# History of Woman Suffrage/Volume 3/Chapter 50 (Continued)

Contents
CHAPTER LV. (Continued).
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA — MARYLAND — DELAWARE — KENTUCKY TENNESSEE — VIRGINIA — WEST VIRGINIA — NORTH CAROLINA SOUTH CAROLINA — FLORIDA — ALABAMA — GEORGIA.
I.-District Of Columbia.
The District covers an area of 64 square miles, and contains a population of 200,000. It was origininally a portion of Maryland, and was ceded to congress by that State for the exclusive use of the Federal government. Hon. Salmon P. Chase, secretary of the treasury under Abraham Lincoln, seeing that most of the gifted young men had been drafted or had enlisted in the army, introduced young women as clerks in the government departments. The experiment proved successful, and now there are about six thousand women in the various departments. Mr. Chase often alluded to this afterwards as one of the most important acts of his life. The war brought many bright, earnest women to Washington, led thither by patriotism, ambition, or the necessity of finding some new employment. This new vital force, this purer element, infused into the society at the capitol, has been slowly introducing more liberal ideas into that community.
The first specific work for woman in the District of Columbia of which we find any record was that of Myrtilla Miner of New York, who opened a Normal School for colored girls, December 3, 1851. She began with six pupils in a small room in a private ​house, but soon had more offered than could be accommodated. Through much ridicule and untold difficulties she struggled alone, but successfully, for ten years, when Miss Emily Howland came to her aid. The heroism of this noble woman has been told by Mrs. Ellen O. Connor in a little volume which is a beautiful tribute to the memory of Miss Miner. The Miner Normal School of Washington is now a thorough and popular school for colored girls.
For a brief report of what has been accomplished in the District of Columbia, we are indebted to Belva A. Lockwood:
​June 25, 1868, a deputation from the District Franchise Association appeared, by appointment, before the House Committee of the District, to urge the passage of the bill presented in the House of Representatives by Hon. Henry D. Washburn, accompanied by a petition signed by eighty women of the District:
Mrs. Josephine S. Griffing began by saying that the friends of equal freedom for women in the District had thought the revision of the local government a fit time to present their claims and submit a memorial, setting forth the justice of passing the bill before the committee to remove the restrictions that forbid women to vote in the District. The movement was not wholly new, and was known by those active in the work to be approved by a large mass of women who were not prepared to express themselves openly. The enfranchisement of woman is needful to a real reconstruction.
Mr. Wilcox read a memorial, signed by a committee of residents of the district, consisting of eleven ladies and eleven gentlemen, including Mrs. Griffing, Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth, Miss Lydia S. Hall (formerly of Kansas), Mrs. Annie Denton Cridge, Judge A. B. Olin and Mrs. Olin, recalling the fact that congress had freed 3,000 slaves, and enfranchised the 8,000 colored men of the district, both of which experiments had worked well, notwithstanding conservative predictions to the contrary; and showing that, while the former experiments, on a small scale comparatively, had yielded rich results, so the enfranchisement of half the adult population would produce vast good. He incidentally answered the usual arguments against suffrage, and affirmed that those who possess neither the power of wealth nor of knowledge wherewith to protect themselves, most need political power for that purpose. He remarked that the competition for votes among politicians was a tremendous educating force, and that laws would not be certain of enforcement unless those for whose benefit they were made were clothed with power to compel such enforcement.
September 25, 1868, the Universal Franchise Association held its first annual meeting at Union League Hall, Mrs. Josephine S. Griffing presid​ing. A letter was read from Senator Pomeroy, stating that he was willing to act as president of the society. In closing he said:
In 1869, the executive committee passed a resolution to expend the money that had been accumulated at the meetings of the association in a series of lectures for the purpose of enlightening the public mind upon the question of equal political rights for women. Among the speakers engaged were Anna Dickinson, Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony, D. R. Locke (Nasby), Theodore Tilton. From that time the women of the district were permitted to speak their minds freely.
In the House of Representatives, March 21, 1870, Mr. Arnell, on leave, introduced the following bill:
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That hereafter all clerks and other employes in the civil service of the United States shall be paid, irrespective of sex, with reference to the character and amount of services performed by them.
Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That, in the employment of labor, clerical or other, in any branch of the civil service of the United States, no discrimination shall be made in favor of either sex.
Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That where examinations of candidates for positions in the civil service of the United States are prescribed by law, or by the heads of departments, bureaus, or offices, said examinations shall be of the same character for persons of both sexes.
Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That the designations, chief clerk, chief or head of division, chief or head of section, clerk of the fourth class, clerk of the third class, clerk of the second class, clerk of the first class, copyist, messenger, laborer, and all other designations of employes, in existing acts of Congress, or in use in any branch of the civil service of the United States, shall be held, hereafter to apply to women as well as to men; and that women shall be regarded equally eligible with men to perform the duties of the afore-designated clerks and employes, and shall receive the compensation therefor prescribed by law.
Sec. 5. And be it further enacted, That this act shall not be so construed as to require the displacement of any person now employed, but shall apply to all vacancies hereafter occurring, for any cause.
Thousands of petitions for this bill were circulated. Mrs. Lockwood went to New York, and secured seven hundred signatures, visiting both of the suffrage conventions then in session in that city, the National and
​the American. The bill was shortly afterward passed in a modified form, and has ever since been in force in all of the government departments.
In February, 1871, congress passed the organic act for the district, making of it a territory and granting suffrage to the male members of the commonwealth. There was also granted under this bill a right to a delegate in congress. In the meetings which followed for the nomination of delegates a number of women took part. Mrs. Lockwood often broke the monotony with a short speech, and on one occasion only lacked one vote of an election to the general convention for the nomination of a delegate to congress,
The women of the district were not permitted to vote under the organic act, but soon after the organization of its legislature, bills to provide for this were introduced into both Houses.' Mrs. Lockwood prepared an exhaustive address upon these pending bills, and was granted a hearing before both Houses of the legislature, but they were finally lost. In 1875 congress withdrew the legislative power from the people of the District of Columbia.
It was also in 1871 that the National University Law School, then principally under the control of Prof. Wm. B. Wedgewood, organized a law class for women, in which fifteen matriculated. Mrs. Lockwood had been denied admission the previous year to the law class of Columbia College for the reason, as given by the trustees, "that it would distract the attention of the young men." About this time a young colored woman, Charlotte Ray of New York, was graduated from the law class of Howard University and admitted to the bar with the class. Of the fifteen women who entered the National University.only two completed the course, viz., Lydia S. Hall, and Belva A. Lockwood. The former never received her diploma. The latter, after an appeal to President Grant, received her diploma, and was admitted to the district bar, September 23, 1873. Since that period Emma M. Gillett, Marilla M. Ricker, and Laura DeForce Gordon have been admitted to the district bar, and there seems to be no longer any hindrance to such admissions. The above-named have all appeared in court, and a number of other ladies have been graduated in the district. Women have also been appointed notaries public, and examiners in chancery.
In the profession of medicine there has been more liberality. Dr. Susan A. Edson and Dr. Caroline B. Winslow have been in full practice here since the close of the war. Dr. Mary Parsons and Dr. Cora M. Bland and others, are practicing with marked success. Last year there were fourteen women duly registered with the health department, and they all seem to be in good standing. Howard University has admitted women to its medical classes for some years, and both white and colored women have availed themselves of the privilege. Last year Columbia College opened its doors in the medical department, with a suggestion that the classes in law and theology may soon be opened also.
Many women in the district within the last few years have entered into business for themselves, as they are now permitted to do under the law of 1869, and are milliners, merchants, market-women, hucksters. In the art of nursing, which has been reduced to a science, they have free course.
​In 1871, a large number of ladies tried to register in the city of Washington. They marched in solid phalanx some seventy strong to the registrar’s office, but were repulsed. They tried afterwards to vote, but were re- fused, whereupon Mrs. Spencer sued the inspectors, and Mrs. Webster sued the registrars, so testing their rights in two suits in the Supreme Court of the District.
In 1866 Jane G. Swisshelm commenced the publication of a liberal sheet in the District of Columbia, known as The Wasp. This was the continuation of a paper formerly published by her in Pittsburg, Pa., and in St. Cloud, Minn., called The Visitor. Many other papers by women have been since published in the District. Perhaps the most voluminous author in this country is Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth, who has written a volume for each year of her life, and is now sixty-five years of age. Her authorship has been confined to romances, which have been very popular. A large proportion of the teachers of the public schools in the District are women, some of them of very marked culture. Many of the most noted and successful private schools, some with collegiate courses, are conducted by women. Among these, Mrs. Margaret Harover who taught in the District during the war, is worthy of mention, also Mrs. Ellen M. O’Connor, president of the Miner school. Mrs. Sarah J. Spencer, as associate principal of the Spencerian business college whence large classes of young women have been graduated for many years past, is deservedly popular. She was at one time prominent in the woman suffrage movement, acting as corresponding secretary of the National Association. She is now engaged in one of the large charity organizations of the city. Many colored women who have been graduated from Howard University, have become quite successful as teachers, and some have studied medicine. All of the copyists in the office of registrar of deeds are women. A goodly number are short-hand reporters for the courts, among whom Miss Camp, daughter of the assistant clerk, is notably skillful.
The number of women who hold property in the District is large and rapidly increasing. A woman may now enter into almost any honorable profession that she chooses, and maintain her respectability. All of the professions are open to her, and the sphere of trades is rapidly widening. The progress made in this regard in the last quarter of a century amounts almost to a revolution. The first women ever admitted to the reporter's ​gallery of the Senate and House were Abigail Dodge (Gail Hamilton), and Helen M. Barnard, both political writers of great power; the former as a reporter for the New York Times, and the latter for the New York Herald. Mrs. Barnard, during Grant's administration, was sent as commissioner of immigration to Liverpool, visiting England, Ireland and Scotland, Returning in the steerage of an ocean steamer, she gave one of the finest reports ever made upon this question. This resulted in the passage by the legislature of New York of a bill for the better protection of emigrants on shipboard, and the appointment by the United States government of an inspector of immigration for every out-going steamer.
Women were first appointed as clerks in the government departments in 1861 by Secretary Chase, at the earnest solicitation of Treasurer Spinner. They were employed at temporary work at $50 a month—one-half the lowest price paid to any male clerk—until they were recognized by an act of congress in which their salary was fixed at $900 a year, in the general appropriation bill of July 23, 1866. The men doing the same work were of four classes, receiving, respectively, $1,000, $1,400, $1,600, $1,800. Treasurer Spinner, in his report of October, 1866, said:
And in 1868, Mr. Spinner urged the committee of which Mr. Fessenden of Maine was the chairman, to so amend the bill providing for the reorganization of the treasury department as to increase the salary of the female clerks who have the handling of money, stating that cases had occurred in which women had lost more than half their monthly pay by reason of being short in count, or of allowing counterfeit notes to pass their hands.
Secretary M'Cullough asserted that women performed their clerical duties as creditably as men, and stated that he had three ladies who performed as much labor, and did it as well as any three male clerks receiving $1,800 a year. It is now a quarter of a century that women have served the government in these responsible positions, and still, with but few exceptions, they receive only the allotted $900. Mrs. Fitzgerald, the expert in the redemption bureau of the treasury, who has for fifteen years deciphered defaced currency, in which no man has ever yet proved her equal, receives $1,400. In 1886 she subjected herself to an examination for an increase to $1,600, but, failing to answer some questions foreign to her art, she was compelled to content herself with the former salary.
II.—MARYLAND.
The Revolution of February 26, 1868, shows an effort in the direction of progress on this question in Maryland. A correspondent says:
From various papers we clip the following items:
Miss R. Muller has for several years been engaged as subscription and general correspondence clerk for the Baltimore Daily American. She was the first woman to be employed in that city on newspaper work during the present century. In the chapter on newspapers it will be seen that Anna R. Green established the first newspaper in the Maryland colony one hundred and nineteen years ago, doing the colony printing; and that Mary R. Goddard not only published a paper, writing able editorials, but was also the first postmaster after the revolution, And from the following item it would seem that the first woman to claim her right to vote must be credited to Maryland:
On March 20, 1872, Hon. Stevenson Archer made an exhaustive speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, entitled, "Woman Suffrage not to be tolerated, although advocated by the Republican candidate for vice-presidency." The speech was against Senator Wilson's bill to enfranchise the women of the territories. The honorable representative from Maryland may have been moved to enter his protest against woman's enfranchisement by the fact that the women of his State had in convention assembled early in the same month made a public demand for their political rights:
Meetings had been held in Baltimore during the years of 1870-71, and lectures given by Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, Susan B, Anthony, and others.
Charlotte Richmond of Baltimore writes the Woman's Journal, April 22, 1873.
The American Journal of Dental Science makes the following statement: "The Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, having had the honor of conferring the first degree of Doctor of Dental Surgery in the world, has also graduated the first woman who ever received a diploma in medicine or dentistry in Baltimore, in the person of Miss Emilie Foeking of Prussia, who, after attending two full courses of lectures and demonstrations, passed a very creditable final examination, Miss Foeking conformed to all the rules and regulations of the college during the two sessions that she was a student; no favor whatever as to requirement being asked for on her part, or extended to her by the faculty, on account of sex. She has fairly earned her degree by proficiency and earnest application. After a short time Miss Foeking will return to Berlin, where she intends to locate. That she will succeed in establishing a large and lucrative practice, there is no doubt, as she is well qualified professionally, and is in manner so perfect a lady as to command the respect of all who know her."
You will see by this extract from one of our medical journals, that a lady has been graduated from our dental college. I hope she has left the doors open, so that some of our own countrywomen may enter and acquit themselves as honorably, but without the difficulties which she has been compelled to encounter. You are aware of the proceedings of the Philadelphia college in regard to female students. Our Baltimore dentist, for we feel proud to claim her as ours, although admitted in the college, still had all the prejudices to meet in the minds of the people, but they were too courteous and hospitable to act upon those feelings so far as to turn her from their doors, She was brave and did not surrender; not even when her sensitive woman's heart was wounded and humiliated by the little acts done heedlessly under the impression that a woman had stepped out of her sphere and was taking upon herself a vocation belonging exclusively to men. She is naturally sincere, modest and dignified. With these ​
​lady-like qualifications, together with ability and perseverance, she has won the honor and esteem of the faculty and the students.
For the facts in regard to the Baltimore Dental College we are indebted to the dean of the faculty:
Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, Jan. 2, 1886.
Miss Susan B. Anthony—Dear Miss: Your letter of 27th of last month came safely to hand. In reply I will say that only two members of the fair sex have been graduated with us. Miss Emilie Foeking of Prussia, whose present address I do not know, and Miss Pauline Boeck of Germany, who has since died. Miss Foeking was graduated in 1873, and Miss Boeck in 1877. I have learned that both of these young ladies were attentive and energetic in the pursuit of their studies, and were graduated with credit to themselves. We have the "Woman's Medical College," from which quite a number of young women have been graduated. For information in regard to this institution I would refer you to its dean, Prof. Wm. D. Booker, 157 Park avenue.
Very truly yours, R. B. Winder.
III.—Delaware.
Mary A. Stuart is the active representative of the movement for woman suffrage in Delaware. From year to year she has written and contributed to our National conventions in Washington, and has been among the delegates on several occasions to address congressional committees. In her report she says:
Prior to 1868, bonds, mortgages, stocks, etc., were counted personal property, all of which went into the possession of the husband the moment the woman answered "I will," in the marriage ceremony. I worked hard to get the law passed giving the wife the right to her own separate earnings, and at last was greatly helped by the fact that a woman petitioned for a divorce, stating in her application that she was driven from her home, that she and her two children had worked hard and saved $100 for a rainy day, and now her husband claimed the money. It was a case in point, and helped the members of our legislature to pass the wages bill.
Delaware College, the only institution of the kind in the State, was open to girls for thirteen years, but owing to a tragedy committed by the boys in hazing one another, resulting in death, the doors were thereafter closed to girls, although they were in no way directly or indirectly implicated in the outrages. When Governor Stockley was appealed to, he simply gave some of the old arguments against coëducation, and did ​not recommend, as he should have done, an appropriation at once by the State to build a similar college, with all the necessary appointments for the education of girls. We have women who are practicing physicians, and are also in the State Medical Boards, We have none who practice law or preach in our pulpits, and all the political offices of the State are closed to women. No notaries, bank cashiers, telegraph operators. Women are still in the belief that work outside the home is a disgrace to the men of their families.
In February, 1881, Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony, Miss Couzins and Mrs. Lockwood, held various hearings before the legislature. Mrs. Lockwood read to the gentlemen article 4 of the constitution as amended in 1834: "Any white male citizen over 22 years of age who shall be a tax-payer, shall be eligible to vote for electors." She then showed them how readily, without any marked revolution, the word "white "had been stricken out, while the word tax-payer had virtually become a dead letter. Then turning to the first paragraph of the United States revised code she cited the passage which states that in determining the meaning of statutes after February 25, 1877, "words importing the masculine gender may be applied to females." * * * * At this point the chairman of the committee placed before Mrs. Lockwood the Delaware code from which she read a similar application of the law made many years before. Having laid this foundation she asserted that the women of Delaware were legally entitled to vote under the laws as they are, but that to prevent all question on the subject, she would recommend a special enactment like that prepared in the bill before them. An amendment to the State constitution giving suffrage to women was presented in the House of Representatives in February, 1881, and referred to the committee on privileges and elections. It was reported adversely. The vote showed that all the members, with two exceptions, were opposed to the measure.
IV.—Kentucky.
Mary B. Clay, daughter of Cassius M. Clay, sends us the following report of what has been done to change the status of women in Kentucky:
We organized here an association with twenty members the first of October, 1867, and now have fifty. We hope soon to have the whole of Hardin county, and by the close of another year the whole of the State of Kentucky, enlisted on the side of woman's rights.
​In the winter of 1872 Hannah Tracy Cutler and Margaret V. Longley were granted a respectful hearing before our legislature at Frankfort. In May, 1879, self-appointed, I represented Kentucky at the May anniversary of the National Association at St. Louis. In the autumn following, Miss Anthony, during an extended lecture tour through the State, stopped in Richmond several days, and aided us in organizing a local suffrage society. Letters were at once written to the leading editors asking them to publish articles on the subject. Many favorable answers were received, and we have largely availed ourselves of the columns of the papers to keep up the agitation. My sister, Sally Clay Bennett, edits a column in the Richmond Register, sister Anne a column in the Lexington Gazette, and Kate Dunning Clarke, a column in the Turf, Field and Farm. Mrs. Clarke is also associate editor of the Kentucky State Journal, The Misses Moore are making a success of a daily paper at Milledgeville.
In May, 1880, Mrs. Bennett and myself were delegates at the great National Mass Convention in Farwell Hall, Chicago. In October, 1881, the American Association held its annual meeting in Louisville. It was largely attended and fully and fairly reported by the press of the city. At its close, a Kentucky State association was organized, with Laura Clay as president.
In January, 1882, the Richmond and Louisville clubs secured a hearing before the judiciary committee of the Senate, Mrs. Bennett and myself representing the former, and John A. Ward the latter. With the valuable aid of Mrs. Mary Haggart of Indianapolis we made a most favorable impression upon our legislators. The points in which our laws are defective and upon which our appeals and arguments were based are well indicated by the pleas of our several petitions:
In 1884, all of the Clay sisters—Mrs. Bennet, Mary, Laura and Anne— with Mrs. Haggart, again went to Frankfort, and held meetings in the legislative hall, which were largely attended by the best classes of the citizens of that city, as well as by members of the leglslature.
For several years we have had a woman for State Librarian. In Fayette, one of our most aristocratic counties, Lexington being its county seat, a woman was elected to the office of county clerk by a majority of 200 over her male competitor. In two other counties women are also county clerks. Each of them had served so efficiently in her husband's office, that at his death she had been elected in his place.
That woman has to fight every step of her way to the recognition of her rights as a citizen equal before the law, is shown by the following despatch from Frankfort, dated December 18, 1885: ​
A woman in Madison county acted as census-taker, and performed her duty well. She was the niece of Mr. Justice Miller of the Supreme Court of the United States. Gen. W. J. Sanderson, internal revenue collector for the eighth district, employed two young ladies as clerks, Miss Brown and Miss Price, the former of whom is said to be his best clerk. She is the sister of Mrs. Smith, the circuit clerk of Laurel county. The successor of General Sanderson, employs his two daughters as clerks, and they receive the same pay as men who do the same work.
Many women in our State manage their own farms, My mother, during my father's absence as minister to Russia, took his farm of 2,500 acres (he making her his attorney), paid off a large debt on the property, built an elegant house costing $30,000, stocked the farm, and largely supported the family of six children, with money which she made during the war. She fed government mules, and did it so well that she would return them to camp before the time expired, in better condition than most feeders got theirs. She is now, 1885, conducting her own farm of 350 acres, selling several thousand dollars' worth of wheat, cattle, and sheep annually, giving her personal attention to everything, at the age of seventy. During the adventurous and perilous period of my father's life she shared his dangers, and was ever his mainstay in upholding his hands against slavery; and in that crowning point of his life, when he was mobbed in Lexington, my mother sat at his bed-side, and wrote at his dictation, "Go tell your secret conclave of dastardly assassins, Cassius M. Clay knows his rights and how to defend them."
Two of my sisters, Laura and Anne, and myself are practical farmers, each having under her immediate superintendence the workmen, both white and black, on 300 acres. We raise corn, wheat, oats, cattle and sheep, buying and selling our own stock and produce. We took possession of the land without stock or utensils, and by our observation and experience, prudence and industry, have greatly improved the lands and stock, and annually realize a handsome income therefrom.
Miss Laura R. White of Manchester, sister of Hon. John D. White, who ably advocated our cause in congress as well as in his own State, was graduated with marked honor from the Michigan State University in 1874. Since that time she has studied architecture in the Boston Institute of Technology one year, worked as draughtsman in the office of the supervisory architect of the treasury department at Washington, two years, studied in the special school of architecture in Paris one year, and is now, 1886, prosecuting her studies with a liberal selection of French and English architectural works at her mountain home in Kentucky. Mrs. Bessie White Heagen, the youngest daughter of Mrs. Sarah A. White, was graduated with honor from the Roxbury High School of Boston, and from the ​school of Pharmacy of Michigan University. Being denied examination and the privileges of college graduates of the college of pharmacy at Louisville, where she was employed by a prominent pharmacist, she brought suit and obtained a verdict in her favor.
Early in 1882, Dr. J. P. Barnum employed young women in his store with the expectation of being able to educate them in the college of pharmacy. But the hostility of the students to the proposed innovation, and the lack of a systematic laboratory course, caused the relinquishment of that plan and the formation of the new school. Prominent gentlemen in the community assisted Dr. Barnum, and the Louisville School of Pharmacy was duly incorporated under the general laws of Kentucky. Though sustained by men of wealth and influence, the school met with great opposition, the State Board of Pharmacy refusing to register the women who were graduated from it until compelled to do so by a mandamus from the Law and Equity Court, Judge Simral presiding. March 7, 1884, the legislature incorporated the Louisville School of Pharmacy for Women, and by special enactment empowered its graduates to practice their profession without registration or interference from the State board.
The school confers two degrees; its full course taking three years and requiring more work than is done in other schools. So far its graduates have been representative women, and all have found responsible situations awaiting them. Its faculty remains, with a few exceptions, as in the first session. Dr. J. P. Barnum, to whose indefatigable efforts the foundation of the school is due, is dean and professor of pharmacy and analytical chemistry; Dr. T. Hunt Stuckey, a graduate of Heidelberg University, who joined his efforts with,Dr. Barnum at an early day, is professor of materia medica, toxicology and microscopy. Mrs. D. N. Marble, professor of general and pharmaceutical chemistry, and Mrs. Fountaine Miller, professor of botany, were graduates of the first class.
Mrs. Kate Trimble de Roode, in a recent letter says:
V-—Tennessee.
We are indebted to Mrs. Elizabeth Lisle Saxon for the following:
When Col. Kerr introduced into the Tennessee legislature a bill making divorce impossible for any cause save adultery, Mrs. Meriwether wrote the ablest article I] ever read, in opposition, which Mr, Keating published in his paper, and distributed among the members of the legislature. The result was a clear vote against the bill.
With Mrs. Lide Meriwether and Mrs. M. J. Holmes, she publicly assailed the cross examination of women in criminal trials, either as culprits or witnesses, until the practice was broken up, and private hearings accorded. In 1876 she sent a memorial to the National Democratic convention at St. Louis, asking that party to declare for woman suffrage in its platform. Though her appeal was not read, hundreds of copies were circulated among the members in the hope of stirring thought on the subject in the South. It provoked much sarcasm because it was signed only by Mrs. Meriwether and Mrs. Saxon. In 1880-81 Mrs. Meriwether was one of the speakers in the series of conventions held by the National association in the Western and New England States.
VI.—Virginia.
In the winter of 1870, immediately after the National Washington convention, Mrs. Paulina Wright Davis, while spending a few days in Richmond, formed the acquaintance of Mrs. Anna Whitehead Bodeker, a most earnest advocate of the ballot for women. Mrs. Davis held a parlor meeting in the home of Mrs. Bodeker, enlisting the interest of several prominent citizens of Richmond, who very soon invited Mrs. Joslyn Gage to their city to give a series of lectures. Of the result of this visit we give Mrs. Bodeker's report as published in The Revolution of May, 1870:
Mrs. Gage, advisory counsel for New York, in the National Woman Suffrage Association of America, delivered a lecture upon "Opportunity for Woman," at Bosher's Hall, corner of Ninth and Main streets, on Thursday evening. The lecture was able, earnest and eloquent, and was listened to with rapt attention by the friends of the cause present. At its conclusion, Judge John C. Underwood gave notice that on the following evening a meeting would be held at the United States Court room (which he freely proffered for the purpose) to organize a State Association, adopt a constitution, elect officers, and appoint delegates to the anniversary of the National Association soon to be held in New York city. The judge remarked that, upon conversing with Governor Wise upon the subject, he expressed his warm sympathy with the objects of the movement save upon the question of giving women the ballot. With all the other' rights claimed, he was heartily in accord; especially, he thought, should the professions be opened to women, more particularly the medical, they being the natural physicians of their sex and of children.
In the winter of 1871, Miss Anthony was honored by an invitation from the society, and held several meetings in Judge Underwood's court-room. About this time appeared the following:
But Mrs. Bodeker, who also memorialized the general assembly, was first to make the attempt to vote. The Richmond Dispatch describes the occasion:
One remarkable incident in Gen. Grant's administration was Miss Elizabeth VanLew's appointment as postmaster at Richmond. She held the office eight years, notwithstanding the persistent opposition of politicians. The Ballot-Box said:
The Philadelphia Press, edited by J. W. Forney, said:
VII. West Virginia.
Hon. Samuel Young, in a letter to The Revolution, dated Senate Chamber, Wheeling, West Virginia, February 22, 1869, writes: ​
VIII.—North Carolina.
We are indebted to Mrs. Mary Bayard Clarke of New Berne for the following:
In 1881, finding that a widow had no right to appoint a guardian for her children by "letters testamentary," I, through my son, William E. Clarke, who was then senator for this county in our State legislature, succeeded in getting this law so changed that she now has the same rights as a man. In cases of divorce or separation while the children are under age, it is discretionary with the judge to give the children to either parent; but public sentiment always gives them to the mother while young.
Our Supreme Court granted a license to Miss Tabitha A. Holton to practice law, and there is no legal impediment in the way of one doing so. The same is true of the medical profession. Dr. Susan Dimock was a North Carolinian by birth and on her ​application for admission to the State Medical Society was unanimously elected a member of that body. The African Methodist-Episcopal Conference, Bishop Turner presiding, ordained Miss Sarah A. Hughes of Raleigh, a bright mulatto girl, as deacon in the church. Shortly after the close of the late war, my husband being then incapacitated for work by wounds received in the Mexican and the civil war, and my sons under age, I applied to Governor Jonathan Worth for the position of State librarian. Though cordially acknowledging my fitness, intellectually, for the office, and admitting that my sex did not legally disqualify me to hold it, he positively refused to appoint me or any other woman to any office in his gift. Public sentiment then sustained him, but it would not now do so; so many ladies of culture, refinement and social position have been, since the war, forced to work or starve, that it is now nothing remarkable to see them and their daughters doing work which twenty years ago they would have been ostracised for undertaking.
In a letter to the Boston Index, published August, 1885, the venerable Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith, who is now a resident of this State, truthfully says .
I cordially endorse this extract. The Southern man does not wish his "women folks" to be self-supporting, not because he is jealous of their rivaling him, but because he feels it is his duty to be the bread-winner. But the much sneered at "chivalry" of the South, while rendering it harder for a woman to break through old customs, most cordially and heartily sustains her when she has successfully done so. There are fewer large centers in the South than in the North, and much less attrition of mind against mind; the people are homogeneous and slower to change, and public opinion is much less fluctuating. But once let the tide of woman suffrage fairly turn, and I believe it will be irresistable and advance far more steadily and rapidly in the South than it has done in the North. Let the Southern women be won over and the cause will have nothing to fear from the opposition of the men. But, after twenty years' experience as a journalist, my honest opinion is that until the Southern women can be made to feel the pecuniary advantages to them of suffrage, they will not lift a finger or speak a word to obtain it.
In 1881, at the March meeting of the Raleigh Typographical Union, No. 194, my son, being then a member of that Union, introduced and, after some hard fighting, succeeded in carrying a resolution placing women compositors on a par in every respect with men. There was not at that time a single woman compositor in the State, to my sou's knowledge; there is one now in Raleigh and two apprentices, who claimed and receive all the advantages that men applying for admission to the Union receive.
Mrs. C. Harris started the South Atlantic at Wilmington. The Misses Bernheim and their father started a magazine in the same city called At Home and Abroad, which was afterwards moved to Charlotte; both were short-lived. We have now the Southern Woman. This is the only journal ever edited and managed by a woman alone, with no man associated with or responsible for it. I have been for twenty years connected with the press of this State in one way and another, and am called the "Grandmother of the North Carolina Press Association." In 1880 I delivered an original poem before the association, and another Masonic one before the board of the orphan asylum; making me, I believe, the first native North Carolina woman that ever came before the public as a speaker. I was both denounced and applauded for my "brass" and "bravery." Public sentiment has changed since then. ​Mrs, Marion A. Williams, president of the State National Bank at Raleigh for several years, is probably the first woman ever elected to that responsible position in any State of this Union. In 1885 Louisa B. Stephens was made president of the First National Bank of Marion, Iowa; and a national bank in Newbery, South Carolina, honored itself by placing a woman at the head of its official board.
The North Carolinian of January, 1870, contained an able editorial endorsing woman suffrage, closing with:
From an interesting article in the Boston Advertiser, May 22, 1875, by Rev. James Freeman Clark, concerning Dr. Susan Dimock, one of North Carolina's promising daughters, whose career was ended in the wreck of the Schiller near the Scilly islands, we make a few extracts:
During the war of the rebellion, Miss Dimock sought admission into the medical school of Harvard University, preferring, if possible, to take a degree in an American college. Twice she applied, and was twice refused. Hearing that the University of Zurich was open to women, she went there, and was received with a hospitality which the institutions of her own country did not offer. She pursued her medical studies there, and graduated with honor. A number of the "Revue des Deux Mondes" for August, 1872, contains an article called "Les Femmes à l'Universitie de Zurich," which speaks very favorably of the success of the women in that place. The first to take a degree as doctor of medicine was a young Russian lady, in 1867. Between 1867 and 1872 five others had taken this degree, and among them Miss Dimock is mentioned. From the medical school at Zurich, she went to that at Vienna; and of her appearance there we have this record: A distinguised German physician remarked to a friend of mine residing in Germany that he had always been opposed to women as physicians —but that he had met a young American lady studying at Vienna, whose intelligence, modesty and devotion to her work was such as almost to convince him that he was wrong. A comparison of dates shows that this American student must have been Dr. Dimock.
On her return to the United States Dr. Dimock became resident physician at "The Hospital for Women and Children," on Codman Avenue, in Boston. Both the students of medicine and 'the patients became devotedly attached to her; they were fascinated by this remarkable union of tenderness, firmness and skill. The secret was in part told by what she said in one of her lectures in the training-school for nurses connected with the woman's hospital: "I wish you, of all my instructions, especially to remember this. Where you go to nurse a patient, imagine that it is your own sister before you in that bed; and treat her as you would wish your own sister to be treated." While at this hospital, she was also able to carry out a principle in which she firmly believed, namely—that in a hospital the rights of every patient, poor and rich, should be sacredly regarded, and never be postponed even to the supposed interests of medical students. No student was allowed to be present at any operation, except so far as the comfort and safety of her patients rendered the student's presence desirable. Her ​interest in the woman's hospital was very great. She was in the habit, at the beginning of each year, of writing and sealing up her wishes for the coming year. Since her death, her mother has opened the envelope of January 1, 1875, and found it to contain a prayer for a blessing on "my dear hospital."
And now this young, strong soul so ardent in the pursuit of knowledge, so filled with a desire to help her suffering sisters, has been taken by that remorseless deep.
IX.—South Carolina.
The first action we hear of in South Carolina was a Woman's Right's Convention in Columbia, Dec. 20, 1870, of which the Charleston Republican said:
Mr. T. J. Mackey made a forcible argument in favor of the movement. He was followed by Miss Hosley, who made a few brief remarks upon the subject. General Moses thought woman's introduction upon the political platform would benefit us much in a moral point of view, and that they had a right to assist in making the laws that govern them as well as the sterner sex. Messrs. Cardozo, Pioneer and Rev. Mr. Harris followed in short speeches, endorsing the movement and wishing it success. Resolutions were adopted, and officers chosen. The following letters were read:
Executive Department, Columbia, Jan. 19, 1871.
Miss L. M. Rollin:—I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your invitation to be present at the preliminary organization of the association for the assertion of woman's rights in this State, and regret that the pressure of public duties precludes my indulging myself in that pleasure. Be assured, however, that the cause has my warmest sympathy, and I indulge the hope that the time is not far distant when woman shall be the peer of man in political rights, as she is peerless in all others, and when she will be able to reclaim some of those privileges that are now monopolized by the sterner sex.
I have the honor to be, very respectfully, etc., R. K. Scott, Governor.
Office Of The Attorney-General, Columbia, Feb, 8, 1871.
I hoped when I received your invitation to the meeting to-night of the friends of woman suffrage, that I should be able to attend in person, but at a late hour I find other duties standing in the way, and I can only say a word of approval and encouragement with my pen. The woman suffrage cause is to my mind so just and so expedient as to need little argument. To say that my mother, my sisters or my.wife have less interest in good government than I have, or are less fitted by nature to understand and use the ballot than I am, is to contradict reason and fact.
Upon the same grounds that I defend my own right to share in the government which controls and protects me, do I now assert the right of woman to a voice in public affairs. For the same reasons that I would regard an attempt to rob me of my civil rights as tyranny, do I now protest against the continued civil inequality and thralldom of woman. I take no merit or pride to myself for such a position. I have felt and said these things during my whole life. They are to me self-evident truths; needing ​no more demonstration by argument than the first lines of the Declaration of American Independence. My claim for woman is simply this: Give her a full and fair chance to actin any sphere for which she can fit herself. Her sphere is as wide as man's. It has no limits except her capacity. If woman cannot perform a soldier's duty, then the army is not her sphere; if she can, it is her sphere, as much as it is man's.
I value the ballot for woman chiefly because it opens to her a wide, free avenue to a complete development of all her powers. The Chinese lady's shoe is nothing compared to the clamps and fetters which we Americans have put upon woman's mind and soul. An impartial observer would scarcely condemn the one and approve the other. What we need now is to accustom the public to these radical truths. Demand the ballot; demand woman's freedom. It is not a conflict of argument or reason, so much as a crusade against habit and prejudice. To tell the truth, I don't think there is a respectable argument in the world against woman suffrage. People think they are arguing or reasoning against it when they are in fact only repeating the prejudices in which they have been trained. With the sincerest wishes for the success of your meeting and of all your efforts for woman suffrage, I remain, yours very truly,
D. H. Chamberlain.
The American association memorialized the legislature March 13, 1872. The joint committee recommended an amendment to the constitution of the State, providing that every person, male or female, possessed of the necessary qualifications, should be entitled to vote. B.F. Whittemore, H. J. Maxwell, W. B. Nash, G. F. McIntyre, were the committee on the part of the Senate; C. D. Hayne, W. J. Whipper, Benj. Byas, B. G. Yocom, F. H. Frost, committee on the part of the House.
In the debate in congress in 1874, Hon. Alonzo J. Ransier of South Carolina, the civil-rights bill being under discussion, claimed that equal human rights should be extended to women as follows:
Miss Sallie R. Banks, for some years a teacher of colored schools in South Carolina, has been appointed collector of internal revenue for the Sumter district.
X.—Florida.
In 1880, the agricultural department at Washington, paid a premium of $12 to Madame Atzeroth of Manatee, for the first pound of coffee ever grown out of doors in the United States.
The following is from a letter to the Savannah News, reporting a judgment rendered by a Florida county judge, in a case between an old black man and his wife:
Ocala, Fla., May 12, 1874.
Be it known throughout all christendom that the husband is the head of the wife, and whatever is his is his'n, and whatever is hers is his'n, and come weal or woe, peace or war, the right of all property is vested in the husband, and the wife must not take anything away. The ox belongs to Uncle Ben, and he must keep it, and the other things, and if the old woman quits she must go empty-handed. Know all that this is so by order of the Judge of Probate.
[Signed]Wm. R. Hillyer.
Though quaintly expressed, yet this decision is in line with the old common law and the statutes of many of the States in this Union to-day.
XI.—Alabama.
The women of Alabama are evidently awake on the temperance question, though still apparently unprepared for suffrage. In a report of a meeting in Birmingham in 1885, the following, from a prominent editor, was read by the president:
If a thunderbolt had fallen it would not have created a greater sensation. The ladies at first grew indignant and uttered protestations. When they grew calmer, the corresponding secretary was ordered to furnish the editor with the following:
At Huntsville lives Mrs. Priscilla Holmes Drake, whose name has stood as representative of our National Association in Alabama since 1868.
XII.—Georgia.
We give a letter from Georgia's great statesman, defining his views of woman's sphere:
House of Representatives, Washington, D. C., May 29, 1878.
Mrs. E. L. Saxon, New Orleans, La.
My Dear Madam:—Your letter to Hon. Alexander H. Stephens, of the 22d inst., came duly to hand. He requests me to thank you for it, and to say in reply that he has ever sympathized with woman in her efforts for a higher and broader sphere of intellectual and moral culture, as well as physical usefulness in life. He does not go . so far as to endow woman with the ballot, or to fit her for the more masculine duties of the State. Her sphere, by nature, is circumscribed within certain physical boundaries, but in all those things to which she is fitted by nature, and can enter without interference with the laws of God, he would open the doors wide to her.
Very respectfully yours,C. P. Culver, Secretary.
* ↑ Myrtilla Miner: published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston and New York.
* ↑ See Vol. 11., page 90.
* ↑ President, Hon. Samuel C. Pomeroy; Vice-Presidents, Josophine S. Griffing, Belva A. Lockewood, Jas. H. Holmes, John H. Craney; Advisory Council, Mary E. O'Connor, Josephine S. Griffing, Caroline B. Winslow, Dr. Susan A. Edson, Lydia S. Hall, Mr. and Mrs. Boyle, Caroline B. Colby, and others.
* ↑ The officers elected were: President, United States Senator S.C. Pomeroy; Vice-Presidents, Mrs. Josephine S. Griffing, Mrs. Belva McNall Lockwood, Miss Stickney, Thaddeus Hyatt, Caroline B. Winslow, M. D., S. Yorke At Lee, Mrs. Josephine L. Slade, Prof. William J. Wilson, Mrs. Mary Olin, Judge A. B. Olin, Mrs. C. M. E. Y. Christian, Prof. George B. Vashon, J. H. Crossman, Mrs. Angeline
* ↑ The names of the women who attempted to register and vote were: Jane A. Archibald, Clara M. Archibald, Mary Anderson, S. W. Aiken, Sallie S. Barrett, Mary B. Baumgras, Florence Riddle Bartlett, Ann M. Boyle, M. W. Browne, Deborah B. Clarke (Grace Greenwood’s mother, eighty years of age), C. W. Campbell, Elizabeth T. Cowperthwaite, Mary T. Corner, Mary M. Courtenay, Mary A. Donaldson, Mary A. Dennison, Ruth Carr Dennison, L.S. Doolittle, Dr. Susan A. Edson, Sarah P. Edson, B. F. Evans, E. W. Foster, Olive Freeman, Maggie Finney, Julia H. Grey, Josephine S. Griffing, A. A. Henning, Susie J. Hickey, Calista Hickey, E. M. Hickey, Mary Hooper, Ruth G. D. Havens, E. E. Hill, Lydia S. Hall, Julia Archibald Holmes, N. M. Johnson, Jennie V. Jewell, Carrie Ketchum, Joanna Kelly, Sara J. Lippincott (Grace Greenwood), Belva A. Lockwood, Susie S. McClure, A. Jennie Mites, Augusta E. Morris, M. T. Middleton, Savangie E. Mark, A. E. Newton, M. C. Page, Eliza Ann Peck, Mary A. Riddle, A. R. Riddle, Caroline Risley, Sarah Andrews Spencer, E. V. E. N, Southworth, Caroline A. Sherman, Mary S. Scribner, Belle Smith, Maria T. Stoddard, Ada E. Spurgeon, Rubina Taylor, Harriet P. Trickham, Eliza M. Tibbetts, Dr. Caroline B. Winslow, Sarah E. Webster (mother of Dr. Susan A. Edson), Julia A. Wilbur, Mrs, Westfall, Mary Willard, Amanda Wall, Lucy A. Wheeler.
* ↑ For full account see Vol. II., page 587.
* ↑ David Eastburn and Henry Swaine of New Castle county.
* ↑ The officers were: Sally Clay Bennett, Maggie S. Burnham, Mrs. Somers, Mary B. Clay.
* ↑ The incorporators who formed the Board of Regents were, the Right Rev. Thomas U. Dudley, D. D., Bishop of Kentucky; Rev. James P. Boyce, D. D., President of the Baptist Theological Seminary; Rev. E. F. Perkins, Rector of St. Paul's Church; Hon. I. H. Edwards, Chancellor of Louisville Chancery Court; Theodore Harris, President Louisville Banking and Insurance Co.; W. N. Haldeman, President Courier Journal Co.; Nicholas Finzer, President of Finzer tobacco works: Samuel L. Avery, President B. F. Avery Co.; G. H. Cochran, President Louisville School Board; Robert Cochran, Commissioner of Chancery Court; Hon. Charles Godshaw, Trustee of Jury Fund; Dr. E. A. Grant and Mr. James K. Lemon. The board was organized by the election of Mr. Theodore Harris, President, Dr. E. A. Grant, Secretary, and James K. Lemon, Treasurer. The school opened with fifteen students, and continued until June, 1883. A lecture and practical course combined, occupy ten months of the year—lectures being given five afternoons of each week during the term.
* ↑ President,Mrs. Anne W. Bodeker, Richmond; Vice-Presidents, Mrs. Maria G. and Judge JohnC, Underwood, Mr. and Mrs. Judge Westal Willoughby, Mr. and Mrs. Judge Lysander Hill, all of Alexandria; Mr. R. M. Manly, Richmond; Mrs. Martha Haines Bennett, Norfolk; Mr. Andrew Washburne and Mr. William E. Coleman, Richmond; Secretary, Miss Sue L. F. Smith, Richmond; Executive Committee, Rev. W. F. Hemenway, Mrs. Andrew Washburne, Mrs. Dr. E. H. Smith, Dr. and Mrs. Langstedt, Richmond, and Mrs, Allen (Florence Percy) of Manchester.
* ↑ President, Gov. R. K. Scott; Vice-Presidents, Hon. B. F. Whittemore, Hon. G. F. McIntyre, Gen. W. J. Whipper, Mrs. R. C. DeLarge, Hon. D. H. Chamberlain, Mrs. A. J. Ransier, and Mrs. R. K. Scott; Secretary, Miss K. Rollin; Treasurer, Mrs. K. Harris.