History of Woman Suffrage/Volume 3/Chapter 31
CHAPTER XXXI.
MASSACHUSETTS.
by harriet h. robinson.
From 1860 to 1866 there is no record to be found of any public meeting on the subject of woman's rights, in Massachusetts.[1] During these years the war of the rebellion had been fought. Pending the great struggle the majority of the leaders, who were also anti-slavery, had thought it to be the wiser policy for the women to give way for a time, in order that all the working energy might be given to the slave. "It is not the woman's but the negro's hour"; "After the slave then the woman," said Wendell Phillips in his stirring speeches, at this date. "Keep quiet, work for us," said other of the anti-slavery leaders to the women. "Wait! help us to abolish slavery, and then we will work for you." And the women, who had the welfare of the country as much at heart as the men, kept quiet; worked in hospital and field; sacrificed sons and husbands; did what is always woman's part in wars between man and man and waited. If anything can make the women of the State regret that they were silent as to their own claims for six eventful years that the freedom of the black man might be secured, it is the fact that now in 1885 his vote is ever adverse to women's enfranchisement. When the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution was proposed, in which the negro's liberty and his right to the ballot were to be established, an effort was made to secure in it some recognition of the rights of woman. Massachusetts sent a petition, headed with the name of Lydia Maria Child, against the introduction of the word "male" in the proposed amendment. When this petition was offered to the greatest of America's emancipation leaders, for presentation to congress, he received and presented it under protest. He thought the woman question should not be forced at such a time, and the only answer from congress this "woman-intruding" petition received was found in the fourteenth amendment itself, in which the word "male," with unnecessary iteration, was repeated, so that there might be no mistake in future concerning woman's rights, under the Constitution of the United States.[2]
The war was over. The rights of the black man, for whom the women had worked and waited, were secured, but under the new amendment, by which his race had been made free, the white women of the United States were more securely held in political slavery. It was time, indeed, to hold conventions and agitate anew the question of woman's rights. The lesson of the war had been well learned. Women had been taught to understand politics, the "science of government," and to take an interest in public events; and some who before the war had not thought upon the matter, began to ask themselves why thousands of ignorant men should be made voters and they, or their sex, still kept in bondage under the law.
In 1866, May 31, the first meeting of the American Equal Rights Association was held at the Meionaon in Boston.[3] In 1868 the call for a New England convention was issued and the meeting was held November 18, 19, at Horticultural Hall, Boston. James Freeman Clarke presided. In this convention sat many of the distinguished men and women of the New England States,[4] old-time advocates, together with newer converts to the doctrine, who then became identified with the cause of equal rights irrespective of sex. This convention was called by the Rev. Olympia Brown.[5]The hall was crowded with eager listeners anxious to hear what would be said on a subject thought to be ridiculous by a large majority of people in the community. Some of the teachers of Boston sent a letter to the convention, signed with their names, expressing their interest as women. Henry Wilson avowed his belief in the equal rights of woman, but thought the time had not yet come for such a consummation, and said that, for this reason, he had voted against the question in the United States Senate; "though," he continued, "I was afterwards ashamed of having so voted." Like another celebrated Massachusetts politician, he believed in the principle of the thing, but was "agin its enforcement." At this date the popular interest heretofore given to the anti-slavery question was transferred to the woman suffrage movement.
The New England Woman Suffrage Association was formed at this convention. Julia Ward Howe was elected its president, and made her first address on the subject of woman's equality with man. On its executive board were many representative names from the six New England States.[6] By the formation of this society, a great impetus was given to the suffrage cause in New England. It held conventions and mass-meetings, printed tracts and documents, and put lecturers in the field. It set in motion two woman suffrage bazars, and organized subscription festivals, and other enterprises to raise money to carry on the work. It projected the American, and Massachusetts suffrage associations; it urged the formation of local and county suffrage societies, and set up the Woman's Journal. The New England Association held its first anniversary in May, 1869, and the meeting was even more successful than the opening one of the preceding year. On this occasion Mrs. Livermore spoke in Boston for the first time, and many new friends coming forward gave vigor and freshness to the movement.[7] Wendell Philips, Lucy Stone and Gilbert Haven, spoke at this convention. It was on this occasion that the "good Bishop," as he afterward came to be called, was met on leaving the meeting by one who did not know his opinion on the subject. This person expressed surprise on seeing him at a woman's rights meeting, and said: "What! you here?" "Yes," said he, "I am here! I believe in this reform. I am going to start in the beginning, and ride with the procession." After this, not until his earthly journey was finished, was his place in "the procession" found vacant. Since 1869 the New England Association has held its annual meeting in Boston during anniversary week, in May, when reports from various States are offered, concerning suffrage work done during the year. The American Woman Suffrage Association was organized in 1869. Since its formation it has held its annual conventions in some of the chief cities of the several States.[8] A meeting was held in Horticultural Hall, Boston, January 28, 1870, to organize the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association.[9] The Massachusetts Association is the most active of the three societies named. Its work is generally local though it has sent help to Colorado, Michigan, and other Western States. It has kept petitions in circulation, and has presented petitions and memorials to the State legislatures. It has asked for hearings and secured able speakers for them. It has held conventions, mass-meetings, Fourth of July celebrations. It has helped organize local Woman suffrage clubs and societies, and has printed for circulation numerous woman suffrage tracts. The amount of work done by its lecturing agents can be seen by the statement of Margaret W. Campbell, who alone, as agent of the American, the New England and the Massachusetts associations, traveled in twenty different States and two territories, organizing and speaking in conventions.[10] As part of the latest work of this society may be mentioned its efforts to present before the women of the State, in clear and comprehensive form, an explanation of the different sections of the new law "allowing women to vote for school committees." As soon as the law passed the legislature of 1879, a circular of instructions to women was carefully prepared by Samuel E. Sewall, an eminent lawyer and member of the board of the Massachusetts Association, in which all the points of law in relation to the new right were ably presented. Thousands of copies of this circular were sent to women all over the State.
The Centennial Tea Party was held in Boston, December 15, 1873, in response to the following call:
The women of New England who believe that "taxation without representation is tyranny," and that our forefathers were justified in defying despotic power by throwing the tea into Boston harbor, invite the men and women of New England to unite with them in celebrating the one-hundredth anniversary of that event in Fanueil Hall.[11]
Three thousand people were in attendance, and it was altogether an enthusiastic occasion and one long to be remembered.
The record of conventions and meetings held by the Massachusetts Association by no means includes all such gatherings held in different towns and cities of the State. The county and local societies have done a vast amount of work. The Hampden society was started in 1868, with Eliphalet Trask, Frank B. Sanborn and Margaret W. Campbell as leading officers. This was the first county society formed in the State. Julia Ward Howe, a fresh convert of the recent convention went to Salem to lecture on woman suffrage, and the Essex county society was formed with Mrs. Sarah G. Wilkins and Mrs. Delight R. P. Hewitt—the only two Salem women who went to the 1850 convention at Worcester—on its executive board. The Middlesex county society followed, planned by Ada C. Bowles and officered by names well known in that historic old county. The Hampshire and Worcester societies brought up the rear; the former planned by Seth Hunt of Northampton. Notable conventions were held by the Middlesex society in 1876—one in Malden, one in Melrose and one in Concord, organized and conducted by its president, Harriet H. Robinson. This last celebrated town had never before been so favored. These meetings were conducted something after the style of local church conferences. They were well advertised, and many people came. A collation was provided by the ladies of each town, and the feast of reason was so judiciously mingled with the triumphs of cookery, that converts to the cause were never so easily won. Many women present said to the president: "I never before heard a woman's rights speech. If these are the reasons why women should vote, I believe in voting."
The Concord convention was held about a month after the great centennial celebration of April 19, 1875—a celebration in which no woman belonging to that town took any official part. Nor was there any place of honor found for the more distinguished women who had come long distances to share in the festivities. Some of the women were descendents of Governor John Hancock, Dr. Samuel Prescott, Major John Buttrick, Rev. William Emerson and Lieutenant Emerson Cogswell. Though no seat of honor in the big tent in which the speeches were made was given to the women of to-day, silent memorials of those who had taken part in the events of one hundred years ago, had found a conspicuous place there—the scissors that cut the immortal cartridges made by the women on that eventful day, and the ancient flag that the fingers of some of the mothers of the Revolution had made. Though the Concord women were not permitted to share the centennial honors, they were not deprived of the privilege of paying their part of the expenses incident to the occasion. To meet these, an increased tax-rate was assessed upon all the property owners in the town; and, since one-fifth of the town tax of Concord is paid by women, it will be seen what was their share in the great centennial celebration of 1876.
The knowledge of the proceedings at Concord added new zest to the spirit of the three conventions, and the events of the day were used by the speakers to point the moral of the woman's rights question. Lucy Stone made one of her most effective and eloquent speeches upon this subject. She said:
Fellow Citizen (I had almost said fellow subjects): What we need is that women should feel their mean position; when that happens, they will soon make an effort to get out of it. Everything is possible to him that wills. All that is needed for the success of the cause of woman suffrage is to have women know that they want to vote. Concord and Lexington got into a fight about the centennial, and Concord voted $10,000 for the celebration in order to eclipse Lexington. One-fifth of the tax of Concord is paid by the women, yet not one of these women dared to go to the town hall and cast her vote upon that subject. This is exactly the same thing which took place one hundred years ago—taxation without representation, against which the men of Concord then rebelled. If I were an inhabitant of Concord, I would let my house be sold over my head and my clothes off my back and be hanged by the neck before I would pay a cent of it! Men of Melrose, Concord and Malden, why persecute us? Would you like to be a slave? Would you like to be disfranchised? Would you like to be bound to respect the laws which you cannot make? There are 15,000,000 of women whom the government denies legal rights.
It might be supposed that a spot upon which the battle for freedom and independence was first begun would always be the vantage ground of questions relating to personal liberty. But such is not the fact. Concord was never an anti-slavery town, though some of its best citizens took active part in all the abolition movements. When the time came that women were allowed to vote for school committees, the same intolerant spirit which ignored and shut them out of the centennial celebration was again manifested toward them—not only by the leading magnates, but also by the petty officials of the town. Some of them have from the first shown a great deal of ingenuity in inventing ways to intimidate and mislead the women voters.
At the annual convention of the Massachusetts Association, in May, 1880, the following resolution was passed:
Whereas, We believe in keeping the land-marks and traditions of our movement; and
Whereas, It will be thirty years next October since the first woman's rights meeting was held in the State, and it seems fitting that there should be some celebration of the event; therefore,
Resolved, That we will hold a woman suffrage jubilee in Worcester, October 23 and 24 next, to commemorate the anniversary of our first convention.
A committee[12]of arrangements was chosen, and the meeting was held. There were present many whose silver hairs told of long and faithful service. The oldest ladies there were Mrs. Lydia Brown of Lynn, Mrs. Wilbour of Worcester, and Julia E. Smith Parker of Glastonbury, Conn. On the afternoon of the first day there was an informal gathering of friends in the ante-room of Horticultural Hall. Old-time memories were recalled by those who had not seen each other for many years, and the common salutation was: "How gray you've grown!" Many of them had indeed grown gray in the service, and their faces were changed, but made beautiful by a life devoted to a noble purpose. There were many present who had attended the convention of thirty years ago—Abby Kelley Foster, Lucy Stone, Antoinettë Brown Blackwell, Paulina Gerry, Rev. Samuel May, Rev. W. H. Channing, Joseph A. Howland, Adeline H. Howland, Dr. Martha H. Mowry and many, many others. It was very pleasant indeed to hear these veterans whose clear voices have spoken out so long and so bravely for the cause. The speaking[13]at all the sessions was excellent, and the spirit of the convention was very reverent and hopeful. The tone of the press concerning woman's rights meetings had changed greatly since thirty years before. "Hen conventions" had gone by, and a woman's meeting was now called by its proper
name. Representatives of leading newspapers from all parts of the State were present, and the reports were written in a just and friendly spirit.
The Massachusetts School Suffrage Association was formed in 1880, Abby W. May, president.[14] Its efforts are mostly confined to Boston. An independent movement of women voters in Boston, distinct from all organizations, was formed in 1884, and subdivided into ward and city committees. These did much valuable work and secured a larger number of voters than had qualified in previous years. In 1880 the number of registered women in the whole State was 4,566, and in Boston 826. In 1884, chiefly owing to the ward and city committees, the number in Boston alone was 1,100. This year (1885) a movement among the Roman Catholic women has raised the number who are assessed to vote to 1,843; and it is estimated that when the tax-paying women are added, the whole number will be about 2,500.
The National Woman Suffrage Association[15] of Massachusetts was formed in January, 1882, of members who had joined the National Association at its thirteenth annual meeting, held in Tremont Temple, Boston, May 26, 27, 1881. According to Article II. of its constitution, its object is to secure to women their right to the ballot, by working for national, State, municipal, school, or any other form of suffrage which shall at the time seem most expedient. While it is auxiliary to the National Association, it reserves to itself the right of independent action. It has held conventions[16]in Boston and some of the chief cities of the State, sent delegates to the annual Washington Convention[17] and published valuable leaflets[18] It has rolled up petitions to the State legislature and to congress. Its most valuable work has been the canvass made in certain localities in the city and country in 1884, to ascertain the number of women in favor of suffrage, the number opposed and the number indifferent. The total result showed that there were 405 in favor, 44 opposed, 166 indifferent, 160 refusing to sign, 39 not seen; that is, over nine who would sign themselves in favor to one who would sign herself opposed. This canvass was made by women who gave their time and labor to this arduous work, and the results were duly presented to the legislature. In 1883 this Association petitioned the legislature to pass a resolution recommending congress to submit a proposition for a sixteenth amendment to the national constitution. The Senate Committee on Woman Suffrage granted a hearing March 23, and soon after presented a favorable report; but the resolution, when brought to a vote, was lost by 21 to 11. This was the first time that the National doctrine of congressional action was ever presented or voted upon in the Massachusetts legislature. A second hearing[19] was granted on February 28, 1884, before the Committee on Federal Relations. They reported leave to withdraw.
The associations mentioned are not the only ones that are aiding the suffrage movement. Its friends are found in all the women's clubs, temperance associations, missionary movements, charitable enterprises, educational and industrial unions and church committees. These agencies form a network of motive power which is gradually carrying the reform into all branches of public work.
The Woman's Journal was incorporated in 1870 and is owned by a joint stock company, shares being held by leading members of the suffrage associations of New England. Shortly after it was projected, the Agitator, then published in Chicago by Mary A. Livermore, was bought by the New England Association on condition that she should "come to Boston for one year, at a reasonable compensation, to assist the cause by her editorial labor and speaking at conventions." Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell, invited by the same society to "return to the work in Massachusetts," at once assumed the editorial charge. T. W. Higginson, Julia Ward Howe and W. L. Garrison were assistant editors. "Warrington," Kate N. Doggett, Samuel E. Sewall, F. B. Sanborn, and many other good writers, lent a helping hand to the new enterprise. The Woman's Journal has been of great value to the cause. It has helped individual women and brought their enterprises into public notice. It has opened its columns to inexperienced writers and advertised young speakers. To sustain the paper and furnish money for other work, two mammoth bazars or fairs were held in Music Hall in 1870, 1871. Nearly all the New England States and many of the towns in Massachusetts were represented by tables in these bazars. Donations were sent from all directions and the women worked, as they generally do in a cause in which they are interested, to raise money to furnish the sinews of war. The newspapers from day to day were full of descriptions of the splendors of the tables, and the reporters spoke well of the women who had taken this novel method to carry on their movement. People who had never heard of woman suffrage before came to see what sort of women were those who thus made a public exhibition of their zeal in this cause. In remote places, as well as nearer the scene of action, many people who had never thought of the significance of the woman's rights movement, began to consider it through reading the reports of the woman suffrage bazar. Female opponents of the suffrage movement began to make a stir as early as 1868. A remonstrance was sent into the legislature, from two hundred women of Lancaster, giving the reasons why women should not enjoy the exercise of the elective franchise: "It would diminish the purity, the dignity and the moral influence of woman, and bring into the family circle a dangerous element of discord." In The Revolution of August 5, 1869, Parker Pillsbury said:
Dolly Chandler and the hundred and ninety-four other women who asked the Massachusetts legislature not to allow the right of suffrage, were very impudent and tyrannical, too, in petitioning for any but themselves. They should have said: "We, Dolly Chandler and her associates, to the number of a hundred and ninety-five in all, do not want the right of suffrage; and we pray your honorable bodies to so decree and enact that we shall never have it." So far they might go. But when they underto prevent a hundred and ninety-four thousand other women who do want the ballot and who have an acknowledged right to it, and are laboring for it day and night, it is proper to ask, What business have Dolly Chandler and her little coterie to interpose? Nobody wants them to vote unless they themselves want to. They can stay at home and see nobody but the assessor, the tax-gatherer and the revenue collector, from Christmas to Christmas, if they so prefer. Those gentlemen they will be pretty likely to see, annually or quarterly, and to feel their power, too, if they have pockets with anything in them, in spite of all petitions to the legislature.
It did not occur to these women that by thus remonstrating they were doing just what they were protesting against. What is a vote? An expression of opinion or a desire as to governmental affairs, in the shape of a ballot. The "aspiring blood of Lancaster" should have mounted higher than this, since, if it really was the opinion of these remonstrants that woman cannot vote without becoming defiled, they should have kept themselves out of the legislature, should have kept their hands from petitioning and their thoughts from agitation on either side of the subject. Just such illogical reasoning on the woman suffrage question is often brought forward and passes for the profoundest wisdom and discreetest delicacy! The same arguments are used by the remonstrants of to-day, who are now fully organized and doing very efficient political work in opposing further political action by women. In their carriages, with footman and driver, they solicit names to their remonstrances. As a Boston newspaper says:
The anti-woman suffrage women get deeper and deeper into politics year by year in their determination to keep out of politics. By the time they triumph they will be the most accomplished politicians of the sex, and unable to stop writing to the papers, holding meetings, circulating remonstrances, any more than the suffrage sisterhood.
These persons, men and women, bring their whole force to bear before legislative committees at woman suffrage hearings, and use arguments that might have been excusable forty years ago. However this is merely a phase of the general movement and will work for good in the end. It can no more stop the progress of the reform than it can stop the revolution of the globe.
Political agitation on the woman suffrage question began in Massachusetts in 1870. A convention to discuss the feasibility of forming a woman suffrage political party was held in Boston, at which Julia Ward Howe presided, and Rev. Augusta Chapin offered prayer. The question of a separate nomination for State officers was carefully considered.[20]Delegates were present from the Labor Reform and Prohibition parties, and strong efforts were made by them to induce the convention to nominate Wendell Phillips, who had already accepted the nomination of those two parties, as candidate for governor. The convention at one time seemed strongly in favor of this action, the women in particular thinking that in Mr. Phillips they would find a staunch and well tried leader. But more politic counsels prevailed, and it was finally concluded to postpone a separate nomination until after the Republican and Democratic conventions had been held. A State central committee was formed, and at once began active political agitation. A memorial was prepared to present to each of the last-named conventions; and the candidates on the State tickets of the four political parties were questioned by letter concerning their opinions on the right of the women to the ballot. At the Republican State convention held October 5, 1870, the question was fairly launched into politics, by the admission, for the first time, of two women, Lucy Stone and Mary A. Livermore, as regularly accredited delegates. Both were invited to speak, and the following resolution drawn up by Henry B. Blackwell, was presented by Charles W. Slack:
Resolved, That the Republican party of Massachusetts is mindful of its obligations to the loyal women of America for their patriotic devotion to the cause of liberty; that we rejoice in the action of the recent legislature in making women eligible as officers of the State; that we thank Governor Claflin for having appointed women to important political trusts; that we are heartily in favor of the enfranchisement of women, and will hail the day when the educated, intelligent and enlightened conscience of the women of Massachusetts has direct expression at the ballot box.
This resolution was presented to the committee, who did not agree as to the propriety of reporting it to the convention, and they instructed their chairman, George F. Hoar, to state the fact and refer the resolution back to that body for its own action. A warm debate arose, in which several members of the convention made speeches on both sides of the question. The resolution was finally defeated, 137 voting in its favor, and 196 against it. Although lost, the large vote in the affirmative was thought to mean a great deal as a guaranty of the good faith of the Republican party, and the women were willing to trust to its promises. It was thought then, as it has been thought since, that most of the friends of woman suffrage were in the Republican party, and that the interests of the cause could best be furthered by depending on its action. The women were, however, mistaken, and have learned to look upon the famous resolution in its true light. It is now known as the coup d'état of the Worcester convention of 1870, which really had more votes than it was fairly entitled to. After that,—"forewarned, forearmed," said the enemies of the enterprise, and woman suffrage resolutions have received less votes in Republican conventions.
When the memorial prepared by the State Central Committee was presented to the Democratic State convention, that body, in response, passed a resolution conceding the principle of women's right to suffrage, but at the same time declared itself against its being enforced, or put into practice. To finish the brief record of the dealings of the Democratic party, with the women of the State, it may be said that since 1870, it has never responded to their appeals, nor taken any action of importance on the question. In 1871 a resolution endorsing woman suffrage was passed in the Republican convention. In June, 1872, the national convention at Philadelphia, passed the following:
Resolved, That the Republican party is mindful of its obligations to the loyal women of America for their noble devotion to the cause of freedom; their admission to wider fields of usefulness is viewed with satisfaction; and the honest demand of any class of citizens for additional rights, should be treated with respectful consideration.
The Massachusetts Republican State Convention, following this lead, again passed a woman suffrage resolution:
Resolved, That we heartily approve the recognition of the rights of woman contained in the fourteenth clause of the national Republican platform; that the Republican party of Massachusetts, as the representative of liberty and progress, is in favor of extending suffrage to all American citizens irrespective of sex, and will hail the day when the educated intellect and enlightened conscience of woman shall find direct expression at the ballot-box.
This was during the campaign of 1872, when General Grant's chance of reëlection was thought to be somewhat uncertain, and the Republican women in all parts of the country were called on to rally to his support. The National Woman Suffrage Association had issued "an appeal to the women of America," asking them to coöperate with the Republican party and work for the election of its candidates. In response to this appeal a ratification meeting was held at Tremont Temple, in Boston, at which hundreds stayed to a late hour listening to speeches made by women on the political questions of the day. An address was issued from the "Republican women of Massachusetts to the women of America." In this address they announced their faith in and willingness to "trust the Republican party and its candidates, as saying what they mean and meaning what they say, and in view of their honorable record we have no fear of betrayal on their part." Mrs. Livermore, Lucy Stone and Huldah B. Loud took part in the canvass, and agents employed by the Massachusetts Association were instructed to speak for the Republican party.[21] Women writers furnished articles for the newspapers and the Republican women did as much effective work during the campaign as if each one had been a "man and a voter." They did everything but vote. All this agitation was a benefit to the Republican party, but not to woman suffrage, because for a time it arrayed other political parties against the movement and caused it to be thought merely a party issue, while it is too broad a question for such limitation.
General Grant was reëlected and the campaign was over. When the legislature met and the suffrage question came up for discussion, that body, composed in large majority of Republicans, showed the women of Massachusetts the difference between "saying what you mean and meaning what you say," the Woman Suffrage bill being defeated by a large majority. The women learned by this experience that nothing is to be expected of a political party while it is in power. To close the subject of suffrage resolutions in the platform of the Republican party, it may be said that they continued to be put in and seemed to mean something until after 1875, when they became only "glittering generalities," and were as devoid of real meaning or intention as any that were ever passed by the old Whig party on the subject of abolition. Yet from 1870 to 1874 the Republican party had the power to fulfill its promises on this question. Since then, it has been too busy trying to keep breath in its own body to lend a helping hand to any struggling reform. At the Republican convention, held in Worcester in 1880, an attempt was made by Mr. Blackwell to introduce a resolution endorsing the right conferred upon women in the law allowing them to vote for school committees, passed by the legislature of 1879. This resolution was rejected by the committee, and when offered in convention as an amendment, it was voted down without a single voice, except that of the mover, being raised in its support. Yet this resolution only asked a Republican convention to endorse an existing right, conferred on the women of the State by a Republican legislature! A political party as a party of freedom must be very far spent when it refuses at its annual convention to endorse an act passed by a legislature the majority of whose members are representatives elected from its own body. Since that time the Republican party has entirely ignored the claims of woman. In 1884, at its annual convention, an effort was made, as usual, by Mr. Blackwell, to introduce a resolution, but without success, and yet some of the best of our leaders advised the women to "stand by the Republican party."[22]
The question of forming a woman suffrage political party had, since 1870, been often discussed.[23] In 1875 Thomas J. Lothrop proposed the formation of a separate organization. But it was not until 1876 that any real effort in this direction was made. The Prohibitory (or Temperance) party sometimes holds the balance of political power in Massachusetts, and many of the members of that party are also strong advocates of suffrage. The feeling had been growing for several years that if forces could be joined with the Prohibitionists some practical result in politics might be reached, and though there was a difference of opinion on this subject, many were willing to see the experiment tried. The Prohibitory party had at its convention in 1876 passed a resolution inviting the women to take part in its primary meetings, with an equal voice and vote in the nomination of candidates and transaction of business. After long and anxious discussions, the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage State Central Committee, in whose hands all political action rested, determined to accept this invitation. A woman suffrage political convention was held, at which the Prohibitory candidates were endorsed and a joint State ticket was decided on, to be headed "Prohibition and Equal Rights." These tickets were sent to women all over the State, and they were strongly urged to go to the polls and distribute them on election day. Lucy Stone, Mary A. Livermore and other leading speakers took part in the campaign, and preparations were completed by which it was expected both parties would act harmoniously together. Clubs were formed at whose headquarters were seen men and women gathered together to organize for political work. From some of these headquarters hung transparencies with "Baker and Eddy" on one side, and "Prohibition and Equal Rights" on the other. Caucuses and conventions were held in Chelsea, Taunton, Malden, Lynn, Concord, and other places. A Middlesex county (first district) senatorial convention was called and organized by women, and its proceedings were fully reported by the Boston newspapers.[24]
The nominations made at these caucuses were generally unanimous, and it seemed at the time as if the two wings of the so-called "Baker party" would work harmoniously together. But, with a few honorable exceptions, the Prohibitionists, taking advantage of the fact that the voting power of the women was over, once outside the caucus, repudiated the nominations, or held other caucuses and shut the doors of entrance in the faces of the women who represented either the suffrage or the Prohibitory party. This was the case invariably, excepting in towns where the majority of the voting members of the Prohibitory party were also in favor of woman suffrage. This result is what might have been expected. Of what use was woman in the ranks of any political party, with no vote outside the caucus?
After being thus ignored in one of their caucuses in Malden, Middlesex county, the suffragists in that town determined to hold another caucus. This was accordingly done, and two "straight" candidates were nominated as town representatives to the legislature. A "Woman Suffrage ticket"[25]was thereupon printed to offer to the voters on election day. The next question was, who would distribute these ballots most effectively at the polls. Some men thought that the women themselves should go and present in person the names of their candidates. At first the women who had carried on the campaign shrank from this last test of their faithfulness; but, after carefully considering the matter, they concluded that it was the right thing to do. The repugnance felt at that time, at the thought of "women going to the polls" can hardly be appreciated to-day. Since they have begun to vote in Massachusetts the terror expressed at the idea of such a proceeding has somewhat abated; but in 1876 it was thought to be a rash act for a woman to appear at the polls in company with men. Some attempt was made to deter them from their purpose, and stories of pipes and tobacco and probable insults were told; but they had no terrors for women who knew better than to believe that their neighbors would be turned into beasts (like the man in the fairy tale) for this one day in the year.[26]
It was a sight to be remembered, to behold women "crowned with honor" standing at the polls to see the freed slave go by and vote, and the newly-naturalized fellow-citizen, and the blind, the paralytic, the boy of twenty-one with his newly-fledged vote, the drunken man who did not know Hayes from Tilden, and the man who read his ballot upside down. All these voted for the men they wanted to represent them, but the women, being neither colored, nor foreign, nor blind, nor paralytic, nor newly-fledged, nor drunk, nor ignorant, but only women, could not vote for the men they wanted to represent them.[27]
The women learned several things during this campaign in Massachusetts. One was, that weak parties are no more to be trusted than strong ones; and another, that men grant but little until the ballot is placed in the hands of those who make the demand. They learned also how political caucuses and conventions are managed. The resolution passed by the Prohibitionists enabled them to do this. So the great "open sesame" is reached. It is but fair to state that since 1876 the Prohibitory party has treated the woman suffrage question with consideration. In its annual convention it has passed resolutions endorsing woman's claims to political equality, and has set the example to other parties of admitting women as delegates. At the State convention in 1885 the following resolution was adopted by a good majority:
Resolved, That women having interests to be promoted and rights to be protected, and having ability for the discharge of political duties, should have the right to vote and to be voted for, as is accorded to man.
In the early history of Massachusetts, when the new colony was governed by laws set down in the Province charter (1691, third year of William and Mary) women were not excluded from voting. The clause in the charter relating to this matter says:
The great and general court shall consist of the governor and council (or assistants for the time being) and of such freeholders as shall be from time to time elected or deputed by the major part of the freeholders and other inhabitants of the respective towns or places, who shall be present at such elections.
In the original constitution (1780) women were excluded from voting except for certain State officers.[28] In the constitutional convention of 1820, the word "male" was first put into the constitution of the State, in an amendment to define the qualifications of voters. In this convention, a motion was made at three different times, during the passage of the act, to strike out the intruding word, but the motion was voted down. Long before the second attempt was made to revise the constitution of the State, large numbers of women began to demand suffrage. Woman's sphere of operations and enterprise had become so widened, that they felt they had not only the right, but also an increasing fitness for civil life and government, of which the ballot is but the sign and the symbol. In the constitutional convention of 1853, twelve petitions were presented, from over 2,000 adult persons, asking for the recognition of woman's right to the ballot, in the proposed amendments to the constitution of the State. The committee reported leave to withdraw, giving as their reason that the "consent of the governed" was shown by the small number of petitioners. Hearings before this committee were granted.[29] The chairman of this committee, in presenting the report, moved that all debate on the subject should cease in thirty minutes, and on motion of Benjamin F. Butler of Lowell, the whole report, excepting the last clause, was stricken out. There was then left of the whole document (including more than two closely-printed pages of reasoning) only this: "It is inexpedient for this convention to take any action."
Legislative action on the woman's rights question began in 1849, when William Lloyd Garrison presented the first petition on the subject to the State legislature. Following him was one from Jonathan Drake and others, "for a peaceable secession of Massachusetts from the Union." Both these petitions were probably considered by the legislature to which they were addressed as of equally incendiary character, since they both had "leave to withdraw." In 1851 an order was introduced asking "whether any legislation was necessary concerning the wills of married women?" In 1853 a bill was enacted "to exempt certain property of widows and unmarried women from taxation." In the legislature of 1856 the first great and important act relating to the property rights of women was passed. It was to the effect that women could hold all property earned or acquired independently of their husbands. This act was amended and improved the next session.
In 1857 a hearing was held before the Committee on the Judiciary to listen to arguments in favor of the petition of Lucy Stone and others for equal property rights for women and for the "right of suffrage." Another hearing was held in the same place in February, 1858, before the Joint Special Committee on the Qualifications of Voters. A second hearing on the right of suffrage for women was held the following week before the same committee. Thomas W. Higginson made an address and Caroline Kealey Dall read an essay. In 1858, Stephen A. Chase of Salem, from the same Committee on the Qualifications of Voters, made a long report on the petitions. This report closed with an order that the State Board of Education make inquiry and report to the next legislature "whether it is not practicable and expedient to provide by law some method by which the women of this State may have a more active part in the control and management of the schools." There is nothing in legislative records to show that the State Board of Education reported favorably; but from the above statement it appears that ten years before Samuel E. Sewall's petition on the subject, a movement was made towards making women "eligible to serve as members of school-committees."
The petitions for woman's rights were usually circulated by women going from house to house. They did the drudgery, endured the hardships and suffered the humiliations attendant upon the early history of our cause; but their names are forgotten, and others reap the benefit of their labors. These women were so modest and so anxious for the success of their petitions, that they never put their own names at the head of the list, preferring the signature of some leading man, so that others seeing his name, might be induced to follow his example. Among the earliest of these silent workers was Mary Upton Ferrin. Her petitions were for a change in the laws concerning the property rights of married women, and for the political and legal rights of all women. In 1849 she prepared a memorial to the Massachusetts legislature in which are embodied many of the demands for woman's equality before the law, which have so often been made to that body since that time.[30]
In 1861 the legislature debated a bill to allow a widow, "if she have woodland as a part of her dower, the privilege of cutting wood enough for one fire." This bill failed, and the widow, by law, was not allowed to keep herself warm with fuel from her own wood-lot. In 1863 a bill providing that "a wife may be allowed to be a witness and proceed against her husband for desertion," was reported inexpedient, and a bill was passed to prevent women from forming copartnerships in business. In 1865, Gov. John A. Andrew, seeing the magnitude of the approaching woman question, in his annual message to the legislature, made a memorable suggestion:
I know of no more useful object to which the commonwealth can lend its aid, than that of a movement, adopted in a practical way, to open the door of emigration to young women who are wanted for teachers and for every appropriate, as well as domestic, employment in the remote West, but who are leading anxious and aimless lives in New England.
By the "anxious and aimless" it was supposed the governor meant the widowed, single or otherwise unrepresented portion of the citizens of the State. No action was taken by the legislature on this portion of the governor's message. But a member of the Senate actually made the following proposition before that body:
That the "anxious and aimless women" of the State should assemble on the Common on a certain day of the year (to be hereafter named), and that Western men who wanted wives, should be invited to come here and select them.
Legislators who make such propositions, do not foresee that the time may come, when perhaps those nearest and dearest to them, may be classed among the superfluous or "anxious and aimless" women!
In 1865 bills allowing married women to testify in suits at law where their husbands are parties, and permitting them to hold trust estates were rejected. It will be seen that though all this legislation was adverse to woman's interest, the question had forced itself upon the attention of the members of both House and Senate. In 1866 a joint committee of both houses was appointed to consider:
If any additional legislation can be adopted, whereby the means of obtaining a livelihood by the women of this commonwealth may be increased and a more equal and just compensation be allowed for their labor.
In 1867, Francis W. Bird presented the petition of Mehitable Haskell of Gloucester for "an amendment to the constitution extending suffrage to women." In 1868 Mr. King of Boston presented the same petition, and it was at this time, and in answer thereto, that the subject first entered into the regular orders of the day, and became a part of the official business of the House of Representatives. Attempts to legislate on the property question were continued in 1868, in bills "to further protect the property of married women," "to allow married women to contract for necessaries," and if "divorced from bed and board, to allow them to dispose of their own property." These bills were all defeated. Annual legislative hearings on woman suffrage began in 1869. These were first secured through the efforts of the executive committee of the New England Woman Suffrage Association. Eight thousand women had petitioned the legislature that suffrage might be allowed them on the same terms as men, and in answer, two hearings were held in the green room at the State House.[31] In 1870 a joint special committee on woman suffrage was formed, and since that time there have been one or more annual hearings on the question. To what extent legislative sentiment has been created will be shown later in the improvement of many laws with regard to the legal status of woman.
William Claflin was the first governor of Massachusetts to present officially to the voters of the commonwealth the subject of woman's rights as a citizen. In his address to the legislature of 1871, he strongly recommended a change in the laws regarding suffrage and the property rights of woman. His attitude toward this reform made an era in the history of the executive department of the State. Since that time nearly every governor of the State has, in his annual message, recommended the subject to respectful consideration. In 1879 Governor Thomas Talbot proposed a constitutional amendment which should secure the ballot to women on the same terms as to men. In response to this portion of the governor's message, and to the ninety-eight petitions presented on the subject, a general suffrage bill passed the Senate by a two-thirds majority, and an act to "give women the right to vote for members of school committees," passed both branches of the legislature and became a law of the State.[32] Governor John D. Long, in his inaugural address before the legislature of 1880, expressed his opinion in favor of woman suffrage perhaps more decidedly than any who had preceded him in that high official position. He said:
I repeat my conviction of the right of woman suffrage. If the commonwealth is not ready to give it in full by a constitutional amendment, I approve of testing it in municipal elections.
The law allowing women to vote for school committees is one of the last results of the legislative agitations, though it is true that the petition, the answer to which was the passage of this act, did not emanate from any suffrage association. It was the outcome of a conference on the subject, held in the parlors of the New England Women's Club.[33] But the petitions of the suffragists had always been for general and unrestricted suffrage, and they opposed any scheme for securing the ballot on a class or a restricted basis, holding that the true ground of principle is equality of rights with man. The practical result, so far, of voting for school committees has justified this position; for, as shown by the recent elections, the women of the State have not availed themselves to any extent of their new right to vote, and, therefore, the measure has not forwarded the cause of general suffrage. In fact, the school-committee question is not a vital one with either male or female voters, and it is impossible to get up any enthusiasm on the subject. As a test question upon which to try the desire of the women of the State to become voters, it is a palpable sham. Our Revolutionary fathers would not have fought, bled and died for such a figment of a right as this; and their daughters, or grand-daughters, inherit the same spirit, and if they vote at all, want something worth voting for. The result is, that the voting has been largely done by those women who have long been in favor of suffrage, and who have gone to the polls on election day from pure principle and a sense of duty.[34]
The law allowing women to vote for school committees was very elastic and capable of many interpretations. It reminded one of the old school exercise in transposing the famous line in Gray's Elegy,
"The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,"
which has been found to be capable of over twenty different transpositions. The collectors and registrars in some towns and cities took advantage of this obscurity of expression, and interpreted the law according to their individual opinion on the woman suffrage question. In places where these officials were in sympathy, a broad construction was put upon the provisions of the law, the poll-tax payers were allowed to vote upon the payment of one dollar (under the divided tax law of 1879), and the women voters generally were given all necessary information, and treated courteously both by the assessors and registrars and at the polls. In places where leading officials were opposed to women's voting, the case was far different. Without regarding the clause in the law which said that a woman may vote upon paying either State or county poll-tax, such officials have threatened the women with arrest when they refused to pay both. In some towns they have been treated with great indignity, as if they were doing an unlawful act. In one town the women were actually required to pay a poll-tax the second year, in spite of the clause in the law that a female citizen who has paid a State or county tax within two years shall have the right to vote. The town assessor, whose duty it was to inform the women on this point of the law when asked concerning the matter, willfully withheld the desired information, saying he "did not know," though he afterwards said that he did know, but intended to let the women "find out for themselves." This assessor forgot that the women, as legal voters, had a right to ask for this information, and that by virtue of his official position he was legally obliged to answer. In another town two ladies who were property tax-payers were made to pay the two dollars poll-tax, and the record of this still stands on the town books. Some ladies were frightened and paid the tax under protest; others ran the risk. Here is a letter addressed to a lady 83 years of age:
Malden, Dec. 2, 1879.
Harriet Hanson: There is a balance of ninety cents due on your poll-tax of 1879, duly assessed upon you. Payment of the same is hereby demanded, and if not paid within fourteen days from this date, with twenty cents for the summons, the collector is required to proceed forthwith to collect the same in manner provided by law.
Theodore N. Fogue, Collector.
Mrs. Hanson paid no attention to the summons, and that was the end of it.
In 1881, under the amended act the poll-tax was reduced to fifty cents, and the property tax-paying women (who are not required to pay a poll-tax) are no longer obliged to make a return of property exempt from taxation, as was required under the original statute. Though some of the disabilities were removed, yet the privileges are no greater; and it is for members of school-committees and for nothing else, that the women of this State can vote. This is hardly worthy to be called "school suffrage"! It is to be regretted that a better test than that of school-committee suffrage, could not have been given to the women of the State, so that the issue of what under the circumstances cannot be called a fair trial of their desire to vote, might be more nearly what the friends of reform had desired.
The first petition to the Massachusetts legislature, asking that women might be allowed to serve on school-boards was presented in 1866 by Samuel E. Sewall of Boston. The same petition was again presented in 1867. About this time Ashfield and Monroe, two of the smallest towns in the State, elected women as members of the school committee. Worcester and Lynn soon followed the good example, and in 1874, Boston, for the first time, chose six women to serve in this capacity.[35] There had hitherto been no open objection to this innovation, but the school committee of Boston not liking the idea of women co-workers, declared them ineligible to hold such office. Miss Peabody applied to the Supreme Court for its opinion upon the matter, but the judges refused to answer, and dismissed the petition on the ground that the school committee itself had power to decide the question of the qualifications of members of the board. The subject was brought before the legislature of the same year, and that body, almost unanimously, passed "An Act to Declare Women Eligible to Serve as Members of School Committees." Thus the women members were reinstated.[36]
This refusal on the part of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts to answer a question relating to woman's rights under the law, was received with a knowing smile by those who remembered the three adverse decisions relating to women which had been given by that august body. The first of these was on the case of Sarah E. Wall of Worcester. The second was concerning a clause in the will of Francis Jackson of Boston, who left $5,000 and other property to the woman's rights cause. Its third adverse decision was given in 1871. In that year, Julia Ward Howe and Mary E. Stevens were appointed by Governor Claflin as justices of the peace. Some member of the governor's council having doubted whether women could legally hold the office, the opinion of the Supreme Court was asked and it decided substantially that because women were women, or because women were not men, they could not be justices of the peace; and the appointment was not confirmed.
Changes in the common law began in 1843 with reference to the wife's right to hold her own property. In 1846 she could legally sign a receipt for money earned or deposited by herself.[37] Before 1855 a woman could not hold her own property, either earned or acquired by inheritance. If unmarried, she was obto place it in the hands of a trustee, to whose will she was subject. If she contemplated marriage, and desired to call her property her own, she was forced by law to make a contract with her intended husband, by which she gave up all title or claim to it. A woman, either married or unmarried, could hold no office of trust or power. She was not a person. She was not recognized as a citizen. She was not a factor in the human family. She was not a unit; but a zero, a nothing, in the sum of civilization.
To-day, a married woman can hold her own property, if it is held or bought in her own name, and can make a will disposing of it. A man is no longer the sole heir of his wife's property. A married woman can make contracts, enter into co-partnerships, carry on business, invest her own earnings for her own use and behoof,—and she is also responsible for her own debts. She can be executor, administrator, guardian or trustee. She can testify in the courts for or against her husband. She can release, transfer, or convey, any interest she may have in real estate, subject only to the life interest which the husband may have at her death. Thirty years ago, when the woman's rights movement began, the status of a married woman was little better than that of a domestic servant. By the English common law, her husband was her lord and master. He had the sole custody of her person, and of her minor children. He could "punish her with a stick no bigger than his thumb," and she could not complain against him.[38]But the real "thumb" story seems to have originated with a certain Judge Buller of England, who lived about one hundred years ago. In his ruling on one of those cases of wife-beating, now so common in our police courts, he said that a man had a right to punish his wife, "with a stick no bigger than his thumb." That was his opinion. Shortly after this some ladies sent the judge a letter in which they prayed him to give the size of his thumb! We are not told whether he complied with their request.]
The common law of this State held man and wife to be one person, but that person was the husband. He could by will deprive her of every part of his property, and also of what had been her own before marriage. He was the owner of all her real estate and of her earnings. The wife could make no contract and no will, nor, without her husband's consent, dispose of the legal interest of her real estate. He had the income of her real estate till she died, and if they ever had a living child his ownership of the real estate continued to his death. He could forbid her to buy a loaf of bread or a pound of sugar, or contract for a load of wood to keep the family warm. She did not own a rag of her own clothing. She had no personal rights, and could hardly call her soul her own.
Her husband could steal her children, rob her of her clothing, and her earnings, neglect to support the family; and she had no legal redress. If a wife earned money by her labor, the husband could claim the pay as his share of the proceeds. There is a clause sometimes found in old wills, to the effect that if a widow marry again, she shall forfeit all right to her husband's property. The most conservative judge in the commonwealth would now rule that a widow cannot be kept from her fair share of the property, by any such unjust restriction. In a husband's eyes of a hundred and fifty years ago, a woman's mission was accomplished after she had been his wife and borne his children. What more could be desired of her, he argued, but a corner somewhere in which, respectably dressed as his relict, she could sit down and mourn for him, for the rest of her life.[39]
The law no longer sanctions such a will, but provides that the widow shall have a fair share of all personal property. If a widow permits herself to-day to be defrauded of her legal rights in the division of property, it is her own fault, and because she does not study and understand for herself the general statutes of Massachusetts, and the laws concerning the rights of married women. The result of thirty years of property legislation for women is well stated by Mr. Sewall in his admirable pamphlet, in which he says, "the last thirty years have done more to improve the law for married women than the four hundred preceding." The legislature has, during this time, enacted laws allowing women to vote in parishes and religious societies, declaring that women must become members of the board of trustees of the three State primary and reform schools, of the State workhouse, of the State almshouse at Tewksbury, and of the board of prison commissioners; also, that certain officers and managers of the reformatory prison for women at Sherborn "shall be women." Without legislation, women now are school supervisors, overseers of the poor, trustees of public libraries and members of the State Board of Education and of the State Board of Health, Lunacy and Charity.[40] These great changes in legislation for the women of Massachusetts are the result of their own labors. By conventions and documents they have informed the people and enlightened public sentiment. By continued agitation the question has been kept prominently before their representatives in the legislature. And, though so much has been gained, they are still hard at work, nor will they rest until, woman's equality with man before the law is firmly established.
Among the most important acts passed recently is one of 1879, by which a married woman is the owner of her own clothing to the value of $2,000, although the act granting this calls such apparel the "gifts of her husband," not recognizing the fact that most married women earn or help to earn their own clothes. A law was passed, in 1881, to "mitigate the evils of divorce." Two important acts were passed by the legislature of 1882, one allowing women to become practising attorneys, and the other providing, that in case of the death of a married woman intestate and leaving children, one-half only of her personal estate shall go to her husband, instead of the whole, as in previous years. In 1883, a wife was given the right of burial in any lot or tomb belonging to her husband. In 1884, the only measures were a bill providing for the appointment of women on the board of State lunatic hospitals, and another providing for the appointment of women assistant physicians in the same hospitals, and an act giving women the power to dispose of their separate estates by will or deed. In 1885, very little was done to improve the legal status of women.
When any vote on the Suffrage bill is taken, it is enough to make the women who sit in the gallery weep to hear the "O's" and the "Mc's," almost to a man, thunder forth the emphatic "No!"; and to think that these men (some of whom a few years ago were walking over their native bogs, with hardly the right to live and breathe) should vote away so thoughtlessly the rights of the women of the country in which they have found a shelter and a home. When they came to this country, poor, and with no inheritance but the "shillalah," the ballot was freely given to them, as the poor man's weapon for defence. Why cannot men, who have been political serfs in their own country, see the incongruity of voting against the enfranchisement of over one-half of the inhabitants of the State which has made free human beings of them? It is not long since one of these adopted citizens, in a discussion, said:
When the women show that they want to vote, I am willing to give them all the rights they want.
Give! I thought. Where did you get the right to give Massachusetts women the right to vote? You did not inherit it. In what consists your prerogative over the women whose ancestors fought to secure the very right of suffrage of which you so glibly talk, and which neither you, nor your father before you, did aught to establish or maintain? The improvement in the social or general condition of woman has been even greater than that in legislation. Previous to 1840, women were employed only as teachers of summer schools, to "spell the men" during the haying season; and this only occasionally. They held no responsible position in any public school in the State. To-day there are eight women to one man employed in all grades of this profession, and there are numerous instances where women are head-teachers of departments, or principals of high, normal and grammar schools. Previous to 1825, girls could attend only the primary schools of Boston. Through the influence of Rev. John Pierpont, the first high-school for girls was opened in that city. There was a great outcry against this innovation; and, because of the excitement on the subject, and the great number of girls who applied for admission, the scheme was abandoned. The public-school system, as it is now called, was established in Boston in 1789; boys were admitted the whole year round; girls, from April to October. This inequality in the opportunities for education roused John Pierpont's indignation, and moved him to make strenuous efforts to secure justice for girls. Now there are 6,246 schools, seventy-two academies, six normal schools, two colleges, Boston University and the "Harvard Annex" all open to girls. In the town of Plymouth, where the Pilgrim fathers and mothers first landed, when the question whether girls should receive any public instruction first came up in town-meeting, there was great opposition to it. However, the majority showed a liberal spirit, and voted to give the girls one hour of instruction daily. This was in 1793. In 1853 a normal school for girls was established in Boston; in 1855 its name was changed to the Girls' High and Normal School. In 1878 the Girls' Latin School in Boston was founded. The establishment of this successful institution was the result of discussions on the subject first brought before the public by ladies of Boston. High schools in almost all the towns and cities of the State have long been established, in which the boys and girls are educated together. In 1880 the pupils in the high and normal schools of Boston were about 2,000 girls to 1,000 boys. In 1867 the Lowell Institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology advertised classes free to both sexes in French, mathematics and in practical science.[41] Since that time Chauncy Hall School and Boston University have been opened to women, with the equal privileges of male students. It might be explained here that the "Harvard Annex," or "Private Collegiate Instruction for Women," is not an organic part of the University itself. Under a certain arrangement, a limited number of young women are allowed a few of the privileges of the young men. They are also permitted to use all the books belonging to the library and to attend many of the lectures. No college-building is appropriated for this purpose, but recitation-rooms are provided in private houses. A witty Cambridge lady called this mythical college the "Harvard Annex"; the public adopted the name, and many people suppose that there is such a building. From the last annual report of the "Private Collegiate Instruction for Women," it appears that in 1885 sixty-five women availed themselves of the privilege of attending this course of instruction.[42] Three-fourths of this number are Massachusetts girls. Some of the professors say that the average of scholarship there is higher than in the University. Fifty courses of studies are open to women students. Miss Brown of Concord, a graduate of 1884, astonished the faculty by her high per cent. in the classics. Her average was higher than that reached by any young man. These students go unattended to the lectures and to the library of the college. A great change indeed, since the time when women began to attend the Lowell Institute lectures! Then it was thought almost disgraceful to go to a public meeting without male protection, and they went with veiled faces, as if ashamed to be seen of men. The "Annex" has some advantages, but they cannot compare with Girton and Newnham of Cambridge, England.
The treasurer of the "Harvard Annex" declares the great need that exists for funds to provide a suitable building, etc., for the numerous women who continue to apply there for admission; and he appeals to the generosity of the public for contributions of money to be used for this purpose. The casual observer might suggest that those women who will hereafter become the benefactors of this university should remember the needs of their own sex, and leave their donations or bequests so that they can be used for the benefit of the "Harvard Annex," which is a wholly private enterprise, conducted by the University instructors and supervised by a committee of ladies.
Colleges for women have also been founded. Wellesley and Smith have long been doing good university work. Thirty years ago there was no college in the country, except Oberlin, to which women were admitted. To-day, even conservative Harvard begins to melt a little under this regenerating influence, and invites women, through the doors of its "Annex," to come and enjoy some of the privileges found within its sacred halls of learning. This was a late act of grace from a college whose inception was in the mind of a woman[43] longing for a better opportunity than the new colony could give to educate her afterward ungrateful son.
The number of young men educated by the individual efforts of women cannot be estimated. T. W. Higginson, in the Woman's Journal, says:
The late President Walker once told me that, in his judgment, one-quarter of the young men in Harvard College were being carried through by the special self-denial and sacrifices of women. I cannot answer for the ratio, but I can testify to having been an instance of this, myself; and to having known a never-ending series of such cases of self-devotion.
Some of these men, educated by the labor and self-sacrifice of others, look down upon the social position in which their women friends are still forced to remain. The result to the recipient has often been of doubtful value, so far as the development of the affections is concerned. Sometimes the great obligation has been forgotten. Only in rare instances, to either party did the life-long sacrifice on the part of the women of the family become of permanent and spiritual value!
The average woman of forty years ago was very humble in her notions of the sphere of woman. What if she did hunger and thirst after knowledge? She could do nothing with it, even if she could get it. So she made a fetich of some male relative, and gave him the mental food for which she herself was starving, and devoted all her energies towards helping him to become what she felt, under better conditions, she herself might have been. It was enough in those early days to be the mother
sister of somebody. Women were almost as abject in this particular as the Thracian woman of old, who said:
"I am not of the noble Grecian race,
I'm poor Abrotonon, and born in Thrace;
Let the Greek women scorn me, if they please,
I was the mother of Themistocles."
There are women still left who believe their husbands, sons, or male friends can study, read and vote for them. They are like some frugal house-mothers, who think their is no need of a dinner if the good-man of the family is not coming home to share it. Just as if the man-half of the human family can "eat, learn and inwardly digest," to make either physical or mental strength for the other half!
Maria Mitchell of Massachusetts became Professor of Astronomy and Mathematics at Vassar, in 1866, the first woman in the country to hold such a position. Since that time women have become members of the faculty in several of the large colleges in the country.
In the early days of the commonwealth women practiced midwifery, and were very successful. Mrs. John Eliot, Anne Hutchinson, Mrs. Fuller and Sarah Alcock were the first in the State. Janet Alexander, a Scotchwoman, was a well-trained midwife.[44] She lived in Boston, and was always recognized as a good practitioner in her line by the leading doctors in that city. Dr. John C. Warren of Boston invited this lady to come to this country. His biography, recently published, contains a short record of the matter, in which he says: "We determined to recommend Mrs. Alexander. She was a Scotchwoman, regularly educated, and having Dr. Hamilton's diploma." Quite a storm was raised among the younger physicians of Boston by this attempted innovation, because they thought Dr. Warren was trying to deprive them of profitable practice. But Mrs. Alexander, supported by Dr. Warren, and perhaps other physicians, continued her occupation and educated her daughter in the same profession. Dr. Harriot K. Hunt practiced in Boston as early as 1835. She sought admission to the Harvard Medical School, and was many times refused. She was not what is called a "regular physician." In her day there existed no schools or colleges for the medical education of women, but she studied by herself, and acquired some knowledge of diseases peculiar to women. Her success was so great in her line of practice that she proved the need existing for physicians of her own sex.
Dr. Hunt's tussle with the medical faculty will long be remembered. She was the first woman in the State who dared assert her right to recognition in this profession. For this, and for her persistent efforts to secure for them a higher education, she deserves the gratitude of every woman who has since followed her footsteps into a profession over which the men had long held undisputed control. In 1853 the degree of M. D. was conferred on her by the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania. The first medical college for women, organized by Dr. Samuel Gregory of Boston, was chartered in 1856, under the name of the New England Female Medical College, and in 1874, by an act of the legislature, united with the Boston University School of Medicine. In 1868 it had graduated seventy-two women, among whom were Dr. Lucy E. Sewall and Dr. Helen Morton (who afterwards went to Paris and studied obstetrics at Madame Aillot's Hospital of Maternity) and Dr. Mercy B. Jackson.[45]There are now 205 regular practitioners in the State.
In 1863, Dr. Zakrzewska, in coöperation with Lucy Goddard and Ednah D. Cheney, established the New England Hospital for Women and Children. Its avowed objects were: (1) to provide women the medical aid of competent physicians of their own sex; (2) to assist educated women in the practical study of medicine; (3) to train nurses for the care of the sick. This was the first hospital in New England over which women have had entire control, both as physicians and surgeons. Boston University is open to both sexes, with equal studies, duties and privileges. This institution was incorporated in 1869, and includes, among other schools and colleges, schools of theology, law and medicine. The faculty consists of many distinguished men and women. Boston University School of Medicine (homeopathic) was organized in 1873. Of the thirty-two lecturers and professors who constitute the faculty, five are women. In 1884 the three highest of the four prizes for the best medical thesis were won by women. Of the 610 pupils in 1884, 155 were women; sixty of these were in the school of medicine. There are women in all departments, except agriculture and theology. They do not study theology because they cannot be ordained to preach in any of the leading churches.
The Massachusetts Medical Society in 1884, on motion of Dr. Henry I. Bowditch, voted to admit women to membership. Dr. Emma L. Call and Dr. Harriet L. Harrington were the first two women admitted. January 11, 1882, at the monthly meeting of Harvard overseers, the question of admitting women to the Medical School came before the board. An individual desiring to contribute a fund for the medical education of women in Harvard University asked the president and fellows whether such a fund would be accepted and used as designed. Majority and minority reports were submitted by the committee in charge, and after a long discussion it was voted, 11 to 6, to accept the fund, the income to be ultimately used for the medical education of women. At the April meeting, the Committee on the Medical Education of Women presented a report, which was adopted by a vote of 13 to 12:
That, in the opinion of the board, it is not advisable for the University to hold out any encouragement that it will undertake the medical education of women.
The Harvard Divinity School at Cambridge sometimes admits women, but does not recognize them publicly, nor grant them degrees; but there are other theological schools in the State where a complete preparation for the ministerial profession can be obtained. The attitude of the churches toward women has changed greatly within thirty years. As early as 1869, women began to serve on committees, and to be ordained deaconesses of churches. They also hold important offices connected with the different church organizations. They serve on the boards of State and national religious associations. There are also missionary associations, both home and foreign, and Christian unions, all officered and managed exclusively by women. Even the treasurers of these large bodies are women, and their husbands or trustees are no longer required to give bonds for them.[46]At the general conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the word "male" was stricken from the discipline, and the word "person" inserted in its place, in all cases save those that concerned the ordination of clergy. Olympia Brown was the first woman settled as pastor in the State. Her parish was at Weymouth Landing. In 1864 she petitioned the Massachusetts legislature "that marriages performed by a woman should be made legal." The Committee on the Judiciary, to whom the matter was referred, reported that no legislation was necessary, as marriages solemnized by women were already legal.[47] Thus the legislature of the State established the precedent, that "he" meant "she" under the law, in one instance at least. Phebe Hanaford, Mary H. Graves and Lorenza Haynes were the first Massachusetts women to be ordained preachers of the gospel. Rev. Lorenza Haynes has been chaplain of the Maine House of Representatives.
The three best-known women sculptors in this country were born and bred in Massachusetts. They are Harriet Hosmer, Margaret Foley and Anne Whitney. Harriet Hosmer was the first to free herself from the traditions of her sex and follow her profession as a sculptor. When she desired to fit herself for her vocation there was no art school east of the Mississippi river where she could study anatomy, or find suitable models. Margaret Foley, who, amid the hum of the machinery of the Lowell cotton mills, first conceived the idea of chiseling her thought on the surface of a "smooth-lipped shell," was obliged to go to Rome in order to get the necessary instruction in cameo-cutting. There her genius developed so much that she began to model in clay, and soon became a successful sculptor in marble. Lucy Larcom, in her "Idyl of Work," says of Miss Foley:
"That broad-browed delicate girl will carve at Rome
Faces in marble, classic as her own."
One of her finest creations is "The Fountain," first exhibited in Horticultural Hall at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, 1876. A free art-school was opened to women in Boston in 1867, and Anne Whitney was not obliged to go to Rome for instruction in the appliances of her art. Harriet Hosmer and Margaret Foley have both made statues which adorn the public buildings and parks of their native country; and Anne Whitney's statues of Samuel Adams and Harriet Martineau are the crowning works of her genius. No great work has yet been done by Massachusetts women in oil painting; but in water colors, and in decorative art, many have excelled, first prizes in superiority of design having been taken by them over their masculine competitors. Lizzie B. Humphrey, Jessie Curtis, Sarah W. Whitman and Fidelia Bridges, take high rank as artists. Helen M. Knowlton, a pupil of William M. Hunt, is a skillful artist in charcoal and has produced some fine pictures. Women form a large proportion of the students in the school of design recently opened in Boston. A great deal of the ornamental painting now so fashionable on cards and all fancy articles is done by the deft fingers of women. The census of 1880 reports 268 artists and 1,270 musicians and teachers of music.
Of woman as actress and public singer, it is unnecessary to speak, since she has the right of way in both these professions. Here, fortunately, the supply does not exceed the demand; consequently she has her full share of rights, and what is better, equitable pay for her labor. In 1880 there were 111 actresses. Charlotte Cushman, Clara Louise Kellogg and Annie Louise Cary were born in Massachusetts.
The drama speaks too feebly on the right side of the woman question. No successful modern dramatist has made this "humour" of the times the subject of his play. An effort was made in 1879, by the executive committee of the New England Association, to secure a woman suffrage play: but it was not successful, and there is yet to be written a counteractive to that popular burlesque, "The Spirit of '76." It is to be regretted that the stage still continues to ridicule the woman's rights movement and its leaders; for, as Hamlet says:
The play's the thing,
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."
In 1650, when Anne Bradstreet lived and wrote her verses, a woman author was almost unknown in English literature. This lady was the wife of the governor of Massachusetts, and because of her literary tendencies was looked upon by the people of her time as a marvel of womankind. Her contemporaries called her the "tenth muse lately sprung up in America," and one of them, Rev. Nathaniel Ward, was inspired to write an address to her, in which he declares his wonder at her success as a poet, and playfully foretells the consequences if women are permitted to intrude farther into the domain of man. The closing lines express so well the conflicting emotions which torment the minds of the opponents of the woman suffrage movement, that I venture to quote them:
"Good sooth," quoth the old Don, "tell ye me so?
I muse whither at length these Girls will go.
It half revives my chil, frost-bitten blood
To see a woman once do aught that's good.
And, chode by Chaucer's Boots and Homer's Furrs,
Let men look to't least Women wear the Spurrs."
In 1818, Hannah Mather Crocker, grand-daughter of Cotton Mather, published a book, called "Observations on the Rights of Women." In speaking of Mary Wollstonecraft, Mrs. Crocker says, that while that celebrated woman had a very independent mind, and her "Rights of Woman" is replete with fine sentiments, yet, she continues, patronizingly, "we do not coincide with her respecting the total independence of the sex." Mrs. Crocker evidently wanted her sex to be not too independent, but just independent enough.[48]
In 1841, when Lydia Maria Child edited the Anti-Slavery Standard, Margaret Fuller the Dial, and Harriot F. Curtis and Harriet Farley the Lowell Offering, there were perhaps in New England no other well-known women journalists or editors. Cornelia Walter of the Evening Transcript was the first woman journalist in Boston. To-day, women are editors and publishers of newspapers all over the United States; and the woman's column is a part of many leading newspapers. Sallie Joy White was the first regular reporter in Boston. She began on the Boston Post, a Democratic newspaper, in 1870. Her first work was to report the proceedings of a woman suffrage meeting. She is now on the staff of the Boston Daily Advertiser. Lilian Whiting is on the staff of the Traveller, and most of the other Boston newspapers have women among their editors and reporters. Some of the best magazine writing of the time is done by women; one needs but to look over the table of contents of the leading periodicals to see how large a proportion of the articles is written by them. Really, the sex seems to have taken possession of what Carlyle called the "fourth estate"—the literary profession, and they journey into unexplored regions of thought to give the omniverous modern reader something new to feed upon. The census of 1880 reports 445 women as authors and literary persons.
The newspaper itself, that great engine "whose ambassadors are in every quarter of the globe, whose couriers upon every road," has slowly swung round, and is at last headed in the right direction. Reporters for the daily press in Massachusetts no longer write in a spirit of flippancy or contempt, and there is not an editor in the State of any account who would permit a member of his staff to report a woman's meeting in any other spirit than that of courtesy. Teachers occupying high positions and presidents of colleges have given pronounced opinions in favor of the reform. Said President Hopkins of Williams College, in 1875:
I would at this point correct my teaching in "The Law of Love," to the effect that home is peculiarly the sphere of woman, and civil government that of man. I now regard the home as the joint sphere of man and woman, and the sphere of civil government more of an open question between the two.
The New England Women's Club, parent[49] of the modern clubs and associations for the advancement of women, has been one of the factors in the woman's rights movement. Its members have, in their work and in their lives, illustrated the doctrine of woman's equality with man. It was formed in February, 1868.[50] There has never been, from time immemorial, much difference of opinion concerning woman's right to do a good share in the drudgery of the world. But in the remunerative employments, before 1850, she was but sparsely represented. In 1840, when Harriet Martineau visited this country, she found to her surprise that there were only seven vocations, outside home, into which the women of the United States had entered. These were "teaching, needlework, keeping boarders, weaving, type-setting, and folding and stitching in book-bindery." In contrast, it is only necessary to mention that in Massachusetts alone, woman's ingenuity is now employed in nearly 300 different branches of industry. It cannot be added that for doing the same kind and amount of work women are paid men's wages. The census does not include the services of the mother and daughter among the paid vocations, though, as is well known, in many instances they do all the housework of the family. They get no wages, and therefore do not appear among the "useful classes." They are not earners, but savers of money. A money-saver is not a recognized factor, either in political economy or in the State census. The mother, daughter or wife is put down in its pages as "keeping house." If they were paid for their services they would be called "housekeepers," and would have their place among the paid employments.
Among the many rights woman has appropriated to herself must be included the "patent right." The charge has often been made that women never invent anything, but statistics on the subject declare that in 1880 patents for their own inventions were issued to eighty-seven different women in the United States. A fair proportion of these were from Massachusetts.
This progress in the various departments encountered great opposition from certain teachers and writers. Dr. Bushnell's "Reform Against Nature," Dr. Fulton's-talk both in and out of the pulpit, served to show the weakness of that side of the question. Frances Parkman, Dr. Holland, Dr. W. H. Hammond, Rev. Morgan Dix, and even some women have added their so called arguments in the vain attempt to keep woman as they think "God made her."
Much the stronger writers and speakers have been found on the right side of this question. The names of leading speakers, such as William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips and Theodore Parker, have already been mentioned. Perhaps the most suggestive articles in favor of the reform were T. W. Higginson's "Ought Women to Learn the Alphabet," published in the Atlantic Monthly of February, 1859, and Samuel Bowles' "The Woman Question and Sex in Politics," published at a later date in the Springfield Republican. "Warrington," in his letters to the same newspaper, from 1868 to 1876, never failed to present a good and favorable argument on some phase of the woman question. Caroline Healey Dall's lectures before 1860, and her book "The College, the Market and the Court," published in 1868, were seed-grain sown in the field of this reform. Samuel E. Sewall's able digest of the laws relating to the legal condition of married women, and William I. Bowditch's admirable pamphlets,[51]have done incalculable service.
Of women in the civil service, there are: 58 clerks, 266 employés and 387 officials—total, 411. This includes postmasters and clerks in bureaus. In 1880, General F. A. Walker, superintendent of the census, instructed the supervisors of the several districts to appoint women as enumerators when practicable. They were accordingly so appointed in many parts of the United States. Carroll D. Wright, supervisor of the district of Massachusetts was in favor of General Walker's instructions, and out of the 903 enumerators appointed by him, thirty were women. This was an exceedingly large proportion compared with the number appointed in States where supervisors were not in favor of women enumerators.
Thanks to the efforts of Caroline Healey Dall, the American Social Science Association, formed in 1865, put women on its board of officers, as did the Boston Social Science Association, organized the same year. These were the first large organizations in the country to admit women on an absolute equality with men. The result of this action vindicated at once and forever woman's fitness to occupy positions of honor in associations that man had hitherto claimed for himself alone. This has encouraged women to express themselves in the presence of the wisest men, and enabled them to present to the public the woman side of some great questions. Women are officers as well as members of many societies originally established exclusively for men. A national society for political education, formed in 1880, of which women are members, has at least one woman on its board of officers. What would have been thought thirty years ago, if women had studied finance, banks and banking, money, currency, sociology and political science? The Summer School of Philosophy at Concord was founded in 1879.[52] A majority of the students are women, as was not the case in the elder schools of philosophy, and they come from far and near to spend a few weeks of their summer vacation in the enjoyment of this halcyon season of rest. Day after day they sit patiently on the æsthetic benches of the Hillside chapel and bask in the calm light of mild philosophy. Its seed was sown forty years ago, in what was called the Transcendental movement in New England. The Concord school finds in Mr. Sanborn its executive spirit, without which it could no more have come into existence at this time than its first seed could have been planted forty years ago, without the conceptive thought of Mr. Emerson, Mr. Alcott and Margaret Fuller.
Boston University long ago offered the advantages of its law-school to women, but they do not much avail themselves of this privilege. Lelia J. Robinson, in March, 1881, made her application for admission to the bar. In presenting her claim before the court, April 23, Mr. Charles R. Train admitted that it was a novel one; but in a very effective manner he went on to state the cogent reasons why a woman who had carefully prepared herself for the profession of the law should be permitted to practice in the courts. At the close, Chief-Justice Gray gave the opinion, informally, that the laws, as they now exist, preclude woman from being attorney-at-law; but he reserved the matter for the consideration of the full bench. The Supreme Judicial Court rendered an adverse decision. Petitions were then sent to the legislature of 1882, and that body passed an act[53] declaring that, "The provisions of law relating to the qualification and admission to practice of attorneys-at-law shall apply to women." The petition of Lelia Josephine Robinson to the Supreme Court was as follows:
1. The best administration of justice may be most safely secured by allowing the representation of all classes of the people in courts of justice.
2. To allow women to practice at the bar as attorneys is only to secure to the people the right to select their own counsel. It is to give the women of Massachusetts the opportunity of consulting members of their own sex for that advice and assistance which none but authorized attorneys and counsellors are legally qualified to give.
3. To exclude women from the bar would be to do an injustice to the community, in preventing free and wholesome competition of existing talent, and to do still greater injustice to those women who are qualified for the profession, by shutting them out from an honorable and remunerative means of gaining a livelihood. 4. To exclude women from the bar because there are certain departments of the profession which are peculiarly ill-adapted to their sex and nature, would be to assume arbitrarily that, with entire lack of judgment or discretion, modesty or policy, they would seek or accept such business; and to close to them those avenues of the profession for which they are generally admitted to be eminently well adapted, for such a reason, and upon such an assumption, would be so grossly unjust that no argument can be based on such an impossible contingency.
Your applicant, having faithfully and diligently pursued the study of law for three years, being a graduate of the Boston University Law School, and having complied with the other requirements of the statute and the rules of court upon the subject, respectfully prays that her petition for examination, which was duly filed, may be favorably considered, and that it be included in the general notice to the Board of Examiners of Suffolk county.
Lelia Josephine Robinson.
The opinion given by the Supreme Judicial Court, so far as it relates to the main point at issue, is as follows:
The question presented by this petition and by the report on which it has been reserved for our determination, is whether, under the laws of the commonwealth, an unmarried woman is entitled to be examined for admission as an attorney and counsellor of this Court. This being the first application of the kind in Massachusetts, the Court, desirous that it might be fully argued, informed the executive committee of the Bar Association of the city of Boston of the application, and has received elaborate briefs from the petitioner in support of her petition and from two gentlemen of the bar as amici curiæ in opposition thereto. The statute under which the application is made is as follows: "A citizen of this State, or an alien who has made the primary declaration of his intention to become a citizen of the United States, and who is an inhabitant of this State, at the age of twenty-one years and of good moral character, may, on the recommendation of an attorney, petition the Supreme Judicial or Superior Court to be examined for admission as an attorney, whereupon the Court shall assign a time and place for the examination, and if satisfied with his acquirements and qualifications he shall be admitted." St. 1876, c. 107.
The word "citizen," when used in its most common and most comprehensive sense, doubtless includes women; but a woman is not, by virtue of her citizenship, vested by the Constitution of the United States, or by the constitution of the commonwealth, with any absolute right, independent of legislation, to take part in the government, either as voter or as an officer, or to be admitted to practice as an attorney. Miuor vs. Happersett, 51 Wall. 162. Bradwell vs. Illinois, 16 Wall. 130. The rule that "words importing the masculine gender maybe applied to females," like all other general rules of construction of statutes, must yield when such construction would be either "repugnant to the context of the same statute," or "inconsistent with the manifest intent of the legislature." Gen. Sts. c. 3, § 7.
The only statute making any provisions concerning attorneys, that mentions women, is the poor-debtor act, which, after enumerating among the cases in which an arrest of the person may be made on execution in an action of contract, that in which "the debtor is attorney-at-law," who has unreasonably neglected to pay to his client money collected, enacts, in the next section but one, "that no woman shall be arrested on any civil process except for tort." Gen. Sts. c. 124, §§ 5, 7. If these provisions do not imply that the legislature assumed that women should not be attorneys, they certainly have no tendency to show that it intended that they should. The word "citizen," in the statute under which this application is made, is but a repetition of the word originally adopted with a view of excluding aliens, before the statute of 1852, c. 154, allowed those aliens to be admitted to the bar who had made the preliminary declaration of intention to become citizens. Rev. Sts., c. 88, § 19. Gen. Sts., c. 121, § 28.
The reënactment of the act relating to the admission of attorneys in the same words without more so far as relates to the personal qualifications of the applicant, since Supreme Court Decision. 309 other statutes have expressly modified the legal rights and capacity of women in other important respects, tends rather to refute than to advance the theory that the legislature intended that these words should comprehend women. No inference of an intention of the legislature to include women in the statutes concerning the admission of attorneys can be drawn from the mere omission of the word "male." The only statute to which we have referred, in which that word is inserted, is the statute concerning the qualifications of voters in town affairs, which, following the language of the article of the constitution that defines the qualifications of voters for governor, lieutenant-governor, senators and representatives, speaks of "every male citizen of twenty-one years of age," etc. Gen. Sts. c. 18, 19. Const. Mass. Amendments, art. 3. Words which taken by themselves would be equally applicable to women and to men are constantly used in the constitution and statutes, in speaking of offices which it could not be contended, in the present state of law, that women were capable of holding.
The Courts of the commonwealth have not assumed by their rules to admit to the bar any class of persons not within the apparent intent of the legislature as manifested in the statutes. The word "persons," in the latest rule of Court upon the subject, was the word used in the rule of 1810 and in the statutes of 1785 and 1836, at times when no one contemplated the possibility of a woman's being admitted to practice as an attorney. 121 Mass. 600. 6. Mass. 382. St. 1785, c. 23. Rev. St. c. 18, 20. Gen. Sts. c. 121, 29. The United States Court of Claims, at December term, 1873, on full consideration, denied an application of a woman to be admitted to practice as an attorney upon the ground "that under the constitution and laws of the United States a Court is without power to grant such an application, and that a woman is without legal capacity to take the office of an attorney."Lockwood's Case, g Ct. of Claims, 346, 356. At October terms 1876 of the Supreme Court of the United States, the same petitioner applied to be admitted to practice as an attorney and counsellor of that Court, and her application was denied. The decision has not been officially reported, but upon the record of the Court, of which we have an authentic copy, it is thus stated: "Upon the presentation of this application, the chief-justice said that notice of this application having been previously brought to his attention, he had been instructed by the Court to announce the following decision upon it: By the uniform practice of the Court from its organization to the present time, and by the fair construction of its rules, none but men are permitted to practice before it as attorneys and counsellors. This is in accordance with immemorial usages in England, and the law and the practice in all the States until within a recent period, and the Court does not feel called upon to make a change until such change is required by statute or a more extended practice in the highest Courts of the States." The subsequent act of congress of February 15, 1879, enables only those women to be admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States who have been for three years members of the bar of the highest Court of a State or territory, or of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia.
The conclusion that women cannot be admitted to the bar under the existing statutes of the commonwealth is in accordance with judgments of the highest Courts of the States of Illinois and Wisconsin. Bradivell's Case, 55 III., 525. Goodell's Case, 39 Wis., 232. The suggestion in the brief of the petitioner that women have been admitted in other States can have no weight here, in the absence of all evidence that (except under clear affirmative words in a statute) they have ever been so admitted upon deliberate consideration of the question involved, or by a Court whose decisions are authoritative.
It is hardly necessary to add that our duty is limited to declaring the law as it is, and that whether any change in that law would be wise or expedient is a question for the legislative and not for the judicial department of the government.
Petition dismissed.Marcus Morton, Chief-Justice,
| [Signed:] | Charles Devens, | William.Endicott, | |
| William Allen, | Otis P. Loud, | ||
| Charles Allen. | Walbridge A. Field. |
The first decision was in the case of Sarah E. Wall of Worcester, who had refused to pay her taxes under the following protest:
Believing with the immortal Declaration of Independence that taxation and representation are inseparable; believing that the constitution of the State furnishes no authority for the taxation of woman; believing also that the constitution of the higher law of God, written on the human soul, requires us, if we would be worthy the rich inheritance of the past and true to ourselves and the future, to yield obedience to no statute that shall tend to fetter its aspirations, I shall henceforth pay no taxes until the word male is stricken from the voting clauses of the constitution of Massachusetts.
Worcester Daily Spy, October 5, 1858.Sarah E. Wall.
Miss Wall was prosecuted by the city collector, and she carried her case before the Supreme Court, where she appeared for herself, W. A. Williams appearing for the collector. In an account of this matter in 1881, Miss Wall says: "Although it was in 1858 that my resistance to taxation commenced, it was not until 1863 that the contest terminated and the decision was rendered. I think the Supreme Court would always find some way to evade a decision on this question."
Wheeler vs. Wall, 6 Allen, 558: By the constitution of Massachusetts, c. 1, § 1, article 4, the legislature has power to impose taxes upon all the inhabitants of and persons resident, and estates lying within the said commonwealth. By the laws passed by the legislature in pursuance of this power and authority, the defendant is liable to taxation, although she is not qualified to vote for the officers by whom the taxes were assessed. The Court, acting under the constitution, and bound to support it and maintain its provisions faithfully, cannot declare null and void a statute which has been passed by the legislature, in pursuance of an express authority conferred by the constitution.—[Opinion by the chief-justice, George Tyler Bigelow.
The second decision on the will of Francis Jackson is copied verbatim from Allen's Reports:
Jackson vs. Phillips and others, 14 Allen, 539: A bequest to trustees, to be expended at their discretion, * * * * "to secure the passage of laws granting whether women, married or unmarried, the right to vote, to hold office, to hold, manage and devise property, and all other civil rights enjoyed by men," is not a charity.
Art. 6th. "I give and bequeath to Wendell Phillips of said Boston, Lucy Stone, formerly of Brookfield, Mass., now the wife of Henry Blackwell of New York, and Susan B. Anthony of Rochester, N. Y., their successors and assigns, $5,000, not for their own use, but in trust, nevertheless, to be expended by them without any responsibility to any one, at their discretion, in such sums, at such times and in such places as they may deem fit, to secure the passage of laws granting women, whether married or unmarried, the right to vote, to hold office, to hold, manage and devise property, and all other civil rights enjoyed by men; and for the preparation and circulation of books, the delivery of lectures, and such other means as they may judge best; and I hereby constitute them a board of trustees for that intent and purpose, with power to add two other persons to said board if they deem it expedient. And I hereby appoint Wendell Phillips president and treasurer, and Susan B. Anthony secretary of said board. I direct the treasurer of said board not to loan any part of said bequest, but to invest, and, if need be, sell and reinvest the same in bank or railroad shares, at his discretion. I further authorize and request said board of trustees, the survivor and survivors of them, to fill any and all vacancies that may occur from time to time by death or resignation of any member or any officer of said board, One other bequest, hereinafter made, will, sooner or later, revert to this board of trustees. My desire is that they may become a permanent organization, until the rights of women shall be established equal with those of men; and I hope and trust that said board will receive the services and sympathy, the donations and bequests, of the friends of human rights
And being desirous that said board should have the immediate benefit of said bequest, without waiting for my exit, I have already paid it in advance and in full to said Phillips, the treasurer of said board, whose receipt therefor is on my files."
Opinion.—Gray, J. iv. It is quite clear that the bequest in trust to be expended "to secure the passage of laws granting women, whether married or unmarried, the right to vote, to hold office, to hold, manage and devise property, and all other civil rights enjoyed by men," cannot be sustained as a charity. No precedent has been cited in its support. This bequest differs from the others, in aiming directly and exclusively to change the laws; and its object cannot be accomplished without changing the constitution also. Whether such an alteration of the existing laws and frame of government would be wise and desirable, is a question upon which we cannot, sitting in a judicial capacity, properly express any opinion. Our duty is limited to expounding the laws as they stand. And those laws do not recognize the purpose of overthrowing or changing them, in whole or in part, as a charitable use. This bequest, therefore, not being for a charitable purpose, nor for the benefit of any particular persons, and being unrestricted in point of time, is inoperative and void. For the same reason, the gift to the same object, of one-third of the residue of the testator's estate after the death of his daughter, Mrs. Eddy, and her daughter, Mrs. Bacon, is also invalid, and will go to his heirs-at-law as a resulting trust.Decision third was on the right of women to hold judicial offices. To quote again from Allen's Reports:
Opinion.—By the constitution of the commonwealth, the office of justice of the peace is a judicial office, and must be exercised by the officer in person, and a woman, whether married or unmarried, cannot be appointed to such an office. The law of Massachusetts at the time of the adoption of the constitution, the whole frame and purport of the instrument itself, and the universal understanding and unbroken practical construction for the greater part of a century afterwards, all support this conclusion, and are inconsistent with any other. It follows that, if a woman should be formally appointed and commissioned as a justice of the peace, she would have no constitutional or legal authority to exercise any of the functions appertaining to that office. Each of the questions proposed must, therefore, be respectfully answered in the negative.
| [Signed:] | Reuben A. Chapman, | Horace Gray, Jr., | ||
| John Wells, | James D. Cott, | |||
| Seth Ames, | Marcus Morton. |
Boston, June 29, 1871.
Even the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has begun to understand the trend of the woman's rights movement, and has rendered its first favorable decision, in the famous Eddy-will case. Wendell Phillips told me that he drew up this will, and that its provisions were so carefully worded that even the Supreme Court could find no flaw in it. It is in his own handwriting, and Chandler R. Ransom was the executor. Eliza F. Eddy was the daughter of Francis Jackson, and just before her death in 1882, desiring to help the suffrage cause and thus carry out her father's intentions, she made her will in which she bequeathed $40,000 for this purpose. The clause relating to this bequest is as follows:
Her will was filed and the Probate Court declared its validity. This decision was appealed from for several unimportant reasons by relatives of Mrs. Eddy, Francis W. and Jerome A. Bacon, minors; and the case was carried to the Supreme Judicial Court. After many delays it was finally decided in favor of the validity of the will, March, 1885, R. M. Morse, jr., and S. J. Elder for the plaintiff, and B. F. Butler and F. L. Washburn for the defendants. The court's final decision, rendered by Hon. Charles Devens, is as follows:
Albert F, Bacon and others, executors and others vs. Chandler R. Ransom, executor, and others.
Suffolk. March 18, 19, 1885. W. Allen, Colburn and Holmes, Js., absent.
Francis Jackson, the father of said Eliza F. Eddy, died in 1861, leaving a will, by the sixth article of which he gave $5,000 to Wendell Phillips, Lucy Stone Blackwell and Susan B. Anthony, in trust, "to be expended by them without any responsibility to any one, at their discretion, in such sums, at such times, and in such places as they may deem fit, to secure the passage of laws granting women, whether married or unmarried, the right to vote, to hold office, to hold, manage and devise property, and all other civil rights enjoyed by men; and for the preparation and circulation of books, the delivery of lectures, and such other means as they may judge best." By the eighth article he gave one-third of the residue to a trustee, to pay the income to his daughter, Eliza F. Eddy, during her life, and upon her death one-half of the income to the trustees and on the trusts named in the sixth article, and the other half to Mrs. Eddy's daughter, Mrs. Lizzie F. Bacon, during her life, and, on the death of Mrs. Bacon, the principal to the trustees and on the trusts named in the sixth article.
It was held by this court that these bequests were not a charity (see Jackson vs. Phillips, 14 Allen, 539).
In consequence of this decision, certain agreements, releases, and a partition were made, by which one-third of the residue of Mr. Jackson's estate became the property of Mrs. Eddy, subject to being held in trust for herself for life, and thereafter, as to one-half, for her daughter, Mrs. Bacon, during her life. Mrs. Eddy died December 29, 1881, leaving a will by which she gave absolute legacies to the amount of $24,500 to various persons therein named. This disposed of all her estate except what came to her from her father's estate. Her will then provided as follows:
"What is left, after paying the above legacies, I direct shall be divided into two equal portions; one of said portions I leave to Miss Susan B. Anthony of Rochester, in the State of New York, as her absolute property, and the other portion I leave to Lucy Stone, wife of H. B. Blackwell, as her own absolute and separate property, free from any control of him. I request said Susan and Lucy to use said fund thus given to further what is called the woman's rights cause; but neither of them is under any legal responsibility to any one or any court to do so."
The will further alleged that this residue was substantially the estate received from Francis Jackson; that the will was intended by the testatrix to defeat the decision of this court, before mentioned; that the testatrix had no personal acquaintance with Lucy Stone or Susan B. Anthony; that said gift was intended as a gift in perpetuam to the said cause, and was, without limit of time, upon trust in favor of said cause; and that said cause was not a charity within the meaning of the law, and was null and void.
The defendants demurred to the bill for want of equity. The case was heard by C. Allen, J., on the bill and demurrer, and a decree was entered sustaining the demurrer and dismissing the bill. The plaintiffs appealed to the full court.
R. M. Morse, Jr., and S. J. Elder, for the plaintiffs.
B. F. Butler and F. L. Washburn, for the defendants.
Judge Charles Devens. The fact that the respective portions of the estate bequeathed by Mrs. Eddy to Mrs. Stone and Miss Anthony were in amount equal to-or precisely the same as those which came to her by descent from her father, Francis Jackson, is not of importance in the case at bar. It had been held in Jackson vs. Phillips, 14 Allen, 539, that a certain bequest made by Mr. Jackson in trust was not, legally speaking, a public charity, and that it could not therefore pass to the beneficiaries named in his will. The property which he thus attempted to bequeath descended therefore to his legal representatives, of whom Mrs. Eddy was one. She received it with the same right to deal with it or dispose of it in her lifetime, or by will at her decease, that she had in any other estate which was her lawful property.
The bill alleges "that said will was intended by the testatrix to defeat the decision of the court, before mentioned; that the testatrix had no personal acquaintance with Lucy Stone or Susan B. Anthony; that said gift was intended as a gift in perpetuam to the said cause." But if Mrs. Eddy has complied with the rules of law in the disposition of her property, even if she has hoped thereby to attain the same object as that desired by her father, the decision referred to is not defeated, but is recognized and conformed to; and, whatever her intention may have been, her bequest is to be upheld. Her gift to her beneficiaries is absolute in terms. They may do what they will with the property bequeathed to them, as they may with any other property which is lawfully their own. It is true that the gift is accompanied by a request that they will use the fund bequeathed "to further what is called the woman's rights cause." A request made by one who has the right to direct is often, perhaps generally, interpreted as a command. For this reason, recommendatory or precatory words used in a bequest are frequently treated as an express direction. Thus, if a legacy were given to A., with a request that out of the sum bequeathed he would pay to another a certain sum, or a portion thereof, it might well be construed as a legacy, to the amount named, to such person. The expression of the desire of the testator would be the expression of his will, and the words in form recommendatory would be held to be mandatory and imperative. Where such words are used, it is therefore a question of the fair construction to be attributed to them (Whipple vs. Adams, 1 Met., 444; Warner vs. Bates, 98 Mass., 274; Spooner vs. Lovejoy, 108 Mass., 529).
But the testatrix in the case at bar has left nothing to construction. Apparently aware that a request, where she had a right to direct, might be treated as a command, and desirous to make it entirely clear that no restraint or duty in any legal sense was imposed upon her legatees, and that the request of the will was such in the limited sense of the word only, and in no respect mandatory, she adds thereto, referring to the legatees, "But neither of them is under any legal responsibility to any one or to any court to do so." Each of the legatees is therefore the sole judge of whether she will follow, or how far or in what way she will follow, the suggestion of the testatrix in the disposition of the estate absolutely bequeathed to her. It is a matter in which she is to be guided only by her judgment and conscience, and no trust is imposed upon the property she receives.
As no trust is created, it would be superfluous to consider whether, if the request of the testatrix were treated as a command, one would then be indicated capable of enforcement according to the rules of law.
Bill dismissed. [Signed:] Marcus Morton, Chief-Justice,
| Walbridge Abner Field, | Charles Devens, | ||
| William Allen, | Charles Allen, | ||
| Waldo Coburn, | Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. |
From these decisions our daughters should learn the importance of having some knowledge of law. Had not Mrs. Eddy learned from experience in her father's case that property could not be left in trust to any societies except those called religious and charitable, and made her bequest absolutely to persons, the gift of $56,000 would have been lost to the woman suffrage movement. As it was, nearly $10,000 was swallowed up in litigation to secure what the donees did finally obtain. Considering that Mrs. Eddy[54] is the only woman who has ever had both the desire and the power to make a large bequest to this cause, its friends have great reason to rejoice in her wisdom as well as her generosity. .
Civilization would have been immeasurably farther advanced than it now is, had the many rich women, who have left large bequests to churches, and colleges for boys, concentrated their wealth and influence on the education, elevation and enfranchisement of their own sex. We trust that Mrs. Eddy's example may not be lost on the coming generation of women.—[Editors.
- ↑ For details of early history see vol. I., chap. viii. See also "Massachusetts in the Woman Suffrage Movement," Roberts Bros., Boston.
- ↑ As an original question, no friend of woman suffrage can deny that it was a mean thing to put the word "male" into the fourteenth amendment. It was, doubtless, wise to adopt that amendment. It was an extension of the right of suffrage, and so far in the line of American progress, yet it was also an implied denial of the suffrage to women.—[Warrington in the Springfield Republican.
- ↑ See Vol. II., page 178.
- ↑ John Neal came from Maine; Nathaniel and Armenia White from New Hampshire; Isabella Hooker from Connecticut; Thomas W. Higginson from Rhode Island; and John G. Whittier, Samuel May, jr., Gilbert Haven, John T. Sargent, Frank W. Bird, Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, William S. Robinson, Stephen and Abby Kelley Foster, with a host of others, from Massachusetts. Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell, who then lived in New Jersey, were also among the speakers.
- ↑ In giving an account of her efforts in this direction she says: "After my return from Kansas in 1867, I felt that we ought to do something for the cause in Massachusetts. There was at that time no organization in the State, and there had been no revival of the subject in the minds of the people since the war, which had swallowed up every other interest. In the spring of 1868, I wrote to Abby Kelley Foster, telling her my wish to have something done in our own State, and she advised me to call together a few persons known to be in favor of suffrage, some day during anniversary week, in some parlor in Boston. I corresponded with Adin Ballou, E. D. Draper, and others, on the subject, and talked the matter over with Prof. T. T. Leonard, teacher of elocution, who offered his hall for a place of meeting. I wrote a notice inviting all persons interested in woman suffrage to come to Mr. Leonard's hall, on a certain day and hour. At the time appointed the hall was full of people. I opened the meeting, and stated why I had called it; others took up the theme, and we had a lively meeting. All agreed that something should be done, and a committee of seven was appointed to call a convention for the purpose of organizing a woman suffrage association. Caroline M. Severance, Stephen S. Foster, Sarah Southwick and myself, were of this committee. We held a number of meetings and finally decided to call a convention early in the autumn of 1868. This convention was held in Horticultural Hall, and the result was the organization of the New England Woman Suffrage Association."
- ↑ President, Julia Ward Howe; Vice-presidents, William Lloyd Garrison, Boston; Paulina W. Davis, Providence, R. I.; James Freeman Clarke, Boston; Sarah Shaw Russell, Boston; Neil Dow, Me.; Lucy Goddard, Boston; Samuel E. Sewall, Melrose; Lidian Emerson, Concord; John Hooker, Isabella Beecher Hooker, Hartford, Ct.; Harriot K. Hunt, Boston; James Hutchinson, jr., West Randolph, Vt.; Armenia S. White, Concord, N. H.; Louisa M. Alcott, Concord; L. Maria Child, Wayland; John Weiss, Watertown. Corresponding Secretary, Sara Clark, Boston. Recording Secretary, Charles K. Whipple, Boston. Treasurer, E. D. Draper, Boston. Executive Committee: Lucy Stone, Newark, N. J.; T. W. Higginson, Newport, R. I.; Caroline M. Severance, West Newton; Francis W. Bird, East Walpole; Mary E. Sargent, Boston; Nathaniel White, Concord, N. H.; Richard P. Hallowell, Boston; Stephen S. Foster, Worcester; Sarah H. Southwick, Grantville; Rowland Connor, Boston; B. F. Bowles, Cambridge; George H. Vibbert, Rockport; Olympia Brown, Weymouth; Samuel May, jr., Leicester; Nina Moore, Hyde Park.
- ↑ Ednah D. Cheney, Rev. C. A. Bartol, Rev. F. E. Abbot, Rev. Phœbe Hanaford and Hon. George F. Hoar.
- ↑ For report of American Association see Vol. II., page 756.
- ↑ Lucy Stone, Mary A. Livermore, Stephen S. and Abby Kelley Foster, H. B. Blackwell, Rev. W. H. Channing, Rev. J. F. Clarke, Rev. Gilbert Haven, Julia Ward Howe and Elizabeth K. Churchill made eloquent speeches. The first board of officers of the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association was: President, Julia Ward Howe. Vice-presidents: William Lloyd Garrison, Roxbury; Anne B. Earle, Worcester; John G. Whittier, Amesbury; Lidian Emerson. Concord; Hon. Robert C. Pitman, New Bedford; Mrs. Richmond Kingman, Cummington; Rev. R. B. Stratton, Worcester; Edna D. Cheney, Jamaica Plain; Hon. Isaac Ames, Haverhill; Sarah Shaw Ames, Boston; J. Ingersoll Bowditch, West Roxbury; Lydia Maria Child, Wayland; Mary Dewey, Sheffield; Hon. George F. Hoar, Worcester; Sarah Grimke, Hyde Park; Sarah R. Hathaway, Boston; William I. Bowditch, Boston; Harriot K. Hunt, M. D., Boston; Hon. Samuel E. Sewall, Melrose; A. Bronson Alcott, Concord; Angelina G. Weld, Hyde Park; Hon. Henry Wilson, Natick; Rev. James Freeman Clarke, Boston; Charlotte A. Joy, Mendon; Jacob M. Manning, D. D., Lucy Sewall, M. D., Boston; Rev. Joseph May, Newburyport; Maria Zakrzewska, M. D., Roxbury; Rev. William B. Wright, Boston; Rev. Jesse H. Jones, Natick; Phœbe A. Hanaford, Reading; Seth Hunt, Northampton: Maria S. Porter, Melrose. Executive Committee: Rev. Rowland Connor, Boston; Caroline M. Severance, West Newton; Rev. W. H. H. Murray, Boston; Gordon M. Fiske, Palmer; Sarah A. Vibbert, Rockport; Rev. Gilbert Haven, Maiden; Caroline Remond Putman, Salem; Frank B. Sanborn, Springfield; Mercy B. Jackson, M. D., Boston; Samuel May, jr., Leicester; Margaret W. Campbell, Springfield; Rev. C. M. Wines, Brookline; Mary A. Livermore, Melrose; William S. Robinson, Maiden; Henry B. Blackwell, Boston; Lucy Stone, Boston; S. S. Foster, Worcester; Mrs. Wilcox, Worcester; Ada R. Bowles, Cambridge. Corresponding Secretary, Nina Moore, Hyde Park. Recording Secretary, Charles C. Whipple, Boston. Treasurer, E. D. Draper, Hopedale. Putman, Salem; Frank B. Sanborn, Springfield; Mercy B. Jackson, M. D., Boston; Samuel May, jr., Leicester; Margaret W. Campbell, Springfield; Rev. C. M. Wines, Brookline; Mary A. Livermore, Melrose; William S. Robinson, Maiden; Henry B. Blackwell, Boston; Lucy Stone, Boston; S. S. Foster, Worcester; Mrs. Wilcox, Worcester; Ada R. Bowles, Cambridge. Corresponding Secretary, Nina Moore, Hyde Park. Recording Secretary, Charles C. Whipple, Boston. Treasurer, E. D. Draper, Hopedale.
- ↑ Mary F. Eastman, Ada C. Bowles, Lorenza Haynes, Elizabeth K. Churchill, Hulda B. Loud, Matilda Hindman and other agents in the lecture field have also done a great deal of missionary work.
- ↑ The committee of arrangements were Mrs. Isaac Ames, Harriet H. Robinson, Sarah B. Otis, Philip Wheeler, Jane Tenney, Mrs. A. A. Fellows, Mrs. Jackson, Miss Talbot and Miss Halsey. The speakers were: Wendell Phillips, Mary A. Livermore, Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Elizabeth K. Churchill, Margaret W. Campbell, Mary F. Eastman, Henry B. Blackwell, Lucy Stone and others. Julia Ward Howe and Mr. C. P. Cranch, read original poems. Two old-time tea-party songs, curiosities in their line, were read. One, dated Boston, 1773, entitled "Lines on Bohea Tea," was written by Susannah Clarke, great-aunt of W. S. Robinson; the other, copied from Thomas' Boston Journal, of December 2, 1773, was written by Mrs. Ames, a tailoress.
- ↑ Committee of Arrangements—Lucy Stone, Abby Kelley Foster, Thomas J. Lothrop, Timothy K. Earle, Sarah E. Wall, Harriet H. Robinson and E. H. Church. At this public gathering, Athol, Boston, Haverhill, Leicester, Leominster, Lowell, Malden, Melrose, Milford, North Brookfield, Taunton, and many other Massachusetts towns were well represented.
- ↑ The speakers were Lucy Stone, Rev. W. H. Channing, Mary A. Livermore, Mary F. Eastman, Kate N. Doggett, Rev. F. A. Hinckley, Ednah D. Cheney, T. Wentworth Higginson, Isabella Beecher Hooker, Anna Garlin Spencer and Julia E. Parker. Harriet H. Robinson read a condensed history of Massachusetts in the woman suffrage movement. Interesting letters were received from Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, F. W. Bird, H. B. Blackwell, Margaret W. Campbell, Mrs. C. I. H. Nichols and Frances D. Gage. Two original woman suffrage songs, written by Anna Q. T. Parsons and Caroline A. Mason, were sung on the occasion.
- ↑ Board of officers for 1885: President, Miss Abby W. May; Vice-president, Mrs. Edna Dean Cheney; Secretary, Miss Brigham; Treasurer, Miss S. F. King; Assistant-secretary, Miss Von Arnim; Directors, Miss H, Lemist, Mrs. J. W. Smith, Mrs. M. P. Lowe, Mrs. H. G. Jackson, Mrs. L. H. Merrick, Mrs. G. L. Ruffin, Mrs. Walton, Mrs. Whitman, Miss Rogers, Miss E. Foster, Miss Shaw, Miss Lougee, Miss L. M. Peabody, Dr. A. E. Fisher, Mrs. Buchanan, Mrs. O. A. Cheney, Mrs. E. Hilt, Mrs. M. W. Nash, Mrs. M. H. Bray, Mrs. Fifield, Mrs. J. F. Clarke, Miss L. P. Hale, Mrs. A. H. Spalding; Lecture Committee, Miss Lucia M. Peabody, Mrs. Fifield and Mrs. L. H. King.
- ↑ It is the only organization in the State whose business is managed by its members. Its officers are a president, one or more vice-presidents for each county, a secretary, treasurer, auditor, and a standing committee of seven with power to add to its number. These officers are elected annually. Executive meetings, in which all members participate, are held monthly. President, Harriette R. Shattuck; Vice-presidents, Dr. Salome Merritt, Joan D. Foster, Emma F. Clarry, Louisa E. Brooks, Esther P. Hutchinson, Sarah S. Eddy, Harriet M. Spaulding, Martha E. S. Curtis, Dr. Sarah E. Sherman, Sarah G. Todd, Abbie M. Meserve, Sophia A. Forbes, Esther B. Smith, Emma A. Todd. Treasurer, Sara A. Underwood; Auditor, Lavina A. Hatch; Secretaries, Hannah M. Todd, Elizabeth B. Atwell, Harriet H. Robinson; Standing Committee, H. R. Shattuck, Dr. S. Merritt, H. H. Robinson, Lydia E. Hutchings, Mary R. Brown, E. B. Attwill, Lucretia H. Jones.
- ↑ South Framingham, South Boston, Winchester, Rockland, Wakefield, Uxbridge, Millbury, Bedford, Westboro', Salem, Lynn, Lowell, Rowley, Concord, Woburn, Malden, Cambridge, Beverly Farms.
- ↑ Two of these, Harriet H. Robinson and Harriette R. Shattuck, spoke at the first hearing before the Senate committee. It chanced that Mrs. Robinson was the first woman to speak before this Special Committee. The other delegates were: Mary R. Brown, Emma F. Clarry, Louisa E. Brooks, Mrs. G. W. Simonds, Sarah S. Eddy, Mr. and Mrs. D. W. Forbes, Mary H. Semple, Louisa A. Morrison and Cora B. Smart.
- ↑ The authors and compilers of these leaflets are Harriette R. Shattuck, Sara A. Underwood, Hannah M. Todd and Mary R. Brown
- ↑ The speakers at these hearings were Harriette R. Shattuck, Mary R. Brown, Sidney D. Shattuck, Nancy W. Covell, Dr. Julia C. Smith, Mr. S. C. Fay, Louisa A. Morrison, Sara A. Underwood and Harriet H. Robinson.
- ↑ The speakers were Rev. J. T. Sargent, A. Bronson Alcott, H. B. Blackwell, Dr. Mercy B. Jackson, S. S. Foster, Mary A. Livermore, Rev. B. F. Bowles, F. B. Sanborn, W. S. Robinson, Gilbert Haven and many others.
- ↑ In the records of the executive meetings of this Association I find the following votes. In October, 1872, it was voted, That any invitation to speak at Republican meetings, extended to our agents by Republican committees in this State, be accepted by them until the coming election, their usual salaries being paid by this Association; that Miss Loud be notified by Lucy Stone of our arrangement in regard to Republican meetings, and be requested, after the 15th instant, to hold her meetings in that manner as far as practicable; that the balance of expenses of the woman's meeting held at Tremont Temple be paid by this Association. [This was a political meeting held by the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association to endorse General Grant as the presidential candidate of the Republican party.]
- ↑ The National Association of Massachusetts at its executive session, August 23, passed the following:
Resolved, That while we respect the advice of our leaders, as their private political opinion, we deem it worse than useless to "stand by the Republican" or any other party while we are deprived of the only means of enforcing a political opinion; and that we advise all associations, to concentrate their efforts upon securing the ballot to women, withholding all attempt at political influence until they possess the right which alone can make their influence effective.
- ↑ At the executive meeting of the New England Association, May, 1874, it was voted that a circular be sent to the friends of woman suffrage, requesting them to meet in Boston, May 25, to consider the expediency of calling a convention to form a political party for woman suffrage.
- ↑ The call for this convention was signed by Harriet H. Robinson, Rev. A. D. Sargent, Rev. G. H. Vibbert, William Johnson, Mrs. T. R. Woodman, Helen Gale and Mrs. M. Slocum. Judge Robert C. Pitman was the candidate for governor.
- ↑ This "Woman Suffrage ticket," the first ever offered to a Massachusetts voter, received 41 votes out of the 1,340 cast in all by the voters of the town, a larger proportion than that first cast by the old Liberty party in Massachusetts, which began with only 307 votes in the whole State, and ended in the Free Soil and Republican parties.
- ↑ Election day dawned and it rained hard, but the women braved the storm. There they stood from 9 o'clock a.m. till a quarter of 5 p.m. and distributed votes, only leaving their positions long enough to get a cup of coffee and a luncheon, which was provided at the headquarters. They distributed 1,700 woman suffrage ballots and 1,000 circulars containing arguments on the rights of women. They were treated with unexceptionable politeness and kindness by the voters.
- ↑ The first time women went to the polls in Massachusetts was in 1870, when forty-two women of Hyde Park, led by Angelina Grimké Weld and Sarah Grimké, deposited their ballots, in solemn protest "against the political ostracism of women, against leaving every vital interest of a majority of the citizens to the monopoly of a male minority." It is hardly needful to record that these ballots were not counted.
- ↑ For summary of voting laws relating to women from 1691 to 1822, see "Massachusetts in the Woman Suffrage Movement," by Harriet H. Robinson: Roberts Brothers, Boston.
- ↑ Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Lucy Stone, Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips, and other speakers of ability, presented able arguments in favor of giving women the right to vote.
- ↑ This memorial was printed by order of the legislature (Leg. Doc. Ho. 57) and is called "Memorial of the Female Signers of the Several Petitions of Henry A. Hardy and Others," presented March 1, 1849. The document is not signed and Mrs. Ferrin's name is not found with it upon the records, neither does her name appear in the journal of the House in connection with any of the petitions and addresses she caused to be presented to the legislature of the State. But for the loyal friendship of the few who knew of her work and were willing to give her due credit, the name of Mary Upton Ferrin [see Vol. I., page 208] and the memory of her labors as well as those of many another silent worker, would have gone into the "great darkness."
- ↑ The committee was addressed by Wendell Phillips, Julia Ward Howe, Lucy Stone, Rev. James Freeman Clarke and Hon. George F. Hoar.
- ↑ Two years before (1869), while sitting as visitor in the gallery of the House of Representatives, I heard the whole subject of woman's rights referred to the (bogus) committee on graveyards!
- ↑ It was perhaps intended to serve as a means of reïnstating Abby W. May and other women who had been defeated as candidates for reëlection on the Boston school-board. The names of Isa E. Gray, Mrs. C. B. Richmond, Elizabeth P. Peabody and John M. Forbes led the lists of petitioners.
- ↑ At the first annual election for school committees in cities and towns in 1879-80, about 5,000 women became registered voters.
- ↑ Lucretia P. Hale, Abby W. May, Lucia M. Peabody, Mary J. S. Blake, Kate G. Wells, Lucretia Crocker.
- ↑ This act, so brief and so expressive, is worthy to be remembered. It simply reads: "Be it enacted, etc., as follows: Sec. 1. No person shall be deemed ineligible to serve upon a school committee by reason of sex. Sec. 2. This act shall take effect upon its passage. (Approved June 30, 1874.) By force of habit, the legislature said not a word in the law about women. There are now (1885) 102 women members of school-boards in Massachusetts.
- ↑ See "Women under the law of Massachusetts," Henry H. Sprague. Boston: W. B. Clarke & Carruth.
- ↑ The authority for this old "thumb" tradition, that "a man had the right to whip his wife with a stick no bigger than his thumb," is found in an early edition of Phillip's Evidence. That book was authority in English common law and in it Phillips is quoted as saying, that according to the law of his day a husband "might lawfully chastise his wife with a reasonable weapon, as a broomstick," adding, however, "but if he use an unreasonable weapon, such as an iron bar, and death ensue, it would be murder."—[Chamberlin, p. 818.] But the real "thumb" story seems to have originated with a certain Judge Buller of England, who lived about one hundred years ago. In his ruling on one of those cases of wife-beating, now so common in our police courts, he said that a man had a right to punish his wife, "with a stick no bigger than his thumb." That was his opinion. Shortly after this some ladies sent the judge a letter in which they prayed him to give the size of his thumb! We are not told whether he complied with their request.]
- ↑ In an old will, made a hundred and fifty years ago, a husband of large means bequeathed to his "dearly beloved wife" $50 and a new suit of clothes, with the injunction that she should return to her original, or family home. And with this small sum, as her share of his property, he returned her to her parents.
- ↑ The little actual gain in votes since 1874, in favor of municipal or general suffrage for women, might cause the careless observer to draw the inference that no great progress had been made in legislative sentiment during all these years. In 1870 the vote in the House of Representatives on the General Woman Suffrage Bill was 133 to 68. In 1885 the bill giving municipal suffrage was defeated in the House by a vote of 130 to 61. But this is not a true index of the progress of public opinion.
- ↑ Mrs. Ellen M. Richards was the first woman who entered.
- ↑ The Harvard Annex, so called, began its seventh year with sixty-five young ladies enrolled for study. The enrollment for the preceding six years was as follows: First year, 29: second, 47; third 40; fourth, 39; fifth, 49, sixth, 55. Some of the students come from distant places, but a majority are from the Cambridge and neighboring high-schools. The institution occupies this year for the first time a building which has been conveniently arranged for its purposes. The endowment of the association which manages the work now amounts to $85,000.
- ↑ This lady was Lucy Downing, a sister of the first governor of Massachusetts. She was the wife of Emanuel Downing, a lawyer of the Inner Temple, a friend of Governor Winthrop and afterward a man of mark in the infant colony. In a letter to her brother, Lucy Downing expresses the desire of herself and husband to come to New England with their children, but laments that if they do come her son George cannot complete his studies. She says: "You have yet noe societies nor means of that kind for the education of youths in learning. It would make me goe far nimbler to New England, if God should call me to it, than otherwise I should, and I believe a colledge would put noe small life into the plantation." This letter was written early in 1636, and in October of the same year the General Court of the Massachusetts colony agreed to give £400 towards establishing a school or college in Newtowne (two years later called Cambridge). Soon afterwards Rev. John Harvard died and left one-half of his estate to this "infant seminary," and in 1638 it was ordered by the General Court that the "Colledge to be built at Cambridge shall be called Harvard Colledge." Early in 1638 Lucy Downing and her husband arrived in New England, and the name of George Downing stands second on the list of the first class of Harvard graduates in 1642. The Downings had other sons who do not seem to have been educated at Harvard, and daughters who were put out to service. The son for whom so much was done by his mother, was afterwards known as Sir George Downing, and he became rich and powerful in England. Downing street in London is named for him. In after life he forgot his duty to his mother, who so naturally looked to him for support; and her last letter written from England after her husband died, when she was old and feeble, tells a sad story of her son's avarice and meanness, and leaves the painful impression that she suffered in her old age for the necessaries of life. It is hard to estimate how much influence the earnest longing of this one woman for the better education of her son, had in the founding of this earliest college in Massachusetts. But for her thinking and speaking at the right time the enterprise might have been delayed for half a century. It is to be
- ↑ Ruth Barnaby, aged 101 in 1875, Elizabeth Phillips and Hannah Greenway were also members of this branch of the profession. The last was midwife to Mrs. Judge Sewall, who was the mother of nineteen children. Judge Samuel E. Sewall mentions this fact in his diary, recently published.
- ↑ Dr. Jackson had a large practice in Boston, and filled for five years the chair of professor of diseases of children in the Boston University School of Medicine.
- ↑ In 1840, a Massachusetts woman could not legally be treasurer of even a sewing society without having some man responsible for her. In 1809, it was necessary that the subscriptions of a married woman for a newspaper or for charities should be in the name of her husband.
- ↑ Olympia Brown's own account of this transaction is as follows: In 1864, soon after my settlement in Weymouth, I solemnized a marriage. It was the first time a woman had officiated in this capacity, and there was so much talk about the legality of the act, that I petitioned the legislature to take such action as was necessary in order to make marriages solemnized by me legal. The committee to whom it was referred reported that no legislation was necessary.
- ↑ This little book is worthy of mention, from the fact that it is probably the first publication of its kind in Massachusetts, if not in America. The whole title of the book is, "Observations on the Rights of Women, with their appropriate duties agreeable to Scripture, reason and common sense." Mrs. Crocker, in her introduction, says: "The wise author of Nature has endowed the female mind with equal powers and faculties, and given them the same right of judging and acting for themselves as he gave the male sex." She further argues that, "According to Scripture, woman was the first to transgress and thus forfeited her original right of equality, and for a time was under the yoke of bondage, till the birth of our blessed Savior, when she was restored to her equality with man." This is a very fine beginning, and would seem to savor strongly of the modern woman's rights doctrine; but, unfortunately, the author, with charming inconsistency, goes on to say,—"We shall strictly adhere to the principle of the impropriety of females ever trespassing on masculine grounds, as it is morally incorrect, and physically impossible."
- ↑ In 1836 there was a small woman's club of Lowell factory operatives, officered and managed entirely by women. This may be a remote first cause of the origin of the New England Women's Club, since it bears the same relation to that flourishing institution, that the native crab does to the grafted tree. This was the first woman's club in the State, if not in the whole country.
- ↑ A few ladies met at the house of Dr. Harriot K. Hunt to consider a plan for organization. Its avowed object was "to supply the daily increasing need of a great central resting place, for the comfort and convenience of those who may wish to unite with us, and ultimately become a center for united and organized social thought and action." Its first president was Caroline M. Severance. On the executive board were the names of Julia Ward Howe, Ednah D. Cheney, Lucy Goddard, Harriet M. Pitnam, Jane Alexander, Abby W. May, and many others who have since become well known. This club held its first meetings in private houses, but it has for several years occupied spacious club rooms on Park street in Boston. Julia Ward Howe is its president. The club has its own historian, and when this official gives the result of her researches to the public, there will be seen how many projects for the elevation of women and the improvement of social life have had their inception in the brains of those who assemble in the parlors of the New England Woman's Club. In 1874, it projected the movement by which women were first elected on the school committee of Boston, and also prepared the petition to be sent to the Massachusetts legislature of 1879, the result of which was the passage of the law allowing women to vote for school committees. In the Woman's Journal for 1883 will be found a sketch of this club.
- ↑ "Taxation of Women in Massachusetts"; "Woman Suffrage a Right, not a Privilege," and "The Forgotten Woman in Massachusetts."
- ↑ Its projectors were A. Bronson Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Professor W. T. Harris, Frank B. Sanborn, Professor Benjamin Pierce, Dr. H. K. Jones, Elizabeth P. Peabody and Ednah D. Cheney.
- ↑ This act is almost as brief as a certain clause in one of the election laws of the State of Texas, which says: "The masculine gender shall include the feminine and neuter."
- ↑ We deeply regret that we have been unable to procure a good photograph of our generous benefactor, as it was our intention to make her engraving the frontispiece of this volume, and thus give the honored place to her through whose liberality we have been enabled at last to complete this work. We are happy to state that Mrs. Eddy's will was not contested by any of the descendents of the noble Francis Jackson, but by Jerome Bacon, a millionaire, the widower of her eldest daughter who survived the mother but one week. When the suit was entered the daughters of Mrs. Eddy, Sarah and Amy, her only surviving children, in a letter to the executor of the estate, Hon. C. R. Ransom, said: "We hereby consent and agree that, in case this suit now pending in the court shall be decided against the claims of Lucy Stone and Susan B. Anthony, we will give to them the net amount of any sum that as heirs may be awarded to us, in accordance with our mother's will."
deplored that Lucy Downing established the unwise precedent of educating one member of the family at the expense of the rest; an example followed by too many women since her time. Harvard College itself has followed it as well, in that it has so long excluded from its privileges that portion of the human family to which Lucy Downing belonged. Although women have never been permitted to become students of this college, or of any of the schools connected with it, yet they have always taken a great interest in its pecuniary welfare, and the University is largely indebted to the generosity of women for its endowment and support. From the records of Harvard College, it appears that funds have been contributed by 167 women, which amount, in the aggregate, to $325,000. Out of these funds a proportion of the university scholarships were founded, and at least one of its professors' chairs. In its Divinity school alone five of the ten scholarships bear the names of women. Caroline A. Plummer of Salem gave $15,000 to found the Plummer Professorship of Christian Morals. Sarah Derby bequeathed $1,000 towards founding the Hersey Professorship of Anatomy and Physic. The Holden Chapel was built with money given for that purpose by Mrs. Samuel Holden and her daughters. Anna E. P. Sever, in 1879, left a legacy to this college of $140,000. [See Harvard Roll of Honor for women in Harvard Register in 1880-81.] Other known benefactors of Harvard University are: Lady Moulson, Hannah Sewall, Mary Saltonstall, Dorothy Saltonstall, Joanna Alford, Mary P. Townsend, Ann Toppan, Eliza Farrar, Ann F. Schaeffer, Levina Hoar, Rebecca A. Perkins, Caroline Merriam, Sarah Jackson, Hannah C. Andrews, Nancy Kendall, Charlotte Harris, Mary Osgood, Lucy Osgood, Sarah Winslow, Julia Bullock, Marian Hovey, Anna Richmond, Caroline Richmond, Clara J. Moore and Susan Cabot.—[H. H. R. The question is often asked, why are women so much more desirous than men to see their children educated? Because it is a right that has been denied to themselves. To them education means liberty, wealth, position, power. When the black race at the South were emancipated, they were far more eager for education than the poor whites, and for the same reason.—[Eds.