The New International Encyclopædia/Blake, Lillie Devereaux

BLAKE, Lillie Devereaux (1835 — ). An American woman suffragist and reformer. She was born in Raleigh, N. C., and was educated in New Haven, Conn. She married, in 1855. Frank G. Q. Unisted, a Philadelphia lawyer, who died in 1859, leaving her with two children to support. She turned her attention to literary work, her first story, A Lonely House, appearing in the Atlantic Monthly. In the next few years she completed two successful novels, Southwold (1859) and Rockford (1862). In 1866 she married Grinfill Blake, a wealthy New York merchant. She was one of the active promoters of the movement that resulted in the founding of Barnard College, and was prominent as a speaker on educational topics. She also identified herself with the woman's suffrage movement, and has delivered many addresses on the subject througiiout the country. She was president of the New York State Woman's Suffrage Association from 1879 to 1890, and of the New York City Woman's, Suffrage League from 1886 to 1900. She was largely instrumental in securing the passage in 1880 by the New York Legislature of the law permitting woman's suffrage in school elections, and was the author of the law providing for matrons in the police stations, passed in 1891, and of that requiring storekeepers to provide seats for saleswomen. In addition to the books mentioned, her writings include: Fettered for Life (1874), a novel dealing with the woman's suffrage question; Woman's Place To-day (1883), lectures delivered in reply to a series of Lenten sermons on "Woman," by Rev. Morgan Dix: and A Daring Experiment (1894).