Elizabeth Edson Evans (1832-1911) was an artist and writer of poetry, fiction, and essays, who explored the possibility of spirituality beyond religious dogmatism in books like A History of Religions (1893). Evans married Edward Payson Evans, a professor of modern languages and German literature who worked with Ralph Waldo Emerson and wrote prolifically on the […]

Born in Illinois, Abigail Scott Duniway (1834-1915) was eighteen when she lost her mother and baby brother to a grueling six-month journey on the Oregon Trail. Duniway married a Lafayette farmer; when he was later incapacitated in an accident, she taught school and sold ladies’ accessories to support their six young children. Provoked by stories

Early feminist Eliza Bisbee Duffey, writing about abortion in “The Limitation of Offspring” chapter of her 1876 book The Relations of the Sexes: Like Sarah Norton, little is known about the life of Eliza Bisbee Duffey beyond her writings, which focus on the education of women. As the excerpts at the beginning of this article show,

Sorosis: Sisterhood is Powerful In January 1869, Susan B. Anthony’s The Revolution newspaper reprinted two articles from the New York World about a professional women’s club, not yet a year old, named Sorosis. Like the word “sorority,” the name was derived from the Latin word soror, meaning “sister.” Sorosis also refers to a composite fruit with multiple flowers, such as