Lucy Stone American suffragist and abolitionist Date of Birth: 13.08.1818 Country: USA

Biography of Lucy Stone

Lucy Stone was a well-known American suffragist and abolitionist, an active advocate and organizer of the women's rights movement. She became the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a bachelor's degree in college in 1847. Stone strongly advocated for women's rights and the abolition of slavery at a time when women were suppressed and denied the opportunity to speak publicly. She was the first American woman to keep her maiden name after marriage.

Stone played a significant role in organizing the first National Women's Rights Convention and supported various local, regional, and national civil rights organizations. She assisted in the creation of the Women's National Loyal League (WNLL), which fought for the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery. Stone also contributed to the formation of the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA), the largest women's reform group that fought for women's suffrage on a national level for decades.

Lucy Stone was born on August 13, 1818, on a family farm in West Brookfield, Massachusetts. She was the eighth of nine children. Her father, Francis Stone, had a volatile character and a strong fondness for hard cider, often imposing his rules on the family. While Stone's brothers fished and hunted, the daughters contributed to the family income by canning fruits and making textiles and shoes for a local factory. Although the earnings were modest, Lucy deeply resented the constant financial strain and her mother, Hannah Stone, had to plead with her husband for money to buy essential items.

Stone challenged the interpretation of Bible verses that supported male dominance by learning Greek and Hebrew to correct the supposed mistranslations. At the age of sixteen, she started teaching and officially replaced a male teacher in 1837, negotiating a salary of $16 per month (equivalent to $329 today). However, this amount was considerably less compared to the earnings of male educators. Stone gradually transitioned to public speaking against slavery after attending a women's seminary in South Hadley, Massachusetts but continued teaching until August 1843.

Shortly before her twenty-fifth birthday, Stone traveled by train, steamboat, and stagecoach to Oberlin College in Ohio. Oberlin was one of the few institutions that admitted women and African Americans, and Stone became a student there. At Oberlin, she became friends with abolitionist and suffragist Antoinette Brown. Together, they founded a women's discussion club and held secret meetings in the woods, posting guards to maintain secrecy. Eventually, another classmate, Hannah Tracy Cutler, became a close friend of both Brown and Stone.

On May 1, 1855, Stone married Henry Browne Blackwell. They had one daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell, born in 1857. After Oberlin, Stone continued to speak out vehemently on the issues of slavery and women's rights. At one point, she survived a nearly fatal bout of typhoid fever, spending 18 days unconscious, but ultimately recovered. Stone passed away on October 19, 1893, becoming the first cremated person in Massachusetts.

Stone wrote extensively on women's rights issues and played a crucial role in establishing and promoting the influential weekly journal, "Woman's Journal." She was known as an eloquent orator and the "morning star" of the women's rights movement. One of her speeches inspired Susan B. Anthony, a key figure in the suffrage movement, to join the cause. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a pioneer of the women's rights movement, wrote that "Lucy Stone was the first to stir the heart of the American public deeply on the woman question." Ultimately, Anthony, Stanton, and Stone were recognized as the triumvirate of the suffrage and feminist movement.