By Mary K. Witkowski<\/p>\n
Birth:\u00a0 January 5, 1835, Prarie Ronde, Michigan
\nDied:\u00a0 October 23, 1926, Baltimore, Maryland<\/p>\n
August 18th, 1920.\u00a0 Olympia Brown smiled to herself with satisfaction.\u00a0 After working diligently for the rights of women since she was young, she could at last take a deep breath.\u00a0 She was now 85 years old. The 19th<\/sup> amendment passed, giving women the right to vote!\u00a0 She had stood in the past with Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.\u00a0 Reverend Brown had marched alongside women throughout her life, steadfast in her vision.\u00a0 Women had rights too! In 1874, Bridgeport, Connecticut became the center of women\u2019s rights movement. The Hartford Courant published this notice in the news of the state.<\/p>\n Persons visiting Bridgeport for the purpose of attending the women\u2019s suffrage convention are requested to report to the Rev. Olympia Brown, Golden Hill, and they will have entertainment provided for them. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other good speakers are to be present. The convention is to take place in Templar\u2019s Hall on Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was not able to attend the evening meeting due to an illness in her family. However, other prominent citizens throughout State of Connecticut did. The Hon. Joseph Sheldon of New Haven delivered an address on the \u201cwomen\u2019s need for a ballot\u201d. He held the audience for an hour and a quarter on the whole subject of women\u2019s suffrage.<\/p>\n At the conclusion of the meeting, the choir sang \u201cAmerica\u201d with the whole audience joining in. A meeting was announced for the next day. The Rev. Olympia Brown made remarks of the condition of the Suffrage Society and that there was growing interest in the cause of women\u2019s suffrage.<\/p>\n After graduating from Antioch College in Yellow Springs Ohio, in 1860, Olympia attended St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York.\u00a0 In July, 1863, the Universalist Church of America gave her the accreditation as the first fully ordained woman minister.<\/p>\n Reverend Brown\u2019s first job as a minister was in 1864 in Weymouth Landing, Massachusetts.\u00a0 She was successful in Massachusetts.\u00a0 Her congregation took on new tasks and they became used to her methods of asking the congregation to be active participants.\u00a0 Olympia continued her vocal campaign, supporting women\u2019s suffrage organizations.<\/p>\n In 1870, the Universalist Church of Bridgeport, Connecticut asked her to take on the ministry of the church in the city.\u00a0 Olympia was excited about moving, and being part of a new church. P.T. Barnum, the museum founder and showman, was a Universalist himself and was friends with clergymen in New York.<\/p>\n One of Olympia\u2019s Weymouth Landing parishioners, John Henry Willis, moved to Bridgeport. He opened up a grocery store on Main Street.\u00a0 John and Olympia became married in Rhode Island in 1874. \u00a0Unusual for the time, Olympia kept her maiden name, using Mrs. John Willis in more formal settings.<\/p>\n Olympia was active in the New England Women\u2019s Suffrage Association, and her husband, John, was treasurer.\u00a0 Olympia did not hide her feelings about woman\u2019s rights, and had even invited many prominent suffragists to speak at the church.<\/p>\n The Hartford Courant reported that on January 11, 1875, \u201cThe filed injunction against the trustees, Universalist church in Bridgeport, has been modified as to enable them to hire a pastor.\u00a0 But said pastor must be male-which Olympia Brown must step down and out.\u201d<\/p>\n On the Board of Trustees was James Staples, a prominent businessman who lead the effort to hire a male minister.\u00a0 In 1875, Olympia stepped down from her position.\u00a0 The Reverend John Lyon was elected minister instead.\u00a0 After she was removed from her position, Olympia and her family first stayed in Bridgeport until she moved her family to Racine, Wisconsin.\u00a0 There, she continued her work for women\u2019s rights, associating with Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.<\/p>\n The Universalist church Brown had left behind in Bridgeport had a strong connection to famous city resident, P.T. Barnum.\u00a0 Barnum became an official member of Bridgeport\u2019s Universal church in April 1879, although he had been active in church affairs much earlier.\u00a0 In the Universalist Church of Bridgeport was the pew where P.T Barnum worshipped. The pew became the best-known feature of the Bridgeport church, which stood at 262 Fairfield Ave.\u00a0 The pew was near the front of the church, and Barnum used to drop notes to Olympia with comments about her sermons.<\/p>\n In 1940, the church steeple was demolished because of damage from a 1938 hurricane. In 1957, the church left its home of 113 years and moved to a new building in Stratford, Connecticut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Mary K. Witkowski Birth:\u00a0 January 5, 1835, Prarie Ronde, Michigan Died:\u00a0 October 23, 1926, Baltimore, Maryland August 18th, 1920.\u00a0 Olympia Brown smiled to herself with satisfaction.\u00a0 After working diligently for the rights of women since she was young, she could at last take a deep breath.\u00a0 She was now 85 years old. The 19th […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":11978,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[8,14,55,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-barnum-and-related-items","category-churches-and-synagogues","category-social-justice","category-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11330"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12112,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11330\/revisions\/12112"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nOlympia looked back at the stepping stones in her life.\u00a0 Growing up in Prarie Ronde, Michigan, just south of Kalamazoo, her parents impressed on her the value of a good education. Olympia went to Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley Massachusetts, but switched to Antioch College, in Yellow Springs, Ohio.<\/p>\n