Mary
Livermore (born Mary Ashton Rice) was a journalist, abolitionist
and a leader in the suffrage movement, seeking rights for women,
particularly the right to vote and hold political office. Her
husband, a Universalist minister and social change activist himself,
encouraged his wife to pursue her passions as a journalist, activist
and lecturer on women's suffrage and other social issues. During
the Civil War she volunteered for the United States Sanitary Commission,
a relief agency supporting wounded soldiers, and organized many
aid societies across the country to help. After the war she devoted
her energy to the suffrage movement and organized the Chicago
Woman Suffrage Convention in 1868 and started the feminist journal,
The Agitator. In 1870, The Agitator merged into
the Woman's Journal, which she co-edited until 1872. Mary
Livermore was one of the founding members of the American Woman
Suffrage Association, and she served as its president from 1875
until 1878. For nearly twenty five years, until she retired in
1895, Mary Livermore lectured all across the country speaking
on women's rights and other reform topics.
