A Mighty Social Force: Phebe Ann Coffin Hanaford 1829-1921

The first full-length biography of Phebe Hanaford (1829-1921) takes the reader from her Quaker childhood on Nantucket Island to her remaining years on the mainland where both religious and marital restrictions fail to confine her. Her success as an author brings financial independence that allows her the religious choice of ordination as a Universalist minister and the personal choice of Ellen Miles as her companion of forty-four years. Rev. Hanaford unites her twenty-year ministry with the woman’s rights movement while facing the criticism known in her church as the “woman issue.” Following the death of Ellen Miles in 1902, Phebe becomes the victim of exploitation and neglect by family members who in 1921 bury her in an unmarked grave. Two decades of isolation prematurely removes Phebe Hanaford from public life. Now with a marker on her grave, documented sources and oral family history tell her story and restores Phebe Hanaford to her rightful place in women’s history.