Concepción Arenal was a Spanish feminist writer and activist who founded the feminist movement in Spain. Arenal was born in 1820 in Ferrol, Galicia. In 1829, she and her family moved to Armaño following the death of her father. Arenal witnesses the social inequalities of the time, including the gender inequality imposed by the patriarchal …
Frances Power Cobbe was an Irish writer, social reformer, anti-vivisection activist, and leading women’s suffrage campaigner. Cobb was born in 1822 in Newbridge House on her family estate in what is now Donabate, Co. Dublin. The Cobbe family included noteworthy figures like Charles Cobbe, the Archbishop of Dublin from 1743 to 1765. Cobbe was the …
Caroline Norton was an English feminist, social reformer, and author of the early and mid-nineteenth century. She was a major Victorian campaigner for women’s rights and was instrumental in the passing of the Custody of Infants Act 1839 and the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857. Norton was born in 1808 in London. At the age of …
Mary Carpenter was an English educational and social reformer. She brought education to poor children and young offenders in Bristol who had been previously denied it. Carpenter was born in 1807 in Exeter. In 1817 her family moved to Bristol and her father took charge of the Lewin’s Mead Unitarian meeting house. He also established …