Massachusetts has been at the forefront of innovation and social change for centuries. Women have always played a part in these movements, but their contributions have often gone unacknowledged. Women’s History Month is the perfect opportunity to shed light on some of these trailblazing women.
Western Massachusetts
The Mount is a beautiful historic home located in Lenox. Edith Newbold Jones Wharton was a prolific novelist and the first woman to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her 1921 book The Age of Innocence. Wharton designed built the home as a picturesque setting to write, garden, and entertain. The trails and historic gardens are open to visitors year-round, and guided tours of the home are offered seasonally.
Heading northeast, The Ashley House in Sheffield tells the story of the home’s residents, including that of Elizabeth Freeman. Freeman was born into slavery in 1744. In 1780, while enslaved at the Ashley House, she heard the newly established Massachusetts Constitution stated that “All men are born free and equal…” (Massachusetts Constitution, Article 1) She successfully sued for her freedom, setting the legal precedent that the Massachusetts Constitution outlawed slavery.
Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst in 1830. A prolific poet, she composed around 1,800 poems, although only a handful were published anonymously during her lifetime. Visitors to the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst can explore the home where she spent the majority of her life and composed most of her poems.
Central Massachusetts
On the border of Central and Western Massachusetts, West Brookfield is the birthplace of leading women’s suffrage advocate and abolitionist Lucy Stone. Born in 1818, she was the first Massachusetts woman to earn a college degree, keep her maiden name, drop “obey” from her wedding vows, and be cremated. Stone founded the American Woman Suffrage Association and its newspaper the Woman’s Journal, and helped organize the first National Women’s Rights Convention, held in Worcester in 1850. While her birthplace is no longer standing, there is a plaque at the home’s site, close to the Rock House Reservation, where visitors can hike through over 296 acres of glacial rock formations and former farmlands.
The Clara Barton Birthplace Museum is open seasonally in North Oxford. Known as “the Angel of the Battlefield” her work nursing Civil War soldiers and raising money and supplies was invaluable. Barton went on to found the American branch of the Red Cross and serve as its first president.
Worcester’s historic Mechanics Hall is home to a gallery of portraits commemorating notable Americans. In the 1990s, a push to add portraits of women by Worcester Women’s History Project resulted in the addition of four portraits in October 1999: Lucy Stone, Clara Barton, Abby Kelly Foster (abolitionist and social reformer) and Dorothea Lynde Dix (Superintendent of Army Nurses for the Union Army and advocate for individuals living with mental illness.) In January 2024, the Association added the first portraits depicting Black Americans, including Sojourner Truth (abolitionist and woman’s rights activist) and Martha Ann Tulip Lewis Brown (abolitionist and social reformer.)
North of Boston
A visit to Orchard House in Concord illuminates the life of Louisa May Alcott, her parents, and her sisters. Alcott is best known for her semi-autobiographical novel Little Women. She served as a nurse during the American Civil war, and wrote 94 books over her lifetime, making her one of the most prolific American authors of the 19th century.
The Robbins House tells the story of African American History in Concord. One resident of the home, Ellen Garrison Jackson Clark, was the first black student at Concord’s public school. A granddaughter and daughter of formerly enslaved men, Clark worked tirelessly to end slavery and challenge segregation. She spent much of her adult life educating newly freed persons across America.
The Sargent House Museum in Gloucester tells the story of Judith Sargent Murray. Murray was an early believer that women were just as intellectually capable as men. Her essay On the Equality of the Sexes in 1790 became a landmark work in the fight for equal education and financial opportunities for women. Murray also published many poems and plays along with her essays throughout her life.
Greater Boston
The Boston Woman’s Heritage Trail offers seven different walking tours, highlighting over 200 women and their accomplishments. Among the stops in Boston’s Chinatown is the home of Rose Lok, the first Chinese-American female pilot in New England. You can also see the former location of Ruby Foo’s Den, one of the first Chinese food restaurants to attract non-Chinese diners. Foo mentored many Boston-area chefs and created a chain of restaurants in the United States and Canada.
The Elma Lewis Playhouse in the Park at Franklin Park in Boston is named for its founder. Elma Lewis was an accomplished singer, actor, dancer, and pianist. She is best known for her commitment to arts education for African Americans, founding the Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts and the National Center of Afro-American Artists. Lewis was awarded the Presidential Medal for the Arts in 1983.
Abigail Smith Adams is often remembered for a line from a letter to her husband John Adams, “…I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Adams was extremely capable – she managed their farm, raised five children, and advised her husband throughout his political career. Adams National Historical Park interprets her life at their Quincy home.
South of Boston
Borderland State Park in North Easton contains the Oak Ames estate, which was home to artist, inventor, and activist Blanche Ames Ames. She served as the president of the Easton Woman Suffrage League, treasurer of the Massachusetts Women Suffrage League, and cofounded the Birth Control League of Massachusetts. Ames also designed the estate now open to the public.
Fun Fact: It’s not a typo – Blanche Ames married Oakes Ames (no relation) and chose the married name Blanche Ames Ames.
Legend says Ruth Graves Wakefield invented the Toll House chocolate chip cookie by accident, thinking the bits from a Nestle bar would melt into her batter when she ran out of her usual chocolate. An accomplished chef and author of an extremely successful cookbook, this story is likely apocryphal. While her original Toll House Inn and Restaurant are long gone, cookie lovers can stop and take a picture with the Toll House sign in Whitman.
Amelia Hickling Jones was a wealthy philanthropist in New Bedford. Jones focused on caring for sick and orphaned children as a board member of the New Bedford Orphans home. She also helped found and finance the Sol e Mar Hospital for sick children on her family’s 166-acre farm. Jones spent most of her life at the 396 County Street mansion, now the& Rotch-Jones-Duff House & Garden Museum.
Cape Cod and the Islands
Heading along the coast to Woods Hole Waterfront Park, visitors can find a statue of Rachel Carson. Carson was marine biologist who’s book Silent Spring published in 1962 brought awareness to the danger of synthetic pesticides and helped lead to the national ban on DDT usage. She performed research out of the Wood’s Hole Marine Biological Laboratory in Falmouth on several occasions.
On Nantucket Maria Mitchell discovered a new come in 1847, gaining her international fame and a post as a professor of astronomy. Her legacy of hands-on learning is embodied by the Maria Mitchell Association, who oversee the preservation of her home and the operations of an aquarium, a natural science museum, two observatories, a research center, and a discovery playground.
Helen Vanderhoop Manning was an Indigenous teacher, author, and advocate who was essential in helping the Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe receive Federal recognition in 1987 on Martha’s Vineyard. The Aquinnah Cultural Center shares the Aquinnah Wampanoag’s history and culture with tribe members and visitors wanting to learn more about their stories.
We’ve highlighted a small handful of the incredible women of Massachusetts. Want to learn more? Check out the Historic Women Trailblazers of Massachusetts for profiles of 71 amazing women and the sites connected to them across the state
