Elmina D. Slenker

On December 23, 1827, Elizabeth Drake was born to Quaker parents in La Grange, New York.

Her father, Thomas Drake, was a preacher who had been expelled for heresy.{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KPSfAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA722|title=The Free Thought Magazine|date=13 August 1897|publisher=H.L. Green|via=Google Books}}{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7OULAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA1361|title=Who's who in America|first1=John William|last1=Leonard|first2=Albert Nelson|last2=Marquis|date=13 August 2017|publisher=Marquis Who's Who|via=Google Books}} She was the oldest of six girls. Elmina was active in the Temperance movement.

She was an atheist.Anderson, B. S. (2017). The Rabbis atheist daughter: Ernestine Rose, international feminist pioneer. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

"Elmina D. Slenker, a U.S. atheist..." In 1866, she published a series of articles in the Boston Investigator about parts of the Bible she found improbable or objectionable. In 1870, these articles were published in book form under the title Studying The Bible: or, Brief Criticisms on Some of the Principal Scripture Texts.{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S94wAQAAMAAJ|title=Studying the Bible, Or, Brief Criticisms on Some of the Principal Scripture Texts|first=Elmina Drake|last=Slenker|date=13 August 1870|publisher=Josiah P. Mendum|via=Google Books}}

Seeking marriage, at age 26, Elmina placed an advertisement for a husband in the Water-Cure Journal. The ad received over sixty responses, one of whom, Isaac Slenker, she married in 1856.

Slenker was an editor of the Water-Cure Journal and a contributor to Free Love Journal.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ELIJD2ErMgwC&pg=PA260|title=Women and Health in America: Historical Readings|first=Judith Walzer|last=Leavitt|date=13 August 1999|publisher=Univ of Wisconsin Press|isbn=9780299159641|via=Google Books}}

Slenker frequently signed her letters "Aunt Elmina".

In April 1887, Slenker was arrested for violating the Comstock Act, she spent 6 months in jail. Slenker was indicted on July 12, 1887.

In October, she was the defendant in a criminal trial by jury. Astronomer and Dianism advocate Henry M. Parkhurst briefly testified in Slenker's defense.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3rbYDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA316|title=Village Atheists: How America's Unbelievers Made Their Way in a Godly Nation|first=Leigh Eric|last=Schmidt|date=26 September 2016|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=9781400884346|via=Google Books}} Found guilty, she was freed on a technicality by a judge on November 4, 1887.

In December 1889, Slenker promoted Dianism in Ezra Heywood's journal Word.{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/dreamersofnewday0000rowb|url-access=registration|page=[https://archive.org/details/dreamersofnewday0000rowb/page/60 60]|title=Dreamers of a New Day: Women Who Invented the Twentieth Century|first=Sheila|last=Rowbotham|date=1 July 2011|publisher=Verso Books|isbn=9781844676132 |via=Internet Archive}} From 1889 to 1897, Slenker continued her campaign promoting Dianism in the pages of publications like Lucifer the Lightbearer. Slenker advised her readers to "conserve the life forces and not needlessly waste them in mere 'paroxysms of pleasure'. She described herself as a "Dianist free lover".

From 1892 to 1898, Slenker published The Little Freethinker, a children's magazine.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zXJTAAAAYAAJ|title=Rational mothers and infidel gentlemen: gender and American Atheism, 1865-1915|first=Evelyn A.|last=Kirkley|date=13 August 2017|publisher=Syracuse University Press|isbn=9780815628224|via=Google Books}} Slenker authored The Infidel School-Teacher and The Darwins.{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HlYYAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA549|title=Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography|first1=James Grant|last1=Wilson|first2=John|last2=Fiske|date=13 August 1888|publisher=Gale Research Company|via=Google Books}} Slenker is often cited as the author of "The Clergyman's Victims" (1881), although she did not author it but merely advertised it.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3rbYDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA318|title=Village Atheists: How America's Unbelievers Made Their Way in a Godly Nation|first=Leigh Eric|last=Schmidt|date=26 September 2016|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=9781400884346|via=Google Books}} Slenker sat for a spirit photography session.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jt51TBulIhwC|title=Heaven's Bride: The Unprintable Life of Ida C. Craddock, American Mystic, Scholar, Sexologist, Martyr, and Madwoman|first=Leigh Eric|last=Schmidt|date=7 December 2010|publisher=Basic Books|isbn=9780465022946|via=Google Books}} In 1894, Slenker proposed establishing a 'correspondence bureau' for sex radicals.

Slenker died on February 1, 1908.

• Studying the Bible (1870)
• The Infidel School-Teacher (1883)
• The Darwins: A Domestic Radical Romance (1879){{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3rbYDAAAQBAJ|title=Village Atheists|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=9781400884346|last1=Schmidt|first1=Leigh Eric|date=26 September 2016}}
• "Dianism", in Lucifer the Lightbearer of April 14, 1897{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/stream/LuciferTheLightBearer/Lucifer,+the+Light-Bearer#page/n54/mode/1up|title=Lucifer, The Light Bearer|website=archive.org}}

{{reflist}}

{{authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Slenker, Elmina D.}}

Category:1827 births

Category:1908 deaths

Category:American atheists

Category:American feminist writers

Category:American temperance activists

Category:Freethought writers

Category:19th-century American women writers