The History of Woman Suffrage Volume IV Part 94

[300] Miss Mary Catherine G.o.ddard conducted the Baltimore post-office and also the only newspaper in the city, the _Maryland Journal and Commercial Advertiser_, through all the trying times of the Revolutionary War. On July 12, 1775, she published a detailed account of the battle of Bunker Hill, which had occurred on June 17, and the Declaration of the Continental Congress giving the causes and necessity for taking up arms. The first official publication of the Declaration of Independence, with the signers' names attached, was entrusted by Congress, at that time sitting in Baltimore, to Miss G.o.ddard.

She remained in control of her paper for ten years. In 1779 she made an appeal through its columns for the dest.i.tute families of the American soldiers, and by her efforts $25,000 were raised for their needs.

[301] The charter members were Caroline H., Margaret E., Sarah T., Rebecca T. and George B. Miller, Margaret B. and Mary Magruder, Ellen and Martha T. Farquhar, James P. and Jessie B. Stablu, Hannah B.

Brooke and Mary E. Moore. At the second meeting a number of others became members, including the writer of this chapter.

[302] State Senator Jacob M. Moses presented a bill in the Legislature of 1902 to permit women to practice law, which pa.s.sed, was signed by the Governor and Miss Maddox was admitted to the bar.

CHAPTER XLV.

Ma.s.sACHUSETTS.[303]

The first suffrage convention ever held which a.s.sumed a national character by inviting representatives from other States took place in Worcester, Ma.s.s., Oct. 23, 24, 1850.[304]

The New England Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation was formed at Boston in November, 1868, with Mrs. Julia Ward Howe as president; and the Ma.s.sachusetts a.s.sociation was organized in the same city Jan. 28, 1870, of which also Mrs. Howe was elected president. In 1871 Henry B.

Blackwell, editor of the _Woman's Journal_, was made corresponding secretary of both a.s.sociations and has filled the office of the latter continuously, of the former twenty-two years.

From those years until the present each of these bodies has held an annual meeting in Boston and they have almost invariably been addressed by men and women of State, of national and of international reputation. They have met in various churches and halls, but of late years the historic old Faneuil Hall has been selected. The State a.s.sociation meets in the winter and the New England a.s.sociation during Anniversary Week in May, when there are business sessions with reports from the various States, public meetings and a great festival or banquet. The last is attended by hundreds of people, all the tickets are frequently sold weeks in advance, and with its prominent after-dinner speakers it has long been an attractive feature.[305]

The annual meeting of 1884 was held January 22, 23, presided over by William I. Bowditch, who had succeeded the Rev. Dr. James Freeman Clarke as president in 1878. A number of fine addresses were given and the official board was unanimously re-elected.[306] Mr. Bowditch's opening address was afterwards widely circulated as a tract, The Forgotten Woman in Ma.s.sachusetts.

It was voted that a fund should be raised to organize local suffrage a.s.sociations or leagues throughout the State, and that, as soon as $2,500 was in hand, an agent should be put in the field. Mr. Bowditch, Miss Louisa M. Alcott, John L. Whiting and Henry H. Faxon each subscribed $100 on the spot; $800 was raised at the meeting and more than $2,500 within four months.

This year, in the death of Wendell Phillips, the cause of equal rights lost one of its earliest and n.o.blest supporters. On February 28 an impressive memorial service was held in Boston. Mrs. Howe presided and the other speakers were William Lloyd Garrison, Theodore D. Weld, Judge Thomas Russell, Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney, Elizur Wright, the Rev.

Samuel May, George W. Lowther, Mrs. Lucy Stone and Mr. Blackwell. John Boyle O'Reilly and William P. Lis...o...b..read memorial poems.

Fifty-seven meetings were held this year in different parts of the State, arranged by Arthur P. Ford and Miss Cora Scott Pond. The speakers were the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, Miss Matilda Hindman, Miss Pond and Miss Ida M. Buxton, and at some of the meetings Lucy Stone, Mr. Blackwell and Mrs. Adelaide A. Claflin. In addition six conventions were held and a large number of local leagues were formed.

Suffrage sociables were given monthly in Boston. Leaflets were printed, including Wendell Phillips' great speech at the Worcester Convention in 1850, which were sent out by tens of thousands, and 50,000 special copies of the _Woman's Journal_ were distributed gratuitously. Mrs. H. M. Tracy Cutler was employed for a month in Worcester to enlist interest in the churches, and Miss Pond for two months in Boston. Letters were sent to every town, with postal cards inclosed for reply, to find who were friends of suffrage, and to those so found a letter was sent asking co-operation. This const.i.tutes an average twelve months' work for the past thirty years.

The sixteenth annual meeting of the New England a.s.sociation took place May 26, 27, Lucy Stone presiding. The Rev. Minot J. Savage and Edward M. Winston of Harvard University were among the speakers. The two a.s.sociations united as usual in the May Festival. Letters of greeting were read from the Hons. George F. h.o.a.r, John D. Long and John E.

Fitzgerald, Postmaster Edward S. Tobey, Col. Albert Clarke and Chancellor William G. Eliot, of Washington University, St. Louis. The Rev. Robert Collyer, Mr. Garrison and the Rev. Miss Shaw made addresses.

At the State convention, Jan. 27, 28, 1885, addresses were made by Mrs. Margaret Moore of Ireland, A. S. Root of Boston University, and the usual brilliant galaxy, while letters expressing sympathy with the cause were read from John G. Whittier, the Rev. Samuel Longfellow, the Rev. Samuel J. Barrows and many others. An appeal to the Legislature, written by Lucy Stone, was unanimously adopted.

An Anti-Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation formed in Ma.s.sachusetts the previous year, had devoted itself chiefly to securing signatures of women to a protest against the franchise. In 1885 Mrs. Kate Gannett Wells and her a.s.sociates obtained the signatures of about 140 influential men to a remonstrance against "any further extension of suffrage to women," and published it as an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the Boston _Herald_ of Sunday, February 15. The list included President Eliot of Harvard, a number of college professors, one or two literary men, several ex-members of the Legislature, and a number of clergymen of conservative churches; but it was made up largely of those prominent chiefly on account of their wealth.

An average of ten suffrage meetings and conventions a month were held in various cities throughout the year. The Rev. Miss Shaw and Miss Pond attended nearly all, and Mrs. Stone, Mr. Blackwell, Mrs. Claflin, Mr. Garrison, Miss Eastman and Mr. Bowditch addressed some of them, besides local speakers. Two thousand persons gathered in Tremont Temple on the opening night of the May anniversary, Lucy Stone presiding. Senator h.o.a.r, Mrs. Livermore and others made short speeches and later responded to toasts at the Festival.

Mr. Blackwell presided over the State convention Jan. 26, 1886. At the New England meeting this year Frederick Dougla.s.s delivered an oration and spoke also at the Festival, over which Miss Eastman presided. The a.s.sociation kept Miss Shaw in the field for six months and Miss Pond throughout the year and held summer conventions in Cottage City and Nantucket, besides ten county conventions in the fall. There were 123,014 pages of literature sent out and agents visited seventy-five towns. A suffrage bazar was held in December with Mrs. Livermore as president and Mrs. Howe as editor of the _Bazar Journal_. The list of vice-presidents included Phillips Brooks and many other distinguished persons. The brunt of the work, however, was borne by Miss Pond and Miss Shaw, and the bazar cleared $6,000.

Mrs. Howe, Mrs. Stone, Mr. Garrison, Mrs. Cheney, State Senator Elijah A. Morse and others addressed the annual convention of 1887.

Pet.i.tions were circulated for Munic.i.p.al and Presidential Suffrage and a const.i.tutional amendment; also for police matrons, the raising of the age of protection for girls, improvements in the property rights of married women, a bill enabling husbands and wives to make legal contracts with each other, and one making women eligible to all offices from which they are not debarred by the const.i.tution. In March the a.s.sociation gave $1,000 to the const.i.tutional amendment campaign in Rhode Island, and a number of the officers contributed their services.

Mrs. Howe presided at the May Festival, and among the speakers were Mrs. Helen M. Gougar of Indiana, Mrs. J. Ellen Foster of Iowa, the Revs. Henry Blanchard of Maine and Frederick A. Hinckley of Rhode Island. Mr. Garrison read an original poem rejoicing over the granting of Munic.i.p.al Suffrage in Kansas. At the New England Convention which followed, these speakers were reinforced by the Rev. Jenkyn Lloyd Jones of Chicago. On October 19 the State a.s.sociation gave a reception to Miss Frances E. Willard, president of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, at the Hotel Brunswick.

In December a great bazar was held in Boston for the joint benefit of the American Suffrage a.s.sociation and various States which took part.

The gross receipts were nearly $8,000. This year the a.s.sociation moved into larger offices at No. 3 Park street; held fifty-one public meetings and four county conventions and organized twenty-one new leagues. The _Woman's Journal_ was sent for three months to all the members of the Legislature; 378,000 pages of suffrage literature were sold and many thousands more given away.

During the annual meeting in February, 1888, a reception was given to Mrs. Rebecca Moore, of England, at which John W. Hutchinson sang and many bright speeches were made. At the twentieth anniversary of the New England a.s.sociation, in May, Lucy Stone presided. Mrs. Laura Ormiston Chant and Mrs. Alice Scatcherd of England, and Baroness Gripenberg and Miss Alli Trygg of Finland, were among the speakers.

Others were Miss Clara Barton, Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker of Connecticut, the Hon. William Dudley Foulke and Mrs. Zerelda G.

Wallace of Indiana. At the Festival Music Hall was crowded to overflowing and Miss Susan B. Anthony was one of the guests of honor.

This year great excitement was aroused among both men and women by a controversy over the historical text-books used in the public schools of Boston. At the request of a priest the school board removed a history which the Catholics regarded as unfair in its statements, and subst.i.tuted one which many Protestants considered equally unfair. The school vote of women never had risen much above 2,000, and generally had been below that number. This year 25,279 applied to be a.s.sessed a poll tax and registered, and 19,490 voted, in one of the worst storms of the season. All the Catholic candidates were defeated. The suffrage a.s.sociation kept out of the controversy as a body, but its members as individuals took sides as their personal views dictated.

In 1889 Gov. Oliver Ames, for the third time, recommended women suffrage in his inaugural, saying: "Recent political events have confirmed the opinion I have long held, that if women have sufficient reason to vote they will do so and become an important factor in the settlement of great questions. If we can trust uneducated men to vote we can with greater safety and far more propriety grant the same power to women, who as a rule are as well educated and quite as intelligent as men."

The convention met January 29-31. Among outside speakers were Mrs.

Ellen Battelle Dietrick of Kentucky, Prof. William H. Carruth of Kansas, and the Hon. Hamilton Willc.o.x of New York. Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson presided at the May Festival and Mrs. Howe's seventieth birthday was celebrated. Mrs. Laura M. Johns of Kansas, Mrs. Mary Seymour Howell of New York, Mrs. Emily P. Collins of Connecticut, and many from other States were present.

An organizer was kept in the field eight months and a State lecturer two months; summer meetings were held at Swampscott, Hull and Nantasket. Two quarterly conferences took place in Boston between the State officers and representatives from the eighty-nine local leagues.

A great Historical Pageant was given under Miss Pond's supervision in May and October, which netted $1,582; the _Woman's Journal_ was sent four months to all the legislators, and leaflets to all the students of Harvard and Boston Universities; 15,000 leaflets were given to the South Dakota campaign. The State Farmers' Inst.i.tute, held at West Brookfield, adopted a woman suffrage resolution almost unanimously.

In Boston 10,051 women voted and the Catholic candidates for the school board were again defeated. The Independent Women Voters elected all their nominees, and candidates who had the joint nomination of both Republicans and Democrats were defeated.

Ex-Gov. John D. Long was one of the speakers at the convention of Jan.

28, 29, 1890; also Miss Elizabeth Upham Yates of Maine. In April an evening with authors and composers was arranged, chiefly by Miss Lucia T. Ames. Well-known authors read from their writings and musicians contributed from their own compositions. In the same month a week's fair called The Country Store was held, Miss Charlotte H. Allen supervising the arrangements, with gross receipts, $2,346. The Rev.

Charles G. Ames presided at the May Festival and the Rev. Anna Garlin Spencer of Rhode Island was one of the speakers.

In July a reception was given in the suffrage parlors to the ladies of the National Editorial a.s.sociation and the members of the New England Women's Press a.s.sociation. The editors of the _Woman's Journal_--Lucy Stone, Mr. and Miss Blackwell--and the a.s.sociate editor, Mrs. Florence M. Adkinson, received the guests, a.s.sisted by the Rev. Miss Shaw and Miss Lucy E. Anthony. During Grand Army week in August a reception was extended to the ladies of the Woman's Relief Corps and others, the guests received by Mrs. Livermore, Mrs. Howe, the editors of the _Journal_ and Dr. Emily Blackwell, dean of the Women's Medical College of the New York Infirmary for Women and Children.

In October the a.s.sociation exhibited at the Hollis Street Theater a series of Art Tableaux, The History of Marriage, showing the marriage ceremonies of different ages and countries, Mrs. Livermore acting as historian. The receipts were $1,463. The a.s.sociation sent literature to the legislators, to several thousand college students and to all the members of the Mississippi Const.i.tutional Convention; had a booth for two months at the Mechanics' Fair in Boston; supplied suffrage matter every week to 603 editors in all parts of the country and gave 133,334 pages of leaflets to the campaign in South Dakota. The chairman of its executive committee, Mrs. Stone, also donated 95,000 copies of the _Woman's Column_ to the same campaign, and the secretary, Mr. Blackwell, contributed five weeks' gratuitous service in Dakota, lecturing for the amendment.

The Boston Methodist ministers, at their Monday meeting, pa.s.sed unanimously a resolution in favor of Munic.i.p.al Woman Suffrage; and a gathering of Ma.s.sachusetts farmers, at the rooms of the _Ploughman_, did the same with only one dissenting vote, after an address by Lucy Stone, herself a farmer's daughter.[307]

The annual meeting, Jan. 27, 28, 1891, was made a celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the First National Woman's Rights Convention, which had been held at Worcester in October, 1850. Miss Susan B.

Anthony came on from Washington to attend. The advance of women in different lines during the past forty years was ably reviewed in the addresses by representative women in their respective departments.[308] Only two of the speakers at the convention of forty years ago were present on this occasion, Lucy Stone and the Rev.

Antoinette Brown Blackwell; and two who had signed the Call--Colonel Higginson and Charles K. Whipple. The resolutions were reaffirmed which had been reported by Wendell Phillips and adopted at the convention of 1850. At this time Mrs. Howe was elected president of the State a.s.sociation.

The New England meeting in May was preceded by a reception to Miss Anthony, the Rev. Miss Shaw and Miss Florence Balgarnie of England, all of whom made addresses at the convention and the Festival, where ex-Governor Long presided.

The meetings this year included a number of college towns and among the speakers were Senator h.o.a.r, Mr. Garrison, Mr. Blackwell, Mrs.

Livermore, Mrs. Howe and Mrs. Stone, with the younger women, Mrs. Anna Christy Fall, Mrs. Adelaide A. Claflin, Miss Elizabeth Sheldon (Tillinghast), Miss Elizabeth Deering Hanscom. At Amherst a large gathering of students listened to Senator h.o.a.r. President and Mrs.

Merrill E. Gates occupied seats on the platform. At South Hadley President Elizabeth Storrs Mead of Mt. Holyoke entertained all the speakers at the college, and at Northampton it was estimated by the daily papers that 500 Smith College girls came to the meeting.

On October 21 the a.s.sociation gave a reception to Theodore D. Weld in honor of his eighty-eighth birthday. This date was the anniversary of the famous mob of 1835, which attacked the meeting of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society. Later a reception was tendered to Mrs.

Annie Besant of the London School Board. On November 17, during the week when the W. C. T. U. held its national convention in Boston, a reception was given in the suffrage parlors to all interested in the Franchise Department. A special invitation was issued to White Ribb.o.n.e.rs from the Southern States where none was yet adopted, and the s.p.a.cious rooms were filled to overflowing. Lucy Stone presided and Julia Ward Howe gave the address of welcome. Many brief responses were made by the Southern delegates and by Northern delegates and friends.

In December a suffrage fair was held under the management of Mrs.

Dietrick, now of Boston, which netted $1,800. Senator h.o.a.r's speech at Amherst was sent to the students of all the colleges in the State.

At the annual meeting Jan. 26, 27, 1892, the Rev. Joseph Cook gave an address. Lucy Stone presided at the New England convention and Mrs.

Howe at the Festival. Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt was the speaker from a distance. Letters were read from the Hon. Thomas B. Reed, Terence V.

Powderly and U. S. Senators Joseph M. Carey and Francis E. Warren of Wyoming.

In addition to the usual work this year $200 were offered in $5 prizes to the children of the public schools for the best essays in favor of woman suffrage. Mrs. Dietrick was employed for six months as State organizer. An appeal for equal suffrage signed by Mrs. Stone, Mrs.