Brown, Olympia, 1835-1926

Olympia Brown's parents, Lephia Olympia (Brown) and Asa B. Brown, moved from Vermont to Michigan the year before she was born. OB received her early education at local schools and spent the 1854-1855 academic year at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in Massachusetts. She graduated from Antioch College (1860) and the St. Lawrence University Theological School (Canton, New York) in 1863. That same year she was ordained by the St. Lawrence Association of Universalists in Malone, New York. During the summer of 1863 she preached in Vermont and on July 8, 1864, she was installed as pastor of the First Universalist Society in Weymouth, Massachusetts. Subsequently she served in pastorates at Bridgeport, Connecticut (1870-1876), and Racine, Wisconsin (1878-1887), and as a non-resident preacher in several other Wisconsin parishes. OB's religious views were tolerant and liberal. She was opposed to the stern, orthodox teachings she first encountered at Mount Holyoke Seminary and believed "there was no such thing as everlasting punishment..." (An Autobiography, #2). An advocate of elocution lessons, she studied under T.F. Leonard and James J. Vance (see Index) and in time became an extremely effective extemporaneous speaker.

It was in Weymouth that OB met John Henry Willis, a trustee of the church. They were married in 1873 and had two children. OB never used her husband's name and was known as Reverend Olympia Brown throughout her life.

OB's interest in woman’s rights began early. In her autobiography (#2) she writes that she chose Antioch College (Yellow Springs, Ohio) over Oberlin College because the latter discriminated "...against the women." She was disappointed that no women lecturers were invited to speak at Antioch and persuaded her fellow women students to raise money and invite Antoinette Brown Blackwell. She found her reception and treatment at St. Lawrence University to be less than wholehearted but she was determined to achieve ordination and hoped by her example to persuade other women to enter the ministry.

In 1866, at the invitation of Susan B. Anthony, OB attended the convening meeting of the American Equal Rights Association. This was her first encounter with SBA and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the beginning of a lifelong dedication to the woman's rights movement. In 1867 OB campaigned in Kansas, speaking two and sometimes three times a day, for a woman's suffrage amendment to the state constitution. In 1868, under OB's guidance, the New England Woman's Suffrage Association was formed, the first suffrage organization in the United States. After OB's success as a stump speaker in the Kansas campaign, Susan B. Anthony tried to persuade her to resign her pastorate and give all her time to the woman's rights struggle, but OB continued to put her ministerial duties first and give her spare time to suffrage work. She maintained good relations with both the National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association, believing that each served a useful function.

In 1882 she helped organize the Wisconsin Woman Suffrage Association, became its president in 1884, and was reelected annually until 1912. The passage by the Wisconsin legislature, and its approval by the people of the state, of the School Suffrage Law (1885) finally led OB to resign from her parish. This law gave women the right to vote in any election pertaining to school matters. Believing that every election fell into this category, OB handed in her resignation in 1887 and that November went to the polls to vote. Her vote was rejected and the case went to court. OB argued on her own behalf and won, but in an appeal to the Wisconsin Supreme Court the decision was reversed.

The NWSA and the AWSA merged to form the NAWSA in 1890. OB was disappointed at the new organization's emphasis on securing suffrage by amending each state constitution. In 1892 she called a meeting in Chicago and formed the Federal Suffrage Association. She remained active with this organization, testifying before Congressional committees and speaking at public gatherings, until it was disbanded in 1920. She also joined the Congressional Union (later the National Woman's Party ) and distributed suffrage material in front of President Wilson's White House. She later became a member of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. OB published Acquaintances Old and New Among Reformers in 1911, and in 1917 Democratic Ideals, A Life of Clara Bewick Colby. She died in Baltimore, Maryland on October 23, 1926.

More complete biographical material is available in this collection, including An Autobiography, edited and completed by Gwendolen B. Willis, unpublished, 1960. See also the article in Notable American Women (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), which includes a list of additional sources.

Olympia Brown was a Universalist minister, the first American woman to be ordained by full denominational authority.

Universalist minister, the first American woman to be ordained by full denominational authority, Brown had parishes mainly in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Wisconsin. Also active in the movement for women's suffrage primarily in Wisconsin and then on the national level, Brown never used the name of her husband, John Henry Willis. For additional information, see Notable American Women, 1607-1950 (1971).