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Lucy Stone: An Unapologetic Life 1st Edition

by Sally G. McMillen (Author)
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 26 ratings
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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 in this engaging biography. 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 quickly became one of the most famous orators of her day. Lecturing on anti-slavery and women's rights, she was instrumental in organizing and speaking at several annual national woman's rights conventions throughout the 1850s. 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, one of two national women's rights organizations that fought for women's right to vote. 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.

Self-effacing until the end of her life, Stone did not relish the limelight the way Elizabeth Cady Stanton did, nor did she gain the many followers whom Susan B. Anthony attracted through her extensive travels and years of dedicated work. Yet her contributions to the woman's rights movement were no less significant or revolutionary than those of her more widely lauded peers. In this accessible, readable, and historically-grounded work, Lucy Stone is finally given the standing she deserves.
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  1. ISBN-10
    9780199778393
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0199778393
  3. Edition
    1st
  4. Publisher
    Oxford University Press
  5. Publication date
    January 29, 2015
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    9.6 x 1.1 x 6.4 inches
  8. Print length
    360 pages
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"[A] welcome addition. Written in a straightforward narrative covering Stone's life from birth to death, Lucy Stone will appeal to those who know little or nothing about her, a not insignificant audience."--Leigh Fought, The Historian

"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

"Splendidly readable and superbly researched, Sally McMillen's biography demonstrates
why Lucy Stone belongs in the pantheon of American woman suffragists. Stone comes
to life in this vivid portraal of her humanitarian commitments, organizational achievements,
and the complex interaction of public and private life. Scholars, students, and
general readers will develop a new appreciation for this remarkable person and her
struggles to 'make the world better.'"--Carol Lasser, Oberlin College

"Steeped in research, this expert biography tracks the interplay of radical impulse with
issues of leadership, policy, rivalry, and reputation. Always lucid, always lively, it captures
the conflicts that absorbed the nineteenth-century women's movement and shaped its
history. A fascinating story!"--Nancy Woloch, Barnard College

"In this richly researched and elegantly written biography, Sally G. McMillen does a great
service by returning Lucy Stone to the center of the complex and fascinating drama of
personalities and events in the nineteenth-century women's movement."--J. Matthew Gallman, Professor of History, University of Florida

"In this major biography, Lucy Stone finally gets her due as a pioneer and an American
ahead of her time. With impeccable research and crisp prose, Sally McMillen renders
an unforgettable portrait of an 'uncommon woman.'"--Catherine Allgor, Director of
Education, The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens

Book Description

A winning new biography of one of the most significant but often overlooked figures in the woman's rights movement

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0199778396
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press; 1st edition (January 29, 2015)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 360 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780199778393
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0199778393
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.4 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.6 x 1.1 x 6.4 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 26 ratings

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Sally Gregory McMillen

Sally Gregory McMillen

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Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
26 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Atlanta Reader
5.0 out of 5 stars Well written and informative
Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2021
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We always hear about Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton when the American women’s suffrage movement of the 19th century comes up. We should also hear about Lucy Stone. Of course, one of the problems with history is WHO writes it. In this case, the early history of the American women’s rights movement was written largely by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. But I find Lucy Stone’s story an inspiring one. She was far ahead of her time in many ways.

She became a lecturer for the anti-slavery movement and the women’s suffrage movement as a young single woman, deciding never to marry because the marriage laws of that time were so unjust. She became one of the most famous women in America by the mid-1800s. Then she was wooed by an unusual man who promised an equal marriage, even suggesting a pre-nup agreement of sorts so she would remain an independent woman. She finally accepted his proposal but kept her maiden name.

The book also details the rift in the women’s rights movement that developed because Stone eventually didn’t see eye to eye with Anthony and Stanton. The book is well written, bringing Stone to life and giving us a peek at what it was like traveling the country trying to awaken the conscience of America.
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V-TEAM
4.0 out of 5 stars I found this book easy to read and full of intriguing facts--such as men ...
Reviewed in the United States on December 20, 2015
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Lucy Stone was a juggernaut of the women's suffrage movement, but unlike the names of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (women who were aggressive self-promoters), Lucy Stone's name was relatively obscure--that is until now. The suffrage movement splintered into two groups because Lucy could not tolerate her fellow suffragettes' lack of support for the black vote. Highly documented, McMillen's book puts the roles of these women into proper perspective and paints these women as very real and human, full of ego & self-righteousness as well as courage and steadfastness. Anthony's deification is tarnished somewhat by Lucy Stone's accusations. I found this book easy to read and full of intriguing facts--such as men feared that if women achieved the right to vote, they would outlaw booze, brothels and saloons; the black vote was instigated 40 years before the women vote; and New Zealand was the first country in modern times to allow the female vote. Truly an edifying read!
5 people found this helpful
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B. Weaver
5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating and well researched book
Reviewed in the United States on November 3, 2015
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Lucy Stone, an Unapologetic Life is just one more example of a fascinating book by Sally McMillen who has focused much of her writings on the history of the women’s rights movement in America. Lucy Stone, an Unapologetic Life is well researched and is a wonderful addition to her two previous books on women’s rights: Seneca Falls and the Origins of the Women’s Rights Movement and North Carolina Women: their Lives and Times. Professor McMillen who is the past chair of the history department at Davison College makes a case in this most recent book that Lucy Stone should be among the nineteenth-century suffragists who are on the marble monument in the rotunda of the Capital.

Lucy Stone spent her life in pursuit of abolition and suffrage. She was one of the first women to attend Oberlin College and one of the first in the nations to receive a college degree. Faced with interminable odds, she was determined to devote her life to fight for abolition and women’s rights. She married Henry Brown Blackwell only after he convinced her that their marriage would be one of equals.

Stone went on to found the American Woman Suffrage Association and create The Women’s Journal, which became the most successful women’s newspaper in the country. It was not until twenty-seven years after her death that some won the right to vote. McMillen makes the case that this was in large part because of Lucy’s ceaseless efforts on the part of women’s rights.
5 people found this helpful
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Lynn M.
5.0 out of 5 stars Lucy Stone : A Suffragette Voice Crying in the Wilderness
Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2016
Verified Purchase
An important , though largely unknown addition to the Suffragette movement is Lucy Stone: a well-paid orator who traveled the country to inspire votes for women. This book is well-written and a must read in honor of the almost here 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment to our Constitution.
2 people found this helpful
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Carol Sue
3.0 out of 5 stars Walt Disney-esque Treatment of an Historical Figure
Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2019
Verified Purchase
An entertaining read, especially if you like soft, Walt Disney-light treatments of historical figures. The author skips around Lucy Stone’s real-life nastiness and her mental/emotional issues. Stone might have fared better if she had kept to her resolve when she was an independent, high-spirited young woman not to get married. Instead, she married Henry Blackwell, who not only was a jerk but also a racist.

The biggest disappointment in this book is also its biggest hole; i.e., not addressing Stone’s complicity in her husband’s advocacy for white supremacy in the South. Blackwell unveiled his plan to keep the South white in early 1867, just before he and Stone went to Kansas to campaign for a state initiative that would give women the vote. He had his plan, which was in the form of a letter to the legislatures of the Southern states, printed as leaflets to distribute on the campaign trail, even though Kansas wasn’t part of the Southern Confederacy. (A leaflet is in the Library of Congress and the text can be found on the Internet.)

Blackwell revived his plan to ensure white supremacy in the South after Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony’s National suffrage association merged with Lucy Stone’s American suffrage association to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) in 1890. After tweaking his plan to suggest enfranchising educated women only, Blackwell peddled it to Laura Clay of Kentucky, who was to become the key link between Northern and Southern suffragists, and to the Mississippi delegation in Congress, who wanted to disfranchise the Negro at their state constitutional convention and was seeking a legal way to do so.

Stone’s legacy was not a good one. Although Anthony acted as virtual president of the NAWSA until she was elected to the position in 1892, she held little sway over the membership, who preferred Stone and Blackwell’s philosophy and methods of working through the states, which the powerful Southern contingent preferred. As a result the NAWSA became more and more racist. In 1916, under the leadership of Carrie Chapman Catt, the NAWSA finally gave up on the state strategy as unworkable.
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Herbert Stehl (NRW)
4.0 out of 5 stars Das Rednertalent
Reviewed in Germany on August 30, 2020
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"Die Geschichte der Frauenbewegung" von E. Cady- Stanton und Susan B. Anthony gibt das Jahr 1848 als Startjahr an und vernachlässigt darüber die Pioniere und Pionierinnen der Bewegung. Eine davon war Abby Kelley Foster. Sie entstammte einer Quäkerfamilie und war eine glühende Verfechterin der Gleichheit von Hautfarbe und Geschlecht. William Lloyd Garrison, ein Republikaner, früh im Kampf gegen die Sklaverei engagiert und seit 1831 Herausgeber des Bostoner "Liberator", ließ Abby Kelley für die American Anti- Slavery Society (AASS) reisen und reden. Lucy Stone erlebte die Pionierin der freien Rede an ihrem Heimatort 1839 in Massachussetts. Die Farmerstochter war tief beeindruckt von Abby Kelley und teilte sofort deren Auffassung. Gegen Mitte des 19. Jahrhundert war mit tätlichen Angriffen zu rechnen, wenn eine Frau in der Öffentlichkeit die Stimme erhob, zumal vor gemischtem Publikum und zu heiklen Fragen. Lucy Stone hatte manches von dem persönlich erlitten, was die New Yorker Sufragetten um Elizabeth Cady- Stanton 1848 an Ungleichheiten aufgelistet hatten. Nicht einmal beim Votum in ihrer eigenen Kirchengemeinde hatte sie als Frau ein Stimmrecht. Um ihr Talent als Rednerin zu beweisen, wählte sie eine für Frauen damals noch neue und seltene Möglichkeit, den Weg über die höhere Bildung. Die anfallenden Studiengebühren verdiente sie sich im Vorfeld als Lehrerin daheim in Massachussetts, obgleich sie, üblicherweise, dafür ungleich weniger Geld bekam als ihre männlichen Mitbewerber. 1847 war es dann soweit, und Lucy Stone war die erste Bachelorette in diesem Bundesstaat. Ähnlich wie Abby Kelley begann sie, ein paar Monate für die Massachussetts Anti Slavery Society (MASS) zu reisen und zu reden. Als sie 1853 auf dem National Women's Right Convention in Cleveland sprach, war sie als talentierte Rednerin bereits landesweit und bis nach Übersee bekannt.

Die vorliegende Biographie ist das Werk einer Fachhistorikerin, dicht und prägnant geschrieben, mit knapp 1000 Fußnoten auf etwas mehr als 250 Buchseiten und einem gemischten Namens- und Sachwörter- Verzeichnis, das einen schnellen Zugriff auf Detailfragen wie die Beecher- Tilton- Affäre, den Kansas- Nebraska- Act oder Mary Livermore erlaubt. Die Autorin erzählt zunächst, wie der Lebens- Alltag daheim in Massachussetts, dann an der Hochschule in Ohio, organisiert und umorganisiert wurde. Sie beleuchtet die jeweiligen Vorgeschichten. In dem Kapitel "Strange Union- Eheschließung und Mutterschaft" stützt sie sich unter Anderem auf einen Berg an Briefmaterial. Lucy Stone war es auf der einen Seite sehr daran gelegen, ihren Mädchennamen zu behalten, das in einer Zeit, in der das Ehe- und Familienleben dem britischen Gewohnheitsrecht unterlag, wo den Frauen nicht einmal die Kleider gehörten, die sie in die Ehe einbrachten. Lucys zukünftiger Mann Henry Blackwell teilte ihre Gesinnung und lebte mit ihr auf eine Kultur des Doppelnamens hinaus, wie die gemeinsame Tochter Alice ihn dann trug. Andererseits blieb die Ehe eine sakrosankte Einrichtung. Das Paar ließ den Reformpfarrer und späteren Hausfreund Thomas Higginson, ein schillernder Mann, der als weißer Offizier im Bürgerkrieg für die Yankees ein Batallion mit farbigen Kriegsfreiwilligen befehligte und später regelmäßig Kolumnen für das in Boston von dem Paar herausgegebene "Women's Journal" schrieb, her reisen, um die kirchliche Trauung zu vollziehen, "bis das der Tod euch scheidet". So wurde auch die Familientradition fortgesetzt, und dessen augenfälligster Beweis war Alice, die die journalistische Arbeit ihrer Mutter fortsetzte. 1930 legt sie eine Biographie über ihre Mutter vor, die ihre Mutter Lucy bedenkenlos unterschrieben hätte.

Unterdessen taucht die Autorin tief in das Neu- England des 19. Jahrhunderts ein und teilt auch dessen moralische Bedenken. Dabei fügt sie der Biographie von Alice Stone- Blackwell nichts wesentlich Neues hinzu. "Victoria Woodhull predigt die freie Liebe und praktiziert sie auch", heißt es bei Alice Stone- Blackwell. Sie ist "licentious" (lüstern, zügellos). Bei McMillan ist sie noch zusätzlich "brassy" (frech, blechern). McMillan bezeichnet John Francis Train, der radikalliberal war, im Alter etwas exzentrisch, ein Globetrotter, dessen Figur Jules Verne inspirierte, seinen Abenteuerroman "In 80 Tagen um die Welt" zu schreiben, als "rassistischen Dandy". So waren gleich zwei Werkzeuge kreiert, um sich von Elizabeth Cady- Stanton abzugrenzen., denn die Frau aus dem Demokraten- Lager hatte mit Woodhull und Train zusammengearbeitet und in späteren Jahren keine Veranlassung darin gesehen, sich dafür zu entschuldigen. Zum Gegenlesen und von einer anderen politischen Couleur ist das Buch "Morning Star: A Biography of Lucy Stone" von Elinor Rice Hays aus dem Jahr 1961. Themen wie Hausarbeit und Emanzipation sind dort im Ton soziologischer abgehandelt und liegen auf einer Linie mit Angela Davis und dem Frauenrecht der 1980ziger Jahre.

Am Schluss noch ein Beispiel für das, was Lucy Stone unter Identität und identitärem Leben verstand (S.99f der Biographie von Sally McMillen entnommen): Sie liebte es, vor gemischtem Publikum zu reden, vor Männern u n d Frauen, Farbigen u n d Weißen. Als sie 1854 einen Termin in Philadelphia hatte, informierte sie der Veranstalter in letzter Minute darüber, dass er keine Afroamerikaner in seinen Räumen dulden wird. Der Rassist hatte es so eingerichtet, dass kein Farbiger seine Fund Music Hall betreten sollte. Da sie den Termin nicht mehr umberaumen konnte, entschied sich Lucy Stone, vor dem all- weißen Auditorium zu sprechen. Am Ende ihrer Rede erklärte sie die Situation und gelobte, nie wieder in dieser oder einer anderen Halle zu sprechen, wo Farbige ausgeschlossen sind. 3 Jahre später fiel sie auf den selben Veranstalter nicht mehr herein, und sagte den Termin vorzeitig ab. "My name is my identity", sagte sie dazu später.
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