was appalling and swift, but the regeneration of its women kept pace
with it. They lopped off superfluities, retrenched in expenditures,
became deaf to the calls of pleasure, and heeded not the mandates of
fashion. Their work was that of relief and philanthropy, and, for the
first time in the history of the world, the women of America developed a
heavenly side to war. They cared for the needy families of soldiers,
nursed the sick in camp and the wounded in hospitals, ministered to the
dying in the rear of battle-fields, and kept the channels of beneficence
full to overflowing, which extended from Northern homes to the army at
the front. For their multiform work they needed immense sums of money,
and now the latent business abilities of women began to show themselves.
They went to Washington, and competed with men for government contracts
for the manufacture of army clothing, and obtained them. When their
accounts and their work were rigorously inspected by the War Department
they received commendation, and were awarded larger contracts. They
planned great money-making enterprises, whose largeness of conception
and good business management yielded millions of dollars, to be expended
in the interest of sick and wounded soldiers. The last two of the
colossal Sanitary Fairs, held in New York and Philadelphia, yielded
respectively $1,000,000 and $1,200,000. Women were the creators, the
inspiration, and the great energizing force of these immense fairs, and
also, from first to last, of the Sanitary Commission. Said Dr. Bellows,
“There was nothing wanting in the plans of the women of the Commission,
that business men commonly think peculiar to their own methods.” Men
awoke to the consciousness that there were in women possibilities and
potencies of which they had never dreamed.
Clara Barton, doing clerical work in a department of the government, and
declining to receive compensation therefor, attracted no attention. But
Clara Barton in hospitals, and on hospital transports, bringing order
out of chaos, hope out of despair, and holding death in abeyance—Clara
Barton at Andersonville, where twelve thousand soldiers had succumbed to
the horrors of life in the military prison of the enemy and had been
ignominiously buried in long trenches, unpitied and unknown, aroused the
attention and awakened the gratitude of the nation. For she ordered the
trenches opened, the unknown dead exhumed and decently buried, each man
in a separate grave, with a headstone recording his rank, his name, and
the date of his death, when it could be ascertained.[164]
Anna Dickinson, working for a pittance in the Philadelphia mint, and
making speeches, on occasion, in behalf of the enslaved black man, was
regarded as a nuisance. But Anna Dickinson on the platform, with
impassioned speech and fervid moral earnestness pleading the cause of
the slave before large audiences, and receiving one and two hundred
dollars a night for the service—Anna Dickinson in the Connecticut and
New Hampshire Republican campaigns, thrilling both States with her
eloquence, and capturing both for Abraham Lincoln and Republicanism,
became the heroine of the hour, and was hailed as the Joan of Arc of the
century.
The development of those years, and the impetus they gave to women,
which has not yet spent itself, has been wonderfully manifested since
that time. At the close of the war there was but one college open to
women, and that was grand old Oberlin in Ohio. Vassar received its first
class of students in September, 1865, and now the colleges and
universities which admit women are more in number than those which
reject them. Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell graduated from a medical college in
Geneva, N. Y., in 1849, and afterward had access to the highest
instruction and the best _cliniques_ in Paris. She became the pioneer of
the great host of women physicians and surgeons, who, since the war,
have entered the ranks as medical practitioners, and have been
thoroughly trained and duly qualified for their profession. Reverend
Antoinette L. Brown was graduated from the theological school at
Oberlin, Ohio, in 1850, and ordained in 1853. But not until after the
war were theological schools opened to women in the Methodist,
Unitarian, Universalist, Christian, and Free Baptist denominations. The
United States Census of 1880 gave the number of women ministers as one
hundred and sixty-five, resident in thirty-four States. During the last
twenty-five years law schools have admitted women, and the National
Census of 1880 states the number of women lawyers as seventy-five. The
next Census will reveal a great increase in the numbers of women
physicians, lawyers, and ministers.[165]
It has been since the war, and as the result of the great quickening of
women which it occasioned, that women have organized missionary,
philanthropic, temperance, educational, and political organizations, on
a scale of great magnitude. Without much blowing of trumpets, or
unseemly boasting, they have overcome almost insuperable obstacles, have
brought business abilities to their management of affairs, and have
achieved phenomenal success. Their capacity for public affairs receives
large recognition at the present time. They are elected, or appointed to
such offices as those of county clerk, register of deeds, pension agent,
prison commissioner, state librarian, overseer of the poor, school
superintendent, and school supervisor. They serve as executors and
administrators of estates, trustees and guardians of property, trusts,
and children, engrossing clerks of State legislatures, superintendents
of women’s State prisons, college presidents and professors, members of
boards of State charities, lunacy and correction, police matrons, and
postmistresses.
They are accountants, pharmacists, cashiers, telegraphers,
stenographers, typewriters, dentists, bookkeepers, authors, lecturers,
journalists, painters, architects, and sculptors. In many of these
positions women serve with men, who graciously acknowledge the practical
wisdom and virtue that they bring to their duties. “And although many
women have been appointed to positions in departments of government, and
to important employments and trusts,” said Senator Blair of New
Hampshire, from his seat in Congress, “as far as your committee are
aware no charge of incompetence or malfeasance in office has ever been
sustained against a woman.”
Only a little more than a quarter of a century ago women were allowed to
enter very few remunerative occupations. In 1836, when Harriet Martineau
visited this country, to study its new institutions, that she might be
able to forecast the type of civilization to be evolved from them, she
especially investigated the position of women in the young republic. She
was surprised to find them occupying a very subordinate position in a
country calling itself free, and to find that they had entered only
seven paying occupations. They were allowed to teach, to be
seamstresses, tailoresses, milliners, dressmakers, household servants,
and factory operatives. Hon. Carroll D. Wright, Chief of the National
Bureau of the Statistics of Labor, in a recent report, has announced the
number of remunerative professions and occupations in which women are
working as three hundred and forty-two. In the cities of Boston, New
York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Minneapolis, and San Francisco, women have
established hospitals, and have managed them with admirable wisdom.[166]
Two of the ablest legal journals of the West have been established by
women, who are their editors and proprietors.
Side by side with this phenomenal development of women, and always
subsidiary to it, when not its direct cause, the movement for woman’s
enfranchisement has proceeded with deepening earnestness, urged onward
by the spur of continual victories. A great host of women have come to
regard this as the largest question before the world to-day, and as
underlying and involving the just settlement of the great social and
moral problems of the time. It is not possible for one sex to settle
aright the matters that equally concern both sexes, like questions of
marriage and divorce laws, the regulation of the liquor traffic, the
management of public schools, the care and cure of insane and criminal
people, and many others that may be mentioned. There is not a question
casting its shadow athwart the political horizon that is not underlaid
by a moral basis, and women have a vital interest in all moral matters.
This has greatly extended the area of the woman suffrage debate, and
added to its ranks large numbers of able workers, who stood aloof while
the reform was treated as an abstraction.
It is not possible to rehearse, in detail, the progress of the movement
since the close of the war. The brief space allotted in these pages is
insufficient for its complete history—volumes would be necessary. There
can be recorded here only the briefest mention of its unflagging
struggle, and its steady gains, year by year. In 1869, two great
National organizations were formed. One styled itself “The National
Woman Suffrage Association,” and the other was christened “The American
Woman Suffrage Association.” The first established its headquarters in
New York, and published a weekly paper, _The Revolution_, which was ably
edited by Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony. _The American_ made its home in
Boston, and founded _The Woman’s Journal_, which was edited by Mrs. Mary
A. Livermore, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, Mrs. Lucy Stone, William Lloyd
Garrison and Thomas W. Higginson.[167] The State Woman Suffrage
Associations became auxiliary to one or the other of these parent
societies, and very frequently to both. “The National” invariably held
its annual meetings at Washington, while Congress was in session. “The
American” itinerated from State to State, and held its annual meetings
where it was thought they would do the greatest amount of missionary
work.
After twenty years of separate activities, a union of the two national
organizations was effected in 1890, under the composite title of “The
National-American Woman Suffrage Association.”
These bare statements of fact do not give a hint of the vast labor,
sacrifice, and expenditure of time, brain, and money which have been put
into the woman’s cause during the last quarter of a century. Hundreds of
noble men and thousands of earnest women have toiled, unsparing of
themselves and their substance, to bring in the day when, for women, law
and justice shall be interchangeable terms. Many have died in the
harness, reconciled to their discharge from the battle, because they saw
from afar the victory which is to infold unborn millions in its
benefactions. Others have dropped away from the work from failing
health, the pressure of other duties, and some from cessation of
interest. But the vacant places have been filled by new recruits,
unweary and zealous, who have brought versatile abilities to the
service, and have kept the ranks more than full. Other organizations,
formed for various purposes, have adopted our cause as their own, and
have again and again rendered all women their debtors by their generous
aid.
Chief among these is the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, with a
membership of nearly two hundred thousand, whose greatly beloved
president, Frances E. Willard, is as earnest an advocate of the ballot
for woman as a temperance measure, as she is for prohibition.[168]
Before she was elected the president of the National Woman’s Temperance
Union, she had presented a petition with one hundred and eighty thousand
signatures to the Legislature of Illinois, asking for the women of the
State the right to vote on the question of license or no license in
their respective districts. Under her grand leadership that great
organization has become a mighty factor in the work for women’s
enfranchisement. Its large membership, its perfect organization, its
loyalty to its president, its relations to the church, its successful
publishing house, its ably conducted official paper, _The Union Signal_,
with a subscription list of eighty thousand,—all these combined
advantages enable it to wield an influence in woman’s behalf more
effective than all other agencies united.
It has pushed through the legislatures of thirty-seven States and
Territories the laws that now compel, in all public schools, instruction
in the nature and effect of alcoholic drinks and narcotics on the human
system. It has successfully engineered other legislation in many States,
concerning other matters in which it is interested—notably the passage
of laws forbidding the sale of tobacco to minors under sixteen years of
age. It lent a hand toward the enactment of the petition-vote in Texas,
for school officers, and in Arkansas and Mississippi, for and against
liquor license. What may not be expected of this grand body of women,
when it becomes more firmly welded, has grown even more skilled in its
work, and more fully conscious of its great power!
_The Woman’s Journal_ has recently employed an efficient woman in
Washington to make a complete summary of the laws of every State and
Territory in the Union, as they affect women’s right to vote, or take
part in the management of the public schools, either as State or county
superintendents, or as members of school boards. She was detailed to
this work, and furnished with the sources of information, by Hon.
William T. Harris, National Superintendent of Education. Her statements
may be relied on, therefore, as accurate, and complete to date. We
append this valuable summary, which shows rapid gains in a very short
time, and demonstrates an evolution in self-government that cannot stop
at any half measure, but must go on yet farther.[169]
The States and Territories which confer certain rights and privileges
upon women are twenty-eight, as follows:
CALIFORNIA—No person shall on account of sex be disqualified from
entering or pursuing any lawful business, vocation, or profession. Women
over the age of twenty-one years, who are citizens of the United States
and of this State, shall be eligible to all educational offices in the
State, except those from which they are excluded by the constitution.
And more than this, no person shall be debarred admission to any of the
collegiate departments of the university on account of sex. [Sch. Law,
1888.]
COLORADO—No person shall be denied the right to vote at any school
district election, or to hold any school district office on account of
sex. [Sch. Law, 1887.]
CONNECTICUT—No person shall be deemed ineligible to serve as a member of
any board of education, board of school visitors, school committee, or
district committee, or disqualified from holding such office by reason
of sex. [Sch. Law, 1888.]
ILLINOIS—Women are eligible to any office under the general or special
school laws. [Sch. Law, 1887.]
INDIANA—Women not married nor minors, who pay taxes, and are listed as
parents, guardians, or heads of families, may vote at school meetings.
[Decision of attorney-general.] The attorney-general questions the
constitutionality of an act to authorize the election of women to school
offices, approved April 14, 1881. The State constitution reads, “No
person shall be elected or appointed as a county officer who shall not
be an elector of the county.”
IOWA—No person shall be deemed ineligible, by reason of sex, to any
school office in the state. No person who may have been or shall be
elected or appointed to the office of county superintendent of common
schools, or school director, shall be deprived of office by reason of
sex. [Sch. Law, 1888.]
KANSAS—Women over twenty-one years of age, residents of the district,
are allowed to vote at district meetings. [Sch. Law, 1885.]
KENTUCKY—Widows qualified to pay taxes, and having children of school
age, may vote at elections for district school trustees. [Sch. Law,
1886.]
LOUISIANA—Women over twenty-one are eligible to any office of control or
management under school laws of the State. [Constitution, Art. 232.]
MAINE—Women are eligible to the office of supervisor of schools and
superintending school committee. [Sch. Law, 1889.]
MASSACHUSETTS—Women are eligible to serve on school committees, and to
vote at school meetings for members of school committees. [Sch. Law,
1883.]
MICHIGAN—Women are eligible to election to district offices, to the
office of school inspector, and are qualified to vote at district
meetings. [Sch. Law, 1885.]
MINNESOTA—Women of twenty-one and over who have resided in the United
States one year, and in this State for four months preceding the
election, may vote for school officers, or for any measure relating to
schools which may come up in school district meetings. Any woman so
entitled to vote may hold any office pertaining to the management of
schools. [Sch. Law, 1887.]
NEBRASKA—Women twenty-one years of age, resident of the district and
owners of property, or having children to educate, may vote in district
meetings. [Sch. Law, 1885.]
NEW HAMPSHIRE—Women may vote at school district meetings if they have
resided and had a home in the district for three months next preceding
such meeting. They may hold town and district school offices. [Sch. Law,
1886.]
NEW JERSEY—Women over twenty-one years of age, resident of the State for
one year, and of the county for five months preceding such meeting, may
vote at school meetings. They are eligible to the office of school
trustee. [Sch. Law, 1887.]
NEW YORK—No person shall be deemed to be ineligible to serve as any
school officer, or to vote at any school meeting, by reason of sex, who
has the other qualifications now required by law. This permits women to
act as school trustees, and to vote at district meetings, if residents
of the district, holding taxable property, and over twenty-one years of
age. [Sch. Law, 1887.]
OREGON—Women who are widows and have children to educate, and taxable
property in the district, shall be entitled to vote at district
meetings. [Sch. Law, 1887.]
PENNSYLVANIA—Women twenty-one years of age and upwards are eligible not
only to the office of county superintendent, but to any office of
control or management under the school laws of the State. [Sch. Law,
1888.]
RHODE ISLAND—Women can be elected to the office of school committee, and
a woman is as eligible as a man for school superintendent. [Sch. Law,
1882.]
VERMONT—Women have the same right to vote as men have in all school
district meetings, and in the election of school commissioners in towns
and cities, and the same right to hold offices relating to school
affairs. [Sch. Law, 1881.]
WISCONSIN—Every woman who is a citizen of this State of the age of
twenty-one years or upward (except those excluded by Sec. 2, Art. 3, of
the Wisconsin constitution) who has resided within the State one year,
and in the election district where she offers to vote, ten days next
preceding any election pertaining to school matters, shall have a right
to vote at such elections. Every woman of twenty-one years of age and
upwards may be elected or appointed as director, treasurer, or clerk of
a school district, director or secretary of a town board, under the
township system, member of a board of education in cities, or county
superintendent. [Sch. Law, 1885.]
ARIZONA TY.—The territorial law provides that no person shall be denied
the right to vote at any school district election or to hold any school
district office on account of sex. [Biennial Report, 1883–84.]
* DAKOTA TY.—In all elections held under the provisions of this act, all
persons who are qualified electors under the general laws of the
Territory, and all women of twenty-one years and over, having the
necessary qualifications as to citizenship and residence required by the
general laws, and who have children of school age under their care or
control, are qualified voters. Women having the requisite qualifications
are eligible to the office of school director, judge or clerk of
election, township clerk, or county superintendent of public schools.
[Sch. Law, 1887.]
IDAHO—The right of citizens of any school district to vote at any school
election, or upon any school matter, or for county superintendent, or to
hold office as school trustee or county superintendent, shall not be
denied or abridged on account of sex. [Sch. Law, 1885.]
* MONTANA—Every person, without regard to sex, over twenty-one years of
age, resident of a school district, and a taxable inhabitant, is
entitled to vote at the annual school meeting for the election of
trustees. All persons otherwise qualified are eligible to the office of
county superintendent of common schools without regard to sex. [Sch.
Law, 1887.]
WASHINGTON—Women over the age of twenty-one years, resident of the
school district for three months immediately preceding any district
meeting, and liable to taxation, are legal voters at any school meeting.
They are also eligible to hold or be elected to any school office. [Sch.
Laws, 1885–86.]
WYOMING—Every woman of the age of twenty-one years, residing in the
Territory, may, at every election to be holden under the laws thereof,
cast her vote, and her rights to the elective franchise and to hold
office shall be the same under the election laws of the Territory as
those of electors. [Revised Statutes, 1887.]
All States marked with a star, thus (*), were Territories at date of
laws. In Montana, those women who pay taxes will vote on all questions
submitted to the vote of tax-payers. In Washington and South Dakota, the
question of giving women full suffrage is hereafter to be put to vote,
and on this question women already qualified as voters for any purpose
can also vote. In Kansas, women have now the right to vote at municipal
elections, and in Wyoming women have had full suffrage on the same terms
as men for twenty years. The constitution of Wyoming, besides the equal
suffrage provision, establishes the reading test, as in Massachusetts,
and the Australian ballot for voters. At this present time of writing,
Wyoming’s admission to the Union as a State is pending in Congress. The
House of Representatives has voted the Territory qualified for
statehood, and to give her admission. It is believed the Senate will
confirm this action and that the bill will be signed by the President,
when Wyoming will enter the sisterhood of States with equal suffrage for
men and women incorporated in her constitution.[170]
The States and Territories which, according to the latest issue of their
school laws, do not give women any voice in school affairs are nineteen,
viz.: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland,
Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina,
Ohio,[171] Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, Alaska, Indian
Territory, and New Mexico.
In Texas, the school officers are chosen by petitions to the county
judge for their appointment, and he appoints those whose petitions are
most largely signed. These petitions women can sign on the same terms as
men, and thus practically vote without leaving home. The question of
liquor license is decided in Arkansas and Mississippi in the same
manner. In the territory of Utah women had full right to the elective
franchise, and to hold office for many years. But in the winter of
1886–87, women suffrage was abolished, and the Territory redistricted
for voting purposes. This was done by the Edmunds bill as a means to
destroy polygamy. In Washington, women had exercised the right of
suffrage conferred on them by the territorial legislature for two or
three years. They were deprived of it by the decision of a territorial
judge, some two years since, who gave an adverse decision on the
question, when it came before him. His unjust act was performed in the
interest of the liquor saloons, whose hostility to woman suffrage is
immitigable everywhere.