Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1895-04-17
PROGRESS OF WOMANS RIGHTS
Victories Gained by the Fair Sex in Social
Political and Industrial Contests.

/ National Council Of Women held in
| Washington recalls some of the diff
culties which women have encounter
/ ed in getting to the front and some
of the steps taken in their onward
march. St. Pauls instruction, Let
your women keep silence in the
churches" has been taken in a literal
sense. and certain religious sects have
followed it to the letter till within
a few years. The Christian Endeay-
or Society has, however, knocked this
instruction sky high, and women OF
those sects nowadays cannot only
speak in meetin'," if they wish to,
but are almost compelled to do so.
The women who have done battle
for the cause of women during this
century are to be honored above all
other women of our country. They
have fought in the temperance, the
anti-slavery and the woman's suffrage
causes.
The clergy, taken as a body, have
never upheld these progressive wo-
men.
About 1871 Abbey Kelley made a
tour of the country, lecturing for the
anti-slavery cause. No woman would
sit in the pulpit with her in the old
Methodist Church in Norwich, Conn.
NV father. at whose house she was
entertained, was not mobbed, though
the populace we're nearly angry enough
at him to have mobbed him, writes
Ruth Ramble One gentleman rose in
the midst of the lecture and disputed
a certain proposition. If the gentle
man will wait until the lecture is
through l will answer his question,
quietly responded Miss Kelley. The
contribution for the cause was pretty
small that evening. The audience
was also very small, and the sympa-
thy for the cause was still smaller.
In 1884 Miss Prudence Crandall, of
Canterbury. Conn.,, opened boarding
school in that village for colored
misses. The people of the town were
greatly enraged, a town meeting was
called and the result was that the Sc
lectmen commenced a prosecution,
and Miss Crandall was found guilty
of having violated the laws of the
State. This unrighteous decision
drew down upon the selectmen and
upon the jury the merited rebuke of
all good people.
The first Woman's Rights Conven-
ton held in this country, in July,
1S4S, at Seneca Falls. was called TO-
gether by Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth
Cady Stanton. Martha c. Wright and
Mary A. McClintock. They moved
for equality with men in social, civil,
political, religious, Industrial and ed
ucational rights. These ends have
been in part accomplished since then.
The women do nearly all OF the re-
ligion of the country, the men being
perfectly willing for them to wear out
their shoe leather, to say nothing OF
their patience. in soliciting subscrip-
tions of money or materials for pay
ment of church debts, for raising
funds for new churches or repairs for
old ones. In industrial ways the wO-
men are now allowed by mankind to
cOmpete in certain mechanical en-
DlOvments: in short, to do something
besides cooking and school teaching.
They are. however. not yet paid as
we'll for the same services as are the
men.
DR.. Franklin founded an abolition
/ society j
earnest efforts until the State of Penn
svlvania became a free State. The
earliest advocates of the abolition OF
slavery were earnest men and women,
prominent among whom We're Abbey
KELLEY. Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone and
Susan B. Anthony. ABBY Kelley,
Angelina Grimke, Lydia Maria Child
and Maria Chapman had the double
battle to fight of sex and color, not
only with the clergy Of New England,
hut with some of the most bigoted
abolitionists in America and Great
Britain" The leaders in the woman's
rights reform had been educated in
the anti-slavery school, and in ad-
yancing the cause Of the slave had
early found themselves compelled 10
defend the right of woman to speak IN
public assemblies.
Woman has been an important rae
tor in the temperance movement
Though seldom making use OF the IN
toXicating cup herself. she yet has had
IN sufrer untold misery from the use os
intoxicants. Her father, her husband,
her son or her brother has introduced
shame and woe into the household
she has been brought into the depIns
of poverty and infamy, which ABIDE
where the habitual drunkard dwells.
"Why. then. has she not voice IN the
government of her family, in the pol
lev of all that bears upon her life ana
happiness?
The woman's temperance crusade be-
can in Hnlsboro Ohio, in December,
1872 One hundred and fifteen women
started on Christmas morning to visit
the saloons The work thus COM
menced. spread into the adjoining
States and soon the temperance re-
form moved on north. south east and
west. The women persisted, though
they were rcviled. prosecuted and al
most mobbed The lower courts hned
them. but the higher courts reversed
the decision of the lower when an APP
peal was made. Within a few months
500 liquor dealers gave up their bus
mess and proressed faith in Christ.
Twenty-Five hundred grog shops were
closed. $50 western townships were set
free from rum-selling establishments,
and Sl5OO0000 less of revenue from
rum sellers was paid in at Washington
than i'm the same length of time the
wear before When President Grant
was told of this he said Very well,
nut the tax on something else.
In November 1875, the writer at
tended the second annual convention
| of the Womau's National ChristiaD
Temperance Union, held in Cincinnati.
During the session of this cOnven-
ton telegram was received from the
woman suffragists. in session in New
Yark city. which read thus
The American Woman Suffrage As
,,;,4;o,, b;Rs ,-otr convention god