Ella Elvira Gibson
From Philosopedia
Gibson, Ellen Elvira (1821—1901)
Gibson, who was born in Massachussets, was a public school teacher whose study of the Bible brought her to the freethought platform. At the outbreak of the American Civil War, she was elected chaplain of the First Wisconsin Volunteer Regiment, Heavy Artillery. President Lincoln endorsed the appointment, but the Secretary of War refused to muster her because she was a woman. By an act of Congress in 1869, pay for her services was belatedly approved. She did not receive her pension until 1876, at which time she distributed most of that to freethought causes, which she had embraced soon after the war.
While in her line of duty, she contracted malaria and was almost totally disabled from its effects. Anonymously, Gibson wrote Godly Women of the Bible (c. 1875) and contributed to the Truthseeker, Boston Investigator, and Ironclad Age, under her own signature and that of “Lilian.” She edited The Moralist during the early 1890s.
Of the Bible, she wrote,
- Away with its false teachings, fables, pagan mythology, and abuse of woman, and assist her to free herself from these shackles and to overcome these vile aspersions descending down from the dark ages and settling like a pall over her existence and the existence of the race.
- The abominable laws respecting [women in the Bible] . . . are a disgrace to civilization and English literature; and any family which permits such a volume to lie on their parlor-table ought to be ostracized from all respectable society.
