Hiding behind the savvy, ornery veil of an 80-year-old spinster named Aunt Jane, Eliza Calvert Obenchain—writing under the name of Eliza Calvert Hall—spun stories that offer insight into Kentucky women of the 1880s.   In her collection of short stories, Aunt Jane of Kentucky, published in 1907 (and re-published in 1995) she uses the character Sally Ann to be the voice for exposing the flagrant hypocrisy of male-dominated households and patriarchal churches during the Victorian era.

  Obenchain grew up in Bowling Green and worked as a teacher before getting married—at this time it was not considered proper for married women of privilege to work outside the home.   But she did devote her time to writing, publishing poems and short stories in magazines of the day.  In 1888 Kentucky was the only state in which a woman could not legally create a will.  Eliza reminds us that by law everything a woman had belonged to her husband.  As a president of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association, Eliza Obenchain furthered her interests in women’s issues by actions and words.

Learn more about the Suffrage movement in Kentucky.