Mary Elizabeth Lease (September 11, 1850 – October 29, 1933) was an American lecturer, writer, Georgist, and political activist. She was an advocate of the suffrage movement as well as temperance but she was best known for her work with the People's Party (Populists). She was born to Irish immigrants Joseph P. and Mary Elizabeth Murray Clyens (an anglicization of the Gaelic name Mc Giolla Chaillín), in Ridgway, Pennsylvania. She made her political debut in 1888 with the Union Labor Party or Socialist Labor Party and soon joined the Farmers' Alliance or Populist Party. She was referred to as the "People's Joan of Arc". In that party's 1890 campaign she made more than 160 speeches and claimed credit for the defeat of Kansas senator John Ingalls. She opposed big business and stated flatly tha