18 Facts About Amelia Bloomer

Amelia Jenks Bloomer was an American newspaper editor, women's rights and temperance advocate.

Amelia Bloomer Jenks was born in 1818 in Homer, New York, to Ananias Jenks and Lucy Jenks.

Amelia Bloomer was one of the youngest in her large family, having at least 4 sisters and 2 brothers.

Amelia Bloomer came from a family of modest means and received only a few years of formal education in the local district school.

Amelia Bloomer supported her activism; he even gave up drinking as part of the Temperance Movement.

Amelia Bloomer spent her early years in Cortland County, New York.

In 1848, Amelia Bloomer attended the Seneca Falls Convention, the first women's rights convention, though she did not sign the Declaration of Sentiments and subsequent resolutions, due to her deep connection with the Episcopal Church.

Amelia Bloomer felt that because women lecturers were considered unseemly, writing was the best way for women to work for reform.

Amelia Bloomer felt a commitment to publish and assumed full responsibility for editing and publishing the paper.

Amelia Bloomer described her experience as the first woman to own, operate and edit a news vehicle for women:.

Amelia Bloomer herself returned to longer skirts by 1859, noting that her motives were several-fold: after moving to Iowa, she felt a desire to blend in to her new social world and make friends, which she felt was easier in more fashionable garments.

Amelia Bloomer noted that a new invention, the crinoline, did away with the heavy underskirts that she had objected to, and that she felt there were other more important things for her to focus her energy on.

Also in 1851, Bloomer introduced the suffragettes Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B Anthony to each other.

Amelia Bloomer remained a suffrage pioneer and writer throughout her life, writing for a wide array of periodicals.

Amelia Bloomer led suffrage campaigns in Nebraska and Iowa and served as president of the Iowa Woman Suffrage Association from 1871 until 1873.

Amelia Bloomer died in 1894, at the age of 76, and is buried in Fairview Cemetery, Council Bluffs, Iowa.

In 1980 her home at Seneca Falls, New York, known as the Amelia Bloomer House, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In 1999 a sculpture by Ted Aub was unveiled commemorating when on May 12,1851, Bloomer introduced Susan B Anthony to Elizabeth Cady Stanton.