The collection consists of one photo of guests at a party hosted by Stone, one photo of Stone's residence in Kalamazoo, MI, and portraits.
Lucinda Hinsdale Stone was born on September 30, 1814 in Hinesburg, Vermont, to Aaron Hinsdale and Lucinda (Mitchell) Hinsdale. She was educated at several Vermont institutions—including female seminaries in Middlebury and Burlington—as well as at Vermont's all-male Hinesburg Academy, where she took college preparatory classes (although her gender prevented her from studying at higher education institutions). She also taught at several Vermont seminaries and—from circa 1837-1840—tutored a Natchez, Mississippi plantation owner's children. According to sources, her exposure to the treatment of enslaved persons during her time in Natchez cemented her abolitionist beliefs.
She returned to Michigan in 1840 and married James Andrus Blinn Stone, who had served as principal of Hinesburg Academy during her final year there. The Stones resided in Gloucester and Newton, Massachusetts, from 1840-1843. In 1843, they moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan to work at the University of Michigan's Kalamazoo branch (later Kalamazoo College). Both James and Lucinda held leadership roles at the college, with James serving as its principal (later president) while Lucinda—after initially working exclusively as a teacher—led its Ladies Department (also known as the Female Department). The Stones also taught a variety of coeducational courses during their tenure at Kalamazoo College. In 1863, they resigned due to accusations from the college's Baptist administration that James had mismanaged the institution's finances as well as criticism regarding their liberal and coeducational teaching approach.
After leaving Kalamazoo College, Stone taught privately from 1863 until 1866, when her home burned down in a fire. In addition to organizing extensive educational trips to Europe, Egypt, Palestine, and Syria (among other countries) and supporting women's voting rights, Stone became increasingly involved in the women's club movement, which expanded women's educational opportunities. She founded, co-founded, or generally supported dozens of clubs and related organizations, including the Kalamazoo Ladies Library Association—incorporated in 1852 and considered one of the earliest of its kind in Michigan and the United States—the Kalamazoo Women's Club, the Michigan Federation of Women's Clubs, and the Frederick Douglass Club (for Black men and women). She also helped charter the Michigan Women's Press Association in circa 1890. In the early 1890s, Isabella Clubs—named for Queen Isabella of Spain and designed to educate women about the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago—were created across the country. In circa 1892, Stone helped organize the Kalamazoo's Isabella Club, later known as Kalamazoo's Twentieth Century Club. She also spoke in support of women's clubs at the exposition and—alongside her husband—lectured and taught at women's clubs across the United States. For these activities, Lucinda Hinsdale Stone become known as Michigan's "Mother of Clubs" (sources differ on the exact wording of this title).
In addition to her women's study clubs work, Stone published a weekly advisory and political newspaper column beginning in the 1870s, entitled Club Talks, as well as articles in newspapers like the Kalamazoo Telegraph (which was at one point owned and managed by her husband and sons). Stone and her husband also lobbied for the all-male University of Michigan to enroll female students. In 1870, after the Board of Regents passed a resolution supporting the right of every qualified Michigan resident to attend the university, Madelon Stockwell joined the University of Michigan as its first official female student. Stone also supported efforts to hire female faculty at the university, although the extent of her success in this effort is unknown. The University of Michigan conferred an honorary doctorate of philosophy on Stone in 1890, the first woman to receive such an award.
Lucinda and James had three children: Clement Walker Stone, Horatio Hackett Stone, and James Helm Stone. Her circle of friends and colleagues included Susan B. Anthony, Frederick and Helen Pitts Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Sarah Moore Grimké, Angelina Emily Grimké, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Sojourner Truth, among others. Lucinda Hinsdale Stone passed away on March 14, 1900. In 1904, the University of Michigan—using funds raised by the Michigan State Federation of Women's Clubs, among others—established the Lucinda Hinsdale Stone Supplementary Loan Scholarship Fund to support the university's female students. The fund was renamed the Lucinda Hinsdale Education Loan Fund in 1951 and money from this fund was used to create Lucinda Hinsdale Stone International Scholarships for graduate and undergraduate international students. As of 2020, the University of Michigan's Flint campus also offers the Lucinda Hinsdale Stone Junior and Senior Faculty Awards to faculty whose work and research focuses on promoting equity and enhancing opportunities for women. In addition to these funds and awards, a Kalamazoo chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (established in 1904) bears Stone's name and, in 1983, Stone was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame.
