in the land.
The mob which had begun with the anti-slavery and gathered strength at the temperance meeting, now turned its attention to the Woman's Rights Convention in Broadway Tabernacle. The president was that lovely Quaker, Lucretia Mott, and the speakers were among the greatest men and women in the nation: Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Rev. Channing, Rev. John Pierpont, Mrs. Rose, Lucy Stone, Frances D. Gage, Miss Brown, Mrs. Nichols. In Miss Anthony's address she reviewed the action of the recent teachers' convention at Rochester and closed by saying: "A woman principal in that city receives $250, while a man principal, doing exactly the same work, receives $650. In this State there are 11,000 teachers and of these four-fifths are women. By the reports it will be seen that of the annual State fund of $800,000, two-thirds are paid to men and one-third to women; that is to say, two-thirds are paid to one-fifth of the laborers, and the other four-fifths are paid with the remaining one-third of the fund!" This was the first appearance of Madame Mathilde Anneke, a highly-educated German of noble family, a political exile from Hungary, and a friend of Kossuth. That wonderful colored woman, Sojourner Truth, also was present.
The resolutions were, in effect, that "each human being should be the judge of his or her sphere and that human rights should be recognized." There never were, there never will be, grander speeches than those which were made on this occasion, and yet the entire convention was in the hands of a mob. The women, as well as the men, were greeted with cries of "shut up," "sit down," "get out," "bow-wow," "go it, Susan," and their voices drowned with hisses and cat-calls. The uproar was indescribable, with shouting, yelling, screaming, bellowing, stamping and every species of noise that could be made. Horace Greeley went down among the crowd and tried to quiet them. The police were appealed to in vain, and the meeting finally closed in the midst of tumult and confusion. The Tribune under the management of Greeley, and the Evening Post under that of William Cullen Bryant, condemned the rioters with the greatest severity, but the other leading dailies of New York sustained the mob spirit and made the ladies a target for ridicule and condemnation.
After leaving New York, Miss Anthony went to the Fourth National Woman's Rights Convention at Cleveland, O., which was one of the largest and most enthusiastic that had been held. It was attended by many noted people, among them Hon. Joshua R. Giddings, always a consistent advocate of woman's rights, and the proceedings were marked with perfect order and propriety. Miss Anthony was continued at the head of the finance committee, as it was found that no one could raise so much money. The three weeks following she traveled through the southern counties in New York and spoke in a number of villages. A year before she had gone over the same ground and organized woman's temperance societies. She found that, with the exception of one at Elmira, none of these was in existence. The explanation in every instance was that they had no money to secure lecturers, or to do any practical work and, as all the members were wives and housekeepers, they were not in a position to earn any. Miss Anthony makes this entry in her journal:
Thus as I passed from town to town was I made to feel the great evil of woman's utter dependence on man for the necessary means to aid reform movements. I never before took in so fully the grand idea of pecuniary independence. Woman must have a purse of her own, and how can this be so long as the law denies to the wife all right to both the individual and the joint earnings? Reflections like these convince me that there is no true freedom for woman without the possession of equal property rights, and that these can be obtained only through legislation. If this is so, then the sooner the demand is made, the sooner it will be granted. It must be done by petition, and this, too, of the very next legislature. How can the work be started? We must hold a convention and adopt some plan of united action.
With her, to think was always to act. She reached Rochester on the morning of election day, and went at once to the home of William and Mary Hallowell, that home whose doors never were closed to her, where for more than fifty years she was welcome day or night, where she always turned for advice, assistance and sympathy and ever found them in the fullest measure. She explained to them her idea of calling a meeting in Rochester for the specific purpose of starting a petition for more extended property rights to women. They encouraged the project, and she then turned toward her other Mecca, the home of Maria G. Porter. Three of the Porter sisters kept a private school in this city for thirty years, while the eldest, Maria, made a home for them and also took a select class of boarders. This was a literary center, she often invited Miss Anthony to meet her distinguished guests, and ever encouraged and sustained her public work. Mr. Channing was boarding here, and when Miss Anthony unfolded her plan, he exclaimed, "Capital! Capital!" and at once prepared an eloquent call for the convention. This meant for her the writing of letters to scores of influential people asking their signatures, which were almost invariably given, and was followed by all the drudgery necessary for every meeting of this kind.
The convention opened Nov. 30 at Corinthian Hall, Rev. May presiding and Rev. Channing the leading spirit. Two forms of the petition were adopted, one for the just and equal rights of women in regard to wages and children; the other for the right of suffrage. Miss Anthony was appointed one of the lecturers, and also put in charge of the petitions. Sixty women began circulating these, and she herself canvassed her own city, lectured in a number of towns, and at the same time made arrangements for a State suffrage convention to be held in Albany February 14 and 15. At this time Parker Pillsbury wrote to Lydia Mott:
Is there work down among you for Susan to do? Any shirt-making, cooking, clerking, preaching or teaching, indeed any honest work, just to keep her out of idleness! She seems strangely unemployed—almost expiring for something to do, and I could not resist the inclination to appeal to you, as a person of particular leisure, that an effort be made in her behalf. At present she has only the Anti-Slavery cause for New York, the "Woman's Rights Movement" for the world, the Sunday evening lectures for Rochester and other lecturing of her own from Lake Erie to the "Old Man of Franconia mountains;" private cares and home affairs and the various et ceteras of womanity. These are about all so far as appears, to occupy her seven days of twenty-four hours each, as the weeks rain down to her from Eternal Skies. Do pity and procure work for her if it be possible!
1. From 1840 to 1848 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Ernestine L. Hose, Lydia Mott and Paulina Wright (afterwards Davis), circulated petitions for a Married Woman's Property Law and, in presenting them, addressed a legislative committee several times.
2. The W.C.T.U. was organized in 1874 and the temperance work passed almost entirely into the hands of women.
Chapter VII:
Petitions—Bloomers—Lectures
(1854)
Development of character; securing petitions for better laws; Woman's Rights Convention at Albany; ridiculous report of Representative Burnett; Miss Anthony's speech; canvassing the State and raising the funds; history of the Bloomer Costume, with interesting letters; lecture trip to Washington; opinions on slavery; hard experiences; conventions at Saratoga and Philadelphia; preparing to canvass New York State.
Considerable space has been given to detailed accounts of these early conventions to illustrate the prejudice which existed against woman's speaking in public, and the martyrdom suffered by the pioneers to secure the right of free speech for succeeding generations. From this time until the merging of all questions into the Civil War, such conventions were held every year, producing a great revolution of sentiment in the direction of an enlarged sphere for woman's activities and a modification of the legal and religious restraints that so long had held her in bondage. They have been fully described also in order to indicate some of the causes which operated in the development of the mind and character of Susan B. Anthony, transforming her by degrees from a, quiet, domestic
