Lillie Devereaux Blake

Lillie Devereux Blake (1835-1913) was an American woman suffragist and reformer, born in Raleigh, N. C., and educated in New Haven, Conn. She was born Elizabeth Johnson Devereux to George Pollok Devereux and Sarah Elizabeth Johnson. It was George Devereux that called his daughter "Lilly," giving her the name she would later adopt as her own. Her father, a plantation owner in North Carolina, died in 1837. At this point, Sarah Elizabeth Johnson took her two daughters and moved back to her family in Connecticut. Lillie grew up in New Haven, Connecticut where she studied at Miss Apthorp's school for girls before receiving further education from Yale tutors.

In 1855 she married Frank G. Q. Umsted, a Philadelphia lawyer. Her husband died in 1859(after he apparently committed suicide) leaving her with two children to support. Blake began to write feverishly to support herself and her daughters; she wrote short stories, novels, newspaper and magazine articles. Her first story, "A Lonely House", appeared in the "Atlantic Monthly". In the next few years, she produced two successful novels, "Southwold" (1859) and "Rockford" (1862). What generated the most money and fame for Blake, however, was her job as a correspondent in Washington, D.C. during the Civil War.

In 1866 she married Grinfill Blake, a wealthy New York merchant. She was one of the active promoters of the movement that resulted in the founding of Barnard College. In 1869, she visited the Women's Bureau in New York and soon after, began speaking all over the United States in support of female enfranchisement. Blake testified before the New York Constitutional Commission of 1873 in support for women's suffrage. Along with Matilda Joslyn Gage, she signed the 1876 Centennial Women's Rights Declaration. She was president of the New York State Woman's Suffrage Association from 1879 to 1890 and of the New York City Woman's Suffrage League from 1886 to 1900. Blake completely broke ties with the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1900 when Susan B. Anthony, who was retiring as the leader of the organization, selected Carry Chapman Catt and Anna Howard to succeed her instead of Blake. For years, Blake and Anthony had disagreed on the basic purpose of the women's movement. Anthony wanted to focus solely on suffrage; Blake wanted to pursue a broader course of reform.

Blake went on to create the National Legislative League. She worked on improving immigration laws for women and furthering equality in society. In addition, Blake helped establish pensions for Civil War nurses and also worked on granting mothers joint custody of their children. She wanted to have women involved in civic affairs and encouraged them to study law in school. She was the author of the law providing for matrons in the police stations, passed in 1891. Blake was an avid writer and her writings also include: "Fettered for Life" (1872), a novel dealing with the woman's suffrage question; "Woman's Place To-day" (1883); "A Daring Experiment" (1894).

P.S. 6 on the Upper East Side of Manhattan is named after her [ [http://schools.nyc.gov/OurSchools/Region9/M006/default.htm Error404 ] at schools.nyc.gov]

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