Crystal Eastman

Crystal Eastman
Crystal Eastman, feminist and political activist
Born	Crystal Catherine Eastman June 25, 1881 Marlborough, Massachusetts
Died	July 8, 1928(1928-07-08) (aged 47)
Nationality	American
Occupation	Lawyer
Known for	Feminism, socialism, Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage, The Liberator, and as a co-founder of both the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and American Union Against Militarism
Spouse(s)	Wallace Benedict, Walter Fuller
Children	Jeffrey Fuller and Annis Fuller
Parent(s)	Samuel Elijah Eastman and Annis Bertha Ford
Relatives	Max Eastman (brother)

Crystal Catherine Eastman (June 25, 1881 – July 8, 1928) was an American lawyer, antimilitarist, feminist, socialist, and journalist. She is best remembered as a leader in the fight for women's suffrage, as a co-founder and co-editor with her brother Max Eastman of the radical arts and politics magazine The Liberator, co-founder of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and co-founder in 1920 of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 2000 she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York.

Crystal Eastman was born in Marlborough, Massachusetts, on June 25, 1881, the third of four children. In 1883 their parents, Samuel Elijah Eastman and Annis Bertha Ford, moved the family to Canandaigua, New York, where her brother Max was born. The following year their older brother died at age seven. In 1889, their mother became one of the first women ordained as a Protestant minister in America when she became a minister of the Congregational Church. Her father was also a Congregational minister, and the two served as pastors at the church of Thomas K. Beecher near Elmira. This part of New York was in the so-called "Burnt Over District." During the Second Great Awakening earlier in the 19th century, its frontier had been a center of evangelizing and much religious excitement, which resulted in the founding of the Shakers and Mormonism. During the period, some were inspired by religious ideals to support such progressive social causes as abolitionism and the Underground Railroad.