New York City, where despite representing two temperance organizations, she was denied a chance to speak by the organizers. In the words of Carol Lasser and Marlene Deahl Merrill, Brown again "faced the difficulties of combining essentially conservative causes with women's right's work" at the Temperance Conference At a crossroads in her life, in 1854, Blackwell wrote, "I [find] that the whole groundwork of my faith has dropped away from me." This tension manifested itself within her, and after a year she decided to leave South Butler; and unfortunately, even Luther Lee's unqualified support of Antoinette was not enough to provide her with a sustainable lifestyle there. The Boston Investigator reported her departure with the headline: "REV. ANTOINETTE BROWN, more recently Rev. Mrs. Blackwell, seems to have made a failure in her first pastorate." It was not her personal failure as the papers were anxious to suggest, but rather a growing insecurity of belief in the orthodoxy of the Congregational ministry, compounded with a lack of sustainable resources for her work. In 1857, she returned to her work as an orator and reformer with her new husband, Samuel C. Blackwell. Women's rights Following her separation from the ministry, she focused increasingly on women's rights issues. While many women's rights activists opposed religion on the basis that it served to oppress women, Blackwell was steadfast in her belief that women's active participation in religion could serve to further their status in society. Unlike many of her peers, she cared more about improving women's status in society than for suffrage. She believed that the inherent differences between men and women limited men's effectiveness in representing women in politics; thus suffrage would have little positive impact for women unless it was coupled with tangible leadership opportunities. Brown also diverged in opinion from other reformers with her opposition to divorce as a means of easing women's marital restrictions. Antoinette left for New York City to do charity work in the slums and to lecture and raise money for the people who lived there. On her way to New York City, she stopped in Worcester, Massachusetts to attend the first National Woman's Rights Convention. This convention influenced her so much that she decided to become an independent speaker. She traveled throughout New England in places like Pennsylvania and Ohio to speak on Woman's Rights, Anti-Slavery and Temperance. She sometimes even spoke in church sermons when