Eliza Calvert Hall

Who was Eliza Calvert Hall?

Eliza Caroline "Lida" Obenchain, was an American author, women's rights advocate and suffragist from Bowling Green, Kentucky. Lida Obenchain, writing under the pen name Eliza Calvert Hall, was widely known early in the twentieth century for her short stories featuring an elderly widowed woman, "Aunt Jane," who plainly spoke her mind about the people she knew and her experiences in the rural south.

Lida Obenchain's best known work is Aunt Jane of Kentucky which received extra notability when United States President Theodore Roosevelt recommended the book to the American people during a speech, saying "I cordially recommend the first chapter of Aunt Jane of Kentucky as a tract in all families where the menfolk tend to selfish or thoughtless or overbearing disregard to the rights of their womenfolk."