Talk:Phebe Hanaford

A Mighty Social Force: Phebe Ann Coffin Hanaford 1829-1921 by Loretta Cody

A Mighty Social Force: Phebe Ann Coffin Hanaford 1829 - 1921 by Loretta Cody is a biography about Phebe Hanaford. The book is based entirely on archival materials written by and about Phebe Hanaford, from her own letters (which she wrote prolifically) and letters that she received to her written works to photographs of and newspaper articles about her. She wrote an internationally bestselling biography of Abraham Lincoln just after the Civil War. She was just the fourth woman to be ordained a Christian minister in the US and the first to be ordained a Universalist minister, a social activist who worked tirelessly to help women who had fallen into prostitution and others, a poet, historian, writer, and a wife and mother. She is not given more credit for her work in the suffragette movement because of her unwillingness to support the radical agenda of free love and for not supporting an extremely radical woman for president in the 1800s who was supported by the more prominent women in the suffragette movement such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She was effectively shut out from playing a greater role because she decided to limit her support to the right to vote and greater equality for women. Her ideas were radical but more mainstream for her time.

For more information, you can read the Forward and Preface of this wonderful biography by looking up the book and clicking on "What's inside" on the Amazon website.

The first full-length biography of Phebe Hanaford (1829-1921) takes the reader from her Quaker childhood on Nantucket Island to her remaining years on the mainland where both religious and marital restrictions fail to confine her. Her success as an author brings financial independence that allows her the religious choice of ordination as a Universalist minister and the personal choice of Ellen Miles as her companion of forty-four years. Rev. Hanaford unites her twenty-year ministry with the woman’s rights movement while facing the criticism known in her church as the “woman issue.” Following the death of Ellen Miles in 1902, Phebe becomes the victim of exploitation and neglect by family members who in 1921 bury her in an unmarked grave. Two decades of isolation prematurely removes Phebe Hanaford from public life. Now with a marker on her grave, documented sources and oral family history tell her story and restores Phebe Hanaford to her rightful place in women’s history. ~ Amazon description

Thanks for offering this information, much of which was already in the article. A useful pointer for future editors of the page on Hanaford.Alafarge (talk) 20:27, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

A correction and a question

The article said that Hanaford moved from Siasconset (on the island of Nantucket) to Massachusetts. Nantucket is part of Massachusetts, so I changed that to say that she moved to the mainland.

The article also says that she founded the First Universalist Church in New Jersey. If capitalized, that should identify a city or town, not only the state, but if this was the first Universalist church in the state, capitalization should be as I just gave it. Jsallen1 (talk) 02:32, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

A comment about women's prominence on Nantucket

Not mentioned in the article: women took on unusual roles on Nantucket in the 1800s because it was a whaling community and men were away on ships. Astronomer Maria Mitchell is another example. Jsallen1 (talk) 02:42, 13 October 2022 (UTC)