Poets and Writers

Mary Virginia Terhune

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Novelist and Author of Domestic Manuals Mary Virginia Terhune (1830–1922) was an American author of novels, short stories, biographies, travel narratives, cookbooks and domestic manuals whose career stretched across seven decades. She began her career writing articles at the age of 14, using various pen names, until 1853 when she settled on Marion Harland. Her first novel Alone sold more than 100,000 copies. Born December 21, 1830 in Dennisville, Virginia, Mary Virginia Hawes was the third of nine children born to Samuel Pierce and Judith Anna Smith Hawes. Terhune was home schooled until 1844, when her family moved to Richmond, Virginia, where she attended a girl’s seminary school for two years of formal education.
Civil War Women, Diaries and Letters

Devil Diarists of Winchester

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Union and Confederate Women Who Kept Diaries The small town of Winchester in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia changed hands between the Confederate Army and Union Army numerous times during the Civil War. The town’s strategic location included a network of seven major roads that radiated out toward other towns and cities; two of the roads were macadamized. This road system made the town a major trade center in the Valley. Image: Mary Greenhow Lee, Winchester’s most prolific diarist and dedicated Confederate sympathizer Another geographic feature would magnify in importance during the war: Winchester was surrounded on all sides by low hills that hid the approach of enemy armies. Occupying forces found it almost impossible to mount a defense, so…

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First Women, Women in Education

Women of Oberlin College

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First College to Admit Women and Blacks The main reason women did not go to college in the early 19th century was because most people believed that, because women became wives, mothers or teachers of young children, they did not need to go to college. But the founders of Oberlin College knew that women could become even better wives, mothers and teachers if they were able to take college classes. Image: Mary Caroline Rudd Allen One of the first American women to receive a Bachelor of Arts degree, which she earned at Oberlin College. The Oberlin Four Oberlin College was founded in 1833 in Oberlin, Ohio, and became the first college in the United States to admit women as well…

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Civil War Love Stories, Civil War Nurses, Civil War Women, Famous Wives

Francis and Arabella Barlow

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Romantic Legends of the Civil War Arabella Griffith married Francis Barlow the day after he enlisted in the Union Army. Francis was a well-established New York lawyer, while Arabella was 10 years his senior and a member of New York high society. The following year she joined him in service to the Union Army. Image: Arabella Griffith Barlow Arabella Wharton Griffith was a young woman of twenty-two years when she moved from rural New Jersey to New York City to work as a governess, a bold move for a woman of that time. Her vibrant personality soon caught the attention of a group of literary-minded socialites, artists and politicians. Diarist George Templeton Strong wrote that she was, “certainly the most…

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Social Reformers, Women in Medicine

Lydia Folger Fowler

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Pioneer Doctor and Women’s Rights Activist Dr. Lydia Folger Fowler was a pioneering American physician, the second woman in America to earn a medical degree, the first American-born woman to receive an American medical degree and and the first woman professor at an American medical school. Her many-faceted career was spent in medicine, lecturing, writing, and activist for women’s rights. Lydia Folger was born on Nantucket, Massachusetts May 5, 1822 to Gideon and Eunice Macy Folger, a historic Massachusetts family descended from Benjamin Franklin, and her famous cousins – women’s rights activist Lucretia Mott and astronomer Maria Mitchell. Lydia grew up on Nantucket and was educated in the local schools, and Wheaton Seminary in Norton, Massachusetts, where she taught from…

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Activists, African Americans, Civil War Women

Caroline Le Count

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Leader in the Integration of Philadelphia Streetcars An undertaker’s daughter, Caroline Le Count outscored all the boys in her class, struck up a correspondence with a Union army general, became only the second black woman named principal of a Philadelphia public school, and put her body on the line in the battle to integrate the streetcars. Soon she was noticed on the arm of a fellow activist, Octavius Catto. Image: The streetcar shown here at Sixth and Jackson Street demonstrates how streetcars typically operated with two horses, a driver and a conductor. The first horse-drawn streetcars in Philadelphia began operating January 20, 1858. They moved along a set of steel rails, which provided a smoother ride at faster speeds, regardless…

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First Women, Suffragists

Virginia Minor

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Women’s Suffrage Leader in Missouri Virginia Minor claimed that as a native-born, free, white citizen of the United States and over the age of 21, the 14th Amendment gave her the right to vote. She attempted to register to vote but was denied because of her gender. Minor filed suit but lost her case – Minor v. Happersett (1874) – in the U.S. Supreme Court. The publicity, however, greatly helped her cause. Virginia Louisa Minor was born March 27, 1824 in Caroline County, Virginia to Warner and Marie Timberlake Minor. Virginia moved with her family to Charlottesville when her father was appointed hotel keeper at the University of Virginia. Virginia was educated at home and for a short time at…

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Civil War Nurses, Civil War Spies, Civil War Women

Women and Civil War Prisons

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Civil War Women Prisoners of War Many of the arguments against women fighting in combat is the fear that they will become prisoners of war. Documentation proves that some soldiers who were discovered to be women during the Civil War were briefly imprisoned. Madame Collier was a Union soldier from East Tennessee who was captured and imprisoned at Belle Isle, Virginia. She continued concealing her gender, but another prisoner learned her secret and reported it to Confederate authorities, who sent her North under a flag of truce. Castle Thunder At Castle Thunder in Richmond, Virginia approximately one hundred female inmates were held throughout the war. Although Confederate authorities created a department at the prison specifically for the detention of “depraved…

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First Women, Women in Law

Esther Hobart Morris

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First Woman Justice of the Peace in America Wyoming can claim many firsts for women: the right to vote, the first woman governor, and the first woman judge in American history, Esther Hobart Morris. At the time of her appointment as Justice of the Peace, Morris was 59 years old. Although widely celebrated as a hero of the early suffragist movement, she spent the first 55 years of her life living quietly in New York state and Illinois. Early Years Esther Hobart was born August 6, 1814 in Tioga County, New York. Orphaned as a young girl, she served as an apprentice to a seamstress and ran a millinery business out of her grandparents’ home. She was a successful businesswoman…

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Civil War Women, Famous Firsts, Women Doctors

Hannah Myers Longshore

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Pioneer Physician and Professor of Anatomy Hannah Myers Longshore graduated from the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania’s first class in 1851 and became Philadelphia’s first woman doctor with a medical degree to establish a private practice, which she continued for forty years. She also lectured extensively first at the Female Medical College, and later in public speeches about sexual health at a time when there was little public discussion of any kind on the subject. Early Years Hannah Myers was born May 30, 1819 in Sandy Spring, Maryland, where her father taught at a Quaker school. She was the daughter of Samuel and Paulina Myers, Quakers from Bucks County, Pennsylvania who believed in equal education for boys and girls. While…

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