Lucy Stone League

The Lucy Stone League is a women’s rights organization founded in 1921. Its motto is "A wife should no more take her husband's name than he should hers. My name is my identity and must not be lost." It was the first group to fight for women to be allowed to keep their maiden name after marriage—and to use it legally.

It was among the first feminist groups to arise from the suffrage movement and gained attention for seeking and preserving women's own-name rights, such as the particular ones which follow in this article.

The group took its name from Lucy Stone (1818–1893), the first married woman in the United States to carry her birth name through life (she married in 1855). The New York Times called the group the "Maiden Namers." They held their first meetings, debates, and functions at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City, including the founding meeting on 17 May 1921.

The founder of the Lucy Stone League was Ruth Hale, a New York City journalist and critic. The wife of New York World columnist Heywood Broun, Ruth Hale challenged in federal court any government edict that would not recognize a married woman (such as herself) by the name she chose to use. The only one in her household called Mrs. Heywood Broun was the cat.

The League became so well known that a new term, Lucy Stoner, came into common use, meaning anyone who advocates that a wife be allowed to keep and use her own name. This term was eventually included in dictionaries.

The group was open to women and men. Some early members were, in alphabetical order:

Some of the members often attended the Algonquin Round Table. Since many League members wrote for a living, they could and did write frequently about the group in New York City newspapers.

There were many well-known women who were Lucy Stoners and kept their names after marriage but were not known to be League members, such as (listed alphabetically) Isadora Duncan (dancer), Amelia Earhart (aviation celebrity), Margaret Mead (anthropologist), Edna St. Vincent Millay (poet), Georgia O'Keeffe (artist), Frances Perkins (first woman appointed to any U.S. cabinet), and Michael Strange (poet, playwright, actress) – aka Blanche Oelrichs – aka the wife of actor John Barrymore.

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