XLIV. MISSOURI
Missouri the First State to Open Colleges of Law and Medicine to Woman--Liberal Legislation--Eight Causes for Divorce--Harriet Hosmer--Wayman Crow--Works of Art--Women in the War--Adeline Couzins--Virginia L. Minor--Petitions--Woman Suffrage Association, May 8, 1867--First Woman Suffrage Convention, Oct. 6, 1869--Able Resolutions by Francis Minor--Action Asked for in the Methodist Church--Constitutional Convention--Mrs. Hazard's Report--National Suffrage Association, 1879--Virginia L. Minor Before the Committee on Constitutional Amendments--Mrs. Minor Tries to Vote--Her Case in the Supreme Court--Miss Phoebe Couzins Graduated from the Law School, 1871--Reception by Members of the Bar--Speeches--Dr. Walker--Judge Krum--Hon. Albert Todd--Ex-Governor E. O. Stanard--Ex-Senator Henderson--Judge Reber--George M. Stewart--Mrs. Minor--Miss Couzins--Mrs. Annie R. Irvine--"Oregon Woman's Union."
It has often been a subject for speculation why it was that a slave State like Missouri should have been the first to open her medical and law schools to women, and why the suffrage movement from the beginning should there have enlisted so large a number of men[377] and women of wealth and position, who promptly took an active interest in the inauguration of the work. A little research into history shows that there must have been some liberal statesmen, some men endowed with wisdom and a sense of justice, who influenced the early legislation in Missouri.
By the constitution, imprisonment for debt is forbidden, except for fines and penalties imposed for violation of law. A homestead not exceeding $3,000 in value in cities of 40,000 inhabitants or more, and not exceeding $1,500 in smaller cities and in the country, is exempt from levy on execution. The real estate of a married woman is not liable for the debts of her husband. There are eight causes for divorce, so many doors of escape for unfortunate wives from the bondage of a joyless union.
The memory of the unjust treatment of Miss Hosmer will always be a reproach to Massachusetts. That she enjoyed the privileges of education in Missouri denied her in Massachusetts was due in no small measure to the generosity and public spirit of Wayman Crow. Speaking of the gifted sculptor, a correspondent says:
Harriet Hosmer was born in 1830. She studied sculpture in the studio of Mr. Stephenson, in Boston, and also with her father. In 1830, after being denied admission to anatomical lectures in Harvard and many other colleges at the East, she went to St. Louis, where, through the spirited determination of Wayman Crow, a most liberal benefactor of Washington University, she was admitted to the Missouri Medical College through the kindness and courtesy of Dr. Joseph N. McDowell, its founder and head. Here for a whole winter she pursued her studies under the instruction of Dr. McDowell and Dr. Louis T. Pim, the able demonstrator of anatomy of the college, who gave her the benefit of their constant and unremitting aid; also Dr. B. Gratz Moses and Dr. J. B. Johnson were particularly kind in inviting her to be present when important cases were before them. The names of these men are gratefully mentioned, now that the doors of hundreds of colleges have opened to women. While in St. Louis Miss Hosmer had a constant companion and friend in Miss Jane Peck, a lady well known in society circles, and together they daily attended at the college; indeed, Miss Peck informed the writer, that on no occasion did Miss Hosmer go to the college without her. So quietly was this done, it was not until the month of February that the students became aware of their attending, and when informed of it the entire class, numbering about one hundred and thirty, gave them a most cordial and hearty endorsement, and from that time on until the day of graduation they were treated by the young gentlemen with marked attention. The students were not aware of their attending in the earlier part of the course, because it had been the custom for the ladies to attend in the amphitheater after the class had left to go to the various hospitals. On one occasion while on their way to the college, a number of the students being behind them, they heard the gentlemen say to some men they met, "These ladies are under our charge, and if you offer them an insult we will shoot you down." They did not hear the language of the men, only the reply of the students. At the close of the session the students gave a ball and not only were Miss Hosmer and Miss Peck invited, but a carriage was specially sent to take them to it.
In March, 1869, Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony again visited St. Louis. In a letter to The Revolution the former said:
We went to the Mercantile Library to see Miss Hosmer's works of art, and there read the following letter to Wayman Crow, who had been a generous friend to her through all those early days of trial and disappointment. One of the best of her productions is an admirable bust of her noble benefactor:
BOSTON, October 18, 1857.
DEAR MR. CROW: Will you allow me to convey through you to the Mercantile Library Association "The Beatrice Cenci." This statue is in execution of a commission I received three years ago from a friend who requested me not only to make a piece of statuary for that institution, but to present it in my own name. I have finished the work, but cannot offer it as my own gift--but of one who, with a most liberal hand, has largely ministered to the growth of the arts and sciences in your beautiful city. For your sake, and for mine, I would have made a better statue if I could. The will was not wanting, but the power--but such as it is, I rejoice sincerely that it is destined for St. Louis, a city I love, not only because it was there I first began my studies, but because of the many generous and indulgent friends who dwell therein--of whom I number you most generous and indulgent of all, whose increasing kindness I can only repay by striving to become more and more worthy of all your friendship and confidence, and so I am ever affectionately and gratefully yours,
Wayman Crow, Esq. H.G. HOSMER.
The very active part that the women of Missouri had taken in the civil war, in the hospitals and sanitary department, had aroused their enthusiasm in the preservation of the Union and their sense of responsibility in national affairs. The great mass-meetings of the Loyal Women's Leagues, too, did an immense educational work in broadening their sympathies and the horizon of their sphere of action. So wholly absorbed had they been in the intense excitement of that period, that when peace came their hands and hearts, unoccupied, naturally turned to new fields of achievement. While in some States it was the temperance question, in St. Louis it was specifically woman suffrage.
We are indebted for the main facts of this chapter to Mr. Francis Minor, Mrs. Rebecca N. Hazard, Miss Couzins and Miss Arathusa Forbes, who have kindly sent us what information they had or could hastily glean from the journals of the time or the imperfect records of the association.
The labors of Mrs. Minor and Mrs. Couzins were exceptionally protracted and severe. The latter offered her services as nurse at the very opening of the war. The letters received from men in authority show how highly their services were appreciated. Dr. Pope who writes the following, was the leading surgeon in St. Louis:
ST. LOUIS, April 26, 1861.
Mrs. J. E. D. COUZINS--Dear Madam: Your note in which, in case of collision here, you generously offer your services in the capacity of nurse, is just received. Should so dire a calamity befall us (which God forbid), I shall, in case of need, most assuredly remember your noble offer. With high regard and sincere thanks, I am,
Yours very truly, CHAS. A. POPE.
HEADQUARTERS 2D BRIG., MO. VOL., ST. LOUIS, MO., Aug. 23, 1861.
Mrs. J. E. D. COUZINS, present--Madam: I received your kind letter, dated Aug. 17. Accept my heartfelt thanks for your generous offer. I regard the nursing of our wounded soldiers by the tender hands of patriotic ladies as a most effectual means of easing their condition and encouraging them to new efforts in defense of our glorious cause. You will please confer with Mrs. von Wackerbarth, corner Seventh and Elm streets, in regard to the steps to be taken in this matter.
Your obedient servant, F. SIGEL, Brig.-Gen. Com.
HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE MISSOURI, February 18th, 1862.
The commanding officers at Cairo, Paducah, or vicinity, are hereby requested to grant any facilities consistent with the public interests that may be desired by the bearers of this note. They are Mrs. Couzins and Crawshaw, of the Ladies' Union Aid Society, who wish to administer relief to our sick and wounded. By order of
J. T. PRICE, A. D. C. Maj.-Gen'l HALLECK.
ROOMS WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION, ST. LOUIS, Oct, 6th, 1862.
MY DEAR MRS. COUZINS: The surgeon-general has notified me that he may want me to send nurses and surgeons to Columbus and Corinth. I look to you, my dear madam, as one ever ready to volunteer when you can be of real service. In case it should become necessary, may I rely on your valuable services? Such other names as you may suggest I would be pleased to have.
Very respectfully, JAS. E. YEATMAN.
OFFICE OF WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION, } SAINT LOUIS, MO., Oct. 8th, 1862. }
Mrs. Couzins has been detailed to service in the hospital steamer T.L. McGill, as volunteer nurse.
N.B.--If the place of service is changed, a new certificate will be issued.
JAMES E. YEATMAN, President of Sanitary Commission.
CORINTH, Oct. 13, 1862.
Pass Mrs. Couzins from Corinth to Columbus.
W. S. ROSECRANZ, Maj.-Gen'l U. S. A.
HEADQUARTERS DEP'T OF THE TENNESSEE, } BEFORE VICKSBURG, Feb'y 21st, 1863. }
The quartermaster in charge of transportation at Memphis, Tenn., will furnish transportation on any chartered steamer plying between Memphis, Tenn., and St. Louis, to Mrs. Couzins and five other ladies, members of the Western Sanitary Commission, and who have been with this fleet distributing sanitary goods for the benefit of sick soldiers.
U.S. GRANT, Maj.-Gen. Com.
Capt. J. B. LEWIS, A. Q. M. and Master of Transportation, Memphis, Tenn.
While Mrs. Couzins thus gave herself to mitigating the sufferings of the "boys in blue," in camp and hospital, Mrs. Minor was no less active and energetic in the equally important department of preserving supplies for the sanitary commission. Although Mrs. Minor resided too far from the city to attend the evening meetings, and her name does not appear in the accounts of such gatherings, she was one of the first members of the Ladies' Union Aid Society of St. Louis, and took part in the meeting of loyal women called and presided over by Gen. Curtis. Having an orchard and dairy on her place, she furnished the hospital with milk and fruit, and for more than two years, sent a supply every day to the soldiers in camp at Benton barracks. When the news came that the army around Vicksburg was suffering with scurvy, she took her carriage and drove through the country soliciting fruit, and in one week she canned with her own hands, a wagon-load of cherries, the sanitary commission finding the cans and sugar, and from time to time she continued the work until the end of the war. When the great fair was held under the auspices of the Western Sanitary Commission, she was a member of the floral department, and worked with her accustomed energy. The sanitary commission, feeling that she had done so much, wrote her a letter of thanks, and enclosed her a check for a liberal amount; but she returned the check, saying that hers was a work of love, and not for money. Although the official letter of the commission thanking Mrs. Minor for her most valuable services, is lost, the following to Mr. Minor may fairly be considered as including her also:
ROOMS WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION, St. Louis, Oct. 7, 1863.
FRANCIS MINOR, Esq.--My Dear Sir: I am directed by our board to return you their thanks in behalf of the soldiers in the hospitals, for your long-continued remembrance of them, and for the daily supply of fresh fruits, vegetables and milk, which you have furnished for the sick, now more than two years. Your garner and sympathy have been like the widow's cruse, and may they ever continue to be so. What you have done has been in the most quiet and unobtrusive way. The sick soldier has had no more constant, uniform and untiring friend, and it is with pleasure that I convey the thanks of the board, both to yourself and wife, who have been as indefatigable at home in preparing canned fruits and other delicacies for the sick soldiers in the field, as you have been in providing for those in the hospitals. With grateful feelings and many thanks and best wishes, I remain,
Very respectfully yours,
JAMES E. YEATMAN, President Western Sanitary Commission.
The submission of a constitutional amendment in Kansas, and the preparations for a thorough canvass of that State, had its influence in heightening the enthusiasm and increasing the agitation in Missouri, as most of the speakers going to Kansas held meetings at various points. Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony stopped at St. Louis both going and returning, held large meetings in Library Hall, and had a pleasant reception in the parlors of the Southern Hotel, where many warm friendships that have lasted ever since, were formed.
The subject of woman's enfranchisement had doubtless often occurred to the thoughtful men and women of Missouri, long before the movement in its behalf assumed anything like a practical shape. The manifest absurdity and injustice of declaring, as the constitution of the State did, "that all political power is vested in, and derived from the people; that all government of right originates from the people, is founded upon their will only, and is instituted solely for the good of the whole," and at the same time, denying to one-half of the people any voice whatever in framing their government or making their laws, could not fail to strike the attention of any one who gave the subject the slightest consideration. But no attempt was made towards an organization in behalf of woman suffrage until the winter of 1866-7; and the movement then had its origin from the following circumstance: During the debate in the Senate of the United States, on the district suffrage bill, December 12, 1866, Senator Brown, of Missouri, in the course of his remarks said:
I have to say then, sir, here on the floor of the American Senate, I stand for universal suffrage, and as a matter of fundamental principle do not recognize the right of society to limit it on any ground of race, color, or sex. I will go further, and say that I recognize the right of franchise as being intrinsically a natural right; and I do not believe that society is authorized to impose any limitation upon it that does not spring out of the necessities of the social state itself.
When Mrs. Francis Minor, of St. Louis, who had given the subject much thought, read the report of Senator Brown's speech, she considered that it was due to him from the women of the State that he should receive a letter of thanks for his bold and out-spoken utterances in their behalf. She accordingly wrote him such a letter, obtaining to it all the signatures she could, and it was presented to Senator Brown on his return home. But although first an advocate of the measure, he soon recanted, and gave his influence against it.
It was next determined to petition the legislature of the State then in session, January, 1867, to propose an amendment to the constitution, striking out the word "male," in the article on suffrage. Such a petition was presented, and attracted much attention, as it was the first instance of the kind in the history of the State. This move was followed by a formal organization of the friends of the cause, and on May 8, 1867, the "Missouri Woman Suffrage Association" was organized, and officers elected.[378]
We find the following letter from Mr. Minor in The Revolution of January 22, 1868:
Editors of The Revolution: In order to show the steady progress that the grand idea of equal rights is slowly but surely making among the people of these United States, I think it would be well, in the beginning, at least, to make a record in The Revolution of the fact of each successive State organization; and for that purpose I send you the list of officers for the association in Missouri not yet a year old; as also their petition to the legislature for a change in the organic law, and a brief address to the voters of the State, in support of the movement:
To the Voters of Missouri:
The women of this State, having organized for the purpose of agitating their claims to the ballot, it becomes every intelligent and reflecting mind to consider the question fairly and dispassionately. If it has merits, it will eventually succeed; if not, it will fail. I am of the number of those who believe that claim to be just and right, for the following, among other reasons:
Taxation and Representation should go hand in hand. This is the very corner-stone of our government. Its founders declared, and the declaration cannot be too often repeated, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure those rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." The man who believes in that declaration, cannot justly deny to women the right of suffrage. They are citizens, they are tax-payers; they bear the burdens of government--why should they be denied the rights of citizens? We boast about liberty and equality before the law, when the truth is, our government is controlled by one-half only of the population. The others have no more voice in the making of their laws, or the selection of their rulers, than the criminals who are in our penitentiaries; nay, in one respect, their condition is not as good as that of the felon, for he may be pardoned and restored to a right which woman can never obtain. And this, not because she has committed any crime, or violated any law, but simply because she is, what God made her--a woman! Possessed of the same intelligence--formed in the same mold--having the same attributes, parts and passions--held by her Maker to the same measure of responsibility here and hereafter, her actual position in society to-day is that of an inferior. No matter what her qualifications may be, every avenue of success is virtually closed against her. Even when she succeeds in obtaining employment, she gets only half the pay that a man does for the same work. But, it is said, woman's sphere is at home. Would giving her the right to vote interfere with her home duties any more than it does with a man's business? Again it is said, that for her to vote would be unfeminine. Is it at all more indelicate for a woman to go to the polls, than it is for her to go to the court-house and pay her taxes? The truth is, woman occupies just the position that man has placed her in, and it ill becomes him to urge such objections. Give her a chance--give her the opportunity of proving whether these objections are well founded or not. Her influence for good is great, notwithstanding all the disadvantages under which she at present labors; and my firm belief is, that that influence would be greatly enhanced and extended by the exercise of this new right. It would be felt at the ballot-box and in the halls of legislation. Better men, as a general rule, would be elected to office, and society in all its ramifications, would feel and rejoice at the change.
A VOTER.
_To the General Assembly of the State of Missouri: _
GENTLEMEN: The undersigned women of Missouri, believing that all citizens who are taxed for the support of the government and subject to its laws, should have a voice in the making of those laws, and the selection of their rulers; that, as the possession of the ballot ennobles and elevates the character of man, so, in like manner, it would ennoble and elevate that of woman by giving her a direct and personal interest in the affairs of government; and further, believing that the spirit of the age, as well as every consideration of justice and equity, requires that the ballot should be extended to our sex, do unite in praying that an amendment to the constitution may be proposed, striking out the word "male" and extending to women the right of suffrage.
And, as in duty bound, your petitioners will ever pray.
On behalf of the Missouri Woman Suffrage Association.
[Signed:] President, Mrs. Francis Minor; Vice-President, Mrs. Beverly Allen; Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. Wm. T. Hazard; Recording Secretary, Mrs. Geo. D. Hall; Treasurer, Mrs. N. Stevens, St. Louis, Missouri.
Copies of the petition, and information furnished upon addressing either of above named officers. Formation of auxiliary associations in every county requested. Petitions when completely signed, to be returned to the head office.
These papers will serve to show that the idea has taken root in other States beyond the Mississippi besides Kansas; and may also be somewhat of a guide to others, who may desire to accomplish the same purpose elsewhere. A work of such magnitude requires, of course, time for development; but the leaven is working. The fountains of the great deep of public thought have been broken up. The errors and prejudices of six thousand years are yielding to the sunlight of truth. In spite of pulpits and politicians, the great idea is making its way to the hearts of the people; and woman may rejoice in believing that the dawn of her deliverance, so long hoped for and prayed for, is at last approaching.
F. M.
St. Louis, January, 1868.
The following from The Revolution shows that the women of St. Louis were awake on the question of taxation:
The women here have endeavored to find out to what extent taxation without representation, because of sex, obtains in this city, and as the result of their inquiries they are enabled to place on their records the following very suggestive document.
ASSESSOR'S OFFICE, ST. LOUIS, January 30, 1869.
To Mrs. Couzins and Emma Finkelnburg, Committee of the Ladies' Suffrage Association:
In reply to your request to report to your association the amount of property listed in the city of St. Louis in the name of ladies, permit me to state that the property in question is represented by over 2,000 tax-paying ladies, and assessed at the value of $14,490,199.
Yours very respectfully,
ROBT. J. ROMBAUER, Assessor.
This exhibit has opened the eyes of a good many people. "Two thousand on 'em," exclaimed a male friend of mine, "and over fourteen millions of property! Whew! What business have these women with so much money?" Well, they have it, and now they ask us, "Shall 2,000 men, not worth a dollar, just because they wear pantaloons go to the polls and vote taxes on us, while we are excluded from the ballot-box for no other reason than sex?" What shall we say to them? They ask us if the American Revolution did not turn on this hinge, No taxation without representation. Who can answer?
The advocates of suffrage in St. Louis made their attacks at once in both Church[379] and State, and left no means of agitation untried. There has never been an association in any State that comprised so many able men and women who gave their best thoughts to every phase of this question, and who did so grand a work, until the unfortunate division in 1871, which seemed to chill the enthusiasm of many friends of the movement.
In the winter of 1869 the association sent a large delegation of ladies to the legislature with a petition containing about 2,000 signatures. A correspondent in The Revolution, February 6, 1869, said:
It will not be feminine to say, yet I fear I must say, the women of Missouri have stormed their capitol, and if it is not yet taken, the outworks are in our hands, and I believe with a few more well-directed blows the victory will be ours. On February 3 a large delegation of ladies, representing the Suffrage Association of Missouri, visited Jefferson City for the purpose of laying before the legislature a large and influentially signed petition, asking the ballot for women; and we were gratified to see the great respect and deference shown to the women of Missouri by the wisest and best of her legislators in their respectful and cordial reception of the delegates. Both Houses adjourned, and gave the use of the house for the afternoon, when eloquent addresses were made by Mrs. J.G. Phelps of Springfield, Dr. Ada Greunan of St. Louis, and the future orator of Missouri, Miss Phoebe Couzins, whose able and effective address the press has given in full. Of the brave men who stood up for us, it is more difficult to speak. To give a list would be impossible; for every name would require a eulogy too lengthy for the pages of The Revolution. We will, therefore, record them on the tablets of our memory with a hand so firm that they shall stand out brightly till time shall be no more. Of the small majority who oppose us we will say nothing, but throw over them the pall of merciful oblivion.
The first woman suffrage convention ever held in the city of St. Louis, or the State of Missouri, assembled in Mercantile Library, October 6, 7, 1869. Many distinguished people were on the platform.[380] At this convention Mr. Francis Minor introduced a very able series of resolutions, on which Mrs. Minor made a remarkably logical address.[381] The following letter from Mr. Minor shows the careful research he gave to the consideration of this question:
ST. LOUIS, December 30, 1869.
DEAR REVOLUTION: So thoroughly am I satisfied that the surest and most direct course to pursue to obtain a recognition of woman's claim to the ballot, lies through the courts of the country, that I am induced to ask you to republish the resolutions that I drafted, and which were unanimously adopted by the St. Louis convention. And I will here add, that to accomplish this end, and to carry these resolutions into practical effect, it is intended by Mrs. Minor, the president of the State Association, to make a test case in her instance at our next election; take it through the courts of Missouri, and thence to the Supreme Court of the United States at Washington. I think it will be admitted that these resolutions place the cause of woman upon higher ground than ever before asserted, in the fact that for the first time suffrage is claimed as a privilege based upon citizenship, and secured by the Constitution of the United States. It will be seen that the position taken is, that the States have the right to regulate, but not to prohibit, the elective franchise to citizens of the United States. Thus the States may determine the qualifications of electors. They may require the elector to be of a certain age, to have had a fixed residence, to be of a sane mind, and unconvicted of crime, etc., because these are qualifications or conditions that all citizens, sooner or later, may attain; but to go beyond this, and say to one-half the citizens of the State, notwithstanding you possess all these qualifications you shall never vote, is of the very essence of despotism. It is a bill of attainder of the most odious character.
A further investigation of the subject will show that the language of the constitutions of all the States, with the exception of those of Massachusetts and Virginia, on the subject of suffrage is peculiar. They almost all read substantially alike: "White male citizens, etc., shall be entitled to vote," and this is supposed to exclude all other citizens. There is no direct exclusion, except in the two States above named. Now the error lies in supposing that an enabling clause is necessary at all. The right of the people of a State to participate in a government of their own creation requires no enabling clause; neither can it be taken from them by implication. To hold otherwise would be to interpolate in the constitution a prohibition that does not exist. In framing a constitution the people are assembled in their sovereign capacity; and being possessed of all rights and all powers, what is not surrendered is retained. Nothing short of a direct prohibition can work a disseizin of rights that are fundamental. In the language of John Jay to the people of New York, urging the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, "silence and blank paper neither give nor take away anything," and Alexander Hamilton says (Federalist, No. 83), "Every man of discernment must at once perceive the wide difference between silence and abolition."
The mode and manner in which the people shall take part in the government of their creation may be prescribed by the constitution, but the right itself is antecedent to all constitutions. It is inalienable, and can neither be bought, nor sold, nor given away. But even if it should be held that this view is untenable, and that women are disfranchised by the several State constitutions directly, or by implication, then I say that such prohibitions are clearly in conflict with the Constitution of the United States, and yield thereto. The language of that instrument is clear and emphatic: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, and of the State wherein they reside." "No State shall make, or enforce any law that shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." It would be impossible to add to the force or effect of such language, and equally impossible to attempt to explain it away.
Very respectfully, FRANCIS MINOR.
The St. Louis Democrat spoke of the convention as follows:
Readers of our report have doubtless been interested to observe the fair spirit and dignified manner of the woman suffrage convention, and the ability displayed in some of the addresses. It is but due to the managers to say that they extended most courteous invitations to gentlemen not identified with the movement to address the convention, and state freely their objections to the extension of the franchise. Of those invited some were prevented by duties elsewhere from attending. Others, it may be, felt that it would scarcely be a gracious thing, in spite of the liberality of the invitation, to occupy the time of a convention in favor of the extension of the franchise with arguments against it. But the objections which, after all, probably have most weight with candid men are those which it is not easy to discuss in public, namely: "Will not extension of suffrage to women have an injurious effect upon the family and sexual relations?" "Will not the ballot be used rather by that class who would not use it wisely than by those who are most competent?" We do not argue these questions, but are sure that some frank discussion of them, however delicate the subject may be, is necessary to convince the great majority of those who are still doubting or opposed. Meanwhile the reports are of interest, and reflect no little credit upon the women of this city who have taken so prominent a part in the movement.
The officers of the Missouri Society were annually reelected for several years, and the work proceeded harmoniously until the division in the National Association. The members of the Missouri Society took sides in this division as preference dictated. Mr. and Mrs. Minor, Miss Forbes, Miss Couzins and others were already members of the National Association, and sympathized with its views and modes of pushing the question.
In order that there might be no division in the Missouri Association, a resolution was introduced by Mr. Minor and unanimously adopted, declaring that each member of the society should be free to join the National body of his or her choice, and that the Missouri Association, as a society, should not become auxiliary to either the "National" or the "American." The good faith of the association was thus pledged to respect the feelings and wishes of each member, and as long as this course was observed all went well. But, at the annual meeting in 1871, just after Mrs. Minor had for the fifth time been unanimously reelected president, in violation of the previous action of the association a resolution was introduced and passed, declaring that the association should henceforth become auxiliary to the American. This gross disregard of the wishes and feelings of those who were members of the National Association left them no alternative, with any feeling of self-respect, but to withdraw; and accordingly Mrs. Minor at once tendered her resignation as president and her withdrawal as a member of the association. She was followed in this course by Mr. Minor, Miss Couzins, Miss Forbes and others.[382] However, the work went steadily on. Meetings were held regularly from week to week, with occasional grand conventions, tracts and petitions were circulated, and constant agitation in some way kept up.
In answer to an earnest solicitation for facts and incidents of the suffrage movement in Missouri, Mrs. Rebecca N. Hazard, one of the earliest and most active friends in that State, sends us the following:
I think the cruel war had much to do in educating the women of Missouri into a sense of their responsibilities and duties as citizens; at least all who first took part in the suffrage movement had been active on the Union side during the war, and that having ended in the preservation of the government, they naturally began to inquire as to their own rights and privileges in the restored Union. My own feelings were first fully awakened by the hanging of Mrs. Surrat; for, although a Unionist and an abolitionist, I could but regard her execution by the government, considering her helpless position, as judicial murder. I wrote on the subject to the editor of the New York Independent. The letter was handed to Miss Anthony, and resulted in an invitation to the next meeting of the Equal Rights Society. This almost frightened me, for I had hitherto looked askance at the woman's rights movement.
Meeting an old friend and neighbor not long after, the talk turned upon negro suffrage. I expressed myself in favor of that measure, and timidly added, "And go farther--I think women also should vote." She grasped my hand cordially, saying, "And so do I!" This was Mrs. Virginia L. Minor. We had each cherished this opinion, supposing that no other woman in the community held it; and this we afterwards found to have been the experience of many others. This was in 1866; and in the following autumn Mrs. Minor prepared and circulated for signatures a card of thanks to Hon. B. Gratz Brown for the recognition of woman's political rights he had given in the United States Senate in a speech upon extending the suffrage to the women of the District of Columbia.[383] This card received enough names to justify another step--that of a petition to the Missouri General Assembly. This was headed by Mrs. Minor, and circulated with untiring energy by her, receiving several hundred signatures, and was sent to the legislature during the winter, where it received some degree of favor.
But as yet no effort had been made toward an organization. The first step in that direction was in May, 1867, by Mrs. Lucretia P. Hall and her sister, Miss Penelope Allen, daughters of Mrs. Beverly Allen, and nieces of General Pope, in the parlors of Mrs. Anna L. Clapp, the president of the Union Aid Society during the war. Mrs. Hall, Mrs. Clapp and myself called a public meeting on May 8, when the Woman Suffrage Society of Missouri was organized, with Mrs. Minor president.
In the winter of 1868 the association sent a large delegation of ladies to Jefferson with a petition containing about 2,000 names, to present to the legislature. The Republicans were then in the ascendency, and the ladies having many professed friends among the members, were received with every demonstration of respect. Addresses were made by Miss Phoebe Couzins and Dr. Ada Greunan. The petition was respectfully considered and a fair vote given for the submission of an amendment.
Subsequent sessions of the legislature have been besieged, as was also the constitutional convention in 1875; but beyond the passage of several laws improving the general status of women, we have not made much impression upon the law-making power of our State; not so much since the State passed into the hands of the Democrats, as while the Republicans were in the majority.
But the public meetings and social influence of our association have done much for the cause of woman suffrage. Strangers are surprised to find so little prejudice existing against a movement so decidedly unpopular in many places. The convention held in St. Louis in October, 1869, was one of the very best I have ever known, and its influence was long felt for good. In the spring of 1871 our association became auxiliary to the American, and in consequence several of our active members seceded, viz.: Mr. and Mrs. Minor, Miss Couzins, Dr. Greunan and others. In the autumn of 1872 the American Association held its annual meeting in St. Louis.
The law school of Washington University has always been open to women. Miss Couzins was the first to avail herself of its advantages in 1869, though Miss Barkaloo of Brooklyn, denied admission to Columbia Law School, soon joined her, and was admitted to the bar in 1870. While Miss Barkaloo was not the first woman admitted to the bar in the United States, she doubtless was the first to try a case in court. She died after a few months of most promising practice.[384] Miss Couzins was admitted to the bar in May, 1871.
The St. Louis School of Design, which has done much for woman, was originated by members of our association; principally by Mrs. Mary F. Henderson, who has given untiring effort in that direction. Our members were also instrumental in opening to women the St. Louis Homeopathic Medical College, and active in opposing what was known as the St. Louis "Social Evil Law." They aided Dr. Eliot in his valiant struggle against that iniquity. Mrs. E. Patrick and myself called the first public meeting to protest against the law. It was repealed March 27, 1874.
You are probably familiar with Mrs. Minor's suit to obtain suffrage under the fourteenth amendment. We all admired her courageous efforts for that object. Previous to that attempt our society had earnestly advocated a sixteenth amendment for the protection of woman's right to vote, but held the matter in abeyance pending the suit. After its failure, we again renewed our efforts for a sixteenth amendment, circulating and sending to Washington our petitions. Our association holds monthly meetings and proposes to continue the agitation.[385] I ought to say, perhaps, that our society lends all the help possible to other States. It gave $520 to Michigan in 1874, and $200 to Colorado in 1877.
R. N. H.
To bring the question of woman's right as a citizen of the United States to vote for United States officers before the judiciary, Mrs. Minor attempted to register in order to vote at the national election in November, 1872, and being refused on account of her sex, brought the matter before the courts in the shape of a suit against the registering officer.[386] The point was decided adversely to her in all the courts, being finally reported in Vol. 21 of Wallace's U. S. Supreme Court Reports. The importance of this decision cannot be over-estimated. It affects every citizen of the United States, male as well as female, if, as there pronounced, the United States has no voters of its own creation. The Dred-Scott decision is insignificant in comparison. Mrs. Minor made the following points in her petition:
1. As a citizen of the United States, the plaintiff is entitled to any and all the "privileges and immunities" that belong to such position however defined; and as are held, exercised and enjoyed by other citizens of the United States.
2. The elective franchise is a "privilege" of citizenship, in the highest sense of the word. It is the privilege preservative of all rights and privileges; and especially of the right of the citizen to participate in his or her government.
3. The denial or abridgment of this privilege, if it exist at all, must be sought only in the fundamental charter of government--the Constitution of the United States. If not found there, no inferior power or jurisdiction can legally claim the right to exercise it.
4. But the Constitution of the United States, so far from recognizing or permitting any denial or abridgment of the privileges of citizens, expressly declares that "no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."
5. It follows that the provisions of the Missouri constitution and registry law before recited are in conflict with, and must yield to the paramount authority of, the Constitution of the United States.
At a mass meeting held in St. Louis January 25, 1875, a committee[387] was appointed to prepare an address to the people of the State, setting forth the necessity of such action by the constitutional convention, soon to assemble, as would insure to all citizens the right of choice in their lawmakers and in the officers whose duty it should be to execute the laws. The address was prepared and widely circulated over the State. In June, the convention being in session at Jefferson, Mrs. Minor, Miss Couzins, and Mrs. Dickinson went to the capitol and were granted a gracious hearing, but no action was conceded.
In May, 1879, the National Woman Suffrage Association held its annual meeting at St. Louis, holding its session through the day, morning, afternoon and evening, and so much interest was aroused that on May 13 a local society was organized under the head of the National Woman Suffrage Association for St. Louis,[388] with Mrs. Minor president, which has continued to do most efficient service to the present. During the summer of 1879, Mrs. Minor refused to pay the tax assessed against her:
ST. LOUIS, MO., August 26, 1879.
Hon. DAVID POWERS, President Board of Assessors: I honestly believe and conscientiously make oath that I have not one dollars' worth of property subject to taxation. The principle upon which this government rests is representation before taxation. My property is denied representation, and therefore can not be taxable. The law which you quote as applicable to me in your notice to make my tax return is in direct conflict with section 30 of the bill of rights of the constitution of the State which declares, "No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law," And that surely cannot be due process of law wherein one of the parties only is law-maker, judge, jury and executioner, and the other stands silenced, denied the power either of assent or dissent, a condition of "involuntary slavery" so clearly prohibited in section 31 of the same article, as well as in the Constitution of the United States, that no legislation or judicial prejudice can ignore it. I trust you will believe it is from no disrespect to you that I continue to refuse to become a party to this injustice by making a return of property to your honorable body, as clearly the duties of a citizen can only be exacted where rights and privileges are equally accorded.
Respectfully, VIRGINIA L. MINOR.
Again, in February, 1881, Mrs. Minor made an able argument before the legislative committee on constitutional amendments in support of the petition for the enfranchisement of the women of the State. Her pivotal point was, "By whatever tenure you, as one-half of the people, hold it, we, the other half, claim it by the same." And again in December of the same year at a meeting of the Knights and Ladies of the Father Matthew Debating Club, at which the subject was, "Is the woman's rights movement to be encouraged?" Patrick Long, Daniel O'Connel Tracy, Richard D. Kerwen, spoke in the affirmative; several gentlemen and two ladies in opposition, when Mrs. Minor, who was in the audience, was called out amid great applause, to which she responded in an able speech, showing that the best temperance weapon in the hands of woman is the ballot.
Of the initial steps taken for the elevation of women in the little village of Oregon, Mrs. Annie R. Irvine writes:
The Woman's Union, an independent literary club, designed to improve the mental, moral, and physical condition of women, held its first meeting in Oregon, Holt county, on the evening of January 6, 1872, at the residence of Dr. Asher Goslin. Temporary officers were elected, and a committee appointed to prepare by-laws for the government of the club. Six ladies[389] were present. The succeeding meetings grew in interest, and took strong hold upon the minds of all classes, from the fact that hitherto no outlet had been found for the energies of our women outside the circle of home and church. During the first two years of its existence, the Woman's Union had to bear in a small way, many of the sneers and taunts attending more pretentious organizations, but luckily, when the novelty wore off, we were allowed to pursue the quiet tenor of our way, with an occasional slur at the "strong-minded" tendency of the organization. During nearly fourteen years we have held regular meetings in a hall rented for the purpose, and paid for by earnings of the society. An excellent organ is owned by the club; they have a library of several hundred volumes, book-cases, carpet, curtains, pictures, tables, chairs, stove, etc., and the members take great pride in their cosy headquarters. At this writing, interesting meetings are held on each Wednesday evening at the homes of the different members of the society.[390] In the course of so long a time, this organization has had many changes. Members have removed to all parts of the United States, and many similar clubs elsewhere trace their origin to our society.
Several years ago an open letter from here to "Woman's Kingdom," in the Chicago Inter-Ocean called attention to our plan of work for small towns; as a result fifteen similar Unions were organized, some of them still flourishing. In northwest Missouri the same kind of clubs were formed in Maryville, Nodaway county, and Savannah, Andrew county, but neither of them became permanent. In the course of twelve years many of the best speakers on the American platform have addressed Oregon audiences, brought here by the determined efforts of a few women. To-day, public opinion in this part of Missouri is in advance of other sections on all questions relating to the great interests of humanity. In March, 1879, a call signed by prominent citizens[391] brought together a large assembly of men and women in the court-house. An address in favor of woman suffrage was delivered by Rev. John Wayman of the M. E. Church of St. Joseph. Mr. James L. Allen acted as chairman of the meeting, and a society was then organized, to bear the name of the Holt County Woman Suffrage Society. At the National Woman Suffrage Convention held at St. Louis later in the same year, Jas. L. Allen acted as delegate from this association and reported our progress. The best organized woman's society in the State is probably the Women's Christian Temperance Union. In its different departments, although hampered by too much theological red tape, it is reaching thousands of ignorant, prejudiced, good sectarian women who would expect the "heavens to fall" if they accidentally got into a meeting where "woman's rights" was mentioned even in a whisper. Mrs. Clara Hoffman, of Kansas City, is State president, and a woman of great force. She, as well as other leading lights in the Women's Christian Temperance Union, is strongly advocating woman suffrage as a sine qua non in the temperance work. The women of this part of the State have been given quite a prominent place among organizations mentioned in a late "History of Missouri, by Counties." The Woman's Union has taken the place of honor.[392] From the very outset we have had the most bitter and persistent opposition from the churches, more particularly the Presbyterian, although some of our most capable members were of that faith. Exceptions should be made in favor of the Christian, or Campbellite, and as a general thing, the M. E. churches. The greatest shock we have had to resist, however, came a few months since in the shape of a division among our own members, and has really discouraged the more independent among us more than anything else. The W. C. T. U. sent their Mascatine organizer here, to wake up the women in the interests of the State society. Although ignorant and prejudiced, he created a fanatical stampede, and in the goodness of their hearts and the weakness of their heads, our church women in the Woman's Union proposed to give to the three temperance clubs, numbering perhaps 150, the free use of our rooms and property, and suspend our own club, claiming that our mission was ended, and that a field of greater usefulness was opened in the W. C. T. U. line of work. The liberal element refused to abandon the old organization, although many joined in the W. C. T. U. work and attended both clubs.
However, in a small community, where the consciences of many good women are not free, we have met with serious drawbacks. We have had to submit to a sort of boycotting process, for some time, the orthodox, goody-goody people evidently trying to freeze us out; although I must claim that nearly every member of the Woman's Union is strongly interested in the temperance cause, and as the different departments in the W. C. T. U. fail to cover the ground we occupy, quite a respectable number seem determined to hold on in their own way, trying little by little to better the condition of all, and particularly to increase and strengthen the feeble germ of independent thought in women, so often smothered and destroyed by too much theology. What we need for women is not more spirituality but more hard common-sense, applied to reform as well as religion. One thing connected with our organization is a matter of pride to all women, namely, that no pecuniary obligation has ever been repudiated by the Woman's Union. Besides paying our debts we have given hundreds of dollars to works of charity and education, and keep a standing fund of $100, to be used in case of emergency, when, as often happens, we fail to make expenses on lectures, entertainments, etc. It would not be claiming too much if the Woman's Union of Oregon was to go upon the historic page as the only free, independent woman's club ever successfully carried on for any length of time, in the great State of Missouri.[393]
Missouri has always felt a becoming pride in the gifted daughter, Miss Phoebe Couzins, who was the first woman to enter the law school, go through the entire course, and graduate with honor to herself and her native State. Hence, a reception to her, to mark such an event, was preeminently fitting. This compliment was paid to her by Dr. and Mrs. G. A. Walker, and a large gathering of the elite of St. Louis honored her with their presence.[394] The drawing-rooms were festooned with garlands of evergreens and brilliant forest leaves and hanging-baskets of roses; the bountiful tables were elaborately decorated with fruits and flowers and statuettes, while pictures of distinguished women looked down from the wall on every side. After the feast came letters, toasts and speeches, a brilliant address of welcome was given by Dr. Walker, and an equally brilliant reply by Miss Couzins. Witty and complimentary speeches were made by Judge Krum, Hon. Albert Todd, Mrs. Francis Minor, ex-Governor Stanard, Judge Reber, Professor Riley, I. E. Meeker, Mrs. Henrietta Noa. Congratulatory letters were received from several ladies and gentlemen of national reputation, and the following regrets:
Rev. W. G. Eliot, chancellor of the University, with "compliments and thanks to Dr. and Mrs. Walker. I regret that engagements this evening prevent me from enjoying the pleasure of meeting Miss Couzins and welcoming her to her new and well-deserved honors, as I had expected to do until an hour ago."
James E. Yeatman sent regrets accompanied with "his warmest congratulations to Miss Couzins, with best wishes for her success in the noble profession of the law."
George Partridge regrets, "hoping every encouragement will be given to those who aspire to high honors by their intellectual and moral attainments."
General J. H. Hammond, Kansas City, Mo.: "I would feel honored in being allowed the privilege of congratulating this lady who so practically honors her sex."
In addition to the many congratulations showered upon Miss Couzins, she was the recipient of testimonials of a more enduring and equally flattering character. Among many valuable presents were twelve volumes of Edmund Burke from Miss A. L. Forbes, who wished to testify her appreciation of the event by deeds rather than words. Mrs. E. O. Stanard presented a handsomely-bound set of "Erskine's Speeches," in five volumes.
There were other gifts of great intrinsic worth. These tokens of regard were sent from admiring friends scattered all over the country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
Although Miss Couzins has never practiced in her chosen profession, yet the knowledge and discipline acquired in the study of our American system of jurisprudence and constitutional law have been of essential service to her in the prolonged arguments on the enfranchisement of woman, in which she has so ably and eloquently advocated the case of the great plaintiff of the nineteenth century, in that famous law-suit begun by Margaret Fuller in 1840, "Woman versus Man." Our junior advocate has taken the case into the highest courts and made her appeals to a jury of the sovereign people and "the judgment of a candid world." On all principles of precedent and importance our case now stands first on the calendar. When will the verdict be rendered and what will it be?
FOOTNOTES:
[377] Among them were Isaac H. Sturgeon, Francis Minor, James E. Yeatman, Judge John M. Krum, Judge Arnold Krekel, Hon. Thomas Noel, Ernest Decker, Dr. G. A. Walker, John E. Orrick, J. B. Roberts, Rev. G. W. Eliot, Bishop Bowman, Albert Todd, Rev. John Snyder, John Datro, J. B. Case, H. E. Merille, Mrs. Virginia L. Minor, Mrs. Rebecca N. Hazard, Mrs. Adeline Couzins, Miss Phoebe Couzins, Mrs. Beverly Allen, Miss Mary Beedy, Miss Arathusa Forbes, Mrs. Isaac Sturgeon, Mrs. Hall, and many others.
[378] President, Mrs. Virginia L. Minor; Vice-President, Mrs. Beverly Allen; Secretaries, Mrs. Rebecca N. Hazard, and Mrs. George D. Hall; Treasurer, Mrs. George W. Banker. There were present, besides the officers, Mrs. Anna L. Clapp, Miss Penelope Allen, Mrs. Frank Fletcher, Miss Arathusia L. Forbes, Mrs. Nannie C. Sturgeon, Mrs. Harriet B. Roberts, Mrs. N. Stevens, Mrs. Joseph Hodgman, Miss A. Greenman, etc. Among the men who aided the movement were Francis Minor, Isaac W. Sturgeon, James E. Yeatman, Judge John M. Krum, Judge Arnold Krekel, Hon. Thomas Noel, who gave the society its first twenty-five dollars, Ernest Decker, Dr. G.A. Walker, John C. O'Neill, J.B. Roberts, Wayman Crow, Rev. Dr. Wm. G. Eliot, Bishop Bowman, Albert Todd, Rev. John Snyder, John Datro, J.B. Case, H.C. Leville.
[379] The following we find in the St. Louis papers. It is significant of the sentiment of the Methodist women of the West: "We, the undersigned, join in a call for a mass-meeting of the M.E. Church in St. Louis, to meet at Union Church on the 15th inst., at 3 o'clock P.M., to consider a plan for memorializing the General Conference to permit the ordination of women as ministers. All women of the M.E. Church are requested to attend. Mrs. Henry Kennedy, Mrs. T.C. Fletcher, Mrs. E.O. Stanard, Mrs. A.C. George, Mrs. Lucy Prescott, Mrs. U.B. Wilson, Mrs. L. Jones, Mrs. E.L. Case, Mrs. W.F. Brink, Mrs. S.C. Cummins, Mrs. R.N. Hazard, Mrs. Dutro, Mrs. M.H. Himebaugh." The result of this meeting of the ladies of the Methodist churches to discuss a plan for admitting women into the pulpit as preachers was the appointment of a committee to draft a memorial to the General Conference to meet at Brooklyn, N.Y., asking that body to sanction and provide for the ordination of women as ministers of the Methodist Church.
[380] On the platform were Julia Ward Howe, Massachusetts; Lillie Peckham, Wisconsin; Miriam M. Cole, Ohio; Mary A. Livermore, Hon. Sharon Tyndale, Judge Waite and Rev. Mr. Harrison, Illinois; Susan B. Anthony, New York. The officers of the Woman Suffrage Association of Missouri: President, Mrs. Francis Minor: Vice-President, Mrs. Beverly Allen: Secretary, Mrs. William T. Hazard: Treasurer, Mrs. George B. Hall; Miss Mary Beady, Miss Phoebe Couzins, Mrs. E. Tittman, Mrs. Alfred Clapp, Miss A. L. Forbes, Isaac H. Sturgeon, Mrs. J. C. Orrick, Mrs. R. J. Lackland, Francis Minor, and many others.
[381] For speech and resolutions, see Vol. II., page 408.
[382] Dissension and division were the effect in every State, except where the associations wisely remained independent and all continued to work together, and the forces otherwise expended in rivalry were directed against the common enemy.
[383] For this speech of B. Gratz Brown see Vol. II., page 136.
[384] For full account of Miss Barkaloo see New York chapter, page 404.
[385] Besides those already named, there are many other women worthy of mention--Mrs. Hannah Stagg, Mrs. George H. Rha, Mrs. S. F. Gruff, Miss N. M. Lavelle, Mrs. Helen E. Starrett, Mrs. A. E. Dickinson, Mrs. E. R. Case, Miss S. Sharman, Mrs. Mary S. Phelps, Miss Mary E. Beedy, Mrs. Fanny O'Haly, Mrs. J. C. Orrick, Miss Henrietta Moore, Mrs. Stephen Ridgeley, Mrs. M. E. Bedford, Mrs. M. Jackson; and among our German friends are Mrs. Rosa Tittman, Mrs. Dr. Fiala, Mrs. Lena Hildebrand, Mrs. G. G. Fenkelnberg, Mrs. Rombauer, Miss Lidergerber.
[386] For a full report of Mrs. Minor's trial, see History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II., page 715.
[387] The committee were: J. B. Merwin, Virginia L. Minor, John Snyder, Lydia F. Dickinson, Maria E. F. Jackson.
[388] The officers were: President, Mrs. Virginia L. Minor; Vice-Presidents, Mrs. Eliza J. Patrick, Mrs. Caroline J. Todd, Miss Phoebe W. Couzins; Executive Committee, Mrs. E. P. Johnson, Mrs. W. W. Polk; Secretary, Miss Eliza B. Buckley; Treasurer, Miss Maggie Baumgartner.
[389] They were, Mrs. S. L. Goslin, Mis. A. E. Goslin, Mrs. M. M. Soper, Annie E. Batcheller, Mary Curry, Annie R. Irvine.
[390] President, Emma G. Dobyns; Vice-President, Kate Evans Thatcher; Secretary, Matilda C. Shutts; Treasurer, Lucy S. Rancher; Corresponding Secretary, Annie R. Irvine.
[391] Believing that the best interests of society, as well as government, would be best served by admitting all citizens to the full rights of citizenship, we, the undersigned, hereby give notice that a meeting will be held at the court-house, Oregon, on Saturday, March 1, 1879, at 2 p. m., for the purpose of organizing a Woman Suffrage Association. Those interested are urged to attend. Clarke Irvine, C. W. Lukens, James L. Allen, S. B. Lukens, Samuel Stuckey, Sudia Johnson, D. J. Lukens, Elvira Broedbeck, Mary Curry, Jas. B. Curry, Annie R. Irvine.
[392] In 1875 I made my first visit to Oregon, and remember my surprise at meeting so large a circle of bright, intelligent women. After taking an old stage at Travesty city, and lumbering along two miles or more over bad roads on a dull day in March into a very unpropitious looking town, my heart sank at the prospect of the small audience I should inevitably have in such a spot. Wondering as to the character of the people I should find, we jolted round the town to the home of the editor and his charming wife, Mrs. Lucy S. Rancher. Their cordial welcome and generous hospitalities soon made the old stage, the rough roads, and the dull town but dim memories of the past. One after another the members of the Union club came to greet me, and I saw in that organization of strong, noble women, wisdom enough to redeem the whole State of Missouri from its apathy on the question of woman's rights. One of the promising features of the efforts of the immortal six women who took the initiative, was the full sympathy shown by their husbands in their attempts to improve themselves and the community. Miss Couzins and Miss Anthony soon followed me, and were alike surprised and delighted with the Literary Club of Oregon. I was there again in '77, and was entertained by Mrs. R. A. Norman, now living in St. Joseph, and in '79, I stayed in a large, old-fashioned brick house near the public square with Mrs. Montgomery, then "fat, fair and forty," and all three visits, with the teas and dinners at the homes of different members of the club, I thoroughly enjoyed.--[E. C. S.
[393] Among progressive women in this part of Missouri, Mrs. Adela M. Kelly, of Savannah, wife of Circuit Judge Henry S. Kelly, is prominent; in Mound City, Mrs. Emma K. Hershberger, Mrs. Mary L. Mamcher, Mrs. Mary C. Tracy, Mrs. Fanny Smith, and others, are leading women, and were once residents here, and members of the Woman's Union. Among those actively interested here now, I shall only mention a few, Mrs. Nancy Hershberger, Mary Curry, Elvira Broedbeck, Lucy A. Christian, Ella O. Fallon, Mary Stirrell, and many others.
[394] Among those present were the following ladies and gentlemen: Dr. and Mrs. Walker, Phoebe Couzins, esq., Hon. and Mrs. John B. Henderson, Gov. and Mrs. E. O. Stanard, Mr. and Mrs. Chester H. Krum, Mr. and Mrs. Francis Minor, Mr. and Mrs. Wm. Patrick, Major and Mrs. J. E. D. Couzins, Major and Mrs. J. R. Meeker, Major and Mrs. W. S. Pope, Mr. and Mrs. Lippmann, Mr. and Mrs. Leopold Noa, Miss Noa, Miss A. L. Forbes, Judge Krum, Judge Reber, Judge Todd, Geo. M. Stuart (dean), Prof. Riley, State Entomologist; Prof. Hager, State Geologist; J. R. Stuart, artist, and others.
XLV. IOWA
Beautiful Scenery--Liberal in Politics and Reforms--Legislation for Women--No Right yet to Joint Earnings--Early Agitation--Frances Dana Gage, 1854--Mrs. Bloomer Before the Territorial Legislature, 1856--Mrs. Martha H. Brinkerhoff--Mrs. Annie Savery, 1868--County Associations Formed in 1869--State Society Organized at Mt. Pleasant, 1870, Henry O'Connor, President--Mrs. Cutler Answers Judge Palmer--First Annual Meeting, Des Moines--Letter from Bishop Simpson--The State Register Complimentary--Mass-Meeting at the Capitol--Mrs. Savery and Mrs. Harbert--Legislative Action--Methodist and Universalist Churches Indorse Woman Suffrage--Republican Plank, 1874--Governor Carpenter's Message, 1876--Annual Meeting, 1882, Many Clergymen Present--Five Hundred Editors Interviewed--Miss Hindman and Mrs. Campbell--Mrs. Callanan Interviews Governor Sherman, 1884--Lawyers--Governor Kirkwood Appoints Women to Office--County Superintendents--Elizabeth S. Cook--Journalism--Literature-- Medicine--Ministry--Inventions--President of a National Bank-- The Heroic Kate Shelly--Temperance--Improvement in the Laws.
The euphonious Indian name, Iowa, signifying "the beautiful land," is peculiarly appropriate to those gently undulating prairies, decorated in the season of flowers with a brilliant garniture of honey-suckles, jassamines, wild roses and violets, watered with a chain of picturesque lakes and rivers, chasing each other into the bosom of the boundless Mississippi. The motto on the great seal of the State, "Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain," is the key-note to the successive struggles made there to build up a community of moral, virtuous, intelligent people, securing justice, liberty and equality to all. Iowa has been the State to give large Republican majorities; to prohibit the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors by a constitutional amendment; and to present propositions before her legislature for eight successive sessions to give the right of suffrage to woman. In the article on Iowa, in the American Cyclopaedia, the writer says: "No distinction is made in law between the husband and the wife in regard to property. One-third in value of all the real estate of either, upon the death of the other, goes to the survivor in fee simple. Neither is liable for the separate debts of the other. The wife may make contracts and incur liabilities which may be enforced by or against her in the same manner as if she was unmarried; and so a married woman may sue and be sued without the husband being joined in the action." Many women living in Iowa often quote these laws with pride, showing the liberality of their rulers as far as they go. But in new countries the number of women that inherit property is very small compared to the number that work all their days to help pay for their humble homes. It is in the right to these joint earnings where the wife is most cruelly defrauded, because the mother of a large family, who washes, irons, cooks, bakes, patches and darns, takes care of the children, labors from early dawn to midnight in her own home, is not supposed to earn anything, hence owns nothing, and all the labors of a long life, the results of her thrift and economy, belong absolutely to the husband, so that when he dies they call it liberality for the husband to make his partner an heir, and give her one-third of their joint earnings.
For this chapter we are indebted to Mrs. Amelia Bloomer, who moved into this State from New York in the spring of 1855 with her husband, who commenced the practice of law in Council Bluffs, where they have resided ever since. Mrs. Bloomer had been the editor for several years of a weekly paper called the Lily, which advocated both temperance and woman's rights, and for the six years of its publication was of inestimable value alike to both reforms. She was one of the earliest champions of the woman's rights movement, and as writer, editor and lecturer, did much to forward the cause in its infancy.[395]
The first agitation of the question of woman suffrage in Iowa was in the summer of 1854, when Frances Dana Gage of Ohio gave a series of lectures in the southeastern section of the State on temperance and woman's rights. Letters written to Lily at the time show that large audiences congregated to see and hear a woman publicly proclaiming the wrongs of her sex, and demanding equal rights before the law. During the year 1855 the writer gave several lectures at Council Bluffs, and in January, 1856, by invitation, addressed the second territorial legislature of Nebraska, in Representative Hall, Omaha; and in the year following lectured in Council Bluffs, Omaha, Nebraska City, Glenwood and other towns.
In 1868 Mrs. Martha H. Brinkerhoff made a very successful lecture-tour through the northern counties of Iowa. She roused great interest and organized many societies, canvassing meanwhile for subscribers to The Revolution. In the same year Mrs. Annie C. Savery gave a lecture for the benefit of a blind editor at Des Moines. In February, 1870, by invitation, she responded to a toast at a Masonic festival in that city; and during that and the year following she lectured in several places on woman suffrage, and wrote many able articles for the press.
On April 17, 1869, the "Northern Woman Suffrage Association" was organized at Dubuque.[396] This was the first society in Iowa, though about the same time others were being organized in different localities. J. L. McCreery, in his editorial position, advocated the enfranchisement of woman, and wrote an able paper in favor of the object of the organization. Mrs. Mary N. Adams opened a correspondence with friends of the movement in other parts of the State; Henry O'Connor, Mary A. Livermore and others lectured before the society, thus educating the people into a better understanding of woman's rights and needs. Mrs. Adams not only addressed the home society, but gave lectures before lyceums and educational institutions.
Des Moines has always maintained the most successful organization having a band of earnest women enlisted in the work, and being the capital of the State, where every opportunity was afforded to facilitate their efforts. The liberality of the press, too, aided vastly in moulding public sentiment in favor of the cause. About the earliest work done in that city was in June, 1870, when Hannah Tracy Cutler and Amelia Bloomer (immediately on returning from the formation of the State Society at Mt. Pleasant) held two meetings there--one in the open air on the grounds where the new capitol now stands, on the question of temperance, Sunday afternoon, presided over by Governor Merrill; the other in the Baptist Church, on woman suffrage, the following evening, Mrs. Annie C. Savery presiding.
The Polk County Woman Suffrage Society was formed October 25, and has never failed to hold its meetings regularly each month since that time. Every congress and every legislature have been appealed to by petitions signed by thousands of the best citizens, and it is on record that the senators and representatives of Polk county, with one exception,[397] have always voted in favor of submitting the question of woman's enfranchisement to the electors of the State. When men are talked of for legislative honors they are interviewed by a committee from the society, and pledges secured that they will vote "aye" on any woman suffrage bill that may come before them.
This society has from time to time engaged the services of prominent lecturers,[398] and nearly all of the ministers and lawyers of the city have given addresses in favor of the cause. Only one minister has openly and bitterly opposed the measure, and his sermon on the "Subordination of Woman," published in the Register, called out spirited replies from Mrs. Savery and Mrs. Bloomer in the same journal, which completely demolished the flimsy fancies of the gentleman.
About 1874 Mrs. Maria Orwig edited a column in the Record, and Mary A. Work a column in the Republican. Since 1880, Mesdames Hunter, Orwig, Woods and Work have filled two columns in The Prohibitionist, of which Laura A. Berry is one of the editors. Mrs. M. J. Coggeshall has for several years served the society as reporter for the Register, proving herself a very ready and interesting writer. All of these ladies are efficient and untiring in whatever pertains to woman's interest.[399] The Register says:
The field of labor in Des Moines is pretty well occupied by the ladies. You will find them at the desks in the county and United States court-houses, in the pension office, in the insurance office, in the State offices, behind the counters in stores, in attorneys' offices--and there is one woman who assists her husband at the blacksmith's trade, and she can strike as hard a blow with a sledge as the brawniest workman in the shop.
In the autumn of 1870 a society was organized at Burlington, with fifty members. One of the earliest advocates of the cause in this place was Mary A. P. Darwin, president of the association, who lectured through the southern tier of counties during the summer of 1870. She was an earnest and forcible speaker.
At Oskaloosa the opening work was done in 1854 by Frances D. Gage, who gave four lectures there, and roused the people to thought and discussion. Mattie Griffith Davenport has long filled a prominent place in the woman suffrage movement in that city. She commenced lecturing in 1868, and during that and the two succeeding years traveled over much of the State, speaking upon temperance and woman's rights. During 1879 she edited a column of the Davenport News in the interest of suffrage. In the summer of 1870 Mrs. Cutler and Mrs. Bloomer held two meetings in Oskaloosa, in one of which a gentleman engaged in the discussions, and as is usual in such encounters, the women having right and justice on their side, came out the victors; at least so said the listeners. Following this a Woman's Suffrage Society was organized.[400] Many prominent speakers lectured here in turn, and helped to keep up the interest.
Council Bluffs also organized a society[401] in 1870, holding frequent meetings and sociables. There is here a large element in favor of the ballot for woman; and though we are unfortunate in not having an advocate in the press, still Council Bluffs will give a good report of itself when the question of woman's enfranchisement shall come before the electors for action. The trustees of the public library of this city are women; the librarian is a woman: the post-office is in the hands of a woman; the teachers in the public schools, with one or two exceptions, are women; the principal of the high school is a woman; and a large number of the clerks in the dry goods stores are women. Miss Ingelletta Smith received the nomination of the Republican party for school superintendent in the fall of 1881, but was defeated by her Democratic competitor.
Marshalltown had a suffrage organization as early as July, 1870.[402] Nettie Sanford lectured in several of the central counties of the State during that and the previous year. Josephine Guthrie, professor of Belles-Lettres at Le Grand College, in a series of able articles in the Marshalltown Times in 1869, claimed for women equality of rights before the law. In 1873, Aubie Gifford, a woman of high culture and an experienced teacher, was elected to the office of county superintendent of the public schools of Marshall county, by a handsome majority; she was reelected, serving, in all, four years.
At Algona a society[403] was formed in 1871. At the annual meeting of the State Society at Des Moines, in 1873, Lizzie B. Read delivered an address entitled, "Coming Up Out of the Wilderness," and in July, 1875, at a mass-meeting at Clear Lake, one on "The Bible in Favor of Woman Suffrage." Mrs. Read, formerly as Miss Bunnel, published a paper called the Mayflower, at Peru, Indiana, and in 1865 a county paper in this State called the Upper Des Moines.
Since 1875 Jackson county has had an efficient Equal Rights Society.[404] On July 4, 1876, Nancy R. Allen, at the general celebration at Maquoketa, the county-seat, read the "Protest and Declaration of Rights," issued by the National Association from its Centennial Parlors in Philadelphia. It was well received by the majority of the people assembled; but, as usual, there were some objectors. The Presbyterian minister published a series of articles in the Sentinel, to each of which Mrs. Allen replied ably defending the principles of the Woman Suffrage party. The Maquoketa Equal Rights Society celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of the woman's rights movement July 19, 1878, by holding a public meeting in Dr. Allen's grounds, in the shade of the grand old trees. It was a large gathering, and many prominent gentlemen of the city, by their presence and words of cheer, gave dignity to the occasion. Jackson county has long honored women with positions of trust. The deputy recorder is a woman; Mrs. Allen was notary public; Mrs. Patton was nominated for auditor by the Greenback party in 1880, but was defeated with the rest of the ticket. Women are book-keepers, merchants, clerks, teachers; and, in fact, almost every avenue is open to them.
Of Fort Dodge, Mrs. Haviland writes: "The subject has never been much agitated here. I have stood almost alone these long years, watching the work done by my sisters in other parts of the State, and hoping the time would soon come when some move could be made in this place. Last spring the annual meeting of our State Society was held here, but it was with difficulty that I found places where the few who came could be entertained, people were so afraid of woman's rights. After the refusal of the other churches, the Baptists opened theirs; the crowd of curious ones looked on and seemed surprised when they failed to discover the 'horns.'" Mrs. A.M. Swain also writes: "Miss Anthony came here first in June, 1871, and has been here twice since. Mrs. Swisshelm was here in 1874. Both were my guests when no other doors were open to the advocates of woman suffrage. The late convention of the State Society held here was a decided success; the best class of ladies attended; the dignity and ability shown in the management, and the many interesting and logical papers read disarmed all criticism and awakened genuine interest. I have handed in my ballot for several years, but it has never been received or counted."
Societies were organized in 1869 and 1870, in Independence and Monticello. Humboldt, Nevada, West Union, Corning, Osceola, Muscatine, Sigourney, Garden Grove, Decorah, Hamburg, and scores of other towns have their local societies. At West Liberty Mrs. Mary V. Cowgill and her good husband are liberal contributors to the work, both State and National.
At a convention held at Mt. Pleasant, June 17, 18, 1870, different sections of the State being well represented, the Iowa Woman Suffrage Society[405] was formed. Belle Mansfield, president, Frank Hatton,[406] editor of the Mt. Pleasant Journal, secretary. W.R. Cole opened the convention with prayer. After many able addresses from various speakers,[407] in response to an invitation from the president, Judge Palmer in a somewhat excited manner stated his objections to woman's voting. He wanted some guarantee that good would result from giving her the ballot. He thought "she did not understand driving, and would upset the sleigh. Men had always rowed the boat, and therefore always should. Men had more force and muscle than women, and therefore should have all the power in their hands." He spoke of himself as the guardian of his wife, and said she did not want to vote. After talking an hour in this style, he took his seat, greatly to the relief of his hearers. Mrs. Cutler, in her calm, dignified, deliberate manner, answered his arguments. She proved conclusively that muscular force was not the power most needed in our government. If it were, all the little, weak men and women, no matter how intellectual must stand aside, and let only the strong, muscular do the voting and governing. In clearness of perception, and readiness of debate, she distanced her opponent altogether in the opinion of the convention.
The first annual meeting of the State Society was held at Des Moines, October 19, 1871. Mrs. Bloomer presided[408] in the absence of the president, Gen. O'Connor. Speakers had been engaged for this convention, a good representation secured, and every arrangement made for a successful meeting. And such it was, barring a difference of opinion among the friends of the movement as to what questions should properly come before a society whose only object, as declared in its constitution, was to secure suffrage for women. The following letters were received:
IOWA CITY, October 11, 1871.
Mrs. ANNIE SAVERY--Dear Madam: Your kind and very flattering invitation to address the Woman's State Suffrage Convention, in Des Moines, reached me just prior to my departure for this city, and I avail myself of my first leisure to respond. It would not only give me great pleasure, but I should esteem it among my higher duties to accept your invitation, and give my emphatic endorsement to the great reform movement represented by the woman suffrage convention, were it at all practicable. But I have just reached my new charge, and can not dispose of immediate pressing claims upon my time and effort here. Please accept my apology for declining, and believe me, ever yours for woman's enfranchisement.
C. R. POMEROY.
INDIANOLA, Sept. 30, 1871.
Mrs. ANNIE SAVERY--Madam: I am in receipt of your letter, asking me to take part in your annual convention. I thank you for the honor, as I expect from such a convention results the most salutary, not only to the condition of woman, but also to the progress of our young and vigorous commonwealth. I have read carefully the circular enclosed in your letter, and consider the logic irrefutable, and its suggestions well worthy the attention of all who desire the complete enfranchisement of woman. I fear that I shall not be able to attend, but if I am, I shall be with you, should I do no more than say "Amen" to the words of my eloquent countryman, O'Connor, whom I learn you have honored with the presidency of your association. Wishing for your cause the fullest success, I subscribe myself--one for the enfranchisement of woman.
ALEXANDER BURNS.
A letter was also received from Bishop Matthew Simpson, of the Methodist church, who was always ready to declare his adherence to this great reform:
OWATOMA, Oct. 2, 1871.
Hon. J. HARLAN--Dear Senator: Yours, inclosing Mrs. Savery's kind invitation, was received before I left Mankota. I would be pleased to comply with her invitation, joined as it is with your earnest solicitation. But I am under bonds--if not to keep the peace, at least to keep silence--so far as either sermons or public addresses are concerned, until the full restoration of my health. I am glad to say my health is improving. I have presided at five conferences this fall--two still await me. But I have not ventured any extra labor, nor dare I for some time to come. Please convey to Mrs. Savery my thanks for her kind invitation, and say to her that I sympathize fully with the suffrage association in its desire to attain for women the ballot.
A series of resolutions was discussed, other letters read, and a large number of new converts joined the association. The State Register spoke in a very complimentary manner of the deliberations of this convention:
It is but just, perhaps, that we should say, in general terms, of the State woman suffrage convention, in session in Des Moines the past week, that its proceedings were characterized with good sense, dignity, and the best of order. The world has had an impression for five or six thousand years that women cannot talk without wrangling, counsel without confusion. Again, many are so unjust as to imagine that a convention composed of ladies, assembled to discuss serious subjects, can be nothing more than a quilting party or tattlers' club enlarged and let loose.
We have never seen a convention conducted with more decorum, or a greater degree of intelligent accord exhibited in the routine of proceedings, than was noticeable in this first annual gathering of the friends of suffrage in Iowa. A majority of the members were women. They opened the convention and conducted the discussions with a spirit and in a manner after which men might well pattern. In some respects, the ladies who took the lead, showed themselves better posted in general information, in all matters of deliberation, than men.
We would not endorse all that was done at the convention, but we would be fair enough to give to it the meed of having been, in all respects, well conducted. The convention strengthened those in whose name it met, not only among themselves, but with the public. All who attended it were impressed with the conviction that its members were earnest and honest, and could see that they were intelligent and well armed. Whatever it may have done directly, and that we know was much, it accomplished more good for its cause by impressing the public mind that its adherents in Iowa are banded together in union, and bound to make every honorable effort for success.
In January, 1872, I received a letter from a very prominent member of the legislature, from which the following is an extract:
After consultation I believe the House would resolve itself into committee of the whole (when senators would be likely also to come in), and hear you on the question of woman suffrage. Should you desire to press it to vote this session, I should advise that course. As to the time of your hearing, it should be in the day, and appointed soon after the recess. We meet again on February 13. I think it could be arranged for Friday, the 16th, if agreeable to you. With kind regards,
JOHN A. KASSON.
Notwithstanding this kind proposal of Mr. Kasson, I did not act upon his suggestion. But Mrs. Harbert and Mrs. Savery, feeling that something must be done, had the courage and the conscience, on their individual responsibility, to call a mass-meeting at the capitol on the evening previous to the day appointed for the vote on the amendment in the House. Mrs. Harbert presided and opened the meeting with an earnest appeal; Mrs. Savery, Mr. C.P. Holmes, Senator Converse, and Governor Carpenter, made eloquent speeches. The governor, in opening his address said he voted to strike "black" from the constitution sixteen years ago, and would then, as now, had the opportunity been presented, have voted to strike out "male."
On the following day when the amendment came up in the House for the final vote, it was carried by 58 to 39. In the Senate there was a spirited discussion, Hon. Charles Beardsley making an earnest speech in favor of the resolution. The vote on engrossing the bill for the third reading stood 26 ayes to 20 nays. Hope ran high with the friends; but alas! on a final vote, taken but a few minutes later, the bill was lost by 24 nays to 22 ayes.[409] The general sentiment was well stated by the Iowa State Register:
The Senate disposed of the woman suffrage question yesterday by voting it down. We think it made a mistake. Certainly there was, at the lowest count, thirty out of every hundred voters in the State who desired to have this legislature ratify the action of the last Assembly, and submit the question at the polls this fall. The Republican party has its own record to meet here. The first time the negro suffrage question was submitted to the people of Iowa, it was submitted by a Republican legislature, and the submission was made when not over one voter in a hundred desired it done. This latter thing was a plain proposition, a most justly preferred petition. The people who were anxious to have the question submitted, are, it is confidently claimed, in majority. We think their wishes might well and fitly have been granted. Even those who were opposed to them must see that the advocates of the reform will now have a chance to claim that the opponents of it are afraid to go with them to the people. This is not merely a defeat for the present year, but practically for four years. Our State constitution can be amended only after two legislatures have acted upon the amendment, and the people have voted upon it. The legislature of two years ago passed the resolution voted down yesterday. Now, we presume, it will have to take another start. Four years of waiting and working before the friends of the reform can be given a chance to get a verdict from the people, is a long and painful ordeal. It will not be endured with patience. It would be asking too much of human nature to expect that.
At the annual convention of 1874, at Des Moines, Bishop Gilbert Haven of the Methodist Episcopal Church, a clear and liberal thinker, made a very impressive speech on the power woman could wield with the ballot in her own hand in making our towns and cities safe for our sons and daughters to live in. This year, the Des Moines annual conference of the M. E. Church passed resolutions advocating woman suffrage as a great moral reform; while the State convention of the Universalist Association in its resolution said: "This convention recognizes that women are entitled to all the social, religious, and political rights which men enjoy."
At the Diocesan Convention held at Davenport May 1881, the Episcopal Church took a step forward by striking the word male out of a canon, thus enabling women to vote for vestrymen, a right hitherto withheld. It is but a straw in the right direction, but "straws show which way the wind blows," and we may hope for more good things to follow.
The Republican party, in convention assembled, at Des Moines, July 1, 1874, inserted the following, as the tenth plank of its platform:
Resolved, That since the people may be entrusted with all questions of governmental reform, we favor the final submission to them of the question of amending the constitution so as to extend the right of suffrage to women, pursuant to the action of the fifteenth General Assembly.
The reading of the resolution called forth cheers of approval, and was adopted without a dissenting vote, Mrs. Elizabeth Boynton Harbert is entitled to great credit for this "woman's plank," she having gone before the committee on resolutions and made an earnest appeal for woman's recognition by the Republican party. The State Record said:
When the Republicans, in national convention, recognized woman, and gave her a plank in the platform of the party, it reflected back a spirit of justice and progress which is looked for in vain in the party opposing, of whatever name. But when the Republicans of Iowa gave to a woman the privilege of bringing in a plank of her own production, and that plank was added to the State platform without a dissenting voice, it placed Iowa, men and women alike, in the vanguard of the world's onward march to a more rational life, more even justice, and purer government.
In the Republican State platform of Iowa is the first real and purely woman's plank that ever entered into any political platform--because it originated in the brain of woman. It was by a woman carried to the committee, and in response to an able, dignified, and true womanly appeal, it was accepted, and by the convention incorporated into the platform of the party. It may seem to be a small plank, but it has strength and durability. It is the live oak of a living principle, that will remain sound while other planks of greater bulk around it will have served their purpose and wasted away.
It argues thus: if woman is competent to present a political issue, clothed in her own language, with a dignity and modesty that silence opposition, is she not competent to exercise with prudence and intelligence the elective franchise? and would she not, if entrusted with it, exercise it for the elevation of a common humanity? The Record tenders hearty congratulations not only to Mrs. Harbert, who we know will bear the honors modestly, but also to those who by their presence in the convention gave encouragement to greater respect for woman's wishes, and by whose work is demonstrated woman's fitness to be in truth a helpmeet for man. We had a mother, and have sisters, wife, and daughter, and that is why we would have woman enjoy every privilege and opportunity to be useful to herself and her country that we claim for ourself.
At the annual meeting of 1875, held at Oskaloosa, the following letter from the governor of the State was received:
EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, Des Moines, Iowa.
Mrs. R. G. ORWIG, Cor. Sec. I. W. S. S.--Dear Madam: I have your letter inviting me to be present at your annual meeting. Thanking you and the association for the consideration implied, I have to express my regrets that business of an official character will prevent me from coming. I hope your proceedings may be characterized by such wisdom, moderation, and sincerity as to advance the cause to which your efforts are given. I have never been able to discover any argument to sustain my own right to vote that does not equally apply to woman. Whether my right is founded upon the interest I have, in common with my fellows, in the preservation of the free institutions of my country; or upon the protection of my personal interests as a citizen; or upon my right to a voice in the creation of laws to which I am held amenable; or upon my right to influence by a vote the direction given to revenues which I am taxed to help supply; or upon any other right, personal, political or moral, I have never been able to see why the reasons which make the vote valuable to me do not apply with equal force to woman. You doubtless think your efforts are comparatively fruitless; but I need not tell you that while your agitation has failed, so far, to bring you the ballot, it has ameliorated the condition of woman in very many particulars. Her property rights are better protected; her sphere of activity has been enlarged, and her influence for good is more widely recognized. So I wish you well. Yours truly,
C. C. CARPENTER.
This year women were members of a lay delegation in the Methodist conference, and also lay delegates to the Presbyterian synod. And in two or three instances women have been invited to address these bodies, and have received a vote of thanks. Many of the orthodox clergy are openly advocating our cause, and in some instances women have been invited by them to occupy their desks on Sunday to preach the Gospel to the people. This is a wonderful advance in sentiment since 1852, when in New York the clergy would not permit women to speak, even on temperance in a public hall.
In 1876 the society secured the services of Matilda Hindman, of Pittsburg, Pa., who traveled over the greater part of the State, lecturing and organizing societies, and was everywhere spoken of as an eloquent and logical speaker. She was followed by Margaret W. Campbell, and those who know her feel that the State gained in her a valuable friend in everything pertaining to the interests of woman. What is said of Miss Hindman as a speaker may also be said of Mrs. Campbell.
The first governor of Iowa to officially recognize woman's right to the ballot was the Hon. C. C. Carpenter, who in his message to the General Assembly of 1876, said:
The proposed amendment to the constitution, adopted by your predecessors, and which requires your sanction before being submitted to the voters of the State, will come before you. I venture to suggest, that the uniform expression in Wyoming Territory, where woman suffrage is a fact, is favorable to its continuance, and that wherever in Europe and America women have voted for school or minor officers the influence of their suffrage has been beneficent; and in view of the peculiar appropriateness of submitting this question in this year, 1876, when all America is celebrating achievements which were inspired by the doctrine that taxation and representation are of right inseparable, it is recommended that you give the people of Iowa an opportunity to express their judgment upon the proposed amendment at the ballot-box.
At the request of the State Association, Miss Matilda Hindman was granted a hearing before the legislature, and most respectful attention was accorded to her able address. Miss Anthony was also invited, and, at the suggestion of Mrs. Savery, she engaged the opera-house. The seats reserved for the members were all filled, and every part of the house occupied. The day following, the vote in the House was taken, and carried by 54 to 40. After a careful canvass of the Senate, it was found that there were ten votes to spare; but alas! when the day for final action came the amendment was lost by one vote.[410]
In 1880 Senator Gaylord of Floyd county made a speech, giving twenty-one reasons why he voted against the submission of the proposition for the enfranchisement of women, which was published in full in the Des Moines Register, and thus sent broadcast over the State. Mrs. Bloomer replied to Mr. Floyd through the same paper, meeting and refuting every objection, thus in a measure antidoting the poisonous influence of the senator's pronunciamento.
In the spring of this year Dr. Harriette Bottsford and Mrs. Jane C. McKinney were appointed by a caucus of Republican women, to the Powesheik county convention, to choose delegates to the State convention. They presented their credentials to the committee, and the chairman reported them as delegates. On motion, they were accepted--but some men soon bethought them that this was establishing a bad precedent, and began maneuvering to get rid of them. This was finally done by declaring the delegation full without them--two men having been quietly appointed to fill vacancies after the ladies had presented their credentials. Mrs. McKinney made a spicy speech, saying they did not expect to be received as delegates, but wished to remind the men that women were citizens, tax-payers and Republicans, but unrepresented.
At the Greenback State convention of 1881, Mrs. Mary E. Nash was nominated as the candidate of that party for State superintendent of schools. Mrs. Nash declined the honor intended, and said that her political flag, if it were to float at all, would be found in another camp. She would not desert her colors for office. In 1884 Mrs. H. J. Bellangee and Mrs. A. M. Swain were regularly accredited delegates to the National Greenback convention, held at Indianapolis, Ind., to nominate a candidate for the presidency, where they were received with the greatest courtesy.
The annual meeting of 1882, at Des Moines, was remarkable for the number of clergymen, representing nearly all the different denominations, who took part in its proceedings, each of the nine seeming to vie with the others in expressing his belief that the ballot for woman, as for man, was a right, not a privilege. Bishop Hurst of the M. E. Church, made an able speech. The executive committee sent a memorial to the Republican convention, held in June for the nomination of State officers, asking a plank in their platform favoring the submission of the woman suffrage amendment. The request was not granted. Leading politicians who professed to believe in equality of rights for women feared that to do so would make too heavy a weight for the party to carry, it having already incorporated a prohibition plank in its platform. The committee also interviewed 500 editors, asking them to open the columns of their papers to the advocacy of woman suffrage. One hundred and twenty replied favorably, while many were courteous and others brusque in their refusals.
A committee on legislation (Mrs. Narcissa T. Bemis, chairman) did good work during this session of the legislature, and also published a tract composed of contributions from twelve leading ministers of the State, called "The Clergymen's Tract." This was sent broadcast. Nine hundred of the clergy were favored with a copy. The Ministerial Association, held in Des Moines, passed the following:
Resolved, That we are heartily in favor of woman suffrage as advocated by your association, and regard the same as a proper subject for pulpit-teaching, and, as opportunity offers of furthering said cause in our pulpit ministry, we will avail ourselves of the same.
During this year the State Society contributed liberally to the Nebraska campaign. Mrs. Nancy R. Allen and Mrs. Mary B. Lee each left a small legacy to the association.
Of the annual meeting of 1883,[411] held at Ottumwa, the local papers gave full and fair reports; while 200 papers of the State published a condensed statement prepared by the secretary. Miss Hindman and Mrs. Campbell were again invited to the State. No grander work than theirs was ever done in Iowa. There is scarcely a county which they have not canvassed; holding meetings, forming associations, circulating petitions, distributing tracts, preaching on Sundays in the churches, traveling, often for months at a time, without a pledge of pecuniary aid, depending for their expenses wholly on funds contributed at their meetings.
The State convention of 1884 met at the Christian Church at Des Moines; Mrs. Nacissa T. Bemis presided. Mrs. Helen M. Gougar of Indiana was one of the speakers. A committee, of which Mrs. Martha C. Callanan was chairman, interviewed the governor, asking a recognition of woman's right of suffrage, and were told it should receive consideration. Accordingly, in his message to the legislature, Governor Sherman said:
Your attention is respectfully directed to the question of impartial suffrage, in respect to which the nineteenth General Assembly proposed an amendment to the constitution. Should this meet your approval, as preliminary to taking the judgment of the voters, I recommend that it be submitted at a special election, in order that it may be freed from the influence of partisan politics, and thus receive an unprejudiced vote of our citizens. Not caring to here express an opinion upon the question itself, it is sufficient to say that now, as heretofore, I am in favor of the submission of any question which is of importance and general interest.
Governor Sherman also gave it as his opinion that a good woman should be placed on the board of trustees of every public institution. This was the second time that an Iowa governor had referred to this great political question in his message to the General Assembly, Governor Carpenter having heartily indorsed the measure in 1876. It is said, however, that Governor Newbold had written a clause on the subject in his message in 1878, but that it was suppressed by the careful counsel of some guardian angel of his party.
Previous to the assembling of this legislature, petitions had been widely circulated,[412] praying for the submission of the amendment. Over 6,000 signatures were obtained. Each petition was placed in the hands of a senator or member from the county in which the names were gathered, for presentation in the respective Houses.
For fifteen consecutive years the State Society has met annually, made reports, passed resolutions, elected officers, listened to speeches and transacted what other business has come before it. Though its anniversaries have usually been held at Des Moines, its influence through the press has pervaded the whole State. Since 1875, the annual meetings have been held in different cities[413] outside the capital, thus giving the people of all sections of the State an opportunity to participate in the deliberations. Petitions to the legislature and to congress have been circulated by the society, delegates sent to the conventions of the National and American Suffrage Associations,[414] and letters addressed to the delegates of the State and National nominating conventions of the political parties, asking for a recognition of woman's right to the ballot in their platforms.
A brief recital of the proceedings of the Iowa legislature will show that a large majority of the Representatives have been in favor of submitting the question of woman suffrage to a direct vote of the men of the State. The proposition was first presented in the House by Hon. John P. Irish, in 1870. The resolution passed both Houses with very little debate, was approved by the governor, and submitted to the next General Assembly. In the session of 1872 it was discussed in both Houses at considerable length, and again passed in the Lower House by the strong vote of 58 ayes to 39 nays; while in the Senate it was lost by only two majority. The House has never failed at any session since that time, until 1884, to give a majority in its favor; but the Senate has not made for itself so good a record. In 1872 the vote in the Senate stood: ayes, 22; nays, 24. In 1876 it was lost by one vote; and in 1880 lost on engrossment. In 1884 the tables were turned; when the amendment came up in the twentieth General Assembly for ratification, the Senate passed the bill, while the House, for the first time, defeated it by a small majority.
By the constitution of Iowa an amendment must be approved by two consecutive legislatures, convened in regular session. When so approved it is then submitted to the popular vote of the electors. As in this State the legislature meets but once in two years, the reader can see how easily a bill passed at one session may, two years later, be defeated by the election of new members who are opposed to it. And thus through all these years those who claim the ballot for woman in this State have been elated or depressed by the action of each succeeding legislature.
The thirteenth General Assembly not only earned a good name for enlightened statesmanship by passing the constitutional amendment in favor of woman suffrage, but it also, by chapter 21, approved March 8, 1870, passed an act admitting women to the practice of law. It was under this that Judith Ellen Foster--so widely known as an eloquent lecturer and able lawyer--Annie C. Savery, Mrs. Emma Haddock, Louisa H. Albert, Jessie M. Johnson, and several others have passed the necessary examination and been admitted to practice as attorneys and counselors in all the courts of the State. Mrs. Arabella Mansfield was admitted to the bar in 1869, just a year previous to the enactment of the law.
Miss Linda M. Ramsey, now Mrs. Hartzell, was employed as a clerk by Adjutant-General Baker in 1864, and held the office for some time after the war closed. The Record says she was the first woman regularly employed and paid by the State for clerical services. Miss Augusta Matthews served as military secretary for Governor Stone during the war under pay of the State.
It was the thirteenth General Assembly, 1870, that first elected a woman, Miss Mary E. Spencer, to the office of engrossing clerk; and upon her it devolved to convey the message from the House to the Senate, announcing the passage of the woman suffrage amendment. In 1872 each House elected one woman among its officers; and each succeeding General Assembly since that time has elected from three to six women. The office of postmaster has been filled by women for the last ten years, and is now held by the venerable widow of General N. A. Baker, for many years the popular adjutant-general of the State. The office of State librarian was filled by Mrs. Ada North for seven years, and is now held by Mrs. S. B. Maxwell. Mrs. North is (1885) librarian of the State University at Iowa City.
The State insane hospitals are inspected by a visiting commission, one of whom is a woman. Several of the city hospitals are managed by women of the Catholic orders. The reform schools have a woman on their board of trustees, of whom Governor Sherman was graciously pleased to say that "she discovered more of the true inwardness of the institution in three days than her honorable colleague had done in three years."
In 1876 Governor Kirkwood appointed Mrs. Nancy R. Allen notary public. He also appointed Mrs. Merrill as teacher and chaplain at the State penitentiary, Miss McCowen as physician of the State insane asylum, and Dr. Sara A. Pangborn, one of the staff of physicians of the insane hospital at Independence.
In 1874 Governor Carpenter appointed Mrs. Deborah Cattell a commissioner to investigate the alleged cruelty in the State Reform School at Eldora; and for this service she was paid the same as men who served on the same commission. Governor Gear appointed Dr. Abbie M. Cleaves delegate from Iowa to the National Conference of Charities and Correction, and to the National Association for the Protection of the Insane and the Prevention of Insanity, which was held in Cleveland, Ohio, July, 1880. Mrs. Mary Wright and Dr. Abbie Cleaves were commissioned to the conference of the same associations at Louisville, Ky., in 1883. The legislature of 1880 appointed Jane C. McKinney one of the trustees of the Hospital for the Insane, at Independence.
The eighteenth General Assembly, 1880, passed an act to extend to women the right to hold the office of county recorder. A bill giving them the right to hold the office of county auditor passed the House, but was lost in the Senate. Under the above law Miss Addie Hayden was elected recorder of Warren county by a majority of 397 votes. She ran on an independent ticket. Mrs. C. J. Hill was chosen recorder of Osceola county at the same election.
The instruction of the youth of Iowa has fallen largely into the hands of women. During the year 1879 the number of women employed as teachers was 13,579, while the number of men was 7,573. In the larger towns and cities women are almost exclusively engaged as teachers. Miss Phebe Ludlow, after having for several years acceptably discharged the duties of city superintendent of schools at Davenport, was elected professor of English language and literature in the State University at Iowa City. The chair is still occupied by a woman, as is that of instructor of mathematics and several other branches in that institution, which, to the honor of Iowa be it said, always opened its doors to both sexes alike.
The question of the eligibility of women to the office of county superintendent of public schools having arisen by the election of Miss Julia C. Addington in the autumn of 1869, the matter was referred to the attorney-general by the State superintendent of public instruction, and the following was his reply:
Hon. A. S. Kissell, Superintendent of Public Instruction:
DEAR SIR: Rights and privileges of persons (citizens) are frequently extended but never abridged by implication. The soundness and wisdom of this rule of construction is, I believe, universally conceded. Two clauses of the constitution, only, contain express provisions excluding women from the rights and privileges in said provisions. Section 1, of Article I., as to the right of suffrage, and Section 4, of Article III., which provides that members of the legislature must be free white male citizens. "Free" and "white" have lost their meaning (if the words in that use ever had any suitable or good meaning), but the word "male" still retains its full force and effect. If this express restriction exists in the constitution as to any other office, it has escaped my notice. It is true that the words "person" and "citizen" frequently occur in other parts of the constitution in connection with eligibility and qualification for office, and I fully admit that by usage--"time-honored usage," if you will--these phrases have in common acceptation been taken to mean man in the masculine gender only, and to exclude woman. But a recent decision in the Court Exchequer, England, holding that the generic term "man" includes woman also, indicates our progress from a crude barbarism to a better civilization.
The office of county superintendent was created by chapter 52 of the acts of the seventh General Assembly, laws of 1868, pages 52-72. Neither in that act, nor in any subsequent legislation on the subject, have I been able to find any express provisions making male citizenship a test of eligibility for the place, or excluding women; and when I look over the duties to be performed by that officer--as I have with some care, and, I trust, not without interest--I deem it exceedingly fortunate for the cause of education in Iowa that there is no provision in the law preventing women from holding the office of county superintendent of common schools. I know that the pronoun "he" is frequently used in different sections of the act, and referring to the officer; but, as stated above, this privilege of the citizen cannot be taken away or denied by intendment or implication; and women are citizens as well and as much as men.
I need scarcely add that, in my opinion, Miss Addington is eligible to the office to which she has been elected; that she will be entitled to her pay when she qualifies and discharges the duties of the office, and that her decisions on appeal, as well as all her official acts, will be legal and binding. It is perhaps proper to state that an opinion on this question, substantially in agreement with the present one, was sent from this office to a gentleman writing from Osage, in Mitchell county, several weeks ago, which for some reason unknown to me, seems not to have been made public in the county. I have the honor to be, etc.,
HENRY O'CONNOR, Attorney-General.
Miss Addington, in her short letter of inquiry to the superintendent, has the following modest conclusion: "The position is not one I should have chosen for myself, but since my friends have shown so much confidence in me, and many of them are desirous that I should accept the office, I feel inclined to gratify them, if it be found there is nothing incompatible in my doing so."
The question of the eligibility of women to hold school offices was again raised at the October election of 1875. Miss Elizabeth S. Cooke was elected to the office of superintendent of common schools in Warren county. The question of her right to hold the office was carried by her opponent, Mr. Huff, to the District Court of that county, by appeal; and that court decided that the defendant, Miss Cooke, "being a woman, was ineligible to the office." It was then carried to the Supreme Court of the State, which held that "there is no constitutional inhibition upon the rights of women to hold the office of county superintendent." In the meantime, however, and immediately following the decision of the Warren county judge, the General Assembly, March 2, 1876, promptly came to the rescue and passed the following act, almost unanimously:
SECTION 1. No person shall be deemed ineligible, by reason of sex, to any school office in the State of Iowa.
SEC. 2. No person who may have been, or shall be, elected or appointed to the office of county superintendent of common schools, or director, in the State of Iowa, shall be deprived of office by reason of sex.
Under the provisions of this law, and the above-cited decision of the Supreme Court, Miss Cooke was allowed to serve out her term of office without hindrance. Since that time women have been elected, and discharged the duties of county superintendent with great credit to themselves and advantage to the public. Women have also been elected to other school offices in different parts of the State. Mrs. Mary A. Work was unanimously elected sub-director in district No. 6, Delaware township, Polk county, in the spring of 1880; and soon after was made president of the board--the first woman, so far as known, to fill the position of president of a school board.
In 1877, in Frederica, Bremer county, Mrs. Mary Fisher attended the school meeting, and was elected as one of the three directors. The two others were men, one of whom immediately resigned, saying he would not hold office with a woman. His resignation was at once accepted. He further remarked that "woman's place was to hum; she was out of her spear to school meetin's, holdin' office," etc. Mrs. Fisher had been a teacher for six years. Mrs. Shirley, another successful teacher, accompanied Mrs. Fisher to the next school meeting, and both ladies voted on all questions that came up for action, and nothing was said against their doing so.
This year (1885) the school board of Des Moines elected Mrs. Lou. M. Wilson to the office of city superintendent of public schools, with a salary of $1,800 a year. She has in charge eighty teachers, among whom are two men in the position of principals. At the woman's congress, held at Des Moines in October, 1885, Dr. Jennie McCowen, in her report for this State, said:
An increasing number of women have been elected on school-boards, and are serving as officers and county superintendents of schools. Last year six women served as presidents, thirty-five as secretaries, and fifty as treasurers of school-boards. Of the superintendents and principals of graded schools about one in five is a woman; of county superintendents, one in nine; of teachers in normal institutes, one in three; of principals of secondary institutions of learning, one in three; of tutors and instructors in colleges, one in two; and in the twenty-three higher institutions of learning, thirteen young women are officiating as professors, and in three of these colleges the secretary of the faculty is a woman. The State board of examiners has one woman--Miss Ella A. Hamilton of Des Moines--and the State superintendent of public instruction has for a number of years availed himself of the valued services of a woman for private secretary. The Northwestern Educational Journal is edited by a woman. At the last meeting of the State Teachers' Association a committee was appointed to prepare a regular course of reading for teachers. This course is mainly professional and literary, with a leaning toward the latter. A large number of these reading circles have already been organized, and much interest, and even enthusiasm, is being manifested by teachers in all parts of the State. The school of Domestic Economy, in connection with the Agricultural College, is in charge of a woman as dean, and, although but a year old, has made an auspicious beginning. A number of young ladies, graduates of the State University and other literary schools, have gone to the School of Domestic Economy to finish their education.
Iowa has many women engaged as journalists. Prominent among these is Miss Maggie VanPelt, city editor of the Dubuque Times. She conducts her department very ably, and acceptably to her readers. Whether an advocate for suffrage or not, she is certainly a practical woman's rights woman. Independent and fearless, she goes about day and night where she pleases, and wherever her business calls her. A revolver, which she is known to carry, makes it safe for her to walk the street at all hours. Mrs. Will Hollingsworth, of the Sigourney Review, does a large part of the writing for that paper, and assists in the management of the establishment. Woman's Hour, edited by Mary J. Coggeshall, was published by women at Des Moines two seasons, during the exposition. Ten thousand copies were printed for free distribution, and a handsomely decorated department granted the society in the exposition for their work. Mrs. E. H. Hunter and Mrs. Woods represented the society. Mrs. Pauline Swaim is noted for her journalistic ability. Besides working on her husband's paper, the Oskaloosa Herald, she has done much for the State Register, reporting for it the proceedings of the Senate. In October, 1875, Nettie Sanford started a paper at Marshalltown, called The Woman's Bureau, which she published for two years. During 1878 she published the San Gabriel Valley News, in California. Mrs. L. M. Latham for many years conducted a suffrage column in the Cedar Rapids Times; since 1884 she has been associated with Mrs. J. L. Wilson on the Transcript, an eight column paper devoted to general news, temperance and woman suffrage. The paper is owned by Mrs. Wilson. Mrs. Nettie P. Fox edits the Spiritual Offering at Ottumwa; Mrs. Hattie Campbell, a suffrage department in The Advance, at Des Moines; Mary Osborne edits the Osceola Sentinel, and is superintendent of the public schools of Clark county; Mrs. Lafayette Young is engaged on the Atlantic Telegraph. Very many papers in the State have women in charge of one or more columns.
In the humbler walks of literature Iowa can boast quite a number of women who have made successful attempts at authorship.[415] In sculpture Mrs. Harriet A. Ketcham, of Mt. Pleasant, deserves mention. She has the exclusive contract to model the prominent men of Iowa for the new capitol. Mrs. Estelle E. Vore, Mrs. Cora R. Fracker, and Miss Emma G. Holt, are known as musical composers.
Among the lecturers of Iowa, Mrs. Matilda Fletcher is worthy of mention. Though she has never made woman suffrage a specialty, she is sound on that question, and frequently introduces it incidentally in her lectures. In 1869 she was living in obscurity in Council Bluffs, her husband being employed as a teacher in one of the suburban schools. Young, girlish-looking, no one seeing her would have dreamed of her possessing the capabilities she has since displayed. She started out under many discouragements, but has shown a perseverance, a self-reliance, and an indomitable will that few women manifest in the same direction. Mrs. Fletcher has been employed by the Republican party during some of the most important and exciting campaigns, speaking throughout the State, in halls, tents, and in the open air. Every such effort on the part of woman is an advantage to the cause we advocate, bringing it nearer to final success. But it is to Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony, Anna Dickinson, Mrs. Livermore, and other lyceum lecturers[416] that our State is especially indebted for a knowledge of the true principles upon which woman founds her claim to equal civil and political rights with man. In all sections of our land their voices have been heard by interested and delighted audiences.
There are about one hundred and fifty women in the medical profession in the different cities of the State. Mrs. Yeomans, of Clinton, is a successful practitioner. Mrs. King, allopathist, and Mrs. Hortz, homeopathist, are regular graduates in good practice at Des Moines. Dr. Harding, electrician, and Dr. Hilton, allopathist, also graduates, have all the practice they can attend to in Council Bluffs. In 1883, Dr. Jennie McCowen was elected president of the Scott County Medical Society. This was the first time a woman was ever elected to that office in this State, if not in the United States.
It is quite sure that Iowa may justly claim the first woman in the profession of dentistry--Mrs. Lucy B. Hobbs, as early as 1863.[417] At Cresco there is the firm of Dr. L. F. & Mrs. M. E. Abbott, dental surgeons. At Mt. Pleasant, Mrs. M. E. Hildreth is a licensed dentist in successful practice.
Rev. Augusta Chapin was, I think, the first woman to enter the sacred office in this State. Miss Safford, Algona; Mrs. Gillette, Knoxville; Mrs. M. A. Folsom, Marshalltown; Florence E. Kollock, Waverly; Mrs. M. J. Janes, Spencer; Mrs. Hartsough, Ft. Dodge, are regularly ordained preachers of the Universalist and Unitarian faiths. There are several licensed preachers of the M. E. Church, but none have received regular ordination.
Iowa furnished the following women who went to the front as nurses during the war: Mrs. Harlan, wife of Senator Harlan; Mrs. Almira Fales, Mrs. Anne Wittenmeyer, Miss Phebe Allen, Mrs. Jerusha R. Small, Miss Melcena Elliott, Mrs. Arabella Tannehill. These all did good service in hospital and on the field, and some of them laid down their lives as a sacrifice. We copy the following as one of the many facts of the war:
Some years ago Adjutant-General Baker of Des Moines received a letter of inquiry asking about a certain soldier in the Twenty-fourth Iowa infantry. The tone of the letter was so peculiar as to attract considerable attention and create much comment in the office. In reply the general stated that the records of the regiment and the record of the soldier (whom, for the sake of convenience, we will call Smith, although that is far from the real name) were in his office. A few days afterwards a gentleman from Northern Iowa appeared, inquired for General Baker, and was closeted with him long enough to divulge the following singular tale:
When the war broke out Miss Mary Smith, daughter of the general's visitor, was residing in Ohio, working for a farmer. Her father's family had moved to Iowa the fall preceding the attack on Sumter, leaving Mary behind to follow in the spring. Various causes conspired to delay her departure for her Iowa home until autumn, and it was September before she landed at Muscatine, from which place she expected to travel by land to her father's house. She was a large-sized, hearty-looking girl, eighteen years of age. Arriving at Muscatine, some strange freak induced her to assume man's apparel and enlist in the Twenty-fourth infantry, then in rendezvous at that city. She did this without exciting any suspicion, burned all her feminine garments and papers, neglected to inform her friends of her arrival, and became a soldier. Some comment was elicited by her beardless face and girlish appearance, but as she did her duty promptly and was particularly handy in cooking and taking care of the sick, the young warrior speedily became a general favorite alike with officers and men.
She passed through all the campaigns in which the regiment was engaged without a scratch, except a close call from a minie ball at Sabine's Cross Roads, which took the skin off the back of her left hand, voted with the other members of the regiment for president in 1864, and was finally mustered out with her comrades at the close of the war. When she was discharged she procured female apparel--although in doing so she was obliged to make a confidant of one of her own sex--and procured work in Illinois, not far from Rock Island. Six months elapsed before the tan of five summers wore off, and when she had again become "white," and had re-learned the almost forgotten customs of womanhood, she presented herself at her father's house, where she was received with open arms.
To all the questions which were asked by the various members of the family she replied that she had been honestly employed, and had never forsaken the right way. She had been economical in the army, and invested several hundred dollars in land in Northern Iowa, which rapidly appreciated in value, and to-day she is well off. With the remainder of her money she attended school. Last January a worthy man, who had been in the same regiment, but in a different company, made her an offer of marriage. Like a true woman she was unwilling to bestow her hand when any part of her former life was unknown, and before accepting the offer she made to him a full revelation of her soldier-days. At first he could not believe it, but when she proceeded to narrate events and incidents which could be known only to active participants in them, told of marches, camps, skirmishes, battles, and the thousand and one things which never appear in print, but which ever remain living pictures with "old soldiers," he was obliged to accept the strange tale as true. The story, however, did not lessen his regard for her, and about the first of February they were married.
The lady's father, after hearing the tale of her life, was still incredulous, and only satisfied himself of its truth by a visit to the adjutant-general's office and an inspection of the records. By comparing dates furnished him by his daughter with the original rolls there on file he became fully convinced that it was all true.
A few of the inventions patented by women of Iowa are the following:
Fly-screen door-attachment, by Phoebe R. Lamborne, West Liberty; photograph-album, Viola J. Angie, Spencer; step-ladder, Mrs. Mary J. Gartrell, Des Moines; baking-powder can with measure combined, Mrs. Lillie Raymond, Osceola; egg-stand, Mrs. M. E. Tisdale, Cedar Rapids; egg-beater, and self-feeding griddle-greaser, Mrs. Eugenia Kilborn, Cedar Rapids; tooth-pick holder, Mrs. Ayers, Clinton; thermometer to regulate oven heat, Mrs. F. Grace, Perry; the excelsior ironing-table, Mrs. S. L. Avery, Marion; neck-yoke and pole-attachment, by which horses can be instantly detached from the vehicle, Maria Dunham, Dunlap; invalid bed, Mrs. Anna P. Forbes, Dubuque.
In the various business avocations I find the following:
Mrs. T. Nodles is the largest fancy grocer in the State, doing a yearly business of $80,000. Mrs. C. F. Barron, Cedar Rapids, designs and manufactures perforated embroidery patterns. Statistics show there are nine hundred and fifty-five Iowa women who own and direct farms; eighteen manage farms; six own and direct stock-farms; twenty manage dairy-farms; five own green-houses; nine manage market-gardens; thirty-seven manage high institutions of learning; one hundred and twenty-five are physicians; five attorneys-at-law; ten ministers; three dentists; one hundred and ten professional nurses, and one civil engineer.
In the summer of 1884, the Fort Dodge Messenger had this paragraph about a Des Moines family:
Miss Kate Tupper, of Des Moines, has been in town, visiting at Mr. Bassett's for a few days. Kate comes of a family which is remarkable for intelligent womanly effort and success. Her mother is Mrs. Ellen S. Tupper, the Bee-queen of Iowa, whose work on bee-culture is a recognized authority everywhere; her eldest sister is a very eloquent preacher at Colorado Springs; Miss Kate is studying medicine, having taken herself through a full course at the Agricultural College by her own work; and Miss Madge, who is only sixteen, is a famous poultry raiser, and an officer of the State Poultry Association, who has made money enough in this business to defray her entire expenses through a full collegiate course. Mrs. Tupper's family is a sufficient answer to the question of woman's work, if there were no other. Let any mother in Iowa show three boys who can beat this.
In this year Mrs. Louisa B. Stevens was elected president of the First National Bank at Marion, Linn county. The important position women are taking in the business world is illustrated by the presence of two delegates at the meeting of the American Street Railway Association held in St. Louis in the autumn of 1885--Mrs. L. V. Gredenburg, proprietor and treasurer of the New Albany Street Railway of New Albany, Ind., and Mrs. M. A. Turner, secretary and treasurer of the Des Moines Railway, Des Moines, Ia. One of the gentlemen expressed the belief that fully $25,000,000 of street-railway stock in this country is owned by women.
As to the distribution of the cardinal virtues between men and women it is generally claimed that the former possess courage, the latter fortitude. Although the pages of history are gilded with innumerable instances of the remarkable courage of women of all ages and conditions, and oftimes dimmed with the records of cowardice in men of all classes, yet what has been said for generations will probably be repeated, even in the face of so remarkable a fact as the following:
On March 1, 1882, the Iowa House of Representatives, on motion of Hon. A. J. Holmes, suspended the rules and passed a bill introduced by that gentleman providing for the presentation of a gold medal and the thanks of the General Assembly of the State of Iowa to Miss Kate Shelly, to which was added a money appropriation of two hundred dollars, which passed both Houses and became a law.
In support of the bill, Mr. Holmes spoke as follows:
Mr. Speaker: No apology is required for the introduction of this bill, and I shall make no explanation in regard to it, save a brief resume of the facts upon which the bill is based. Miss Kate Shelly, with her widowed mother and little sisters and brother, lives in a humble home on the hill-side, in a rugged country skirting the Des Moines River. Her father had died years ago in the service of the great railway company whose line for some distance is overlooked by her home, while her mother, by economy, severe toil, and the assistance of Kate, was able to support her little family.
On the night of July 6, 1881, about 8 o'clock, there commenced one of the most memorable storms that ever visited Central Iowa; nothing like it had ever been witnessed by the oldest inhabitants. The Des Moines river rose over six feet in one hour--little rills that were dry almost the year round, suddenly developed into miniature rivers--massive railway bridges and lines of track were swept away as if they had been cobwebs. It was while looking out of her window toward the high railroad bridge over Honey Creek, that Kate Shelley saw the advancing head-light of a locomotive descend into an abyss and become extinguished, carrying with it the light of two lives. It was then she realized in all its force that a terrible catastrophe had occurred, and another more terrible, if not averted, would soon follow to the east-bound express train, heavily laden with passengers from the Pacific. She announced to her mother, sisters and brother, that she must go to the scene of the accident, and render assistance if possible, and also warn the oncoming passenger train.
It was in vain they tried to dissuade her. Although she was obliged to almost improvise a lantern in many of its parts, it was but a few minutes before she was ready to set out. Realizing then that her mission was one of peril, and that she might not again look upon those dear faces, she kissed each of them affectionately, and amid their sobs, hurried out into the gloom, into the descending floods, toward the rushing torrents--drenched to the skin, on she passed toward the railroad to the well remembered foot-log, only to find the waters rushing along high above and beyond the place where it had been. Then she thought of the great bluff rising to the west of her home and extending southward toward the railroad track, and she determined to ascend it and reach the bridge over this barrier to the waters. Need I recount how she struggled on and up through the thick oak undergrowth, that, being storm-laden drooped and made more difficult her passage; how with clothing torn, and hands and face bleeding she arrived at the end of the bridge, and standing out upon the last tie she peered down into the abyss of waters with her dim light, and called to know if any one was there alive. In answer to her repeated calls came the answer of the engineer, who had caught hold of and made a lodgment in a tree-top, and around whom the waters were still rapidly rising, sending floating logs, trees, and driftwood against his frail support, and threatening momentarily to dislodge and engulf him.
It took but a moment to be assured that he was the survivor of four men who went down with the engine, and after a moment's hurried consultation, she started for Moingona, a mile distant, to secure assistance and to warn the eastward-bound passenger train then nearly due. As she passed along the high grade it seemed as if she must be blown over the embankment, and still the heavens seemed to give not rain but a deluge. As she approached the railway bridge over the Des Moines river the light in her lantern, her only guide and protection, went out. It was then that the heroic soul of this child of only sixteen years became most fully apparent; facing the storm which almost took away her breath, and enveloped in darkness that rendered every object in nature invisible, she felt her way to the railroad bridge. Here she must pass for a distance of four or five hundred feet over the rushing river beneath on the naked ties. As the wind swept the bridge she felt how unsafe it would be to attempt walking over it, and getting down upon her hands and knees, clutching the timbers with an almost despairing energy, she painfully and at length successfully made the passage. She reached the station, and having told of the catastrophe at the bridge, and requested the stoppage of the passenger train then about due, she fainted and fell upon the platform. This very briefly, wanting in much that is meritorious in it, is the story of Kate Shelly and the 6th of July. Her parents were countrymen of Sarsfield, of Emmett, and O'Connell--of the land that has given heroes to every other and dishonored none. It was an act well worthy to rank her with that other heroine, who, launching her frail craft from the long stone pier, braved the terrible seas on that Northumberland coast to save the lives of others at the risk of her own.
Mr. Holmes then produced a copy of the State Register, and requested the clerk to read the article therein contained, giving the details of the heroic girl's action, written at the time of its occurrence, and after the clerk had read the article, concluded by saying: "I hope, Mr. Speaker, that this bill may pass, believing that it is right, and further believing that the State of Iowa will do itself as much honor as the young lady named in the bill, in thus recognizing the greatest debt in our power to pay--that to humanity." Mr. Pickler moved to amend by instructing the gentleman from Boone (Mr. Holmes) to make the presentation. Carried, and the bill was amended accordingly, as above. On motion of Mr. Holmes, the rules were suspended, and the bill passed by a vote of 90 to 1. The governor of the State, Hon. A. J. Holmes, and Hon. J. D. Gillett were authorized to procure a medal of design and inscription to be approved by them, and present the same to the donee with the thanks of the General Assembly of the State of Iowa.
The medal, which is of elegant design and workmanship, was executed by Messrs Tiffany & Co., of New York, and was presented to Miss Shelly during the holidays of 1883. It is round in form, about three inches in diameter and weighs four ounces five and a half pennyweights. On both sides it is sunken below the circular edges and the figures and decorations are then displayed in bold relief. On the face is a figure emblematic of Kate Shelly's daring exploit. It represents a young girl with a lantern in her left hand and her right thrown far out in warning, her hair streaming in the wind and her wet drapery clinging to her form, making her way over the ties of a high railroad bridge, in storm and tempest, with the lightning playing about her. In a semi-circle over the figure are the words: "Heroism, Youth, Humanity." On the reverse is the following inscription:
"Presented by the State of Iowa to Kate Shelly, with the thanks of the General Assembly, in recognition of the courage and devotion of a child of fifteen years, whom neither the terror of the elements nor the fear of death could appal in her efforts to save human life during the terrible storm and flood in the Des Moines valley on the night of July 6, 1881."
Surrounding the inscription is a wreath of leaves and beneath it the great seal of Iowa.
The presentation was made at Ogden in the presence of 3,000 people. It was given in the name of the State of Iowa by Mr. Welker Given, secretary to Governor Sherman, July 4, 1884, who represented the governor in his necessary absence. Hon. J. A. T. Hull, Secretary of State, introduced Miss Shelly and recounted her heroic deed of that fearful night, after which Mr. Given made the presentation speech. The response on behalf of Miss Shelly was made by Professor J. D. Curran, an old friend and teacher.
All very well, but how much better to have placed Kate Shelly (bearing the name of one of England's great poets) in the University at Des Moines, and given her a thorough education, from the primary through the whole collegiate course, and the school for law, medicine, or theology. A girl capable of such heroism and self-sacrifice must possess capacities and powers worthy the highest opportunities for development. Kate Shelly, with the scientific training of a civil engineer, might shed far more honor on her native State than sitting in ignorance and poverty on the banks of the Des Moines river with a gold medal round her neck.
The Patrons of Husbandry, having at one time as many as 1,998 Granges in the State, admit women to equal membership and equal rights. They have the same privileges in debate as men, and an equal vote in all matters concerning the Grange. The Grangers do not seem to fear that the children will suffer, or home interests be neglected, on account of this liberty given to women. Miss Garretson is State agent and lecturer for this order, and has accomplished much good by her labors among the people of the rural districts. She claims equal rights for woman even to the ballot. The Independent Order of Good Templars passed resolutions unqualifiedly committing the grand lodge of the State in favor of granting suffrage to woman, and pledging themselves to labor for the furtherance of that object. Temperance women who have heretofore opposed the enfranchisement of their sex, and objected to mixing the two questions, are coming to see that a powerless, disfranchised class can do little toward removing the great evil that is filling the land with pauperism and crime, and sending sixty thousand victims annually to a drunkard's grave. They have prayed and plead with the liquor-seller; they have petitioned electors and law-makers, but all in vain; and now they begin to see that work must accompany prayer, and that if they would save their sons from destruction they must strike a blow in their defense that will be felt by the enemy. Hence the Christian Temperance Union, which at the outset declared itself opposed to woman suffrage, has now resolved in favor of that measure as a necessity for the furtherance of their cause.
On March 31, 1880, Judith Ellen Foster, of Clinton, made an able and eloquent argument before the Senate Committee on Education and Labor, at Washington, on Senator Logan's proposition to constitute the revenue on alcoholic liquors a national educational fund. At a meeting of the State Union held in 1883, resolutions were passed, declaring woman's efforts in temperance of no avail, until with ballots in their own hands, they could coin their ideas and sympathies into law, and that henceforward they would labor to secure that power, that would speedily make their prayers and tears of some avail. This action gave a new impetus to the suffrage movement. At the State convention, Mrs. Jane Amy M'Kinney was appointed Superintendent of Franchise. Circulars were issued advising the Unions to make suffrage a part of their local work, and the advice was promptly followed in many sections of the State. At the election on the prohibitory amendment, June 29, 1882, women rallied at the polls, and furnished tickets to all whom they could persuade to take them, and this helped to roll up a large vote in favor of the amendment.
The laws of Iowa have been comparatively liberal to woman, and with each successive codification have been somewhat improved. By the code of 1857, the old right of dower, or life interest in one-third of the real estate of a deceased husband, was made an absolute interest; and this is the law at the present time. Of the personal property, the wife takes one-third if there are children, and one-half if there are no children to inherit. The same rule applies to the husband of a deceased wife. The codes of 1857 and 1860 each provided that the husband could not remove the wife, nor their children, from their homestead without the consent of the wife; and the code of 1875, now in force, changed this only so as to provide that neither shall the wife remove the husband without his consent. Deeds of real estate must be signed by both husband and wife, but no private examination of either has ever been required in Iowa. A husband and wife may deed property directly to each other.
By the code of 1851 the personal property of the wife did not vest at once in the husband, but if left within his control it became liable for his debts, unless she filed a notice with the recorder of deeds, setting forth her claim to the property, with an exact description. And the same rule applied to specific articles of personal property. Married women abandoned by their husbands could be authorized, on proper application to the District Court, to transact business in their own name. The same provisions were substantially reenacted in the code of 1860. Under both codes the husband was entitled to the wages and earnings of his wife, and could sue for them in the courts.
But the code of 1873 made a great advance in recognizing the rights of married women; and it is said the revisers sought, as far as possible, to place the husband and wife on an entire equality as to property rights. By its provisions, a married woman may own, in her own right, real and personal property acquired by descent, gift or purchase; and she may manage, sell, convey, and devise the same by will to the same extent, and in the same manner, that the husband can property belonging to him. And this provision is followed by others which fully confer on the married woman the control of her own property. Among other things it is enacted, that a wife may receive the wages of her personal labor, and maintain an action therefor in her own name, and hold the same in her own right; and she may prosecute and defend all actions at law, or in equity, for the preservation and protection of her rights and property. Contracts may be made by a wife, and liabilities incurred, and the same may be enforced by, or against her, to the same extent as though she were unmarried. The property of both husband and wife is equally liable for the expenses of the family and the education of their children, and neither is liable for the debts of the other contracted before marriage. By the code of 1873, now in force, it is declared that the parents are the natural guardians of their children, and are equally entitled to their care and custody; and either parent dying before the other, the survivor becomes the guardian.
But notwithstanding the seemingly equal provisions of our code, there is still a great disparity in the laws relating to the joint property of husband and wife--or property accumulated during marriage by their joint earnings and savings. Such property, whether real or personal, is generally held in the name of the husband--no matter how much his wife may have helped to accumulate it. If the wife dies, the husband still holds it all, and neither law nor lawyers can molest him, or question his right to it. But if the husband dies, the case is very different. Instead of being left in quiet possession of what is rightfully her own, to use and guard with all a mother's care and watchfulness for the benefit of her children, the law comes in and claims the right to appoint administrators and guardians--to require bonds and a strict accountability from her, and to set off to her a certain share of what should be as wholly hers as it is the husband's when the wife dies.
This is the old common law, that has come down to us from barbarous times, and the light of the nineteenth century has not yet been sufficient to so illumine the minds of Iowa legislators as to enable them to render exact justice to woman.
FOOTNOTES:
[395] In 1849 her husband was, appointed post-master, she became his deputy, was duly sworn in, and during the administration of Taylor and Fillmore served in that capacity. When she assumed her duties the improvement in the appearance and conduct of the office was generally acknowledged. A neat little room adjoining became a kind of ladies' exchange where those coming from different parts of the town could meet to talk over the contents of the last Lily and the progress of the woman suffrage movement in general. Those who enjoyed the brief interregnum of a woman in the post-office, can readily testify to the loss to the ladies of the village and the void felt by all when Mrs. Bloomer and the Lily left for the West and men again reigned supreme.
Mr. and Mrs. Bloomer removed to Mt. Vernon, Ohio, in 1853, and the publication of the Lily was continued; she was also the associate editor of the Western Home Visitor. Mrs. Bloomer lectured in the principal cities of Ohio and throughout the north-west, and was one of a committee of five appointed to memorialize the legislature of Ohio for a prohibitory law, and assisted in the formation of several lodges of Good Templars.
[396] The officers were: President, Mrs. D. S. Wilson; Vice-President, Mrs. W. P. Sage; Secretary, Mrs. J. S. McCreery; Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. Mary N. Adams.
[397] Frank Allen.
[398] Lucy Stone, Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony, Mrs. Cutler, Mrs. Livermore, Anna Dickinson, Phoebe Couzins, Mrs. Swisshelm, Miss Hindman and Mrs. Campbell, from abroad; Mesdames Savery, Callanan, Gray, Pittman, Boynton, Harbert, Brown, and Messrs. Fuller, Pomeroy, Rutkay, Cole, and Maxwell, of the city, have each in turn come to the aid and encouragement of the society's work.
[399] For information regarding Des Moines I am indebted to Mary A. Work, one of the most able advocates of woman suffrage in the State.
[400] President, Porte Welch; Secretary, Mattie Griffith Davenport.
[401] President, Amelia Bloomer; Vice-Presidents, C. Munger and Mary McPherson; Recording Secretary, Ada McPherson; Corresponding Secretary, Will Shoemaker; Treasurer, E. S. Barnett.
[402] Its officers were: President, Nettie Sanford; Secretary, Mrs. Fred. Baum; Treasurer, Mrs. Dr. Whealen.
[403] President, M. W. Stough; Secretary, Lizzie B. Read. Mrs. Read was president of the State society in 1873, and Mrs. C. A. Ingham in 1881.
[404] President, Hon. John E. Goodenow; Vice-Presidents, Nancy R. Allen, Mrs. M. J. Stephens, Mrs. A. B. Wilbur; Secretary, Mrs. E. D. Stewart; Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. Julia Dunham; Treasurer, Mrs. T. P. Connell; Executive Committee, Mrs. S. Stephens, Mrs. Julia Doe, Mrs. Polly Hamley, Dr. J. H. Allen, W. S. Belden.
[405] President, Henry O'Connor; Vice-Presidents, Amelia Bloomer, Nettie Sanford, Mrs. Frank Palmer, Joseph Dugdale, John P. Irish; Secretary, Belle Mansfield; Corresponding Secretary, Annie C. Savery; Executive Committee, Mary A. P. Darwin, Mattie Griffith Davenport, Mrs. J.L. McCreery, Rev. Augusta Chapin, Hon. Charles Beardsley.
[406] Assistant postmaster-general under President Arthur.
[407] Mary A.P. Darwin, professor of the college, and Hon. Charles Beardsley, editor of the Hawkeye, Burlington; Hon. Henry O'Connor, Muscatine; Mary N. Adams, Dubuque; Annie C. Savery, Des Moines; Amelia Bloomer, Council Bluffs; A.P. Lowrie, Marshalltown; Mrs. Beavers, Valisca. Hannah Tracy Cutler of Illinois, was the leading speaker; Edwin A. Studwell of New York representing The Revolution, Col. George Corkhill, Joseph Dugdale, Rev. Mr. Cooper, Mt. Pleasant, were also in attendance.
[408] The speakers were Mr. Rutkay, Mrs. Sanford, Mrs. Bloomer, Mrs. Spaulding, Mrs. Savery. Encouraging letters were read from Joseph A. Dugdale, and Hon. Henry O'Connor, president of the association. The officers for 1871 were: President, Mrs. Amelia Bloomer; Recording Secretary, Mrs. Belle Mansfield; Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. Annie Savery; Treasurer, Mrs. M. Callanan.
[409] Yeas, Senators Beardsley, Bemis, Burke, Campbell, Chambers, Converse, Dague, Dashiell, Dysart, Howland, Hurley, Kephart, Maxwell, McCold, McKean, McNutt, Read, Shane, Smith, Vale, West, Young--22. Nays, Senators Allen, Boomer, Claussen, Crary, Fairall, Fitch, Gault, Havens, Ireland, Ketcham, Kinne, Larrabee, Leavitt, Lowry, McCollough, Merrill, Miles, Murray, Russell, Stone, Stewart, Taylor, Willett, Wonn--24. Senator Murray had voted in the affirmative in the first instance, but changed his vote in order to be able to move a reconsideration of the vote, by which the resolution was lost.
[410] The names of the representatives voting on the Woman Suffrage amendment are as follows (Republicans in Roman, Democrats in Italics): YEAS--Allen, Baker, Bolter, Brooks, Brush, Calvin, Campbell, Case, Chapman, Clark of Johnson, Cleveland, Colvin, Craver, Deweese, Giltner, Given, Glendenning, Glover, Hall, Hoag, Homer, Horton, Hotchkiss, Hunt, Irwin of Warren, Jaqua, Jordan, Johnson of Benton, Kauffman, Lane, Lathrop, Lynch, McCartney, McHugh, McNeill, Madden of Polk, Madison, Maris, Mills, Moffit, Morse of Wright, Norris, Palmer, Proudfoot, Rae, Reed of Howard, Robinson, Said, Scott, Smith, Tice, Underwood, Ure, Wilson--54. NAYS--Auld, Benton, Birchard, Brown, Bush, Christy, Clark of Marion, Crawford of Dubuque, Danforth, Dixon, Elliot, Evans, Fuller, Gibbons, Gilliland, Gray, Harned, Hemenway, Hobbs, Horstman, Johnston of Dubuque, Johnson of Winneshiek, McCune, Madden of Taylor, Manning, Mentzel, Morse of Adams, Mueller, Reed of Jackson, Rees, Shaw, Simmons, Stone, Stuart, Stuckey, Thayer, White, Williams, Young, Mr. Speaker (John W. Gear)--40. Absent--Shepardson, Graves, Irwin of Lee, Seevers, McElderry, Crawford of Scott.
The vote in the Senate was: YEAS--Arnold, Bailey, Campbell, Conaway, Dashiell, Dwelle, Gallup, Gilmore, Graham, Harmon, Hersey, Jessup, McCoid, Miller of Appanoose, Miller of Blackhawk, Mitchell, Newton, Nichols, Perkins, Thornburg, Wood, Woolson--22. NAYS--Bestow, Carr, Clark, Cooley, Dows, Hartshorn, Hebard, Kinne, Larrabee, Lovell, McCormack, Maginnis, Merrell of Clinton, Merrill of Wapello, Pease, Rothert, Rumple, Teale, Willett, Williams, Wilson, Wonn, Wright--23. ABSENT--Hitchcock (who was sick and died in a few days), yea; Murphy, nay; Shane (resigned on account of being appointed district judge), yea; Stoneham, nay; Young, nay.
[411] Narcissa T. Bemis of Independence was reelected president, and Mary A. Work chairman of the executive committee, with headquarters at Des Moines; Mrs. Margaret W. Campbell was made State lecturer and organizer, and Mariana T. Folsom financial secretary of the association.
[412] Mrs. M. A. Darwin, Mrs. Martha Callanan, Mrs. Judith Ellen Foster, superintendents of the franchise department of the W. C. T. U. of the State, rolled up petitions in their respective districts; and Mrs. Campbell and Miss Hindman aided largely in gathering the signatures.
[413] In August, 1875, at Oskaloosa; October, 1880, Fort Dodge; 1881, Marshalltown; 1883, Ottumwa; 1885, Cedar Rapids; all of the intervening anniversaries have been held at Des Moines. The presidents of the State society since its organization have been Attorney-General Henry O'Connor, Amelia Bloomer, Lizzie B. Read, Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, Mrs. Dr. Porter, James Callanan, Martha C. Callanan, Mrs. Caroline A. Ingham, Narcissa T. Bemis, Margaret W. Campbell. When the society was organized, in 1870, it declared itself independent and remained thus until 1879, when, by a small vote, it was made auxiliary to the American Association. The officers for 1885 are: President, Mrs. M. W. Campbell, Des Moines; Treasurer, Mrs. Eliza H. Hunter, Des Moines; Recording Secretary, Mrs. Jennie Wilson, Cedar Rapids; Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. Martha C. Callanan, Des Moines; Executive Committee, Mary J. Coggeshall, Chairman; R. Amanda Stewart, Harriet G. Bellanger, Des Moines; Orilla M. James, Knoxville; Florence English, Grinnell; Ellen Armstrong, Ottumwa; Narcissa T. Bemis, Independence; Angeline Allison, Cedar Rapids; Elizabeth P. Gue, Des Moines.
[414] At the State Fair held September, 1885, at Des Moines, the women had a very handsomely decorated booth where they received many hundred calls, distributed an immense amount of suffrage literature, obtained a thousand signatures to a petition to the legislature and wrote notes of the fair for various newspapers, in all of which woman suffrage was freely discussed.
[415] In literature there is "Europe through a Woman's Eye," by Mrs. Cutler of Burlington; "The Waverly Dictionary," by Miss May Rogers, Dubuque; "Common-School Compendium," by Mrs. Lamphere, Des Moines; "Hospital Life," by Mrs. Sarah Young, Des Moines; "Wee Folks of No Man's Land," by Mrs. Wetmore, Dubuque; "Two of Us," by Calista Patchin, Des Moines; "For Girls," by Mrs. E. R. Shepherd, Marshalltown; "Autumn Leaves," by Mrs. Scott, Greencastle; "Phonetic Pronunciation," by Mrs. Henderson, Salem; "Her Lovers," by Miss Claggett, Keokuk; "Practical Ethics," by Matilda Fletcher. There are several writers of cook-books, of medical and sanitary papers, of poems, of legal papers and of musical compositions. Miss Adeline M. Payne of Nevada has compiled catalogues of stock.
[416] Miss Anthony has given her lecture, entitled "Woman Wants Bread, not the Ballot," in over one hundred of the cities and villages of the State; and Mrs. Stanton and the others have doubtless lectured in fully as many places.
[417] See New York chapter, page 401.
XLVI. WISCONSIN
Progressive Legislation--The Rights of Married Women--The Constitution Shows Four Classes Having the Right to Vote--Woman Suffrage Agitation--C. L. Sholes' Minority Report, 1856--Judge David Noggle and J. T. Mills' Minority Report, 1859--State Association Formed, 1869--Milwaukee Convention--Dr. Laura Ross--Hearing Before the Legislature--Convention in Janesville, 1870--State University--Elizabeth R. Wentworth--Suffrage Amendment, 1880, '81, '82--Rev. Olympia Brown, Racine, 1877--Madame Anneke--Judge Ryan--Three Days' Convention at Racine, 1883--Eveleen L. Mason--Dr. Sarah Munro--Rev. Dr. Corwin--Lavinia Goodell, Lawyer--Angie King--Kate Kane.
For this digest of facts in regard to the progress of woman in Wisconsin we are indebted to Dr. Laura Ross Wolcott,[418] who was probably the first woman to practice medicine in a Western State. She was in Philadelphia during all the contest about the admission of women to hospitals and mixed classes, maintained her dignity and self-respect in the midst of most aggravating persecutions, and was graduated with high honors in 1856 from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, of which Ann Preston,[419] M. D., was professor for nineteen years, six years dean of the faculty, and four years member of the board of incorporators. After graduation Laura Ross spent two years in study abroad, and, returning, commenced practice in Milwaukee, where she has been ever since.
By an act of Congress approved May 29, 1848, Wisconsin was admitted to the Union. Its diversity of soil and timber, the healthfulness of its climate and the purity of its waters, attracted people from the New England and Middle States, who brought with them fixed notions as to moral conduct and political action, and no little repugnance to many of the features of the old common law. Hence in Wisconsin's territorial conventions and legislative assemblies many of the progressive ideas of the East were incorporated into her statutes. Failing to lift married women into any solid position of independence, the laws yet gave them certain protective rights concerning the redemption of lands sold for taxes, and the right to dispose of any estate less than a fee without the husband's consent. In case of divorce the wife was entitled to her personal estate, dower and alimony, and with the consent of her husband she could devise her real estate. She was entitled to dower in any lands of which the husband was seized during marriage. Gen. A. W. Randall was active in making the first digest and compilation of the laws of Wisconsin.
The legislature of 1850 was composed of notably intelligent men. Nelson Dewey was governor, Moses M. Strong, a leading lawyer, speaker of the Assembly, and the late Col. Samuel W. Beal, lieutenant-governor. Early in the session a bill was introduced, entitled "An act to provide for the protection of married women in the enjoyment of their own property," which provoked a stormy debate. Some saw the dissolution of marriage ties in the destruction of the old common-law doctrine that "husband and wife are one, and that one the husband"; while arguments were made in its favor by Hon. David Noggle, George Crasey, and others. Conservative judges held that the right to own property did not entitle married women to convey it; therefore in 1858 the law was amended, giving further security to the wife to transact business in her own name, if her husband was profligate and failed to support her; but not until 1872 did the law protect a married woman in her right to transact business, make contracts, possess her separate earnings, and sue and be sued in her own name. The legislature of 1878 reenacted all the former laws; and married women may now hold, convey and devise real estate; make contracts and transact business in their own names; and join with their husbands in a deed, without being personally liable in the covenants. In the matter of homesteads, the husband cannot convey or encumber without the signature of the wife, and thus a liberal provision is always secure for her and the children.
By the law of 1878, if the husband dies leaving no children and no will, his entire estate descends to his widow.[420] If the owner of a homestead dies intestate and without children, the homestead descends, free of judgments and claims--except mortgages and mechanics' liens--to his widow; if he leaves children, the widow retains a life interest in the homestead, continuing until her marriage or death.
Thus from the organization of the State, Wisconsin has steadily advanced in relieving married women from the disabilities of the old common law. The same liberal spirit which has animated her legislators has admitted women to equality of opportunities in the State University at Madison; elected them as county superintendents of public schools; appointed them on the State board of charities, and as State commissioners to a foreign exposition;[421] and welcomed them to the professions of medicine, law and the ministry.
By the constitution of Wisconsin the right of suffrage was awarded to four classes of citizens, twenty-one years and over, who have resided in the State for one year next preceding an election.
First--Citizens of the United States.
Second--Persons of foreign birth who have declared their intention to become citizens of the United States.
Third--Persons of Indian blood who have already been declared by act of congress citizens of the United States.
Fourth--Civilized persons of Indian descent who are not members of any tribe.
While thus careful to provide for all males, savage and civilized, down to one thousand Indians outside their tribe, the constitution in no way recognizes the women of the State, one-half its civilized citizens. However, the question of woman suffrage was early agitated in this State, and its advocates were able men. In 1856 there was an able minority report published, from C. L. Sholes, of the Committee on Expiration and Reenactment of Laws, to whom were referred sundry petitions praying that steps might be taken to confer upon women the right of suffrage. In 1857, there was another favorable minority report by Judge David Noggle, and J. T. Mills. It has been twice considered by the legislatures of 1868-69, and 1880-81, failing each time by a small majority. A constitutional amendment is supposed by some to be necessary to effect this needed reform, but the legislature is competent to pass a bill declaring women possessed of the right to vote, without any constitutional amendment. The legislature of New York all through the century has extended the right of suffrage to certain classes and deprived others of its exercise, without changing the constitution. The power of the legislature which represents the people is anterior to the constitution, as the people through their representatives make the constitution.
The women, both German and American, awoke to action and organized a local suffrage society at Janesville in 1868. The Revolution said:
From the report of a recent convention held in Janesville, we find the leading men and women of that city have formed an Impartial Suffrage organization, and are resolved to make all their citizens equal before the law. Able addresses were made by the Rev. S. Farrington, Rev. Sumner Ellis, and a stirring appeal issued to the people of the State, signed by Hon. J. T. Dow, G. B. Hickox, Mrs. J. H. Stillman, Joseph Baker and Mrs. F. Harris Reed. Mrs. Paulina J. Roberts of Racine, a practical farmer in a very large sense, delivered an address which was justly complimented.
The first popular convention held in Wisconsin, with national speakers, convened in Milwaukee February 15, 16, 1869.[422] The bill then pending in the legislature to submit the question of woman suffrage to the electors of the State added interest to this occasion. Parker Pillsbury, in The Revolution, said:
The Wisconsin convention seems to have been quite equal in all respects to its predecessors at Chicago and other places. Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony were accompanied to Milwaukee by Mrs. Livermore, a new Western star of "bright particular effulgence," and the proceedings throughout were characterized by argument, eloquence and interest beyond anything of the kind ever witnessed there before. The Milwaukee papers teem with accounts of it, most of them of very friendly tone and spirit, even if opposed to the objects under consideration. The Evening Wisconsin said, if any one supposed for an instant that the call for a Woman's Suffrage convention would draw out only that class known as strong-minded, such a one was never more deceived in his or her life. At the opening of the convention[423] yesterday, the City Hall was crowded with as highly intelligent an audience of ladies and gentlemen as ever gathered there before.
Mrs. Stanton spoke at the evening session to an immense audience on the following resolutions:
Resolved, That a man's government is worse than a white man's government, because in proportion as you increase the rulers you make the condition of the ostracised more hopeless and degraded.
Resolved, That, as the cry of a "white man's government" created an antagonism between the Irish and the negro, culminating in the New York riots of '63, so the Republican cry of "Manhood Suffrage" creates an antagonism between the black man and all women, and will culminate in fearful outrages on womanhood, especially in the Southern States.
Resolved, That by the establishment of an aristocracy of sex in the District of Columbia, by the introduction of the word "male" into the Federal Constitution in Article 14, Section 2, and by the proposition now pending to enforce manhood suffrage in all the States of the Union, the Republican party has been guilty of three excessively arbitrary acts, three retrogressive steps in legislation, alike invidious and insulting to woman, and suicidal to the nation.
Miss Anthony followed showing that every advance step in manhood suffrage added to woman's degradation. Quite a number of ladies and gentlemen[424] of Wisconsin spoke well of the various sessions of the convention. Altogether it was a most enthusiastic meeting, and the press and the pulpit did their part to keep up the discussion for many weeks after.
These resolutions, readily passed in the Milwaukee convention, had been rejected at all others held in the West during this campaign, although Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony had earnestly advocated them everywhere. They early foresaw exactly what has come to pass, and did their uttermost to rouse women to the danger of having their enfranchisement indefinitely postponed. They warned them that the debate once closed on negro suffrage, and the amendments passed, the question would not be opened again for a generation. But their warnings were unheeded. The fair promises of Republicans and Abolitionists that, the negro question settled, they would devote themselves to woman's enfranchisement, deceived and silenced the majority. How well they have kept their promises is fully shown in the fact that although twenty years have passed, the political status of woman remains unchanged. The Abolitionists have drifted into other reforms, and the Republicans devote themselves to more conservative measures. The Milwaukee convention was adjourned to Madison, where Mrs. Livermore, Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony addressed the legislature, Gov. Fairchild presiding.
In 1870, March 16, 17, a large and enthusiastic convention was held at Janesville, in Lappin's Hall. Rev. Dr. Maxon, Lilia Peckham and Mrs. Stanton were among the speakers. After this, the latter being on a lyceum trip, spoke in many of the chief cities of the State and drew general attention to the question.
The following clear statement of the petty ways in which girls can be defrauded of their rights to a thorough education by narrow, bigoted men entrusted with a little brief authority, is from the pen of Lilia Peckham, a young girl of great promise, who devoted her rare talents to the suffrage movement. Her early death was an irreparable loss to the women of Wisconsin:[425]
ED. NEWS:--We find proofs at every step that one class cannot legislate for another, the rich for the poor, nor men for women.
The State University, supported by the taxes of the people and for the benefit of the people, should offer equal advantages to men and women. By amendment of the Constitution in 1867, it was declared that the University shall be open to female as well as male students, under such regulations and restrictions as the board of regents may deem proper. At first the students recited together, but Mr. Chadbourne made it a condition of accepting the presidency that they should be separated. I do not speak of the separation of the sexes to find fault. I conceive that if equal advantages be given women by the State, whether in connection with or apart from men, they have no ground for complaint. My object is to compare the advantages given to the sexes and see the practical effect of legislation by men alone in this department. From all the facts that are now pressed upon us, confused, contradictory and obscure, we begin to obtain a glimpse of the general law that informs them. The University has a college of arts (including the department of agriculture, of engraving and military tactics), a college of letters, preparatory department, law department, post-graduate course, last and certainly least, a female college. The faculty and board of instructors number twenty-one. The college of arts has nine professors, one of natural philosophy, one each of mental philosophy, modern languages, rhetoric, chemistry, mathematics, agriculture, and comparative anatomy, and a tutor. In the department of engineering is an officer of the United States Army. In the college of letters is the same faculty, with the addition of William F. Allen, professor of ancient languages and history, one coming from a family of scholarly teachers and thoroughly fitted for his post. In the law department are such names as L. S. Dixon and Byron Paine.
Read now the names composing the faculty of the female college, Paul A. Chadbourne, M. D., president; T. N. Haskell, professor of rhetoric and English literature; Miss Elizabeth Earle, preceptress; Miss Brown, teacher of music; Miss Eliza Brewster, teacher of drawing and painting. Compare these faculties and note what provision is made here for the sciences and languages. Look at the course of instruction in the college of arts. During the first year the men study higher algebra, conic sections, plane trigonometry, German (Otto's) botany, Gibbon's Rome. In the college of letters the course is similar, but more attention is given to classical studies; to Livy, Xenophon and Horace. During the same years in the female college, they are studying higher arithmetic, elementary algebra, United States history, grammar, geography and map drawing. Truly a high standard! The studies in the first term of the preparatory department (to which none can be admitted under twelve years of age) are identical with those in the female college at the same time, except the Latin. Indeed, I cannot see why it would not be an advantage to the students of the female college to go into the preparatory department during their first college year, since they can get their own course with geometry added, and if they stay three years a proportional amount of Latin and Greek. I could compare the whole course in the same way, but my time and the reader's patience would fail. There is no hint either of any thorough prescribed course in any of the languages. In the first and fourth year no foreign language is put down. In each term of the second year French and Latin are written as elective, the same for Latin or German in the third. This is a wretched course at the best. I have no faith in a course set down so loosely as "Latin" instead of being defined as to what course of Latin, and what authors are read. In that case we know exactly how much is required and expected, and what the standard of scholarship. In the college of letters we know that they go from Livy to Cicero on Old Age, then to Horace and Tacitus. Similar definiteness would be encouraging in the female catalogue. Its absence gives us every reason to believe that the course does not amount to enough to add any reputation to the college by being known. Under the head of special information we are told that in addition to this prescribed course of "thorough education young ladies will be instructed in any optional study taught in the college of letters or arts, for which they are prepared." By optional I understand any of the studies marked elective, since they are the only optional studies. In the college of letters there is but one, and that is the calculus. In the college of arts the optional studies are generally, not always, those that they could not be prepared for in the course prescribed by their own college. Under the head of degrees we find a long account of the A. B., A. M., P. B., S. B., S. M., L. B., Ph. D., to which the fortunate gentlemen are entitled after so much study. Lastly, the students of the female college may receive "such appropriate degrees as the regents may determine." I wonder how often that solemn body deliberates as to whether a girl shall be A. B., P. B., or A. M., or whether they ever give them any degree at all. It makes little difference. With such a college course a degree means nothing, and only serves to cheapen what may be well earned by the young men of the college.
In 1870, the stockholders of the Milwaukee Female College elected three women on their board of trustees: Mrs. Wm. P. Lynde, Mrs. Wm. Delos Love and Mrs. John Nazro. This is the first time in the history of the institution that women have been represented in the board of trustees.
Elizabeth R. Wentworth was an earnest and excellent writer and kept up a healthy agitation through the columns of her husband's paper at Racine.
RACINE, August 4, 1875.
MY DEAR MISS ANTHONY: Would it not be well for us women to accept the hint afforded by these Englishmen, and bind ourselves together by a constitution and by-laws. By so doing we might sooner be enabled to secure the rights which men seem so persistently determined to withhold from us. Very respectfully yours,
E. R. WENTWORTH.
The growing strength of woman suffrage in England has caused considerable commotion in that country, among officials and others. Its growth has led the men to form a club in opposition to it, composed of such men as Mr. Bouverie, a noted member of Parliament; Sir Henry James, late attorney-general; Mr. Childers, late first lord of the admiralty.
The formation of this club calls out a few words from Mrs. Stanton, who sarcastically says:
Is not this the first organized resistance in the history of the race, against the encroachment of women; the first manly confession by those high in authority--by lords, attorney-generals, sirs, and gentlemen--of fear at the progressive steps of the daughters of men? These conservative gentlemen had no doubt found Lady Amberly, Lydia Becker, and Mrs. Fawcett too much for them in debate; they had probably winced under the satire of Frances Power Cobbe, and trembled before the annually swelling lists of suffrage petitions. Single-handed they saw they were helpless against this incoming tide of feminine persuasiveness, and so it seems they called a meeting of faint-hearted men, and bound themselves together by a constitution and by-laws to protect the franchise from the encroachment of women.
In the legislature of 1880, the proposition to submit an amendment for woman suffrage to a vote of the people, passed both Houses. In 1881 it passed one branch and was lost in the other. Senator Simpson introduced another bill in 1882[426] which was lost. These successive defeats discouraged the women and they instructed their friends in the legislature to make no further attempts for a constitutional amendment, because they had not the slightest hope of its passage.
The growing interest in the temperance question at this time produced some divisions in the suffrage ranks. Some thought it had been one of the greatest obstacles to the success of the suffrage cause, rousing the opposition of a very large and influential class. Millions of dollars are invested in this State in breweries and distilleries, and members are elected to the legislature to watch these interests. Knowing the terrible sufferings of women and children through intemperance, they naturally infer that the ballot in the hands of women would be inimical to their interests, hence the opposition of this wealthy and powerful class to the suffrage movement. Others thought the agitation was an advantage, especially in bringing the women in the temperance movement to a sense of their helplessness to effect any reform without a voice in the laws. They thought, too, that the power behind the liquor interests was readily outweighed by the moral influence of the best men and women in the State, especially as the church began to feel some responsibility in the question. The Milwaukee Wisconsin of June 4, 1883, gives this interesting item:
The Rev. Father Mahoney, of St. John's Cathedral, preached a temperance sermon to a large concourse of people yesterday morning, in which he heartily indorsed the action of Mayor Stowell in his war against the ordinary saloon, and declared that he should be reelected. He also said that the men who opposed him were covering themselves with infamy, and that he could not conscientiously administer the sacraments to any saloon-keeper who refused to obey the commands of the Church or the laws of the State concerning the good order and welfare of the city. The sermon caused quite a stir, and was much discussed in secular as well as religious circles.
The State Association[427] has maintained an unswerving course, between fanatacism and ultra-conservatism. Since 1869 it has stood as on the watch-tower, quick to see opportunities, and ever ready to cooeperate with the legislative bodies in the State, and well may we be proud of our achievements when we remember that by the census of 1870 Wisconsin is the first foreign and the second Roman Catholic State in the Union, and that at our centennial exposition in 1876 our public schools stood number one.
Rev. Olympia Brown Willis moved into the State of Wisconsin in 1877, and became pastor of the church of the Good Shepherd, in Racine, and exerted a wide influence, not only as a liberal theologian, but as an earnest advocate of suffrage for woman. As a result of her efforts a most successful Woman's Council was held in Racine, March 26, 1883, alternating in the church of the Good Shepherd and Blake's Opera House. One of the chief speakers[428] was Dr. Corwin, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, who was also on the managing committee. The cordiality of many of the western clergy, in strong contrast with those in the east, makes their favorable action worthy of comment, though the liberality of the few is of little avail until in their ecclesiastical assemblies, as organizations, they declare the equality of woman not only before the law, but in all the offices of the church. Mrs. Katharine R. Doud was chosen president of the convention; Mrs. Olin gave the address of welcome, to which Mrs. Sewall responded. Mrs. Doud, in the Advocate, thus sums up the three days' meetings:
During the past week a woman's council has been held in Racine, the success of which has been most noticeable. The different sessions have been attended by large audiences of intelligent men and women, who have very thoughtfully and carefully weighed and discussed the various questions under consideration.
From the beginning to the end there has never been a hitch or jar; the myriad wheels of the machinery required to make smooth the workings of such large assemblies have moved so quietly, and have been so well oiled and in such perfect order as to be absolutely unnoticed; really, one might have been tempted to feel that the machine had no master, no controlling hand.
But now that the council is over; now that we can pause and begin to estimate the good that has been done; now that the seed is sown, from which, please God, a grand harvest shall be reaped--now we can look back and see how one brain has planned it all. One clear-eyed, far-seeing will gathered together these women of genius, who have been with us; one practical, mathematical brain made all estimates of expense, and accepted all risks of failure; one hospitable heart received a house full of guests, and induced others to be hospitable likewise; and one earnest, prayerful soul--and this the best of all--besought and entreated God's blessing upon the work. Need we tell you where to find this master-hand which has planned so wisely? the strong will, the clear brain, the warm heart, the pure soul? We all know her; she is indeed a noble woman, and her name--let us whisper lest she hear--is Olympia Brown Willis.
The following sketch of the leading events of her life, shows how active and useful she has been in all her public and private relations:
Olympia Brown was born in Kalamazoo county, Michigan, January 5, 1835. At the age of fifteen she began to teach school during the winter months, attending school herself in the summer. At eighteen she entered Holyoke seminary, but finding the advantages there inadequate for a thorough education, her parents removed, for her benefit, to Yellow Springs, Ohio, where she entered Antioch college, Horace Mann, one of the best educators of his day, being president. There her ambition was thoroughly satisfied, and she was graduated with honor in 1860. She then entered Canton Theological school, was graduated in 1863, and, duly ordained as a Universalist minister, commenced preaching in Marshfield and Montpelier, Vermont, often walking fifteen miles to fill her appointments. In 1864 she was regularly installed over her first parish at Weymouth, Massachusetts. Her energy and fidelity soon raised that feeble society into one of numbers and influence.
In 1869, she accepted a call to Bridgeport, Connecticut, where she remained seven years. In 1878, with her husband, John Henry Willis, and two children she removed to Racine, Wisconsin, where she became pastor of the church of the Good Shepherd, without the promise of a dollar. The church had been given up as hopeless by several men in succession, because of the influence of the Orthodox theological seminary. But she soon gathered large audiences and earnest members about her; established a Sunday school, had courses of lectures in her church during the winter, which she made quite profitable financially for the church, beside educating the people. Outside her profession she has also done a grand work, in temperance and woman suffrage.[429] She is rarely out of her own pulpit; has generally been superintendent of her own Sunday school, and head of the young ladies' club, doing at all times more varied duties than any man would deem possible, and with all this she is a pattern wife, mother and housekeeper, and her noble husband, while carrying on a successful business of his own, stands ever ready to second her endeavors with generous aid and wise counsel, another instance of the happy homes among the "strong minded."
Among the estimable women who have been identified with the cause of woman suffrage in this country, Mathilde Franziska Anneke, a German lady, is worthy of mention:
She was born in Westphalia, April 3, 1817. Her childhood was passed in happy conditions in a home of luxury, where she received a liberal education, yet her married life was encompassed with trials and disappointments. From her own experiences she learned the injustice of the laws for married women and early devoted her pen to the redress of their wrongs. Her articles appeared in leading journals of Germany and awoke many minds to the consideration of the social and civil condition of woman.
She was identified with the liberal movement of '48, her home being the resort for many of the leaders of the revolution. She published a liberal paper which freely discussed all the abuses of the government, a whole edition of which was destroyed. At length denounced by the government, she secretly made here escape from Cologne, and joined her husband at the head of his command in active preparation for a struggle against the Prussians.
She immediately declared her determination to share the toils of the expedition. Accordingly Col. Anneke appointed her Tolpfofsort, the duties of which she continued to discharge to the end of the campaign. In one of her works published in 1853, she has given a graphic description of the disastrous termination of the revolution, of their flight into France, of their expulsion from France and Switzerland, and of their final determination to come to the United States.
They reached New York in the fall of 1849. Madame Anneke lectured in most of the Eastern cities on the social and civil condition of women, claiming for them the right of suffrage and more liberal education. She also published a woman's journal in New York, and was soon recognized as one of the earnest representative women in America. For many years she made her home in Milwaukee, where she taught a successful school for young ladies. Madame Anneke, a widow with one son and two daughters, lived quietly the closing years of her life, and in death found the peace and rest she had never known in her busy life on earth.
Prof. G. S. Albee, president of the State Normal School at Oshkosh, is a firm friend and outspoken advocate of equal right of the sexes to all the privileges of education, not excepting the education of the ballot-box. John Bascom, president of the Wisconsin University, has been an advocate of suffrage for women many years. While connected with Williams College he worked to secure the admission of women thereto. As one of a committee of five to whom the matter was referred, he, together with David Dudley Field, presented a minority report favoring their admission. Since he has been at the head of our State University he has been in perfect sympathy with its liberal coeducational policy, and has insured to the young women equal advantages in every respect with the young men. To his wise management may be attributed the success of higher coeducation in Wisconsin. He gave an able and scholarly address before our convention at Madison in '82, and is always found ready to speak for woman suffrage, both in public and private. His influence has done much for the advancement of the cause in our State. A cordial letter was received from Mrs. Bascom at the last Washington convention, which was listened to with interest and prized by the officers of the National Association:
MADISON, Wis., January 16, 1885.
MY DEAR MISS ANTHONY: I am sorry I cannot be present and meet the many wise and great women who will respond to your call for the Seventeenth Annual Convention.
What a glorious record these words reveal of unwavering faith in the right, and heroic persistency in its pursuit on one side, and what blindness of prejudice and selfishness of power on the other. The struggle has indeed been a long one, and yet no other moral movement involving so many and so great social changes ever made more rapid progress. You and your fellow-laborers are truly to be congratulated on the full and abundant harvest your faithful seed-sowing has brought to humanity. The irrational sentiment, based upon the methods and customs of barbarous times, is rapidly yielding to reason. The world is learning--women are learning--that character, even womanly character, does not suffer from too much breadth of thought, or from too active a sympathy in human interests and human affairs, but is ever enriched by a larger circle of ideas, larger experience, and more extended activities.
The advance of women in position and influence has been especially great during the past year, and in directions especially cheering and hopeful to the heart of every woman. In national political conventions, as your call so justly says, she has "actively participated in the discussion of candidates, platforms and principles." The last mile-stone before the goal has been reached and passed!
Your convention will offer the final opportunity to the Republican party. Will it be wise enough to seize it for self preservation, if not from principle? Will there be found in this party enough of spiritual life to lay hold of the help now proffered it, and once more renew its strength thereby? Or will it, as so repeatedly in the past, turn a deaf ear to reason, and still continue to deny the rights of half the human family? If so, if it continue deaf, dumb and blind, then the Republican party has no longer any function, and the power of government will pass forever from its hands. The sixteenth amendment to the national constitution is coming, but it will be the crown of blessing and of fame of another party that will inaugurate this era in social life! I take the liberty to send loving greetings to you and the convention in the name of our Wisconsin Equal Suffrage society. I hope our bright, eloquent Rev. Olympia Brown will be with you. Of Wisconsin's eleven representatives in congress, I am happy to make honorable mention, as broad-minded advocates of our cause, of three, Cameron, Price and Stephenson. In earnest sympathy with the object and method of the convention, and with high regard for yourself, I remain yours truly,
EMMA C. BASCOM.
In this, as in many other States there was a prolonged struggle over the equal rights of women in the courts. The first woman to practice law in Wisconsin was Lavinia Goodell. She was admitted in the First Judicial Circuit Court, June 17, 1874, Judge H. S. Conger, presiding. She commenced practicing in Janesville. The following year she had a case which was appealed to the Supreme Court. When the appeal was made, Miss Goodell applied to the Supreme Court for the right to go with her case. She argued her own case and based her claim upon a statute which provides, "That words of the masculine gender may be applied to females; unless such construction would be inconsistent with the manifest intention of the legislature." After she had shown clearly that she had an equal right in the courts in an able and unanswerable argument, Judge Ryan considered her application for two months and rendered an adverse decision. As a result of the agitation induced by this case, the legislature of 1877 passed a law that "no person shall be refused admission to the bar of this State on account of sex," thus showing the power of the legislative branch of the government to over-ride all judicial decisions. Miss Goodell immediately commenced practice in the Supreme Court. She reviewed the judicial decision with keen satire,[430] and ably illustrated the comparative capacity of an educated man and woman to reason logically on American jurisprudence and constitutional law.
In the early part of 1879 Kate Kane and Angie J. King were admitted to the bar. Miss Kane studied in a law office and in the law school of Michigan University. She practiced in Milwaukee until 1883, when she located in Chicago. Miss King practices in Janesville and was at first associated with Miss Goodell, under the name of Goodell & King. Cora Hurtz, Oshkosh, was admitted and began practice in 1882.
FOOTNOTES:
[418] Mrs. Wolcott is a remarkable woman, of rare intelligence, keen moral perceptions and most imposing presence. Much of her success in life is due no doubt to her gracious manners. Her graceful figure, classic face, rich voice and choice language make her attractive in the best social circles, as well as in the laboratory and lecture-room. She is a perfect housekeeper and a most hospitable hostess. Having enjoyed many visits at her beautiful home I can speak alike of her public and domestic virtues.--[E. C. S.
[419] See Vol. I., page 389.
[420] During a visit with my school-friend, Mrs. Elizabeth Ford Proudfit, at Madison, in 1879, I heard a great deal said of the injustice of this law as illustrated in two notable cases of widows in the enjoyment of their husbands' entire estates, while the dead men's relatives, many of them, were living in poverty. This was most shocking! though widowers, from time immemorial, have possessed the life-earnings and inheritance of their wives, while the dead women's mothers and sisters were starving and freezing within sight of the luxurious homes that rightfully belonged to them! It makes a mighty odds whose ox is gored--the widower's or the widow's!--[S. B. A.
[421] In 1867 the governor, General Lucius Fairchild, appointed Laura J. Ross, M. D., as commissioner to the World's Exposition in Paris. In 1871 Mrs. Mary E. Lynde was appointed on the State Board of Charities and Corrections by Governor Fairchild.
[422] The committee on resolutions were: Dr. Laura J. Ross, N. S. Murphey, Mrs. Livermore, Madame Annecke, Geo. W Peckham and Rev. Mr. Gannett. The officers of the convention were: President, Rev. Miss Augusta J. Chapin; Vice-Presidents, O. P. Wolcott, M. D., Laura J. Ross, M. D., and Madame Matilde F. Annecke; Secretary, Miss Lilia Peckham.
[423] For a further description of this convention see Mrs. Stanton's letters from The Revolution, Vol. I., page 873.
[424] Miss Lilia Peckham, G. W. Peckham, esq., Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, Madam Matilde Annecke, Rev. Augusta J. Chapin, Rev. Mr. Eddy, Rev. Mr. English, Rev. Mr. Fallows.
[425] Miss Lilia Peckham died in Milwaukee, the city of her residence. She had been ill but a few weeks, her physicians considering her recovery certain up to within an hour of her death; but a sudden and unlooked-for change took place. One of the truest, purest and best spirits we have ever met has thus passed from earth to heaven. All who met her soon came to appreciate her gifted nature, her rare talent and spiritual insight. But only those who knew her well can bear witness to her wonderful unselfishness, her remorseless honesty of speech and deed, the loftiness of her ideal and the beauty of her womanly soul. The Milwaukee Sentinel closes a brief obituary notice of our friend and co-worker as follows:
"This talented young woman is well known throughout the country as an earnest advocate of the woman's rights movement. Only a few weeks since she made a successful tour through the West, speaking in various city pulpits. Fearlessly she spoke all that she had come to feel was truth, though it shook the very foundations of old creeds and ideas. Many efforts from her scholarly pen attest to her devotion to every onward movement of the hour. She was to have entered the Cambridge Divinity School early in the present autumn, having chosen the ministry for her life-work. That a life so full of promise of usefulness should be so suddenly stopped is irreconcilable with our finite judgment. It is hard to say, 'it is well,' though God's fact may be that this young life, with its beauty of character, its sisterly affection, its still larger sisterly sympathy with a suffering humanity, its longings and aspirations, its zealous strivings after the true and good, is full and complete now; still we shall mourn her loss, her brief though beautiful career."
[426] The members of the Wisconsin Senate who voted against the woman suffrage amendment were: Ackley, Adams, Burrows, Chase, Coleman, Delaney, Flinkelberg, Flint, Kusel, Palmetier, Pingel, Rankin, Ryland, Smith and Van Schaick--15. No better work can be done by Wisconsin suffragists than to try to defeat every one of them at the next election. The following voted for the measure: Bennett, Crosby, Ellis, Hamilton, Hill, Hudd, Kingston, Meffert, Phillipps, Scott, Simpson, Wiley, Randall--13. Senators Wing and McKeeby were paired, and Senators Erwin and Richardson were absent.
[427] The officers of the Wisconsin State society for 1885 were: President, Harriet T. Griswold, Columbus; Vice-Presidents, Laura Ross Wolcott, Milwaukee; Rev. Olympia Brown, Racine; Emma C. Bascom, Madison; F. A. Delagise, Antigo; Laura James, Richland Center; Recording Secretary, Helen R. Olin, Madison; Corresponding Secretary, M. W. Bentley, Schofield; Treasurer, Dr. Sarah R. Munro, Milwaukee; Chairman Executive Committee, Amelia B. Gray, Schofield. Among others active in the movement are Eliza T. Wilson, Menominee; Alura Collins, Muckwonago; Mrs. S. C. Burnham, Bear Valley; Sarah H. Richards, Milwaukee; Mrs. W. Trippe, Whitewater.
[428] Eveleen Mason, May Wright Sewall, Mary A. Livermore, Dr. Sarah Munro, Mrs. Haggart, Mrs. K. R. Doud, Miss Comstock, the Grand Worthy Vice-Templar from Milwaukee, Mrs. Le Page, and Mrs. Amy Talbot Dunn, as Zekel's wife, made a deep impression.
[429] See vol. II. page 259.
[430] For her argument see Woman's Journal, April, 1876.