Born as Sarah Margaret Fuller in Cambridge, MA. Her father, a lawyer and congressman, was disappointed that his first child wasn’t a boy, so he provided her an education as if she were one, as well as forbidden her from reading “feminine” materials. At the age of 3, she learned to read and write, and at 5, she began learning Latin. At 9, Fuller began her formal education. Still, at 16, she felt that she is different from other girls her age, so she left school and came back home to continue studying independently, learning several languages, and reading world literature. In later years became to be known best-read person, male or female, in New England. At 24, Fuller published her first work – a response to historian George Bancroft, and a year later, she published her first literary review. When she was 27 years old, she began to teach under the journalist and educator Hiram Fuller and was paid $1,000 per year, an unusually high salary at the time. In 1939, 29-year-old Fuller decided to use her knowledge to educate women, so she gathered them and held what she called “Conversations”. These lectures were more like open discussions aiming to promote women’s education, focusing on subjects such as arts, literature, history, mythology, and nature. The goal of the conversations was to question, examine, and define women’s options. That same year, Fuller started to edit the transcendentalist journal “The Dial”, which made her an important figure of the Transcendental Movement, though she never identified herself as one. At the age of 34, Fuller published the book “Summer on the Lakes” in it she described her experiences traveling throughout the US and interacting with various Native-Americans tribes. The next book Fuller published was “Woman in the Nineteenth Century”, where she discussed women’s role in the US. The book became one of the most important works in American feminism and considered first of its kind. Fuller moved to NYC to work as a literary critic at the “New York Tribune”, she was the first full-time female book reviewer in the US, and two years later she became the first female editor of the magazine. During the four years she worked there, Fuller published over 250 columns regarding different topics, from art and literature to women’s rights and the plight of slaves. At 36, she was sent to Europe as the newspaper’s foreign correspondent, where she met many important figures, including Giovanni Angelo Ossoli, an Italian revolutionary who was ten years younger than her. They became a couple and moved to Florence, Italy. It is unknown whether they were officially married, though they were referred to as husband and wife, and had a son. In 1850, Fuller and her family sailed back to the US, but the ship hit a sandbank close to the shore of Fire Island, NY. Most of the passengers and crew jumped and were rescued, but the bodies of the Fuller family have never been found. Margaret Fuller was one of the first active feminists; she promoted women’s education and employment opportunities, encouraged women to be independent in their marriage, and not to rely only on their husbands. She was also a humanist, advocating for social reforms, addressing issues such as African-Americans’ rights, prison’s living conditions as well as poverty and homelessness. Many prominent leaders of the Suffrage Movement regard Fuller as one of the movement’s major influencers, as Susan B. Anthony wrote about her that she was “possessed more influence on the thought of American women than any woman previous to her time.”   Dive deeper into the inspiring story of Margaret Fuller with our fun and engaging printable worksheet! Available now on Etsy and Teachers Pay Teachers. Read more...

Annie Cohen emigrated from Riga to the United States as a child. She was married to Max Kopchovsky and had three little children, when she stumbled upon an opportunity to become rich and famous, and promote feminism, all together. At the decade of America’s bicycle hype, she took on the challenge presented by two Boston businessmen to be the first woman to cycle around the world. Without prior cycling experience, she set for the road in 1894. 15 months later, she returned home as an international sensation, even though she skipped large parts of the journey by sailing. Her biggest talent was for storytelling: she reported back about a range of exotic and mostly fictitious adventures. Nonetheless, the gift of imagination secured her a series of lectures and a newspaper column upon her return. Another skill which she demonstrated was entrepreneurship: she adopted the name Londonderry as part of a paid sponsorship by a water company and used herself and her bike as a mobile billboard in France. At the end of the 19th century, Annie Londonderry was an icon of the “new woman” – an independent, liberated, and self-reliant person. Her story was soon forgotten, but after her great-grandnephew discovered that her brief death notice in the 1947 New York Times read: “devoted grandmother of Mary”, he published a book about her, 60 years after her death. Read more...

Lucy Stone grew up in a rural household that practiced patriarchy, and so she devoted her life to women’s liberation. She saved money for nine years, by working as a teacher and a housekeeper, to fund her higher education. Stone enrolled in Oberlin Collegiate Institute, Ohio – the first college in the US where female and black students could study together. She co-founded a secret debating society for women, who met in the woods. At the age of 29, she became the first woman from Massachusetts to graduate with a Bachelor degree. Her talent for public speaking took her touring the country, advocating for women’s rights and speaking against slavery. In 1850 she took part in organizing the National Woman’s Rights Convention, attended by more than 1,000 participants. The convention attracted international attention when advocating for the rights of black women. She took her politics home as well, and when marrying Henry Brown Blackwell, she decided to keep her last name. She was the first married woman in the US to keep her maiden name, and those who followed her used the term “Lucy Stoner,” popular for married women who didn’t change their family names after their husbands.’ The couple established and edited the Woman’s Journal, the newspaper of the “American Woman Suffrage Association.” She was the first person cremated in Massachusetts.   Read more...