Gage, Matilda Joslyn (1826-1898), was one of the early leaders of the campaign for women’s rights in the United States. Through her writings and her role as an organizer of woman suffrage associations, Gage worked to help women win the right to vote.
Matilda Joslyn was born in Cicero, New York, on March 24, 1826. In 1845, she married Henry H. Gage, a merchant. The couple raised four children. A fifth died in infancy. Their home in Fayetteville, New York, was a meeting place for antislavery supporters. It was offered as a stop on the underground railroad, an informal system that helped slaves escape to Canada after Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The law made it a crime to help a runaway slave.
Gage made her first public speech on women’s causes at the National Woman’s Rights Convention in Syracuse, New York, in 1852. In 1869, Gage helped create the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) and the New York State Woman Suffrage Association. She became president of both groups in 1875. She served as president of the national organization until 1876, and as state president until 1879.
From the 1870’s until her death, Gage argued for woman suffrage and other women’s issues through her many essays, pamphlets, and other writings. From 1878 to 1881, she edited and published the NWSA’s monthly newspaper, The National Citizen and Ballot Box. Gage was the coauthor, with women’s leaders Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, of the first three volumes of a work called History of Woman Suffrage (1881-1886). Gage became a mentor to her son-in-law L. Frank Baum, the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Gage encouraged Baum to begin writing books for children.
Gage came to believe that the Christian church had a leading role in the oppression of women. This view, expressed in many essays and later summarized in her 1893 book, Woman, Church, and State, was considered too radical by many supporters of woman suffrage. Gage became convinced the NWSA had become too conservative after it merged with the American Woman Suffrage Association in 1890. Later that year, she formed the Woman’s National Liberal Union. Gage died in Chicago on March 18, 1898.
