Overview
While the other creative women on the covers in this collection were contemporary to the mid-1920s, there are two exceptions: notable early proponents of feminist ideology Mary Wollstonecraft and Frances Wright. These two women blazed the trail for all of the other individuals named in this exhibit to follow.
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)
An ardent advocate of educational and social equality and author of the feminist classic A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), Wollstonecraft is widely considered to be one of the founders of feminist thought. Her reputation had suffered upon her death due to publication of a salacious memoir her husband William Godwin had written, but it was the suffragettes on both sides of the Atlantic who rediscovered her work and posthumously revived her reputation.
Frances Wright (1795-1852)
More widely known as Fanny, she was born in Scotland, but became an American citizen in 1825. Wright began giving public lectures and touring in the late 1820s and early 1830s at a time when many considered it inappropriate behavior for a woman. She spoke out in favor of such topics as universal education, birth control, and equal rights for women and voiced her opposition to slavery, organized religion, and capital punishment.
