Brown, Olympia

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.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.