20 Facts About Mary Livermore

Mary Ashton Livermore was an American journalist, abolitionist, and advocate of women's rights.

Mary Livermore was one of those that helped organize the great fair in 1863, at Chicago, when nearly $100,000 was raised and for which she obtained the original draft of the Emancipation Proclamation from President Lincoln, which was sold for $3,000, and funded the building of the Soldiers' Home.

Mary Livermore Ashton Rice was born in Boston, Massachusetts on December 19,1820, to Timothy Rice and Zebiah Vose Rice.

Mary Livermore's father fought in the War of 1812 and her mother was a descendant of Captain Nathaniel Ashton of London.

Mary Livermore was incredibly intelligent, graduating from Boston public schools at age 14.

Mary Livermore began work with the temperance movement at this time, identified with the Washington Temperance Reform and was an editor for a juvenile temperance paper.

Mary Livermore married Daniel P Livermore, a Universalist minister in May 1845, and in 1857, they moved to Chicago.

Mary Livermore published a collection of nineteen essays entitled Pen Pictures in 1863.

Mary Livermore eventually became the co-director of the Chicago branch with Jane Hoge, another soldier's aid advocate.

Mary Livermore confirmed the captain's suspicions that the soldier was indeed a woman.

The captain called the soldier for questioning, and though she pleaded to stay in service near her beloved, Mary Livermore escorted her out of camp.

Mary Livermore authored numerous books of poetry, essays, and stories, and was a recognized member of the literary guild.

Mary Livermore summarized her experience in her 1887 book, My Story of the War.

In 1869, the year that women suffragists in the Equal Rights Association spilt over the issue of voting rights for African American men, Mary Livermore sided with Lucy Stone and those founding the American Woman Suffrage Association.

In 1870, the Livermores moved to Boston, and Mary began to be active in suffrage activities there.

The Agitator was merged into the Woman's Journal, the well-known suffrage journal founded by Lucy Stone, and Mary Livermore became associate editor.

Mary Livermore became president of the American Woman Suffrage Association.

Mary Livermore was the first president of the Association for the Advancement of Women.

Mary Livermore was interested in spiritualism, which grew in popularity after the Civil War, especially among Unitarians.

The Mary A Livermore School in Melrose, operational from 1891 to 1933, was an elementary school named for her.