This photograph is a studio portrait of Clarina Irene Howard Nichols. In 1854 Nichols joined the New England Emigrant Aid Society and moved her family to a claim in southern Douglas County, near Lawrence, Kansas Territory. Her husband died the next year and in 1856 Nichols moved the family to Wyandotte County where she became associate editor of the Quindaro Chindowan, an abolitionist newspaper. Nichols attended the Wyandotte Constitutional Convention in 1859 where she secured liberal property rights for Kansas women, equal guardianship of their children, and the right to vote on all school questions. Susan B. Anthony paid tribute to Clarina Nichols in her book, "History of Woman Suffrage."
