Education

Women's Suffrage Biographies

Biographies of Key Women Who Worked for Woman Suffrage

Isabella Beecher Hooker

Among her many contributions to the woman suffrage movement, Isabella Beecher Hooker's support made Olympia Brown's speaking tours possible. She was a half-sister of author Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Allied with Lucy Stone after the Civil War in the American Woman Suffrage Association, Julia Ward Howe is remembered more for her abolitionism, writing the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and her peace activism than her suffrage work.

Helen Kendrick Johnson

She, with her husband, worked against woman suffrage as part of the anti-suffrage movement, known as "anti's." Her Woman and the Republic is a well-reasoned, intellectual anti-suffrage argument.

Alice Duer Miller

A teacher and writer, Alice Duer Miller's contribution to the suffrage movement included the popular satirical poems that she published in the New York Tribune making fun of anti-suffrage arguments. The collection was published as Are Women People?

Lucretia Mott

A Hicksite Quaker, Lucretia Mott worked for abolition of slavery and for women's rights. With Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she helped found the suffrage movement by helping to bring together the 1848 women's rights convention in Seneca Falls.

Christabel Pankhust

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With her mother Emmeline Pankhurst, Christabel Pankhurst was a founder and member of the more radical wing of the British women's suffrage movement. After the vote was won, Christabel went on to become a Seventh Day Adventist preacher.

Emmeline Pankhurst

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Emmeline Pankhurst is known as a militant woman suffrage organizer in England in the early 20th century. Her daughters Christabel and Sylvia were also active in the British suffrage movement.

Alice Paul

Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

A more radical "suffragette" in the later stages of the suffrage movement, Alice Paul was influenced by British suffrage techniques. She headed the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage and the National Woman's Party.

Jeannette Rankin

First American woman elected to Congress, Jeannette Rankin was also a pacifist, reformer and suffragist. She is also famous for being the only member of the House of Representatives to vote against U.S. entry into both World War I and World War II.