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National American
Woman Suffrage Association
Harriet H. Robinson
Oct ‘83
From the Library
of
Ramona & Joseph Barth
234 Bellevue St.
Newton, Mass
MASSACHUSETTS
IN THE
WOMAN SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT
In the administration of a State, neither a woman as a woman, nor a man as a man, has any special function, but the fits are equally diffused in the both sexes. * * * One woman has the gift of healing, another not; one is a musician, another not a musician; one woman is a philosopher, and another is an enemy to philosophy. * * The same education and opportunity for self-development which makes man a good guardian (or ruler) will make woman a good guardian (or ruler); for their original nature is the same.
Plato:
Rep. Book V.
MASSACHUSETTS
IN THE
Woman Suffrage Movement.
A GENERAL, POLITICAL, LEGAL AND LEGISLATIVE
HISTORY FROM 1774, TO 1881.
BY
HARRIET H. ROBINSON.
The woman's hour has struck.—
“Warrington.”
SECOND EDITION.
BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
1883.
Copyright, 1881,
BY
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
Chapter.
Introduction
I.
General History—Early Influences
II.
Ten Great Conventions.
1850—1860
III.
The Machinery of Conventions 1860—1881
IV.
Political History.
1870—1880
V.
Legal and Legislative History
VI.
Results of Thirty Years of Agitation
APPENDIX.
A.
“Observations on the Rights of Women”
B.
The World's Anti-Slavery Convention
C.
The Lowell Offering and its Writers
D.
The First National Convention
E.
Harriot K. Hunt's Protest
F.
Women's Meeting Held by Mrs. Caroline Healey Dall
G.
Three Middlesex County Conventions
H.
The Commemorative Convention of 1880
I.
Voting Laws Relating to Women
J.
Early Legislative Hearings
K.
Massachusetts School Suffrage Law
L.
Three Decisions of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Against the Rights of the Women of the State
M.
Lucy Downing and Harvard College
N.
The Isle of Men
Addenda
Index
TO
THE YOUNG WOMEN OF MASSACHUSETTS
WHO ENJOY THE FRUITS OF THE LABORS OF THOSE
WHOSE NAMES ARE RECORDED IN THESE PAGES
I Dedicate this Book
WITH THE HOPE THAT SINCE THEY FIND THE PATH SO
WELL OPENED TO THEM FOR BETTER EDUCATION,
SOCIAL, AND POLITICAL ADVANTAGES, THEY
MAY BEAR IN MIND HOW MUCH
THE WOMAN'S RIGHTS MOVEMENT
HAS DONE TO CLEAR THE WAY.
The
writing of this book has been a labor of love; and I publish it in the hope that it may be found useful as a book of reference, and also, that it may help to
keep the memory green
of some of the earlier workers in the Woman's Rights Movement.
When writing upon certain phases of this question, I have often been very much hampered for want of authentic data upon which to base my statements. The cyclopædias say comparatively little, and there is no book of reference that enters into details on this subject. The need of such a book has no doubt been felt by others as well as by myself, and I sincerely hope that, so far as it goes, this work will supply that need.
In 1870, when I began to work for woman suffrage, I found in the ranks, many earnest men and women who had labored long in the weedy field of this reform. There were also, dim traditions of others whose names were half forgotten and the memory of whose services was fast becoming obliterated. A reformer is the Rip Van Winkle in the history of his time. If he
In presenting the part Massachusetts has taken, I have its aspect as one who sees a landscape from a height—the general effect has been given, instead of minute details upon single points. I have not dwelt upon individual action, nor made a record of the work done by the leaders, since this is the province of the biographer rather than of the historian. I should gladly have devoted some space to the doctrine of woman's rights, as expounded by those whose names are found in these pages'; but within the limits of this book it would have been impossible to do justice to such authors or to such a theme.
My sources of information have been, carefully preserved reports of meetings; legislative documents and records; “Warrington's” letters and writings in the
Springfield Republican, New York Tribune,
and other newspapers; letters front friends of the cause from all parts of the country, and the personal reminiscences of old-time
H. H. R.
Malden,
Mass., Oct., 1881.
The
second edition, now offered to the public, is carefully revised and corrected. In the Addenda will be found new matter, and also verifications of certain statements made in the first edition, which have been called in question by those who are as anxious as I am to have the history of the movement correct; but who have not, like myself, gone to the proper sources of information to substantiate them. In behalf of the book, I think its friends for their cordial and substantial support, and also its critics for their timely and valuable suggestions.
HARRIET H. ROBINSON.
Malden,
Mass., Jan., 1883.
Toiling,—rejoicing,—sorrowing,
—
Longfellow.
We want powder, but by the blessing of Heaven we fear them not.
Abigail Adams,
in 1774.
In
this brief history of the Woman Suffrage Movement in Massachusetts, will be found a record of the distant and surrounding causes which brought the reform into successful existence, with some mention of the names of those men and women who, long before the date of the first Woman's Rights Convention, listened and responded to this new cry for life.
The earliest voice heard was that of Abigail
After the Constitution was framed, the women who had done and sacrificed so much for the country, in the War of Independence, having been left out, Mrs. Adams wrote again to her husband in gentle warning words: “I cannot say as
eager after the prerogatives of government.”
Mercy Otis Warren, sister of the fiery patriot, James Otis, was a staunch advocate of the “inherent rights” of all the citizens of the new republic. She was the first woman to make use of this celebrated phrase, and to assert that “inherent rights belonged to all mankind, and had been conferred on all by the God of nations.” In 1818, Hannah Mather Crocker, grand-daughter of Cotton Mather, published a book, called
“Observations on the Rights of Women.”
In 1828 Frances Wright, an educated Scotch-woman, came to this country to lecture upon the “Moral and Political Questions of the Day, including Woman's Rights.” This gifted lady was an able exponent of the doctrines of her eminent country-woman, Mary Wollstonecraft, as set forth in her celebrated book, the “Vindication of the Rights of Woman.” Ernestine L. Rose, a beautiful Polish lady, lectured in 1836, in New York and other States, upon the Equal Rights of Women. In 1837, Mary S. Gove spoke upon the same subject, especially upon woman's right to a thorough medical education. About this time Sarah and Angelina Grimké, daughters of a wealthy planter in South Carolina, emancipated their slaves, and came North to live, and they lectured on the evils of slavery.
In 1838, Abby Kelly, a young Quakeress, made her first appearance upon the anti-slavery platform. She was the first Massachusetts woman who spoke to mixed audiences of men and especially on Sunday!
This “Clerical Bull,” as it was called, was ably answered by Sarah Grimké, in a series of letters to Mary S. Parker (President of the
In the same year a resolution was passed at the annual Convention of the New England Anti-Slavery Society, inviting all persons, whether men or women, who agreed in sentiment on the subject of slavery, to become members and participate in the proceedings. A protest against this resolution was offered, containing reasons why women should
not
be permitted to speak
In 1840, woman's right to serve on the board of officers of anti-slavery was established, Abby Kelley being put on the business committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society, with the full right to speak and vote upon all questions. This was in the annual Convention, and some of the members were to exasperated, that a portion of them left the meeting. Of their number were eight clergymen of the same denomination as that which had fulminated the “Clerical Bull.” By this even the American Anti-Slavery Society was divided from centre to circumference. But the “Garrisonian wing,” as it came afterwards to be called, stood on the right side of the questions, and firmly espoused the equal rights of all American citizens, irrespective of sex.
At the World's Anti-Slavery Convention, held in 1840, a similar scene was enacted. The women delegates from America were refused seats in the Convention, and this “insane innovation, this
woman-intruding delusion,”
was severely rebuked by the leading English Anti-Slavery members. Some of the men delegates from America sided with the women; George Bradburn, Wendell Phillips, James Mott, William Adam, Isaac Winslow, J. P Miller, Henry B. Stanton and others, openly protested. Mr. Garrison, who arrived late, refused to take his seat unless
all
delegates, women as well as men, could be admitted to their rightful privilege.
These and similar experiences, taught some of the Anti-Slavery people that there was still another class of human beings, besides the black men, who had rights a “white man was bound to respect;” and from that time began the real work for the equal rights of woman. Lydia Maria Child (the first woman journalist in the country), through her able articles in the
Anti-Slavery
which she edited, began to infuse into the public mind a little leaven of this doctrine.
Abby Kelley never failed, in her speeches upon the Anti-Slavery platform, to make a tacit appeal for the rights of her sex. It was said of her: “She acted like a gentle hero, with her mild decision, and womanly calmness,” Angelina and Sarah Grimké, the one with her voice, the other with her pen, eloquently pleaded; and in the “Garrisonian wing” were many men who helped to sow the seeds of this reform. It is enough to say, that the leaders in the Anti-Slavery movement in Massachusetts were also leaders in the early Woman's Rights movement, and that their voices, if still heard upon the earth, have continued to be identified with the cause.
There were two social influences at work in Massachusetts, in 1840, creating public sentiment concerning this new reform. Leading writers of the time, who belonged to what was then called the Transcendental School, took up the theme. Notable among these was Massachusetts Fuller, who, in her article entitled “The Great Lawsuit,”
During the same years in which the
Dial
was published (1840-44), another magazine of a very different literary character, was publishing in a little city not far from Boston. This was the Lowell Offering,
Dial,
but it also advocated woman's right to independence of thought and of action. Its influence in Massachusetts and in New England was wide-spread. It found its way into lonely villages and farm-houses, and set the women to thinking, and thus it added its little leaven of progressive thought, to the times in which it lived.
Says Taine: “In order to be developed, an idea must be in harmony with surrounding civilization, and the whole age must co-operate with it.” It was necessary that the preceding influences, so briefly mentioned, should be at work, in order that the idea of woman's equality with man could become enough developed to demand some public expression on the subject. It had been there
The first Convention to discuss woman's rights and duties was planned by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, and was held at Seneca Falls, New York, on the 19th and 20th of July, 1848. The members of this Convention based the claims of woman on the Declaration of Independence, demanded equal rights, and published their sentiments over their own names. There were present sixty-eight women and thirty-eight men. At the head of the list were the names of James and Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frederick Douglas (not yet emancipated), Martha C. Wright, and Amy Post. Near the close of the meeting, the members finding that there was still a great deal to be said upon the subject, adjourned for two weeks, and held a similar Convention, in Rochester, New York, on the second of August.
In May, 1850, a third Woman's Rights Convention was held in Salem, Ohio. It was quit well attended and its proceedings were discussed in the columns of the
New York Tribune.
The first National Woman's Rights Convention was held in Worcester, Massachusetts, October 23 and 24, 1850. This is the fourth convention in order held in the United States to discuss the question of woman's right to equality before the law, to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
“If there be a word of truth in history, women have been always and still are, over the greater part of the globe, humble companions, playthings, captives, menials and beasts of burden.”
Macaulay.
At
an Anti-Slavery meeting held in Boston in 1850, an invitations was given from the speaker's desk, to all those who felt interested in a plan for a National Woman's Rights Convention, to meet in the ante-room. Nine solitary women responded, and went into the dark and dingy room to consult together. Out of their number a committee of seven was chosen to call a Convention in Massachusetts. The names of this committee were Harriot K. Hunt, Eliza J. Kenney, Lucy Stone, Abby Kelley Foster, Paulina Wright Davis, Dora Taft (Father Taylor's daughter),
It had been hoped that Margaret Fuller could be prevailed upon the preside at this Convention, and a letter had been written to her, asking her to become a leader in the movement, but
“The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea”
had carried her far beyond the reach of all earthly voices. The Convention was held in Brinley Hall, Worcester, Oct. 23 and 24, 1850, and was called to order by Sarah H. Earle of Worcester, and presided over by Paulina Wright Davis of Rhode Island. Representative men and women were present from the different states, but of the two hundred and sixty-eight names of those who signed themselves members, one hundred and eighty-six were from Massachusetts.
Conspicuous among the speakers were the old Anti-Slavery leaders, Wendell Phillips, William
In the rank and file of the members were also found Anti-Slavery workers, and many others who
Tidings of this and of the Ohio Convention travelled across the ocean, and their deliberations were ably discussed by Harriet Taylor, in the
Westminster Review,
and great attention was aroused thereby as to the importance of the subject. It is not too much to say, that the whole Woman's Rights agitation in Old England, as well as in Massachusetts, and in New England, may be dated from these conventions of 1850.
The newspapers of our own State did not follow the lead of the great English Quarterly in its treatment of the new movement, but found this “Hen Convention,” as they jocosely called it, a fruitful theme for ridicule. They even went so far as to say that some of the women had voices that sounded like the cackling of hens! So far as known, only four newspapers in Massachusetts treated the subject with sympathy or respect. These were the
Lynn Pioneer,
edited by George Bradburn; the
Liberator
, edited by William Lloyd Garrison; the
Carpet Bag,
a humorous Boston newspaper, whose writers treated the matter sportively but in a kindly spirit, and the
Lowell American,
a little Free Soil newspaper edited and published by William S. Robinson, afterwards so well known in journalism under the
nom de plume
of “Warrington.”
Many well remembered anecdotes might be related, to show the drift of opinion of the time, as to the real meaning of this new departure for women. With crude minds the
hen
or
rooster
argument was considered even more conclusive or convincing, than the
sphere
reasoning is to-day.
A second Convention was held in Worcester, in the same hall as before, on Oct. 15 and 16, 1851. Mrs. Davis again presided, and many of the speakers and members of the Convention of 1850 were present. The new speakers were Elizabeth Oakes Smith of New York, Dr. O. Martin, Mehitable Haskell, Charles List and Sarah Redlon of Massachusetts, Mrs. C. I. H. Nichols of Vermont, Emma R. Coe of Ohio, Dr. Lougshore of Philadelphia, and Rebecca Spring of Brooklyn. Letters were received from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Ward Beercher, Horace
Among the letters received from over the ocean was one sent by Jeanne Deroine and Pauline Roland, two French Socialists, from their prison in St. Lazare, where they were held in captivity because of their republican principles concerning universal suffrage.
It was at this Convention of 1851, that Abby Kelly Foster made the speech containing the little sentence so long and lovingly remembered. She had been urging upon the women their duties, as wives, mothers, and as citizens, and then, in reference to something said by another speaker in disparagement of the Anti-Slavery platform, she, who knew so well, what had been done by
A third National Convention was held at Syracuse, New York, in September, 1852. The call was signed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Paulina W. Davis, William H. Channing, Lucy Stone and Samuel J. May. Lucretia Mott presided. The most notable Massachusetts woman who appeared as speaker at this Convention, was Susan B. Anthony. She had been lecturing since 1847, as agent for the temperance cause, but she made her
debut
on the Woman's Rights platform at the Syracuse Convention of 1852. Susan B. Anthony's name, with that of Lucy Stone, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, is known in connection with the Woman's Rights Movement wherever the English language is spoken or interpreted. For some unexplainable reason, it has been the fortune of these ladies, more than of any other par excellence the
martyr to the cause of Woman Suffrage, since she has been arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to be imprisoned, on the charge of “voting contrary to law.”
The new speakers, not heretofore mentioned, were Gerrit Smith, Mr. Howlett, Lydia S. Fowler, Matilda E. J. Gage, Jane Elizabeth Jones, B. S. Jones, Catherine Stebbins, Ernestine L. Rose, James Mott, Martha C. Wright, and perhaps others. Letters of sympathy were read from Rev. S. J. May, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Horace Greeley, Mrs. Hugo Reid of England, Rev. William H. Channing, John Neal of Maine, Rev. A. D. Mayo, William Lloyd Garrison, Margaret H. Andrews, Angelina G. Weld, and Sarah D. Fisk. Mr. C. A. Hammond, of New York State Committee of the Liberty Party, offered resolutions of endorsement of the movement.
In 1853 a Woman's Rights Convention was held at Broadway. Tabernacle in New York.
This Convention is notable from the fact that it witnessed the public confession of one Boston editor, Isaac C. Pray, who, in a spirit of repentance, publicly acknowledged himself converted to the doctrine he had hitherto ridiculed. He said: “This cause has been the butt of all the ridicule I could command. There is not a lady on this platform whom my pen has not assailed; and now I come to make all the reparation in my power, by thus raising my voice in behalf of them and the cause committed to their hands.” A praiseworthy example to all Boston editors!
A letter was read from the Woman's Rights
In October, 1853, a Fourth National Woman's Rights Convention was held in Cleveland, Ohio. Lucretia Mott, the former President of the association, called the meeting to order, Frances D. Gage of Missouri was chosen President, and a fervent prayer was offered by Rev. Antoinette Brown. Massachusetts was represented by Stephen S. and Abby Kelly Foster, Lucy Stone and Wm. Lloyd Garrison. Ernestine L. Rose was chairman of the Business Committee, and Susan B. Anthony of the Finance Committee. William H. Channing, in a letter proposed a Woman's Declaration of Rights, which, with a similar one passed at Seneca Falls, was referred to a committee for final action.
This is not the first time an attempt was made to form a Woman's Declaration of Independence. In a letter from Mr. Francis Cogswell, of Bedford,
The notable persons who first appeared at the 1853 Woman's Rights Convention, were Joshua R. Giddings (“Old Gid”) the great Ohio Free Soil leader, and Henry B. Blackwell. This latter gentleman made a memorable speech upon woman's right to freedom, personal and political. After enumerating the many causes, which led to woman's degradation, he said that even her
dress,
The Bloomer costume, as it was called, had appeared a few years before, and several leading women—Lucy Stone among them—had adopted the fashion. The credit of originating this costume, afterwards made so famous, belongs to Mrs. E. S. Miller, a daughter of Gerrit Smith of New York. She lived in the country near her father's home, and was in the habit of going every day, in all weather, to visit him. Her long dresses were so much of an inconvenience, in walking over the country roads to his residence, that she determined to adopt a costume she had seen Mrs. Fanny Kemble wear on some mountain excursions. She at once proceeded to cut off one of
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mrs. Miller's cousin, was the second lady to adopt this fashion. Attempts were made to introduce the reform dress generally, among women. Conventions and parlor meetings were held, to discuss the project, and the “Bloomerites” in one city at least, (Lowell), appeared in public, as a part of the Fourth of July procession of 1851, dressed in their unique and striking costume. They were nearly two hundred in number, fair young working girls, from the Lowell Cotton Mills, and if they did not look like “liveried angels,” (as they were said to have looked on a similar occasion, when dressed in white, with gay parasols, they walked in procession in honor of Andrew Jackson,) they were a pretty sight, and made a choice subject for the illustrated newspapers of the time. Even the Punch
thought the “American Bloomerites” worthy the attention of its artist. The reform dress though worn several years by leading and progressive women, was finally done to death like many a better fashion, by the ridicule of the newspapers and the boys in the streets.
To return. In Mr. Blackwell's speech, after he had finished his remarks upon the subject of woman's dress, he endorsed the Bloomer costume and spoke of its peculiarities as follows: “When I first heard about it, it commended itself to my reason, but when I first
saw
it, I confess my taste recoiled from the novelty. I felt a shock, in spite of myself, as a figure, which seemed neither man nor woman, approached me.” “But,” he continued earnestly, “I feel so no longer.” History must tell that he soon passed beyond the
enduring
stage in his conversion, and that a certain little rosy cheeked reformer who wore the “short dress,” soon after became to him the dearest woman in the world.
Two years later (1855), Henry B. Blackwell and his wife, Lucy Stone, made their protest against the marriage laws, as then existing, and wife,
could not be absorbed in the
husband,
or extinguished by the marriage ceremony, and that she should still continue to hold her own property, and keep her own name as before marriage. For twenty-five years Lucy Stone and her husband have maintained these opinions.
In 1879, desiring to vote under the new law allowing women to vote for school committees, she applied for registration under her own name, of Lucy Stone. The Registrar of voters gave the opinion that as her married name was Blackwell, her request could not be granted, and the matter being referred to the City Solicitor of Boston, he confirmed this view of the subject.
T. W. Higginson of Massachusetts wrote memorable letters to the 1853 Conventions.
The first Woman's Rights Convention ever held in Boston, was in 1854, at Horticultural Hall, the same day upon which Anthony Burns was carried back into slavery. Though many of the friends staid away to witness this sad surrender, the hall was crowded with earnest men and women, whom a deep interest in the movement had drawn together. The speakers were Lucy Stone, James Freeman Clarke, Harriot K. Hunt, Mr. Phillips, Mr. Garrison, Abby Kelley Foster, William I. Bowditch and many others. Sarah H. Earle of Worcester, presided, and Ellen M. Tarr of Boston, was secretary.
September 19th and 20th, 1855, a New England meeting convened at the Meionaon to consider the laws of the different New England States in relation to women. Harriot K. Hunt presided, and delivered the opening address. Paulina Wright Davis was permanent chairman. Caroline H. Dall reported on the laws of Massachusetts, Mrs. Davis reported from Rhode Island, (this document was drawn up by Dunbar Harris), Ann E. Brown from Vermont, Ellen M. Tarr from New Hampshire, and Francis Gillette from
In 1856 the Seventh National Woman's Rights Convention was held in Broadway Tabernacle, New York. Martha C. Wright called the meeting to order; Lucy Stone presided, and made an eloquent opening address. Massachusetts was represented in letters and speakers by Rev. Samuel Johnson, Francis Jackson, T. W. Higginson, A. Bronson Alcott, Susan B. Anthony, N. H. Whiting and Wendell Phillips. Horace Greeley again gave his assurance of sympathy with the cause. He wrote: “If the women of this, or any other country believe their rights would be better secured, and their happiness promoted by the assumption on their part, of the political franchises and responsibilities of men, I, a republican in principle from conviction, shall certainly interpose no objection.”
The 1856 Convention was held just after the election of President Buchanan, a time when the issue of the Anti-Slavery question was the most absorbing thought in the public mind. Fremont had been the candidate of the Republican party, (or “the Party of Freedom,”) and the name of Jessie Benton Fremont, had been made a rallying cry of the campaign. The Convention, taking advantage of this fact, made an appeal in its resolutions to both the Democratic and Republican parties to do justice “to both halves of the human race.” To the Republican party it said: “Resolved: That the Republican party, appealing constantly, through its orators, to female sympathy, and using for its most popular rallying cry a female name, is peculiarly pledged by consistency, to do justice hereafter in those states where it holds control.” It need hardly be added that no notice was taken of this appeal by those to whom it was addressed. And yet the Republican party was fast coming into power, made up Emancipation, Free Speech and a Free World!
After Fremont was defeated it seemed to those who had labored so long for the black man's freedom, and for the rights of woman, as if both causes were lost. The Woman Movement was silent for a period of three years, and there is no record of a National or other convention, in which Massachusetts had a part.
A Woman's Rights meeting, the third of the kind in Boston, was held at Mercantile Hall, May 27, 1859, the report of which was published by S. R. Urbino. It was called by Caroline M. Severance and Caroline H. Dall. Mrs. Severance presided and made the address of welcome. Harriot K. Hunt spoke on “Woman: 1st, Restricted in Education; 2d, Deprived of Suffrage; 3d, Taxed without Representation. Rev. James Freeman Clarke, Rev. John T. Sargent, Rev. Charles G. Ames and Wendell Phillips were the speakers. Mrs. Dall made an able report showing what had been the gain to the movement since 1855, in Europe as well as in America.
The Ninth National Convention was held in New York May 12, 1859. A number of the Massachusetts leaders whose names have been mentioned were present, and a committee was appointed to petition the Legislatures of the several states. Their names were, Wendell Phillips, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Caroline H. Dall, Caroline M. Severance, Ernestine L. Rose, Antoinette B. Blackwell, Thomas W. Higginson and Susan B. Anthony. The Tenth National Convention was held in New York city in 1860, and here nearly the same names are found as workers and speakers.
It will be seen that the National Conventions, up to this date, though not often held in the State, were partly organized by Massachusetts reformers who had learned so well how to manage them through their Anti-Slavery experience. Hence, some record of the proceedings of the Conventions mentioned, is necessary, in order to make complete the history of the inception of the Woman's Rights Movement in Massachusetts. The hands of her chieftains can plainly be traced holding the leading strings of Springfield Republican,
writing of this matter, said: If Boston reformers have not absolutely turned the crank of the Universe for the last thirty years, they have taken a spell at it, perhaps oftener than any other men and women in the country, and deserve to have credit given them accordingly.”
“The Ballot is education in Government.”
Warrington.
From
1860 to 1866 there is no record to be found, of any public meeting on the subject of Woman's Rights, in which any Massachusetts speaker appeared. During these years the war of the Rebellion had been fought. Pending the great struggle, the majority of the leaders, who were also Anti-Slavery leaders, had thought it to be the wiser policy for the woman cause to give way for a time, in order that all the working energy might be given to the cause of the slave. “It is not the woman's, but the negro's hour.” “After the slave—then the woman,” said Wendell Phillips in his stirring speeches, as this date.
And the women, who had the welfare of the country as much at heart as the men, kept quiet; worked in hospital and field; sacrificed sons and husbands; did what is always woman's part in wards between man and man,—and waited. When the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was proposed, in which the negro's liberty and his right to the ballot were to be established, an effort was made to secure in it some recognition of the rights of woman. Massachusetts sent a petition, headed with the name of Lydia Maria Child, against the introduction of the word “male” in the proposed new amendment.
When this petition was offered to the greatest of America's emancipation leaders, for presentation to Congress, he received and presented it under protest. He thought the woman question should not be forced at such a time, and the only answer from Congress this “woman intruding”
The war was over. The rights of the black man, for whom the women had worked and waited, were secured, but under the new amendment (by which his race had been made free) the white women of the United States were more securely held in political slavery. It was time, indeed, to hold conventions and agitate anew the question of woman's rights. The lesson of the war had been well learned. Women had been taught to understand politics, “the Science of Government,” and to take an interest in public events; and some who before the war had not thought upon the matter, began to ask themselves why thousands of ignorant
men
should be made voters, and they, or their sex, still kept in bondage under the law.
The “American machinery of conventions,” (as our English co-workers call it,) for the Woman's
Desiring to stand on a broader platform than that hitherto held, the name of the organization was changed to that of the American Equal Rights Association. Its avowed object was to secure equal rights to all American citizens, “especially the right of suffrage, irrespective of race, color or sex.” Lucretia Mott was made president of the new named Association. Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Ernestine L. Rose, Frances D. Gage, Henry Ward Beecher, Theodore Tilton and others spoke. Massachusetts was represented by Wendell Phillips, Parker Pillsbury, Stephen S. Foster and Caroline H. Dall. Mrs. Dall made an able report on the changes in the social condition of woman, during the interregnum, since her last report at the Convention of 1860.
It is a notable fact, that about this time the word “Rights,” as applied to the Woman Movement,
The American Equal Rights Association lived
The same year the American Woman Suffrage Association was formed. Since that time these two organizations for woman suffrage have continued special work in different but converging directions. The National is surely the more powerful, since its method has been, in great degree, to attack the stronghold of the enemy itself—the Constitution of the United States.
It has been needful, hitherto, to record in part, the suffrage work done in other states, so far as it was projected by Massachusetts leaders, and connected with the work in this Commonwealth. Hereafter the history of the movement will be more confined to work actually done in Massachusetts or in New England.
In November, 1868, the call for a New England Convention was issued, and the meeting was held on the 18th and 19th of the same month, at Horticultural Hall, in Boston. James Freeman Clarke presided. In this Convention sat many Dial
. Lucy Stone and H.B. Blackwell, who then lived in New Jersey, were among the speakers. The Rev. Olympia Brown called this Convention.
This was the first of all the
rousing
Conventions held by the Suffragists of the State, and in it many indifferent people were made to see the urgent need for immediate and active work. The writer (who has since been no backslider) is a living witness of one, who at this time was re-awakened into the spirit of this belief. The hall
Many good and well remembered speeches were made. Henry Wilson avowed his belief in the equal rights of woman, but thought the time had not yet come for such a consummation, and said that, for this reason he had voted against the question in the United States Senate; “though,” he continued, “I was afterwards ashamed of having so voted.” Like another celebrated Massachusetts politician, he believed in the principle of the thing, but was
“agin its enforcement.”
This Convention excited a great interest in the community, and in spirit resembled the old Anti-Slavery Conventions. Slavery had long been abolished; and at this date, the Woman Suffrage question began entirely to supersede in popular interest the old Anti-Slavery question. The negro was now no better than anybody else. He
The New England Woman Suffrage Association was formed at the 1868 Convention. Julia Ward Howe was elected its President, and made her first known address on the subject of woman's equality with man. Because of this action, the women of the country will never cease to honor her. At the right moment, she sacrificed the literary leisure so dear to her; and, in defiance of conventional traditions and usages, came to work upon an unpopular platform, for a weak and doubtful cause. On the executive board were representative names from the six New England states.
By the formation of this Society, a great impetus was given to the Suffrage cause in New England, and in the country. It planned at once a system by which petitions and memorials could be sent to the different State Legislatures, and to Congress. It asked for, and obtained hearings before these bodies. It held conventions and mass meetings, printed tracts and documents, and put lectures in the field. It Woman's Journal.
The Hampden County Society was started in the year 1869, with Eliphalet Trask., Frank B. Sanborn and Margaret W. Campbell as leading officers. This was the first county society formed in the State. Julia Ward Howe, a fresh convert of the Convention of 1868, went to Salem to lecture on Woman Suffrage, and the Essex County Society was formed with Mrs. Sarah G. Wilkins and Mrs. Delight R. P. Hewitt (the only two Salem women who went to the 1850 Convention at Worcester), on its executive board. The Middlesex County Society followed, planned by Ada C. Bowles and officered by names well known in that historic old county. The Hampshire and Worcester County Societies brought up the rear; the former planned by Seth Hunt of Northampton, the latter presided over by Rev.
The new England Association held its first anniversary in May, 1869, and the meeting was even more successful than the opening one of the preceding year. On this occasion Mrs. Livermore made her
dœbut
in the State, as a platform orator. She had spoken in New York a few weeks before, at the annual meeting of the American Equal Rights Association. The newspapers said that this lady spoke even better than she had done at the meeting in New York city, and that Mrs. Howe presided with dignity. Such praise from the “Sir Huberts” of the press, meant something in these early days of woman's appearance as orator, or presiding officer.
Many new names came to the front at this date, to give freshness and vigor to the movement. The most important were those of Ednah D, Cheney, Rev. C.A. Bartol, Rev. F.E. Abbott, Rev. Phébe A. Hanaford and Hon. George F. Hoar. Wendell Phillips and Lucy Stone both spoke at “What! you here
?” “Yes,” said he, “I
am
here! I believe in the thing, and I'm not going to wait to come in at the tag end of this reform. I am going to start in the beginning, and ride with the procession.” After this, not until his earthly journey was finished, was his place in “the procession” found vacant.
Since 1869 the New England Association has held its annual meeting in Boston during Anniversary week, (the last week in May), when reports from various states are offered, concerning suffrage work done during the year. The names on the executive board of the New England Association represent some of the best working material Sunday Herald
was selected as the one likely to reach the largest variety of readers. The result of this action was that for many successive weeks, articles written by leading women in favor of this cause, were read by men and women in the near and remote cities and villages of New England. It is not easy to estimate the influence upon the public opinion of this novel method of presenting the subject.
The American Woman Suffrage Association was started in 1869, by the New England Woman
The call for a Convention to form the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association, was signed by some of the leading suffragists of the State, with many others, whose names have since added lustre to the movement. The meeting was held in Horticultural Hall in Boston, Jan. 28, 1870. Lucy Stone, M. A. Livermore, S. S. and A. K. Foster, H. B. Blackwell, Rev. W. H. Channing, Rev. J. F. Clarke, Rev. Gilbert Haven, Julia Ward Howe and Elizabeth K. Churchill made eloquent speeches. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were among the noted persons present from other states.
Mrs. Stanton had the then unprecedented honor of being entertained by the famous Bird Club of Boston at one of its weekly dinners.
vice versa
.”
The Massachusetts Association is the most active of the three Associations named. Its work is generally local, though it has sent help to Colorado, Michigan, and other Western places. For ten years it has kept petitions in circulation, and has presented petitions and memorials to the State Legislatures. It has asked for Hearings and secured able speakers for them. It has held Conventions, Mass Meetings, Fourth of July Celebrations, Sociables and Festivals. It has helped organize local Woman Suffrage Clubs and Societies, and so far as means
The Massachusetts Suffrage Association projected the political movement of 1870, and later, managed all political action except during the existence of a Woman Suffrage State Central Committee. With the latest work of this society might be mentioned its efforts to present before the women of the State in clear and comprehensive form, an explanation of the different sections of the new law “allowing women to vote for school committees.” As soon as this law passed
The annual meeting of the Massachusetts Association is held in January. Then reports are presented from the various local societies, and the social, political, and legal phases of the subject of Woman's Rights are ably discussed. The record of conventions and meetings held by the Massachusetts Association by no means includes all similar gatherings held in different towns and cities of the State. The county and local societies have done a vast amount of work in agitating the suffrage cause. For instance, three notable conventions were held by the Middlesex County Society in 1875.
To close the history of the movement as carried
Whereas:
We believe in keeping the landmarks and traditions of our movement, and
Whereas:
It will be thirty years next October, since the first Woman's Rights meeting was held in the State, and it seems fitting that there should be some celebration of the event, therefore
Resolved:
That we will hold a Woman Suffrage Jubilee, in Worcester, on the 23rd and 24th of October next, to commemorate the anniversary of our first Convention.
On the committee chosen for this work were the names of two of the original committee of 1850, Lucy Stone and Abby Kelley Foster.
the Thirtieth Anniversary Convention
The news of the death of Lydia Maria Child, at the age of seventy-eight, which came just as the Convention went into session, caused both sorrow and joy in the hearts of those who were present. Sorrow at the great loss the woman
The
Woman's Fournal
, thee second Woman Suffrage newspaper ever published in Massachusetts, was set up by the new England Association, in Agitator
, then published in Chicago by Mrs. M. A. Livermore, was bought by the New England Association, on condition that that lady should “came to Boston for one year at a reasonable compensation, to assist the cause by her editorial labor, and speaking at Conventions.” Lucy Stone and H. B. Blackwell, who had been invited by the same Society to “return to the work in Massachusetts,” Dec. 1868, at once assumed the editorial charge. T. W. Hagginson, Julia Ward Howe, and W. L. Garrison were assistant editors. “Warrington,” Kate N. Doggett, Samuel E. Sewall, F. B. Sanborn, and many other good writers, lent a helping hand to the new enterprise.
The
Woman's Fournal
has been of great value to the cause, and has made the woman movement everywhere better known and appreciated. It has helped individual women, and brought their enterprises into public notice. It has opened its columns to inexperienced writers, and advertised
It is hardly necessary to say, that a reform paper is not self-supporting. To sustain the
Woman's Fournal
and furnish money for other suffrage work, two mammoth Bazars or Fairs were held in 1870 and in 1871 in Music Hall, Boston. Nearly all the New England States, and many of the towns in Massachusetts were represented by sale-tables in these Bazars; and as is usual, donations were sent from all directions, and the women worked, as women will work for a cause in which they are interested, to raise money to furnish the sinews of war. Many of them stood day after day behind sale-tables or worked in the café, as caterers and waiters. Women
The newspapers from day to day were full of descriptions of the splendors of the tables, and the reporters spoke well of the women who had taken this novel method to carry on their movement. People who had never heard of Woman Suffrage before, came, impelled by curiosity, to see what sort of women were those, who thus made a public exhibition of their zeal in this cause. It was a great time to show one's colors on this subject, and to make converts to the new doctrine. It was a great time for meeting and congratulation with co-workers from all over the New England States. In remote places, as well as nearer the scene of action, many people who had never thought of the significance of the Woman's Rights Movement, came to hear of and consider it, through reading the reports of the Woman Suffrage Bazars.
In closing the general history of the technical work of the Massachusetts Suffragists, it need not
If birthright, if American democratic ideas, confer the right to vote, or if capacity alone confers it,—either way, the claim of woman is irrefragable; and all there is left, is the debate among the voters, as to whether they will, or how soon they will, yield that mere exercise of forceful authority, which is the only tenure of their superiority in politics, and in government.
“WARRINGTON.”
Political
agitation on the Woman Suffrage question began in Massachusetts early in 1870, and a mass convention was held in Boston to discuss the feasibility of forming a Woman Suffrage political party. Julia Ward Howe presided and Rev. Augusta Chapin offered prayer. The subject was ably discussed by Lucy Stone, Rev. J. T. Sargent, A. Bronson Alcott, H. B. Blackwell, Dr. Mercy B. Jackson, S. S. Foster, Mary A. Livermore, Rev. B. F. Bowles, F. B.
The question of a separate nomination for State officers was carefully considered. Delegates were present from the Labor Reform and the Prohibitory party, and strong efforts were made by them to induce the Convention to nominate Wendell Phillips, who had already accepted the nomination of these two parties, as candidate for Governor. The Convention at one time seemed strongly in favor of this action, the women in particular, thinking that in Wendell Phillips, they should find a staunch and well tried leader. But wiser or more politic counsels prevailed, and it was finally concluded to postpone a separate nomination until after the Republican and Democratic conventions had been held.
A Woman Suffrage State Central Committee was formed, and began at once active political work. a memorial was prepared to present to each of the last-named conventions, and the candidates on the State ticket of the four political
When the Memorial prepared by the State Central Committee was presented to the Democratic State Convention, that body, in response, passed a resolution conceding the
principle
of women's right to suffrage, but at the same time declared itself against its being
enforced
, or put into practice. To finish the brief record of the dealings of the Democratic party, with the Suffragists of the State, and the question of women's rights according to
Democratic
principles, it may as well be said here, that until 1882 it had never responded to the appeals of the Suffragists, nor taken action of importance, in Convention, on this question. The Democratic party has broken no promises to the women, because it has made none. Though a party of the people, as its name implies (in the dictionary), it has hitherto been
At the Republican State Convention held October 5, 1870, the question was fairly launched into politics, by the admission (for the first time) of two women, Lucy Stone and Mary A. Livermore, as regularly accredited delegates. Both ladies were invited to speak, and Mrs. Livermore at the close of her address presented the following memorial:
To the Republican Convention of the State of Massachusetts:
The undersigned, having been appointed a State Central Committee by
the friends of Woman Suffrage
assembled in Convention at Tremont Temple in Boston, on the 29th day of September, 1870, are instructed by and on behalf of said Convention to lay before your Honorable Body the following
We respectfully represent
That violation of the
Bill of Rights
of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which expressly
That in violation of
the Declaration of Independence,
which declares that “Governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed,” all the women of Massachusetts are governed without consent.
That in violation of the fundamental principle of
Representative Government
that “Taxation without Representation is Tyranny,” every woman in Massachusetts who is the owner of property is taxed without representation and has no voice in the amount or expenditure of the taxes she is compelled to pay.
We therefore respectfully request that this Convention of the Republican party, which has abolished political distinctions on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude, will declare itself by resolution opposed to political distinctions on account of sex, and in favor of so amending our State Constitution as to extend
Julia Ward Howe,
Jacob M. Manning,
D. D.
Lucy Stone,
Henry B. Blackwell,
Margaret W., Campbell
Jesse H, Jones,
George H. Vibbert,
Mary A. Livermore,
Wm. G. Cordon,
Sent Hunt,
James Freeman Clarke,
Zilpha Spooner,
Woman Suffrage State Central Committee.
The three following resolutions (drawn up by Henry B. Blackwell) were then offered:
Resolved,
That the Republican party of Massachusetts is mindful of its obligations to the loyal women of America for their patriotic devotion to the cause of liberty; that we rejoice in the action of the recent Legislature in making women eligible, as officers of the State; that we thank
Resolved,
That there is no logical or reasonable answer to the claim of suffrage and civil equality for women; that the subject is not to be treated with ridicule or sarcasm, and that when the women of the state or the nation demand equal political rights, those rights must be granted and secured by a constitutional amendment.
Resolved,
That the Republican party of Massachusetts, having aided in abolishing political distinctions on account of race, should now, in consistency with its principles, proceed to abolish political distinctions on account of sex, and to establish in the Commonwealth a Government of the people, by the people, and for the people, upon the basis of impartial suffrage for men and women.
The first resolution was presented to the Committee * Committee on Resolutions of the Republican Convention of 1870, were:
at Large—Hon. George F. Hoar, Worcester; Robert Johnson, Boston; Hon. Harvey Jewell, Boston; William S. Robinson, Malden.Suffolk—H. H. Coolidge of Boston.Middle-sex —Hon. David H. Mason of Newton. Essex —James B. Wildes of Lawrence. Hampden —Hon. A. D. Briggs of Springfield Hampshire —Hon. H.G. Knight of Easthampton. Plymouth —Charles G. Davis of plymouth. Berkshire —Hon. S. Johnson of Adams Franklin —Lewis Merriam of Greenfield. Norfolk — Hon J. M. Churchill of Milton. Worcester —Ilon John D. Baldwin of Worcester. coup d'état
of the Worcester Convention of 1870, which really got more votes than it was fairly entitled to. After that,—“forewarned, forearmed,” said the enemies of the enterprise, and Woman Suffrage planks (or resolutions) have received less and less votes in Republican Conventions.
In 1871 a resolution endorsing Woman Suffrage was passed in the Republican State Convention. In June, 1872, the National Republican Convention at Philadelphia, passed the following:
Resolved:
“The Republican party is mindful of its obligations to the loyal women of American for their noble devotion to the cause of freedom; their admission to wider fields of usefulness is viewed with satisfaction; and the honest demand
* It was follows:
Resolved: That we heartily approve of the recognition of the rights of Woman contained in the fourteenth clause of the National Republican platform; that the Republican party of Massachusetts as the representatives of Liberty and Progress, is in favor of extending Suffrage to all American citizens irrespective of sex, and will hail the day when the educated intellect and enlightened conscience of woman will find direct expression at the ballot box.
This was during the campaign of 1872, when Gen. Grant's chance of re-election was thought to be somewhat uncertain, and the Republican women in all parts of the country were called on, to rally to his support. The
National Woman Suffrage Association
had issued “an appeal to the Women of America” asking them to co-operate with the Republican party, to come forward as speakers and writers, and work for the election of its candidates. In response to this appeal, a great ratification meeting was held at Tremont Temple, in Boston, at which hundreds of women
During the campaign, Mrs. Livermore and Lucy Stone took the stump for Gen. Grant, and women agents employed by the Massachusetts Association were instructed to speak for the Republican party. Women writers furnished articles for the newspapers, and the Republican women on the whole did as much effective work during the campaign as if each one had been a “man and a voter.” They did everything but vote! All this agitation and stump speaking did a good thing for the Republican party, but it did a very bad thing for Woman Suffrage, because, for a time, it arrayed other political parties against the movement, and caused it to be
General Grant was re-elected and the campaign was over. When the Legislature met and the Woman Suffrage question came up for discussion, that body, composed in large majority of Republican representatives, showed the Republican women of Massachusetts the difference between “saying what you mean and meaning what you say,” the Woman Suffrage bill being defeated by a large majority. The women learned by this experience with the Republican party, that nothing is to be expected of a political party as a part, while it is in power; and that the less the Suffragists have to do with the political parties the better, until they conclude to set up for themselves.
To close the subject of suffrage planks, or resolutions in the platform of the Republican party, it may be said that they continued to be put in and seemed to mean something until after 1875, when they became only “glittering generalities,” and were as devoid of real meaning or intention as any that were ever passed by the old Whig party
Yet from 1870 to 1874 the Republican party had the power to fulfil its promises to the Suffragists. Since then it has been too busy trying to keep breath in its own body to lend a helping hand to any struggling reform. Like the antiquated barn-yard rooster named “Old Hail the Day,” (probably in memory of the resolution of 1872,) it has outlived its usefulness, and can no longer give “a cottage-rousing crow” for freedom. At the Republican Convention held in Worcester in 1880, an attempt was made by H. B. Blackwell to introduce a resolution endorsing the new right conferred upon women, in the recent law allowing
After the Suffragists as a body had given up all hope of help from the Republican party as a party, after they had seen the futility of questioning candidates and memorializing conventions, and had begun to understand how devoid of intention were the resolution passed in their conventions, a new departure was determined upon. The question of forming a Woman Suffrage political party had, since 1870, been often discussed. In 1875 Thomas J. Lothrop proposed
The Prohibitory party had at its recent convention in (1876), passed a resolution inviting the women to take part in its primary meetings, with an equal voice and vote in the nomination of candidates and transaction of business. After long and anxious discussions, the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage State Central Committee, in whose hands all political action rested, determined to accept this invitation. A Woman Suffrage Political Convention was held, at which the Prohibitory candidates were endorsed, and a
Political clubs were formed, at whose head-quarters during the campaign were seen, night after night, men and women gathered together to organize and carry on political work. From some window of these head-quarters sometimes hung a transparency, with “Baker and Eddy” on one side, and “Prohibition and Equal Rights” on the other. Caucuses, rallies and conventions were held in Chelsea, Taunton, Malden, Lynn, Concord, and other places. A Middlesex County (First district) Senatorial Convention was called and organized by women, and its proceedings were fully reported by the Boston newspapers.
The nominations made at these caucuses and conventions were generally unanimous, and it seemed at the time as if the two wings of the so called “Baker Party” would work harmoniously together. But with a few honorable exceptions, the Prohibitionists, taking advantage of the fact that the voting power of the women was over, once outside the caucus, repudiated the nominations or held other caucuses, and shut the doors of entrance in the faces of the women who represented either the Suffrage or the Prohibitory party. This was the case invariably, excepting in towns where the majority of the voting members of the Prohibitory party were also Suffragists. This result is what might have been expected, since of what use or importance was this “woman intruding element” in the ranks of
any
political party, with no vote outside the caucus, or at the polls?
After being snubbed in one of their “Prohibitory and Equal Rights” caucuses, the Suffragists, in a town in Middlesex County, determined to hold another caucus. This was accordingly done, and two “straight” Suffrage candidates were
The repugnance felt at the time, at the thought of “women going to the polls” can hardly be appreciated to-day. Since the women have begun to vote in Massachusetts, the terror expressed at the idea of such a proceeding has somewhat abated; but in 1876, it was thought to men.
Some attempt was made to deter these women from their purpose, and horrible stories of pipes and tobacco, and probable insults were told; but they had no terrors to women who knew better than to believe that their townsmen and neighbors would be turned into beasts (like the man in the fairy tale), for this one day in the year.
It cannot be said that some of them did not “quake in their boots” at his unusual proceeding, but they had fortified themselves with brave words, and some of them with prayers and tears, for they were in earnest, and “having done all” were determined to “stand.” They stood there distributing votes from nine o'clock A. M., till a quarter of five P. M., only leaving their positions long enough to get a cup of coffee and a lunch, which was provided at the head-quarters.
It was a sight to be remembered, to see women “crowned with honor,” pleading with the few colored men who came to the polls, and asking men who were perhaps ten years ago slaves, now he
did not believe in Woman Suffrage), and the drunken man who did not know Hayes from Tilden, and the man who read his ballot upside down. All these voted for the men they wanted to represent them but the women, being neither colored, nor foreign, nor blind, nor paralytic, nor newly-fledged, nor drunk, nor ignorant, but only
women,
could not vote for the men they wanted to represent them.
The women learned several things during this campaign in Massachusetts. One was, that weak
It will be understood that it is not of individual
members
of the political parties of the State, that the Suffragists have reason to complain; but of
The result of efforts to mix the question of equal rights for woman with state, or party politics, has been briefly but correctly stated. The attitude of the dominant political parties is to-day one of perfect indifference. The weaker ones hold out some inducements to the Suffragists, but how much their resolutions or planks in conventions mean, will be seen when they have grown strong enough to be of real assistance to the cause. Judging from past experience, it is plainly evident that if any further meddling with politics is to be attempted, a new political party should be formed, having for its basis woman's right to the ballot, which is the only question to justify the formation of such a party, because it is a question of absolute right. If this cannot be done, the Suffragists must live in the hope
“Is it only among men that freedom and virtue are to be united? Why should the slavery that destroys you, be considered the only method to preserve us? It has been the greater error of men, and one that has worked bitterly on their destinies, that they have made laws unfavorable to the intellectual development of women. Have they not in so doing made laws against their children, whom women are to rear, against the husbands of whom women are to be the friends, nay—sometimes the advisers?”
Bulwer-Lytton.
In
the early history of Massachusetts, when the new colony was governed by laws set down in the Province Charter, (1691, third year of William and Mary) women were not excluded from voting. The clause in the Charter relating to this matter says: “The Great and General Court shall consist of the Governor and Council (or assistants for the time being) and of such
In the Constitutional Convention of 1820, the word “male” was first put into the Constitution of the State, in an amendment to define the qualifications of voters. In this Convention, a motion was made at three different times, during the passage of the act, to strike out the “intruding” word, but the motion was voted down.
There is no evidence that the women ever made use of their voting right, either under the Charter, or under the Constitution; nor is there any proof that they made objection, either singly or in a body, to being thus excluded from the right of franchise. General consent, even of the women themselves, was undoubtedly the origin of the exclusion of women from voting. This was
In the Constitutional Convention of 1853, twelve petitions were presented, from over two thousand adult persons, asking for the recognition of woman's right to the ballot, in the proposed amendments to the Constitution of the State. Abby M. Alcott, wife of the Concord philosopher, and mother of the novelist, Miss Louisa M. Alcott, a woman foremost in the Anti-Slavery reform, asked with other women of Massachusetts, to “be allowed to vote on the amendments that may be made in the Constitution.” Francis
On the petitions of Francis Jackson and Abby M. Alcott the Committee reported leave to withdraw, giving as their reason that, the “consent of the governed” was shown by the small number of petitioners. Hearings before this Committee were granted, and Lucy Stone, T. W. Higginson, Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips, and other speakers of learning and ability, presented able arguments in favor of giving women the right to vote. Among the many reasons urged by the petitioners why their petitions should be granted, were the following:
1st. “That women are human beings, and therefore have human rights, one of which is, that of having a voice in the government under which they live, and in the enactment of laws they are bound to obey.” 2d. “That women have interests and rights, which are not, in fact, and never will be, sufficiently guarded by governments in which they are not allowed any political influence.” 3d. “That they are taxed, and therefore, since taxation and the right of representation are admitted to be inseparable, they have a right to be represented.”
A summary of the reasons given was included in the Committee's report. The Chairman of this Committee in presenting this report, moved that all debate on the subject should cease in thirty minutes, and on motion of Benjamin F. Butler of Lowell, the whole report, excepting the last clause, was stricken out. There was then left of the whole document, (including more than two closely-printed pages of reasoning) only this,—“it is inexpedient for this Convention to take any
Edward L. Keyes of Abington, and William B. Greene of North Brookfield were the Woman's Rights champions in the Constitutional Convention of 1853. Lucy Stone's axiom, that “women are classed politically with criminals and felons,” finds confirmation in one of the decisions of the Committee on the Qualifications of Voters, since it reported in one and the same bill,
inexpedient to legislate
on excluding “from the right of suffrage, and the right to hold any office of profit or trust, all persons who may be convicted of bribery, larceny or other infamous crime;” ...
also
be “excused from paying taxes, or be allowed to vote.”
It is a significant fact, that, when the amendments proposed by the Constitutional Convention of 1853 came before the voters of the State, for their sanction by ballot, they were all defeated.
Legislative agitation on the Woman's Rights question, began in 1849, when William Lloyd Garrison presented the first petition on the subject to the State Legislature.
Not until eight years after (in 1861) does the word “woman” appear in the Index of the Journal of the House. That year the Legislature debated a bill to allow a widow, “if she have woodland as a part of her dower, the privilege of cutting wood enough for one fire.” This bill was defeated, and the widow, by law, was
not
allowed to keep herself warm with fuel from her own wood-lot. In 1863 the word “wife” first appears in the House records, and legislation began concerning her legal status. A bill asking that “a wife may be allowed to be a witness and proceed against her husband for desertion,” was reported inexpedient, and a bill was passed to prevent
women from forming co-partnerships in business.
In 1865, Governor John A. Andrew, seeing the magnitude of the approaching woman question, tried his hand at disposing of one phase of the subject. In his annual message to the Legislature, he made a memorable suggestion with regard to a portion of the citizens of Massachusetts. Said he: “I know of no more useful object to which the Commonwealth can lend its aid, than that of a movement, adopted in a practical way to open the door of emigration to young women, who are wanted for teachers, and for every other appropriate, as well as domestic, employment in the remote West, but who are leading anxious and aimless lives in New England.” By the “anxious and aimless” it was supposed the Governor meant the widowed, single, or otherwise unrepresented portion of the citizens of the State.
No action was taken by the Legislature upon this portion of the Governor's message. But a member of the Senate actually made the following proposition before that body, namely,—“That
In 1865 the expediency of allowing married women to testify in suits at law where their husbands are parties, was considered, and an order permitting them to hold trust estates was rejected. It will be seen that though all this legislation was adverse to woman's interest, the question had obtained an entrance into legislative halls, and had forced itself upon the attention of the members of both House and Senate.
In 1866 a joint committee of both Houses was appointed, to consider “if any additional legislation can be adopted, whereby the means of obtaining a livelihood by the women of this Commonwealth may be increased, and a more equal and just compensation be allowed for labor.”
In 1867 Francis W. Bird presented the petition of Mehitable Haskell of Gloucester for “an amendment to the Constitution extending suffrage to women.” In 1868 Mr. King of Boston presented the same petition, and it was at this time, and in answer to this petition, that the subject first entered into the regular Orders of the Day, and became a part of the official business of the House of Representatives.
Attempts to legislate on the property question concerning married women were continued in 1868 in bills “to further protect the property of married women,” “to allow married women to contract for necessaries,” and if “divorced from bed and board, to allow them to dispose of their own property.” These bills were all defeated.
A remonstrance was also sent into the Legislature, from two hundred women of Lancaster, Massachusetts. The following were among the reasons given why women should
not
be allowed to vote: “The exercise of the elective franchise would diminish the purity, the dignity and the moral influence of woman, and bring into the family circle a dangerous element of discord.” It did not occur to these women that by thus remonstrating they were doing just what they were protesting against.
What
is
a vote? An expression of opinion, or a desire as to governmental affairs, in the shape of a ballot. The “aspiring blood of Lancaster,” should have mounted higher than this, since, if it really was the opinion of these remonstrants that woman cannot vote without becoming defiled, they should have kept themselves out of the Legislature, should have kept their hands from petitioning, and their thoughts from agitation on either side of the subject. Just such illogical reasoning on the Woman Suffrage question, is often brought forward, and passes for the profoundest wisdom and discreetest delicacy!
In 1870 a joint special Committee on Woman Suffrage was formed, and since that time there have been one or more annual hearings on the question, before the gentlemen composing that body. These gentlemen usually are good types of the enlightenment and ability of the Massachusetts Legislature, and they have patiently and respectfully listened to the arguments of the earnest men and women who have come before them asking for changes in the laws, which shall secure to woman equality and the rights of citizenship.
William Claflin was the first governor of Massachusetts to present officially to the voters of the Commonwealth the subject of woman's rights as a citizen. In his address to the Legislature of 1871, he strongly recommended a change in the laws regarding suffrage and the property rights of woman. His attitude towards this reform made an era in the history of the executive department of the State. Legislation then began in earnest, and the subject was forever lifted out of the limbo of legislative contempt.
Since 1871 nearly every governor of the State has, in his annual message, recommended the subject to respectful consideration. In 1879 Governor Thomas Talbot proposed a constitutional amendment which should secure the ballot to women on the same terms as men. In response to this portion of the Governor's message, and to
In finishing the record of official action on the part of the governors of the State up to the present time, it will be well to record that John D. Long, in his inaugural address before the Legislature of 1881, expressed his opinion in favor of Woman Suffrage perhaps more decidedly than any who had preceded him in that high official position. What he said is worthy to be quoted in full:
“I believe that the State is made more secure in proportion as every member of it of mature age and sound mind has a voice in its administration, and that no one class anywhere can be
The law allowing women to vote for School Committee is one of the last results of the legislative agitation of the Suffragists, though it is true that the petition, the answer to which was the passage of this act, did not emanate from them.
But the petitions of the Suffragists had always been for general and unrestricted suffrage, as Mr. Garrison would say for “
immediate and unconditional emancipation,
“ and they had always opposed any scheme for securing the ballot on a class or a restricted basis. They had never been led astray by any such semblance of reform, holding that the true ground of principle is,
equality of rights with man,
and that humanity is a unit: one glory and one shame.
The practical result so far of voting for School Committee has justified this position held by the Suffragists of Massachusetts. For, as shown
The poor women voters in the State were quick to see the injustice of being required to pay for this fiction of a right, (which the rich women got for nothing) the same amount of money which men pay for every right the government grants. To such women, except in some local emergency, the privilege of merely voting for school committee was not worth the money it cost. “Does it pay?” is a question the female members of the family can answer, quite as well as
In fact the School Committee question is not a vital one with either male or female voters, and it is impossible to get up any enthusiasm on the subject. As a test question, upon which to try the desire of the women of the State to become voters, it is a palpable sham. As a sop to those who do not believe in “taxation without representation” it is a miserable subterfuge. Our revolutionary fathers would not have fought, bled and died for such a figment of a right as this; and their daughters, or granddaughters, inherit the same spirit, and if they vote at all, want something worth voting for.
The tax-paying women have cared no more
The result is, that the voting has been largely done by those women who have long been Suffragists, and who have gone to the polls on election day, from pure principle, and a sense of duty, rather than from any desire to vote upon such an insignificant matter. The number of women who have voted in the State, is
not so much a fair
representation of those who desire to vote, as it is a fair representation of the Woman Suffragists who have voted.
By a careful examination of the law allowing women to vote for School Committees, it will be seen that it is very elastic and capable of many readings, or interpretations. Indeed, it reminds
“The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,”
which has been found to be capable of over twenty different transpositions. The collectors and registrars in some towns and cities took advantage of this obscurity of expression, and interpreted the law according to their individual opinion on the Woman Suffrage question itself. In places where these officials were in sympathy, a broad construction was put upon the provisions of the law, the poll-tax payers were allowed to vote upon the payment of one dollar (under the divided tax law of 1879), and the women voters generally were given all necessary information, and treated courteously both by the assessors and registrars and at the polls.
In places where leading officials were opposed to women's voting, the case was far different. Without regarding the clause in the law which says that a woman may vote upon paying either State
or
County poll-tax, such officials have and
County poll-tax. In some towns the women have been snubbed and treated with great indignity, as if they were doing an unlawful or a disgraceful thing.
In one town the women voters were actually required to pay a poll-tax the second year, in spite of the clause in the law which says that a female citizen who has paid a State or County tax within two years shall have the right to vote. The town assessor whose duty it was to inform the women voters on this point of the law, when asked concerning the matter,
willfully
withheld the desired information, saying he “did not know,” though he afterwards said that he
did
know but intended to let the women “find out for themselves,” or words to that effect. This Assessor forgot that the women, as legal voters, had a right to ask for this information, and that by virtue of his official position he was legally obliged to answer.
The law allowing women to vote for School Committees with all its defects and contradictions is not responsible for blunders of this sort, since
A School Suffrage Association was formed in 1880, and held its first annual meeting in anniversary week, at Freeman Place chapel. Abby W. May of Boston was elected President, and Ednah D. Cheney, Mary F. Eastman, Anna Garlin Spencer, and other prominent women, not all of them Suffragists, were put upon its executive board.
The first petition to the Massachusetts Legislature, asking that women might be allowed to serve on school boards was presented in 1866 by Samuel E. Sewall of Boston. The same petition
One of the women elect,(Miss Peabody) applied to the Supreme Court for its opinion upon the matter, but the judges refused to answer, and dismissed the petition on the ground that the School Committee itself had power to decide the question of the qualification of members of the board. The subject was brought before the Legislature of the same year, and that body, almost unanimously, passed “an Act to declare women eligible to serve as members of School Committees.”
* This Act, so brief and so expressive, is worthy to be remembered. It simply reads: “Be it enacted, etc., as follows:
Sect. I. No person shall be deemed ineligible to serve upon a School Committee by reason of sex.
Sect. 2. This Act shall take effect upon its passage. (Approved June 30, 1874.)”
In 1882, 69 out of the 345 cities and towns of the State had elected women to this office.
This refusal on the part of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts to answer a question relating to woman's rights under the law, was received with a knowing smile by those who remembered the three decisions relating to women which had been given by that august body. The first of these decisions was on the case of Sarah E. Wall of Worcester. The second was concerning a clause in the will of Francis Jackson of Boston, who left $5,000 and other property to the woman's rights cause, the money to be used for lectures and documents, and to secure the passage of laws granting women, whether married or unmarried, the right to vote, hold office, manage property, and enjoy civil rights. The will was
Its third adverse decision
men
, they could
not
be Justices of the Peace; and the appointment of the women Justices of the Peace was not confirmed. Samuel E. Sewall and other gentlemen of legal minds dissented from this opinion, and the ridicule throw upon this “Court of high appeal” warned the Judges that it would not do to be caught napping again. Hence, as before stated, when appealed to for the third time to settle a question relating to the legal status of the women
The result of legislative agitation on the Woman's Right question, is faithfully told in the admirable pamphlets of Samuel E. Sewall
The common law of this state held man and wife to be one person, but that person was the husband. He could by will deprive her of every part of his property, and also of what had been her own before marriage. He was the owner of all her real estate and of her earnings. The wife could make no contract and no will, nor without her husband's consent dispose of the legal interest
Her husband could steal her children, rob her of her clothing and her earnings, neglect to support the family; and she had no legal redress. If a wife earned money by her labor, the husband could claim the pay as his share of the proceeding. A woman, either married or unmarried, could not hold property, except through trustees. She could hold no office of trust or power. She was not a person. She was not recognized as a citizen. She was not a factor in the human family. She was not a unit; but a zero, a nothing, in the sum of civilization.
To-day, a married woman can hold her own property, if it is held or bought in her own name, and can make a will disposing of it. A man is
If a husband sees fit to whip his wife with a “stick no bigger than his thumb” she can have him bound over to keep the peace for two years. If she lives apart from him she can attach his property for the support of herself and her children. She can release, transfer, or convey, any interest she may have in real estate, subject only to the life interest which the husband may have at her death. A married woman is now the owner of her own clothing to the value of $2,000, although the act granting this (passed in 1879) calls such apparel the “gifts of her husband,” not recognizing the fact that most married women earn or help to earn their own clothes.
There is a certain clause sometimes found in old wills, to the effect that if a widow sees fit his
wife and borne
his
children. What more could be desired by her, he argued, but a corner somewhere in which, respectably dressed as his
relict
(or leavings), she could sit down (in the Miss Haversham style) and mourn for him, for the rest of her life.
The law no longer sanctions the making of such a will, but provides that the widow shall have a fair share of all personal property. A husband can no longer make a will leaving his wife a mere “incumbrance” to his estate, to be toted round, an unwelcome guest, from house to
The result of thirty years of property legislation for women is well stated by Mr. Sewall in his admirable pamphlet, in which he says, “the last thirty years have done more to improve the law for married women, than the four hundred preceding.” The Legislature has, during this time, enacted laws allowing women to vote in Parishes and Religious Societies; declaring that women
must
become members of the Board of Trustees of the three State Primary and Reform Schools, of the State Workhouse, of the State Almshouse at Tewksbury, and of the Board of Prison Commissioners; also that certain officers and managers of the Reformatory Prison for Women at Sherborn, “shall be women.” Without legislation, women now are School Supervisors,
The great changes in the legal and legislative condition of the women of Massachusetts are the direct result of the labors of the Suffragists. By conventions and documents they have informed the people and enlightened public sentiment. By their continued agitation the question has been kept prominently before the voters of the state, and before their representatives in the Legislature. And though so much has been gained, the Suffragists are still hard at work, not will they rest from their labors, until, both legally and politically, woman's equality with man before the law is firmly established.
The little actual gain in votes since 1870, in favor of municipal or general suffrage for women, might cause the careless observer to draw the inference that no great progress had been made in legislative sentiment during all these years.
On March 29th, 1881, the Bill in favor of Municipal Suffrage to Women came before the House for final action, and was ably supported by Col. T. W. Higginson, Cambridge, William Johnson, Everett, G. A. Shepard, Sandisfield, E. P. Brown, Boston, and James F. Almy, Salem. Nearly every member was in his seat, and the opponents were there in full force, ready to vote; but not a voice was raised against the Bill, though Mr. Brown of Boston (in his speech) called on the young lawyers and others known to be its enemies, to show their colors and speak for their side of the question. It is safe to predict that so far
It was enough to make the women who sat in the gallery weep, to hear the “O's” and the “Mc's,” almost to a man, belch forth the emphatic “no;” and to think that these men (some of whom a few years ago were walking over their native bogs, with hardly the right to live and breathe), should vote away so thoughtlessly the rights of the women of the country in which they have found a shelter and a home. Some of them must be men who have done nothing to entitle them to the right of suffrage. When they came to this country, poor, and with no inheritance but the “shillalah,” the ballot was freely given to them, as the poor man's weapon for defence. Why cannot men, who have been political serfs in their own country, see the incongruity, the wickedness, of what they do when they cast their vote against the enfranchisement of over one-half of the inhabitants of the State which has made free human beings of them?
If it was a sad sight to the women spectators to hear their adopted countrymen vote their
A certain newspaper said, that after the defeat, the women who had been sitting in the gallery went smiling home, feeling quite relieved, and glad to know that their Suffrage Bill was not carried: for, if it had been, they would have had nothing more to fight for. If any of the women “smiled,” it was with grim irony to see the men who represent the “blue blood” of Massachusetts join forces with the immigrant and the foreigner, to prevent the women of their own class from enjoying the rights of citizenship. This thought was enough to have made the emblematical stuffed codfish smile, and the Indian in bas relief on the Massachusetts coat of arms, get down from his honored place over the Speaker's desk, and flee from his native State to
The change in legislative sentiment on the woman suffrage question, can best be illustrated (as Abraham Lincoln would have said) “by a little story” of a conjugal scene.
Mary and John have been married several years. One day Mary makes up her mind that she wants a new and expensive dress; and since she has never any money of her own, she is, of course, obliged to ask her husband to give her the needful sum, and the following conversation ensues:
Mary.
John, I want some money to buy a new silk dress.
John.
What do you want of another dress? You've got all you need. You said the other day you had more clothes than you wanted.
Mary.
Oh! When I said that, I meant the sort of clothes you sometimes buy for me—that yellow-sprigged calico, for instance, and that great staring shawl—not the kind I pick out to suit myself.
John.
It's perfect nonsense for you to get
Mary persists, and continues to tease for the dress, until John finally throws down a little money, and leaves the house. When he comes home at night, feeling good-natured, he says: “Well, how does the new dress you
picked out yourself
suit you?”
Mary.
I did not have half money enough to get what I wanted.
John.
Not money enough? Why, I gave you all you asked for!
Mary.
Well, there wasn't half enough. No woman could buy a decent dress with such a little—
Here John fires up, and says:
“Well, you shan't have any more. I gave you enough for any reasonable woman. You won't know how to use it if I give you any more, and you shan't have another cent.”
In spite of this decision of John's, Mary does not take “no” for an answer, and day after day renews the attack, until John, tired out with her importuning, is finally caught in a yielding mood, and, throwing his purse at his wife, says:
“There, do take all the money you want!”
The parallel is, that in the beginning the Massachusetts Legislature ridiculed the idea of woman suffrage, then it yielded, and gave a little school committee suffrage. Now, in 1881, it is in the dogged, or “you shan't have it” stage. By and by, when it has been importuned long enough, it will say to the women:
“There, do take all the
suffrage
you want!”
“The weapons of the whole world must leave me still unstained.”—
Inscribed on the Hero Roland's Helmet.
The
improvement in the social or general condition of woman has been even greater than that recorded in the chapter on Legal and Legislative History. A few brief statistics will show the changes which thirty years have wrought.
Woman as Teacher.
—Previous to 1840, women were employed only as teachers of summer schools, to “spell the men” during the haying season; and this only occasionally. They held no responsible position in any public school in the State. To-day from seven to eight women to one man are employed in all grades of this profession, and there are numerous instances where women are head teachers of departments, or principals of high, normal, and grammar schools.
Woman as Student and Professor.
—Previous to 1825, girls could attend only the primary schools of Boston. In that year, through the influence of Rev. John Pierpont, the first high school for girls was opened in that city. There was a great outcry against this innovation; and, because of the excitement in the community on the subject, and the
great number of girls
who applied for admission, the scheme was abandoned.
In the town of Plymouth, where the Pilgrim fathers and mothers first landed, when the question whether girls should receive any public instruction first came up in town meeting, there was great opposition to it. One gentleman objected, saying: “I am opposed to instructing girls. If we teach them—suppose I should be writing, a woman might come in and look over my shoulder and say, ‘that word is spelled wrong,’ and I should not like that! I am entirely opposed to instructing girls.” The town, however, showed a more liberal spirit, and voted to give the girls one hour's instruction daily. This was in 1793.
In 1855, the Girls’ High and Normal School
In 1867, the Lowell Institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (both of Boston), advertised classes free to both sexes in French, mathematics, and in other advanced studies. Since that time Chauncy Hall School and Boston University have been opened to women, with the equal privileges of male students.
In 1878, the Girls’ Latin School in Boston was founded. The establishment of this successful institution was the result of discussions on the subject of the education of girls, first brought before the public by Mrs. Emily Talbot and other ladies of Boston. High schools in almost all the towns and cities of the State have long been established, and in them the boys and girls of this good old Commonwealth are co-educated, and learn to become useful citizens—and voters.
Colleges for women have also been founded. Vassar, in Poughkeepsie, New York, (chartered in 1860), leads the list, and Wellesley and Smith * Oberlin was the first college in this country in which the co-education of the sexes was attempted. This institution was founded as a school in 1832, but soon afterwards it became an anti-slavery college, and admitted colored men and women as students. Those who did the most to place it on a secure foundation were Arthur Tappan, President Finney, Theodore D. Weld, Henry B. Stanton, and Rev. Charles Avery. In 1868, there were twenty-seven colleges in the United States, of which Oberlin was the noble pioneer. In 1881, in the discussion of General Burnside's “Educational Bill” in Congress, the fact was brought out that there are now one hundred and fifty-three colleges in the United States which admit women to their courses of study. Among the women students who have done honor to Oberlin as Alma Mater may be mentioned the names of Lucy Stone, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, and Sally Holly.
It might be explained here that the “Harvard Annex,” or “Private Collegiate Instruction for Women,” is not an organic part of the University itself. Under a certain arrangement, a limited number of women students are allowed a few of the privileges of the men students of the University. They are also permitted to use all the books belonging to the College library, and attend many of the College lectures. No College building is appropriated for this purpose, but recitation rooms are provided in private houses. A witty Cambridge lady called this mythical college the “Harvard Annex;” the public adopted the name, and many people suppose that there is such a hall or College building. From the last annual report of the “Private Collegiate Instruction for Women” it appears that in 1881 forty-seven women availed themselves of the privilege of attending this course of instruction.
These students go alone and unattended to the lectures and to the library of the College. A great change indeed, since the time when women first began to attend the Lowell Institute lectures. Then it was thought almost disgraceful for women to go to a public meeting without male protection, and they went with veiled faces, as if-ashamed to be seen of men. It need not be written here how large a proportion of women go to make up the lecture and concert audiences of Massachusetts to-day; nor is it unusual that, either from choice or necessity, many of them go without male escort, and no one thinks the custom strange, or worthy of remarks.
Miss Maria Mitchell was the first woman in the country to hold the position of college professor. She became Professor of Astronomy and Mathematics at Vassar, in 1866. Since that time women have become members of the faculty in several of the large colleges in the country. Professor Rachel Bodley, of Philadelphia, in a recent address, stated that the demand for women professors in schools and colleges exceeded the supply; and she urged upon the young women
Women as Physicians.
—In the early days of the Commonwealth, women practiced midwifery, and were very successful. Anne Hutchinson, Mrs. Fuller and Sarah Alcock were the first women physicians in the State. Mrs. Janet Alexander, a Scotchwoman, was a well trained midwife. She live in Boston and was always recognized as a good practitioner in her line by the leading doctors in that city.
Dr. John C. Warren, of Boston, invited this lady to come to this country. His biography, recently published, contains a short record of the matter in which he says: “We determined to recommend Mrs. Alexander. She was a Scotchwoman, regularly educated, and having Dr. Hamilton's diploma.” Quite a storm was raised among the younger men physicians of Boston, by this attempted innovation, because they thought Dr. Warren was trying to deprive them of all profitable practice. But Mrs. Alexander, supported by Dr. Warren, and perhaps other physicians, continued successful practice, and educated her daughter in the same profession.
Nancy Clarke Binney was the first regular woman physician in Massachusetts.
Dr. Harriot K. Hunt practised in Boston as early as 1835. She sought admission to the Harvard Medical School, and was many times refused. She was not what is called a “regular physician.” In her day there existed no schools or colleges for the medical education of women, but she studied by herself, and acquired some knowledge of diseases peculiar to women. Her success was so great in her line of practice that she proved the need existing for physicians of her own sex.
Dr. Hunt's tussle with the medical faculty will long be remembered. She was the first woman in the State who dared assert her right to recognition in this profession. For this, and for her persistent efforts to secure for them a higher education, she deserves the gratitude of every woman who has since followed her footsteps into a profession over which the men had long held undisputed control.
The first female medical college in New England was organized by Dr. Samuel Gregory, of Boston. This institution was chartered in 1856, under the name of the New England Female Medical College.
In 1859, the New England Female Medical College invited Dr. Marie E. Zakrzewska to the chair of Obstetrics, and at her suggestion, a hospital, or clinical department was added, in which students might receive practical education. Dr. Zakrzewska is a German by birth, and studied in Charité
of Berlin. She came to America with a Prussian diploma of midwifery, but desiring further knowledge, went as student to the Western Reserve College, Hudson, Ohio and graduated with a full diploma as Doctor of Medicine. She then went to New York, where, in conjunction with Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell she established the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women.
After three years service in the New England Female Medical College, Dr. Zakrzewska resigned her position, and in co-operation with Miss Lucy Goddard and Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney, established the New England Hospital for Women and Children. This institution was incorporated in 1868. Its avowed objects were: 1. To provide for women, medical aid of competent physicians of their own sex. 2. To assist educated women in the practical study of medicine. 3. To train nurses for the care of the sick.
The hospital opened in a dwelling house on Pleasant street, in Boston. It now occupies spacious buildings on Codman Avenue, Boston Highlands. The Maternity house is entirely separate from the main body of the hospital. Its fifteen
Its educational work is constantly on the increase. Six students are usually resident at the hospital, and several young women are kept in training as nurses for the sick.
In 1876, the New England Hospital had numbered among its students sixty-four women who were afterwards practising physicians. The Massachusetts names are Lucky E. Sewall, Helen Morton, C. Augusta Pope, Emily F. Pope, Emma L. Call, Adelaide A. Richardson, Julia Marchant, Seraph Frissel and Susan Dimock. From 1872 to 1875, the lamented Susan Dimock was resident physician at this “dear hospital,” as she had called it in a written prayer found among her paper after her untimely.
Massachusetts has many other successful women physicians besides those who have been
Internes
at the New England Hospital for Women and Children, who have been educated in the medical schools in other states or countries. Among these may be mentioned Dr. Lucy M. Hall, resident physician at the Women's Prison at Sherborn—the only woman physician whose name is found in the New England Medical Register for 1881.
Boston University is open to both sexes, with equal studies, duties and privileges. This institution was incorporated in 1869, and includes among other schools and colleges, a School of Theology, a School of Law and a School of Medicine. William F. Warren, LL. D., is President of the University, and the corporation is made up of many distinguished men and women. Boston University School of Medicine (Homœopathic), was organized in 1873, I. Tisdale Talbot, M. D., Dean. Of the thirty-two lecturers and professors who constitute the Faculty, five are women. These are Mary J. Safford, M. D., Professor of Gynæcology; Caroline E. Hastings, M. D., Professor
Since 1874, seventy-four women have graduated from this School, and of these, forty-two are now practising in Massachusetts. A fair average have attained to quite as extensive a practice as male physicians aspire to, and have also made for themselves a good reputation. It is the verdict of Dr. Talbot, that, as a rule, the women have fully equaled the men graduates in thoroughness of medical attainments. Besides those mentioned as belonging to the Faculty of Boston University School of Medicine, the following are among the best known names of women Homœopathic physicians now practising in Massachusetts: Arvilla B. Haynes, Laura M. Foster, Emily Metcalf, Mary A. Payne, Harriet H. Hodges, and Harriet J. Clisby.
Boston University School of Medicine and the Massachusetts Homœopathic College occupy extensive and elegant buildings on East Concord street, opposite the City Hospital. The School
The Massachusetts Medical Society does not admit women doctors to membership, though the
regular
practitioners are generally willing to consult with them. They also seem ready enough to take advantage of their experience, and of the woman's insight into the diagnosis of special and peculiar cases. But so far as recognition by their brethren goes, the women physicians of the
regular school
in Massachusetts are no better off than they were in the beginning. The need of women in this profession had so long been felt by the community at large, that, whether
regular
or
irregular
, they have slowly and surely, and
in spite of the doctors,
made headway in the profession. Where ten years ago, there was one woman physician, there are now scores, practising successfully in the different towns and cities in
The Harvard Divinity School at Cambridge sometimes admits women students; but does not recognize them publicly or grant them degrees. There are, however, other theological schools in the State where a complete preparation for the ministerial profession can be obtained. There are now a score or two of women preachers in Massachusetts, and whether ordained after the manner of men preachers or not, they preach the word of God in sincerity and to good acceptance. The women ministers in the State who bear the title of Reverend are Ellen G. Gustin, Mary H. Graves, Ada C. Bowles, Clara M. Bisbee, and perhaps others. The census of 1880 reports thirty-two women as clergymen and church officers.
The attitude of the Church towards the woman question has greatly changed within thirty years. There is now hardly any denomination, except the Catholic and the Episcopalian, which requires
Women also hold important offices connected with the different church organizations. They serve on the boards of state and national religious associations, and on boards of directors of church institutions. There are also missionary associations, both home and foreign, centenaries, Christian unions, and auxiliary associations, all officered and managed entirely by women. Even the treasurers of these large bodies are women, and their husbands or trustees are no longer required to give bonds for them.
In 1880, the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association sent a memorial to the Monday
Woman as Lawyer.—
It is a notable fact, that in Massachusetts the “woman intruding element” has but just entered the so-called learned profession of the law. The State has had no Belva A. Lockwood, J. Ellen Foster, nor Myra Bradwell to plead for the legal rights of women before the Supreme Judicial Court. Before
In Nebraska, Iowa, California, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Texas, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio, New York, and in the District of Columbia, women have been admitted to practice in the United States Courts, as well as in the courts of their respective states. Belva A. Lockwood and J. Ellen Foster are both admirable forensic lawyers.
It need hardly be said, that the law School at Harvard is not open to women. Boston University, however, has long ago offered the advantages of its Law School to women students on the same terms on which men students are admitted. Women do not seem to avail themselves to any extent of this chance to study law. In its catalogue and circular for 1880-81 only one, Lelia Josephine Robinson, is found among its long
Lelia J. Robinson graduated in the summer of 1881, and is the first woman lawyer who has ever graduated in Massachusetts. In March , 1881, she made her application for admission to the Bar, and Chief Justice Gray, desiring to hear an argument supporting her claims as a citizen, a hearing before the Court took place, April 23. She prepared, unaided, the brief from which Hon. Charles R. Train, her counsel, argued her case. In presenting her claim, Mr. Train admitted that it was a novel one: but in a very effective manner, he went on to state the cogent reasons why a woman who had carefully prepared herself for the profession of the Law, should be permitted to practice in the courts, At the close, Chief Justice Gray gave the opinion informally, that the laws, as they now exist, preclude woman from being attorney at law; but he reserved the matter for the consideration of the full bench. The Supreme Judicial Court rendered an adverse
This act is almost as brief as a certain clause in one of the election laws of the state of Texas, which says, “The masculine gender shall include the feminine and neuter.”
Boston University School of Law is the only law school in New England, or this side of Washington, D.C., that is open to both sexes. Many of the Western universities, however, admit women students to their schools of law. According to the census of 1880, there are in Massachusetts four women lawyers. It is to be hoped that these pioneers in the profession will prove to the sceptical world with what aptitude the female mind can deal with the “nice sharp quillets of the law.”
Woman in Art.
The three best known women sculptors in this country were born and bred in
“That broad-browed delicate girl will carve at Rome,
Faces in marble, classic as her own.”
“That rare genius died in the Austrian Tyrol in 1877. One of her finest groups is the Fountain, first exhibited in Horticultural Hall, at the Centennial exposition in Philadelphia, 1876.
A free art school in Boston was opened to women in 1867, and Anne Whitney was not obliged to go to Rome for instruction in the appliances of her art. Harriet Hosmer and Margaret Foley have both made statues which adorn the public buildings and parks of their native country; and Anne Whitney's statue of Samuel Adams which stands in Adams Square (formerly Dock Square), in Boston, speaks for itself,and is the crowning work of her genius.
No great work has yet been done by a Massachusetts woman in oil painting, but in water colors, and in decorative art, many women have excelled, first prizes in superiority of design having been taken by them over their men competitors. Lizzie B. Humphrey, Jessie Curtis, Sarah W. Whitman and Fidelia Bridges, take high rank as designers. Helen M. Knowlton, a pupil of William M. Hunt, is a skillful artist in charcoal and has produced some fine pictures in this medium. Women form a large proportion of the students in the school design recently opened in Boston.
A great deal of the ornamental painting now so fashionable on cards and all fancy article is
Of woman as actress and public singer, it would be unnecessary to speak, since she has the right of way in both these professions. Here, fortunately, the supply does not exceed the demand; consequently she has her full share of rights, and what is better, an equal amount of pay for her labor.
Woman of Journalist and Author.
—In 1841, when Lydia Maria Child edited the
Anti-Slavery Standard
, Margaret Fuller the
Dial
, and Harriot F. Curtis and Harriet Farley the
Lowell Offering
, there were perhaps in New England (if in the country), no other well known women journalist or editors. Cornelia Walter of the
Evening Transcript
was the first woman journalist in Boston. To-day, women are editors and publishers of newspapers all over the United States; and the woman's column is a part of the make-up of many a leading newspaper. The names are almost numberless of women who furnish articles for the daily and weekly press, Boston Post,
a democratic newspaper, in 1870. Her first work was to report the proceedings of a woman suffrage meeting. She is now on the staff of the
Boston Daily Advertiser.
There are so many women who now write for the papers, one might almost say that the woman of brains who does not dabble in printer's ink is a exception.
Some of the best magazine writing of the time is done by women; one needs but to look over the table of contents of the leading periodicals to see how large a proportion of the articles are written by them. Really, the sex seems to have entered into and taken possession of what Carlyle called the “fourth estate,”—the literary profession, and they journey into unexplored regions of thought as well as into hitherto undiscovered countries to give the omnivorous modern reader something new to feed upon.
Among the Massachusetts women whose literary reputations are almost cosmopolitan, may be
One hundred years ago Massachusetts could boast of only two women poets; and one of them, Phillis Wheatley, was black and had been a slave. The women poets of the State have not increased in so large a ratio as have the writers of prose. In the verses of Julia Ward Howe, Helen Fiske Jackson, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Lucy Larcom, Anne Whitney, Sarah H. Palfrey and Annie T. Fields can be found the expression of the womanly element in the poetic thought of the State.
Woman as Speaker and Lecturer.
—It has been mentioned what great opposition existed to women as public speakers when Abby Kelley Foster and Angelina Grimké appeared upon the anti-slavery platform. Even twenty years ago the number of women who dared to be heard before a small audience could be counted upon one's fingers. To-day, in Massachusetts alone,
Here, in particular, must be claimed the credit due the Woman's Rights movement. It cannot be denied that, but for the opportunity given them to speak upon its platform, many of the women now so celebrated as orators and lecturers would have remained mute and inglorious—,perhaps even forever unknown to an admiring public. The unpopular reform once needing so much the help of women speakers, became in time a helper to them. Upon the suffrage platform many a novice has first learned to think upon her feet, and to express her thoughts before a loving and appreciative audience; and from this humble beginning of stepping-place more than one woman lecturer in the State has mounted to a higher rostrum
Woman a Office Holder.
—The number of offices to which women are eligible, in this
Through the efforts of the Association for the Advancement of Women,
* The Association for the Advancement of Women, a national organization, was projected in 1873 by “Sorosis,” a woman's club in New York City. Its first congress was held in that city in the Union League Theatre. Its first president was Mary Ashton Livermore, and on the executive board were the names of representative women from all parts of the United States. Since its formation it has held an annual congress in New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, and lastly in Massachusetts. At these meetings a great variety of ethical subjects are presented in papers or lectures written by women, and they are ready discussed by the members present. Since 1876, “A. A. W.” has gradually drifted from the control of its founders and Massachusetts women now “turn the crank” of the machinery of the association. Since the State has lost its former prestige of leadership in national and political affairs, it may be that the women of our ambitious Commonwealth are destined to take the lead in discussing the ethical, social, and moral questions of the day.
It may be well to add, here, that organized bodies of women have latterly been recognized, and entertained officially, in Massachusetts as well as in other states. In 1880 Mayor Prince
Women are members and hold high positions in many of the state and national scientific and social science associations.
To show that in the march of events, the woman element is carried into all new enterprises, it will not be out of place here to make some mention of the Summer School of Philosophy at Concord, Massachusetts. This new school of Philosophy was founded in 1879. Its projectors were A. Bronson Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Professor W. T. Harris, Frank B. Sanborn, Professor Benjamin Pierce, Dr. H. K. Jones, Elizabeth P. Peabody and Ednah D. Cheney. The women lecturers, besides the two last named, have been Julia Ward Howe and Amalia Johns Hathaway.
Unlike the elder Schools of Philosophy, here the women students are in the majority, and they come from near and far, to spend a few weeks of their summer vacation in the enjoyment of this haleyon season of rest. Day after day they sit patiently on the æsthetic benches of the Hillside
The Concord School is a school of Christian philosophy and morals, and its teachings are destined to be planted deep with roots far spreading in all the community of thought. Its seed was sown forty years ago, in what was called the Transcendental movement in New England.
That
could not become a permanent power, because it savored too much of Pantheism, and there was no executive force among its members. The Concord School finds in Mr. Sanborn its executive spirit, without which it could no more have come into existence at this time than its first seed could have been planted forty years ago without Mr. Emerson's and Mr. Alcott's ideal and conceptive thought.
Women in the Useful Occupations.
—There has never been, from time immemorial, much difference of opinion concerning woman's right to do a good share in the drudgery of the labor of the world. But in the remunerative employments, before 1850, she was but sparsely represented. In 1840, when Harriet Martineau visited this
Among the many girls woman has appropriated to herself must be included the “patent right.” The charge has often been made that women never invent anything—but statistics on the subject declare that in 1880 patents for their own inventions were issued to eighty-seven different women in the United States.
According to the census of 1880, there are in Massachusetts 66,205 more women than men. In view of this fact it is fortunate that this great opening has been made, by which some at least of the “anxious and aimless” women of the State can earn honest livelihood. To show what a large proportion of these surplus citizens of the Commonwealth are doing, it may be said, that 33,678 are sewing women, 11,330 are in government and professional employments, and 26,204 are book-keepers or clerks in stores.
The reform in public sentiment which made possible woman's great advance in the various departments of life, was not brought about without vast deal of opposition on the part of certain public teachers and writers. Though the “rib” doctrine had long been ruled out of the pulpit, and the “hen” argument abandoned by
Dr. Bushnell's “Reform Against Nature,” the first book of note written against woman's rights; Dr. Todd's pamphlet on “Woman's Right's”; Dr. Fulton's talk, both in and out of the pulpit, served to show the weakness of that side of the question. Later, Francis Parkman, Dr. J. G. Holland, Carlos White, and even some women writers, have added their so-called arguments, in the vain attempt to keep woman as they think “God made her.” Such writings can be called nothing better than rubbish, since in them there is no logical reasoning against Woman Suffrage as a right. Indeed, to the arguments in favor of this reform, there has yet been no valid reply by anybody.
Much the stronger writers and speakers have been found on the right side of this question. The names of leading speakers have already been mentioned. Perhaps the most suggestive articles in favor were Mr. T. W. Higginson's atlantic Monthly
of February, 1859, and Mr. Samuel Bowles's “The Woman Question and Sex in Politics,” published at a later date in the Springfield
Republican.
“Warrington,” in his letters to the same newspaper from 1868 to 1876, never failed to present a good and favorable argument on some phase of the woman question. Caroline Healey Dall's lectures before 1860, and her book “The College, the Market and the Court,” published in 1868, were seed-grain sown in the field of this reform. Samuel E. Sewall's able digest of the laws relating to the legal condition of married women, and William I. Bowditch's admirable pamphlets, have done incalculable service.
The newspaper itself, that great engine “who has her ambassadors in every quarter of the globe, her couriers upon every road,” has slowly swung round, and is at last headed in the right direction. Quietly and surely the press has indoctrinated the people into a recognition of the importance of the Woman's Rights question.
Public teachers occupying high position and presidents of colleges (not Harvard) have given pronounced opinions in favor of the reform. When such leading minds as those of Dr. Storrs, President Bascom and President Hopkins, proclaim is as their opinion that the time has come for women to take part in public affairs, it shows that both college and church are no longer in opposition to the advancement of women.
Said President Hopkins of Williams College, in 1875: “I would at this point correct my teaching in The Law of Love, to the effect that
home
is peculiarly the sphere of woman, and civil government that of man. I now regard the home as the joint sphere of man
and
woman, and the sphere of civil government more of an open question between the two.”
Dr. Storrs, in 1879, in speaking of the position of women in the time to come said: “It is in the midst of this movement that we stand, have been standing in these past years, and are to stand in the years to come. It cannot be arrested. The push of centuries is behind it. The strong instincts of human society are working for it, and with it, all the time. *** No man can stop this, any more than he can set his foot against yonder tent pole, and say, ‘
I will arrest the revolution of the globe.
‘”
The New England Women's Club, parent
The New England Women's Club was found in February, 1868. A few ladies met at the house of Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, to consider a plan for organizing a club for women. Its avowed object was “to supply the daily increasing need of a great central resting place, for the comfort and convenience of those who may wish to unite with us, and ultimately become a centre for united and organized social thought and action.”
Its first president was Caroline M. Severance. On the executive board were the names of Julia Ward Howe, Ednah D. Cheney, Lucy Goddard, Harriet M. Pitman, Jane Alexander, Abby W. May, and many others who have since become well known. This club held its first meeting in private houses, but it has for several years occupied spacious club rooms on Park streets, in Boston. Julia Ward Howe is its president. The club has its own historian, and when this official gives the result of her researches to the public, there will be seen how many projects for the elevation of women and the improvement of social life, have had their inception in the brains
A thousand little streams have helped to swell the tide which has uplifted the sphere of woman's life. The modern novel has added its “winning wave.” Its heroine is no longer an Amanda, a Malvina, or a Melissa, whose dove-like eyes are ever pleading for male protection. She is more often a woman doctor, as in Charles Reade's novel, who saves the life of the hero, or, as in W. D. Howells’ story she is a brave New England girl, who travels from continent to continent, unprotected save by her own honor and her own pride.
The drama speaks too feebly on the right side of the woman question. No modern successful dramatist has made this “humour” of the times the subject of his play. An effort was made in 1879, by the executive committee of the New England Woman Suffrage Association, to secure
“The play's the thing,
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.”
In summing up this brief history of the part taken by Massachusetts in the woman's rights movement, it would be needless to add that the cause is steadily advancing. Never, in the history of civilization, has woman held the political, legal or social position that she does in Massachusetts to-day! New avenues of employment for her capacity are constantly opening, and in every department of public trust to which she has been promoted, she has shown her ability. In this first hour of woman's triumph, it only remains for her to keep what she has gained, and use faithfully the new privileges which have come into her life.
Being a woman, or because she is a woman, is no longer any reason why she cannot do the thing for
Trained leaders are needed—women strong of purpose, who are willing to confront the public as presiding officers, or as public speakers, and to guide wisely the large masses of their sex who have not yet learned to think for themselves. They have too long been led in flocks, like sheep; the time has come for better leadership.
More educated women doctors are needed; more lawyers, preachers, professors and teachers in the higher grades of schools and in laboratories. More women are called for who will be
More plucky women who understand the law and know how to use the newly-acquired “inalienable right of all American citizens,” are needed to go to the assessor's office, to the caucus, and to the polls. More women are needed in the “fourth estate,”—not only as novelists, story-tellers, or journalists, but also as writers on ethical, moral and social questions, as dramatists, and as the biographers of their own sex. Historians are needed, who shall give the record of nations and events from the woman's standpoint, and include in the story of a people that which is often ignored,—the part taken by their sex in the occurrences of the times. Historians also are needed who will expose to public execration the woman side in the horrors of war, and who will give to future generations a fairer estimate
To sum up the progress of the woman movement in all parts of the civilized world, it is well to begin with the record of its advance in our own country. Massachusetts is by no means ahead in the march of this great reform. Other states in the Union have more than kept pace with her, and many of them have made laws to improve the legal and social condition of woman. School Suffrage laws have been enacted in New Hampshire, Vermont,
Constitutional amendments giving women the right of suffrage, have just been passed by the Legislatures of Oregon, Nebraska and Indiana. Western Woman's Journal,
whose motto is, “An aristocracy of sex is repugnant to a republic.”
In Indiana, a bill securing presidential suffrage to women came within a few votes of passing the House of Representatives. In the same progressive and wide-awake State women hold many prominent positions. Mrs. Emma A. Winsom has just been elected State librarian. In Iowa a woman has held this office since 1870. The present incumbent is Mrs. S. B. Maxwell. In other states where the suffrage question is not
Maine and Minnesota have each made efforts to amend their constitutions, so that the women can exercise the full right of suffrage. California and Pennsylvania are asking for presidential suffrage. Rhode Island and Connecticut are both working for school suffrage. Michigan and Iowa are working steadily for woman's rights as a citizen of their own go-ahead states. In the Wisconsin Legislature, a Woman Suffrage amendment to the State constitution was, by a very close vote, recently defeated. Missouri has just begun to deliberate on the Woman Suffrage question. Bright little Kansas, a State rooted in principle and always on the right side, is asking for full suffrage for its women citizens. In this State husband and wife have the same property rights, and the same rights in
In Wyoming Territory women have enjoyed all the political rights, privileges and responsibilities of men for the past eleven years, and they vote as regularly at the elections. The verdict of the leading newspaper in the State, on woman's voting, is this: “Not a solitary instance has ever occurred in which the exercise of their rights has been productive of any evil results. ** There can't be found a man in Wyoming to-day who is opposed to, or dissatisfied with the result of Woman Suffrage.” In Utah Territory women vote under certain conditions. In far distant Omaha, the voices of the women send this message
Even the American Indian, as early as 1870, began to scent the trail of the woman's rights movements, and in one tribe—the Otoe—many of the squaws refused to do all the work, declaring that they would not cook for the men unless they helped them do some of the work around the wigwams. In 1880, Bright Eyes, an Indian maiden, was sent to Washington by one of the most powerful tribes on the continent—the Poncas—to represent to the Government the rights and the wrongs of her people. Does not the world move?
The echoes of the 1850 convention, held in Massachusetts and in Ohio, travelled across the ocean, and the answer came back from England. Woman Suffrage or Woman's Rights under the law had never been heard of there until that time,
A great Suffrage meeting was held in Birmingham in February, 1881, which was attended by over 4,000 persons. A women presided, and women speakers alone addressed the vast audience. The chief subject of discussion was the recognition by government of woman's claims to the parliamentary franchise. In England, women rate payers have the right to vote in all local elections of poor-law guardians, church-wardens,
On the London school board, nine women serve as members and two as salaried officers; and by a vote of the Board, in 1881, women are eligible to the office of school inspector. In many parts of England, property-holding women can vote under certain restrictions. The Married Woman's Property Bill, presented to Parliament in March 1881, provides for a thorough change in the condition of the women of England as regards property rights. Under its provisions woman is treated as reasonable being, and not as an infant incapable of making a bargain, or fulfilling a contract save through her husband's sanction. When this bill becomes a law, the legal subjection of English women will be at an end, so far as money matters go.
The
London Athenæum,
in a recent number, stated that a memorial was being prepared by an influential committee of the non-resident members of the Senate of the Cambridge University,
Since the first chapters of this book went to press, the great news has come from England that Cambridge University has opened her gates, broadly, freely and without barriers of any kind, to all women who desire to become co-students with men. In March 1881, the senate of Cambridge University by a large vote (398 to 32) decided to admit women students of Girton and Newnham to be formally examined and classified among the candidates for honors. Residence is allowed to such students in two of the college buildings, or within the precincts of the University. This is a great event in the history of the struggle for equal educational privileges for women and men.
Scotland is active in the Woman Suffrage
In the Isle of Man a bill with certain property qualifications, giving Suffrage to women, passed the House of Keys; and January 5, 1881, Queen Victoria in council gave her royal assent, thus establishing the principle of Woman Suffrage in parliamentary government within the British Islands. The act at once came into force and was formally promulgated on Tynwald Hill,
* “Once on the top of Tynwald's formal mound (Still marked with green turf circles narrowing Stage above stage) would sit this Island's King, The laws to promulgate, enrobed and crowned.”
Wordsworth.
The echoes of the American Conventions travelled far beyond the mother country, and have since reverberated from all parts of the civilized world. In France the Suffrage Movement
The subjects discussed at the different sessions were:
1st. Historical, or woman's condition as presented by history. 2d. Educational, and all hygienic questions touching women and children. 3d. Woman's Work and Wages. 4th. Woman's Position before the Law.
In the 16th century, when Francoise De Saintonges made an attempt to found schools for the girls of France, she was hooted in the streets; and her father thought she must be possessed of demons, to think of such a thing as educating women. To-day, France has established intermediate schools, and Henri Martin, the historian, is projecting a series of colleges all over the country, for the higher education of French girls.
The Sorbonne long ago opened its lecture rooms to classes composed entirely of young girls under twenty years of age. The Sorbonne, or university of Paris, is the greatest literary institution in France. As early as 1878, it conferred the degree of A. B. upon women students. A French lady, Hubertine Auclert, an advocate of woman suffrage, lately refused to pay taxes, urging that as women are not allowed to vote, it was unjust that they should be taxed. Her furniture was seized, and the majesty of the law was
In February 1881, a great Convention was held at the Sala Dante in Rome, to agitate the question of Universal Suffrage. At this convention the claims of women were earnestly presented. Two women only—Elena Burelli and Signora Anna Maria Mozzoni—had seats as delegates. After some opposition on the part of the convention, resolutions were passed asserting the right of all Italian men and women to become voters. The passage of the resolution in which women were included, was due in great part to the persistent eloquence of Signora Mozzoni.
In Sweden, the old university town of Upsala, in 1859, granted the right of Suffrage to fifty women owning real estate, and to thirty-one doing
In St. Petersburg, Russia, at the first election for a municipal council, in 1881, all property-owning women were allowed to vote.
Spain, almost the last country from which one might expect to hear good news on the woman question, has just admitted women to lectures and degrees in her colleges. This was accomplished in spite of vigorous opposition on the part of members of the Superior Council of Education. Many women students won prizes and honors during 1880 in some of the Spanish universities.
Municipal suffrage is exercised by the women of Cape Colony, in Africa. New Zealand and Australia, have each made efforts to secure political rights and a higher education for women.
In India an attempt has been made to abolish the Zenana system, and in both these countries the women themselves are struggling to be released from their degrading condition of servitude. Round the world from far Bombay comes a letter, in March, 1881, in which the writers says: “Bombay allows its women to vote on the same terms with its men, in the regulation and control of its municipal affairs.” As early as 1870, said Lydia Maria Child, the suffrage movement was felt in Asia, some action being taken there to free the women from the iron rule of their Mussulman husbands. From far-away Japan, not long ago came the news that window Kusanoe Kita had refused to pay her taxes, because she considered it “an injustice to be required to pay equal taxes with other heads of families when equal rights were not granted.”
Even in the harems of Turkey the women are beginning to assemble to listen to speakers from another country, who have brought to them a doctrine not found in the religion of Mahomet,—the doctrine that they have souls, the same as their masters, and that the time has come for their deliverance from moral and intellectual slavery.
The most hopeful sign of the continued success of this great reform, is found in the fact that the women themselves, of all nations, are getting ready to work for their own emancipation from the bondage of centuries. The women are “up in America, and they are already past their first sleep in Peria.” For them the hour has indeed struck, the morning light has dawned, and they are forever awakened to freedom and to independence.
This
little book is worthy of mention, from the fact that it is probably the first publication of its kind in Massachusetts, if not in America. The whole title of the book is, “Observations on the Rights of Women, with their appropriate duties agreeable to Scripture, reason and common sense.” Mrs. Crocker, in her introduction, says—“The wise author of Nature has endowed the female mind with equal powers and faculties, and given them the same right of judging and acting for themselves as he gave male sex.” She further argues that, “According to Scripture, woman was the first to transgress and thus forfeited her original right of equality, and for a time was under the yoke of bondage, till the birth of our blessed Saviour, when she was restored to her equality with man.”
This is a very fine beginning, and would seem to savor strongly of the modern woman's rights doctrine; but, unfortunately, the author, with charming inconsistency, goes on to say,—“We shall strictly adhere to the principle of the impropriety of females ever trespassing on masculine grounds: as it is morally incorrect, and physically improper.” In the book itself, the author cities with admiration many illustrious women who have “trespassed on masculine ground.” Among them are Zenobia, Jane of Flanders, Elizabeth of England, and Oberach, queen of
When
the American Anti-Slavery Society was formed, in 1833, some of the women present at the meeting made speeches, and the convention passed a vote of thanks to women for their zeal and interest in the cause. This society always encouraged women to speak against slavery, and it did not disapprove of their serving as officers of town or county societies.
In 1835, the society wished to delegate Mrs. Lydia Maria Child to visit England in the interests of the Anti-Slavery cause, and in 1837 it endeavored to secure her services as travelling lecture agent. The same year it offered the Misses Grimké a commission to enter the field as lecturers upon the evils of slavery. Previous to 1838, Abby Kelley had been speaking on the platform of women's Anti-Slavery meetings, but in that year as agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society, she came before public audiences composed of both men and women.
At the sixth annual meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society, in May, 1839, an attempt was made for the first time to exclude women from active membership.
* “It chanced (Almighty God that chance did guide).”
[Spenser's a Faerie Queens.]
The World's Anti-Slavery Convention was first projected by the English abolitionists. When the American Anti-Slavery Society was invited to send delegates, it responded by adopting the following resolutions, offered by David Lee Child; at its annual meeting held in New York, May 12th, 1840:
“Resolved:
That the American Anti-Slavery Society regards with heartfelt interest the design of the ‘World's Convention’ about to assemble in London, and anticipates from its labors a powerful and blessed influence upon the condition and prospects of the victims of Slavery and prejudice, wherever they are found.
“Resolved:
That our beloved friends, William Lloyd Garrison, Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, Charles Lenox Remond, and Lucretia Mott, be and they hereby are appointed delegates, to represent this Society in the said Convention, and we heartily commend them to the confidence and love of the universal abolition fraternity.
“Resolved:
That the Anti-Slavery enterprise is the cause of universal humanity, and as such, legitimately calls together the
world's convention,
—and that this Society equal, brotherhood
of the entire
human family,
without distinction of color, sex, or clime.”
The delegates from other anti-slavery societies in the United States, were George Bradburn, Wendell Phillips, Ann Greene Phillips, Henry B. Stanton, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Professor William Adam, Rev. Henry Colver, Rev. Nathaniel Greene. Rev. Eben Galusha, James Mott, James G. Birney, C. Edwards Lester, Sarah Pugh, Mary Grew, Elizabeth T. Neale, (now Mrs. Sidney Howard Gay), Emily Winslow Taylor, Col. J. P. Miller, Isaac Winslow, Abby Kimber, Abby Southwick, Rev. Henry Grew, and perhaps others.
Seven of these delegates had arrived early, and on finding that the women of their number were not to be admitted to their seats in the Convention, they framed a protest against such exclusion. These were Professor William Adam, James Mott, C. E. Lester, Isaac Winslow, Wendell Phillips, Jonathan P. Miller, and George Bradburn. Mr. Garrison, in his report read at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, in January, 1841, gave a brief account of this “conference,” as he called it; for, true to his principles on the question of the equality of human rights, he would not call a meeting in which women had no recognized part, a “World's Convention.” He said:
“Though such a Convention was called, no such Convention was held. The Committee of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society declared the meeting to be a mere ‘Conference’ with themselves, and in fact prescribed its rules and regulations, etc., etc. * * * The American, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania Societies chose as their representatives, among others, certain women of great moral worth, intelligence and philanthropy; but these were
“Messrs. Garrison, Rogers, Remond and Adam, delegates to the convention, did not arrive in season to participate in the discussion. On ascertaining, however, what that body had done, they very properly refused to become members of it, and accordingly took their seats in the gallery.”
Dr. John Bowring and William H. Ashurst were English abolitionists. Some of the English abolitionists did not take Mr. Garrison's view of the equality of human rights, and one of them gave to the world his private opinion of this “woman intruding delusion,” of which the following is an extract:
CAPTAIN CHARLES STUART'S PRIVATE CIRCULAR.
“In December, 1833, an Anti-Slavery Society was formed in the United States of North America. The demand for it was extreme, for the Slave system of the United States was the most desperately corrupt and ferocious which existed. The principles and objects of the Anti-Slavery Society thus formed were eminently excellent, and the means which it adopted for the attainment of its glorious object were perfectly in keeping, for the
first four years,
with its noble principles.
“But, in the course of 1837,
new
opinion began to be broached, and one of these gradually assumed the position that ‘whatever is morally right for a
man
to do, is morally right for a
woman
to do,’ and, therefore, women ought to be intruded as delegates, debaters and managers, into mixed societies of men and women. This insane innovation, at first, had so dubious a form, that its real character scarcely appeared; but as soon as this became evident, it was vigorously resisted. Resistance, however, only new truth,
as they call it, quickly assumed such importance in their eyes and was so offensively intruded by them into all the proceedings of the Society, that
they
who conscientiously resisted it had no alternative but to submit to it or to separate themselves. I was one of the many who preferred the latter alternative without hesitation. The separation took place early in 1840; that of the leading Society in New York in May, 1840. At the division on the question, the Innovators were found the most numerous, and of course, the original name of ‘The
American
Anti-Slavery Society’ remained with them. But they who rejected the innovation, having fewer votes present, took a new name,—‘The
American
and
Foreign
Anti-Slavery Society.’
“Under these circumstances, the
American—or woman-intruding
—Anti-Slavery Society sends Agents to this country, Messrs
Collins
and
Remond,
to beg our money. But let us remember that, whatever countenance we give to these gentlemen, or this agency, will go more directly to strengthen a pernicious party in the United States than to aid the general cause of Abolition. The errors of the advocates of justice are often more ruinous to righteousness than all the hostility of open enemies. By such aid Britain would be identified, as far as it goes, with the rhapsodists of the United States; and the sacred and powerful influence exercised so nobly and so beneficially by the late London Convention, is decidedly and at once rejecting the woman-intruding delusion, would be paralyzed or lost,—liberty would be wounded anew by the blunders of her friends,—while they who love her more sanely, and who plead her cause unentangled with the snare, would be enfeebled by the encouragement given to the dogmatism and delusions of their adversaries.”
The “rhapsodists of the United States,” came after this
The
Lowell Offering
was first published in 1840, by Abel C. Thomas, pastor of a Universities Church in Lowell Massachusetts. In the second number of the magazine is an account of a social meeting of the young people of his parish, called the Improvement Circle. The members of this Circle, most of them operatives in the Lowell mills, were required to furnish original contributions to be read at the meetings. These were in prose and in verse, and were so well written and accumulated so fast, that Mr. Thomas, into whose hands they were entrusted, conceived the idea of publishing them. To this gentleman must be given the credit of bringing before these productions; and too much honor cannot be awarded to him for believing in the capabilities of the young people under his charge, and for utilizing the talent which he found. Mr. Thomas, who has recently died, little thought, perhaps, what would be the result of his efforts to encourage the young people of his church and community to express their thoughts on paper. But for his Improvement Circle, the
Lowell Offering
might never have been heard of, and
Mr. Thomas conducted the
Offering
for two years. Then he left Lowell for another parish, and it passed into the hands of Miss Harriet Farley and Miss Harriot F. Curtis, both operatives in the Lowell mills. Under their joint editorship the magazine, which never paid expenses, lasted till 1849, when it was discontinued, for want of means, and perhaps “new contributors.” The
Offering
was a small, thin magazine, with one column to the page. On the outside cover, in 1845, it had for a vignette a young girl, simply dressed, with feet visible and sleeves rolled up. She had a book in one hand her shawl and bonnet were thrown over her arm. She was represented as standing in a very sentimental attitude, contemplating a bee-hive on her right hand. In the background, as if to shut them from her thoughts, was a row of factories. The motto was:
“The worm on the earth
May look up to the star.”
This was rather an attempt motto and one not suited to the independent spirit of most of the contributors. A better one was son adopted, from Gary—the verse beginning:
“Full many a gem of purest ray serene.”
It finally died under the motto:
“Is Saul also among the prophets?”
When Dickens visited this country, in 1842, he went into the Lowell factories, and a copy of the
Offering
was presented to him. He speaks of it as follows:
“They have got up among themselves a periodical, called the
Lowell Offering,
whereof I brought away from Lowell four hundred good solid pages, which I have real from Lowell Offering,
as a literary production, I will only observe—putting out of sight the fact of the articles having been written by these girls after the arduous hours of the day—that it will compare advantageously with a greatly many English annuals.” Selections from the
Offering
were printed in England, under the auspices of Harriet Martineau, who was very much interested in the publication. The volume was called “Mind among the Spindles.”
The magazine was favorably received by the press generally. Even the
North American Review,
whose literary
dictum
was more autocratic than it is to-day, expressed a fair opinion of its literary merit. It said:—
“Many of the articles are such as to satisfy the reader at once, that if he has only taken up the
Offering
as a phenomenon, and not as what may bear criticism and reward perusal, he has to own his error, and dismiss his condescension as soon as may be.” This good opinion of the literary merits of the articles was, perhaps, due to the fact, that at this era of American magazine literature, what a writer had to say was of much importance to the critic than the position of the predicate in his sentences, or the peculiar style of English in which they might happen to be written. The fact was often disputed that a “factory girl” could write for or edit a magazine,—since she had hitherto been considered little better than the loom or frame she tended. Enquiries on the subject came to the editors from different parts of the country, and questions like the following were often put to them: “Do the factory girl really
write
the articles published in the
Offering?”
or, “Do you print them just as they are sent:” or “Do you revise or re-write them?” In the preface to the first volume, the editor answered these questions. He says:—” The articles are all written by factory girls, and
we do not
revise or re-write them. We have taken less liberty with them than editors usually take—with other than the most experienced writers.” In spite of this assertion one
of the numbers so designated.
As an excuse for any of the literary demerits of the magazine, the editor said to the critics,—“In estimating the talent of the writers of the
Offering,
the fact should be remembered that they are actively employed in the mills for more than twelve hours a day; and critics must be sensible that a day of constant manual labor though not excessive, must in some measure unfit the individual for full mental development. The productions in this volume will show how much of thought and aspiration is to be found among a class of people of whom little has been known.” William Schouler of the
Lowell Journal
published the
Offering
in 1845, and his young sub-editor William S. Robinson wrote favorable notices of the magazine, and when he could do so, without letting “the editor step aside to make way for the friend,” sometimes admitted its writers into the columns of that leading Whig newspaper. It may be added here, that this gentleman, in his zeal for the writers of the
Lowell Offering
went so far as to take one of the least known among them as his companion for life.
The contributions to the
Offering
were upon a great variety of subjects. Allegories, conversations on Physiology, Astronomy, and other scientific subjects; dissertations on poetry; the beauties of nature, flowers, etc,; didactic pieces on highly moral and “pious” subjects; translations from French and Latin; poems; stories of factory and other life; sketches of local New England history,—and sometimes the chapters of a novel, ran through its pages. The criticism was often made, that the operatives wrote too much on the “Beauties of Nature.” To this, one of
“And be sure the all-loving Nature
Will smile in a factory.”
The same author (in 1840) wrote an article on “Woman's Rights,” in which were so many familiar arguments in favor of the equality of the sexes, that it might have been the production of the pen of Lucy Stone or Elizabeth Cady Stanton, but for this difference, that, though the writer felt sure of her ground, she was too timid to maintain it against the world-,—and towards the end throws out the query, “whether public life is, after all, woman's most appropriate and congenial sphere?” It is a curious coincidence, that at this date the Anti-Slavery party, the great party of freedom and equality, was at the point of division on this very question.
There is a certain flavor in all the
Lowell Offering
writings, both in prose and verse, which reminds one of the books read by the authors and the models they followed in their compositions. The poetry savors of Mrs. Sigourney, Mrs. Hemans, Miss Landon, Mrs. Barbauld, Milton, Pope, Cowper, and Hannah More. Byron's sardonic vein is copied by one or two of the most independent minds among them. It must be remembered that this was before the age of American poetry, and that the laurels of Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, and Holmes had yet only budded. When the poems of Longfellow and Whittier came out,
The prose models of writing were “The Spectator,” “Miss Sedgwick's Letters,” “The Vicar of Wakefield,” “The Lady of the Manor,” Lydia Maria Child's writings, “Stephens's Travels in Yucatan, Mexico, etc,” and Sunday School books. Novels and dramatic writings were tabooed, by the puritanical spirit which controlled the daily walk of the average New England girl; even Walter Scott and Shakespeare were under the ban of the evangelical churches at this time. But the more free-thinking of them, who had wandered a little from the fold, towards the Unitarian or Universalist churches, took from the circulating library and read with delight such novels as “Evelina,” “Alonzo and Melissa,” “The Three Spaniards,” “Charlotte Temple,” “Eliza Wharton,” “Maria Monk,” “The Children of the Abbey,” “The Arabian Nights,” and “Abellino, the Bravo of Venice.” They also read the novels of Walter Scott, Captain Marryatt, Bulwer, William and Mary Howitt, Miss Bremer, and (as soon as he appeared) Dickens. Harriet Beecher Stowe was at that time busy taking care of her children, and the Great American novel was not yet born.
The factory girls were also omnivorous readers of the daily and weekly newspapers. From an article on this phase of subject in the
Offering
—“Our Household,” I am able to quote a sketch of one factory boarding-house “interior.” The author said,—“In our house there are eleven boarders, and thirteen in all the members of the family. I will class them according to their religious tenets as follows: Calvinist, Baptist, Unitarian, Congregational, Boston Daily Times,
the
Herald of Freedom,
the
Signs of the Times
and the
Christian Herald,
two copies each; the
Christian Register, Vox Populi, Literary Souvenir, Boston Pilot, Young Catholic's Friend, Star of Bethlehem
and the
Lowell Offering,
three copies each. A magazine [perhaps the
Dial
] one copy. We also borrow regularly the
Non Resistant,
the
Liberator,
the
Ladies’ Book,
the
Ladies’ Pearl
and the
Ladies’ Companion
. We have also in the house what perhaps cannot be found anywhere else in the city of Lowell,_mdash;a Mormon Bible.”
The names of the
Lowell Offering
writers, so far as I have been able to recall them are, as follows: Harriot F. Curtis and Harriet Farley, (the editors from 1842 to 1849), Harriet Lees, Lucy Larcom and Emeline Larcom, (sisters) Lura, Louisa and Maria Currier, (sisters), Margaret Foley, Lydia S. Hall, Sarah E. Martin, J. L. Baker, Abba Goddard, Harriet Jane Hanson, M. Bryant, Laura Tay, Jane S. Welch, Sarah Shedd, M. R. Green, Mary A. Leonard, Ellen M. Smith, M. A. Dodge, Caroline Whitney, E. W. Jennings, Betsey Chamberlain, Eliza J. Cate, A. H. Winship, Hannah Johnson, Mrs. Kimball, Adeline Bradley, L. A. Choate, A. E. Wilson, Sarah Bagley, Ann Carter, J. B. Hamilton, E. E. Turner, Hannah Johnson, A. D. Turner and Kate Clapp. Many of the writers signed fictitious names,—such as Ella, Adelaide, Dorcas, Aramantha, Stella, Kate, Oriana, Ione, Annaline, and Ruth Rover. Lucy Larcom, M. Bryant, Harriet Farley, Margaret Foley and Lydia S. Hall were the poets of the magazine. Lucy Larcom published her first poem in the
Offering,
in 1842. It was called “The River.” It is almost superfluous to say that Miss Larcom and Miss Foley long since became celebrated: one as a poet, and the other as a sculptor of rare merit.
In her poem, “An Idyl of Work,” Miss Larcom, in her most graceful and popular style tells the story of her life as a Lowell factory girl. Harriot F. Curtis was a prolific writer for newspapers and magazines under the pseudonyme of “Minnie Myrtle” (a
non de plume
afterwards appropriated by a Mrs. Anna C. Johnson, for which see Wheeler's “Dictionary of Noted Names of Fiction.” Miss Curtis published a book called “S. S. Philosophy,” and two popular novels,—“Kate in Search of a Husband,” and “Jessie's Flirtations.” This last still holds its original place in the advertising list of Harper's Select Library of Novels. Harriet Farley wrote and published several books. Harriet J. Hanson Robinson published a book in 1877,—“Warrington Pen Portraits.” It is rumored that there are others of the
Offering
writers who have published books, but I have been made unable so far to gather any reliable information on the subject.
Not many of the lesser lights continued to write after their contribution were no longer in demand for the
Offering
. Many of the writers graduated from the Lowell factories into other positions. A few went as missionaries to foreign countries. Some became teachers in Massachusetts and in other states. Here and there one became a minister, a physician or an artist. Lydia S. Hall, one of the most self-reliant among them, went out as a missionary to the Choctaws, and in “Border-Ruffian” days lived in Kansas. She afterwards went to Washington as clerk in the Treasury Department, and studied law at the same time.
Many of the Lowell factory girls made good “matches;” almost as good as if they had not worked for a living. They married men of all trades and professions, some of whom afterwards became Major Generals, Doctors of Divinity, and even members of Congress. These women as a rule made good wives and mothers, and they were not above doing their own housework and taking care of their children. Some of these children have added greatly to the business and mental stamina of their day and generation. A few of told
in the children, and helped to equip them to fight well the battle of life.
In 1849, the time foretold by one of the early writers of the
Lowell Offering
had come. She had,—“Should the time arrive when the great congregation of operatives will cause a reduction of wages, the inducement to come here will be withdrawn.” The great influx of the foreign element had caused this reduction, and changed entirely the tone of Lowell factory society. The class from which the
Offering
writers had been drawn, came no more to the “city of spindles,” and the magazine became a thing of the past. No effort was ever made to repeat the experiment, and it would not have been successful if it had been made: since the class of operatives now employed in manufacturing towns and cities is so largely made up of the foreign element, whose traditions and tendencies are not quite in a literary direction,—to say the least. It was not so much individual as collective thought and aspiration, that made the Lowell
Offering
possible. The whole Lowell factory community in 1840 was filled with the idea of self-culture and a better education.
In order that the reader may understand the sort of people who composed this Arcadian settlement, it will be well to give a little sketch of it and its surroundings:—
Lowell, in 1835, was little more than a factory village. Help was in great demand, and fabulous stories were told of the new town (formerly Chelmsford) and the high wages offered to all classes of work-people; stories that reached the ears of mechanics and machinists in all parts of New England, gave new life to lonely and dependent women in distant towns and farm houses. Into this Yankee El Dorado the needy people began to pour by the various
A very curious sight these country girls presented to young eyes accustomed to a more modern style of things. When the large covered baggage wagon arrived in front of a “block on the corporation” they would descend from it, dressed in various and outlandish fashions (some of the dresses, perhaps, having served for
best
during two generations) and with their arms brimfull of bandboxes containing all their worldly goods. These country girls, as they were called, had queer names, some of which added to the singularity of their appearance. Samantha, Triphena, Plumy, Elgardy, Leafy, Ruhamah, Lovey, and Florilla were among them. They soon learned the ways of the new
The Lowell factory girls were a simple folk. Many of them were young girls growing up in Arcadian simplicity; earning their bread and often that of others; working twelve hours a day, with three months schooling in a year, and eking out this scanty education with a little help from evening schools; reading such books as were found in the circulating libraries of the day; meeting for mutual improvement and help; striving to be good and to improve the mind; with minds wholly untroubled by conventionalities, or thoughts of class distinction; dressing simply, since they had no time to waste on ruffles or the entanglements of dress. Such were their lives. Undoubtedly there must have been another side of this picture, but the writer speaks of the side she knew best,—the bright side.
The
Lowell Offering
writers were of a little different class from those who came “down from the country.” Some of them were daughters of professional men or teachers, whose mothers, left widows, were struggling to maintain the younger children. Some of them were the daughters of people in reduced circumstances, and had left home “on a visit” to send their wages surreptitiously in aid of the family purse. Some of them were the grand-daughters of patriots who had fought at Bunker Hill, and had lost the family means in the war for independence. There were a few who seemed to have mysterious antecedents, and to be hiding from something; and strange and distinguished looking men and women sometimes came to call upon them. Many farmer's daughters came from the neighboring towns to earn money to complete their wedding outfit, or buy the bride's share of housekeeping articles. But the most prevailing incentive to labor was to secure the means of education for some
male
member of the family. To gentleman
of a brother or a son, to give him a college education, was the dominant thought in the minds of a great many of the better class of operatives. I have known more than one young girl to give every cent of her wages, month after month, to a brother, that he might get the education necessary to enter some profession. I have known women to educate young men by their earnings, who were not sons or relatives. I have known a mother to work years in this way for her boy.
These men, educated by the labor and self-sacrifice of others, sometimes acquired just enough learning to make them look down upon the social position in which their women friends and relatives were still forced to remain. The result to the recipient was often of doubtful value, so far as the development of the affections was concerned. Sometimes the great obligation was forgotten, and Lucy Downing's pitiful story was again repeated in the experience of some lonely and neglected woman. Only in rare instances, to either party did the life-long result of such sacrifice on the part of the women of the family become of permanent and spiritual value!
The average woman of forty years ago was very humble in her notions of the sphere of woman. What if she did hunger and thirst after knowledge? She could do nothing with it even if she could get it. So she made a
fetich
of some male relative, and gave him the mental food for which she herself was starving; and devoted all her energies towards helping him to become what she felt, under better conditions, she herself might have been. It was enough in those early days to be the
mother
or
sister
of somebody. Women were almost as abject in this particular as the Thracian woman of old, who said:
“I am not of the noble Grecian race,
I'm poor Abrotonon, and born in Thrace;
Let the Greek women scorn me, if they please,
I was the mother of Themistocles.”
There were women still left who believe their husbands, vote
for them. They are like some frugal house-mothers, who think there is no need of a dinner if the goodman of the family is not coming home to share it. Just as if the man half of the human family can eat, “learn and inwardly digest,” to make either physical or mental strength for the other half
One word about the foreign element that crept in and destroyed the idyllic life of the Lowell factory operatives. The Englishman came first; the Irishman followed; but not until within a few years has the Frenchman, Italian and German come to take possession of the cotton mills. I remember very well the first foreigner who came to work on a certain Corporation. He brought with him his wife and a large family of boys and girls. The word poverty does not express the condition in which they first appeared before the eyes of the young Lowellians. Not one of the family wore shoes and stockings, or a covering for the head. The children did not look as if they had ever been introduced to a fine comb, or had made the acquaintance of soap and water. They were not clothed in a surplus of finery, and their brogue—who shall describe it? It was a mixture of the
Patois
of the Cockney and the County Cork dialect. At first the whole family lived in a cellar, and people gave them food enough to keep souls and bodies together. The father was a blue-dyer, and soon got work. The mother took in washing, and one after another the children went into the factory. In ten years they owned a small house; and the girls in the family, in the enforced pauses of factory life,
“When the women show that they want to vote, I am willing to give them all the rights they want.”
Give 1 I thought. Where did you get the right to
give
the Massachusetts women the right to vote? You did not inherit it. In what consists your prerogative over the women whose ancestors fought to secure the very right of suffrage of which you so glibly talk, and which neither you, nor your father before you, did anght to establish or maintain? Ah, old friend If you had staid in your own country, you would have followed you father's trade, and would have had no more opportunity for education, or right to the ballot, than you are willing to give to the women. And your delicate hands, that in your eloquent perorations wave away so gracefully the rights of the daughters of your adopted State, would now and forever be indelibly stained with the ancestral tint of the blue-dye pot!
“A Convention will be held at Worcester, Mass., on the 23rd and 24th of October next (agreeably to the appointment of a preliminary meeting held at Boston on the 30th of May last) to consider the question of
Woman's Rights,
Duties
, and
Relations
; and the Men and Women of our country, who feel sufficient interest in the great subject to give an earnest thought and effective effort to its rightful adjustment, are invited to meet each other in free conference, at the time and place appointed.
The upward-tending spirit of the age, busy in a hundred forms of effort for the world's redemption from the sins and sufferings which oppress it, has brought this one, which yields to none in importance and urgency, into distinguished prominence. One half of the race are its immediate objects, and the other half are as deeply involved, by that absolute unity of interest and destiny which nature has established between them.
The neighbor is near enough to involve every human being in a general equality of rights and community of interests; but Men and Women, in their reciprocities of love and duty, are one flesh and one blood—mother, wife, sister and daughter come so near the heart and mind of every man, that they must be either his blessing or his bane. Where there is such mutuality of interests, such an interlinking of life, there can be no real antagonism of position and action. The sexes should not, for any reason, or by any chance, take hostile attitudes toward each other, either in the apprehension or amendment of the wrongs which exist in their necessary relations; but they should harmonize in opinion and coéperate in effort, for the reason that they must unite in the ultimate achievement of the desired reformation.
Of the many points now under discussion and demanding a just settlement, the general question of Woman's Rights and Relations comprehends such as: Her Education, Literary, Scientific and Artistic; Her Avocations, Industrial, Commercial and Professional; Her Interests, Pecuniary, Civil and Political; in a word—her Rights as an individual, and her Functions as a Citizen.
No one will pretend that all these interests, embracing, as they do, all that is not merely animal in a human life, are
Woman has been condemned, from her greater delicacy of physical organization, to inferiority of intellectual and moral culture, and to the forfeiture of great social, civil and religious privileges. In the relation of marriage, she has been ideally annihilated, and actually enslaved in all that concerns her personal and pecuniary rights; and even in widowhood and single life, she is oppressed with such limitation and degradation of labor and avocation as clearly and cruelly mark the condition of a disabled caste. But, by the inspiration of the almighty, the beneficent spirit of reform is roused to the redress of these wrongs. The tyranny which degrades and crushes wives and mother, sits no longer lightly on the world's conscience—the heart's home-worship feels the stain of stooping at a dishonored altar. Manhood begins to feel the shame of muddying the springs from which it draws its highest life; and Womanhood is everywhere awakening to assert its divinely chartered rights, and to fulfill its noblest duties. It is the spirit of reviving truth and righteousness which has moved upon the great deep of the public heart, and aroused its redressing justice; and, through it, the Providence of God is vindicating the order and appointments of his creation.
The signs are encouraging; the time is opportune. Come, then, to this Convention. It is your duty, if you are worthy of your age and country. Give the help of your best thought to separate the light from the darkness. Wisely give the protection of your name and the benefit of your efforts to the great work of setting the principles, devising the method, and achieving the success of this high and holy movement.”
The above call was signed in the following order:
Massachusetts.
—Lucy, Stone, William H. Channing, Harriot K. Hunt, A Bronson Alcott, Nathaniel Barney, Eliza Barney, Wendell Phillips, Ann Greene Phillips, Adin Ballou, Anna Q. T. Parsons, Mary H. L. Cabot, B. S. Treanor, Mary M. Brooks, T. W. Higginson, Mary E. Higginson, emily Winslow, R. Wasdo Emerson, William Lloyd Garrison, Helen E. Garrison, Charles F. Hovey, Sarah Earle, Abby Kelley Foster, Dr. Seth Rogers, Eliza F. Taft, Dr. A.C. Taft, Charles K. Whipple, Mary Bullard, Emma C. Goodwin, Abby H. Price, Thankful Southwick, Eliza J. Kenney, Louisa M. Sewall, Sarah Southwick.
Rhode Island.
—Sarah H. Whitman, Thomas Davis, Paulina Wright Davis, Joseph A. Barker, Sarah Brown, Elizabeth B. Chace, Mary Clarke, John L. Clarke, George Clarke, Mary Adams, George Adams.
New York.
—Gerrit Smith, Nancy Smith, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Catharine Wilkinson, Samuel J. May, Charlotte G. May, Charlotte G. Coffin, Mary G. Taber, Elizabeth S. Miller, Elizabeth Russell, Stephen S. Smiths, Rosa Smith, Joseph Savage, L. N. Fowler, Lydia Fowler, Sarah Smith, Charles D. Miller.
Pennsylvania.
—William Elder, Sarah Elder, Sarah Tyndale, Warner Justice, Jane G. Swisshelm Charlotte Darlington, Simon Barnard, Lucretia Mott, Myra Town-send, Mary Grew, Sarah Lewis, Sarah Pugh, Huldah Justice, William Swisshelm, James Mott, W. S. Pierce, Hannah Darlington, Sarah D. Barnard.
Maryland.
—Eliza Stewart.
Ohio.
—Elizabeth Wilson, Mary A. Johnson, Oliver Johnson, Mary Cowles, Maria L. Giddings, Jane Elizabeth Jones, Benjamin S. Jones, Lucius A. lline Sylvia Cornell.
President,
Paulina W. Davis of Rhode Island.
Vice President,
William H. Channing, of Massachusetts, Sarah Tyndale, of Pennsylvania.
Secretaries,
Hannah M. Darlington, of Pennsylvania, Joseph C. Hathaway, of New York.
Lucretia Mott, Abby H. Price, W. H. Channing, Ernestine L. Rose, abby K. Foster, C. C. Burleigh, Wendell Phillips, J. N. Buffum, S. S. Foster, Harriot k. Hunt, Antoinette L. Brown, Mrs, W. A. Alcott, Sojourner Truth, A. Brown, Frederick Douglass, Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Sarah Tyndale, Martha H. Mowry, Lucy Stone.
Elizabeth C. Stanton, Samuel J. May, L. A. Hine, Elizur Wright, O.S. Fowler, E. A. Lukens, Margaret Chappelsmith, Nancy M. Baird, jane Cowen, Sophia L. Little, Elizabeth Wilson, Maria L. Varney, Mildred A. Spafard, H. M. Weber.
Massachusetts.
—T. B. Elliot, Eliza J. Kenney, M.S. firth, Julia A. McIntyre, Emily Sanford, H. M. Sanford, C.D.M. Lane, Elizabeth Firth, S. C. Sargeant C. A. K. Ball, M. A. Thompson, Lucinda Safford, S. E. Hall, S. D. Holmes, Z. W. Harlow, N. B. Spooner, Ignatius Sargent, A. B. Humphrey, M. R. Hadwen, J. H Shaw, Olive Darling, M. A Walden, A. P. B. Rawson, Nathaniel Barney, Sarah H. Earle, Lewis Ford, J. T. Everett, Loring Moody, Sojourner Truth , Rev. J. G. Forman, Andrew Stone, M.D. Samuel May. Jr., Sarah R. May Charles Brigham, J.T. Partridge, Eliza C. Clapp, Daniel Steward, Sophia Foord, E.A. Clarke, E. H. Taft, Anna E. Ruggles, Mary Abbot, Anna E. Fish, C. G. Munyan, Maria L. Southwick, F. C. Johnson, Thomas Hill, Elizabeth Frail, Eli Belknap, M. M. Frail, Valentine Belknap, Effingham L. Capron, Frances H. Drake, E. M. Dodge, Eliza Barney, Lydia Barney, G. D. Williams, Elizabeth Earle, E. Jane Alden, Elizabeth Dayton, Lima H. Ober, Dorothy Whiting, Emily Whiting, Abigail Morgan, Mary R. Metcalf, R. H. Ober, D. A. Mundy, Dr. S. Rogers, Mrs. E. J. Henshaw, Edward Southwick, E. A. Merrick, Mrs C. Merrick, C. S.
Connecticut.
—C. M. Collins, A. H. Metcalf, Anna Cornell, S. Munroe, Anna E. Price, M. C. Munroe, Martha Smith, Lucius Holmes, Benj. Segur, Buel Picket, Lucy T. Dike, Asa Cutler, C. C. Burleigh, Gertrude R. Burleigh.
Rhode Island.
—Elizabeth B. Chace, Cynthia P. Bliss
Vermont.
—Mrs. A. E. Brown, Mrs. C. I. H. Nichols.
New Hampshire.
—Sarah Pillsbury, P. b. Cogswell, Parker Pillsbury, Ira Foster, Julia Worcester.
Maine.—
Olive Dennett, Anna R. Blake, Ellen M. Prescott.
New York.
—Antoinette L. Brown, Pliny Sexton, Frederick Douglass, Edgar Hicks, J. C. Hathaway, Lucy N. Colman, Ernestine L. Rose, S. H. Hallock, Joseph Carpenter.
Pennsylvania.
—Hannah M. Darlington, Sarah Tyndale, Olive W. Hastings, Rebecca Plumley, S. L. Hastings, Janette Jackson, Anna R. Cox, Phebe Goodwin, Alice Jackson, Jacob Pierce, Lewis E. Capen, S. L. Miller, Isaac L. Miller, Lucretia Mott, Emma Parker.
Ohio.
—Marian Blackwell, Ellen Blackwell, M. A. W. Johnson.
Iowa.
—Silas Smith.
California.
—Mary G. Wright.
Unknown.
—Sophia Taft, Calvin Fairbanks, D. H. Knowlton, Alice H. Easton, E. W. K. Thompson, Mary R. Hubbard, E. J. Alden, Anna T. Draper, Josephine Reglar, Diana W. Ballou, Adeline S. Greene, Silence Bigelow, A. Wyman, L. H. Ober, Aseneth Fuller, Denney M. F. Walker, Eunice D. F. Piece, Elijah Houghton.—82. Total, 268.
In
“Glances and Glimpses,” a book published by Dr. Hunt in 1856, the write gives her own experience at the time she was converted to the doctrine of “no taxation there
I made up my mind to verify my theory by my practice. What so suddenly produced this effect? A pale, thin, waxy, tall, awkward, simple Irish boy, with that vacant stare which speaks of entire negation, and that shuffling manner indicating an errandlike aspect, brought into the Assessors’ office a roll. It was near the time of an election, but I did not think of it. I said pleasantly, ‘Is that paper ;to grant a naturalization?’ I received a polite affirmative. ‘Permit me to look at it?’ ‘Certainly.’ There to my astonishment the above-described
gentleman
was invested with all the privileges of an American citizen. I query whether this Irish boy knew in what state Boston was located, whether in Massachusetts of Mississippi. This circumstances gave me an insight into the injustice of our laws forbidding women to vote, which decided me to pay my taxes next year under protest. Accordingly I sent the following protest:
To Frederick U. Tracy, Treasurer, and the Assessors, and other authorities of the City of Boston, and the citizens generally
Harriot k. Hunt, physicians, a native and permanent resident of the City of Boston, and for many years a tax payer therein, in making payment of her city taxes for the coming year, bags leave to protest against the injustice and inequality of levying taxes upon women, and at the same time refusing them any voice or vote in the imposition and expenditure of the same. The only classes of male persons required to pay taxes and not at the same time allowed the privilege of voting, are aliens and minors. The objection sign
their names, or
read
the very votes they put into the ballot boxes. Even drunkards, felons, idiots, of lunatics of
men
, may still enjoy that right of voting, to which no woman-however large the amount of taxes she pays, however respectable her character or useful her life-can ever attain. Wherein, your remonstrant would inquire, is the justice, equality, or wisdom of this?
That the rights and interests of the female part of the community are sometimes forgotten or disregarded in consequence of their deprivation of political rights, is strikingly evinced, as appears to your remonstrant, in the organization and administration of the city public schools. Though there are open in this State and neighborhood a great multitude of colleges and professional schools, for the education of boys and young men, yet the city has very properly provided two high schools of its own, one Latin, the other English, at which the
male graduates
of the grammar schools may pursue their education still further at the public expense, and why is not a like provision made for the girls? Why is the public provision for
their
education stopped short, just as they have attained the age best fitted for progress, and the preliminary knowledge necessary to facilitate it, thus giving the advantage of superior culture to
sex
, not to mind? The fact that our colleges and professional schools are closed against females, of which degrading dependence
, so fruitful a source of female misery.
Reserving a more full exposition of the subject to future occasions, your remonstrant in paying her tax for the current year, begs leave to
protest
against the injustice and inequalities above pointed out.
This is respectfully submitted,
Harriot K. Hunt,
32 Green Street.
Boston,
October 18, 1852
The protest was copied in many American, as well as some English papers. It elicited inquiry, and many facts were brought to light illustrating the injustice of taxation without representation.”
Dr. Hunt continued to protest every year as long as she lived, and her example was followed by women in Worcester, Plymouth, Lowell, Malden and perhaps in other places. No notice was taken of these protests by the proper authorities to whom they were addressed, but they served their purpose as a means of agitating the Woman's Rights question. The cry, “Taxation without representation is tyranny,” has been ding-donged into the ears of the men of Massachusetts for the last thirty years. By and by, perhaps, they will begin to understand what it means.
Mrs.
Dall's connection with the early Woman's Rights movement in Massachusetts is very important. She held a successful Convention, (not mentioned in the text), June 1st, 1860, at the Meionaon, in Boston. Caroline M. Severance presided, Samuel J. May, R.J. Hinton, Harriet Tubman, Rev. James Freeman Clark, Dr. Mercy B. Jackson, Elizabeth M. Powell, and Wendell Phillips, took part in the discussion. Theodore Parker had recently died in Florence, Italy, and Mrs. Dall made an able address on the work of his life. Mrs. E.D. Cheney offered a resolution on the untimely death of this distinguished reformer. In the evening, Mr. Dall spoke on the influence of law and literature upon the woman movement. So many women of position and culture had already become interested in this question, that this Convention may be called the most aristocratic meeting of the kind held up to that date. Previous to 1860, Mrs. Dall had given a course of twelve lectures in Boston, on the various phases of woman's rights. In them she claimed: 1. Woman's right to civil position. 2. Woman's right to higher education. 3. Woman's right to choice of vocation. 4. Woman's right to self-protection in the elective franchise. A
resume
of these lectures was published in 1868, in book form, called “The College, the Market, and the Court.”
Mrs. Dall's writings did a good work in forming public opinion, and creating interest on the subjects of which she treated. Some of the doctrines she taught had never before been publicly presented to Boston audiences. Her fresh and untrammelled thought was like seed-grain, and it was planted deep, to spring up and bear fruit for the increase of the woman's rights agitation. She made many distinguished converts. On her own authority it may be
Through her special efforts women were first put on the board of Officers of the American and the Boston Social Science Associations, and the result of this action vindicated at once and forever woman's fitness to occupy the same position in all public societies and associations, that man and hitherto claimed for himself alone. Since 1865 the American Social Science Association has admitted women to a position of entire equality, as members, officers, and as speakers at its annual conventions. This has been of great benefit, since it has encouraged women to express themselves in the presence of the wisest men, and enabled them to present to the public the woman side of some great questions.
In
1875 three important woman suffrage conventions were held by the Middlesex County Woman Suffrage Association in the towns of Maiden, Melrose and Concord. These meetings were conducted something after the style of local church conferences. They were well advertised, and many people came to them. A collation was provided by the ladies of each town, and the feast of reason was so judiciously mingled with the triumphs of cookery, that converting to the cause was never done so easily and so harmoniously. Many women present at one or the other of these conventions, said to the president: “I never before
At the Malden convention speeches were made by Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, Mrs. Lucy Stone, Miss Mary F. Eastman, Miss Huldah R. Loud, Henry B. Blackwell, Rev. George H. Vibbert, Rev. S. W. Bush, Rev. D. M. Wilson, and the president of the association, Mrs. Harriet H. Robinson. Letters were received from William Lloyd Garrison, Elizur Wright, Richard P. Hallowell, Bishop Gilbert Haven, Judge Robert C. Pitman, Hon. George F. Hoar and Mrs. Mary A. Livermore. An able set of resolutions, prepared by W. S. Robinson (“Warrington”) was adopted:
Resolved,
That Woman has an equal right with man to the ballot, and that to deprive her of the use of it is an act of usurpation which ought to be immediately discontinued.
Resolved,
That we care not whether the right of Suffrage be called natural and absolute, or conventional, or dependent on capacity, or property, or on any kind of qualification which may be acquired, it is the same in woman as in man; that historically and legally—by Genesis and by the Statutes, this equality is specially recognized.
Resolved,
That the reasons why women were excluded from voting at certain elections (not at all) and upon certain subjects (not upon all) by the framers of the Constitution, are no longer applicable; because, since the year 1780, woman has, in hundreds of instances, individually and in classes, broken over those restraints which were once held to keep her in subordinate positions in the active affairs of life; she teaches, preaches, practices the medical profession, edits newspapers, buys and sells, owns and manages property, and transacts business of all descriptions. The reason for the exclusion of Woman from the Suffrage having vanished, let the spirit and practice of exclusion go with it.
Resolved,
That the presence that Woman should be kept from the ballot-box and the town meeting, because government
Resolved,
That the Legislature of Massachusetts, by persisting in its opposition to the granting of all petitions for the removal of usurping rules and statutes on the subject, is unjust; and that, no matter whether this spirit and practice of injustice be the result of carelessness or ignorance of malice, it is its duty as once to correct it, and no longer to interpose its own will and wilfulness against the demand of justice and the dictates of duty.
Was honored by the presence of Julia E. and Abby H. Smith of Glastonbury, Connecticut. These ladies, who have become famous, because of their resistance to the tyranny of “taxation without representation,” told the story of their operation in the most simple and effective manner. They stood upon the platform, (two gray-haired, sweet-faced ladies, both over seventy years of age, dressed just alike), and were introduced to the large audience. They remained standing; and while one read her carefully-prepared little speech, the other stood near and nodded approval, and, at the right time, reminded her sister of any little point about the sale of the cows that she had omitted, with “Don't you remember, Abby, that he was real rough to Whitey?” or “He said it much stronger than that, Abby.” The story they told is as follows:
Julia E. Smith said: “These two women who have caused such a turmoil in their native place, and who have, as their opponents say, signally disgraced the ancient town of Glastonbury, Ct., now present themselves before you. What have we done? We have merely asserted that it is as wrong to take a woman's property without her consent, as it is to take a man's property without his consent; and we stand to it.
“No man or woman denies this in conversation. For this we have had our pet cows seized and sold at the auction block, our whole meadow land attached, and eleven acres sold for a tax of not quite fifty dollars, worth more than two thousand dollars. For this unlawful deed we tried to get redress, and a prominent and upright citizens of our own town decided in our favor, according to the statute which expressly declares that real estate cannot be taken where personal estate can be found. But these unjust men appealed to the Hartford Court of Common Pleas, and brought us up for three days in the severity of winter, seven miles from our dwelling, and told us that Mr. Briscoe, the regular judge, was sick and we must be tried by George G. Summer, the City Judge. This was wholly false, for Judge Briscoe was hearing another case in the same building, and came in, the second day, and conversed with us. The judge took care to defer his decision two weeks and two days, so that it might be too late to bring the case before the court of errors for the March session, and then promised Mr. Cornwall, our lawyer, to give him the facts in the case. Mr. Cornwall has been obliged to sue the town, the collector and Hardin who has a deed of the meadow land, to bring up the case before the Court of Equity to set aside the deed, and the Court had appointed a committee to take cognizance of the business. But Goslee, the town lawyer, objects to every one, and the Court will be obliged to appoint men of their own place. The whole iniquity has been concocted beforehand, and their contrivance in, for our old enemy to record his deed before the year is up. ex post facto
law passed, as they have done before, to sanction their illegal doings. It may therefore be possible we shall have a furnished house to receive our friends in, till next June.”
These two solitary women, who have not a relative to defend them, seem to stand on so firm a foundation that it requires, to put them down, a whole State and all the authority of a town, who break their own laws, silence the newspapers from speaking of them, change the regular
The cows of the Smith sisters were all sold to pay them taxes on property owned by them, and the town authorities began to sell their land piecemeal. Julia's account of the sale of the cows is told in the introduction to her pamphlet on the subject. There were seven cows in all, at the first sale at the sign-post. Of these, three were afterwards disposed of. The four others, “Daisy, Whitey, Minnie and Proxy, with one other, have been driven to be sold at the auction-block, this centennial year.” A calf belonging to Proxy, came while the mother was shut up for a forced sale at the sign-post, and was named Martha Washington. Another calf that came about the same time to Whitey, was called Abigail Adams.
The new speakers at the Melrose convention, were Hon. Samuel E. Sewall and Mrs. Mary A. Livermore.
Was held about a month after the great Centennial Celebration of April 19, 1875,—a celebration in which no woman belonging to that town took any official part. Nor was there any place of honor found for the more distinguished women who had come long distances to share in the festivities of the day. Some of the women present were descendents of John Hancock, of Benjamin Franklin, of Ezra Ripley, of Samuel Prescott, of Thomas Emerson, and of John Cogswell.
Though no seat of honor in the big tent in which the speeches were made was given to the women of to-day—silent memorials of those who had taken part in the events of one hundred years ago, had found a conspicuous place there—the scissors that cut the immortal cartridges made by the women on the eventful day, and the ancient flag that the finger of some of the mothers of the Revolution had made. Though the Concord women were not permitted to share the Centennial honors, they were not deprived of the privilege of paying their part of the expenses incident to the occasion. To meet these, an increased tax-rate was assessed upon all the property owners in the towns and, since one-fifth of the town tax of Concord is paid by women, it will be easy to estimate this part of their share in the great Centennial celebration of 1876.
The knowledge of the proceedings at Concord added new zest to the spirit of the three conventions, and the events of the day were used by the speakers to point the moral of the Women's Rights question. Lucy Stone made one of her most effective and eloquent speeches upon this subject She said:
“Fellow citizens (I had almost said fellow subjects): What we need is that women should feel their mean position; when that happens, they will soon make an effort to get out of it. Everything is possible to him that wills. All that is needed for the success of the cause of woman suffrage is to have women know that they want to vote. The law in this State classes women, children, idiots and criminals together, because those four classes are not allowed to vote. Concord and Lexington got into a fight about the Centennial, and Concord voted $10,000 for the celebration in order to eclipse Lexington. One-fifth of the tax of Concord is paid by the women, yet not one of these women dared to go to the Town Hall and cast her vote upon that subject. This exactly the same thing which took place one hundred years ago, taxation without representation, against which the
men
of Concord then rebelled
Men of Melrose, Concord and Malden, why persecute us? Would you like to be a slave? Would you like to be disfranchised? Would you like to be bound to respect the laws which you cannot make? There are fifteen millions of women whom the Government denies legal rights. The consent of the government is necessary to a just government. Women are governed, therefore they should have a vote in government. Jeff. Davis was deprived of his right to vote. What have the women of America done that Jeff. Davis should be their peer? Year after year we have been to the State House and pleaded our cause; this year the committee listed to us and gave us a good report, but we were voted down without a word in our defence in the Senate, and only secured a small vote in the House. Half an hour was spent on this vital subject, and the members spent four times that length of time on considering the size of a “barrel of cranberries”; that subject they were capable of grasping. Women, rally together and select and send to Congress and the Legislature the men who have helped you and will truly represent you.”
Mrs. Stone then traced the gradual advancement of women from a state of legal and social degradation to their present position, and exhorted the women to learn to fight for their rights both by argument and persuasion; and ended thus”:
“The fault, dear [sisters], is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
The Concord Convention was well attended; and among the speakers were many of those who had addressed the Malden and Melrose conventions. The new speakers were Ralph Waldo Emerson, A. Bronson Alcott, and Elizabeth K. Churchill.
The experience of the Concord women at the Centennial
The town of Concord has been crowned with many well-deserved honors,
“Tis true,
And pity’ tis. ‘tis true,”
that to these honors must be added this unenviable distinction,—that it was in the beginning, has been and still (in 1883) is the banner town for snubbing women voters!
At
its annual meeting in May 1880, the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association voted to hold a Woman Suffrage Jubilee Convention, and chose the following named persons as a committee of arrangements; Lucy Stone, Abby Kelley Foster, Thomas J. Lothrop, Timothy K. Earle, Sarah E. Wall, Harriet H. Robinson and E. H. Church.
Members of this committee made the necessary arrangements, and at the appointed time the friends gathered at Worcester. There were present not only old workers, but also young and ardent suffragists, who had come to see those whose silver hairs told of long and faithful service. Athol, Boston, Haverhill, Leicester, Leominster, Lowell, Malden, Melrose, Milford, North Brookfield, Taunton, and many other Massachusetts towns were well represented. Suffragists from other states were also there, and letters were read from far away old friends, and those near, who were unable to be present. The oldest ladies there were Mrs. Lydia Brown of Lynn, Mrs. Wilbour of Worcester, and Julia E. Smith Parker of Glastonbury, Connecticut. On the afternoon of the first day there was an informal gathering of friends in the ante-room of Horticultural Hall in Worcester, and the congratulations and glad recognition of old acquaintances were very pleasant to behold. Old time memories were recalled by those who had not seen each other for many years, and the common salutation was: “How gray you've grown!” Many of them had indeed grown gray in the service, and their faces were changed, but made beautiful by a life devoted to a noble purpose.
There were many present who had attended the convention of thirty years ago. Abby Kelley Foster, Lucy Stone, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Paulina Gerry (whose careful all
reforms.
Abby Kelley Foster too was there, feeble with declining years, but ever the “gentle hero,” with the old fire of antislavery times still burning within her. In one part of her speech she had accused the men of being to blame for the political disfranchisement of women; and, turning suddenly to Mr. T. W. Higginson, (who sat near her on the platform) she shook her finger at him and said: “
You
are my enslaver!” Mr. Higginson took the accusation cheerfully, and the audience were delighted at the little scene. It reminded some of the more belligerent among them of the early times in the history of the cause, when the “fight” in Massachusetts was more aggressive than it has since become. The speaking at all the sessions was excellent, and the spirit of the Convention was very reverent and hopeful.
The tone of the press concerning woman's rights meetings had changed greatly since thirty years ago. “Hen conventions” had gone by, and a woman's meeting was now called by its proper name. Representatives of leading newspapers from all parts of the State were presented, and the reports were written in a most just and friendly spirit. The Worcester press was particularly hospitable, and advertised the meetings gratuitously. The
Spy
said: “The convention is one of the best the women have ever held in Worcester.”
Province
Charter, A. D. 1691, 3d year of William and Mary.—“The great and general Court shall consist of the Governor and Council (or assistants for the time being) and of such freeholders as shall be, from time to time, elected or deputed by the major part of the freeholders and other inhabitants of the respective towns or places, who shall be present at such elections.”
Constitution, 1820, Part II, Chap. I, Sect. II, Art. II, gives the right of voting for Senators and Councillors to every
male
habitant at years of age, having a freehold estate
in the Commonwealth
of the annual income of £3, or any estate of the value of £60.
male
).
Constitution, Part II, Chap. I, Sect. III, Art. IV.—Qualification for a voter for Representatives, varies from the above by requiring that the voter shall own a freehold estate within the town where he resides. (Motion in Constitutional Convention to strike out the word
male
).
Constitution, Part II, Chap. 2, Sect. I, Art. III, also Sect. III, Art. I.—The persons who can vote for Senator or Representatives, can vote for Governor and Lieut. Governor. (Motion in Constitutional Convention to strike out the word
male
).
Constitution, Part II, Chap. I, Sect. I, Art. IV.—The Legislature has power to name and settle annually, or provide by fixed laws for the naming and settling, all civil officers within said Commonwealth, the election and constitution of whom are not hereafter in this form of government otherwise provided.
By Statute, 1785, Chap. 75, Sect. II, passed March 23, besides the poll-tax,
a sum equal to two-thirds of a single poll-tax. The selectmen are only required to be inhabitants of the town—not required to be voters.
Statute, 1809, Chap. 25, Sects. II. and III, allows
any persons
who are inhabitants of the towns, and citizens of the United States, who have paid taxes within a town for two years, to vote for town officers.
Statute, 1809, Chap. 39, repeals the foregoing.
Statute, 1811, Chap. 9, Sect. I., allows every
male
citizen of the Commonwealth, 21 years of age, liable to be taxed, who has resided one year in any town, to vote in the election of all town officers.
Constitutional Amendments,1820.—Regulates the right of voting for Governor, Representatives, etc.
Statute, 1822, Chap. 104, Sect. I—The same regulation was adopted in regard to voting at town meetings, as in regard to all other State officers.
1. Women were note excluded from voting from 1691 to 1780.
2. Women were excluded from voting only for certain offices from 1780 to 1785.
3. Three distinct sets of qualifications for voting till 1820.
4. Two distinct sets of qualifications for voting till 1822.
5. Qualifications for voting for town officers
more liberal
than for Governor and Legislature.
6. Qualifications for voting for
all
State, county and town officers, were first made uniform by Statute in 1822, and may be again enlarged by Statute, except where specified in the Constitution.
[Under the Province Charter, 1695-96, all self-supporting single women were obliged to pay a poll tax of two shillings each, except such as through age or extreme poverty were unable to do so.]
The
first Hearing on the question of woman's rights in Massachusetts, so far as I have been able to learn, was before the Committee on the Qualifications of Voters, of the Constitutional Conventional, June 3, 1853. This Hearing was held in answer to the 2,000 petitioners, who had asked for the recognition of woman's legal and property rights in the proposed amendments to the Constitution of the state. The Committee was addressed by Lucy Stone, Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips and Thomas W. Higginson. An appeal to the citizens of Massachusetts, from the petitioners, had been issued in April 1853, in which woman's right to property and political equality was ably presented. This appeal was signed by Abby May Alcott, Abby Kelley Foster, Lucy Stone, Thomas W. Higginson, Anne Greene Phillips, Wendell Phillips, Anna Q. T. Parsons, Theodore Parker, William I. Bowditch, Samuel E. Sewall, Ellis Gray Loring, Charles K. Whipple, William Lloyd Garrison, Harriot K. Hunt, Thomas T. Stone, John W. Browne, Francis Jackson, Josiah F. Flagg, Mary Flagg, Elizabeth Smith, Eliza Barney, Abby II. Price, William C. Nell, Samuel May Jr., Robert F. Walcott, Robert Morris and A. Bronson Alcott.
In 1857 a Hearing was held before the Committee on the Judiciary of the Massachusetts Legislature to listen to
Another Hearing was held in the same place in February, 1858, before the Joint Special Committee on the Qualifications of Voters. In one of “Washington's” letters to the
New York Tribune
the following account of this Hearing is given: “Among the speakers were Mr. Phillips, Mr. Samuel E. Sewall, Harriot K. Hunt, M. D., and others. The Committee aforesaid were giving a hearing to the petitioners for the extension of the right of suffrage to women. One of the petitioners is Sarah E. Wall of Worcester, who, like Dr. Hunt and Lucy Stone, is a ‘taxpayer,’ and who now petitions the Legislature, as she says, ‘for the third and last time,’ in behalf of the great principle that taxation and representation are inseparable. She argues the question, and winds up by saying:
‘We do not expect to remedy all the evils of society, or that the defects of woman will be speedily corrected; she will commit her follies still, as man does; she will sometimes make a mistake in voting, as many wise men have done; but with all her follies, and all her mistakes, she cannot possibly bring on the country a more perverted state of the moral atmosphere than the present, or a worse financial crisis than that through which we are now passing. We do not send our petitions to you year after year, merely for you to report “leave to withdraw;” we demand action, immediate action. If it cannot be done in the name of affection, in the name of justice it
must
be done. If, in the absence of every argument, after the removal of every objection, you still persist in refusing her appeal, but one step remains for her to take, and that is, to refuse to pay taxes, and she will do it.’
Dr. Hunt gave the Committee, and the men generally, a
Mr. Phillips, in opening his speech, said woman's influence ought to be recognized. She exerts her due share of power, but this power is irresponsible. All unseen power is dangerous. The whole question was in fact yielded when the schools were opened. The Turk says, woman has no soul; books, thoughts, do not belong to her; they keep her in the harem. But Western Europe recognizes her mind, but it there stops at an artificial barrier. Men were so stopped when they asked to be allowed to vote, and the struggle is now going on for that right. We ask you to reform symmetrically. Voting follows property. When property went to the middle classes, they overthrew the thrones. Our fathers said women should not have property. But all this is changed. When you made the change in the laws as to property, you granted all that we asked. Do you say that woman has not sufficient ability to vote? You don't vote on ability. Webster has not a hundred votes and the inferior man one. All are alike. If woman has ability enough to entitle her to be tried, and to be sent to prison, she has ability enough to vote. If she has not ability enough to make laws, she has not enough to be punished for breaking them.
Brougham has said, within a year, that the legislation of England in relation to woman is a disgrace to the statute book of any country. We don't care what woman's ability is; we cannot know until the field is opened to her. She has the same qualities of mind as large classes of men. So long as government takes from woman a part of her labor in taxes, it is bound to place in her hands the ballot. There is no ground of opposition to this claim but the ground of
A second Hearing on the right of suffrage for women was held the following week before the same committee. Thomas W. Higginson made an address and Caroline Healey Dall read an essay “which,” wrote “Warrington,” “was not only very eloquently written but, in which also, the question was very ably argued.”
In 1858, Stephen A. Chase of Salem from the same
Since 1849, when the first petition for woman suffrage was presented to the Legislature, a great deal of hard work had been done every year in circulating petitions for this cause. These petitions were usually carried about by women who went from house to house to get the names of signers; and they were often snubbed for their pains by their neighbors and townsmen, and hooted at as an “old woman's rights” by the boys in the streets. These devoted women did the drudgery, endured the hardships, and suffered the humiliations attendant upon the early history of our cause; but their names are forgotten, and we, the eleventh hour people, reap the benefit of their labors. These silent workers were so modest and so anxious for the success of their petitions, that they never put their own names at the head of the list, but rather secured that of some leading person, so that others seeing his name might be induced to follow his example. In legislative documents a petition is recorded as, “The petition of John Smith and [so many] others.” Thus it happens that “John Smith,” who perhaps cared very little about the thing petitioned for, is the only name to be found in the records, while “Mary Jones,” who circulated the petition and is deeply interested in the cause it represents, is irretrievably lost among the “others.”
Among the earliest of these silent workers for the woman's rights cause may be mentioned Mary Upton Ferrin. In the “History of Woman Suffrage” she is spoken of as follows: “The first change in the tyrannous laws of Massachusetts was really due to the work of this one woman, Mary Upton Ferrin, who for six years, after her own quaint method, poured the hot shot of her earnest conviction of woman's wrongs into the Legislature. In circulating petitions, she travelled six hundred miles, two thirds of this distance on foot. Much money was expended besides her time and travel, and her name should be remembered as that of one of the brave pioneers of the work.” Mrs. Ferrin's petitions were for a change in the laws concerning the property rights of married women, and for the political and legal rights of all women.
In 1849 she prepared a memorial to the Massachusetts Legislature in which are embodied many of the demands for woman's equally before the law, which have so often been made to that body since that time. This memorial was printed by order of the Legislature (Leg. Doc. Ho. 57) and is called, “Memorial of the female signers of the several petitions of Henry A. Hardy and others,” presented March 1, 1849. The document is not signed, and Mrs. Ferrin's name is not found with it upon the records; neither does her name appear in the Journals of the House in connection with any of the petitions and addresses she caused to be presented to the Legislature of the State. For this reason, and because I had never heard of her name in connection with suffrage work, it unfortunately happens that it is not recorded in its proper place, in the text of this book. But for the loyal friendship of the few who knew of her work and were willing to give her due credit, the name of Mary Upton Ferrin and the memory of her labors would have gone with her into the “great darkness.”
There may be other early workers whose names or record I have been unable to obtain, and I will say here, to those who read this book, that if they have facts worthy of preservation
While writing these very lines I received a letter from Rev. Olympia Brown, containing the facts relating to the inception of the New England Woman Suffrage Association. Mrs. Brown writes:
“After my return from Kansas in ‘67, I felt that we ought to do something for the cause in Massachusetts. There was at that time no organization in the State, and there had been no revival of the subject in the minds of the people since the war, which had swallowed up every other interest. In the spring of ‘68, I wrote to Abby Kelley Foster, telling her my wish to have something done in our own State, and she advised me to call together a few persons known to be in favor of suffrage some day during anniversary week, in some parlor in Boston. I corresponded with Adin, Ballou, E.D. Draper and others on the subject and talked the matter over with Prof. T. T. Leonard, teacher of elocution, who offered his hall for a place of meeting. I wrote a notice inviting all persons interested in woman suffrage to come to Mr. Leonard's Hall, on a certain day and hour. At the time appointed the hall was full of people. I opened the meeting, and stated why I had called it, others took up the theme, we had many impromptu speeches, and we had a lively meeting. All agreed that something should be done, and a committee of seven was appointed to call a convention for the purpose of organizing a woman suffrage association. Caroline M. Severance, Stephen S. Foster, Miss Southwick and myself, were of this committee. I do not remember the other names.
We held a number of meetings and finally decided to call a convention early in the autumn of 1868. This convention was held in Horticultural Hall, and the result was the organization of the New England Woman Suffrage Association.”
Be it enacted, etc., as follows:
SECT.
1. Every woman who is a citizen of this Commonwealth, of twenty-one years of age and upwards, and has the educational qualifications required by the twentieth article of the amendments to the Constitution, excepting paupers and persons under guardianship, who shall have resided within this Commonwealth one year and within the city or town in which she claims the right to vote six months next preceding any meeting of citizens either in wards or in general meeting for municipal purposes, and who shall have paid by herself, or her parent, or guardian, a state or county tax, which within two years next preceding such meeting has been assessed upon her in any city or town, shall have a right to vote at such town or city meeting, for members of school committee.SECT.
2. Any female citizen of this Commonwealth may, on or before the fifteenth day of September in any year, give notice in writing to the assessors of any city or town, accompanied by satisfactory evidence, that she was on the first day of May of that year an inhabitant thereof and that she desires to pay a poll tax and furnish under oath a true list of her estate, both real and personal, and she shall thereupon be assessed for her poll and estate, and the assessors shall, on or before the first day of October in each year, return her name to the clerk of the city or town in the list of the persons so assessed. The taxes so assessed shall be entered in the tax list of the collector of the city or town, and the collector shall collect and pay over the same in the manner specified in his warrant.SECT.
3. All laws in relation to the registration of voters shall apply to women upon whom the right to vote is herein Sect.
4. The mayor and aldermen of cities and the selectmen of towns may in their discretion appoint and notify a separate day for the election of school committees:
provided,
that such meeting shall be held in the same month in which the annual town meeting or the municipal election occurs. [
Approved April
16, 1879.]
Be it enacted etc., as follows
:
Sect.
1. Every woman who is a citizen of this Commonwealth, of twenty-one years of age and upwards, and has the educational qualifications required by the twentieth article of the amendments to the Constitution, excepting paupers and persons under guardianship, who shall have resided within this Commonwealth one year, and within the city or town in which she claims the right to vote six months next preceding any meeting of citizens, either in wards or in general meeting for municipal purposes, and who shall have paid, by herself, or her parent, guardian, or trustee, a state, county, city, or town tax which, within two years next preceding such meeting has been assessed upon her or her trustee, in any city or town, shall have a right to vote, at such town or city meeting, for members of school committees.Sect.
2. Any woman who is a citizen of this Commonwealth may, on or before the first day of October in any year, give notice in writing to the assessors of any city or town, accompanied by satisfactory evidence, that she was, on the first of may of that year, an inhabitant thereof, and that she desires to pay a poll tax, and furnish, under oath, a true list of her estate, both real and personal, not exempt from taxation, and she shall thereupon be assessed for her poll, not exceeding fifty cents, and for her estate; and the assessors shall, on or before the fifth day of October, in each year, return her name to the clerk of the city or Sect.
3. All laws in relation to the registration of voters shall apply to women upon whom the right to vote is herein conferred;
provided,
that the names of such women may be placed upon a separate list, and when the name of any woman has been placed on the voting list of any city or town, it shall continue on the list of said city or town as long as she continues to reside there, and to pay any state of county, city, or town tax that has been assessed on her or her trustee in any city or town in the Commonwealth within two years previous to any voting day.Sect.
4. All acts and parts of acts inconsistent herewith are hereby repeated.Sect.
5. This act shall take effect upon in passage.
The
first decision was in the case of Sarah E. Wall of Worcester, who had refused to pay her taxes under the following protest:
“Believing with the immortal Declaration of Independence that taxation and representation are inseparable; believing that the Constitution of the State furnishes no authority for the taxation of woman; believing also that the Constitution of the higher law of God, written on the male
is stricken from the voting of the Constitution of Massachusetts.
Sarah E. Wall.
Worcester Daily Spy,
Oct. 5, 1858.
Miss Wall was prosecuted by the city collector, and she carried her case before the Supreme Court, where the appeared for herself, W. A. Williams appearing for the collector. In a written account of this matter in 1881, Miss Wall says: “Although it was in 1858 that my resistance to taxation commenced, it was not until 1863 that the contest terminated and the decision was rendered. I think the Supreme Court would always find some way to evade a decision on this question.”
“Wheeler
vs.
Wall, 6 Allen, 558.
By the Constitution of Massachusetts, c. I, § I, article 4, the Legislature has power to impose taxes upon all the inhabitants of and persons resident, and estates lying within the said Commonwealth. By the laws passed by the Legislature in pursuance of this power and authority, the defendant is liable to taxation, although she is not qualified to vote for the officers by whom the taxes were assessed.
“The Court, acting under the Constitution, and bound to support it and maintain its provisions faithfully, cannot declare null and void a statute which has been passed by the Legislature, in pursuance of an express authority conferred by the Constitution.” (Opinion by the Chief Justice, George Tyler Bigelow).
The second decision on the will of Francis Jackson, is copied
verbatim
from Allen's Reports.
“Jackson
vs.
Phillips and others, 14 Allen 539.
“A bequest to trustees, to be expended at their discretion,
“A bequest to trustees, to be expended at their discretion ‘for the benefit of fugitive slaves who may escape from the slaveholding states of this infamous Union, from time to time,’ might, before slavery was abolished in the United States, be lawfully applied, consistently with the expressed intention of the testator, to the relief of fugitive slaves in distress, or the extinguishment by purchase of the claims of those alleging themselves to be their masters, and was a legal charity.
“A bequest to trustees ‘to secure the passage of laws granting women, whether married or unmarried, the right to vote, to hold office, to hold, manage and devise property, and all other civil rights enjoyed by men,’ is not a charity.”
“Bill in equity by the executor of the will of Francis Jackson, of Boston, for instructions as to the validity and effect of the following bequests and devices:
“Art 6th. ‘I give and bequeath to Wendell Phillips of said Boston, Lucy Stone, formerly of Brookfield, Mass., now the wife of Henry Blackwell of New York, and Susan B. Anthony of Rochester, N. Y., their successors and assigns, five thousand dollars, not for their own use, but in trust, nevertheless, to be expended by them without any responsibility to any one, at their discretion, in such sums, at such times and in such places as they may deem fit, to secure the passage of laws granting women, whether married or unmarried, the right to vote, to hold office, to hold, manage and device property, and all other civil rights enjoyed by men, and for the preparation and circulation of books, the delivery of lectures, and such other means as
Gray, J. IV. “It is quite clear that the bequest in trust to be expended ‘to secure the passage of laws granting women, whether married or unmarried, the right to vote, to hold office, to hold, manage and device property, and all other civil rights enjoyed by men,’ cannot be sustained as a charity. No precedent has been cited in its support. This bequest differs from the others, in aiming directly and exclusively to change the laws; and its object cannot be accomplished without changing the Constitution also, Whether such an alteration of the existing laws and frame of government would be wise and desirable, is a question upon which we cannot, sitting in a judicial capacity, properly express any opinion. Our duty is limited to expounding
Decision third and last was on the right of women to hold judicial offices. To quote again from Allen's Reports:
“On June 8, 1871, the following order was passed by the Governor and Council, and on June 10 transmitted to the Justices of the Supreme Judicial Court, who, on June 29, returned the reply which is annexed. Ordered, that the opinion of the Supreme Judicial Court be requested as to the following questions: First. Under the Constitution of this Commonwealth, can a woman, if duly appointed and qualified as a justice of the peace, legally perform all acts appertaining to that office? Second. Under the laws of this Commonwealth, would oaths and acknowledgements of deeds, taken before a married or unmarried woman duly appointed and qualified as a justice of the peace, be legal and valid?
“By the Constitution of the Commonwealth, the office of justice of the peace is a judicial office, and must be exercised by the officer in person, and a woman, whether married or unmarried, cannot be appointed to such an office.
“The law of Massachusetts at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, the whole frame and purport of the instrument itself, and the universal understanding and unbroken practical construction for the greater part of a century
(Signed),
REUBEN A. CHAPMAN,
HORACE GRAY,
Jr.,
JOHN WELLS,
JAMES D. COLT,
SEPT AMES,
MARCUS MORTON.
”
“Boston,
June 29, 1871.”
In
a volume of old letters of the Winthrop family, published by the Massachusetts Historical Society, can be found some very interesting facts concerning the part taken by a woman in the inception of the first school or college in the State. This lady was Lucy Downing, a sister of Gov. Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts. She was the wife of Emmanuel Downing, a lawyer of the Inner Temple, a friend of Gov. Winthrop, and afterwards a man of mark in the infant colony.
Mr. Downing and his wife remained in England some years after John Winthrop came to New England, and these early letters are written from that place. In one of these letters to her brother, Lucy Downing expresses the desire of herself and husband to come to New England with their children, but laments that if they do come her son George cannot complete his studies. She adds: “You
Whether Lucy Downing's earnest plea to her brother, the then powerful Governor of New England, for a school in which to educate her son, prompted him, or hurried his attention thus early to act in this direction, we cannot now tell. It is as the history says “certainly a remarkable coincidence.” Early in 1638 Lucy Downing and her husband arrived in New England, and the name of George Downing stands second on the list of the first class of Harvard graduates in 1642. The Downings had other sons who do not seem to have been educated at Harvard, and daughters who were put out to service. One of these daughters was married, or given in marriage, against her own wishes, for she preferred at least two lovers to the man chosen by her parents to be her husband. The son, for whom so much was done by his mother, was afterwards known as Sir George Downing, and he became rich and powerful in England. Downing street in London is named for him. In after life he forgot his duty to his mother, who so naturally looked to him for support; and her last letter written from England after her husband died, when she was old and feeble, tells a sad story of her son's avarice and meanness, and leaves the painful impression that she suffered in her old age for the necessaries of life.
It is a pathetic story, and one that has been told by many women since Lucy Downing's day. “I am now att ten pounde a yeare for my chamber, and three pounde for my servant's wages, and have to extend the other ten pounde a yeare to accommodat for our meat and drink, and for my clothing and all other nessessaries I am much to seek, and more your brother Georg will not hear of for me, and he says that it is only covetousness that makes me ask more. He last summer bought another town near Hatly, calld Clappum, cost him thirteen or fourteen thousand pounds, and I really beleeve one of us two are indeed covetous.” Then the poor old lady goes on to tell the high price of coal and wheat, and sends world to her nephew, John Winthrop, Jr., to see if he cannot help her in her want while she lives, and after her death help her daughter Peters (one of those who went out to service), who she says plaintively “never yet had any portion, and to her I am sure it will not be offensive to my son Georg, whilst the principal remains to him, it being his patrimonie.”
This letter was shown to John Winthrop, Jr., and he wrote at once a long letter to Sir George, begging him to make some suitable provision for his mother “aunt Lucy in her tyme of age and infirmity,” and to settle upon her about an hundred pounds as annuity. Sir George in a short note replied, that it was not in is power to do more for his mother than he was already doing, that his means were not so large as was supposed, nor had he nearly as much money as people thought. The sequel shows, however, that he died very wealthy, and that the accumulated wealth of his family during their generations was finally used to establish a college in Cambridge, England.
At the present time it is hard to estimate how much influence the earnest longing of this one woman for the better education of her son, had in the founding of this earlieast college in Massachusetts. But for her thinking and speaking at the right time, the enterprise might have been delayed for half a century. It is to be deplored that Lucy
Although women have never been permitted to become students of this college, or of any of the schools connected with it, yet they have always taken a great interest in its pecuniary welfare, and the university is largely indebted to the generosity of women for its endowment and support. From the annual reports and other records of Harvard College, it appears that since its foundation, funds have been contributed by one hundred and sixty-seven women which amount in the aggregate to $325,000. Out of these funds a proportion of the university scholarships were founded, and at least one of its professors’ chairs. In its Divinity School alone, five of the ten scholarships beat the names of women. Caroline A. Plummer of Salem gave $15,000 to found the Plummer Professorship of Christian Morals. Sarah Derby bequeathed $1,000 towards founding the Hersey Professorship of Anatomy and Physic. The Holden Chapel was built with money given for that purpose by Mrs. Holden (widow of Samuel Holden) and her daughters. Anna E.P. Sever in 1879 left a legacy to this College of $140,000.
The names of other women benefactors of Harvard University are Lady Moulson, Hannah Sewall, Mary Saltonstall, Dorothy Saltonstall, Joanna Alford, Mary P. Townsend, Ann Toppan, Eliza Farrar, Ann F. Schaeffer, Levina Hoar, Rebecca A. Perkins, Caroline Merriam, Sarah Jackson, Hannah C. Andrews, Nancy Kendall, Charlotte Harris, Mary Osgood, Lucy Osgood, Sarah Winslow, Julia Bullock, Marian Hovey, Anna Richmond, Caroline Richmond, Clara J. Moore, Susan Cabot, and others.
The treasurer of the “Harvard Annex” in his annual report declares the great need that exists for funds to provide
This
most ancient kingdom does not send members to the British Parliament. It has its own government, its own House of Lords (the Council) and House of Commons (the Keys). It enacts its own laws, and imposes its own taxes, the only control being the sanction of the Queen. The House of keys is a much older institution than the English House of Commons. It was established by a Scandinavian prince named Orry, about the year 938.
On Nov. 5, 1880, a “Franchise Bill” to secure further privileges to voters was introduced into the House of Keys. In committee of the House Mr. Richard Sherwood moved an amendment to strike out the word “male.” This was done by the honorable member for the purpose of extending the franchise to women who possessed the required property qualifications. This amendment was carried by a two-thirds vote, and the Bill was signed by the Queen, Jan. 5, 1881. It could not, however, become a law, until, in accordance with immemorial custom, it was officially announced in the open air from the top of Tynwald Hill. This event took place Jan. 31, 1881. In March following, out of the 700 women electors on the island, 460 voted
In May, 1881, the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed the Municipal Franchise bill for the women of Scotland, and the act received the royal ascent on June 3. After January, 1882, the women of that portion of the United Kingdom, will be legally entitled to vote in the elections of every Municipal Council. This is a great step towards establishing Parliamentary Franchise in Scotland.
Last of all to come into line is despotic Austria. In July, 1881, a new electoral law was proclaimed in Croatia, a province of Austria, by which women were called upon to vote in the forthcoming general election of Municipal Councils. Good news also, continues to come from Italy. Two girl students of the Roman University—Carolina Magistrelli and Evangelina Bottero—who had passed Opinione
says, that so far as is known, no woman has, until now, taken a degree in the Roman University, since its foundation by Innocent IV. in the thirteenth century.
In 1650, when Anne Bradstreet lived and wrote her verses, a woman author was almost unknown in English Literature. This lady was the wife of the Governor of Massachusetts, and because of her literary tendencies, was looked upon by the people of her time as a marvel of womankind. Her contemporaries called her the “tenth muse lately sprung up in America,” and one of them, Rev. Nathaniel Ward, was inspired to write an address to her, in which he declares his wonder at her success as a poet, and playfully foretells the consequences, if women are permitted to intrude farther into the domain of man. The closing lines express so well the conflicting which torment the minds of the opponents of the Women Suffrage movement, that I venture to quote them, as an appropriate ending to this book:
“‘Good sooth,’ quoth the old Don, ‘tell ye me se
I muse whither at length these Girl will go.
It half revives my chil, frost-bitten blood
To sea a woman once do aught that's good
And Chode by Chaucer's Boots and Homer's Furrs
Let men look to't, least Women wear the Spurrs.’”
Certain
statements made in the text of this book have been called in question by its critics. It has been my aim to give the truth, so far as I know it, and to render an unbiassed account of the actions of the leaders in our great movement. And I have also tried to do justice to the rank and file. One of my kindest critics, in a review of the book, suggested that “evidence should have been given” in support of certain statements made therein. I should have done this at the time of writing, had I for a moment supposed it to be necessary to verify facts that were as well known to me as any part of the history of our movement since I have been identified with it. My object was to reduce a huge mass of material to a convenient shape, and give to the public as little rubbish as possible.
In order to give the required evidence it will be necessary to quote from the records of the executive meetings of the New England Woman Suffrage Association, which, with other records, I, as a member of the Executive Committee, carefully consulted before attempting to write the part taken by Massachusetts in the Woman Suffrage Movement. The statements and verifications are as follow:—
On pages 51 and 62 it is stated that the New England Woman Suffrage Association set up the
Woman's Journal.
The new England Woman Suffrage Association was formed in November, 1869. At its first executive meeting, held in December, Lucy Stone, who then lived in New Jersey, was “invited to return as soon as possible to the work in Massachusetts.” In September, 1869, at its quarterly executive meeting, it was
”
Voted,
That a committee of three be raised to inquire as to the expediency of establishing a paper in New England in advocacy of the Woman cause.”
Stephen Foster, who made this motion, stated his view of the proper basis for such a paper. He said he “would have a joint stock company for its support, and the editorial department controlled by this Executive Committee.” At another executive meeting of the Association, held later in the same mouth, after some discussion on the establishment of a Woman Suffrage paper in Boston, it was
”
Voted,
That a committee be chosen to negotiate with Mrs. Livermore for the purchase of her paper (
The Agitator
), on condition of her coming to Boston for one year, at a reasonable compensation, to assist the cause by her editorial labor, and speaking at conventions.”
It was also
”
Voted,
That a joint stock company be formed of two hundred shares, at $50 each, one half to be paid up.”
At the executive meeting in October, 1869, the following votes were passed:—
”
Voted,
That a committee be appointed to draw up the necessary papers for a joint stock company, for the publication of a weekly paper, and to secure subscriptions and stock.”
”
Voted,
That the committee on this paper be authorized to negotiate and arrange with Mr. and Mrs. Livermore to continue the publication of the paper form Chicago until November 24, or until January 1, 1870, during the pendency of permanent negotiations for the removal of the paper to the East.”
”
Voted,
That the committee on forming the joint stock
“Voted,
To appoint a financial committee,, with power to appoint a financial agent.”
The
Woman's Journal
was incorporated in February, 1870, by a legislative act. The incorporators were Henry B. Blackwell, Samuel E. Sewall, and Ebenezer D. Draper, their associates and successors.
As stated in the text of this book, the stock was taken by leading Suffragists and Suffrage societies in New England. More money, however, was needed, and in April, 1870, at a meeting held for that purpose, in Fraternity Hall, Boston, a Woman Suffrage Bazar Association was formed, and arrangements were made for holding a mammoth bazar in Boston.
According to the records of the executive meeting of the New England Woman Suffrage Association, held in July, 1870, Mrs. John T. Sargent, in behalf of the committee of the Woman Suffrage Bazar, presented for the consideration of this Executive Committee the following votes passed by the Executive Committee of the Woman Suffrage Bazar Association:—
“Voted,
That the money raised by the Bazar shall be expended under the direction of the New England Woman Suffrage Association.”
“Voted,
That one half the net proceeds of the Bazar shall be invested in the stock of the
Woman's Journal,
the New England Woman Suffrage Association becoming stockholders to that amount.”
The Executive Committee thereupon
“Voted,
That the New England Woman Suffrage Association do cheerfully accept the trust conferred upon them by the Bazar committee.”
The first Bazar was held in Music Hall, Boston, December, 1870. It was a pecuniary success, and, as will appear by the Treasurer's report, one half of the net proceeds—in Woman's Journal.
At the executive meeting of the New England Woman Suffrage Association, Jan. 23, 1871, E. D. Draper, Treasurer of the Association and also of the Bazar Association, read his statement of the proceeds (so far) received from the Woman Suffrage Bazar, and it was
“Voted,
That the Treasurer of the New England Woman Suffrage Association be instructed to pay the Treasurer of the proprietors of the
Woman's Journal
one half of the net proceeds of the Woman Suffrage Bazar, taking from Mr. Blackwell a transfer of $1,250 in stock, now standing in his name, the remainder of the appropriation to be a donation to the
Woman's Journal.”
The account of the Treasurer of the Bazar Association, as printed in the
Paid
Paid Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association, according to vote, for lectures, tracts, etc.
Paid New England Woman Suffrage Association, according to vote
Cash in hands of Treasurer
Woman's Journal
nine months after the Bazar was held (and at my own request), will show that these votes were carried out, and that the
Woman's Journal
received one half the net proceeds of the first Bazar. The following is the account of the Treasurer of the Woman Suffrage Bazar Association:—
Woman's Journal
one half of net proceeds, according to vote
E. D. DRAPER,
Treasurer.
Boston,
Sept. 13, 1871.
No record is to be found of the proceeds of the second Bazar. It was not, I believe, a pecuniary success.
At the executive meeting of the New England Woman Suffrage Association, held Jan. 8, 1872, by request of the proprietors of the
Woman's Journal
that half the funds in the treasury be appropriated to the expenses of that paper, it was
“Voted,
To appropriate half the funds to the expenses of the
Woman's Journal.”
It will thus be seen, that the New England Woman Suffrage Association proposed the starting of a woman's paper; that its members took stock in the
Woman's Journal;
that the Association itself held stock to a large amount; that the first Bazar held under its sanction furnished money for the
Woman's Journal,
and that such money, as well as other money in the treasury, was expended for that purpose by the votes of the Executive Committee of the New England Woman Suffrage Association. The reader can determine for himself how much the New England Woman Suffrage Association had to do with “setting up” the
Woman's Journal.
The hard work done by the women during those two Bazars ought never to be forgotten; nor that what they earned helped to furnish the means whereby conventions were held, tracts and documents were printed, and a Woman Suffrage newspaper was published.
I began service for the cause in the restaurant of the first Bazar; and as chief of the café in the second Bazar, at the close of its week's duration, I rendered the proceeds to Mr. E. D. Draper, Treasurer of the Bazar and of the New England Woman Suffrage Association. The amount was $855.29.
To close the history of the connection of the New England Woman Suffrage Association (so far as its records are concerned) with the
Woman's Journal,
it may be added that, at its quarterly executive meeting, March 3, 1882, it was
“Voted,
That the shares in the
Woman's Journal
held by this Association be transferred to Mrs. Lucy Stone.”
On page 77 it is written that women agents employed by the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association “were instructed to speak for the Republican party.”
In the records of the executive meetings of this Association I find the following votes. In October, 1872, it was
Voted,
That any invitation to speak at Republican meetings, extended to our agents by Republican committees in this State, be accepted by them until the coming election, their usual salaries being paid by this Association.”
“Voted,
That Miss Loud be notified by Lucy Stone of our arrangement in regard to Republican meetings, and be requested, after the 15th instant, to hold her meetings in that manner as far as practicable.”
“Voted,
That the balance of expenses of the woman's meeting held at Tremont Temple be paid by this Association.”
This was a political meeting held by the Association, to indorse General Grant as the presidential candidate of the Republican party.
In the note on page 37 the statement is made that Mr. Greeley, before his death, in 1872, changed his mind on the Woman Suffrage question. In the “History of Woman Suffrage,” by Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony, and Mrs. Gage, vol. ii., on page 286, will be found an account of Mr. Greeley's (and also Mrs. Greeley's) opinion on this question in 1867. For several years before 1872, Mr. Greeley had shown so much hostility to the movement that when, in that year, he became a candidate for the presidency, the leading Suffragists did not indorse him, but were in favor of General Grant, who was neither for nor against Woman Suffrage. Of Mr. Greeley's failure to receive the support of the Suffragists, “Warrington” said: “This insults Horace Greeley has heaped on the Suffrage movement for the last three or four years have borne their natural fruit.”
The early Suffrage literature, not mentioned in the text, may be recorded as follows:—
1.
2. A series of Woman's Rights tracts, by Wendell Phillips, Theodore Parker, Harriet Taylor, afterwards the wife of John Stuart Mill, of England, Thomas W. Higginson, and Clarina I. II. Nichols. Published in Boston in 1854. Robert F. Walcott, 21 Cornhill. 3. The Woman's Rights Almanac, for 1858, edited by Lucy Stone and Thomas W. Higginson. This contains a very valuable table of the wages of teachers in many States, from 1847 to 1856. 4. In 1962 there was an attempt made to establish a Woman's Rights paper in Boston, but the idea was abandoned. Several articles were contributed; among them one by Ralph Waldo Emerson, which has been since often published. Its title is “Mr. Emerson on Woman Suffrage.” 5.
The Una,
published in Providence, R. I., in 1853, and in Boston; Mass., in 1855. This was the first Woman's Rights newspaper published in this State.
The Pioneer and Woman's Advocate,
published by Anna W. Spencer, in Providence, R. I., in 1852, was the first paper established in the United States to advocate the Woman's Rights question.The Revolution.
A most pronounced and pungent Woman's Rights newspaper, published in New York, from 1868 to 1872, by Susan B. Anthony. Its editors were Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Parker Pillsbury. Its motto was, “Principles, not policy; justice, not favor; men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less.”
The Revolution
was so brilliant and so aggressive that it first drew the attention of the people to the fact that the women of the country, who were advocating the Suffrage cause, were in earnest, and that they were determined to be heard. It was the forerunner in this country of such papers as
The Pioneer,
San Francisco, Cal.;
The Woman's Advocate,
The National Citizen
This State Suffrage Association was formed in January, 1882, the original members being Massachusetts women who had joined the National Woman Suffrage Association at its thirteenth annual meeting, held in Tremont Temple, Boston, May 26 and 27, 1881. Its president is Mrs. Harriette R. Shattuck. Its first vice-president is Mrs. Fenno Tudor. Some of its most prominent members are Mrs. Mary R. Brown, Mrs. Sarah S. Eddy, Mrs. Harriet H. Robinson, Miss Nancy W. Covell, Miss Hannah M. Todd, Miss Emma F. Clarry, Mrs. Lovisa E. Brooks, Mrs. Joanna D. Foster, Mrs. E. S. Barker, Dr. Julia C. Smith and Mrs. M. A. Dunbar.
According to Article II. of its Constitution, its object is to secure to women their right to the ballot, by working for national, state, municipal, school, or any other form of suffrage which shall at the time seem most expedient. And while it is an auxiliary to the National Woman Suffrage Association, it reserves to itself the right of independent action. Since its organization it has sent delegates to the mid-year convention of the National Woman Suffrage Association, in 1882 and 1883, and has held conventions in South Framingham, South Boston, Winchester, Rockland and Wakefield, and has published a leaflet containing the opinions of celebrated men and women on Woman Suffrage.
The delegates sent to Washington have been Harriette R. Shattuck, Mary R. Brown, Emma F. Clarry, Lovisa E. Brooks, Harriet H. Robinson, Mrs. G.W. Simonds and Sarah S. Eddy. Two of these, Harriet H. Robinson and Harriette R. Shattuck, spoke at the first hearing given before the Senate Committee, this being the first Committee on Woman Suffrage ever formed in Congress. It chanced that Mrs. Robinson, from Massachusetts, was the first woman to speak before this Social Committee. A Special Committee on Woman Suffrage, of the House, was soon-after formed. Both committees were appointed in 1882.
This is the most important advance in the cause of woman's enfranchisement that has yet been gained, and is due to the persistent efforts of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and others of the National Woman Suffrage Association. Since 1865, Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton have continued the agitation of the question of Woman Suffrage in some of its phases, in Congress; since its formation, in 1869, the National Association has held a mid-winter convention in Washington, during the session of Congress.
The foundation-stone of the National Woman Suffrage Association is an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, securing the equal right of suffrage to women. It holds that women are citizens of the United States first, before they are citizens of any State, and therefore should, as Miss Anthony says, make this “high national appeal for national protection.” They who believe Miss Anthony's doctrine see that in it lies the philosophy or first principle of Woman Suffrage.
The speaking at the convention of the National Woman Suffrage Association of Massachusetts has been largely
The business is transacted entirely in the monthly executive sessions of the whole Association, the details only being attended to by a Standing Committee of seven. Since its formation its membership has increased from twenty to eighty.
One of the speakers for the Woman Suffrage Amendment, during the political campaign in Nebraska, in 1882, was Mrs. Harriette R. Shattuck, a delegate from this Association.
Before 1855 a woman could not hold her own property, either earned or acquired by inheritance. If unmarried, she was obliged to place it in the hands of a trustee, to whose will see was subject. If she contemplated marriage, and she desired to call her own, she was forced by law to make a contract with her intended husband, by which he gave up all title or claim to it.
In the Legislature of 1854 the first great and important act relating to the property rights of women was passed. It was to the effect that women could hold all property earned or acquired independent of their husbands. This act was amended and improved in 1857. The changes since that time in the laws relating to the legal status of woman in Massachusetts are stated briefly inn the text of this book. Since the first edition was published important acts have been passed by the Legislature.
The act giving women the right to vote for school
I wish I could revoke or modify the statement made on page too, with regard to the result of women's voting for school committee. But, in spite of the changes and improvements in the law, the fact remains that they do not largely avail themselves of the privilege. The steady decrease of the number of women voters in Boston is a sad evidence of this fact.
In 1879, in that city, there were 989 women registered as voters; in 1880,772; in 1881, 748; and in 1882, 567. This is a great pity; for, though the right to vote on this question is trivial enough in itself, and is but the ghost of the voting right that belongs to every woman of the State, the same as to every man, yet it is a right, and one that every woman who believes in equal suffrage ought to exercise.
The many Suffragists who scorn this small privilege should reflect that going to the polls to vote for school committee may not only do some good in school matters, but also teach them how to vote when they have the right, as they surely will have, to vote on larger questions. Voting for school committee is the alphabet of woman's political education. A law was also passed, in 1881, to “mitigate the evils of divorced.” Mr. Samuel E. Sewall speaks of this law as of great importance to women, an says, “This law, though mostly backward, has in it one step forward.” Two important acts were passed by the Legislature of 1882. The first was the act allowing women to become practising attorneys.
The following table will show what progress this great question has made in the lower house of the Massachusetts Legislature:—
1868, yeas, 74; nays, 199. 1869, yeas, 84; nays, 111. 1870, yeas, 63; nays, 133. 1871, yeas, 68; nays, 63. 1872, yeas, 78; nays, 135. 1873, yeas, 83; nays, 98. 1874, vote not taken. 1875, yeas, 75; nays, 120. 1876, yeas, 77; nays, 127. 1877, yeas, 83; nays, 122. 1878, yeas, 93; nays, 127. 1879, yeas, 82; nays, 85. 1880, yeas, 60; nays, 138. 1881, yeas, 76; nays, 122. 1882, yeas, 66; nays, 107.
There'were three pairs, and 67 members refrained from voting.
In 1876 a Suffrage bill passed the Senate,—yeas, 22; nays, 15. In 1881 a Suffrage bill was defeated in the Senate,—yeas, 12; nays, 21. There were three pairs.
In the census of Massachusetts for 1880 is found the following list of the occupations of a proportion of the women of the State:—
The whole population of Massachusetts is 1,783,085: males, 858,440; females, 924,645; excess of females, 66,205, paid
professions, though, as is well known, in many instances they do all the housework or ordinary servant's work of the family. They get no wages, and therefore do not appear among the “useful classes.” They are not earners, but savers of money. A money-
saver
is not a recognized factor either in political economy or in the State census. The mother, daughter or wife is put down in its pages as “keeping house.” If they were paid for their services they would be reckoned as “house-keepers,” and have their place among the paid employments.
If any new proof were needed of the progress of the rights of women, it could be found in the fact that even so dry
The following, compiled from the Report of the Commissioner of Education, Gen. John Eaton, will give in brief, woman's position in school matters in the different parts of the United States:—
The States and Territories which, according to the latest issue of their school laws, do not give woman any voice in school matters, are Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, Alaska, Arizona, Indian Territory, Montana and New Mexico.
The following confer certain privileges on women:—
In Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Dakota, Idaho and Washington Territory women are allowed to vote on special phases of the school question. In Nebraska they vote on all school questions. In California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Wisconsin, women, under certain restrictions, are eligible to election as school officers. In Wyoming Territory women have a full right to the elective franchise, and to hold office, the same as the men.
A.
Adams, Abigail and John, 8, 9.
Advancement of Women, Association for, sketch of, 158, 159.
Agitator, The (early woman's rights paper), 63, 254.
Alcott, A. Bronson, 16, 37, 67, 232.
Alcott, Abby M., 92, 93, 232.
Alexander, Janet, 134.
American Equal Rights Association, formed, 45; first convention (1886), 46; first anniversary, 52; changed to National Woman Suffrage Association (1869), 47.
American Woman Suffrage Association, formed, 47, 51; conventions of, 55.
Andrew, John A., suggestion concerning the surplus women in Massachusetts, 98.
Anneke, Madame (of Germany), 29.
Anthony, Susan B., first appearance (1852), 27, 28; early connection with the movement, 30, 37; later, 45, 46, 55, 56, 258, 259, 261.
Anti-Slavery Convention (World's), 14; account of, 190.
Anti-Slavery Society (American), 11; women allowed to speak and vote at conventions of, 12; women allowed to be officers of, 13; division of, 13. (
see
Garrisonian Wing; also Appendix B.)
Anti-Slavery Society (Boston Female), 11.
Anti-Slavery Society (New England), 12.
Art, woman in, 151.
Austria, woman's rights in, 251.
Author, woman as, 154.
B.
Bartol, Rev. Cyrus A., 53.
Bazars, Woman Suffrage (1870 and 1871), 51, 64, 255.
Bird Club, 55.
Bird, Francis W., 48, 61, 100.
Blackwell, Rev. Antoinette Brown (
see
Brown), connection with the movement, 61, 131, 228, 229.
Blackwell, Henry B., first appearance, 31; speech on woman's dress, 31, 34; protest against marriage laws, 34; later connection with the movement, 46, 48, 55, 61, 63, 67, 78, 79, 220; resolution at Republican Convention of 1870, 72.
Bloomer Costume, 32, 34.
Boston Convention, First (1854), 36; Second (1855), 36; Third (1859), 39; Fourth (1866), 46; Fifth (1868), 47; Sixth (1870) for political action, 67.
Boston University, position concerning woman's education, 139, 140.
Bowditch, William I., early connection with the movement, 36, 232; later, 116, 166.
Bowles, Rev. Ada C., and Rev. B.F., 51, 57, 67, 144.
Bradburn, George, 14, 24. (
see
Appendix B).
Bradstreet, Anne, earliest American woman poet, 252.
Brown, Rev. Antoinette L., early connection with the movement, 22, 30, 37. (
see
Blackwell).
Brown, Rev. Olympia, 48,148, 238.
Burleigh, Charles C., 22.
Butler, Benjamin F., 94.
C.
Campbell, Margaret W., 51, 52; work as agent of woman suffrage associations, etc., 57, 61, 62.
Caneus, women in the, 81, 82, 83, 87.
Census Enumerator, woman as, 158.
Chaca, Elizabeth B., 46.
Channing, Rev. William Ellery, 16.
Channing, Rev. William Henry, early connections with the movement, 16, 22, 27, 28, 30; later, 55, 61, 229.
Charter (Province), election laws under, 90.
Chensy, Ednah Dow, early connection with the movement, 52, 232; later, 61, 112, 137, 155, 156, 161, 169, 219.
Child, Lydia Maria, early connections with the movement, 16, 43, 153; death of, 62.
Church, attitude of the woman's rights, 144.
Church, woman in the, 143.
Churchill, Elizabeth K., 55, 57, 226.
Claflin, William, 103.
Clarke, Rev. James Freeman, early connection with the movement, 36, 39, 47, 232; later,55, 72, 101, 218.
“Clerical Bull,” (
see
Pastoral Letter).
Cleveland Convention, (
see
Ohio).
Coe, Emma R., 25.
Colleges and schools for girls, 129.
Colleges (Medical), for women, 136.
Common Law, position of women under, 116.
Concord (Mass.) Convention of 1875, account of, 224.
Constitution, position of women under, 91.
Constitutional Convention of 1820, action concerning women's voting, 91; of 1853, 92.
Conventions (Woman Suffrage), at Seneca Falls (1848), 18; in Rochester, N.Y. (1848), 18; at Salem, Ohio (1850), 19, 23; in Worcester, Mss. (1850),19-23; in Worcester, Mass. (1851), 25, 27; at Syracuse, N.Y. (1852), 27; in New York (1853), 28, 30; in Cleveland, Ohio 91853), 30, 34; in Boston (1854) 36; in Boston (1855), 36;in New York (1856), 37 in Boston (1859), 39; in New York (1859),40; in
County Societies, work of, 51, 52, 59, 82, 219.
Crocker, Hannah Mather, 9, 189.
Curtis, Harriot F., 17, 153. (
see
Appendix C).
D.
Dall, Caroline Healey, early connection with the movement, 36, 39, 232, 235; later, 45, 46, 155, 166; account of meetings held by, 218.
Davis, Paulina Wright, early connection with the movement, 20, 21, 25, 27, 36, 232.
Declaration of Independence, Woman's, 30.
Democratic party, resolution concerning, at the woman suffrage convention of 1856, 38; its attitude towards the suffragists, 69.
Dial, The, 15, 16.
Doggett, Kate Newell, 61, 63.
Douglass, Frederick, 18.
Downing, Lucy, and Harvard College, 246.
E.
Earle, Sarah H., 21, 36.
Eastman, Mary F., 57, 61, 112, 156, 220.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, early connection with the movement, 16, 25, 37, 219, 226.
England, commencement of the agitation in, 23, 26, 28; present position concerning woman suffrage, 178.
England, Cambridge University in, opened to women 181.
Essex County Society formed, 51.
F.
Farley, Harriet, 17, 153. (
see
Appendix C).
Ferrin, Mary Upton, 237.
Foley, Margaret, 151, 152 (
see
Appendix C).
Folsom, Abby, 11.
Foster, Abby Kelley (
see
Kelley), early connection with the movement, 20, 22, 30, 36, 232; speech at Worcester (1851), 26; later, 48, 55, 61. (
see
Appendixes B and H).
Foster, Stephen S., early connection with the movement, 14, 22, 30; later, 45, 48, 55, 67, 254.
France, woman's rights in, 182.
Fuller, Margaret, influence of the early writings of, 15, 153; death of, 21.
G.
Gage, Frances D., 26, 30, 37, 45, 61.
Gage, Matilda E., Joslyn, 28, 258.
Garrison, William Lloyd, early connection with the movement, 14, 22, 24, 28, 30, 36, 232; later, 48, 63, 96, 220. (
see
Appendix B).
Garrisonian Wing of American Anti-Slavery Society, 13, 15. (
see
Appendix B).
Giddings, Joshua R., 31.
Gove, Mary S., 10.
Greeley, Horace, 28, 37, 258.
Greene, William B., 95.
Grimkdcl010;, Angelina, first appearance of, 10, 115; early connection with the movement, 12, 15, 26, 28; later, 86.
Grimké, Sarah, early connection with the movement, 10, 11, 12, 15; later, 86.
H.
Hampden County Society formed, 51, 52.
Hampshire County Society formed, 51.
Hanaford, Rev. Phœbe A., 53, 143.
Harvard College, position of with regard to woman's education, 131, 141, 144, 148. (
see
Appendix M).
Haskell, Mehitable, 25, 100.
Haven, Bishop Gilbert, early connection with the movement, 48, 53, 147; later, 55, 68, 220.
Haven, Rev. W. I., 62.
Haynes, Rev. Lorenza, 57, 143.
Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, early connection with the movement, 35, 37, 93, 232, 235; later, 48, 61, 63, 122, 165, 183, 229.
Hinckley, Frederick A., 46, 54, 61.
Hoar, George F., 74, 101, 220.
Hooker, Isabella Beecher, 48, 61.
Hospital for Women and Children (New England), 137, 138.
Howe, Julia Ward, first appearance of, 50; later connection with the movement, 51, 52, 55, 63, 67, 78, 101, 115, 220; as preacher, 144; as poet, 155; as speaker, 156, 161, 169, 183.
Hunt, Harriot K., early connection with the movement, 20, 36, 39, 93, 95, 169, 232; efforts to become a “regular physician,” 135, 142; protest of, 22, 233. (
see
Appendix E).
I.
Illinois, early agitation in, 30.
Indiana, early agitation in, 30; later action in, 174, 175.
Inventor, woman as, 163.
Isle of Man, late action in, 182, 250.
Italy, woman's rights in, 185, 251.
J.
Jackson, Francis, 37, 92, 93, 232; will of, 114, 242.
Jackson, Dr. Mercy B., 67, 136, 218.
Johnson, Oliver, 14, 26.
Jones, Jane Elizabeth, 28.
Journalist, woman as, 153.
Judicial Offices, decision of Supreme Court upon the right of women to hold, 245.
Justices of the Peace, women as, 115.
K.
Kelley, Abby, first appearance of, 10, 12, 155; early action, 13, 15. (
see
Foster).
Kenney, Eliza J., 21, 22.
Keyes, Edward L., 95.
L.
Labor Reform party, connection of with the Suffragists, 68, 69.
Larcom, Lucy, 151, 155. (
see
Appendix C).
Lawyer, woman as, 147.
Lecturer, woman as, 155.
Legal (constitutional) action on woman's voting, 90, 96.
Legislature, petitions to, 50, 96, 99, 100, 112; character of petitions, 105; remonstrance to, 101; hearings before, 101, 102; committee of formed on woman suffrage, 102; sketch of early hearings, 232; early action of, 96; subsequent action of, 97-102; result of action, 116-120; illustration of action, 125. (
see
School Committee, 262).
Liberty party, endorsement of woman's rights by (1852), 28, 84.
Livermore, Mary Ashton, early connection with the movement, 46, 220, 224; début in Boston, 52; later connection, 55, 61, 67; connection with Woman's Journal, 63; at Republican Convention, 70, 72; speaking for Republican party, 77, 254.
Long, John D. (Governor), position on woman suffrage, 104.
Lothrop, Thomas J., 80, 228.
Lowell Offering, 17, 153; sketch of, 195.
M.
Malden Convention of 1875, account of, 219.
“Male” first put into the constitution, 91; effort to strike from fourteenth amendment, 43.
Mann, Horace, 25.
Martineau, Harriet, 26, 162.
Massachusetts, first convention in (1850), 19. (
see
Conventions).
Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association formed, 51, 55; methods and work, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 62, 145, 257.
May, Abby W., 105, 112, 113, 169.
May, Rev. Samuel J., 22, 27, 28, 218.
May, Samuel Jr., 48, 61, 232.
Medical Society (Mass.), action of concerning women physicians, 142.
Melrose Convention of 1875, account of, 221.
Methodist Church, position of on woman suffrage, 145, 147.
Methods of Work, 44, 50, 57, 58, 64, 68, 89.
Middlesex County Conventions, First Senatorial, 82; at Malden, Melrose and Concord, 59, 219.
Middlesex County Society formed, 51.
Mitchell, Prof. Maria, 133.
Mott, James, 18, 28.
Mott, Lucretia, early connection with the movement, 18, 22, 27, 29, 30, 38; later, 45, 46. (
see
Appendix B).
Municipal Suffrage, effort to obtain, 58, 122.
N.
National Woman's Rights Conventions, in Worcester, Mass. (1850), 19, 23 (
see
Appendix D); in Worcester (1851), 25, 27; in Syracuse, N. Y. (1852), 27, in Cleveland, Ohio (1853), 30, 84; in New York (1856), 37, 39; in New York (1859), 40.
National Woman Suffrage Association, formed (1869), 47; appeal to “Women of America.” 76; convention in New York (1866), 45; of Massachusetts, 260.
Nebraska, latest action in, 175.
New England Women's Club, formed, 168, 169; projection of school suffrage by, 105, 170.
New England Woman Suffrage Association, formed (1868), 50, 238; first anniversary, 52, 53; 101; 253.
New York Conventions, Broadway Tabernacle (1853), 28, 30; Seventh National (1856), 37, 39; Ninth National (1859), 40; of 1866, 45; of 1867, 46.
Nichols, Clarina I. H., 25, 61.
O.
Oberlin College, 125.
“Observations on the Rights of Women,” 9, 189.
Office-Holder, woman as, 120, 156.
Ohio Conventions in Salem (1850), 19, 23; in Cleveland (1853), 30, 34.
Oregon, woman's rights in, 174.
P.
Parker, Julia E. Smith, (
see
Smith).
Parker, Theodore, 16, 232.
Pastoral Letter of General Association of Congregational Ministers in Massachusetts, 11, 13.
Patentee, woman as, 163.
Peabody, Elizabeth P., 155, 232.
Pennsylvania, early agitation in, 30.
Phillips, Wendell, early connection with the movement, 14, 21, 36, 37, 39, 42, 218, 233, 234; later, 45, 48, 53, (as the suffrage candidate in 1870, 68), 93, 101, 232. (
see
Appendix B).
Philosophy, Concord Summer School of, 161.
Physician, woman as, 134.
Pierpont, Rev. John, 29, 134.
Pillsbury, Parker, 14, 45,46.
Poet, woman as, 155.
Political action of woman suffragists, 57, 67-89, 257.
Political Clubs of men and women formed, 82.
Political Education, National Society for, 160.
Political party (woman suffrage), 67, 80.
Polls, women at the (1876), 82, 84; (1870), 86.
Post, Amy, 18.
Postmaster, woman as, 157.
Press, Opinions of the, 24, 29, 52, 60, 166; conversion of a Boston member of, 29.
Price, Abby H., 22, 93, 232.
Professor, woman as, 133.
Prohibitory party, attitude towards the Suffragists, 68, 69, 81, 83, 87.
Property laws of married women, (see Women).
Q.
Quiney, Edmund, 14.
R.
Remond, Charles L., 46. (see Appendix B.).
Republican party, resolutions concerning, at the suffrage convention off 1856, 38; attitude towards the Suffragists, 69, 70-76, 80; resolution of National Republican Convention endorsing woman suffrages (1872), 75, 257.
Republican Women of Massachusetts to Women of America, address from, 77.
Robinson, Harriet H., first appearance, 48; later connection, 56, 220, 228; history of movement in Massachusetts, 61. (see Appendix C, 260.
Robinson, Lelia J., efforts to obtain admission to the Massachusetts bar, 148.
Robinson, William S., (see “Warrington”).
Rochester Convention of 1848, 18.
Roland, Pauline, and Jeanne Deroiné, 26.
Rose, Ernestine L., 10, 28, 29, 30, 38, 45.
Russia, woman's rights in, 186.
S.
Sanborn, Frank B., 51, 64, 67, 161, 162.
Sargent, Rev. John T., 39, 48, 67.
School Committees, law allowing women to vote for, 58, 80, 104, 105; result of law, 106, 263. (see Appendix K).
School Committees, law declaring women eligible to serve on, 113.
School Suffrage, petitions for, 105, 112, 113.
School Suffrage Association formed, 112.
School Suffrage in other states, 174, 266.
Scotland, woman's rights in, 181.
Seneca Falls Convention, 18.
Severance, Caroline M., early connection with the movement, 29, 37, 39, 218; later, 46, 169.
Shattuck, Harriette ., 63, 109, 260, 262.
Smith, Elizabeth Oakes, 25, 37.
Smith, Gerrit, 22, 28.
Smith, Julia ., 61, 228. (see Appendix E).
Social Science Associations (American and Boston), 160.
Spain, woman's rights in, 186.
Speaker and Lecturer, woman as, 155.
Spencer, Anna Garlin, 61, 112, 156.
Spring, Rebecca, 25.
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, early connection with the movement, 18, 22, 27, 28, 38; the Bloomer costume, 33; speaker at the American Association, 45; in Boston in 1870, 65; at the Bird Club in 1870 and 1881, 55, 56. (see Appendix B, 258, 259, 261.)
Stanton Henry B., 14, 131. (see Appendix B).
State Central Committee (Woman Suffrage), 63, 68; memorial to and action towards the Republican party, 70; action towards the Prohibitory party, 81-83.
Stone, Lucy, at constitutional convention, 20, 93; first speech (1847), 22; at Malden, 25; at Syracuse, N.Y. (1852), 27; at Cleveland, Ohio (1853), 30; Bloomer Costume, 32; protest against the marriage laws, 34; Woman's Journal,
63; in political action, 67; at the Republican convention, 70, 72; speaking for the Republican party, 77; one of her axioms, 95; at hearings before the Legislature, 101; as Oberlin student, 131; as speaker, 156. (
see
Appendixes D, G and J, 254).
Student and Professor, woman as, 129.
Supreme Court, action of concerning women serving on school committees, 113; other adverse decisions on woman's rights, 114, 115. (
see
Appendix L).
Sweden, woman's rights in, 185.
Syracuse Convention of 1852, 33.
T.
Talbot, Thomas (Ex-Governor), position on woman suffrage, 103.
Teacher, woman as, 128.
Trask, Eliphalet, 51.
Truth, Sojourner, 22.
U.
Una, The, (early woman's rights newspaper), 232.
Useful Occupations, women in, 162, 264.
V.
Voting Laws relating to women (early), 90; summary of, 230.
W.
Wall, Sarah E., protest of, 233, 241.
Warren, Mercy Otis, 9.
“Warrington” (W.S. Robinson), early connection with the movement, 24, 198; later, 48, 63, 68, 74 100, 166, 220, 233, 258.
Weld, Angelina Grimké, (
see
Gremké).
Whittier, John G., 48.
Widows, legislation concerning, 97, 118/.
Wilson, Henry, opinion on woman suffrage, 49.
Wollstonecraft, Mary, 10.
Woman, position of under the common law, 116; position of at present, 117; progress of, 121, 128-188.
“Woman” and “Wife,” first appearance of in legislative records, 97.
Woman's Journal, started, 51; sketch of, 63, 253.
Woman's Rights, early arguments against, 24; opinions of the press on, 24, 29, 52; Declaration of, 30; petitions for, 50, 96, 99, 100; remonstrance against, 101; best printed arguments for and against, 165; present influences upon, 170; in other states, 174; in England, 178; in Scotland, 181; in the Isle of Man, 182; in France, 182; in Italy, 185; in Sweden, 185; in Russia, 186; in Spain, 186.
Woman Suffrage Literature, early, 166, 259.
Women's Clubs, 168.
Women (Married), legislation concerning, 99, 100, 117, 120.
Women's Prison at Sherborn, 120, 139.
Worcester Convention of 1850, 19, 20, 23, (
see
Appendix D), of 1851, 25, 27; of 1881, 60-62 (
see
Appendix H).
Worcester County Society formed, 52.
World's Anti-Slavery Convention, 14, 190.
Wright, Frances, 10.
Wright, Martha C., 18, 28, 37.
Wyoming Territory, verdict of, on woman suffrage, 177.
Y.
Yeas and nays on the woman suffrage question, 121, 264.