Antoinette Brown Blackwell

This first biography of the 19th-century feminist and first American woman to be ordained a Christian minister is steeped in family correspondence, contemporary newspaper accounts, and Blackwell's own work. Antoinette Brown Blackwell is determined to breach "the great wall of custom" and become a minister. Equally compelling is the story of her attempt to integrate her public and private lives; on the condition that she could continue her own professional work and he would share household responsibilities, she agrees to marry Elizabeth Blackwell's brother Samuel. Cazden follows Blackwell through her feminist activity on the lecture circuit with Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony.