Lucy Stone Women's Rights Movement

Lucy Stone’s prominent role as a suffragist began with her giving lectures nationally and putting together the first National Woman’s Rights Convention in 1850 among other conventions (Knight 16). Before the Civil War, Stone was involved with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton working together on woman’s rights issues then shifted their focus to war efforts since they were abolitionists as well. In 1869, after the Civil War, the Woman’s Rights Movement split into two organizations: the American Woman Suffrage Association and the National Woman Suffrage Association. Lucy Stone and her husband Henry Blackwell led the American Woman Suffrage Association. Stone and Blackwell founded and co-edited of the Woman’s Journal in 1872 focusing each issue on woman’s rights.

One of Stone’s

Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucy Stone (Riegel 495). Lucy Stone is an important figure to the Woman’s Rights Movement who brought to light the issue of domestic violence in the United States. Stone and her husband made several efforts through legislation and the Woman’s Journal to promote women as citizens instead of property. Stone was the first in the United States to introduce legislation supporting divorce in cases of domestic abuse. The proposed bill granted to assaulted wife a legal separation, custody of the children and economic support from the husband. Stone introduced this protection bill three times and the reluctance to pass legislation protecting woman or legislation punishing the abuser more harshly shows that women’s status in society will give them no more than their owner. Stone commanded an audience and spread awareness through multiple outlets. She directly confronted and tried to change legislation like other suffragist leaders. She put a name to acts of violence against women making a woman no longer an