Josephine Kirby Henry (February 22, 1846 – January 8, 1928) was an American

Progressive Era The Progressive Era (1890s–1920s) was a period in the United States characterized by multiple social and political reform efforts. Reformers during this era, known as progressivism in the United States, Progressives, sought to address iss ...

women's rights Women's rights are the rights and Entitlement (fair division), entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st c ...

leader,

suffragist Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to vo ...

social reformer Reformism is a type of social movement that aims to bring a social or also a political system closer to the community's ideal. A reform movement is distinguished from more radical social movements such as revolutionary movements which reject t ...

, and writer from

Versailles, Kentucky Versailles is a home rule-class city in Woodford County, Kentucky, United States. It lies by road west of Lexington and is part of the Lexington-Fayette Metropolitan Statistical Area. Versailles has a population of 10,534 according to 2024 ce ...

in the United States. Henry was a strong advocate for women and was a leading proponent of legislation that would grant married women

property right The right to property, or the right to own property (cf. ownership), is often classified as a human right for natural persons regarding their possessions. A general recognition of a right to private property is found more rarely and is typicall ...

s. Henry lobbied hard for the adoption of the Kentucky 1894 Married Woman's Property Act, and is credited for being instrumental in its passage. Henry was the first woman to campaign publicly for a statewide office in Kentucky.

Family and early life

Josephine Kirby Williamson was born into the wealthy Williamson family in

Newport Newport most commonly refers to: *Newport, Wales *Newport, Rhode Island, US Newport or New Port may also refer to: Places Asia *Newport City, Metro Manila, a Philippine district in Pasay * Newport (Vietnam), a United States Army and Army of t ...

in northern

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

. She was 15 when her family moved to Versailles. She gave piano lessons and taught at the Versailles Academy for Ladies. In March 1868 Josephine married Captain (C.S.A.) William Henry of Versailles, Kentucky. After their marriage they resided in Versailles and both were heavily involved in local and state community affairs. Together they had one son, Frederick V. Henry (born in 1868), who died in a railroad accident near Chicago in 1891 while working as a writer for

Chicago Inter Ocean The ''Chicago Inter Ocean'', also known as the ''Chicago Inter-Ocean'', is the name used for most of its history by a newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, from 1865 until 1914. Its editors included Charles A. Dana and Byron Andrews. Histo ...

Women's rights activity

Whatever their social station, at the time of Henry's birth, women in Kentucky had many responsibilities but few rights. The situation was worse for married women who after marriage legally were considered as conjoined with the husband into one person and had few legal protections from their husbands' actions. Married women had few rights in critical economic statuses such as the ownership of property or in making a will. Women had no right to their own wages, no legal protections for the physical safety of their own bodies in domestic altercations, and often had no right to interfere in their husbands' decisions about their children. Henry dedicated many years of her life to working to gain equal rights for women. Her writing, speeches, and organizational skills are noted in the records and reports of the national and local organization, news accounts of events, and official Kentucky state records. As an example, Eugenia B. Farmer's report of Kentucky suffrage activities to the 1893

National American Woman Suffrage Association The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) was an organization formed on February 18, 1890, to advocate in favor of women's suffrage in the United States. It was created by the merger of two existing organizations, the National Woma ...

Convention stated that Henry had lectured throughout the state, delivered fifteen lectures, kept up a department in the ''Southern Journal'', wrote fifty-six articles for other papers..

Kentucky Equal Rights Association

In 1888,

Laura Clay Laura Clay (February 9, 1849June 29, 1941), co-founder and first president of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association, was a leader of the American women's suffrage movement. She was one of the most important suffragists in the South, fav ...

and Henry founded the

Kentucky Equal Rights Association Kentucky Equal Rights Association (KERA) was the first permanent statewide women's rights organization in Kentucky. Founded in November 1888, the KERA voted in 1920 to transmute itself into thKentucky League of Women Votersto continue its many and ...

to expand and revitalize the suffrage movement in Kentucky. The Association fought for Progressive Era social reform including women's rights to vote in all local, state and national elections; a married women's right to own her own property or make a will or a contract in her own legal standing, and have control over her wages or earnings from her own business.

1894 Kentucky Married Woman's Property Act

By the last decade of the nineteenth century, Kentucky was the only state in which marriage effectively denied women of their basic human and civil rights. The Married Woman's Property Act, also called the Husband and Wife Bill during the years under debate when the draft was castigated as anti-family and infringing on cultural norms about women's honor as ladies, passed in 1894. Though the Kentucky General Assembly narrowly constructed the bill to give married women the some general rights to own property in Kentucky, this was an important milestone in the campaign for

, including the franchise. Henry saw this as critical for the establishment of women's economic independence and the self-efficacy needed for an informed citizenry to vote in a constructive way.

Writer

Henry was a prolific writer who wrote hundreds of newspaper articles, speeches, and editorials—many of which were reprinted in newspapers throughout the country. In addition to writing the opinion pieces, she wrote longer monographs. The two most famous of her pamphlets were both published in 1905: ''Marriage and Divorce'' and ''Woman and the Bible.'' Henry also wrote poems, and is best remembered for ''The Old Town Clock'' and ''A Parody On 'Comin' Thro' The Rye.

Political campaigns

Henry was the

Prohibition Party The Prohibition Party (PRO) is a Political parties in the United States, political party in the United States known for its historic opposition to the sale or consumption of alcoholic beverages and as an integral part of the temperance movemen ...

candidate for clerk of the Kentucky Court of Appeals in 1890 and 1894, and was the first woman in the South to run in a public campaign for a state office. A few years later, Henry was nominated for Superintendent of Public Instruction. On November 14, 1897, Henry declared her willingness to be nominated as the

candidate for president. The ''New York Times'' picked up the story out of

and listed her platform's main ideas: * the enfranchisement of American women * free coinage of silver * recognition of Cuban independence * pension reform * reduction of Federal offices * a non-partisan tariff committee * a law making lobbying a penal offense * the abolition of the liquor traffic The brief article ended abruptly with the most caustic of statements: "Mrs. Henry is an agnostic. She thinks Thanksgiving Day should be abolished and that no reference to God should be made in the Constitution."

Freethinker and agnostic

Henry was active in

freethought Freethought (sometimes spelled free thought) is an unorthodox attitude or belief. A freethinker holds that beliefs should not be formed on the basis of authority, tradition, revelation, or dogma, and should instead be reached by other meth ...

organizations such as the Freethought Federation of America and the

American Secular Union The American Secular Union (ASU, also sometimes called the "American Secular Union and Freethought Federation") espoused secularism and freethought at the end of the 19th century in the United States. As the National Liberal League suffered crippl ...

.. For more on this topic, see Jacoby, Susan
Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism
New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004. Her most controversial project was her work 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 a group of women's rights activists on criticizing the new translations in the Anglicans'

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

, better known as the King James Bible, which was being revised for the first time in the 1880s since the Authorized Version of 1611. ''

The Woman's Bible ''The Woman's Bible'' is a two-part non-fiction book, written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and a committee of 26 women, published in 1895 and 1898 to challenge the traditional position of religious orthodoxy that woman should be subservient to man. ...

'' was written by activists who were not Biblical scholars themselves but who fervently challenged the nineteenth century's traditional Judeo-Christian interpretations of women and women's roles. Henry served on the internationally renowned Revising Committee, a group of women from Europe and the U.S. who drafted commentary on the 1888

Revised Version The Revised Version (RV) or English Revised Version (ERV) of the Bible is a late-19th-century British revision of the King James Version. It was the first (and remains the only) officially authorised and recognised revision of the King James Vers ...

of the Bible published by the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

. ''The Woman's Bible'' was broadly criticized in reviews, editorials, and by from the pulpit. Suffragist organizations moved to distance their groups from
The Women's Bible
and the women closely associated with the book. Her openly espoused views on religion, marriage, and divorce caused a split between Henry and her longtime friend,

, as well as many other women in the

around the turn of the century - causing her to be banned from any further Association meetings.

Recognition and legacy

In 1920, Henry was given a "Pioneer Distinguished Service" certificate by the

Death

After a stroke in December 1927, Josephine Henry died in

at age 84 on January 8, 1928.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Henry, Josephine K. 1846 births 1928 deaths American non-fiction writers American suffragists Freethought writers People from Versailles, Kentucky Women in Kentucky politics American women's rights activists Writers from Kentucky Temperance activists from Kentucky Kentucky Prohibitionists American social reformers Activists from Kentucky American women non-fiction writers Proponents of Christian feminism