Autobiography of an Activist: Sophonisba Breckinridge, “Champion of the Championless”

Autobiography of Sophonisba P. Breckinridge, Sophonisba P. Breckinridge Papers (Chicago, IL: Special Collections Resource Center, Regenstein Library, University of Chicago). Although the extant autobiography extends to 1905 and includes Breckinridge’s graduate study at the University of Chicago, this essay addresses only the period from childhood through college.

An edited and annotated version of the autobiography, accompanied by an interpretive essay, is forthcoming; see Anya Jabour, “Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge: Memoirs of a Southern Feminist,” in Giselle Roberts and Melissa Walker (eds.), Southern Women in the Progressive Era: A Reader (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2019).

Reflecting both family traditions of public service and shifting expectations for “new” women, several of Nisba’s contemporary kinswomen pursued careers as teachers and reformers (Censer 2003; Frankfort 1977).

For the scandal, see “Falls Like Lucifer,” Atchison Daily Globe, March 21, 1894, p. 3; and “Says She Tempted Him,” North American, March 22, 1894, p. 1; (a retrospective) Frank Cipriani, “Madeline Pollard and Cong. Breckinridge: The Story of a Famous $50,000 Love Suit,” Chicago Tribune, April 7, 1940, p. F3.

“Will Ask Parties for Living Wage,” Chicago Tribune, June 14, 1912, p. 7; S.P. Breckinridge, “Neglected Widowhood in the Juvenile Court,” American Journal of Sociology, vol. 16, no. 1 (July 1910): 53–87; Joanne L. Goodwin, Gender and the Politics of Welfare Reform: Mothers’ Pensions in Chicago, 1911–1929 (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 91–94, 97–104.

“Some Ways to Peace,” January 24, 1936, Speech and Article Files, Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC, microfilm edition (hereafter SPBP).

Class History, Class of 1888 Records; Wellesley Annals, “Wellesley in 1884–1885,” p. 3; Wellesley Annals, “Wellesley in 1886–1887,” Wellesley College Archives, Wellesley, MA; Palmieri, In Adamless Eden, 1995, 38–39, 163, 178–180.

Breckinridge (1933); Jane Addams to SPB, March 21, May 7, and August 11, 1912; SPB to Jane Addams, April 17, 1912; Anna Howard Shaw to Jane Addams, August 16, 1912, Jane Adams Papers Project (microfilm); Jabour (2013): 143–166.

On Southern children and the memory of the Civil War, see Jabour (2010): Chap. 6.

SPB; W.C.P. Breckinridge, “Who Were the Confederate Dead?,” address at the unveiling of the Confederate monument at Hopkinsville, Kentucky, May 19, 1887, quotations pp. 3, 16, and 28–29, copy in Miscellany: Speeches and Articles by and about Breckinridge Family (SPBP).

Clippings and transcripts, Lexington Daily Press, July 8, 1871; Lexington Dollar Weekly, July 22, 1871; Kentucky Gazette, February 15, 1873; Courier Journal, February 17, 1873; Council Proceedings, January 14, 1870, January 4, 1872, and June 6, 1872; all in Miscellany: Speeches and Articles by and about Breckinridge Family (SPBP).

She did this not only in her own writing, but also in the newspaper clippings that she chose to preserve. A typical newspaper story on Breckinridge remarked: “Perhaps the most interesting characteristic of Miss Breckinridge’s work is a singular freedom from prejudice—where one might expect to find her in bondage, she is not only free, but willing and even eager to preach the gospel of freedom. In spite of being a Southern woman, for example, she has no prejudice on the race problem, and has recently been active in forming the Chicago League for the Advancement of the Colored People. Those who knew her father, the late Colonel Breckinridge, remember that he, too, was distinguished in this way, that he organized public schools for Negroes in Lexington immediately after the war, and later, while still a young man, he was defeated in his first political campaign because he advocated the admission of negro testimony—a most advanced and radical demand for a Southern lawyer to make.” See clipping, “Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge,” April 16, 1911, Miscellany, 1873–1917 (SPBP).

Eleanor Breckinridge Chalkley, “Magic Casements,” Part I, pp. 12, 20, 33, 39–41, 49. Mss. Autobiography, ca. 1940s, transcript by James C. Klotter, Special Collections (Lexington, Kentucky: University of Kentucky, King Library).