Abigail Norton Bush (March 19, 1810 – December 10, 1898) was an

abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...

and

women's rights Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countries, ...

activist in

Rochester, New York Rochester () is a City (New York), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, the county seat, seat of Monroe County, New York, Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffalo, ...

. She served as president of the Rochester Women's Rights Convention, which was held in 1848 immediately after the first women's rights convention, the

Seneca Falls Convention The Seneca Falls Convention was the first women's rights convention. It advertised itself as "a convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman".Wellman, 2004, p. 189 Held in the Wesleyan Methodist Church ...

. By doing so, Bush became the first woman to preside over a public meeting composed of both men and women in the U.S.

Early life

Abigail Norton was born on March 19, 1810, attended the orthodox First Presbyterian Church in Rochester, New York, and helped her mother with charitable works. In 1831, she converted to become a "Brick Church perfectionist" in the wake of popular evangelical revival meetings featuring

Charles Grandison Finney Charles Grandison Finney (August 29, 1792 – August 16, 1875) was an American Presbyterian minister and leader in the Second Great Awakening in the United States. He has been called the "Father of Old Revivalism." Finney rejected much of trad ...

. After conversion, she attended the Second Presbyterian Church, known as the "Brick Church", and worked with the Rochester Female Charitable Society, an organization that provided care for the poor and ill.

Marriage and family

Abigail Norton married Henry Bush, the brother of Obadiah Bush (great-great grandfather of President George H.W. Bush) in 1833. Henry and his brother were stove manufacturers and radical abolitionists. Within five years, Abigail Bush's name stopped appearing in association with Brick Church activities.Hewitt, 2001, pp. 121–122. Over the next thirteen years, Bush went through childbirth six times, with four children living past infancy. In a split among abolitionists in 1840, Henry Bush chose to remain with the

American Anti-Slavery Society The American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS; 1833–1870) was an abolitionist society founded by William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur Tappan. Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, had become a prominent abolitionist and was a key leader of this society ...

, the faction which accepted women as active members. Abigail Bush grew more sympathetic to radical reform and

come-outer Come-outer is a phrase coined in the 1830s which denotes a person who withdraws from an established organization, or one who advocates political reform. History The term was first applied during the Second Great Awakening to a small group of Americ ...

ism, and withdrew in 1843 from the Brick Church to become active in the Western New York Anti-Slavery Society. Bush was at that time the most prominent ex-Evangelical woman in radical circles.

Rochester Women's Rights Convention, 1848

At the end of the

in July 1848, convention-goers from Rochester (Bush did not attend) were moved to hold a similar convention of their own. They convinced

Lucretia Mott Lucretia Mott (''née'' Coffin; January 3, 1793 – November 11, 1880) was an American Quaker, abolitionist, women's rights activist, and social reformer. She had formed the idea of reforming the position of women in society when she was amongs ...

to stay in New York long enough to be the featured speaker at their convention, as she had been at Seneca Falls. In Rochester, an Arrangements Committee was chosen to organize the convention, and a small nominating committee was formed within it for the purpose of choosing convention officers.

Amy Post Amy Kirby Post (December 20, 1802 – January 29, 1889) was an activist who was central to several important social causes of the 19th century, including the abolition of slavery and women's rights. Post's upbringing in Quakerism shaped her belie ...

, Rhoda DeGarmo and Sarah D. Fish met in the evening of August 1, 1848, to select a roster of officers composed wholly of females, with Abigail Bush to be president.Stanton, 1881, p. 75. On the morning of August 2, 1848, in the Rochester Unitarian Church, Amy Post called the Rochester Women's Rights Convention to order and read the suggested slate of officers. The proposal for a woman to be the president of the convention met with immediate opposition.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton Elizabeth Cady Stanton (November 12, 1815 – October 26, 1902) was an American writer and activist who was a leader of the women's rights movement in the U.S. during the mid- to late-19th century. She was the main force behind the 1848 Seneca ...

Mary Ann M'Clintock Mary Ann M'Clintock or ''Mary Ann McClintock'' (1800-1884) is best known for her role in the formation of the women's suffrage movement, as well as abolitionism. Life M'Clintock was born on February 20, 1800 in Burlington, New Jersey. She was mar ...

and Lucretia Mott were strongly against the idea of a woman president, not wanting a poor showing by women officers to give a bad public image to the new women's rights movement. They had been among the organizers of the Seneca Falls Convention, which had followed tradition by electing a man to preside. Stanton asked how could a woman, without knowledge of

parliamentary procedure Parliamentary procedure is the accepted rules, ethics, and customs governing meetings of an assembly or organization. Its object is to allow orderly deliberation upon questions of interest to the organization and thus to arrive at the sense or t ...

and without experience in holding public meetings, serve as president? Stanton, Mott and M'Clintock "were on the verge of leaving the Convention in disgust" when Post, Fish and DeGarmo convinced them that it could work. Bush was elected after a vote was taken among the audience, making her the first woman to preside over a public meeting composed of both men and women in the U.S. When Bush took her position as president, Mott and Stanton left their places of honor on the platform and took seats in the audience. After an opening prayer by a male

Free Will Baptist Free Will Baptists are a group of General Baptist denominations of Christianity that teach free grace, free salvation and free will. The movement can be traced back to the 1600s with the development of General Baptism in England. Its formal est ...

minister, one of the convention's three secretaries read the minutes of the previous Seneca Falls Convention. Cries of "louder, louder" were heard from audience members who could not discern the weakly sounded words of the secretary. Bush took the platform and said Bush presided over all three sessions of the one day of convention. At a late hour, Bush adjourned the meeting "with hearts overflowing with gratitude." Lucretia Mott approached Bush and hugged her warmly, thanking her for presiding. Stanton apologized for her own "foolish conduct" in doubting the ability of Bush to succeed. From that point forward, women were always chosen president of women's rights conventions in the United States.

Afterward

In late December 1848, Bush was a member of the business committee of the Western New York Anti-Slavery Society. Her contribution, and that of two other Rochester women, served to fulfill the Society's tenet of equal social participation of women. In 1849 or 1850, Henry Bush, stung by years of business losses, headed west to seek his fortune in the

California Gold Rush The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California fro ...

, and by the early 1850s, Abigail Bush joined him with their children.McMillen, 2008, p. 267. The family settled on a 600 acre ranch just south of the then border of Martinez, California in Contra Costa County, about 20 miles east of San Francisco. Her husband died in the late 1870s, at which time she sold the northern portion of the ranch to the Christian Brothers, who built a seminary and began their wine making business. In 1878, Bush sent a letter to the

National Woman Suffrage Association The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) was formed on May 15, 1869, to work for women's suffrage in the United States. Its main leaders were Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. It was created after the women's rights movement spl ...

(NWSA) convention in Rochester congratulating the women's movement on the 30th anniversary of the Seneca Falls and Rochester conventions: "Say to your convention my full heart is with them in all their deliberations and counsels, and I trust great good to women will come of their efforts." In 1898, NWSA celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Seneca Falls and Rochester conventions, and honored Bush's early courage and strength during a session entitled "Pioneer's Evening". Bush was then 88 years old and still living in California; she wrote to

Susan B. Anthony Susan B. Anthony (born Susan Anthony; February 15, 1820 – March 13, 1906) was an American social reformer and women's rights activist who played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage movement. Born into a Quaker family committed to s ...

regarding her role at the 1848 convention in Rochester to say "I had not been able to meet in council at all with the friends, on account of sickness in my family until I met them in the hall as the congregation were gathering & then fell into the hands of those who urged me to take part with the supporters of a woman serving as the president of the meeting. They had James Mott, a fine-looking man, to preside at Seneca Falls, but his head fell at the hands of my old friends Amy Post, Rhoda DeGarmo and Sarah Fish, who at once commenced laboring with me to prove the hour had come when a woman could preside and led me into the church. Amy proposed my name as president. It was accepted at once, and from that hour I seemed endowed as from on high to serve through two day's meetings and three sessions per day."University of Rochester. River Campus Libraries
''Upstate New York and the Women's Rights Movement: The Seneca Falls and Rochester Conventions''.
Retrieved on May 1, 2009 Bush died shortly after writing this letter, on December 10, 1898.

References

;Notes ;Sources * Hewitt, Nancy A
''Women's activism and social change''
Lexington Books, 2001. * Isenberg, Nancy
''Sex and citizenship in antebellum America''
University of North Carolina Press, 1998. * McMillen, Sally Gregory
''Seneca Falls and the origins of the women's rights movement.''
Oxford University Press, 2008. * Moses, Claire Goldberg; Hartmann, Heidi I
''U.S. women in struggle''
University of Illinois, 1995. * Stanton, Elizabeth Cady; Anthony, Susan B.; Gage, Matilda Joslyn
''History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I''
covering 1848–1861. Copyright 1881. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bush, Abigail 1810 births 1898 deaths Activists from Rochester, New York American abolitionists American feminists American suffragists American women's rights activists Bush family Feminism and history History of women's rights in the United States Women civil rights activists