Bloomers amelia biography

Home / Celebrity Biographies / Bloomers amelia biography

Welch, “Grip’s”, p. . Mrs. Stanton however understood human nature perfectly well. Until their rights as women were secured, they were powerless to right the wrongs of others. During the 1840s and early 1850s, Amelia Bloomer was one of the most well-known reformers in Seneca Falls, New York. Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Amelia Opie, September 30, 1851, Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers, Library of Congress.

58.

James, et al., Notable American Women, pp. 200.

33. Their ceremony omitted the word obey, then a vigorous assertion of woman’s rights. In 1880, a former Seneca Falls resident published an article in Good Company in which she described how Stanton had subtly managed to redefine the The Lily‘s orientation:

[It] was conducted in a conservative manner, and was considered unimpugnable by most persons when Mrs.

Stanton made her first sally upon the posts.

bloomers amelia biography

[67]

She lived out the remainder of her life in Council Bluffs, continuing very active in local temperance and church efforts. 67.

50. On that account, the main dwelling was built in 1830. [24]

Bloomer remained the sole editor and owner of The Lily for the next 15 years, molding it into one of the most influential and liberal publications dealing with women’s issues in the early 19th century.

Mary Bull recalled the occasion when the Ladies Temperance Society presented a banner to the men’s group. [It acted as] a kind of ladies’ exchange, where those coming from different parts of the town could meet to talk over the news of the day and read the papers and magazines that came to Mrs. Bloomer as editor of The Lily.” [32]

It was in this little lounge that Dexter Bloomer says that Elizabeth Cady Stanton first introduced herself to his wife in the summer of 1849.

Still, the event apparently increased her interest in activism.

 

The Lily.

"She seems to be the only woman in Iowa to publicly espouse Women's rights in the years before the Civil War." 

— Louise R. Noun, Strong-Minded Women, 1969 

While Amelia Jenks Bloomer became one of Iowa’s first advocates for women’s suffrage, her lasting fame drew from a new fashion style for women that freed them temporarily from the long and restrictive skirts.  Bloomer was born in 1818 in New York to a family of modest means and attended school for only a few years.  As a teenager, she moved to Seneca Falls, NY, to serve as a governess.

Edgar L. Welch, “Grip’s” Historical Souvenir of Seneca Falls, New York (Syracuse, 1904), p.