Frances Dana Barker Gage

Frances Dana Barker Gage (born Oct. 12, 1808, Marietta, Ohio, U.S.—died Nov. 10, 1884, Greenwich, Conn.) was an American social reformer and writer who was active in the antislavery, temperance, and women’s rights movements of the mid-19th century.

Gage began her public involvement in the three prominent reform causes of the time—the abolition of slavery, temperance, and women’s rights—by contributing letters to newspapers and speaking whenever she was afforded the opportunity. In 1851 she was elected president of the statewide women’s rights convention in Akron, Ohio. Soon afterward she began speaking regularly at reform meetings. From 1860 until the outbreak of the Civil War, she was an associate editor of two farmers’ weekly papers, the Ohio Cultivator and Field Notes. With J. Elizabeth Jones and Hannah Tracy Cutler, Gage successfully lobbied for an 1861 Ohio law that granted limited property rights to married women.

During the Civil War, Gage served for 13 months as superintendent of a camp of 500 freed slaves on Parris Island, South Carolina. In 1864 she volunteered for a mission with the Western Sanitary Commission to care for wounded soldiers. After the war she resumed writing and appearing at speaking engagements to promote the temperance and women’s rights movements.

Gage (often as “Aunt Fanny”) was a prolific writer of newspaper articles, children’s stories, poems, and novels; she produced most of her work with the intention of providing support for her causes. In 1867 she suffered a paralytic stroke that ended her public life.