Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Speaker 1: Frye and I'm Tracy he Wilson. And this episode is
Speaker 1: inspired by me being a ding dong. So I was
Speaker 1: talking with a person that I am close to recently
Speaker 1: and I had a need to know her last name,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't sure what it was. I know, this
Speaker 1: sounds like I'm a horrible person, but hear me out.
Speaker 1: She's been married twice once away's back when it was
Speaker 1: pretty standard that most folks would take their husband's name.
Speaker 1: Her second marriage was later enough that not everybody would
Speaker 1: have done that. At that point, a couple of decades
Speaker 1: had gone by, and I honestly could not remember if
Speaker 1: she had chosen to change her name again or not.
Speaker 2: I want to say, you're not the only person this is,
Speaker 2: you know, well, like if you.
Speaker 1: Have friends, like unless you really need their name for
Speaker 1: like a legal reason or to fill out a form, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not always going to come up unless they actually say, hey,
Speaker 1: my name is now right snakity doo, you'd be like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's so and so. So. That put me, though, in
Speaker 1: the mind of just thinking about the practice of marriage
Speaker 1: related name changes and how much it has changed in
Speaker 1: our lifetime in terms of like being pretty normal for
Speaker 1: people to not do it. But that made me think
Speaker 1: of Lucy Stone, who did it when it was not
Speaker 1: normal at all to keep your original name.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And Lucy Stone is sometimes written about as like that
Speaker 1: person that should be mentioned right alongside Lucretia Mott and
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Katie Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, but she often isn't.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty valid point. She really was kind of
Speaker 1: in right in the mix with all of them. She
Speaker 1: did live an incredibly unique life for a woman of
Speaker 1: her time and her station. She had a lot of gumption,
Speaker 1: and she's one of those figures who is pretty central
Speaker 1: to a lot of important US history moments. So now
Speaker 1: we're going to give her her day. So.
Speaker 2: Lucy Stone was born on August thirteenth, eighteen eighteen. Her parents,
Speaker 2: Francis and Hannah matthew Stone, were farmers. They were members
Speaker 2: of the Congregational Church and lived on four hundred acres
Speaker 2: on Coy's Hill and west Brookfield, Massachusetts. Lucy was one
Speaker 2: of their seven children, and according to the lore, when
Speaker 2: Lucy was born her mother, Hannah said, Oh, dear, I'm
Speaker 2: so sorry.
Speaker 1: It's a girl.
Speaker 2: A woman's lot is so hard.
Speaker 1: As a child, Lucy was often frustrated because she knew
Speaker 1: that she was smarter than a lot of boys, including
Speaker 1: her brothers, and while they were offered some educational opportunities
Speaker 1: beyond like the basics, she and other girls and young
Speaker 1: women just were not. At this point, Massachusetts offered primary
Speaker 1: education to girls, which she got, but the idea of
Speaker 1: higher learning for women not really a thing, and certainly
Speaker 1: not in most farming communities. But this desire to get
Speaker 1: more education for her was driven also just because she
Speaker 1: wanted to learn Hebrew and Greek, and she wanted to
Speaker 1: learn those languages because she wanted to read untranslated versions
Speaker 1: of the Bible because she was real curious if the
Speaker 1: original versions of it did indeed have that language that
Speaker 1: gave men power over women, or if that was something
Speaker 1: that got added in translation. And one of the drivers
Speaker 1: of her interest in exploring that inequality of women and
Speaker 1: the challenges they faced was because she watched her mother
Speaker 1: work very very hard with very little help. She certainly
Speaker 1: didn't get much credit and she didn't get much rest.
Speaker 1: And she also saw this common occurrence happening in their community,
Speaker 1: where a lot of women were being mistreated by their husbands,
Speaker 1: and that was just kind of accepted as normal, and
Speaker 1: she did not like it. And her father, even though
Speaker 1: he was very pro abolition and very anti slavery, did
Speaker 1: not feel any kind of good way about women being equal.
Speaker 1: She later wrote of him, quote, there was only one
Speaker 1: will in our home, and that was my father's.
Speaker 2: In addition to being smart, Lucy was also a self starter.
Speaker 2: She took a teaching job at the age of sixteen
Speaker 2: so she could save up money for college. It took
Speaker 2: five years for her to save enough because she was
Speaker 2: not paid very much at all, but finally, at the
Speaker 2: age of twenty one, she was able to enroll at
Speaker 2: Mount Holyoaks Seminary for Women. Leading up to her entrance,
Speaker 2: she got one of her brother's friends to tutor her
Speaker 2: in math, Latin, and grammar, because she thought that her
Speaker 2: exposure to and mastery of those subjects was really not
Speaker 2: served well by her early schooling. Mount Holyoak it turned
Speaker 2: out was not the best fit for Lucy. She had
Speaker 2: expected it to be a lot more progressive regarding women's
Speaker 2: equality than it was, and Lucy's abolitionist activism was not
Speaker 2: especially welcome. For example, she got in trouble because she
Speaker 2: had her brother send her copies of William lud Garrison's
Speaker 2: The Liberator and then left them spread around the reading
Speaker 2: room in the hopes that other students would read them.
Speaker 2: But aside from her issues with authority there, unfortunately, there
Speaker 2: was another obstacle that sidelined her education, and that was
Speaker 2: that her sister, Rhoda, who had been ill for quite
Speaker 2: some time, died in July of eighteen thirty nine, and
Speaker 2: Roda was an adult at this point. She had children
Speaker 2: of her own when she died, and Lucy went home
Speaker 2: to help with Rhoda's children and also to comfort their
Speaker 2: grieving mother, and she also went back to teaching. For
Speaker 2: several years, she'd teach, save up all of her money,
Speaker 2: and then spend a semester here and there at a
Speaker 2: private school, first Wesleyan, then Monson Academy, and then finally
Speaker 2: kvog Seminary. Four years after her time at Mount Holyoke,
Speaker 2: Lucy once again enrolled in college, this time at Oberlin College.
Speaker 2: That's the first co educational school in the US, the
Speaker 2: only one at the time, having opened just ten years earlier,
Speaker 2: in eighteen thirty three.
Speaker 1: Even Oberlin was not the realization of Stone's hopes, though
Speaker 1: she had worked so hard to get there, and it
Speaker 1: was the first time that she had lived away from home.
Speaker 1: She had left with ninety dollars in cash in her
Speaker 1: pocket to start this new phase of her life, and
Speaker 1: she was one of seven women that were enrolled in
Speaker 1: that first year. In her first year, we should say,
Speaker 1: it was at the schools, and there were thirty four
Speaker 1: male students. And Lucy was really really fretful about her
Speaker 1: finances because her father had paid for her brother's tuitions
Speaker 1: for college, but he did not do the same for Lucy.
Speaker 1: So she was really really diligent in seeking out additional
Speaker 1: income to make sure she could stay in school this time,
Speaker 1: including arranging to teach at Oberlin's preparatory school and at
Speaker 1: the Liberty School, which was a town school for black students.
Speaker 1: She also taught at the town's common schools when Oberlin
Speaker 1: was on winter break. If this sounds like a lot
Speaker 1: to have three jobs while you're going to school, it
Speaker 1: was so much so that Lucy was often foregoing sleep
Speaker 1: to keep up on her study. She wrote about sometimes
Speaker 1: only like sleeping two hours a night, and when her
Speaker 1: father found all of this out, he actually wrote her
Speaker 1: a very out of character letter in which he told
Speaker 1: her that he did not want any of his children
Speaker 1: to have to work the way he had when he
Speaker 1: was young, and that he would help her with school
Speaker 1: expenses through a loan. Lucy, though, preferred instead to lean
Speaker 1: on her older siblings for financial help. She didn't accept
Speaker 1: any help from her father until her senior year at Oberlin.
Speaker 2: Lucy did very well academically, but she found some disappointment
Speaker 2: in a couple of important areas. For one, though the
Speaker 2: school admitted women and black students, it was less progressive
Speaker 2: than what she wanted. Even most of the professed abolitionists
Speaker 2: there among both the students and the staff, thought Garrison's
Speaker 2: idea of abruptly ending slavery was too extreme. They were
Speaker 2: not in favor of true equality for women either. She
Speaker 2: described herself as quote at swords points with them, and
Speaker 2: one Oberlin trustee described Lucy as having quote wild and
Speaker 2: radical ideas. She had to appear before the Ladies Board
Speaker 2: to defend her behavior regularly, whether it was taking off
Speaker 2: her bonnet in church because she had a migraine or
Speaker 2: the time, she told some of her fellow students that
Speaker 2: people should not have children they couldn't afford. She also
Speaker 2: advocated for male and female students who were working as
Speaker 2: teachers in the college's preparatory school should be paid the
Speaker 2: same wages. She was so aggressive in that pursuit that,
Speaker 2: in an outcome that made her a legend at the school,
Speaker 2: four years the faculty board instituted equal pay for teachers. Yeah,
Speaker 2: in reading some accounts of that, it sort of sounds
Speaker 2: like the faculty board was just like whatever it takes
Speaker 2: to shut Lucy Stone up at this point, like they
Speaker 2: really gave it because she was so determined about it
Speaker 2: and what she really wanted to pursue at college with
Speaker 2: studies in public speaking. She wanted to follow in the
Speaker 2: footsteps of other abolitionists like Abby Kelly and the Grimkey sisters.
Speaker 2: But those kinds of lessons in public speaking were not
Speaker 2: offered to women. They could enroll in rhetoric classes, but
Speaker 2: they were only allowed to observe the male students. Lucy
Speaker 2: was not allowed to debate in class, and she was
Speaker 2: not allowed to join the Debate Society while the school
Speaker 2: was co ed. That group that was for male students only,
Speaker 2: so Lucy and one of her close friends started a
Speaker 2: secret women's debate society at the school. She is recorded
Speaker 2: as having stated at the group's first meeting, quote, we
Speaker 2: shall leave this college with the reputation of a thorough
Speaker 2: collegiate course. Yet not one of us has received any
Speaker 2: rhetorical or elocutionary training. Not one of us could state
Speaker 2: a question or argue it in a successful debate. For
Speaker 2: this reason, I have proposed the formation of this association.
Speaker 2: In eighteen forty six, she made her first public speech
Speaker 2: at a West Indian Independence Day celebration, where she addressed
Speaker 2: the black community of Oberlin in a speech she titled
Speaker 2: why do we Rejoice Today? She was given a talking
Speaker 2: to by the Lady's Board for her brazenness, but her
Speaker 2: brilliance was recognized to some degree. In eighteen forty seven,
Speaker 2: the school asked her to write a speech for her graduation,
Speaker 2: but she was not the one who would give that
Speaker 2: speech that would be a male graduate, so she flatly
Speaker 2: turned that down. But she did graduate at the ceremony
Speaker 2: at the age of twenty nine. Though it might have
Speaker 2: seemed that Lucy was at this point very well educated,
Speaker 2: for no real opportunities before her, she did find a
Speaker 2: place in her chosen career.
Speaker 1: Of public speaker. She was hired in eighteen forty eight
Speaker 1: as a lecturer for the Massachusetts Anti Slavery Society, and
Speaker 1: she was paid six dollars a week. She traveled constantly,
Speaker 1: which was absolutely grueling, but she was very successful because
Speaker 1: she was really great at connecting with audiences. Her anti
Speaker 1: slavery upbringing, and her skills in oration and writing were
Speaker 1: all of use. The society was also open to letting
Speaker 1: her use some of her time not just for abolition
Speaker 1: and anti slavery rhetoric, but also to advocate for women's rights.
Speaker 1: But in order to make that deal, she had to
Speaker 1: take a reduced rate of four dollars a week because
Speaker 1: those speeches were taking away time from her abolition speeches.
Speaker 1: This meant that she was making at that point a
Speaker 1: pretty meager income, and at the urging of many other
Speaker 1: lecturers and speakers, she finally started charging a small fee
Speaker 1: or passing a collection hat at her lectures.
Speaker 2: Even with more money coming in, this was not an
Speaker 2: easy job. Lucy became a public figure and a movement
Speaker 2: that had a lot of hostile detractors. She had books
Speaker 2: and eggs thrown at her, had ice cold water turned
Speaker 2: on her, had to run from the occasional angry mob.
Speaker 2: She adopted the practice of wearing bloomers like a lot
Speaker 2: of other women's rights activists did, and she was jeered
Speaker 2: for doing so. There were plenty of people who were
Speaker 2: not in favor of abolition and certainly did not want
Speaker 2: to hear that message from a woman. Newspaper writeups would
Speaker 2: describe her as ugly or manish, and she was accused
Speaker 2: of having abandoned her womanly purpose. But she was also
Speaker 2: praised by people like Frederick Douglas, who said she was
Speaker 2: one of the most effective advocates for the cause. Over time,
Speaker 2: Lucy was getting so many invitations to lecture that she
Speaker 2: left the Massachusetts Anti Slavery Society job and was working
Speaker 2: essentially as an independent orator. Coming up, we're going to
Speaker 2: talk more about Stone's work on the Woman's Rights Convention,
Speaker 2: and we'll get into that after we have a sponsor break.
Speaker 2: Lucy was one of the organizers of the first National
Speaker 2: Women's Rights Convention in Worcestern, Massachusetts, in eighteen fifty. This
Speaker 2: was two years after the Seneca Falls Women's Rights Convention,
Speaker 2: which we've talked about on the show before, and which
Speaker 2: Lucy did not attend. That superlative first of the eighteen
Speaker 2: fifty convention is based on it being considered a national convention,
Speaker 2: whereas Seneca Falls was considered a local effort. Starting with
Speaker 2: no money to host this national event, Lucy and her
Speaker 2: fellow organizers advertised their need for donations, and contributions were
Speaker 2: soon coming in. Everyone involved used their entire network of
Speaker 2: connections both to get those donations and to invite attendees.
Speaker 2: The lead up to the convention was difficult for Stone.
Speaker 2: She wasn't able to be as active in the effort
Speaker 2: as she had initially planned. Her brother Luther, who lived
Speaker 2: in Illinois, died that summer of cholera, and his wife, Phoebe,
Speaker 2: was pregnant. Lucy had been the only nurse maid at
Speaker 2: his deathbed for that reason. After he died, Lucy packed
Speaker 2: Phoebe up to move her to Massachusetts, but just three
Speaker 2: days into the journey, on August twenty third, Phoebe gave birth.
Speaker 2: Because baby was sadly stillborn, and Lucy and Phoebe stayed
Speaker 2: in a hotel so Phoebe could regain some of her strength.
Speaker 2: Then Lucy contracted typhoid while they were there. She did
Speaker 2: make it to Wooster on October twenty fourth for the
Speaker 2: start of the convention, though, and that convention was well attended.
Speaker 1: The eighteen fifty Convention is really a key moment in
Speaker 1: the movement for women's rights, and the introduction of the
Speaker 1: idea that everything about the way the US operated needed
Speaker 1: to be reorganized if it was going to be made equitable.
Speaker 1: It called for in its resolutions quote equality before the law,
Speaker 1: without distinction of sex or color. That meant that black
Speaker 1: women should be included in the efforts of the movement. Now, obviously,
Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty this was not supported by everyone, and
Speaker 1: it would become an issue of heated contention several years
Speaker 1: down the road. Even in the immediate wake of the convention,
Speaker 1: reviews were mixed. There were plenty of newspaper accounts that
Speaker 1: spoke derisively about the attendees and called the entire event trash.
Speaker 1: But even within the women's rights movement, there were concerns
Speaker 1: even outside those disagreements involving racial equality. Prior podcast subject
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Blackwell, for example, found the message of the entire
Speaker 1: convention to be two quote anti Mam.
Speaker 2: Among the attendees who signed the convention's resolution document were
Speaker 2: many names you'll probably recognize, including some we've covered on
Speaker 2: the show. This is not an exhaustive list, but they
Speaker 2: included Bronson Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Lloyd Garrison, Sarah Earl,
Speaker 2: Charles K. Whipple, and M. C. Goodwin. The next October
Speaker 2: eighteen fifty one, there was another National Convention in Worcester.
Speaker 2: In eighteen fifty two, it moved to Syracuse, and then
Speaker 2: in eighteen fifty three to Cleveland. In eighteen fifty four
Speaker 2: it was in Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: The year after the first convention, Lucy was given an
Speaker 1: audience at the Massachusetts State House, speaking before legislators and
Speaker 1: imploring them to write full civil rights for women into
Speaker 1: the state constitution. That same year, Lucy met Henry Brown Blackwell.
Speaker 1: He was the brother of Elizabeth Blackwell, and he was
Speaker 1: very taken with Lucy. She was at this point quite famous,
Speaker 1: and he may have been drawn to that, but he
Speaker 1: was also completely entranced by her quote beauty, charm, and eloquence.
Speaker 1: As he wrote to a friend after seeing her speak,
Speaker 1: he asked people that they had in common about her,
Speaker 1: and while they told him she was not romantically linked
Speaker 1: to anyone. They also told him that she was not
Speaker 1: interested in becoming anyone's wife. He still pursued her, though
Speaker 1: initially through letters, and after a month of writing back
Speaker 1: and forth, he started hinting that she really should get
Speaker 1: married to someone someday.
Speaker 2: Lucy Stone's feelings on marriage were still pretty negative. In
Speaker 2: one of her letters to Henry, she wrote, quote, I
Speaker 2: have been all my life alone. I have planned and
Speaker 2: executed without counsel and without control, and have shared thought
Speaker 2: and feeling in life with myself alone. I have made
Speaker 2: a path for my feet which I know is useful.
Speaker 2: It brings me a more intense and abundant happiness by
Speaker 2: far than comes to the life of the majority of men.
Speaker 2: And it seems to me I cannot risk it by
Speaker 2: any change. And then I ask, can I dare change it?
Speaker 2: Rings an everlasting no. Henry persisted, and Lucy did soften
Speaker 2: to him, and as the two kind of slowly fell
Speaker 2: in love, Henry offered Lucy an uncommon kind of marriage
Speaker 2: for the time. He told her he wanted one of
Speaker 2: true equals. He wrote to her, quote equality with me
Speaker 2: is a passion. Henry uh is often described as kind
Speaker 2: of a romantic one. Biographer described him as falling in
Speaker 2: and out of love with a lot of young women.
Speaker 1: Prior to meeting Lucy, and in Lucy's case, her odd life,
Speaker 1: famous but also a lonely outsider really fascinated him, and
Speaker 1: although she initially told him she wanted only friendship, he
Speaker 1: did things like go to her lectures. He actually helped
Speaker 1: organize one of her tours, and then he invited her
Speaker 1: to spend time in the Blackwell family home, and she
Speaker 1: really loved the family, and eventually she did agree on
Speaker 1: a marriage of equals.
Speaker 2: Lucy remained Lucy Stone after the wedding, keeping her own
Speaker 2: name instead of taking her husband's.
Speaker 1: This was not.
Speaker 2: Initially the route she took, though She went by Blackwell
Speaker 2: for a little while, but decided to stick with Stone
Speaker 2: after about a year of trying out the new name
Speaker 2: and carefully investigating the law to make sure there wasn't
Speaker 2: a legal requirement for a wife to take her husband's name.
Speaker 2: She asked people to address her not as missus Blackwell,
Speaker 2: but as missus Stone. In situations where it seemed like
Speaker 2: there might be a legal need to recognize the union,
Speaker 2: she'd write her name as Lucy Stone, wife of Henry Blackwell.
Speaker 2: Lucy and Henry carefully crafted their vows with the intent
Speaker 2: that they would be published as an example of equal union.
Speaker 2: There was no mention of obeyance. Elizabeth Katie Stanton wrote
Speaker 2: to Stone after the wedding quote, nothing has been done,
Speaker 2: and the women's rights movement for some time that so
Speaker 2: rejoiced my heart as the announcement by you of a
Speaker 2: woman's right to her name. Missus Stone and mister Blackwell
Speaker 2: did jointly publish a pamphlet regarding the inequity of marriage laws,
Speaker 2: titled protest, and it read, in part quote, while acknowledging
Speaker 2: our mutual affection by publicly assuming the relationship of husband
Speaker 2: and wife, yet in justice to ourselves and a great principle,
Speaker 2: we deem it our duty to declare that this act
Speaker 2: on our part, implies no sanction of, nor promise of
Speaker 2: voluntary obedience to such of the present laws of marriage,
Speaker 2: as refused to recognize the wife as an independent, rational being,
Speaker 2: while they confer upon the husband an injurious and unnatural superiority,
Speaker 2: investing him with legal powers which no honorable man one
Speaker 2: would exercise, and which no man should possess. We protest,
Speaker 2: especially against the laws which give the husband one the
Speaker 2: custody of the wife's person, two the exclusive control and
Speaker 2: guardianship of their children, three, the sole ownership of her
Speaker 2: personal and use of her real estate, unless previously settled
Speaker 2: upon her or placed in the hands of trustees. Four
Speaker 2: the absolute right to the product of her industry.
Speaker 1: Five. Also against the laws which give the widower so
Speaker 1: much larger and more permanent an interest in the property
Speaker 1: of his deceased wife than they give to the widow
Speaker 1: in that of the deceased husband. Six. Finally, against the
Speaker 1: whole system by which the legal existence of the wife
Speaker 1: is suspended during marriage, so that in most states she
Speaker 1: neither has a legal part in the choice of her residence,
Speaker 1: nor could she make a will, nor sue or be
Speaker 1: sued in her own name, nor inherit property. So, just
Speaker 1: as a spoiler alert, this all sounds really idyllic. It
Speaker 1: may have been for a time, but this marriage did
Speaker 1: have its problems, and we're going to talk about some
Speaker 1: of those in just a bit.
Speaker 2: In the press, the wedding and the decision to keep
Speaker 2: Stone as her last name both got a lot of attention,
Speaker 2: and a lot of that attention was negative, like why
Speaker 2: would anyone want to marry Lucy Stone? She was seven
Speaker 2: years older than Henry, and journalists wrote about her like
Speaker 2: she was ancient. According to them, she clearly hated marriage
Speaker 2: and men, so why did she even bother? And they wondered,
Speaker 2: especially if she didn't want to take his name. Lucy
Speaker 2: continued her lecture career and they used the Blackwell home
Speaker 2: as their home base because they traveled so much they
Speaker 2: didn't really have time to settle anywhere else. Lucy's letters
Speaker 2: to friends and family show her very happy to have
Speaker 2: someone to share her life with. Lucy also wanted a
Speaker 2: family very much. She had this vision of having four children,
Speaker 2: and she and Henry had a daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell,
Speaker 2: on September fourteenth of eighteen fifty seven. They later expected
Speaker 2: a second child, but Lucy miscarried and they did not
Speaker 2: have any other children after that. When Alice was still
Speaker 2: tiny and Lucy was stuck at home caring for an infant,
Speaker 2: she decided to protest taxation by not paying property taxes.
Speaker 2: Because as a woman, she was not represented in government,
Speaker 2: so this isn't a case where she just didn't pay
Speaker 2: her taxes, which is sometimes how this is written. About
Speaker 2: This was a thought out civil disobedience effort, and she
Speaker 2: actually wrote the tax collector in Orange, New Jersey, where
Speaker 2: they were living at the time, and explained this she
Speaker 2: would not be paying taxes because they were unjust to
Speaker 2: half the population. As a consequence of this, the Stone
Speaker 2: Blackwell home was rated. Many of their possessions were seized,
Speaker 2: and then when the furniture that had been taken was
Speaker 2: sold at auction, one of their neighbors bought it all
Speaker 2: and returned it to them. The marriage definitely experienced some strain.
Speaker 2: Henry had made some investments that didn't really pay off.
Speaker 2: He had also gone to Chicago to work for a
Speaker 2: friend for five months when Alice was still a baby,
Speaker 2: and he and Lucy missed each other terribly. He had
Speaker 2: to dip into Lucy's savings at times, and they downgraded
Speaker 2: their home to a smaller farmhouse to try to save money. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he wasn't like taking that money from Lucy just of
Speaker 2: his own volition. They discussed it and she was like,
Speaker 2: of course, you should take from some of the money
Speaker 2: that I have saved up. But it still was like
Speaker 2: a thing of you know, not quite what they had
Speaker 2: planned financially, having a child had also slowed Stone's activism considerably.
Speaker 2: She really did not trust anyone else to care for Alice,
Speaker 2: so it wasn't like she could call someone to come
Speaker 2: and watch the baby while she went and did work things. Then,
Speaker 2: during the US Civil War, Lucy felt morally compelled to
Speaker 2: say nothing on the part of the war effort, even
Speaker 2: in support of the Union, because she was a pacifist
Speaker 2: and thought all of it was wrong. She still supported
Speaker 2: anti slavery efforts in other ways, including drumming up signatay
Speaker 2: for abolitionist petitions. In the later years of the war,
Speaker 2: some of Henry's investment properties had finally started to pay off.
Speaker 2: He had purchased quite a few investment properties over the years,
Speaker 2: and he sold them at high profits during the war,
Speaker 2: and that gave the Stone Blackwell family a little bit
Speaker 2: of financial security for the first time since the couple
Speaker 2: had wed.
Speaker 1: Though their finances were finally in order, though Lucy had
Speaker 1: other challenges during this time. In eighteen sixty four, her
Speaker 1: father died. She was often in poor health that entire year.
Speaker 1: She worried, of course, about the future of the country,
Speaker 1: and it also seems like she was really grappling with
Speaker 1: her identity when she was suddenly not doing the work
Speaker 1: that she had been so driven to do for so
Speaker 1: many years.
Speaker 2: We're going to pause here for a moment and here
Speaker 2: from some of the sponsors that keep the show going,
Speaker 2: and when we come back, we will talk about Stone's
Speaker 2: place in the rift in the women's rights movement in
Speaker 2: the US.
Speaker 1: We have talked on the show before about the fissure
Speaker 1: in the women's suffrage movement over the right to vote
Speaker 1: being granted to black men before white women. Lucy was
Speaker 1: mostly and will describe this more carefully in a moment
Speaker 1: on the side of the conflict within the group that
Speaker 1: thought it was okay for black men to gain more
Speaker 1: rights through the fourteenth and fifteenth Amendments. So, for the
Speaker 1: very quickest recap, the fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution,
Speaker 1: passed by the Senate on June eighth, eighteen sixty six,
Speaker 1: stated that everyone born in the US, including formerly enslaved people,
Speaker 1: was a US citizen. And then the fifteenth Amendment, which
Speaker 1: passed several years later on February twenty sixth, eighteen sixty nine,
Speaker 1: stated that all male citizens over the age of twenty
Speaker 1: one should be able to vote. This was the first
Speaker 1: introduction of language about sex or gender into a constantitutional amendment,
Speaker 1: and for many in the women's rights movement, they felt
Speaker 1: that allowing this wording in the interest of conferring black
Speaker 1: men rights would ultimately hurt the cause of women, and
Speaker 1: specifically white women. Elizabeth Katie Stanton is often quoted for
Speaker 1: her written commentary on the matter, quote if that word
Speaker 1: mayle be inserted, it will take us a century at
Speaker 1: least to get it out.
Speaker 2: But Lucy Stone saw the suffrage movement as one whole,
Speaker 2: at least sort of, with any victory being part of
Speaker 2: forward progress, and as a lifelong abolitionist, she was also
Speaker 2: supportive of black men's rights and of their gaining forward
Speaker 2: progressive ground. To be clear, though Stone had absolutely not
Speaker 2: wanted abolitionists to favor the voting rights of black men
Speaker 2: at the expense of women's suffrage, she was chagrined at
Speaker 2: how that played out, but she did support the fifteenth
Speaker 2: Amendment ultimately.
Speaker 1: As all of this was going on, there was a
Speaker 1: very odd and unsettling move on the part of her husband,
Speaker 1: Henry Blackwell. On January fifteenth, eighteen sixty seven, he wrote
Speaker 1: an open letter titled quote, what the South can do,
Speaker 1: how the Southern States can make themselves masters of the
Speaker 1: situation to the legislatures of the Southern States, and in
Speaker 1: it he makes a case that's really hard to square
Speaker 1: with the abolitionist in women's rights values that he had
Speaker 1: been speaking about publicly his entire life. He wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: the population of the late Slave States is about twelve million,
Speaker 1: eight million white, four million black. The radicals demand suffrage
Speaker 1: for the black men on the ground named above. Very good.
Speaker 1: Say to them, as mister Cowan said to the advocates
Speaker 1: of Negro male suffrage in the district, apply your principle,
Speaker 1: give suffrage to all men and women of mature age
Speaker 1: and sound mind, and we will accept it as the
Speaker 1: basis of state and national reconstruction. Consider the result from
Speaker 1: the Southern standpoint. Your four millions of Southern white women
Speaker 1: will counterbalance your four millions of Negro men and women,
Speaker 1: and thus the political supremacy of your white race will
Speaker 1: remain unchanged. He also made the case that black people
Speaker 1: would eventually just leave because they would get sick of
Speaker 1: all of this.
Speaker 2: It's not clear to me from this writing whether he's
Speaker 2: sort of trying to appeal to what he thinks will
Speaker 2: sway racists or if these are his opinions. Either way,
Speaker 2: it's gross though.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even if he thinks he's like playing eight level
Speaker 1: chess and that he's ahead of them and using their
Speaker 1: own ideas against them, putting it in writing just creates
Speaker 1: a big problem. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So this is obviously a strange outlier in Blackwell's work
Speaker 2: and makes it appear that while he may have supported
Speaker 2: the anti slavery effort, that he also saw the black
Speaker 2: population as inferior. Really no documentation about how Lucy felt about.
Speaker 1: This, No, that's like one of the great mysteries. In
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty nine, the division in the women's movement led
Speaker 1: to a formal split. Stone and Julia Ward Howe formed
Speaker 1: the American Women's Suffrage Association, while Elizabeth Katie Stanton and
Speaker 1: Susan B. Anthony launched the National Women's Suffrage Association. Both
Speaker 1: of these organizations waxed and waned in their numbers over
Speaker 1: the years, and they sort of carved out turf in
Speaker 1: terms of who was going to advocate for what. The
Speaker 1: AWSA focused, for example, on getting suffrage passed at the
Speaker 1: state level, working with advocates in each state, while the
Speaker 1: NWSAY set its sites on national suffrage rights. In eighteen seventy,
Speaker 1: Lucy and Henry moved to Dorchester, Massachusetts, and started working
Speaker 1: closely with the New England Woman's Suffrage Association. The couple
Speaker 1: also started publishing Woman's Journal, which was the American Women's
Speaker 1: Suffrage Association periodical. When Massachusetts offered women p many strictly
Speaker 1: regulated voting rights in eighteen seventy nine, Lucy's intent was
Speaker 1: that she would register, but she would be struck from
Speaker 1: the voter roles because she had not changed her name
Speaker 1: to Henry's. She was told she was going to have
Speaker 1: to sign the voting roles as Blackwell, which she refused
Speaker 1: to do, so she did not get to vote.
Speaker 2: In eighteen eighty three, an echo of Lucy's past emerged
Speaker 2: when she was asked by Oberlin College to compose a
Speaker 2: commencement speech, just as she had when she was graduating.
Speaker 2: This time, though she was invited to also give this speech.
Speaker 2: She accepted the invitation and was part of the school's
Speaker 2: fiftieth anniversary celebration. In eighteen ninety, the rift between the
Speaker 2: women that had founded the American Woman's Suffrage Association and
Speaker 2: the National woman Suffrage Association was healed in large part
Speaker 2: by the daughters of the original founders of those organizations.
Speaker 2: Lucy's daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell and Elizabeth Gaty Stanton's daughter,
Speaker 2: Harriet Stanton black bat worked to reunite the two groups
Speaker 2: under the umbrella of the National American Woman Suffrage Association.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Katie Stanton was its president and Susan B. Anthony
Speaker 2: was vice president. It is pretty widely accepted that Anthony
Speaker 2: was the actual leader of the group. In practice, Lucy
Speaker 2: Stone was not active in the group though, because her
Speaker 2: health had really started to decline. This story will once
Speaker 2: again intersect with another topic that came up recently in
Speaker 2: our episode on architect Louis Sullivan. That was the eighteen
Speaker 2: ninety three Columbia Exposition. That event was the stage of
Speaker 2: Lucy Stone's last public speech in May of eighteen ninety three.
Speaker 2: Lucy had wanted to make additional speeches there later in
Speaker 2: the summer, but her health just did not allow for it.
Speaker 2: In the autumn of that year, in September eighteen ninety three,
Speaker 2: Lucy was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Ever pragmatic, she very
Speaker 2: carefully got all her affairs in order. Some of this
Speaker 2: meant that She was admonishing Henry not to stop looking
Speaker 2: after his own health because their daughter, Alice, who had
Speaker 2: become an important collaborator in their work, was going to
Speaker 2: need him. And there were well wishes that poured in
Speaker 2: from all around the world, and Lucy assured her friends
Speaker 2: that she was not afraid of dying, and that even
Speaker 2: in the next world, she would know when women got
Speaker 2: the right to vote. When one of her doctors told
Speaker 2: her with certainty that she was going to die soon
Speaker 2: and that he hoped she would approach the end with serenity,
Speaker 2: she told him there is nothing to be unserene about.
Speaker 2: On October eighteenth, eighteen ninety three, Lucy Stone died. Her
Speaker 2: last words spoken to her daughter Alice, were make the
Speaker 2: world better. She was cremated and her ashes were interred
Speaker 2: at Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston.
Speaker 1: Lucy I like her heaps, and I have many thoughts
Speaker 1: to share on Friday about marriage and Lucy's life and
Speaker 1: Lucy's husband. In the meantime, I have fun email fun
Speaker 1: email from our listener James, who writes Dear Holly and
Speaker 1: Tracy and Team. I have been a listener to your
Speaker 1: podcast for the last few years and did, in fact
Speaker 1: catch the Levi Strauss episode when it originally aired, and
Speaker 1: I was very happy to have it as a classic
Speaker 1: episode this weekend. I live in Butenheim, the birthplace of
Speaker 1: Loeb Strauss. When I moved here, my American family my
Speaker 1: dad was US American, had no end of fun at
Speaker 1: the fact that I was going to be a Buttenheimer,
Speaker 1: but they were also duly impressed by the fact that
Speaker 1: Levi Strauss was born here. As you can see from
Speaker 1: the pictures attached, we're celebrating the one hundred and fiftieth
Speaker 1: anniversary of the five oh one gene with a street
Speaker 1: party in front of the Levi Strauss Museum. I have
Speaker 1: also attached a picture of the birthplace, which is part
Speaker 1: of said museum, complete with the statue they put up
Speaker 1: a few years ago. In fact, my husband and I
Speaker 1: got married in that museum. It belongs to the local
Speaker 1: council and the rooms in the town hall are really small.
Speaker 1: Almost exactly four years ago. Okay, that's like the coolest
Speaker 1: place to get married and also happy anniversary. So if
Speaker 1: any listeners are true fans, they should come and visit
Speaker 1: the museum. Franconia is one of the most beautiful parts
Speaker 1: of Germany and well worth a visit. Best regards and
Speaker 1: thanks for the podcast. I am putting that on my
Speaker 1: list of places that I want to go now because
Speaker 1: it does look amazing. I want to go to the
Speaker 1: Levistras Museum real bad. He would like to write to
Speaker 1: us about this or any other podcast or cool museums
Speaker 1: or places we should visit. My list can get longer,
Speaker 1: that's fine. You can do that at History podcast at
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio dot com. You can also find us on the
Speaker 1: internet social media's as Missed in History pretty much everywhere,
Speaker 1: and if you haven't subscribed yet, you can subscribe anywhere
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite podcasts, or the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2: Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
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