Elizabeth Bunnell Read

Elizabeth Bunnell Read (pen name, Lizzie B. Read; 1832–1909) was an American journalist and woman suffragist. Between 1861 and 1865, in Indiana, Read published The Mayflower, the only suffrage paper published during the American Civil War. She served as President of the Iowa Woman's Suffrage Society.

Early life Elizabeth Currence Bunnell was born on a farm in Dewitt township, near Syracuse, New York, on December 24, 1834, the fifth child in a family of four boys and five girls. Her father, Edmund Harger Bunnell, was born in Connecticut, the son of Nathan Bunnell and Currence Twitchell, his wife. Her mother was Betsey Ann Ashley, daughter of Dr. John Ashley, of Catskill, New York, and his wife Elizabeth Johnstone, of the Johnstones of colonial era. Her paternal grandfather was a soldier of the War of 1812, and his father participated in the American Revolutionary War. One of her brothers, Nathan Bunnell, a soldier in the Union Army died in 1862 during the civil war. When Elizabeth was fourteen years old, her parents removed from New York to Indiana, where, within six weeks after their arrival, her mother died. Business ventures proved unfortunate, and the family circle was soon broken. In 1865, the couple removed to Algona, Iowa. There she published 37 issues of a weekly county paper, The Upper Des Moines, representing the interests of the upper Des Moines valley, which at that time had no other newspaper.

Lizzie B. Read, President, Iowa Woman's Suffrage Society, Algona, Iowa (1875 publication) A series of articles in the Northwestern Christian Advocate in 1872, on the status of women in the Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC), led to their more just recognition in subsequent episcopal addresses. of Des Moines, Iowa, a monthly newspaper produced by the Iowa Woman Suffrage Association devoted to equal rights, temperance and literature. She was vice-president of the Indiana State Woman Suffrage Society, while residing there, and later served as president of the Iowa Woman's Suffrage Society.

Read was deeply interested in all social and moral problems. The unfortunate and criminal classes enlisted her sympathy and attention. The Methodist church and The Upper Des Moines newspaper were both housed at their home at the same time.

Personal life In June 1885, Read went to Salt Lake City, Utah to recuperate from over-work.

For some years before the turn of the century, she made her home in the Ozarks of Arkansas. Elizabeth Bunnell Read died in Fayetteville, Arkansas, May 22, 1909, and is interred in Riverview Cemetery in Algona, Iowa.

Awards and honors Iowa State Honor Roll of the National League of Women Voters 2022, "Votes For Women" historical marker erected in Peru, Indiana, honoring Lizzie Bunnell