She was a well-versed public speaker on the paramount issues of her time and distinguished herself from her contemporaries with her use of religious faith in her efforts to expand women's rights.

The preaching of evangelist Charles Grandison Finney from nearby Rochester led Brown's family to join the Congregational Church.

For four years, Antoinette taught school and saved enough money to cover the cost of her tuition at Oberlin College in Ohio.

Despite the stipulations made regarding her participation in the theology course, Antoinette was a prolific writer and charismatic public speaker.

It is there, from a brief excerpt, that her understanding of what may now be popularly called feminist theology, takes shape as she writes: "Paul meant only to warn against 'excesses, irregularities, and unwarrantable liberties' in public worship.

"[4] Without a preaching license following graduation, Brown decided to pause her ministerial ambitions to write for Frederick Douglass' abolitionist paper, The North Star.

She temporarily suspended her vast speaking engagements, writing to her friend (and later sister-in-law) Lucy Stone that she had lectured eighteen times in almost as many days, and was ordained by a socially radical Methodist minister named Luther Lee, a passionate and vocal advocate of women's right to theological education and leadership.

In the words of Carol Lasser and Marlene Deahl Merrill, Brown again "faced the difficulties of combining essentially conservative causes with women's right's work" at the Temperance Conference [6] At a crossroads in her life, in 1854, Blackwell wrote, "I [find] that the whole groundwork of my faith has dropped away from me.

"[7] This tension manifested itself within her, and after a year she decided to leave South Butler; and unfortunately, even Luther Lee's unqualified support of Antoinette was not enough to provide her with a sustainable lifestyle there.

"[8] She did not fail the pastorate due to her gender, but rather a growing insecurity of belief in the orthodoxy of the Congregational ministry, compounded with a lack of sustainable resources for her work.

Antoinette left for New York City to do charity work in the slums and to lecture and raise money for the people who lived there.

Blackwell continued her career until domestic responsibilities and her disagreement with many aspects of the women's rights movement caused her to discontinue lecturing.

Inspired by yet critical of the writings of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer, who she considered to be the most influential men of her day,[12] Blackwell published several works in the fields of theology, science and philosophy.

She believed both Darwin and Spencer employed a tainted version of the scientific method, one that embraced a solely masculine vantage point.

[15] She knew she would be considered presumptuous for criticizing evolutionary theory, but wrote that "However great the disadvantages under which we [women] are placed, these will never be lessened by waiting.

In 1860, at the last National Woman's Rights Convention held before the outbreak of the Civil War, Antoinette engaged in the heated debate about divorce with her colleagues and contemporaries, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.