Lucy StOne And The Awsa's Affect On American Women's Rights

Lucy StOne And The Awsa's Affect On American Women's Rights

On August 13, 1818, Lucy Stone was born.   The daughter of a meek, docile mother and an oppressive, alcoholic father, few would have expected that she would become so important in the suffrage scene.   Stone became the first Massachusetts woman to get a college degree, the first woman to keep her own surname after marriage, and the first New England person to be cremated.   She converted great women such as Julia Ward Howe, Frances E. Willard and even Susan B Anthony to suffrage.   She started the American Women's Suffrage Association upon the split of the American Equal Rights Association and edited the Association's popular and influential "The Woman's Journal."   Without her work in the women suffrage circles and the AWSA's influence in the nation, American women might not hold the place in society they do today.
Lucy's father, Gregory Stone, was a wealthy, prominent farmer and tanner in Massachusetts.   He held strong to the belief that men were divinely ordained to rule over women.   Lucy's mother Francis, quiet and reserved,   accepted this, but Lucy had some trouble with it.   When she found that the Bible seemed to agree with her father, she "wanted to die," until she began to suspect that the translations of the Bible from Greek and Hebrew might not be entirely true. This inspired in her a desire to study Greek and Hebrew to find out whether the Bible was correct. Lucy Stone wanted to go to school.
Even though her brothers were sent to college, her father was shocked at her idea and refused to pay her tuition.   She knew she would have to educate herself, so she began to teach school to earn money.   During this time, her anger toward women's status of the day increased, especially when she learned that, because of her gender, she had no vote in the church she attended.   She eventually became Unitarian.   After nine years of work, she eventually had enough money to go to collge.   She went and worked while there to ensure she had enough money, but during her third...