Herstory

Isabella Beecher Hooker (1822-1907) went unrecognized as a feminist until long after her single book, Womanhood: Its Sanctities and Fidelities, appeared. While sisters Harriet Beecher Stowe and Catherine Esther Beecher gained notoriety authoring Uncle Tom’s Cabin and advocating women’s education, Hooker’s unwavering support of free speech earned her universal derision; she refused to denounce Woodhull […]

Victoria Woodhull (1838-1927) and Tennessee Claflin were flamboyant sisters who rose from poverty to become Wall Street’s first female stockbrokers and major political provocateurs.  In 1871, Woodhull argued before Congress that voting rights recently extended to Black men must also apply to women.  In 1872, Woodhull became the first woman ever to run for president. 

Lucretia Mott (1793-1880) became a Quaker minister in 1821. Like many of her faith, Mott embraced pacifism and condemned racism. She organized boycotts of slave-harvested goods like cotton and cane sugar, and worked for full integration within numerous groups, winning the trust of Blacks (including fugitive slaves) throughout her native Philadelphia. Mott’s suffragist efforts began

After experiencing the quickening (the first flutter of movement informing women that they were pregnant), the 18th-century pro-life feminist Mary Wollstonecraft wrote to her husband that her unborn child “took it into his head to frisk a little at being informed of your remembrance. I begin to love this little creature, and to anticipate his birth as