Caroline Elizabeth Merrick

Caroline Elizabeth Merrick (November 24, 1825 – March 29, 1908) was an American writer and temperance worker. She is the author of Old Times in Dixie Land: a Southern Matron's Memories. Taking an active part in the charitable and philanthropic movements of New Orleans, she served as president of the Ladies' Sanitary and Benevolent Association, of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and of the Woman's League of Louisiana.

Early life and education Caroline Elizabeth Thomas was born on Cottage Hall Plantation, East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, on November 24, 1825. Her father was Capt. David Thomas (1777-1849), who belonged to a prominent South Carolina family. A veteran of the Battle of New Orleans, David Thomas was a trustee of the college which later became the Centenary College of Louisiana. Her mother was Elizabeth Patillo, who died in 1833.

She was educated by governesses at home.

She favored woman suffrage, and for years, she stood comparatively alone in her ardent championship of the cause. She was the first woman of Louisiana to speak publicly in behalf of women. She addressed the State convention in 1879, and assisted to secure an article in the Constitution making all women over 21 years of age eligible to hold office in connection with the public schools. It required considerable moral courage to side with a movement so cruelly derided in the South, but, supported by her husband, she always worked for the emancipation of women through her writing, defining the legal status of woman in Louisiana. She was a valued correspondent of several leading woman's journals. In 1888, she represented Louisiana in the Woman's International Council in Washington D.C., and also in the Woman's Suffrage Association, which immediately afterward held a convention in the same city.