On January 3, 1870, Phoebe Couzins delivered the first public lecture on women’s suffrage in Little Rock.
The majority of the Arkansas Gazette’s report on the lecture described Couzins’ physical attributes declaring her “decidedly handsome,” and detailing her dress, her jewelry, and even her hair style. The reporter lauded Couzins for delivering her talk from memory and noted, “Some of its sentences produced an unmistakable sensation.”
The last, short paragraph summarized the content of her seventy-five minute talk: “She extolled the virtues and capacities of her sex, while the general train of her argument was to decry those of the opposite gender.”
To learn more, visit ARvotesforwomen.com.