President ial campaign, and books on the decline of intellectual habits, a movement by former gang members to rebuild their families and lives and a dual biography of Andrew Jackson and cherokee leader john ross. All this and more this weekend on booktv. For a complete television schedule, visit booktv. Org. Booktv, 48 hours this weekend of nonfiction books and authors. Television for serious readers. Historian Sally Mcmillen is next on booktv. She recounts the life of abolitionist and suffragist lucy stone who she contends should be celebrated amongst the likes of susan b. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady stanton for her activism. Its now my distinct honor and privilege to introduce dr. Sally mcmillen who is the Mary Reynolds babcock professor of history at Davidson College in North Carolina. She earned her ph. D. At duke university, and along the way we learned today got a degree in library science. She has been one of the most important and productive scholars of 19th century womens history in the past two decades. Her books include motherhood in the old south, southern women, and seneca falls and the origins of the womens Rights Movement. Her brand new book which recently received a wonderful review in the l. A. Times is entitled lucy stone an unapologetic life. A pathbreaking activist, lucy stone at last has a biography and biographer worthy of her inspired and inspiring life. Please help me welcome to Benjamin FranklinsLibrary Company the distinguished scholar, dr. Sally mcmillen. [applause] thank you so much, rich, and i just wanted to say its an absolute delight to be here. I want to thank rich for inviting me and for the Library Company for also inviting me, and its just a pleasure to be in philadelphia. Its a great city, and i actually have heard of this, the Library Company of philadelphia, but id never been here before. Got my own personal tour this morning, and its an exceptional place, so you are very lucky to have this. So let me start on lucy stone. In the rotunda of our nations capitol stands an impressive monument celebrating three remarkable 19th century women, also important in winning universal suffrage for women; lou chief shah not Elizabeth Cady stanton and susan b. Anthony, but a fourth woman is every bit as deserving, lucy stone. She was equally dedicate today the womens Rights Movement and also a celebrated, passionate orator for the Antislavery Movement. Her absence from the monument says volumes about how we tell our history and whom we celebrate. Tonight i want to chisel lucy, at least temporarily into that marble. I decided to write a biography of lucy stone after i completed a book on the seven that falls movement seneca falls movement. My editor at oxford commented i seemed to enjoy writing about people and should consider biography. Lucy stone immediately came to mind. For many years in my teaching, i talk about and use lucy stone as an example of not only a great woman, but also how often we leave important people out of our past. So i plunged in using lucys and her familys correspondence, convention reports and the widespread newspaper coverage that she generated. What was especially fun was with my husband visiting several places where lucy had lived and died. Even though none of her homes remain stand ising actually being present at these various sites and imagining herr living there gave me a better sense of who lucy was. Born on august 13, 1818, near the village of west brookfield, massachusetts, lucy grew up on a farm the sixth of seven children. Her father, francis embraced patriarchal tenants of the day ruling over his household and his family. He expected obedience from his wife hannah, and their children. As lucy later wrote, there was only one will in our home, and that was my fathers. Like most farm children, lucy and her siblings helped plant crops, garden, hauled wood and water,ed food, cooked laundered and even sew ised leather shoe sew ised leather shoe topped for local tanners. Lucy sensed the need for further education in order for her to lead a more purposeful life. When she asked her parents if she could continue her schooling, they said she had had more than enough education to find a good husband which, of course, was the goal for nearly all young women at that time. Lucy, however, had little interest in marriage and began Teaching School and intermittently attending semesters at a number of private academies in the area including the newlyopened Mount Holyoke female seminary. While in her late teens, she learned of bearland college Oberlin College which was accepting women and africanamericans. She was determined to attend. Though francis had sent two of lucys brothers to college he refused to help pay her way since she was a woman and in his eyes had absolutely no need for Higher Education. So lucy taught school, saved her money, and in 1843, with 92 in hand, traveled 650 miles to attend oberlin. One can only imagine the raised eyebrows when fellow travelers met this petite young woman and learned that she was alone and headed to, of all places, the First College in the nation to accept women. At oberlin she scrimped and saved and worked to earn enough money to pay her expenses. At one point she worked three jobs and slept only four hours a night, and she studied and she studied. Lucy stood out not only because she was brilliant and outspoken but unlike most students and faculty at oberlin she supported the idea of William Lloyd garrison is, one of the nations most radical abolitionists. And while oberlin was remarkable for admitting women and africanamericans, it embraced traditional ideas about how women should behave. The school did not believe women should speak in public, and after lucy delivered a lecture to village residents as they celebrated haitis independence days, she was reprimanded by to berlins ladies committee. Women students were not allowed to speak in public, take rhetoric classes or participate in mens debating societies. So she and her best friend, ann two net brown secretly founded a womens debating society, the very first in the nation. As a senior and at the top of her class lucy was invited by the faculty to write an essay to be delivered at graduation. She was told however, while she could write the essay is, it would be absolutely unseemly for a woman to appear on stage and read what she had written. A man had to do that. A principled, proud lucy refused to participate but she graduated in 1847 at the age of 29, becoming the fist Massachusetts Woman the first Massachusetts Woman and one of the first women in our nation to graduate from college with a bachelors degree. In researching lucy stones life, i could not help but wonder what set her apart from hundreds of thousands of other farm girls in the nation who did not become reformers activists or suffragists, how to explain her belief in Higher Education for women and her commitment to the Antislavery Movement and to womens rights. Well, for one thing, she had good genes. Some of her forebearers were Ground Breakers such as a forefather who defended a woman accused of witchcraft in 17th century massachusetts and a grandfather who had fought in the American Revolution and was a leader in shays shays rebellion. All the stones were abolitionists and subscribed to and read garrisons antislavery newspaper, the liberator. Lucy however was the only Family Member who became an ardent suffragist, rebelling against the laws that kept women especially married women in a state of submission. Women were not allowed to vote is hold public office, serve on juries, sign contract, attend college or pursue professional careers. When married they fell under the legal control of their husbands and were expected to remain at home. But lucy became especially sensitive and affected by mens oppression of women. She saw how her father treated her hour, how stingy he was even though hannah worked as hard as he did and how verbally and physically abusive he could be when he drank too much cider. Lucy experienced womens invisibility when she attended a Church Meeting to decide whether to the expend a member expel a member who was deeply involved in the abolition movement. When lucy raised her hand to vote on this very matter and defend the man, the minister told the vote counter to ignore her, for even though she was a church member, she could not vote because she was a woman. Lucy observed a neighbor woman married to a domineering alcoholic, adulteress husband and she wondered why the woman was not able to leave him when the womans father appeared and tried to rescue his daughter. Lucy is read and objected to passages in the bible that insisted on womens silence and inferiority, and she decided to learn greek to understand the language, certain that bible passages had been mistranslated. In 1837 new england ministers were aghast when two South Carolina sisters angelina and sarah, lectured on antislavery to men and women. Ministers wrote a formal protest which lucy heard read in church and she was incensed by their effort to try to silence these two women. She vowed at that point to dedicate her life to insuring womens right to speak in public. While a senior at to berlin and over the objections of her parents and her sister, lucy decided to become a public lecturer for the Antislavery Movement. Today i think its impossible to imagine how daring and challenging that career was for a young woman. Lucy had no money no name recognition beyond her home and oberlin. But in the spring of 1848 the Massachusetts Antislavery Society hired her as a speaker and she gave her first talk on womens rights actually several weeks before the first Womens Rights Convention met at seneca falls, new york. Lucy moved to boston and lived with a family, barely making enough to live on. Within a few months she added womens rights to her talks because she told fellow abolitionists, im a woman, and of course, theyre my cause too. Early on lucy shared the stage with Ralph Waldo Emerson wendell phillips, Frederick Douglass. Soon she was also lecturing on her own and attracting large crowds. For by the early 1850s lucys tone had become a spell binding orator and one of the most famous women in the nation. She attracted audiences by the hundreds and in a few case, even by the thousands. Journalists were amazed at lucys magic in influencing a crowd. Unlike the rantings of Abby Kelly Foster and the shrill, grating voice of susan b. Anthony, lucys voice and winning manner were apparently mesmerizing. One learns that lucys musical voice could silence protesters and drown out speakers. Her intensity of purpose and an ability to move her listeners were profound. One example of her intense commitment to the Antislavery Movement was that in the early 1850s she joined garrison and some of his follow possessor by demanding the radical followers by urging northern states to separate from Southern States. In other words, to secede and thus create a nation free of slavery. We always, of course, blame the south. Her most effective moments were the stories she shared about the evils of slavery and the oppression of women. This was something compelling in the way lucy spoke and what she had to say. Initially, she and others charged no entrance fees for abolitionists wanted to attract as many people as possible. But lucy and others realized that people were willing to pay to hear them. After all, this was 19th century entertainment at its best. I try to get this into my student, theres no internet or tv. She was soon earning a substantial income, and her financial worries ended. Whether those in the audiences were supporters or points, everyone wanted to hear lucy stone. The press made her a household name. She had become a star. But public lecturing was a dangerous profession, especially for a woman addressing two radical causes. We often forget how many people, even in the north, opposed abolition and womens rights. Mobs gathered to protest. Men heckled and hassled. In 1838, protesters burned down philadelphias Pennsylvania Hall for free discussion to protest the biracial gathering of women engaged in the Antislavery Movement. Men threw rotten vegetable fruit and hymnals at lucy and other speakers, and in one instance they doused her with ice cold water by forcing a hose through a window behind the stage where she was speaking. A resolute lucy grand her shawl and kept grabbed her shawl and kept on talking. Another time on cape cod, an angry mob moved toward lucy and two other orators and tried to force them off stage. Lucy grabbed the arm of one big man and said he would protect her. Lecturing was also exhausting and challenging. 19th century travel conditions were often primitive going by horse, train coach or even foot. Sometimes in blizzards and driving rain. For several years lucy traveled across new england and the middle Atlantic States and undertook a major lecture tour across the midwest and even to the slave states of missouri and kentucky. She stayed overnight in hotels dirty boarding houses or homes where she might sleep on filthy sheets separated only by a curtain from men who slept in the same room. But as lucy always maintained no great cause was won without great sacrifice. And her efforts even challenged female fashion. In the early 1850s lucy, Elizabeth Cady stanton and a few other women adopted an outfit of no skirts. Public outcry was so enormous, however, women gave it up realizing that people were paying more attention to what they were wearing rather than to the message they were trying to deliver. From this point forward, lucy dressed simply in a black silk dress and white collar and no corsets. She attracted people to her lectures and to her causes. Some came simply to hear the famous lucy stone. But then left as converts to her cause. Moat of her speeches were extemporaneous a major tragedy for historians since we depend on the written wompletd fortunately, scribes and journalists took notes on her talks. She was also an expert at responding to retorts and holding her own when challenged by rude comments from the floor. At one event a man shouted out by accusing her of being a disappointed woman. In this one of her most famous comments she seized the moment to admit that she was indeed a disappointed; disappointed by a woman that prevented disappointed by a nation that accepted slavery. In 1853 she gave a series of lectures in kentucky on womens rights, a bold act in a Southern State that embraced womens inferior status. There she won over hundreds of people who came to hear her. Her kentucky hosts were charmed by this feminine petite woman and her bold arguments. Dozens if not scores of people joined the womens Rights Movement because of lucy. By the mid 1850s, she was far better known than were elizabeth decade city stanton and susan b. Annie. But lecturing was only one part of her life. In addition to her speaking career, in 1850 she and seven other women decided to advance womens rights by holding a national convention, one larger and more inclusive than seneca falls, new york. The First NationalWomens Rights Convention was held in worcester, massachusetts in october 1850 and attracted hundreds of people from across the nation. From then until 1857, lucy played a central role in organizing these annual national Womens Rights Conventions selecting a location, finding speakers and entertainers, raising money and publicizing the meetings. The press and most americans identified lucy as head of this Young Movement which operated without a budget, an office, officers or a newspaper. But her life altered significantly in the mid 1850s. Two major moments occurred at the height of lucys career and her earning power. Her marriage and two years later her becoming a mother. For years lucy had publicly and privately rejected the idea of marriage, though a few young men had courted her. She abhorred the laws that defined women as fem coverts and made them legal sub subservient to their husbands. Women lost their own claim to their property and wages the inability to sign contracts or to act as independent beings. Subservience was not something lucy had envisioned for herself for she had created a rich fulfilling life. But she also yearned for intimacy and the closeness of family that she had known as a child. It was Henry Brown Blackwell who heard lucy speak at an Antislavery Convention and determined he would marry her. Despite garrisons warning to blackwell that lucy would never marry, he began his pursuit. He was seven years her junior and at that point a partner in is ains natty hardware cincinnati Hardware Store. And henry was used to strong women. An older sister Elizabeth Blackwell [laughter] was the first woman in the country okay, Ever