Caroline Fairfield Corbin

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Caroline Fairfield Corbin (born Caroline Elizabeth Fairfield on November 9, 1835 in Pomfret, Connecticut) was an American author and social reformer known for opposing women’s suffrage. She came from a well-to-do New England family and was raised as a Protestant Christian. She studied at the Brooklyn Female Academy (later Packer Collegiate Institute), loved writing, and worked as a teacher in Sewickley, Pennsylvania before marrying Calvin Rich Corbin in 1861. The couple settled in Chicago and had five children, including the writer and critic John Corbin.

Corbin wrote novels and essays, with Rebecca, or a Woman’s Secret (1862) dedicated to John Stuart Mill. She initially supported women’s rights and was an early member of the Evanston, Illinois branch of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. After meeting Eleanor Marx in 1886 and exploring socialist ideas, she shifted to a strong anti-suffrage stance. She argued that women’s suffrage would threaten traditional family life and that women should influence society through morality, education, and social reform rather than voting. She believed the move toward suffrage could bring socialism and erode women’s distinct roles.

In 1897 she founded the Illinois Association Opposed to the Extension of Suffrage to Women (IAOESW) and led the group for 17 years. Corbin published and spoke on several related topics, including Letters from a Chimney-Corner, The Marriage Vow, Our Bible Class, and A Woman’s Philosophy of Love. She was also a charter member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Corbin died on March 27, 1918, in Petoskey, Michigan, aged 82, two years before the 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote. Her writings remain a notable voice in the anti-suffrage movement of her era.