## The Project Gutenberg eBook of Life and writings of Amelia Bloomer

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Title: Life and writings of Amelia Bloomer

Author: D. C. Bloomer

Release date: February 4, 2023 [eBook #69953]
Most recently updated: October 19, 2024

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Arena Publishing Company, 1895

Credits: Bob Taylor, Carla Foust and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE AND WRITINGS OF AMELIA BLOOMER ***

# LIFE AND WRITINGS OF
AMELIA BLOOMER

BY
D. C. BLOOMER, LL. D.
WITH PORTRAITS

BOSTON
ARENA PUBLISHING COMPANY
Copley Square
1895

Republished 1976
Scholarly Press, Inc., 22929 Industrial Drive East
St. Clair Shores, Michigan 48080

Copyrighted, 1895,
BY
D. C. BLOOMER.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Bloomer, Dexter C   1820-1900.
Life and writings of Amelia Bloomer.
Reprint of the ed. published by Arena Pub. Co.,
Boston.
1. Bloomer, Amelia Jenks, 1818-1894. 2. Women’s
rights—United States. I. Title.
HQ1413.B6B6  1975b  301.41’2’0924  72-78650
ISBN 0-403-01994-X

[Pg v]

TO MY WIFE.

## PREFACE.

As Mrs. Bloomer was one of the pioneers in what is sometimes called the “Woman’s Movement,” it seems right that a record of her work should be placed in durable form. Such a record I have endeavored to set forth in the following pages. While giving a brief narrative of her life, I have also included, as being most satisfactory, quite extended extracts from her writings; and one of her lectures is printed in full. I will add for the information of the curious that a complete bound copy in one volume of the Lily, as printed and issued by Mrs. Bloomer for six years, is deposited in the State Library, in Albany, N. Y., and is probably the only copy of that work in existence.

D. C. Bloomer.

September, 1895.

[Pg 1]

## CONTENTS.

| PAGE
Preface | v
CHAPTER I.
HER EARLY LIFE—HER MARRIAGE—TIPPECANOE AND TYLER, TOO!—A WRITER FOR NEWSPAPERS—WASHINGTONIANISM—JOINS THE CHURCH | 7
CHAPTER II.
UNJUST LAWS FOR WOMEN—REFORM BEGINS—WOMEN TO THE FRONT—MRS. BLOOMER THINKS ABOUT IT | 28
CHAPTER III.
SHE WRITES ABOUT IT—BIRTH OF THE LILY—NEW WORK FOR HER—FIRST IN THE FIELD—MRS. STANTON APPEARS—MRS. BLOOMER CONVERTED—BECOMES ASSISTANT POSTMASTER—THE LILY ON HER HANDS—VISITS NEW YORK CITY—MISS ANTHONY IS INTRODUCED—MRS. BLOOMER ON THE TENNESSEE LEGISLATURE—FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE—LETTER TO AKRON CONVENTION—“RULING A WIFE” | 38
CHAPTER IV.
THE REFORM DRESS—WOMAN’S ATTIRE—FASHION IN DRESS | 65
CHAPTER V.
THE LILY PROSPEROUS—WOMAN’S TEMPERANCE SOCIETY—MRS. BLOOMER ON DIVORCE—CONVENTION INFLUENCE—THE WOMEN REJECTED AT SYRACUSE—CONVENTION IN ALBANY—A LECTURER—IN NEW YORK CITY—AT HORACE GREELEY’S HOUSE—AT METROPOLITAN HALL—MRS. BLOOMER’S SPEECH—IN BUFFALO—AT HOME—HATING THE MEN—GOOD TEMPLARS—IN THE PULPIT—IN ROCHESTER AGAIN; A CHANGE—A LECTURE TOUR; FOURTH OF JULY—RESTING—NEW LECTURES—A CLUB OF TALKERS | 82
[Pg 2]CHAPTER VI.
AT THE WORLD’S CONVENTION—A WESTERN TRIP—CONTINUES HER JOURNEY—AN ANNOUNCEMENT; A REMOVAL—A TESTIMONIAL—DEMONSTRATION OF RESPECT TO MR. AND MRS. BLOOMER | 133
CHAPTER VII.
AN ASSISTANT EDITOR—PROSPERITY OF THE LILY—ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMAN—WOMAN’S RIGHT—WOMAN’S CLAIM—DESTROYING LIQUOR—GOLDEN RULES FOR WIVES—THE CLERGY—MALE BLOOMERS—WOMEN MECHANICS—WOMAN’S DRESS—WOMEN DRUNKARDS—PROGRESS—SEWING MACHINES—GOVERNOR SEYMOUR’S VETO—FIGHTING HER WAY—ON THE LECTURE PLATFORM—AT THE OHIO STATE CONVENTION—A WOMAN TYPESETTER—A STRIKE FOLLOWED—LUCY STONE APPEARS—A VISIT TO NEW YORK STATE—AT THE NEW YORK STATE CONVENTION—GOOD TEMPLARS IN OHIO—THE LILY SOLD—SHE IS SORRY | 149
CHAPTER VIII.
ON HER TRAVELS—STARTS FOR IOWA—EARLY DAYS IN THE WEST—DELAYED IN ST. LOUIS—THE MISSOURI RIVER’S RAVAGES—CONSENTS TO DELIVER A LECTURE—ODD METHOD OF ADVERTISING—OFF IN A STAGECOACH—BEFRIENDS A STRANGER—ARRIVES AT GLENWOOD—EARLY HARDSHIPS—SUFFER FROM [Pg 3] DROUTH—FURNITURE WAS SCARCE—DAYS OF HOSPITALITY—EARLY OMAHA—PLASTERED HOUSES WERE SCARCE—WORSHIPPED IN LOG CHURCHES—EARLY CHURCH WORK—DEFENDS WOMAN’S RIGHTS—THE NEBRASKA LEGISLATURE INTERESTED—DANGERS MET IN CROSSING THE MISSOURI—BUFFETS THE ICE IN A SKIFF—WOMAN’S EQUALITY IN LAW—DESCRIBES COUNCIL BLUFFS—DESCRIBES HER NEW HOME—LIFE IN COUNCIL BLUFFS—AGAINST STRONG DRINK—HER EXPERIENCES—FOR WOMAN’S ENFRANCHISEMENT—VOTING AND FIGHTING—PROGRESS—STATE SUFFRAGE SOCIETY—HISTORY OF IOWA SUFFRAGE WORK—ESSAYS BY MRS. BLOOMER—“WIFELY DUTIES”—“NAMES OF MARRIED WOMEN”—“IS IT RIGHT FOR WOMEN TO LECTURE?”—“WOMAN’S RIGHT TO PREACH”—“PETTICOAT PRESENTATION”—“OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE ANSWERED”—“ON HOUSEKEEPING; WOMAN’S BURDENS”—THE CIVIL WAR—MRS. BLOOMER’S ADDRESS—LETTER TO CONVENTION OF LOYAL WOMEN—VISITS WASHINGTON—IN NEW YORK CITY—VISITS COLORADO—A LETTER—ADOPTED CHILDREN—CHRISTIAN LIFE AND WORK—HER CHARACTER ANALYZED—“ABOUT THE FIRST SINNER”—GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY—CLOSING YEARS—END OF AN EARNEST LIFE—PASSES AWAY PEACEFULLY—GREAT LOSS TO COUNCIL BLUFFS—HER LIFE A BUSY ONE—HER CHRISTIAN CHARACTER—LARGE CIRCLE OF FRIENDS—MEMORIAL DISCOURSE | 190
[Pg 4]APPENDIX.
WOMAN’S RIGHT TO THE BALLOT | 335
A REPLY | 355
MRS. STANTON ON MRS. BLOOMER | 375
MEMORIAL SERMON | 376

[Pg 5]

## ILLUSTRATIONS.

AMELIA BLOOMER | Facing page 193.
DEXTER C. BLOOMER | Frontispiece.

[Pg 7]

LIFE AND WRITINGS OF
AMELIA BLOOMER.

## CHAPTER FIRST.

### HER EARLY LIFE.

The early life of the subject of this Memoir was devoid of any striking incidents. Her parents were natives of the little State founded by Roger Williams, where both were born, passed their early years, and were married some time in the year 1806. Her father, Ananias Jenks, was a clothier by trade, and was a man of a great deal of force of character. The maiden name of her mother was Lucy Webb. She was a devoted Christian woman, and had enjoyed to the fullest extent the training of a New-England Puritan family of the last century.[Pg 8] She was a faithful member of the Presbyterian church, and she aimed to bring up her children in its somewhat strict teachings. With her and her family the holy Sabbath commenced with the going down of the sun on Saturday evening, and ended with the setting of the sun on the following day. This was an old Puritan notion, and was very convenient for the boys and girls who wished to form acquaintances and spend pleasant hours together on the evening of the first day of the week. Ananias Jenks, the father of Amelia Jenks, removed to the state of New York with his wife in the early days of their married life, residing successively in the counties of Onondaga, Cortlandt, Wayne, and Seneca. To Ananias and Lucy Jenks several children were born, at least four daughters and two sons. One of the latter died in early childhood; but the other, Augustus, was spared until about his thirtieth year. He married, removed to the state of Michigan, where five children were born in his family, enlisted as a volunteer in one of the Michigan regiments in the Civil War, and lost[Pg 9] his life at the great battle of Gettysburg. The four daughters were Adaline, Elvira, Amanda, and Amelia; Amelia being the youngest of the family, with perhaps the exception of Augustus, who may have been younger. All the children married: Adaline left children surviving her; Amanda, one only, a daughter; while none were born to either Elvira or Amelia.

The last named, Amelia, was born in the town of Homer, Cortlandt County, New York, on the 27th day of May, 1818. In some autobiographical notes left by her, we find the following in reference to her early years:

“My earliest recollections are of a pleasant home in Homer, Cortlandt County, New York. Here was I born, and here the first six years of my life were passed. But little of these early days can now be recalled after sixty years have been added to them, yet there are a few incidents that are so deeply impressed upon memory, that they seem but the occurrence of a week ago. First I recall the visit of some Indians to my father’s house, and the latter buying a large knife of them. The Indians, my father and the knife come before me now[Pg 10] as though they were indeed a reality of the present. Again, a scene comes before the mind’s eye of my brother and myself looking from an upper window, and seeing some Indians knocking at the door of a small untenanted house opposite to us. My brother, who was a few years older than myself, called out ‘Come in.’ The Indians opened the door and stepped in, then out, and looked up and around sorely puzzled at hearing a voice, but seeing no one, while my brother and I laughed and danced behind the blind at the trick which we had played upon them. Several children were on their way to school. One little girl jumped upon the wheel of a wagon which stood in front of a house, intending to get in and ride to school. The horse became frightened while she stood on the wheel, and ran away, throwing her violently to the ground and injuring her severely. The mirth of childhood was turned to sadness, and we trudged on to school, after seeing her unconscious form carried into the house. I could not have been over four or five years old when these things happened, but they are deeply engraved on memory’s tablet.”

Amelia was carefully trained at home by her truly Christian mother, and from her she imbibed[Pg 11] those high sentiments of honesty, truth, duty, fidelity and regard for the rights of others which actuated her during the whole course of her life. Her educational opportunities were limited to the district school of those early days. Then, it was commonly thought that about all a girl should be taught was to read and write, with a little grammar and less arithmetic. These essentials of a common-school education were fairly mastered by the little girl, and to such an extent that, when she arrived at about the age of seventeen years, she was employed as a teacher in one of the district schools at or near the village of Clyde, in Wayne County, New York. A single short term, however, was the whole extent of her life as a teacher. For the brief period of her engagement, we are told, she discharged her duties with much acceptance. Her kindness of heart, united with wonderful firmness and a strict regard for truth and right, qualities which distinguished her throughout her whole life, endeared her to the children who came under her care.

[Pg 12]

### HER MARRIAGE.

School-teaching however soon ended; and shortly after, she became a member of the family of her sister Elvira, then recently married and residing in Waterloo, New York, to which place her father’s family also removed about the same time. Here the days passed along smoothly and quietly until about the year 1837, when she became an inmate in the family of Mr. Oren Chamberlain residing near Waterloo, as the governess and tutor of his three youngest children. This position she continued to fill with entire satisfaction for two or three years. The children all lived to years of maturity, and always manifested great affection in subsequent years for their former teacher. In this family, the life of Miss Jenks moved along quietly and evenly. She enjoyed fully its confidence and the love of her pupils. She formed new friendships and the circle of her acquaintances was widened. Among the latter, was a young man residing in Seneca Falls engaged[Pg 13] in the study of law, while taking also a large interest in the political movements of that day. They met quite frequently, and soon strong ties of friendship were formed between them, and the friendship ripened as the months passed by into love. They became engaged, and finally were married at the residence of John Lowden in the village of Waterloo, New York, on the 15th day of April, 1840, by the Rev. Samuel H. Gridley, the Presbyterian clergyman of the village; and in subsequent years Mrs. Bloomer frequently alluded with much satisfaction to the fact that he omitted altogether the word “obey” in the marriage ceremony. Only a few friends were present at the marriage, but among them besides Mr. and Mrs. Lowden were A. E. Chamberlain, Miss Caroline Starks, and Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Fuller, all of whom together with Mr. Lowden are still living at the time (March, 1895) of writing these lines.

At the time of this marriage Mr. Bloomer was twenty-four years of age, quite tall and slim, weighing about one hundred and fifty[Pg 14] pounds, with gray eyes, a rather tall forehead, and long arms, and of bashful and reserved demeanor. His bride was much smaller, five feet four inches in height, and weighed about a hundred pounds. She had a well-formed head, bright, blue eyes bordering on black, auburn hair and an exceedingly pleasant and winning smile. Like her husband, she was reserved in manner, and very unwilling to force herself upon the notice of strangers, but when she once became acquainted with them she enjoyed their society most heartily. She was small in person and modest in demeanor, and standing beside her tall husband, at once attracted the attention and secured the confidence of her friends and associates. She was twenty-two years of age at the time of her marriage. Her husband, Dexter C. Bloomer, was of Quaker parentage, had a fairly good common-school and academic education, had spent several years in teaching school, commenced the study of law at the age of twenty, and at the time of his marriage was still a student and one of the proprietors and editors of the Seneca County[Pg 15] Courier, a weekly newspaper printed in Seneca Falls, N. Y.

The day following their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Bloomer drove in a carriage to the residence of Mr. Isaac Fuller, in Seneca Falls, where rooms had been prepared for their reception. Mr. Fuller was Mr. Bloomer’s partner in the printing business, and both he and his excellent wife are still (in 1895) living in the same town, and have ever proved most dear and excellent friends of the young couple who on the 16th day of April, 1840, took up their residence with them.

Mr. Bloomer had very many friends in the town, and on the evening of his arrival with his bride they filled Mr. Fuller’s rooms to welcome the newly wedded couple to their new home and their new life. With them came many members of a fire company of which Mr. Bloomer was a member, accompanied by a band of music, and all went merry as a marriage bell. Refreshments were of course served, and among them a plentiful supply of wine, for in those days, this was the almost certain accompaniment[Pg 16] of all social gatherings. All, or nearly all, partook of it; and just then occurred an incident which told most instructively as to the moral character and firmness of the young and happy bride. Glasses were filled with the sparkling beverage, and one of them was presented to her by the bridegroom himself, but she firmly yet pleasantly declined to accept it. “What,” he said with the greatest earnestness, “will you not drink a glass of wine with me on this joyful occasion? Surely it can do you no harm.” “No,” she smilingly yet firmly replied, “I cannot,—I must not.” A crowd of guests standing around could but admire her great self-denial and devotion to principles; and ever after, to the end of her days, she was the firm and consistent advocate of Temperance and the unceasing enemy of strong drink in all its varied forms.

### TIPPECANOE AND TYLER, TOO!

The year 1840 was a memorable one in the history of this country. It witnessed the great[Pg 17] “Tippecanoe and Tyler, too,” campaign, in which Gen. William Henry Harrison and Martin Van Buren were opposing candidates. The whole country went wild with political speech-making, songs, log-cabins, great gatherings of people and enormous processions of the opposing hosts. Mr. Bloomer was absorbed heart and soul in the contest. He was the editor of the only Whig paper in the village and county, and he was present at political caucuses, conventions and assemblages in all that region. His wife at first took little interest in the great hubbub raised over the land. In fact, her health was quite delicate that first summer of her married life. It is remembered distinctly now by the writer of these lines, that while he was on the 4th of July, 1840, delivering an address at a political celebration, she was at home prostrated with some form of intermittent fever. His address over, he hastened to her bedside; and soon after, having so far recovered as to leave her room, she was taken to Avon Springs, in western New York, where she regained her health so as to return to her[Pg 18] boarding place early in August. But Mrs. Bloomer gradually became interested in the political turmoil so far as to attend political gatherings, visit the log-cabin which stood on one of the principal streets of the town, and assist in preparing badges and mottoes for the use of those who espoused the cause advocated by her husband.

And so the months moved quietly along during that eventful year, and the first of October found Mr. and Mrs. Bloomer settled down to housekeeping in a modest dwelling in Seneca Falls. The great election contest terminated in November, and they both rejoiced most heartily in the result, although what particular benefit it would be to either of them, except the satisfaction of being on the winning side, it would have been very difficult for either to very fully explain.

### A WRITER FOR NEWSPAPERS.

As has already been stated, Mr. Bloomer was one of the editors of a village paper printed in[Pg 19] Seneca Falls. He was a great reader of books and newspapers, and sought to inspire in his young wife a similar love for the current literature of the day. This was no difficult task, for she also was fond of books and sought in all suitable ways to store her mind with useful knowledge. But Mr. Bloomer desired her to go further and become a writer for the papers also. He had got the idea well fixed in his mind, from letters received from her during the years preceding their marriage, that she possessed the power of expressing her thoughts on paper with both ease and grace. But from the natural modesty of her character, she was quite unwilling to embark in this to her new and untried field of mental experience. Nevertheless, through the kind and persuasive appeals of the husband the young wife began to commit her thoughts to paper, and from time to time there appeared in the newspapers of the town various articles bearing upon the social, moral and political questions of those times. They all appeared anonymously, sometimes written over one signature and then over another, but[Pg 20] they all came from Mrs. Bloomer’s pen and excited no little curiosity among the people of the town as to their real author. It was in this way that Mrs. Bloomer acquired that easy and pleasant style of writing for publication which so marked her career in later years.

### WASHINGTONIANISM.

Meantime, the great Washingtonian Temperance Reformation of 1840 and 1841 made its appearance, led by the six reformed drunkards of Baltimore. It swept over the country like a whirlwind; thousands of men under its influence were led to abandon their drinking habits and become useful and sober citizens, while thousands more attached their name to the Temperance pledge of total abstinence from all intoxicating liquors. This movement reached Seneca Falls and produced a great sensation, almost revolutionizing public sentiment on the subject. Pollard and Wright, two of the reformed men of Baltimore, visited the town and held public meetings in halls and parks and were listened to by great crowds of[Pg 21] people. An “Independent Temperance Total-Abstinence Society” was formed headed by reformed men, and the current topics of the time nearly all turned upon this all-absorbing subject.

Into this movement Mrs. Bloomer entered with her whole heart and soul. Along with her husband, she attended the great Temperance gatherings, and took an active part in carrying forward the great reformation. She acted on committees, and wrote articles in support of the good work. A newspaper called the Water Bucket was issued as the organ of the Temperance society of the village. For this Mrs. Bloomer wrote freely and vigorously. A copy of this paper cannot be found, but a few articles from her pen have been preserved. Here is one of them. It was written in 1842 and is a fair specimen of Mrs. Bloomer’s then style of composition. She has been answering objections to the Temperance pledge, when she proceeds as follows:

[Pg 22]

“Another cannot make cake fit to eat without wine or brandy. A third must have brandy on her apple dumplings, and a fourth comes out boldly and says she likes to drink once in a while herself too well. What flimsy excuses these! brandy and apple dumplings, forsooth! That lady must be a wretched cook indeed who cannot make apple dumplings, mince pies or cake palatable without the addition of poisonous substances. But I would ask these ladies if they have ever tried to do without it? Their answer I fear would be in the negative. They do not wish to do without it. They act from purely selfish motives. Would they but visit the drunkard’s home and see the misery and wretchedness that is brought upon families once happy and prosperous as themselves, and hear the drunkard’s wife recount her tale of woe, methinks their hearts would soften. They could then sympathize with those who are trying to break loose from the galling yoke of intemperance, and instead of being stumbling blocks in our way, they would come to our aid with their whole hearts and devote their talents to the cause of temperance, nor cease in their efforts until drunkenness should be completely driven from the land. What examples these ladies are setting before their families! Have they a husband, a brother or[Pg 23] a son, and have they no fear that the example they are now setting them may be the means of their filling a drunkard’s grave? Have they a daughter? Their example teaches her to respect moderate-drinking young men, and receive their addresses, and should she unite her fate with such an one, almost certain ruin awaits her. * * * Could all those ladies who oppose the efforts which we are making to reform our land, but have their minds awakened to the importance of the subject! Could they but know the experience of thousands of their own sex, who from being surrounded by every happiness that wealth and station can impart, have through the means of that fell destroyer, intemperance, sunk to the lowest depth of misery and degradation, and, more than all, did they but know how far their influence may be instrumental in saving a fellow-creature, they would hasten to the standard of temperance and unite their influence against the disturber of human happiness, and become volunteers in the moral contest to extirpate the fell monster from our shores.”

The above article was signed “Gloriana,” a favorite signature of Mrs. Bloomer’s. Another which is preserved, and was printed over the[Pg 24] signature of “Eugene” at about the same date, is as follows:

“Many people think there is nothing more to do towards the advancement of temperance in this place, because we have succeeded in breaking up the drinking of ardent spirits in a measure, and have enlisted some four or five hundred members under our banners. This is a mistaken idea, and if cherished long, those who feel most secure will find to their dismay that the viper has only been crushed for a time, and will arise again upon his victim with a firmer and more deadly grasp than before. It is the duty of every man to be at his post, to lend his aid in sustaining the weak, and to encourage others by his presence and example of perseverance in the course they have begun. If the reformed inebriates see those whom they have looked upon to sustain and encourage them in this great work grow careless and indifferent towards them and the cause, have we not reason to fear that they too will drop off one by one into their old practices, and forsake that Temperance Hall where they have long passed their evenings so pleasantly and so profitably for their old haunts, the grogshop and the gutter? * * * Let it not be said of Seneca Falls[Pg 25] that she deserted her post in the hour of danger, but let every temperance man feel that he has a duty to perform and that there is no time for rest or inaction until the ‘hydra-headed monster’, shall be driven from our borders.”

These extracts show how earnestly Mrs. Bloomer gave herself to the great Temperance reform. Of some of the features of the reform she gives the following sketch in an historical review written at a much later date:

“In 1840 a great impulse was given to the temperance cause, such as had never been known before in the world’s history. This movement originated with seven drunkards of Baltimore, who met in a saloon in that city and then and there, with their glasses filled before them, resolved that they would drink no more. They poured out the liquor and went home. They at once formed a society for the promotion of total abstinence among those who, like themselves, had been addicted to the use of intoxicating drink. Only one of the seven is known to have backslidden, while the others lived and died honoring the cause they[Pg 26] had embraced. Several of these men became eloquent speakers, and traveled the country over, holding meetings, pleading earnestly for the reformation of others, and depicting in burning words the sad lot of the drunkard and his wretched family. No such temperance meetings have been held since, no such eloquent appeals made for temperance. This was called the great ‘Washingtonian movement,’ and by it an impetus was given that has led to all subsequent effort in that cause. Following this movement various societies were started, some open, some secret. We had the Sons of Temperance, Reformed Brotherhood, Rechabites, Cadets of Temperance, Carson Leagues, Alliances, Good Templars, Temple of Honor, and open local, county and state societies, and finally the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.”

### JOINS THE CHURCH.

About this time (1843) Mrs. Bloomer and also her husband united with and became members of the Episcopal Church, in Seneca Falls; she maintained her membership in that body until the end of her life, a period of over fifty years. This new relation opened a new field for her[Pg 27] quiet and gentle activities. She became very soon deeply interested in parish work in its various forms, and as a member of various parochial organizations labored faithfully to advance Christian progress. This was especially noticeable after her removal to her new home in the West, as we shall have occasion to remark further on. We may add here that Mrs. Bloomer, while a firm believer in the truth of the Christian religion, always insisted that certain passages in the Scriptures relating to women had been given a strained and unnatural meaning, and that the whole teaching of the Bible, when fully interpreted, elevated her to a joint companionship with her brother in the government and salvation of the race.

[Pg 28]

## CHAPTER SECOND.

### UNJUST LAWS FOR WOMEN.

Up to about the middle of the nineteenth century, the maxims of the common law of England relating to the rights and responsibilities of married women were in force in nearly all the states of the Union. This was true especially in the state of New York. They were exceedingly stringent in their character, and confined her, so far as related to her property rights, within exceedingly narrow limits. Indeed, in some respects they might well be regarded as brutal. They merged the legal being of the wife in her husband. Without him, and apart from him, she could hold no property, make no contracts, nor even exercise control over her children. If she earned money by whatever means, she could not collect it.[Pg 29] Her time and her earnings belonged to her husband; and her children, when above the age of infancy, could be taken from her by will or otherwise and committed to the charge of strangers. On the decease of the husband, the personal property acquired through their joint efforts and industry passed at once to his heirs, through the legal administration of his estate; while the wife was turned off with a bare life estate in one-third of the real property standing in his name at the time of his decease.

The gross injustice of these laws began to excite attention soon after the adoption of the new constitution in the state of New York, in 1846. The first step towards their modification was taken in the legislature of 1844-5, when certain recognitions of the property rights of married women were enacted into laws; and in other states attention about that time began to be turned in the same direction. These were the beginning of the series of laws since enacted in nearly all the states as well as in the dominions and provinces of the British Empire, by which the old and absurd and barbarous[Pg 30] features of the old common law of England applicable to married women have been to a large extent abrogated. But this result has been the work of years of earnest thought, earnest labor and earnest devotion to the principles of right and justice, upon which it is our boast that all our laws are based.

### REFORM BEGINS.

To Ansel Bascom, a lawyer of Seneca Falls, a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1846 and of the first legislature following its adoption, and to David Dudley Field, a distinguished citizen of the state, were largely due the modifications in the laws relating to married women which began about that time. These gentlemen were also largely instrumental in securing the adoption of the reformed code of practice in the courts, which has since been substantially enacted in nearly all the states of the Union. But women themselves had much to do in this most important work. Two of them were Lucretia Mott, a well-known Quaker[Pg 31] preacher of those days, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, wife of Henry B. Stanton and daughter of Daniel Cady, an eminent lawyer and judge. These ladies had been delegates to an anti-slavery convention in London, to which they were refused admission on account of being women, and they mutually resolved to enter upon an effort to secure an amelioration in the laws relating to the legal and property rights of their sex. They even went further and asked that the constitutions of the several states should be so amended, that to women should be extended the right to vote and even to hold office. That was a new thing under the sun. It was the beginning of what has since been so widely known as the women’s rights movement, the agitation of which has occupied a large place in the public discussions of the last half century.

### WOMEN TO THE FRONT.

The first public meeting to bring these questions prominently before the country was held[Pg 32] in the Wesleyan Chapel, in Seneca Falls, on the 19th day of July, 1848. It was attended by the ladies I have mentioned, by Mr. Bascom, by Mr. Thomas McClintoch, a Quaker preacher and member of his family, by several clergymen, and other persons of some prominence in the village. Frederick Douglass was also present. Mr. James Mott, the husband of Lucretia, presided, and that lady opened the meeting with a careful statement of women’s wrongs and grievances and made a demand for their redress. Mr. Stanton read a clearly written paper to the same purport and reported a woman’s declaration of independence, in which her wrongs were fully set forth and her rights as fully insisted upon and proclaimed. The position was boldly taken that the ballot should be placed in her hands on a perfect equality with man himself, as only through the ballot could her rights be effectually asserted and maintained. The discussion lasted through two days, and the declaration was signed by fifty women and about the same number of men. The papers over the country generally[Pg 33] noticed the gathering, and with few exceptions ridiculed the whole movement, while bearing testimony to the earnestness of those engaged in it.

Two weeks later, a second meeting of the same character was held in Rochester; and this one, as showing signs of progress, was presided over by a woman, the first event of the kind that had occurred up to that date, although since then it has become a common occurrence, and as a general rule it has been found that women make excellent presiding officers. Several new recruits were enlisted at the Rochester meeting, both women and men, among the latter being the Rev. William Henry Channing, a popular Unitarian clergyman of that city. The Rochester meeting fully endorsed the resolutions and declaration of independence of the Seneca Falls meeting, and from that time the new movement of women’s rights was fully launched upon the great ocean of public discussion and public opinion. Lucretia Mott and Mrs. Stanton were the acknowledged leaders; but soon other advocates of[Pg 34] wide influence were enrolled in the cause, and its influence from that day has continued to widen and extend, until it now includes men and women of great distinction and power in every English-speaking country in the world.

### MRS. BLOOMER THINKS ABOUT IT.

Mrs. Bloomer, at the time these meetings were held, was residing quietly at her home in Seneca Falls, engaged in a modest way in religious and temperance work. She had not yet thought much on the subject of women’s rights, so called, except so far as it related to the obstacles which the laws as then formed threw in the way of securing the triumph of total-abstinence principles. The Washingtonian movement had continued to exert its influence upon the community. Now total-abstinence societies sprang up, among them the Sons and Daughters of Temperance,—separate organizations, but including within their lists of members many thousands of both sexes. The Temperance Star of Rochester was an organ of these organizations, and Mrs.[Pg 35] Bloomer wrote freely and frequently for its columns. She attended the Mott-Stanton convention in Seneca Falls, but took no part in its proceedings and did not sign either the resolutions or declaration of independence.

But the principles promulgated in those documents began to have an effect upon her thoughts and actions, as they did upon those of many other women of that day. They realized, almost for the first time, that there was something wrong in the laws under which they lived, and that they had something to do in the work of reforming and improving them. Hence they moved slowly out of the religious circles in which their activities had hitherto been confined and, while not neglecting these, yet began in a modest way to organize societies in which they could work for the improvement of their surroundings and the moral regeneration of society. In Seneca Falls a Ladies’ Temperance Society was organized for the first time in 1848. Mrs. Bloomer became a member of it and one of its officers. Whether she ever became a member of the[Pg 36] “Daughters of Temperance” lodges is not now remembered, but it is thought no lodge of that order had been organized in the place of her residence.

Of some of these movements, Mrs. Bloomer in later years wrote as follows:

“In 1848 or ‘49, after the order of the ‘Sons’ was started, which order excluded women, some one among them conceived the idea of starting a similar order for women. This was probably as a salve to the wounded feelings of the women, just as Masons and Odd Fellows at this day will not admit women to their lodge-rooms, but to pacify them have branches called Star of Hope and Daughters of Rebekah, composed of women. Be this as it may, the order of the Daughters of Temperance was started, composed of women entirely. It continued many years and may still be in existence, though I have not heard of it for years. The order was planted in twenty-four states and in England and the British provinces. The daughters held state and national conventions, issued addresses and appeals to the women of the state, circulated petitions to the legislature, and were very zealous in good[Pg 37] works. In 1851 this order numbered over twenty thousand members. It was a secret society, and no one could gain admittance to their meetings without the password. This, so far as I know, was the first organized movement ever made by women to make themselves felt and heard on the great temperance question, which was then agitating the minds of the people as it never had done before. And so long as they kept to themselves and held secret meetings they were not molested, their right to talk and resolve was not called in question. But as the years rolled on, women became more earnest and self-reliant, and were not satisfied with these secret doings. They wanted to let their light be seen. So a few prominent daughters, with Susan B. Anthony (who up to that time had only been known as a Daughter of Temperance, an earnest temperance worker and a school-teacher) as leader, called an open temperance meeting at Albany. This was not largely responded to, women not daring to come out openly after having so long heard ‘let you women keep silence’ sounded in their ears from the sacred desk. This meeting was conducted so quietly it hardly caused a ripple of excitement, and passed almost unnoticed by the press.”

[Pg 38]

## CHAPTER THIRD.

### SHE WRITES ABOUT IT.

Women up to this time had never, or very seldom, indeed, come forward as public speakers in behalf of Temperance or any other reform movements. True, Abby Kelly Foster had made her appearance on the platform as an abolition lecturer, but her speeches were so radical and denunciatory in their character that they added little strength to the position or popularity of women speakers. The Quaker preachers were of both sexes; of these Lucretia Mott was the recognized leader among the gentler sex, and the purity of her character and the mildness of her addresses, compared with those of Mrs. Foster, made her popular with all classes. Mrs. Bloomer heard both of these women, and her husband well[Pg 39] remembers that, on one occasion after she had been listening to Mrs. Foster’s radical criticisms on an article which appeared in the editorial columns of his paper, she came home greatly distressed and with tears in her eyes over the denunciations, to which she had listened. She learned in subsequent years to take such things more calmly.

But though public sentiment did not then sanction the appearance of women speakers even to advocate so good a cause as Temperance, yet they could use their pens in its support. Mrs. Bloomer did this quite freely as we have seen, but the little society in Seneca Falls concluded that it must have a paper of its own, and on the 1st of January, 1849, such a paper was commenced in that place.

### BIRTH OF THE LILY.

Mrs. Bloomer herself tells the story of its birth and her connection with it as follows:

“Up to about 1848-9 women had almost no part in all this temperance work. They could attend meetings and listen to the eloquence[Pg 40] and arguments of men, and they could pay their money towards the support of temperance lecturers, but such a thing as their having anything to say or do further than this was not thought of. They were fired with zeal after listening to the Washingtonian lecturers and other speakers on temperance who then abounded, and in some instances held little private meetings of their own, organized societies and passed resolutions expressive of their feelings on the great subject. It was at a meeting of this kind in Seneca Falls, N. Y., which was then my home, that the matter of publishing a little temperance paper, for home distribution only, was introduced. The ladies caught at the idea and at once determined on issuing the paper. Editors were selected, a committee appointed to wait on the newspaper offices to learn on what terms the paper could be printed monthly, we furnishing all the copy. The president was to name the paper, the report to be made at next meeting by committee. And so we separated, satisfied and elated with our doings. But on my reporting my proceedings to my husband on my return home he ‘threw cold water’ on the whole thing. He said we women did not know what we[Pg 41] were talking about, that it cost a good deal of money to print a paper, and that we could not carry on such an enterprise and would run ourselves into debt, get into trouble and make a failure of it. He advised that I counsel the ladies to abandon all thought of such a movement. At the next meeting I reported all he said, but it was of no avail. The ladies had their hearts set on the paper and they determined to go ahead with it. They were encouraged thereto by a temperance lecturer who was traveling over the state. He promised to get subscribers for them and greatly help them. He kept his word so far as sending us a goodly list of names, but the money did not accompany them and we never saw the man or the money afterwards. This was very discouraging, and the zeal of the ladies abated wonderfully. They began to realize that they had been hasty in incurring a great responsibility for which they were not fitted, and very soon the society decided to give up the enterprise altogether. But meantime we had been getting subscribers and money, had issued a prospectus, and every arrangement was made at the printing office for bringing out the paper January 1, 1849. We had even ordered a head from New York. I could not so lightly[Pg 42] throw off responsibility. Our word had gone to the public and we had considerable money on subscriptions. Besides the dishonesty of the thing, people would say it was ‘just like women’; ‘what more could you expect of them?’ As editor of the paper, I threw myself into the work, assumed the entire responsibility, took the entire charge editorially and financially, and carried it successfully through.”

The following is taken from the first editorial in the new paper, written by Mrs. Bloomer:

“It is woman that speaks through The Lily. It is upon an important subject, too, that she comes before the public to be heard. Intemperance is the great foe to her peace and happiness. It is that above all which has made her home desolate and beggared her offspring. It is that above all which has filled to its brim her cup of sorrow and sent her moaning to the grave. Surely she has a right to wield the pen for its suppression. Surely she may, without throwing aside the modest retirement which so much becomes her sex, use her influence to lead her fellow-mortals away from the destroyer’s path. It is this which she proposes to do in the columns of this paper. Like the beautiful[Pg 43] flower from which it derives its name, we shall strive to make the Lily the emblem of ‘sweetness and purity;’ and may heaven smile upon our attempt to advocate the great cause of Temperance reform!”

### NEW WORK FOR HER.

With the birth of this little journal, a new life opened before Mrs. Bloomer. She was at once initiated into all the mysteries and details of an editor and publisher. She had to make contracts for the printing and publication, to send out circulars to friends asking for their assistance in extending its circulation, place the papers in proper covers and send them to subscribers through the mails, to prepare editorials and other matter for its columns, to read the proofs and, in short, to attend to all the details of newspaper publication. She gave herself heartily and earnestly to the work. Of the first issue of the Lily not over two or three hundred copies were printed, but the number of its subscribers steadily increased. Many friends came forward from different parts of[Pg 44] the state to help in adding new names to its lists. Among these none were more zealous and earnest than Miss Susan B. Anthony, then a very competent school-teacher in the city of Rochester, but whose name has since become one of world-wide fame as that of the great leader in the cause of woman’s emancipation. Mrs. Mary C. Vaughan, a most estimable lady and fine writer, also came forward both with her pen and lists of new subscribers to help in the great Temperance reform to which the Lily was devoted.

### FIRST IN THE FIELD.

The Lily was very nearly, if not quite, the first journal of any kind published by a woman. Mrs. Nichols, in Vermont, and Mrs. Swishelm, in Pennsylvania, were connected with newspapers published in each case by their husbands, and they wrote vigorous editorials for their papers, but neither of them took upon herself the entire charge of the publication. Mrs. Bloomer did this to the fullest extent, and it therefore may be justly claimed that she was[Pg 45] the pioneer woman editor and proprietor. True, her journal was not a very large one, yet it labored zealously in the cause to which it was devoted and prepared the way for other and more pretentious publications to follow, under the charge of women. It showed what women could do when their thoughts and energies were directed to some practical and beneficial purpose, and so made ready for the great advance which has since taken place in opening for her wider fields of usefulness.

Mrs. Bloomer herself writes as follows:

“The Lily was the first paper published devoted to the interests of woman and, so far as I know, the first one owned, edited and published by a woman. It was a novel thing for me to do in those days and I was little fitted for it, but the force of circumstances led me into it and strength was given me to carry it through. It was a needed instrumentality to spread abroad the truth of the new gospel to woman, and I could not withhold my hand to stay the work I had begun. I saw not the end from the beginning and little dreamed whereto my proposition to the society would lead me.”

[Pg 46]

### MRS. STANTON APPEARS.

Among those who soon became writers for the Lily was Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a resident of Seneca Falls. One day during the summer of 1849, she came into the post office where the editor of the Lily was busily engaged and introduced herself to Mrs. Bloomer, and proposed to write for the columns of her paper. The offer was gladly accepted, and very soon articles began to appear in the columns of the Lily over the signature of “Sunflower.” They were forcibly written and displayed not a little wit and many sharp hits at some of the prevailing “fads” of the day. At first they were on Temperance and literary subjects, and the duties of parents in bringing up their children. The various theories of education were also vigorously analyzed and some new ideas put forth. By and by, as months went by, her readers were apprised as to her views on Woman’s Rights, so called. They learned something from her of the unjust laws relating to married[Pg 47] women, and saw that the writer was about right in asking that they should be changed and made better. And then the paragraphs moved further along and intimated that women should vote also for her rulers and legislators. Mrs. Bloomer herself became a convert to these views. How this came around, she herself tells in the two following paragraphs:

### MRS. BLOOMER CONVERTED.

“When a child of fifteen years, my feelings were deeply stirred by learning that an old lady, a dear friend of mine, was to be turned from her home and the bulk of her property taken from her. Her husband died suddenly, leaving no will. The law would allow her but a life interest in one-third of the estate, which had been accumulated by the joint earnings and savings of herself and husband through many years. They had no children and the nearest relative of the husband was a second or third cousin, and to him the law gave two-thirds of her property, though he had never contributed a dollar towards its accumulation, and was to them a stranger. Later, other similar cases coming to my knowledge made me familiar[Pg 48] with the cruelty of the law towards women; and when the Woman’s Rights Convention put forth its declaration of sentiments, I was ready to join with that party in demanding for women such change in the laws as would give her a right to her earnings, and her children a right to wider fields of employment and a better education, and also a right to protect her interests at the ballot-box.”

### BECOMES ASSISTANT POSTMASTER.

“In the spring of 1849, my husband was appointed postmaster at Seneca Falls, N. Y. He proposed that I should act as his deputy. I accepted the position, as I had determined to give a practical demonstration of woman’s right to fill any place for which she had capacity. I was sworn in as his deputy, and filled the position for four years, during the administration of Taylor and Fillmore. It was a novel step for me to take in those days, and no doubt many thought I was out of woman’s sphere; but the venture was very successful and proved to me conclusively that woman might, even then, engage in any respectable business and deal with all sorts of men, and yet be treated with the utmost respect and consideration.”

[Pg 49]

### THE LILY ON HER HANDS.

During the first year of its existence, the Lily bore at its head the words “published by a committee of ladies”; but the truth was that no person, save Mrs. Bloomer herself, had any responsible share in its management or control. Therefore, at the beginning of the new year 1850 that fiction was dropped, and her name alone appeared as publisher and editor, and at its head stood the legend “devoted to the interests of woman.” Says Mrs. Bloomer:

“I never liked the name of the paper, but the society thought it pretty and accepted it from the president. It started with that name, and became known far and wide. It had been baptized with tears and sent forth with anxious doubts and fears. It was not easy to change, and so it remained The Lily to the end, pure in motive and purpose as in name. * * * It was never the organ of any society, party or clique, or of any individual but myself. That it was always loyal to temperance is evidenced by the fact that its files are sought after by[Pg 50] writers of temperance history. That subject was never lost sight of in a single number, as its files will show. Mrs. Stanton became a contributor to the Lily near the close of its first year. Her subjects were temperance and woman’s rights. Her writings added interest to the paper and she was welcome to its columns, as were Frances D. Gage, Mary C. Vaughan, and many others who came to my aid. She occupied the same position as any other contributor, and she never attempted to control the paper in any way.”

The year 1850 was a quiet one for Mrs. Bloomer. Early in the spring, her husband purchased a modest cottage. This had to be fitted up and occupied, and took up a good deal of her attention. Then several hours each day were spent in the post office in the work of receiving and delivering letters. Once a month the Lily continued to make its appearance, filled with good, substantial temperance arguments and pleadings, and occasional articles pointing strongly in the direction of the new doctrines of woman’s rights then coming more and more into prominence. Her[Pg 51] editorials were written plainly but with a good deal of spirit, and whoever attacked her position on either of these subjects was sure to receive a sharp rejoinder from her pen. Several weeks during the summer were spent at a sanatorium in Rochester, from which she returned greatly improved in health. Sometime during the year a great anti-slavery meeting was held in the town, attended by the celebrated English orator, George Thompson, and many prominent abolitionists of the state. Among others came Susan B. Anthony, who was the guest of Mrs. Bloomer and whom she introduced to Mrs. Stanton, and then commenced that life-long intimacy of these two celebrated women.

### VISITS NEW YORK CITY.

During the winter of 1849-50 Mrs. Bloomer visited the city of New York for the first time, accompanied by her husband. They passed up Cayuga Lake on a steamer, and from there were in the first railroad cars, by special invitation,[Pg 52] over the Erie railroad from that village to the metropolis. It is remembered that several of the men who afterwards became distinguished as railroad magnates were on that train, and their conversation was listened to with a great deal of interest. That was long before the days of sleeping cars, and they had to pass the night as comfortably as they could in their seats in the passenger coach. In the city, they spent three or four days visiting some of the noted places, including Barnum’s Museum on Broadway, then one of the great attractions of the growing town. They returned by the same route in the midst of a great snowstorm which, with the high wind that came along with it, made their trip down the lake somewhat hazardous.

Mrs. Bloomer wrote of this trip as follows:

“We traveled by the route of the lake and the New-York-and-Erie railroad. Those who have not been over this road can form no idea of its sublimity and grandeur. To one who like myself had never been beyond the level country of western New York, it presents a grand, imposing[Pg 53] spectacle. The prospect is at one moment bounded on either side by lofty mountain peaks covered with evergreens, and the next by solid masses of rock towering higher than the eye can reach, and through which at an enormous expense and great amount of labor the road has been cut. The water pouring over these rocks from above had frozen in its descent, and now hung in masses and irregular sheets down their perpendicular sides, forming a beautiful contrast to their surface. Occasionally you come into a more open country, while at one spot you find yourself on the summit of a mountain where you have a view of ten miles in extent through the valley below. * * * Winter had robed all in her snowy mantle on our return, adding new beauty to the scene. Summer, we think, would lend enchantment to the picture; and should we ever take a trip over this road again, we shall aim to do so at a more mild and genial season.

“We were fortunate in meeting several directors of the road on our downward trip from Ithaca. To them, and especially to Mr. Dodge, of New York City, we are indebted for much information concerning the road. Every attention was shown us by this enterprising[Pg 54] gentleman from the time we left Ithaca until we shook hands with him at parting upon our arrival in the city.”

### MISS ANTHONY IS INTRODUCED.

Mrs. Bloomer, in later years, wrote:

“It was in the spring of 1850 that I introduced Susan B. Anthony to Mrs. Stanton. Miss Anthony had come to attend an anti-slavery meeting in Seneca Falls, held by George Thompson and William Lloyd Garrison, and was my guest. Returning from the meeting, we stopped at the street corner and waited for Mrs. Stanton, and I gave the introduction which has resulted in a life-long friendship. Afterwards, we called together at Mrs. Stanton’s house and the way was opened for future intercourse between them. It was, as Mrs. Stanton says in her history, an eventful meeting that henceforth in a measure shaped their lives. Neither would have done what she did without the other. Mrs. Stanton had the intellectual, and Susan the executive, ability to carry forward the movement then recently inaugurated. Without the push of Miss Anthony, Mrs. Stanton would probably never[Pg 55] have gone abroad into active life, or achieved half she has done; and without the brains of Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony would never have been so largely known to the world by name and deeds. They helped and strengthened each other, and together they have accomplished great things for woman and humanity. The writer is glad for the part she had in bringing two such characters together.”

### MRS. BLOOMER ON THE TENNESSEE LEGISLATURE.

The columns of the Lily during the first year of its publication were almost exclusively filled with articles bearing upon the great purpose for which it was established, the promotion of the Temperance cause. True, some other questions were touched upon by Mrs. Stanton, and perhaps by other correspondents; but Mrs. Bloomer’s editorials were all directed to that end. With the March Lily for 1850 she struck out in a new direction, as will appear from the following article which appeared in the editorial columns for that month:

[Pg 56]

“The legislature of Tennessee have in their wisdom decided after gravely discussing the question that women have no souls, and no right to hold property. Wise men these, and worthy to be honored with seats in the halls of legislation in a Christian land. Women no souls! Then, of course, we are not accountable beings: and if not accountable to our Maker, then surely not to man. Man represents us, legislates for us, and now holds himself accountable for us! How kind in him, and what a weight is lifted from us! We shall no longer be answerable to the laws of God or man, no longer be subject to punishment for breaking them, no longer be responsible for any of our doings. Man in whom iniquity is perfected has assumed the whole charge of us and left us helpless, soulless, defenseless creatures dependent on him for leave to speak or act.

“We suppose the wise legislators consider the question settled beyond dispute, but we fear they will have some trouble with it yet. Although it may be an easy matter for them to arrive at such a conclusion, it will be quite another thing to make women believe it. We are not so blind to the weakness or imperfections of man as to set his word above that of[Pg 57] our Maker, or so ready to yield obedience to his laws as to place them before the laws of God. However blindly we may be led by him, however much we may yield to his acquired power over us, we cannot yet fall down and worship him as our superior. Some men even act as though women had no souls, but it remained for the legislature of Tennessee to speak it to the world.

“We have not designed ourself saying much on the subject of ‘Woman’s Rights;’ but we see and hear so much that is calculated to keep our sex down and impress us with a conviction of our inferiority and helplessness, that we feel compelled to act on the defensive and stand for what we consider our just rights. If things are coming to such a pass as that indicated by the above decision, we think it high time that women should open their eyes and look where they stand. It is quite time that their rights should be discussed, and that woman herself should enter the contest.

“We have ever felt that in regard to property, and also as to many other things, the laws were unjust to women. Men make laws without consulting us, and of course they will make them all in their own favor, especially as we are powerless and cannot contend for our rights.[Pg 58] We believe that most women are capable of taking care of their own property, and that they have the right to hold it, and to dispose of it as they please, man’s decision to the contrary notwithstanding. As for ourselves, we have no fears but we could take care of a fortune if we had one, without any assistance from legislators or lawyers, and we should think them meddling with what did not concern them should they undertake to control it for us.

“The legislature of our own state has taken a step in advance on this subject and granted to women the right to their own property. We trust this is but a forecast of the enlightened sentiment of the people of New York, and that it will pave the way to greater privileges, and the final elevation of women to that position in society which shall entitle her opinions to respect and consideration.”

### FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

And from that time on, a considerable part of the Lily was devoted to the same subject. The above article related simply to property rights, but Mrs. Bloomer’s views rapidly widened out until she took the position, also,[Pg 59] that women should be granted the right of suffrage and thus possess a controlling influence in the passage of all laws. Nevertheless, she remained true and faithful to her temperance principles and firm in their advocacy. Witness the following written and printed in her paper in 1853:

“We think it all-important that woman obtain the right of suffrage, but she cannot do this at once. She must gradually prepare the way for such a step by showing that she is worthy of receiving and capable of exercising it. If she do this, prejudices will gradually give way and she will gain her cause. We cannot consent to have woman remain silent on the Temperance question till she obtain her right of suffrage. Great as is our faith in the speedy triumph of temperance principles were women allowed their right of franchise, and strong as is our hope that this right will be granted ere many years, we feel that the day is too far distant for her to rest all her hopes and labors on that issue. Let her work with her whole heart in this cause and, while she demands a law that entirely prohibits the traffic in strong drink, let her also obtain a[Pg 60] right to a voice in making all laws by which she is to be governed.”

### LETTER TO AKRON CONVENTION.

On the ninth of May, 1851, Mrs. Bloomer addressed an elaborate letter to the women’s convention held at Akron, O., in that month, in which she discussed at great length the position of woman as regards her education, her right to employment, and the laws relating to her property rights. She first takes up the liquor traffic and shows wherein it was unjust to woman in her dearest privilege,—the enjoyment of children, family and home. She “unfolds the great wrong done to woman in her circumscribed sphere of industry, and the meagre wages she receives for her industry.” Passing on from this, the property rights of married women are considered, and their unjust provisions are pointed out. She concludes as follows:

“But woman is herself aroused to a sense of her wrongs, and sees the necessity of action on her part if she would have justice done her.[Pg 61] A brighter day has dawned for her. A spirit of inquiry has awakened in her bosom, which neither ridicule nor taunts can quench. Henceforth her course is upward and onward. Her mind is capable of grasping things hitherto beyond her reach and she will not weary of the chase until she has reached the topmost round in the ladder. She will yet prove conclusively that she possesses the same God-given faculties which belong to man, and that she is endowed with powers of mind and body suitable for any emergency in which she may be placed.”

### “RULING A WIFE.”

During this year, Mr. T. S. Arthur published a book bearing this title, in which he undertook to define the duties of the wife of a hard-hearted, thoughtless man, and to show that even under the most shocking circumstances of injustice it was still the wife’s duty to submit and obey. Mrs. Bloomer took exception to this position. Mr. Arthur answered her, and she then wrote in reply in part as follows:

“I have too good an opinion of my sex to admit that they are such weak, helpless creatures,[Pg 62] or to teach them any such ideas. Much rather would I arouse them from their dependent, inferior position, and teach them to rely more upon themselves and less upon man, so that when called upon, as many of them are and ever will be, to battle with the rough things of the world, they may go forth with confidence in their own powers of coping successfully with every obstacle and with courage to meet whatever dangers and difficulties may lie in their way. The more you impress this upon their minds, the more you show that she is man’s equal, and not his slave, so much the more you do to elevate woman to her true position. The present legal distinctions between the sexes have been made by man and not by God. Man has degraded woman from her high position in which she was placed as his companion and equal, and made of her a slave to be bought and sold at his pleasure. He has brought the Bible to prove that he is her lord and master, and taught her that resistance to his authority is to resist God’s will. I deny that the Bible teaches any such doctrine. God made them different in sex, but equal in intellect, and gave them equal dominion. You deny that they are ‘intellectually equal.’ As a whole, I admit that at the present day they[Pg 63] are not; though I think there have been individual cases where woman’s equality cannot be denied. But at her creation no difference existed. It is the fault of education that she is now intellectually inferior. Give her the same advantages as men, throw open the door of our colleges and schools of science and bid her enter, teach her that she was created for a higher purpose than to be a parlor ornament or mere plaything for man, show her that you regard her as an equal and that her opinions are entitled to consideration, in short, treat her as an intelligent, accountable being, and when all this has been done, if she prove herself not man’s equal in intellect I will yield the point and admit her inferiority. It is unjust to condemn her as inferior when we consider the different education she has received and the estimation in which she has ever been held. We are by the laws and customs of society rendered dependent and helpless enough, at the best; but it is both painful and mortifying to see our helplessness shown up to the world in such colors, and by such a writer as yourself. If, instead of leading Mrs. Long into such difficulties after she had left her husband, you had allowed her to hire out as a servant, if nothing better presented itself, you would have done[Pg 64] justice to woman, set her a better example, and more truly drawn her character.”

The above presents very fully the views of Mrs. Bloomer at that time (1850). She was pleading for the elevation of woman, for her redemption from the curse of drink, for a better education for her, and wider fields for the work of her hands. She had not yet troubled herself much about the suffrage question,—the right to the ballot; that came along later in life, as we have already seen.

[Pg 65]

## CHAPTER FOURTH.

### THE REFORM DRESS.

The reform-dress movement was simply an episode in Mrs. Bloomer’s life and work, although perhaps an important one. She never dreamed of the wonderful celebrity which it brought to her name. This came upon her accidentally, as we shall see later on. It was first mentioned in the Lily in February, 1851. Other short articles on the subject appeared in subsequent numbers during that year, with pictures of herself dressed in the new costume. The whole story she herself told in the following article which appeared originally some years ago in the Chicago Tribune and is here reproduced in full, followed by some further items bearing on the subject:

“In January or February, 1851, an article appeared editorially in the Seneca County Courier, Seneca Falls, N. Y., on ‘Female Attire,’ in[Pg 66] which the writer showed up the inconvenience, unhealthfulness and discomfort of woman’s dress, and advocated a change to Turkish pantaloons and a skirt reaching a little below the knee.

“At the time, I was publishing a monthly paper in the same place devoted to the interests of woman, temperance and woman’s rights being the principal subjects. As the editor of the Courier was opposed to us on the woman’s-rights question, this article of his gave me an opportunity to score him one on having gone so far ahead of us as to advocate our wearing pantaloons, and in my next issue I noticed him and his proposed style in a half-serious, half-playful article of some length. He took up the subject again and expressed surprise that I should treat so important a matter with levity. I replied to him more seriously than before, fully indorsing and approving his views on the subject of woman’s costume.

“About this time, when the readers of the Lily and the Courier were interested in and excited over the discussion, Elizabeth Smith Miller, daughter of the Hon. Gerrit Smith, of Peterboro, N. Y., appeared on the streets of our village dressed in short skirts and full Turkish trousers. She came on a visit to her[Pg 67] cousin, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who was then a resident of Seneca Falls. Mrs. Miller had been wearing the costume some two or three months at home and abroad. Just how she came to adopt it I have forgotten, if I ever knew. But she wore it with the full sanction and approval of her father and husband. During her father’s term in congress she was in Washington, and the papers of that city described her appearance on the streets in the short costume.

“A few days after Mrs. Miller’s arrival in Seneca Falls Mrs. Stanton came out in a dress made in Mrs. Miller’s style. She walked our streets in a skirt that came a little above the knees, and trousers of the same material—black satin. Having had part in the discussion of the dress question, it seemed proper that I should practise as I preached, and as the Courier man advised; and so a few days later I, too, donned the new costume, and in the next issue of my paper announced that fact to my readers. At the outset, I had no idea of fully adopting the style; no thought of setting a fashion; no thought that my action would create an excitement throughout the civilized world, and give to the style my name and the credit due Mrs. Miller. This was all the work[Pg 68] of the press. I stood amazed at the furor I had unwittingly caused. The New York Tribune contained the first notice I saw of my action. Other papers caught it up and handed it about. My exchanges all had something to say. Some praised and some blamed, some commented, and some ridiculed and condemned. ‘Bloomerism,’ ‘Bloomerites,’ and ‘Bloomers’ were the headings of many an article, item and squib; and finally some one—I don’t know to whom I am indebted for the honor—wrote the ‘Bloomer Costume,’ and the name has continued to cling to the short dress in spite of my repeatedly disclaiming all right to it and giving Mrs. Miller’s name as that of the originator or the first to wear such dress in public. Had she not come to us in that style, it is not probable that either Mrs. Stanton or myself would have donned it.

“As soon as it became known that I was wearing the new dress, letters came pouring in upon me by hundreds from women all over the country making inquiries about the dress and asking for patterns—showing how ready and anxious women were to throw off the burden of long, heavy skirts. It seemed as though half the letters that came to our office were for me.

“My subscription list ran up amazingly into[Pg 69] the thousands, and the good woman’s-rights doctrines were thus scattered from Canada to Florida and from Maine to California. I had gotten myself into a position from which I could not recede if I had desired to do so. I therefore continued to wear the new style on all occasions, at home and abroad, at church and on the lecture platform, at fashionable parties and in my business office. I found the dress comfortable, light, easy and convenient, and well adapted to the needs of my busy life. I was pleased with it and had no desire to lay it aside, and so would not let the ridicule or censure of the press move me. For some six or eight years, or so long as I remained in active life and until the papers had ceased writing squibs at my expense, I wore no other costume. During this time I was to some extent in the lecture field, visiting in all the principal cities of the North and lecturing on temperance and woman suffrage; but at no time, on any occasion, alluding to my style of costume. I felt as much at ease in it as though I had been arrayed in the fashionable draggle skirts. In all my travels I met with nothing disagreeable or unpleasant, but was universally treated with respect and attention by both press and people wherever I appeared. Indeed, I received from[Pg 70] the press flattering notices of my lectures. If the dress drew the crowds that came to hear me it was well. They heard the message I brought them, and it has borne abundant fruit.

“My paper had many contributions on the subject of dress and that question was for some time kept before my readers. Mrs. Stanton was a frequent contributor and ably defended the new style. She continued to wear it at home and abroad, on the lecture platform and in the social parlor, for two or three years; and then the pressure brought to bear upon her by her father and other friends was so great, that she finally yielded to their wishes and returned to long skirts.

“Lucy Stone, of the Woman’s Journal, adopted and wore the dress for many years on all occasions; but she, too, with advancing years, saw fit to return to the old style. We all felt that the dress was drawing attention from what we thought of far greater importance—the question of woman’s right to better education, to a wider field of employment, to better remuneration for her labor, and to the ballot for the protection of her rights. In the minds of some people, the short dress and woman’s rights were inseparably connected. With us, the dress was but an incident, and we were not willing to sacrifice greater questions to it.

[Pg 71]

“* * * I have not worn the short dress for thirty years, and it does seem as though in that time the interest concerning it must have died out. My reasons for abandoning I have in substance stated above. I never set up for a dress reformer, like Anna Jenness-Miller of the present day. Mrs. Miller, if I understand her correctly, really believes the short skirt and trousers the true style for woman’s costume; but that the time for its adoption has not yet fully come. Women are not sufficiently free and independent to dare to strike for health and freedom. Jenness-Miller is going over the country lecturing on dress and disposing of patterns, and is doing a vast amount of good. I am glad to know that she is not assailed and made the butt of ridicule and caricatured by the press.”

In reference to the further connection of Mrs. Bloomer with the dress she wrote to a friend, in 1865, as follows:

“It is very true that I have laid aside the short dress which I wore for a number of years, and to which the public (not I) gave my name. I have not worn the dress for the last six years or more. * * * As to my reasons for laying[Pg 72] aside the dress, they may not satisfy you, though they were sufficient for me. It was not at my husband’s dictation, by any means, but was my own voluntary act. * * * After retiring from public life and coming to this land of strangers where I was to commence life anew and make new friends, I felt at times like donning long skirts when I went into society, at parties, etc., and did so. I found the high winds which prevail here much of the time played sad work with short skirts when I went out, and I was greatly annoyed and mortified by having my skirts turned over my head and shoulders on the streets. Yet I persevered and kept on the dress nearly all the time till after the introduction of hoops. Finding them light and pleasant to wear and doing away with the necessity for heavy underskirts (which was my greatest objection to long dresses), and finding it very inconvenient as well as expensive keeping up two wardrobes—a long and short—I gradually left off the short dress. I consulted my own feelings and inclinations and judgment in laying it off, never dreaming but I had the same right to doff that I had to don it, and not expecting to be accountable for my doings, or required to give a reason to every one that asked me. There were other questions[Pg 73] of greater importance than the length of a skirt under discussion at the time, and I felt my influence would be greater in the dress ordinarily worn by women than in the one I was wearing. * * * I always liked the dress and found it convenient and comfortable at all times, and especially so for a working dress. I never encountered any open opposition while wearing it, though I have traveled much in the dress and freely walked the streets of all our large cities. On the contrary, I was always treated with respect and should continue to be, I have no doubt, did I still wear it. * * * When I saw what a furor I had raised, I determined that I would not be frightened from my position, but would stand my ground and wear the dress when and where I pleased, till all excitement on the subject had died away. And I did so.”

As to just how the reform dress should be prepared, Mrs. Bloomer gave her idea as follows in the Lily at the time when the subject was most prominently before the public eye:

“We would have the skirt reaching down to nearly half way between the knee and the ankle, and not made quite so full as is the present[Pg 74] fashion. Underneath this skirt, trousers made moderately full, in fair mild weather coming down to the ankle (not instep) and there gathered in with an elastic band. The shoes or slippers to suit the occasion. For winter or wet weather the trousers also full, but coming down into a boot, which should rise at least three or four inches above the ankle. This boot should be gracefully sloped at the upper edge and trimmed with fur or fancifully embroidered, according to the taste of the wearer. The material might be cloth, morocco, mooseskin and so forth, and made waterproof if desirable.”

The above describes the dress as Mrs. Bloomer wore it at the time it was written, but she afterwards abandoned the elastic band and allowed the trousers to hang loose about the ankle. The general opinion expressed in those early days was favorable.

Mrs. Russell Sage, now a venerable and highly respected matron, was a young woman and a resident of Syracuse at the time of Mrs. Bloomer’s visit to that place to attend a Temperance convention; in a recent interview, she thus describes her appearance at that time:

[Pg 75]

“Mrs. Bloomer came as a delegate and her appearance excited some attention. Her manner was unpretentious, quiet and delicately feminine. Her costume showed a total disregard for effect, and was mannish only to the extent of practicability. Her bodice was soft and belted at the waist, her collar simple and correct, as was also her prim bonnet; her skirt fell half way from knee to ankle, and then the bloomer—really a pantalet—made of black material, as the rest of her costume, reaching to her boot tops.”

The interviewer continues:

“As Mrs. Sage so knew Mrs. Bloomer, she agreed she was entirely what she aimed to be—a practical woman, progressive and competent of realizing results from her theories.”

### WOMAN’S ATTIRE.

On this subject Mrs. Bloomer, in an elaborate review (only a part of which is here presented) of a sermon by the Rev. Dr. Talmage in which he had quoted Moses as authority for women not wearing men’s attire, wrote as follows:

[Pg 76]

“There are laws of fashion in dress older than Moses, and it would be as sensible for the preacher to direct us to them as to him. The first fashion we have any record of was set us by Adam and Eve, and we are not told that there was any difference in the styles worn by them. ‘And they sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves aprons’: Genesis, iii., 7. Nothing here to show that his apron was bifurcated, and hers not; that hers was long, and his short. We are led to suppose that they were just alike.

“The second fashion was made by God Himself, and it would be supposed that if He intended the sexes to be distinguished by their garments explicit directions would have been given as to the style of each. ‘Unto Adam, also, and unto his wife, did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothed them’: Gen. iii., 21. Not a word as to any difference in the cut and make-up of the coats. No command to her that she must swathe and cripple herself in long, tight, heavy, draggling skirts, while he dons the more comfortable, healthy, bifurcated garment. God clothed them just alike, and made no signs that henceforth they should be distinguished by apparel. And for long years there was little, if any, difference.”

[Pg 77]

After showing the character of the dress of different ancient nations, Egyptians, Babylonians, Israelites, Persians, Romans, Saxons, Normans, Turks, and Chinese, and that there was no essential difference between the dress worn by men and women, Mrs. Bloomer proceeds:

“With all the history of male and female attire before him, and with so much proof of the similarity in dress, how can Mr. Talmage set up the claim that men have a right to any particular style, and that if women dare to approach that style they break divine law and commit great sin and wrong? It is a presumption and insult which women everywhere should resent.

“It matters not to us what Moses had to say to the men and women of his time about what they should wear. Our divine entirely disregards the command of the ancient lawgiver by not putting fringes and blue ribbons on his garments. Common sense teaches us that the dress which is the most convenient, and best adapted to our needs, is the proper dress for both men and women to wear. There is no reason why woman should burden herself with[Pg 78] clothes to the detriment of her health, comfort and life, while man adopts a style that gives freedom of limb and motion. There is no divine law requiring such doings. A hundred other laws and customs of the days of Adam, Noah, Abraham and Moses are as binding upon the men and women of this day as the text from which he gives his lecture. Judging from the present customs, men have transgressed that law more than women.

“We do not advocate the same style of dress, altogether, for both sexes and should be sorry to see women dress just like men; yet we should like to see a radical reform in woman’s costume, so that she might be the free, healthy being God made her instead of the corseted, crippled, dragged-down creature her slavery to clothes has made her. No law of God stands in the way of her freedom. Her own judgment and inclination should be her guide in all matters of attire.

“If divine law or vengeance is ever visited upon woman because of the cut of her garments, it will be upon the wearers of the suicidal long, heavy skirts, instead of upon those who have rid themselves of the grievous burden. That sorrow and suffering are visited upon woman because of her clothes we know, and that her[Pg 79] sin is visited upon her we know; and yet how dare she throw off the burden and the sin, when the clergy from the pulpit hold over her head the threatenings of divine vengeance!

“No sensible woman can sit under such preaching. Would that women had the independence to act out the right in defiance of such sermons, and in disregard of all laws that condemn her to the slavery of a barbarous age.

“A. B.”

### FASHION IN DRESS.

On the general subject of “Fashion in Dress,” Mrs. Bloomer wrote to Charlotte A. Joy, June 3, 1857, as follows:

“Your letter inviting me to attend the annual meeting of the National Dress Association to be held in Syracuse on the 17th inst. is received. Owing to the great distance and my imperfect health, it will be impossible for me to be with you on that occasion, much as I should be pleased to meet some of the members personally and listen to their deliberations on so important a subject as a reform in woman’s costume.

“At the present moment there is perhaps no subject which is more frequently pressed upon the attention of the public than that of dress.[Pg 80] Our magazines are radiant with fashion plates illustrating the latest styles; our newspapers abound with allusions and discussions bearing upon the subject, as though it were a matter of national concernment; and it is continually the theme of conversation and a subject either of praise or satire wherever men and women meet together. It would be fortunate, indeed, if this discussion should result in securing a reform in all those styles and modes of woman’s dress which are incompatible with good health, refined taste, simplicity, economy and beauty; and it is to be hoped that the labors of your association may be so discreetly directed and so faithfully prosecuted, that they may go far to the accomplishment of this end.

The costume of woman should be suited to her wants and necessities. It should conduce at once to her health, comfort, and usefulness; and, while it should not fail also to conduce to her personal adornment, it should make that end of secondary importance. I certainly need not stop to show that these conditions are not attained by the present style of woman’s dress. All admit that they are not. Even those who ridicule most freely the labors of your association are ready to admit the folly and inutility of the prevailing styles.

[Pg 81]

“It is well, perhaps, in the present aspect of the movement, that its friends should abstain from prescribing any particular form of dress. It is better to learn wisdom from the experience of the past and, while successively lopping off all excrescences, produce at last that outward form of personal garniture which shall most fully secure the great end to be attained.

“What may be the next feat of the fickle goddess of Fashion, or how near or how soon it may approach the more rational and more desirable form recommended by your association, none can say. At present, we must admit, the reform dress is quite obnoxious to the public and all who bear testimony in its favor, either by precept or example, must expect to meet with some trials and discouragements; yet it may, as you believe it will, be ultimately adopted. In bringing about such a result your association will have a leading part to perform, and in your labors you will have the good wishes, if not the active coöperation, of all who desire the emancipation of woman from the tyranny of prejudice and fashion.

“A. B.”

[Pg 82]

## CHAPTER FIFTH.

### THE LILY PROSPEROUS.

As intimated by Mrs. Bloomer in the preceding pages, the circulation of her paper was largely increased through the notoriety given to it by her adoption and defense of the new costume. Nearly every newspaper in the land had to have its comments on it, as well as upon those who had the courage to wear it. Some denounced, some ridiculed. Besides receiving numerous letters on the subject, many persons called to see how the little woman appeared in the short dress and trousers. Fortunately or otherwise, they became her very well; usually they were becoming when worn by small persons or those of medium stature. People generally retired well pleased with their interview with her. She said but little about it in[Pg 83] her paper, as she had subjects of much greater importance to engage her attention and fill its columns. Occasionally a sharp article appeared in its defense. She had many offers to take the platform as a public speaker. Even the stage was suggested as a fit place for bringing the new costume before the public. The interest in the subject was not confined to this country only, but extended to England, also; the matter was commented on by the press of Great Britain very generally, and the London Graphic contained pictures of the new costume more or less correct.

All these proposals for public action were declined by Mrs. Bloomer; but nevertheless the suggestion as to public speaking, the advocacy by woman of temperance and woman’s rights through the medium of the public platform and her own voice as a public speaker, were not forgotten by her and brought forth from her very much in these directions in future years. But for the time being she continued on in the even tenor of her work, transforming her paper steadily more and more, as the months went[Pg 84] by, into an advocate of woman’s enlargement in various directions. “Devoted to the interests of woman,” was now its motto, and she strove to faithfully carry out the legend. It was still the ardent advocate of temperance, but it insisted also that the evils of intemperance could only be effectually overthrown by giving to woman a more potent voice both in the making and enforcement of the laws designed to overthrow that great evil.

### WOMAN’S TEMPERANCE SOCIETY.

We now copy again from Mrs. Bloomer’s writings:

“In the Spring of 1852 a few of the daughters [of Temperance] celebrated an open two-days temperance meeting at Rochester, N. Y. It was very largely attended, between four and five hundred women being present at the first session. The numbers increased, and at the later sessions the large hall, which would contain 1,800, was packed to the platform with eager, earnest temperance men and women. This meeting was not only not secret,[Pg 85] it was not exclusive,—men forming a large part of it and doing their share of talking. It was at this meeting that I first let my voice be heard in public after much persuasion. Able men came to our aid—among them I remember the Rev. William H. Channing (the younger), an eloquent divine of those days; and the meeting was very enthusiastic, and was the beginning of much in the same direction that followed. This convention resulted in organizing a woman’s state Temperance Society, which became very effective and had much to do in breaking down the barriers and introducing women into temperance and other work. Some half-dozen women were employed by the society as agents on salaries of twenty-five dollars per month and their expenses. These lecturers traveled through the state, holding meetings, and securing membership to the society and signatures to the pledge, and petitions to the legislature. They were well received on all sides, partly because of the novelty of a woman speaking, and partly because the principle of total abstinence and Washingtonian temperance was stirring all hearts. Up to these times no woman had thought of speaking in public outside a Quaker meeting-house. To have attempted such a thing at an earlier[Pg 86] day would have called down upon her much censure, and St. Paul would have been freely quoted to silence her. Now, however, women took matters Into their own hands and acted as their own impulses prompted and their consciences approved. And it was surprising how public sentiment changed and how the zeal of temperance men and women helped on the new movement of women.”

Mrs. Bloomer and Miss Anthony were secretaries of this convention, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton president; in the final organization Mrs. Stanton was made president, Mrs. Bloomer corresponding secretary, and Miss Anthony and Mary C. Vaughan recording secretaries.

### MRS. BLOOMER ON DIVORCE.

At this convention, Senator Gale used very strong language in regard to women who had petitioned the legislature for a Maine Law. Mrs. Bloomer criticised him for saying in a sneering way “that representatives were not accustomed to listen to the voice of women in legislating upon great public questions.” A resolution was proposed in the convention that[Pg 87] “no woman should remain in the relation of wife to the confirmed drunkard, and that no drunkard should be father of her children.” On this Mrs. Bloomer said:

“We believe the teachings which have been given to the drunkard’s wife, inculcating duty—the commendable examples of angelic wives which she has been exhorted to follow—have done much to continue and aggravate the vices and crimes of society growing out of intemperance. Drunkenness is ground for divorce, and every woman who is tied to a confirmed drunkard should sunder the ties: and if she do it not otherwise, the law should compel it, especially if she have children.

“We are told that such sentiments are exceptional, abhorrent, that the moral sense of society is shocked and outraged by their promulgation. Can it be possible that the moral sense of a people is more shocked at the idea of a pure-minded, gentle woman sundering the tie which binds her to a loathsome mass of corruption, than it is to see her dragging out her days in misery tied to his besotted and filthy carcass? Are the morals of society less endangered by the drunkard’s wife continuing to live[Pg 88] in companionship with him, giving birth to a large family of children who inherit nothing but poverty and disgrace, and who will grow up criminal and vicious, filling our prisons and penitentiaries and corrupting and endangering the purity and peace of the community, than they would be should she separate from him and strive to win for herself and her children comfort and respectability? The statistics of our prisons, poorhouses, and lunatic asylums teach us a fearful lesson on this subject of morals!

“The idea of living with a drunkard is so abhorrent, so revolting to all the finer feelings of our nature, that a woman must fall very low before she can endure such companionship. Every pure-minded person must look with loathing and disgust upon such a union of virtue and vice; and he who would compel her to it, or dissuade the drunkard’s wife from separating herself from such wretchedness and degradation, is doing much to perpetuate drunkenness and crime and is wanting in the noblest feelings of human nature. Thanks to our legislature, if they have not given us the Maine law they are deliberating on giving to wives of drunkards and tyrants a loophole of escape from the brutal cruelty of their self-styled lords[Pg 89] and masters. A bill of this kind has passed the house, but may be lost in the senate. Should it not pass now, it will be brought up again and passed at no distant day. Then, if women have any spirit, they will free themselves from much of the depression and wrong which they have hitherto by necessity borne.”

### CONVENTION INFLUENCE.

Probably, no single event ever had so great an influence in promoting the cause of woman’s enlargement as this Rochester convention. It opened the door wide for women to enter. It brought out a number of faithful workers in that cause, as well as in the cause of Temperance, who from that time devoted their lives to the work. Some took a wider view of their work than others, but all devoted themselves with a singular fidelity and earnestness to the noble aims before them. Nor was the influence confined solely to women who took part in that convention. Others, in every part of the country, soon enlisted in the cause and became zealous advocates of woman’s redemption from the thralldom of evil habits and unjust[Pg 90] laws. Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony continued a tower of strength for half a century and upwards, and Mrs. Bloomer nearly as long, but in the latter years of her life not so prominently; and there came to their aid Lucy Stone, Frances D. Gage, Mrs. C. H. Nichols, Antoinette L. Brown, Mary A. Livermore, Lydia A. Fowler, and many more who might be mentioned.

Mrs. Bloomer, as corresponding secretary of the new society, was brought into immediate and close connection with its agents and friends. Her home was at all times open to them, and they often visited and consulted with her and Mrs. Stanton, who resided in the same village. Mrs. Vaughan, Mrs. Albro, and Miss Emily Clark, besides Miss Anthony, were earnest workers in the good cause. Mrs. Bloomer’s correspondence was also very extensive; but in her removals from place to place it has been mostly destroyed, and the death of nearly all her correspondents renders it impracticable to procure copies of her letters to them.

[Pg 91]

### THE WOMEN REJECTED AT SYRACUSE.

At the Rochester convention Gerrit Smith, Mrs. Bloomer, and Miss Anthony were appointed delegates to the state convention then soon to meet in Syracuse. The call was to all temperance organizations to send delegates to it, and clearly included the Woman’s Temperance Society. Mrs. Bloomer and Miss Anthony accepted the appointment and attended; but their simple appearance caused a tremendous hubbub, and after a whole day spent by the men in discussing the question of their admission they were excluded. Mrs. Bloomer describes the scene as follows:

“The women had friends in the convention who were as determined on their side that women should be recognized, and so they had it, each side determined to have it’s way—a dozen men talking at the same time all over the house, each claiming the floor, each insisting on being heard—till all became confusion, a perfect babel of noises. No order could be kept and the president left his chair in disgust.[Pg 92] Time and words fail to give you the details of this disgraceful meeting. The ringleaders were prominent clergymen of Albany, Lockport, and Buffalo. Their names and faces are indelibly engraven on my memory. During this whole day’s quarrel of the men, no woman said a word, except once Miss Anthony addressed the chair intending to prefer a request for a donation of temperance tracts for distribution by our society. She got no farther than ‘Mr. President,’ when she was rudely called to order by one of the belligerent clergymen and told to sit down. She sat down and no other woman opened her mouth, though they really were entitled to all the rights of any delegate, under the call; and the treatment they received was not only an insult to the women present, but to the organization that sent them.”

In referring to this incident, on page 488 Vol. I. of History of Woman Suffrage, it is said: “Rev. Luther Lea offered his church just before adjournment, and Mr. May announced that Miss Anthony and Mrs. Bloomer would speak there in the evening. They had a crowded house, while the conservatives scarcely had fifty. The general feeling was hostile to[Pg 93] the action of the convention. The same battle on the temperance platform was fought over and over again in various parts of the state, and the most deadly opposition uniformly came from the clergy, though a few noble men in that profession ever remained true to principle through all the conflicts of those days in the anti-slavery, temperance, and woman’s rights movements.”

### CONVENTION IN ALBANY.

In the winter of 1852 and 1853, meetings of both the regular state Temperance societies were held in Albany for the purpose of influencing the legislature then in session to pass the Maine prohibitory law. Mrs. Bloomer attended the women’s convention, and delivered an elaborate speech in the Baptist church. She herself gives the following report of the proceedings at the convention:

“The ladies were there with their officers and lecturers. During the day they held meetings in the large Baptist church which was packed, seats and aisles, to its utmost capacity. During[Pg 94] the morning session a committee of three ladies, previously appointed, slipped out through a back entrance and wended their way to the capitol bearing between them a large basket filled with petitions from 30,000 women of the state, each petition neatly rolled and tied with ribbon and bearing upon it the name of the place from which it came, and the number of names it contained. We were met at the state-house door by Hon. Silas M. Burroughs, of Orleans, according to previous arrangement, and escorted by him within the bar of the house. Mr. Burroughs then said: ‘Mr. Speaker, there is a deputation of ladies in this house with a petition of 30,000 women for a prohibitory law, and I request that the deputation may present the petition in person.’ He moved a suspension of the rules for that purpose. Some objection was raised by two or three members who sneered at the idea of granting such privileges to women, but the vote was taken and carried; and then the committee and the big basket, carried by two of us by the handles at each end, passed up in front of the speaker’s desk, when one of our number made a little speech appealing for prohibition and protection from the rum power in the name of the 30,000 women of the state whom[Pg 95] we represented. The petitions were sent up to the clerk’s desk, while we retired again to the bar where we were surrounded and received congratulations of members. We soon after retired and returned to the meeting at the church. On the announcement being made to the meeting of what we had done and our success, it was received with a perfect shout of congratulation by the vast audience. It was an unheard-of thing for women to do, and our reception augured success to the hopes of temperance people for a prohibitory law. But alas! Our petitions availed us nothing, as we learned in due time. Those 30,000 petitioners were only women; and what cared our so-called representatives for the petitions of a disfranchised class? Our meetings were kept up during the day and evening, women doing all the talking though men composed full half the audience. In the evening, in addition to the Baptist church meetings were held in another church and in the representatives’ hall, the capitol having been placed at our service, our lady speakers separating and going by twos and threes to each house; and all were crowded, every foot of standing room being occupied.”

It should be added, that Mrs. Bloomer was[Pg 96] one of the Committee of Three who appeared before the legislature and presented the petitions. The other members were Miss Emily Clark and Mrs. Albro.

### A LECTURER.

Mrs. Bloomer’s life during the latter part of 1853 was a very busy one. In addition to her duties as editor and publisher of the Lily and clerk in the post office, she was also frequently invited to deliver addresses on Temperance. A few of these invitations she accepted, and appeared before well-pleased audiences in villages of western New York. She never until later years acquired the habit of extemporaneous speaking, but all her addresses were carefully written out and delivered from manuscript. There is a big pile of her writings now before me. They are all characterized by great earnestness in appeal both to the reason and sympathies of her hearers.

Mrs. Bloomer’s appeals were mainly addressed to her own sex, but she never failed to call upon the men also to practise total abstinence and[Pg 97] give their influence in all proper ways for the overthrow of the liquor traffic. She also introduced other questions into her addresses. She insisted that the laws relating to women were narrow and unjust and should be changed. She thought that women should have a voice in making the laws and also in their enforcement. When this change should be brought around, she had hopes that woman would be relieved from the curse of drunkenness under which she suffered so keenly. And it so happened that it was frequently said of Mrs. Bloomer that “she talks on temperance, but she gives us a large supply of woman’s rights, also.” To this Mrs. Bloomer in the Lily in April, 1853, made the following reply:

“Some of the papers accuse me of mixing Woman’s Rights with our Temperance, as though it was possible for woman to speak on Temperance and Intemperance without also speaking of Woman’s Rights and Wrongs in connection therewith. That woman has rights, we think that none will deny; that she has been cruelly wronged by the law-sanctioned liquor traffic, must be admitted by all. Then[Pg 98] why should we not talk of woman’s rights and temperance together? Ah, how steadily do they who are guilty shrink from reproof! How ready they are to avoid answering our arguments by turning their attention to our personal appearance, and raising a bugbear about Woman’s Rights and Woman’s Wrongs! and a ready response to the truth we utter wells up from women’s hearts, and breaks forth in blessings and a hearty God-speed in our mission.”

### IN NEW YORK CITY.

We now quote from Mrs. Bloomer’s personal reminiscences:

“In February, 1853, in company with Miss Susan B. Anthony, Rev. Antoinette L. Brown, and Mrs. L. N. Fowler, I held three meetings in the city of New York. We had been attending a Temperance mass meeting in the city of Albany, where we had both day and evening been addressing the assembled temperance hosts that had come together from all parts of the state in response to a call for that purpose. At these meetings we were met by parties from New York, who invited us to visit that city and hold a series of meetings, assuring us that[Pg 99] every preparation would be made and we should be received by good audiences. We accepted the invitation and in a few days went to New York to fill the engagement. Full notice had been given and all things put in readiness for us. These meetings were held in Metropolitan Hall, where Jennie Lind made her début on arriving in this country, which has since been burned down; and in the old Broadway Tabernacle; and in Knickerbocker Hall.

“That was in the early days of the woman’s movement, and women speaking in public was a new thing outside of a Quaker meeting-house. We were the first to address an audience of New Yorkers from a public platform; and much curiosity was excited to hear and see the wonderful women who had outstepped their sphere and were turning the world upside down by preaching a new doctrine which claimed that women were human beings, endowed with inalienable rights, among which was the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

“The halls at each of these meetings were filled to their utmost capacity, from 3,000 to 5,000 persons being the estimated number in attendance. At the Metropolitan, Horace Greeley and wife, Dr. S. P. Townsend, Colonel Snow, and a number of others were seated with[Pg 100] us on the platform; and in all the after meetings, Mr. Greeley was present and manifested much interest in our work, taking copious notes and giving columns of the Tribune to reports of our speeches. While in the city we were guests of the great phrenologist, L. N. Fowler, one of the editors of the Phrenological Journal, and his wife, and Mrs. S. P. Townsend; and the evening was spent at the home of the Greeleys.

### “AT HORACE GREELEY’S HOUSE.

“At the latter place we met about a dozen of New York’s literati. Of these I only remember Charles A. Dana, then on the Tribune staff; Mrs. E. F. Ellet, a prominent story writer of that time; and Alice and Phœbe Gary, the poet sisters. I remember the latter as dressed with very low necks and arms bared to the shoulders, while their skirts trailed upon the floor. Around their necks were hung huge boas, four feet long, the style of that day; as a protection, I suppose, from the cold. These being heaviest in the middle were continually sagging out of place, and kept the wearers quite busy adjusting them. I confess to a feeling short of admiration for this dress display at a little social gathering in midwinter, and my[Pg 101] estimation of the good sense of the Cary sisters sank accordingly. And I never read of them to this day but those bare necks and shoulders and trailing skirts appear before me. They, no doubt, were as much disgusted with my short dress and trousers which left no part of the person exposed. Tastes differ, that is all; and I was not used to seeing women in company half-dressed.

“It was in the early days of spiritualism, when the Rochester rappings had excited much wonder throughout the country. Horace Greeley was known to have taken a good deal of interest in the subject, to have given time to its investigation, and to have entertained its first propagandists, the Fox sisters, for days at his house. During the evening of our visit that subject came up and Mr. Greeley warmly espoused the side of the spiritualists. He said many things in confirmation of his belief in the new doctrine of spirit visitation. Standing midway of the two parlors and pointing to a table that stood against the wall between the front windows, he said: ‘I must believe what my eyes have seen. I have seen that table leave its place where it now stands, come forward and meet me here where I now stand, and then go back to its place without any one[Pg 102] touching it, or being near it. I have also seen that table rise from the floor, and the weight of a man sitting on it would not keep it down. I cannot deny the evidence of my own eyes.’ Miss Fox was in the house at the time of this occurrence, but not in the room. This he said in answer to questions.”

### AT METROPOLITAN HALL.

Of the meeting in Metropolitan Hall, the New York Tribune stated that it was nearly as large and fully as respectable as the audiences which nightly greeted Jenny Lind and Catherine Hayes during their engagements in that hall. Mrs. Lydia N. Fowler presided, and delivered an address. The Tribune gave a full report of the meeting. It said: “Mrs. Bloomer was attired in a dark-brown changeable tunic, a kilt descending just below the knees, the skirt of which was trimmed with rows of black velvet. The pantaloons were of the same texture and trimmed in the same style. She wore gaiters. Her headdress was cherry and black. Her dress had a large open corsage, with bands of[Pg 103] velvet over the white chemisette in which was a diamond-stud pin. She wore flowing sleeves, tight undersleeves and black lace mitts. Her whole attire was rich and plain in appearance. * * * She was introduced to the audience and proceeded to her address which occupied more than an hour.” And as giving a fair expression of Mrs. Bloomer’s then views on the subject of temperance and woman’s duty in reference to it, the Tribune’s full report of her address is here given:

### MRS. BLOOMER’S SPEECH.

“Mrs. Bloomer, of Seneca Falls, was introduced and proceeded to read an address which occupied nearly an hour. She commenced by remarking that, from the earliest agitation of the subject of temperance down through the whole past course of the cause, woman has had a great and important part to perform in the great struggle for freedom. And most nobly has she performed her part, according to the light she possessed. She has done all that the custom of the time permitted her to do. She has faithfully attended temperance meetings[Pg 104] and listened to many wise discourses from temperance lecturers. During all this woman has imagined that she was doing the cause good service. But lo! she still sees the great destroyer passing triumphantly on in his work of death; she sees poverty, wretchedness and despair still rampant in our midst; she sees that her prayers to rumsellers to desist from their murderous work have fallen upon hearts of stone; she sees that, in spite of her remonstrances, the stream of death still flows on and that thousands and tens of thousands are still going to destruction. But, though she is often weary, yet is she not hopeless; she still has faith to look beyond the clouds to the bright prospect beyond—still has faith to look beyond the efforts of man to One who is mighty for deliverance.

“Yet, notwithstanding the efforts already put forth in this work, woman was not without guilt in this matter. While man endeavors to compel obedience to his laws, and make woman dependent upon him and an echo of his thoughts, while man has greatly sinned in thus usurping this great prerogative, woman has greatly sinned in submitting to this power. Woman has suffered her individuality to be merged in a name. She forgets that God[Pg 105] created them equal; she forgets that our Heavenly Father has not made one to rule over the other. She forgets that she is as necessary to his happiness as he is to hers. They are created to work hand in hand, bearing equally the burden of life; and though we may fail to do our duty on earth, yet will our individuality be recognized and held to account on the Last Day. The plea often raised that it is immodest and unladylike, that we are out of our sphere in thus battling against the evils of intemperance, will not avail in the sight of God who has commanded that even one talent should be put to a good use. He has created woman intelligent and responsible and given her a great work to do, and woe unto her if she does it not! Woe unto him who hinders her in its fulfillment! Her individuality must be recognized before the evils of intemperance can cease to exist. How absurd the idea, how degrading the thought, that before marriage woman can enjoy freedom of thought, but afterwards must endorse her husband’s sentiments be they good or bad! Call you not this slavery? But if she acts the part of true womanhood, the path of duty will be made so plain that she cannot err therein.

“The speaker next said that she proposed[Pg 106] to show how woman, by her own acts, had retarded the cause of temperance. And, first, woman had done much to retard the cause by herself partaking of stimulating drink during lactation, and thus transmitting it through the system of her infant. She imagines that this gives her stimulus and strength. But in this she sins from ignorance. As the child grows, his appetite grows perverted, and he will desire still stronger stimulus such as tobacco and cigars. Let mothers study the physiology of themselves and their children that they may know how to feed them so as to give them regular appetites. Woman has also done much to retard the cause of temperance by presenting the intoxicating cup to her guest. Not unfrequently does the first glass taken from the hands of woman destroy both body and soul forever. Home is said to be woman’s sphere; herein, at least, she should forbid the intoxicating cup to enter. Women, Christian women, as you hope for salvation, let not this guilt rest upon your souls!

“Woman has also retarded the cause of temperance by using intoxicating drinks for culinary purposes. Such an one voluntarily yields up her children to the Moloch of intemperance. Let no woman think this a little[Pg 107] matter. Let no woman think that because she occupies a high place in society the destroyer will pass her by. Such is not his course. He delights to cut down the high and noble and trample them beneath his iron hoofs.

“Another class who in my view greatly retard the cause of temperance principles are those who profess love for our cause and hope that it will triumph, but do nothing for it. They say we have men to attend to this work and that it is none of woman’s business. Deliver us from such dead weights on society and on the spirit of Progress! None of woman’s business, when she is subject to poverty and degradation and made an outcast from respectable society! None of woman’s business, when her starving, naked babes are compelled to suffer the horrors of the winter’s blast! None of woman’s business, when her children are stripped of their clothing and compelled to beg their bread from door to door! In the name of all that is sacred, what is woman’s business if this be no concern of hers? (Great applause.) None of woman’s business! What is woman? Is she a slave? Is she a mere toy? Is she formed, like a piece of fine porcelain, to be placed upon the shelf to be looked at? Is she a responsible being? or has she no soul? Alas, alas for the ignorance[Pg 108] and weakness of woman! Shame! Shame on woman when she refuses all elevating action and checks all high and holy aspirations for the good of others! (Applause.) Sisters, the liquor traffic does concern woman deeply; and it is her business to bring her influence to bear against it, both by private and public acts. Some mothers say it is as much as they can do to look after their own children without going to the trouble of looking after children of their neighbors. If all mothers would do this and train up their own children in the right way, it would be all well. But such is not the case; and therefore are we to go out into the world and help reclaim the children of poverty and crime around us.

“Another obstacle to the progress of temperance principles is that 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[Pg 109] 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[Pg 110] 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[Pg 111] 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,[Pg 112] 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,[Pg 113] 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[Pg 114] 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[Pg 115] 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[Pg 116] 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[Pg 117] 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[Pg 118] 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[Pg 119] 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[Pg 120] 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[Pg 121] 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[Pg 122] 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.[Pg 123] 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[Pg 124] 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[Pg 125] 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.[Pg 126] 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[Pg 127] 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[Pg 128] 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.[Pg 129] 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[Pg 130] 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[Pg 131] 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[Pg 132] 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.

[Pg 133]

## 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[Pg 134] 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[Pg 135] 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[Pg 136] 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.”

[Pg 137]

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[Pg 138] 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.

[Pg 139]

“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[Pg 140] 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[Pg 141] 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.

[Pg 142]

### 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;[Pg 143] 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,[Pg 144] 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:

[Pg 145]

### 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[Pg 146] 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[Pg 147] 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[Pg 148] 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.”

[Pg 149]

### 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[Pg 150] 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[Pg 151] 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[Pg 152] 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[Pg 153] 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[Pg 154] 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[Pg 155] 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[Pg 156] 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.

[Pg 157]

### 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[Pg 158] 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[Pg 159] 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.”

[Pg 160]

### 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[Pg 161] 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[Pg 162] 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[Pg 163] 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[Pg 164] 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[Pg 165] 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.”

[Pg 166]

### 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.”

[Pg 167]

### 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:

[Pg 168]

“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[Pg 169] 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!”

[Pg 170]

### 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[Pg 171] 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.

[Pg 172]

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.[Pg 173] 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[Pg 174] 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.

[Pg 175]

### 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.

[Pg 176]

### 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[Pg 177] 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[Pg 178] 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.”

[Pg 179]

### 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[Pg 180] 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[Pg 181] 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:

[Pg 182]

“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[Pg 183] 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[Pg 184] 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[Pg 185] 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:

[Pg 186]

“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.[Pg 187] 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[Pg 188] 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[Pg 189] 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.”

[Pg 190]

## 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,[Pg 191] 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[Pg 192] 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.

[Pg 193]

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[Pg 194] 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[Pg 195] 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[Pg 196] 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[Pg 197] 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[Pg 198] 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,[Pg 199] 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.

[Pg 200]

“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[Pg 201] 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[Pg 202] 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.

[Pg 203]

### “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[Pg 204] 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[Pg 205] 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.

[Pg 206]

### “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[Pg 207] 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.

“Having joined the people of Council Bluffs in celebrating in the forenoon of this Fourth of July, 1855, we took a carriage and drove over to Omaha about noon, crossing the Missouri on a ferry-boat. This being the first Independence Day in Nebraska since it had become a territory, the people of Omaha showed their patriotism in common with the rest of the country by celebrating. It was the first time, too, that I had stepped foot on Nebraska[Pg 208] soil, so the day possessed more than usual interest. We found that an oration had been delivered by Secretary Cuming, then acting governor. This had been followed by the usual reading of the Declaration of Independence. The exercises were over when we reached the Douglass House, then the only hotel in Omaha. Across the road from this place a speaker’s stand had been erected. A dinner table was placed on the east side of the house and covered with boughs cut from trees for shade. Liquor flowed freely.

“Council Bluffs was then a city of 2,000 or 3,000 inhabitants. The buildings were mostly of logs. There were no sidewalks. The streets were not opened, beaten paths through fields of sunflowers answering for thoroughfares in many places. The place was well supplied with hotels. Besides the Pacific House there was the City Hotel, a little low log building on the corner of Broadway and Glen Avenue, kept by Mrs. Dunn; and farther up on Broadway, where the blue barn now stands, the Robinson House kept by G. A. Robinson. This was also an old log building covered with cottonwood boards on the outside and lined with muslin tacked to the logs on the inside.

[Pg 209]

### “PLASTERED HOUSES WERE SCARCE.

“I think there were but two or three plastered houses in the city at that time, and no greater number built of lumber. Nearly all were of logs covered outside on the front with cottonwood boards and on the inside, both walls and ceiling, with unbleached muslin sewed together and nailed on.

“Bancroft Street, now Fourth, where we had made our home, was open but a little way from Willow Avenue, the bright bluffs extending across to Main Street. Besides our house, which was newly built, the frame house adjoining and a log house just below were all the street contained, and from Bancroft to the river there was not a house to obstruct our view. Bluff Street was not opened, and no house of any description was built upon it. It was only a high bluff, which extended down across Bancroft Street to Main Street. Turley’s Glen was the only opening, being a resort for the Indians, who frequently pitched their tents and camped there for days together. The little valley between the bluffs contained Broadway, the only street. No good buildings were on it except a few log structures.

[Pg 210]

### “WORSHIPPED IN LOG CHURCHES.

“Of churches I think there were but two. The Methodists had a small frame building on the side of the hill in rear of where the Ogden House now stands. The Rev. Mr. Shinn was the pastor. The Congregationalists worshipped in a log building on Broadway, west of Atkins’ drugstore. The Rev. George Rice owned this property at that time. He lived with his family in one log house, and held services in the one adjoining. This latter was fitted up for a church with a row of seats around the wall made of slabs with the flat side turned up and sticks put up through the holes bored in the floor for legs. The pulpit was a dry-goods box turned up on end with the open side next the preacher. The congregation was not large and was made up of people from several denominations, many of whom were new arrivals in the city.

### “EARLY CHURCH WORK.

“One morning soon after we were settled in our new home, I had a call from the Rev. Mr. Rice, of the Congregational church, inviting me to attend a meeting of the sewing society at his house in the afternoon. I went and found there[Pg 211] about half-a-dozen ladles. This was the annual meeting, and officers were to be elected for the ensuing year. This church had commenced the erection of a new edifice on a lot donated by S. S. Bayliss, on Main and Pearl Streets, opposite the park. It was of brick and the walls already up, but they had no money to go further. The object of the ladies was to raise money for flooring and seating the new church, and they evidently wanted to infuse new spirit and aid into their society. I was consequently chosen their president, and Mrs. Sophia Douglass who was also a newcomer was elected first director—thus putting their affairs into the hands of two Episcopalians. Inasmuch as there was no church of our own here and we were attendants upon the Rev. Mr. Rice’s instructions, we took hold of the work with a will and the following winter carried through a very successful fair by which we raised money enough to put the new church in shape.

### “DEFENDS WOMAN’S RIGHTS.

“Thanksgiving evening, 1855, by invitation of the Rev. Mr. Rice, I gave a temperance lecture from the pulpit of the new church and a little later, about the last of November, one on[Pg 212] ‘Woman’s Enfranchisement’ at the Methodist church, by invitation of the Men’s Literary and Debating Society; and again, by invitation of the same society and the Rev. Mr. Rice, Jan. 18, 1856, I spoke on ‘Female Education’ at the Congregational church. During the following years I gave several lectures on some phase of the woman question.

“At the close of my lecture on ‘Woman Suffrage’ in the Methodist church, in November, 1855, I was approached by Gen. William Larimer, then of Omaha, but recently of Pittsburg, Pa., and a member of the first Nebraska legislature, with a request that I go to Omaha and repeat my lecture before the legislature. A few days later I received a formal invitation from the legislature, signed by twenty-five of its members, to give them a lecture on woman suffrage or such phase of the woman question as I might select.

“Jan. 8, 1856, I made my appearance in the House of Representatives of Nebraska, having accepted the invitation to appear before that body. I was escorted to the platform by Gen. Larimer, who made way for me through a great crowd who had congregated to hear me. Indeed, it was a packed house, men standing up between those who were sitting on benches[Pg 213] around the room, and leaning against the wall, and the platform was so packed up to the very desk that I hardly had elbow-room. Gen. Larimer introduced me amidst silence so profound that one could almost hear a pin drop, and I was listened to with the most absorbed interest to the end. Then came great applause and a request that I give the lecture for publication. This latter I declined doing. Omaha was hardly large enough and was without daily papers and, besides, I felt that I might wish to make further use of the lecture and publishing it would prevent its again being brought out.

### “THE NEBRASKA LEGISLATURE INTERESTED.

“The papers gave very flattering notices of the lecture, and it caused a great deal of excitement among the members of the legislature; those opposed to the principles it discussed showing opposition, while its friends, who were in the majority, were loud in extolling it. The result of the lecture was the bringing in of a bill in favor of woman suffrage some days later, which passed the lower house, and was read twice by the senate, and only failed of a passage because the session came to an end before it could be reached for a third reading—the last[Pg 214] hours being consumed by the wrangling of the members over the fixing of county boundaries and the location of city sites. Men talked to kill time till the last hour expired and the session adjourned sine die. A number of important bills were not reached, the woman-suffrage bill among them. I was assured by Gov. Richardson and others that the bill would undoubtedly have passed had a little more time been allowed them. The session was one of only forty days and it was near its close when the bill was introduced. Other matters engrossed the attention and the speaker’s gavel stopped all further discussion of matters in dispute.

### “DANGERS MET IN CROSSING THE MISSOURI.

“In the year following I gave a lecture on ‘Woman’s Education,’ on invitation of the Library Association of Omaha, and for its benefit. I so well remember that trip to Omaha! It was in the winter. The river was breaking up and when I reached it I found the ice floating and no way to get across except on a flatboat, which was poled across. I feared to place myself upon it and came near turning back. But I remembered my engagement and saw a carriage waiting for me on the other shore; so,[Pg 215] with many misgivings and assurances from the boatmen, I ventured on board and was landed safely on the other side. The lecture that evening was given in the Presbyterian church to a full house, Dr. Miller presiding and introducing me. But if I ran a risk in crossing to Omaha my heart fairly stood still coming back. A high wind was blowing and when I reached the river I found it filled with great blocks of floating ice that endangered any boat it encountered. The ice was running badly, and there was no conveyance over, except a skiff rowed by two boatmen. The flatboat could not be managed in such a gale. The skiff was in great danger of being swallowed up by the high tossing waves or struck by the great cakes of floating ice and capsized.

### “BUFFETS THE ICE IN A SKIFF.

“The boatmen at first positively refused to take me into the skiff. The man waiting could go, they said, but the woman must be left behind. I thought of my danger in embarking and being swallowed up by waves; and I thought of husband and child awaiting me at home, and no one to care for them; then I asked why I could not cross as well as the man. The boatmen[Pg 216] said, because women would get frightened and jump and rock the boat and upset it, and there was really great danger. Then I said if I will promise to sit very still and not stir, can I go? The gentleman interceded, and on my promise I was allowed to get into the boat. I sat in the middle of my seat and held on to each side of the boat, and I am sure I never stirred a muscle or winked an eye or hardly breathed while those brave men guided their skiff over the tossing waves, which seemed to engulf us at times and anon bore us on their tossing crests. Soon we were safely over and landed, ready to take stage for home, feeling that we had been mercifully preserved on our two very dangerous trips, and on my part resolved never to incur a like danger again.

### “WOMAN’S EQUALITY IN LAW.

“On my previous trip to Omaha, I had gone in an old-fashioned stagecoach and crossed the river on a ferry-boat. But the ferry-boat was laid up at this time on account of the ice, so there was no way of crossing but the skiff and the flatboat while the ice was running. Thanks to enterprise and skill, we at this day know nothing of such inconvenience and danger.[Pg 217] And thanks to progress and enlightenment, woman’s cause has so far advanced that there is little need of her making extra effort to bring her claims and the knowledge of her rights to equality in law with man before the people.”

### DESCRIBES COUNCIL BLUFFS.

Writing in 1855, soon after her arrival in her new home, Mrs. Bloomer describes it as follows:

“Council Bluffs is located on the east side of the Missouri River, in Iowa, instead of on the west or Nebraska side, where it is placed on most of the maps. It lies about three miles from the river, the level lands or bottoms being about that distance in width; and then commences a chain of high hills, or bluffs, which line the Missouri for thousands of miles and which, at this point, extend eastward in the state some five or six miles. These bluffs are composed of immense piles of yellow marl varying in height from fifty to two hundred and fifty feet and thrown into every conceivable shape and form—rounded, oblong, conical, and peaked. Sometimes we see them covered with trees and bushes, but most commonly with only grass and flowers. They present at[Pg 218] this season of the year, robed in their rich carpet of green, a delightful appearance. Among these bluffs are numerous beautiful valleys, some of them sufficiently extensive for large farms, and through which clear and pellucid streams of water flow gurgling down to join the mighty Missouri, forming as they find their way across the bottoms streams which glisten as pure as silver in the sun. It was along one of these valleys, a fourth of a mile in width and extending for upwards of half-a-mile into the bluffs, that the old town of Kanesville was built. Here a log city was constructed, and here for several years dwelt from two to eight thousand of those singular people who have now found a home in the vicinity of Great Salt Lake. These people, or most of them, remained here until 1852 when they took their departure, selling out or surrendering up their claims to the gentiles. Hundreds of the log cabins in which they lived have disappeared, but many are still standing. The gentiles who succeeded the Mormons soon began to build better houses. Several good frame and brick buildings have already been constructed, including a three-story brick hotel and the land office, besides a number of stores and private residences.

[Pg 219]

“Others are in process of creation and will be carried forward as fast as materials and labor can be obtained. On all sides we see the work of beautifying the town going forward. Gardens are being fenced, trees planted, streets opened and graded, and every preparation made for accommodating the population. The city is extending out on the bottoms towards the river, the bottom lands being here high and dry and in no danger of being overflowed, and the probability is that at no distant day they will be covered with dwellings. These lands are considered very valuable and are held at high prices by their owners. The soil is extremely rich and productive and finely adapted to either farming or gardening.

“Situated as we are three hundred miles west of the railroads connecting the Mississippi with the cities of the East, we of course neither hear the shrill whistle of the locomotive nor see the trains of cars dashing through our streets with a velocity that outstrips the speed of the light-footed deer; but we are living in full expectation of the day when these things will be as familiar to us as they now are to my eastern readers. This city will be the western terminus of the first railroad built across the state, and it is fondly hoped and expected that three[Pg 220] years hence we shall be startled by the shrill whistle of the iron horse as he comes to bathe his head in the waters of the Missouri, and from here, or from Omaha, directly opposite, will he set out on his long journey to the most western limit of the continent. Then Council Bluffs will no longer be ‘out of the world,’ but directly in the centre of it, and many who now hesitate about making their home here will regret that their doubts and fears debarred them from uniting their labors with their more enterprising countrymen in building up a great and prosperous community in the very centre of the Union.”

It will be noted that the above was written in 1855; and with what remarkable correctness Mrs. Bloomer prophesied as to the future of the country in which she had just taken up her residence must strike every one, except that it was nearly ten years instead of three before the railroad reached Council Bluffs.

She then goes on to advise people to come West and acquire land (then to be had at government price) and thus secure homes for themselves, and then continues:

[Pg 221]

“My residence is on a gentle elevation at the foot of one of the highest bluffs in the city, with a western front commanding a fine view of the grass-carpeted bottoms upon which hundreds of cattle are grazing, of Omaha across the river, and of the plains of Nebraska beyond which stretch away in the distance as far as the eye can reach. I love to ascend the bluffs in the rear of our house, and watch the setting sun as it descends below the horizon far off towards the blue and peaceful waters of the Pacific; and as I do so, I contemplate the day when the wild valley before me will be filled with the hum and stir and thronging multitude of a great city, and these bluffs covered with elegant residences and tasteful retreats from the turmoil and activity that will reign below,—for no one here doubts that such is to be the future of Council Bluffs.”

### DESCRIBES HER NEW HOME.

Here is also another letter written by Mrs. Bloomer in May, 1855, giving a further description of her home in the west and of its surroundings:

“Council Bluffs, May, 1855.

“My dear Mrs. Vaughan:

“From my far-distant home among the[Pg 222] bluffs of the Missouri I send you greeting. We have now been here four weeks, and for two weeks I have been installed as housekeeper in my own house. The business of housekeeping, as you well know, is not new to me; but it is a long time since I have confined myself to that business alone, and it seems a little strange after the many and various duties devolving upon me for the last six or seven years to be relieved of the greater part of them and to settle down in this strange place with nothing to care for save my house and garden.

“Far from the place of my nativity, far from the spot where since childhood all the years of my life have been spent, save one, far from dearly loved kindred and highly cherished friends, far from all the noble spirits with whom I have long labored in the cause of humanity, far from all I have ever best known and loved save him who is my companion in life’s journey, I have commenced life as it were anew. Here, surrounded by lovely flower-decked prairies and nestled down among the hills that overlook the Missouri and the vast plains of Nebraska beyond, we have chosen our future home and shall do what we may by our aid and influence for the upbuilding and prosperity of this infant city.

[Pg 223]

“Do not imagine us in a wild and uncultivated country, deprived of the comforts of life, and of the enjoyments and advantages of refined society, for it is not so. Neither are we surrounded by hordes of savage Indians and in danger of falling victims to the tomahawk and scalping-knife, as some people in the east imagine. * * * We do not consider ourselves as far out of the world as we are set down by those who realize nothing of the immense emigration into the mighty West, or of the energy and ‘goaheadativeness’ of the people who come hither. We see some Indians occasionally, it is true, but they are only visitors from Nebraska, they do not belong to this state. A party of Pawnees some two weeks ago pitched their tent on the summit of a high bluff near our house where they remained until last Sunday, when they struck their tent, packed it and all other movables on the back of a mule and then took up their line of march to the westward, the men riding on horseback while the ‘squaws’ went on foot. The mule was led by a squaw. Two squaws had papooses on their backs, and another carried a dog in the same manner. I had frequent visits from some of them while they remained here, and on leaving they called to bid us good-bye, in tolerably fair English. There is something[Pg 224] interesting to me in these children of nature and I almost regretted their departure.

“The Indians who come here are perfectly harmless and no one pays any attention to them. They come and go at their pleasure. We shall see little of them hereafter, as the government has just paid off its indebtedness to the Omahas and they were then removed to the new quarters assigned them about a hundred miles to the northward, in Nebraska. They were all collected at Omaha City, and from thence started on their journey accompanied by the Indian agent who is to pay them twenty thousand dollars in cash when they reach their destination. The tribe now numbers but eight hundred and five, counting men, women and children, and has but two hundred men capable of bearing arms. Ten years ago they numbered sixteen hundred. Their parting from their old home and the graves of their fathers is said by those who witnessed it to have been exceedingly interesting and pathetic. The women and the aged men wept, and the stout-hearted warriors could ill conceal their emotion of tenderness and affection.

“People are now flocking in here in considerable numbers, either to settle or to make investments in real estate, in the hope and expectation[Pg 225] of realizing a fortune by the rise in the value of property. We have dally stages from the east and south, and they generally come loaded inside and out to the extent of their capacity. The land-office is crowded both by settlers and speculators eager to enter the choicest lands remaining unsold. The land directly adjoining the town, and for some five or six miles back, is all taken, and one cannot buy a farm at Uncle Sam’s prices within that distance of the city. Good land can be obtained at second hand for from five dollars to ten dollars per acre.

“By the laws of the state, women can own and hold property, both real and personal, and I am happy to know that many women are availing themselves of these provisions by securing to themselves a share of its broad acres. I do wish that more women would become owners of the soil, and I am especially anxious that you, Mrs. Vaughan, and those women who labored so untiringly with you in the cause of humanity, should come in for a share. I know that such women do not usually carry long purses, and are not very well rewarded for their wearing toil, yet with land at $1.25 per acre it does seem as though they ought to be able to secure at least eighty acres. One woman who[Pg 226] is supporting herself by typesetting in your state has secured an interest in this vicinity, and she is now hoarding her wages that she may add a few acres more to those she has already. A few years hence, these lands will be valuable and the owners will realize something from their sale, if they do not wish to retain them.

“This city is the western terminus of railroads to be located across this state, and it is ardently hoped and expected that ere many years the shrill whistle of the iron horse will be heard among the bluffs of the Missouri. There are two newspapers published here and both are well sustained, I am told. There are two church edifices nearly completed, Methodist and Congregational. Each has a settled pastor and services are held regularly on Sundays. The people who settle here are mostly from the east, and are nearly all Americans; consequently we have an intelligent, well-ordered community. Omaha, the capital of Nebraska, is situated directly opposite, on the western bank of the Missouri, and in full view of this city. It now contains about four hundred inhabitants.

“A. B.”

[Pg 227]

The personal reminiscences of Mrs. Bloomer given above show very fully that, in removing to Council Bluffs, she did not give up any of her wonted zeal in behalf of those reforms to which so much of her life had been devoted. She continued to write for the Lily so long as its publication was kept up, and the productions of her pen frequently appeared in the columns of the city papers, and of other papers in the state and throughout the Union.

### LIFE IN COUNCIL BLUFFS.

But the first months of her life in Council Bluffs were quiet ones. They gave her opportunity to gain the much needed rest which years of labor and activity had rendered necessary. She spent many hours in roaming over the bluffs and valleys. Life seemed to have opened a new page for her, and in its daily duties she found sufficient employment. The population of the city was small and social intercourse amongst its members, as in all new western communities, was pleasant and unconventional. Everybody knew everybody[Pg 228] else, and all whose characters were clean and untarnished met each other on a footing of perfect equality. All attended the same church and all joined in the same festivities. It was in many respects an ideal state of society; being far away from railroads and the great centres of population, there was great exemption from the cares and anxieties of older communities. Housekeeping was the first duty that fell upon Mrs. Bloomer, and she strove to make her new home pleasant and inviting. It soon became the resort of many new as well as old friends. People coming to the city very often desired to meet her and she always received them kindly, extending to all a generous welcome. With her husband she early joined with others in the organization of a literary club, taking an active part in its proceedings.

### AGAINST STRONG DRINK.

Mrs. Bloomer had begun her public life in New York state as an advocate of Temperance. She had opposed at all times the use as a beverage[Pg 229] of intoxicating drinks in all their various forms, and in her adopted state she continued the earnest advocate of these ideas and principles. She wrote and spoke when called for in their advocacy and defense. When a lodge of Good Templars was organized in 1856, she became an active member and continued her membership in it so long as it was kept up.

Though the custom of using strong drinks at social gatherings was common in her new home, yet she firmly set her face against it and nothing of the kind was ever found in her dwelling. When societies were organized, plans adopted, money expended in promoting temperance principles she was always found among the most zealous in promoting sobriety in all its forms.

In subsequent years, Mrs. Bloomer became an active worker in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union; and in an address delivered before it in Council Bluffs, some ten years before her death, she referred to her own and others’ labors in the city as follows:

[Pg 230]

### HER EXPERIENCES.

“I have thus given you, as briefly as possible, a sketch of the introduction and early efforts of woman in this cause of temperance. It may not be so interesting to you as to those of us who encountered the opposition, bore the suffering, endured the struggle, who were subject to ridicule, censure and frowns for the cause’s sake and for woman’s sake. It is well that you of this later generation should know something of what has gone before; that you should know that, long before the W. C. T. U. arose, organizations of women did as great and greater work than that large body of women are doing. We had a cause and a purpose, and there was no lack of zeal and enthusiasm. There was no cold-hearted, half-way work with the Washingtonians and those who enlisted under them. I must mention Rev. George G. Rice, of this city, as among the liberal-minded men of early days. On my coming to Council Bluffs, he very soon called upon me and invited me to give a temperance lecture in his church; and later, at his request, I spoke on the education of girls from his pulpit, and also the church was freely given me for woman’s-rights lectures.

[Pg 231]

“Council Bluffs has always been a hard field for temperance work. Originally a frontier town, it was for many years almost completely in the hands of the gambling and liquor-drinking classes of the community. On my first coming here, in 1855, Sunday was hardly recognized at all as a day of rest or religious observance. It was the carnival day of the pleasure-seeking of every kind. Business was carried on as usual. The saloons were open and games of chance openly carried on along the streets. But even then there were a faithful few. A division of the Sons of Temperance had been organized, and very soon after we came we assisted in the organization of a lodge of Good Templars. These two societies handsomely fitted up and carpeted a large hall in Empire Block, opposite the Pacific House, and held regular meetings on different evenings of each week for several years. But financial troubles coming on, they were unable to meet their expenses, and before 1860 both had ceased to exist. I do not know whether the Sons of Temperance ever renewed their organization, but think they did not. But the Good Templars have at different times started up anew and I am glad to hear are quite prosperous at the present time. I have a strong feeling of sympathy[Pg 232] with this organization because I was connected with it in New York, Ohio, and here, in my earlier days, and because it admits women to its membership on a footing of equality with men, and it was through its membership women passed through struggles for recognition. I have frequently assisted in the formation of lodges, and one of my last acts before coming to Council Bluffs was going by myself as deputy grand-chief templar to Indiana to organize two new lodges. Other organizations for promoting temperance work have existed here at different times. The late D. W. Price was president of one of the most effective of these, and really did a good work. Moved by his eloquent and effective pleadings, many votaries of strong drink were reformed and restored to their right minds and still remain sober citizens.

“The women of the city have not been wholly remiss in their duties to this cause, though they have not done all they could and should. In 1874 a society was organized, a constitution adopted, and a committee appointed to canvass the city to obtain memberships, and signatures to a petition to the city council asking that the laws enacted for their protection against liquor selling be enforced, and the license law amended. But their petitions passed[Pg 233] unheeded, as those of tens of thousands of women in other sections had done before them. They were laid on the table as unworthy of notice, and when taken up received but one vote in their favor. What cared our city fathers for the petitions of disfranchised women? They had no votes to give to affect them at the next election, while the veriest drunkard had; and so should they not consult their constituents? Temperance workers, either men or women, have never received much help from the constituted authorities either of our city or county. Generally they have looked upon violations of the law with indifference. That is the case at the present time. Although we have a rigid prohibitory law now in force in this state, its provisions are openly violated and whatever effort is made to enforce it comes not from the men sworn to enforce the law but from individuals in private life, who are thus compelled to give their time and money to do that which should be done by officers elected for that purpose.”

Mrs. Bloomer fully believed in the virtue of prohibitory legislation. She rejoiced when this principle was adopted into the laws of Iowa and strove in all suitable ways to secure the advancement[Pg 234] of those laws. She wrote frequently and largely in their defense and the columns of the city press bear witness to the zeal with which she advocated her views. She was greatly distressed when her rector came out in his pulpit and preached sermons against the virtues of prohibition, and censured and criticised his position with great force and spirit.

### FOR WOMAN’S ENFRANCHISEMENT.

But beyond all other questions, Mrs. Bloomer’s thoughts, hopes and labors were given to Woman’s Enfranchisement. In that cause she was a pioneer. She studied, considered and dwelt upon it in all its various bearings. She believed most sincerely that the Temperance principle of which she was an ardent advocate could never fully triumph until Woman’s voice could be fully and decisively heard in its settlement. This was her position in all her writings and addresses on that subject, and these were continued and frequent so long as her strength lasted. Moreover, she fully believed that the unjust legal enactments[Pg 235] coming down from a semi-barbarous age, together with the harsh teachings of legal writers, would have to be completely changed in letter and spirit before woman could occupy the high place for which she was designed by her Creator and become in very deed and truth a helpmeet for man. And finally she insisted that the precious right of suffrage, the high privilege of casting a ballot along with man, should be accorded to woman as her inalienable birthright, and that she should exercise that right as a solemn duty devolving upon her as a responsible human being and as a citizen of a free republic. These were unpopular doctrines when she first commenced to espouse and uphold them in her paper, more than fifty years before her decease; but she never failed to maintain them, in all suitable ways and at all proper times, throughout her subsequent career.

Her house in Council Bluffs was always the welcome resort of those who were engaged in proclaiming these doctrines and urging them upon the favorable consideration of the people of the great West. From time to time, especially[Pg 236] in the earlier days, nearly all these prominent advocates were her guests. Among them may be named Miss Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mary A. Livermore, Anna Dickinson, Mrs. M. H. Cutler, Frederick Douglass, Phœbe Cozzens, and many others. And frequently when these advocates of her favorite reform visited her she arranged for public meetings for them in church or hall, so that through Mrs. Bloomer’s instrumentality her neighbors and friends were afforded opportunity of listening to some of the most noted lecturers of the day; and it is here no more than strict justice to record that she was, in all her work of promoting temperance and woman’s enfranchisement, aided and sustained by the cordial assistance and support of her husband. No note or word of discord ever arose between them on these subjects (and, indeed, very few on any other); they passed their long lives happily trying to alleviate the sufferings and right the wrongs of their fellow-travelers through the journey of life.

Mrs. Bloomer’s pen was also very busy and she[Pg 237] frequently wrote for the newspapers in her own city and in other parts of the country. Whenever an attack was made, either upon her personally or upon her favorite ideas, it was sure to call forth from her a vigorous reply. She did not confine herself to temperance and woman’s rights; but wrote freely and often upon other kindred subjects, also. It would extend this work far beyond its prescribed limits, to republish even a small part of the productions of her pen; but some articles will be given further on. Just here we cannot omit to give one of her replies to the objection that woman should not vote because she could not fight:

### VOTING AND FIGHTING.

“My reply to the argument of our opponents that ‘if women vote they must also fight,’ is this: All men have not earned their right to the ballot by the bullet; and, if only those who fight should vote, there are many sickly men, many weak little men, many deformed men, and many strong and able-bodied but cowardly men, who should at once be disfranchised. These all vote but they do not fight, and fighting[Pg 238] is not made a condition precedent to the right to the ballot. The law only requires that those of sufficient physical strength and endurance shall take up arms in their country’s defense, and I think not many women can be found to fill the law’s requirement: so they would have to be excused with the weak little men, the big cowardly men, and the men who are physically disqualified. We know there are thousands of voters who never did any fighting and who never will. Why then must woman be denied the right of franchise because she cannot fight? If there are any great strong women who want to fight for their country in its hour of peril, they should be allowed to do so, and men have no right to disarm them and send them home against their will. But as there are other duties to be discharged, other interests to be cared for, in time of war besides fighting, women will find enough to do to look after these in the absence of their fighting men. They may enter the hospitals on the battlefields as nurses, or they may care for the crops or the young soldiers at home. They may also do the voting and look after the affairs of government, the same as do all the weak men, who vote and hold office and do not fight. And, further, as men do not think it right for[Pg 239] women to fight, and fear it will be forced upon them with the ballot, they can easily make a law to excuse them, and doubtless with the help of the women will do so. There is great injustice, so long as the ballot is given to all men the weak as well as the strong, without condition, in denying to woman a voice in matters deeply affecting her interest and happiness, and through her the happiness and welfare of mankind because, perchance, there may come a time in the history of our country when we shall be plunged into war and she not be qualified to hold a musket!

“This objection, like many others we hear, is too absurd to emanate from the brains of intelligent men and I cannot think they honestly entertain such views. If they will but give us a voice in the matter, we will not only save ourselves from being sent to the battlefield, but will, if possible, keep them at home with us by averting the threatened danger and difficulties and so compromising matters with other powers that peace shall be maintained and bloodshed avoided.

“A. B.”

PROGRESS.

Mrs. Bloomer was mainly instrumental in organizing a woman’s-suffrage society in Council[Pg 240] Bluffs, in 1870, and was its first president. Through her influence woman’s position was greatly enlarged in that community. In 1880, she was enabled to write as follows: “The trustees of the public library of this city are women, the teachers in the public schools, with one or two exceptions, are women, the principal of the high school is a woman, and a large number of the clerks in the dry-goods stores are women.”

The revised Code of Iowa, promulgated in 1873, almost entirely abolished the legal distinction between men and married women as to property rights. As to single women there was, of course, no distinction. That code is still in force, and its liberal provisions in regard to the rights of married women have been still further enlarged. The wife may hold separate property, and may make contracts and incur liabilities as to the same, which may be enforced by or against her as though she were a single woman. So also a married woman may sue or be sued without joining her husband in matters relating to her separate property, and[Pg 241] she may maintain an action against her husband in matters relating to her separate property rights. Their rights and interests in each other’s property are identical. They may be witnesses for, but they cannot be against, each other in criminal actions.

It is not claimed that, for bringing about these beneficent changes in the laws of Iowa, Mrs. Bloomer is entitled to the sole credit. There were other efficient workers in the same field; but it is certain that her long residence in the state, and her continued and persistent advocacy of the principles of justice on which they are founded, contributed largely to their adoption by the lawmaking powers.

### STATE SUFFRAGE SOCIETY.

The first Iowa Woman’s State Suffrage Society was organized at Mount Pleasant, in 1870. Mrs. Bloomer was present at this gathering of the earnest workers of the state and took an active part in their proceedings. Hon. Henry O’Conner, then attorney-general of the state, was made its first president, and Mrs. Bloomer[Pg 242] its first vice-president. On her way home, she stopped over at Des Moines, with Mrs. Anna Savary and with Mrs. H. B. Cutler; addressed in the afternoon a large Temperance gathering on the capitol grounds, and in the evening both ladies spoke on woman’s enfranchisement in the Baptist church. The first annual meeting of the society was held in Des Moines in October, 1871. Mrs. Bloomer presided and was chosen president; she attended its annual meetings in subsequent years so long as she had the strength to do so. She was for years in constant correspondence with its members, and whenever the question of woman suffrage was before the general assembly she did not fail, by petition and otherwise, to do all in her power to promote its success. In 1875 she was an inmate of the Cleveland Sanitorium, and while there delivered to the inmates an address on the subject in which she was so deeply interested. In 1867 she made a long and wearisome journey, while in very poor health, to the city of New York to attend the meeting of the Woman-Suffrage Association, and was elected[Pg 243] one of its vice-presidents, a position she continued to hold so long as she lived. She was an interested listener to the proceedings of the Woman’s Council held in Des Moines in 1883, but took no part in them further than a very short address.

### HISTORY OF IOWA SUFFRAGE WORK.

Mrs. Bloomer furnished the main portion of the chapter on Iowa in the third volume of the History of Woman Suffrage, published by Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony in 1887. In short, the advocacy of woman’s enfranchisement was her life-work from 1851 down to the end of her days. She was in constant written communication with many of its leading advocates not only in Iowa but all over the country. They visited her often in her home, and she was subjected to frequent interviews from newspaper reporters. A volume could be filled with their writings called out by conversations with her. She always treated them with kindness and courtesy, and received many kind notices from[Pg 244] the press. She always had a cheerful and pleasant greeting for her many visitors.

Mrs. Bloomer was spared to witness the triumph of many of the reforms she had earnestly advocated. The temperance principle in which her heart was so much absorbed made great progress during her lifetime, and the prohibitive features she so earnestly advocated were engrafted on the laws of her adopted state. She was not spared to see woman accorded a right to the ballot in all the states, but she was cheered by the wonderful progress in that direction that took place all over the world. In Wyoming and Utah women had voted for several years, and only a few weeks before her departure she learned with infinite satisfaction from Mrs. Jennie A. Irvine, a favorite niece residing in Colorado, that the right of suffrage had been granted to women in that state. While therefore she was never herself permitted to exercise that inestimable right, yet she died in the full conviction that only a few years would elapse before it would be accorded to women in all the free countries in the world.

[Pg 245]

### ESSAYS BY MRS. BLOOMER.

In the following pages are given the productions of Mrs. Bloomer’s pen on a variety of subjects. Most of these essays have been printed in newspapers located in different parts of the country, but are here made public again in more durable form. It is believed they will not be devoid of interest to the reader:

### “WIFELY DUTIES.

“‘Unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.’—Gen., iv. 7.

“These words were addressed to Cain by the Creator. They are the same as those used to Eve, except that in the one case they were addressed to the one to be ruled, and in the other to the one who was to rule. The latter is more clearly a command than the former. And if a command, then Cain only obeyed it in ruling over his brother; and, as there was no limit fixed to the rule, was he very much to blame for taking the life of his brother? Did not God command him to rule and was not God responsible for the result?

“And if God foretelling to Eve that her husband should rule over her was a command[Pg 246] to which all women were to be subject for all time, does not this command to Cain to rule over his brother follow the seed of Cain for all time, and are not all elder brothers commanded to rule over the younger, and is it not the duty of the younger to submit to such rule?

“Clearly the Scripture quoted was not a command in either case. We cannot throw upon God all the fearful consequences that have grown out of and resulted from the construction so often put upon these words. Read them as prophecy, substitute ‘wilt’ for ‘shalt’—as I am told the original fully warrants—and they become clear enough. In both cases it was a prophetic declaration of what was to follow, and the prophecy as we all know has been fulfilled to the letter.

“But read this Scripture as we may, I do not believe it has any binding force at this day. However much the first Adam may have ruled his wife, other Adams can derive no warrant from his case for ruling their wives, except in the evil nature they have inherited from him. The Adams still abound in the land, and will abound until woman fully asserts her individuality and compels men to acknowledge her equal right with themselves to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

[Pg 247]

“The passages from the New Testament so frequently quoted have lost their terrors. We all know that in the early days when they were written woman’s position was one of ignorance and subjection. Peter and Paul were imbued with the prevalent sentiment of the times, and wrote of things as they found them. In writing of woman they followed the law and custom of the day in which they lived. They thought woman’s name was ‘submission’ just as many men think now, and wrote of her just as they write now.

“Barnard, in his ‘History and Progress of Education’ tells us that: ‘In India it was a terrible disgrace for a woman to learn to read, and the avowal of that knowledge was sufficient to class her with the most abandoned of her sex. Her duties and attainments were only such as would conduce to the mere physical comfort of her lord and master.’ Again, in writing of the ancient Persians, he says: ‘Female education was utterly neglected. The wife was the slave of the husband, and every morning must kneel at his feet and nine times ask the question, What do you wish that I should do? and, having received his reply, bowing humbly, she must withdraw and obey his commands.’

“Of Greece he says: ‘The female children[Pg 248] were not allowed any instruction except such as they might receive at home. The condition of the female sex, except the abandoned portion of it, at Athens was pitiable. Secluded from society and all intellectual improvement, their lives must have been gloomy, dull and hopeless.’

“When we consider the condition of woman in the early ages we cannot be surprised at the injunction laid upon her by the apostles. But would John have her remain in that position? Clearly he would; but not so her Creator. He has called her out of former bondage and pointed out to her a higher mission.

“It is worthy of note that the writers of the New Testament did not give us a ‘Thus saith the Lord’ with any of the injunctions to women, nor did our Saviour enjoin any such rules upon her. So while we admit that the words of the apostles may have been proper at the day and under the circumstances of their utterance, we claim that the condition of woman has been so changed and her mind so educated since that time that they are not applicable to her now. We are told by some that her condition thousands of years ago was her natural condition, that in which God placed her and intended her to remain. If this be so, a great wrong has[Pg 249] been done her by taking her out of the condition of ignorance and depravity in which she then existed. An educated mind cannot be kept in slavery. Our system of education is all wrong if God intended her to remain the ignorant slave of man she then was. How comes it that, if that was her natural God-ordained position, we find her condition so different at the present day? Whether right or wrong, that condition has greatly changed ever since the introduction of Christianity. And this work, this change, is not of herself, not of man. We must recognize in her course the direction and guidance of a Higher Power. If this change, this progress, tend to evil (as its opponents predict), then He who rules and overrules is for some wise purpose of His own bringing the evil on the world. But if, as we believe, it is for the good not only of woman but of humanity then, too, we should recognize the Higher Power that so orders it and do what we may to help forward His work. In any case we cannot by opposition, Bible argument, or indifference stay His work and will.

“Woman had a part to play in life that St. Paul never dreamed of, and he who lives in the next generation will see greater changes than the past has produced. As well say that men[Pg 250] should be and do as they were and did in the days of Abraham, as to say that women should be kept in the state of bondage in which she existed thousands of years ago. The world moves and woman must move with it. She inherits the same blood, the same spirit of liberty, that descends to her brother and for which her fathers bled and died. To fight against this progression is like fighting against the emancipation of the slaves. As the chains of the latter were broken and the oppressed set free, in spite of opposition and Bible argument, so will the All-Father, in His own good time and way, bring about the emancipation of woman and make her the equal with man in power and dominion that He proclaimed her to be at the creation, that we may have—

“‘everywhere
Two heads in council, two beside the hearth,
Two in the tangled business of the world,
Two in the liberal offices of life.’
“A.B.”

Mrs. Bloomer, in commenting on an article in the Chicago Tribune stating that women should not be called by their husbands’ titles, wrote for the Western Woman’s Journal as follows:

[Pg 251]

### NAMES OF MARRIED WOMEN.

“I am glad the Tribune has spoken out on this question, and had it gone further and included names as well as titles in its criticisms it would have done better. It has become so much the fashion for women to call themselves and to be known by their husbands’ names and titles that a woman’s Christian name is seldom heard or known. Why a woman as soon as she is married is willing to drop the good name of Mary or Elizabeth and take that of John, Thomas or Harry I never could understand. And as to titles, why a woman should be called Mrs. General, Mrs. Colonel, Mrs. Captain or Mrs. Judge I don’t know except it be on the principle that husband and wife are one and that one the husband, and the wife is his appendage and must be known by his title instead of having an individuality of her own.

“So far is this matter of appropriating names and titles carried, that women retain them after the death of the husbands and call themselves Mrs. Colonel or Mrs. Doctor when there is no such doctor or colonel in existence. It would seem as though, the man being dead, his title would die with him and henceforth his wife assume her Christian name.

[Pg 252]

“Quite recently an inquiry came to me from New York for the Christian name of a woman who had been quite prominent. On looking over letters and papers bearing her name I found that in every instance she had used her husband’s initials, and it was only after sending a postal with the inquiry one hundred and fifty miles that I learned her name and transmitted it to New York. This is but one instance of the many where women use the name of the husband with ‘Mrs.’ prefixed whenever they have occasion to write their names.

“But women are not alone to blame in the matter. The press does its part to keep up what the Tribune calls a vulgar custom. We have an instance at hand. Only a short time ago the daily press announced that ‘Mrs. Colonel C. S. Chase, of Omaha, is very ill.’ And again a short time after it announced ‘the death of Mrs. Colonel Chase,’ thus following the woman to the grave with her husband’s name and title. She was not a colonel, had never been a colonel, and it surely would have been more proper to say Mary, the wife of Col. Chase. Doubtless all have fallen into the custom thoughtlessly.

“Where a woman has earned a title of her own, it is right that she should be called by it,[Pg 253] and I see no reason why the prefix of Mrs. should always be attached. It would be quite improper to say Mr. Doctor Green; then why should we say Mrs. Doctor Hilton?

“There are cases where it may be allowable and necessary to use the husband’s initials when naming or addressing his wife, but usually it is best for her to retain and be known by the name her parents gave her. The name or title of her husband gives no additional dignity or character to her, and it sinks her own individuality in him; which no woman should allow.

“Ever since the world began all women of note have been known by their own Christian names. Adam named his wife Eve and we have no account of her ever being called Mrs. Adam. Victoria of England has never called herself Mrs. Albert Saxe-Coburg, nor has Eugénie been known as Mrs. Emperor Louis Napoleon. Go back through all history and all married queens, all members of royal houses, all married women of any distinction such as artists, authors, scholars, teachers, actresses, singers, etc., have ever been known and called by their Christian names. In our own day and country this is the universal custom. Lydia H. Sigourney, Emma Willard, Margaret Fuller[Pg 254] Ossoli, Lucretia Mott, Frances D. Gage, Mary A. Livermore, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Paulina W. Davis, Isabella Beecher Hooker, Lucy Stone Blackwell, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Celia Burleigh, and a host of others of equal or less note never called themselves Mrs. John, Mrs. Tom and Mrs. Henry. Anna Mary Howitt, Dinah Maria Muloch, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning may be given as instances of English writers who have seen fit to drop their own names and adopt the Christian name and title of their husbands. The wife of our first president is known and revered in memory as Martha Washington, instead of Mrs. George or Mrs. General Washington; and Susannah Wesley is far better known than Mrs. Rev. John Wesley.

“In law, women must use their own names and no document is legal unless it bears the Christian name of the woman who signed it. Her appointment to any office is always made in her own name and not that of her husband. And yet many women have gotten the idea that their husbands’ names and titles in some way add to their dignity and importance and so appropriate them to their own use.

“May the day soon come when all this will be done away and women bear honored titles[Pg 255] of their own, earned and conferred, but not borrowed!

“A. B.”

### IS IT RIGHT FOR WOMEN TO LECTURE?

Mrs. Bloomer answered this question through the press as follows:

“The press has been very severe, in some instances, in its strictures upon a certain woman of this state for leaving home and husband to go before our public as a lecturer, thereby as they claim causing her husband to commit a fearful crime.

“Now supposing, instead of being out lecturing, and home frequently, this woman had gone away on a three months’ visit to friends—as many ladies are in the habit of doing—would the press be as ready to blame her as it now is? Would she be, and are other women, guilty of all the crime and wrongdoing which she or their husbands may commit in their absence? And would it be right, would it be manly, to publicly accuse these women and hold them up to censure? Is not their suffering already sufficient without this added sting? Why, pray, is it a more heinous offense to leave home to lecture than to visit, to travel[Pg 256] abroad, or to sojourn for months at fashionable watering places?

“I know nothing of the domestic affairs of the person referred to. She has been to some extent a lecturer on temperance. Whether led into it by pecuniary necessity, or solely from inclination or a desire to do good, I never knew. But be the case as it may she is the first woman lecturer, so far as my knowledge extends, whose husband has ever disgraced both himself and her by such or any similar crime or any crime at all; while the cases are frequent of wives who are keepers at home and faithful guardians of family relations being humbled and disgraced by husbands guilty of all manner of crimes and wickedness. Men claim to be the stronger both mentally and physically. Then why are they ready to shoulder upon women the responsibility of their own wrongdoing? Why make the so-called ‘weaker vessel’ the scapegoat to bear their sins?

“But it was ever thus. The first Adam, the ‘lord of creation,’ tried to shield himself by accusing Eve and putting upon her the punishment of his transgression. And all Adams from that time to this have imitated his weakness and meanness by doing the same thing. Let the strong bear the burdens of the weak, is[Pg 257] I believe a Scripture injunction, but men have reversed this and put upon the weak and powerless the burdens they are too cowardly to bear themselves. In these days the Adams abound and, no matter of what crime they may be guilty, some daughter of Eve must be made to sorrow, not only over the fall of a loved one but by seeing herself publicly accused of being in some way accessory to the crime.

“If a man commits suicide, it is forthwith charged to unpleasant domestic relations. If another, in a fit of insanity, takes himself out of the world his wife’s extravagance is the cause. So, too, ‘the extravagance of the wife’ is offered as an excuse for the reckless spendthrift and defaulter. If a man deserts his wife and family and goes after strange women, the wife is in some way to blame for it; and if he gratifies his lust by the ruin of innocent girls, there are enough of his fellows to come to his defense by implicating his wife as the guilty cause of his ruin. And so on to the end of the chapter, the same old story: ‘The woman whom Thou gavest me did it.’ What a pitiful sneaking plea to come from the self-styled ‘lords of creation,’ the boasted superiors of woman!

“I object to this frequent blaming of women for the misdeeds of men and in the[Pg 258] name of all womanhood protest against its injustice.

“A. B.”

### WOMAN’S RIGHT TO PREACH.

On this subject Mrs. Bloomer wrote as follows:

“The question of woman’s right to preach has been agitated more since the action of the Brooklyn presbytery in arraigning Dr. Cuyler for allowing Miss Smiley to occupy his pulpit than ever before. Instead of this action having the effect of preventing a repetition of the offense, or of convincing the people of its wrong or sinfulness, and silencing women preachers, the discussion has resulted favorably to the women and encouraged them in their good work.

“Two weeks ago Miss Smiley preached on Sunday both in a Methodist and Presbyterian church in Buffalo, N. Y., by invitation of the pastors of the churches, and she has preached in other orthodox churches since the Brooklyn trial, and no one has been called to account for a transgression of the rules.

“In St. Louis, the women of the Union[Pg 259] Methodist church lately held a meeting to express their sense of the propriety and need of an ordained ministry for women in the church. The meeting is said to have been spirited and earnest, and embraced many of the leading women of the Methodist church and of other denominations. They offered their own prayers, made their own speeches, and called no man to their aid. The proceedings and speeches are reported at length in the Democrat, and reflect much credit upon the able women engaged in them. The following memorial reported by the committee was unanimously adopted:

“‘To the General Conference of the Methodist Church. Fathers and Brethren: We the undersigned members of the Methodist church respectfully but earnestly petition your venerable body to take such action, at your coming session in Brooklyn, New York, as may be necessary to allow women to be ordained as preachers, subject only to such requirements as are defined in our discipline.’

“In this, as in all other reforms, persecution and opposition strengthen the cause they would crush. The result of the anti-slavery movement should convince all that any God-ordained progressive movement, though it may be stayed[Pg 260] for a time, cannot be killed and buried because men will it so.”

### PETTICOAT PRESENTATION.

Some ladies of Quincy having presented a petticoat to some obnoxious individual, Mrs. Bloomer wrote as follows:

“It has long been customary for men, when they wish to express great contempt for the action of an individual, or to hold him up to the scorn and ridicule of the world, to present him with a petticoat. No matter whether the action be one of meanness and cowardice, or one of heroism in defense of a good cause, the man so acting must be degraded in the eyes of the world by the offer of a woman’s garment—no other being found sufficiently expressive of the disgust of its contemners. It has always seemed strange to me that men were willing to dishonor the mothers who bore them and the wives they have chosen for life-companions by thus selecting one of their garments as the most fitting badge of cowardice, of meanness, of treachery, of weakness, of littleness of soul; and I have never heard of an instance of the kind but my cheek has tingled with shame and indignation—shame that men could thus unblushingly[Pg 261] offer insult to woman, indignation that woman must receive and submit tamely to the insult.

“But if such action on the part of men has been painful to me, much more so is the action of the women of Quincy as given in last week’s Chronotype. It is bad enough for men thus to dishonor and insult us; but when woman imitates them in wrongdoing and desecrates her own garment to so bad a use, it is doubly to be deplored, for it is an admission that we are guilty of all the weakness and meanness they attribute to us and that our garment is chosen to represent. It should rather be woman’s part to frown down all such acts with any part of her costume, and ever stand ready to defend it from dishonor.

“I by no means wish to condemn the ladies of Quincy for showing their contempt of the ‘gallant soldier of Kansas.’ Far from it, I admit their spirit and glory in their womanly courage; for I hold it to be the right and duty of woman to mark the slanderer, to speak out against wrong, to defend the injured and innocent, and to drive out and put down immorality and crime, by the power of her own might if need be. I only differ with them in the manner of punishing the coward and would have counseled[Pg 262] a more womanly course. Had they waited upon the ‘slanderer’ and ‘coward,’ expressed in strong terms their scorn and contempt for his actions, and warned him to leave the town, it would have been more creditable to them and to the sex than was the presentation of the ‘red flannel garment’—a woman’s garment—as a badge of all that is most despicable in man. I am too jealous of the good name of woman, and hold in too much respect a woman’s petticoat to see it disgraced by any ‘slanderer,’ ‘coward’ or ‘whipped puppy,’ and I would to the last defend it from such disgrace.

“If that garment is in reality the badge of cowardice and inferiority that men would make it to be, then the sooner it is abandoned by woman and one more appropriate to her true character substituted the better. But it is not so. On the contrary it is honored by having been worn by the good, the great, the noble, the heroic, the virtuous, the honorable, the gifted, the most highly praised and exalted among women; and so long as it continues to be so worn it is entitled to respect from both men and women, and he who dares treat it with disrespect should receive the censures of men and the scorn of women.

[Pg 263]

“The error of the Quincy women was one of the head and not of the heart. Women are sometimes led into error by unthinkingly imitating the follies and vices of men, or by acting under their direction. In the ‘good time coming,’ when women learn to do their own thinking and to rely more on their own judgments, they will rarely be led into wrong or unwise action. May the day hasten speedily on when woman’s dormant powers shall be so developed by education that she will stand forth before the world in all the nobleness and excellence of her being! Then no longer will men revile her garments or taunt her as they now too often do, directly or indirectly, with cowardice, inferiority and weakness of intellect.

“A. B.”

### OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE ANSWERED.

While the woman-suffrage amendment was before the general assembly of Iowa, Senator Gaylord, a member of that body, published a list of twenty-one reasons why it should not be adopted. These Mrs. Bloomer, in a letter to the Des Moines Register, answered as follows:

[Pg 264]

“1. He says ‘it is not in the interest or in the disposition of man to legislate against woman,’ etc. And yet for ages men have legislated against woman and deprived her of all right to her own person, her earnings, her property, and her children. The common law places woman in a position little better than that of slavery. And this law was made by men; and it was not until the agitation of the woman’s-rights question by women, and their exposure of the injustice of the laws and their demands for redress of grievances, that changes were made in their favor. If the senator does not know of this, let him read up the common law on these points and the history of the woman-suffrage question for the last thirty years, and he will find that up to that time it was the ‘disposition of men to legislate against’ every interest of woman.

“2. He says ‘she ought not to be compelled by law to work out a poll-tax in the public highway, nor to learn the art of butchery on the battlefield.’ Most certainly she ought not, but she could hire a substitute to do these things, just as Senator Gaylord does. I venture the assertion, without knowing, that he did not earn his right to the ballot by the bullet or by shoveling dirt on the highways. If only[Pg 265] those who do these things were allowed to vote the number of voters would be small indeed.

“3. ‘Because there is no evidence that the most intelligent women ask for the miserable privilege of becoming politicians.’ Does the senator think that it is a miserable privilege to have the right to the ballot, the right to vote for good men and measures, the right to self-protection, the right to sit in the halls of legislation making wise and just laws for the government of his country, which shall tend to the interest and happiness of the whole people? One who prizes these privileges so lightly should be deprived of them and the wonder is that, holding such opinions as he does, we find a ‘miserable politician’ having his seat in the legislative hall of this great state, where he surely ought not to be. The fact that the women and the men who are asking for the enfranchisement of women are among the most intelligent, refined, affectionate and exemplary citizens is too patent to need proof from me.

“4. ‘Because woman is superior to man, and she owes her superiority to the fact that she has never waded in the dirty pool of politics.’ Dear me! how worried this man is about the ‘dirty,’ ‘miserable’ politics! And again how strange, knowing the pool to be so muddy, that[Pg 266] he has waded in so deep! and to think of his going home to his family with all this filth upon him! Really, if the place is so muddy it is high time that woman come in, with all the purity and goodness he gives her credit for, and sweep out the dirt that is befouling her husband and sons and make it a more fit place for them. An atmosphere that is too impure for her to breathe cannot but be dangerous to them, and it is her duty to rescue them from the ‘muddy’ pool or so to cleanse it that it will be safe for both.

“5. Senator Gaylord may call himself a wizard if he likes, and we shall not object; but women prefer not to be angels while sojourning here below, but rather good, sensible, practical wives and mothers, prepared to discharge life’s duties in whatever situation they may be placed—in the home, at the ballot-box or in legislative halls, wherever duty, interest and inclination may lead them.

“6. ‘Because a deference is now shown to women, which would be denied,’ etc. Deference shown to women does not make up for deprivation of rights, Mr. Gaylord. Besides, it is not a fact, but on the contrary, that equality of rights, politically or otherwise, leads men to disrespect woman. Give us rights and then, if[Pg 267] you must, withhold courtesy: I trust we should have strength to bear it.

“7. ‘Because, if married women should vote against their husbands, there would be war.’ And who would make the war, Mr. Gaylord? No man, except one who wishes to play the tyrant in his family and enslave his wife’s thought and actions, could ever utter so silly a reason for depriving her of rights to which she is as justly entitled as himself. Does he question the right of a man to do his own thinking and vote as he pleases? Why then a woman? The very fact that he thus claims the right to make her action subservient to his wishes, or to make war upon her if she does not submit to his own dictation, is reason sufficient why her individuality and right to self-government should be recognized and secured to her by making her an enfranchised citizen.

“8. ‘Because there are bad women,’ etc. Well, why may not bad women vote as well as bad men? If they had had a vote long ago perhaps they would not be bad now, and perhaps there would not be so many bad men either. I would sooner trust those women to vote right than many men who now disgrace the ballot; and as to any contamination at the polls, we no more fear it than on the streets, at[Pg 268] public gatherings, in the stores, and in various places where we meet and brush by them unharmed. We have more to fear from the men who make women bad. But, inasmuch as many women are compelled to associate in the closest relations with these men, and we all have to tolerate them in society, and come in contact with them in business matters, we think no great harm can come to us by dropping a bit of paper in the same box. But if there is really danger from such contact, we can avoid it by having voting places for our own sex away from theirs.

“9. ‘Because, if a woman trains up her children right, they will vote right.’ etc. No, not always. The training of the mother is often counteracted by the influence, authority and example of the father, and the two might differ as to what was right. The mother might teach her son that the ballot is a high and sacred thing, a mighty power to be wielded for the best interests and happiness of humanity, a power for the putting down of evil and for the forming and sustaining just governments; while the father might teach him that the right of the elective franchise is a ‘miserable privilege,’ that it leads to a ‘muddy pool’ into which all must wade, that it is all ‘moonshine[Pg 269] and monsoons’ and that the ‘privilege of voting is not to be so much desired as the privilege of being voted for.’ Which training is he to follow? Where lies the danger?

“10. The senator here claims that men are ‘vain, ambitious and aspiring, caring more to be voted for than to vote,’ and he fears that women will show the same weakness if permitted to vote. It is to be hoped, for the credit of womanhood, that if a woman ever takes his seat she will not disgrace herself by the utterance of such senseless twaddle in opposition to any measure as characterized his effort on the proposed amendment!

“13. ‘Because there must be a dividing line, somewhere, between those who may vote and who may not,’ etc. Then why not let the educated, intelligent, sober and moral of both sexes vote, and shut out the ignorant, drunken and immoral? Why let men vote and make laws, no matter how low and vile they may be, simply because they are men while those who are subject to the man-made laws are denied the right to vote, simply because they are women? The line so drawn is unnatural, unjust, and productive of great wrong to all parties. The line as now drawn shuts out only Indians, idiots, and women.

[Pg 270]

“14. Here our senator throws all the responsibility upon the ‘All-wise Author of our natures,’ and claims that He has made laws to prevent woman entering the ‘moonshine and monsoon of politics,’ forgetting that God called Deborah to the political field and made her a judge in Israel, and that for all time there have been queens and rulers among women, evidently with God’s approval. The All-Father gave woman an intelligent mind and capacity for governing, and then left her free to exercise her gifts as she saw fit; and if there be times when by sickness or other circumstance she may be prevented from the discharge of political duties, so also there are times and circumstances when men are kept from the polls and from office, and if this be reason why the former should not be enfranchised then it is also reason why the latter should be disfranchised.

“15. ‘Because the wife has a voice and a vote already, and her husband is her agent to carry that vote to the ballot-box.’ How is it about the thousands of women who have no husbands to do such errands for them? How does this proxy-voting work when the wife differs with the husband on the question to be voted on? Does he waive his own preference and deposit the vote in accordance with her[Pg 271] wishes? If he does not, then does he represent her? The only just course is to let her deposit her own vote; then both will be represented. Now, they are not. Man deposits his vote regardless of his wife’s interests and wishes.

“17. ‘Because there cannot be two equal heads in the same family.’ ‘Where the wife is anybody, the husband must be a nobody.’ ‘If the wife has sense enough to vote, the husband is dwarfed.’ So, according to our senator, the wife should be a weak-minded, senseless thing deprived of all right of opinion, so that the husband may rise to the dignity of a voter. Is not this sound logic? Did the superior brain of man ever before conceive of so strong an argument why woman should not vote? Two heads are better than one, Mr. Senator, and there may be two equal heads in the same family, at the same time, and neither of them be ‘dwarfed’ or belittled by the superiority of the other. If such is not the condition of your family, your wife is a subject for sympathy.

“18. ‘Because politics would pervert and destroy woman’s nature, the religious element,’ etc. God implanted in woman’s nature a love of home and a love of her offspring, and also an instinctive knowledge of what is proper and what improper for her to do; and it needs no[Pg 272] laws of man’s making to incite the one or compel the other. Give her her rights and her own good sense will teach her how to use them. Does the ballot change man’s nature for the worse? Why then woman’s?

“Pp. 11, 12, 19, 20 and 21. These concluding reasons show a dreadful imaginative picture of the condition of things that would exist in the family should women be permitted to go to the polls and exercise the rights secured to them by the laws of their country. ‘Strife, contention, jealousy, hatred, slander, rivalry, intemperance, licentiousness, temper, retaliation, suicide, suspicion, discord, divorce,’ all these are to come to our good senator’s family when his wife has a right to vote. He anticipates it all and is doing all he can to avert the dire calamity. But while he is to be commiserated, he must remember that all families are not alike, and where he sees only dire disaster other men see the dawning of a better day and are ready to ‘turn the crank’ that shall hasten it on. Other men do not fear and tremble; but calmly await the time when they can take their wives on their arms and, side by side, go to the polls and drop in the little paper that declares them equal in rights and privileges. In these families there will be no[Pg 273] war, for such men are proud to own their wives their equals and do not feel that they themselves are dwarfed thereby. As the ballot elevates and ennobles man, so they believe it will be with woman, and they cannot understand how rendering justice to her is going to convert her into the coarse, vile, quarrelsome thing our senator predicts, or how acknowledging her the equal of her husband is going to ‘dwarf’ men and convert them into ruffians and nobodies.

“A. B.”

### ON HOUSEKEEPING—WOMAN’S BURDENS.

The following essay on this subject was read by Mrs. Bloomer before a local society or club in Council Bluffs:

“It has always seemed to me that there was something wrong in the present system of housekeeping. Men have particular branches of business to which they give their exclusive attention, and never attempt to carry on three or four trades at the same time. Housekeeping comprises at least three trades, that of cook, laundress and seamstress, to which might be added that of house cleaning; and yet it is expected of woman that she will single-handed[Pg 274] successfully carry on these various trades, and at the same time bear and rear children and teach them to become great and good. How long would men undergo a like amount of labor without devising some means of lightening and separating its burdens?

“I wish to call your attention to the fact that in the mythical second chapter of Genesis, upon which men lay so much stress as their authority for subjugating and belittling the position of woman, no toil was imposed on our Mother Eve. The ground was cursed for man’s sake, and he was to labor and eat his bread in the sweat of his face. But to woman no command to labor was given, no toil laid upon her, no ground or stove cursed for her sake. She was to bear children; but motherhood was never cursed by the Almighty. Woman is the mother of mankind, the living Providence (under God) who gives to every human being its mental, moral and physical organization, who stamps upon every human heart her seal for good or for evil. How important then that her surroundings be pleasant, her thoughts elevated, her mind imbued with the best and noblest traits, her individuality acknowledged, her freedom assured, that she may impart wise and noble characters to her children, surround[Pg 275] them with good influences and train them in all goodness and virtue! This is the part of woman. But how can she be fitted for such life work when subjected to the whims and commands of another, to the constant round of housekeeping labor, to toil and drudgery, to cares, annoyances and perplexities which she has not health and strength and nerve to bear? How can one woman cook and wash dishes three times a day, sweep and dust the house, wash and iron, scrub and clean, make and mend and darn for a family, and yet have time or spirit for the improvement of her own mind so that she may stamp strong characters upon her children? How can a mother whose every hour from early morn to late at night is filled with cares and worries and toil to supply the physical needs of her family find time or be prepared to instruct properly the tender minds committed to her care?

“It is to woman’s weary hours and broken health, and to her subject, unhappy and unsatisfactory position, that we may impute much of the evil, vice and crime that are abroad. And to the same cause are due so many domestic quarrels, separations and divorces. Children are born into the world with the stamp of the mother’s mind upon them. I believe it[Pg 276] is conceded that children are more indebted to their mothers than to their fathers for their natural gifts. How important then that every facility be afforded the mother for making good impressions on her child! How strange that men so entirely overlook this law of inheritance! What can they expect of children when the mother is degraded and enslaved?

“Is there not some way of relief from this drudging, weary work over the cook stove, washtub and sewing machine; from this load of labor and care? Why should one hundred women in each of one hundred separate houses be compelled to do the work that could equally as well or better be done by less than one-fifth of that number by some reasonable and just system of coöperation? Why cannot the cooking and washing and sewing be all attended to in a coöperative establishment, and thus relieve women, and mothers particularly, of the heavy burdens their fourfold labors now impose upon them, and give them time for self-improvement and the care and culture of their children? It is said that in the city of New York there are but 30,000 household servants to more than 270,000 families. By this we see that nine out of every ten wives and mothers in that city are subjected to the daily round of household labor.[Pg 277] Can we not trace a large percentage of the vice and degradation of that city to that cause? And this state of things will hold good to a large extent over the whole country.

“Time is not allowed me to go into the details of coöperative housekeeping, even had I the matter well matured in my own mind, which I have not. But I have given reasons why some plan should be devised to relieve woman of hard labor and crushing care, and I leave it for her who is to follow on my side of the question to present a plan that shall recommend itself to our approval.

“A. B.”

### THE CIVIL WAR.

The War of the Rebellion aroused the feelings, as also the patriotism, of the women of the Northern states to a high state of activity. Perhaps at first they did not enter into the contest so earnestly as did the women of the South, that is, their feelings were not so deeply aroused; but ere long, as the war went on, they came up nobly to the duties before them and were henceforward unwearied and unremitting in their discharge. Their fathers, brothers, sons[Pg 278] and husbands were in the armies of the Union periling their lives for its complete restoration. They could but hope that success might crown their efforts, and in various ways they sought to help on the contest until the end should be reached, the republic saved; and many also hoped and prayed that, when victory came, it would bring also the complete destruction of slavery. Mrs. Bloomer entered into this feeling, and the work done by the women of the North, with all the energies of her ardent spirit. Two regiments were raised in Council Bluffs and the vicinity, and many of the young men of the city were in their ranks. The women did a great deal towards providing them with camp conveniences and furnishing them with needed clothing and other comforts necessary for the arduous and dangerous life on which they were about to enter. Each day, dress parade found very many on the regimental grounds encouraging “the boys” in the discharge of their duties. Among other things, a beautiful flag was prepared and Mrs. Bloomer was delegated by the ladies to present it to company A,[Pg 279] which had been mainly recruited in the city. This she did in the presence of the whole regiment, in the following short speech:

### MRS. BLOOMER’S ADDRESS.

“Captain Craig, Sir: In behalf of the loyal ladies of Council Bluffs I present to you, and through you to the company you command, this flag. Its materials are not of so rich a texture as we could have wished, but they are the best our city afforded; and we hope that you will accept it as an expression of our respect for yourself and your company, and our warm sympathy for the cause you go forth to uphold. This flag has emblazoned upon it the stars and stripes of our country. It was under these that our Fathers fought the battle of the Revolution and secured for us that priceless gift, the Constitution of the United States.

“You are now going forth to sustain and defend that Constitution against an unjust and monstrous rebellion, fomented and carried on by wicked and ambitious men, who have for their object the overthrow of the best government the world has ever seen. To this noble cause we dedicate this flag. We know you will carry it proudly, gallantly and bravely on the field of battle and wherever you go, and[Pg 280] we trust it may ever be to you the emblem of victory.

“Soldiers: We cannot part with you without a few words of counsel and warning. In the new and dangerous path you are entering upon, let us entreat you to guard well your steps and keep yourselves aloof from every vice. Avoid, above all things, profanity and the intoxicating cup. The latter slays annually more than fall on the battlefield. The hearts of mothers, wives and sisters go forth after you. Many tears will be shed and many prayers will be offered in your behalf. See to it, then, that you so conduct yourselves that whatever may befall you, whether you fall in the service of your country or return to gladden the hearts of the loved ones you leave behind and to enjoy the peace you will have conquered—that no sting shall pierce their hearts, no stain rest on your fair fame. Go forth in your sense of right, relying on the justice of your cause. Seek peace with God your Saviour, that you may be prepared to meet His summons should it come suddenly, or to enjoy life should it please Him to spare you for many days.

“Our good wishes go with you, and we shall ever hold you in honorable remembrance; and when this important war is ended which calls[Pg 281] you from us, and you are discharged from duty, we shall heartily welcome you back to your home and friends.”

This address was delivered at dress parade just as the sun was going down and only a day or two before the regiment left for the front. The volunteer soldiers listened with deep emotion, and when allusion was made to the homes and friends left behind many a stout heart heaved and tears trickled down many a manly face.

Lieutenant Kinsman, in behalf of Captain Craig, accepted the flag from Mrs. Bloomer in a neat and appropriate address.

Lieutenant Kinsman had been a partner of her husband and a dear friend of Mrs. Bloomer’s; over his subsequent career she watched with the greatest interest. He soon rose to be the captain of his company, then a lieutenant-colonel, and then colonel of an Iowa regiment at whose head he fell bravely fighting at the Battle of Black River Bridge, in Mississippi, in 1863. As showing the earnest patriotism of Mrs. Bloomer and her intelligent appreciation[Pg 282] of the great questions involved in it, the following letter written by her to the convention of loyal women in New York City in 1864 is here inserted:

### LETTER TO CONVENTION OF LOYAL WOMEN.

“Miss Anthony:

“Your letter inviting me to meet in council with the loyal women of the nation on the 14th inst. in the city of New York is received. Most gladly does my heart respond to the call for such a meeting, and most earnestly do I hope that the deliberations on that occasion will result in much good to woman and to the cause you meet to promote.

“The women of the North are charged by the press with a lack of zeal and enthusiasm in the war. The charge may be true to some extent. Though for the most part the women of the loyal states are loyal to the government, and in favor of sustaining its every measure for putting down the rebellion, yet they do not I fear enter fully into the spirit of the revolution, or share greatly in the enthusiasm and devotion which sustain the women of the South in their struggle for what they believe their[Pg 283] independence and freedom from oppression. This is owing, doubtless, to the war being waged on soil remote from us, to women having no part in the active contest, and to the deprivation and heart-sorrows it has occasioned them. There are too many who think only of themselves and too little of the sufferings of the soldiers who have volunteered to save their country. While they are willing to give of their time and means to relieve the sick and wounded, they at the same time decry the war, lament the sacrifices and expenditure it occasions, think it should have been prevented by a compromise and long for peace on almost any terms. These think not of the great cause at stake, they care not for the poor slave, think not of the future of our country, and fail to see the hand of God in the movement punishing the nation for sin and leading it up through much suffering and tribulation to a brighter and more glorious destiny.

“But there is a class of women who have looked beyond the mere clash of arms and the battlefield of the dead and dying, and recognize the necessity and importance of this dark hour of trial to our country. The first cannon fired at Sumter sounded in their ears the death knell of slavery and proclaimed the will[Pg 284] of the Almighty to this nation. These have never believed we should have peace or great success until the doom of slavery was irrevocably sealed. That seal has been set. Our noble President has bowed to the will of the Supreme Power and by the guidance and sustaining spirit of that Power will, I trust, lead our country successfully through the great and fearful struggle and place it upon a firm and more enduring basis.

“The contest has outlasted the expectation of all, and has cost the nation a vast amount of blood and treasure. It has called into the field a million or more of soldiers, and the number of fathers, brothers and sons slain upon the battlefield and wasted away in camps and hospitals is counted by hundreds of thousands, while its expenses run up to billions. And still the war for the Union, for Freedom, and the integrity of our national boundaries goes forward; and in the hearts of true Union men everywhere the firm resolve has been made that it shall go on until the rebellion is crushed, cost what it may, and continue though it should last as long as did the war which brought our nation into existence.

“Now the question for us to consider is: Are we prepared for the further and continued[Pg 285] sacrifice? Have we yet more sons and brothers to yield up on the altar of our country? To this question let every loyal woman address herself; and I fondly hope that the proceedings of your convention will be such as to nerve woman for whatever sacrifice and trial await her.

“I know there are many women in whose hearts the love of country and of justice is strong, and who are willing to incur any loss and make almost any sacrifice rather than that the rebellion should succeed and the chains of the bondmen be more firmly riveted. If they manifest less enthusiasm than their patriotic brothers it is because they have not so great an opportunity for its exercise. The customs of society do not permit any stormy or noisy manifestation of feeling on the part of woman. But the blood of Revolutionary sires flows as purely in her veins as in those of her more favored brothers, and she can feel as deeply, suffer as intensely, and endure as bravely as do they.

“But I would have her do more than suffer and endure. I would that she should not only resolve to stand by the government of the Union in its work of defeating the schemes of its enemies, but that she should let her voice[Pg 286] go forth to the government in clear and unmistakable tones against any peace with rebels, except upon the basis of entire submission to the authority of the government. Against the schemes and plans of the ‘peace party’ in the North the loyal women everywhere protest. That party seeks to obtain peace through compromise, and it advocates an armistice with rebels who ask for none. Such a peace we do not want, for it would be either brought about by the recognition of the rebel government, or by base and dishonorable submission to its demands. To either of these results we are alike opposed. When peace comes, let it come through the complete triumph of the Union army; and with the destruction of the great cause of the rebellion, which we all know to be African Slavery.

“What part woman is to take in the work, and in what way she can best hold up the hands and cheer the heart of the great man who is at the head of our government, will be for the loyal women in council to determine.

“A. B.”

The ladies of Council Bluffs were zealous in sending clothing and necessary hospital stores to the soldiers fighting at the front. Mrs.[Pg 287] Bloomer was one of the most active in this work. She was placed on many committees, often at the head of them, and her house was a centre around which their efforts were directed. She was a thorough patriot, and did all in her power to promote the welfare of those who were fighting the battle of the Union. She attended for three weeks the great Sanitary Fair held in Chicago in the early part of 1865, and previous to going to it had been largely instrumental in collecting the noble contribution sent thither by Iowa. Here, for the first time, she met General Grant, the illustrious commander of the Union armies. Mrs. Bloomer had never been classed among the “abolitionists,” but she was nevertheless an intense hater of slavery and the slave power, and no one rejoiced more sincerely that the war finally ended with the overthrow of that blight upon the fair name of our country.

### VISITS WASHINGTON.

Mrs. Bloomer, after her removal to the West, made occasional visits to her old home in New[Pg 288] York, there spending several weeks with relatives and friends. In the autumn of 1880, with her husband, she passed nearly a week in the national capital viewing the noble buildings and the wonderful collections of nature and art with which they are so abundantly filled. One day was spent at the Smithsonian Institution, where the ethnological department attracted great attention. The Patent Office was looked through, and the Corcoran gallery of paintings and statuary admired and carefully inspected. One day was given to Mount Vernon and the former residence of the Father of his Country visited. It was a beautiful day and the passage down and up the Potomac delightful. The scenes at Mount Vernon were most impressive, and made a place in her memory never to be effaced.

### IN NEW YORK CITY.

Proceeding from Washington northward, they spent one day in Philadelphia very pleasantly; and, on arriving in New York, Mrs. Bloomer and her husband arranged for a stop[Pg 289] in the great metropolis of several weeks. They spent two days with relatives in Westchester County, and after her return Mrs. Bloomer met her old and dear friends, Mrs. Douglass and Mrs. Chamberlain, and had very pleasant visits with them. A day was taken up in visiting some of the noted places in the city, and then Mrs. Bloomer accepted an invitation to visit Mrs. Stanton at her residence in Tenyfly, in New Jersey; but before she had time to do this, word came to her of the dangerous illness of her sister. Giving up all her plans, she at once repaired to the residence of Mr. John Lowden, at Waterloo, N. Y., and remained by the bedside of her sister until her spirit passed away. Of a large family of brothers and sisters, Mrs. Bloomer was then the only one left. After attending the funeral, she spent a few days with her husband in the excellent family of her niece, Mrs. N. J. Milliken, at Canandaigua, N. Y., being present at the marriage of one of her daughters; and then, after another stop in Buffalo of a few days more, returned to Council Bluffs.

[Pg 290]

One more visit was made to New York, in 1889, to attend the golden anniversary of her husband’s brother, Mr. C. A. Bloomer, of Buffalo. The occasion was a very happy one; and after some days spent in that city, she once more passed on to her old home in Seneca Falls, visiting also at Canandaigua and other places in the vicinity.

### VISITS COLORADO.

In 1879 Mrs. Bloomer made her first journey to Colorado, its mountains and magnificent scenery. This was repeated in subsequent years, the last trip having been made in 1894, only a few months before her death. During these tours she spent many days in Denver, Leadville, Idaho Springs, Pueblo, Colorado Springs, and Manitou. All the points round the latter famous watering place were visited. She rode through the Garden of the Gods, Monument Park, and Cheyenne Cañon, and traversed the great caves opened up in the mountains. Climbing Cheyenne Mountain, she stood on the spot where the famous poet[Pg 291] and writer Helen H. Jackson was laid at rest. The scenery from this point over the surrounding mountains and valleys is truly wonderful and makes a great impression on all beholders.

### A LETTER.

The following descriptive letter written to a local paper by Mrs. Bloomer from Manitou, Colorado, August 12, 1879, gives her impression of that place and vicinity at that time:

“Our stay at Denver was a short one, as we found the weather at that place about as hot as in Council Bluffs. After looking over that city for one day, we hastened on to this famed resort for invalids and summer tourists seeking pleasure and recreation. As usual at this season, the hotels are crowded, and scores of camp tents dot the hills in every direction.

“We took up our temporary abode at the Cliff House, principally because of its nearness to the springs, three of which are in the immediate vicinity. This is a popular house and is crowded with guests. The Manitou and Beebe, though farther from the springs, are full and are first-class houses. Scores of cottages are[Pg 292] leased for a few weeks or months by visitors, and many private houses take temporary lodgers or boarders. Among owners of the latter is Mrs. Dr. Leonard, formerly of Council Bluffs. She is proprietor of the bath-houses here, and is doing a good paying business, sometimes as many as a hundred a day taking baths. She has built a house of her own, but leases the bath-house, which belongs to the town company. She has also considerable practice as a physician.

“Cheyenne Cañon, Ute Pass, Williams Pass, Pike’s Peak, the Garden of the Gods, Glen Eyrie, Queen’s Cañon, and Monument Park are the principal points of interest visited daily by people here. A few mornings since, a party of seventeen gentlemen and ladies left one hotel on horseback for the ascent of Pike’s Peak. They made the journey safely and returned at dark, some of them feeling little worse for the trip, while others were pretty well used up. Yesterday a gentleman and lady made the same journey on foot. As the distance is twelve miles, all the way up the steep mountain side, this was considered quite a feat. To-day the same parties have gone on foot to Cheyenne Cañon, a distance of twelve miles. I have not heard that the lady is one of the celebrated ‘walkers,’[Pg 293] but she certainly deserves that her name be added to the list.

“Yesterday we made up a party of six and started soon after breakfast for the Garden of the Gods, Glen Eyrie, and Monument Park. The day was one of the finest imaginable, the air cool and invigorating, and our driver a man experienced in the business of showing to tourists the wonders of this section of this wonderful state. We found him a very intelligent and much-traveled man, and learned that he was one of the magistrates of the town. Our road to the Garden of the Gods was ascending all the way. In reply to a query as to why the place was so named, the guide told us a story of how a southern gentleman came to the spot some years ago bringing with him two colored slaves, a man and a woman. He built here a cabin, and soon after took his gun and started out for a further journey, leaving the slaves behind and promising an early return. But days and weeks passed on and he returned not, and never was heard of more. The negroes remained in their new home, made improvements and planted a garden, which in this new land was a sight to gladden the eye. This, in connection with the grand works of nature surrounding it, grew to be the Garden[Pg 294] of the Gods, the name which has made it famous throughout the world. So much for the story. The negroes, Jupiter and Juno, are no more; but the great works of nature remain in all their grandeur, and a visit to them well repays the traveler for the journey he takes to see them.

“The rocks in this so-called garden have been shaped into every conceivable form by the action of wind, water and frost. Many of them, by a little stretch of the imagination, are made to bear a strong resemblance to men and animals. The prevailing formation is red sandstone, but there are also conglomerate, gypsum and other varieties. At the south entrance, is a huge rock standing upon the narrowest foundation, and seemingly ready at any moment to topple over on the people who are constantly passing. As the incline is a little away from the road, it is to be hoped no such catastrophe will ever happen, even should the rock in ages to come be so top-heavy as to break loose from its foundations. The Grand Gateway is a narrow passageway between immense piles of rocks over three hundred feet high, of irregular outline and surface, which rise sharply and perpendicularly like a mighty wall. These rocks are full of holes, rifts and crevices and[Pg 295] chasms in which thousands of swallows have built their nests, and we could plainly hear the twittering of the young ones from the ledge of rocks a few feet distant, on which we climbed. Our guide led us to a cave under one of these walls. The opening was near the base, and so low that one had to bend the knees and crawl in. The guide assured us that once inside the cave was high and roomy. Half of our party ventured in, but they found it too dark to see far beyond. Those of us who remained outside could hear the echoes of their voices high up in the rocks, showing that there is a high open space within the seemingly solid stone. Other rocks but a few feet distant are of gray color, and a little further on are large white rocks composed of gypsum, very soft and pliable. This is now being taken out in large quantities to be converted into plaster of Paris.

“At the time we were passing through this huge gateway, an Iowa boy was standing on the top of one of these towering red walls waving a white flag, and upon the other stood a young woman waving her handkerchief. They looked like pygmies at that great elevation, and but for their moving about we should have supposed them a slight projection of rock. These we are told are the same persons who[Pg 296] made the journey to Pike’s Peak mentioned above. Their ascent up the rocks was a difficult and dangerous one, and though our guide proposed to lead us also up to their summit, we declined the temptation to view the surrounding mountains from so dizzy a height. It is very singular that these different varieties of rock formation should be found in so close proximity, and they furnish abundant food for the study of the geologist. The prevailing shape of the rocks is high and narrow, and some of the forms into which they have been brought by the forces of nature are remarkably beautiful and unique.

“Passing on from this famed locality over a smooth and level road, we visited Glen Eyrie. This spot derives its name from an eagle’s nest high up in a crevice or shelf of the rocks, so our guide informed us, and also that within a year the eagles had occupied the nest, which was plainly visible to us, looking the size of a bushelbasket. They have now abandoned the place. The name Glen Eyrie is given to a large tract of land belonging to General Palmer, president of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. He has fenced in this wild tract, opened a road across it, and in a nook close under the towering rocks by which it is surrounded and far[Pg 297] from any other habitation he has built a costly and elegant residence. The dwelling stands at the foot or entrance to Queen’s Cañon, a narrow gorge up which we traveled on foot the distance of half a mile till we reached a pool or basin of water, eight or ten feet in diameter, which blocked our further progress. This pool is known as the Devil’s Punchbowl, but General Palmer has named it the Mermaid’s Bathtub. Whether either devils or mermaids come here to either drink or bathe, history does not record. Our path was over big stones and rocks, and along the bed of a mountain torrent, which we crossed several times, stepping from rock to rock as our path led first to one side and then to the other. High above us on either side the mountains rose to a great height, their sides covered at times with the evergreen pine and scrub-oak, and again consisting simply of bare and naked rocks ready at any moment apparently to tumble down upon our heads. Our guide informed us that General Palmer has already spent forty or fifty thousand dollars upon the house and grounds of Glen Eyrie. I would not give him one thousand for the whole thing.

“After the exploration of Queen’s Cañon our party voted unanimously to proceed to[Pg 298] Monument Park, a distance of five miles, which we reached just in time to enjoy a most excellent dinner prepared for us by Mrs. Lewis, whose husband is an extensive cattle-raiser and lives in a comfortable dwelling at the entrance of the park. We are told that he came a confirmed consumptive, but has now become a strong and healthy man. This we could well believe, for in this locality the air was wonderfully pure, dry and bracing, and our party greatly enjoyed its exhilarating effects. Dinner over, we proceeded to explore the Park and gaze upon its unique formations. I do not feel competent to adequately describe them. The rocks are unlike any others in Colorado. They are nearly white with a yellowish tinge and often pyramidal in form. Standing out from the general mass are numerous statue-like columns, which seem to have been carved by the hand of man. They bear various designations, such as Adam and Eve, Lot’s Wife, the Democratic Caucus, Henry Ward Beecher’s Pulpit, the Dutch Wedding, the Anvil, etc., etc. They range from eight to fifteen feet in height and, what is singular, all of them are crowned with a flat rocky cap considerably larger than the top of the column on which it rests. This covering is composed of materials different from[Pg 299] the statue itself, being of a harder or darker substance, considerable iron being mixed with its other constituents. I noticed one exact form of a bottle or decanter, large and round, with a small neck. This was smaller than the forms that surrounded it, but it had the same flat cap-stone that surmounted all the others. How came these statues here? Who can tell? Some of our party said the rocks had been washed away in the progress of ages from around them and left them standing out boldly by themselves, a puzzle and a wonder to all beholders. But some of them rise from a level plain, standing alone, with no rocks near them, and no evidence of any having been washed away. They rise from the ground, a solid column, and look as though placed there by the hand of man to mark the spot of some great event or the tomb of some departed one. Men have their theories, but the mystery is buried in the darkness of ages and none solve it satisfactorily. We leave them to their solitude and silence and, awe-stricken and subdued, turn our faces whence we came.

“A. B.”

### ADOPTED CHILDREN.

No children of her own came to the home of Mrs. Bloomer, but she cared carefully and[Pg 300] almost continually for the children of others. Her residence, whether in the east or the west, was hardly ever without their presence. Nieces and nephews were nearly always under her roof, and some of them remained with her until they had homes of their own. Soon after her removal to Council Bluffs, a little boy was adopted into her family and his sister came to it a few years later. These were carefully cared for, instructed and educated, and remained with her until they took their welfare into their own hands. Both have now families of their own, one residing in Oregon and the other in Arizona. The boy, Edward, took her name, and his children bear it also. For him as a boy and a man, and for his children, she ever manifested the warmest interest, preparing and sending to them each year boxes of clothing and other articles designed to add to their comfort and happiness in their distant home. In the early days of Council Bluffs, not a few of the teachers in the public schools resided in her family. They were mostly young women and she always strove to afford to them a pleasant and[Pg 301] comfortable home. She ever insisted that the wages of young women employed as teachers by the school board should be the same as those paid to men. Her position was that, so long as they did an equal amount of work and did it equally well, they should receive equal pay, and this is an argument which never has been and never can be successfully answered, although school boards continue to set it aside as unworthy of their consideration.

### CHRISTIAN LIFE AND WORK.

Mrs. Bloomer was a zealous worker in the church of which she was a member, as well as in all efforts to promote the spread of true Christianity. While a resident of Seneca Falls, she contributed her full share to the various agencies employed to advance the interests of the parish. She was zealous and faithful in attending church services and all gatherings whether social or festive to advance church interests. Modest and retiring in demeanor, she took her place calmly and pleasantly wherever called upon to labor, and found her[Pg 302] chief reward In the approval of a good conscience.

After her removal to her new home in the West, much additional labor came to her in the untrodden field in which her lot was cast. When she took up her residence in Council Bluffs, society was unorganized, without places of worship, and without any of the religious or moral agencies of older communities. We have seen in her personal memoirs how she was very soon called into the work before her. For two years none of the religious services to which she had been accustomed were held in the town, except that occasionally a bishop or minister made his way thither; when they came along, these always found a genuine welcome in her home. It is remembered that Bishops Kemper and Lee, and the Rev. Edward W. Peet, were among her guests during the first year of her residence. They all held religious services in the little Congregational church building which then stood on Main Street. At last a young missionary arrived and took up his residence, making his first[Pg 303] home with Mrs. Bloomer in her modest dwelling under the bluff. And so it was in future years; whenever new clergymen of her denomination came to begin their work in town, they all uniformly found a home and resting place in her house until permanent quarters were secured. Clergymen, temperance lecturers, reformers of almost all kinds, among them advocates of woman’s enfranchisement, always found a welcome place at her table. On one occasion, being alone in the house during her husband’s absence, she was thrown into great trepidation at finding that her guest for the night (who had just come up from the bloody fields of Kansas) was armed both with bowie-knife and revolver; but the night passed in safety, for the owner of these appalling weapons was one of the noble men who periled their lives to win that state for freedom.

The building up of a new community was in those days attended with great labor and called for unflinching courage and steady perseverance. Churches had to be erected, school-houses built, libraries established and good[Pg 304] works of all kinds encouraged. In all this Mrs. Bloomer did her full part. The support of the minister and the building of churches, especially, fell largely upon the women. They held festivals and collected money for these objects. They organized and maintained sewing societies and gave entertainments of various kinds for these objects. Mrs. Bloomer was among the active workers in this field. She was for many years secretary and treasurer of the Woman’s Aid Society in her parish, a society which contributed many thousands of dollars towards the erection of three successive churches and wholly built the rectory, as well as contributed largely in other ways towards the support of the parish. In 1880 she was president of the Art Loan-Exhibition given for the joint benefit of the city library and the church, one of the most successful efforts of the kind ever held in the city. On the parish register of her church under the date of 1856 her name stands as that of the first woman admitted to membership, and until within a few months of her decease, when she was prevented by bodily[Pg 305] infirmities, she was a regular attendant upon the services. She was, however, no mere copyist, taking the words or teachings of others without thought or examination; but looked into all questions, theological, social or reformatory, for herself, and her clergymen will bear testimony to the many discussions they held with her on these and kindred subjects. One occasion her husband recalls: He came to his dinner at the usual hour, but found his wife and a visiting clergyman engaged in warm argument. They had been at it all the forenoon, the breakfast table standing as left in the morning and all preparations for dinner being forgotten. Of course, he enjoyed a good laugh at their expense.

### HER CHARACTER ANALYZED.

Mrs. Bloomer was a great critic, and for that reason may not have been so popular with her associates as she otherwise might have been. Her criticisms, possibly, were sometimes too unsparing and too forcibly expressed. She had strong perceptive faculties and noticed what[Pg 306] she believed to be the mistakes and failings of others, perhaps, too freely. No one ever attacked her, in print or otherwise, without receiving a sharp reply either from tongue or pen if it was in her power to answer. But no person ever had a kinder heart, or more earnestly desired the happiness of others, or more readily forgot or forgave their failings. Perhaps, she was deficient in the quality of humor and took life too seriously; this over-earnestness, however, if it existed at all, it is believed was brought out more fully by dwelling so much upon what she regarded as the wrongs of her sex and the degradation to which they were subjected through unjust laws and the curse of strong drink. The same charge, that of taking things too seriously, has recently been made by a noted writer against the women of the present day who are battling for what they conceive to be the sacred rights of women.

### ABOUT THE FIRST SINNER.

Although Mrs. Bloomer was a member of one of the more conservative branches of the[Pg 307] Christian community, she was an earnest advocate of woman’s admission to all departments of Christian work. She repudiated the notion that woman was so great a sinner in the Garden of Eden that she should be forever excluded from ministerial work and responsibilities. As to the first sin in the garden, here is her view of it as stated by herself:

“How any unprejudiced and unbiased mind can read the original account of the Creation and Fall and gather therefrom that the woman committed the greater sin, I cannot understand. When Eve was first asked to eat of the forbidden fruit she refused, and it was only after her scruples were overcome by promises of great knowledge that she gave way to sin. But how was it with Adam who was with her? He took and ate what she offered him without any scruples of conscience, or promises on her part of great things to follow—certainly showing no superiority of goodness, or intellect, or strength of character fitting him for the headship. The command not to eat of the Tree of Life was given to him before her creation, and he was doubly bound to keep it; yet he not only permitted her to partake of the tree[Pg 308] without remonstrating with her against it and warning her of the wrong, but ate it himself without objection or hesitation. And then, when inquired of by God concerning what he had done, instead of standing up like an honorable man and confessing the wrong, he weakly tried to shield himself by throwing the blame on the woman. As the account stands, he showed the greater ‘feebleness of resistance and evinced a pliancy of character and a readiness to yield to temptation’ that cannot be justly charged to the woman. As the account stands, man has much more to blush for than to boast of.

“While we are willing to accept this original account of the Creation and Fall, we are not willing that man should add tenfold to woman’s share of sin and put a construction on the whole matter that we believe was never intended by the Creator. Eve had no more to do with bringing sin into the world than had Adam, nor did the Creator charge any more upon her. The punishment inflicted upon them for their transgression, was as heavy upon him as upon her. Her sorrows were to be multiplied; and so, too, was he to eat his bread in sorrow and earn it with the sweat of his face amid thorns and thistles. To her, no[Pg 309] injunction to labor was given; upon her no toil was imposed, no ground cursed for her sake. * * * * The Bible is brought forward to prove the subordination of woman and to show that, because St. Paul told the ignorant women of his time to keep silent in the churches, the educated, intelligent women of these times must not only occupy the same position in the church and the family but must not aspire to the rights of citizenship. But the same Power that brought the slave out of bondage will, in His own good time and way, bring about the emancipation of woman and make her the equal in dominion that she was in the beginning.”

### GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY.

On the 15th of April, 1890, Mr. and Mrs. Bloomer commemorated the Fiftieth Anniversary of their marriage at their home in Council Bluffs. Many invitations were issued, nearly all of which were generously responded to, and their house was filled with guests from three o’clock in the afternoon when the reception began until late in the evening. Over one hundred persons were in attendance. A local paper describes the affair as follows:

[Pg 310]

“The reception of the guests began at three o’clock. At the front-parlor entrance stood Mr. Bloomer attired in a black broadcloth suit. Next to him sat Mrs. Bloomer. She wore a black-satin costume en train with gray damascene front, crêpe lace in the neck, diamond ornaments. There were present Chas. A. Bloomer and wife, of Buffalo, N. Y., N. J. Milliken and wife, of Ontario County, N. Y., and Miss Hannah Kennedy, of Omaha. Chas. A. Bloomer is a brother of D. C. Bloomer, and is president of the Buffalo Elevator Company. N. J. Milliken is a nephew by marriage and publisher of the Ontario County Times, of New York. These constituted the reception company. The evening reception commenced at eight o’clock, and lasted until a late hour. Among the callers were the vestry of St. Paul’s Church, who paid their respects in a body to the worthy couple.”

Mrs. Harris read a beautiful poem, and an original poem was also read by Mrs. C. K. White, of Omaha, and Prof. McNaughton, superintendent of city schools, read the following address:

[Pg 311]

“To Mr. and Mrs. Bloomer: It seems meet and proper on this joyous occasion that the public schools, their officers and teachers and pupils, should send kindly greetings to one who for the past thirty-five years has extended to them a generous sympathy and, in the earlier days of their existence, rendered them distinguished service by aiding in the erection of a well-planned and commodious edifice, the adoption of a wise curriculum, and the laying of a broad and deep foundation upon which has been reared the fair structure of to-day; one who has aided the teachers and pupils by words of wise counsel and kindly sympathy and is, by common consent, regarded as the father of the public-school system of the city.

“To you, Mr. Bloomer, and your estimable and noted wife, in behalf of the public schools of the city, I wish to offer sincere and hearty congratulations; congratulations that, under a rare dispensation of Providence, you have been permitted to enjoy together a half-century of companionship in the sacred bonds of family ties—fifty years of mutual helpfulness and love! fifty years of sowing and reaping together in the fields whose fruitage is intelligent progress and eternal joy! And now, amid the abundance of the harvest, in the golden glories of life’s autumn, may you be long permitted to[Pg 312] remain among your devoted and admiring friends!”

The following letter from Miss Susan B. Anthony was received and read:

“Washington, April 9th, 1890.

“My Dear Friends, Mr. and Mrs. Bloomer:—

“And is your Golden Wedding to be here April 15, 1890? That seems quite as impossible as that I should have rounded out my three score and ten years on February 15, 1890, just two months before.

“Well, your lives have been side by side for a whole half-century, and this, too, when the wife has been one of the public advocates of the equality of rights, civil and political, for women. I hardly believe another twain made one, where the wife belonged to the school of equal rights for women, have lived more happily, more truly one.

“Your celebration of your fiftieth wedding day is one of the strongest proofs of the falseness of the charge brought against our movement for the enfranchisement of women, viz., that the condition of equality of political rights[Pg 313] for the wife will cause inharmony and disruption of the marriage bond. To the contrary, such conditions of perfect equality are the best helps to make for peace and harmony and elevation in all true and noble directions. Hence I rejoice with you on having reached the golden day of your marriage union, not only for your own sakes, but for our cause’s sake as well.

“I wish I could be present in your happy home on that day, but the marriage of my younger sister’s son, on April 17th, takes me to Cleveland to witness the starting out of two dear young people on the way you have traveled so long and so well.

“So, with gratitude for the good work done in the first fifty years of your married life, and wishing for you many more equally happy, and hoping that both you and I and Mrs. Stanton and others of the pioneers of our great movement may live to see not only Wyoming fully in the Union but many others redeemed from the curse of sex aristocracy, hoping and believing I am

“Very sincerely yours,

“Susan B. Anthony.”

The following telegram was received from Bishop Perry, of Iowa:

[Pg 314]

“Davenport, April 15th, 1890.

“Hon. D. C and Mrs. Bloomer:—

“Congratulations and benedictions. Fifty golden years exhaust neither love nor hope.

“William Stevens Perry,

“Bishop of Iowa.”

Rev. G. W. Crofts also furnished a timely and very beautiful poem. Because of his inability to attend the reception, he called upon the couple Monday afternoon and in a few well chosen words presented it to them. It was the production of the minister’s own pen, and handsomely written on embossed cardboard fastened with orange-tinted ribbons. The poem was beautifully illustrated by Miss S. D. Phere, the cuts being the representations of a well-spent life. Upon its receipt Mrs. Bloomer and her husband were greatly moved. The poem is as follows:

“1840. April 15. 1890.
“To Mr. and Mrs. Bloomer.
“The Psalmist says that he who goes forth with tears,
Conveying precious seed, shall doubtless come again
[Pg 315]
Rejoicing, bringing with him sheaves. ’Tis fifty years
Since you as one were made, and out upon the plain
Of Life’s great field together moved, ‘mid hopes and fears,
And in your faithful bosoms bearing golden grain.
“To-day you come with sheaves, oh rich and golden sheaves!
Immortal sheaves, sheaves glowing in the light of heaven
So softly sifting down thro’ life’s autumn leaves;
And, while the clouds that deck the sky above are riven,
I see the angels smile. And who is there that grieves
When noble souls in life’s great harvest-field have striven?
“This is a day of joy and praise, a crowning day!
Together you have walked for fifty years, and He
Who made your hearts to beat as one thro’ all the way
Has been your guide, His voice has stilled the stormy sea;
In darkest hours, you’ve heavenward looked and seen the ray
Of cloudless hope shine down with sweet tranquillity.
[Pg 316]
“When worn with toil, His loving arms have given you rest;
Sustaining grace He gave when you were weak and faint;
When sorrows came, ’twas then the haven of His breast
That opened wide and took you in. To each complaint
He lent His ear. In all things, you were truly blest
And ever upward drawn by love’s divine constraint.
“And now upon a lofty Mount you stand and look
Back o’er your pilgrim way; back o’er the fields you’ve sown
You see the stubborn soil, the burning sun, the nook
Where you did rest; and all the way is overstrown
With flowers; flower-wreathed you see the plow and pruning-hook.
And on that Mount there comes to you a fadeless crown.
“To Faithfulness there comes a crown, a Crown of Life;
’Tis one the Lord doth give to those who serve Him well,
To heroes true and strong amid the daily strife
’Tween right and wrong. For such, the sweetest anthems swell
[Pg 317]
By holy angels sung, and joy on earth is rife,
While thro’ the vanished years you hear a golden bell.
“Foremost in every noble work, in every cause
Where God leads on, where Light is seen, where Truth is heard,
There have you stood from first to last, the eternal laws
Of Right obeyed. Where’er your lips could frame a word
To voice the thought, a hand could strike the great applause
Of onward march, your helpful force has been conferred.
“To you, this day, a grateful people tribute bring
For all you’ve been to them, for all your steadfastness,
For all your words and deeds; for every noble thing,
They would this day your true and honest worth confess;
They would a golden cup, filled from Affection’s spring,
Hold out to you, and thus their gratitude express.
“Take, then, the Crown. Both heaven and earth proclaim it yours,
The Sower’s crown, the Reaper’s crown, that glows with light,
That glows with light and love, and one that aye endures.
[Pg 318]
The Evening Star, that hangs upon the fringe of night
And, like a lamp, the weary wanderer allures
And tells him of his home afar, is not more bright.
“Look round you, then, crowned as you are, and upward, too:
Here shine the golden sheaves; there gleam the jasper walls;
Around you gather here the noble, good and true,
With hearts aglow, and chant their tender madrigals.
Around, above, all things are wreathed in smiles for you,
While on you, like a burst of sun, God’s blessings fall!”

Many valuable presents were received. One was an elegant silver tea-set from the lawyers of the city; another a beautiful ice-cream set of solid silver in a handsomely ornamented plush case of old-gold velvet, from the rector and vestrymen of St. Paul’s Church. Other elegant souvenirs were sent in by friends from abroad. Indeed, the gifts were so numerous and of so great variety that they almost proved a burden to the recipients who, however, realized that they came to them from generous[Pg 319] friends with hearts full of love and kindness, and most thankfully received them.

### CLOSING YEARS.

Following this happy anniversary, Mrs. Bloomer’s life moved gradually along to its close. In 1891, after returning home from a visit to the Chautauqua Grounds near her residence, she suffered a partial paralysis of her vocal organs and for a short time lost the power of speech; but this trouble soon gradually passed away so that she was once more able to converse with her friends, although not so freely and readily as formerly. Her mind was still clear and her memory remarkably good, and it was during this period that she wrote the reminiscences given in the earlier part of this work. She gradually lost to a considerable extent the activity of movement for which in earlier days she had been noted, and her husband was easily able now to keep up with her in their walks on the streets. Mrs. Bloomer retained her youthful traits to a remarkable[Pg 320] degree, even in advanced years, and her friends frequently noted this and complimented her on her vigor and cheerfulness. On meeting them, she was ever bright and cheerful and had a pleasant smile and word of encouragement for all.

Her early religious convictions remained unimpaired to the end of her life. So long as health permitted, she was a constant and regular attendant upon the services of her church and at the monthly celebration of the Holy Communion. She was active in every good work in the parish, and a steady friend of all benevolent enterprises in the city. During the last few years of her life, she gave much thought to the teachings of Christian Science and read and studied the writings of Mrs. Eddy and others on that subject. While she never gave her adhesion to its peculiar doctrines, yet she found in them very much that she deemed worthy of careful consideration. She bore witness to some of the remarkable results following their application to disease in its various forms; and, on the whole, their study[Pg 321] enlarged her views on religious subjects and perhaps enabled her to look with greater calmness upon the vicissitudes of the present life and the untried realities of the life beyond.

To Mrs. Mary J. Coggshell, of Des Moines, Iowa, who had then recently lost her husband, she wrote in 1889 as follows: “My heart goes out to you in love and sympathy in this sad bereavement, and I pray that the Almighty Father may sustain and comfort you and give you strength to bear up under the great affliction. Mourn not for your beloved one as dead, but think of him as only transferred to another sphere of existence where he still lives and will await your coming. We believe that the life that God gave can never die, that the grave has no power over the spirit, but that it will live on forever doing the Father’s will.”

Her last journey was made to Colorado, in the latter part of the summer of 1894. She spent about two weeks at Colorado Springs and Manitou, mainly in taking electric treatment at the sanatorium of Mrs. Doctor Leonard who had long been an intimate friend; but was prevented[Pg 322] by impaired strength from again visiting with her husband many of the interesting places of the vicinity. Another week was spent in a visit to a dear niece and her family in southern Colorado; she returned home about the middle of August, somewhat improved in health and strength. She continued to occasionally accept the kind invitations of her friends to social gatherings, and spent her last Christmas at the home and table of N. P. Dodge, one of the most prominent citizens of Council Bluffs, where she met also her old and long-known neighbor and friend, Mrs. M. F. Davenport. This was, however, the last time she was able to leave her residence. Friends and neighbors continued to visit her to the end and on Friday, December 28th, several were with her during nearly the entire day; they remembered that she appeared remarkably bright and cheerful. The final attack came on the evening of that day, and her brave and noble spirit passed away at twelve o’clock noon on the following Sunday, December 30th, 1894.

Of her last sickness and death, the Council[Pg 323] Bluffs Daily Nonpareil of January 1st, 1895, gave the following report:

### “END OF AN EARNEST LIFE.

“Mrs. Amelia Jenks Bloomer died at her home, No. 123 Fourth Street, Sunday at noon of heart failure at the advanced age of 76. For years she had been afflicted with stomach trouble, which gradually affected her heart and brought on a serious attack last Friday, from which she never rallied.

“About six o’clock in the evening she was sitting in her accustomed place reading, when suddenly she fell back in her chair and exclaimed: ‘I am sick; I am sicker than I ever was before in my life.’ Her husband was sitting opposite to her at the time and quickly came to her assistance. She was in intense pain, and a physician was at once summoned. He was unable to give her much relief and she continued in a very critical condition during the night and all day Saturday.

### “PASSES AWAY PEACEFULLY.

“It soon became evident that she could not rally from the attack and the physicians told Mr. Bloomer and the anxious friends about her[Pg 324] bedside that she could not recover. She was conscious during the entire time and bore her suffering bravely. Sunday morning she began to sink rapidly. Towards the end her pain seemed to leave her, and she fell into a quiet sleep from which she never awoke. Her husband was at her bedside holding her hand and noted the gradual slowing of the pulse which ceased to be perceptible about noon, when he knew she had passed away.

### “GREAT LOSS TO COUNCIL BLUFFS.

“In the death of Mrs. Amelia Bloomer Council Bluffs loses one of its oldest and most prominent residents. She was one of the early pioneers of the west and for many years has been a striking, picturesque character of western Iowa. Her prominence in the woman-suffrage movement made her one of the eminent American women of the century. Her name has become firmly linked with every reform movement for the uplifting and betterment of woman’s condition during the last fifty years.

### “HER LIFE A BUSY ONE.

“Her life was an intensely busy one, filled with many deeds of kindness and charity aside[Pg 325] from the active part she always took in the temperance cause and the advancement of her sex. During her last years, however, she was unable to actively engage in the work, but was always ready and willing to discuss these cherished subjects in her characteristic, fluent manner. Up to within a few years of her death she had been a contributor to prominent journals, and her advice and counsel was always highly esteemed by the more active workers of the equal-rights cause. Her death will be felt throughout the entire nation as an irreparable loss to the cause she so warmly espoused.

### “HER CHRISTIAN CHARACTER.

“Although her death will bring sorrow to many a friend, the remembrance of her kindly life and true, Christian character will remain as an inspiration to them for all time to come. Earnest and steadfast as were her life and character, so she died trusting in the faith that has always shone through her kind words and deeds. She will never be forgotten, for her influence, with that of other good women, has done more to make the civilization of the west a possibility than the many inventions of modern science. Her great strength of character, manifested by[Pg 326] her earnest and energetic life, was a part of the truly essential civilizing influence that sustained the early settlers in the rough experiences of the frontier. It was her intention before she died to publish reminiscences of these stirring times, and her sudden death left several manuscripts unfinished. What has been missed by her sudden taking off, leaving this work incomplete, can only be judged by those who knew her best.

### “LARGE CIRCLE OF FRIENDS.

“Mrs. Bloomer’s circle of friends in Council Bluffs was large, and she was highly esteemed and loved by all who knew her. She was an excellent entertainer, and was a great favorite among the young people of the Episcopal Church of which she was a faithful member. She was very fond of society and took an active part in church and charitable work. Her death, although she has been an invalid for several years, was very sudden. On Christmas day, she was able to be about and with her husband took dinner at the home of Mr. and Mrs. N. P. Dodge. She was in excellent spirits at the time and enjoyed the holiday festivities with much interest. On the day of her last attack,[Pg 327] a number of friends called upon her and she spent the afternoon pleasantly chatting with them. The sudden announcement of her death came as a shock, for the fact of her serious illness had not yet become generally known.”

### MEMORIAL DISCOURSE.

On the thirteenth of January, 1895, her rector, Rev. Eugene J. Babcock, delivered a memorial discourse on the life and character of Mrs. Bloomer in St. Paul’s Church, Council Bluffs. In this he reviewed the main incidents in Mrs. Bloomer’s life, and concluded as follows:

“Mrs. Bloomer also held the relation of pioneer to this parish. On the two registers in my possession the first woman’s name is hers.

“On my journey hither to assume the rectorship, I visited by the way at my former home in Michigan. There I first learned of Mrs. Bloomer from a gentleman whom I had met in a college connection while I was an undergraduate. He was a former resident of Seneca Falls, and informed me that in my new home I should meet a unique and striking person in Mrs. Bloomer, whose early days were associated with a remarkable career; that she was now[Pg 328] living quietly, ill health having compelled her to forego active duties; and that she was now advanced in years.

“Our arrival here was signalized by becoming guests in the Senior Warden’s home. In this we did as all the clergy had done before, for no other home in this city has been the hospitable asylum for so many of the cloth. Among ourselves, the happy descriptive of ‘Saints’ Rest’ has come in vogue. From Mrs. Bloomer that pleasant smile, which often had to triumph over bodily ailment, was my greeting. This showing of hospitality was in keeping with her ambition, which she frequently sacrificed to her personal discomfort.

“Going back to a view of her early days, we are prepared now to forecast her activity in church affairs. Such a nature could not sit by with hands folded. Following her acceptance of gospel privileges through which she came into this church, she immediately entered into parish activities at Seneca Falls. Being a woman of action, she did her part in the then somewhat limited sphere of woman’s church work. Little as it may have been comparatively, it was another demand upon her already enlarging engagements.

“Her removal to this city deprived her of[Pg 329] the worship of her own church. The then line of demarcation of the religious public into ‘Mormons’ and ‘Gentiles’ very likely infused into the latter a fellow sympathy. Soon after her settlement here, the Rev. Mr. Rice invited her to attend a meeting of a sewing society which was held at his house. This happened to be the annual meeting; she was elected president of the society, and Mrs. Douglas first director. In her ‘Early Recollections’ her felicitous comment is this: ‘Thus putting their affairs in the hands of two Episcopalians.’ But evidently affairs did not suffer at their hands, for they ‘carried through a successful fair’ which secured money to put the first church of the Congregationalists into shape for use.

“Her usual interest in what concerned her came out in the organization of this parish. She entered with the same characteristic zeal and expenditure of means into its upbuilding, both as to what was preliminary and also permanent. She has been a good example of what woman can do, and faithful in her service. The women of this parish have worked so assiduously in raising money that among men it has become a lost art.

“In spite of advanced years and impairment of strength, she responded with her kindly[Pg 330] support to my call for organization of a Woman’s Parochial Aid Society. Her kindness to me was ever constant and uniform, and her ingenuous frankness such as I always enjoyed. Plain and albeit of rugged candor in her speech, such is better for this world than the honey covering of deceit. A former Rector, the Rev. Mr. Webb, writes respecting her: ‘My impression of her kindness of heart is that it never failed; and I believe more firmly than ever that it was God’s own cause which she so characteristically espoused, and labored so long and faithfully to promote.’

“She had the habit of clipping from newspapers whatever took her fancy. Her recent quiet and somewhat afflicted living, owing to her illness, was given to reading, needle work and entertaining of guests when circumstances admitted. As the golden clouds brightened in the west of her life’s decline, there came a strong inward faith. A late clipping seems to speak her thought: ‘As the weeks and months fly past, do you not think that the spirit of our daily prayer ought to be—

“‘Break, my soul, from every fetter,
Him to know is all my cry;
Saviour, I am thine forever,
[Pg 331]
Thine to live and thine to die,
Only asking
More and more of life’s supply’?’

“She passed into Paradise on Sunday, December 30, 1894, and left a name worthy to be entered among the illustrious galaxy of notables whom the past year has numbered with the dead. On a beautiful winter’s day, all that remained of mortality was brought to this church, so large an object of her affection, and here, with impressive funeral rites which speak comfortably our blessed hope, we committed her body to the ground. And as the sweet notes of the committal anthem broke in upon the constrained stillness of the scene, how appropriate were the words—mutely echoed by the hushed assembly: ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord * * * for they rest from their labors’!”

In a grassy plat in beautiful Fairview Cemetery, overlooking the cities of Council Bluffs and Omaha, lies the grave of the true woman, the earnest reformer, the faithful Christian, whose history is delineated in these pages; and near its foot stands a modest monument bearing this inscription:

[Pg 332]

“IN MEMORIAM
AMELIA JENKS, WIFE OF D. C. BLOOMER
DIED DEC. 30TH, 1894
AGED 76 YEARS, 7 MONTHS, AND 3 DAYS
A PIONEER IN WOMAN’S ENFRANCHISEMENT”

And here the author and compiler, commending these pages to the kindly consideration of his readers, brings his labor of love to a close.

[Pg 333]

[Pg 335]

## APPENDIX.

APPENDIX.

### WOMAN’S RIGHT TO THE BALLOT.

BY AMELIA BLOOMER.

It is a principle of all free governments that the people rule. Each member of the community, in theory at least, is supposed to give assent to Constitution and laws to which he is subject; or, at least, it is assumed that these were made by a majority of the people. And this assent is given according to forms previously prescribed. The people vote directly upon the adoption of the Constitution, and by their representatives in making the laws. And since all the people must be subject to the Constitution and laws, so all the people should be consulted in their formation; that is, all who are of sufficient age and discretion to express an intelligent opinion. No one who claims to be a republican or lover of freedom at heart can dispute these positions. They are in substance the principles promulgated in the Declaration of Independence, and they form the common basis upon which our national and state governments rest. When they shall cease to be recognized and respected by the people and by our lawmakers, then free institutions will cease to exist.

[Pg 336]

But I presume their correctness, when applied to man, will be doubted by none; for man is willing enough to claim for himself the full recognition of all the high prerogatives I have shown him to be entitled to. But I hold more than this to be true. I hold that these rights belong, not to man alone, but to the race, and to each individual member of it, without regard to sex. I hold that woman has as good and rightful a claim to them as her brother, and that the man who denies this claim is not only no good democrat, and much less a good republican, but that in being guilty of this denial he commits an act of the grossest injustice and oppression. And I insist, not only that woman is entitled to the enjoyment of all these rights which God and nature have bestowed upon the race, but that she is entitled to the same means of enforcing those rights as man; and that therefore she should be heard in the formation of Constitutions, in the making of the laws, and in the selection of those by whom the laws are administered.

In this country there is one great tribunal by which all theories must be tried, all principles tested, all measures settled: and that tribunal is the ballot-box. It is the medium through which public opinion finally makes itself heard. Deny to any class in the community the right to be heard at the ballot-box and that class sinks at once into a state of slavish dependence, of civil insignificance, which nothing can save from becoming subjugation, oppression and wrong.

From what I have said you will of course understand that I hold, not only that the exclusion of woman[Pg 337] from the ballot-box is grossly unjust, but that is her duty—so soon as she is permitted to do so—to go to it and cast her vote along with her husband and brother; and that, until she shall do so, we can never expect to have a perfectly just and upright government under which the rights of the people—of all the people—are respected and secured.

It is objected that it does not belong to woman’s sphere to take part in the selection of her rulers, or the enactment of laws to which she is subject.

This is mere matter of opinion. Woman’s sphere, like man’s sphere, varies according to the aspect under which we view it, or the circumstances in which she may be placed. A vast majority of the British nation would deny the assumption that Queen Victoria is out of her sphere in reigning over an empire of an hundred and fifty millions of souls! And if she is not out of her sphere in presiding over the destinies of a vast empire, why should any woman in this republic be denied her place among a nation of sovereigns? There is no positive rule by which to fix woman’s sphere, except that of capacity. It is to be found, I should say, wherever duty or interest may call her,—whether to the kitchen, the parlor, the nursery, the workshop or the public assembly. And, most certainly, no narrow contracted view of her sphere can suffice to deprive her of any of those rights which she has inherited with her being.

Again, it is objected that it would be immodest and ‘unbecoming a lady’ for women to go to the ballot-box to vote, or to the halls of the capitol to legislate.

[Pg 338]

This, too, is mere matter of opinion, and depends for its correctness upon the particular fashions or customs of the people. In deciding upon what is appropriate or inappropriate for individuals or classes the community is exceedingly capricious. In one country, or in one age, of the world, a particular act may be considered as entirely proper which in another age or country may be wholly condemned. But a few years ago it was thought very unladylike and improper for women to study medicine, and when Elizabeth Blackwell forced her way into the Geneva, N. Y., medical college people were amazed at the presumption. But she graduated with high honors, went to Europe to perfect her studies, and now stands high in her chosen profession. She let down the bars to a hitherto proscribed sphere. Others followed her lead, and now there are several colleges for the medical education of women, and women physicians without number; and the world applauds rather than condemns.

It is not a great many years since women sculptors were unknown, because woman’s talent was not encouraged. Some years ago a match-girl of Boston fashioned a bust of Rufus Choate in plaster and placed it in a show window, hoping some benevolent lover of art might be so attracted by it as to aid her to educate herself in the profession of sculpture. A gentleman who saw great merit in it inquired who was the artist, and when told that it was a young girl, exclaimed, ‘What a pity she is not a boy!’ He saw that such talent in a boy would be likely to make him famous and enrich the world. But a girl had no right to such[Pg 339] gifts. It would be an unladylike profession for her, and so she must bury her God-given talent and keep to match selling and dish washing. A few years later Harriet Hosmer overleaped the obstacles that stood in her way and went to Rome to undertake the work of a sculptor. The world now rings with her praises and is enriched by her genius. She, too, removed barriers to a hitherto proscribed sphere and proved that the All-Father in committing a talent to woman’s trust gave along with it a right to use it. Vinnie Ream and others have followed in the way thus opened, and no one now questions the propriety of women working in plaster or marble.

And so of many other departments of trade, profession and labor that within my recollection were not thought proper for woman, simply because she had not entered them. Women are debarred from voting and legislating, and therefore it is unfashionable for them to do either; but let their right to do so be once established, and all objections of that kind will vanish away.

And I must say I can conceive of nothing so terrible within the precincts of the ballot-box as to exclude woman therefrom. Who go there now? Our fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons. And do they act so badly while there that they dare not suffer us to go with them? If it is really so bad a place surely they should stay away from it themselves, for I hold that any place that is too corrupt for woman to go to is also too corrupt for man to go to. ‘An atmosphere that is too impure for woman to breathe cannot but be dangerous to her[Pg 340] sires and sons.’ We mingle with our gentlemen friends elsewhere with safety and pleasure, and I cannot think it possible that the exercise of the right of franchise turns them at once into ruffians.

Yet we are gravely told that woman would be treated with rudeness and insult should she go to the polls in the exercise of a right guaranteed to her by the laws of her country.

And would you, sir objector, be the one to do this? Would you insult the wife or mother or sister of your neighbor? I think not. Then judge other men by yourself and believe that, as each man, the low as well as the high, would have some female relative or friend with him there, each would be equally careful for the safety of those belonging to him and careful also of his own language and deportment. And should one dare to offer insult would there not, think you, be a score of stout arms to fell the insulter to the earth?

Men will behave as well I verily believe at the polls as at other public assemblies, if they will permit woman to go with them there; and if they have behaved badly heretofore, which from their continual asseverations we must believe to be the case, it is because woman has not always been there with them.

The idea advanced that woman would become debased by participating in so important and sacred a duty as the selection of those who are to be placed in power, and to whom are to be committed the interests and happiness of the whole people, comes with a bad grace from men, who are ever claiming for her superior natural virtues. They should remember that God made her[Pg 341] woman, that He gave her equal dominion with man over the world and all that is therein, and endowed her with high moral faculties, keen perceptions of right, and a love of virtue and justice, and it is not easy to change her nature. Her delicacy and sensitiveness will take care of themselves, in any exposure, and she will be as safe at the polls as at political and other conventions, at state and county and church fairs, at railroad and Fourth of July celebrations, and the various other crowds in which she mingles freely with men. That virtue is little worth which cannot bear itself unharmed through a crowd, or awe and frown down impudence whenever it meets with it. The true woman will be woman still in whatever situation you place her; and man will become elevated just so far as he mingles in her society in the various relations of life.

In fact this argument that it would be unsafe for woman to go to the polls is one that man, at least, should be ashamed to bring forward, inasmuch as it impeaches his own gallantry and instinctive regard for woman. But, if it be true that it would really be unsafe for us to go to the polls with our husbands and fathers, all danger could be avoided by our having separate places for voting apart from theirs.

But here I am answered that it is not men whom we have to fear so much as the bad of our own sex, who will rush to the polls while the good women will stay away. To this I have to say that I have never yet met a woman that I was afraid of, or from whom I feared contamination. In the theatre and concert and festival halls, the Fourth of July gatherings, in the cars, on the[Pg 342] fair grounds, and any day upon the street or in the stores we meet and pass by the coarse, the frail, the fallen of our sex. They have the same right to God’s pure air and sunshine as we, and we could not deprive them of it if we would and would not if we could. I see not how these are going to harm us any more at the polls than at all these other places.

The good women will vote as soon as the exercise of the right is granted them, and they will outnumber the bad more than a hundred to one. Instead then of the pure woman being contaminated, the vile woman will be awed and silenced in her presence, and led by her example into the right paths. Even those called low and vile have hearts that can be touched, and they will gladly seize the aid which the ballot and good women will bestow to raise themselves from the degraded condition into which bad men, bad laws and bad customs have plunged them.

This objection, then, which assumes such proportions in the minds of many, looks very small when viewed in the light of truth and Christian charity. I think no man would consider it good reason for depriving him of rights because a bad man also enjoyed the same rights.

This arguing that all women would go to the bad if allowed to vote because some women are bad now when none of them vote is the most absurd logic ever conceived in the brain of man, and if those who use it could see their silly reasoning in the light that sensible men and women see it there would be less of it. If the ballot makes people bad, if it is corrupting in its tendencies[Pg 343] and destructive of virtue and goodness, then the sooner men are deprived of it the better.

All men, good and bad, black and white, corrupt, debased, treacherous, criminal, may vote and make our laws, and we hear no word against it; but if one woman does or says aught that does not square with men’s ideas of what she should do and say, then she should not have the right of self-government, and all women everywhere must on that account be disfranchised and kept in subjection!

Such reasoning might have answered once, but the intelligence of the present day rejects it, and women will not long be compelled to submit to its insults.

But, again, one says votes would be unnecessarily multiplied, that women would vote just as the men do, therefore the man’s vote will answer for both. Sound logic, truly! But let us apply this rule to men. Votes are unnecessarily multiplied now by so many men voting; a few could do it all, as well as to take the mass of men from their business and their families to vote. My husband votes the republican ticket, and many other men vote just as he does; then why not let my husband’s vote suffice for all who think as he does, and send the rest about their business? What need of so many men voting when all vote just alike?

Again, another says: ‘It has always been as now; women never have had equal rights, and that is proof that they should not have.’ Sound logic again! Worthy emanation from man’s superior brain! But whence did man derive his right of franchise, and how long has he enjoyed it?

[Pg 344]

It is true that women never have had equal rights, because men have ever acted on the principle of oppressors that might makes right and have kept them in subjection, just as weaker nations are kept in subjection to the stronger.

But must we ever continue to act on such principles? Must we continue to cling to old laws and customs because they are old? Why then did not our people remain subject to kings? How did they dare to do what was not thought of in the days of Moses and Abraham? How dared they set aside the commands of the Bible and the customs of all past ages and set up a government of their own?

It is the boast of Americans that they know and do many things which their fathers neither knew nor did. Progress is the law of our nation and progress is written upon all its works. And while all else is progressing to perfection, while the lowest may attain to the position of the highest and noblest in the land, shall woman alone remain stationary? Shall she be kept in a state of vassalage because such was the condition of her sex six thousand years ago? Clearly, my friends, when the prejudice of custom is on the side of wrong and injustice in any matter we are not to be governed by it.

But again it is objected that if women should be enfranchised it would lead to discord and strife in families. In other words, to come down to the simple meaning of this objection, if women would not vote just as their husbands wanted them to the husbands would quarrel with them about it! And who are the[Pg 345] men who would do this? Surely, not those who consider and treat their wives as equals. Not those who recognize the individuality of the wife and accord to her the right to her own opinions, the right to think for herself, and to act as her own sense and judgment may dictate. With such there would be no cause for quarrels, nothing to contend about. In such families all is harmony.

It would be only those who desire to rule in their families, only those who regard and treat their wives as inferiors and subjects who would get up contentions and discord; and it is only these who bring forward this objection. No man who honors woman as he should do would ever offer so flimsy a pretext for depriving her of rights and enslaving her thoughts. I believe the enfranchisement of woman will bring with it more happiness in the marriage relation, and greater respect from the husband for his wife, because men are always more respectful to their equals than to those they deem their inferiors and subjects.

Another objection of which we hear much in these days, and to which men invariably resort when answered on every other point, is that women do not want to vote. They say when all the women ask for the right it will be granted them. Did these objectors take the same ground in regard to the negro? Did the colored men very generally petition for the right of franchise? No such petition was ever heard of and yet men forced the ballot unasked into their hands. Why then must woman sue and petition for her God-given right of self-government? If one human[Pg 346] being only claims that rights are unjustly withheld, such claim should receive the careful attention and consideration of this government and people. Yet tens of thousands of women, subjects of their government, have made such claims and set forth their grievances from time to time during the last thirty years. They have come as suppliants before the people asking for rights withheld, and they have been met with sneers and ridicule, and told that they must wait till all the women of the nation humbly sue for the same thing! Would such excuse ever be offered for withholding rights from men?

Again, it is said that no considerable number of women would exercise the right if granted. This, if true, and men do not know it to be so, has nothing to do with the question. Give them the right and let them exercise it or not as they choose. If they do not want to vote, and will not vote, then surely there is no need of restrictions to prevent their voting, and no harm can come from removing the obstacles that now obstruct their way.

Men are not required to give pledges that they will vote. There is no compulsion in their case. They are left free to do as they please, or as circumstances permit. The right is accorded and there the matter rests.

There is no justice in requiring more from women. That thousands of women would vote is pretty certain. If all do not avail themselves of such privileges, it will be of their own choice and right, and not because of its denial. The ballot is the symbol of freedom, of[Pg 347] equality; and because the right to use it would lift woman from a state of inferiority, subjection and powerlessness to one of equality and freedom and power we demand it for her. If properly educated, she will use it for the best interests of herself and of humanity.

Another objection that carries great weight in the minds of many is that if women vote they must fight. Even some of our friends are puzzled how to settle this question. But a few days ago a lady friend asked me how we could get around it. I reply that all men have not earned their right to the ballot by firing the bullet in their country’s defense, and if only those who fight should vote there are many sick men, many weak little men, many deformed men, and many strong and able-bodied but cowardly men who should be disfranchised.

These all vote but they do not fight, and fighting is not made a condition precedent to their right to the ballot. The law requires that only those of physical strength and endurance shall bear arms for their country, and I think not many women could be found to fill the law’s requirements. So they would have to be excused with the weak little men who are physically disqualified. If there are any great, strong women able to endure the marching and the fighting who want to go to the front in time of battle, I think they have a right to do so, and men should not dismiss them and send them home. But as there are other duties to be discharged, other interests to be cared for in time of war besides fighting, women will find it enough to look after these in the absence of their fighting men. They may enter the hospitals or the battlefields as nurses, or[Pg 348] they may care for the crops and the young soldiers at home. They may also do the voting, and look after the affairs of government, the same as do all the weak men who vote but do not fight.

And further, as men do not think it right for woman to bear arms and fear it will be forced upon her with the ballot, they can easily make a law to excuse her; and doubtless, with her help, they will do so. There is great injustice, so long as the ballot is given to all men without conditions, the weak as well as the strong, in denying to woman a voice in matters deeply affecting her happiness and welfare, and through her the happiness and welfare of mankind, because perchance there may come a time again in the history of our country when we shall be plunged into war and she not be qualified to shoulder a musket.

This objection, like many others we hear, is too absurd to emanate from the brains of intelligent men, and I cannot think they seriously entertain the views they express. But give us a voice in the matter, gentlemen, and we will not only save ourselves from being sent to the battlefield, but will if possible keep you at home with us by averting the difficulties and dangers, and so compromising matters with foreign powers that peace shall be maintained and bloodshed avoided.

In justification of the exclusion of woman from a voice in the government we are told that she is already represented by her fathers, husbands and sons. To this I might answer, so were our fathers represented in the parliament of King George. But were they satisfied with such representation? And why not? Because[Pg 349] their interests were not well cared for; because justice was not done them. They found they could not safely entrust their interests to the keeping of those who could not or would not understand them, and who legislated principally to promote their own selfish purposes. I wholly deny the position of these objectors. It is not possible for one human being to fully represent the wants and wishes of another, and much less can one class fully understand the desires and meet the requirements of a different class in society. And, especially, is this true as between man and woman. In the former, certain mental faculties as a general thing are said to predominate; while in the latter, the moral attain to a greater degree of perfection. Taken together, they make up what we understand by the generic term man. If we allow to the former, only, a full degree of development of their common nature one-half only enjoys the freedom of action designed for both. We then have the man, or male element, fully brought out; while the woman, or female element, is excluded and crushed.

It should be remembered too that all rights have their origin in the moral nature of mankind, and that when woman is denied any guarantee which secures these rights to her, violence is done to a great moral law of our being. In assuming to vote and legislate for her, man commits a positive violation of the moral law and does that which he would not that others should do unto him. And, besides all these considerations, it is hard to understand the workings of this system of proxy-voting and proxy-representation. How[Pg 350] is it to work when our self-constituted representative happens to hold different opinions from us? There are various questions, such as intemperance, licentiousness, slavery, and war, the allowing men to control our property, our person, our earnings, our children, on which at times we might differ; and yet this representative of ours can cast but one vote for us both, however different our opinions may be. Whether that vote would be cast for his own interests, or for ours, all past legislation will show. Under this system, diversities of interest must of necessity arise; and the only way to remove all difficulty and secure full and exact justice to woman is to permit her to represent herself.

One more point and I have done. Men say women cannot vote without neglecting their families and their duties as housekeepers. This, to our opponents, is a very serious objection. Who would urge a similar one to man’s voting and legislating, or holding office—that he would neglect his family or his business? And yet the objection would be about as reasonable in one case as in the other. In settling a question of natural and inherent right, we must not stop to consider conveniencies or inconveniencies. The right must be accorded, the field left clear, and the consequences will take care of themselves. Men argue as though if women were granted an equal voice in the government all our nurseries would be abandoned, the little ones left to take care of themselves, and the country become depopulated. They have frightened themselves with the belief that kitchens would be deserted and dinners left uncooked, and that men would[Pg 351] have to turn housekeepers and nurses. When the truth is, mothers have as much regard for the home and the welfare of the children as have the fathers; and they understand what their duties are as well as men do; and they are generally as careful for the interests of the one, and as faithful in the discharge of the other, as are these watchful guardians of theirs who tremble lest they should get out of their sphere. God and nature have implanted in woman’s heart a love of her offspring, and an instinctive knowledge of what is proper and what improper for her to do, and it needs no laws of man’s making to compel the one or teach the other. Give her freedom and her own good sense will direct her how to use it.

Were the prohibition removed to-morrow, not more than one mother in a thousand would be required to leave her family to serve the state, and not one without her own consent. Even though all the offices in the country should be filled by women, which would never be likely to happen, it would take but a very small proportion of the whole away from their families; not more than now leave home each year for a stay of months at watering places, in the mountains, visiting friends, or crowding the galleries of legislative halls dispensing smiles on the members below. There would, then, be little danger of the terrible consequences so feelingly depicted by those who fear that the babies and their own stomachs would suffer.

But I have no desire, nor does any advocate of the enfranchisement of woman desire, that mothers should neglect their duties to their families. Indeed, no greater[Pg 352] sticklers for the faithful discharge of such duties can be found than among the prominent advocates of this cause; and no more exemplary mothers can be found than those who have taken the lead as earnest pleaders for woman’s emancipation. Undoubtedly, the highest and holiest duty of both father and mother is to their children; and neither the one nor the other, from any false ideas of patriotism, any love of display or ambition, any desire for fame or distinction, should leave a young family to engage in governmental affairs. A mother who has young children has her work at home, and she should stay at home with it, and care well for their education and physical wants. But having discharged this duty, having reared a well-developed and wisely-governed family, then let the state profit by her experience, and let the father and the mother sit down together in the councils of the nation.

But all women are not mothers; all women have not home duties; so we shall never lack for enough to look after our interests at the ballot-box and in legislative halls. There are thousands of unmarried women, childless wives and widows, and it would always be easy to find enough to represent us without taking one mother with a baby in her arms. All women may vote without neglecting any duty, for the mere act of voting would take but little time; not more than shopping or making calls. Instead of woman being excluded from the elective franchise because she is a mother, that is the strongest reason that can be urged in favor of granting her that right. If she is responsible to society and to God for the moral and physical welfare[Pg 353] of her son; if she is to bring him up as the future wise legislator, lawyer and jurist; if she is to keep him pure and prepare him to appear before the bar of the Most High,—then she should have unlimited control over his actions and the circumstances that surround him. She should have every facility for guarding his interests and for suppressing and removing all temptations and dangers that beset his path. If God has committed to her so sacred a charge He has, along with it, given the power and the right of protecting it from evil and for accomplishing the work He has given her to do; and no false modesty, no dread of ridicule, no fear of contamination will excuse her for shrinking from its discharge.

Woman needs the elective franchise to destroy the prevalent idea of female inferiority. She needs it to make her the equal of her own sons, that they may not in a few years assume the power to rule over her, and make laws for her observance without her consent. The fact that she is the mother of mankind—‘the living providence under God who gives to every human being its mental, moral and physical organization, who stamps upon every human heart her seal for good or for evil’—is reason why she should occupy no inferior position in the world. In the words of Mrs. Stanton, ‘That woman who has no higher object of thought than the cooking a good dinner, compounding a good pudding, mending old clothes, or hemming dish-towels—or, to be a little more refined, whose thoughts centre on nothing more important than an elegant[Pg 354] dress, beautiful embroidery, parties, dances, and genteel gossip concerning the domestic affairs of the Smiths and Browns—can never give to the world a Bacon or a Newton, a Milton or a Howard, a Buonaparte or a Washington.’ If we would have great men, we must first have great women. If we would have great statesmen and great philanthropists, we must have mothers whose thoughts soar above the trifling objects which now engage the attention of the mass of women, and who are capable of impressing those thoughts upon the minds of their offspring.

In conclusion the enfranchisement of woman will be attended with the happiest results, not for her only, but the whole race. It will place society upon a higher moral and social elevation than it has ever yet attained. Hitherto, the variously devised agencies for the amelioration of the race have been designed mainly for the benefit of man. For him colleges have been established and universities endowed. For his advancement in science and the arts professorships have been founded and lecture rooms opened. And, above all, for securing to him the widest field for the fullest display of his abilities republican institutions have been proclaimed and sustained at a great sacrifice of toil, of bloodshed and of civil commotions. Although the doctrine of the innate equality of the race has been proclaimed yet, so far as relates to women, it has been a standing falsehood, We now ask that this principle may be applied practically in her case, also; we ask that the colleges and universities, the professorships and lecture rooms shall be opened to her, also; and, finally, we ask for the[Pg 355] admission to the ballot-box as the crowning right to which she is justly entitled.

And when woman shall be thus recognized as an equal partner with man in the universe of God—equal in rights and duties—then will she for the first time, in truth, become what her Creator designed her to be, a helpmeet for man. With her mind and body fully developed, imbued with a full sense of her responsibilities, and living in the conscientious discharge of each and all of them, she will be fitted to share with her brother in all the duties of life; to aid and counsel him in his hours of trial; and to rejoice with him in the triumph of every good word and work.

### A REPLY.

A lecture entitled, “Woman’s Sphere, Woman’s Work and Woman Suffrage Discussed,” was delivered at the Central Presbyterian church, Des Moines, on the evening of December 25th, 1870, by the Rev. T. O. Rice. The address was published in the Des Moines Register of January 1st, 1871, and Mrs. Bloomer replied to it through the columns of the same paper January 21st, 1871, as follows:

Editor of the Register: A friend has placed in my hand a copy of The Register of January 1, containing a sermon by the Rev. T. O. Rice on ‘Woman’s sphere, woman’s work, woman suffrage,’ etc.

After carefully reading this sermon, I find nothing[Pg 356] new or original in it. It is but a rehash of what has before been served up to us by the Reverends Todd, Bushnell, Fulton and others, who are alarmed lest woman should get the start of the Creator and overleap the bounds He has set to her sphere. It throws no new light on the vexed question of woman suffrage, brings to view no passages of Scripture hitherto hidden from our sight, and gives no arguments which have not already been met and refuted again and again. In much that he says the advocates of woman suffrage fully agree with him. A mother’s first duty is at home with her children, and nothing can excuse her for neglect of those entrusted to her care. Home is the happiest spot on earth when it is a true home—a home where love and harmony abide, where each regards the rights, the feelings, the interest, the happiness of the other, where ruling and obeying are unknown, where two heads are acknowledged better than one, and true confidence and esteem bind together the wedded pair. And I know of no happier homes, no better trained and better cared for children, than among the prominent advocates of woman suffrage. Whatever may be thought to the contrary, Elizabeth Cady Stanton is a model housekeeper, wife and mother; and nowhere can greater sticklers be found for the full discharge of all wifely duties than those who are pleading for woman’s enfranchisement. So far, then, as relates to home and children your divine has given us nothing but what we can subscribe to, and what we have preached for a score of years, at least, before he awakened to the necessity of giving the women of his congregation a sermon[Pg 357] on their domestic duties. If they were ignorant on those matters, his words have not come to them an hour too soon.

After quoting familiar passages from both the Old and New Testament referring to woman, your divine opens by saying: ‘The general drift of these passages is obvious. Woman was designed to be a helpmeet for man.’ To this we have nothing to object. We, too, say that God made woman a helpmeet for man, finding it not good for him to be alone. But God said nothing of her being inferior, or subordinate, when he brought her to Adam—nothing of her being intended to fill an inferior position or discharge particular or inferior duties. She was made a helpmeet for man, not his subject and servant, but his assistant, companion and counselor. Not a helper in any particular sphere or duty, but in all the varied relations of life. Not to be always the frail, clinging, dependent vine, which falls helpless with the oak when it is riven by the thunderbolt, but to take the place, if need be, of the sturdy oak at her side when so riven, and bear upon her shoulders all the burdens which as true helpmeet and companion fall to her lot. Not to be an idle drone in the hive, but a sharer with him in all his head and his hands find to do. Not a helpmeet in the domestic relation merely, but also in the government of the earth and in the councils of the nation. It was not to him but to them that God gave power and dominion over the whole earth.

He next goes on to show why woman was to occupy a subordinate position, and of all the arguments[Pg 358] brought forward by our opponents I never read a more weak and flimsy one than this. Because Adam was first formed and then Eve, she was therefore to be subordinate. But where is the proof of this? Do we find in all nature that the things last formed were inferior and subordinate to those first created? Again, that ‘Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.’ Now, will the reverend gentleman tell us which he deems the greater sin, to commit a wrong after being misled and deceived by promises of great good to follow, or to commit the same wrong without such promises or deception, and with the eyes wide open to the wrong? In any court of the present day, the extenuating circumstances would be considered and the former held the less guilty of the two.

How any unprejudiced and unbiased mind can read the original account of the creation and fall, and gather therefrom that the woman committed the greater sin, I cannot understand. When Eve was first asked to eat of the forbidden fruit she refused, and it was only after her scruples were overcome by promises of great knowledge that she gave way to sin. But how was it with Adam, who was with her? He took and ate what she had offered him without any scruples of conscience, or promises on her part of great things to follow—certainly showing no superiority of goodness, or intellect, or strength of character fitting him for the headship. The command not to eat of the Tree of Life was given to him before her creation, and he was doubly bound to keep it; yet he not only permitted[Pg 359] her to partake of the fruit without remonstrating against it, and warning her of the wrong, but ate of it himself without objection or hesitation. And then, when inquired of by God concerning what he had done, instead of standing up like an honorable man and confessing the wrong he weakly tried to shield himself by throwing the blame on the woman. As the account stands, he showed the greater ‘feebleness of resistance, and evinced a pliancy of character, and a readiness to yield to temptation,’ that cannot justly be charged to the woman. As the account stands, man has more to blush for than to boast of.

While we are willing to accept this original account of the creation and fall, we are not willing that men should add tenfold to woman’s share of sin, and put a construction upon the whole matter that we believe was never intended by the Creator. Eve had no more to do with bringing sin into the world than had Adam, nor does the Creator charge any more upon her. The punishment inflicted upon them for their transgression was as heavy upon him as upon her. Her sorrows were to be multiplied, but so too was he to eat his bread in sorrow, and to earn it in the sweat of his face amid thorns and thistles. To her no injunction to labor was given, upon her no toil imposed, no ground cursed for her sake.

But now we come to the consideration of a passage which seems to bear more heavily upon woman, and which men have used as a warrant to humble and crush her through all the ages that have passed since our first parents were driven from the Garden of Eden:[Pg 360] ‘Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.’

This Mr. Rice regards as a command binding upon every woman for all time. Because Eve sinned, every woman must be ruled over by some man as long as the world stands. It is a little strange that the Creator did not tell us this. When talking to the serpent, He put enmity between his seed and the seed of the woman; but to the woman He said not a word of this law of subordination following her seed; and to Adam he gave no command, or even license, to rule over his wife.

Will the Rev. Rice please explain to us the meaning of a like passage in the chapter following? ‘The Lord said unto Cain, the desire of thy brother shall be unto thee, and thou shalt rule over him.’ Was this, too, a command for all time? Did God command Cain to rule over Abel? And if so, to whom does it now apply? The language is the same in both instances, except that in the latter case it was addressed directly to the party who was to rule, and in the former to the one who was to be ruled.

Clearly, the passage quoted should be regarded in the light of prophecy or prediction, and not of command. Substitute wilt for shalt, which I am told the original fully permits, and then all is clear. The prophecy has been fulfilled to the very letter. There are other passages that I think clearly show that the word shall has been wrongly translated. For instance, Cain says, ‘Whosoever findeth me shall slay me,’ taking the form of command rather than prediction.

[Pg 361]

Having done with the Old Testament, our reverend lecturer proceeds to give us what, in his opinion, was the idea and full meaning of the Apostle Paul in his rules and injunctions to the women of the churches he was addressing, and he wonders how there can be any opinion but his own on the subject. He makes the apostle go a long way beyond the Creator or the Saviour in his condemnation and subordination of women, and then thinks it strange that all do not take his version of the whole matter. Yet there are vast numbers of good, Christian men and women who cannot read with his eyes and who have presumed to differ from him. He quotes from some of the early Fathers on the subject, and proves that they entertained the same opinions and had the same fear of women getting into authority the Todds, Rices and Fultons of the present day suffer from. And the opinion of one party goes for as much as that of the other. The women of those early days, as all know, were ignorant and degraded and regarded as absolutely inferior to men. Custom had assigned them an inferior place and, instead of being treated as companions and equals, they were little better than servants and slaves. None but dissolute women, or women of loose character, sought for knowledge, and education was wholly denied to those who were virtuous. They were expected to remain at home in ignorant subjection to their masters. What wonder then if any, moved by the spirit, dared raise their voice in the presence of men they were instantly silenced, and told that it was not permitted them to speak? The early Fathers, like St. Paul, but conformed[Pg 362] to the customs and shared the prejudices of the day in which they lived, and under the circumstances no doubt their injunctions were entirely proper and right.

We have no account on record of these ancient clergy disgracing themselves over a woman speaking as did the Rev. John Chambers, and other reverends of his stamp—and as we suppose the Rev. Rice would have done had he been there—a few years ago at the World’s Temperance Convention, in New York, when by their violent stamping, shouting, scolding and other uproarious conduct they succeeded in drowning the voice and driving from the stand a lovely, refined and highly educated Christian woman whom the president had invited to the platform. They carried their ends at that time; but that did not awe all women back into silence, or do themselves or the church any good. So all the warnings, and quotations from St. Paul, by all the reverends since his day, have not succeeded in keeping women in that state of ignorance and subjection they occupied two thousand years ago. The world moves, and it is God’s will that women move with it. He is no respecter of persons, but regards His people as all one in Christ Jesus.

But what have we next? After putting women down as low as possible our divine throws them a sop by telling them, if they will not usurp authority over men in the pulpit they may speak, and pray, and teach in Sunday schools, and in conference and covenant meeting. And where, pray, does he get his authority for this? Not in the Bible, surely. Paul says, ‘I suffer[Pg 363] not a woman to teach.’ Teach what? The scriptures—the gospel, to be sure. This is direct and explicit. How can she teach the gospel in the Sunday school and elsewhere, without violation of St. Paul’s law? ‘Let women keep silence in the church,’ says the apostle. Then how can they talk, and pray, and teach in the conference meeting, the covenant meeting and other kindred places? St. Paul gives them no such liberty. Plainly your divine is willing the women of his church should do almost anything, so they do not interfere with his place, or usurp authority over him.

Poor me next comes in for a severe castigation from your reverend lawgiver because I dared say that, while I supposed St. Paul’s injunctions to women were right and proper at the time and under the circumstances of their utterance, I did not believe they were the rule for the educated Christian women of this enlightened day and age, the circumstances surrounding them having greatly changed since the introduction of Christianity. That I believed women were no more bound by the laws and customs of that time than men were bound to observe all the laws and customs of the same period; and further, that the church, by its practice, teaches the same thing, to a great extent. And, still further, that the words of St. Paul had nothing to do with woman’s political rights. The reverend gentleman puts words in my mouth I never uttered, thoughts in my head that I never conceived, places me in a position I never occupied and then, having attributed all manner of bad things to me, wipes me out with a sweep of his pen. Well, I do not feel a bit bad over all this. I have the[Pg 364] consolation of knowing that I am in good company, and cannot be so easily annihilated as he supposed. There are scores of divines as able, as learned, as eloquent and as orthodox as T. O. Rice, of Des Moines, who take the same view of the matter as I do, and any number of good Christian people who subscribe to the same doctrine. I ‘have no painful solicitude as to which side will ultimately triumph.’ I am no more ‘squarely and openly at variance with God’s Word’ than is our reverend lecturer, who has set himself up as God’s oracle, and hopes to intimidate all women, and strengthen the rule of all men to whom the sound of his voice may come.

I do not question his right to think as he pleases, and lecture women on proprieties and improprieties; but I must say, I consider women quite as capable of judging for themselves what is proper and what is improper for them to do as any man can be; and I think if our reverends would turn their attention to their own sex, search out passages and rules of conduct applicable to them, and lecture them on their duty to their families and society, they would be much better employed than in trying to subordinate women.

God has implanted in woman’s nature an instinctive knowledge of what is proper and what improper for her to do, and it needs no laws of man to teach the one or compel the other.

Our lecturer assumes that ‘God did not design that woman’s sphere and woman’s work should be identical with that of man, but distinct and subordinate.’ That ‘woman is happiest in subordination, as well as more[Pg 365] attractive,’ etc. This is, of course, only a picture of his imagination—only an expression of his own feelings and wishes. He can find no warrant for it in the Bible; for, as we have shown, God did not assign her to any particular sphere or work, but made her an helpmeet to stand side by side and walk hand in hand with man through the journey of life.

‘When aspiring, insubordinate, overtopping and turbulent woman loses all the attraction and fascination of her sex.’ Very true! and so do men of the same character lose all that commands our love and respect, and there are many more of the latter than of the former class! I know no such woman, but if there are any, every advocate of woman’s enfranchisement will do all they can to prevent her ever becoming so ‘restless, troubled, muddy, and bereft of beauty.’ So far as she has been admitted to the society of men they have not yet made her that terrible being they fear and dread. She has not proved herself coarse, vulgar, turbulent and corrupting in any society to which she has been admitted; and we would bid the reverend calm his excited mind, and remember that God made her woman, and under no change that has come to her has she proved untrue to the nature He implanted within her. So let him trust that the good God who is leading her forward into broader fields of usefulness will take care that she goes not beyond, in any respect, the limit He has fixed to her sphere.

Having settled the question that the sexes are to move in spheres distinct from each other to his own satisfaction, and having dismissed the apostle from the witness[Pg 366] stand, we are told what, in the judgment of the speaker, is the proper and appropriate sphere of woman. In much of what follows we agree with him; but not altogether. ‘By analyzing any persons,’ men or women, ‘physically, mentally and morally, we can ascertain what station they are fitted to fill—what work they are fitted to do.’ And whatever either man or woman has capacity for doing, that is right and proper in and of itself; that thing it is right and proper for both, or either of them, to do. If God has given them a talent, He has along with it given them a right to its use, whether it be in the direction of the home, the workshop, the public assembly, or the Legislative Hall.

And if woman has hitherto neglected to improve all her God-given talents, it is because men have only permitted her to get glimpses of the world ‘from the little elevation in her own garden,’ where they have fenced her in. But let them invite her to the ‘loftier eminence’ where they stand, with the world for her sphere, as it was at the beginning, and then they can better judge of the qualities of her mind, and her capacity to fill any station.

In talking of man’s strength of body and mind fitting him for certain places, and woman’s weakness consigning her to other places, he forgets that intellectually, at least, a great many women are stronger than a great many men, and therefore better fitted for places where brains, instead of muscle, are needed. It is no more true that every woman was made to be a cook and a washer of dishes and clothes, than that every man was made to be a wood sawyer and a ditch digger. While[Pg 367] some are content, in either case, to fill those stations, others are not content, and never will be, and will aspire to something better and higher. To what place the weak little men are to be consigned our speaker fails to tell us.

The home picture in the sermon is all very beautiful. Would that all homes were a realization of the picture! Woman is told great things of her duties, her influence, her glories and her responsibilities, but not a word have we of man’s duty to the home, the wife, the children. Woman is told that it is hers to make her children great and good, as though they were like a blank sheet of white paper and would take any impress she chose to give; when, in fact, they are stamped before they see the light of the world with the gross and vicious natures of their tobacco-chewing and wine-bibbing fathers, as well as with the weaknesses of the mothers, and it is often impossible for the best of mothers to so train their children that they may safely pass the pitfalls that men have everywhere placed to lead them into temptation and destruction. We protest against the mothers being held alone responsible for the children, so long as fathers wholly neglect their duties and set such examples and such temptations before their children as to corrupt their young lives and destroy the good influence the mother might otherwise exert. Not till mothers have a voice in saying what influences and temptations shall surround their children when they go beyond the nursery walls, can they justly be held accountable to society or to God for their conduct. The woman who only takes a narrow view of[Pg 368] life from the little eminence in her garden can never give to the world very good or very great children. She must be permitted to take in a wider range from a loftier eminence, before she can form those great characters and inscribe upon the immortal mind the great things that are expected and demanded of her. If we would have great men, we must first have great women. If we would have noble men, we must first have noble mothers. A woman whose whole thought is occupied in cooking a good dinner and mending old clothes—or (a little more refined) whose thoughts center on a beautiful dress, elegant embroidery, the fashionable party, the latest novel or the latest fashion—can never give to the world a Bacon or a Newton, a Howard or a Wesley, a Buonaparte or a Washington. Our preacher lays a heavy responsibility on woman, but all his talk about her influence, her duty and her subordination is not going to give her that wisdom, strength and moral material out of which to properly construct the fabric of the Church and the Commonwealth.

We would by no means undervalue the home, or the mother’s duty and influence; but we would ennoble and purify the one, and enlarge the duties and extend the influence and power of the other. Our divine thinks that, because woman is mother, daughter, sister and wife, it is enough for her and she should desire nothing more. Man is father, husband, son and brother, and why is he not therefore content? What can he desire or ask for more? Let men realize that they, too, have duties to the home beyond merely supplying the money to satisfy the physical wants of the[Pg 369] family; let them throw down the wall they have built up around the woman’s garden and invite her to survey with them the wider range from the loftier eminence, and many homes would be made glad that are now anything but Gardens of Eden, and many women would be strengthened for the full and faithful discharge of all their duties.

‘Woman is not a mechanic.’ Yes, she is. All men are not mechanics. I know women who have more mechanical genius than their husbands; and I believe there are few of the mechanical arts that women could not master and perform successfully, if custom permitted and necessity required. They are naturally ingenious, and fashion many things as difficult to learn as to saw a board or drive a nail, to make a watch or a shoe, a saddle or a harness. My next-door neighbor is a natural mechanic, and has manufactured various articles in wood, from a foot to two feet in size, such as tables, chairs, bedsteads, wardrobes, frames, brackets, etc., with only a penknife and a bit of sandpaper for tools, which are perfect specimens of workmanship, and are so acknowledged by first-class cabinetmakers. She has taken premiums on these articles for the best woodcutting and carving at our agricultural fairs. This work has only been done for pastime, and the lady is equally ingenious with the needle, as well as a good housekeeper, wife and mother. There are many women engaged in various kinds of mechanism.

There are many inventions by women; but how many have been patented, can only be known by inquiry at the Patent Office. And even then it would be[Pg 370] difficult to ascertain facts, since the patent is generally obtained in the name of the husband. I have a lady friend who invented patterns for parlor stoves. Her husband had them patented in his own name, and entered upon the manufacture and sale of them.

The ‘natural difference in the turn of mind in the sexes’ is not so great as is supposed. The seeming difference is more owing to education and custom, than to nature. It is a very common thing to hear a young girl wish she was a boy, or a man, that she might be free to do what she lists in this world of work—to make use of the powers which she feels burning within her. The girl envies the boy his freedom and his privileges. In ‘earliest childhood,’ if let alone, there is little difference between the boy and the girl. The girl likes to ride the horse and blow the trumpet, as well as the boy; and the boy loves a doll and a needle and thread, as well as the girl. It is not the child that selects, but the parent that selects for him. From the very first (the whip, the horse, the trumpet) the boy is taught that it is not right or manly for him to play with dolls, or girls; and the girl, that little girls must not play with boys, or with boys’ playthings, because it is not ladylike, and will make a tom-boy of her. And so education does what nature has not done, and was never intended to do.

‘Those who would curse our race have ever attempted, in imitation of the great progenitor, to poison all our fountains and wither and blast all our budding hopes by directing their artful attacks and deadly shafts against the breast of woman.’

[Pg 371]

Alas! this is but too true. Ever since Satan, who was a man, struck the first blow at her happiness, men have directed their deadly shafts against her, by first subjugating her to their will, and then using their power to ‘poison the fountain of her happiness and wither and blast her budding hopes.’ She has been made their sport and their victim, with no power to avert the evil, or protect herself, or those entrusted to her care, from their artful and brutal attacks.

But what have we here? After telling women that home is their sphere, and that God placed them in it, and they should not go beyond it, the reverend lecturer turns right about and supposes a case where a woman is called upon to devote her time, or her energies, to home duties and family cares, or of one who voluntarily chooses to do something else; and, strange as it may seem after all that has gone before, he says ‘she may follow a trade, teach, lecture, practise law and medicine, and fill a clerkship.’ This is good woman’s-rights doctrine! The bars are let down that separated the spheres, and woman is permitted to leave the ‘distinct and subordinate’ one allotted to her, and enter upon a sphere and work ‘identical with that of man.’ Here we can join hands with our divine, and be thankful that light has so far dawned upon him. And he farther ‘demands that all the sources of learning, all the avenues of business which they are competent to fill shall be thrown open to the whole sex, and that they shall be fairly and fully rewarded for all they do’! These good words go far to atone for all he has said before, and we will not ask why this change, or[Pg 372] concession. Enough that he comes thus far upon our platform. But can he stop here? After giving her so wide a sphere, and educating her mind to the fullest extent, can he again put up the bar and say ‘thus far and no farther shalt thou go’? Indeed, no! God himself has in these latter days broken down the bounds that men had set to woman’s sphere, and they cannot, by opposition or Bible argument, remand her back into the state of silent subjection whence she came. The ministers of the church for years set themselves up against the anti-slavery cause, and proved conclusively, to themselves, from the Bible, that slavery was right and God-ordained; that the Africans were, and were to be, a subjugated race, and that to teach differently was in plain violation of the teachings of the Bible. They held themselves aloof from that cause, in the days of its weakness, at least, and cried out against those who were pleading for the emancipation of the slave. But God proved their mistake by setting that people free, and endowing them with all the rights of citizenship. So, too, the Bible is brought forward to prove the subordination of woman, and to show that because St. Paul told the ignorant women of his time that they must keep silent in the church the educated, intelligent women of these times must not only occupy the same position in the church and the family but must not aspire to the rights of citizenship. But the same Power that brought the slave out of bondage will, in His own good time and way, bring about the emancipation of woman, and make her the equal in power and dominion that she was at the beginning.

[Pg 373]

The divine uses the column and a half that remains of the space allotted to him to show why, in his opinion, women should not vote—after telling us there is nothing against their voting in the Bible, and omitting to tell us what the passages quoted at the head of his discourse have to do with politics or political rights. One of these reasons is that women will want to hold office; and in proof of this he tells us that the office of deaconess, which existed in the church till the middle of the fifth century, was abolished because the women ‘became troublesome aspirants after the prerogatives of office.’ It is ever thus. Men are willing women should be subordinate—do the drudgery in the church and elsewhere; but let them aspire to something higher and then, if there is no other way to silence them, abolish the office. Men want all the offices, and it is a crying shame for a woman to think of taking one from them, thus setting them all aquake with fear!

Men argue as though, if women had the right to vote, they would all abandon their homes and their babies, and stand at the polls from year’s end to year’s end and do nothing but vote. When the fact is men do not vote but twice a year; are detained from their business but a few minutes to deposit their ballots; and then go their way, none the worse for the vote. I regret that Rev. Rice thinks so badly of the advocates of woman’s cause. So far as I know them, his charges are unfair and sometimes untrue. A better personal acquaintance would disarm him of much of his prejudice. The women are all good sisters, wives and mothers, living in love and harmony with their husbands,[Pg 374] to whom they are true helpmeets, and whom they have no thought of deserting. Not half of them ever expect to hold office—certainly not, unless the offices are greatly multiplied—nor to have any part in turning the world upside down. On the contrary they will continue to care for the babies, cook the dinners, and sew on the buttons the same as ever.

Another reason why woman should not vote is that he thinks ‘God has not fitted her for government, that He never made her to manage the affairs of state, that very few women would make good stateswomen,’ etc. And yet God did at the Creation give her an equal share in the government of the earth, and our divine imposes upon her all the government of the family! God called Deborah to manage the affairs of state, and approved of her management, never once telling her she was out of her sphere, or neglecting her domestic duties. And the queens of the Bible are nowhere reproved for being in authority and ruling over men. Many women have shown a fitness for government in all ages of the world. There are few able statesmen among men, and the world is suffering sadly for want of woman’s help and woman’s counsel in the affairs of state.

But I cannot ask you to allow me space to follow the reverend gentleman through all that follows on the question of woman suffrage. His arguments are very stale, and many of them absurd. I doubt not he is honest in his convictions; but all do not see with his eyes, or judge with his judgment. As able minds as his own among men take a different view of the matter,[Pg 375] and believe that at the polls, as elsewhere, woman will have a refining moral influence upon men, and that she will herself be benefited and ennobled by the enlarged sphere of action.

I cannot better close than with the words of Bronson Alcott, at a recent ‘conversation’ in Chicago: ‘There is no friend of woman who does not believe that, if the ballot were extended to her, not one would ever vote for an impure man. To give woman the ballot would purify legislation, plant liberty and purity in our families, our churches, our institutions, our State.’

Amelia Bloomer.

Council Bluffs, Iowa.

### MRS. STANTON ON MRS. BLOOMER.

“In the fall of 1850 I met Mrs. Bloomer for the first time, in Seneca Falls, N. Y. I was happy to find her awake to the wrongs of women. Mrs. Bloomer was publishing a paper at that time called the Lily; a rather inappropriate name for so aggressive a paper, advocating as it did all phases of the woman’s-rights question. In 1849 her husband was appointed postmaster, and she became his deputy, was duly sworn in, and during the administration of Taylor and Fillmore served in that capacity. When she assumed her duties, the improvement in the appearance and conduct of the office was generally acknowledged. A neat little room adjoining became a kind of ladies’ exchange, where those coming from different parts of the town would meet to talk over the contents of the last Lily and the progress of the woman’s-suffrage movement in general.[Pg 376] Those who enjoyed the brief interregnum of a woman in the post office can readily testify to the loss to the ladies of the village, and to the void felt by all, when Mrs. Bloomer and the Lily left for the West, and men again reigned supreme.

“E. C. S.”

### MEMORIAL SERMON.

Preached by the Rev. Eugene J. Babcock, in St. Paul’s Church, Council Bluffs, January 13, 1895:

Eccl., vii. 1.—“A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of one’s birth.”

Wisdom is surveying life, and giving its best retrospect. The thought which has entered this judgment is the righteous, just, temperate, and loving care of God.

A life spent in satisfying the pleasures of sense alone leaves nothing of value to the ‘pilgrims of night,’ for it passes away like a shadow and is gone. The greatest heritage that can come to the children of men—an inheritance that they should administer jealously—is a good name. As to other things we can carry nothing out of this world, but good character, like the ancient embalming, forever preserves a good name.

The ‘name’ which wisdom here mentions is that which has acquirement of reputation. This is suggested by the second member of the text. The old application would have limited it to one who had won fame. Evidently, reputation is to be the outcome of[Pg 377] character just as the perfume is associated with the nard. The things in comparison are the good name which all delight to honor, and the fragrant odor of the good, i. e. precious, ointment which all enjoy.

But more than this. Names of the great and good have a diffusive power, subtly and incisively invading our spirits as their golden deeds are told off and become signs to the world that earth has souls of heroic mould. Then we are athrill with emotion as our souls thus catch better insight of humanity. The correspondence is in opening the box of delicate, pure and costly ointment, the odor thereof filling the house.

How comes it that the day of death is better than the day of birth? Solomon may have meant that life’s vexations, toils, temptations and trials were thus at an end. This is the justifying consolation that we give when our fellows depart hence and are no more seen. The passing hence is undoubtedly merciful relief in many instances. But life’s issues are varied and diverse, and to most of us life, in its purely temporal aspect, is the sweetest and closest companion of thought. There are but few to receive Solomon’s words. Possibly, they are designed for the few. At an earlier stage of his life he would not have written them. They came out of his experience. He may have been touched by a gloom of apprehension which sprung from ignorance, an ignorance that was done away in Christ our Lord. That life does not cease absolutely is knowledge which Christ’s religion has fixed in human minds. It is true that there is as yet no test of experience, save that I point you to Jesus Christ the[Pg 378] Great Exemplar and those recorded cases who were subjects of his power. In the spirit’s return to God, the ancients did not know that to die is gain.

In view of acquirements attained from a well ordered and well spent life, may there not be a sense in which the day of death is better? As the three score and ten years come on, our minds contrast origin and decline, infancy and age. What prodigious issues are involved! The advances of time disclose two pathways, well worn and leading up to these issues. In moral aspect they bear the names of good and evil. Yet they are not so absolutely distinct as to be two separate paths. Rather, to the eye of discernment, the individual walks in two planes, the subject of two kingdoms. God, in His goodness and mercy, furnished a guideboard for the journey of life, and prophetic of the parting of the ways: Reject the evil; choose the good. Behold the key to the good name that is better than precious ointment!

Such was the high animating principle that guided Amelia Jenks Bloomer through her womanhood. Born in Homer, New York, May 27, 1818, she removed from her native place at an early age, and after a residence in two other villages in the same state, during which her life passed through girlhood to young womanhood, she finally came to Seneca County. She was little aware of the destiny that awaited her, and of the probability that the precincts of her new dwelling place were to become the theatre of events in which she would play the part of leading character.

On her mother’s side she inherited a trend toward[Pg 379] an earnest and positive religious bent. This was supplemented by the mother-love instilling into the child those principles of belief in things supreme which become a part of moral fibre and the basis for action. The one avenue of woman’s employment from time immemorial, the public school, she seems to have eschewed. This may have been owing to possession of talents for larger and higher educational function; talents which found successful trial in a happy and peculiar relation of governess in a family with three children.

This relation was terminated for another and more sacred bond, she being joined in marriage the twenty-second year of her age. Her married life began at Seneca Falls, New York, where was Mr. Bloomer’s home.

In the beginning of the decade of years which are known as the ‘forties,’ there were gathering forces of a distinctively moral movement which had for its object the regeneration of society. Re-proclamation of an old truth in new form took aggressive phase of agitation against the evils of intemperance with a view to lessen them. The instrument employed was the ever truthful and laudable agency of moral suasion. In due time there came into the purview of such as were enlisted heart and soul in this noble effort, the additional agency of suppression by means of legal enactment. This first and new demonstration gathered momentum until 1856, when it seems to have spent its force in electing Myron A. Clark, of Canandaigua, to the governorship of New York.

[Pg 380]

A glance at the early endeavors which led to the upheaval of society and had a widespread effect for good, enables us to see the sway of the agitation in that part of the state where dwelt the honorable subject of this memorial. The movement had taken form in the concrete by virtue of an organization named the Washingtonian Society. To the influences of this society we are indebted, indirectly at least, for the new firmament which spread above this land in woman’s emancipation, and for its bright peculiar star, Amelia Bloomer.

This came about in a simple and matter-of-fact way. Local societies, of which there was one in Seneca Falls, were doing their specific work. Mr. Bloomer was already in the newspaper field as editor of the village press. To his editorial duties he joined the duties of maintaining a paper called the Water Bucket, as the organ of the local society. Another element came in the shape of a religious awakening, following the Washingtonian movement, and growing out of it. While the air was ringing with eloquent words of precept, there was forced upon the mind that which was equally eloquent, viz., personal example. Mr. and Mrs. Bloomer were baptized and confirmed by Bishop Delancey in the parish church of Seneca Falls in the year 1842. Henceforth, to the rationale of the movement was added the religious motive.

In response to her husband’s earnest and persuasive appeals to ‘lend a hand,’ she modestly and even reluctantly contributed articles to the paper. With repeated protestations, she complied with other demands. She did not desire to reveal her identity as her contributions[Pg 381] became subject to favorable comment and wide quotation. She hid herself under a round of names, now masculine, now feminine, in order to avoid publicity. But behind them there was a personality that could not be hidden long. A keen and powerful mind, and brimming sentiments of a woman’s heart, intense and moving, came to the surface. The flashing of a bright pen, tempered and pointed as a Damascus blade, was probing its way to the forefront of discussion, and into the vitals of opposing argument, and lo! a woman stepped forth into the arena, a champion of woman’s side in the conflicting controversy!

With her lifeboat thus pushed out into the current of this mental activity, and thrown upon her own resources, latent powers came to her support. These were reabsorbed, again developed, and carried on to renewed struggles. It is surprising to note how resolutely and with what eminent capability she met the varied demands of true sentiment, sound judgment and business tact.

She had great regard for the principles she advocated; for her self-respect as an advocate; and for her pledged or promised word. Thinking that woman was capable of originating an enterprise, that she had capacity for conducting it, her ruling passion was to show to the world that woman could do as woman, be accountable to self, and had the right potential to do what she could. That she esteemed woman a responsible creature is indicated in the manner in which her paper The Lily was launched upon society. A woman’s temperance club had planned the paper, the president of the[Pg 382] society had named it; another was appointed editress, Mrs. Bloomer to be associate; the first issue to appear January 1, 1849. A woman’s convention which had assembled in 1848 in the village, and the first on record, may have stimulated the project. But as the time approached to undertake the issue faintheartedness dashed the scheme. Not even prospectuses and money received could stay the retreat. Mrs. Bloomer was left alone. Her own words are: ‘My position was a most embarrassing one. * * * * I could not so lightly throw off responsibility. There was no alternative but to follow the example of the others and let the enterprise prove a miserable failure as had been predicted it would, or to throw myself into the work, bare my head to the storm of censure and criticism that would follow, and thereby make good our promises to the public and save the reputation of the society. It was a sad, a trying hour, for one all inexperienced in such work, and at a time when public action in woman was almost unknown. So unprepared was I for the position I found myself in, so lacking in confidence and fearful of censure, that I withdrew my name from the paper and left standing the headline: “Published by a Committee of Ladies.”’ With such splendid courage, integrity and determination, we can almost predicate in advance the eminent success which attended this effort during a period of six years.

The study of woman’s condition incident to aggressive measures against intemperance and the direct appeal to woman’s sympathies, without doubt, widened the scope of vision. That woman often stood in need of independence[Pg 383] was enforced cogently. Having succeeded in a limited temperance work and become useful agents in lifting the burdens of sisters, the idea of relief in other directions followed hard apace. Some of these burdens were of woman’s own placing, some were forced upon her by the inequalities of law, and others were in deference to a wrong public opinion.

The power of the Press did not suffice for the complete extension of the aims which the woman’s association had in view. The human voice, than which there is nothing more potential in moving us, was now raised to make the battlecry of reform more effective. The last wonder of the world had come—for woman appeared as her own advocate. Amelia Bloomer had gathered strength and reliance for a new phase of her work. She more deeply realized that she had to cope with other evils than the horrors of intemperance. The rising questions were still more difficult, from their inherent nature and there being no public sentiment to support them. As the issue confronted her the same distrust of self, yet the same unfaltering courage and devotion to a cause, prepared her for the rostrum as armed her for the editress’ chair. She had faith in the justice of men, and believed that God was on her side. She overstepped mere conventionality, not that she spurned good, but to show that conventionalism is sometimes a tyrant, and harmful. She could brave the strictures of public opinion, knowing that it is not always right. But that she could do this does not indicate that there was no cost to herself, or that the cruel arrows of ridicule when proceeding from unkindness did not reach tender[Pg 384] sensibilities. Had she but her own glory to seek, or were it but a vain notoriety in order to puff up the mind, she could not have ‘bared her head to the storm’ which a canvass of woman’s rights and woman’s wrongs brought upon her.

It is for us to learn the lesson of her life: that, conspicuously, she was unselfish. A conviction had come to her—may it not have been true inspiration?—that what was wrong in practice might be righted by promulgation of true principles. She had the courage of her convictions, if ever any one had. Like a true reformer, she had to furnish the principles and disclose the facts upon which they were based, in order that correction might obtain. That which sent her to the principal cities of her native and adopted states and to cities far beyond, to legislative halls, to the use of her trenchant and vigorous pen, was love for her own sex. To win for one was gain for all. It was a doing for others all along. What though abstract justice, statue-like, could point the index at inequalities? There was no voice to awaken and plead!

In this part of her career she was as eminent a success as in the other. She was mistress of argumentative persuasion, and could turn the shafts of opponents with consummate skill. The extravagance of rhetoric into which excited feelings are prone to lead a controversialist, she met with good-natured repartee. It may be said that she was advance-courier of ‘temperance literature,’ her sprightly contributions being original matter, and in turn becoming texts for other writers and[Pg 385] publishers. She had other helpers in creating a literature of woman’s rights, notably Mrs. Stanton, who was one of others who accompanied her on a tour of lectures. Her contention as to woman’s place was that she is created man’s intellectual, moral and spiritual equal.

It certainly would have been derogatory to the Almighty Creator to have bestowed on man an inferior partner for life. Genesis discloses to us that the word for man and woman is the same, save that a feminine termination is added to the latter. The true rise of woman is centred in the Incarnation of our Blessed Lord. From that time the dawn of woman’s elevation has been breaking into a cloudless sky. Mrs. Bloomer rightly caught the gleaming light in attributing to that august event a possibility for the broader and higher sphere of woman’s action. With this she was wont to silence Old-Testament quotations of opponents, and for that matter the handlers of New-Testament writings which referred to a condition closely approximating the old order of ignorance; the enlightenment of Christianity not then having bathed the nations. She never countenanced levity respecting the married state, or suffered the intrusion of degrading theories respecting the domicile of home. Her interpretation of a ‘help’ meet for man ranged along the high lines of being a help in all that man does for the good of the world, self, and actions that bear fruit of moral freedom.

Whenever she was asked to teach about woman’s sphere she complied, as being a call to duty. Not long ago she related to a me thrilling adventure which[Pg 386] I am now able to see in a more characteristic light. A certain and constant solidarity of character becomes apparent at every turn. Duteous devotion, regard for promise, and personal bravery enter into the exploit. She was to lecture on ‘Woman’s Education’ before, and for the benefit of, the Library Association of Omaha. I find the story transcribed in her ‘Early Recollections.’[2]

The reference to home yearnings is a side light which illumines the whole background of her public career. Ardently devoted to her mission and responsive to its imperious calls, yet she was not a Mrs. Jellyby of Bleak House. She cared for others, near to her as well as remote. Adopted children have taken the Bloomer name, and other young have found a home beneath the hospitable roof.

A woman engaged in the active enterprises of life was a new thing under the sun. Beneath the royal occupation of queen-regent, or that of gifted authorship, or being a ‘Sister of Charity,’ the lines of woman’s work were few and greatly limited in the world outside of home. Amelia Bloomer was a pioneer in woman’s emancipation and, as falls to the lot of the pioneer, she had work to do which succeeding generations reckon not, and of which successors in the field have never felt the sting of the deep intensity of the striving. The first faint, far-off echo has swelled to thunder tone as to-day[Pg 387] there goes over the land a call for the Second Triennial Meeting of the National Council of Women, which was founded on the fortieth anniversary of ‘the first organized demand for equal education, industrial, professional, and political rights for women, made at a meeting in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848.’

It is given to but few to realize the effectiveness of consecration to a work like that Mrs. Bloomer undertook. Rarely does one see the rich results of a contention so manifoldly difficult. As iron sharpeneth iron, so has been the clash of minds. Imaginary barriers have gone, and a rigid conservatism, strong principally by reason of inherited tendency, is supplanted by a rationale of woman’s sphere which has made occupation for thousands. She who was both prominent and eminent in bringing this result ought to be an object of their everlasting gratitude!”[3]

THE END.

### FOOTNOTES:

[2] Here, with slight omissions, is quoted in Mrs. Bloomer’s own words the narration of the incident of the “Dangers met in crossing the Missouri,” previously given on pp. 214-216.

[3] The remainder of the sermon has already been given. It will be found on pp. 327-331.

## Transcriber’s Notes

- pg 5 swapped Amelia’s and Dexter’s photo location
- pg 33 Removed hyphen between Seneca and Falls
- pg 40 Removed duplicate word from: women did not not know what
- pg 120 Added hyphen between State and Temperance
- pg 158 Removed extra quote after: so-called ‘Woman’s Rights’
- pg 168 Removed hyphen after: having passed the New
- pg 181 Removed hyphen from: AT THE NEW-YORK
- pg 183 Removed hyphen from: Of this New-York Convention
- pg 197 Removed hyphen from: We came from our New-York home
- pg 200 Removed repeated word the from: and again the the cry
- pg 206 Removed hyphen between Council and Bluffs
- pg 296 Removed hyphen between bushel and basket
- pg 322-323 Removed hyphen between Council and Bluffs
- pg 337 Removed repeated word is from: but that is is her duty
- Many hyphenated and non-hyphenated word combinations left as written.

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