Two Female Pioneers Transformed Lives in Different Ways

Who are Anna Elizabeth Dickinson (October 28, 1842 – October 22, 1932) and Margaret Rudkin (September 14, 1897 – June 1, 1967)? Anna was a Philadelphia Quaker woman, known for her abolitionist and women’s rights activities, oratory gift, writing skills and assistance provided to the Republican Party in the hard-fought 1863 Connecticut gubernatorial campaign. Margaret Rudkin, on the other hand, was a Fairfield homemaker who gained fame in the twentieth century as the founder of Pepperidge Farm (a commercial bakery with headquarters in Norwalk). These two women affected the lives of those around them in profound and different ways through their personalities and talents.

For instance, a youthful Anna was described as “combining the tongue of a dozen women with the boldness of forty men." Her charm and fiery oratory attracted the attention of Charles Dudley, editor of The Hartford Evening Press and Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Stowe referred to her “as a noble woman pleading the cause of the poorest to the heart and conscience of the American nation on the sin of caste.”1 Her speeches on behalf of African-Americans and women were given under the banner of the Republican Party and roused audiences in Norwalk and elsewhere. She was catapulted to national renown and earned the label of “the girl who saved Connecticut to the Union.”1 Her contributions played an important role in ensuring that Lincoln could continue to rely on Connecticut for troops and funds, as reaffirmed by a winning election margin of 2,633 votes.1 In 1864 she addressed Congress (with President Lincoln in attendance) and in 1873 she became the first white woman on record to climb Colorado’s Longs Peak.

Nearly a century later, Margaret Rudkin lived with her husband and three sons on a Fairfield estate named after the pepperidge tree, Nyssa sylvatica. Her inspiration, born out of necessity, came later in life when one of her sons, who had asthma, could not consume commercial white bread. Armed with determination in the face of skeptics, Margaret baked nutritious whole wheat bread that benefited her son and subsequently sold loaves in New York with her husband as the delivery man. The addition of other baked goods and the rest of the story, as they say, is history. Some of the photos of Margaret and Pepperidge Farm employees are archived at the Norwalk museum. The Pepperidge Farm web site also details a timeline from her first attempts at making preservative-free bread in the 1930s, through the first Pepperidge Farm television ads in the 1950s and subsequent acquisition of the operation by Campbell Soup Company in the 1960s.

On the surface, the astute Fairfield businesswoman and fiery activist from Philadelphia have nothing in common. However, if one delves deeper, common themes of fearlessness and a “can-do attitude” that changed the lives of millions of people can be found. Those characteristics transcend gender and personalities and are devoutly to be wished for in all human beings.

Additional Sources:

1. Duffy J. Anna Dickinson and the 1863 Connecticut Gubernatorial Campaign. The Connecticut Historical Society Bulletin Fall 1984;4.

2. Wikipedia