I' NEW YORK STATE COLLEGE OF H':)i - - ONGMIC 
 AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY. ITHACA. - :.JL-^OP,'k 
 
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Cornell University Library 
 
 CT3260.T17 
 
 The American woman 
 
 3 1924 014 089 670 
 
MARY BALL WASHINGTON— THE MOTHER OF GEORGE WASHINGTON 
 
 There are doubts cast <m all the portraits of Mary Ball, but, according to the best records 
 
 ohtaiiiable, this portrait was painted by Middleton and restored by Edward Bird, R. A. 
 
 The best traditions paint the mother of Washington as a woman of large stature, strong, enduring 
 
 and always in perfect health. Her dignity of manner was notable. She was cheerful, of few words, 
 
 , antl of great determination and energy. Throughout the Revolution, Mrs. 
 
 Washington lived in Fredericksburg, superintending personally the work of ; , 
 
 her plantation. She received the news of the honors to her son with the • V*) 
 simple, "George seems to have deserved well of his country.'" She continued 
 to her death to look after her own affairs and never changed her simple life* 
 
•^A A Crank's Thariksgivi/g 
 
 BY WALT MASON 
 
 ^ Like others, I'm grateful for plenty tgf eat ; I* 
 turkey meat. For pies in the cupboard^nd coa 
 rubbered, and motors that spin; for a/^of my treas 
 comforts and pleasures, my thanks 1 ryurn. I'm gli 
 and rich, acquiring high station withifary a hitch; 
 mountains of grain ; her people axm thirsting for 
 backward linger, this land of our d^ds, for she 
 I'm glad that our vessels bring jfargoes across, 
 
 foi^ of a plateful of rich 
 
 'e bin, for tires that are 
 
 for all that 1 earn, for 
 
 that the nation is greasy 
 
 barns are a-bursting w^ith 
 
 and gain. She'll ne'er 
 
 dinger at nailing the scads. 
 
 hile counting-rooms ■wrestle 
 
 with profit and loss; that men/know^ the beaifties of figures and dates, and 
 tariffs and duties, and railway jpbates. 
 ^ I'm glad there are dreamdis not industryjprunk, surrounded by schemers 
 ■whose god is the plunk, fra glad weVe#rennaining incompetent jays, not 
 
 to run do"wn and collar one big 
 just before. I'm glad there are 
 
 d of trade fighters of options and 
 of a shore, ■where wealth-"weary 
 
 always a-straining, in four/ hundred way^ 
 rouble more, to add to therdollar they naiU 
 w^riters more proud of thenr screeds than 
 deeds. I'm glad there dffe preachers wh# tell 
 people need scheme newer more. 
 ^^ For books that ■wede "written by maJkers of thought; for harps that were 
 smitten with Homerijp swat ; for canv»es painted by monarchs of art ; for all 
 things untainted by /ricks of the marts for hearts that are kindly, with virtue 
 and peace, and^oKft seeking blindly a hoard to increase; for those who are 
 grieving o'er life's sordid plan; for liouls still believing in heaven and man; 
 for homes that are low^ly "with love kx the board ; for things that are holy, I 
 thank thee, O Lord ! 
 
THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE 
 
 VOL. LXIX 
 
 NOVEMBER, 1909 
 
 No. 1 
 
 The American Woman 
 
 BY IDA M. TARBELL 
 
 Author of "The Life of Lincohi," "The History of The Standard Oil Company," etc. 
 
 Illustrated with Portraits collected for The American Magazine" 
 by Charles Henry Hart 
 
 The Awakening 
 
 THE sharpest challenge which the 
 American woman of to-day must 
 meet is that of the American woman 
 of 1776. The unfinished product of demo- 
 cratic ideas, she must bear comparison in 
 fundamental things with a woman who was 
 the very flower of the old order — an order 
 which, whatever its limitations, was still the 
 highest average the world had then struck. 
 
 There is no swifter and, on the whole, juster 
 method of getting at this lady by whom the 
 jvoman of to-day must measure herself than 
 to review the part she played in the Revolu- 
 tionary War. Men and women deliver what 
 they are in time of revolution. It is then you 
 learn what there is in them to count on. 
 
 The beginning of the dispute between Great 
 Britain and her American colonies found 
 woman closer to local public affairs than she 
 perhaps ever had been before in any country. 
 In the settling of the colonies it had been often 
 imperative that she do a man's work. She had 
 learned to till, to build, to guard, to fight, to 
 consider, and to decide. It had developed 
 her understanding and it had made her wise 
 in counsel. There was probably no community 
 in all the new colonies that did not have 
 thoughtful and efficient women whose opinion 
 was sought and considered by the men. 
 
 As trouble grew with the mother country the 
 women everywhere took a keen interest in the 
 dispute. I doubt if there were two men 
 "kmong the patriots who had a clearer view 
 of the situation from the start than Mercy Otis 
 Warren and Abigail Smith Adams, wife of 
 President John Adams, or whether to-day, with 
 all our higher education and enlarged oppor- 
 tunities, we are able to produce a better type 
 
 than these two women-products of the best 
 traditions of their day. 
 
 Both were Massachusetts born — both came 
 from families of intelligence and serious 'pur- 
 pose, before they were twenty both had mar- 
 ried educated men who were active in the 
 governnjent of Massachusetts and who from 
 the first resisted Great Britain's growing ten- 
 dencies to exploit the colonies. Neither Abi- 
 gail Smith nor Mercy Otis ever had anything 
 of what we should call schooling. They had 
 been taught at home to read and write and 
 keep accounts, and that was the end of it; but 
 they had had access to good books, they had 
 practised unlimited letter writing, and they had 
 been freely admitted to the informal talk 
 around the fireside and at the table of 
 thoughtful men fired with a great purpose. 
 There are no better teachers. 
 
 Both girls grew up with a passion for Virtue, 
 Courage, Learning, Politeness- — ^which they 
 always spelled with capitals, and probably 
 spoke of with uplifted eyes and a catch of the 
 voice — but that was the way of the day. The 
 approach of the Revolution found them both 
 women with families, Mrs. Warren living at 
 Plymouth and Mrs. Adams at Braintree. 
 Famihar with every detail of colonial politics 
 as they were, their homes were soon centers of 
 red-hot patriotism. The Adamses and Warrens 
 had been accustomed to visiting and writing 
 back and forth, and as the troubles grew their 
 intimacy became the closer. Letters flew be- 
 tween them, letters bearing every scrap of 
 news, filled with suggestions, counsel and 
 encouragement. While the correspondence 
 was most active in this circle of four, it was 
 not confined to it. Mrs. Warren, particularly, 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1909. BY THE PHILLIPS PUBLISHING CO. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 
 
r' 
 
 I" 
 
 ABIGAIL SMITH ADAMS— WIFE OF ONE PRESIDENT AND MOTHER OF ANOTHER 
 
 From a painting by Gilbert Stuart, owned by Mrs. Adams's 
 great grandson, Mr. Brooks Adams of Quincy, Mass. 
 
 It is interesting to know that Abigail Smith's friends objected to her marrying John Adams 
 because he was a lawyer, and so not good enough for a minister's daughter! Mrs. Adams 
 \vas ^vith Mr. Adams in France and England when lie was representing the new coimtry at those 
 covnts. Her sprightly, illuminating letters were famous in a wide circle long before pub- 
 lication. She herself greeted the suggestion of the publication, first made in 1 81 S, with derision: 
 "A pretty figure I should make! No, no, I have not any ambititni to a^ipear in print. 
 Heedless and inaccurate as I am, I have too much vanity to risk my reputation bef(ue the public" 
 
 had a large list of distinguished correspon- 
 denls, and with Ihem the exchange of news 
 and opinion was constant. So helpful did ^Ir. 
 
 Adams and Mr. W arrcn find the letters of their 
 wixx'S that fmalh- the latter suggested that 
 groujjs l)e formed th.roughout the colonies for 
 
Fr 
 
 MERC\' OTIS WARREN— SISTER OF JAMES OTIS 
 AND HISTORIAN OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 
 
 ■om the orip;inaI portrait by John Singleton Copley, owned hy Hon. Winslow 
 'arren of Dedham, Mass., through whose permission it is published 
 
 It has been often asserted that Mrs. Warren was a pioneer in the movement for women's 
 rights. There is nothing in her writings, published or unpublished, to justify the 
 claim that she held "advanced" ideas as to the position of women. She believed 
 that the family and social circle were the best places for exercising political influence 
 
 similar correspondence. The idea was eagerlv 
 seized upon, and was the beginning of the 
 Committee of Correspondence which played 
 so large a part in the Revolution. 
 
 Largely because of j\Ir. Adams's urging, 
 Mrs. Warren became a veritable pamphleteer 
 in verse. She was, so thought jNIr. Adams and 
 man)' of her friends, an "incomjxtrable satir- 
 
The American Magazine 
 
 ist," and they urged her, for the good of 
 the cause, to revile the Tory and canonize 
 the patriot. Mrs. \\'arren had scruples 
 about using her gifts, as well she might, 
 for there was no gleam of humor in her 
 characterizations, no touch of sympathy for 
 the loyahst or of cynicism for the patriot. But 
 Mr. Adams loved this sort of thing and he 
 whipped her to it— giving her subjects, prais- 
 ing her without stint. And thus urged, Mrs. 
 Warren early in the '70's began to write and 
 circulate in manuscript long poems on various 
 questions of the day. They are tedious read- 
 ing now, but they did their work then and did 
 it nobly. The patriots of 1776 were too much 
 in earnest to care for the "light touch." They 
 gloried in seeing their enemies beaten and 
 bleeding, and Mrs. Warren always left them 
 in that condition. Her long poems were fol- 
 lowed by a number of dramas — "The Retreat," 
 "The Adulator," "The Group "—in which 
 the leading men of the day on both sides were 
 the dramatis -persona.. The loyalists fur- 
 nished for these plays as black a set of villains 
 as ever walked the stage; the patriots an equally 
 white set of heroes. 
 
 While Mrs. Warren was pouring out poems, 
 dramas and history, Mrs. Adams was writing 
 to her husband and to her friends, from her 
 troubled home in Braintree, volumes of frank, 
 picturesque letters — a series which furnish the 
 liveliest sketches we have of the life of the 
 Revolutionary patriot and his family. 
 
 The interest and activity of both women in 
 shaping public opinion did not cease with the 
 Revolution. As long as they lived they were 
 keen critics and valued counselors. Mrs. 
 Warren's "History of the Revolution" is an 
 important work for the student, if its labored 
 and pedantic style makes it "an impossible one 
 for the general reader; while the letters Mrs. 
 Adams continued to write from Paris and from 
 London when Mr. Adams was representing the 
 country there, and from the White House when 
 she was its mistress, stand among the very 
 best published letters of women. John Adams 
 himself, whose pride in iNlrs. Adams was in- 
 ordinate, wrote to one of his friends late in life 
 that a collection of her letters would be worth 
 ten times more than that of Mme. De S^vignd 
 and would put to blush that of Lady Montague. 
 " So much, you say, forconjugal complacency," 
 he added; "so much, I say, for simple justice to 
 her merit." It is interesting to note how these 
 letters of Mrs. Adams have stood the test of 
 time and are circulating to-day, while Mrs. 
 Warren's dramas and histories, so useful in 
 their hour, have long ago been retired to the 
 back shelf of special libraries. 
 
 While Mrs. Adams and Mrs. Warren were, 
 of course, women of special ability, the spirit 
 which inspired them was in no way unusual. 
 It was the spirit of the colonial woman which 
 rose to activity at the very beginning of the 
 resistance to the pretensions of Great Britain. 
 The first retaliation on the part of the colonies 
 was embodied in what were called the non- 
 importation acts, forbidding the bringing in 
 of certain articles which were in common use 
 and for which up to that time they had de- 
 pended almost entirely on Great Britain. The 
 bulk of these articles were used in the house- 
 hold, so that the effectiveness of our first resist- 
 ance depended in no small degree on the 
 American woman. If she continued to drink 
 tea, tea would find its way in. If she insisted 
 on having the articles of finery and of utility 
 enumerated in the acts, those articles would 
 be forthcoming. 
 
 Oar First Consumers' League 
 
 But she was for the acts. The pre-revolu- 
 tionary days saw the leading women of the 
 colonies forming what we may call our first 
 Consumers' League, pledged to drink no tea 
 so long as the obnoxious tax was upon it — 
 to use no article bought from Great Britain. 
 John Adams, calling on a friend in Portland in 
 1774, begged a cup of tea, "providing it had 
 been honestly smuggled or paid no duties"; 
 but his hostess was firm — tea had been "re- 
 nounced" in that place; she could give him 
 only coffee. And coffee it was everywhere — 
 coffee, or some substitute like Labrador tea, 
 or New Jersey tea, or Libert}' tea, or Aunt 
 Susan's tea, as they called the brews they 
 made from the various herbs or roots they 
 experimented with. Indeed, it is not straining 
 evidence perhaps to hazard the theory that the 
 long eclipse of "afternoon tea" in the United 
 States, the excessive coffee drinking and the 
 vogue of "herb teas" are due to the effective 
 resistance to British tyranny made by this 
 Consumers' League, organized by our great- 
 great-grandmothers ! 
 
 They were equally decisive in regard to 
 dozens of other articles. They would buy 
 no more gloves, shoes, hats, muffs, tippets, 
 silks, stays, cambrics, velvets, caps, ribbons, 
 flowers, feathers, turbans — nothing which 
 came from England. They carried their re- 
 sistance to the point of breaking with a con- 
 vention so deeply rooted as the wearing of 
 mourning. Congress declared no mourning 
 should be worn until the acts were repealed 
 and all over the country women of all ranks 
 followed their dead to the grave in colored 
 
The American Woman — By Ida M. Tarbell 
 
 7 
 
 garments. What it cost to do this is hard to 
 realize to-day, so far have we broken with the 
 old tyranny of crape and widow's weeds. 
 
 The Revolutionary Woman 's Invasion 
 of Industry 
 
 Their resistance took a more substantial 
 
 From one end of the seaboard to the other 
 women put aside harps and harpsichords and 
 took the spinning wlieel, the lace bobbin and 
 mat and the knitting needle. Women who 
 had to support themselves and who had found 
 few openings up to that date generally took 
 advantage of the demand for home products. 
 Hannah Adams earned more money by the 
 form than mere refusal to use English goods, lace she made and sold in the period of the 
 
 They succeeded 
 in arousing a 
 veritable rage for 
 homemade goods 
 — to wear them 
 became a mark of 
 patriotism. 
 Homespun par- 
 ties were popular, 
 and even in the 
 great centers 
 where dress had 
 been elaborate 
 and elegant and 
 where the wealth- 
 ier classes pos- 
 sessed stores of 
 silks and velvets, 
 laces and jewels, 
 they were put 
 away for the 
 domestic article. 
 After the Britisli 
 took possession of 
 Charleston a n d 
 attempted to en- 
 liven their lives 
 and reconcile the 
 inhabitants by a 
 series of balls and 
 suppers, the wom- 
 en who appeared 
 at the functions 
 wore only home- 
 spun fabrics, and 
 as ornaments 
 breast-knots and 
 slipper-knots of 
 patriotic colors. 
 The liritish were 
 disgusted at the 
 dullness of it, for 
 
 
 
 
 MARTHA DANBRIDGE CUSTIS WASHINGTON 
 —WIFE OF GEORGE WASHINGTON 
 
 From the portrait h\ Etlward Savage, owned by 
 Mr. Luther Kountze of Morristown, N. J., 
 and here reproduced for the first time 
 
 IVIrs. Washing-ton made quite as fine an impression as "first lady 
 of the land " as she had as wife of the commanding gcnerah 
 In dress and in entertaining she was always simple, closing 
 her levees at nine o'clock, and frequently making her own 
 tea and coffee at breakfast. It was generally said that the 
 example of the President and his wife was such as to make 
 "parade and expense improper and disreputable " by other 
 members of the official set. Although so unpretending, she 
 exacted the strictest observance of official etiquette. Mrs. 
 Washington returned gladly to Mt. Vemon, speaking of the 
 years she spent in New York and Philadelphia as "lost days" 
 
 Revolution than 
 she ever was able 
 to make b}' her 
 excellent histor- 
 ies. Not a few 
 women built up 
 respectable busi- 
 nesses, their 
 linsev-woolsey , 
 their blue and 
 w h i t e blankets, 
 their linen sheets 
 becoming famous 
 in their localities. 
 Olive MolTatt of 
 Northfield, a 
 Scotchwoman 
 s e \' e n t y - 1 h r e e 
 years old at the 
 breaking out of 
 the Revolution, a 
 member of a 
 family of weavers, 
 took so good an 
 advantage of her 
 inherited knowl- 
 edge of dyeing, 
 spinning and 
 weaving that her 
 table linen and 
 1 i n s e ^•-w o o 1 s e y 
 were considered 
 essential in every 
 bride's outfit, and 
 are preserved to- 
 dav, marvels of 
 their kind. The 
 demand encour- 
 aged m a n u f a c - 
 turers, and before 
 the end of the 
 Revolution there 
 
 their words were 
 
 as few as their ornaments. " You may destroy 
 all the men in America," an officer in Charles- 
 ton told Cornwallis, "and we will still have 
 enough to do to defeat the women." 
 
 This Revolutionary fever for homemade 
 products was the beginning of a general 
 invasion of industry by American women. 
 
 were cotton and 
 linen factories throughout the country employ- 
 ing large numbers of women and children— 
 i,200 in one Boston factory, 400 in the United 
 Company of Philadelphia, and equal numbers 
 in Connecticut and New York.* 
 
 * A detailed account of the number of women brou(iht 
 into industry by the Revolution will be found in the " His- 
 tory of Women in American Industry," by Edith AVjott. 
 
The American Magazine 
 
 Their Spartan Courage 
 
 When resistance finally culminated in war, 
 the pride and high courage with which women 
 sent husbands and sons to war was only 
 equalled by that with which the men went. 
 Their partings read like those of Spartan and 
 Roman matrons. The annals of the day tell 
 of one Connecticut woman who sent five sons 
 and eleven grandsons to the war and declared 
 that she had never parted with them with 
 more pleasure. "I had rather," she said, 
 "that they had all been killed than that one 
 of them came back a coward." 
 
 Mrs. EUet, in her "Women of the American 
 Revolution," prints a really noble letter written 
 to a British officer in Philadelphia by an un- 
 married woman: "I will tell you what 1 have 
 done," she writes. "My only brother I have 
 sent to the camp with my prayers and bless- 
 ings and had I twenty sons and brothers they 
 should go. I have retracted every superfluous 
 expense in my table and family. Tea I have 
 not drunk since last Xmas, nor bought a new 
 cap or gown since your defeat at Lexington, 
 and, what I never did before, have learned to 
 knit and am now making stockings of Ameri- 
 can wool for my servants, and in this way do 
 I throw in my mite to the public good. I 
 know this — that as free I can die but once; but 
 as slave I shall not be worthy of life. I have 
 the pleasure to assure you that these are the 
 sentiments of all my sister Americans." 
 
 Giving sons and husbands did not end their 
 services. From one end of the coast to the 
 other great practical aid was rendered the 
 army by women. Everywhere they followed 
 General Marion's advice to the patriotic women 
 of the Carolinas' — to "make provisions, keep 
 up communications, and send information to 
 the men in camp." \\'herever the army en- 
 camped the women of the surrounding country 
 opened their houses and their supplies. In 
 May of 1775, Mrs. Adams's home in Braintree 
 was one continual scene of confusion. "Sol- 
 diers coming in for a lodging, for breakfast, for 
 supper, for drink, etc. Sometimes refugees 
 from Boston, tired and fatigued, seek an 
 asylum for a day, a night, a week. You can 
 hardly imagine how we live." 
 
 Around New York they vied with the "cow- 
 boys," as the irresponsible who ran off cattle 
 for the British were called, in the ingenuity 
 with which they conveyed provisions to the 
 American soldiers. The story of Mrs. Jackson 
 of Staten Island, who all one day kept a calf 
 muzzled under her bed that she might send it 
 by night to the loyal men, is not merely inci- 
 dental, it is typical of their grit and wit. 
 
 Spirited tales of the prompt courage with 
 which they sacrificed their homes and property 
 abound. One has to pick and choose. What 
 more dramatic incident is there than that of 
 Mrs. Motte of South Carolina, whose beautiful 
 home had been taken as a British head- 
 quarters— "Fort Motte" they called it. Mrs. 
 Motte and her family were living in one 
 of the outhouses of the plantation. The 
 American commander sent her word that as 
 much as he regretted it he must oust the 
 enemy from Fort Motte — in other words he 
 must destroy her home. "Very well," said 
 the lady, "I will provide the fire"; and she 
 brought out a souvenir of a kinsman's travels, 
 a case of East Indian arrows, which when 
 they struck burst into flames. "Send your 
 sharp-shooters into the trees with these," she 
 said, "and destroy my house." The trick 
 was entirely successful. Fort Motte burned 
 to the ground, and for the rest of her life the 
 plucky lady used the bamboo quiver in which 
 the arrows came as a case for knitting needles. 
 There's an inheritance worth handing down 
 to children and grandchildren! 
 
 Just as one may say that the Consumers' 
 League dates from the 1770's, so we may claim 
 that the Sanitary Commission and the Red 
 Cross were first inaugurated in this country 
 during the Revolution. The need in which 
 the Continental soldiers found themselves from 
 the start is an old story. They were always 
 underfed, always half clothed. The encamp- 
 ments and the fighting were so near the centers 
 of population that the women were famiKar 
 with conditions, and they generally worked for 
 their relief. Many a treasured linen chest' — 
 the dearest possession of its owner — was 
 emptied to make shirts for the soldiers. Many 
 a woman stripped her wardrobe of woolen 
 garments to fashion coats and trousers. Many 
 another turned every piece of her loved pew- 
 ter into bullets. 
 
 The practice of systematically looking after 
 the needs of soldiers was set by I^Iartha Wash- 
 ington herself in the winter of i'j-j'j-''j8. 
 Indeed, from the beginning she showed a spirit, 
 a dignity and a good sense which were gener- 
 ally admired and which had excellent effect. 
 When Lord Dunmore threatened the Potomac 
 settlements in 1775 Mrs. Washington was at 
 Mt. Vernon. Most of her neighbors fled 
 inland at once, but it was only when pressed 
 by the General's best friends that she con- 
 sented to leave. She came back in twentv- 
 four hours, and could ne\er be persuaded 
 again to yield to panics. 
 
 In the winter of i77S-'76, she joined 
 General Washington in Cambridge, and made 
 
ESTHER DE BERDT REED— ONE OF THE HEROINES OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 From the original painting by Charles Willson Peale, in possession 
 of her great-^-randdau^hter, Miss Mary Bronson Reed of Pliila- 
 delpliia, by whose permission it is here reproduced for tlie first time 
 
 Mrs. Rccd was buried in the Arch Street (Philadelphia) Presbyterian gTound, but 
 her remains were removed to Laurel Hill Cemetery^, on the abandonment of the 
 old ^n'ound. A year after Mrs. Reed's death, her husband wrote: "I never knew 
 huw much I loved her till I lost her. I have sought resig-nation in philosophy 
 and religion. I have endeavored to reason myself into a proper submission 
 to the Divine Will, but with little success."* Five years later he died 
 
 -'=0n Mrs. Reed's headstone is the following epitaph: 
 
 In memory of Esther, beloved wife of Joseph Reed, 
 
 President of the state, who departed this life 
 On the i8th of September, i 780, a^ed 34 years. 
 Reader! If the possession of those virtues of the heart 
 Which make life valuable, or those personal endowments 
 
 [which 
 
 Command love and esteem, may claim respectful and 
 
 [affectionate 
 Remembrance, venerate the ashes here entombed: 
 
 If to have the cup of temporal blessings dashed 
 In the period and station of life in which the blessings 
 May be best enjoyed, demands our sorrow, dro7» a tear, and 
 
 Think how slender is that thread on which the joys 
 
 And hope of life depend. 
 
lO 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 an excellent impression there. The officers 
 praised her courage and devotion for daring 
 the long and fatiguing drive from Mt. Vernon 
 to Cambridge in the wintry weather and over 
 the unspeakable roads. The women were 
 high in their praises of her dignity, her gentle- 
 ness, her courtesy. Mercy Warren visited her 
 and made for Mrs. Adams one of her famous 
 character drawings: "The complacency of 
 her Manners speaks at once the Benevolence 
 of her Heart and her affability. Candor and 
 Gentleness qualify her to soften the hours of 
 private Life or Sweeten the Cares of the Hero 
 
 DEBORAH SAMPSON GANNETT— A 
 WOMAN SOLDIER OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 From the copperplate portrait in the "Female 
 Review," Dedham, Mass., 1797, belonging 
 to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania 
 
 A "bound girl" who received no schooling until 
 after she was eighteen, Deborah Sampson used the 
 first money she earned at teaching to buy cloth with 
 which she made herself a suit of men's clothing. 
 Wearing these she enlisted in the Continental Army 
 under the name of Robert Shurtleff and served with 
 valor for three years. She was wounded twice, but it 
 was not until the Yorktown campaign, when she was 
 seized with brain fever, that the physicians discovered 
 her sex. After her recovery she was sent with a letter 
 to General Washington, who gave her, with no com- 
 ment, an honorable discharge and money to take her 
 home. She was invited to visit the capitol in Washing- 
 ton's presidency and was voted a pension by Congress 
 
 and smooth the Rugged scenes of War." Mrs. 
 Washington made good friends that winter in 
 Cambridge; indeed then was formed the 
 nucleus of the first American official set of 
 
 which in New York and Philadelphia she was 
 so soon to become the head. 
 
 From the time that Washington left Cam- 
 bridge in the spring of '76 until he encamped 
 at Valley Forge in the beginning of the win- 
 ter of i777-'78 Mrs. Washington was at 
 Mt. Vernon, where she looked after the estate, 
 ordered her family and entertained as nearly 
 as possible as in times of peace. Her business 
 was to show no fear, to guard the rear! 
 
 When the army went to Valley Forge she 
 joined the General, and throughout the terrible 
 winter stayed with him, devoting herself to 
 rehef work in the army. Early in the '50's the 
 writer Lossing talked to an old lady who 
 was living near the Washington headquarters 
 during the encampment. " I never in my life," 
 she told him, "knew a woman so busy from 
 early morning until late at night as was Lady 
 Washington, providing comforts for the sick 
 soldiers. Every day excepting Sundays the 
 wives of officers in camp, and sometimes other 
 women, were invited to Mr. Potts's (Washing- 
 ton's headquarters) to assist her in knitting 
 stockings, patching garments and making 
 shirts for the poor soldiers when materials 
 could be procured. Every fair day she might 
 be seen with basket in hand and with a single 
 attendant going among the huts seeking the 
 keenest and most needy sufferers and giving 
 all the comforts to them in her power." 
 
 There was many a woman whose thought 
 was turned towards Valley Forge- that winter, 
 and more than one made long journeys in car- 
 riage or on horseback bringing all the supplies 
 she could muster to relieve the wants of hus- 
 band or brother or friend. Although relief 
 work of one kind or another went on all over 
 the country it seems not to have been organized ' 
 until in 1780 gentle Esther Reed and some of 
 the Philadelphia women undertook to collect a 
 substantial sum of money for the soldiers. 
 The "ladies" proposed to distribute the money 
 directly to the soldiers, a "hard dollar" to 
 each, but when they consulted General Wash- 
 ington he advised against it, very properly. 
 "Linen shirts" was what the soldiers needed, 
 and, finally, it was what they got, though 
 Mrs. Reed, who conducted the correspondence 
 with the General, was not a little disappointed. 
 
 The example of the "Philadelphia ladies" 
 was immediately copied in New Jersey- — a 
 large committee being formed of representa- 
 tives from all the counties. In Alar^land a 
 similar undertaking was put on foot and 
 large sums were raised. 
 
 The Pennsylvania Packet grew eloquent 
 over these activities which to-day we should 
 regard so much as a matter of course: "The 
 
The American Woman — By Ida M. Tarbell 
 
 II 
 
 women of every part of 
 the globe are under obli- 
 gations to those of Amer- 
 ica for having shown that 
 females are capable of the 
 highest political virtue. 
 Those of posterity will 
 also acknowledge that 
 they derive happiness and 
 glory from them," and 
 thereupon followed an 
 account of the work which 
 the editor supposed to 
 have been prepared and 
 printed by a "historian of 
 1820." Little did the 
 good gentleman see that 
 the work of the "ladies" 
 which aroused such sur- 
 prised enthusiasm in him, 
 far from remaining a mere 
 historical curiosity, was 
 the seed of a great world 
 movement, the organiza- 
 tion and training of 
 women for immediate 
 action in any part of the 
 globe, in the case of not 
 only war but of famine, 
 earthquake, fire or flood. 
 
 Her Chief Service 
 
 As long as is the chap- 
 ter of heroic and excep- 
 tional services by the 
 Revolutionary woman, 
 her greatest achievement 
 was in preserving and 
 keeping in motion under 
 abnormal conditions the 
 machinery of societv. 
 Left alone, it was she who 
 managed the shop, the 
 farm, the school, the 
 church. "The children 
 and I can put in the 
 crops and take care of the stock"; "I will 
 manage the plantation"; "I will keep the 
 accounts," they told their husbands. Women 
 held the services in the churches, women kept 
 the schools. They loved and married and 
 bore their children, the smoke of battle around 
 them. They founded homes in the wake of 
 armies. They preserved .societv while the men 
 drove out the enemy. The difficulties and the 
 dangers which surrounded them in this work 
 can hardly be exaggerated. 
 
 Take as an illustration the story of but one 
 
 DOROTHY QUINCY HANCOCK— WIFE OF JOHN 
 HANCOCK, GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS 
 AND THE '■ RICHEST MAN IN BOSTON " 
 
 From the original painting- by John Singleton Copley, in the 
 Boston Museum of Fine Arts, owned by Stephen Bovven, 
 Esq., of Boston, Mass., by whose permission it is published 
 
 Dorothy Quincy was a woman of unusual beauty and ability. Governor 
 Hancocic entertained in a lordly fashion, keeping literally an open house, 
 and Mrs. Hancock's resourcefulness and tact in directing his mansion is 
 illustrated by many amusing anecdotes. John Adams wrote to his wife ot 
 her in 1775, "Among a hundred men almost at this house, she lives and 
 behaves with modesty, decency, dignity and discretion; she avoids talking 
 upon politics ; in large and mixed company she is totally silent, as a lady 
 ought to be." Governor Hancock died in 1793, but Mrs. Hancock kept up 
 all the splendid traditions of Hancock House hospitality long after his death 
 
 woman, that of Esther Reed, wife of Joseph 
 Reed, of Washington's staff. Mrs. Reed was 
 EngUsh born, a De Berdt. She had met young 
 Reed in England, and in spite of the fact that 
 her father had been ruined by the dishonesty 
 of American traders and that she understood 
 only too well that in marrying and coming to 
 America her happiness would "depend on the 
 unsteady flame of politics" she dared the event. 
 Mr. Reed had been willing to settle in England 
 if she could not be won otherwise, but she 
 refused. America was his country and there 
 
12 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 was his opportunity. But that it was hard 
 for the little lady her letters show. All annoy- 
 ances, all sharpness, all deprivations were 
 forgotten, however, when the struggle came. 
 The Reeds had opportunities to go to England, 
 but she would not hear of it. She would not 
 have her "dear Mr. Reed, act so cowardly as 
 to fly when his country needed his assistance." 
 The cause was "glorious"' — every person 
 should be ready to sacrifice his personal 
 interest in this glorious contest. Indeed her 
 letters contain one of the earliest expressions 
 for independence. If the "last petition" was 
 not granted, she wrote in October, 1775, "I 
 imagine we shall declare for independence and 
 exert our utmost to defend ourselves." 
 
 When General Washington asked Mr. Reed 
 to become his secretary it was she who urged 
 him to accept, though it meant separation and 
 great business loss. "One must cheerfully 
 give up profits," she wrote. "There are so 
 many things that are 'not necessary.'" The 
 brave lady not only gave up her profits but for 
 all the years of the war lived in tumult and 
 danger. 
 
 She was living at Burlington, near Phila- 
 delphia, when the British approached in 1776. 
 The Hessians were within a day of the town 
 when she took her Httle children and fled to 
 "the edge of the forest," her idea being to 
 cross the Delaware and escape to the Western 
 Pennsylvania ■ settlement. This was never 
 necessary, but she was obhged to move fre- 
 quently to escape the invaders. In this broken 
 and fearsome existence two children were born 
 to her. The hardships and dangers that she 
 endured in the ten or more years that she had 
 lived in this country, the separation from her 
 husband, the loss of a little girl only one day 
 before her last child was born, all of this wore 
 on a woman delicately reared, and in the end 
 was too much for her. Little wonder that she 
 succumbed at last, dying in 1780, aged only 
 thirty-four years. But a braver little woman, 
 or a more sensible one, it would be hard to find 
 in any age. She was only one of hundreds. 
 Wherever you turn in the colonies at this time 
 you find the same story of women who natur- 
 ally and cheerfully accepted loss of fortune, 
 separation from husbands, hardships even such 
 as Mrs. Reed suffered with her children. In- 
 deed, with many of them, as with Mrs. Reed, 
 their greatest fear seems to have been that 
 they might by some expression of loneliness, 
 or by their own physical weakness, lessen the 
 quality of the service that their husbands were 
 giving to the country. 
 
 Of course there were exceptions to this rule. 
 Not all women were patriots, and now and 
 
 then a young woman was dazzled by a red- 
 coat. Miss Ravanel, in her admirable life of 
 Eliza Pinckney, tells of one entirely respectable 
 South Carolinian who to the day of her death 
 was pointed out to the younger set by her con- 
 temporaries: "We don't think much of Miss 
 X' — ■ — Y- — ■ — , my dear. Quite too fond of British 
 officers." General Winfield Scott used to 
 tell a touching story of Lady Johnson, wife 
 of Sir Henry Johnson of the British army. 
 She was a famous wit and beauty of Phila- 
 delphia, a Miss Rebecca Franks. With a keen 
 tongue and an unbounded audacity, she danced 
 and sneered her way through the Revolution- — 
 the darling of the British and the despair of 
 the patriots. To what length she went in her 
 Toryism, a prank she played at a ball Mrs. 
 Washington gave in honor of the alliance 
 between France and the United States shows. 
 The emblem of the occasion was the united 
 cockades of the ■ countries. Miss Franks 
 secured one, tied it to the neck of a dog and 
 bribed a servant to let it into the ballroom. 
 
 She lived in England after her marriage to 
 Colonel Johnson, and there, in 1816, General 
 Winfield Scott, fresh from his successes in the 
 War of 1812, visited her. She was then an 
 invalid. ' ' Is this the young rebel ?" she greeted 
 him. "Remember he is your countryman," 
 Sir Henry said, fearing that Scott might take 
 offence. "It is the young rebel," she said; 
 "and you have taken the liberty to beat his 
 Majesty's troops." Then suddenly she ex- 
 claimed: "Would to God I too had been a 
 patriot! I have never regretted my marriage; 
 no woman was ever blessed with a kinder 
 husband. But I ought to have been a patriot 
 before my marriage." 
 
 A much more common complaint against 
 women than Toryism was the eternal com- 
 plaint against women of vanity, of flippancy 
 and of selfishness. Everywhere there was a 
 number who would not give up their furbe- 
 lows and tea. Mrs. Warren flayed them un- 
 mercifully : 
 
 The state may totter on proud ruin's brink, 
 The sword be brandish'd, or the bark may sink; 
 Yet shall Clarissa check her wanton pride, 
 And lay her female ornaments aside? 
 
 ******* 
 If 'twould save the nation from the curse 
 Of standing troops, or name a plague still worse, 
 Few can this choice delicious draught give up. 
 Though all Medea's poisons fill the cup. 
 
 But Mrs. Warren's scorn of the weakness of 
 her sex did not begin or end with the Revolution. 
 As long as she lived she protested against the 
 "Eager Pursuit of Trifles," which she believed 
 to be the chief cause of the widespread charge 
 that a woman's mind is light, unstable and 
 
REBECCA FRANKS, A FAMOUS TORY WIT AND BEAUTY— WIFE 
 OF SIR HENRY JOHNSON, BARONET OF BATH, ENGLAND 
 
 From the original portrait by an unknown painter in the possession 
 of her descendants in Eng;land, now for the first time reproduced. 
 Until Mr. Hart discovered this portrait and had it copied for this 
 maifazine, it has been supposed that no portrait of Lady Johnson existed 
 
 David Solebury Franlcs, aide to Arnold at the time of his treason, was her cousin. An 
 interesting unsettled question in regard to Rebecca Franks is as to whether she was 
 brought up in the religion of her father, who was a Jew, or of her mother, who was a 
 Christian. Two of her sisters and a brother were baptized in Christ Church, Philadelphia 
 
 without real understanding. True as her 
 strictures may have been, the e.xceptions to 
 patriotism and service on the part of women in 
 the Revolutionary jseriod were no greater than 
 the exceptions among the men. As always 
 since the world began, the two sexes walked 
 hand in hand in courage and in cowardice, in 
 service and in selfishness. For say what we 
 will, the ebb and flow of virtue and of vice in 
 
 this world is human, not masculine and femi- 
 nine. 
 
 Taking them all in all, the Revolutionary 
 woman grasped fully the ideas of her time, 
 saw its vision and rose valiantly to meet its 
 needs. She is a splendid type — a gallant lady 
 from whom it is an honor to have descended. 
 But after all is said, there is no truer test of her 
 character and intelligence than the way she 
 
 13 
 
14 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 met the new ideas about her own position and 
 rights which were born with the Revolution. 
 That upheaval, like the French Revolution, 
 gave a great impulse toward bigger living. 
 The nation had taken a full breath and felt 
 the stir of it in its veins. Everybody saw 
 clearer, stepped higher, felt braver and dared 
 more. Women, as men, shared the emotion 
 and began to strain at their bonds. These 
 bonds were real enough. Noble and under- 
 standing as this lady of '76 was in fact and 
 recognized by the men of her day to be, in 
 theory she was anything but that. She was 
 a person of inferior mind, unable to master 
 the strong meat of education without danger- 
 ous results to her reason, unfit to be trusted 
 with the guardianship of her property or her 
 children, lest both suffer, not to be allowed 
 free speech in public lest her tongue run away 
 with her and disorder and false doctrines be 
 encouraged, not to be allowed to mix in the 
 gatherings or dehberations of men lest her 
 household, her manners and public morals 
 suffer. The greatest men of New England 
 are on record on these points, and the church 
 and the law upheld them. Humility, Charity, 
 Obedience, Modesty, Truthfulness, Godliness 
 — these were the qualities they demanded; 
 and they got them. How weak human nature 
 could attain these highest of virtues as perfectly 
 as their wives did and still be as weak and un- 
 trustworthy in mind as they theoretically were 
 was never explained. 
 
 It was inevitable that women who had been 
 through the experiences these women had 
 would revolt against these notions and the 
 abuses they admitted. There are many 
 evidences of their unrest. Even before the 
 Declaration of Independence was written, 
 Abigail Adams sent to John Adams, who was 
 at the Continental Congress, a ' ' List of Female 
 Grievances," which, if partly playful, show how 
 the wind was blowing. If there was to be a 
 new government and a new code of laws she 
 felt that it should be arranged so that a hus- 
 band would no longer have the unlimited 
 power, that the laws of England gave him, 
 to treat his wife ill. She proposed to Mrs. 
 Warren to join her in a petition to Congress, 
 and she threatened Mr. Adams with fomenting 
 a rebellion in case her demand was not re- 
 garded. Women no longer would bind them- 
 selves to laws, she told him, in which they had 
 neither voice nor representation. 
 
 Never was there a man who had a pro- 
 founder regard for his wife and her brains than 
 John Adams, but he treated her program, her 
 appeals and her threats lightly. He had 
 heard it said that their struggle had loosened 
 
 the bonds of government, that children and 
 apprentices were disobedient, that schools and 
 colleges were grown turbulent, that Indians 
 slighted their guardians and negroes grew 
 insolent to their masters. But her letter was 
 the first intimation that another tribe more 
 numerous and powerful than all the rest were 
 grown discontented. 
 
 Mrs. Adams received Httle more encourage- 
 ment from Mrs. Warren than from her hus- 
 band, for Mrs. Warren's point of view was one 
 held still by many intelligent women, that for 
 the sake of "Order in Famihes" subordination 
 is necessary. She argued, however, that this 
 by no means proved the natural inferiority of 
 women. Very fine is the essence of her coun- 
 sels on the subject to one of the discontented 
 young ladies of the day: 
 
 "The deficiency lies not so much in the Inferior 
 Contexture of Female Intellects as in the different 
 Education bestow'd on the Sexes, for when the Culti- 
 vation of the Mind is neglected in Either, we see 
 Ignorance, Stupidity, & Ferocity of Manners equally 
 conspicuous in both. 
 
 "It is my Opinion that that Part of the Human 
 Species who think Nature (as well as the Infinitely 
 wise & Supreme Author thereof) has given them the 
 Superiority over the other, mistake their own Happi- 
 ness when they neglect the Culture of Reason in their 
 Daughters while they take all possible Methods of 
 improving it in their sons. 
 
 "The Pride you feel on hearing Reflections indis- 
 criminately Cast on the Sex, is laudable if any is so — 
 I take it, it is a kind of Conscious Dignity that ought 
 rather to be cherish'd, for while we own the Appointed 
 Subordination (perhaps for the sake of Order in 
 Families) let us by no Means Acknowledge such an 
 Inferiority as would Check the Ardour of our En- 
 deavours to equal in all Accomplishments the most 
 masculine Heights, that when these temporary Dis- 
 tinctions subside we may be equally qualified to taste 
 the full Draughts of Knowledge & Happiness pre- 
 pared for the Upright of every Nation & Sex; when 
 Virtue alone will be the Test of Rank, & the grand 
 Economy for an Eternal Duration will be properly 
 adjusted. " 
 
 Which stately paragraph Alice Brovsm, Mrs. 
 Warren's biographer, who pubhshes the above 
 letter, interprets charmingly: 
 
 "There speaks the feminine wisdom of the 
 ages: 'My dear, it may be necessary for you 
 to seem inferior; but you need not be so. Let 
 them have their little game, since it may have 
 been so willed. It won't hurt you; it will 
 amuse them.'" 
 
 But the unrest was too deep to be quieted 
 by the "feminine wisdom of the ages." More- 
 over, on the very heels of the Revolution it 
 received the impetus which logical formulation 
 and expression always give a new-born aspi- 
 ration. In a pamphlet published in 1787, 
 J' Lettres d'un bourgeois de New Haven d. tin 
 citoyen de Virgine," the French philosopher 
 Condorcet elaborated full)' the argument for 
 
The American Woman — By Ida M. Tarbell 
 
 15 
 
 the equal civil and political rights of women. 
 Later, in 1790, he again presented them. Con- 
 dorcet's argument ran that man, being a 
 reasoning creature, could not be deprived of 
 any right without injustice. The right of 
 voting was 
 one of these [ 
 natural 
 rights, a right 
 which be- 
 longed to 
 women as 
 well as men. 
 He denied 
 that men 
 think only of 
 the "univer- 
 sal good ." 
 Men always 
 consider their 
 own inter- 
 ests; t h e \' 
 everywhere 
 have made 
 laws oppres- 
 sive to women. 
 
 The Eng- 
 hsh contend, 
 he went on, 
 that there 
 should be no 
 taxes laid for 
 which one 
 has not 
 voted. If 
 this is true, 
 the woman 
 who is not 
 allowed to 
 vote has a 
 right to re- 
 fuse to pay 
 her taxes. He 
 argued that 
 women 
 should be 
 eligible to 
 public office, 
 that exclud- 
 ing them was 
 an injustice not only to them but to the electors. 
 
 As for the argument that it was ridiculous 
 for women to vote, he pooh-poohed it. "We 
 gain nothing in forbidding citizens to be ridic- 
 ulous. They will be so in spite of us if it is 
 their nature." Women were not fit for war? 
 So were many men not fit. Had no inventive 
 genius ? If all the men who lacked inventive 
 genius were refused recognition there would be 
 
 MARGARET SHIPPEN ARNOLD, WIFE OF 
 BENEDICT ARNOLD, WITH HER ELDEST SON 
 
 From a pastel by Sir Thomas Lawrence, painted at the 
 age of thirteen, owned by the Historical Society of 
 Pennsylvania, and reproduced through its courtesy 
 
 Peggy Shippen came of a Philadelphia Quaker Tory family. She 
 married Benedict Arnold in 1778, while he was in command of 
 Philadelphia. The question as to whether she knew of Arnold's 
 effort to deliver West Point to the British in 1780, has never 
 been satisfactorily settled. At the time Washington, Lafayette 
 and Hamilton certainly believed her innocent of any collusion 
 
 many vacant places — "even in the Academies." 
 Compare the few women who have received care- 
 ful educations, he said, with the many men who 
 have received the same, and see how compara- 
 tivel)' few men of genius have resulted. Was 
 
 not ]\Irs. Mac- 
 aulay fitter to 
 be a member 
 of Parliament 
 than many an 
 Englishman 
 who sat there ? 
 They were 
 weaker ph}'s- 
 ically ? Then 
 why not de- 
 prive men who 
 have the gout 
 and are a]wa3fs 
 catching cold, 
 of iheir rights? 
 Do not reason? 
 They are in- 
 line n c e d by 
 their own kind 
 of reasoning ? 
 Think too 
 much of 
 appearances? 
 Why is it not 
 as reasonable 
 for them to 
 regard appear- 
 ances as it was 
 for Demos- 
 thenes to take 
 care of his 
 voice ? Women 
 have no notion 
 of justice? 
 True, but what 
 of it ? It is her 
 education, not 
 her nature, 
 which causes 
 this difference. 
 She decides ac- 
 cording to her 
 emotions and 
 sentiments. 
 
 Condorcet's advocacy, carefully elaborated 
 in the Lettres and defended later with spirit 
 and wit, aroused great interest in Paris and, 
 particularly after the 1790 pamphlet was dis- 
 cussed, in the press, the clubs and the salons. 
 It had a decided influence on the French 
 women of revolutionary mind. They used 
 it to back up the petitions which they had 
 already begun to circulate, demanding civil 
 
Copyright by E^iicry ll'al/ar, London 
 
 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT 
 
 From the original portrait hy John Opie in the National 
 Portrait Gallery, London, bequeathed by Lady Shelley 
 
 recognition and better chances for education. 
 It led to their being admitted into popular 
 societies, and taking for the moment a larger 
 place in pubhc activities. Unfortunately their 
 agitation soon Ijecame hysterical, and in 1 793 the 
 Convention, radical as it was, suppressed them. 
 That all this crept over to America is, of 
 course, certain. It should not be forgotten 
 that the fathers of our country were zealous 
 students of all French revolutionary literature.* 
 Every philosopher who expounded the rights of 
 
 *A scholarly and ^'ivid account of the effect of the 
 French Revolution on American politics, literature and 
 society is to be found in liazen's "Contemporary American 
 Opinion of the French Revolution." 
 
 16 
 
 man and elaborated constitutions was studied 
 by that generation. It is impossible to point 
 out the documents showing that Condorcet haa 
 any large circulation in this country, but that 
 the libraries of the leading men contained his 
 works is true. John Adams owned a cop\' of 
 the Lettres d'lin citoyen de New Haven, now 
 in the Boston Public Library, which he annota- 
 ted himself.f but the paragraphs on woman's 
 
 tOn the fly-leaf of the volume Adams has recorded 
 as his opinion of Condorcet, that he was " a m.an of science 
 but little acquainted with history, ignorant — totally igno- 
 rant — of all writings on the business of government, with 
 very little knowledge of the human heart and still less of 
 the world, the Lettres themselves are a demonstration of 
 all this." 
 
The American Woman — By Ida M. Tarbell 
 
 17 
 
 right to the suffrage bear but two or three 
 unimportant notes. 
 
 Much more influential with American 
 women than anything Condorcet wrote was a 
 book pubHshed in London in 1792 and re- 
 printed by Matthew Carey in Philadelphia in 
 1794 — Mary Wollstonecraft's "Vindication of 
 the Rights of Women." At that time the 
 author had not scandalized the orthodox pubHc 
 into antagonism by her unhappy love affairs. 
 She was known simply as a spirited advocate 
 of the principles of the French Revolution, as 
 a member of one of the best literary circles of 
 London — one of the few women at that time 
 in the world supporting herself by her pen. 
 . What was not so well known was that she was 
 a young and beautiful woman and that all her 
 life she had been subjected to sorrow and in- 
 justice. Few women, indeed, have as much 
 reason to believe in the brutality of men and 
 the vanity and selfishness of women as poor 
 Mary WoUstonecraft. She had finally found 
 a circle where her talents were encouraged and 
 where she was able to work out the theories to 
 which her own sorrowful experiences had given 
 birth. Her book has many faults of style and 
 of matter. It is frequently incoherent with 
 indignation. It is seemingly unconscious that 
 there was in her day, as always, a large world 
 of men and women where gentleness and 
 courage ruled. She had little of that knowl- 
 edge of the past which makes one thankful 
 for the present, bad as it may seem; but all 
 this aside, the "Vindication of the Rights of 
 Women" is a vigorous and telling plea for a 
 general system of rational education for women. 
 She saw clearly that the sort of training in vogue 
 in her world, founded as it was on the assump- _ 
 tion of the natural inferiority of woman's intel- 
 lect and the consequent necessity of obedience to 
 man, practically forced her, if she were to secure 
 a position for herself, to trickery and to hateful 
 trading on the vanities and passions of men. 
 
 How could one expect society to improve, 
 children to be properly reared or men to be 
 better citizens, she asked, as long as women 
 were no more intelligently trained ? Granted 
 that the feminine intellect was inferior to the 
 masculine — and Miss WoUstonecraft wastes 
 little time on this point — it was the more neces- 
 sary that as much as possible be made of what 
 she had. The end of her solid argument was 
 a plea for a national system of education for girls 
 as well as boys. 
 
 Of course she ran counter to all the authori- 
 ties of the times in her conclusions. The 
 
 Church, society, even a philosopher like 
 Rousseau, based their ideas of the education 
 of women on the theory of her subjection to 
 man. To train her as if she were a self- 
 reUant individual, capable of deciding and. 
 living for herself, was to upset the whole scheme 
 of things. But upsetting the scheme of things 
 was what the civilized world was chiefly about 
 at that moment, and it is easy to believe that 
 Mary WoUstonecraft might have been regarded 
 as the prophetess of the women of her 
 day if her own subsequent career had not given 
 those hostile to her views abundant reason to 
 argue that such education as she advocated 
 must end in moral shipwreck. 
 
 Whatever ammunition Mary Wollstone- 
 craft's life gave her opponents, nothing could 
 stop the ideas of education she elaborated 
 so bravely and so eloquently, and at the same 
 time with so much practical sense. Parti- 
 cularly were these ideas adapted to the 
 American women brought up in that great 
 developing school — pioneer life. Fresh from 
 the upUfting experience of a war for^freedom, 
 inspired by the meaning of the great venture 
 the young nation for which she had sacrificed 
 so much was entering, it was inevitable that 
 she break with the notion that the duty of her 
 sex was first to please, then to obey and finally 
 to endure humbly and cheerfully. 
 
 For the first time jn the world^'s history, 
 women, as men, saw themselves members of a 
 government of equal opportunities. If every 
 man might aspire to the presidency then every 
 woman might aspire to be the mother of a 
 president! They might continue in peace to 
 render as great service as they had in war. 
 But they rhust be fitted for the task. The 
 thoughtful among them saw that the education 
 they had been getting from hard experience 
 would give way to the conventional English 
 system when order and prosperity returned, 
 unless it was supplanted by some new scheme. 
 This, then, was their first business. Practically 
 ignoring the notions of political and civil rights 
 Condorcet had developed so admirably, they 
 fixed attention on Mary Wollstonecraft's arg»- 
 ment that the true way for women to secure 
 a position equal in dignity with that of man 
 was through a system of education based on 
 the idea that she was equally important as a 
 human being with man. Before the nine- 
 teenth century was fairly on its way the first 
 phase of the American Woman's Movement 
 for Emancipation was clearly defined — it was 
 the demand for a New Education. 
 
 The second article i?i this series will appear in the next number of the magazine 
 
Simon the Jester 
 
 A New Serial 
 
 BY WILLIAM J. LOCKE 
 
 Author of "Septimus," "The Beloved Vagabond," etc. 
 
 .With Illustrations 
 by James Mont- 
 gomery F 1 a g g 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 I MET Renniker the other day at the club. 
 He is a man who knows everything from 
 the method of trimming a puppy's tail for 
 a dog show without/ being disqualified to the 
 innermost working^ of .the mind of every T^uro- 
 pean potentate.' '^f lyWant infoiftiatio;i on any 
 subject under/^ven'I ask Rednikef. 
 
 "Can you/teO me(" sai^'V " th/most God- 
 forsaken spot m E)/gland ? '/ / 
 
 Renniker, bein^ in a flippant mood, men- 
 tioned fi watering-place on tfop South Coast. 
 I plead(5(i'the seriousness of «iy question. 
 
 " What I want," said I, "is a place compared 
 to which Golgotha, Aceldama, the Dead Sea, 
 the/Valley of Jehoslaapljat and Ratcliff High- 
 way 'would be leafy pp-wep of uninterrupted 
 ddight." 
 
 /"Then Murgj^be^^-on/sea 
 looking for," sa/d Bfennjter. 
 there at once ? ' 
 
 "At once,"';^ai(Vl. 
 
 " It's Noverfibat, " said he, " and a villainou 
 November at that; so you'll see Murglebed 
 on-Sea in the fiae flower of its desolation." 
 
 I thanked hjm, went home and summoned 
 my excellent njan Rogers. 
 
 " Rogers] " said I, " I am going to the seaside. 
 I hear that Miirglebed is a nice quiet little spot. 
 You will go down and inspect it for me and 
 bring back a report." 
 
 He went blithe and light-hearted, though he 
 thought me insane : he returned with the air of a 
 i8 
 
 is what you're 
 " Are you going 
 
 / 
 
 serving-man who, expecting to find a well- 
 equipped pantry, had wandered into a enamel 
 house. / / 
 
 " It's an awful pla.ce/sii. It's sixteen miles 
 from a railway station. The shore is a mud 
 flat. There's no hotd and the inhabitants are 
 like cannibals. " , 
 
 " I staclf for Myrglebed-on-Ses( to-morrow. 
 RogeES stared at me. Hi/ loose mouth 
 quiver^ like that of a child preparing to cry. 
 
 can't possibly stay {nere, sir," he re- 
 mon^rated. / 
 
 " We are not going to tpy, " I retorted. " I'm 
 gomg by myself. " 
 
 is face/brightened. /Almost cheerfully he 
 isured nip that I shoum find nothing to eat in 
 urglebga. 
 
 an amuse yourself, " said I, " by send 
 own a daily Wamper of provisions. " 
 re isn't evenk church," he continued, 
 d me down a tin one from 
 
 'You, 
 ing me 
 " Tl ' 
 
 you can sa 
 Huni|)hreys'. " 
 
 He^ sighed and departed, and the next day I 
 found myself here, in Murglebed-on-Sea. 
 
 On a murky, sullen November day Murgle- 
 bed exhibits unimagined horrors of scenic de- 
 pravity. It snarls at you malignantly. It is 
 like a bit of waste land in Gehenna. There is 
 a lowering, soap-suddy thing a mile away from 
 the more or less dry land which local ignorance 
 and superstition call the sea. The interim is 
 mud, oozy, brown, malevolent mud. Some- 
 
Illustrated with Portraits collected for The American 
 Magazine by Charles Henry Hart 
 
 Chapter II — The First Step 
 
 THE first expression of the new ambitions 
 which the Revolution awakened in the 
 American woman came in a widespread 
 asking- for systematic education. It was no 
 local stirring; it was national. It was no 
 class ambition; it was a popular demand. It 
 had no outside imitative origin; it had its 
 roots in the very depths of her being. 
 
 It would be a mistake to think of the women 
 who laid the foundations for the popular 
 education of their sex in this country as 
 ignorant. If they had little schooling, they 
 were rich in self-control, in efficiency and in 
 common sense, and they had gotten their wis- 
 dom in the greatest of schools — pioneer life. 
 They had stood face to face with the savage, 
 with untouched nature, every elemental thing. 
 From the start they had shared everything 
 with man — danger, hunger, labor, organiza- 
 tion, resistance. They had been part and 
 parcel of the making of the new world and 
 they were wise as only those who begin at the 
 bottom and build up from raw materials are 
 ever wise. And it was out of this wisdom 
 that their demands for education came. 
 
 As a matter of fact, nothing shows better 
 than this demand how clearly the women of 
 '76 comprehended the great adventure of 
 democracy into which the country had flung 
 itself. With daring — and yet with misgiving — 
 government had been put into the hands of 
 the people. But if the people were to rule they 
 must understand. For the first time in the 
 world's history the education of all the people 
 became a governmental necessity. Women 
 saw that the realization of the democratic 
 206 
 
 ideal lay in training the young. They realized 
 that here was their first great obligation — to 
 fit themselves to fit their children for citizen- 
 ship. Men saw this as clearly as women. 
 "You and I have too many cares and occupa- 
 tions," wrote John Adams to Mr. Warren. 
 "We must recommend to Mrs. Warren and 
 her friend Mrs. Adams to teach our sons the 
 divine science of politics, and, to be frank, I 
 suspect they understand it better than we do." 
 "I am sensible that our women must concur 
 in all our plans for education for young men," 
 wrote Dr. Rush, "or no laws will ever render 
 them effectual. To qualify our women for 
 this purpose they should not only be instructed 
 in the usual branches of female education, but 
 should be taught the principles of government 
 and liberty, and the obligations of patriotism 
 should be inculcated upon them." 
 
 But the girl with the spirit of '76 in her 
 found a world 'pitifully equipped to satisfy even 
 modestly her demands for instruction. No- 
 where had there been any regular provisions 
 for training girls even in the rudiments. What 
 they got was altogether haphazard. True, in 
 many districts they shared the local primary 
 schools with boys, but there was often a 
 prejudice against even this elementary co- 
 education, particularly against devoting public 
 money for the purpose. Lucy Stone used to 
 tell the story of a stubborn old citizen of 
 Newburyport who, when the question of open- 
 ing the local school to girls came up, cried out, 
 "Public money to educate shes? Never!" 
 
 Private schools did exist, but they concerned 
 themselves more in teaching her manners and 
 
Simon the Jester — By William J. Locke 
 
 205 
 
 lute 
 
 torn to shreds. I have never seen a more 
 malevolent, \ fierce, spiteful, ill-conditioned 
 brute in mA life. My feelings being some- 
 what hurt, ll retreated hastily. 
 Now lool|," said Lola Brandt. 
 
 fearlessness she went up to 
 
 :d it, took the unresisting thing 
 
 of its neck, held it up hke a 
 
 ut it on her shoulder, where it 
 
 to purr like any harmless,] 
 
 di rub its head against her ' 
 
 djown and, taking the brute 
 
 ,de it stand on its hind legs. 
 
 it onto her shoulder /again 
 
 to the level of the cage, 
 
 ed in, purring thunderoikly 
 
 or. Mr. PapadopouBs 
 
 t: 
 
 of Cats, you, Carissim^, 
 
 With abs( 
 the cage, op^ 
 out by the scl 
 door-mat an^ 
 forthwitk bei 
 necessary cat 
 cheek, phe fe] 
 by its foiepawi 
 Then she hoii 
 and, risilg, 
 when thelbeafet 
 in high Igool 
 sang out I in Idi 
 
 "If I all tile 
 are the ©ueen 
 
 Lola Bmndt 1^ 
 uncanny, lit ?ee: 
 freemasonit a: 
 the evil bAst 
 had entered m; 
 been the hVndi 
 of the wor 
 from me as llie 
 
 fcisted 
 
 tich i 
 
 kked 
 
 ed. I did not. It wa3 
 
 as if some mysteriousV 
 
 between her and' 
 
 her drive hither she 
 
 tmosphere. She had 
 
 conventional woman 
 
 seemed as remote 
 
 'itc%eV\\rom Macbeth. The- 
 
 the dwarf began 
 
 in me but a 
 
 sm. Lola Brandt 
 
 Even his per- 
 
 Persian lacked 
 
 ola's handling. 
 
 up and enticed 
 
 ;c* of fish. He 
 
 3, as it jumped 
 
 a hoops, and 
 
 ;6d\like a hon- 
 
 i turned and 
 
 1 cage after 
 
 CM 
 
 a,ll 
 
 concent 
 
 3ih^ 
 
 feats of the nfild piussi 
 
 forthwith to Exhi^t 
 
 polite counterJeit of 
 
 had discounted, my 
 
 f ormance with\ the \ f ei 
 
 the diabolical eertainty 
 
 He locked all tne omer 
 
 it out of the cage with 
 
 guided it with ^ smi 
 
 over gates and qirou] 
 
 he stood tense 
 
 tamer. The act Wer,\ the 
 
 snarled, and only mmp6d inl 
 
 a smart flick of tne whip. vThe dwarf did 
 
 not touch it once withXhis nandsX \ applauded, 
 
 however, and complimentea hiJ 
 
 "Ah, Monsieur, I am but\a nejmhyte where 
 Madame is an adept. \ Without V&iglory, I 
 can say I know theirXhearts; but Madame 
 holds commune with their souls. And a cat's 
 soul. Monsieur, is a woiMerfu\ thing.\ Once 
 it was divine — in ancien^ Egyp^t. Monsieur 
 has heard of Pasht?" 
 
 "Pasht," said I pohtely in iVench, "was 
 a great divinity. And for yourself, Who knows 
 but that you may have been in a previous 
 incarnation the keeper of the Sacred Cats 
 in some Egyptian temple?" 
 
 "I was," he said, with staggering earnest- 
 ness. "At Memphis." 
 
 "One of these days," I returned, with equal 
 solemnity, "I hope for the privilege of hearing 
 some of your reminiscences." 
 
 On the way baclLLola thanked me for pre- 
 tending to take thevittle man seriously. 
 
 "You did it so naiurally. I was watching 
 
 you. Ydu are a generous-hearted gentleman." 
 
 Said IJ "If you ta\k like that I'll get out 
 
 and walk 
 
 . And irideed what rJbht had she to charac- 
 terize tha moral concntion of my heart? I 
 iasked herl She laughad her low, lazy laugh, 
 )ut made no reply. Presently she said: 
 "Why qjdn't you like my making friends 
 ith the caV?' 
 How d^ you know X didn't like it?" 
 I felt it. 
 You 
 m4rked. 
 
 [he insistei 
 as hell as I ci 
 my coat with 
 ^'m glad, 
 in me. 
 
 mui 
 
 n't feel thinks like that," I re- 
 isn't good foi you." 
 on my tellinglher. I explained 
 luld. She touched the sleeve of 
 er gloved hanl 
 
 cause it show! you take an in- 
 
 nd I wanteA to let you see 
 
 that 1 could do^sornething besides loll about 
 
 . a dm,wing-rooKi and smoke cig^'rettes. It's 
 
 I cLti do. Bvtt it's somethinV 
 iShe Jbopped mV in Eaton Scmare, where 1 
 hqd a mncheon qagagement, aini drove off 
 sm^ing aSid evidentl|f well pleased mth herself, 
 the Mternoon I^had a telephomc message 
 froiA my \ioctor, vfhk asked why 1 had ne- 
 glectVd hiiA for a formight, and ur^d me to 
 go to wHarleV Street atXonce. To huajor him 
 I wen\ the \ext mornibg. In ans\iiejr to his 
 reneweS inqi^ [as to m^ neglect I remarked 
 that a man cqndemned tp be hanged doesn't 
 seek intOTview^with the judge so as to learn 
 how the Ibpe i\ getting dfi. In his chatty 
 way he revested me not ip be an ass, and 
 proceeded ro putVo me the\usual silly ques- 
 tions. Remknbenlig the result of my last 
 visit, I madeviim \appy by answering them 
 gloomily; whemiporWie seized his opportunity 
 and ordered meVut o\England for the winter. 
 I must go to a warmVclimate — Egypt, South 
 Africa, Madeira — I could take my choice. I 
 flatly refused to obey. I had my duties in 
 London. He was so unsympathetic as to 
 damn my duties. My duty was to live as 
 long as possible. I turned on him and ex- 
 plained the charitable disingenuousness' of my 
 replies to his questions. He refused to be- 
 lieve me and we parted with mutual recrimi- 
 nation. I sent him next day, however, a 
 brace of pheasants, a present from Far- 
 fax Glenn. After all, he is one of God's 
 creatures. 
 
 To be continued 
 
The American Woman — By Ida M. Tarbell 
 
 207 
 
 accomplishments than in training and filling 
 her mind. Of course the equipment brought 
 home from such schools was meager — a song 
 or two to be sung for company, a well-done 
 sampler, a water color, and perhaps a wax 
 cross! And along with these proofs of their 
 accomplishments an entire unsettling for life 
 at home. Naturally there was a hearty dislike 
 and mistrust of these private schools among 
 the mass of the people. They "spoiled the 
 girls," and one finds the fathers especially 
 quoting Crabbe: 
 
 To farmer Moss in Langar vale, came down, 
 His only daughter, from her school in town; 
 A tender timid maid, who knew not how 
 To pass a pig-sty, or to face a cow; 
 Smiling she came, with petty talents graced, 
 A fair complexion, and a slender waist. 
 
 If the schools did little, the homes did much. 
 It is doubtful if a better training has ever been 
 devised than that which was given girls in 
 intelligent New England households. Its 
 secret iay in the rigid and constant personal 
 attention on the part of parents and family 
 friends. These girls got their education at the 
 fireside. Its regular tasks began early — often 
 as young as three — and by the time the girl was 
 fifteen she was ready for serious responsibility. 
 Harriet Beecher Stowe's account of the train- 
 ing her aunt gave her when she was five years 
 old is a good illustration of what American 
 girls of the middle class received long before 
 and long after the Revolution: 
 
 "My Aunt Harriet was no common char- 
 acter. A more energetic human being never 
 undertook the education of a child. Her 
 ideas of education were those of a vigorous 
 Englishwoman of the old school. . . . 
 According to her views little girls were to be 
 taught to move very gently, to speak softly and 
 prettily, to say 'yes ma'am' and 'no ma'am,' 
 never to tear their clothes, to sew, to knit, at 
 regular hours, to go to church on Sunday and 
 make all the responses, and to come home and 
 be catechised." 
 
 Along with the catechism went the reading 
 of Bishop Heber's "Life," Buchanan's "Re- 
 searches in Asia" and Dr. Johnson's works. 
 At the same time she was kept at memorizing 
 hymns and chapters from the . Bible. The 
 summer Harriet Beecher was five years old she 
 learned "by heart" twenty-seven hymns and 
 twenty-two long chapters in the Bible! A girl 
 trained like this takes to books like ducks to 
 water. She somehow instinctively finds her 
 way through the most forbidding collections 
 to the thing which is hers. Take Harriet 
 Beecher nosing in barrels of sermons and 
 
 pamphlets stored in her father's garret and 
 going straight to the "Arabian Nights" at the 
 bottom of the barrel! 
 
 The kind of training Harriet Beecher re- 
 ceived from her aunt, her elder sister Cath- 
 erine had from their mother. Abigail Adams 
 considered her Grandmother Quincy as her 
 wisest counselor and teacher. Often as not 
 it was the father that became the little girl's 
 companion and instructor. Aaron Burr's 
 instruction of Theodosia is one of the best 
 things we know of him. Every no\v and then 
 one comes upon a woman of the period who 
 under her father's direction had become what 
 the day called "learned." There is Margaret 
 Mercer, daughter of a former governor of 
 Maryland and member of the Constitutional 
 Convention. Her father was so proud of her 
 intelligence and her eagerness for knowledge 
 that he helped her to learn Hebrew and 
 mathematics. She was an indefatigable stu- 
 dent, and when at twenty an attempt was 
 made to let her see something, of society in 
 Washington and Virginia she would have 
 nothing to do with it. "The unideaed chat- 
 ter of females," as she called it, and the ab- 
 sence of any desire to be useful, was too much 
 for her, and she determined to have nothing 
 more to do with society, but to find some good 
 cause to which she could devote herself, which 
 she did. 
 
 Hannah Adams, probably the first woman 
 in the country to earn her living by writing 
 books, was the daughter of a man whose 
 ambition had been to be a scholar and whose 
 father had decided that he should be a 
 farmer. The result of these clashing ambi- 
 tions was that he became a buyer and seller 
 of books, most of which he managed to read 
 before he sold. Hannah became as devoted 
 as he to the stream of books which flowed on 
 and off the shelves. Indeed, she says that 
 in her early years her idea of heaven was 
 of a place where one's thirst for knowledge 
 could be fully gratified. She had the true 
 instinct of the scholar — reading all there is on 
 a subject and forming her own conclusions- — 
 and when she found herself forced to earn 
 her own living she had the courage in face of 
 convention, to which she was painfully sensi- 
 tive, to utilize the habits of research she had 
 acquired in her father's shop in writing 
 books — useful ones the}' were, too. 
 
 But not every girl of the times had an aunt 
 like Harriet Beecher or a scholarly father 
 and a shop full of books like Hannah Adams. 
 Most of them faced a world empty of books 
 and scholarly associations. They were forced 
 to cut their own paths, and most frequently 
 
208 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 this was never more than begun, leaving them 
 unsatisfied and often rebeUious. But these 
 women who felt the difficulties and defeat be- 
 came what was most needed — tireless advo- 
 cates of general educational opportunities for 
 girls. What they could not have they meant 
 their daughters should have. 
 
 The Rev. Joseph Emerson of Massachu- 
 setts, one of the leading "female educators" 
 of the early part of the nineteenth century, 
 said, in an address in 1823, that in his judg- 
 ment the very foundation of the movement 
 for woman's education lay in the deter- 
 mination of those who had never had any 
 advantages. "Many thousands of American 
 mothers, impressed with the importance of 
 knowledge which they do not possess," said 
 Mr. Emerson, "are wiUing to rise up early, to 
 sit up late, to eat the bread of the most rigid 
 economy, that their daughters may be favored 
 with means of improvement greatly superior 
 tp what they themselves possessed." And 
 Mr. Emerson mentioned in connection with 
 this another touching fact which had come to 
 him in his experience as a teacher, that so 
 many women were "not ashamed to become 
 fellow pupils with those who had not seen 
 half so many summers as themselves." 
 
 It is not strange that from so deep a spring 
 strong waters flowed. Women began to ap- 
 pear all over the country intent on founding 
 girls' schools where what was then considered 
 "advanced" instruction could be found. 
 Rarely had these women money, rarely had 
 they had systematic education, rarely did they 
 go at their task with merely professional or 
 occupational interest. They were women 
 fired with a great purpose, that of fitting the 
 coming woman for the duties of democracy. 
 There is in all these undertakings this high, 
 clear note — schools that women may be better 
 fitted for her tasks. Not yet was there any 
 quarrel with the tasks, any desir'e to shirk 
 them, to substitute public or professional life 
 for them; any efforts to free themselves from 
 the old traditions. They were to keep to the 
 woman's trades, but they were to readapt 
 them to the needs of a republic, fit them- 
 selves for their enlarged sphere. In this 
 movement three women stand out notably — 
 they are Emma Hart Willard, Mary Lyon 
 and Catherine Beecher. 
 
 The first, Emma Hart, was the product of 
 that fine New England training spoken of 
 above. She was the sixteenth child in one of 
 those families which "in summer toiled like 
 bees and in winter meditated like sages." 
 Herfather supplemented what she learned in the 
 meager local schools, and before she was fifteen 
 
 she had read and discussed with him Plutarch's 
 " Lives, "Rollin's "Ancient History," Gibbon's 
 "Reme" and the early British Essayists. 
 The instinct to teach was strong in her, and it 
 was intensified by the need she saw of schools. 
 By the time she was twenty she had something 
 more than a local reputation as a teacher, but 
 marriage put an end to her activities for a few 
 years. Then, in 1814, she took it up again, 
 opening a boarding-school for young ladies at 
 Middlebury, Vermont. Mrs. Willard began 
 her enterprise with an ambition to build up a 
 school quite superior to anything which jp.y.- 
 isted at the time. She proposed to teach 
 mathematics and the sciences, to offer her 
 pupils lecturers and teachers who knew some- 
 thing more than the rudiments of what they 
 taught. She aimed also to make her school 
 permanent. But how could she do all this 
 with no financial support but the fees of her 
 pupils? In her neighborhood was a boy's 
 college, its buildings and apparatus given by 
 the state, its income insured, its managemejjl 
 encouraged and directed by the state. It was 
 an object lesson to her. Why should the state 
 do all this for boys and nothing for girls ? She 
 had hardly asked the question before she de- 
 termined it must do something for them. In 
 order to present the idea properly she prepared 
 a pamphlet in which she set forth her idea of 
 what was needed to establish proper schools 
 for young women. The items were: ample 
 public buildings, a library, apparatus, a 
 faculty, a board of trustees, state support. 
 And this was in 1817! 
 
 In order that those she wished to convert 
 might not be frightened by "the phantom of 
 a college-learned lady," a phantom alrtady 
 conjured up by those who opposed all the 
 changes the new system of government was 
 bringing about, she defined carefully the differ- 
 ences between her plan and that of the college 
 for men. She also stated with care the argu- 
 ment by which she justified her plea for these 
 unheard-of advantages. It was the argument 
 of John Adams and Dr. Rush already quoted: 
 
 It is the duty of a government to do all in its power 
 to promote the present and future prosperity of the 
 nation over which it is placed. This prosperity will 
 depend on the character of its citizens. The charac- 
 ters of these will be formed by their mothers; and it 
 is through the mothers that the government can con- 
 trol the characters of its future citizens, to form them 
 such as will insure their country's prosperity. If 
 this is the case, then it is the duty of our present 
 legislature to begin now to form the characters of 
 our next generation by controlling that of the females, 
 who are to be these mothers, while it is yet with them 
 a season of improvement. 
 
 Mrs. Willard sent her pamphlet with elo- 
 quent personal letters to a large number of 
 
The American Woman By Ida M. Tarbell 
 
 iog 
 
 MARGARET MERCER, ONE OF THE FIRST WOMEN OF THE 
 SOUTH TO FREE HER SLAVES 
 
 From a portrait by Thomas Sully in the collection of the Pennsylvania Colonization 
 Society in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Margaret Mercer began her work 
 for others by founding a Sunday School. Later she became active in the Colonization 
 Society, and after her father's death she freed all her slaves and sent them back to 
 Liberia. In the operation she used up her entire fortune, and for the rest of her life 
 supported herself by teaching. Into the school which she founded in Maryland, she 
 always took pupils regardless of their ability to pay their fees. Her activities are typical 
 of those v^hich occupied many serious women in the first half of the nineteenth century 
 
 eminent public men, beginning with President undertaking. As a matter of fact, public 
 
 Monroe. Although most of those to whom opinion was more ready than the discouragers 
 
 she wrote approved her ideas, many disap- realized, for several influential men at once 
 
 proved an effort to carry them out. Public pledged their support, the most enthusiastic 
 
 opinion was not ready for such a radical and willing being Governor Clinton and 
 
2IO The American Magazine 
 
 ing an act in- 
 SIS8 Sim corporatinga 
 
 ^S ^S female seminary 
 
 at Waterford, 
 New York, of 
 which Airs. Wil- 
 lard was asked 
 to take charge. 
 It placed the 
 institution un- 
 der the regents 
 of the univer- 
 sity, and allowed 
 itashareofwhat 
 was called the 
 
 endowment of 
 $5,000 asked. 
 Mrs. AMUard's 
 faith in popular 
 go\ernment was 
 sadly disturbed 
 by this refusal. 
 In her enthusi- 
 astic inexperi- 
 ence she had 
 regarded the 
 legislators as 
 true " Fathers 
 of the State," 
 and had confi- 
 dently expected 
 them to give 
 her all she 
 asked ! Her dis- 
 i 1 1 usionment 
 w a s complete. 
 All seemed lost! 
 But as a fact 
 m u c h , very 
 much, had been 
 gained, for she 
 was able to open 
 at ^^'aterford in 
 the fall of 1819 
 altogether tfie 
 most advanced 
 school for girls 
 established up 
 to that time 
 in the United 
 States, and the 
 first of its kind, 
 so far as the 
 Chancellor Kent of New York State. The writer knows, to receive aid from jniblic funds, 
 governor presented her plan to the legisla- In settling in ^^■aterfo^d IMrs. Willard had 
 ture with a strong argument for its adoption, hoped that the citizens might furnish perma- 
 The legislature resi)onded promptly, pass- nent buildings and the apparatus she wanted, 
 
 DOROTHY PAYN MADISON— WIFE OF THE FOURTH 
 PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 
 
 From the original drawirrg made irr 1848 by Eastnaan joKnson, in "whose studio 
 it was photographed for Mr. Hart in 1897, and no-w reproduced for the first time. 
 No -woman in American history has been so intimately associated with the life 
 in the city of Washington as Dolly Madison, and we have never had a better 
 loved lady in the White House. Under Jefferson's administration her husband 
 was Secretary of State, and she was the President's favorite assistant, he being 
 a \vidower. Her heroism at the time of the burning of Washington by the 
 British in 1814, when she saved the Declaration of Independence and the 
 portrait of George Washington, is not the only tale of the kind we have of 
 her. In 1844 she was on the steamer Princeton when a terrible explosion oc- 
 curred, and, in spite of the shock she suffered, she remained assisting the wounded 
 until every one had been cared for. Later, awakened from sleep in her burn- 
 ing house, she refused to leave until her husband's papers and letters had 
 been saved. After Madison died, in 1836, Mrs. Madison continued to pass 
 her winters in her charming house on the corner of Lafayette Square and 
 H Street, now the Cosmos Club. Here she was quite as much sought as were 
 the presidents' wives in the great White House on the other side of the square 
 
The American Woman — By Ida M. Tarbell 
 
 211 
 
 but they re- 
 fused, and when 
 Troy promised 
 her the equip- 
 ment she ac- 
 cepted, and in 
 the spring of 
 1821 opened the 
 Tsrry Female 
 Seminary — an 
 incorporated 
 institution 
 housed in a 
 building put up 
 by the town. 
 Mrs. Wiliard 
 hoped that the 
 legislature 
 would endow 
 this school, but 
 it refused, so 
 that she was 
 obhged to lease 
 it and carry it 
 on largely as a 
 private institu- 
 tion. The school 
 soon became a 
 power because 
 of the unusual 
 personality be- 
 hind it. Emma 
 Willard held 
 herself and her 
 pupils to the 
 highest living. 
 She studied, 
 wrote, traveled, 
 sought the 
 society of su- 
 perior men and 
 women, took a 
 hand in public 
 affairs and 
 causes. She 
 became a per- 
 sonage as 
 powerful as she 
 
 HANNAH ADAMS, THE FIRST AMERICAN WOMAN TO EARN 
 HER LIVING BY WRITING BOOKS 
 
 From a portrait by Chester Harding. Owned and copyrighted by the Boston 
 Athenaeum, through whose courtesy it is reproduced. Sewing, needlework and 
 teaching were about the only employttients open to women thrown on their 
 own resources in Hannah Adams's day. Her first money she earned by making 
 bobbin lace during the Revolution ; but, the war over, the lace industry fell off, 
 and she determined to take to history writing. Her work was done with so 
 much care and ability that she finally secured a large circle of influential 
 friends, as well as of readers. One of the best things Hannah Adams did 
 was a plaintive little memoir of her life, a document which proves her to be 
 as sincere and faithful a literary worker as any woman this country hsis produced 
 
 was useful, as 
 elegant as she was admirable. By the middle of 
 the century the Troy Female Seminary was a 
 center of cultivation, as one can see from such 
 an impression as the following, a picture 
 drawn by Dr. John Lord, Mrs. Willard's 
 biographer, and long a lecturer in her school: 
 
 Never was I so impressed with the dignity of a 
 school. I remember full well the half turban and 
 half cap which was so becoming to Mrs. Willard, 
 the elegant black dress and laces which adorned her 
 
 rather large figure, the gracious smile which softened 
 the solemn austerity of executive habits and the 
 egotistic pleasantries which made her natural and at- 
 tractive, though subject to unfriendly criticism. 
 Never was there a franker woman. Never did a 
 woman seem to enjoy her labors and duties more 
 than she. Never was one prouder of the friendships 
 she had made and the hearts she had won. Never 
 did I see a more generous appreciation of intellectual 
 excellence. Never did I meet with a person more 
 hospitable and genial. She lived, as it appeared 
 to me, in rather unusual style for a teacher, with 
 
212 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 EMMA HART WILLARD— PIONEER IN THE MOVEMENT FOR 
 HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN 
 
 From a daguerreotype made in 1845, owned by the Willard family, but now in the possession of Mrs. 
 Russell Sage, through whose courtesy it is here reproduced. It is from this daguerreotype that Mrs. 
 Sage had a photograph made to place in Russell Sage Hall, Troy. Mrs. Willard's life was one of varied 
 interests and activities. She wrote both prose and verse. The words of the old Song, " Rocked in 
 the Cradle of the Deep," are hers. She was the author of a treatise on the circulation of the blood 
 which provoked much discussion. Her acquaintance was enormous, and the Troy Seminary en- 
 tertained many distinguished people. Its great historical event is the visit of Lafayette in 
 1825. The honor in w^hich her pupils hold her is shown well in the elaborate memorial 
 volume edited by Mrs. A. W. Fairbanks and published in 1898 by Mrs. Russell Sage 
 
 horses and carriages, and an army of servants, with and beautiful. She seemed to be almost adored 
 
 pictures in the parlors and works of beauty and by her pupils and revered by her teachers, and 
 
 taste, souvenirs of her European travels. She ap- the whole institution shone, to my eyes, in blended 
 
 peared to be the patroness of all that was good harmony and glory. 
 
The American Woman— By Ida M. Tarbell 
 
 213 
 
 MARY LYON— THE FOUNDER OF MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE 
 
 Enlarged from a miniature belonging to Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts. 
 The keynote to Mary Lyon's life is in two expressions of hers — one to Miss Grant, in 1833, 
 "My thoughts, feelings and judgment are turned toward the middle class of society. For 
 this class I want to labor, and for this class I consider myself rather peculiarly fitted to labor. 
 The middle class contains the mainsprings and main wheels which are to run the world"; the 
 second from her last talk to her girls, "There is nolhing in the universe I fear but that I shall not 
 know all my duty or shall fall to do it. " In considering Mary Lyon's life, the helps she received 
 from members of the faculty of Amherst College should not be overlooked. She was allo'wed to 
 take their lectures. She received their counsel and backing for thirty years in building up 
 her seminary, and it is to President Edward Hitchcock that we owe the best life of her 
 
 And the woman who made this impression from one thing to another from morning until 
 on the young lecturer was writing at this time night till my animal life and my intellectual 
 to her sister: "I lead a dog's life, dragged soul seem alike exhausted and nothing left at 
 
214 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 times but the clod which seems to be tending 
 to its parent earth." Which goes to show the 
 frequent price of a brave achievement! 
 
 It was inevitable that a person of Mrs. 
 Willard's tastes and habits, supported by the 
 class of people she was, should build up a 
 school for girls from well-to-do and wealthy 
 families. Indeed 
 the existence of the 
 school had been 
 largely due to the 
 cooperation of 
 prominent men 
 who believed with 
 Mrs. Willard that 
 the future of 
 democracy de- 
 pended on the 
 training of the 
 young and wanted 
 a better education 
 for their daughters 
 than the shallow 
 system inherited 
 from England 
 offered. The new 
 seminary attracted 
 the best in point of 
 intelligence and of 
 position. Mrs. 
 Willard was far 
 from being un- 
 friendly to poor 
 girls; it is probable 
 indeed that hun- 
 dreds of them were 
 helped through the 
 institution by the 
 generosity of the 
 great principal. 
 Nevertheless the 
 school was expen- 
 sive, as an un- 
 endowed school of 
 its class must be. 
 On every hand the 
 multiplying semi- 
 
 ALMIRA HART LINCOLN PHELPS. 
 WRITER AND TEACHER 
 
 From the original painting by A. B. Moore, Troy, N. Y., 
 1 856, in the possession of Mrs. Phelps's daughter, Mrs. 
 D. W. O'Brien, of Philadelphia, through whose courtesy 
 it is here reproduced for the first time. No more dis- 
 tinguished example of Emma "Willard's teaching ability 
 could be found than her own sister. Mrs. Willard gave 
 the closest personal attention to her education, and 
 finally made her an assistant in the T^oy Seminary. 
 Although twice married, Mrs. Phelps taught to within 
 a few years of her death. She wrote a large num- 
 ber of popular text-books on natural science, and 
 was one of the first women elected to the Ameri- 
 can Association for the Advancement of Science 
 
 nariesfor girls were 
 too expensive to meet the needs of the largest 
 class — the daughters of poor people in whom 
 the desire for education was almost a passion. 
 So compelhng a need was bound to find a 
 champion, and did in one of the really great 
 women this country has produced — Mary 
 Lyon — the founder of Mount Holyoke College. 
 Born in 1797 on a little Massachusetts farm 
 which she once said was "made more to feast 
 the soul than feed the body" — like so many 
 other New England farms — her father dying 
 
 when she was five years old, Mary Lyon faced 
 from the start privation of all kinds. But there 
 was no such thing as paucity of life for her. 
 No external meagerness could quench her 
 boundless interest, energy, capacity for emo- 
 tion. From a child she had the passion for 
 knowledge. She was a wonderful pupil, one 
 
 that a whole school 
 would stop its 
 studying to hear 
 recite. She pur- 
 sued her quest 
 through all sorts 
 of hardships and 
 hindrances. She 
 spun and wove and 
 "worked out" and 
 taught, to get 
 money for an 
 occasional term at 
 the neighboring 
 academies. She 
 even exchanged 
 the household 
 articles she had 
 inherited from her 
 mother for a win- 
 ter's board. When 
 twenty-four years 
 old she entered the 
 Rev. Joseph Emer- 
 son's school at 
 Byfield, Massa- 
 chusetts. At this 
 time her absorp- 
 tion in study was 
 such that her 
 room-mate de- 
 clares that she 
 never was allowed 
 to go out by her 
 friends without 
 careful inspection 
 lest she had left 
 off some essential 
 garment or had 
 put on something 
 
 wrong side out. 
 The one thing about her which caused her 
 friendsconcern was her indifference to religion. 
 She accepted it, but "had no time for it," she 
 said. In the winter at Dr. Emerson's, how- 
 ever, there came suddenly to her a sense that 
 all this passion for study was in itself a selfish 
 and fruitless thing. What was it all for? 
 "Oh, my leanness, my leanness!" was her cry. 
 It was the beginning of a new life. From that 
 time on she put into her teaching a quality it 
 had never before known — the passion for the 
 
The American Woman — By Ida M. Tarbell 
 
 215 
 
 redemption of the souls she touched. Inten- 
 sified by religious fervor, her teaching, always 
 unusual, became little short of extraordinary. 
 In Buckland, Massachusetts, where she worked 
 for six winters, she succeeded in interesting the 
 entire community. She had to a remarkable 
 degree the power of inspiring to useful living. 
 Heedless girls went 
 back to their homes 
 humanized and 
 thoughtful. The 
 innumerable fami- 
 lies made happier 
 by Mary Lyon's 
 influence on their 
 daughters was 
 reason enough for 
 the devotion to her 
 which grew to be 
 almost a cult in the 
 parts of Massa- 
 chusetts where she 
 worked. 
 
 From Buckland 
 she went in 1829 to 
 join one of the great 
 teachers of Massa- 
 chusetts in that 
 day, Miss Z. P. 
 Grant, in building 
 up Ipswich Acad- 
 emy for girls. For 
 several years these 
 two women la- 
 bored to carry out 
 their own growing 
 ideas of what a 
 school should be, 
 but they found, as 
 had Mrs. Willard 
 before them, the 
 practical impossi- 
 bility of making a 
 good school on no 
 other income than 
 the fees of pupils, 
 and they made a 
 
 strong and patient effort to interest first the 
 Ipswich community and then outsiders in es- 
 tablishing somewhere a permanent school. For 
 many months Mary Lyon and her friend 
 labored hard to carry out the plans, but the 
 difficulties discouraged the supporters whom 
 they had brought together. Miss Grant fell 
 ill. It looked as if the school they had dreamed 
 of would never be realized. 
 
 During the undertaking to make Ipswich 
 Academy permanent, Mary Lyon had been 
 learning various things. She had not at the 
 
 CATHERINE E. BEECHER, EDUCATOR 
 
 The portrait is from the Rev. Chas. E. Stowe's memoirs 
 of his mother, Harriet Beecher Stowe. Mr. Stowe does not 
 know from what this was taken, or where the original is. 
 Miss Beecher's service to the American woman includes 
 more than the educational work outlined in this article. 
 Her own development after the crushing sorrow which 
 broke up her life's plans and destroyed her religious 
 faith \t?as in itself an inspiring example at a period 
 w^hen it was common to let personal sorrow end a 
 woman's usefulness. Her persistent and intelligent 
 efforts to improve domestic economy in this country was 
 an invaluable part of her educational work, and contrib- 
 uted largely to the subsequent interest in domestic science 
 
 Start had much interest in a permanent school. 
 "Never mind about brick and mortar," she 
 used to say. "Only let us have living minds 
 to work upon." But she was beginning to see 
 that a school to have a large place and influence 
 must go on expanding from generation to 
 generation, that it must be bigger than any 
 
 person. It was 
 "female education 
 in general," not 
 simply "Miss 
 Grant's and Miss 
 Lyon's school," 
 which was in 
 question. Another 
 controlling thought 
 with her was that 
 only by some such 
 provision could 
 education be made 
 cheap. Before she 
 left Buckland she 
 had had a vague 
 notion of "a sem- 
 inary which should 
 be so moderate in 
 its expenses as to 
 be open to the 
 daughters of far- 
 mers and artisans 
 and to teachers 
 who might be 
 mainly dependent 
 for their support 
 on their own exer- 
 tions." It was this 
 class of her pupils 
 which had inter- 
 ested her especially 
 at Ipswich. The 
 longer she worked 
 the deeper her great 
 heart was touched 
 by what she called 
 the "adult female 
 youth in the com- 
 
 mon walks of life.' 
 Her desire to aid them became a passion. "It 
 has sometimes seemed as if a fire were shut 
 up in my bones." Thus driven she began 
 over again her efforts to establish an endowed 
 school. 
 
 In the former attempt it had been the well- 
 to-do who had been approached, but this time 
 she proposed to address herself directly to 
 those who knew deprivation and who were 
 accustomed to denying themselves for noble 
 causes. She took, too, a resolution which tore 
 her heart: to separate from Miss Grant and 
 
2l6 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 REBECCA GRATZ- 
 
 -THE ORIGINAL OF WALTER SCOTT'S 
 THE HEROINE OF "IVANHOE" 
 
 ' REBECCA; 
 
 From the original painting by Thomas Sully made in 1830; owned by Mr. Henry 
 Joseph, Montreal, Canada, through whose courtesy it is here reproduced for the 
 first time. This beautiful and brilliant Jewess Avhen but eighteen years old began to 
 identify herself with the admirable Hebrew benevolent work in Philadelphia, where 
 she was born in 1781. Devoted as she was to her own people, she by no means 
 confined her efforts to them. Miss Gratz numbered many of the leading men and 
 women of the country as her friends ; among others, Washington Irving, who by his 
 descriptions of her to Walter Scott led the latter to take her as a model. She is 
 a fair example of many women of beauty, brains and social position who in this period 
 devoted themselves to founding and developing American charitable institutions 
 
 henceforth "to labor only where instruction 
 of an elevated character could be furnished 
 at a very moderate expense." 
 
 The very intensity of the interest Mary 
 Lyon threw into her new project, her inability 
 to keep quiet about it, finally brought together 
 some of the friends of the former enterprise 
 and in the fall of 1834' — almost before she real- 
 ized it — a committee of men had been formed 
 to aid her and she was herself at work begging 
 money from house to house. The school she 
 
 asked help in establishing was to be one, she 
 explained, where the most rigid economy should 
 prevail — where nobody should profit, where 
 the pupil should do all the domestic labor, 
 where everybody should work and sacrifice 
 for the privilege of learning in order that they 
 might better serve God and their fellows. 
 Her friends told her that it was madness, 
 that she could not get endowment or pupils 
 for such a school. But her instinct was right. 
 The middle class she wanted to draw from 
 
The American Woman — By Ida M. Tarbell 
 
 217 
 
 were her friends, and scores of that class who 
 had become prosperous and felt that work 
 and economy were two great principles of 
 successful living which their daughters were 
 not learning, rallied to her. If a few men, and 
 women, spoke contemptuously, the majority 
 were stirred by the sound sense as well as the 
 great idealism of her plan. 
 
 The preliniinary sum with which Mount 
 Holyoke'Semiiiary was established was the di- 
 rect result of Mary Lyon's personal work and 
 contagious enthusiasm. Once started, friends 
 seemed to rise out of the ground. The very 
 errors of the founders helped them, one amus- 
 ing one especially. A member of the com- 
 mittee wanted to call the school the Pangy- 
 naskean (where all the Powers of Women are 
 cultivated) Seminary! A few editors hostile 
 to innovations in woman's education took up 
 the unwieldy word for ridicule, but they really 
 did much good. The first contribution of 
 $500 came through a woman who had been 
 attracted to the enterprise by the attack on 
 the name. 
 
 For the next three years Mary Lyon labored 
 incessantly to raise mone}-, find friends, mature 
 her plans, not to speak of answering her 
 critics, for she had many of them. Her per- 
 sistency in presenting her cause — she rarely 
 took even a stage ride that the passengers were 
 not harangued on the subject: — her going 
 about alone or with the agent of the enterprise, 
 Mr. Hawks, shocked her friends inexpressibly. 
 It was not ladylike! "My heart is sick," she 
 said once, after she had been expostulated 
 with.--"M3' soul is pained with this empty 
 gentility, this genteel nothingness. I am doing 
 a great work, I cannot come down." Even a 
 woman like Catherine Beecher criticized her 
 for putting the tuition and board so low ($60 
 a year covered everything), and for the meager 
 salary paid teachers (Miss Lyon received $200 
 a year and her board!). But this did not 
 trouble her. She knew the means of the girls 
 she was after, and as for salary: "In a list of 
 motives for teaching," she replied, "I should 
 first place the great motive which cannot be 
 understood by the natural heart — Love thy 
 neighbor as thyself." 
 
 -Her success and that of her agent in securing 
 funds was steady. By the end of two years 
 over sixty towns had been interested, and 
 enough money pledged to begin a building 
 costing $15,000. How large a part of this sum 
 had come directly through the efforts or 
 from the savings of hard-working women 
 nobody probably knows. Certainly a large 
 part of it was due to them. There were 
 ne\er more touching records of gifts than 
 
 those now so carefully preserved at Mount 
 Holyoke College. 
 
 It was in May, 1836, that the trustees felt 
 justified in beginning the building. Scarcely 
 a spade of earth was taken out or a brick laid 
 without Mary Lyori's'iowig inspection. There 
 were miany ■ delays- and m-i-sadventures;" fK^e- 
 foundatiohs had to be'moved, the bricks were' 
 questioned, and once the structure fell, but 
 she never lost courage or cheer. "The stones 
 and bricks and mortar speak a language that 
 vibrates through my very soul," she said.--- She 
 planned for everything within — closets, sheh-es, 
 cupboards, sinks, doors, etc. -She herself 
 begged much of the money for the furniture. 
 And much of the time she A\as engaged in these 
 trying labors she was studying and taking 
 lectures at Amherst, that she might be more 
 fit to direct her teachers! 
 
 It was in NoA-ember, 1837, that Mount 
 Holyoke Seminary was opened, the first girls' 
 school in this country to own its own buildings 
 and equipment. From the beginning Miss 
 Lyon carried out the ' vigorous system of 
 economy and work she had planned, and it 
 succeeded. The school opened with four 
 teachers and one hundred and sixteen pupils, 
 and in ten years it had fourteen teachers and 
 two hundred and thirty-five pupils. 
 
 Many fine and wholesome influences flowed 
 from ]Mount Holyoke under Mary Lyon, but its , 
 greatest services at the beginning was the 
 stream of devoted and efficient teachers it 
 poured out, teachers whose exalted ser\-ice is 
 still a living force in many a community in this 
 country. It is hard for us to realize what 
 teaching meant in those days to serious-minded 
 girls. They went into it in the same spirit as 
 women were going then in large numbers 
 from Mount Holyoke and Troy and other 
 schools into foreign missionary work.* It 
 was a call, a giving of self to answer the <_ 
 uni\ersal cry of the country for education 
 — not alone education of their sex but of 
 children the country over. For as the years 
 went by it became clearer and clearer to intelli- 
 gent and patriotic men and women that in 
 great sections of the new republic neither boys 
 nor girls had a chance for any respectable 
 instruction. To make this need known, to 
 fit teachers to supply it, to get them to the 
 spots where they were wanted — this became 
 the work of a third woman of the period, a 
 
 * One o£ the most impressive things at Mount Holyoke 
 College today is a bronze tablet in-the beautiful reading hall 
 of the library, on -which are inscribed^ the names of 178 
 women sent out as missionaries from the institutipn between 
 1837 and 18S7. Mrs. Sarah Josepha Hale, in the appendix 
 to her " Woman's Record." pubUshed in 1853, prints a list 
 of the American women who up to that date had gone out 
 as missionaries from the four leading boards. The total is 
 766. About one-fifth of these women were unmarried. 
 
2l8 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 woman who was herself a great teacher and 
 a great organizer — Catherine E. Beecher, the 
 eldest of the wonderful Beecher family. 
 
 Miss Beecher had been thrown into teach- 
 ing by a great personal bereavement — the 
 death of the man she^was to have married, 
 Professor Alexander Metcalf Fisher of Yale 
 College, who went down in the Albion off the 
 coast of Ireland in April, 1822. Thrown back 
 on herself, she built up at Hartford, Connec- 
 ticut, and later in Cincinnati, Ohio, strong 
 schools for girls.- She had quite as large ideas 
 about equipment and endowment as Emma 
 Willard and Mary Lyon, and her indignation 
 that neither the state nor the philanthropists 
 could be induced to do anything for girls 
 while doing so much for boys was much 
 more emphatically and freely expressed. She 
 worked out some admirable ideas in her 
 schools: a faculty of what she called "co- 
 equal teachers"; a system of self-government 
 quite revolutionary then, but eminently suc- 
 cessful under her direction; a plan for the coop- 
 eration of women in the town where the school 
 was located. But the longer she worked the 
 more keenly she felt the need of organizing 
 education on something like national lines. 
 After she moved to Cincinnati in 1832 she 
 familiarized herself with the conditions in the 
 West, and what she found aroused her deeply. 
 There were, she declared, 2,000,000 children 
 in the Western and Southern states who had 
 no chance to learn to read or write; there 
 were tens of thousands of mothers dragging 
 out dreary and hopeless lives, because them- 
 selves so utterly ignorant. Something must 
 be done. She went East burning with the 
 need. And there she found in New York 
 City thousands of girls and women of good 
 natural ability supporting themselves by the 
 needle, working twelve to fourteen hours a 
 day at a wage of twelve and a half cents a day,^ 
 because they had never been trained to do 
 anything better. She traveled through New 
 England while Mary Lyon was raising money 
 for her school, and everywhere she found 
 among young women pathetic eagerness to 
 study in order that they might teach. In re- 
 counting these experiences in her reminis- 
 cences Miss Beecher gives story after story of 
 the craving for knowledge and opportunity to 
 use it which she encountered. To devise 
 plans by which these misfit and untrained 
 women could be prepared to supply the need 
 of the 2,000,000 children — this became her 
 work. 
 
 Catherine Beecher planned boldly: Central 
 Schools of the Normal type, district schools in 
 every community where there were children, a 
 
 general direction of all by a kind of Educa- 
 tional Agency or Association, this was roughly 
 her scheme. It meant travel, money, friends, 
 skilled assistance, lifelong devotion. Little by 
 little she interested useful people and finally 
 succeeded in organizing the American Woman's 
 Education Association. But this was not un- 
 til 1852. In the intervening twenty years she 
 did an enormous amount of pioneer work 
 in making her ideas known, in aiding those 
 who were establishing schools and in bring- 
 ing into helpful association many of the 
 existing educational agencies. In this period 
 she personally aided in organizing schools at 
 Burlington, Iowa, Quincy, Illinois, and Mil- 
 waukee, Wisconsin. She placed many teach- 
 ers, and herself did for them what she had 
 planned her Central Agency should do — that 
 is, give them the oversight, care and help 
 which she knew would be essential. She 
 realized, as few did, what the woman must 
 endure who went into the country districts of 
 the West in the thirties and forties; how 
 meagerly she must live, without seclusion, 
 proper food, or any civilized comfort; how 
 barren her schoolroom, how poverty-stricken 
 her equipment. Tn her full-hearted sympathy 
 she carried on a vast correspondence with her 
 teachers, and at one time even moved for a 
 time to Burlington, Iowa, where she fur- 
 nished a house in order to have a place to 
 take care of teachers who fell ill or those who 
 were temporarily without positions. It was a 
 great and essential work she did — one most 
 important in the development of the system 
 of universal education which now prevails in 
 this country. 
 
 But Emma Willard, Mary Lyon and Cath- 
 erine Beecher are but types of the kind of de- 
 votion, intelligence and enthusiasm which the 
 awakened American woman brought to the 
 first great task in the emancipation of her sex. 
 All over the country scores of women were 
 striving to work out in humble places the 
 same ideals. Schools for the higher educa- 
 tion of girls multiplied amazingly. 
 
 In 1826 New York City opened a High 
 School for girls with a list of distinguished 
 men of that day as trustees. Boston soon 
 after opened a similar school, but it was so 
 filled and overfilled by eager girls that after 
 eighteen months she closed it! A pretty con- 
 troversy followed, in which one sees, under 
 the varied excuses, a real alarm lest the 
 foundation of things were going to be shaken 
 by the zeal of the girls to get more schooling! 
 
 In 1839, at the opening of the Rutgers Fe- 
 male Institute of New York, Dr. Isaac Ferris, 
 president of the board of trustees, said that 
 
The American Woman — By Ida M. Tarbell 
 
 219 
 
 the Secretary of the Board of Regents of the 
 . University of the State had just written him 
 that he believed himself able to show that 
 nothing in the state during the previous ten 
 years has been the subject of so much im- 
 provement as female education. That while 
 as late as 1827 there was not in the whole 
 state a single fe- 
 male academy sub- 
 ject to the visitation 
 of theregents, there 
 were then twelve 
 academies incor- 
 porated. 
 
 In studying this 
 really revolution- 
 ary achievement — 
 the' distinctive 
 achievement of the 
 first forty years of 
 the Woman's Cen- 
 tury — it must be 
 insisted, at the risk 
 of repetition, that 
 its impulse had 
 been the unselfish 
 passion of women 
 to rise to what they 
 realized to be the 
 need of the new 
 democracy. There 
 was practically no 
 question of 
 "rights" in it. To 
 give better service 
 was what the}' 
 were after. But 
 while this was true 
 of both leaders and 
 ranks, it is equally 
 true that one heard 
 
 repeated with increasing frecjuency Condorcet's 
 argument for political equality and ^lary Woll- 
 stonecraft's pleas for full liberty of thought 
 and action,* and now and then one finds 
 traces of something more than academic dis- 
 cussion of these ideas, one finds efforts to realize 
 them, to advance them bv some kind of 
 propaganda. The best e\idence of the ex- 
 tent to which they were abroad and alive 
 is the care the leaders in the movement for 
 woman's education took not to become in any 
 way entangled with them. Mrs. Willard's 
 pains to prove that the schools for which she 
 sought state help would not produce "college- 
 trained ladies" have already been cited. 
 Mary Lyon was always wary about the im- 
 
 Z. P. GRANT BANISTER 
 
 Fr'om a photograph of a painting courteously furnished 
 by Miss Roxana C. Cowles, Ipswich, Mass. Miss Grant 
 was a co-worker with Mary Lyon in the cause of educa- 
 tion, founding the Ipswich Seminary, which she gave up 
 in 1839, at which period she married William Banister 
 
 * See The American Magazine for November. 
 ' The American Woman — The Awakening-" 
 
 1909, 
 
 pression she made in soliciting money, and 
 consciously tried to avoid giving the idea that 
 what was called "female greatness" was to be 
 encouraged in her school. Almost all of these 
 women avoided any connection with the pub- 
 lic question of the day, or if their interest 
 was too much for them, their methods were 
 
 secret. There is an 
 amusing example 
 of the clandestine 
 methods e\'en 
 women like Cath- 
 erine and Harriet 
 Beecher felt 
 obliged to employ 
 when they wished 
 to influence public 
 opinion. The State 
 of Georgia was tr\- 
 ing to drive out the 
 Cherokee Indians 
 by methods which 
 the Beechers felt 
 to be "cruel and 
 unjust." In 1829 
 Catherine wrote a 
 letter, published 
 anon\'mouslv and 
 addressed to "Be- 
 nevolent Women of 
 the United States," 
 in which she e.x- 
 pressed her indig- 
 nation, and sug- 
 gested that public 
 meetings be held 
 and petitions be 
 prepared for Con- 
 gress. Through the 
 aid of a few women 
 pledged to secrecv 
 this document was scattered o\'er the countr\-. 
 To the great delight of the conspirators their 
 campaign worked marvelously, and a large 
 public interest was aroused. There was 
 much curiosity about the authorship of the 
 circular. Professor Silliman of Yale said it 
 was "worthy of the elder Pitt," whereupon 
 Harriet dubbed her sister "Old Mrs. Pitt." 
 
 JVIrs. Willard refused to take any part in 
 this agitation. "You and I, as guardians of 
 the interests of our sex's education," she 
 wrote Miss Beecher, "cannot, without en- 
 dangering those interests, interfere with the 
 affair in question." If they attempted to 
 teach men their duty in a controversy, would 
 not men in turn inquire the "cause of this 
 unwonted ofliciousness, and if any circum- 
 stances of the times should be found to be 
 
220 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 peculiar, would not these be charged with the 
 fault? 'The studies which you pursue,' it 
 might be said, 'have inflated and bewildered 
 you; you are the worse for your knowledge; 
 return to your ignorance.'" 
 
 As for the men, they generally deplored the 
 zeal women showed in following Miss Beech- 
 er's suggestions and in presenting petitions to 
 Congress. Even William Lloyd Garrison 
 thought it "out of place." "This is, in our 
 opinion," he wrote in the Genius oj Universal 
 Emancipation, "an uncalled-for interference. 
 We should be sorry to have this practice be- 
 come general. There would then be no ques- 
 tion agitated in Congress without eliciting the in- 
 formal and contrariant opinion of the softer sex." 
 
 Particularly cautious were the men who 
 backed up all the educational enterprises — 
 and there was not one which did hot have be- 
 hind it a group of able masculine supporters — 
 to make it clear that they had no sympathy 
 with any innovation which aimed to give 
 women the same education as men or which 
 fitted her for professions or occupations which 
 had formerly been closed to her. Usually men 
 acted as spokesmen on all the great occasions 
 of the new schools, and their caution in de- 
 fining the boundaries of the movement is 
 sometimes amusing. This education, they 
 said with particularity, was not to include 
 "abstruse branches of science."* It was to 
 "fit, not unfit, her for the normal woman's" 
 life."t It was not to lead her to "undertake 
 good works not suited to her condition, "f-j- 
 These points, more or less delicately insisted 
 on, characterize almost every anniversary ad- 
 dress before the advanced "female semi- 
 naries" of the thirties and forties. 
 
 But as the movement to which they were 
 giving their lives grew, it became more and 
 more evident that their efforts to limit it to a 
 certain defined field would be of no avail. 
 "Abstruse branches of science" interested 
 young women in a way that shocked large 
 portions of the community. There was 
 geometry. Mary Willard had introduced it 
 into her curriculum, and the first public ex- 
 amination of a young woman in the sub- 
 ject was considered little better than a 
 scandal. From geometry women had gone 
 on dipping into all sorts of forbidden subjects, 
 into all sorts of forbidden employments. 
 There was medicine. Women were demand- 
 ing opportunities to study it and were getting 
 
 * Hon. John T. Irving, at opening of New York High 
 School for Females, 1826. 
 
 tDr. Mark Hopkins, address at Mount Holyoke in 1840. 
 +t Dr. Joseph Emerson, in address at the dedication of 
 Seminary Hall at Saugus, Mass., 1826. 
 
 them. There was talk of a college to be 
 opened in New York State. There was a 
 woman practising in Boston (Harriot K. 
 Hunt). If women studied and practised 
 medicine, why not law, theology, politics? If 
 she was to follow this secondary education, 
 granted her because of the general belief that 
 she needed it in her work, with still higher 
 education, what was to keep her from asking 
 the same education that a man received — and 
 securing it ? What was to prevent college 
 education, even college co-education? To the 
 horror of some of the wisest and most devoted 
 supporters of the cause of a general education 
 for women such co-education was actually 
 being tried. To he sure the experiment was 
 a far distant one — to be sure the conditions 
 under which it was making were such that 
 the school could scarcely hope to succeed — so 
 said the wise — ^but what might not come of 
 the simple fact that in the wilderness of 
 Northern Ohio certain rash souls had tried to 
 found a college called Oberlin, where men and 
 women should be taught together the higher 
 branches ? 
 
 The chief cause of anxiety to the friends of 
 woman's education, however, was her grow- 
 ing insistence on undertaking what Dr. Emer- 
 son protested against — "good works not 
 suited to her condition." It was not "suit- 
 able" that she interfere in public questions 
 'over which men radically disagreed, particu- 
 larly in a question like slavery which aroused 
 the bitterest discussion. Out of such con- 
 troversy a woman should stay. The ways of 
 peace were hers. To her was the task of pour- 
 ing oil on troubled waters — not troubling them 
 more deeply. But that was what she "was doing. 
 
 It was not alone that women were seeking 
 to meddle with the slavery question, they were 
 seeking to carry their meddlesomeness on to 
 the public platform — to speak in public; to 
 speak in defiance of St. Paul and all the 
 elders of the churches! This, then, was where 
 education that she might give better service 
 had led, just as friends of the old system 
 had contended it would, and more than one 
 man who had > valiantly fought to give her 
 schools, more than one woman who had sacri- 
 ficed her personal life to help build them up 
 and develop teachers, turned heartsick from 
 the logic of his own handiwork. All over the 
 country a great mass of people who had 
 courageously supported the first step in the 
 emancipation of woman set itself against the 
 second step— permitting her to do, in her own 
 way, the good work that called her, to be judge 
 of her own duty, mistress of her own method. 
 
 The third article in this series will appear in the next number of the magazine 
 
THE AMERICAN WOMAN 
 
 BY IDA M. TARBELL 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE HISTORY OF THE STANDARD OIL COMPANY," ETC. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS COLLECTED FOR "THE AMERICAN 
 MAGAZINE" BY CHARLES HENRY HART 
 
 THE FIRST OPPOSITION 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE first decided jar the American 
 woman gave her country was when she 
 showed her determination to work in 
 any way she chose for the correction of any evil 
 which stirred her soul. The specific wrong on 
 which she first fixed her attention was slavery. 
 The method she took to fight it was speaking 
 in public. Two deep-seated antagonisms were 
 aroused by her course — one the generally ac- 
 cepted idea that women should not express 
 their views outside of the household and social 
 circle, and the other the almost universal opin- 
 ion that the slavery question must not be dis- 
 cussed. Equipped with St. Paul's injunction,* 
 generations of Puritan ministers had nailed the 
 first idea into the mind of the country. Scared 
 peace-lovers of all classes had taught and 
 fought for the second and here was woman in 
 unholy obstinacy defying both! 
 
 There is no question in the writer's mind 
 but that the popular disapproval of women 
 as public speakers so strong in the first 
 half of the Woman's Century was intensified 
 by the general disapproval of the opinions 
 held by the first woman who made here 
 what may be called a lecture tour. This 
 was Frances Wright, an Englishwoman who 
 first sCppeared in New York in 1818. She was 
 but twenty-three years old at the time, a highly 
 educated, free-thinking, fearless young woman 
 of wealth who had early made a compact with 
 herself to hunt down and destroy the central vice 
 from which she felt the woes of the world must 
 come. She had come to the United States be- 
 cause she had formed the notion, chiefly from 
 Botta's history, that here had been founded a 
 government under which the mind followed 
 
 * Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is 
 not permitted unto them to speak; but they are com- 
 manded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And 
 if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at 
 home; for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. 
 — I Corintliians XIV., 34 -35- 
 
 the direct and honest course, the tongue spoke 
 the truth, and justice and equality of oppor- 
 tunity prevailed! Miss \^'right tried her best 
 to see what she came for, as the little volumes 
 of travels she wrote show; but a second visit 
 chilled her enthusiasm. She was confounded 
 by the general acceptance and defense of slav- 
 ery. It was unthinkable that such an institu- 
 tion should exist unquestioned in a Republic. 
 With the impetuous promptness of youth — 
 rich, free and inexperienced — she decided that 
 slavery must go and that she would find the 
 way. Miss Wright attacked her problem with 
 intelligence and care, studying the history of 
 the institution in the country and going through 
 the South with observant eyes. Her conclu- 
 sions were those of the philosopher, not of the 
 abolitionist. The negro could not be emanci- 
 pated safely. He must first be trained to be a 
 self-reliant individual. The method she resolved 
 on for making the negro o\-er seems to ha\e 
 been determined by her study of two social ex- 
 periments then attracting much attention here, 
 the Rappites and the O wenites. She determined 
 to found a colony in which the industrial effici- 
 ency of the one and the liberal views of the other 
 were combined. Here the negroes should be 
 trained to self-reliance, morality and free think- 
 ing. To carry out this idea she bought a large 
 tract of land in Tennessee and settled on it 
 some fifteen negro families who were to work 
 out their own salvation. Nashoba, as she called 
 her colony, was to be but an experiment-sta- 
 tion. She expected similar colonies to multiply 
 through the South and the redeemed negroes 
 to settle themselves finally in Liberia, Tropical 
 America or our own Southwest. But the prac- 
 tical difficulties of the undertaking were too 
 much for Miss Wright. She fell ill and was 
 obliged to return to England. Those left in 
 charge were unequal to the task, and Nashoba 
 was abandoned. 
 
 This experience and the reflection it aroused 
 led Miss Wright to conclude that the American 
 
 363 
 
364 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 Republic needed training in liberal ideas more 
 than it did social experimental stations, and in 
 1828 she settled in New Harmony, where, with 
 Robert Dale Owen, she edited a little paper 
 called the New Harmony and Nashoba Gazette. 
 The paper purposed to spread the Owen doc- 
 trines and Miss Wright's own theories. Its name 
 was changed later to the Free Enquirer arid it 
 was moved to New York, where for a few years it 
 had an exciting and, on the whole, useful life* 
 
 The Free Enquirer, as its name indicates,' was 
 given over to enquiring into things — muck- 
 raking we should say to-day. Its tone seems 
 mild to one used to the present direct and 
 often brutal fashion of criticising men and their 
 ways. It was frank but not violent. It gener- 
 alized and philosophized freely and there is no 
 questioning the sincerity of its purpose or the 
 honesty of its methods. But the Free Enquirer 
 was from the start regarded as a dangerous and 
 infamous sheet. It was the ' ' views " of the edi- 
 tors the public could not tolerate. They advo- 
 cated the social and political equality of blacks 
 and whites, men and women. They denied the 
 sacredness of property. They believed mar- 
 riage should be based on affection alone and 
 the tie severed when affection grew cold — they 
 believed that an illegitimate child should be 
 given the same care and education as a legiti- 
 mate one. They pled for the largest tolerance 
 in religion, and they opposed sectarianism, the 
 old-fashioned "revival" and foreign missionary 
 work. Fanny Wright once wrote Mrs. Shelly 
 (Mary WoUstonecraft's daughter) that what 
 she had given her fortune and life to found was 
 an establishment where affection should form 
 the only marriage, kind feelings and kind ac- 
 tions the only religion, respect for the feelings 
 and liberties of others the only restraints and 
 union of interest the bond of peace and secur- 
 ity. For her generous pains she was generally 
 called in American society a "free-loAer," an 
 "infidel" and a "dangerous person." As a 
 matter of fact she was a sincere, great-hearted 
 woman, torn by the injustice and inequalities 
 of life, eager to put an end to the sufferings of 
 mankind and willing to devote life and fortune 
 to that end. She was impatient of narrowness, 
 of superstitions, of meaningless conventions, 
 and free in expressing her impatience. She was 
 not tolerant, or tactful, she had more enthu- 
 siasm than judgment, but on the whole, Fanny 
 Wright was a big woman. 
 
 As soon as the Free Enquirer was estab- 
 hshed Miss Wright decided to supplement its 
 work by lecturing. She prepared a series of 
 lectures, "Knowledge as a Basis of Virtue," 
 
 * A complete file of the Free Enquirer is owned by the 
 Library of the Workingmen's Institute at New Harmony. 
 
 which, .she set out to deliver. The first an- 
 nouncement that she was to appear generally 
 caused a distui-bance. Certain persons in 
 Boston were so excited about her coming 
 that an attempt was made to keep her name 
 put of the newspapers, a circular being sent to 
 the editors practically ordering them not to 
 notice her. Of course this foolish effort at sup- 
 pression had a contrary effect. There was 
 nothing else heard of for days before she began 
 her course and' all Boston flocked to hear her. 
 Nobody seems to have been shocked by her 
 matter or method. Indeed the Boston Courier 
 declared there was nothing in the lectures 
 which every man of sense had not heard a 
 thousand times, nothing to arouse "anathemas 
 and hallelujahs" — as she was doing — and he 
 went on to air his opinion of the performance. 
 It is a vigorous masculine opinion. 
 
 "For our individual self, we are opposed to 
 this lady's beliefs — not on account of the mat- 
 ter — that is not exceptional, but the task she 
 has undertaken does not in our view belong to 
 one of her sex. For the same reason we would 
 refuse to countenance the lectures of a lady on 
 history (we believe hers has been unavailing) 
 or on any of the sciences or arts. They have 
 other and more appropriate duties assigned 
 them by the customary forms of society and to 
 those duties let them apply themselves. For 
 the same reason we cannot but withhold our 
 approbation from ladies who are conducting 
 newspapers and magazines, and assuming the 
 prerogatives which naturally belong to their 
 husbands. Nature points out to them a differ- 
 ent path, and propriety and common sense are 
 scandalized whenever they deviate from it. 
 
 "We have one further objection to Miss 
 Wright which goes to the professed object of 
 her lectures — as we have understood that 
 object from those who are better acquainted 
 with her purposes than we are. It is said she 
 wishes to raise the standard of female charac- 
 ter, and increase the influence of her sex. Now, 
 in our apprehension the female part of society 
 has much more than its due share of influence 
 in all our institutions, in all our manners, hab- 
 its, principles and transactions." 
 
 The majority of the population no doubt 
 shared the gentleman's opinion, but a lay mi- 
 nority did not, and the longer Miss Wright lec- 
 tured the more listeners and converts she drew 
 to her. In an unpubhshed letter of hers 
 preserved in the library at New Harmonv, 
 written in Januar\-, 1830, when she was on 
 her way to the South to close out Nashoba and 
 transport the negroes whom she gathered there 
 
The American Woman— By Ida M. Tarbell 
 
 )65 
 
 L .., 
 
 FRANCES WRIGHT D ARUSMONT 
 
 From a lithograph made in Paris, probably in the forlies, by Lemercier I he 
 copy oi the picture u^hich hangs in tlte Library of tite Workingmen s InslUute at A e-j.^ 
 Harmony, hid., carries as part of the title Miss Wrighfs favorite thesis: Human 
 kind is kia one family. The education of its youth should be equal and universal 
 
 T A Trollope in "What I Remember," describes Miss Wright as, "very 
 handsome in a large and almost masculine type of beauty, with a most conimandmg 
 presencra superb figure and stature fully masculine. Her features both m form 
 ^nd exp;ession^ were'really noble.'' Her voice was of -°f "^ "' --f^^ J^,^ 
 clearness Antong the remarkable senes of life masks made by John H. 1. ^ro^^erc 
 between 817 and^834 is one of Frances Wright which has never been pubhshecJ 
 and probablv never w-iU be exhibited until some public-sp.ntec^ citizen places the 
 'collection where it belongs— in one of our great galleries 
 
 to Haiti, she described the interest she found 
 in her work as a "revolution." "It has taken 
 three months to reach this place (New Orleans) 
 from New York," she wrote, "being stopped 
 everywhere by the popular impatient curiosity 
 to learn what is doing elsewhere and to assist 
 in the same work. I was stopped on stage and 
 packet boat, met by letters and speeches, to 
 visit towns-and \'illages on the route so that to 
 
 have met fuUv the popular wishes would have 
 taken me as many years as it did months. 1 
 have now work chalked out for the whole of the 
 winter and following summer and wish, when 
 revolving it in my mind, I could be m twenty 
 places at the samx time." ^ , f u 
 
 During the polidcal campaign m the tall 
 of 1829, Fannv Wright, Owen and the Free 
 Enquirer came in for much abuse from the 
 
366 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 established press of New York State. There 
 was great suffering and discontent in the coun- 
 try and it had finally crystalhzed into a Work- 
 ingman's party which horrified capital by de- 
 claring against banks, monopolies, privileges 
 and vested rights. The Free Enquirer sympa- 
 thized fully with the complaints and worked for 
 the party. The result was that those hostile to 
 the movement fought it by trying to tag it with 
 all the peculiar social and religious 
 views of Fanny Wright and Robert 
 Dale Owen. The Workingman's 
 party was the "Infidel Party": their 
 ticket the ' ' Infidel Ticket "—the socie- 
 ties they formed were " Fanny Wright 
 Societies" — their doctrines were 
 "Fanny Wrightism." So serious did 
 the attack become in the hands of the 
 "solid" and "respectable "elements of 
 society and of politics that the laboring 
 men in many places felt obliged to de- 
 clare that they were not "Fanny 
 Wright's disciples," and that any at- 
 tempt to connect her with their move- 
 ment was a maneuver of the enemy. 
 
 It is certain that the influence Miss 
 Wright and the Free Enquirer had 
 in the Workingmen's movement is 
 mainly responsible for the notion 
 that she was a dangerous person 
 which prevailed at the period. Sus- 
 picion of her teachings and dislike 
 of her methods became still stronger 
 in the late '30's, when she campaigned 
 for Jackson and the subtreasury bill, 
 bitterly attacking banks, corporations 
 and monopolies.* 
 
 But Fanny Wright was not the only 
 woman lecturer who stiffened the op- 
 position to women speaking by the 
 freedom of her opinions. There was a 
 brilliant Polish woman, Ernestine 
 Rose, who, after a wide acquaintance 
 and much activity in the radical circles 
 of Europe came to New York in 1836 
 and began lecturing. Her subjects 
 were "the e\'ils of existing societ}-, 
 the foundations of human character, 
 slavery, the rights of women and other 
 reform questions." A nice list for the 
 troubled state of mind in which the 
 North found itself at the moment! 
 In 1836 and '37 Mrs. Rose spoke through New 
 
 * No adequate account of Miss Wright's work in this 
 country has ever been published, particularly of her work 
 from 1836-1840. Her life story is of the highest human 
 interest, and her influence on liberal opinion was far greater 
 than has been properly recognized. It is a satisfaction to 
 know that Jane Gray Perkins of New York, author of the 
 recently published life of the Honorable Mrs. Norton (Henry 
 Holt, 1909), has a life of Miss Wright in preparation — a work 
 which promises to be both sympathetic and sufficient. 
 
 York and Pennsylvania, indifferent to hard- 
 ships of travel, and at her own expense, and 
 she always had an audience. 
 
 It is easy to see what fine ammunition 
 "Fanny Wrightism" gave to those who were 
 trying to shut the mouths of women on the 
 slavery question. They did not hesitate to try 
 to blacken every woman who dared appear, by 
 charging that she must also be an "atheist, free- 
 
 AXGELINA 
 
 GRIMKE WELD 
 
 From the original daguerreotype iu possession of Mrs. 
 Stuart F. Weld, oj Hyde Park, Mass., made about 1S50. 
 Photographed especially jor this work 
 
 Angelina Grimke's power over her audience was due in 
 no small degree to her rich voice and magnetic presence. She 
 married Theodore D. 'Weld in 1838, to the distress of her 
 colleagues in the anti-sIaAery work. After her marriage she 
 never left her household to speak but once, and that was 
 after the breaking out of the Civil War. She and Mr. Weld 
 were Grahamites of the most vigorous type. Mrs. Stanton 
 has left a, sprightly and charming sketch of visiting them 
 once and finding nothing but cold food and drink on the 
 table and no ornaments of any kind in the house, but an 
 intellectual atmosphere of such radiance tliat she soon forgot 
 the cold and barrenness in the nobility and unselfishness 
 of spirit which pervaded the house 
 
 lover and disturber of public peace." But with 
 remarkable courage women of most orthodox 
 social and religious views kept daring public 
 hostility in order to pour out their horror of the 
 slavery system. It is not to our purpose to try 
 to unravel the tangled thread of their activities 
 and say that this or that woman began it even 
 
The American Woman — By Ida M. Tarbell 
 
 567 
 
 if it were a possible task; for who knows what 
 brooding Southern woman may before the days 
 of Wilberforce and Clarkson have said the word 
 which, rolling and growing year after year, 
 finally stirred the heart of humanity until no 
 human institution could load it down. Certain 
 it is that the first woman who publicly came to 
 the aid of the struggling and bombarded aboli- 
 tionists was a Southerner, Angelina Grimke. 
 
 SARAH M. GRIMKE 
 
 From the original daguerreotype owned by Mrs. Stuart F. 
 Weld, Hyde Park, Mass"., taken about 1850. Photographed 
 especially for this work 
 
 Although less prominent than Angelina, Sarah Grimk^ was 
 fully as influential. Indeed it was she who was the leader 
 in their anti-slavery work. As early as 1828 she published 
 an epistle to the clergy of the Southern States remonstrating 
 against slavery. She took the lead, naturally, being the elder 
 by thirteen years, in freeing their slaves and closing out their 
 property in' South Carolina. Sarah Grimk^ was one of the 
 first American women to write on the equahty of the sexes 
 — publishing a book in 1838 
 
 the gratitude we felt for this help from such an 
 unexpected source." 
 
 With Angelina Grimke came her sister 
 Sarah. They were well-born, as Phillips said, 
 and, as children, they had been revolted by. 
 slavery. Finally in 1830 they left home and 
 came to Philadelphia where they joined the 
 Friends, thinking in that association to find 
 a sympathetic attitude toward the slave, but at 
 the Meeting House they found negro 
 women relegated to a lower place, 
 where in spite of protest, they joined 
 them! The first Woman's Anti- 
 Slavery Society was formed about 
 that time in Philadelphia and under 
 it Angelina began to speak to women 
 in parlors. In 1836 she published a 
 pamphlet called an "Appeal to the 
 Christian Women of the South." It 
 was one of the most*e£fective of early 
 pamphlets and one of those most 
 resented in the slave states. Indeed 
 it made her an exile from Charles- 
 town, the Mayor of the town warning 
 her mother that if she tried to visit 
 the family, she would be arrested and 
 returned. 
 
 Miss Grimke 's powers as a speaker 
 to women, the success of her pam- 
 phlet, led to a demand for her in mixed 
 anti-slavery meetings. Some of her 
 best friends protested. It was not 
 "proper" nor "right " for a woman to 
 attempt to instruct men. But Ange- 
 lina Grimkd had gone far beyond 
 the point where "propriety" weighed, 
 when it was a question of humanity. 
 "Whatever is morally right for a man 
 to do, is morally right jor a woman to 
 do. I recognize no rights hut human 
 rights." Moreover she added — the 
 time had gone by when woman was to 
 be a "second-hand agent in regenerat- 
 ing the world!" It was in response to 
 this decision that in February, 1837, 
 she went to Boston to speak before a 
 committee of the legislature. 
 
 Lydia Maria Child, herself under 
 the ban for her brave "Appeal in Be- 
 
 "We were but a handful then," Wendell half of that Class of Americans called Africans '- 
 Philhps said once, "and our words beat against —a publication which had shut most of the doors 
 the strong public as powerless as if against the of the North to her, had cut off the sale of her 
 north wind. At this time a young girl came books, and nearly rumed her popular Juvenile 
 from the proudest state in the slave-holding Miscellany"-™.. T.rP.ent at the hearm? 
 section. She came to lay on the altar of this 
 despised cause, this seemingly hopeless cru- 
 sade, both family and friends, the best social 
 position, a high place in the church, genius, 
 and many gifts. No man at this day can know 
 
 was present at the hearing 
 where Miss Grimk^ spoke and described the 
 scene in a letter afterward: 
 
 "The house was full to overflowing. For a 
 moment her sense of the responsibility resting 
 
368 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 MARIA WESTON CHAPMAN 
 
 Enlarged from a daguerreotype taken about 1850 and belonging to her grand- 
 niece, Mrs. H. H. Eddy, Santa Barbara, Calijornia 
 
 Sarah H. Southwick, the sister of Abby Southwick, whose portrait appears 
 on page 373, has given in her reminiscences of the early anti-slavery days as 
 interesting a picture as exists of Mrs. Chapman. She describes her as queenly 
 in her gait and manner, with fair hair and dark eyes. She had been a leader 
 in society, and sacrificed everything when she went over to the anti-slavery 
 cause. Much of the funds for the cause were raised in these early days through 
 fairs, and of the Boston anti-slavery fairs Mrs. Chapman was always the soul. 
 Through her wide circle of acquaintances, she was able to secure many contri- 
 butions from Europe — wares that were to be found in no Boston shops, and 
 sometimes odd and very beautiful articles 
 
 on her seemed almost to overwhelm her. She 
 trembled and grew pale. But this passed 
 quickly and she went on to speak gloriously, 
 showing, in utter forgetfulness of herself, her 
 own earnest faith in every word she uttered, 
 'Whatever comes from the heart goes to the 
 heart.' I believe she made a very powerful 
 impression on the audience. Boston, like other 
 cities, is very far behind the country towns on 
 this subject; so much so that it is getting to be 
 Boston vs. Massachusetts, as the lawyers say. 
 
 The Boston mem- 
 bers of the legisla- 
 ture tried hard to 
 prevent her having 
 a hearing on the 
 second day. Among 
 other things they 
 said that such a 
 crowd was attracted 
 by curiosity, the 
 galleries were in 
 danger of breaking 
 down, though in fact 
 they are constructed 
 with remarkable 
 strength; A mem- 
 ber from Salem, per- 
 ceiving their drift, 
 wittily proposed 
 ' that a committee be 
 appointed to exam- 
 ine the foundations 
 of the State House 
 of Massachusetts to 
 see whether it will 
 bear another lec- 
 ture from Miss 
 Grimke.'" 
 
 From Boston the 
 Grimkes went to 
 other points in the 
 State and thefurther 
 they went the 
 greater was the 
 excitement — partic- 
 ularly among the 
 clergymen. It cul- 
 minated inaclerical 
 Appeal — the fam- 
 ous Pastoral Letter 
 of the " General 
 Association of Mass- 
 achusetts to the 
 Churches under its 
 Care" — which, after 
 deploring the 
 slavery agitation 
 generally, invited attention particularly "to 
 the dangers which at present (1837) seem to 
 threaten the female character with wide- 
 spread and permanent injury." It set forth 
 woman's duties and her place in terms 
 which must have been discouraging even 
 to the most conventional of the educated 
 women of the day. "If the vine w^hose 
 strength and beauty is to lean upon the 
 trellis-work, and half conceal its clusters, thinks 
 to assume the independence and the o\er- 
 
shadowing nature 
 of the elm, it will 
 not only cease to 
 bear fruit, but fall 
 in shame and dis- 
 honor to the dust. 
 We cannot, there- 
 fore, but regret the 
 mistaken conduct 
 of those who en- 
 courage females to 
 bear an obtrusive 
 and ostentatious 
 part in measures of 
 reform and counte- 
 nance any of that 
 sex who so far for- 
 get themselves as to 
 itinerate in the 
 character of public 
 lecturers and 
 teachers." 
 
 The fulmination 
 called out in reply a 
 good-natured jingle 
 from Maria Weston 
 Chapman, the lead- 
 er of the Boston 
 anti-slavery women, 
 which she palled 
 "The Times that 
 try Men's Souls," 
 and signed "The 
 Lords of Creation! " 
 And from J. G. 
 Whittier his stirring 
 verses beginning: 
 
 " So, this is all — the 
 utmost reach 
 Of priestly power 
 the mind to fetter." 
 
 Angelina Grimkd 
 was deeply distress- 
 ed by the division 
 
 she saw in the church and even in the anti- 
 slavery societies over her campaign, but she 
 was convinced she was right and persisted. 
 Her courage had many tests. Probably her 
 most exciting experience was in Philadelphia 
 in May of 1838, at the opening of the new 
 Pennsylvania Hall — a gathering place dedi- 
 cated to "Virtue, Liberty and Independence." 
 The building of this place had caused bitter 
 opposition and it was openly threatened to de- 
 stroy it. It had been announced that at the 
 last evening meeting of the convention with 
 which the place was opened, William Lloyd 
 Garrison, Maria Chapman and Angelina 
 
 FRANCES AVON KEMBLE 
 
 From the original portrait by Thomas .Sul/y, painted in 1833, in the possession 
 of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, through whose courtesy it is 
 
 reproduced 
 
 Fanny Kemble saw much of slavery at a close range when she played 
 in this country in the thirties, and still more afterwards as the wife of Pierce 
 Butler. She expressed frankly and forcibly her disgust and pain over the in- 
 stitution in her published Letters. Her influence certainly cannot be over- 
 looked in estimating the anti-slavery work of women 
 
 Grimke would speak. A mob gathered, deter- 
 mined to put an end to the meeting. Mr. 
 Garrison was allowed to speak in quiet, but 
 when Miss Chapman had introduced Miss 
 Grimke a fierce uproar broke out. And then a 
 wonderful scene followed. The violent out- 
 bursts of noise, the volleys of stones, the break- 
 ing of windows, became the gentle woman's 
 text: 
 
 "Do you ask what has the North to do with 
 slavery?" she said as a deafening roar broke out. 
 "Hear it! Hear it!" "Those voices without 
 tell us that the spirit of slavery is here." 
 
 "What is a mob ?" she said, as the rattling of 
 
370 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 broken windows ceased. "What would the 
 breaking of every window be? What would 
 the levelling of this hall be ? Any evidence that 
 we are wrong, or that slavery is a good and 
 wholesome institution?" 
 
 "How wonderfully constituted is the human 
 mind!" the eloquent voice rose above a fresh 
 din that threw the audience into confusion. 
 "How it resists as long as it can, all efforts to 
 reclaim it from 
 error. I feel that 
 all this disturb- 
 ance is but an 
 evidence that our 
 efforts are the best 
 that could have 
 been adopted or 
 else the friends of 
 slavery would not 
 care for what we 
 say and do." 
 
 She spoke for 
 nearly an hour, 
 the convention 
 finished its busi- 
 ness and closed 
 at its usual hour 
 and the next 
 morning Pennsyl- 
 vania Hall was 
 in ashes! 
 
 The bitterness 
 which Angelina 
 Grimk^'s pubhc 
 speaking aroused 
 was intensified by 
 another innova- 
 tion — the demand 
 of a large body 
 of the women 
 then working in 
 The Female Anti- 
 Slavery Society, 
 branches of which 
 had been founded 
 at various points, 
 to be taken into 
 the men's organi- 
 zation. There 
 was a feeling that 
 their efforts would 
 count for more through such a connection. 
 Lydia Maria Child expressed this feeling in a 
 letter to Lucretia Mott in 1839, in declining 
 to go to the Annual Convention of the Women 
 in Philadelphia. 
 
 "As I am growing very scrupulous about 
 exact truth, I will not disguise that I do not 
 want to go to the Convention. ... I have 
 
 never entered very earnestly into the plan of 
 female conventions and societies. They al- 
 ways seemed to me like half a pair of scissors. 
 . . . For the freedom of women th'ey have 
 probably done something, but in every other 
 point of view, I think their influence has 
 been very slight." 
 
 The question of opening the parent society 
 to them stirred up a pretty wrangle. IMany 
 
 abolitionists ^^•ere 
 shocked and 
 otherswere fright- 
 ened. It looked 
 for the moment 
 as if the cause 
 would be entirely 
 forgotten in the 
 new issue. "It 
 requires great faith 
 to trust truth to 
 take care 0} herself 
 in all encounters, '- 
 signed JNI r s . 
 Child. The 
 result of the dis- 
 sension was the 
 admission of 
 women and a split 
 — those opposed 
 to the women 
 forming a branch 
 called the "Xew 
 Organization." 
 
 The admission 
 of women to the 
 parent anti-slav- 
 ery society came 
 just in time to 
 permit a repre- 
 sentation to be 
 sent to a Xation- 
 al .\nti-SIavery 
 Convention 
 which had been 
 called for London 
 in the June of 
 1840 by the Brit- 
 ish friends of the 
 slave. Eight 
 women ^^-ere ap- 
 pointed. The best 
 known of them and probably the most influ- 
 ential woman after Harriet Beecher Stowe, in 
 the anti-slavery struggle, was the Quakeress, 
 Lucretia Mott, 
 
 A woman forty-seven years old at this time, 
 Lucretia Mott had from childhood led the 
 eventful life which is almost sure to come from 
 following Ijoldly that which a clear and thous^ht- 
 
 LYDIA MARIA CHILD 
 
 From a daguerreotype taken about 1850. From the collection 
 oj Francis J. Garrison, of Boston 
 
 Mrs. Child was the most successful wom.Tti writer and 
 editor in the United States when in 1833 she met A\illiam 
 Lloyd Garrison. "He got hold of the strings of my con- 
 science," she wrote in later life, "and pulled me into reform 
 work." Her first published work on slavery cost her her popu- 
 larity, income and social position and turned the course of 
 her existence. "It is no use to imagine what might have 
 been if I had never seen him. Old dreams vanished, old 
 associates departed, and all things became new. A new 
 stimulus seized my whole being and carried me whitherso- 
 ever it would. I could not do otherwise, so help me God" 
 
The American Woman — By Ida M. Tarbell 371 
 
 ful mind declares right. "To do the thing as caused, and naturally when it was decided to 
 you see it for the God of things as they are" send women to London, she was one of the 
 was as nearly her motto as that of any woman delegates. 
 
 of her century. It had led her along some stony Both among the Quakers and in the "world" 
 paths,— to leave the Orthodox Quakers in 1827, there was great agitation over the fact that the 
 tojointheHicksites,andto make many sacrifices women were actually going to London and 
 
 some of the masculine delegates who preceded 
 them busied themsehes, on arriving, in stir- 
 ring up a strong prejudice against them. 
 
 When the women arrived 
 they found a serious commo- 
 tion over the question of 
 their admission. Everywhere 
 they went it was discussed, 
 many persons having little 
 interest in slavery interesting 
 themselves in this new and 
 revolutionary departure. 
 Mrs. Mott kept a diary of her 
 journey which gives a capti- 
 vating picture of her humor- 
 ous, sensible, gentle self, as 
 well as an invaluable histor\- 
 of the politics of the Con- 
 vention. The tit-for-tat 
 argument she reports in this 
 diary shows with what spirit 
 she met the opposition, how 
 quick she was to take an 
 opening. Were their efforts 
 based on the idea of im- 
 mediate emancipation, she 
 asked the delegates who 
 were opposing the women? 
 Yes, they said. Did they not 
 owe that idea to the women ? 
 Which was a fact — Elizabeth 
 Heyrick having been the first 
 to advance this notion. Called 
 on to speak when the subject 
 of free products was up, she 
 replied that they had been 
 told as a reason for not allow- 
 ing them in the Convention 
 that they could get the gen- 
 tlemen to say all they wished 
 for them and if this was so 
 she would request one to 
 speak for her. The contest 
 extended , even to family 
 prayers, one of the delegates 
 "praying at us rather than 
 for us. He was replied to 
 according to his deserts." 
 
 It was a foregone conclu- 
 sion that their admission 
 would be refused. The reason given was 
 that it would bring ridicule on the conven- 
 tion and so hurt the cause. Many of their 
 
 on account of her anti-sla\-ery views. When a 
 young woman she had felt called to give up all 
 products of slave labor. Not an easy thing— 
 this " making things honest," 
 as she called it. "It was like 
 parting with the right hand 
 or the right eye," she said. 
 As far as possible she dealt 
 only with "free-labor stores" 
 which, like the experiments 
 of the revoltes in all time were 
 pretty bad — rather a propa- 
 gandum than a plain effort 
 to give good goods. It was 
 some time after eschewing 
 slave products that Mr. Mott 
 became convinced that he 
 should give up a prosperous 
 business he had spent some 
 years of struggle in building 
 up, the sale of cotton mer- 
 chandise — " the product of 
 slave labor." It was a hard 
 decision to come to, but 
 Lucretia strongly encouraged 
 him and he finally made the 
 sacrifice, beginning over 
 again in an industry not 
 "stained with blood." 
 
 Such conviction could not 
 remain silent. Mrs. Mott 
 had been accustomed to 
 speaking on religious subjects 
 frequently in Friends' Meet- 
 ings at home and through the 
 country, and though she was 
 diligently advised to say noth- 
 ing on the slavery question 
 she rarely failed to " lugit in," 
 as her advisers called it. 
 With every year she gave 
 more time to the slavery cause 
 and less to preaching. She 
 had been present at the 
 formation of the society 
 devoted to "immediate eman- 
 cipation," and had spoken 
 there. She had been promi- 
 nent in the woman's society. 
 She had become the chief ad- 
 vocate of "free-labor products." She had ap- 
 proved the opening of the parent society to 
 women, much as she disliked the dissension it 
 
 ANNA GREEN 
 (MRS. WENDELL PHILLIPS) 
 
 This profile was cut out with a 
 penknife in London in 1839. It is 
 the only known portrait of Mrs. 
 Phillips, and is the property of Mr. 
 Francis J . Garrison, of Boston, to 
 whose courtesy we are indebted for 
 the privilege of reproducing it. The 
 fact that 710 other picture of Mrs. 
 Phillips is known is due to the fact 
 that for fifty years before her death 
 she was a confirmed invalid, never 
 leaving her chamber excepting when 
 carried to the country for the sum- 
 mer months. 
 
 At the time this picture was 
 made Mrs. Phillips was twenty-six 
 years old. She has been said to 
 be the first person to interest Wen- 
 dell Phillips in the anti-slavery 
 cause, and he always said of her 
 afterwards that she was "his coun- 
 sel, his guide, his inspiration," 
 during her whole life. 
 
372 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 American friends urged the women to accept 
 the decision quietly. Wendell Phillips, who 
 spoke and voted for them said to the Con- 
 vention in the interests of peace, that they 
 would no doubt sit with as much interest 
 behind the bar as in the Convention. Not 
 so Garrison, who arriving later and finding 
 they had been excluded refused to take his 
 own seat, remaining with them ' ' behind the bar. " 
 
 The debate 
 aroused great in- 
 terest in London 
 — was indeed the 
 question of the 
 day;andthewom- 
 en, as Lucretia 
 Mott's diary 
 shows, were in- 
 vited right and 
 left and called 
 upon and feted — 
 sometimes out of 
 curiosity, some- 
 times out of sym- 
 pathy. Many dis- 
 tinguished wom- 
 en interested 
 themselves in 
 them — Mrs. Jam- 
 es on, EHzabeth 
 Fry, Lady Byron, 
 Mary Howitt and 
 others-. Mrs. 
 Mott met Carlyle 
 and was "dis- 
 appointed in 
 him" — he being 
 " anti-abolition," 
 but he was 
 pleased with her, 
 "her quiet man- 
 ners had a sooth- 
 ing effect on 
 him." Indeed the 
 impression Mrs. 
 Mott made was, 
 asfar as the wom- 
 an's question was 
 concerned, the 
 most important 
 
 event of that Convention. Everywhere she 
 amazed people — everywhere she won. A cor- 
 respondent to the Dublin Herald, in writing 
 of the Convention, said 
 
 ABBY KELLY FOSTER 
 
 Enlarged from a daguerreotype juniished by her daughter. 
 Miss Alia W. Foster, of Roxhury, Mass. Taken about 1855 
 
 Abby Kelly began lecturing against slavery about the 
 same time as the Grimke sisters, and suffered even more 
 than they from the ridicule and violence of mobs. She was 
 an excellent and convincing speaker. Lowell wrote of her: 
 
 "A Judith there, turned Quakeress, 
 Sits .\bby in her modest dress. 
 No nobler gift of heart or brain, 
 No life more white from spot or stain, 
 A\as e'er on Freedom's altar laid 
 Than hers — the simple Quaker maid." 
 
 gave a long and glowing account of Mrs. Mott's 
 character and work. He heard her speak out- 
 side of the Convention, for she was invited to 
 several platforms, and said caustically — "We 
 shall not discuss the question here, as to whether 
 it is right for women to take an active and 
 prominent part with their brethren in promot- 
 ing philanthropic objects, but we shall take the 
 liberty to express our wish that half the temper, 
 
 fullness of mind, 
 warmth of heart, 
 distinctness of 
 utterance, facility 
 of education and 
 vivacity of man- 
 ners, which dis- 
 tinguish Lucretia 
 Mott, had been 
 the gift of nine- 
 ten thsof the 
 gentlemen who 
 raised their voices 
 in the Convention 
 on behalf of the 
 slave and for our 
 edification." 
 
 She won even 
 her own sex. Eliz- 
 abeth Cady Stan- 
 ton, then a young 
 woman, had gone 
 to London with 
 her husband as a 
 delegate, and she 
 gives a charm- 
 ing picture of 
 her conversion 
 to Mrs. Alott. 
 !Mrs. Stanton had 
 sided "by mar- 
 riage" with the 
 faction of the 
 anti-slaver\- party 
 w h i c h opposed 
 the admission of 
 women to the par- 
 ent society. She 
 had been led to 
 believe ^Irs. Mott 
 a dangerous agi- 
 in London with 
 
 tator. She met her first 
 
 "some embarrassment," supposing she would 
 
 resent her position, but says ^Nlrs. Stanton; 
 
 - --, "Mrs. Mott, in her sweet and gentle wav, 
 
 "Opinions differed materially as to whether" received me with great cordiality and courtesy, 
 Clarkson, Buxton, O'Connell, Garrison, and I was seated by her side at dinner! 
 Thompson, Sturge or Birney, was the greatest Several Baptist ministers began to rally the 
 man, but nobody doubted that Lucretia IVIott ladies on having set the abolitionists by the 
 wasthpUnnPcsnf tliprnnuont;r>n " The writer ears in America and now proposing to do 
 
 was the lioness of the Convention.' 
 
The American Woman — By Ida M. Tarbell 
 
 373 
 
 ABBY KIMBER 
 
 From a copy of a daguerreotype 
 in the collection of Francis J. Garri- 
 son, Esq., of Boston 
 
 ELIZABETH JOHNS 
 NEALL 
 
 {Mrs. Sidney Howard Gay) 
 
 Enlarged from a daguerreotype, 
 2J by 2. taken in 1854, in possession 
 of her daughter, Mrs. William G. 
 Willcox of West New Brighton, 
 S. I., New York , through wh ose 
 courtesy it is reproduced 
 
 EMILY WINSLOW 
 {Mrs. Franklin Taylor) 
 
 Enlarged from a daguerreotype, 
 
 2^ by ai, taken by M. A. Root, 
 
 Philadelphia, about 1852, andowned 
 
 by Mr. Franklin Taylor, through 
 
 whose courtesy it is reproduced 
 
 ABBY SOUTHWICK 
 
 {Mrs. Stephenson) 
 
 Enlarged from a carte de visite 
 photograph taken Dec. 25, 1861, 
 hy 7. W. Black, Boston; furnished 
 by her sister. Miss Anna R. South- 
 wick, Wellesley Hills, Mass. 
 
 MARY GREW 
 
 Enlarged from a carte de visite 
 photograph taken in 1863 by Car- 
 penter & Lord, Providence, R. 1., 
 in the collection of Francis J. Garri- 
 son, Esq., of Boston 
 
 hill 
 
 SARAH PUGH 
 
 Enlarged from a daguerreotype, 
 by 2^, owned by Mrs. William G. 
 'illcox of West New Brighton, 
 S. I., New York 
 
 The above group of women, all of them Quaker, sailed with Lucretia Mott for London, in May, 1840. 
 All of them but Emily Winslow were delegates. She went on her own responsibility as a deeply interested 
 spectator. If of less power than Lucretia, they were, like her, women of intelligence, cheerfulness, charm 
 and courage. All of them remained to the end of their lives useful and active supporters of liberal ideas 
 
 the same in England. . . Calmly and skil- the look of recognition she gave me when she 
 
 fully Mrs. Mott parried all their attacks, now by saw by my remarks that I comprehended the 
 
 her quiet humor turning the laugh on them, and problem of women's rights and wrongs." 
 
 then by her earnestness and dignity silencing The London incident gave a fresh impetus 
 
 their ridicule and sneers. I shall never forget to the discussion of the right of women to 
 
374 
 
 speak in public and work in organizations with 
 men, and extended its boundaries far beyond 
 the point where the previous agitation had 
 carried it. Sensitive as American society was 
 at that time to "what they said in England," 
 easily impressed as it was by famous English 
 names, the reports of the attention the women 
 had received and the circles in which their re- 
 jection was discussed, set many people, who 
 could only be touched by some exterior fact, to 
 talking it over. Woman's right to serve in her 
 own way became as general a dinner table topic 
 as Woman's Suffrage is to-day in our Eastern 
 cities. Great social leaders of the time must 
 have had to use exceeding discretion to have 
 kept the subject, entangled as it wa^ with 
 the socially tabooed topic of slavery, from em- 
 broiling their guests at times. Unquestionably 
 at that date, its discussion as the discussion 
 of slavery was dismissed by society, as by the 
 ultra intellectuals as "vulgar." It was this ten- 
 dency in American society to regard vital 
 themes like human slavery as "low and dis- 
 agreeable," unsuitable for conversation, that 
 so aroused Harriet Martineau — and led her 
 to her bitter and not entirely unjust comment 
 on American women like Margaret Fuller and 
 her pupils, who, as Miss Martineau said, "sat 
 gorgeously dressed talking about Mars and 
 Venus, Plato and Goethe, and fancying them- 
 selves the elect of the earth in intellect and re- 
 finement, while the liberties of the republic 
 were running out as fast as they could go, at 
 a breach which another set of elect persons 
 were devoting themselves to repair!" 
 
 But what is said or not said in intellectual 
 and social circles which regard themselves as 
 exclusive, is never of much importance. It 
 certainly was not in the '40's. The really im- 
 portant matter then was the effect the fresh 
 discussion had on those who were agonizing 
 over the question of human rights and wrongs. 
 In these circles the London incident was of 
 unusual significance. It set many thinking 
 people for the first time to considering the real 
 merits of the question, — Was there any solid 
 reason for the exclusion of women from work- 
 ing with men in any cause? Daniel O'Connell 
 expressed best what took place in hundreds of 
 minds on both sides of the water as a result of 
 this now famous rejection. Mrs. Mott had 
 written him for his opinion as "one of the most 
 distinguished advocates of universal liberty." 
 He replied quite frankly that when the subject 
 first came up he had been strong against the 
 admission of women, but when called upon to 
 give his reasons he found that they were "based 
 on no better grounds than an apprehension of 
 the ridicule it might excite." He soon recog- 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 nized, he went on, that this was an ' ' unworthy," 
 a "cowardly notion" and overcame it. His 
 mature conclusion convinced him it was "the 
 right of the female delegates to take their 
 seats." His letter, most interesting in full 
 enumerated as reasons — that the women were 
 members of the American society and that they 
 had "persevered in our holy cause with the zeal 
 of confessors and the firmness of martvrs"; 
 that women in England already voted on all 
 matters concerning the Bank of England,. and 
 at the India House; that Mind has no sex and 
 the anti-slavery agitation depended on "reason 
 and persuasion"; that in hischurch women were 
 devoted strictly to the same kind of work which 
 the slavery cause called for: humanity, educa- 
 tion, benevolence and charity — and he added: 
 "I have a consciousness that I have not done 
 my duty in not sooner urging those considera- 
 tions on the Convention." 
 
 There were man}' men and women in the 
 United States who felt like O'Connell, that they 
 had not done their duty when the question of 
 admitting women to free service had come up 
 in their churches or societies or social circles, 
 and there was a perceptible widening of boun- 
 daries among those not directly connected with 
 the slavery movement. 
 
 There was, too, a greatly increased s's-mpathy 
 for the idea among women who were trying to 
 do something for themselves or others in unus- 
 ual ways and who felt the hand of convention 
 against them; from women seeking a still 
 higher education than the now accepted semi- 
 naries like Holyoke and Troy gave or who 
 wanted to study medicine or theology; from 
 the number who had "ideas" and were seek- 
 ing by lectures or classes to expound them to 
 other women; from the number who openly 
 expressed discontent ^vith the limitations of 
 their lives and talked openly of the freer life;— 
 all these became naturally the partisans of the 
 "lady delegates." 
 
 As for the "lady delegates" themselves, they 
 and their sympathizers were only made more 
 aggressive by the "episode in London. All 
 over the country anti-slavery women were going 
 through the experience of Lydia Maria Child: 
 "A little while ago I rejoiced that I was growinc; 
 more entirely and uni\ersally tolerant, now I 
 cannot abide that proud, self-sufficient word. 
 What right have I, or any other fallible mortal, 
 to be tolerant?" Their speeches became more 
 and more radical, their appearances in public 
 more frequent, their boldness and their ingenu- 
 ity in aiding runaway slaves and keeping open 
 the underground railroad redoubled, {ind in 
 their speeches appeared a new and defiant 
 note of self-assertion. Just as Lucretia Mott 
 
The American Woman — By Ida M. Tarbell 
 
 LUCRETIA MOTT 
 
 From the original portrait painted by Joseph Kyle, Philadelphia, 1841, for J. Miller McKim, and owned 
 by his granddaughter, Mrs. Charles Norton, Chicago, III. Photographed jar this work 
 
 In 1852, when Kossuth visited Philadelphia, Madame Pulzsky was one of the party. She called 
 
 on Mrs. Mott and afterwards wrote in her diary: "I have seldom seen a face more artistically beautiful than 
 
 that of Mrs. Lucretia Mott. Her features are so markedly characteristic that if they were less noble they 
 
 might be called sharp. Beholding her I felt that great ideals and noble purposes must have grown up with 
 
 her mind which left a power of expression in her very movements" 
 
376 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 had formerly interpolated an anti-slavery sen- 
 tence into her religious talks so now she began 
 to interpolate woman's rights into her slavery 
 discussion. She was not alone. Scores of 
 women in public or private insisted on doing 
 the same; for instance, Elizabeth Cady Stan- 
 ton, who began speaking on temperance about 
 this time, and infused "homeopathic doses 
 of woman's rights " into her speeches, and as 
 she found her work for temperance opposed, 
 her indignation grew. 
 
 This new zeal told in the great centers, but 
 perhaps still more inland. For there was 
 scarcely a section of the country north of the 
 Ohio which had not, by this time (the early 
 40 's), some radical anti-slavery center where the 
 question of admitting women on equal terms 
 of work had caused a split. Everywhere the 
 Quakers and Methodists were splitting, and 
 many individuals had dropped out or been 
 driven out of other churches because of their 
 liberal ideas about the right of a woman to take 
 part in a moral reform. Usually some indi- 
 \'idual woman was the center of the clash as 
 Lucretia Mott, Lydia Maria Child, the Grimke 
 sisters, were in the East. Some of these women 
 became almost institutions in themselves. Such 
 a woman was Laura Haviland of the Michigan 
 Territory, a woman who independently did 
 work for education and for the anti-slavery 
 cause of the same quality as that of Mary 
 Lyon and Lucretia Mott. A Quakeress, mar- 
 ried at 17, she and her husband had settled at 
 Raisin in the Michigan Territory in 1829. The 
 Havilands seem to liave been sensitive to every 
 liberal trend of their day for when Elizabeth 
 Margaret Chandler, who had been - assisting 
 Lundy on the Genius, came to Raisin to visit her 
 brother they joined her there informing an anti- 
 slavery society, and when the Orthodox Friends 
 objected tliey promptly left the organization. 
 
 Touched by the utter lack of educational 
 opportunities for the poor children about them 
 they opened a manual labor school on their 
 farm early in the '30's, teaching there with 
 their own children, boys and girls taken from 
 the county house. This experiment grew into 
 what was called the Raisin Institute, one of the 
 first schools in the country to copy the " Ober- 
 lin plan," — any one of good moral character, 
 regardless of sex or color being admitted. 
 
 For years Laura Haviland helped runaway 
 -negroes into Canada, aided those who were 
 able to remain unmolested in her neighbor- 
 hood and exerted every influence to secure 
 schools for the negro children in the State. 
 She was vilified both North and South for her 
 efforts and more than once narrowly- escaped 
 violence. But a more fearless woman never 
 
 lived when it was a question of humanity. 
 That she or any woman should not be allowed 
 to speak or work for those who needed help was 
 to Laura Haviland one of those unthinkable 
 things to which she gave no heed until the 
 question was forced upon her, and she saw 
 herself as other women did, not only called to 
 fight what she believed a great wrong but to 
 fight for the right of fighting the wrong. This 
 was exactly the form the matter took — and it 
 was not only true of women who wished to 
 work for the overthrow of slavery, those who 
 were working for the overthrow of intemper- 
 ance met the same opposition. 
 
 Women who had proved as gallant as those 
 who had taken up the case against slavery, as 
 those who were agitating against intemperance, 
 could not be expected to endure what they felt 
 to be bigoted and unreasoning opposition to 
 doing what they believed to be their duty. It 
 was to be expected that they would sooner or 
 later be driven to fight for their right in the • 
 matter. They were well-armed when it came 
 to that. The theory of Woman's Rights has 
 never been better stated than it was in 1787 
 and 1790 by Condorcet. The justice and the 
 wisdom of giving woman recognition as a hu- 
 man being of equal importance with man in the 
 scheme of things has neAer been more elo- 
 quently argued than by Mary WoUstonecraft 
 in her great plea for general education. Those 
 arguments had been reiterated up and down 
 the country by Frances '\^"right and Robert 
 Dale Owen and Ernestine Rose. They were 
 accepted by hundreds of women who never 
 would have voiced them if they had not been 
 driven to it, but opposition was driving them 
 to a stand and an expression. All that they 
 needed was a leader. 
 
 Walking down the Strand together after the 
 rejection of the women delegates to the Anti- 
 Slavery Convention in 1841, Mrs. Mott and 
 Mrs. Stanton had said to each other that the 
 time was coming when women who felt as 
 they did must get together and prepare to force 
 from the public a recognition of rights. Every 
 month, after they returned, the increasing bit- 
 terness of a shocked public, the increasing deter- 
 mination of women minded like themselves, 
 made their London plan seem more necessary. 
 From time to time their paths crossed, and 
 always they walked and talked of a declaration 
 of rights. Finally, in the summer of 1S48, acci- 
 dent threw them together at Seneca Falls, 
 where Mrs. Stanton lived. The i\\o met at 
 a Friend's house and naturally began their 
 usual talk. Other women joined. Why not 
 do it now, some one said, and the suggestion 
 was no sooner made than followed, for, on July 
 
The American Woman — By Ida M. Tarbell 
 
 377 
 
 SMITH-HAVILAND 
 
 LAURA 
 
 From a photograph owned by her granddaughter,. Mrs. G. M Knight, oj Adrian, 
 Mich., through whose courtesy it IS here reproduced 
 
 Mr, Haviland or "Aunt Laura," as she was known in Michigan kept up her work for 
 in her old home, Adrian, Mich. 
 
 14th, 1848, the following announcement ap- 
 peared in a Seneca Falls paper: 
 
 "Woman's Rights Convention— h Convention to 
 discuss the social, civil and religious conditions and 
 rights of woman will be held in the Wesleyan Chapel, 
 at Seneca Falls, N. Y., on Wednesday and Friday at 
 10 A. M. During the first day the meeting will be 
 exclusively for women who are earnestly invited to 
 
 attend. The public generally is invited to be pres- 
 ent on the second day, when Lucretia ■Nlott of Phila- 
 delphia and other ladies and gentlemen will address 
 the Convention." 
 
 A modest enough paragraph surely, but its 
 looks belie it. It was to set the country by 
 the ears. 
 
 {To be continued.) 
 
WAGNER 
 
 THE GREATEST BASEBALL PLAYER 
 IN THE WORLD 
 
 BY 
 
 HUGH S. FULLERTON 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE FINE POINTS OF THE 
 GAME," "ON THE BENCH," ETC. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS 
 
 IF a man with a voice loud enough to make 
 himself heard all over the United States 
 should stand on the top of Pike's Peak 
 and ask: "Who is the greatest ball player?" 
 27,8o6|oo9 persons would shout "Wagner." 
 
 There are great baseball players, but only 
 one Wagner, the man who in the strenuous 
 season just ended led Pittsburg to victor)\ I 
 saw him one Sunday early in September in 
 Chicago. That afternoon Pittsburg and Chi- 
 cago were to start a series that in all prob^ 
 ability would decide whether Chicago's won- 
 derful baseball machine built b}' Chance was 
 to hold the championship, or surrender it to 
 Pittsburg. Thirty thousand persons were 
 jostling, pushing, rushing to find seats or 
 standing room to watch the play. An ele- 
 vated train was disgorging a mob, and, after 
 the eager crowd had jammed and struggled at 
 exit gates, a heavy-set, bow-legged, weather- 
 beaten, powerful nian, dressed in rather baggy 
 clothes, a worse-for-wear straw hat, and lib- 
 eral square shoes emerged quietly and fol- 
 lowed the rushing, throng down the steps. He 
 looked like a prosperous, contented, German 
 
 378 
 
 worker. One would have thought, to watch 
 the massive shoulders and the powerful bowed 
 legs, that probably he had been a brewery- 
 wagon driver or an iceman before starting his 
 bakery, for somehow A\'agner always conveys to 
 me the idea that he ought to have been a baker. 
 
 Managers of baseball teams assert in terse 
 bromidian that "Every player has a weak- 
 ness." For a dozen years every player and 
 every pitcher has searched for Wagner's weak- 
 ness„-and found none. He has played every 
 position in baseball, is as great in the outfield, 
 perhaps greater, than in the infield. He is 
 the best batter, possibly excepting Cobb, in 
 the land, he is the greatest base runner the 
 game has known since Lange. He. is one of 
 the best of throwers, one of the best fielders, 
 and he is wonderfully fast on the bases — and 
 he can hit! 
 
 He can bunt, he runs bases with judgment 
 and covers an immense amount of territory, 
 takes chances, and plays the inside game per- 
 fectly. He is the nearest approach to a base- 
 ball machine ever constructed. 
 
 Besides which he plaj's to win — pla\s for 
 
-U>UaAJUUUOUUU>^ 
 
 THE American Woman who started 
 on the adventure of Democracy in 
 1776 was equipped with certain 
 powerful qualities: She respected 
 her trade, she held herself and all her kind rig- 
 idly to its exacting duties, she had patience 
 with its limitations — and adroitness in stretch- 
 ing them! Grappling hard as she did with her 
 tasks, she developed into a person whose judg- 
 ment was sound, whose spirit was gentle and 
 whose charm was penetrating and subtle. 
 When the demands of the Democratic system 
 threw upon her as her part in universal citizen- 
 ship the puzzling task of universal education, 
 she put herself at it with all the sincerity, 
 the steadiness and the entire absence of self- 
 seeking which had characterized her former 
 career. 
 
 But Democracy is a quickening process. 
 American Women had not been working long 
 under it before a few of them began to be alive 
 to the fact that it was sheltering many preju- 
 dices and one particular institution which were 
 inconsistent with its pretensions. A few men 
 were insisting on the immorality of the situa- 
 tion. Women began to add their voices to the 
 protest. Now under the old regime church and 
 convention had decreed not only a strict divi- 
 sion of duties between men and women, but 
 a division of methods. Women were not pub- 
 licly to take a part in the agitation of public 
 questions. The great majority of American 
 men and women were convinced that this regu- 
 lation should hold good under the Democratic 
 system. But a few men and women held that 
 this was undemocratic — that if women had 
 
 something to say which was meant for the pub- 
 lic good they should have the opportunity to 
 say it. Neither side to the controversy could 
 change its view, and thus was precipitated, in 
 the thirties, forties and fifties, the contest we 
 have already briefly sketched, culminating as it 
 did in a program of rights for women and an 
 open declaration of war on man as the con- 
 scious enslaver of woman. 
 
 The Woman's Rights Movement, launched 
 in 1848, grew steadily though not largely up to 
 the breaking out of the Civil War in 1861, but 
 it left unmoved and unconvinced the great 
 body of American Women, who kept at their 
 business of making homes, rearing families, 
 supporting society and the church, and looking 
 after the education of themselves and their 
 children. They considered these duties as 
 worth while for themselves, and their proper 
 discharge as the best service they could give 
 the state. They did not sympathize with or 
 understand the Woman's Rights Movement. 
 They believed its success would undermine 
 Woman's sense of individual responsibility, 
 injure those qualities grouped under the name 
 of womanliness and be generally bad for mor- 
 als and manners. This attitude of the body of 
 women had been exasperating to those who 
 were in the Woman's Rights Movement and 
 they had steadily grown in aggressiveness and 
 in bitterness. They also had steadily enlarged 
 the dangerous practice of attaching themselves 
 to any and all causes which recognized their 
 claims and of refusing support to all those 
 which did not recognize them: that is, the 
 sanction of Woman's Rights was made the price 
 801 
 
802 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 of their approval of movements of all kinds- 
 political, social and religious. 
 
 It was natural, perhaps, that the leaders of 
 the Woman's Rights Movement should explain 
 the unresponsiveness of the mass to their agi- 
 tation by the claim that they were too selfish, 
 too unintelligent or too dominated by mascu- 
 line authority to understand the meaning of 
 the movement. The events which followed on 
 the heels of the 
 fall of Sumter 
 proved conclu- 
 sively the un- 
 soundness of that 
 contention. The 
 noise of Sumter 
 had scarcely 
 ceased before the 
 American Woman 
 thus accused had 
 emerged from her 
 seclusion and an- 
 nounced that she 
 should take a hand 
 in the war. There 
 had been no call 
 to her — no sugges- 
 tion from without. 
 Her action was a 
 spontaneous rec- 
 ognition of the 
 needs her wom- 
 an's sense told her 
 war would create. 
 The soldiers were 
 going to want 
 scores of things 
 the government 
 could not supply. 
 Ill or wounded, 
 they were going 
 to need nurses, 
 wome n nurses. 
 From all over the 
 country came the 
 a^tinouncement 
 that supplies and 
 nurses were on 
 their way to Wash- 
 ington. The 
 women had gotten 
 into action as quickly as the men, and it 
 was the so-called "non-progressives" who 
 had risen. Nothing had occurred since the 
 birth of the Republic which demonstrated so 
 well the seriousness with which women took 
 their personal relation to the government. 
 
 As was to be expected, the movement at the 
 start was almost entirely individualistic. Sup- 
 
 DR. ELIZABETH BLACKWELL 
 
 From a photograph of a sketch taken in 1859 by the Countess 
 de Chamacei by J. H. Blo7nfield, Royal Studios, Hastings 
 
 Miss Blackwell had spent considerable time with Florence 
 Nightingale in England just before the war. She was thor- 
 oughly familiar with the ideas on sanitation and on nursing 
 which had come out of the Crimean War and her knowledge 
 was the basis of much of the preventive work which was in- 
 stituted by the Sanitary Commission. Her report on the 
 selection and the preparation of nurses for the army, 
 adopted by the Woman's Cential Association of Relief, 
 became a guide the country over 
 
 plies and nurses offered themselves singly and 
 according to the will of the givers. Individuals 
 and communities shipped thousands of boxes 
 and bundles to favored persons or companies, 
 seeing no reason why they should not reach their 
 destination. Scores of women, fit and unfit, ap- 
 peared at headquarters saying, "We've come to 
 nurse, "and seeing no reason why they should not 
 find their own work and do it in their own way. 
 
 This dangerous 
 individualism was 
 saved by the 
 prompt develop- 
 ment of leaders. 
 Among the very 
 first women in the 
 country, if not the 
 first indeed, to rec- 
 ognize the gravity 
 of the case and to 
 offer her services 
 was one of the 
 really great women 
 this country has 
 produced, Doro- 
 thea Lynde Dix. 
 MissDix was then 
 nearly sixty years 
 old, and for twenty 
 years she had been 
 carrying on the re- 
 markable cam- 
 paign which 
 ousted from this 
 country the o 1 d 
 barbarous meth- 
 ods of dealing 
 with the insane 
 and substituted a 
 humane and intel- 
 ligent system. 
 Through all this 
 period she had 
 never allowed any 
 other cause to in- 
 terfere with her 
 special work. 
 Keenly alive to 
 the evils of slav- 
 ery, she had trav- 
 eled the South 
 over in the interest of the insane, had put 
 bills through several state legislatures, and 
 always without giving offense. Her strong 
 common sense told her that progress was not 
 to be made in her work save by keeping severely 
 at the thing which was her business. But she 
 was wise and patriotic enough to see that the 
 preservation of the Union must take precedence 
 
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
 
 From t/ie original Jraiving by George RichmoiiJ, London, 1S53, in possession of her grandson, Dr. Freeman Allen, 
 Boston, Mass., through whose courtesy it is reproduced. Photographed especially for this series of articles 
 
 Annie Fields writes in " Autlior and Friends " : "Mrs. Stowe's personal appearance has received scant 
 justice and no mercy at the hand of her photographer. She says herself during the triumphal visit to 
 England after the publication of ' Uncle Tom's Cabin,' 'The general topic of ronark on meeting mc 
 seems to be that I am not so bad looking as they were afraid I was.' " Mrs. Fields writes in connection 
 with her accompanying Mrs. Stowe to a well-known house in Boston that the hostess came to her 
 exclaiming: "Why did you not tell me that Mrs. Stowe was beavitiful .' " 
 
CLARA BARTON 
 
 Taken dunrij^ the Cli'tl War in tin- firlJ Jrcss slic ivon\ by Claflin, of Worcester, Mass., an J fiinnshed 
 t/iroiigli the courtesy of Miss Barton, iv/io writes: '''' I consider it tlie very best [picture of me that ivas e-ver 
 taken and the only one n.vhich shoitld be pi-eser-jcd ^^ 
 
 Ttic bureau wlucli rouiluck'tl llie search for missing- men in the Civil War was originated In- Chira Barton 
 
 and carried on at lier expense until the government, impressed by its usefulness, voted her an appropriation. 
 
 Miss Barton also conducted the expedition which at the close of the war identified and marked the 
 
 graves of the Union soldiers who died in Andersonville pris(Ui 
 
DOROTHEA LYNDE DIX 
 
 From a p/io/oi^rap/i of a daguerreotype taken in 1S5S by W. F. Shorey^ Balt'nnore^ and furnished for repro- 
 duction by Iter executor J H. A. Lamb of Boston 
 
 Interesting impressions of Miss Dix are recorded in Maria Mitchell's Journal for 1853: " Her voice was 
 low, not particularly sweet but gentle. . . . She is rather small, dresses indifferently, has good features 
 in general, but indifferent eyes. ... In her general interest for suffering humanity, Miss Dix seems 
 neglectful of the individual interest. . . . There is evidently a strong will which carries all before it." 
 
8o6 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 i)\'LT cvcr\' other cause — that if it were lost, 
 freedom itself was threatened and all human 
 progress inevital)ly delayed. Hence her im- 
 mediate resolution to wrench herself from her 
 beloved work and to ofl'er herself for hospital 
 
 eracy. She had presented the facts which had 
 come to her so circumstantially that those who 
 had refused to heed the rumors afloat were 
 compelled to listen. President Felton of the 
 Philadelphia and Baltimore Railroad, to whom 
 
 service. This resolution was taken as soon as Miss Dix first went, was so impressed that at 
 she heard of the excitement in Baltimore over once he planned for smuggling the President- 
 
 t h e approach o f 
 the Massachusetts 
 troops. Miss Di.x 
 was in New Jersey 
 at the time and, 
 conscious that 
 trouble was inevit- 
 alile, she hastened 
 St)Uth. 'Phree 
 hours after the at- 
 tack on the troops 
 by the Baltimore 
 mob she was on 
 the train for Wash - 
 ington — the last 
 train to 1 e a \" e 
 Baltimore. ( > n 
 April 2otli, she 
 wrote liack to her 
 friends that slie 
 had offered herself 
 and some nurses 
 to the Sui'geon- 
 ( iencral fur free 
 service. 'Phe gov- 
 ernment was only 
 too thankful for 
 her coming, for no 
 woman in the 
 country was so 
 well known or so 
 honored by men 
 of affairs. She 
 was immediately 
 appointed by the 
 Secretary of War 
 "Superintendent 
 of Women Nurses, 
 to select and as- 
 
 ANNA ELLA CARROLL 
 
 Rt'JrniL'ii Jrom an engranjing after a daguerreotype made in 
 1S65 by 'Brady 
 
 Miss Carroll wiis a daughter of Governor Thomas Kiiis" 
 Carroll, one time Governor of Maryland, and only remoteK , 
 if at all, related to the Carrolls of Carrolltown. At the 
 breaking out of the war she freed all her slaves and devoted 
 her time to the Union cause. That Maryland did not go 
 out of the Union was due in part to her intelligent efforts 
 
 sign women nurses to general or permanent 
 military hospitals, they nol to be employed in 
 such hospitals without her sanction and ap- 
 proval except in cases of urgent need." 
 
 Although this was Miss Dix's first appear- 
 ance it was not the first signal service she had 
 rendered the Pinion cause. It was not until 
 many years later that the fact was published 
 
 that it was Dorothea P)ix who first brought to burning contempt' for selfishness, vanity and 
 the proper authorities the facts which convinced self-seeking, was a splendid asset to the Sur- 
 them that a concerted effort was preparing to geon-General's department. She took hold of 
 jjrevent Mr. Lincoln's inauguration and to seize the work of organizing and directing women 
 Washington as headquarters of the Confed- nurses with intelligence and devotion. She 
 
 elect through se- 
 cretly to the Capi- 
 tol. Mr. Felton 
 felt that the coun- 
 try owed so great 
 a debt to Miss Dix 
 in this matter that 
 he repeatedly 
 urged her to allow 
 him to publish the 
 story, but she al- 
 ways peremptorily 
 refused. Through- 
 out her life, in- 
 deed, she set her- 
 self firmly against 
 the exploitation of 
 her career. She 
 was by taste and 
 judgment strongly 
 opposed to noto- 
 riety of any kind. 
 Ser\'ice was its 
 own reward, she 
 held. She proba- 
 bly was made more 
 emphatic on this 
 point liy the grow- 
 i n g tendency 
 among women 
 who wei'e inter- 
 ested in the move- 
 ment for "rights" 
 to exploit indis- 
 criminately any 
 unusual activity of 
 women. She was 
 too intelligent and 
 t o o experienced 
 not to realize both the vulgarity of the prac- 
 tice and its danger to the real development 
 of women who found themselves in unaccus- 
 tomed occupations. 
 
 A woman of such fiber, no longer young, 
 with twenty years' experience in conquering 
 obstacles of the most varied and difticult kinds, 
 a woman with a passion for etBciency and a 
 
The American Woman : Ida M. Tarbell 
 
 807 
 
 spared herself and she spared no one the wounded of both armies indiscriminately, 
 
 else. From the beginning to the end of the war 
 she was in as incessant a conflict with neglect 
 and inefficiency as was Secretary Stanton him- 
 self. She allowed no sentimentalism among 
 her nurses and was called hard-hearted because 
 of it. She fought every careless surgeon, every 
 brutal officer she 
 encountered. She 
 was severe in her 
 demands, inexora- 
 ble in her decis- 
 ions, and to the 
 wounded and ill 
 as tender as she 
 was severe to the 
 careless and self- 
 seeking. Miss 
 Dix was most un- 
 popular, but this 
 unpopularity was 
 because she de- 
 manded of all 
 about her the same 
 quality of unself- 
 ishness and of 
 efficiency that she 
 herself gave. The 
 heads of the gov- 
 ernment and the 
 army understood 
 and appreciated 
 what she did and 
 Mr. Stanton at the 
 close of the war 
 wished to recog- 
 nize her services 
 by some public 
 demonstration. 
 It was entirely in 
 harmony with her 
 character that she 
 should refuse. The 
 one thing she 
 asked was given 
 her — a stand of 
 Arms of the United States National Colors! 
 Irregular and dangerous as the practice was, 
 a large number of women did attach them- 
 selves to the armies quite independent of all 
 authority and of all organization and did valiant 
 service. Clara Barton, for instance, got the 
 preliminary experience which led to the 
 foundation of the Red Cross work in this coun- 
 try by her independent work on the battle-field 
 through the Civil War. She was practically a 
 free lance — going where she would, furnishing 
 her own supplies, doing uninstructed and un- 
 impeded what she found to do. She served 
 
 JULIA WARD HOWE 
 
 From a draiving by Benjamin Curtis Porter, 7naJe about 1S60, 
 njchen Mrs, Honjje =was forty years old 
 
 Mrs. Howe's signal contribution to the Civil War was her 
 noble "Battle Hymn of the Republic," written in Wash- 
 inoton in November, 1861. The,se lines came to her in the 
 night and she sprang from her bed and wrote them out on the 
 back of two sheets of Sanitary Commission stationery. The 
 original manuscript is owned by Mrs. E. P. Whipple of Boston 
 
 a practice which at first amazed and sometimes 
 angered the Union officers from whose head- 
 quarters she worked. But opposition never 
 swayed her purpose and before the war was 
 over Miss Barton's individual efforts had estab- 
 lished the right of the wounded or suffering, 
 
 irrespective of uni- 
 forms, to all the 
 aid which could 
 b e commanded. 
 This was really 
 Miss Barton's 
 greatest service to 
 the country in this 
 period, though 
 not the onlv one. 
 In this list of 
 individual efforts 
 was another class 
 which has been 
 made much of by 
 those who feel that 
 it is important to 
 prove that a wom- 
 an can do anything 
 that a man can 
 do, but which has 
 little significance 
 except to students 
 of the abnormal — 
 this is the group of 
 women who ac- 
 tually joined the 
 army and fought 
 in the ranks. Zeal- 
 ous exploiters of 
 feminine achieve- 
 ment have called 
 the numbers 
 "hundreds." 
 There is no doubt 
 that this is an ex- 
 aggeration. A d - 
 jutant-Ceneral 
 Ainsworth of 
 the War Department tells the Avriter that 
 "no official record has been found in the 
 War Department showing specifically that 
 any woman was ever enlisted in the mili- 
 tary service of the United States as a member 
 of any organization of the Regular or Volun- 
 teer Army at any time during the period of the 
 Civil War." Naturally the official records 
 would not show the names of women mas- 
 querading as men. A few cases have been 
 established. There is the familiar case of 
 Sarah E. E. Seelye, who, under the name of 
 Franklin Thompson, served undetected for 
 
ANNA DICKINSON 
 
 Enlarged from a mrte-de--jisite photograph by M. B. Brady, in the eollection oj Frederick H. Meser-ve, 
 
 Neiu Tori- 
 
 Anna Uickinsun's remarkable (J^Ift of oratory seems to have been inlieritcJ from her father — a stalwart 
 Liberal Quaker, a friend of Whittier, Birney and GIddings, and an active factor hi the anti-slavery agita- 
 tion of his time. Mr. Dickinson dropped dead after making an extemi-oraneous speccli at the Liberal 
 Club 111 Philadelphia, long- remembered fm- its eloquence 
 
 nearly two years. Mrs. Seelye had adopted her the wounded, and it is certain that she proved 
 
 alias and masijuerade some two years before herself an efficient nurse and was frequently 
 
 the war broke out, believing she could support detailed for hospital service. The hardships of 
 
 herself more easily as a man than a woman, her other duties was too much for her She 
 
 She claims that she entered the army purely for became convinced that she would be ill and her 
 
 an opportunity to nurse the sick and care for sex discovered. Kather than face exposure she 
 808 
 
The American Woman: Ida M. Tarbell 
 
 809 
 
 deserteci and resumed her proper dress. Her 
 services for the soldiers continued, however. 
 The familiar old book, "Nurse and Spy," was 
 written by Mrs. Seelye in 1863 and the gener- 
 ous profits all devoted to the care of soldiers. 
 Her story was finally made public in 1884 by 
 a bill being introduced to remove the charge of 
 desertion from the record of Franklin Thomp- 
 son. The biU passed, and Mrs. Seelye re- 
 ceived a pension. 
 
 The "Kearney Cross" was awarded in 1863 
 . for gallantry to at least two women, though 
 these women do not appear in the official rec- 
 ords under their own names. "Belle Boyd, the 
 Spy," " Frank Miller " of Illinois.who was cap- 
 tured by the Confederates at Chattanooga, 
 "Major Cushman," who acted as a scout in 
 Tennessee, and was captured, sentenced to exe- 
 cution and only saved by a sudden turn in the 
 fortunes of war — these are familiar names in the 
 romance of the Civil War. There are various 
 newspaper stories of otherwomen soldierswhich 
 have floated about for years but which are of 
 doubtful truth. The facts are that probably 
 a few score of women did actually serve for 
 short terms in the Civil War, but there has 
 probably never been a war, ancient or modern, 
 where a few women did not find their way into 
 the ranks. Almost always the reason of their 
 going has been personal. It was to be near a 
 husband, a lover or a brother. Or it was from 
 pure love of adventure. But the significance 
 of these cases is not great. A woman in the 
 nature of the case cannot make an enduring 
 soldier, nor is she needed in the ranks. On 
 the other hand, she is terribly needed at home 
 and in the hospitals, for just as important 
 service. 
 
 Much more significant than the soldiering a 
 few women did is the service which certain ones 
 rendered the Union cause as lecturers or pam- 
 phleteers. Take the case of Anna Dickinson. 
 She was eighteen when the war began — a well- 
 born Quaker girl of Philadelphia with a pathetic 
 personal struggle on her hands. Her mother 
 - had been left a widow with five children, and 
 when Anna was fourteen she was so stirred by 
 the burden that she undertook her own sup- 
 port. She became a copyist, then a district 
 school teacher — anything to which she could 
 turn her hand. She was an eager, impatient 
 girl, resentful of the inequalities she saw about 
 her, quick to espouse the cause of the weaker, 
 the slave, the woman and the fallen. She was 
 indiscreet in expression, always flaming out in 
 passionate accusation or vindication. She 
 seems to have been a natural orator, and her 
 first speech on Woman's Rights, when she was 
 a girl of only sixteen, led her to being asked 
 
 frequently to speak on that subject. Just be- 
 fore the war broke out, a place had been found 
 for her in the mint at Washington, but she was 
 so vehement in her criticisms of McClellan that 
 she finally was removed. Soon after this she 
 prepared a lecture which she called "The 
 National Crisis." It made so strong an impres- 
 sion that she was asked to deliver it in New 
 Hampshire in the spring of 1863, when the Re- 
 publicans were having a hard time in the 
 elections. She canvassed the State with won- 
 derful success. She was then asked to go to 
 Connecticut, where it was not thought that the 
 party could win. It is probably not too much 
 to say that it was Anna Dickinson's lectures 
 which turned the tide. She was taken up 
 after this by the Union League Clubs and 
 sent hither and yon as the cause seemed 
 to demand. Her usefulness to the Union 
 cause in the war cannot be questioned. 
 There is another side, too, that should not be 
 lost sight of. Anna Dickinson effectually ended 
 popular opposition in the North to women 
 lecturers. The people began to feel that if a 
 woman could render a patriotic service of this 
 kind, the day had passed when there should be 
 objection to her doing it. She may be said to 
 have ended the struggle begun twenty years 
 before by the Grimk^ sisters, Lucretia Mott, 
 Lucy Stone and others for the right to the plat- 
 form. It was the old story over again of the 
 service convincing, as in the long run it always 
 does, of the need winning a right when agi- 
 tation alone would drag on forever. 
 
 Mary Abigail Dodge (Gail Hamilton) was 
 no less efiEective as a pamphleteer than Anna 
 Dickinson as a speaker. For several years be- 
 fore the war began Miss Dodge had been on the 
 National Intelligencer of Washington, where 
 her witty, satirical anti-slavery articles had 
 attracted general attention. As the war went 
 on she became an increasingly valuable sup- 
 porter of the Union cause. She published in 
 both the Independent and the Atlantic articles 
 lashing her coimtrymen and women to new 
 efforts and to new enthusiasm. One of the 
 most telling exhortations of the period was an 
 Atlantic article, "A Call to my Country- 
 women." It came in the spring of '63, when 
 two years of unsuccessful effort and bloodshed 
 had plunged the whole North into gloom. 
 Everywhere women, like men , were beginning to 
 relax their efforts, to grumble and to whine. It 
 was then that Gail Hamilton spoke out. Her 
 immediate text was the flood of wailing verses 
 by women which flowed through the newspa- 
 pers. The gist of them was that being nothing 
 but women all they could do was to sit at home 
 and pray. Gail Hamilton said bluntly, that 
 
8io 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 while she valued their prayers — something more 
 was needed. 
 
 "It is not Mrs. Stone, or Mrs. Howe, or 
 Miss Stevenson, or Miss Dix who is to save the 
 country," she wrote, "but the thousands upon 
 thousands who at this moment are darning 
 stockings, tending babies, sweeping floors. 
 . . . If you could have finished the war 
 with your needles it would have been finished 
 long ago — the war cannot be finished by sheets 
 and pillow-cases. Sometimes I am tempted to 
 believe that it cannot be finished until we have 
 flung them all away. . . . O my country- 
 women, I long to see you stand under the time 
 and bear it up in your strong hearts and not 
 need to be borne up through it. I wish you to 
 stimulate and not crave stimulants from others 
 — count it all joy that you are reckoned worthy 
 to suffer in a grand and righteous cause. Give 
 thanks because you were bom in this time and, 
 because it is dark, be you the light of the 
 world." 
 
 This ringing appeal did no little to stir 
 women to a sense of the apathy and discour- 
 agement into which they were unconsciously 
 slipping. Gail Hamilton kept up the work 
 throughout the war. But she was not the only 
 woman whose pen aided the government. 
 Harriet Beecher Stowe — the "little woman who 
 made this great war, "as Lincoln addressed her — 
 Julia Ward Howe, and many other less dis- 
 tinguished, but really effective writers, helped 
 the cause. And their work, like that of Anna 
 Dickinson, by the value of the service rendered, 
 settled the question of the woman as a pam- 
 phleteer. Up to that time their efforts to pub- 
 lish their views on public contemporary matters 
 had been sternly reproved by critics and con- 
 demned by the mass of women as well as men. 
 Frequently they themselves had apologized for 
 their intrusion into the affairs of men. "For 
 the first time I appear before the public. As a 
 woman I shrink into timidity and distrust," 
 wrote Anna Ella Carroll in 1856, in the preface 
 of her vigorous book, "The Great American 
 Battle," an argument and alarm against politi- 
 cal Romanism. " I have no affiliation with any 
 principles which place her (woman) in a sphere 
 at variance with that refined delicacy to which 
 she is assigned by Nature. I have no aspiration 
 to extend her influence or position." But this 
 shrinking woman, well educated in the law by 
 her father and perfectly familiar with the his- 
 tory and politics of her country, a Marylander 
 and a slave-holder, continued a pamphleteer 
 after the war broke out. Her answer to John 
 C. Breckinridge's speech defending secession 
 
 was so strong that the government circulated 
 a large edition of it and asked her to write 
 on other subjects, which she did. 
 
 It would seem as if the recognition which 
 was given to Miss Carroll's pamphlets by the 
 government should have prevented the bitter 
 charges which have for years been made by 
 militant advocates of Woman's Rights that be- 
 cause she was a woman she did not receive 
 proper recognition and reward for the great 
 service which she gave the government in mili- 
 tary matters. It has been proved beyond a 
 doubt that Miss Carroll planned the campaign 
 up the Tennessee River which led to the 
 fall of Forts Henry and Donelson, and opened 
 the Mississippi to Vicksburg. Late in 1861 she 
 had gone West to satisfy herself about the 
 progress of the war. It had been proposed to 
 send a gunboat fleet down the Mississippi. Miss 
 Carroll became convinced that this would be a 
 mistake and worked out a plan of campaign up 
 the Tennessee which she submitted with maps 
 and convincing arguments to the War Depart- 
 ment. The feasibility and the superiority of the 
 strategy she proposed seem to have been at once 
 admitted. The expedition down the Missis- 
 sippi was abandoned and Miss Carroll's plan 
 was adopted and succeeded. Coming at the mo- 
 ment it did, the success was of inestimable value 
 to the Union and there was a general disposi- 
 tion to reward the author of the campaign. 
 The name was not made known at the time 
 for the same reason that the names of authors of 
 other valuable suggestions were kept secret — 
 the jealousy of tHe military department of any 
 interference by civilians. Anyone at all fa- 
 miliar with the inside history of the Civil War 
 knows the extent of this jealousy. Hon. B. F. 
 Wade, the chairman of the Committee on the 
 Conduct of the War, has stated the case as it 
 was— that Mr. Lincoln believed in Miss Car- 
 roll's plan, but the difficulty in the way was 
 that it was "the work of a civilian" {not of a 
 woman). He has stated the difficulty that Lin- 
 coln, Secretary Stanton and the committee 
 itself had in having the plan adopted — "We 
 almost fought for it." The opposition was not 
 due to the author being a woman — that was 
 not known save to the men who supported the 
 plan — it was due to jealousy of all plans com- 
 ing from any outside source. ]Mr. Wade says 
 that Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Stanton and himself 
 frequently alluded to Miss Carroll's extraor- 
 dinary sagacity and unselfish patriotism and 
 agreed that she should be properly recognized 
 and rewarded. He declares that Stanton on his 
 death-bed spoke to him of Miss Carroll and said 
 that if he lived he would see to it that she was 
 properly rewarded. 
 
The American Woman: Ida M. Tarbell 
 
 ill 
 
 When we consider the frightful confusion of 
 affairs at the close of the war, the death of 
 Lincoln, the tens of thousands of demands on 
 Congress, all asking and many requiring im- 
 mediate attention — it is not strange that a per- 
 sonal claim should have been slow in making 
 its way. As a matter of fact, however, the 
 claim was recognized by the military commit- 
 tees of the 41st, 44th and 46th Congresses, and 
 at least two bills recommending a pension as a 
 partial recognition of her services introduced. 
 The claim never went through for the same 
 complicated reasons that many other just 
 claims never go through. The recognition of 
 her services by those high in authority was em- 
 phatic and generous and entirely disapproves 
 the contention that her services were not re- 
 warded because they were rendered by a 
 woman. 
 
 But individual efforts, noble and valuable as 
 they were, are not the distinguishing side of 
 woman's work in the Civil War. The feature 
 of real importance in a study of woman's 
 changing position in the nineteenth century is 
 the amazing promptness with which they mar- 
 shaled themselves into a great national organ- 
 ization for service with men. Everything was 
 against such a movement. Tradition forbade 
 it. The instinct of women was against it. The 
 experiences which had followed the admission 
 of women into the parent anti-slavery society 
 argued against attempting it. The strict 
 boundaries which divided almost every com- 
 munity into small, thoroughly undemocratic 
 groups of women, each circulating aroimd its 
 particular religious denomination, was against 
 it. And yet the women began at once to form 
 themselves into a general organization regard- 
 less of creed or social position in the same way 
 as men did into an army. Almost instantly the 
 groups of women accustomed to laboring for 
 the poor of their parishes, for missionaries and 
 teachers, had turned to picking lint and pack- 
 ing boxes. Twelve days after the fall of Sumter 
 nine different societies of women are reported 
 in the New York Evening Post as at work for 
 the soldiers. It was everjrwhere the same. 
 Almost instantly, too, scores of women who 
 were accustomed to nursing or who had an idea 
 they could nurse put on their bonnets and went 
 to the nearest camp. It was an enormous rally 
 of unorganized force, which threatened to 
 swamp Washington with boxes of comforts and 
 to distract Miss Dix with pleas to be allowed to 
 be useful. The first attempt to put order into 
 this outpouring came in New York in what 
 amounted to the stampeding of a meeting 
 called for another purpose. 
 
 The first infirmary for women and children 
 
 equipped entirely with women in the United 
 States, was established in 1857 in New York 
 by Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell. Miss Blackwell 
 was the first highly educated woman physician 
 in the country. She had with her two women 
 almost as efficient, her sister, Dr. Emily Black- 
 well, and Dr. Zakrzewska. Trained nurses 
 was one of Dr. Blackwell's dreams, and when 
 the war came and she saw the tide of unpre- 
 pared women marching to the army she called 
 a meeting of the women directors of the Infirm- 
 ary to see what they could do in sending out 
 better equipped nurses. Accidentally the notice 
 got into the Times. Instead of directors alone, 
 fifty or sixty women and a few men, all "lead- 
 ing citizens," gathered. The suggestion was 
 made, probably by the Rev. Dr. Bellows, that 
 what was needed was not more groups of 
 women but a centralization of those already in 
 action the country over. It was seized at once. 
 A meeting was called for April 29th at Cooper 
 Union. Ninety-one women, the best known 
 names in the history of New York City, signed 
 the call. 
 
 Out of this packed gathering, which was 
 swayed by the highest seriousness, as well 
 as enthusiasm, grew an organization called 
 the Woman's Central Association of Relief. 
 Although a woman's society, its ofl&cers were 
 all men, and the board of managers to 
 which its government was entrusted was made 
 up of twelve men and twelve women — the 
 first of our important organizations to be so 
 governed, as far as the writer knows. The 
 Association at once set to work to develop and 
 centralize the scattered efforts of the state. 
 Luckily, one of the ladies of the executive 
 committee bethought her of the "Mount 
 Vernon list" — the roster of those women who 
 had been raising money in New York state 
 for the purchase of Mount Vernon. She 
 suggested that they might easily be per- 
 suaded to use their organization for the 
 soldiers — which proved true. The Associa- 
 tion thus started with a fairly large group of 
 correspondents, and scores of small organiza- 
 tions rapidly fell into line. Supplies began to 
 flow in on the Association. But immediately 
 the women were confronted with the diffi- 
 culty of getting these supplies to the army. 
 The express companies would carry them to 
 Washington — they could not cross the lines of 
 the arniy. The result was that thousands 
 upon thousands of packages were piling up at 
 the Capitol. It was evident that if they were 
 not to work in vain there must be a direct 
 authorized connection with the army. 
 
 Dr. Bellows went to Washington to see 
 what could be done. The result of his ob- 
 
8l2 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 servations and conferences there was the idea 
 of an organization of civilians which would 
 supplement the Medical Bureau in caring for 
 the army. The preventing of illness, the 
 training of cooks and nurses, the gathering 
 and transporting of those supplies which the 
 government could not be expected to furnish 
 but which would be necessary — such were the 
 tasks Dr. Bellows and his friends proposed to 
 take on themselves. The idea promptly 
 developed into the famous Sanitary Commis- 
 sion. 
 
 There is no space here to go into the his- 
 tory of this splendid organization — its efforts 
 to secure government recognition, the intel- 
 ligence with which it gradually learned what 
 it could best do to supplement the Medical 
 Department of the army, the tact with which it 
 "fitted in," the astonishing skill it came to have 
 in always being on the right spot and having the 
 right thing. What we are concerned with here 
 is the work of the women in the Commission, 
 for the Central Association had the good 
 sense to see the value of the proposed ma- 
 chinery and had put itself promptly under 
 the direction of the "San Com;" as it 
 came to be familiarly called. The imme- 
 diate problem which confronted them was 
 that of supplies. The women had started out 
 all over the country to "send things" to the 
 army and they had little or no idea what the 
 army really needed. The first idea was lint, 
 and everybody fell to picking lint while every 
 newspaper devoted space to directing how it 
 should be done. Then Havelocks were sug- 
 gested and thousands of them were manufac- 
 tured — most of them to be scorned by the 
 boys! Boxes were packed, including scores of 
 useless articles, quantities of unsuitable food. 
 Then everywhere there was the natural desire 
 that the particular box or Havelock or jar of 
 jelly reach a particular soldier. To find out 
 what was necessary, to persuade the women to 
 furnish it and nothing else, to distribute sup- 
 plies where they were needed regardless of the 
 company or individual they were prepared for, 
 this required a continued patient effort on the 
 part of the Central Relief Association, a yield- 
 ing to authority on the part of the small groups 
 and the individuals, which would have been out 
 of the question had the women been less 
 inspired by national feeling. The difficulties 
 worked out promptly. The New York Asso- 
 ciation established its headquarters in the first 
 floor of Cooper Institute, and across Fourth 
 Avenue secured depots for supplies. Here 
 from the beginning to the end of 'the war the 
 leading women of New York worked from 
 morning until night directing its hundreds of 
 
 branches not only in the State, but in the neigh- 
 boring States. (1,901 societies had joined the 
 Central Association before the end of the war.) 
 
 Gradually they came to know what was 
 needed. It was really a few articles — under- 
 wear, sheets, bandages, cures for scurvy, certain 
 medicines, certain delicacies for the hospitals. 
 A vast correspondence, and much visiting by 
 agents, were of course necessary to keep these 
 things always on hand in sufficient quantities. 
 Then great extra efforts were necessary for the 
 time of approaching battles. From morning 
 until night they unpacked, distributed and 
 repacked supplies. From morning until night 
 they urged their branches to new efforts. From 
 morning until night they devised new ways of 
 being useful, new ways of raising money. 
 
 Centers hke these in New York were soon 
 established at other points, the leading ones 
 being in Chicago, Cincinnati and Boston, and 
 around these hundreds of groups gathered, do- 
 ing in the main the same work in gathering and 
 directing supplies which was done from the 
 New York headquarters. 
 
 Of course the women felt all of the fluctua- 
 tions of courage and of patriotism that the men 
 did. They had to be encouraged at times to 
 new efforts and it was through the Central Re- 
 lief Association that this work was ^admirably 
 done. As was to be expected, the flood of sup- 
 plies could not go on forever without urging — 
 as a matter of fact, by the -end of two years 
 most of the women had given all that they 
 could comfortably spare. From many a house- 
 hold the best quilts had been sent, the whole 
 supply of canned fruit, the window curtains 
 and stores of linen, the money usually devoted 
 to new coats and gowns. The women of small 
 means — the farmers' wives, the villagers — gave 
 until they suffered. And more was necessary. 
 Then it was that the women started the chain 
 of Sanitary Fairs which, beginning with that in 
 Chicago in October and November of '63, 
 swept eastward through 1864, and netted in 
 all over $3,000,000. The great "fairs of New 
 York and Philadelphia each netted over one 
 million dollars. 
 
 The ingenuity of the women in these under- 
 takings was endless. Every possible device 
 was employed to attract visitors and extract 
 money, from putting the Emancipation Procla- 
 mation on view to selling a kiss, as Mrs. 
 Harrison Gray Otis did to a sailor in Bos- 
 ton — to the horror of her set and to her own, 
 deep satisfaction, since she got five dollars for 
 it ! Mrs. Otis indeed was a very good example 
 of the devotion which thousands of women of 
 wealth and leisure gave to the Union cause 
 throughout the war. Her work, though inde- 
 
The American Woman: Ida M. Tarbell 
 
 813 
 
 pendent of the Commission, was similar in its 
 character. At the beginning of the war a large 
 house was turned over to the city of Boston for 
 the soldiers' use and Mrs. Otis was asked to 
 take charge of it. She made it a headquar- 
 ters for supplies to be distributed to the out- 
 going or home-coming soldier or sailor, to those 
 ill or wounded at the front, to those weak and 
 crippled at home. Hundreds of thousands of 
 dollars passed through her hands. She gave of 
 her own fortune some $50,000, and all her time. 
 It is said that Mrs. Otis never missed a day at 
 her post throughout the war, never bought a 
 new gown and usually walked to her office to 
 save cab hire. 
 
 A very interesting part of the work the organ- 
 ized women did was at the front in connection 
 with hospital ships, lodges, relief camps, and 
 other institutions which were gradually devel- 
 oped by the Commission to supplement the 
 regular work of the Medical Corps. To all of 
 these centers women were attached to take 
 charge of supplies, to prepare foods and medi- 
 cines and bandages, to nurse, to look after the 
 convalescing, to see that the distracted women 
 who sought husbands and sons in hospitals or 
 on battle-fields weire properly assisted and to 
 do hundreds of unexpected things for which 
 there was no provision. The records of this 
 work are among the most touching documents 
 which have come out of the Civil War. There 
 was no service too bloody or terrible for them. 
 They took the wounded and dying fresh from 
 the battle-field, even helped bring them from 
 the field. They worked, unconscious of time 
 and of food or rest, twenty-foiu:, forty-eight, or 
 more hours at a time. There was nothing too 
 menial, nothing too hard, nothing too small. 
 It is a wonderful story of doing literally what- 
 ever came to the hand to do, and of doing it 
 with men in an organized body, without regard 
 to ordinary convention or ordinary class ^ 
 division. 
 
 This organized democratic effort went on for 
 four years. At the end of the war there were 
 some 7,000 aid societies in the Commission, 
 they had raised over $15,000,000 and they had 
 trained a national body of women for prompt 
 and efficient team work. Such a thing had 
 never been seen before in the history of the 
 world. It was an achievement bound to have 
 a profound influence on the future activities 
 and the future attitude of woman to her own 
 work. Its effects were to be many. Indeed, the 
 war was hardly over before it was obvious that 
 the varying experiences it had brought to 
 women had wrought many changes in them. 
 Perhaps none was more fundamental than that 
 in the attitude of women of all classes toward 
 
 work. There was taken away from their home 
 for longer or shorter periods in the war 2,200,- 
 000 men; 360,282 of these men had died, 
 great nimibers had returned crippled, helpless 
 with disease, or imfitted for bread-winning. 
 The great majority of these men came from 
 humble homes. Throughout the war the 
 women connected with these men had taken 
 their places in whole or in part in che support 
 of the family. They had taken up all sorts of 
 labor to which they had been before unaccus- 
 tomed. They had gone into factories, into mer- 
 cantile pursuits, into farming and gardening, 
 into trading of various kinds. Many of them 
 had succeeded. Thus at the close of the war 
 there was a reversal of situations in thousands 
 of homes. The men had become dependent 
 in the service of their country, the women had 
 become independent. 
 
 In working they had acquired a taste for 
 work and for the freedom it gave them. They v/ 
 found themselves able to come and go, to direct, 
 to spend as never before. There was a sense 
 of growth and importance and liberty which 
 they had known nothing of and they enjoyed it. 
 It threw the restriction of domestic life into 
 unpleasant contrast. Thus the Civil War had 
 a great deal to do with stimulating the desire 
 for independent work and an independent 
 pocket-book among American women. 
 
 In every community, too, the war was an 
 amazing mixer. The strict lines drawn be- 
 tween "sets" was finally broken. When all 
 classes of women mingled in a common work, 
 the ablest came naturally to the top, much as in 
 the army. When rich as well as poor had 
 bread-winning thrust upon them, labor took 
 on more of its rightful dignity. The war over, 
 society organized on more liberal and intelli- 
 gent lines than ever before. And vastly to its 
 own benefit. New blood, larger ideals, a sense 
 of the common good, a realization that after 
 all the differences between women of different 
 sets are superficial, much less important than 
 they seem, imited them. 
 
 Moreover, the close of the war did not leave 
 the women of the country without civic tasks. 
 On the contrary, it had created a new set of 
 burdens, a new group of problems — "to bind 
 up the Nation's wounds, to care for him who 
 shall have borne the battle, and for his widow 
 and his orphan" — these tasks the women who 
 had been working both as' individuals and in 
 organizations saw long before the close of the 
 war were to be their peculiar care and they had 
 begun to make ready for them. All of the pe- 
 culiar relief institutions which followed the war 
 — the Freedman's Bureau (a work begun in 
 Washington in 1863 by Josephine GrifBng of 
 
8i4 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 Ohio), the Soldiers' Homes, the Employment 
 Agencies, the Orphans' Asylums and Schools — 
 were working in a small way in a dozen places, 
 usually under the direction of women. When 
 the war closed they had ready the beginnings 
 of the great institutions which were to handle 
 these mighty problems. They had no hesita- 
 tion in falling into line with the men and doing 
 whatever they could to help solve them. They 
 had learned they could work with men — on the 
 battle-field, in the hospitals, in the counting- 
 room, anywhere they were needed — and lose 
 nothing in self-respect or public respect. The 
 country had learned it, too. The complete 
 revolution in popular feeling in this matter was 
 one of the most interesting effects of the great 
 experience. Hundreds of women who had held 
 strenuously to the old traditions of reserve had 
 been doing all kinds of unheard-of tasks, uncon- 
 sciously and naturally, simply because it was 
 necessary they should do them, and in doing 
 them they had established without argument 
 their right to do them. The swagger of inde- 
 pendence, the spirit of defiance which always 
 tinged the demand for rights, and which un- 
 questionably frightened away many persons 
 who intellectually were convinced of the sound- 
 ness of the arguments, had been entirely want- 
 
 ing in the war's great movement of women of 
 all classes into organized public work with 
 men. They had come in as naturally as they 
 came into church or drawing-room, and 
 they were accepted as naturally as they were 
 there. 
 
 It was a tremendous lesson in one eternal 
 fact which had always been too generally over- 
 looked by the advocates of Woman's Rights, 
 v^thatyou get newprivileges in the world because it 
 is necessary for the good not of yotirself but of 
 the whole that you have them; moreover, that 
 the body of women will never demand anything 
 because it is a right, but that when they need 
 it to accomplish some good for which they 
 feel themselves responsible, they will seek it — 
 and get it. Necessity is what forces new tools 
 into human hands — not argument and agita- 
 tion. The Civil War taught women the neces- 
 sity, and so the feasibility, of working in public 
 with men as the establishment of the Republic 
 had taught them the necessity of their general 
 education. Indeed, as soon as the war was 
 really over and the disorder it had caused 
 began to clear away, it was evident that there 
 was a new American woman in the field. 
 How amazing had been the transformation 
 the next few years were to reveal. 
 
 In a future number Miss Tarbell will tell the story of the part the women of the South played in the war 
 
 INSOUCIANCE IN STORM 
 
 lARRY /KEMP 
 
 Deep in the ore-boat's/hold 
 Where great-bulked!^ boilers l0&m 
 
 And yawning moutKs of fire^ 
 Irradiate the gldom 
 
 I saw half-nakatl men 
 
 Made thrall/to flarn^ and steam, 
 Whose bodies drippmg sweat, 
 
 Shone witm an oily gleam. 
 
 There, all the sujlen night. 
 While waves boomed overhead 
 
 And smot^ the lurching ship. 
 The ravenous fires they fed; 
 
 / 
 
 They did not thuik it br/ve; 
 
 They even d?i!red to joke! . . 
 I saw them Ught theip- pipes 
 
 And pufi^alm rings of smoke! 
 
 saw a Aasser spi^awl 
 Ovenrhis load^f coal — 
 At wMch a Ficfeman laughed 
 Uoftil it shoek his soul: 
 
 All this in a 'hollow shell 
 Whose half-submerged form 
 
 On Lake Superior tossed 
 Wfid rushing hills of storm! 
 
/<^^T?^g:y^>^>>g:;^;ft^\ ""^"^n^:^:^,-,^ 
 
 I II I I I I I I I I I I II II II I I II II I I II II I I I I I I II I I II II II II I I II II I I I I II 
 
 THE AMERICAN WOMAN 
 
 HER FIRST DECLARATION OF 
 INDEPENDENCE 
 
 BY IDA M. TARBELL 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS COLLECTED FOR THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE 
 BY CHARLES HENRY HART 
 
 THE group of women who in 1848 
 issued the first call for a convention 
 to consider the rights of women* 
 did not base their action on an 
 abstract proposition. They based it on per- 
 sonal experience. Each of them at one or 
 another point of her life had been blocked in 
 some undertaking which she felt to be good 
 not only for herself but for her world. 1 
 
 The wall which had confronted Lucretia 
 Mott in her work for the slave was described 
 in the last article. But this was by no means 
 the first experience of her life which had 
 caused her to reflect on the "unequal condi- 
 tion of woman." When Lucretia Mott was 
 but sixteen years old she was made a teacher 
 in the Friend's School at Nine Partners, New 
 York, where she had been a pupil for three 
 years. "Learning," she says, "that the 
 charge for the tuition of girls was the same as 
 that for boys, and that when they became 
 teachers women received only half as much as 
 men for their services, the injustice of this dis- 
 tinction was so apparent that I early resolved 
 to claim for myself all that an impartial 
 Creator had bestowed." Which she never 
 ceased to do with a persistency as inflexible 
 as it was gentle. 
 
 Mrs. Stanton, who was most intimately as- 
 sociated with Mrs. Mott in this call for the 
 convention, and the aggressive and active 
 
 * See The American Magazine for January, 1910. 
 468 
 
 force in organizing and carrying it through, 
 had been brought to the point by quite a dif- 
 ferent experience. When but a child her 
 adventurous and dominating nature had been 
 so irritated by the succession of "no's" she 
 encountered that in spite of a buoyant tem- 
 perament, robust health and a delightful 
 home she had been in a more or less continu- 
 ous state of revolt. When she was eleven 
 years of age her only brother died. Her 
 father's grief was a tragedy to her, and in her 
 passionate desire to comfort him she promised 
 herself to take the dead boy's place. She be- 
 gan to study Greek and mathematics, every- 
 thing necessary to fit herself for college. Her 
 progress was brilliant, but when she proudly 
 brought her results to her father, his only 
 comment was the discouraging, "Oh, if you 
 had only been a boy!" 
 
 She haunted her father's law office, and was 
 deeply stirred by the pitiful cases of married 
 women who, under the laws then in force, 
 could not control the property they had in- 
 herited, the wages they had earned, or the 
 children they had borne, no matter how dissi- 
 pated, cruel or dishonest their husbands had 
 been. In her indignation she began to cut 
 the laws from her father's books, only desist- 
 ing when he explained to her that their au- 
 thority was higher up in the legislature, a^r 
 laughingly advised her to grow up and r 
 suade it to change the injustices. 
 
The Duchess and Salem Tarr. By Henry C. Rowland 467 
 
 was a fresh breeze from the darkemng sea and 
 the,'' sun had sunk below the windr horizon. 
 
 /-■'Do you mean," she cried, "t^at you have 
 tracked and slain four natives ?'[ 
 
 He smiled faintly, "fhat'slwhat, Chris- 
 tina," he answered. 
 
 "Seems kind o' like sllughtef, I know, but 
 they wa'ant no help f'r if. 'Ttvas their lives 
 or yours, and bein' canlibals fend sech, they 
 ain't jes like humans, aiyhow.r 
 
 The duchess stepped! near^ and regarded 
 him with kindling eyes. 
 
 "You are wounded,'! she sfid, softly. 
 
 "Nothin' but a few Ittle cms and bruises," 
 muttered Salem, stranaely dilturbed at some- 
 thing which was grovling infthe face of his 
 
 defense. Sailor, fisherman, low of caste 
 . . . what did it matter? Was he not 
 clean of heart and eiear af eye and strong and 
 tender, loving he/ as never would another ? 
 She raised her eyee to hii still burning in their 
 depths with the Ire of Jtrife. Superman, he 
 looked to her, as he stcfod before her on the 
 beach, his hair topsing in the wind, his bronzed 
 limbs gold and ^ffron in the waning light of 
 the wild, tropic tunset. I 
 
 She stepped Iwiftly joward him and flung 
 out her arms. 
 
 "Salem!" shjb cried.j "I love you — I love 
 you!" 
 
 He castldown 
 
 companion 
 
 sand. 
 
 "Tell me about 
 
 duchess, eagerly. 
 
 Salem threw her a Iwift, c irious look 
 
 "I came on 'm beichin' t leir canoe," said 
 
 he, " and bein' afeaJed the} 
 
 and git help I sailed! right ii 
 
 rays flashing r( sy-pink igainst the matting sail, 
 e corfibat ! " said the The ship sligh ;ly alter ;d her course and bore 
 
 then and tha'ar, besi( e the bi at, but the other 
 
 his eyes to the 
 
 H. M. Prelected 
 sighted the cai oe just 
 
 might go back 
 Two I killed 
 
 down upon th little c 
 stopped, rever ed, ther 
 wallowing in ie long 
 decks her crev looked 
 a man and a woman, 
 
 an to the end of 
 
 stand, but sho! 
 
 two o' them 
 
 on'y 
 
 two ran and I follere I 'em cl 
 the p'int. Th'ar the ' made 
 Christina! What c. ance h 
 things agin a Yankf e whale aan ? My 
 trouble was gittin' w thin rea h. Fin'lly they 
 got desprit and coi le for nie together" — a 
 sudden savage light s lone frorl his gray eyes — ■ 
 "and then 't'was soc n over!"| He glanced at 
 the woman and smil ;d, griml; 
 
 The duchess was 1 loking at lim with a high 
 flush on either cheel and herlblue eyes deep 
 and humid as the 1 Itramarinl of the ocean 
 outside the reef. 
 
 "And you had nc compuncfton?" she de- 
 manded. "What al out your Puritan ideas?" 
 
 He looked at hn moodilA "P'raps I 
 done wrong," he answered. \ "P'raps I 
 ought to ha' offeree 'em peaceV If there'd 
 on'y been me I womd never ha' struck the 
 fust blow. But 't'was you I thought of, 
 Christina. I wa'ant Wkin' no chances where 
 you was consa'arned! Not much. 'N right 
 or wrong, good or bad, I'd see every Melanesian 
 nigger in these here islands flenched and sun- 
 dried afore I'd risk a hair o' your head, Chris- 
 tina!" 
 
 The duchess gave him a fathomless glance, 
 while her breath came fast. Her Finno Ugric 
 blood, hot with the wild impulses of generations 
 of warrior ancestors, burst into blaze as she 
 "ontemplated the man returning to her stained 
 
 'th blood and wounds received in her 
 
 ruiser " G azehound ' ' 
 t sunset, the horizontal 
 
 aft. Close aboard she 
 stopped again and lay 
 swell, while from the 
 down with wonder as, 
 eautiful as god and 
 
 : as a lance, answered 
 [lis harsh New Eng- 
 
 This lady is the 
 
 sole survivor from 
 
 [Christina. As f'r 
 
 pooner, lost with a 
 
 ship Alice Stocton, 
 
 goddess, camq up the gadder and over the 
 cruiser's side. 
 
 "Who," sail the mlrveling commander, 
 "in the name c t all that'srvonderful, are you ?" 
 
 Salem, stanc ing straigli 
 the officer's qi estion, in ' 
 land tones: 
 
 "Two cast! ways, sir. I 
 Grand Duches > Christina 
 the wreck of the yacht,! 
 me, I'm Salenl Tarr, hap 
 whaleboat's criw from thi 
 we towin' behiili a spa'arm whale." 
 
 Few more wirds were needed to tell their 
 tale. "A moJth ago," Salem concluded, 
 "there landed" Ion the island four hostyle 
 natives. I killed all hands — cannibal Melane- 
 sians they was, Uir. Late this arternoon we 
 sighted your smoke and put out in the canoe to 
 head ye, 'n, here We be, sir." 
 
 There was a n^ment of silence. Then the 
 commander turned to the duchess. 
 
 "My cabin will be at the disposal of your 
 Royal Highness in a few minutes," said he. 
 "Meanwhile, permit me to show you to the 
 ward-room." 
 
 He glanced at Salem. "The petty officers' 
 mess will look after you, my man," he said, 
 kindly. "Draw on the yeoman for what you 
 need in the way of an outfit." 
 
 And he turned again to the Grand Duchess, 
 who was looking with brimming eyes at Salem 
 Tarr, harpooner. 
 
The American Woman. By Ida M. Tarbell 
 
 469 
 
 She prepared herself for Union College, but 
 admittance was of course refused her. She 
 was obliged to go to Mrs. Willard's school for 
 girls at Troy, where nothing was taught 
 which she had not already mastered, except 
 French, music and dancing! 
 
 As Elizabeth Cady grew up she was thrown 
 much with the remarkable liberal circle which 
 for years centered about the beautiful home 
 of Gerrit Smith at Peterboro, New York. 
 Here she met in time practically all of the 
 abolitionists and reformers of the day. It was 
 here she first met Henry B. Stanton, one of 
 the most eloquent of the abolition orators, to 
 whom after an engagement, clouded by her 
 own dislike of changing freedom for what she 
 looked on as bondage; she was married in 
 May, 1840, just in time to turn Mr. Stanton's 
 trip to the World's Anti-Slavery Convention 
 in London to a wedding journey. The Lon- 
 don trip, and her meeting with Lucretia Mott 
 there, described in the last article, had much 
 to do with crystallizing the discursive reading 
 and thinking Elizabeth had done into a def- 
 inite determination to "do something" to im- 
 prove the condition of women. After her 
 return to America all her experiences as a 
 housekeeper and a mother, as a diligent 
 reader, as a keen and critical observer of the 
 lives of the women about her, strengthened 
 her determination. At the same time the 
 conviction became firm in her mind that such 
 was the strength of the opposition to anything 
 like equal rights for men and women that 
 'nothing could overthrow it but the ballot. 
 With that, and only with that, she believed 
 woman would ever be given her proper place 
 as a human being. A frank, brave, generous 
 nature, ready to fight, as such natures usually 
 are for what they want, a woman with an elo- 
 quent tongue and a well-filled mind, she was 
 bound to be a gallant champion for any cause 
 she espoused. 
 
 Unlikely a spot for launching a great move- 
 ment as Seneca Falls, New York, may seem 
 to one to-day, it was by no means that in 1848. 
 It had Central New York to draw from, and 
 Central New York held at that time one of 
 the most intelligent and active sets of re- 
 formers in the country — a "magnetic circle," 
 Mrs. Stanton calls it in her reminiscences — 
 and she enumerates the familiar names: "At 
 Rochester were William Henry Channing, 
 Frederick Douglass, the Anthonys, Posts, Hal- 
 lowells, Stebbinses; some grand old Quaker 
 'families at Farraington; the Sedgwicks, Mays, 
 
 Oies and Matilda Joslyn Gage at Syracuse; 
 it Smith at Peterboro, and Beriah Green 
 'hitesboro." 
 
 It was these people and their friends on 
 whom Mrs. Mott and Mrs. Stanton depended 
 for their first Woman's Rights Convention, 
 and they were not disappointed.' Both the 
 platform and the audience at the launching of 
 the movement were satisfactory. The work 
 of the Convention was twofold: Setting forth 
 their Grievances and proposing Remedies. 
 The first came in a remarkable Declaration 
 of Sentiments, modeled after the Declaration 
 of Independence — the preambles are identical 
 save that the word woman is introduced in 
 the document of 1848. Mrs. Mott and Mrs. 
 Stanton and their friends had worked night 
 and day to produce this Declaration, and it is 
 still easily the most sweeping and ringing 
 broadside which has been produced in the 
 Woman's Movement. 
 
 The List of Grievances presented are, con- 
 densed, as follows: 
 
 The history of mankind is a history of repeated 
 injuries and usurpations on the part of man towards 
 woman, having in direct object the establishment of 
 an absolute tyranny over her. 
 
 He has never permitted her to exercise her inalien- 
 able right to the elective franchise. 
 
 He has compelled her to submit to laws in the 
 formation of which she has had no voice. 
 
 He has withheld from her rights which are given to 
 the most ignorant and degraded men. 
 
 He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law 
 civilly dead. 
 
 He has taken from her all right in property, even 
 to the wages she earns. 
 
 He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what 
 shall be the proper causes, and in case of separation, 
 to whom the guardianship of the children shall be 
 given, as to be wholly regardless of the happiness of 
 the woman. 
 
 After depriving her of all rights as a married woman, 
 if single, and the owner of property, he has taxed her 
 to support a government which recognizes her only 
 when her property can be made profitable to it. 
 
 He has denied her tjie facilities for obtaining a thor- 
 ough education, all colleges being closed against her. 
 
 He has created a false public sentiment by giving 
 to the world a different code of morals for men and 
 women, by which moral delinquencies which exclude 
 women from society are not only tolerated but 
 deemed of little account in man. 
 
 He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, 
 claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of 
 action, when that belongs to her conscience and to 
 her God. 
 
 He has endeavored, in every way that he could, to 
 destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen 
 her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a 
 dependent and abject life. 
 
 The Declaration of Sentiments, in its zeal to 
 emphasize woman's wrongs, ignored many 
 facts. It forgot that universal male suflErage 
 was still in its first stages in the world and 
 by some of the best men of this country 
 
470 
 
 was considered but an experiment;* that 
 woman had already in some parts of the 
 United States been given certain franchise 
 privileges (in New Jersey from 1790 to 1807 
 she had equal suffrage rights) and she had 
 never made anything of them; that the atro- 
 cious civil laws which worked her so much 
 injustice had already been attacked by men 
 and were certainly doomed in time; that her 
 full education in political theory particularly 
 had been from the beginning of the republic 
 demanded by men as necessary to the life of 
 the Democracy and that in no other single 
 particular since the adoption of the Constitu- 
 tion had there been so great a radical advance 
 in the United States as in woman's education. 
 
 The really significant feature of the Declara- 
 tion, however, is the way in which it hurls 
 the gauntlet at man. As far as it goes there 
 is no sign that the framers recognized that the 
 question was in any degree a human question, 
 no sign that they considered that the wrongs 
 they complained of had come about in any 
 other way than by a deliberate and conscious 
 intent to enslave, no sign that woman herself 
 was in any way a partner to her position. 
 Man was a deliberate oppressor, a conscious 
 conspirator, woman his slave, and as such she 
 challenged him. The Declaration was really 
 a call to war on man. 
 
 The grievances were much better stated 
 than the resolutions by which they were to 
 be remedied. The latter were mostly gen- 
 eral assertions and demands. There was one 
 exception: "7^ is the duty of the women of this 
 country to secure to themselves their sacred 
 right to the elective franchise." It was the 
 only resolution not accepted unanimously. 
 
 When it came to the end of the session 
 sixty-eight women and thirty-eight men signed 
 the Declaration of Sentimepts. Such was the 
 interest in the gathering, so much was left to 
 talk about, that a second convention was 
 called a little later at Rochester, New York, 
 and here, to the distress of both Mrs. Mott 
 and Mrs. Stanton, a woman presided. 
 
 These conventions were reported widely, 
 sometimes with severely disapproving com- 
 ments, sometimes with hilarious ridicule, but 
 these publications, whatever their temper, only 
 served to set people thinking and to crystallize 
 rapidly the existing agitation. The very vigor 
 which was put into the effort to stop anv more 
 "tomfoolery" of the kind — a favorite charac- 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 * Only a few years before this convention was called 
 Abraham Lincoln had given as his idea of what the suiTrage 
 should be in the United States the following; "I go for 
 all sharing the privileges of the government who assist in 
 bearing its burdens. Consequently, I go for admitting all 
 whites to the right of suffrage who pay taxes or bear arms 
 (by no means excluding females)." 
 
 terization — showed how much sympathy for the 
 ideas was abroad. From the East to the West, 
 indeed, there was a stirring. Not far from 
 Seneca Falls, at South Bristol, a woman who 
 had all her life been chafing against the legal 
 right of a husband to chastise his wife for dis- 
 obedience at once called together like-minded 
 women of her village and formed an Equal 
 Suffrage Society and sent a petition to the 
 legislature. These small separate groups 
 multiplied. The interest grew and spread, 
 until in 1850 the first National W'oman's 
 Rights Convention was held in Worcester, 
 jMassachusetts; at this there were present dele- 
 gates from nine states. 
 
 A group of remarkable women were drawn 
 into the movement — all of them because of 
 some peculiar thwarting personal experience 
 which led them to understand and sympa- 
 thize with the general spirit of the Declara- 
 tion, though probably very few accepted or 
 understood all of' its sentiments. • 
 
 Take the case of Dr. Harriot K. Hunt. 
 She was a Boston girl, born there in 1805, and 
 brought up wisely and tenderly to love books 
 and work and service. The pictures she gives of 
 her early days in her "Glances and Glimpses" 
 are alluring. \A'hat better possession could 
 one leave a child than such, a memory as this: 
 "The remembrance of sitting on my father's 
 knee at twilight, learning the multiplication 
 table by the bright light of a wood fire in a 
 Franklin stove flashing softl\' on the shadows 
 of the cheerful room, comes to me now like an 
 interior illumination." 
 
 The ill health of her only sister, and the 
 inability of the regular physicians they con- 
 sulted to aid her, led Harriot, in spite of the 
 sneers of her friends, to go to Dr. and Mrs. 
 Valentine Mott, who came to Boston in 1833 
 and advertised freely and loudly the wonder 
 of their cures. Their sympathy and the re- 
 gime they prescribed did help Sarah. The 
 girls began a study of the Quackery, as it was 
 called, and in spite of the protestations and 
 disdain of their circle, finally went to live with 
 the ^fotts and study their system. The upshot 
 of it was that they decided to become physi- 
 cians themselves, and in a short time had 
 opened their house to patients. They soon 
 had a large following. Their treatment seems 
 to have been largely the application of sym- 
 pathy, cheerfulness, common sense and water. 
 Naturally they wrought man>' cures. 
 
 They were general!}- very cautious about 
 meddling with cases they did not understand, 
 and they studied regularly and seriously, bv 
 they found every avenue of education outs" 
 of books and the Motts closed. Never 
 
The American Woman. By Ida M. Tarbell 
 
 47^ 
 
 less, in the course of a few years Harriot Hunt 
 came to have a remarkable place in Boston 
 and the surrounding country. She was am- 
 bitious to increase her knowledge, however, 
 and applied to Harvard Medical School for 
 permission to attend its lectures. Her ap- 
 plication was made to Oliver Wendell Holmes, 
 then dean of the medical faculty. 
 
 Her request was denied on the ground that 
 it was "inexpedient" for women to be ad- 
 mitted to the lectures. 
 
 If is not strange that a woman as convinced 
 as Harriot Hunt was that she was doing use- 
 ful work, and that with more knowledge she 
 was capable of still greater usefulness, should 
 have revolted against such a decision. More- 
 over, in the intimacy of her practice she 
 realized better every year of her life how much 
 misery and bitterness might result from ac- 
 cepted laws and cofiventions in regard to mar- 
 ried women, that a woman had practically no 
 escape from the stinginess, the brutality or 
 the immorality of a husband, that whatever 
 her wrongs, society and the law expected 
 nothing from her but endurance, the more 
 patient and silent her endurance the warmer 
 their approval. She realized more fully the 
 depravity of the complacent morality which 
 winked at the practices of the well-to-do man, 
 permitting him unchallenged to exploit women 
 and girls in his factories and shops, unpunished, 
 to fling aside the woman he had misled to bear 
 alone the most dangerous and unintelligent 
 punishment society has ever devised — com- 
 plete ostracism. AH the daily experiences of 
 Harriot Hunt's life, indeed, intensified her 
 conviction that woman suffered endless things 
 that were easily curable if common sense and 
 common justice were applied to her case. 
 
 She was in this frame of mind when in 
 1850 she received an invitation to attend the 
 first National Woman's Rights Convention. 
 Years after she described the reflections that 
 the call aroused in her: 
 
 " Was it possible that woman was aroused, that the 
 evils which were withering her affections, blighting 
 her intellect, crippling her physical powers, were 
 about to claim calm and careful inquiry? Was I to 
 have the privilege of meeting those who had thought, 
 and reasoned, and prayed over this subject ? Imagine 
 hunger exasperating you, thirst driving to desperation 
 — in a moment, as by magic, food and drink appear. 
 That call was bread and water to my soul — it electri- 
 fied me. ... I decided to go to Worcester. 
 Many of my friends regretted this — they urged that it 
 would be ridiculous for me to identify myself with 
 such a, motley crew — some scolded, some entreated, 
 fne said I should lose caste. What was all this to 
 I ^ who for fifteen years had been the confidant of 
 I T.n, who had known that her diseases resulted in 
 •■•leasure from her position, who had sympathized 
 
 with the broken-hearted, prescribed for the penniless, 
 and mingled her tears with the widow and the father- 
 less ? Talk of politeness when humanity is perishing 
 — of the sacred sphere of woman when thousands of 
 my sisters are prostitutes — how many from necessity, 
 God only knows." 
 
 The largest as well as the strongest con- 
 tingent which the new movement attracted 
 was from the ranks of the temperance workers. 
 The same kind of opposition to public speak- 
 ing and to work in organizations which the 
 women in the anti-slavery struggle had met, 
 the women fighting intemperance were be- 
 ginning to feel. As it happened, it was by 
 this road that the Woman's Rights Cause re- 
 ceived its great leader — the right hand of Mrs. 
 Stanton — Susan B. Anthony. She was a 
 Quaker girt, who, when but seventeen years 
 old, had been forced into teaching, her father 
 having lost his comfortable fortune in the 
 panic of 1837. Susan B. Anthony was more 
 than a teacher, however; she was a born 
 whitecap and regulator, and before she was 
 twenty a militant one. In eyery community 
 where she taught she took an active interest 
 in all the "causes." She not only sympathized 
 with the negro, when an opportunity offered 
 she drank tea with him, to her own "unspeak- 
 able satisfaction." She not only disapproved 
 of intemperance, she reproved the men of her 
 family for drinking at all, to their surprise and 
 amusement. She not only believed in women 
 preacfiers, but she went to hear them, and 
 flaunted her act in the face of a disapproving 
 male. "What an absurd notion that women 
 have not intellectual and moral faculties suffi- 
 cient for anything but domestic concerns!" 
 She was severe with extravagance and with 
 amusements, with useless expenditures — a very 
 Spartan of a censor. Listen to these com- 
 ments on a reception to President Van Buren 
 in New York City: 
 
 "One day while in New York was spent in riding 
 through the streets preceded by an extravagant num- 
 ber of military men and musicians, who were kept in 
 exercise on that and succeeding days of the week until 
 all were completely exhausted. On the next day, 
 while he and his party were revelling in their tents on 
 luxuries and the all-debasing Wine, many poor, dear 
 children were crying for food and for water to allay 
 their thirst. On Friday evening he ?ittended Park 
 Theatre and on Monday Bowery Theatre. Yes, he 
 who is called by the majority as most capable of ruling 
 this republic, may be seen in the Theatre encouraging 
 one of the most heinous crimes or practices with which 
 our country is disgraced." 
 
 This severe young woman had great vir- 
 tues, great abilities. Her devotion to her 
 family, her tenderness and self-sacrifice were 
 unceasing. For years she worked and saved 
 
472 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 to help raise the mortgage on her father's 
 property. She counseled and encouraged 
 wherever she went, and she gave herself en- 
 thusiastically to the temperance cause, run- 
 ning local organizations of the Daughters of 
 Temperance, engineering suppers and bazaars 
 and entertainments to raise funds — writing 
 speeches when necessary — first-class service 
 always which won her the well-deserved com- 
 pliment of being the "smartest woman in that 
 town!" 
 
 After some twelve years of teaching Miss 
 Anthony went to live with her parents on a 
 farm near Rochester, New York. Her father 
 was a sturdy Quaker liberal, the friend of all 
 the reformers of the day, and scarcely a Sun- 
 day passed that a group of them did not come 
 down to his place for dinner and discussion. 
 Here in time Miss Anthony met the leading 
 radicals of the day — Garrison, Pillsbury, 
 Phillips, Channing, and, of course, all the 
 men and women who had been interested 
 in the Seneca Falls and Rochester con- 
 ventions. The. effect of this association 
 on the young woman was immediate. She 
 resolved to abandon teaching permanently 
 and devote herself to reform work. She ap- 
 pears to have had little interest in Woman's 
 Rights as a cause — i.e., it was not a cause 
 which appealed to her heart or judgment. Her 
 interest was in temperance work. And so she 
 went into the temperance movement, smiling 
 a little at the aggressiveness of her friends in 
 the Woman's Rights Movement, interested in 
 it, but not at all stirred by it. But Miss An- 
 thony had no sooner attempted to extend her 
 temperance work beyond a local organization 
 of women than she encountered the fierce and 
 outspoken prejudice which had broken over 
 Angelina Grimkd, Lucretia Mott and the en- 
 tire band of anti-slavery women. Sent as a 
 delegate to a state meeting of the New York 
 Sons of Temperance in 1852, she attempted 
 to speak on a motion, and was told that she 
 was there to "listen and learn"! A little later, 
 trying it at another meeting of the Sons to 
 which she had been sent as a delegate, she 
 was howled down when she tried to speak, 
 and the chairman decided she was out of 
 order, a decision sustained by a majority vote. 
 
 In 1853, at the meeting preliminary to the 
 World's Temperance Convention to which 
 "all friends of temperance" had been invited. 
 Miss Anthony was suggested for a committee. 
 Such a storm brpke out that the women dele- 
 gates, after having been admitted, were turned 
 out. A few months later when the conven- 
 tion convened she was present at one of the 
 most extraordinary demonstrations against a 
 
 woman taking part in a public meeting on the 
 same platform with men that was ever seen in 
 this country. The action of the gathering pre- 
 liminary to the World's Convention had led 
 the women and their sympathizers, among 
 them some important men like Horace Greeley 
 and Wendell Phillips, to call a Whole World 
 Temperance Convention. It met in New 
 York the same week as the World's Conven- 
 tion. Naturally many of the men delegates to 
 the latter felt a little worried, and said quite 
 freely that the women were imjust and were 
 hurting the cause of temperance, and that they 
 would be received if they had credentials from 
 recognized societies. Now there was in town 
 a young preacher, Antoinette Brown, who had 
 such credentials. She resolved to test the 
 sincerity of the assurances and presented her 
 papers. They were accepted, but when she 
 attempted to speak on a motion an uproar 
 broke out. It was not a demonstration of 
 the galleries — not a hoodlum outbreak. It 
 came from the platform and the delegates, 
 and it lasted three hours! Finally Miss 
 Brown gave it up, and the convention muzzled 
 her. 
 
 It was but little wonder that witnessing 
 such a scene as this, that baited and thwarted 
 in her own work as she was. Miss Anthony 
 came to feel that before anything else was 
 done the question of rights must be fought 
 out, that it was lost time to work for other 
 causes under such restrictions as the preju- 
 dices of the day imposed. Moreover, her ex- 
 periences had convinced her of the rightful- 
 ness of the Declaration of Grievances put out 
 by her friends, and at which she had at first 
 been inclined to smile. Women were victims 
 of the conspirator man, and nothing but 
 force, i.e., the ballot, would free them. 
 
 She flung herself into action with full- 
 hearted devotion and with an energy which 
 was practically boundless, and soon after was 
 made the general agent of the state society. 
 
 The efforts of the New York organization 
 at that date, 1854, were directed to holding 
 meetings, circulating literature, organizing 
 branches and circulating petitions to the legis- 
 lature, asking that the laws governing a wom- 
 an's property, wages and children, be revised 
 and that her right to the suffrage be admitted. 
 Such work requires time, hands, money, a 
 headquarters. Yet the Woman's Rights So- 
 ciety had none of these things. It simply had 
 Susan B. Anthony, agent! Practically jdl the 
 equipment she had was freedom to devote 
 herself to the work, her father and sister, wb 
 was teaching, promising to aid her as tV 
 could from their slender means. The 
 
j;lizabeth cady stanton and her oldest child 
 
 Iroi?! a pJiolograph taken in 1859 and loaned by her daughter, Mrs. Harriet 
 
 Stanton Blatch 
 One of the strongest popular superstitions about the org-anlzers of the Woman's 
 Rights Movement is that they were harsh, "homely" and home-neglecting. It is 
 built on ignorance. The above portrait of Mrs. Stanton is sufficient answer to this 
 legend as far as she is concerned. She was quite as intelligent and active in han- 
 dling the problems of housekeeping and of rearing children as she was in those 
 of the legal and political position of woman. Among the most suggestive things 
 in her admirably written reminiscences are her accounts of her efforts to sprea<l 
 knowledge among women of how to take care of babies! 
 
474 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 assistance she could rely on was what women, 
 most of them with families or with some con- 
 straining ties, could give. And yet with these 
 restrictions she accomplished marvels. The 
 story of the campaign she made in the winter 
 of i854-'55 is one of as heroic endurance 
 
 as any woman ever ga\'C to a cause, 
 started out in 
 the western end 
 of New York 
 State in the 
 middle of winter 
 to canvass every 
 county in the 
 state in the in- 
 terests of her 
 petitions. Slic 
 I ) r o p o s e d to 
 hold one or two 
 meetings in 
 every town of 
 any size in each 
 county, to read 
 at these meet- 
 ings her one and 
 onlv speech (she 
 and Mrs. Stan- 
 ton had worked 
 it out together), 
 to sell and .give 
 away her tracts 
 and to canvass 
 for signatures. 
 
 She had just 
 fifty dollars to 
 start with, and 
 that was bor- 
 rowed mone\-. 
 The hardships 
 of the journey 
 were ceaseless — 
 long night drives 
 over drifted 
 roads, ic}' cham- 
 bers, poor food, 
 
 and often none, and in the towns the most 
 uncertain welcome. Sometimes every hall 
 and church was closed to her; sometimes the 
 "best people" showed her every honor. But 
 nothing could dampen her energv, and she 
 carried out her plan, canvassing fift\--four 
 
 but by the inability of most of her colleagues 
 to devote themselves exclusively to the work, 
 even if they had the will to do so. Mrs. 
 Stanton had home and children. Miss An- 
 thony often groaned in those days over a 
 woman of Mrs. Stanton's ability giving 
 
 She eighteen _\'ears of her life to rearing children 
 
 for an already 
 overcrowded 
 world. Her 
 young lecturers 
 and helpers 
 were constantly 
 disappointing 
 her by their pro- 
 p e n s i t y to 
 marry. Great 
 was her disgust 
 when two of the 
 l^est speakers in 
 the field, Lucy 
 Stone and An- 
 toinette Brown, 
 married. One 
 winter every 
 woman on 
 whom she had 
 usually depend- 
 ed for lectures 
 had a baby! 
 But Miss An- 
 t h o n y was 
 always equal to 
 the emergencies. 
 If nobody came 
 to lecture she 
 did it herself. 
 If no one turned 
 up to direct and 
 stamp the letters 
 she did it. 
 E\-ery now and 
 then she ap- 
 peared in Sen- 
 eca Falls for 
 consultation with Mrs. Stanton, who, at her 
 fireside, in spite of babies, was busy collecting 
 data, digesting it, writing, really getting the 
 most important ammunition ready for the busy 
 woman in the field. The two were an extraor- 
 dinary pair. In all the history of reform it 
 
 DR. HARRIOT KEZIA HUNT 
 
 Enlarged from a carte Je I'uite photograph made in 1S60 hv 
 
 H. Marshall, oj Boston, and furnished by her cousin, Mrs. 
 
 S. I. Stanton, of Neiv York 
 
 Dr. Hiuit was the first woman to win a recognized and 
 permanent position as a medical practitioner in Boston 
 
 counties, gaining many names to her petition, would be hard to find two persons who worked 
 and raising money enough to pay her expenses. ' " 
 
 Of course she used herself up and had to 
 go to a sanitarium, but it was not long before 
 she was at it again and always with increasing 
 effectiveness. Indeed, she became the real 
 
 backiwne of the movement in the country— good of their cause. And it is to their ex- 
 made so not only by her own ability and zeal traordinary union that the cause was able to 
 
 together more effectively than these two women 
 did or two in whom the collaboration was more 
 wonderfully balanced. They were most unlike 
 in temper and in talents, but they literally fused 
 their brains, ambitions, sentiments for the 
 
The American Woman. By Ida M. Tarbell 
 
 475 
 
 grow steadily as it did in the first twelve 
 years after it was started. 
 
 However, Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony 
 had some remarkable aides. Probably the 
 strongest one of them was Lucy Stone, one of 
 the earhest Oberlin graduates. She came 
 into the agitation by the anti-slavery path. 
 Beginning about 
 1848 to speak as 
 the agent of the 
 Anti-Slavery So- 
 ciety, from the 
 first she mixed 
 Woman's Rights 
 with her 
 speeches. "I 
 can't help it," 
 she told the lead- 
 ers who reproved 
 her. "I was a 
 woman before I 
 was an abolition- 
 ist, and I must 
 speak for the 
 women." So 
 strongly did she 
 feel that a little 
 later she started 
 out on her own 
 responsibility — 
 to lecture 
 through the 
 country on Wom- 
 an's Rights. She 
 worked it alone 
 every wh ere, 
 tacking up with 
 her own hands 
 the posters she 
 had written and 
 had printed at 
 her own expense. 
 If she could get 
 a hall she took it; 
 if not she spoke 
 on the street corner. 
 
 LUCY STONE 
 
 Enlarged from a daguerreotype made about 1848 and loaned 
 
 for reproduction by her daughter^ Miss Alice Stone Black^vell^ 
 
 of Dorchester^ Mass. 
 
 Lucy Stone was one of the first college graduates in the 
 United States to take up Woman's Rights as her chief cause 
 
 The women who began the movement had 
 started out, as we have seen, with a definite 
 program of rights to be secured. Their 
 methods for accompHshing the results were the 
 time-honored ones of agitation — circulating 
 petitions and persuading on the platform and 
 through literature. But they did not devote 
 
 themselves en- 
 tirely by any 
 means to their 
 own particular 
 cause. Their 
 right to speech 
 on the platform 
 and to work in 
 organizations 
 had been disput- 
 ed, and in order 
 to secure these 
 rights they felt 
 they must ally 
 their cause with 
 all who would 
 accept their aid. 
 So as a matter 
 of tactics they 
 worked wher- 
 e^'er they were 
 recognized and 
 they opened 
 their platform 
 to whomsoever 
 would come. 
 This "free ])lal- 
 form" seemed to 
 them the logical 
 development of 
 their o w n de- 
 mand for free- 
 dom. 
 
 They had been 
 driven into the 
 movement by the 
 attempt to muz- 
 zle them; they 
 On their platform 
 
 Her experiences with mobs would muzzle nobody, 
 and hoodlums were endless. She was a target for anybody could air his grievance, could argue 
 everything but brickbats; once a hose was turned his cause. The results were sometimes start 
 
 on her, but, wet as she was, she wrapped a shawl 
 about herself and completed her speech. Miss 
 Stone was so fearless and at the same time so 
 elocjuent — she had a golden voice — that rarely 
 did she fail to win over even the noisiest crowd. 
 Indeed, the "boys" in the towns where she 
 worked frequently became her champions, and 
 while at anti-suffrage meetings and temperance 
 meetings and Woman's Rights meetings they 
 
 ling. Naturally they drew around them all the 
 light-headed agitators in the country. "Fleas 
 of the convention " was Emerson's name for cer- 
 tain hangers-on who were continually disturb- 
 ing the councils of the anti-slavery and other 
 radical movements of the day. The two most 
 conspicuous and annoying of these "fleas" 
 were Abby Folsom and Father Lawson. The 
 late William Lloyd Garrison describes the 
 
 might harass every other speaker, Lucy Stone former as a woman of large nature and be- 
 was often allowed to speak in quiet. nevolence, the latter as a picturesque lunatic 
 
476 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 garbed in white from hat to shoes. These 
 two frequently became such nuisances that 
 they had to be carried out. They never re- 
 sisted, but made themselves heavy as possible. 
 On one occasion when Abby Folsom was be- 
 ing escorted to the door she said: "I'm better 
 off than my master was. He had but one ass 
 to ride — I have three to carry me." In spite 
 of the annoyance which came from the free 
 platform the cause gained some strong advo- 
 cates from their boldness. It was no easy 
 matter for women who were anxious to gain 
 converts to allow a negro woman to speak at 
 its meetings in those years, and yet these 
 women allowed Sojourner Truth to speak in 
 their gatherings from the state. And from 
 this unexpected source they received some 
 telling help. Frances D. Gage, in her remi- 
 niscences of her own early suffrage experi- 
 ences, tells of the first appearance in the 
 movement of this wonderful negress. It was 
 at the second National Woman's Suffrage 
 Convention, held in 1852, in Akron, Ohio. 
 
 "Old Sojourner,'' writes Mrs. Gage, "quiet and 
 reticent as the 'Libyan Statue,' sat crouched against 
 the wall on the corner of the pulpit stairs, her sun- 
 bonnet shading her eyes, her elbows on her knees, and 
 her chin resting upon her broad, hard palms. At 
 intermission she was busy selling 'The Life of So- 
 journer Truth,' a narrative of her own strange and 
 adventurous life. Again and again timorous and 
 trembling ones came to me and said with earnestness, 
 ' Don't let her speak, Mrs. Gage; it will ruin us. Every 
 newspaper in the land will have our cause mixed with 
 abolition and niggers, and we shall be utterly de- 
 nounced.' My only answer was, 'We shall see when 
 the time comes.' 
 
 "The second day the work waxed warm. Metho- 
 dist, Baptist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Universalist 
 ministers came in to hear and discuss the resolutions 
 presented. One claimed superior rights and privi- 
 leges for man on the ground of superior intellect; 
 another because of the manhood of Christ. 'If God 
 had desired the equality of woman, he would have 
 given some token of his will through the birth, life, 
 and death of the Saviour.' Another gave us a theo- 
 logical view of the sin of our first mother. There were 
 few women in tliose days that dared to 'speak in 
 meeting,' and the august teachers of the people were 
 seeming to get the better of us, while the boys in the 
 galleries and the sneerers among the pews were hugely 
 enjoying the discomfiture, as they supposed, of the 
 'strong-minded.' Some of the tender -skinned friends 
 were on the point of losing dignity, and the atmosphere 
 of the convention betokened a storm. 
 
 " Slowly from her seat in the corner rose Sojourner 
 Truth, who, till now, had scarcely lifted her head. 
 'Don't let her speak,' gasped half a dozen in my ear. 
 She moved slowly and solemnly to the front, laid her 
 old bonnet at her feet, and turned her great, speaking 
 eyes to me. There was a hissing sound of disappro- 
 bation above and below. I arose and announced 
 'Sojourner Truth,' and begged the audience to keep 
 silence for a few moments. 
 
 "The tumult subsided at once, and every eye was 
 fixed on this almost Amazon form, which stood nearly 
 six feet high, head erect, and eye piercing the upper 
 
 air, like one in a dream. At her first word there was 
 a profound hush. She spoke in deep tones, which, 
 though not loud, reached every ear in the house, and 
 away through the throng at the doors and windows: 
 
 "'Well, chilern, whar dar is so much racket dar 
 must be something out o' kilter. I t'ink dat 'twixt 
 de niggers of de Souf and de women at de Norf all 
 a talkin' 'bout rights, de white men will be in a fix 
 pretty soon. But what's all dis here talkin' 'bout? 
 Dat man ober dar say dat women needs to be helped 
 into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the 
 best place everywhar. Nobody eber helped me into 
 carriages, or ober mud puddles, or gibs me any best 
 place.' And raising herself to her full height and her 
 voice pitched like rolling thunder, she asked, 'And 
 a'n't I a woman ? Look at me. Look at my arm.' 
 And she bared her right arm to the shoulder, showing 
 her tremendous muscular power. 'I have plowed, 
 and planted, and gathered into bams, and no man 
 could head me — and a'n't I a woman? I could work 
 as much and eat as much as a man, when I could get 
 it, and bear de lash as well — and a'n't I a woman ? I 
 have borne five chilern and seen 'em mos' all sold off 
 into slavery, and when I cried out with a mother's 
 grief, none but Jesus heard — and a'n't I a 
 woman ? 
 
 "Den dey talks 'bout dis t'ing in de head — what dis 
 dey call it?' 'Intellect,' whispered some one near. 
 ' Dat's it, honey. What's dat got to do with women's 
 rights or niggers' rights? If my cup won't hold but 
 a pint and yourn holds a quart, wouldn't ye be mean 
 not to let me have my little half-measure full ?' And 
 she pointed her significant finger and sent a keen 
 glance at the minister who had made the argument. 
 The cheering was long and loud. 
 
 "'Den dat little man in black dar, he say women 
 can't have as much rights as man, 'cause Christ wa'n't 
 a woman. Whar did your Christ come from ?' Roll- 
 ing thunder could not have stilled that crowd as did 
 those deep, wonderful tones, as she stood there with 
 outstretched arms and eyes of fire. Raising her voice 
 still louder, she repeated, 'Whar did your Christ come 
 from? From God and a woman. Man had nothing 
 to do with him.' 
 
 "Turning to another objector, she took up the 
 defense of mother Eve. I cannot follow her through 
 it all. It was pointed and witty, and solemn, eliciting 
 at almost every sentence deafening applause; and she 
 ended by asserting that 'if de fust woman God ever 
 made was strong enough to turn the world upside 
 down, all 'lone, dese togedder,' and she glanced her 
 eye over us, 'ought to be able to turn it back and get 
 it right side up again, and now dey is asking to do it, 
 de men better let 'em.' 
 
 "Amid roars of applause she turned to her corner, 
 leaving more than one of us with streaming eyes and 
 hearts beating with gratitude." 
 
 They not only opened their meetings to all, 
 they worked actively in various causes directly 
 or indirectly connected with their own. They 
 allied themselves, for instance, with the dress 
 reform — one of the most natural and useful 
 alliances they made and of which more later — 
 and excited public ridicule and censure by 
 admitting bloomers to the platform. Indeed, 
 for two years Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony 
 and Lucy Stone wore this garb, and certain 
 other of the women who campaigned longer. 
 
 In fact, there was nothing directly or in- 
 directly connected with the lives of women 
 
SUSAN B. ANTHONY 
 Enlarged from an amhrotype made about 1850 and furnished by her niece, Lucy E. 
 
 Anthony, of May /an. Pa. The photograph is by William Sherivell Ellis 
 This picture shows Miss Anthony as she looked when she first went into reform 
 work. She was then, as lier old friends say, a "seasoned school-ma'am." She 
 followed faithfully her own creed for reformers; "Cautious, careful people, always 
 casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing:, can never bring- 
 atout a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing: to be anything 
 or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, 
 avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their 
 advocates, and bear the consequences" 
 
MRS. ANTOINETTE BROWN BLACKWELL 
 
 'graph by Dana of Ne'vj York, taken in 1898 and fum 
 Blacktvell 
 
 Mrs. Blackwell was the first woman preacher from Oberlin College 
 
 From a photograph by Dana of Ne'vj York, taken in 1898 and furnished by Mrs. 
 
 Blacktvell 
 
 which they did not exploit. They searched 
 the country for examples of injustice which 
 they used as texts. Every woman who did 
 anything out of the usual was at once dragged 
 into the arena as proof of their theories or as 
 a new recruit for the platform. It was not 
 only the laws governing the women, her 
 chances of education, her political position 
 they sought to improve. They fought to free 
 her from corsets and long skirts, to reform her 
 kitchen and laundry, to get her into the open 
 air, to give her a separate pocketbook, to se- 
 cure her better wages, to encourage her to 
 travel alone. And there was no new idea, no 
 fresh suggestion which might help in any way 
 to give her freer life that they did not seize 
 478 
 
 on and try to apply. Some of them became 
 Grahamites, and ate its dry and unattractive 
 foods. They nearly all took or recommended 
 the "water cure." Combe and his phren- 
 ology were generally accepted. Mrs. Stanton 
 even went so far once as to choose a cook 
 "phrenologically." The woman had a "large 
 head, with great bumps of caution and order, 
 the eyes were large, soft and far apart." 
 Therefore, she was a treasure. It was only 
 when she had carelessly leaned the baby 
 against a hot stove that Mrs. Stanton was 
 persuaded that even science failed in the 
 matter of cooks. 
 
 The worst effect of their lawless catholicity 
 was the strains and breaks it continually 
 
ERNESTINE LOUISE ROSE 
 
 From the original lithograph dranMn on stone from life by Louis Grozelier and 
 
 oivned by the National American Woman's Suffrage Association, through ivhose 
 
 courtesy it is reproduced 
 
 Mrs. Rose was a Polish reformer and lecturer who for many years ga\'e her 
 services to the liberal movement in the United States 
 
 caused in their ranlis. Many women who 
 would have fought for their civil and pohtical 
 rights would not work with abolitionists and 
 a negro woman. 
 
 Ernestine Rose, who naturally became one 
 of the strong campaigners for the movement, 
 could not .sit silent and hear Antoinette Brown 
 prove from the Bible that man was wrong in 
 his attitude toward women, since one of 
 her reasons for discarding the Biljle was the 
 narrowness of the Christian church toward 
 women, and Miss Brown could not keep silent 
 when Mrs. Rose was unorthodox. Phillips 
 and Garrison and other good friends de- 
 
 plored the bloomers, though they did not 
 abandon the movement as others did because 
 of them. 
 
 Not a few women were shocked out of the 
 ranks by the protest Lucy Stone and Henry 
 Blackwell signed in 1855 when they were 
 married. This protest, which was printed 
 and widely circulated, stated that in marrying 
 they did not accept or promise obedience to 
 laws which made a woman dependent on her 
 husband, a man master of his wife. Lucy 
 Stone also kept her own name. There was 
 nothing at that time on which the public was 
 more touchy than the Cfuestion of marriage, 
 
 479 
 
48o 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 and Lucy Stone's protest and the insistence 
 
 on her own name was more than many could 
 
 accept. 
 
 Perhaps the divorce question caused more 
 
 trouble than any other the women admitted. 
 
 Mrs. Stanton had this much at heart, and in 
 
 i860, at the tenth National Convention at 
 
 Cooper Institute, 
 
 introduced reso- 
 lutions declaring 
 
 that under cer- 
 tain conditions 
 
 divorce was jus- 
 tifiable. She had 
 
 the entire sym- 
 pathy of ]\Iiss 
 
 Anthony, Mrs. 
 
 Mott and many 
 
 others in this 
 
 move, but it 
 
 alienated some of 
 
 their best friends 
 
 and supporters, 
 
 among them 
 
 Wendell Phillips, 
 
 and the only two 
 
 true friends 
 
 among the New 
 
 York n e w s p a - 
 
 pers. As one of 
 
 their supporters 
 
 wrote them: 
 
 "You broke the 
 
 very heart of the 
 
 p o r 1 1 v Evening 
 
 Post and nearly 
 
 drove theTrihiiiic 
 
 to the grave." 
 The necessity 
 
 of fighting their 
 
 way in face of a 
 
 hostile press and 
 
 pulpit, the multitude of reforms crowding one 
 
 another on their platform, the number of their 
 
 own specific "wrongs," the financial and phys- 
 ical difficulties attendin"; all their campaignmg, 
 
 the continual wrangl^i caused by the mtroduc- 
 
 tion of some doctrine or cause irrelevant to their 
 
 particular work but still a human cause — all 
 
 this kept the work of these early )'ears turbu- 
 lent, chaotic and confused. Under the stress 
 
 of the work, the tempers of the leaders were called in shocked accents the conduct of An- 
 
 sometimes anything but serene, their manners toinette Brown in refusing to sit down al the 
 
 ^^'orld's Tem]ierance Convention, and when 
 the rebuke was finished the ladies filed out. 
 "After they had disappeared," says Mrs. Gage 
 in reporting the incident, "never before and 
 perhaps never since have I had greater liberty 
 in relieving my mind." 
 
 SOJOURNER TRUTH— "THE I.HJVAN SIBYL" 
 
 T//is portrait is redrn'^vn from the n.v0Oiftiit ^vf/ii/i 7)utkcs the 
 
 frontispiece of Sojourner 's o-'vn uarrati'-^'e of her hj'e 
 liorn a sla\'e late in tlie IStli century, Sojom-ner was eman- 
 cipated in 1827 hy the State of New York. She became a 
 ^vanderin^ exhorter and for many years exerted enorni(.)iis in- 
 fluence as a speaker. She ii\'ed to be o\'er lUU ) ears of ai^-e 
 
 The most discouraging thing they had to 
 face was the attitude of their own se.x. They 
 and their sympathizers were but a handful 
 when the whole number of women was con- 
 sidered. Their cause spread, but it spread 
 slowly. To the vast majority it was all an 
 incomprehensible performance which amused, 
 
 bewildered or 
 shocked them. It 
 was not an infre- 
 cjuent e.xperience 
 of those who cir- 
 culated petitions 
 to have a door 
 slammed in their 
 face with a curt, 
 "Got all the 
 rights I want." 
 Miss Anthony 
 and other speak- 
 ers tell of the 
 sneering com- 
 ments of women 
 which attended 
 their efforts to 
 speak on the 
 same platform 
 with men. "Dis- 
 graceful,'' 
 "Ashamed of my 
 sex," often came 
 to their ears. At 
 a temperance 
 convention at 
 Dayton, Ohio, in 
 I S 5 3 , where 
 Frances Gage 
 had begun to 
 speak, she was 
 interrupted by 
 a column of well- 
 dressed ladies 
 filing in two b\- two and spreading themselves 
 in a half-circle before the platform and asking 
 to be heard. Permission was granted, and 
 their spokesman proceeded to inform the con- 
 vention that she was delegated by a meeting of 
 Dayton ladies to read a remonstrance against 
 "the unseemly and unchristian position" of 
 women who had assumed to call a convention 
 and speak on a platform before men. She re- 
 
 anvthing l)ut pleasant. If there was hardness 
 and self-assertion and bitterness at times it was 
 inevitable. The only wonder is that they 
 could have continued so long to force their 
 way as they were obliged to, and have been so 
 generally controlled and good-tempered. 
 
Richard Watson Gilder. By William Aspenwall Bradley 481 
 
 It was this attitude of the mass of women, 
 unsympathetic and often contemptuous as it 
 was, that made the position of the militant 
 woman hardest in the '4p's and '50's. She was 
 then, and always has been, a tragic figure, this 
 woman in the front of the woman's movement 
 — driven by a great unrest, sacrificing old 
 ideals to attain new, losing herself in a frantic 
 'and frequently blind struggle, often putting 
 back her cause by the sad illustration she was 
 of the price that must be paid to attain a result. 
 It was, and is, common to speak slightingly of 
 her, but it is uncomprehending. Certainly no 
 woman who to-day takes it as a matter of 
 course that she should study what she chooses, 
 go and come as she will, support herself un- 
 questioned by trade, profession or art, work 
 in public or private, handle her own property, 
 share her children on equal terms with her 
 husband, receive a respectful attention on 
 platform or before legislature, live freely in the 
 world, should think with anything but rever- 
 ence of these splendid early disturbers of con- 
 vention and peace, for they were an essential 
 element in the achievement. There is no 
 home in the land which has not a better 
 chance for happiness, no child which does not 
 come into a better heritage, no woman who is 
 not less narrow, no man who is not less bigoted 
 because of the impetus their struggle and 
 
 sacrifice gave to the emancipation of the sex. 
 If the advocates of Woman's Rights were 
 misunderstood by women, they certainly 
 misunderstood their opponents. The American 
 woman of 1840 and 1850, whatever her civil 
 and political position, her educationa' dis- 
 advantages, her social humiliation, was ly no 
 means the nonentity as a class that exclusive 
 reading of the suffrage literature of the time 
 would lead one to suppose. She was a woman 
 who still held to the fine traditions of the 
 woman of 1776, managing large domestic 
 affairs with an executi\'e ability not unlike thac 
 which men give to large business affairs. In 
 cities and towns and country kept alive fine 
 social feelings, who was busy organizing and 
 administe.ring great humanitarian enterprises, 
 who guarded moral standards, holding her 
 husband and children to them? Nor was 
 she hopelessly non-progressive. She had de- 
 veloped and was rapidly extending a system 
 of national education for girls as well as boys; 
 she had built up a system of higher schools for 
 girls, which, if they offered less Latin and 
 mathematics than boys' colleges, gave much 
 more thorough intellectual training than any 
 schools for girls devised up to that time. She 
 was a real person, one of genuine achievement. 
 Why did she shun the movement for Woman's 
 Rights? 
 
 RICHARD WATSON GILDER 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM ASPENWALL BRADLEY 
 
 Our gentle poet never dwelt apart. 
 
 Self-centered, in some lofty ivory tower; 
 He did not sit at ease and bide the hour 
 
 When peace should reign and greed forsake the mart. 
 
 No walls enclosed the garden of his art; 
 The gardener, oft neglectful of that bower, 
 Left free to wander many a wilding flower 
 
 Sown by his soul, and watered by his heart. 
 
 But lo, a miracle, the garden grew 
 
 Until it gained the borders of the town, 
 
 Surged up the stone-paved streets and filled the square. 
 
 It was as if where'er he went he drew 
 The magic, brought a bit of heaven down, 
 
 To cleanse the city's sin-polluted air. 
 
JIMSIE BATE AND THE 
 FURNACE FIRE 
 
 BY 
 
 MARY HEATON VORSE 
 
 AUTHOR OF JIMSIE'S AFTERNOON' OFF 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS BY DAVID ROBINSON 
 
 IT was Louise who started the day wrong. 
 Jimsie Bate would have taken his oath on 
 that to his dying day. There are some 
 things no fellow can stand, and one of 
 them is to have his wife say to him before his 
 eyes are fairly open on a' cold morning in the 
 beginning of winter, ana to have her say it too 
 in that tone of deadly patience that would 
 make you want to bat ia the archangel Gabriel 
 head: 
 
 "I suppose the fuAace tire has gone o\^, as 
 usual!" 
 
 At this Jimsie biitied his face in 
 My gracious, he supposed it had ; andif would 
 be up to him to bu/ld it up ! And thenp, instead 
 of being sorry foff him, was Loui^ blaming 
 him — yes, actualK' blaming him 
 
 "Why," pursiMp Louise, still inTthat patient 
 tone, "why, Jinffiie, do you su^ose that fur- 
 nace fire always goes out?" jEe ended on a 
 plaintive note. 
 
 Now that was a cheerful ■^^y to wake up in 
 the morning, wasn't it? tlere he'd got to 
 catch the 7.42, and that m/ant he would have 
 to leave the house half ai/hour before, and it 
 took fifteen minutes at /he shortest to build 
 up a fire in that unspeafkable daughter of the 
 devil that was even nJw waiting for him with 
 the derisive fireless gpde. 
 
 "I think you'd/ better hurry, Jimsie," 
 Louise took up, "if you're to get the fire 
 built." 
 
 "Don't you suppose I know it?" barked 
 Jimsie. Louise winced as if he had struck 
 her. 
 
 Jimsie closed his mouth tight. It would 
 have done him a world of good to have let out 
 a good round mouthful of resonant impreca- 
 tions at Louise just as if she'd been one of the 
 fellows. If the world was so arranged that 
 one could just open one's mouth when one's 
 wife began on a day like this: 
 
 "Why in the name of the couldn't she 
 
 shut her mouth up anywa}-, and that he'd 
 
 be everlastingly with a f r before 
 
 he'd build another fire in the fur- 
 nace." '/ 
 yThus fortified, Jimsie felt he could have 
 fcisen gaily and built a/1-oaring fire Wihout 
 ^any trouble. That's wh&t made life ^th the 
 fellows easy, he realized^ You coul^uss 'em 
 out good when they /acted like ^ckasses — 
 your wife you could/'t. WomeoT had to be 
 handled with tact,/hat was ^at was the 
 matter with them, /verlastingl^handled with 
 tact. On an early December morning with 
 the 7.42 to catclyand a fuMace fire to build, 
 you had to handle them -wrth tact even when 
 they spoke to you in marjyred tones. 
 
 These wer^' the thMghts that occupied 
 Jimsie Bate during hi^ath. They occupied 
 him so thordhghly th^ as he came back into 
 his own roan shive^g he inadvertently em- 
 phasized tjfe thougjft by slamming the door 
 behind his 
 
 Louisej^vas sitt^g in the same mournful at- 
 titude i^ which /e had left her. It flashed 
 througl^imsie'»mind, as his eye rested upon 
 his wif/ that if/hat ^^■as the way the Christian 
 martyis acted Ae could understand Nero's at- 
 titude toward/ them. It flashed through hi^ 
 minaf also, *at he had seen her sitting thai 
 way/ before/ and had thought, her touching 
 an« pictur«qufr— a little blue dressing sack 
 thnpwn o\jfr her shoulders, her fair hair in 
 chferming disorder, and that quivering look of 
 a hurt litle girl on her pretty face. Yes, sir, 
 he had actually thought it was touching. The 
 corner of his mouth took a cynical curve; he 
 began to dress himself rapidly. 
 
 Louise spoke again in that hurt, reproach- 
 ful voice with which your wife knows so well 
 how to annoy you: 
 
 "You needn't be so cross, Jimsie, just be- 
 
THE AMERICAN WOMAN 
 
 THOSE WHO DID NOT FIGHT 
 
 BY 
 
 IDA M. TARBELL 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS COLLECTED FOR THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE 
 BY CHARLES HENRY HART 
 
 WHAT was the American woman 
 doing in the '40'sand 'so's that she 
 went on her way so serenely while 
 a few of her sex struggled and suf- 
 ered to gain for her what they believed to be her 
 rights ? Was she too dull or too ignorant to un- 
 derstand her own wrongs ? Was she so tightly 
 bound by man's chains that she dared not raise 
 her voice ? If one confined his survey of her field 
 to the history of the movement, one would be 
 justified in believing both. But, as a matter of 
 fact, the American woman of the '40's and '50's 
 failed to be swept into the Woman's Rights move- 
 ment in any general fashion for quite other rea- 
 sons — reasons, on the whole, simple and noble. 
 She was too occupied with preserving and devel- 
 oping the great traditions of life she had inherited 
 and accepted. She was firmly convinced that 
 these traditions were the best the world had so 
 far developed, not merely for women, but for 
 society. She did not deny that women had not 
 the full opportunity they should have, but, as 
 she saw it, no more did men. She saw civil and 
 educational arid social changes going on about 
 her. She feared their coming too fast rather 
 than too slow, and as men do, in all ages, she 
 held to the great traditions, honoring them and , 
 viewing with- watchful and generally suspicious 
 eye all sweeping movements for change. 
 
 And it was no unworthy thing that she wa? 
 doing. Take that part of her life so often spoke^ 
 of with contempt — her social life. Those v^'^ 
 would pass society by as a frivolous and ^^' 
 worthy institution are- those who have J^^^^'^ 
 learned its real functions — who confus? . *"^ 
 selfish business of amusement with the s-"°^^ 
 task of providing an intimate circle for f''^ '^^^ 
 exchange of ideals and of service, for stiP^^J^^ 
 and enjoyment. It is through society tl!^* t"^ 
 quickening of mind and heart best comes about 
 —that the nature is aroused, the fancy height- 
 ened. It is the very foundatioir'of civilizatiC" 
 656 f 
 
 society. The church a,nd tne stafc* worK through 
 it. Morals are made and un^made in it. Ideas 
 find life or death there, '^■■•veiy community, big 
 or little, is what its so'^iety is — dull, unwise, 
 ambitionless; alert, '^'flappy, achieving. And 
 since civilization begjan to develop, what society 
 is has depended on "women. Any man or woman 
 who will search '^is experience can find proof of 
 the statement.' Recall the American towns of 
 to-day you kfiow and you will find, if you really 
 know, that t'-^iose in which traditions of temper- 
 ance, cour'iesy, dignity and thrift rule are held 
 to their standards by some woman or group of 
 women. Take a town of corrupt and extrava- 
 gant habits and it's the women who set the 
 pace a'-i'i follow it. In the period we are con- 
 siderii^g there were several women in the 
 United States exercising large influence through 
 their individual circles. They are part and 
 parc-sl of the development of the American 
 ■^yo-man, and in their careers is to be found one 
 j-e.ason why the militant movement for Women's 
 p.ights remained a struggling cause. 
 
 To select the women who are the most per- 
 fect examples of this kind of social activity is 
 "not easy. It means passing by many who de- 
 serve to be remembered, but the writer is not 
 trying to make a biographical dictionary. She 
 simply aims to illustrate by well-chosen types 
 the activities, interests and tendencies of the 
 women in the period considered. And for any 
 one at all familiar with the social life of the 
 '46's and '50's there will be no question of the 
 propriety of choosing Mrs. Harrison Gray 
 Otis of Boston, a woman who, after a seven 
 years' residence abroad, boldly undertook the 
 task of lifting the social life of Boston from its 
 old ruts of pretentious formality and exclusive- 
 ness, of breaking up its stiffness and self-satis- 
 faction. Only an independent and courageous 
 spirit would have dared such an enterprise. 
 Mrs. Otis had such, as Boston well enough 
 
Fold out 
 
The Cabin: Stewart Edward White 
 
 65s 
 
 parently of almost an equal height. Yet there 
 is one, far distant, that, either because it 
 stands directly opposite a chance opening in 
 the east, or because it really is taller than its| 
 neighbors, is bathed to its waist in golden 
 sunlight before any of the others have caught 
 a single ray. Therefore it is known as the 
 Dawn Tree. 
 
 Inch by inch the sunlight descends, until 
 
 ihe forest is bathed in light, every aisle and 
 
 '-ket of it, a golden-green light seen at no 
 
 time of day. Then indeed the life 
 
 lodland is at high tide. All the 
 
 -^ut, and the birds after them. 
 
 a voice has something to say, 
 
 ^ay it. The freshness of 
 
 n» ^d the exhilaration of a 
 
 bran<_ 
 
 In thi. '-^^ 
 
 are many p. 
 entirely in the , 
 scendipg below ti. 
 branches. Others in. 
 while stiU a third class i^ 
 tween the lower limbs ana 
 sides all these are the disti 
 dweller'^, such as the quail a 
 families. 
 
 Birds are in one respect a rem 
 placent race. Each species has ■ 
 of doing thitigs, from which it 1. 
 no matte* how overwhelmingly un 
 example set by other species all 
 And the examples are numerous « 
 close enou*gh, o^e would think, t 
 least the y(Xinges\ and 
 most ente Wising: to 
 try a new way of doing 
 things, if only to si^e 
 how it seen\s. B 
 no; the conduct of life 
 has been settlqd ages 
 ago, there remains only 
 the pleasant task of fill- 
 ing the frame with as 
 much brightness and 
 joyous color as possi- 
 ble. "No," says young 
 Master Thrush, ' ' sing- 
 ing to the new risen sun 
 from the very, tip of a 
 big fir may be very 
 pleasant, and may do 
 very well for Robins; 
 but none of us would 
 think of it for a mo- 
 ment! And Magnolia 
 Warblers are undoubt- 
 edly very worthy 
 
 of the forest 
 
 '^'^ome dwell 
 
 "^rely de- 
 
 ^ost 
 
 \e- 
 
 i- 
 
 ■e 
 
 /.. 
 
 people; but none of our set ever wears a yellow 
 spot on the rump." Among human beings 
 extreme conservatism usually means also a 
 glooriy and cheerless outlook on life. Here 
 are c reatures more settled in their ways than 
 the C hinese themselves, yet able to preserve 
 also 1 free and joyous spirit. 
 
 On this account our Robins amuse us im- 
 lensaly. They are of course accustomed by 
 radition immemorial to close-clipped green 
 lawns. Well watered, with shade trees, con- 
 sapatomes, vines, gravel drives, angle-worms 
 anu clipped hedges. In these surroundings 
 theKelf-rSspecting Robin can do himself justice. 
 WeXall Htaow how well he lives up to his 
 statian inVife — three or four proud hops for- 
 wards break swelled, head back, aspect noble; 
 the os\entattous and theatrical cocking of the 
 head sraewisV over a wormy looking spot; the 
 sudden ViabjUhe braced legs, the reluctant 
 worm, me tAumphant pose as the victim 
 comes avs^y- \t is as well done as is the knee 
 action of me hoVses brought to the door. Not 
 every Robin canXhave his setting as elaborate 
 as he mighft wishM)ut at least he has reason 
 to expect somethinV in the way of a well-kept 
 sward. 
 
 Up here theJe are \o lawn-mowers, no lawn, 
 no angle-worms, ncX nothing. We cannot 
 support a sLngld RobiX in the style to which 
 he has been actustonifed. Nevertheless our 
 Robins, in place M goina seedy and losing in- 
 \terest, as so many^ peopl* do in the circum- 
 ;st of ik Not a ceremony 
 latter Vhat the lawn is 
 only the meadow grass 
 cropped down 'by the 
 ^ horses, it is emerald 
 green; what matter if 
 there are no angle- 
 Vorms at all, one can 
 auitudinize just as 
 cakefuUy over any old 
 dod^ebug. Our Rob- 
 ins hold as rigidly to 
 the good form of angle- 
 worming as any fox 
 hunter to the rules of 
 the game, even when 
 the prosaic anise seed 
 replaces the living 
 quarry. I respect the 
 Robins for that, and 1 
 must confess that 
 their touching efforts 
 to make our front 
 yard look aristocratic 
 sometimes almost 
 succeed. 
 
 stances, make the 
 is omitted. What 
 
MRS. HARRISON GRAY OTIS 
 
 From the lifc-si%e portrait by George P. A. Hea/y, oirneJ by the Bostoiiian Society and on exhibition in 
 
 the Old State House of Boston 
 
 This purtrait shows Mrs. Otis in her famous old lace and purple velvet — the costume which she wore 
 in 186U at the ball given to the then Prince of Wales, the present King of England 
 
6s8 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 knew from its memories of her in the '20's and 
 early '30's. In her youth, as Elizabeth Board- 
 man, the daughter of one of Boston's richest 
 merchants, she had been a famous beauty and 
 belle. 
 
 Miss Boardman had married a nephew of 
 James Otis and of Mercy Otis Warren, Harri- 
 son Gray Otis. A few years later she was left 
 a widow with three sons. According to the 
 gossip of the day she was a dashing enough 
 widow. She was accused of "dancing and dis- 
 playing" from Boston to Washington, and 
 numbering in her train even men like Daniel 
 Webster and Henry Clay. But in 1835 she 
 left her followers and took her sons to Europe 
 for study. To a woman of her alert mind and 
 buoyant, friendly nature, life abroad is a great 
 enrichment. Mrs. Otis mastered several lan- 
 guages. She circulated freely in various sets 
 in various countries. She interested herself in 
 all sorts of activities. She came back to Boston 
 alive to the tips of her fingers, too much alive, 
 she at once discovered, for the upper circle 
 where she belonged. Its social machinery was 
 of the heavy, portly, self-complacent kind. It 
 operated ponderously and expensively, and it 
 opened its doors'only to the elect. An experi- 
 ence of a few years jin the flexible, lively, stim- 
 ulating, intellectual circles of Europe had given 
 Mrs. Otis convirLcing proof of what a woman 
 might do for a community if. she handled a 
 social circle with brains and independence, and 
 she set out at once to build- up in her home a 
 society where naturalness and simplicity ruled. 
 
 She first attacked the machinery. Elabo- 
 rate dinners for the elders, ball's for the 
 younger set — these, were the accepted func- 
 tions. Eating was' -a chief business at all 
 gatherings. Chartes Dickens speaks particu- 
 larly of the suppers -at parties, an invariable 
 feature of which was "two mighty bowls 
 of hot stewed oysters, in any one of which 
 a half-grown Duke of Clarence might be 
 smothered easily;"; There was little infor- 
 mal visiting, and'-calling by women was done 
 largely in the morning. There were practically 
 no regular evenings or days at home. Mrs. 
 Otis swept all of, this machinery out of her 
 house — eschewed-Junctions and banquets and 
 balls. Instead, slie threw her house open 
 every Saturday morning and every Thursday 
 evening to all her set — and many more. No 
 rising young writer or singer or artist, no 
 attractive man or woman of any rank who fell 
 in Mrs. Otis's way who was not welcomed. 
 Foreigners naturally sought her house because 
 of its familiar ways. A big, wide-awake, in- 
 formal circle was soon about her. Her open 
 house was made easy by a system of refresh- 
 
 ments which left Boston agape. The "mighty 
 bowls of hot stewed oysters " Mrs. Otis dared to 
 drop. She substituted tea and cakes. No mat- 
 ter v/hat the occasion, tea and cakes were all 
 you got to eat in the lively circle at the corner of 
 Mount Vernon and Joy streets. For years it 
 was related with a gasp that at the opening of 
 the Boston and Montreal road, although Mrs. 
 Otis kept her house open for a week — enter- 
 taining President Fillmore, Lord Elgin and 
 many other dignitaries — "tea and cakes" it 
 was and nothing else! 
 
 Her innovations, founded as they were on 
 good sense and a genuine love of people and 
 ideas, were a success from the start. Boston 
 society was limbered up, enlivened and liber- 
 ated in a way hardly believable. The theory 
 on which she worked she embodied in a story, 
 "The Barclays of Boston," which, if not ex- 
 actly literature, is nevertheless a valuable docu- ■ 
 ment on the manners and customs of Boston in 
 her time and the way by which, in her judg- 
 ment, its life was to be made more genuine and 
 enjoyable. Here, for example, are some bits 
 of her social wisdom: 
 
 "From the first days of their mafriage, Mr. and 
 Mrs. Barclay were always at home in the evening, 
 cheerful and happy, and delighted to see pleasant 
 faces around them. This being perfectly understood, 
 and also, from its great rarity, extremely appreciated, 
 there was no lack of visitors. Indeed, no one can 
 exaggerate the value of such a house as theirs had 
 always been in a community where so few are opened 
 in the same way. They conferred a great social bless- 
 ing on many who, having no ties of kindred, looked 
 upon their fireside as an oasis in the desert; their 
 house was, also, a resource for strangers; they re- 
 ceived all the nobilities who passed through the city, 
 and thereby derived a very signal advantage from 
 foreign intercourse, which does a vast deal, in America, 
 toward rubbing off the dust collected by describing, 
 diurnally, the same circle of opinions and feelings. 
 
 "Everything was in daily use in Mrs. Barclay's 
 home; she had no one article of table equipage that 
 was better than another, and this saved a world of 
 trouble, time and temper, the tvyo latter of dominant 
 importance in all households; for, if there is a bit of 
 porcelain that excels -another, it is sure never to be 
 forthcoming, in. an American establishment, when it 
 is most, required. Her dinners were excellent, and 
 served unpretendingly, she having no desire to ape 
 foreign fashions with a few servants, and to adopt the 
 affectatioft of forcing three waiters to perform the serv- 
 ice of thirty. If any shortcomings occurred, tliey were 
 never perceived, or commented upon, simply because 
 there was no ostentatious pretension. 
 
 "Mr. Barclay, being eminently hospitable, invited 
 his friends freely; his wife gave them a gracious wel- 
 come, and he a hearty one; and their guests were not 
 confined to the prosperous and those who revelled in 
 luxuries, but embraced poor scholars, artists, and 
 others, to whom a well-appointed repast was a boon 
 indeed, and the charm of social intercourse a greater 
 one still." 
 
PHOEBE ANN RIDGWAV 
 
 [MRS. JAMKS rush] 
 
 From the orii^inal miniature bequeathed bv her husband. Dr. James Rush, to the RidtcTvar Branch of the 
 Library Companv of Philadelphia, through ivhose courtesy it is here reproduced. This is the only 
 
 kno-ivn portrait of Mrs. Rush, and ivas taken soon after her marriage 
 One of Mrs, Rush's contemporaries met the frequent criticism of the high hand the lady took in 
 Philadelphia with this comment: "This community requires despotism to move it from its 
 frig-iditv. There must be one sovereign, the appointed of fashion, the layer-down of law Partly 
 from charity, partly from ambition, this large-hearted and energetic woman took^into her own 
 hands the reins of government and has shown herself a second Semiramis 
 
 All of which sounds genial and certainly is 
 good sense. Apphed as Mrs. Otis applied it, 
 the results were altogether beneficent and 
 stimulating. 
 
 In a more formal and less original way the 
 stimulus iMrs. Otis applied to Boston's cum- 
 bersome social life, Mrs. James Rush applied 
 in Philadelphia in this same period. She, too, 
 
 had learned social democracy abroad— where 
 American women are still frequently obliged to 
 go to learn it — and refused to be fettered by 
 Philadelphia customs and exclusions. She had 
 been born abroad, so that in spite of her Quaker 
 parentage European social traditions came 
 naturally. She was a lover of conversation and 
 exceedingly brilliant as well as well-informed 
 
 6S9 
 

 
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 l-OUR TYPICAL AMERICAN SOCIETY LEADERS 
 
 ELIZABETH MOSS-WILCOX-ASHLEY 
 
 [MRS JOHN J. CRITTENDEN OF MISSOURI 
 AND WASHINGTON, D. C] 
 
 Enlarged from a carte-de-visite negative by M. B. 
 
 Brady, Washington, 1861, in the collection of 
 
 Frederick H. Meserve, New York 
 
 JANE M. CRAIG 
 
 [MRS. MCHOLAS BIDDLE OF PHILADELPHIA] 
 
 Erom the original portrait by Thomas Sully, 1827, 
 owned by her son, Judge Craig Biddle, Phila- 
 delphia, through whose courtesy it is here re- 
 produced 
 
 and philosophical in it. Her husband, one of 
 the great physicians of his day and a man of 
 wide cultivation, a student, sought by all ^vho 
 were worth while here and abroad, gave her a 
 splendid field in which to exercise her social 
 genius. 
 
 Mrs. Rush introduced a machinery of her 
 own. Among other things a "day." To be 
 always at home to callers, to spend all vour 
 mornings in visiting, was wasteful, she de- 
 clared. She wanted her time protected for 
 her books, her music, her household. Then she 
 made a kind of reception of her afternoon 
 promenade; indeed, to walk to the river with 
 Mrs. Rush of an afternoon became a much- 
 sought-for privilege. IMiss Anne Wharton, who 
 has written fully and authentically of iNIrs. 
 Rush, gathering her facts first hand from the 
 family and her friends, sa\-s of these walks: 
 
 "Men and women, still in the |irinii' of life, distinctly 
 recall the rubicund face and portly form of Mrs. Rush 
 as she appeared on the street while taking her vigorous 
 constitutional. One person remembers her in a crim- 
 son silk gown, which may ha^-e served to throw her 
 far too brilliant complexion into the shade, while still 
 another recalls the stout figure of the lady of fashion, 
 enveloped in a green velvet 'mantilla,' as she stood 
 upon the sidewalk enjoying raw oysters, in a truly 
 democratic fashion, at Tatem's famous oyster-stand 
 on Twelfth Street near Spruce." 
 
 66o 
 
 Mrs. Rush's dinners and receptions were 
 affairs of state. She took these gatherings seri- 
 ously and studied to bring together an inter- 
 esting crowd. ]\Iiss ^^'harton sa\s ^Nlrs. Rush's 
 recipe for making up a party ran: "An ex- 
 president, a foreign minister, a poet, two or 
 three American artists, as many lady authors, 
 a dozen merchants, lawyers, physicians, and 
 others who are there on the simple footing of 
 gentlemen — their wives, who come as respectable 
 and agreeable 'ladies' — fifty young men who 
 are good beaux and dance well, fift\' pretty girls 
 without money but respectable, well dressed, 
 lively, charming, are always indispensable at a 
 party." Certainly the lists of her visitors which 
 Miss Wharton has made out from an exam- 
 ination of the visiting cards preserved in the 
 Rush family show that she actually succeeded 
 in bringing together this ambitious and catholic 
 society. Her gatherings were alwa\s carried 
 off with much ceremony, elaborate refresh- 
 ments, costly dressing, but this was but her 
 frame. :Mrs. Rush's great point was the talk. 
 
 The effect in a community of such a circle is 
 incalculable. It starts a ' hundred lines of 
 thought, it works for suppleness and breadth of 
 opinion, it breaks down prejudices and caste. 
 It is the great mixing bowl of 'a tow n. There is 
 
o 
 
 n 
 
 o 
 
 K 
 
 D 
 
 D 
 
 D 
 
 OF THE FIRST HALF OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 CORNELIA VAN NESS 
 
 [MRS. JAMES J. ROOSEVFXT OF NU.W YORK 
 AND WASHINGTON, D. C] 
 
 This portrait is from an engraving in Ellct's 
 
 " Oacens of American Society " and is the only 
 
 portrait of Mrs. Roose\'elt available 
 
 no activity of a community, political, social 
 ]3hilanthropic, educational, artistic, which does 
 not receive impulses from circles made up as 
 Mrs. Rush did hers on the base of character 
 and achievement. 
 
 And these circles, sometimes very small and 
 inconspicuous to be sure, existed everywhere 
 in the United States at that time. Many of 
 them were gathered about the girls who came 
 from Emma Willard's Seminary at Troy. 
 Mrs. Willard was herself a great social leader. 
 She placed the same strong emphasis on cere- 
 mony, elegance in dress and manner, beauty of 
 setting, that Mrs. Rush did, and she insisted 
 in the same wav on welcoming brains and skill 
 to her circle. She, too, had much line demo- 
 cratic svmpathy. The life at the Seminary 
 reflected in those years in a rather unusual way 
 the strong social instincts of its great founder. 
 Girls went out from there with serious social 
 ideals and with ideas of both the opportunity 
 for wholesome influence and the responsibility 
 which lies in a home, however simple. All over 
 the country their effect was felt. It is a mistake 
 to take it for granted that outside of the great 
 cities there were not in the '40's and '50's any 
 stimulating social circles in this country. The 
 unilnishcd state of the towns, the diflicult com- 
 
 CAROLINE CRANE 
 
 [^U^S. GEORGE p. MARSH OK WASHINGTON. D. C] 
 
 From the original drawing by Eastman Jolmson, 
 
 ]848, and reproduced for the first time througii 
 
 the courtesy of Mrs. Eastman Johnson, New 
 
 York 
 
 munications, the ugliness and Ijarrenness of the 
 outside of things, the lack of schools and books, 
 the necessity for continuous hard work in order 
 to earn a living, all of these features of the life 
 have been so emphasized that much that was 
 enjoyable and stimulating has been overlooked. 
 Certainly Cincinnati and Louisville in these 
 years were active intellectual centers. The 
 group of peo])le which the Beechers joined 
 when Lyman Beecher went to Cincinnati in the 
 '30's was able, serious and important. Take a 
 town like Springfield, Illinois, to which Lin- 
 coln went to live in 1837, and where he was 
 at first considerably disconcerted by what he 
 described as "the flourishing about in car- 
 riages." The women who led in its social life 
 were superior women, their homes were digni- 
 fied, their hospitality generous, and as for an 
 animated circle — think of what the quality of 
 talk must have been in the homes of Mrs. 
 Joshua Speed and Mrs. Ninian Edwards, when 
 they could gather at their table and at their 
 "parties," as they constantly did, such men as 
 the young Abraham Lincoln, Stephen A. Doug- 
 las, John J. Hardin, J^mcs Shields, the Ed- 
 wardses, John Stuart, David Davis, Edward 
 D. Baker — all men who were to distinguish 
 themselves in our history and some of whom 
 661 
 
662 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 were to lay down their lives for freedom. 
 With such men to handle what could a 
 group of women not do! And they exercised 
 their power. Springfield was one of the live- 
 liest places in the West intellectually. More- 
 over, the women over the entire state were 
 actively interested in politics and affairs. One 
 of the conspicuous features of the Lincoln and 
 Douglas debates 
 was the number of 
 women who at- 
 tended them. ■ 
 
 Through all of 
 the West, indeed, 
 there flowed a 
 spirit which made 
 up for everything 
 else. Carl Schurz, 
 in a beautiful 
 chapter of his 
 great Reminis- 
 cences, tells of the 
 Western society as 
 he found it in the 
 early '50's: 
 
 "Life in the 
 West," he says, 
 "especially away 
 from the larger 
 towns, lacked, in- 
 deed, the finer 
 enjoyments of 
 civilization to a 
 degree hard to 
 bear to those who 
 had been accus- 
 tomed to them, 
 and who did not 
 find a compensa- 
 tion in that which 
 gave to Western 
 life — and Ameri- 
 can life g;;:2rally 
 — i ts peculiar 
 charm : a warm 
 living interest in 
 the progressive ev- 
 olution constantly 
 
 ELIZABETH PALMER PEABODY 
 
 "THE GRANDMOTHER OK BOSTON" 
 
 From a pliotograph taken about 1S55 and loaned hy the 
 Elizaheih Peabody House of Boston 
 
 Miss Peabndy's persistency and skill in keeping an open 
 house for conversation was one of her real contributions 
 to Boston. Her little shop has been called "a kind of 
 Transcendental Exchange," but her home was the same. 
 She claimed to have been the first woman in Boston to 
 give up a regular evening to her friends. To the end of 
 her days, she kept about her a circle of the lively minded, 
 the liberal and the informed 
 
 politics. It was a definite program which 
 these women followed. They understood its 
 importance, respected the work, and gave them- 
 selves unflinchingly to meeting its difficulties. 
 It would be a mistake to take it for granted 
 that these women who gave themselves so seri- 
 ously to developing their circles had no outside 
 public interests. Take Mrs. Otis, for e.xample. 
 
 She was the busiest 
 of women in out- 
 side work. "If she 
 had been alive to- 
 day she w o u 1 d 
 have been absorb- 
 ed in the 19 15 
 movement," a de- 
 scendant of hers 
 declares I And so 
 she would; and in 
 settlements, lec- 
 tures, music, and 
 everything worth 
 while. From the 
 beginning of her 
 reestablishment in 
 Boston she inter- 
 ested herself in its 
 enterprises, philan- 
 thropic and public. 
 Her great patriotic 
 passion was 
 George A^'ashing- 
 ton. She found it 
 shocking that his 
 birthdav was not 
 observed — his 
 home at "Sit. \'er- 
 n o n in p r i \- a t e 
 hands — and she 
 undertook a cam- 
 paign in the in- 
 terests of both. 
 For years ^Irs. 
 Otis, resplendent 
 in purple velvet 
 and rare old lace, 
 opened her house 
 on Februarv 22, 
 from morning until 
 On this dav there 
 
 and rapidly going 
 
 on— the joy of gro'dih — die U'crdcliistf night, to the whole town 
 
 The women of the West were a part of this was something more than tea and cakes ofi'ered 
 
 growth— a conscious part. They always felt —the Boardman sherr^•s and ports, famous old 
 
 their responsibility in the Westward move- wines imported by Mrs. Otis' father, were on 
 
 the table for all who came. And everybody 
 came. Her reception was the center of the dav's 
 celebrating and every organization which pa- 
 raded made it a point to march by and salute or 
 serenade her — to the scandal of the conserva- 
 tives! It was her work that made the dav a 
 
 ment, the obligations which democracy laid 
 on them: the obligation of establishing the 
 home while the man established the town; of 
 looking after education while he looked after 
 the money to pay for it; of preserving and 
 developing morals, while he did the same for 
 
The American Woman: Ida M. Tarbell 
 
 663 
 
 leal holiday in ^Massachusetts, and gave the club undertakings do to-day. They were, on 
 strongest impulse toward making it a national the whole, one of the chief, if not the chief 
 day. It was natural, making a cult of Washing- opportunity for mixing in the town — since all 
 
 ton as she did, that she should have taken a 
 leading part in the enterprise of buj-ing Mt. 
 Vernon for a national monument. The money 
 which completed the purchase of this lovely spot 
 —one of the few places in this country where 
 the most irrelevant 
 and disorganized 
 of up-to-date 
 minds is for a mo- 
 ment at least 
 steadied and sol- 
 emnized — was 
 raised by a ball 
 engineered by 
 Mrs'. Otis, and 
 given in the Boston 
 theater on March 
 
 4, 1859- 
 
 This Mount 
 Vernon ball of 
 Mrs. Otis' is typ- 
 ical of a kind of 
 activity w h i c h 
 engrossed Ameri- 
 can women all 
 over the country 
 in those vears. 
 Fairs and balls for 
 this or that cause 
 were given on a 
 scale which we 
 rarely or never 
 hear of nowadays. 
 Boston saw one 
 especially famous 
 fair long before 
 Mrs. Otis' ball. 
 This was the 
 Monument fair of 
 1840 by which S30,- 
 000, the fund nec- 
 essary to complete 
 the Bunker Hill 
 Monument, w a s 
 raised. The success 
 
 SARAH MARGARET FULLER 
 
 [marchioness ossdtj] 
 
 From a miniature made about 1S40 and enlarged by Soulh- 
 ivortli and Haives of Boston 
 
 The only work nf importance which Margaret Fuller left 
 behind her was her essay, "Woman in the Nineteenth 
 Centui-y." It first apper.red in 1843 under the cumber- 
 some title, "The Great Law-suit; or Man vs. Men, 
 Woman vs. Women." The leg-ends she chose for 
 the title page contain the real heart of her argument; 
 they were: "Frailty thy name is woman,' 
 earth waits for her queen" 
 
 classes could and did patronize them. One 
 may deplore as much as he likes this method of 
 raising money. It is, of course, a bad way — 
 wasteful of strength and time, and often utterly 
 immoral in the jjetty trickery, wheedling and 
 
 swindling em- 
 ployed, but that 
 is not the cpes- 
 tion here. It 
 was the recog- 
 nized method of 
 the day for raising 
 money, just as 
 not so many years 
 earlier a lottery 
 had been. The 
 ] joint here is how 
 the women of the 
 country conducted 
 them. Everj'body 
 who has had ex- 
 perience in these 
 undertakings 
 must have been 
 struck with the 
 energy, self-sacri- 
 fice and superior 
 executive cjuality 
 which was put 
 into them. The 
 women of the '40's 
 and 'so's, in such 
 undertakings a s 
 the Mt. Vernon 
 ball and certain 
 great charity fairs 
 (notably one held 
 in 1856 in the 
 Crystal Palace of 
 New York for the 
 benefit of the hos- 
 pital of the Sisters 
 of Charity*), 
 showed publicly 
 that they were 
 capable of engi- 
 
 'The 
 
 ofthis fair, asof the 
 
 MountVernonball,wasdue largely to a woman neering dilScult and complicated enterprises, 
 
 —Mrs. Sarah Josepha Hale— the best known and that they were willing to sacrihce their own 
 
 editor at that time among American women. 
 A great deal of the money devoted to church, 
 school and charity in those years was raised 
 like the money for Mt. Vernon and Bunker Hill 
 Monument. The anti-slavery fairs were fam- 
 ous. Charitv balls and fairs were a feature of 
 every winter in every community. They drew 
 the women together in much the same way that 
 
 leisure, strength and means to the public good. 
 A phase of their efforts in this period gener- 
 ally overlooked is their struggle to make up for 
 their own lack of education as well as to pro- 
 vide schools to educate their daughters. The 
 
 * 83.1,000 was netted hy this fair It wus organized and 
 carried tlirotigh by Mrs. James W. White. See Ellet s 
 " Queens of American Society." 
 
664 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 touching testimony of Dr. Emerson, already 
 quoted,* as to the large number of women 
 advanced in years who entered his schools side 
 by side with young girls, is typical of the eager- 
 ness to know which prevailed through the 
 
 was then about thirty years old, with the repu- 
 tation, probably deserved, of being the most 
 learned woman in the country. She had more 
 interesting qualifications than learning — a 
 thirsty, searching mind, a hunger for beauty. 
 
 SARAH JOSEPHA HALE 
 
 Af'ler an {-Ni^rn-z'/ng of a [^ortrtiil hy T. Buchanan ReaJ^ ^ainleJ about 1S55 
 
 Mrs. Hale'.s litevar\' mitput was enormous, some twenty-two volumes bearing lier name as 
 
 editor or author. I'or forty consecutive years— 1837-1 877 — slie was in active editorial work. 
 
 (Mrs. Hale tlietl In 1879 ag"ed ninety-one >'ears. ) 
 
 country. It was this spirit which, as early 
 as the '20's and '30's, Isrought together audi- 
 ences for Frances \\'right and l-j-nestine Rose, 
 wherever they might go, and which later built 
 up the lecture lyceums. Yo\i could always get 
 an audience of women anywhere in the coun- 
 try then ax now. The most distinguished form 
 of intellectual work developed b)' a woman in 
 the period was no doubt Margaret Fuller 
 Ossoli's Conversations in Boston. iMargaret 
 
 *See The American Magazine for December, 1909. 
 
 a determination to express herself which no 
 obstacle could long stop — and with these quali- 
 ties a sense of duty as rigid as New England 
 ever produced. Her father had taken her edu- 
 cation upon himself when she was a child and 
 had driven her too hard, as she felt later. She 
 had mastered Latin and German. She had 
 read enormously. She became engrossed in the 
 transcendental philosophy of the dav and 
 forced her way to its leaders, beating down 
 Emerson's first dislike of her until they became 
 
The American Woman : Ida M. Tarbell 
 
 66s 
 
 intimates. With Dr. Clarke and Channing 
 and Alcott she became equally familiar. True, 
 a class of the Boston intellectual circle never 
 could abide her. Lowell, for example, felt very 
 much toward Margaret Fuller as Napoleon 
 toward Mme. de Stael, as Dr. Johnson toward 
 Mrs. Macaulay, and he ridiculed her rather 
 maliciously in the "Fable for Critics:" 
 
 " But there comes Miranda, Zeus ! where shall I flee to ? 
 She has such a penchant for bothering me too ! 
 She always keeps asking if I don't observe a 
 Particular likeness 'twixt her and Minerva. 
 
 She will take an old notion, and make it her own, 
 By saying it o'er in her sibylline tone, 
 Or persuade you 'tis something tremendously deep. 
 By repeating it so as to put you to sleep; 
 And she well may' defy any mortal to see through it. 
 When once she has mixed up her infinite me 
 through it. 
 
 But however irritating Margaret Fuller's 
 self-assertion, eagerness, and insistence on her 
 own discovery of world-old thoughts may 
 sometimes have been, she was a wonderfully 
 stimulating teacher and talker. Forced to 
 earn her living and help her family, she began 
 teaching. She tried writing, but it was not there 
 her power lay, as she knew very well. It lay in 
 conversation. She was interested in women, 
 felt as keenly as Mary WoUstonecraft the de- 
 fects of their education, and was philosopher 
 enough to see that the only real solution of 
 any social problem lies in education. It was 
 quite natural that she evolve the scheme of 
 talks or conversations for women. The sug- 
 gestions were well received by such women as 
 Elizabeth Peabody, Mrs. Emerson, Miss 
 Green, afterward Mrs. Wendell Phillips, and 
 Miss Maria White, afterward Mrs. Lowell, and 
 in November, 1839, the first gathering was held 
 in Miss Peabody's rooms. What she aimed at 
 she stated at the outset: 
 
 "Women are now taught, at school, all that men 
 are. They run over, superficially, even more studies, 
 without being really taught anything. But with this 
 difference: men are called on, from a very early 
 period, to reproduce all that they learn. Their college 
 exercises, their political duties, their professional 
 studies, the first actions of life in any direction, call on 
 them to put to use what they have learned. But 
 women learn without any attempt to reproduce. Their 
 only reproduction is for purposes of display. It is to 
 supply this defect that these conversations have been 
 planned." 
 
 She proposed: 
 
 "To pass in review the departments of thought and 
 knowledge and endeavor to place them in due relation 
 to one another in our minds; to systematize thought, 
 and give a precision and clearness in which our sex 
 are so deficient, chiefly, I think, because they have so 
 few inducements to test and classify what they receive." 
 
 A good deal of fun was poked at Margaret 
 Fuller's Conversations, which she continued 
 with increasing success for five years, but they 
 cannot be dismissed lightly. They were taken 
 seriously by serious women and were a power- 
 ful stimulus to a kind of intellectual activity 
 which has been gaining impetus ever since, and 
 which is rarely so well and authoritatively done 
 as by Margaret. The secret of her success 
 in these conversations lay, I think, in what 
 Ednah Cheney characterizes as "her power of 
 vitalizing all knowledge, by bringing it into 
 relation v.'ith life, not in its practical but in its 
 ideal aspects" — a power which has a mighty 
 hold on the mind of woman. 
 
 Another woman who, in Boston at this time, 
 did an enormous amount to quicken the intel- 
 lectual life of the town was Margaret's staunch 
 supporter, Elizabeth Peabody — the "Grand- 
 mother of Boston," as she came years later to 
 be fondly called. Miss Peabody was Margaret's 
 senior by some six years and the path she had 
 gone was no doubt something of a guide to 
 the younger woman. Like almost every serious- 
 minded girl of her day, Elizabeth Peabody had 
 heard the call to teach. In an unpublished let- 
 ter to Sarah Josepha Hale, dated on Miss Pea- 
 body's seventy-fourth birthday, the writer 
 recently came across this amusing bit of 
 reminiscence: "The education of the young 
 American," Miss Peabody told Mrs. Hale,"from 
 the beginning was presented to my ch ildish imag- 
 ination by my mother when I was so young that, 
 mistaking the word ancestors for Ann-sisters, 
 I got an impression that I never have quite lost 
 that women were the originators of the Amer- 
 ican nation and responsible for its education." 
 
 Of course she went early to teaching. Her 
 most interesting experiment at the start was 
 assisting Bronson Alcott in the Concord under- 
 taking described in his "Records of a School." 
 In 1836, in Salem, Miss Peabody opened 
 classes for women in literature and histor>-, 
 forerunners of Margaret Fuller's Conversations 
 in Boston. A little later she made a venture 
 which, as long as it lasted, gave to Boston a 
 unique intellectual center, and that was estab- 
 hshing a shop where she handled French and 
 German books. In connection with this shop 
 she did considerable publishing. The place 
 became at once a center of conversational if 
 not of commercial activity. The fine and seri- 
 ous mind, the splendid personality of the pro- 
 prietor drew to her room the Concord lights: 
 Emerson, Hawthorne, Alcott and all the Brook 
 Farm and Harvard crowd; women flocked 
 there, particularly idolizing school girls. Miss 
 Cheney speaks of the shop as a "kind of Tran- 
 scendental Exchange." This, at least, is certain: 
 
666 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 for ten years it was there one heard as good 
 talk as could be heard in town. Unfortunately 
 the undertaking was a failure commercially. 
 A combination of book publishers to put her 
 out of business is usually stated as the reason, 
 but one can read between the lines of her story 
 another explanation which must have had 
 something to do with it, and that was that Miss 
 Peabody was much more deeply interested in the 
 ideas in her books than in their sale. It was 
 but an episode in a career destined to bring into 
 American educational life fresh knowledge and 
 fresh stimulus, for it was through Elizabeth 
 Peabody that Froebel and the kindergarten 
 first became known in the United States — a 
 story which belongs to a later chapter of this 
 narrative. 
 
 If it is impossible to find in any other Ameri- 
 can town two women exactly like Margaret 
 Fuller and Elizabeth Peabody, it is not difficult 
 to find everywhere women of the same quality 
 of intelligence, the same eagerness for knowl- 
 edge and the same zeal in acquiring and spread- 
 ing it. The quickening of the mind of their sex 
 was what they sought. But they were neither 
 pioneers nor exceptions, except in degree. An 
 amazing amount of intellectual work of one 
 kind or another, aside from the educational and 
 reform work on which we have touched in the 
 previous chapters, was going on. If one will run 
 over the files of the North American Review 
 from 1840 to i860, he will find that there is not 
 a volume which does not give some space to the 
 consideration of t^ooks by women. In poetry 
 and romance they were particularly produc- 
 tive. There are many writers seriously consid- 
 ered that are now forgotten, but there are 
 names which never will be forgotten and sev- 
 eral whose works must remain among the 
 be.st documents of the life of the times we have, 
 as, for example, Mrs. Kirkland's sketches of 
 Michigan Territory life, fresh, sparkling, wise 
 and kind; Mrs. EUet's "Women of the Revo- 
 lution," material gathered with what the Re- 
 view calls a "patience which deserved to be 
 called pious," and much of which would have 
 been lost if it had not been for her zeal and per- 
 sistence, and of course that book of all time, 
 "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Not only were Ameri- 
 can women doing a great deal of good writing — 
 as much, if not more, I am inclined to think, all 
 things considered, than they are doing now — but 
 they were proving themselves successful editors. 
 In Boston, Margaret Fuller's work from 1840 to 
 1844 on the Dial is familiar, but an even more 
 difficult task was well performed from 1843 to 
 1848 by Cornelia Wells Walter, who then took 
 entire editorial charge of the Boston Daily 
 Evening Transcript. Many women who suc- 
 
 ceeded with books were called to editorial 
 tasks: as Greeley called Lydia Maria Child to 
 the Tribune; as Mrs. Kirkland was called to 
 Philadelphia in 1848 to take the editorship of 
 Sartain's Magazine. 
 
 If one seeks a fair and trustworthy expression 
 of the interests, the ambitions and the attitude 
 of mind of the average American woman at this 
 time — the women of whom the above were the 
 leaders — he cannot do better than to study one 
 of these editors, Sarah Josepha Hale, the same 
 Mrs. Hale whose efforts for Bunker Hill Monu- 
 ment have already been referred to. 
 
 Mrs. Hale came into her position as editor of 
 the leading woman's journal of the day by a 
 path she blazed for herself. She had received 
 the fine home training which the early New 
 England fathers and mothers gave their daugh- 
 ters, and in 1813 had married, a man of superior 
 intelligence. Throughout their married life the 
 two made it a rule to carry on a systematic 
 course of reading and study. But their life to- 
 gether lasted only some eight years, and Mrs. 
 Hale found herself without means and with 
 five children to educate. Untrained as she was, 
 she immediately determined to utilize her 
 knowledge of books and a certain happy facility 
 in versification. Poems which she had written 
 in happier days she collected into a subscription 
 edition and sent out with a pathetic little 
 circular, stating that it was not vanity or the 
 desire of fame which compelled her to rush into 
 print, but only the necessity of earning money 
 for her children. The poems were followed by 
 her first novel, "Northwood," a story of the 
 North and South, famous in its day. Twenty- 
 five years after its first appearance, in 1852, 
 Mrs. Hale got out a new edition of "North- 
 wood," in the preface of which she said the book 
 had been written with her babe, born after its 
 father's death, in her arms, not for fame, but 
 to support her children. Attracted by "North- 
 wood," certain gentlemen of Boston asked her 
 to undertake the editorship of a magazine 
 which they wished to start. The Ladies' 
 Magazine, to be devoted exclusively to the 
 interests of women. Novel as the offer must 
 have been to a woman in 1827, Mrs. Hale did 
 not hesitate. The Ladies' Magazine, which 
 the announcement declared to be devoted to 
 "female education and the moral improvement 
 of society," was an immediate success, but the 
 editor-in-chief, although she seems to have 
 written herself almost half of the contents of 
 every number, was not satisfied with this 
 means of expression. Volume after \'olume of 
 "Juvenile Miscellany," of "Tokens," "Keep- 
 sakes," "Annuals," written wholly or in part by 
 Mrs. Hale, appeared. It was in one of these 
 
The American Woman: Ida M. Tarbell 
 
 667 
 
 volumes, dedicated "To All Good Children in 
 the United States," and published in 1830, that 
 the classic, "Mary Had a Little Lamb;" is to 
 be found. 
 
 The success of Mrs. Hale in The Ladies^ 
 Magazine attracted the attention of Louis A. 
 Godey of Philadelphia, who conceived the idea 
 of buying out the journal, and jNIrs. Hale with 
 it, and annexing both to the Lady's Book of his 
 own town. In 1837 he succeeded in the under- 
 taking and Godey's Lady's Book with Mrs. 
 Hale as editor began its career. This famous 
 journal, which only flickered out a few years ago, 
 was founded on the principle that an editor 
 should give the public he aims to reach what it 
 believes and wants; that, above all, he should 
 never shock it. Mr. Godey believed that no- 
 body in the United States understood the ideals 
 and interests of the average well-to-do Ameri- 
 can woman as Mrs. Hale did, and he was right. 
 In the iirst place, Mrs. Hale was a woman who 
 found the key to life in the interpretation of the 
 Bible which then prevailed and in this she had 
 the American women with her. They got from 
 the church the reason of things as they found 
 them — the reason for their submission to mas- 
 culine authority — the explanation of their place 
 in society, their program of activities. From it 
 they got, too, their vision. As a rule, they took 
 the teachings quite literally and devoutly. They 
 were not sticklers for creed. Men might spend 
 their days in fighting over immersion and pre- 
 destination, and the meaning of the six days of 
 creation, etc., etc., but it was the practical and 
 social activities which engrossed them : raising 
 money for church extension, feeding the poor, 
 getting up dpnations for the preacher, packing 
 boxes for frontier teachers, helping support a 
 missionary, teaching in Sunday School. These 
 were the best ways they saw for making 
 their own little worlds better and happier, and 
 always and forever that is what the mass of 
 women are trying to do. 
 
 Mrs. Hale always edited and wrote in entire 
 sympathy with this interpretation of Christian 
 duty. 
 
 Another stronghold of Mrs. Hale's was her 
 belief in gentility. That beautiful tradition 
 then ruled among American women. True, it 
 went to funny, even sinful extremes. They ran 
 from the prim notions of propriety illustrated 
 by the tale of a famous New England spinster, 
 Marm Betty; the tragedy of whose life was that 
 Governor Brooks had once seen her drinking 
 out of the spout of her tea-kettle, to the sinful 
 modesty of a woman like Susan B. Anthony's 
 mother who, before the advent of her children, 
 hid herself from everybody, never mentioning 
 the coming of the little one to even her own 
 
 mother. In its reasonable interpretation gen- 
 tility meant gentleness, self-restraint, unself- 
 ishness, courtesy, and these were the ambitions 
 of the American mother for her girls — the 
 mark of the lady, the tests of birth and breed- 
 ing and that gentility was sadly mixed with eva- 
 sions of the facts of life was its weakness, the 
 defect of its quality. 
 
 On this foundation of religion and gentility, 
 Mrs. Hale built Godey's. As in her first ven- 
 ture, "female education and the moral im- 
 provement of society" was her most cherished 
 object — but she did not insist on these aims to 
 the detriment of the popularity of the journal. 
 It is interesting to examine the files of Godey's 
 to see how constantly Mrs. Hale limbered up, 
 trying to meet the demands of the day. It was 
 something of a wrench for her at first to add 
 fashions to her highly moral journal, but she 
 applied the same seriousness and intelligence to 
 them that she did to the rest of her depart- 
 ments. It was Mrs. Hale who made the inter- 
 esting attempt to Americanize French fashions. 
 " Godey's Americanized French Fashion- 
 plates" are one of the most successul efforts to 
 influence the dress of women ever made in this 
 country. Her activities outside of the regular 
 work of the journal were endless. It is un- 
 doubtedly to Mrs. Hale that we owe the fact 
 that we have a national Thanksgiving Day. 
 She first suggested this in 1846 in Godey's, and 
 for years regularly every fall she sent out to the 
 governors of all the States her appeal that they 
 choose the last Thursday of November for the 
 celebration. She persistently appealed to 
 Congress and to various eminent men to make 
 the day national, and finally in 1863, for the 
 first time, Mr. Lincoln proclaimed a national 
 Thanksgiving Day. 
 
 Another campaign Mrs. Hale carried 
 on with great persistency was substituting 
 the word "woman" for "female." In her 
 early days the latter word was used almost 
 entirely, but, largely due to her persistent cor- 
 respondence and agitation through the Lady's 
 Book,tht use was discontinued. She was greatly 
 interested in the medical education of women, 
 particularly for women .who might be going 
 out as missionaries, and in order to spread the 
 idea she carried on an extensive correspondence 
 with the bishops of the church. 
 
 Much of her editorial correspondence in the 
 earlier years of Godey's is stiU preserved by her 
 granddaughter, Miss Mary Stockton Hunter 
 of Philadelphia, who courteously has allowed 
 the writer to examine it. It shows not only her 
 zeal in trying to get the best work for her jour- 
 nal, but the respect and friendliness which the 
 best men of the time had for her. Poe was not 
 
668 
 
 The American Magazine 
 
 an unfrequent contributor to the Lady's Book 
 and wrote her most appreciative letters. He 
 liked her verse and was especially compli- 
 mentary about her romance in rhyme, "Alice 
 Ray." Oliver Wendell Holmes, who had been 
 a fellow boarder of Mrs. Hale in the years when 
 she was editing The Ladies' Magazine in Bos- 
 ton, wrote her in one letter, apropos of her own 
 work, "Your perseverance and spirit in literary 
 labor fill me with admiration. How much you 
 have done, and always with a high and pure 
 aim." But though Holmes' letters are always 
 most friendly, I find only refusals to write for 
 the Lady's Book. In one letter dated March 
 4, 1847, he tells her, in excusing himself: "I do 
 not really think it worth while to count me as 
 one of the regular army of literateurs. I claim 
 to be only a volunteer. I rarely write. I often 
 refuse entirely to print what I have written, 
 and when I do, I always have to look over my 
 proofs twice that no nonsense but my own may 
 get into them. In short, I am one of the class 
 of impracticables, a worthless set who cost a 
 great deal in postage, and, like the famous trout 
 that Mr. Sullivan used to tell of, take more 
 butter to cook them than they are worth." 
 
 The success of Godey's Lady's Book is one of 
 the wonder tales of American journalism. It 
 reached the phenomenal circulation at one time 
 before the war of 150,000 copies, and it was 
 commonly said that no lady would think her 
 drawing-room table furnished without it. 
 
 Now, how did the Woman's Rights move- 
 ment impress the ladies who read Godey's? 
 After Mrs. Hale's death in 1879 a society of 
 which she had been long a member passed this 
 resolution: 
 
 "Resolved, that we admire and would emu- 
 late the noble industry that made her work of 
 more than seventy-'five years a molding ele- 
 ment in the character of the women of our 
 country — that while guarding with jealous care 
 women's real rights and highest culture she so 
 mingled in her daily life and writings the spirit 
 of progress with true conservatism that she 
 never compromised true womanly nature." 
 
 In that paragraph one has the principle 
 stated in the fashion of the day, on which 
 thousands of American women were acting in 
 the '40's and the 'so's: "The spirit of prog- 
 ress," without compromising "true womanly 
 nature." The conviction that the Woman's 
 Rights movement somehow, few of them could 
 have explained how, violated this rule, that kept 
 a great body of women out of the movement — 
 the fear that they were going to lose something 
 of their womanliness. Even staunch support- 
 ers of the movement shared this fear. Mrs. 
 Blackwell herself has told the writer with what 
 
 critical eyes she watched herself and friends to 
 see if they were deteriorating in womanly char- 
 acter and gentleness and how she finally de- 
 cided that if that were the price, she must pay it. 
 
 A powerful influence against their acceptance 
 of the new views was their belief in the inter- 
 pretation long given to what the Bible has to say 
 about women. The old literal teachings caused 
 them all more or less struggle. Mrs. Hale felt 
 keenly the need of squaring up those features 
 of the movement for emancipation which 
 she had accepted, with Biblical teachings, 
 and worked out one of the most ingenious 
 arguments produced for this purpose. This is 
 found in the preface to what she always consid- 
 ered her magnum opus — the "Woman's Rec- 
 ord " — a work in which she undertook to show 
 by sketches of all the women of achievements 
 in all times, where women excelled, where they 
 failed, and where they could best direct their 
 efforts. Upward of eight hundred women, 
 ancient and modern, are sketched in the work 
 — but not merely sketched, each has to stand 
 Mrs. Hale's measuring rod. In her preface she 
 lays down her position as to woman's place in 
 the world — basing it on the Scriptures. Ac- 
 cording to her interpretation woman is the 
 superior of man, was intended so to be by the 
 Creator. She argues that the first chapter of 
 Genesis shows that there was a care and prep- 
 aration in forming woman which was not be- 
 stowed on man. Moreover, she was "the last 
 work of creation" — "the crown of all" — and 
 the theory of evolution shows that the last is 
 best! She argues that St. Paul meant to teach 
 the superiority of women when he ordered that 
 she remain covered and man uncqvered in the 
 churches. "Is it not the privilege of the super- 
 ior to remain covered in the presence of the 
 inferior ? " she asks triumphantly. 
 
 In the affair of the apple she finds that while 
 the man fell utterly woman did not. She con- 
 fessed and took her punishment meekly, but 
 Adam threw the blame on her and, "like a felon 
 he was condemned to hard labor for life on the 
 ground cursed for his sake." Eve was to sufifer 
 for her children and be subject fo her husband, 
 but she was not "cast down by fall — like man." 
 " To her was confided by the Creator's express 
 declaration the mission of disinterested affection 
 — her 'desire' was to be to her husband," but 
 not for his pleasure, for his elevation. And from 
 this argument she concludes that "Woman is 
 God's appointed agent of morality." Anything 
 that leads her away from this mission, that 
 leads her to aspire to intellectual, professional 
 or industrial equality with man is to obscure 
 her real and higher calling — to weaken her 
 powers and to debase rather than elevate her. 
 
The American Woman: Ida M. Tarbell 
 
 669. 
 
 And there is no manner of doubt but that this 
 argument or a variation of it worked powerfully 
 with a vast body of women — and for that mat- 
 ter does still. 
 
 But aside from the general fear that in some 
 way their gentility and their womanliness 
 would be broken down by the new ideas — aside 
 from their inability to accept any view which 
 seemed to be in opposition to Biblical teachings, 
 the most powerful of all things against the 
 movement in the writer's Judgment was a fun- 
 damental conviction of the worth-whUeness of 
 the woman's life. 
 
 To bear and to rear, to feel the dependence, 
 of man and child — the necessity for themselves 
 — to know that upon them depended the health, 
 the character, the happiness, the future of cer- 
 tain human beings — to see themselves laying 
 and preserving the foundations of so imposing 
 a thing as a family — to build so that this 
 family should become a strong stone in the 
 state — to feel themselves through this family 
 perpetuating and perfecting church, society, 
 republic — this was their destiny — this was 
 worth while. They might not have been able 
 to state it, but all their instincts and experiences 
 convinced them of the supreme and eternal 
 value of their place in the world. They dared 
 not tamper with it. Their opposition, badly 
 and even cruelly expressed, had at bottom, as 
 an opposition always has, the principle of 
 preservation. It was not bigotry or vanity or 
 a petty notion of their own spheres which kept 
 the majority of the women of the '40's from 
 lending themselves to the Woman's Rights 
 movement. It was a fear to destroy a greater 
 thing which they possessed. The fear of 
 
 change is not an irrational thing — the fear of 
 change is founded on the risk of losing what 
 you have, on the certainty of losing much 
 temporarily at least. It sees the cost, the ugly 
 and long period of transition. 
 
 Moreover, respect for your calling brings 
 patience with its burden and its limitations. 
 The changes they might desire they would only 
 work for conservatively if at all. They might 
 deplore the laws that gave a man the power to 
 beat his wife — but as a matter of fact few men 
 did beat their wives and popular opinion was a 
 powerful weapon. They might deplore the 
 laws of property — but few of them were deeply 
 touched by them. The husband, the child, the 
 home, the social circle, the church, these things 
 were infinitely more interesting and important 
 to them than diplomas, rights to work, rights 
 to property, rights to vote. All the sentiments 
 in the revolting women's program seemed 
 trivial, cold, profitless beside the realities of life 
 as they dreamed it and struggled to realize it. 
 It was the woman's life which barred the way 
 most effectually to the growth of the cause of 
 Woman's Rights. 
 
 But this did not mean that these women who 
 held back were incapable of being swept into a 
 great national movement if some impelling 
 need stirred their hearts — that they could not 
 put aside home and child and husband — give 
 themselves and all they had if the call should 
 come. They were to be put to the test at the 
 moment when the advocates of Women's 
 Rights were most bitter against what they felt 
 to be their narrowness and selfishness, and their 
 response makes one of the noblest chapters in 
 the history of American womanhood. 
 
SIMON THE JESTER 
 
 BY 
 WILLIAM J. LOCKE 
 
 AUTHOR OF "SEPTIMUS," ETC. 
 ILLUSTRATIONS BY JAMES MONTGOMERY KLAGG 
 
 SYNOPSIS : Simon de Gex, M. P. has been advised by his physicians that he has but a few more months 
 to live. He therefore resigns his seat in Parliament and decides to spend what time is still left to him in 
 doing good and in helping others. His secretary, Dale Kynnersley, has become enamored with Lola Brandt, 
 a lady well known as the owner and exhibitor of a performing horse, Sultan, who has previously been rn^fe- 
 riously poisoned. Simon, in an effort to free his prot^g^ from the toils of his enchantress, offers Dale hfe own 
 seat in Parliament, and persuades Lola Brandt to agree to return to her husband, Captain Vauvenardfe of theJ 
 French Army, who has previously deserted her, provided he can be found and is willing to resume his re/ 
 lations with his wife. Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos, a dwarf and a trainer of cats and die devota 
 friend of Lola, volunteers to find Captain Vajlvenarde, and Simon, who has become more and more intere^d 
 in Lola, also undertakes the quest, as hjs wiysicians have ordered him to the Mediterranean In Al^rs, 
 Simon and Anastasius Papadopoulos mn across each other, and in the last chapter the dwarf pers/ades 
 Simon to accompany him on A i*rsterious but "perilous adventure" and has nam^ a cafe 
 as a nfnd^vous,. whither Simon is now bound. 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE tram that parses Ahe hotel gates 
 took me into tire town and dropped 
 me at the Pla/e dur Gouverneijient. 
 With its stmngef fusion of East 
 and West, its great, /whife-domed mosque 
 flanked by the tall minanet contrasting with 
 its formal French Jcolonnaded fafades, its 
 groupings of majestfc wMite-robed forms and 
 commonplace figUMS ij? caps and hard felt 
 hats, the mysterw of As palm trees and the 
 crudity of its flying/electric lights, it gave 
 an impression of/unr/ality, of a modem con- 
 tractor's idea m Fspryland, where anything 
 grotesque migh/ asaime an air of normality. 
 The moon shoae fi/l in the heavens, and as I 
 crossed the PlAce I saw the equestrian statue 
 of the Duke of Omeans silhouetted against the 
 mosque. Tlye pyrt, to the east, was quiet at 
 this hour, and tip shipping lay dreamih&in the 
 moonlight. 'Faraway one could see thW.iHi out- 
 lines of the Kebyle Mountains and the vague 
 melting of sea and sky into a near horizon. 
 The undefinable smell of the East was in the air. 
 The Cafe de Bordeaux, which forms an angle 
 of the Place, blazed in front of me. A few 
 hardy souls, a Zouave or two, an Arab, a bored 
 670 
 
 Englishman and his wif/and sonafe French in- 
 habitants were sitting ouftside in the chilliness. I 
 entered. The cafd wa/fiUed witn a nondescript 
 crowd and the rattl/of domipoes rose above 
 the hum of talk. In a corn* near the door I 
 discovered the top /f a silk h/t projecting above 
 a widely opened/newspaoEr grasped by two 
 pudgy hands, anfi I recodiized the Professor. 
 
 "Monsieitf,"/said he,ywhen I had taken a 
 seat at his tabl/ "if the janknown terrors which 
 you are going p confronft dismay you, I beg that 
 you will not/considey yourself bound to me." 
 
 "My dea/ Profesafcr," I replied, "a brave 
 rtmn only tastes of death but once." 
 
 H*was/much dfelighted at the sentiment, 
 whiclijhe took to h|e original. 
 
 "I shaA quote/t," said he, "whenever my 
 honor oh my coj(rage is called into question. 
 It is nol/ often that a man has the temerit\- to 
 do so. iCan I have the honor of ofiering you 
 a whiskey and soda?" 
 
 "Have we time?" I asked. 
 
 "We have time," he said, solemnly consult- 
 ing his watch. "Things will ripen." 
 
 "Then," said I, "I shall have much pleasure 
 in drinking to their maturity." 
 
i 
 
 It