Sarah F. Norton

Sarah Frances Norton (born Sarah Frances Rice, c. 1838 in Ithaca, New York. – January 7, 1910 in Troy, New York.) was an American feminist of the 19th century and member of the Working Women's Association. A public speaker and philanthropist, she wrote for feminist publications as a supporter of women's rights. Norton was also a novelist and lecturer, and she became the president of the Working Women's Association in 1869, shortly before it dissolved.

Biography

According to her obituary, Sarah Norton was a great-granddaughter of President John Adams.

Working with Susan B. Anthony, Sarah Norton campaigned for the admission of women at the Cornell University, which she called “that stronghold of feminine prejudice,” and the two women received the support of its founder, Ezra Cornell. The school admitted women in 1870, one of the first American universities to do so. Sarah Norton critiqued abortion as the "fast increasing crime of feticide or abortion". recorded her later life as alone, friendless and surrounded by all the evidences of poverty. She had lived on a widow's pension of 20 dollars a month for years. A penciled statement found clutched in her hand illustrated the circumstances in which she found herself as she approached death, stating, "I have spent my life and nearly two fortunes working in the interest of women and this is the end-friendless-dissolution-death. ... let no one play at philanthropy who wants peace."