Antoinette Brown Blackwell
A minister who shattered the stained-glass ceiling, then used her pulpit to champion women's rights and challenge the scientific sexism of her age.
1825–1921 (age 96)·American philosopher·Birthday: May 20
Biography
Antoinette Brown Blackwell was a woman who refused to accept the boundaries drawn for her. In 1853, after years of theological study and advocacy, she was ordained a Congregationalist minister, becoming the first woman in the United States to achieve such a status in a mainstream Protestant denomination. This was not the end of her ambition, but the platform for it. She leveraged her religious authority to argue for social justice, becoming a powerful voice in the abolitionist and women's suffrage movements. Never one to compartmentalize her intellect, she later turned a critical eye to the emerging science of evolution. Disturbed by Charles Darwin's assertions of female inferiority in 'The Descent of Man,' she penned 'The Sexes Throughout Nature,' a pioneering work that used scientific reasoning to argue for equality between men and women across the natural world. Her life was a continuous thread of faithful rebellion, weaving together theology, activism, and science.
#1 When Antoinette Was Born
The biggest hits of 1825
Antoinette's Life & Times
The world at every milestone
1825Born
1830Started school
1838Became a teenager
1841Could drive
1843Could vote
1846Turned 21
1855Turned 30
1865Turned 40
President: Andrew Johnson
1875Turned 50
President: Ulysses S. Grant
1885Turned 60
Karl Benz builds the first gasoline-powered automobile
President: Grover Cleveland
1895Turned 70
First public film screening by the Lumiere brothers
President: Grover Cleveland
1905Turned 80
Einstein publishes the theory of special relativity
President: Theodore Roosevelt
1921Died at 96
First commercial radio broadcasts
President: Warren G. Harding"My Man" — Fanny Brice
Key Achievements
- Became the first ordained female mainstream Protestant minister in the United States in 1853.
- Authored 'The Sexes Throughout Nature' (1875), a critical scientific response to Darwin's theories on gender.
- Was a prominent speaker and organizer for the women's suffrage movement throughout the 19th century.
- Served as a pastor in South Butler, New York, and later as a minister emerita in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
Did You Know?
She was a close friend and colleague of suffragists Lucy Stone and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
She entered Oberlin College in 1846 but was not allowed to take the theology course officially; she studied it independently.
She married Samuel Charles Blackwell in 1856 and had seven children while continuing her writing and activism.
At age 90, she finally voted in a presidential election for the first time in 1920, after the 19th Amendment was ratified.
“A woman finds her true place in the world only when she is free to choose her own sphere of action.”
