Its now by distinct honor and privilege to introduce dr. Sally mcmillen, he babcock professor of hit in Davidson College in north carolina. She earned he ph. D at Duke University and we learned today got a degree in library science. She has been one of the most important and productive scholars of 19th century womens history. Their many books include motherhood and the old south southern women black and white and seneca falls and the origin of the womens Rights Movement. Her brand new book which we are celebrated tonight and received a wonderful review in the Los Angeles Times is entitled losey stone an unapologetic life. A path breaking activist whose life has been hidden too long. Losey stoned a last has a biography worthy of her inspired and inspiring life. Please help me welcome to Franklin Library society. Dr. Sally mcmillen. [applause] thank you so much, rich, and i just wanted to sea its an absolute delight to be here. I want to thank rich for inviting me and for the Library Company for also inviting me, and its just a pleasure to be in philadelphia. Its a great city, and i actually have heard of the Library Company of philadelphia but never been here before. Got my own personal tour this morning and its an exceptional place. So you are very lucky to have this. So let me start on lucy stone. In the rotunda of our nations capitol stands an impressive monument celebrating three remarkable 19th century william, important in winning universal suffrage for women. Lucretia motte indicate a stanton and susan b. Anthony but this woman is every bit as deserving, loseyston. She was equally dedicated to the womens Rights Movement as were these three women and also a celebrated passionate orator for the Antislavery Movement. Her absence from the monument says volumes about how we tell our history and whom we celebrate. Tonight i want to chisel lucy at least temporarily into that mary marsh marble. I my yet for commented i seemed to enjoy writing about people and should condition a biography. Losey stone immediately came to mind. For men areas in my teaching i talk about and use lucy stone as an example of not only a great woman but also how often we leave important people out of our past. So i plunged in, using lucys and her family lazy correspondence convention reports and the widespread newspaper coverage she generated. What was especially fun was with my husband visiting several places where lucy had lived and died. Even to the none of her Homes Remains stand actually being present at these various cites sites and imagining her living there gave me a better sense who she was. Born august 13 1818, near the village of westbrookfield, massachusetts, she grew up on farm the sixth of seven children. Er father, francis embraced patriarchal he expected obeadsens from his wife and their children. As lucy later wrote there was only one will in our home, and that was my fathers. Like most farm children lucy and her siblings helped plant crops, gardened, hauled wood and water, canned food, drove cattle milked cows, cooked, laundered, and and sewed. Lucys mom was a pieos woman who instilled in her children the meaning of right and wrong and insisted they become good christians. Francis and hannah believed in education, and lucy, like her siblings, attended Common Schools until she was 16. But lucy sensed the need for further education. In order for her to lead a more purposeful life. When shed asked her parents if she could continue her schooling they said, she had to have more than enough education to find a good husband. Which of course was the goal for nearly all young women at that time. Lucy however had little interest in marriage and began teaching school, and intermittently attending september messsters at a number of private academies in the area including the newly opened female seminary. She learned of a new college in ohio founded in 1833 that was doing the absolute unthinkable at the time, accepting women and africanamericans. She was determined to attend. So francis had sent two of lucys brothers to college. He refused to help pay her way since she was a woman and in his eyes and the eyes of most americans, had absolutely no need for Higher Education. So lucy caught stool saved moyer, and in 1843 with 92 traveled 650miles to attend owner lean. One can only imagine the raised buy eyebrows when fellow travelers learn she was alone and headed to, of all places the First College in the nation to accept women. She scrimped and saved and worked to earn enough money to pay her expenses. At one point she worked three jobs and slept only four hours a night, and she studied and she studied. Lucy stood out not only because she was brilliant and outspoken but unlike most students and factually at obeliny she was supporting theyed of Williams Lloyd garrison, one of the nations most rad cap abolitionists, and while obelan was remarkable for aid emptying women and africanamerican is embraced traditional ideas how women should behalf. The school did not believe women should be seen in public, and after lucy delivered a electric tire to village residents as they celebrate haitis Independence Day she was reprimand by the ladys committee. Women students were not allowed to speak in public, take rhetoric classes or participate in mens debating societies. So she and her best friend, anthoineette brown founded a womens debating society the very first in the nation. As a senior, and at the top of her class, lucy was invited by the fact till to write an essay to be delivered at graduation. She was told, however that while the could write the essay it would be absolutely unseemly for a woman to appear on stage and read what she had written. A man had to do that. A principled, proud lucy refused to participate but she graduated in 1847 at the age of 29, becoming the first Massachusetts Woman and one of the first women in our nation to graduate from college with a bachelors degree. In researching lucy stones life i could not help but wonder what set her apart from other farm girls in the nation who did not become reformers activists of suffragists. How to explain her belief in Higher Education for women and her commitment to the Antislavery Movement and womens rights. For one then she had good genes. Some of their for bierers were ground breaks, so. Such as a forefather who defended a women accused over witchcraft and a graph two fought in the american revolution. All the an lowe bow legislation isists subscribed to anded and rare gain soyuz antislavery newspapers. Lucy was the only Family Member who rebelled against womens inferior status and the laws that kept women especially married women in a state of submission. Women were not allowed to vote, hold public office, serve on juries sign contracts attend college, or pursue professional careers. When married they fell under the legal control of their husbands and were expected to remain at home. But lucy became especially sensitive and affected by mens oppression of women. She saw how her father treated her mother, how stingy he was even though hannah worked as hard as he did and how abusive he was when me drink too moisture side. Lucy attended a Church Meeting to decide whether to expel a member who was deeply involved in the abolition movement. When lucy raiser head hand to vote on this very matter, and defend the man the minister told the vote counter to ignore her, for even though she was a church member, she could not vote because she was a woman. Lucy observed a neighbor woman mashed to a domineering alcoholic, adulterrest woman and she didnt understand why the woman couldnt when the womans father tried to rescue his daughter remember lucy objected to passages in the bible that insisted on womens silence and she decided to learn greek to understand the language certain that bible passages had been mistranslated. In 1837, new england ministers were aghast when two South Carolina sisters angelina and sarah, lectured on antislavery to men and women. Ministers wrote a formal protest which lucy heard read in church and she was incensed by their effort to try to silence these two women. She vowed at that point to dedicate her life to ensuring womens right to speak in public. While a senior at college and over the objections of her parents and sister, lucy decided to become a public lecturer for the Antislavery Movement, an unthinkable occupation for a woman at at that at that time. Today its impossible to imagine hour daring and challenging that career was for a young woman. Lucy had no money no name recognition, beyond her home, but in the spring of 1848 the Massachusetts Antislavery Society hired her as a speaker and she gave her first talk on womens rights, actually several weeks before the first Womens Rights Convention met at seneca falls, new york. Lucy moved to boston and lived with a family, barely making enough to live on. Within a few months, she add womens rights to her talks for she told fellow abolitionists im a woman and of course theyre my cause too. Early on, lucy shared the stage with many wellknown men. Ralph Waldo Emerson the reverend parker pillsbury. Frederick douglass. Soon show was lecturing on her own and attracting large crowd. By the early 1850s lucys tone had become a spell binding orator and one of the most famous women in the nation. She attracted audiences by the hundreds and in a few case even by the thousands. And there was an admiring press. Journalist were amazed that lucys magic in influencing a crowd. Up like the rantings of abby foster and the shrill grating voice of susan b. Anthony loses where voice and manner were mesmerizing. From these conditions one learns that lucys musical voice could silence mobs and protesters who came to mock and drown out speakers. Her intensity of purpose and ability to move her listeners were profound. One example of her intense commitment to the Antislavery Movement was in the early 1850s she joined garrison and some of his followers by demanding the radical idea of disunion urging northern states to separate from Southern States, in other words to secede and thus create a nation free of slavery. And we always of course blame the south but she was saying it first. Mores effective moments were the stories she shared about evils of slavery and oppression of women. There was something compel whats she said. Initially she and others charge node entrance fees for they wanted to attract as many people as possible. But lucy and others realized that people were willing to pay to hear them, after all this was 19th century entertainment at its best. To try to get this into my students theres no internet or tv. She was still earning a substantial income and her financial worries ended. Whether those in the audience were supporters or opponents of her two radical causes everyone wanted to hear lucy stone. The press made her a household name. She had become a star. But public lecturing was a dangerous profession especially for a woman addressing two radical causes. We often forget how many people, even in the north opposed abolition and womens rights. Mobs gathered to protest. Men heck eled and hassled in 1838 protesters burned down brand new lecture hall philadelphias Pennsylvania Hall for free ducks to protest the biracial gathering of women. Men threw rotten vegetables and hymenales at lucy and into speakers and in one instance they doused heir we ice cold water by forcing a hose through a window behind the stage where she was speaking. A resolute lucy grand her shawl and kept on talking. Another time while on cape cod an angry missouri moved towards lucy and two male ore tore trying to force them off the stage, lucy declared that this man would protect her. He did just that. Leading her through the melee. He den placed already on a tree stump outside and stood there defending her while she finished her speech. Lecturing was also exhausting and challenging, 19th century travel conditions were often primitive, going by horse train, coach or even foot. Sometimes in blizzards and driving rain. For several years, lucy traveled across new england and the middle atlantic states, and undertook a major lecture tour across the midwest and even to the slave states of missouri and kentucky. She stayed overnight in hotels, dirty boarding houses or homes where she might sleep on filthy sheets separated only by a curtain from men who slept in the same room. But as lucy always maintained no great cause was won without great sacrifice. And her efforts even challenged female fashion. In the early 1850s lucy, elizabeth, katy stanton and other women adopted the bloomer costume, short dress and pant aloans which lucy wore with exitment thrilled at the comfort of dressing without corsets and skirts and petty coats. But public outcry was so enormous women gave it up. Realizing that people were paying more attention to what they were wearing rather than to the message they were trying to deliver. From this point forward lucy dressed simply in a black silk dress and white color and no corsets. Chev attracted people to her lectures and causes. Some came reluctantly simply to hear the famous lucy stone but then left as converts to her cause. Most all of her sketches were extemporaneous, major tragedy for historians since we depend on the written word. Fortunately describes and journalists were often at the conventions and lectures and at least took notes on her talks. She was also an expert at responding to retorts and holding her own when challenged by rude commentses from the floor. At one event a man shouted out by accusing her of being a disappointed woman. In this one of her most famous comments seized the moment to admit she was indeed a disappointed woman disappointed by a nation that prevented women from achieving equal rights, and disappointed bay nation that accepted slavery. In 1853 she gave a series of lectures in kentucky on womens rights a bold act in the Southern States that embraced womens inferior status. There she went over hundreds of people who won over hundreds of people who came to hear her. Her kentucky hosts were charmed best them this woman and her bold arguments. Dozens if not scores of people, joined the womens Rights Movement because of lucy, including susan a. Been thousand, julia howell, francis willard, and clara barton. But the mid1850s she was far getter known than were Elizabeth Katy stanton and susan b. Anthony, but lectures was only one batter of her life in addition to speaking, in 1850, she and seven other women decided to advance womens rights by holding a national convention, one larger and more inclusive than the regional meetings at seneca falls and new york and a couple towns in ohio. The First NationalWomens Rights Convention was held in worcester, massachusetts in october 18 50 and attracted hundreds of people from across the nation. From then until 1857, lucy played a central role in organizing these annual national Womens Rights Conventions selecting a location, finding speakers and entertainers, raising money and publicizing the meetings. The press and most americans identified lucy as head of this Young Movement which operated without a budget, an office, officers or a newspaper. But her life altered significantly in the mid1850s. Two major moments occurred at the height of lucys career and her earning power. Her marriage and two years later her becoming a mother. For years lucy had publicly and privately rejected the idea of marriage though a few young man courted her. She abhorred the laws that defined women as made them legally subservient to their husbands. Upon marriage, women lost their claim to their own property and wages. The inability to sign contracts or to act as independent beings. Sub servens was not something lucy had ever envisioned for herself, for she learned to act on her spoken had created a rich fulfilling life. But she also yearned for intimate si and the close of family she had known as a child. It was Henry Brown Blackwell who heard lucy speak at an antislavery convention, and determined he would marry her. Despite garrisons warning to blackwell that lucy would never marry, he ban his pursuit. He was seven years her junior and at that point a partner in a cincinnati Hardware Store but struggling to find a more meaningful career. And henry was used to strong women. An older sister, elizabeth blackwell, who was the first woman in the country of Everybody Knows this to graduate from medical school and become a doctor. Younger sister emily did the same a few years later. For two years henry courted lucy with astonishing relentlessless mostly through correspondence. His letters were pages long, written in his beautiful tiny hand writing often cross hashed when you write across the page and then up and down and offer as a researcher you i know theres nothing in this letter i want to read excant read it. He shared this belief in a marriage of equals, promising lucy she could continue her career denouncing laws that oppressed married women, celebrating haas heroines and discussing literature. Reading these letters and aread them all is a fascinating experience, to the at times i want tote shout out gate life, henry. Henry, whose career path hads been rather aimless was drawn to lucys devotion to unpopular causes her strength in finding facing opponents he independence, her resoluteness and her fame. Henry, a people pleaser, homes lucy would become a beacon for him to lead a more inspired life. Eventually lucy gave in, though not without experiencing a great deal of stress, for she was abandoning one of her basic principles but henry kept his word insist that lucy create a legal contract to keep her own