Lillie Devereux Blake, novelist, short-story writer, journalist, essayist, and lecturer, was a cultural critic who commented on a wide range of social conventions, especially those regarding women, in a career that stretched for more than half a century. Blake served in Washington, D.C., as a Civil War correspondent for major New York and Philadelphia papers. Later she became a successful political organizer for the suffrage movement. During her career in New York she pushed legislative action that proved instrumental in modifying discriminatory laws against women. Largely because of her leadership, Civil War nurses became eligible for pension benefits; women were enabled to hold civil service positions; mothers were made joint guardians of their children; and for the first time women were allowed to serve on school boards and work wherever women were incarcerated. She also initiated actions that led to the founding of Barnard College of Columbia...