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Title: The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2)

Author: Ida Husted Harper

Release date: March 1, 2005 [eBook #15220]
Most recently updated: December 14, 2020

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE AND
WORK OF SUSAN B. ANTHONY (VOLUME 1 OF 2) ***

Susan B. Anthony

THE LIFE AND WORK
OF

SUSAN B. ANTHONY
INCLUDING PUBLIC ADDRESSES, HER OWN LETTERS AND
MANY FROM HER CONTEMPORARIES DURING FIFTY YEARS

BY

IDA HUSTED HARPER

A Story of the evolution of the Status of Woman

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOLUME I

ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS, PICTURES OF HOMES, ETC.

INDIANAPOLIS AND KANSAS CITY
THE BOWEN-MERRILL COMPANY
1899

TO WOMAN, FOR WHOSE FREEDOM
SUSAN B. ANTHONY
HAS GIVEN FIFTY YEARS OF NOBLE ENDEAVOR
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED

PREFACE.
A biography written during the lifetime of the subject is unusual, but to the
friends of Miss Anthony it seemed especially desirable because the reform
in which she and her contemporaries have been engaged has not been given
a deserved place in the pages of history, and the accounts must be gleaned
very largely from unpublished records and personal recollections. The
wisdom of this course often has been apparent in the preparation of these
volumes. In recalling how many times an entirely different interpretation of
letters, scenes and actions would have been made from that which Miss
Anthony declared to be the true one, the author must confess that hereafter
all biographies will be read by her with a certain amount of skepticism—a
doubt whether the historian has drawn correct conclusions from apparent
premises, and a disbelief that one individual can state accurately the
motives which influenced another.

Most persons who have attained sufficient prominence to make a record of
their lives valuable are too busy to prepare an autobiography, but there is
only one other way to go down to posterity correctly represented, and that is
to have some one else write the history while the hero still lives. If we
admit this self-evident proposition, then the question is presented, should it
be published during his lifetime? A reason analogous to that which justifies
the writing, demands also the publication, in order that denials or attacks
may be met by the person who, above all others, is best qualified to defend
the original statement. It seems a pity, too, that he should be deprived of
knowing what the press and the people think of the story of his life, since
there is no assurance that he will meet the book-reviewers in the next world.

These volumes may claim the merit of truthfully describing the principal
events of Miss Anthony's life and presenting her opinions on the various
matters considered. She has objected to the eulogies, but the writer holds
that, as these are not the expressions of a partial biographer but the
spontaneous tributes of individuals and newspapers, no rule of good taste is
violated in giving them a place. It is only justice that, since the abuse and
ridicule of early years are fully depicted, esteem and praise should have
equal prominence; and surely every one will read with pleasure the proof
that the world's scorn and repudiation have been changed to respect and
approval. Many letters of women have been used to disprove the assertion
so often made, that women themselves do not properly estimate the labors
of Miss Anthony in their behalf. It can not be expected that the masses
should understand or appreciate her work, but the written evidence herein
submitted will demonstrate that the women of each decade most prominent
in intellectual ability, in philanthropy, in reform, those who represent the
intelligence and progress of the age, have granted to it the most cordial and
thorough recognition.

There has not been the slightest attempt at rhetorical display, but only an
endeavor to tell in plain, simple language the story of the life and work of
one who was born into the simplicity and straightforwardness of the Society
of Friends and never departed from them. The constant aim has been to
condense, but it has not been an easy task to crowd into limited space the
history of nearly eighty busy, eventful years, comprising a revolution in
social and legal customs. If the reader discover some things omitted which
to him seem vital, or others mentioned which appear unimportant, it is
hoped he will attribute them to an error of judgment rather than to an
intention to minimize or magnify unduly any person or action.

The fact should be kept in mind that this is not a history of woman suffrage,
except in so far as Miss Anthony herself has been directly connected with it.

A number of women have made valuable contributions to this movement
whose lives have not come in contact with hers, therefore they have not
been mentioned in these pages, which have been devoted almost
exclusively to her personal labors and associations. Many of those even
who have been her warm and faithful friends have had to be omitted for
want of space. No one can know the regret this has caused, or the
conscientious effort which has been made to render exact justice to Miss
Anthony's co-workers. It was so difficult for her to select the few pictures
for which room could be spared that she was strongly tempted to exclude
all. Personal controversies have been omitted, in the belief that nothing
could be gained which would justify handing them down to future
generations. Where differences have existed in regard to matters of a public
nature, only so much of them has been given as might serve for an object
lesson on future occasions.

In preparing these volumes over 20,000 letters have been read and,
whenever possible, some of them used to tell the story, especially those
written by Miss Anthony herself, as her own language seemed preferable to
that of any other, but only a comparatively small number of the latter could
be obtained. She kept copies of a few important official letters, and friends
in various parts of the country kindly sent those in their possession. Every
letter quoted in these volumes was copied from the original, hence there can
be no question of authenticity. The autographs reproduced in fac-simile
were clipped from letters written to Miss Anthony. Her diaries of over fifty
years have furnished an invaluable record. The strict financial accounts of
all moneys received and spent, frequently have supplied a date or incident
when every other source had failed. A mine of information was found in her
full set of scrap-books, beginning with 1850; the History of Woman
Suffrage; almost complete files of Garrison's Liberator, the Anti-Slavery
Standard, and woman's rights papers—Lily, Una, Revolution, Ballot-Box,
Woman's Journal, Woman's Tribune. The reader easily can perceive the

difficulty of condensation, with Miss Anthony's own history so closely
interwoven with the periods and the objects represented by all these
authorities.

The intent of this work has been to trace briefly the evolution of a life and a
condition. The transition of the young Quaker girl, afraid of the sound of
her own voice, into the reformer, orator and statesman, is no more
wonderful than the change in the status of woman, effected so largely
through her exertions. At the beginning she was a chattel in the eye of the
law; shut out from all advantages of higher education and opportunities in
the industrial world; an utter dependent on man; occupying a subordinate
position in the church; restrained to the narrowest limits along social lines;
an absolute nonentity in politics. Today American women are envied by
those of all other nations, and stand comparatively free individuals, with the
exception of political disabilities.

During the fifty years which have wrought this revolution, just one woman
in all the world has given every day of her time, every dollar of her money,
every power of her being, to secure this result. She was impelled to this
work by no personal grievance, but solely through a deep sense of the
injustice which, on every side, she saw perpetrated against her sex, and
which she determined to combat. Never for one short hour has the cause of
woman been forgotten or put aside for any other object. Never a single tie
has been formed, either of affection or business, which would interfere with
this supreme purpose. Never a speech has been given, a trip taken, a visit
made, a letter written, in all this half-century, that has not been done
directly in the interest of this one object. There has been no thought of
personal comfort, advancement or glory; the self-abnegation, the self-
sacrifice, have been absolute—they have been unparalleled.

There has been no desire to emphasize the hardships and unpleasant
features, but only to picture in the fewest possible words the many
consecutive years of unremitting toil, begun amidst conditions which now
seem almost incredible, and continued with sublime courage in the face of
calumny and persecution such as can not be imagined by the women of
today. Nothing has been concealed or mitigated. In those years of constant
aggression, when every step was an experiment, there must have been
mistakes, but the story would be incomplete if they were left untold. No
effort has been made to portray a perfect character, but only that of a
woman who dared take the blows and bear the scorn that other women
might be free. Future generations will read these pages through tears, and
will wonder what manner of people those were who not only permitted this
woman to labor for humanity fifty years, almost unaided, but also
compelled her to beg or earn the money with which to carry on her work. If
certain opinions shall be found herein which the world is not ready to
accept, let it be remembered that, as Miss Anthony was in advance of public
sentiment in the past, she may be equally so in the present, and that the
radicalism which we reject today may be the conservatism at which we will
wonder tomorrow.

Those who follow the story of this life will confirm the assertion that every
girl who now enjoys a college education; every woman who has the chance
of earning an honest living in whatever sphere she chooses; every wife who
is protected by law in the possession of her person and her property; every
mother who is blessed with the custody and control of her own children—
owes these sacred privileges to Susan B. Anthony beyond all others. This
biography goes to the public with the earnest hope that it may carry to every
man a conviction of his imperative duty to secure for women the same
freedom which he himself enjoys; and that it may impress upon every
woman a solemn obligation to complete the great work of this noble
pioneer.

Ida Husted Harper

TABLE OF CONTENTS.
VOL. I.

CHAPTER I.

ANCESTRY, HOME AND CHILDHOOD. (1550-1826.), 1-15

Berkshire Hills; noted persons born there; Anthony and Read genealogy;
military record; religious beliefs; education; marriage of father and mother
of Susan B. Anthony; her birth and childhood; characteristics of mother;
first factory built.

CHAPTER II

GIRLHOOD AND SCHOOL LIFE. (1826-1838.), 17-31

Removal to Battenville, N.Y.; manufacturing business; temperance and
labor questions; new house; Susan's factory experience; Quaker discipline;
the home school; first teaching; boarding-school life; Susan's letters and
journals.

CHAPTER III.

FINANCIAL CRASH—THE TEACHER. (1838-1845.), 33-46

The panic; father's letters; teaching at Union Village; the home sacrificed;
life at Center Falls; more Quaker discipline; teaching at New Rochelle;
Miss Anthony's letters on slavery, temperance, medical practice, Van Buren,
etc.; teaching at Center Falls, Cambridge and Fort Edward; proposals of
marriage; removal to Rochester, N. Y.

CHAPTER IV.

THE FARM HOME—END OP TEACHING. (1845-1850.), 47-55

Journey to Rochester; the farm home and life; teaching in Canajoharie; a
devotee of fashion; death of Cousin Margaret; weary of the school-room;
early temperance work; first public address; return home; end of teaching.

CHAPTER V.

ENTRANCE INTO PUBLIC LIFE. (1850-1852.), 57-80

Conditions leading to a public career; her home the center of reformers;
temperance festival; first meeting with the Fosters, Mrs. Stanton, Mrs.
Bloomer, Lucy Stone, Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Horace Greeley; women
silenced in men's temperance meeting at Albany, hold one of their own;
advice from Greeley and Mrs. Stanton; first Woman's State Temperance
Convention; men's State Temperance Convention in Syracuse rejects
women delegates; Rev. Samuel J. May and Rev. Luther Lee stand by the
women; Miss Anthony as temperance agent; her appeal to women; attends
her first Woman's Rights Convention at Syracuse; criticises decollete dress;
letters and speeches of Stanton, Mayo, Stone, Brown, Nichols, Rose, Gage,
Gerrit Smith, etc.; Bible controversy; vicious comment of Syracuse Star,
N.Y. Herald, Rev. Byron Sunderland, etc.; platform of Human Rights.

CHAPTER VI.

TEMPERANCE AND TEACHERS' CONVENTIONS. (1852-1853.), 81-
105

Women's first appearance before Albany Legislature; Miss Anthony, Rev.
Antoinette Brown and Mrs. Bloomer speak in New York and Brooklyn by
invitation of S.P. Townsend and make tour of State; attack of Utica

Telegraph; phrenological chart; visit at Greeley's; women insulted and
rejected at temperance meeting in Brick Church, New York; abusive
speeches of Wood, Chambers, Barstow and others; Greeley's defense; attack
of N.Y. Commercial-Advertiser, Sun, Organ and Courier; first annual
meeting Women's State Temperance Society; letters from Gerrit Smith and
Neal Dow; right of Divorce; men control meeting; Mrs. Stanton and Miss
Anthony withdraw from Society; Samuel F. Gary declines to attend
Temperance Convention; characteristic advice from Greeley; Miss Anthony
attends State Teachers' Convention and raises a commotion; Professor
Davies' speech; disgraceful scene at World's Temperance Convention in
New York; Woman's Rights Convention mobbed; Cleveland Convention;
Miss Anthony and Rev. W.H. Channing call Woman's Rights Convention in
Rochester.

CHAPTER VII.

PETITIONS—BLOOMERS—LECTURES. (1854.), 107-122

Development of character; securing petitions for better laws; Woman's
Rights Convention at Albany; ridiculous report of Representative Burnett;
Miss Anthony's speech; canvassing the State and raising the funds; history
of the Bloomer Costume, with interesting letters; lecture trip to Washington;
opinions on slavery; hard experiences; conventions at Saratoga and
Philadelphia; preparing to canvass New York State.

CHAPTER VIII.

FIRST COUNTY CANVASS—THE WATER CURE. (1855.), 123-136

Winter canvass of New York; extract from Rondout Courier; letter from
Greeley on Woman Suffrage; another proposal; applying the "water cure;"
hot meal for husbands, cold bite for wives; marriages of Lucy Stone and

Antoinette Brown; speaking at birthplace; Saratoga Convention; goes to
Worcester Hydropathic Institute; her letters from Boston and Worcester;
first Republican meeting; treatment at "water cure;" letter from Dr. Rogers
on marriage; takes out life insurance.

CHAPTER IX.

ADVANCE ALONG ALL LINES. (1856.), 137-148

Invited to act as agent for American Anti-Slavery Society; second canvass
of New York; her letters describing hardships of journey, position of wives,
etc.; Senator Foote's insolent report on petitions; advice to a wife; preparing
speech on Co-Education; its reception in Troy; letter from Mary L. Booth
on injustice to women teachers; meeting at Saratoga; the raid at
Osawatomie; letter to brother Merritt regarding it; pathetic letter from Mary
L. Booth; Greeley provoked; Gerrit Smith on woman's dress; New York
Convention; words of confidence from Anti-Slavery Committee.

CHAPTER X.

CAMPAIGNING WITH THE GARRISONIANS. (1857-1858.), 149-166

Political conditions; Miss Anthony's band of speakers; Abolition meetings;
Remond's speech; letter from Garrison; notes of her speeches; Maria
Weston Chapman; lecture trip to Maine; stormy State Teachers' Convention
at Binghamton; Mrs. Stanton's comment; letter of Miss Anthony on family
affection: the "raspberry experiment;" the "good old times;" "health food
cranks;" New York Convention in hands of mob; stirring up teachers at
Lockport; mass meeting at Rochester in opposition to capital punishment;
gift of Francis Jackson.

CHAPTER XI.

CONDITIONS PRIOR TO THE WAR. (1859.), 167-184

Scheme for Free Church; letter from Geo. Wm. Curtis on Woman's Rights;
Miss Anthony's letters on pecuniary independence, denial of human rights,
woman's individuality; criticism of Curtis; six weeks' legislative work in
Albany; convention in New York under difficulties; extract from Tribune;
Memorial to Legislatures; lecturing at New York watering places; journey
on boat to Poughkeepsie; anecdote of waiter at hotel; incident of Quaker
meeting in Easton; married women too busy to help in fall canvass; letter of
Rev. Thomas K. Beecher; incident at Gerrit Smith's—the Solitude of Self;
John Brown meeting; letters regarding it from Pillsbury and Mrs. Stanton;
Hovey Legacy; correspondence with Judge Ormond, of Alabama; "We are
your enemies!"

CHAPTER XII.

RIFT IN COMMON LAW—DIVORCE QUESTION. (1860.), 185-205

Early Woman's Rights meetings not Suffrage conventions; Legal Status of
Woman outlined by David Dudley Field; Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton as
co-workers and writers; Tilton's description of the two; before the N.Y.
Legislature; Married Woman's Property Law; woman's debt to Susan B.
Anthony; Emerson on Lyceum Bureau; letters from Mary S. Anthony on
injustice to school-teachers; Beecher's lecture on Woman's Rights;
convention at Cooper Institute; Mrs. Stanton on Divorce; Phillips'
objections; Mrs. Dall's proper convention in Boston; battle renewed at
Progressive Friends' meeting; Miss Anthony's home duties; letter from her
birthplace; Anti-Slavery depository at Albany; Agricultural address at
Dundee; Miss Anthony's defiance of the law giving child to father.

CHAPTER XIII.

MOB EXPERIENCE—CIVIL WAR. (1861-1862.), 207-224

Difference between Republicans and Abolitionists; Miss Anthony arranges
series of Garrisonian meetings; mobbed in every city from Buffalo to
Albany; Mayor Thacher preserves the peace at State capital; last Woman's
Rights Convention before the War; Miss Anthony's views on motherhood;
Phillips declares for War; letters on this subject from Beriah Green and
Miss Anthony; opinion on "Adam Bede;" letter on Rosa Bonheur and
Harriet Hosmer; N.Y. Legislature repeals laws recently enacted for women;
letters from Anna Dickinson and Greeley on the War; Miss Anthony's
opinion of private schools; attends her last Teacher's Convention; in the
Anti-Slavery lecture field; death of father.

CHAPTER XIV.

WOMEN'S NATIONAL LOYAL LEAGUE. (1863-1864.), 225-240

Disbelief that the War would lead to Woman Suffrage; letters from Tilton on
Proclamation and Henry B. Stanton on condition of country; Miss Anthony
and Mrs. Stanton issue appeal to women to form National Loyal League;
organization in Church of the Puritans; Miss Anthony's speech; they prepare
eloquent Address to President Lincoln; headquarters opened in Cooper
Institute; petitions and letters sent out by Miss Anthony; description of draft
riots; letters regarding her father and the sale of the home; lively note from
Tilton; raising money for League; almost 400,000 names secured; Sumner
presents petitions in Senate; letter from Sumner; merry letter from Phillips;
first anniversary of the League; Amendment XIII submitted by Congress;
closing of League headquarters; failure of the government to recognize its
distinguished women.

CHAPTER XV.

MALE IN THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. (1865.), 241-253

Death of niece Ann Eliza McLean; letters on the loss of loved ones; trip to
Kansas; work among refugees and in brother's newspaper office; appeals to
return to the East; letters on division in Anti-Slavery Society; Ottumwa
speech on Reconstruction; an unpleasant night; address to colored people at
Leavenworth; Republicans object to a mention of Woman Suffrage; Miss
Anthony learns of motion for Amendment to Federal Constitution to
disfranchise on account of Sex, and immediately starts eastward; confers
with Mrs. Stanton and they issue appeal to women of country to protest
against proposed Fourteenth Amendment; Miss Anthony holds meetings at
Concord, Westchester and many other places; N.Y. Independent supports
women's demands.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE NEGRO'S HOUR. (1866.), 255-270

Reconstruction period; Anti-Slavery Society declines coalition with
Woman's Rights Society; Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton issue strong call
for the reassembling in New York of Woman's Rights forces; Robert Purvis
and Anna Dickinson approve; convention meets in Dr. Cheever's church;
Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton present ringing Address to Congress; Miss
Anthony's speech for union of the two organizations; Equal Rights
Association formed; controversy of Phillips, Tilton, Anthony, Stanton in
Standard office; Standard's offer of space rejected; Miss Anthony's speech
at Equal Rights meeting in Albany; abusive article from N.Y. World; mass
meetings held and petitions circulated to have women included in
Fourteenth Amendment; Republicans refuse to recognize their claims;
Democrats favor them to defeat the negroes; Miss Anthony complains of
Standard's treatment; words from friends and foes.

CHAPTER XVII.

CAMPAIGNS IN NEW YORK AND KANSAS. (1867.), 271-294

Canvass of New York to secure Woman Suffrage Amendment to new State
Constitution; scurrilous comment of Buffalo Commercial; praise of Troy
Times; Miss Anthony rebukes selfish woman; always assumes the
drudgery; Beecher can not work in organizations; Lucy Stone's letters from
Kansas on action of Republicans; Beecher's speech in New York on Woman
Suffrage; Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton prepare Memorial to Congress;
Miss Anthony and Greeley break lances at Albany; Curtis stands by the
women; Mrs. Greeley's petition used to checkmate her husband; Anna
Dickinson's indignation; Kansas Republican Committee fights Woman
Suffrage; Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton go to Kansas; hardships of the
campaign; Mrs. Starrett's description of Miss Anthony; negroes oppose
woman suffrage; George Francis Train comes to the rescue; Suffrage
Amendment defeated; Leavenworth Commercial pays tribute; Miss
Anthony, Mrs. Stanton and Mr. Train make lecture tour from Omaha to
Boston; persecution by former friends.

CHAPTER XVIII.

ESTABLISHING THE REVOLUTION. (1868.), 295-311

Mr. Train and David M. Melliss furnish funds for starting Woman Suffrage
newspaper, The Revolution; comments of press; Mr. Train in Dublin jail;
Mrs. Stanton defends The Revolution; how women were sacrificed; bright
description of paper and editors; Equal Rights Association divided between
claims of woman and negro; Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton delegates to
Democratic National Convention at Tammany Hall; their reception; Miss
Anthony represents Workingwomen's Association at National Labor
Congress in New York; her suffrage resolution rejected; her advice to

women typesetters; sad case of Hester Vaughan; S. C. Pomeroy and George
W. Julian present Woman Suffrage Amendments in Senate and House of
Representatives.

CHAPTER XIX.

AMENDMENT XV—FOUNDING OF NATIONAL SOCIETY. (1869.),
313-336

First National Convention in Washington; colored men object to Woman
Suffrage; first hearing before Congressional Committee; descriptive letter
from Grace Greenwood; Miss Anthony arraigns Republicans at Chicago;
Mrs. Livermore's tribute to Miss Anthony; speech at N.Y. Press Club on
woman's "proposing;" Fifteenth Amendment submitted; criticism by The
Revolution; Train withdraws from paper; Woman's Bureau; letters from
Mrs. Livermore, Anna Dickinson, Gail Hamilton; stormy session of Equal
Rights Association; Miss Anthony's speech against Amendment XV;
William Winter defends her; discussion of "free love" resolution; Equal
Rights platform too broad; founding of National Woman Suffrage
Association; forming of American Woman Suffrage Association; Miss
Anthony secures testimonial for Mrs. Rose; conventions at Saratoga and
Newport; Miss Anthony protests against paying taxes; Mr. and Mrs. Minor
claim woman's right to vote under Fourteenth Amendment; Miss Anthony
speaks at Dayton, O., on laws for married women; Mrs. Hooker's
description of her; Miss Anthony's speech at Hartford Convention; anecdote
of Beecher; Mrs. Hooker's account; letters from Dr. Kate Jackson and Sarah
Pugh; division in suffrage ranks.

CHAPTER XX.

FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY—END OF EQUAL RIGHTS SOCIETY. (1870.),
337-350

Washington Convention; Miss Anthony's speech on striking "male" from
District of Columbia Bill; descriptions by Mrs. Fannie Howland, Hearth
and Home, Mrs. Hooker, Mary Clemmer; Fiftieth Birthday celebration and
comments of N.Y. Press; Phoebe Gary's poem; Miss Anthony's letter to
mother; begins with Lyceum Bureau; Robert G. Ingersoll comes to her
assistance; attack by Detroit Free Press; tribute of Chicago Legal News;
efforts to unite the two National Suffrage organizations; Union Suffrage
Society formed; end of Equal Rights Association.

CHAPTER XXI.

END OF REVOLUTION—STATUS OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE. (1870.),
351-370

McFarland-Richardson trial; letter from Catharine Beecher on Divorce;
financial struggle; touching letters; Mrs. Hooker offers to help; Alice and
Phoebe Gary; prospectus of The Revolution; giving up of the paper; Miss
Anthony's letter regarding it; in the lecture field; the little Professor; Miss
Anthony's strong summing-up of the Status of Woman Suffrage; rejected by
National Labor Congress in Philadelphia; attack of Utica Herald; Second
Decade Meeting in New York; Mrs. Davis' History of the Movement for
Twenty Years; death of nephew Thomas King McLean; meeting with
Phillips.

CHAPTER XXII.

MRS. HOOKER'S CONVENTION—THE LECTURE FIELD. (1871.),
371-385

Mrs. Hooker undertakes Washington Convention; amusing letters from
Anthony, Stanton, Hooker, Wright; first appearance of Mrs. Woodhull;
accounts by Philadelphia Press, Washington Daily Patriot and National

Republican; resolution by Miss Anthony claiming right to vote under
Fourteenth Amendment; Declaration signed by 80,000 women; Catharine
Beecher and Mrs. Woodhull; Mrs. Stanton rebukes men who object to Mrs.
Woodhull; hard life of a lecturer; Mrs. Griffing, Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Hooker
on political party attitude; Phoebe Couzins pleads for the National
Association; Mrs. Woodhull at New York May Anniversary; charge of "free
love" refuted; forcible letter from Miss Anthony declaring for one Moral
Standard.

CHAPTER XXIII.

FIRST TRIP TO THE PACIFIC COAST. (1871.), 387-408

Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton cross the continent; newspaper comment;
Miss Anthony's letters from Salt Lake City; hostile treatment by San
Francisco press; description of trip to Yosemite; journey by boat to Oregon;
her letters on lecture experiences in Oregon and Washington; ridicule of
Portland Bulletin; misrepresentation of Territorial Despatch; "cards" in
papers of British Columbia; account of stage ride back to San Francisco;
banquet at Grand Hotel; journey eastward with Sargent family; snowbound
among the Rockies.

CHAPTER XXIV.

REPUBLICAN SPLINTER—MISS ANTHONY VOTES. (1872.), 409-429

National Convention declares women enfranchised under Fourteenth and
Fifteenth Amendments; Miss Anthony sustains this position before Senate
Judiciary Committee; friends in Rochester present testimonial; she reads in
Woodhull and Claflin's Weekly call to form New Party under auspices of
National Suffrage Association; her indignant remonstrance; hastens to New
York and prevents coalition; Liberal Republican Convention at Cincinnati

refuses to adopt Suffrage resolution; Miss Anthony's comment; Republican
Convention at Philadelphia makes first mention of Woman; Mr. Blackwell's
and Miss Anthony's letters regarding this; Democratic Convention at
Baltimore ignores Woman; Hon. John Cochran tells how not to do it; Miss
Anthony and Mrs. Gage urge women to support Republican ticket; Miss
Anthony states her Political Position; her delight and Mrs. Stanton's doubts;
letter from Henry Wilson; Republican Committee summons her to
Washington; she arranges series of Republican rallies; sustains party only
on Suffrage plank; Miss Anthony Votes; newspaper comment; she is
arrested; examination before U.S. Commissioner; Judge Henry R. Selden
and Hon. John Van Voorhis undertake her case; Rochester Express defends
her; letter on case from Benjamin F. Butler.

CHAPTER XXV.

TRIAL FOR VOTING UNDER FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT. (1873.),
431-448

Miss Anthony's speech at Washington Convention; she appears before U.S.
District-Judge at Albany and bail is increased to $1,000; addresses State
Constitutional Commission; indicted by grand jury; becomes unconscious
on lecture platform at Ft. Wayne; votes again; call for Twenty-fifth Suffrage
Anniversary; Miss Anthony delivers her great Constitutional Argument in
twenty-nine post office districts in Monroe Co.; District-Attorney moves
her trial to another county; she speaks at twenty-one places and Mrs. Gage
at sixteen in that county; Rochester Union and Advertiser condemns her;
trial opens at Canandaigua; masterly argument of Judge Selden; Justice
Ward Hunt delivers Written Opinion without leaving bench; declines to
submit case to Jury or to allow it to be polled; refuses new trial; spirited
encounter between Miss Anthony and Judge; newspaper comment; trial of
Inspectors; Judge refuses to allow Counsel to address Jury; opinion of Mr.

Van Voorhis; contributions sent to Miss Anthony by friends; death of sister
Guelma McLean; Miss Anthony's letter of grief to mother; generous gift of
Anson Lapham.

CHAPTER XXVI.

NO CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO JURY OR FRANCHISE. (1874.),
449-465

Appeal to Congress to remit fine and declare Right to Trial by Jury; report
from House Committee for and against, by Butler and Tremaine; from
Senate Committee for and against, by Carpenter and Edmunds; pardon of
Inspectors by President Grant; Supreme Court decision in suit of Virginia L.
Minor against Inspectors for refusing her vote; Representative Butler and
Senator Lapham on Woman Suffrage; President Grant's opinion; letter of
Judge A.G. Riddle on chief obstacles; death of Sumner; Miss Anthony's
speech and letter on Women's Temperance Crusade; lying telegram and
N.Y. Herald's truthful report of convention; letter by Miss Anthony,
"honesty best policy;" suffrage campaign in Michigan; Beecher-Tilton case.

CHAPTER XXVII.

REVOLUTION DEBT PAID—WOMEN'S FOURTH OF JULY. (1875-
1876.), 467-482

Miss Anthony's annual struggle to hold Washington Convention; speech in
Chicago on Social Purity; comment of St. Louis Democrat and other
papers; hard lecture tour in Iowa; shooting of brother Daniel R.; Revolution
debt paid; commendation of press; Centennial Resolutions at Washington
Convention; establishing Centennial headquarters at Philadelphia;
Republicans again recognize Woman in National platform; Miss Anthony
and others present Woman's Declaration of Independence at Centennial

celebration; eloquent description; History of Woman Suffrage begun; writes
articles for Johnson's Encyclopedia.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

COLORADO CAMPAIGN—POLITICAL ATTITUDE. (1877-1878.), 483-
498

Advocates of Woman Suffrage compelled to return to former policy of
demanding Sixteenth Amendment to Federal Constitution; letters from
Garrison and Phillips on this subject; descriptions by Mary Clemmer and
Washington papers of presenting Suffrage petitions in Congress; Lyceum
Bureau circular with comment of Forney; death of sister Hannah Mosher;
friendship of Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton; tribute of Annie McDowell;
campaigning in Colorado; speaking in saloons; writing "Homes of Single
Women" in Denver; prayer-meeting in Capitol at Washington; Miss
Anthony urged not to miss another National Convention; Thirtieth Suffrage
Anniversary at Rochester; letter from J.H. Hayford relative to Woman
Suffrage in Wyoming; Miss Anthony defines her attitude in regard to
Political Parties.

CHAPTER XXIX.

CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE REPORTS—COMMENT. (1879-
1880.), 499-513

Vigorous resolutions at National Convention; Senator Morton's position on
Woman Suffrage; Senator Wadleigh scored by Mary Clemmer; first
favorable Senate Committee report; advance in public sentiment; extracts
from Indiana papers; bitter attacks of Richmond (Ky.) Herald and Grand
Rapids (Mich.) Times; interview in Chicago Tribune on Woman's need of
ballot for Temperance legislation; convention in St. Louis and Miss

Anthony's response to floral offering; death of Wm. Lloyd Garrison; desire
for a woman's paper; new workers; Washington Convention; hospitality of
Riggs House; death of mother.

LIST OF AUTOGRAPHS.
ANTHONY, SUSAN B.VOL. I.
ANTHONY, HUMPHREY130
ANTHONY, DANIEL24
ANTHONY, LUCY READ25
ANTHONY, COLONEL D.R.786
ANTHONY, MARY S.760
ANTHONY, SENATOR HENRY B.614
A. BRONSON ALCOTT510
AVERY, RACHEL FOSTER814
BARTON, CLARA689
BEECHER, HENRY WARD277
BIGGS, CAROLINE ASHURST554
BLACKWELL, ALICE STONE630
BLACKWELL, REV. ANTOINETTE BROWN180
BLACKWELL, DR. ELIZABETH239
BLAIR, SENATOR HENRY W.606
BLAKE, LILLIE DEVEREUX761
BLOOMER, AMELIA114
BOOTH, MARY L.615
BRIGHT, URSULA M.563
BROWN, SENATOR B. GRATZ266
BROWNE, THOMAS M., M.C.591
BUTLER, GENERAL BENJAMIN F.429
BUTLER, JOSEPHINE E.576

CAREY, SENATOR JOSEPH M.769
CARY, ALICE358
CARY, PHOEBE359
CATT, CARRIE CHAPMAN780
CHANNING, REV. WILLIAM HENRY105
CHAPIN, REV. E.H.172
CHAPMAN, MARIA WESTON 154
CHEEVER, REV. GEORGE B.182
CHILD, LYDIA MARIA276
CLAY, LAURA807
CLEMMER, MARY340
COBBE, FRANCES POWER577
COBDEN, JANE565
COLBY, CLARA BEWICK671
COOPER, SARAH B.828
CURTIS, GEORGE WILLIAM168
DAVIS, PAULINA WRIGHT 481
DICKINSON, ANNA E.221
DIGGS, ANNIE L.795
DOLPH, SENATOR J.N.619
DOUGLASS, FREDERICK215
DOW, NEAL94
EMERSON, RALPH WALDO 251
FAWCETT, MILLICENT GARRETT578
FIELD, KATE756
FORNEY, COLONEL JOHN W.487
FOSTER, ABBY KELLY63
FOSTER, STEPHEN S.138

FOULKE, HON. WM. DUDLEY675
FROTHINGHAM, REV. O.B.322
GAGE, MATILDA JOSLYN531
GARFIELD, PRESIDENT JAMES A.522
GARRISON, WM. LLOYD153
GIBBONS, ABBY HOPPER 202
GOODRICH, SARAH KNOX888
GRANT, MRS. U.S.858
GREELEY, HORACE97
GREENWOOD, GRACE315
HAMILTON, GAIL322
HARPER, IDA HUSTEDix
HEARST, PHOEBE A.889
HOAR, SENATOR GEORGE F.502
HOOKER, ISABELLA BEECHER374
HOSMER, HARRIET656
HOWELL, MARY SEYMOUR692
JACOBI, DR. MARY PUTNAM768
JACKSON, FRANCIS166
JULIAN, GEORGE W., M.C.311
KELLEY, WILLIAM D., M.C.647
KING, REV. THOMAS STARR191
LAPHAM, SENATOR ELBRIDGE G.455
LOGAN, MRS. JOHN A.670
LOZIER, DR. CLEMENCE S.436
LUCAS, MARGARET BRIGHT578
MARTINEAU, HARRIET571
McCULLOCH, SECRETARY HUGH705

McLAREN, PRISCILLA BRIGHT564
MERRICK, CAROLINE E.608
MINOR, VIRGINIA L.454
MITCHELL, MARIA635
MORTON, SENATOR OLIVER P.500
MOTT, LUCRETIA268
NICHOL, ELIZABETH PEASE,568
OWEN, ROBERT DALE,235
PALMER, BERTHA HONORÉ,749
PALMER, SENATOR THOMAS W.,593
PARKER, REV. THEODORE,132
PHILLIPS, WENDELL,174
PILLSBURY, PARKER,181
POMEROY, SENATOR S.C.,310
POST, AMY,412
PURVIS, HARRIET,526
PURVIS, ROBERT,258
REED, SPEAKER THOMAS B.,669
RIDDLE, JUDGE A.G.,456
ROSE, ERNESTINE L.,194
SARGENT, SENATOR A.A.,406
SARGENT, ELLEN CLARK,864
SEWALL, MAY WRIGHT,746
SHAW, REV. ANNA HOWARD,688
SIMPSON, BISHOP MATTHEW,588
SMITH, GERRIT,93
SOMERSET, LADY HENRY,747
SPOFFORD, JANE H,512

STANFORD, JANE L.,830
STANFORD, SENATOR LELAND,851
STANTON, ELIZABETH CADY,278
STEVENS, THADDEUS,250
STONE, LUCINDA HINSDALE,379
STONE, LUCY,112
SUMNER, CHARLES,236
SWIFT, MARY WOOD,893
TAYLOR, EZRA B., M.C.,700
TAYLOR, HELEN,565
TAYLOR, MENTIA (MRS. PETER),554
THOMPSON, GEORGE, M.P.,233
TILTON, THEODORE,218
TODD, ISABELLA M.S.,572
TRAIN, GEORGE FRANCIS,290
TYNG, REV. STEPHEN H.,233
UPTON, HARRIET TAYLOR,700
WADE, SENATOR BENJAMIN F.,266
WALLACE, ZERELDA G.,632
WARREN, SENATOR FRANCIS E.,716
WHITE, SENATOR JOHN D.,543
WHITING, LILIAN,673
WHITTIER, JOHN GREENLEAF,669
WILLARD, FRANCES E.,775
WILSON, VICE-PRESIDENT HENRY,421

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
VOL. I.
SUSAN B. ANTHONY, at the age of 76 Frontispiece.
"THE OLD HIVE," birthplace of father of SUSAN B. ANTHONY
4
HOME OF LUCY READ, mother of SUSAN B. ANTHONY 6
WEST END OF KITCHEN IN OLD HOMESTEAD 8
BIRTHPLACE OF SUSAN B. ANTHONY 12
TEMPORARY HOME AT BATTENVILLE, N.Y. 18
THE BATTENVILLE HOME 24
HOME AT CENTER FALLS, N. Y. 36
SUSAN B. ANTHONY at the age of 28 50
AUNT HANNAH, the Quaker preacher 58
SUSAN B. ANTHONY at the age of 32 86
HUMPHREY ANTHONY at the age of 95 130
SUSAN B. ANTHONY at the age of 36 144
THE FARM-HOME NEAR ROCHESTER 160
ERNESTINE L. ROSE 194
FATHER AND MOTHER OF SUSAN B. ANTHONY 222
LUCRETIA MOTT 268
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON 278
SUSAN B. ANTHONY at the age of 48 302
SUSAN B. ANTHONY at the age of 50, from photograph by
Sarony 342
ISABELLA BEECHER HOOKER 374
DR. CLEMENCE S. LOZIER 436

VIRGINIA L. MINOR 454
JANE H. SPOFFORD 512

CHAPTER I.
ANCESTRY, HOME AND CHILDHOOD.

1550-1826.

Among the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts is a very beautiful place in
which to be born. It is famed in song and story for the loveliness of its
scenery and the purity of its air. It has no lofty peaks, no great canyons, no
mighty rivers, but it is diversified in the most picturesque manner by the
long line of Green Mountains, whose lower ranges bear the musical name
of "Berkshire Hills;" by rushing streams tumbling through rocky gorges and
making up in impetuosity what they lack in size; by noble forests, gently
undulating meadows, quaint farmhouses, old bridges and bits of roadway
which are a never-ending delight to the artist. Writers, too, have found
inspiration here and many exquisite descriptions in prose and verse
commemorate the beauties of this region.

Catharine Maria Sedgwick, the first woman in America to make a literary
reputation on two continents, was born at Stockbridge, and her stories and
sketches were located here. That old seat of learning, Williams College, is
situated among these foothills. In his summer home at Pittsfield,
Longfellow wrote "The Old Clock on the Stairs"; at Stockbridge,
Hawthorne builded his "House of the Seven Gables"; and Lydia Sigourney
poetically told of "Stockbridge Bowl" with "Its foot of stone and rim of
green." It was at Lenox that Henry Ward Beecher created "Norwood" and
"Star Papers." Here Charlotte Cushman and Fanny Kemble came for many
summers to rest and find new life. Harriet Hosmer had her first dreams of
fame at the Sedgwick school. The Goodale sisters, Elaine and Dora, were

born upon one of these mountainsides and both embalmed its memory in
their poems. Dora lovingly sings:

Dear Berkshire, dear birthplace, the hills are thy towers,
Those lofty fringed summits of granite and pine;
No valley's green lap is so spangled with flowers,
No stream of the wildwood so crystal as thine.
Say where do the March winds such treasures uncover,
Such maple and arrowwood burn in the fall,
As up the blue peaks where the thunder-gods hover
In cloud-curtained Berkshire who cradled us all?

Henry Ward Beecher said:

This county of valleys, lakes and mountains is yet to be as
celebrated as the lake district of England and the hill country of
Palestine.... Here is such a valley as the ocean would be if, when its
waves were running tumultuous and high, it were suddenly
transformed and solidified.... The endless variety never ceases to
astonish and please.... It is indeed like some choice companion, of
rich heart and genial imagination, never twice alike in mood, in
conversation, in radiant sobriety or half-bright sadness; bold, tender,
deep, various.

One has but to come into the midst of these hills to fall a victim to their
fascination, while to those who were born among them there is no spot on
earth so beautiful or so beloved. They have sent forth generations of men
and women, whose fame is as imperishable as the marble and granite which
form their everlasting foundations. Among the noted men who have gone
out from the Berkshire region are William Cullen Bryant, Cyrus W. Field
and brothers, Jonathan Edwards, Mark and Albert Hopkins, Senator Henry
L. Dawes, Governor Edwin D. Morgan, of New York, George F. Root, the
musical composer, Governor George N. Briggs, of Massachusetts,

Governor and Senator Francis E. Warren, of Wyoming, the Deweys, the
Barnards, a list too long for quoting. Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose
grandfather was a Berkshire man, wrote:

Berkshire has produced a race which, for independent thought,
daring schemes and achievements that have had world-wide
consequences, has not been surpassed. We claim, also, that more of
those first things that draw the chariot of progress forward so that
people can see that it has moved, have been planned and executed
by the inhabitants of the 950 square miles that constitute the
territory of Berkshire than can be credited to any other tract of equal
extent in the United States.

Of late years the world of wealth and fashion has invaded the Berkshire
country and there are no more magnificent summer homes than those of
Lenox, Stockbridge, Great Barrington and the neighboring towns.

The first of the Anthony family of whom there is any record was William,
born in Cologne, Germany, who came to England during the reign of
Edward the Sixth and was made Chief Graver of the Royal Mint and Master
of the Scales, holding this office through the reigns of Edward and Mary
and part of that of Elizabeth. His crest and coat of arms are entered in the
royal enumeration. His son Derrick was the father of Dr. Francis Anthony,
born in London, 1550. According to the Biographia Britannica, he was
graduated at Cambridge with the degree of Master of Arts and became a
learned physician and chemist. Although a man of high character and
generous impulses, he was intolerant of restraint and in continual conflict
with the College of Physicians. He died in his seventy-fourth year, and was
buried in the church of St. Bartholomew the Great, where his handsome
monument still remains. He left a daughter and two sons, both of the latter
distinguished physicians. From John, the elder, sprung the American branch

of the family. His son, John, Jr., born in Hempstead, England, sailed to
America in the ship Hercules, from that port, April 16, 1634, when he was
twenty-seven years old. He settled in Portsmouth, R.I., and became a land-
owner, an innkeeper and an office-holder. His five children who survived
infancy left forty-three children. One of these forty-three, Abraham, had
thirteen children, and his son William fourteen, his son, William, Jr., four,
his son David nine.

It was just before the beginning of the Revolution that this David Anthony,
with his wife, Judith Hicks, moved from Dartmouth, Mass., to Berkshire
and settled near Adams at the foot of Greylock, the highest peak in the
mountain range. This was considered the extreme West, as little was known
of all that lay beyond. They brought two children with them and seven more
were born here in the shadow of the mountains. Humphrey, the second son,
born at Dartmouth, February 2, 1770, married Hannah Lapham, who was
born near Adams (then called East Hoosac), November 11, 1773; and here,
also, January 27, 1794, was born the first of their nine children, Daniel,
father of Susan B. Anthony.

On the maternal side the grandfather, Daniel Read, was born at Rehobeth,
Mass., and said to be a lineal descendant and entitled to the coat of arms of
Sir Brianus de Rede, A.D. 1075; but he had too much of the sturdy New
England spirit to feel any special interest in the pomp and pride of heraldry,
and the family tree he prized most was found in the grand old grove which
shaded his own dooryard. Susannah Richardson, his wife, was born at
Scituate, Mass., and her family were among the most wealthy and respected
of that locality during the eighteenth century. Both Reads and Richardsons
removed to Cheshire, Mass., before 1770, and Daniel and Susannah were
married there. It was but a few months after this marriage when the first gun
was fired at Lexington and the whole country was ablaze with excitement.
At the close of the sermon, on a bright spring morning, the old minister, his

voice trembling with patriotic fervor, asked every man who was ready to
enlist in the Continental army to stand forth, and Daniel Read was the first
to step out into the aisle of the little meeting-house. Leaving the girl-bride
he entered the service and soon became conspicuous for his bravery. He
was one of the memorable expedition against Quebec under Arnold, in
1775, and of the party commanded by Ethan Allen at the capture of
Ticonderoga. He was among that brave band from Cheshire (Stafford's Hill)
who fought under Colonel Stafford at Bennington. On the 19th of October,
1780, he took part in the fatal fight of Stone Arabia, under Col. John
Brown, and served with honor throughout the war. It was several years after
peace had been declared and he had returned home and settled down to the
quiet life of a New England farmer that, December 2, 1793, was born Lucy,
the mother of Susan B. Anthony.

THE "OLD HIVE," ADAMS, MASS.

Daniel Read was a member of the Massachusetts Legislature in 1814 and
was elected to various public offices. He was a Whig in politics and adhered
always to staunch republican principles, but rose above partisanship and
was universally respected. Daniel and Susannah were thrifty New England
Puritans, leading members of the Baptist denomination and parishioners of
the widely known Elder Leland. The cooking for Sunday always was done
on Saturday, and the greater part of every Sunday, regardless of weather,
was spent at church. They and their children sat through a service of two
hours in the morning, ate a generous lunch at the noon intermission, and
were ready for another two hours' sermon in the afternoon, through all the
heat of summer and the terrible cold of New England winter.

Susannah Read remained always a devout and consistent Baptist, but Daniel
became, in later years, a thorough Universalist. Murray, the founder of this
church in England, had come to the Colonies before the Revolutionary War,
and by the close of the century the Universalists were organized as a sect,
holding general conventions and sending itinerants among the people in the
villages and country. Some of these doubtless had penetrated to Adams and
converted Daniel Read, who was always liberal in his belief. He was an
inveterate reader and pored over a vast amount of theological discussion
which attracted so much attention in his day. The family moved from
Cheshire to a suburb of Adams called Bowen's Corners. Near their house
was the tavern, its proprietor known to all the people roundabout as "Uncle
Sam" Bowen. He and Daniel Read never wearied in setting forth the merits
of "free salvation." They were the only two persons in all that section of the
country who did not believe in a literal hell. It was the common sentiment
then that only those disbelieved in endless punishment who had reason to
be afraid of it, and, since both these men were exemplary in every other
respect, it was impossible for their friends to understand their aberration.

Susannah Read, in the language of that time, "wore the skin off her knees,"
praying night and day that God would bring her husband back into the fold,
but her prayers never were answered. Every Sunday regularly he
accompanied her to church, and faithfully contributed to the support of the
preacher, but he died, at the ripe old age of eighty-four, firm in his
Universalist faith.

Susannah was the care-taker of the family and looked after the farm,
inheriting the Richardson energy and thrift. Daniel was genial, good-
natured and very intelligent, but his health being impaired from army
service, he was willing she should take the lead in business matters. The
farm was one of only a hundred acres, but was carefully and economically
managed and, at their death, the Reads left about $10,000, which was then
considered a snug little fortune. Lucy, one of seven children, was born into
a home of peace and comfort and had a happy and uneventful childhood.
She attended the district school, was a fair writer and speller and, like her
father very fond of reading. She learned to cook and sew, make butter and
cheese, spin and weave, and was very domestic in all her tastes. The Reads
and Anthonys were near neighbors, and although differing widely in
religious belief, a subject of much prominence in those days, they were on
terms of intimate friendship even before the ties were made still closer by
marriage between the two families.

Both Anthonys and Laphams were Quakers as far back as the sect was in
existence. Both were families of wealth and influence, and when Humphrey
and Hannah were married she received from her parents a house and thirty
acres of land, which were entailed on her children. Silver spoons are still in
the family, which were part of her dowry more than a century ago. Hannah
Lapham Anthony was a most saintly woman and, because of her beautiful
religious character was made an elder and given an exalted position on the
"high seat."[1]

HOME OF LUCY READ, ADAMS, MASS.

She was a very handsome brunette and was noted for the beauty and
elegance of her Quaker attire, her bonnets always being made in New York.
Humphrey never attained the "high seat;" he was too worldly. His ambition
was constantly to add more to his broad acres, to take a bigger drove of
cattle to Boston than any of his neighbors, and to get a higher price for his
own than any other Berkshire cheese would bring. He had a number of
farms and a hundred cows, while his wife made the best cheese and was the
finest housekeeper in all that part of the country. The fame of her coffee and
biscuits, apple dumplings and chicken dinners, spread far and wide. Their
kitchen was forty feet long. One end was used for the dining-room, with the
table seating twenty persons, and in the other were the sink and the

"penstock," which brought water from a clear, cold spring high up in the
mountains. Here also were the huge fire-place, the big brick oven and the
large pantry. Then there were the spacious "keeping" or sitting-room, with
the mother's bedroom opening out of it, the great weaving-room with its
wheels and loom, and two bed-rooms for the "help" down stairs, while
above were the children's sleeping-rooms. Opening out of the kitchen was a
room containing the cheese press and the big "arch" kettle, and near by was
a two-story building where the cheese was stored. Up in the grove was the
saw-mill, and at the foot of the hill was the blacksmith shop, where nails
were made, horses shod, wagons and farm implements mended and, later,
scythes manufactured. On all the farms were fine orchards of apples, plums,
pears, cherries and quinces, among which stood long rows of beehives with
their wealth of honey.

Here Daniel, father of Susan B. Anthony, grew to manhood in the midst of
comfort and abundance and in an atmosphere of harmony and love. The
Anthonys were broad and liberal in religious ideas, and in 1826, when bitter
dissensions regarding the divinity of Christ arose among the Quakers, they
followed Elias Hicks and were henceforth known as "Hicksite Friends."
This controversy divided many families, and on account of it the orthodox
brother, Elihu Anthony, insisted on removing their aged father to his home
in Saratoga, N.Y., to the great grief of Humphrey, who claimed that the old
gentleman was too childish to know whether he was orthodox or Hicksite
and ought not to be taken to "a new country" in his declining years Hannah
Anthony was ambitious for her children and insisted that they should be
placed where they might have better educational facilities than in the little
school at home. Humphrey thought the boys could manage a farm and the
girls weave good cloth and make fine cheese without a boarding-school
education. He finally yielded, however, and Daniel and two daughters were
sent to the "Nine Partners," that famous Quaker boarding-school in
Dutchess county, N.Y. At the end of a year, Daniel, who was about nineteen,

had made such rapid progress that he was appointed teacher. The quaint
certificate given him by his associate teachers is still in existence and reads:

This may apprize the friends & relatives of D. Anthony, that, during
his residence with us, he has been an affectionate consort, excellent,
consistant in the School, of steady deportment and conversation,
being an example for us to follow when we are separated. We
sincerely wish his preservation in all things laudable and believe we
can with propriety hereunto set our names.

Elihu Marshall, Charles Clement, John Taber, Stephen Willitz,
Henry Cox, Frederick A. Underhill, William Seamen.

There is a still more highly valued testimonial from the principal, the noble
and dignified Richard F. Mott, who was held in loving reverence by all the
distinguished Quaker families that confided their sons and daughters to his
wise and tender care:

Daniel Anthony has been an assistant here & we can aprise his
friends that he has faithfully discharged his duty in that particular,
has been a very agreeable companion & his conduct remarkably
correct & exemplary, which, joined to his pleasant & obliging
disposition, has gained him our esteem & affection.

We sincerely wish his prosperity, spiritually & temporally, & shall
gratefully remember him and his services.

On behalf of the sitting-room circle, R.F. MOTT.
Boarding School, 4 M., 1 D., 1814.

The profession of teacher did not appeal to hard-headed Humphrey
Anthony, and when Daniel came back with his brain full of ambitious
projects and with a thorough distaste for farming, and his sisters, with many

airs and graces and a feeling of superiority over the girls in the
neighborhood, Father Anthony declared that no more children of his should
go away to boarding-school. The fact that young Daniel was skilled in
mechanics and mathematics, able to superintend intelligently all the work
on the farm and to make a finer scythe than any man in the shop, did not
modify the father's opinion. When John, the next boy, was old enough and
the mother began to urge that he be sent to school, the father offered him his
choice to go or to stay at home and work that year for $100. This was a
large sum for those days, it out-weighed the mother's arguments, John
remained at home and regretted it all the rest of his life.

WEST END OF KITCHEN IN OLD HOMESTEAD.

The Anthony and Read farms were adjoining a mile east of Adams, and lay
upon the first level or "bench" of the Green mountains. From their door-

yards the ascent of the mountains began, and only the Hoosac in a deep
ravine separated them from the base of "Old Greylock." The crops were
raised on the "intervale" and the cattle pastured on the mountain side.
Adams was then a sleepy New England village, and the Hoosac was a
lovely stream, whose waters were used for the flocks and for the grist and
saw-mills; but in later years the village became a manufacturing center and
the banks of the pretty river were lined for miles with great factories.

In early times wealthy Quakers had a school in their home or door-yard for
their own children. Those of the neighborhood were allowed to attend at a
certain price, and in this way undesirable pupils could be kept out. At the
Anthony residence this little school-house stood beneath a great weeping
willow beside the front gate, and among the pupils was Lucy Read. She was
the playmate of the sisters, and young Dan was the torment of their lives,
jumping out at them from unexpected corners, eavesdropping to learn their
little secrets and harassing them in ways common to boys of all generations,
and she never hesitated to inform him that he was "the hatefullest fellow
she ever knew." When Daniel returned from boarding-school with all the
prestige of several years' absence, and was made master of the little home-
school, one of his pupils was this same Lucy Read, now a tall, beautiful girl
with glossy brown hair, large blue eyes and a fine complexion, the belle of
the neighborhood. The inevitable happened, childish feuds were forgotten,
and teacher and pupil decided to become husband and wife. Then arose a
formidable difficulty. The Anthonys were Quakers, the Reads were Baptists,
and a Quaker was not permitted to "marry out of meeting." Love laughed at
rules and restrictions eighty years ago, just as it does to-day, and Daniel
refused to let the Society come between him and the woman of his choice,
but Lucy had many misgivings. Thanks to her father's ideas she had been
brought up in a most liberal manner, allowed to attend parties, dance and
wear pretty clothes to her heart's content, and it was a serious question with
her whether she could give up all these and adopt the plain and severe

habits of the Quakers. She had a marvelous voice, and, as she sang over her
spinning-wheel, often wished that she might "go into a ten-acre lot with the
bars down" so that she could let her voice out to its full capacity. The
Quakers did not approve of singing, and that pleasure also would have to be
relinquished. That the husband could give up his religious forms and accept
those of the wife never had been imagined.

Love finally triumphed, and the young couple were married July 13, 1817.
A few nights before the wedding Lucy went to a party and danced till four
o'clock in the morning, while Friend Daniel sat bolt upright against the wall
and counted the days which should usher in a new dispensation. A
committee was sent at once to deal with Daniel, and Lucy always declared
he told them he "was sorry he married her," but he would say, "No, my dear,
I said I was sorry that in order to marry the woman I loved best, I had to
violate a rule of the religious society I revered most." The matter was
carefully talked over by the elders, and as he had said he was sorry he had
to violate the rule, and as the family was one of much influence, and as he
was their most highly educated and cultivated member, it was unanimously
decided not to turn him out of meeting.[2] Lucy learned to love the Friends'
religion and often said she was a much more consistent Quaker than her
husband, but she never became a member of the Society, declaring she was
"not good enough." She did not use the "plain language," though she always
insisted that her husband should do so in addressing her; nor did she adopt
the Quaker costume, but she dressed simply and wore little "cottage" straw
bonnets with strings tied demurely under her chin and later had them made
of handsome shirred silk, the full white cap-ruche showing inside. She sang
no more except lullabies to the babies when they came, and then the Quaker
relatives would laugh and ask her why she did it. Her long married life was
very happy, notwithstanding its many hardships, and she never regretted
accepting her Quaker lover.

The previous summer Daniel had helped his father prepare the lumber and
build a large two-story addition to his house, and in return he gave to his
son the lumber for a new home, on a beautiful tract of ground presented to
the young couple by Father Read adjoining his own. While this was being
built they lived at the Read homestead, and the loom was kept busy
preparing the housekeeping outfit. In those days this was made of linen,
bleached and spun and woven by the women of the household. Cotton was
just coming into use, and Lucy Anthony was considered very fortunate
because she could have a few sheets and pillow-cases which were half
cotton.

The manufacture of cotton becoming a prominent industry in New England
at this time, the alert mind of Daniel Anthony conceived the idea of
building a factory and using the waters of Tophet brook and of a rapid little
stream which flowed through the Read farm. This was done, and proved a
success from the beginning. A document is still in existence by which "D.
Read agrees to let D. Anthony have as much water from the brook on his
farm as will run through a hole six inches in diameter." This was conveyed
by an aqueduct, made from hollow logs, to the factory where it turned the
over-shot wheel and furnished power to the twenty-six looms. The factory
hands for the most part came down from the Green mountain regions, glad
of an opportunity never before enjoyed of earning wages and supporting
themselves. They were girls of respectability, and, as was the custom then,
boarded with the families of the mill-owners. Those of the Anthony factory
were divided between the wife and Hannah Anthony Hoxie, a married
sister. Lucy Anthony soon became acquainted with the stern realities of life.
Her third baby was born when the first was three years and two months old.
That summer she boarded eleven factory hands, who roomed in her house,
and she did all the cooking, washing and ironing, with no help except that
of a thirteen-year-old girl, who went to school and did "chores" night and
morning. The cooking for the family of sixteen was done on the hearth in

front of the fire-place and in a big brick oven at the side. Daniel Anthony
was a generous man, loved his wife and was well able to hire help, but such
a thing was not thought of at that time. No matter how heavy the work, the
woman of the household was expected to do it, and probably would have
been the first to resent the idea that assistance was needed.

During the first seventeen years of this marriage eight children were born.
One died at birth and one at the age of two years. The eldest, born July 1,
1818, was named for the wife of William Penn, who married a member of
the Anthony family, Gulielma Penn, which was contracted to Guelma.
Susan was the second child, born February 15, 1820, and named for an
aunt, Susan Anthony Brownell. She herself adopted the initial "B" when
older, but never claimed or liked the full name.[3]

BIRTHPLACE OF SUSAN B. ANTHONY, ADAMS, MASS. (BORN IN
ROOM SHADED BY TREE.)

Lucy Read Anthony was of a very timid and reticent disposition and
painfully modest and shrinking. Before the birth of every child she was
overwhelmed with embarrassment and humiliation, secluded herself from
the outside world and would not speak of the expected little one even to her
mother. That mother would assist her overburdened daughter by making the
necessary garments, take them to her home and lay them carefully away in
a drawer, but no word of acknowledgment ever passed between them. This
was characteristic of those olden times, when there were seldom any
confidences between mothers and daughters in regard to the deepest and
most sacred concerns of life, which were looked upon as subjects to be
rigidly tabooed. Susan came into the world in a cold, dreary season. The
event was looked forward to with dread by the mother, but when the little
one arrived she received a warm and loving welcome. She was born into a
staid and quiet but very comfortable home, where great respect and
affection existed between father and mother.

William Cullen Bryant, whose birth-place was but twenty miles distant,
wrote of this immediate locality:

I stand upon my native hills again,
Broad, round and green, that in the summer sky,
With garniture of waving grass and grain,
Orchards and beechen forests, basking lie;
While deep the sunless glens are scooped between,
Where brawl o'er shallow beds the streams unseen.

Each night in early childhood she watched the sun set behind the great
dome of "Old Greylock," that noble mountain-peak so famed in the
literature of Berkshire, from whose lofty summit one looks across four

States. "It lifts its head like a glorified martyr," said Beecher, and Julia Taft
Bayne wrote:

Come here where Greylock rolls
Itself toward heaven; in these deep silences,
World-worn and fretted souls,
Bathe and be clean.

To the child's idea its top was very close against the sky, and its memory
and inspiration remained with her through life.

Susan was very intelligent and precocious. At the age of three she was sent
to the grandmother's to remain during the advent of the fourth baby at
home, and while there was taught to spell and read. Her memory was
phenomenal, and she had an insatiable ambition, especially for learning the
things considered beyond a girl's capacity.

The mother was most charitable, always finding time amidst her own
family cares to go among the sick and poor of the neighborhood. One of
Susan's childish grievances, which she always remembered, was that the
"Sunday-go-to-meeting" dresses of the three little Anthony girls were lent to
the children of a poor family to wear at the funeral of their mother, while
she and her sisters had to wear their old ones. She thought these were good
enough to lend. She had no toys or dolls except of home manufacture, but
her rag baby and set of broken dishes afforded just as much happiness as
children nowadays get from a roomful of imported playthings.

To go to school the children had to pass Grandmother Read's, and they were
always careful to start early enough to stop there for a fresh cheese curd and
a drink of "coffee," made by browning crusts of rye and Indian bread,
pouring hot water over them and sweetening with maple sugar. Then in the
evening they would stop again for some of the left-over, cold boiled dinner,

which was served on a great pewter platter, a big piece of pork or beef in
the center and, piled all round, potatoes, cabbage, turnips, beets, carrots, etc.
The story runs that, when the mother remonstrated with the children for
bothering the grandmother for what they could have at home, Susan replied,
"Why, grandma's potato peelings are better than your boiled dinners." The
Anthonys and Reads used white flour and real coffee on state occasions, but
very few families could afford such luxuries.

One of the recollections of Grandmother Anthony's house is of the little
closet under the parlor stairs, where was set the tub of maple sugar, and,
while the elders were chatting over neighborhood affairs, the children
would gather like bees around this tub and have a feast. Always when they
left, they were loaded down with apples, doughnuts, caraway cakes and
other toothsome things which little ones love. Along the edges of the pantry
shelves hung rows of shining pewter porringers, and the pride of the
children's lives was to eat "cider toast" out of them. This was made by
toasting a big loaf of brown bread before the fire, peeling off the outside,
toasting it again, and finally pouring over these crusts hot sweetened water
and cider. The dish, however, which was relished above all others was
"hasty pudding," cooked slowly for hours, then heaped upon a platter in a
great cone, the center scooped out and filled with sweet, fresh butter and
honey or maple syrup.

In those days every sideboard was liberally supplied with rum, brandy and
gin, and every man drank more or less, even the elders and preachers. When
the farmers came down the mountain road with their loads of wood or
lumber, they always stopped at Grandfather Read's for a slice of bread and
cheese and a drink of hard cider, but the elders and preachers were regaled
with something stronger. This was the custom, and criticism would have
been considered fanatical.

The little factory nourished and produced many yards of excellent cotton
cloth. A store was opened in one corner of the house to supply the wants of
the employes and neighbors, and the Anthonys enjoyed a plenty and
prosperity somewhat unusual where small incomes and close economy were
the rule.
[1] Her oldest daughter, Hannah, became a famous Quaker preacher.

[2] A wedding trip was taken to Palatine Bridge, Deerfield, Union Springs, Farmington,
Rochester and other points in New York State, to visit relatives of both families, all the long
journey being made in a light one-horse wagon, many miles of it over corduroy roads.

[3] Hannah was born September 15, 1821; Daniel Read, named for father and grandfather,
was born August 22, 1824; Mary S., April 2, 1827; Eliza Tefft, April 22, 1832, and Jacob
Merritt, April. 19, 1834. At the present writing, 1897, Susan, Daniel, Mary and Merritt still
survive, aged seventy-seven, seventy-three, seventy and sixty-three, all remarkably vigorous
in mind and body; a family of few words, quiet, undemonstrative and yet knit together with
bonds of steel, loyal to each other in every thought and each ready to make any sacrifice for
the others.

CHAPTER II.
GIRLHOOD AND SCHOOL-LIFE.

1826—1838.

By 1826, Daniel Anthony had become so well-known for business
management that he received an offer from Judge John McLean, of
Battenville, Washington county, N.Y., who already had built a factory there,
to go into cotton manufacturing on an extensive scale, the judge to furnish
capital, Mr. Anthony executive ability. There was much opposition from the
two older families to having their children go so far away (forty-four miles)
and Lucy Anthony's heart was almost broken at the thought of leaving her
aged father and mother, but Daniel was too good a financier to lose such an
opportunity. So on a warm, bright July morning the goods were started and
the judge and his grandson, Aaron McLean, came with a big green wagon
and two fine horses to take the family to Battenville. Young Aaron little
thought as he lifted the eight-year-old Guelma into the wagon that he was
taking with him his future wife. The new home was in a pretty village
nestled among the hills on the Battenkill. The first year the Anthonys lived
in part of Judge McLean's house, where were two slaves not yet
manumitted, and the children saw negroes for the first time and were
dreadfully frightened. Afterwards the family moved into an old but
comfortable story-and-a-half house where they remained several years.

Meanwhile a great deal of expensive machinery had been put into the
factory and a large brick store erected. For a long time Daniel Anthony had
been very much interested in the temperance cause. At Adams he had sold
liquor, like every other merchant, but when a man was found by the

roadside frozen to death with an empty jug which told the story, although
Mr. Anthony had not sold him the rum, he resolved, as this was only one of
many distressing cases, to sell no more. He was the first in that locality to
put intoxicating liquors out of his store.

He had not thought to discuss this question with Judge McLean when their
contract was made, and had gone to Troy and selected goods for the store.
The judge looked on while they were being unloaded and finally asked,
"Why, Anthony, where are the rum barrels?" "There aren't any," he
answered. "You don't expect to keep store without rum, do you? If you don't
'treat,' nobody will trade with you," said the judge. "Well, then I'll close the
store," was the reply. It was opened; the farmers would come in, look
around, peer behind the counter, finally go down cellar and make a search,
and then declare they would not trade at a temperance store; but, as they
found here the best goods and lowest prices, with square dealing, they could
not afford to go elsewhere and the store soon enjoyed a large business.

When it was decided to build a number of tenement houses, the judge said,
"The men will not come to the 'raising' unless they can have their gin."
"Then the houses will not be raised," replied Mr. Anthony, and sent out the
invitations. His wife made great quantities of lemonade, "training-day"
gingerbread, doughnuts and the best of tea and coffee. Everybody came,
things went off finely, not an accident during the day and all went home
sober, having learned, for the first time, that there could be a house-raising
without liquor.

TEMPORARY HOME OF THE ANTHONYS, BATTENVILLE, N.Y.,
1826 FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN 1897. SUSAN AND
MERRITT IN FOREGROUND.

But the battle had to be fought continually. A saw-mill and a grist-mill were
built and no man was employed who drank to excess. The tavern keeper,
who had expected to reap a rich harvest from the factory, was very
indignant at the temperance regulations. He put every temptation in the way
of the mill-hands, but Daniel Anthony remained firm. Among his papers are
found several letters of repentance and pledges from his men who had
fallen from grace and wanted another trial. He organized a temperance
society, composed almost entirely of his men and women employes. The
pledge, as was the custom, required "total abstinence from distilled liquor,"

but allowed wine and cider. He also established an evening school for them,
many never having had any chance for an education, and it became
unpopular not to attend. This was in session also a few hours on Sunday. It
was taught by Mr. Anthony himself or his own family teacher without
expense to the pupils. Everything about the factory was conducted with
perfect system and order. Each man had a little garden around his house.
Mr. Anthony looked upon his employes as his family and their mental and
moral culture as a duty. Even thus early he was so strong an opponent of
slavery that he made every effort to get cotton for his mills which was not
produced by slave labor.

The only persons ever allowed to smoke or drink intoxicants in the Anthony
home were Quaker preachers. The house was half-way between Danby, Vt.,
and Easton, N.Y., where the Quarterly Meetings were held and the
preachers and elders stopped there on their way. In a closet under the stairs
were a case of clay pipes, a paper of tobacco and demijohns of excellent gin
and brandy, from which the "high seat" brothers were permitted to help
themselves. It is not surprising to find in the annals that a dozen or more
would drop in to get one of Mrs. Anthony's good dinners and the
refreshments above mentioned.

In the spring of 1832 a brick-kiln was burned in preparation for the new
house. Mrs. Anthony boarded ten or twelve brick-makers and some of the
factory hands, with no help but that of her daughters Guelma, Susan and
Hannah, aged fourteen, twelve and ten. When the new baby came, these
three little girls did all the work, cooking the food and carrying it four or
five steps up from the kitchen to the mother's room to let her see if it were
nicely prepared and if the dinner-pails for the men were properly packed.

Soon after this, Mr. Anthony remarked that one of the "spoolers" was ill and
there was no one to do her work. Susan and Hannah had spent many hours

watching the factory girls, and at once raised a clamor to take the place of
the sick "spooler." The mother objected, but the father, who always
encouraged his children in their independent ideas, interceded and finally
they were allowed to draw straws to decide which should go, the winner to
divide her wages with the loser. The lot fell to Susan, who worked faithfully
every day for two weeks and received full wages, $3. Hannah, with her
$1.50, bought a green bead bag, then considered the crowning glory of a
girl's wardrobe. Susan purchased half a dozen pale-blue coffee cups and
saucers, which she had heard her mother wish for, and presented them to
her with a happy heart.

The next summer the house was built, the finest in that part of the country, a
two-and-a-half-story brick with fifteen rooms and all the conveniences then
known. Quakers never celebrate Christmas, but the Anthonys, having lived
now for seven years in a Presbyterian neighborhood, decided to give the
children a Christmas party in the new home. The walls had a beautiful hard
finish, the woodwork was tinted light green and the new flag-bottomed
chairs were painted black. Between the rough boots of the country youths
and the chairs pushed or tipped against the wall, both woodwork and
plastering were almost ruined, and the new house carried a lasting reminder
of the festivities.

About this time Daniel Anthony was again brought under Quaker criticism.
On one of his journeys to New York he had bought a camlet cloak with a
big cape, as affording the best protection for the long, cold rides he had to
take. The Friends declared this to be "out of plainness" and insisted that he
leave off the cape and cease wearing a brightly colored handkerchief about
his neck and ears. Daniel, who was beginning to be rather restive under
these restraints, refused to comply, but, as he was a valuable member, it was
finally decided here also to condone his offense.

Through all those years Lucy Anthony went to Quaker meeting with her
husband. After public services were over, however, and the shutters pulled
up between the men's and the women's sides of the house for business
meeting, she was rigidly barred out. She would take her children and walk
about in the grave-yard outside while she waited for Daniel, but, as the
graves were all in a row without even a headstone to distinguish them, this
was not a very interesting pastime and the wait was long and tedious. When
the little girls went with the father they also were shut out of the executive
session where such momentous questions were discussed as, "Are Friends
careful to keep themselves and their children from attending places of
diversion?" "Are Friends careful to refrain from tale-bearing and
detraction?" "Are Friends careful to send their children to school, and all
children in their employ?"

One cold day, the mother being detained at home, ten-year-old Susan
received permission to go with her father. When the business meeting
began, she curled up quietly in a corner by the stove, thinking to escape
detection, but was spied out by one of the elders, a woman with green
spectacles, who tip-toed down from the "high seat" and said, "Is thee a
member?" "No, but my father is," replied Susan. "That will not do, thee will
have to go out." "My mother told me to stay in." "Thy mother doesn't
manage things here." "But my father told me to stay in." "Neither thy father
nor thy mother can say what thee shall do here; thee will have to go out;"
and taking the child by the arm she led her into the cold vestibule. After
remaining there until almost frozen, Susan decided to go to the nearest
neighbor's. When she opened the gate a big dog sprung fiercely upon her.
Her screams brought out the family and she was taken into the house, where
it was found the only injury was a large piece bitten out of the new Scotch
plaid cloak which she had gone to meeting on purpose to exhibit. The affair
created considerable excitement, Mr. and Mrs. Anthony were very

indignant, and it ended in the father's making a "request" that his children
be made members of the Society, which was done.

Daniel Anthony was by nature a broad, progressive man, and his family
were not brought up according to the strictest and narrowest requirements
of Quaker doctrine; while his wife, remembering the liberal teachings of her
Universalist father and her own girlish love of youthful pastimes, went still
further in making life pleasant for the children. Through her influence the
daughters secured many a pretty article of wearing apparel, and, when there
was a party whose hours were later than the father approved, the mother
managed to have them spend the night with girls in the neighborhood.

When the family first moved to Battenville the children went to the little
old-fashioned district school taught by a man in winter and a woman in
summer. None of the men could teach Susan "long division" or understand
why a girl should insist upon learning it. One of the women maintained
discipline by means of her corset-board used as a ferule. As soon as Mr.
Anthony finished the brick store he set apart one room upstairs for a private
school, employed the best teachers to be had and admitted only such
children as he wished to associate with his own. When the new house was
built a large room was devoted to school purposes. This was the first in that
neighborhood to have a separate seat for each pupil, and, although only a
stool without a back, it was a vast improvement on the long bench running
around the wall, the same height for big and little. The girls were taught
sewing as carefully as reading and spelling, and Susan was noted for her
skill with the needle. A sampler is still in existence which she made at the
age of eleven, a fine specimen of needle-work with the family record
surrounded by a wreath of strawberries all carefully wrought in crewels.
There is also a bedquilt, the pieces sewed together with the fine "over-and-
over" stitch, and there are ruffles hemmed with stitches so tiny they scarcely
can be distinguished. An early teacher was a cousin, Nancy Howe,[4] who

was followed by another cousin, Sarah Anthony, a graduate of Rensselaer
Quaker boarding-school. Among the teachers was Mary Perkins, just
graduated from Miss Grant's seminary at Ipswich, Mass., and a pupil of
Mary Lyon, founder of Mt. Holyoke. She was their first fashionably
educated teacher and taught them to recite poems in concert, introduced
school books with pictures, little black illustrations of Old Dog Tray, Mary
and Her Lamb, etc., and gave them their first idea of calisthenics. She loved
music, and wished to attend the village singing-school. Lucy Anthony
sympathized with this desire and interceded for her, but Daniel decided it
would be setting a bad example to the children and they would be wanting
to sing.[5]

Into this commodious home Lucy Anthony brought her aged father and
mother, and carefully tended them until the death of both within the same
year, aged eighty-four. In May, 1834, came the first great sorrow, the death
of little Eliza, aged two years, and the mother was heart-broken. Her life
was centered in her children, and she could not be reconciled to giving up
even one. After her own death, nearly fifty years later, in her box of most
sacredly guarded keepsakes, was found a little faded pink dress of the dear
child's which many times had been moistened with the mother's tears.

The children continued to attend this private school, and as Guelma and
Susan reached the age of fifteen, each in turn was installed as teacher in
summer when there were only young pupils. The factory now was at the
height of prosperity; there was only one larger in all that part of the country,
and Daniel Anthony was looked upon as a wealthy man. He was much
criticised for allowing his daughters to teach, as in those days no woman
worked for wages except from pressing necessity; but he was far enough in
advance of his time to believe that every girl should be trained to self-
support. In 1837, writing to Guelma at boarding-school, he urges her to
accept the offer of the principal to remain through the winter as an assistant:

I am fully of the belief that shouldst thou never teach school a single
day afterwards, thou wouldst ever feel to justify thy course.... Thou
wouldst seem to me to be laying the foundation for thy far greater
usefulness. Thy remaining through the winter, must, however, be
left solely to thyself, as it would be of little avail for thee to stay and
not be contented. Thy home, Guelma, is just the same as when thou
left it, and shouldst thou decide to spend the winter months away,
we will try to keep it the same until thy return in the spring. Let me
know if thou canst be content to remain away a few months longer
from thy mother's kitchen.

Daniel Anthony

In the winter of 1837, at the age of seventeen, Susan taught in the family of
Doris and Huldah Deliverge, at Easton, a few miles from Battenville, for $1
a week and board. The next summer she taught a district school at the
neighboring village, Reid's Corners, for $1.50 a week and "boarded round,"
and proud was she to earn what was then considered excellent wages for a
woman. In the fall she joined Guelma at boarding-school. The little circular,
yellow with age, reads:

DEBORAH MOULSON, having obtained an agreeable location in
the pleasant village of Hamilton, in the vicinity of Philadelphia,

intends, with the assistance of competent Teachers, to open
immediately a Seminary for Females....

Terms, $125 per annum, for boarding and tuition....

The inculcation of the principles of Humility, Morality and a love of
Virtue, will receive particular attention.

THE BATTENVILLE HOME, BUILT IN 1833. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH
TAKEN IN 1897

This was Susan's first long absence from home, and her letters and journals
give a good idea of the thoughts and feelings of a girl at boarding-school in
those days. She developed then the "letter-writing habit," which has clung

to her through life. The letters of that time were laborious affairs, often
consuming days in the writing, commencing even to children, "Respected
Daughter," or "Son," and rarely exceeding one or two pages. They were
written with a quill pen on foolscap paper, and almost wholly devoted to the
weather and the sickness in the family. The amount of the latter would be
appalling to modern households. The women's letters were written in
infinitesimal characters, it being considered unladylike to write a large
hand. The Anthonys were exceptional letter-writers. It cost eighteen cents to
send a letter, but Daniel Anthony was postmaster at Battenville, and his
family had free use of the mails. If he had had postage to pay on all of
homesick Susan's epistles it would have cost him a good round sum. The
rules of the school required these to be written on the slate, submitted to the
teacher and then carefully copied by the pupil, so it is not unusual to find
that a letter was five or six days in preparation. For the same reason it is
impossible to tell how much sincerity there is in the frequent references to
the "dear teacher" and the "most excellent school." The "stilted" style of
Susan's letters is most amusing.[6] A few extracts will illustrate:

I regret that Brothers and Sisters have not the privilege of attending
a school better adapted to their improvement, both in Science and
Morality; surely a District School (unless they have recently
reformed) is not an appropriate place for the cultivation of the latter,
although in the former they may make some partial progress.
Deborah has not determined to relinquish this school, although she
has not yet ascertained whether the income from it will be equal to
the expenditures; but if it should continue I shall have a wish for
Hannah and Mary to attend; as I think another one can not be named
so agreeable on all accounts as is Deborah Moulson's at Hamilton.

Lucy Anthony

One may imagine that Susan got several credit marks when her teacher
corrected this on the slate. The lecturer on philosophy and science came up
from Philadelphia, and Susan tells her parents that "he is quite an
interesting man," and that "his lecture on Philosophy was far more
entertaining than I had dared to anticipate." Of the science lecture she says:

He had a microscope through which we had the pleasure of viewing
the dust from the wings of a butterfly, each minute particle of which
appeared as large as a common fly. He mentioned several very
interesting circumstances; but I must defer particularizing them until
I can have the privilege of verbally communicating them to my dear
friends at Battenville. Guelma joins with me in wishing love
distributed to all.

Again she writes:

Beloved Parents: The second Seventh day of my short stay in
Hamilton arrives and finds me scarcely capable of informing you
how the intervening moments have been employed; but I hope they
have not passed without some improvement. Indeed, we should all
improve, perceptibly too, were we to attend to the instructions
which are here given, for the advancement both of moral and
literary pursuits. May I improve in both; but it is far easier for us to

perceive where others should reform, than to observe and correct
our own imperfections, while perhaps our failings are completely
disgusting in the sight of others. I find it very difficult leaving off
old habits so as to have a vacuum for the formation of those which
are new and more advantageous.

My letter will be short this week and I can assign no other cause
than that my ideas do not freely flow. The difference in weather is
quite material between this and our northern clime. Snow
commenced falling about 12 o'clock to-day and continued till
evening; but, Father, it was not such a storm as the one in which we
travelled during the second day of our journey to the beautiful and
sequestered shades of Hamilton. The cause of my neglecting to
write last week was not the absence of this mind from home, but
that it is obliged to occupy every moment in studies.

A fire in Philadelphia gives her an opportunity for this bit of description:

I was requested, 5th day evening last, about 7 o'clock, by one of the
scholars, to step out and view the Aurora Borealis, which she said
was extremely brilliant and beautiful. When there I looked towards
the north, but discovered no light, and then to the zenith, which was
indeed very magnificent; "but," said I, "that does not look like the
Aurora, it is more like the light from a fire," and upon investigation
we found it so to be. The light appeared in the east, we walked in
that direction, when we beheld the flames bursting forth in
stupendous grandeur. Not a bell was heard, all was calm, with the
exception of the minds of some of the scholars whose parents
resided in the city. The scene indeed would have been to the eye
extremely pleasing, were it not for the reflection that some of our
fellow-beings were about being deprived of a home, and perhaps

lives also. We learned a few minutes after witnessing this
phenomena that the fire was occasioned by the conflagration of a
large board yard near Market Street Bridge.

After many affectionate messages, she says:

I have not had but one real homesick fit and that was one week from
the night Father left us. I felt then as if I were taking leave of him
again; in fact the tears have come into my eyes as I write that last
sentence; but do not suppose I carry a gloomy countenance all the
time, far be it from that, yet oft I think seriously of home and the
endearing ties which bind us together. Father, we will look at the
sentiments, and not the Orthography and Grammar of thy letters, in
which I did discover some errors.

She frequently admits that her sister admonishes her, "Susan, thee writes
too much; thee should learn to be concise," but she delights in letter-writing
and says:

Most of the girls are taking a walk this First day afternoon, but I did
not feel like enjoying myself by accompanying them as well as in
holding sweet communion in writing with those inestimable friends
I so dearly love, and arranging those thoughts in a manner congenial
to our feelings.... The query naturally arises, at least to the
thoughtful mind, How has our time since the last Annual revolution
of the Earth been employed? Have our minds become improved
from passing occurences, or do they remain in that dormant-like
state which so often degrades the human soul?

She comes down from her lofty heights far enough to add, "It would have
afforded us the greatest pleasure imaginable to have dined on that Goose in
company with you on New Year's day." It is Susan's diary, however, which

affords the most satisfactory glimpses of her true character, serious,
devotional, deeply conscientious and strong in affection:

Five weeks have been spent in Hamilton and to what purpose? Has
my mind advanced either in Virtue or Literature? I fear that every
moment has not been profitably spent. O, may this careless mind be
more watchful in the future! O, may the many warnings which we
every day receive, tend to make me more attentive to what is right!

We were cautioned by our dear Teacher to-day to beware of self-
esteem and of all signs that would indicate an untruth. We were
referred to the condition of Ananias and Sapphira, who intended to
deceive the Apostle. Would that I were wholly free from that same
Evil Spirit which tempted those persons in ancient times. The Spirit
of Truth must have dominion in the mind in order to attain a state of
happiness.

Resolves and resolves fill up my time. I resolve at night to do better
on the morrow, and when the morrow comes and I mingle with my
companions all the resolutions are obliterated.... In the afternoon of
Seventh day Deborah accompanied the scholars to Town and visited
the Academy of Arts and Sciences; beautiful indeed was the sight.
Nature, how bounteous and varied are thy works! On beholding the
splendid scene I was ready to exclaim, "O, Miracle of Miracles,"
with the celebrated Naturalist when speaking of the metamorphoses
of insects.

Her eyes troubled her then, as all through life, and in grieving over it she
says: "Often does their non-conformance mortify this frail heart when
attempting to read in class.... I arose at half-past five this morning. [January

15.] I find it so much more advantageous." But the next day she sleeps till
half-past six and laments the fact.

Received a severe reproof from Deborah this evening on account of
the listlessness which prevailed in the school, also the immorality of
some of the pupils' minds. O, that I could feel perfectly clear of all
the deviations which have been enumerated. O, Morality, that I
could say I possessed thy charms! O, the happiness of an innocent
mind, would that I could say mine was so, but it is too far from it. I
think so much of my resolutions to do better that even my dreams
are filled with these desires.

The sin thus bitterly bewailed consisted in neglecting to use "thee" and
"thou" in addressing her schoolmates. She would wake up in the night and
mourn over it. One would judge from Deborah's continual lectures that the
school was made up of a lot of desperately wicked girls sent her to be
reformed, instead of a band of demure and saintly little Quaker maidens. On
the 31st Susan writes:

Our class has not recited in Philosophy, Chemistry or Physiology,
nor have we read, since the 20th of this month, for the reason of
there being such a departure among the scholars from the paths of
rectitude.

Later she records that a new teacher has arrived "to relieve Deborah of
some of her bodily labors," that "he is a stern-looking man," and that she
was "somewhat mortified that she could not give him the desired definition
of compendiums."

The woman who sells molasses candy has been here, but when she
leaves she does not carry the confusion with her which she causes....
Deborah requested eight of us larger girls to remain last evening, for

the purpose of reproving us. The cause was the levity and
mirthfulness which were displayed on Third day of the week
previous. She compared us to Judas Iscariot, who betrayed his
master with a kiss. She said there were those amongst us who would
surely have to suffer deep affliction for not attending to the
manifestations of truth within.—I have been guilty of much levity
and nonsensical conversation and have also permitted thoughts to
occupy my mind which should have been far distant, but I do not
consider myself as having committed any wilful offence. Perhaps
the reason I can not see my own defects is because my heart is
hardened. O, may it become more and more refined until nothing
shall remain but perfect purity.

2nd mo. 11th day.—First day evening Deborah came down and sat
with us. In a few moments she called for her Bible, and in a short
time she read, "Jesus wept;" and then, after a long pause, she said,
"There are those present who, if they do not attend to what has been
said to them, will have their strings shortened, even as short as this
verse." This she said after having inquired on what subject Abraham
Loire preached in the morning and none of us was able to tell.

2nd mo. 12th day.—Deborah came down in the afternoon to
examine our writing. She looked at M.'s and gave her a severe
reproof; she then looked at C.'s and said nothing. I, thinking I had
improved very much, offered mine for her to examine. She took it
and pointed out some of the best words as those which were not
well written, and then she asked me the rule for dotting an i, and I
acknowledged that I did not know. She then said it was no wonder
she had undergone so much distress in mind and body, and that her

time had been devoted to us in vain. This was like an Electrical
shock to me. I rushed upstairs to my room where, without restraint, I
could give vent to my tears. She said the same as that I had been the
cause of the great obstruction in the school. If I am such a vile
sinner, I would that I might feel it myself. Indeed I do consider
myself such a bad creature that I can not see any who seems worse.
—And we had a new scholar to witness this scene!

Think of causing all this anguish and humiliation to a young girl because
she did not know the rule for dotting an i!

2nd mo. 15th day.—This day I call myself eighteen. It seems
impossible that I can be so old, and even at this age I find myself
possessed of no more knowledge than I ought to have had at twelve.
Dr. Allen, a Phrenologist, gave us a short lecture this morning and
examined a few heads, mine among them. He described only the
good organs and said nothing of the bad. I should like to know the
whole truth.

Susan relates with a good deal of satisfaction that she has written a letter to
a schoolmate at home, without putting it on the slate for the teacher to see.
A few days later Deborah sends for her. She "went down with
cheerfulness," but what was her astonishment to see Deborah with the
intercepted letter open in her hand! Susan closes her account of the
interview by saying, "Little did I think, when I was writing that letter, that I
was committing such an enormous crime."

Learning that a young friend had married a widower with six children, she
comments in her diary, "I should think any female would rather live and die
an old maid." She has a cold and cough for which Deborah gives her a
"Carthartick," followed by some "Laudanum in a silver spoon." "The
beautiful spring weather," she says, "inhales me with fresh vigor." She sees

some spiderwebs in the schoolroom and, her domestic habits asserting
themselves, gets a broom and mounts the desks to sweep them down, "little
thinking of the mortification and tears it was to occasion." Finally she steps
upon Deborah's desk and breaks the hinges on the lid. That personage is
informed by an assistant teacher and arrives on the scene:

"Deborah, I have broken your desk." She appeared not to notice me,
walked over, examined the desk and asked the teacher who broke it.
"What! Susan Anthony step on my desk! I would not have set a
child upon it," she said, and much more which I can not write. "How
came you to step on it?" she asked, but I was too full to speak and
rushed from the room in tears. That evening, after we read in the
Testament, she said that where there was no desire for moral
improvement there would be no improvement in reading. There was
one by the side of her who had not desired moral improvement and
had made no advancement in Literature.

This deliberate cruelty to one whose heart was bursting with sorrow and
regret! "Never will this day be forgotten," says the diary. In speaking of this
incident Miss Anthony said: "Not once, in all the sixty years that have
passed, has the thought of that day come to my mind without making me
turn cold and sick at heart."

On one occasion when a composition had been severely criticised, Susan
blazed forth the inquiry why she always was censured and her sister
praised. "Because," was the reply, "thy sister Guelma does the best she is
capable of, but thou dost not. Thou hast greater abilities and I demand of
thee the best of thy capacity." Throughout this little record are continual
expressions of the pain of separation from the dear home, of keen
disappointment if the expected letter fails to come, and most affectionate
references to the beloved parents, brothers and sisters. Even the austere

Deborah is mentioned always with respect and kindness for,
notwithstanding her frequent censure, she inspired the girls with love and
reverence.

Subsequent events show that this lady was failing rapidly with
consumption. Among the old letters, one from an assistant teacher to Daniel
Anthony, dated 1839, a year after Susan left school, says: "The tender chord
that so long confined our beloved Deborah to this world was broken on the
25th day of the 4th month, and we trust her happy spirit took its flight to
realms of eternal felicity." Deborah Moulson was a cultured and estimable
woman, but she represented the spirit of that age toward childhood, one of
chilling severity and constant repression, when reproof was as liberally
administered as praise was conscientiously withheld.

[4] Sixty-five years later, this cousin, Nancy Howe Clark, aged eighty-seven, wrote Miss
Anthony:

"The year I spent at your father's was the happiest of my whole long life. How well I
remember the sweet voices saying 'Cousin Nancy,' and the affectionate way in which I was
received by your dear father and mother. It had never been my fortune before to live in a
household with an educated man at its head, and I felt a little shy of your father but soon
found there was no occasion. Although it was a period of great financial depression, he
always found time to be social and kindly in his family. He seemed to have an eye for
everything, his business, the school and every good work. I considered your father and
mother a model husband and wife and found it hard to leave such a loving home."

[5] In later years the younger children were instructed on piano and violin, and he enjoyed
nothing better than listening to them.

[6] In reading them over, sixty years afterwards, she said mournfully, "That has been the way
all my life. Whenever I take a pen in hand I always seem to be mounted on stilts." To those
who are acquainted with her simple, straightforward style of speaking, this will seem hardly
possible, yet it is probably one of the reasons which led her, very early in her public career, to
abandon all attempts at written speeches.

CHAPTER III.
FINANCIAL CRASH—THE TEACHER.

1838—1845.

The prosperous days of the Anthonys were drawing to a close. All
manufacturing industries of the country were in a ruinous state. The
unsound condition of the banks with their depreciated and fluctuating
currency had created financial chaos. Overproduction of cotton goods on a
credit basis, inordinate speculation, reduction of duties on importations,
produced the inevitable result, and the commercial world began to totter on
its foundations. The final ruin is foreshadowed in the letters of Daniel
Anthony. In one to his brother September 2, 1837, he says:

I am going next week on a tour of the eastern cities and when I
return shall be prepared to face the situation. My goods at present
will not sell for the actual cost of manufacturing. Van Buren's
message has just made its appearance. It is opposed to banks and
may operate unfavorably to business, but how it can be worse I don't
know.

He writes from Washington to his wife, September 11:

I arrived last evening—came in R. Road cars from Baltimore, 39
miles, in two hours, over a barren and almost uncultivated tract of
country. The public buildings and one street called Pennsylvania
Avenue are all that are worth mention in this place.... As a specimen
of some of the big finery in the town, I will name one room in
Martin's [Van Buren's] house, 90 ft. by 42, the furniture of which

cost $22,000.... Our Congressmen are some like other folks, they
look out first for themselves. They have spent most of this day in
debating whether they shall be paid in specie.... There are Black
Folks in abundance here, but they don't act as if they were even
under the pressure of hard times, much less the cruelties that we
hear of slaves having to bear.

From New York he writes his brother:

Such times in everything that pertains to business never were known
in this land before. To-day I have passed through Pine street and
have not seen one single box or bale of goods of any kind whatever.
Last year at this time a person could scarcely go through the street
without clambering over goods of all descriptions. A truck cart
loaded with merchandise is now a rare object. A bale of goods can
not be sold at any price. The countenances of all our best business
men are stretched out in a perpendicular direction and when the
times will let them come back into human shape not even the wisest
pretend to guess. Those that are out of all speculative and ever-
changing business may consider themselves in a Paradismal state.

In the spring of 1838 he writes to Guelma and Susan, at that time twenty
and eighteen years of age, to know if they feel that they possibly can go
alone from Philadelphia to New York, where he will join them and bring
them home; but evidently they decide they can not, for Susan's journal
speaks of "the happy moment when they run to the gate to meet him." On
the journey he tells them that his business is ruined, they can not return to
school and will have to give up their beautiful and beloved new home. In
recalling those times Miss Anthony says that never in all her long life did
she see such agony as her father passed through during the dreadful days
which followed. All that he had accumulated in a lifetime of hard work and

careful planning was swept away, and there was scarcely a spot of solid
ground upon which he could plant his feet to begin the struggle once more.

In her diary, speaking of an aunt who sympathizes with them and says it
will be hard to give up going with the people they have been accustomed to,
Susan observes, "I do not think that losing our property will cause us ever
to mingle with low company." She is now somewhat uncertain about taking
up teaching permanently, fearing she will "lose the habit of using the plain
language;" but May 22, 1838, she writes at Union Village, now Greenwich:

On last evening, which was First day, I again left my home to
mingle with strangers, which seems to be my sad lot. Separation
was rendered more trying on account of the embarrassing condition
of our business affairs. I found my school small and quite
disorderly. O, may my patience hold out to persevere without
intermission.

In the summer of 1838 the factory, store, home and much of the furniture
had to be given up to the creditors. Not an article was spared from the
inventory. All the mother's wedding presents, the furniture and the silver
spoons given her by her parents, the wearing apparel of the family, even the
flour, tea, coffee and sugar, the children's school books, the Bible and the
dictionary, were carefully noted. On this list, still in existence, are
"underclothes of wife and daughters," "spectacles of Mr. and Mrs.
Anthony," "pocket-knives of boys," "scraps of old iron"—and the law took
all except the bare necessities. In this hour of extremity the guardian angel
appeared in the person of Joshua Read, a brother of Mrs. Anthony, from
Palatine Bridge, N.Y., who bid in all which the family desired to keep and
restored to them their possessions, making himself their lenient creditor.

The winter of 1839 Susan attended the home school, taught by Daniel
Wright, a fine scholar and remarkably successful teacher. This ended her

school days, and in her journal she says: "I probably shall never go to
school again, and all the advancement which I hereafter make must be by
my own exertions."

In March, 1839, the family moved to Hardscrabble, a small village two
miles further down the Battenkill. They went on a cold, blustering day, and
one may imagine the feelings of Daniel and Lucy Anthony and their older
children as they turned away from their big factory, their handsome home
and the friends they had learned to love. Mrs. Anthony's heart was
overflowing with sorrow, for in less than five years she had lost by death
her little daughter, her father and mother, and now was swept away her
home hallowed by their beloved memories.

In his prosperous days Daniel Anthony had built a satinet factory and a
grist-mill at Hardscrabble and, although these were mortgaged heavily, he
hoped to weather the financial storm and through them to build up again his
fallen fortunes. The family were soon comfortably established in a large
house which had been a hotel or tavern in the days when lumber was cut in
the Green mountains and floated down the river, an immense building, sixty
feet square, with wide hall and broad piazza. They did not keep a hotel, but
people were in the habit of stopping here, as it was a half-way house to
Troy, and they found themselves obliged to entertain a number of travelers.

Those were busy days for the family. Susan's journal contains many entries
such as, "Did a large washing to-day.... Spent to-day at the spinning-
wheel.... Baked 21 loaves of bread.... Wove three yards of carpet
yesterday.... Got my quilt out of the frame last 5th day.... The new saw-mill
has just been raised; we had 20 men to supper on 6th day, and 12 on 7th
day." But there were quilting-bees and apple-parings and sleighing parties
and many good times, for the elastic temperament of youth rallies quickly

from grief and misfortune. Susan went to Presbyterian church one Sunday,
and the gray-robed Quaker thus writes:

To see them partake of the Lord's supper, as they call it, was indeed
a solemn sight, but the dress of the communicants bespeaks nothing
but vanity of heart—curls, bows and artificials displayed in
profusion about most of them. They say they can dress in the
fashion without fixing their hearts on their costume, but surely if
their hearts were not vain and worldly, their dress would not be.

The attic in this old house was finished off for a ball-room; it was said that
great numbers of junk bottles had been laid under the floor to give
especially nice tone to the fiddles. The young people of the village came to
Daniel Anthony for permission to hold their dancing-school here but, with
true Quaker spirit, he refused. Finally the committee came again and said:
"You have taught us that we must not drink or go about places where liquor
is sold. The only other dancing-hall in town is in a disreputable tavern, and
if we can not come here we shall be obliged to go there." So Mr. Anthony
called a council of his wife and elder daughters. The mother, remembering
her own youth and also having a tender solicitude for the moral welfare of
the young people, advised that they should have the hall. Mr. Anthony at
last agreed on condition that his own daughters should not dance. So they
came, and Susan, Guelma and Hannah sat against the wall and watched,
longing to join them but never doing it. They danced every two weeks all
winter; Mrs. Anthony gave them some simple refreshments, they went
home early, there was no drinking and all was orderly and pleasant.

THE HOME AT CENTER FALLS, N. Y., BUILT IN 1810. THE PORCH
LONG SINCE FALLEN AWAY. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN
1897. SUSAN, DANIEL, MARY, AND MERRITT IN FOREGROUND.

The Quakers at once had Daniel Anthony up before the committee, there
was a long discussion, and finally they read him out of meeting "because he
kept a place of amusement in his house." Reuben Baker, one of the old
Quakers, said: "It is with great sorrow we have to disown friend Anthony,
for he has been one of the most exemplary members in the Society, but we
can not condone such an offense as allowing a dancing-school in his
house."

Mr. Anthony felt this very keenly. He said: "For one of the best acts of my
life I have been turned out of the best religious society in the world;" but he
had kept his wife, his cloak and his ideas of right, and was justified by his
conscience. He continued to attend Quaker meeting but grew more liberal
with every passing year and, long before his death, had lost every vestige of
bigotry and believed in complete personal, mental and spiritual freedom. In
early life he had steadfastly refused to pay the United States taxes because
he would not give tribute to a government which believed in war. When the
collector came he would lay down his purse, saying, "I shall not voluntarily
pay these taxes; if thee wants to rifle my pocket-book, thee can do so." But
he lived to do all in his power to support the Union in its struggle for the
abolition of slavery and, although too old to go to the front himself, his two
sons enlisted at the very beginning of the war.

Mr. Anthony had the name Hardscrabble changed to Center Falls, and was
made postmaster. Susan and Hannah secured schools, and Daniel R., then
not sixteen, went into the mill with his father. Susan had several schools
offered her and finally accepted one at New Rochelle. She went down the
Hudson by the steamboat American Eagle, her father going with her as far
as Troy. She speaks in her journal of several Louisiana slaveholders being
on board, the discussion which took place in the evening and her horror at
hearing them uphold the institution of slavery. The pages of this little book
show that this question and those of religion and temperance were the
principal subjects of conversation in these days. One entry reads: "Spent the
evening at Mr. Burdick's and had a good visit with them, our chief topic
being the future state." Then she comments: "Be the future what it may, our
happiness in the present is far more complete if we live an upright life."
From the time she was seventeen is constantly expressed a detestation of
slavery and intemperance. Her life from the beginning seems to have had a
serious purpose. When asked, during the writing of this biography, why her
journals were not full of "beaux," as most girls' were, she replied: "There

were plenty of them, but I never could bring myself to put anything about
them on paper." There are many references to their calling, escorting her to
parties, etc., but scarcely any expression of her sentiments toward them.
One, of whom she says: "He is a most noble-hearted fellow; I have
respected him highly since our first acquaintance," goes to see a rival, and
she writes: "He is at ——'s this evening. O, may he know that in me he has
found a spirit congenial with his own, and not suffer the glare of beauty to
attract both eye and heart."

Again she says: "Last night I dreamed of being married, queerly enough,
too, for it seemed as if I had married a Presbyterian priest, whom I never
before had seen. I thought I repented thoroughly before the day had passed
and my mind was much troubled." This modest Quaker maiden writes of
receiving a newspaper from a young man: "Its contents were none of the
most polite; a piece of poetry on Love and one called 'Ridin' on a Rail,' and
numerous little stories and things equally as bad. What he means I can not
tell, but silence will be the best rebuke." Another who comes a-wooing she
describes as "a real soft-headed old bachelor," and remarks: "These old
bachelors are perfect nuisances to society." A friend marries a man of rather
feeble intellect, and she comments: "Tis strange, 'tis passing strange, that a
girl possessed of common sense should be willing to marry a lunatic—but
so it is."

Miss Anthony went to New Rochelle as assistant in Eunice Kenyon's
boarding-school, but the principal being ill most of the time, she has to take
entire charge, and the responsibility seems to weigh heavily on the
nineteen-year-old girl. She speaks also of watching night after night, with
only such rest as she gets lying on the floor. She gives some idea of the
medical treatment of those days: "The Doctor came and gave her a dose of
calomel and bled her freely, telling me not to faint as I held the bowl. Her
arm commenced bleeding in the night and she lost so much blood she

fainted. Next day the Doctor came, applied a blister and gave her another
dose of calomel."

She meets some colored girls from the school at Oneida and writes home:
"A strict Presbyterian school it is, but they eat, walk and associate with the
white people. O, what a happy state of things is this, to see these poor,
degraded sons of Afric privileged to walk by our side." On Sunday she
hears Stephen Archer, the great Quaker preacher, who was at the head of a
large Friends' boarding-school at Tarrytown, and says:

He is a much younger man than I expected to see, and wears a sweet
smile on his face.... The people about here are anti-Abolitionist and
anti-everything else that's good. The Friends raised quite a fuss
about a colored man sitting in the meeting-house, and some left on
account of it. The man was rich, well-dressed and very polite, but
still the pretended meek followers of Christ could not worship their
God and have this sable companion with them. What a lack of
Christianity is this! There are three colored girls here who have been
in the habit of attending Friends' meeting where they have lived, but
here they are not allowed to sit even on the back seat. One long-
faced elder dusted off a seat in the gallery and told them to sit there.
Their father was freed by his master and left $60,000, and these
girls are educated and refined.

Aaron McLean, who is soon to marry her sister Guelma, writes in answer to
this: "I am glad to hear that the people where your lot is cast for the present
are sensible and reasonable on that exciting subject. I entreat you to be
prudent in your remarks and not attempt to 'niggerize' the good old Friends
about you. Above all, let them know that you are about the only Abolitionist
in this vicinity." This severe letter does not seem to have affected her very
deeply for, on the next day after receiving it, she writes her parents: "Since

school to-day I have had the unspeakable satisfaction of visiting four
colored people and drinking tea with them. Their name is Turpin, and
Theodore Wright of New York is their stepfather. To show this kind of
people respect in this heathen land affords me a double pleasure." Mr.
McLean evidently did not believe in woman preachers, for the radical
Susan writes him:

I attended Rose street meeting in New York and heard the strongest
sermon on "The Vices of the City," that has been preached in that
house very lately. It was from Rachel Barker, of Dutchess county. I
guess if you could hear her you would believe in a woman's
preaching. What an absurd notion that women have not intellectual
and moral faculties sufficient for anything but domestic concerns!

She does not hesitate to write to an uncle, Albert Dickinson, and reprove
him for drinking ale and wine at Yearly Meeting time. It seems that then, as
now, girls had a habit of writing on the first page of a sheet, next on the
third, then vertically on a page, etc. Uncle Albert retorts:

Thy aunt Ann Eliza says to tell thee we are temperate drinkers and
hope to remain so. We should think from the shape of thy letter that
thou thyself hadst had a good horn from the contents of the cider
barrel, a part being written one side up and a part the other way, and
it would need some one in nearly the same predicament to keep
track of it. We hope thy cranium will get straightened when the
answer to this is penned, so that we may follow thy varied thoughts
with less trouble. A little advice perhaps would be good on both
sides, and they that give should be willing to receive. See to it that
thou payest me down for this.

This letter also gives an insight into the medical practice of the good old
times. A niece, Cynthia, is being treated for the dropsy by "drinking

copiously of a decoction made by charring wormwood in a close vessel and
putting the ashes into brandy, and every night being subjected to a heavy
sweat." It recommends plenty of blue pills and boneset for the ague. Later,
Susan writes of a friend who is "under the care of both Botanical and
Apothecary doctors." For hardening of wax in the ear she sends an infallible
prescription: "Moisten salt with vinegar and drop it in the ear every night
for six weeks; said to be a certain cure."

The staid and puritanical young woman is much disturbed at the
enthusiastic reception given President Van Buren at New Rochelle, and
writes home:

We had quite a noise last Fifth day on the occasion of Martin's
passing through this village. A band of splendid music was sent for
from the city, and large crowds of people called to look at him as if
he were a puppet show. Really one would have thought an angelic
being had descended from heaven, to have heard and seen the
commotion. The whole village was in an uproar. Here was a mother
after her children to go and gaze upon the great man, and there was
a teacher rushing with one child by the hand and half a dozen
running after. Where was I? Why I, by mustering a little self-
government, concluded to remain at home and suffer the President
to pass along in peace. He was to dine at Washington Irving's, at
Tarrytown, and then proceed to the Capitol.

Her extreme animosity is explained in a subsequent letter to Aaron McLean:

I regret to hear that the people of Battenville are possessed of so
little sound sense as to go 20 miles to shake hands with the
President at Saratoga Springs; merely to look at a human being who
is possessed of nothing more than ordinary men and therefore
should not be worshipped more than any mortal being, nor even so

much as many in the humble walks of life who are devoted to their
God. Let us look at his behavior and scan its effects on society. One
day while in New York was spent in riding through the streets
preceded by an extravagant number of military men and musicians,
who were kept in exercise on that and succeeding days of the week
until all were completely exhausted. On the next day, while he and
his party were revelling in their tents on luxuries and the all-
debasing Wine, many poor, dear children were crying for food and
for water to allay their thirst. On Friday evening he attended Park
Theater and on Monday Bowery Theater. Yes, he who is called by
the majority as most capable of ruling this republic, may be seen in
the Theater encouraging one of the most heinous crimes or practices
with which our country is disgraced.[7] Yes, and afterwards we find
him rioting at the Wine Table, the whole livelong night. Is it to be
wondered that there are such vast numbers of our population who
are the votaries of Vice and Dissipation? No, certainly not, and I do
not believe there ever will be less of this wickedness while a man
practising these abominable vices (in what is called a gentlemanly
manner) is suffered to sit at the head of our Government.

The future orator and reformer is plainly foreshadowed in this burst of
indignation, to which Mr. McLean replies in part:

I was agreeably disappointed in Van Buren's personal appearance.
From what I had heard of him as a little, smooth, intriguing arch-
magician, I expected his looks would bear that out but it was far to
the contrary. He is quite old and gray, very grave and careworn. His
dress was perfectly plain, not the least sign of jewelry save his
watch seal which was solid gold. I saw him drink no wine, although
there was plenty about him, nor did your father and mother who saw
him dine at the United States Hotel. If you do not like him because

he tastes wine, how can you like Henry Clay who drinks it freely?
Mr. Webster drinks wine also. At a Whig festival got up in Boston in
his honor, at which he and 1,200 other Whigs were present, there
were drunk 2,300 bottles of champagne, two bottles to each man.
Mr. Clay attended balls at the Springs. He had a slave with him to
wait on him and hand him water to clear out his throat while he was
speaking; and this while he was preaching liberty and declaring
what a fine thing this freedom is!

While at New Rochelle Susan becomes greatly interested in the culture of
silk-worms, upon which the principal was experimenting. She writes home
full descriptions and urges them to ascertain if black mulberry trees grow
about there; she herself knew of one. She insists that the sisters can teach
school and take care of the silk-worms at the same time, but evidently
receives no encouragement as no more is heard of the project. She retains
the keenest interest in every detail of the life at home. She sends some
cherry stones to be planted because the cherries were the largest and best
she ever ate. A box of shells is carefully gathered for brother Merritt, and
sent with a grass linen handkerchief for sister Mary. She sends back her
mother's shawl for fear she may need it more than herself. In the currant
season she writes that nothing in the world would taste so good as one of
mother's currant pies. She urges them to send her part of the family sewing
to do outside of school hours. She frequently walks down to Long Island
sound, a mile and a half away, and says at one time:

The sun was passing toward the western horizon, and all seemed
calm and tranquil save the restless wash of the waves against the
beach. A gentle breeze from the water refreshed our tired bodies. To
one unaccustomed to such scenes it was like a glimpse into another
world. In the distance one could see the villages of Long Island, but

I could think only of that village called home, and I longed every
moment to be there.

Her school commenced May 23 and closed September 6, a term of fifteen
weeks, for which she received $30, and she expresses her grief that, after
having paid for necessary clothes and incidentals, she has only enough left
to take her home. She reaches Center Falls in time to assist in the final
preparations for the wedding, on September 19, 1839, of her sister Guelma
to Aaron McLean, a prosperous merchant at Battenville.

Susan's next school was in her home district at Center Falls, where she was
very successful. One incident is on record in regard to the "bully" of the
school. After having tried every persuasive method at her command to
compel obedience, she proceeded to use the rod. He fought viciously, but
she finally flogged him into complete submission and never had any further
trouble with him or the other boys. She was, however, very tender-hearted
toward children and animals.

Among the outings enjoyed by the young people were excursions to
neighboring villages. There were no railroads, but every young man owned
his horse and buggy, and in pleasant weather a procession of twenty
vehicles often might be seen, each containing a happy couple on their way
to a supper and dance. On one occasion, according to the little diary, the
night was so dark they did not dare risk the ten-mile drive home, as much of
the road lay beside the river, so they continued the festivities till daylight.
Once a party went to Saratoga Springs, and, to Miss Anthony's grief, her
favorite young man invited another girl, and she had a long, dreary drive
trying to be agreeable to one while her thought was with another. To add to
the unpleasantness her escort took this opportunity to ask her to give up
teaching and preside over a home for him.

One winter was spent with relatives at Danby, Vt., and here, with the
assistance of a cousin, Moses Vail, who was a teacher, she made a thorough
study of algebra. Later, when visiting her irrepressible brother-in-law, Aaron
McLean, she made some especially nice cream biscuits for supper, and he
said, "I'd rather see a woman make such biscuits as these than solve the
knottiest problem in algebra." "There is no reason why she should not be
able to do both," was the reply. There are many references in the old letters
to "Susan's tip-top dinners."

She taught one summer in Cambridge, and then, for two years, in the home
of Lansing G. Taylor, at Fort Edward. Mrs. Taylor was the daughter of
Judge Halsey Wing. The journals of that date either were abandoned or
have been lost in the half century since then, and there is but one letter in
existence written during this very pleasant period. In it, July 11, 1844, she
says:

As the week draws toward its close my mind travels to the dear
home roof. It seems to fly far hence to that loved father and mingle
with his spirit while he is wandering in the wilds of Virginia, and it
raises to the throne of grace an ardent wish for his safe return. Oh,
that he may make no change of land except for the better! Then do
my thoughts rest with my dear mother, toiling unremittingly through
the long day and at eve, seated in her arm-chair, wrapt in solemn
stillness, and later reclining on her lonely pillow. How often, when I
am enjoying the sweet hour of twilight, do I think of the sadness
that has so long o'ershadowed her brow, and ardently entreat the
God of love and mercy to give her that peace which is found only in
a resignation to his just and holy will. How numerous are our
favors! We have a comfortable subsistence and health to relish it;
but, more than this, we, as a family, are bound together by the
strongest ties of affection that seem daily to grow stronger....

I arose this morning at half-past four. Two ladies from Albany are
visiting here, the beautiful Abigail Mott, a Friend and a thorough-
going Abolitionist and reformer, and Mrs. Worthington, a strict
Methodist. Mr. Taylor took eight of us to the Whig convention at
Sandy Hill yesterday, and I attended my first political meeting. I
enjoyed every moment of it.

She also relates how Miss Mott would come to her room and expound to
her most beautifully the doctrine of Unitarianism, and then Mrs.
Worthington would come and pray with her long and earnestly to counteract
the pernicious effect of Miss Mott's heresies. While she was accustomed to
the liberal theology of the Hicksite Quakers, this was the first time she ever
had heard the more scholarly interpretation of the Unitarian church.

From 1840 to 1845 Susan and Hannah taught almost continuously,
receiving only $2 or $2.50 a week and board, but living with most rigid
economy and giving the father all they could spare to help pay interest on
the mortgage which rested on factory, mills and home. He gave his notes for
every dollar and, years afterwards, when prosperity came, paid all of them
with scrupulous exactness. It was in these early days of teaching that Miss
Anthony saw with indignation the injustice practiced towards women.
Repeatedly she would take a school which a male teacher had been obliged
to give up because of inefficiency and, although she made a thorough
success, would receive only one-fourth of his salary. It was the custom
everywhere to pay men four times the wages of women for exactly the same
amount of work, often not so well done.

Mr. Anthony went into his mills and performed the manual labor. In
partnership with Dr. Hiram Corliss he employed a number of men to cut
timber, going into the woods in the depths of winter personally to
superintend them. His wife would cook great quantities of provisions, bake

bread and cake, pork and beans, boil hams and roast chickens, and go to the
logging camp with him for a week at a time, and she used to say that
notwithstanding all the labor and anxiety of those days they were among the
happiest recollections of her life.

At home the loom and spinning-wheel were never idle. The mill-hands were
boarded, transient travelers cared for, and every possible effort made to
enable the father to secure another foothold, but all in vain. The
manufacturing business was dead, there was no building to call for lumber,
people had no money, and, after a desperate struggle of five years, the end
came and all was lost. Mr. Anthony then spent months in looking for a
suitable location to begin life anew. He went to Virginia and to Michigan,
but found nothing that suited him. He and his wife made a trip through New
York, visiting a number of relatives on the way, and were persuaded to
examine a farm for sale near Rochester. It proved to be more satisfactory
than anything they had seen, and they decided to take it. Joshua Read who,
during all these years, had carefully protected the portion which his sister,
Mrs. Anthony, had inherited from their father, took this to make the first
payment on the farm.[8] They then returned to Center Falls and began
preparations for what in those times was a long journey.

One warm day in the summer of 1845, several Quaker elders had stopped to
dine at the Anthony home on their way to Quarterly Meeting. Hannah and
Susan were in the large, cool parlor working on the wonderful quilt which
was to be a part of Hannah's wedding outfit, when one of the elders, a
wealthy widower from Vermont, asked Susan to get him a drink. He
followed her out to the well and there made her an offer of marriage, which
she promptly refused. He pictured his many acres, his fine home, his sixty
cows, told her how much she looked like his first wife, begged her to take
time to consider and he would stop on his way back to get her answer. She
assured him that it would be entirely unnecessary, as she was going with her

father and mother to their new home and did not want to marry. He could
scarcely understand a woman who did not desire matrimony, but was finally
persuaded to gather up his slighted affections and go on to Quarterly
Meeting.

On September 4, Hannah was married to Eugene Mosher, a merchant at
Easton. Daniel R. was now clerking at Lenox, Mass., so there were only
Susan, Mary and Merritt to go with the father and mother. All the relatives
bade them good-by as if forever, and the leave-taking was very sorrowful,
for it was the first permanent separation of the family.
[7] In after years Miss Anthony greatly enjoyed attending a good play.

[8] In 1848, when the law was enacted allowing a married woman to hold property, it was put
in her name and she retained it till her death.

CHAPTER IV.
THE FARM HOME—END OF TEACHING.

1845—1850.

On November 7, 1845, the parents and three children took the stage for
Troy, and from there went by railroad to Palatine Bridge for a short visit to
Joshua Read. The journey from here to Rochester was made by canal on a
"line boat" instead of a "packet," because it was cheaper and because they
wanted to be with their household goods. At Utica they found two cousins,
Nancy and Melintha Howe, waiting for the packet to go west, but when
they saw their relatives they gladly boarded the line boat. Mrs. Anthony did
the cooking for the entire party, in the spotless little kitchen on the boat, and
the young people, at least, had a merry journey.

The family arrived in Rochester late in the afternoon of November 14. They
landed at Fitzhugh street and went to the National Hotel. The father had just
ten dollars, and it was out of the question to remain there over night; so he
took the old gray horse and the wagon off the boat, with a few necessary
articles, and with his family started for the farm, three miles west of the
city. The day was cold and cheerless, the roads were very muddy, and by
the time they reached their destination it was quite dark. An old man and his
daughter had been left in charge and had nothing in the way of food but
cornmeal and milk. Mrs. Anthony made a kettle of mush which her husband
pronounced "good enough for the queen." The only bed was occupied by
Mr. and Mrs. Anthony, and the rest slept on the floor. Next day the
household goods were brought from the city and all were soon busy putting
the new home in order. That was a long and lonesome winter. The closest

neighbors were the DeGarmos, and there were a number of other Quaker
families in the city. These called at once and performed every friendly
office in their power, but the hearts of the exiles were very sad and home-
sick. The cause of human freedom was then uppermost in many minds, and
the Anthonys found here congenial spirits in their strong anti-slavery
convictions, and numerous little "abolition" meetings were held during that
winter at their home and in those of their new friends.

When spring opened, the surroundings began to assume a more cheerful
aspect. The farm was a very pretty one of thirty-two acres. The house stood
on an elevation, the long walk that led up to it was lined on both sides with
pinks, there were many roses and other flowers in the yard, and great
numbers of peach, cherry and quince trees and currant and goose-berry
bushes. The scenery was peaceful and pleasant, but they missed the rugged
hills and dashing, picturesque streams of their eastern home. Back of the
house were the barn, carriage-house and a small blacksmith shop. Mrs.
Anthony used to say that her happiest hours were spent on Sunday
mornings, when her husband would heat the little forge and mend the
kitchen and farm utensils, while she sat knitting and talking with him,
Quakers making no difference between Sunday and other days of the week.
He had learned this kind of work in boyhood on his father's farm and
always enjoyed the relaxation it afforded from the cares and worries which
crowded upon him in later years.

Mr. Anthony put into his farm the energy and determination characteristic
of the man. He rose early; he ploughed and sowed and reaped; he planted
peach and apple orchards, and improved the property in many ways, but it
was unprofitable work. It seemed very small to him after the broad acres of
his early home, and he was accustomed to refer to it as his "sixpenny farm."
His life had been too large and too much among men of the great business
world to make it possible for him to be content with the existence of a

farmer. While he retained his farm home, he very soon went into business in
Rochester, connecting himself with the New York Life Insurance Company,
then just coming into prominence, and used to say he made money enough
out of that to afford the luxury of keeping the farm. He was very successful,
and continued with this company the remainder of his life.

On April 25, 1846, Miss Anthony received this invitation:

At a meeting of the Trustees of the Canajoharie Academy held this
day, it was unanimously Resolved to offer you the Female
Department upon the terms which have heretofore been offered to
the teachers of that department, viz:—the tuition money of the
female department less 12-1/2 per cent., the teachers collecting their
tuition bills. Should these terms meet your views, please favor us
with an answer by return mail. The next term commences on the
first Monday of May proximo.

We are Very Respectfully Yours,
JOSHUA READ, LIVINGSTON SPEAKER,
GEORGE G. JOHNSON.

Miss Anthony accepted in a carefully worded and finely written letter, and
arrived at the home of her uncle Joshua Saturday morning, May 2. He had
lived many years at Palatine Bridge, just across the river, was school
trustee, bank director, one of the owners of the turnpike, the toll bridge and
the stage line, and also kept a hotel. His two daughters were well married,
and Miss Anthony boarded with them during all of her three years' teaching
in Canajoharie. She found her uncle very ill and being treated by the doctor
"with calomel, opium and morphine." In a conversation he told her that "her
success would depend largely upon thinking that she knew it all." Although
there was now no postmaster in the family, letter postage had been reduced
to five cents, and a voluminous correspondence is in existence covering the

period from 1846 to 1849. The school commenced with forty boys and
twenty-five girls, and the tuition was $5 per annum. The principal was
Daniel B. Hagar, a man whom Miss Anthony always loved to remember,
highly educated, a gentleman in deportment, kind, thoughtful, and always
ready to help and encourage the young teacher.[9]

Here Miss Anthony was for the first time entirely away from Quaker
surroundings and influences, and her letters soon show the effects of
environment. The "first month, second day," expressions are dropped and
the "plain language" is wholly abandoned. She has more money now than
ever before and is at liberty to use it for her own pleasure. A love of
handsome clothes begins to develop. "I have a new pearl straw gypsy hat,"
she writes, "trimmed in white ribbon with fringe on one edge and a pink
satin stripe on the other, with a few white roses and green leaves for inside
trimming." The beaux hover around; a certain "Dominie," a widower with
several children, is very attentive; another widower, a lawyer, visits the
school so often as to set all the gossips in a flutter; a third is described as
"very handsome, sleek as a ribbon and the most splendid black hair I ever
looked at." She takes many drives with still another, "through a delightful
country variegated with hill and valley, past fields of newly-mown grass,
splendid forests and gently winding rivulets, with here and there a large
patch of yellow pond lilies." In writing to a relative she urges her to break
herself of "the miserable habit of borrowing trouble, which saps all the
sweets of life." At another time she writes: "I have made up my mind that
we can expect only a certain amount of comfort wherever we may be, and
that it is the disposition of a person, more than the surroundings, that creates
happiness."

Her first quarterly examination, to be held in the presence of principal,
trustees and parents, is a cause of great anxiety. She writes that her nerves
were on fire and the blood was ready to burst from her face, and she slept

none the night previous. She wore a new muslin gown, plaid in purple,
white, blue and brown, two puffs around the skirt and on the sleeves at
shoulders and wrists, white linen undersleeves and collarette; new blue
prunella gaiters with patent-leather heels and tips; her cousin's watch with a
gold chain and pencil. Her abundant hair was braided in four long braids,
which cousin Margaret sewed together and wound around a big shell comb.
Everybody said, "The schoolmarm looks beautiful," and "many fears were
expressed lest some one should be so smitten that the school would be
deprived of a teacher." The pupils acquitted themselves with flying colors,
and the teacher then went to spend her vacation with her married sisters at
Easton and Battenville. They had "long talks and good laughs and cries
together," but she writes her parents that if they will make one visit to this
old home they will go back to Rochester thoroughly satisfied with the new
one.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY. AT THE AGE OF 28, FROM A
DAGUERREOTYPE.

For the winter she buys a broche shawl for $22.50, a gray fox muff for $8, a
$5.50 white ribbed-silk hat, "which makes the villagers stare," and a plum-
colored merino dress at $2 a yard, "which everybody admits to be the
sweetest thing entirely;" and she wonders if her sisters "do not feel rather
sad because they are married and can not have nice clothes." Miss Anthony
may be said to have been at this time at the height of her fashionable career.

In the spring her pupils give an "exhibition" which far surpasses anything
ever before seen in Canajoharie. She writes: "Can you begin to imagine my
excitement? The nights seemed lengthened into days; the hopes, the fears
that filled my mind are indescribable. Who ever thought that Susan Anthony
could get up such an affair? I am sure I never did, but here I was; it was
sink or swim, I made a bold effort and won the victory."[10]

In June she attends her first circus, "Sands, Lent & Co., Proprietors." About
this time she writes of being invited to a military ball and says: "My fancy
for attending dances is fully satiated. I certainly shall not attend another
unless I can have a total abstinence man to accompany me, and not one
whose highest delight is to make a fool of himself." She says in this letter:
"The town election has just been held and the good people elected a distiller
for supervisor and a rumseller for justice of the peace."

In 1848 she shows the first signs of growing tired of teaching and wonders
if she is to follow it for a lifetime. She says: "I don't know whether I am
weary of well-doing, but oh, if I could only unstring my bow for a few short
months, I think I could take up my work with renewed vigor." She is very
homesick, after the two years' absence, and so makes a visit to Rochester in
August. For this she gets "a drab silk bonnet shirred inside with pink, and
her blue lawn and her brown silk made over, half low-necked." She has "a
beautiful green delaine and a black braise [barége] which are very
becoming." She wants a fancy hat, a $15 pin and $30 mantilla, every one of

which she resolves to deny herself, but afterwards writes: "There is not a
mantilla in town like mine."

In March, 1849, her beloved cousin Margaret, with whom she has been
living for the past two years, gives birth to a child and she remains with her
through the ordeal. In a letter to her mother immediately afterwards, she
expresses the opinion that there are some drawbacks to marriage which
make a woman quite content to remain single. She quotes a little bit of
domestic life: "Joseph had a headache the other day and Margaret remarked
that she had had one for weeks. 'Oh,' said the husband, 'mine is the real
headache, genuine pain, yours is a sort of natural consequence.'" For seven
weeks she is at Margaret's bedside every moment when out of school, and
also superintends the house and looks after the children. There are a nurse
and a girl in the kitchen, but the invalid will eat no food which Cousin
Susan does not prepare; there is no touch so light and gentle as hers; her
very presence gives rest and strength. At the end of this time Margaret dies,
leaving four little children. Susan's grief is as intense as if she had lost a
sister, and she decides to remain no longer in Canajoharie. She writes: "I
seem to shrink from my daily tasks; energy and stimulus are wanting; I
have no courage. A great weariness has come over me." In all the letters of
the past ten years there has not been one note of discontent or
discouragement, but now she is growing tired of the treadmill. At this time
the California fever was at its height, hundreds of young men were starting
westward, and she writes: "Oh, if I were but a man so that I could go!"

Soon after coming to Canajoharie Miss Anthony joined the society of the
Daughters of Temperance and was made secretary. Her heart and soul were
enlisted in this cause. She realized the immense task to be accomplished,
and, even then, saw dimly the power that women might wield if they were
properly organized and given full authority and sanction to work. As yet no
women had spoken in public on this question, and they had just begun to

organize societies among themselves, called Daughters' Unions, which were
a sort of annex to the men's organizations, but they were strongly opposed
by most women as being unladylike and entirely out of woman's sphere.

On March 1, 1849, the Daughters of Temperance gave a supper, to which
were invited the people of the village, and the address of the evening was
made by Miss Anthony. She thus describes the occasion in a letter:

I was escorted into the hall by the Committee where were assembled
about 200 people. The room was beautifully festooned with cedar
and red flannel. On the south side was printed in large capitals of
evergreen the name of "Susan B. Anthony!" I hardly knew how to
conduct myself amidst so much kindly regard. They had an elegant
supper. On the top of one pyramid loaf cake was a beautiful
bouquet, which was handed to the gentleman who escorted me
(Charlie Webster) and by him presented to me.

The paper is interesting as the first platform utterance of a woman destined
to become one of the noted speakers of the century. While it gives no
especial promise of the oratorical ability which later developed, it illustrates
the courage of the woman who dared read an address in public, when to do
so provoked the severest criticism. The following extracts are taken
verbatim from the original MS.:

Welcome, Gentlemen and Ladies, to this, our Hall of Temperance.
We feel that the cause we have espoused is a common cause, in
which you, with us, are deeply interested. We would that some
means were devised, by which our Brothers and Sons shall no
longer be allured from the right by the corrupting influence of the
fashionable sippings of wine and brandy, those sure destroyers of
Mental and Moral Worth, and by which our Sisters and Daughters
shall no longer be exposed to the vile arts of the gentlemanly-

appearing, gallant, but really half-inebriated seducer. Our motive is
to ask of you counsel in the formation, and co-operation in the
carrying-out of plans which may produce a radical change in our
Moral Atmosphere....

But to the question, what good our Union has done? Though our
Order has been strongly opposed by ladies professing a desire to see
the Moral condition of our race elevated, and though we still behold
some of our thoughtless female friends whirling in the giddy dance,
with intoxicated partners at their side and, more than this, see them
accompany their reeling companions to some secluded nook and
there quaff with them from that Virtue-destroying cup, yet may we
not hope that an influence, though now unseen, unfelt, has gone
forth, which shall tell upon the future, which shall convince us that
our weekly resort to these meetings has not been in vain, and which
shall cause the friends of humanity to admire and respect—nay,
venerate—this now-despised little band of Daughters of
Temperance?...

We count it no waste of time to go forth through our streets, thus
proclaiming our desire for the advancement of our great cause. You,
with us, no doubt, feel that Intemperance is the blighting mildew of
all our social connections; you would be most happy to speed on the
time when no Wife shall watch with trembling heart and tearful eye
the slow, but sure descent of her idolized Companion down to the
loathsome haunts of drunkenness; you would hasten the day when
no Mother shall have to mourn over a darling son as she sees him
launch his bark on the circling waves of the mighty whirlpool.

How is this great change to be wrought, who are to urge on this vast
work of reform? Shall it not be women, who are most aggrieved by

the foul destroyer's inroads? Most certainly. Then arises the
question, how are we to accomplish the end desired? I answer, not
by confining our influence to our own home circle, not by centering
all our benevolent feelings upon our own kindred, not by caring
naught for the culture of any minds, save those of our own darlings.
No, no; the gratification of the selfish impulses alone, can never
produce a desirable change in the Moral aspect of Society....

It is generally conceded that it is our sex that fashions the Social and
Moral State of Society. We do not presume that females possess
unbounded power in abolishing the evil customs of the day; but we
do believe that were they en masse to discountenance the use of
wine and brandy as beverages at both their public and private
parties, not one of the opposite Sex, who has any claim to the title of
gentleman, would so insult them as to come into their presence after
having quaffed of that foul destroyer of all true delicacy and
refinement.

I am not aware that we have any inebriate females among us, but
have we not those, who are fallen from Virtue, and who claim our
efforts for their reform, equally with the inebriate? And while we
feel it our duty to extend the hand of sympathy and love to those
who are wanderers from the path of Temperance, should we not also
be zealous in reclaiming those poor, deluded ones, who have been
robbed of their most precious Gem, Virtue, and whom we blush to
think belong to our Sex?

Now, Ladies, all we would do is to do all in our power, both
individually and collectively, to harmonize and happify our Social
system. We ask of you candidly and seriously to investigate the
Matter, and decide for yourselves whether the object of our Union

be not on the side of right, and if it be, then one and all, for the sake
of erring humanity, come forward and speed on the right. If you
come to the conclusion that the end we wish to attain is right, but
are not satisfied with the plan adopted, then I ask of you to devise
means by which this great good may be more speedily
accomplished, and you shall find us ready with both heart and hand
to co-operate with you. In my humble opinion, all that is needed to
produce a complete Temperance and Social reform in this age of
Moral Suasion, is for our Sex to cast their United influences into the
balance.

Ladies! there is no Neutral position for us to assume. If we sustain
not this noble enterprise, both by precept and example, then is our
influence on the side of Intemperance. If we say we love the Cause,
and then sit down at our ease, surely does our action speak the lie.
And now permit me once more to beg of you to lend your aid to this
great Cause, the Cause of God and all Mankind.

The next day on the streets, so the letters say, everybody was exclaiming,
"Miss Anthony is the smartest woman who ever has been in Canajoharie."
Soon afterwards the school closed and, after spending the summer visiting
eastern relatives and friends, Miss Anthony returned to Rochester in the
autumn of 1849. The thing she remembers most vividly is how she reveled
in fruit. All the young orchards her father had planted were now bearing,
including a thousand peach trees, and for the first time in her life she had all
the peaches she wanted, and "lived on them for a month."

The years of 1850 and 1851 Daniel Anthony conducted his insurance
business in Syracuse and Susan remained at home, taking entire charge of
the farm, superintending the planting of the crops, the harvesting and the
selling. She also did most of the housework, as her mother was in delicate

health, her sister was teaching school and both brothers were away. In the
winter of 1852, she went into a school in Rochester as supply for three
months. She found, however, that her taste for teaching was entirely gone,
her work was without inspiration, her interest and sympathy had become
enlisted in other things. She longed to take an active part in the two great
reforms of temperance and anti-slavery, which now were absorbing public
attention; she could not endure the narrow and confining life of the school-
room, and so, in the spring, she abandoned teaching forever, after an
experience of fifteen years.
[9] Nearly fifty years afterwards, when Mr. Hagar was at the head of the Girls' High School,
in Salem, Mass., Miss Anthony visited him and was most cordially invited to address his
pupils "on any subject she pleased, even woman suffrage."

[10] The play for this occasion was written by James Arkell, father of W.J. Arkell, proprietor
of the Judge. He was a pupil in the boys' department of the old academy.

CHAPTER V.
ENTRANCE INTO PUBLIC LIFE.

1850—1852.

Ill the conditions were such as to make it most natural for Miss Anthony,
when she reached the age of maturity, to adopt a public career and go
actively into reform work, and especially to enter upon that contest to
secure equal rights for those of her own sex, which she was to wage
unceasingly for half a century. Her father's mother and sister were "high
seat" Quakers, the latter a famous preacher. Her mother's cousin, Betsey
Dunnell White, of Stafford's Hill, was noted as the only woman in that
locality who could "talk politics," and the men used to come from far and
near to get her opinion on the political situation. She was brought up in a
society which recognizes the equality of the sexes and encourages women
in public speaking. In her own home the father believed in giving sons and
daughters the same advantages, and in preparing the latter as well as the
former for self-support. The daughters were taught business principles, and
invested with responsibility at an early age. Two of them married, and the
third was of a quiet and retiring disposition; but in Susan he saw ability of a
high order and that same courage, persistence and aggressiveness which
entered into his own character, enabling him to make his way in the
business world and rally from his losses and defeats. He encouraged her
desire to go into the reforms which were demanding attention, gave her
financial backing when necessary, moral support upon all occasions, and
was ever her most interested friend and faithful ally. She received also the
sympathy and assistance of her mother, who, no matter how heavy the
domestic burdens, or how precarious her own health, was never willing that

she should take any time from her public work to give to the duties of
home, although she frequently insisted upon doing so.

During Miss Anthony's stay at Canajoharie she went often to Albany and
there made the intimate acquaintance of Abigail Mott and her sister Lydia,
whose names are now a blessed memory with the leaders of the abolition
movement that still remain. Their modest home was a rallying center for the
reformers of the day, and here Miss Anthony met many of the noted men
and women with whom she was to become so closely associated in the
future. She reached home in 1849 to find a hot-bed of discussion and
fermentation. The first rift had been made in the old common law, which for
centuries had held women in its iron grasp, by the passage, in April, 1848,
of the Property Bill allowing a married woman to hold real estate in her
own name in New York. Previous to this time all the property which a
woman owned at marriage and all she might receive by gift or inheritance
passed into the possession of the husband; the rents and profits belonged to
him, and he could sell it during his lifetime or dispose of it by will at his
death except her life interest in one-third of the real estate. The more
thoughtful among women were beginning to ask why other unjust laws
should not also be repealed, and the whole question of the rights of woman
was thus opened.

In 1848, Spiritualism may be said to have had its birth, and the remarkable
manifestations of the Fox sisters brought numbers of people to Rochester,
where they had-removed as soon as they began to be widely known. This
form of religious belief soon acquired a large following, causing much
controversy and great excitement.

The Society of Friends had divided on the slavery issue and Miss Anthony
found her family attending the Unitarian church, which soon afterwards
called William Henry Channing to its pulpit. Both he and Samuel J. May,

the father of Unitarianism in Syracuse, became her steadfast friends and
never-failing support in all the great work which was developed in later
years.

AUNT HANNAH, THE QUAKER PREACHER. FROM A
DAGUERREOTYPE.

In July, 1848, the first Woman's Rights Convention had been held in Seneca
Falls and adjourned to meet in Rochester August 2. Miss Anthony's father,
mother and sister Mary had attended and signed the declaration demanding
equal rights for women, and she found them enthusiastic upon this subject
and also over Mrs. Stanton, Lucretia Mott and other prominent women who
had taken part. Her cousin, Sarah Anthony Burtis, had acted as secretary of
the convention.

In 1849 Mrs. Mott published her admirable Discourse on Woman in answer
to a lyceum lecture by Richard H. Dana ridiculing the idea of civil and
political rights for women. In 1847 Frederick Douglass had brought his
family to Rochester and established his paper, the North Star. As soon as
Miss Anthony reached home she was taken by her father to call on
Douglass, and this was the beginning of another friendship which was to
last a lifetime.

The year 1849 saw the whole country in a state of great unrest and
excitement. Eighty thousand men had gone to California in search of gold.
Telegraphs and railroads were being rapidly constructed, thus bringing
widely separated localities into close communication. The unsettled
condition of Europe and the famine in Ireland had turned toward America
that tremendous tide of immigration which this year had risen to 300,000.
The admission of Texas into the Union had precipitated the full force of the
slavery question. Old parties were disintegrating and sectional lines
becoming closely drawn. New territories were knocking at the door of the
Union and the whole nation was in a ferment as to whether they should be
slave or free. Threats of secession were heard in both the North and the
South. A spirit of compromise finally prevailed and deferred the crisis for a

decade, but the agitation and unrest continued to increase. The Abolitionists
were still a handful of radicals, repudiated alike by the Free Soil Whigs and
Free Soil Democrats. Slavery, as an institution, had not yet become a
political issue, but only its extension into the territories.

Such, in brief, was the situation at the beginning of 1850. It was a period of
grave apprehension on the part of older men and women, of intense
aggressiveness with the younger, who were eager for action. It is not
surprising then that an educated, self-reliant, public-spirited woman who
had just reached thirty should chafe against the narrow limits of a school-
room and rebel at giving her time and strength to the teaching of children,
when all her mind and heart were drawn toward the great issues then filling
the press and the platform and even finding their way into the pulpit. Miss
Anthony's whole soul soon became absorbed in the thought, "What service
can I render humanity; what can I do to help right the wrongs of society?"
At this time the one and only field of public work into which women had
dared venture, except in a few isolated cases, was that of temperance. Miss
Anthony had brought her credentials from the Daughters' Union at
Canajoharie and presented them at once to the society in Rochester; they
were gladly accepted and she soon became a leader. In these days John B.
Gough was delivering his magnificent lectures throughout the country, and
Philip S. White, of South Carolina, was winning fame as a temperance
orator.

The year 1850 was for her one of transition. A new world opened out before
her. The Anthony homestead was a favorite meeting place for liberal-
spirited men and women. On Sunday especially, when the father could be at
home, the house was filled and fifteen or twenty people used to gather
around the hospitable board. Susan always superintended these Sunday
dinners, and was divided between her anxiety to sustain her reputation as a
superior cook and her desire not to lose a word of the conversation in the

parlor. Garrison, Pillsbury, Phillips, Channing and other great reformers
visited at this home, and many a Sunday the big wagon would be sent to the
city for Frederick Douglass and his family to come out and spend the day.
Here were gathered many times the Posts, Hallowells, DeGarmos, Willises,
Burtises, Kedzies, Fishes, Curtises, Stebbins, Asa Anthonys, all Quakers
who had left the society on account of their anti-slavery principles and were
leaders in the abolition and woman's rights movements. Every one of these
Sunday meetings was equal to a convention. The leading events of the day
were discussed in no uncertain tones. All were Garrisonians and believed in
"immediate and unconditional emancipation." In 1850 the Fugitive Slave
Law was passed and all the resources of the federal government were
employed for its enforcement. Its provisions exasperated the Abolitionists
to the highest degree. The house of Isaac and Amy Post was the rendezvous
for runaway slaves, and each of these families that gathered on Sunday at
the Anthony farm could have told where might be found at least one station
on the "underground railroad."

Miss Anthony read with deep interest the reports of the woman's rights
convention held at Worcester, Mass., October, 1850, which were published
in the New York Tribune.[11] She sympathized fully with the demand for
equal rights for women, but was not yet quite convinced that these included
the suffrage. This, no doubt, was largely because Quaker men did not vote,
thinking it wrong to support a government which believed in war. Even so
progressive and public-spirited a man as Daniel Anthony, much as he was
interested in all national affairs, never voted until 1860, when he became
convinced it was only by force of arms that the question of slavery could be
settled.

In 1851, the License Law having been arbitrarily repealed a few years
before, there was practically no regulation of the liquor business, nor was
there any such public sentiment against intemperance as exists at the

present day. Drunkenness was not looked upon as an especial disgrace and
there had been little agitation of the question. The wife of a drunkard was
completely at his mercy. He had the entire custody of the children, full
control of anything she might earn, and the law did not recognize
drunkenness as a cause for divorce. Although woman was the greatest
sufferer, she had not yet learned that she had even the poor right of protest.
Oppressed by the weight of the injustice and tyranny of ages, she knew
nothing except to suffer in silence; and so degraded was she by generations
of slavish submission, that she possessed not even the moral courage to
stand by those of her own sex who dared rebel and demand a new
dispensation.

The old Washingtonian Society of the first half of the nineteenth century,
composed entirely of men, because reformed drunkards only could belong
to it, was succeeded by the Sons of Temperance, and these had permitted
the organization of subordinate lodges called Daughters of Temperance,
which, as subsequent events will show, were entitled to no official
recognition. It was in one of these, the only organized bodies of women
known at this time,[12] that Miss Anthony first displayed that executive
ability which was destined to make her famous. During 1851 she was very
active in temperance work and organized a number of societies in
surrounding towns. She instituted in Rochester a series of suppers and
festivals to raise the funds which she at once saw were necessary before any
efficient work could be done. An old invitation to one of these, dated
February 21, 1851, and signed by Susan B. Anthony, chairman, reads: "The
entertainment is intended to be of such a character as will meet the
approbation of the wise and good; Supper, Songs, Toasts, Sentiments and
short speeches will be the order of-the evening; $1 will admit a gentleman
and a lady" A newpaper account says:

The five long tables were loaded with a rich variety of provisions,
tastefully decorated and arranged. Mayor Samuel Richardson
presided at the supper table. After the repast was over, Miss Susan
B. Anthony, Directress of the Festival and President of the
Association, introduced these highly creditable sentiments, which
were greatly applauded by the assemblage:

"The Women of Rochester—Powerful to fashion the customs of
society, may they not fail to exercise that power for the speedy and
total banishment of all that intoxicates from our domestic and social
circles, and thus speed on the day when no young man, be he ever
so genteelly dressed or of ever so noble, origin, who pollutes his lips
with the touch of the drunkard's cup, shall presume to seek the favor
of any of our precious daughters.

"Our Cause—May each succeeding day add to its glory and every
hour give fresh impetus to its progress...."

Many other toasts were proposed which space forbids quoting, but the
following by one of the gentlemen deserves a place:

The Daughters—Our characters they elevate,
Our manners they refine;
Without them we'd degenerate
To the level of the swine.

It is curious how willing men have been, through all the centuries, to admit
that only the influence of women saves them from being brutes and how
anxious to confine that influence to the narrowest possible limits.

Abby K. Foster

In the winter of 1851 Miss Anthony attended an anti-slavery meeting in
Rochester, conducted by Stephen and Abby Kelly Foster. This was her first
acquaintance with Mrs. Foster, who had been the most persecuted of all the
women taking part in the anti-slavery struggle. She had been ridiculed,
denounced and mobbed for years; and, for listening to her on Sunday, men
and women had been expelled from church. Her strong and heroic spirit
struck an answering spark in Miss Anthony's breast. She accompanied the
Fosters for a week on their tour of meetings in adjoining counties, and was
urged by them to go actively into this reform.

The following May she went to the Anti-Slavery Anniversary in Syracuse.
This convention had been driven out of New York by Rynders' mob in 1850
and did not dare go back. On the way home she stopped at Seneca Falls, the
guest of Mrs. Amelia Bloomer, to hear again Wm. Lloyd Garrison and
George Thompson, the distinguished Abolitionist from England, who had
stirred her nature to its depths. Here was fulfilled her long-cherished desire
of seeing Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Their meeting is best described in that
lady's own words: "Walking home with the speakers, who were my guests,
we met Mrs. Bloomer with Miss Anthony on the corner of the street waiting
to greet us. There she stood with her good, earnest face and genial smile,
dressed in gray delaine, hat and all the same color relieved with pale-blue
ribbons, the perfection of neatness and sobriety. I liked her thoroughly from
the beginning." Both Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Bloomer on this occasion wore
what is known as the Bloomer costume. In the summer Miss Anthony went

to Seneca Falls to a meeting of those interested in founding the People's
College. Horace Greeley, Lucy Stone and herself were entertained by Mrs.
Stanton. The three women were determined it should be opened to girls as
well as boys. Mr. Greeley begged them not to agitate the question, assuring
them that he would have the constitution and by-laws so framed as to admit
women on the same terms as men, and he did as he promised, making a
spirited fight. Before the college was fairly started, however, it was merged
into Cornell University.

This was Miss Anthony's first meeting with Lucy Stone and may be called
the commencement of her life-long friendship with Mrs. Stanton. These
women who sat at the dinner-table that day were destined to be recorded in
history for all time as the three central figures in the great movement for
equal rights. There certainly was nothing formidable in the appearance of
the trio: Miss Anthony a quiet, dignified Quaker girl; Mrs. Stanton a plump,
jolly, youthful matron, scarcely five feet high; and Lucy Stone a petite, soft-
voiced young woman who seemed better fitted for caresses than for the
hard buffetings of the world.

Miss Anthony's public life may be said to have fairly begun in 1852. The
Sons of Temperance had announced a mass meeting of all the divisions in
the state, to be held at Albany, and had invited the Daughters to send
delegates. The Rochester union appointed Susan B. Anthony. Her
credentials, with those of the other women delegates, were accepted and
seats given them in the convention, but when Miss Anthony rose to speak to
a motion she was informed by the presiding officer that "the sisters were not
invited there to speak but to listen and learn." She and three or four other
ladies at once left the hall. The rest of the women had not the courage to
follow, but called them "bold, meddlesome disturbers," and remained to
bask in the approving smiles of the Sons. They sought advice of Lydia
Mott, who said the proper thing was to hold a meeting of their own; so they

secured the lecture-room of the Hudson street Presbyterian church, and then
went to the office of the Evening Journal, edited by Thurlow Weed, to talk
the situation over with him. He told them they had done exactly right, and
in his paper that evening he announced their meeting and related their
treatment by the men.

The night was cold and snowy. The little room was dark, the stove smoked
and the pipe fell down during the exercises, but the women were sustained
by their indignation and sense of justice and would not allow themselves to
be discouraged. Rev. Samuel J. May, who was in the city attending the
"Jerry Rescue" trials, seeing the notice of their meeting, came to offer his
assistance, accompanied by David Wright, husband of Martha C. Wright
and brother-in-law of Lucretia Mott. These two, with a reporter, were the
only men present at this little assemblage of women who had decided that
they could do something better for the cause of temperance than being seen
and not heard.

Mr. May opened the meeting with prayer, and then showed them how to
organize. Mary C. Vaughn, of Oswego, was made president; Miss Anthony,
secretary; Lydia Mott, chairman of the business committee. Mrs. Vaughn
gave an address. A letter had been received from Mrs. Stanton so radical
that most of the ladies objected to having it read, but Miss Anthony took the
responsibility. She read, also, letters from Clarina Howard Nichols and
Amelia Bloomer, which had been intended for the Sons' meeting. Mrs.
Lydia F. Fowler, who happened to be lecturing in Albany, spoke briefly, and
Mr. May paid high tribute to the valuable work of women in temperance
and anti-slavery, declaring their influence as indispensable to the state and
the church as to the home. Miss Anthony then said their treatment showed
that the time had come for women to have an organization of their own; and
the final outcome was the appointment of a committee, with herself as
chairman, to call a Woman's State Temperance Convention.

She at once wrote to all parts of the State urging the unions to send
delegates, and received many encouraging replies. Horace Greeley wrote as
follows:

I heartily approve the call of the Woman's Temperance Convention,
and hope it may result in good. To this end I would venture to
suggest:

1st. Hold an informal and private meeting before you attempt to
meet in public. There select your officers, your business
committees, etc., so that there shall be no jarring when you
assemble in public.

2d. Have your addresses and resolves carefully prepared
beforehand. Make them very short and pointed. Have them in type
so that they may appear promptly and simultaneously in the daily
papers. If you will send us a copy of them the night before we will
endeavor to print them with our proceedings of the meeting received
by telegraph.

3d. Be sure that your strongest thinkers speak and that the weaker
forbear, and that extraneous matters, so far as possible, are let alone.

It will be seen that by adopting these shrewd political methods there would
not be much left for the convention proper to do except listen to the
speeches, but it would be hard to compress into smaller space more sensible
advice. Mrs. Nichols wrote her: "It is most invigorating to watch the
development of a woman in the work for humanity: first, anxious for the
cause and depressed with a sense of her own inability; next, partial success
of timid efforts creating a hope; next, a faith; and then the fruition of
complete self-devotion. Such will be your history." From Mrs. Stanton
came cheering words: "I will gladly do all in my power to help you. Come

and stay with me and I will write the best lecture I can for you. I have no
doubt a little practice will make you an admirable speaker. Dress loosely,
take a great deal of exercise, be particular about your diet and sleep enough.
The body has great influence upon the mind. In your meetings, if attacked,
be cool and good-natured, for if you are simple and truth-loving no
sophistry can confound you. As for my own address, if I am to be president
it ought perhaps to be sent out with the stamp of the convention, but as
anything from my pen is necessarily radical no one may wish to share with
me the odium of what I may choose to say. If so, I am ready to stand alone.
I never write to please any one. If I do please I am happy, but to proclaim
my highest convictions of truth is always my sole object."

After weeks of hard work, writing countless letters, taking numerous trips
to various towns, and making almost without assistance all the necessary
arrangements, the convention assembled in Corinthian Hall, Rochester,
April 20, 1852. The morning audience was composed entirely of women,
500 being in attendance. Miss Anthony opened the meeting, read the call,
which had been widely circulated, and in a clear, forcible manner set forth
the object of the convention. The call urged the women to "meet together
for devising such associated action as shall be necessary for the protection
of their interests and of society at large, too long invaded and destroyed by
legalized intemperance." It was signed by Daniel Anthony, William R.
Hallowell and a number of well-known men and women, many of whom
were present and took part in the discussions. Letters were read from
distinguished persons and strong resolutions adopted, among them one
thanking the New York Tribune for the kindness with which it had
uniformly sustained women in their efforts for temperance. Elizabeth Cady
Stanton was elected president; Mrs. Gerrit Smith, Mrs. E.C. Delavan,
Antoinette L. Brown and nine others, vice-presidents; Susan B. Anthony
and Amelia Bloomer, secretaries. In accepting the presidency, Mrs. Stanton
made a powerful speech, certain parts of which acted as a bombshell not

only at this meeting, but in press, pulpit and society. The two points which
aroused most antagonism were:

1st. Let no woman remain in the relation of wife with a confirmed
drunkard. Let no drunkard be the father of her children.... Let us
petition our State government so to modify the laws affecting
marriage and the custody of children, that the drunkard shall have
no claims on wife or child.

2d. Inasmuch as charity begins at home, let us withdraw our mite
from all associations for sending the Gospel to the heathen across
the ocean, for the education of young men for the ministry, for the
building up of a theological aristocracy and gorgeous temples to the
unknown God, and devote ourselves to the poor and suffering
around us. Let us feed and clothe the hungry and naked, gather
children into schools and provide reading-rooms and decent homes
for young men and women thrown alone upon the world. Good
schools and homes, where the young could ever be surrounded by
an atmosphere of purity and virtue, would do much more to prevent
immorality and crime in our cities than all the churches in the land
could ever possibly do toward the regeneration of the multitude
sunk in poverty, ignorance and vice.

The effect of such declarations on the conservatism of half a century ago
hardly can be pictured. At this time the principal outlet for women's
activities was through foreign missionary work, and even in this they were
allowed no official responsibility. None of the many charitable
organizations which are now almost wholly in the hands of women were in
existence. In scarcely one State was drunkenness recognized as cause for
divorce, and yet when Mrs. Stanton made these demands, the women
throughout the country joined with the men in denouncing them. Only a few

of the broader and more progressive, who were ahead of their age, sustained
her. Among these were Miss Anthony, Ernestine L. Rose, Lucretia Mott,
Lucy Stone, Frances D. Gage and Martha C. Wright.

After six enthusiastic sessions and the forming of a strong organization, the
convention adjourned. Thus the first Woman's State Temperance Society
ever formed was due almost entirely to Susan B. Anthony, because of her
courage in demanding independent action and her successful efforts in
calling the convention which inaugurated it. The executive committee met
in May and appointed her State agent, "with full power and authority to
organize auxiliary societies, collect moneys, issue certificates of
membership and do all things which she may judge necessary and expedient
to promote the purposes for which our society has been organized."

The Men's State Temperance Society had issued an official call for a
convention to be held at Syracuse in June, containing these words:
"Temperance societies of every name are invited to send delegates." Acting
upon this invitation, the executive committee of the Woman's State
Temperance Society appointed Gerrit Smith, Susan B. Anthony and Amelia
Bloomer as delegates. Mr. Smith was not able to attend and, after their
experience at Albany, there were serious doubts in the minds of the women
whether they would be received. They were much encouraged, however, by
the receipt of a letter from Rev. Samuel J. May, written June 14, saying:
"The local committee are now in session. I have just read your letter to
them, and every member has expressed himself in favor of receiving the
delegates of the Woman's State Temperance Society, just as the delegates of
any other society, and allowing them to take their own course, speak or not
speak, as they choose."

Miss Anthony and Mrs. Bloomer went to Syracuse, and on the morning of
the convention received a call from Mr. May. He came to inform them that

their arrival had caused great excitement among the clergy, who comprised
a large portion of the delegates and threatened to withdraw if the women
were admitted. Their action had alarmed the other delegates, who feared a
disturbance in the convention, and they had requested Mr. May, as probably
having the most influence, to call upon the ladies and urge them not to ask
for recognition. When they told him they should go to the meeting and
present their credentials, he expressed great satisfaction and said that was
just the decision he had hoped they would make. They quietly entered the
hall and took seats with other ladies at one side of the platform.
Immediately Rev. Mandeville, of Albany, turned his chair around with back
to the audience and, facing them, attempted to stare them out of
countenance. William H. Burleigh, secretary, read the annual report, which
closed, "We hail the formation of the Woman's State Temperance Society as
a valuable auxiliary." This precipitated the discussion. Rev. Mandeville
sprung to his feet and moved to strike out the last sentence. His speech was
filled with such venom and vulgarity as the foulest-mouthed politician
would hesitate to utter. He denounced the Woman's State Temperance
Society and all women publicly engaged in temperance work, declared the
women delegates to be "a hybrid species, half man and half woman,
belonging to neither sex," and announced finally that if this sentence were
not struck out he would dissolve his connection with the society.

A heated debate followed. Mr. Havens, of New York, offered an amendment
recognizing "the right of women to work in their proper sphere—the
domestic circle." Rev. May, of the Unitarian church, Rev. Luther Lee, of the
Wesleyan Methodist, Hon. A.N. Cole, a leading Whig politician, and
several others, defended the rights of the women in the most eloquent
manner, but were howled down. Miss Anthony made only one attempt to
speak and that was to remind them that over 100,000 of the signers to a
petition for a Maine Law, the previous winter, were women, but her voice
was drowned by Rev. Fowler, of Utica, shouting, "Order! Order!" Herman

Camp, of Trumansburg, the president, ruled that she was not a delegate and
had no right to speak. Amid great confusion the question was put to vote
and the decision of the chair sustained. As no delegates had yet been
accredited, everybody in the house was allowed to vote, but the secretary,
J.T. Hazen, announced that he did not count the votes of the women!

Rev. Luther Lee at once offered his church to the ladies for an evening
meeting. They had a crowded house, fine speeches and good music, while
the convention was practically deserted, not over fifty being present. After a
masterly speech by Mr. May and stirring remarks from Mr. Lee, Mrs.
Bloomer and others, Miss Anthony made the address of the evening, which
she had prepared for the men's convention, a strong plea for the right of
women to work and speak for temperance. Soon afterwards she wrote her
father: "I feel there is a great work to be done which none but women can
do. How I wish I could be daily associated with those whose ideas are in
advance of my own, it would enable me to develop so much faster;" and
then, notwithstanding all her rebuffs, she signed herself, "Yours cheerily."

The anti-slavery convention this year was held in Rochester, and Miss
Anthony had as a guest her dear friend, Lydia Mott, and again met
Garrison, Phillips, May, the Fosters, Pillsbury, Henry C. Wright and others
of that glorious band who together had received the baptism of fire.
Although intensely interested in the anti-slavery question she did not dare
think she had the ability to take up that work, but she did resolve to give all
her time and energy to the temperance cause. The summer of 1852 was
spent in traveling throughout the State with Mrs. Vaughn, Mrs. Attilia Albro
and Miss Emily Clark. They canvassed thirty counties, organizing societies
and securing 28,000 signatures to a petition for the Maine Law. Miss
Anthony sent out a strong appeal, saying:

Women, and mothers in particular, should feel it their right and duty
to extend their influence beyond the circumference of the home
circle, and to say what circumstances shall surround children when
they go forth from under the watchful guardianship of the mother's
love; for certain it is that, if the customs and laws of society remain
corrupt as they now are, the best and wisest of the mother's
teachings will soon be counteracted....

Woman has so long been accustomed to non-intervention with law-
making, so long considered it man's business to regulate the liquor
traffic, that it is with much cautiousness she receives the new
doctrine which we preach; the doctrine that it is her right and duty to
speak out against the traffic and all men and institutions that in any
way sanction, sustain or countenance it; and, since she can not vote,
to duly instruct her husband, son, father or brother how she would
have him vote, and, if he longer continue to mis-represent her, take
the right to march to the ballot-box and deposit a vote indicative of
her highest ideas of practical temperance.

It will be seen by this that already she had taken her stand on the right of
woman to the franchise.

While at Elmira she happened into a teachers' convention and heard Charles
Anthony, of the Albany academy, a distant relative, make an address on
"The Divine Ordinance of Corporal Punishment." It was a severe and cruel
justification of the unlimited use of the rod, but, although more than three-
fourths of the teachers present were women, not a word was uttered in
protest. Throughout the proceedings not a woman's voice was heard, none
was appointed on committees or voted on any question, and they were as
completely ignored as so many outsiders. Miss Anthony made up her mind
that here also was a work to be done, and that henceforth she would attend

the State teachers' conventions every year and demand for women all the
privileges now monopolized by men.

On September 8, 1852, she went to her first Woman's Rights Convention,
which was held at Syracuse. She had read with avidity the accounts of the
Ohio, Massachusetts, Indiana and Pennsylvania conventions, but this was
her first opportunity of attending one. At the preliminary meeting, held the
night before, she was made a member of the nominating committee with
Paulina Wright Davis, of Providence, R.I., chairman. Mrs. Davis had come
with the determination of putting in as president her dear friend Elizabeth
Oakes Smith, a fashionable literary woman of Boston. Both attended the
meeting and the convention in short-sleeved, low-necked white dresses, one
with a pink, the other with a blue embroidered wool delaine sack with wide,
flowing sleeves, which left both neck and arms exposed. At the committee
meeting next morning, Quaker James Mott nominated Mrs. Smith for
president, but Quaker Susan B. Anthony spoke out boldly and said that
nobody who dressed as she did could represent the earnest, solid, hard-
working women of the country for whom they were making the demand for
equal rights. Mr. Mott said they must not expect all women to dress as
plainly as the Friends; but she held her ground, and as all the committee
agreed with her, though no one else had had the courage to speak, Mrs.
Smith's name was voted down. This is but one instance of hundreds where
Miss Anthony alone dared say what others only dared think, and thus
through all the years made herself the target for criticism, blame and abuse.
Others escaped through their cowardice; she suffered through her bravery.

Lucretia Mott was made president, and the Syracuse Standard said: "It was
a singular spectacle to see this Quaker matron presiding over a convention
with an ease, grace and dignity that might be envied by the most
experienced legislator in the country."[13] Susan B. Anthony and Martha C.
Wright were the secretaries. Delegates were present from Canada and eight

different States. Letters were received from Angelina Grimké Weld,
William Henry Channing and others; Horace Greeley sent much good
advice; Garrison wrote: "You have as noble an object in view, aye and as
Christian a one too, as ever was advocated beneath the sun. Heaven bless all
your proceedings." Rev. A.D. Mayo said in a long letter:

I have never questioned what I believed to be the central principle
of the reform in which you are engaged. I believe that every mature
soul is responsible directly to God, not only for its faith and
opinions, but for its details of life. The assertion that woman is
responsible to man for her belief or conduct, in any other sense than
man is responsible to woman, I reject, not as a believer in any
theory of "woman's rights," but as a believer in that religion which
knows neither male nor female in its imperative demand upon the
individual conscience.

George W. Johnson, of Buffalo, chairman of the State committee of the
Liberty party, sent $10 and these vigorous sentiments: "Woman has, equally
with man, the inalienable right to education, suffrage, office, property,
professions, titles and honors—to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
False to our sex, as well as her own, and false to herself and her God, is the
woman who approves, or who submits without resistance or protest, to the
social and political wrongs imposed upon her in common with her sex
throughout the world." Mrs. Stanton's letter, read with hearty approval by
Miss Anthony, raised the usual breeze in the convention. She suggested
three points:

Should not all women, living in States where they have the right to
hold property, refuse to pay taxes so long as they are unrepresented
in the government?... Man has pre-empted the most profitable
branches of industry, and we demand a place at his side; to this end

we need the same advantages of education, and we therefore claim
that the best colleges of the country be opened to us.... In her present
ignorance, woman's religion, instead of making her noble and free,
by the wrong application of great principles of right and justice, has
made her bondage but more certain and lasting, her degradation
more helpless and complete.

In the course of her argument Lucy Stone said:

The claims we make at these conventions are self-evident truths.
The second resolution affirms the right of human beings to their
persons and earnings. Is not that self-evident? Yet the common law,
which regulates the relation of husband and wife, and is modified
only in a few instances by the statutes, gives the "custody" of the
wife's person to the husband, so that he has a right to her even
against herself. It gives him her earnings, no matter with what
weariness they have been acquired, or how greatly she may need
them for herself or her children. It gives him a right to her personal
property, which he may will entirely away from her, also the use of
her real estate, and in some of the States married women, insane
persons and idiots are ranked together as not fit to make a will; so
that she is left with only one right, which she enjoys in common
with the pauper, the right of maintenance. Indeed, when she has
taken the sacred marriage vows, her legal existence ceases. And
what is our position politically? The foreigner, the negro, the
drunkard, all are entrusted with the ballot, all placed by men
politically higher than their own mothers, wives, sisters and
daughters! The woman who, seeing this, dares not maintain her
rights is the one to hang her head and blush. We ask only for justice
and equal rights—the right to vote, the right to our own earnings,
equality before the law; these are the Gibraltar of our cause.

Rev. Antoinette Brown, the first woman ever ordained to preach, declared:

Man can not represent woman. They differ in their nature and
relations. The law is wholly masculine; it is created and executed by
man. The framers of all legal compacts are restricted to the
masculine standpoint of observation, to the thoughts, feelings and
biases of man. The law then can give us no representation as
women, and therefore no impartial justice, even if the law-makers
were honestly intent upon this, for we can be represented only by
our peers.... When woman is tried for crime, her jury, her judges, her
advocates, all are men; and yet there may have been temptations and
various palliating circumstances connected with her peculiar nature
as woman, such as man can not appreciate. Common justice
demands that a part of the law-makers and law-executors should be
of her own sex. In questions of marriage and divorce, affecting
interests dearer than life, both parties in the compact are entitled to
an equal voice.

Mrs. Nichols said in discussing the laws:

If a wife is compelled to get a divorce on account of the infidelity of
the husband, she forfeits all right to the property which they have
earned together, while the husband, who is the offender, still retains
the sole possession and control of the estate. She, the innocent party,
goes out childless and portionless by decree of law, and he, the
criminal, retains the home and children by favor of the game law. A
drunkard takes his wife's clothing to pay his rum bills, and the court
declares that the action is legal because the wife belongs to the
husband.

Hon. Gerrit Smith here made his first appearance upon the woman suffrage
platform, although he had written many letters expressing sympathy and

encouragement, and made a grand argument for woman's equality. He
closed by saying: "All rights are held by a precarious tenure if this one right
to the ballot be denied. When women are the constituents of men who make
and administer the laws they will pay due consideration to woman's
interests, and not before. The right of suffrage is the great right that
guarantees all others." Here also was the first public appearance of Matilda
Joslyn Gage, the youngest woman taking part in the convention, who read
an excellent paper urging that daughters should be educated with sons,
taught self-reliance and permitted some independent means of self-support.
A fine address also was made by Paulina Wright Davis, who had managed
and presided over the two conventions held in 1850 and 1851 at Worcester,
Mass.[14]

The queen of the platform at this time was Ernestine L. Rose, a Jewess who
had fled from Poland to escape religious persecution. She was beautiful and
cultured, of liberal views and great oratorical powers. Her lectures on "The
Science of Government" had attracted wide attention. Naturally, she took a
prominent part in the early woman's rights meetings. On this occasion she
presented and eloquently advocated the following resolution:

We ask for our rights not as a gift of charity, but as an act of justice;
for it is in accordance with the principles of republicanism that, as
woman has to pay taxes to maintain government, she has a right to
participate in the formation and administration of it; that as she is
amenable to the laws of her country, she is entitled to a voice in
their enactment and to all the protective advantages they can
bestow; that as she is as liable as man to all the vicissitudes of life,
she ought to enjoy the same social rights and privileges. Any
difference, therefore, in political, civil and social rights, on account
of sex, is in direct violation of the principles of justice and

humanity, and as such ought to be held up to the contempt and
derision of every lover of human freedom.

During the debate Rev. Junius Hatch, a Congregational minister from
Massachusetts, made a speech so coarse and vulgar that the president called
him to order. As he paid no attention to her, the men in the audience choked
him off with cries of "Sit down! Shut up!" His idea of woman's modesty
was that she should cast her eyes down when meeting men, drop her veil
when walking up the aisle of a church and keep her place at home. Miss
Anthony arose and stated that Mr. Hatch himself was one of the young
ministers who had been educated through the efforts of women, and she had
always noticed those were the ones most anxious for women to keep silence
in the churches. This finished Mr. Hatch.

A young teacher by the name of Brigham also attempted to define the
spheres of Mrs. Mott, Mrs. Stanton[15] and the other great advocates of
woman's freedom and declared: "Women ought to be keepers at home and
mind domestic concerns; he had no doubt the true object of this meeting
was not so much to acquire any real or supposed rights as to make the
speakers and actors conspicuous; he wished to urge upon them to claim
nothing masculine for women, for even in animals the spheres were
different. He had no objections to woman's voice being heard, but let her
seek out the breathing-holes of perdition to do her work." Mr. Brigham was
badly worsted in the argument which followed, and at the next session he
sent in a protest, declaring he had not had "justice." He evidently did not see
the satire of this complaint, since he himself had been loudest in his refusal
to do justice to woman.

A heated discussion was called out by a resolution offered by Rev.
Antoinette L. Brown declaring that "the Bible recognizes the rights,
privileges and duties of woman as a public teacher, as in every way equal

with those of man; that it enjoins upon her no subjection that is not enjoined
upon him; and that it truly and practically recognizes neither male nor
female in Christ Jesus." Mrs. Rose closed the discussion by saying:

I can not object to any one's interpreting the Bible as he or she
thinks best; but I do object that such interpretation go forth as the
doctrine of this convention, because it is a mere interpretation and
not even the authority of the Book; it is the view of Miss Brown
only, which is as good as that of any other minister, but that is all.
For my part I reject both interpretations. Here we claim human
rights and freedom, based upon the laws of humanity, and we
require no written authority from Moses or Paul, because those laws
and our claim are prior even to these two great men.

Miss Brown's resolution was not adopted. Susan B. Anthony spoke briefly
but earnestly in behalf of the People's College and also of the Woman's
State Temperance Society, for which she asked their endorsement. She then
read the resolutions sent by Mrs. Stanton, all but one of which were
adopted. The Syracuse Journal commented: "Miss Anthony has a capital
voice and deserves to be made clerk of the Assembly." The Syracuse
Standard said of this convention: "It was attended by not less than 2,000
persons. The discussions were characterized by a degree of ability that
would do credit to any deliberative body." The Journal said: "No person can
deny that there was a greater amount of talent in the woman's rights
convention than has characterized any public gathering in this city during
the last ten years, if ever before. The appearance of all the ladies was
modest and unassuming, though prompt, energetic and confident. Business
was brought forward, calmly deliberated upon and discussed with
unanimity and in a spirit becoming true women, which would add an
unknown dignity to the transactions of public associations of the 'lords.'"
The Syracuse Star, however, took a different view:

The women of the Tomfoolery Convention, now being held in this
city, talk as fluently of the Bible and God's teachings in their
speeches as if they could draw an argument from inspiration in
maintenance of their woman's rights stuff.... The poor creatures who
take part in the silly rant of "brawling women" and Aunt Nancy men
are most of them "ismizers" of the rankest stamp, Abolitionists of
the most frantic and contemptible kind and Christian (?)
sympathizers with such heretics as Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Parker
Pillsbury, O.C. Burleigh and S.S. Foster. These men are all woman's
righters and preachers of such damnable doctrines and accursed
heresies as would make demons of the pit shudder to hear. We have
selected a few appropriate passages from God's Bible for the
consideration of the infuriated gang at the convention.

The New York Herald, under the elder Bennett, which from the beginning
of the demand had been the inveterate foe of equal rights for women,
contained the following editorial, September 12, 1852:

The farce at Syracuse has been played out. We publish today the last
act, in which it will be seen that the authority of the Bible, as a
perfect rule of faith and practice for human beings, was voted down,
and what are called the laws of nature set up instead of the Christian
code. We have also a practical exhibition of the consequences that
flow from woman leaving her true sphere, where she wields all her
influence, and coming into public to discuss morals and politics
with men. The scene in which Rev. Mr. Hatch violated the decorum
of his cloth and was coarsely offensive to such ladies present as had
not lost that modest "feminine element" on which he dwelt so
forcibly, is the natural result of the conduct of the women
themselves who, in the first place, invited discussion about sexes,
and, in the second place, so broadly defined the difference between

the male and the female as to be suggestive of anything but purity to
the audience. The women of the convention have no right to
complain, but for the sake of his clerical character, if no other
motive influenced him, he ought not have followed so bad an
example. His speech was sound and his argument conclusive, but
his form of words was not in the best taste. The female orators were
the aggressors, but to use his own language he ought not to have
measured swords with a woman, especially when he regarded her
ideas and expressions as bordering upon the obscene. But all this is
the natural result of woman placing herself in a false position. As
Rev. Mr. Hatch observed, if she ran with horses she must expect to
be betted upon. The whole tendency of these conventions is by no
means to increase the influence of woman, to elevate her condition
or to command the respect of the other sex....

How did woman first become subject to man, as she now is all over
the world? By her nature, her sex, just as the negro is and always
will be to the end of time, inferior to the white race and, therefore,
doomed to subjection; but she is happier than she would be in any
other condition, just because it is the law of her nature....

What do the leaders of the woman's rights convention want? They
want to vote and to hustle with the rowdies at the polls. They want
to be members of Congress, and in the heat of debate subject
themselves to coarse jests and indecent language like that of Rev.
Mr. Hatch. They want to fill all other posts which men are ambitious
to occupy, to be lawyers, doctors, captains of vessels and generals in
the field. How funny it would sound in the newspapers that Lucy
Stone, pleading a cause, took suddenly ill in the pains of parturition
and perhaps gave birth to a fine bouncing boy in court! Or that Rev.
Antoinette Brown was arrested in the pulpit in the middle of her

sermon from the same cause, and presented a "pledge" to her
husband and the congregation; or that Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, while
attending a gentleman patient for a fit of the gout or fistula in ano
found it necessary to send for a doctor, there and then, and to be
delivered of a man or woman child—perhaps twins.[16] A similar
event might happen on the floor of Congress, in a storm at sea or in
the raging tempest of battle, and then what is to become of the
woman legislator?

For months after this convention the discussions and controversies were
kept up through press and pulpit. The clergymen in Syracuse and
surrounding towns rang the changes on the cry of "infidel" as the surest way
of neutralizing its influence. Rev. Byron Sunderland, a Congregational
minister of Syracuse and afterwards chaplain of the United States Senate,
preached a sermon on the "Bloomer Convention." Rev. Ashley, of St. Paul's
Episcopal Church, Syracuse, also preached a sermon against equality for
woman, which was put into pamphlet form and scattered throughout the
State. It called forth many protests, some from the women of his own
church. The clergymen selected the Star, the most disreputable paper in the
city, for the publication of their articles. Rev. Sunderland was ably answered
by Matilda Joslyn Gage over the signature of "M." and replied in the Star:
"If the author should turn out to be a man, I should have no objection to
point out his inaccuracies through your columns, but if the writer is a lady,
why, really, I don't know what I shall do. If I thought she would consent to a
personal interview, I should like to see her." Some man, signing himself "A
Reader," having criticised him in a perfectly respectful manner for making
the above distinction, the reverend gentleman replied to him through the
Star: "His impertinence is quite characteristic. He probably knows as much
about the Bible as a wild ass' colt, and is requested at this time to keep a
proper distance. When a body is trying to find out and pay attention to a
lady, it is not good manners for 'A Reader' to be thrust in between us." In all

the speeches and articles in favor of woman's rights there was not one
which was not modest, temperate and dignified. Almost without exception
those in opposition were vulgar, intemperate and abusive.

No more brilliant galaxy of men and women ever assembled than at this
Syracuse convention, and the great question of the rights of woman was
discussed from every conceivable standpoint. Hundreds equally able have
been held during the last half century, and these extensive quotations have
been made simply to show that fifty years ago the whole broad platform of
human rights was as clearly defined by the leading thinkers, and in as
logical, comprehensive and dignified a manner, as it is today. There was as
much opposition among the masses of both men and women against all that
they advocated as exists today against their demand for the ballot, perhaps
more; yet the close of the century finds practically all granted except the
ballot; the full right to speak in public; nearly the same educational and
industrial opportunities; in many States almost equal legal rights, and not
one State now wholly under the English common law, which everywhere
prevailed at that time. The prejudice against all these innovations is rapidly
disappearing but it still lingers in regard to the yielding of the suffrage,
except in the four States where this also has been given. In not one instance
have these concessions been made in response to the "voice of the people,"
but only because of the continued agitation and unceasing efforts of a few
of the more advanced and progressive thinkers of each generation.
[11] The Tribune, at this time, was the only paper in New York, and, with few exceptions, the
only large newspaper in the country, which treated the question of woman's rights in any but a
contemptuous, abusive manner.

[12] They may have been preceded by the Moral Reform Societies for the Rescue of Fallen
Women, which originated in New York City, and by a few Female Anti-Slavery Societies.

[13] At the first Woman's Rights Convention in 1848, Mrs. Mott and Mrs. Stanton were so
opposed to having a woman for chairman that they came near leaving the hall. Four years
later Mrs. Mott is herself the presiding officer.

[14] Several of the speakers had weak, piping voices which did not reach beyond a few of the
front seats and, after one of these had finished, Miss Anthony said: "Mrs. President, I move
that hereafter the papers shall be given to some one to read who can be heard. It is an
imposition on an audience to have to sit quietly through a long speech of which they can not
hear a word. We do not stand up here to be seen, but to be heard." Then there was a protest.
Mrs. Davis said she wished it understood that "ladies did not come there to screech; they
came to behave like ladies and to speak like ladies." Miss Anthony held her ground, declaring
that the question of being ladylike had nothing to do with it; the business of any one who read
a paper was to be heard. Mr. May, always the peacemaker, said Miss Anthony was right; there
was not a woman that had spoken in the convention who if she had been in her own home
would not have adjusted her voice to the occasion. "If your boy were across the street you
would not go to the door, put your head down and say in a little, weak voice, 'Jim, come
home;' but you would fix your eye on him and shout, 'Jim, come home!' If the ladies, instead
of looking down and talking to those on the front seats, would address their remarks to the
farthermost persons in the house, all between would hear."

[15] Mrs. Mott was the mother of six and Mrs. Stanton of seven children. Both were devoted
mothers and noteworthy housekeepers.

[16] No one of these ladies was married.

CHAPTER VI.
TEMPERANCE AND TEACHERS' CONVENTIONS.

1852—1853.

Miss Anthony came away from the Syracuse convention thoroughly
convinced that the right which woman needed above every other, the one
indeed which would secure to her all others, was the right of suffrage. She
saw that it was by the ballot men emphasized their opinions and enforced
their demands; she realized that without it women exercised small influence
upon law-makers and had no power to reward friends or punish enemies. A
sense of the terrible helplessness of being utterly without representation
came upon her with crushing force. The first great cause of the injustice
which pressed upon women from every point was clearly revealed to her
and she understood, as never before, that any class which is compelled to be
legislated for by another class always must be at a disadvantage. She went
home with these thoughts burning in her soul, and again took up her work
for temperance, but much of her enthusiasm was gone. She felt that she was
dealing with effects only and was shut out from all influence over causes.
She still was loyal to her State society but the desire was growing strong for
a larger field.

In January, 1853, she arranged for a meeting to be held in Albany to secure
a hearing before the Legislature and present petitions for a Maine Law.
Lucy Stone, whom she urged to make an address, wrote: "I can't in
conscience speak in favor of the Maine Law. It does not seem to me to be
based upon sound philosophy. Such a law will not amount to much so long
as there is not a temperance public sentiment behind it. God bless your

earnest and faithful spirit, Susan. I am glad the temperance cause has so
devoted and judicious a friend." She then invited Rev. Antoinette Brown,
who gave several reasons why she did not think best to deliver the address
and concluded: "But there is a better way; you yourself must come to the
rescue. You will read the appeal, you can fit the address to it and you will
do it grandly. Don't hesitate but, in the name of everything noble, go
forward and you shall have our warmest sympathy."

It was very hard to coax Miss Anthony into a speech in those days and she
finally persuaded the Reverend Antoinette to make the address. There was a
mass-meeting of all the temperance organizations in the State at Albany,
January 21, and as the women made no attempt to take part in the men's
meetings there was no disturbance. History is silent as to what the men did
at that time, but the women held crowded sessions in the Baptist church,
and in the Assembly chamber at night, Miss Anthony presiding, and a
number of fine addresses were made. The rules were suspended one
morning and the ladies invited to the speaker's desk. Mrs. Vaughn read Mrs.
Stanton's eloquent appeal praying the Legislature to do one of two things:
either give women a vote on this great evil of intemperance, or else truly
represent them by enacting a Prohibitory Law. It was accompanied by the
petition of 28,000 names which had been collected by a few women at
immense labor and expense during the past year.

This was the first time in the history of New York that a body of women had
appeared before the Legislature, and in their innocence they had full
confidence that their request would be granted in a very short time.[17]
While they were still in Albany their petition was discussed and a young
member made a long speech against it, declared that women were "out of
their sphere" circulating petitions and coming before the Legislature, and
closed by saying, "Who are these asking for a Maine Law? Nobody but
women and children!" Miss Anthony then and there made a solemn resolve

that it should be her life work to make a woman's name on a petition worth
as much as a man's.

S.P. Townsend, who had made a fortune in the manufacture of sarsaparilla,
happening to be at the Capitol, called upon the ladies and invited them to
come to New York and hold a meeting, offering to advertise and entertain
them. Miss Anthony, Mrs. Bloomer and Miss Brown accepted his invitation
and were entertained at his elegant home, and also by Professor and Mrs.
L.N. Fowler. He engaged Metropolitan Hall (where Jenny Lind sang) for
February 7, and the ladies spoke to an audience of 3,000 at twenty-five
cents admission. Mrs. Fowler presided, and on the platform were Horace
Greeley, who made a strong address, Mrs. Greeley, Abby Hopper Gibbons
and others. The Tribune and Post were very complimentary, saying it was
the first time a woman had spoken within those walls and the meeting
would compare favorably with any ever held in the building. After it was
over Mr. Townsend divided the net proceeds among the three women. He
also arranged for them to speak in Broadway Tabernacle and in Brooklyn
Academy of Music, each of which was crowded to its capacity.

During March and April they made a successful tour of the principal cities
in the State, Miss Anthony assuming the management and financial
responsibility. They went to Sing Sing, Poughkeepsie, Hudson, Troy, Utica,
Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo and other places, greeted everywhere with
large and attentive audiences attracted by the unusual spectacle of women
speaking in public. They lectured chiefly on temperance, but asked
incidentally for equal civil and political rights. While they received from
most of the papers respectful treatment, they were sometimes viciously
assailed. The Utica Evening Telegraph gave the following false and
malicious report:

Miss SUSAN B. ANTHONY AND REV. A.L. BROWN ON THE
STUMP.—Mechanics' Hall was tolerably well filled last evening by
persons wishing to hear the above-named ladies "spout" about
temperance. Seven-eighths of the audience was composed of
women, and there was noticeable an absence of all rank, fashion and
wealth. The ladies proper of Utica don't seem desirous of giving
countenance to the silly vagaries disseminated by these strong-
minded women. We conceived a very unfavorable opinion of this
Miss Anthony when she performed in this city on a former occasion,
but we confess that, after listening attentively to her discourse last
evening, we were inexpressibly disgusted with the impudence and
impiety evinced in her lecture. Personally repulsive, she seems to be
laboring under feelings of strong hatred towards male men, the
effect, we presume, of jealousy and neglect. She spent some hour or
so to show the evils endured by the mothers, wives and daughters of
drunkards. She gravely announced that the evil is a great one, and
that no remedy might hopefully be asked from licentious statesmen
nor from ministers of the gospel, who are always well fed and
clothed and don't care for oppressed women. Prominent among the
remedies which she suggested for the evils which she alleges to
exist, are complete enfranchisement of women, allowing them the
run of the legislative halls, ballot-box, etc. With a degree of impiety
which was both startling and disgusting, this shrewish maiden
counseled the numerous wives and mothers present to separate from
their husbands whenever they became intemperate, and particularly
not to allow the said husbands to add another child to the family
(probably no married advocate of woman's rights would have made
this remark). Think of such advice given in public by one who
claims to be a maiden lady!

Miss Anthony may be a very respectable lady, but such conversation
is certainly not calculated to enhance public regard for her.... She
announced quite confidently that wives don't de facto love their
husbands if they are dissipated. Everyday observation proves the
utter falsity of this statement, and if there is one characteristic of the
sex which more than another elevates and ennobles it, it is the
persistency and intensity of woman's love for man. But what does
Miss Anthony know of the thousand delights of married life; of the
sweet stream of affection, of the golden ray of love which beams
ever through life's ills? Bah! Of a like disgusting character was her
advice to mothers about not using stimulants, even when prescribed
by physicians, for the benefit of the young. What in the name of
crying babies does Miss Anthony know about such matters?

In our humble judgment, it is by no means complimentary to wives
and mothers to be found present at such discourses, encouraging
such untruthful and pernicious advice. If Miss Anthony's ideas were
practically applied in the relations of life, women would sink from
the social elevation they now hold and become the mere
appendages of men. Miss Anthony concluded with a flourish of
trumpets, that the woman's rights question could not be put down,
that women's souls were beginning to expand, etc., after which she
gathered her short skirts about her tight pants, sat down and wiped
her spectacles.

A letter written to Miss Anthony by her father during this tour shows that
even thus early he recognized the utter inability of women to effect great
reforms without a vote: "I see notices of your meetings in multitudes of
papers, all, with a few exceptions, in a rejoicing mood that woman at last
has taken hold in earnest to aid in the reformation of the mighty evils of the
day. Yet with all this 'rejoicing' probably not one of these papers would

advocate placing the ballot in the hands of woman as the easiest, quickest
and most efficient way of enabling her to secure not only this but other
reforms. They are willing she should talk and pray and 'flock by herself in
conventions and tramp up and down the State, footsore and weary,
gathering petitions to be spurned by legislatures, but not willing to invest
her with the only power that would do speedy and efficient work."

At this time interest in the study of phrenology was at its height and while
Miss Anthony was in New York she had an examination made of her head
by Nelson Sizer (with Fowler & Wells) who, blindfolded, gave the
following character sketch:

You have a finely organized constitution and a good degree of
compactness and power. There is such a balance between the brain
and the body that you are enabled to sustain mental effort with less
exhaustion than most persons. You have an intensity of emotion and
thought which makes your mind terse, sharp, spicy and clear. You
always work with a will, a purpose and a straightforwardness of
mental action. You seldom accomplish ends by indirect means or
circuitous routes, but unfurl your banner, take your position and
give fair warning of the course you intend to pursue. You are not
naturally fond of combat, but when once fairly enlisted in a cause
that has the sanction of your conscience and intellect, your firmness
and ambition are such, combined with thoroughness and efficiency
of disposition, that all you are in energy and talent is enlisted and
concentrated in the one end in view.

You are watchful but not timid, careful to have everything right and
safe before you embark; but when times of difficulty and danger
arrive, you meet them with coolness and intrepidity. You have more
of the spirit of acquisition than of economy; you would rather make

new things than patch the old. Your continuity is not large enough.
You find it at times difficult to bring the whole strength of your
mind to bear upon a subject and hold it there patiently in writing or
speaking. You are apt to seize upon fugitive thoughts and wander,
unless it be a subject on which you have so drilled your intellect as
to become master of it.

You have a full development of the social group. I judge that in the
main you have your father's character and talents and your mother's
temperament. You have the spirit of her nature, but the framework
in the main is like the father. You have large benevolence, not only
in the direction of sympathy but of gratitude. You have frankness of
character, even to sharpness, and you are obliged to bridle your
tongue lest you speak more than is meet. You have mechanical
ingenuity, the planning talent, and the minds of others are apt to be
used as instruments to accomplish your objects. For instance, if you
were a lawyer, you would arrange the testimony and the mode of
argument in such a way that the best final result would be achieved.
You judge correctly of the fitness and propriety, as well as of the
power, of the means you have to be employed. You would plan a
thing better than you could use the tools to make it. Your reasoning
organs are gaining upon your perceptions. At fifteen your mind was
devoted to facts and phenomena; of late years you have been
thinking of principles and ideas. You are a keen critic, especially if
you can put wit as a cracker on your whip; you can make people
feel little and mean if they are so, and when you are vexed can say
very sharp things.

You are a good judge of character. You have a full development of
language devoted rather to accuracy and definiteness of meaning
than volubility; and yet I doubt not you talk fast when excited—that

belongs to your temperament. Your intellect is active and your mind
more naturally runs in the channel of intellect than of feeling. It
seeks an intellectual development rather than to be developed
through the affections merely. You have fair veneration and
spirituality but are nothing remarkable in these respects. Your chief
religious elements are conscience and benevolence; these are your
working religious organs, and a religion that does not gratify them is
to you "as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal."

Those who know Miss Anthony intimately will readily testify to the
accuracy of this analysis. It seems remarkable in view of the fact that the
examiner was in utter ignorance of the subject, and that, even if he had
known her name, she had not, at the age of thirty-three, developed the
characteristics which are now so familiar to the general public.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY. AT THE AGE OF 32, FROM A
DAGUERREOTYPE.

On this trip Miss Anthony was invited to spend an evening with Mr. and
Mrs. Greeley and met for the first time Charles A. Dana, Alice and Phoebe
Gary, Elizabeth F. Ellet, with a number of other literary men and women of
New York. Mr. Greeley himself opened the door for them and sent them
hunting through the house for a place to lay their wraps. After awhile Mrs.

Greeley came down stairs with a baby in her arms. She had put her apron
over its face and would not let the visitors look at it "because their
magnetism might affect it unfavorably." During the evening she rang a bell
and a man-servant came in. After a few words with her he retired and
presently brought in a big dish of cake, one of cheese and a pile of plates,
set them on the table and went out. There was a long pause and Mr. Greeley
said, "Well, mother, shall I serve the cake?" "Yes, if you want to." So he
went over to the table, took a piece of cake and one of cheese in his fingers,
putting them on a plate and carrying to each, until all were served. The
guests nibbled at them as best they could and after a long time the man
brought in a pitcher of lemonade and some glasses and left the room. Mr.
Greeley again asked, "Well, mother, shall I serve the lemonade?" "Yes, if
you want to," she replied, so he filled the glasses, carried to each separately,
and then gathered them up one at a time, instead of all together on a waiter.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Greeley were thoroughly cordial and hospitable, both
intellectually great, but utterly without social graces. Yet the conversation at
their receptions was so brilliant that the most elegantly served refreshments
would have been an unwelcome interruption.

At another time, when Miss Anthony was visiting them, she asked Mrs.
Greeley if she would marry the same man again if she were single. "Yes,"
said she, "if I wanted a worthy father for my children, but for personal
comfort I should prefer one who did not put his feet where I fell over them
every time I went into the room, who knew how to eat, when to go to bed
and how to wear his clothes."

A World's Temperance Convention had been called to meet in New York
September 6 and 7, 1853, and a preliminary meeting was held May 12 in
Dr. Spring's old Brick Church on Franklin Square, where the Times
building now stands. The call invited "all friends of temperance" to be
present. After attending the Anti-Slavery Anniversary in New York, Miss

Anthony and Emily Clark went as representatives of the New York
Woman's Temperance Society, and Abby Kelly Foster and Lucy Stone were
sent from Massachusetts. The meeting was organized with Hon. A.C.
Barstow, mayor of Providence, chairman; Rev. R.C. Crampton, of New
York, and Rev. George Duffield, of Pennsylvania, secretaries. It was opened
with prayer, asking God's blessing on the proceedings about to take place. A
motion was made that all the gentlemen present be admitted as delegates.
Dr. Trail, of New York City, moved that the word "ladies" be inserted, as
there were delegates present from the Woman's State Temperance Society.
The motion was carried, their credentials received, and every man and
woman present became members of the convention. A business committee
of one from each State was appointed and a motion was made that Susan B.
Anthony, secretary of the Woman's Temperance Society, be added to the
committee. This opened the battle with the opposition and one angry and
abusive speech followed another. Abby Kelly Foster, the eloquent anti-
slavery orator, tried to speak, but shouts of "order" drowned her voice and,
after holding her position for ten minutes, she finally was howled down.

Almost the entire convention was composed of ministers of the Gospel.
Hon. Bradford R. Wood, of Albany, moved that, as there was a party present
determined to introduce the question of woman's rights and run it into the
ground, the convention adjourn sine die. He finally was persuaded to
withdraw this and substitute a motion that a committee be appointed to
decide who were members of the convention, although this had been settled
at the opening of the meeting by the accepting of credentials. This
committee consisted of Mr. Wood, Rev. John Chambers, a Presbyterian
clergyman of Philadelphia, and Rev. Condit, of New Jersey. They were out
fifteen minutes and reported that, as in their opinion the call for this
meeting was not intended to include female delegates, and custom had not
sanctioned the public action of women in similar situations, their credentials
should be rejected. And this after they already had been accepted!

Rev. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, pastor of the Unitarian church in
Worcester, Mass., at once resigned from the business committee and
withdrew from the meeting, as did also the women delegates and such
gentlemen, including several ministers, as thought the ladies had been
unjustly treated. They met at Dr. Trail's office and decided to call a Whole
World's Temperance Convention which should not exclude one-half the
world, and that the half which was doing the most effective work for
temperance.

After they left the Brick Church meeting there were many speeches made
condemning the action of women in taking public part in any reforms, led
by Rev. Fowler, of Utica, Rev. Hewitt, of Bridgeport, Conn., and Rev.
Chambers. The last said he rejoiced that the women were gone, as they
were "now rid of the scum of the convention." Mayor Barstow, who had
threatened to resign rather than put the motion that Miss Anthony should be
on the business committee, made a speech which the press declared too
indecent to be reported. It must be remembered that this entire discussion
was founded on the mere proposal to place Miss Anthony on a committee of
a temperance meeting. Horace Greeley handled these men without gloves in
an article in the Tribune beginning:

Rev. John! We have allowed you to be heard at full length; now you
and your set will be silent and hear us. Very palpably your palaver
about Mr. Higginson's motion is a dodge, a quirk, a most
contemptible quibble, reluctant as we are to speak thus irreverently
of the solemn utterances of a Doctor of Divinity. Right well do you
know, reverend sir, that the particular form or time or fashion in
which the question came up is utterly immaterial, and you interpose
it only to throw dust in the eyes of the public. Suppose a woman had
been nominated at the right time and in the right way, according to
your understanding of punctilios, wouldn't the same resistance have

been made and the same row got up? You know right well that there
would. Then what is all your pettifogging about technicalities
worth? The only question that anybody cares a button about is this,
"Shall woman be allowed to participate in your World's Temperance
Convention on a footing of perfect equality with man?" If yea, the
whole dispute turns on nothing, and isn't worth six lines in the
Tribune. But if it was and is the purpose of those for whom you
pettifog to keep woman off the platform of that convention and deny
her any part in its proceedings except as a spectator, what does all
your talk about Higginson's untimeliness and the committee's
amount to? Why not treat the subject with some show of honesty?

The women and their friends held a grand rally in the Broadway Tabernacle
the second day afterwards. Every foot of sitting and standing room was
crowded, although there was an admission fee of a shilling. Miss Anthony
presided and there was the strongest enthusiasm, but perfect order was
maintained. The following comment was made by the New York
Commercial-Advertiser:

THE BATTLE OF THE SEXES.—On Saturday evening the
Broadway Tabernacle reverberated with the shrill, defiant notes of
Miss Lucy Stone and her "sisters," who have thrown down the
gauntlet to the male friends of temperance and declared not literally
"war to the knife" but conflict with tongues.... Henceforth the
women's rights ladies—including among them the misses, Lucy
herself, Emily Clark, Susan B. Anthony, Antoinette Brown, some
Harriets and Angelinas, Melissas and Hannahs, with a Fanny too
(and more's the pity for it is a sweet name) and sundry matrons
whose names are household words in newspapers—are to be in
open hostility to the regularly constituted temperance agencies,
under cover of association with whom they have contrived to

augment their notoriety. The delegates at the Brick Church, who
took the responsibility of knocking off these parasites, deserve the
thanks of the temperance friends the Union through.... Such
associations would mar any cause. Left to themselves such women
must fall into contempt; they have used the temperance cause for a
support long enough, and we are glad that the seeming alliance has
been thus formally disowned by the temperance delegates.

The New York Sun, Moses Beach, editor, said:

The quiet duties of daughter, wife or mother are not congenial to
those hermaphrodite spirits who thirst to win the title of champion
of one sex and victor over the other. What is the love and
submission of one manly heart to the woman whose ambition it is to
sway the minds of multitudes as did a Demosthenes or a Cicero?
What are the tender affections and childish prattle of the family
circle, to women whose ears itch for the loud laugh and boisterous
cheer of the public assembly?...

Could a Christian man, cherishing a high regard for woman and for
the proprieties of life feel that he was promoting woman's interests
and the cause of temperance by being introduced to a temperance
meeting by Miss Susan B. Anthony, her ungainly form rigged out in
bloomer costume and provoking the thoughtless to laughter and
ridicule by her very motions upon the platform? Would he feel that
he was honoring the women of his country by accepting as their
representatives women whom they must and do despise? Will any
pretend to say that women, whose tongues have dishonored their
God and their Savior, while uttering praise of infidels and infidel
theories, are worthy to receive the suffrages of their Christian
sisters?...

We were much pleased with the remark made a few days since by
one of the most distinguished as well as refined and polished men of
the day on this very subject: "What are the rights which women
seek, and have not?" said he; and answering his own question, he
replied, "The right to do wrong! that alone is denied to them—that
is the only right appropriated exclusively by men, and surely no true
woman would seek to divide or participate in such a right."

The Organ, the New York temperance paper, had this to say:

The harmony and pleasantness of the meeting were disturbed by an
evidently preconcerted irruption of certain women, who have
succeeded beyond doubt in acquiring notoriety, however much they
may have failed in winning respect. The notorious Abby Kelly, the
Miss Stone whose crusade against the Christian doctrine on the
subject of marriage has shocked the better portion of society, and
several other women in pantaloons were present insisting upon their
right to share in the deliberations of the convention.

We wish our friends abroad to understand that the breeze got up
here is nothing but an attempt to ride the woman's rights theory into
respectability on the back of Temperance. And what absurd, infidel
and licentious follies are not packed up under the general head of
woman's rights, it would puzzle any one to say. While, however, we
approve the act excluding the women at the Brick Church, we feel
bound to say that we regretted what seemed to us an unnecessary
acerbity on the part of some of the gentlemen opposing them. What
a load of extraneous, foolish and crooked people and things the
temperance cause has been burdened with during the years of its
progress! To our mind this conspiracy of women to crush the cause

by making it the bearer of their woman's rights absurdities, is the
saddest of all the phenomena of the reform.

The New York Courier, James Watson Webb, editor, gave its readers the
following Sunday article:

Anniversary week has the effect of bringing to New York many
strange specimens of humanity, masculine and feminine. Antiquated
and very homely females made themselves ridiculous by parading
the streets in company with hen-pecked husbands, attenuated
vegetarians, intemperate Abolitionists and sucking clergymen, who
are afraid to say "no" to a strong-minded woman for fear of
infringing upon her rights. Shameless as these females—we suppose
they were females—looked, we should really have thought they
would have blushed as they walked the streets to hear the half-
suppressed laughter of their own sex and the remarks of men and
boys. The Bloomers figured extensively in the anti-slavery
amalgamation convention, and were rather looked up to, but their
intemperate ideas would not be tolerated in the temperance meeting
at the Brick Chapel....

A scene of the utmost confusion prevailed and there was a perfect
warfare of tongues; but, singular to say, the women were compelled
to hold their tongues and depart, followed by a number of male
Betties and subdued husbands, wearing the apparel of manhood, but
in reality emasculated by strong-minded women....

So the Bloomers put their credentials in their breeches pockets and
assembled at Dr. Trail's Cold Water Institute, where the men and
Bloomers all took a bath and a drink together.

These sentiments were echoed by the newspapers, great and small, of the
entire country. Not a word in regard to "women's rights" had been uttered at
the Brick Church meeting except the right to have their credentials from
regularly-organized temperance societies accepted, and the same privileges
as other delegates granted. The continual reference to the "warfare of
tongues" is rather amusing in face of the fact that no woman was allowed to
speak and the talking was entirely monopolized by men. Is it a matter of
surprise that only a very limited number of women had the courage to ally
themselves with a movement which called down upon them and their
families such an avalanche of ridicule and condemnation?

Miss Anthony, on reaching home, immediately began active preparations
for the first annual meeting of the Woman's State Temperance Society,
which was to be held in Rochester. As usual she wrote hundreds of letters,
raised the money, printed and circulated the call, looked after the
advertising, engaged the speakers and took the whole responsibility. The
convention assembled in Corinthian Hall, June 1, 1853, with a large
attendance. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the president, after stating that the
society had over 2,000 members, and was in a most flourishing condition,
said:

It has been objected that we do not confine ourselves to the subject
of temperance, but talk too much about woman's rights, divorce and
the church.... We have been obliged to preach woman's rights
because many, instead of listening to what we had to say on
temperance, have questioned the right of woman to speak on any
subject. In courts of justice and legislative assemblies, if the right of
any person to be there is questioned, all business waits until that
point is settled. Now, it is not settled in the minds of the masses that
woman has any right to stand on an even pedestal with man, look
him in the face as an equal and rebuke the sins of her day and

generation. Let it be clearly understood then that we are a Woman's
Rights Society; that we believe it is woman's duty to speak
whenever she feels the impression to do so; that it is her right to be
present in all the councils of Church and State.

Continuing, she took firm ground in favor of the right of a woman to be
divorced from an habitual drunkard, a position which brought upon her a
storm of censure from press, pulpit and society. She was strongly supported,
however, by the most prominent women of the day and received many
letters of approval, among them one from Lucy Stone, saying: "On the
divorce question, I am on your side, for the reason that drunkenness so
depraves a man's system that he is not fit to be a father." Gerrit Smith wrote
to the convention:

I know not why it is not as much the duty of your sex as of mine to
establish newspapers, write books and hold public meetings for the
promotion of the cause of temperance. The current idea that
modesty should hold women back from such services is nonsense
and wickedness. Female modesty! female delicacy! I would that I
might never again hear such phrases. There is but one standard of
modesty and delicacy for both men and women; and so long as
different standards are tolerated, both sexes will be perverse and
corrupt.... The Quakers are the best people I have ever known, the
most serious and chaste and yet the most brave and resisting; but
there are no other people who are so little concerned lest women get
out of their sphere. None make so little difference between man and
woman. Others appear to think that the happiness and safety of the
world consist in magnifying the difference. But when reason and
religion shall rule, there will be no difference between man and
woman, in respect to the intellect, the heart or the manners.

Gerrit Smith

A stirring letter was sent by Neal Dow, expressing his great pleasure that
women were taking active and decided measures for the suppression of
intemperance, and closing: "It is absurd, therefore, to argue that the
community has no power to control this great evil; that any citizen has the
right to inflict it upon society, or that society should hesitate to exercise its
right and power of self-protection against it."

Many other letters were read from friends, among them Abby Kelly Foster,
who said to Miss Anthony: "So far as separate organizations for women's
action in the temperance cause are concerned, I consider you the center and
soul, without whom nothing could have been done heretofore and I doubt
whether anything would be done now." Strong addresses were made by
Rev. Channing, Frederick Douglass, Lucy Stone, Mrs. Nichols, Antoinette
Brown, Mrs. Bloomer and others.

When this association was formed a clause was placed in the constitution
allowing men to become members and to speak in all meetings but making
them ineligible to office. There were two reasons for this: it was desired to
throw the full responsibility on woman, compelling her to learn to preside
and to think, speak and act for herself, which she never would do if men
were present to perform these duties for her; and it was feared that, on
account of long habit, men would soon take matters into their own hands
and gain control of the society, possibly to the extent of forbidding women
to speak at the meetings. Many of the ladies, however, objected to this
clause, among them Antoinette Brown, who refused to join the society on
account of it. So, yielding to the pressure, Mrs. Stanton, on this first
anniversary, said "as this seemed to many a violation of men's rights, and as
the women had now learned to stand alone, it might perhaps be safe to
admit men to all the privileges of the society, hoping, however, that they
would modestly permit woman to continue the work she had so successfully
begun."

Neal Dow

Miss Anthony, chairman of the committee on revising the constitution,
brought in a report in favor of admitting the men, which was vigorously
discussed. Before the close of this meeting the serious mistake of such
action was apparent. The men present monopolized the floor, tried to have

the name changed to the People's League, insisted that the society should
have nothing to do with any phase of woman's rights, and showed their
hand so plainly that Miss Anthony at once took the alarm and in an
indignant speech declared the men were trying to drive the women from
their own society.

There was a strong undercurrent of opposition to Mrs. Stanton on account
of her radical views in regard to equal rights, divorce for drunkenness and
the subjection of woman to Bible authority, but those opposing her being
wholly inexperienced did not know how to prevent her re-election. As the
majority of the men, for obvious reasons, agreed with them in wishing to
get rid of Mrs. Stanton, they proceeded to teach them political tactics, got
out a printed opposition ticket and defeated her for president by three votes.
She was chosen vice-president but emphatically declined. Miss Anthony
was almost unanimously re-elected secretary but refused to serve, stating
that "the vote showed they would not accept the principle of woman's rights
and, as she believed thoroughly in standing for the equality of woman, she
could not act as officer of such a society; besides, Mrs. Vaughn, the newly
elected president, had openly declared that 'principle must sometimes be
sacrificed to expediency.' She herself would never admit this; her doctrine
was, 'Do right, and leave the consequences with God.'" Frederick Douglass
and a number of others urged her in the most earnest manner to remain,
paying high tribute to her services and pointing out how much they were
needed, but in vain.

Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton at once severed all connection with the
organization they had founded; it passed into the hands of a body of
conservative women, who believed they could accomplish by prayer what
these two knew never could be done except through legislation with a
constituency of women behind it. The society had a precarious existence of
one or two years and finally went to pieces. There was not another strong,

concerted movement of women in the cause of temperance for twenty
years.[18] Miss Anthony, although a total abstainer all her life, was never
again connected with a temperance organization. She has steadfastly held to
the opinion that the vital work for women is to secure for themselves the
ballot which, above all other agencies, will make them an effective power
for dealing not only with this but with all moral questions.

Relieved from her onerous duties in connection with the State society, she
at once set about working up the Whole World's Temperance Convention in
New York, for which she felt a personal responsibility. Many of those who
had seceded from the Brick Church meeting, including Mr. Higginson
himself, were beginning to doubt the propriety of holding a separate
convention. Miss Anthony was strongly in favor of it and wrote Lucy Stone:

We have not the slightest reason for supposing that we shall be
received at the World's Convention to be held September 5. The
same men that controlled the Brick Church meeting are to be the
leading spirits there. Not one of them, so far as I can learn, has
expressed a regret that the women-delegates were excluded last
May; how then can we entertain a hope that they will act differently
in September? We may pretend to go in good faith but there will be
no faith in us. If it is not too late I beg of you to see that the call is
issued and for the very day that the Old Fogies hold their
convention.

Lucy Stone agreed with her and, through their efforts, the committee were
persuaded to send out the call. It was decided, however, to hold the meeting
September 1 and 2, just before the other, and then, while the great crowds
from all parts of the country were in the city, to have a regular Woman's
Rights Convention on the same date as that of Rev. John Chambers et al.
Miss Anthony received many cordial replies to her numerous letters, and

some not so cordial. Samuel F. Gary wrote in his characteristic style: "You
ask whether I will speak at a Whole World's Temperance Convention to be
held in New York during the World's Fair. You will have observed that my
humble name is signed to a call for such a convention at that time and
place, together with Chancellor Walworth's and others of like distinction.
Providence favoring, it is my purpose to participate in the deliberations of
that meeting and I see no sufficient reason for another convention having
the same object in view." Possibly if Mr. Gary and "others of like
distinction" had been refused permission to speak a word or even to serve
on a committee, they might have been able to see "sufficient reason for
another convention." Horace Greeley sent the following:

I may not be able to write you a long letter, as you request, but I will
give you a little confidential advice. All I know on temperance
(pretty nearly) I put into a tract which was long ago printed at the
Organ office.... Now, as to tracts: Make it your first rule to Be
Thorough. Most of our temperance tracts are too short and flimsy
and not calculated to convince reasoning beings. Let each tract take
up some one aspect of the question and exhaust it, none of your fly-
away five or six pages but from twelve to thirty-two, the whole case
presented in all its aspects and proved up. Nothing less than this will
do much good.

Now as to church matters: The short and safe way is simply to set
them aside. If those who have outgrown the church do not introduce
the subject by treading on the old lady's corns, they can effectually
resist all interposition of shibboleths by the followers of Pusey in all
sects. Do not make the reform movement a pretext for assaulting the
church. In short, the whole question with regard to the woman's
movement is best solved by those engaged in it going quietly and

effectively on with their work. That will soonest stop the mouths of
gainsayers. "It does move, though," is the true answer to all cavils.

I can't be at your convention, and Mrs. Greeley is overwhelmed with
moving and babies.

Horace Greeley

While Miss Anthony was thus engaged, the State Teachers' Convention was
held in Corinthian Hall, Rochester, August 3, 1853, and true to her resolve
made the year previous she put aside everything else in order to attend.
According to the rules any one paying a dollar was entitled to all the rights
and privileges of the convention; so she paid her dollar and took her seat.
There were over 500 teachers in attendance, two-thirds at least being
women. For two entire days Miss Anthony sat there, and during that time
not a woman spoke; in all the deliberations there was not the slightest
recognition of their presence, and they did not vote on any question, though
all had paid the fee and were members of the association. In a letter
describing the occasion Miss Anthony said: "My heart was filled with grief
and indignation thus to seethe minority, simply because they were men,

presuming that in them was vested all wisdom and knowledge; that they
needed no aid, no counsel from the majority. And what was most
humiliating of all was to look into the faces of those women and see that by
far the larger proportion were perfectly satisfied with the position assigned
them."

Toward the close of the second day's session the subject under discussion
was, "Why the profession of teacher is not as much respected as that of
lawyer, doctor or minister?" After listening for several hours, Miss Anthony
felt that the decisive moment had come and, rising in her seat, she said,
"Mr. President." A bombshell would not have created greater commotion.
For the first time in all history a woman's voice was heard in a teachers'
convention. Every neck was craned and a profound hush fell upon the
assembly. Charles Davies, LL. D., author of Davies' text books and
professor of mathematics at West Point, was president. In full-dress
costume with buff vest, blue coat and brass buttons, he was the Great
Mogul. At length recovering from the shock of being thus addressed by a
woman, he leaned forward and asked with satirical politeness, "What will
the lady have?" "I wish to speak to the question under discussion," said
Miss Anthony calmly, although her heart was beating a tattoo. Turning to
the few rows of men in front of him, for the women occupied the back
seats, he inquired, "What is the pleasure of the convention?" "I move she
shall be heard," said one man; this was seconded by another, and thus was
precipitated a debate which lasted half an hour, although she had precisely
the same right to speak as any man who was taking part in the discussion.

She stood during all this time, fearing to lose the floor if she sat down. At
last a vote was taken, men only voting, and it was carried in the affirmative
by a small majority. Miss Anthony then said: "It seems to me you fail to
comprehend the cause of the disrespect of which you complain. Do you not
see that so long as society says woman has not brains enough to be a doctor,

lawyer or minister, but has plenty to be a teacher, every man of you who
condescends to teach, tacitly admits before all Israel and the sun that he has
no more brains than a woman?"—and sat down. She had intended to draw
the conclusion that the only way to place teaching upon a level with other
professions was either to admit woman to them or exclude her from
teaching, but her trembling limbs would sustain her no longer.

The convention soon adjourned for the day and, as Miss Anthony went out
of the hall, many of the women drew away from her and said audibly: "Did
you ever see such a disgraceful performance?" "I never was so ashamed of
my sex." But a few of them gathered about her and said: "You have taught
us our lesson and hereafter we propose to make ourselves heard."

The next day, at the opening of the morning session, President Davies, who
had evidently spent the night in preparing the greatest effort of his life,
arose in all his majesty and was delivered of the following:

I have been asked why no provisions have been made for female
lecturers before this association and why ladies are not appointed on
committees. I will answer: "Behold this beautiful hall! Mark well
the pilaster, its pedestal, its shaft, its rich entablature, the crowning
glory of this superb architecture, the different parts, each in its
appropriate place, contributing to the strength, beauty and symmetry
of the whole! Could I aid in bringing down this splendid entablature
from its proud elevation and trailing it in the dust and dirt that
surround the pedestal? No, never!"

To quote further from Miss Anthony's letter: "Many of the ladies readjusted
their ribbons and laces and looked at each other as much as to say,
'Beautiful, perfectly beautiful!' But a few there were whose faces spoke
scorn and utter contempt, and whose flashing eyes said: 'Such flattery as
this adds insult to injury upon those of us who, equally qualified with men,

are toiling side by side with them for one-half the salary. And this solely
because of our sex!'"

The women had no desire to pull down the building, entablature and all,
about the head of the magnificent Davies, but some of them were aroused to
the injustice with which they had so long been treated. To the astonishment
of the professor and his following, these resolutions were presented by Mrs.
Northrop, a teacher in the Rochester schools:

Resolved, That this association recognizes the right of female
teachers to share in all the privileges and deliberations of this body.

Resolved, That female teachers do not receive an adequate and
sufficient compensation, and that, as salaries should be regulated
only according to the amount of labor performed, this association
will endeavor by judicious and efficient action to remove this
existing evil.

An attempt was made to smother them, and when Mrs. Northrop asked why
they had not been read, the president blandly replied that he regretted they
could not be reached but other order of business preceded them. Mrs.
Northrop, having found her voice, proceeded to speak strongly on the
discrimination made against women in the matter of salaries, and was ably
supported by her sister, Mrs. J.R. Vosburg. J. D. Fanning, of New York,
recording secretary, asked that the resolutions be read, which was done.
Miss Anthony then made a forcible speech in their favor and they were
passed unanimously, to the utter amazement and discomfiture of President
Davies.

She went home well satisfied with her work, and completed preparations
for the Whole World's Temperance Convention, which was held in New
York, September 1 and 2. Her zeal is amusingly illustrated by her proposal

to invite Victor Hugo and Harriet Martineau to speak. It was a splendid
assemblage, addressed by the leading men and women of the day, the large
hall packed at every session, the audience sitting hour after hour, orderly
but full of earnestness and enthusiasm. The New York Tribune said of it:
"This has been the most spirited and able meeting on behalf of temperance
that ever was held."

The men's convention has a different record. New York, in the month of
September, 1853, was in a whirlwind of excitement. The first World's Fair
of the United States was in progress and people had gathered from all parts
of this and other countries. In order to reach these crowds, many
conventions had been called to meet in this city, among them the two
Temperance, the Anti-Slavery and the Woman's Rights. The Whole World's
Temperance and the Anti-Slavery closed just in time for the opening of the
World's Temperance and the Woman's Rights meetings. Rev. Antoinette
Brown was appointed a delegate from two different societies to the World's
Temperance Convention and, although they had every reason to believe that
no woman would be received, it was decided to make the attempt in order
to show their willingness to co-operate with the men's associations in
temperance work.

Wendell Phillips accompanied her to Metropolitan Hall, where she handed
her credentials to the secretary and, after they were passed upon, the
president, Neal Dow, informed her that she was a member of the
convention. Later, when she arose to speak to a motion, he invited her to the
platform and then pandemonium broke loose. There were cries of "order,"
"order," hisses, shouts of "she shall not speak," and above all the voice of
Rev. John Chambers, who, pointing his finger at her, cried over and over,
"Shame on the woman!" Miss Brown stood an hour and a half on the
platform, in the midst of this bedlam, not because she was anxious to speak,
but to establish the principle that an accredited delegate to a world's

convention should not be denied the right of speech on account of sex; but
she was finally compelled to leave the hall.

Win. Lloyd Garrison said: "I have seen many tumultuous meetings in my
day, but on no occasion have I ever seen anything more disgraceful to our
common humanity." Samuel F. Gary led in the opposition to Miss Brown,
offering a resolution that "women be not allowed to speak," and afterwards
declaring in his paper that he did it "because she tried to force the question
of woman's rights upon the convention." To this Rev. William Henry
Channing replied in a public address: "If any man says that, he lies. She
stood there simply asking her privilege as a delegate." The New York
Tribune said: "This convention has completed three of its four business
sessions and the results may be summed up as follows: First day—
Crowding a woman off the platform; second day—Gagging her; third day—
Voting that she shall stay gagged. Having thus disposed of the main
question, we presume the incidentals will be finished this morning."

This was not an exaggerated statement, as practically nothing was done
during the three days of the convention except to fight over the question of
allowing Miss Brown, an accepted delegate, an ordained minister, a young,
beautiful and modest woman, to stand upon their platform and speak on the
subject of temperance. Miss Anthony was a witness to these proceedings,
her Quaker blood rose to the boiling point and she registered anew a solemn
vow within herself that she never would relax her efforts for one single day,
if it took a lifetime, until woman had the right of speech on every platform
in the land.

The mob which had begun with the anti-slavery and gathered strength at the
temperance meeting, now turned its attention to the Woman's Rights
Convention in Broadway Tabernacle. The president was that lovely Quaker,
Lucretia Mott, and the speakers were among the greatest men and women in

the nation: Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Rev. Channing, Rev.
John Pierpont, Mrs. Rose, Lucy Stone, Frances D. Gage, Miss Brown, Mrs.
Nichols. In Miss Anthony's address she reviewed the action of the recent
teachers' convention at Rochester and closed by saying: "A woman
principal in that city receives $250, while a man principal, doing exactly the
same work, receives $650. In this State there are 11,000 teachers and of
these four-fifths are women. By the reports it will be seen that of the annual
State fund of $800,000, two-thirds are paid to men and one-third to women;
that is to say, two-thirds are paid to one-fifth of the laborers, and the other
four-fifths are paid with the remaining one-third of the fund!" This was the
first appearance of Madame Mathilde Anneke, a highly-educated German
of noble family, a political exile from Hungary, and a friend of Kossuth.
That wonderful colored woman, Sojourner Truth, also was present.

The resolutions were, in effect, that "each human being should be the judge
of his or her sphere and that human rights should be recognized." There
never were, there never will be, grander speeches than those which were
made on this occasion, and yet the entire convention was in the hands of a
mob. The women, as well as the men, were greeted with cries of "shut up,"
"sit down," "get out," "bow-wow," "go it, Susan," and their voices drowned
with hisses and cat-calls. The uproar was indescribable, with shouting,
yelling, screaming, bellowing, stamping and every species of noise that
could be made. Horace Greeley went down among the crowd and tried to
quiet them. The police were appealed to in vain, and the meeting finally
closed in the midst of tumult and confusion. The Tribune under the
management of Greeley, and the Evening Post under that of William Cullen
Bryant, condemned the rioters with the greatest severity, but the other
leading dailies of New York sustained the mob spirit and made the ladies a
target for ridicule and condemnation.

After leaving New York, Miss Anthony went to the Fourth National
Woman's Rights Convention at Cleveland, O., which was one of the largest
and most enthusiastic that had been held. It was attended by many noted
people, among them Hon. Joshua R. Giddings, always a consistent advocate
of woman's rights, and the proceedings were marked with perfect order and
propriety. Miss Anthony was continued at the head of the finance
committee, as it was found that no one could raise so much money. The
three weeks following she traveled through the southern counties in New
York and spoke in a number of villages. A year before she had gone over
the same ground and organized woman's temperance societies. She found
that, with the exception of one at Elmira, none of these was in existence.
The explanation in every instance was that they had no money to secure
lecturers, or to do any practical work and, as all the members were wives
and housekeepers, they were not in a position to earn any. Miss Anthony
makes this entry in her journal:

Thus as I passed from town to town was I made to feel the great evil
of woman's utter dependence on man for the necessary means to aid
reform movements. I never before took in so fully the grand idea of
pecuniary independence. Woman must have a purse of her own, and
how can this be so long as the law denies to the wife all right to both
the individual and the joint earnings? Reflections like these
convince me that there is no true freedom for woman without the
possession of equal property rights, and that these can be obtained
only through legislation. If this is so, then the sooner the demand is
made, the sooner it will be granted. It must be done by petition, and
this, too, of the very next legislature. How can the work be started?
We must hold a convention and adopt some plan of united action.

With her, to think was always to act. She reached Rochester on the morning
of election day, and went at once to the home of William and Mary

Hallowell, that home whose doors never were closed to her, where for more
than fifty years she was welcome day or night, where she always turned for
advice, assistance and sympathy and ever found them in the fullest measure.
She explained to them her idea of calling a meeting in Rochester for the
specific purpose of starting a petition for more extended property rights to
women. They encouraged the project, and she then turned toward her other
Mecca, the home of Maria G. Porter. Three of the Porter sisters kept a
private school in this city for thirty years, while the eldest, Maria, made a
home for them and also took a select class of boarders. This was a literary
center, she often invited Miss Anthony to meet her distinguished guests, and
ever encouraged and sustained her public work. Mr. Channing was boarding
here, and when Miss Anthony unfolded her plan, he exclaimed, "Capital!
Capital!" and at once prepared an eloquent call for the convention. This
meant for her the writing of letters to scores of influential people asking
their signatures, which were almost invariably given, and was followed by
all the drudgery necessary for every meeting of this kind.

W.H. Channing

The convention opened Nov. 30 at Corinthian Hall, Rev. May presiding and
Rev. Channing the leading spirit. Two forms of the petition were adopted,
one for the just and equal rights of women in regard to wages and children;
the other for the right of suffrage. Miss Anthony was appointed one of the
lecturers, and also put in charge of the petitions. Sixty women began
circulating these, and she herself canvassed her own city, lectured in a

number of towns, and at the same time made arrangements for a State
suffrage convention to be held in Albany February 14 and 15. At this time
Parker Pillsbury wrote to Lydia Mott:

Is there work down among you for Susan to do? Any shirt-making,
cooking, clerking, preaching or teaching, indeed any honest work,
just to keep her out of idleness! She seems strangely unemployed—
almost expiring for something to do, and I could not resist the
inclination to appeal to you, as a person of particular leisure, that
an effort be made in her behalf. At present she has only the Anti-
Slavery cause for New York, the "Woman's Rights Movement" for
the world, the Sunday evening lectures for Rochester and other
lecturing of her own from Lake Erie to the "Old Man of Franconia
mountains;" private cares and home affairs and the various et
ceteras of womanity. These are about all so far as appears, to occupy
her seven days of twenty-four hours each, as the weeks rain down to
her from Eternal Skies. Do pity and procure work for her if it be
possible!
[17] From 1840 to 1848 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Ernestine L. Hose, Lydia Mott and Paulina
Wright (afterwards Davis), circulated petitions for a Married Woman's Property Law and, in
presenting them, addressed a legislative committee several times.

[18] The W.C.T.U. was organized in 1874 and the temperance work passed almost entirely
into the hands of women.

CHAPTER VII.
PETITIONS——BLOOMERS——LECTURES.

1854.

Considerable space has been given to detailed accounts of these early
conventions to illustrate the prejudice which existed against woman's
speaking in public, and the martyrdom suffered by the pioneers to secure
the right of free speech for succeeding generations. From this time until the
merging of all questions into the Civil War, such conventions were held
every year, producing a great revolution of sentiment in the direction of an
enlarged sphere for woman's activities and a modification of the legal and
religious restraints that so long had held her in bondage. They have been
fully described also in order to indicate some of the causes which operated
in the development of the mind and character of Susan B. Anthony,
transforming her by degrees from a, quiet, domestic Quaker maiden to a
strong, courageous, uncompromising advocate of absolute equality of rights
for woman. Brought into close association with the most advanced men and
women of the age, seeing on every hand the injustice perpetrated against
her sex and hearing the magnificent appeals for the liberty of every human
being, her soul could not fail to respond; and having passed the age when
women are apt to consecrate themselves to love and marriage, it was most
natural that she should dedicate her services to the struggle for the freedom
of woman. She did not realize then that this would reach through fifty years
of exacting and unending toil, but even had she done so, who can doubt that
she freely would have given up her life to the work?

In the ten weeks before the State convention at Albany, 6,000 names were
secured for the petition that married women should be entitled to the wages
they earned and to the equal guardianship of their children, and 4,000
asking for the suffrage. Miss Anthony herself trudged from house to house
during that stormy winter, many of the women slamming the door in her
face with the statement that they "had all the rights they wanted;" although
at this time an employer was bound by law to pay the wife's wages to the
husband, and the father had the power to apprentice young children without
the mother's consent, and even to dispose of them by will at his death. One
minister, in Rochester, after looking her over carefully, said: "Miss Anthony,
you are too fine a physical specimen of woman to be doing such work as
this. You ought to marry and have children." Ignoring the insult, she replied
in a dignified manner: "I think it a much wiser thing to secure for the
thousands of mothers in this State the legal control of the children they now
have, than to bring others into the world who would not belong to me after
they were born."

The State convention met in Association Hall, Albany, February 14, 1854.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, president, delivered a magnificent address which
Miss Anthony had printed and laid upon the desk of every member of the
Legislature; she also circulated 50,000 of these pamphlets throughout the
State. The convention had been called for two days, but so great was the
interest aroused and so popular were the speakers in attendance that evening
meetings were held for two weeks; the questions under consideration were
taken up by the newspapers of Albany and the discussion spread through
the press of the State, finding able defenders as well as bitter opponents. A
peculiar illustration of the uncertain disposition of an audience was here
given. While in other places women had been prevented from speaking,
now they would not hear any but women, and whenever Mr. Channing or
Mr. May attempted to speak he was at once cried down in a good-natured
but effective manner. The women were greatly distressed at this, as these

men had been their strongest allies, their leaders, their educators; but their
appeals to the audience to listen to masculine eloquence were made in vain.

The petitions with their 10,000 names were presented in the Assembly, and
strongly advocated by Mr. Peters, and Mr. D. P. Wood, of Onondaga county,
but vehemently opposed by Mr. Burnett, of Essex. In his speech against the
petition asking only that married women might possess their own wages
and have equal guardianship of their children, he said:

I hope before even this motion is put, gentlemen will be allowed to
reflect upon the important question whether these individuals
deserve any consideration at the hands of the Legislature. Whatever
may be their pretensions or their sincerity, they do not appear
satisfied with having unsexed themselves, but they desire to unsex
every female in the land and to set the whole community ablaze
with unhallowed fire. I trust, sir, the House may deliberate before
we suffer them to cast their firebrand into our midst. True, as yet,
there is nothing officially before us, but it is well known that the
object of these unsexed women is to overthrow the most sacred of
our institutions, to set at defiance the divine law which declares man
and wife to be one, and establish on its ruins what will be in fact and
in principle but a species of legalized adultery.

It is, therefore, a matter of duty, a duty to ourselves, to our
consciences, to our constituents and to God, who is the source of all
law and of all obligations, to reflect long and deliberately before we
shall even seem to countenance a movement so unholy as this. Are
we, sir, to give the least countenance to claims so preposterous,
disgraceful and criminal as are embodied in this address? Are we to
put the stamp of truth upon the libel here set forth, that men and
women in the matrimonial relation are to be equal? We know that

God created man as the representative of the race; that after his
creation, his Creator took from his side the material for woman's
creation; and that, by the institution of matrimony, woman was
restored to the side of man, and they became one flesh and one
being, he the head....

But we are now asked to have the ordinance of matrimony based on
jealousy and distrust; and, as in Italy, so in this country, should this
mischievous scheme be carried out to its legitimate results, we,
instead of reposing safe confidence against assaults upon our honor
in the love and affection of our wives, shall find ourselves obliged
to close the approaches to those assaults by the padlock.

The petitions were referred to a select committee of the Senate and the
Assembly, which Miss Anthony addressed. The Albany Argus reported her
speech as follows:

Miss Anthony said that she appeared on behalf of the signers of the
petitions and tendered to the Legislature thanks for the courteous
manner in which they had been received. They asked that husband
and wife should be tenants in common of property, but with a
partition upon the death of one; that a wife should be competent to
discharge trusts and powers, the same as a single woman; that the
statute in respect to married women's property should be made
effectual, and the wife's property descend as though she had been
unmarried; that married women should be entitled to execute letters
testamentary and of administration; that they should have power to
make contracts and transact business; that they should be entitled to
their own earnings, subject to their proportionate liability for
support of children; that post nuptial acquisitions should belong
equally to husband and wife; that married women should stand on

the same footing with single as parties or witnesses in legal
proceedings; that they should be equal guardians of their minor
children; that the homestead should be inviolable and inalienable for
widows and their children; that laws in relation to divorce should be
revised, and habitual drunkenness be made cause of absolute
divorce; that the preference of males in descent of real estate should
be abolished; that women should exercise the right of suffrage, be
eligible to all offices, occupations and professions, entitled to act as
jurors, eligible to employment in public offices; that a law should be
passed extending the masculine designation in all statutes to
females.

The committee, James L. Angle, of Monroe county, chairman, presented a
dignified and respectful report, denying the petition for suffrage but
recommending that the laws be so changed as to allow the wife to collect
and control her own earnings if the family were neglected by the husband,
and to require the written consent of the mother to the apprenticeship of her
children. The Legislature, however, refused to pass such a bill, as did all
succeeding Legislatures until 1860.

There was nothing but to go to work again, for Miss Anthony and her co-
laborers were determined not to relax their efforts until the obnoxious laws
against women were repealed. It was at this rallying of the forces and
renewing of the attack that Mr. Channing declared Miss Anthony to be "the
Napoleon of the movement," a title so appropriate that it has clung to her to
the present day. She had now thoroughly systematized the work in New
York and was appointed general agent. It was decided to hold a series of
conventions throughout the state for the purpose of rolling up mammoth
petitions to present to the Legislature every session until they should be
granted. Two strong appeals, one written by Mrs. Stanton and one by Mr.
Channing, were widely circulated and a large corps of able speakers was

engaged. All this work the State committee assigned to Miss Anthony, but
did not provide her with one dollar to pay expenses.

For many years thereafter she canvassed the State annually; held meetings,
organized societies and secured thousands of signatures, without any
guaranteed fund. Not only did she give all her time and perform far greater
labor than any other person engaged in this movement, but she also took the
whole financial responsibility. The anxiety of this hardly can be imagined,
but she was seldom discouraged, never daunted. Her father had repaid the
few hundred dollars she had loaned him from her slender earnings as
teacher in the days of his adversity, and these she used freely without
expectation of replacing them. She never hesitated because she had not
money but went boldly forward, trusting to collections and contributions to
pay expenses. Sometimes she came out even, sometimes behind. In the
latter case she sent at once to her father who supplied the necessary funds,
which were repaid when there was a surplus. Had she waited to have the
money in hand, had she feared to take the chances, her work never would
have been done; and unless some one else had been developed who could
and would assume the risk and manage the business part of the State
campaigns, the progress of woman, slow as it has been, would have been
still longer delayed. The one ruling characteristic of her life ever has been
courage, moral and physical. There never have been hardships which she
feared to endure, never scorn, ridicule or abuse which she did not dare face.
While she might have risen to a high position and commanded a large
salary as teacher, or have lived at home in restful comfort, she voluntarily
chose the hardest field of work the world offered, one shadowed with
obloquy, holding out no prospect of money or fame and no hope of success
except through long and bitter conflict.

Soon after the Albany convention Lucy Stone wrote: "God bless you, Susan
dear, for the brave heart that will work on even in the midst of

discouragement and lack of helpers. Everywhere I am telling people what
your State is doing, and it is worth a great deal to the cause. The example of
positive action is what we need.... Does not Channing deserve the blessing
of all the race for his fidelity to the cause of women? I believe he
understands better than any others, unless it be Higginson and Phillips, just
what we need. Give my love and best wishes to the household of faith."
Channing, when she wanted him to preside at a meeting, answered
facetiously: "Napoleon will not be surprised that a corporal of an awkward
squad hesitates to appear in command where the general-in-chief is
present."

Lucy Stone

It was at the close of this Albany convention that Miss Anthony decided to
abandon the Bloomer costume. The subject had been occupying her
sleeping and waking hours for some time, and it was only after a long and
agonizing struggle that she persuaded herself to take the step. In order to
show how very serious a question this had been with the women, it will be
necessary to go into a somewhat detailed account of this first movement
toward dress reform.

The costume consisted of a short skirt and a pair of Turkish trousers
gathered at the ankle or hanging straight, and was made of ordinary dress
materials. It was first introduced at the various "water cures" to relieve sick
and delicate women, often rendered so by their unhealthful mode of dress,

and was strongly recommended in the "water cure" journals. When women
began to go into public work, they could not fail to recognize the
disadvantages of the unyielding corsets, heavy, quilted and stiffly-starched
petticoats, five or six worn at one time to hold out the long, voluminous
dress skirts; and to feel that to be consistent they must give freedom to the
body. The proprietors of the "water cures" were, for the most part, in touch
with all reform movements and their hospitality was freely extended to
those engaged in them. In this way the women had an opportunity to see the
comfort which the patients enjoyed in their loose, short garments, and
began to ask why they also should not adopt what seemed to them a rational
dress.

Hon. Gerrit Smith, of Peterboro, N.Y., the wealthy and influential reformer
and philanthropist, became an earnest advocate of this costume, and his
daughter, Elizabeth Smith Miller, a beautiful and fashionable woman, was
the first to put it on. In Washington she wore it, made of the most elegant
materials, during all her father's term in Congress. She was soon followed
by his cousin, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and with this social sanction it was
adopted in 1851 and '52 by a small number, including Lucy Stone, Amelia
Bloomer, Dr. Harriet Austin, Celia Burleigh, Charlotte Wilbour, the Grimké
sisters, probably less than one hundred in the whole country. In order to be
entirely relieved from the care of personal adornment, they also cut off their
hair. Miss Anthony was the very last to adopt the style. In May, 1852, she
wrote Lucy Stone that Mrs. Stanton had offered to make her a present of the
costume, but she would not wear it. In December she wrote again, dating
her letter from Mrs. Stanton's nursery, "Well, at last I am in short skirt and
trousers!" At this time she also sacrificed her abundant brown tresses.

The world was not ready for this innovation. There were no gymnasiums or
bicycles to plead for the appropriateness of the costume and it was worn
chiefly by women who preached doctrines for which the public was no

better prepared than for dress reform. The outcry against it extended from
one end of the country to the other; the press howled in derision, the pulpit
hurled its anathemas and the rabble took up the refrain. On the streets of the
larger cities the women were followed by mobs of men and boys, who
jeered and yelled and did not hesitate to express their disapproval by
throwing sticks and stones and giving three cheers and a tiger ending in the
loudest of groans.[19] Sometimes these demonstrations became so violent
that the women were obliged to seek refuge in a store and, after the mob
had grown tired of waiting and dispersed, they would slip out of the back
door and find their way home through the alleys. Their husbands and
children refused to be seen with them in public, and they were wholly
ostracized by other women. Mrs. Bloomer was at this time publishing a
paper called the Lily, which was the organ for the reforms of the day. Its
columns were freely used to advocate the short dress, the paper thus became
the target of attack and, because the costume had no distinctive name, it was
christened with that of the editor, much to her grief. Later a substitute for
the trousers was adopted, consisting of high shoes with buttoned gaiters
fitting in the tops and extending up over the leg, and an effort was made to
change the name to the "American costume," but the people would not have
it and "Bloomer" it will remain for all time. An extract from one of her
unpublished letters will show how all the women felt on this subject. After
protesting against connecting it with the question of woman's rights, she
says:

It is only one of our rights to dress comfortably. Many have put on
the short dress who have never taken any part in the woman's rights
movement and who have no idea they are going to be any less
womanly by such a change. I feel no more like a man now than I did
in long skirts, unless it be that enjoying more freedom and cutting
off the fetters is to be like a man. I suppose in that respect we are
more mannish, for we know that in dress, as in all things else, we

have been and are slaves, while man in dress and all things else is
free. I admit that we have "got on the pantaloons," but I deny that
putting them on is going to make us any the less womanly or any
the more masculine and immodest. On the contrary, I feel that if all
of us were less slaves to fashion we would be nobler women, for
both our bodies and minds are now rendered weak and useless from
the unhealthy and barbarous style of dress adopted, and from the
time and thought bestowed in making it attractive. A change is
demanded and if I have been the means of calling the attention of
the public to it and of leading only a few to disregard old customs
and for once to think and act for themselves, I shall not trouble
myself about the false imputations that may be cast upon me.

Amelia Bloomer

Mrs. Bloomer wore the costume eight years, but very few held out one-
fourth of that time. With the exception of Gerrit Smith, all the prominent
men, Garrison, Phillips, Channing, May, were bitterly opposed to the short
dress and tried to dissuade the women from wearing it by every argument in
their power. The costume, however, was adopted as a matter of principle,
and for it they suffered a martyrdom which would have made burning at the
stake seem comfortable. It requires far more heroism to bear jibes and jeers
for one's personal appearance than for one's opinions. No pen can describe
what these women endured for the two or three years in which they tried to
establish this principle, through such sacrifices as only a woman can
understand. So long as they were upheld by the belief that they were giving
strength to the cause they loved, they bravely submitted to the persecution,

but when they realized that they were injuring instead of helping it,
endurance reached its limit. Mrs. Stanton was the first to capitulate, and as
she had tried to induce the others to wear the costume so she endeavored to
persuade them to abandon it. She wrote to Miss Anthony and Lucy Stone: "I
know what you must suffer in consenting to bow again to the tyranny of
fashion, but I know also what you suffer among fashionable people in
wearing the short dress; and so, not for the sake of the cause, nor for any
sake but your own, take it off! We put it on for greater freedom, but what is
physical freedom compared with mental bondage?" In agony of spirit as to
whether the cause was helped or hindered by wearing it, and ready to put
aside all personal feeling in the matter, Miss Anthony appealed to Lucy
Stone, who answered:

Now, Susan, it is all fudge for anybody to pretend that a cause
which deserves to live is impeded by the length of your skirt. I
know, from having tried through half the Union, that audiences
listen and assent just as well to one who speaks truth in a short as in
a long dress; but I am annoyed to death by people who recognize me
by my clothes, and when I travel get a seat by me and bore me for a
whole day with the stupidest stuff in the world. Then again, when I
go to each new city a horde of boys pursue me and destroy all
comfort. I have bought a nice new dress, which I have had a month,
and it is not made because I can't decide whether to make it long or
short. Not that I think any cause will suffer, but simply to save
myself a great deal of annoyance and not feel when I am a guest in a
family that they are mortified if other persons happen to come in. I
was at Lucretia Mott's a few weeks ago, and her daughters took up a
regular labor with me to make me abandon the dress. They said they
would not go in the street with me, and when Grace Greenwood
called and others like her, I think it would have been a real relief to

them if I had not been there. James and Lucretia defended me
bravely.

This was received by Miss Anthony while at the Albany convention, and
she wrote:

Your letter caused a bursting of the floods, long pent up, and after a
good cry I went straight to Mrs. Stanton and read it to her. She has
had a most bitter experience in the short dress, and says she now
feels a mental freedom among her friends that she has not known
for two years past. If Lucy Stone, with all her power of eloquence,
her loveliness of character, who wins all that hear the sound of her
voice, can not bear the martyrdom of the dress, who can? Mrs.
Stanton's parting words were, "Let the hem out of your dress to-day,
before to-morrow night's meeting." I have not obeyed her but have
been in the streets and printing offices all day long, had rude, vulgar
men stare me out of countenance and heard them say as I opened the
door, "There comes my Bloomer!" O, hated name! I have been
compelled to attend to all the business here, as at Rochester. There
every one knew me, knew my father and brother, and treated me
accordingly, but here I am known only as one of the women who
ape men—coarse brutal men! Oh, I can not, can not bear it any
longer.

To this Lucy Stone replied:

I am sure you are all worn out or you would not feel so intensely
about the dress. I never shed a tear over it in my life or came within
a thousand ages of martyrdom on account of it; and to be compelled
to travel in rain and snow, mud and dirt, in a long dress would cost
me more in every respect than the short dress ever did. I don't think
I can abandon it, but I will have two skirts. I have this feeling:

Women are in bondage; their clothes are a great hindrance to their
engaging in any business which will make them pecuniarily
independent, and since the soul of womanhood never can be
queenly and noble so long as it must beg bread for its body, is it not
better, even at the expense of a vast deal of annoyance, that they
whose lives deserve respect and are greater than their garments
should give an example by which woman may more easily work out
her own emancipation?... It is a part of the "mint, anise and cumin,"
and the weightier matters of justice and truth occupy my thoughts
more.

She did abandon the costume, however, before the year was ended, as did
most of the others. The establishment of gymnasiums and the
encouragement of athletic sports among women eventually made a short
dress an acknowledged necessity, and the advent of the bicycle so
thoroughly swept away the old prejudice that the word "Bloomers" no
longer strikes terror to the heart, nor does the wearing of a short skirt
ostracise a woman and destroy her good works. Miss Anthony wore hers a
little over a year. It was not very different from the bicycle dress of the
present day, the skirt reaching almost to the shoe tops and made of satin or
heavy merino, and yet for years afterwards she was described as attending
meetings in "the regulation bombazine Bloomers," and it was impossible to
convince people to the contrary until they had seen her with their own eyes.
She herself said in regard to it: "I felt the need of some such garments
because I was obliged to be out every day in all kinds of weather, and also
because I saw women ruined in health by tight lacing and the weight of
their clothing; and I hoped to help establish the principle of rational dress. I
found it a physical comfort but a mental crucifixion. It was an intellectual
slavery; one never could get rid of thinking of herself, and the important
thing is to forget self. The attention of my audience was fixed upon my
clothes instead of my words. I learned the lesson then that to be successful a

person must attempt but one reform. By urging two, both are injured, as the
average mind can grasp and assimilate but one idea at a time. I have felt
ever since that experience that if I wished my hearers to consider the
suffrage question I must not present the temperance, the religious, the dress,
or any other besides, but must confine myself to suffrage." With the
exception of that one year, Miss Anthony always has been particular to
follow, in a modified and conservative form, the prevailing styles, and has
fought strenuously the repeated efforts to graft any kind of dress reform on
the suffrage movement.

In March, 1854, after getting back into long skirts, Miss Anthony decided to
go to Washington with Mrs. Rose, and see how the propaganda of equal
rights would be received at the capital of the nation. This was her first visit
to that city and she enjoyed it, but the meetings were not a financial
success. Great prejudice existed against Mrs. Rose on account of her
alleged infidelity, there was no interest in the question of woman's rights,
and Washington was not a good field for lectures of any sort, Congress
furnishing all the oratory for which the public cared. The papers were kind
about publishing notices, but with the exception of the Star, gave no reports.
Chaplain Milburn refused to let them have the Representative chamber for a
Sunday lecture, "because Mrs. Rose was not a member of any church."
Miss Anthony replied that "our country stood for religious as well as civil
liberty." He acknowledged the truth of this but still refused the use of the
room. Then they applied to Professor Henry for permission to speak in the
hall of the Smithsonian Institute, and he told them that "it was necessary to
avoid the discussion of any exciting questions there, and it would disturb
the harmony of feeling for a woman to speak, so he hoped they would not
ask permission of the board of regents." They had several good audiences,
however, while in the city, made many warm friends and were handsomely
entertained at the home of Gerrit Smith, then in Congress.

They went to Alexandria and to Baltimore, where they had much better
houses, but everywhere were warned not to touch on the question of
slavery. Miss Anthony was terribly disgusted with the general shiftlessness
she saw about the hotels and boarding-houses, and was in a state of pent-up
indignation to see on every hand the evils of slavery and not be allowed to
lift her voice against them, but later writes in her journal: "This noon I ate
my dinner without once asking myself, 'Are these human beings who
minister to my wants slaves who can be bought and sold?' Yes, even I am
growing accustomed to slavery; so much so that I cease to think of its
accursed influence and calmly eat from the hands of the bondman without
being mindful that he is such. O, Slavery, hateful thing that thou art thus to
blunt the keen edge of conscience!" The landlord failing to have her called
in time for the train, she complains:

There is no promptness, no order, no system down here. The
institution of slavery is as ruinous to the white man as to the black....
Three northern servants, engineered by a Yankee boarding-house
keeper, would do more work than a dozen of these slaves. The free
blacks, who receive wages, do no more than the others. Such is the
effect of slavery upon labor. I can understand why northern men
make the most exacting overseers; they require an amount of work
from the slave equal to what they would from the paid white laborer
of the north.

From Baltimore Miss Anthony went to Philadelphia, where she found
herself among friends, and as wherever two or three were gathered together
in those days they always decided to hold a woman's rights meeting, James
Mott sallied forth to arrange for one in the Quaker city, and she comments
in her diary: "O, how good it seems to have some one take the burden off
my shoulders!" They visited, made excursions, attended anti-slavery
meetings and also spiritual seances, which were then attracting great

attention. Of the many discussions which arose as to existence or non-
existence after death, she writes: "The negative had reason on their side; not
an argument could one of us bring, except an intuitive feeling that we
should not cease to exist. If it be true that we die like the flower, what a
delusion has the race suffered, what a vain dream is life!"

Miss Anthony went from here to New York, Brooklyn and Albany, and then
to her old home at Battenville, stopping with relatives and friends at each
place and speaking in the interest of the petitions. An example of the
courage required to go into a strange town and arrange for a meeting may
be given by an extract from one of many similar letters:

I speak in this village to-morrow night; had written a gentleman but
he was away, so I had all the work to do myself. I first called on the
Methodist minister to get his church. I stated my business and he
asked: "What are you driving at? Do you want to vote and be
President?" I answered that I did not personally aspire to the
presidency, but when the nation decided a woman was most
competent for that office, I would be willing she should fill it.
"Well," said he, "if the Bible teaches anything, it is that women
should be quiet keepers at home and not go gadding round the
country;" and much more. In all my traveling, in short or long skirts,
I have never been treated so contemptuously, so insultingly, as by
this same wretch of a minister. He is void of the first spark of
reverence for humanity, therefore must be equally so for God. Just
now his pious church bell is ringing for prayer-meeting; I have half
a mind to go, to see if he warns his flock to beware of my heresies.
From him I went to the Wesleyan Methodist minister, and what a
contrast! He thought I wanted the church for to-night and said: "We
have our prayer-meeting, but will adjourn it for you." This kindness
made me so weak, the tears came in spite of me, and I explained the

rowdy treatment of the other minister. I have had a varied
experience ever since I left Easton. Verily, I am embarked in an
unpopular cause and must be content to row up stream.

In May she went to the great Anti-Slavery Anniversary in New York. In
August she attended the State Teachers' Convention at Oswego. Victor M.
Rice, of Buffalo, was president and accorded her every courtesy and
encouragement. The question of woman's right to speak had been settled at
the Rochester convention the previous year and never again was disputed,
so she turned her attention to the right of women to hold office in the
association and to fill the position of principal in the public schools, which
called forth vigorous discussion. She secured the election of a woman as
one of the vice-presidents. The Oswego press declared: "Miss Anthony
made the speech of the convention; in grace of oratory and in spirit and
style of thought it fully vindicated her claim to woman's right to speak in
public. Her arguments were good, her speaking talents of the first order, and
we hope that when men answer such pleas as she made, they will do it in a
manly and generous spirit."

She saw at this time that a Temperance and also an Anti-Nebraska
Convention were to be held this month at Saratoga Springs, and at once
conceived the idea of calling a woman's rights meeting for the same week.
The time was short but she wrote urgent letters to Lucy Stone, Antoinette
Brown, Ernestine Rose and Lucretia Mott. At the appointed time, every one
failed to come. Each, supposing all the rest would be there, had allowed
some other duty to keep her away. The meeting had been advertised and
Miss Anthony was in despair. Judge William Hay, of Saratoga, always her
faithful friend, had made the arrangements and he encouraged her to go
ahead. In those days she had no faith in herself as a speaker. She was
accustomed to raise the money, marshal the forces, then take the onerous
position of secretary and let the orators come in and carry off all the glory.

She spoke only when there was nobody else who could or would do so. In
the present emergency she could utilize her one written speech and she was
fortunate enough to find at the hotel Matilda Joslyn Gage and Sarah Pellet,
a graduate of Oberlin, who consented to help her out. St. Nicholas Hall was
crowded at both sessions. Twenty-five cents admission was charged, many
tracts were sold, she paid all expenses, gave each of her speakers $10 and
had a small balance left. She needed it, for while at Saratoga her purse had
been stolen with $15, all she possessed.

In 1854 the Missouri Compromise had been repealed, trouble in Kansas had
reached its height, the Know Nothing party was at its zenith, the Whigs
were demoralized and the Free Soilers were gaining the ascendency. This
anti-Nebraska meeting at Saratoga may be said to have witnessed the birth
of the Republican party. It possessed an additional interest for Miss
Anthony, who attended all its sessions, from the fact that her brother, Daniel
R., made on this occasion his first political speech. He had just returned
from Kansas and could describe from personal observation the outrages
perpetrated in that unhappy territory. After leaving Saratoga, Miss Anthony
spoke in many places on the way to Rochester, among them Canajoharie,
the scene of her last teaching. Her experience here is described in a letter
home:

The trustees of the Methodist church said I could have it for my
meeting, but the minister protested and put the key into his saintly
pocket. Brown Stafford said to him, "Keep that key, if you dare! I
guess Uncle Read and Uncle John Stafford and I have done enough
to build and sustain that church to warrant us in having our say
about it full as much as you, sir;" and he was compelled to give up
the key. Uncle Read went to aunt and said: "I have not thought of
going to an evening meeting in a long time, but I will go tonight if it
kills me." So they went, also the very best of the folks from both

sides of the river, and I seldom have spoken better. Uncle seemed
very much pleased, and when Aunt Mary and the trustees urged me
to take the school again, he said: "No, some one ought to go around
and set the people thinking about the laws and it is Susan's work to
do this."

Miss Anthony reached home, October 1, after seven months' constant travel
and hard work, and on the 17th went to the National Woman's Rights
Convention at Philadelphia and gave the report for New York. It was
through her determined efforts, overcoming the objection that she was an
atheist and declaring that every religion or none should have an equal right
on their platform, that Mrs. Rose was made president. She met here for the
first time Anna and Adeline Thomson, Sarah Pugh and Mary Grew, and was
the guest of James and Lucretia Mott, who entertained twenty-four visitors
in their hospitable house during all the convention. This is the quaint
invitation sent her by Mrs. Mott: "It will give us pleasure to have thy
company at 338 Arch street, where we hope thou wilt make thy home. We
shall of course be crowded, but we expect thee and shall prepare
accordingly. We think such as thyself, devoted to good causes, should not
have to seek a home." Wm. Lloyd Garrison sat at her right hand at table and
Miss Anthony at her left. At the conclusion of each meal she had brought in
to her a little cedar tub filled with hot water and washed the silver, glass and
fine china, Miss Anthony drying them with the whitest of towels, while the
brilliant conversation at the table went on uninterrupted.

At the close of 1854, Miss Anthony decided to make a thorough canvass of
every county in New York in the interest of the petitions to the Legislature,
a thing no woman ever had dreamed of doing. Most of the papers responded
cordially to her request that they publish her notices. Mr. Greeley wrote: "I
have your letter and your programme, friend Susan. I will publish the latter
in all our editions, but return your dollars. To charge you full price would be

too hard and I prefer not to take anything." As she had not a dollar of
surplus left from her year's work she went in debt, with her father as
security, for the hand-bills which she had printed to announce her meetings.
These were folded and addressed by her brother Merritt and a young
relative, Mary Luther, his future wife, and under the direction of her father
were sent two weeks in advance to sheriff and postmaster, accompanied by
a letter from Miss Anthony requesting that they be put up in a conspicuous
place. She then wrote Wendell Phillips asking if any funds were available
from the Philadelphia convention, and he replied "no," but sent a personal
check for $50. With this money in her pocket, and without the promise of
another dollar, she started out alone, at the beginning of winter, to canvass
the great State of New York.
[19] At the top of their voices they shouted such doggerel as this:

"Heigh ho,
Thro' sleet and snow,
Mrs. Bloomer's all the go.
Twenty tailors take the stitches,
Plenty of women wear the breeches,
Heigh ho,
Carrion crow!"

And this:

"Gibbery, gibbery gab,
The women had a confab
And demanded the rights
To wear the tights.
Gibbery, gibbery gab."

CHAPTER VIII.
FIRST COUNTY CANVASS——THE WATER CURE.

1855.

Miss Anthony left home on Christmas Day, 1854, and held her first meeting
at Mayville, Chautauqua Co., the afternoon and evening of the 26th. On her
expense account is the item: "56 cents for four pounds of candles to light
the courthouse." The weather was cold and damp and the audiences small,
although people were present from eight towns, attracted by curiosity to
hear a woman. At the evening session a "York shilling" admittance fee was
charged. At Sherman, the next evening, there was a large audience and the
diary says: "I never saw more enthusiasm on the subject; even the orthodox
churches vied with each other as to which should open its doors."

The plan adopted was to hold these meetings every other day, allowing for
the journey from place to place; but whenever distances would permit, one
was held on the intervening day. Occasionally Miss Anthony had the
assistance of another speaker, but more than half the meetings were
conducted with the little local help she could secure. In the afternoon she
would read half of her one and only speech and try to form a society, but
there was scarcely a woman to be found who would accept the presidency.
In the evening she would read the other half, sell as many tracts as possible
and secure names to the petitions. In almost every instance she found the
sheriff had put up her posters, inserted notices in the papers, had them read
in the churches and prepared the courthouse for her. From only one of the
sixty counties did she receive an insulting reply to her letters, and this was
from Schoharie. The postmasters also pasted her hand-bills in a

conspicuous place, and they were a source of much amusement and
comment. Most of the towns never had been visited by a woman speaker,
and wagon-loads of people would come from miles around to see the
novelty. The audiences were cold but respectful and, as a rule, she was
treated decently by the county papers. Occasionally a smart editor would
get off the joke about her relationship to Mark Antony, which even then had
become threadbare, and invariably the articles would begin, "While we do
not agree with the theories which the lady advocates." Most of them,
however, paid high tribute to her ability as a speaker and to the clearness,
logic and force of her arguments. A quotation from the Rondout Courier
will illustrate:

At the appointed hour a lady, unattended and unheralded, quietly
glided in and ascended the platform. She was as easy and self-
possessed as a lady should always be when performing a plain duty,
even under 600 curious eyes. Her situation would have been trying
to a non-self-reliant woman, for there was no volunteer co-operator.
The custodian of the hall, with his stereotyped stupidity, had
dumped some tracts and papers on the platform. The unfriended
Miss Anthony gathered them up composedly, placed them on a table
disposedly, put her decorous shawl on one chair and a very
exemplary bonnet on another, sat a moment, smoothed her hair
discreetly, and then deliberately walked to the table and addressed
the audience. She wore a becoming black silk dress, gracefully
draped and made with a basque waist. She appears to be somewhere
about the confines of the fourth luster in age, of pleasing rather than
pretty features, decidedly expressive countenance, rich brown hair
very effectively and not at all elaborately arranged, neither too tall
nor too short, too plump nor too thin—in brief one of those juste
milieu persons, the perfection of common sense physically
exhibited. Miss Anthony's oratory is in keeping with all her

belongings, her voice well modulated and musical, her enunciation
distinct, her style earnest and impressive, her language pure and
unexaggerated.

Judging from other friendly notices this must be an accurate description of
Miss Anthony at the age of thirty-five. The experiment of a woman on the
platform was too new, however, and the doctrines she advocated too
unpopular for it to be possible that she should receive fair treatment
generally, and there were few papers which described her in as unprejudiced
a manner as the one quoted. A letter from her father during this trip said:
"Would it not be wise to preserve the many and amusing observations by
the different papers, that years hence, in your more solitary moments, you
and maybe your children can look over the views of both the friends and
opponents of the cause?" This was the beginning of the scrap books
carefully kept up for nearly half a century.

The journal for that year gives a detailed account of the hardships of this
winter, one of the coldest and snowiest on record. Many towns were off the
railroad and could be reached only by sleigh. After a long ride she would be
put for the night into a room without a fire, and in the morning would have
to break the ice in the pitcher to take that sponge bath from head to foot
which she never omitted. All that she hoped from a financial standpoint was
to pay the expenses of the trip, and had she desired fame or honor, she
would not have sought it in these remote villages. The diary relates:

At Olean, not a church or schoolhouse could be obtained for the
lecture and it would have had to be abandoned had not the landlord,
Mr. Comstock, given the use of his dining-room....

At Angelica, nine towns represented; crowded house, courtroom
carpeted with sawdust. A young Methodist minister gave his name

for the petition, but one of his wealthy parishioners told him he
should leave the church unless it was withdrawn....

At Corning, none of the ministers would give the notice of our
meeting, which so incensed some of the men that they went to the
printing office, struck off handbills and had boys standing at the
door of the churches as the people passed out. Who was responsible
for the Sabbath breaking?...

At Elmira, took tea at Mrs. Holbrook's with Rev. Thomas K.
Beecher. His theology, as set forth that evening, is a dark and
hopeless one. He sees no hope for the progress of the race, does not
believe that education even will improve the species. I find great
apathy wherever the clergy are opposed to the advancement of
women.

In February Miss Anthony suspended her canvass long enough to go to
Albany to the State convention and present the petitions. In response to her
request to be present Horace Greeley wrote: "You know already that I am
thoroughly committed to the principle that woman shall decide for herself
whether she shall have a voice and vote in legislation or shall continue to be
represented and legislated for exclusively by man. My own judgment is that
woman's presence in the arena of politics would be useful and beneficent
but I do not assume to judge for her. She must consider, determine and act
for herself. Moreover, when she shall in earnest have resolved that her own
welfare and that of the race will be promoted by her claiming a voice in the
direction of civil government, as I think she ultimately will do, then the day
of her emancipation will be very near. That day, I will hope yet to see."

Her mission accomplished, Miss Anthony plunged again into the ice and
snow of northern New York. At Albany a wealthy and cultured Quaker
gentleman had been an attentive and interested listener, and when she took

the stage a few days later at Lake George, she found not only that he was to
be her fellow-passenger, but that he had a thick plank heated, which he
asked permission to place under her feet. Whenever the stage stopped he
had it re-heated, and in many ways added to the comfort of her journey. At
the close of the next meeting to her surprise she found his fine sleigh
waiting filled with robes and drawn by two spirited gray horses, and he
himself drove her to his own beautiful home presided over by a sister,
where she spent Sunday. In this same luxurious conveyance she was taken
to several towns and, during one of these trips, was urged in the most
earnest manner to give up the hard life she was leading and accept the ease
and protection he could offer. But her heart made no response to this appeal
while it did urge her strongly to continue in her chosen work.

All through the Schroon Lake country the snow was over the fences and the
weather bitterly cold. At Plattsburg, Miss Anthony was a guest at Judge
Watson's. Before leaving Rochester she had had a pair of high boots made
to protect her from the deep snows, which were so much heavier than she
was accustomed to that they almost ruined her feet. She was at that time an
ardent convert to the "water cure" theories and, after suffering tortures from
one foot especially, she came home from the afternoon meeting, put it under
the "penstock" in the kitchen and let the cold water run over it till it was
perfectly numb, then Crapped it up in flannels. That evening it did not hurt
her a particle, and concluding that what was good for one foot must be good
for two, she put both under the "penstock" till they were almost congealed.
In the morning she scarcely could get out of bed, all the pain having settled
in her back, but in spite of protests from the family she resumed her
journey. All the way to Malone, she had to hold fast to the seat in front of
her to relieve as much as possible the motion of the cars. She managed to
conduct her afternoon and evening meetings, and then went on to
Ogdensburg, where she stopped with a cousin. The next morning she hardly
could move and the women of the family had to help her make her toilet.

Nothing they could say would persuade her to remain; she was advertised to
speak at Canton and proposed to do it if she were alive, so she was carried
out, put into a sleigh and driven seventeen miles actually doubled up with
her head on her knees. She finished the two meetings and then resolved on
heroic measures. Arising at 4 A.M. she rode in a stage to within ten miles of
Watertown, took the cars to that city and went to a hotel. Here she ordered
the chambermaid to bring several buckets of ice water into her room and,
sitting down in a tub, she had them poured on her back, then wrapping up in
hot blankets went to bed. The next morning she was apparently well and
held her meetings.

At Auburn, Mrs. Stanton came over from Seneca Falls to assist and they
were entertained by Martha C. Wright. As a usual thing Miss Anthony
stopped at a hotel but after the first session some one in her audience would
be so pleased with her that she was sure to be invited into a comfortable
home for the rest of her stay. One cold spring day she was to speak at
Riverhead, L.I. Reaching the courthouse, at 1 o'clock, she found it swept
and garnished and a good fire but not a person in sight except the janitor; so
she sat down and waited and finally one man after another dropped in, until
there were perhaps a dozen. Not at all discouraged, she began her speech.
Presently the door opened a little and she saw a woman's bonnet peep in but
it was quickly withdrawn. This was repeated a number of times but not one
ventured in. Whether each woman saw her own husband and was afraid to
enter, or whether she did not dare face the other women's husbands, there
was not one in the audience. The men heard her through, bought her tracts
and signed the petition. Having decided there was nothing dangerous about
her, they came back in the evening, bringing their wives and neighbors.

She closed her campaign May 1, having made a thorough canvass of fifty-
four counties, during which she sold 20,000 pamphlets. The total receipts
for the four months were $2,367, and the expenses were $2,291, leaving a

balance of $76. Out of this she sent Mr. Phillips the $50 he had advanced,
but he returned it saying he thought she had earned it.

The diary relates that it was the common practice in those days for the
husband, upon coming to an eating station, to go in and get a hot dinner,
while the wife sat in the car and ate a cold lunch. It tells of an old farmer
who came with his wife to her lecture and went into the dining-room for the
best meal the tavern afforded, while the wife sat in the parlor and nibbled a
little food she had brought with her. Miss Anthony and her companions
were the only women who dared go out when the train stopped, to walk up
and down for air and exercise, and they were considered very bold for so
doing.

In 1855, to Miss Anthony's great regret, Lucy Stone and Antoinette Brown
were married. Both were very active in the reforms of the day, and there
was such a dearth of effective workers she felt that they could ill be spared.
Their semi-apologetic letters and her half-sorrowful, half-indignant
remonstrances are both amusing and pathetic. They assure her that marriage
will make no difference with their work, that it will only give them more
power and earnestness. She knew from observation that the married woman
who attempts to do public work must neglect either it or home duties, and
that the advent of children necessarily must compel the mother to withdraw
practically from outside occupation. She was not opposed to marriage per
se, but she felt that such women as Lucy Stone and Antoinette Brown might
make a sacrifice and consecrate themselves to the great needs of the world
which were demanding the services of the ablest women.

In May Miss Anthony went as usual to the Anti-Slavery Anniversary. In
regard to this her father wrote: "Were I in your place I should like to attend
these anniversaries. The women are soon to have their rights and should
there be any slavery left in the world after they are liberated, it should be

your business to help clear it out." Very few of those who were actively
engaged in the effort to secure equal rights for women had the slightest
conception of the half century and more of long and steady work before
them. To their minds the demand seemed so evident, so just and so forcible,
that prejudice and opposition must yield in a short time and the foundation
principles of the government be established in fact as well as in theory.

From New York she went to her birthplace, Adams, Mass., and spoke in the
Baptist church. Just as she began, to her amazement, her Quaker
grandfather eighty-five years old came up the aisle and sat down on the
pulpit steps. While he had been very anxious that she should speak and that
her lecture should be well advertised she had not expected him to be
present, as he was not in the habit of entering an orthodox church. She
stopped at once, gave him her hand and assisted him to a seat in the pulpit,
where he listened with deep interest. When she finished he said: "Well,
Susan, that is a smart talk thee has given us tonight."

After Miss Anthony returned home, outraged nature asserted itself and at
every moment the pain in her back was excruciating. She went to a doctor
for the first time in her life and was given a fly-blister and some drugs to
put in whiskey. The last two she threw away but applied the blister, which
only increased her misery. She suffered terribly all summer but was busy
every moment writing a new speech and sending out scores of letters for a
second woman's rights convention which had been called to meet at
Saratoga in August. Most of the replies were favorable. T.W. Higginson
wrote: "With great pleasure will I come to Saratoga Springs on August 15
and 16. It is a capital idea to have a convention there, coax in some curious
fashionables and perhaps make those who come to scoff, remain to pray."
Lucretia Mott sent a letter full of good cheer. From Mrs. Stanton,
overwhelmed with the cares of many little children, came this pathetic
message: "I can not go. I have so many drawbacks to all my efforts for

women that every step is one of warfare, but there is a good time coming
and I am strong and happy in hope. I long to see you, dear Susan, and hear
of your wanderings."

Paulina Wright Davis said, in discussing the convention; "I get almost
discouraged with women. They will work for men, but a woman must ride
in triumph over everything before they will give her a word of aid or cheer;
they are ready enough to take advantage of every step gained, but not ready
to help further steps. When will they be truer and nobler? Not in our day,
but we must work on for future generations." Lucy Stone, enjoying her
honeymoon at the Blackwell home near Cincinnati, wrote in a playful
mood: "When, after reading your letter, I asked my husband if I might go to
Saratoga, only think of it! He did not give me permission, but told me to ask
Lucy Stone. I can't get him to govern me at all.... The Washington Union,
noticing our marriage, said: 'We understand that Mr. Blackwell, who last
fall assaulted a southern lady and stole her slave, has lately married Miss
Lucy Stone. Justice, though sometimes tardy, never fails to overtake her
victim.' They evidently think him well punished. With the old love and
good will I am now and ever,

LUCY STONE (only)."

H Anthony

On the way to Saratoga Miss Anthony stopped at Utica for the State
Teachers' Convention and was appointed to read a paper at the next annual
meeting on "Educating the Sexes Together." This action showed
considerable advance in sentiment during the two years since this same
body at Rochester debated for half an hour whether a woman should be
allowed to speak to a motion. She called the Woman's Rights Convention to

order in Saratoga, August 15, 1855, and Martha C. Wright was made
president. The brilliant array of speakers addressed cultured audiences
gathered from all parts of the country at this fashionable resort. The
newspapers were very complimentary; the Whig, however, declared, "The
business of the convention was to advocate woman's right to do wrong." It
was here that Mary L. Booth, afterwards for many years editor of Harper's
Bazar, made her first public appearance, acting as secretary.

She decided to go for a while to the Worcester Hydropathic Institute
conducted by her cousin, Dr. Seth Rogers, and she found here complete
change and comparative rest, although occupying a great deal of her time in
sending out tracts and petitions. Her account-books show the purchase of
600 one-cent stamps, each of which meant the addressing of an envelope
with her own hand, and her letters to her father are full of directions for
printing circulars, etc. She was, however, enabled to take some recreation, a
thing almost unknown in her busy life. On September 18 she attended the
Massachusetts Woman's Rights Convention, and wrote home:

I went into Boston with Lucy Stone and stopped at Francis
Jackson's, where we found Antoinette Brown and Ellen Blackwell, a
pleasant company in that most hospitable home. As this was my first
visit to Boston, Mr. Jackson took us to see the sights; and then we
dined with his daughter, Eliza J. Eddy, returning in the afternoon. In
the evening, we attended a reception at Garrison's, where we met
several of the literati, and were most heartily welcomed by Mrs.
Garrison, a noble, self-sacrificing woman, loving and loved,
surrounded with healthy, happy children in that model home. Mr.
Garrison was omnipresent, now talking with and introducing guests,
now soothing some child to sleep, and now, with his wife, looking
after the refreshments. There we met Caroline H. Dall, Elizabeth
Peabody, Mrs. McCready, the Shakespearian reader, Caroline M.

Severance, Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, Charles F. Hovey, Wendell Phillips,
Sarah Pugh and others. Having worshipped these distinguished
people afar off, it was a great satisfaction to meet them face to face.

Saturday morning, with Mr. and Mrs. Garrison and Sarah Pugh, I
visited Mount Auburn. What a magnificent resting-place! We could
not find Margaret Fuller's monument, which I regretted. I spent
Sunday with Charles Lenox Remond at Salem, and we drove to
Lynn with his matchless steeds to hear Theodore Parker preach a
sermon which filled our souls. We discussed its excellence at James
Buffum's where we all dined. Monday Mr. Garrison escorted me to
Charlestown; we stood on the very spot where Warren fell and
mounted the interminable staircase to the top of Bunker Hill
Monument. Then we called on Theodore Parker; found him up three
nights of stairs in his library which covers that whole floor of his
house; the room is lined with books to the very top—16,000
volumes—and there at a large table in the center of the apartment
sat the great man himself. It really seemed audacious in me to be
ushered into such a presence and on such a commonplace errand as
to ask him to come to Rochester to speak in a course of lectures I
am planning, but he received me with such kindness and simplicity
that the awe I felt on entering was soon dissipated. I then called on
Wendell Phillips in his sanctum for the same purpose. I have invited
Ralph Waldo Emerson by letter and all three have promised to
come. In the evening with Mr. Jackson's son James, Ellen Blackwell
and I went to see Hamlet. In spite of my Quaker training, I find I
enjoy all these worldly amusements intensely.

Returning to Worcester, I attended the Anti-Slavery Bazaar. I
suppose there were many beautiful things exhibited, but I was so
absorbed in the conversation of Mr. Higginson, Samuel May, Jr.,

Sarah Earle, cousin Seth Rogers and Stephen and Abby Foster, that I
really forgot to take a survey of the tables. The next day Charles F.
Hovey drove with me out to the home of the Fosters where we had a
pleasant call.[20]

Theodore Parker

Miss Anthony visited a baby show but she considered it "a sad exhibition,
unless it may be the crude and rude beginning of arousing an interest in the
laws which govern the production of strong, healthy, beautiful children."
She heard Mr. Higginson preach every Sunday, and of one sermon on the
"Secret Springs of True Greatness" she writes home:

The minister read from the Book of Esdras in the Apocrypha. It is
astonishing that such a beautiful and forcible exemplification of the
governing principle of life should have been cast aside as doubtful
by those who presumed to sit in judgment upon the revealed will of
the Almighty. That they did fail to perceive in this the divine stamp,
proves all the more conclusively to me that we, who have the
experience of all past generations to enlighten our understanding
and deepen our convictions, are infinitely more competent to
discern between the good and evil in that wonderful book than were
any king-appointed councils of olden times.

During Mr. Higginson's absence his place was filled by Rev. David A.
Wasson, who was temporarily a resident of the "water cure." His sermons
and his daily companionship were a revelation to Miss Anthony of a higher
intellectual and spiritual life than she had known before, and she records in
her diary: "It is plain to me now that it is not sitting under preaching that I
dislike, but the fact that most of it is not of a stamp that my soul can
respond to." While in Worcester she went to her first Republican meeting
and heard John P. Hale. Her cousin escorted her to a seat on the platform
and Mr. Hale gave her a cordial welcome. She was the only woman present,
although several peeped in at the door but had not the courage to enter. She
also heard Henry Wilson, Charles Sumner and Anson Burlingame, and
writes: "Had the accident of birth given me place among the aristocracy of
sex, I doubt not I should be an active, zealous advocate of Republicanism;
unless, perchance, I had received that higher, holier light which would have
lifted me to the sublime height where now stand Garrison, Phillips and all
that small but noble band whose motto is 'No Union with Slaveholders.'"

She was at this time becoming deeply interested in politics but had not
dreamed that she herself ever would enter the ranks of political speakers. In
October she complains of her restlessness and her anxiety to go home, but
she is not strong and knows it would be impossible to keep up the treatment
there, so she says: "Because of this, and because of my great desire to be
able to do what now seems my life work, I have decided to stay awhile
longer." But in this same letter she adds: "If Merritt is sick and needs me I
will go to him at once. My waking and sleeping thoughts are with him."
This young brother had insisted upon going West to seek his fortune and
was taken ill in Iowa. At one time when he asked for some money he had
saved, and his father, thinking he was too young to be trusted, did not let
him have it, Miss Anthony wrote: "It is too bad to treat him like a child. Let
him make a blunder even; it will do much more to develop him than the
judgment of father, mother and all the brothers and sisters. He ought to have

the privilege, since it is clearly his right, to invest his money exactly as he
pleases and I hope he will yet be trusted at least with his own funds."

To a woman who is publishing a paper and complains that her efforts are
neither helped nor appreciated, she replies: "Every individual woman who
launches into a work hitherto monopolized by men, must stand or fall in her
own strength or weakness. Whatever we manufacture we must study to
make it for the interest of the community to purchase. If we fail in this, we
must improve the work.... Each of us individually has her own duties to
perform and each of us alone must work out her life problem."

In October the National Woman's Rights Convention was held in Cincinnati
but she was unable to attend. It was the only one she missed from 1852
until the breaking out of the war, when they were abandoned for a number
of years, and she felt so distressed that she wrote to Rochester and
persuaded her sister Mary to get leave of absence from school and go in her
place. We know she has a very pretty bonnet this fall, for she says: "It is
trimmed with dark green ribbon, striped with black and white, and for face
trimming, lace and cherry and green flowers with the least speck of blue."
She grieves because her married sisters never have time to write her, and
says:

But so it is; every wife and mother must devote herself wholly to
home duties, washing and cleaning, baking and mending—these are
the must be's; the culture of the soul, the enlargement of the
faculties, the thought of anything or anybody beyond the home and
family are the may be's. When society is rightly organized, the wife
and mother will have time, wish and will to grow intellectually, and
will know that the limits of her sphere, the extent of her duties, are
prescribed only by the measure of her ability.

Her daily treatment at the "water cure" is thus described: "First thing in the
morning, dripping sheet; pack at 10 o'clock for forty-five minutes, come out
of that and take a shower, followed by a sitz bath, with a pail of water at 75°
poured over the shoulders, after which dry sheet and then, brisk exercise. At
4 P.M. the programme repeated, and then again at 9 P.M. My day is so cut
up with four baths, four dressings and undressings, four exercisings, one
drive and three eatings, that I do not have time to put two thoughts
together." Miss Anthony recovered her health, either as a result of the
treatment or of the rest and the long rides which she took daily with her
cousin as he made his round of visits. While he was indoors she sat in the
chaise enjoying the sunshine and fresh air and reading some interesting
book. The journal shows that during the fall she read Sartor Resartus,
Consuelo, bits from Gerald Massey, Villette, Gaskell's Life of Charlotte
Bronte, Corinne, and a number of other works. Dr. Rogers, the intimate
friend of Thoreau and Emerson, was a cultured gentleman, liberal in his
views, strong in his opinions, yet tender, sympathetic and companionable.
Many of his beautiful letters to Miss Anthony have been preserved. In
speaking of political cowardice and corruption, he says: "Were it not for the
thunder and lightning of the Garrisonians to purify the moral atmosphere,
we would all sink into perdition together." His love of liberty is thus
expressed:

I believe in the absolute freedom of every human being so long as
the rights of others are left undisturbed. Conformity too often cuts
down our stature and makes us Lilliputians, no longer units but
unities. Help me to stand alone and I will help you to right the
universe. Better, a thousand times better, that societies, friendships
even, never were formed, that we all were Robinson Crusoes, than
that the terrible tragedy of soul-annihilation through conformity be
so conspicuous in the drama of human life. How many wives do you
see who are not acting this tragedy? How many husbands who do

not applaud? Hence degeneracy after marriage, more directly of the
wife than the husband, but too often of both.

As soon as Miss Anthony reached home, the last of November, she began
preparing for another winter campaign in the interest of the petitions, and
also for a course of lectures to be given in Rochester by the prominent men
of the day. Lucy Stone wrote her at this time: "Your letter full of plans
reaches me here. I wish I lived near enough to catch some of your
magnetism. For the first time in my life I feel, day after day, completely
discouraged. When my Harry sent your letter to me he said, 'Susan wants
you to write a tract, and I say, Amen.' When I go home I will see whether I
have any faith in nay power to do it.... Susan, don't you lecture this winter
on pain of my everlasting displeasure. I am going to retire from the field;
and if you go to work too soon and kill yourself, the two wheelhorses will
be gone and then the chariot will stop."

Arguments were of no avail, however, when the field was waiting and the
workers few, and while Miss Anthony was ever ready to excuse others, she
never spared herself. She decided before starting to take out a policy in the
New York Life Insurance Company. The medical certificate given on
December 18, 1855, by Dr. Edward M. Moore, the leading surgeon of
western New York, read as follows: "Height, 5 ft. 5 in.; figure, full; chest
measure 38 in.; weight, 156 lbs.; complexion, fair; habits, healthy and
active; nervous affections, none; character of respiration, clear, resonant,
murmur perfect; heart, normal in rhythm and valvular sound; pulse 66 per
minute; disease, none. The life is a very good one." And so it has proved to
be, as she has paid her premiums for over forty years.[21]

Just before she was ready to start on her long lecture tour in the interest of
educational, civil and political rights for women, she received a letter,

which was an entire surprise and added a new feature to the work to which
she was devoting her time and energy.
[20] At this Boston convention Ralph Waldo Emerson gave a flowery description of the
changed condition when women should vote and the polls would be in a beautiful hall
decorated with paintings, statuary, etc. The women were very much worried, fearing that the
politicians would be frightened at the idea of so much respectability.

[21] The president of the company, John A. McCall, in a personal letter, written December 21,
1897, just forty-two years afterwards, says: "That you may be spared for many, many years to
your numerous friends and admirers is the wish of this company and its officials."

CHAPTER IX.
ADVANCE ALONG ALL LINES.

1856.

The letter which Miss Anthony received with so much pleased surprise was
from Samuel May, Jr., cousin of Rev. S.J. May. He was secretary of the
American Anti-Slavery Society, which had its headquarters in Boston; Wm.
Lloyd Garrison was its president, and among its officers were Wendell
Phillips, Francis Jackson, Charles Hovey, Stephen and Abby Kelly Foster,
Parker Pillsbury, Maria Weston Chapman, the most distinguished
Abolitionists of the day. This letter read:

The executive committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society
desire to engage you as an agent, for such time between now and the
first of May next as you may be able to give. Will you let us know
what your engagements are, and, if you can enter into this agency,
when you will be ready to commence? The committee passed no
vote as to compensation. We would like to be informed what would
be acceptable. It is quite probable that your field of service at first
would be western and central New York. An early answer will much
oblige.

A previous chapter has told how Miss Anthony longed to take part in anti-
slavery work, and behold here was the coveted opportunity! And then to
have such a recognition of her ability by this body of men and women, who
represented the brains and conscience of this period of reforms, was the
highest compliment she could receive. The salary, even though small,

would relieve her from the pressing anxiety of making each day's work pay
its own expenses, and while she should be laboring in a reform in which she
was greatly interested, she could at the same time even more effectually
advance the cause which lay nearest to her heart. But the woman's rights
meetings already announced by posters, what should be done in regard to
them? She finally decided to hold them during January with Frances D.
Gage, initiate her and then leave her to fill the remainder of the winter's
engagements. So she accepted Mr. May's offer and at his request planned a
route and arranged meetings for a number of speakers. Stephen S. Foster
wrote, "I shall give myself entirely into your power, only stipulating for the
liberty of speech."

Stephen S. Foster

Miss Anthony started with Mrs. Gage January 4, 1856. As many of their
meetings were off the railroad, there was a hard siege ahead of them. The
diary says: "January 8: Terribly cold and windy; only a dozen people in the
hall; had a social chat with them and returned to our hotel. Lost more here
at Dansville than we gained at Mount Morris. So goes the world.... January
9: Mercury 12° below zero but we took a sleigh for Nunda. Trains all
blocked by snow and no mail for several days, yet we had a full house and
good meeting." Extracts from one or two letters written home will give
some idea of this perilous journey:

HALL'S CORNERS, January 11, 8-1/2 o'clock.

Just emerged from a long line of snowdrifts and stepped at this little
country tavern, supped and am now roasting over a hot stove. Oh,
oh, what an experience! No trains running and we have had a thirty-
six mile ride in a sleigh. Once we seemed lost in a drift full fifteen
feet deep. The driver went on ahead to a house, and there we sat
shivering. When he returned we found he had gone over a fence into
a field, so we had to dismount and plough through the snow after
the sleigh; then we reseated ourselves, but oh, the poor horses!...

WENDTE'S STATION, January 14, 12-1/2 o'clock P. M.

Well, well, good folks at home, these surely are the times that try
women's souls. After writing you last, the snows fell and the winds
blew and the cars failed to go and come at their appointed hours. We
could have reached Warsaw if the omnibus had had the energy to
come for us. The train, however, got no farther than Warsaw, where
it stuck in a snowdrift eleven feet deep and a hundred long, but we
might have kept that engagement at least. Friday morning we went
to the station; no trains and no hope of any, but a man said he could
get us to Attica in time for an evening meeting, so we agreed to pay
him $5. He had a noble pair of greys and we floundered through the
deepest snowbanks I ever saw, but at 7 o'clock were still fourteen
miles from Attica.

We stopped at a little tavern where the landlady was not yet twenty
and had a baby fifteen months old. Her supper dishes were not
washed and her baby was crying, but she was equal to the occasion.
She rocked the little thing to sleep, washed the dishes and got our
supper; beautiful white bread, butter, cheese, pickles, apple and
mince pie, and excellent peach preserves. She gave us her warm
bedroom to sleep in, and on a row of pegs hung the loveliest

embroidered petticoats and baby clothes, all the work of that young
woman's fingers, while on a rack was her ironing perfectly done,
wrought undersleeves, baby dresses, embroidered underwear, etc.
She prepared a 6 o'clock breakfast for us, fried pork, mashed
potatoes, mince pie, and for me, at my especial request, a plate of
delicious baked sweet apples and a pitcher of rich milk. Now for the
moral of this story: When we came to pay our bill, the dolt of a
husband took the money and put it in his pocket. He had not lifted a
hand to lighten that woman's burdens, but had sat and talked with
the men in the bar room, not even caring for the baby, yet the law
gives him the right to every dollar she earns, and when she needs
two cents to buy a darning needle she has to ask him and explain
what she wants it for.

Here where I am writing is a similar case. The baby is very sick
with the whooping cough; the wife has dinner to get for all the
boarders, and no help; husband standing around with his hands in
his pockets. She begs him to hold the baby for just ten minutes, but
before the time is up he hands it back to her, saying, "Here, take this
child, I'm tired." Yet when we left he was on hand to receive the
money and we had to give it to him. We paid a man a dollar to take
us to the station, and saw the train pull out while we were stuck in a
snowdrift ten feet deep, with a dozen men trying to shovel a path for
us; so we had to come back. In spite of this terrible weather, people
drive eight and ten miles to our meetings.

On January 20, Mrs. Gage was called home by illness in her family, leaving
Miss Anthony to finish the campaign alone. This destroyed all plans for her
work with the anti-slavery committee, as no inducement could have been
offered which would cause her to abandon these woman's rights meetings
after having advertised them. She requested Mr. May to release her and he

did so, stipulating however that she should inform him as soon as she was at
liberty. She begged various speakers to assist her but received no favorable
replies. Lucy Stone wrote, "I wish you had a good husband; it is a great
blessing." Her intense desire for help may be judged by a letter to Martha C.
Wright in regard to a meeting which had been announced for Auburn: "Mrs.
Gage has gone; now, dear Mrs. Wright, won't you give an address? Be
brave and make this beginning. You can speak so much better, so much
more wisely, so much more everything than I can; do rejoice my heart by
consenting. I wish I could see you tonight; I'm sure I could prevail upon
you. Yours beseechingly." She got no aid from any quarter, and went on
alone through the dreary winter. To those who were to advertise her
meetings she said: "I should like a particular effort made to call out the
teachers, seamstresses and wage-earning women generally. It is for them
rather than for the wives and daughters of the rich that I labor."

In February she returned to Rochester to look after Mr. Garrison's lecture
and entertained him at her home. As it had been decided not to hold a
convention at Albany she took this opportunity to go there and present the
petitions to the Legislature. They were referred to the Senate Judiciary
Committee, Samuel G. Foote, chairman. Mr. Foote was a lawyer, prominent
in society, the father of daughters, and yet reported as follows on the
petition asking that a woman might control her wages and have the custody
of her children:

The committee is composed of married and single gentlemen. The
bachelors, with becoming diffidence, have left the subject pretty
much to the married gentlemen. They have considered it with the
aid of the light they have before them and the experience married
life has given them. Thus aided, they are enabled to state that the
ladies always have the best place and choicest titbit at the table.
They have the best seat in the cars, carriages and sleighs; the

warmest place in winter and the coolest in summer. They have their
choice on which side of the bed they will lie, front or back. A lady's
dress costs three times as much as that of a gentleman; and at the
present time, with the prevailing fashion, one lady occupies three
times as much space in the world as a gentleman. It has thus
appeared to the married gentlemen of your committee, being a
majority (the bachelors being silent for the reason mentioned, and
also probably for the further reason that they are still suitors for the
favors of the gentler sex) that if there is any inequality or oppression
in the case, the gentlemen are the sufferers. They, however, have
presented no petitions for redress, having doubtless made up their
minds to yield to an inevitable destiny.

On the whole, the committee have concluded to recommend no
measure, except that they have observed several instances in which
husband and wife have both signed the same petition. In such case,
they would recommend the parties to apply for a law authorizing
them to change dresses, so that the husband may wear petticoats,
and the wife breeches, and thus indicate to their neighbors and the
public the true relation in which they stand to each other.

The Albany Register said "this report was received with roars of laughter."
Judge Hay, Lydia Mott and a number of Miss Anthony's friends wrote her
not to be discouraged at this insult, but it may be imagined that she took up
the work again with a heart filled with resentment and indignation. She had
many peculiar experiences during her travels and had to listen to many a
chapter of family history which was far from harmonious. On one occasion
a friend was pouring into her ears an account of the utter uncongeniality
between herself and husband, largely because he was wholly unappreciative
of her higher thoughts and feelings. As an example she related that when
they visited Niagara Falls and her soul was soaring into the seventh heaven

of glory, majesty and sublimity, he exclaimed, "What a magnificent water
power this would be, if utilized;" and that he did it on purpose to shock her
sensibilities. Miss Anthony finally said: "Now, my dear, the trouble is you
fail to recognize that your husband is so constituted that he sees the
practical while you feel only the sentimental. He does not jar your feelings
any more by his matter-of-fact comments than you jar his by flying off into
the realms of poetry on every slight provocation." She then recalled a
number of similar instances which the wife had detailed as illustrating the
husband's cruelty, impressing upon her that they were born with different
temperaments and neither had any right to condemn the other. At the end of
this conversation, the woman, weeping, put her arms around Miss Anthony
and said: "You have taught me to understand my husband better and love
and respect him more than I had learned to do in all my long years of living
with him."

In March Garrison wrote, thanking her and her family for their generous
hospitality, concluding, "Nowhere do I visit with more real satisfaction." He
told her that he had had to give up his lecture engagements on account of
the heavy snows, but she had gone straight through with hers. She now
closed her series of meetings and went home to arrange for Theodore
Parker's lecture. Antoinette Brown Blackwell wrote her: "I hear a certain
bachelor making a number of inquiries about Susan B. Anthony. This means
that we shall look for another wedding in our sisternity before the year
ends. Get a good husband, that's all, dear."

On Miss Anthony's return from the May anti-slavery meeting in New York,
she received a reminder from the president of the State Teachers'
Association that she would be expected to read her paper on "Co-
Education" before that body in August. This recollection had been keeping
her awake nights for some time. It had been an easy thing to present a
resolution or make a five-minute speech, but it was quite another to write an

hour's lecture to be delivered before a most critical audience. As was always
her custom in such a dilemma, she turned to Mrs. Stanton, who responded:

Your servant is not dead but liveth. Imagine me, day in and day out,
watching, bathing, dressing, nursing and promenading the precious
contents of a little crib in the corner of my room. I pace up and
down these two chambers of mine like a caged lioness, longing to
bring nursing and housekeeping cares to a close. Come here and I
will do what I can to help you with your address, if you will hold
the baby and make the puddings. Let Antoinette and Lucy rest in
peace and quietness thinking great thoughts. It is not well to be in
the excitement of public life all the time, so do not keep stirring
them up or mourning over their repose. You, too, must rest, Susan;
let the world alone awhile. We can not bring about a moral
revolution in a day or a year. Now that I have two daughters, I feel
fresh strength to work for women. It is not in vain that in myself I
feel all the wearisome care to which woman even in her best estate
is subject.

Together they ground out the address, taking turns at writing and baby
tending, and then she went home. It seemed to her that in order to prove the
absolute equality of woman with man she ought to present this as an oration
instead of reading it as an essay; so she labored many weary hours to
commit it to memory, pacing from one end of the house to the other, and
when these confines became too small rushing out into the orchard, but all
in vain. It was utterly impossible for her, then or ever, to memorize the
exact words of anything.

The lecture, occupying an entire evening, was given before a large audience
in Rand's Hall, Troy, and cordially received. At its close Mr. L. Hazeltine of
New York, president of the association, took Miss Anthony by the hand,

saying: "Madam, that was a splendid production and well delivered. I could
not have asked for a single thing different either in matter or manner; but I
would rather have followed my wife or daughter to Greenwood cemetery
than to have had her stand here before this promiscuous audience and
deliver that address." Superintendent Randall, of the city schools of New
York, over-hearing the conversation, said: "Father Hazeltine, I fully agree
with the first part of your remark but dissent entirely from the latter. I
should be proud if I had a wife or daughter capable of either writing or
reading that paper as Miss Anthony has done." She was invited by the
Massachusetts teachers who were present to come to their State convention
at Springfield and give the address, which she did. It was afterwards
delivered at a number of teachers' institutes. Mary L. Booth had written her:

I am glad that you will represent us at the Troy gathering. You will
bear with you the gratitude of very many teachers whose hearts are
swelling with repressed indignation at the injustice which you
expose, but who have not grown strong enough yet to give open
utterance to words which would jeopardize the positions on which
they depend for support. There is not a female principal in Brooklyn
or New York whose salary exceeds the half of that of the male
principals. Each female principal and assistant is required to attend
the normal school under penalty of loss of position, while male
teachers are excused from such attendance. There are plenty of
indignation meetings among us.

In August Miss Anthony planned a meeting at Saratoga and, as on a
previous occasion, every speaker failed her, nor could she find among the
visitors one who could help her out. As she was not in the habit of giving up
what she undertook, she went through the meeting alone, making the
speeches herself. Her faithful friend Judge Hay[22] came to her rescue with
a donation of $20 and she was just able to pay expenses.

The public was not in a mood for woman's conventions. The presidential
campaign was at its height, with three tickets in the field, and the troubles in
Kansas were approaching a crisis. In September came the news of the raid
at Osawatomie and that thirty out of the fifty settlers had been killed by the
"border ruffians." This brought especial gloom to the Anthony homestead,
as the dispatches also stated that the night before the encounter, John Brown
had slept in the cabin of the young son Merritt, and for weeks they were
unable to learn whether he were among the thirty who died or the twenty
who lived. At last the welcome letters came which related how the coffee
was just ready to be put on the table in the cabin when the sound of firing
was heard, and how without waiting to drink it, John Brown and his little
band rushed to the conflict. The old hero gave strict orders to Merritt not to
leave the house, as he had been very ill, but as soon as they were out of
sight he seized his gun, staggered down to the bank of the Marais du Cygne
and was soon in the thick of the fight. When it was over he crawled on his
hands and knees back to his cabin, where he lay ill for weeks, entirely alone
and uncared for. A letter from Miss Anthony to this brother shows the
tender, domestic side of her nature, which the public is seldom permitted to
see:

SUSAN B. ANTHONY.

How much rather would I have you at my side tonight than to think
of your daring and enduring greater hardships even than our
Revolutionary heroes. Words can not tell how often we think of you
or how sadly we feel that the terrible crime of this nation against
humanity is being avenged on the heads of our sons and brothers....
Wednesday night, Mr. Mowry, who was in the battle, arrived in

town. Like wild fire the news flew. D.R. was in pursuit of him when
father reached his office. He thought you were not hurt. Mother said
that night, "I can go to sleep now there is a hope that Merritt still
lives;" but father said: "I suppose I shall sleep when nature is tired
out, but the hope that my son has survived brings little solace to my
soul while the cause of all this terrible wrong remains untouched."...

Your fish pole never caught so luscious a basketful as it has this
afternoon. I made a march through the peach orchard with pole in
hand to fish down the soft Early Crawfords that had escaped even
the keen eyes of father and mother when they made their last detour.
As the pole reached to the top-most bough and down dropped the
big, fat, golden, red-cheeked Crawfords, thought went away to the
owner of the rod, how he in days gone by planted these little trees,
pruned them and nursed them and now we were enjoying the fruits
of his labor, while he, the dear boy, was away in the prairie wilds of
Kansas. I thought of many things as I walked between the rows to
spy out every ambushed, not enemy but friend of the palate. With
the haul made I filled the china fruit dish and then hallooed for
Mary L. and Ann Eliza to see what I had found, and down they
came for a feast. I shall send Aaron and Guelma the nicest ones and
how I wish my dearest brother could have some to cool his fevered
throat.

Evening.—Father brings the Democrat giving a list of killed,
wounded and missing, and the name of our Merritt is not therein,
but oh! the slain are sons, brothers and husbands of others as dearly
loved and sadly mourned.

Later.—Your letter is in to-day's Democrat, and the Evening
Advertiser says there is "another letter from our dear brother in this

morning's Shrieker for Freedom." The tirade is headed "Bleeding
Kansas." The Advertiser, Union and American all ridicule the
reports from Kansas, and even say your letters are gotten up in the
Democrat office for political effect. I tell you, Merritt, we have
"border ruffians" here at home—a little more refined in their way of
outraging and torturing the lovers of freedom, but no less fiendish.

Miss Anthony was busy through September and October securing speakers
for the national convention. She still believed that her chief strength lay in
her executive ability. Having written Lucy Stone that she could not and
would not speak, the latter answered: "Why do you say the people won't
listen to you, when you know you never made a speech that was not
attentively heard? All you need is to cultivate your power of expression.
Subjects are so clear to you that you can soon make them as clear to
others." In response to an invitation to the Hutchinson family to sing at the
convention, Asa wrote: "The time is coming, I hope, when we can do
something for the glorious cause which you are so nobly advocating." John
added: "It would rejoice my heart to be at the convention and help along,
with the one talent God has given me, the greatest reform ever attempted by
lovers of the human race." Miss Anthony asked Mary L. Booth, at that time
just beginning to attract attention by her fine translations, to speak at the
coming convention and received this touching response:

The hope of yet aiding the cause is the polar star which guides all
my efforts. If it were possible I would do this directly, but the
fashion of the times has made me a dependant and home aid would
scarcely be extended to me in this. I am trying to make myself
independent. Fortune now promises favorable things. If I succeed,
count on me. All that I can do, I will, to rescue my sex from the
fetters which have chafed me so bitterly, from the evils of the giant
system which makes woman everywhere a satellite. I have drank of

the cup which is offered as the wine of woman's life, and have
found the draught frothy and unsatisfactory. Now am I willing, if
successful, to give all to purchase her a purer aliment. I have faith
enough in the cause to move mountains, but if I speak at present I
forfeit all claims on my home forever.

Lucy Stone when appealed to with the intimation that she was losing
interest in the work, replied: "Now that I occupy a legal position in which I
can not even draw in my own name the money I have earned or give a valid
receipt for it when it is drawn or make any contract, but am rated with fools,
minors and madmen, and can not sign a legal document without being
examined separately to see if it is by my own free will, and even the right to
my own name questioned, do you think that, in the grip of such pincers, I
am likely to grow remiss?... I am not at all sanguine of the success of the
convention. However much I hope, or try to hope, the old doubt comes
back. My only trust is in your great, indomitable perseverance and your
power of work."

That the answers were not always favorable and that the women constantly
found themselves between two fires, the following letters will show. Horace
Greeley, who heretofore had been so friendly, wrote:

The only reason why I can not publish your notices in our news
columns is that my political antagonists take advantage of such
publications to make the Tribune responsible for the anti-Bible, anti-
Union, etc., doctrines, which your conventions generally put forth. I
do not desire to interfere with your "free speech." I desire only to
secure for myself the liberty of treating public questions in
accordance with my own convictions, and not being made
responsible for the adverse convictions of others. I can not,
therefore, print this programme without being held responsible for

it. If you advertise it, that is not in my department, nor under my
control.[23]

From Gerrit Smith came these emphatic opinions:

You invite me to attend the woman's convention in New York. It
will not be in my power to do so. You suggest that I write a letter in
case I can not attend, but so peculiar and offensive are my views of
the remedy for woman's wrongs, that a letter inculcating them
would not be well received. Hence, I must not write it. I believe that
poverty is the great curse of woman, and that she is powerless to
assert her rights, because she is poor. Woman must go to work to get
rid of her poverty, but that she can not do in her present disabling
dress, and she seems determined not to cast it aside. She is
unwilling to sacrifice grace and fashion, even to gain her rights;
albeit, too, that this grace is an absurd conventionalism and that this
fashion is infinite folly. Were woman to adopt a rational dress, a
dress that would not hinder her from any employment, how quickly
would she rise from her present degrading dependence on man!
How quickly would the marriage contract be modified and made to
recognize the equal rights of the parties to it! And how quickly
would she gain access to the ballot-box.

Thus one man refused to assist the cause because its advocates were too
radical, and another because they were not radical enough; or, in other
words, each wanted the women to be and to do according to his own ideas.

The Seventh National Woman's Rights Convention met in the Broadway
Tabernacle, New York, November 25 and 26. Lucy Stone presided and
Wendell Phillips was one of the prominent speakers. The election was over,
the mob spirit temporarily quieted, and the convention was not disturbed
except when certain of the men attempted to make long speeches or

introduce politics. The audience had come to hear women plead their own
cause and insisted that this should be the program.

In this fall of 1856 Miss Anthony renewed her engagement with the anti-
slavery committee, writing Mr. May: "I shall be very glad if I am able to
render even the most humble service to this cause. Heaven knows there is
need of earnest, effective radical workers. The heart sickens over the
delusions of the recent campaign and turns achingly to the unconsidered
whole question." The committee answered: "We put all New York into your
control and want your name to all letters and your hand in all arrangements.
We like your form of posters; by all means let 'No Union with Slaveholders'
be conspicuous upon them." An extract from a letter received from Mr.
May, the secretary, dated October 22, shows the estimate placed upon her
services by the committee:

The Anti-Slavery Society wants you in the field. I really think the
efficiency and success of our operations in New York this winter
will depend more on your personal attendance and direction than
upon that of any other of our workers. We need your earnestness,
your practical talent, your energy and perseverance to make these
conventions successful. The public mind will be sore this winter,
disappointment awaits vast numbers, dismay will overtake many.
We want your cheerfulness, your spirit—in short, yourself.

[22] In 1854 Judge William Hay brought out a new edition of his romance, Isabel D'Avalos,
the Maid of Seville, with a sequel, The Siege of Granada, dedicated as follows:
TO
SUSAN B. ANTHONY
whose earnestness of purpose, honesty of intention,
unintermitted industry, indefatigable perseverance,
and extraordinary business-talent,
are surpassed only by the virtues which have illustrated her life,
devoted, like that of Dorothea Dix,
TO THE CAUSE OF HUMANITY.

In a letter to her he said: "I have placed in my will a bequest to you, the only person to whose
care I would willingly entrust them, that at my death the manuscripts and plates of this work
are to be your absolute property. I sincerely desire and faintly hope that you may derive some
pecuniary benefit from them."

[23] Three years before Mr. Greeley had written to the suffrage convention at Cleveland: "I
recognize most thoroughly the right of woman to choose her own sphere of activity and
usefulness If she sees fit to navigate vessels, print newspapers, frame laws and select her
rulers, I know no principle that justifies man in placing any impediment to her doing so." The
letter used above shows, however, that not even so great a paper as the Tribune could endure
the misrepresentation heaped upon every one who advocated the unpopular doctrine of
woman's rights.

CHAPTER X.
CAMPAIGNING WITH THE GARRISONIANS.

1857—1858.

One scarcely could imagine a more unfavorable time than the winter of
1857 for a campaign under the Garrisonian banner of "No Union with
Slaveholders." The anti-slavery forces were divided among themselves, but
were slowly crystallizing into the Republican party. The triumph of the
Democrats over Republicans, Know Nothings and Whigs at the recent
presidential election had warned these diverse elements that it was only by
uniting that they could hope to prevent the further extension of slavery. The
"Dred Scott decision" by the Supreme Court of the United States, declaring
"slaves to be not persons but property" and the Missouri Compromise to be
unconstitutional and void, had roused a whirlwind of indignation
throughout the Northern States. Those who were seeking to prevent the
extension of slavery into the Territories were stigmatized by their opponents
as traitors defying the Constitution. While this supported the claim of the
Garrisonians that the Constitution did sanction slavery and protect the
slaveholder, yet the majority of the anti-slavery people were not ready to
accept the doctrine of "immediate and unconditional emancipation, even at
the cost of a dissolution of the Union." The Republicans had polled so large
a vote as to indicate that further extension of slavery could be prevented
through that organization, and they were excessively hostile toward any
element which threatened to antagonize or weaken it. Thus into whatever
town Miss Anthony took her little band, the backbone of the Garrison party,
they had to encounter not only the hatred of the pro-slavery people, but also
the enmity of this new and rapidly increasing Republican element, which at

this time did not stand for the abolition of slavery, but simply for no further
extension.

The first year of Mr. Buchanan's administration was marked by a severe and
widespread financial stringency. A decade of unparalleled prosperity, with
its resultant speculation and expansion of business, was followed by heavy
losses, failures and panic. The whole year of 1857 was one continued
struggle and vain effort to ward off the impending crisis. To make the
situation still more trying the winter was one of great severity, so it is not
surprising, accustomed though she was to hardships and disappointments,
that Miss Anthony should have found this series of meetings the most
disheartening experience of her life. She engaged Stephen and Abby Foster,
Parker Pillsbury, Aaron M. Powell, Benjamin and Elizabeth Jones, Charles
Remond and his sister Sarah, the last two educated and refined colored
people; marked out routes, planned the meetings, kept three companies of
speakers constantly employed, and spared herself no labor, no exposure, no
annoyance. She found that envy, jealousy and other disagreeable traits were
not confined to one sex, but that it required quite as much tact and judgment
to deal with men as with women. She had the usual experience of a
manager, speakers complaining of their routes, refusing to go where sent,
falling ill at the most critical times, and continual fault-finding from the
people who stayed at home and did nothing.

She had been working for the public long enough to expect all this, but was
distressed beyond measure because she could not make the meetings pay
for themselves. For reasons already mentioned the audiences were small
and collections still smaller. At her woman's rights lectures she had
encountered indifference and ridicule; now she was met with open hostility.
In every town a few friends rallied around and extended hospitality and
support, but the ordeal was of that kind which leaves ineffaceable marks on
the soul. For all this she was paid $10 a week and expenses; not through

any desire to be unjust, but because the committee were having a hard
struggle to secure the necessary funds to carry on their vast work. Her last
woman's rights campaign had left her in debt and she could not provide
herself with a new wardrobe for this tour, but records in her diary at the
beginning of winter: "A double-faced merino, which I bought at
Canajoharie ten years ago, I have had colored dark green and a skirt made
of it. I bought some green cloth to match for a basque, and it makes a
handsome suit. With my Siberian squirrel cape I shall be very comfortable."

Lucy Stone wrote: "I know how you feel with all the burden of these
conventions and it is not just that you should bear it. There is not a man in
the whole anti-slavery ranks who could do it. I wish I could help you but I
can not. You are one of those who are sufficient unto themselves and I thank
God every day for you. Antoinette can not come because she is so busy with
that baby!" From Mr. May came these comforting words: "We sympathize
in all your trials and hope that fairer skies will be over your head before
long. Garrison says, 'Give my love to Susan, and tell her I will do for her
what I would hardly do for anybody else.' I hope from that he means to
attend your Rochester and Syracuse conventions.... You must be dictator to
all the agents in New York; when you say, 'Go,' they must go, or 'Come,'
they must come, or 'Do this,' they must do it. I see no other way of getting
along, and I am sure to your gentle and wholesome rule they will cheerfully
defer. God bless you all; and if you don't get pay in money from your
audiences, you will have the satisfaction of knowing you have given them
the hard, solid truth as they never had it before."

These meetings often took the form of debates between the speakers and the
audience, and frequently lasted till midnight. Of one place Miss Anthony
says in her diary, "All rich farmers, living in princely style, but no moral
backbone;" at another time: "I spoke for an hour, but my heart fails me. Can
it be that my stammering tongue ever will be loosed? I am more and more

dissatisfied with my efforts." The diary shows that they had many delightful
visits among friends and many good times sandwiched between the
disagreeable features of their trip, and that everywhere they roused the
community to the highest pitch on the slavery question. She gives a
description of one of these gatherings at Easton:

That Sunday meeting was the most impressive I ever attended.
Aaron and I had spoken, Charles Remond followed, picturing the
contumely and opprobrium everywhere heaped upon the black man
and all identified with him, the ostracism from social circles, etc. At
the climax he exclaimed: "I have a fond and loving mother, as true
and noble a woman as God ever made; but whenever she thinks of
her absent son, it is that he is an outcast." He sank into his seat,
overwhelmed with emotion, and wept like a child. In a moment,
while sitting, he said: "Some may call this weak, but I should feel
myself the less a man, if tears did not flow at a thought like that."
The whole audience was in sympathy with him, all hearts were
melted and many were sobbing. When sufficiently composed he
rose and related, in a subdued and most impressive manner, his
experience at the last village we visited where not one roof could be
found to shelter him because he had a black face. At the close of his
speech several men came up, handed us money and left the house
because they could not bear any more, while others crowded around
and assured him that their doors were open to him and his sister.

From the home of her dear friend Elizabeth Powell,[24] where she had gone
for a few days' rest, she writes: "At Poughkeepsie, Parker Pillsbury spoke
grandly for freedom. I never heard from the lips of man such deep thoughts
and burning words. In the ages to come, the prophecies of these noble men
and women will be read with the same wonder and veneration as those of
Isaiah and Jeremiah inspire today. Now while the people worship the

prophets of that time, they stone those of their own." Mr. Garrison wrote
her:

I seize a moment to thank you for your letter giving an account of
your anti-slavery meetings and those of the Friends of Progress. I
am highly gratified to learn that the latter followed the example of
the Progressive Friends at Longwood in favor of a dissolution of our
blood-stained American Union. I meant to have sent to you in
season some resolutions or "testimony" on the subject, but
circumstances prevented. I felt perfectly satisfied however that all
would go right with you and Aaron and Oliver Johnson present to
enforce the true doctrine. You must have had a soul-refreshing time,
even though there appear to have been present what Emerson calls
"The fleas of the convention."... On Wednesday, there was a great
popular demonstration here to inaugurate the statue of Warren.
Think of Mason, of Virginia, the author of the Fugitive Slave Bill,
being one of the speakers on Bunker Hill!

Wm. Lloyd Garrison

On this great tour Miss Anthony became so thoroughly aroused that she
could no longer confine herself to written addresses, which seemed cold
and formal and utterly unresponsive to the inspiration of the moment. She
threw them aside and used them thereafter only on rare occasions. Her
speeches from that time were made from notes or headings and among
those used during the winter of 1857 are the following:

Object of meeting; to consider the fact of 4,000,000 slaves in a
Christian and republican government.... Everybody is anti-slavery,
ministers and brethren. There are sympathy, talk, prayers and
resolutions in ecclesiastical and political assemblies. Emerson says
"Good thoughts are no better than good dreams, unless they be
executed;" so anti-slavery prayers, resolutions and speeches avail
nothing without action.... Our mission is to deepen sympathy and
convert it into right action; to show that the men and women of the
North are slave-holders, those of the South slave-owners. The guilt
rests on the North equally with the South, therefore our work is to
rouse the sleeping consciences of the North.... No one is ignorant
now. You recognize the facts which we present. We ask you to feel
as if you, yourselves, were the slaves. The politician talks of slavery
as he does of United States banks, tariff or any other commercial
question. We demand the abolition of slavery because the slave is a
human being, and because man should not hold property in his
fellowman. The politician demands it because its existence produces
poverty and discord in the nation and imposes taxes on free labor
for its support, since the government is dominated by southern
rule.... We preach revolution; the politicians reform. We say disobey
every unjust law; the politician says obey them, and meanwhile
labor constitutionally for repeal.

Accompaning these notes are many special incidents illustrating the evils of
slavery. With Miss Anthony's strong, rich voice, her powerful command of
language and her intensity of feeling in regard to her subject, it may be
imagined that her speeches were eloquent appeals and roused to action both
her friends and her enemies. Some meetings were successful financially,
others failures, and her report to the committee in the spring showed that
she lacked $1,000 of having paid the total expenses, including salaries of
speakers. A few of the committee were inclined to the opinion that meetings

should not have been held in places where they would not pay, but that
noble woman, Maria Weston Chapman, said: "My friends, if all you say is
true, regarding this young woman's business enterprise, practical sagacity
and platform ability, I think $1,000 expended in her education and
development for this work is one of the best investments that possibly could
have been made." At the unanimous request of the committee Miss Anthony
remained in office and during the year canvassed the entire state with her
speakers. Mr. May wrote: "We cheerfully pay your expenses and want to
keep you at the head of the work."

M.W. Chapman

In March she was invited to go to Bangor, Me., and speak on woman's
rights, in a course which included Henry Wilson, Gough, Phillips, Beecher
and other notables. For this she was paid $50 and expenses, the first large
sum she had received for a lecture, and it gave her much hope and courage.
While in Maine she spoke a number of times, going from point to point in
sleigh or wagon through snow, slush and mud. The press was very
complimentary.[25]

In August Miss Anthony attended the State Teachers' Convention at
Binghamton, and here created another commotion by introducing the
following:

Resolved, That the exclusion of colored youth from our public
schools, academies, colleges and universities is the result of a

wicked prejudice.

Resolved, That the expulsion of Miss Latimer from the normal
school at Albany, when after six months of successful scholarship it
was discovered that colored blood coursed in her veins, was mean
and cruel.

Resolved, That a flagrant outrage was perpetrated against the
teachers and pupils of the colored schools of New York City, in that
no provision was made for their attendance at the free concerts
given to the public schools.

Resolved, That the recent exclusion of the graduates of the colored
normal school of New York City, from the public diploma
presentation at the Academy of Music, was a gross insult to their
scholarship and their womanhood.

Resolved, That all proscription from educational advantages and
honors, on account of color, is in perfect harmony with the infamous
decision of Judge Taney—"that black men have no rights which
white men are bound to respect."

After considerable uproar these were referred to a select committee on
which were placed two ladies, Mary L. Booth and Julia A. Wilbur, both
strong supporters of Miss Anthony. The committee brought in a majority
report in favor of the resolutions but this make-shift minority report was
adopted: "In our opinion the colored children of the State should enjoy
equal advantages of education with the white." Miss Anthony then
proceeded to throw another bomb by presenting this resolution:

Since the true and harmonious development of the race demands
that the sexes be associated together in every department of life;

therefore

Resolved, That it is the duty of all our schools, colleges and
universities to open their doors to woman and to give her equal and
identical educational advantages side by side with her brother man.

This opened the flood gates. Motions to lay on the table, to refer to a
committee, etc., were voted down. A few strong speeches were made in
favor, but most of them were in opposition and very bitter, insisting that "it
was sought to uproot the theory and practice of the whole world." The
antique Professor Davies was in his element. He declared: "Here is an
attempt to introduce a vast social evil. I have been trying for four years,[i.e.
ever since Miss Anthony's first appearance at a teachers' convention] to
escape this question, but if it has to come, let it be boldly met and disposed
of. I am opposed to anything that has a tendency to impair the sensitive
delicacy and purity of the female character or to remove the restraints of
life. These resolutions are the first step in the school which seeks to abolish
marriage, and behind this picture I see a monster of social deformity."

Another speaker, whose name is lost in oblivion, said in tones which would
melt a heart of stone: "Shall an oak and a rose tree receive the same culture?
Better to us is the clear, steady, softened, silvery moonlight of woman's
quiet, unobtrusive influence, than the flashes of electricity showing that the
true balance of nature is destroyed. Aye, better a thousand times is it than
the glimmering ignus fatuus rising from decayed hopes and leading the
deluded follower to those horrible quagmires of social existence—
amalgamation and Mormonism."

Prof. John W. Buckley, of Brooklyn, opposed the resolution in coarse and
abusive language. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Henry H. Van
Dyck demolished its last hope when he demanded with outstretched arm
and pointed finger: "Do you mean to say you want the boys and girls to

room side by side in dormitories? To educate them together can have but
one result!"

The Binghamton Daily Republican said: "Miss Anthony vindicated her
resolutions with eloquence, force, spirit and dignity, and showed herself a
match, at least, in debate for any member of the convention. She was equal
if not identical. Whatever may be thought of her notions or sense of
propriety in her bold and conspicuous position, personally, intellectually
and socially speaking, there can be but one opinion as to her superior
energy, ability and moral courage; and she may well be regarded as an
evangel and heroine by her own sex."

The woman who advocated co-education in those days was indeed in a
"bold and conspicuous position." The resolutions were lost by a large
majority. Even if every man present had voted against them, there were
enough women to have carried them had they voted in the affirmative. The
Republican said: "If the lady members had voted so as to be heard we know
not what would have been the result; but their voices, to say the least, have
not been ordained by the Creator to be equal or identical with man's, and are
drowned by his louder sounds." Mrs. Stanton's opinion can best be learned
by an extract from a letter:

I see by the papers that you have once more stirred that pool of
intellectual stagnation, the educational convention. What an infernal
set of fools those schoolmarms must be! Well, if in order to please
men they wish to live on air, let them. The sooner the present
generation of women dies out, the better. We have idiots enough in
the world now without such women propagating any more.... The
New York Times was really quite complimentary. Mr. Stanton
brought every item he could find about you. "Well, my dear," he
would say, "another notice of Susan. You stir up Susan, and she stirs

the world." I was glad you went to torment those devils. I guess they
will begin to think their time has come. I glory in your
perseverance. O, Susan, I will do anything to help you on. You and I
have a prospect of a good long life. We shall not be in our prime
before fifty, and after that we shall be good for twenty years at least.
If we do not make old Davies shake in his boots or turn in his grave,
I am mistaken.

The proceedings of the convention were published in full in the New York
Tribune, and Miss Anthony received letters of commendation from Judge
William Hay, Charles L. Reason, superintendent of the New York city
colored schools, and many others. William Marvin, of Binghamton, wrote:
"The sympathy of the people here, during the teachers' association, was
decidedly with you. A vote from the audience would have carried any one
of your resolutions."

In the autumn the anti-slavery meetings were resumed, and Miss Anthony
was unsparing of herself and everybody else. Parker Pillsbury complained:
"What a task-mistress our general agent is proving herself. I expect as soon
as women get command, an end will have come to all our peace. We shall
yet have societies for the protection of men's rights, in the cause of which
many of us will have to be martyrs." Her brother, Daniel R., was sending
frequent letters from Kansas containing graphic descriptions of the terrible
condition of affairs in that unhappy territory, and scathing denunciations of
the treachery of northern "dough faces," thus fanning the fires of patriotism
that glowed in her breast and filling her with renewed zeal for the cause to
which she was giving her time and strength. During these days she wrote a
cherished sister:

Though words of love are seldom written or spoken by one of us to
the other, there must ever remain the abiding faith that the heart still

beats true and fond. Our family is now so widely separated that our
enjoyment must consist in soul communing. Indeed, I almost
believe in the power of affection to draw unto itself the yearning
heart of the absent one. What the modern Spiritualist tells of feeling
the presence of departed friends and enjoying their loving
ministrations, I sometimes imagine to be true, not of the spirits of
those gone hence, but of those still in the body who are separated
from us. I often pass blessed moments in these sweet, silent
communings.... Every day brings to me new conceptions of life and
its duties, and it is my constant desire that I may be strong and
fearless, baring my arm to the encounter and pressing cheerfully
forward, though the way is rough and thorny.

I have just returned from the hardest three weeks' tour of anti-
slavery meetings I have had yet, so cold and disheartening. The
masses seem devoid of conscience and looking only for some new
expedient to accomplish the desired good; but in every town there
are some true spirits who walk in God's sunlight and do what is
right, trusting results to the great Immutable Law.... I wish all the
dear ones would write me more often. Though I am sure of their
affection, yet when the soul is burdened and one is surrounded by
strangers, a letter from a loved one brings healing to the spirit, and I
need it more than I can tell.

There is scarcely a letter to her own family, in the large number preserved,
which does not express a longing for love and sympathy, a craving that no
public career, no devotion to any cause, however absorbing, ever eradicates
from the human soul.

Although so fully occupied, Miss Anthony did not neglect the beloved
cause of woman. This year, however, when she attempted to arrange for the

annual convention, she found to her dismay that every one of the speakers
whom she always depended upon was unable to be present because of
maternal duties. Some were anticipating an event, others had very young
infants, and the older women were kept at home by expected or recently
arrived grandchildren. She was used to overcoming obstacles, but the
conditions on this occasion were too much for her and, with feelings which
can not well be put into language, she was obliged to give up the national
convention, the only one omitted from 1850 to 1861.

Amidst the hard work and many disappointments of the year, there is one
gleam of humor in what was known to the family as "Susan's raspberry
experiment." During her wanderings she visited her friend Sarah Hallock
who had made a great success of raspberry culture, selling 40,000 baskets
during the season, and she did not see why she could not do quite as well.
She unfolded her plan to her father, who supported her in that as in
everything and gave her as much ground as she desired. While at home for
a short time she had this underdrained and prepared, $100 worth of
raspberry plants set out and staked; then went away and left the family to
look after them. The father was in the city all day attending to business, the
sister Mary teaching school, the mother was not well and there was no one
else but the hired man, who knew nothing about the culture of raspberries
and was otherwise occupied; so the bushes took their chances.

The fame of the experiment, however, spread far and wide, the newspapers
announced that Miss Anthony had bought a large farm and stocked it with
raspberries; that she had abandoned the platform and taken up fruit culture.
She received scores of letters asking information as to the best plants and
most successful methods, others begging her not to give up public work,
and many from friends who had no end of fun at her expense. The bushes
grew and bore fruit enough to give the family a number of delicious meals.
Then a very cold winter followed and there was no one to care for the

tender plants. In December came a letter from the irrepressible brother-in-
law, Aaron McLean: "As to your raspberry 'spec,' I regret to tell you it has
'gone up.' The poor, little, helpless things expired of a bad cold about two
weeks since. Do you remember that text of Scripture, which says, 'She who
by the plow would thrive, herself must either hold or drive'? It has cost you
$200 to learn the truth of it." Her sister Mary wrote: "I hope, Susan, when
you get a husband and children, you will treat them better than you did your
raspberry plants, and not leave them to their fate at the beginning of
winter."

It was a deep regret to Miss Anthony that she could not give the necessary
time and care to make this experiment a success, as she was anxious to
encourage women to go into the pursuit of agriculture, horticulture,
floriculture, anything which would take them out of doors. In a letter to Mr.
Higginson she says: "The salvation of the race depends, in a great measure,
upon rescuing women from their hothouse existence. Whether in kitchen,
nursery or parlor, all alike are shut away from God's sunshine. Why did not
your Caroline Plummer, of Salem, why do not all of our wealthy women
leave money for industrial and agricultural schools for girls, instead of ever
and always providing for boys alone?" This is one of the many instances
where Miss Anthony foreshadowed reforms and improvements which have
been fulfilled in the present generation.

In 1858 is presented same routine of unremitting work which characterized
so many previous years. The winter was given up to anti-slavery meetings
with their attendant hardships. Miss Anthony has great scorn for those who
talk regretfully of the "good old days." She thinks one lecture season under
the conditions which then existed would be an effectual cure to any longing
for them one might have. The conveniences of modern life, bathrooms with
plenty of hot water, toiletrooms, steam-heated houses, gas and hundreds of
comforts so common at the present time that one scarcely can realize they

have not always existed, were comparatively unknown. One of the greatest
trials these travellers had to endure was the wretched cooking which was
the rule and not exception among our much-praised foremothers. In one of
the old diaries is this single ejaculation, "O, the crimes that are committed
in the kitchens of this land!" In those days the housewife could not step
around the corner and buy for two cents a cake of yeast which insured good
bread, but the process of yeast-making was long and difficult and not well
understood by the average housekeeper, so a substitute was found in "salt
risings," and a heavy indigestible mass generally resulted. White flour was
little used and was of a poor quality. Baking powder was unknown and all
forms of cakes and warm bread were made with sour milk and soda, easily
ruined by too much or too little of the latter. In no particular did the table
compare favorably with that of modern families.

THE FARM-HOME NEAR ROCHESTER, N.Y., 1845-65.

The anti-slavery and woman's rights lecturers always accepted private
hospitality when offered, for reasons of economy and, as many of the
people who favored these reforms were seeking light in other directions
also, they were very apt to find themselves the guests of "cranks" upon the
food question and were thus made the subject of most of the experiments in
vogue at that period. On one occasion Miss Anthony, Aaron Powell and
Oliver Johnson were entertained by prominent and well-to-do people in a
town near New York, who had not a mouthful for any of the three meals
except nuts, apples and coarse bran stirred in water and baked. At the end of
one day the men ignominiously fled and left her to stay over Sunday and
hold the Monday meeting. She lived through it but on Tuesday started for
New York and never stopped till she reached Delmonico's, where she
revelled in a porterhouse steak and a pot of coffee.

During these winter meetings all of the men broke down physically and
their letters were filled with complaints of their heads, their backs, their
lungs, their throats and their eyes. Garrison wrote at one time: "I hope to be
present at the meeting but I can not foresee what will be my spinal
condition at that time, and I could not think of appearing as a 'Garrisonian
Abolitionist' without a backbone." Miss Anthony never lost a day or missed
an engagement, although it may be imagined that she had many hours of
weariness when she would have been glad to drop the burden for a while.
On March 17 she writes: "How happy I am to lay my head on my own
home pillow once more after a long four months, scarcely stopping a
second night under one roof." Mr. May wrote in behalf of the committee:
"We rejoice with you in the success of your meetings and in all your hopes
for the upspringing of the good seed sown by the faithful joint labors of you
and your gallant little band. We have made the following a committee of

arrangements for the annual meeting: Garrison, Phillips, Quincy, Johnson
and Susan B. Anthony."

So she at once girded on her armor and began to prepare for the May
anniversary and, being determined the National Woman's Rights
Convention should not be omitted this year, she conducted also an extensive
correspondence in regard to that. Referring to all this drudgery Lucy Stone
urged: "Don't do it; quit common work such as a common worker could do;
and don't mourn over us and our babies. We are growing workers. I know
you are tired with your four months' work, but it is not half so hard as
taking care of a child night and day. I shall not assume any responsibility
for another convention till I have had my ten daughters." But Miss Anthony
knew that this "common work," this hiring halls, raising money and
advertising meetings was just what nobody else could or would do. She
understood also that while the other women were at home "growing
workers," somebody must be in the field looking after the harvest.

Abby Hutchinson, the only sister in the famous family of singers, wrote
from their Jersey home, Dawnwood: "I want so much to help you; I have
longed to do some good with my voice but public life wears me out very
fast." Nevertheless she came and sang for them. Mrs. Stanton and Mrs.
Brown Blackwell brought new babies into the world a few weeks before the
convention, to Miss Anthony's usual discomfiture. She wrote to the latter:
"Mrs. Stanton sends her love to you and says if you are going to have a
large family, go right on and finish up as she has done. She has only
devoted eighteen years out of the very heart of her existence to this great
work. But I say, stop now."

The convention in Mozart Hall followed close upon the Anti-Slavery
Anniversary, Miss Anthony presided and there were the usual distinguished
speakers, Phillips, Pillsbury, Garrison, Douglass, Higginson, Lucretia Mott,

Mrs. Gage, Mrs. Rose, and, for the first time, George William Curtis spoke
on the woman's rights platform. Notwithstanding this array of talent, the
convention through all its six sessions was threatened with a mob,
encouraged by the Herald and other New York papers. The disturbance at
times was so great the speakers could not be heard, even Curtis was greeted
with hisses and groans, but Miss Anthony stood at the helm unterrified
through all and did not leave her post until the last feature of the program
was completed and the convention adjourned. She was growing accustomed
to mobs.

In August, 1858, she attended the teachers' convention at Lockport. The
sensational feature of this meeting was the reading by Professor Davies of
the first cablegram from England, a message from the Queen to the
President. The press reports show that she took a prominent part in the
proceedings and possibly merited the name which some one gave her of
"the thorn in the side of the convention." These annual gatherings were very
largely in the nature of mutual admiration societies among the men, who
consumed much of the time in complimenting each other and the rest of it
in long-winded orations. During this one Miss Anthony arose and said that,
as all members had the same right to speak, she would suggest that
speeches should be limited so as to give each a chance. She made some of
the men furious by stating that they spoke so low they could not be heard.

At another time she suggested that, as there were only a few hours left for
the business of the convention, they should not be frittered away in trifling
discussions, saying, "if she were a man she would be ashamed to consume
the time in telling how much she loved women and in fulsome flattery of
other men." She moved also that they set aside the proposed discussion on
"The Effects of High Intellectual Culture on the Efficiency and
Respectability of Manual Labor," and take up pressing questions. When one
man was indulging in a lot of the senseless twaddle about his wife which

many of them are fond of introducing in their speeches, she called him to
order saying that the kind of a wife he had, had nothing to do with the
subject. She introduced again the resolution demanding equal pay for equal
work without regard to sex. A friend wrote of this occasion: "She arraigned
those assembled teachers for their misdemeanors as she would a class of
schoolboys, in perfect unconsciousness that she was doing anything
unusual. We women never can be sufficiently thankful to her for taking the
hard blows and still harder criticisms, while we reaped the benefits."

The press reports said: "Miss Anthony has gained in the estimation of the
teachers' convention, and is now listened to with great attention." She gave
her lecture on "Co-Education" to a crowded house of Lockport's prominent
citizens, introduced by President George L. Farnham, of Syracuse, always
her friend in those troublous days. By this time more than a score of the
eminent educators of the day had become her steadfast friends, and they
welcomed her to these conventions, aiding her efforts in every possible
manner. Rev. Samuel J. May, who had delivered an address, upon his return
home wrote: "You are a great girl, and I wish there were thousands more in
the world like you. Some foolish old conventionalisms would be utterly
routed, and the legal and social disabilities of women would not long be
what they are." Miss Anthony herself, writing to Antoinette Blackwell, said:
"I wish I had time to tell you of my Lockport experience; it was rich. I
never felt so cool and self-possessed among the plannings and plottings of
the few old fogies, and they never appeared so frantic with rage. They
evidently felt that their reign of terror is about ended."

October, 1858, brought another crucial occasion. In Rochester, a young
man, Ira Stout, had been condemned to be hung for murder. A number of
persons strongly opposed to capital punishment believed this a suitable time
to make a demonstration. It was not that they doubted the guilt of Stout, but
they were opposed to the principle of what they termed judicial murder. As

the Anthonys and many of the leading Quaker families, Frederick Douglass
and a number of Abolitionists shared in this opinion, it was not surprising
that Miss Anthony undertook to get up the meeting. In a cold rain she made
the round of the orthodox ministers but none would sign the call. The
Universalist minister, Rev. J.H. Tuttle, agreed to be present and speak. She
secured thirty or forty signatures, engaged the city hall and advertised
extensively. The feeling against Stout was very strong and there was a
determination among certain members of the community that this meeting
should not be held. Huge placards were posted throughout the city, urging
all opposed to the sentiments of the call to be out in force, a virtual
invitation to the mob.

When the evening arrived, October 7, the hall was filled with a crowd of
nearly 2,000, a large portion of whom only needed the word to break into a
riot. Miss Anthony called the assemblage to order and Frederick Douglass
was made chairman, but when he attempted to speak, his voice was
drowned with groans and yells. Aaron M. Powell, William C. Bloss and
others tried to make themselves heard but the mob had full sway. Miss
Anthony was greeted with a perfect storm of hisses. Finally the
demonstrations became so threatening that she and the other speakers were
hurried out of the hall by a rear door, the meeting was broken up and the
janitor turned out the lights. No attempt was made by the mayor or police to
quell the disturbance and mob law reigned supreme.

The brightest ray of sunshine in the closing days of 1858 was the following
letter from Mr. Phillips: "I have had given me $5,000 for the woman's rights
cause; to procure tracts on that subject, publish and circulate them, pay for
lectures and secure such other agitation of the question as we deem fit and
best to obtain equal civil and political position for women. The name of the
giver of this generous fund I am not allowed to tell you. The only condition
of the gift is that it is to remain in my keeping. You, Lucy Stone and myself

are a committee of trustees to spend it wisely and efficiently." The donor
proved to be Francis Jackson, the staunch friend of the emancipation of
woman as well as the negro.

Francis Jackson
[24] Now Elizabeth Powell Bond, dean of Swarthmore College for many years.

[25] The Bangor Jeffersonian said: "Miss Anthony is far from being an impracticable
enthusiast. Dignity, conscientiousness and regard for the highest welfare of her sex, are the
impressions which one receives of her. Doubtless all (if any there were) who went to scoff,
remained to pray for the success of the doctrine she advocated. Personally she is good-
looking, of symmetrical figure and modest and ladylike demeanor."

The Bangor Whig was equally favorable. The Ellsworth American said: "Her enunciation is
very clear and remarkably distinct, yet there is nothing in it of the unfeminine character and
tone which people had been led to expect from the usual criticisms of the press. The lecture
itself, as an intellectual effort, was satisfactory as well to those who dissented as to those who
sympathized with its positions and arguments. It was fruitful in ideas and suggestions and we
doubt not many a woman, and man too, went home that night, with the germ of more active
ideas in their heads than had gathered there for a twelvemonth before."

CHAPTER XI.
CONDITIONS PRIOR TO THE WAR.

1859.

Among Miss Anthony's many schemes for regenerating the world was one
to have a Free church in Rochester, after the manner of Theodore Parker's in
Boston, similar to an ethical society, where no doctrines should be preached
and all should be welcome, contributing what they chose. This was in her
mind for years, and at the beginning of 1859 she engaged Corinthian Hall
for Sunday evenings, her good friend, William A. Reynolds, as usual
making her a reduced rate; and here Antoinette Brown Blackwell and
Parker Pillsbury each preached for a month. She tried to engage Mrs.
Stanton for a year and also Aaron M. Powell, but the financial support was
too uncertain and the project had to be abandoned. All her life, however,
Miss Anthony cherished the hope of seeing this Free church established and
sustained. She arranged a series of lectures for this winter. George William
Curtis accepted her invitation in this characteristic letter:

I think of no title for your course, but why have any? Why not say
simply, "A Course of Independent Lectures?" To call them woman's
rights would damn them in advance, so strong is prejudice. The only
one I have at all suited to your purpose is "Fair Play for Women."[26]
I hate the words "woman's rights," nor do they properly describe my
treatment of the question which, in my mind, is not one of sex but of
humanity. My lecture is a plea for the recognition of the equal
humanity of women and an assertion that they have rights not as
women but as human beings. In respect to terms, I leave it with you.

I usually receive $50, but you will understand that I should prefer to
pay the expenses myself rather than that you or any one interested
should expend a penny; so if you can not justly give me anything, I
shall be content.

George William Curtis

Miss Anthony always came out of these lecture courses in debt, but she
would call upon her friends or borrow from sister or father enough to make
up the deficit, and replace the loan out of her scanty earnings. She persisted
in having them to educate the public on the progressive questions of the
day. At this time the long, severe mental and physical strain of years began
to be felt in her one weak spot, and the old trouble with her back asserted
itself. From every quarter came urgent appeals for her assistance. At first
she answered: "If New York calls a constitutional convention for next
spring, this will be a capital winter to strike heavy blows for freedom and
equality such as we shall not have for a long time to come. I am ready just
as soon as the armies can be marshaled and equipped." But later she wrote:

It is being forced upon me that nature orders me to stay quietly at
home this winter and it may be that it is to enable me to get a greater
literary culture than I possibly could, amidst the hurry and bustle of
continual meetings. Somehow I can not philosophize away a
shrinking from going into active work. I can not get up a particle of
enthusiasm or faith in the success, either financial or spiritual, of

another series of conventions. For the past five years I have gone
through this routine and something within me keeps praying to be
spared from more of it. There has been such a surfeit of lecturing,
the people are tired of it. Then I never was so poor in purse and I
fear to end another campaign with a heavy debt to still further
encroach upon my small savings. I can not bear to make myself
dependent upon relatives for the food I eat and the clothes I wear; I
never have done it and hope I may never have to. Perhaps I may feel
a renewed faith in myself and my work but the past years have
brought me so much isolation and spiritual loneliness, although in
the midst of crowds, that I confess to a longing to stay for awhile
among my own people.

The commands of the physician were imperative that she should avoid all
fatigue and nervous excitement, but her pen was not idle, and the time
which she hoped to devote to the reading of many books was occupied in
sending out letters, petitions, appeals and the various documents necessary
to keep the work going. In answer to an invitation from the Friends of
Human Progress she wrote:

To be esteemed worthy to speak for woman, for the slave, for
humanity, is ever grateful to me, and I regret that I can not be with
you at your annual gathering to get for myself a fresh baptism, a
new and deeper faith. I would exhort all women to be discontented
with their present condition and to assert their individuality of
thought, word and action by the energetic doing of noble deeds. Idle
wishes, vain repinings, loud-sounding declamations never can bring
freedom to any human soul. What woman most needs is a true
appreciation of her womanhood, a self-respect which shall scorn to
eat the bread of dependence. Whoever consents to live by "the sweat
of the brow" of another human being inevitably humiliates and

degrades herself.... No genuine equality, no real freedom, no true
manhood or womanhood can exist on any foundation save that of
pecuniary independence. As a right over a man's subsistence is a
power over his moral being, so a right over a woman's subsistence
enslaves her will, degrades her pride and vitiates her whole moral
nature.

To her brother Daniel R., in Kansas, who was somewhat skeptical on the
woman question, she sent this strong letter:

Even the smallest human right denied, is large. The fact that the
ruling class withhold this right is prima facie evidence that they
deem it of importance for good or for evil. In either case, therefore,
the human being is outraged. It, perchance, may matter but little
whether Kansas be governed by a constitution made by her bona
fide settlers or by people of another State or by Congress; but for
Kansas to be denied the right to make her own constitution and laws
is an outrage not to be tolerated. So the constitution and laws of a
State and nation may be just as considerate of woman's needs and
wants as if framed by herself, yet for man to deny her the right to a
voice in making and administering them, is paralleled only by the
Lecompton usurpation. For any human being or class of human
beings, whether black, white, male or female, tamely to submit to
the denial of their right to self-government shows that the instinct of
liberty has been blotted out.

You blunder on this question of woman's rights just where
thousands of others do. You believe woman unlike man in her
nature; that conditions of life which any man of spirit would sooner
die than accept are not only endurable to woman but are needful to
her fullest enjoyment. Make her position in church, State, marriage,

your own; everywhere your equality ignored, everywhere made to
feel another empowered by law and time-honored custom to
prescribe the privileges to be enjoyed and the duties to be
discharged by you; and then if you can imagine yourself to be
content and happy, judge your mother and sisters and all women to
be.

It was not because the three-penny tax on tea was so exorbitant that
our Revolutionary fathers fought and died, but to establish the
principle that such taxation was unjust. It is the same with this
woman's revolution; though every law were as just to woman as to
man, the principle that one class may usurp the power to legislate
for another is unjust, and all who are now in the struggle from love
of principle would still work on until the establishment of the grand
and immutable truth, "All governments derive their just powers
from the consent of the governed."

She wrote Lydia Mott: "The new encyclopedia is just out and I notice in
regard to Antoinette Brown Blackwell that it gives a full description of her
work up to the time of her marriage, then says: 'She married Samuel
Blackwell and lives near New York.' Not a word of the splendid work she
has done on the platform and in the pulpit since. Thus does every married
woman sink her individuality." This brought from Lydia a spirited answer:

For my part, when you speak of the individuality of one who is truly
married being inevitably lost, I think you mistake. If there ever was
any individuality it will remain. I don't believe it is necessary for
development that the individual must always force itself upon us.
We naturally fall into the habits and frequently the train of thought
of those we love and I like the expression "we" rather than "I." I
never feel that my interests and actions can be independent of the

dear ones with whom I am surrounded. Even the one who seems to
be most absorbed may, in reality, possess the strongest soul. This
standing alone is not natural and therefore can not be right. I am
sure one of these days you will view this matter from a different
standpoint.

Miss Anthony so far yielded as to reply: "Institutions, among them
marriage, are justly chargeable with many social and individual ills but,
after all, the whole man or woman will rise above them. I am sure my 'true
woman' never will be crushed or dwarfed by them. Woman must take to her
soul a purpose and then make circumstances conform to this purpose,
instead of forever singing the refrain, 'if and if and if!'" But later when one
woman failed to keep a lecture engagement because her husband wanted
her to go somewhere with him, and another because her husband was not
willing she should leave home, she again poured out her sorrows to her
friend:

There is not one woman left who may be relied on, all have "first to
please their husband," after which there is but little time or energy
left to spend in any other direction. I am not complaining or
despairing, but facts are stern realities. The twain become one flesh,
the woman, "we"; henceforth she has no separate work, and how
soon the last standing monuments (yourself and myself, Lydia), will
lay down the individual "shovel and de hoe" and with proper zeal
and spirit grasp those of some masculine hand, the mercies and the
spirits only know. I declare to you that I distrust the power of any
woman, even of myself, to withstand the mighty matrimonial
maelstrom!

But how did I get into this dissertation? If to you it seems morbid,
pardon the pen-wandering. In the depths of my soul there is a

continual denial of the self-annihilating spiritual or legal union of
two human beings. Such union, in the very nature of things, must
bring an end to the free action of one or the other, and it matters not
to the individual whose freedom has thus departed whether it be the
gentle rule of love or the iron hand of law which blotted out from
the immortal being the individual soul-stamp of the Good Father.
How I do wish those who know something of the real social needs
of our age would rescue this greatest, deepest, highest question from
the present unphilosophical, unspiritual discussers.

As might be expected, the legacy of $5,000 brought not only a flood of
requests from all parts of the country, but some division of opinion among
those who had it in control. Miss Anthony would use all of it in the work of
propaganda, lectures, conventions, tracts and newspaper articles. Lucy
Stone wished to use part in suits to prove the unconstitutionality of the law
which taxes women and refuses them representation. Antoinette Blackwell
wanted a portion to establish a church where she could spread the doctrine
of woman's rights along with the gospel. Most of the women lecturers and
some of the men wished to be engaged immediately at a fixed salary. Miss
Anthony writes for advice to Phillips, who replies: "Go ahead with your
New York plan as sketched to me. I am willing to risk spending $1,000 on
it. Never apologize as if you troubled me; it is my business as much as
yours, and I am only sorry to be of so little help." Brief records in the little
diary say:

Sister Mary and I passed New Year's Day, 1859, most quietly and
happily in the dear farm-home. Mother is in the East with sister
Hannah, and father dined in the city with sister Guelma, who sent us
a plate of her excellent turkey.... In the afternoon Mary and I drove
to Frederick Douglass' and had a nice visit; stayed to tea and
listened to a part of his new lecture on "Self-Made Men."... Father

and Mary gone to their work in the city, and I am writing on my
lecture "The True Woman." Ground out four commercial-note pages
in five mortal hours, but they are strong.... Ten degrees below zero.
Mother home; no writing today; all talk about the eastern folks....
Antoinette Blackwell preached here yesterday, and we have had a
good visit together today. Just helped two fugitive slaves, perhaps
genuine and perhaps not.... Went to the city to hear A.A. Willit's
lecture on "A Plea for Home." Gives woman a place only in
domestic life—sad failure.... Twenty letters written and mailed
today. Took tea with the Hallowells. Am glad to learn that the
money forwarded to the Anti-Slavery Bazar and lost was sent by a
man instead of a woman.... Heard Bayard Taylor on "Life in
Lapland." Hundreds could not gain admittance. Curtis lectured on
"Fair Play for Women"; great success, but I feel that he has not yet
been tried by fire. Afterwards visited with Curtis and Taylor, and
Mr. Curtis said: "Rather than have a radical thinker like Mrs. Rose
at your suffrage conventions, you would better give them up. With
such speakers as Beecher, Phillips, Theodore Parker, Chapin, Tilton
and myself advocating woman's cause, it can not fail."

E.H. Chapin

Miss Anthony did not hesitate to criticise even Mr. Curtis, writing him in
reference to his great lecture, "Democracy and Education": "When all the
different classes of industrial claimants for a voice in the government were
enumerated, there was not one which could be interpreted to represent
womanhood. Hence only the few who know that with George William
Curtis, the words 'man,' 'people,' 'citizens,' are not, as with the vast majority
of lecturers, mere glittering generalities, can understand that his grand
principles of democracy are intended to be applied to woman equally with
man. I listen for the unthinking masses and pray that every earnest, manly
spirit shall help make women free." In reply Mr. Curtis closed a long and
cordial letter by saying: "Believe me that I have thought of the point you
make but the greater statement must inevitably include the less." She
scribbled a comment on the back of this for her own satisfaction: "Men still
the greater, women the less."

The last of January Miss Anthony went to Albany to attend the anti-slavery
convention and remained six weeks during the legislative session to work in
the interest of the women's petitions and the Personal Liberty Bill. This was
a season of great enjoyment for her, notwithstanding much tramping about
in the rain and snow and many discouraging experiences with the
Legislature. She writes a friend: "Well, I am a member of the lobby but
lacking the two most essential requisites, for I neither accept money nor
have I any to pay out. Dr. Cheever speaks tonight in the Assembly chamber
on 'The Guilt of the Slave Traffic and of the Legislation by which it is
Supported.' I have been going about all day to collect enough to defray his
expenses."

Phillips, Garrison, Pillsbury and all the host were at the convention. They
dined in Lydia Mott's simple little home and had a merry time. Between the
meetings the party visited the Legislature, Geological Hall, Palmer's studio
and other places of interest and managed to get a bit of holiday recreation.

Miss Anthony stayed with her friend Miss Mott, visited Rev. Mayo, called
often on Thurlow Weed, went to Troy to hear Beecher lecture on "The
Burdens of Society," to Hudson to hear Phillips on "Toussaint L'Ouverture"
and, whenever she could spare a day from her work with the Legislature,
held woman's rights meetings in neighboring towns; thus every hour was
filled to overflowing.

In March she finished her lecture, "The True Woman," and plunged into the
preparations for the approaching woman's rights convention. She also
indulged the love for gardening which her busy life so seldom permitted
and, judging from her diary, must have given the hired men more attention
than they ever received before or afterwards:

Uncovered the strawberry and raspberry beds.... Worked with Simon
building frames for the grape vines in the peach orchards.... Set out
eighteen English black currants, twenty-two English gooseberries
and Muscadine grape vines, also Lawton blackberries.... Worked in
the garden all day, then went to the city to hear Dr. Cheever; few
there, but grand lecture. How he unmasked the church hypocrites!...
Wrote reports of the lecture for Standard and Liberator, and helped
father plan the new kitchen.... Finished setting out the apple trees
and the 600 blackberry bushes, then took the 6 o'clock train for
Seneca Falls. Hot and dusty, and I am very, very tired.

Wendell Phillips

She spoke in various towns all the way to New York where she arrived in
time to attend the Anti-Slavery Anniversary and make final arrangements
for the convention in Mozart Hall, May 12. She had written asking Lucretia
Mott to preside, who answered, "I am sure there needs not a better presiding
officer than thyself," but agreed to come. When the hour arrived the hall
was so packed that it was impossible for Mrs. Mott to reach the platform
and Miss Anthony was obliged to open the meeting. This convention, like
several which preceded it, was greatly disturbed by noise and interruptions
from the audience, until finally it was turned over to Wendell Phillips who
"knew better than any one else how to play with and lash a mob and thrust

what he wished to say into their long ears." At the end of his speech Miss
Anthony immediately adjourned the convention, to prevent violent
demonstrations. The Tribune said:

The woman's rights meeting last night was well calculated to
advance the cause that the reformers met to plead. The speakers
were comparatively so temperate, while sundry voters were so
intemperate in demonstrating their folly, rudeness, ignorance and
indecency, that almost any cause which the one pleaded and the
other objected to would be likely to find favor with order-loving
people. The presence of a single policeman might have preserved
perfect order, saved the reputation of our city before crowds of
strangers and given hundreds an opportunity to hear. Of course it
being a meeting that women were to address, as "women have no
rights in public which men are bound to maintain," there was no
policeman present.

The disturbances at these conventions were not so much because the mob
objected to the doctrine of woman's rights as that they were addressed by
the leading anti-slavery speakers and therefore had to bear the odium
attached to that hated cause.

A strong memorial, asking for equal social, civil and political rights for
women and based on the guarantees of the Declaration of Independence,
was prepared by a committee consisting of Miss Anthony, Mr. Phillips and
seven others, to be presented to every legislature in the Union. By the time
the legislatures met in 1860, political affairs had reached a crisis and the
country was in a state of unrest and excitement which made it impossible to
secure consideration for this or any other question outside the vital issues
that were pressing, although it was presented in several States.

Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton wrote an eloquent appeal to be circulated
with the petitions to rouse public sentiment. Armed with this the former
began correspondence with speakers in reference to a summer and fall
campaign of the state. The diary shows that she actually found time to
attend a picnic, but as she was called upon for a speech while there the day
was not wholly wasted. There are also references to "moonlight rides," and
one entry records: "Mr. —— walked home with me; marvelously attentive.
What a pity such powers of intellect should lack the moral spine!"

Out of the Francis Jackson fund Mr. Phillips sent Miss Anthony $1,500 for
her extensive campaign. She engaged speakers to come into New York in
different months, and July 13 opened the series with Antoinette Blackwell
at Niagara Falls. From here they made the round of the watering places,
Avon, Clifton, Trenton Falls, Sharon, Saratoga, Ballston Spa and Lake
George, where persons of wealth and prominence were gathered from all
parts of the Union. In some places they spoke in a grove to thousands of
people; at others in hotel parlors, and everywhere met a friendly spirit and
respectful treatment.

Miss Anthony did not forget to go to Poughkeepsie this summer, and stir up
the teachers at their annual meeting. Antoinette Blackwell says of this trip:
"I shall always recollect our journey on the boat with two or three dozen
teachers, and your walking the deck with one and another, talking about
women and their rights, in school and out of school, in the most matter-of-
fact way, although it was plainly evident that most of them would sooner
have listened to a discussion on the rights of the Hottentots." The teacher
who was her chief support at these conventions was Helen Philleo.[27] There
were very few of them in those days who had the courage to help fight this
battle for their own interests. At the last session she announced a woman's
rights meeting and many remained to attend it.

After the summer resorts were closed the meetings were continued in the
principal towns. Mrs. Blackwell thus describes an incident in the Fort
William Henry hotel: "I remember a rich scene at the breakfast table. Aaron
Powell was with us and the colored waiter pointedly offered him the bill of
fare. Miss Anthony glanced at it and began to give her order, not to Powell
in ladylike modesty, but promptly and energetically to the waiter. He turned
a grandiloquent, deaf ear; Powell fidgeted and studied his newspaper; she
persisted, determined that no man should come between her and her own
order for coffee, cornbread and beefsteak. 'What do I understand is the full
order, sir, for your party?' demanded the waiter, doggedly and suggestively.
Powell tried to repeat her wishes, but stumbled and stammered and grew
red in the face. I put in a working oar to cover the undercurrent of laughter,
while she, coolly unconscious of everything except that there was no
occasion for a 'middleman,' since she was entirely competent to look after
her own breakfast, repeated her order, and the waiter, looking intensely
disgusted, concluded to bring something, right or wrong."

While at Easton among her old friends Miss Anthony attended Quaker
meeting and the spirit moved her to speak very forcibly, as she relates in a
letter: "A young Quaker preacher from Virginia, who happened to be there,
said: 'Christ was no agitator, but a peacemaker; George Fox was no agitator;
the Friends at the South follow these examples and are never disturbed by
fanaticism.' This was more than I could bear; I sprung to my feet and
quoted: 'I came into the world not to bring peace but a sword.... Woe unto
you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites that devour widow's houses!' Read
the New Testament, and say if Christ was not an agitator. Who is this
among us crying 'peace, peace, when there is no peace?'—and sat down." It
is a matter of regret that she did not tell what became of the gentleman from
Virginia.

Miss Anthony writes to Mary Hallowell, during these days: "I am more
tired than ever before and know that I am draining the millpond too low
each day to be filled quite up during the night, but I am having fine
audiences of thinking men and women. Oh, if we could but make our
meetings ring like those of the anti-slavery people, wouldn't the world hear
us? But to do that we must have souls baptized into the work and
consecrated to it."

Mrs. Blackwell's domestic affairs will not permit any further lecturing and
Miss Anthony says in a letter to her: "O, dear, dear, how I do wish you
could have kept on with me. I can't tell you how utterly awful is the
suspense these other women keep me in: first, they can't, then they can, then
they won't unless things are so and so; and when I think everything is
settled, it all has to be gone over again. The fact is I am not fit to deal with
anybody who is not terribly in earnest." To this she replies: "Dear child, I'm
sorry I can not help you, but pity a poor married woman and forgive. The
ordeal that I have been going through, four sewingwomen each giving
about two days, no end of little garments to alter and to make, with a
husband whose clothes as well as himself have been neglected for three
months, the garden to be covered up from the frost, shrubs to transplant,
winter provisions to lay in and only one good-natured, stupid servant to
help with all. This, Susan, is 'woman's sphere.'"

As Miss Anthony never approved of a woman's neglecting her household
for any purpose, she urged no more but sought elsewhere for assistance.
There was not one unmarried woman except herself in all the corps of
available speakers and, while some of them could make a trip of a few
weeks, not one could be depended on for steady work. In October she
secured Mrs. Tracy Cutler for awhile, and later Frances D. Gage, J.
Elizabeth Jones and Lucy N. Coleman, but was obliged to hold many
meetings alone. These were continued at intervals through the fall of 1859

and the winter and spring of 1860, and numerous pages of foolscap are still
in existence containing a carefully kept account of the expenses. Each
meeting was made partly to pay for itself, the lecturers received $12 a week,
Miss Anthony herself taking only this sum, and it may be believed that no
more extended and effective propaganda work ever was accomplished with
the same amount of money. While this was being done, she also assisted
Clarina Howard Nichols and Susan E. Wattles to plan an important
campaign in Kansas with money furnished from the Jackson fund.

She received the following characteristic letter from Rev. Thomas K.
Beecher when she asked for the use of his church in Elmira: "I will answer
for myself and afterwards append the decision of the trustees. Anybody
with good moral character and clean feet is welcome to use our meeting
house, if they like, but were I you I should prefer Holden's Hall. But, lastly,
I should shrink from holding such a meeting. I fear that you will come to
pain of disappointment when your enthusiasm is chilled and bruised against
the stone walls of Elmira apathy. More people will attend at Holden's Hall
than at church. So speaks in brief, yours with hearty respect."

Mrs. Blackwell writes her teasingly about what she calls her obtuseness,
going straight ahead with her work, never knowing when she was snubbed
or defeated, giving the undiluted doctrine to people without ever perceiving
their frantic efforts to escape, and ignoring all the humorous features of the
campaigns. Miss Anthony retorts: "You might give some of the funny things
at your own expense, but tell just as many as you please at mine. You see I
have always gone with such a blind rush that I never had time to see the
ridiculous, and blessed for me and my work and my happiness that I did
not." Another invariable habit was never to notice complaints written to her.
She always answered the business points but entirely ignored complainings,
charges against other people and all extraneous matters.

She relates a significant incident which occurred during this summer
campaign when she and Antoinette Blackwell spent a Sunday at Gerrit
Smith's. He had established at Peterboro and was maintaining at his own
expense a Free church. Mrs. Blackwell, under the influence of Theodore
Parker, Chapin and other liberal thinkers, had become very broad in her
doctrines, and was greatly pleased at an opportunity to preach for Mr.
Smith, thinking to find perfect appreciation and sympathy. After church
Miss Anthony went to her room and found her weeping bitterly, but she
begged to be left to herself. When more composed she sent for her and told
how in the midst of her sermon, when she felt herself surpassing anything
she ever had done, she heard a gentle snore, and looking down beheld Mr.
Smith sound asleep! She was terribly disappointed and now had made up
her mind there was but one thing for the human soul, and that was to live
absolutely within itself. There is no friend, no relative, who can enter into
the depths of another individuality. A husband and wife may be very happy
together; in all the little occurrences which really make up the sum of
everyday life, they may be perfectly congenial; but there will be times when
each will feel the other separated by an immeasurable distance. Henceforth
she would enjoy what solace there was in her religious faith for herself but
would expect no other soul to share it with her. "This was to me a
wonderful revelation," said Miss Anthony, "and I realized, as never before,
that in our most sacred hours we dwell indeed in a world of solitude."

Antoinette Brown Blackwell

On December 2, 1859, occurred that terrible tragedy in the country's
history, the execution of John Brown for the raid on the United States
arsenal at Harper's Ferry. The nation was shaken as by a great earthquake.
Its dreadful import was realized perhaps by none so strikingly as by that
little band of Abolitionists who never had wavered in their belief that
slavery must ultimately disrupt the Union. When the country was paralyzed
with horror and uncertainty, they alone dared call public meetings of
mourning and indignation. It was natural that in Rochester they should turn
to Susan B. Anthony for leadership. Without a moment's hesitation for fear
of consequences she engaged Corinthian Hall and set about arranging a
meeting for the evening of that day. Parker Pillsbury wrote:

Can you not make this gathering one of a popular character? What I
mean is will not some sturdy Republican or Gerrit Smith man
preside, another act as secretary and several make addresses? Only
we must not lose the control. I do not believe that any observance of
the day will be instituted outside our ranks. I am without tidings
from the "seat of war" since Tuesday evening; and do not know
what we shall hear next. My voice is against any attempt at rescue.
It would inevitably, I fear, lead to bloodshed which could not
compensate nor be compensated. If the people dare murder their
victim, as they are determined to do, and in the name of law, he
dares and is prepared to die and the moral effect of the execution
will be without a parallel since the scenes on Calvary eighteen
hundred years ago, and the halter that day sanctified shall be the
cord to draw millions to salvation.

Parker Pillsbury

Miss Anthony found that beyond the little band of Abolitionists not a person
dared give her any assistance. Her diary says: "Not one man of prominence
in religion or politics will publicly identify himself with the John Brown
meeting." She went from door to door selling tickets and collecting money.
Samuel D. Porter, a prominent member of the Liberty party, assisted her, as
did that circle of staunch Quaker friends who never failed her in any
undertaking; Frederick Douglass had been obliged to flee to England. An
admission fee of fifty cents kept out the rabble, and not more than 300 were
present. The masses of the people, even those in full sympathy, were afraid
to attend. Rev. Abram Pryn, a Free church minister, made a fine address,
and Parker Pillsbury spoke as never before. Mr. Porter said: "This was the
only occasion that ever matched Pillsbury's adjectives." Miss Anthony
presided and there was no disturbance. The surplus receipts were sent to
John Brown's family.

Mrs. Stanton wrote shortly afterwards, urging her to come to Seneca Falls:
"Indeed it would do me great good to see some reformers just now. The

death of my father, the worse than death of my dear cousin Gerrit,[28] the
martyrdom of that great and glorious John Brown, all conspire to make me
regret more than ever my dwarfed and perverted womanhood. In times like
these every soul should do the work of a fullgrown man. When I pass the
gate of the celestials and good Peter asks me where I wish to sit, I will say:
'Anywhere so that I am neither a negro nor a woman. Confer on me, great
angel, the glory of white manhood, so that henceforth I may feel unlimited
freedom.'"

In this year of 1859, Charles F. Hovey, a wealthy merchant of Boston, a
radical in religion and a noted reformer and philanthropist, left $50,000 to
be expended in securing equal rights for women, the abolition of slavery,
and other reforms, at the discretion of Wendell Phillips, Wm. Lloyd
Garrison and the other executors. As slavery was abolished four years later,
a considerable portion of this was used for the cause of woman.

Early in December the anti-slavery committee insisted that Miss Anthony
should resume the management of their conventions, as they wished to hold
a series throughout the large cities of the State and had been unable to find
any one who could so successfully conduct them. Abby Kelly Foster,
though often critical and censorious, wrote her regarding one of her
speeches: "It is a timely, noble, clear-sighted and fearless vindication of our
platform. I want to say how delighted both Stephen and myself are to see
that you, though much younger than some others in the anti-slavery school,
have been able to appreciate so entirely the genius of our enterprise." The
distinguished George B. Cheever, of the Church of the Puritans in New
York, one of the few orthodox clergymen who stood with the Abolitionists
in those early days, wrote Miss Anthony: "May God be with you and guide
and bless you in your efforts. That is the strength we all need and must have
if we accomplish anything good and permanent in this terrible conflict."

George B. Cheever

A single instance will show how closely the question of woman's rights was
connected with that of anti-slavery in the popular mind. When Miss
Anthony and Mrs. Blackwell were at Fort William Henry, at the head of
Lake George, they spoke one evening in the hotel parlors. There were a
number of southerners present and many of them were delighted with the
meeting, whose doctrines were entirely new to them, and made liberal
contributions. The next day the speakers left in the stage with one of these,
Judge John J. Ormond and his two daughters, of Tuscaloosa, Ala. He told
Miss Anthony he had been instrumental in securing many laws favorable to
women in that state and it would be a pleasure to him to see that their
memorial was presented to the Alabama Legislature. When she reached
home she sent it to him with the following letter:

Enclosed is a copy of our woman's rights memorial. Will you give
me a full report of the action taken upon it?... I hope you and your
daughters arrived home safe. Say to the elder I shall be most happy
to hear from her when she shall have fairly inaugurated some noble
life work. I trust each will take to her soul a strong purpose and that
on her tombstone shall be engraved her own name and her own
noble deeds instead of merely the daughter of Judge Ormond, or the
relict of some Honorable or D. D. When true womanhood shall be
attained it will be spoken of and remembered for itself alone. My

kindest regards to them, accompanied with the most earnest desire
that they shall make truth and freedom the polar star of their lives.

To this Judge Ormond made cordial reply, October 17, 1859:

DEAR MADAM: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of
your letter of the 2d inst., with the papers enclosed. The petition to
the Legislature will be presented by the senator from this county and
I will apprise you of the action had upon it. My daughters are
obliged to you for the interest you take in them. To a certain extent I
agree with you as to the duties of woman. I am greatly in favor of
her elevation to her proper sphere as the equal of man as to her civil
rights, the security of her person, the right to her property and,
where there is a separation after marriage, her equal right with the
father to the custody and education of the children. All this as a
legislator I have endeavored to accomplish, making large
innovations upon the ancient common law. If I differ from you as to
her political rights, it is because I think that, from political as well as
moral considerations, she is unfit for, indeed incapacitated from, the
performance of most of the duties which are now performed by men
as members of the body politic; but there are many avocations and
professions now exclusively occupied by men which women are as
well, perhaps better fitted to fill. I hope these will soon be thrown
open to an active competition of both sexes.

Then came the raid on Harper's Ferry and all its terrible consequences, and
in December Judge Ormond wrote again:

MADAM: In redemption of my promise to tell you the fate of the
woman's rights petition to our Legislature, I have the honor to
inform you that it was virtually rejected, being laid on the table. I
interested a distinguished member of our Senate in its presentation

and, in addition, wrote a letter which under ordinary circumstances
would have insured its respectful consideration. But after your
petition was forwarded came the treasonable and murderous
invasion of John Brown. The atrocity of this act, countenanced as it
manifestly was by a great party at the North, has extinguished our
last spark of fraternal feeling. Whilst we are all living under a
Constitution which secures to us our right to our slaves, the results
of which are in truth more beneficial to the whole North, and
especially to the New England States, than to us, you are secretly
plotting murderous inroads into our peaceful country and
endeavoring to incite our slaves to cut the throats of our wives and
children. Can you believe that this state of things can last? We now
look upon you as our worst enemies and are ready to separate from
you. Measures are in progress as far as practicable to establish non-
intercourse with you and to proscribe all articles of northern
manufacture or origin, including New England teachers. We can live
without you; it remains to be seen how you will get along without
us. You will probably find that fanaticism is not an element of
national wealth or conducive to the happiness or comfort of the
people.

In conclusion, let me assure you this is written more in sorrow than
in anger. I am not a politician and have always been a strenuous
friend of the Union. I am now in favor of a separation, unless you
immediately retrace your steps and give the necessary guarantees by
the passage of appropriate laws that you will faithfully abide by the
compromises of the Constitution, by which alone the slaveholding
States can with honor or safety remain in the Union. But that this
will be done, I have very little hope, as "madness seems to rule the
hour;" and as you have thus constituted yourselves our enemies, you
must not be surprised at finding that we are yours.

[26] A critic said of this: "It is the most faultless presentation of the question to which I have
listened. Mr. Curtis takes the broadest view of the subject, his logic in its sweep is convincing
as demonstration itself. His satire is cutting, but not bitter; his wit keen as a Damascus blade.
He came out bravely for the suffrage." For forty years the advocates of equal rights have been
using this lecture as one of their strongest documents.

[27] By an odd coincidence, while this chapter was being written a letter came to Miss
Anthony from Dean M. Jenkins, of Detroit, which said: "Enclosed please find my check to
help on the good work to which you have devoted your life. You see I have almost pardoned
you for saying, 'I have never quite forgiven you for marrying Helen Philleo and taking her
away from the suffrage work.' In place of one worker you now have four. Mrs. Jenkins made
a convert of me. Our daughter, Mrs. Spalding, is as earnest a worker for the suffrage cause as
her mother, and our son is a defender of his mother's principles...."

[28] He had become temporarily insane on account of the persecution he suffered in
connection with the John Brown raid.

CHAPTER XII.
RIFT IN COMMON LAW—DIVORCE QUESTION.

1860.

During the first decade of its history the movement toward securing a larger
liberty for women was known by the comprehensive term "woman's rights."
At its inception, under the English common law which everywhere
prevailed, woman was legally a part of man's belongings, one of his
chattels. Restrained by custom from speaking in public or expressing
herself through the newspapers, she had been silent under the oppression of
ages. When at length she found her voice there were so many wrongs to be
righted that she scarcely knew which first should receive attention. Those
early meetings could not be called woman suffrage conventions, for many
who advocated all the other reforms which they considered either
disbelieved in or were indifferent to the franchise. It was only the Anthonys,
Stantons, Stones, Roses, Garrisons, Phillips of this great movement for
woman's liberty who were philosophical enough to see that the right of
suffrage was the underlying principle of the whole question; so it was not
for many years, not until practically all other demands had been granted,
that they were finally resolved into a suffrage organization, pure and
simple. At the beginning of 1860 the laws relating to women, as briefly
stated by the great jurist, David Dudley Field, were as follows:

The elective franchise is confined entirely to men. A married woman
can not sue for her services, as all she earns legally belongs to the
husband, whereas his earnings belong to himself, and the wife
legally has no interest in them. Where children have property and

both parents are living, the father is the guardian. In case of the
wife's death without a will, the husband is entitled to all her personal
property and to a life interest in the whole of her real estate to the
entire exclusion of the children, even though this property may have
come to her through a former husband and the children of that
marriage still be living. If the husband die without a will, the widow
is entitled to one-third of the personal property and to a life interest
in one-third only of the real estate. In case a wife be personally
injured, either in reputation by slander, or in body by accident,
compensation must be recovered in the joint name of herself and her
husband, and when recovered it belongs to him. On the other hand,
the wife has no legal claim in a similar case in regard to the
husband. The father may by deed or will appoint a guardian for the
minor children, who may thus be taken entirely away from the
jurisdiction of the mother at his death. Where both parents are dead,
the children shall be given to the nearest of kin and, as between
relatives of the same degree of consanguinity, males shall be
preferred. No married woman can act as administrator in any case.

One can not but ask why, under such laws, women ever would marry, but in
those days virtually all occupations were closed to them and the vast
majority were compelled to marry for support. In the few cases where
women had their own means, they married because of the public sentiment
which considered it a serious reproach to remain a spinster and rigorously
forbade to her all the pleasures and independence that are freely accorded to
the unmarried woman of today. And they married because it is natural for
women to marry, and all laws and all customs, all restrictions and all
freedom, never will circumvent nature.

On February 3 and 4, 1860, the State Woman's Rights Convention was held
at Albany in Association Hall, an interesting and successful meeting. At its

close, in a letter to Mrs. Wright, Miss Anthony said: "Mr. Anson Bingham,
chairman of the judiciary committee, will bring in a radical report in favor
of all our claims, but previous to doing so he wishes our strongest
arguments made before the committee and says Mrs. Stanton must come. I
wish you would slip over there and make her feel that the salvation of the
Empire State, at least of the women in it, depends upon her bending all her
powers to move the hearts of our law-givers at this time. I should go there
myself this very night but I must watch and encourage friends here." Mrs.
Stanton replied to her urgent appeal: "I am willing to do the appointed work
at Albany. If Napoleon says cross the Alps, they are crossed. You must
come here and start me on the right train of thought, as your practical
knowledge of just what is wanted is everything in getting up the right
document."

The readers of history never will be able to separate Miss Anthony's
addresses from Mrs. Stanton's; they themselves scarcely could do it. Some
of the strongest ever written by either were prepared without the assistance
of the other, but most of their resolutions, memorials and speeches were the
joint work of both. Miss Anthony always said, "Mrs. Stanton is my sentence
maker, my pen artist." No one can excel Miss Anthony in logic of thought
or vigor of expression; no one is so thoroughly supplied with facts, statistics
and arguments, but she finds it difficult and distasteful to put them into
written form. When, however, some one else has taken her wonderful stock
of material and reduced it to shape, she is a perfect critic. Her ear is as
carefully attuned to the correct balance of words as that of a skilled
musician to harmony in music. She will detect instantly a weak spot in a
sentence or a paragraph and never fail to suggest the exact word or phrase
needed to give it poise and strength.

Mrs. Stanton had a large house and a constantly increasing family, making
it exceedingly difficult to find time for literary work; so when a state paper

was to be written, Miss Anthony would go to Seneca Falls. After the
children were in bed, the two women would sit up far into the night
arranging material and planning their work. The next day Mrs. Stanton
would seek the quietest spot in the house and begin writing, while Miss
Anthony would give the children their breakfast, start the older ones to
school, make the dessert for dinner and trundle the babies up and down the
walk, rushing in occasionally to help the writer out of a vortex. Many an
article which will be read with delight by future generations was thus
prepared. Mrs. Stanton describes these occasions in her charming
Reminiscences:

It was mid such exhilarating scenes that Miss Anthony and I wrote
addresses for temperance, anti-slavery, educational and woman's
rights conventions. Here we forged resolutions, protests, appeals,
petitions, agricultural reports and constitutional arguments, for we
made it a matter of conscience to accept every invitation to speak on
every question, in order to maintain woman's right to do so. It is
often said by those who know Miss Anthony best, that she has been
my good angel, always pushing and guiding me to work. With the
cares of a large family, perhaps I might in time, like too many
women, have become wholly absorbed in a narrow selfishness, had
not my friend been continually exploring new fields for missionary
labors. Her description of a body of men on any platform,
complacently deciding questions in which women had an equal
interest without an equal voice, readily roused me to a determination
to throw a fire-brand in the midst of their assembly.

Thus, whenever I saw that stately Quaker girl coming across my
lawn I knew that some happy convocation of the sons of Adam were
to be set by the ears with our appeals or resolutions. The little
portmanteau stuffed with facts was opened and there we had what