Elizabeth Smith Miller ( Smith; September 20, 1822 – May 23, 1911), known as "Libby", was an American advocate and financial supporter of the women's rights movement.NY History Net

(April 21, 2011).

Biography

Elizabeth Smith was born September 20, 1822, in

Peterboro, New York Peterboro, located approximately southeast of Syracuse, New York, is a historic Hamlet (New York), hamlet and currently the administrative center for the Smithfield, New York, Town of Smithfield, Madison County, New York, Madison County, New Y ...

. She was the daughter of antislavery philanthropist

Gerrit Smith Gerrit Smith (March 6, 1797 – December 28, 1874), also spelled Gerritt Smith, was an American social reformer, abolitionist, businessman, public intellectual, and philanthropist. Married to Ann Carroll Fitzhugh, Smith was a candidate for P ...

and his spouse, the abolitionist Ann Carroll Fitzhugh. She studied at the Young Ladies' Domestic Seminary in Clinton, New York (1835–1836), then at a Quaker school in Philadelphia (1839–1840). While she was not much interested in politics, she met a continuing stream of

abolitionists Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the political movement to end slavery and liberate enslaved individuals around the world. The first country to fully outlaw slavery was France in 1315, but it was later used in its colonies. T ...

, temperance advocates, and other radicals, including John Brown, who visited her father. In 1843, Elizabeth married Charles Dudley Miller; Beriah Green performed the ceremony. Charles was at one point a bank manager in nearby Cazenovia, where the couple lived for the first years of their marriage. They then lived in Gerrit Smith's mansion from 1846 to 1850. Elizabeth and Charles both worked for a stretch in Gerrit Smith's land office in Peterboro. However, neither Elizabeth nor Charles had a regular career with income from work; Gerrit provided them with an annual income of $8,000 (). After a period in Washington, D.C., they occupied for 18 years the "Cottage Across the Brook", on her father's estate at

. It was later the home of their son, Gerrit Smith Miller. The family later moved to

Geneva, New York Geneva is a City (New York), city in Ontario County, New York, Ontario and Seneca County, New York, Seneca counties in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It is at the northern end of Seneca Lake (New York), Seneca Lake; all land port ...

, where Charles died in 1896 and Elizabeth on May 23, 1911, aged 88. Her estate was worth $782,667 ().

National Women's Right Convention

At the third

National Women's Rights Convention The National Women's Rights Convention was an annual series of meetings that increased the visibility of the early women's rights movement in the United States. First held in 1850 in Worcester, Massachusetts, the National Women's Rights Conventio ...

gavelled in Syracuse (1852), Elizabeth was the author of a motion to create state-based women's rights organizations when the motion to create a national organization failed. She was with

Elizabeth Cady Stanton Elizabeth Cady Stanton ( Cady; November 12, 1815 – October 26, 1902) was an American writer and activist who was a leader of the women's rights movement in the U.S. during the mid- to late-19th century. She was the main force behind the 1848 ...

and Susan B. Anthony in the founding of the

National Woman Suffrage Association The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) was formed on May 15, 1869, to work for women's suffrage in the United States. Its main leaders were Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. It was created after the women's rights movement spl ...

Literary activity

Following her father's death in 1874, Elizabeth Smith Miller, along with author Octavius Brooks Frothingham, worked on a biography of his life. When Frothingham went so far as to allege that Smith had prior knowledge of John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, Elizabeth ordered the publisher to recall the tomes, break their bindings, and remove the information. In her later years, she penned a home economics treatise.

Dress reform

An advocate of

Victorian dress reform Victorian dress reform was an objective of the Victorian dress reform movement (also known as the rational dress movement) of the middle and late Victorian era, led by various reformers who proposed, designed, and wore clothing considered more ...

, Elizabeth Smith Miller received intense publicity and criticism for wearing the Turkish pantaloons and knee-length skirt later popularized by Amelia Bloomer in ''The Lily'', and known as “bloomers.” The apparel and its

undergarment Underwear, underclothing, or undergarments are items of clothing worn beneath outer clothes, usually in direct contact with the skin, although they may comprise more than a single layer. They serve to keep outer clothing from being soiled ...

was similar to utilitarian outfits also worn by women of the utopian

Oneida Community The Oneida Community ( ) was a Christian perfection, perfectionist religious communal society founded by John Humphrey Noyes and his followers in 1848 near Oneida, New York. The community believed that Jesus had Hyper-preterism, already return ...

and the Oneida Nation of Native Americans. Dress reform was seen as essential in liberating women from the functional constraints imposed on their activities by conventions reinforcing a male-dominated society. "

Bloomers Bloomers, also called the bloomer, the Turkish dress, the American dress, or simply Victorian dress reform, reform dress, are divided women's garments for the lower body. They were developed in the 19th century as a healthful and comfortable a ...

" were worn by leaders of the women's rights movement as an act of rebellion, until the amount of attention the protest received in the popular press became a distraction from the movement.

Publications

* ''In the Kitchen'', Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1875. 592 pp. Full text available a
the Library of CongressArchive.orgGoogle Books
Contains 1,300 recipes in 27 categories.

Archival material

In the National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

there are seven volumes of scrapbooks kept by Elizabeth and her daughter Anne Fitzhugh Miller. They have been digitized and are available online.

References

External links

Elizabeth Smith Miller and Anne Fitzhugh Miller NAWSA Suffrage Scrapbooks

Webcast-Catch the Suffragist's Spirit: Miller Scrapbooks
from the

Carrie Chapman Catt Collection
at the

has volumes from the library of Elizabeth Smith Miller.
''In the Kitchen''
by Elizabeth Smith Miller. From th

at the

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith Miller, Elizabeth 1822 births 1911 deaths American abolitionists Suffragists from New York (state) People from Geneva, New York American women civil rights activists Gerrit Smith People from Peterboro, New York National Woman Suffrage Association activists