Laura Curtis Bullard (1831 - 1912)

Genre: Non-Fiction, General Fiction

The daughter of Jerimiah (Jeremiah?) and Lucy Curtis, Laura Jane Curtis Bullard was born on 21 Nov. 1831 (1832?) in Freedom, Maine, and also lived with her family in Bangor. Little is known about the Curtis family, except that in the 1830s they started a company in Bangor to sell 'Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup,' a morphine-based tonic used to soothe aches and pains; it became a popular patented medicine. Laura married Enoch Bullard, a merchant. The Bullards lived in Brooklyn, New York, and had a son, Harold. Laura Bullard was a close associate of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, women's rights activists. Since Mrs. Stanton lived outside the city, Laura and her mother often provided hospitality in their Brooklyn home to visiting dignitaries in the women's rights movement. Bullard was one of the founders of Sorosis, an early women's club, and was a leader of the Women's Bureau and The Working Women's Association (scroll down), both of which focused on employment issues related to women. She died on 19 Jan. 1912.

In the 1850s Bullard published two novels whose purpose was to promote women's independence. Now-A-Day (1854) tells the story of adolescent Esther Hastings who accepts a teaching position in the Aroostook County backwoods when her father's death leaves her and her stepmother in poverty. Another key part of the plot is set in Belfast. Bullard's other novel, Christine, or Woman's Trials and Triumphs (1856) is, in the opinion of some, the first novel to promote every demand of the women's movement. Christine is a women's rights lecturer who founds a women's employment bureau. One of her trials is being duped by her father and aunt who imprison her in the Augusta Mental Asylum. Facsimile versions of both novels can be found at the Wright American Fiction 1851-1875 Project website. Bullard's insistence on changes in American marriages is best expressed in a quote found in The Columbia World of Quotations.

During the late 1860s and early 1870s, Bullard was associated with The Revolution, a weekly women's rights newspaper started by Susan B. Anthony, publisher and owner. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Parker Pillsbury were editors. When the paper had financial difficulties in 1870, Anthony paid off the debt and transferred ownership to Bullard. Under her ownership from 1870 to 1872, The Revolution became more of a literary paper. All issues of The Revolution are available on microfilm in The Maine Women Writers Collection at the University of New England. Bullard's biographical essay on Elizabeth Cady Stanton published in Our Famous Women (1884) can also be found in the Collection. Denise Kohn published an article about Bullard in Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers (vol. 21, 2004), part of which is available online.


Last Update: 06/18/2007

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