568
History of Woman Suffrage.
recognize that women have some rights that journalists are bound to respect. These columns are in the interest of no class, clique, sect, or section, and we earnestly request accurate data of woman's work. All missionary, literary, temperance and woman suffrage organizations, will be accorded space for announcing their aims. With an occasional review of new books, we will confer in regard to what woman has written; wandering through studios and sanctums, we will record what she is painting and preaching. Pleading an intense and loving interest in the splendid opportunities now opening to American women, we shall hope that some truth may be evolved that may enrich their lives.
Notwithstanding this was the first special department of the kind, much of the best journalistic work of the State was being done by women,[1] who seemed to have received a new baptism to serve the higher interests of humanity. From the desire for coöperation expressed by many contributors to "Woman's Kingdom," the following little item was set afloat in May, 1877:
Many facts recently arresting attention, in connection with the industrial, political, and moral interests of women, seem to render a conference of their representatives in regard to business aims, expedient. There is need of a bureau through which the industrial interests of women can be promoted and some practical answer given to the question everywhere heard, "How can we earn a living?" There is a demand for an educational bureau of correspondence and also a lyceum bureau through whose agency good lectures upon practical subjects can be secured in every city and village. All interested in such a conference are requested to send their names to Mrs. Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, Evanston, Ill., or Mrs. Louise Rockwood Wardner, Cairo, Ill.
Hon. Frank Sanborn, in his annual report to the American Social Science Association, mentioned the formation of a branch society[2] in this State. He said:
Like the State Charities Aid Association of New York, which was organized and is directed by women, the Illinois Association devotes itself chiefly to practical applications of social science, though in a somewhat different direction. It was formed in October, 1877, with a membership of some two hundred women; it publishes a monthly newspaper, The Illinois Social Science Journal, full of interesting communications, and it has organized in its first seven months' existence eight smaller associations in other States.
The enthusiasm in this society branching out in so many practical directions, absorbed for a time the energies of the Illinois women. Our membership reached 400. This may account for the apparent lethargy of the Suffrage Association during the years of 1877-78. Caroline F. Corbin
- ↑ Prominent among these journalists were Margaret Buchanan Sullivan and Mrs. Annie Kerr of the Chicago Times, Mrs. Hubbard of the Tribune, Miss Farrand of the Advance, Virginia Fitzgerald and Alice Hobbins of the Inter-Ocean, Mrs. Myra Bradwell, editor of the Legal News, Mrs. Catharine V. Waite and Mrs. DeGeer of the Crusader, Mrs. Louisa White of the Moline Dispatch, Mrs. C. B. Bostwick of the Mattoon Gazette, Mrs. J. Oberly of the Cairo Bulletin, Miss Mary West of the Galesburg Republican, Mrs. Celia Wooley, Miss Eliza Bowman, Mrs. Clara Lyon Peters of the Watseka Times, Jane Grey Swisshelm, Elizabeth Holt Babbitt, and many others.
- ↑ The officers of the Illinois Social Science Association were: President, Mrs. Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, Evanston; Recording Secretary, Miss Sarah A. Richards, Chicago; Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. W. E. Clifford, Evanston; Treasurer, Mrs. H. H. Candee, Cairo; Directors, Mrs. Helen M. Beveredge, Evanston; Mrs. Frank Denman, Quincy; Mrs. C. A. Beck, Centralia; Mrs. R. Mc. Loughrey, Joliet; Mrs. W. O. Carpenter, Chicago; Miss M. Fredricka Perry, Chicago; Vice-Presidents, First Congressional District, Mrs. Eliza R. Sunderland, Chicago; Second, Mrs. W. D. Babbitt, Chicago; Third, Mrs. Chas. E. Brown. Evanston; Fourth, Mrs. Carrie A. Potter, Rockford; Fifth, Mrs. F. A. W. Shimer, Mt. Carroll; Sixth, Mrs. Sarah C. McIntosh, Joliet; Thirteenth, Mrs. B. M. Prince, Bloomington; Fourteenth, Mrs. C. B. Bostwick, Mattoon; Sixteenth, Mrs. J. W. Seymour, Centralia; Nineteenth, Mrs. J. H. Oberly, Cairo.
