Celestia Rice Colby

Celestia Rice Colby was an activist who promoted feminist and anti-slavery ideas through her writing. Reviewing her prose also illuminates the idea of separate spheres that was present in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Early life Celestia was born on December 19, 1827. Her parents were Joel and Flavia (Bradley) Rice, and they resided in Andover, Ohio. She was the fourth child followed by a younger brother a year and a half later. However, her mother died two months after his birth. Joel then married a woman named Evelina Johnson in November 1830, moving the whole family to Cherry Valley, Ohio two years later. She first attended a common school in Cherry Valley, but then pursued further education at Grand River Institute, a private seminary school, in Austinburg, Ohio. This piece was certainly inspired by her observations of Lewis and the disdain she felt for being forced into farm labor.

Celestia eventually moved in with June to Normal, Illinois in the 1890s. Additionally, her published works constituted over two hundred essays and stories.

Not only did Celestia write for various journals, but she also helped produce one. This journal was called The Ladies Volunteer. In one article dated from 1862, she compared the oppression of women to “bondage,” which was a common sentiment among white, female abolitionists as an attempt to combine the two movements. Rather than her typical, somewhat paradoxical optimism for change demonstrated in her work, she shifted to a more lamenting approach.