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Who really said it

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back

Attributed to Sojourner Truth c. 1797–1883 · abolitionist & women’s-rights orator
Attributed Free to reuse

Widely and correctly credited to Truth’s speech at the 1851 Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. But this exact wording comes from Frances Dana Gage’s 1863 reconstruction of the speech — published twelve years later — not from the contemporaneous 1851 eyewitness transcript, which puts the same thought in much plainer words.

Last verified 16 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Unconfirmed quote & credit

“If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back” Attributed to Sojourner Truth, 1851 Akron speech — but this exact wording is Frances Dana Gage's 1863 reconstruction, not the contemporaneous transcript. Via Quotle.info

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In context

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Provenance

Where the words come from

Occasion
Women’s Rights Convention, Akron, Ohio (29 May 1851)
Popular wording
Frances Dana Gage’s reconstruction, first published 1863
Earliest record
Marius Robinson transcript, Anti-Slavery Bugle, 21 June 1851 (different, plainer wording)
Reprinted
History of Woman Suffrage (1881), which fixed Gage’s version in public memory

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again!

The modern, cleaned-up wording. Gage’s 1863 text actually printed it in an invented Southern dialect (“If de fust woman God ever made was strong enough to turn de world upside down all alone…”) — a stylization historians reject, since Truth grew up speaking Dutch in New York.

Compare the two speeches side by side at The Sojourner Truth Project

How we verified this

  • The popular line appears only in Frances Dana Gage’s 1863 version; the earliest, eyewitness transcript by Marius Robinson instead reads roughly “if woman upset the world, do give her a chance to set it right side up again” (The Sojourner Truth Project).
  • Gage published her dramatized retelling in 1863, twelve years after the event, and it was republished in 1875, 1881, and 1889 — the 1881 History of Woman Suffrage printing is what cemented it (Wikipedia: “Ain’t I a Woman?”).
  • Historian Nell Irvin Painter and others question Gage’s reliability: Truth was born in New York and spoke Dutch until age nine, so the Southern dialect and several biographical details in Gage’s account are inventions (Wikipedia: “Ain’t I a Woman?”).
  • The U.S. National Park Service reproduces the familiar modern wording — “…these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again!” — explicitly as the Gage version (nps.gov).
Public domain

The wording derives from Frances Dana Gage’s reconstruction first published in 1863 and reprinted in History of Woman Suffrage (1881) — both long in the public domain in the United States. The modern de-dialected spelling is a trivial modernization of that public-domain text.

Fact-check

Right speaker, reconstructed words

This is not a fake pinned on a famous name — the attribution to Sojourner Truth is genuine. What’s complicated is the wording: the version everyone quotes is a later writer’s dramatization, not a record of what Truth actually said.

Frances Dana Gage (1863), not the 1851 record reconstruction

The phrasing “first woman God ever made…turn it back…right side up again” appears only in Gage’s 1863 retelling, published twelve years after the speech. The contemporaneous 1851 transcript by Marius Robinson — who reviewed it with Truth — contains no such line (The Sojourner Truth Project).

Also Gage’s invention stylization

Gage cast Truth in a stylized Southern dialect and added the famous refrain; Truth was a New Yorker who spoke Dutch as a child, and scholars including Nell Irvin Painter treat these as literary embellishments (Wikipedia).

The idea is authentically Sojourner Truth’s and was spoken at Akron in 1851 — but the memorable wording you see on posters is Frances Gage’s 1863 reconstruction, later modernized out of its fake dialect (The Sojourner Truth Project).

Context

Why the wording matters

Sojourner Truth could not read or write, so everything we have from her survives through other people’s pens. Her Akron speech exists in two very different forms: a short, plain transcript printed a month later by an eyewitness, and a vivid, dialect-heavy retelling that Frances Dana Gage published in 1863 to rally support during the Civil War.

Gage’s version is the one that made the speech immortal — but it is a memoir written from memory a dozen years on, and modern historians read it as much a product of Gage’s 1863 purposes as of Truth’s 1851 words.

The idea is hers. The unforgettable phrasing is Gage’s.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Courage Justice Power

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Compare the Speechesthesojournertruthproject.com

Side-by-side of the 1851 Robinson transcript and the 1863 Gage version, showing where this line does and doesn't appear
“Ain’t I a Woman?”en.wikipedia.org

Publication history of both versions and the scholarly debate over Gage's accuracy
Sojourner Truth: Ain’t I A Woman?nps.gov

National Park Service page reproducing the modern Gage wording and flagging the two-version problem
Sojourner Truthen.wikiquote.org

Sourced-quote reference for Truth, useful for cross-checking attributions
Sojourner Truth’s Most Famous Speechloc.gov

Library of Congress essay on the competing transcriptions of the Akron speech

The author

About Sojourner Truth

Sojourner Truth

c. 1797–1883 · abolitionist & women's-rights orator

Born enslaved as Isabella Baumfree in Ulster County, New York, she escaped to freedom in 1826 and renamed herself Sojourner Truth in 1843. She became one of the 19th century’s most electrifying speakers for abolition and women’s rights, though she never learned to read or write — every word we have of hers reaches us through others’ transcriptions, which is exactly why the wording of her most famous speech is contested.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Frances Dana Gage, “Sojourner Truth,” recollection of the 1851 Akron Women’s Rights Convention, first published 1863; reprinted in Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony & Matilda Joslyn Gage, eds., History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 1 (1881). Earliest record: Marius Robinson, Anti-Slavery Bugle, 21 June 1851 (differing wording).

MLA (9th ed.)

Gage, Frances Dana. “Sojourner Truth.” 1863. Reprinted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 1, edited by Elizabeth Cady Stanton et al., 1881.

APA (7th ed.)

Gage, F. D. (1881). Sojourner Truth. In E. C. Stanton, S. B. Anthony, & M. J. Gage (Eds.), History of woman suffrage (Vol. 1). (Original work published 1863)

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back’?” Last verified 16 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/if-the-first-woman-god-ever-made-was-strong-enough-to-turn

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