Lucy Stone, An Unapologetic Life, by Sally G. McMillen

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Lucy Stone, An Unapologetic Life, by Sally G. McMillen

Lucy Stone, An Unapologetic Life, by Sally G. McMillen, October 4

Lucy Stone, a nineteenth-century abolitionist and suffragist, became by the 1850s one of the most famous women in America. She was a brilliant orator, played a leading role in organizing and participating in national women’s rights conventions, served as president of the American Equal Rights Association, co-founded and helped lead the American Woman Suffrage Association, and founded and edited the Woman’s Journal, the most enduring, influential women’s newspaper of its day. Yet history has wrongly slighted her, relegating her to a far less important role than that of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

Sally McMillen, author of Lucy Stone, An Unapologetic Life, will give a talk on Lucy Stone and how Stone’s experiences reflected larger events taking place during a vibrant period in American history, at the Camden Public Library on Tuesday, October 4, at 7:00 pm. McMillen’s presentation will kick off the library’s annual “Discover History Month” in October.

In the rotunda of the nation’s Capital a statue pays homage to three famous nineteenth-century American women suffragists: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucretia Mott. “Historically,” the inscription beneath the marble statue notes, “these three stand unique and peerless.” In fact, the statue has a glaring omission: Lucy Stone. A pivotal leader in the fight for both abolition and gender equality, her achievements marked the beginning of the women’s rights movement and helped to lay the groundwork for the eventual winning of women’s suffrage. Yet, today most Americans have never heard of Lucy Stone.

Sally McMillen sets out to address this significant historical oversight with her biography of Stone. Exploring her extraordinary life and the role she played in crafting a more just society, McMillen restores Lucy Stone to her rightful place at the center of the nineteenth-century women’s rights movement. Raised in a middle-class Massachusetts farm family, Stone became convinced at an early age that education was key to women’s independence and selfhood, and went on to attend the Oberlin Collegiate Institute. When she graduated in 1847 as one of the first women in the US to earn a college degree, she was drawn into the public sector as an activist and became one of the most famous orators of her day. Lecturing on anti-slavery and women’s rights, she played a critical role in the organization and leadership of the American Equal Rights Association during the Civil War, and, in 1869, cofounded the American Woman Suffrage Association. Encompassing Stone’s marriage to Henry Blackwell and the birth of their daughter Alice, as well as her significant friendships with Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, and others, McMillen’s biography paints a complete picture of Stone’s influential and eminently important life and work.

Sally G. McMillen is the Mary Reynolds Babcock Professor of History at Davidson College. Her books include Seneca Falls and the Origins of the Women’s Rights Movement; Motherhood in the Old South: Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Infant Rearing; and To Raise Up the South: Sunday Schools in Black and White Churches, 1865-1915.

Other events in the Camden Public Library’s “Discover History Month” will include a photo exhibit on “Korea: The Forgotten War”; a history of Frontier Maine with Hank Lunn, based on the history of Houlton, Maine, on October 11; a presentation on Maine historical maps with Matthew Edney from the Osher Map Library on October 13; and a talk by local historian Kerry Hardy on Old Roads, Trails, & Maps on October 27.

Reviews

“Sally McMillen has written the best kind of revisionist history with her Lucy Stone biography -- the kind that fills gaps in knowledge of centuries past. Yes, Susan B. Anthony and Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton deserve the fame they achieved as promoters of nineteenth-century women’s rights. But Lucy Stone has deserved greater recognition for a long, long time. And now that recognition has arrived in a thoroughly researched, compellingly written biography.” — Steve Weinberg, author of Taking on the Trust: The Epic Battle of Ida Tarbell and John D. Rockefeller