Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

The Gates Ajar Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward (August 31, 1844 - January 28, 1911) was an early feminist American author and intellectual who challenged traditional Christian beliefs of the afterlife, challenged women's traditional roles in marriage and family, and advocated clothing reform for women. In 1868, three years after the Civil War ended, she published The Gates Ajar, which depicted the afterlife as a place replete with the comforts of domestic life and where families would be reunited-along with family pets-through eternity.