Olympia Brown: Suffragette and First Ordained Woman Minister
By Nick Gier, New West Unfiltered, 3-26-08
OLYMPIA BROWN: LEADING SUFFRAGETTE AND
AMERICA'S FIRST ORDAINED WOMAN MINISTER
By Nick Gier
March is Women's History Month and I would like to pay tribute to Olympia Brown (1835-1926), a leading suffragette and America's first ordained woman minister. In 1863 Brown was ordained in the Universalist Church, the 9th largest Christian denomination at the time.
In 1961 most Universalists joined the Unitarians, the former abolishing Hell and the latter rejecting the Trinity, and became the Unitarian Universalist Association. Some Universalists, however, have recently sought to reassert their Christian identity in forming the Christian Universalism Association.
Universalism, the belief that in the end all will be saved, was widely accepted in the early church until it was condemned by St. Augustine and then by the Fifth Ecumenical Council in A.D. 553. The belief was revived during the Reformation, and two German Christians Hans Denck and Hans Hut were prominent preachers of universal salvation.
Universalist Benjamin Rush (1745-1813), prominent doctor and signer of the Declaration of Independence, held the progressive views that characterized Universalists at the time. He believed in the abolition of slavery and the death penalty; he promoted public education and the education of girls; and he was leader in the movement for humane treatment of the mentally ill.
Although not a believer myself, my own argument for universalism is based on the principle that punishment should always fit the infraction. For example, premeditated murder should be punished more severely than involuntary manslaughter.
Therefore, it is simply unfair that finite beings committing finite sins should receive eternal punishment in Hell. If God is truly just, all sinners, after serving appropriate sentences, should be released from punishment and allowed to join God in Heaven.
Please note that there is no death penalty in Hell. Even murders must be kept "alive" in order for them to be tormented in Hell.
Olympia Brown's journey through Christian ministry to political activism was a long struggle against male domination and prejudice. Quickly tiring of the sexist comments by her professors at Mt. Holyoke College, Brown enrolled at Antioch College, then and still noted for its progressive educational philosophy, and received her B.A. in 1860.
Brown then wished to pursue a seminary degree, but she was denied admission at Oberlin College, Lombard University, and Meadville Unitarian Seminary simply because she was a woman.
In 1961 St. Laurence University did accept her, and although its president Ebenezer Fisher wrote that it was "not expedient for women to become preachers," he still assured her that "the faculty will receive and treat you precisely as they would any other student."
Although the male students did not treat her well, she finished her seminary degree in two years, graduating in 1863.
Appealing to the basic principle of equality, Brown convinced, even in face of opposition of St. Laurence President Fischer, the Northern Universalist Association to ordain her as a Universalist minister.
One of the St. Laurence faculty members helped her obtain her first preaching post at the Universalist church in Marshfield, Vermont. While the church was willing to have a woman as its minister, no family in this Republican stronghold would offer her lodging.
In her autobiography, she noted the irony of this discrimination, not only in Marshfield but also among the Republicans students at seminary, and I note the double irony that a family of despised Democrats one mile from town offered her room and board.
From Vermont she moved on to a very successful 6-year ministry at the Univeralist church of Weymouth Landing, Massachusetts. In seminary she had been ridiculed for her squeaky voice, so she arranged elocution lessons at the Dio Lewis School in Boston.
Her new, commanding voice impressed all who listened to her, and it became a real asset when she went on the road giving hundreds of speeches for women's suffrage.
After leading and restoring two failed Universalist churches in Bridgeport, Connecticut and Racine, Wisconsin, Brown went to our second goal in life—from liberating women for religion leadership to freedom in the political realm.
She encountered much dissent in her Bridgeport congregation, because some thought that she was spending too much time organizing against the disenfranchisement of women.
As Brown's daughter once wrote: "The ministry was the first objective of her life, since in her youthful enthusiasm she believed that freedom of religious thought and a liberal church would supply the groundwork for all other freedoms."
For years Susan B. Anthony had tried to get Brown to devote herself full time to women's rights. In 1867, after being given 4-months leave from her Weymouth church, Brown went to Kansas to campaign for a referendum giving women the right to vote. Brown stormed the state, giving over 300 speeches and facing angry crowds, but the final tally went 2-1 against the suffragettes.
Brown lived until she was 91, and she was one of the few original women freedom fighters who actually got to vote in the presidential election of 1920. This month let us all honor, for her achievements are truly Olympian, this remarkable woman.
Nick Gier taught religion and philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31 years. Read or hear his other columns at http://www.NickGier.com.
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Antoinette Louisa Brown, later Antoinette Brown Blackwell (May 20, 1825 – November 5, 1921), was the first woman to be ordained as a minister in the United States.
She was a well-versed public speaker on the paramount issues of her time, and distinguished herself from her contemporaries with her use of religious faith in her efforts to expand women's rights.
Brown was born in Henrietta, New York, the daughter of Joseph Brown and Abby Morse. After daring to inject a prayer into her family's religious observance, she was accepted into her family's branch of the Congregational Church at age nine. She spoke in church in her youth. She studied at the Monroe County Academy and taught for a few years, but soon decided that God meant for her to become a minister.
Brown attended Oberlin College, which was a Christian school and the first coeducational college in the country. As a woman she was not permitted to learn public speaking or rhetoric, nor was she allowed to speak publicly in her coeducational courses. She graduated from Oberlin in 1847 and studied at the Oberlin Seminary until 1850, when she was refused a degree and ordination due to her gender.
Without a preaching license following graduation, Brown decided to pause her ministerial ambitions to write for Frederick Douglass' abolitionist paper, The North Star. She soon spoke at a women's rights convention, giving a speech that was well-received and served as the beginning of a speaking tour in which she would address issues such as abolition, temperance, and women's rights.
The Congregational Church of South Butler, New York inducted Brown as minister on September 15, 1853, making her the first woman ordained minister to a regular Protestant denomination in the United States. Not long after, she also became the first woman to officiate a message. She later left the Church due to illness coupled with discontent with some Congregational ideologies.