Mary Livermore (born Mary Ashton Rice; December 19, 1820May 23, 1905) was an American

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

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 advocate of

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 countri ...

. Her printed volumes included: ''Thirty Years Too Late,'' first published in 1847 as a prize temperance tale, and republished in 1878; ''Pen Pictures; or, Sketches from Domestic Life''; ''What Shall We Do with Our Daughters? Superfluous Women, and Other Lectures''; and ''My Story of the War. A Woman's Narrative of Four Years' Personal Experience as Nurse in the Union Army, and in Relief Work at Home, in Hospitals, Camps and at the Front during the War of the Rebellion''. For ''Women of the Day'', she wrote the sketch of the sculptress, Miss

Anne Whitney Anne Whitney (September 2, 1821 – January 23, 1915) was an American sculptor and poet. She made full-length and bust sculptures of prominent political and historical figures, and her works are in major museums in the United States. She received ...

; and for the ''Centennial Celebration of the First Settlement of the Northwestern States, at Marietta, Ohio, July 15, 1788'', she delivered the historical address. When the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...

broke out, she became connected with the

United States Sanitary Commission The United States Sanitary Commission (USSC) was a private relief agency created by federal legislation on June 18, 1861, to support sick and wounded soldiers of the United States Army (Federal / Northern / Union Army) during the American Civil ...

, headquarters at

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

, performing a vast amount of labor of all kinds—organizing auxiliary societies, visiting hospitals and military posts, contributing to the press, answering correspondence, and other things incident to the work done by that institution. She was one of those that helped organize the great fair in 1863, at Chicago, when nearly US$100,000 was raised, and for which she obtained the original draft of the

Emancipation Proclamation The Emancipation Proclamation, officially Proclamation 95, was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War, Civil War. The Proclamation c ...

from

President Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...

, which was sold for $3,000, and funded the building of the Soldiers' Home. When the war was over, she instituted a pro-women's suffrage paper called the ''Agitator'', which was afterwards merged in the ''

Woman's Journal ''Woman's Journal'' was an American women's rights periodical published from 1870 to 1931. It was founded in 1870 in Boston, Massachusetts, by Lucy Stone and her husband Henry Browne Blackwell as a weekly newspaper. In 1917 it was purchased by ...

''. Of this, she was editor for two years and a frequent contributor thereafter. On the lecture platform, she had a remarkable career, speaking mostly in behalf of

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...

and the temperance movements. Many years, she traveled annually, speaking five nights each week for five months of the year.

Early years and education

Mary Ashton Rice was born in Boston, Massachusetts on December 19, 1820, to Timothy Rice and Zebiah Vose (Ashton) Rice.Edmund Rice (1638) Association, 2010. Descendants of Edmund Rice: The First Nine Generations. (CD-ROM) She was a direct descendant of

Edmund Rice Edmund is a masculine given name or surname in the English language. The name is derived from the Old English elements ''ēad'', meaning "prosperity" or "riches", and ''mund'', meaning "protector". Persons named Edmund include: People Kings an ...

, an early

Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. ...

immigrant to

Massachusetts Bay Colony The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around the Massachusetts Bay, the northernmost of the several colonies later reorganized as th ...

. Livermore came from a military family: her father fought in the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. It be ...

and her mother was a descendant of Captain Nathaniel Ashton of London. Livermore was incredibly intelligent, graduating from Boston public schools at age 14. Because there were no public high school or college options for women of that time, she attended

school A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes co ...

at an all-

female seminary A female seminary is a private educational institution for women, popular especially in the United States in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when opportunities in educational institutions for women were scarce. The movement was a sign ...

Charlestown, Massachusetts Charlestown is the oldest neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. Originally called Mishawum by the Massachusett tribe, it is located on a peninsula north of the Charles River, across from downtown Boston, and also adjoins ...

, graduating in 1838. As her family was extremely religious, she read the entire

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus ...

every year until the age of 23.

Career

After graduating from the seminary in 1836, she stayed there as a teacher for two years. In 1839, she started a job as a tutor on a Virginia plantation, and after witnessing the cruel institution of

slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

, she became an abolitionist. She also began work with the

temperance movement The temperance movement is a social movement promoting temperance or complete abstinence from consumption of alcoholic beverages. Participants in the movement typically criticize alcohol intoxication or promote teetotalism, and its leaders emph ...

at this time, identified with the Washington Temperance Reform and an editor for a juvenile temperance paper. In 1842, she left the plantation to take charge of a private school in

Duxbury, Massachusetts Duxbury (alternative older spelling: "Duxborough") is a historic seaside town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. A suburb located on the South Shore approximately to the southeast of Boston, the population was 16,090 at the 20 ...

, where she worked for three years. She also taught at

. She married Daniel P. Livermore, a Universalist minister in May 1845, and in 1857, they moved to

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

. In that year, her husband established the ''New Covenant'', a Universalist journal of which she became associate editor for twelve years, during which time she frequently contributed to periodicals of her denomination and edited the ''Lily''. As a member of the

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

party, Livermore campaigned for

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation throu ...

in the 1860 presidential election. In the Chicago Wigwam in 1860, Livermore was the only woman reporter assigned a location for work amidst over hundreds of male reporters. She published a collection of nineteen essays entitled ''Pen Pictures'' in 1863.

American Civil War

During the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government polici ...

, she volunteered as an associate member of the

at 40 years old. As agent of its Chicago branch, later named the Northwestern branch, she attended a council of the National Sanitary Commission at

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

in December 1862, organized many aid societies, visited army posts and hospitals, and in 1863, organized the North-western

Sanitary Fair Sanitary fairs were fund-raising events held in various cities on behalf of the United States Sanitary Commission to raise funds and supplies for the Union Army during the American Civil War. Established in 1863, the last major event was held in ...

in Chicago which raised $86,000. President Lincoln donated his own copy of the

, which was auctioned off at $10,000. Livermore eventually became the co-director of the Chicago branch with Jane Hoge, another soldier's aid advocate. The two women completed a hospital inspection tour across Illinois, Kentucky, and Missouri. With a thorough understanding of the needs of the hospitals, Hoge and Livermore sent $1 million worth of food and supplies to hospitals and battlefields most in need. Livermore, like many other nurses, came up against the issue of women disguised as male soldiers. On a visit to the camp of the 19th Illinois Infantry, a captain pointed out a soldier to Livermore, asking if she noticed anything odd about them. Livermore confirmed the captain's suspicions that the soldier was indeed a woman. The captain called the soldier for questioning, and though she pleaded to stay in service near her beloved, Livermore escorted her out of camp. The soldier escaped Livermore, however, and fled. In addition to her nursing services, Livermore was also a prolific writer. She authored numerous books of poetry, essays, and stories, and was a recognized member of the literary guild. Though Livermore had to sacrifice much of her social justice work for nursing, she still managed to publish some kind of content once a week throughout the entirety of the war. She summarized her experience in her 1887 book, ''My Story of the War. A Woman's Narrative of Four Years' Personal Experience as Nurse in the Union Army, and in Relief Work at Home, in Hospitals, Camps and at the Front during the War of the Rebellion.''

Suffrage and temperance activities

After the war, Livermore devoted herself to the promotion of

(along with

Lucy Stone Lucy Stone (August 13, 1818 – October 18, 1893) was an American orator, abolitionist and suffragist who was a vocal advocate for and organizer promoting rights for women. In 1847, Stone became the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a colle ...

and

Julia Ward Howe Julia Ward Howe (; May 27, 1819 – October 17, 1910) was an American author and poet, known for writing the " Battle Hymn of the Republic" and the original 1870 pacifist Mother's Day Proclamation. She was also an advocate for abolitionism ...

) and the

. In 1868, she co-founded the Chicago Sorosis Club with

Myra Bradwell Myra Colby Bradwell (February 12, 1831 – February 14, 1894) was an American publisher and political activist. She attempted in 1869 to become the first woman to be admitted to the Illinois bar to practice law, but was denied admission by the ...

and Kate Doggett. This was the first women's group in Chicago to advocate for woman suffrage. That same year, the group organized the first woman suffrage convention in Chicago. In 1869, the year that women suffragists in the Equal Rights Association spilt over the issue of voting rights for African American men, Livermore sided with Lucy Stone and those founding the

American Woman Suffrage Association The American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) was a single-issue national organization formed in 1869 to work for women's suffrage in the United States. The AWSA lobbied state governments to enact laws granting or expanding women's right to vote ...

. That same year, she founded and edited a suffragist journal called ''The Agitator'', which was "devoted to the interests of women." She published 37 issues of the journal that year. In 1870, the Livermores moved to

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, and Mary began to be active in suffrage activities there. ''The Agitator'' was merged into the ''

'', the well-known suffrage journal founded by

, and Livermore became associate editor. She served in that role for two years. Joining with Stone, Henry Blackwell and

, Livermore helped found the Massachusetts Women's Suffrage Association. She became president of the

. She was also the first president of the

Association for the Advancement of Women Association for the Advancement of Women (A.A.W.) was an American women's organization founded in 1873. The organization was the outcome of a call issued by Sorosis in May 1868, for a Congress of Women to be held in New York City that autumn, and t ...

Spiritualism

Livermore was interested in

spiritualism Spiritualism is the metaphysical school of thought opposing physicalism and also is the category of all spiritual beliefs/views (in monism and dualism) from ancient to modern. In the long nineteenth century, Spiritualism (when not lowercase ...

, which grew in popularity after the Civil War, especially among Unitarians. After her husband died in 1899, she believed she was able to continue to communicate with him through a medium.

Death and legacy

Livermore died in

Melrose Melrose may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Melrose, Scottish Borders, a town in the Scottish Borders, Scotland ** Melrose Abbey, ruined monastery ** Melrose RFC, rugby club Australia * Melrose, Queensland, a locality in the South Burnett R ...

, Massachusetts on May 23, 1905. The Mary A. Livermore School in Melrose, operational from 1891 to 1933, was an elementary school named for Livermore. In 1943, nearly four decades after her death, she became the namesake of a World War II

Liberty ship Liberty ships were a class of cargo ship built in the United States during World War II under the Emergency Shipbuilding Program. Though British in concept, the design was adopted by the United States for its simple, low-cost construction. Ma ...

, the SS ''Mary A. Livermore''.

Selected works

* ''The Children's Army'' (1844), temperance stories. * "The Twin Sisters: or, The History of Two Families," collected i
''The Two Families; and The Duty that Lies Nearest. Prize Stories''
(1848), a temperance story. * ''A Mental Transformation'' (1848). * ''Nineteen Pen Pictures'' (1863), short stories. * ''What Shall We Do With Our Daughters? and Other Lectures'' * ''

A Woman of the Century A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes' ...

'' (1893) (ed. Willard, Frances E. & Livermore, Mary A.) – online available in

Wikisource Wikisource is an online digital library of free-content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole and the name for each instance of that project (each instance usually re ...

. * ''My Story of the War: The Civil War Memories of the Famous Nurse, Relief Organizer and Suffragette'' (1887/1995) with Introduction by Nina Silber. New York: Da Capo Press . *
The story of my life; or, The sunshine and shadow of seventy years
' (1897). * Cooperative Womanhood in the State (1891). ''

North American Review The ''North American Review'' (NAR) was the first literary magazine in the United States. It was founded in Boston in 1815 by journalist Nathan Hale and others. It was published continuously until 1940, after which it was inactive until revived at ...

'' 153:4, pp. 283–295.

References

Bibliography

External links

* * *
Article
at PBS

at the Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography *

at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The libra ...

has volumes from the library of Mary A. Livermore.
A Spartacus Educational Biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Livermore, Mary 1820 births 1905 deaths American suffragists People of Illinois in the American Civil War People of Massachusetts in the American Civil War Writers from Chicago United States Sanitary Commission people Members of the Universalist Church of America 19th-century Christian universalists 20th-century Christian universalists American Civil War medicine Illinois Republicans American temperance activists 19th-century American writers 19th-century American women writers People from Boston People from Melrose, Massachusetts American Civil War nurses American women nurses Wikipedia articles incorporating text from A Woman of the Century