Poster and Report by Ava D'Eon '24

You can read the Woman's Bible online. The Library of Congress also has an early draft of the Woman's Bible available in their digital collections.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s first volume of the Woman’s Bible published in 1895 placed Stanton in the fire of criticism from religious leaders, conservatives, and colleagues in the suffrage movement and was condemned by libraries and women’s groups across the United States. Stanton’s Woman’s Bible was a critique of Christianity and biblical structure, and reframed the scriptures to more positively reflect women and bring attention to gender equality.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an American writer and activist during the 19th century. She was a leader in the suffrage and women’s rights movements, and was not afraid to test the waters with her feminist inquiry, often seen as much too controversial for even other women to support. Stanton, who nurtured the feminist biblical commentary for this work and contributed the majority of the writing and intellectualism to the Woman’s Bible, crafted the book strategically to her message. Woman’s Bible followed the format of biblical exegesis and included biblical passages in each chapter (Strange). The biblical passages used were the ones that only referred to women, which Stanton included in the preface, was just one tenth of the Scriptures. Her work rejects organized religion and Christianity for its lack of female presence in leadership, responsibility, and practice, but does not deny the presence of a higher power, or God (Strange). Despite this, Stanton received heavy criticism for taking her feminist commentary a step further into the religious context.

Stanton’s statements of sexist interpretations in the Bible and the silencing of women's voices in the Church, caused debate about if the Woman’s Bible should be available to the public and who should be allowed to read it. The majority of censorship came from women themselves. The first evidence of censorship of the Woman’s Bible was in Virginia in 1895, the same year it was published. The Women’s Temperance Christian Union filed for a condemnation of the book saying “We accept the place given us in God’s Book with joy” ("Women Condemn"). The group also went as far to say the adaptation of the perfectness of Holy Scriptures is a sin.

The most publicized censorship came from Topeka, Kansas, where the Federation of Women’s Clubs excluded the Woman’s Bible from its traveling library in 1898. In the Chicago Daily Tribune, they reported the main reason for this specific condemnation was that the book was repudiated by the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) prior to that year ("Ban"). The rejection of the adaptation of the book by the NAWSA was affirmation to a lot of people that this book should be censored. The group also cites the work as offensive to the sacredness of the Bible, and that the book is not written elegantly.

This case is interesting, as it parallels some of the scrutiny women face today in stating their opinions and in the fight for women’s rights. As women’s reproductive rights and freedom are contested daily in the United States, how can radical works like the Woman’s Bible be written to address these issues and stir up more conversation?

Sources:

"Ban on the Woman's Bible: Topeka Federation of Women's Clubs Excludes the Publication from Its Library." Chicago Daily Tribune, Aug. 27, 1898, pp. 8. 

Strange, Lisa S. "Elizabeth Cady Stanton's Woman's Bible and the Roots of Feminist Theology." Gender Issues, vol. 17, no. 4, 1999, pp. 15-36. 

"The Woman's Bible." Chicago Daily Tribune, Nov 24, 1895, pp. 32.

"Women Condemn the Woman's Bible." The Washington Post, Dec 05, 1895, p. 1.