_During vacation months, Marie teaches German--Becomes working guest
in family of Rev. A. D. Mayo--Meets many noted men and women--Her
mother dies on the voyage to New York and is buried at sea--Marie
returns to New York, visits Dr. Blackwell, and finds the Infirmary is
still closed--She goes to Boston to visit Dr. Hunt--Meets the Grimké
sisters--Learns of the New England Female Medical College--Meets
William Lloyd Garrison, Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips, and other
noted people--Returns to Cleveland and becomes the guest of Mrs.
C. Vaughan for her closing term at college--Meets Lyceum speakers,
professors, political and social leaders, and literary men and women
from various parts of the country. (Twenty-six years of age: 1855.)_
Within a few days, there were found some pupils to whom I might teach
German. There also came a proposition from Mrs. Mayo who was expecting
her first baby within a very short time. The proposition was that I
should become a general member of the family, attending to her needs
as well as aiding in the housekeeping, etc., till the arrival of her
mother later in the spring.
In April, I removed my possessions into that hospitable house which
offered its little to me who had less. Both Mr. and Mrs. Mayo were
really nervous invalids, and the troubles and trials of their position
as anti-slavery advocates and religious reformers bore heavily upon
them and kept their purse lean. However, I had no personal needs
further than my board, as my clothing was still good in spite of my two
years in America.
I found many dear and valued friends during my residence in Cleveland,
but none to whom I am bound in lasting gratitude as to Mr. Mayo, who
offered me his assistance when he learned that I was in need, my extra
expenses having swallowed up the little money that I had brought with
me, so that I had not even enough to return to my sisters in New York.
As the minister of a small congregation advocating Liberal ideas, he
had a hard position in Cleveland, both socially and pecuniarily, yet he
offered to share his little with me. I was forced to accept it, and I
am now, and have always been, glad that I did so.
No one that has not had the experience can appreciate the happiness
that comes with the feeling that a rich man has not cast a fragment of
his superfluity towards you (and here let me remark that it is next to
impossible to find wealth and generosity go together in friendship),
but that the help comes from one who must work for it as well as the
recipient. It proves the existence of the mutual appreciation that is
known by the name of “friendship.” The apple given by a friend is worth
ten times more than a whole orchard bestowed in such a way as to make
you feel that the gift is but the superfluity of the donor.
Now I was in my element: superintending a very inferior servant girl;
providing wholesome simple meals for the invalids; going three mornings
a week to an apothecary shop where a friendly man permitted me to
assist him in his work, thus acquiring a knowledge of drugs and their
preparation; going two mornings a week to my preceptor’s office to
recite in the usual manner; giving German lessons two afternoons a
week; spending one evening a week at meetings in houses of different
parishioners for discussions on theological subjects, especially
Unitarian and Universalist themes; assisting Mr. Mayo on Sundays at the
Sunday school, especially in organizing the same and in substituting
for absent teachers; and, after the arrival of the baby girl, taking
exclusive charge of the delicate little being, trying to bring it up by
hand.
During this summer, I had the pleasure of getting acquainted with Mr.
and Mrs. Leander Lippincott (_Grace Greenwood_, a sister of Mrs.
Mayo). And later I met a great many renowned ministers and lecturers
from the East who either called when passing through Cleveland or
exchanged pulpits with Mr. Mayo, being our guests in either case. All
these gentlemen were highly interesting, especially when talking on
politics, the Free Soil movement and anti-slavery. My knowledge of
American civilization was in this way greatly increased and my powers
of observation and meditation received full satisfaction.
This quiet yet useful existence was broken by a letter from my father,
bringing the news of his having sent my mother and the youngest two
sisters to New York for a visit to us, with the intention of following
them himself as soon as he could obtain a year’s furlough with full
salary. All this was meant to see for himself whether I could not be
brought back to my senses and persuaded to return to the proper sphere
of woman.
Perhaps it may be of interest here to state that my only brother had
arrived in New York just before I left for Cleveland and had found a
good position as mechanical engineer. And a half-brother of my mother,
whom my father had adopted, had arrived after my departure. My father
wanted to rescue these two from the fate of being soldiers in Germany,
so he expatriated them, sending them to America. But in their new
country, the former became a captain in the militia, while later,
during the war of the rebellion, the latter became a captain in the
regular United States Army.
Shall I attempt to describe the feeling that overpowered me on the
receipt of these tidings? If I did, you never could feel it with me,
for I could not picture in words the joy I felt at the prospect of
beholding again the mother whom I loved beyond all expression, and who
was my friend besides; for we really never thought of each other in our
relation of mother and child, but as two who were bound together as
friends in thought and in feeling.
No, I cannot give you a description of this, especially as it was
mingled with the fear that I might not have the means to go to greet
her in New York before another ten months were over. Day and night,
night and day, she was in my mind; and from the time that I had a right
to expect her arrival, I counted the hours from morning until noon, and
from noon until night, when the telegraph office would be closed.
At length, on the eighteenth of September, the despatch came--not to
me but to my friend Mr. Mayo--bearing the words,
Tell Marie that she must calmly and quietly receive the news that our
good mother sleeps at the bottom of the ocean, which serves as her
monument and her grave.
This is the most trying passage that I have to write in this sketch
of my life, and you must not think me weak that tears blot the words
as I write. My mother fell a victim to seasickness which brought on a
violent hemorrhage that exhausted the sources of life. She died three
weeks before the vessel reached the port, and my two sisters (the one
seventeen, and the other nine years of age) chose rather to have her
lowered on the Banks of Newfoundland than bring to us a corpse instead
of the living. They were right, and the great ocean seems to me her
fitting monument.
This news almost paralyzed me. It was impossible for me to remain in
Cleveland, I longed so to be with my sisters in New York. Availing
myself of the cheapness of an excursion to the eastern cities, I
hastened to them, they being nicely established all in one house headed
by my brother-in-law, Mr. A. C. ----.
After the first shock of our mother’s loss had passed, I called upon my
friend, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, who, though well established in her
newly acquired house, in East Fifteenth Street, could not speak very
encouragingly as to practice. For entirely social reasons, people were
afraid to employ a woman physician openly, although desirous and ready
to consult her privately. Yet even this unsatisfactory practice had
prevented her from continuing the little dispensary regularly and it
was still closed.
But, during my absence, she had been trying to interest some wealthy
friends in the collection of money to enable us after my return in the
spring to commence again upon a little larger scale. To effect this,
she proposed to hold a Fair during the winter after my return, and we
concluded that the first meeting for this purpose should be held during
my visit in New York. She succeeded in calling together a few friends
at her house, who determined to form a nucleus for a Fair Association
for the purpose of raising money for the New York Infirmary.
Dr. Blackwell’s experience was so contradictory to Dr. Harriot K.
Hunt’s statements of the Boston public (in which city a regularly
graduated medical woman from Cleveland, Dr. Nancy E. Clark, had also
settled) that I decided to avail myself of the fact that my excursion
ticket included Boston and to accept Dr. Hunt’s invitation for a visit
of a few days in order to learn more of the opportunities of that city.
Arriving early one morning, I was conducted through winding streets
from Exeter Place to Green Street to Dr. Hunt’s house, where I stayed,
and where Mrs. Theodore Weld and Miss Sarah Grimké were engaged in
editing Dr. Hunt’s autobiography, _Glances and Glimpses_, then in
the press.
I was shown into a room in the third story, and as I was descending
the stairway soon afterward, my foot caught in the carpet in such a
way that I fell head foremost down the stairs, striking against the
door at the foot of the flight. The noise caused by this fall brought
the inmates of the room to the door where I lay unconscious. My period
of unconsciousness was short, and on opening my eyes I saw a queerly
shaped scarlet leg on each side of my head, and above these a short
drapery of the same bright color but with large flowers printed upon
it, while from a beautiful, gentle and kind face encircled by soft
white curls, came the words, “Are you hurt, my dear?” It was Mrs.
Angelina Weld, in a bloomer dress of calico, and beside her was Miss
Sarah Grimké, in a Quakerlike costume, trying to disentangle me from
the position which I had assumed.
The picture made by the ladies was so amusing that a burst of mirthful
laughter brought me at once to my senses and to my feet, to the delight
of these two charming ladies who became from that moment dear and
intimate friends of mine.
Dr. Hunt introduced me to many fine people who consulted her
professionally, and also to Dr. Nancy Clark, then established as a
physician in Boston. I observed that prejudice against women physicians
was by no means as strong as in New York or Cleveland.
A school established in 1850, for the education and training of
“midwives,” had been supported by Boston’s liberal-minded men and
women. Some of the graduates of this school practiced very successfully
as midwives. This school developed later into a medical school for
women (New England Female Medical College), and was now giving legal
diplomas of “Doctor of Medicine.” The medical school was a small
but very respectably lodged concern, with correct and kind men for
teachers, and with substantial prospects for getting a larger building
and greater advantages for study within a year or two.
However, the greatest event of my three days’ sojourn in Boston was
my introduction (through Mr. Mayo) to Mr. Theodore Parker, on Sunday
evening, I having attended the morning’s service in Music Hall. Through
Mr. Parker, I met Mr. William Lloyd Garrison and Mr. Wendell Phillips,
as well as a number of other prominent men and women. These three men
who were pictured so often in Cleveland as three ferocious lions, I
found gentle in manners, humanitarian in thought and word and earnest
in purpose, possessors of great souls, feeling hearts and sincere
patriotism. I was cordially welcomed by them and kept up this relation
until the close of their lives, holding even a very honoring relation
as professional adviser in their families.
It was a genial circle of friends, at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Parker,
who in their easy, informal manner of enjoying each other, impressed me
as so utterly different from what I had heard of them, they having been
represented by word of mouth as well as in print as the most dangerous
and violent revolutionists.
I remember the delicate and graceful figure of Miss Matilda Goddard,
the cordial Miss Hannah Stevens, Dr. William F. Channing and Mr. W. L.
Garrison, as the center of groups in the spacious parlors, when the
talk was of religious and anti-slavery themes, with a frequent easy
and cordial laugh at the expense of nobody.
Before returning to Cleveland, I received letters from Mrs. C. Vaughan,
a member of Mr. Mayo’s congregation, who was shocked to learn of our
great bereavement in the death of our mother. She offered me a home for
the winter, with the kindest assurance that financial help might be
gained by forming German conversational classes for the evenings.
Thus, on my return, I removed from Mrs. Mayo’s home, where my
assistance had become unnecessary, owing to the death of the little
baby, to the hospitable mansion occupied by the Vaughan family and the
daughter, Mrs. G. Willey, and her husband.
A few words as to the social and educational standing of this family
will be pardonable, especially as they were of so rare an occurrence
at the time. Southerners by birth, they were yet opposed to slavery,
having set their slaves free by bringing them to Cincinnati. Highly
cultivated and talented as well as financially well-to-do, they
unconcernedly became true reformers in many ways. The daughter, Mrs.
Willey, wrote good Free Soil poetry, then needed by that movement;
other members of the family developed their special talents as writers
or musicians, while Mrs. Vaughan used her advantages for making
propaganda by encouraging Lyceum lectures, which system was then in its
infancy. And she invited nearly all prominent speakers to stay at her
house while in Cleveland.
I thus saw and heard Dr. Harriet Kezia Hunt; Mr. and Mrs. George
Hildreth; Mrs. George Bradburn; Grace Greenwood; Rev. Henry Bond; Rev.
Mr. Mumford; Rev. Mr. Chapin; Ralph Waldo Emerson; Dr. W. Elder; Bayard
Taylor; James Murdock, the actor; Frederick Douglass; Mr. John Giles,
of the Lyceum lecture system; Rev. Starr King; prominent professors of
the Western Reserve College; and a number of leading _literati_ of
those times as well as men distinguished in politics, such as Speaker
Colfax, leader of the Free Soil party, and Secretary Salmon Chase,
who were holding political meetings. All these acquaintances were of
incalculable use to me in this educational period. Although not able to
converse with them, I could observe and learn much that was of greatest
importance to my future.
Discussions pro and con on all kinds of subjects agitated the people,
and more than once did I hear the “Boston Trio”--William Lloyd
Garrison, Wendell Phillips and Theodore Parker--denounced as disturbers
of Law and Order.
To Mrs. Vaughan’s untiring patience do I owe my acquiring the English
language as well as I was then capable of doing. I had to write
two essays that winter, one being for an association formed by the
medical students, and one being my thesis. After having assisted me in
correcting the grammar, Mrs. Vaughan made me read over each one four
times, from ten to half-past eleven o’clock, for fifty evenings, until
I got a good English pronunciation of which I was very proud.
My German conservatism was not a little startled when I found that
here also the so-called Woman’s Rights movement (the political
enfranchisement of women) was heartily indorsed. Yet, in all the
families whose acquaintance I made from this social center, and who
were so different from those in the circles of Mrs. Severance and
Mr. Mayo, I soon recognized the same prejudice existing against all
women who attempted to step out of the domestic sphere. In spite of
their cultivation in literature and music and the fine arts generally,
after the completion of school life the women preferred a mere social
activity in their own surroundings and a Lady Bountiful attitude among
the poor belonging to their respective churches.
I perceived so many contradictions in meeting with these evidently
superiorly educated women. For instance, they abhorred the female
medical student and would not dare be seen with one of them in the
streets, and they considered themselves heroic for including me when
inviting any of the Vaughan family to tea or to an evening gathering;
yet, in discussing matters of politics, as Free Soilers or sympathizers
with anti-slavery, they manifested an independence of speech which
showed that they were well acquainted with the subject they discussed.
It was so, also, in spiritual and religious matters, in school affairs
and in regard to pauperism. The women, young and old, held firmly to
their intellectual convictions, and these might be for or against their
fathers, brothers or husbands.
It astonished me to see how absolutely quietly and calmly discussions
were carried on, without bitterness or excitement, between opponents,
and how respectfully men would listen to each other and to the women
in particular, even when directly contradicted in their own views of
the case.
It was a great educational opportunity for me, broadening my whole
nature which had been narrowed by the German school training of being
_a subject_, first to the Government and next to Man.
I was often taken by surprise when, on the brink of forgetting that
these manifestations of independence could exist side by side with the
most ludicrous prejudice against me and my medical companions, I would
be seriously questioned, “Do you want to turn women into men?”
And when appearing in a church or meeting, we always noticed a
significant withdrawal of all present so that we medical students could
walk or sit conspicuously by ourselves. This isolation which bordered
on ostracism when exposed to a limited multitude was very painful to
bear, especially as we were young and at the time of life when the
_amour propre_ of the individual would seek obscurity rather than
notoriety.
Elizabeth Blackwell only wished to open “legally” to women a field of
labor which was successfully cultivated by them “illegally,” because we
find that women were numerously employed to relieve pain and to combat
disease.
They appear, it is true, in the capacity of nurses only, but in this
vocation their usefulness increased to such an extent that the name
“Doctresses” was given to them, and their advice and help were sought
by the educated and the ignorant, the rich and the poor, from far and
near.
Legally, their position was not recognized. They maintained it either
through their evident integrity of purpose or through shrewdness,
making themselves as useful and as honored as the men physicians, who
in reality were often superior to them only because the position of the
men was made secure by political laws made by the men and for the men.
Thus when, in the later forties, a woman claimed the right of gaining
intellectual power, it appeared as if she stepped out of her sphere.
And this claim, so simple and natural, was perverted by a hostile
spirit into the claim that she wished “to become a man.”
Under the influence of this perverting and contaminating spirit, the
sensitive were shocked by her demands; the indolent were vexed; and the
wildest apprehensions were excited among both men and women.
I can recall by name even, persons who went to see Miss Blackwell at
the college where she studied, really expecting to behold a woman on
whom a beard had developed, but who were surprised to find a most
womanly woman, delicate in size and figure, timid and reserved in
manners, and modest in speech.
Agreeably disappointed in her, proud of her ability, and anxiously
wishing her success in all her desires and enterprises, they yet did
not dare to invite her to their houses or to request an introduction to
her, from fear that they might meet her on the streets and be forced to
recognize her in the presence of others.
To associate with or to employ a “doctress” famous merely for common
sense, was perfectly respectable and honorable, but to seek the
acquaintance of a woman who wished to enter “legally” upon the same
work which these doctresses performed was considered of very doubtful
respectability.
The consequence was that my three fellow students withdrew entirely
into their own abodes and devoted themselves to their professional
work. This I could not possibly do. I had to persevere and get
acquainted with all phases of American life in order to become what I
had always hoped to be, an assistant organizer in the development of
the medical education of women.
“The Emancipated Woman!” That was the horror of the day, in social
life as well as in the press. And woe to those women who perhaps
through lack of physical beauty, or through want of taste in dress, or
through a too profound seriousness, did not observe all social graces
in detail. They became objects of criticism in private and in public.
Exaggerated descriptions and accounts of their every word and act, as
well as impertinent and ridiculous delineations, came forth in speech
and in print for the amusement of all those who wished to stagnate
progress.
Nobody could or would believe that in so few years the admission of
the right of women, as “human beings,” to do that for which they felt
best fitted would lead to the acceptance of the presence of women in
all branches of human activity; and not only this, but that these
women would be respected and honored, and appointed to positions of
responsibility hitherto filled only by men. And, again, that the
number of positions calling for them would be greater than the number
of women available, thus proving that there is no danger that all women
will desert their natural sphere as wives and mothers.