Henry Browne Blackwell (May 4, 1825 – September 7, 1909), was an American advocate for social and economic reform. He was involved in the nascent Republican Party and the American Woman Suffrage Association. He published Woman's Journal, starting in 1870 in Boston, Massachusetts, with Lucy Stone.
Early life Henry Blackwell was born May 4, 1825, in Bristol, Gloucestershire, England, the seventh of nine children of Samuel Blackwell and Hannah Lane Blackwell. Blackwell's father, a sugar refiner whose livelihood conflicted with his abolitionist principles, experimented with making beet sugar as an alternative to slave-grown cane sugar. In 1832, the family – including eight children and their father's sister Mary – emigrated to the United States. The family settled first in New York, where Blackwell's father established a sugar refinery and the ninth child was born, and then just outside New York in Jersey City.Wheeler, Leslie, Loving Warriors: Selected Letters of Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell, 1853-1893, Dial Press, 1981. , pp. 21, 23. Blackwell's father took an interest in the nascent abolition movement. William Lloyd Garrison and other leaders of the movement were visitors in the family's home. Blackwell's eldest sister, Anna, participated in the emerging agitation for women's rights, attending the 1837 Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women and drafting its letter to John Quincy Adams thanking him for his support of women's right to petition.Million, Joelle. Woman's Voice, Woman's Place: Lucy Stone and the Birth of the Women's Rights Movement. Praeger, 2003. . pp. 158-59.
After fire destroyed the refinery and the Panic of 1837 destroyed remaining resources, the family moved to Cincinnati in 1838, where Blackwell's father intended to establish another refinery. However, within months of their arrival, he died, leaving the family destitute. Blackwell's mother, aunt, and three elder sisters opened a school in their home, while thirteen-year-old Henry and his brother Sam took clerking jobs. In 1840 Blackwell was sent to the short-lived Kemper College in St. Louis with the intent that he should become a lawyer. But financial difficulties forced him to return home and resume clerking. Around 1845, he became a partner in a flour mill business, in which he managed operations of three mills. Within a year he had made enough profit to purchase a small brick house in Cincinnati's Walnut Hills section, which remained the Blackwell family home until they moved east in 1856.Wheeler, 1981, pp. 24-26
Seeking a business in which he might achieve financial independence, Blackwell next tried sugar refining. When that failed, a visiting English cousin persuaded him to accept a loan with which he and brother Sam purchased half interest in a Cincinnati wholesale hardware business. In 1850, at the age of twenty-four, Blackwell became the traveling partner of Coombs, Ryland, and Blackwells, making semi-annual two-month-long horseback journeys through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, selling hardware to country merchants and collecting payments due the firm.Wheeler, 1981, pp. 27-28; Million, 2003, p.177
All the Blackwell siblings had been imbued with a philosophy of personal improvement and working for the betterment of mankind, as well as a deep interest in literature, languages, music, and art. Possessing a special passion for literature, Henry Blackwell wrote poetry in his spare time and always carried several books with him to make every spare moment "useful" and "self-improving."Million, 2003, p. 178 He was a founding member of the Literary Club of Cincinnati, whose members discussed literature and debated issues of the day. He and fellow club member Ainsworth R. Spofford made business trips together, during which they relieved the tedium of slow travel by reading aloud to each other the works of Bacon, Shakespeare, Aristotle, and Plato."The Literary Club of Cincinnati, 1849-1903: Constitution, Catalogue of Members, etc." The Literary Club of Cincinnati, 1903, pp. 8, 34, 29; Jones, Robert Ralston, "Papers Read before the Literary Club Historians Evening, 1921 and 1922," Literary Club of Cincinnati, 1922, pp. 8, 12. Through this club, whose early members included not only Spofford, who would become chief librarian of the Library of Congress, but also Rutherford B. Hayes and Salmon P. Chase, Blackwell formed lasting friendships with men who played prominent roles in the history of Ohio and the nation.
Blackwell siblings Henry Blackwell's eldest sister, Anna Blackwell (1816–1900), became a poet, translator, and journalist. She was a member of the Brook Farm community in 1845 but settled in France thereafter, where she translated the works of the French socialist Fourier and the novels of George Sand. She was also a contributing correspondent for several newspapers in the United States, India, Australia, South Africa, and Canada.Biography in Finding Aid to Blackwell Family Papers,1832-1981, Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library, 1992; Hays, Elinore Rice. Those Extraordinary Blackwells: The Story of a Journey to a Better World, Harcourt, 1967.
Marian Blackwell (1818–1897) taught school in her younger years but became a semi-invalid and lived with and looked after other family members.
The best-known of Blackwell's siblings was Elizabeth Blackwell (1821–1910), the first woman to earn a medical degree in the United States. In 1853 she founded the New York Dispensary for Poor Women and Children, and in 1857, with sister Emily and Maria Zakrzewska, established the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children.
Samuel Charles Blackwell (1823–1901), only a year and a half older than Henry, was bookkeeper and businessman, best known as the husband of Antoinette (Brown) Blackwell, the first woman ordained as a minister in the United States and prominent speaker and suffragist.
Henry had four younger siblings. Emily Blackwell (1826–1910), who was the third woman to earn a medical degree in the United States. In addition to co-founding the New York Infirmary, she helped organize the Women's Central Association of Relief, which selected and trained nurses for service in the Civil War.
Sarah Ellen Blackwell (1828–1901) was an artist and author best known for writing the first full-length biography of Anna Ella Carroll.
(John) Howard Blackwell (1831–1866) returned to England and worked in iron manufacturing with a cousin, then joined the East India Company. His death at the age of 36 was a blow to the entire family.
George Washington Blackwell (1832–1912), the only Blackwell sibling born in the United States, became a land agent under Henry's tutelage in the 1850s, studied law in New York City, and took over Henry Blackwell's real estate business in the late 1860s.
Courtship and marriage Blackwell was smitten by Lucy Stone when he heard her speak at an antislavery meeting in New York in May 1853, moving her audience to tears with what became known as her "fugitive mother" speech. He followed her to Massachusetts and obtained a formal letter of introduction from William Lloyd Garrison.Million, 2003, pp. 153-54. Although Stone gladly accepted him as a friend, she rejected him as a suitor because she believed marriage would require her to surrender control over herself and prevent her from pursuing her chosen work. But Blackwell, not having been rejected personally, determined to convince Stone that marriage to him would require sacrifice of neither individuality nor career. He maintained that a marriage based on equality would enable each of them to accomplish more than they could alone. He, too, wanted to work for the good of humanity, but believed he must wait until he had attained the freedom to command his own time and action—"pecuniary independence," which he expected to achieve in three years.Wheeler, 1981. p. 43-44.
Through correspondence over the summer, Blackwell and Stone discussed the nature and faults of the marriage institution and the benefits of a true, ideal marriage.Wheeler, 1981, pp. 35-62. Then, eager to demonstrate how he could help Stone accomplish more, Blackwell offered to arrange a lecture tour for her in the west (then the mid-western states of Indiana, Illinois, and western Ohio and Kentucky). She accepted, and he wrote to business acquaintances to engage halls and place newspaper notice while personally printing and mailing broadsides for posting. From mid-October 1853 through the first week of January 1854, Stone lectured on women's rights in more than ten cities in five states, including Cincinnati, Louisville, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Chicago. Newspaper reports described her enthusiastic reception by the largest audiences ever assembled in some of the cities, as well as the deep influence she was having on those who heard her. During an intimate rendezvous before she returned east, Stone expressed not only her deep gratitude to Blackwell for making her success possible, but also a genuine affection. Nevertheless, she remained resolute about never placing herself in the legal position occupied by a married woman.Million, 2003, pp. 157-62; 181-82.
As the long-distance courtship continued, Blackwell shifted his arguments to how couples could shape their own marriages, regardless of society's laws. After nine additional months of correspondence and brief meetings, Blackwell met Stone in Pittsburgh for a clandestine three-day rendezvous, after which Stone agreed to marry him.Million, 2003, pp. 182-85, 187-88.
Through continued correspondence the couple set the terms of a private agreement aimed at protecting Stone's financial independence and personal liberty. Blackwell proposed that their marriage be like a business partnership in monetary matters, with husband and wife being "joint proprietors of everything except the results of previous labors." Neither would have claim to lands belonging to the other, nor any obligation for the other's costs of holding them. While married and living together they would share earnings, but if they should separate, they would relinquish claim to the other's subsequent earnings. Each would have the right to will their property to whomever they pleased unless they had children. Blackwell advised Stone to secure all her money in the hands of a trustee for her benefit.Blackwell to Stone, Feb. 12, 1854, and Dec. 22, 1854, in Wheeler, 1981, pp. 76, 108-11. Stone agreed to everything except the issue of marital support. She refused to be supported by Blackwell and insisted on paying half of their mutual expenses. Despite Blackwell's strenuous objection, Stone remained adamant.Blackwell to Stone, Dec. 22, 1854, [Aug. 28, 1855], and Feb. 7, 1856, in Wheeler, 1981, pp. 110, 144, 155-56; Blackwell to Stone, Aug. 29, 1855, quoted in Million, 2003, p. 198
In addition to financial independence, Blackwell and Stone agreed that each would enjoy personal independence and autonomy: "Neither partner shall attempt to fix the residence, employment, or habits of the other, nor shall either partner feel bound to live together any longer than is agreeable to both." And Blackwell agreed that Stone would choose "when, where and how often" she would "become a mother."Blackwell to Stone, Dec. 22, 1854, in Wheeler, p. 109-10 This was Blackwell's way of agreeing that Stone would control their sexual relations as advocated by Henry C. Wright, a copy of whose book Marriage and Parentage; Or, The Reproductive Element in Man, as a Means to His Elevation and Happiness,Wright, Henry C., Marriage and Parentage; Or, The Reproductive Element in Man, as a Means to His Elevation and Happiness, 2d ed., 1855; reprint as Sex, Marriage and Society, edited by Charles Rosenberg and Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, New York: Arno Press, 1974 Stone had earlier given to Blackwell and asked him to accept its principles as what she considered the relationship between husband and wife should be.Stone to Blackwell, April 23, , in Wheeler, p. 79
Protest against marriage laws