Harriet LaFetra (1823-1906)

In New Jersey’s Quaker tradition, which upheld equality and a unique public role for women, Harriet LaFetra of Shrewsbury took an active part in the Shrewsbury Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends and in 1857 petitioned for women to have legal equality under New Jersey law. She was the first woman known to have petitioned the state legislature in New Jersey on behalf of women’s rights and woman’s suffrage, and although earlier petitions had been submitted, hers was the first recorded effort. Married in 1844 to Joseph Preston Lafetra, she later died on April 16, 1906, and was buried beside her husband in the cemetery at the Shrewsbury Friends meetinghouse. The New Jersey Assembly acknowledged but denied the petition in its 1857 Report of the NJ Assembly Committee on Women’s Rights, whose majority reported adversely on the request to revise New Jersey statutes to remove legal disabilities placed on women and establish the legal equality of women and men.

Shrewsbury, New Jersey · United States