Amanda Way

Amanda M. Way was born on July 10, 1828, in Winchester in Randolph County, Indiana, to Hannah (Martin) and Matthew Way. She was the second of the family's eight and the oldest daughter. Her father's Quaker family had migrated to Randolph County, Indiana, in 1817 from either North or South Carolina. Way attended local schools, including Union Literary Institute (a Quaker-supported school in Randolph County), and was trained as a teacher.{{Cite news A local cholera epidemic took the life of her fiancé, a Dr. Cook, in 1849, three weeks prior to their marriage. Way never married. ==Career==

Early career Way was a schoolteacher by profession, but after the death of her father in 1849, she worked as a milliner (hatmaker) and seamstress to support her widowed mother and other members of her family. After her older brother's marriage, Way became head of the household and its sole breadwinner. Way later became a lecturer and organizer of the Independent Order of Good Templars, a temperance group, and was the first women elected as Grand Worthy Chief Templar. Way's initial involvement in women's rights was not for the goal of obtaining the vote, but rather to "correct injustices." Way's call for equality of the sexes was also a result of her faith; the Society of Friends (Quakers) believed that "everyone should have an equal opportunity." Way remained active in the Indiana Women's RIghts Association in the 1850s and became president of the association in 1855. Civil War nurse When the suffrage movement's activities were interrupted due to the American Civil War, Way took a break from her temperance activities and work with the Indiana Women's Rights Association to join the Indiana Sanitary Commission, while four of her brothers served in the Union Army. In 1861 Way served as a battlefield and hospital nurse, which earned her a government pension in 1897 for her service during the war. As a representative of the IWSA, Way read a memorial on behalf of the organization before the Indiana General Assembly in 1871 in support of an amendment to the state constitution that would grant women the right to vote. Way also served as a delegate to the National Temperance Convention in 1869 in Chicago that led to the organization of the Temperance party, which later changed its name to the Prohibition Party. In 1871 Way became a licensed minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church and moved in 1872 to Kansas, where she continued to remain active in the temperance and women's suffrage movements. Way was a founder and first president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union in Kansas. Later that year, after the Methodist Episcopal Church barred women from the ministry, Way renewed her membership in the Society of Friends (Quakers) and served as a Friends minister for the remainder of her life. == Later years ==

Way moved to the western United States in the late nineteenth century. In the 1890s, when she briefly resided in Idaho, a state where women had the right to vote, Way organized a Friends Church in Boise. In 1900, at the age of seventy-two, Idaho's Prohibition Party nominated Way as its candidate for the U.S. Congress. The nomination made her the first Indiana-born woman to run for a congressional seat, but she was note elected. Way spent her final years in California. ==Death and legacy==

Way died on February 24, 1914, in Whittier, California. her remains are buried in Whittier Cemetery. Way's contributions are not well known in the present-day; however, she was remembered for her efforts on behalf of the temperance and women's suffrage movements during her lifetime. Other sources on the woman's suffrage movement describe some of the details of her early leadership in Indiana's women's rights movement and as a founding member of the Indiana Woman's Rights Association, later renamed the Indiana Women's Suffrage Association. Way is best known for her work as a "pioneer" in the women's rights movement in Indiana, whose efforts "laid the groundwork for women's suffrage." ==Honors and tributes==

In 2013 a state historical marker was installed in her honor in Winchester, Indiana. ==Notes==