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Lucy Stone was a women’s right advocate that worked unceasingly to improve the conditions of women in the 1800’s. While she is noted for many things, Lucy is probably best known for being the first woman to retain her own name after marriage.
Lucy Stone was born near West Brookfield, Massachusetts on August 13, 1818, the eighth of nine children. Her childhood was one of toil, living under her father's rule. Performing the usual laborious duties of a farmer’s daughter, she spent all the while thinking about and questioning the unequal lot of woman.
Lucy was a bright girl, but received little formal education during her childhood. Few women of her day went to college or were educated above simple reading, writing, and counting. The same was believed in her father's household. While her two brothers received financial aid from their father for schooling, her father would not provide her with the means for her education. He viewed her aspirations for further schooling ridiculous and unprecedented.
Having no support from her family, Lucy was determined to go to college. Her determination drove her. She picked berries in the hot summers, saving every penny earned. She also gathered chestnuts to pay for her school books. At sixteen, she was offered a job teaching school for one dollar a week. In time, her wages increased to sixteen dollars per month, which was unheard of for a woman. While her brother was sick, she took over teaching in his school. This was her one of her direct hits of inequality. Her brother's wages were thirty dollars per month, but the committee only paid her sixteen. While these things brought bitterness to her heart, she used them to spur her on to fight for the rights of women.
When she was twenty-five years old she had earned money enough to enter Oberlin College. Oberlin was the only college at the time that would admit women. She earned her way through school by tutoring and doing housework. Lucy had to live very frugally to afford her education. An example of her fuguality, she only had one new dress in four years time.
After graduating from Oberlin, Lucy became involved in several reform movements. She was a pronounced abolitionist; her life's work became seeking reform for both slaves and women. Lucy received much opposition and insults, but she persevered. She worked for woman suffrage in Colorado and in 1893 was able to see her work bear fruit in the state’s constitutional amendment giving woman the same rights as men in exercising the election franchise.
Many sought her hand in marriage, but she refused them all. Finally, Henry Blackwell, a fellow abolitionist, won her friendship and trust, and finally her hand in marriage. They were married in 1855 when Lucy was thirty-seven years old. They agreed before the marriage that Lucy would retain her maiden name and be known only as Lucy Stone.
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