December 19 – Happy Birthday, Mary Rice Livermore

nPostednon December 19, 2015

nManynof the 19th-Century people I’ve read about worked on more than one ofnthe great social movements of the day, and Mary Livermore is nonexception. Born on this date in 1820 in Massachusetts, and raised andneducated in New England, when she was 19 years old Livermore startedna job as a tutor on a Virginia plantation. Guess what she saw, firstnhand, while on the job?

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Ifnyou guessed “slavery,” you are right. Livermore left the job,nquit Virginia, and became an abolitionist. She wrote anti-slaverynarticles, and she worked to elect Abraham Lincoln as president.

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nDuringnthe Civil War, she worked to promote knowledge of and achievement ofnsanitation services, and she organized aid societies and visitednhospitals and generally did a lot of good.

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nAfternthe war, Livermore worked to achieve women’s suffrage (the right tonvote). Unfortunately, she died before this goal was achieved, butnwomen won the right to vote in part because of her efforts.

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nAnothernmovement that Livermore worked hard on was the temperance movement.nShe and other like her wanted to make drinking alcohol illegal. Thisnmovement eventually succeeded—and then the experiment went horriblynawry, and alcohol was made legal again. I think this is one topicnLivermore was wrong about (and I don’t drink even a smidge ofnalcohol, myself!).

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nInna list of who and what Mary Livermore was, I guess you could call herna teacher, a tutor, a writer and editor, a sanitary official, and annactivist / social reformer.

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nAsnyou go about your own life, just remember Mary Livermore’s example,nand participate in several different interesting jobs and worthyncauses, if you can.

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nAlsonon this date: