Mary Ann Sorden Stuart

Year Honored: 1990

Birth: 1828 – 1893

Born in: Greenwood, Delaware

Biography

One of Delaware’s earliest female activists, Mary Ann Sorden Stuart was born in 1828. She was the daughter of John and Sarah Owens, who were wealthy landowners and Owens had served as a Delaware State Senator. He was a very liberal man and had focused on repealing oppressive laws against women during his time in the legislature.

Stuart’s husband died in 1859, leaving her with five children to support and charge of new financial responsibilities. She ran an ‘excursion business chartering trains to Rehoboth Beach and Ocean City for vacationers and came to believe that she was being taxed unfairly because she was unable to vote.

In 1868, Stuart began lobbying for women’s economic rights. She desired laws that would allow women the right to make wills, own property, and control earnings, which are all passed in the 1870s. Stuart then turned her attention towards women’s suffrage, organizing Delaware’s first convention for women’s suffrage in Delaware in 1869.

Stuart served as the Vice President of the National Women’s Suffrage Association, and she worked at both the national and state level for equal representation for women. In 1881, Stuart proposes a Constitutional Amendment in Delaware that would grant “every citizen of proper age, character, and discretion the right to vote.” She lobbied both the U.S Senate Judiciary Committee and the Delaware Legislature, and is joined by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and “the woman’s rights candidate for president,” lawyer Belva Lockwood. Though her amendment didn’t pass, she did help to establish that women should and could be involved with both national and local politics.
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Sources and Additional Readings

About us: Mary Ann's list Delaware. Mary Anns List. (2020, October 12). Retrieved January 10, 2022, from https://maryannslist.org/about-us/

H, H. (1970, January 1). Mary Ann Sorden Stuart. MARY ANN SORDEN STUART. Retrieved January 10, 2022, from https://delmarhistory.blogspot.com/2017/09/mary-ann-sorden-stuart.html

Mary Ann Sorden Stuart (1828-1893) - find a grave... Find a Grave. (n.d.). Retrieved January 10, 2022, from https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/115029987/mary-ann-stuart

Morgan, M. (2021, April 3). Mary Ann Sorden Stuart, Delaware's Early Entrepreneur and Suffragist. The Daily Times. Retrieved January 10, 2022, from https://www.delmarvanow.com/story/news/local/delaware/2021/04/03/mary-ann-sorden-stuart-delawares-early-entrepreneur-and-suffragist/4803051001/

Stanton, E. C. (n.d.). History of Woman Suffrage: 1876-1885. Google Books. Retrieved January 10, 2022, from https://books.google.com/books?id=8hwWAAAAYAAJ