History of Woman Suffrage/Volume 3/Chapter 50 (Continued)

 

CHAPTER LV. (Continued).

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA — MARYLAND — DELAWARE — KENTUCKY
TENNESSEE — VIRGINIA — WEST VIRGINIA — NORTH CAROLINA
SOUTH CAROLINA — FLORIDA — ALABAMA — GEORGIA.

Secretary Chase — Women in the Government Departments — Myrtilla Miner — Mrs. O'Connor's Tribute — District of Columbia Suffrage Bill — The Universal Franchise Association, 1867 — Bill for a Prohibitory Law Presented by Hon. S. C. Pomeroy, 1869 — A Bill for Equal Wages for the Women in the Departments, Introduced by Hon. S. M. Arnell, 1870 — In 1871 Congress Passed the Organic Act for the District Confining the Right of Suffrage to Males — In 1875 it Withdrew all Legislative Power from the People — Women in Law, Medicine, Journalism and the Charities — Dental College Opened to Women — Mary A. Stuart — The Clay Sisters — The School of Pharmacy — Elizabeth Avery Meriwether — Judge Underwood — Mary Bayard Clarke — Dr. Susan Dimock — Governor Chamberlain — Coffee-Growing — Priscilla Holmes Drake — Alexander H. Stephens.

 

I.-District Of Columbia.

The District covers an area of 64 square miles, and contains a population of 200,000. It was origininally a portion of Maryland, and was ceded to congress by that State for the exclusive use of the Federal government. Hon. Salmon P. Chase, secretary of the treasury under Abraham Lincoln, seeing that most of the gifted young men had been drafted or had enlisted in the army, introduced young women as clerks in the government departments. The experiment proved successful, and now there are about six thousand women in the various departments. Mr. Chase often alluded to this afterwards as one of the most important acts of his life. The war brought many bright, earnest women to Washington, led thither by patriotism, ambition, or the necessity of finding some new employment. This new vital force, this purer element, infused into the society at the capitol, has been slowly introducing more liberal ideas into that community.

The first specific work for woman in the District of Columbia of which we find any record was that of Myrtilla Miner of New York, who opened a Normal School for colored girls, December 3, 1851. She began with six pupils in a small room in a private house, but soon had more offered than could be accommodated. Through much ridicule and untold difficulties she struggled alone, but successfully, for ten years, when Miss Emily Howland came to her aid. The heroism of this noble woman has been told by Mrs. Ellen O. Connor in a little volume^[1] which is a beautiful tribute to the memory of Miss Miner. The Miner Normal School of Washington is now a thorough and popular school for colored girls.

For a brief report of what has been accomplished in the District of Columbia, we are indebted to Belva A. Lockwood:

In 1866, the women of Washington were first aroused to the consideration of the suffrage question, by the discussion of "The District of Columbia suffrage bill" proposing to strike out the word "white" in order to extend the franchise to colored men. Mr. Cowan, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, offered an amendment to strike out the word "male" also, and thus enfranchise the women of the District. It was said his proposition was not made in good faith, but simply to embarrass Republican legislation. However it served a good purpose for all disfranchised classes, as the amendment called out a notable debate,^[2] lasting three days, and received the votes of nine influential senators in its favor. The voting of the newly enfranchised negroes at the May election, 1867, brought out in strong color the beauties of masculine legislation, and immediately after there was a movement among the friends of woman's enfranchisement. A meeting was called by James and Julia Holmes at their residence, where the "Universal Franchise Association "was organized.^[3] As soon as their meetings, regularly held, took on a serious air, the combined power of the press was brought to bear upon them with the determination to break them up. But the meetings were continued, notwithstanding the opposition; and although most of the speeches were good, they were often interrupted with hisses and yells, and the police, when appealed to, failed to keep order, seeming rather to join hands with the mob. In order to put a check on the rabble, contrary to the spirit of the society, a fee was charged at the door. Strangely enough, so great had the interest become, the crowd increased instead of lessening, and night after night Union League Hall was crowded, until the coffers of the association contained nearly $1,000. The press of the city in the meantime had kept up a fusilade of ludicrous reports, in which the women were caricatured and misrepresented, all of which they bore with fortitude, and without any attempt at reply. The meetings continued through the year notwithstanding the cry of the timid that the cause was being injured and fair reputations blighted.

June 25, 1868, a deputation from the District Franchise Association appeared, by appointment, before the House Committee of the District, to urge the passage of the bill presented in the House of Representatives by Hon. Henry D. Washburn, accompanied by a petition signed by eighty women of the District:

"Be it enacted, etc., That from and after the passage of this act, no person shall be debarred from voting or holding office in the District of Columbia by reason of sex."

Mrs. Josephine S. Griffing began by saying that the friends of equal freedom for women in the District had thought the revision of the local government a fit time to present their claims and submit a memorial, setting forth the justice of passing the bill before the committee to remove the restrictions that forbid women to vote in the District. The movement was not wholly new, and was known by those active in the work to be approved by a large mass of women who were not prepared to express themselves openly. The enfranchisement of woman is needful to a real reconstruction.

Mr. Wilcox read a memorial, signed by a committee of residents of the district, consisting of eleven ladies and eleven gentlemen, including Mrs. Griffing, Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth, Miss Lydia S. Hall (formerly of Kansas), Mrs. Annie Denton Cridge, Judge A. B. Olin and Mrs. Olin, recalling the fact that congress had freed 3,000 slaves, and enfranchised the 8,000 colored men of the district, both of which experiments had worked well, notwithstanding conservative predictions to the contrary; and showing that, while the former experiments, on a small scale comparatively, had yielded rich results, so the enfranchisement of half the adult population would produce vast good. He incidentally answered the usual arguments against suffrage, and affirmed that those who possess neither the power of wealth nor of knowledge wherewith to protect themselves, most need political power for that purpose. He remarked that the competition for votes among politicians was a tremendous educating force, and that laws would not be certain of enforcement unless those for whose benefit they were made were clothed with power to compel such enforcement.

Mrs. Mary T. Corner presented a number of points as to the laws of the district relating to women, of some of which Judge Welker took notes with a view to their speedy investigation by the committee. As to suffrage, she pointed out that women do not come under the head of paupers, minors, felons, rebels, idiots or aliens, and that the reasons existing for the disfranchisement of such persons do not apply to native-born, loyal women. She showed that women are not represented in the government of the district, though taxed by it, and by law cannot properly protect themselves, their children, or their property, nor hold municipal office, however fit. A wife cannot hold property in the district except by proxy. Women understand their needs and condition better than men, and should be free to regulate them. The swarms of foreigners who are freely admitted to the polls know less of our institutions than the masses of our women. Women have voted and held the highest offices in other countries with great success. Are Our women less capable than these? At the conclusion Mrs. Corner returned thanks to the committee for their attention; and the latter, without expressing an opinion on the matter, complimented the speakers on the ability and eloquence with which their views had been presented. It was also stated that a large number of petitions would be presented in support of the bill. The committee expressed themselves as unable, by reason of the lateness of the session and the pressure of other business, to promise an early report. The interview lasted about an hour, and was very cordial and pleasant on both sides.

September 25, 1868, the Universal Franchise Association held its first annual meeting^[4] at Union League Hall, Mrs. Josephine S. Griffing presiding. A letter was read from Senator Pomeroy, stating that he was willing to act as president of the society. In closing he said:

I trust the friends will unite in one association. We have but one object in view, and should ail labor together to accomplish this end, viz.: the enfranchisement of every citizen, with no partiality for race or sex. The American citizen is the only safe depository for the ballot, and the only safeguard for individual and national liberty. Let us labor to realize, even in our day and time, this true type of republican government. The rights and safety of individuals and of the nation demand it.

In 1869, the executive committee passed a resolution to expend the money that had been accumulated at the meetings of the association in a series of lectures for the purpose of enlightening the public mind upon the question of equal political rights for women. Among the speakers engaged were Anna Dickinson, Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony, D. R. Locke (Nasby), Theodore Tilton. From that time the women of the district were permitted to speak their minds freely.

In the House of Representatives, March 21, 1870, Mr. Arnell, on leave, introduced the following bill:

A bill to do justice to the female employees of the Government, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That hereafter all clerks and other employes in the civil service of the United States shall be paid, irrespective of sex, with reference to the character and amount of services performed by them.

Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That, in the employment of labor, clerical or other, in any branch of the civil service of the United States, no discrimination shall be made in favor of either sex.

Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That where examinations of candidates for positions in the civil service of the United States are prescribed by law, or by the heads of departments, bureaus, or offices, said examinations shall be of the same character for persons of both sexes.

Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That the designations, chief clerk, chief or head of division, chief or head of section, clerk of the fourth class, clerk of the third class, clerk of the second class, clerk of the first class, copyist, messenger, laborer, and all other designations of employes, in existing acts of Congress, or in use in any branch of the civil service of the United States, shall be held, hereafter to apply to women as well as to men; and that women shall be regarded equally eligible with men to perform the duties of the afore-designated clerks and employes, and shall receive the compensation therefor prescribed by law.

Sec. 5. And be it further enacted, That this act shall not be so construed as to require the displacement of any person now employed, but shall apply to all vacancies hereafter occurring, for any cause.

Sec. 6. And be it further enacted, That all acts and parts of acts, in conflict with any of the provisions of this act be, and the same are hereby, expressly repealed.

Thousands of petitions for this bill were circulated. Mrs. Lockwood went to New York, and secured seven hundred signatures, visiting both of the suffrage conventions then in session in that city, the National and

the American. The bill was shortly afterward passed in a modified form, and has ever since been in force in all of the government departments.

In February, 1871, congress passed the organic act for the district, making of it a territory and granting suffrage to the male members of the commonwealth. There was also granted under this bill a right to a delegate in congress. In the meetings which followed for the nomination of delegates a number of women took part. Mrs. Lockwood often broke the monotony with a short speech, and on one occasion only lacked one vote of an election to the general convention for the nomination of a delegate to congress,

The women of the district were not permitted to vote under the organic act, but soon after the organization of its legislature, bills to provide for this were introduced into both Houses.' Mrs. Lockwood prepared an exhaustive address upon these pending bills, and was granted a hearing before both Houses of the legislature, but they were finally lost. In 1875 congress withdrew the legislative power from the people of the District of Columbia.

It was also in 1871 that the National University Law School, then principally under the control of Prof. Wm. B. Wedgewood, organized a law class for women, in which fifteen matriculated. Mrs. Lockwood had been denied admission the previous year to the law class of Columbia College for the reason, as given by the trustees, "that it would distract the attention of the young men." About this time a young colored woman, Charlotte Ray of New York, was graduated from the law class of Howard University and admitted to the bar with the class. Of the fifteen women who entered the National University.only two completed the course, viz., Lydia S. Hall, and Belva A. Lockwood. The former never received her diploma. The latter, after an appeal to President Grant, received her diploma, and was admitted to the district bar, September 23, 1873. Since that period Emma M. Gillett, Marilla M. Ricker, and Laura DeForce Gordon have been admitted to the district bar, and there seems to be no longer any hindrance to such admissions. The above-named have all appeared in court, and a number of other ladies have been graduated in the district. Women have also been appointed notaries public, and examiners in chancery.

In the profession of medicine there has been more liberality. Dr. Susan A. Edson and Dr. Caroline B. Winslow have been in full practice here since the close of the war. Dr. Mary Parsons and Dr. Cora M. Bland and others, are practicing with marked success. Last year there were fourteen women duly registered with the health department, and they all seem to be in good standing. Howard University has admitted women to its medical classes for some years, and both white and colored women have availed themselves of the privilege. Last year Columbia College opened its doors in the medical department, with a suggestion that the classes in law and theology may soon be opened also.

Many women in the district within the last few years have entered into business for themselves, as they are now permitted to do under the law of 1869, and are milliners, merchants, market-women, hucksters. In the art of nursing, which has been reduced to a science, they have free course.

In 1871, a large number of ladies tried to register in the city of Washington. They marched in solid phalanx some seventy^[5] strong to the registrar’s office, but were repulsed. They tried afterwards to vote, but were re- fused, whereupon Mrs. Spencer sued the inspectors, and Mrs. Webster sued the registrars, so testing their rights in two suits in the Supreme Court of the District.^[6]

In 1866 Jane G. Swisshelm commenced the publication of a liberal sheet in the District of Columbia, known as The Wasp. This was the continuation of a paper formerly published by her in Pittsburg, Pa., and in St. Cloud, Minn., called The Visitor. Many other papers by women have been since published in the District. Perhaps the most voluminous author in this country is Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth, who has written a volume for each year of her life, and is now sixty-five years of age. Her authorship has been confined to romances, which have been very popular. A large proportion of the teachers of the public schools in the District are women, some of them of very marked culture. Many of the most noted and successful private schools, some with collegiate courses, are conducted by women. Among these, Mrs. Margaret Harover who taught in the District during the war, is worthy of mention, also Mrs. Ellen M. O’Connor, president of the Miner school. Mrs. Sarah J. Spencer, as associate principal of the Spencerian business college whence large classes of young women have been graduated for many years past, is deservedly popular. She was at one time prominent in the woman suffrage movement, acting as corresponding secretary of the National Association. She is now engaged in one of the large charity organizations of the city. Many colored women who have been graduated from Howard University, have become quite successful as teachers, and some have studied medicine. All of the copyists in the office of registrar of deeds are women. A goodly number are short-hand reporters for the courts, among whom Miss Camp, daughter of the assistant clerk, is notably skillful.

The number of women who hold property in the District is large and rapidly increasing. A woman may now enter into almost any honorable profession that she chooses, and maintain her respectability. All of the professions are open to her, and the sphere of trades is rapidly widening. The progress made in this regard in the last quarter of a century amounts almost to a revolution. The first women ever admitted to the reporter's gallery of the Senate and House were Abigail Dodge (Gail Hamilton), and Helen M. Barnard, both political writers of great power; the former as a reporter for the New York Times, and the latter for the New York Herald. Mrs. Barnard, during Grant's administration, was sent as commissioner of immigration to Liverpool, visiting England, Ireland and Scotland, Returning in the steerage of an ocean steamer, she gave one of the finest reports ever made upon this question. This resulted in the passage by the legislature of New York of a bill for the better protection of emigrants on shipboard, and the appointment by the United States government of an inspector of immigration for every out-going steamer.

Women were first appointed as clerks in the government departments in 1861 by Secretary Chase, at the earnest solicitation of Treasurer Spinner. They were employed at temporary work at $50 a month—one-half the lowest price paid to any male clerk—until they were recognized by an act of congress in which their salary was fixed at $900 a year, in the general appropriation bill of July 23, 1866. The men doing the same work were of four classes, receiving, respectively, $1,000, $1,400, $1,600, $1,800. Treasurer Spinner, in his report of October, 1866, said:

The experiment of employing females as clerks has been, so far as this office is concerned, a success. For many kinds of office-work, like the manipulation and counting of fractional currency, they excel, and in my opinion are to be preferred to males. There is, however, quite as much difference in point of ability between female clerks as there is between the several classes of male clerks, whose equals some of them are. Some are able to accomplish twice as much as others, and with greater accuracy. So, too, some of them incur great risks, being responsible for making mistakes in count, and for counterfeits overlooked. Such should, by every consideration of justice and fair dealing, be paid according to their merits, and the risks and liabilities they incur.

And in 1868, Mr. Spinner urged the committee of which Mr. Fessenden of Maine was the chairman, to so amend the bill providing for the reorganization of the treasury department as to increase the salary of the female clerks who have the handling of money, stating that cases had occurred in which women had lost more than half their monthly pay by reason of being short in count, or of allowing counterfeit notes to pass their hands.

Secretary M'Cullough asserted that women performed their clerical duties as creditably as men, and stated that he had three ladies who performed as much labor, and did it as well as any three male clerks receiving $1,800 a year. It is now a quarter of a century that women have served the government in these responsible positions, and still, with but few exceptions, they receive only the allotted $900. Mrs. Fitzgerald, the expert in the redemption bureau of the treasury, who has for fifteen years deciphered defaced currency, in which no man has ever yet proved her equal, receives $1,400. In 1886 she subjected herself to an examination for an increase to $1,600, but, failing to answer some questions foreign to her art, she was compelled to content herself with the former salary.

 

II.—MARYLAND.

The Revolution of February 26, 1868, shows an effort in the direction of progress on this question in Maryland. A correspondent says:

Notwithstanding the present ascendancy of conservatism in Maryland, the progressive element is not wholly annihilated; in proof of which, we send information of the working of this leaven, as developed in an association lately organized in the city of Baltimore, under the name of the "Maryland Equal Rights Society." For nearly a year past it has been in contemplation to form a society based upon the principle of equal chance to all human kind, irrespective of sex or color, through the mediumship of the elective franchise. The first public meeting of the friends of the movement was held on the afternoon of November 12, 1867, at the Douglass Institute, at which twelve persons, white and colored, were present. Some steps were taken towards organization in the framing and adopting of a constitution based upon the principle afore-mentioned; but further business was deferred in hope of securing a larger attendance at a subsequent meeting. Two weeks later a second meeting was called, when the constitution was signed by fourteen persons, ten of whom were white and four colored. Officers were chosen, consisting of a president, a vice-president, a secretary and a treasurer, together with eight other members to act as an executive committee. The last meeting, held January 29, was attended by Alfred H. Love and Rachel Love of Philadelphia. To Mr. Love the society is indebted for many valuable suggestions as to the best means of becoming an effective co-worker In the cause of human progress. Our colored friends, who have control of the Douglass Institute, have testified their good will toward the movement in giving the society the use of an apartment in the building, free of charge. This is the one instance in which we have met with encouragement in our own community. We have sought it in high places, among those we supposed to be friends, and found it not. It appears to be the nature of fine linen to dread the mud splashes of the pioneer's spade and pick-ax, and for silk and broadcloth to shrink from contact with the briers of an uncleared thicket; hence our sole recourse is to appeal to those only who are dressed for the service. We are conscious that we have entered upon no easy task; but, ashamed of having so long left our Northern sisters to toil and endure alone in a cause which is not one of section but of humanity, we come forward at last to assume our share of the hardship, trusting that what we have lost in our tardiness may be made up in earnestness and activity.

From various papers we clip the following items:

At the election in Baltimore, January 20, 1870, there were three women who applied to be registered as voters at the third-ward registry office. Their names were Mrs, L. C. Dundore, Mrs. A. M. Gardner and Miss E. M. Harris. Their cases were held under advisement by the register. In 1871, a Maryland young lady, Miss Middlebrook, raised over 5,000 heads of cabbage. On Christmas, she sold in the Baltimore market 500 pounds of turkey at 20 cents per pound. Mrs. H. B. Conway of Frederick county, has established a reputation as a contractor for "fills" and "cuts," She has filled several contracts in Pennsylvania, been awarded a $100,000 job on the Western Maryland railroad, and now, 1885, is engaged in the work of excavating a tract in Baltimore for building-sites.

Miss R. Muller has for several years been engaged as subscription and general correspondence clerk for the Baltimore Daily American. She was the first woman to be employed in that city on newspaper work during the present century. In the chapter on newspapers it will be seen that Anna R. Green established the first newspaper in the Maryland colony one hundred and nineteen years ago, doing the colony printing; and that Mary R. Goddard not only published a paper, writing able editorials, but was also the first postmaster after the revolution, And from the following item it would seem that the first woman to claim her right to vote must be credited to Maryland:

At the regular meeting of the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore, December, 1885, Hon. J. L. Thomas read a paper on "Margaret Brent, the first woman in America to claim the right to vote." She lived at St. Mary's city on the river of the same name two hundred and forty years ago, and was related to Lord Baltimore. She was the heir of Leonard Calvert, Lord Baltimore's brother and agent, and as such she claimed not only control of all rents, etc., of Lord Baltimore, but also the right to two votes in the assembly as the representative of both Calvert and Baltimore. The first claim the courts upheld, but the second was rejected.

On March 20, 1872, Hon. Stevenson Archer made an exhaustive speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, entitled, "Woman Suffrage not to be tolerated, although advocated by the Republican candidate for vice-presidency." The speech was against Senator Wilson's bill to enfranchise the women of the territories. The honorable representative from Maryland may have been moved to enter his protest against woman's enfranchisement by the fact that the women of his State had in convention assembled early in the same month made a public demand for their political rights:

The Havre de Grace Republican says that the convention of the Maryland Equal Rights Association, held in Raine's Hall, Baltimore, last week, was a grand success. Mrs. Lavina C. Dundore, president of the association, presided over the convention with dignity and grace. Many prominent and able champions of the cause were present and delivered eloquent and telling addresses in favor of woman's enfranchisement, which were listened to with marked attention by the large audiences in attendance. The friends of the cause in Maryland feel much gratified at this exhibition of the rapidly increasing interest in the movement.

Meetings had been held in Baltimore during the years of 1870-71, and lectures given by Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, Susan B, Anthony, and others.

Charlotte Richmond of Baltimore writes the Woman's Journal, April 22, 1873.

The American Journal of Dental Science makes the following statement: "The Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, having had the honor of conferring the first degree of Doctor of Dental Surgery in the world, has also graduated the first woman who ever received a diploma in medicine or dentistry in Baltimore, in the person of Miss Emilie Foeking of Prussia, who, after attending two full courses of lectures and demonstrations, passed a very creditable final examination, Miss Foeking conformed to all the rules and regulations of the college during the two sessions that she was a student; no favor whatever as to requirement being asked for on her part, or extended to her by the faculty, on account of sex. She has fairly earned her degree by proficiency and earnest application. After a short time Miss Foeking will return to Berlin, where she intends to locate. That she will succeed in establishing a large and lucrative practice, there is no doubt, as she is well qualified professionally, and is in manner so perfect a lady as to command the respect of all who know her."

You will see by this extract from one of our medical journals, that a lady has been graduated from our dental college. I hope she has left the doors open, so that some of our own countrywomen may enter and acquit themselves as honorably, but without the difficulties which she has been compelled to encounter. You are aware of the proceedings of the Philadelphia college in regard to female students. Our Baltimore dentist, for we feel proud to claim her as ours, although admitted in the college, still had all the prejudices to meet in the minds of the people, but they were too courteous and hospitable to act upon those feelings so far as to turn her from their doors, She was brave and did not surrender; not even when her sensitive woman's heart was wounded and humiliated by the little acts done heedlessly under the impression that a woman had stepped out of her sphere and was taking upon herself a vocation belonging exclusively to men. She is naturally sincere, modest and dignified. With these

lady-like qualifications, together with ability and perseverance, she has won the honor and esteem of the faculty and the students.

I wish that Prussia could have witnessed the success of her daughter on the night of commencement—the wreaths of laurel, and the incessant applause while she was on the stage. I, for one, felt quite proud to see my city acknowledge the foreign lady-student so gracefully. She is already practicing to some extent, and in every case gives the most entire satisfaction. I trust there will be no more college doors closed against our sex, for the reason that the male students do not want us. Let the professors and trustees be just. We have proved that a true lady is no disadvantage in a college with male students. I think the way is now clear for women to enter upon the dental profession. Miss Foeking has proved that a woman can be successful when she undertakes an honorable profession.

For the facts in regard to the Baltimore Dental College we are indebted to the dean of the faculty:

Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, Jan. 2, 1886.

Miss Susan B. Anthony—Dear Miss: Your letter of 27th of last month came safely to hand. In reply I will say that only two members of the fair sex have been graduated with us. Miss Emilie Foeking of Prussia, whose present address I do not know, and Miss Pauline Boeck of Germany, who has since died. Miss Foeking was graduated in 1873, and Miss Boeck in 1877. I have learned that both of these young ladies were attentive and energetic in the pursuit of their studies, and were graduated with credit to themselves. We have the "Woman's Medical College," from which quite a number of young women have been graduated. For information in regard to this institution I would refer you to its dean, Prof. Wm. D. Booker, 157 Park avenue.

Very truly yours, R. B. Winder.

 

III.—Delaware.

Mary A. Stuart is the active representative of the movement for woman suffrage in Delaware. From year to year she has written and contributed to our National conventions in Washington, and has been among the delegates on several occasions to address congressional committees. In her report she says:

My father was the first man in the State Senate to propose the repeal of some of our oppressive laws, and succeeded in having the law giving all real estate to the eldest male heir repealed. The law of 1871 gave a married woman the right to make a will, provided her husband gave his written consent, with the names of two respectable witnesses thereunto attached. In 1873 the law was repealed, and another act passed giving married women the right to make a will, buy property and hold it exempt from the husband's debts, but this law does not affect his tenancy by courtesy.

Prior to 1868, bonds, mortgages, stocks, etc., were counted personal property, all of which went into the possession of the husband the moment the woman answered "I will," in the marriage ceremony. I worked hard to get the law passed giving the wife the right to her own separate earnings, and at last was greatly helped by the fact that a woman petitioned for a divorce, stating in her application that she was driven from her home, that she and her two children had worked hard and saved $100 for a rainy day, and now her husband claimed the money. It was a case in point, and helped the members of our legislature to pass the wages bill.

Delaware College, the only institution of the kind in the State, was open to girls for thirteen years, but owing to a tragedy committed by the boys in hazing one another, resulting in death, the doors were thereafter closed to girls, although they were in no way directly or indirectly implicated in the outrages. When Governor Stockley was appealed to, he simply gave some of the old arguments against coëducation, and did not recommend, as he should have done, an appropriation at once by the State to build a similar college, with all the necessary appointments for the education of girls. We have women who are practicing physicians, and are also in the State Medical Boards, We have none who practice law or preach in our pulpits, and all the political offices of the State are closed to women. No notaries, bank cashiers, telegraph operators. Women are still in the belief that work outside the home is a disgrace to the men of their families.

In February, 1881, Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony, Miss Couzins and Mrs. Lockwood, held various hearings before the legislature. Mrs. Lockwood read to the gentlemen article 4 of the constitution as amended in 1834: "Any white male citizen over 22 years of age who shall be a tax-payer, shall be eligible to vote for electors." She then showed them how readily, without any marked revolution, the word "white "had been stricken out, while the word tax-payer had virtually become a dead letter. Then turning to the first paragraph of the United States revised code she cited the passage which states that in determining the meaning of statutes after February 25, 1877, "words importing the masculine gender may be applied to females." * * * * At this point the chairman of the committee placed before Mrs. Lockwood the Delaware code from which she read a similar application of the law made many years before. Having laid this foundation she asserted that the women of Delaware were legally entitled to vote under the laws as they are, but that to prevent all question on the subject, she would recommend a special enactment like that prepared in the bill before them. An amendment to the State constitution giving suffrage to women was presented in the House of Representatives in February, 1881, and referred to the committee on privileges and elections. It was reported adversely. The vote showed that all the members, with two^[7] exceptions, were opposed to the measure.

Among the friends in Delaware were several liberal families, active in all the progressive movements of the day. Pre€minent among these was that of the noble Thomas Garrett, whose good words of encouragement for woman's enfranchisement may be found in the bound copies of The Revolution as far back as 1868. His private letters to those of us interested in his labors of love are among our most cherished mementoes. He was a man of good judgment, broad sympathies, and unswerving integrity.

 

IV.—Kentucky.

Mary B. Clay, daughter of Cassius M. Clay, sends us the following report of what has been done to change the status of women in Kentucky:

The earliest agitation of the suffrage question in our State arose from the advent of Miss Lucy Stone in Louisville, in 1853, at which time she delivered three lectures in Masonic Hall to crowded audiences. George D. Prentice gave full and friendly reports in the Courier—Journal. In later years, Anna Dickinson and others have lectured in our chief cities. But the first note of associated effort is that given in The Revolution from Glendale, which says:

We organized here an association with twenty members the first of October, 1867, and now have fifty. We hope soon to have the whole of Hardin county, and by the close of another year the whole of the State of Kentucky, enlisted on the side of woman's rights.

In the winter of 1872 Hannah Tracy Cutler and Margaret V. Longley were granted a respectful hearing before our legislature at Frankfort. In May, 1879, self-appointed, I represented Kentucky at the May anniversary of the National Association at St. Louis. In the autumn following, Miss Anthony, during an extended lecture tour through the State, stopped in Richmond several days, and aided us in organizing a local suffrage society.^[8] Letters were at once written to the leading editors asking them to publish articles on the subject. Many favorable answers were received, and we have largely availed ourselves of the columns of the papers to keep up the agitation. My sister, Sally Clay Bennett, edits a column in the Richmond Register, sister Anne a column in the Lexington Gazette, and Kate Dunning Clarke, a column in the Turf, Field and Farm. Mrs. Clarke is also associate editor of the Kentucky State Journal, The Misses Moore are making a success of a daily paper at Milledgeville.

In May, 1880, Mrs. Bennett and myself were delegates at the great National Mass Convention in Farwell Hall, Chicago. In October, 1881, the American Association held its annual meeting in Louisville. It was largely attended and fully and fairly reported by the press of the city. At its close, a Kentucky State association was organized, with Laura Clay as president.

In January, 1882, the Richmond and Louisville clubs secured a hearing before the judiciary committee of the Senate, Mrs. Bennett and myself representing the former, and John A. Ward the latter. With the valuable aid of Mrs. Mary Haggart of Indianapolis we made a most favorable impression upon our legislators. The points in which our laws are defective and upon which our appeals and arguments were based are well indicated by the pleas of our several petitions:

That women might have municipal and presidential suffrage by statute; that in marriage women might own their property as men own theirs; that women who were married might be the legal guardians of their children's property and persons as well as the father; that women should be appointed with equal responsibility and authority as assistant physicians in insane asylums, and that the appointment of all the officers in such asylums should be made by the legislature, and not by the governor, as now; that women be appointed on boards of visitors and commissioners to all asylums where women are inmates or prisoners.

In 1884, all of the Clay sisters—Mrs. Bennet, Mary, Laura and Anne— with Mrs. Haggart, again went to Frankfort, and held meetings in the legislative hall, which were largely attended by the best classes of the citizens of that city, as well as by members of the leglslature.

For several years we have had a woman for State Librarian. In Fayette, one of our most aristocratic counties, Lexington being its county seat, a woman was elected to the office of county clerk by a majority of 200 over her male competitor. In two other counties women are also county clerks. Each of them had served so efficiently in her husband's office, that at his death she had been elected in his place.

That woman has to fight every step of her way to the recognition of her rights as a citizen equal before the law, is shown by the following despatch from Frankfort, dated December 18, 1885:

Mrs. M. C. Lucas was elected by the vote of Daviess county to the office of jailer, to-succeed her husband, who was killed by a mob while in discharge of his duty. When she appeared before the county court to give bond for the office, the Judge refused to allow her to qualify. A writ of mandamus from the Circuit Court was applied for to compel the court to allow her to qualify, but the motion was denied. An appeal was then taken to the Court of Appeals. Yesterday that court affirmed the decision of the Circuit Court, that a woman cannot legally hold the office of county jailer.

A woman in Madison county acted as census-taker, and performed her duty well. She was the niece of Mr. Justice Miller of the Supreme Court of the United States. Gen. W. J. Sanderson, internal revenue collector for the eighth district, employed two young ladies as clerks, Miss Brown and Miss Price, the former of whom is said to be his best clerk. She is the sister of Mrs. Smith, the circuit clerk of Laurel county. The successor of General Sanderson, employs his two daughters as clerks, and they receive the same pay as men who do the same work.

Many women in our State manage their own farms, My mother, during my father's absence as minister to Russia, took his farm of 2,500 acres (he making her his attorney), paid off a large debt on the property, built an elegant house costing $30,000, stocked the farm, and largely supported the family of six children, with money which she made during the war. She fed government mules, and did it so well that she would return them to camp before the time expired, in better condition than most feeders got theirs. She is now, 1885, conducting her own farm of 350 acres, selling several thousand dollars' worth of wheat, cattle, and sheep annually, giving her personal attention to everything, at the age of seventy. During the adventurous and perilous period of my father's life she shared his dangers, and was ever his mainstay in upholding his hands against slavery; and in that crowning point of his life, when he was mobbed in Lexington, my mother sat at his bed-side, and wrote at his dictation, "Go tell your secret conclave of dastardly assassins, Cassius M. Clay knows his rights and how to defend them."

Two of my sisters, Laura and Anne, and myself are practical farmers, each having under her immediate superintendence the workmen, both white and black, on 300 acres. We raise corn, wheat, oats, cattle and sheep, buying and selling our own stock and produce. We took possession of the land without stock or utensils, and by our observation and experience, prudence and industry, have greatly improved the lands and stock, and annually realize a handsome income therefrom.

Miss Laura R. White of Manchester, sister of Hon. John D. White, who ably advocated our cause in congress as well as in his own State, was graduated with marked honor from the Michigan State University in 1874. Since that time she has studied architecture in the Boston Institute of Technology one year, worked as draughtsman in the office of the supervisory architect of the treasury department at Washington, two years, studied in the special school of architecture in Paris one year, and is now, 1886, prosecuting her studies with a liberal selection of French and English architectural works at her mountain home in Kentucky. Mrs. Bessie White Heagen, the youngest daughter of Mrs. Sarah A. White, was graduated with honor from the Roxbury High School of Boston, and from the school of Pharmacy of Michigan University. Being denied examination and the privileges of college graduates of the college of pharmacy at Louisville, where she was employed by a prominent pharmacist, she brought suit and obtained a verdict in her favor.

Early in 1882, Dr. J. P. Barnum employed young women in his store with the expectation of being able to educate them in the college of pharmacy. But the hostility of the students to the proposed innovation, and the lack of a systematic laboratory course, caused the relinquishment of that plan and the formation of the new school. Prominent gentlemen in the community assisted Dr. Barnum, and the Louisville School of Pharmacy was duly incorporated under the general laws of Kentucky. ^[9] Though sustained by men of wealth and influence, the school met with great opposition, the State Board of Pharmacy refusing to register the women who were graduated from it until compelled to do so by a mandamus from the Law and Equity Court, Judge Simral presiding. March 7, 1884, the legislature incorporated the Louisville School of Pharmacy for Women, and by special enactment empowered its graduates to practice their profession without registration or interference from the State board.

The school confers two degrees; its full course taking three years and requiring more work than is done in other schools. So far its graduates have been representative women, and all have found responsible situations awaiting them. Its faculty remains, with a few exceptions, as in the first session. Dr. J. P. Barnum, to whose indefatigable efforts the foundation of the school is due, is dean and professor of pharmacy and analytical chemistry; Dr. T. Hunt Stuckey, a graduate of Heidelberg University, who joined his efforts with,Dr. Barnum at an early day, is professor of materia medica, toxicology and microscopy. Mrs. D. N. Marble, professor of general and pharmaceutical chemistry, and Mrs. Fountaine Miller, professor of botany, were graduates of the first class.

Mrs. Kate Trimble de Roode, in a recent letter says:

Kentucky has had school suffrage for thirty years, but as the right is not generally known or understood, few women have ever availed themselves of the privilege. The State librarian has for many years been a woman, and there are several post-mistresses also in this State. The State University has recently admitted women on equal terms to all its departments. Asa general! thing the young women of Kentucky are better educated than the men, the latter being early put to business, while most parents desire above all things to secure to their daughters a liberal education. We have a number of women practicing medicine in the larger cities, one architect, but as yet no lawyers, although several women have taken a full course of study for that profession. The question of woman suffrage has been but little agitated in this State, although the last legislature gave a respectful hearing to several ladies on the question, The property rights of married women are in a crude state; the wife's personal property vests in the husband; the profits and rents that accrue from her real estate belong to him also. She can make no will without the assent of her husband, and if given, he can revoke it at any time before the will is probated. The wife's wages belong to her husband. She cannot sue or be sued without he joins her in the suit. The wife's dower is a life interest in a third of the husband's real estate, whereas the husband's curtesy, where there is issue of the marriage, born alive, is a life interest in all the real estate belonging to the wife at the time of her death. This is the statutory law, but the wife by obtaining a decree in chancery may possess all the rights of a femme sole. A bill securing more equal rights to women passed the House of the last legislature, but failed in the Senate. The courtesy of Kentucky men to women in general, has kept them from realizing their civil and political degradation, until, by some sudden turn in the wheel of fortune, the individual woman has felt the iron teeth of the law in her own flesh, and warned her slumbering sisterhood. We are now awaking to the fact that an aristocracy of sex in a republic is as inconsistent and odious as an aristocracy of color, and indeed far more so.

 

V-—Tennessee.

We are indebted to Mrs. Elizabeth Lisle Saxon for the following:

Elizabeth Avery Meriwether is the chief representative of liberal thought in Tennessee. Her pen is ever ready to champion the wronged. I first came to know her when engaged in a newspaper discussion to reëstablish in the public schools of Memphis three young women who had been dismissed because of "holding too many of Mrs. Meriwether's views" —the reason actually given by the superintendent and endorsed by the board of directors. A seven month's war was carried on, ending in a triumphant reinstallment of the teachers, a new superintendent, and a new board of directors. Public opinion was educated into more liberal ideas, and the Memphis Appeal, through its chivalrous editor, Mr. Keating, declared squarely for woman suffrage.

When Col. Kerr introduced into the Tennessee legislature a bill making divorce impossible for any cause save adultery, Mrs. Meriwether wrote the ablest article I] ever read, in opposition, which Mr, Keating published in his paper, and distributed among the members of the legislature. The result was a clear vote against the bill.

With Mrs. Lide Meriwether and Mrs. M. J. Holmes, she publicly assailed the cross examination of women in criminal trials, either as culprits or witnesses, until the practice was broken up, and private hearings accorded. In 1876 she sent a memorial to the National Democratic convention at St. Louis, asking that party to declare for woman suffrage in its platform. Though her appeal was not read, hundreds of copies were circulated among the members in the hope of stirring thought on the subject in the South. It provoked much sarcasm because it was signed only by Mrs. Meriwether and Mrs. Saxon. In 1880-81 Mrs. Meriwether was one of the speakers in the series of conventions held by the National association in the Western and New England States.

 

VI.—Virginia.

In the winter of 1870, immediately after the National Washington convention, Mrs. Paulina Wright Davis, while spending a few days in Richmond, formed the acquaintance of Mrs. Anna Whitehead Bodeker, a most earnest advocate of the ballot for women. Mrs. Davis held a parlor meeting in the home of Mrs. Bodeker, enlisting the interest of several prominent citizens of Richmond, who very soon invited Mrs. Joslyn Gage to their city to give a series of lectures. Of the result of this visit we give Mrs. Bodeker's report as published in The Revolution of May, 1870:

Dear Revolution:—I glory in announcing a grand achievement in the great reform of the day in Virginia. Our energetic and heroic leader, Mrs. M. Joslyn Gage, after giant efforts on her part, and with the aid of some strong advocates of the reform, on Friday evening, May 6, 1870, organized in the city of Richmond a Virginia State Woman Suffrage Association. The whole proceedings I here append, for immediate publication in your columns.

Mrs. Gage, advisory counsel for New York, in the National Woman Suffrage Association of America, delivered a lecture upon "Opportunity for Woman," at Bosher's Hall, corner of Ninth and Main streets, on Thursday evening. The lecture was able, earnest and eloquent, and was listened to with rapt attention by the friends of the cause present. At its conclusion, Judge John C. Underwood gave notice that on the following evening a meeting would be held at the United States Court room (which he freely proffered for the purpose) to organize a State Association, adopt a constitution, elect officers, and appoint delegates to the anniversary of the National Association soon to be held in New York city. The judge remarked that, upon conversing with Governor Wise upon the subject, he expressed his warm sympathy with the objects of the movement save upon the question of giving women the ballot. With all the other' rights claimed, he was heartily in accord; especially, he thought, should the professions be opened to women, more particularly the medical, they being the natural physicians of their sex and of children.

Pursuant to the above notice, a meeting was held in the United States court-room, Judge John C. Underwood was called to preside. Previous to action on the regular business of the meeting, several articles favorable to the movement were read. Miss Sue L. F. Smith, daughter of the late Rev. Dr. Wm. A. Smith, read very charmingly a well-written essay prepared by herself in advocacy of granting to women the full meed of powers and responsibilities now enjoyed by men. Mr. William E. Colman read an article entitled "Clerical Denunciation of Woman Suffrage—A Defense," being a reply to a violent attack made by the Rev. Dr. Edwards of this city, upon the adherents of the movement, in a sermon delivered by him recently. A proposed constitution for the government of the Virginia State Woman Suffrage Association was adopted; after which came the election of officers^[10] of the society. Onmotion of Judge Underwood, Miss Sue L. F. Smith was appointed delegate to represent Virginia in the National Association to be held in New York city May 12, 13, the society having by resolution connected itself as an auxiliary to said National Association. Mrs, Gage offered resolutions, which were unanimously adopted, after which she delivered a forcible address, enumerating many of the wrongs to which women are subjected in this State, dwelling particularly upon the laws depriving mothers of the right to their own children, placing the property of married women at the mercy of their husbands, and depriving the wives of all voice in the disposition of the property possessed by them before marriage.

In the winter of 1871, Miss Anthony was honored by an invitation from the society, and held several meetings in Judge Underwood's court-room. About this time appeared the following:

Judge Underwood, having stated in a letter that after mature consideration he had come to the conclusion that the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the Constitution of the United States, together with the enforcement act of May 31, 1870, have secured the right to vote to female citizens as fully as it is now exercised and enjoyed by male citizens, a test case is to be made at once in the Virginia courts. As there are very few advocates of woman suffrage in Virginia, some of the leaders of the movement in Washington are about to move to Alexandria to perfect an organization and be ready with a case when Judge Underwood opens court there.

But Mrs. Bodeker, who also memorialized the general assembly, was first to make the attempt to vote. The Richmond Dispatch describes the occasion:

Yesterday morning the judges of the second precinct of Marshall ward, J. F. Shinberger, esq., presiding, were surprised at the appearance of a lady at the polls. She wished to deposit a ballot, but as the judges declined to allow this, in view of her not having registered, she then asked to be permitted to have a paper with the following inscription placed in the ballot-box: "By the Constitution of the United States, I, Anne Whitehead Bodeker, have a right to give my vote at this election, and in vindication of it drop this note in the ballot-box, November 7, 1871." This paper was taken by the judges, and will be deposited with the ballots in the archives of the Hustings court.

One remarkable incident in Gen. Grant's administration was Miss Elizabeth VanLew's appointment as postmaster at Richmond. She held the office eight years, notwithstanding the persistent opposition of politicians. The Ballot-Box said:

Miss VanLew was postmaster in Richmond under Grant, introducing many reforms in the office, but through the envy of men, who were voters, she, a non-voter, lost her office, as she had lost wealth and friends from her devotion to the Union during the war. Now, since its close, she finds not only her former slave men permitted to make laws for her, but also those whom she opposed when they were seeking their country's life. But women of all ranks, white and colored, are awaking to their need of the ballot for self-protection.

The Philadelphia Press, edited by J. W. Forney, said:

Some covert enemies of the president and the new civil-service reform have been spreading a report, through sensational specials, that the Richmond post-office is to be given to some prominent Virginian of local standing as soon as Miss VanLew's commission expires. If there is any post-office in the United States in which the whole nation at this time has a special interest, it is this one of Richmond which the present incumbent holds, as it were, by a national right, and certainly by popular acclaim. We have not time in a brief paragraph to tell the striking story of what Miss VanLew has done and what she has suffered for the country. Her story will pass into standard history, however, as sadly illustrative of our times. She herself is known and loved wherever the horrors of Libby and Belle Isle are mourned and denounced.

 

VII. West Virginia.

Hon. Samuel Young, in a letter to The Revolution, dated Senate Chamber, Wheeling, West Virginia, February 22, 1869, writes:

In 1867, I introduced a bill in the State Senate, looking to the enfranchisement of all women in West Virginia, who can read the Declaration of Independence intelligently, and write a legible hand, and have actually paid tax the year previous to their proposing to vote. But even this guarded bill had no friends but myself. * * * I introduced a resolution during the present session of our legislature, asking congress to extend the right of suffrage to women. Eight out of the twenty-two members of the Senate voted for it. This is quite encouraging—advancing from one to eight in two years. At this rate of progress, we may succeed by next winter. I give the names of those who are in favor of and voted for female suffrage in the Senate: Drummond, Doolittle, Humphreys, Hoke, Wilson, Workman, Young, and Farnsworth, president. The same senators voted to invite Miss Anna E. Dickinson to lecture in the state-house during her late visit to Wheeling.

 

VIII.—North Carolina.

We are indebted to Mrs. Mary Bayard Clarke of New Berne for the following:

Since 1868, when the constitution was changed, a married woman has absolute control of al] the real estate she possessed before marriage or acquired by gift or devise after it, except the power to sell without the consent of her husband, who in his turn is not at liberty to sell any real estate possessed by him before marriage, or acquired after it, without the consent of his wife. Should he sell any real estate without the wife's consent, in writing, she can, after his death, claim her dower of one-third in such real estate. If she owns a farm and her husband manages it, she can claim full settlements from him, he having no more rights than any other agent whom she may employ. So her property, real and personal, is her individual right, with the income therefrom. But she cannot contract a debt that is binding on her property without the consent of her husband. With his written consent, which must be registered in the office of the clerk of the county in which she resides, she may become a free-trader with all the rights of a man, her husband having no claim to her gains and not being responsible for any debt which she may contract. By giving this written consent her husband virtually places her in the position of an unmarried woman, as far as her property is concerned.

In 1881, finding that a widow had no right to appoint a guardian for her children by "letters testamentary," I, through my son, William E. Clarke, who was then senator for this county in our State legislature, succeeded in getting this law so changed that she now has the same rights as a man. In cases of divorce or separation while the children are under age, it is discretionary with the judge to give the children to either parent; but public sentiment always gives them to the mother while young.

As a rule the women of the South are better educated than the men, the boys being put to work while the girls are at school. The girls are not trained to work in any way, and very few, as yet, see the necessity of being regularly trained to do anything by which they may make a living except as teachers. Our public-school system requires a course through the normal] school for all teachers. Mixed schools are not popular with us, but we have been forced into them by the public-graded-school tax, which has crushed out our private schools, I am now, and have been for the past two years, making an effort to have women on our school-boards, and a female as well as a male principal for every mixed public school, on the ground that mothers have as much right to a voice in the education of their daughters as fathers have in that of their sons. We have female teachers in our public schools but not as principals, and the pay of the women is, regardless of the quality of their work, always considerably less than that of men.

Our Supreme Court granted a license to Miss Tabitha A. Holton to practice law, and there is no legal impediment in the way of one doing so. The same is true of the medical profession. Dr. Susan Dimock was a North Carolinian by birth and on her application for admission to the State Medical Society was unanimously elected a member of that body. The African Methodist-Episcopal Conference, Bishop Turner presiding, ordained Miss Sarah A. Hughes of Raleigh, a bright mulatto girl, as deacon in the church. Shortly after the close of the late war, my husband being then incapacitated for work by wounds received in the Mexican and the civil war, and my sons under age, I applied to Governor Jonathan Worth for the position of State librarian. Though cordially acknowledging my fitness, intellectually, for the office, and admitting that my sex did not legally disqualify me to hold it, he positively refused to appoint me or any other woman to any office in his gift. Public sentiment then sustained him, but it would not now do so; so many ladies of culture, refinement and social position have been, since the war, forced to work or starve, that it is now nothing remarkable to see them and their daughters doing work which twenty years ago they would have been ostracised for undertaking.

In a letter to the Boston Index, published August, 1885, the venerable Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith, who is now a resident of this State, truthfully says .

The women of the North can have little conception of the hindrances which their sisters of the South encounter in their efforts to accept new and progressive ideas. The other sex, in a blind sort of way, hold fast to an absolute kind of chivalry akin to that of the renowned Don Quixote, by which they try to hold women in the background as a kind of porcelain liable to crack and breakage unless daintily handled. Women here see the spirit of the age and the need of change far more clearly than the men, and act up to this light, but with a flexible grace that disarms opposition. They see the necessity of work and are turning their attention to methods for remunerative labor, far more difficult to obtain at the South than at the North.

I cordially endorse this extract. The Southern man does not wish his "women folks" to be self-supporting, not because he is jealous of their rivaling him, but because he feels it is his duty to be the bread-winner. But the much sneered at "chivalry" of the South, while rendering it harder for a woman to break through old customs, most cordially and heartily sustains her when she has successfully done so. There are fewer large centers in the South than in the North, and much less attrition of mind against mind; the people are homogeneous and slower to change, and public opinion is much less fluctuating. But once let the tide of woman suffrage fairly turn, and I believe it will be irresistable and advance far more steadily and rapidly in the South than it has done in the North. Let the Southern women be won over and the cause will have nothing to fear from the opposition of the men. But, after twenty years' experience as a journalist, my honest opinion is that until the Southern women can be made to feel the pecuniary advantages to them of suffrage, they will not lift a finger or speak a word to obtain it.

In 1881, at the March meeting of the Raleigh Typographical Union, No. 194, my son, being then a member of that Union, introduced and, after some hard fighting, succeeded in carrying a resolution placing women compositors on a par in every respect with men. There was not at that time a single woman compositor in the State, to my sou's knowledge; there is one now in Raleigh and two apprentices, who claimed and receive all the advantages that men applying for admission to the Union receive.

Mrs. C. Harris started the South Atlantic at Wilmington. The Misses Bernheim and their father started a magazine in the same city called At Home and Abroad, which was afterwards moved to Charlotte; both were short-lived. We have now the Southern Woman. This is the only journal ever edited and managed by a woman alone, with no man associated with or responsible for it. I have been for twenty years connected with the press of this State in one way and another, and am called the "Grandmother of the North Carolina Press Association." In 1880 I delivered an original poem before the association, and another Masonic one before the board of the orphan asylum; making me, I believe, the first native North Carolina woman that ever came before the public as a speaker. I was both denounced and applauded for my "brass" and "bravery." Public sentiment has changed since then. Mrs, Marion A. Williams, president of the State National Bank at Raleigh for several years, is probably the first woman ever elected to that responsible position in any State of this Union. In 1885 Louisa B. Stephens was made president of the First National Bank of Marion, Iowa; and a national bank in Newbery, South Carolina, honored itself by placing a woman at the head of its official board.

The North Carolinian of January, 1870, contained an able editorial endorsing woman suffrage, closing with:

For one we say, tear down the barriers, give woman an opportunity to show her wisdom and virtue; place the ballot in her hands that she may protect herself and re form men, and ere a quarter of a century has elapsed many of the foulest blots upon the civilization of this age will have passed away.

From an interesting article in the Boston Advertiser, May 22, 1875, by Rev. James Freeman Clark, concerning Dr. Susan Dimock, one of North Carolina's promising daughters, whose career was ended in the wreck of the Schiller near the Scilly islands, we make a few extracts:

One of our eminent surgeons, Dr. Samuel Cabot, said to me yesterday: "This community will never know what a loss it has had in Dr. Dimock. It was not merely her skill, though that was remarkable, considering her youth and limited experience, but also her nerve, that qualified her to become a great surgeon. I have seldom known one at once so determined and so self-possessed. Skill is a quality much more easily found than this self-control that nothing can flurry. She had that in an eminent degree; and, had she lived, she would have been sure to stand, in time, among those at the head of her profession. The usual weapons of ridicule would have been impotent against a woman who had reached that supreme position which Susan Dimock would certainly have attained."

During the war of the rebellion, Miss Dimock sought admission into the medical school of Harvard University, preferring, if possible, to take a degree in an American college. Twice she applied, and was twice refused. Hearing that the University of Zurich was open to women, she went there, and was received with a hospitality which the institutions of her own country did not offer. She pursued her medical studies there, and graduated with honor. A number of the "Revue des Deux Mondes" for August, 1872, contains an article called "Les Femmes à l'Universitie de Zurich," which speaks very favorably of the success of the women in that place. The first to take a degree as doctor of medicine was a young Russian lady, in 1867. Between 1867 and 1872 five others had taken this degree, and among them Miss Dimock is mentioned. From the medical school at Zurich, she went to that at Vienna; and of her appearance there we have this record: A distinguised German physician remarked to a friend of mine residing in Germany that he had always been opposed to women as physicians —but that he had met a young American lady studying at Vienna, whose intelligence, modesty and devotion to her work was such as almost to convince him that he was wrong. A comparison of dates shows that this American student must have been Dr. Dimock.

On her return to the United States Dr. Dimock became resident physician at "The Hospital for Women and Children," on Codman Avenue, in Boston. Both the students of medicine and 'the patients became devotedly attached to her; they were fascinated by this remarkable union of tenderness, firmness and skill. The secret was in part told by what she said in one of her lectures in the training-school for nurses connected with the woman's hospital: "I wish you, of all my instructions, especially to remember this. Where you go to nurse a patient, imagine that it is your own sister before you in that bed; and treat her as you would wish your own sister to be treated." While at this hospital, she was also able to carry out a principle in which she firmly believed, namely—that in a hospital the rights of every patient, poor and rich, should be sacredly regarded, and never be postponed even to the supposed interests of medical students. No student was allowed to be present at any operation, except so far as the comfort and safety of her patients rendered the student's presence desirable. Her interest in the woman's hospital was very great. She was in the habit, at the beginning of each year, of writing and sealing up her wishes for the coming year. Since her death, her mother has opened the envelope of January 1, 1875, and found it to contain a prayer for a blessing on "my dear hospital."

And now this young, strong soul so ardent in the pursuit of knowledge, so filled with a desire to help her suffering sisters, has been taken by that remorseless deep.

 

IX.—South Carolina.

The first action we hear of in South Carolina was a Woman's Right's Convention in Columbia, Dec. 20, 1870, of which the Charleston Republican said:

The chairman, Miss Rollin, said: "It had been so universally the custom to treat the idea of woman suffrage with ridicule and merriment that it becomes necessary in submitting the subject for earnest deliberation that we assure the gentlemen present that our claim is made honestly and seriously. We ask suffrage not as a favor, not as.a privilege, but as a right based on the ground that we are human beings, and as such, entitled to all human rights. While we concede that woman's ennobling influence should be confined chiefly to home and society, we claim that public opinion has had a tendency to limit woman's sphere to too small a circle, and until woman has the right of representation this will last, and other rights will be held by an insecure tenure."

Mr. T. J. Mackey made a forcible argument in favor of the movement. He was followed by Miss Hosley, who made a few brief remarks upon the subject. General Moses thought woman's introduction upon the political platform would benefit us much in a moral point of view, and that they had a right to assist in making the laws that govern them as well as the sterner sex. Messrs. Cardozo, Pioneer and Rev. Mr. Harris followed in short speeches, endorsing the movement and wishing it success. Resolutions were adopted, and officers chosen.^[11] The following letters were read:

Executive Department, Columbia, Jan. 19, 1871.

Miss L. M. Rollin:—I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your invitation to be present at the preliminary organization of the association for the assertion of woman's rights in this State, and regret that the pressure of public duties precludes my indulging myself in that pleasure. Be assured, however, that the cause has my warmest sympathy, and I indulge the hope that the time is not far distant when woman shall be the peer of man in political rights, as she is peerless in all others, and when she will be able to reclaim some of those privileges that are now monopolized by the sterner sex.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, etc., R. K. Scott, Governor.

Office Of The Attorney-General, Columbia, Feb, 8, 1871.

I hoped when I received your invitation to the meeting to-night of the friends of woman suffrage, that I should be able to attend in person, but at a late hour I find other duties standing in the way, and I can only say a word of approval and encouragement with my pen. The woman suffrage cause is to my mind so just and so expedient as to need little argument. To say that my mother, my sisters or my.wife have less interest in good government than I have, or are less fitted by nature to understand and use the ballot than I am, is to contradict reason and fact.

Upon the same grounds that I defend my own right to share in the government which controls and protects me, do I now assert the right of woman to a voice in public affairs. For the same reasons that I would regard an attempt to rob me of my civil rights as tyranny, do I now protest against the continued civil inequality and thralldom of woman. I take no merit or pride to myself for such a position. I have felt and said these things during my whole life. They are to me self-evident truths; needing no more demonstration by argument than the first lines of the Declaration of American Independence. My claim for woman is simply this: Give her a full and fair chance to actin any sphere for which she can fit herself. Her sphere is as wide as man's. It has no limits except her capacity. If woman cannot perform a soldier's duty, then the army is not her sphere; if she can, it is her sphere, as much as it is man's.

I value the ballot for woman chiefly because it opens to her a wide, free avenue to a complete development of all her powers. The Chinese lady's shoe is nothing compared to the clamps and fetters which we Americans have put upon woman's mind and soul. An impartial observer would scarcely condemn the one and approve the other. What we need now is to accustom the public to these radical truths. Demand the ballot; demand woman's freedom. It is not a conflict of argument or reason, so much as a crusade against habit and prejudice. To tell the truth, I don't think there is a respectable argument in the world against woman suffrage. People think they are arguing or reasoning against it when they are in fact only repeating the prejudices in which they have been trained. With the sincerest wishes for the success of your meeting and of all your efforts for woman suffrage, I remain, yours very truly,

D. H. Chamberlain.

The American association memorialized the legislature March 13, 1872. The joint committee recommended an amendment to the constitution of the State, providing that every person, male or female, possessed of the necessary qualifications, should be entitled to vote. B.F. Whittemore, H. J. Maxwell, W. B. Nash, G. F. McIntyre, were the committee on the part of the Senate; C. D. Hayne, W. J. Whipper, Benj. Byas, B. G. Yocom, F. H. Frost, committee on the part of the House.

In the debate in congress in 1874, Hon. Alonzo J. Ransier of South Carolina, the civil-rights bill being under discussion, claimed that equal human rights should be extended to women as follows:

And may the day be not far distant when American citizenship in civil and political rights and public privileges shall cover not only those of our sex, but those of the opposite one also; until which time the government of the United States cannot be said to rest upon the "consent of the governed," or to adequately protect them in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Miss Sallie R. Banks, for some years a teacher of colored schools in South Carolina, has been appointed collector of internal revenue for the Sumter district.

 

X.—Florida.

In 1880, the agricultural department at Washington, paid a premium of $12 to Madame Atzeroth of Manatee, for the first pound of coffee ever grown out of doors in the United States.

The following is from a letter to the Savannah News, reporting a judgment rendered by a Florida county judge, in a case between an old black man and his wife:

Ocala, Fla., May 12, 1874.

Be it known throughout all christendom that the husband is the head of the wife, and whatever is his is his'n, and whatever is hers is his'n, and come weal or woe, peace or war, the right of all property is vested in the husband, and the wife must not take anything away. The ox belongs to Uncle Ben, and he must keep it, and the other things, and if the old woman quits she must go empty-handed. Know all that this is so by order of the Judge of Probate.

[Signed]Wm. R. Hillyer.

Though quaintly expressed, yet this decision is in line with the old common law and the statutes of many of the States in this Union to-day.

 

XI.—Alabama.

The women of Alabama are evidently awake on the temperance question, though still apparently unprepared for suffrage. In a report of a meeting in Birmingham in 1885, the following, from a prominent editor, was read by the president:

Tell the admirable lady, Mrs. Bryce, that I would devote everything to the cause she espouses, but there's no use. Let women demand the ballot, and with it they can destroy whisky, and by no other agency. There is no perfect family or state in which woman is not an active governing force. They should have the courage to assert themselves and then they can serve the country and the race.

If a thunderbolt had fallen it would not have created a greater sensation. The ladies at first grew indignant and uttered protestations. When they grew calmer, the corresponding secretary was ordered to furnish the editor with the following:

The ladies of the W. C. T. U. return thanks to the editor for his kindly and progressive suggestions, but, in their opinion, they are not ready to ask any political favors. Whenever suffrage is granted to the women of the United States, those of Alabama will be found on the right side.

At Huntsville lives Mrs. Priscilla Holmes Drake, whose name has stood as representative of our National Association in Alabama since 1868.

 

XII.—Georgia.

We give a letter from Georgia's great statesman, defining his views of woman's sphere:

House of Representatives, Washington, D. C., May 29, 1878.

Mrs. E. L. Saxon, New Orleans, La.

My Dear Madam:—Your letter to Hon. Alexander H. Stephens, of the 22d inst., came duly to hand. He requests me to thank you for it, and to say in reply that he has ever sympathized with woman in her efforts for a higher and broader sphere of intellectual and moral culture, as well as physical usefulness in life. He does not go . so far as to endow woman with the ballot, or to fit her for the more masculine duties of the State. Her sphere, by nature, is circumscribed within certain physical boundaries, but in all those things to which she is fitted by nature, and can enter without interference with the laws of God, he would open the doors wide to her.

Very respectfully yours,C. P. Culver, Secretary.

 

S. Hall, Dr. C. B. Purvis, Mrs. Dr. Hathaway, Bishop Moore, Mrs. C. A. F. Stebbins, Giles B. Stebbins, Miss Emily Stanton, Dr. John Mayhew, John R. Elvana, J. C. O. Whaley, Charles Roeser, George T. Downing; Recording Secretary, George F. Needham: 7reasurer, Daniel Breed; Board of Managers, Josephine S. Griffing, Hamilton Wilcox, Dr. Daniel Breed, Mrs. Corner, Geo. F. Needham, Mrs. Lydia S. Hall, J. H. Crane; Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. Mary T. Corner. Letters were reported from Frederick Douglass, George William Curtis, Mrs. E. Oakes Smith. Addresses were delivered by J. H. Crossman, G. F. Needham, Mrs. Lockwood, R. J. Hinton, and Mr. Tibbits of Virginia. Dr. Breed recited an original poem, entitled, "Woman's Pledge to Freedom."

1. Myrtilla Miner: published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston and New York.
2. See Vol. 11., page 90.
3. President, Hon. Samuel C. Pomeroy; Vice-Presidents, Josophine S. Griffing, Belva A. Lockewood, Jas. H. Holmes, John H. Craney; Advisory Council, Mary E. O'Connor, Josephine S. Griffing, Caroline B. Winslow, Dr. Susan A. Edson, Lydia S. Hall, Mr. and Mrs. Boyle, Caroline B. Colby, and others.
4. The officers elected were: President, United States Senator S.C. Pomeroy; Vice-Presidents, Mrs. Josephine S. Griffing, Mrs. Belva McNall Lockwood, Miss Stickney, Thaddeus Hyatt, Caroline B. Winslow, M. D., S. Yorke At Lee, Mrs. Josephine L. Slade, Prof. William J. Wilson, Mrs. Mary Olin, Judge A. B. Olin, Mrs. C. M. E. Y. Christian, Prof. George B. Vashon, J. H. Crossman, Mrs. Angeline
5. The names of the women who attempted to register and vote were: Jane A. Archibald, Clara M. Archibald, Mary Anderson, S. W. Aiken, Sallie S. Barrett, Mary B. Baumgras, Florence Riddle Bartlett, Ann M. Boyle, M. W. Browne, Deborah B. Clarke (Grace Greenwood’s mother, eighty years of age), C. W. Campbell, Elizabeth T. Cowperthwaite, Mary T. Corner, Mary M. Courtenay, Mary A. Donaldson, Mary A. Dennison, Ruth Carr Dennison, L.S. Doolittle, Dr. Susan A. Edson, Sarah P. Edson, B. F. Evans, E. W. Foster, Olive Freeman, Maggie Finney, Julia H. Grey, Josephine S. Griffing, A. A. Henning, Susie J. Hickey, Calista Hickey, E. M. Hickey, Mary Hooper, Ruth G. D. Havens, E. E. Hill, Lydia S. Hall, Julia Archibald Holmes, N. M. Johnson, Jennie V. Jewell, Carrie Ketchum, Joanna Kelly, Sara J. Lippincott (Grace Greenwood), Belva A. Lockwood, Susie S. McClure, A. Jennie Mites, Augusta E. Morris, M. T. Middleton, Savangie E. Mark, A. E. Newton, M. C. Page, Eliza Ann Peck, Mary A. Riddle, A. R. Riddle, Caroline Risley, Sarah Andrews Spencer, E. V. E. N, Southworth, Caroline A. Sherman, Mary S. Scribner, Belle Smith, Maria T. Stoddard, Ada E. Spurgeon, Rubina Taylor, Harriet P. Trickham, Eliza M. Tibbetts, Dr. Caroline B. Winslow, Sarah E. Webster (mother of Dr. Susan A. Edson), Julia A. Wilbur, Mrs, Westfall, Mary Willard, Amanda Wall, Lucy A. Wheeler.
6. For full account see Vol. II., page 587.
7. David Eastburn and Henry Swaine of New Castle county.
8. The officers were: Sally Clay Bennett, Maggie S. Burnham, Mrs. Somers, Mary B. Clay.
9. The incorporators who formed the Board of Regents were, the Right Rev. Thomas U. Dudley, D. D., Bishop of Kentucky; Rev. James P. Boyce, D. D., President of the Baptist Theological Seminary; Rev. E. F. Perkins, Rector of St. Paul's Church; Hon. I. H. Edwards, Chancellor of Louisville Chancery Court; Theodore Harris, President Louisville Banking and Insurance Co.; W. N. Haldeman, President Courier Journal Co.; Nicholas Finzer, President of Finzer tobacco works: Samuel L. Avery, President B. F. Avery Co.; G. H. Cochran, President Louisville School Board; Robert Cochran, Commissioner of Chancery Court; Hon. Charles Godshaw, Trustee of Jury Fund; Dr. E. A. Grant and Mr. James K. Lemon. The board was organized by the election of Mr. Theodore Harris, President, Dr. E. A. Grant, Secretary, and James K. Lemon, Treasurer. The school opened with fifteen students, and continued until June, 1883. A lecture and practical course combined, occupy ten months of the year—lectures being given five afternoons of each week during the term.
10. President,Mrs. Anne W. Bodeker, Richmond; Vice-Presidents, Mrs. Maria G. and Judge JohnC, Underwood, Mr. and Mrs. Judge Westal Willoughby, Mr. and Mrs. Judge Lysander Hill, all of Alexandria; Mr. R. M. Manly, Richmond; Mrs. Martha Haines Bennett, Norfolk; Mr. Andrew Washburne and Mr. William E. Coleman, Richmond; Secretary, Miss Sue L. F. Smith, Richmond; Executive Committee, Rev. W. F. Hemenway, Mrs. Andrew Washburne, Mrs. Dr. E. H. Smith, Dr. and Mrs. Langstedt, Richmond, and Mrs, Allen (Florence Percy) of Manchester.
11. President, Gov. R. K. Scott; Vice-Presidents, Hon. B. F. Whittemore, Hon. G. F. McIntyre, Gen. W. J. Whipper, Mrs. R. C. DeLarge, Hon. D. H. Chamberlain, Mrs. A. J. Ransier, and Mrs. R. K. Scott; Secretary, Miss K. Rollin; Treasurer, Mrs. K. Harris.