lucy stoneIn the history of women's rights and their leaders, few can compare to the determination and success of Lucy Stone. While many remember Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony as the most active fighters for women's rights, Stone is perhaps even more important. The main goal of women at this time was to gain women's right to vote. This is what many remember or associate with the Seneca Falls Convention. However, Stone was not only trying to get women the right to vote, but also to give women other rights that they did not have at that time. In the mid-19th century, women were almost on the same social level as slaves. Slave owners were husbands. All of the woman's income went to the men, who could not legally make a will unless all of her property went to her husband. The husband was the sole owner of the children and could do whatever he wanted with them. There was a case where a man gave a child to a complete stranger before the baby was even born. The husband could even legally beat his wife. This is the context for the anger of Stone and other women's rights leaders. Stone grew up watching his mother beg his father for money. It was with this that Stone began his crusade for the rights of women and slaves. A college education is something women take for granted today, but in the 1800s, it was extremely rare to see a woman in college. In the mid-1800s, schools like Oberlin and Elmira College began accepting women. Stone's father did a wonderful thing (by 19th century standards) by lending him the money to pay for college. Stone was the first woman to attend college in Massachusetts, graduating from Oberlin College in 1843. Her first major protest occurred at the time of her graduation. Stone was asked to write a commencement speech for his class. But she refused because someone else would have had to read her speech. Women were not allowed, even at Oberlin, to give a public speech. She began as a guest speaker speaking out against slavery. Stone was known as a major abolitionist before the Civil War. At the time, other women's rights leaders wondered whether her speech on abolition would harm their cause...