Mary Frame Thomas | |
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Born | Mary Frame Meyers October 28, 1816 Montgomery County, Maryland, US |
Died | August 19, 1888 Richmond, Indiana, US | (aged 71)
Education | Penn's Medical College for Women (1851-1852; graduated 1854), Western Reserve Medical College (1852-1853) |
Occupation | Physician |
Known for | Woman's rights advocate, physician |
Spouse | Dr. Owen Thomas (m. July 1839) |
Children | 3 |
Relatives | Hannah Longshore (sister) |
Mary Frame Thomas (née Myers; 1816–1888) was a pioneer American woman physician, abolitionist, and temperance and women's rights leader who advocated for women, as well as those in need. Born into a Quaker family, she grew up in Ohio and spent most of her life in Indiana. Thomas was an active member of the women's suffrage movement and a founding member of the Woman's Rights Association of Indiana (established in 1852 and renamed the Indiana Woman's Suffrage Association in 1869), serving as a vice president and president of the Indiana organization.
In 1859, she became the first woman to present a petition before the Indiana General Assembly, calling for passage of laws to provide property rights for married women and a women's suffrage amendment to the Indiana Constitution. At the national level she served a one-year term as president of the American Woman Suffrage Association. In the mid-1850s, she was a coeditor of Mary Birdsall's national woman's rights magazine, The Lily, and later an associate editor of the Mayflower with Lizzie Bunnel and a contributor to Woman's Journal.