Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Blake, Lillie Devereux

BLAKE, Lillie Devereux, reformer, b. in Raleigh, N. C., 12 Aug., 1835. She was educated in New Haven at Miss Apthorp's school, and consequently took the Yale course with tutors at home. She became interested in woman's enfranchisement in 1869, and has since spoken extensively on that subject, addressing committees of congress and state legislatures on the question. In 1876 she was a member of the delegation from the national association, that presented the woman's declaration of rights in Philadelphia on 4 July, 1876. For five years she has been president of the New York State Woman Suffrage Association, and she was the first person to ask that Columbia college be open to women. Mrs. Blake has taken an active interest in many political campaigns, and was instrumental in securing the passage of the law giving school-suffrage to the women of New York state. She has been twice married: in 1855 to Frank G. Quay Umsted, who died in 1859, and in 1866 to Grenfill Blake. She has written serial stories, short sketches, and letters, for various periodicals and newspapers. Her published works include “Southwold” (New York, 1859); “Rockford, or Sunshine and Storm” (1863); “Fettered for Life” (1873); and “Woman's Place To-day,” a series of lectures in reply to Dr. Morgan Dix's lenten sermons on the “Calling of a Christian Woman” (1883).