Frances Dana Gage

NAME: Frances Dana Gage

BORN: 1808

COMMUNITY AFFILIATIONS:

hometown, Marietta, Ohio (Washington County)
moved to...McConelsville, Ohio (Morgan County)

OCCUPATION: activist, writer

DIED: 1884

FAST FACTS:

Gage was an abolitionist and a pioneering activist for the rights of women. In her writings, she challenged the prevailing conventions of her time.

She was also active in the temperance movement.

Married at the age of twenty, she had eight children by 1842. Family life occupied most of her time. However, she soon began writing articles and poetry for various newspapers.

Gage authored the novel, Elsie Magoon, a temperance story.

She helped organize women's right conventions in McConnelsville, Mount Gilead, and Chesterfield. At an 1850 convention, Gage and others drafted a request to remove the words "white" and "male" from the Ohio constitution.

She and her family moved to St. Louis, Missouri in 1853.