Lucy Stone | Biography

Better known as an orator than as a literary figure, reformer Lucy Stone was nonetheless prominent in the world of nineteenth-century American letters--as a self-publisher who circulated printed versions of her speeches on abolition and woman's rights; as the subject of others' editorials, tributes, and lampoons; and as the cofounder and editor of the Woman's Journal, a weekly newspaper dedicated to women's issues that by 1875 drew subscribers from all states and thirty-nine countries. She once claimed, "There was a good farmer spoiled when I went into reform" and first became noted for her speeches against slavery. She also stood with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton as one of the most influential crusaders for women's equality. Stone's biographers contend that disagreements among the three led Stanton and her staff to downplay Stone's contributions to their cause in their monumental History of Woman Suffrage (1881-1921), leading in turn to...
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