Fanny Garrison Villard

Helen Frances “Fanny” Garrison Villard (December 16, 1844 – July 5, 1928) was an American women's suffrage campaigner, pacifist and a co-founder of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. She was the daughter of prominent publisher and abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison and the wife of railroad tycoon Henry Villard. Early life Helen Frances Garrison, known to family and friends as "Fanny," was born on December 16, 1844. She was the only surviving daughter of five sons and two daughters (of whom a son and a daughter died as children) born to Helen Eliza Benson (1811–1876) and William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879). Her brother, William Lloyd Garrison Jr. (1838–1909), was a prominent advocate of the single tax, free trade, women's suffrage, and of the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act. Another brother, Wendell Phillips Garrison (1840–1907), was literary editor of The Nation from 1865 to 1906. Her other two brothers were George Thompson Garrison and Francis Jackson Garrison, who wrote a biography of their father and was named after abolitionist Francis Jackson. Activism While raising her children, she led a life fairly typical life of a woman in a traditional upper-class marriage. After her children were grown and her husband died in 1900, Fanny Garrison Villard became more active in peace groups and women's rights. She joined the American Woman Suffrage Association along with Anna Shaw and Carrie Chapman Catt.