author
Marilla M. (Marilla Marks) Ricker
1840–1920
A fearless reformer who pushed against the limits placed on women in public life, she became one of New Hampshire’s most outspoken voices for suffrage, legal equality, and freethought. Her story blends courtroom firsts, political ambition, and a lifelong refusal to accept “no” as the final answer.
1 Audiobook
I don't know, do you?
by Marilla M. (Marilla Marks) Ricker
About the author
Born in 1840, Marilla Marks Ricker was an American suffragist, lawyer, philanthropist, and freethinker who helped open the legal profession to women in New Hampshire. She is remembered as the state’s first female lawyer and as an early woman candidate for governor, using both the law and politics to challenge barriers that kept women out of public life.
Ricker built a reputation for independence and persistence. Rather than waiting for permission, she tested the rules directly—applying for opportunities women had long been denied and making public arguments for equal rights. Her work connected women’s suffrage with broader questions of civil liberty, making her a notable figure in the reform movements of her time.
She died in 1920, the same year the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in the United States. That timing gives her life a poignant arc: she spent decades fighting for women’s political voice and lived to see national woman suffrage finally become law.