Lucy Stone

Lucy Stone was a leading orator, abolitionist, and suffragist in the US. She was the first woman in the U.S. to keep her maiden name after marriage.

A graduate of Oberlin college, she was known for rejecting gender norms. When the university asked her to write a commencement speech, she refused. Women were not allowed to speak in public and a man would read her speech.

After graduation, renowned abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison hired her as a public speaker for his American Anti-Slavery Society. During that time, she spoke on the issues of abolition and women's rights, even though she faced verbal abuse and physical attack.

In 1858, she reminded Americans "no taxation without representation." She refused to pay her property tax bill because she was not fairly represented. "...women suffer taxation, and yet have no representation, which is not only unjust to one half of the adult population, but is contrary to our theory of government." She was punished with the impoundment and sale of her household goods.

After the Civil War, Lucy, along with Fredrick Douglass and others, supported the Fifteenth Amendment. This caused friction with other suffragists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony who wanted women's right to vote before African Americans'.

Together, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucy Stone have been called the 19th-century "triumvirate" of women's suffrage and feminism.