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| Olympia Brown, note delegate ribbon for a women's rights convention. |
On June 25, 1863 Olympia Brown was
ordained as a minister by the St.
Lawrence Association of Universalists in New York State. She was the
first woman in America ordained as a
minister with full denominational
authority. A handful of other women
had been ordained by individual congregations, been licensed to preach, or founded their own churches.
The twenty-eight year old Brown came fully and formally educated to a
denomination—Universalism—that had
often relied on self-educated preachers to spread the liberal gospel of Universal Salvation.
Brown was born to Vermont Yankee stock
on a pioneer farm near Prairie
Ronde, Michigan in 1835. The family of devout Universalists placed
a high value on education. Her father
built a school house on his farm and raised money from neighbors to hire a
teacher. Later Olympia, the eldest of
four children, attended school in the nearby town of Schoolcraft.
But she craved more than
semi-frontier schools could offer. Her
father agreed to enroll her in prestigious Mount
Holyoke Female Seminary in Massachusetts
but the school strict Calvinism
deeply offended her sensibilities.
She was much happier at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, which was presided over by noted Unitarian social reformer and educator Horace Mann. She sent such glowing reports of the school
home that her parents relocated the whole family to Yellow Springs so the other
children could benefit from the same fine education.
While at Oberlin, Brown invited Rev. Antoinette Brown (Blackwell)
to speak and preach. As a young woman the then Antoinette Brown
(no relation to Olympia, by the way) had struggled to become licensed to preach
by the Congregationalists, was hired
to serve a small New York church, and was irregularly ordained by a Methodist minister. She was a staunch abolitionist and suffragist
who became a noted lecturer after her brief pastorate. Blackwell electrified the young Brown, “It
was the first time I had heard a woman preach and the sense of victory lifted
me up. I felt as though the Kingdom of Heaven were at hand.”
She determined to enroll in a
theological school and pursue the ministry herself. That was easier said than done. No theological school in the country then regularly
admitted women to degree programs, though a handful allowed them to take
classes. Even such bastions of liberal
theology as the Unitarian School of
Meadville in Pennsylvania and Oberlin turned her down, although
Oberlin said she could attend classes but “not participate in public exercises”
or expect a degree.
She took a somewhat ambiguously
discouraging letter from the president of the Universalist Divinity School of St. Lawrence University as an acceptance and
surprised him by appearing for the 1861 term.
Sheepishly, he had to admit her.
It was characteristic of Brown’s bold determination. She afterward wrote, “I was told I had not
been expected and that Mr. Fisher had said I would not come as he had written
so discouragingly to me. I had supposed his discouragement was my encouragement.” Brown efficiently completed her course of
study in 1863 with distinction.
Encountering resistance at every
turn she doggedly convinced skeptical authorities to first ordain her, and then
allow her to be called as a denominational minister. Shortly after graduation the St. Lawrence
Association ordained her. After a period
of pulpit supply preaching Brown was called as a minister to a Weymouth Landing, Massachusetts church. While
serving there she became deeply involved in the organized women’s movement.
In the summer of 1867 Lucy Stone, the sister-in-law of her
old inspiration Antoinette Brown,
urged her to travel to Kansas to
lead a campaign in support of a state constitutional amendment to extend the
franchise to women. She arrived in the
state to find no organization on the ground or any support. She had to schedule her own appearances, book
halls, make traveling and lodging arrangements and then speak to often hostile
audiences. Traveling relentlessly to all
corners of the state she made over 300 speeches and attracted national
attention. Although the state’s male
voters overwhelmingly rejected the amendment, Susan B. Anthony commended her work as “a glorious triumph.”
Brown found herself in demand as a speaker, but yearned to return to parish
ministry. In 1870 she was called to the
large, prosperous congregation in Bridgeport,
Connecticut, the home church of active Universalist layman Phineas T. Barnam. She found the church far less progressive
than her first pastorate and, although she enjoyed support of the majority of
members, a persistent minority campaigned against her in favor of calling a
man.
During her service she married John
Henry Willis in 1873. While on
maternity leave with their first child, agitation by the minority to permanently
replace her increased. By the end of
1874 she had enough and resigned her ministry.
The family remained in Bridgeport and added a second child, but
Brown—who kept her maiden name—searched for another pulpit.
She found one in Racine, Wisconsin on the shores of Lake Michigan just north of Illinois.
The church was in “unfortunate condition” after a series of failed
pastorates, was demoralized, and was struggling to maintain membership and keep
afloat. Brown recognized that only
churches in this condition were desperate enough to call a woman. She eagerly accepted the challenge. Her supportive husband closed his Bridgeport
business to move with his wife.
Eventually he became part owner of the local newspaper in Racine which
not only helped support the family financially but gave support to Olympia’s
ministry.
Under her leadership the church
flourished, grew in membership, stabilized its finances and became a cultural
center for Racine. She sponsored regular
speaking engagements by leading feminists and social reformers including
Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and
Julia Ward Howe. After nine successful years at age 53 Brown
decided to dedicate more of her time to the cause of women’s suffrage. The Racine congregation was on firm ground
and continued thrive. In the 20th Century the congregation took the
name Olympia Brown Unitarian
Universalist Church in her honor.
Brown continued to serve small
Wisconsin Universalist congregations on a part time basis or as a pulpit supply
preacher, but spent most of her time as President
of the Wisconsin Suffrage Association
and as Vice-president of the National Woman Suffrage Association. She belonged to the Elizabeth Cady Stanton wing
of the women’s movement which believed that reform on many issues in addition
to obtaining the right to vote was essential for women. She was particularly concerned about
educational opportunities for women and campaigned for previously all male
schools to admit women—and to encourage women to dare to seek higher
education.
By the 1890’s Brown was concerned
that conservative leadership by Carrie
Chapman Catt was sapping the strength of the movement. In 1913 she was happy to embrace Alice Paul’s new militant and
confrontational Women’s Party. As a charter member she said, “I belonged
to this party before I was born.” At the
age of 80 she was delighted to take to the streets. She once burned Woodrow Wilson’s speeches in front of the White House because of his refusal to support suffrage. She risked arrest time and again.
After the 19th Amendment to the Constitution finally passed in 1919, Brown
became one of the few veteran movement leaders to survive to cast her
vote.
Not content with that victory, she
turned her energy to the peace movement becoming one of the founding members of
the Women's International League for
Peace and Freedom.
In old age she summered in Racine
and spent the cold months with a daughter in Baltimore, where she let her opinions be known on a number of
issues. When she died there in 1926 at
the age of 91 the Baltimore Sun wrote,
“Perhaps no phase of her life better exemplified her vitality and intellectual
independence than the mental discomfort she succeeded in arousing, between her
eightieth and ninetieth birthdays, among the conservatively minded Baltimorans.”
Brown’s body was returned to Racine
where, after an overflow service at her old church, she was laid to rest next
to her husband.
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