Abigail Bush

Abigail Norton Bush (March 19, 1810 – December 10, 1898) was an abolitionist and women's rights activist in Rochester, New York. She served as president of the Rochester Women's Rights Convention, which was held in 1848 immediately after the first women's rights convention, the Seneca Falls Convention. By doing so, Bush became the first woman to preside over a public meeting composed of both men and women in the U.S.

Abigail Norton was born on March 19, 1810, attended the orthodox First Presbyterian Church in Rochester, New York, and helped her mother with charitable works. In 1831, she converted to become a "Brick Church perfectionist" in the wake of popular evangelical revival meetings featuring Charles Grandison Finney. After conversion, she attended the Second Presbyterian Church, known as the "Brick Church", and worked with the Rochester Female Charitable Society, an organization that provided care for the poor and ill.

Abigail Norton married Henry Bush, the brother of Obadiah Bush (great-great grandfather of President George H. W. Bush) in 1833. Henry and his brother were stove manufacturers and radical abolitionists. Within five years, Abigail Bush's name stopped appearing in association with Brick Church activities. Over the next thirteen years, Bush went through childbirth six times, with four children living past infancy.

In a split among abolitionists in 1840, Henry Bush chose to remain with the American Anti-Slavery Society, the faction which accepted women as active members. Abigail Bush grew more sympathetic to radical reform and come-outerism, and withdrew in 1843 from the Brick Church to become active in the Western New York Anti-Slavery Society. Bush was at that time the most prominent ex-Evangelical woman in radical circles.

At the end of the Seneca Falls Convention in July 1848, convention-goers from Rochester (Bush did not attend) were moved to hold a similar convention of their own. They convinced Lucretia Mott to stay in New York long enough to be the featured speaker at their convention, as she had been at Seneca Falls.

In Rochester, an Arrangements Committee was chosen to organize the convention, and a small nominating committee was formed within it for the purpose of choosing convention officers. Amy Post, Rhoda DeGarmo and Sarah D. Fish met in the evening of August 1, 1848, to select a roster of officers composed wholly of females, with Abigail Bush to be president.

On the morning of August 2, 1848, in the Rochester Unitarian Church, Amy Post called the Rochester Women's Rights Convention to order and read the suggested slate of officers. The proposal for a woman to be the president of the convention met with immediate opposition. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mary Ann M'Clintock and Lucretia Mott were strongly against the idea of a woman president, not wanting a poor showing by women officers to give a bad public image to the new women's rights movement. They had been among the organizers of the Seneca Falls Convention, which had followed tradition by electing a man to preside. Stanton asked how could a woman, without knowledge of parliamentary procedure and without experience in holding public meetings, serve as president? Stanton, Mott and M'Clintock "were on the verge of leaving the Convention in disgust" when Post, Fish and DeGarmo convinced them that it could work. Bush was elected after a vote was taken among the audience, making her the first woman to preside over a public meeting composed of both men and women in the U.S.

When Bush took her position as president, Mott and Stanton left their places of honor on the platform and took seats in the audience. After an opening prayer by a male Free Will Baptist minister, one of the convention's three secretaries read the minutes of the previous Seneca Falls Convention. Cries of "louder, louder" were heard from audience members who could not discern the weakly sounded words of the secretary. Bush took the platform and said