Clarina Nichols first gained national recognition in the early 1850s for her newspaper editorials supporting women’s rights and the abolitionist party in the Kansas Territory. She traveled throughout the progressive territory giving lectures and gathering signatures on petitions, which motivated delegates to the Wyandotte constitutional convention in 1859 to ask her to address the all-male assembly.Sitting in the convention hall, Nichols knitted as she listened to the delegates debate the