for medical supplies. Eventually, her efforts lead to the founding of the American Red Cross. Her autobiography Story of My Life was published in 1907.

To Quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 67)

References: Blain, p. 68-69

In the April, 1879 issue of The National Citizen and Ballot Box article discussing the 1848 Woman's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, NY, Gage wrote, "Elizabeth and Mary McClintock, and Mrs. Stanton, each read a well written speech, Martha Wright read some satirical articles she had published in the daily papers answering the diatribes on woman's sphere, Ansel Bascom, who had been a member of the Constitutional Convention, recently held in Albany, spoke at length on the property bill for married women, just passed the Legislature, and the discussion on woman's rights in that convention. Samuel Tillman, a young student of law, read a series of the most exasperating statutes for women, from English and American Jurists, all reflecting the tender mercies of men towards their wives, in taking care of their property and protecting them in their civil rights. "

To Quote in the April, 1879 issue of The National Citizen and Ballot Box

Author of Histoire du luxe prive et public depuis l'antiquite jusqu'a nos jours, Paris, Hachette, 1878-80, 4 vols, a comprehensive history of luxury in all its historical, economic, social, moral and esthetical aspects. Professor at the 'College de France' and chief editor of the 'Journal des economistes', Baudrillart is credited with an important oeuvre connected with political economy, economic history and statistics, valuable for its vast enumeration of facts, though he has been criticized for his moral preoccupations.

In Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 55), Gage wrote, "A paper in the Revue des Deux Mondes, a few years since, by M. Henri Baudrillart, upon the "Emancipation of Woman," recalls the fact that for nearly four hundred years, men, too, have been ardent believers in equal rights for woman."

References: I got this off the web somewhere - a used books seller who was trying to sell one of Baudrillarts works. Sorry, I forgot to record where.

Daughter of Queen Victoria I of England, Princess Beatrice Mary Victoria was born in 1857. Her nickname in the family was "Baby." She married Prince Henry of Battenberg in 1885, despite Queen Victoria's disapproval of the match. Beatrice and Henry had four children, including Victoria Eugenie, who became the queen of Spain. Beatrice died in 1944. Intended to be her mother's spinster companion, Beatrice didn't marry until she was 28 and continued to live in England at Victoria's beck and call.

To reference in WCS

Reference: Victoria

The son of the early 19th century revivalist preacher Lyman Beecher, Henry was himself a clergyman, an abolitionist, a woman's suffragist, a famed orator. Henry was brother to the abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852.

To reference in "On The Progress Of Education And Industrial Avocations For Women" (1871)

Reference: Pitts Theology Library Archives and Manuscript Dept. Beecher, Henry Ward (1813-1887)

In 1853, Brown became the first US woman to be ordained to the ministry. In addition to working in church ministry, she was a woman's rights activist, abolitionist, temperance worker, prison reformer, and anti-poverty worker. She wrote 11 books, 9 on religious and philosophical issues and 2 novels. She tried to reconcile Christianity and woman's rights. Her works include: Shadows of our Social System (1856), Studies in General Science (1869), The Sexes Throughout Nature (1875), and The Philosophy of Individuality (1893).

In Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 67), Gage wrote, "The same year [1847] Antoinette L. Brown, then a student at Oberlin College, Ohio, the first institution that made the experiment of co-education, delivered her first speech on temperance in several places in Ohio, and on Woman's Rights, in the Baptist church at Henrietta, N.Y."

To reference in "On The Progress Of Education And Industrial Avocations For Women" (1871)

References: Blain, p. 101

Naturalist. To raise funds to release her husband, Alexander, from debtors prison, Blackwell published her 2 volume herbal in 1737 and 1739. Blackwell went on to spend 4 years completing A Curious Herbal containing Five Hundred Cuts of the most useful Plants which are now used in the Practice of Physicks. Based on plants in the botanical gardens at Chelsea, Blackwell made copper engravings and colored all 500 plates herself. Curious Herbals became one of the most popular herbals of the century. After her husband's death, Blackwell went on to study obstetrics with William Smellie. She became a wealthy and successful general practitioner, which had a much higher status (and corresponding larger fees) than midwifery.

In Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 63), Gage wrote, "In 1736, the first medical botany was given to the world by Elizabeth Blackwell, a woman physician, whom the persecutions of her male compeers had cast into jail for debt. As Bunyan prepared his "Pilgrim's Progress" between prison walls, so did Elizabeth Blackwell, no-wise disheartened, prepare her valuable aid to medical science under the same conditions."

To reference in WCS

References: Todd (2), p. 48; Alic, p. 100

Realizing that teaching school and becoming a wife and a mother was not for her, Blackwell decided to become a female doctor. The only school in the country which would accept a woman was Geneva College, just a few miles from Seneca Falls, NY. When Blackwell arrived on campus, she discovered that she had been admitted as a joke - no one believed that she would actually show up. Nonetheless, overcoming the hostility of her teachers and fellow students, Blackwell graduated in 1849 at the head of her class - the first woman ever to be graduated with a medical degree any where in the modern world. After post-graduate study in Paris (where she met Florence Nightengale), Blackwell returned to America and began to set up practice in 1851. All of the city's hospitals and clinics were closed to her, she received threatening letters, and she could not find any one who would even rent rooms to her. Only her Quaker friends brought her patients and she finally opened a clinic in 1853 where she mostly served poor women. Joined by her sister and another recent graduate, Dr. Marie Zakrzewska, Blackwell founded her own hospital, the New York Infirmary for Women and Children. During the Civil War, Blackwell trained nurses for wartime hospital work. In 1868, she opened a college in conjunction with her hospital, a college devoted to educating women to become doctors. Although she had become an American citizen in 1849, Blackwell returned to England permanently in 1869. In 1875, Blackwell became professor of gynecology at the new London School of Medicine, a position she held until 1907. She wrote two controversial books advocating sex education, as well as her autobiography, Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women (1895).

To quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 63)

To another quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 63)

References: Weatherford, p. 39-40

Professional journalist and novelist, woman's rights activist, suffragist. In addition to over 500 short stories, articles, speeches, and lectures, Blake wrote 5 books: Southwold (1858), Rockford; or, Sunshine and Storm (1863), Forced Vows; or, A Revengeful Woman's Fate (1870), Woman and Paganism in Christianity, and Fettered for Life, or Her Lord and Master (1874). Blake supported many aspects of the woman's movement, including the inclusion of women from Columbia University. Blake was elected President of the New York State Suffrage Association in 1879 which she turned into a powerful organization. Blake's 4 lecture response to the misogynist lecture by the Rev. Morgan Dix was printed as Woman's Place Today (1881). Blake was also a contributor to Elizabeth Cady Stanton's The Woman's Bible (1895?).

for quote, see entry for Rachel G. Foster

To reference in WCS

References: Gaylor, p. 243-245

Given the right to vote by the Washington territorial legislature in 1883, women were encouraged when the statute was upheld in an 1884 Territorial Supreme Court case. On a second challenge, however, the court invalidated the statute in 1887. The issue was brought again to the Territorial Supreme Court by Mrs. Nevada Bloomer, who had been denied the right to vote in a regular municipal election in the city of Spokane Falls. Bloomer v. Todd, 3 Wash. Terr. 599 (1888). Mrs. Bloomer's husband owned a saloon, and John Todd, one of the defendant election judges, was a beer bottler who supplied Bloomer. Possibly contrived by saloon owners and suppliers to invalidate women's suffrage for fear of prohibition, the court struck down the statute, holding that Congress must have intended to limit the franchise to male citizens, and that the territorial legislature had no power to enfranchise women, ending women's suffrage in Washington Territory. Women did not win the right to vote in Washington until 1910 when the people approved the fifth amendment to the Washington State Constitution.

To reference in WCS

Reference: John P. Hoyt and Women's Suffrage

Boudicca, Queen of the Iceni, lead a revolt against the Roman invaders of England. After her husband Prasutagus' death, the Roman invaders plundered his territory in spite of his will which left his realm to his daughters and the Roman emperor. Helpless, Boudicca herself was whipped and forced to watch the Roman soldiers rape her daughters. In revenge, she raised up an army against the roman invaders. Boudicca's forces resoundingly defeated the Roman troops at Camulodonum and virtually annihilated the IX Hispania before heading to London. Fearing the Iceni army, the Roman commander sacrificed London itself before the ride turned against the Iceni. Eventually Boudicca was defeated, but not captured. She and her daughters are believed to have taken poison to avoid capture and ritual execution at Rome.

To reference in WCS

View a picture of a statue of her in her chariot and read the words of the Roman historian Tacitus at Boudicea

Boivin was one of the foremost women medical researchers of the nineteenth century. She made original anatomical discoveries, invented the vaginal speculum for examining the womb, and was one of the first to use a stethoscope to listen to a fetal heartbeat. Her medical book, Memoire de l'art accouchements (1812), was translated into several European languages. Boivin translated medical works from English. Her most important work, a medical book on the uterus, was used as a text book for many years. She was director of several hospitals, received the Order of Merit from the King of Prussia, and was awarded an honorary MD from the University of Marbourg in 1827.

To quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 63)

References: Alic, p. 102

First female French artist to receive the Cross of the French Legion of Honor (1865). Her best-known works are The Horse Fair (1853-1855) and Weaning the Calves (1887), both in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. Bonheur ran her father's art school after he died in 1849. She was given governmental permission to cross-dress, and made animal studies in markets and fairs while dressed as a man. In 1894 she became the first woman to receive the Grand Cross of the French Legion of Honor.

To Quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 67)

To reference in "On The Progress Of Education And Industrial Avocations For Women" (1871)

References: Greenspan, p. 246; "Bonheur, Rosa," Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright (c) 1994 Microsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1994 Funk & Wagnall's Corporation.

Plaintiff in the case of Bradwell v. Illinois , possibly the most outrageous and heinous case involving women's rights in America, a case which *should be* as infamous for women as the Dred Scott case is for Blacks, Bradwell had a sterling professional reputation: she established the extremely influential and well-regarded Chicago Legal News which carried information about laws, ordinances and court opinions admissible as evidence in court in 1868 and passed the Illinois Bar Exam with high honors in 1869, yet was denied admission to the Bar, even upon appeal to the Illinois state Supreme Court, because of her Sex. Finally reaching the US Supreme Court, the case went against Bradwell with the court ruling that since a woman did not have a legal existence separate from her husband, and, consequently, could not sign contracts, the state of Illinois was allowed to refuse all women, even single women, access to the bar. By claiming that women had no separate legal existence from their husbands, women were denied the right to as much as run away from an abusive husband, for, like a slave, she was guilty of stealing her services from her husband. Further women had no right to control their own wages. By claiming that women had no legal right to sign contracts, the court held that women had no property rights, even to own the clothes on her own back, since a person often had to sign a contract to hold property. The effects of Bradwell v Illinois was not overturned until well into the 1970s through a series of ground-breaking lawsuits.

Continuing her career in the legal profession and using her professional training, Bradwell published and edited her legal journal, using its pages and power to advocate for women's rights, speaking out for women's suffrage, and removal of property ownership rights restrictions on women. She was permitted to run her business only by a special charter allowing a married woman to do so. Bradwell was admitted to the United States Supreme Court and Illinois Supreme Court in 1892, retroactive to her initial application in 1869.

In 1869 Bradwell helped created Chicago's first women's suffrage convention.

To reference in "On The Progress Of Education And Industrial Avocations For Women" (1871)

References:

Law, Gender, & Injustice: A Legal History of U.S. Women , Joan Hoff, New York University Press, 1991
National Women's Hall of Fame: Myra Bradwell

According to the website cited below: "Women not under coverture could sue and be sued. At least one woman, Martha Bradstreet of Utica, spent so much time in the courts she was practically a lawyer. Contemporaries called her "a host in herself." Because she was "a strenuous and persevering claimant of a large part of the soil of Utica," she acquired "by study a mastery of the law of real estate." "She harassed numbers of its citizens with suits at law and besieged the courts with her causes," antiquarian Moses Bagg asserted.123 She started so many suits that she had fill-in-the-blank forms created for her own use!124 Other women started suits too".

"123 Moses Bagg, Memorial History of Utica, N.Y. (Syracuse: D. Mason & Co., 1892).
124 One such survives in Folder 62 of the Abraham Van Vechten Papers at the New York State Library in Albany, New York. The forms are for the "District Court of the United State of American For the Northern District of New York." Martha Bradstreet of Utica "who is an Alien, and a Subject of the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland" deserves one quarter of 20 houses, 20 warehouses, etc."

In Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 67), Gage wrote, "At even an earlier day [before Elizabeth Wilson published her work], Martha Bradstreet, of Utica, plead her own case in the courts of New York, continuing her contest for many years. "

Reference: Women and Banking in Early America

Swedish prose writer. Considered the founder of the Swedish novel, Bremer wrote about family life and woman's circumstances. Her works include: Techningar utur Hvardagslifvet (Scenes from Every Day Life 1828), Presidentens Döttar (The President's Daughter 1834), Grannarna (The Neighbors 1837), Hemmet (The Home 1839) and En Dagbok (A Diary 1843). In her most famous work, Hertha (1856), she expressed her attitudes about women in Sweden and initiated discussion of the woman question there.

To Quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 67)

References: Buck, entry for Bremer, Fredricka

Widow Brevard was a staunch American during the Revolutionary War: 7 of her sons fought for independence. In retaliation, the British plundered, then burned, her farm. On May 19, 1775, independence was first proclaimed in Charlotte, the county seat of her home county of Mecklenburg [sic] (in one of the Carolinas). Her husband immediately joined the army as a surgeon, was taken prisoner in the surrender of Charleston, was released, and succumbed to fever a short time later.

To Quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 59)

References: Ellet, vol 1, p. 300-302

In her own time, the best known of the three Bronte sisters and author of the classics of English literature Jane Eyre (1847), Shirley (1849), Villette (1853), and The Professor (1857).

To Quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 67)

References: Todd, p. 93-95

A graduate of Antioch College in 1860 and Universalist Theological School in 1863, Brown was ordained the same year to become one of a handful of women ministers in the United States. Soon becoming active in the national women's suffrage movement, Brown unsuccessfully attempted to broaden the Fourteenth Amendment to include guarantees of civil rights for women as well as blacks. Moving to Wisconsin in 1878 to take charge of a church in Racine, Brown quickly rose to leadership within the Wisconsin Women's Suffrage Association (WWSA), continuing to be active in the women's movement until her death in 1926.

To reference in "On The Progress Of Education And Industrial Avocations For Women" (1871)

Reference:Wisconsin's Legal History Olympia Brown

Writer and poet whose works include The Battle of Marathon (1820), (1826), Prometheus Bound. . . and Miscellaneous Poems (1833), The Seraphim and Other Poems (1838), Poems (2 vol, 1844), Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850), Casa Guidi Windows (1851), (1856), Poems Before Congress (1860), and Last Poems (1862- published posthumously). Possibly her best known work, the semi-autobiographical Aurora Leigh, is a novel in verse with a strong polemical statement about the roles of women in society.

To Quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 67)

References: Todd, p. 104-107

In Lecky in History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe in footnote 2:30 refers to Buckle's History of Civilization vol 1 (Lecky spells it Civilisation). I don't know if this is the work or the person Gage is referring to.

To * reference in "On The Progress Of Education And Industrial Avocations For Women" (1871)

Initially active in the movement to "reform prostitutes" (read that as provide them food, housing, and training for a new career), Butler's involvement in the world of Victorian prostitution deepened as time progressed. Soon she helped to prevent the extension of the notorious British Contagious Diseases Acts (CDA) to the length and breadth of England. (The notorious British Contagious Diseases Acts which permitted "authorities" (police) to detain any woman around six military installations as a suspected prostitute. Even without a warrant or probable cause (the word of a jealous, or frustrated, male suitor was enough) the victim could be held up to three months in prison for refusing to be medically examined by a police physician for signs of venereal disease. If a woman signed the papers permitting the police physician to examine her, she was acknowledging that she would return every 3 months for further examinations since it was assumed that only prostitutes would permit themselves to be examined. Similar laws were in effect throughout much of the continent, ensuring that the sons of the wealthy continued to have cheap, unrestrained sexual access to the daughters of the poor even in democratic, liberty loving states.) Eventually, Butler helped to repeal the British CDA, then helped to form an international organization for repealing similar laws throughout Europe, becoming a major force in opposition to organized prostitution and trafficking in women.

To reference in WCS

Reference: A Singular Iniquity: The Campaigns of Josephine Butler, Glen Petrie, Viking Press: New York, 1971

In the April, 1879 issue of The National Citizen and Ballot Box article discussing the 1848 Woman's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, NY, Gage wrote,"James Mott, tall and dignified, in Quaker costume was called to the chair, Mary McClintock was appointed Secretary, Fredrick Douglass, Samuel Tillman, Ansel Bascom, E. W. Capron, and Thomas McClintock, took part throughout in the discussions."

Authors. Alice's first published work appeared as a poem in the Sentinel, a Cincinnati Universalist newspaper, when she was 18. Phoebe's first work was published shortly thereafter. Edgar Allan Poe, Horace Greeley, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Rufus W. Griswold recommended publication of their first book, Poems of Alice and Phoebe Carey in 1850. The sisters became regular contributors to various periodicals and published several other books, including short stories, poems, and novels.

References: McHenry, p. 65-66

British social reformer, educator. In 1846, Carpenter opened a school for working class children. She opened a new style reformatory for boys in 1852 and one for girls in 1854.

To Quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 67)

References: Greenspan, p. 232, 238

Carroll planned the Tennessee Campaign that was successfully used by General US Grant to win the war in the west for the Union troops. Carroll's contribution to the war effort was a closely guarded secret: military leaders feared that the troops would become dispirited if they knew a woman had planned the highly successful Tennessee campaign.

Bones Without Meat, a play by Andrew Conan Jones based on 1862 Congressional Testimony regarding a petition to award credit of the Tennessee Campaign to Major-Generals Hallack and Grant. The Congressional documents, reproduced as part of this play, loudly proclaim that Anna Ella Carroll planned the campaign and convinced the military powers-that-were to accept her plan.

Sign a petition to Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle to have Anna Ella Carroll receive her rightful place in history.

References: Wagner, p. 2-3

Politically astute enough to seize the throne from her husband, to keep it, and to rule Russia wisely, Catherine, an enlightened despot, sought to modernize Russia materially, intellectually, and politically. She took deep interest in the history, language, literature, and religion of her adopted land. Her writings included the law, letters (over 10,00 are known to have survived), translations, memoirs, history, criticism, comedy, comic operas, drama, fables, collections of proverbs, satire.

In Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 60-61), Gage wrote, "In Russia, Catherine II, the absolute and responsible ruler of that vast nation, gave utterance to views, of which, says La Harpe, the revolutionists of France and America fondly thought themselves the originators. She caused her grandchildren to be educated into the most liberal ideas, and Russia was at one time the only country in Europe where political refugees could find safety. To Catherine, Russia is indebted for the first proposition to enfranchise the serfs, but meeting strong opposition she was obliged to relinquish this idea, which was carried to fruition by her great-grandson, Alexander."

References: Wilson, vol 1, p. 224-226

To reference in WCS

To reference in WCS

Novelist, short story writer, and abolitionist. Today, Child is best remembered for her anti-racism and abolitionist work. Her works include: Hobomok (1824), a novel where she portrayed a miscegenation between a Puritan woman and a Native American; The Rebel (1825), another novel; Juvenile Miscellany (1826), the first children's magazine; The Frugal Housewife (1829), an early woman's magazine; the Ladies Family Library a 5 volume set that included historical accounts of early feminists and the 2 volume work The History of the Condition of Women, in Various Ages and Nations (1832-1835). Acclaimed as the foremost woman writer of her time, she was the second woman to be granted access to the Boston Athenaeum. Her Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans (1833) was one of the first books to call for immediate emancipation of slaves. Because of Appeal, she was denied access to the Athenaeum and was forced to give up editorship of the Juvenile Miscellany. Opportunity knocked and Child became editor of National Anti-Slavery Standard. Her essays from the Standard were collected in Letters from New York (1843). She continued to write essays, edit magazines and books, and write new books until her death. Other works include The Freedman's Book (1865), A Romance of the Republic (1867), and An Appeal for the Indians (1868).

In Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 64 ), Gage wrote, "In 1832, Lydia Maria Child published her "History of Woman," which was the first American storehouse of information upon the whole question, and undoubtedly increased the agitation."

To Quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 65-66)

References: Davidson, p. 177

A prolific writer (author of at least 20 books), de Pizan (the correct spelling of her name since she was from Pizanno, not Pisa) is the first European woman known to have earned her living by the pen. She wrote in many genres including: poetry, prose, novels, handbooks, letters, and non-fiction works on a topics ranging from history, biography, and military fortifications to women. Indeed, de Pizan is considered to have begun discussion of the "woman question" on the continent. Her two books on women Le Livre La Cite des Dames (The Book of the City of Ladies 1405) and Le Tresor de la Cite des Dames (The Treasury of the City of Ladies 1405) are feminist classics. Many historians date the beginning of the woman's movement from her publication of The Book of the City of Ladies 1405.

In Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 54-55 ), Gage wrote, "The revival of learning had its influence upon woman, and we find in the early part of the fourteenth century a decided tendency toward a recognition of her equality. Christine of Pisa, the most eminent woman of this period, supported a family of six persons by her pen, taking high ground on the conservation of morals in opposition to the general licentious spirit of the age."

To reference in WCS

References: Buck, entry for Christine de Pisan

A sorceress, daughter of the sun god Helios and the sea nymph Perse, Circe was able to turn people into beasts. When Greek hero Odysseus visited her island with his companions, she turned the companions into swine. The god Hermes helped make Odysseus immune to Circe's enchantments, and Odysseus forced her to restore his companions. Circe fell in love with Odysseus and helped him travel home safely.

To reference in WCS

Reference: Circe

Arriving in Beatrice, Nebraska in 1872, Clara's husband Leonard with his law partner opened a law office and began promoting real estate ventures. Meanwhile, Clara started a public library and community theater, and in 1877 she introduced Elizabeth Cady Stanton to the area and thereafter became an important contributor to the Woman's Suffrage Movement. Beginning in 1883, Clara owned, operated, and edited the Nebraska newspaper, Women's Tribune, which provided isolated Midwestern readers with news of the national women's suffrage movement for 26 years. She published news of Congressional debates concerning women and children, lectured on behalf of women's voting rights in western states, was a close friend of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony and served as president of the Nebraska Suffrage Association. She also contributed to Elizabeth Cady Stanton's The Woman's Bible.

To reference in WCS

Reference: Clara Bewick Colby
For more information, the website directs us to see: E. Claire Jerry. "Clara Bewick Colby and The Woman's Tribune: Strategies of a Free Lance Movement Leader." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Kansas, 1986.

Born of humble parentage, Collins began her career as a domestic, then as a tailor, eventually doing volunteer work in a Boston military hospitals during the (Civil) War. Self-educated, she established a school for soldiers' children.

Her interest in social reform awakened, after the war, she became involved in the New England Labor Reform League and the Working Women's League of Boston. Her strong speeches during the Cocheco mill strike brought her to the attention of S. B. Anthony who asked her to speak at the National Woman Suffrage Convention in 1870.

Not an ardent militant at heart, she returned to Boston in 1870 where she opened a woman's center, Boffin's Bower, where women could find food, clothing, shelter (if needed), an evenings entertainment, and employment.

To reference in WCS

Reference: Notable American Women, James, et. al., vol 1, pp. 362-363

French philosopher, political leader, and mathematician. Like Mary Wollstonecraft, Condorcet used natural-law and other Enlightenment theories to argue for the equality of the sexes. Educated at Jesuit schools and at the Collège de Navarre, Paris, a member of the Académie des Sciences (1769), secretary of the Académie des Sciences (1777), and member of the French Academy (1782), his Essai sur les assemblees provenciales (Essay ?? Provencial Assemblies, 1787) clearly "demanded the right, for a woman who held property, to have a seat in the assemblies." Basing his demand for the political equality of men and women on their common ability to reason and to learn, his 1790 "Essai sur l'admission des femmes as droit de cite" is a rousing manifesto demanding the political equality of women and men and a blistering condemnation of men who are prejudiced against women. A supporter of the French Revolution, and one of the handful of leading feminists of the Revolution, Condorcet became involved in politics, was elected to the Legislative Assembly, and in 1792 became president of that chamber. Perhaps his greatest legislative contribution was the plan for the French educational system, which was subsequently adopted and has since been maintained. During the course of the Revolution, he opposed the excesses used against the moderate Girondists, and with them was proscribed during the Reign of Terror of 1793. He fled, and while in hiding he wrote his most important work. Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit humain (Sketch of the Intellectual Progress of Mankind, 1795). In this work he outlined the progress of the human race through nine stages, beginning with the primitive. He also outlined the concept of a tenth stage in which, largely through education, human perfection might be attained. Believing that his asylum had become unsafe, Condorcet attempted to escape. He was discovered in the village of Clamart, near Paris, and imprisoned; the following day he was found dead.

On pages 335-336 of The Moral History of Women, one of Gage's frequent references, Ernest Legouve quotes Condorcet: " "In the name of what principle, in the name of what right," asks Condorcet, "do we in a republican state, exclude women from public duties? I cannot understand it. The phrase National Representation signifies the representation of the nation. Do women, then, constitute no part of the nation? This assembly meets for the purpose of defining and maintaining the rights of the French nation. Do women constitute no part of the French nation? With men the right of electing and being elected rests solely on the condition that they shall be intelligent and free beings. Are women not free and intelligent beings? The only disqualifications for this right are a sentence of corporal or ignominious punishment, and minority. Have all the women then been in the clutches of the public prosecutor? and can they not read in our laws that 'Every individual of either sex, twenty-one years old, is of age?' If you argue the physical weakness of women, then should every representative be summoned before a medical jury, and all those rejected who have the gout every winter. If you object to women on the score of their deficient instruction, their lack of political aptitude, it seems to me that there are many representatives who might be dispensed with on the same ground. The more we interrogate common sense and republican principles, the less just cause do we find for excluding women from politics. Even the leading objection, which is in everybody's mouth -- the argument that claims that to open a political career to women is to separate them from the fam8ily -- has only an apparent weight. For, in the first place, it does not apply to the world of women who have never been wives, or who are no longer such; and moreover, if it is conclusive, we must, for the same reason, prohibit women from all manufacturing or commercial employments, for these positions debar thousands of them from family duties, while political offices do not employ a hundred in all France. Finally, an illustrious woman [Olympe de Gouges] dismisses the question with these proud words: 'Woman has the same right to ascend the tribune that she has to mount the scaffold.' " "Journal de la Societe, of 1789, No. 5, July, 1790

For Quote, see entry for Charolette Corday

References: Hoff, p. 97; Spencer p. 222, 408, "Condorcet, Marie Jean Antoine Nicholas de Caritat, Marquis de," Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright (c) 1994 Microsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1994 Funk & Wagnall's Corporation

Ernest Legouve, The Moral History of Women, Rudd and Carleton, Paris, 1860

On June 25, 1678 Elena Lucrezia (alternate spelling) Cornaro Piscopia became the first woman in the western world to earn a doctorate in any field from any university: her doctorate was in Philosophy since the University of Padua did not feel that they could grant a doctorate of theology to a woman even though she was eminently well qualified for the title. In addition to speaking both Latin and Greek fluently, Elena mastered Hebrew, Spanish, French, and Arabic. A student of the sciences as well as of languages, she studied mathematics and astronomy in addition to philosophy and theology. A musician, Elena mastered the harpsichord, the clavichord, the harp, and the violin. Her mastery of musical instruments was crowned by the music she composed.

In her 1852 speech to the Syracuse Woman's Rights Convention, Gage said, "Helena Lucretia Corano, in the seventeenth century, was of such rare scientific attainments, that the most illustrious persons in passing through Venice, were more anxious to see her than all the curiosities of the city; she was made a doctor, receiving the title of Unalterable."

References: from a Paper written by Sarah Thieling , Class of 1999 (Agnes Scott College). Thieling gives as her references:
1.Forbush, Gabriell E. "Lost Women." MS. vol. 3, no. 56, Jan. 1975, p.56 compiled by Judith Wilson.
2.Fusco, Nicola. Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia: 1646-1684. Pittsburgh: The United States Committee for the Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia Tercentenary. 1975. Limited First Edition.
3.Pace. E. A. "Cornaro." New Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 4, 1967.
4.Remiddi. Marcia. "A Woman of High Degree." Unesco Courier, Vol. 31, July 1978, 12-13.

Widowed at age 34 (32 in Claghorn), her husband's will stipulated that she should forfeit her land if she remarried. Consequently, her lover moved in with her without benefit of marriage. They had two children and were well respected by the community. An early feminist, Corbin protested loudly that she was taxed but not allowed to vote. Although widows and spinsters who possessed sufficient property were allowed to vote in some states at the time of the revolution, Corbin was ignorant of that fact. Complaining to her better-known brother, Richard Henry Lee, Corbin asked him to work with his fellow revolutionaries to enfranchise women in the state of Virginia. Lee indicated that he supported such a measure, but that it was unnecessary since women already had "as legal a right to vote as any other person." Virginia rescinded women's right to vote shortly after the Constitution was adopted. Corbin supplied provisions for the American army.

In Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 57), Gage wrote, "Among the women who manifested deep political insight, were Mercy Otis Warren, Abigail Smith Adams, and Hannah Lee Corbin; all closely related to the foremost men of the Revolution. "

To Quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 59)

References: Bernikow, p.9; Hoff, p. 92; and Claghorn, p. 55

French patriot and assassin of the French revolutionist Jean Paul Marat. Convent educated and sympathetic to the moderates, or Girondists, in the French Revolution, she decided to kill Marat, a supporter of the radical Jacobins, whom she held responsible for the Reign of Terror. She went to Paris on July 13, 1793, gained admittance to Marat's house on the pretext of disclosing to him the names of Girondists in the city of Caen, and stabbed him to death while he was in his bath. Captured by Marat's friends before she could escape and condemned by the revolutionary tribunal, she was guillotined on July 17. Her deed was portrayed by the French artist Jacques Louis David in the famous painting Death of Marat

In Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 61), Gage wrote, "The beautiful Charolette Corday sealed with her life her belief in liberty, while Sophia Lapierre barely escaped the same fate; though two men, Sieyes and Condorcet, in the midst of the French Revolution, proposed the recognition of woman's political rights."

To reference in WCS

References: "Corday, Charlotte," Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright (c) 1994 Microsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1994 Funk & Wagnall's Corporation.

Midwife, author of a textbook on gynecology, appointed by Louis XV to teach obstetrics at hospitals throughout France, popularized a teaching method where mannequins were used to demonstrate delivery methods.

To quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 63)

References: Alic, p. 201, footnote 4

In her 1852 speech to the Syracuse Woman's Rights Convention, Gage said, "Mrs. Cowper was spoken of by Montague as standing at the head of all that is called learned, and that every critic veiled his bonnet at her superior judgment."

To Quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 65-66)

A noted astronomer who spent 20 years revising Johannes Kepler's Rudolphine Tables useful for calculating planetary positions. She wrote this work in Latin although she was equally proficient in hebrew, Greek, and several other languages. She was also a noted writer, poet, and artist. (Golemba, p. 14, entry for Maria Cunitz)

In her speech at the 1852 Syracuse National Convention, Gage writes, "Mary Cunity, of Silesia, in the sixteenth century, was one of the most able astronomers of her time, forming astronomical tables that acquired for her a great reputation."

References: Golemba, p. 14

One of the first major native-born US actresses, she began as an opera singer but turned to acting after she overstrained her voice.

References: from The Cambridge Biographical Encyclopedia at www.biography.com

Raised by a highly religious aunt after being orphaned at age seven, Davis eventually ran away from home and married Frances Wright, a wealthy local merchant, in 1833. In 1840 Wright began collecting women's signatures on a petition in support of the New York "Married Woman's Property Rights Bill." Widowed in 1845, Davis was lecturing to women about women's anatomy and physiology using a human model, an extremely controversial undertaking. Married in 1849 to the like-minded -- and soon to be Congressman -- Thomas Davis, Paulina Davis organized the 1850 first national Worcester Woman's Rights Convention and served as Vice-President of the 1852 Syracuse National (Women's Rights) Convention. The wealthy Davis used some of her funds to publish the pro-suffrage journal, The Una (1853). Staunch supporter of Anthony and Stanton after the split in the woman's rights movement following the Civil War, in 1868 Davis co-founded the New England Woman Suffrage Association and the Rhode Island Woman Suffrage Association. Thomas Davis carried on his wife's work for 20 years after her death.

To quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 63)

To another quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 64-65)

To reference in "On The Progress Of Education And Industrial Avocations For Women" (1871)

References: Stanton, p. 118n; Spender, p. 374; Suhl, pp. 59, 242; Edgerly, p. 308

Comment: In his History of Women (1782) William Alexander writes: "Much has already been said and wrote in this adulatory strain: but Hilario da Costa, a monk, resolving to exceed all who had gone before him, published two quarto volumes, of eight hundred pages each; containing, according to his account, the panegyrics of all the women of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, who had distinguished themselves by any remarkable talents or virtues. But as if no valuable talent, nor any virtue could exist without the pale of the catholic church, the partial ecclesiastic passed in silence over every woman of other principles; and while he loudly praised the virtues of Mary queen [sic] of England, whose memory succeeding ages have held in contempt; of her sister, whom her country still remembers with gratitude, he made no mention. The eulogies of this monk amount to one hundred and seventy. But who, in this delusory world, can ensure to himself the summit of greatness or of fame? The voluminous labours of our monk were soon after greatly surpassed by Paul de Ribera, who was delivered of a monstrous work, which he called "The Triumphs and heroic Enterprizes of Eight Hundred Women." "

English novelist, journalist, social thinker, political commentator, and writer. Defoe was a prolific author, producing more than 500 books, pamphlets, and tracts. Crediting Mary Astell with the idea, in "Essay Upon Projects" (1697), Defoe advanced the idea of education for women. Today, Defoe is best remembered for his novels, The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719) and The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders (1722).

In Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 55), Gage wrote, "The seventeenth century gave birth to many essays and books of a like character, not confined to the laity, as several friars wrote upon the same subject. In 1696, Daniel De Foe wished to have an institute founded for the better education of young women. He said: 'We reproach the sex every day for folly and impertinence, while I am confident had they the advantages of education equal to us, they would be guilty of less than ourselves.' "

References: "Defoe, Daniel," Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright (c) 1994 Microsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1994 Funk & Wagnall's Corporation; Lerner, p. 204

Dickinson was an early influential woman orator and nationally prominent lyceum lecturer, averaging 150 lectures a season in the late 1860s, championing Black rights and the emancipation of women. She campaigned decisively for Republican candidates in 1862 elections. A warm and admired friend of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she was aloof from, yet supportive of, the suffrage movement. Later, as an actress and playwright, Dickinson played a female Hamlet in 1882. She was committed to Danville Hospital for the Insane in 1891, released and won damages, and died in obscurity.

To reference in WCS

References: Wagner, p. 4 also inform Database at the University of Maryland.

Dix was a teacher and nurse who turned her energies and her pen toward reform of institutions - prisons, poor-houses, mental hospitals.

To quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 67)

References: Buck, entry for Dix, Dorothea Lynde

Abolitionist and feminist, escaped slave, persuasive speaker on the abolitionist circuit, staunch supporter of women’s rights, Douglass advocated education, especially literacy, for Blacks, believing that white men could enslave the Black race because white men had the power of literacy. Author of three autobiographies: Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass (1845), My Bondage and My Freedom (1855), and Life and Times of Fredrick Douglass (1881, 1892) and editor of several newspapers, including "The North Star", the only contemporary newspaper to publish the entire text of the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions of Seneca Falls convention. In later life, Douglass served as Counsel-general to Haiti and charge d’affaires of the Dominican Republic.

In the April, 1879 issue of The National Citizen and Ballot Box article discussing the 1848 Woman's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, NY, Gage wrote,"James Mott, tall and dignified, in Quaker costume was called to the chair, Mary McClintock was appointed Secretary, Fredrick Douglass, Samuel Tillman, Ansel Bascom, E. W. Capron, and Thomas McClintock, took part throughout in the discussions."

References: I got this off the web someplace, too. The information seems to be generally available at a number of sites.

Followers and friends of Anne Hutchinson, both Dyer and her husband were banished from Massachusetts along with the Hutchinsons in the 1630s. The Dyers then settled in Providence, Rhode Island, helping to found the new colony. In the 1650s the Dyers accompanied Roger Williams and John Clarke to England, where Mary Dyer became a Quaker, influenced by George Fox himself. Returning to Boston, she was arrested and expelled under a new law outlawing Quakers. Arrested for continuing to teach her Quaker doctrine several more times over the next few years, even being flogged and being given a last minute reprieve from the gallows, Dyer was eventually hanged for being a Quaker in Massachusetts.

To reference in WCS

Reference: Mary Dyer: Biography of a Rebel Quaker, Ruth T. Plimpton

Widowed four times, he lost five children. While serving as a lawyer, he was framed on a forgery charge and sentenced to life in prison at hard labor. He was pardoned by Gov. DeWitt Clinton in 1818. In 1824 Eaton joined Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) as associate professor of experimental philosophy, chemistry, and geology. He subsequently became a renowned geologist, leading the geological expedition which determined the path of the Erie Canal. Eventually he became professor of geology at RPI, established the department of civil engineering, and awarded world’s first degree in that field in 1835

A faithful friend of Mrs. Emma Willard, Eaton tutored her in the natural sciences so that she could teach natural sciences classes at her Troy Female Seminary. Eventually, he taught classes there himself, offering science courses in advance of what men were getting at a comparable stage in their education.

To quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, pp. 62-63 )

References: Rensselear Polytechnical Institute article on Eaton (Well, it was here but it seems to have gone away.)

Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right, Eleanor was both Queen of France as wife of Louis VII (ruled 1137-80) and Queen of England as the wife of Henry II (ruled 1154-1189). A month after her marriage to Prince Louis, he became King Louis VII of France. Dressed as an Amazon, she led her troops on the Second Crusade. In 1152, the marriage was annulled on the grounds of consanguinity. Later that year, Eleanor married Henry Plantaganet, Count of Anjou, who became King Henry II of England in 1153. A strong supporter of the arts, her court embodied courtly life. Because of Henry's infidelities, she supported two of their five sons in a rebellion against him. She was captured and imprisoned (1174-1189) until her son, Richard the Lionhearted, ascended the throne. She was his regent while he was on a crusade (1189-1194) and raised the ransom for his release. In 1200 she led the army that put down a rebellion against her second son, King John. She has come to be regarded as one of the greatest female rulers.

In Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, pp. 56-57), Gage wrote, "Passing by other similar instances, we find in the reign of Henry III that four women took seats in Parliament, and in the reign of Edward I ten ladies were called to Parliament, while in the thirteenth century, Queen Elinor became keeper of the Great Seal, sitting as Lord Chancellor in the Aula Regia , the highest court of the Kingdom."

References: Parry, p. 211-212

Eliot wrote essays for various newspapers and magazines in the 1840s and 1850s, was nominal editor for the Westminister Review (1852-1854), and translated Das Wesen des Christenhums (1854). She was an extremely popular novelist, writing Scenes of Clerical Life, Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1863), Felix Holt (1866), The Spanish Gypsy (1868), Middlemarch (1872), Legend of Jubal and Other Poems (1874), Daniel Deronda (1876), Impressions of Theophrastus Such (1879). George Eliot also published numerous essays and short stories. Many of her works are written from a feminist perspective.

Toquote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 67)

References: Todd, pp. 212-217

Daughter of Henry VIII, king of England, and of his second wife, Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth, who became queen at the death of her half-sister Mary in 1558, was the last of the Tudor rulers of England. Elizabeth's reign was one of the greatest reigns in English history. When she ascended to the throne, England was torn by religious strife, was economically insecure, and was involved in a disastrous war with France. To these problems Elizabeth brought a thorough education, innate shrewdness, and a skill in diplomacy that she had constantly exercised during the reigns of Edward and Mary, when one mistake might have meant her death. England thrived economically, politically, artistically, and intellectually during her reign. Religious tolerance was only one of the many achievements of her reign. Shakespeare, Bacon, and many other writers and artists flourished during her reign.

In her 1852 speech to the Syracuse Woman's Rights Convention, Gage said, "With the learning, energy, and perseverance of Lady Jane Grey, Mary and Elizabeth, all are familiar. "

In Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, pp. 55-56), Gage wrote, "In the reign of Elizabeth, England was called the Paradise of Women. When Elizabeth ascended the throne, it was not only as queen, but she succeeded her father as the head of the newly-formed rebellious Church, and she held firm grasp on both Church and State during the long years of her reign, bending alike priest and prelate to her fiery will."

References: "Elizabeth I," Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright (c) 1994 Microsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1994 Funk & Wagnall's Corporation.

Ellet was the first historian to address the relationship between women and the American revolution. Women of the Revolution (1848), a 2 volume work, provided biographical sketches of 60 women who lived through the revolution. Domestic History of the American Revolution (1850) told the story of the American revolution from the differing perspectives of men and women. She gives women's contributions to the war effort, such as boycotting British goods, providing food to the American troops, raising other supplies and money, carrying messages for the military and political authorities, spying on British troops, and caring for prisoners, the dying and the wounded, as much attention as the men's contributions to the battles.

In Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 57) , Gage wrote, "When the American colonies began their resistance to English tyranny, the women - all this inherited tendency to freedom surging in their veins -were as active, earnest, determined, and self-sacrificing as the men, and although, as Mrs. Ellet in her " Women of the Revolution " remarks, "political history says but little, and that vaguely and incidentally, of the women who bore their part in the revolution," yet that little shows woman to have been endowed with as lofty a patriotism as man, and to have as fully understood the principles upon which the struggle was based. "

References: Kerber, p. 63-65

Scholar and educator, Elstob wrote An Essay on Glory (1708). An unpublished workbook of biographical sketches of learned Englishwomen that later formed the basis of George Ballard's Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain (1752). Other works include an English translation of an Anglo-Saxon text, An English Homily on the Birthday of St. Gregory (1709): preliminary work on her project to publish all 80 extant Saxon homilies of Aelfric; Some Testimonies of Learned Men in Favour of the Intended Edition of the Saxon Homilies (1713); and a grammar on the Anglo-Saxon language, Rudiments of Grammar for the English-Saxon Tongue (1715). Tragically, at the age of 32, her two most staunch allies and promoters, including her brother William, died and Elstob was left alone. Elstob could find work only as a teacher to the poor. Her desperate straits were eased when she acquired new sponsors in 1730 and came to the attention of Queen Caroline in 1733. Thereafter she had regular employment as a governess to the children of the upper nobility.

For quote, see entry for Queen Anne

References: Todd, pp. 223-226

Traditionally excoriated for her role in the Christian story of creation, using a totally outrageous interpretation of the Christian Holy Bible, Eve was blamed by theologians for centuries for bringing sin and death into the world. Using this story to explain why women are subordinate to men, in an interpretation of the Bible that can only be construed as a masculinist wet-dream of biblical proportions, Eve, the first woman, in turn, passes her guilt onto all future women.

In truth, the story shows that Eve was beguiled by a wily serpent into eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, a very laudable goal. Weak-willed Adam, unable to withstand the allurements of the now-fallen mere mortal (as opposed to the beguilement of a wily supernatural demi-god), in deliberate disobedience to the words which God personally spoke to him, and not motivated as was Eve to become a moral being, nonetheless joins Eve in eating the forbidden fruit. Adam, having done nothing to discourage Eve from her conduct, refused to take responsibility for his actions and tried to blame the incident, first on Eve, then on God herself. He was cursed by God to earn his daily food by the sweat of his brow, a much more serious punishment than Eve's (which was to bear children in labor every year or so), and was driven from Paradise for his transgressions. Out of the goodness of her heart, and for Adam's sake, Eve joined Adam in his banishment, even being willing to share in the labors of the world, even though God herself punished Adam, and Adam alone, by giving him all of the world's work. Remember, Eve was "punished" ("blessed" might be a better term) only with child-birth -- not child care, homemaking, housekeeping, dish-washing, clothes washing, ironing, cooking, cleaning, farming, or any other tasks -- just child-birth. As a reward for her conduct in attempting to become a more moral being, God told Eve that she and her offspring would "crush the head of the serpent," virtually demanding that Eve take the lead in all religious matters.

To reference in WCS

Reference: Available on request. But be prepared. The list is very long.

Suffragist, novelist, journalist, essayist. In 1844, she began her career as a matron at Sing Sing Prison where she implemented progressive prison reforms. Her works include Life in Prairie Land (1846), an account of life on the Illinois prairie near Pekin between 1836 and 1840, My Early Days (1859), an autobiographical novel, and California: In-doors and Out (1856), a chronicle of her western trip. In 1856, she became a woman's rights activist and abolitionist. Her best known work, the 2 volume Woman and her Era (1864), presents "organic, religious, esthetic, and historical" arguments for woman's inherent superiority. In The Ideal Attained (1865), the novel's heroine molds the hero into a worthy mate.

In 1848 her husband (Thomas Jefferson Farnham), who practiced law and had a freight business in California, died suddenly in San Francisco. In 1849, at the age of 34, Eliza Farnham sailed to California to settle her husband's estate and start a farm, or as she called it, a rancho. El Rancho La Libertad was located in Santa Cruz County. She farmed there with her children and her friend Miss Sampson (Miss S.) for more than five years. Sometime during that period, she was joined by her former assistant matron at Sing Sing, Georgiana Bruce Kirby (Geordie). In 1856, Eliza Farnham wrote a book of her experiences called California, In-doors and Out.

To Quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 66)
References: Blain, p. 357-358
Santa Cruz History (Ooops, the page must have died.)

Imprisoned in 1652 because she had rebuked a priest in the typical Quaker fashion, she supplemented her rebuke by joining five other Friends in issuing a pamphlet, False Prophets and False Teachers Described.

In December 1653, now a full-fledged Quaker militant, Mary went to Cambridge University where military officers were being trained and heckled a speaker. Arrested under the terms of an old, unused anti-vagrancy law, Mary was stripped, severely flogged, and imprisoned. She was again imprisoned in 1654 and 1655, again for rebuking a priest.

Traveling with Ann Austin by way of Barbados, Mary was among the first Quakers to visit Boston, although their reputation had preceded them. Upon landing, the women were not permitted to leave the ship until their Quaker books and pamphlets had been confiscated and burned and they had been searched for marks of the witch. Taken ashore and held incommunicado for five weeks, they were banished to Barbados.

The next major episode in her life occurred when she went to England then to the Mediterranean, traveling to Adrianople in Turkey to interview the young Sultan Mahomet IV. She returned safely to England where news of her interview with the feared Sultan made quite a stir and in 1662 married William Bayly. Widowed with three children, she married John Cross in 1678 and migrated to Charleston, S. C. in 1682.

To reference in WCS

Reference: Notable American Women, James, et. al., vol 1, pp. 623-624

An early abolitionist, Kelley went door-to-door in 1835-1837 educating citizens, collecting signatures on petitions, and raising money. She attended the first meetings of women abolitionist in 1837 and 1838 and helped William Lloyd Garrison found the New England Non-Resistant Society. Unusual for her time, she made her first public speech in 1838, which brought her many negative comments. Indeed, the hall in which she spoke was attacked and burned by the mob the following day. With the encouragement of fellow abolitionists, Kelley quit her teaching job and became a lecturer on the anti-slavery circuit. Because of her sex as well as the subject matter of her lectures, Kelley was attacked, slandered, and denied lodgings while struggling to earn enough to pay her expenses. Her controversial (because of her sex) appointment to the business committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1840 caused about half of the member to quit the organization and form a competing organization. In 1845 she married the even more radical Stephen Foster who supported her with his time and effort while she continued her career. Although the Civil War freed the slaves, Foster continued speaking and fund-raising for the newly emancipated. She lived the feminist life but only occasionally took overtly feminist political stands. One example was her refusal to pay taxes on her farm on the grounds that being taxed without being allowed representation (the vote) violated fundamental American principles. The farm, sold by the government at a tax-auction, was bought by friends and returned to her.

To Quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 65-66)

To another Quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 66)

To reference in WCS

References: Weatherfod, p. 136

Corresponding secretary of NWSA and, later, after the merger of the NWSA and the NAWSA, corresponding secretary of NAWSA. A protogee of Susan B. Anthony, Foster was considered as on of SBA's 4 possible successors upon her retirement. Anna Howard Shaw was chosen instead: the other 2 candidates were Harriet Taylor Upton (Treasurer NAWSA) and Carrie Chapman Catt.

The following women signed "The Protest Against the Unjust Interpretation of the Constitution Presented on Behalf of the Women of the United States by the Officers of the National Woman Suffrage Association to the President of the United States, the Governors of the States, and other Federal and State Officials, on the occasion of the Constitutional Centennial in Philadelphia, September 17th, 1887"
      Susan B. Anthony (NY), Acting President
      Matilda Joslyn Gage (NY), Vice-President-at-Large
      Rachel G. Foster (Pa), Corresponding Secretary
      Mary Wright Seweall (Ind), Chairman Executive Committee
      Lillie Devereux Blake (NY), Vice-President for New York, Chairman Presentation Committee

References: I got this off the web somewhere. Sorry but I forgot to record where.

Elizabeth Fry, a soon-to-be British prison reformer, visited London's Newgate Prison in 1813. Horrified by what she found, she began her lifetime commitment to prison reform. In 1819, she founded an industrial school for female prisoners. Her experiences are recorded in her autobiography, Memoirs (1847).

To Quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 67)

References: Greenspan, p. 213

Horace Greeley was so impressed by Summer on the Lakes (1844), an early environmental and feminist work which also questioned American's exploitation of Native Americans, that he hired her as feature writer for his New York Tribune. She continued her work for the tribune on her trip to Europe, serving as the Tribune's foreign correspondent. On returning home, her ship was lost at sea.

To Quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 66)

References: Davidson, p. 336-337

Abolitionist, feminist, founder of the influential antislavery newspaper Liberator (1831), founding member of the New England Anti-Slavery Society (1832), and leader in establishing the National American Anti-Slavery Society (1843). Garrison was a true radical and opposition to his policy of denouncing northern clergy for their silence on the issue of slavery developed within abolitionist ranks. Garrison's advocacy of equal rights for women generally and especially within the abolitionist movement was cause for further dissension. When Garrison later decided that the slavery clauses of the U.S. Constitution were immoral and that, consequently, it was equally immoral to take an oath in support of the Constitution, the split widened further. Denouncing it as “a covenant with Death and an agreement with Hell,” he publicly burned a copy of the federal Constitution in 1840. His motto was “No union with slaveholders” and he advocated peaceful separation of the free states from the slave states. After the Civil War, Garrison ceased publication of the Liberator and advocated dissolution of the antislavery societies. He became prominent in campaigns to promote free trade, to abolish customhouses on a world scale, to achieve suffrage for American women, to work for justice for Native Americans, to establish Prohibition, and to eliminate the consumption of tobacco in the U.S.

To Quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 65)

References: "Garrison, William Lloyd," Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright (c) 1994 Microsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1994 Funk & Wagnall's Corporation

Pious Quaker who established her own school for Quaker children in Philadelphia in 1821. She moved to New York City in 1830 and became a teacher in a Quaker school there. In 1833, Hooper married James S. Gibbons, a wealthy Quaker merchant. Their initial entry into political activism was through the abolitionist movement: eventually they would also support temperance, abolition of capital punishment, relief of the poor, and prison reform. During the Civil War, Abigail worked as a nurse for the union army. After the war, she returned to her women's prison reform activities and founded the Labor and Aid Society to help veterans find work and to provide relief for war widows and orphans. She helped to found several other organizations designed to aid poor women. She attended 10th annual Women's Rights Convention in New York City on May 10-11, 1860.

To Quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 65-66)

References: McHenry, p. 152-153; Buhle and Buhle, p. 187

In Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 55), Gage wrote, "In 1599, Anthony Gibson wrote a book which in the prolix phraseology of the times was called, "A Woman's Worth defended against all the Men in the World, proving to be more Prefect, Excellent, and Absolute, in all Virtuous Actions, than any man of What Quality soever." "

To reference in WCS

In Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 59 ), Gage wrote, "Although the first plot of ground in the United States for a public school had been given by a woman (Bridget Graffort), in 1700, her sex were denied admission. Mrs. Adams, as well as her friend Mrs. Warren, had in their own persons felt the deprivations of early educational advantages. The boasted public school system of Massachusetts, created for boys only, opened at last its doors to girls, merely to secure its share of public money."

Reluctant to allow women any say in the management of the college, yet thinking it indecent for men to deliver babies, in 1848 founded Boston (later New England) Female Medical College, the first medical school especially for women. His attacks on male practitioners and the mediocre level of training offered at the school led the college into controversy, even among women.

Excluded from male colleges, this and other all-female institutions enabled women to achieve a level of training that would have been otherwise impossible. Since women were also excluded from teaching hospitals, most women's colleges founded their own companion hospitals to further enhance their training.

To quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 63)

References: The History Net: Women in the Workplace

Queen of England for nine days. Upon the death of Henry VIII's son, the boy king Edward VI, Lady Jane was proclaimed queen, but Edward's half sister, Mary Tudor, contested the succession. Lady Jane was subsequently imprisoned in the Tower of London. She and her husband were accused of treason, and both were beheaded on February 12, 1554.

In her 1852 speech to the Syracuse Woman's Rights Convention, Gage said, "With the learning, energy, and perseverance of Lady Jane Grey, Mary and Elizabeth, all are familiar. "

References: "Grey, Lady Jane," Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright (c) 1994 Microsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1994 Funk & Wagnall's Corporation

Poet. Her works remained unpublished in her lifetime. Born to poor illiterate parents, Crawley became a scholar who was recognized for her expertise in Greek and Latin. After studying midwifery, history, theology, philosophy, and mathematics, she became the second wife of George Grierson. His business as the King's Printer thrived in part because of her talents as 'corrector of the press.'

In her 1852 speech to the Syracuse Woman's Rights Convention, Gage said, "Constantia Grierson, an Irish girl, of humble parentage, was celebrated for her literary acquirements, though dying at the early age of twenty-seven."

References: Blain, p. 462

An early, active abolitionist, her home served as a way station on the underground railroad. Like many other abolitionists, she was an early supporter of women's rights: she was elected president of the Ohio Woman's Rights Association in 1853. Yet, from 1851 to 1855, she was a paid agent of the Western Anti-Slavery Society. During the Civil War, she founded the Freedman's Bureau (an organization to help the emancipated slave make a successful transition to freedom by supplying food, clothing, shelter, education, job training, etc.) during the Civil War. After the organization was operating smoothly, it was incorporated into the War Department where services got tangled in bureaucratic red-tape. She was elected first vice-president of the new American Equal Rights Association (1866), was a founder and president of the Universal Franchise Association of the District of Columbia (1867), and was chosen to be corresponding secretary of the National Woman Suffrage Association (1869).

References: McHenry, 169; Wagner, p. 3

The Grimke Sisters from South Carolina, born and raised in a wealthy, slave-holding family, moved to the North and became early abolitionists. They became the first female abolitionist agents, speaking throughout the North about their first hand experiences with slavery. Angelina wrote An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South (1836), asking southern women to denounce slavery. Attacked as "unchristian," the sisters had to fight for their rights to be publicly active, a right denied them because they were women. They were among the first feminists to see the link between racism and sexism. In Letters to Catharine Beecher in Reply to an Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism Addressed to A. E. Grimke (1837), Angelina equated woman's denial of liberty to slavery. In Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women (1838), Sarah published the first woman's rights pamphlet in the United States. Their public lives ended abruptly when Angelina married the abolitionist Theodore Weld and the sisters settled into a domestic life. Both sisters remained committed feminists and abolitionists until their deaths, although Angelina was first and foremost an abolitionist while Sarah was first and foremost a feminist.

To Quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 65)

To reference in WCS
          Theodore D. Weld (Angelina's husband), American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses (New York: Published by the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1839)

References: Davidson, p. 367

Ordained Universalist minister, author of at least 14 books, poet, suffragist, cousin of Lucretia Mott, founding member of the American Woman Suffrage Association, Hanaford was a also a scholar, writing about the activities of earlier American women in Daughters of America, 1882, Boston, B.B. Russell, 1882 (a revision of her earlier work, Women of the Century, 1876). In addition to her work as an ordained minister, she was involved in numerous organization conducting services for the International Council of Women (1888) and being elected as vice-president of Association for the Advancement of Women (1874) and Sorosis, and as president of the Woman's Press Club (1901-1906), New Century Study Circle and the Society for Political Study (1896-1989). She officiated at the funeral services of her friends Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

To reference in "On The Progress Of Education And Industrial Avocations For Women" (1871) 

Reference: Notable American Women, James, et. al., vol 2, p.p. 126-127

An influential Illinois suffragist in the fourth quarter of the 19th century, Harbert kept the Illinois association alive by serving as president for a total of twelve years. A founder and first president of the Evanston (home of Northwestern University) Women's Club as well as a prolific writer, her early writings expressed her belief that "both women and society were injured by pushing children into stereotypical sex roles that confined females to the 'women's sphere.' She thought that this practice condemned a woman to a non-productive lifetime of dependence on others. "

"However, Harbert 's later writings admit that perhaps women did have some virtues and traits that were typically characteristic of her sex, such as purity, charity and fidelity. She wrote that women were "born to soothe and to solace, to help and to heal the sick world that leans upon her." Therefore, giving women the vote would allow them to fulfill their natural nurturing function. In essence, Harbert's writings exemplified the whole movement's shift from an elite intellectual pursuit for justice, to a middle-class reform movement that would benefit society."

Stanford University's Feminist and Women's Periodicals contains a work, The New Era, Chicago: 1885 in their Special Collections which was edited by Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, possibly the "Chicago suffrage newspaper" referred to at The Huntington Votes for Women Exhibit.) (Ain't the Internet wonderful?)

To reference in WCS

Reference: Ahead of their Time: A Brief History of Woman Suffrage in Illinois

Perhaps best known for her magnificent temple at Deir el Bahari in Thebes, Hatshepsut, the fifth ruler of the 18th Dynasty, was the daughter of Thutmose I and the beautiful Queen Ahmose. When Thutmose II, Hatshepsut's husband and half-brother, died in 1479 BCE, his son by a minor wife, Thutmose III, was appointed heir. Because of his youth, however, Hatshepsut was appointed regent. They ruled jointly until 1473 when she declared herself pharaoh. Assuming all of the regalia and ceremonies of a true Pharaoh and dressing in men's attire, Hatshepsut administered affairs of the nation, with the full support of the religious leaders. As was the custom of the time, her mortuary temple at Deir el Bahari included reliefs of her divine birth as the daughter of Amon. Hatshepsut disappeared in 1458 B.C. when Thutmose III, wishing to reclaim the throne, led a revolt.

To reference in "Cleopatra's Needles" (1878)

To reference in WCS

Reference: Hatchepsut: The Female Pharaoh, Joyce Tyldesley, Viking Press, 1996
Queen Hatasu, and Her Expedition to the Land of Punt, chapter 8 of Pharaohs Fellahs and Explorers by Amelia Edwards. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1891

The story of Peter Abelard (1079-1142) and Heloise is one of the most famous and tragic love stories of the middle ages. A great beauty, Heloise, ward of her uncle Fulbert, a canon of the church, was educated at his behest to become one of the most literate women of her time. Since all institutions of learning were closed to her as they were to all women of her time, Abelard was hired as her tutor. Eventually Heloise became pregnant by Abelard who then married her in a ceremony. Heloise insisted that the marriage be kept secret from her uncle as well as church officials so as not to hurt his career. Well, when Uncle Fulbert found out that his niece was married to a man who intended to allow the world to think of her as his concubine rather than his wife so as not to spoil his professional opportunities, Uncle Fulbert became very angry. To make a long story short, Fulbert and had Abelard castrated. Both Abelard and Heloise retreated to monastic life. They both had successful careers Heloise becoming abbess at Paraclete and Abelard becoming abbot of the monastery at Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuis. Their son, Astrolabe, was raised by Abelard's sister. About 1132 Abelard and Heloise began their famous exchange of letters, which have become classics of romantic correspondence.

To reference in WCS

Reference: And now, for a bit of history (Herstory)

Poet, hymn writer, and essayist whose works include: Poems (1808), England and Spain, or, Valour and Patriotism: A Poem (1808), Domestic Affections and Other Poems (1812), The Restoration of Art in Italy (1816), Modern Greece (1817), Translations from Cameons and other Poets (1818), Wallace's Invocation to Bruce (1819), Tales and Heroic Scenes (1819), The Sceptic (1820), Welsh Melodies (1823), Vespers of Palermo (play - 1823), The Seige of Valencia (play- 1823), De Chantillion (play - no date), Lays of Many Lands (poems - 1825), The Forest Sanctuary (poems - 1825), Hymns for Childhood (1827), Casablanca (1828), Records of Women (1828), Songs of the Affectons (1830), Hymns on the Works of Nature for the Use of Children (1833), National Lyrics and Songs for Music (1834), and Scenes and Hymns of Life and Other Religious Poems (1834)

To Quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 67)

References: Todd, p. 327-328

Scientist, specifically an astronomer. As an "assistant" to her brother, Caroline Herschel performed the nightly observations of the sky. She discovered 8 comets, reporting the first in 1787. The Royal Society published her Index of fixed stars in 1798. In 1828, she received the Astronomical Society's gold medal for her unpublished, but widely circulated, Catalogue of . . . Star Clusters and Nebulae.

In her 1852 speech to the Syracuse Woman's Rights Convention, Gage said, "Caroline Herschell shares the fame of her brother as an astronomer. "

To Quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 67)

References: Blain, p. 516

At the age of 65, Hertell introduced a "Married Woman's Property Rights" bill to the New York legislature in 1836. Only due to Hertell's long experience as a reformer and Ernestine Rose's efforts to rouse women was New York's Married Woman's Property Act passed in 1848. The bill did not become law until 1848, six months before Hertell died at age 78. Hertell argued for the bill on the ground of women's and men's inherent equality. Most other supporters of the bill voted for it to protect, not liberate, women.

To Quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 64-65)

References: Hoff, p. ??, Suhl, p. 53-55, 64

Social reformer, writer. Heyrick worked for a gentler society: in The Warning (1824), she attacked warmongering. She combated cruelty to animals, tried to improve children's lives, believed in separate spheres for men and women but supported better job opportunities for women; but most of all, was an early English abolitionist. The best known of her approximately 20 works are Immediate, Not Gradual, Abolition (1824) and Appeal to the Hearts and Consciences of British Women (1828).

In Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 67), Gage wrote, "In 1824 Elizabeth Heyrick, a Quaker woman, cut the gordian know of difficulty in the anti-slavery struggle in England, by an able essay in favor of immediate, unconditional emancipation."

References: Blain, p. 518

Hilda hosted the synod of Whitby in her convent, in the ninth century. According to the English historian Bede (673-735), Hilda was consulted by kings and commoners alike. Whitby appears to have had an excellent library - it produced one of the first copies of Life of Pope Gregory I around 680.

In Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 56), Gage wrote, "The synod of Whitby, in the ninth century, was held in the convent of the Abbess Hilda, she herself presiding over its deliberations. "

References: Buck, entry for Hilda of Whitby

A biography of Hopkins is on the market: Sue Morgan, A Passion for Purity: Ellice Hopkins and the politics of gender in the late-Victorian church, University of Bristol, Department of Theology & Religious Studies, 1999. According to the book blurb, "A wonderfully subtle study of late Victorian social purity reformer Ellice Hopkins."

To reference in WCS

Her first love was art and sculpture. She was so successful that replicas of her statue "Puck" sold for $1000 each in the late 1850s. Not surprisingly, her other great love also required that she use her hands - this time as an inventor of "little machines and household devices." After earning her fortune from her art, America's first great woman sculptor spent the last 30 years of her life as a professional inventor, acquiring at least 7 patents. One patent was for a process for creating synthetic marble (suitable for interior design) from limestone, a commercial success. She was also interested in electro-magnetic motors.

To Quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 67)

References: Stanley, p. 329, 343, 352

A suffragist from New York, Howell was a member of EC Stanton's Revising Committee for The Woman's Bible.

To reference in WCS

To reference in "On The Progress Of Education And Industrial Avocations For Women" (1871)

In The Matriarchate; or, Woman in the Past, Gage writes, "The Amazons, of whom all nations give trace and to whose existence Humbold gave credence, had broken from domineering patriarchal rule, founding the first republic known under that system. "

Practicing medicine when the profession was still largely unlicensed, Hunt saw women's diseases as a result of submissiveness and promoted independence as a cure. She encouraged her patients to throw away the medicines their male doctors had given them, to drink plenty of water, and to keep a diary.

To quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 63)

References: Berkinow, p. 50

From Mercury Center "In nearby Waterloo, a largely Quaker community on the Cayuga-Seneca Falls canal, Quaker industrialist Richard Hunt manufactured finely woven woolenshawls. Because he opposed slavery, he refused to use cotton products."

In the April, 1879 issue of The National Citizen and Ballot Box article discussing the 1848 Woman's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, NY, Gage wrote a detailed story about the activities of Lucretia Mott, Martha C. [Coffin] Wright, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mary Ann McClintock, and Richard Hunt.

A leading member of the New York Bar and author of Essays Upon Human Rights and Their Political Guarantees (c. 1835), in which he advocated woman's rights. Hurlbert staunchly supported women's rights in private as well as in public. Essays is currently in-print.

To Quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 64-65)

References: Stanton, p. 197

Men from all over the ancient world flocked to Alexandria to become her students because she was noted for her mastery of mathematics and philosophy. Her closest, most loyal students later held high imperial or ecclesiastical positions. Through her network of former students, her influence reached as far as Constantinople, Syria, and Cyrene. Moving in high government circles, surrounded by imperial and town dignitaries and by wealthy, well-born, and influential students, doted upon by the influential of the city, and showered with civic honors, Hypatia had substantial influence in the political and social life in Alexandria.

A pagan in an increasingly Christian world, Hypatia's students included Christians and pagans alike. When Cyril became bishop, he began a battle for the purity of the Christian faith by moving against groups that did not hold orthodox beliefs. By using heavy-handed methods, such as expelling the Novatians from the city, closing their churches, confiscating their liturgical objects, and depriving their bishop of all rights, Cyril earned the contempt of many Alexandrians. Yet, he had followers who would stop at nothing to support this cause.

With her students, Hypatia had separated herself from the masses and was, consequently, not particularly popular with the populous. Her fellow pagans knew that she had not fought to preserve traditional Hellenic religion. Cyril discovered her weaknesses and attacked. His people began to spread rumors that Hypatia performed black magic, a very dastardly crime which drew the severest punishments. Whipping the crowd into a frenzy, Cyril's men seized Hypatia, by now an old woman, off the street, beat her, and dragged her body to a church where they mutilated her flesh with sharp tiles and burned her remains.

To reference in "Burning the White Dog" (1876)

References:
Dzieska, Maria, Hypatia of Alexandria, Harvard University Press, 1995
15 Women, 15 Centuries: Hypatia

A charismatic 17th century Massachusetts religious teacher who spoke to women, and later men, in the privacy of her own home about the local minister's weekly sermons and about her own conception of each individual's inner light, Hutchinson was considered disruptive to the community for her unorthodox teachings; she was banished in 1637. She moved to Rhode Island and eventually, Long Island, New York, where she, along with her family, was massacred by Indians.

To reference in WCS

Reference: Plimpton, Ruth T. Mary Dyer: Biography of a Rebel Quaker

Gage credited the Iroquois nation with instilling in her vision of a feminist future. Among the rights which women held among the Native American tribes:

1. Children belonged to the mother's tribe, not the father's tribe.
2. If a marriage proves to be an unhappy one, each person is at liberty to divorce and to marry again. What each person brought into the marriage, each person take out of the marriage. Women get custody of children.
3. When a man brought the products of the hunt home and gave it to his wife, it was hers to dispose of as she saw fit. Her decisions were absolute, even to the sale of skins.
4. A woman retains control of her possessions at all times, even after marriage. They are hers to sell, give away, or bequeath as she sees fit. Her husband, father, brothers, and sons have no claim on her property.
5. Women ruled the house and stores were held in common.
6. Rape and wife-battering were almost unknown.
7. Women had the right to vote.
8. Treaties had to be ratified by 3/4 of all voters and 3/4 of all mothers.
9. Women had the power to impeach a chief (they "removed his horns," the deer's antlers he wore which signified his position.)
10. Women spoke in council meetings and were listened to respectfully.
11. Women could forbid braves from going to war.

In The Matriarchate; or, Woman in the Past, Gage writes, "The Iroquois, the most formidable confederacy existing east of the Mississippi at the discovery of America, traced their descent in the female line. Upon the Iroquois system of government, that of the United States is based, and thus our country has given unwitting recognition of the wisdom of the matriarchate."

References: Sally Roesch Wagner, The Untold Story of the Iroquois Influence on Early Feminists, 1996, Sky Carrier Press

Depicted in human form crowned either by a throne or by cow horns enclosing a sun disk (sometimes even with a vulture), Isis was the daughter of Geb and Nut, sister and wife of Osiris (God of the Underworld / God of the Dead), and mother of Horus. As the personification of the throne, she was an important source of the pharaoh's power. Popular throughout Egypt and, during the later Roman empire era, throughout the Roman world, Isis, Osiris, and Horus figure in a pre-Christian resurrection myth.

After Osiris was murdered and dismembered by Seth, Isis retrieved and reassembled his body, taking on the role of a goddess of the dead and of funeral rites. Isis impregnated herself from the corpse, resurrecting Osiris from the dead, and subsequently secretly gave birth to Horus, hiding the child from Seth in the papyrus swamps. Horus later defeated Seth and became the first ruler of a united Egypt. Isis, as mother of Horus, was by extension regarded as the mother and protectress of the pharaohs. The relationship between Isis and Horus may also have influenced the Christian conception of the relationship between Mary and the infant Jesus Christ. The depiction of Isis, seated, holding or suckling the child Horus is certainly reminiscent of the iconography of Mary and Jesus.

To reference in WCS

Reference: Isis

Poet, novelist, short story writer, children's writer. Her works include 2 novels which were among the first to treat Native Americans sympathetically: A Century of Dishonor (1881) and Ramona (1884).

To reference in WCS

References: Buck, entry for Jackson, Helen Maria Hunt (see Weatherford for longer entry)

Well-educated for her time, especially for a young woman, Mercy opened a girls' school to support herself and her children upon the death of her first husband, Rev. John Bisbe, until she opened a dry-goods store in 1832. She married her second husband, Capt. Daniel Jackson, of Plymouth, Mass. in 1835. Her interest in medicine was encouraged when a regular Physician began giving her books and medicines. Soon she had a thriving medical practice. After her second husband's death, she entered the New England Female Medical College in 1852 and graduated in 1860. Her membership in the American Institute of Homeopathy were regularly rejected, because she was a woman, until June 1871. In 1873 she was appointed adjunct professor of the diseases of children at the newly opened Boston University School of Medicine. She continued to practice medicine and to teach until her death. She was also a temperance supporter and a woman's suffragist.

To quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 63)

Reference: Famous American Women, Smith, p. 209

From the wealthy and well-connected Putnam publishing family, Putnam was determined to become a physician. Since she came of age just as the Civil War began, she expected greater opportunities than women who had come before her. She acquired her medical degree from the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1863 and went to France for post-graduate training. After 2 years of efforts, she became the first woman of any nationality to be admitted to the prestigious Ecole de Medecine. She graduated with high honors and won an award for her thesis. When she returned to the US in 1871, Putnam was better educated than most physicians of either sex. Due to her family's connections, she was able to develop a strong private practice. One by one, she was admitted to the most prestigious medical organizations. She continued her research, publishing over 100 scientific papers. Unusual for her time, Jacobi continued her medical practice after she married and had 3 children. She organized the Advancement of the Medical Education of Women in 1874 and served as president for most of her life. An active suffragist, her "Common Sense" Applied to Woman Suffrage became a classic for the suffragist movement.

To quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 63)

References: Weatherford, p. 187

Co-owner along with her husband Oliver of the Ohio Anti-Slavery Bugle, an abolitionist newspaper, Mariana Johnson was an early woman's rights activist and suffragist, as well as an abolitionist and reformer. Presided over the first Ohio state women's rights convention in 1850.

To Quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 66)

Reference: Weatherford, American Suffragists, pp. 37, 38, 44

To reference in WCS

Swiss painter in the rococo style, Kauffmann produced more than 500 paintings whose graceful, sentimental style was extremely popular in the late 18th century. While living in London, she painted elegant, technically brilliant works such as Cupid's Wand (1793, Attingham Park, near Shrewsbury, England). She was a founding member of the Royal Academy (London). She also did much decorative work on ceilings, walls, and furniture for the British architect and designer Robert Adam.

To Quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 67)

References: "Kauffmann, (Maria Ann) Angelica," Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright (c) 1994 Microsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1994 Funk & Wagnall's Corporation

Born in England in 1818 and an emigrant to Boston in 1838, Kirby fascinated with the Transcendentalists and spent four years at the now famous Brook Farm, a community based on principles of spirituality, equality and the dignity of labor. Here she encountered many of the great minds of the time, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Margaret Fuller.

In the years following, Georgiana Bruce undertook several endeavors. She worked with Eliza Farnham at Sing Sing prison where the two women instituted significant, though controversial, reforms in the treatment and education of the female inmates. She taught on a plantation in Missouri where her first-hand experiences with slavery absolutely confirmed her abolitionist sentiment. Back in the North she continued her teaching career, and then became the governess in a well-to-do African-American family. She was very active in the anti-slavery movement.

Invited by Eliza Farnham, who had inherited several properties in California, to move to California, and funded by journalist and politician Horace Greeley, Bruce arrived in the isolated community of Santa Cruz in the summer of 1850. She married local businessman Richard Kirby and eventually had five children. Santa Cruz, California pioneer, a motivated and independent woman, became a leading figure in the Santa Cruz Unitarian Church and took up the causes of temperance and women's suffrage. She wrote frequently on those topics in local and national papers and, in 1869, founded the first local society of Suffragists. She hosted national women's leaders such as Elizabeth Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

Georgiana Bruce Kirby died in 1887 at the age of 68. Her memoirs, Years of Experience, were published the same year. Our school is proud to honor this pioneer, not only of the western frontier, but of the ever-present frontiers of education, enfranchisement and human dignity.

Reference
Georgiana Bruce Kirby

To Quote in Preceding Causes (Buhle and Buhle, p. 66)

Ardent disciple of Voltaire and successful author of numerous works. Elected to the Academy in 1776, he was made professor of literature in the Lycée in 1787. He welcomed the French Revolution, until he was imprisoned in 1794. After regaining his freedom, he renounced his earlier beliefs and became an zealous Catholic.

for quote, see entry for Catharine II

References: