The work traces the personal and public life of a leading women's rights advocate who edited a reform periodical, promoted temperance, campaigned for suffrage, and advocated a practical dress reform; it combines biographical narrative, extended extracts of essays and a full lecture, and accounts of speeches and travels across eastern and midwestern communities, documenting early family life and marriage, editorial responsibilities, public lecturing and organizing, debates within reform movements, encounters with legal and social obstacles, and her persistent efforts to advance women's social and political claims.