Antoinette Louisa Brown Blackwell (1825-1921)made history when she became the first woman in the United States to be ordained by a recognized congregation.

In addition to her career as a preacher, Blackwell spent many years delivering speeches on behalf of the temperance movement, the abolition of slavery, and the right of women to vote. She often toured with well-known suffragists Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Blackwell was particularly influenced and emboldened by her friendship with abolitionist and suffragist Lucy Stone, a friend from college who later became a sister-in-law.

Religious Upbringing

Antoinette Louisa Brown was born May 20, 1825, in Henrietta, New York, the seventh of Abigail Morse and Joseph Brown's ten children. The family had a strong religious tradition. Together they frequented the Protestant revivals of Charles Grandison Finney in Rochester, New York. Blackwell's pious leanings were evident at an early age when the nine-year old...