The Women of the United States Postage Stamps--Part 1

By Jennifer Uhlarik

 

I can hardly believe that we’re already nearly done with the first two months of 2026. This year has flown by, so far. In just three more days, February will be ending, and then we’re into March. Many of you know that March is designated as Women’s History month, and I thought it would be a fun topic to look at the women whose faces have graced our American postage stamps—and what they did to earn such an honor. There have been nearly two-hundred women featured since the late 1800s, when the first woman appeared. So, let’s dig in!

 

The very first woman to ever have her face on an American postage stamp was not an American woman at all. In fact, she was a European ruler. Why on Earth would we put a European queen on our American postage, you ask? Well, perhaps it is because she put up the money to fund Christopher Columbus, who is commonly credited with having discovered America. So who is the woman with the prestigious honor of having been the first female to grace an American postage stamp? Queen Isabella I of Castile (now part of Spain). The stamp was issued in 1893 and was worth $4 during its run. If you can find one of these stamps today, it can cost upward of $3500 in mint condition.

Note Isabella I of Castile on the left,
Columbus on the right.

 Just nine years later, the second woman to grace a postage stamp in the United States was none other than our first First Lady—Martha Washington. Dear Martha has the honor of being featured on stamps three different times, first in 1902, again in 1923, and the last time in 1938. Not only was she the original First Lady of the United States, but she was also instrumental in leading the women camp followers and keeping up troop morale during the Revolution, among many other things.

Martha Washington's 1902 Stamp

Her second appearance came in 1923

Her final appearance was in 1938.

Third on our list of ladies who have graced the postage stamp is none other than Pocahontas, the Native American woman of the Powhatan people who was taken captive by European settlers. Hers is a difficult story which has been beautifully and painstakingly recounted by a dear friend, Shannon McNear, in her Daughters of the Lost Colony series (along with what might have happened to another one of our ladies in this post—Virginia Dare). This stamp, issued in 1907, was originally worth five cents. Today, a mint condition Pocahontas stamp would cost around $450.

Pocahontas's short life was full of hardships.

 

In 1928, “Molly Pitcher” was added to the list of women featured on American postage. Molly Pitcher is a made-up name, and the real identity of this woman isn’t certain, though it is thought that “Molly Pitcher” was a composite of three heroic women who fought in the American Revolution alongside their husbands. The three women are Margaret Corbin, Deborah Sampson, and Mary “Molly” Ludwig Hays. The last on this list, Molly, was said to have carried water in pitchers to dehydrated and desperate soldiers, as well as used the water to cool the cannons. During the Battle of Monmouth on June 28, 1778, Molly Ludwig Hays’s husband was overcome by the conditions and couldn’t man the cannon any longer. So brave Molly stepped into his place, fulfilling his duties during this important battle. Afterward, George Washington is said to have personally thanked her and began calling her “Sergeant Molly.” You’ll notice, on her stamp, it is actually a picture of George Washington with the name “Molly Pitcher” stamped over it. Interesting, right?

Molly Pitcher's name, but not her likeness,
appeared on this stamp.

 

Our next famed lady was Susan B. Anthony, the famed social reformer of the 1800s. She worked with the abolition movement to outlaw slavery in the United States, then lent her voice to the temperance movement, and finally women’s suffrage. Her face has appeared on postage stamps twice—once in 1936 and again in 1955. And I’m sure you all are aware that her likeness was also used on a $1 coin, which was minted between 1979 and 1981, and again in 1999. 

Susan B. Anthony's first appearance on a
postage stamp came in 1936.

Her second appearance was in 1955.

She also made it to the $1 silver coin for a few years.

 

Next is Virginia Dare, who was memorialized on a stamp in 1937. If you haven’t heard of Virginia, she was the first English child born in an English colony here on American soil. Part of the ill-fated Roanoke settlement, Virginia was born on August 18, 1587, the granddaughter of John White. As governor of the colony, White returned to England to garner more money and support, and by the time he returned, the Roanoke colony had disappeared into the mists of time.

Virginia Dare--the first English baby born in the 
colony of Roanoke in 1587--was memorialized 
on a stamp in 1937.

 

In 1940, a female author was honored with her own postage stamp. It was none other than Louisa May Alcott, who was most famous for having written Little Women and Little Men. Like Susan B. Anthony, Louisa also lent her voice to the abolition and temperance movements, and during the Civil War, desired to serve as a soldier. However, because she was a woman, she was denied. Instead, she sewed uniforms until she turned thirty, which was the minimum age for women to become nurses. She soon applied as a nurse and worked in the Union Hotel Hospital in Washington, D.C. until contracting typhoid fever.

Louisa May Alcott did far more than write 
the beloved classic, Little Women.

 

The last woman for today’s post was Frances Willard, who was yet another social reformer. Frances was a teacher who, in her short fifty-eight years, spoke up for temperance and women’s suffrage. In addition, she was the first Dean of Women at Northwestern University, the longtime president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, and in 2000, was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame for her many prestigious contributions. Her stamp was created in 1940.

Social Reformer Frances Willard joined 
others in fighting for women's suffrage.

 

We’ll continue the parade of women who appeared on postage stamps for the next several months, so be watching for more. In the meantime:

 

It’s Your Turn: Which of the women who were honored with their own stamp do you find the most impressive, and why?

 

Jennifer Uhlarik discovered western novels at twelve when she swiped the only “horse” book from her brother’s bookshelf. Across the next decade, she devoured westerns and fell in love with the genre. While attaining a B.A. in writing from the University of Tampa, she began penning her own story of the Old West. She has finaled in and won numerous writing competitions and appeared on various best-seller lists. Besides writing, she’s been a business owner, a schoolteacher, a marketing director, a historical researcher, a publisher, and a full-time homemaker. She lives near Tampa, Florida, with her husband and fur children.

 

Available Now: Love and Order: A Three-Part Old West Romantic Mystery

 

Wanted: 

Family, Love, and Justice

One Old West Mystery Solved Throughout Three Short Romantic Stories

Separated as children when they were adopted out to different families from an orphan train, the Braddock siblings have each grown up and taken on various jobs within law enforcement and criminal justice.

 

Youngest child, Callie, has pushed past her insecurities to pursue a career as a Pinkerton agent. Middle child, Andi, has spent years studying law under her adoptive father’s tutelage. And the eldest and only son, Rion, is a rough-and-tumble bounty hunter. 

 

When the hunt for a serial killer with a long history of murders reunites the brother and sisters in Cambria Springs, Colorado, they find themselves not only in a fight for justice, but also a fight to keep their newly reunited family intact. How will they navigate these challenges when further complicated by unexpected romances?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Birthday to Children’s Authors & A Cartoonist

Happy 173^rd Birthday to Robert Louis Stevenson

 

Author’s works include Treasure Island, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and A Child’s Garden of Verses. 

 

Born: November 13, 1850

Birthplace: Edinburgh, Scotland

Died: December 3, 1894 (44 years old)

Robert Louis Stevenson in front of his Samoan home
Classic ~ Treasure Island

Trivia: Ranked as the world's 26th-most-translated author (2018).

 

Stevenson and his wife lived in Samoa for several years. Described as a “quixotic drifter,” Stevenson "was not just a novelist, but a literary wizard tangled in the productions of his craft, its locale, and its depth" (RLS Bio).

“I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in.”

Happy 125^th Birthday to C.S. Lewis

 

Author’s works include The Chronicles of Narnia, The Screwtape Letters, and Mere Christianity.

 

Born: November 29, 1898

Birthplace: Belfast, Ireland

Died: November 22, 1963 (A week before his 65^th birthday)

C.S. Lewis
Classic ~ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Trivia: Ranked 11^th on The Times' 50 greatest British writers since 1945 list. 

 

Lewis is known as the Father of Modern Fantasy. His works have been translated into over thirty languages.

The Chronicles of Narnia includes seven stories. The first of this, and the most popular, is The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It has been adapted for theater and television multiple times and also as a 2005 film released by Walt Disney and Walden Media.

“The fact that our heart yearns for something Earth can’t supply is proof that Heaven must be our home.”

 

 

Happy 191^st Birthday to Louisa May Alcott

 

Author’s works include Little Women, An Old-Fashioned Girl, and Jo’s Boys

 

Born: November 29, 1832

Birthplace: Germantown, Pennsylvania, United States

Died: March 6, 1888 (55 years old)

Louisa May Alcott
Classic ~ Little Women

Trivia: Contracted typhoid while serving as a nurse during the Civil War.

 

Alcott is buried near Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau—who were family friends—in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts, on a hillside now known as Authors' Ridge. She never married.

 

“The power of finding beauty in the humblest things makes home happy and life lovely.”

 

Happy 188^th Birthday to Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

 

Author’s works include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

 

Born: November 30, 1835

Birthplace: Florida, Missouri; raised in Hannibal, Missouri

Died: April 21, 1910 (74 years old)

Mark Twain
Classic ~ The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Trivia: Known as America’s “Greatest Humorist” and the father of American literature.

 

Clemens’ “fondest childhood dream was to become a steamboatman. Hence, he was elated when steamboat pilot Horace E. Bixby took him as an apprentice and trained him in navigation. After more than two years of rigorous training, Clemens became a licensed river pilot in 1858. Interestingly, it was during his time as a pilot that he received his famous alias, Mark Twain" (MT Bio).

“The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why.”

 

Happy 101^st Birthday to Charles M. Schulz

 

Creator of Peanuts

 

Born: November 26, 1922

Birthplace: Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States

Died: February 12, 2000 (77 years old)

Charles M. Schulz
Creator ~ Peanuts

Trivia: Received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (1996).

 

Schulz is one of “the most influential cartoonists of all time.” He did all his own work, “from conceptualization to drawing,” without assistance from anyone else (CMS Bio).

“Sometimes I lie awake at night and I ask, ‘Is life a multiple choice test or is it a true or false test?’...Then a voice comes to me out of the dark and says, ‘We hate to tell you this but life is a thousand-word essay.’”

Your Turn  ~ Which of these authors is your favorite?

Johnnie writes award-winning stories in multiple genres. A fan of classic movies, stacks of books, and road trips, she shares a life of quiet adventure with Griff, her happy-go-lucky collie, and Rugby, her raccoon-treeing papillon. Visit her at 

johnnie-alexander.com.

Photos ~ modified with Canva images 

Robert Louis Stevenson ~ public domain.

Robert Louis Stevenson's home at Vailima, Samoa, showing him on the veranda ~ Unknown author - Old postcard; no publisher or date, c. 1893. Public domain.

C.S. Lewis ~ By Source: Scan of photograph by Arthur Strong, 1947, Specific source for the zealot: https://timfall.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/c-s-lewis3.jpg; Photograph or image of Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963); fair use.

Louisa May Alcott ~ public domain.

Mark Twain ~ portrait taken by A. F. Bradley in New York, 1907, steamboattimes.com; public domain.

Charles Schulz ~ Roger Higgins, World Telegram staff photographer - This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3f06148. Permission details ~ "No copyright restriction known. Staff photographer reproduction rights transferred to Library of Congress through Instrument of Gift." See also 

https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/076_nyw.html. Public domain. (Photo cropped.)

Sources ~ all websites accessed on November 3, 2023.

RLS Bio ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/robert-louis-stevenson-2707.php

 

MBT ~ Mark Twain

https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/mark-twain-64.php

 

CMS Bio ~ Charles M. Schulz

https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/charles-monroe-schulz-1017.php

Guest Blogger Heidi Chiavaroli: The History Behind my Louisa May Alcott Obesession

By Heidi Chiavaroli

Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House

My fascination with Louisa May Alcott and her Little Women didn’t actually begin with the book. It didn’t even begin with the 1994 movie (the one with Winona Ryder), which I absolutely adored.

No, my preoccupation with this story—and this author—stemmed from a piece of history. More accurately, a place in history.

I remember visiting Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House as a girl in Concord, Massachusetts. Standing in her bedroom, I gazed at the very desk where she wrote her beautiful novel, Little Women. There was something special about that place, something almost magical. And right then, in that moment, I was the closest person to where it all began. I imagined Louisa sitting before me, fervently scribbling of Jo scorching Meg’s hair while trying to curl it, of Amy’s beautiful limes getting dumped out the schoolroom window, and of little Beth at the seashore telling Jo she knows the end of her life is near.

School of Philosophy

In that snatch of time, history seemed to meet the present. It met me. While I’d read about history in countless school textbooks, that was the moment it reached out and grabbed me. That’s the moment it began to captivate me in a way that would hold tight and never let go.

As I wrote stories surrounding the rich past of colonial Massachusetts, the Alcott family home was always in the back of my mind. I knew I wanted to go there with my stories someday. Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House after all, was no stranger to history.

The property was home for Native Americans during King Philip’s war and it saw the passing of the Royal troops on their way to Old North Bridge to secure an arms cache. It witnessed the Battle of Concord and it’s not far from Walden Pond, where poet and writer Henry David Thoreau lived for more than two years. The Orchard House property itself (which Louisa jokingly called “Apple Slump”), houses Bronson Alcott’s School of Philosophy. Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, where Louisa May Alcott and her family are buried on Author’s Ridge along with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, is less than a mile from the property.

The amount of history saturating this beautiful land and this historic home led me to revisit both the town of Concord and the story of Little Women as an adult. What I found there stirred my heart anew. The authentic struggles, the themes of sisterhood, friendship, forgiveness, and helping the downtrodden, touched me deeply. I could imagine the March sisters in the home Louisa had written her novel. I knew these walls. They drew me to the author herself.

As I dug deep into Louisa’s biographies, stories, letters, and journals, my admiration for this untraditional but brave lady grew tenfold. When I learned of her time as a nurse during the Civil War and read of her experiences caring for a young blacksmith who would end up dying, and her subsequent near-death experience with typhoid shortly after, I felt the beautiful burden to pen a story which would springboard off of Louisa’s experiences.

Louisa May Alcott's resting place

We know her as the author of Little Women, and well she was. But reading of her time as a nurse, as a voice for the oppressed, and as a champion for her family spurred me on to bring to light some of these lesser-known aspects of the famed author. To celebrate not just Jo March, but Louisa May Alcott herself.

The result was my dual timeline novel, The Orchard House. It’s amazing how, after I finished this story, so dear to my heart, I couldn’t quite imagine leaving Louisa May Alcott or her Little Women. So I then ventured to write my first series, a contemporary retelling of Louisa’s much-loved classic with a few twists and turns.

While I love so many things about Louisa and Little Women, the part that touches me the most is how readers today are still flocking to this story, this lady, and her home. The history, the characters, and the experiences Louisa so brilliantly pulled from life and put onto the page are marks of a truly remarkable legacy.

Heidi Chiavaroli is a writer, runner, and grace-clinger who could spend hours exploring places that whisper of historical secrets. Her debut novel, Freedom's Ring, was a Carol Award winner and a Christy Award finalist, a Romantic Times Top Pick, and a Booklist Top Ten Romance Debut. Her latest dual timeline novel, The Orchard House, is inspired by the lesser-known events in Louisa May Alcott's life. Heidi makes her home in Massachusetts with her husband and two sons. Visit her online at heidichiavaroli.com or http://www.heidichiavaroli.com/the-orchard-house/

THE ORCHARD HOUSE

By Heidi Chiavaroli

Two women, one living in present day Massachusetts and another in Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House soon after the Civil War, overcome their own personal demons and search for a place to belong.

Louisa May Alcott

 Louisa May Alcott by Martha Rogers 

Louisa May Alcott was one of my favorite authors as a young girl, and I dreamed of becoming a writer like Jo as I read about her fist in Little Women and Jo's Boys. I imagine there are many other authors who have had the same dreams.

Louisa was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania on November 29. 1832. Her father, Bronson Alcott was a transcendentalist and moved the family to Massachusetts. Louisa spent most of her childhood in Boston and Concord. Here, she came into contact with authors such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Theodore Parker. 

She attended school at her father's Temple School in Boston and then later at home. Because of bad investments and business failures, Louisa recognized her father's poor means of provision for the family and went to work to help with the finances. She taught a while, worked as a domestic, and then began writing. Her first writings were considered to be pot boilers under the pen name A.M. Barnard. They were lurid tales of violence. 

She served as a volunteer nurse during the Civil War and ended up contracting typhoid because of the unsanitary hospital conditions. She was sent home, but she was never completely well after that. Her first publication contained her letters in Hospital Sketches in 1863 and that brought her a first taste of success. These stories gave a vivid description of the hospital and the high casualty statistics appearing in the news. One of the surgeons lauded her on how young men were treated in the hospital and made the comment on how humiliating it was for him to be among the men and not see how things were.

Atlantic Monthly began publishing other stories by Alcott, and she began work on her well-known autobiography in Little Women which was published in 1869 and became an immediate success. Telling the story with memories of her own

childhood, the novel traced the development of the very different personalities of four sisters and created a realistic view of life in a wholesome family setting with which her young readers readily identified. After its great success, she could finally pay off all the family debts. Above are two popular copies.

Alcott followed this book with other stories of her early experiences in An Old Fashioned Christmas, Aunt Jo's Scrap Bag, Little Men, Eight Cousins, Roses in Bloom, and Jo's Boys. These were all published between 1870 and 1886.

Alcott never traveled much except for a trip to Europe in 1870 and a few trips to New York. Most likely this was because of her poor ill following her nursing experience. Her books were classified as books for a younger audience and remained popular, but before those she had a number of lesser known works published as adult fiction under her nom de plume Barnard. The women in these novels were portrayed as strong, smart and determined--much like herself.

 New interest was aroused when some of these were republished late in the 20th century. Noted among these is the novel A Modern Mephistopheles first published in 1877 under another name and then republished as a Gothic novel in 1987. Some of her Gothic novels written between 1863 and 1869 were collected and republished. These included Behind the Mask in 1975, Plots and Counterplots in 1976 and A Long Fatal Love in 1995. 

Although Jo married at the end of Little Women, Alcott remained single. She had brief time with a young man while in Europe, but it never developed into a lasting relationship.

The last twenty years of her life were spent caring for her ill mother and helpless father. Her mother died from her illness in 1877. She also adopted her namesake
Louisa May Nieriker who was the daughter of her late sister, May. Louisa's health began a further decline and she died on March 6, 1888 only two days after her father's death. She is buried in Concord.

Those first books about the March family and the four March sisters remain as popular today as they were well over a century ago. They have been published in both hard and soft cover versions. Little Women has been made into at four movies with top name stars in each one. In the 1933 version, Katherine Hepburn played the part of Jo, in 1949, June Allyson was Jo, Wynona Ryder in 1994 and Saoirse Ronan in 2019. The 1949 is my all-time favorite, but I haven't seen the 2019 version.

In 1940, the United States Postal Service a commemorative stamp in her honor.   

One of my most prized possessions is a doll from The Ashton-Drake Galleries and designed by fellow writer Wendy Lawton. She is on display in my living room. She's holding a tiny copy of Pilgrim's Progress in her hands.

      

I began writing a novel in 1989 when I was teaching and worked on it whenever I could find time. It ended up at 100K and rambled a lot. Finally, last year I finalized the revisions, had it edited and saw its publication this past Spring. It really is the novel of my heart.

 In Legacy of Deception, the lives of three women are entwined because of a long kept secret. A case of amnesia and mistaken identity, a plan to take away a woman’s wealth, and a determined young woman’s plan to stop it, all lead to a family showdown. When the deceptions are uncovered, lives are changed forever. 

 

Martha Rogers is a free-lance writer and multi-published author from Realms Fiction of Charisma Media and Winged Publications. She was named Writer of the Year at the Texas Christian Writers Conference in 2009. She is a member of ACFW and writes the weekly Verse of the Week for the ACFW Loop. ACFW awarded her the Volunteer of the Year in 2014. Her first electronic series from Winged Publications, Love in the Bayou City of Texas, debuted in the spring of 2015.  Martha is a frequent speaker for writing workshops and on the Board of Directors for the Texas Christian Writers Conference. She is a retired teacher and lives in Houston with her husband, Rex. Their favorite pastime is spending time with their twelve grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. 

Find Martha at: https://www.facebook.com/MarthaRogersAuthor/

Twitter: @MarthaRogers2    www.marthawrogers.com

 

Pro-life and Pro-Woman--the Early Feminists

by Kathleen L. Maher

March is Women's History Month, and Heroes, Heroines and History honors the pioneers of Women's Rights. 

https://goo.gl/images/w7XJfS

In a previous post I wrote about Rachel Gleason, a pioneering female doctor who championed women's health. (see post here) Dr. Gleason was only the fourth woman in the US to earn her MD, and she was arguably the very first to devote her practice to women's unique health issues. Her contemporaries, many of them personal friends and acquaintances, were suffragettes, some who stayed at her health resort and were active in New York State for women's causes. They all shared a common view of an issue that has been gaining headlines regarding women's health, a view that has been lost or forgotten over the generations as fundamental to women's rights. They all felt a moral reprehension toward abortion.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton began activism as an abolitionist, married to an abolitionist. But women had a limited voice to champion this worthy cause in her day, which frustrated her enough to begin what would become the birth of the women's movement in Seneca Falls. Stanton was steadfastly against abortion. "Let woman assert herself in all her native purity, dignity, and strength and end this wholesale suffering and murder of helpless children. With centuries of degradation, we have so little of true womanhood, that the world has but the faintest glimmering of what a woman is or should be.” In another instance, she wrote, "The social system is too corrupt, it would certainly seem, long to survive. Infanticide is on the increase to an extent inconceivable. "

Stanton and Anthony

Stanton, along with Susan B. Anthony, published a magazine called The Revolution, the official voice of National Women Suffrage Association whose motto read: “The True Republic–Men, their rights and nothing more; Women, their rights and nothing less.” In more than one instance, The Revolution stated Stanton and Anthony's stance on abortion. This passage from The Revolution indicates not just another early female doctor's disdain for the practice, but the editor's views on it as well.

Dr. Charlotte Lozier of 323 W. 34th St., of this city [New York], was applied to last week by man pretending to be from South Carolina, by the name, Moran, as he also pretended, to procure an abortion on a very pretty young girl apparently about 18 years old. The doctor assured him that he’d come to the wrong place for any such a shameful, revolting, unnatural and unlawful purpose. She proffered to the young woman any assistance in her power to render, at the proper time, and cautioned and counseled her against the fearful act which she and her attendant (whom she called her cousin) proposed.

Another article in The Revolution entitled “Child Murder” has been attributed by some scholars to Susan B. Anthony. It reads:

Guilty? Yes no matter what the motive, love of ease, or desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; but oh! Thrice guilty is he who, for selfish gratification, heedless of her prayers, indifferent to her fate, drove her to the desperation which impels her to the crime.
Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first female physician, held a deep respect for life in the womb, of which she said "we can only regard with reverent admiration."  She also held repulsion for the abortionist's trade, and renounced a woman named Madame Restell performing illegal abortions in New York.

"The gross perversion and destruction of motherhood by the abortionist filled me with indignation, and awakened active antagonism. That the honorable term ‘female physician’ should be exclusively applied to those women who carried on this shocking trade seemed to me a horror. It was an utter degradation of what might and should become a noble position for women."

These are but a few direct quotes spoken or written by the heroines and champions of suffrage and women's rights. Other indications of their stance against abortion can be felt through their refusal to accept revenue through abortifacient/pessary advertisement dollars, and their definition of "voluntary motherhood" to mean a married woman's right to abstinence rather than termination of a pregnancy. These women understood that motherhood was a beautiful and honorable role, to be cherished and protected rather than regarded as an inconvenience or grudging obligation. In fact, to these early activists, to sacrifice the sacredness of the maternal role for career and ambition was to lose the identity of femininity itself. 

Louisa May Alcott, famous for her Civil War era novel Little Women, wrote the following to the editor of The Boston Daily Journal: 

The assertion that suffragists do not care for children and prefer notoriety to the joys of maternity is so fully contradicted by the lives of the women who are trying to make the world a safer place for both sons and daughters, that no defense is needed. Having spent my own life from fifteen to fifty, loving and laboring for children, as teacher, nurse, storyteller and guardian, I know whereof I speak.

These historic voices continue in the true cause of women's freedoms over 100 years later, and the diligent scholar will take in the full counsel of their wisdom. No freedom is won at the sacrifice of another, even the dependent child of one's womb. As we celebrate Women's History Month, let us embrace their message of equal rights for every woman, born and unborn.

______________~~~_____________

Kathleen L. Maher has had an infatuation with books and fictional heroes ever since her preschool crush, Peter Rabbit. Barbour’s best-selling 2018 Victorian Christmas Brides collection includes her novella “Love Brick by Brick”, featuring her hometown of Elmira, New York. Her debut historical, Bachelor Buttons 2013 blends her Irish heritage and love of the American Civil War. She won the 2012 ACFW Genesis contest for her Civil War story, The Abolitionist’s Daughter: Book 1 in Sons of the Shenandoah Series released summer 2018. Book 2 The Chaplain’s Daughter will be available spring 2019. Her novella “Something Old, Something New” releases Oct 2019 with Barbour’s school teacher romance collection Lessons on Love. Kathleen shares an old farmhouse in upstate New York with her husband, children, and a small zoo of beloved pets.

Follow Kathleen

on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KLMaherAuthor/
on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Mahereenie
and on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/kathleenlmaher