[American Reform Movements] [Gender Equality] Autograph Endorsement of Lucy Stone on Check Illustrating Economic and Ideological Partnership in Suffrage Movement, 1892

Lucy Stone

Manuscripts & Autographs

Blackwell, Henry R. check payable to Lucy Stone, 1892, documents the financial and personal partnership between two central figures in the nineteenth-century women’s rights movement and provides direct evidence of Lucy Stone’s continued use of her own name within legal and economic transactions. Stone, a leading abolitionist and suffragist, publicly rejected the legal doctrine of coverture that subsumed a married woman’s identity under her husband, and her decision to retain her name after marriage established a widely recognized precedent, giving rise to the term “Lucy Stoner” for women who did the same. The instrument, endorsed by Stone in her own hand, records not only routine financial exchange but also the lived practice of gender reform within marriage, as Henry Blackwell actively supported her public leadership, including her long editorial role with the Woman’s Journal.

Blackwell, Henry R. Check payable to “Mrs. Lucy Stone.” Boston: North National Bank, January 2, 1892. Canceled check drawn in dark blue print on white paper, measuring approximately 2 7/8 x 7 7/8 inches, endorsed on the verso in black ink “Lucy Stone.” Two punch cancellations present, consistent with banking practice; otherwise complete and legible with clear manuscript endorsement.

Issued near the end of Stone’s life, this document situates her within the final phase of nineteenth-century suffrage activism, when earlier abolitionist networks had evolved into organized campaigns for women’s political rights. Blackwell’s sustained advocacy for women’s suffrage and his material support of Stone’s work, including her editorial leadership, positioned their marriage as a public model of egalitarian partnership within reform circles. The survival of a signed financial document linking both figures provides material evidence of how ideological commitments to equality were enacted in daily life, extending beyond rhetoric into legal identity and economic agency. Minor wear with clean paper and strong ink; punch holes from cancellation unobtrusive. Overall very good condition.

Item #16016

Price: $650.00