Elizabeth Cady Stanton (seated) and Susan B. Anthony (standing). Photograph taken between 1880 and 1902. Library of Congress LC-USZ61-791

Women's rights leaders Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony also attempted to use journalism to further their cause. The two New Yorkers went out to Kansas in 1867 for the nation's first state referendum on women's right to vote, and although they lost the election badly, they met George Francis Train, who offered to finance a newspaper. Based in New York City and daringly titled The Revolution, it featured articles that called for easier divorce, suppression of prostitution, and other controversial topics. Train also advocated for a range of non-feminist issues, including vegetarianism. All three editorialized for “educated suffrage” – code words decrying the fact that male ex-slaves and illiterate immigrant men were allowed to vote, while educated women could not.

 

 

First edition of Stanton and Anthony’s women’s rights periodical, The Revolution. The subtitle reads “Principle, not policy; justice, not favors” Library of Congress

 

Lucy Stone, founder and editor of the Woman’s Journal, with her daughter Alice Stone Blackwell. With husband/father Henry Blackwell, the Stone/Blackwell family ran the monthly periodical from 1870 to 1917. Library of Congress LC-USZ62-135241

Not all suffragists agreed with the mish-mash of radical ideologies championed in The Revolution. Lucy Stone, who had pioneered feminist ideas prior to Stanton and Anthony, created a more mainstream suffragist agenda in her periodical, Woman's Journal , which featured writers such as Harriet Beecher Stowe , Louisa May Alcott, and Julia Ward Howe. The Revolution soon went bankrupt, leaving huge debts that Train refused to pay, but the Journal enjoyed long term success. With Lucy Stone's husband, Henry Blackwell, and their daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell , serving as its longtime editors, Woman's Journal ran monthly from 1870 to 1917. The magazine offered space to many aspiring female journalists and acknowledged the new successes of women in that field .

 

Alice Stone Blackwell Library of Congress