Lucy Stone

In 1855, she married Henry Blackwell, an abolitionist. She did not take her husband’s last name after the marriage and protested this marital convention. The couple had a daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell.

She died at the age of 75, suffering from advanced stomach cancer. She was cremated at the Forest Hills Cemetery.

In 1921, in her honour, an organization called ‘Lucy Stone League' was founded. This group was one of the first groups to advocate the right to keep maiden names after marriage.

Lucy Stone was born at Coy's Hill, her family farm in West Brookfield, Massachusetts to Hannah Matthews and Francis Stone. Her father’s absolute control over the family’s finances bothered her as a child.

At sixteen, along with her siblings, she started teaching in district schools. Here, she protested against the school committee for paying her lesser than her brothers. In response, she was told that she was entitled to ‘only a woman’s pay’.

Around 1836, she began following newspaper reports regularly about women and their role in the society, a controversial topic that was being talked and written about all over Massachusetts.

In 1839, at the age of 21, she enrolled into the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary but unimpressed with their lack of support towards women’s issues, she withdrew. She later went to the Wesleyan Academy.

In 1843, at the age of 25, she joined the Oberlin College in Ohio. She joined the college with the belief that it shared her sentiments about women rights but she found that the college did not .

In the fall of 1847, she delivered one of her first public speeches on women’s rights at the Bowman’s church in Gardner, Massachusetts. The following year, she joined as a lecturing agent in the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.

In April 1849, she received an invitation to speak at the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. In May, that year, she was also part of the first women’s rights meeting in Pennsylvania.

From 1849 onwards, she petitioned for voting rights for women and the right for women to serve in public office in the Massachusetts legislature. She later sent petitions seeking these rights with over five thousand signatures.

In 1850, she addressed a large gathering at the first National Women's Rights Convention, in Boston. This became a significant meeting that addressed issues related to American women.

By 1851, she became an independent lecturer of women’s rights issues and followed a hectic schedule travelling all over North America to talk about women’s welfare. She also continued to work for antislavery issues.