Week 10 – 2020: Strong Women #52Ancestors

The Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution was officially adopted on 26 August 1920.[1] On that date, my grandmother, Catherine Josephine Spencer, was a single woman living and working in Newark, New Jersey.[2] Among some of the things that I got from her was a women’s suffrage pamphlet entitled “Objections Answered” by Alice Stone Blackwell (revised 1915), published by the National American Woman Suffrage Association in New York City. The NAWSA was founded by Susan B. Anthony and others.[3] I don’t recall ever discussing women’s suffrage with my grandmother, but since these were her pamphlets, I am happy to assume that she was a “suffragette.” 

So what about Alice Stone Blackwell? Talk about a strong woman born into a family strong women! Her mother, Lucy Stone, was the first woman to earn a college degree in Massachusetts, the first to keep her maiden name upon marriage, and the first woman to lecture full-time in support of women’s rights.[4] Her aunt, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, was the first woman ordained a mainstream Protestant minister in the U.S., a contributor to Frederick Douglass’ abolitionist paper, The North Star, and an early woman’s rights advocate.[5]  Another aunt, Elizabeth Blackwell, was the first woman to graduate from medical school in the U.S. and founder of the New York Infirmary for Women and Children.[6] Elizabeth’s sister was the third woman to graduate from medical school in the U.S. and Alice’s mother and father founded the American Woman Suffrage Association, which later merged with the NAWSA.[7]

After she graduated from Boston University in 1881 (Phi Beta Kappa), Alice joined her parents in publishing The Woman’s Journal for the AWSA. She took over as editor in 1883 until 1917 when the Journal merged with The Woman Citizen and she became co-editor.[8] Alice also wrote poetry and edited several volumes of poems translated from Armenian, Russian, Yiddish, and Spanish.[9] She also penned a biography of her mother in 1930 entitled Lucy Stone, Pioneer of Women’s Rights.[10]

After passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, Alice worked for the Massachusetts League of Women Voters, acted as a trustee for Boston University, was a member of the American Association of University Women, among other positions.[11] Alice never married saying, “… I never fell in love and I would not consider marriage without being first in love.”[12] Prior to her death, she moved into a small apartment and donated the family home in Dorchester to poor Russian and Jewish women for vegetable gardens.

In researching Alice on Newspapers.com, my search for her name in quotes provided me with 9,280 matches! The first was an article on the B.U. graduation where Alice gave a speech entitled “Social Drinking” (I forgot to mention that she was active in the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union).[13] When she died in Cambridge, in 1950, her passing was noted in papers all over the country and in Canada.

In Alice’s biography of her mother, Lucy is quoted saying: “It is very little to me to have the right to vote, to own property, etc., if I may not keep my body, and its uses, in my absolute right.”[14]

[1] Wikipedia.org, “Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution,” rev. 13:32, 27 February 2020.

[2] 1920 U.S. census, Essex County, New Jersey, population schedule, Newark City, 6th district, p. 13A (penned), enumeration district (ED) 191, dwelling 163, family 271, for Josephine Spencer in Henry Schild household; NARA microfilm publication T625, roll 1034.

[3] Wikipedia.org, “National American Woman Suffrage Association,” rev. 21:58, 3 March 2020.

[4] “Alice Stone Blackwell,” ArmenianHouse.org (http://www.armenianhouse.org/blackwell/biography-en.html : accessed 10 March 2020). Here’s a great story on Lucy Stone and the “Lucy Stone League” that fought for women to be able to keep their maiden names: Olivia B. Waxman, “’Lucy Stone, If You Please’: The Unsung Suffragist Who Fought for Women to Keep Their Maiden Names,” Time.com (https://time.com/5537834/lucy-stone-maiden-names-womens-history/ : accessed 10 March 2020).

[5] Wikipedia.org, “Antoinette Brown Blackwell,” rev. 8:54, 7 October 2019.

[6] Wikipedia.org, “Elizabeth Blackwell,” rev. 21:53, 2 March 2020.

[7] Ibid. Allison Lange, Ph.D., “Suffragists Organize: American Woman Suffrage Association,” National Women’s History Museum (http://www.crusadeforthevote.org/awsa-organize : accessed 10 March 2020). 

[8] Wikipedia.org, “Woman’s Journal,” rev. 20:16, 10 December 2019.

[9] John William Leonard, ed., “Blackwell, Alice Stone,” Woman’s Who’s Who of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the United States and Canada, 1914-1915 (New York: The American Commonwealth Company, 1914), 104; Google (https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=GvwUAAAAYAAJ&pg=GBS.PA20 : accessed 10 March 2020).

[10] “Alice Stone Blackwell Dies; Suffragist Champion Was 92,” The Boston Daily Globe, 16 March 1950, p. 36, col. 6-7.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid.

[13] “Boston University. Annual Commencement Exercises Yesterday,” The Boston Daily Globe, Supplement, 2 June 1881, p. 1, col. 5.

[14] Randolph Hollingsworth, “Introduction,” Alice Stone Blackwell, Lucy Stone: Pioneer of Woman’s Rights (Virginia: The University Press of Virginia, 1930), xviii.

Alice Stone Blackwell, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing left. , None. [Between 1880 and 1900] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/93510733/.