Davis, Paulina Wright

Davis, Paulina Wright, 1813–76, American lecturer and suffragist, b. Bloomfield, N.Y. Born Paulina Kellogg, she was married in 1833 to a merchant, Francis Wright, who died two years later. In 1849 she was married again, this time to Thomas Davis, who later became a congressman from Rhode Island. She was active in the early antislavery and women's-rights movements. In 1844 she began to lecture women on anatomy and physiology and was instrumental in opening the medical profession to women. In 1853 she founded the first women's-rights paper in the United States, Una, and in 1871 she published A History of the National Women's Rights Movement.