Gage, Matilda Joslyn, 1826-1898

Matilda Joslyn Gage March 24, 1826, Cicero, NY – March 18, 1898, Chicago, IL; parents were Dr. Hezekiah and Helen (Leslie) Joslyn. Her father, of New England and revolutionary ancestry, was a liberal thinker and an early abolitionist, whose home was a station of the Underground Railroad, as was also her own home; attended Clinton Liberal Institute (New York); married Henry H. Gage, 1845; became involved in the women's rights movement in 1852 when she decided to speak at the National Women's Rights Convention in Syracuse, New York; served as president of the National Woman Suffrage Association from 1875 to 1876, and served as either Chair of the Executive Committee or Vice President for over twenty years; vocal critic of the Christian Church; son-in-law, L. Frank Baum; corresponded with numerous newspapers, reporting on developments in the woman suffrage movement. In 1878, she bought the Ballot Box, a monthly journal of a Toledo, Ohio suffrage association, when its editor, Sarah R. L. Williams, decided to retire. Gage turned it into The National Citizen and Ballot Box; As a result of the campaigning of the New York State Woman Suffrage Association under Gage, the state of New York granted female suffrage for electing members of the school boards; In 1871, Gage was part of a group of 10 women who attempted to vote; Gage to establish the Woman's National Liberal Union (WNLU) in 1890 after creation of NAWSA, her organization wanted to be much more liberal; Gage became the editor of the official journal of the WNLU, The Liberal Thinker; In 1893, she published Woman, Church and State; lived in Fayetteville, New York for the majority of her life, had five children with her husband: Charles Henry (who died in infancy), Helen Leslie, Thomas Clarkson, Julia Louise, and Maud, Maud married L Frank Baum;