Phoebe Cary

[2] While they were raised in a Universalist household and held political and religious views that were liberal and reformist, they often attended Methodist, Presbyterian, and Congregationalist services and were friendly with ministers of all these denominations and others.

For their part, while they were ready and willing to aid to the full extent of their strength in household labour; the sisters persisted in a determination to study and write when the day's work was done.

Sometimes they were refused the use of candles to the extent of their wishes and the device of a saucer of lard with a bit of rag for a wick was their only light after the rest of the family had retired.

There, they often hosted evening receptions on Sundays, some of which were attended by well-known figures such as P. T. Barnum, John Greenleaf Whittier and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

In the joint housekeeping in New York, Phoebe took, from choice (Alice being for many years an invalid), the larger share of the household duties, and hence found less leisure for literary labor.

The first volume of History of Woman Suffrage, published in 1881, states, “THESE VOLUMES ARE AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED TO THE Memory of Mary Wollstonecraft, Frances Wright, Lucretia Mott, Harriet Martineau, Lydia Maria Child, Margaret Fuller, Sarah and Angelina Grimké, Josephine S. Griffing, Martha C. Wright, Harriot K. Hunt, M.D., Mariana W. Johnson, Alice and Phebe Carey, Ann Preston, M.D., Lydia Mott, Eliza W. Farnham, Lydia F. Fowler, M.D., Paulina Wright Davis, Whose Earnest Lives and Fearless Words, in Demanding Political Rights for Women, have been, in the Preparation of these Pages, a Constant Inspiration TO The Editors”.

Cary Cottage, childhood home of Alice and Phoebe Cary near Cincinnati, Ohio
Grave of the Cary sisters