Anna Elizabeth Dickinson (1842-1932) was an American orator and lecturer. An advocate for the abolition of slavery and for women"s suffrage, as well as a gifted teacher, Dickinson was the first woman to speak before the United States Congress. A gifted speaker at a very young age, she aided the Republican Party in the hard-fought 1863 elections and significantly influenced the distribution of political power in the Union just prior to the Civil War. She also was the first white woman on record to climb Colorado"s Longs Peak, in 1873. Dickinson was born of Quaker parentage, at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to abolitionist parents. As a 14-year-old, she published an emotional anti-slavery essay in The Liberator, a newspaper owned by vociferous abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. In 1861 she obtained a clerkship for the United States Mint but was removed for criticizing General George McClellan at a public meeting. She also lectured on Reconstruction, women"s rights, and temperance. During this time she also published one novel, What Answer? (1868), that featured an interracial marriage.