Eliza Bisbee Duffey

Eliza Bisbee Duffey (1838-1898) was a Victorian-era American painter, author, poet, newspaper editor and printer, columnist, spiritualist, and feminist who published several books in defense of women's rights. Duffey was raised in Geauga County, Ohio, and at a young age she worked for the Jeffersonian Democrat as a printer. She met her husband, John B. Duffey, after moving to Columbus, Ohio where she edited The Alliance.

In 1865, she was residing in Philadelphia and exhibited her paintings at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts where she eventually became an Associate Member. By 1867 the Duffeys were living in Woodbury, New Jersey but Eliza continued to work at editing jobs in Philadelphia until relocating to Vineland, New Jersey in 1872 where she and her husband became editors and publishers of the Vineland Times in 1877.

The Duffey's moved several more times moving up through New York state, but Eliza's last known residence was in Bartow, Florida.

Eliza was a strong advocate that men and women share domestic chores and of the importance of women having interests outside the home and published several articles and books in defense of women's rights and about women's health including women in the workforce and the physical and sexual education of women. Her body of work includes articles in Arthur's Illustrated such as Women's Work and Women's Wages(1870) and books like What Women Should Know (1873).

She entered a controversy with physician Edward Clarke who believed women should be educated separately from men at universities, claiming common education would be dangerous for the "mental and physical health of women." Duffey's book No Sex in Education; Or, An Equal Chance for Both Boys and Girls (1874) argued for the equal and co-education of both genders.

Duffey continued to discuss controversial issues like unwanted marital sex, and argued in The Relations of the Sexes (1876) that it exhausted and damaged women's bodies. She wrote about marital rape, which the law at the time did not recognize as rape, and she argued that brutality should be sufficient grounds for divorce. In one of her articles, she wrote that women were "no more bound to yield to her body to her husband after the marriage between them, than she was before, until she feels that she can do with the full tide of willingness and affection."

Like most feminists of her time, she also firmly opposed abortion. In The Relations of the Sexes, she states that "The act of abortion which I had hitherto regarded as a trivial thing, at once became in my eyes the grossest misdemeanor—nay, the most aggravated crime. Being guided by this experience, I judge that this offence is perpetrated by women who are totally ignorant of the laws of their being. Consequently, the surest preventative against this crime will be a thorough teaching to women, even before marriage, of the physiology, hygiene, duties and obligations of maternity."

In the same study, she also described the unborn as having a human nature: "From the moment of conception, the embryo is a living thing, leading a distinct, separate existence from the mother, though closely bound to her. From almost the earliest stage, the form of the future being is indicated, and it has separate heart-beats, distinctly perceptible through the intervening tissues of the mother's body, which cover it. It is a human being to all intents and purposes. The period called quickening is a merely fictitious period, which does not indicate the first motion of the embryo. These first motions are not usually detected… until they have acquired considerable force."

Duffey's advocacy for women's rights continued with her 1877 book, The Ladies' and Gentleman's Etiquette and notes in the Introduction, "It has been wisely remarked that the true advancement of a nation may be exactly determined by the position of its women. According as the mothers of the race are respected and cherished will the sons be wise, noble and unselfish."

Later in life Duffey became in interested in spiritualism and although she claimed to have little knowledge of the field, she wrote Heaven Revised (1889) through the technique of automatic writing.