Mary Livermore

Mary Ashton Livermore (née Rice; December 19, 1820 – May 23, 1905) was an American journalist, abolitionist, and advocate of women's rights.

Her printed volumes included: Thirty Years Too Late, first published in 1847 as a prize temperance tale, and republished in 1878; Pen Pictures; or, Sketches from Domestic Life; What Shall We Do with Our Daughters?

A Woman's Narrative of Four Years' Personal Experience as Nurse in the Union Army, and in Relief Work at Home, in Hospitals, Camps and at the Front during the War of the Rebellion.

She wrote a sketch of the sculptor Anne Whitney for Women of the Day and delivered the historical address for the Centennial Celebration of the First Settlement of the Northwestern States in Marietta, Ohio on July 15, 1788.

[2] When the American Civil War broke out, Livermore became connected with the United States Sanitary Commission, headquarters at Chicago and performed a vast amount of labor of all kinds by organizing auxiliary societies, visiting hospitals and military posts, contributing to the press, answering correspondence, and other things incident to the work done by that institution.

She was one of those that helped organize the great fair in 1863, at Chicago, when nearly $100,000 was raised and for which she obtained the original draft of the Emancipation Proclamation from President Lincoln, which was sold for $3,000, and funded the building of the Soldiers' Home.

[10] As an agent of its Chicago branch, later named the Northwestern branch, she attended a council of the National Sanitary Commission at Washington in December 1862, organized many aid societies, visited army posts and hospitals, and in 1863, organized the North-western Sanitary Fair in Chicago which raised $86,000.

The captain called the soldier for questioning, and though she pleaded to stay in service near her beloved, Livermore escorted her out of camp.

Though Livermore had to sacrifice much of her social justice work for nursing, she still managed to publish some kind of content once a week throughout the entirety of the war.

A Woman's Narrative of Four Years' Personal Experience as Nurse in the Union Army, and in Relief Work at Home, in Hospitals, Camps and at the Front during the War of the Rebellion.

[14][15] After the war, Livermore devoted herself to the promotion of women's suffrage (along with Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe ) and the temperance movement.

[6] Joining with Stone, Henry Blackwell and Julia Ward Howe, Livermore helped found the Massachusetts Women's Suffrage Association.

Mary Livermore House in Melrose, Massachusetts
Mary Livermore, 1901