Sublime

One treated them like poor girls and made the bare business offer. The other put a woman in charge—a motherly, dignified, capable woman. They did business in her name. They used her picture. She signed all ads and letters. She wrote to these girls like a friend.

It took considerable doing, but on April 9, 1901, nearly two years after he had proposed to Mary Lily, a bill was introduced into the Florida legislature “to be entitled an act making incurable insanity a ground for divorce.” Before the month was out, the bill had sailed through both houses and had been signed into law by the governor. Florida news

Flagler, however, was delighted with his good fortune. He and Mary Lily were married on August 24, with Flagler joined this time to a woman who was by all accounts his social and intellectual equal, and who would prove a faithful companion through the rest of his days.

Stacey Milbern is a disability justice thought leader with twelve years of experience incubating leadership programs, managing services programs, and providing technical assistance to organizations wanting to increase their capacity around disability and diversity. She is a queer, mixed race, disabled woman of color and is passionate about advancin

Mary responded well to the balmy climate, however, and the Flaglers would return to Jacksonville again, though she was hesitant to stay long once her workaholic husband had returned to the fray in New York City. In spite of the forays to Florida and the best of medical care, which Flagler’s wealth provided, Mary’s condition continued to deteriorate

Lilla Cabot Perry,

Marie Souvestre, the founder and headmistress, was the daughter of the French philosopher and novelist Émile Souvestre. A committed feminist, she believed passionately in educating women to think for themselves, to challenge accepted wisdom, and to assert themselves. These were subversive doctrines to patriarchal Victorians, yet Allenwood succeeded

She was born a Quaker. As such, she found herself in a vastly different social milieu than other American girls—a world with at least a window open to other possibilities. Her family believed in absolute equality of the sexes.