The Genius of Liberty: Recent Episodes
The Genius of Liberty
A podcast series about the crucial yet forgotten role Ohio played in the fight for woman suffrage. Written and voiced by Katherine Durack and produced in partnership with the Mercantile Library in Cincinnati, Ohio.
In her artwork for the 1912 woman suffrage campaign, Cornelia Cassidy Davis asked male voters to extend voting rights to women.
After more than a year of long-distance wooing, Mercantile Library member Henry Blackwell finally persuaded Lucy Stone to wed.
Cincinnati's Reverend Herbert S. Bigelow included a stop at the National American Woman Suffrage Association's annual convention as part of his 1906 campaign for initiative and referendum, which he believed would empower citizens to enact progressive reforms.
Elizabeth Wilson of Cadiz, Ohio, published her bold vision of faithful feminism in A Scriptural View of Woman's Rights and Duties in 1849, blazing the path followed decades later by Matilda Joslyn Gage's Woman, Church, and State and Elizabeth Cady Stanton's Woman's Bible.
Cincinnatians George S. Hawke, John Druffel, and Lawrence Maxwell waged an eleventh-hour legal battle regarding Ohio's June 1919 ratification of the 19th amendment. The decision by the US Supreme Court a year later sided with Hawke, clearing legal hurdles that made it possible for Tennessee to ratify the 19th amendment, making it the law of the land.
In April 1921, the National American Woman Suffrage Association held its last national conference in Cleveland, Ohio, and handed the reins to its successor, the League of Women Voters
While Victoria Woodhull of Homer, Ohio made news when she became the first woman to run for President of the United States, that story was eclipsed in November 1872 when she dropped a "bombshell" that rocked the nation: the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, "Shakespeare of the pulpit," had had sex with his best friend's wife.
In their coverage of the 1853 National Woman's Rights Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, most newspapers focused on sensation rather than substance, but The Cleveland Plain Dealer shone as the exception, giving space to the words of Ernestine Rose, "the master spirit of the Convention."
Forecasting the legal wrangling that would rivet national attention on the trial of runaway Margaret Garner, Adeline Swift denounced laws governing slavery and women's rights at the 6th national woman's rights convention in Cincinnati.
“Ain’t I A Woman?” Sojourner Truth reportedly asked at the 1851 woman’s rights convention in Akron, but the words Frances Dana Gage popularized scarcely resemble the most accurate account of her speech.
Although the New York Daily Tribune was generous in its coverage of the first statewide woman’s rights convention in Salem, Ohio, editor Horace Greeley nevertheless advanced a compelling reason women should not be granted suffrage: nice ladies won’t vote.
Ohioan Stanley Bowdle sexualized females to rally opposition in Congress and defeat a federal amendment for woman suffrage in 1915.
As the nation prepared to celebrate its centennial in 1876, the Toledo Woman Suffrage Association launched The Ballot Box newspaper, which advised readers not to celebrate, but to declare independence.
As delegates from across Ohio gathered to review the state constitution, the powerful Anti-Saloon League threw its weight behind woman suffrage, kicking off a battle of behemoths as a “Liquor Trust” formed to fight back. [performed live at PoD Discoveries, October 23, 2019)
In December 1877, the Toledo Woman Suffrage Association took on a new cause: the right of responsible women to secure a library card.
Hallie Quinn Brown of Wilberforce, Ohio, and the members of the National Association of Colored Women fought for civil rights and woman suffrage both before and after adoption of the 19th amendment.
In March 1906, Harriet Taylor Upton shared the news of Susan B. Anthony’s death with readers of The Woman’s Journal.
After President Carrie Chapman Catt suffered a serious illness, the headquarters for the National American Woman Suffrage Association moved to Warren, Ohio, under the leadership of Harriet Taylor Upton from 1903-1910.
Anna Julia Cooper confronted racism in the women's suffrage movement in her seminal work of black feminism A Voice from the South, published in Xenia, Ohio in 1892
In February 1917 the Ohio legislature passed - and the governor signed into law - a bill that allowed Ohio women to vote for President. Male voters repealed the measure that fall.
Suffragist Margaret V. Longley revolutionized office work and created new opportunities for women in the workplace.
The letter of support sent by Ohio activist Lucius A. Hine to the first national women's rights convention made national headlines... and Hine objected.
Of course it was "the Cincinnati Girl," suffragist and vaudeville star Trixie Friganza, who inspired the iconic song "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." Who knew a girl could keep score?
The Genius of Liberty was one of the first feminist newspapers, published by Elizabeth A. Aldrich in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Cincinnati's Mercantile Library once claimed to be one of the first organizations west of the Alleghenies to support women's rights.