The History of Woman Suffrage Volume III Part 69

"And you are not lonesome out here?"

"Oh! no. I never was lonesome an hour in my life--don't have time; I have a great deal of work to do, and am always ready to do it. Indeed, the only people I pity are those who do not work, or find no interest in it. No, no; I have plenty of visitors, and last week Jennie June, Lucretia Mott, and Anna d.i.c.kinson paid me a visit and were very much pleased while here. I have two grown-up boys, one in New York and the other in California; and have reared thirteen children besides my own family--colored, French, Italian, and I know not what nationalities."

Mrs. Thomas, who is certainly a remarkable woman, is a thoroughly educated one; has traveled extensively both in Europe and this country. Herself and husband have been intimate acquaintances of many eminent men, among whom were President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton. The activity displayed in managing the estate indicates the possession of marked executive ability, and the exercise she thus receives has doubtless had its share in keeping her young, well-preserved, and good-natured.

When the Rev. Knox Little visited this country in 1880, thinking the women of America specially needed his ministrations, he preached a sermon that called out the general ridicule of our literary women. In the Sunday _Republic_ of December 12, Anne E.

M'Dowell said:

The reverend gentlemen of St. Clement's Church, of this city, with their frequent English visiting clergymen, are not only trying their best to carry Christianity back into the dark ages, by reinvesting it with all old-time traditions and mummeries, but they are striving anew to forge chains for the minds, consciences, and bodies of women whom the spirit of Christian progress has, in a measure, made free in this country. The sermon of the Rev. Knox Little, rector of St. Alban's Church, Manchester, England, recently delivered at St. Clement's in this city, and reported in the daily _Times_, is just such an one as might be looked for from the cla.s.s of thinkers whom he on that occasion represented. These ritualistic brethren are bitterly opposed to divorce, and hold the belief that so many Britons adhere to on their native soil, viz., that "woman is an inferior animal, created only for man's use and pleasure, and designed by Providence to be in absolute submission to her lord and master."

The feeling engendered by this belief breeds contempt for and indifference to the n.o.bler aspirations of women amongst men of the higher ranks, while it crops out in tyranny in the middle, and brutality in the lower cla.s.ses of society. Even the gentry and n.o.bility of Great Britain are not all exempt from brutal manifestations of power toward their wives. We once sheltered in our own house for weeks the wife of an English Earl who had been forced to leave her home and family through the brutality of her high-born husband--brutality from which the law could not or would not protect her. She died at our house, and when she was robed for her last rest much care had to be taken to arrange the dress and hair so that the scars of wounds inflicted on the throat, neck and cheek by her cruel husband might not be too apparent.

The reports of English police courts are full of disclosures of ill-treatment of women by their husbands, and year by year our own courts are more densely thronged by women asking safety from the brutality of men who at the altar have vowed to "love, honor and protect" them. In nearly all these cases, the men who are brought into our courts on the charge of maltreating women are of foreign birth who have been born and brought up under the spiritual guidance of such clergymen as the Rev. Knox-Little, who tell them, as he told the audience of women to whom he preached in this city: "To her husband a wife owes the duty of unqualified obedience. There is _no crime that a man can commit which justifies his wife in leaving him_ or applying for that monstrous thing, a divorce. It is her duty to submit herself to him _always_, and no crime he can commit justifies her lack of obedience. If he is a bad or wicked man she may gently remonstrate with him, but disobey him, never." Again, addressing his audience at St. Clement's, he says: "You may marry a bad man, but what of that? You had no right to marry a bad man. If you knew it, you deserved it. If you did not know it, you must endure it all the same. You can pray for him, and perhaps he will reform; but leave him--never. Never think of that accursed thing--divorce. Divorce breaks up families--families build up the church. The Christian woman lives to build up the church." This is the sort of sermonizing, reterated from year to year, that makes brutes of Englishmen, of all cla.s.ses, and sinks the average English woman to the condition of a child-bearing slave, valuable, mostly, for the number of children she brings her husband. She is permitted to hold no opinion unaccepted by her master, denied all reason and forced to frequent churches where she is forbidden the exercise of her common-sense, and where she is told: "Men are logical; women lack this quality, but have an intricacy of thought. There are those who think that women can be taught logic; this is a mistake. They can never, by any process of education, arrive at the same mental status as that enjoyed by man; but they have a quickness of apprehension--what is usually called leaping at conclusions--that is astonishing."

Divorce is a question over which woman now disputes man's absolute control. His canon and civil laws alike have made marriage for her a condition of slavery, from which she is now seeking emanc.i.p.ation; and just in proportion as women become independent and self-supporting, they will sunder the ties that bind them in degrading relations.

In September, 1880, Governor Hoyt was pet.i.tioned to appoint a woman as member of the State Board of Commissioners of Public Charities.

The special business of this commission is to examine into the condition of all charitable, reformatory and correctional inst.i.tutions within the State, to have a general oversight of the methods of instruction, the well-being and comfort of the inmates, with a supervision of all those in authority in such inst.i.tutions.

Dr. Susan Smith of West Philadelphia, from the year of the cruel imprisonment of the unfortunate Hester Vaughan, regularly for twelve years poured pet.i.tions into both houses of the legislature, numerously signed by prominent philanthropists, setting forth the necessity of women as inspectors in the female wards of the jails of the State, and backing them by an array of appalling facts, and yet the legislature, from year to year, turned a deaf ear to her appeals. Happily for the unfortunate wards of the State, the law pa.s.sed in 1881.

STATE HOSPITAL FOR THE INSANE, NORRISTOWN, Pa., Sept. 28, 1885.

MY DEAR MISS ANTHONY: I have referred your letter to my old friend, Dr. Hiram Corson, of Plymouth, Pa., who can, if he will, give a much better history of the movement in this State, than any one else, being one of the pioneers. I hope that you will hear from him. If, however, he returns your letter to me, I will give you the few facts that I know. I should be glad to have you visit our hospital and see our work.

Very respectfully yours, ALICE BENNETT.

PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa., Oct. 2, 1885.

MISS SUSAN B. ANTHONY: _Esteemed Friend_:--Dr. Alice Bennett has referred your letter with questions to me. Alice Bennett, M. D., Ph. D., is chief physician of the female department of the eastern hospital of Pennsylvania, for the insane. She is also member of the Montgomery County Medical Society, and member of the Medical Society of the State of Pennsylvania. She is the only woman in the civilized world, of whom I have ever heard, who has entire charge of the female patients in an inst.i.tution for the care and treatment of the insane. We have in the Harrisburg hospital, Dr. Jane Garver, as physician for the female insane, but she is subordinate to the male physician. She has a female physician to a.s.sist her. Dr. Bennett was appointed and took charge in July, 1880, with Dr. Anna Kingler as her a.s.sistant. Dr.

Kingler resigned, and went to India as medical missionary; was succeeded by Dr. Rebecca S. Hunt, who, after more than a year's service, also resigned to go to India as medical missionary. Dr.

Bennett has now two women physicians to a.s.sist her in the care of more than six hundred patients, nearly as many as, if not more than, are in the female departments of the Harrisburg, Danville, and Warren hospitals all combined.

Dr. Bennett's hospital is a model one. There is a total absence of physical restraint, as used formerly under male superintendents, and, I may say, as still used in other hospitals than that of Norristown. Her skill in providing amus.e.m.e.nt, instruction and employment of various kinds, for the comfort and restoration of her patients to sanity and physical health, I feel sure has never been equaled in any hospital for the treatment of insane women. It is exceedingly interesting to see the school which she has established, and in which a large number of the insane are daily instructed, amused and interested. It is well known, now, that when the mind of the insane can be drawn away from their delusions by employment, or whatever else may interest them and absorb their attention, they are on the road to health.

The public are not yet fully awake to the great reform effected in having women physicians for the women insane. Insane women have been treated as though there were no diseases peculiar to the s.e.x. Never, so far as I have been able to learn, have they been treated by the means used for the relief of women in their homes. An eminent surgeon of Philadelphia informed me a few days since, that thirty years ago he was an a.s.sistant to Dr.

Kirkbride, and desired to treat a patient for uterine troubles, but was rebuked by Dr. K., and told never to attempt to use the appliances relied on in private practice. My informant added that he believed not a single insane woman had ever received special treatment for affections in any of the hospitals under the care of male physicians. While we realize that great advantages would have come to these poor unfortunates by proper treatment, we feel that no male physician having due regard for his own reputation, should attempt to treat an insane woman for uterine diseases by means used in private practice, or even in hospitals with sane women. And this shows the importance of women physicians for women insane. One of the most intellectual and prominent women of this State was, 30 years ago, on account of domestic application, an inmate of our then champion hospital for the insane, for several months, during all of which time her sufferings were, to use her own words, indescribable, and yet she was not once asked in relation to her physical condition. Let us turn aside from this, and glance at the last annual report of Dr. Alice Bennett.

She reports 180 patients examined for uterine diseases; 125 were placed under treatment; 67 treated for a length of time; 60 benefited by treatment. While Dr. Bennett does not say that their insanity was caused by the uterine disease, or that they were cured by curing that affection, she observes that in some cases the relief of the mind kept pace with the progress of cure of the uterine affections. I have, perhaps, written more than was needed on this subject, but I am so anxious that we shall have women doctors in every hospital for the treatment of insane women, and know, too, what influence yourself and good Mrs.

Stanton can exert by turning your attention to it, which I am sure you will as you become informed in relation to the facts, that I could not stop short of what I have said. I have prepared a full account of our struggles with the State Society during six years to obtain for women doctors their proper recognition by the profession, and also the obstacles and opposition we encountered in our attempt to procure the law empowering boards of trustees to appoint women to hospitals for the insane of their s.e.x. It will give me pleasure to send them to you if they would be of any use to you.

Respectfully, HIRAM CORSON.

As I am within a week of my 82d birthday, and am writing while my heart is beating one hundred and sixty times per minute, you must not criticise me too sharply.

H. C.

January 24, 1882, Miss Rachel Foster made all the arrangements for a national convention, to be held in St. George's Hall, Philadelphia.[272] She also inaugurated a course of lectures, of which she took the entire financial responsibility, in the popular hall of the Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation. Ex-Governor Hoyt of Wyoming, in his lecture, gave the good results of thirteen years'

experience of woman's voting in that Territory. Miss Foster employed a stenographer to report the address, had 20,000 copies printed, and circulated them in the Nebraska campaign during the following summer.

At its next session (1883) the legislature pa.s.sed a resolution recommending congress to submit a sixteenth amendment, securing to women the right to vote:

HARRISBURG, Pa., March 21, 1883.--In the House, Mr. Morrison of Alleghany offered a resolution urging congress to amend the national const.i.tution so that the right of suffrage should not be denied to citizens of any State on account of s.e.x. It was adopted by 78 ayes[273] to 76 noes, the result being greeted with both applause and hisses.

The Philadelphia _Evening Bulletin_ of November 8, 1882, mentions an attempt to open the University of Pennsylvania to women:

The trustees held several meetings to consider the applications.

Beside Miss Craddock's, there were two others which the faculty referred to the trustees, and which appear not to have been reached in the regular course of business. Miss Florence Kelley, a post-graduate from Cornell University, daughter of Judge Kelley, who applied for admission as a special student in Greek, and Miss Frances Henrietta Mitch.e.l.l, a junior student from Cornell, who asked to be admitted in the junior cla.s.s. Our information comes from these ladies, who were notified that their cases would be presented. The question of coeducation, which has been seriously occupying the minds of the trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, was settled last evening, at least for the present, by the pa.s.sage of a resolution refusing the admission of girls to the department of arts, but proposing to establish a separate collegiate department for them, whenever the requisite cost, about $300,000, is provided. There has been an intelligent and honest difference among both trustees and professors on this interesting question, and the diversity has been complicated by the various grounds upon which the _pros_ and _cons_ are maintained. There are those who advocate the admission of girls to the University as a proper thing _per se_. Others consent to it, because the University cannot give the desired education separately. Others hold that girls should be admitted because of their equal rights to a university education, although their admission is very undesirable. Others oppose coeducation in the abstract, conceding that girls should be as well educated as boys, but insisting that they must be differently and therefore separately educated. These draw a clear line between "equal" and "similar" education, and hold that no university course of studies can be laid out that will not present much of cla.s.sical literature and much of the mental, moral and natural sciences, that cannot be studied and recited by boys and girls together, without serious risk of lasting injury to both.

Would it not be better, all things considered, to abjure this kind of cla.s.sical literature, and instead of subjecting our sons to its baneful influence, give them the refining, elevating companionship of their sisters? If we would preserve the real modesty and purity of our daughters, it is quite as important that we should pay some attention to the delicacy and morality of the men with whom they are to a.s.sociate.

If a girl cannot read the cla.s.sics with a young man without contamination, how can she live with him in all the intimacies of family life without a constant shock to her refined sensibilities?

So long as society considers that any man of known wealth is a fit husband for our daughters, all this talk of the faculties and trustees of our colleges about protecting woman's modesty is the sheerest nonsense and hypocrisy. It is well to remember that these professors and students have mothers, wives and sisters, and if man is coa.r.s.e and brutal, he invariably feels free to show his worst pa.s.sions at his own fireside. To warn women against coeducation is to warn them against a.s.sociation with men in any relation whatsoever.

FOOTNOTES:

[255] See Appendix.

[256] Carrie S. Burnham after long years of preparation and persistent effort for admission to the bar of Philadelphia, was admitted in 1884. She was thoroughly qualified to enter that profession and to practice in the courts of that State, and the only reason ever offered for her rejection from time to time was, "that she was a woman."

[257] By an oversight this law was not mentioned in Vol. I. in its proper place.

[258] George W. Childs married Judge Bovier's grand-daughter.

[259] Transcriber's Note: Footnote text is missing in original.

[260] _University of Pennsylvania_--Joseph Carson, Robert E.

Rogers, Joseph Leidy, Henry H. Smith, Francis G. Smith, R. A. T.

Penrose, Alfred Stille, George B. Wood, Samuel Jackson, Hugh L.

Hodge, R. La Roche, George W. Norris. _Jefferson Medical College_--Joseph Pancoast, S. D. Gross, Samuel Henry d.i.c.kson, Ellerslie Wallace, B. Howard Rand, John B. Biddle, James Aitken Meigs. _Pennsylvania Hospital_--J. Forsyth Meigs, James H.

Hutchinson, J. M. Da Costa, Addinell Hewson, William Hunt, D. Hayes Agnew. _Philadelphia Hospital_--R. J. Levis, William H. Pancoast, F. F. Maury, Alfred Stille, J. L. Ludlow, Edward Rhodes, D. D.

Richardson, E. L. Duer, E. Scholfield, R. M. Girvin, John S. Parry, William Pepper, James Tyson. _Medical Staff of Episcopal Hospital_--John H. Packard., John Ashhurst, jr., Samuel Ashhurst, Alfred M. Sloc.u.m, Edward A. Smith, William Thomson, William S.

Forbes. _Wills Hospital for the Blind and Lame_--Thomas George Morton, A. D. Hall, Harrison Allen, George C. Harlan, R. J. Levis.

_St. Joseph's Hospital_--William V. Keating, Alfred Stille, John J.

Reese, George R. Morehouse, A. C. Bournonville, Edward A. Page, John H. Brinton, Walter F. Atlee, C. S. Boker. _St. Mary's Hospital_--C. Percy La Roche, J. c.u.mmiskey, A. H. Fish, J.

H. Grove, W. W. Keen, W. L. Wells, L. S. Bolles. _German Hospital_--Albert Fricke, Emil Fischer, Joseph F. Koerper, Julius Schrotz, Julius Kamerer, Karl Beeken, Theodore A. Demme, _Children's Hospital_--Thomas Hewson Bache, D. Murray Cheston, H.

Lenox Hodge, F. W. Lewis, Hilborn West. _Charity Hospital_--A. H.

Fish. L. K. Baldwin, Horace Y. Evans, John M. McGrath, H. St. Clair Ash, J. M. Boisnot, N. Hatfield, W. M. Welch, H. Lycurgus Law, H.

Leaman, J. A. McArthur. _Howard Hospital_--Thomas S. Harper, Laurence Turnbull, T. H. Andrews, Horace Williams, Joseph Klapp, William B. Atkinson, S. C. Brincklee. _Physicians-at-Large of the City of Philadelphia_--E. Ward, George H. Beaumont, William W.

Lamb, Thomas B. Reed, Charles Schaffer, J. Heritage, W. Stump Forwood, W. J. Phelps, Richard Maris, Frank Muhlenberg, George M.

Ward, James Collins, William F. Norris, Samuel Lewis, Isaac Hays, G. Emerson, W. W. Gerhard, Caspar Morris, B. H. Coates, George Strawbridge, S. Weir Mitch.e.l.l, I. Minis Hays, Edward B. Van d.y.k.e, J. Sylvester Ramsey, G. W. Bowman, W. H. H. Githens, T. W. Lewis, T. M. Finley, S. W. Butler, Robert P. Harris, C. Moehring, George L. Bomberger, Philip Leidy, D. F. Willard, James V. Ingham, Edward Hartshorne, W. S. W. Ruschenberger, Thomas Stewardson, James Darrach, S. L. Hollingworth, William Mayburry, Lewis Rodman, Casper Wister, A. Nebinger, Horace Binney Hare, Edward Shippen, S.

Littell, F. W. Lewis, Robert Bridges, William H. Gloninger, James Markoe, Charles Hunter, D. F. Woods, Herbert Norris, Harrison Allen, Charles B. Nancrede, W. J. Grier, Edward J. Nolan, Richard Thomas, Lewis H. Adler, G. B. Dunmire, John Neill, Wharton Sinkler, George Pepper, J. J. Sowerby, Henry C. Eckstein, Eugene P.

Bernardy, Charles K. Miles, J. Solis Cohen.

[261] C. L. Schlatter, J. Wm. White, Daniel Bray, C. E. Ca.s.sady, Robert B. Burns, Albert Trenchard, John G. Scott, J. J. Bowen, P.

Collings, E. Cullen Brayton, joint committee of the University and Jefferson Medical Colleges.

[262] As through the influence of Dr. Truman Miss Hirschfeld had first been admitted to the college, he felt in a measure responsible for the fair treatment of her countrywomen who came to the United States to enjoy the same educational advantages. When the discussion in regard to expelling the young women was pending, Dr. Truman promptly and decidedly told the faculty that if such an act of injustice was permitted he should leave the college also.

Much of Dr. Truman's clearsightedness and determination may be traced to the influence of his n.o.ble wife and no less n.o.ble mother-in-law, Mary Ann McClintock, who helped to inaugurate the movement in 1848 in Central New York. She lamented in her declining years that she was able to do so little. But by way of consolation I often suggested that her influence in many directions could never be measured; and here is one: Her influence on Dr. Truman opened the Dental College to women, and kept it open while Miss Hirschfeld acquired her profession. With her success in Germany, in the royal family, every child in the palace for generations that escapes a toothache will have reason to bless a n.o.ble friend, Mary Ann McClintock, that she helped to plant the seeds of justice to woman in the heart of young James Truman. We must also recognize in Dr.

Truman's case that he was born and trained in a liberal Quaker family, his own father and mother having been disciples of Elias Hicks.