Women's Rights

The Women and Men of the Burleigh Family

Many pro-feminist men come to support women's rights through observing the restrictions placed on the strong women in their own families. This is true of the men of the Burleigh family. Their mother Lydia, and their oldest sibling, Mary, were strong female figures in their lives. Despite this, though, the process towards embracing women's rights was uneven. Charles Calistus Burleigh, perhaps because of his strong affiliation with Garrisonianism, and his work with Abby Kelley Foster, was among the earliest to endorse women's full rights. Cyrus Moses Burleigh likewise adopted the Garrisonian line. Throughout his journals, his comments on women always look to their minds and moral fortitude, rather than their looks, or emotional sentimentality. His end-of-life interactions with Mary Grew and Margaret Jones, described elsewhere, points to an incipient understanding of queer gender dynamics. William's first marriage appeared to be conventional, and little is heard of any public profile for Harriet