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

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.