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Primary sourceNewspaper article1848

The Lily

Amelia Bloomer · 1848

An early women's newspaper founded in Seneca Falls, where Stanton wrote some of her first public articles under the pen name 'Sunflower'.

Stanton contributed early articles to The Lily under the pen name 'Sunflower,' marking her first public writing for reform.

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Scanned front page of the first issue of The Lily, dated Monday, January 1, 1849, showing the masthead with editors Amelia Bloomer and Anna C. Mattison, and dense columns of text including an address 'To the Patrons of The Lily' and a temperance piece titled 'Shun the Wine Cup'. The scan is slightly skewed with some pages' edges and notes visible.
The Lily, first issue, 1 January 1849. Edited by Amelia Bloomer.

About this source

What it is

The Lily was the first U.S. newspaper edited by and for women, published from 1849 to 1853 and edited mainly by Amelia Bloomer. It began as a temperance publication for the Seneca Falls Ladies Temperance Society before broadening into women's rights topics.

Why it matters

Elizabeth Cady Stanton contributed to The Lily under the pseudonym 'Sunflower,' helping push the paper beyond temperance toward broader issues of women's rights. The newspaper became a model for later reform publications edited by women, including The Revolution, which Stanton later co-edited. It shows how women built their own platforms for public writing when other venues were closed to them.

Look closer

  • Why might Stanton have used a pen name instead of her own?
  • What does the shift from temperance to women's rights topics tell you about how reform movements grow?
  • Who edited and ran this newspaper, and why does that matter?

This newspaper article is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Elizabeth Cady Stanton on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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