Natalie Foster

Frances Cleveland Axtell was born in Bellingham, Washington on June 12, 1866 to mother, Mary, and father, William. She later was married to Dr. William Axtell, and had two kids, the oldest being Ruth Axtell who was born on September 28, 1892, and then Helen Frances Axtell who was born on July 23, 1901. Frances earned her PhD from DePauw University where she was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta. After attending college she moved back to Bellingham, Washington and later died in Seattle, Washington on May 27, 1953. 

Frances was one of the first women to run for the Republican ticket. She was elected to the Fifty-fourth District of the Washington House of Representatives as a Representative of Bellingham in 1912. She was an advocate for the minimum wage worker, the banning of child labor, workers’ compensation, and pensions for the elderly, disabled, and widowed. She was nearly elected as United States Senator in 1916 but lost by only three thousand votes. On January 5, 1917 President Wilson appointed her to the Federal Employees’ Compensation Commission. 

Frances Cleveland Axtell was pronounced dead on May 27, 1953, in Seattle, Washington. She was one of the first women to make a big impact on women in government. She paved the way for many suffragettes in the future and showed the future generations to not back down from what they believe in. It is people like Frances that have helped many nowadays when it comes to speaking up for what they believe in. Not only do women like Frances affect the feminist movement, but many movements to come, by setting a good example of how to affect society in a peaceful way. Because of Frances, the future for women in government became brighter and there were more opportunities for women in society. 

Frances Cleveland Axtell was one of many women that started the feminist movement that we all know today. Although the movement has intensified and grown to be an even larger movement, it began with a small seed that women like Frances Axtell planted. These women fought for what they wanted and never backed down from what they believed to be just.

Alice Stone Blackwell was an American journalist born on September 14, 1857. Blackwell was born in East Orange, New Jersey to Lucy Stone and Henry Browne Blackwell. Alice was well known for her activism being not only a journalist, but also a feminist, suffragist, radical socialist, and human rights advocate. She grew up going to the Harris Grammar School in Dorchester, the Chauncy School in Boston, and Abbot Academy in Andover. While she was in Boston, she quickly became President of her class and belonged to the Phi Beta Kappa Society. She graduated in the year 1881 at the age of 24. 

In her early life, Blackwell rejected and resisted her parents’ teachings, but later became a very prominent reformer. Alice’s mother, Lucy Stone, along with her husband, Henry Browne Blackwell, were suffrage leaders and helped to establish the American Woman Suffrage Association or AWSA. Alice was part of a family of many suffrage leaders, including her aunt, Elizabeth Blackwell, America’s first female physician. Lucy Stone, Alice’s mother, was also the person to first introduce Susan B. Anthony to the women’s rights movement. She also was the first woman to earn a college degree in Massachusetts, the first to keep her maiden name when she married, and the first to speak about women’s rights full-time. 

Alice Stone Blackwell wrote five books, including one about her mother, titled “Lucy Stone.” She was also the editor of a leading American women’s rights magazine. In 1881, directly after graduating from Boston, Alice began working for the editorial staff of the Woman’s Journal. Later, in 1890, Alice began to work as the company’s recording secretary, this would be a job that she held until 1918. She remained chief editor at the magazine until 1917 as well as editing and distributing the “Woman’s Column” from 1887-1905.

Later in Alice’s life, she began to be very interested in issues surrounding other oppressed people groups. She was very active in the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, the Women’s Trade Union League, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the American Peace Society, and the Massachusetts League of Women Voters, of which she was the founder. Blackwell later died on March 15, 1950, at the age of 92 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She left behind a legacy of peace and equality that very few had striven for at that time. Alice Stone Blackwell was one of the first people to constantly fight for women’s rights and never backed down. She fought for everyone around her and led a pathway for women today.

I have learned a great deal about the feminist movement doing this research project. Often nowadays, the feminist movement is seen as very aggressive or too forward. This paper has shown me that these movements, although they can turn into riots, are able to be very peaceful. In today’s society, it is very common for the Democratic Party to make very large movements. The women that I had the opportunity to talk about in these essays were just a small part of a huge movement that has greatly affected society today. Not only women like these are great examples of how to peacefully protest and stand up for what they believe in, but they also show young women in America today that it is okay to be part of a movement and to be proud to be a woman. This has taught me that, although it can be very difficult to take a stand and it is common for those who make movements to be looked at in a negative way, it is those people that move the rest of America and the generations to come. I only hope that I will be able to make as big of an impact as these women did in America today.