Parker Pillsbury (1809-1898) worked as a farmer and wagoner before becoming a theology scholar and Congregational minister. By 1840, Pillsbury had also become an outspoken abolitionist and was excommunicated from his church for denouncing its complicity with slavery. Undeterred, Pillsbury began preaching for the ecumenical Free Religious Association. He later edited Herald of Freedom and […]

Inspired by her Quaker faith, Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) became active in the Underground Railroad at a young age. While she remained an outspoken abolitionist, Anthony’s focus soon shifted to the plight of women, especially those subject to alcohol-induced violence. In 1868, Anthony joined close friend Elizabeth Cady Stanton to co-edit the feminist newspaper The

Through her attorney father, Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) was exposed to the concept of femme couverte early on. This common-law doctrine, which Stanton spent a lifetime combating, held that women merged with their husbands upon marriage and were thus stripped of civil rights. While Stanton herself married and raised seven children, she still found time

Mary Wollstonecraft (English, 1759-1797) may be the single greatest influence on First Wave feminism in America and Europe. Having won praise from William Blake and other intellectuals for her scathing critiques of sex discrimination, slavery, and religious and governmental corruption in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), Wollstonecraft nonetheless endured public scorn for