Marriage and Family Life
Lucy Stone married Henry Blackwell in 1855. Their daughter Alice was born on September 14, 1857 in East Orange New Jersey. At there ceremony the minister informed the atendees that Lucy would keep her own name. Lucy believed that marriage laws refused to recognize women as independents and gave the man unnecessary amounts of control and superiority over them. The statement from the National Parks Service said "... investing him with legal powers which no honorable man would exercise, and which no man should posess". Women followed in her steps, they were called "Lucy Stoners".
Henry Blackwell was also a suffragist and abolitionist who believed in marriage equality. They were the first to change the ideas of marriage and approach it as to not bind all of Lucys rights to Henry. These two worked together to support equal rights for women and with that founded the American Woman Suffrage Association in 1869.
She received a letter from Elizabeth Cady Stanton after her marriage, there was a line written by Stanton stating that "nothing has been done in the Woman's Rights movement for some time that so rejoiced my heart as the announcement by you of a woman's right to her name". There are also letters that Lucy wrote to friends urging them not to settle. In August 1849 she wrote to friends. Lucy Stone wrote to Antoinette Brown stating "I don't like the idea of your "settling" - I am afraid you will settle into just what other minister do... I am afriad you will settle into something less than you ought to be". This shows her passion for spreading the ideals of women not settling just for safety but to push for more, like she did at her wedding. Lucy Stone's work was ignored by those who wrote the history of the suffrage movement, but she played a huge role in pushing for equal rights.
1 Colker, Madeline. n.d. “Alice Stone Blackwell (U.S. National Park Service).” Www.nps.gov. https://www.nps.gov/people/alice-stone-blackwell.htm.
2 National Park Service. 2016. “Lucy Stone - Women’s Rights National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service).” Nps.gov. 2016. https://www.nps.gov/wori/learn/historyculture/lucy-stone.htm.
3Tucker, Neely. 2020. “Stone/Blackwell Marriage: To Love and Honor, but Not ‘Obey’ | Library of Congress Blog.” Blogs.loc.gov. May 5, 2020. https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2020/05/stone-blackwell-marriage-to-love-and-honor-but-not-obey/.
4 Document 1: Lucy Stone to Antoinette Brown, August 1849, Document 1: Lucy Stone to Antoinette Brown, August 1849, in Friends & Sisters: Letters between Lucy Stone and Antoinette Brown Blackwell, ed. Carol Lasser and Marlene Deahl Merrill (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987), pp. 55-56. Included in Having It All: Lucy Stone, Motherhood, and the Woman's Rights Movement, 1851-1893, Documents selected and interpreted by Bonnie Laughlin-Schultz. (Alexandria, VA: Alexander Street, 2021).
This is an image of Lucy Stone and the Blackwell family. The Blackwell family were also involved in the women's rights and women's suffrage movements. Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell was the first women to earn a medical degree in the U.S. Dr. Emily Blackwell was another pioneer in the medical field. Antionette Louisa Brown Blackwell was the first woman ordained as a minister in a Congregational Church. Henry worked alongside Lucy to advance the women's movement. They founded the American Woman Suffrage Association in 1869 which focused on voting rights for women and African American men. They founded the Woman's Journal a year later and continued their push for women's rights.
1“ By the People the Blackwells: An Extraordinary Family.” n.d. Crowd.loc.gov. https://crowd.loc.gov/campaigns/blackwells-extraordinary-family/.
2 yongli. 2020. “Henry Browne Blackwell.” Coloradoencyclopedia.org. September 14, 2020. https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/henry-browne-blackwell.
by Madison Cramer
