Originally posted at Alexander Street as part of Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890-1920.
By Joanna Tebbs Young, MA/MFA, independent historian
Biography of Frances (Fanny) Hawley (Mrs. John E.) Rastall, 1844-1920: National American Woman Suffrage Association: congressional chair for the state of Vermont & legislative superintendent (Manchester, Vermont), Milwaukee (WI) Sentinel: writer; Kansas Woman’s Christian Temperance Union: president; Kansas Industrial School for Girls: co-founder; Women’s Temperance Publishing Association: business manager; Entrepreneur; Bennington County (VT) WCTU: speaker & secretary
Frances (Fanny) Hawley Rastall, born in Leicestershire, England in 1844, emigrated to the U.S. in 1861 with her mother Elizabeth after her father, William, a dry goods merchant, died. Settling in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, at the age of 18, Fanny took a job at the Milwaukee Sentinel becoming one of the first “girl compositors in the United States.” When she became “indignant” at her editor’s views on women’s suffrage, she adopted a pseudonym in order to debate the unwitting man in his own column.
In 1868, Fanny married John E. Rastall, a Milwaukee abolitionist and veteran of the Kansas Free State Army. In 1877, they settled in Kansas where Fanny raised their five children (one son died in infancy) and John published the Osage County Chronicle. Continue reading