HomeFeaturesWomen’s History NJ: Antoinette Brown Blackwell

Women’s History NJ: Antoinette Brown Blackwell

Historical author and reformer Antoinette Louisa Brown (later Antoinette Brown Blackwell) was born in Henrietta, New York on May 20, 1825. The youngest of seven children, Blackwell always had a thirst for knowledge, going so far as to follow her older siblings to school each day when she was just three-years-old. She was a hard worker and, as a child, always preferred both reading and writing and men’s farm chores over housework.

Her family was very religious, and when she was just eight, Blackwell told a Sunday school teacher that she wanted to be a minister; however, her teacher told her that girls could not be ministers.


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Blackwell attended public schools as well as the Monroe County Academy, from which she completed her studies at 16 before becoming a schoolteacher. Though she enjoyed teaching, she strove to further her education and obtain a degree in theology.

After spending four years teaching and saving her money, Antoinette Brown Blackwell enrolled at Oberlin College in Ohio in 1846. She achieved a literary degree, but remained at Oberlin in the theology program without receiving formal recognition due to the school’s strong opposition to women participating in such courses. Blackwell refused to succumb to social expectations, giving lectures against slavery and on the subject of women’s rights in Ohio and New York, even though public speaking by women was often met with widespread opposition.

Antoinette Brown BlackwellBlackwell graduated from college without receiving her much-deserved degree in theology. Though she still anticipated becoming a minister, she decided to put that endeavor on hold and went on to write for Frederick Douglass’ abolitionist paper, The North Star; she even spoke at the first National Women’s Rights Convention in 1850.

In 1856, Blackwell married Samuel Charles Blackwell, with whom she worked as an orator and reformer, and the couple had seven children over the next 14 years. In the late 1850s, the family moved to New York before settling down in northern New Jersey.

After having children, Blackwell stopped giving lectures to focus on other matters. In 1869, she founded the American Woman Suffrage Association with fellow women’s rights activist Lucy Stone. That same year, Blackwell published her first of eight books, Studies in General Science.

In 1878, Oberlin College finally awarded Blackwell her Master’s degree, and in 1908, they awarded her a Doctoral degree. She formed the Unitarian Society of Elizabeth, of which she was the minister, in 1902, and 18 years after that, she became the only participant of the 1850 Women’s Rights Convention to see the approval of the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote. The following year, on November 5, 1921, Antoinette Brown Blackwell died in Elizabeth at the age of 96.


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Library of Congress / Public Domain (via Wikimedia Commons)

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