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Wisconsin Women Who Made a Difference

© Peggy Hoehne

The history of any place will find a number of women who have done notable things and become famous for one reason or another. This article will look at some well known and some lesser known women who have a connection to Wisconsin, who did things that made a difference.

Olympia Brown

Though Olympia Brown was born in Michigan in 1835, she moved to Wisconsin in 1878. After hearing Antoinette Brown (no relation) preach at Antioch, Olympia was determined to go to theological school. This proved to be no easy thing to do. School after school refused to allow a woman to attend classes. After graduating from Antioch College in 1860 she eventually entered the Universalist Theological School in 1863. She was ordained in 1863 as one of the few women ministers in the United States. (Though you may find statements saying she was the first ordained minister in the US, it is not true.) She was active in the national women's suffrage movement. Before the Civil War she became involved with suffrage for both women and blacks. In 1867she was part of an unsuccessful movement to guarantee civil rights for blacks as well as women.

In 1878 she moved to Racine, Wisconsin to take charge of a Universalist church. At the time she came to Racine, the parish was in an unfortunate condition. At one point Olympia Brown wrote of her ministry: "Those who may read this will think it strange that I could only find a field in run-down or comatose churches, but they must remember that the pulpits of all the prosperous churches were already occupied by men, and were looked forward to as the goal of all the young men coming into the ministry with whom I, at first the only woman preacher in the denomination, had to compete. All I could do was to take some place that had been abandoned by others and make something of it, and this I was only too glad to do." (Autobio. p. 41)

Brown brought life back to the Universalist society in Racine and made it a center of learning and cultural activities. After nine years of active service to the church and to the community Brown left full-time ministry for a career as an activist for women's rights, though she continued to preach in the small parishes of Mukwonago, Columbus and Neenah, when they could not afford a full-time minister.

She soon became a leader of the Wisconsin Women's Suffrage Association. She was president of the Wisconsin Woman Suffrage Association for 28 years. In 1886 she was active in the campaign to pass the school suffrage law and for its subsequent ratification by the voters.