a friendship between Susan, Elizabeth Stanton, and Lucy Stone, which
developed the woman's rights movement in the United States. Susan
discovered at once that Lucy, like Mrs. Stanton, was an ardent
advocate of woman's rights. Brought up in a large family on a farm in
western Massachusetts where a woman's lot was an unending round of
hard work with no rights over her children or property, Lucy had seen
much to make her rebellious. Resolving to free herself from this
bondage, she had worked hard for an education, finally reaching
Oberlin College. Here she held out for equal rights in education, and
now as she went through the country, pleading for the abolition of
slavery, she was not only putting into practice woman's right to
express herself on public affairs, but was scattering woman's rights
doctrine wherever she went. Listening to this rosy-cheeked,
enthusiastic young woman with her little snub nose and soulful gray
eyes, Susan began to realize how little opposition in comparison she
herself had met because she was a woman. Not only had her father
encouraged her to become a teacher, but he had actually aroused her
interest in such causes as abolition, temperance, and woman's rights,
while both Lucy and Mrs. Stanton had met disapproval and resistance
all the way.
[Illustration: Lucy Stone]
She found Lucy, as well as Mrs. Stanton, in the bloomer dress,
praising its convenience. As Lucy traveled about lecturing, in all
kinds of weather, climbing on trains, into carriages, and walking on
muddy streets, she found it much more practical and comfortable than
the fashionable long full skirts. Nevertheless, there was discomfort
in being stared at on the streets and in the chagrin of her friends.
This reform was much on their minds and they discussed it pro and con,
for Mrs. Stanton was facing real persecution in Seneca Falls, with
boys screaming "breeches" at her when she appeared in the street and
with her husband's political opponents ridiculing her costume in their
campaign speeches. Both women, however, felt it their duty to bear
this cross to free women from the bondage of cumbersome clothing,
hoping always that the bloomer, because of its utility, would win
converts and finally become the fashion. Susan admired their courage,
but still could not be persuaded to put on the bloomer.
Fired with their zeal, she began planning what she herself might do
to rouse women. The idea of a separate woman's rights movement did not
as yet enter her mind. Her thoughts turned rather to the two national
reform movements already well under way, temperance and antislavery.
While a career as an antislavery worker appealed strongly to her, she
felt unqualified when she measured herself with the courageous Grimké
sisters from South Carolina, or with Abby Kelley Foster, Lucy Stone,
and the eloquent men in the movement. She had made a place for herself
locally in temperance societies, and she decided that her work was
there--to make women an active, important part of this reform.
That winter, as a delegate of the Rochester Daughters of Temperance,
she went with high hopes to the state convention of the Sons of
Temperance in Albany, where she visited Lydia Mott and her sister
Abigail, who lived in a small house on Maiden Lane. Both Lydia and
Abigail, because of their independence, interested Susan greatly. They
supported themselves by "taking in" boarders from among the leading
politicians in Albany. They also kept a men's furnishings store on
Broadway and made hand-ruffled shirt bosoms and fine linen accessories
for Thurlow Weed, Horatio Seymour, and other influential citizens.
Their political contacts were many and important, and yet they were
also among the very few in that conservative city who stood for
temperance, abolition of slavery, and woman's rights. Their home was a
rallying point for reformers and a refuge for fugitive slaves. It was
to be a second home to Susan in the years to come.
When Susan and the other women delegates entered the convention of the
Sons of Temperance, they looked forward proudly, if a bit timidly, to
taking part in the meetings, but when Susan spoke to a motion, the
chairman, astonished that a woman would be so immodest as to speak in
a public meeting, scathingly announced, "The sisters were not invited
here to speak, but to listen and to learn."[33]
This was the first time that Susan had been publicly rebuked because
she was a woman, and she did not take it lightly. Leaving the hall
with several other indignant women delegates, amid the critical
whisperings of those who remained "to listen and to learn," she
hurried over to Lydia's shop to ask her advice on the next step to be
taken. Lydia, delighted that they had had the spirit to leave the
meeting, suggested they engage the lecture room of the Hudson Street
Presbyterian Church and hold a meeting of their own that very night.
She went with them to the office of her friend Thurlow Weed, the
editor of the _Evening Journal_, who published the whole story in his
paper.
[Illustration: Susan B. Anthony at the age of thirty-four]
Well in advance of the meeting, Susan was at the church, feeling very
responsible, and when she saw Samuel J. May enter, she was greatly
relieved. He had read the notice in the _Evening Journal_ and
persuaded a friend to come with him. To see his genial face in the
audience gave her confidence, for he would speak easily and well if
others should fail her. Only a few people drifted into the meeting,
for the night was snowy and cold. The room was poorly lighted, the
stove smoked, and in the middle of the speeches, the stovepipe fell
down. Yet in spite of all this, a spirit of independence and
accomplishment was born in that gathering and plans were made to call
a woman's state temperance convention in Rochester with Susan in
charge.
All this Susan reported to her new friend, Elizabeth Stanton, who
promised to help all she could, urging that the new organization lead
the way and not follow the advice of cautious, conservative women.
Susan agreed, and as a first step in carrying out this policy, she
asked Mrs. Stanton to make the keynote speech of the convention. Soon
the Woman's State Temperance Society was a going concern with Mrs.
Stanton as president and Susan as secretary. There was no doubt about
its leading the way far ahead of the rank and file of the temperance
movement when Mrs. Stanton, with Susan's full approval, recommended
divorce on the grounds of drunkenness, declaring, "Let us petition our
State government so to modify the laws affecting marriage and the
custody of children that the drunkard shall have no claims on wife and
child."[34]
Such independence on the part of women could not be tolerated, and
both the press and the clergy ruthlessly denounced the Woman's State
Temperance Society. Susan, however, did not take this too seriously,
familiar as she was with the persecution antislavery workers endured
when they frankly expressed their convictions.
* * * * *
Now recognized as the leader of women's temperance groups in New York,
Susan traveled throughout the state, organizing temperance societies,
getting subscriptions for Amelia Bloomer's temperance paper, _The
Lily_, and attending temperance conventions in spite of the fact that
she met determined opposition to the participation of women. Impressed
by the success of political action in Maine, where in 1851 the first
prohibition law in the country had been passed, she now signed her
letters, "Yours for Temperance Politics."[35] She appealed to women to
petition for a Maine law for New York and brought a group of women
before the legislature for the first time for a hearing on this
prohibition bill. Realizing then that women's indirect influence could
be of little help in political action, she saw clearly that women
needed the vote.
However, it was the woman's rights convention in Syracuse, New York,
in September 1852, which turned her thoughts definitely in the
direction of votes for women. It was the first woman's rights
gathering she had ever attended and she was enthusiastic over the
people she met. She talked eagerly with the courageous Jewish
lecturer, Ernestine Rose; with Dr. Harriot K. Hunt of Boston, one of
the first women physicians, who was waging a battle against taxation
without representation; with Clarina Nichols of Vermont, editor of
the _Windham County Democrat_, and with Matilda Joslyn Gage, the
youngest member of the convention. All of these became valuable, loyal
friends in the years ahead. Susan renewed her acquaintance with Lucy
Stone, and met Antoinette Brown who had also studied at Oberlin
College and was now the first woman ordained as a minister. With real
pleasure she greeted Mrs. Stanton's cousin, Gerrit Smith, now
Congressman from New York, and his daughter, Elizabeth Smith Miller,
the originator of the much-discussed bloomer. Best of all was her
long-hoped-for meeting with James and Lucretia Mott and Lucretia's
sister, Martha C. Wright. Only Paulina Wright Davis of Providence and
Elizabeth Oakes Smith of Boston were disappointing, for they appeared
at the meetings in short-sleeved, low-necked dresses with
loose-fitting jackets of pink and blue wool, shocking her deeply
intrenched Quaker instincts. Although she realized that they wore
ultrafashionable clothes to show the world that not all woman's rights
advocates were frumps wearing the hideous bloomer, she could not
forgive them for what to her seemed bad taste. How could such women,
she asked herself, hope to represent the earnest, hard-working women
who must be the backbone of the equal rights movement? Always
forthright, when a principle was at stake, she expressed her feelings
frankly when James Mott, serving with her on the nominating committee,
proposed Elizabeth Oakes Smith for president. His reply, that they
must not expect all women to dress as plainly as the Friends, in no
way quieted her opposition. To her delight, Lucretia Mott was elected,
and her dignity and poise as president of this large convention of
2,000 won the respect even of the critical press. Susan was elected
secretary and so clearly could her voice be heard as she read the
minutes and the resolutions that the Syracuse _Standard_ commented,
"Miss Anthony has a capital voice and deserves to be clerk of the
Assembly."[36]
[Illustration: James and Lucretia Mott]
Not all of the newspapers were so friendly. Some labeled the gathering
"a Tomfoolery convention" of "Aunt Nancy men and brawling women";
others called it "the farce at Syracuse,"[37] but for Susan it marked
a milestone. Never before had she heard so many earnest, intelligent
women plead so convincingly for property rights, civil rights, and the
ballot. Never before had she seen so clearly that in a republic women
as well as men should enjoy these rights. The ballot assumed a new
importance for her. Her conversion to woman suffrage was complete.
* * * * *
This new interest in the vote was steadily nurtured by Elizabeth
Stanton, whom Susan now saw more frequently. Whenever she could, Susan
stopped over in Seneca Falls for a visit. Here she found inspiration,
new ideas, and good advice, and always left the comfortable Stanton
home ready to battle for the rights of women. While Susan traveled
about, organizing temperance societies and attending conventions, Mrs.
Stanton, tied down at home by a family of young children, wrote
letters and resolutions for her and helped her with her speeches.
Susan was very reluctant about writing speeches or making them. The
moment she sat down to write, her thoughts refused to come and her
phrases grew stilted. She needed encouragement, and Mrs. Stanton gave
it unstintingly, for she had grown very fond of this young woman whose
mental companionship she found so stimulating.
During one of these visits, Susan finally put on the bloomer and cut
her long thick brown hair as part of the stern task of winning
freedom for women. It was not an easy decision and she came to it only
because she was unwilling to do less for the cause than Mrs. Stanton
or Lucy Stone. Comfortable as the new dress was, it always attracted
unfavorable attention and added fuel to the fire of an unfriendly
press. This fire soon scorched her at the World's Temperance
convention in New York, where women delegates faced the determined
animosity of the clergy, who held the balance of power and quoted the
Bible to prove that women were defying the will of God when they took
part in public meetings. Obliged to withdraw, the women held meetings
of their own in the Broadway Tabernacle, over which Susan presided
with a poise and confidence undreamed of a few months before. A
success in every way, they were nevertheless described by the press as
a battle of the sexes, a free-for-all struggle in which shrill-voiced
women in the bloomer costume were supported by a few "male Betties."
The New York _Sun_ spoke of Susan's "ungainly form rigged out in the
bloomer costume and provoking the thoughtless to laughter and ridicule
by her very motions on the platform."[38] Untruth was piled upon
untruth until dignified ladylike Susan with her earnest pleasing
appearance was caricatured into everything a woman should not be. Less
courageous temperance women now began to wonder whether they ought to
associate with such a strong-minded woman as Susan B. Anthony.
There were rumblings of discontent when the Woman's State Temperance
Society met in Rochester for its next annual convention in June 1853,
and Susan and Mrs. Stanton were roundly criticized because they did
not confine themselves to the subject of temperance and talked too
much about woman's rights. Not only was Mrs. Stanton defeated for the
presidency but the by-laws were amended to make men eligible as
officers. Men had been barred when the first by-laws were drafted by
Susan and Mrs. Stanton because they wished to make the society a
proving ground for women and were convinced that men holding office
would take over the management, and women, less experienced, would
yield to their wishes.
This now proved to be the case, as the men began to do all the
talking, calling for a new name for the society and insisting that all
discussion of woman's rights be ruled out. In the face of this clear
indication of a determined new policy which few of the women wished to
resist, Susan refused re-election as secretary and both she and Mrs.
Stanton resigned.
This was Susan's first experience with intrigue and her first rebuff
by women whom she had sincerely tried to serve. Defeated, hurt, and
uncertain, she poured out her disappointment in troubled letters to
Elizabeth Stanton, who, with the steadying touch of an older sister,
roused her with the challenge, "We have other and bigger fish to
fry."[39]
* * * * *
A few months later, Susan was off on a new crusade as she attended the
state teachers' convention in Rochester. Of the five hundred teachers
present, two-thirds were women, but there was not the slightest
recognition of their presence. They filled the back seats of
Corinthian Hall, forming an inert background for the vocal minority,
the men. After sitting through two days' sessions and growing more and
more impatient as not one woman raised her voice, Susan listened, as
long as she could endure it, to a lengthy debate on the question, "Why
the profession of teacher is not as much respected as that of lawyer,
doctor, or minister."[40] Then she rose to her feet and in a
low-pitched, clear voice addressed the chairman.
At the sound of a woman's voice, an astonished rustle of excitement
swept through the audience, and when the chairman, Charles Davies,
Professor of Mathematics at West Point, had recovered from his
surprise, he patronizingly asked, "What will the lady have?"
"I wish, sir, to speak to the subject under discussion," she bravely
replied.
Turning to the men in the front row, Professor Davies then asked,
"What is the pleasure of the convention?"
"I move that she be heard," shouted an unexpected champion. Another
seconded the motion. After a lengthy debate during which Susan stood
patiently waiting, the men finally voted their approval by a small
majority, and Professor Davies, a bit taken aback, announced, "The
lady may speak."
"It seems to me, gentlemen," Susan began, "that none of you quite
comprehend the cause of the disrespect of which you complain. Do you
not see that so long as society says woman is incompetent to be a
lawyer, minister, or doctor, but has ample ability to be a teacher,
every man of you who chooses this profession tacitly acknowledges that
he has no more brains than a woman? And this, too, is the reason that
teaching is a less lucrative profession; as here men must compete with
the cheap labor of woman. Would you exalt your profession, exalt those
who labor with you. Would you make it more lucrative, increase the
salaries of the women engaged in the noble work of educating our
future Presidents, Senators, and Congressmen."
For a moment after this bombshell, there was complete silence. Then
three men rushed down the aisle to congratulate her, telling her she
had pluck, that she had hit the nail on the head, but the women near
by glanced scornfully at her, murmuring, "Who can that creature be?"
Susan, however, had started a few women thinking and questioning, and
the next morning, Professor Davies, resplendent in his buff vest and
blue coat with brass buttons, opened the convention with an
explanation. "I have been asked," he said, "why no provisions have
been made for female lecturers before this association and why ladies
are not appointed on committees. I will answer." Then, in flowery
metaphor, he assured them that he would not think of dragging women
from their pedestals into the dust.
"Beautiful, beautiful," murmured the women in the back rows, but Mrs.
Northrup of Rochester offered resolutions recognizing the right of
women teachers to share in all the privileges and deliberations of the
organization and calling attention to the inadequate salaries women
teachers received. These resolutions were kept before the meeting by a
determined group and finally adopted. Susan also offered the name of
Emma Willard as a candidate for vice-president, thinking the
successful retired principal of the Troy Female Seminary, now
interested in improving the public schools, might also be willing to
lend a hand in improving the status of women in this educational
organization. Mrs. Willard, however, declined the nomination, refusing
to be drawn into Susan's rebellion.[41] Susan, nevertheless, left the
convention satisfied that she had driven an entering wedge into
Professor Davies' male stronghold, and she continued battering at
this stronghold whenever she had an opportunity. She meant to put
women in office and to win approval for coeducation and equal pay.
* * * * *
Teachers' conventions, however, were only a minor part of her new
crusade, plans for which were still simmering in her mind and
developing from day to day. Going back to many of the towns where she
had held temperance meetings, she found that most of the societies she
had organized had disbanded because women lacked the money to engage
speakers or to subscribe to temperance papers. If they were married,
they had no money of their own and no right to any interest outside
their homes, unless their husbands consented.
Discouraged, she wrote in her diary, "As I passed from town to town I
was made to feel the great evil of woman's entire dependency upon man
for the necessary means to aid on any and every reform movement.
Though I had long admitted the wrong, I never until this time so fully
took in the grand idea of pecuniary and personal independence. It
matters not how overflowing with benevolence toward suffering humanity
may be the heart of woman, it avails nothing so long as she possesses
not the power to act in accordance with these promptings. Woman must
have a purse of her own, and how can this be, so long as the _Wife_ is
denied the right to her individual and joint earnings. Reflections
like these, caused me to see and really feel that there was no true
freedom for Woman without the possession of all her property rights,
and that these rights could be obtained through legislation only, and
so, the sooner the demand was made of the Legislature, the sooner
would we be likely to obtain them."[42]
FOOTNOTES:
[33] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 65.
[34] _The Lily_, May, 1852.
[35] Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn
Gage, _History of Woman Suffrage_ (New York, 1881), I, p. 489.
[36] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 77.
[37] _Ibid._, p. 78.
[38] _Ibid._, p. 90.
[39] Theodore Stanton and Harriot Stanton Blatch, Eds., _Elizabeth
Cady Stanton, As Revealed in Her Letters, Diary, and Reminiscences_
(New York, 1922), II, p. 52.
[40] Aug., 1853, Harper, Anthony, I, pp. 98-99; _History of Woman
Suffrage_, I, pp. 513-515.
[41] Susan B. Anthony Scrapbook, Library of Congress.
[42] Ms., Diary, 1853.
A PURSE OF HER OWN
The next important step in winning further property rights for women,
it seemed to Susan, was to hold a woman's rights convention in the
conservative capital city of Albany. This was definitely a challenge
and she at once turned to Elizabeth Stanton for counsel. Somehow she
must persuade Mrs. Stanton to find time in spite of her many household
cares to prepare a speech for the convention and for presentation to
the legislature. As eager as Susan to free women from unjust property
laws, Mrs. Stanton asked only that Susan get a good lawyer, and one
sympathetic to the cause, to look up New York State's very worst laws
affecting women.[43] She could think and philosophize while she was
baking and sewing, she assured Susan, but she had no time for
research. Susan produced the facts for Mrs. Stanton, and while she
worked on the speech, Susan went from door to door during the cold
blustery days of December and January 1854 to get signatures on her
petitions for married women's property rights and woman suffrage. Some
of the women signed, but more of them slammed the door in her face,
declaring indignantly that they had all the rights they wanted. Yet at
this time a father had the legal authority to apprentice or will away
a child without the mother's consent and an employer was obliged by
law to pay a wife's wages to her husband.
In spite of the fact that the bloomer costume made it easier for her
to get about in the snowy streets, she now found it a real burden
because it always attracted unfavorable attention. Boys jeered at her
and she was continually conscious of the amused, critical glances of
the men and women she met. She longed to take it off and wear an
inconspicuous trailing skirt, but if she had been right to put it on,
it would be weakness to take it off. By this time Elizabeth Stanton
had given it up except in her own home, convinced that it harmed the
cause and that the physical freedom it gave was not worth the price.
"I hope you have let down a dress and a petticoat," she now wrote
Susan. "The cup of ridicule is greater than you can bear. It is not
wise, Susan, to use up so much energy and feeling in that way. You
can put them to better use. I speak from experience."[44]
[Illustration: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her son, Henry]
Lucy Stone too was wavering and was thinking of having her next dress
made long. The three women corresponded about it, and Lucy as well as
Mrs. Stanton urged Susan to give up the bloomer. With these entreaties
ringing in her ears, Susan set out for Albany in February 1854 to make
final arrangements for the convention. On the streets in Albany, in
the printing offices, and at the capitol, men stared boldly at her,
some calling out hilariously, "Here comes my bloomer." She endured it
bravely until her work was done, but at night alone in her room at
Lydia Mott's she poured out her anguish in letters to Lucy. "Here I am
known only," she wrote, "as one of the women who ape men--coarse,
brutal men! Oh, I can not, can not bear it any longer."[45]
Even so she did not let down the hem of her skirt, but wore her
bloomer costume heroically during the entire convention, determined
that she would not be stampeded into a long skirt by the jeers of
Albany men or the ridicule of the women. However, she made up her mind
that immediately after the convention she would take off the bloomer
forever. She had worn it a little over a year. Never again could she
be lured into the path of dress reform.