Author: Claire Farrington, Civic Engagement Intern

Naomi Bowman was born to free parents in Michigan City, Indiana. As a young Black girl, she was denied from attending public school until her impressive writing skills caught the attention of the local public school. She attended this school until her mother died when Naomi was 17. At age 20, Naomi married William Talbert, and the two moved to Chicago in 1868.

In 1869, Naomi Talbert attended and spoke at the first Women’s Rights Convention in Chicago. At the time, her speech was considered quite controversial. She declared:

“I am on the right side of the question, because I believe woman was made a helpmate for man; that he is but half a man without woman (applause), and you need her help as well in political affairs as you do in private or domestic affairs. And, gentlemen, I warn you no longer to stand out in refusing the right for which we contend; in trying to withhold from these noble ladies here and their darker sisters the franchise they now demand…” (Talbert, 1869)

In 1869, Talbert relocated to Ohio, where she wrote newspaper articles and lectured on women’s rights in Illinois, Ohio, and her home state, Indiana. She was utterly unafraid of speaking out and engaging in interracial debates. As a poet, writer, and public speaker, she was a literary pioneer and one of the few women, let alone Black women, to have a voice in major newspapers in the U.S.

In 1887, Naomi’s first husband died. In 1881, she married Lewis Anderson. The two moved to Kansas, where she continued to write and lecture. The family relocated again in 1895 to San Francisco. In California, Anderson joined forces with Susan B. Anthony to co-lead a campaign supporting a California ballot proposition that would give women the right to vote.

In addition to all this, Naomi was a hairdresser and a teacher. She spoke regularly at city council meetings, founded three orphanages, trained women in business, established a seamstress union, and served as the Kansas State Representative to the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Naomi Bowman Talbert Anderson was a driving force in the fight for women’s suffrage, not only here in Indiana but more broadly in the Midwest and the U.S.