The Complete History of the Women's Suffrage Movement in U.S.. Jane Addams
Читать онлайн книгу.
because public sentiment is above the law. Still, while the law stands, she is liable to the disabilities which it imposes. Among the ignorant classes of society, woman is made to bear heavy burdens, and is degraded almost to the level of the slave. There are many instances now in our city, where the wife suffers much from the power of the husband to claim all that she can earn with her own hands. In my intercourse with the poorer class of people, I have known cases of extreme cruelty from the hard earnings of the wife being thus robbed by the husband, and no redress at law.
An article in one of the daily papers lately presented the condition of needle-women in England. There might be a presentation of this class in our own country which would make the heart bleed. Public attention should be turned to this subject in order that avenues of more profitable employment may be opened to women. There are many kinds of business which women, equally with men, may follow with respectability and success. Their talents and energies should be called forth, and their powers brought into the highest exercise. The efforts of women in France are sometimes pointed to in ridicule and sarcasm, but depend upon it, the opening of profitable employment to women in that country is doing much for the enfranchisement of the sex. In England and America it is not an uncommon thing for a wife to take up the business of her deceased husband and carry it on with success.
Our respected British Consul stated to me a circumstance which occurred some years ago, of an editor of a political paper having died in England; it was proposed to his wife, an able writer, to take the editorial chair. She accepted. The patronage of the paper was greatly increased, and she a short time since retired from her labors with a handsome fortune. In that country, however, the opportunities are by no means general for woman's elevation.
In visiting the public school in London a few years since, I noticed that the boys were employed in linear drawing, and instructed upon the black-board in the higher branches of arithmetic and mathematics; while the girls, after a short exercise in the mere elements of arithmetic, were seated during the bright hours of the morning, stitching wristbands. I asked why there should be this difference made; why the girls too should not have the black-board? The answer was, that they would not probably fill any station in society requiring such knowledge.
The demand for a more extended education will not cease until girls and boys have equal instruction in all the departments of useful knowledge. We have as yet no high-school in this State. The normal school may be a preparation for such an establishment. In the late convention for general education, it was cheering to hear the testimony borne to woman's capabilities for head teachers of the public schools. A resolution there offered for equal salaries to male and female teachers when equally qualified, as practiced in Louisiana. I regret to say, was checked in its passage by Bishop Potter; by him who has done so much for the encouragement of education, and who gave his countenance and influence to that Convention. Still, the fact of such a resolution being offered, augurs a time coming for woman which she may well hail. At the last examination of the public schools in this city, one of the alumni delivered an address on Woman, not as is too common in eulogistic strains, but directing the attention to the injustice done to woman in her position in society in a variety of ways, the unequal wages she receives for her constant toil, etc., presenting facts calculated to arouse attention to the subject.
Women's property has been taxed equally with that of men's to sustain colleges endowed by the States; but they have not been permitted to enter those high seminaries of learning. Within a few years, however, some colleges have been instituted where young women are admitted upon nearly equal terms with young men; and numbers are availing themselves of their long denied rights. This is among the signs of the times, indicative of an advance for women. The book of knowledge is not opened to her in vain. Already is she aiming to occupy important posts of honor and profit in our country. We have three females editors in our State, and some in other States of the Union. Numbers are entering the medical profession; one received a diploma last year; others are preparing for a like result.
Let woman then go on, not asking favors, but claiming as right, the removal of all hindrances to her elevation in the scale of being; let her receive encouragement for the proper cultivation of all her powers, so that she may enter profitably into the active business of life; employing her own hands in ministering to her necessities, strengthening her physical being by proper exercise and observance of the laws of health. Let her not be ambitious to display a fair hand and to promenade the fashionable streets of our city, but rather, coveting earnestly the best gifts, let her strive to occupy such walks in society as will befit her true dignity in all the relations of life. No fear that she will then transcend the proper limits of female delicacy. True modesty will be as fully preserved in acting out those important vocations, as in the nursery or at the fireside ministering to man's self-indulgence. Then in the marriage union, the independence of the husband and wife will be equal, their dependence mutual, and their obligations reciprocal.
In conclusion, let me say, with Nathaniel P. Willis: "Credit not the old-fashioned absurdity that woman's is a secondary lot, ministering to the necessities of her lord and master! It is a higher destiny I would award you. If your immortality is as complete, and your gift of mind as capable as ours of increase and elevation, I would put no wisdom of mine against God's evident allotment. I would charge you to water the undying bud, and give it healthy culture, and open its beauty to the sun; and then you may hope that when your life is bound up with another, you will go on equally and in a fellowship that shall pervade every earthly interest."
NATIONAL CONVENTION IN PHILADELPHIA.
October 18, 1854, the Fifth National Convention was held in Sansom Street Hall, where a large audience, chiefly of ladies, assembled at an early hour.
At half-past ten o'clock Lucretia Mott made her appearance on the platform, accompanied by several ladies and gentlemen, notably Lucy Stone in Bloomer costume. She was the observed of all observers; the neatness of her attire, and the grace with which she wore it, did much to commend it to public approval. The press remarked that the officers of the Convention were all without bonnets, and that many ladies in the audience had their knitting-work. "A casual visitor," says The Bulletin, "would have been impressed with the number and character of this assembly, both among the actors and spectators. Every variety of age, sex, race, color, and costume were here represented. Bloomers were side by side with the mouse-colored gowns and white shawls of the wealthy Quaker dames, and genteelly dressed ladies of the latest Paris fashion."
The house was crowded, and on the steps ascending the platform were seated William Lloyd Garrison and James Mott, side by side with men of the darkest hue. The colored people scattered through the audience seemed quite at their ease, and were evidently received on grounds of perfect equality, which was the subject of much comment by outsiders.
Mrs. Frances D. Gage, President of the last Convention at Cleveland, called the assembly to order, and read
THE CALL.
In accordance with a vote passed at the adjournment of the Woman's Rights Convention held in Cleveland, Ohio, in October, 1853, the Fifth National Convention will be held in Philadelphia, October 18th, to continue three days. The subjects for consideration will be the Equal Right of Woman to all the advantages of education, literary, scientific, artistic; to full equality in all business avocations, industrial, commercial, professional; briefly, all the rights that belong to her as a citizen.
This wide range of subjects for discussion can not fail to awaken the attention of all classes; hence we invite all persons irrespective of sex or color to take part in the deliberations of the Convention, and thus contribute to the progress of truth and the redemption of humanity.
On behalf of the Central Committee,
Paulina Wright Davis, President. Antoinette L. Brown, Secretary.
The following officers were chosen for the Convention:
President.—Ernestine L. Rose, of New York.
Vice-Presidents.—Lucretia Mott, Philadelphia; Frances D. Gage, Missouri; Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Massachusetts; Martha C. Wright, New York; Thomas Garrett, Delaware; Hannah Tracy Cutler, Illinois; Robert Purvis; Pennsylvania; John O. Wattles, Indiana; Marenda B. Randall,