Abolitionist author, Harriet Beecher Stowe rose to fame in 1851 with the publication of her best-selling book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which highlighted the evils of slavery, angered the slaveholding South, and inspired pro-slavery copy-cat works in defense of the institution of slavery.
On September 6, 1870, 70-year-old Louisa Ann Swain, a grandmother with white hair peeking out from beneath her bonnet, stepped up to the ballot box in Laramie, Wyoming and cast her vote in the general election. In doing so, she became the first woman to legally cast a ballot since 1807, the year New Jersey took away a woman’s right to vote.
A progressive social reformer and activist, Jane Addams was on the frontline of the settlement house movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She later became internationally respected for the peace activism that ultimately won her a Nobel Peace Prize in 1931, the first American woman to receive this honor.
Lillian D. Wald helped to bring health care to the residents of New York’s Lower East Side at the turn of the twentieth century. As a “practical idealist who worked to create a more just society,” Wald fought for public health care, women’s rights, and children’s rights while running the Henry Street Settlement.
Writer, lecturer, abolitionist and suffragist, Julia Ward Howe not only authored the Civil War anthem “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” but she also co-founded the American Woman Suffrage Association.
In the early 20th century, at a time when matters surrounding family planning or women’s healthcare were not spoken in public, Margaret Sanger founded the birth control movement and became an outspoken and life-long advocate for women’s reproductive rights. In her later life, Sanger spearheaded the effort that resulted in the modern birth control pill by 1960.
Known as the founder of the Girl Scouts, Juliette Gordon Low created the largest and most successful organization for girls in the world. She is best remembered for her sheer determination and tireless efforts to promote and sustain the organization through the early part of the twentieth century.
Mercy Otis Warren was a published poet, political playwright and satirist during the age of the American Revolution—a time when women were encouraged and expected to keep silent on political matters. Warren not only engaged with the leading figures of the day—such as John, Abigail, and Samuel Adams—but she became an outspoken commentator and historian, as well as the leading female intellectual of the Revolution and early republic.
Even though Sarah Moore Grimké was shy, she often spoke in front of large crowds with her sister Angelina. The two sisters became the first women to speak in front of a state legislature as representatives of the American Anti-Slavery Society. They also became active writers and speakers for women’s rights. Their ideas were so different from most of the ideas in the community that people burned their writings and angry mobs protested their speeches. However, Grimké and her sister would not let that stop her from making a difference for women and African Americans.
Although raised on a slave-owning plantation in South Carolina, Angelina Emily Grimké Weld grew up to become an ardent abolitionist writer and speaker, as well as a women’s rights activist. She and her sister Sarah Moore Grimké were among the first women to speak in public against slavery, defying gender norms and risking violence in doing so. Beyond ending slavery, their mission—highly radical for the times—was to promote racial and gender equality.