The Complete History of the Women's Suffrage Movement in U.S.. Jane Addams
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December, 1854, on my return from Kansas to Vermont, I spent several days in St. Louis, in the pleasant family of my friend, Mrs. Frances D. Gage, who, very much to my regret, was away in Illinois. The Judge having recently removed to the city, the family were comparatively strangers; Abolitionists in a pro-slavery community. Mrs. Gage, I think, had broken ground for temperance, but they could tell me of no friends to woman's rights. Rev. Mr. Elliot was not then one of us, as I learned through a son of Mrs. Gage, who called on him in my behalf for the use of his lecture-room. I felt instinctively that, unfettered by home and business interests, I was less constrained than my friend, and resolved, if possible, to win a hearing for woman. Having secured a hall, I called at the business office of a gentleman of wealth and high social position—a slave-holder and opposed to free Kansas, with whom I had formed a speaking acquaintance in Brattleboro'—and procured from him a voucher for my respectability. Armed with this I called on the editors of the Republican (pro-slavery), and secured a paid notice of my lecture. The editor of the Democrat, who had an interest in free Kansas, and was glad of news items from its immigrants, received me cordially, and gave the "lady lecturer" a handsome "personal," though he had no more interest in my subject than either of the other gentlemen, and gave me little encouragement of an audience. Nevertheless, when the evening came, I met an audience intelligent and respectful, and larger than I had ventured to expect, but not numerous enough to warrant the venture of a second lecture in the expensive hall, which from the refusal of church lecture-rooms, I had been obliged to occupy. But here, as often before and after, a good Providence interposed. Rev. Mr. Weaver, Universalist, claimed recognition as "a reader in his boyhood of Mrs. Nichols' paper"—his father was a patron of the Windham County Democrat—and tendered the use of his church for further lectures. I had found a friend of the cause. The result was a full house, and hearty appeals for "more."
As isolated, historical facts, how very trivial all these "reminiscences" appear! How egotistical the pen that presumes upon anything like a popular interest in their perusal! But to the social and political reformer, as to the Kanes and Livingstons, trifles teach the relations of things, and indicate the methods and courses of action that result in world-wide good or evil. Seeds carried by the winds and waves plant forests and beautify the waste places of the earth. Truths that flowed from the silent nib of my pen in Vermont, had been garnered in a boy's sympathies to yield me a man's welcome and aid in St. Louis. How clear the lesson, that for seed-sowing, all seasons belong to God's truth!
The autumn and winter of 1860-61 I spent in Wisconsin and Ohio; in Wisconsin, visiting friends and lecturing. In Ohio, Mrs. Frances D. Gage, Mrs. Hannah Tracy Cutler, and myself were employed under direction of Mrs. Elizabeth Jones, of Salem, to canvass the State, lecturing and procuring names to petitions to the Legislature for equal legal and political rights for the women of the State. The time chosen for this work was inopportune for immediate success—the opening scenes of the rebellion alike absorbing the attention of the people and their Legislature. Women in goodly numbers came out to hear, but men of all classes waited in the streets, or congregated in public places to hear the news and discuss the political situation.
From December, 1863, to March, 1866, I was in Washington, D. C., writing in the Military or Revenue Departments, or occupying the position of Matron in the Home for Colored Orphans, which had been opened in the second year of the rebellion, by the help of the Government and the untiring energy of a few noble women intent on saving the helpless waifs of slavery cast by thousands upon the bare sands of military freedom.
In the autumn of 1867, the Legislature of Kansas having submitted to the voters of the State a woman suffrage amendment to its Constitution, I gave some four weeks to the canvass, which was engaged in by some of the ablest friends of the cause from other States, among them Lucy Stone, Rev. Olympia Brown, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony. In our own State, among others, Governor Robinson, John Ritchie, and S. N. Wood of the old Free State Guard, rallied to the work. With the canvass of Atchison and Jefferson Counties, and a few lectures in Douglass, Shawnee, and Osage Counties, I retired from a field overlaid with happy reminders of past trials merged in present blessings. The work was in competent hands, but the time was ill-chosen on account of the political complications with negro suffrage, and failure was the result.
Since December, 1871, my home has been in California, where family cares and the infirmities of age limit my efforts for a freer and a nobler humanity to the pen. Trusting that love of God and man will ever point it with truth and justice, I close this exposé of my public life.
22 Mrs. Nichols had written up a case occurring among the subscribers to the Democrat, in which $500, the whole estate, was divided, the half of that amount being all the law allowed for the support of a woman, then in the decline of life, and sent fifty marked copies of the paper to members of the Legislature elect. One of them introduced the bill, which passed the first day of the session.
23 The violent throbbing of Mrs. Nichols' heart, caused by her unusual position and her intense anxiety that her plea might be successful, had stopped her speaking at the close of a brief preface to her plea. She, however, soon rallied, though her voice was tremulous throughout, from the conviction that only an eminently successful presentation of her subject, could spike the enemy's batteries and win a verdict of "just and womanly." Mrs. Nichols hoped no further than that. She did not expect conservative Vermont to yield at once for what she asked, as she stood alone with her paper among the press; and there was no other advocate in the State to take the field.
24 The head and front of the opposition was Judge Kingman, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, to which, with the Committee on Elections, my petition was referred. He wrote the Report against granting our demand, and of those who signed it all but (Gen.) Blunt and himself were Democrats. The report was adopted by a solid vote of the Democrats (16), and enough Republicans to make a majority. Thirty-six Republicans and 16 Democrats comprised the whole delegation. If my memory is not at fault, 27 Republicans voted in caucus for the provisions which were ultimately carried in our behalf, which was a majority of the whole Convention. In caucus a majority were in favor of political rights; but only a minority, from conviction that Woman Suffrage would prevent admission to the Union, would vote it in Convention.
CHAPTER VIII.
Massachusetts.
Women in the Revolution—Anti-Tea Leagues—Phillis Wheatley—Mistress Anne Hutchinson—Heroines in the Slavery Conflict—Women Voting under the Colonial Charter—Mary Upton Ferrin Petitions the Legislature in 1848—Woman's Rights Conventions in 1850, '51—Letter of Harriet Martineau from England—Letter of Jeannie Deroine from a Prison Cell in Paris—Editorial from The Christian Inquirer—The Una, edited by Paulina Wright Davis—Constitutional Convention in 1853—Before the Legislature in 1857—Harriet K. Hunt's Protest against Taxation—Lucy Stone's Protest against the Marriage Laws—Boston Conventions—Theodore Parker on Woman's Position.
During the Revolutionary period, the country was largely indebted to the women of Massachusetts. Their patriotism was not only shown in the political plans of Mercy Otis Warren,25 and the sagacious counsels of Abigail Smith Adams, but by the action of many other women whose names history has not preserved. It was a woman who sent Paul Revere on his famous ride from Boston to Concord, on the night of April 18, 1775, to warn the inhabitants of the expected invasion of the British on the morrow. The church bells pealing far and near on the midnight air, roused tired sleepers hurriedly to arm themselves against the invaders of their homes.
During the war two women of Concord dressed in men's clothing, captured a spy bearing papers which proved of the utmost importance to the patriot forces.
During these early