Category: Historical (born 1920 or before) / page 6

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper


Frances Ellen Watkins (Harper) was an abolitionist and poet born free in 1825 in Baltimore, Maryland. Harper's mother died before she was three years old, leaving her an orphan. Harper was raised by her uncle, William Watkins, a teacher at the Academy for Negro Youth and a radical political figure in civil rights. Watkins was a major influence on Harper's political, religious and social views. Harper attended the Academy for Negro Youth, and the rigorous education she received, along with the political activism of her uncle, affected and influenced her […]
Ida Husted Harper
Ida Husted Harper


Ida Husted Harper was an author, journalist and suffragist. Harper was born on February 18, 1851, in Fairfield, Indiana. She attended Indiana University for one year, but left to become a teacher and high school principal. She married in 1871 and soon after began her career as a journalist, writing articles for Terre Haute and Indianapolis newspapers under the pseudonym of "Mrs. John Smith." She did not begin using her own name on her work until 1881. For twelve years, she wrote a column for the Terre Haute Saturday Evening […]
Isabella Beecher Hooker
Isabella Beecher Hooker


Isabella Beecher Hooker, woman's rights advocate and suffragist, is best known for her suffrage work in Connecticut and New England. Introduced to suffrage by Caroline Severance, Hooker helped found the New England Woman Suffrage Association and formed the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association, serving as president from 1869 to 1905. She joined the National Woman Suffrage Association, spoke at their conventions, and lobbied and testified before Congress. One of 13 children of the famous Beecher family, her brother was celebrated preacher Henry Ward Beecher, and Catharine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe […]
Julia Ward Howe
Julia Ward Howe


Julia Ward Howe was a poet and activist who supported abolition and women's suffrage. She wrote the Civil War anthem “Battle Hymn of the Republic" and co-founded the American Woman Suffrage Association. Howe was born on May 27, 1819. From a wealthy family, she was educated by private tutors and at schools for young ladies until age sixteen. In 1843, she married Samuel Gridley Howe, a physician and reformer. She had published essays before the marriage and continued to publish poems and plays after the marriage, some anonymously and without […]
Addie Waites Hunton
Addie Waites Hunton


Addie Waites Hunton was an African American suffragist, civil rights leader and women’s rights activist. Born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1875, Hunton was raised by a maternal aunt in Boston after the death of her mother and went on to attend college in Philadelphia. Starting her career as a teacher in Alabama, Hunton married William Alphaeus Hunton, secretary of a YMCA branch, in 1893 and attended the founding convention of the National Association of Colored Women in 1895. In 1906, the Huntons moved their family to Brooklyn, New York, where […]
Hester Jeffrey
Hester Jeffrey


Hester Jeffrey was a prominent African American suffragist, activist and community leader. Jeffrey was born in 1842 in Norfolk City, Virginia, to Robert and Martha Whitehurst Smith, both free African Americans. Her parents sent her and her siblings to live in Boston with her uncle, whose home acted as a stop on the Underground Railroad. From an early age, Jeffrey was introduced to some of the leading minds in abolition, like William Lloyd Garrison. At the age of 23, she married Roswell Jerome Jeffrey. The couple had four children, though […]
Claudia "Lady Bird" Johnson
Claudia "Lady Bird" Johnson


Claudia "Lady Bird" Taylor Johnson was second lady of the United States from 1961-1963 and first lady from 1963-1969, the wife of the 36th president of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson was born December 22, 1912, in Karnack, Texas. She was known as Lady Bird from her childhood, when her nursemaid nicknamed her. Johnson graduated with bachelor's degrees in history in 1933 and journalism in 1934, both from the University of Texas at Austin. On November 17, 1934, she married Lyndon Baines "LBJ" Johnson. Lyndon Johnson was first […]
Edna Buckman Kearns
Edna Buckman Kearns


Edna Buckman Kearns was a militant suffragist, peace activist and member of Alice Paul’s National Women’s Party. Born on Christmas Day, 1882, Kearns was the daughter of an established Quaker family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She attended the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art where she studied art and, in 1903, met her future husband, Wilmer Rhamstine Kearns. After they married in 1904, they moved to New York City where Kearns became a mainstay in the suffrage movement. Inspired by her Quaker faith, Kearns became involved in women’s rights broadly […]
Florence Kelley
Florence Kelley


Florence Kelley was an American social and political reformer who fought for government regulation to protect working women and children. She was the first female factory inspector in the United States. Kelley was born on September 12, 1859. Her father was William D. Kelley, an abolitionist, founder of the Republican Party, judge and longtime U.S. Congressman. Her family were Philadelphia Quakers deeply committed to the abolition of slavery, universal suffrage and the education and literacy of women. She graduated from Cornell University in 1882 and studied law and government at […]
Catherine Kenny
Catherine Talty Kenny


Catherine Talty Kenny was a Tennessee suffragist and political organizer. Born in 1874 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Kenny grew up poor with five siblings and a widowed mother who worked as a seamstress to support the family. Bouncing from one tenement apartment to another, Kenny was eventually sent to a Catholic high school, but only attended one semester. She worked odd jobs for the next ten years to support herself and her family. In 1899, she married John M. Kenny, an ambitious coffee salesman turned Coca-Cola franchise owner. The couple had […]