WEBVTT - Lucy Stone 0:00:01.360 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:14.000 of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:17.360 Frye and I'm Tracy he Wilson. And this episode is 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:22.479 inspired by me being a ding dong. So I was 0:00:22.520 --> 0:00:24.880 talking with a person that I am close to recently 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:28.120 and I had a need to know her last name, 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:32.040 and I wasn't sure what it was. I know, this 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:34.280 sounds like I'm a horrible person, but hear me out. 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:37.839 She's been married twice once away's back when it was 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:42.000 pretty standard that most folks would take their husband's name. 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:47.280 Her second marriage was later enough that not everybody would 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:49.440 have done that. At that point, a couple of decades 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:52.680 had gone by, and I honestly could not remember if 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:56.080 she had chosen to change her name again or not. 0:00:56.520 --> 0:00:58.680 I want to say, you're not the only person this is, 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:00.600 you know, well, like if you. 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:04.160 Have friends, like unless you really need their name for 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:07.360 like a legal reason or to fill out a form, yeah, 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:09.960 it's not always going to come up unless they actually say, hey, 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:13.640 my name is now right snakity doo, you'd be like, oh, 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:17.039 that's so and so. So. That put me, though, in 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:20.120 the mind of just thinking about the practice of marriage 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:23.399 related name changes and how much it has changed in 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:27.200 our lifetime in terms of like being pretty normal for 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:29.319 people to not do it. But that made me think 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:31.240 of Lucy Stone, who did it when it was not 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:34.160 normal at all to keep your original name. 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:35.440 Uh. 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:38.640 And Lucy Stone is sometimes written about as like that 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:43.160 person that should be mentioned right alongside Lucretia Mott and 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:46.760 Elizabeth Katie Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, but she often isn't. 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:49.480 That's a pretty valid point. She really was kind of 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:52.040 in right in the mix with all of them. She 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:54.800 did live an incredibly unique life for a woman of 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:57.880 her time and her station. She had a lot of gumption, 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:01.320 and she's one of those figures who is pretty central 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:04.000 to a lot of important US history moments. So now 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:06.400 we're going to give her her day. So. 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:11.560 Lucy Stone was born on August thirteenth, eighteen eighteen. Her parents, 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:15.280 Francis and Hannah matthew Stone, were farmers. They were members 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:18.440 of the Congregational Church and lived on four hundred acres 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:23.000 on Coy's Hill and west Brookfield, Massachusetts. Lucy was one 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:27.000 of their seven children, and according to the lore, when 0:02:27.040 --> 0:02:30.600 Lucy was born her mother, Hannah said, Oh, dear, I'm 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:31.160 so sorry. 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:31.840 It's a girl. 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:33.959 A woman's lot is so hard. 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:38.520 As a child, Lucy was often frustrated because she knew 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:41.200 that she was smarter than a lot of boys, including 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:45.720 her brothers, and while they were offered some educational opportunities 0:02:45.880 --> 0:02:49.040 beyond like the basics, she and other girls and young 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:53.360 women just were not. At this point, Massachusetts offered primary 0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:56.840 education to girls, which she got, but the idea of 0:02:56.960 --> 0:03:00.800 higher learning for women not really a thing, and certainly 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:04.840 not in most farming communities. But this desire to get 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:08.640 more education for her was driven also just because she 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:11.519 wanted to learn Hebrew and Greek, and she wanted to 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:16.919 learn those languages because she wanted to read untranslated versions 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:20.640 of the Bible because she was real curious if the 0:03:20.680 --> 0:03:25.120 original versions of it did indeed have that language that 0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:28.200 gave men power over women, or if that was something 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:32.079 that got added in translation. And one of the drivers 0:03:32.120 --> 0:03:36.280 of her interest in exploring that inequality of women and 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:38.920 the challenges they faced was because she watched her mother 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:43.480 work very very hard with very little help. She certainly 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:45.680 didn't get much credit and she didn't get much rest. 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:49.880 And she also saw this common occurrence happening in their community, 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:52.800 where a lot of women were being mistreated by their husbands, 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:55.240 and that was just kind of accepted as normal, and 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:58.320 she did not like it. And her father, even though 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:03.160 he was very pro abolition and very anti slavery, did 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:07.480 not feel any kind of good way about women being equal. 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:10.200 She later wrote of him, quote, there was only one 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:13.160 will in our home, and that was my father's. 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:16.640 In addition to being smart, Lucy was also a self starter. 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:19.280 She took a teaching job at the age of sixteen 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:22.520 so she could save up money for college. It took 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:25.279 five years for her to save enough because she was 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:28.039 not paid very much at all, but finally, at the 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:30.440 age of twenty one, she was able to enroll at 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:35.200 Mount Holyoaks Seminary for Women. Leading up to her entrance, 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:37.640 she got one of her brother's friends to tutor her 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:41.480 in math, Latin, and grammar, because she thought that her 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:45.760 exposure to and mastery of those subjects was really not 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:50.120 served well by her early schooling. Mount Holyoak it turned 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:53.200 out was not the best fit for Lucy. She had 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:55.880 expected it to be a lot more progressive regarding women's 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:59.800 equality than it was, and Lucy's abolitionist activism was not 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:03.479 especially welcome. For example, she got in trouble because she 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:06.320 had her brother send her copies of William lud Garrison's 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:09.279 The Liberator and then left them spread around the reading 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:12.240 room in the hopes that other students would read them. 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:15.960 But aside from her issues with authority there, unfortunately, there 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:19.279 was another obstacle that sidelined her education, and that was 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:21.440 that her sister, Rhoda, who had been ill for quite 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:25.480 some time, died in July of eighteen thirty nine, and 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:28.000 Roda was an adult at this point. She had children 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:30.279 of her own when she died, and Lucy went home 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:33.400 to help with Rhoda's children and also to comfort their 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:36.919 grieving mother, and she also went back to teaching. For 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:40.159 several years, she'd teach, save up all of her money, 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:42.560 and then spend a semester here and there at a 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:47.080 private school, first Wesleyan, then Monson Academy, and then finally 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:51.400 kvog Seminary. Four years after her time at Mount Holyoke, 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:55.599 Lucy once again enrolled in college, this time at Oberlin College. 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:58.560 That's the first co educational school in the US, the 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:02.600 only one at the time, having opened just ten years earlier, 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:04.000 in eighteen thirty three. 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:08.839 Even Oberlin was not the realization of Stone's hopes, though 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:11.359 she had worked so hard to get there, and it 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:13.840 was the first time that she had lived away from home. 0:06:14.360 --> 0:06:17.240 She had left with ninety dollars in cash in her 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:19.919 pocket to start this new phase of her life, and 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:22.480 she was one of seven women that were enrolled in 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:24.960 that first year. In her first year, we should say, 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:27.120 it was at the schools, and there were thirty four 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:31.640 male students. And Lucy was really really fretful about her 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:35.480 finances because her father had paid for her brother's tuitions 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:38.040 for college, but he did not do the same for Lucy. 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:42.120 So she was really really diligent in seeking out additional 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:45.120 income to make sure she could stay in school this time, 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:49.520 including arranging to teach at Oberlin's preparatory school and at 0:06:49.520 --> 0:06:52.520 the Liberty School, which was a town school for black students. 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:55.960 She also taught at the town's common schools when Oberlin 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:58.719 was on winter break. If this sounds like a lot 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:00.880 to have three jobs while you're going to school, it 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:04.800 was so much so that Lucy was often foregoing sleep 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:07.679 to keep up on her study. She wrote about sometimes 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:11.120 only like sleeping two hours a night, and when her 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:13.520 father found all of this out, he actually wrote her 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:15.800 a very out of character letter in which he told 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:18.440 her that he did not want any of his children 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:20.680 to have to work the way he had when he 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:23.200 was young, and that he would help her with school 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:27.840 expenses through a loan. Lucy, though, preferred instead to lean 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:31.080 on her older siblings for financial help. She didn't accept 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:34.920 any help from her father until her senior year at Oberlin. 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:39.240 Lucy did very well academically, but she found some disappointment 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:42.800 in a couple of important areas. For one, though the 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:46.880 school admitted women and black students, it was less progressive 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:50.760 than what she wanted. Even most of the professed abolitionists 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:54.800 there among both the students and the staff, thought Garrison's 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:58.640 idea of abruptly ending slavery was too extreme. They were 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:02.520 not in favor of true equality for women either. She 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:06.480 described herself as quote at swords points with them, and 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:10.560 one Oberlin trustee described Lucy as having quote wild and 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:14.480 radical ideas. She had to appear before the Ladies Board 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:18.240 to defend her behavior regularly, whether it was taking off 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:21.120 her bonnet in church because she had a migraine or 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:24.120 the time, she told some of her fellow students that 0:08:24.200 --> 0:08:27.960 people should not have children they couldn't afford. She also 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:31.320 advocated for male and female students who were working as 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:35.000 teachers in the college's preparatory school should be paid the 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:38.920 same wages. She was so aggressive in that pursuit that, 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:41.720 in an outcome that made her a legend at the school, 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:47.120 four years the faculty board instituted equal pay for teachers. Yeah, 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:49.240 in reading some accounts of that, it sort of sounds 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:51.920 like the faculty board was just like whatever it takes 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:54.240 to shut Lucy Stone up at this point, like they 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:58.440 really gave it because she was so determined about it 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:02.840 and what she really wanted to pursue at college with 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:05.520 studies in public speaking. She wanted to follow in the 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:09.680 footsteps of other abolitionists like Abby Kelly and the Grimkey sisters. 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:13.199 But those kinds of lessons in public speaking were not 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:17.520 offered to women. They could enroll in rhetoric classes, but 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:21.480 they were only allowed to observe the male students. Lucy 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:23.800 was not allowed to debate in class, and she was 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:27.240 not allowed to join the Debate Society while the school 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:30.760 was co ed. That group that was for male students only, 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:34.560 so Lucy and one of her close friends started a 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:38.960 secret women's debate society at the school. She is recorded 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:41.959 as having stated at the group's first meeting, quote, we 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:44.920 shall leave this college with the reputation of a thorough 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:48.320 collegiate course. Yet not one of us has received any 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:52.720 rhetorical or elocutionary training. Not one of us could state 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:56.360 a question or argue it in a successful debate. For 0:09:56.440 --> 0:10:00.320 this reason, I have proposed the formation of this association. 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:04.400 In eighteen forty six, she made her first public speech 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:08.360 at a West Indian Independence Day celebration, where she addressed 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:11.199 the black community of Oberlin in a speech she titled 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:15.280 why do we Rejoice Today? She was given a talking 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:19.360 to by the Lady's Board for her brazenness, but her 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:23.040 brilliance was recognized to some degree. In eighteen forty seven, 0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:26.319 the school asked her to write a speech for her graduation, 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:29.200 but she was not the one who would give that 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:32.520 speech that would be a male graduate, so she flatly 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:35.720 turned that down. But she did graduate at the ceremony 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:38.280 at the age of twenty nine. Though it might have 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:41.400 seemed that Lucy was at this point very well educated, 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:45.240 for no real opportunities before her, she did find a 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:47.200 place in her chosen career. 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:50.760 Of public speaker. She was hired in eighteen forty eight 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:54.640 as a lecturer for the Massachusetts Anti Slavery Society, and 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:58.359 she was paid six dollars a week. She traveled constantly, 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:02.960 which was absolutely grueling, but she was very successful because 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:06.920 she was really great at connecting with audiences. Her anti 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:10.760 slavery upbringing, and her skills in oration and writing were 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:14.720 all of use. The society was also open to letting 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:18.240 her use some of her time not just for abolition 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:22.160 and anti slavery rhetoric, but also to advocate for women's rights. 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:24.520 But in order to make that deal, she had to 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:26.920 take a reduced rate of four dollars a week because 0:11:26.960 --> 0:11:30.400 those speeches were taking away time from her abolition speeches. 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:33.080 This meant that she was making at that point a 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:36.320 pretty meager income, and at the urging of many other 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:40.199 lecturers and speakers, she finally started charging a small fee 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:42.720 or passing a collection hat at her lectures. 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:45.720 Even with more money coming in, this was not an 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:49.000 easy job. Lucy became a public figure and a movement 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:52.559 that had a lot of hostile detractors. She had books 0:11:52.600 --> 0:11:55.880 and eggs thrown at her, had ice cold water turned 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:59.680 on her, had to run from the occasional angry mob. 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:02.880 She adopted the practice of wearing bloomers like a lot 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:05.760 of other women's rights activists did, and she was jeered 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:09.120 for doing so. There were plenty of people who were 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:12.320 not in favor of abolition and certainly did not want 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:16.160 to hear that message from a woman. Newspaper writeups would 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:19.400 describe her as ugly or manish, and she was accused 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:23.080 of having abandoned her womanly purpose. But she was also 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:25.920 praised by people like Frederick Douglas, who said she was 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:29.600 one of the most effective advocates for the cause. Over time, 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:32.720 Lucy was getting so many invitations to lecture that she 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:36.520 left the Massachusetts Anti Slavery Society job and was working 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:39.920 essentially as an independent orator. Coming up, we're going to 0:12:40.000 --> 0:12:42.840 talk more about Stone's work on the Woman's Rights Convention, 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:45.680 and we'll get into that after we have a sponsor break. 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:54.160 Lucy was one of the organizers of the first National 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:58.600 Women's Rights Convention in Worcestern, Massachusetts, in eighteen fifty. This 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:01.880 was two years after the Seneca Falls Women's Rights Convention, 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:04.319 which we've talked about on the show before, and which 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:08.520 Lucy did not attend. That superlative first of the eighteen 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:12.720 fifty convention is based on it being considered a national convention, 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:17.760 whereas Seneca Falls was considered a local effort. Starting with 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:20.800 no money to host this national event, Lucy and her 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:25.880 fellow organizers advertised their need for donations, and contributions were 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:30.200 soon coming in. Everyone involved used their entire network of 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:34.800 connections both to get those donations and to invite attendees. 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:38.800 The lead up to the convention was difficult for Stone. 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:41.000 She wasn't able to be as active in the effort 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:44.600 as she had initially planned. Her brother Luther, who lived 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:48.720 in Illinois, died that summer of cholera, and his wife, Phoebe, 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:52.240 was pregnant. Lucy had been the only nurse maid at 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:56.200 his deathbed for that reason. After he died, Lucy packed 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:58.880 Phoebe up to move her to Massachusetts, but just three 0:13:58.960 --> 0:14:02.360 days into the journey, on August twenty third, Phoebe gave birth. 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:06.839 Because baby was sadly stillborn, and Lucy and Phoebe stayed 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:10.000 in a hotel so Phoebe could regain some of her strength. 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:14.720 Then Lucy contracted typhoid while they were there. She did 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:17.199 make it to Wooster on October twenty fourth for the 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:20.720 start of the convention, though, and that convention was well attended. 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:24.400 The eighteen fifty Convention is really a key moment in 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:27.320 the movement for women's rights, and the introduction of the 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:31.400 idea that everything about the way the US operated needed 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:33.960 to be reorganized if it was going to be made equitable. 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:38.600 It called for in its resolutions quote equality before the law, 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:42.480 without distinction of sex or color. That meant that black 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:46.680 women should be included in the efforts of the movement. Now, obviously, 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:50.120 in eighteen fifty this was not supported by everyone, and 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:53.160 it would become an issue of heated contention several years 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:57.000 down the road. Even in the immediate wake of the convention, 0:14:57.400 --> 0:15:01.720 reviews were mixed. There were plenty of newspaper accounts that 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:06.880 spoke derisively about the attendees and called the entire event trash. 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:10.200 But even within the women's rights movement, there were concerns 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:15.560 even outside those disagreements involving racial equality. Prior podcast subject 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:19.080 Elizabeth Blackwell, for example, found the message of the entire 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:23.000 convention to be two quote anti Mam. 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:26.920 Among the attendees who signed the convention's resolution document were 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:30.240 many names you'll probably recognize, including some we've covered on 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:33.800 the show. This is not an exhaustive list, but they 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:39.200 included Bronson Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Lloyd Garrison, Sarah Earl, 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:43.160 Charles K. Whipple, and M. C. Goodwin. The next October 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:46.640 eighteen fifty one, there was another National Convention in Worcester. 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:49.680 In eighteen fifty two, it moved to Syracuse, and then 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:52.920 in eighteen fifty three to Cleveland. In eighteen fifty four 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:54.120 it was in Philadelphia. 0:15:54.800 --> 0:15:57.760 The year after the first convention, Lucy was given an 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:02.080 audience at the Massachusetts State House, speaking before legislators and 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:05.480 imploring them to write full civil rights for women into 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:11.000 the state constitution. That same year, Lucy met Henry Brown Blackwell. 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:14.440 He was the brother of Elizabeth Blackwell, and he was 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:18.800 very taken with Lucy. She was at this point quite famous, 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:21.160 and he may have been drawn to that, but he 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:26.040 was also completely entranced by her quote beauty, charm, and eloquence. 0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:28.320 As he wrote to a friend after seeing her speak, 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:31.400 he asked people that they had in common about her, 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:33.920 and while they told him she was not romantically linked 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:36.680 to anyone. They also told him that she was not 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:41.400 interested in becoming anyone's wife. He still pursued her, though 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:44.600 initially through letters, and after a month of writing back 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:47.480 and forth, he started hinting that she really should get 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:49.359 married to someone someday. 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:54.520 Lucy Stone's feelings on marriage were still pretty negative. In 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:56.840 one of her letters to Henry, she wrote, quote, I 0:16:56.880 --> 0:17:00.040 have been all my life alone. I have planned and 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:04.320 executed without counsel and without control, and have shared thought 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:07.440 and feeling in life with myself alone. I have made 0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:09.920 a path for my feet which I know is useful. 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:13.440 It brings me a more intense and abundant happiness by 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:16.280 far than comes to the life of the majority of men. 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:19.200 And it seems to me I cannot risk it by 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:23.439 any change. And then I ask, can I dare change it? 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:28.719 Rings an everlasting no. Henry persisted, and Lucy did soften 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:31.600 to him, and as the two kind of slowly fell 0:17:31.600 --> 0:17:35.119 in love, Henry offered Lucy an uncommon kind of marriage 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:37.679 for the time. He told her he wanted one of 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:41.359 true equals. He wrote to her, quote equality with me 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:45.640 is a passion. Henry uh is often described as kind 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:48.720 of a romantic one. Biographer described him as falling in 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:50.720 and out of love with a lot of young women. 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:54.720 Prior to meeting Lucy, and in Lucy's case, her odd life, 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:59.600 famous but also a lonely outsider really fascinated him, and 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:03.560 although she initially told him she wanted only friendship, he 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:05.920 did things like go to her lectures. He actually helped 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:08.840 organize one of her tours, and then he invited her 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:11.840 to spend time in the Blackwell family home, and she 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:15.359 really loved the family, and eventually she did agree on 0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:17.080 a marriage of equals. 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:21.600 Lucy remained Lucy Stone after the wedding, keeping her own 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:23.400 name instead of taking her husband's. 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:25.040 This was not. 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:28.440 Initially the route she took, though She went by Blackwell 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:31.040 for a little while, but decided to stick with Stone 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:33.520 after about a year of trying out the new name 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:37.359 and carefully investigating the law to make sure there wasn't 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:40.480 a legal requirement for a wife to take her husband's name. 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:44.359 She asked people to address her not as missus Blackwell, 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:48.240 but as missus Stone. In situations where it seemed like 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:51.600 there might be a legal need to recognize the union, 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:55.520 she'd write her name as Lucy Stone, wife of Henry Blackwell. 0:18:56.119 --> 0:18:59.520 Lucy and Henry carefully crafted their vows with the intent 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:02.760 that they would be published as an example of equal union. 0:19:03.359 --> 0:19:08.120 There was no mention of obeyance. Elizabeth Katie Stanton wrote 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:10.960 to Stone after the wedding quote, nothing has been done, 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:13.879 and the women's rights movement for some time that so 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:17.399 rejoiced my heart as the announcement by you of a 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:21.520 woman's right to her name. Missus Stone and mister Blackwell 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:25.159 did jointly publish a pamphlet regarding the inequity of marriage laws, 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:29.800 titled protest, and it read, in part quote, while acknowledging 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:33.440 our mutual affection by publicly assuming the relationship of husband 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:37.160 and wife, yet in justice to ourselves and a great principle, 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:40.120 we deem it our duty to declare that this act 0:19:40.160 --> 0:19:43.600 on our part, implies no sanction of, nor promise of 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:47.160 voluntary obedience to such of the present laws of marriage, 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:51.399 as refused to recognize the wife as an independent, rational being, 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:56.720 while they confer upon the husband an injurious and unnatural superiority, 0:19:56.760 --> 0:20:00.080 investing him with legal powers which no honorable man one 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:04.680 would exercise, and which no man should possess. We protest, 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:08.679 especially against the laws which give the husband one the 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:12.520 custody of the wife's person, two the exclusive control and 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:16.640 guardianship of their children, three, the sole ownership of her 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:20.639 personal and use of her real estate, unless previously settled 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:24.200 upon her or placed in the hands of trustees. Four 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:27.200 the absolute right to the product of her industry. 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:31.199 Five. Also against the laws which give the widower so 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:34.640 much larger and more permanent an interest in the property 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:37.320 of his deceased wife than they give to the widow 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:41.760 in that of the deceased husband. Six. Finally, against the 0:20:41.840 --> 0:20:44.679 whole system by which the legal existence of the wife 0:20:45.000 --> 0:20:48.000 is suspended during marriage, so that in most states she 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:50.640 neither has a legal part in the choice of her residence, 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:53.520 nor could she make a will, nor sue or be 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:58.720 sued in her own name, nor inherit property. So, just 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:02.320 as a spoiler alert, this all sounds really idyllic. It 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:04.560 may have been for a time, but this marriage did 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:06.399 have its problems, and we're going to talk about some 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:07.440 of those in just a bit. 0:21:08.359 --> 0:21:11.800 In the press, the wedding and the decision to keep 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:15.000 Stone as her last name both got a lot of attention, 0:21:15.080 --> 0:21:18.600 and a lot of that attention was negative, like why 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:22.040 would anyone want to marry Lucy Stone? She was seven 0:21:22.119 --> 0:21:25.159 years older than Henry, and journalists wrote about her like 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:29.040 she was ancient. According to them, she clearly hated marriage 0:21:29.040 --> 0:21:32.440 and men, so why did she even bother? And they wondered, 0:21:32.720 --> 0:21:36.000 especially if she didn't want to take his name. Lucy 0:21:36.119 --> 0:21:39.320 continued her lecture career and they used the Blackwell home 0:21:39.359 --> 0:21:41.639 as their home base because they traveled so much they 0:21:41.640 --> 0:21:45.320 didn't really have time to settle anywhere else. Lucy's letters 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:48.080 to friends and family show her very happy to have 0:21:48.160 --> 0:21:52.080 someone to share her life with. Lucy also wanted a 0:21:52.119 --> 0:21:55.800 family very much. She had this vision of having four children, 0:21:56.480 --> 0:21:59.320 and she and Henry had a daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell, 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:03.440 on September fourteenth of eighteen fifty seven. They later expected 0:22:03.480 --> 0:22:06.399 a second child, but Lucy miscarried and they did not 0:22:06.520 --> 0:22:09.720 have any other children after that. When Alice was still 0:22:09.800 --> 0:22:12.840 tiny and Lucy was stuck at home caring for an infant, 0:22:13.440 --> 0:22:18.040 she decided to protest taxation by not paying property taxes. 0:22:18.119 --> 0:22:21.280 Because as a woman, she was not represented in government, 0:22:21.800 --> 0:22:23.840 so this isn't a case where she just didn't pay 0:22:23.840 --> 0:22:26.520 her taxes, which is sometimes how this is written. About 0:22:27.160 --> 0:22:30.280 This was a thought out civil disobedience effort, and she 0:22:30.320 --> 0:22:33.040 actually wrote the tax collector in Orange, New Jersey, where 0:22:33.040 --> 0:22:35.520 they were living at the time, and explained this she 0:22:35.560 --> 0:22:38.479 would not be paying taxes because they were unjust to 0:22:38.520 --> 0:22:42.520 half the population. As a consequence of this, the Stone 0:22:42.560 --> 0:22:46.160 Blackwell home was rated. Many of their possessions were seized, 0:22:46.680 --> 0:22:48.840 and then when the furniture that had been taken was 0:22:48.880 --> 0:22:51.400 sold at auction, one of their neighbors bought it all 0:22:51.440 --> 0:22:56.399 and returned it to them. The marriage definitely experienced some strain. 0:22:56.840 --> 0:22:59.720 Henry had made some investments that didn't really pay off. 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:02.359 He had also gone to Chicago to work for a 0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:05.040