Antoinette Brown Blackwell

By Annabelle Sebastian

Image from Scannell’s New Jersey’s First Citizens, 1917-1918: Biographies and Portraits of the Notable Living Men and Women of New Jersey with Informing Glimpses into the State’s History and Affairs. Vol. 1. Paterson, NJ: J.J. Scannell, 1917, page 49.

Antoinette Brown Blackwell (1825-1921) founded the New Jersey Woman’s Suffrage Association in 1869 with her sister-in-law, Lucy Stone, and was the first woman to be ordained as minister in the United States.

In 1847, after having graduated from Oberlin College with her literary degree, she enrolled in their theology course, with the stipulation that she would not receive an official degree from her studies. It was during this time that her feminist theory began to take shape. Blackwell published an article in the Oberlin Quarterly Review that stated that women were allowed to preach the Bible, and that there was no commandment given within the book itself that women could not do so.

After completing her education in theology, Blackwell was determined to become ordained. In 1853, her goal was completed in Butler, New York, and she served as a minister there for around a year. Following that, she traveled throughout the United States, giving lectures on abolitionism, women’s rights, and temperance.

In 1869, after nearly two decades of taking part in the women’s suffrage movement, Blackwell and her sister-in-law, Lucy Stone, founded the New Jersey Woman’s Suffrage Association, where she served as president from 1891 to 1892. In that same year, she helped Stone found the American Woman Suffrage Association. She also acted as the vice-president of the Association for the Advancement of Women (AAW) and the New Jersey State Federation of Women’s Clubs. At the age of 95, Blackwell was one of a few key early New Jersey suffragists who voted in the 1920 presidential election.

In addition to her work in the suffrage movement, she was also a published author. In 1875, she published The Sexes Throughout Nature, where she argued that men and women were equal according to the study of nature. For her scientific contributions, she was elected a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1881.

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References:

Cazden, Elizabeth. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, a biography. Old Westbury, N.Y.: The Feminist Press, 1983. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/8346944. 

Dykeman, Therese Boos. Woman’s Nature in Antoinette Brown Blackwell (1825-1921). 2019. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1190011003. 

Lasser, Carol, and Marlene Deahl Merrill, eds. Friends and Sisters: Letters between Lucy Stone and Antoinette Brown Blackwell, 1846-93. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987.

Lurie, Maxine N., and Marc Mappen. Encyclopedia of New Jersey. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2004. https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.rowan.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=124913&site=ehost-live.

Lyons, Courtney. “’Dont DONT D-O-N-T’ to ‘I Do’: Antoinette Brown Blackwell’s Relationship with Marriage.” Ohio History 117 (2010): 108-128.

Snodgrass, Mary Ellen. Encyclopedia of Feminist Literature. Vol. 2nd ed. Facts on File Library of World Literature. New York: Facts on File, Inc, 2013. https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.rowan.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e900xww&AN=968097&site=ehost-live.

Suggested Citation:

Sebastian, Annabelle. “Antoinette Brown Blackwell.” New Jersey Women’s History, Rowan University Libraries, 2024. https://njwomenshistory.org/biographies/antoinette-brown-blackwell/.