Lucy Stone founded the longest-lived woman suffrage publication, Woman's Journal, in 1870 and, with her husband, edited it from 1872 until her death in 1893. She also traveled widely and spoke persuasively for the suffrage cause, earning the sobriquet "the morning star of the woman's rights movement."

Stone was born in West Brookfield, Massachusetts, on 13 August 1818 to Francis and Hannah Matthews Stone. Stone began teaching at sixteen, studying at nearby seminaries and saving money for college. In 1843 she enrolled at Oberlin College, one of the few institutions that accepted women and blacks. Oberlin was a stop on the Underground Railway and strongly abolitionist, but even in this progressive atmosphere Stone's radicalism proved troublesome. Chosen to write a speech for commencement, she was asked to compose it so that a man might read it for her. Stone angrily resigned, as did the other students who were to share the platform with her...