Lillie Devereux Blake

19th Century Author and Women's Rights Activist

Lillie Devereux Blake was a leading feminist and reformer, as well as a prominent fiction writer, journalist, essayist and lecturer, who worked with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony for women's suffrage (the right to vote).

She was born Elizabeth Johnson Devereux on August 12, 1833 to planters George Pollock Devereux and Sarah Elizabeth Johnson Devereux in Raleigh, North Carolina, but spent much of her early childhood on a plantation in Roanoke, Virginia. It was George Devereux who called his daughter Lily because of her fair complexion, and she continued through life as Lillie.

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Women's Rights During the Civil War

Women Find New Power and Independence

The American Civil War illustrates how gender roles can be transformed when circumstances demand that women be allowed to enter into previously male-dominated positions of power and independence. This was the first time in American history that women played a significant role in a war effort, and by the end of the war the notion of true womanhood had been redefined.



During the decades prior to the Civil War, female activists flocked to the abolitionist movement and exerted considerable pressure on the Southern slavocracy. Authors like Lydia Maria Child published pamphlets and books condemning the institution of slavery. Although many male politicians searched for a negotiated settlement, female abolitionists refused to accept any compromise on slavery. During the first two years of the war, women delivered speeches, conducted letter-writing campaigns, and pressured President Abraham Lincoln to free all slaves held in bondage in the South.

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Georgiana Bruce Kirby

Feminist and California Pioneer

Georgiana Bruce Kirby was a woman with ideas far ahead of her time - an early suffragist, educator and a California pioneer. In a world dominated by men, Kirby's intelligence and questioning mind would not allow her to accept a traditional life in which she could not pursue her ambitions and goals. Georgiana Bruce Kirby Preparatory School in Santa Cruz was named in her honor.

Childhood and Early Years
Georgiana Bruce was born in Bristol, England on December 7, 1818. She immigrated to the United States when she was only twenty. Living in Boston, Massachusetts, she became fascinated with Transcendentalism, and eventually drifted to Brook Farm, a utopian experiment in communal living based on Transcendentalist ideals. It was founded by former Unitarian minister George Ripley and his wife Sophia Riplet at the Ellis Farm in West Roxbury, Massachusetts (9 miles outside of Boston) in 1841.

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