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Lucy Stone is the first woman from Massachusetts to receive a college degree. A graduate of Oberlin College, she was an outspoken abolitionist. Sweeping the country with her wonderful gift of oratory, she interlaced her talks for the rights of slaves with her pleas for women’s rights. In 1850 she held the first Woman’s Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts. Elizabeth Cady Stanton praised Lucy for putting the cause of woman’s rights on the national scene. After the Civil war and the abolition of slavery, the black man gained the right to vote while women did not. The ideological differences that developed between Lucy and Elizabeth resulted in the organization of two separate Suffrage Associations. The National Woman Suffrage Association founded by Elizabeth C. Stanton and Susan B. Anthony was referred to as the New York group. Lucy Stone’s American Woman Suffrage Association was the more moderate of the two groups, known as the New England group.

Phebe Hanaford, living in New England, was a charter member of the AWSA but remained friends with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth C. Stanton. The groups united in 1890 forming the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

Lucy was married to Henry Blackwell, a strong advocate of suffrage. He so believed in the rights of women, he renounced all legal rights over his bride and Lucy kept her own name, because she said it was hers. Women today who keep their own name after marriage are called Lucy Stoners..

While living in Orange, New Jersey where her daughter was born, Lucy refused to pay property taxes because she was not permitted to vote. The tax collector did not agree and auctioned off her household furnishings to pay her taxes. Her friends and neighbors bought her things and returned them, including her baby’s cradle. It was the first public demonstration of resistance to "taxation without representation" by a woman and she did it alone. This house at 16 Hurlbut Street in Orange had a historical marker on it until it was demolished to make way for the freeway. Lucy founded the New Jersey Woman Suffrage Association and served as president until she returned to New England. She attempted to vote in New Jersey and was refused and she then published a pamphlet "Why Women in New Jersey Should Vote." New Jersey women’s right to vote was based on the history of New Jersey as having given women full voting rights in 1776 and took it from them in 1807. In 1874 Phebe Hanaford wrote "New Jersey as Leader."

Lucy died before the passage of the 19th amendment as did Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. The three pioneers who lived to see the passage of the amendment, were ministers; Lucy’s sister-in-law, Rev. Antoinette Brown, Rev.Olympia Brown, Rev. Hanaford’s mentor and Rev. Phebe Hanaford.

Further Study

Kerr, Andrea Moore, Biography of Lucy Stone: Speaking Out for Equality

Biographical Dictionaries of American Women

© 1999 Loretta Cody
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