Abigail Jane Scott Duniway

Abigail Duniway was born on October 22, 1834 in Groveland, Illinois and they migrated to Oregon in 1852. There were nine children in the family and each child was given a specific task for the trip to Oregon and Abigail’s was to keep a daily journal.  This journal laid the groundwork for two novels later in her life.
Shortly after settling in Oregon Abigail married Benjamin Duniway and they settled on a farm and had six children.  In 1862 they lost the farm when a friend, whose notes Benjamin had endorsed, defaulted.  Shortly thereafter Benjamin was permanently disabled by an accident and Abigail became the sole provider for the family. Abigail was incensed that a man could jeopardize his family and their security without even consulting with his wife and thus, began her interest in the women’s movement.  She firmly believed that woman’s inequality with man could only be rectified through the vote and for the next twenty five years she travelled the country lecturing on woman’s suffrage.

Oregon granted women the right to vote in 1912 and Abigail was given much credit for the passage of this legislation. Despite being confined to a wheelchair, she wrote the suffrage proclamation which she co-signed with the governor and became Oregon’s first registered woman voter.

Fannie Moore Richards

Fannie was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia on October 1^st 1840, daughter of a noble black father from Guadeloupe and educated in London and a free black woman from Toronto. In Virginia the law forbade anyone to “sit or stand to teach a black”. Fannie and her older siblings attended a clandestine school in a private home where teachers often reclined on couches while instructing so as not to be in violation of the law as it was written.  They also kept wood splinters available so they could pretend to be teaching the children to make matches if observed.

In 1851 after her father died, the family moved to Detroit where Fannie attended local schools and graduated from normal school in Toronto.  She did postgraduate work in Germany where she was introduced to the new concept of Kindergarten  in 1863 she returned to Detroit and began to teach at Colored School  2, becoming the first full time professional black teacher in the city.  At this time whites received twelve years of education while blacks received only six.  Fannie led the crusade for desegregation which ended up in the Supreme Court.  A favorable decision was rendered and Fannie and her pupils cheered and danced.  Fannie taught for more than forty years in Detroit’s Everett Elementary School, part of that time as the city’s first kindergarten teacher.

The artist Carl Owens presented a portrait of Fannie to the Detroit Historical Commission and the Detroit Public Library presented an exhibition about her work.  The mayor of Detroit declared October 1, 1975, Fannie Richards Day.