Lucy Stone was born in West Brookfield, Massachusetts, and attended Oberlin College, from which she graduated in 1847. She lectured for the American Anti-Slavery Society and helped organize the First National Woman’s Right Convention in Worcester in 1850. Thereafter she attended a number of other women’s rights conventions and is thought to have persuaded Susan B. Anthony to become a crusader for women’s rights.
She married activist Henry Blackwell in 1855 and decided to keep her own name. After the Civil War, Stone worked for the passage of the 15th Amendment that granted the right to vote to former enslaved men. Her support caused a rift with other prominent advocates for women’s rights, who decried the fact that it did not provide for suffrage for women.
She helped found the American Woman Suffrage Association, which focused on gaining the vote state-by-state, while Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton established the National Woman Suffrage Association that pushed for a federal amendment. Stone also was instrumental in the publication of The Woman’s Journal, which she co-edited with her husband.
Their daughter Alice grew up in their home on Boutwell Street. She edited the Women’s Journal for thirty-five years after her graduation from Boston University in 1881. She served as president of the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association from 1910 until women received the vote in 1920. In addition to helping start the League of Women Voters, successor to the MWSA, Blackwell was active in many other causes including relief for Armenian refugees, the Women’s Trade Union League, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the American Peace Society. The house on Boutwell Street is no longer standing, but the Bostonian Society has placed a historical marker at the site in Lucy Stone’s memory.
