Lucinda Hinsdale Stone was an American feminist long before the word “feminism” existed. She founded at least fifty women’s literary and study clubs in the midwestern US in the mid-1800s, was the first US woman to lead classes of young female students on international study trips, and after a career as a professor at the University of Michigan, began a second career as a journalist, in which she was the oldest female journalist in Michigan.
Hinsdale was born in Hinesburg, Vermont, on September 30, 1814. Her family came from France, where they were part of the noble “house de Hinnsdale” that dates from the 1100s. She enrolled in the Hinsburg at 13, which was unusual, as they didn’t generally admit girls. She took classes with the boys, and easily bested them all, learning their entire curriculum and adding to it French and music. By age 15 she was teaching. At 18 she travelled to Middlebury, Vermont, to attend a “ladies’ seminary” because it was considered the proper thing for an educated young woman to do. She was disappointed in the place, though, and often stepped in to teach classes if a teacher was sick or absent.
It’s not clear what she did for the next few years, but when she was about 25 she visited her sister in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she met her future husband, James Stone. They were married the following year. James Stone became president of the branch of the University of Michigan located in the town of Kalamazoo (the name is derived from the name of a local river in Potawatomi, an indigenous language). While James Stone was building the school into Kalamazoo College, Lucinda Hinsdale Stone was leading the “Ladies’ Department,” as well as traveling throughout the state to teach women’s classes. Those classes were the foundation of the study and literary clubs she began founding in small towns.
Having been raised in Vermont and living in Michigan, Hinsdale Stone didn’t have any direct experience of slavery, but received a bit of a rude awakening when she was invited to travel to Mississippi to teach the family of a wealthy plantation owner. Almost immediately she became one of the leaders of the anti-slavery movement, working with Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison. At the same time she was highly active in the women’s suffrage movement, advocating voting rights along with other leaders including Elizabeth Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.
In her spare time, Hinsdale Stone wrote articles about social and moral issues as well as international travel, and published them in a wide variety of newspapers, using the byline “L.H.S.” She also corresponded with prominent authors, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, who became a personal friend. She published at least one book, Western Side.
In 1867 she instituted her idea for leading a class of young women on an international tour, and repeated the event eight times. These were not simple one-semester classes; the trips lasted up to 18 months, and the classes visited locations in Europe, Egypt, and the Middle East. After her final international class, she was asked to organize “Isabella Clubs” in advance of the Chicago World’s Fair on 1893. The “Isabella” in the club name was taken from Queen Isabella of Spain, who had sponsored Christopher Columbus on his explorations. The “official” name of the 1893 World’s Fair was the “World’s Columbian Exposition.” Despite being in her mid-70s at the time, Hinsdale Stone spent several days per week traveling to organize the clubs. She always managed to be back home on Thursdays, though, when her local Isabella Club met — in her home library.
After the 1983 Exposition, many of the Isabella Clubs continued under new names. Hinsdale Stone’s local chapter became the Twentieth Century Club of Kalamazoo, and named her the “perpetual president.” She served in office until March 14, 1900, when she passed away at age 85.
Lucinda Hinsdale Stone was inducted into the Michigan Hall of Fame in 1983, and the University of Michigan maintains the Lucinda Hinsdale Stone Senior Faculty Award in her honor.
