Lucy Stone Character Analysis

– An abolitionist and campaigner for women’s rights. Stone was born in western Massachusetts and attended Oberlin College where she was forbidden from studying public speaking, so she practiced by herself in the woods. Stone, like other feminists had the reputation of being a “big, masculine woman” who wore boots, smoked a cigar, and swore like a sailor, but she was quite dainty in-person. Despite her initial objections to marriage, she married the reformer and suffragist, Henry Blackwell. Though she mentions most notable nineteenth-century American feminists, Friedan focuses on Stone as an example of a self-reliant woman who discovered her own desire for equal rights through her effort to free slaves. Stone was vilified in media, but she became an inspiration to other women who later joined the movement for suffrage.