Today in Indiana History

August 19 , 2008

When Richmond resident Dr. Mary F. Thomas died on this day in 1888, Indiana lost a prominent temperance reformer and woman's rights activist, and one of its first female doctors. In 1859 Dr. Thomas became the first woman ever to address the Indiana General Assembly. She presented a petition with more than a thousand signatures supporting equal political rights for women. Though the legislators listened politely, they did not endorse Dr. Thomas’s cause.