the oft-repeated "ain't I a woman" refrain, and rendering it in a minstrel-like imitation of the speech of Southern slaves – speech patterns which Truth, having grown up in New York speaking Dutch, did not possess. Despite its dubious historicity and racist undertones, her version has become the standard text and account of that famous speech. In 1853, she moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where she was often threatened with violence due to her anti-slavery views. Six months after moving to St. Louis, she was elected chair of the National Woman's Rights Convention in Cleveland in October. In 1857 she visited Cuba, Saint Thomas and Santo Domingo, and returned to write and lecture. Gage's radicalism had limited outlets in a slave state, such as Missouri. She and her family moved back to Columbus, Ohio in 1860. James' health was declining and the family had survived three mysterious fires, likely brought on by Frances' abolitionist views. In 1860, Gage became editor of the Ladies Department for the Ohio Cultivator where she advocated for feminists and abolitionists. She also lobbied for an Ohio law for married women to have the same property rights as men, but she was unsuccessful. When the American Civil War began she was employed by the Western Sanitary Commission; she traveled down the Mississippi River to help the injured in Vicksburg, Natchez and Memphis. From 1863 to 1864 she was the superintendent, under General Rufus Saxton, in charge of Parris Island, South Carolina, a refuge for over 500 freed slaves. While there she met and became friends with nurse Clara Barton, who was working nearby. They compared their childhoods, and discussed Universalism and literature. Gage joined the American Equal Rights Association in 1863 as a paid lobbyist and writer. Although in 1865 she was crippled when her carriage overturned in Galesburg, Illinois, she continued to lecture. Her addresses covered her "triune cause": first, abolition; second, women's rights; and third, temperance. The women's rights leaders and friends like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Amelia Bloomer, Lucy Stone and Antoinette Brown encouraged Gage to be the women's rights emissary in America's midwest. Her lecture circuit included Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. In 1867 she spoke at the First Anniversary of the American Equal Rights Association. When we hold the ballot, we shall stand just there. Men will forget to