More about Clarina Nichols

Clarina Irene Howard Nichols was an influential speaker and newspaper editor who devoted her life to improving the lives of women. In the 1850s, she joined the small courageous group that launched the women’s rights movement. They caused a sensation — but their cause would soon be overshadowed by the events of the Civil War.

Nichols was so well known in her day that she authored her own chapter in the landmark History of Woman Suffrage, edited by Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage. Nichols was constantly in demand as a speaker and journalist. Women in distress sought her out, and she responded with sympathy and direct action.

After her death in 1885, she slipped into obscurity. But with the publication of the biography Revolutionary Heart, notes Kansas History magazine, “Nichols can no longer be called ‘the forgotten feminist.’”

Born to privilege, Clarina Nichols left the comforts of her native Vermont and moved her family to rugged Kansas Territory. There her sons fought alongside John Brown to stop the spread of slavery, and Nichols pleaded the free-state cause in lectures and newspaper articles. But her real passion was women’s rights. At a time when married women had almost no legal standing, she lobbied male legislators to give women the basic rights they enjoy today.

Next: Read a brief overview of Clarina’s life

Above: The Kansas City Star, Nov. 6, 1999