View source for Mary Livermore

{{Short description|American journalist, abolitionist and advocate of women's rights}}
{{About|the activist|the Massachusetts legislator|Mary Livermore Barrows}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2020}}
{{Infobox writer
| name             = Mary Livermore
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| image            = Mary Livermore.jpg
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| caption          = Livermore in 1867
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| pseudonym        = 
| birth_name       = Mary Ashton Rice
| birth_date       = {{birth date|1820|12|19}}
| birth_place      = [[Boston, Massachusetts]], U.S.
| death_date       = {{death date and age|1905|5|23|1820|12|19}}
| death_place      = [[Melrose, Massachusetts]]
| resting_place    = 
| occupation       = [[Journalist]], [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionist]], [[women's rights]] advocate
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| notableworks     = ''My Story of the War''
| spouse           = {{marriage|Daniel P. Livermore|1845}}
| relations        = [[Mary Livermore Barrows]] (granddaughter)<ref>{{cite journal|editor-last1=Tapley|editor-first1=Harriet Silvester|title=Asa Bushby, Artist, and Some of His Portraits|year=1936|journal=Historical Collections of the Danvers Historical Society|volume=24|page=15}}</ref>
| partner          = 
| children         = 
}}

[[File:Mary livermore house melrose.JPG|240px|thumb|right|Mary Livermore House in Melrose, Massachusetts]]
'''Mary Ashton Livermore''' ({{nee}} '''Rice'''; December 19, 1820{{spnd}}May 23, 1905) was an American journalist, [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionist]], and advocate of [[women's rights]]. In addition to articles, she published numerous books of poetry, essays, and stories.

When the [[American Civil War]] broke out, Livermore volunteered at the regional headquarters of the [[United States Sanitary Commission]] at Chicago and worked extensively for it as a nurse and also an organizer. She helped to organize the 1863 North-western [[Sanitary Fair]] and in 1887 published her reminiscences of nursing during the war as ''My Story of the War''.

After the war, she instituted a newspaper advocating for [[women's suffrage]] called the ''Agitator'', where she continued as an associate editor after its merger with the ''[[Woman's Journal]]''. She also lectured widely, mostly on behalf of the women's suffrage and [[temperance movement|temperance]] movements. She delivered the historical address for the centennial celebration of the first settlement of the Northwestern states in [[Marietta, Ohio]] on July 15, 1788. For many years, she traveled {{convert|25000|miles}} annually and spoke five nights each week for five months of the year.{{sfn|Hurd|1890|pp=215-216}}

==Early life and education==
Mary Ashton Rice was born in [[Boston|Boston, Massachusetts]] on December 19, 1820, to Timothy Rice and Zebiah Vose Glover (Ashton) Rice.<ref name="auto">{{cite book|last=Holland|first=Mary Gardner |title=Our Army Nurses: Stories from Women in the Civil War |chapter=Mary Livermore |location=Roseville, Minnesota |publisher=Edinborough|isbn=9781889020044|page=165|year=1998 |orig-year=1897 |url=https://archive.org/details/ourarmynursessto0000unse/page/164/mode/2up |url-access=registration }}. Summarized: {{cite magazine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1D4SJ_ZAcf0C&pg=PA292 |title=Mary A. Livermore |magazine=Our Paper |volume=11 |issue=19 |page=292 |publisher=Massachusetts Reformatory |date=May 11, 1895 }} <!-- Holland gives the year of birth as 1821; apparently a typo? --></ref><ref name= ERA>Edmund Rice (1638) Association, 2010. Descendants of Edmund Rice: The First Nine Generations. (CD-ROM)</ref><ref name= ANB>{{cite web| last = Perry| first = Marilyn Elizabeth| title = Livermore, Mary| work = American National Biography Online| publisher = Oxford University Press| date = 2000| url = http://ww←w.anb.org/articles/15/15-00415.html}}</ref> The first of their children to survive infancy,<ref>{{cite book |last=Venet |first=Wendy Hamand |title=A Strong-Minded Woman: The Life of Mary Livermore |location=Amherst |publisher=University of Massachusetts Press |year=2005 |isbn=1-55849-513-4 |page=9 }}</ref> she was directly descended from [[Edmund Rice (colonist)|Edmund Rice]], an early [[Puritan]] immigrant to the [[Massachusetts Bay Colony]].<ref name= ERA /> and came from a military family. Her father fought in the [[War of 1812]] and her mother was a descendant of Captain Nathaniel Ashton of London.<ref name="auto" />

She graduated from the Boston public schools at age 14, receiving a medal for scholarship.<ref name="auto"/> There were then no public high school or college options for women, she attended [[Charlestown Female Seminary (Massachusetts)|Charlestown Female Seminary]] in [[Charlestown, Massachusetts|Charlestown]], graduating after only two years.<ref name="auto" /><ref name=Twentieth>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/biographicaldict06johnuoft/page/455/mode/1up |title=The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans |volume=VI |editor1-first=Rossiter |editor1-last=Johnson |editor2-first=John Howard |editor2-last=Brown |publisher=The Biographical Society |location=Boston |year=1904 |access-date=2022-05-06 |via=Internet Archive}}</ref> As her family was extremely religious, she read the entire [[Bible]] every year until the age of 23.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rVLOhGt1BX0C&pg=RA1-PA411 |title=Notable American Women, 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary |volume=2 |publisher=[[Radcliffe College]] |page=411 |year=1971 |isbn=9780674627345 }}</ref>

==Career==
After graduating from the seminary, she remained there for two years teaching Latin and French. In 1839, she was hired as a family teacher on a Virginia [[Plantation#American South|plantation]], where she became an [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionist]] after witnessing the treatment of slaves.<ref name="auto" /> She also began work with the [[temperance movement]] at this time; she was associated with the Washington Temperance Reform and was an editor for a juvenile temperance paper.<ref name="auto"/> In 1842, she left the plantation to take charge of a private school in [[Duxbury, Massachusetts]], where she worked for three years. She also taught at [[Charlestown, Massachusetts|Charlestown]].{{sfn|Hurd|1890|pp=215-216}}

She married Daniel P. Livermore, a [[Universalist Church of America|Universalist]] minister, in May 1845,<ref name= ANB /> and in 1857, they moved to Chicago. In that year, her husband established the ''New Covenant'', a Universalist journal of which she became associate editor for twelve years, during which time she frequently contributed to periodicals of her denomination and edited the ''Lily''.{{sfn|Hurd|1890|p=215-216}}

As a member of the [[United States Republican Party|Republican]] party, Livermore campaigned for [[Abraham Lincoln]] in the [[1860 presidential election]]. At the [[1860 Republican National Convention|party convention]] in the [[Wigwam (Chicago)|Chicago Wigwam]], she was the only woman reporter accredited. She published a collection of nineteen essays entitled ''Pen Pictures'' in 1863.<ref name=Holland2>Holland, ''Our Army Nurses'', [https://archive.org/details/ourarmynursessto0000unse/page/166/mode/2up p. 166].</ref>

===American Civil War===
Following the outbreak of the [[American Civil War|Civil War]] in 1861, she volunteered as an associate member of the [[United States Sanitary Commission]], devoting her full time to it.<ref name=Holland2/><ref name="auto1">{{Cite book|last=Tsui|first=Bonnie|title=She Went to the Field: Women Soldiers of the Civil War|location=Guilford|publisher=TwoDot|date=2006|isbn=978-0-7627-4384-1|page=115}}</ref> As an agent of its Chicago branch, later named the Northwestern branch, she attended a council of the National Sanitary Commission at [[Washington, D.C.|Washington]] in December 1862, organized many aid societies, visited army posts and hospitals, and in 1863, helped to organize the North-western [[Sanitary Fair]] in Chicago, which raised $86,000. President Lincoln donated his own copy of the [[Emancipation Proclamation]], which was auctioned off for $3,000, funding the building of the [[Soldiers' Home]].{{sfn|Hurd|1890|pp=215-216}} Livermore eventually became the co-director of the Chicago branch with [[Jane Hoge]], another soldier's aid advocate.<ref name="auto1"/> The two women completed a hospital inspection tour across Illinois, Kentucky, and Missouri.<ref name="auto2">{{Cite book|last=Tsui|first=Bonnie|title=She Went to the Field: Women Soldiers of the Civil War|location=Guilford|publisher=TwoDot|date=2006|isbn=978-0-7627-4384-1|page=116}}</ref> With a thorough understanding of the needs of the hospitals, Hoge and Livermore sent $1&nbsp;million worth of food and supplies to hospitals and battlefields most in need.<ref name="auto2"/>

Livermore, like many other nurses, came up against the issue of women disguised as male soldiers. On a visit to the camp of the 19th Illinois Infantry, a captain pointed out a soldier to Livermore, asking if she noticed anything odd about them. Livermore confirmed the captain's suspicions that the soldier was indeed a woman. The captain called the soldier for questioning, and though she pleaded to stay in service near her beloved, Livermore escorted her out of camp. The soldier escaped Livermore, however, and fled.<ref name=Battlefront>{{cite book |url=https://www.google.com/books/?id=C9h3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA130 |last=Hall |first=Richard |title=Women on the Civil War Battlefront |location=Lawrence |publisher=University Press of Kansas |page=130 |isbn=9780700614370 |year=2006 }}</ref>

Although Livermore had to sacrifice much of her social justice work for nursing, she still managed to publish some kind of content once a week throughout the entirety of the war.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Brockett|first1=L.P.|last2=Vaughan|first2=Mary|title=Woman's Work in the Civil War: a Record of Heroism, Patriotism and Patience|url=https://archive.org/details/womanswork00brocrich|location=Philadelphia |publisher=Zeigler, McCurdy and Company|year=1867|page=[https://archive.org/details/womanswork00brocrich/page/134 134]}}</ref>  She summarized her experience in her 1887 book, ''My Story of the War. A Woman's Narrative of Four Years' Personal Experience as Nurse in the Union Army, and in Relief Work at Home, in Hospitals, Camps and at the Front during the War of the Rebellion''.<ref name="Brooklyn Museum: Mary Livermore">{{Cite web|title=Brooklyn Museum: Mary Livermore|url=https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/heritage_floor/mary_livermore|access-date=August 25, 2020|website=www.brooklynmuseum.org}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |first=Tess |last=Lloyd |url=https://tesslloyd.com/blog/the-consecrated-and-organized-work-of-women-the-civil-war-and-the-sanitary-commission-in-mary-a-livermores-my-story-of-the-war|title=A Thrilling Memoir about Northern Women's Work in the Civil War: Mary Livermore's ''My Story of the War'' |work=tesslloyd.com/blog|date=January 15, 2023}}</ref>

==Suffrage and temperance activities==
[[File:Mary Livermore 1901.jpg|thumb|upright|Mary Livermore, 1901]]
Livermore had long been active in the [[temperance movement]], publishing temperance stories from the 1840s. After the war, she devoted herself to promoting temperance and also to the [[women's suffrage]] movement. In 1868, she co-founded the [[Sorosis|Chicago Sorosis Club]] with [[Myra Bradwell]] and [[Kate Newell Doggett|Kate Doggett]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Suffrage|url=http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1217.html|access-date=August 25, 2020|website=www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org}}</ref> This was the first women's group in Chicago to advocate for woman suffrage. The group organized the first woman suffrage convention in Chicago, also in 1868.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|title=Mary and Daniel Livermore|url=https://uudb.org/articles/livermorefamily.html|access-date=August 25, 2020|website=uudb.org|archive-date=January 11, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220111131440/https://uudb.org/articles/livermorefamily.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>

In 1869, the year that women suffragists in the [[American Equal Rights Association|Equal Rights Association]] split over the issue of voting rights for Black men, Livermore sided with Lucy Stone and those founding the [[American Woman Suffrage Association]]. Also in 1869, she founded and edited a suffragist journal called ''The Agitator'', which was "devoted to the interests of women".  She published 37 issues of the journal that year.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Agitator (Chicago [Ill.]) 1869-1869|url=https://www.loc.gov/item/sn87068363/|access-date=August 25, 2020|website=Library of Congress}}</ref> In 1870, the Livermores moved to Boston, and she became active in suffrage activities there. ''The Agitator'' was merged into the ''[[Woman's Journal]]'', the suffrage journal founded by [[Lucy Stone]], and Livermore became associate editor.<ref name="Brooklyn Museum: Mary Livermore"/><ref>{{cite web |url=https://iamwoman-mxtodis123.blogspot.com/2010/07/mary-livermore.html |title=I Am Woman: A Celebration of Womanhood |first1=Mary |last1=Livermore |date=July 10, 2010 |access-date=January 22, 2012}}</ref> She served in that role for two years.<ref name=Twentieth/>

Joining with Stone, [[Henry Browne Blackwell|Henry Blackwell]] and [[Julia Ward Howe]], Livermore helped found the [[Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association|Massachusetts Women's Suffrage Association]]. She became president of the [[American Woman Suffrage Association]],<ref name="auto2" /> and was also the first president of the [[Association for the Advancement of Women]].<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z-4EAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PP1 |title=Souvenir Nineteenth Annual Congress of the Association for the Advancement of Women Invited & Entertained by the Ladies' Literary Club |publisher=[[Association for the Advancement of Women]] |page=127 |year=1877 }}</ref>

==Spiritualism==
Livermore was interested in [[Spiritualism (movement)|spiritualism]], which grew in popularity after the Civil War, especially among Unitarians. After her husband died in 1899, she believed she was able to continue to communicate with him through a medium.<ref name=":0" />

==Death and legacy==
Livermore died in [[Melrose, Massachusetts]], on May 23, 1905.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/101199520/mrs-mary-livermore-dies-at-advanced-age/ |title=Mrs. Mary Livermore Dies at Advanced Age |newspaper=[[The Birmingham News]] |location=Melrose, Massachusetts |page=1 |date=1905-05-23 |access-date=2022-05-06 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref>

The Mary A. Livermore School in Melrose, operational from 1891 to 1933,<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/101207299/melrose/ | title = Melrose |date=September 5, 1933|newspaper=[[Boston Globe|Daily Boston Globe]] |page=10 |access-date=2022-05-06 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> was an elementary school named for her. In 1943, nearly four decades after her death, she became the namesake of a World War II [[Liberty ship]], the [[SS Mary A. Livermore|SS ''Mary A. Livermore'']].<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/101205174/vessel-completes-conversion-circle/ |title=Vessel Completes Conversion Circle |newspaper=[[The Baltimore Sun]] |page=31 |date=1955-02-15 |access-date=2022-05-06 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref>

==Selected works==
* ''The Children's Army'' (1844), temperance stories.<ref name="BioDict">{{Cite book |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fqtPAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA295 |title=Biographical Encyclopedia of the United States |publisher=American Biographical Publishing Company |year=1901 |language=en |chapter=Mary Ashton Livermore}}</ref>
* "The Twin Sisters: or, The History of Two Families," collected in [https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007129724 ''The Two Families; and The Duty that Lies Nearest. Prize Stories''] (1848), a temperance story.
* ''A Mental Transformation'' (1848).<ref name="AWW">{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/livermore-mary-ashton-rice |title=Livermore, Mary (Ashton) Rice |encyclopedia=American Women Writers: A Critical Reference Guide from Colonial Times to the Present |publisher=Gale Research |first=Ruth |last=Bordin |year=2000 |via=Encyclopedia.com}}</ref>
* ''Nineteen Pen Pictures'' (1863), short stories.<ref name="AWW"/>
* ''Thirty Years Too Late: A True Story: and,One in a Thousand'' (1878)
* ''What Shall We Do With Our Daughters? Superfluous Women, and Other Lectures'' (1883)<ref name="AWW"/>
* ''My Story of the War. A Woman's Narrative of Four Years' Personal Experience as Nurse in the Union Army, and in Relief Work at Home, in Hospitals, Camps and at the Front during the War of the Rebellion'' (1887); republished 1995 as ''My Story of the War: The Civil War Memories of the Famous Nurse, Relief Organizer and Suffragette'', with introduction by Nina Silber. New York: Da Capo Press; {{ISBN|0-3068-0658-4}}
* ''[[A Woman of the Century]]'' (1893) (ed. Willard, Frances E. & Livermore, Mary A.) – online available in [[File:Wikisource-logo.svg|16px|alt=small Wikisource logo]] [[Wikisource]].
* ''[http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moa/4728109.0001.001 The Story of My Life; or, The Sunshine and Shadow of Seventy Years]'' (1897).
* Cooperative Womanhood in the State (1891). ''[[North American Review]]'' 153:4, pp.&nbsp;283–295. {{JSTOR|25102243}}

==See also==
{{Portal|Biography}}
*[[List of suffragists and suffragettes]]
*[[List of women's rights activists]]
*[[Timeline of women's suffrage]]

==References==
{{reflist|30em}}

===Bibliography===
*{{Source-attribution| {{cite book|last=Hurd|first=Duane Hamilton|title=History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts: With Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mZU6AQAAIAAJ&pg=PA215|edition=Public domain|volume=3|year=1890|publisher=J. W. Lewis & Company}} }}

==Further reading==
* Venet, Wendy Hamand. ''A Strong-Minded Woman: The Life of Mary Livermore''. Amherst: [[University of Massachusetts Press]], 2005. {{ISBN|1-55849-513-4}}.
*{{Cite book|last= Eggleston|first= Larry G.|title= Women in the Civil War: Extraordinary Stories of Soldiers, Spies, Nurses, Doctors, Crusaders, and Others.|location= Jefferson, North Carolina|publisher= McFarland & Company|year= 2003|isbn= 0786414936|url-access= registration|url= https://archive.org/details/womenincivilware00larr}}
*{{Cite book
| last     = Massey |first= Mary Elizabeth|title= Women in the Civil War
| location = Lincoln, Nebraska |publisher= University of Nebraska Press|year=1994 | isbn= 0803282133 }}
* Ruegamer, Lana. "Livermore, Mary Ashton Rice." ''In Women Building Chicago, 1790-1990: A Biographical Dictionary'', edited by Rima Lunin Schultz and Adele Hast. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001.
* Schnell, Christopher J. "Mary Livermore and the Great Northwestern Fair." ''Chicago History'' 4, no. 1 (1975): 34–43.
* [[Patricia M. Shields]]. 2004. [https://txstate.academia.edu/PatriciaShields/Papers/1255636/Mary_Livermore_A_Legacy_of_Caring_and_Cooperative_Womanhood Mary Livermore A Legacy of Caring and Cooperative Womanhood] in ''Outstanding Women in Public Administration: Leaders, Mentors and Pioneers''. Edited by [[Claire Felbinger]] and Wendy Haynes. pp.&nbsp;49–64. New York: ME Sharpe.

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
{{NSRW Poster|Livermore, Mary A.|Mary Livermore}}
{{Wikiquote}}
*{{Cite EB1911 |wstitle=Livermore, Mary Ashton |display=LIVERMORE, MARY ASHTON [RICE]|volume=16 |pages=803–804 |short=1}}
*{{wikisource-inline|Woman of the Century/Mary Ashton Rice Livermore}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Mary Livermore}}
*[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/grant/peopleevents/p_livermore.html Article] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100102054108/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/grant/peopleevents/p_livermore.html |date=January 2, 2010 }} at PBS
*[http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/livermorefamily.html Entry] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130703192109/http://www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/livermorefamily.html |date=July 3, 2013 }} at the Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography
*{{Find a Grave|11840896}}
*[https://www.loc.gov/rr/rarebook/coll/043.html Carrie Chapman Catt Collection] at the [[Library of Congress]] has volumes from the library of Mary A. Livermore.
*[http://www.spartacus-educational.com/USAWlivermore.htm A Spartacus Educational Biography]
*[http://www.ourstory.info/library/1-roots/Livermore/storyTC.html Online copy of "My Story of the War"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170918123311/http://www.ourstory.info/library/1-roots/Livermore/storyTC.html |date=September 18, 2017 }}

{{Suffrage}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Livermore, Mary}}
[[Category:1820 births]]
[[Category:1905 deaths]]
[[Category:Suffragists from Illinois]]
[[Category:People of Illinois in the American Civil War]]
[[Category:People of Massachusetts in the American Civil War]]
[[Category:Writers from Chicago]]
[[Category:United States Sanitary Commission people]]
[[Category:Members of the Universalist Church of America]]
[[Category:19th-century Christian universalists]]
[[Category:20th-century Christian universalists]]
[[Category:American Civil War medicine]]
[[Category:Illinois Republicans]]
[[Category:Temperance activists from Massachusetts]]
[[Category:19th-century American writers]]
[[Category:19th-century American women writers]]
[[Category:Journalists from Boston]]
[[Category:Abolitionists from Boston]]
[[Category:People from Melrose, Massachusetts]]
[[Category:American Civil War nurses]]
[[Category:American women nurses]]
[[Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from A Woman of the Century]]
[[Category:American Woman Suffrage Association activists]]
[[Category:Members of the Association for the Advancement of Women]]