Born and raised in upstate New York, she was educated mostly by her father, a professor of Greek at the University of Rochester.

After marrying Rossiter Johnson, a newspaper editor, she began writing children's stories and travel articles. She later published collections of quotations, essays, and in 1908, Mythology and Folk-Lore of the North American Indian.

She and her husband both were active in the anti-suffrage movement. Rossiter Johnson was author of the pamphlet, "Why Women Do Not Want the Ballot," and Helen Kendrick Johnson, in 1897, wrote what is often considered the best summary of the arguments against woman suffrage: Woman and the Republic (see below: this book has been reformatted and included on this site).

In Woman and the Republic Helen Johnson responds to the common arguments for woman suffrage. She uses statistics and anecdotes to demonstrate that women don't need the vote in order to establish more legal, economic and other equality. She also argues that women's role in her separate, domestic sphere, is essential for maintenance of the American republic.

She is especially critical of the then-current publication by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others, The Woman's Bible. She links most of the pro-suffrage campaign to radical equality claims and to "socialism."

The Johnsons lived in Rochester, New York, when they married. Later, his work took them to Concord, New Hampshire and finally to New York City.

Helen Kendrick Johnson was a founder of the anti-suffrage Guidon Club (1910) and was a volunteer at the Henry Street Settlement House in New York City. She continued to contribute articles to newspapers and magazines and other publications.

Helen Kendrick Johnson on the Web

• Upstate New York: Women's Rights Movement
  Near the bottom of this page, a few mentions of Helen Kendrick Johnson and her work.

Helen Kendrick Johnson on this site

• Woman and the Republic
  Helen Kendrick Johnson's anti-suffrage book, summarizing not only most of the arguments for and against suffrage, but including many details of legal battles, state-by-state attempts to establish woman suffrage, women's employment statistics, etc.

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Text copyright 1999-2006 © Jone Johnson Lewis.