The Early Life and Family of Feminist Ernestine Rose: New Findings and an Old Secret

Abstract

Ernestine Louise Rose, a Polish-Jewish contemporary of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton who was active in the women’s rights movement, the abolitionist movement, and other progressive causes in both the United States and England, was well known in the nineteenth century but said very little about her family background. As a result, the most basic genealogical information about her has been elusive. Working backward from her last will and testament—the one known document in which Ernestine Rose named relations other than her husband—this article delves into Polish, German, British, and American records to identify her parents and siblings. In doing so, it unearths a secret that Ernestine Rose kept hidden from the public for nearly two hundred years.