The Reverend Olympia Brown
More information |
- In June 1863 at the St. Lawrence Association of Universalists (New York), Olympia Brown
became the first woman ordained “with full denominational authority” by any
denomination in America.
- Brown would serve in Universalist congregations throughout the nation, including
Connecticut, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Wisconsin.
- A staunch advocate of women’s rights, Brown co-founded the New England Woman’s
Suffrage Association in 1868. While in Wisconsin, she served as president of the state
Woman Suffrage Association for twenty-eight years. She was also vice-president of the
National Woman Suffrage Association.
- Another woman, Antoinette
Brown Blackwell, was ordained a Congregational minister on September 15, 1853, but the
ordination never received the authoritative support of the Congregational General
Conference. (See Susan Hill Lindley, You Have Stept Out of Your Place: A History of
Women and Religion in America, Louisville, Kentucky, Westminster John Knox Press,
1996.)
|
|
