women live in close companionship with drunken husbands. This
may be a delicate point upon which to enter and many may object
to mentioning it, but nevertheless the truth must be spoken. In
my mind no greater sin is committed than by woman consenting to
remain the wife of the drunkard, rearing children in poverty and
wretchedness and thus transmitting his sins. A pure and virtuous
woman tied to such a piece of corruption, and giving birth to
children who will grow up to be a curse to themselves and society!
The drunkard knows that the gentle being is bound close to him and
is literally his slave, and that she will remain with him be his
conduct what it may. Thus are thousands surrounded by these gentle
and loving creatures, when they are not worthy to have even a dog
for a companion. (Applause.)
“And yet public sentiment and law bid woman to submit to this
degradation and to kiss the hand that smites her to the ground.
Let things be reversed—let man be made subject to these various
insults—and how long would he suffer anger, hunger, cold and
nakedness! How many times would he allow himself to be thus
trampled upon! (Applause.) Not long—not long—I think! With his
right arm would he free himself from such degrading bondage.
(Applause.) But thanks to a few brave hearts, the idea of relief
to woman has been broached to society. She has dared to stand
forth and disown any earthly master. (Applause.) Woman must banish
the drunkard from her society. Let her utterly refuse to be the
companion of a drunkard, or the man who puts the intoxicating cup
to his lips, and we shall see a new order of society.
“Woman must declare an unceasing war to this great foe, at all
times and upon every occasion that presents itself. She must not
wait for man to help her; this is her business as much as his. Let
her show to the world that she possesses somewhat of the spirit
and the blood of the daughters of the Revolution! Such thoughts as
these may be thought unladylike; but if they are so, they are not
unwomanly. (Applause.)
“Mrs. Bloomer then made a brief argument in favor of the Maine Law,
and concluded her remarks amid long continued applause.
“It will be seen that Mrs. Bloomer’s address was almost entirely
confined to women, and marked out an entirely new field in
temperance thought; and it therefore attracted not a little
attention.”
The meeting in New York city did not end the work of the three
ladies in the Temperance cause during the winter. They made a tour
of the state, holding meetings in Brooklyn, Poughkeepsie, Sing Sing,
Hudson, Troy, Cohoes, Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, Lockport, Buffalo,
and other places along the Hudson River and the line of the Central
Railroad. They were everywhere received by great crowds of people
anxious to see the now famous speakers and listen to their words.
It was a new thing for women to speak in public; and no doubt the
fashion of the dresses worn by Mrs. Bloomer and Miss Anthony had
something to do with calling out the people to their meetings.
IN BUFFALO.
Mrs. Bloomer described the closing meeting of the series at Buffalo
as follows:
“Townsend Hall was crowded at an early hour by the curious and
interested portions of the community, who came together to see the
women who had made themselves notorious by their boldness in daring
to face a city audience, and to listen to the strange and ‘funny
things’ they might utter on the worn and rather unpopular subject
of temperance. The capacity of the hall is said to be sufficient
to seat 1,000. Every spot where a standing place could be had was
occupied, and very many went away unable to gain admittance. Steps
were immediately taken by some friends here to secure a hall for
another meeting the next evening. Townsend Hall and American Hall
were both engaged, and the Eagle-Street Theatre was secured;
and last night, for the first time in many years, I attended a
‘theatre’ not as a looker-on but as an actor in the play. I don’t
know the capacity of the theatre but it was estimated that fully
1,200 persons were present, the body of the house and lower gallery
being densely filled, while many occupied the lower gallery and the
rostrum. Seldom I think is a theatre put to better use, and pity it
is that all its performances and performers are not as truthful and
earnest in laboring for the good of humanity. The audience appeared
interested, and was for the most part quiet and attentive.
“We received calls from a large number of ladies of the city who
were interested in our movement, and we hear from all the same
expression of feeling and that is: ‘We must have the Maine law;
what can we do to obtain this law?’ I find there is a strong
woman’s-rights sentiment prevailing on the subject among those whom
I have met here. All feel that the only way in which women can do
anything effectually in this cause is through the ballot-box, and
they feel themselves fettered by being denied the right to thus
speak their sentiments in a manner that could not be misunderstood.
If voters would but all do their duty, all would be well and we
should soon have a prohibitory liquor-law; and methinks that if
voters who claim to be temperance men could hear all comments made
by women upon their actions, and see themselves in the light that
women see them, they would blush and hang their heads in shame at
their treachery and inefficiency.”
AT HOME.
On returning home from one of her tours, Mrs. Bloomer wrote as
follows:
“After an absence of two weeks, we again find ourselves in our own
loved home, where we meet with a hearty welcome. Most forcibly do
the words of the poet come before our mind as we enter our quiet
sanctum, and from the depths of our heart we endorse them: ‘Home,
sweet home! be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.’
“During the two weeks spent in jaunting through some of the cities
and villages of the beautiful Hudson, we have seen much of the
grand and beautiful in nature and made the acquaintance of some
of the choice spirits of that section of the state. It has been
a relaxation from cares we much needed, and we trust will prove
time profitably spent both to us and to those who listened to the
message we bore them.”
HATING THE MEN.
The editor of the Utica _Telegraph_ having charged Mrs. Bloomer with
“hating the men,” she replied to the insinuation as follows:
“Bless your soul, Mr. _Telegraph_! we dearly love them all—except
rumsellers and those editors who patronize and sustain them in
their ruin-and-death-dealing business. Hate the men? Why, such an
idea never entered our head and we are sure our tongue never gave
expression to such a thought! You must have had a curtain lecture
before going to the meeting that night, Mr. _Telegraph_, which
soured your feelings toward all womankind so that you saw through
green glasses and heard through a cracked ear-tube; or else you
must be a devotee to the wine cup, and are frightened lest the
women are going to adopt some measure to make it unlawful and
disreputable for you to gratify your low appetite. Oh, dear! how
people are worried about our domestic relations. How much sympathy
our ‘bigger half’ receives because of his sore domestic troubles!
Strange that the _Telegraph_ forgot to speak of our ‘five neglected
children’! They have met with great sympathy from many people, but
are entirely overlooked by this student of the ‘Natural Sciences.’
We do wish those editors who are so much interested in our domestic
affairs would appoint a committee to investigate the matter and
devise some plan of relief for our poor suffering husband and ‘five
children.’ Ha, ha! we should like to see the workings of our ‘gude
man’s’ face as they offered words of condolence and sympathy, and
hear the kind and unruffled tones in which he would thank them for
their tender solicitude and politely bid them return and bestow
equal care on their own domestic relations.”
GOOD TEMPLARS.
Up to 1852-3 women were excluded from the several temperance secret
fraternities which had come into existence, such as the “Sons of
Temperance” and similar societies. To give to women a chance to
work for the cause in the same way the order of the “Daughters of
Temperance” was organized, but Mrs. Bloomer persistently refused to
connect herself with them for the reason that she believed that
women and men should be admitted to all such societies on a footing
of perfect equality. The church opened its doors to both alike; so
she insisted the secret societies should do the same. But in the
latter part of 1852, the order of “Good Templars” was organized in
Onondaga County, and soon spread out over the adjacent counties. It
admitted women to membership and to all offices on an entire equality
with men. Mrs. Bloomer was greatly pleased with the idea, and when a
lodge of the new order was established in the village she soon became
an active member, took great interest in its work, and held various
positions in the lodge. She believed that it furnished an opening for
women’s work in the Temperance cause which should not be neglected.
In a notice of this new temperance organization, in the July number
of the _Lily_, Mrs. Bloomer says:
“Of course, to those who believe that women should not work
together with the men in the Temperance Cause this organization
presents insuperable objections. No man who is not willing to
admit woman to entire equality with himself in labors, duties,
honors and offices, who is not willing that her vote should be
deposited with his in the same ballot-box, and her voice be raised
with his on all questions relating to its affairs, need apply for
membership in this order. But the number of such men is small,
indeed, and is daily growing beautifully less. It has long been the
desire of many Sons of Temperance to admit women into their doors,
and the recent omission of the National Division of that order to
comply with that desire has sadly disappointed many of its best
members. But what the Sons of Temperance have refused to do, the
Good Templars amply provided for, and this feature we believe to be
one of its chief excellencies, and which more than any other will
commend the order to the hearty approval of the high-minded and
right-thinking portion of the temperance community.”
The first State gathering of the new order was held in Ithaca, in
June, 1853. Mrs. Bloomer was appointed a delegate to it from her
local lodge, along with her husband, and when the state grand-lodge
was organized she was admitted to that, also. A Rev. Mr. Wilson had
been engaged to deliver the address, but he failed to attend. Mrs.
Bloomer described the result as follows:
“They then selected me to take his place. On the morning of the
public demonstration, an unthought-of trouble arose. The church
which had been engaged to Mr. Bristol was now refused to a woman.
Its trustees would not open it for a woman to speak in. This caused
a great excitement among the men. They gathered in the lodge-room
to consider the situation. They were puzzled to know what to do.
They would not give up their speaker. There was talk of going
to a grove, but it was too far; talk of speaking in the street,
but there was no shade; and the lodge-room was not large enough.
Finally the Baptists came to their relief and offered their church,
and I did the talking to the immense throng who gathered there.”
IN THE PULPIT.
At the time of the above occurrence it was a new thing indeed for
women to appear in public, and especially to stand in the pulpit to
deliver their thoughts. All this is now greatly changed. Mrs. Bloomer
in writing on this subject in subsequent years says:
“The pulpit was sacred ground, that no woman’s foot must profane.
One minister in Syracuse preached a sermon against us and had
it printed in pamphlet form. These he sent out by hundreds to
ministers of his church throughout the state for them to scatter
among the women of their congregations, hoping to head off this
new movement of women. Whether these determined opponents of other
days who meant to crush the women’s movement in the bud ever became
reconciled to the part she has since played in the world’s doings,
I don’t know. Some of them, and probably all, have passed to their
account where they have learned that God’s ways are not man’s ways.
I suppose that we cannot greatly blame them when we remember that,
up to that time, the world had been educated to believe woman an
inferior creation; that she had been placed by her Creator in an
inferior and subordinate position; and that St. Paul’s injunction
to the uneducated women of his day to keep silence in the churches
was intended for the women of all time, included public halls as
well as churches, and political, social, temperance and all other
subjects as well as the gospel of Christ, of which women were to
know nothing except what they learned from their husbands at home.
We find a very different state of things in these days, when the
clergy everywhere are ready to listen to women—nay, to welcome and
invite them to their desks; and even dismiss their own services
that the women may be heard. They must have learned a new gospel,
or a new interpretation of the old one. In those early days,
ministers before hearing us would refuse to open our meetings with
prayer—feeling, I suppose, that we had gotten too far out of our
sphere to be benefited by their prayers. Now, they hesitate not to
lend us all the aid in their power. There may be here and there one
who turns the cold shoulder, but the cause is too far advanced to
be affected by anything such can bring against it.”
IN ROCHESTER AGAIN—A CHANGE.
In May, 1853, the annual meeting of the Woman’s State-Temperance
Society convened in the city of Rochester. It was very largely
attended by many of the prominent Temperance workers in the state.
Mrs. Bloomer was present and took an active part in the proceedings.
At the convention, the question of admitting men as members came up
and excited a great deal of interest. It was agreed that, as both
sexes were equally interested in the work, they should all bear an
equal responsibility in guiding the doings and sharing in the labor
of the society. Those who took this view insisted that it should be
placed on the broad grounds of equal rights and equal duties for all.
Others thought the time had not yet come for so radical a change in
the constitution, but preferred that it should continue to be an
exclusively feminine organization. Mrs. Bloomer took this view and so
the majority decided, with the result that Mrs. Stanton declined a
reëlection as president and Miss Anthony also declined a reëlection
as secretary.
In their places, Mrs. Mary C. Vaughan was elected president; Mrs.
Angelina Fish, secretary; Mrs. Albro, chairman of the executive
committee, and Mrs. Bloomer corresponding secretary. These ladies
continued the work of the society with great zeal and fidelity. It
kept its lecturers in the field and continued to labor earnestly in
promoting its temperance work. Mrs. Bloomer’s connection with it
ended with her removal from the state at the end of the year. She
always exceedingly regretted that this divergence of views occurred
between her and Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony, but their old-time
friendship continued on as of old and Mrs. Stanton continued her
interesting contributions to the columns of the _Lily_.
The proceedings of this convention, as also of the Good-Templars
meeting at Ithaca, were printed as a double number of the _Lily_
soon after the adjournment of these bodies. Many extra copies were
also printed, for which there was a very active demand. Mrs. Bloomer
insisted that the work of the Woman’s Temperance Society should go
on vigorously, as in the preceding years, and she exerted all her
influence to that end as one of its officers. She however did not
long remain a resident of New York, and after leaving the state she
was no longer responsible for the work. The zeal of some of the
workers may have become cold, or rather (which seems to have been
the fact) was turned into other channels. Mrs. Bloomer always looked
upon her connection with the society as one of the most useful and
interesting events of her life.
After the close of the convention Mrs. Bloomer visited Niagara Falls
for the first time, accompanied by her husband, spending a couple of
days of much needed rest and recreation. While there they looked over
nearly all the most noted points, including a visit to Termination
Rock under the mighty cataract itself, passing on their way under
Table Rock, which has since disappeared.
A LECTURE TOUR—FOURTH OF JULY.
Of one of her lecturing tours, Mrs. Bloomer gives the following
report:
“We left home on Saturday the second instant for Harford, where
we were engaged as orator for the celebration on the Fourth. The
weather was fine and the trip up the lake a delightful one, made
doubly so by meeting some old acquaintances and the forming of some
new ones on the boat. Arrived at Ithaca we found friends awaiting
from Harford, and were soon on our way to that place, where we
arrived after a pleasant carriage ride of sixteen miles at about
ten o’clock in the evening. The glorious Fourth was ushered in
by a salute at daybreak and another at sunrise. At an early hour
people began to arrive from the country, and the streets soon
presented a lively appearance. At ten o’clock the procession was
formed in front of the Union Church and, the Good Templars and Sons
of Temperance in the regalia of their orders first, led by a band
of music and followed by the people, proceeded to a grove where
seats and a stand handsomely decorated had been prepared for the
occasion. We were escorted by a committee of ladies all in short
dresses to the stand, where after the usual exercises came the
address; but of the merits of this it becometh us not to speak.
Suffice it to say that the large audience of fifteen hundred or two
thousand persons listened to us throughout with the most earnest
attention, and judging from their countenances the novelty of
hearing a woman was lost in the interest excited by the subject.”
Mrs. Bloomer’s toast at the dinner was as follows:
“By Mrs. Bloomer: ‘_The Women of the Revolution_. Although they
toiled along with the men of the Revolution for independence and
freedom yet they failed, when the struggle was over, to secure an
equality in those rights and duties which are the common birthright
of all. May their daughters of the present generation be more
fortunate in their struggle for rights so long withheld!’”
After several sentences laudatory of her hosts, Mrs. Bloomer
continues:
“On our return home we were escorted as far as Homer by our friends
from Harford. Homer is our native village, and as we had not been
there since the days of our childhood we took advantage of our stay
to stroll through the place in quest of our old home around which
clustered many fond recollections. We had no one to guide us in
the search, but the impressions left on our mind at six years of
age were so strong that we could not be mistaken. The place was
soon found and, though much altered, it still retained enough of
its former likeness to enable us to identify it after an absence
of twenty-nine years. Emotions both pleasurable and painful were
awakened as we gazed upon the spot where we first drew breath and
where we spent the early years of our life. Scenes long since
forgotten arose in memory as clearly as though but yesterday
enacted. Not to the old home only has change come, to us and ours
Time has brought much of change and somewhat of sorrow; yet upon
us personally has his hand rested lightly, to us he has imparted
kindness and blessing far more liberally than sorrow. With saddened
feelings we returned to the hotel where we left our friends. Here
we were soon surrounded by those who had known us in childhood and
were intimate friends of our parents. Somehow, they had gotten
notice of our being there and came forward to offer congratulations
and welcome us back to our early home. Intercessions were made for
us to remain with them for the night and give them a lecture, which
we decided to do. After bidding adieu to our kind friends from
Harford, who now turned their steps homeward, we were escorted to
the mansion of William Sherman who with his estimable wife and
family contributed largely to the pleasures of our visit to Homer.
“The Presbyterian church was at once opened to us, and notice of
the meeting circulated as fully as possible in the brief time that
remained before the evening. The house though large was densely
filled with an attentive and intelligent audience. On the earnest
invitation of a committee of gentlemen we remained over another day
and spoke in the same church on the following evening, when the
body of the house and the large gallery were again as full as could
be comfortably seated. Though we interspersed our lecture pretty
freely with woman’s rights, or rather we might say with woman’s
wrongs, no one seemed at all alarmed; but, if we may believe the
assertions of the people, new trains of thought were awakened and a
most favorable impression made on the minds of the community.”
Mrs. Bloomer then proceeded by stage to Glen Haven where she received
a most cordial welcome from Dr. Jackson, and at his request:
“We addressed the patients and other inmates of the house in a
large sitting room on Thursday evening, and at his solicitation
concluded to accept the invitation of Judge Osborn, of Scott,
to return to that place and speak on Friday evening, instead of
returning home as we had intended to do. Accordingly on Friday
evening we rode over to Scott, a distance of three or four miles.
The church in which the meeting was held was densely filled, and
we could but wonder where all the people came from in so small a
place. Many warm though strange friends gathered around us here,
and bade us a hearty God-speed in our mission. They would have kept
us for another night, but home after a week’s absence was doubly
endeared to us and we could be detained no longer; so we again took
the stage for the Glen on Saturday morning, and from thence on
steamboat and cars returned home on Saturday evening. Altogether
the excursion was a delightful one and we have no cause to regret
that we were induced to accept the invitation of our Harford
friends to join with them in celebrating the 77th anniversary of
the birthday of our National Independence.”
RESTING.
Mrs. Bloomer’s activities during the year had been so unremitting
that she now needed rest. Small in person and fragile in health, she
had been enabled to endure so much only by her indomitable courage
and the spirit of perseverance which ever controlled all her actions.
This needed rest she therefore sought at Dr. Jackson’s water cure, on
the beautiful shores of Skaneateles Lake. Here secluded from public
gaze she spent some weeks in retirement; and yet not entirely so, for
she was there invited and consented to deliver her lecture on Woman’s
Enfranchisement to the inmates of the cure.
NEW LECTURES.
This lecture had been prepared during the early months of the year
and the closing months of 1852. She delivered it on many occasions
in subsequent years in various parts of the country, rewriting it
several times in whole or in part for that purpose. Towards the
closing years of her life she revised it once more, fully setting
forth her ideas and convictions on the subject of woman suffrage;
and in this completed form it is printed in full in the Appendix of
this work. It is believed to be one of the strongest arguments that
has ever been written in favor of woman’s right to the ballot. Mrs.
Bloomer also prepared lectures on woman’s right to employment and
education as fully in all respects as that enjoyed by the other sex.
These lectures, she delivered to audiences in different parts of the
country as occasion offered. They were radical in their claims for
equality for woman in all the employments and acquirements of life
with man, for at that time this claim was only just beginning to
be discussed. No colleges were then open to women. No universities
offered her the literary advantages of their halls and lecture rooms,
and the general opinion was entertained among the mass of the people
that the three studies of reading, writing and arithmetic were enough
for her. So also there was little for women to do but to sew and
stitch, and occasionally teach school for wages far below those paid
to men. There were no women lawyers, no women preachers, except among
the Quakers, no typewriters, no clerks in the stores, no public
offices filled by women. Mrs. Bloomer in her lectures insisted that
all this was wrong. She argued that the schoolroom, the workshop,
the public office, the lawyer’s forum and the sacred desk should
be opened to her sex on entire equality with man. These were then
unpopular doctrines to promulgate either in the public press or on
the lecturer’s platform; but Mrs. Bloomer was spared long enough to
see her rather radical ideas on this subject brought into practical
application, for at the end of 1894 woman’s right to both education
and employment on an equality with man had come to be almost
universally recognized.
A CLUB OF TALKERS.
Mrs. Bloomer derived much mental culture from attending the
conversation-club which had been organized through Mrs. Stanton’s
exertions and was led by her. It followed largely the line of thought
and action set forth in the Life of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, published
about that time, who had conducted clubs of like character some
years before in Boston. It met from time to time in the parlors
of prominent residents of the village and many questions social,
literary and even political were freely discussed at its meetings,
each member being required to take some part in the conversation. It
was not exactly a ladies’ club, for gentlemen also were invited to
attend and did so to some extent; but the attendance and discussions
were mainly confined to the other sex. Mrs. Stanton was eminently
qualified to lead the club as she was and is a woman of great
general information, of large culture and literary attainments, and
an excellent talker. Occasionally an essay was read by some member
previously appointed, and on the whole the club added greatly to the
mental attainments of its members. Seneca Falls as a village was
noted at that time for its liberality in all reformatory movements.
It was the residence of Mrs. Stanton, of Bascom, of Tellman, and
other leaders in liberal thought, to say nothing of the Bloomers.
CHAPTER SIXTH.
AT THE WORLD’S CONVENTION.
In September, Mrs. Bloomer attended the two great temperance
conventions held in that month in the city of New York. During her
stay of ten days she was the guest of Mrs. L. N. Fowler, where for
the first time she met her old correspondent, Mrs. Frances D. Gage,
between whom and Mrs. Bloomer there existed for many years and until
Mrs. Gage’s decease the warmest friendship. She also here again met
her old co-laborers in temperance and other reform work, Miss Lucy
Stone and Miss Antoinette L. Brown. When the World’s Temperance
Convention met in Metropolitan Hall a most bitter wrangle at once
commenced over the question of admitting women to seats in the
convention, and after one or two days spent in its discussion it
was decided in the negative. The Whole World’s Temperance Convention
then followed, over which Rev. T. W. Higginson presided. To this
convention both men and women were admitted as delegates, and the
proceedings throughout were intensely interesting. A public meeting
held in the Tabernacle was interrupted to some extent by a noisy
demonstration whenever a man attempted to speak, but the women were
listened to without interruption. Among the speakers were Miss
Stone, Miss Brown, Mrs. Gage, and Wendell Phillips. Mrs. Bloomer was
an intensely interested participant in all these meetings, and in
a quiet way took part in them, speaking briefly from the platform
in Metropolitan Hall. She also delivered a temperance address in
Broadway Tabernacle to a very large audience, Miss Emily Clark and
Mrs. Mary C. Vaughan being the other speakers. While in the city Mrs.
Bloomer also attended the Crystal Palace exhibition then open to
the public. It was a very interesting presentation of the progress
of the world up to that time in the several departments of human
skill, industry and the fine arts, but has been far exceeded in
extent and variety in subsequent years. One of the curious things
occurring at these gatherings was a vegetarian banquet held in the
Metropolitan Hall in which, it was said by the newspapers of the day,
were gathered all the reformers of every description then in the
city. The table was abundantly supplied with all kinds of fruit and
vegetable productions, but every form of animal food was strictly
excluded. Some speeches were made; but, on the whole, the affair was
not esteemed a very great success. On the following day Rev. Miss
Brown delivered a sermon from the platform in the same hall to a fair
congregation on that old subject, “The exceeding sinfulness of sin.”
Of the Whole World’s Temperance Convention Mrs. Bloomer wrote as
follows:
“It was largely attended, and passed off most happily. There were
no old fogies present to raise a disturbance and guy the speakers;
no questioning the right of each individual, whether man or woman,
to utter his thoughts on the great subject which they had met to
consider. All was peace and harmony and it did the heart good to be
there.
“There were delegates present from some twenty states and Canada
and Europe, and a more earnest and intelligent set of men and women
were never met together. We had the pleasure of meeting and taking
by the hand many of our friends and co-workers to whom though
personally unknown we had long been attached.
“The time allotted to the convention was too short to allow so
full and free an interchange of sentiment as was desirable. Many
who had come up hither with hearts burning with zeal for the good
cause, many from whom it would have been pleasant and profitable to
hear, were obliged to forego the privilege of speaking on account
of the limited time which had been fixed upon for the convention.
The ‘whole world’ could not possibly be heard in two days, yet all
appeared satisfied with the rich feast that had been furnished
them; and we trust that those who were not heard in New York have
gone home strengthened and better prepared to make themselves heard
and their influence felt in the coming contest.”
Returning home Mrs. Bloomer issued another number of her paper, and
then with her husband started on a Western trip. Of the first part of
this tour, Mrs. Bloomer herself gave the following report:
A WESTERN TRIP.
“Columbus, Oct. 10, 1853. We reached Cleveland about six o’clock
on Sunday morning, when we soon found our old friend C. E. Wheeler
and wife where we spent the few days of our stay very pleasantly.
We had heard much of the beauty of Cleveland, but in this respect I
think it has not been overrated. It is indeed a fine city full of
life and enterprise. The broad streets so nicely shaded give it an
appearance of health and comfort unlike that of any other city I
have ever visited. It is rapidly growing in population and wealth,
and great numbers of fine buildings are now in process of erection.
It is destined ere long to take rank in importance with any city in
the West.
“On Monday evening, I addressed a large and attentive audience
at the Athenæum on the subject of temperance and the Maine law.
The subject is attracting great attention in this state this
fall, and great efforts are being made to secure the passage of a
prohibitory law at the next session of the legislature. Party lines
are set aside and the frowns and threats of party leaders entirely
disregarded in many sections. This is the only true course to be
pursued, and I rejoice to see the men thus breaking away from party
shackles and earnestly contending for the right.
“Yesterday, the National Woman’s-Rights Convention commenced its
session. The attendance, though respectable, was not large. There
are many here from abroad, and I should judge the Northern states
were well represented. Mrs. F. D. Gage, our dear Aunt Fanny, is
president. I was prevented from attending the afternoon session
on account of having accepted an invitation extended to me by
the Temperance Convention to repeat before that body the address
delivered on Monday evening at the Athenæum. Gen. Gary, Dr. Jewitt,
and others of the great men were present. I was rather disappointed
in Dr. Jewitt; but I was under the necessity of leaving before he
finished his speech, to meet another engagement.
“The attendance at the Woman’s-Rights Convention at the Melodeon,
in the evening, was very large. Mrs. Garrison read several
resolutions submitted by the business committee. I followed with
an address of about three-quarters of an hour on woman’s right of
franchise, after which Lucretia Mott occupied a half-hour or more
in her usual happy and interesting style of speech.
“We next visited Mount Vernon, which is a pleasant village of
about 6,000 inhabitants, and where I addressed the people on the
Maine law. There are four papers published here; among them is
the _Western Home Visitor_, which is a reformatory paper of high
character and has a circulation of about four thousand copies.
Newart was our next stopping place. It has a rather bad reputation
for hard drinking, but it has a division of the Sons of Temperance
which is doing good work. I judge there is a considerable reform
spirit here, also, from the fact that the First Presbyterian church
was opened to me by the unanimous consent of the trustees, that I
might be heard on the Maine law.
“We arrived in this city on Saturday, and stopped at the Niel
House where the attendance is excellent. Just opposite is the
magnificent state house in process of erection, which when
completed will be second in size and grandeur only to the National
Capitol at Washington. I addressed a large audience on Saturday
evening on the Maine law, and this evening I propose speaking again
on intemperance and the wrongs of woman. I had the pleasure of a
call from Mrs. Janney, secretary of the Woman’s State-Temperance
Society of this state, from whom I learned that the society is far
less efficient than ours though it is slowly gaining ground. The
reason for this inefficiency is doubtless the fact that its leaders
are unwilling to send out agents of their own sex to lecture and
gather funds to promote the cause. To-morrow we leave here and
travel westward.”
CONTINUES HER JOURNEY.
Mrs. Bloomer then passed on to Richmond, Indianapolis, Detroit,
Chicago, and Milwaukee. Unfortunately, her own report of her visits
to these cities is lost and cannot be reproduced. She remained
one or two days in each of them, and in each delivered one or two
addresses,—certainly two in Detroit, Chicago, and Milwaukee, one on
temperance and one on woman’s enfranchisement in each city. In all
she was favored with large audiences and listened to with the closest
attention, and highly favorable notices of her lectures appeared in
the newspapers of all the cities visited. With the exception of Lucy
Stone, who had previously spoken in some of them, she was up to that
time the first woman who had been heard on the platform in the large
towns of the great West.
But the journey, with all she did during its continuance, was really
beyond her strength and she was very glad to return home the latter
part of the month and secure the rest she so greatly needed. But she
could not keep quiet, and her pluck and perseverance enabled her to
go on with her work. The issues of the _Lily_ were resumed, and she
was soon again in the lecture field in reply to pressing invitations
from surrounding towns. Her last lecture, at this time, in New York
was delivered at the courthouse in Ovid, in which beautiful town some
of the earlier years of her life had been spent.
AN ANNOUNCEMENT—A REMOVAL.
The December number of the _Lily_ contained the following
announcement:
“Our husband having purchased an interest in the _Western Home
Visitor_ published at Mount Vernon, Ohio, and determined upon
moving to that place forthwith we, as a true and faithful wife,
are bound to say in the language of Ruth ‘where thou goest, I
will go’; and so, before another number of the _Lily_ reaches its
subscribers, we shall if all is well be settled in our Western home.
“This announcement, we are well aware, will be an unpleasant
surprise to many of our readers and friends in this state; yet
we trust that our change of location will not be deemed by them
sufficient cause for deserting us. We go but a short distance
to the west. The _Lily_ will continue to be published and its
character will be in no wise changed. ‘Uncle Sam’ will carry it as
safely and regularly to the homes of our friends as he has done
heretofore, and also convey all letters and remittances to us as
safely and securely in Ohio as in New York. Then, friends, we pray
you let not our change of location affect our intercourse with each
other; but remember that, there as well as here, we shall labor
for the promotion of the great and good cause to which we have
devoted so many years of our life. We look confidently to you for
that support and encouragement which you have bestowed so liberally
heretofore, and we trust that your efforts in behalf of the _Lily_
will be increased rather than diminished.
“We feel that it matters little in what part of the vineyard we
are placed, so we but improve and cultivate to the best of our
ability the part assigned us. And this feeling bears us up under
the heart-sorrow occasioned by the sundering of the many ties that
bind us to home and friends in our native state. We bid farewell to
all with an aching heart.
“Yet our grief in parting with associations so dear, is mingled
with hope for the future. We prefer to look on the bright side
of every picture, and to do what we can to render life’s journey
pleasant and happy rather than darken and embitter it by mournings
and grief. So we will dash aside the tears, and school our heart
to bear with fortitude this the greatest sorrow ever laid upon us;
believing that it is for our interest to take this step, though it
be so agonizing to part with those we love.
“We go to seek a home among strangers, not knowing what will be
our reception, or whether kindred spirits are there to gather
around and cheer our loneliness; but in this, too, we have hope
that we shall be met in the same spirit of kindness which we bear
with us.
“We have never been pleased with the appearance of our paper in
folio form, and so have determined to change it back to a quarto;
and we shall hope, with the increased facilities which we shall
have for printing it at Mount Vernon, that _The Lily_ will present
a more respectable appearance than it has done the past year.”
The removal of Mr. and Mrs. Bloomer from Seneca Falls excited a good
deal of interest, as they had been many years residents of that
place and had taken an active part in the events of village life. A
public meeting was called and largely attended by their friends and
admirers, at which speeches were made and a fine supper served. A
report of this gathering will be given in full. The editor of the
_Courier_, Mr. Isaac Fuller, who had been intimately acquainted with
Mr. and Mrs. Bloomer for many years, published the following article
in his paper:
A TESTIMONIAL.
“_The Lily._ This paper will hereafter be published at Mount
Vernon, Ohio, its editor and proprietor having moved with her
husband to that place. Although we disapprove of some of the
measures advocated in the _Lily_, we part with it and its
worthy editor with sincere regret. It is now five years since
its publication was commenced, and during the whole time Mrs.
Bloomer has had the entire direction of it, both editorially
and financially, displaying talents and business qualifications
possessed by few of the gentler sex and which but few of her
friends were prepared to see her exhibit. The ability and energy
with which the _Lily_ has been conducted have attained for it a
circulation of over four thousand copies in different parts of the
Union, thus giving to our enterprising village notoriety which it
would not have otherwise obtained. Our business engagements with
Mrs. Bloomer have been such as to give us a knowledge of the facts
above mentioned, to which we add that she possesses in an eminent
degree, those social virtues which everywhere command respect and
which give value to character in every position occupied by members
of refined society. We say this because we know that strangers
are wont to consider the editor of the _Lily_ a coarse, unrefined
woman possessing few or none of the traits which adorn the female
character, and as cherishing a disregard of the duties devolving
upon woman in the domestic relations of society; whereas just the
reverse is the fact. We hope the _Lily_ will lose none of its
vitality from being transplanted, and may its amiable editor enjoy
a long and happy life!”[1]
DEMONSTRATION OF RESPECT TO MR. AND MRS. BLOOMER.
“D. C. Bloomer, Esq., having made known his intention to remove
from the village where he has resided for sixteen years past, the
numerous friends of himself and wife assembled by appointment at
Union Hall, on Tuesday evening last, for the purpose of publicly
testifying their respect for them. The proceeding originated with
the Good Templars, a temperance order to which Mr. and Mrs. Bloomer
belong, but was participated in by citizens of all classes. The
assemblage composed about equally of both sexes was very large,
numbering we should judge from 400 to 500 persons. Five tables
most bountifully spread and extending the whole length of the hall
were twice filled. After the refreshments were disposed of C.
Salisbury, Esq., was called to the chair, and speeches and toasts
followed. Appropriate and extended remarks were made by Gilbert
Wilcoxen, Esq., C. H. Reed, Esq., S. D. Tillman, Esq., Rev. Mr.
Fraly, and others. We are not able to report what was said, but
the sentiments offered were highly complimentary to Mr. and Mrs.
Bloomer, both of whom responded in a very handsome manner. The
following resolutions were presented and passed by a hearty and
unanimous ‘aye’:
“_Whereas_ we have learned that our respected friend and
fellow-citizen, Dexter C. Bloomer, and his wife, Mrs. Amelia
Bloomer, are about to remove from this village;
“And _whereas_ they have, during the long period they have resided
among us not only sustained the character of good citizens, but
have been known as efficient and active workers in the cause of
temperance; therefore,
“_Resolved_ that we, the temperance men and women of Seneca Falls
here assembled on this occasion, do tender to Mr. and Mrs. Bloomer
our warmest and most sincere acknowledgments for their faithful and
devoted service in promoting the noble work of redeeming the world
from the evils of intemperance.
“_Resolved_ that, as citizens of the village, we also desire to
tender to Mr. and Mrs. Bloomer an expression of the high regard
we entertain for them, and to bear our willing testimony to
the general esteem and respect in which they are held by their
neighbors and associates among whom they have so long resided.
“_Resolved_ that, while we part with our friends with sincere
regret, our warmest wishes for their future welfare will go
with them to their new home, and we shall always hear of their
prosperity with the greatest satisfaction.
“The serious part of the proceedings having been gotten along
with, music and dancing were introduced and the festivities were
prolonged to a late hour, when the assembly dispersed and all
retired to their homes with a consciousness of having discharged
their duty to valued friends who were about removing from their
midst.
“The whole of the proceedings passed off most agreeably and
pleasantly, and we regard the affair as the very highest compliment
that could have been paid to those in whose honor it was gotten up.”
FOOTNOTES:
[1] From _Seneca County Courier_, Dec. 1853.
CHAPTER SEVENTH.
AN ASSISTANT EDITOR.
On taking up her residence in Mount Vernon, Mrs. Bloomer became
assistant editor of the _Western Home Visitor_, of which her
husband was editor and one of the proprietors. This was a weekly
family paper, having a large circulation and printed in folio
form on a large sheet. It was devoted to educational progress and
all reformatory questions designed to advance the interests of
the community in which it circulated. It advocated temperance and
sound morality, and its columns were filled weekly with matter
appropriate to be read in the family circle. Its columns contained
no advertisements, and it depended for its support solely on
its patrons’ yearly subscriptions. We give below Mrs. Bloomer’s
salutatory, and also her first additional article on assuming her
position as assistant editor:
“_Salutatory._ Following the custom set to me by my husband, I make
my editorial bow to the readers of the _Visitor_. I suppose it is
not necessary for me to enter into any detailed account of myself,
as the papers have already done that for me. Neither do I suppose
it necessary to make any statements in regard to my sentiments and
principles, as they are already generally well known to the public.
What I have been in the past, I expect to be in the future,—an
uncompromising opponent of wrong and oppression in every form, and
a sustainer of the right and the true, with whatever subject it
may be connected. I have no promises to make, preferring to stand
uncommitted and at liberty to write as the spirit moves me, or as
the circumstances of the case may require. Having a separate organ
of my own independent of any other paper or person through which
I can speak forth my sentiments on the great reform questions of
the day, freely and independently, I probably shall not introduce
into the columns of the _Visitor_ anything particularly obnoxious
on those subjects; yet I may frequently come in contact with old
prejudices and bigoted notions, for it is impossible for the free
progressive spirit of the present day to be bound by the opinion
and prejudices of a former age. I trust, however, that my readers
will bear with me and listen to me even though they do not approve,
and if I say anything very bad, attribute it to my womanly folly
or ignorance. And, as it is but right that I should bear whatever
censure my doings may deserve, I shall write over my own initials
in all matters of any moment. With this much for an introduction
I extend to you, readers of the _Visitor_ one and all, a cordial
greeting, and wish you not only a ‘Happy New-Year’ but that it may
prove happy and prosperous to you to its close.”
“_Woman’s Right to Employment._ To woman equally with man has
been given the right to labor, the right to employment for both
mind and body; and such employment is as necessary to her health
and happiness, to her mental and physical development, as to his.
All women need employment, active, useful employment; and if they
do not have it, they sink down into a state of listlessness and
insipidity and become enfeebled in health and prematurely old
simply because denied this great want of their nature. Nothing has
tended more to the physical and moral degradation of the race than
the erroneous and silly idea that woman is too weak, too delicate
a creature to have imposed upon her the more active duties of
life,—that it is not respectable or praiseworthy for her to earn a
support or competence for herself.
“We see no reason why it should be considered disreputable for a
woman to be usefully employed, while it is so highly respectable
for her brother; why it is so much more commendable for her to be
a drone, dependent on the labors of others, than for her to make
for herself a name and fortune by her own energy and enterprise. A
great wrong is committed by parents toward their daughters in this
respect. While their sons as they come to manhood are given some
kind of occupation that will afford not only healthy exercise of
the body and mind but also the means of an honorable independence,
the daughters are kept at home in inactivity and indolence, with no
higher object in life than to dress, dance, read novels, gossip,
flirt and ‘set their caps’ for husbands. How well the majority of
them are fitted to be the companions and mothers of men, every
day’s history will tell.
“Certainly, our girls would be far better and happier than now
if they were educated and encouraged to occupy their hands and
minds in some useful business occupation; and parents do a great
injustice to their daughters when they doom them to a life of
idleness or, what is worse, to a life of frivolity and fashionable
dissipation.
“It was said by a distinguished clergyman of one who had passed
away from earth, ‘She ate, she drank, she slept, she dressed, she
danced and she died.’ Such may be truly said to be the history of
many women of the present day. They eat, they drink, they sleep,
they dress, they dance and at last die, without having accomplished
the great purposes of their creation. Can woman be content with
this aimless, frivolous life? Is she satisfied to lead a mere
butterfly existence, to stifle and crush all aspirations for a
nobler destiny, to dwarf the intellect, deform the body, sacrifice
the health and desecrate all the faculties which the Almighty
Father has given her and which He requires her to put to good
use and give an account thereof to Him? While all other created
things both animal and vegetable perform their allotted parts in
the universe of being, shall woman, a being created in God’s own
image, endowed with reason and intellect, capable of the highest
attainments and destined to an immortal existence, alone be an
idler, a drone, and pervert the noble faculties of her being from
the great purposes for which they were given?
“It will not always be thus; the public mind is undergoing a rapid
change in its opinion of woman and is beginning to regard her
sphere, rights and duties in altogether a different light from
that in which she has been viewed in past ages. Woman herself is
doing much to rend asunder the dark veil of error and prejudice
which has so long blinded the world in regard to her true position;
and we feel assured that, when a more thorough education is given
to her and she is recognized as an intelligent being capable of
self-government, and in all rights, responsibilities and duties
man’s equal, we shall have a generation of women who will blush
over the ignorance and folly of the present day.
“A. B.”
And for six months thereafter, the _Visitor_ contained nearly every
week one or more articles from her pen. Some were on temperance, some
on woman’s “fads” and foibles of that day. She aimed to sustain every
good word and deed and to rebuke vice in all its forms.
Of course she did not escape criticism in prosecuting her work.
Especially, people at that early day would not listen quietly to her
severe analysis of the laws bearing upon the legal rights of women.
They sometimes denied her positions, and at other times doubted the
wisdom of the changes which she advocated. Between her and the editor
of another paper published in the city, quite an extended controversy
arose which ran through several numbers of their respective papers,
Mrs. Bloomer sustained her side of the debate with numerous
quotations from legal writers, and she had the satisfaction of seeing
her position substantially admitted by her opponents.
PROSPERITY OF THE _LILY_.
But Mrs. Bloomer’s attention and time were given chiefly to the
_Lily_, the publication of which in her new home was commenced on
the first of January. Printed in new type on a steam press, it
presented a very neat and handsome appearance. The people of the
state were greatly pleased with its removal to their limits and new
subscriptions came in with surprising rapidity; its semi-monthly
issue soon reached over six thousand copies. Mrs. Bloomer was greatly
encouraged by these signs of approval and renewed her exertions and
labors to make the _Lily_ in all respects acceptable to its many
friends. She wrote from one to three pages each week of original
matter for its pages, and was aided at the same time by numerous
correspondents. She continued to write continuously in advocacy of
temperance, making that the leading object of her work, but she also
wrote for woman’s advancement in all the fields of honest endeavor.
She asked for her plenty of work and good pay; she insisted that to
her should be opened every educational institution; and she demanded
for her also the right of suffrage as her inalienable right. Some
extracts from her editorials will follow.
ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMAN.
Replying to and commenting upon an article on an alleged corruption
in the state legislature, Mrs. Bloomer wrote as follows:
“Where then shall the remedy for purifying and healing the nation
be found? We answer, in the education and enfranchisement of woman!
Loose the chains that bind her to the condition of a dependent, a
slave to passion and the caprices of men. Open for her the doors
of our colleges and universities and bid her enter. Hold up before
her a pattern for womanly greatness and excellence, and bid her
to occupy the same high positions held by her brothers. Teach her
to aspire to that true knowledge that should fit her to become
the future mother and teacher of statesmen and rulers. Resign to
her control the children committed to her care, and bid her guard
them from all temptation and danger that threaten to assail them
both at home and abroad. Restore to her her heaven-born right of
self-government, and give her a voice in making the laws which are
to govern for good or evil the actions and sentiments of society
at large. Let _her_ say whether the grogshop, the gaming house
and the brothel shall be suffered to open wide their doors to
entice her sons to ruin. Let her say whether man shall have power
to override virtue and sobriety and send the minions of evil into
our halls of legislation to make laws for the people. Let her say
whether we shall have a Maine Law, and whether such a law shall
be observed and enforced——Do this, and we shall soon see a great
change wrought in society and in the character of our rulers! Our
only hope for the future of our country lies in the elevation
of woman physically, mentally, socially and politically, and in
the triumph of the principles which lie at the foundation of the
so-called ‘Woman’s Rights’ reform.”
WOMAN’S RIGHT.
“Woman _has_ a right to vote for civil officers, to hold offices,
and so rule over men. If any law against it exists in the Bible, it
has been overruled by divine sanction. Deborah ruled Israel forty
years and, instead of being told she was out of her sphere, that
she had usurped authority over men, we are assured that she was
highly approved and that she ruled wisely and well. No one calls
in question the right of Queen Victoria to rule over her kingdom
notwithstanding there are some men in it; nor do we believe, if
she is a wise and faithful sovereign, that she will be condemned
at the last great day for thus ruling over men. What was right for
Deborah was right for Queen Victoria. If it is right for Victoria
to sit on the throne of England it is right for any American Woman
to occupy the Presidential Chair at Washington. All that is needed
is votes enough to elevate her to that post of honor and of trust
and sufficient ability to discharge its duties. Of the latter
requisite, judging from some of those who have already occupied
that seat, no great amount is demanded.”
WOMAN’S CLAIM.
“A correspondent asks what it is that we and other advocates of
woman’s rights want?
“We answer, we claim all the rights guaranteed by the Constitution
of the United States to the citizens of the republic. We claim to
be one-half of the people of the United States, and we deny the
right of the other half to disfranchise us.”
DESTROYING LIQUOR.
“We hold in all honor the names of those noble women of Mount
Vernon who, a few years ago, boldly entered the rumshop and
gambling house and poured out the liquors and destroyed the
implements wherewith their husbands and brothers had been at
once robbed of their reason and their money, and converted into
dupes and madmen. And we believe, if the same spirit now dwelt in
the hearts of all the women of this beautiful city, that every
rumshop would soon be closed, no matter whether legislators or
councilmen passed ordinances or not. Woman has neither made nor
consented to laws which leave her, and her children, at the mercy
of heartless rumsellers and she should never submit to them. She
has a right—nay, it is her duty—to arise in her own defense and
in the defense of the souls entrusted to her keeping and insist
that, either with or without law, the destroyer shall be driven
from the land. And if men have not the courage to boldly attack
the foe, then let woman meet him face to face and never retire
from the contest till she can do so as a victor. Horace Mann tells
that woman may with propriety go into the dark lanes and alleys of
our great cities and endeavor to conquer men to virtue. If it be
proper for her to visit such haunts of iniquity on such an errand,
it would be far more praiseworthy for her to apply her efforts to
remove the cause which produces vice and crime.”
GOLDEN RULES FOR WIVES.
“Faugh, on such twaddle! ‘Golden rules for wives’—‘duty of
wives’—how sick we are at the sight of such paragraphs! Why
don’t our wise editors give us now and then some ‘golden rules’
for husbands, by way of variety? Why not tell us of the promises
men make at the altar, and of the injunction ‘Husbands, love your
wives as your own selves’? ‘Implicit submission of a man to his
wife is disgraceful to both, but implicit obedience of the wife
to the will of the husband is what she promised at the altar.’ So
you say! What nonsense! what absurdity! what downright injustice!
A disgrace for a man to yield to the wishes of his wife, but an
honor for a wife to yield implicit obedience to the commands of her
husband, be he good or bad, just or unjust, a kind husband or a
tyrannical master! Oh! how much of sorrow, of shame and unhappiness
have such teachings occasioned. Master and slave! Such they make
the relationship existing between husband and wife; and oh, how
fearfully has woman been made to feel that he who promised at the
altar to love, cherish and protect her is but a legalized master
and tyrant! We deny that it is any more her duty to make her
husband’s happiness her study than it is his business to study her
happiness. We deny that it is woman’s duty to love and obey her
husband, unless he prove himself worthy of her love and unless his
requirements are just and reasonable. Marriage is a union of two
intelligent, immortal beings in a life partnership, in which each
should study the pleasure and the happiness of the other and they
should mutually share the joys and bear the burdens of life.”
THE CLERGY.
“It is too true that the majority of this class of men stand
aloof from the humanitarian questions of the day, and exert their
influence to prejudice their people against them and to prevent
their hearing the truth; yet it is not less true that there are
among them many warm-hearted, earnest and true men; and for this
reason the charges brought by reformers should be limited. We find
that it is with clergymen as with other people; there are some
very open and liberal, and others very conservative and bigoted.
Some would think it a desecration to allow a woman to lecture in
their church, while others not only freely offer their church
for temperance, but also for woman’s-rights lectures. Some think
it an abomination for women to speak in public on any subject,
while others wish that there were a hundred to take the platform
in behalf of temperance where there is but one now. We have
discussed temperance and woman’s rights in numerous churches and
have had clergymen for our listeners. While we would by no means
excuse those who so coldly and scornfully turn away from the woman
question and its discussion, yet we feel unwilling to see the more
liberal classed with them and subjected to censure. We know of no
other course for reformers to pursue, but to be sure they are right
and then ‘go ahead’ without regard to the opposition of the clergy
or any other class of men.”
MALE BLOOMERS.
“Under this head, many of our brother editors are aiming their wit
and ridicule at those gentlemen who have donned the _shawl_ as
a comfortable article of wearing apparel in cold weather. There
is a class of men who seem to think it their especial business to
superintend the wardrobes of both men and women, and if any dare
to depart from their ideas of propriety they forthwith launch
out all sorts of witticisms and hard names, and proclaim their
opinions, their likes and dislikes, with all the importance of
authorized dictators. As to the shawl, it would be well if it
could be banished from use entirely, as it is an inconvenient and
injurious article of apparel, owing to its requiring both hands
to keep it on and thereby tending to contract the chest and cause
stooping shoulders. But, if worn at all, men have the same right
to it that women have. If they find it convenient that is enough,
and no one has a right to object to their wearing it because women
wear shawls. Indeed, we think the shawl of right belongs to men as
it answers so well to the description of the garment prescribed
for them in Deut., xxii. 12: ‘Thou shalt make thee fringes upon
the four quarters of thy vesture wherewith thou coverest thyself.’
True, men have departed from this injunction in former years, and
resigned to women the dress prescribed for themselves and worn by
their fathers in olden times. But that is no reason why they should
not resume it.”
WOMEN MECHANICS.
It having been stated that a woman in New Jersey had made a carriage,
Mrs. Bloomer comments as follows:
“This is told as though it were something wonderful for women to
have mechanical genius when, in fact, there are thousands all over
the country who could make as good mechanics and handle tools with
as much skill and dexterity as men, if they were only allowed to
manifest their skill and ingenuity. A girl’s hands and head are
formed very much like those of a boy; and, if put to a trade at the
age when boys are usually apprenticed, our word for it she will
master her business quite as soon as the boy at the same trade, be
the trade what it may. Women have taste and ingenuity for something
besides washing dishes and sewing on buttons, and so people will
find out some day, hard as it is now to believe it.”
WOMAN’S DRESS.
“Our counsel to every woman is, wear what pleases you best. Pursue
a quiet and independent course in the matter, turning neither to
the right nor the left to enquire who is pleased or displeased;
and, if others do not see fit to keep you company by patterning
their dress after yours, you will at least be left in the peaceable
enjoyment of your own comfortable attire, and real friends will
value you according to your worth, and not according to the length
of your train.”
WOMEN DRUNKARDS.
“Pity the law couldn’t be brought to bear upon a few more
respectable lady drunkards—and respectable gentlemen drunkards,
too—and shut them in a dungeon till they could learn in what real
respectability consists! The so-called ‘respectable ladies,’ the
upper-ten drunkards, are in our view decidedly vulgar, and should
be classed in public estimation with the drunken occupant of the
shanty or the frequenter of the low drunkery. They are even worse
than these, for their influence is much greater.”
PROGRESS.
“The signs of the times cheer on the honest true-hearted laborers
in this cause to greater devotion in the work in which they are
engaged. They point to a triumph in the future, to the coming
of that brighter day when the mists of ignorance and barbarism
that have so long rested upon the life and hopes of women will
be dispelled, and when justice and right will bear sway. For be
it remembered that these things point, as unerringly as does the
needle to the pole, to the wider and fuller emancipation yet in
store for our sex, to the acknowledgment of her civil as well as
her social and legal rights. And that this end will be achieved we
believe to be as certain as that time will continue to roll on in
its course and humanity continue to struggle against selfishness,
bigotry and wrong in whatever form they may present themselves.”
SEWING MACHINES.
The question having been asked Mrs. Bloomer, What will women do now
sewing machines are coming into use? she replied as follows:
“It will be no strange thing to see, within a few years,
women merchants, women bookkeepers, women shoemakers, women
cabinetmakers, women jewelers, women booksellers, typesetters,
editors, publishers, farmers, physicians, preachers, lawyers.
Already there are some engaged in nearly or quite all these
occupations and professions; and, as men crowd them out of their
old places, the numbers will increase. It is well that it is so.
Woman has long enough stitched her health and life away, and it is
merciful to her that sewing machines have been invented to relieve
her of her toilsome, ill-paid labor, and to send her forth into
more active and more lucrative pursuits where both body and mind
may have the exercise necessary to health and happiness. Men are
aiding to forward the woman’s-rights movement by crowding women out
of their old places. Women will be the gainers by the change, and
we are glad to see them forced to do what their false education and
false delicacy have prevented their doing in the past.”
GOVERNOR SEYMOUR’S VETO.
A Maine Law, having passed the New York legislature, was vetoed by
the governor; on which Mrs. Bloomer commented as follows:
“The news of this treacherous act on the part of the governor was
celebrated by the liquor party with firing of cannon, bonfires
and illuminations, with shouts of rejoicing and drunken revelry.
The devils in hell must have rejoiced, while the angels in heaven
must have wept, over the scene. And how was it in the home of the
drunkard? Ah, who can picture the agony and despair, the wailing
and agonizing prayers that went forth from the hearts of the poor
stricken women who saw all their hopes of deliverance thus dashed
to the earth and themselves and famishing babes consigned to
hopeless degradation and misery! While those who are called their
protectors, and those who are heaping upon them every injury and
killing them inch by inch, are enjoying their fiendish orgies,
those poor sorrowing ones sit desolate and heart-broken in their
dreary cellar and garret homes bowed with shame and anguish. Would
that the man who has wrought all this sorrow and wretchedness could
be made to behold the work!”
FIGHTING HER WAY.
Referring to a strike in a Philadelphia printing office because two
women had been employed as typesetters, Mrs. Bloomer wrote:
“Thus we see that woman has to fight her way as it were at every
step. Her right to employment is denied, no matter how great her
wants, unless she find it in the limited sphere prescribed to our
sex by custom and prejudice. Yet we rejoice that there are men who
are sufficiently liberal to open to her, here and there, a wider
field for her industry, and who will see justice done her even
though themselves are for a time inconvenienced thereby. Let not
women be discouraged by such hostile manifestations on the part
of men, but rather let them press forward until they break down
every barrier which is raised to obstruct their advancement; and
if they are but true to themselves, they will come off victorious
and thenceforth find their way to every lucrative employment clear
before them.”
ON THE LECTURE PLATFORM.
During Mrs. Bloomer’s year of residence in Ohio, she received a
great many invitations to deliver her lectures. Some of these she
accepted. The first one was at Zanesville; and, although she stated
in giving a report of it that she had been told she would meet with
only a cold reception, yet she declared she had never found warmer
friends or was treated with greater respect than at that place. “My
lecture was listened to by a very large and attentive audience;
indeed, all who came were not able to get within the doors. Judging
from the expressions after the meeting, people were well satisfied
with the lecture on woman’s rights. I was earnestly requested to
lecture again in the evening; but as I had made an appointment in
Columbus to-night, I was under the necessity of declining.” And
substantially the same report might have been made as to all lectures
delivered in different parts of the state. But she did not confine
her work on the platform to Ohio only. During the summer she visited
Indiana, also, and was listened to by large meetings held in Richmond
and other towns.
Of some of her experiences in her lecture tours, Mrs. Bloomer gave
the following report:
“At M. I lectured by Invitation before a young men’s literary
society. No price was fixed upon in advance, and I expected but
little; but having been told that no lecturer, unless it was Horace
Mann who preceded me, had drawn so large a house and put so much
money in the treasury, when they asked me how much they should pay
me I said, ‘You say I have done as well for you, and even better
than did Horace Mann, pay me what you paid him and it will be
right.’ I think they were a little surprised that a woman should
ask as much as a man; but seeing the justice of my demand, they
paid it without a word. At that day lecturers were more poorly
paid than since, and for a woman to have the same pay for the same
work as a man was no doubt a new idea to them. At Z. a gentleman
invited me and made all other arrangements. On my arrival there he
called on me and said that some society, thinking that money would
be made by my lecture, were talking of seeing me on my arrival
and arranging with me for a certain sum and they would take the
balance. He advised me to have nothing to do with them if they
should propose it, as I could just as well have the whole. Men
were so accustomed to getting the services of women for little or
nothing, that they seemed jealous when one got anything like the
money that would cheerfully be paid to men for the same service.”
AT THE OHIO STATE CONVENTION.
Mrs. Bloomer attended the meeting of the Ohio Woman’s
State-Temperance Society, held at Columbus early in January,
and took an active part in its proceedings. She was elected its
corresponding secretary, and was a member of the committee which
proceeded to the State Capitol and presented a petition to each
branch of the legislature then in session asking for the enactment
of stringent prohibitory laws. Not being entirely satisfied with
the regular report of the committee on resolutions, she offered a
series on her own responsibility. These declared in substance, that
the redemption of our race from the manifold evils of intemperance
is of greater importance than the triumph of any political party;
that the question must go to the ballot-box for final settlement;
that, as men regard women as weak and dependent beings, women ask
protection at their hands; and that it should be their duty to make
themselves acquainted with woman’s sentiments on this great question,
and honestly carry them out. In support of the resolutions, she
said she considered many of the temperance men really responsible
for the protracted rum interest. They were so wedded to party that
they heeded not their duty to the welfare and morals of society. In
spite of all that had been done, the cause lingers and the rumsellers
and manufacturers triumph. The temperance men are to blame for not
acting consistently or independently for the cause. They will not act
together as for a paramount interest; they do not strike the nail
on the head. It is useless to dally thus from year to year and not
strike a blow to tell upon the evil and the curse. The resolutions,
after discussion, were unanimously adopted.
A WOMAN TYPESETTER.
Fully believing that she should carry out in practice what she
advocated in theory, Mrs. Bloomer secured early in the spring the
services of Mrs. C. W. Lundy, of New York, as typesetter; previously
to coming to Mount Vernon, she had had three months’ experience in
the work. The fact of her employment and coming into the office
was freely talked of in the presence of the employees, all of whom
were men, and no word of dissent or disapproval, to Mrs. Bloomer’s
knowledge, was expressed. It was agreed that her employee should
receive all necessary instructions from Mr. Higgins himself, he
being a practical printer, or from the men engaged in the office. It
was soon seen that the men employed in typesetting, and especially
the foreman, looked with disfavor on the movement and by various
uncourteous acts and remarks endeavored to make the situation an
unpleasant one.
A STRIKE FOLLOWED.
Mrs. Bloomer herself gave the following report of this strike of the
male typesetters. After alluding to the employment of Mrs. Lundy and
her introduction into the printing office of the _Home Visitor_, she
proceeds:
“Nothing, however, occurred of sufficient magnitude for us to
notice till the fourteenth of last month. On that day, in the
absence of both Mr. Bloomer and Mr. Higgins, Mrs. Lundy asked our
opinion in relation to the proper indention of a piece of poetry
which she was at work upon. As we are not a printer, we could
only give a guess at its correctness; so we advised her to step
into the other room and ask one of the men about it. She did so,
and directly returned saying they refused to give the desired
information. We went directly in and asked an explanation of their
conduct; when all hands, with the foreman of the office as leader,
avowed their determination not to work in an office with or give
instruction to a _woman_. And, further, they said they had drawn up
a paper to that effect which had been signed by all the printers
in town. The foreman also defied us to find a printer in Ohio who
would give instructions to a woman.
“This was placing us in a ‘fix,’ truly. We must do one of two
things: either break our word with Mrs. L. and sacrifice our
preferences and principles, or else the place of these men must
be supplied by others who were more gentlemanly and who did not
despise the efforts of woman to place herself in a position
where by her own talents and industry she could earn for herself
an honorable independence. The question was at once decided in
our mind, and we knew well that in their decision we should be
sustained by the proprietors of the _Visitor_. We took the first
opportunity to acquaint Mr. Higgins with the state of affairs;
and, on Mr. Bloomer’s return the next day, we also informed him
how things stood. They then repaired to the _Visitor_ office
and held a long conference with their workmen, telling them it
was not their intention to employ women to set the type of the
_Visitor_, but that Mrs. L. would remain and work on the _Lily_,
and that they should expect of them that they should give her all
the instructions she might need in her work. If they would do
this willingly and cheerfully, well; if not, they might consider
themselves discharged. They would not yield to such an arbitrary
rule on the part of those in their employ. To this, the printers
replied that they were firm in their resolutions and would not
depart from them; whereupon all hands took up their march out of
the office.
“This action on the part of the printers has resulted in the
employment of women to set the type for the _Visitor_. Three women
were at once engaged for that purpose. A journeyman was immediately
procured from Columbus, and other help has since been engaged;
so that the proprietors have been enabled to get out their paper
regularly, without acceding to the unreasonable demands of the
printers of Mount Vernon.
“We have removed our _Lily_ cases into the _Visitor_ office,
and now the work on both papers is done in the same room, four
women and three men working together peaceably and harmoniously.
It does our heart good to see the happy change which has been
wrought in the office by the attempt to crush woman’s efforts
in her own behalf. The moral atmosphere has been purified,
and superciliousness has given place to friendly and cheerful
intercourse.”
LUCY STONE APPEARS.
While Mrs. Bloomer’s troubles with her printers were under way, Miss
Lucy Stone visited the city and gave an address on “Woman and Her
Employment.” Mrs. Bloomer says:
“This happened most fortunately in the midst of the excitement
about our difficulties in our office, and her words were like
soothing oil on the troubled waters. It seemed as though an
overruling Providence had directed her steps hitherward to allay
the excitement and to subdue the angry feelings, to plead the cause
of womanhood, to proclaim the eternal principles of justice and
right; and she was in a great degree successful. We have heard no
word of dissatisfaction or disapproval, but on the contrary all
were highly pleased with her remarks, and we trust those who heard
her are wiser and better for having listened to her.”
A VISIT TO NEW YORK STATE.
During the summer, Mrs. Bloomer visited her former home at Seneca
Falls, N. Y., where she received a very warm welcome from her many
co-workers and friends of former days. Writing home to the _Visitor_,
she says:
“Seneca Falls! There is a charm in that word, D——, that will ever
arrest our attention and awaken an interest whenever and wherever
we may see or hear it. So many years of our lives have been spent
here, and so intimate and dear are many associations connected with
the place and the people, that they can never be forgotten however
attractive or absorbing may be the future events and associations
of life’s journey. You will feel a thrill of pleasure, not unmixed
with sadness, when you know that I am again on the spot thus
endeared to memory, and again surrounded by those with whom we have
long held social and business intercourse. Would that you were
with me here for a little time, would that you could walk with me
again the streets so often trod by us, and note with me the changes
that a few months have wrought! Would that you could see face to
face the friends of old, and receive the hearty grasp of the hand
which would meet you at almost every step, and above all that you
could gaze with me upon our dear cottage home which we took so much
pleasure in improving and beautifying and in which we found so
much real enjoyment! I can hardly realize that it is not my home
still, that I should not if I passed within find everything as of
old, and you to welcome my return.—A. B.”
AT THE NEW YORK STATE CONVENTION.
While in New York, Mrs. Bloomer went to the second annual meeting
of the Woman’s State-Temperance Society held at Utica on the 7th
day of June. It was largely attended, and was presided over by Mrs.
Mary C. Vaughan who made an able and eloquent opening address. Great
interest prevailed among the temperance workers in the state at that
time, owing to the veto by Gov. Seymour of a prohibitory liquor law
which had passed the legislature. Various resolutions bearing upon
this subject, and upon the reasons assigned by the governor for his
action, were offered and discussed. One resolution, aimed at the use
of tobacco as a fruitful cause of drunkenness and of injury to the
boys and young men of the country, was also offered; on this, Mrs.
Bloomer took the floor and spoke as follows:
“She said the resolution under consideration seemed to her one of
great importance. The tendency to this vice in the young boys of
the day cannot escape the attention of any observing mind; if one
may believe the statements of some of the best physicians of the
country in relation to the use of tobacco, it is a fruitful source
of disease and crime. That it creates a thirst, is admitted by
those who use it; and that thousands are led to quench that thirst
in the intoxicating bowl, is a truth that cannot be denied. One of
these poisons seems to imply and call for the other. Tobacco comes
first in order, alcohol follows.
“In view of these facts, what must we anticipate from the boys
of our country who have so early become addicted to the use of
the weed? Is there not fear that their future career will be an
inglorious one, and that they will be led to slake the unnatural
thirst which tobacco has occasioned in the cup? Does not this
thought call loudly to the parents to look well to the habits
of their sons, to fathers to set them an example of virtue and
sobriety by themselves abstaining from the use of the filthy weed,
and to both fathers and mothers by their wise commands and counsels
to lead them to hate and shun the vice as they would that of its
twin brother, drunkenness?
“It is a mournful truth that too many parents regard the tendency
to evil on the part of their sons with indifference, as an innocent
harmless habit. They seem to think it a matter of course that they
should grow up filthy tobacco chewers and smokers; and hence we see
little fellows who have hardly escaped from their frocks smoking
the cigar or long pipe in perfect imitation of their elders, and
this, too, without reproach or warning from those who should teach
them better. The practice if followed will prove ruinous to health,
if no more terrible results follow. Parents should take this
into consideration and act accordingly, as they value the future
happiness of their children.”
Of this New York Convention, Mrs. Bloomer on returning home wrote for
the _Lily_ as follows:
“The meeting passed off most happily and we trust it will be
productive of great good to the cause. The officers and agents of
the society, with one or two exceptions, were present. The report
of the executive committee and the treasurer show the society to be
in as prosperous a condition, if not even more prosperous than at
its annual meeting one year ago. A determination was manifested on
the part of all to go forward in the work so long as their efforts
were needed. Five or six agents have been in the field during the
year, and their collections have amounted to nearly two thousand
dollars. This money has been expended for the good of the cause.
One of the agents told us that she had lectured one hundred and
fourteen times since last October. This shows an amount of labor
expended in the cause equal to, if not exceeding, that given by any
man in the state. Altogether, the convention was highly interesting
and pleasant and it afforded us much pleasure to be present at its
meetings.”
GOOD TEMPLARS IN OHIO.
During the year the temperance order of Good Templars was introduced
into the state and its lodges established in several of its cities
and villages, so that towards the close of the year a state
grand-lodge was organized at Alliance. The first lodge was instituted
at Conneat, and the second at Mount Vernon.
This latter lodge was called Star of Hope lodge, and soon numbered
among its members many of the leading Temperance men and women of the
city. Mrs. Bloomer, for reasons already given, took great interest
in the spread of this order. For that purpose she visited different
parts of the state, and also several towns in Indiana, in some of
which she instituted lodges, special authority having been given her
for that purpose. She also occupied a prominent position in her home
lodge, and had the pleasure as presiding officer of assisting to
initiate into its mysteries Hon. William Windom, afterwards Secretary
of the Treasury, and Hon. William F. Sapp, both of whom were
residents of Mount Vernon, together with other prominent citizens. It
cannot be doubted that the institution of this lodge, together with
Mrs. Bloomer’s labors in the cause, had a controlling influence in
the temperance work in Mount Vernon during the year 1854.
On leaving Mount Vernon, in December, Mrs. Bloomer published the
following card:
“Star of Hope lodge in this city continues to prosper. Its members
now exceed 150 and are constantly increasing. Its weekly meetings,
which are very fully attended, are deeply interesting and we hope
are productive of great good to the cause. Our association with the
members of this lodge has been pleasant and agreeable, and we shall
part with them with real regret. Our wish and prayer is that Star
of Hope lodge may long continue to hold its weekly meetings, and
that its members may never falter in unwavering fidelity to their
pledges. When far away we shall often refer to hours spent in their
lodge-room during the last year as among the pleasantest passed in
Mount Vernon.”
THE _LILY_ SOLD.
But another change now came to Mrs. Bloomer. Her husband in July had
sold out his interest in the _Western Home Visitor_ to his partner,
Mr. E. A. Higgins, and both his connection and that of Mrs. Bloomer
with the _Visitor_ then ceased, except that the former continued to
aid Mr. Higgins for a few months in its editorial management. This,
of course, made no change in the publication of the _Lily_. In
September, Mr. Bloomer made an extensive tour in the West proceeding
as far as western Iowa and Nebraska. After looking the ground
carefully over, he determined to locate at Council Bluffs, on the
Missouri River, in Iowa, and made purchases of property at that
place. In relation to this change of residence and the disposition of
the _Lily_, Mrs. Bloomer in reply to a statement that her paper had
died of “fun poked at it” wrote in 1890 as follows:
“My husband after leaving the _Visitor_ determined on locating
in this far-away city (Council Bluffs), then three hundred miles
beyond a railroad. There were no facilities for printing and
mailing a paper with so large a circulation as mine, except a
hand press and a stagecoach, and so it seemed best for me to part
with the _Lily_. Finding a purchaser in Mrs. Mary A. Birdsall,
of Richmond, Indiana, I disposed of the paper to her and it was
removed to that city. Mrs. Birdsall published it for two or three
years and then suffered it to go down, from what cause I never
knew. But this much is true, it did not die of ‘fun poked at it.’
It had long outlived fun and ridicule and was highly respected
and appreciated by its thousands of readers. It had done its
work, it had scattered seed that had sprung up and borne fruit
a thousandfold. Its work can never die. You say rightly that
the _Lily_ was the pioneer journal in the Northwest for woman’s
enfranchisement. Other journals have taken its place, and the
movement has gone steadily forward and nears its final triumph.”
The above was written about 1890.
SHE IS SORRY.
In announcing the change in her residence and the transfer of the
_Lily_ to Mrs. Birdsall, at Richmond, Ind., Mrs. Bloomer wrote among
other matters connected with the change as follows:
“We have deeply cherished _The Lily_, and we have been greatly
cheered by the daily evidence we have had of the good it was doing.
This has encouraged us to go forward even when we were nearly
fainting under our self-imposed task, and did circumstances favor
it we should probably labor on, weary as we have sometimes felt and
great as has often been the effort necessary to the discharge of
duty. But the _Lily_, being as we conceive of secondary importance,
must not stand in the way of what we believe our interest. Home and
husband being dearer to us than all beside, we cannot hesitate to
sacrifice all for them; and so we cheerfully resign our pet to the
care of its foster-mother, feeling well assured that our readers
will lose nothing by the change, if they will only put forth their
hands to strengthen her in her undertaking.
“As will be seen by the prospectus, we do not entirely sunder our
connection with the _Lily_, but only throw off its greater burdens.
As Corresponding Editor, we shall hold frequent chats with our old
friends and readers provided they will listen to us and welcome
it to their homes as of old. We have no idea of retiring into
obscurity, but shall keep the public posted as to our whereabouts,
and tell them of the events occurring in our far-distant home amid
the Bluffs of the Missouri.”
CHAPTER EIGHTH.
Mrs. Bloomer gave up her residence in Mount Vernon with sincere
regret, but with the earnest hope that it would bring a much-needed
rest and improved health. She had mingled freely among the people,
and many social courtesies had been extended to her. She had worked
faithfully in the temperance cause, through the medium of the Good
Templars and in other ways, and enjoyed greatly the fact that the
sale of intoxicating drinks had been almost entirely suppressed in
the town.
ON HER TRAVELS.
On leaving Mount Vernon she proceeded to Richmond, Indiana, where
she transferred the _Lily_ and all belonging to it, type, cases,
subscription books and lists, to Mrs. Mary Birdsall, the new editor
and proprietor. She spent several days there very pleasantly
visiting, among others, the family of Mr. James S. Starr, a resident
of Richmond. On its becoming known that Mrs. Bloomer was in the town,
an invitation was soon extended to her to deliver her lecture on
woman’s wrongs and rights. This she accepted, and was greeted with
a large audience. She gave to Mrs. Birdsall all information in her
power relative to the new work she had taken upon herself in assuming
the publication of the _Lily_, and promised to write frequently for
its columns, a promise which she faithfully discharged so long as the
paper continued to be published; but of these productions it is now
impossible to obtain a copy—at least the writer hereof has found it
so.
The two or three months following were spent in travel and in
visiting relatives and friends. She first journeyed to Indianapolis,
reaching there on the first day of January, 1855. The city was
resonant with the sounds of rejoicing on the advent of the New Year
and firecrackers and toy pistols were ablaze on all the streets. On
the following evening, she delivered her lecture on woman’s rights in
one of the principal public halls of the city to a large audience.
Leaving the next day, she passed on to Cincinnati, viewing on the way
the point on the Ohio River known as North Bend from which General
Harrison had been taken to assume the responsible duties of the
presidential office, which he was able to meet only for a single
month. In Cincinnati she delivered but one lecture, having been
taken dangerously ill and being in consequence confined to the hotel
for several days. With the first signs of returning strength, she
left for the home of a relative in central Ohio where she remained
until her health was partially restored. She was then able to accept
invitations to lecture in surrounding towns; among those she visited,
was West Jefferson where she met Mrs. Mary Swan and her son, Mr. A.
B. Walker, who subsequently became respected and useful residents
of Council Bluffs and renewed their acquaintance with Mrs. Bloomer.
Leaving Ohio towards the end of the month, she spent the remainder of
the winter with relatives in her old home in New York.
[Illustration: Amelia Bloomer picture]
Brothers and sisters both of herself and of her husband were then
living, and all were in the prime of life. The journey was made by
rail from Cleveland to near the head of Seneca Lake, where some
days were passed. Then down the lake to Geneva, at which place and
at Buffalo, Canandaigua, Waterloo, and Seneca Falls their relatives
mostly resided. Mrs. Bloomer delivered one or more of her lectures
during the winter; but this was a season of rest for her, and one
she greatly needed. Her long years of work on the _Lily_ had ended,
although she still continued to write monthly communications for its
columns. The little village of Aurora, the place of her husband’s
nativity, was also one of her stopping places. Near it was a Friends’
or Quaker neighborhood, and her sojourn was with some of these
kind-hearted people. One of them was Humphrey Howland, a venerable
man and an old resident. With these kind hosts Mrs. Bloomer attended
a fifth-day morning meeting in their plain frame meeting house, and
had an opportunity of witnessing their peculiar customs and their
mode of religious service. The building was of the plainest kind
and wholly devoid of paint. The people sat on wooden benches, in
profound silence, the women on one side, the men on the other with
their hats on. After the stillness had lasted nearly half-an-hour a
comparatively young woman arose, and after laying aside her bonnet
proceeded to deliver a most earnest exhortation to all present to
live holy lives. And so Mrs. Bloomer on that day listened to a woman
preacher. Then ensued a season of quiet thinking; after which all
arose to their feet, handshaking followed all round, and the good
people departed to their homes. By special invitation, Mrs. Bloomer
delivered one of her lectures in the village. And so the winter
passed among relatives and friends rapidly and pleasantly away, and
the time drew near when she must leave for her new home in the far
distant west.
This had been purchased by her husband while on a visit to Council
Bluffs, in the state of Iowa, the previous autumn. It was in those
days a long journey to undertake, especially as a large portion
of it must be made either in stagecoach or by steamboat, and was
therefore looked forward to with a great deal of interest.
STARTS FOR IOWA.
Finally making her adieu to her parents, to brother, sisters and
relatives, she started westward about the 20th of March. A few days
were spent with Mr. C. A. Bloomer, a brother of her husband, at
Little Rock near Buffalo, and several more in the family of Mr. F. V.
Chamberlain, in Chicago. That city was just then beginning to put on
metropolitan airs and had a population of 40,000 or 50,000. Here Mrs.
Bloomer bade good-bye to a niece who had accompanied her thus far,
and who took the cars to meet a brother in the central part of the
state. Leaving Chicago, the travelers proceeded by railroad to Alton.
The country on either side of the road exhibited the vast prairies
of the state in an almost unbroken condition for a great part of the
way, and it is recollected that from the car windows deer and other
game were frequently seen running at large. Springfield, the state
capital, was then only a small village. The railroad terminated at
Alton, and from thence the passage was by steamboat to St. Louis. At
that city, then just beginning to loom up in importance among the
great western towns, the halt was first at a hotel; but a call having
been made at the hospitable home of Mrs. Frances D. Gage, her house
thereafter became the home of the travelers until they embarked on a
steamer on the Missouri River for their destination.
We now give Mrs. Bloomer’s reminiscences, written some years later by
herself:
“EARLY DAYS IN THE WEST.
“In compliance with the wishes of my old-settler friends, I have
called to remembrance and jotted down some of the events connected
with the early years of my residence in this western land. I fear
they will not prove as interesting to my readers as they were to me
at the time of their occurrence and are now as I recall them after
a lapse of thirty-eight years.
“One beautiful spring day in the middle of April, 1855, I first set
foot on Iowa soil in our neighboring city of Glenwood. We came
from our New York home to settle in Council Bluffs. The only public
conveyance at that time to this section of the country was the
stagecoach across the state from Davenport and the Missouri-river
steamer hailing from St. Louis. Preferring the steamer we went to
St. Louis to embark for our destination, but learned on reaching
there that owing to low water no boat had yet been able to come as
far as this city, St. Joseph having been the farthest point reached.
“DELAYED IN ST. LOUIS.
“Encouraged with the hope that by tarrying in St. Louis a week
we could come all the way through by steamer we restrained our
impatience and spent a week very pleasantly with our old-time
friend, Frances D. Gage. She was a noted writer and lecturer of
that day, but has since laid down the burden of life and gone to
her reward.
“During our stay in St. Louis Mrs. Gage and I together held a
woman’s-suffrage meeting in the library hall of that city, which
was largely attended and well received by press and people. At
the end of a week as there was yet no prospect of a rise in the
river we took a packet and came on to St. Joseph. Here we had to
wait two days for the stage, which only made tri-weekly trips to
Council Bluffs and had left the very morning of our coming to the
Missouri town, some hours before we arrived. The hotel at which we
were obliged to stop was a very ordinary affair, as was common to
western towns at that early day. The waiting was long and tedious.
We could not even walk about and view the city because of a high
wind that prevailed and sent the dust in clouds into our faces.
“THE MISSOURI RIVER’S RAVAGES.
“Here we first saw the devastations the Missouri River was making
in eating its way up into the city and undermining great brick
buildings and swallowing them up in its waters. The second day
of our arrival it got out that we were at the hotel, and all
unknown to us some progressive or curious ones went about and
obtained numerous signatures to a paper requesting me to give them
a lecture. The first intimation I had of this was after supper,
when I was summoned to the parlor to meet two gentlemen who, after
introducing themselves, made known the object of their call
and presented me with the paper largely signed by the citizens
begging me to give them a woman’s-rights lecture before leaving
the place. Thanking the gentlemen for their kindness, I informed
them of my intended departure in a few hours and that it would be
impossible to comply with the request. They replied they were aware
of my going and for that reason they wanted the lecture that very
evening. There would be time before the stage left at ten o’clock
in the evening. ‘This evening, gentlemen!’ said I; ‘how can that
be when there has been no notice given?’ One of them looked at
his watch and said: ‘It is a little after seven o’clock. We will
give you a good house in an hour if you will consent to speak, the
lecture to commence at eight o’clock.’
“CONSENTS TO DELIVER A LECTURE.
“Being so urged I reluctantly consented, though with many
misgivings, for I could not understand how an audience could be
collected in an hour. I had never yet refused to proclaim the new
doctrine of woman’s rights when I found people anxious to hear and
opportunity offered and I could not go back upon it now.
“My consent obtained the gentlemen left, while I hastened to my
room to make known to my husband the extra effort I was to make
in the few hours intervening before we started on our homeward
journey. And it was an extra effort, for my trunk was packed and
strapped and must be opened, for I was not willing to go upon the
platform in my traveling dress. I, who had ‘turned the world upside
down’ by preaching a new gospel and was being sorely criticised
therefor, must make as good an impression as possible with my
clothes at least. Immediately after I reached my room we were
startled by hearing a great outcry and ringing of bells on the
street. Rushing to the window we soon learned the cause. Passing
along the sidewalk under our window was a large black man ringing a
dinner bell.
“ODD METHOD OF ADVERTISING.
“Every other minute the bell would stop and then come forth the
stentorian cry: ‘Mrs. Bloomer will lecture at the courthouse at
eight o’clock.’ Then the bell again, and again the cry, and the
same cry and ringing of bells off on the other streets, till the
town was alive with noise. We were greatly amused over this novel
western way of giving a notice and calling a crowd together, and we
realized then how fully a notice could be given in the time fixed.
“My preparations were delayed somewhat over this new use to
which slaves could be put, for it was in slavery days and the
bell-ringers were slaves. However, we were at the courthouse on
time, and sure enough the place was filled with an eager and
curious crowd that had come to see and listen to that strange woman
whose name and doings had startled the world from its old-time
peace and sobriety. It was the first time one of the ‘women
agitators’ had come so far as St. Joseph, and it was not strange
that an anxious audience awaited me.
“OFF IN A STAGECOACH.
“Returning to the hotel after the lecture, I hardly had time to
remove my hat when I was again summoned to the parlor, there to
meet the gentlemen who had called on me a few hours before. They
had come to ask for another lecture, and on my declining urged
that if necessary Mr. Bloomer could go on to Council Bluffs by
himself and I follow a day or two later. They had heard enough to
whet their appetite for more and were very anxious to hear me
again. But I was firm in denying their request. I had given them
one lecture with considerable inconvenience to myself. I was far
from well, was anxious to reach the end of my journey, and could
not think of traveling by myself on a stagecoach through a strange
land and would not be persuaded to tarry with them longer. At two
o’clock on a rainy morning, feeling tired and sick and suffering
from a severe cold and want of sleep and rest, we bade adieu to St.
Joseph and took the stage for Council Bluffs.
“The coach was filled with passengers, but no women were aboard but
myself. There were several young men bound for the newly organized
territory of Nebraska, and the famous Kit Carson returning to his
home in Nebraska. Having heard much of him we eyed him with a good
deal of interest and curiosity, but saw nothing remarkable about
him except his clothes, which were of buckskin, fringed around the
bottom, wrists and collar, a style entirely new to me. One of the
young men had come from the far east, Massachusetts, I think, going
to Nebraska to seek his fortune. He had run out of money and found
himself without means in a land of strangers.
“BEFRIENDS A STRANGER.
“At one of the stations where they changed horses, he approached
Mr. Bloomer and asked for a loan, offering his watch as security.
Though an entire stranger Mr. Bloomer concluded to befriend him,
so gave him the money he asked and took his watch. But when the
time came for him to leave us and cross into Nebraska, Mr. Bloomer
gave him back his watch. He felt that he could trust him and that
he would need his watch. It was not a misplaced confidence, for
in due time the money was returned. All of the passengers left us
before we reached Glenwood at some point below to cross a ferry
into Nebraska, and from there on to Council Bluffs we were the only
passengers. It was a real relief to have the coach to ourselves,
after riding two days and a night crowded in with six or eight men,
and we saw them leave without regret.
“ARRIVES AT GLENWOOD.
“On the afternoon of April 15, 1855, we reached Glenwood; and
here, while our driver tarried to change horses, we left the coach
and took a survey of our surroundings. The place was small, the
hotel uninviting, but the country beautiful. Being tired with our
long cooped-up ride, we strolled on in advance of the stage and
soon reached a lovely grove. Here we sat down upon a log to enjoy
the scenery and eat a light lunch from our basket. The stage soon
came along, and we took our seats inside feeling refreshed by our
walk and rejoicing that we were nearing the end of our 1,500-mile
journey.
“EARLY HARDSHIPS.
“At about five o’clock the second day out from St. Joseph we drew
up in front of the Pacific Hotel in this city, which was then _the_
hotel of Council Bluffs and comprised about half of what has since
been known as the Inman House. Here we remained two weeks hoping
in vain that a rise in the river would float a boat bringing our
household goods up from St. Louis; but finally went to housekeeping
with a few things kindly lent us by a friend in a home purchased
some months before and in which, with some additions, we have
continued to reside for thirty-eight years. We had brought with us
from our eastern home a trunk full of choice shrubbery and fruit
grafts. It was necessary that these should be planted and cared
for; so we went into our home under these discouraging conditions,
and only planted out our shrubbery to see it sicken and die under
the burning sun for want of water.
“SUFFER FROM DROUTH.
“For weeks there was no rain and no water in the well to give the
thirsty plants, which had beautifully sprouted in the trunk, and so
we lost them all. One morning a great mystery came to us. We had
set out a patch about twelve feet square with apple grafts. These
were budded and growing about two feet high, when all at once we
discovered that every one had been cut off near the ground with a
sloping, smooth cut as with a sharp knife. We could come to but one
conclusion, and that was that some one envying us the trees had
taken off half of them, thinking to root the tops. But why did they
not pull them up and take the whole? was our query. It was to us
‘a nine days’ wonder,’ but was finally solved by our learning that
rabbits had been the thieves and had cut them off so smoothly with
their teeth.
“FURNITURE WAS SCARCE.
“Our first housekeeping in Council Bluffs was in two rooms with
bare floors and bare walls. The furniture consisted of two old
wooden chairs, an old table, a bed made on the floor, and three
trunks. The bedstead lent us with the bed went together with
screws, but as the screws could not be found the bedstead was
useless and the bed had to lie on the floor. To these borrowed
things, we added an old-fashioned cook stove that we were so
fortunate as to find here and a few common dishes. Here, with
these surroundings, I received my first calls and made my first
acquaintances. If more than two happened to call at the same time
the two chairs were utilized as far as they would go and I and the
others sat on the trunks. It was sometimes unpleasant and a little
mortifying, but I made the best of it, knowing it would not always
last.
“DAYS OF HOSPITALITY.
“And really I don’t know as my furniture and surroundings made
one bit of difference in my welcome to Council Bluffs society.
I afterwards learned that many others were little better off,
and that there were no furniture and carpet stores in the city.
Nevertheless, I was more than glad when word was brought us, on the
morning of July 4th, that a steamer had arrived with our household
goods. I was glad to get carpets down and my rooms made more
comfortable, for our own sakes. On that Fourth of July the citizens
were so patriotic as to have a celebration. The oration was
delivered in ‘Hang Hollow,’ so called because an emigrant murderer
had been hung there, but by later citizens named Glendale. We
attended this celebration and had pointed out to us the tree from a
limb of which the man was hung. The reader and orator for the day I
do not remember.
“EARLY OMAHA.