Julia Wilbur

Julia Wilbur (August 8, 1815 – June 6, 1895) was an American abolitionist and suffragist. She kept a diary during the Civil War and in it she records events of historical significance as well as everyday happenings that provide a picture into life during that time. She is noted to have worked alongside Susan B. Anthony to establish voting rights for women. She was an early member and later secretary of the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society (RLASS), which helped fund Frederick Douglass' newspaper.

Early life and education Julia Ann Wilbur was born on August 8, 1815, in Milan, New York, the third child of Stephen Wilbur and Mary Lapham. She attended Nine Partners Boarding School in Dutchess County, New York, from 1829 to 1831. Her mother died in 1835 and her father soon after remarried. She remained at home helping to raise her siblings before she moved to Rochester, New York, in 1844 to become a teacher.

Working within the Rochester public school system she became frustrated by the wage gap between male and female teachers, an injustice that may have sparked her interest and later engagement in the women's rights effort. She agreed and traveled to Washington in October of that year, originally planning to stay in the nation's capital. However, officers of a group called the National Freedmen's Relief Association urged her to move across the river to Alexandria, Virginia, which the Union Army had entered at the start of the war, and to work as a relief agent, rather than a teacher.

Wilbur agreed, and worked in Alexandria from November 1862 to February 1865. Wilbur worked there alongside Harriet Jacobs, who moved to Alexandria in January 1863. She also made several trips to Richmond and Fredericksburg to provide supplies and to witness and report on conditions for formerly enslaved populations.

Suffrage efforts

Before the war, Wilbur spent more time in abolition than woman's rights activities, although always strongly supported economic, social, and political rights for women.

Later years

Realizing that work with the Freedmen's Bureau was winding down, Wilbur sought a job with the federal government, a member of the first generation of female government workers. In 1865, she moved to Washington, DC and took a job working in the U.S. Patent Office. According to a letter written by Wilbur's great-niece, Wilbur was the first woman admitted to work in this office. She served as a clerk and worked with the Patent Office until she was almost 80 years old. Julia spent her last years living in Washington D.C. with her sister, Frances, until her death in 1895.