Blackwell, Alice Stone, 1857-1950

Alice Stone Blackwell, daughter of suffrage leaders Lucy Stone and Henry Browne Blackwell, was born in Orange, N.J., but spent most of her life in and around Boston. After graduating from Boston University in 1881, ASB joined her parents at The Woman's Journal, the woman's rights newspaper they had founded and edited. Over the next 35 years, she played a leading role in writing and editing the Journal.

ASB was instrumental in bringing about the reconciliation of the National and American Woman Suffrage associations in 1890, and for almost twenty years served as secretary of the new National American Woman Suffrage Association. Among her other positions were president of the New England and Massachusetts Woman Suffrage associations and honorary president of the Massachusetts League of Women Voters.

A self-proclaimed radical socialist, ASB supported numerous humanitarian causes. She was affiliated with Friends of Russian Freedom, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and the NAACP, among other organizations. With the help of foreign-born friends, ASB translated into English the works of Mexican, Armenian, Russian, Yiddish, and Hungarian poets.

For additional biographical information, see Notable American Women, 1607-1950 (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), which includes a list of additional sources.

From the guide to the Woman's Rights Collection (WRC), (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute)