Alice Stone Blackwell and Other Women's Rights Activists Sign Early "Woman's Journal" Stock Certificate

1p partly printed and partly handwritten Woman's Journal stock certificate dated March 19, 1870, with two later transfer documents. The certificate was signed by several significant figures of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century women's rights movement, including Henry Browne Blackwell, Alice Stone Blackwell, Sarah Grimke Weld, and others. The three documents are secured at left, docketed, and bear an Internal Revenue Service stamp. Expected light toning and paper folds, else near fine. Measures 10.375" x 5.25".

Stock certificate No. 19, valid for two $50 shares, was initially issued to one "Susie Crane Vogl" on March 19, 1870 in Boston. It was signed by Henry Browne Blackwell (1825-1909), a British-born women's rights activist, as "Henry B. Blackwell" in his role as company treasurer. Also co-signed by Angela Grimke Weld's daughter and organization clerk Sarah Grimke Weld Hamilton (1844-1899) as "Sarah G. Weld."

On January 10, 1911, stock certificate No. 19 was transferred to Woman's Journal editor Alice Stone Blackwell (1857-1950), the daughter of newspaper cofounders Henry Browne Blackwell and Lucy Stone (1818-1893). She signed the second transfer document dated January 18, 1911 as "Alice Stone Blackwell." Also mentioned by name in the document is Alice's lawyer, Francis J. Garrison (1848-1916), son of celebrated abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. By mid-January 1911, then, Susie Crane Vogl's stock certificate was officially transferred to the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

The Woman's Journal was a Boston-based weekly newspaper founded in 1870 by committed women's rights activists (and spouses) Henry Browne Blackwell and Lucy Stone. Alice's mother Lucy was one of the most influential American women's rights activists of the nineteenth century; her writings and lectures dominated social and political discourse. Subscribers of Woman's Journal were often its first stockholders. Woman's Journal kept readers informed about recent developments in the women's rights movement. "Woman question" issues, such as education, suffrage, legal rights, marriage equality, and family planning, were editorialized by regular contributors William Lloyd Garrison, Julia Ward Howe, Louisa May Alcott, and others. Woman's Journal also reproduced speeches delivered at recent American Woman Suffrage Association and National American Woman Suffrage Association meetings. Alice Stone Blackwell took up the editorship of Woman's Journal after the death of her parents; the newspaper closed (under a different name) in 1931.

This stock certificate dated from the first months of Woman's Journal's existence. It underscores the important role that nineteenth-century Boston intellectuals often played in galvanizing the women's rights, abolitionist, labor, education, mental health, prison reform, and temperance movements. It also demonstrates how activism was often multi-generational. This one document alone shows how the children of leading campaigners Blackwell, Stone, Grimke, and Garrison carried on their parents' legacy of affecting change through lobbying and protest.

Susan Crane Vogl (1837-1890) was listed as an early stockholder of Woman's Journal in a contemporary pamphlet called The Torch Bearer: A Look Forward and Back at the Woman's Journal, the Organ of the Woman's Movement (1916). Period newspapers tell us that before financing Woman's Journal, Vogl edited Western Sky newspaper and founded Sumner, Kansas.

A remarkable document, signed by or mentioning some of the Who's Who of turn-of-the-century Boston activist circles!

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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