Brown, Olympia

Brown, Olympia, 1835–1926, American Universalist minister and woman-suffrage leader, b. Prairie Ronde, Mich.; grad. Antioch College, 1860, and the theological school of St. Lawrence Univ., 1863. She was one of the first women in America to be ordained (1863) to the ministry. For 30 years she was president of the Wisconsin Woman's Suffrage Association. In 1873 she married Henry Willis, but retained her own name.

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Brown, Olympia (1835–1926) suffragist, Universalist minister; born in Prairie Ronde, Mich. Encouraged by her feminist mother, she was educated at Antioch College and the Universalist divinity school at St. Lawrence University. After ordination (1863), she served for 24 years in churches in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Wisconsin, combining pastoral duties with a militant suffrage activism, and was president of the Wisconsin Woman Suffrage Association (1884–1912) and the Federal Suffrage Association (1903–20). She was publisher of the Racine Times (1893–1900), following the death of her husband.