Lucy Stone Thesis

When you think about women’s rights activists and women involved in the anti-slavery movement in the 19th century, you usually think about Susan B. Anthony, but in reality, there was another woman that was also greatly involved. Her name was Lucy Stone. She was most famous for being the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a bachelor's degree, for being elected president of the State Woman's Suffrage Association of New Jersey, for helping found the American Equal Rights Association, and for being the first woman in the United States to keep her own surname after marriage. One of her sister-in-laws, Elizabeth Blackwell, was the first woman to have a medical degree. Her other sister-in-law, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, was the first woman to

She said "I expect to plead not for the slave only, but for suffering humanity everywhere. Especially do I mean to labor for the elevation of my sex." She then worked for the American Anti-Slavery Society and was paid for delivering speeches while traveling about abolishing slavery. She also included speeches on women’s rights. She lectured audiences from 1847 to 1857, converting many people to help abolish slavery and support women’s rights. She received a lot of verbal abuse and physical attack, since she was one of the first women to do this. “In 1850, Stone was a leader in organizing the first national woman's rights convention, held in Worcester, Massachusetts. The 1848 convention in Seneca Falls had been an important and radical step, but the attendees were mostly from the local area. This was a next step” (Lewis). At this convention, she also converted Susan B. Anthony to the women’s rights cause, “It is her 1852 speech at the National Woman's Rights Convention in Syracuse, New York, which is credited for converting Susan B. Anthony to the cause of women’s rights” (National Historical Park). She then went on to participate in the 1852, 1853, and 1855 National Women’s Rights Conventions, and was president of the 1856 National Woman’s Rights Convention held in New York.

She then married Henry Blackwell, a fellow activist, in 1855, and demanded to keep her own last name, because “A wife should no more take her husband’s name than he should hers. My name is my identity and must not be lost,” she stated. “From then on, other women who kept their names were referred to as “Lucy Stoners’”(Smith). “Henry Browne Blackwell had great ability, and was the one man in America who devoted his life to securing equal rights for women” (Blackwell