author
Matilda Joslyn Gage
1826–1898
A bold voice in the 19th-century fight for women’s rights, she pushed beyond suffrage alone to challenge slavery, defend Native rights, and question the religious and political systems that limited women’s freedom. Her writing and organizing helped shape a more radical edge of the reform movement.
1 Audiobook
Woman, Church & State The Original Exposé of Male Collaboration Against the Female Sex
by Matilda Joslyn Gage
About the author
Born in New York in 1826, Matilda Joslyn Gage became one of the most outspoken reformers of her era. She emerged as a leader in the women’s rights movement after speaking at the National Woman’s Rights Convention in Syracuse in 1852, and she went on to work closely with figures including Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She also came from an abolitionist family, and her home was connected to Underground Railroad activity.
Gage was known for taking principled positions even when they were unpopular. Alongside campaigning for woman suffrage, she argued for broader equality, supported Native American rights, and criticized the use of organized religion and law to keep women subordinate. She wrote widely on these themes, including in Woman, Church and State, and helped shape the multi-volume History of Woman Suffrage.
In later years, she became increasingly identified with the more independent and radical wing of the movement. Her legacy has grown well beyond her own lifetime: she is remembered not only as a suffragist, but as a writer and activist who insisted that women’s freedom had to include political, intellectual, and spiritual independence.