Lucy Stone

Lucy Stone 1818-93, reformer and leader in the women's rights movement, b. near West Brookfield, Mass., grad. Oberlin, 1847. In 1847 she gave her first lecture on women's rights, and the following year she was engaged by the Anti-Slavery Society as one of their regular lecturers. As a speaker she had great eloquence and was often able to sway an unruly and antagonistic audience. She married Henry Brown Blackwell in 1855 but continued, as a matter of principle, to use her own name and was known as Mrs. Stone. In 1870 she founded the Woman's Journal, which was for nearly 50 years the official organ of the American Woman Suffrage Association and, after 1890, the National American Woman Suffrage Association. After her death it was edited by her daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell. In 1921 the Lucy Stone League was formed to continue the battle for women's rights.

Bibliography: See biographies by her daughter (1930, repr. 1971) and E. R. Hays (1961).

Stone, Lucy (1818–93) US feminist who co-organized the first US women's rights convention (1850). She established several organizations for women's suffrage and founded (1870) the Woman's Journal.

Stone, Lucy (1818–93),after graduation from Oberlin (1847) began her life work in her native Massachusetts, New Jersey, and elsewhere, for the causes of woman suffrage and antislavery. Although she was married (1855), she retained her maiden name as a matter of principle. She founded the Woman's Journal (1870), which for nearly half a century was the official publication of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, which split (1869) from the organization led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, in part because they opposed passage of the 15th Amendment since it did not extend suffrage to women.