Anna Elizabeth Dickinson

Anna Elizabeth Dickinson (October 28, 1842 – October 22, 1932) was an American orator and lecturer. An advocate for the abolition of slavery and for women's suffrage, Dickinson was the first woman to give a political address before the United States Congress. A gifted speaker at a very young age, she aided the Republican Party in the hard-fought 1863 elections and significantly influenced the distribution of political power in the Union just prior to the Civil War. Dickinson also was probably the second white woman on record to climb Colorado’s Longs Peak, in 1873.

Early life

Dickinson was born of Quaker parentage, at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to abolitionist parents. Dickinson's father died when she was two years old after giving a speech against slavery. She and her four siblings were raised by her mother. She was educated at Friends Select School of Philadelphia and later at Westtown Boarding School until she was 15. As a 14-year-old, she published a passionate anti-slavery essay in The Liberator, a newspaper owned by vociferous abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. She addressed the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society in 1860.