The age-herald., 1898-03-12
SOME NOTABLE
 AMERICAN WOMEN

American women in the past century.
 Woman first appeared upon the public platform during the early years of tht anti-ssavery agitation. In 1921 Sarah Grimlke, of South Carolina, who, with her sister, Angelina, had freed her slaves, be- came a prominent anti-slavery and wo- mans rights advocate. Abbe Kelly Of Massachusetts was notorious as woman who surpassed the bounds of womanly decorum in speaking publicly for the free dom of the negro. To these women 1t was a departure from their habits, as it was an innovation upon social custom.
 But Lucretia Mott, who became CO., worker with Garrison and Phillips, had been reared in the Society of Friends, in which man and woman were on terms of practical equality, and in 1918 she became a minister in that society and was accus- toned to public speaking. She was inter ested in the movement against slavery from childhood.
 In 1883 she aided to form the American Anti-Slavery Society in Philadedlphia Later she was active in forming female anti-slavery societies In 1S40 she went to London, England, as delegate from the American Ant-Slavery Society to the worlds anti-slavery convention. It was de- cided not to admit women delegates, but she was cordially received and made many telling addresses. For several years she was president of the Pennsylvania Peace society. It was st the London convention that Elizabeth cady Stanton first met Mrs. Mott, and they then pledged them selves to each other to work for the eman- epation of women from the position of sub- ordination and subjection, which even In this land, born of the impulse of liberty, of human aunalifU and al ad her portion
 Like all the anti-slavery workers, she was impelled and sustained by the earnest ness of her conviction, and from the first until slavery was abolished she consistently labored to save her country from perpetuat- ing monstrous evil. She was persuasive and forcible in the strength of a gracious womanliness as a speaker. Her broad hu- manHarianism was vigorously expressed at the opening of her address at a convention in New York, when she gave her Quaker bonnet which she had always worn, fling behind her as she said: T feel ashamed of myself to wear anything which is a badge of distinction" In her home she was the devoted mother, capable house. wife and gracious hostess. It was mother love expanded and extended to humanity that impelled her to work diligently for more than forty years for the freedom of the black man and the legal and social ele. vation of the woman. She was one of the four women who in 184S called the conven- tion in Seneca Falls N. Y.
 Elizabeth Cady Stanton was the chief agent in calling that convention. She re- ceived and cared for the visitors, wrote the resolutions and declaration of aims and had the satisfaction of knowing the convention the starting point of the woman's rights movement. She had nursed her indignation for years at the inequity of the laws of her state, which she came to. know through hearing the recital of their grievances by women and widows in her fathers office. At the age of years she sought out the obnoxious laws in the books and was proceeding to cut them out as a means of destroying them when her father explained to her in what manner only they could be done away. It was the injustice to woman wife and mother and as rghtfully joint owner of property accumulated by the help of her labors and economies as housewife that was the in itiative impulse of the first woman's rights convention. But Mrs. Stanton persisted in presenting her resolution "that 1t Is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise,'' although Lucretta Mott tried to persuade her to withhold it. While Mrs. Stanton initiated the move- ment which has stretched over the conti- nent and holds scores of able women to- day in its list of advocates and leaders, Lucy stone na0 been leCturlng on WO- mans rights in 1S47, and the indefatigable Susan B. Anthony and the clear-brained. scholarly Matilda Joslyn Gage identified themselves with the movement in 1852, and each has made an honorable record
 When the war of the rebellion opened Clara Barton identified herself with the army work, sharing the risks and suffer- ings of the soldiers of the union army to the close of the struggle. Visits to the battle fields revealed to her the need of provision for nursing and feding the wounded soldiers. She gathered stores of food and supplies, and finally secured per- mission to go wherever there was a call for her services, also transportation fa- clites. She was called "the angel of the battlefield" During the last year of the war she was called to Massachusetts, and while there she was appointed by President Lincoln to attend to the corre- spondence of the relatives of missing pris- oners after the exchanges. She estab- lished bureau of rcords of missing men of the union army. Her records, compiled from prison and hospital rolls and burial lists, are now of great value.
 At Andersonville she was able to iden- tify all but 400 of the 13,000 graves of buried soldiers. She managed the bureau for four years. On a visit to Europe In 1869 she was visited at Geneva by the leading mem- bers of the international committee of relief of Geneva for the care of the wounded in war, who presented to her the treaty. signed by all the civilized nations except the United States, under which all who wore the badge of thsir society were al- lowed to go on the battlefelds to care for the wounded. The society was the Society of the Red Cross. Miss Barton was at once interested in 1t.
 Three days after the war broke out be- tween France and Prussia one of the found- CTS of the Red Cross society asked Miss Barton to go the front and assist in caring for the wounded. Though an invalid, she went and learned by experience the enor- nous value and importance of the Red Cross work. She was sought In council about relief measures and rendered services for which she received high honors Though broken in health on her return. she began to urge the Washington government to ac- cept the Geneva treaty for the Red Cross society
 Miss Barton was appointed to the presi- depcy of the American Association or the Red Cross'' by President Garfield, and her