Kate Waller Barrett

Born this day in 1857: Kate Waller Barrett (1857–1925), physician, social reformer, and suffragist

Barrett was born Kate Harwood Waller in Falmouth, Virginia. In 1876 she married Robert South Barrett, an Episcopal minister. Barrett’s interest in the plight of so-called “fallen women” was aroused when an unmarried woman and her baby came to the rectory for help, and Barrett was surprised to discover that this supposedly disgraced woman was little different from herself. Barrett and her husband soon began ministering to local prostitutes. To aid their efforts, Barrett earned an M.D. from Women’s Medical College of Georgia (1892).

Barrett devoted herself to championing the cause of poor unwed mothers, who often lacked access to medical care and were considered social outcasts. She eventually became president of the Florence Crittenton Mission. The mission provided health care, education, and job training to unwed mothers, needy immigrant women, prostitutes, and women who had contracted venereal diseases. In time, more than 50 local missions were established across the nation. Because of her efforts, the plight of unwed mothers became an acceptable subject of philanthropy. In 1898 the National Florence Crittenton Mission became the first philanthropic institution chartered by Congress. It operates today as the Florence Crittenton National Foundation. 

Barrett was also vice-president of Virginia’s Equal Suffrage League from 1909 to 1920, a delegate to the National Democratic Convention of 1924, and sat on the Board of Visitors at William and Mary College.

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Caroline Severance

Born this day in 1820: Caroline Seymour Severance (1820–1914), social reformer, suffragist, women’s club pioneer

Caroline Severance was born Caroline Seymour in Canandaigua, New York. She was educated at various female seminaries and taught briefly at a boarding school for girls. In 1840 she married Theodoric Cordenio Severance. The couple moved to Cleveland and had five children.

The influence of her reform-minded husband and his family kick-started Severance on a career of reform work lasting  seven decades. Severance was at the center of many reforms, including abolitionism, women’s rights, temperance, dietary reform, and religious liberalism. Literary figures were also welcomed in the Severance home. Severance was active in women’s rights conventions and was president of the first convention of the Ohio Women’s Rights Association (1853).

She was deeply impressed by the traveling lecturers from New England, so when her husband was offered a job in Boston, the family jumped at the chance to relocate. Severance surrounded herself with the city’s leading literary figures and reformists. She became a lecturer on behalf of the mounting abolition movement and was a close friend of William Lloyd Garrison.

Severance was involved in a wide range of reform activities. In 1862 she joined the board of directors of the New England Hospital for Women  and Children. In 1867 she cofounded the American Equal Rights Association with Susan B. Anthony, and the following year she helped found the Free Religious Association. She also founded that year what one of the earliest women’s club in the nation, the New England Women’s Club. In 1869 she helped found the American Woman Suffrage Association.

In 1875 Severance and her husband moved to California, where she continued her tireless reform efforts. She organized women’s clubs and presided over the Los Angeles County Woman Suffrage League for several years, giving it a much-needed shot in the arm. She was a driving force in California’s kindergarten movement and the establishment of juvenile courts. She promoted Christian socialism, Progressivism, and anti-imperialism. She was also a pacifist. In 1911, after California passage state suffrage for women, Severance, at age 91, became the first woman in California to register to vote.

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Anna Elizabeth Dickinson

Anna Elizabeth Dickinson (1842–1932), social reformer and popular lecturer known for her fiery speeches on abolition and women’s rights

Dickinson was born into a family of abolitionists whose home provided a way station for the Underground Railroad. When she was two her father died of a heart attack while delivering an impassioned anti-slavery speech. Anna began her own career as a reformer when she was a young teenager. The abolitionist newspaper The Liberator published a letter by Dickinson when she was only fourteen years old. The publisher, William Lloyd Garrisoin, immediately saw her potential as a lecturer. Fellow abolitionist Lucretia Mott set up a series of lectures for her.

In 1860 Dickinson spoke before the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, and the following year she gave a talk in Philadelphia called “Women’s Rights and Wrongs.” At a time when women were discouraged from public speaking, along came a very young lady delivering philippics. Audiences were thrilled by the spectacle, and lecture invitations poured in. At the height of her career Dickinson was delivering a lecture every second day and earning an astonishing $20,000 a year.

She lectured on behalf of the Republican party, giving pro-Union talks to unsympathetic audiences (she was even shot at during one lecture). After the war she spoke in favor of harsh Reconstruction measures. Her lectures covered a variety of social issues, including the full emancipation of women, civil rights for African Americas, veneral disease, and polygamy. Her own personal favorite lecture was about Joan of Arc, and some embraced Dickinson as “America’s Joan of Arc.”

Dickinson could not sustain her popularity, however. Interest in the lyceum movement faded, and likewise Dickinson faded from the public eye.