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The following biography is from the American National Biography,
published by Oxford University Press. Copyright 1999 ACLS.
Livermore, Mary (19 Dec. 1820-23 May 1905), reformer, writer, and
suffrage leader, was born Mary Ashton Rice in Boston, Massachusetts,
the daughter of Timothy Rice, a laborer, and Zebiah Vose Glover
Ashton. Mary's family had a strong sense of patriotism and adhered
to the strict tenets of a Calvinist Baptist faith. Fear of eternal
damnation caused Mary such great pain that she found passages in the
Bible to disprove this doctrine. She often pretended to be a
preacher by delivering sermons to playmates. At the age of fourteen
she attended a Baptist female seminary in Charlestown,
Massachusetts, where she studied French, Latin, and metaphysics.
Following her graduation in 1836 she joined the teaching faculty of
the school.
Although initially not a woman suffrage advocate, in 1838 Mary heard
a speech by Angelina Grimke, an abolitionist and feminist, which
convinced her that "women ought to be free" to live up to their
capabilities. A year later she accepted a tutoring position on a
Virginia plantation and witnessed the beating of slaves. When she
returned to Massachusetts in 1842 to head a private school, she had
become a radical abolitionist.
On 6 May 1845 Mary Rice married Daniel Parker Livermore, a
Universalist minister. They had three daughters. Her husband's
optimistic view of salvation helped her overcome the fears of her
strict religious upbringing. The Livermores served in several New
England pastorates before moving to Chicago in 1857. Mary Livermore
continued a writing career begun in 1844 when The Children's Army, a
series of short stories dealing with the evils of drink, was
published. In 1848 she published A Mental Transformation, a novel
depicting a woman's religious rejection of Baptist beliefs. In
Chicago she became the associate editor for her husband's
Universalist newspaper New Covenant, often overseeing operations and
staff in her husband's absence. In 1860 she attended the national
Republican convention as the only female reporter.
In addition to church work and writing, Livermore immersed herself
in charitable causes. In 1861 she helped found the Home for Aged
Women and the Hospital for Women and Children, and she served on the
board of directors at the Home for the Friendless, which aided
impoverished women and children. When the Civil War began, she
joined the Chicago branch of the Sanitary Commission, which
coordinated volunteer workers, distributed medical and other
supplies, and conducted fundraising. Livermore journeyed to army
camps and attended women's councils in Washington to assess the
needs of Union armies.
In conjunction with the Sanitary Commission, in 1862 Livermore was
appointed as an agent of the Northwest Commission for six midwestern
states. Organized and business-minded, sympathetic and zealous, she
possessed remarkable physical strength and unwavering energy and
provided strong leadership. She traveled throughout the Midwest
bringing together women in more than 3,000 aid societies. The women
learned how to collect money and supplies, how to assemble bandages,
and where to send packages to soldiers.
In 1863 Livermore organized the Northwestern Sanitary Fair hoping to
raise $25,000 to aid societies in procuring, coordinating, and
shipping needed supplies. Visitors from six surrounding states
attended the fair where livestock, sewing machines, and stoves were
sold. Women served dinner, gave concerts, and held an art
exhibition. The fair exceeded expectations and silenced critics who
had ridiculed her idea. In addition to donations of food, between
$86,000 and $100,000 was collected. Livermore was described as
"fearful and wonderful" and a woman of "great and real power." The
Sanitary Fair became the first of many held in northern cities,
which collectively raised more than $1 million.
Following the Civil War Livermore decided that the vote would give
women the power to fight poverty, drunkenness, and prostitution. In
The Story of My Life (1897) she recalled that "a large portion of
the nation's work was badly done . . . because woman was not
recognized as a factor in the political world." Her articles
supporting woman suffrage appeared in numerous papers. As the first
president of the Illinois Woman Suffrage Association in 1868 she
aided in passage of a bill in the Illinois legislature giving women
rights to their own earnings. She founded a newspaper, the Agitator,
a short-lived but nationally recognized voice for women's rights.
In 1869, through the encouragement of her husband, who gave up his
newspaper and his position in Chicago and moved the family to
Boston, Livermore became editor of the Woman's Journal, the weekly
paper of the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA), merging it
with the Agitator. In 1872 she resigned to join the lecture circuit
as a speaker. Two of her most popular lectures, "What Shall We Do
with Our Daughters?" and "Superfluous Women," stressed the
importance of a young woman's education in becoming independent.
American and European audiences alike enjoyed her lectures, which
averaged 150 per year and covered a variety of topics. In 1873 she
became president of the Association for the Advancement of Women, an
organization of moderate feminists promoting "Women as thinkers."
>From 1875 to 1878 she served as president of the AWSA; in 1870 she
founded the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association and in 1893
became its president, a position she held until 1903. Lecturing
became a lucrative career for Livermore, and she remained on tour
until 1895.
Livermore's writing also continued. My Story of the War: A Woman's
Narrative of Four Years of Personal Experience as Nurse in the Union
Army (1887) told of women and nursing during the Civil War. The
publication of The Story of My Life produced a narrative of
Livermore's life with a vivid depiction of her years on the Virginia
plantation. Her articles appeared in the North American Review, the
Independent, the Chautauquan, and other publications. Her interest
in phrenology caused her to believe that a healthy regimen was
related to the welfare of the mind and the soul. After her husband's
death in 1899 she longed to reunite with him and embraced
spiritualism as a means of contact. Within a year she confirmed that
she had spoken to him through a medium. Livermore died in Melrose,
Massachusetts.
Although remembered most for her volunteer work during the Civil
War, Livermore was highly visible in women's rights, suffrage,
temperance, abolitionism, and moral reforms. Although seeking to
empower women with "new powers and aspirations," Livermore's
attitude was generally conservative for she knew that women
ultimately married and primarily functioned in the home. Still she
did much to bring about change for women and created a powerful
impression as she captivated her audiences with her logic and her
forceful speaking.
Bibliography
Mary Livermore's correspondence can be found in the antislavery Kate
Field Collection, Boston Public Library, the Mary Livermore
Collection at the Melrose Public Library, the Schlesinger Library,
Radcliffe College; and the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College.
Additional writings by Livermore include Thirty Years Too Late: A
Temperance Story (1845) and Nineteen Pen Pictures (1863). She also
edited A Woman of the Century (1893). Details of her life and works
are in L. P. Brockett, Woman's Work in the Civil War (1867);
Elizabeth Cady Stanton et al., History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4,
1883-1900 (1902); Eleanor Flexner, Century of Struggle: The Woman's
Rights Movement in the United States (1975); Blanche Glassman Hersh,
The Slavery of Sex: Feminist-Abolitionists in America (1978); Robert
H. Bremner, The Public Good: Philanthropy and Welfare in the Civil
War Era (1980); Ruth Bordin, Woman and Temperance: The Quest for
Power and Liberty, 1873-1900 (1981); Steven M. Buechler, The
Transformation of the Woman Suffrage Movement: The Case of Illinois,
1850-1920 (1986); and Carolyn DeSwarte Gifford, "Frances Willard and
the Woman's Christian Temperance Union's Conversion to Woman
Suffrage," in One Woman, One Vote: Rediscovering the Woman Suffrage
Movement, ed. Marjorie Spruill Wheeler (1995). An obituary appears
in the New York Times, 24 May 1905.
Written by Marilyn Elizabeth Perry
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