Woman's work in America

By Various

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Title: Woman's work in America

Author: Various

Contributor: Julia Ward Howe

Editor: Annie Nathan Meyer

Release date: July 20, 2024 [eBook #74085]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: H. Holt and Co, 1891

Credits: Richard Tonsing 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 WOMAN'S WORK IN AMERICA ***

WOMAN’S WORK IN AMERICA

EDITED BY

ANNIE NATHAN MEYER

_WITH AN INTRODUCTION_

JULIA WARD HOWE

[Illustration: [Logo]]

NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1891

HENRY HOLT & CO.

THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS,
RAHWAY, N. J.

EDITOR’S PREFACE.

To Mr. Theodore Stanton, the editor of “The Woman Question in Europe,” I
hasten to acknowledge my indebtedness. After reading that interesting
book it occurred to me that a volume on the work of women in America
could be made equally valuable and interesting.

In the spring of 1888, therefore, I began to collect the necessary
material. Naturally it was not possible, nor did it seem desirable, to
follow the exact lines of Mr. Stanton’s work. In his book, each chapter
is devoted to a different country, and the woman question therein is
treated by the author of the chapter in all of its aspects.[1] It seemed
best, on the contrary, to divide the American history as nearly as
possible into as many chapters as there are phases of woman’s work. The
task of selecting as collaborators eighteen women, where so many
brilliant women abound, was a very difficult one; I need say nothing in
defense or explanation of my choice, however, but am satisfied to let
the work done speak for itself.

But before the task of selecting the contributors came that of dividing
the whole great field of woman’s work. Here I can only bow my head
before the flood of criticism that is bound to bear down upon me. I
suppose it is inevitable that to many it will seem that undue importance
has been accorded to one subject, and too little to another. I can but
plead that in no case have I allowed myself to be influenced by
prejudice, but only by the best judgment I was capable of bringing to
bear. On mentioning this book to a well-known editor and poet (a man), I
was gravely asked why I had omitted a chapter on “Woman in Marriage,” as
it would make a very readable and certainly a very prolific subject. My
answer was that so far as I knew women had never been denied that
privilege, and so it could have no legitimate place in my book. In that
reply, although uttered lightly, lies the principle upon which I have
worked; the fields of labor described here contain evidences of woman’s
progress; they are those in which women, if entrance were not absolutely
denied them, were at least not welcomed, nor valued. Furthermore, they
are phases of woman’s work that have some direct bearing on the status
of woman in this country.

And now a word on the object of the book, for many will shrug their
shoulders and say: “Why separate _work_ into _man’s_ work and _woman’s_
work? What is gained by this division? Why not be content with the
simple word _work_? Is it not sufficient to be a factor in the world’s
growth, or must the ages keep a constant reckoning of _meum_ and
_tuum_?”

If the time has come when the word work is a neuter noun, I admit that
the value of this book would be reduced; but even then I think it might
justly claim a historical value, a value as a history of the struggle on
woman’s part to have her work accepted just as a “factor in the world’s
growth,” judged on its own merits, not

Mere woman’s work,
Expressing the comparative respect
Which means the absolute scorn.

But aside from the value of the book as a record, it claims a value as
an inspiration to greater effort; for in our eyes the time has not yet
come when all effort should cease. The arguments against the development
of woman have been many, and although centuries have passed, the
changing years merely ring different tones upon the same theme. We may
acknowledge that the day is past when it is necessary seriously to plead
the capacity of woman to accomplish certain things; that victory has
been won with tears of blood; but the fight still centers about the
propriety of it. The large band of ignorant and prejudiced objectors is
fast giving place to another of a more kindly, but more dangerous type.
More dangerous because instead of employing the weapons of disdain, they
use those of homage; instead of goading with scorn, they disarm with the
incense of a false and hollow sentimentality. This new wave of feeling
divides Life into Intellect and Emotion, the Mind and the Heart, Matter
and Soul, etc., the one man, woman the other. These sentimentalists, who
certainly include as many women as men, argue that every woman is the
natural companion of man, and so is upheld by some strong shoulder. When
faced by the awful statistics of unmarried females in the United States,
they fall back on some hypothetical father, brother, or cousin.
Therefore it is considered highly supererogatory that a woman should be
taught to stand upon her own feet, when the adjacent shoulder answers
the purpose as well. This belief holds its own with a peculiar tenacity,
because there is a certain heroic satisfaction in retaining your
sentiment notwithstanding all the arguments that can be brought forward
by the low materialists.

This book is nothing else than a history of woman’s slow, but sure,
training to stand balanced upon her own feet. She has looked about upon
the thousands of falling sisters, and has very reasonably reached the
conclusion that the only way to make sure of standing is to make use of
her own feet.

Women have many so-called champions of their “purity,” and “innocence;”
champions that are shocked at opening so many new fields of “man’s work”
to women; but they are strangely ignorant of the very real contamination
to which they expose their _protegés_ by crowding them into the few
already overcrowded channels, and refusing to let in fresh air and
sunshine. Men and women both are born into the world helpless and
unprotected; it may seem an ugly and bitter truth, but it is so, that in
this struggle for existence daily going on about us, men and women do
indeed stand “side by side,”—not, as with the poet,

Full summed in all their powers,

but each individually carrying on a struggle against suffering,
starvation, crime, and death,—forces that remorselessly attack women,
barren of the chivalrous regard of sex with which these sentimentalists
seem to grace them.

And if it is true that both sexes fight the same battle for existence,
who can honestly deny to women (at present physically the weaker), the
best possible equipment that education of all kinds can furnish? I shall
not even touch upon the other, and more poetic, argument of the divine
rights of genius, which is of no sex; but I am content to employ only
the prosaic one of the practical needs of life, an argument which here
in America is by far the most potent one.

My own labors on this book have been purely editorial; and after
selecting the chapters, and the authors, and laying down certain general
principles and suggestions, my responsibility ceased. The principles
laid down by me have been:

Facts and history rather than eloquence;

Truth before picturesqueness;

A total absence of railing against the opposite sex.[2]

The greatest care has been taken to assure accuracy; if mistakes do
creep in, notwithstanding this, I must beg the reader not to judge too
harshly, as the capacity for making mistakes in a book like this is
illimitable. However, I trust the leniency of the reader will not be too
severely taxed.

While being an ardent believer in the future progress of woman, it would
be impossible to subscribe myself to every theory that may be found in
these pages. To say one agrees in every detail with the opinions of
eighteen women, all of whom are well known to be “women with opinions,”
is to boast of a breadth of mind, a roundness of judgment to which I am
too modest to lay claim. But I can surely say that every one of the
writers has cordially joined hands in the making of the book; the long
hours spent in the writing of it, the many annoyances encountered in
collecting historical data, all is forgotten in the hope that this book
may serve:

1. To set certain plain facts, shorn of all sentiment, before the world
in accessible form;

2. To preserve the record of a great, brave, and essentially American
struggle;

3. To serve as a stimulus to many women who are working along a very
weary road;

4. To hold up before the entire sex in every sphere of life only the
highest standard of excellence.

In closing, I want to thank heartily, not only my collaborators, but
also those whose names do not appear, but who have, nevertheless, added
greatly to the interest and value of the book.

ANNIE NATHAN MEYER.

NEW YORK, _January, 1891_.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE
EDITOR’S PREFACE, iii

I. INTRODUCTION,
JULIA WARD HOWE, 1

II. THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN IN THE EASTERN STATES,
MARY F. EASTMAN, 3

III. THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN IN THE WESTERN STATES,
MAY WRIGHT SEWALL, 54

IV. THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN IN THE SOUTHERN STATES,
CHRISTINE LADD FRANKLIN, 89

V. WOMAN IN LITERATURE,
HELEN GREY CONE, 107

VI. WOMAN IN JOURNALISM,
SUSAN E. DICKINSON, 128

VII. WOMAN IN MEDICINE,
MARY PUTNAM JACOBI, M.D., 139

VIII. WOMAN IN THE MINISTRY,
REV. ADA C. BOWLES, 206

IX. WOMAN IN LAW,
ADA M. BITTENBENDER, 218

X. WOMAN IN THE STATE,
MARY A. LIVERMORE, 245

XI. WOMAN IN INDUSTRY,
ALICE HYNEMAN RHINE, 276

XII. WOMAN IN PHILANTHROPY—CHARITY,
JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL, 323

XIII. WOMAN IN PHILANTHROPY—CARE OF THE SICK,
EDNAH DOW CHENEY, 346

XIV. WOMAN IN PHILANTHROPY—CARE OF THE CRIMINAL,
SUSAN HAMMOND BARNEY, 359

XV. WOMAN IN PHILANTHROPY—CARE OF THE INDIAN,
AMELIA STONE QUINTON, 373

XVI. WOMAN IN PHILANTHROPY—WORK OF ANTI-SLAVERY WOMEN,
LILLIE B. CHACE WYMAN, 392

XVII. WOMAN IN PHILANTHROPY—WORK OF THE W. C. T. U.,
FRANCES E. WILLARD, 399

XVIII. WOMAN IN PHILANTHROPY—WORK OF THE RED CROSS SOCIETY,
CLARA BARTON, 411

APPENDIX A—ARTICLE VI., 424

„ B—ARTICLE III., 425

„ C—ARTICLE IV., 434

„ D—ARTICLE VII., 441

„ E—ARTICLE X., 446

„ F—BIBLIOGRAPHY. 449

INDEX, 451

I.
INTRODUCTION.

JULIA WARD HOWE.

A comprehensive view of the attainments made by American women in this
century, and especially during the last fifteen years, cannot but be of
great importance and value. The cruel kindness of the old doctrine that
women should be worked for, and should not work, that their influence
should be felt, but not recognized, that they should hear and see, but
neither appear nor speak,—all this belongs now to the record of things
which, once measurably true, have become fabulous.

The theory that women should not be workers is a corruption of the old
aristocratic system. Slaves and servants, whether male or female, always
worked. Women of rank in the old world were not necessarily idle. The
eastern monarch who refused an army to a queen, sent her a golden
distaff. The extremes of despotism and of luxury, undermining society
and state, can alone have introduced the theory that it becomes the
highly born and bred to be idle. With this unnatural paralysis of
woman’s active nature came _ennui_, the bane of the so-called privileged
classes. From _ennui_ spring morbid passions, fostered by fantastic
imaginations. A respect for labor lies at the very foundation of a true
democracy.

The changes which our country has seen in this respect, and the great
uprising of industries among women, are then not important to women
alone, but of momentous import to society at large. The new activities
sap the foundation of vicious and degraded life. From the factory to the
palace the quickening impulse is felt, and the social level rises. To
the larger intellectual outlook is added the growing sympathy of women
with each other, which does more than anything else to make united
action possible among them. A growing good will and esteem of women
toward women makes itself happily felt and will do even more and more to
refine away what is harsh and unjust in social and class distinctions
and to render all alike heirs of truth, servants of justice.

The initiative is now largely taken by women in departments in which
they were formerly, if admitted at all, entirely and often unwillingly
under the dictation of men. Philanthropists of both sexes, indeed, work
harmoniously together, but in their joint undertakings the women now
have their say and, instead of waiting to be told what men would have
them think, feel obliged to think for themselves. The result is not
discord but a fuller and freer harmony of action and intention. In
industrial undertakings they still have far to go, but women will enter
more and more into them and with happy results. The professions indeed
supply the keystone to the arch of woman’s liberty. Not the intellectual
training alone which fits for them, but the practical, technical
knowledge which must accompany their exercise puts women in a position
of sure defense against fraud and imposition.

In the volume now given to the public the progress of women in all of
these departments is presented by persons who have made each of them a
special study, and who have done good and helpful work in them, with,
moreover, the outlook ahead which is the important element in all labor
and service. The world, even the American world, is not yet wholly
converted to the doctrine of the new womanhood. Men and women who prize
the ease of the _status quo_, and the imaginary importance conferred by
exemption from the necessities which prompt to active exertion, often
show great ignorance of all that this book is intended to teach. They
will aver, men and women of them, that women have never shown any but
secondary capacities and qualities. Women who take this ground often
secretly flatter themselves that what they thus say of other women does
not apply to themselves. A speaker representing this class lately asked
at a legislative hearing in Massachusetts why women did not enter the
professions? why they did not become healers of the sick, ministers,
lawyers? One might ask how he could escape, knowing that in all of these
fields, so lately opened to them, women are doing laborious work and
with excellent results? A book like the present will furnish chapter and
verse to substantiate what is claimed for the attainments of women. It
will not, indeed, put an end to foolish depreciative argument, based
upon erroneous suppositions, but it will furnish evidence to confute
calumny, to convince the doubtful.

II.
THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN IN THE EASTERN STATES.

MARY F. EASTMAN.

The movement in behalf of the education of youth in America followed so
closely upon the landing of the colonists on an unsettled and forbidding
coast, and was continued so persistently and so successfully, under
stress of poverty and peril, that it seizes upon the imagination, and
justly stirs a profound sense of gratitude in succeeding generations.

That in its inception, and for a long period, it was but a partial, in
fact, but a half movement, after all, appears only in the light of a
later day; which, indeed, it had helped to kindle,—when the words,
“children,” “youth,” and “people” began to take a wider significance.

The men who gathered in the cabin of the “Mayflower” in 1620, and framed
a compact that every man in the colony should have an equal share in the
government, soon assembled to promote the general welfare by encouraging
industry in the young.

In 1642, the General Court of Mass. Bay Colony charged itself with
“taking account, from time to time, of all parents and masters
concerning the calling and employment of their children, especially of
their ability to read and understand the principles of religion and the
capital laws of this country.”

In 1647, says the record, “It being one cheife piect of yt ould deluder
Satan to keepe men from the knowledge of ye Scriptures ... by psuading
them from ye use of tongues, that so at least ye true sense and meaning
of ye originall might be clouded ... and that learning may not be buried
in ye graves of our fathers.... It is therefore ordered tht evry
township in this jurisdiction, after ye Lord hath increased ym to ye
number of 50 householders, shall therforthwth appoint one to teach all
such children as shall resort to him to write and read, whose wages
shall be paid eithr by ye parents or mastr, or by ye inhabitants in
generall.... It is ordered yt where any towns shall increase to ye
number of 100 familis or householders, they shall set up a gramer
schoole, ye mr thereof being able to instruct youth so far as they may
be fitted for ye university.” A penalty of £5 was fixed for violation of
this order.

As early as in 1636, the Court “agreed to give £400 toward a school or
college,” to which, in 1638, John Harvard left, by will, half his
property and his library. In 1642, the Court gave to the college “the
revenue of the ferry from Charlestown to Boston.”

1644, “It is ordered vt ye deputies shall command it to ye severall
towns (and ye elders are to be desired to give their furtherance
hereto)” ... that “Evry family alow one peck of corne, or 12d. in money
or other commodity to be sent in to ye Treasurer, for the colledge at
Cambridge.”

1650, voted that, “Whereas, through the good hand of God, many have been
stirred to give for the advancement of all good literature, arts, and
sciences in Harvard Colledge—and for all other necessary pvsions that
may conduce to the education of ye English and Indian youth of this
country in knowledge and godlynes, ordered—tht a corporation be formed,
consisting of seauen psons.”

Revenues of the college and of the president to the extent of 500 were
exempt from taxation, while special exemptions from rates, and military
and civil duties, were made to officers, fellows, scholars, and even the
servants of the college.

This oldest college of the country was, as thus appears, the child of
the State, and while it was the recipient of private benefactions, drew
its sustenance, substantially, from the labors of the people.

1683, voted that, “Every towne consisting of more than five hundred
families shall set up and maintayne two grammar schools, and two
wrighting scholes to instruct youth as the law directs.”

So cordial was the interest felt in education among the colonists, that
many towns had established free schools before it was required.

Within a year of the founding of Boston, in 1635, the citizens in town
meeting assembled, voted to call a schoolmaster, and “Philemon Purmont
was engaged to teach the children.” Dorchester, Naumkeag (now Salem),
Cambridge, Roxbury, and other towns soon took the same course. Salem
established a grammar school as early as 1637. Thus, within twenty years
from the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, the foundation of the
free-school system may be said to have been laid. It was frequently
stipulated in the action of town meetings, that the poor should be
provided for, and in Boston, at least, Indian children were freely
taught. But in the provisions for “free schools,” “schools for the
people,” and the “children,” it is not to be understood that girls were
included. The broad terms used in the acts of the colonies and the votes
of town meetings might mislead, in this respect, if history did not
record the periods, long subsequent, when girls were admitted even to
the “free schools” under restrictions, usually with great opposition.

This long hiatus, during which girls went, practically, without
free-school opportunities, picking up what they might at home, or by aid
of the parish minister, was about a century and a half long, though in
1771, Hartford, Conn., opened its common schools to every child, and
taught even the girls reading, writing, spelling, and the catechism,
and, rarely, how to add. The boys, meantime, studied the first four
rules of arithmetic.

The hiatus between the foundation for the college for boys and even the
seminary, or the academy, for girls, extended over a long century and a
half; and that between colleges for males and those for females was, in
Massachusetts, two hundred and thirty-two years long. A prime motive to
the encouragement of education in America was that the Scriptures might
be properly interpreted. This appears in the preamble to the vote of
1647 establishing schools, which were necessary as tributary to the
college, and in the motive which led to the foundation of Harvard and of
Yale, “the dread of having an illiterate ministry to the churches when
our ministers shall lie in dust.”

It has been noted by Charles Francis Adams that “the records of Harvard
University show that of all the presiding officers, during the century
and a half of colonial days, but two were laymen, and not ministers of
the prevailing denomination; and that of all who in the early times
availed themselves of such advantages as this institution could offer,
nearly half the number did so for the sake of devoting themselves to the
service of the gospel. But,” he continues, “the prevailing notion of the
purpose of education was attended with one remarkable consequence,—the
cultivation of the female mind was regarded with utter indifference; as
Mrs. Abigail Adams says in one of her letters, ‘it was fashionable to
ridicule female learning.’”

This discrimination between the intellectual needs of the two sexes
should not, perhaps, be matter of surprise, when we consider that the
English system of public schools for boys, extending from the
“Winchester School” to “Rugby,” had been in existence for two centuries,
and that of the six hundred who first landed on the coast of
Massachusetts, one in thirty was a graduate from the English University
of Cambridge, while both the men and the women were heirs to the
prevailing sentiment of disrespect for womanly intelligence and
education, which marked the demoralization of the reign of the Stuarts
in England.

The time of Queen Elizabeth has passed, in which the noble Lady Jane
Grey, being asked by Sir Roger Ascham why she lingered to read Plato in
Greek while the lords and ladies of the Court were pleasuring in the
park, replied, “I wist all their sport in the park is but a shadow to
the pleasure I find in Plato. Alas! good folk, they never felt what true
pleasure meaneth.”

Lady Mary Wortley Montague truly portrayed the time, when she wrote,
early in the eighteenth century: “We are permitted no books but such as
tend to the weakening and effeminating our minds. We are taught to place
all our art in adorning our persons, while our minds are entirely
neglected.”

It might have been expected that the religious zeal which brought these
earnest New England pilgrims to a strange, wild country, would hold in
check any tendency to undue display, especially when supplemented by the
severe restrictions of their domestic life, which were relieved only by
compulsory attendance on protracted services, held in unwarmed churches,
to listen to metaphysical sermons on foreordination, reprobation, and
infant damnation, and to prayers an hour long.

Yet it appears that while no provision was made for their instruction,
they were sometimes arraigned for wearing “wide sleeves, lace tiffany,
and such things,” while “those given to scolding were condemned to sit
publicly, with their tongues held in cleft sticks, or were thrice dipped
from a ducking-stool.”

It would have been better, perhaps, that their tongues had been trained
by instruction to becoming speech, or that they had been permitted to
drink at the fountain of learning.

Sentiment in favor of the practical skill of women seems not to have
been wanting. They cooked and washed, and the law required them to spin
and gather flax, and on one notable occasion women exhibited their skill
at the spinning wheel, publicly, on Boston Common. As soon as they could
get around to it they no doubt matched the skill of their English
kindred whom Hollingshed described a half century earlier. He says, “The
females knit or net the nets for sportsmen:

“‘Fine ferne stitch, finny stitch, new stitch, and chain stitch,
Brave broad stitch, fischer stitch, Irish stitch, and queen stitch,
The Spanish stitch, rosemary stitch and mowse stitch;
All these are good, and these we must allow,
And these are everywhere in practice now.’”

Aside from their belief in the primary importance of religious training,
it may be conceded that the men of colonial times did not lack the
sagacity which led Charlemagne in the eighth century to require that the
children of those who were to participate in the government should be
educated, “in order that intelligence might rule the Empire.” The
application of this principle in his limited empire opened education to
the ruling class; in America it opened it to the ruling sex.

How small were the opportunities for instruction, outside the free
schools, may be known from the fact that the committee for supervising
them enjoined upon the selectmen to take care that no person should open
a private school except upon their recommendation.

In 1656 a Mr. Jones having opened a private school was visited by the
magistrates, who exacted a promise from him to give up the school at the
close of the winter term. Apparently he was reluctant in so doing, for
it is recorded that the next spring Mr. Jones was sent for by the
selectmen “for keeping a Schoole, and required to perform his promise to
the Towne in the Winter, to remove himselfe and familye in the Springe,
and forbiden to keep Schoole any longer.”

The first opportunities for girls in the colonies were in the
“Dame-School,” in which some woman was hired to gather the little
children about her knee to teach them their letters from the New England
Primer. They were required to commit to memory the shorter catechism,
and sometimes were taught to read enough to decipher it for themselves,
from the last pages of their only book, the famous Primer. Training in
manners was made of prime importance.

In some cases, as is reported, old women who were a town charge were set
to this useful employment. Sometimes these “dames” were housewives, in
which case two frequently alternated in caring for the children. In this
way, according to the town records of Woburn, in 1635, “Joseph Wright’s
wife and Allen Converse’s wife were able to divide between them £0. 10s.
0d., for a year’s work.” It is to be inferred that the acquirements of
these mistresses were limited, as the next year, October, 1674, the town
“agreed with Jonathan Tomson to tech bigger children and Allen
Converse’s wife to teach leser children.”

In the old graveyard in Cambridge, opposite Harvard College, it is
recorded that Mrs. Murray died 1707, aged sixty-two years. The title
“Mrs.” was honorary, as she was unmarried. This betokens the esteem in
which she was held, as does the following inscription upon her
tombstone:

“This good school dame
No longer school must keep,
Which gives us cause
For children’s sake to weep.”

Later, especially in the old seaport towns, the children’s schools, for
girls as well as for boys, were frequently in the hands of women of much
refinement. Of such, Miss Hetty Higginson, of Salem, was famous as an
instructor about 1782. The record says that, “being asked what she
taught, she laughingly replied, ‘ethics,’ yet to a superficial observer
it might seem that she taught nothing. Her manners were courtly, and her
conversation was replete with dignity, kind feeling, and sound sense.”

Some improvement upon this state of education, or want of education
rather, gradually crept in; whether because of the need of teachers for
the boys, which had come to be felt, or because in the home there was
much early association of the child with the mother, and so some
education on her part might prove indirectly advantageous, or whether
there was some dawning consideration of her own personal needs, it is
impossible to determine. Perhaps there was difficulty in withholding
other books from the girl after she could read the catechism, or, later,
in drawing a sharp line between the acquisition of the first and the
second rule in arithmetic.

Suffice it that by the close of the eighteenth century, most towns in
New England had made some slight provisions for educating girls; how
slight, almost any early town history will show.

The rate of progress in a thriving Massachusetts town, Newburyport, is
given in Smith’s History, as follows: “... When speaking of schools we
must be understood as referring to boys’ schools only.” So far as
education of females by the town was concerned they were sadly
deficient. As late as 1790, a proposition to provide schools for girls
was put aside without action, by the town, and deferred for another
year, and when they did set about the work it is curious to note of how
little consequence they considered it as compared with the provision to
be made for boys.

At first three or four schools were suggested for girls between five and
nine years of age, which were “to be furnished with dames to learn them
good manners and proper decency of behavior.” These were the essentials,
but in addition they were to be taught “spelling and reading sufficient
to read the Bible, and, if the parents desired it, needlework and
knitting.”... The sessions of the school were to be from April to
October.... But a later petition being presented to the town, that some
arrangement might be made for the instruction of girls over nine years
of age, the town graciously voted, March, 1792, that “during the summer
months, when the boys in the school had diminished, the master shall
receive girls for instruction in grammar and reading, after the
dismission of the boys, for an hour and a half.”

Even to this poor privilege there were limitations. No person paying a
tax of over three hundred pounds was permitted to send his daughters to
these supplementary schools. But the scheme for the larger girls did not
work well for the boys, so the masters were directed “not to teach
females again.”

As late as 1804 we find the female children, over nine years of age, as
great a burden on the hands of the school committee of the town as ever.
In answer to another petition, of eleven persons, that this class of
girls might be taught, by the town, arithmetic and writing, four girls’
“schools were established, to be kept six months in the year, from six
to eight o’clock in the morning, and on Thursday afternoons.” So that,
in addition to their other accomplishments, they were in a fair way of
being taught early rising.

It was not until 1836 that the school committee decreed “that one female
grammar school be kept through the year.” This is probably the time of
which it is recorded “that, when a school was started for girls in
Newburyport, a taxpayer objected to it, and applied for an injunction,
bringing out Judge Shaw’s celebrated opinion on that point.” (Cushing
_vs._ Newburyport.)

In 1788 the town of Northampton voted “not to be at any expense for
schooling girls.” Upon an appeal to the courts the town was indicted and
fined for its neglect. In 1792 it voted “to admit girls, between eight
and fifteen, to the schools from May 1 to October 31.”

Within the memory of a recent resident of Hatfield, an influential
citizen, whose children were girls, appealed in townmeeting for the
privilege of sending them to the public school, which he helped by his
taxes to support. An indignant fellow townsman sprang to his feet and
exclaimed, “Hatfield school _shes_? Never!”

The gentleman who narrated this fact lived to witness, also, the
foundation and endowment of a college for girls at Northampton by Miss
Smith of Hatfield, one of the sex, and probably one of the girls
contemptuously forbidden a common-school education.

For a long time after summer schools were provided for girls, in many of
the New England towns they were not supported, by a general tax, as were
the winter schools for boys, but by tuition fees.

Josiah Quincy, in his “Municipal History of Boston,” says “After the
peace of 1783, a committee on schools ‘laments that so many children
should be found in the streets, playing and gaming in school hours.’”
There seems as yet to be no search for girls who are losing school
advantages.

In 1789 great educational advance was made in Boston. A system was
adopted which provided “a ‘Latin School’ for fitting boys of ten years
old and over, by a four years’ course, including Greek and Latin, for
the University; also three reading and writing schools.”

Boys had the right to attend these all the year round; girls from the
twentieth of April to the twentieth of October. This was the first
admission of girls to the “free schools.”

Provision was made this year that “arithmetic, orthography, and the
English language shall be taught, in addition to reading and writing.”
It is to be hoped that this applied to the summer sessions, open to
girls, as well as to the all-the-year-round sessions for boys.

When, however, early in the nineteenth century, arithmetic and geography
were generally added to the courses of studies in schools, it was only
for the winter months, such knowledge being thought quite unnecessary
for girls. “All a girl needs to know is enough to reckon how much she
will have to spin to buy a peck of potatoes, in case she becomes a
widow,” was the repulse of a too ambitious girl in the early part of
this century.

An old lady, sitting beside the present writer, well remembers that in
her youth, having outreached the prescribed limits of the girl’s class
in arithmetic, she grappled alone with the mysteries of “interest.”
Meeting some difficulty she appealed to her older brother, who had been
duly instructed. His scornful reply was, “I am ashamed of a girl who
wants to study ‘interest’!”

The need of more teachers led gradually to the employment of women in
“those schools where, besides morals, the only requirements were
reading, sewing, and writing if contracted for.”

In the law of 1789 the expression “master and mistress” makes
recognition of women as teachers for the first time. Hitherto women so
employed could not legally collect their wages; the receipt of their
dues depended upon the honor of their employers.

This act of justice may have been the more appreciated as the wages of
female teachers were evidently on a rising scale. Something less than a
half century after Mistresses Wright and Converse had shared their
year’s income of ten shillings, the following vote, passed in the town
meeting of Lexington, shows an increased estimate of women’s services:

“At a meeting of the inhabitants, July 21, 1717, they agreed that Clerk
Lawrence’s wife and Ephraim Winship’s wife keep school from ye day of ye
date hereof until ye last day of October next following; and if they
have not scholars sufficient as to numbers to amount to five shillings a
week, at three pence a scholar a week, then ye towne to make up what is
wanted of ye five shillings out of the treasury thereof; provided ye
selectmen do not see cause to demolish sd schole before sd term be
expired.”

Probably no deductions from the above specified wages were necessary for
living expenses, which these mistresses of households may be supposed to
have earned in their duties at home. When, in the course of the
succeeding century, wages increased to seventy-five cents or even to a
dollar a week, the teacher was expected to “board around,” though
sometimes her board in one place was paid for from public funds. In the
latter case, in many New England towns, the privilege of boarding the
teacher, like that of boarding town paupers, was put up for public
competition, and was struck off to the lowest bidder.

Up to 1828 girls did not go to the public schools in Rhode Island.

Antedating the earliest records here transcribed is the claim made that
the first free school in America was made in Virginia in 1621. If so it
struck no root, for, in 1671, Bishop Berkely, Governor of Virginia,
wrote, “I thank God there are no free schools nor printing; and I hope
we shall not have them these hundred years.” It was one hundred and
seven years later, in 1778, that Thomas Jefferson introduced a bill in
the Virginia legislature, designed to establish a system of public
schools in that State, arguing that “the greatest sacrifice the people
of the republic can make will fail to secure civil liberty to their
posterity unless they provide for the education of youth.”

In the Dutch settlement of Manhattan a movement for schools was made
which proved more successful than in Virginia, as befitted its source in
the Netherlands, where, since the sixteenth century, “the fruitfulness
of a wise and state-administered system of universal education” had been
illustrated.

In 1630, the States-General of Holland issued orders to the Dutch East
India Company in Manhattan to maintain a clergyman and a schoolmaster,
and in 1633 arrived Adam Roelandsen, and the first school-tax ever
levied in America was imposed on each householder and inhabitant. So
Brooklyn had the first free public school in the United States. Until
1808, this school was in charge of the local congregation of the Dutch
Reformed church; then a board of trustees was appointed. This school
still continues.

In 1658, the Burgomasters petitioned for a fit person as Latin
schoolmaster. This was granted, and so the first classical school was
instituted.

Since it is time that the day of jubilation and self-gratulation should
be over in America, and that the day of sober, earnest study of
educational work should come in, it is not the part of wisdom to forget
that the free school system did not originate in America. In an address
to magistrates, in 1524, Luther urged that they should “at least provide
the poor suffering youth with a schoolmaster”: and what “youth” meant to
Luther appears in his plea that “solely with a view to the present, it
would be sufficient reason for the best schools, both for boys and
girls, that the world, merely to maintain outward prosperity, has need
of shrewd and accomplished men and women.”

In Manhattan, the successor of Adam Roelandsen found time, outside his
duties as teacher, to act as “gravedigger, bellringer, and precentor”;
but if in place of these extra-official duties, the colonists had so
profited by the wisdom of Luther as to cause him to take time for the
instruction of girls, we may well believe that it would have changed the
history of education in America.

Mr. Richard G. Boone reminds us, in his valuable work on “Education in
the United States,” that “Charles and Gustavus Adolphus did for Sweden
and their generations what America, with all her achievements, has
failed to do since; they made education so common that in the year 1637,
the year of the founding of Harvard, not a single peasant child was
unable to read and write.”

There is pathetic contrast too, if it be fair to draw it, in the fact
that while the colonial fathers were barricading the doors of the little
schoolhouses against girls, so that a large part of the wills which
women made in that period were signed with a cross, and even many wives
of distinguished men could not sign their names, as appears by the
registered deeds of the time, an Italian woman, Elena Lucrezia Coronaro,
“poet, musician, astronomer, mathematician, and linguist,” received a
Dr.’s degree at the university of Padua, and Novela d’Andrea, who was
both learned and beautiful, occasionally lectured for her father, who
was a law professor in the University of Bologna. To be sure, this was
in line with a tradition in Italy for which England herself could
furnish no parallel.

In that ancient seat of learning, Bologna University, which produced the
most famous jurisconsults of the middle ages, women had been for
centuries both students and professors.

Bettisia Gozzidina, LL.D., filled the juridical chair from 1239 till her
death in 1249; Catalina and Novella Calderini lectured on law a century
later; and in succeeding centuries other women became renowned in
various departments, including mathematics and anatomical research.

To fill the pages of two centuries, blank, in America, as to female
education beyond the merest rudiments of learning, let Abigail, wife of
President John Adams, who was descended from the most illustrious
colonial families, the Shepards, Nortons, and Quincys, sketch for us the
intellectual opportunities for girls of her own rank in her time. Born
in 1744, she wrote, in 1817, when past threescore and ten:

“The only chance for much intellectual improvement in the female sex was
to be found in the families of the educated class, and in occasional
intercourse with the learned of the day. Whatever of useful instruction
was received in the practical conduct of life came from maternal lips:
and what of farther mental development, depended more upon the eagerness
with which the casual teachings of daily conversation were treasured up,
than upon any labor expended purposely to promote it. Female education
in the best families went no farther than writing and arithmetic, and,
in some few and rare instances, music and dancing.”

Although at this time the number of post-offices in the country probably
did not exceed half a hundred, Mrs. Adams notes a great letter-writing
propensity in her circle. “These letters deserve notice,” says her
biographer, “only as they furnish a general idea of the tastes and
pursuits of the day, and show the evident influence upon the writers
which study of “The Spectator” and of the poets had exerted.” This
appears in the train of thought and structure of language, as in trifles
of taste for quotation, and for fictitious signatures. “Calliope” and
“Myra,” “Aspasia” and “Aurelia,” have effectually disguised their true
names from the eyes of younger generations. Miss Smith’s signature
appears to have been “Diana,” a name which she dropped after her
marriage, without losing the fancy that prompted its selection.

Her letters written during the Revolution show clearly enough the
tendency of her own thoughts and feelings in the substitute she then
adopted of “Portia.”

The young ladies of Massachusetts, in the last century, were certainly
readers even though only self-taught, and their taste was not for the
feeble and nerveless sentiment or the frantic passion of our day, but
was derived from the deepest wells of English literature. The superb
flowering of native mental gifts in many women of the last part of the
eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth centuries, under so
slight stimulus of educational advantage, would almost force upon us the
theory of Descartes, that “in order to improve the mind we ought less to
learn than to contemplate”; and lead us to accept the dictum of Huxley,
that “all the time we are using our plain common sense we are at once
scientists and artists.”

Rev. William Woodbridge, a descendant of Rev. Jonathan Edwards, and for
fifty years an honored educator, wrote, in the latter part of his life,
to a correspondent: “You inquire how so many of the females of New
England, during the latter part of the last century, acquired that
firmness, and energy, and excellence of character for which they have
been so justly distinguished, while the advantages of school education
were so limited. The only answer is that it is not the amount of
knowledge, but the nature of the knowledge, and, still more, the manner
in which it is used to form character. Natural logic, the self-taught
art of thinking, was the guard and guide of the female mind. The first
of Watts’s five methods of internal improvement, ‘The attentive notice
of every instructive fact and occurrence,’ was exemplified in practice.
Newspapers were taken in a few families; books were scarce but freely
lent; the Scriptures were much read; and, as for time, ‘where there is a
will there is a way.’”

Since the women of that day left almost no record of their thought in
print, the biography of Mrs. Adams, already quoted, may be called upon
to illustrate the intellectual and moral characteristics attributed to
them. Among the New England women of the early part of this century who
are still remembered by the present generation, there was a noteworthy
number who, in vigor of intellect and strength of character, might truly
be called her peers.

While Mr. Adams was in Europe (from 1780) as Commissioner from the
United States, Mrs. Adams was managing the family property, at a time of
depreciation of paper money. Speaking of this period Mr. Charles Francis
Adams says: “Her letters are remarkable because they display the
readiness with which she could devote herself to the most opposite
duties, and the cheerful manner in which she could accommodate herself
to the difficulties of the times. She is a farmer, cultivating the land
and discussing the weather and crops; a merchant, reporting prices
current and the rates of exchange, and directing the making up of
invoices; a politician, speculating upon the probabilities of peace or
war, and a mother, writing the most exalted sentiments to her son. All
of these pursuits she adopts together; some from choice, the rest from
the necessity of the case; and in all she appears equally well.”

The complete sympathy of interest between Mrs. Adams and her
distinguished husband in “seeking for political truth in its fundamental
principles,” as Mr. Adams is said to have done, appears in her letters,
and it may be questioned whether, barring the consideration of sex, the
term “statesmanlike” might not apply to the views of both.

Just a month before the resolution declaring the independence of the
colonies was offered in the Continental Congress by Richard Henry Lee of
Virginia and seconded by John Adams of Massachusetts Mrs. Adams wrote to
her husband, under date of May 7, 1776.

“I believe ’tis nearly ten days since I wrote you a line. I have not
felt in a humor to entertain you. If I had taken up my pen, perhaps some
unbecoming invective might have fallen from it. The eyes of our rulers
have been closed and a lethargy has seized almost every member. I fear a
fatal security has taken possession of them. While the building is in
flames they tremble at the expense of water to quench it. In short, two
months have elapsed since the evacuation of Boston, and very little has
been done in that time to secure it, or the harbor, from future
invasion. The people are all in a flame, and no one among us, that I
have heard of, even mentions expense. They think, universally, that
there has been an amazing neglect somewhere.

“’Tis a maxim of state that ‘power and liberty are like heat and
moisture; where they are well mixed everything prospers; where they are
single they are destructive!’

“A government of more stability is much wanted in this colony, and they
are ready to receive it at the hands of Congress.

“And since I have begun with maxims of state, I will add another,
namely, that a people may let a king fall yet still remain a people; but
if a king let his people slip from him he is no longer a king. And as
this is most certainly our case, why not proclaim to the world, in
decisive terms, your own importance? Shall we not be despised by foreign
powers for hesitating so long at a word?”

To this Mr. Adams replied:

“PHILADELPHIA, _May 27, 1776_.

“I think you shine as a statesman, of late, as well as a farmeress.
Pray where do you get your maxims of state? They are very apropos.”

All history shows how long the conception of a plan, in some acute mind,
precedes the popular impulse toward it. The fertile mind of Daniel De
Foe, in an “Essay on Projects,” published in 1699, suggests the plan of
an Academy of Music, with hints for cheap Sunday concerts, an Academy
for Military Science and Practice, and an Academy for Women.

This is the earliest project for a school of this grade, for women, and
remained the only one for more than a century in England. In America,
from the middle of the eighteenth century, academies were established in
many towns where the law requiring instruction to fit boys for the
university did not apply. Some of these opened their doors to girls,
and, in a few instances, seminaries and academies for young ladies were
founded, and, once inaugurated, they multiplied with constantly
accelerating speed. A contemporary of these events, writing as “Senex”
in “The American Journal of Education,” says: “When at length academies
were opened for female improvement in the higher branches, a general
excitement appeared in parents, and an emulation in daughters to attend
them. The love of reading and habits of application became fashionable.”

There appear, from the first, to have been no discouragements from lack
of mental capacity on the part of girls, even in the academies where
they were instructed with boys.

The “Moravian Brethren” have the honor of founding the first private
institution in America designed to give girls better advantages than the
common schools. A female seminary was opened by them in Bethlehem, Pa.,
in 1749. Its service went beyond its own work, for Rev. Mr. Woodbridge
records that “after the success of the Moravians in female education,
the attention of gentlemen of reputation and influence was turned to the
subject. Dr. Morgan, Dr. Rush,—the great advocate of education,—with
others, instituted an academy for females in Philadelphia. Their
attention and influence and care were successful, and from them sprang
all the subsequent and celebrated schools in that city.”

It is presumed that it was of the “Philadelphia Female Academy,” which
held commencement exercises from as early as 1794, that Mr. Woodbridge
says, “In 1780, in Philadelphia, for the first time in my life, I heard
a class of young ladies parse English.”

The “Penn Charter School” has a long and honorable record and has
admitted girls for more than a century.

The Penn Charter School was founded in Philadelphia in 1697 as a public
school, and has been carried on down to the present day under three
charters granted by William Penn in the years 1701, 1708, 1711. These
make provision, at the cost of the people called Quakers, for “all
Children and Servants, Male and Female ... the rich to be instructed at
reasonable rates, the poor to be maintained and schooled for nothing.”
Provision is made in the charters for instruction of both sexes in
“reading, writing, work, languages, arts, and sciences.”

The foundation laid is broad enough for a university for the people. As
a matter of fact the girls and boys have always been educated
separately, and the curriculum of the girls’ school has always been less
advanced than that of the boys. The Latin school has not been opened to
them, nor, it is believed, have the ancient languages been taught them.

In 1795, “Poor’s Academy for Young Ladies” became “a place of proud
distinction to finished females.”

The earliest academy for girls in New England was founded in 1763, at
Byfield, Mass., by bequest of William Dummer, whose name it took. In
1784, Leicester Academy, open to both sexes, was incorporated.

In the same year the “Friends” established a school which offered the
higher education to girls at Providence, R. I. This has been of high
repute down to the present day.

In the same city we find, in 1797, the advertisement of a gentleman who
“will conduct a morning school for young ladies in reading, writing, and
arithmetic,” and in 1808 Miss Brenton, at South Kingston, R. I., offers
instruction which will include “epistolary style, as well as temple
work, paper work, fringing, and netting.”

In 1785 Dr. Dwight founded a Young Ladies’ Seminary at Greenfield, Conn.

About 1787, Mr. Caleb Brigham, a noted teacher, opened a school for
girls in Boston. This has been spoken of as “the most vigorous and
systematic experiment hitherto made, and the most systematically
antagonized.” Upon opening, however, the school was immediately filled.
The supply created a demand. More sought admission than could be
accommodated. With the selectmen’s daughters in school female education
was becoming popular.

In 1789 a female academy was opened in Medford, the first establishment
of the kind in New England. This was the resort of scholars from all the
Eastern States.

We get here and there, proof of the espionage exercised over young women
in those days.

Mrs. Rawson was a distinguished teacher who established a
boarding-school for girls. The town voted, May 12, 1800, that the second
and third seats in the women’s side of the gallery of the meeting-house
be allowed for Mrs. Rawson, for herself and scholars; and that she be
allowed to put doors and locks on them.

In 1791–92 the Maine Legislature incorporated academies at Berwick,
Hallowell, Fryeburg, Westminster, and East Machias.

In 1792 Westford (Mass.) Academy was organized. It offered a very
extensive programme. The body of rules and laws for governance provides
that “the English, Latin, and Greek languages, together with writing,
arithmetic, and the art of speaking shall be taught, and, if desired,
practical geometry, logic, geography, and music; that the said school
shall be free to any nation, age, or sex, provided that no one shall be
admitted unless able to read in the Bible readily without spelling.”

The impulse which single individuals often give to progress had its
exemplification in this awakening period.

Two students of Yale College, during a long vacation after the British
troops invaded New Haven, had each a class of young ladies for the term
of one quarter. One of these students, well known later as the Rev.
William Woodbridge, and before quoted here, during his senior year in
college, in 1779, kept a young ladies’ school in New Haven, consisting
of about twenty-five scholars, in which he taught grammar, geography,
composition, and the elements of rhetoric, and the success of this
school led to the establishment of others elsewhere.

Mr. Woodbridge, on graduating, took for the subject of his thesis,
“Improvement in Female Education.” It would be interesting to know
whether the school of Mr. Woodbridge led, as seems probable, to the
following curious bit of history.

From Yale College, or from as near to it as a girl could get, issued, in
1783, the following attested certificate:

“BE IT KNOWN to you that I have examined Miss Lucinda Foote, twelve
years old, and have found that in the learned languages, the Latin and
the Greek, she has made commendable progress, giving the true meaning
of passages in the Æneid of Virgil, the select orations of Cicero, and
in the Greek testament, and that she is fully qualified, except in
regard to sex, to be received as a pupil of the Freshman Class of Yale
University.

“Given in the College Library, the 22d of December, 1783.

“EZRA STILES, _President_.”

Miss Foote afterwards pursued a full course of college studies and
Hebrew, under President Stiles. She then married and had ten children.

Timothy Dwight, President of Yale College, traveled in 1803 through New
England and New York, and made careful observation of educational
conditions. He reports that “of the higher class of schools, generally
styled academies, where pupils are qualified for college, there are
twenty in Connecticut and forty-eight in Massachusetts.” He adds: “Two
of those in Connecticut and three in Massachusetts are exclusively
female seminaries. Some others admit children of both sexes.” He does
not say that any one of the thirteen in New Hampshire or of the twelve
in Vermont was open to girls. A third of a century afterwards
Massachusetts had 854 academies and private schools. Later, the advance
in grade of the public school system so reduced the number of personally
supported schools, that in 1886 there were but 74 academies and 348
private schools, about one-half the number of a century before. The
rapid growth and as rapid decline of the academy system was due to the
fact that, while personal and associated effort had taken up a work for
which the people were not prepared, its success proved a rapid educator,
especially as to the capacity of girls, and the free school system was
steadily pressed to higher levels.

Salem established an English high school for boys in 1827; one for girls
eighteen years later, in 1845.

It was in 1836, as has been stated, when the school committee of
Newburyport decreed “that one female grammar school be kept though the
year”; it was only six years afterwards, in 1842, that the town voted to
establish a female high school. This was encouraging, but when, later,
the valuable “Putnam Fund” came into use for advanced education, there
was much discussion between the special committee, appointed by the
town, in conference with the trustees of the fund, as to whether Mr.
Putnam designed, by his bequest, to include the instruction of females,
and it required a decision of the Supreme Court to sustain the position
of the trustees that _“youth” might include both sexes_.

The city of Lowell, Mass., which held its first town meeting in 1826,
and was not incorporated until 1836, established a high school in 1831,
midway between these events, and, to its lasting credit, on a
co-educational basis. The first class which it graduated gave to Lowell
its first woman principal of a grammar school, and to the country
General B. F. Butler. This was one of the earliest high schools, and, so
far as the writer can learn, the first that was co-educational.

In connection with the first and ephemeral high school for girls, in
Boston, we have unusual opportunities in the “Municipal History of
Boston,” by Josiah Quincy, to learn the public sentiment of the time
among the most intelligent and worthy, and to observe the struggle which
it cost the more progressive to persuade those in power that girls had
as great need of instruction, and as real claim on the public funds, as
their brothers.

In 1825 the school committee of Boston asked an appropriation from the
city council for a high school for girls. A few years previous the
monitorial, or mutual, system of instruction had been tried in a town
school. Some claimed that it had been successful; its cost was certainly
less than one-third that of the old system.

Speaking of the formation of the plan for a high school for girls, Mr.
Quincy says: “There being at that time a very general desire in the
school committee to test the usefulness of monitorial instruction, it
was proposed that the school should be conducted on that system; and in
respect of expense the report supposed that one large room would be
sufficient, at least for one year.”

It was objected to the foundation of the school that the best scholars
would be drawn away from the grammar schools, to the loss of their
influence and of their services as monitors; in spite of this the city
council voted an appropriation of $2000 to carry out the plan. “The
anticipations of difficulty were, however, so strong and so plausible,
that the project was adopted expressly as an experiment, if favorable,
to be continued, if adverse, to be dropped, of course.”

Difficulties appeared immediately. “Before the examination of candidates
occurred, it becomes apparent that the result of a high school for girls
would be very different from that of the high school for boys; and that,
if continued upon the scale of time and studies which the original
project embraced, the expense would be insupportable, and the effect
upon the common schools positively injurious.

“Instead of 90 candidates, the highest number that had ever offered in
one year for the school for boys, it was ascertained that nearly three
hundred would be presented for the high school for girls ... and it was
evident that either two high schools for girls must be established the
first year, or that more than one-half of the candidates must be
rejected.”

Two hundred and eighty-six candidates presented themselves, and an
arbitrary system was adopted to keep all but 130 out. “The girls
admitted were the _élite_ of the grammar schools, and were among the
most ambitious and highly educated of them, and of private schools, from
which a majority of those admitted were derived.

“It was impossible that such a school should not be highly advantageous
to the few who enjoyed its benefits.”

After six months’ existence of the school, an alarming report was sent
to the school committee to the effect that according to the best
calculations, the number of candidates for admission at the next
examination would be 427.

Mr. Quincy notes that “the school was chiefly for the advantage of the
few and not for the many, and those, also, the prosperous few,” and he
regards with evident apprehension this large number of girls “to whom a
high classical education (though Greek and Latin were excluded) was
extremely attractive.”

“Again this experiment showed that in the school for boys the number of
scholars diminished every year, whereas of all those who entered this
high school for girls, not one, during the eighteen months that it was
in operation, voluntarily quitted it; and there was no reason for
believing that any one admitted to the school would voluntarily quit it
for the whole three years, except in case of marriage.

“It was apparent to all who contemplated the subject disinterestedly,
that the continuance of this school would involve an amount of expense
unprecedented and unnecessary, since the same course of study could be
introduced into the grammar schools.

“To meet the exigency many schemes were proposed, the principal being
that the age of admission should be fourteen instead of eleven, and no
female to be admitted after the age of sixteen; that the requisitions
for admission should be raised; and that the school should be only for
one year instead of three.

“These modifications, in which the school committee and city council
generally concurred, so greatly diminished the advantages which the
original plan proposed, that much of the interest which its creation
excited was also diminished. The school, however, was permitted to
continue, subject to this modification, until November 27, when a
committee was raised to consider the expediency of continuing it, which,
on December 11, following, reported ‘that it was expedient to continue
it.’”

Much debate followed, in course of which “the Mayor declared that his
opinion was so decidedly adverse to the continuance of the school, that
he could not vote in its favor.” Largely, no doubt, through the
influential opposition of Mr. Quincy, who was then Mayor of the city,
and on motion of a Mr. Savage, who said that, though, “as a member of
the city council he had voted for the appropriation for the high school
for girls, it was merely to make a public experiment of the system of
mutual instruction as regards females”; it was voted on June 3, 1826,
“that the girls be permitted to remain in the English common school
throughout the year.” Precisely what was meant by this vote, beyond the
abolition of the high school, appears, if we recall that girls were not
yet admitted to the grammar school except for half the year.

As Mr. Quincy states it, “The project of the high school was thus
abandoned and the scale of instruction in the common schools of the city
was gradually elevated and enlarged.” As in 1834, eight years later, it
was voted “that the school committee be directed so to arrange the town
schools that the girls enjoy equal privileges with the boys throughout
the year,” it is to be presumed that the permission voted in 1826 was
inoperative until this date. But the end was gained. The school was
abolished, of which Mayor Quincy said in an address to the board of
aldermen in 1829: “It may be truly said that its impracticability was
proved before it went into operation”; and he again refers to “this
high, classical school” with the remark that “no funds of any city could
endure the expense.”

It may have been that those who were parents of daughters as truly as of
sons, saw this action in relation to the fact that the English High
School, “for boys only,” had been supported for four years, and the
Latin School, “for boys only,” for almost two centuries, both from the
public funds; for, when Mr. Quincy wrote the account from which the
above quotations and summary have been made, he recalled the intense
opposition to his views of “a body of citizens of great activity and of
no inconsiderable influence.”

In 1851, speaking of his former opinions with regard to the high school,
he wrote: “The soundness of these views and their coincidence with the
permanent interests of the city, seem to be sanctioned by the fact that
twenty-three years have elapsed, and no effectual attempt during that
period has been made for its revival, in the school committee, or in
either branch of the city council.”

He did not consider that ideas of which the germ is sound have,
nevertheless, their periods of incubation; but, if shades are permitted
to “revisit the glimpses of the moon,” we can imagine the venerable
ex-Mayor, ex-President of Harvard, and most worthy man, reflectively
regarding the “Girls’ High School,” established in connection with the
Normal School in 1852, almost before his words of self-gratulation had
ceased to echo; and, with still more astonishment, contemplating the
Girls’ Latin School, established in 1878 _to fit girls for college_.

In Massachusetts in 1888, 198 cities and towns supported high schools,
most of them co-educational. The population of the cities and towns in
which these schools are maintained is over ninety-five per cent. of the
whole population of the State.

It is not to be understood that this marvelous progress had come without
resistance at every step, or had been achieved except in the way that a
plant with the growing power in it struggles to light from under the
pavement.

We have seen that in the lower schools when girls, in process of time,
came to be taught at all, it was out of fitting season, sometimes out of
due hours, without the best instructors, with limited range of study,
and always with deference to the superior claim of boys. In the endeavor
of girls toward the higher education, one is too sadly reminded of the
struggles of the plebeians against the patricians in Rome, when
positions wrung from usurping hands, were yielded, only to be, to the
uttermost, shorn of advantage.

As girls have gained successive opportunities for advanced study, the
aim of the opponents has always been to keep those only analogous to,
not identical with, those of boys. They have, therefore, been steadily
weighted with limiting conditions, as the educational history of Boston
serves to illustrate.

We have seen that the experimental high school of 1825 was, in its
feebleness, hampered by, if, indeed, it was not founded for the trial of
the monitorial system, and was moribund from its inception.

When, a quarter of a century later, the demand for better education for
girls again took form, those most active thought it discreet to avoid
the controversy of the past, and, as a more feasible measure, a Normal
School for teachers was projected, and was established in 1852.

It was soon found that girls fresh from the grammar schools were not fit
candidates for normal training. To remedy this difficulty a few
additional branches of study were introduced, a slight alteration made
in the arrangement of the course, and the name changed to the Girls’
High and Normal School. Under this name it continued until 1872, when it
was found that the normal element had been absorbed by the high school,
and had almost lost its independent, distinctive, and professional
character. The two courses were then separated and the normal department
was restored to its original condition, for the instruction of young
women who intended to become teachers in Boston.

Boston had now, at length, a school for girls, devoted, like that for
boys, to general culture, though still without opportunity for full
classical training, such as had been freely offered Boston boys for
almost two and a half centuries. But to taste intellectually, as well as
physically, is to stimulate appetite.

In 1877 a society of 200 thoughtful and influential women, incorporated
as the “Massachusetts Society for the University Education of Women,”
supported by men of equal dignity, and prominently associated with
educational and kindred movements, petitioned the school committee “that
a course of classical instruction may be offered to girls in the Boston
Latin School, as is now offered to boys.”

This petition was reinforced by a similar one from the “Woman’s
Educational Association,” which, later, instigated and supported the
Harvard examination for women. The trustees of “Boston University”
officially memorialized the school board in the same interest.

The claim was urged by distinguished divines, physicians, educators,
presidents of colleges, a founder of a college, statesmen, and by
mothers of girls. They argued a public advantage, a public demand, and a
public right. They showed that almost every prominent city and town in
the State gave to girls in its public high school,—which was usually
co-educational,—a chance to fit for college; while the towns that had
been annexed to Boston,—Charlestown, Dorchester, Brighton, and West
Roxbury, had thereby lost such advantage, which their girls had
previously enjoyed. The presidents of co-educational and female colleges
testified that while no Boston high school girl was prepared to enter
their institutions, they were receiving well-prepared young women from
the more liberal West.

The ladies petitioning, called attention to the fact that the colonial
law of 1647 required every township of 100 families “to provide for the
instruction of youth so far as to fit them for the University,” and that
in Massachusetts, from that time, there never has been a law passed
concerning any public school which has authorized instruction to one sex
not equally open to the other; that nowhere does the word “male” or
“boy” occur, but always “children” or “youth.”

It appeared that one young woman, daughter of a master, had pursued a
three years’ course of study in the Latin School, sitting and reciting
with the other pupils, and winning the highest esteem for modesty and
ability. From this course she had graduated with so solid a foundation
of scholarship that at the age of twenty-two she had received the title
of “Doctor of Philosophy” from “Boston University,” and was the first
woman in this country to take such a degree.

The opposition to the granting of the petition was most strongly
presented by six distinguished presidents of male colleges and by two
Harvard graduates.

President Eliot of Harvard College opposed the admittance of girls to
the Latin School, saying, “I resist the proposition for the sake of the
boys, the girls, and the schools, and in the general interest of
American education.”

Hon. Charles F. Adams wrote, “I suppose the experiment of uniting the
two sexes in education, at a mature age, is likely to be fully tried. It
will go on until some shocking scandals develop the danger.”

President Porter of Yale College thought “boys and girls from the ages
of fourteen to eighteen should not recite in the same class-room, nor
meet in the same study hall. The natural feelings of rightly trained
boys and girls are offended by social intercourse of the sort, so
frequent, so free, and so unceremonious. The classical culture of boys
and girls, even when it takes both through the same curriculum, should
not be imparted by precisely the same methods nor with the same
controlling aims. I hold that these should differ in some important
respects for each.”

President Bartlett of Dartmouth College said: “Girls cannot endure the
hard, unintermitting, and long-continued strain to which boys are
subjected.... Were girls admitted to the Latin School I should have no
fear that they would not for the time hold their own with the boys,
spurred on as they would be by their own native excitableness, their
ambition, and the stimulus of public comparison. I should rather fear
their success with its penalty of shortened lives or permanently
deranged constitutions. You must, in the long run, overtask and injure
the girls, or you must sacrifice the present and legitimate standard of
a school for boys.... It should be added that almost every department of
study, including classical studies, inevitably touches upon certain
regions of discussion and allusion which must be encountered and which
cannot be treated as they ought to be in the presence of both boys and
girls.”

An eminent classicist, Prof. William Everett, said: “To introduce girls
into the Latin School would be a legal and moral wrong to the
graduates”; and declared that “Greek literature is not fit for girls”;
and, substantially, that what was a mental tonic for boys would be
dangerous for girls.

The outcome of the effort was the founding of a “Latin School for
Girls,” which opened February, 1878, with thirty-one pupils, which
number steadily increased to about two hundred.

Its graduates are in all the colleges of the State, at present, to the
number of about forty, and they are among the best prepared who enter.

Not only the graduates of the school, but the whole community, must ever
hold in grateful memory the names of those who, as representatives of
the “Society for the University Education of Women,” worked wisely and
indefatigably for Boston girls: Mrs. I. Tisdale Talbot, Mrs. James T.
Fields, Miss Florence Cushing.

By following the history of high schools down to the present day in one
section of the North Atlantic States, taken as a type of progress, we
have not paused to note the few helpful agencies which were gradually
developed.

Returning to the beginning of the nineteenth century it is easier to
discover what women lacked than what they enjoyed in the way of
intellectual stimulus. Books and newspapers were few enough to be highly
valued by all.

In Boston there was a public library as early as 1637, but women were
not considered as patrons. The bold venture, on the part of the sex, of
invading the quiet precincts of the reading room of the library of the
Boston Athenæum, was made, after a decade or two of the nineteenth
century had passed, by a shy woman, grown courageous only through her
eagerness for knowledge. This was Hannah Adams, who had learned Greek
and Latin from some theological students boarding in her father’s house,
and who had written books. The innovation shocked Boston people, who
declared her out of her sphere. They could not foresee that half a
century later there would be more women than men readers in the great
public library of the city.

Nor was it considered proper for ladies to attend public lectures, nor
to appear in public assemblies except those of a religious character.
Either as cause or consequence of this the Lyceum audiences were so rude
that it would not have been agreeable for ladies to be present.

In 1828 the Boston Lyceum was started, and after considerable discussion
women were allowed to attend lectures. This so quickened the interest
and improved the manners that lectures became so popular that the
largest halls were required to hold the audiences.

There is something pathetic, as showing how small were the pecuniary
resources of women, in the fact that it was customary, at least in the
smaller cities, to admit them to lectures at about two-thirds the price
of men. “The Lowell Institute,” Boston, secured the utmost service to
its great benefaction by making no discrimination against women in its
free courses of lectures.

Among the English authors who were the resource of this country in way
of literature, there began to be known a few women, in whom strong
natural impulse had been fostered by exceptional educational opportunity
until they ventured to use the pen and even to publish. This was usually
done timidly, often protestingly, and one woman, afterwards
distinguished, screened her talent behind her father’s name.

Lady Anne Barnard, who wrote “Auld Robin Gray,” for some reason or other
kept the secret of her authorship for fifty years.

Mr. Edgeworth suppressed a translation which his daughter Maria had
made, from the French, of a work on education “because his friend, Mr.
Day, the author of ‘Sanford and Merton,’ had such a horror of female
authors and their writings,” and it was published only after Mr. Day’s
death.

It is curious to note how large a ratio of the female writers of this
time involve, in their essays or novels, some reference to the need of
education for their sex. On the contrary, however, Mrs. Barbauld,
herself a classical scholar and thinker, and both happy and useful
through her acquirements, opposed the establishment of an academy for
young ladies. She “approved a college and every motive of emulation for
young men,” but thought that “young ladies ought only to have _such a
general tincture of knowledge_ as to make them agreeable companions to a
man of sense, and ought to gain these accomplishments in a more quiet
and unobserved manner, from intercourse and conversation at home, with a
father, brother, or friend. She regarded herself as peculiar, and not a
rule for others.”

Late in the eighteenth century, Mary Wollstonecraft issued a strong and
direct appeal for a recognition of the intellectual needs and capacities
of women. She shocked the world into antagonism by her opinions, and by
her use of the word “rights,” as applied to her sex.

Much interest was felt in the graceful letters of Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu, and society found entertainment in the small talk of the
heroines of Frances Burney, “Evelina,” “Cecilia,” and “Rosa Matilda.”

Twenty years after the eloquent appeal had been made for “The Rights of
Women,” Hannah More, in “Cœlebs in Search of a Wife,” introduced to the
novel-reading world the subject of female education, with a tact and
moderation which the stronger cravings of Mary Wollstonecraft did not
permit. Without offensive presumption, and with deference to the
superior claim of the other sex to the whole loaves, she meekly, but
plainly, suggested the relish of the female mind for intellectual
crumbs. The more favorable reception of her milder views, which was said
“to have caused more than one dignified clergyman to take down his Eton
grammar from the shelf, to initiate his daughters into the hitherto
forbidden mysteries of ‘hic-hæc-hoc,’” goes to prove, by analogy, the
theory of the high potency school of homœopathists, for the smaller the
dose administered the greater appear to have been the results.

The tender sentiment and graceful verse of Mrs. Hemans, and the sad
domestic experience of Hon. Mrs. Norton, from whose unmasked sorrows her
husband could gather pecuniary return, and the sturdy, intellectual
vigor of Harriet Martineau, who grappled with the problems of political
economy and social ethics, and was the friend and counselor of the first
statesmen of her time, could not fail to appeal, on their several lines,
to women of corresponding type, if not of equal gifts of expression, on
both sides of the Atlantic. So education was going on for women in other
ways than in schools, which still furnished them limited supplies, both
in quantity and quality.

Among the voices which directly or indirectly were calling women to
higher levels of intelligence and of thought, was that of the celebrated
wit and divine, Sidney Smith, who proved by his claims for them, what he
said of himself, “I have a passionate love for common justice and for
common sense.” In the _Edinburgh Review_, of which he was one of the
founders, he had a way of asking such pointed inquiries as whether the
world had hitherto found any advantage in keeping half the people in
ignorance, and whether, if women were better educated, men might not
become better educated too; and he adds, “Just as though the care and
solicitude which a mother feels for her children, depended on her
ignorance of Greek and mathematics, and that she would desert her infant
for a quadratic equation!”

But so strong are the bonds of prejudice, that, although this was as
early as 1810, abundant cause has been found down to the present day to
iterate and reiterate the same arguments, and still to pierce the bubble
of conceit of superior right with the arrows of wit and sarcasm.

To show what the best schools open to girls were offering meantime, we
quote what “one who had as good advantages in 1808 as New England then
afforded,” gives as her course of study: “Music, geography, Murray’s
Grammar, with Pope’s Essay on Man for a parsing book, Blair’s Rhetoric,
Composition, and embroidery on satin. These were my studies and my
accomplishments.”

“Twenty-five years later than that,” says the aged lady once before
quoted, “a considerable part of the gain I brought from a private school
in Charlestown, Mass., was a knowledge of sixty lace stitches.”[3]

Looking back to this period from the vantage ground of less than a
century, most women of nowadays would echo the sentiment of the small
boy, one of four brothers, who heard a visitor say to his mother: “What
a pity one of your boys had not been a girl!” Dropping his game to take
in the full significance of her words, he called out: “I’d like to know
who’d ’a benn ’er! I wouldn’t ’a benn ’er; Ed wouldn’t ’a benn ’er; Joe
wouldn’t ’a benn ’er, and I’d like to know who would ’a benn ’er!”

The third and fourth decades of the nineteenth century marked an epoch
in education through the service done by a few teachers, who seemed to
have fresh inspirations as to the capabilities of women, and practical
ability to embody them. They helped to verify the forecast of Rev.
Joseph Emerson, principal of the Academy at Byfield, Mass.

Mr. Emerson was deeply interested in the theme of the millennium, and
regarded woman, in the capacity of educator, as the hope of the world’s
salvation. Unlike his cotemporaries, he believed in educating young
women as thoroughly as young men, and in 1822 predicted “a time when
higher institutions for the education of young women would be as needful
as colleges for young men.” Among his pupils was Mary Lyon.

The pioneer in the new departure was Mrs. Emma Hart Willard, born in
1787, in Connecticut, into a home of liberal thought and tender
affection. The clearness of intellect and keen sense of justice which
characterized her life, were all indicated, when, as a young woman, on
settling her father’s straightened estate, she insisted that children
have no claim as compared with the mother’s superior right to what she
has helped to earn. From a child she was noted for interesting herself
in the politics of the day. To relieve her husband from financial
difficulties, and, as she says, “with the further motive of keeping a
better school than those about me,” she established a boarding school at
Middlebury. This was the beginning of thirty years’ service as a
teacher, during which she taught 5000 pupils, one in ten of whom became
teachers. She aimed to make her pupils comprehend the subject taught,
and to give them power to communicate what they knew. Says her
biographer, Dr. John Lord, “Her profession was an art. She loved it as
Palestrina loved music and as Michael Angelo loved painting, and it was
its own reward.” There was no flattery to her pupils nor to their
parents. Her regular duties, and her never-ending struggle for
self-improvement and for better methods of instruction, kept her at her
work from ten and sometimes for fifteen hours per day. She keenly felt
the disadvantages under which she labored. She wrote: “The Professors of
the college attended my examinations, although I was advised by the
President that it would not be becoming in me, nor a safe precedent, if
I should attend theirs; so, as I had no teacher in learning my new
studies, I had no model in teaching or examining them. But I had faith
in the clear conclusions of my own mind. I knew that nothing could be
truer than truth, and hence I fearlessly brought to examination before
the learned the classes to which had been taught the studies I had just
acquired.... My neighborhood to Middlebury College made me feel bitterly
the disparity in educational facilities between the two sexes, and I
hoped if the matter was once set before the men as legislators they
would be ready to correct the error.”

To this end Mrs. Willard prepared an address to the public, which in
1819, when she resided in New York, she presented to the New York
Legislature. As the views set forth mark a distinct departure in
educational demands for women, however familiar or antiquated they may
now seem, they are quoted and summarized here. She published them only
after long and thoughtful deliberation, and said, “I knew that I should
be regarded as visionary, almost to insanity, should I utter the
expectations that I secretly entertain.” She asks that as the State has
endowed institutions for its sons it shall do the same for its
daughters, and “no longer leave them to become the prey of private
adventurers, the result of which has been to make the daughters of the
rich frivolous and those of the poor drudges.” She laments that “the end
of education of one sex has been to please the other ... until we have
come to be considered the pampered and wayward babies of society, who
must have some rattle put into our hands to keep us from doing mischief
to ourselves or to others. But reason and religion teach that we, too,
are primary existences; that it is for us to move in the orbit of our
duty around the Holy Center of Perfection, the companions, not the
satellites of men.”

Mrs. Willard fears that “should the conclusion be almost admitted that
our sex, too, are the legitimate children of the Legislature, and that
it is their duty to afford us a share of their paternal bounty, the
phantom of a college-learned lady would be ready to rise up and destroy
every good resolution in our favor.”

To show that it is not a masculine education that is here recommended,
Mrs. Willard sketches her ideal of a female seminary. She desires it “to
be adapted to the female character and duties, and her first plea is
that to which the softer sex should be formed.” “To raise the female
character will be to raise that of men.... It would be desirable that
the young ladies should spend part of their Sabbaths in hearing
discussions relative to the peculiar duties of their sex. The difficulty
is not that we are at a loss what sciences we ought to learn, but that
we have not proper advantages for learning any.... Many writers have
given us excellent advice in regard to what we should be taught, but no
Legislature has provided us the means of instruction.... In some of the
sciences proper to our sex the books written for the other would need
alteration, because in some they presuppose more knowledge than female
pupils would possess, in others they have parts not particularly
interesting to our sex, and omit subjects immediately relating to their
pursuits. Domestic instructions should be considered important. Why may
not housewifery be reduced to a system as well as other arts?

“If women were properly fitted for instruction they would be likely to
teach children better than the other sex; they could afford to do it
cheaper; and men might be at liberty to add to the wealth of the nation
by any of those thousand occupations from which women are necessarily
debarred.”

While “coarse men laughed at this proposition to endow a seminary for
girls,” the plan was so well received by the Legislature that Mrs.
Willard’s Seminary at Waterford was incorporated, and placed on the list
of institutions which received a share of the literary fund. Though this
was a small recognition of a large need, to New York belongs the honor
of making the first appropriation of public funds for the higher
education of women.

The character of the support given to Mrs. Willard is more encouraging
than the legislative action. Governor Clinton, a man of great
educational foresight, recommended Mrs. Willard’s plan in these words,
which incidentally indicate common sentiment at the time: “As this is
the only attempt ever made to promote the education of the female sex by
the patronage of government.... I trust you will not be deterred by
commonplace ridicule from extending your munificence to this meritorious
work.” Distinguished men advocated the plan before the New York
Legislature, and John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and others wrote letters
favoring it, all with little success.

A bill passed the Senate granting $2000 to the seminary of Mrs. Willard
at Waterford, but failed in the Lower House.

It was at this seminary that in 1820 a young lady was publicly examined
in geometry, and “it called forth a storm of ridicule.”

The corporation of Troy, N. Y., came to the rescue of Mrs. Willard’s
project, and raised $4000 by tax, and another fund by subscription, and
erected a building of brick, to which Mrs. Willard came in 1821. She was
convinced that “young women are capable of applying themselves to the
higher branches of knowledge as well as young men,” and that the study
of domestic economy could be pursued at the same time. Developing these
theories she made for the “Troy Female Seminary” and its pupils a
distinguished reputation, and gave a decided uplift to the standard of
female education.

More than two hundred institutions of the grade of Troy Seminary are now
reckoned, extending to South America and to Athens, Greece. Half the
number are in the Southern United States, and two-thirds of them confer
degrees.

Associated with Mrs. Willard at Troy, in the department of science, was
her distinguished sister, Mrs. Almira Lincoln Phelps. Later she was the
head of “Patapsco Institute,” a female diocesan school of high
reputation. She was the second woman elected a member of the “American
Association for Advancement of Science,” and in 1866 read before that
body a paper on “The Religious and Scientific Character and Writings of
Edward Hitchcock,” and in 1878, one on “The Infidel Tendencies of Modern
Science.” Her educational works on botany, chemistry, geology, and
natural philosophy had a large circulation.

Names which soon rose to high distinction in educational work were those
of Miss Grant and Miss Lyon, of Massachusetts, Miss Catherine Fiske of
Keene, N. H., Miss Catherine Beecher of Connecticut, and the Misses
Longstreth of Philadelphia, Pa.

The work of Miss Fiske was nearly cotemporary with that of Mrs. Willard.
For twenty-three years, up to her death in 1836, she carried on a school
which received some 2500 pupils to a course of study which embraced
botany, chemistry, astronomy, and “Watts on the Mind.”

Miss Catherine Beecher, who was endowed with the marked individuality of
her family, conducted a seminary at Hartford, Conn., from 1822 to 1832,
and later one at Cincinnati, O. Her course of study included Latin, and
calisthenic training was a conspicuous feature. She gave prominence in
her instruction to the worth of domestic skill.

She wrote text-books on mental and moral philosophy and upon theology,
and did not forget to prove by publishing “a domestic receipt book,”
that, though learned, she had not soared above the true sphere of woman.

To the schools already mentioned came pupils from every State in the
Union, either from families of means or to receive the generosity of the
principals.

Mary Lyon was born among the Massachusetts hills in 1797, and graduated
from the position of teacher in the little schoolhouses, and again as a
student from Byfield Academy; then from the charge of Adams Academy at
Derry, N. H., and from a like position in Ipswich Academy, Mass., in
both which she was associated with Miss Grant. To her was due the
conception of “a school which shall put within reach of students of
moderate means such opportunities that the wealthy cannot find better
ones.”

To the execution of her plan the gathering of a few thousand dollars was
necessary. The labor involved may be inferred from the fact that in the
list of contributions the sum of fifty cents repeatedly appears. The
most serious obstacles were found in the antagonism to what seemed to
many a needless project. Said Dr. Hitchcock: “Respectable periodicals
were charged with sarcasm and enmity to Miss Lyon’s plans. She remained
unruffled.”

When, in 1834, the Massachusetts General Association declined to indorse
the enterprise, a Doctor of Divinity made haste to say, “You see that
the measure has utterly failed. Let this page of Divine Providence be
attentively considered in relation to this matter!”

But in face of all disheartenments, in 1837 Mount Holyoke Seminary was
opened in the beautiful Connecticut valley. The mode of living was for a
time almost ascetic. The work of the house was mainly done by the
pupils, but the cost, lights and fuel excepted, was only sixty dollars
per school year of forty weeks, and so continued for sixteen years.

Bible study held a leading place in the curriculum.

It was Miss Lyon’s ambition to make the course equal to that required
for admission to college, and she planned for steady growth from the
small beginnings. Nobly have her expectations been fulfilled!

The hindrances encountered again indicate the slow growth of public
sentiment. It was desired that the ancient and some of the modern
languages should be studied, but it was necessary to wait ten years
before Latin could appear in the course, because “the views of the
community would not allow it.” As an optional study it was pursued in
classes every year after the first. So French, which was taught from the
very first year, became a part of the course only in 1877, after the
lapse of forty years.

As time has passed, the thorough work done, and the steadily expanding
course of study have won to the institution devoted friends, who have
added generously to its grounds, its buildings, and its funds. Once the
State has been asked for aid, mainly for payment for a gymnasium, and a
grant of $40,000 was obtained in 1867.

The triple strain of study, labor, and economy, under the stimulus of
lofty aims, might well have given cause, in those early days, for
anxiety on the score of health, but statistics were tabulated in 1867
which showed the comparative longevity of graduates of eight
institutions, covering a period of thirty years. The colleges noted were
“Amherst,” “Bowdoin,” “Brown,” “Dartmouth,” “Harvard,” “Williams,” and
“Yale.”

Exclusive of mortality in war, the record of “Mount Holyoke Seminary”
was more favorable than any other except that of “Williams College,”
which fell two and one-half per cent. below it in mortality, while
“Dartmouth” exceeded it by more than thirty-eight per cent.

It has been the theory of “Mount Holyoke Seminary” that she must have
every advantage that the state of education will allow. She must be a
college _in fact_, whether or not she take the name.

In this she reversed the theory of many of the 400 institutions in the
United States, which easily take the name of college first. Recently her
advanced course of study, pursued by 200 pupils, seemed to justify her
adding to her powers and to her dignities, and in 1888 the Massachusetts
Legislature granted a charter “authorizing Mount Holyoke Seminary and
College to confer such degrees and diplomas as are conferred by any
university, college or seminary of learning in this Commonwealth.”

Educational institutions, which have taken form and gathered impetus
from Mount Holyoke Seminary, are to be found not only from ocean to
ocean in the United States, including the “Cherokee Seminary,” founded
by John Ross in the Indian Territory in 1851, but in Turkey, in Spain,
in Persia, in Japan, and in Cape Colony, South Africa.

After display of so great administrative ability as appeared in Miss
Lyon and her successors, it strikes one as still another mark of the
traditional reluctance to recognize true values, that close upon half a
century from the founding of the institution had passed before the name
of a woman appeared in the list of trustees. Meantime every principal of
the seminary had been a woman, every resident physician had been a
woman, and every anniversary address had been made by a man.

The debt which the public owes to a few individuals who have used
lavishly, for its benefit, their own great endowments, whether of brains
or of money, before this same public was conscious of its own highest
needs, is distinctly traceable in the kindergarten, kitchen-garden,
industrial school, college, and university movements of the present day.
Truly, many of these to whom much has been given have read their duty in
the light of the scripture, “Of him much shall be required.” When values
are once demonstrated to the people, they are ever ready to carry on
important work with liberality.

While recognizing the importance of the many lines of educational
effort, if we sought to learn which has done most to give a solid basis
of thoroughness to woman’s education, and, secondarily, to general
education, during the middle part of the present century, we should find
the answer in the Normal Schools. While other institutions have
contributed greatly to increase the scope of woman’s study, these have
added thereto the important consideration of methods.

As a part of the thrifty policy which the States have shown when dealing
with the education of girls, they have furnished Normal School
instruction with the especial view to getting skilled labor in return.

Perhaps there is nothing which would insure so great care in instilling
first principles. The result has certainly been to make their invaluable
influence felt from the cities to the remotest school districts.

The story of the establishment of these schools is another story of
personal struggle against more than indifference, and indifference
itself may justly be regarded as a solid substance.

The interest in Normal Schools in America, which was aroused by Prof.
Denison Ormstead in 1816, and was advocated by De Witt Clinton, by
Gallaudet, and by Horace Mann, grew to fervor in the Rev. Charles Brooks
of Medford, Mass., who caught his inspiration from Dr. Julius, of
Hamburg, who was sent to the United States by the King of Prussia to
study our public institutions. In 1865 Mr. Brooks rode in his chaise
over two thousand miles to present the subject, at his own cost, to the
people. He held conventions and presented the topic in pulpits as
“Christian Culture.” He says, “My discouragements were legion.”

The leading paper in Boston and in New England expressed its sense of
the absurdity of the movement by admitting a caustic communication,
which ended by representing Rev. Mr. Brooks with a fool’s cap on his
head, marching up State Street at the head of a crowd of ragamuffin
young men and women, who bore a banner, inscribed, “To a Normal School
in the clouds.” Mr. Brooks was, however, invited to speak on the subject
before the House of Representatives, and “some members of the
Legislature called the new movement by funny names.”

But educators like George B. Emerson, and thinkers like Rev. William
Ellery Channing, and statesmen like Horace Mann lent their aid, and,
stirred by Mr. Brooks, support was given in public speech by Hon. John
Q. Adams and Daniel Webster.

Mr. Mann was Secretary of the Board of Education upon its organization
in 1837, and, in his first report, recommended that the Legislature
establish Normal Schools. A donation of $10,000 being made by Mr. Dwight
to stimulate this interest, a State appropriation was made, and a Normal
School for girls was opened at Lexington, Mass., in 1838. Later, others
were opened, some of which admitted boys also, but for the first twenty
years, eighty-seven per cent. of the graduates were girls. These schools
are now widely scattered through the United States. The history of that
at Oswego, N. Y., is of especial interest.

The first systematic effort for the physical development of women was
made in 1861 in Boston. A “Normal Institute for Physical Culture,” was
established by Dr. Dio Lewis, aided by the president and some of the
professors of Harvard College. At the outset the young women pupils were
found lamentably deficient in respect of physical development. Later,
Dr. Lewis stated that “in every one of the thirteen classes which were
graduated, the best gymnast was a woman. In each class there were from
two to six women superior to any of the men.” Dr. Walter Channing, one
of the professors, often spoke with enthusiasm of the physical
superiority of the women to the men. From the graduates of these classes
instruction in light gymnastics was widely introduced into schools
throughout the country. Now the well-appointed gymnasium is a prominent
feature of the leading colleges to which women are admitted, and the
erection and endowment of this department is a favorite form of
benefaction from the alumnæ.

Prof. Huxley says, “No system of education is worthy the name, unless it
creates a great educational ladder, with one end in the gutter and the
other in the university.” Such was the intuitive feeling of our
ancestors, even in the Colonial days, with regard to boys. When,
however, in the course of centuries, conviction came to a few that what
had been for one sex only was, in fairness, due to the other as well,
the atmosphere of the older States did not prove bracing enough to
sustain so utopian a theory, and the ambitious daughters of New England
were obliged to follow those who, transplanted to the virgin soil of
Ohio, had opened Oberlin College, offering such opportunities as it
could furnish without distinction of race, and with but limited
discrimination against sex.

Something more remarkable than the hungry young mind seeking mental food
at disadvantage, was witnessed in 1853, when the full mind and earnest
spirit of the leading New England educator, Hon. Horace Mann, eager to
inaugurate the best methods of the higher education in a co-educational
college, found his only chance by leaving his native New England, to
build an institution from its very foundation, in a section remote from
literary association. The pathos is deepened that his life was
sacrificed in the contest with obstacles.

Following this magnetic leader; again a few New England girls turned
westward, and gained, at Antioch College, Ohio, what the East still
denied them. Twelve years later, and two hundred and forty years after
Harvard was established for boys, private beneficence endowed “Boston
University” on a co-educational basis, and in 1869 a college in
Massachusetts was opened to girls for the first time.

In place of the reply which Harvard College made to girls who asked
admission to its vacant seats, “We have no such custom,” was heard the
cheering, “Welcome to all we have to offer!” and the old habit of
keeping something of the best in reserve for the male sex, which has
been so persistent in State, and municipal, and institutional economy,
and which made the restricted sex feel an unwelcome pensioner on
somebody’s bounty, has never characterized Boston University. As a
result, the report of the University for the year 1879–80, shows that
already over thirty-seven per cent. of the regular classes in the
College of Liberal Arts were women, and, in encouraging contrast to many
colleges from which women are excluded, it adds, “no rowdyism or scandal
has brought discredit on the institution.”

In a few cases institutions for the higher education of women have been
established in university towns or cities, and have availed themselves
of the opportunity afforded for instruction by professors of the
neighboring university, and have been granted, under restrictions, use
of the libraries, museums, etc., connected with it. Each of these
differs from the other in respect of its relationship to the university.
The first established was that at Cambridge, Mass., in 1879, under the
direction of “The Society for the Collegiate Instruction for Women,”
which has, unfortunately, come to be known by the misleading title of
“The Harvard Annex.” Applicants for admission to the most advanced work
of the institution are required to pass the same examinations which
admit young men to Harvard College, and these examinations are conducted
in different parts of the country by local committees, under the
auspices of The Society for the Collegiate Instruction for Women.
Certificates of proficiency thus gained admit the student to classical
and scientific courses at the collegiate institution, corresponding to
those given to young men at Harvard College.[4]

EVELYN COLLEGE.

Evelyn College, Princeton, N. J., founded under similar circumstances in
1888, differs from the institution at Cambridge, having been formally
authorized to confer degrees and to exercise all the functions of a
college for the higher education of women.[5]

It offers classical and scientific courses corresponding to those of the
neighboring university; also elective and post graduate courses.

By resolution of the Board of Trustees of Princeton College any help may
be given to Evelyn College by the Princeton Faculty which does not
interfere with their duties in the University, and the use of the
libraries, museums, etc., is granted.

COLUMBIA COLLEGE IN RELATION TO THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN.

The first college for women to confer degrees upon graduates of an
affiliated college is Columbia College, New York City. As the aim of
this paper is rather to trace the growth of educational opportunity than
to tabulate results, the various steps which led to the opening of
Barnard College, New York City, in 1889 are given, as typical of the
progressive nature of movements for opening the doors of established
colleges to women. While many still regard it as wise to discriminate
between the sexes in respect of opportunities, while others would
instruct them equally but separately, there is apparently an increasing
number of these who would apply to colleges, in general, what the late
far-sighted President Barnard of Columbia said of that under his charge.
“I regard the establishment of an annex as desirable only considered as
a step toward what I think must, sooner or later, come to pass, and that
is the opening of the College proper to both sexes equally.”[6]

Efforts to gain for young women the advantages of Columbia College, New
York City, have been made at intervals since 1873, when several
qualified young women applied for admission to the college, and one, a
graduate of Michigan University, for admission to the medical school. A
plea in their behalf was made before the faculty by Mrs. Lillie Devereux
Blake, on the ground that the charter of the College declared that it
was “founded for the education of the youth of the city,” and “youth”
includes both sexes. President Barnard and several of the faculty
favored the admission of women as students, but the committee on
education decided that any action was inexpedient.

In December, 1876, a memorial was presented to the Board of Trustees of
Columbia College by “Sorosis,” a well-known woman’s club, of the city,
asking that young women should be admitted to the college classes. The
memorial was laid on the table by a unanimous vote.

Up to 1879 women were informally admitted to the lectures of certain
professors, during regular class hours. This was forbidden in 1879, not
from any harm resulting, but because it was discovered that the statutes
forbade any but regularly matriculated students to attend lectures. This
law had no reference to women, but the trustees declined to change the
letter of the law and women were banished. Three years later a motion
made in the board that the statutes should be so changed as not to
prohibit the attendance of women, conditionally, on certain courses of
lectures was lost. But from 1886 women have been admitted to lectures
given on Saturday mornings, and two hundred ladies have listened weekly,
and many more have desired admittance.

In 1883 an association was formed in New York to promote the higher
education of women. A petition signed by 1400 persons, many of them of
highest distinction in public and private life, and indorsed by
President Barnard of Columbia, asked that the benefits of education at
Columbia College be extended to qualified women with as little delay as
possible, by admitting them to lectures and examinations. In June of
that year, 1883, the trustees of Columbia College resolved that a course
of collegiate study, equivalent to the course given to young men, should
be offered to such women as may desire it, to be pursued under the
general direction of the faculty of the College.

This resolve was, however, restricted by regulations which seemed to
contradict both its spirit and its letter, since it narrowed the
opportunity of women to that of getting the required instruction where
they might, except at Columbia, which would, however, admit them to
examinations to prove whether or not they had done so. As these
examinations were not limited to the subjects as treated in the courses
of lectures, as were the corresponding examinations of matriculated
students of the University, they were more difficult. In spite of the
great difficulties to be encountered, and the very limited advantage to
result, many young women were attracted by the offer. In 1888
twenty-eight girls were availing themselves of this opportunity for
examination tests of proficiency. In 1885 the trustees of Columbia
resolved to grant the degree of Bachelor of Arts to women who had
pursued for four years a course of study fully equivalent to that for
which the same degree is conferred in the school of arts. Those who had
secured this degree, or its equivalent (elsewhere), might study for
higher degrees under the direction of the faculty of the College.[7]

BARNARD COLLEGE.

So manifest became the public demand for collegiate and post collegiate
instruction,—from graduates of the city Normal School (which had 1600
pupils), from the pupils of the best class of private schools, where,
sometimes, not less than one fourth were preparing for admission to some
college,[8] and from graduates of other colleges,—that a movement was
made, in which the efforts of leading men and women in New York City
were conspicuous both for their unflagging zeal and for their judicious
methods, to secure necessary funds to found and, at the outset, to
maintain a college for women whose professors and instructors should be
those of Columbia, and upon whose graduates Columbia College should
confer the same degrees as upon her own. The woman who first approached
the Trustees of Columbia College with a plan to found an affiliated
college for women was Mrs. Annie Nathan Meyer, who had been one of the
first young women to take advantage of the course of examinations
offered by Columbia College. After the appeal for an affiliated college
was made it was discovered that had such a plan, supported by the proper
persons, and bearing likelihood of success, been brought before the
Board, it would have met with approval some years before. The former
petitions had, however, asked for co-education, and at first there was
considerable opposition to the “annex movement,” as it was called, on
the part of those whose battle-cry might have been almost said to have
been “Co-education or no education.”

But the wiser policy prevailed, and it was acknowledged by the majority
that “those co-educationalists who ignore the annex project are butting
their heads against a stone wall when a nicely swarded path lies before
them.”[9] Barnard College received official sanction from the Trustees
of Columbia College, March, 1889, was chartered by the Regents of New
York State, July, 1889, and formally opened October, 1889. Barnard
College was appropriately named in grateful tribute to the late
President Barnard of Columbia College.

The great void that it was to fill appeared in many ways,—among others
in the fact that the botanical and chemical laboratories which it
established were the only ones in the city open to women.

The trustees of Barnard, one half of whom are women, hope to find much
of its usefulness in the encouragement and provision for graduate work
which it will offer to the hundreds of women who are gathered in New
York, in the pursuance of some profession.

VASSAR COLLEGE.

The late Matthew Vassar, “recognizing in woman the same intellectual
constitution as in man,” resolved to give a fair chance to girls for a
liberal education, under conditions in every way favorable to health. To
this end he erected college and dormitory buildings in the midst of a
lawn of two hundred acres, at Poughkeepsie, N. Y., with careful
provision for pure air, good water, abundant sunshine, and good
sewerage. He provided a gymnasium and provided for out of door sports.
He instituted a professorship of physiology and hygiene, and made its
incumbent “resident physician” and supervisor of sanitary arrangements.

In September, 1865, the institution received, upon examination, about
350 young women as students to a course of study and mode of life
determined by the trustees, who believed that “the larger the stock of
knowledge, and the more thorough the mental discipline a woman attains,
the better she is fitted for any womanly position, and to perform any
womanly duty of home and in society,” a position which the subsequent
experience of this and kindred institutions has abundantly illustrated.

Up to 1890, Vassar College has conferred the degree of A.B. upon between
800 and 900 graduates.

It has included in its corps of professors several women of
distinguished ability—of whom we may name the late Prof. Braislin of the
department of mathematics, and the late Prof. Maria Mitchell, who had
not only a national, but a European reputation, as an astronomer. From
the opening of the institution till near the time of her death, in 1889,
she was the head of the department of astronomy and in charge of the
excellent observatory. Three women are serving on the Vassar board of
trustees, and three on standing committees.

SMITH COLLEGE.

Smith College was founded in Northampton, Mass., by Miss Sophia Smith,
of the neighboring town of Hatfield. Finding herself in possession of a
large fortune to dispose of she took counsel with her pastor, Dr. John
M. Green, as to the best use to make of it. He conferred, in her behalf,
with the leading representatives of education, and the general opinion
of the time was voiced by Dr. Edward Hitchcock. When Dr. Green asked
him, in 1861, “Would you dare to endow a college for women?” he said,
“No! The matter of woman’s higher education is still an experiment.”
Prudence seemed to compel further deliberation. Strong efforts were made
to secure the fund for established colleges, and other schemes of
beneficence were considered, but by 1868 Miss Smith and Dr. Green, to
whom she had continuously turned for counsel, had come to the conviction
that in no other way could the money be so well invested for the benefit
of human kind, as in founding a college which should give young women
opportunities for education equal to those which established colleges
offered to young men. The plan was at once developed, and the college at
Northampton is to-day Miss Smith’s noble monument.

Its high aim has been well sustained, and more than five hundred
students are named in the Annual Report of 1889.

Two thirds of the faculty are women, to whom, however, the title of
professor is not accorded. This is not thought to imply lack of
competency to fill the positions usually so designated. Neither can the
current report be credited, that the President does not consider it
altogether womanly to bear such title, since Smith College conferred
upon Dr. Amelia B. Edwards, the English Egyptologist, the honorary
degree of LL.D., and only the highest courtesy could be intended.

WELLESLEY COLLEGE.

Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass., fifteen miles from Boston, was
founded in 1875 by the benefaction of Henry F. Durant. The purpose of
the trustees was “the establishment of a college in which girls should
have as good opportunities for higher education as the best institutions
afforded to young men, and to do so with due regard to health.” They
held that “it is not hard study but violation of law that injures
health.”

The college is beautiful for situation, with extensive grounds, like an
English park, varied by oak woods and elm-shaded avenues, and including
Lake Waban, which furnishes ample facilities for rowing and skating.
Thousands of rhododendrons and other flowering shrubs have been set to
brighten the grounds, and the spring turf blossoms in crocuses and
snowdrops.

Amid all this seductive beauty, suggestive of dreaming, rise noble
structures, of solid and elegant proportions, dedicated to successful
work. Within them the practical and the æsthetic are charmingly
combined. Music has its temple, art has its ministry, science its every
facility, and the air of a happy home life broods over all.

Thoroughness and system are manifest everywhere. This is not a college
of yesterday. Nowhere are the latest methods and the best facilities
more promptly welcomed. One wanders charmed and glad through its fine
library, its extensive laboratories, its dining-room, where a special
grace of living comes with the refined service of the students
themselves, its dainty parlors and reception-rooms, and, seeking some
flaw to prove it real, finds it, at last, in the fact that only half the
youth of the land—only girls are admitted to it.

From the opening of the college it has been under the presidency of
women. Miss Ada Howard, a graduate of Mount Holyoke Seminary, was
succeeded by Miss Alice Freeman, who received the degree of “Doctor of
Philosophy,” from her alma mater, the University of Michigan, and that
of Doctor of Literature from Columbia College. In 1887 Miss Palmer
resigned the presidency of Wellesley College, but as Mrs. Alice Freeman
Palmer continues to serve it as a member of the board of trustees, which
out of twenty-five members has one third women members. Miss Freeman was
succeeded by the present President, Miss Helen A. Schafer, a graduate of
Oberlin College.

CORNELL UNIVERSITY.

Cornell University is one of the national colleges founded upon the
land-grant of 1862. The share of New York was nearly a million acres,
and, by act of the Legislature of New York, passed in 1865, the
university was incorporated, and the income from the sale of this land
was given it for its maintenance. There were certain conditions, the
principal one being the donation of $500,000 to the university by Ezra
Cornell. This was made, together with 200 acres of land. In simple and
comprehensive phrase, Mr. Cornell said: “I would found an institution
where any person can find instruction in any study.”

The act of incorporation provides for instruction “in order to promote
the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the
several pursuits and professions of life.” Thus thrice bound to the
general service, by employment of the people’s resources, by acceptance
at once of the gift and of the intent of the broad-minded donor, and
again by provision of its own act, it would seem to go without saying
that the State should see to it that there should be no discrimination
against any class.

The university was opened, October, 1868, and, happily, it goes with
saying, that by act of the trustees, passed in April, 1872, “Women are
admitted to the university on the same terms as men, except that they
must be at least seventeen years old.”

On the authority of the Dean of the faculty, Mr. H. S. White, August,
1890: “As to the status of young women at Cornell, they enjoy all the
advantages which are open to young men, including the university
scholarship and fellowships. We have eight fellowships which are open to
graduate students, awarded by vote of the faculty, not only to our own
graduates, but to graduates of other institutions. In 1888–89, three of
these fellowships were secured by young women: one in botany; one in
architecture; and one in mathematics. The present year the Fellows
happen to be all young men; but this is a mere accident, and the
question of sex cannot be said to be considered in the award. There were
established, a few years ago, three Sage scholarships, set apart
exclusively for the young women who attended the university; they were
also eligible for the six university scholarships; so that at times four
or five out of the nine scholarships might be held by young women. These
Sage scholarships have recently been converted into university
scholarships, open to all applicants without distinction of sex. Sage
College was built and endowed by Hon. Henry W. Sage, in 1875, at a cost
of $250,000, and was given to Cornell University as a place of residence
for young women students. The gift had but one condition, that
“instruction shall be afforded to young women by Cornell University, as
broad and thorough as that afforded to young men.””

Up to the present time no professorship or offices of instruction in
this university have been held by women.

SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY.

Syracuse University, Syracuse, N. Y., embraces a college of liberal
arts, a college of medicine, and a college of fine arts. Said the
Chancellor, Dr. Sims, “Syracuse throws open the doors of all its
colleges for the admission of women on the same terms as men. No
especial rules are made because of the presence of both sexes in the
university, the young women having every right that is accorded to young
men. We have never had difficulty growing out of the presence of both
sexes in the institution. The young ladies are as scholarly in every
department as the young men.”

It is not strange that women’s benefactions set to such an institution.
In addition to its general library of about 35,000 volumes, and a
valuable professional library in connection with the college of
medicine, in 1887, Mrs. Dr. G. M. Reid made a gift to the college of the
great historical library of Leopold von Ranke. In 1889, Mrs. Harriet
Leavenworth, of Syracuse, presented to the college of fine arts the
Wolff collection of engravings, containing 12,000 sheets of rare and
costly etchings of engravings from the great masters of art in all ages.
The “John Crouse Memorial College for Women” was presented to Syracuse
University in 1889. It is said to be the finest college building in the
world.

BRYN MAWR COLLEGE.

Bryn Mawr College, situated at Bryn Mawr, ten miles from Philadelphia,
Pa., was endowed by Dr. Joseph W. Taylor of Burlington, N. J., of the
society of Friends, to afford to women opportunities for study equal to
those given in the best men’s colleges. It was opened in 1885, and
admits to lectures and class work three grades of students,—viz.,
graduates, undergraduates, and hearers. The entrance examinations are
strict, and graduate students have from the first formed a large
proportion of the students,—from one sixth to one fifth of the whole
number. The time of graduation is determined only by the completion of
the prescribed course.

The students at Bryn Mawr College enjoy exceptional opportunity for
development of character through the important habit of self-direction.
Notably wanting here are the customary restrictions on freedom of
movement. For example, the student may choose her rising, retiring, and
study hours; she may go in and out of Philadelphia at her discretion.
This recognition of the student as personally responsible has been
attended, it is said, with the happiest results.

Five fellowships are annually awarded: one in Greek, one in English, one
in mathematics, one in history, and one in biology. The Bryn Mawr
European fellowship is awarded annually to a member of the graduating
class for excellence in scholarship. The holder receives $500,
applicable to the expenses of one year’s residence at some foreign
university.

The whole number of students enrolled during the year 1888–89 was 116.
At the close of the scholastic year the degree of B.A. was conferred
upon twenty-four candidates. All but two had been for four years in
attendance at the college, and the president’s report says: “All of them
left the college in their best state of health.”

No person is appointed a member of the faculty who is not, in every way,
qualified to direct graduate as well as undergraduate study. There is
absolutely no difference made in the salaries paid to the men and women
employed in instruction; there is no difference made in academic rank.

The present Board of Trustees, twelve in number, are all men, appointed
by the founder of the college. Should a vacancy occur it might be filled
by a woman.

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE.

Swarthmore College, ten miles from Philadelphia, Pa., was founded in
1864 by members of the religious society of Friends, for the higher
education of both sexes. The two sexes are about equally represented,
not only among the pupils, but in the officers of the corporation and in
the officers and committees of the board; in this latter respect
differing from the record of any other college.

The number of female students in the collegiate department for the
scholastic year 1888–89, was 80.

The college confers the degrees of Bachelor of Arts, of Letters, and of
Science, on completion of the corresponding courses, and, conditionally,
the Masters’ degrees, A.M., M.L., M.S., and also the degree of C.E., in
the engineering department.

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.

The first admission of women to special courses in the University of
Pennsylvania was in 1876 when, on application, two young women of
Philadelphia were granted, after examination and payment of a fee, the
full privileges of the analytical laboratory, and during that year were
regular students, passing the final examinations with the junior class.
The next year, 1877–78, they were admitted to lectures, laboratory work,
recitations, and final examinations by the department of organic
chemistry. In the years directly following, the physical laboratory
received two young women, and upon lectures on modern history, opened to
all fitted by previous study to appreciate them, from twenty-four to
thirty ladies were regular attendants. In all departments the ladies
received the highest courtesy and appreciation. One of the number
writing of it says: “You have _carte blanche_ to say all you will in
this respect,—you could not say too much.”

Through the favor of the dean of the college department the following
very complete statement is presented of the progress toward giving to
women the advantages of this venerable university, which has been
gathering its rich resources since its foundation in 1746.

In 1876 a department of music was established, in which advanced
instruction in the theory of music was given, and from the beginning
women were admitted to the classes. While a degree was attainable,
under certain conditions of post graduate work, none have been
awarded.

In 1878 Mrs. Bloomfield Moore presented $10,000, the income of which
was to pay the tuition fees of women who sought to qualify themselves
for teaching, in any of the courses open to them. Certain special
courses of lectures and laboratory work, e. g., English history,
chemistry, mineralogy, were open to the public on a fee, and of course
women were included, a few availing themselves of the opportunity; but
these were not matriculated, nor entered upon the roll of students.

In 1880 Miss Alice Bennett, M.D., received the degree Ph.D. in the
Auxiliary Faculty of Medicine,—a two years’ course in certain sciences
open to graduates in medicine.

In 1888 Mrs. Carrie B. Kilgore received the degree LL.B., on
completing the full two years’ course in the law department.

In neither of these cases was there any formal action opening the
courses specified to women. They were simply accepted as students by
the several deans, and when they had complied with the terms were,
without demur, admitted to their degrees.

The School of Biology, organized in 1884,—a two years’ course, no
degree,—has from the first been freely open to women, has always had a
fair proportion among its students, and some of them have proved to be
of superior ability. Its force and material are used in the new four
years’ course in natural history, one of the college courses, but to
this women are not yet admitted.

Applications were often made for the admission of women to the medical
department, but trustees and faculty concurred in always refusing it.
This was the more unanimously done since the establishment of the
admirable Women’s Medical College, which would have been fatally
injured by the opening of our doors to women.

Requests to open the college department to women have been
periodically made for many years. At first the faculty positively
declined to recommend this, but gradually opposition to the proposal
weakened, until last year(1889–90) a bare majority voted the other
way.

Before the trustees had taken action upon the matter, Col. Joseph M.
Bennett came forward and presented two valuable houses, adjacent to
the university, and a sum of $10,000 for establishing a college for
women as a department of the university. The trustees accepted the
offer, and after careful consideration and consultation with prominent
women educators, decided, with Col. Bennett’s full approval, to make
this a post graduate department of the highest grade.

Its organization and government are entrusted to a board of managers,
one half women. By the autumn of 1891 the department will be open;
ranking with the Faculty of Philosophy, giving the degree Ph.D. (which
is no longer given by the Auxiliary Faculty of Medicine), and having
special courses not leading to a degree. It is hoped that an ample
number of free scholarships will be provided. The Faculty of
Philosophy is freely open to women, and prepared to give Ph.D.
degrees. Of course, when the department for women is opened it will
practically be in this faculty.

In 1889–90 there were the following women students: College,
Department of Music, 11, not candidates for a degree; Biology, 12, not
candidates for a degree; Auxiliary Department of Medicine, 1,
candidate for Sc.B. Total, 24.

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was chartered in 1861. By a
special vote of the Corporation in December, 1870, a graduate of Vassar
College was admitted as a special student in chemistry. In June, 1873,
the lady took the final examinations, covering two years of professional
work. As no tuition fee was charged no precedent was established by this
action. In 1873, at the request of the Woman’s Educational Association,
and with its co-operation, the woman’s laboratory for chemistry and
botany was established, to which women came as special students.
Although they had not been recognized during their course as regular
students, two women received the Institute Degree in 1881–82.

In 1883 final action was taken, opening all the courses to women on
precisely the same terms as to men. Women now go into the laboratories
with the regular classes.

The foregoing sketch of woman’s educational progress, while extended
beyond due limit, leaves out the most encouraging record,—as it is the
latest,—the story of what women are doing for themselves, and, no less,
for humanity. No one can fairly estimate the educational forces of the
coming decades who does not take into consideration the varied means of
growth outside of both school and college; means which do not displace
the need of these, but rather emphasize it. We may not even touch upon
these here, but from a moment’s comprehensive glance backward we may
dimly conceive the forward outlook.

It is not yet a century from the time when New England towns were voting
“not to be at any expense to school girls,” and lo! as a type of to-day,
Wellesley College, with a million and a half dollars wisely invested to
entice girls from the remotest islands of the sea, to love and to get
learning. For the unlettered housekeeper, filching time from her heavy
labors to gather the children about her knee in the “Dame school,” we
have the young but learned president of the college of nearly 700
students; or the woman directing, as its head, the orderly movement of a
thousand or more pupils in the great city grammar school, which may
represent a half score of nationalities. For the girl accustomed to
denial, and deprecatingly asking for a little instruction when the boys
shall have had their fill, we have the bright-faced, trustful young
woman who expects and will get ere long the best the world has to offer.

In a country which finds its safety in the intelligence of its people
and its peril in their ignorance, it behooves its thinkers to consider
whether it is not too great a risk to leave four fifths of the
instruction of youth in the hands of a sex of inferior education. The
distinguished president of Harvard College, called attention some two
years since, in an article in _The Atlantic Monthly_, to the condition
of inferiority of our secondary schools, and he proposed remedying it by
displacing a part of the female teachers. It would seem more in
accordance with the spirit of the time, and certainly more practicable,
to open to them the closed doors of opportunity and fit them to meet the
demand made upon them.

The terror of the learned woman which, in one form or another, has had
its many victims, has well nigh passed. Even the more timid and
conservative are learning that it is the ignorant, not the instructed
woman, that confuses affairs and works disaster. “A little knowledge
is,” beyond doubt, “a dangerous thing”; but only because it is little.

It is told of Saint Avila that she gained her renown by this marvel. At
one time, when frying fish in the convent, she was seized with a
religious ecstacy, yet so great were her powers of self control that she
did not drop the gridiron, nor let the fish burn!

So the educated woman of the nineteenth century has quieted many grave
apprehensions as to the consequences of much learning to her sex. After
the manner of Saint Avila, she does not permit her intellectual ecstacy
to blind her to her simple duties. She has abundantly proved that she
can carry the triple responsibility of loving and serving and knowing.

III.
THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN IN THE WESTERN STATES.

MAY WRIGHT SEWALL.

No formal history of the movement in the West on behalf of the higher
education of women has been published. The materials for this paper have
been derived from the reports issued under the auspices of the Bureau of
Education; from the catalogues of institutions open to women; from
various monographs, some of which recite the history of a single college
(like “Oberlin, its Origin, Progress, and Results,” by Pres. J. H.
Fairchild), others of which present the educational history of a State
(like “Higher Education in Wisconsin,” by Professors Allen and Spencer);
from a miscellaneous collection of baccalaureate sermons and
congratulatory addresses delivered before the graduating classes and the
alumnæ associations of many colleges; from old files of newspapers, and
from scrap books which for a series of years have been collecting the
records of contemporary effort along the lines of higher education; from
the biographies of distinguished educators in our country; and from
scores of letters, many of which have been written by college presidents
and professors in response to my own inquiries, while others have been
placed at my disposal by Dr. Carroll Cutler, formerly President of
Adelbert College. No stronger evidence of the interest felt in the
higher education of women could be found than the cordial, generous
answers to my inquiries, which have come from the officials of scores of
institutions extending from the Ohio to the Pacific. I am withheld from
naming gentlemen to whom I am so deeply indebted only by the fact that a
list of those who have courteously replied to my appeals for information
would occupy more space than I can afford to give out of the limited
number of pages allotted me in this volume.

The Western States and Territories in the order of their admission into
the Union under their present names, include Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
Missouri, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, California, Minnesota, Oregon,
Kansas, Nevada, Nebraska, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana,
and Washington—eighteen States; and Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming—three
Territories. The changes undergone and the relations sustained by each
of the above in its progress toward its present independent condition
are exhibited in Table I. given in Appendix B. In this vast territorial
expanse, embracing communities just being born into statehood, together
with others which have enjoyed that dignity for periods varying from ten
to eighty-seven years, one has an opportunity to witness almost every
phase of the struggle for the higher education of women.

Conditions that ceased to exist in one State so long ago that they had
almost passed from the memories of their victims, arose at a later
period to vex other States. Questions long settled in one community
became living issues in another; and such is the reluctance of the human
being to learn from the experience of others, that these questions are
still discussed with as much vivacity, not to say acrimony, as if they
had never been settled.

Higher education in the West has been fostered by the national
government, by the governments of the separate States, by many different
denominations of the Christian church, and by individual enterprise and
devotion.

As a large number of the strongest institutions in the West, open to
women, owe their origin to provisions made by the general government, it
is fitting to direct our first inquiry to the relations of that
government to education in the West. On May 25, 1785, the Continental
Congress passed an ordinance disposing of lands in the Northwestern
Territory, by which it was decreed that: “There shall be reserved Lot
No. 16 of every township for the maintenance of public schools within
said township.” On July 13, 1787, the famous Ordinance relating to the
government of the territory northwest of the Ohio River was passed; in
it occurs the passage which is so frequently cited in proof that the
United States government stands pledged to aid the higher as well as the
lower education: viz.,” Religion, Morality, and Knowledge being
necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and
the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” Ten days later,
Congress passed another ordinance fixing the terms of sale for the tract
of land purchased by the Ohio Company. This ordinance stipulated not
only that section 16 of every township should be reserved for the
maintenance of schools, but also “that two complete townships shall be
given perpetually for the purposes of an university, to be laid off by
the purchaser or purchasers as near the center as may be, so that the
same shall be good land, to be applied to the intended object by the
Legislature of the State.”

In these ordinances of 1787, we find the germ of all our State
Universities in the West.

Owing to the grant secured by Congress in its contract with the Ohio
Company, the Ohio University at Athens, O., was founded. It was first
chartered as the “American Western University.” The name implies that
its friends expected it to supply the educational needs of the then
vague “West”; but only a year after the admission of Ohio as a State,
i.e., in 1804, the University received a new charter from the State
Legislature, under its present name. This precedent of Congressional
grants for the endowment of institutions of higher education has been
followed by the government to the present time.

Sometimes the two townships of land have been given _en bloc_, and some
times they have been so given as to permit the location of university
lands in different portions of the State; sometimes they have been kept
as an endowment of the State University; sometimes they have been in
part devoted to the founding of the university. But in every State and
Territory in the above list, a university exists which owes its origin
and its maintenance in part to the government of the United States.

A study of the history of the State Universities shows that in many
States a strange hostility existed toward them. A feeling that by
appropriating lands for their endowment, the general government was
encouraging the growth of an aristocratic class of learned men, seems
not to have been uncommon in the early days. This appears to be one
valid explanation of the reluctance of State Legislatures to make
generous or permanent appropriations for the support of such
universities.

The truth is, however, that the State Universities are the most
democratic of all the institutions of higher learning; this truth is now
generally perceived, and the institutions are growing proportionally
popular. It is due to their necessarily democratic nature that they are
now without exception open to women. Their chief feeders are the public
high schools, with which they must maintain direct and constant
communication. Their chief financial support comes directly and equally
from all property-holding citizens; either by appropriation from the
public treasury, varying in amount with each Legislature, or by a fixed,
special tax, of a certain percentum of all assessed property. Finding
their students in the public high schools, which in the West are almost
universally co-educational, and their support in the public treasury,
into which flow taxes upon the property of women and girls as well as
upon that of men and boys, the wonder is that the State Universities did
not from their origin admit women as students.

The following table will show when each State University was chartered,
opened, and opened to women. The list of States in this table is
presented as above in the chronological order of their admission to the
Union.

CHARTERED. OPENED. ADMITTED WOMEN.
Ohio Athens 1804 1809 1871
„ Columbus 1870 1873 1873
Indiana 1820 1824 1867
Illinois 1867 1868 1871
Missouri 1839 1843 1870
Michigan 1837 1841 1870
Iowa 1847 1860 1860
Wisconsin 1848 1849 1860, 1863,
1868, 1871,
1875
California 1868 1869 1870
Minnesota 1868 1869 1869
Oregon 1876 1876 1876
Kansas 1861 1866 1866
Nevada 1864 1874 1874
Nebraska 1869 1871 1871
Colorado 1861 1877 1877
North Dakota 1883 1884 1884
South Dakota 1862 1885 1885
Montana 1884 1883 1883
Washington 1861 1862
Utah, Deseret 1850 1850 1850

A glance at the table will show that the periods of time during which
these universities received men only, vary from two to sixty-two years,
that but one of those opened prior to 1861 has been from the outset
co-educational; that all opened prior to 1861 became co-educational
between 1861 and 1871: and that all organized since 1871 started as
co-educational institutions.

National government made additional provision for higher education by an
act usually referred to as “The Agricultural College Act of 1862.” By
this act each State received 30,000 acres of land for each Senator and
Representative to whom it was entitled in the United States Congress,
“the proceeds to be applied to the maintenance of at least one college
in each State,” “without excluding other scientific and classical
studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches as are
related to agriculture and the mechanic arts.” Under this act there have
been established in the territory discussed in this chapter, since 1862,
fourteen colleges of the character indicated.

In Ohio, Wisconsin, California, Minnesota, Oregon, Nevada, and Nebraska
such institutions exist as Departments of the State University, and,
like all its other departments, admit women.

In Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Michigan, Iowa, Kansas, and Colorado,
such institutions, under various names, as “Agricultural College,”
“Industrial and Mechanical College,” “College of Applied Science,” etc.,
enjoy an independent organization, in some States loosely connected
with, in others entirely separate from, the State University.

These institutions are authorized to give degrees appropriate to the
courses of study pursued in them, and they are likewise open to women.
The act of 1862 gave a distinct impulse to the higher education of women
in the West, for reasons to be hereafter mentioned.

Although the germ of a State University was secured by the national
government to each of the twenty-one States and Territories in our list
at or prior to the time of its admission, in many instances the State
action relative to these institutions, upon which the government aid had
been conditioned, was postponed for a long series of years. In the mean
time the desire for the higher education was stimulated, and
opportunities for obtaining it were provided by the churches.

Appendix B, Table II., to this article, gives a list of 165
institutions, within my prescribed territory, open to women, which are
of sufficient importance to be included in the tables of “Colleges of
Liberal Arts,” published by the United States Commissioner of Education,
in his Report for 1888–89 (taken from the advance sheets). Of these, 45
are non-sectarian. The remaining 120 are distributed among the various
denominations as follows:

Methodist Episcopal, 31; Baptist, 16; Presbyterian, 14; Congregational,
13; Christian, 10; United Brethren, 7; Lutheran, 6; United Presbyterian,
4; Reformed, 3; Friends, 3; Cumberland Presbyterian, 2; M. E. South, 2;
Universalist, 2; Seventh Day Baptist, 1; Methodist Protestant, 1;
Evangelical Association, 1; Brethren, 1; Church of God, 1; New Church,
1; Protestant Episcopal, 1.

At the present time one frequently hears people deprecate the effort to
maintain so large a number of colleges. It is asserted truly that the
distribution of patronage among so many, necessarily prevents any from
attaining commanding influence. Especially do the advocates of
non-sectarian education recommend that the weaker institutions be
closed, that their properties be sold, and that effort be concentrated
upon the few stronger ones. The arguments by which this recommendation
is sustained are sound.

If the financial support, the love, the loyalty, the ambition, and the
students that are distributed among the thirty-one colleges of Liberal
Arts in the State of Ohio, could be united in the support of any one of
the number, the fortunate recipient might soon rank with the great
universities of our country, nay, of the world. But however desirable
such a concentration of patronage ultimately may be, one cannot read the
history of the educational work of the churches, without feeling that
“Wisdom is justified of her children.”

It is true that many of these colleges were founded in the interests of
sectarian theology, rather than of liberal culture; that they were all
in some degree, some of them in very large degree, regarded and used by
their supporters as the most available instruments in the labor of
securing proselytes to the particular school of Christian faith in whose
name they were planted. In the degree to which these institutions have
nurtured sectarian zeal, emphasized distinctions in minor points of
doctrine, and strengthened the barriers between denominations, it must
be conceded that their influence has been benumbing and narrowing; and
in this degree they have tended from instead of toward culture, whose
mission is to broaden and quicken instead of to narrow and benumb.

In spite of this limitation upon the work of denominational colleges,
they merit the profoundest respect and gratitude of the public. A large
proportion of these institutions were established when the wilderness
was being cleared and settled.

It is related by its historian that the site of Ripon College was chosen
by two enthusiasts in the cause of higher education, in the year 1850,
when the State of Wisconsin was but two years old, when “there were but
fourteen rude buildings in the village of Ripon,” and when but a single
year had elapsed since the first clearing on the village site had been
made. At once these brave men applied for a charter for a college; and
the purpose of the corporation was declared to be, “To found, establish,
and maintain at Ripon, in the county of Fond du Lac, an institution of
learning of the highest order, embracing also a department for
preparatory instruction.”

This is hardly an exceptional, but a typical instance.

The people were few, scattered, and poor. Communication between places
remote from each other was slow and uncertain. Means of travel and
transportation were limited to the pack horse, the private wagon, the
stage coach, and the flat-boat. If poverty had not rendered it
impossible for the pioneers to incur the expense of sending their
children on long and slow journeys, to distant colleges, the time
consumed in such journeys, and the anxiety incident to separation, in
the absence of any means of frequent and speedy communication, would
have prohibited it.

Forty years ago, in all of the territory covered by the twenty-one
States and Territories under consideration, twenty-five years ago in
most of it, and so lately as ten years ago in much of it, the time,
fatigue, and expense which a dweller in a remote corner of a county
incurred in traveling to its county seat, was more than he will now
expend to reach the State capital. Under such conditions the question
with the pioneer was not whether he should send his children to a near
or to a distant college, but whether he should send them to the near
college or to none.

The influence of these 165 colleges upon the life of the Western States
cannot be measured by the number of their graduates, nor by adding to
this number those who have attended the colleges one or more terms.

The presence of a college, with its educated faculty, in any community,
modifies the tone of its intellectual and social life. The colleges have
been centers of leavening influence in the new States. While recognizing
this with gratitude, one can also see that the conditions which
justified and demanded the multiplication of these small colleges have
ceased to exist, and that the different conditions which now prevail
counsel denominations to consolidate their weak institutions, and to
concentrate their dissipated forces upon a few strong ones. The present
means of speedy and certain communication and transit enable a strong
college, with high standards and an able faculty, to bring its influence
to bear upon all parts of a State and to command the patronage of its
remotest corner.

That the tendency is toward concentration of effort is indicated by the
Year Books of the denominations for 1888–89.

In studying the educational work of the churches, one cannot fail to
discern the results of creeds and habits of worship.

In a sketch of this character it would be unjust to withhold the fact
that the colleges under Methodist control have been generally first and
most generous in opening their opportunities to women; and that they are
also conspicuous among the colleges that include women in their
faculties and in their boards of trustees.

The progressiveness of Methodists in regard to the education of women is
evinced not only in their co-educational colleges, but also in
institutions founded by them for the exclusive education of women.

The latest report of the United States Commissioner of Education
contains over two hundred institutions for the superior education of
women. The list includes colleges and seminaries entitled to confer
degrees, and a few seminaries, whose work is of equal merit, which do
not give degrees. Of these more than two hundred institutions for the
education of women exclusively, only 47 are situated within the
territory here discussed. Of these 47, but 30 are chartered with
authority to confer degrees. Of these 30, 7 are non-sectarian; the
remainder are distributed among the denominations as follows:

Presbyterian, 7; Methodist Episcopal, 5; Baptist, 3; Christian, 2;
Protestant Episcopal, 1; Congregational, 1.

The religious affiliations of the remaining four have not been
ascertained.

The extent to which the higher education of women is in the West
identified with co-education, can be seen by comparing the two
statements above given. Of the total 212 higher institutions receiving
women, and of the total 195 such institutions which confer the regular
degrees in arts, science, and letters, upon their graduates, 165 are
co-educational. Almost necessarily, therefore, the most important
discussion in this article will be that of co-education.

Before approaching it, however, some space must be devoted to women’s
colleges in the West. Almost without exception they include preparatory
departments; very generally the attendance in the preparatory department
exceeds that in the collegiate; frequently members of the faculty divide
their attention between preparatory and collegiate classes; generally
the courses of study offered are less numerous and less complete than
those offered in colleges of liberal arts for men; most of these
institutions have paltry or no endowments.

With all these limitations, some of them do much creditable work; but,
at present, they occupy a rather vague, indefinite position between “the
ladies’ seminary” of thirty years ago and the modern college. Quoting
from the United States Commissioner of Education (Report for 1887–88):
“The adjustment of studies is evidence of a double purpose in these
institutions. On the one hand they have endeavored to meet the general
demand with respect to woman’s education. On the other they have sought
to maintain that higher ideal which would appropriate for women as well
as for men the advantages of the kind of instruction and training
approved, by wise effort and long experience, as the best for mental
discipline and culture.”

A double purpose, when its parts are, as in this instance, to a degree
contradictory, imposes impossible tasks. A process of sifting is now
going on among these institutions. Some of the weaker will doubtless be
absorbed by stronger ones having the same denominational support. Some,
whose strength is chiefly in their preparatory departments, will find
their ultimate place in the lists of secondary schools; and, ceasing to
compete with colleges, will do an important and much needed work in
preparing students to enter college. Others, already strongest in their
collegiate departments, pledged by a noble past to achieve a
corresponding future, will persist in emphasizing their real collegiate
side until at last they secure an absolute separation between their
preparatory and their collegiate work, and can take rank with genuine
colleges of liberal arts.

In this sketch it is impossible to give the history of all these
institutions; but among colleges characterized from birth by a liberal
and progressive spirit may be mentioned “The Cincinnati Wesleyan Woman’s
College.” This institution was chartered in 1842, and claims to be “the
first liberal collegiate institution in the world for the exclusive
education of women.” This claim sounds somewhat boastful, but a perusal
of the discussions which were called forth by the establishment of this
college, will convince one that its undertaking was novel and quite
foreign to the thought of its public, if not, indeed, quite
unprecedented in the world’s history. Dr. Charles Eliot, the editor of
the _Western Christian Advocate_, heroically defended the project
against the attacks of both the secular and the religious press. Rev. P.
B. Wilber was elected president, and his wife, Mary Cole Wilber, was
made principal.

The broad claim made by these enthusiastic educators was “that women
need equal culture of mind and heart with men, in their homes, in the
church, and in the state.” The enterprise was accused of “being counter
to delicacy and to custom, as it was to orthodoxy.” Mrs. Wilber, who is
still living (in 1890), writes that those who had upheld the college
“were convinced that a higher intellectual and moral education for women
was indispensable to the continued prosperity and existence of
civilization, especially under our form of government. They believed it
would be a powerful influence for good in the home, in social life, and
in all benevolences and philanthropies. They believed in the elevation
of women through education, which is development; through labor, which
is salvation; and through legal rights, which should give freedom to
serve and to save.” These sentiments do not seem antiquated in 1890, and
must have seemed not merely advanced but dangerous in 1842.

Violations of precedent continued to keep the watchful eye of the public
on the college. The college professed to give to women the same
instruction which secured for young men the degree of A.B., and it
obtained from the Legislature authority “to confer the degrees of A.B.
and B.S.” The college held public commencement exercises, at which the
graduates read their own productions, a performance that was the
occasion of much scandal.

September 25, 1844, “The Young Ladies’ Lyceum” was organized in the
college. This was a literary society, at the meetings of which debates
upon current public questions were conducted and essays were read.
Cuttings from contemporary newspapers show that this lyceum created no
small stir.

In 1852 the graduates of the college organized an alumnæ association,
which is claimed to be the first organization of the kind in this
country. The preamble to the constitution adopted by this body begins
thus:

“The undersigned, graduates of the Wesleyan Female College of
Cincinnati, believing that as educated American women, society and the
world at large have peculiar claims upon them, which they can neither
gainsay nor resist,” etc.

The association at once decided to publish an annual which should
contain only original articles from the pens of its members; and Article
VII. of the constitution says: “The immediate object of this publication
shall be to afford an opportunity for continued mental effort and
improvement to members; and its ultimate aim shall be the elevation of
woman,” Rachel L. Bodley, so long dean of the Woman’s Medical College in
Philadelphia, was one of the original members of this association.

The professions, claims, and efforts above indicated, probably show the
high-water mark of educational aspiration of women in the West in and
before the middle of this century.

The college drew students from all parts of the country, and from
Canada; and, at one time, according to one of its historians, there were
in attendance upon it “representatives from every State in the Union,
excepting New Hampshire, Delaware, North Carolina, and Florida.”

At one time this college enrolled nearly five hundred students; but, as
seminaries and colleges for women have multiplied throughout the region
from which it drew its patronage, and especially as more richly endowed
colleges which were established for men have opened their doors to
women, its numbers have diminished and its influence has waned. But such
a past should compel its alumnæ and its friends to give it an endowment,
a course of study, and a corps of instructors that shall make it the
peer of its strongest young sisters.[10]

There is a function for the true woman’s college which the
co-educational college does not and as yet cannot perform. To get one’s
college education in an institution which admits only women, and to
enjoy some years of post-graduate work in a co-educational university,
is the ideal of opportunity now cherished by some most careful and
intelligent parents and by some ambitious young women. It is possible
that provision for satisfying the first half of this ideal is held in
germ by some or all of the thirty colleges for women only, now existing
in the West.

CO-EDUCATION IN THE WEST.

That in the Western States and Territories, the higher education of
women is generally identical with co-education is indicated, as has been
previously suggested, by the following facts:

1. Of 212 institutions in the West, exclusive of colleges of agriculture
and the mechanic arts, which afford the higher culture to women, 165 are
co-educational.

2. Of the 5563 women reported to the Bureau of Education in 1887–88 as
students in the collegiate courses of these institutions, 4392 were in
the co-educational colleges.

3. In the twenty-one States and Territories which boast 165
co-educational colleges and 47 colleges for the separate education of
women, 30 of which are authorized to confer regular degrees, there are
but 25 colleges devoted to the exclusive education of men.

4. Of these 25 (devoted to the exclusive education of men,) not one is
non-sectarian, and they are all supported by the Roman Catholic, the
Protestant Episcopal, the Lutheran, or the Presbyterian denomination. In
several of the States most conspicuous for zeal in the cause of the
higher education, as in Michigan, Iowa, and Kansas, not one college for
the exclusive education of men exists.

These facts support the statement that the West is committed to
co-education, excepting only the Roman Catholic, the Lutheran, and the
Protestant Episcopal sects,—which are not yet, as sects, committed to
the collegiate education of women at all,—and the Presbyterian sect,
whose support, in the West, of 14 co-educational colleges against 4 for
the separate education of young men, almost commits it to the
co-educational idea.

How has this triumph of the higher co-education been achieved? How is
the system regarded by the community in which it is established? What
are its social effects and tendencies? What are its defects and
limitations? These are the inquiries which next present themselves.

Of the 165 co-educational colleges under consideration, a few, like
Ripon College, Wisconsin, were founded for women and subsequently
admitted young men; a larger number have admitted both men and women
from the date of their opening; these, with a few notable exceptions,
like Oberlin College in Ohio, and Lawrence University in Wisconsin, are
of recent origin, with charters dating from periods since 1860. The
great proportion of the entire number were founded for the exclusive
education of men, and have, one after another, yielded a participation
in their benefits to women since 1860.[11]

To tell in detail the story of the struggles which have ended in the
admission of women into each of these institutions would be quite
impossible; if possible, it would, for general purposes, be quite
unprofitable, since the principles involved have in all cases been the
same. The same arguments, pro and con, have been advanced in every
contest, the illustrations and modes of application being modified in
each by local conditions and circumstances. Local history should
preserve a record of such modifications of the argument and its
application, together with the names of those persons who were
conspicuous in the contest; but the purposes of general history do not
require this, and the discrepancy between the extent of territory and
the number of pages assigned to this chapter does not permit it.

In Ohio, the oldest of the Western States, the higher education of women
first became a question; and in connection with its various institutions
every aspect of the question has been exhibited. Moreover, as the oldest
of the group, the example of Ohio has exerted a marked influence upon
the other Western States. These facts justify the discussion of
co-education in connection with Ohio colleges.

No institution has been more frequently cited in discussions of
co-education than Oberlin; and perhaps the attitude of no other has been
so persistently misunderstood. In reading numerous discussions incident
to opening men’s colleges in other States to women, one finds it implied
and asserted that “Oberlin was founded to give to women the same
educational advantages enjoyed by men.”

Sketches and histories of Oberlin College, sermons, addresses, and
letters, explanatory of its aims and policy, are numerous and
accessible; and if these authoritative documents agree upon any one
point it is in showing that Oberlin was not “founded to give to women
the same educational advantages enjoyed by men”; that at the outset the
intention to do this was not entertained by her founders; that such form
of collegiate co-education as Oberlin now offers has been developed
gradually; and, finally, that co-education at Oberlin to-day differs in
many essential respects from the co-education to be found in our State
Universities.

Let the following facts sustain these statements:

1. It was as “Oberlin Collegiate Institute” that Oberlin began its work
in 1833, and the name of “Oberlin College” was not taken until 1850.

2. The original plan included a “female department,” under the
supervision of a lady, where “instruction in the useful branches taught
in the best female seminaries” could be obtained; the circular setting
forth the plan also says: “The higher classes of the female department
will also be permitted to enjoy the privileges of such professorships in
the teachers’, collegiate and theological departments as shall best suit
their sex and prospective employment.”

3. This “female department” contemplated a separate building, and
separate classes in which women should pursue merely academic studies.
But this department was never formed, according to the original plan,
because at first poverty prevented the erection of a separate school
building; and because, in the beginning, there were only high school
classes, into which, for economy and convenience, young men and women
were together admitted with no thought whatever of their ultimately
entering collegiate classes together.

4. In lieu of the anticipated “female department,” a “ladies’ course,”
was provided and maintained until 1875. This course demanded no Greek
and but two years of Latin, and, according to its present president,
required only “a year more time than is devoted to study in the best
female seminaries.”

5. Separate classes were organized for ladies in essay-writing until the
commencement of the junior year, when they were admitted to the regular
college class; their work was still limited to writing and reading, none
of the ladies having any practice in speaking.

6. At the present time the “literary course,” under the department of
philosophy and arts, takes the place of the former “ladies’ course.”

7. In 1837, four ladies, having prepared themselves to enter the
freshman class of the collegiate department, were admitted on their own
petition; since then ladies have been received into all the college
classes excepting those of the theological department, which has never
been open to ladies as regular members, though at one time two ladies
“attended all the exercises of this department through a three years’
course, and were entered upon the annual catalogue as resident graduates
pursuing the ‘theological course.’” So long as the “ladies’ course”
continued, the apparent expectation of the college was that a majority
of ladies would take that course. The influence of the college was
apparently exerted in that direction, and with such effect that the
number of ladies graduating from the “ladies’ course” was, to the number
graduating from the “college course,” nearly as five to one.

8. That the present “literary course” in the department of philosophy
and arts is practically the same as the original “ladies’ course,” will
be seen by comparing the lists of subjects upon which candidates for
entrance into each must be examined, and also by considering the scheme
of study followed in the “literary course,” as presented in the
catalogue, for 1888–89. This view is further sustained by the fact that
in 1888–89, 175 ladies and 3 gentlemen were registered in this course.

9. The latest catalogue states that: “Young women in all the departments
of study are under the supervision of the principal of the ladies’
department and the care of the ladies’ board. They are required to be in
their rooms after eight o’clock in the evening during the spring and
summer months, and after half past seven during the fall and winter
months.

“Every young woman is required to present, once in two weeks, a written
report of her observance and her failure in the observance of the
regulations of the department, signed by the matron of the family in
which she boards.”

The catalogue in another connection says: “In addition to lectures
announced in the course of study, practical lectures on general habits,
methods of study, and other important subjects, are delivered once in
two weeks to the young women by the principal of the ladies’ department,
and _to the young men of the preparatory schools_ (the italics are my
own), by the principals of these schools.”

The regulations here cited may be admirable, and highly advantageous to
those whom they affect. It may be matter of regret that the young men
are not given similar supervision, and that the “practical lectures on
general habits,” etc., to which women in all departments are required to
listen, are, in the case of young men, limited to those of the
preparatory schools. The propriety and value of these requirements is,
however, not the subject of discussion. They are referred to here only
because they illustrate the difference between the methods of Oberlin
and the methods of what is popularly understood by the term
“co-educational college.” Because, indeed, taken in connection with the
preceding eight points, they show that while Oberlin is largely
co-instructional, it is also largely not, in the current sense of the
term, co-educational at all.

The history and method of co-education at Oberlin, as summed up above,
proves the truth of what the presidents and professors of Oberlin have
said in one and another form again and again: viz., that co-education
there did not originate in any radically new idea of the sphere and work
of women; nor in any conscious purpose to do justice to woman as an
individual.

Oberlin originated in religious zeal. As a high school, it admitted
women because of the great need of educated women who could serve their
own country as teachers, or foreign countries as missionaries or
missionaries’ wives; women were, upon their own petition, suffered to
enter the college course by men too just and too logical to deny a
request grounded in justice and reason; but they were not welcomed by
men who saw in this petition the realization of any theory of the mental
equality of the sexes.

The present Oberlin system has been molded slowly by poverty and
resulting economy, by local needs and, partially, too, though
resistingly, by the progressive spirit of the times. It is curious and
interesting that so conservative a college (independently of her own
intention or desire) should have been appealed to as their inspiration,
and cited as their model, by colleges between whom and Oberlin great
dissimilarity exists; but it is true that Oberlin has done more for the
cause of co-education than she could possibly have done had she taken
the attitude of a propagandist. Probably no college for men has opened
its doors to women in the last thirty years without first consulting
Oberlin’s experience. The Oberlin authorities have always unhesitatingly
testified to the success of the Oberlin plan; almost always the
testimony of these witnesses has indicated their conviction that the
Oberlin plan, being the outgrowth of peculiar conditions, would not be
certain to flourish if transplanted; and this moderation, this abatement
of enthusiastic advocacy, has given the testimony of Oberlin men
incomparable weight during this controversy in the West.

In 1853, Antioch College was opened at Yellow Springs, O. It was
the first endeavor in the West to found a college under Christian
but non-sectarian auspices. Its president, Horace Mann, wrote of
it: “Antioch is now the only first-class college in all the West
that is really an unsectarian institution. There are, it is true,
some State institutions which profess to be free from proselyting
instrumentalities; but I believe without exception they are all
under control of men who hold as truth something which they have
prejudged to be true.”

This fact has a distinct bearing on co-education, and it is curious to
observe that even this most non-sectarian of colleges provided by
charter that two thirds of the trustees and two thirds of the faculty
should belong to the “Christian Connection”; a body of people who, by
separating themselves from the sects, had really become a new sect.

The opening of this college under so distinguished an educator as Mr.
Mann, gave a new _impulse_ to higher education throughout the West.
Antioch was from the first avowedly co-educational; this was demanded by
the liberality of the Christian thought by which it was supported. But
the best friends of the higher education of women, even Mr. Mann
himself, regarded this feature of the new college with suspicion, if not
with aversion. How serious the objection that marriages might grow out
of the intimacies of college life was considered, may be inferred from
the fact that Mr. Mann discussed it in his inaugural address; and from
the passage of a by-law providing that marriages should not take place
between students while retaining their connection with the college. At
one time Mr. Mann advised against co-education on this ground.

The effect that his experience with a co-educational institution
produced upon Mr. Mann’s own opinion has been frequently urged as a
strong argument in the behalf of co-education.

In view of the probable necessity of closing the college, Mr. Mann
wrote: “One of the most grievous of my regrets at this sad prospect is
the apprehension that the experiment (as the world will still call it)
of educating the sexes together will be suddenly interrupted, to be
revived only in some indefinite future.”

In his baccalaureate address of 1859, there occurs a passionate
paragraph expressing Mr. Mann’s longing to do more and better than he
had done for the higher education of women, which shows that he had
found women at Antioch worthy of their opportunities.

Women were not only received as students at Antioch, but also, in the
beginning, were included in the faculty. These facts, especially the
latter, excited marked attention, and, notwithstanding the disasters
which interrupted the work of Antioch, and the poverty which has kept it
a small college, the fame of Horace Mann, inseparably connected with its
history, has made its influence in behalf of co-education potent.

OPENING WEDGES.

The conditions of pioneer life are favorable to co-education. The
exigencies incident to life in a new country destroy certain barriers
between men and women which are fixed in old and settled communities.
The women in a pioneer settlement not infrequently join in labors in
which, under more settled conditions, they would never be called to
participate. Many women in the West have assisted their husbands and
fathers in the field, the office, and the shop, simply because hired
male labor was unattainable. On the other hand, men in pioneer homes
assist their wives in household labors, because domestic help cannot be
found. In the organization of churches, schools, and Sunday-schools, the
sparseness of the population compels men to divide the work with women.
Thus, without intention on the part of either men or women, they become
used to working together in many unaccustomed ways; and the idea of
going to college together does not seem so unnatural as in older
communities, where traditions of long standing have separated men and
women in their occupations.

The almost universal connection of preparatory departments with colleges
in the West is properly deplored; but the “preparatory” has been a
stepping-stone to co-education. In their origin the Western colleges
found it necessary to maintain preparatory schools in order to obtain
any college classes. This is illustrated by the experience of Antioch.
Out of 150 students who applied for admission to that college in 1853,
but 8 were able to pass the examinations for admission to the freshman
class, meager as were the requirements. These 8 included men and women,
married and single. The older colleges in this new country have a
similar chapter in their history. There were few high schools, and the
course of study of those was narrow. To have students, each college was
compelled to prepare them. The preparatory department in a college town
did the work of the present high school; it was very natural that the
residents of those towns should desire to send both their sons and
daughters to the “preparatory,” which was usually, perhaps always, the
best school accessible to them. This desire, however, gave no forecast
of a desire to send both to the college later on. Sometimes the
“preparatory” was not provided with a separate building, but its work
was done in some room or rooms of the college building proper. The
preparatory course finished, some bright girl would wish to go forward
with her class into college work; she could not enter the class
formally, but “if the professor was willing” she could attend lectures
in this or the other subject; in many college towns there are
middle-aged and elderly women who, as young girls, with the tacit
consent of parents and college instructors, thus obtained the larger
part of a college education. They had no formal recognition from any
one; their names appeared in no catalogues, but they acquired
substantial benefits. The present permitted but unacknowledged presence
of women at Leipzig and other universities on the Continent, was thus
antedated in the West.

Occasionally one of these students, spurred by what she considered the
demands of her self-respect, made formal application for regular
admission to the college; and not a few of our Western colleges became
co-educational by these natural, easy, and noiseless approaches.

The manner in which the desire of one woman for a college education has
transformed a men’s into a co-educational college, is illustrated in the
history of the State University of Indiana. Miss Sarah P. Morrison
wished to enter college, and began agitating the question of opening the
State University to women. Mr. Isaac Jenkinson of Richmond, Ind., tells
the whole pregnant story thus briefly. He writes me:

“I was a member of the board of trustees in 1866, when Miss Morrison’s
appeal was made to the trustees. (Miss Morrison had for several years
been agitating the question among her friends.) I at once offered a
resolution admitting young women on equal terms with young men, but I
had no support whatever in the board at that time; at a following
session the same year, my resolution was adopted by a vote of 4 in
favor, to 3 against it.”

Many colleges in the West had from the beginning a “female course” much
like the “ladies’ course” at Oberlin. This course was, like the
preparatory department, a way of approach for the more ambitious. The
story of one is, with a change of names, the story of many such
colleges. The following from “A Report on the Position of Women in
Industries and Education in the State of Indiana,”[12] illustrates the
function of the “ladies course” in facilitating co-education.

“Butler University at Irvington, Ind., founded in 1855, admitted women
as students from the outset, but at first only into what was denominated
its female course. In its laudable endeavor to adapt its requirements to
an intermediate class of beings, the university, in its ‘female course’
substituted music for mathematics and French for Greek. Few young women
availed themselves of this ‘course’ and it was utterly repudiated by
Demia Butler, a daughter of Ovid Butler, the founder of the university,
and a gentleman of most enlightened views concerning woman’s place in
life. Miss Butler, upon her own petition, indorsed by her father,
entered the university in 1858, and graduated from what was then known
as the ‘male course’ in 1862. From that time the ‘female course’ became
less popular, and in 1864 was formally discontinued.”

The normal class was another of the steps toward co-education. In the
middle of this century it was not uncommon for special short terms of
instruction for teachers to be held during the fall or spring vacations
of the common schools. To secure the advantage of good lecture rooms and
appliances, and also to secure the aid of distinguished professors, the
State Superintendent of Public Instruction would obtain permission to
hold his normal class at the State university; or for similar reasons a
county Superintendent would hold such a school for the teachers within
his jurisdiction, in a college town. In these “normal schools,” having
no formal or permanent relation with the college at which they were
held, one sees the origin in many colleges of their present “departments
of the theory and practice of elementary instruction.”

From the earliest settlement of the West women taught the district
schools in the summer, and the work of elementary instruction fell
naturally more and more into their hands, until it was, during the war
of 1861–5, almost monopolized by them. Necessarily, when the “normal
classes” were organized, women entered and sometimes exclusively
composed them. After the normal class had transcended its original
limits of four or six weeks, and had developed into a “normal
department,” women still, in part or in whole, constituted it. Lectures
were always being delivered in other departments of the college which
would be beneficial to the students in the normal department, whose
members were, therefore, gradually admitted to one privilege after
another, until at last the college awakened to a consciousness that it
had no reserves.

More State universities than denominational colleges have been entered
by women _viâ_ the “normal class,” though many of the latter have been
opened by the same insidious influence. So far as the State university
was concerned, the end must have been seen from the beginning by all
clear-sighted people.

The State university, like the common school, is supported at public
expense, and free to the children of the State, who pass into it from
the common school. What more natural indeed, more necessary, than that
the teachers who are to prepare the boys for the university shall know,
by their own experience in it as students, what the requirements of the
university are? In illustration of this view, the steps by which
co-education was attained in the universities of Wisconsin and Missouri
are briefly indicated.

In the spring of 1860 a ten weeks’ course of lectures was given at the
University of Wisconsin, to a “normal class” of fifty-nine, of whom
thirty were ladies. In the spring of 1863 a “normal department” was
opened, which was at once entered by seventy-six ladies. At this time
the Regents announced that the lectures in the university proper upon
chemistry, geology, botany, mechanical philosophy, and English
literature would be free to the “normal” students.

Conditions at the close of the war demanded a reorganization of the
university. This was effected in 1866, and Section Fourth of the Act
under which the university was reconstructed, says: “The university in
all its departments and colleges shall be open alike to male and female
students.”

However, the Regents were obliged to ask the State to recede from this
broad statement of co-education, and the next year the Legislature
amended the charter upon this point as follows: “The university shall be
open to female as well as to male students under such regulations and
restrictions as the Board of Regents may deem proper.” The charter was
thus amended because Dr. Chadbourne, to whom the presidency had been
offered, had refused it on the ground that he feared that this
innovation would lose to the university the confidence and support of
the public.

Up to 1868 the ladies pursued the course which had been laid down for
the “normal department.” This course, limited to three years, was now
enlarged to four.

Until 1871 the recitations of the young women were separate from those
of the young men. In that year, the number of professors and instructors
being insufficient to carry on separate classes, the young women were
permitted at their option to enter the regular college classes. In 1875
the president reported that “for the first time women have been put, in
all respects, on precisely the same footing, in the university, with
young men.”

The year 1875 does not date the end of the contest in Wisconsin, but it
dates the last incident pertinent to this part of the discussion, the
object of which is to show the relation between the “normal class” and
co-education.

In Missouri, State university co-education was reached by similar steps.
A “normal class” was organized for women, who were next invited into the
“normal department,” which was originally open to men only. Then the
women were admitted to such lectures in the university proper as were
thought to have a special value for them as teachers. They were next
invited to attend chapel, but at first only as silent witnesses to the
worship of the male students; later they were solicited to join in the
services of song and prayer; and finally, in 1870, they were admitted to
the university on the same conditions with young men.

In the early years, denominational effort was on double lines; wherever
it founded a college for men, soon, in its nearer or more remote
vicinity, it established a “female seminary” or “ladies’ institute.”
Generally the ladies’ school was unsupplied with books, apparatus, or
cabinets; it often happened that an ambitious instructor sought and
obtained occasional permission to use the laboratory and the museum of
the college for the benefit of her pupils, and to draw books for them
from the college library. Sometimes, when a college professor was about
to perform experiments of especial interest before his classes, the
young ladies of the neighboring “seminary” would be invited, under
escort of their instructors, to witness them.

Usually the college maintained a lecture course, the benefits of which
were open to the seminary students. Unless the frivolous conduct of some
college youth and seminary maiden excited a scandal which terminated
such neighborly offices (a calamity that alone still withholds two or
three colleges from becoming co-educational), these friendly relations
were strengthened from year to year, and in many instances have resulted
in a reorganization by which the seminary has become a woman’s college
and an equal component part of the university which has been formed by
its union with the college for men.

This process of building up a co-educational institution is illustrated
in the history of the Northwestern University, at Evanston, Ill.

In reading current college history as presented in catalogues, college
papers, and the general press, it is very interesting to observe how
certain departures from ancient standards of college study have aided
co-education. The cry for the “practical” and the answer which colleges
have made to this cry, by offering their scientific courses, may be
named as one of these. The average person thinks of practical as a
synonym for _useful_. One opinion in which all men agree (the most
conservative with the most radical) is, that women should be useful. In
connection with education the average man thinks that “scientific” is
also a synonym for “practical.” The conviction that such a scientific,
practical course of study will enlarge a woman’s capacity for daily
usefulness has sent many a young woman to a college where such courses
of study were offered, who would not have been permitted to go to the
college which offered only the inflexible course of classics and
mathematics. The modern classical course, which permits the substitution
of French and German for Greek is, on similar grounds, favorable to
co-education.

The elective system has silenced a host of objectors to co-education.
All people who entertain vague notions that women are intuitional
creatures, that their perceptions are quicker, but their reflective
powers less developed than those of men, and who hold the consequent
conviction that women cannot so well conform to prescribed lines of
study, all of this class are reconciled to co-education by the elective
system. The following quotation supports this view. A father writes: “My
daughter has entered Michigan University. Under the old régime I should
not have permitted it, for I do not believe in a woman’s undertaking a
man’s work; but under the elective system she can take what she likes,
can take just what she would in a woman’s college, in short; and as all
of the professors are men, the subjects will be much better taught.”
This letter is written by an intelligent but rather old-fashioned
gentleman, and the sentiments here expressed and implied concerning the
elective system are entertained by a still numerous class.

The influence of the introduction of co-education at State universities
upon the policy of smaller colleges has been irresistible.

Although, as has been shown, State universities did not take the
initiative in co-education, the influence of the admission of women into
such universities as those of Michigan and Wisconsin, has secured a
similar change of policy in a large number of denominational and smaller
non-sectarian colleges, founded for men only.

Appendix B., Table II., will show the relative number of colleges opened
to women prior and subsequent to 1870, the year of the admission of
women into Michigan University.

GENERAL ARGUMENT.

On the appearance of Dr. Clarke’s book, “Sex in Education,” in 1873, the
controversy, which up to that time had been limited to the localities
where co-education was being introduced, at once became general. For the
next ten years this subject was discussed in the press, in the pulpit,
in meetings of medical societies, and on the platform. In a large
collection of old programs there is proof that every phase of the
question was considered by all kinds of organizations of teachers, from
national conventions to township institutes. Young teachers advanced
their opinions, old teachers recited their experience, and the press
everywhere gave the widest publicity to these discussions. At the end of
a decade the public mind had fully expressed, and, through expressing,
had gradually formed its opinion, which was in general favorable to
co-education. In 1883 the whole question was opened in a new form by the
attempt to exclude women from Adelbert College of Western Reserve
University, which had already been open to them for twelve years.

Every reason which had formerly been urged against the admission of
women was now offered for their exclusion. The peculiar origin of the
discussion and the able and gallant defense of the rights of the women
already enrolled in its classes which was made by Dr. Carroll Cutler,
the president of Adelbert, attracted wide notice, and the arguments, pro
and con, were reviewed by the press of the country.

Dr. Cutler wrote to the authorities of all the principal co-educational
colleges, for the results of their experience. The courtesy of Dr.
Cutler makes this voluminous correspondence available for this chapter.

Stated briefly and in the chronological order of their development, the
arguments against co-education are as follows:

_a._ Women are mentally inferior to men, and therefore their presence in
a college will inevitably lower the standard of its scholarship.

_b._ The physical constitution of women makes it impossible for them to
endure the strain of severe mental effort. If admitted to college they
will maintain their position and keep pace with men only at the
sacrifice of their health.

_c._ The presence of women in college will result in vitiating the
manners, if not the morals, of both men and women; the men will become
effeminate and weak, the women coarse and masculine.

_d._ If women are admitted to college, their presence will arouse the
emotional natures of the men, will distract the minds of the latter from
college work, and will give opportunity for scandal.

_e._ The intimacies of college life will result in premature marriages.

_f._ Young men do not approve of the collegiate education of women; they
dislike to enter into competition with women, and if the latter are
admitted to our colleges it will result in the loss of male students,
who will seek in colleges limited to their own sex, the social life
which cannot be furnished by a co-educational institution.

_g._ A collegiate education not only does not prepare a woman for the
domestic relations and duties for which she is designed, but actually
unfits her for them.

_h._ Colleges were originally intended for men only, and the wills of
their founders and benefactors will be violated by the admission of
women.

_i._ Whatever the real mental capacity or physical ability of women, so
fixed is the world’s conviction of their inferiority, that colleges
admitting them will inevitably forfeit the world’s confidence and
respect.

This chapter affords no space for the _à priori_ arguments which answer
these objections; and indeed the best answer to all objections against
co-education is found in its result. Let the following letters testify
to the fruits of experience. Extract from a letter from James B. Angell,
president of the University of Michigan, dated September 2, 1884:

“Women were admitted here (Michigan University) under the pressure of
public sentiment, against the wishes of most of the professors; but I
think no professor now regrets it, or would favor their exclusion. The
way had been well prepared. Denominational colleges had for years
admitted women; and in the high schools, which are our preparatory
schools, it was the universal custom to teach both sexes. Most of the
evils feared by those who opposed the admission of women have not been
encountered.

“We made no solitary modification of our rules or requirements. The
women did not become hoydenish; they did not fail in their studies; they
did not break down in health; they have graduated in all departments;
they have not been inferior in scholarship to the men; the careers of
our women graduates have been, on the whole, very satisfactory. They are
teachers in many of our best high schools; six or seven are in the
Wellesley College faculty.”[13]

Extract from a letter from Moses Coit Tyler, dated at Cornell
University, September 30, 1884:

“I was connected with the University of Michigan before the advent of
women there; was present during the process of their introduction; for
several years afterward watched the results; and am now entering on my
fourth year here at a co-educational university. And now, after all
these years, upon my word, I cannot recall a fact which furnishes a
single valid objection to the system; while the real utility,
convenience, and wholesomeness of it have so long been before my eyes,
that I am startled by your letter as implying that anybody still has any
doubt about it.... I do not know a member of the faculty either at
Michigan or here who would favor a return to the old plan, although,
before the adoption of the new one, many were anxiously opposed to it.
My observation has been that under the joint system the tone of college
life has grown more earnest, more courteous and refined, less flippant
and cynical. The women are usually among the very best scholars, and
lead instead of drag; and their lapses from good health are rather (yes,
decidedly) less numerous than those alleged by men. There is a sort of
young man who thinks it is not quite the thing, you know, to be in
college where women are, and he goes away, if he can, and I am glad to
have him do so. The vacuum he causes by his departure is not a large
one, and is more than made up by the arrival, in his stead, of a more
robust and a manlier sort.”

Extracts from two letters written by the Hon. Andrew D. White while
president of Cornell University, and bearing dates respectively of
August 5, 1884, and October 25, 1884:

“My own opinion is that all the good results we anticipated, and some we
did not anticipate, have followed the admission of young women; on the
other hand, not one of the prophesied evils, unless possibly some young
men may have imbibed a prejudice against the university from the
presence of young women, and so have gone elsewhere. This, of course, we
can hardly determine. I have never thought the admission of women
injured us to any appreciable extent, even in this matter. Scholarship
has certainly not been injured in the slightest degree, while order has
been improved.... There have been no scandals. Hardly any attachments
have ever grown up between the students of the two sexes.... The best
scholars are, almost without exception, men; but there is a far larger
proportion of young women than of young men who become good scholars.
Having now gone through one more year, making twelve in all since women
were admitted, I do not hesitate to say that I believe their presence
here good for us in every respect. There has not been a particle of
scandal of any sort. As to the relations between the sexes, they give us
no uneasiness.”

Extract from a letter written by John Bascom, then president of the
University of Wisconsin, dated August 20, 1884:

“Co-education is with us wholly successful. There is no difference of
opinion concerning it, either in our faculty or our board. We find no
additional difficulty in discipline; our young women do good work, and
the progress of our young men is in no way impeded. It does not seem to
us to be any longer an open question.

“I believe the character of both young men and women is helped, though
the results in this particular are difficult of proof. The advantages of
the system are manifold; the evils are none. We have ceased to think
about its fitness save as questions from abroad redirect our attention
to it.”

Extract from a letter by Joseph Cummings, president of Northwestern
University:

“The effect of co-education in this institution, upon the manners and
morals of both men and women, is only good. The history of co-education
shows that men and women trained under its influence are less open to
temptations of the passions than are those trained in separate
institutions.

“Women are less inclined to pursue long courses of study, but the
average scholarship of those who do persevere and graduate is higher
than that of the men; and women here do not retard the progress of men.”

In more than 200 letters from presidents and professors in
co-educational colleges, a part of which were written during the
Adelbert College controversy, and a larger part of which have been
received by the writer of this chapter within the last three months,
there is not one which does not give testimony to the value of the
system, similar to that above quoted.

I have chosen to quote from letters written in 1884 because the
controversy then pending impelled the writers to a fuller and more
specific statement of their experience than would be elicited by a
series of questions propounded at this date. It is only necessary to add
that in every instance letters dated in 1889 or 1890 fully accord with
those written in 1883 and 1884.

Presidents Angell, White, Bascom, and Cummings, and Professor Tyler are
quoted because of their distinguished reputation as educators, because
their experience has been in institutions universally acknowledged to
rank among the highest in our country, and because, as no one of them
has ever taken the position of an apostle of co-education, their words
will be received as the testimony of witnesses, and not as the pleadings
of advocates.

THE SOCIAL EFFECTS AND TENDENCIES OF CO-EDUCATION.

But few of all the 165 colleges in the West now open to men and women
have compiled statistics which present the records of their graduates,
prior or subsequent to the admission of women, in reference to health,
domestic state, occupation, social position, official place, financial
or other form of success. Perhaps the most important and successful
attempt to obtain such statistics is that made by the Association of
Collegiate Alumnæ, whose inquiries were limited to the women who had
graduated from the small number of institutions for either separate or
joint education, admitted to that association.

These statistics, of course, relate to women only; and, moreover, they
are too incomplete to establish any general law; but they do permit the
inference that college life confirms and improves the health of women;
and that it does not disincline them to matrimony, or render them averse
to or incapable of maternity and its consequent duties. In the absence
of statistical data one can only consider the probabilities.

That a general impression that women were intellectually inferior to men
formerly prevailed cannot be disputed.

If their work in co-educational colleges has (as, according to the
testimony of their instructors, is the case) been, on an average, better
than that of their male classmates, the young men who for four years
have witnessed daily this exhibition of an intellectual vigor and
interest equal to their own, will not be likely to entertain the
doctrine of women’s natural and therefore necessary inferiority. The
minds of the women in these colleges will be correspondingly affected;
they will acquire a respect for themselves and for their sex greater
than was formerly characteristic of women.

The intellectual association of men and women on a plane of accepted
equality, begun in college, will continue after leaving it, and will
modify the social life of every circle into which graduates of
co-educational colleges enter.

These inferred effects of co-education are already visible in Western
communities. Visitors from the Eastern States, and from over the sea,
comment upon the relative absence of prudery among women and of false
gallantry among men; they notice that sentimentality and condescension
on the one hand, and affectation and soft flatteries on the other, are,
to a degree, superseded by a mutual good understanding and respect.

Literary clubs, associations for the promotion of art and science, and
committees engaged in philanthropy, are frequently composed of men and
women; and the offices in these organizations are distributed between
the two sexes in proportion to their respective representation in the
membership. In communities where there are many graduates from
co-educational colleges, one finds that societies of the kind above
referred to have passed that transition state of mixed clubs, in which
men always held the offices of president, secretary, and treasurer,
while women held those of vice-president and corresponding secretary.

Men who have studied with women in college, almost invariably favor
their admission to county and State, medical, legal, and editorial
associations; and thus we already see that co-education prepares society
to give women welcome and patronage in business and professional life.

The growth of this cordial recognition of equality, this _bonhomie_, has
not, as it was feared would be the case, been accompanied by the
decadence of man’s reverence for womanhood and woman’s admiration for
manliness. Shrewd observers testify that both these sentiments
apparently survive intellectual acquaintance, competition, and
partnership; and that the former is expressed with more simplicity and
the latter with more frankness than formerly, or than is still usual in
sections of the country where co-education does not so generally exist.

But it is too soon for the final word on this subject to be spoken.
Statisticians, sociologists, and novelists have much new work to do in
recording the social consequences of co-education.

DEFECTS AND LIMITATIONS IN THE SYSTEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION FOR WOMEN IN
THE WEST.

The ideal of higher education in the West suffers from an habitual
exaggeration of speech. Nothing is more conducive to clear and accurate
thinking than a strictly accurate vocabulary. The custom of calling
institutions which do only secondary work—some of which offer a limited
course of even this work—colleges, and of naming colleges universities,
tends to mislead and confuse the public mind as to the distinctions
between the different kinds of institutions and as to the essential
character of each. The inhabitants of the West find their defense for
this custom of giving things disproportionate names in the general
vastness of their surroundings and in the consequent vastness of their
plans and hopes. One of the simplest and surest remedies for the vague
and contradictory notions now suggested in the phrase higher education,
may be found in giving to every institution of learning a name that
frankly implies the limit of its work; and every institution would gain
in dignity through this nomenclature.

Nominal honors are too easy in Western institutions; and the conditions
upon which different institutions confer them are so various that they
have ceased to convey any fixed notion of the kind and amount of
intellectual discipline which those bearing them have received.

The remedies for this are to be found in some concerted action among the
colleges by which they will agree upon minimum requirements for
admission to any one of them. The minimum adopted by the Association of
Collegiate Alumnæ might answer this purpose. This would tend, not only
to unify but also to raise the average requirements for admission to
college, and this in turn would enable secondary schools to maintain a
higher standard than is at present common.

As almost all colleges arrange their courses of study to occupy four
years, unifying and raising the conditions of entrance would result in
unifying and raising the requirements for graduation in the various
courses; and this would tend to give to B.A., B.S., and B.L. an
intelligible and honorable significance, long since lost. Legislative
action could be taken in the different States, at least with reference
to new colleges as they shall be founded, limiting the authority to
confer degrees to those institutions adopting these improved minimum
requirements; this would elevate the public ideal of the higher
education and tend to save our young people from being betrayed by words
and alphabetical combinations.

The defects above indicated should be frankly admitted to exist, but
they are less universal and less disastrous than people living in the
Eastern States are disposed to consider them.

A large number of the professorships in Western colleges are filled by
men educated in Eastern institutions, who, after graduating from
Harvard, Yale, Princeton or some other college which receives only young
men, taught in Eastern colleges for either men or women separately
before entering into their present connection with some one of our
co-educational colleges. The experience of such men and their natural
prejudice in behalf of early associations makes their favorable
testimony to the merit of Western colleges particularly valuable.

The following extract from a letter from J. W. Bashford, of the Ohio
Wesleyan University, is a very moderate statement of views expressed by
many of my correspondents. He says: “Four women came to our university
during the last two weeks of the term last spring, and afterward visited
the leading colleges for women in New England. After personally
inspecting the advantages for education for their daughters in the East
and in the West, each of the four women decided in favor of co-education
and of our university; each came with her daughter and entered her among
our students at the opening of our university this year. Belonging to
the East myself, I have a very high idea of the work done in our Eastern
colleges, and personally do not hold that we can give students superior
scholastic advantages, or in some respects equal scholastic advantages
to those enjoyed in our best Eastern colleges. There is, however, a
greater spirit of earnestness, and possibly a more strongly developed
type of manhood and womanhood among our Western students than can be
found in our Eastern colleges.”

The cause of higher education for women suffers from the fact that life
offers fewer incentives to young women than to young men.

Dr. Smart, the President of Purdue University, and Dr. Jordan, the
President of the Indiana State University, men of distinction in their
profession, and well acquainted with educational questions, both say
that the need of the young women in their respective institutions is
that of sufficient incentive. The highest of all incentives,
self-development and the possession of culture, appeals as directly to
young women as to young men, and not less strongly; but this highest of
incentives is sufficient for only the highest order of minds; and in the
case of the average young person of either sex, must be reinforced by
incentives more immediate and tangible. In this connection the need of
improving the normal schools may be legitimately discussed. The normal
school has done much to lift the occupation of teaching into the rank of
the professions; but teaching can never be accounted one of the learned
professions until the learning which is generally considered requisite
in the doctor, the lawyer, and the clergyman is demanded in the teacher.
It is quite true that the education implied by a full college course is
not made a condition of entrance to schools of medicine, law, and
theology; but if such preliminary culture is not demanded by these
schools, it is expected by them. On the contrary, it is not only not
demanded, but not expected, that applicants for admission to a normal
school shall present a degree from some reputable college of liberal
arts.

The professions which a majority of ambitious young men with
intellectual tastes expect to enter, offer incentives to do preliminary
college work; the one profession into which young women may enter with
undisputed propriety not only does not offer incentives for taking a
preliminary college course, but by its entrance requirements and its
curriculum implies that such a course is not requisite.

Now that State universities are the direct continuance of the high
schools, it would seem desirable that at least those teachers who expect
to engage in high school work should have taken the courses of study
implied by a college degree. Could the standard of normal school
instruction and of high school preparation be thus lifted, it would act
as a powerful incentive to young women.

The growth of progressive thought in the West, concerning the social and
civil position and the industrial and professional freedom of woman,
tends to supply women with incentives to obtain the best education: and
the defects in their education hitherto caused by the absence of
incentive, promise to be remedied with increasing rapidity.

The colleges, particularly the State universities of the West, are
charged with being defective in their provisions for the development and
culture of the social qualities of their students. Many of them have no
dormitories, and the students upon entering them, women and men alike,
go into boarding-houses or private families, or form co-operative
boarding clubs, according to their own tastes and under conditions of
their own making.

If in these universities students were received for post graduate work
only, no criticism could attach to this custom of leaving every student
to regulate his or her own domestic and social affairs, for such
students are usually mature men and women. But this custom is open to
criticism in institutions, in all of which the majority, and in most of
which all the students, are undergraduates of immature age.

A study of their latest catalogues shows that, excluding the State
universities, most of these institutions which enjoy more than a local
patronage have erected or are contemplating the erection of dormitories
for the accommodation of the young women in attendance upon them.
Although some colleges, as, for example, the Ohio Wesleyan University,
continue to build dormitories large enough to accommodate one or two
hundred young women, there is a tendency favorable to the erection of
less pretentious buildings under the name of hall or cottage, each of
which shall accommodate from twenty to sixty young women. The refinement
both of college life and of subsequent social life would be enhanced by
the multiplication of these homes for moderate numbers of college
women—if each were put under the charge of a woman whose intellectual
culture, stability, and nobleness of character, and experience of life
and the world, made her the evident and acknowledged peer of every
member of the college faculty. But, if these college homes for women
students are placed under the charge of matrons who are expected to
combine motherly kindness and housewifely skill with devout piety, but
in whom no other qualities or attainments are demanded, and if the
matrons are the only women, besides the students, connected with the
institution, the influence of the college home will tend to lower the
ideal of woman’s function in society; to rob the ideal of domestic life
of all intellectual quality; and in general to diminish for young women
the incentives to study.

Every one knows that the strongest stimulus to exertion that young men
experience in college is afforded by their contact with men whose
cultivated talents, whose sound learning, whose successful experience,
and whose rich characters they admire, venerate, and emulate.

The almost universal absence of women from college faculties is a grave
defect in co-educational institutions; and negatively, at least, their
absence has as injurious an influence upon young men as upon young
women.

Under the most favorable conditions, the college home, in which a large
number of young women are brought into a common life under one roof and
one guidance, is abnormal in its organization. If, in the university
town where young women find homes in boarding-houses or in private
families, there could be a local board of ladies authorized to exercise
some supervision over the young women, the arrangement might secure the
aims of a college home under more natural conditions than the latter now
provides.

But women in the faculty, women on the board of visitors, women on the
board of trustees, holding these positions, not because of their family
connections, not because they are wives or sisters of the men in the
faculty and on the boards, but because of their individual abilities,
are the great present need of co-educational colleges. Only the presence
of women in these places can relieve the young men who are students in
these institutions from an arrogant sense of superiority arising from
their sex, and the young women from a corresponding sense of
subordination.

In a statement of the “Theory of Education in the United States of
America,” prepared by the Hon. Duane Doty and Dr. Wm. T. Harris, the
present Commissioner of Education, we read the following:

“The general participation of all the people in the primary political
functions of election, together with the almost complete localization of
self-government by local administration, renders necessary the education
of all, without distinction of sex, social rank, wealth, or natural
abilities.” Farther: “The national government and the State government
regard education as a proper subject for legislation, on the ground of
the necessity of educated intelligence among a people that is to furnish
_law-abiding_ citizens, well versed in the laws they are to obey, and
likewise _law-making_ citizens, well versed in the social, historic, and
political conditions which give occasion to new laws and shape their
provisions.”

These statements are in perfect accord with the following words of
Washington, quoted from his “Farewell Address to the American People”:
“In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public
opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.”

Here is the whole argument for the existence of State universities. In
the West, these are destined to be the strongest, richest, and best
equipped institutions for the higher learning; and are likewise clearly
destined to have a determining influence upon the policy of other
colleges in respect to co-education.

The “West” remains an indefinite term; and in that part of it which the
word accurately describes, a people will be born who know nothing of
distinctions in opportunity between men and women.

A people reared under such conditions will ultimately exhibit the
influence of the “Higher Education of Women in the West.”

IV.
THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN IN THE SOUTHERN STATES.

CHRISTINE LADD FRANKLIN.

The education of women in the South has suffered from the same cause
which has kept back the education of women all over the world. Woman was
looked upon as merely an adjunct to the real human being, man, and it
was not considered desirable to give her any other education than what
sufficed to make her a good housewife and an agreeable, but not too
critical, companion for her husband. When Dr. Pierce traveled through
Georgia, in 1836–37, to collect funds for establishing the Georgia
Female College, he was met by such blunt refusals as these, from
gentlemen of large means and liberal views as to the education of their
sons: “No, I will not give you a dollar; all that a woman needs to know
is how to read the New Testament, and to spin and weave clothing for her
family”; “I would not have one of your graduates for a wife, and I will
not give you a cent for any such object.” In an address delivered before
the graduating class of the Greenboro Female College of North Carolina
in 1856, the speaker said: “I would have you shun the one [too little
learning] as the plague, and the other [too much] as the leprosy; I
would have you intelligent, useful women ... yet never evincing a
consciousness of superiority, never playing Sir Oracle, never showing
that you supposed yourself born for any other destiny than to be a
‘helpmeet for man.’” An intelligent lady who was educated in the best
schools in Richmond, just before the war, writes me: “If the principal
of the school to which I went had any high views, or any views at all,
about the education of women, I never heard her express them; and I
fancy that, consciously or unconsciously, her object was to make the
girls under her care charming women as far as possible, sufficiently
well read to be responsive and appreciative companions to men.” And this
view of the matter has not yet entirely disappeared, for, in the
catalogue for 1889 of the Norfolk College for Young Ladies, the aims of
the school are said to be molded in accordance with the principle that
“a woman’s province in life is to throw herself heartily into the
pursuits of others rather than to have pursuits of her own.” It is plain
that so long as this view of the function of women prevails they will
have little incentive and little opportunity for undertaking the severe
labors which are the necessary condition of a solid education. The
lighter graces which are supposed to result from a little training in
French and music and from some study of English literature, have for a
long time been accessible to Southern girls, both in schools of their
own and in the numerous private and fashionable schools of Baltimore,
Philadelphia, and New York. When a girl was a member of a thoroughly
cultivated family, she naturally became a cultivated woman; there was
usually a tutor for her brothers, whose instruction she was allowed to
share (the mother of Chancellor Wythe of Virginia taught her son Greek);
and there was usually, either in her own house or in the parsonage, a
large and carefully selected library of English books. If by the right
kind of family influence a girl has been thoroughly penetrated with a
love of books, something has been done for her which, of course, the
regular means of education often fail to produce. The women of New
Orleans, and Charleston, and Richmond were often cultivated women in the
best sense of the word, but of the higher education, as the modern woman
understands it, very little has hitherto existed in the Southern States.

In a long and exhaustive paper on “Colonial Education in South
Carolina,”[14] by Edward McCrady, Jr., absolutely the only mention made
of women is in the following sentences: “An education they prized beyond
all price in their leaders and teachers, and craved its possession for
their husbands and brothers and sons,” and, “These mothers gloried in
the knowledge ... of their husbands and children, and would forego
comforts and endure toil that their sons might be well instructed,
enterprising men.”[15] But in this respect South Carolina was not behind
Massachusetts. The public schools of Boston, established in 1642, were
not open to girls until 1789, and then only to teach them spelling,
reading, and composition for one half the year. The Boston High School
for girls was only opened in 1852.[16]

The beginnings of the secondary education for girls throughout so large
a territory as the entire South we have not room to trace here, and we
shall confine ourselves chiefly to a description of the existing
condition of things. But it may be mentioned that Mrs. Lincoln-Phelps
(born Almira Hart), the sister of the Mrs. Emma Willard[17] who
revolutionized the education of girls in the North, was one of the first
to introduce a better state of things in the South. In 1841 she took
charge of the Patapsco Institute, near Baltimore, and she transformed it
at once into a school of the same grade as the Troy Female Seminary,
where she had been for eight years teacher and vice-principal. She
writes:[18] “The course of instruction, besides the preparatory studies,
embraced three years: the class of rhetoric, the class of philosophy,
and the class of mathematics and natural sciences; and distributed
through each, with studies appropriate to the advancement of the
members, were the ancient and modern languages.... Besides the twelve
resident teachers, there were special teachers who came from Baltimore,
in the Italian, Spanish, German and French languages and in elocution
and general literature. To the regular classes should be added the class
of normal pupils, varying from twelve to twenty, which contributed many
accomplished governesses and teachers to the families and schools of the
South.” The natural sciences she taught herself, using her own
well-known text books in botany, geology, chemistry, and natural
philosophy.[19] “It was not easy at first to render mathematics popular
among girls, who were disposed to consider accomplishments as the great
requisite in education; but by establishing a regular course of studies
and by awarding diplomas to those only who had honorably completed this
course, ambition was awakened which led to efforts that often surprised
the pupils themselves no less than their friends. Thus the study of
algebra, geometry, and trigonometry, as well as mental and moral
philosophy, up to this time deemed by many repulsive, by degrees became
not only tolerable, but in some cases fascinating.”

A year and a half before this, namely, in January, 1839, the Georgia
Female College (now the Wesleyan Female College) was opened at Macon,
Ga. It had from the beginning the power of conferring degrees, and
eleven young women took the degree of A.B. in 1840. It is commonly said
that this is the first college for women that ever existed. That it was
called a college was doubtless merely owing to the politeness of the
Georgia Legislature. I have not been able to find out what the course of
study consisted in at that time, but at present Harkness’ First Year in
Latin is the only preparation in languages required for entering the
freshman class, and plane geometry is studied during the sophomore year.
It is not likely that the course was better than this in 1840, and hence
it is plain that then as now it was a college only in name,[20] and not
in any way superior to Mrs. Lincoln Phelps’s more modest Patapsco
Institute.

The years about 1840 seem to have been a period of general awakening in
the South in regard to the importance of the education of women. The
Judson Institute was founded by the Baptist State Convention of Alabama
in 1839; the “first incorporated college for women in North Carolina,”
the Greensborough Female College (Methodist), obtained its charter in
1838, but was not opened for the reception of students until 1846; in
Maryland, the Frederick Female Seminary was incorporated in 1840 and
opened in 1843. St. Mary’s School, at Raleigh, N. C., was opened in
1842.

But it is the Moravians in the South, as well as in the North, who have
been foremost among the religious denominations in the establishing of
schools for girls of a thorough, if of an elementary, type. The devotion
of Moravian parents to missionary enterprises made it necessary for them
to have schools in which their children might find a substitute for
family life, together with such teaching as they were thought to
require. “Parental training, thorough instruction in useful knowledge,
and scrupulous attention to religious culture were the characteristics
of their early schools,” and are the main features of the five
institutions of higher learning which are still carried on by that
Church. The Salem Female Academy, in the northwestern part of the State
of North Carolina, among the foot-hills of the Blue Ridge, was opened in
1804. The curriculum consisted of reading, grammar, writing, arithmetic,
history, geography, German, plain needlework, music, drawing, and
ornamental needlework. Between six and seven thousand pupils have been
educated in this school. The course is still very low; the requirements
for admission into the junior class are arithmetic to the end of simple
interest, geometry to quadrilaterals, and one book of Cæsar. But the
instruction seems to be thorough, and the catalogue exhibits a freedom
from pretense which is very refreshing. The author of the “History of
Education in North Carolina,”[21] says: “The influence of the Salem
Academy has been widespread. For many years it was the only institution
of repute in the South for female education.... A great many of its
alumnæ have become teachers and heads of seminaries and academies,
carrying the thorough and painstaking methods of this school into their
own institutions. It is probably owing to the influence of the Salem
Academy that preparatory institutions for the education of girls are
more numerous in the South and, as a rule, better equipped than are
similar institutions for boys.”

The war was the occasion of a serious break in the education of woman in
the South and of a serious loss in the small amount of funds that had
been accumulated for their schools. The Georgia Female College, however,
went on with its work without interruption, with the exception of two or
three weeks; the Confederate authorities were at one time on the point
of seizing it for a hospital, but were restrained by an injunction from
the civil courts, on the ground that the college was the residence of
several private families, and that many of the boarding pupils were
unable to return to their homes, or even to communicate with their
parents, on account of the general disruption of the railroads.[22] The
Salem Academy, also, was overcrowded with students during the war, sent
as much for shelter and protection as for education. After the war, most
of the existing schools for girls were reopened, and a large number of
new ones have been established since that time.

COLLEGIATE EDUCATION OF WOMEN IN THE SOUTH.

Most people would probably be ready to say that except for the newly
founded Woman’s College in Baltimore and Tulane University, the
collegiate education of women does not exist in the South. But as matter
of fact, there are no less than one hundred and fifty institutions in
the South which are authorized by the Legislatures of their respective
States to confer the regular college degrees upon women. Of these,
forty-one are co-educational, eighty-eight are for women alone, and
twenty-one are for colored persons of both sexes. The bureau of
education makes no attempt to go behind the verdict of the State
Legislatures, but on looking over the catalogues of all these
institutions[23] it is, as might have been expected, easy to see that
the great majority of them are not in any degree colleges, in the
ordinary sense of the word. Not a single one of the so-called female
colleges presents a real college course, and many of the co-educational
colleges are colleges only in name. The female colleges, however, easily
fall into two distinct classes; not a few of them offer a course such
that the students who are entering upon the junior year are, in a
general way, as well fitted as those who are just admitted to the
freshman year of a regular college. This kind of college there will be
such constant occasion to speak about that it is necessary to coin a new
word for it, and I propose to call them _semi-colleges_. The course is
such that two years of the work of a regular college is done instead of
four, and by a regular college I mean one which comes up to the standard
set by the Association of Collegiate Alumnæ for admission into its
ranks.

As there will be several references to the standard of scholarship set
by the Association of Collegiate Alumnæ, I add here the requirements for
admission into the freshman class of any college the graduates of which
are recognized as eligible for membership.

In Latin │Cæsar (four books).
„ │Æneid (six books).
„ │Cicero (seven orations).
──────────────┼───────────────────────────
In Greek[24] │Anabasis (three books).
„ │Iliad (three books).
──────────────┼───────────────────────────
In Mathematics│Arithmetic.
„ │Algebra through quadratics.
„ │Plane geometry.

The Southern colleges which attain the rank of a semi-college I shall
speak of with more detail farther on. The real colleges for women in the
South consist of the Woman’s College of Baltimore and the co-educational
colleges (including in that term those in which the management and the
degrees are the same for the men and the women, though the recitations
may be conducted separately). Of these, the University of Texas, the
Tulane University (which is the State university of Louisiana), the
University of Mississippi, and the Columbian University in Washington
are the important ones. The admission of women into all of these
universities is of very recent date, and may be taken as an indication
of a general movement in favor of a greater degree of generosity toward
women, which may, in time, sweep over the entire South. The geographical
distribution of these entering wedges is worthy of note. Baltimore and
Washington on the north, the University of Missouri on the west, the
State Universities of the three States of the extreme southwest,—add to
this the fact that the State of Florida has every one of its four
colleges for men open to women, and that it has not a single girls’
seminary of the old-fashioned type, and it may well be believed that the
modern idea of what a woman requires in the way of education is destined
to close in upon the entire Southern country, and that the contentment
which Southern women have hitherto shown with the unsubstantial parts of
learning will eventually be replaced by more far-reaching claims. The
University of Virginia is the very mold and glass of form for all the
other schools and colleges of the South, and if that were to throw down
the barriers which it now keeps up against the unobtrusive sex, it might
be considered that the battle was already won. But the University of
Virginia is far from being unimpregnable; the chairman of its faculty
writes me:

“In reply to your interesting[25] letter of November 25, ’89, I would
say that opinion is much divided both in our faculty and in our board of
visitors on the question of opening this university to women.” There is
at this moment no way in which any one who wished to benefit women could
do so more effectively than by offering this university a handsome
endowment on condition of its terminating this state of indecision in
the right way. The Johns Hopkins University has lately accepted a gift
of a hundred thousand dollars from a woman; it remains to be seen
whether it will show its appreciation of this act of generosity on the
part of the self-forgetful sex by opening its doors to women. Whatever
the result of the next few years may be upon the history of the
education of women in the South, there can be no doubt that the
situation at the present moment is far more hopeful than it was ten or
even five years ago, and far more hopeful than any one would have
believed who has not recently looked into the matter.

For the present, the Woman’s College of Baltimore is the only
representative in the South of separate education for women of a
collegiate grade. This college was established by the Methodist Church
(aided by liberal endowments from a number of enthusiastic advocates of
the higher education,—first among them the Rev. John F. Goucher) for the
purpose of providing women with the best attainable facilities for
securing liberal culture. It is the intention to increase the endowment
to two millions of dollars, exclusive of the value of the
buildings,—this is stated to be necessary in order to meet the objects
which the incorporators have in view. There are at present nine
professors and associate professors, together with other instructors;
there are laboratories and lecture-rooms, a spacious and carefully
planned boarding-hall, and a gymnasium which contains a swimming pool
and running track, and which is fitted with the best imported appliances
for both general and special gymnastic movements. The wealth of the
South is becoming so great that there is no reason why thoroughly
equipped colleges like this should not spring up in various quarters.

I have received the most emphatic testimony as to the good standing of
the women in the best of the men’s colleges to which they have been
admitted. Professor Fristoe, of Columbian University, writes me:

“In 1884 women were admitted to the medical and scientific departments
of this university, and in 1887 to the academic, except to the
preparatory school. We have eleven ladies in the academic department,
seven in the medical, and seven in the scientific. We admitted them
simply because there seemed to be a demand for it, and because we could
find no objection. The girls admitted have been, _without exception_,
superior students. They have had no injurious effect, but the reverse,
and we find no inconvenience from our course. We have had so far only
two who finished the course in the Corcoran Scientific School, but they
were very fine scholars. One of them excelled especially in mathematics,
the other in mental philosophy and such subjects. I am rather proud of
the girls.”

The italics are not mine. Professor Adison Hogue, of the University of
Mississippi, writes me:

“Women are admitted here because the board of trustees gave them the
privilege some years ago. I know of no other reason than that. Not many
avail themselves of the opportunity, especially as the State for some
years past has had, at Columbus, an industrial institute and college
solely for women. This year we have eleven in attendance here; in each
of my previous three years the number was five, Their standing averages
above that of the boys, I think. In ’85 and ’87 the first honor was
taken by young ladies; and in our present sophomore class a slender girl
is spoken of as the ‘first honor man.’ Their social standing is in no
way impaired by their coming here, although the plan of mixed education
is not greatly in favor, as the small number shows.”

Professor Halsted, of the University of Texas, says, in his report to
the Superintendent of Public Instruction: “Several young ladies have
shown marked ability in the acquirement of the newer and more abstruse
developments of mathematics, for example, quaternions.”

The president of the H. Sophie Newcomb College, which is a department of
the Tulane University of Louisiana, has a larger number of students upon
which to base his conclusions. He writes:

“When the college was inaugurated two years ago, it was discovered that
very few of the applicants for admission were qualified to undertake a
regular college course. The schools of this city (mostly private), which
they had previously attended, had not hitherto arranged their courses of
study with reference to advanced or college work, and had not therefore
adopted any fixed standard of acquirement.... The grade of the present
freshman class is fully a year and a half in advance of that which
entered two years ago, and at the same time there has been a steady
increase in numbers. The greatest gain has been shown in mathematics,
science, and Latin. Our advanced classes are doing excellent work in
calculus and analytical geometry, laboratory work in chemistry and
biology, etc.... While I can testify from experience to the equal
ability of the Louisiana young women with those in the East or elsewhere
in mathematical, scientific, or other studies, yet on account of the
social pressure, and long established customs which demand early
graduations, we must be content to see our institution develop more
slowly than it would otherwise do.”

I give in Appendix C, Table I., a list of the co-educational colleges in
the Southern States, prepared for me by the Bureau of Education from the
manuscript statistics for 1889–90. The following so-called colleges have
in no sense a proper equipment nor a proper course of study for enabling
them to deserve the name of college: Eminence, Classical and Business,
South Kentucky, (Ky.); Keachie, (La.); Florida Conference and St. John’s
River (Fla.); Western Maryland, (Md.); Kavanagh, (Miss.); Salado, Hope,
(Tex.) That leaves the following number of students who are in the
collegiate departments of real, white, co-educational colleges in the
South:

Alabama │ 1
────────────────────┼───
Arkansas │ 3
„ │ 22
────────────────────┼───
District of Columbia│ 3
„ │ 25
────────────────────┼───
Florida │ 1
„ │ 4
────────────────────┼───
Georgia │ 30
Kentucky │ 24
Louisiana │ 77
Maryland │ 25
Mississippi │ 11
North Carolina │ 53
South Carolina │ 10
────────────────────┼───
Tennessee │ 34
„ │ 16
„ │ 28
„ │ 10
────────────────────┼───
Texas │ 40
„ │ 20
„ │ 70
„ │ 40
„ │175
────────────────────┼───
West Virginia │ 32
„ │ 1
────────────────────┴───

Texas │345
Louisiana │ 77
Other States │328
│———
Total │750

This table discloses the remarkable fact that there are 750 women
studying in such men’s colleges in the South as have a decent claim to
the name of college, and also that Virginia is the only State in the
South that has not got at least some kind of a co-educational college.

The testimony in favor of co-education, by all those colleges which have
tried it, is very emphatic. The president of Rutherford College (N.C.),
says: “This school [established in 1853] is the first experiment in the
South, of which we have any information, in which an attempt has been
made to train the two sexes together in the course of a college
education. Its results prove the experiment to be a _complete success_.”
The president of Bethel College (Tenn.), says: “The mutual refining
influences of co-education, socially, mentally, and morally, upon the
sexes, is unquestionably good.”

The president of Vanderbilt University, which is the most important
university in the South after the University of Virginia, writes me
that, although co-education has not been formally adopted there, yet
women have never been refused admission into classes, that degrees would
always be conferred upon those who had taken the proper examinations,
and that one young woman had actually completed the course and received
the degree of A.M. What more can the women of the central Southern
States desire? It is not necessary that every male college should be
open to them; there may be parents who think that the conventual life is
best suited to the moral and social development of their sons, and such
parents should have an opportunity for carrying out the plan which
commends itself to them. All that women ask is that they should have
freedom of access to the _best_ men’s colleges. In that way a standard
for a woman’s education will be fixed, and every woman will be able to
reach that standard if she desires it; the second best colleges may then
be allowed to be as exclusive as they please.

There is one more bright spot in the educational outlook for Southern
women: it is announced that in the new Methodist university, which is
about to be founded in Washington, on a large scale, every department
will be open to women on exactly the same terms as to men.

It lies with Southern women to decide whether they shall accept the
large privileges which are now open to them. It is hard for mothers who
did not go to college themselves, and who have still lived what seemed
to them to be happy lives, to feel that something different is desirable
for their daughters; but may there not be fathers who, having tasted the
pleasures of intellectual activity for themselves, will be minded to
lead their daughters into the same fields which they have found to be
attractive?

THE SEMI-COLLEGES.

I give in Appendix C, Table II., the list of semi-colleges, as
determined from their catalogues. Of course, it cannot be inferred from
the fact that the course is a good one that it is well carried out: but
if the course is very limited, if the text-books used are poor, if there
is no indication that the school has any library nor any scientific
apparatus, it can be inferred that the school is not of a high grade;
the above list may therefore be taken as a superior limit of the
semi-colleges in the South. On the other hand, it may happen that the
teachers of the classics and of English literature are persons of
culture and of wide learning, and that a greater number of authors are
read than the course laid down demands.

In the Mary Sharp College (Winchester, Tenn.), in 1887–88, four young
ladies completed the following post graduate course in the first half
year[26]: Seneca’s Essays, Œdipus Tyrannus, Dindorf’s Metres, Colloquia
in Latin, etc.; in the second half year two of them read Lycias’
Orations,—against Eratosthenes, concerning the sacred olive, and the
funeral oration,—the Panegyric of Isoscrates, Xenophon’s Symposium,
Lucian’s Charon, and Plutarch’s Delay of the Deity; and one of them,
Miss Ada Slaughter, read, in addition, the Ajax of Sophocles, Plato’s
Apology and Crito, Iliad (three books), Lucian’s Dream, Seneca’s
Epigrammatica, Seneca’s Letters, Ovid’s Metamorphoses (nine books),
Cicero de Officiis, Pliny’s Letters, Sallust’s Jugurtha, and Eutropius.
This college was founded in 1850, and for many years “it maintained a
course of study, a method of instruction, and plan of government far in
advance of any college in America for women.”[27] From the beginning it
has required both Latin and Greek for graduation, and a very respectable
amount of both; it thus deserves, more than the Georgia Female College,
the name of the first college exclusively for women in the country. It
has over three hundred graduates, and in 1887–88 it had 182 pupils.

The Nashville College for Young Ladies seems to be one of the most
important of the colleges of this grade in the South. It has frequent
lectures from the professors of Vanderbilt University, and students in
the scientific department attend lectures in the laboratories and
cabinets of that university. A teacher of the school is present, and
examines the class afterward. The professor quizzes in the daily lecture
course, but is not responsible for the examinations. The president of
the school writes me:

“Until I began here in 1880, the thought of arresting the graduation of
a girl was not entertained. If she went through the curriculum without
preliminary tests or without any intermediate or final examinations, the
diploma followed as a matter of implied contract. Pupils were received
to be graduated within a specified time. This sounds incredible, I know,
and yet I have the best proof of the fact. When I announced that no
pupil would be graduated in my institution without sufficient tests of
her scholarship, it was freely predicted that such an innovation would
destroy the patronage of the school. I am glad to say that the
vaticination was false, but I allude to the facts to throw light upon
the status among us.”

THE OTHER FEMALE COLLEGES.

The schools for women which are of a higher grade than the ordinary high
school, but not so high as the college, the Bureau of Education
classifies under the head of Superior Instruction. It will be seen from
Appendix C, Table III., that the State of Kentucky has nineteen of these
female colleges, and that six of the Southern States have an average of
fourteen each. They are of all possible degrees of excellence. Such
schools as the Hollins Institute and the Norfolk College for Young
Ladies in Virginia, and Caldwell College at Danville, Ky., have every
mark of being thoroughly good schools. The difficulty with nearly all
these schools is, of course, that they are private and money-making
enterprises, and do not care to incur large expenses for teachers or for
the proper appliances for instruction, nor to make the course of study
so rigid as to drive away pupils. It is remarkable to see how soon the
character of the course, and especially the character of the text-books,
is changed as soon as the majority of the teachers are graduates of
Northern colleges. On the other hand, it is the lack of intelligence and
care on the part of parents that permits the poorest of these schools to
continue to exist. If the worst half of these schools could be starved
out of existence, and if their patronage could be transferred to the
better half, the quality of the instruction which women receive in the
South would be completely changed. It is a duty which parents owe to the
public, no less than to their daughters, to discriminate carefully
against the thoroughly worthless schools.[28]

In one of these so-called colleges no foreign language is taught; in
another, the senior class takes a whole year to complete plane geometry;
in very many of them Steele’s text-books in the sciences are used. In
the Chickasaw Female College, Latin is optional, no other language and
very little mathematics is taught, and the president says: “An
experience of very many years proves to me that this course is not too
far extended.” In many of these small colleges the subjects of study
constitute separate schools, following the plan of the University of
Virginia. In the Marion Female Seminary, “the schools being distinct,
the student may become a candidate for graduation in one or all of them
at once.” There are sometimes thirteen distinct schools; in the
Huntsville Female Seminary there are ten, all carried out, as far as
appears from the catalogue, by a single instructor, the president.

The rules and regulations in many of these colleges are extremely minute
and harassing; they are largely copied from one catalogue to another; in
several instances the pupils are not allowed to read any book nor any
newspaper without the express permission of the president; in nearly
all, the discipline will be “mild, but, if necessary, firm.” In one
catalogue only, it is said that “there are no rules and but few
regulations; ladylike conduct is the one thing required.”

A uniform dress must be worn in many of these colleges. The Sunday suit
is frequently “of navy blue, made fashionably, but with no trimmings of
either silk or satin, no ruffles, and no beads.” In one of these
schools, a uniform dress was at first required only for Sundays, but the
week day dressing was found to be so extravagant that it became
necessary to restrict the material worn to a black and white check
gingham. In the catalogue of the Suffolk Female Institute, it is stated
that “the uniform dress usually prescribed by other institutions is not
required here”; and, in that of another school, that “uniformity is not
needful or wise.”

The cost of board and tuition in these schools (exclusive of music and
painting and fancy work) is most frequently about two hundred dollars.
Parents who can afford it usually send their daughters North, or at
least as far North as to Virginia or Tennessee, as it is considered that
a few years passed in a colder climate have a good effect in
establishing their health. Only a small number have as yet taken the
college courses that are offered in the North. The following table gives
the results of my inquiries:

SOUTHERN GRADUATES OF NORTHERN COLLEGES.

Vassar College 42
Wellesley College 16
Smith College 10
Swarthmore College 5
Boston University 5
Bryn Mawr College 2
Cornell University 1
Syracuse University 0
Kansas University 0
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 0
——
Total 81

The president of Michigan University is able to recall from six to ten
women graduates from Southern States, and the number from the University
of Wisconsin has been “not large.”

SECONDARY INSTRUCTION.

From the statistics for secondary instruction in the Southern States, it
may be discovered that there are more than twice as many girls as boys
in attendance upon public high schools. There are three times as many
girls as boys throughout the whole country, it will be remembered, who
complete the high school course. I do not find that a single Southern
city provides a high school for boys without providing one for girls
also, and usually it is the same school for both (though the
recitation-rooms may be separate). Where the schools are distinct, the
girls’ school is usually much inferior to the boys’. This is notably the
case in Baltimore, where the boys’ high school (it is called the City
College) fits admirably for the Johns Hopkins University, and where the
two girls’ high schools are of an extremely low grade. Throughout the
entire South there are only forty-one high schools, while there are
seventy-six in Massachusetts alone, but it must be remembered that any
system of public schools has hardly existed in the South previous to the
war.

An important feature in secondary education in the South is the
establishment of the Bryn Mawr Preparatory School in Baltimore. In 1884
five ladies formed themselves into a committee and appointed a secretary
and six teachers (science, classics, mathematics, history, French, and
German), all college graduates, and a drawing teacher. The school opened
with forty pupils, and in the third year it met all its expenses. A very
handsome building, containing a thoroughly well-equipped gymnasium, is
now (1889) being erected by Miss Mary Garrett (one of the directors) for
the future accommodation of the school. For this building the directors
expect to pay a fair rent—if not on the actual cost, yet on the price of
a building that would have met the needs of the school. They are anxious
to prove that a school of this grade can be made to pay.[29] They
intend, out of the earnings of the school, to pay the college expenses
for four years of the two best students of each year’s graduating class.
The distinguishing mark of the school is that it requires each child who
enters to take the subjects required for entrance to college (the Bryn
Mawr College entrance examinations are given in the sixth and seventh
years) and at the same time a continuous course in drawing, science, and
history, in order that a satisfactory course of study may be offered to
girls who do not intend to go to college. The number of pupils is
limited to 150.

NORMAL SCHOOLS AND INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION.

In the great advance which has been made in the South since the war in
the establishment of systems of public schools, the managers of the
Peabody Fund have played a very important part. It has been said, and
without exaggeration, that no two millions of dollars ever did so much
good to the cause of education. Normal schools, in particular, have been
the object of their special care. In accordance with the express wishes
of the founder, the fund has offered aid proportionate to what a State
might do in order to secure the establishment of such schools; and the
initiative steps in every State included in its administration have been
taken under the suggestion and stimulus of its managers. There are now
thirty-two normal schools in the South; Alabama has seven, Georgia and
North Carolina have none. The Normal College at Nashville is not only a
normal school for Tennessee, but for the whole South as well; the
trustees of the Peabody Fund distribute 114 free scholarships annually
among ten Southern States. They have also established recently the
Winthrop Training School for white girls in South Carolina, and that
State has for the first time made an appropriation especially for the
higher education of girls.[30]

Industrial training on any important scale has existed throughout the
country only since 1862. In that year Congress granted large bodies of
public lands to each of the States for the establishment of agricultural
and mechanical colleges. The law permitted the introduction of a
moderate college curriculum into these institutions. Gradually the
returning Southern States accepted this gift, and all of them have made
some endeavor to utilize it, either by attaching a department to the
existing State university, or, as in Virginia, Texas, Mississippi,
Kentucky, and Alabama, by maintaining a separate agricultural and
mechanical college.

Women ought, of course, to have had a share in these government grants,
and the statistics for the whole country show that of the thirty-two
colleges to which they have been given, no less than twenty report
students of both sexes.[31] But in the Southern States, with the
exception of Arkansas and Kentucky, none but colored women have received
any benefit from these grants. The Arkansas Industrial University is an
admirably administered institution; the literary course, which forms the
ground-work for the industrial training, is only a year behind a good
college course. The first class was graduated in 1875, and consisted of
seven women and one man. The Kentucky Agricultural and Mechanical
College has at present twenty-four women in the college course.

The Legislature of Georgia passed a bill last year (1889) appropriating
$200,000 for the establishment of an industrial school for girls. In
Mississippi an admirable industrial school for girls has been in
existence since 1885,—the Industrial Institute and College, at Columbus.
The entire income of this school is derived from State appropriations;
tuition is free to all girls of Mississippi, and board is also free to
300 girls apportioned among the several counties of the State. Other
pupils are furnished board at cost, usually about nine dollars a month,
including washing. The industrial subjects taught are phonography,
telegraphy, type-writing, decorative and industrial art, répoussé and
art needlework, printing, dressmaking, designing, engraving, modeling,
cooking, laundry-work, housekeeping (in a separate cottage), and
book-keeping. There are 113 students in the collegiate course and 275 in
the business course. The collegiate course shows a marked advance upon
the usual course of study in girl’s colleges, especially in the elements
of a solid education, in the mathematical and scientific studies.
Analytical geometry, Juvenal, Livy, and Horace, Hamilton’s metaphysics,
and political economy, are among the required studies, and the calculus,
descriptive geometry, quantitative analysis, and Ueberweg’s History of
Philosophy are among the subjects offered in post graduate courses. The
standard of scholarship is high: 75 per cent. must be obtained in
examinations in order to advance from one class to another. The
laboratories are fitted up with the best modern appliances. The students
in turn do the work of the dining-room and the sleeping apartments. Many
of the former pupils are already earning good salaries in telegraphy,
phonography, book-keeping, etc. It is plain that this industrial school
of Mississippi presents a model which other States, both North and
South, would do extremely well to copy.

CONCLUSION.

On the whole, the outlook for the education of women in the Southern
States is not discouraging. The difficult first step has been
taken,—there are women college graduates here and there, and it is no
longer necessary to look upon them as monstrosities. In many a Southern
family, the question whether a girl shall go to college or not has
become, at least, a question to be discussed. It rests largely with
existing college graduates to determine whether a sentiment in favor of
the higher education for women shall grow rapidly or slowly, and whether
schools for “superior instruction” shall be or shall not be improved in
quality. It is not necessary that every girl should go to college, but
it is necessary that some should go, for there is absolutely no other
way of keeping up the standard of the lower schools except by making
sure that they give such instruction as will stand the test of the
college entrance examinations. No more important work could be done for
women than to establish a dozen preparatory schools throughout the
South, similar to the Bryn Mawr school in Baltimore, for the purpose of
giving Southern mothers a standard of comparison, and enabling them to
exterminate, by loss of patronage, those girls’ schools which are
thoroughly unfitted for the performance of their work.

V.
WOMAN IN LITERATURE.

HELEN GRAY CONE.

“I am obnoxious to each carping tongue
That says my hand a needle better fits.

· · · · ·

Men can do best, and women know it well.
Pre-eminence in each and all is yours,
Yet grant some small acknowledgment of ours.”
—ANNE BRADSTREET, 1640.

“Let us be wise, and not impede the soul. Let her work as she will.
Let us have one creative energy, one incessant revelation. Let it take
what form it will, and let us not bind it by the past to man or
woman.”

—MARGARET FULLER, 1844.

It is difficult to disengage a single thread from the living web of a
nation’s literature. The interplay of influences is such, that the
product spun from the heart and brain of woman alone must, when thus
disengaged, lose something of its significance. In criticism, a
classification based upon sex is necessarily misleading and inexact. As
far as difference between the literary work of women and that of men is
created by difference of environment and training, it may be regarded as
accidental; while the really essential difference, resulting from the
general law that the work of woman shall somehow, subtly, express
womanhood, not only varies widely in degree with the individual worker,
but is, in certain lines of production, almost ungraspable by criticism.
We cannot rear walls which shall separate literature into departments,
upon a principle elusive as the air. “It is no more the order of nature
that the especially feminine element should be incarnated pure in any
form, than that the masculine energy should exist unmingled with it in
any form.” The experiment which, Lowell tells us, Nature tried in
shaping the genius of Hawthorne, she repeats and reverses at will.

In practice, the evil effects which have followed the separate
consideration of woman’s work in literature are sufficiently plain. The
debasement of the coin of criticism is a fatal measure. The dearest foe
of the woman artist in the past has been the suave and chivalrous
critic, who, judging all “female writers” by a special standard, has
easily bestowed the unearned wreath.

The present paper is grounded, it will be seen, upon no preference for
the Shaker-meeting arrangement which prevailed so long in our American
Temple of the Muses. It has seemed desirable, in a historical review of
the work of women in this country, to follow the course of their effort
in the field of literature; to note the occasional impediments of the
stream, its sudden accessions of force, its general tendency, and its
gradual widening.

The colonial period has of course little to give us. The professional
literary woman was then unknown. The verses of Mrs. Anne Bradstreet,
called in flattery “the tenth Muse,” were “the fruit but of some few
hours, curtailed from her sleep and other refreshments.” The negro girl,
Phillis Wheatley, whose poetical efforts had been published under
aristocratic patronage in England, when robbed of her mistress by death
“resorted to marriage”—not to literature—“as the only alternative native
of destitution.” Mrs. Mercy Warren was never obliged to seek support
from that sharp-pointed pen which copied so cleverly the satiric style
of Pope, and which has left voluminous records of the Revolution. She
too wrote her tragedies “for amusement, in the solitary hours when her
friends were abroad.”

Miss Hannah Adams, born in Massachusetts in 1755, may be accepted as the
first American woman who made literature her profession. Her appearance
as a pioneer in this country corresponds closely in time with that of
Mary Wollstonecraft in England. She wrote, at seventy-seven, the story
of her life. Her account sets forth clearly the difficulties which, in
her youth, had to be dealt with by a woman seriously undertaking
authorship. Ill-health, which forbade her attending school, was an
individual disadvantage; but she remarks incidentally on the
defectiveness of the country school, where girls learned only to write
and cipher, and were, in summer, “instructed by females in reading,
sewing, and other kinds of work.... I remember that my first idea of the
happiness of heaven was of a place where we should find our thirst for
knowledge fully gratified.” How pathetically the old woman recalls the
longing of the eager girl! All her life she labored against odds;
learning, however, the rudiments of Latin, Greek, geography, and logic,
“with indescribable pleasure and avidity,” from some gentlemen boarding
at her father’s house. Becoming interested in religious controversy, she
formed the plan of compiling a “View of Religions”; not at first hoping
to derive what she calls “emolument” from the work. To win bread she
relied at this time upon spinning, sewing, or knitting, and, during the
Revolutionary War, on the weaving of bobbin lace; afterward falling back
on her scant classical resources to teach young gentlemen Latin and
Greek. Meanwhile the compilation went on. “Reading much religious
controversy,” observes Miss Adams, “must be extremely trying to a
female, whose mind, instead of being strengthened by those studies which
exercise the judgment, and give stability to the character, is
debilitated by reading romances and novels.” This sense of disadvantage,
of the meekly accepted burden of sex, pervades the autobiography; it
seems the story of a patient cripple. When the long task was done, her
inexperience made her the dupe of a dishonest printer, and although the
book sold well, her only compensation was fifty copies, for which she
was obliged herself to find purchasers, having previously procured four
hundred subscribers. Fortunately she had the copyright; and before the
publication of a second edition, she chanced to make the acquaintance of
a clerical good Samaritan, who transacted the business for her. The
“emolument” derived from this second edition at last enabled her to pay
her debts, and to put out a small sum upon interest. Her “History of New
England,” in the preparation of which her eyesight was nearly
sacrificed, met with a good sale; but an abridgment of it brought her
nothing, on account of the failure of the printer. She sold the
copyright of her “Evidences of Christianity” for one hundred dollars in
books.

This, then, is our starting-point: evident character and ability, at a
disadvantage both in production and in the disposal of the product;
imperfect educational equipment; and a hopeless consciousness of
inferiority, almost amounting to an inability to stand upright mentally.

Susanna Rowson, who wrote the popular “Charlotte Temple,” may be classed
as an American novelist, although not born in this country. She appears
also as a writer of patriotic songs, an actress, a teacher, and the
compiler of a dictionary and other school-books. “The Coquette, or the
History of Eliza Wharton,” by Hannah Webster Foster, was another prime
favorite among the formal novels of the day.

Kind Miss Hannah Adams, in her old age, chanced to praise a certain
metrical effort,—unpromisingly labeled “Jephthah’s Rash Vow,”—put forth
by a girl of sixteen, Miss Caroline Howard. Here occurs an indicative
touch. “When I learned,” says this commended Miss Caroline, “that my
verses had been surreptitiously printed in a newspaper, I wept bitterly,
and was as alarmed as if I had been detected in man’s apparel.” Such was
the feeling with which the singing-robes were donned by a maiden in
1810—a state of affairs soon to be replaced by a general fashion of
feminine singing-robes, of rather cheap material. For during the second
quarter of the present century conditions somewhat improved, and
production greatly increased. “There was a wide manifestation of that
which bears to pure ideality an inferior relationship,” writes Mr.
Stedman of the general body of our literature at this period. In 1848
Dr. Griswold reports that “women among us are taking a leading part”;
that “the proportion of female writers at this moment in America, far
exceeds that which the present or any other age in England exhibits.”
Awful moment in America! one is led to exclaim by a survey of the poetic
field. Alas, the verse of those “Tokens,” and “Keepsakes,” and
“Forget-me-nots,” and “Magnolias,” and all the rest of the annuals, all
glorious without in their red or white Turkey morocco and gilding! Alas,
the flocks of quasi swan-singers! They have sailed away down the river
of Time, chanting with a monotonous mournfulness. We need not speak of
them at length. One of them early wrote about the Genius of Oblivion;
most of them wrote for it. It was not their fault that their toil
increased the sum of the “Literature suited to Desolate Islands.” The
time was out of joint. Sentimentalism infected both continents. It was
natural enough that the infection should seize most strongly upon those
who were weakened by an intellectual best-parlor atmosphere, with small
chance of free out-of-door currents. They had their reward. Their crude
constituencies were proud of them; and not all wrought without
“emolument,” though it need hardly be said that verse-making was not and
is not, as a rule, a remunerative occupation. Some names survive; held
in the memory of the public by a few small, sweet songs on simple
themes, probably undervalued by their authors, but floating now like
flowers above the tide that has swallowed so many pretentious,
sand-based structures.

Mrs. Lydia H. Sigourney, the most prolific poetess of the period, was
hailed as “the American Mrs. Hemans.” A gentle and pious womanhood shone
through her verse; but her books are undisturbed and dusty in the
libraries now, and likely to remain so. Maria Gowen Brooks,—“Maria del
Occidente,”—was, on the other hand, not popular at home, but put forth a
far stronger claim than Mrs. Sigourney, and won indeed somewhat
disproportionate praises abroad. “Southey says ‘Zophiel, or the Bride of
Seven,’ is by some Yankee woman,” writes Charles Lamb; “as if there had
ever been a woman capable of anything so great!” One is glad that we
need not now consider as the acme of woman’s poetic achievement this
metrical narrative of the loves of the angels; nevertheless, it is on
the whole a remarkably sustained work, with a gorgeousness of coloring
which might perhaps be traced to its author’s Celtic strain.

As Mrs. Samuel Gilman, Caroline Howard, of whom we have already spoken,
carried the New England spirit into a Southern home, and there wrote not
only verses, but sketches and tales, much in the manner of her sisters,
who never left the Puritan nest; though dealing at times with material
strange to them, as in her “Recollections of a Southern Matron.” With
the women of New England lies our chief concern, until a date
comparatively recent. A strong, thinking, working race,—all know the
type; granite rock, out of its crevices the unexpected harebells
trembling here and there. As writers they have a general resemblance; in
one case a little more mica and glitter, in another more harebells than
usual. Mrs. Sigourney, for instance, presents an azure predominance of
the flowery, on a basis of the practical. Think of her fifty-seven
volumes—copious verse, religious and sentimental; sketches of travel;
didactic “Letters” to mothers, to young ladies; the charmingly garrulous
“Letters of Life,” published after her death. Quantity, dilution,
diffusiveness, the dispersion of energy in a variety of aims,—these were
the order of the day. Lydia Maria Child wrote more than thirty-five
books and pamphlets, beginning with the apotheosis of the aboriginal
American in romance, ending in the good fight with slavery, and taking
in by the way domestic economy, the progress of religious ideas, and the
Athens of Pericles, somewhat romanticized. Firm granite here, not
without ferns of tenderest grace. It is very curious and impressive, the
self-reliant dignity with which these noble matrons circumambulate the
whole field of literature, with errant feet, but with a character
central and composed. They are “something better than their verse,” and
also than their prose. Why was it that the dispersive tendency of the
time showed itself especially in the literary effort of women? Perhaps
the scattering, haphazard kind of education then commonly bestowed upon
girls helped to bring about such a condition of things. Efficient work,
in literature as in other professions, is dependent, in a degree, upon
preparation; not indeed upon the actual amount of knowledge possessed,
but upon the training of the mind to sure action, and the vitality of
the spark of intellectual life communicated in early days. To the
desultory and aimless education of girls at this period, and their
continual servitude to the sampler, all will testify. “My education,”
says Mrs. Gilman, “was exceedingly irregular, a perpetual passing from
school to school.... I drew a very little and worked ‘The Babes in the
Wood’ on white satin, with floss silk.” By and by, however, she “was
initiated into Latin,” studied Watts’s Logic by herself, and joined a
private class in French. Lydia Huntley (Mrs. Sigourney), fared somewhat
better; pursuing mathematics, though she admits that too little time was
accorded to the subject; and being instructed in “the belles-lettres
studies” by competent teachers. Her day-school education ceased at
thirteen; she afterward worked alone over history and mental philosophy,
had tutors in Latin and French, and even dipped into Hebrew, under
clerical guidance. This has a deceptively advanced sound; we are to
learn presently that she was sent away to boarding-school, where she
applied herself to—“embroidery of historical scenes, filigree, and other
finger-works.” (May we not find a connection between this kind of
training, and the production of dramatic characters as lifelike as those
figures in floss silk? Was it not a natural result, that corresponding
“embroidery of historical scenes” performed by the feminine pen?) Lydia
Maria Francis (Mrs. Child) “apart from her brother’s companionship, had,
as usual, a very unequal share of educational opportunities; attending
only the public schools”—the public schools of the century in its
teens—“with one year at a private seminary.” She writes to the Rev.
Convers Francis in 1838, “If I possessed your knowledge, it seems to me
as if I could move the whole world. I am often amused and surprised to
think how many things I have attempted to do with my scanty stock of
learning.” Catherine Sedgwick, “reared in an atmosphere of high
intelligence,” still confesses, “I have all my life felt the want of
more systematic training.”

Another cause of the scattering, unmethodical supply may have been the
vagueness of the demand. America was not quite sure what it was proper
to expect of “the female writer”; and perhaps that lady herself had a
lingering feudal idea that she could hold literary territory only on
condition of stout pen-service in the cause of the domestic virtues and
pudding. “In those days,” says Thomas Wentworth Higginson, “it seemed to
be held necessary for American women to work their passage into
literature by first compiling a cookery-book.” Thus we have Mrs. Child’s
“Frugal Housewife”; and we find clever Eliza Leslie of Philadelphia,
putting forth “Seventy-five Receipts,” before she ventures upon her
humorous and satirical “Pencil Sketches.” The culinary tradition was
carried on, somewhat later, by Catherine Beecher, with her “Domestic
Receipt Book”; and we have indeed most modern instances, in the
excellent “Common Sense Series” of the novelist “Marion Harland,” and in
Mrs. Whitney’s “Just How.” Perhaps, however, it is not fancy that these
wear the kitchen apron with a difference.

In addition to lack of training, and to the vague nature of the public
demand, a third cause operated against symmetrical artistic development
among the women of those electric days preceding the Civil War. That
struggle between the art-instinct and the desire for reform, which is
not likely to cease entirely until the coming of the Golden Year, was
then at its height. Both men and women were drawn into the maelstrom of
the anti-slavery conflict; yet to a few men the artist’s single aim
seemed still possible: to Longfellow, to Hawthorne. Similar examples are
lacking among contemporary women. Essential womanhood, “das
Ewigweibliche,” seems at this point unusually clear in the work of
women; the passion for conduct, the enthusiasm for abstract justice, not
less than the potential motherhood that yearns over all suffering.

The strong Hebraic element in the spiritual life of New England women,
in particular, tended to withdraw them from the service of pure art at
this period. “My natural inclinations,” wrote Lydia Maria Child, “drew
me much more strongly toward literature and the arts than toward reform,
and the weight of conscience was needed to turn the scale.”

Mrs. Child and Miss Sedgwick, chosen favorites of the public, stand
forth as typical figures. Both have the art-instinct, both the desire
for reform; in Mrs. Child the latter decidedly triumphs, in spite of her
romances; in Miss Sedgwick, the former, though less decidedly, in spite
of her incidental preachments. She wrote “without any purpose or hope to
slay giants,” aiming merely “to supply mediocre readers with small moral
hints on various subjects that come up in daily life.” It is interesting
to note just what public favor meant, materially, to the most popular
women writers of those days. Miss Sedgwick, at a time when she had
reached high-water mark, wrote in reply to one who expected her to
acquire a fortune, that she found it impossible to make much out of
novel-writing while cheap editions of English novels filled the market.
“I may go on,” she says, “earning a few hundred dollars a year, and
precious few too.” One could not even earn the “precious few” without
observing certain laws of silence. The “Appeal in Behalf of that class
of Americans called Africans” seriously lessened the income of Mrs.
Child. That dubious America of 1833 was decided on one point: this was
not what she expected of “the female writer.” She was willing to be
instructed by a woman—about the polishing of furniture and the education
of daughters.

And now there arises before us another figure, of striking singularity
and power. Margaret Fuller never appeared as a candidate for popular
favor. On the polishing of furniture she was absolutely silent; nor,
though she professed “high respect for those who ‘cook something good,’
and create and preserve fair order in houses,” did she ever fulfill the
understood duty of woman by publishing a cookery-book. On the education
of daughters she had, however, a vital word to say; demanding for them
“a far wider and more generous culture.” Her own education had been of
an exceptional character; she was fortunate in its depth and solidity,
though unfortunate in the forcing process that had made her a hard
student at six years old. Her equipment was superior to that of any
American woman who had previously entered the field of literature; and
hers was a powerful genius, but, by the irony of fate, a genius not
prompt to clothe itself in the written word. As to the inspiration of
her speech, all seem to agree; but one who knew her well has spoken of
the “singular embarrassment and hesitation induced by the attempt to
commit her thoughts to paper.” The reader of the Sibylline leaves she
scattered about her in her strange career receives the constant
impression of hampered power, of force that has never found its proper
outlet. In “Woman in the Nineteenth Century,” there is certainly
something of that “shoreless Asiatic dreaminess” complained of by
Carlyle; but there are also to be found rich words, fit, like those of
Emerson, for “gold nails in temples to hang trophies on.” The critical
Scotchman himself subsequently owned that “some of her Papers are the
undeniable utterances of a true heroic mind; altogether unique, so far
as I know, among the Writing Women of this generation; rare enough, too,
God knows, among the Writing Men.” She accomplished comparatively little
that can be shown or reckoned. Her mission was “to free, arouse,
dilate.” Those who immediately responded were few; and as the circle of
her influence has widened through their lives, the source of the
original impulse has been unnamed and forgotten. But if we are disposed
to rank a fragmentary greatness above a narrow perfection, to value
loftiness of aim more than the complete attainment of an inferior
object, we must set Margaret Fuller, despite all errors of judgment, all
faults of style, very high among the “Writing Women” of America. It is
time that, ceasing to discuss her personal traits, we dwelt only upon
the permanent and essential, in her whose mind was fixed upon the
permanent, the essential. Her place in our literature is her own; it has
not been filled, nor does it seem likely to be. The particular kind of
force which she exhibited—in so far as it was not individual—stands a
chance in our own day of being drawn into the educational field, now
that the “wider and more generous culture” which she claimed has been
accorded to women.

We may trace from the early publications of Lydia Maria Francis and
Catherine Sedgwick the special line along which women have worked most
successfully. It is in fiction that they have wrought with the greatest
vigor and freedom; and in that important class of fiction which reflects
faithfully the national life, broadly or in sectional phases. In 1821
Miss Francis, a girl of nineteen, wrote “Hobomok,” a rather crude novel
of colonial Massachusetts, with an Indian hero. Those were the times of
the pseudo-American school, the heyday of what Mr. Stedman has called
the “supposititious Indian.” To the sanguine, “Hobomok” seemed to
foreshadow a feminine Cooper; and its author put forth in the following
year “The Rebels,” a novel of Boston before the Revolution. A more
effective worker on this line, however, was Miss Sedgwick; whose “New
England Tale”—a simple little story, originally intended as a tract—was
published in 1822, and at once drew attention, in spite of a certain
thinness, by its recognizable home flavor. The plain presentation of New
England life in “Redwood,” her succeeding book, interests and convinces
the reader of to-day. Some worthless elements of plot, now out of date,
are introduced; but age cannot wither nor custom stale the fresh reality
of the most memorable figure,—that manly soul Miss Deborah, a character
as distinct as Scott himself could have made her. “Hope Leslie,”
“Clarence,” and “The Linwoods” followed; then the briefer tales
supplying “small moral hints,” such as the “Poor Rich Man and Rich Poor
Man.” All are genuine, wholesome, deserving of the hearty welcome they
received. “Wise, clear, and kindly,”—one must echo the verdict of
Margaret Fuller on our gentle pioneer in native fiction; we may look
back with pride on her “speech moderate and sane, but never palsied by
fear or skeptical caution”; on herself, “a fine example of the
independent and beneficent existence that intellect and character can
give to woman.” The least studied among her pathetic scenes are
admirable; and she displays some healthy humor, though not as much as
her charming letters indicate that she possessed. A recent writer has
ranked her work in one respect above that of Cooper, considering it more
calculated to effect “the emancipation of the American mind from foreign
types.”

Miss Sedgwick, past threescore, was still in the literary harness, when
the woman who was destined to bring the novel of New England to a fuller
development reached fame at a bound with “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” At last
the artist’s instinct and the purpose of the reformer were fused, as far
as they are capable of fusion, in a story that still holds its reader,
whether passive or protesting, with the grip of the master-hand. The
inborn powers of Mrs. Stowe were fortunately developed in a home
atmosphere that supplied deficiencies in training. Fate was kind in
providing occasional stimulants for the feminine mind, though an
adequate and regular supply was customarily withheld. Miss Sedgwick
attributes an especial quickening force to the valuable selections read
aloud by her father to his family; Miss Francis, as we have seen, owed
much to the conversation of her brother. To Harriet Beecher was granted,
outside her inspiring home circle, an extra stimulus, in the early
influence of the enthusiastic teacher whose portrait she has given us in
the Jonathan Rossiter of “Oldtown Folks.” A close knowledge of Scott’s
novels from her girlhood had its effect in shaping her methods of
narration. She knew her Bible—perpetual fountain feeding the noblest
streams of English literature—as Ruskin knew his. Residence for years
near the Ohio border had familiarized her with some of the darkest
aspects of slavery; so that when the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law
roused her to the task of exhibiting the system in operation, she was as
fully prepared to execute that task as a woman of New England birth and
traditions well could be. Since the war, Southern writers, producing
with the ease of intimacy works steeped in the spirit of the South, have
taught us much concerning negro character and manners, and have
accustomed us to an accurate reproduction of dialect. The sublimity of
Uncle Tom has been tried by the reality of the not less lovable Uncle
Remus. But whatever blemishes or extravagances may appear to a critical
eye in the great anti-slavery novel, it still beats with that intense
life which nearly forty years ago awoke a deep responsive thrill in the
repressed heart of the North. We are at present chiefly concerned with
its immense practical success. It was a “shot heard round the world.”
Ten thousand copies were sold in a few days; over three hundred thousand
in a year; eight power-presses were kept running day and night to supply
the continual demand. The British Museum now contains thirty-five
complete editions in English; and translations exist in at least twenty
different languages. “Never did any American work have such success!”
exclaims Mrs. Child, in one of her enthusiastic letters.... “It has done
much to command respect for the faculties of woman.” The influences are,
indeed, broad and general, which have since that day removed all
restrictions tending to impress inferiority on the woman writer, so that
the distinction of sex is lost in the distinction of schools. Yet a
special influence may be attributed to this single marked manifestation
of force, to this imposing popular triumph. In the face of the fact that
the one American book which had stormed Europe was the work of a woman,
the old tone of patronage became ridiculous, the old sense of ordained
and inevitable weakness on the part of “the female writer” became
obsolete. Women henceforth, whatever their personal feelings in regard
to the much-discussed book, were enabled, consciously or unconsciously,
to hold the pen more firmly, to move it more freely.

In New England fiction, what a leap from the work of Miss Sedgwick,
worthy as it is, to that of Mrs. Stowe! The field whence a few hardy
growths were peeping, seems to have been overflowed by a fertilizing
river, so rich is its new yield. It is the “soul of Down-East” that we
find in “The Minister’s Wooing”” and “Oldtown Folks.” Things spiritual
are grasped with the insight of kinship, externals are drawn with the
certainty of life-long acquaintance. If we glance at the humorous side
of the picture, surely no hand that ever wrought could have bettered one
smile-provoking line in the familiar figure of Sam Lawson, the village
do-nothing. There is a free-handedness in the treatment of this
character, not often found in more recent conscientious studies of local
types. It is a painting beside photographs. A certain inequality, it may
be admitted, appears in the range of Mrs. Stowe’s productions. They form
links, more or less shining, between a time of confused and groping
effort on the part of women and a time of definitely directed aims, of a
concentration that has, inevitably, its own drawbacks.

The encouragement of the great magazines, from the first friendly to
women writers, is an important factor in their development. _Harper’s_
dates from 1850; the _Atlantic Monthly_, in 1857, opened a new outlet
for literary work of a high grade. Here appeared many of the short
stories of Rose Terry, depicting the life of New England; unsurpassable
in their fidelity to nature, their spontaneous flow, their grim humor,
pathos, tragedy. In the pages of the _Atlantic_, too, suddenly flashed
into sight the brilliant exotics of Harriet Prescott, who holds among
American women a position as singular as that of Poe among men. Her
characters have their being in some remote, gorgeous sunset-land; we
feel that the Boston Common of “Azarian” is based upon a cloud rather
than solid Yankee earth, and the author can scarce pluck a Mayflower but
it turns at her touch to something rich and strange. Native flavor there
is in some of her shorter stories, such as “The South Breaker,” and
“Knitting Sale-Socks”; but a sudden waft of foreign spices is sure to
mingle with the sea-wind or the inland lilac-scents. “The Amber Gods”
and “A Thief in the Night” skillfully involve the reader in a dazzling
web of deceptive strength.

In “Temple House,” “Two Men,” and “The Morgesons,” the peculiarly
powerful works of Mrs. Stoddard, the central figures do not seem
necessarily of any particular time or country. Their local habitation,
however, is impressively painted; with a few swift vigorous strokes, the
old coast towns spring up before us; the very savor of the air is
imparted. Minor characters strongly smack of the soil; old Cuth, in “Two
Men,” dying “silently and firmly, like a wolf”; Elsa, in the same book.
There are scenes of a superb, fierce power,—that of the wreck in “Temple
House,” for instance. The curt and repressed style, the ironic humor of
Mrs. Stoddard, serve to grapple her work to the memory as with hooks of
steel; it is as remote as possible from the conventional notion of
woman’s writing.

The old conflict between the reformer’s passion and the art-instinct is
renewed in the novels and stories of Elizabeth Stuart Phelps; who
possesses the artist’s responsiveness in a high degree, with but little
of the artist’s restraint. Exquisitely sensitive to the significant
beauty of the world, she is no less sensitive to the appeal of human
pain. In “Hedged In” and “The Silent Partner,” in her stories of the
squalid tenement and the storm-beaten coast, her literary work reflects,
point for point, her personal work for the fallen, the toiling and the
tempted. Her passionate sympathy gives her a power of thrilling, of
commanding the tribute of tears, which is all her own. An enthusiast for
womanhood, she has given us in “The Story of Avis,” and “Dr. Zay”
striking studies of complementary themes; “Avis,” despite certain flaws
of style to which objection is trite, remaining the greater, as it is
the sadder, book. All Miss Phelps’s stories strike root into New
England, though it is not precisely Mrs. Cooke’s New England of iron
farmers and stony farms; and none strikes deeper root than “Avis,” a
natural product of the intellectual region whence “Woman in the
Nineteenth Century” sprang thirty years before. No other woman, among
writers who have arisen since the war, has received in such fullness the
spiritual inheritance of New England’s past.

The changes brought about by the influx of foreigners into the factory
towns of the East, are reflected in the pages of Miss Phelps,
particularly in “The Silent Partner.” A recent worker of the same vein
is Lillie Chace Wyman, whose short stories, collected under the symbolic
title “Poverty Grass,” are marked by sincerity and simple power. Sarah
Orne Jewett roams the old pastures, gathering many pungent handfuls of
the familiar flowers and herbs that retain for us their homely
preciousness. She is attracted also by the life of the coast. Without
vigorous movement, her sketches and stories have always an individual,
delicate picturesqueness, the quality of a small, clear water-color. “A
Country Doctor” is to be noted for its very quiet and true presentation
of a symmetrical womanhood, naturally drawn toward the large helpfulness
of professional life.

A novel which has lately aroused much discussion, the “John Ward,
Preacher,” of Margaret Deland, is, although its scene is laid in
Pennsylvania, a legitimate growth of New England in its problem and its
central character. The orthodox idea of eternal future punishment
receives a treatment somewhat similar to that applied by Miss Phelps, in
“The Gates Ajar,” to the conventional heaven. The hero seems a
revisitant Thomas Shepard, or other stern yet tender Puritan of the
past, miraculously set down in a modern environment. The incisiveness of
portions of “John Ward,” as well as the grace of its side scenes, gives
promise of even more valuable coming contributions to American fiction,
by the poet of the charming “Old Garden.” A still more recent New
England production is the book of stories by Mary E. Wilkins, “A Humble
Romance”; vigorous work, brimful of human nature.

We need not now enter into the circumstances, tending to the
misdirection of intellectual effort, which so affected the work of
Southern women in literature that for some time they produced little of
enduring value. These causes have been of late fully set forth by a
writer of the New South, Thomas Nelson Page; who, in naming the women of
Southern birth or residence most prominent as novelists before the Civil
War, places Mrs. Terhune in a class by herself. “Like the others, she
has used the Southern life as material, but has exhibited a literary
sense of far higher order, and an artistic touch.” Mrs. Rebecca Harding
Davis, a native of West Virginia, has chosen a Pennsylvanian background
for some of her best work; producing, perhaps, nothing stronger than
“Life in the Iron Mills,” published long since in the _Atlantic_; a
story distantly akin to those of Miss Phelps and the author of “Poverty
Grass.” The hopeless heart-hunger of the poor has seldom been so
passionately pictured. A distinguishing characteristic of the work of
Mrs. Davis is her Browning-like insistence on the rare test-moments of
life. If, as in the complicated wartime novel “Waiting for the
Verdict,”—a work of high intention,—the characters come out startlingly
well in the sudden lights flashed upon them, the writer’s idealism is
tonic and uplifting.

It was a woman of the North who pictured, in a series of brief tales and
sketches full of insight, the desolate South at the close of the Civil
War: Constance Fenimore Woolson, the most broadly national of our women
novelists. Her feeling for local color is quick and true; and though she
has especially identified herself with the Lake country and with
Florida, one is left with the impression that her assimilative powers
would enable her to reproduce as successfully the traits of any other
quarter of the Union. Few American writers of fiction have given
evidence of such breadth, so full a sense of the possibilities of the
varied and complex life of our wide land. Robust, capable, mature,—these
seem fitting words to apply to the author of “Anne,” of “East Angels,”
of the excellent short stories in “Rodman the Keeper.” Women have reason
for pride in a representative novelist whose genius is trained and
controlled, without being tamed or dispirited.

Similar surefootedness and mastery of means are displayed by Mary
Hallock Foote in her picturesque western stories, such as “The Led Horse
Claim: A Romance of the Silver Mines,” and “John Bodewin’s Testimony”;
in which a certain gracefulness takes the place of the fuller warmth of
Miss Woolson. One is apt to name the two writers together, since they
represent the most supple and practiced talent just now exercised by
women in the department of fiction. Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett,
English by birth and education, and influenced by the Dickens tradition,
though reflecting the tone of her environment wherever fate may lead
her, touches American literature chiefly on the Southern side, through
“Louisiana” and “Esmeralda.” Despite the ambitious character of her
novel of Washington society, “Through One Administration,” her most
durable work is either thoroughly English, or belongs to the
international school. This particular branch of fiction we cannot now
pause to note, though conscious that such books as the beautiful “Guenn”
of Blanche Willis Howard have their own distinct value.

A truly native flower, though gathered in a field so unfamiliar as to
wear a seemingly foreign charm, is Mrs. Jackson’s poetic “Ramona.” A
book instinct with passionate purpose, intensely alive, and involving
the reader in its movement, it yet contains an idyl of singular
loveliness, the perfection of which lends the force of contrast to the
pathetic close. A novel of reform, into which a great and generous soul
poured its gathered strength, it none the less possesses artistic
distinction. Something is, of course, due to the charm of atmosphere,
the beauty of the background against which the plot naturally placed
itself; more, to the trained hand, the pen pliant with long and free
exercise; most, to the poet-heart. “Ramona” stands as the most finished,
though not the most striking example, that what American women have done
notably in literature they have done nobly.

The magazine-reading world has hardly recovered yet from its shock of
surprise, on discovering the author of “In the Tennessee Mountains,” a
book of short stories, projecting the lines on which the writer has
since advanced in “The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountain” and “The
Despot of Broomsedge Cove.” Why did Miss Murfree prefer to begin her
literary career under the masculine name of “Charles Egbert Craddock”?
Probably for the same reason as George Sand, George Eliot, Currer Bell;
a reason stated by a stanch advocate of woman, in words that form a
convenient answer to the common sneer. “Not because they wished to be
men, but because they wished for an unbiassed judgment as artists.” The
world has grown so much more enlightened on this point, that the biassed
critic is now the exception, and the biassed editor is a myth. The
precaution of disguise cannot much longer remain a necessity, if,
indeed, it was necessary in the case of Miss Murfree.

From whatever cause adopted, the mask was a completely deceptive one.
Mr. Craddock’s vivid portrayal of life among the Tennessee Mountains was
fairly discussed, and welcomed as a valuable and characteristic
contribution from the South; and nobody hinted then that the subtle
poetic element, and the tendency to subordinate human interest to
scenery, were indications of the writer’s sex. The few cherishers of the
fading superstition that women are without humor, laughed heartily and
unsuspiciously over the droll situations, the quaint sayings of the
mountaineers. Once more the _reductio ad absurdum_ has been applied to
the notion of ordained, invariable, and discernible difference between
the literary work of men and that of women. The method certainly defers
to dullness; but it also affords food for amusement to the ironically
inclined.

This review, cursory and incomplete as it is, of the chief
accomplishment of American women in native fiction, serves to bring out
the fact that they have, during the last forty years, supplied to our
literature an element of great and genuine value; and that while their
productions have of course varied in power and richness they have
steadily gained in art. How wide the gap between “Hobomok” and “Ramona”!
During the latter half of the period, the product gives no general
evidence of limitation; and the writers would certainly be placed,
except for the purposes of this article, among their brother authors, in
classes determined by method, local background, or any other basis of
arrangement which is artistic rather than personal.

In exceptional cases, a reviewer perhaps exclaims upon certain faults as
“womanish”; but the cry is too hasty; the faults are those of
individuals, in either sex. It is possible to match them from the work
of men, and to adduce examples of women’s work entirely free from them.
Colonel Higginson has pointed out that the ivory-miniature method in
favor with some of our masculine artists is that of Jane Austen. Wherein
do Miss Sprague’s “Earnest Trifler,” or “The Daughter of Henry Sage
Rittenhouse,” display more salient indications of sex than works of
similar scope by Mr. Henry James?

“The almost entire disappearance of the distinctively woman’s
novel,”—that is, the novel designed expressly for feminine readers, such
as “The Wide, Wide World,” and “The Lamplighter,”—has lately been
commented upon. It is to be observed that this species—chiefly produced
in the past by women, as the Warner sisters, Maria S. Cummins, Elizabeth
Payson Prentiss, the excellent Miss McIntosh—has become nearly extinct
at the very time when women are supplying a larger proportion of fiction
than ever before; and, further, that the comparatively few “domestic
semi-pious” novels very popular in late years have been of masculine
production. The original and suggestive, though perhaps at times
over-subtle, work of Mrs. Whitney, thoroughly impregnated with the New
England spirit, and portraying, with insight, various phases of
girlhood, takes another rank. Whatever may be concluded from the
decadence of fiction written of women, for women, by women, it is
certainly probable that women will remain, as a rule, the best writers
for girls. In connection with this subject must be mentioned the widely
known and appreciated stories of Louisa M. Alcott, “Little Women,” and
its successors,—which “have not only been reprinted and largely sold in
England, but also translated into several foreign languages, and thus
published with persistent success.” We are told that when “Little Men”
was issued, “its publication had to be delayed until the publishers were
prepared to fill advanced orders for fifty thousand copies.”

A like popularity is to be noted of the spirited and artistic “Hans
Brinker, or the Silver Skates,” of Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge; which “has had
a very large circulation in America; has passed through several editions
in England; and has been published in French at Paris, in German at
Leipsic, in Russian at St. Petersburg, and in Italian at Rome.... The
crowning tribute to its excellence is its perennial sale in Holland in a
Dutch edition.” No name in our juvenile literature so “brings a perfume
in the mention” as that of Mrs. Dodge, who for years has been as “the
very pulse of the machine” in the production of that ideal magazine for
children, which is not only an ever-new delight but a genuine
educational power.

In poetry, the abundant work of women during the last half-century shows
a development corresponding to that traced in the field of fiction. As
the flood of sentimentalism slowly receded, hopeful signs began to
appear; the rather vague tints of a bow of poetical promise. The varying
verse of Mrs. Oakes Smith, Mrs. Kinney, Elizabeth Lloyd Howell, and
Harriet Winslow Sewall, represents, in different degrees, a general
advance. The “little vagrant pen” of Frances Sargent Osgood, as she
confessed, “wandered lightly down the paper,” but its fanciful turns had
now and then a swift, capricious grace. The poems of Sarah Helen
Whitman, belonging to the landscape school of Bryant, are of marked
value, as are also the deeply earnest productions of Mrs. Anna Lynch
Botta; which display anew distinctness of motive, possibly attributable
to the influence of Longfellow. The same influence is felt in some of
the early work of Alice Cary; whose individual strain of melancholy
melody clings to remembrance, its charm stubbornly outliving our
critical recognition of defects due, in great measure, to
over-production. Emily Judson sometimes touched finely the familiar
chords, as in the well-known poem of motherhood, “My Bird.” The tender
“Morning Glory” of Maria White Lowell, whose poems are characterized by
a delicate and childlike simplicity, will be remembered.

In 1873 a critic not generally deemed too favorable to growths of the
present day, recorded the opinion that there was “more force and
originality,—in other words more genius,—in the living female poets of
America than in all their predecessors, from Mistress Anne Bradstreet
down. At any rate there is a wider range of thought in their verse, and
infinitely more art.” For the change first noted by Mr. Stoddard there
is no accounting; the tides of genius are incalculable. The other gains,
like those in fiction, are to be accounted for partly by the law of
evolution working through our whole literature, by the influence of
sounder models and of a truer criticism, and by the winnowing processes
of the magazines; partly also, by the altered position and improved
education of women in general—not necessarily of the individual, since
change in the atmosphere may have important results in cases where other
conditions remain unchanged.

The poems of Mrs. Howe express true womanly aspiration, and a high scorn
of unworthiness, but their strongest characteristic is the fervent
patriotism which breathes through the famous “Battle-Hymn of the
Republic.” The clear hopeful “orchard notes” of Lucy Larcom—it is
impossible to refrain from quoting Mr. Stedman’s perfect phrase—first
heard long since, have grown more mellow with advancing years.

The dramatic lyric took new force and naturalness in the hands of Rose
Terry Cooke, and turned fiery in those of Mrs. Stoddard; whose
contemplative poems also have an eminent sad dignity of style. The
fine-spun subjective verse of Mrs. Piatt flashes at times with
felicities as a web with dew-drops. Many names appear upon the honorable
roll: Mrs. Fields, Mrs. Spofford,—whose rich nature reveals itself in
verse as in the novel,—Mrs. Margaret J. Preston, Mrs. Mary Ashley
Townsend; Elizabeth Akers Allen, Julia C. R. Dorr, Mrs. Stowe, Mrs.
Whitney, Mrs. Dodge, Mrs. Moulton; Mrs. Thaxter, the sea’s true lover,
who has devoted herself to the faithful expression of a single phase of
natural beauty; Mrs. Mary E. Bradley, Kate Putnam Osgood, Nora Perry,
Mary N. Prescott, and Harriet McEwen Kimball; Mary Clemmer Hudson,
Margaret Sangster, Miss Bushnell, “Susan Coolidge,” “Howard Glyndon,”
“Stuart Sterne,” Charlotte Fiske Bates, May Riley Smith, Ella Dietz,
Mary Ainge De Vere, Edna Dean Proctor, the Goodale sisters, Miss
Coolbrith, Miss Shinn, “Owen Innsley,” Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, and
Alice Wellington Rollins. There is a kind of white fire in the best of
the subtle verses of “H. H.”—a diamond light, enhanced by careful
cutting. Generally impersonal, the author’s individuality yet lives in
them to an unusual degree. We may recognize, also, in the Jewish poems
of Emma Lazarus, especially in “By the Waters of Babylon” and the
powerful fourteenth-century tragedy, “The Dance to Death,” “the precious
life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a
life beyond life.” The poems of Edith M. Thomas, with their exquisite
workmanship, mark the high attainment of woman in the mastery of poetic
forms, and exhale some breath of that fragrance which clings to the work
of the young Keats. Miss Hutchinson’s “Songs and Lyrics” have also rare
quality. The graceful verse of Mrs. Deland has been quick to win the ear
of the public. Louise Imogen Guiney, sometimes straining the voice, has
nevertheless contributed to the general chorus notes of unusual fullness
and strength. In other branches of literature, to which comparatively
few women have chosen to devote themselves, an increasing thoroughness
is apparent, a growing tendency to specialism. The irresponsible
feminine free-lance, with her gay dash at all subjects, and her
alliterative pen-name dancing in every melée like a brilliant pennon,
has gone over into the more appropriate field of journalism. The calmly
adequate literary matron-of-all-work is an admirable type of the past,
no longer developed by the new conditions. The articles of Lucy M.
Mitchell on sculpture and of Mrs. Schuyler van Renssalaer on art and
architecture; the historical work of Martha J. Lamb and of Mary L.
Booth, the latter also an indefatigable translator; the studies of Helen
Campbell in social science; the translations of Harriet Waters
Preston—these few examples, given at random, are typical of the
determination and concentration of woman’s work at the present day. We
notice in each new issue of a magazine the well-known specialists. Miss
Thomas has given herself to the interpretation of nature in prose as in
verse; “Olive Thorne” Miller to the loving study of bird-life. Mrs.
Jackson, the most versatile of later writers, possessed the rare
combination of versatility and thoroughness in such measure that we
might almost copy Hartley Coleridge’s saying of Harriet Martineau, and
call her a specialist in everything; but her name will ever be
associated with the earnest presentation of the wrongs of the Indian, as
that of Emma Lazarus with the impassioned defense of the rights of the
Jew.

The just and genial Colonel Higginson expresses disappointment that
woman’s advance in literature has not been more marked since the
establishment of the women’s colleges. “It is,” he says, “considerable
and substantial; yet in view of the completeness with which literary
work is now thrown open to women, and their equality as to pay, there is
room for some surprise that it is not greater.”

The proper fruit of the women’s colleges in literature has, in fact, not
yet ripened. It may at first seem strangely delayed, yet reflection will
suggest the reasons. An unavoidable self-consciousness hampers the first
workers under a new dispensation. It might appear at a casual glance
that those released from the burden of a retarding tradition were ready
at once for the race; but in truth the weight has only been exchanged
for the lighter burden of the unfamiliar. College-bred women of the
highest type have accepted, with grave conscientiousness, new social
responsibilities as the concomitant of their new opportunities.

“Pealing, the clock of Time
Has struck the Woman’s hour;
We hear it on our knees,”

wrote Miss Phelps for the graduates of Smith College ten years ago. That
the summons has indeed been reverently heard and faithfully obeyed,
those who have followed the work of the Association of Collegiate Alumnæ
can testify. The deed, and not the word, engages the energy of the
college woman of to-day; but as these institutions grow into the life of
our land, that life will be everywhere enriched; and the word must
follow in happy time. Individual genius for literature is sure sooner or
later to appear within the constantly widening circle of those fairly
equipped for its exercise. It would be idle to expect that the cases in
which native power and an adequate preparation go hand in hand, will be
frequent; since they are infrequent among men. The desirable thing was,
that this rare development should be made a possibility among women. It
is possible to-day; some golden morrow will make it a reality.

VI.
WOMAN IN JOURNALISM.

BY
SUSAN E. DICKINSON.

The pioneer woman in American journalism was Mrs. Margaret Craper, of
the _Massachusetts Gazette and News Letter_, in the years of the
Revolutionary War. After her to the year 1837 must be referred the first
entrance of any American woman into the field of active journalism. At
that time Mrs. Ann S. Stephens accepted the duties of editorial writer
and literary critic in the columns of the _New York Evening Express_.
Her connection with that paper continued for thirty years, but after
1857 it was limited to the editorial pages by the press of exacting
duties elsewhere. In the last named year Mrs. Elizabeth F. Ellet
succeeded her as literary editor of the _Express_, sustaining well the
reputation which Mrs. Stephens had gained for it of a just and high
standard of criticism. But in the intervening twenty years other women
had followed Mrs. Stephens’s lead, and made their mark in journalism
with a freshness, a vigor, and a brilliance unsurpassed by any of the
numerous later comers. During the thirties Mrs. Sarah Josepha Hale and
the once famous Grimké sisters, Sarah and Angelina, availed themselves
of the opportunities offered for special writing by New York and
Philadelphia papers. In 1841 Mrs. Lydia Maria Child, one of the most
widely known authors of the day, made her appearance in the arena of New
York journalism as editor of the _Anti-Slavery Standard_, a weekly
newspaper published by the American Anti-Slavery Society. Mrs. Child had
already demonstrated her editorial ability in the establishment and
conduct, for eight years, of the _Juvenile Miscellany_, the pioneer
children’s magazine of America. For two years Mrs. Child conducted the
_Standard_ alone; then, for six years more, in conjunction with her
husband. But her best work during these years was done in 1842–’3–’4 as
special New York correspondent for the _Boston Courier_, then edited by
Joseph T. Buckingham. These weekly letters of hers, original, sparkling,
thoughtful, vigorous, depicting the social, literary, musical, and
dramatic life of the metropolis, were afterwards republished in two
volumes, which hold a wonderful fascination still, when read after the
lapse of more than a generation.

It was while Mrs. Child’s letters were forming one of the greatest
attractions of the _Boston Courier_, in 1843, that Miss Cornelia Wells
Walter took charge of the editorial columns of the _Boston Transcript_,
doing her work as ably and faithfully as any of her masculine fellow
journalists. And in the next year, 1844, Margaret Fuller, who in 1840
had founded, and for two years edited, that famous quarterly, the
_Dial_, came from Boston to New York at the request of Horace Greeley to
fill the position of literary editor of the _Tribune_. Here she set the
standard of criticism at high-water mark, and made its literary notices
famed for a discrimination, sincerity, justness, and fearlessness of
judgment and utterance which contributed largely to the influence of the
paper. In the summer of 1846, when she sailed for Europe, its review
columns had in her hands attained a reputation which in after years the
scholarly editing of Dr. Ripley did but sustain.

In the same year that saw the beginning of Mrs. Child’s brilliant
letters from New York, the readers of the _Louisville Journal_ greeted
the advent of another woman, Mrs. Jane G. Swisshelm, in letters and
editorial contributions bearing the strong stamp of an earnest,
aggressive, deeply thoughtful but vivacious mind, intense in its
sympathies, ready to do battle against every form of wrong-doing, and
gifted with a bright humor which winged the shafts she sent abroad with
unfailing vigor. It was but a little while until she became also special
correspondent for the _Spirit of Liberty_, issued at Pittsburgh. She
speedily proved herself a worthy compeer of her Eastern sisters in the
journalistic field. In 1848 she removed to Pittsburgh and established
there the _Saturday Visitor_, a paper which grew rapidly into wide
circulation and influence.

But before she had reached this point in her career, while in fact the
fame of this Western worker was just beginning to be heard of in the
seaboard cities, the reading public of those cities was startled into a
fever of enthusiasm by the letters of a Western girl in Eastern papers,
the _Home Journal_, the _Saturday Gazette_, the _Saturday Evening Post_,
the _National Press_. It was in 1845 and ’46 that “Grace Greenwood”
first took her place, while still a girl in her teens, as one of the
most brilliant, clear-headed, and versatile of newspaper correspondents,
in which special province, so far as journalistic work is concerned, she
has elected to remain, with the exception of the few years, beginning
with 1853, during which she published and edited the _Little Pilgrim_.
Mrs. Swisshelm’s ambitions, on the contrary, led her always to prefer
the active duties of editor and publisher. The _Saturday Visitor_ under
her management was a power in the fields of political and social reform,
of home duties and graces. She enlisted the services of other women for
its departments. Chief among these helpers was Mrs. Frances D. Gage of
Ohio, who became afterwards widely known as a charming writer for
children, an earnest woman’s rights speaker, and contributor to the _New
York Independent_. In 1856, after her connection with the _Visitor_
ceased, Mrs. Gage led the van of women journalists in her own State by
becoming associate editor of an agricultural paper in Columbus,
conducting its Home department with marked success. Mrs. Swisshelm,
attracted in 1856 by what seemed a wider sphere for work in the new
Northwest, sold her Pittsburgh paper and soon afterwards started, in
Minnesota, the _St. Cloud Visitor_. In this she of course continued her
advocacy of Free Soil and anti-slavery doctrines, and within a year her
office was raided and her press destroyed by a mob. Fearlessly she
gathered her resources together, and began the publication of the _St.
Cloud Democrat_, in which she afresh demonstrated her ability, and in
the campaign of 1860 supported Mr. Lincoln for the Presidency. After the
close of the war she returned to the duties of active journalism;
having, during the years of conflict, laid them aside to perform
efficient service as a nurse “at the front.” Her vigorous pen until
nearly the close of her life failed not to serve every cause in whose
truth and justice she believed.

Near the same time at which Mrs. Swisshelm founded the _Pittsburgh
Visitor_, Mrs. C. I. H. Nichols became the editor of the _Windham County
Democrat_, a Whig paper published at Brattleboro, Vermont. This she
conducted for many years with admirable success, her editorials being
often widely copied. In 1851 “Gail Hamilton” made a brilliant dash into
journalism as special contributor to the _National Era_, Dr. Bailey’s
paper at Washington, for which Mrs. Stowe wrote “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” and
Grace Greenwood did some of her best work. In 1854 the woman’s rights
agitation, which had taken form several years before at the Seneca Falls
Convention, and received a new impulse at the Worcester Convention of
1851, was reinforced by the appearance at Boston of a new paper, the
_Una_, published and edited by Mrs. Paulina Wright Davis and Mrs.
Caroline H. Dall. This failed of long life for want of pecuniary
support, but it was energetically conducted while it lived, and is well
worthy of remembrance as the pioneer woman suffrage paper of America. In
1855 Miss Antoinette Brown, afterwards Mrs. Blackwell, became for a time
one of the special contributors to the _New York Tribune_. She devoted
her writing to social and reformatory subjects, giving chief place
therein to the bearing upon women of the vices and defects of our social
system.

In any notice of American women in journalism it is needful to give
thus, in somewhat broad detail, an account of the workers during those
first twenty years, because of the wide influence which they wielded in
behalf of noble living and high thinking, and the practical stimulus
which they gave to work in the various lines of social reform.

After those twenty years were over, as the country became more widely
and thickly settled, as newspapers multiplied and enlarged their
departments, and called for an increasing staff of writers of varying
abilities, women journalists also became more numerous, and began to
take up special lines of correspondence and reportorial work. In 1856
Miss Cunningham, who soon after became Mrs. D. G. Croly, still better
known as “Jennie June,” entered upon her journalistic career as a
fashion writer, first on the _Sunday Despatch_, then on various other
New York papers. In 1857 she invented the manifold or syndicate system
of correspondence, supplying fashion items, gossip, and news of social
topics and occurrences, simultaneously to newspapers all over the
country. In this department of work her followers have multiplied until
it would be hopeless to name or to count them. In 1860 she suggested the
founding of _Demorest’s Illustrated Magazine of Fashions_, and edited it
for twenty-seven years, during which time she not only maintained her
syndicate work, but proved herself a good “all round” writer for the
press, having held at different times a position on the staff of nearly
all of the leading New York dailies. In the autumn of 1889 Mrs. Croly
issued the first number of a weekly paper, _The Woman’s Cycle_, the aim
and purpose of which are amply indicated by its title.

During the period of the Civil War and the few years immediately
succeeding, the larger city papers began to avail themselves of the work
of women as special writers, as correspondents, and reporters. The _New
York Tribune_ numbered upon its editorial staff Mrs. Rebecca Harding
Davis and Mrs. Lucia Gilbert Calhoun; Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton
supplied it weekly with the literary, dramatic, and art news of Boston,
and Miss Ellen Mackay Hutchinson began her work upon it as assistant to
Dr. Ripley in its book review department. Miss Middie Morgan on the
_Times_ has shown among journalists as thoroughly as Mlle. Rosa Bonheur
has done among painters, that a woman may fill admirably any unusual
place to which she is adapted by inclination and circumstance. Quite
recently Miss A. L. Wilson has won a kindred success as manager and
assistant editor of the San Francisco _Breeder and Sportsman_.

Of correspondents in this period, Mary Clemmer (then Mrs. Ames) was the
first to become widely known. Her Washington letters to the _New York
Independent_, and other papers, continued for a series of years to stand
in the front rank of journalistic correspondence. Succeeding her come a
long line whose names and work have become famed. Mrs. Burnham,
afterward Mrs. Fiske, in the _Republican_ of St. Louis, later in various
Chicago, Washington, and New York papers; Miss Anna M. H. Brewster, Mrs.
Lucy H. Hooper, Mrs. John Sherwood, Miss Kate Field, are among those
whose unmistakable gifts and conscientious work have won high place for
themselves and opened the way for others.

The religious press, weekly and monthly, was not far behind its secular
contemporaries in securing the aid of women as conductors of special
departments. For the last thirty years there have been few or none of
these that have not steadily numbered one or more women among their
regular contributors.

No woman in New York had taken the editorial control of a paper after
1849, when Mrs. Child relinquished her place upon the _Standard_, until
1867 Miss Mary L. Booth took the charge, from its initial number, of
_Harper’s Bazar_. Her reputation, earned as historian of New York and as
a translator, had become a national one when in 1861, in a week’s time,
she rendered accurately into brilliant English Gasparin’s famous
“Uprising of a Great People.” It aided in drawing immediate popular
attention to the new journal. How faithfully and admirably her editorial
work was done for the remaining twenty-two years of her life has but
recently been borne witness to over her grave.

In 1868, one year after the _Bazar_ was started, the lively agitation in
favor of woman suffrage gave birth to the _Revolution_, of which Miss
Susan B. Anthony was the publisher and Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
editor-in-chief. Two years later the _Woman’s Journal_ was started in
Boston, with Mrs. Lucy Stone, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, and Mrs. Mary
Livermore upon its editorial staff. If these two papers, and the by no
means insignificant number which have arisen to follow their footsteps,
have not as yet seen the accomplishment of their especial aim, they have
served as potent factors in woman’s educational, industrial and social
advancement, in helping to secure the repeal of unjust laws, and, if
last named, by no means least, in awakening women to a sense of their
solidarity as a sex—to the truth that “where one of the members suffers
all the members suffer with it.”

In the mean time there were, both in the West and South, women who had
demonstrated their ability and fitness for the profession of journalism.
In New Orleans Mrs. E. J. Nicholson, first as coadjutor and then as
successor to her husband, has for thirty years or more held editorial
control of the _Picayune_, of which she is the chief owner. On her paper
and on the _Times-Democrat_, also owned by a woman, women have for many
years held responsible positions. In Assumption, the _Pioneer_ has, for
a term second only to that of Mrs. Nicholson’s career, been owned and
edited by Mrs. Susan Dupaty. Mrs. S. V. Kentzel has for fourteen years
made her paper, the _St. Tammany Farmer_, of eminent practical value and
importance to the agricultural and material interests of a large part of
the State. Of later years there have been quite a number of additions to
the list of women journalists of Louisiana, foremost among these being
Miss Addie McGrath of the _Baton Rouge Truth_, who is one of the chief
officers of the Press Association, and Mrs. M. L. Garner, owner and
editor of the _Carroll Banner_ at Lake Providence; Mme. Marie Roussel is
the editor of _Le Propagateur Catholique_ of New Orleans. A Woman’s
National Press Association was formed at New Orleans in May, 1885. Two
years later the addition of foreign members caused a change of name to
the Woman’s International Press Association. Mrs. Nicholson is its
President. Near the same time that Miss Booth assumed charge of
_Harper’s Bazar_, Mrs. Mary E. Bryan entered upon the literary
management of the _Sunny South_ at Atlanta, Georgia. She had served her
apprenticeship to journalism as assistant editor upon an Atlanta paper,
and had afterwards edited a political journal in Natchitoches. After ten
years management of the _Sunny South_ she joined the corps of women
editors in New York, taking charge of the _Fashion Bazar_ a dozen years
ago. After Mrs. Bryan’s departure from Atlanta there seems to have been
no other woman in that part of the South inspired with an ambition for
newspaper work until Miss Andrews recently took a place upon the
_Atlanta Constitution_. Texas has a number of women journalists, most of
whom are new-comers in their profession; but one of them, Mrs. S. L.
McPherson, in 1877, established and still edits and publishes at Sherman
the _Daily Democrat_. For the two or three previous years her home had
been in Caddo, Indian Territory, where she had aided her husband in
publishing the _Oklahoma Star_. These ladies are all welcome members of
the Texas Press Association. There are a number of recent indications
that journalism is likely to become a favorite profession among Southern
women.

In the West, while Mrs. Swisshelm was still making herself felt as a
power in Minnesota, Mrs. Susan C. Vogl, of late years the successful
business manager of the _Boston Woman’s Journal_, began journalistic
work upon the _Western Spy_ of Sumner, Kansas. Afterwards she wrote for
St. Louis and New England papers for some years before her removal to
Boston. In 1868 Mrs. Myra Bradwell founded the _Chicago Legal News_, of
which she has been ever since the editor and business manager. In 1871
the Illinois Legislature passed special acts making the columns of the
_News_ evidence in the courts; and after the burning of all records in
the Chicago fire, Mrs. Bradwell’s paper was selected by the circuit and
supreme court judges as the publication to have exclusive right to
publish notices in regard to their cases. Mrs. Agnes Leonard Hill’s
journalistic work began as early as 1869 in Kentucky, was carried on in
Chicago papers, and for the last eight years she has been engaged in
editorial labors in Colorado.

In 1876 Miss Margaret F. Buchanan, now Mrs. Sullivan, entered upon the
journalistic career, in which she speedily gained an enviable
reputation, showing herself as thoroughly equipped as any brother of the
press among them all to meet the serious questions and vexed problems of
political and social science, and equally ready for brilliant
descriptive work or discriminating criticism. Near the same time Miss
Emily S. Bouton took the position upon the _Toledo Blade_ which, in its
varied demands upon her, not only as the head of its literary and
household departments, but as leader writer and special contributor, has
served to show the wide range of her accomplishments and her ability in
every line of journalistic labor. The editorial and dramatic columns of
the _Blade_ have been indebted to her for some of their strongest work.
It was to the _Blade_ also that “Shirley Dare” gave much of the best of
her early versatile achievements in the journalistic field. Somewhat
earlier Mrs. Kate Brownlee Sherwood had filled a responsible position
upon another Toledo paper. The _Indianapolis Journal_ has for many years
given a fair field to women journalists, and in its columns Miss Anna
Nicholas, Mrs. Florence Adkinson, Mrs. May Wright Sewall, and others
have achieved success. In 1878 Mrs. Belle Ball entered on a very
different line of newspaper works as traveling correspondent of the
_Albuquerque_ (New Mexico) _Journal_, and of two Kansas papers, her
especial duty being to report the progress of the Atlantic and Pacific
Railroad, with all its incidental accompaniments—one of these being for
months together the peril to life from Indian foes. After two years of
this arduous experience she became an associate editor on a Kansas
paper. For the last two years she has been the literary editor of the
_Kansas City Times_.

After 1876 women journalists multiplied in the West as rapidly as in New
England. The Illinois Woman’s Press Association, formed in 1886, at the
close of 1888, numbered 66 members, of whom 45 are either business
managers of important journals, editors, or editorial assistants.
Investigation shows a large number of newspaper women in the State who
have not enrolled themselves in this or any association. The Western
Association of Writers, organized in July, 1885, has many women editors,
correspondents, and reporters among its members. The Ohio Woman’s Press
Association has in its Cincinnati branch over thirty members, nearly all
of whom are journalists. The Cleveland branch numbers between forty and
fifty, about one-half of whom are authors and one-half journalists.

Earlier than any of these was the Woman’s National Press Association,
organized at Washington, D.C., in July, 1882. This has a large
membership, and, like all of the others, is in a prosperous condition.
Since 1887 a special press gallery for its members has been set apart in
each of the houses of Congress. The New England Woman’s Press
Association was organized in Boston in November, 1885. At present it
numbers nearly 100 members, all journalists or magazine editors. When
the _Woman’s Journal_ was established it found no woman journalist in
Boston save Miss Sallie Joy, now Mrs. White, who was then doing more or
less desultory work upon the _Boston Post_. In 1869 she was enrolled as
one of the regular staff of that paper. After her marriage in 1874 she
transferred her services to the _Advertiser_, and later to the _Herald_,
and to-day she is duly honored by the numerous sisterhood of Boston
newspaper women as their pioneer and leader.

Since New York saw the establishment of _Harper’s Bazar_ in the
interests of women in one direction, and of the _Revolution_ in another,
women’s publications in both of the lines thus indicated have multiplied
until it is quite out of the question to give a list of them outside of
the pages of a newspaper directory. The most widely known follower in
the path of the _Bazar_ is the _Ladies’ Home Journal_ of Philadelphia,
of which Mrs. Louisa Knapp was from the beginning until January, 1890,
the editor, with a salary of ten thousand dollars a year, and with Mrs.
Emma Hewitt and Mrs. Mary Lambert as assistants. There are probably not
many more such pecuniary prizes as yet in the grasp of women
journalists; but, on the whole, there are not many such open for any
one. It may as well be said here that Philadelphia, which was the first
city in the United States to set wide open many doors for woman’s work,
as yet numbers fewer women journalists than any other large Northern
city. Mrs. Hollowell, for many years past editor of the Household
department of the _Ledger_, and more recently Mrs. Kate Upson Clark of
the _Press_, have broadened their departmental work and made it of great
value in educational and divers other lines.

Following the lead of the _Revolution_ and the _Woman’s Journal_ there
are many others; some as out-and-out suffrage papers, and others
covering more broadly the circle of woman’s industrial and social
interests. In the East, the van among these is led by the _Woman’s
Magazine_, published by Mrs. Esther T. Housh at Brattleboro, Vermont.
Mrs. Housh began its publication originally at Lexington, Kentucky,
under the title of _Woman at Work_. In the south is the _Woman’s
Chronicle_ of Little Rock, Arkansas. In the far West are the _Queen Bee_
of Denver, Colorado, the _Woman’s Tribune_ of Beatrice, Nebraska, and
the _New Northwest_ of Portland, Oregon,—all owned and edited by women.
Those in the nearer West are too many to specify. With these, widely
differing yet in one sense kindred to them, should be named _The Woman’s
Exponent_, the official organ of the Woman’s Association of Utah. It is
edited by Emmeline B. Wells, and carries the motto “The Rights of the
Women of Zion, and the Rights of the Women of all Nations.” The
association which publishes it claims a membership of 22,000 women,
“thoroughly organized for the relief of the poor, and for medical,
philosophical, historical, and religious study.”

The Pacific slope has had comparatively few women journalists, but the
names of several appear upon the roll of membership of the lately formed
Central and Northern California Press Association.

The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union has within the last four or five
years multiplied greatly the number of women engaged in the practical
work of journalism. Beginning with the _Union Signal_, founded by Mrs.
Matilda B. Carse in Chicago, they have started up in almost every State
of the Union, and many local papers have W. C. T. U. departments, all
edited by women.

The vital interest of working women in the vexed problems of the
relation between capital and labor has called into existence at least
one paper, the _Working Woman_. This is the organ of the Woman’s
National Industrial League. It is published in Washington, D. C., by
Mrs. Charlotte Smith, who long ago proved her editorial ability in St.
Louis. Miss Mary F. Seymour has, more recently, established in New York
the _Business Woman’s Journal_, which from its initial number has
carried the prestige of success in its chosen field. Miss Fanny M. Earl,
of the _Hartford Insurance Journal_ has made her name widely known in
business circles all over the country, and aided in conquering their
respect for woman’s practical abilities.

Our Anglo-African sisters are awakening to a comprehension of the use of
the press as an instrument of value to themselves and their race. The
names of half a dozen who have been or are now in editorial charge of
race papers are well known, and at least a score of others who are
actively engaged in journalism. A few of them have been employed as
reporters or as special contributors on some of the leading dailies in
our great seaboard cities.

Having noted the rapid increase in the number of newspaper women who in
other parts of the country are doing faithful and worthy work in this
their chosen profession, it remains to say that New York City has not
fallen behind in this respect. The evidence of their capacity and
fitness for the work is before the public in almost every daily, weekly,
and monthly publication issued in the metropolis. Besides these are many
whose work goes, through the syndicate system, all over the country.
Their work, usually signed, serves even more widely to attract ambitious
and intelligent young women to the same profession than does the
exceptional reputation of such editors as Miss Booth, Mrs. M. M. Dodge,
Mrs. Martha J. Lamb, and Miss Jeanette Gilder. There are two Amateur
Press Associations of these youthful intending journalists in New
England. There may be others in other parts of the country. And the
number of those who are being inducted into the practical work of
journalism, on rural and county papers, owned by their relatives or
friends, grows greater every year.

From the very first there have been for women in journalism an open door
and a fair field. The earliest comers went into it because their
services were sought for. Themselves and those whom their success led to
embrace the same profession met with a warm welcome from the public; in
not a few instances even an enthusiastic one.

In each and every department of journalism—whether in office work, i.e.
as editors, editorial assistants, or reporters; or in outside work, as
correspondents, special contributors, or syndicate writers—the wages
paid to women are the same as those paid to men of similar capacity,
doing the same work. The prices paid vary according to the financial
status of the papers themselves. In the larger cities writers “on space”
receive on some journals payment at the rate of five dollars per column;
some other papers pay as much as ten dollars per column. With all these
writers, except where special articles have been ordered by the chief,
and the length thereof specified, it is a matter of uncertainty how much
space will be given them. The exigencies of the case often cut down
what, under other circumstances, would be a welcome column article to
two or three paragraphs, sometimes to as many lines. Office salaries in
large cities vary from ten or even only eight dollars per week to as
much as fifty or sixty dollars per week. A fair average for syndicate
correspondence is probably about ten dollars per column. On country and
county papers wages are of course much lower, often running down to a
figure which makes outside labor needful for even plain country living.
But whether in city or country women who can do the needful work as well
as men may be sure of as good pay as men, and of fair and just treatment
at the hands of their journalistic brethren.

VII.
WOMAN IN MEDICINE.

MARY PUTNAM JACOBI, M.D.

“Fifty years hence, it will be difficult to gain credit for the
assertion that American women acquiesced throughout the former half of
the 19th century, in the complete monopoly of the medical profession
by men, even including midwifery, and the diseases peculiar to women.
The current usage in this respect is monstrous.”—_New York Tribune_,
Editorial, 1853.

The history of the movement for introducing women into the full practice
of the medical profession is one of the most interesting of modern
times. This movement has already achieved much, and far more than is
often supposed. Yet the interest lies even less in what has been so far
achieved, than in the opposition which has been encountered: in the
nature of this opposition; in the pretexts on which it has been
sustained, and in the reasonings, more or less disingenuous, by which it
has claimed its justification. The history, therefore, is a record not
more of fact, than of opinion. And the opinions expressed have often
been so grave and solid in appearance, yet proved so frivolous and empty
in view of the subsequent event, that their history is not unworthy
careful consideration among that of other solemn follies of mankind.

In Europe, the admission of women to the profession of medicine has been
widely opposed because of disbelief in their intellectual capacity.[32]
In America it is less often permitted to doubt—out loud—the intellectual
capacity of women. The controversy has therefore been shifted to the
entirely different ground of decorum.

At the very outset, however, two rival decorums confronted each other.
The same centuries of tradition which had, officially, reserved the
practice of medicine for men, had assigned to women the exclusive
control of the practice of midwifery. It was assumed that midwifery did
not require the assistance of medical art,—that the woman in labor
traversed a purely physiological crisis, and required only the
attendance of kindness, patience, and native sagacity,—all obtainable
without scientific knowledge, from her own sex. This being taken for
granted, the propriety of limiting such attendance to women appeared so
self-evident, that, from the beginning of the world till the eighteenth
century A.D., the custom was not seriously questioned. There is an exact
parallelism between the relations of men to midwifery and of women to
medicine. The limitation of sex in each case was decided by a tradition
so immense, as to be mistaken for a divinely implanted instinct,
intended by Providence as one of the fundamental safeguards of society
and of morals. In each case the invasion by one sex of a “sphere”
hitherto monopolized by the other, aroused the coarsest antagonism of
offended delicacy. In each case finally, a real basis existed for the
traditional etiquette: there _was_ some reason for protesting against
the introduction of the male accoucheur into the lying-in room, or of
the ardent young girl into the medical school. But in each case,
whatever reasons for protest existed, were outnumbered and outweighed by
others, to whose greater importance they were finally compelled to give
way. Other things being equal, it _was_ unpleasant for a woman to be
attended in the crisis of her confinement by a man. But when the
necessity for knowledge was recognized, when men became skilled while
midwives remained ignorant,—the choice was no longer possible; the
greater decorum of female midwifery was obliged to yield to the greater
safety of enlightened masculine practice. Similarly, it _was_
occasionally unpleasant for young women students to find themselves
engaged in certain subjects of medical study together with classes of
young men. But in proportion as midwifery became enlarged by the new
province of gynæcology, did occasions multiply on which it was extremely
unpleasant for non-medical women to be medically treated by men. The
difficulties of educating a relatively few women in medicine were
compelled to be accepted, in order to avert the far greater difficulties
of medical treatment for a very large number of women.

The history of medical women in the United States, to which these pages
exclusively apply, may be divided into seven periods, as follows:

First, the colonial period of exclusively female midwifery,[33] many of
whose practitioners, according to their epitaphs, are reported to have
brought into the world one, two, or even three thousand babies apiece.
The Mrs. Thomas Whitmore of Marlboro, mentioned in the note, is
especially described as being “possessed of a vigorous constitution, and
frequently traveling through the woods on snow-shoes from one part of
the town to another by night and by day, to relieve the distressed.”[34]

During this period of female midwifery, the medical profession proper of
the colonies remained entirely unorganized and inarticulate.[35] Without
making especial inquiry, a superficial observer could have almost
overlooked the existence of doctors, as a special class, in the
community.

There followed, however, a second period, that, namely, of the
Revolution, and the years immediately preceding and following it. During
the former, physicians began to travel to Europe for instruction. During
the Revolutionary war their public services in the military hospitals,
though apparently not very useful to the sick,[36] yet served to bring
the profession, for the first time, out of obscurity; and the
opportunities afforded for the collective observation of disease on a
large scale, first breathed the spirit of medical science into the
American profession. The first achievement of the new-born interest in
medical art and education was the expulsion of “females,” from even the
outlying provinces of the profession, and from their world-old
traditional privileges as accoucheurs.[37] It was a harsh return to make
for the services rendered to the infant settlements by these valiant
midwives, who had been tramping through the snow by night and by day to
bring into a very cold world the citizens of the future republic![38]

Third. After this, however, came a period of reaction. In 1848, a Boston
gentleman, Mr. Samuel Gregory, began to vehemently protest against the
innovation of “male midwives,” and, opened a crusade on behalf of the
women, with something of the pathetic ardor of the Emperor Julian for a
lost cause.[39] To judge by the comments of the public press, Mr.
Gregory’s protest against “man-midwifery” awoke sympathetic echoes in
many quarters. At the present day the interest in the movement thus
roused, at once progressive and reactionary, lies chiefly in the
remarkable similarity between the arguments which were then advanced
against the intrusion of men into midwifery, and those which were
subsequently urged against the admission of women to medicine. Thus:

“The employment of men in midwifery practice is always grossly
indelicate, often immoral, and always constitutes a serious temptation
to immorality.”—_Summary of Mr. Gregory’s argument in “Man-Midwifery
Exposed,”_ 1848.

“I view the present practice of calling on men in ordinary births, ...
as a means of sacrificing delicacy and consequently virtue.”—_Thomas
Ewell, M.D., of Virginia._

“The practice (of male midwifery) is unnecessary, unnatural, and
wrong,—it has an immoral tendency.”—_W. Beach, M.D., New York._

“There are many cases of practice among women ... in which the sense
of propriety would decide that the presence of a female practitioner
is more desirable than that of a man.”—_New York Observer_, 1850.

“There are a few self-evident propositions which it would be
questioning the common sense of mankind to doubt. One is that women
are by nature better fitted than men to take care of the sick and the
suffering.”—_Godey’s Lady’s Book_, 1850.

“The especial propriety of qualifying women to practice among children
and their own sex, will be admitted I hope by all.”—_Rt. Rev. Bishop
Potter_, 1850.

“We have long been persuaded that both morality and decency require
female practitioners of medicine. Nature suggests it; reason approves
it; religion demands it.”—_Northern Christian Advocate_, 1850.

“This is one of the most important projects of the day for the
improvement of the condition of women.”—_Zion’s Herald_, 1850.

“The employment of men as ‘midwives’ is a modern custom, and one not
to be commended.”—_Phil. Saturday Post_, 1850.

“To attend medical clinics in company with men, women must lay aside
their modesty. There are still enough _gentlemen_ who would blush to
expose their mothers or sisters or wives to what, before women, would
be improper and indecent.”—_Letter to editor N. Y. Med. Record, 1884,
by M. K. Blackwood._

“History, physiology, and the general judgment of society unite in the
negative of woman’s fitness for the medical office.”—“_Woman and her
Physician._” _Lecture, Theoph. Parvin, Prof. Dis. Women_, 1870.

“If I were to plan with malicious hate the greatest curse I could
conceive for women, if I would estrange them from the protection of
women, and make them as far as possible loathsome and disgusting to
man, I would favor the so-called reform which proposed to make doctors
of them.”—_Editorial Buffalo Med. Journal_, 1869, p. 191.

“There are free-thinkers in the medical profession as there are
free-lovers in social life.... The opposition of medical men arises
because this movement outrages all their enlightened estimate of what
a woman should be. It shocks their refined appreciation of woman to
see her assume to follow a profession with repulsive details at every
step, after the disgusting preliminaries have been passed.”—_Sherry,
Med. and Surg. Reporter, July 6, 1867._

“It is obvious that we cannot instruct women as we do men in the
science of medicine; we cannot carry them into the dissecting room and
hospital; many of _our_ more delicate feelings, much of _our_ refined
sensibility must be subdued before we can study medicine; in females
they must be destroyed.”—_Remarks on Employment of Females as
Practitioners, Boston_, 1820.

“The ceremonies of graduating Miss Blackwell at Geneva may well be
called a farce. I am sorry that Geneva should be the first to commence
the nefarious process of amalgamation. The profession was quite too
full before.”—_Letter by D. K. to Boston Journal, Feb. 1849._

“The bare thought of married females engaging in the medical
profession is palpably absurd. It carries with it a sense of shame,
vulgarity, and disgust. Nature is responsible for my unqualified
opposition to educating females for the medical profession.”—_Dissert.
on Female Phys. by N. Williams, M.D., read before a N. Y. Med. Soc._,
June 6, 1850.

“Females are ambitious to dabble in medicine as in other matters, with
a view to reorganizing society.”—_Edit. Boston Med. and Surg. Jour._,
1852, p. 106.

“The serious inroads made by female physicians in obstetrical
business, _one of the essential branches of income to a majority of
well established practitioners_, make it natural enough to inquire
what course to pursue.”—_Ibid._, Feb. 1853.

These parallel columns might be extended much further, did our space
permit. We cannot, however, pass by the following gem of eloquence from
an English source, but quoted in the Cincinnati _Lancet and Clinic_ for
1881. It is from the address at the British Medical Association by the
President of that year:

“I am not over-squeamish, nor am I over-sensitive, but I almost shudder
when I hear of things that ladies now do or attempt to do. One can but
blush, and feel that modesty, once inherent in the fairest of God’s
creation, is fast fading away. You gentlemen, who know the delicacy of
women’s organization,—you must know that constitutionally they are unfit
for many of the duties of either doctor or nurse.

“May not habit so change that fine organization, that sensitive nature
of women, as to render her dead to those higher feelings of love and
sympathy which now make our homes so happy, so blessed?

“Will not England’s glory fade without its modest sympathizing women,
and its race of stalwart youths and blooming maidens?

“You now, gentlemen, know my views as to the propriety of ladies
_becoming doctors or nurses_.”[40]

The Fourth period of woman’s medical history was initiated when Mr.
Gregory, supported by the popular enthusiasm he had aroused, succeeded
in opening a School of Medicine (so called) for women, in Nov. 1848.[41]
The first term lasted three months: a second term began the following
April, 1849;—and with the announcement for the second year it was
declared that the twenty pioneer pupils had not only followed the
lectures, but “had attended above 300 midwifery cases with the most
satisfactory success.”

In the prospectus issued for the second year of the school, Mr. Gregory
brought forward a new set of arguments in its support, in addition to
those previously adduced. There was then (1849) in New England, a
surplus female population of 20,000 persons,—and “hundreds of these
would be willing to devote any necessary length of time to qualify
themselves for a useful, honorable, and remunerative occupation.” They
could afford, moreover, to give their services at a much cheaper rate
than men, charging about a third the ordinary fees,—thus $5 instead of
$15 for attendance on a confinement case.

Thus not only would the morals of the community be preserved, but the
burdens on its purse be considerably lightened by the employment of
educated women as obstetricians. As the medical profession had just
become keenly alive to the peculiarly lucrative character of obstetrical
and gynæcological practice, this suggestion that it might now profitably
be undersold naturally aroused the keenest resentment. It was soon
retorted that the cheaper practitioners were to be prepared by a system
of education so cheap as to be absolutely worthless; and unfortunately
the early history of the first medical schools for women entirely
justified this accusation.

To support Mr. Gregory’s school, a Female Medical Education Society was
formed in Boston, and incorporated with a state charter. Nothing seemed
at the outset fairer than the promises of the new college,—but it had
one fatal defect. There was no one connected with it who either knew or
cared what a medical education should be. It followed that, under the
name of medical education, was offered a curriculum of instruction, so
ludicrously inadequate for the purpose, as to constitute a gross
usurpation of the name,—in a word, to be an essentially dishonest
affair. And still more unfortunately, the same inadequacy, naïvely or
deliberately unconscious of itself, continued in greater or less degree,
to characterize all efforts for the isolated medical education of women
for the next twenty years. This, the fourth period of their medical
history,—deserves therefore to be considered by women rather as a
pre-medical or preliminary epoch; where purposes were enunciated that
were only to be fulfilled many years later.

The Gregory Medical School maintained a precarious existence until 1874,
when, by an enabling act of the Legislature, the funds were handed over
to the Boston University, just founded,—upon condition that women should
be admitted to the medical department of the latter. This condition was
punctually fulfilled; women students were rendered eligible to all
departments of the new university. But as the medical school, for some
reason, became exclusively homœpathic,—the fortunes of medical women in
the regular profession were not thereby greatly advanced.[42]

Now, however, the movement for women had widened and reached
Philadelphia, where two schools were started. One of these, the Penn
Medical School, ran a permanently unenviable career of unfitness, and
was finally extinguished. The other, the Woman’s Medical College of
Pennsylvania, was founded in 1850, and after a long and precarious
period of struggle, finally touched upon a solid basis of medical
realities, and thence began its prosperous modern career. In the mean
time, and fortunately for the cause, a new departure had been taken in
several other directions. The Gregory School had been founded with the
avowed intention of educating women for midwives; and it did not succeed
even in this limited aim, because it was either ignorant of or
indifferent to the rigid system of education imposed, wherever, as in
Europe, midwives are recognized and educated. In America, where
hostility to class distinctions is so profound as to interfere with the
recognition of even the intellectual distinctions which are alone
just,—it was probably a foregone conclusion that the various ranks in
medicine which exist in European countries would never here become
officially established.[43] But a startlingly long step was taken at a
stride, when, thirty years after the pæan of victory had been sounded
over the complete suppression of female midwifes, so that not even this
corner of possible medicine might remain in possession of women,—that
then, half a dozen women, unknown to each other, and widely separated in
this immense country, should appear almost simultaneously upon the
scene, and demand the opportunity to be educated as full physicians.
Their history marks a fifth period in the movement.

The first of this remarkable group of women was Harriet K. Hunt of
Boston.

This lady had for several years assumed the responsibility of practicing
medicine, while yet unprovided with a medical diploma. This was
reprehensible, but from a practical standpoint, the course seems to have
been justified by subsequent events. For when, in 1847, Miss Hunt
requested permission to attend lectures at the Harvard Medical School,
her request was promptly refused. After the graduation of Elizabeth
Blackwell at Geneva in 1849, Miss Hunt thought that the times might have
become more favorable, and, in 1850, repeated her application at
Harvard. In mobile America, three years may sometimes effect such a
change in sentiment as would require three centuries in the Old World.
On this occasion, five out of the seven members of the Faculty voted
“That Miss Hunt be admitted to the lectures on the usual terms, provided
that her admission be not deemed inconsistent with the statutes.”[44] A
week later, the President and Fellows of the University announced that
the statutes of the Medical School offered no obstacle to the admission
of female students to their lectures. But, on the eve of success, Miss
Hunt’s cause was shipwrecked, by collision and entanglement with that of
another of the unenfranchised to privileges. At the beginning of the
session, two, and later a third, colored man, had appeared among the
students, and created by their appearance intense dissatisfaction. When,
as if to crown this outrage to gentlemanly feeling, it was announced
that a _woman_ was also about to be admitted, the students felt that
their cup of humiliation was full, and popular indignation boiled over
in a general meeting. Here resolutions were adopted, remonstrating
against the “amalgamation of sexes and races.” The compliant Faculty
bowed their heads to the storm, yielded to the students, who, though
young and inexperienced, were in the majority, and might possibly
withdraw in a body to Yale,—and, to avoid the obloquy of rejecting,
under pressure, a perfectly reasonable request, advised the “female
student” to withdraw her petition. This she did; the storm subsided, and
the majesty of Harvard, already endangered by the presence of the negro,
was saved from the further peril of the woman. Miss Hunt returned to her
private medical practice, which, though unsanctioned by law and
condemned by learning, was so successful that, in 1872, she celebrated
her silver wedding to it.[45]

Thus, on this first occasion, it was not a sentiment of delicacy that
forbade the Harvard students to share their privileges with a woman; but
a sense of offended dignity of sex, which distinctly allied itself with
the other and equally touchy dignity of race. The odd idea was advanced
on this, as on so many other occasions, that whenever a woman should
prove herself capable of an intellectual achievement, this latter would
cease to constitute an honor for the men who had previously prized it.
Hence the urgent necessity of excluding women from all opportunity of
trying.

In 1849, “Diplomas and advanced courses of study were things entirely
outside the intellectual life of women.”[46] The pioneer female
colleges, the Troy Seminary and the Mt. Holyoke school, had scarcely
been founded,[47] and women everywhere received only the most
rudimentary education. On the other hand, the medical education of men,
was, as compared with the objects to be attained by it,—in about an
equally rudimentary condition. The intrinsic tests were so shifting and
unreliable, the standard of attainments so low, that it was
proportionately necessary to protect the dignity of the profession by
external, superficial, and arbitrary safeguards. Of these the easiest to
apply was the distinction of sex. It was often difficult to decide, in
the absence of intrinsic tests, whether a given individual were or were
not a competent physician: but it was of course always easy to recognize
that he was a man. This simple principle of distinction was adopted,
therefore, as the guiding rule in future controversies. All men, however
or wherever educated, were to be considered competent physicians, if
only they chose to say so themselves. And all women were correlatively
to be declared incompetent, no matter what care they had taken to
prepare themselves. The principle was well suited to crude and
uncultured societies, and became proportionately popular.

Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell were led to the study of medicine in a
different manner than Harriet Hunt, their immediate predecessor. While
still quite young girls, they were, by the sudden death of their father,
unexpectedly confronted with the necessity of supporting not only
themselves, but their mother, and a large family of younger brothers and
sisters. “Then we realized the infinite narrowness and pettiness of the
avenues open to women, and the crowds of competitors who kept each other
down in the struggle. We determined that we would endeavor to open a new
door, and tread a fresh path,—rather than push for a footing in one
already filled to overflowing.”[48]

In this determination a new key-note was sounded. The Blackwells, and
especially Elizabeth, were less the associates of Harriet Hunt, and of
their own immediate successors, than the spiritual daughters of Mary
Wollstonecraft, whose courageous demand for a wider field for her sex
had remained hitherto almost alone, like a voice crying in the
wilderness. They did not seek wider opportunities in order to study
medicine, but they studied medicine in order to secure wider
opportunities for all women.[49]

It was by sheer force of intellect, and of the sympathetic imagination
born of intellectual perception, that Elizabeth Blackwell divined for
women the suitableness of an occupation whose practical details were, to
herself, intrinsically distasteful. Among all the pioneer group of women
physicians, hers chiefly deserves to be called the Record of an Heroic
Life. For with her, the struggle with bitter and brutal prejudices in
the world was not sustained by the keen and instinctive enthusiasm for
medicine, which has since carried hundreds of women over
impossibilities. Rather was the arduousness of the struggle intensified
by a passionate sensitiveness of temperament, which, under a cold
exterior, rendered her intensely alive to the hardships of the social
obloquy and ostracism which she was destined to encounter in such
abundance.

Those accustomed to value ideas according to their intrinsive power, as
shown by their originality and their fruitful result, should admit that
there was real grandeur in this thought: the thought that the entire sex
might be lifted upon a higher intellectual plane, by means of a
practical work, for which, at the moment, not half a dozen people in
America discerned the opportunity. “The thorough education of a class of
women in medicine will exert an important influence upon the life and
interests of women in general.” “Medicine is so broad a field, so
closely interwoven with general interests, and yet of so personal a
character in its individual applications, that the coöperation of men
and women is needed to fulfill all its requirements.” “It is not
possible or desirable to sanction the establishment of an intermediate
class” [of midwives.][50]

So much more broad and sound were the views of this self-taught
Cincinnati school-teacher,[51] than of the kind-hearted but
short-sighted men, who in Boston were then trying to establish the
Female Medical Education Society!

It was in 1845 that the plan of studying medicine became with Elizabeth
Blackwell a settled resolution; and she was thus the first person on the
American continent to whom such an idea did come.

It is worthy of note, that the originality of the main idea was
sustained by an almost equal originality of view in regard to the true
nature of a medical education.

Only a few years ago an eminent New York professor[52] showed that it
was both practicable, and a common thing to do, for men to graduate,
even from New York schools, after only ten months attendance upon
lectures, of which the second five months was a mere repetition of the
first: and without ever having seen a sick person. If this were true of
New York,—where, after all, it is possible to do otherwise,—it may be
imagined what would be true of the multitude of small schools scattered
through the country, where the resources for either clinical or didactic
instruction were confessedly inadequate. And if this were true in 1880
the status of 1850 may be divined.

It was at this time that Elizabeth Blackwell recognized that preparation
for medical practice demanded the sanction of test examinations at a
respectable school; not a few months, but years of study; and above all
abundant clinical experience. Rather than accept as final the
indorsement of little schools established _ad hoc_, or exclusively for
women, she applied to be admitted as student at twelve medical schools
throughout the country, and among these found one, the school at Geneva,
N. Y., to grant her request. The faculty referred the matter to the
students, and they decided to invite the courageous applicant. Poor,
dependent entirely upon her own exertions, and with others more or less
dependent upon her, she nevertheless found means to devote five years to
the study of her profession, of which two were spent in Europe, at that
time a rare extravagance.[53] Uninstructed or informed by the laws and
customs of the entire country that attendance on didactic lectures was
sufficient to justify a medical diploma, and hospital training was
superfluous,—her native common sense perceived the absurdity of this
theory, and left no stone unturned to secure such fragments of hospital
training as were obtainable for her in either hemisphere. During the
term of study at Geneva, she utilized a vacation to seek admittance to
the hospital of the Blockley almshouse at Philadelphia, and obtained it
by skillful manipulation of the opposing political influences which
prevailed among the managers of the institution.[54] After graduating at
Geneva in 1849, the first woman in America or of modern times to receive
a medical diploma, Miss Blackwell immediately went to Europe, and by
exceptional favor succeeded in visiting some of the hospitals of both
London[55] and Paris. In Paris, moreover, she submitted for several
months to the severe imprisonment of the great school for midwives, La
Maternité.

Emily Blackwell was refused admission to the Hobart College at Geneva,
which had graduated her sister; but was allowed, for one year, to study
at the Rush College of Chicago. For this permission, however, the
college was censured by the State Medical Society, and the second term
was therefore refused to the solitary female student. She was, however,
enabled to complete her studies at Cleveland, Ohio, and graduated thence
in 1852. During one of her vacations, she obtained permission to visit
in Bellevue Hospital, where Dr. James Wood was just initiating the
system of regular clinical lectures. After graduation, Emily Blackwell
also went to Europe, and had the good fortune to become the private
pupil of the celebrated Sir James Simpson of Edinburgh. She remained
with him for a year, and when she left he warmly testified to her
proficiency and competence for the work she had undertaken. The
testimonial is worth quoting entire:

“MY DEAR MISS BLACKWELL:

“I do think that you have assumed a position for which you are
excellently qualified, and where you may, as a teacher, do a great
amount of good.

“As this movement progresses, it is evidently a matter of the utmost
importance that female physicians should be most fully and perfectly
educated; and I firmly believe that it would be difficult or
impossible to find for that purpose any one better qualified than
yourself.

“I have had the fairest and best opportunity of testing the extent of
your medical acquirements during the period of eight months, when you
studied here with me, and I can have no hesitation in stating to
you—what I have often stated to others—that I have rarely met with a
young physician who was better acquainted with the ancient and modern
languages, or more learned in the literature, science, and practical
details of his profession. Permit me to add that in your relation to
patients, and in your kindly care and treatment of them, I ever found
you a ‘most womanly woman.’ Believe me, with very kindest wishes for
your success,

“Yours very respectfully,
“JAMES G. SIMPSON.”[56]

Miss Blackwell received similar testimonials from several distinguished
physicians in London and Paris, in whose hospital wards she faithfully
studied. Thus equipped, she returned to New York in 1855 to join her
sister, with a fair hope of success in the arduous undertaking before
them.

Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, with the aid of a few generous friends, had
opened a little dispensary for women and children,—which after three
years’ existence, and one year of suspension, developed into the New
York Infirmary. This was first chartered in 1854. But when Emily
Blackwell returned from Europe, no opportunities existed for either of
the sisters to secure the hospital medical work, whose continued
training is justly regarded of such inestimable advantage to every
practicing physician. This was recognized even at a time that hospitals
were regarded as superfluous in undergraduate education.

In 1850, Dr. Marion Sims, arriving as an exiled invalid from Alabama,
with a brilliantly original surgical operation as his “stock in
trade,”—succeeded, with the aid of some generous New York women, in
founding the first Woman’s Hospital in the world. It was just seven
years since the first imperfect medical school for women had been opened
in Boston: six years since the first woman physician had graduated at
Geneva: five years since a permanent school for women had been founded
in Philadelphia. The coincidence of these dates is not fortuitous. There
is a close correlation between the rise of modern gynæcology, and the
rise of the movement for readmitting women to the medical profession,
where they once held a place, and whence they had been forcibly
extruded. While it is far from true that women physicians are intended
only for obstetrics and gynæcology, it is unquestionably true that these
two great branches of medicine peculiar to their sex constitute the
great opportunity, the main portal, through which women have passed, and
are destined to pass, to general medicine. It would have been well if
those who conducted the one movement had frankly allied themselves with
the leaders of the other. Unfortunately, the more important, and
especially the more lucrative, the new medical spheres[57] seemed likely
to be,—the more eager were those who engaged in them to keep out women.

Dr. Sims thus describes the circumstances of the founding of the Woman’s
Hospital:

“As soon as they (the New York surgeons) had learned how to perform
these operations successfully” (those that Sims had invented), “they had
no further use for me. My thunder had been stolen, and I was left
without any resources whatever. I said to myself, ‘I am a lost man
unless I can get somebody to create a place in which I can show the
world what I am capable of doing.’ _This was the inception of the idea
of a woman’s hospital._”—“Story of My Life.”

When the New York women organized the hospital they framed a
by-law,—which has since passed into oblivion,—to the effect that the
assistant surgeon should be a woman. Emily Blackwell was the woman who
should have been chosen. She had had an education far superior to that
of the average American doctor of the day, a special training under the
most distinguished gynæcologists of the time,—Simpson and Huginer—and
had received abundant testimonials to capacity; while there was really
not another person in New York possessed of either such opportunities or
of such special testimonials. At her return, informal inquiries were
made to ascertain whether the second woman physician in New York would
be allowed a footing where she so justly belonged, in New York’s first
Woman’s Hospital. The overtures were rejected: Dr. Sims passed by these
just claims to recognition, and evaded the mandatory by-law of his
generous friends, in a way that is most clearly shown in his own words:
“One clause of the by-laws provided that the assistant surgeon should be
a woman. I appointed Mrs. Brown’s friend Henri L. Stuart, who had been
so efficient in organizing the hospital. _She was matron and general
superintendent._”[58]

Having thus evaded the distinct and far-sighted intention of the
founders of the hospital, Dr. Sims proceeded to select his medical
assistant upon grounds extraordinarily frivolous.

“The hospital had been opened about six months, when I told the board of
lady managers that I must have an assistant. They told me to select the
man. I offered the appointment to Dr. F. N. Johnson, Jr., _who had just
graduated_.[59] He was about to be married, and was going to locate in
the country near Cooperstown. I then offered the place to Dr. George F.
Shrady. He too was about to be married, and for some cause or other he
did not see fit to accept it. Soon after this, a young friend of mine at
the South, was married to Dr. Thomas Addis Emmett, of New York. As I was
looking for an assistant, I did not know that I could more handsomely
recognize the friendship of former days, than to appoint the husband of
Mrs. Emmett assistant. So to the accident of good fortune in marrying a
beautiful Southern young woman, Dr. Emmett owes his appointment.”

Suffering womanhood undoubtedly owes much to Marion Sim’s inventive
genius. But, on the other hand, Sim’s fame and fortune may be said to
have been all made by women, from the poor slaves in Alabama who,
unnarcotized, surrendered their patient bodies to his experiments,[60]
to the New York ladies whose alert sympathies and open purses had
enabled him to realize his dream, and establish his personal fortunes.
It would have been an act both graceful and just on his part, at this
crisis, to have shared his opportunities with the two women who, like
himself, had been well buffeted in an opposing world,[61] and whose work
and aspirations were so closely identified with his own. But this he
failed to do; and the lost opportunity made all the difference to the
pioneer women physicians, between brilliant and modest, between
immediate and tardy professional success.

Unable elsewhere to obtain hospital opportunities, the Blackwells
resolved to found a hospital that should be conducted not only for, but
by women. The New York Infirmary, chartered in 1854, preceded the
Woman’s Hospital by a year, and, like it, was the first institution of
the kind in the world. For three years it consisted exclusively of a
dispensary; then was added a tiny lying-in ward of twelve beds. At this
moment the advance guard of women physicians received their fourth
recruit, Marie Zakzrewska, a young midwife from Germany. She had been a
favorite pupil of Dr. Schmidt, one of the state examiners of the school
for midwives in Berlin, and chief director of the Charity Hospital. He
had been so impressed by the talents of his pupil, as to entrust her
with the responsibility of teaching his own classes, when ill-health
compelled him to resign his work. Discouraged, however, by some
intrigues which sprang up after the death of her powerful friend,
Fräulein Zakzrewska decided to abandon the home where a career seemed
ready marked out for her, and to seek a wider horizon and larger
fortunes in America. Here she arrived in 1853. Her pluck and courage
carried her safely through the first difficult year of an almost
penniless exile; then the generous kindness of Elizabeth Blackwell
secured her a place among the advance guard of women physicians, taught
her English, and procured her admission to the Medical School at
Cleveland. She assisted the Blackwells in the task of collecting from an
indifferent or hostile community the first few hundred dollars with
which to found the New York Infirmary, and in this served as physician
for a year; was thence invited to lecture on midwifery at the Female
Medical School at Boston; was finally summoned to build up the New
England Hospital, which for many years was almost identified with her
name and with that of Dr. Lucy Sewall,[62] and of Dr. Helen Morton.
This, the second hospital to be conducted by women physicians, was
founded in 1862.

The fifth pioneer was Ann Preston, a Quaker lady of Philadelphia, an
ardent abolitionist, as it was the inherited privilege of the Friends to
be.[63] Miss Preston had become early habituated to interest herself in
the cause of minorities. Small and fragile in body, she possessed an
indomitable little soul; and when the suggestion had once been thrown
out, that a medical college for women might be opened in Philadelphia,
Ann Preston never ceased working until had been collected the meagre
funds considered sufficient for its establishment. This was in 1850; and
the sixth annual announcement of the school mentions Dr. Preston as
already installed as professor of physiology. This position she held
till the day of her death.

At the outset, the new medical school was scarcely an improvement upon
its Boston predecessor. Four months lectures,—composed of compilations
from three or four text-books,—the same repeated the following year,
constituted the curriculum. There was much zeal, but little knowledge.
Dr. Preston herself, philanthropist and excellent woman as she was, was
necessarily ignorant of her subject, because she had never had any
opportunity to learn anything about it. The other professors were not
more qualified, although without the same excuse of necessity. Ten years
after the opening of the college, the Philadelphia County Medical
Society found an apparently plausible pretext for refusing recognition
to the school, in the fact that the lecturer on therapeutics was not a
physician but a druggist,—who moreover presumed to practice medicine
over his counter, and “irregular” and advertised medicine at that. Even
more to the purpose than these accumulated crimes was the fact that his
lectures consisted almost exclusively of strings of prescriptions, and
had no real claim to be accepted as exponents of the modern science of
therapeutics.

The first adequate teacher to appear in the school was Emmeline
Cleveland, who, having graduated under its meagre instructions, was sent
to Europe through the generosity of two Quaker ladies,[64] to fit
herself at the Paris Maternité to lecture upon obstetrics. Dr. Cleveland
thus repeated the career of Dr. Shippen in 1762,[65] and like him found
in Europe the instructions and inspiration her native city would not
afford. Dr. Cleveland was a woman of real ability, and would have done
justice to a much larger sphere than that to which fate condemned her.
Compelled by the slender resources of the college to unite the duties of
housekeeper and superintendent to those of professor, she not
unfrequently passed from the lecture room to the kitchen to make the
bread for the students who boarded at the institution. Possessed of much
personal beauty, and grace of manner, she had married young; but her
husband had been stricken with hemiplegia early in their married life,
and it was the necessity of supporting him as well as herself, which led
the wife, childless and practically widowed, to enter the profession of
medicine.

Of the remaining typical members of the pioneer groups of woman
physicians, all were married, either already when they began their
studies, or immediately after graduation. The latter was the fortune of
Sarah Adamson, the second woman in the United States to receive a
medical diploma, and who a year later married Dr. Dolley, of Rochester,
where she at once settled and has been in successful practice for
thirty-eight years. Miss Adamson was a niece of the Dr. Hiram Corson,
who, in Montgomery County of Pennsylvania, was destined to wage a forty
years’ chivalrous warfare in defense of women physicians. At the age of
eighteen, having come across a copy of Wistar’s Anatomy, she devoted a
winter to its engrossing study, and became fired with enthusiasm for the
medical art, to which anatomy formed such a grand portal.[66] At that
time, 1849, the Philadelphia Medical School had not yet opened; but the
Eclectic School at Rochester had announced its willingness to receive
woman students, and to this Miss Adamson persuaded her parents to allow
her to go. She graduated in 1851.

Besides Miss Adamson, four other ladies availed themselves of the
liberality of the “irregular” eclectic school at Rochester, but of these
only one graduated. Even more than her Quaker colleagues, did this lady
represent a distinctive type among women physicians, for she was already
married when she began her studies. Mrs. Gleason was the wife of a young
Vermont doctor, who opened an infirmary in the country for chronic
invalids, shortly after acquiring his own diploma. In the management of
his lady patients, the young doctor often found it an advantage to be
assisted “by his wife as an intermediary, on the one side to relate the
symptoms, on the other to prescribe the directions.” Thus the wife
became gradually associated with the husband’s work, while he on his
part remained generously alive to her interests. He it was, who, in
order to secure an opportunity for his wife for some kind of systematic
medical education, persuaded the eclectics, assembled in council, to
open the doors of their new school to women. “In his opinion, the
admission of women was the reform most needed in the medical
profession.” “I remember vividly,” writes Mrs. Gleason, “the day of his
return, when he exclaimed, with enthusiasm, ‘Now, wife, you can go to
medical lectures.’”[67] The husband and wife have practiced medicine in
harmonious partnership ever since this early epoch. Their sanitarium at
Elmira still exists to sustain its old and honorable reputation.[68]

There is something idyllic in this episode. Here in western New York was
realized, simply and naturally, the ideal life of a married pair, as was
once described by Michelet, where the common interests and activities
should embrace not only the home circle, but also professional life. It
is the secret ideal of many a sweet-natured woman, hitherto attained
more often when the husband is a clergyman than when he is a physician,
but in America is by no means unknown in the latter case. By Mrs.
Gleason’s happy career, the complex experiment in life which was being
made by the first group of women physicians was enriched by a special
and, on some accounts, peculiarly interesting type.

The two remaining women of the group were also married, and the husband
of one, Mrs. Thomas, was also a physician.[69] She and her sister, Mrs.
Longshore, both graduated in the first class sent out from the Woman’s
Medical College of Philadelphia.[70] Dr. Longshore was the first woman
to settle in practice in this city, and her sign was regarded as a
monstrous curiosity, collecting street idlers for its perusal. On one,
and perhaps more than one, occasion, a druggist refused to fill a
prescription signed by the “female doctor,” and took it upon himself to
order her home “to look after her house and darn her husband’s
stockings.”[71] But Dr. Longshore ultimately established herself in a
lucrative practice. Mrs. Thomas, the sister, first began to study
medicine privately, with her husband, a practitioner in Indiana. For
four years, while caring for a family of young children, Mrs. Thomas
“read medicine” at all odd minutes; and at last, upon hearing that a
medical college had been opened for women in Philadelphia, she made a
grand final effort to secure its advantages. She sewed steadily until
she had provided her family with clothes for six months in advance, and
then started for the East. Returning with her coveted diploma, Mrs.
Thomas began to practice medicine with her husband at Fort Wayne, and
continued to do so until her death about a year ago (1889). During eight
years she held the position of city physician, and for twelve years was
physician to a home for friendless girls.

The married women physicians of the West, with protection and sympathy
at home, and encountering abroad only a good-natured laxity of
prejudice, were in a favored position compared with their colleagues in
Philadelphia, Boston, and New York. At the time that the tiny New York
infirmary was opened (1857) the name of “woman physician” had become a
by-word of reproach, from its usurpation by a notorious abortionist,
“Madame” Restell. So wide a stain could be diffused over innocent
persons by a single evil reputation, that it was difficult for Drs.
Blackwell and Zakzrewska to obtain lodgings or office room; their
applications were refused on the ground that their business must be
disreputable. Scarcely more than fifty years had elapsed since the
practice of obstetrics at least was entirely in the hands of women: yet
the recollection of this had so completely faded away, that the women
who now renewed the ancient claim to minister to the physical
necessities of their sex, were treated as reprobates.[72] The little
group of women who nevertheless dared to face this opprobrium, contained
collectively nearly all the elements necessary for success, although in
no one member of the group were these united. Instinctive enthusiasm for
the science of life, instinctive predilection for medical practice,
enlightened resolve to elevate the intellectual capacity and enlarge the
practical opportunities of women,—the habit of progressive
philanthropy,—personal interest in the pursuits of the nearest friend,
the husband; literary training, exceptional among the uncultivated
physicians of the day,—the tradition of centuries in the discipline of
the practical European midwife,—all these were representative, and
certainly none could have been spared. What was most conspicuously
lacking was systematic education, which might have enabled the medical
students to judge more critically of the medical education which was
offered them. However, even without adequate intellectual preparation,
there was a complex representation of interests which sufficiently
showed that the enterprise was no isolated eccentricity, but sprang from
roots widely ramifying in the permanent nature of things, and in the
changing circumstances of the day.

This fourth period in the history of women physicians, to which belong
the early careers of the pioneers in the movement, must nevertheless be
considered as a sort of pre-medical episode, analogous in many respects
to that of the entire American profession before the Revolutionary War.
And this notwithstanding, and indeed a good deal because during this
epoch some women were admitted to inferior or “irregular” schools,
already established, and because other medical schools were founded
exclusively for them. The Philadelphia school owed its foundation to the
most generous impulses: but knowledge and pecuniary resources were both
inadequate, and the active and bitter opposition of the medical
profession of the city was an almost insuperable obstacle in the way of
securing efficient assistance for instruction. The idea of the school
seems to have originated with Dr. Bartholomew Fussell, a poor
schoolmaster, who had been educated by an elder sister “to whom he
looked up with veneration; and he thought that such as she ought to have
a chance of studying medicine, if they desired.”[73]

A few friends were collected, the plan was matured, the charter secured,
and the school opened for the reception of students in 1850. During the
first four years the yearly sessions did not last more than four months;
but in the fifth annual catalogue the trustees announced with pride an
extension of the course to five and a half months, and claimed that this
was the longest course of instruction adopted by any medical college in
the United States. They further, and with evident sincerity, declared
that the curriculum of study was fully equal to that of any other
medical college.

The instruction consisted of rambling lectures, given by gentlemen of
good intentions but imperfect fitness, to women whose previous education
left them utterly unprepared to enter a learned profession, and many of
whom were really, and in the ordinary sense, illiterate. As fast as
possible the brightest students were chosen, after graduation, to fill
places in the Faculty, and among these one, Emmeline Cleveland, having
received a real education, at least for obstetrics, in Europe, returned
to Philadelphia to become a really effective teacher. For twelve years
scarcely any opportunity existed for the students of the college to see
sick people, an anomaly which would at the time have been considered
more outrageous in any other country than the United States. As late as
1859, nine years after the foundation of the college, the Philadelphia
County Medical Society passed resolutions of excommunication against
every physician who should teach in the school, every woman who should
graduate from it, and everybody else who should even consult with such
teachers.

Had the tiny college been a virulent pest-house, the _cordon sanitaire_
could not have been more rigidly drawn around it. Nevertheless, the
trustees claimed that their graduates rapidly secured medical practice,
at least to the extent of a thousand dollars a year; and that
applications were frequently received from communities in different
parts of the country, requesting that women physicians be sent to settle
among them.[74] In 1857 115 students had matriculated at the college.

In 1859 Elizabeth Blackwell estimated that about 300 women had managed
to “graduate” somewhere in medicine, supposing that their studies had
really “qualified them to begin practice, and that by gaining experience
in practice itself, they would gradually work their way to success.” “It
is not until they leave college, and attempt their work alone and
unaided, that they realize how utterly insufficient their education is
to enable them to acquire and support the standing of a physician. Many
of them, discouraged, having spent all their money, abandon the
profession; a few gain a little practical knowledge, and struggle into a
second-rate position.”

This view of the realities of the situation is in curious contrast with
the cheerful optimism of the leaders of the Philadelphia School. These
did indeed walk by faith,—and the numerous addresses of Ann Preston, who
for many years was its guiding spirit, breathe a spirit of moral
enthusiasm which, as the final result proved, really did manage to
compensate for the intellectual inadequacy. Dr. Preston seems to have
been thoroughly convinced, that if the moral behavior of the new
physicians were kept irreproachable, intellectual difficulties would
take care of themselves, or be solved by an over-ruling Providence.[75]

The fifth period for women physicians began with the founding of
hospitals, where they could obtain clinical training, and thus give some
substance to the medical education they had received in mere outline.
The oldest of these institutions is the New York Infirmary, chartered,
as has been said, in 1854 as a dispensary,—opened with an indoor
department in 1857, with the Drs. Blackwell and Zakzrewska as attending
physicians. The Infirmary was fortunate in securing several eminent New
York physicians as consultants, Dr. Willard Parker, Dr. Kissam, Dr.
James B. Wood, Dr. Stephen Smith, and Dr. Elisha Harris. The medical
profession in New York never took the trouble to organize opposition and
pronounce the decrees of ostracism that thundered in Philadelphia; its
attitude was rather that of indifference than active hostility.

From 1857 until 1865, the indoor department of the Infirmary was limited
to a single ward for poor lying-in women, and which contained but twelve
beds. But in the dispensary, several thousand patients a year were
treated, and the young physicians living in the hospital also visited
the sick poor at their own homes. The persevering efforts of the
Blackwells, moreover, finally succeeded in opening one medical
institution of the city to their students, the great Demilt dispensary.
As early as 1862, the succession of women students who annually pressed
forward to fill the two vacancies at the Infirmary patiently waited in
the clinic rooms of Demilt, and there gleaned many crumbs of experience
and information.[76] These, together with the practical experience
gained in the obstetrical ward and the out-practice of the Infirmary,
afforded the first and for a long time the only opportunity for clinical
instruction open to women students in America.

In 1865, a medical college was added to the Infirmary; a new building
was purchased for the hospital, which became enlarged to the capacity of
35 beds. For the first time it then began to receive private patients,
chiefly from among self-supporting women of limited income, to hundreds
of whom the resources of the Infirmary has proved invaluable. Their pay,
though modest, has contributed materially to the resources of the
hospital for the treatment of entirely indigent patients.[77]

The report for 1869 shows a hospital staff of: Resident physician, 1;
internes, 3; visiting physicians, 3; associate physicians, 3;
out-visiting physician, 1.

Total number in-patients, 342; Total number dispensary patients, 4825;
Total number patients treated at home, 768.

The Woman’s Hospital at Philadelphia was founded in 1862 during the
excitements of the great Civil War. It was the outgrowth of a singularly
brutal incident. In 1861 the resources of the college became entirely
exhausted; there was not enough money in the treasury to hire lecture
rooms, and it was reluctantly decided that the lecture course must be
suspended. Permission, however, had been obtained for the students to
visit the wards at the Blockley almshouse, and thither they went under
the tiny escort of Dr. Ann Preston. On one occasion, in order to
effectually disconcert the women students, one of the young men suddenly
introduced into the room a male patient perfectly nude. The insult stung
the friends of the college to renewed exertions, which were not relaxed
until funds were collected sufficient to purchase a house in which might
be opened a hospital where women could obtain clinical instruction by
themselves. A lecture room was rented in this house, and lectures were
resumed in the fall of 1862. From this date, the obstetrical chair of
the college, at least, was fairly supplied with clinical material. The
double institution, college and hospital, was first lifted out of its
period of depressing struggle, when, at the death of its generous
president, the Hon. Wm. S. Pierce, it received a bequest of $100,000.
With this, a really beautiful building was erected for the use of the
college.

Adjoining the college, soon sprang up a separate building for a general
hospital, which has, however, always been predominantly gynæcological.
Later was added a special maternity pavilion. The report of 1889 reads
as follows:

Hospital staff: Resident physicians, 1; internes, 6; visiting
physicians, 6; district physicians, 12; in-patients, 583;[78] dispensary
patients, 6365; patients treated at home, 695.

The woman’s hospital in Boston, the New England Hospital for Women and
Children, was also founded during the war, and incorporated in 1862. The
women who engaged in it were all heavily burdened by the great public
anxieties of the time. But the very nature of these anxieties, the keen
interest aroused in hospital work and in nursing organizations, helped
to direct attention to the women’s hospitals. In New York, the first
meeting to consider the organization of nursing for the army was held in
the parlors of the Infirmary, and at the suggestion of Elizabeth
Blackwell. This little meeting was the germ from which subsequently
developed the splendid organization of the Sanitary Commission.

Dr. Zakzrewska was invited by the founders of the New England Hospital
to preside over its organization;[79] and to do this, she left the
Female Medical School, with which great dissatisfaction was beginning to
be felt. Dr. Zakzrewska received powerful assistance for the work from
one of the graduates of the school, Lucy Sewall, descendant of a long
line of Puritan ancestors. This young lady seemed to have been the first
girl of fortune and family to study medicine in the United States. Her
romantic and enthusiastic friendship formed for Dr. Zakzrewska, while
yet her pupil, led the young Boston girl to devote her life, her
fortune, and the influence she could command from a wide circle of
friends, to building up the hospital, where she might have the privilege
of working with her.

This element of ardent personal friendship and discipleship is rarely
lacking in woman’s work, from the day—or before it—that Fabiola followed
St. Jerome to the desert, there to build the first hospital of the Roman
Empire.

Other pupils of the rudimentary Gregory school also felt the magnetism
of Dr. Zakzrewska’s personal influence, and entered a charmed circle,
banded together for life, for the defense of the hospital,—Anita Tyng,
Helen Morton, Susan Dimock, the lovely and brilliant girl whose tragic
death in the shipwreck of the _Schiller_, in 1875, deprived the women
physicians of America of their first surgeon. Dr. Morton spent several
arduous years in the Paris Maternity, where she became chief assistant
in order to fit herself for the medical practice at home in which she
has so well succeeded. Dr. Dimock went to Zurich, and was the first
American girl to graduate from its medical school. In the three brief
years that she was resident physician at the New England Hospital, she
exhibited a degree of surgical ability that promised a brilliant
professional career. The three surgical cases published by her in the
New York _Medical Record_ (see Bibliographical List) are of real
importance and originality.[80]

The New England Hospital, like its sister institutions at New York and
Philadelphia, outgrew, and more rapidly than they, its early narrow
limits in Pleasant Street, and in 1872 the present beautiful little
building was erected in the suburbs of Boston. The work was steadily
enlarged, year by year. The report for 1889 shows:

Hospital staff: Resident physician, 1; advisory physicians, 3; visiting
physicians, 3; visiting surgeons, 3; internes, 6. In-patients for year,
376; Dispensary patients, 3175.

In 1865, a fourth hospital for women and children was organized in
Chicago, “at the request and by the earnest efforts of Dr. Mary H.
Thompson, the pioneer woman physician in the city. Opened just at the
close of the war, many of those to whom it afforded shelter, nursing,
and medical attendance were soldiers’ wives, widows, and children, and
women whose husbands had deserted them in hours of greatest need. There
came from the South refugees both white and colored.”[81] Thus in the
West as in the East, we find repeated for the women physicians of the
nineteenth century the experience of the men of the eighteenth; it was
amidst the exigencies of a great war that their opportunities opened,
their sphere enlarged, and they “emerged from obscurity” into the
responsibilities of recognized public function.

In 1871, just as money had been collected to purchase a better house and
lot for the small hospital, the great fire occurred; and when after it,
“the remnants were gathered together, they were found to consist of one
or two helpless patients, two housemaids, a nurse, a pair of blankets,
two pillows, and a bit of carpet.”[82] The hospital “remnant,” however,
profited with others by the outburst of energy which so rapidly repaired
misfortune and rebuilt the city. In 1871, a building was purchased by
the Relief and Aid Society, for $25,000, and given to the hospital, on
conditions, one of which was that it should annually care for
twenty-five patients free of charge.

During the first nineteen years of its existence, up to 1854, over
15,000 patients had been cared for by the hospital, of which 4774 were
house patients, 9157 were treated in the dispensary, and 1404 attended
at home. The report of the hospital for 1888 gives a summary for four
years.[83] There is a hospital staff, comprising attending physicians,
5; pathologist, 1; internes, 3. Annual average from four years summary:
in-patients, 334; dispensary, 806; visited at home, 138.

The fifth woman’s hospital was opened in San Francisco in 1875, under
the name of the Pacific Dispensary, by Dr. Charlotte Blake Brown and Dr.
Annette Buckle, both graduates of the Philadelphia school. During the
first year, it contained but six beds. To-day, after fifteen years’
untiring work, the enlisted sympathies of generous friends have
developed it to a hospital for 110 beds, to which sick children are
admitted gratuitously, and adult female patients on payment of a small
charge. It is under the care of six attending physicians, who serve in
rotation.

Finally, in distant Minneapolis, a sixth hospital has sprung up in 1882.
At its latest report, only 193 patients had been received during the
year. But the history of its predecessors, and the irresistible Western
energy of its friends, predict for this a growth perhaps even more rapid
than that possible in cities in the East.

It is worth while to summarize the actual condition of these six
hospitals in a tabulated form:

═══════════════╤═══════╤═════╤═══════════════╤══════════╤═══════════╤═════════
NAME. │DATE OF│CAPA-│ NO. ON STAFF. │ANNUAL NO.│ANNUAL NO. │ ANNUAL
│ORIGIN.│CITY.│ │ IN- │DISPENSARY.│NO. OUT-
│ │ │ │PATIENTS. │ │PATIENTS.
───────────────┼───────┼─────┼───────────────┼──────────┼───────────┼─────────
New York │ 1857 │ 35│3 visiting │ 342 │ 4,825│ 768
Infirmary. │ │ beds│ physicians. │ │ │
„ │ │ │3 internes, 3 │ (report │ │
│ │ │ associates. │for 1889) │ │
„ │ │ │1 resident. │ │ │
„ │ │ │1 out- │ │ │
│ │ │ physician. │ │ │
───────────────┼───────┼─────┼───────────────┼──────────┼───────────┼─────────
Woman’s │ 1862 │ 47│6 visiting. │ 583 │ 6,365│ 695
Hospital, │ │ beds│ │ │ │
Philadelphia.│ │ │ │ │ │
„ │ │ │6 internes. │ (report │ │
│ │ │ │for 1889) │ │
„ │ │ │1 resident. │ │ │
„ │ │ │12 district. │ │ │
───────────────┼───────┼─────┼───────────────┼──────────┼───────────┼─────────
New England │ 1863 │ 58│6 visiting. │ 376 │ 3,175│
Hospital. │ │ beds│ │ │ │
„ │ │ │6 advisory. │ (report │ │
│ │ │ │for 1889) │ │
„ │ │ │6 internes. │ │ │
───────────────┼───────┼─────┼───────────────┼──────────┼───────────┼─────────
Woman’s │ 1865 │ 80│5 visiting. │ 354 │ 806│ 138
Hospital, │ │ beds│ │ │ │
Chicago. │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │ │ │3 internes. │ (average │ │
│ │ │ │ of │ │
│ │ │ │collective│ │
│ │ │ │report for│ │
│ │ │ │ 4 years) │ │
„ │ │ │1 pathological.│ „ │ │
───────────────┼───────┼─────┼───────────────┼──────────┼───────────┼─────────
Hospital for │ 1875 │ 110│6 attending. │ │ │
Sick Children│ │ beds│ │ │ │
and Women, │ │ │ │ │ │
San │ │ │ │ │ │
Francisco. │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │ │ │2 specialists. │ │ │
„ │ │ │2 internes. │ │ │
───────────────┼───────┼─────┼───────────────┼──────────┼───────────┼─────────
Northwestern │ 1882 │ │4 visiting. │ 193 │ │
Hospital, │ │ │ │ │ │
Minneapolis. │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │ │ │ │ (report │ │
│ │ │ │for 1889) │ │
───────────────┴───────┴─────┴───────────────┴──────────┴───────────┴─────────

Thus, total number of women physicians engaged in six hospitals, 94;
number renewed annually, 32; annual number indoor patients, 1828; annual
number of dispensary patients, 15,171; annual number patients treated at
home, 1601; total number patients, 18,600.

This represents the growth since 1857, when the only hospital conducted
by women, in this country, was the lying-in ward of the New York
Infirmary, containing twelve beds.

The foundation of these hospitals effected the transition for women
physicians from the pre-medical period, when medical education was
something attempted but not effected, to a truly medical epoch, when
women could really have an opportunity to engage in actual medical work.
Correlatively the theoretic education began to improve. In Boston, the
Female Medical College was happily extinguished as an independent
institution. In Philadelphia, the Faculty gradually struggled free of
its inefficient or objectionable members, utilized its legacy of
$100,000 to fully equip its beautiful college building, with
amphitheatres, lecture rooms, and even embryo laboratories, museums, and
libraries,—enlarged its corps of instructors until they numbered
twenty-three, instead of the original and meagre seven,—and even, though
more timidly, began to enforce something like a rigid discipline among
its students, in regard to conditions of admission, examination,
graduation, and terms of study. In 1885, Lawson Tait, the famous English
surgeon, described the college building as “being very large and
splendidly appointed. Last year twenty-six degrees of doctor of medicine
were granted by the Faculty, and from the perusal of the curriculum, as
well as from conversation with some of the graduates, and from
discussion with both the friends and opponents of the school, I am quite
satisfied that its graduates are quite as carefully trained as those in
any other medical school. When I tell you that last winter 132 students
matriculated in this school, that the amphitheatre in the hospital is
large enough to seat 300 persons, and that every year about 4000
patients pass through this amphitheatre in the college clinics, I shall
have said enough to prove to you that in the United States the practice
of medicine by women has become an accomplished fact.”[84]

In New York, after much hesitation, a charter was obtained in 1865 for
the establishment of a medical college in connection with the Infirmary.
“This step was taken reluctantly, because the desire of the trustees of
the Infirmary, of Drs. Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell, was not to found
another medical school, but to secure the admission of women to the
classes for instruction already organized in connection with the medical
charities of the city, and to one at least of the New York medical
colleges.... The demand of women for a medical education had resulted in
the founding of small colleges in different places, all, with the
exception of the Philadelphia School, limited to the narrow and cheap
standard of legal requirements, and producing equally cheap and narrow
results in the petty standard of medical education they were
establishing among women students.[85] Application was made to the
College of Physicians and Surgeons for advice, and the case was laid
before the Faculty. It was stated that a sufficient number of women were
studying medicine to show that there was a demand for instruction that
must be satisfied; that the standard of education was so low that
incompetent women were in possession of degrees, while competent women
could not obtain the thorough instruction they desired, and those who
were fitted to do good work had to contend, not only against popular and
unjustified prejudice, but against the justified prejudices of those who
saw the slipshod work of ignorant graduates from women’s medical
colleges.”[86] The trustees proposed to the College of Physicians and
Surgeons, the oldest and most reputable in New York, that they receive a
limited number of female students on scholarships established by the
Infirmary, to the amount of $2000 a year. This proposition was rejected,
and the opinion expressed, in no unfriendly spirit, that the ends
proposed were only to be obtained by establishing an independent school
for women in connection with the Infirmary.

The establishment of such a school called for money,—but the money was
forthcoming. A new building was purchased for the hospital; the old one,
which had done such modest but effective work, was surrendered to the
use of the college, and a prospectus issued announcing the requirements
of the latter. In this prospectus a bold attempt was made to outline a
scheme of education, which should not only satisfy the conventional
existing standard, but improve upon this. It was realized, and, oddly
enough, for the first time, that the best way to compensate the enormous
disadvantages under which women physicians must enter upon their work,
was to prepare them for it with peculiar thoroughness. Women students
were almost universally deficient in preliminary intellectual training:
their lesser physical strength rendered a cramming system more often
dangerous to health, and more ineffective as a means of preparation; and
the prejudices to be encountered in their medical career would subject
them not only to just, but also to abundant unfair criticism. Instead,
therefore, of the senseless official system which then everywhere
prevailed, it was proposed to establish a three years graded course,
with detailed laboratory work during the first years, and detailed
clinical work during the last. A chair of hygiene was established for
the first time in America, and an independent board of examiners was
appointed consisting of professors from the different city schools. By
this means the college voluntarily submitted itself to the external
criticism of the highest local authorities. When the Infirmary put forth
this prospectus, drawn up by the Drs. Blackwell, no college in the
country required such a course: it was deemed Quixotic by many medical
friends, and several of its features were for a time postponed. The
independent board of examiners, however, was established from the
beginning, and, little by little, the other parts of the scheme were
realized. In 1876, the three years graded course, at first optional, was
made obligatory. At this time no college but Harvard had taken this
step. The next year the class fell off one-third,—a curious commentary
on the character or circumstances of the students.[87] In 1881, the
college year was lengthened to eight months, thus abandoning the
time-honored division of a winter and spring course, the latter
comparable to the Catholic works of supererogation, and equally
neglected. At the same time entrance examinations were established.
These moderate improvements upon the naïve barbarism of existing customs
again reduced the classes one-half. When people first began to think of
educating women in medicine, a general dread seemed to exist that, if
any tests of capacity were applied, all women would be excluded. The
profound skepticism felt about women’s abilities, was thus as much
manifest in the action of the friends to their education as in that of
its opponents. But by 1882, the friends dared to “call upon those who
believe in the higher education of women, to help to set the highest
possible standard for their medical education; and upon those who do not
believe in such higher education to help in making such requirements as
shall turn aside the incompetent,—not by an exercise of arbitrary power,
but by a demonstration of incapacity, which is the only logical, manly
reason for refusing to allow women to pursue an honorable calling in an
honorable way.”[88]

“A career is open to women in the medical profession, a career in which
they may earn a livelihood; a career in which they may do missionary
work among the poor of our own country, and among their own sex in
foreign lands; a career that is practical, that is useful, that is
scientific.”[89]

Even when a theoretic demand is not entirely realized in the actual
facts of the case, its distinct enunciation remains a great achievement;
and, in an almost mysterious way, constantly tends to effect its own
ultimate realization. And so it has been here.

During the current year, the college has emerged from its original
chrysalis condition within the inconvenient precincts of a private house
building, and entered upon a new phase of existence in a suitable
building especially erected for its needs. The money for this building
was collected from private subscriptions, by the indefatigable exertions
of the friends of the college, and may be said to some extent to measure
the growth of interest in the medical education of women, which had
become diffused through the community.

In the West, two medical schools for women were opened in the same year,
1869; in Chicago a separate women’s school; in Michigan the medical
department of the State University.

The State University was founded and controlled by the State
Legislature. On this account, in accordance with a principle generally
recognized in the West, the youth of both sexes are equally eligible to
its schools, as being equally children of the citizens who support the
schools by means of taxation.[90] The application of this simple
principle to the medical school at once solved the question of “medical
co-education of the sexes,” which had been such a bugbear in the East.
The difficulties which had elsewhere been considered so insolvable, were
arranged in the simplest manner. In regard to all subjects liable to
create embarrassment, if discussed before a mixed audience of young
students, the lectures were duplicated, and delivered to the male and
female students separately. These were thus a double course for
obstetrics, gynæcology, and some sections of internal medicine and
surgery. The lectures, lecturers, and subsequent examinations of the
students were, however, identical, and the clinics are held in common.

The value to women of this State recognition, and of opportunity to
study at a university school, was immense. There were numerous
disadvantages due to the youth and undeveloped character of the school,
and still more to its control by a popular legislature, unversed in the
requirements of learned professions. Yet there was promise of indefinite
growth in the future, and in all the development of the future, women
might hope to share.

At first the course of instruction was limited to two years; it has
lately been extended to three; though it still has the serious defect of
demanding no thesis from students as a condition of graduation. Clinical
instruction has been necessarily inadequate in a small country town. It
has been lately proposed to transfer this part of the curriculum to
Detroit, where large hospitals furnish clinical material in abundance.

In Chicago, application to admit women was made in 1865 to the Rush
College, where Emily Blackwell had studied during the winter of 1851.
The appeal was refused.

In 1868, application was made at a rival school, the Chicago Medical
College, and was accepted. For a year female students attended the
lectures and clinics in company with young men. “The women,” observes a
Chicago writer, “were all right; but the men students were at first
embarrassed and afterwards rude. The mixed classes were therefore
abandoned, but the woman’s movement, being essentially just and
correct,”[91] was not abandoned, but led to the founding of a special
school for women in 1869.

The pioneer woman physician in Chicago was Dr. Mary H. Thompson, who,
having graduated at Philadelphia, and spent a year as interne at the New
York Infirmary, settled in the West in 1863. At this period she was
often introduced as a curiosity. Western curiosity, however, is rarely
ill-natured, and in this case was soon exchanged for respect and a
substantial sympathy, which enabled Dr. Thompson to establish the
Hospital for Women and Children. In 1869, when the medical school was
opened for women, its students found in this little hospital their first
opportunities for clinical instruction. From 1869 till 1877, the
collegiate course was conducted in a “small two-story building
containing a dissecting room and one little lecture room furnished with
two dozen chairs, a table, a portable blackboard, and a skeleton. There
were scarcely any means for practical demonstration in the lectures,
there was no money to procure them.”[92] Worse than all, several among
those who had consented to teach the students seemed, strangely enough,
to have done all they could to discourage them. “One lecturer only
delivered two lectures in the entire term, and then took up part of the
time in dwelling upon the ‘utter uselessness of teaching women.’ The
professor of surgery went on the staff with great reluctance, and
remarked in his introductory lecture that he did not believe in female
doctors, and that the students were greatly mistaken if they imagined
the world was waiting for them. His lectures chiefly consisted of
trifling anecdotes.”[93] The class which graduated in 1871 under these
discouraging circumstances consisted of three students. No one would
study more than two years, “because it was found that in that time could
easily be mastered all the college had to teach.” But in 1881, the
graduating class rose to 17, and in 1889, to 24. There is now a Faculty
of twenty members, with eight lecturers and assistants. There were 90
students in the current year, and it was announced that in twenty years
had been graduated 242 pupils.

In 1863, the same year in which Dr. Thompson settled in Chicago, another
graduate of the Philadelphia school penetrated still further west, and
tried to establish herself in San Francisco. But this pioneer enterprise
failed. In 1872, Mrs. Charlotte Blake Brown applied to be admitted to
the medical colleges of San Francisco, but being refused, went to
Philadelphia to study. In 1874 Mrs. Lucy Wanzer applied at the Toland
Medical School. This had been founded by a generous millionaire, who
presented it to the State University,—and as the State laws provide for
the admission of both men and women to the State schools, the regents
were compelled to receive Mrs. Wanzer, who thus was the first woman to
graduate in medicine on the Pacific Coast. In 1875 the rival school, the
Cooper Medical College, also opened its doors to women, Mrs. Alice
Higgins being the first candidate. Both colleges now freely admit women,
and there are about half a dozen in each class.

Three of the ladies at present practicing in San Francisco are, however,
graduates of Paris.[94]

Two other medical schools, both in Western New York, have for several
years admitted women: the school of the Syracuse University, and the
school at Buffalo.

Finally, in 1882, a fourth woman’s school was opened in Baltimore, and
has connected with it a hospital, which is not, however, managed by
women. The total number of students annually attending the various
institutions which have now been enumerated may be approximately
tabulated as follows:

Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, report in 1890, 181 students.

Woman’s Medical College, N. Y. Infirmary, report in 1890, 90 students.

Woman’s Medical College, Chicago, report in 1890, 90 students.

University of California, report in 1890, 8 female students out of total
of 27.

Cooper College, San Francisco, report in 1890, 18 women out of total of
167.

From Ann Arbor I have only obtained the list of female graduates, which
is 88.

The total number of graduates from the Philadelphia School, who have
been enrolled among the alumnæ, is 560.

The total number of graduates of the New York School is 135.

During the current year, a movement has been inaugurated to obtain
admission for women to the medical school of the Johns Hopkins
University for the purpose of advanced study.[95]

Future advance for the education of women in medicine must be in the
line of their admission to the schools where the highest standard of
education is maintained; and to such affiliation of their own schools
with universities, as may bring them under the influence of university
discipline. There is no manner of doubt that, with a few unimportant
restrictions, co-education in medicine is essential to the real and
permanent success of women in medicine. Isolated groups of women cannot
maintain the same intellectual standards as are established and
maintained by men. The claim of ability to learn, to follow, to apply
knowledge, to even do honest original work among the innumerable details
of modern science, does not imply a claim to be able to originate, or to
maintain by themselves the robust, massive intellectual enterprises,
which, in the highest places, are now carried on by masculine strength
and energy.

Whether, as has been asserted,[96] the tendency to quackery among women
is really more widespread than among men, may well be doubted. It is
true that their lesser average strength peculiarly inclines women to
follow the lines of the least resistance. On that very account, it is
singularly unfortunate that the greatest, indeed in this country an
invincible, resistance has been offered to woman’s entrance at the best
schools, while inferior and “irregular” colleges have shown an odd
readiness to admit them. It would seem that co-educational anatomy is
more easily swallowed when administered in homœopathic doses! Evidently,
however, for the maintenance of these irregular schools,[97] the women
are not responsible: and they only have two of their own.

Because women require the intellectual companionship of man, to be able
to recognize the highest intellectual standards, or to attain them in
some cases, and to submit to their influence in others,—it does not
follow that they have no special contributions of their own to offer to
the work of medicine.

The special capacities of women as a class for dealing with sick persons
are so great, that in virtue of them alone hundreds have succeeded in
medical practice, though most insufficiently endowed with intellectual
or educational qualifications. When these are added, when the tact,
acuteness, and sympathetic insight natural to women become properly
infused with the strength more often found among men, success may be
said to be assured.

The sixth period is that of the struggle to obtain for women physicians
official recognition in the profession. In the prolonged debate which
followed, the women’s cause was defended by many distinguished men, with
as much warmth as it was opposed by others. This debate began long
before the close of the period which has just been described. It was the
Philadelphia County Medical Society, which assumed the responsibility of
being the first to check the alarming innovation of women’s schools and
female doctors. In 1859, was introduced the resolution which has already
been mentioned,[98] declaring that any member who should consult with
women should forfeit his membership. Upon this resolution the censors
declined to express an opinion. Endorsement was, however, obtained from
a committee of the State Medical Society. The recommendations of this
society were supposed to be mandatory on all the county societies
throughout the State. But one of these, that of Montgomery County, under
the chivalrous inspiration of Dr. Hiram Corson, early distinguished
itself by a revolutionary independence in this matter. It passed a
resolution “that females, if properly educated, should receive the same
treatment as males, and that it was not just to deny women admission to
male colleges, and then, after they had with great perseverance
established one for themselves, to refuse it recognition.” This
resolution being brought before the State Medical Society in 1860, a new
resolution was passed, which reaffirmed the decree of excommunication.
In 1866, the State Society met at Wilkesbarre, and Dr. Corson, who then
entered the lists as a champion for women, moved that this motion be
rescinded. Dr. Mowry offered a resolution declaring that the resolution
in question was not intended to prevent members from consulting with
“regularly” educated female physicians, who observe the code of ethics.
This latter resolution was finally referred for discussion to the
different county societies, and in 1867, was the subject of an elaborate
report from a special committee, of which Dr. Condie was the
chairman.[99]

Dr. Condie opposed the repeal of the resolution of 1860, because (he
claimed) “the present condition of female colleges is rather worse than
it was when the resolution was adopted.” He strongly “objected to women
having schools of their own, where any physician, of any kind of
notoriety, no matter what his moral or professional standing, might be
admitted to teach. We will have female practitioners. We must decide
whether they shall be properly educated. It cannot be doubted that there
are women well qualified by nature and who could be thoroughly
instructed as practitioners in medicine. To such women should be freely
extended the advantages of the leading medical colleges,—and they should
graduate, if at all, at the same schools and under the same conditions
as men.” To this recommendation, Dr. Bell objected that there were no
means at present existing where the women could be instructed. Dr.
Coates said he had no doubt but that women were perfectly competent
under favorable circumstances to make good practitioners, but it seems
to be very rarely the case that they do. He did not believe it possible
at that date to give women a proper medical education. “The tendency of
female medical schools seems to be of the cheapening kind.”

Dr. Condie remarked that the report [which, however closed with a
resolution not to “recognize” the woman’s college], begins by stating
that females are competent, if properly educated, to practice medicine.
History instructs us that the female mind is competent to anything the
male mind has accomplished. Nevertheless females ought not to be
encouraged to become physicians. God never intended them to be
physicians. Dr. Atlee[100] urged that the policy of non-recognition, if
persisted in, should be placed absolutely on the ground of the status of
the female colleges. “Have not women applied year after year at our
doors and begged to be received, yet been rejected? In self-defense they
had to organize their own college, which had now been in existence
seventeen years.” Dr. Atlee then warmly defended the college on the
basis of its published curriculum and on the reputation of such of the
gentlemen as had dared to incur professional odium by teaching in it.

In reply to this, Dr. Maybury declared that “he knew some of his nurses
who could hardly read the directions accompanying a prescription, who
entered the woman’s college, and emerged shortly after, fully equipped
with their legal diploma.”

Dr. Lee observed that the committee report and its concluding resolution
might be considered to read about as follows: “Whereas in the opinion of
this society, the female mind is capable of reaching every stage of
advancement to which the male mind is competent: and whereas all history
points out examples in which females have mastered every branch of
science, art and literature: _therefore_, be it resolved, that any
member of this Society who shall consult with a female physician, shall
forfeit his privileges as a member of this society.” “The resolution
completely stultifies the report.”

Nevertheless the resolution was adopted, and the County Medical Society,
notwithstanding so many internal protests, reaffirmed its former
position. The doughty little society from Montgomery then rushed to the
rescue with a counter resolution, flung at its big Philadelphia neighbor
like the pebble of David at the face of Goliath:

“Whereas the Woman’s Medical College _is_ properly organized, with an
intelligent and efficient corps of instructors, in possession of good
college buildings, and of all the appliances necessary for medical
instruction; that the students and graduates are irreproachable in
habits and character, as zealous in the pursuit of knowledge, as
intelligent and conscientious, as any of their male compeers; we hold it
to be illiberal and unworthy the high character of our profession to
withhold from them the courtesies awarded to male physicians.”—E. M.
Corson, M.D., Recording Secretary.

In 1870, the Montgomery County Society elected Dr. Anna Lukens to
membership.

In these debates the reasoning of the “opponents,” was always secretly
hampered by the lack of a definite standard with which the curriculum of
the condemned female schools could be compared. It was perfectly true
that the idea prevailed in them, that the real preparation for medical
practice was to be “picked up” by beginning to practice; and that, when
a legal diploma had once been obtained, all essential difficulties had
been removed, and the graduate could at once enter upon her “life work,”
with a light heart and assured prospects of success. But then this same
idea prevailed also in the men’s schools, that were nevertheless
recognized as perfectly “regular,” and whose graduates were readily
admitted to membership. On this account, detailed argument upon a
legitimate basis soon broke down, and resolutions were substituted which
declared the views of the Supreme Being in regard to female
physicians.[101]

The question was now transferred to the larger area of discussion in the
American Medical Association. This is a great national body, composed of
delegates from all the State societies, and meeting only once a year in
a session of three days, at different portions of the country. In 1871,
the annual meeting was held at San Francisco, and the “female physician
question” was there subjected to a long and animated debate.[102]

The preceding year, 1870,[103] Dr. Hartshorne of Philadelphia, a
physician of excellent standing, and professor of physiology in the
Woman’s Medical School, had moved such an amendment to the constitution
as would permit teachers in such schools (if men) to be received as
delegates of the association. In 1871, Dr. Harding of Indiana moved the
adoption of the resolution. But Dr. Davis of Illinois asked solemnly
whether “the time had come by deliberate action to open the door and
welcome the female portion of the community, not only into our
profession, but into all professions. Do we desire this time ever to
come? Is there any difference in the sexes? Were they designed for any
different spheres? Are we to heed the law plainly imprinted on the human
race, or are we as a body to yield to the popular breeze of the times
and say it must come, and therefore we will yield to it?”

Dr. King of Pittsburgh remarked that this matter had been debated in the
society many years, and on one occasion a vote was taken, 47 on one
side, 45 on the other, a majority of only two against the women. This
war against women was beneath the dignity of a learned society of
scientific men. Prof. Gibbons of California said: “If a woman showed
herself to be the equal of a man, I cannot for the life of me see what
objection there should be to it.”

Prof. Johnson of Missouri did not understand that woman has asked
admission to this floor. The questions only related to the admission of
her teachers as delegates to the association. “I am wholly opposed to
the admission of women here. Let women have their own associations. This
body will stultify itself by the admission of women.”

Dr. Atlee of Philadelphia remarked that “the opposition to female
colleges generally comes from the professors or controllers of other
colleges. These women’s colleges stand in many respects better than many
of the colleges represented in the association; they give obstetrical
and clinical instruction, _as is not given in a majority of the colleges
represented here_.... By the rules of our medical association, I dare
not consult with the most highly educated female physician, and yet I
may consult with the most ignorant masculine ass in the medical
profession.”

Prof. Thomas asked that a committee be appointed to examine the Woman’s
College, [which, amid all the discussions, had never yet been done, and
indeed never was done.] The Pennsylvania State Medical Society had never
dared to enforce its resolutions of excommunication. One physician had
even challenged it publicly to “dare to enforce this most unjust law.”

Dr. Johnson pointed out that the president of the association, Dr.
Stillé, was, by its rules, under the ban, because he was in the habit of
consulting with women.

Dr. Storer of Boston seized the occasion in the evening session to
pronounce a discourse on his favorite subject, the physiological
incapacities of women. Dr. Storer had been for two years a visiting
surgeon to the New England Hospital; but the boldness and ill success of
many of his operations having alarmed the women physicians and the
trustees, rules were passed subjecting future operations to the decision
not only of the surgical, but of the medical, staff. Such rules were
distinctly contrary to medical etiquette, and possibly unnecessary for
the purpose in view. Dr. Storer resigned, which was not altogether
unreasonable, but the letters in which he proclaimed his annoyance to
the world exhibited less of reason than of irrelevant petulance. The
main argument of this earlier letter was now reproduced in the memorable
San Francisco debate,—although this, on the face of it, was not
concerned with the philosophy of the female physician at all.

“There is,” declared the Boston orator, “this inherent quality in their
sex, that uncertain equilibrium, that varying from month to month in
each woman, that unfits her from taking those responsibilities which are
to control questions often of life and death.”

To this Dr. Gibbons of San Francisco replied: “If we are to judge of
this proposition by the arguments of my friend from Boston, I think it
would prove conclusively the weakness of his side of the question.... It
is a fact that a large majority of male practitioners fluctuate in their
judgment, not once a month with the moon, but every day with the
movement of the sun. I ask whether it be not true that one half of the
male practitioners of medicine are not to a greater or less extent under
the influence of alcohol at some period of the twenty-four hours? I do
not say that they get drunk, but their judgment is certainly more or
less affected.” A rude rejoinder to a gentleman who had traveled all the
way from Boston to San Francisco to make himself heard on the eternal
verities of physiology and psychology in regard to “female physicians,”
which must be rescued from the “popular breeze” of contemporary opinion!

Notwithstanding the warm championship of many of the debaters, including
the venerable president, the distinguished Dr. Stillé, Dr. Hartshorne’s
motion was lost, and the whole subject laid on the table without a vote.
This, however, seems to have been the last occasion on which the matter
was discussed. For in 1876, when the Association met in Philadelphia,
Dr. Marion Sims being president, a woman delegate appeared, sent by the
Illinois State Medical Society, Dr. Sarah Hackett Stevenson, of Chicago.
Dr. Brodie, of Detroit, moved that hers, “and all such names, be
referred to the Judicial Council.” A motion that this resolution be laid
upon the table was carried by a large vote, amid considerable applause.
The president asked if this vote was intended to recognize Dr.
Stevenson’s right to a seat. Loud cries of yes, and cheers, emphatically
answered the question.[104] Thus this mighty question, which had
disturbed the scientific calm of so many medical meetings, was at last
settled by acclamation. The following year at Chicago, Dr. Bowditch of
Boston, being president, congratulated the Association in his inaugural
address that women physicians had been invited to assist at the
deliberations.

The State Medical Society of Pennsylvania, where the discussion
originated, did not really wait for the action of the National
Association to rescind its original resolution of 1860. This did not
refer to the admission of women as members, that was not even
considered, but forbade “professional intercourse with the professors or
graduates of female medical colleges.” In 1871, when the Society met at
Williamsport, Dr. Traill Green moved to rescind this resolution, and,
“amid intense but quiet excitement,” the motion was carried by a vote of
55 yeas to 45 nays.

“Thus,” writes the now venerable champion of the women, Dr. Hiram
Corson, “ended successfully the movement originated by Montgomery
County, to blot from the transactions of the State Society a selfish,
odious resolution adopted eleven years before.... This report gives but
the faintest idea of the bitterness of the contest, of the scorn with
which the proceedings of the Montgomery County were received, and the
unkindness manifested against all who from year to year asked for
justice to women physicians.... What would now be their status, had not
the blunder of the Philadelphia Medical Society been committed?”[105] In
1881, the first woman delegate was admitted as member of the State
Society; and in 1888, the Philadelphia County Society also yielded, and
admitted its first woman member, Dr. Mary Willets.[106]

Pennsylvania was not the first State to admit women to medical
societies. It has been mentioned that the American Association, at its
Centennial year meeting, received Dr. Sarah Stevenson from the Illinois
State Medical Society. But, earlier than this, women had been received
in New York State and city. The very first occasion was 1869, when the
Drs. Blackwell were accepted as members of a voluntary “Medical Library
and Journal Association,” which held monthly meetings for hearing papers
on medical subjects read by its members.[107] In 1872, a paper was read
before this society by a young lady who had just returned from France
with a medical diploma, the first ever granted to an American woman from
the Paris _École de Médecine_.[108] In 1873, Dr. Putnam was admitted
without discussion to the Medical Society of New York county, at the
suggestion of Dr. Jacobi the president, whom she married a few months
later. In 1874 she was sent as a delegate from the County Society to the
State Medical Society, at its annual meeting at Albany. She also became
a member of the Pathological, Neurological and Therapeutical societies,
but was excluded from the Obstetrical Society by means of blackballs,
although her paper as candidate was accepted by the committee on
membership, and she received a majority vote. Finally, and a few years
later, she was elected, though by the close majority of one, to
membership in the New York Academy of Medicine.

The facile admission of Dr. Putnam to these various privileges, in New
York, at a time that the propriety of female “recognition” was still
being so hotly disputed in other cities, was due partly to the
previously acquired honor of the Paris diploma;[109] partly to the
influence of Dr. Jacobi. This physician may be said to have accomplished
for women in New York what was done in Philadelphia by Drs. Hartshorne,
Atlee, Stillé, and Thomas; in Boston by Drs. Bowditch, Cabot, Putnam,
and Chadwick; in Chicago by Dr. Byford. The door was opened, other women
entered without difficulty. The County Medical Society was expected to
register all regular and reputable practitioners in the city, and at the
present date contains the names of 48 regular physicians.

Four other women became members of the Pathological Society,[110] two of
the Neurological Society,[111] one of the Neurological Association,[112]
and two of the Academy of Medicine.[113] No new application has been
made to the Obstetrical Society, a private club. But the obstetrical
section of the Academy contains one female member.[114]

In Boston the “admission” of women was debated in three directions: to
the Harvard Medical School, to the Massachusetts State Medical Society,
and to the Boston City Hospital. The application of Miss Hunt to the
Harvard Medical School in 1847 and 1850 have already been described.
After the final discomfiture of this first applicant, no other attempt
to open the college doors was made until 1879,[115] when a Boston lady,
Miss Marian Hovey, offered to give $10,000 toward the new building the
college was about to erect on condition that it should receive women
among its students. A committee was appointed from among the overseers
of the university to consider the proposition;[116] and after a year’s
consideration reported, with one dissenting voice, in favor of accepting
the conditions. The committee outlined a plan for medical co-education,
substantially like that already adopted at the Michigan University,
where certain parts of the instruction should be given to both sexes in
common; for others, where embarrassment might occur, the instructions
should be duplicated. The one dissenting voice, that of Le Baron
Russell, disapproved of co-education in any shape, but urged that
Harvard University should charge itself with providing a suitable
independent school for women.

The majority report expressly advised against the establishment of a
separate school for women because “A considerable number of the most
highly cultivated women physicians of the country state that the same
intellectual standard cannot be maintained in a school devoted to women
alone, and that the intellectual stimulus obtained by female students
from their association with men is an all-important element of
success.”[117]

To guide its deliberations the committee had sent questions to 1300
members of the State Medical Society, to which 712 answers were
received; of these 550 were in favor either of admitting women to the
school, or of providing in some way for their education and recognition.
These answers helped to decide the affirmative character of the majority
report. Upon its reception, the Board of Overseers recommended the
Medical Faculty to accept Miss Hovey’s $10,000 and admit women to the
school. But of the 21 members of the Medical Faculty, seven were
strongly opposed to the admission of women, six were in favor of
admitting them under certain restrictions, eight were more or less
opposed but were willing to try the experiment. It was generally
considered too rash an experiment to be tried, at the moment that the
school was already embarked on certain improvements in its course of
education, which threatened to cause a falling off in the number of its
students. So the proposition was finally rejected by a vote of 14 to 4.
The overseers of the university, having no actual control over the
decisions of the Medical Faculty, were therefore compelled to decline
Miss Hovey’s offer. But, in doing so, they strongly recommended as
expedient that, “under suitable restrictions, women should be instructed
in medicine by Harvard University.”

The defeat at Harvard in May was, however, followed by a triumph in
another direction in October of the same year. On Oct. 9, 1879, an
editorial in the _Boston Medical and Surgical Journal_ says: “We regret
to be obliged to announce that, at a meeting of the councilors held Oct.
1, it was voted to admit women to the Massachusetts Medical Society.”

This society is not, like that of New York and many of the States,
composed of delegates from county societies, but it comprises, and
indeed consists of, all the legally qualified practitioners of the
State. Refusal to enroll women among its members, therefore, meant a
refusal to recognize the legality of diplomas that the authority of the
State had conferred. The profession, therefore, in this matter
deliberately set itself above the law, a most exceptional act in
American communities. A precedent for such action had previously been
established when the society refused to recognize homœopathic and
eclectic physicians, who also held diplomas by legal authority, inasmuch
as their schools were chartered by the State. The action of the Medical
Society towards women was, in fact, intended as a means of permanently
relegating women among classes of practitioners pronounced inferior and
unscientific, and whose legal rights merely sufficed to save them from
prosecution as quacks, and to recover their fees from such persons as
were foolish enough to employ them.

For twenty-five years the battle was waged, and arguments advanced pro
and con, of substantially the same nature as those which have already
been sufficiently quoted. A circular was sent to the 1343 members of the
society, asking the following question: Do you favor the admission of
women to the Society on the same terms with men? To this circular, 1132
replies were received, of which 709 were in the affirmative, 400 in the
negative, while 23 were indifferent. “It was thus evident that a
considerable majority of the Society, seven to four of all who answered
the circular, favor the admission of women.”[118]

In June, 1875, a committee of five was chosen from the society to report
whether duly educated women could not be admitted to membership. In
October a majority reported in favor of examining for membership men and
women without distinction. But the minority objected so vigorously, that
the whole matter was postponed indefinitely. In 1878, another committee
was appointed: in June, 1879, the members were found equally divided;
the subject was referred back to the committee, who, in October of the
same year, advised no action. But this time the minority reported to
instruct the censors to admit women for examination. The councilors
voted, 48 to 38, to adopt the minority report.[119]

But the end was not yet, for in February, 1880, the censors of Suffolk
County (including the city of Boston), voted that the society be advised
to rescind its vote of October. This, however, was never done; but,
after some further delay, the first female candidate, Dr. Emma Call, a
graduate from Ann Arbor, passed a satisfactory examination and was
admitted. The decisive step once taken, other women passed in readily,
and 1889, ten years from the date of the conclusion of the famous
controversy, a dozen women sat down to the annual banquet of the
society, among whom was one invited guest from another State. The “moral
tone” did not seem to be “perceptibly lowered,” on this occasion.

In 1882, Dr. Chadwick published a tabulated summary of the dates at
which various State societies had admitted women to membership.

In 1872, Kansas, Iowa; in 1874, Vermont; in 1875, Maine, New York, Ohio;
in 1876, California, Indiana; in 1878, New Hampshire; in 1879,
Minnesota, Massachusetts; in 1880, Connecticut; in 1881, Pennsylvania.

Rhode Island, Illinois, and Oregon also had women members, but the date
of their first admission was not known. Thus seventeen societies
contained, in 1882, 115 female members—that of New York alone having
forty-two, much the largest of all.

From this time the question of the official “recognition” of women might
be regarded as settled. Another question of equal, if not greater
importance, now came to the front,—namely, the extension to women of
opportunities for study and practice in great hospitals, opportunities
absolutely indispensable both to obtaining and maintaining a valid place
in medical practice and the medical profession. The discussion of this
question belongs to the seventh period of the history.

For this purpose the small hospitals conducted by women were (and are)
quite insufficient. There is such a demand upon their slender
accommodations and resources for obstetric and gynæcological cases, and
the claims of such cases to the special advantages of these hospitals
are so paramount, that they have so far tended to a specialism, which,
though useful for the patients, is detrimental to the physicians who
must find all their training in them. Efforts, therefore, have
constantly been made to widen the range for women, by securing their
admission as students, internes, or visiting physicians to the great
hospitals, which constitute the medical treasure-houses of the
country.[120] In describing the actual condition of the medical schools,
mention has been made of the hospital advantages which have been, little
by little, secured for their undergraduate students. In Boston, where
there is no school for women but the homœopathic school of the Boston
University, fewer opportunities exist than anywhere else.

The Massachusetts General Hospital is reserved exclusively for the
students of the Harvard Medical School. But the City Hospital remained
unappropriated, and in 1886, the President and Trustees of the Boston
University petitioned for permission for their female students to visit
there, on the same terms as the young men. A committee was appointed to
consider the matter, and after an elaborate report on the contemporary
usage in ninety-one hospitals throughout the United States, advised that
the request be granted. This enabled the female students to attend the
public lectures given and the operations performed in the hospital
amphitheatre about once a week.[121]

Similar, though more frequent, opportunities for clinical instruction
had been previously secured for women at the city hospitals of New York
(Bellevue), Philadelphia (Blockley), and Chicago (Cook County). At the
Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, moreover, the women from the
Medical School had been admitted to lectures on special days, when no
male students were present. These scanty privileges (for not much can be
learned about a patient by spectators seated on the benches of an
amphitheatre) were only obtained after a series of collisions with the
men students, occasionally rising to the dignity of a row, as upon one
memorable occasion at the Pennsylvania Hospital;[122] more often
consisting in petty teasings and annoyances, which bore considerable
resemblance to the pranks of schoolboys. To students habituated to the
daily visits in the wards of the vast European hospitals, this form of
clinical instruction, where the patient studied is seen but once, and
then at a distance, must seem ludicrously inadequate.[123] From these
defects, however, the male and female students suffer alike. But the
former have, until recently, retained the monopoly of the hospital
appointments, whereby a certain number of graduates are enabled to
acquire real clinical instruction. This monopoly is only just beginning
to break down.

Apparently the first general hospital in the country to confer a
hospital appointment on a woman, was the Mt. Sinai Hospital of New York.
Here, in 1874, Dr. Annie Angell, a graduate of the Infirmary School, was
made one of the resident physicians, at the instance of several members
of the medical staff.[124]

In 1884 Dr. Josephine Walter, another graduate of the Infirmary School,
was admitted as interne after a severe competitive examination, among
nineteen candidates, of which only two could be appointed. She also
served three years in the hospital, and then spent two years in Europe
in medical study.

Since her appointment, none others have been made, or indeed applied
for, in this or any other hospital in the city. Even in the Woman’s
Hospital, with exclusively female patients, and a host of female nurses,
the medical staff have repeatedly expressed their formal opposition to
the admission of female internes; and the Board of Lady Managers,
oblivious of the first resolution of the first founders of the hospital,
have so far remained indifferent to the anomalous injustice of the
situation.[125]

Among dispensary services, however, many women have found places. Dr.
Angell and Dr. Putnam Jacobi founded a dispensary at the Mt. Sinai
Hospital, and for a year conducted it exclusively themselves. It was
then systematically organized by the directors of the hospital, and has
since always had women on the staff. In 1882, a school was open for
post-graduate instruction in New York, and Dr. Putnam Jacobi was invited
to a place in its faculty, as the clinical lecturer on children’s
diseases, the first time a lectureship in a masculine school was ever,
in this country, filled by a woman. In the same school, another woman,
Dr. Sarah McNutt, was also appointed as lecturer, and founded a
children’s hospital ward in connection with the school. The positions at
present held by women physicians in New York dispensaries may be thus
summarized, exclusive of the dispensary of the Infirmary:

Demilt Hospital, 3; Mt. Sinai Hospital, 2; St. Mary’s Hospital for
Children, 1; Hospital for Ruptured and Crippled, 4; Manhattan Eye and
Ear Infirmary, 1; Foundling Hospital, 1 (resident physician); Nursery
and Child’s Hospital, 1 (resident at country branch); Babies’ Hospital,
1.

In Philadelphia, the Blockley Hospital, the first in the United States
to allow a woman to visit its wards,[126] appointed a female interne
upon competitive examination, in 1883.[127] Since this date, eleven
other women have received such appointments,—of whom four in 1889. Dr.
Clara Marshall and Dr. Hannah Croasdale were put on the visiting staff
in 1882. Chicago, however, is the city where the hospital privileges
have been most equitably distributed, though the opportunity has been
obtained by a struggle rendered severe, not from the opposition of those
adverse to women physicians, but from the inadequate instruction given
by those who had professed to be their friends.

In 1877, an invitation was sent to the senior class to take part in the
examination for internes at the Cook County Hospital. “To go meant to
fail. We decided to go, if only to show how little we had been taught in
surgery.” This was really an heroic determination; and the ordeal was
severe. “The students and other spectators received us with deafening
shouts and hisses The gynæcological and obstetrical examiners made
vulgar jokes. The surgeon tried to wreck us. We forced things as best we
could, but of course no one received an appointment.”[128] As a rather
unusual result of this trial, the professor of surgery at the Woman’s
College was roused to exertion, and for two years taught so well, that
on another competitive examination the Woman’s College was said to have
stood first. However, no woman was appointed, but a relative of the
commissioners, without an examination. Still the women’s pluck and
determination held out; they came up a third time,—and then, in
1881,—the coveted position was gained, and a young woman only twenty-one
years of age was nominated as interne. Since then, appointments have
multiplied, thus:

NAME OF HOSPITAL. │ DATE OF APPOINTMENT. NO. OF WOMEN
│ PHYSICIANS.
───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────
Cook County Hospital │ 1881 1
„ │ 1888 2
„ │ 1889 2
───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────
Illinois Woman’s │ 1882 1
Hospital │
„ │ 1887 1
„ │ 1888 1
„ │ 1889 1
───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────
Wesley Hospital │ 1889 1
State Insane Asylum │ Unknown 2

Finally, it is noteworthy that Dr. Sarah Hackett Stevenson holds an
appointment to the Cook County Hospital as visiting physician, and Dr.
Marie Mergler a similar appointment to the Woman’s Hospital.

A special and extremely interesting branch of the struggle for hospital
positions for women physicians has related to their appointment in the
female wards of insane asylums. This movement also originated in
Pennsylvania, and in the personal efforts of Dr. Corson, supported, as
before, by Dr. Atlee. At the annual meeting of the State Society in
1877, the following preambles and resolution were read:

“_Whereas_, The State Medical Society has taken a deep interest in the
welfare of the insane during the last few years; and

“_Whereas_, The inmates of our State hospitals are in nearly equal
numbers of the sexes; and

“_Whereas_, We have many female physicians who are eminent
practitioners, and one at least[129] who has had experience in the
medical management of the insane: therefore,

“_Resolved_, That a committee of three persons be appointed by the
president of this society, to report at its next annual meeting on the
propriety of having a female physician for the female department of
every hospital for the insane, which is under the control of the
State.”

A committee was appointed,[130] and reported at length in favor of the
resolution. Just emphasis was laid on the fact that the very first
attempts ever made to reclaim the insane asylums of the State from a
condition of utter barbarism were due to a woman, Miss Dorothy Dix,
whose name has been a household word in America, as that of Elizabeth
Fry in England. The fact that at present there were no women who had
received the special training requisite for the scientific treatment for
the insane was offset by the other facts, that the existing medical
superintendents were charged with the business responsibilities of the
asylum, and thus had entirely insufficient time to devote to the medical
care of the patients; and that the subordinates, upon whom such care
practically devolved, were usually recent graduates, who were entirely
destitute of special training, and indeed for whose education in
psychiatry no provision anywhere existed.

A bill was drafted, to be presented with a memorial to the Legislature,
making the appointment of a female superintendent obligatory in all
asylums with female patients. The legislative committee returned the
bill to the House with an affirmative recommendation.

A counter memorial was, however, sent to the Senate judiciary committee,
protesting against the appointment of a female superintendent as liable
to cause clashing in the management of the asylum. The memorial said
that assistant female physicians could already be employed wherever
deemed expedient. The memorial was so copiously signed as to suggest
that much other opposition than that of superintendents, dreading
collision, had been marshaled to defeat the proposed law.[131]

Another counter thrust, however, was given by the trustees of the State
Lunatic Hospital at Harrisburg, who warmly supported the bill. Before
the adjournment of the Legislature, the bill was in fact enacted, but so
altered that the trustees are not obliged to appoint a woman chief
physician, but only empowered to do so. At this same time, a new
hospital for the insane was opened at Norristown, not far from
Philadelphia; and to this Dr. Alice Bennett, a graduate of the Woman’s
Medical College of Philadelphia, was elected by the trustees as chief
physician of the female department. Dr. Annie Kugler was appointed
assistant. Three months later, in September, 1880, the trustees of the
asylum at Harrisburg elected Dr. Margaret Cleaves to a position as
assistant.[132] Legislative action analogous to that initiated in
Pennsylvania was not long afterward taken in Massachusetts and Ohio, and
finally, during the current year, 1890, in the State of New York.[133]

In New York, the bill required the employment of a woman physician in
every State insane asylum where women are confined. It passed with only
two negative votes in the Assembly, and three in the Senate.[134]

Previous to the enactment of this law, however, women assistants had
served for a year at the Willard Asylum for the chronic insane,[135] and
in 1888, two other women, Dr. Steadman and Dr. Wakefield, were appointed
in the New York City Asylum on Blackwell’s Island. Similar appointments
have been voluntarily made in ten other States, and more than twenty
women are now serving as physicians in insane asylums.[136] The latest
appointment was the greatest innovation, for it was in a Southern State,
Virginia, at Staunton, and a Southern candidate, Miss Dr. Haynes, was
appointed.[137] The _Springfield Republican_ concludes its notice of
this event (see note), with the remark: “This reform is steadily
advancing, and it will not be long before the opposition to it will be
as obsolete as it is now indecent.”[138]

Thus the last word, (so far) like the first in this long controversy, is
indecency. And it is characteristic of the world-old social position of
women that it should be so; since women have in the mass, never been
publicly and officially regarded as individuals, with individual rights,
tastes, liberties, privileges, duties, and capacities, but rather as
symbols, with collective class functions, of which not the least was to
embody the ideals of decorum of the existing generation, whatever these
might happen to be. These ideals once consigned to women, as to crystal
vases, it became easier for men to indulge their vagrant liberty, while
yet leaving undisturbed the general framework of order and society. But
all the more imperative was it, that the standard of behavior, thought,
and life for women should be maintained fixed and immovable. Any symptom
of change in the status of women seems, therefore, always to have
excited a certain terror. This is analogous to the fierce conservatism
of savage communities, ready to punish by death the slightest deviation
from established custom, because, as Mr. Bagehot observes, without such
strenuous care their entire social structure is liable to fall to
pieces. It is perfectly evident from the records, that the opposition to
women physicians has rarely been based upon any sincere conviction that
women could not be instructed in medicine, but upon an intense dislike
to the idea that they should be so capable. Failure could be pardoned
them, but—at least so it was felt in anticipation—success could not.
Apart from the absurd fear of pecuniary injury, which was only
conceivable so long as women were treated, not as so many more
individuals in the community, but as a separate class, and a class alien
to men of their own race and blood and even family,—apart from this
consideration, the arguments advanced have always been purely
sentimental. There has always been a sentimental and powerful opposition
to every social change that tended to increase the development and
complexity of the social organism, by increasing the capacities and
multiplying the relations of its members. The opposition to women
physicians is, in its last analysis, only one of the more recent
manifestations of this universal social instinct. So true is this, that
in the strife physicians have abandoned the sentiments proper to their
own profession, and have not hesitated to revile and defame it, in order
to prove that it was unfit for the delicacy or virtue of woman. They
have forgotten the tone of mind, the special mode of vision that becomes
habitual to every one who has really crossed the threshold of the
sublime art; they have talked of “revolting details” and “disgusting
preliminaries,” like the veriest outside Philistine. There are horrors
in medicine, because there are horrors in life. But in medicine these
are overcome or transformed by the potency of the Ideal; in life they
must be borne unrelieved. The women, who, equally with men, are exposed
in life to the fearful, the horrible, the disgusting, are equally
entitled to access to those regions of knowledge and ideas, where these
may be averted, or relieved, or palliated, or transformed.

Again: A mother occupied with her young child offers a spectacle so
beautiful and so touching, that it cannot fail to profoundly impress the
social imagination. Contemplating this, it is easy to feel that all the
poetry and romance, all the worth and significance of women are summed
up in the exquisite moments of this occupation; easy to dread the
introduction of other interests lest the women be unduly diverted from
this, which is supreme. Yet nothing is more obvious than that diversion
comes, a thousand times, from frivolity, but never through work; and
that these moments are preceded by many years, and followed by many
years, and for many women, through no fault of their own, never come at
all. The seventy years of a life-time will contain much waste, if
adjusted exclusively to the five or six years of even its highest
happiness. The toiling millions of women of every age of the world have
not been permitted to make such an adjustment, even if they should wish
to do so. They have always worked; but they demand now, and simply, some
opportunity for a free choice in the kind of work, which, apart from the
care of children, they may perform. The invasion of the medical
profession is one of the more articulate forms of this demand.

Although, according to the census of 1880, there were 2432 women
registered as physicians throughout the United States, and several
hundred must have graduated in the last ten years, it is probable that
many of them have received an education too irregular and imperfect to
justify their claim to the title in any serious sense. Thus the numbers
are still too small, the time too short, to begin to estimate the work
of women physicians. A large number of the women recorded in the census
tables will not be found among the graduates of any suitable colleges,
or on the registered lists of regular physicians, and these cannot be
counted in an estimate like the present. Thus the census of 1880 records
133 women physicians in New York, but the medical register of ten years
later contains the names of but 48. There seem to be about fifty at
present in Philadelphia, twenty or thirty in Boston. Eighteen are said
to be practicing in Detroit. The great majority are scattered through
the country in small towns or country villages.

It is irrelevant to inquire with Waldeyer, “What women have done?” from
the scientific standpoint, because the problem given was to enable them
to become observant, faithful, and skillful practitioners of medicine,
and this is possible without the performance of any really scientific
work.

It is premature to make such inquiries, except for single cases which
serve to illustrate the possibility, for it is but little more than a
generation that the first school was opened to women; it is not more
than a dozen years since the official education attainable has
approached any degree of effectiveness. What women have learned, they
have in the main taught themselves. And it is fair to claim, that when
they have taught themselves so much, when they have secured the
confidence of so many thousand sick persons, in the teeth of such
vigorous and insulting opposition, and upon such scanty resources and
such inadequate preparation; when such numbers have been able to
establish reputable and even lucrative practice, to care for the health
of many families over long terms of years, to sustain medical
institutions of their own, almost exclusively dependent upon the
good-will of citizens who have closely watched their work,—to serve in
public hospitals in competition with men, to care for many thousands of
sick poor, to whom abundant other medical aid was accessible, had it
been preferred,—to restore to health many thousand women who had become
helpless invalids from dread of consulting men physicians, or from delay
in doing so,—to hold their own in private practice, in matters of
judgment, diagnosis, medical and operative treatment, amidst the
incessant and often unfair rivalry of brother competitors,—to do all
this, we repeat, itself demonstrates a very considerable, indeed an
unexpected amount of native ability and medical fitness on the part of
women. With longer time, with more solid and varied opportunities, and
with extension to the many of those which have hitherto been shared only
by a very few, the amount of work accomplished may certainly be expected
to increase, and in geometrical progression.

It could be wished that space remained to bring to light the obscure
heroisms of the many nameless lives, which have been expended in this
one crusade. It has been fought, and modestly, in the teeth of the most
painful invective that can ever be addressed to women,—that of
immodesty. Girls have been hissed and stampeded out of hospital wards
and amphitheaters where the suffering patient was a woman, and properly
claiming the presence of members of her own sex; or where, still more
inconsistently, non-medical female nurses were tolerated and welcomed.
Women students have been cheated of their time and money, by those paid
to instruct them: they have been led into fields of promise, to find
only a vanishing mirage. At what sacrifices have they struggled to
obtain the elusive prize! They have starved on half rations, shivered in
cold rooms, or been poisoned in badly ventilated ones; they have often
borne a triple load of ignorance, poverty, and ill health; when they
were not permitted to walk, they have crept,—where they could not take,
they have begged; they have gleaned like Ruth among the harvesters for
the scantiest crumbs of knowledge, and been thankful. To work their way
through the prescribed term of studies, they have resorted to
innumerable devices,—taught school, edited newspapers, nursed sick
people, given massage, worked till they could scrape a few dollars
together, expended that in study,—then stepped aside for a while to earn
more. After graduating, the struggle has continued,—but here the
resource of taking lodgers has often tided over the difficult time.

These homely struggles,—the necessity in the absence of State aid, of
constantly developing popular support and sympathy for the maintenance
of the colleges and hospitals, has given a solidity, a vitality to the
movement, which has gone far toward compensating its quaint inadequacies
and inconsistencies. On the European continent, the admission of women
to medical schools has depended on the fiat of government bureaus,
prepared in this matter to anticipate a popular demand, and to lead
rather than to follow public opinion. In America, as in England, the
movement for such extension of privilege has sprung from the people, it
has fought its way,—it has been compelled to root itself in popular
sympathy and suffrage. Hence a feeling of enthusiasm widely diffused
among the women students, the sense of identification with an impersonal
cause, whose importance transcended that of their individual personal
fortunes, and yet which could only be advanced by the accumulation of
their individual successes. The ill-taught girls at Chicago, who, sure
in advance of defeat, resolved to face ridicule and contempt at the
competitive examinations, in order to make a road for their successors,
really exhibited, in a moral sphere, the heroism of Arnold Von
Winklereid on the old Swiss battlefield.

The change from the forlorn conditions of the early days has been most
rapid, and those who survived the early struggle, and whose energies
were not so absorbed by its external difficulties that not enough were
left for the intrinsic difficulties of medicine, have been really
invigorated by the contest. Indeed one of the ways in which women have
secured the infusion of masculine strength essential to their success,
has been by successfully resisting masculine opposition to their just
claims. It is as in the fable of Antæus,—those knocked down to the earth
gained fresh strength as they touched the ground. The character and
self-reliance natural to American women have thus been reenforced even
by the adverse circumstances of their position. And, conversely, those
for whom circumstances of fortune and education have been apparently the
most propitious, even those who have received the best theoretical
education, have not unfrequently been distanced, or even dropped
altogether out of the career, because of an incurable dilettantism, for
which the remedy had not been found either in practical hardship or in
native intellectual vigor.

Efforts have several times been made to estimate the actual proportion
of markedly successful practitioners among the women now engaged in
medicine.[139] The two monographs cited below are both based upon
circulars of questions sent out to as many women physicians as
possible.[140] The answers to these inquiries are necessarily very
partial, and can be quoted rather as illustrations than as statistics.
Among such illustrations, the statements of the pecuniary results of
practice are interesting. Dr. Bodley received answer from 76 ladies, and
their total annual income, if divided equally among the 76, amounted to
about $3000.[141] Among these, however, ten earned between $3000 and
$4000 a year, five between $4000 and $5000, three between $5000 and
$15,000, and four between $15,000 and $20,000.

In Dr. Pope’s paper, 138 women reported on their income, and out of them
only eleven had then practiced over two years and failed to become
self-supporting. Another item of interest is, that 32 per cent. of these
women report that they have one or more persons partially or wholly
dependent on them.[142]

So great are the imperfections, even to-day, of the medical art, so
numerous all the difficulties of applying even all existing resources,
so inevitable are the illusions in regard to the real cause of either
success or failure, that it is the most difficult thing in the world to
estimate the intrinsic ability of a physician, even by his success in
practice. A large practice certainly always testifies to some kind of
ability; but this is not always strictly medical. The essential test is
that of accuracy in diagnosis, and this test cannot, by means of any
public documents accessible, be applied. Its successful application can
only be inferred by the gradual development of confidence in women, both
among the more intelligent and critical of the laity, and among the more
unbiassed of the professional observers, who, in consultations, have had
ample opportunity to scrutinize diagnoses.[143] For a dozen years it has
become customary in America for the most distinguished members of the
profession, even in large cities, to send patients to women physicians,
in any case where the circumstances of the illness lead the patient to
prefer a woman.[144] The same is done when, from personal acquaintance,
or on account of public reputation, the patient has confidence in some
special woman physician, and desires her counsel therefore, for other
reasons than those of delicacy.

The women physicians of America share, while rather intensifying, the
main characteristics of their medical countrymen. They have, as a rule,
little erudition; but they have great capacity for bringing to bear all
available and useful knowledge upon practical issues. They certainly do
not read enough; and there is, therefore, a noticeable thinness in their
discussions of medical topics when they meet in isolated council. But
they have a resolute helpfulness in dealing with the individual cases
entrusted to their care, and a passionate loyalty to those who have put
their trust in them. They are possessed of abundant motive power for
concrete intellectual action, though they might lack this power, if the
work depended exclusively on abstract intellectual interest. And, after
all, it is this habit of mind which most distinctively marks the modern
practicing physician, and without it the advances in medical science
would be of little profit to the sick; indeed, would often not be made.
And, what is often overlooked, it is precisely these mental habits here
described which have been usually considered as particularly
characteristic of women. Thus the introduction of women into medicine
demands no modification of the typical conception traditionally held of
women, but only an enlargement of the applications which may be made of
this characteristic type.[145]

In nothing are popular views about women more at variance with fact than
in regard to their capacity for operative surgery. The popular
conception of surgery is itself entirely false, being inherited from a
by-gone period, when hospital operations were conducted in the wards,
filled with shuddering patients awaiting their own fate; amid clouds of
steam from burning irons, torrents of blood, and the groans and shrieks
of the victim.[146] But to-day, with anæsthetics, hæmostatics, and
antiseptics, the surgeon may operate as calmly as on an insensible wax
figure; and, moreover, with a reasonably correct technique, be assured
of success in a vast majority of cases whose result was formerly, even
under the best skill, always doubtful. The very greatness of the
achievements of surgical genius have lessened the amount of ability
requisite to perform many surgical operations; and especially have the
modern conditions of operating removed the perturbating influences which
female nerves might be supposed unable to resist. Moreover, the
technique has become so precise that it can be taught; and women, even
when defective in power of original thought, are extremely susceptible
of being trained by exact drill. On this very account the model of a
practical medical school should be that of a military academy, where
every operation, mental or manual, that the graduate is subsequently
expected to perform, will be rehearsed before graduation.

Now the remarkable thing about women surgeons is, not that they have
learned how to operate when they have been taught, but that, with very
insufficient teaching for the most part, they have contrived to learn so
much, and to operate so successfully. Obstetrics and gynæcology have
here again offered peculiar advantages, in presenting a series of cases
for operation which vary from the most trifling[147] to the most serious
capital operations in surgery. The latter have only been attempted in
the last decade, and it is worth while to quote such statistics as I
have been able to obtain, even though they are necessarily incomplete:

New York Infirmary: From 1875 to 1890; 535 operations (29 laparotomies);
operators, chiefly Dr. Elizabeth Cushier, but in a smaller number of
cases, Drs. Blackwell, Peckham, McNutt, Putnam Jacobi.

New England Hospital: From 1873 to 1890; 829 operations (48
laparotomies); operators, Drs. Dimock, Buckel, Keller, Berlin, Whitney,
Smith, Crawford, Bissell, Kellogg, Angell, Pagelson.

Chicago Hospital: From 1884 to 1888; 206 gynæcological, 114 general
surgery. Dr. Mary Thompson operated on all the gynæcological cases,
except four; the report does not state whether she also operated on the
others.

The reports of the Philadelphia Hospital do not give the total number of
operations performed in it, but through the kindness of Dr. Fullerton,
resident physician, I have received a report of the capital operations,
nearly all abdominal:

Women’s Hospital, Philadelphia: From 1876 to 1889; 91 operations (all
laparotomies, including several Cæsarean sections). Operators, chiefly
Dr. Anna Broomall; for a small number of cases, Drs. Croasdale and
Fullerton.[148]

In addition to the above, Dr. Marie Werner of Philadelphia reports 23
laparotomies from private practice.

Other personal statistics I have not been able to obtain. Some are
quoted in the list of Literature.[149] These statistics, though still on
a small scale, are, for the time in which they have accumulated, and for
the extremely meagre opportunities which have been so far afforded, not
at all unsatisfactory.

Written contributions to medical literature are also, though not
abundant, at least sufficient to prove that “the thing can be done.” The
145 citations made in the list[150] all belong to the period ranging
between 1872 and 1890, a period of eighteen years.

The intellectual fruitfulness of this period is not to be compared with
that exhibited by other and contemporary classes of medical workers, but
rather with that of the first 150 or 200 years of American medicine.
For, until now, it is a mentally isolated, a truly colonial position,
which has been occupied by the women physicians of America. When a
century shall have elapsed after general intellectual education has
become diffused among women; after two or three generations have had
increased opportunities for inheritance of trained intellectual
aptitudes; after the work of establishing, in the face of resolute
opposition, the right to privileged work in addition to the drudgeries
imposed by necessity, shall have ceased to preoccupy the energies of
women; after selfish monopolies of privilege and advantage shall have
broken down; after the rights and capacities of women as individuals
shall have received thorough, serious, and practical social recognition;
when all these changes shall have been effected for about a hundred
years, it will then be possible to perceive results from the admission
of women to the profession of medicine, at least as widespread as those
now obviously due to their admission to the profession of teaching.

NOTE.—While these pages are passing through the press, the important
announcement is made that the trustees of the Johns Hopkins
University—in view of a gift of $100,000, presented by women to the
endowment fund of the medical department,—have consented to admit
women to the medical school of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, so soon as
that school shall be opened. This is the first time in America that
any provision for the medical education of women has been made at a
university of the standing of the Johns Hopkins. It is expected that
the medical education of the future school will be especially directed
for the benefit of selected and post graduate students, for such as
desire to make special researches and to pursue advanced studies in
medical science. The admission of women to a share in these higher
opportunities is a fact of immense significance, though only a few
should profit by the advantage, the standing of all will be benefited
by this authoritative recognition of a capacity in women for studies,
on this higher plane, on equal terms and in company with men.

The directors of the Johns Hopkins have in this matter shown the broad
and liberal spirit which befits the noble trust they are called upon to
administer. It is characteristic of America that the stimulus to the
trustees’ action came from without the university, from the initiative
of women. This time, women have not only asked but they have at the same
time given. The $10,000 gift originally offered by Miss Hovey to Harvard
on condition of its admitting women, and declined by its medical
faculty, has been enrolled in the gift now accepted by the Johns
Hopkins. Half of the whole donation is the noble gift of one woman, Mary
Garrett,—daughter of one of the original trustees of the Johns Hopkins
University. The formation of committees among women in all the principal
cities of the United States, for the purpose of raising money for the
woman’s part of the endowment fund, and even for the remaining amount
needed to open the school, is itself a most important fact, for it
indicates that interest in the intellectual advancement of women, and
especially interest in the success of women in the medical profession,
has at last become sincere and widespread in quarters where hitherto it
has been entirely and strangely lacking.

Hardly had we pronounced the present position of women in medicine to be
“colonial,” when, by a sudden shifting of the scene, barriers have been
thrown down that seemed destined to last another half century; an entire
new horizon has opened before us. _Sic transit stultitia mundi._

VIII.
WOMAN IN THE MINISTRY.

(REV.) ADA C. BOWLES.

The entrance of women upon the work of the Christian ministry in America
waited for no ordaining council and imposition of hands, but may be said
to have begun with the preaching of Anne Hutchinson. Arriving in Boston
in 1634, and being admitted to membership in the church, she forthwith
began the advocacy of her peculiar doctrines, which carried with them
her commission to preach. Believing that “the power of the Holy Spirit
dwells in every believer, and that the inward revelations of the spirit,
the conscious judgment of the mind, are of paramount authority,” what
need could she feel of other sanction? Large numbers of women gathered
to the meetings in which she boldly discussed the sermons of the
preceding Sabbath, as was the custom of the men of the congregation, and
set forth her own belief. The dispute among her followers and their
opposers, according to Bancroft, “impressed its spirit into everything.
It interfered with the levy of troops for the Pequot war; it influenced
the respect shown to the magistrates, the distribution of town lots, the
assessment rates, and, at last, the continued existence of the two
opposing parties was considered inconsistent with the public peace.”

In 1637 a synod of the church was called at Newtown and, although
Cotton, Vane, and Wheelwright, together with all but five members of the
Boston church, had become warm partisans of Mrs. Hutchinson, her tenets
were among the eighty-two opinions condemned as erroneous. A few months
later, she was summoned before the General Court and, after a trial of
two days, sentenced to banishment from the territory of Massachusetts.

That her loss was felt by the church which had excommunicated her may be
inferred from the effort made to reclaim her by a deputation sent for
that purpose to the Island of Aquidneck, afterward called Rhode Island,
where she had found a refuge. After the death of her husband in 1642,
she removed to the Dutch settlement, then at war with the Indians, by
whose hand she, with all her family, save one child (carried captive),
cruelly perished.

This experience of the church was not calculated to encourage the public
preaching of women, nor incline it, a score of years later, to receive
with open-armed hospitality the two Quaker women, Mary Fisher and Ann
Austin, whose books and trunks were burned on shipboard, and who, upon
landing, were haled to prison, in the same spirit of persecution which
had driven them from England to the West Indies, and thence to this
so-called “land of liberty.” Vainly searched for signs of witchcraft,
they were then banished for heresy.

Yet the mild doctrines of the Quakers were destined to take root upon
American soil, and do their full share in the liberalizing of thought
and especially in securing to woman that freedom to preach which has
made itself felt in other Christian denominations. The name of no
preacher among the Quakers, or “Friends,” as they prefer to be called,
stands above the name of Lucretia Mott, whose history is too well known
to demand more than a word concerning her call to such public service,
as given by herself:

“At twenty-five years of age, surrounded by a little family and many
cares, I felt called to a more public life and devotion to duty, and
engaged in the ministry in our Society, receiving every encouragement
from those in authority, until a separation from us, in 1827, when my
convictions led me to adhere to the sufficiency of the light within us,
resting on truth as authority, rather than taking authority for truth.”

This step into the larger freedom of the Hicksites, or Unitarian branch
of Quakers, proved no mistake for one whose heart and life could not
measure themselves by theological creeds. To use her own words, “I have
felt a far greater interest in the moral movements of our age, than in
any theological discussion.” And her eloquent pleadings and practical
charities for three-quarters of a century are ample witness of her
sincerity. The domestic life of Mrs. Mott was in itself a noble
refutation of the assertion that eminent public service by women is
incompatible with home making, since few homes could show such perfect
conjugal union and such thrifty household management. There are about
three hundred and fifty women preachers in this branch of the Christian
church at present.

The sect of Shakers, or “United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second
Appearing,” originating near Manchester, England, about 1770, as an
offshoot of the Society of Friends, and following the same spiritual
authority, gave to its women an equal share with men in its service and
government.

In 1770, Ann Lee, one of the members of this sect, professed to have
received a special illumination, in the name of which she was accepted
as the “Christ of the female order.” Her followers believing that “God
was revealed as a dual being, male and female, to the Jews, that Jesus
revealed to the world God, as a Father,” received “Mother Ann” as “God
revealed in the character of Mother, the bearing spirit of all the
creation of God.” In 1774, obedient to another revelation of the spirit,
Mother Ann, with nine of the more prominent members of her society,
emigrated to America and began her work in the State of New York, from
which center ardent missionaries propagated the new faith.

When we consider the essential doctrines of this sect,—human
brotherhood, exemplified in a community of goods, non-resistance,
non-participation in government, strict celibacy, and perfect
chastity,—we must confess that Ann Lee, possessing not even a
rudimentary education, must nevertheless have been gifted with
extraordinary powers of persuasion thus to have secured the founding of
the various communities of Shakers in the United States, among which her
name is still reverenced in its deific relations.

If allowed to follow what might be called natural lines, for the highest
ecclesiastical freedom for women, the Roman Catholic Church would seem a
proper starting point. Its exaltation of “Mary, Mother of God,” the
canonization of devout women, its many sisterhoods, its deep indebtness
to women in every age and every land, seem a fitting foundation upon
which to build an ecclesiasticism which should at least consider woman
to be as well endowed by her Creator for a celibate priesthood as the
sex ignored in providing the world’s Redeemer. Yet no church more
rigidly excludes women from the priestly office or gives less indication
of change in this regard; nor can it be expected in a non-progressive
system, crystallized around the dogma of infallibility.

Nor shall we, though continuing along the lines of natural expectation
into the largest Protestant church of America, the Methodist Episcopal
Church, find a radical change, although Susanna Wesley was called the
“real foundress of Methodism” in England, and Barbara Heck is given
equal credit for the first impulse given the church in America. Landing
in New York in 1760, in company with the first local preacher and class
leader, Philip Embury, Mrs. Heck seems to have “kept the faith” more
loyally, in the midst of the distractions and downward tendencies of the
new life, than did the preacher. Five years passed and, so far as known,
he did nothing to keep together the few Wesleyans, or add to their
number. There was much moral degeneration, which no doubt greatly
troubled the soul of Mrs. Heck. On a certain occasion, while visiting at
a house where were gathered a number of friends and acquaintances,
finding them engaged in card playing, “her spirit was roused, and,
doubtless emboldened by her long and intimate acquaintance with them in
Ireland, she seized the cards, threw them into the fire, and then most
solemnly warned them of their danger and duty. Leaving them she went
immediately to the dwelling of Embury, who was her cousin. After
narrating what she had seen and done, under the influence of the Divine
Spirit and with power, she appealed to him to be no longer silent, but
to preach the Word forthwith. She parried his excuses and urged him to
begin at once in his own house and to his own people. He consented, and
she went out and collected four persons who, with herself, constituted
his audience. After singing and prayer, he preached to them and enrolled
them in a class. He continued thereafter to meet them weekly,”[151] and
thus began the work of Methodism in America. When the rigging loft,
which had succeeded the house for preaching purposes, had also been
outgrown, it was “Barbara Heck, the real founder of American Methodism,”
who was ready with plans for a chapel, which still stands, a sacred
memorial of her zeal and that of the man recalled to his duty by her
burning words.

Nor can the work of the Countess of Huntingdon be overlooked in this
connection, although the scene of her labors was in another land, since
its fruits were here so largely shared through the work of Whitefield.
Not merely as the builder of sixty-four chapels, the founder and
supporter of a college for the education of ministers, many of whom were
maintained by her, is she to be remembered. In the volume just quoted
from, we read that, “Under the influence of Whitefield and the Countess
of Huntingdon, the Calvinistic non-conformity rose, as from the dead, to
new life, which has continued ever since with increasing energy. By the
same means, with the co-operation of Wesley, a powerful evangelical
party was raised up in the establishment, and most of the measures of
evangelical propagandism which have since kept British Christianity
alive with energy, and extended its activity to the foreign world, are
distinctly traceable to this great revival.... About the end of its
first decade, a scarcely parallel interest had been spread and sustained
throughout the United Kingdom and along the Atlantic coast of
America.... It had presented before the world the greatest pulpit orator
of the age (if not of any age), Whitefield; also one of the greatest
religious legislators of history, Wesley, a hymnist, whose supremacy has
been but doubtfully disputed by a single rival—Charles Wesley; and the
most signal example of female agency in religious affairs which
Christian history records, the Countess of Huntingdon.”[152]

Remembering that the churches established by this gifted woman were not
known by the names of the men associated with her, but as “Lady
Huntingdon’s Connexion,” some evidence of the leadership of women will
be apparent in the American Methodist Church. Strange to say, this is
far from being the case. Although Wesley had encouraged the preaching of
women, and although few men could equal the successful labors of many of
them, the Methodist Episcopal Church of America is singularly backward
in recognition of its women. According to its “Discipline,” “the
pronouns he, his, and him, when used with reference to stewards,
class-leaders, and Sunday-school superintendents, shall not be construed
so as to exclude women from these offices.” Notwithstanding this, “in
many American churches to-day, a woman class-leader would be almost as
great a curiosity as John the Baptist, with his raiment of camel’s hair,
and a leathern girdle around his loins.”[153]

Women of unquestioned ability, liberal education, and purity of
character have in vain applied for ordination, though supported by the
record of much successful pulpit and pastoral work as licensed lay
preachers, and by many influential friends of the laity and clergy. One
of these, of national reputation,[154] to whom this sanction of
ordination was refused, has since been ordained by the Protestant
Methodist Church, which, having done so, however, steadfastly declines
to add to the number, having apparently exhausted its liberality by this
extreme application of the spirit of Wesley.

The small sect of primitive Methodists which adheres most strictly to
the methods of Wesley have always employed women preachers as a means of
reaching the depraved classes; this being one of the points of
difference upon which it separated from the main body.

The United Brethren in Christ, or German Methodists, as formerly called,
when their membership was more largely of that element, are to be
distinguished as appointing the first woman as “circuit rider,” which
was recently done by Bishop Kephart of the Wabash Annual Conference,
held at Clay City, Ind. The appointee is a young woman eminently adapted
to the work and is one of several ordained women elders in this church.

So far as known, the Baptist Church has taken no steps leading to the
admission of women to its ministry, save in that division known as Free
Will Baptists, which has ordained a small number of women in various
parts of the country under its democratic system of government. The Free
Baptist General Conference of 1886 adopted the following resolution:
“That intelligent, godly women who are so situated as to devote their
time to the ministry, and desire to be ordained, should receive such
indorsement and authority as ordination involves, provided there are no
objections to such indorsement other than the matter of sex. Many of the
Baptist clergymen, however, as those of all leading denominations, save
the Episcopal and Roman Catholic, freely admit women to their pulpits to
speak upon great moral questions, and would welcome them to the ranks of
the ministry. Women are also prominent in its conference and prayer
meetings.”

The Presbyterian Church has been a strongly conservative body, slow to
sanction radical change in its polity, but if the Pan-Presbyterian
Council, held not long since in London, voices the general sentiment of
this large and important denomination, women are to enjoy a more equal
power in its administration. For a long period they were carefully
excluded; but for a number of years past a more liberal policy has
welcomed them to a free utterance in the conference and prayer meetings,
which they sometimes conduct, and at synods they often speak upon
missionary and other topics. At a Synod of the Reformed Presbyterians
held in 1889, it was decided by a vote of 93 to 24 that the ordination
of a woman as deacon is in harmony with the New Testament and the
constitution of the Apostolic Church.

There are also indications that the long-frozen ground of orthodox
Congregationalism is thawing toward a springtime of more generous
recognition of its women. The recent opening of the Hartford Theological
Seminary, and the almost immediate presentation to it of a prize
scholarship to be competed for by women alone, are notable signs. The
general recognition of the fitness of women preachers in missionary
fields, the significant fact that Oberlin College, which graduated its
first woman theological student[155] nearly forty years ago and has
added but one other since, prints this year, for the first time, the
names of these two women upon the Triennial Catalogue, are other straws
upon the rising tide of favor toward the woman ministry. Under the
Congregational system, any individual church may ordain for itself a
woman whom it may choose for its pastor, and this has been done in
several instances past, either by the deacons of the church or by a
council called for the purpose, the present year recording more such
ordinations than any preceding year.[156]

The German Lutheran Church, as represented in a recent session of the
Missouri Synod at Baltimore, feeling compelled to recognize the trend of
evangelical Christianity toward a woman ministry, presented for
discussion the question, “How far and under what conditions do we allow
women to teach?” The decision reached was that they must not teach at
all in the pulpit nor in the congregation. As there is absolute parity
of the clergy of this church, and the congregation is its ultimate of
authority, it is by no means certain that this position can be uniformly
maintained.

To this church is due the credit of introducing into the country as
early as 1849 the order of Deaconesses as maintained in Europe during
the last fifty years. By the persistent efforts of Mr. John D. Lankenau
of Philadelphia, an enthusiastic supporter of this institution, America
is now provided with the finest “Mother-house” in the world, the
immediate result of which has been a rapid increase of the order in
various denominations, in all parts of the country. This magnificent
edifice, built by Mr. Lankenau as a memorial of his wife, at a cost of
half a million of dollars, has been presented as a free gift to the
German Hospital Corporation of Philadelphia. “The western wing of the
building is used as a home for aged men and women, the eastern wing as a
residence and training school for the deaconesses, the chapel uniting
the two, and the whole being known as the Mary J. Drexel Home and
Mother-house of Deaconesses.”[157][158]

The Protestant Episcopal Church has for many years recognized the value
of “sisterhoods” of consecrated women, more or less closely affiliated,
for carrying on its various branches of philanthropic service, from
which the growth and efficiency of the church has received no small
degree of impetus and importance. Among these sisterhoods are numbered
two orders of deaconesses, one of which has been changed into the
“Sisterhood of St. John the Evangelist”; which, in view of the growing
hospitality of thought toward preaching by women, carries in its title a
certain suggestiveness. Fourteen sisterhoods, a religious order of
widows, and two orders of deaconesses are reported in 1888 for this
church.

The church polity of the “Christian Connection,” better known as the
Christian Church, as its name implies, is placed upon a broad
foundation, by which each church is an independent republic, and women
are thus eligible to its pulpits; one woman, ordained to its ministry in
the State of Illinois, having at the present time charge of three
prosperous churches.

The Universalist Church has been the first to open the doors of its
theological schools for the training of women for the ministry, and by
its established forms ordain them to its full fellowship. This was not,
however, considered a part of its ecclesiastical system until made
practically such by the admission of the first woman candidate,[159]
who, denied entrance to the Meadville Theological School (Unitarian),
applied in 1860 to the President of St. Lawrence University to be
admitted to its theological department. In his reply, the fair-minded
president candidly wrote: “No woman has ever been admitted to this
college, and, personally, I do not think women are called to the
ministry, but that I shall leave with the great head of the church.... I
shall render you every aid in my power.” A graduate of Mt. Holyoke
Seminary and of Antioch College, at which she received the degree of
A.B., this well-equipped pioneer for a larger place for women in the
Christian church soon verified her credentials, and the president,
always her steadfast friend, preached her ordination sermon. Since her
ordination, she has enjoyed a number of successful pastorates, with the
duties of which marriage and motherhood have not proved incompatible.

About fifty women have been ordained in this church, and all its schools
and colleges, save one, are now co-educational. There is also, with
scarcely an exception, among its clergymen a feeling of cordial
fellowship toward women preachers.

Would the limits of this article permit, sketches of the work
accomplished by its pioneer women preachers would furnish not
uninteresting reading, since their fields of labor have been some of the
most difficult in their respective churches. They have been called to
the building of new churches in unbroken fields, or to those so dead or
dormant as to be apparently beyond the reach of men workers, and yet we
hear of no failures among them to raise these churches to new life and
prosperity or to organize new material upon strong foundations. In one
notable instance, in a suburb of Chicago, a ten years’ pastorate has
resulted in the building of one church edifice which, speedily outgrown,
has made necessary a more spacious and elegant one; and there is no
disposition to exchange this successful woman minister for a masculine
successor.

The Universalist Register for 1889, contains, in its list of ministers,
the names of thirty-five women, being the largest number of ordained
women for any year, and the largest number in any denomination.

In just a decade after its refusal to admit a woman, the Meadville
Theological School (Unitarian) opened its doors to women students, since
which time it has received sixteen. About one third of these have
graduated, while others have taken but a partial course as wives or
prospective wives of ministers, in order to be more truly “help-meets”
in the pulpit work of their husbands. “Among these graduates,” writes a
member of the faculty, “every woman has been above the average. Our
experience indicates that for success in our ministry, care should be
taken to encourage only such women as, together with personal fitness
for the work, can easily maintain this high rank.”

An amusing incident in the domestic life of one of these women pastors
may indicate a possibility of growth in the woman ministry likely to
startle conservative minds. A little boy and girl, the children of a
mother whose work as a minister evidently contained no surprises for
them, were discussing plans for their own future. “I shall help mamma
preach,” said the little girl. “I shall preach, too,” stoutly said the
small brother. His sister, looking thoughtfully and doubtfully at him,
said slowly, “Yes, mens do preach sometimes.”

The woman ministry in America has had no warmer friend than Mrs. Julia
Ward Howe, herself a preacher of well-known ability, occasionally
preaching in the pulpits of this country, and having preached in Rome,
Jerusalem, and Santo Domingo while sojourning in those places. In 1873
Mrs. Howe succeeded in securing a convention of such ministers as were
within convenient distance of Boston during Anniversary week, at which
addresses were made and the communion observed, Rev. Lorenza Haynes and
Rev. Mary H. Graves officiating.

Since that time eight annual conventions have been held in Boston; and
in the Hollis Street Church, on June 2, 1882, the “Woman’s Ministerial
Conference” was formed, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, president. This is not a
working body, but a fellowship of women preachers, whether ordained or
not, representing all denominations. Its present officers are: Mrs.
Julia Ward Howe, president; Rev. Mary H. Graves, corresponding
secretary; Rev. Ada C. Bowles, recording secretary. These, with the
additional names of Rev. Louise S. Baker and Rev. Mary T. Whitney, form
its executive committee. The title of Rev. is never applied save to
those who have been regularly ordained in their respective
denominations.

That women bore an important part in the planting and early growth of
the Christian church needs no argument. That the plain teaching of Paul
should have been so perverted as to mean their exclusion from the office
of public teaching is to be explained only by the fact of a departure
from the methods of the primitive church, through a purely masculine
interpretation and application of regulations which, entirely adapted to
the age and country in which uttered, were never intended to be
prohibitive of women’s preaching in that, or at any later, period.

The establishment of the Diaconate, in which, as an order of the clergy,
women administered the sacraments, interpreted and promulgated
doctrines, in connection with the practical work of charity and
benevolence, are matters of history.

In its periods of persecution, the church received no more devoted
service than that given by its consecrated women. For its sake, they
cheerfully accepted martyrdom, in its most cruel forms. Princesses of
the blood and other women of noble birth left the allurements of courts
for the studious seclusion of the cloister, or, seeking out the poor and
needy, they divided with them their substance. No conditions of
miserable poverty or loathsome disease hindered the most tender
devotion. In all ages and in all lands women have given proof of a
loyalty to Christianity as sincere as it was serviceable. By their
proselyting power in converting royal relatives, they were the means of
bringing not only Rome but France, England, Spain, Hungary, Poland, and
Russia under Christian rule.[160]

Is the church to-day less in need of such service than in the past, that
it will seek in any way to circumscribe the work of its faithful women
by denying to them such sanction, through its prescribed forms, as it
bestows freely upon like qualified men, is the question which presses
itself persistently forward for settlement.

Certain it is that, as ecclesiastical despotism loses its hold upon the
people, they will more readily seek spiritual guidance under a broader
law of adaptation and natural fitness, in which women must stand at
least an equal chance with men. What the world has already lost by their
exclusion from a controlling influence in the church, finds its most
painful illustration in the widespread and deep depravity of the masses
in our great cities, which the church, in none of its branches, has
materially lessened. From the efforts now being made in America for the
restoration of the Diaconate of woman, it is safe to argue a change for
the better in this respect. The new departure in methods has also an
important illustration in the city of Chicago, where, under the
leadership of D. L. Moody, gifts amounting to $250,000 have been secured
for a theological school and home, to be conducted under the auspices of
the Chicago Evangelical Society, which is to be open to both sexes upon
the same terms. Its object is the evangelization of the unchurched
masses of that great city.

The evils which have resulted to society, and which threaten the very
life of the nation by the long neglect to establish proper relations
between the vast army of ignorant and degraded beings throughout the
land with the active life of Christianity, have become too appalling to
be contemplated with indifference, even by the most callous and selfish.
The call for service of a most heroic kind is urgent and pressing. For
this work of redemption, women have an especial fitness. Invested with
all the sanction the church can bestow, supplemented by municipal
authority where necessary, let the Christian womanhood of America rise
to the level of the demand; “In His Name,” their motto, In His spirit,
their inspiration. No pure-hearted, strong-purposed woman but can find a
place here to labor as “a minister of the sanctuary and of the true
tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man.”

IX.
WOMAN IN LAW.

ADA M. BITTENBENDER.

The history of various ages and nations, since the days of the
prophetess Deborah, who filled the office of judge among the children of
Israel (Judges iv. 4), records the names of women distinguished for
their legal learning, some of whom were also successful advocates. Among
the latter we content ourselves with mentioning Aspasia, who pleaded
causes in the Athenian forum, and Amenia Sentia and Hortensia in the
Roman forum. But, alas, the right of Roman women to follow the
profession of advocate was taken away in consequence of the obnoxious
conduct of Calphurnia, who, from “excess of boldness” and “by reason of
making the tribunals resound with howlings uncommon in the forum,” says
Velerius Maximus, was forbidden to plead. (Velerius Maximus, Hist. lib.
viii. ch. iii.) The law, made to meet the especial case of Calphurnia,
ultimately, “under the influences of the anti-feministic tendencies” of
the period, was converted into a general one. In its wording the law
sets forth that the original reason of woman’s exclusion “rested solely
on the doings of Caphrania.” (Lex. I, sec. 5, Dig. iii. i.)

This exclusion furnished a precedent for other nations which, in the
course of time, was followed. Dr. Louis Frank, of the Faculty of Law at
Bologna, in a pamphlet entitled “La Femme Avocat,” translated by Mary A.
Greene, LL.B., of Boston, and published in 1889 in serial form in the
_Chicago Law Times_, in speaking on this point, says:

“Without taking time to discuss the rudimentary law of the ancient
German Colonies, we recall only that institution of Germanic origin, the
_vogt_ or _advocatus_, whose care it was to represent every woman at the
court of the suzerain, in judicial acts and debates.... The ancient
precedents were conceived and established in a spirit which was
extremely favorable to woman. There is not a trace in them of the
privileges of masculinity. They allowed woman to be a witness, a surety,
an attorney, a judge, an arbitrator. Later, under the influence of the
canon law, and in the early renaissance of juridical study, under the
action of the schools of Roman law, a reaction made itself felt against
the rights of women, and the old disabilities of Roman legislation
reappeared and became a part of the legal institutions.”

Further on, Dr. Frank says:

“The forwardness of Calphurnia appeared to all the ancient jurists a
peremptory reason for excluding women from the forum.”

From among his citations to prove this assertion we extract the
following:

“Boutillier tells us that a woman could not hold the office of attorney
or of advocate. ‘For know, that a woman, in whatever state she may be,
married or unmarried, cannot be received as procurator for any person
whatever. For she was forbidden (to do) any act of procuration because
of Calphurnia, who considered herself wiser than any one else; she could
not restrain herself, and was continually running to the Judge without
respect for formalities, in order to influence him against his opinion.’
(Somme Rural, Edit. Mace, Paris, 1603, L. i. tit. x. p. 45.) Further on,
designating those ‘who may be advocates in court and who not,’
Boutillier cites as incapable minors, the deaf, the blind, clerks,
sergeants, and women. ‘For women are excluded because of their
forwardness, like Calphurnia, who could never endure that her side
should be beaten nor that the judge should decide against her, without
speaking forwardly to the judge or to the other party.’ (_Id._ L. ii.
tit. ii. p. 674.)... In Germany as in France, the inferiority of woman
was justified upon the same grounds. ‘No woman,’ says the _Miroir de
Souabe_, ‘can be guardian of herself nor plead in court, nor do it for
another, nor make complaint against another, without an advocate. They
lost this through a gentlewoman named Carfurna, who behaved foolishly in
Rome before the ruler.’” (_Miroir de Souabe_, T. ii. ch. xxiv.,
Lassberg, 245.)

The prohibition against women acting as advocates, or barristers, the
latter being the term used to designate the office in England, wherever
adopted, has continued in force to the present time outside of the
United States of America. In England women are permitted to qualify for
and practice as attorneys at law and solicitors in chancery, but have
not been permitted to become barristers and exercise the rights of that
rank in the prosecution of their cases. Were it not for the Calphurnian
decree, they still would be ineligible because of being denied admission
to the four Inns of Court, where barristers are trained and ranked.
These Inns of Court are voluntary societies from whose power to reject
applications for membership there is no appeal.

The common law of England becoming the law of this country, its women
were thought also ineligible to admission to the bar, and but one woman,
so far as we know, attempted to test the matter until within the last
quarter of a century. This exception was a very notable one in colonial
days. It was the case of Margaret Brent, spinster and gentlewoman. She
and her sister Mary, kinswomen of the first Lord Proprietary and
Governor of Maryland, came to the Province in 1638, “bringing over nine
colonists, five men and four women. They took up manors, imported more
settlers, and managed their affairs with masculine ability.” So says
William Hand Browne in his “History of a Palatinate.” The Governor,
Leonard Calvert, died the 9th of June, 1647, leaving Mistress Brent his
sole executrix. At the time of his death, he was attorney for his
brother, Cecilius Calvert, second Lord Baltimore, the Lord Proprietary.
Mistress Brent succeeded him as attorney for his lordship. Her right to
act in this capacity, which she at first claimed “on the strength of her
appointment as executrix,” was questioned in the provincial court, where
she had occasion frequently to appear in regard to his lordship’s
“private estate and transactions in the Province.” The Court ordered
that she “should be received as his lordship’s attorney.” The question
came up in court on the 3d day of January, 1648, of which record was
made as follows:

“This day the question was moved in court whether or noe, Mr. Leon.
Calvert (remayning his L^{p’s} sole attorney within this Province before
his death, and then dying) the said Mr. Calvert’s administrator was to
be received for his L^{p’s} Attorney within this Province untill such
time as his Lordship had made a new substitution, or that some other
remayning uppon the present Commission were arrived into the Province.
The Governor demanding Mr. Brent’s opinion upon the same Quere. Hee
answered that he did conceive that the administrator ought to be looked
uppon as attorney both for recovering of rights into the estate and
paying of dew debts out of the estate and taking care for the estate’s
preservation: But not further, untill his Lordship shall substitute some
other as aforesaid. And thereuppon the Governor concurred. It was
ordered that the administrator of Mr. Leon Calvert aforesaid should be
received as his L^{p’s} Attorney to the intents above.” (Archives of
Maryland, vol. iv. p. 358.)

The provincial court records show that Mistress Brent not only
frequently appeared in court as his lordship’s attorney, in which
capacity she continued to act for some years, but also in prosecuting
and defending causes as attorney for her brother, Capt. Giles Brent, and
in regard to her personal affairs, and as executrix of Leonard Calvert’s
estate (the record calls her “administrator”; she was appointed by the
testator to execute his will). There is no record of any objection being
made to her practicing as attorney on account of her sex. At that time
the provincial court at St. Mary’s “was the chief judicial body in the
Province, being not only a court of first instance for all matters
civil, criminal, and testamentary for the city and county of St. Mary’s,
but having also appellate jurisdiction over the county courts. It was
composed of the Governor as presiding judge, and one or more of the
members of the council as associate judges.” (Archives of Maryland, vol.
iv. preface.)

Unmindful of the words “but not further” in the opinion, Mistress Brent
asked for voice and vote in the General Assembly on account of her
position as his lordship’s attorney. This request was denied. Whether
her sex entered into the denial is a question without solution. The
Assembly proceedings for January 21, 1648, make mention of the fact in
these words:

“Came Mistress Margarett Brent and requested to have vote in the howse
for herselfe and voyce allso, for that att the last court, 3^d Jan., it
was ordered that the said Mistress Brent was to be looked uppon and
received as his L^{p’s} Attorney. The Gov^r denyed that the said
Mistress Brent should have any vote in the howse. And the said Mistress
Brent protested against all proceedings in this present Assembly,
unlesse shee may be present and have vote as aforesaid.” (Archives of
Maryland, vol. i. p. 215.)

The first woman since the days of Mistress Brent to ask for and obtain
admission to the bar of this country was Arabella A. Mansfield of Mt.
Pleasant, Iowa. She studied in a law office and was admitted to the Iowa
bar in June, 1869, under a statute providing only for admission of
“white male citizens.” The examining committee in its report, which is
of record, said:

“Your committee have examined the provisions of section 2700 of chapter
114, of the Revision of 1860, concerning the qualifications of attorneys
and counselors in this State [section 2700 provided for the admission of
“white male persons.” Ed.], but in considering the section in connection
with division 3 of section 29, chapter 3 of the Revision, on
construction of statutes [section 29 provided that “words importing the
masculine gender only may be extended to females.” ED.], we feel
justified in recommending to the court that construction which we deem
authorized, not only by the language of the law itself, but by the
demands and necessities of the present time and occasion. Your committee
take unusual pleasure in recommending the admission of Mrs. Mansfield,
not only because she is the first lady who has applied for this
authority in this State, but because in her examination she has given
the very best rebuke possible to the imputation that ladies cannot
qualify for the practice of law.”

At the time of Mrs. Mansfield’s debut into the profession without
opposition, Myra Bradwell, of Chicago, having studied law under the
instruction of her husband, ex-Judge James B. Bradwell, was
unsuccessfully knocking at the door of the Supreme Court of Illinois for
admission. To give an understanding of the case, and line of argument
used in denying her application, we extract from the opinion of the
Court, delivered by Mr. Justice Lawrence, the following:

“Mrs. Myra Bradwell applied for a license as an attorney at law,
presenting the ordinary certificates of character and qualifications.
The license was refused, and it was stated, as a sufficient reason, that
under the decisions of this court, the applicant, as a married woman,
would be bound neither by her express contracts, nor by those implied
contracts, which it is the policy of the law to create between attorney
and client.

“Since the announcement of our decision, the applicant has filed a
printed argument, in which her right to a license is earnestly and ably
maintained. Of the qualifications of the applicant we have no doubt, and
we put our decision in writing in order that she, or other persons
interested, may bring the question before the next Legislature.... It is
to be remembered that at the time the statute was enacted [the statute
under which admission was sought, which provided that “no person shall
be permitted to practice as an attorney or counsellor at law,” etc. ED.]
we had, by express provision, adopted the common law of England, and,
with three exceptions, the statutes of that country passed prior to the
fourth year of James the First, so far as they were applicable to our
condition. It is also to be remembered that female attorneys at law were
unknown in England, and a proposition that a woman should enter the
courts of Westminster Hall in that capacity, or as a barrister, would
have created hardly less astonishment than one that she should ascend
the bench of bishops, or be elected to a seat in the House of Commons.
It is to be further remembered that when our act was passed, that school
of reform which claims for women participation in the making and
administering of the laws, had not then arisen, or, if here and there a
writer had advanced such theories, they were regarded rather as abstract
speculations than as an actual basis for action. That God designed the
sexes to occupy different spheres of action, and that it belonged to men
to make, apply, and execute the laws, was regarded as an almost
axiomatic truth. It may have been a radical error, but that this was the
universal belief certainly admits of no denial. A direct participation
in the affairs of government, in even the most elementary form, namely,
the right of suffrage, was not then claimed, and has not yet been
conceded, unless recently, in one of the newly settled territories of
the West.... But it is not merely an immense innovation in our own
usages, as a court, that we are asked to make. This step, if taken by
us, would mean that, in the opinion of this tribunal, every civil office
in this State may be filled by women; that it is in harmony with the
spirit of our constitution and laws that women should be made governors,
judges, and sheriffs. This we are not prepared to hold.... There are
some departments of the legal profession in which woman can
appropriately labor. Whether, on the other hand, to engage in the hot
strifes of the bar, in the presence of the public, and with momentous
verdicts the prizes of the struggle, would not tend to destroy the
deference and delicacy with which it is the pride of our ruder sex to
treat her, is a matter certainly worthy of her consideration. But the
important question is, what effect the presence of women as barristers
in our courts would have upon the administration of justice, and the
question can be satisfactorily answered only in the light of
experience.” (Supreme Court Reports of Illinois, vol. lv. p. 535.)

The Supreme Court of Illinois having refused to grant to Mrs. Bradwell a
license to practice law in the courts of that State, she appealed the
case to the Supreme Court of the United States, where the judgment of
the State court was affirmed. She was there ably represented by Mr.
Matthew Hale Carpenter. Mr. Justice Miller delivered the opinion of the
court. In affirming the judgment, the refusal being made on the ground
that women are not eligible under the laws of Illinois, the court held
that “such a decision violates no provision of the Federal
Constitution”; that the right to practice law in the State courts is not
“a privilege or immunity of a citizen of the United States, within the
meaning of the first section of the fourteenth article of amendment of
the Constitution of the United States”; and that “the power of a State
to prescribe the qualifications for admission to the bar of its own
courts is unaffected by the fourteenth amendment, and this court cannot
inquire into the reasonableness or propriety of the rules it may
prescribe.” (16 Wallace’s Reports, Supreme Court U. S., p. 130). Mr.
Justice Bradley, while concurring in the judgment, gave expression to
his views in a separate opinion in which he took occasion to say that,
“The constitution of the family organization, which is founded in the
divine ordinance as well as in the nature of things, indicates the
domestic sphere as that which properly belongs to the domain and
functions of womankind.” The Chief Justice, Salmon P. Chase, “dissented
from the judgment of the court, and from all of the opinions.”

The Legislature of Illinois, in 1872, enacted that “No person shall be
precluded or debarred from any occupation, profession, or employment
(except military) on account of sex.” But Mrs. Bradwell, ever since
being occupied with editorial work on the _Chicago Legal News_, which
she founded in 1868, and with the publication of Bradwell’s Appellate
Court Reports and other legal works, did not renew her application for a
license to practice law. The sequel is this, copied from the _Chicago
Legal News_ of April 5, 1890: “We are pleased to say that last week,
upon the original record, every member of the Supreme Court of Illinois
cordially acquiesced in granting, on the Court’s own motion, a license
as an attorney and counselor at law to Mrs. Bradwell.”

The next court case was that of Mrs. Belva Ann Lockwood, of Washington,
D. C., who graduated from the Law School of the National University, and
was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the District, in
1873. The same year a motion was made for her admission to the bar of
the U. S. Court of Claims. This Court refused to act upon the motion,
“for want of jurisdiction.” The opinion concludes in these words: “The
position which this Court assumes is that under the Constitution and
Laws of the United States a court is without power to grant such an
application, and that a woman is without legal capacity to take the
office of attorney.” (Court of Claims Reports, vol. ix. p. 346.)

At the October term, 1876, of the Supreme Court of the United States,
Mrs. Lockwood applied for admission as practitioner of that court. Her
application was denied. The decision has not been officially reported,
but, upon the record of the Court, it is thus stated: “Upon the
presentation of this application the Chief Justice said that, notice of
this application having been previously brought to his attention, he had
been instructed by the Court to announce the following decision upon it:
By the uniform practice of the Court from its organization to the
present time, and by the fair construction of its rules, none but men
are admitted to practice before it as attorneys and counselors. This is
in accordance with immemorial usage in England, and the law and practice
in all the States, until within a recent period; and the Court does not
feel called upon to make a change until such a change is required by
statute or a more extended practice in the highest courts of the
States.”

Mrs. Lockwood continued practicing before the courts of the District and
elsewhere, outside of United States courts, until Congress passed a bill
providing, “That any woman who shall have been a member of the bar of
the highest court of any State or Territory, or of the Supreme Court of
the District of Columbia, for the space of three years, and shall have
maintained a good standing before such court, and who shall be a person
of good moral character, shall, on motion, and the production of such
record, be admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United
States” (Approved, Feb. 15, 1879). Mrs. Lockwood drafted the bill and
secured its passage. She was the first woman to be admitted under the
law and to practice before this Supreme Court. (Since then, six others
have been admitted, viz.: Laura De Force Gordon of Stockton, California;
Ada M. Bittenbender of Lincoln, Nebraska; Carrie Burnham Kilgore of
Philadelphia; Clara M. Foltz of San Diego, California; Lelia
Robinson-Sawtelle of Boston, and Emma M. Gillet of Washington, D. C.
Mrs. Bittenbender moved the admission of Miss Gillet, the first instance
of one woman moving the admission of another to the highest court in the
country.) A few days after Mrs. Lockwood’s admission, she received word
from the Court of Claims that she could now plead before it.

The next State court to be heard from on the subject was the Supreme
Court of Wisconsin, in 1875. The matter was the motion to admit Miss R.
Lavinia Goodell to the bar of that court. Miss Goodell, the year before,
had been admitted to the bar of the circuit court of Rock county in that
State. The argument, read on the hearing of the motion by I. C. Sloan,
Esq., was prepared by her. The motion was denied, it being held that “To
entitle any person to practice in this court, the statute requires that
he shall be licensed by its order, and no right to such an order can be
founded on admission to the bar of a circuit court. The language of the
statute relating to the admission of attorneys (which declares that
‘_he_ shall first be licensed,’ etc.) applies to males only; and the
statutory rule of construction that ‘words of the masculine gender _may_
be applied to females,’ ‘unless such construction would be inconsistent
with the manifest intention of the Legislature,’ cannot be held to
extend the meaning of this statute, in view of the uniform exclusion of
females from the bar by the common law, and in the absence of any other
evidence of a legislative intent to require their admission.” Chief
Justice Ryan delivered the opinion of the Court. The following extract
from that opinion we believe will be read with interest, and remain of
historic value as showing the fossilized misconceptions woman combated
with in attaining the generally acceptable position in the legal
profession in this country which she now holds:

“We cannot but think the common law wise in excluding women from the
profession of the law. The profession enters largely into the well-being
of society; and, to be honorably filled and safely to society, exacts
the devotion of life. The law of nature destines and qualifies the
female sex for the bearing and nurture of the children of our race and
for the custody of the homes of the world and their maintenance in love
and honor. And all life-long callings of women, inconsistent with these
radical and sacred duties of their sex, as in the profession of the law,
are departures from the order of nature; and when voluntary, treason
against it. The cruel chances of life sometimes baffle both sexes, and
may leave women free from the peculiar duties of their sex. These may
need employment, and should be welcome to any not derogatory to their
sex and its proprieties, or inconsistent with the good order of society.
But it is public policy to provide for the sex, not for its superfluous
members; and not to tempt women from the proper duties of their sex by
opening to them duties peculiar to ours. There are many employments in
life not unfit for female character. The profession of the law is surely
not one of these. The peculiar qualities of womanhood, its gentle
graces, its quick sensibility, its tender susceptibility, its purity,
its delicacy, its emotional impulses, its subordination of hard reason
to sympathetic feeling, are surely not qualifications for forensic
strife. Nature has tempered woman as little for the juridical conflicts
of the court room, as for the physical conflicts of the battlefield.
Womanhood is molded for gentler and better things. And it is not the
saints of the world who chiefly give employment to our profession. It
has essentially and habitually to do with all that is selfish and
malicious, knavish and criminal, coarse and brutal, repulsive and
obscene, in human life. It would be revolting to all female sense of the
innocence and sanctity of their sex, shocking to man’s reverence for
womanhood and faith in woman, on which hinge all the better affections
and humanities of life, that woman should be permitted to mix
professionally in all the nastiness of the world which finds its way
into courts of justice; all the unclean issues, all the collateral
questions of incest, rape, seduction, fornication, adultery, pregnancy,
bastardy, legitimacy, prostitution, lascivious cohabitation, abortion,
infanticide, divorce.”

Ah, dear sir, it is largely to “mix professionally in all the nastiness
of the world which finds its way into courts of justice,” that many,
very many women seek admission to the bar. In every case involving any
one of the “unclean issues” or “collateral questions” you have named,
some woman must appear as complainant or defendant, or be in some way
associated. What more proper, then, than that some other woman should be
in court, clothed with legal power, to extend aid and protection to her
sister in trouble, that justice may be done her, and the coarse jest and
cruel laugh, so proverbial in social impurity cases before woman’s
advent as pleader, prevented! And we respectfully call upon the mothers
of every land to see to it that in no instance in the future of the
world shall a woman be summoned to the bar of justice as a party or
witness in any case involving one of these “unclean issues” or
“collateral questions” without being accompanied by one or more of her
own sex of irreproachable character. When such emergencies are otherwise
unprovided for, let the “good mothers of Israel” in the place convene
and depute one or more of their number to perform this duty. It is a
duty, unquestionably, to be performed in the interest not only of one
sex, but of mankind generally; for what affects one sex for good or
evil, affects both.

Aye, Mr. Chief Justice, “the profession enters largely into the
well-being of society”; and it is because of this fact woman desires and
ought to enter it. This is the best of reasons. As to her motherhood
prerogatives, experience has shown her able to perform these as the
Father of the Universe and Mother Nature would have her, and still not
to be precluded from giving the profession the necessary “devotion” to
the end that it shall be “honorably filled and safely to society.” If
“the law of nature destines and qualifies the female sex ... for the
custody of the homes of the world and their maintenance in love and
honor,” as you say, Mr. Chief Justice,—we say “if” because we believe
the male sex to be joint-heir,—that does not mean that all women, or any
woman, should stay inside of four walls continually to cook, wash
dishes, sweep, dust, make beds, wash, iron, sew, etc. Oh, no! A woman
may properly act as the custodian of a home and maintain it in love and
honor, and do none of these things. Instead of such “life-long callings
of women” being “departures from the order of nature, and, when
voluntary, treason against it,” as you think, Mr. Chief Justice, we hold
that to stifle the longings of an immortal soul to follow any useful
calling in this life, to be a “departure from the order of nature, and,
when voluntary, treason against it.”

A law was promptly enacted enabling women to practice law in Wisconsin,
under which Miss Goodell was admitted to the Supreme Court of the State.

Next following Miss Goodell’s case, came that of Lelia J. Robinson of
Boston, in 1881, the Supreme Judicial Court holding that under the laws
of Massachusetts “an unmarried woman is not entitled to be examined for
admission as an attorney and counselor of this court.” In the opinion of
the Court it is stated that “this being the first application of the
kind in Massachusetts, the Court, desirous that it should be fully
argued, informed the executive committee of the Bar Association of the
city of Boston of the application, and has received elaborate briefs
from the petitioner in support of her petition, and from two gentlemen
of the bar as _amici curiæ_ in opposition thereto.” The statute under
which the application was made provided that, “A citizen of this
State ... may, on the recommendation of an attorney, petition the
Supreme Judicial or Superior Court to be examined for admission as an
attorney, whereupon the Court shall assign a time and place for the
examination, and if satisfied with his acquirements and qualifications
he shall be admitted.” The Court said that “the word ‘citizen,’ when
used in its most common and most comprehensive sense, doubtless includes
women; but a woman is not, by virtue of her citizenship, vested by the
Constitution of the United States, or by the Constitution of the
Commonwealth, with any absolute right, independent of legislation, to
take part in the government, either as a voter or as an officer, or to
be admitted to practice as an attorney.” (Mass. Supreme Court Rep., vol.
cxxxi. p. 376.) The opinion was delivered by Chief Justice Gray. The
Legislature, in 1882, passed a statute providing for the admission of
women upon the same terms as men. Miss Robinson, now Mrs. Sawtelle,
immediately took the examination and was admitted to the Suffolk County
Bar. The next year the Legislature extended the powers of women
attorneys in an act “to authorize the Governor to appoint women who are
attorneys-at-law special commissioners to administer oaths and to take
depositions and the acknowledgment of deeds.” This legislation became
necessary on account of a decision of the Supreme Court of the State in
which it was held that “a woman cannot lawfully be appointed a justice
of the peace, or, if formally appointed and commissioned, lawfully
exercise any of the functions of the office.” (Mass. Supreme Ct. Rep.,
vol. cvii. p. 604.) The power “to issue summonses for witnesses” was
added in an act of 1889.

Mary Hall of Hartford, Connecticut, in 1882, after having completed the
prescribed term of study and passed the required examination, applied to
the Superior Court in Hartford county for a license to practice law. The
statute under which her application was made provided that the Superior
Court “may admit as attorneys such persons as are qualified therefor
agreeably to the rules established by the judges of said court.” This
statute had “come down, with some changes, from the year 1750, and in
essentially its present form from the year 1821.” The bar of Hartford
county “voted to recommend the admission of the applicant subject to the
opinion of the Court whether, as a woman, she could be legally admitted,
and appointed Messrs. McManus and Collier to argue the case before the
Court.” The Court reserved the application for the advice of the Supreme
Court. The latter Court “held, that under the statute a woman could be
admitted as an attorney.” This being contra to the holdings of the
United States and State courts in similar cases, which we have cited,
was refreshing indeed. The opinion merits quotation quite at length. It
was delivered by Chief Justice Park. The part selected reads:

“No one would doubt that a statute passed, at this time, in the same
words would be sufficient to authorize the admission of women to the
bar, because it is now a common fact and presumably in the minds of
legislators, that women in different parts of the country are and for
some time have been following the profession of law. But if we hold that
the construction of the statute is to be determined by the admitted fact
that its application to women was not in the minds of the legislators
when it was passed, where shall we draw the line? All progress in social
matters is gradual. We pass almost imperceptibly from a state of public
opinion that utterly condemns some course of action to one that strongly
approves it. At what point in the history of this change shall we regard
a statute, the construction of which is to be affected by it, as passed
in contemplation of it? When the statute we are now considering was
passed it probably never entered the mind of a single member of the
Legislature that black men would ever be seeking for admission under it.
Shall we now hold that it cannot apply to black men? We know of no
distinction in respect to this rule between the case of a statute and
that of a constitutional provision.... Events that gave rise to
enactments may always be considered in construing them. This is little
more than the familiar rule that in construing a statute we always
inquire what particular mischief it was designed to remedy. Thus the
Supreme Court of the United States has held that in construing the
recent amendments of the Federal Constitution, although they are general
in their terms, it is to be considered that they were passed with
reference to the exigencies growing out of the emancipation of the
slaves, and for the purpose of benefiting the blacks. But this statute
was not passed for the purpose of benefiting men as distinguished from
women. It grew out of no exigency caused by the relation of the sexes.
Its object was wholly to secure the orderly trial of causes and the
better administration of justice.... We are not to forget that all
statutes are to be construed, as far as possible, in favor of equality
of rights. All restrictions upon human liberty, all claims for special
privileges, are to be regarded as having the presumption of law against
them, and as standing upon their defense, and can be sustained, if at
all by valid legislation, only by the clear expression or clear
implication of the law.

“We have some noteworthy illustrations of the recognition of women as
eligible, or appointable to office under statutes of which the language
is merely general. Thus, women are appointed in all parts of the country
as postmasters. The act of Congress of 1825 was the first one conferring
upon the Postmaster-General the power of appointing postmasters, and it
has remained essentially unchanged to the present time. The language of
the act is, that “the Postmaster-General shall establish post-offices
and appoint postmasters.” Women are not included except in the general
term “postmasters,” a term which seems to imply male persons.... The
same may be said of pension agents. The acts of Congress on the subject
have simply authorized “the President, by and with the advice and
consent of the Senate, to appoint all pension agents, who shall hold
their offices for the term of four years, and shall give bond,” etc. At
the last session of Congress a married woman in Chicago was appointed
for a third term pension agent for the State of Illinois, and the public
papers stated that there was not a single vote against her confirmation
in the Senate. Public opinion is everywhere approving of such
appointments. They promote the public interest, which is benefited by
every legitimate use of individual ability, while mere justice, which is
of interest to all, requires that all have the fullest opportunity for
the exercise of their abilities.... We have had pressed upon us by the
counsel opposed to the applicant, the decisions of the courts of
Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and Illinois, and of the United States Court
of Claims, adverse to such an application. While not prepared to accede
to all the general views expressed in those decisions, we do not think
it necessary to go into a discussion of them, as we regard our statute,
in view of all the considerations affecting its construction, as too
clear to admit of any reasonable question as to the interpretation and
effect which we ought to give it.” (Conn. Supreme Ct. Rep., vol. 1. p.
131).

We have a record showing that there were fifty-six women attorneys in
the country at the time this last decision was rendered, in July, 1882,
of whom thirty-one had graduated from law schools. Five of the fifty-six
have gone to the spirit land. The first to go was Lemma Barkaloo, of
Brooklyn, N. Y., the second to be enrolled as an attorney, and the first
to try a case since the days of Mistress Brent. She was refused
admission to the Law Department of Columbia College, and entered that of
Washington University at St. Louis, in 1869. Without completing the
course, she was admitted to the Circuit Court of St. Louis, and to the
Supreme Court of the State in 1870. She died the same year of typhoid
fever. The St. Louis Bar resolved “that in her erudition, industry, and
enterprise, we have to regret the loss of one who, in the morning of her
career, bade fair to reflect credit upon our profession and a new honor
upon her sex.” Alta M. Hulett, of Chicago, died in 1877. She prepared
the bill to secure admission of women in Illinois and lectured in its
interest during its pendency. She was admitted on her nineteenth
birthday. Ellen A. Martin, in speaking of her in an article on
“Admission of Women to the Bar,” published in the initial number of the
_Chicago Law Times_, says: “Miss Hulett was a young woman of remarkable
energy and push, and of excellent ability and business judgment. She had
tact and skill in the acquisition and management of business, and was a
capable and efficient lawyer. She had a wonderful faculty for making
friends who interested themselves in her success, and in the three years
of her practice acquired an amount of profitable business that is not
generally expected in law practice until after a much longer period. Her
successful, and it may fairly be termed brilliant, career had a marked
influence in producing a favorable attitude of the public toward woman
practitioners.” Lavinia Goodell, daughter of the well-known
Abolitionist, Rev. Wm. Goodell, was the pioneer lawyer of Wisconsin. She
was admitted to the bar, after passing a brilliant examination, in 1873.
The case which greatly extended her reputation throughout the State and
country was one involving twelve hundred dollars, in which her client
was a woman. The case was carried from the county court to the circuit
court, and appealed from that to the supreme court, where she won.
According to the law of Wisconsin, Miss Goodell’s admission to the
circuit court admitted her to all courts in the State except the supreme
court. Upon carrying up her case, and applying for admission to this,
the chief justice (Ryan), refused her on the ground of sex. The
arguments appear in substance in vol. xxxix. of Wisconsin reports.

She afterward reviewed the chief justice’s decision in the _Chicago
Legal News_ and unquestionably had the better of him in argument. She
also prepared a bill and sent it to the State Legislature, providing
that no person should be refused admission to the bar on account of sex.
A petition asking for its passage was signed by the circuit judge and
every member of the bar in the county. In such high esteem was Miss
Goodell’s practice held, that her best paying clients were women. She
was admitted to the supreme court in 1875.

She did much work for temperance and woman suffrage, two subjects which
were very near her heart. Her life was devoted to good deeds, which only
ended here when she was called up higher. She died in 1880, in
Milwaukee, where she had gone for medical treatment.

M. Fredrika Perry, of Chicago, died in 1883. She graduated from the Law
School of Michigan University in March, 1875, was immediately admitted
to the Michigan bar, and in the fall to the Illinois bar. Soon
afterward, on motion of Miss Hulett, she was admitted to the United
States circuit and district courts for the Northern District of
Illinois, Miss Hulett being the first woman admitted to these courts and
to any United States court. She continued in practice in partnership
with Miss Martin, under the name of Perry & Martin, until her death (the
result of pneumonia). Speaking of her, Miss Martin says: “Miss Perry was
a successful lawyer and her success was substantial. She combined in an
eminent degree the qualities which distinguish able barristers and
jurists; her mind was broad and catholic, clear, quick, logical, and
profound; her information both on legal and general matters was
extensive. She had a clear, strong, and pleasant voice, and was an
excellent advocate, both in presenting the law to the court and the
merits of a case to the jury. She was a skillful examiner of witnesses,
and understood as few attorneys do, save practitioners who have grown
old in experience, the nice discriminations of Common Law Pleadings and
the Rules of Evidence, the practical methods by which rights are secured
in courts. All her work was done with the greatest care. She was
engrossed in the study and practice of law, appreciating its spirit and
intent, and gained steadily in efficiency and practical power, year by
year. She had the genius and ability for the highest attainment in all
departments of civil practice, and joined with these the power of close
application and hard work. She belonged to the Strong family, which has
furnished a great deal of the legal talent of the United States.” Judge
Tuley, before whom she often appeared, said of her at the bar meeting
called to take action upon her death, “I was surprised at the extent of
her legal knowledge and the great legal acumen she displayed.” Tabitha
A. Holton, of Dobson, North Carolina, died in 1886. She was admitted to
the Supreme Court of the State in January, 1878, having passed a highly
creditable examination. She practiced in Dobson, in partnership with her
brother, Samuel L. Holton, devoting herself chiefly to office work and
the preparation of civil cases, until a short time before her death.

Ada H. Kepley, of Effingham, Illinois, was the first woman to graduate
from a law school in this or any other country. She took her degree in
June, 1870, from the Union College of Law, Chicago.

The major part of law schools of the United States now freely admit
women when applied to for that purpose. Among those still refusing are
the law departments of Yale, Harvard, and Georgetown universities, and
Columbia College; the Cumberland University Law School of Lebanon,
Tennessee, the Law Department of the Washington and Lee University in
Lexington, Virginia, and the Law Department of the University of
Virginia. “One woman, however, does wear the honors of the degree of
Bachelor of Laws as conferred by Yale. This is Alice R. Jordan, now Mrs.
Blake, who, after a year of study in the Law School of Michigan
University and admission to the bar of Michigan in June, 1885, entered
the Law School at Yale in the fall of the same year, and graduated at
the close of the course with the degree as already stated. Dean Wayland,
of Yale Law School, sends me a catalogue of the University, and writes
that the marked paragraph on page 25 is intended to prevent a repetition
of the Jordan incident. The paragraph referred to appears on the page
devoted to departments of instruction, and reads: ‘It is to be
understood that the courses of instruction above described are open to
persons of the male sex only, except where both sexes are specifically
included.’”—(Lelia J. Robinson, LL.B., in an article on “Women Lawyers
in the United States,” in _The Green Bag_, January, 1890.) As to the
relative standing of the sexes as students in law schools, Hon. Henry
Wade Rogers, dean of the department of law of Michigan University, says:
“The women who have attended the Law School have compared favorably in
the matter of scholarship with the men. They are just as capable of
acquiring legal knowledge as men are.” This law school has graduated
more women than any other in the country. Hon. Henry Booth, dean of
Union College of Law, gives the standing of women in scholarship as that
of a fair average, and says: “We discover no difference in the capacity
of the sexes to apprehend and apply legal principles. We welcome ladies
to the school and regard their presence an advantage in promoting
decorum and good order.”

A law school for women has recently been opened in New York City. Its
founder is Madame Emile Kempin-Spyri, a graduate of the School of
Jurisprudence, of the University of Zurich, in 1887. Her application for
admission to the order of advocates of her native country, Switzerland,
being denied, she emigrated to the United States. She is the counsel of
the Swiss Legation in Washington.[161]

Women lawyers of this country are entitled to practice before all
courts, State and national, the same as male lawyers. When not admitted
under existing statutes, the respective legislatures, so far, with two
exceptions, have promptly passed enabling acts. Women anxious for
admission were the first to advocate these. One exception to the usual
legislative promptness is found in the case of Annie Smith, of Danville,
Virginia. The Judge of the Corporation Court, to whom she applied in
1889 for a certificate to enable her to be examined, refused it on the
ground that for a woman to obtain license the present statute would have
to be amended. Mrs. Smith, aided by her husband, an attorney, vainly
endeavored to secure the necessary enactment during the last session of
the State Legislature. The bill, a general one, was voted down; but a
private bill, to enable Mrs. Smith only to obtain license, was favorably
reported. The Legislature, however, adjourned before final action on it.
Mr. and Mrs. Smith will continue their efforts until successful.

The other exception was a prior one, but admission came without
legislation. This is found in the case of Carrie Burnham Kilgore, of
Philadelphia. Speaking of her twelve years’ struggle for admission, Miss
Martin, in her article on “Admission of Women to the Bar,” already
cited, says: “In December, 1874, Carrie Burnham (now Kilgore), of
Philadelphia, began the long and tedious warfare that she has been
obliged to wage for admission in Pennsylvania. The Board of Examiners
refused to examine her, because there was ‘no precedent for the
admission of a woman to the bar of this county,’ and the Court refused
to grant a rule on the board requiring them to examine her. Mrs. Kilgore
then tried to have a law passed forbidding exclusion on account of sex,
but the Judiciary Committee of the Senate took the position that the law
as it stood was broad enough, and so it would seem to be. The Act of
1834 declares, ‘The Judges of the several Courts of Record in the
Commonwealth shall respectively have power to admit a competent number
of persons of an honest disposition, and learned in the law, to practice
as attorneys in their respective courts.’ The Senate finally passed the
clause desired, at two or three sessions, but it was never reached in
the House. Finally Mrs. Kilgore gained admission to the Law School of
the University of Pennsylvania in 1881, where she had previously been
denied, and by virtue of her diploma from there, in 1883, was admitted
to the Orphans’ Court of Philadelphia. She was then admitted to one of
the Common Pleas Courts, but denied admission to the other three, though
it is the custom when a person has been admitted to one, to admit to the
rest as a matter of course. As soon after admission to the Common Pleas
Court as the law allows, two years, and in May of this year, 1886, Mrs.
Kilgore applied and was admitted to the Supreme Court of the State, and
by virtue of this admission, all the lower Courts are now compelled to
admit her. Thus, Pennsylvania has accomplished after twelve years, what
Iowa did seventeen years ago without any ado, and with a statute that
might have afforded a reasonable ground for refusal, which the
Pennsylvania statute did not.” Since her admission, Mrs. Kilgore has
been in active general practice. Her husband, an able lawyer, in whose
office she studied and worked, died two years ago, in 1888. He had a
large clientage. After his death, Mrs. Kilgore was requested to take
charge of his cases in all but one instance. She is the attorney for
Harmon Lodge, I.O.O.F., and the Relief Mining and Milling Company.
Several times she has been appointed master and examiner by the courts.
A special correspondent of the _Chicago Daily Tribune_, in its issue of
April 5, 1890, speaking of Mrs. Kilgore’s efforts and successes
concludes with: “She has several interesting children and a delightful
home, neither her struggle for woman’s rights nor her devotion to her
professional concerns having interfered with her domestic duties nor
estranged her from the hearth.”

This reminds us of many interesting cases of motherly care and devotion
on the part of women practitioners, two of which we cannot refrain from
mentioning. One is in regard to Ohio’s first woman lawyer, Annie Cronise
Lutes, of Tiffin, who was admitted to practice before the courts of that
State in April, 1873. Her sister, Florence Cronise, was admitted in
September of the same year. These two sisters, since their admission,
have pursued the steady, straight practice of law without deviation. For
several years they were law partners. In 1880, Mrs. Lutes and her
husband, who had been fellow students in the same office, and were
admitted to the bar at the same time, formed a partnership. (This left
Miss Florence to practice alone, which she has since done with signal
success.) Mr. and Mrs. Lutes were married in 1874. They have three
daughters. The two eldest (aged fourteen and twelve respectively) are
attending the Heidelberg University, at Tiffin, taking the full
classical course, _for which they were prepared under the instruction of
their mother_, never having attended public school. The full force of
this fact will become apparent further on. In 1881 Mr. Lutes became
_totally deaf_. In a letter showing the extent of their law practice,
which was published in the article on “Women Lawyers in the United
States,” already cited, Mr. Lutes says:

“Our practice is general in character, and extends to the courts of this
State and the United States courts for the Northern District of Ohio.
The following facts will enable you to form an estimate as to the nature
and extent of Mrs. Lutes’s practice and experience at the bar. The bar
of this county has forty-five members. The total number of civil cases
on the trial docket of the term just closed was 226; of that number, our
firm was retained in fifty cases, which is probably a fair average of
our share of the business for this county, and our practice also extends
to a considerable extent to the adjoining counties of this district.”

Mr. Lutes’s infirmity necessarily imposes extra duties on his faithful
partner, which the following extract from the _Chicago Daily Tribune_,
of April 5, 1890, graphically pictures: “Mr. Lutes is totally deaf, but
his wife sits by him in court and repeats word for word what is said,
and although her lips make no audible sound, every word said by judge,
jury, or opposing counsel is understood. Without her assistance he would
be perfectly helpless, so far as his law practice is concerned. The two
work together on every case that is brought to them, and it is seldom a
person sees one without the other. Their practice is lucrative and
extensive.”

The other case is that of Clara S. Foltz. Her married life was
unfortunate. She had the family to support. This she did by undertaking
dressmaking and millinery, and then conducting classes in voice culture
and keeping boarders. An attorney who “admired her keen reasoning powers
and her incisive logic,” one day said: “Mrs. Foltz, you are such a good
mother that I believe you would make an able lawyer. Here is a copy of
Kent’s Commentaries. I wish you would take it home and read it.” She did
so as she nursed her babies—five of them now. Shortly afterward she
began the study of law in an office. Subsequently she secured a divorce
and the custody of her children. In September, 1878, she was admitted to
practice and removed to San Francisco for a course in the Hastings Law
College. She made application for admission as a student in the college
and the dean permitted her to attend the lecture for three days, while
the directors were deciding what to do about it. They refused her
application on the ground that it was “not wise or expedient, or for the
best interest of the college, to admit any female as a student therein.”
Mrs. Foltz informed the dean that she meant to attend the
lectures—peaceably if she could, but forcibly if she must. She promptly
commenced action for a mandate to compel the directors to admit her. She
won. The directors appealed the case to the State Supreme Court. Mrs.
Foltz appeared and argued her side of the case, making the point that
the Law College was a branch of the University, and that woman’s right
to enter the latter was unquestioned. The Court agreed with her, and
held that “An applicant for admission as a student to the Hastings Law
College cannot lawfully be rejected on the sole ground that she is a
female.” (Foltz _v._ Hoge, _et al._, Cal. Supreme Court Rep., vol. liv.
p. 28.) She entered the college and remained there eighteen months,
attending three classes daily to overtake her class. Finally overstudy,
lack of means, and the care of her children, prostrated her. It was a
severe disappointment not to be able to complete the prescribed three
years’ course and win her degree. She will yet gain it. Mrs. Foltz thus
tells the story of her first case:

“I firmly believe in the Infinite. The day the Supreme Court admitted
me—it was on Thursday—I traveled from San Jose to San Francisco. An old
gentleman who knew of my struggles and ambitions was on the train. He
explained in an apologetic way that he thought perhaps I would be
willing to assist him in finding a land claim that he had pre-empted,
and which another settler contested. My would-be client had all the
necessary proofs and witnesses ready, and the case was to come up at ten
o’clock the following day. I had never been in a land office. I was
ignorant of the methods of procedure, but I could soon learn. I accepted
the case.

“That day was a crisis in my life. To pay the ten dollar fee of the
Supreme Court I pawned this breastpin—dear old pin! Next morning, before
I was up, a knock came to my door as the clock struck seven. My client
was there. I dressed myself and carried on a conversation through the
door. What would I charge for my services, he asked. I did not know, but
ventured a guess at the correct figure. I would undertake the case for
$25. He hesitated a little, and said that after witnesses fees and other
expenses were paid he would have but $15 left, and that if I had a mind
to take that sum it would be all right. I accepted eagerly, for I needed
the money. Next I invited the witnesses in and questioned them. We
parted to meet at the land office, but I went down in advance to see the
Surveyor-General. I hold that the truth is always the best, so I told
him that I had a case at ten o’clock, but knew nothing about land-office
matters, and that I wanted to learn the law. He was very kind and
furnished me with a pamphlet of instructions. Then I ventured to request
that the case might go over to 1 P. M. He found that it could. I was
immensely relieved and hastened off with my precious pamphlet. Client
and witnesses were on the stairs. I informed them of the change in time
and turned back. Didn’t I get that pamphlet by heart though! And I won
my first case, redeemed my cherished pin, and paid my board bill.”

Laura De Force Gordon, who was also denied admission to the Hastings Law
College, and aided Mrs. Foltz in her mandamus case, successfully
defended a Spaniard charged with murder, within two months after her
admission to the bar in 1879. “Among her most noted criminal cases was
that of The People _v._ Sproule, which was indeed in some respects the
most remarkable trial in the whole range of criminal jurisprudence in
California. The defendant had shot and killed a young man named Andrews,
by mistake for one Espey, the seducer of Sproule’s wife. It was a
fearful tragedy, and the excitement was so great that the jail had to be
guarded for a week to prevent the lynching of the prisoner. Mrs. Gordon
undertook his defense, against the advice of the most distinguished
lawyers in the State, and obtained a verdict of “Not guilty” amid the
most deafening cheers of men and hysterical cries of women, half-weeping
jurymen joining in the general clamor of rejoicing.” (“Women Lawyers in
the United States,” in _The Green Bag_, January, 1890.)

In speaking of her practice, Mrs. Lockwood says: “My first was a divorce
case and I won it, but the man refused to pay the alimony. The judge
told me there was no law to make him pay it. I told him there was, and I
showed him I could issue a _ne exeat_. I issued the writ, and the man
was clapped into prison until he agreed to pay the alimony. Years
afterward a similar case came up and the men who were the lawyers asked
if there was no way to compel a man to stay in the District until he
paid the alimony. The clerk said: ‘Belva Lockwood is the only one who
has ever issued a _ne exeat_ in the District; you had better consult
her.’ Many a time I have been saved by a little wit. Once my client, a
woman, got upon the witness stand, in spite of all I could do, and
acknowledged she had committed the crime of which she was accused. It
was for shooting a constable, and that woman described the whole thing,
talking until I was glued to my seat with fright. When she stopped and I
had to get up I didn’t know what I was going to say, but I began,
‘Gentlemen of the jury, the laws must be enforced. My client has
committed the double offense of resisting an officer of the law and
shooting a man. The District is under the common law. That law says a
woman must obey her husband. Her husband told her to load a gun and
shoot the first officer that tried to force his way into the house. She
obeyed him. Gentlemen, I claim that that husband loaded the gun and shot
the officer, and as the judge will not postpone this case until I can
have the husband brought from the West, where he is, I claim you are not
trying the right prisoner. You would not have a woman resist her
husband?’ The jury brought in the verdict of ‘Not guilty,’ and the
judge, a crusty gentleman, said, when the next case was brought up: ‘I
will call a new jury for this case, as the old one has just done a hard
day’s work.’”

Col. C. K. Pier, his wife, and three daughters, of Madison, Wisconsin,
are widely known as “the Pier family of lawyers.” The Colonel is a
lawyer of long standing. Mrs. Pier and their eldest daughter graduated
from the Law Department of the University of Wisconsin in 1887. All
three practice together. The two younger sisters, Carrie and Harriet,
have nearly finished the course in the law school from which their
mother and sister graduated. Miss Kate, in her twenty-first year,
appeared before the Supreme Court and won her case, the first to be
argued by a woman in the supreme tribunal of the State. A newspaper,
commenting on the fact, says: “Her opponent was J. J. Sutton, a veteran
practitioner. The gray-haired patriarchs of the profession smoothed the
wrinkles out of their waistcoats and straightened their neckties, and
then wiped the specks off their spectacles. The audience was one before
which any young man might readily have been excused for getting rattled.
There were present Gen. E. E. Bryant, dean of the law faculty,
ex-Secretary of the Interior William F. Vilas, and a host of visiting
legal lights. Even the dignified judges were compelled to affect an
extra degree of austerity to conceal their interest in the young
attorney. But Miss Pier showed no sign of embarrassment. Her argument
was direct and to the point, and, moreover, relieved of the
superfluities that frequently characterize the verbose utterances of
more experienced attorneys of the male sex. She stated her case
unhesitatingly, and frequently turned to and cited authorities, showing
an acquaintance with the law and a degree of self-possession which
indicated that she was truly in love with her profession. She showed she
possessed the true mettle for success, and two weeks later, when the
judges rendered their decision, she had the pleasure of winning her
first case. Since then both she and her mother have frequently argued
cases before the Court.”

Almeda E. Hitchcock, of Hilo, Hawaii Islands, graduated from the Law
Department of the Michigan University in 1888, and was admitted to the
Michigan bar. Her father is one of the circuit judges of that far away
island. On her return home she was admitted to the Hawaiian bar on
presentation of her license from the Michigan Court, the first instance
of a woman’s receiving license to practice law in that kingdom. The same
day she was appointed notary public and became her father’s law partner.

Marilla M. Ricker, while a resident of the District of Columbia, was
appointed Commissioner and Examiner in Chancery by the Supreme Court of
the District, and several cases were heard before her. Other women
lawyers, in various parts of the country, have been appointed examiners
in chancery and examiners of applicants for admission to the bar. Mary
E. Haddock, LL.B., in June, 1878, was appointed by the Supreme Court of
Iowa to examine students of the State University for graduation and
admission to the bar. She was reappointed for two successive years. Ada
Lee, of Port Huron, Michigan, the year following her admission in 1883,
was elected to the office of Circuit Court Commissioner, having been
nominated, without solicitation on her part, by the Republican,
Democratic, and Greenback parties of St. Clair county. “She performed
the duties of this office, and held it until the expiration of her term,
despite the fact that thirteen suits were begun to oust her, during
which time two hundred and seventeen cases were tried before her.” Mrs.
J. M. Kellogg acted as Assistant Attorney-General during the time her
husband was Attorney-General of Kansas. They are law partners.

Phoebe W. Couzins, LL.B., was chief deputy United States Marshal for the
Eastern District of Missouri during the time her father was the Marshal.
At the death of her father she was named his successor, which position
she held until removed by the incoming Democratic administration.
Catherine G. Waugh, A.M., LL.B., was for a year or two Professor of
Commercial Law in the Rockford (Ill.) Commercial College. Mrs. Foltz
delivered a legal address before the students of Union College of Law in
1886. Mary A. Greene, LL.B. recently delivered a course of lectures
before the students of Lasell Seminary on “Business Law for Women.”

Several able articles have been written for law journals by women
lawyers of this country. Of books, M. B. R. Shay, is author of
“Students’ Guide to Common Law Pleading” (published in 1881.) Of this
work, Hon. R. M. Benjamin, dean of Law Faculty, and Hon. A. G. Kerr,
professor of Pleading of Law Department of the Illinois Wesleyan
University, say, as published in Callaghan & Company’s annual catalogue
of law books:

“We have examined with considerable care Shay’s Questions on Common Law
Pleading, and can cheerfully recommend them to students as admirably
adapted to guide them to a thorough knowledge of the principles of
pleading as laid down by those masters of the system, Stephen, Gould,
and Chitty.”

Lelia Robinson Sawtelle is author of “Law Made Easy” (published in
1886). Of this work, Hon. Charles T. Russell, professor in Boston
University Law School, says: “For the end proposed, the information and
instruction of the popular mind in the elements of law, civil and
criminal, I know of no work which surpasses it. It is comprehensive and
judicious in scope, accurate in statement, terse, vigorous, simple, and
clear in style. My gratification in this work is none the less that its
author is the first lady Bachelor of Laws graduated from our Boston
University Law School, and that she has thus early and fully vindicated
her right to the highest honors of the school accorded her at her
graduation.” Mrs. Sawtelle has since written a manual entitled “The Law
of Husband and Wife,” which likewise has been well received. She is now
at work upon another to be called “Wills and Inheritances.”

We have already spoken of Myra Bradwell as the editor of the _Chicago
Legal News_. Catharine V. Waite, LL.B., edits the _Chicago Law Times_,
which she founded in 1886. Bessie Bradwell Helmer, LL.B., compiled,
unassisted, ten volumes of Bradwell’s Appellate Court Reports. Cora A.
Benneson, LL.B., was law editor for the West Publishing Company of St.
Paul, Minnesota, in 1886.

The first association of women lawyers is called “The Equity Club.” This
was organized in October, 1886, by women students and graduates of the
Law Department of Michigan University, having for its object “the
interchange of encouragement and friendly counsel between women law
students and practitioners.” It is international in scope. Each member
is required to contribute a yearly letter, “giving an account of
individual experiences, thoughts on topics of general interest, and
helpful suggestions,” for publication and distribution among members of
the association.

Another association of women lawyers, organized in 1888, is the “Woman’s
International Bar Association,” having for its object:

1. To open law schools to women.

2. To remove all disabilities to admission of women to the bar, and to
secure their eligibility to the bench.

3. To disseminate knowledge concerning women’s legal status.

4. To secure better legal conditions for women.

Women lawyers are welcomed as members of bar associations established by
their brothers in the profession. Many have availed themselves of this
privilege.

For various reasons quite a number of women admitted have not, so far,
identified themselves with law practice. Others have allowed themselves
to be drawn into temperance and other reform movements; but the greater
portion at once settled down to follow their chosen pursuit with no
deviation, and are ripening into able, experienced lawyers, and winning
their fair share of clientage. Some confine themselves mainly to an
office practice, seldom or never appearing in public; others prefer
court practice. Those who enter the forum are cordially countenanced by
brother lawyers and acceptably received before court and jury. As a rule
they are treated with the utmost courtesy by the bench, the bar, and
other court officers.

Woman’s influence in the court room as counsel is promotive of good in
more than one respect. Invectives against opposing counsel, so freely
made use of in some courts, are seldom indulged in when woman stands as
the opponent. And in social impurity cases, language, in her presence,
becomes more chaste, and the moral tone thereby elevated perceptibly.
But there should be one more innovation brought into general vogue, that
of the mixed jury system. When we shall have women both as lawyers and
jurors to assist in the trial of cases, then, and not until then, will
woman’s influence for good in the administration of justice be fully
felt. In Wyoming and Washington the mixed jury system has been tried and
found perfectly practicable.

There has not been time enough yet for a woman to develop into an
Erskine or Burke, an O’Connor or Curran, a Webster or Choate. But few
men have done so, if history correctly records. Woman has made a fair
beginning, and is determined to push on and upward, keeping pace with
her brother along the way until, with him, she shall have finally
reached the highest pinnacle of legal fame.

X.
WOMAN IN THE STATE.

MARY A. LIVERMORE.

No one who has studied the history of the world, even superficially,
will dispute the statement that over the female half of the human family
there has steadily brooded a cloud of hindrance and repression, of
disability and servitude. The long past has denied to women the
possession of souls, and they have been relegated to the ignorance and
injustice to which men have always doomed those regarded as their
inferiors. Until within a few years, comparatively speaking, the world
has been under the dominion of brute force, and might has made right.
Every one has been welcome to whatever he has had the brawn and muscle
to win and to hold, and all have yielded to the rule of physical force,
as to-day we respect the decisions of the courts. All through these ages
the history of woman has been disastrous. Her physical weakness, and not
alone her mental inferiority, has made her the subject of man. Toiling
patiently for him, asking little for herself and every thing for him,
cheerfully sharing with him all perils and hardships, the unappreciated
mother of his children, she has been bought and sold, petted or
tortured, according to the whim of her brutal owner, the victim
everywhere of pillage, lust, and war. And this statement includes all
races and peoples of the earth from the date of their historic
existence.

Among the Hindoos, woman was the slave of man; bought, sold, lent,
gambled away, and taken for debt, with the very power of life or death
held over her by some irresponsible husband, father, or other man. She
was forbidden to speak the language of man, and was condemned to use the
patois of slaves. Under the old Roman law, the husband was the sole
tribunal of the wife. He controlled her property, earnings, and
religion: she was allowed no rights in her own children; and she could
invoke no law against him. The Greek law regarded woman as a child, and
held her in everlasting tutelage from the cradle to her gray-haired old
age. Aristotle, and they of his school, called her a “monster,” an
“accidental production.” The Hebrews pronounced her an afterthought of
the Deity, and the mother of all evil. Throughout the entire Orient, her
condition has been one of such compulsory servitude, that the phrase
“Oriental degradation of woman,” remains to-day the synonym of the
deepest debasement woman has ever known.

When the councils of the medieval church came together to decide on the
instruction needful to the young, they hastened to count women out, and
to declare them “unfit for instruction.” And they, who in defiance of
this decision—kind-hearted nuns of the Catholic Church—established
schools for girls, were publicly stoned when they were met on the
streets. The early Christian fathers denounced women as “noxious
animals,” “painted temptresses,” “necessary evils,” “desirable
calamities,” and “domestic perils.” From the English Heptarchy to the
Reformation, the law proclaimed the wife to be “in all cases, and under
all circumstances, her husband’s creature, servant, and slave.” Herbert
Spencer, writing of English laws, in his “Descriptive Sociology of
England,” says: “Our laws are based on the all-sufficiency of man’s
rights, so that society exists to-day for woman only as she is in the
keeping of some man.” To Diderot, the French philosopher, even in the
eighteenth century, so persistently do the traditions of the past make
themselves felt, woman was only a “courtesan.” To Montesquieu, she was
“an attractive child,”—to Rousseau “an object of pleasure to man.” To
Michelet, nearly a century later, she was “a natural invalid.”

This subjection of woman to man, which has hindered her development in
normal ways, has created a contemptuous opinion of her, which runs
through the literature and legislation of all nations. It is apparent
to-day in unjust laws and customs, which disgrace the statute books, and
cause society to progress with halting step. There still exist different
codes of morals for men and women, different penalties for crime, and
the relations of the sexes to the government are dissimilar. In
marriage, the husband has control of the wife’s person, and, in most
instances, ownership of her earnings, and of her minor children. She is
rarely paid the same wages as man, even when she does the same work, and
is his equal only when punishment and the payment of taxes are in
question. All these unjust inequalities are survivals of the long ages
of servitude through which woman has passed, and which have not yet
ceased to exist. During their existence, says Mme. de Staël, “woman was
able to exercise fully but one of the faculties with which nature has
gifted her—the faculty of suffering.”

Born and bred under such conditions of injustice, and with arbitrary
standards of womanly inferiority persistently set before them, it has
not been possible for women to rise much above them. Here and there
through the centuries, exceptional women, endowed with phenomenal force
of character, have towered above the mediocrity of their sex, hinting at
the qualities imprisoned in the feminine nature. It is not strange that
these instances have been rare. It is strange, indeed, that women have
held their own during these ages of degradation. And as by a general law
of heredity “the inheritance of traits of character is persistent in
proportion to the length of time they have been inherited,” it is easy
to account for the conservatism of women to-day, and for the
indifference and hostility with which many regard the movements for
their advancement.

For a new day has dawned, and humanity is moving forward to an era when
oppression and slavery are to be entirely displaced, and reason and
justice recognized as the rule of life. Science is extending
immeasurably the bounds of knowledge and power. Art is refining life,
and giving to it beauty and grace. Literature bears in her hands whole
ages of comfort and sympathy. Industry, aided by the hundred-handed
elements of nature, is increasing the world’s wealth, and invention is
economizing its labor. The age looks steadily to the redressing of
wrong, to the righting of every form of error and oppression, and
demands that law and justice be made interchangeable terms. So humane a
spirit dominates the age in which we live, that even the brute creation
share in it, and we have hundreds of societies organized to prevent
cruelty to animals. It could not be possible but that women should share
in the justice and kindliness with which the times are fraught, and the
last quarter of a century has lifted them to higher levels. How has this
been accomplished?

While progress is the method of man, his early progress was
inconceivably slow. He had lived on the earth long ages before he knew
enough, or cared enough, to make a record of what he did, thought, felt,
hoped, or suffered for the benefit of posterity. The moment he began to
make a record of his daily life, history began. And history takes us
back, according to the popular conception, only five or six thousand
years—authentic history to a period much less remote. From the early
civilizations that flourished in the valleys of the Nile and Euphrates,
this age has inherited very little. What we possess that may seem a
transmission from that earlier time has been for the most part
rediscovered, or reinvented by the civilizations of the present.

To the Greek civilization we are indebted for a marvelous development of
the beautiful in art. And when our art students have exhausted all
modern instruction, they are compelled to go back thousands of years,
and sit down at the feet of the dead Greeks, and learn of them, through
the mutilated remains of their masterpieces. To the Roman civilization
we owe a wonderful development of law. The Roman code of laws is to-day
the basis of the jurisprudence of the civilized world. Very little more
than these survivals of the Greek and Roman civilizations have come down
to us. For the barbarian hordes of the North and the East crushed out
the life of the “Eternal City,” pillaged what they did not destroy of
its treasures, despoiled the cities in its vicinage, and ground to
powder its boasted greatness and its strong arm of power. The phenomenal
dark ages set in, and for a thousand years the world groped in ignorance
and darkness, and very little progress was made in any direction.

But civilization is not artificial, but real and natural. It is to the
race what the flower is to the bud, and the oak tree to the
acorn,—growth, development. Again the divine in man asserted itself, and
again there came into the world a quickening spirit. Four great events
occurred, of world-wide importance, each following quickly its
predecessor, and an impetus was given to humanity which has never spent
itself, but has steadily gained in power and momentum. The revival of
classical learning had a powerful influence upon woman as well as man.
The invention of the art of printing enabled the race to retain whatever
knowledge it acquired, whereas, before, it lost as fast as it gained.
The discovery of this continent opened a new world and limitless
possibilities to the pent-up, struggling spirits of the East, longing
for a larger and better life than was possible under the depressing
conditions of that day. While the great Reformation, begun by Luther,
released both men and women from the almost omnipotent control of the
Church. Demanding the right of private judgment in matters of religion,
it wrought out a great development of religious liberty, which has been
succeeded by a greater outcome of civil freedom.

These four events, occurring almost simultaneously, were the precursors
of our present civilization. They kindled the souls of men into a flame
which has burned steadily to this hour. The development of the present
day dates from them, and the civilization begotten by them is endowed
with earthly immortality. It abounds in the elements of perpetuity,
which the earlier human growths by the Nile and Euphrates never
possessed. Slavery has almost entirely disappeared from the world under
its influence. Liberty has infected all races with its divine contagion,
and has driven from the western hemisphere every crowned head. Laws and
law-makers, trade and commerce, public and private life, church and
state are examined by the highest ethical standards. And through the
last three centuries, there has rung out a growing demand for human
rights, and human opportunity, which has now culminated into a mighty
and imperious demand that cannot be much longer denied. It is the
people’s hour. In this trumpet call for right and justice are heard the
multitudinous voices of women, who have caught the ear of the world, and
to whose banner are daily flocking new recruits, and at last the woman’s
hour has also come.

During the centuries that preceded the Christian era, and for centuries
after, there were, here and there, in many countries, eminent women who
came into possession of power and privilege; sometimes they were used
wisely, and sometimes wickedly. But there were others, on whose
histories women will always dwell with fresh delight, and refuse to
believe the innuendos of contemporary writers concerning them. We read
of Aspasia, the preceptress of Socrates, the wife of the great Pericles
of Athens, and the friend of the Greek philosophers. Summoned for trial
before the Greek Areopagus, she was charged with “walking the streets
unveiled, sitting at table with men, disbelieving in the Greek gods,
believing only in one sole Creator, and with entertaining original ideas
concerning the motions of the sun and moon.” She was in advance of her
time, and the age could not understand her.

We linger over the sad story of Hypatia, whose father, Theon the
younger, was at the head of the Platonic school at Alexandria at the
close of the fourth century. He was also the commentator on Ptolemy, and
the editor of “Euclid,” adding here and there a demonstration of his
own. All that he knew he imparted to his daughter, and Hypatia occupied
a position unparalleled in ancient or modern times. Before she had
reached her twenty-seventh year she had written a book on “The
Astronomical Canon of Diophantes,” and another on “The Conics of
Apollonius.” One of her enemies, the historian Socrates, tells us that
when she succeeded her father in the Platonic school derived from
Plotinus, and “expounded the precepts of philosophy,” studious persons
from all parts of the country flocked to hear her, and that “she
addressed both them and the magistrates with singular modesty.” But
alas! she paid the penalty of her great superiority. And because she was
suspected of having “an influence in public affairs,” and was deemed
“worthy to sit in the councils of church and state,” she was brutally
murdered by a savage mob, that regarded superiority in a woman as an
arraignment of inferiority in men.

We are familiar with the story of Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, who reigned
A.D. 267, of whom reluctant history tells us that she was a woman of
great courage, high spirit, remarkable beauty, and purity of moral
character. Her literary acquirements were unusual, and she spoke Latin,
Greek, and the Oriental languages with fluency; while in the
administration of her government she combined prudence, justice, and
liberality, so that nearly the whole of the eastern provinces submitted
to her sway.

It is a matter of history that 320 B.C., Martia, Queen of London, first
formulated the principles of the English common law in her judgments and
enactments. Her “Martian Statutes” outlived the Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and
Norse invasions. Holinshed, who is regarded as good authority, says that
Alfred the Great, after twelve hundred years, revived her Briton laws,
and enforced them among Anglo-Saxons and Danes. Two centuries later,
they were again re-enacted under Edward the Confessor, and a century
after they were again re-enacted by Stephen. The earliest laws of Great
Britain, therefore, the substance of which has been in force twenty-two
hundred years, were made by a woman.

Tacitus says of the Britons that sex was ignored in their government.
Cæsar says that women had voice in their councils, and power in their
courts, and often commanded in war. Plutarch says that women, among the
Britons, took part in deciding on war and peace, as members of the
councils, and that differences with their allies were decided by the
women.

Until the time of the Reformation, Catholicism was the state religion of
Britain, and nunneries were established and regulated by law. The
Superiors were elected by the nuns and represented their constituents in
the Wita, or legislative council; and in this way the right of women to
representation in governments was recognized. The Domesday Book,
compiled under William the Conqueror, in 1070, enumerated the
inhabitants of each village who were entitled by existing Saxon law to
vote for local officers, and included many women. Women were chosen
members of many Saxon local assemblies by their own sex, and shared
authority as members.

It has never been questioned that women have the right to vote in
secular corporations where they are stockholders. It has been taken as
settled that women have a right to vote in the enactment of corporation
statutes, in deciding who shall be intrusted with the powers conferred
on the corporation by law, and in electing persons to administer those
powers. Women have always shared control of the immense Bank of England,
with its enormous power over the currency and fortunes of the world. In
still more important corporations this has been the case. “Women were at
liberty to take part as stockholders with full powers to vote on all
questions in the ‘Virginia Company,’ which peopled Virginia, and in the
company which populated part of New England, and for a time governed it.
The same was true of the Hudson’s Bay Company, which for centuries ruled
half North America. It was also true of the East India Company, which
for about the same time ruled absolutely one of the greatest empires of
earth.”

When the barons wrested Magna Charta from King John, one of the rights
for which they contended, and forced him to grant, was the right of
women to a vote in the House of Lords. He was compelled to summon to
that House all earls, barons, and others who held lands directly from
the king, and he summoned to the very first Parliament the countesses of
Pembroke and Essex. In the reign of Edward I., ten ladies were summoned
as entitled to seats. There is conclusive evidence that during the first
three reigns of the existence of Magna Charta, women had a right to a
voice in the English government, and exercised it.

John Stuart Mill declares that “the list of women who have been eminent
rulers of mankind swells to a great length, when to queens and empresses
there are added women regents, and women viceroys of provinces.” “It is
a curious consideration,” he continues, “that the only things which the
existing laws exclude women from doing, are the things which they have
proved they are able to do. There is no law to prevent a woman from
having written all the plays of Shakspere, or composed all the operas of
Mozart.” But it is almost everywhere declared that women are not fit for
power and cannot be made so, and that they cannot take any part in civil
government. The laws have been cunningly framed to prevent their taking
the first step in this direction, and a public sentiment has been
created as the bulwark of the law. “And yet,” says Mill, “it is not
inference, but fact, that a woman can be a Queen Elizabeth, a Deborah, a
Joan of Arc,”—an Isabella, a Maria Theresa, a Catherine of Russia, a
Margaret of Austria.

“If a Hindoo principality is strongly, vigilantly, and economically
governed,” continues this earnest friend and student of woman, “if order
is preserved without oppression; if cultivation is extending, and the
people prosperous, in three cases out of four that principality is under
a woman’s government.” And he tells us “he has collected this fact from
a long official knowledge of Hindoo governments.” “There are many such
instances,” he continues. “For though, by Hindoo institutions, a woman
cannot reign, she is the legal regent of a kingdom during the minority
of the heir. And minorities are frequent, the lives of the male rulers
being so often prematurely terminated through the effect of inactivity
and sensual excesses. When we consider that these princesses have never
been seen in public, have never conversed with any man not of their own
family except from behind a curtain, that they do not read, and if they
did there is no book in their language which can give them the smallest
instruction in political affairs, the example they afford of the natural
capacity of women for government is very striking.”

It was not, however, until the fifteenth century that there was a marked
tendency to recognize the general equality of women with men. During the
days of feudalism, it was debated, very earnestly, whether women should
be educated or not, and it was generally believed that a knowledge of
letters would put into their hands an additional power to work evil.
Nevertheless, at all periods, whenever and wherever we can trace a
literature, we find women shining in it. Feudalism may be considered to
have perished at the beginning of the fifteenth century, and a new
period of transition had arrived, to which historical writers have given
the name of “The Renaissance.”

In 1506, Cornelius Agrippa, eminent in the literary society of his time,
wrote a book not only to prove that men and women are equals
intellectually, but that woman is superior to man. In 1552, another work
of similar scope appeared, based on the Platonic philosophy, the purpose
of which was a defense of woman’s superiority. In 1599, Anthony Gibson
sent into the world a third volume, again reiterating “the superiority
of women to men, in all virtuous actions, no matter how fine the quality
of men may be proved to be.” At the same time books were also being
published by other vigorous writers of the day, who stoutly denied to
women the possession of reason, and maintained their eminence in
iniquity only.

In 1696, Daniel Defoe contended for the better education of women,
declaring his belief that if men were trained in the same deplorable
ignorance as women, they would be vastly more incompetent and degraded.
In 1697, Mary Astell “distinguished for literary and theological
labors,” wrote a letter in “Defense of the Female Sex,” which passed
through three editions. An appeal to women written by the same author,
entitled, “A Proposal to Ladies for the Advancement of their True
Interests,” advocated their general education, and besought their
co-operation in some worthy educational scheme. It so wrought on Lady
Elizabeth Hastings, a wealthy noble lady, that she immediately offered
ten thousand pounds for the establishment of a college for women. It was
a grand proposition, and would have been carried out but for the
opposition of the bigoted Bishop Burnet.

At that time Italy led all other nations in literary activity, and then,
as now, was remarkable for her pride in her learned women. Lucrezia
Morinella of Venice wrote a work entitled, “The Nobleness and Excellence
of Women, together with the Faults and Imperfections of Men.” The
University of Bologna, which admitted women as students, and conferred
degrees upon them as early as the middle of the thirteenth century, at
last elevated them to professorships, where they taught law and
philosophy, physiology and anatomy, Latin and Greek. The annals of
Italian literature, scholarship, and art, are radiant with the names of
women who distinguished themselves in various departments, and were
honored by the men of that day, who proudly testified to their abilities
and achievements. Women of France and Italy interested themselves in
medical science, and we read of a woman who lectured in the sixteenth
century on obstetrics “to large classes of both sexes.”

In England, there was the same mental quickening among women, as on the
continent. Queen Elizabeth ascended the throne, and found herself
immediately confronted with perplexities, embarrassments, and anxieties.
She was obliged to face religious bigots at home, and unscrupulous kings
abroad; her people were rent with differences of religious belief, were
rude, ignorant, and inert; her noblemen were factious, her exchequer
empty, her parliaments jealous of her; there was neither army nor navy,
and the nation was poor and embarrassed with debt. But her stout heart,
strong will, and wise head were soon felt in every part of her kingdom.
The Reformation begun by Luther had stimulated England to great
activity, had loosened the hold of the church upon both men and women,
and the way was being prepared for that grand development of religious
and civil liberty which has since followed.

During the Elizabethan era, the great ideas were born which immediately
underlie our present civilization. Government, religion, literature, and
social life were then discussed as never before, earnestly, and by great
thinkers, and reforms were inaugurated that lifted the world to a higher
level. Not only was the age enriched by great men of marvelous political
wisdom, financial skill, comprehensive intellect, and original genius,
but there were noble women in England, who, holding high social
position, devoted their leisure and their wealth to studious pursuits,
and emulated the superior men of the day. How grandly they illuminated
the circles that gathered about them, while the majority of their sex
wasted their time in frivolous pursuits!

It was in the midst of this intense intellectual ferment, and as the
result of it, that the settlement of our country began. While the Church
of England had emancipated itself from the Papal power at immense cost
of life and treasure, and after generations of conflict, it had not
learned the great law of religious freedom. Our forefathers made war on
the divine right of bishops, and the authority of the church to control
their consciences, and were driven by persecution to America. Here they
prospered, were subject to Great Britain, and for a time were contented.
But when in America they were denied the rights granted to Englishmen
living in England, their discontent became general, and the Declaration
of Independence and the War of the Revolution followed. They were not
hot-headed philosophers, crazed by the theories of the French
revolution, as many to-day would have us believe. The “glittering
generalities” of the Declaration of Independence, as Rufus Choate
sneeringly called the immortal principles of our great charter of
liberty, were not deductions from Rousseau, Voltaire, or any other
French philosopher. They were simply the reiteration of the rights of
English citizenship, expanded and adapted to the exigencies of the new
world in which the colonists had planted themselves. For the American
civilization is only a continuation of the English civilization, under
new conditions—some of them more favorable, and others less so. Before
there was a revolution in France, or a democracy in France, Jefferson’s
most democratic words had been spoken in America. And all the facts go
to show that if there was any learning from each other in political
science, between him and the French philosophers, they were the pupils,
and not Jefferson. They were men of untarnished moral character;
religion and patriotism were to them synonymous terms, and their love of
liberty developed into a passion. The world has never seen grander, more
versatile, nor more self-poised men, than the founders of our nation.

What of the women associated with these heroes? “The ammunition of the
Continental soldiery in the war for freedom came from the pulpit, and
the farmer’s fireside,” said one of the orators on a recent centennial
occasion. The men of the Revolution had no cowardly, faint-hearted
mothers and wives to hang about their neck like millstones. Their women
were as heroic in fiber as themselves. Patriotic mothers nursed the
infancy of freedom. They talked with their children of the wrongs of the
people, and of their invaded rights, and uttered their aspirations for a
better state of things in language of intensest force. Sons and
daughters grew sensitive to the tyranny that oppressed their parents,
and as they came to maturity burned with a desire to defend their rights
to the utmost.

During the French and Indian wars of the country that preceded the war
of the Revolution, women learned to rely on themselves, became experts
in the use of fire-arms, and in many instances defended themselves and
their children. They were fired with the same love of liberty as the
men—they were equally stung with the aggressions of the British
government, and as resolute in their determination to resist them. They
encouraged them to enter the army, cheered them when despondent, toned
them to heroic firmness when wavering, and cheerfully assumed every
burden which the men dropped to repel the invaders of their country and
their homes.

Not only did women mingle their prayers with those of men at the family
altar, beseeching Divine guidance, but their own counsel was sought by
men, and given, in the deliberations which resulted in the nation’s
independence. Less than half a century ago, Mrs. E. F. Ellett took on
herself the task of collecting the facts, and sketching the biographies,
of the women who were known to have contributed to the success of the
country in its struggle for independence. She was successful beyond her
expectations, and published three volumes of about three hundred pages
each, containing biographical sketches of nearly one hundred and seventy
women. Despite the light esteem in which the service of women has been
held, and the ease with which it has been forgotten, their record had
been preserved, and their memories tenderly perpetuated for
three-quarters of a century.

Foremost among them stands Mrs. Mercy Warren, wife of Joseph Warren, and
sister of James Otis, author of the never-to-be-forgotten axiom, that
“Taxation without representation is tyranny!” She possessed the fiery
ardor and patriotic zeal of her distinguished brother, with more
political wisdom and sagacity. She was the first one to suggest the
doctrine of the “right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as
inherent, and belonging equally to all mankind”; and the patriots of
that day accepted her teaching. She first of all counseled separation
from the mother country as the only solution of the political problem.
She so impressed her convictions upon Samuel and John Adams that they
were foremost in their advocacy of “independence,” and received, at
first, marked discourtesy from their contemporaries for their
imprudence.

She corresponded with the Adamses, Jefferson, Generals Gerry and Knox,
Lee and Gates, and others who sought her advice. She entertained General
and Mrs. Washington, supplied political parties with their arguments,
and was the first woman to teach political leaders their duties in
matters of state. She kept a faithful record of events during the
Revolutionary War, drew her own conclusions as a philosopher and
politician, and at the close of the struggle published a history of the
war, which can be found in some of the New England libraries, and which
contains faithful portraits of the most eminent men of the day.
Rochefoucauld, in his “Tour of the United States,” says of her, “Seldom
has a woman in any age acquired such ascendancy by the mere force of a
powerful intellect, and her influence continued through life.”

So grand a leader had plenty of followers, and while there appears to
have been no other woman of the time whose influence was as powerful,
there were not a few who almost reached the altitude of her rare
development. The _morale_ of these women penetrated the men of the time
with a sinewy courage that neither weakened nor flagged. They enforced
their words of cheer by relinquishing prospects of advantage for
themselves, renouncing tea and all other imported luxuries, and pledged
themselves to card, spin, and weave the clothing of their households,
and as far as possible of the army. They gave their own property for the
purchase of arms and ammunition for the soldiers, and melted their
wealth of pewter ware, in which many of the colonial households were
rich, and ran it into bullets for the army. They raised grain, gathered
it, and caused it to be ground for bread, that the poor and feeble might
be fed.

They visited the hospitals with proper diet for the sick and wounded,
sought out the dungeons of the provost and the crowded holds of the
prison-ships, with food and medicine in their hands and heroic words on
their lips. They unsparingly condemned coldness or backwardness in the
nation’s cause, and young girls refused the suits of lovers till they
had obeyed the call of their country for military service. They received
their beloved dead, slain in battle, and forbore to weep, although their
hearts were breaking. They even hushed the bitter resentment of their
souls, which had been aroused by British invasion, and gave Christian
burial to their enemies, who, but for them, at times would not have
received it. They trained their little children to the same
uncomplaining patience, the same steely endurance, and the same heroic
love of liberty which fired their own hearts, until boys and girls
gloried in danger and privation. What wonder that the heroes of the
Revolutionary War proved invincible!

John Adams, the second President of the Republic, knew the women of the
Revolution well, and was able to measure a superior woman wherever he
found her, and to estimate her influence. His own wife, Mrs. Abigail
Adams, was the personal friend of Mrs. Mercy Warren, and every whit her
peer. Her husband was proud to acknowledge her as his equal in all save
early education, which was accorded him in large measure and wholly
denied her, as she never attended school a day in her life. In one of
his letters to his wife Mr. Adams comments on the futile efforts of the
British General Howe to obtain possession of Philadelphia, which the
colonists foiled for a long time. He writes her, “I do not believe
General Howe has a very great woman for a wife. A smart wife would have
put Howe in possession of Philadelphia a long time ago.”

In the winter of 1780, the resources of the country touched their lowest
point, and allowed but the scantiest supply of food and clothing for any
one. British cruisers on the coast destroyed every hope of aid from the
merchant vessels, and the cup of misfortune pressed to the lips of the
struggling colonists overflowed with bitterness. Even the ability of the
wealthiest and most generous was exhausted by the repeated drafts made
on them. So great was the need of the army, that General Steuben, who
had been aid-de-camp to the king of Prussia, and had learned the art of
war from the renowned Frederic the Great, declared that “there was not a
commander in all Europe who could keep his troops together a week in
such suffering and destitution.”

But when all despaired the women rallied. All else was temporarily
forgotten. The women of Philadelphia went forth from house to house,
soliciting money, or whatever could be converted into money. They asked
for cloth, garments, and food. Rich women stripped themselves of jewels
that were heirlooms in their families, pillaged their parlors of antique
bric-a-brac, with the hope that it might find purchasers, and emptied
their purses of the last penny they possessed. More than seventy-five
hundred dollars in specie were collected, when hard money was at its
highest value. One woman cut five hundred pairs of pantaloons with her
own hand, and superintended their manufacture. Mrs. Bache, a daughter of
Dr. Franklin, was a leading spirit in these patriotic efforts. When a
company of French noblemen called on her, she conducted them to her
parlor, and showed them a pile of twenty-two hundred shirts for the
army, collected by herself, each one marked with the name of the woman
who had cut and made it.

Nor was this a mere spasm of helpfulness, that soon died out in
forgetfulness and inaction. All through that dreary winter women
continued their visits to Washington’s camp, fortifying the men with
their own inflexible spirit, and tiding them over this darkest passage
in their experience, with steady streams of beneficence. They always
went laden with comforts for the needy and the sick, and were prepared
to serve as cook or seamstress, amanuensis or nurse, equally prompt with
hymn or story, Bible-reading or prayer, as occasion demanded.

While the colonial women were a mighty bulwark of strength to the
struggling men of the embryo nation, some of them were unforgetful of
their own rights, and in advance of the formation of the new government
asked for recognition. Abigail Smith Adams, the wife of John Adams of
Massachusetts, was a woman of strong convictions, and of large
intellectual abilities. She wrote her husband, in March, 1776, then at
the Colonial Congress in Philadelphia, and urged the claims of her sex
upon his attention, demanding for them representation when the
government was organized. She wrote as follows:

“I long to hear that you have declared an independency; and in the new
code of laws, which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, _I
desire that you will remember the women, and be more generous and
honorable to them than your ancestors_. Do not put such unlimited power
in the hands of husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they
could.

“If particular care and attention are not paid to the ladies, we are
determined to foment a rebellion, and _will not hold ourselves bound by
any laws in which we have no voice nor representation_. That your sex is
tyrannical is a truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no
dispute; but such of you as wish to be happy, willingly give up the
harsh title of master for the more tender and endearing one of friend.
Why then not put it out of the power of the vicious and lawless to use
us with cruelty and indignity? Superior men of all ages abhor those
customs which treat us as the vassals of your sex.”

When the Constitution of the United States was framed without any
recognition of the rights of women, the disappointment of Mrs. Adams
almost culminated in indignation. She felt most keenly the
discrimination of the law against her sex, and wrote her husband again,
as follows:

“I cannot say that I think you are very generous to the ladies, for
while you are proclaiming peace and good-will to all men, emancipating
all nations, you insist on retaining absolute power over wives. But you
must remember that absolute power, like most other things which are very
bad, is most likely to be broken.”

She was especially solicitous that there should be equal advantages of
education for boys and girls. “If we mean to have heroes,” she writes,
“statesmen, and philosophers, we should have learned women.” And again,
“If you complain of lack of education for sons, what shall I say in
regard to daughters who every day experience the want of it!”

Nor were the women of the South forgetful of their rights, and at an
early day they also put in a demand for political equality. The counties
of Mecklenburg and Rowan in North Carolina blazed with the fiery
patriotism of their women. And in their defiant conversations with
British officers, who were quartered in the houses of the wealthiest and
most intelligent of these Southern matrons, as also in their debates
with the men of their own community, officers, judges, and clergymen,
they unhesitatingly declared their right to legal equality with men, in
the new government, whenever laws should be formulated for the infant
republic.

Two years after the Declaration of Independence was adopted, the sister
of General Richard Henry Lee, Mrs. Hannah Lee Corbin of Virginia, wrote
to her brother, declaring that women should be allowed the franchise, if
they paid taxes. He replied that in Virginia women already had the right
to vote, and “it is on record that women in Virginia did exercise the
right of voting at an early day.” On the second day of July, 1776, the
right to vote was secured to the women of New Jersey, and they exercised
it for over thirty years. Our country began its very existence burdened
with the protests of our great fore-mothers against violation of the
immortal principles which were its corner-stone. “All just governments
derive their powers from the consent of the governed,” was the startling
announcement the Fathers thundered into the ears of the monarchs of the
old world. And many of their wives and daughters contended, with
invincible logic, that this axiom included women as well as men.

The long struggle of American women for education, opportunity, and
political equality which has since followed, dates, therefore, from the
hour of the nation’s birth. It is the legitimate outcome of American
ideas, for which the nation contended for nearly a century. Absorbed in
severe pioneer work, inevitable to life in the wilderness, and denied
education themselves, the first care of our revolutionary mothers was
for the literary and religious instruction of their children. As far
back as the year 1700, a woman, one Bridget Graffort, had given the
first lot of ground for a public school-house, although at that time,
and for long years after, no provision whatever was made for the
education of girls. There was a bitter prejudice against educated and
literary women in the early days of our history. And even after five
colleges had been founded for young men,—Harvard, Yale, Princeton,
Columbia, and William and Mary, Virginia,[162]—a young woman was
regarded as well educated who could “read, write, and cipher.”

If, however, school privileges were denied them, the education of the
early American women proceeded, through the very logic of events. In
laying the foundations of the new government all questions were
discussed that touched human interests, not only publicly but
privately—from the pulpit, and around the fireside. Women listened to
them, and took part in them. The famous book of Mary Wollstonecraft, “A
Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” was published in London in 1790,
and found its way into American circles. It received the unsparing
condemnation meted out to all efforts put forth in advance of the age,
for the world has always stoned its prophets. It demanded for women
every opportunity accorded to man, and the same rights in
representation, before the law, in the courts, and in the world of work.
Torrents of the vilest abuse were heaped on the author, and formed the
answer vouchsafed by the public. It educated not a few women, however,
who in turn preached the same gospel, and made for women the same
demands.

In 1831 the first real grapple began with American slavery, through the
establishment of the _Liberator_ by William Lloyd Garrison. He flung out
his banner, which he never lowered, demanding immediate and
unconditional emancipation of the slaves of the South, and after a
struggle of forty years, his demand was granted. Slavery was fastened on
our coast long before the birth of the republic. In the century before
1776, three and a quarter millions of negroes had been taken by Great
Britain from African shores for her various colonies in the new world.
And at the close of the Revolutionary War, when the population was but
three millions, six hundred thousand of these were black slaves, even
then a menace to the peace of the nation. Against the protests of some
of the noblest and wisest of the revolutionary patriots slavery, was
introduced into the National Constitution in 1787, and was fastened on
the national life.

The aggressions of the slaveocracy during the first half century of our
national existence alarmed the non-slaveholding portion of the country.
And almost at the same time, in the progress of civilization, the era
was reached when the enlightened conscience of the civilized world
demanded the abolition of slavery. Slowly routed from the dominions of
other nations by the manumission of the bondmen, or the purchase of
their freedom, slavery seemed at last to have intrenched itself on
American soil, and to dominate American civilization. A struggle with it
was inevitable. Some of the grandest men and women of the nation entered
the lists against it, for the early Abolitionists were remarkable
people. It is only necessary to mention the names of some of the leaders
in that holy war, to summon up visions of manly beauty and womanly
grace, men and women endowed with ability, culture, character,
refinement, courage, and social charm. Their public speech blazed with
remorseless moral logic, and thrilled with matchless eloquence, so that
crowds flocked to hear them, wherever they spoke. Garrison and Phillips,
Sumner and Parker, Birney and Pierpont, Gerrit Smith and Theodore
Weld—what men of their day surpassed them in manliness, moral force, and
persuasive and convincing speech? They were supplemented and
complemented by noble women, unlike them, and yet every whit their
peers—Maria Weston Chapman and Lydia Maria Child, Sarah and Angelina
Grimké, Lucretia Mott and Abby Kelly, Helen Garrison and Ann Greene
Phillips.[163]

Mrs. Chapman and Mrs. Child put to the service of the great reform pens
tipped with flame, and wielded with consummate energy and skill. And the
Grimké sisters, who had manumitted their slaves in Charleston, S. C.,
and come North to advocate Antislavery doctrines, with Lucretia Mott and
Abby Kelly, entranced large audiences with their eloquent discourse, and
roused the dormant moral sense of their hearers into protest against the
colossal sin of the nation. Conservatives in church and state were
alarmed. War was declared against the eloquent women, and it was decided
that they should be silenced, and not allowed to act or vote in the
business meetings of the Antislavery Society. This brought about a
division in the organization before it had reached its first decade.

A double battle was now forced on the Garrisonian Abolitionists—a battle
for the rights of woman as well as for the freedom of the slave. The
doctrine of human rights was discussed anew, broadly and exhaustively,
and it was demonstrated that the rights of man and woman were identical.
Antislavery platforms resounded with the demand that liberty, justice,
and equality be accorded to women, and the anti-slavery press teemed
with arguments for women’s rights, which are repeated in the woman
suffrage meetings of the present time.

In 1840 a “World’s Antislavery Convention” was held in London, and all
Antislavery organizations throughout the world were invited to join in
it, through their delegates. Several American societies accepted the
invitation, and elected delegates, six or eight of whom were women,
Lucretia Mott and Mrs. Wendell Phillips among them. The excitement
caused by their presence in London was intense, for the English
Abolitionists were very conservative, and never dreamed of inviting
women to sit in their Convention. And these women who had come among
them had rent the American Antislavery Societies in twain, had been
denounced from the pulpit, anathematized by the press, and mobbed by the
riffraff of the streets. “They who have turned the world upside down
have come hither also,” was the affrighted cry, nor was the alarm of the
English Abolitionists lessened when they saw that those of the women
delegates who were not Quakers, clad in the traditional garb of that
sect, were young, cultivated, and refined.

A long and acrimonious debate followed on the admission of the women,
during which many of the men delegates from America showed the white
feather and sided with the English opposition. Again the tyranny of sex
was combated, and the doctrine of woman’s equality with man enunciated,
and again the battle for woman’s rights was fought with moral force and
logical correctness, as it had been in America the year before. Some of
the noblest women of England were in attendance as listeners and
spectators,—Elizabeth Fry and Lady Byron, Mrs. Anna Jameson and Mary
Howitt,—and, judging by later events, the lesson was not lost upon them.
When the vote was taken, the women delegates were excluded by a large
majority. William Lloyd Garrison did not arrive in London until after
the rejection of the women. When he was informed of the decision of the
Convention he refused to take his seat with the delegates. And
throughout the ten days’ sessions he maintained absolute silence,
remaining in the gallery as a spectator. Only one other of the delegates
joined him, Nathaniel P. Rogers of Concord, New Hampshire, an editor of
an Antislavery paper.

The London Convention marked the beginning of a new era in the woman’s
cause. Hitherto, the agitation of the question of woman’s equal rights
had been incidental to the prosecution of other work. Now the time had
come when a movement was needed to present the claims of woman in a
direct and forcible manner, and to take issue with the legal and social
order which denied her the rights of human beings, and held her in
everlasting subjection. At the close of the exasperating and insulting
debates of the “World’s Antislavery Convention,” Lucretia Mott and Mrs.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton agreed to hold a Woman’s Rights Convention on
their return to America, and to begin in earnest the education of the
people on the question of woman’s enfranchisement. Mrs. Stanton had
attended the Convention as a bride, her husband having been chosen a
delegate.

Accordingly the first Woman’s Rights Convention of the world was called
at Seneca Falls, New York, on the 19th and 20th of July, 1848. It was
attended by crowds of men and women, and the deepest interest was
manifested in the proceedings. “Demand the uttermost,” said Daniel
O’Connell, “and you will get something.” The leaders in the new
movement, Lucretia Mott and Mrs. Stanton, with their husbands, and
Frederick Douglass, acted on this advice. They demanded in unambiguous
terms all that the most radical friends of woman have ever claimed:
“equal rights in colleges and universities, trades and professions; the
right to vote; to share in all political offices, honors, and
emoluments; to complete equality in marriage; equal rights in property,
in wages for equal work, and in minor children; to make contracts; to
sue and be sued; to personal freedom; and to serve on juries, especially
when women were tried.”

The Convention adjourned to meet in Rochester, New York, August 2, 1848.
There were the same crowds in attendance, the same deep interest, and
the same earnest debates and discussions as had characterized the
meeting at Seneca Falls. Women soon adapted themselves to the situation,
increased in efficiency and courage, participated in the debates, and
elected a woman president, in spite of the ridicule occasioned by the
suggestion. She discharged the duties of the office admirably, and the
ridicule was soon merged in applause. A third Convention was held at
Salem, Ohio, in 1850; a fourth in Akron, Ohio, in 1851; a fifth in
Massillon, Ohio, in 1852; another at Ravenna, Ohio, in 1853, and others
rapidly followed. The advocates of woman suffrage increased in number
and ability. Superior women, whose names have become historic, espoused
the cause—Frances D. Gage, Hannah Tracy Cutler, Jane G. Swisshelm,
Caroline M. Severance, Celia C. Burr, who later became Mrs. C. C.
Burleigh, Josephine S. Griffing, Antoinette L. Brown, Lucy Stone, Susan
B. Anthony, Paulina W. Davis, Caroline H. Dall, Elizabeth Oakes Smith,
Ernestine L. Rose, Mrs. C. H. Nichols, Dr. Harriot K. Hunt; the
roll-call was a brilliant one, representing an unusual versatility of
culture and ability.

The First National Woman Suffrage Convention was held in Worcester,
Massachusetts, October 23 and 24, 1850. It was more carefully planned
than any that had yet been held. Nine States were represented. The
arrangements were perfect—the addresses and papers were of the highest
character—the audiences were at a white heat of enthusiasm. The number
of cultivated people who espoused the new gospel for women was increased
by the names of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Theodore Parker, Bronson and Abby
May Alcott, Thomas W. Higginson, William I. Bowditch, Samuel E. and
Harriet W. Sewall, Henry Ward Beecher, Henry B. Blackwell, Ednah D.
Cheney, Hon. John Neal, Rev. William H. Channing, and Wendell Phillips.
Space fails for a detailed statement of the grand personages who gave of
their talents, their wealth, and themselves, that the cause of woman’s
elevation might be advanced.

Meetings were now of frequent occurrence in various parts of the
country. The ridicule of the press, the horror of conservatives, the
anathemas of the pulpit, and the ostracism of society began to abate.
Petitions to legislatures, that were at first received with derisive
laughter, and then laid on the table, now received attention. Unjust
laws, that bore down upon women with cruel severity, were modified. And
papers established in the interest of women found their way to the
people, increased in circulation, and their influence was felt for good.
A dozen years were spent in severe pioneer work and then came the four
years Civil War. All reformatory work was temporarily suspended, for the
nation then passed through a crucial experience, and the issue of the
fratricidal conflict was national life or national death.

The transition of the country from peace to the tumult and waste of war
was appalling and swift, but the regeneration of its women kept pace
with it. They lopped off superfluities, retrenched in expenditures,
became deaf to the calls of pleasure, and heeded not the mandates of
fashion. Their work was that of relief and philanthropy, and, for the
first time in the history of the world, the women of America developed a
heavenly side to war. They cared for the needy families of soldiers,
nursed the sick in camp and the wounded in hospitals, ministered to the
dying in the rear of battle-fields, and kept the channels of beneficence
full to overflowing, which extended from Northern homes to the army at
the front. For their multiform work they needed immense sums of money,
and now the latent business abilities of women began to show themselves.

They went to Washington, and competed with men for government contracts
for the manufacture of army clothing, and obtained them. When their
accounts and their work were rigorously inspected by the War Department
they received commendation, and were awarded larger contracts. They
planned great money-making enterprises, whose largeness of conception
and good business management yielded millions of dollars, to be expended
in the interest of sick and wounded soldiers. The last two of the
colossal Sanitary Fairs, held in New York and Philadelphia, yielded
respectively $1,000,000 and $1,200,000. Women were the creators, the
inspiration, and the great energizing force of these immense fairs, and
also, from first to last, of the Sanitary Commission. Said Dr. Bellows,
“There was nothing wanting in the plans of the women of the Commission,
that business men commonly think peculiar to their own methods.” Men
awoke to the consciousness that there were in women possibilities and
potencies of which they had never dreamed.

Clara Barton, doing clerical work in a department of the government, and
declining to receive compensation therefor, attracted no attention. But
Clara Barton in hospitals, and on hospital transports, bringing order
out of chaos, hope out of despair, and holding death in abeyance—Clara
Barton at Andersonville, where twelve thousand soldiers had succumbed to
the horrors of life in the military prison of the enemy and had been
ignominiously buried in long trenches, unpitied and unknown, aroused the
attention and awakened the gratitude of the nation. For she ordered the
trenches opened, the unknown dead exhumed and decently buried, each man
in a separate grave, with a headstone recording his rank, his name, and
the date of his death, when it could be ascertained.[164]

Anna Dickinson, working for a pittance in the Philadelphia mint, and
making speeches, on occasion, in behalf of the enslaved black man, was
regarded as a nuisance. But Anna Dickinson on the platform, with
impassioned speech and fervid moral earnestness pleading the cause of
the slave before large audiences, and receiving one and two hundred
dollars a night for the service—Anna Dickinson in the Connecticut and
New Hampshire Republican campaigns, thrilling both States with her
eloquence, and capturing both for Abraham Lincoln and Republicanism,
became the heroine of the hour, and was hailed as the Joan of Arc of the
century.

The development of those years, and the impetus they gave to women,
which has not yet spent itself, has been wonderfully manifested since
that time. At the close of the war there was but one college open to
women, and that was grand old Oberlin in Ohio. Vassar received its first
class of students in September, 1865, and now the colleges and
universities which admit women are more in number than those which
reject them. Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell graduated from a medical college in
Geneva, N. Y., in 1849, and afterward had access to the highest
instruction and the best _cliniques_ in Paris. She became the pioneer of
the great host of women physicians and surgeons, who, since the war,
have entered the ranks as medical practitioners, and have been
thoroughly trained and duly qualified for their profession. Reverend
Antoinette L. Brown was graduated from the theological school at
Oberlin, Ohio, in 1850, and ordained in 1853. But not until after the
war were theological schools opened to women in the Methodist,
Unitarian, Universalist, Christian, and Free Baptist denominations. The
United States Census of 1880 gave the number of women ministers as one
hundred and sixty-five, resident in thirty-four States. During the last
twenty-five years law schools have admitted women, and the National
Census of 1880 states the number of women lawyers as seventy-five. The
next Census will reveal a great increase in the numbers of women
physicians, lawyers, and ministers.[165]

It has been since the war, and as the result of the great quickening of
women which it occasioned, that women have organized missionary,
philanthropic, temperance, educational, and political organizations, on
a scale of great magnitude. Without much blowing of trumpets, or
unseemly boasting, they have overcome almost insuperable obstacles, have
brought business abilities to their management of affairs, and have
achieved phenomenal success. Their capacity for public affairs receives
large recognition at the present time. They are elected, or appointed to
such offices as those of county clerk, register of deeds, pension agent,
prison commissioner, state librarian, overseer of the poor, school
superintendent, and school supervisor. They serve as executors and
administrators of estates, trustees and guardians of property, trusts,
and children, engrossing clerks of State legislatures, superintendents
of women’s State prisons, college presidents and professors, members of
boards of State charities, lunacy and correction, police matrons, and
postmistresses.

They are accountants, pharmacists, cashiers, telegraphers,
stenographers, typewriters, dentists, bookkeepers, authors, lecturers,
journalists, painters, architects, and sculptors. In many of these
positions women serve with men, who graciously acknowledge the practical
wisdom and virtue that they bring to their duties. “And although many
women have been appointed to positions in departments of government, and
to important employments and trusts,” said Senator Blair of New
Hampshire, from his seat in Congress, “as far as your committee are
aware no charge of incompetence or malfeasance in office has ever been
sustained against a woman.”

Only a little more than a quarter of a century ago women were allowed to
enter very few remunerative occupations. In 1836, when Harriet Martineau
visited this country, to study its new institutions, that she might be
able to forecast the type of civilization to be evolved from them, she
especially investigated the position of women in the young republic. She
was surprised to find them occupying a very subordinate position in a
country calling itself free, and to find that they had entered only
seven paying occupations. They were allowed to teach, to be
seamstresses, tailoresses, milliners, dressmakers, household servants,
and factory operatives. Hon. Carroll D. Wright, Chief of the National
Bureau of the Statistics of Labor, in a recent report, has announced the
number of remunerative professions and occupations in which women are
working as three hundred and forty-two. In the cities of Boston, New
York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Minneapolis, and San Francisco, women have
established hospitals, and have managed them with admirable wisdom.[166]
Two of the ablest legal journals of the West have been established by
women, who are their editors and proprietors.

Side by side with this phenomenal development of women, and always
subsidiary to it, when not its direct cause, the movement for woman’s
enfranchisement has proceeded with deepening earnestness, urged onward
by the spur of continual victories. A great host of women have come to
regard this as the largest question before the world to-day, and as
underlying and involving the just settlement of the great social and
moral problems of the time. It is not possible for one sex to settle
aright the matters that equally concern both sexes, like questions of
marriage and divorce laws, the regulation of the liquor traffic, the
management of public schools, the care and cure of insane and criminal
people, and many others that may be mentioned. There is not a question
casting its shadow athwart the political horizon that is not underlaid
by a moral basis, and women have a vital interest in all moral matters.
This has greatly extended the area of the woman suffrage debate, and
added to its ranks large numbers of able workers, who stood aloof while
the reform was treated as an abstraction.

It is not possible to rehearse, in detail, the progress of the movement
since the close of the war. The brief space allotted in these pages is
insufficient for its complete history—volumes would be necessary. There
can be recorded here only the briefest mention of its unflagging
struggle, and its steady gains, year by year. In 1869, two great
National organizations were formed. One styled itself “The National
Woman Suffrage Association,” and the other was christened “The American
Woman Suffrage Association.” The first established its headquarters in
New York, and published a weekly paper, _The Revolution_, which was ably
edited by Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony. _The American_ made its home in
Boston, and founded _The Woman’s Journal_, which was edited by Mrs. Mary
A. Livermore, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, Mrs. Lucy Stone, William Lloyd
Garrison and Thomas W. Higginson.[167] The State Woman Suffrage
Associations became auxiliary to one or the other of these parent
societies, and very frequently to both. “The National” invariably held
its annual meetings at Washington, while Congress was in session. “The
American” itinerated from State to State, and held its annual meetings
where it was thought they would do the greatest amount of missionary
work.

After twenty years of separate activities, a union of the two national
organizations was effected in 1890, under the composite title of “The
National-American Woman Suffrage Association.”

These bare statements of fact do not give a hint of the vast labor,
sacrifice, and expenditure of time, brain, and money which have been put
into the woman’s cause during the last quarter of a century. Hundreds of
noble men and thousands of earnest women have toiled, unsparing of
themselves and their substance, to bring in the day when, for women, law
and justice shall be interchangeable terms. Many have died in the
harness, reconciled to their discharge from the battle, because they saw
from afar the victory which is to infold unborn millions in its
benefactions. Others have dropped away from the work from failing
health, the pressure of other duties, and some from cessation of
interest. But the vacant places have been filled by new recruits,
unweary and zealous, who have brought versatile abilities to the
service, and have kept the ranks more than full. Other organizations,
formed for various purposes, have adopted our cause as their own, and
have again and again rendered all women their debtors by their generous
aid.

Chief among these is the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, with a
membership of nearly two hundred thousand, whose greatly beloved
president, Frances E. Willard, is as earnest an advocate of the ballot
for woman as a temperance measure, as she is for prohibition.[168]
Before she was elected the president of the National Woman’s Temperance
Union, she had presented a petition with one hundred and eighty thousand
signatures to the Legislature of Illinois, asking for the women of the
State the right to vote on the question of license or no license in
their respective districts. Under her grand leadership that great
organization has become a mighty factor in the work for women’s
enfranchisement. Its large membership, its perfect organization, its
loyalty to its president, its relations to the church, its successful
publishing house, its ably conducted official paper, _The Union Signal_,
with a subscription list of eighty thousand,—all these combined
advantages enable it to wield an influence in woman’s behalf more
effective than all other agencies united.

It has pushed through the legislatures of thirty-seven States and
Territories the laws that now compel, in all public schools, instruction
in the nature and effect of alcoholic drinks and narcotics on the human
system. It has successfully engineered other legislation in many States,
concerning other matters in which it is interested—notably the passage
of laws forbidding the sale of tobacco to minors under sixteen years of
age. It lent a hand toward the enactment of the petition-vote in Texas,
for school officers, and in Arkansas and Mississippi, for and against
liquor license. What may not be expected of this grand body of women,
when it becomes more firmly welded, has grown even more skilled in its
work, and more fully conscious of its great power!

_The Woman’s Journal_ has recently employed an efficient woman in
Washington to make a complete summary of the laws of every State and
Territory in the Union, as they affect women’s right to vote, or take
part in the management of the public schools, either as State or county
superintendents, or as members of school boards. She was detailed to
this work, and furnished with the sources of information, by Hon.
William T. Harris, National Superintendent of Education. Her statements
may be relied on, therefore, as accurate, and complete to date. We
append this valuable summary, which shows rapid gains in a very short
time, and demonstrates an evolution in self-government that cannot stop
at any half measure, but must go on yet farther.[169]

The States and Territories which confer certain rights and privileges
upon women are twenty-eight, as follows:

CALIFORNIA—No person shall on account of sex be disqualified from
entering or pursuing any lawful business, vocation, or profession. Women
over the age of twenty-one years, who are citizens of the United States
and of this State, shall be eligible to all educational offices in the
State, except those from which they are excluded by the constitution.
And more than this, no person shall be debarred admission to any of the
collegiate departments of the university on account of sex. [Sch. Law,
1888.]

COLORADO—No person shall be denied the right to vote at any school
district election, or to hold any school district office on account of
sex. [Sch. Law, 1887.]

CONNECTICUT—No person shall be deemed ineligible to serve as a member of
any board of education, board of school visitors, school committee, or
district committee, or disqualified from holding such office by reason
of sex. [Sch. Law, 1888.]

ILLINOIS—Women are eligible to any office under the general or special
school laws. [Sch. Law, 1887.]

INDIANA—Women not married nor minors, who pay taxes, and are listed as
parents, guardians, or heads of families, may vote at school meetings.
[Decision of attorney-general.] The attorney-general questions the
constitutionality of an act to authorize the election of women to school
offices, approved April 14, 1881. The State constitution reads, “No
person shall be elected or appointed as a county officer who shall not
be an elector of the county.”

IOWA—No person shall be deemed ineligible, by reason of sex, to any
school office in the state. No person who may have been or shall be
elected or appointed to the office of county superintendent of common
schools, or school director, shall be deprived of office by reason of
sex. [Sch. Law, 1888.]

KANSAS—Women over twenty-one years of age, residents of the district,
are allowed to vote at district meetings. [Sch. Law, 1885.]

KENTUCKY—Widows qualified to pay taxes, and having children of school
age, may vote at elections for district school trustees. [Sch. Law,
1886.]

LOUISIANA—Women over twenty-one are eligible to any office of control or
management under school laws of the State. [Constitution, Art. 232.]

MAINE—Women are eligible to the office of supervisor of schools and
superintending school committee. [Sch. Law, 1889.]

MASSACHUSETTS—Women are eligible to serve on school committees, and to
vote at school meetings for members of school committees. [Sch. Law,
1883.]

MICHIGAN—Women are eligible to election to district offices, to the
office of school inspector, and are qualified to vote at district
meetings. [Sch. Law, 1885.]

MINNESOTA—Women of twenty-one and over who have resided in the United
States one year, and in this State for four months preceding the
election, may vote for school officers, or for any measure relating to
schools which may come up in school district meetings. Any woman so
entitled to vote may hold any office pertaining to the management of
schools. [Sch. Law, 1887.]

NEBRASKA—Women twenty-one years of age, resident of the district and
owners of property, or having children to educate, may vote in district
meetings. [Sch. Law, 1885.]

NEW HAMPSHIRE—Women may vote at school district meetings if they have
resided and had a home in the district for three months next preceding
such meeting. They may hold town and district school offices. [Sch. Law,
1886.]

NEW JERSEY—Women over twenty-one years of age, resident of the State for
one year, and of the county for five months preceding such meeting, may
vote at school meetings. They are eligible to the office of school
trustee. [Sch. Law, 1887.]

NEW YORK—No person shall be deemed to be ineligible to serve as any
school officer, or to vote at any school meeting, by reason of sex, who
has the other qualifications now required by law. This permits women to
act as school trustees, and to vote at district meetings, if residents
of the district, holding taxable property, and over twenty-one years of
age. [Sch. Law, 1887.]

OREGON—Women who are widows and have children to educate, and taxable
property in the district, shall be entitled to vote at district
meetings. [Sch. Law, 1887.]

PENNSYLVANIA—Women twenty-one years of age and upwards are eligible not
only to the office of county superintendent, but to any office of
control or management under the school laws of the State. [Sch. Law,
1888.]

RHODE ISLAND—Women can be elected to the office of school committee, and
a woman is as eligible as a man for school superintendent. [Sch. Law,
1882.]

VERMONT—Women have the same right to vote as men have in all school
district meetings, and in the election of school commissioners in towns
and cities, and the same right to hold offices relating to school
affairs. [Sch. Law, 1881.]

WISCONSIN—Every woman who is a citizen of this State of the age of
twenty-one years or upward (except those excluded by Sec. 2, Art. 3, of
the Wisconsin constitution) who has resided within the State one year,
and in the election district where she offers to vote, ten days next
preceding any election pertaining to school matters, shall have a right
to vote at such elections. Every woman of twenty-one years of age and
upwards may be elected or appointed as director, treasurer, or clerk of
a school district, director or secretary of a town board, under the
township system, member of a board of education in cities, or county
superintendent. [Sch. Law, 1885.]

ARIZONA TY.—The territorial law provides that no person shall be denied
the right to vote at any school district election or to hold any school
district office on account of sex. [Biennial Report, 1883–84.]

* DAKOTA TY.—In all elections held under the provisions of this act, all
persons who are qualified electors under the general laws of the
Territory, and all women of twenty-one years and over, having the
necessary qualifications as to citizenship and residence required by the
general laws, and who have children of school age under their care or
control, are qualified voters. Women having the requisite qualifications
are eligible to the office of school director, judge or clerk of
election, township clerk, or county superintendent of public schools.
[Sch. Law, 1887.]

IDAHO—The right of citizens of any school district to vote at any school
election, or upon any school matter, or for county superintendent, or to
hold office as school trustee or county superintendent, shall not be
denied or abridged on account of sex. [Sch. Law, 1885.]

* MONTANA—Every person, without regard to sex, over twenty-one years of
age, resident of a school district, and a taxable inhabitant, is
entitled to vote at the annual school meeting for the election of
trustees. All persons otherwise qualified are eligible to the office of
county superintendent of common schools without regard to sex. [Sch.
Law, 1887.]

WASHINGTON—Women over the age of twenty-one years, resident of the
school district for three months immediately preceding any district
meeting, and liable to taxation, are legal voters at any school meeting.
They are also eligible to hold or be elected to any school office. [Sch.
Laws, 1885–86.]

WYOMING—Every woman of the age of twenty-one years, residing in the
Territory, may, at every election to be holden under the laws thereof,
cast her vote, and her rights to the elective franchise and to hold
office shall be the same under the election laws of the Territory as
those of electors. [Revised Statutes, 1887.]

All States marked with a star, thus (*), were Territories at date of
laws. In Montana, those women who pay taxes will vote on all questions
submitted to the vote of tax-payers. In Washington and South Dakota, the
question of giving women full suffrage is hereafter to be put to vote,
and on this question women already qualified as voters for any purpose
can also vote. In Kansas, women have now the right to vote at municipal
elections, and in Wyoming women have had full suffrage on the same terms
as men for twenty years. The constitution of Wyoming, besides the equal
suffrage provision, establishes the reading test, as in Massachusetts,
and the Australian ballot for voters. At this present time of writing,
Wyoming’s admission to the Union as a State is pending in Congress. The
House of Representatives has voted the Territory qualified for
statehood, and to give her admission. It is believed the Senate will
confirm this action and that the bill will be signed by the President,
when Wyoming will enter the sisterhood of States with equal suffrage for
men and women incorporated in her constitution.[170]

The States and Territories which, according to the latest issue of their
school laws, do not give women any voice in school affairs are nineteen,
viz.: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland,
Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina,
Ohio,[171] Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, Alaska, Indian
Territory, and New Mexico.

In Texas, the school officers are chosen by petitions to the county
judge for their appointment, and he appoints those whose petitions are
most largely signed. These petitions women can sign on the same terms as
men, and thus practically vote without leaving home. The question of
liquor license is decided in Arkansas and Mississippi in the same
manner. In the territory of Utah women had full right to the elective
franchise, and to hold office for many years. But in the winter of
1886–87, women suffrage was abolished, and the Territory redistricted
for voting purposes. This was done by the Edmunds bill as a means to
destroy polygamy. In Washington, women had exercised the right of
suffrage conferred on them by the territorial legislature for two or
three years. They were deprived of it by the decision of a territorial
judge, some two years since, who gave an adverse decision on the
question, when it came before him. His unjust act was performed in the
interest of the liquor saloons, whose hostility to woman suffrage is
immitigable everywhere.

It will be seen, therefore, that there are thirty-one States and
Territories which have conferred the franchise on women in some form,
from the petition-vote of Texas, Mississippi, and Arkansas, to the full
suffrage exercised by the women of Wyoming for twenty years. This has
been accomplished not by the fanaticism of a few abnormal and unbalanced
women, as many superficial objectors declare. It is the legitimate
outgrowth of the principles of Republican government, and has come
naturally from the evolution of woman as a human being, which has
proceeded through the ages. No one who has studied the question can lack
faith in its ultimate success, and the beneficent results it is sure to
accomplish. For the ballot in the hands of woman is the synonym of her
legal equality with man, and legal justice has always preceded social
equity. Woman has wrought more of good than evil in the world during her
ages of ignorance, bondage, and degradation. What then may not be
expected from her in righteousness and helpfulness, when she is accorded
freedom, equity, and opportunity!

XI.
WOMAN IN INDUSTRY.

ALICE HYNEMAN RHINE.

In treating of woman’s industrial career in America the subject falls
naturally into periods, each one of which seems to possess some distinct
characteristic. These periods can in no sense be considered arbitrary
divisions, for the changes in woman’s industrial position in America
have been the result of slow transitions from one state to another. The
fact that is emphasized is, that certain causes can be observed which
had the effect at stated times of forcing old conditions to give way to
new. By taking up in their order each of these epoch-shaping factors, we
can discern most easily the part women have played in the progress of
American industries.

The first of these periods embraces those years of primitive social
conditions when people labored to supply the simplest needs of life;
when men were engaged principally in agriculture and commerce, and women
carried on the work of manufacturing clothing, and attending to the
wants of the household. In those days, almost every family owned a loom,
spinning-wheel, reel and knitting-needles, and the family comfort
depended largely on the degree of skill and industry with which these
manufacturing implements were handled. In some homes, hundreds of yards
of “homespun” were made yearly. The New York _Mercury_ for 1768 credits
one family, living in Newport, Rhode Island, with having within four
years “manufactured nine hundred and eighty yards of woolen cloth,
besides two coverlids (coverlets), and two bed-ticks, and all the
stocking yarn of the family.”

In those days neither wealth nor position afforded women an excuse for
idleness. Nor did their labors cease with the home. It was considered so
unbecoming to be unemployed that even hours of social enjoyment were
devoted to useful occupations. During the enforcement of the
non-importation acts, when, among other things, cloth and stockings were
prevented from coming into this country from England, a letter written
from Newport tells of a social gathering where “it was resolved that
those who could spin ought to be employed in that way, and those who
could not, should reel.” At a similar meeting in Boston, “a party of
forty or fifty young women, calling themselves ‘Daughters of Liberty,’”
amused themselves at the house of their pastor with spinning, during one
day, “two hundred and thirty-two skeins of yarn, some very fine.” No
woman considered herself too elegant

To guide the spindle and direct the loom,

or knit the stockings which, since stocking-frames were interdicted as
articles of import, had to be made for the whole people by slow process
of hand. As indicative of the simple and industrial habits of Mrs.
Washington, it is related that when, in 1780, a party of the leading
ladies of Morristown called upon her by appointment at her husband’s
headquarters, Mrs. Washington appeared before them in a plain gown of
“linsey woolsey,” and, while she entertained them with pleasant
conversation, her busy fingers never ceased plying the knitting-needles.

Prior to and long after the Revolution, stocking knitting was an
industry large enough to claim most of what were termed woman’s “spare
moments.” With the assistance of child and slave labor, large quantities
were made for sale or exchange. Legislators, to stimulate busy fingers
to fresh exertions, offered bounties for their increased production. In
Virginia, prizes of fifty pounds of tobacco (the currency then) were
given “for every five hundred pairs of men’s and women’s stockings
produced, worth from three to five shillings the pair, with the
privilege of buying them at an advance of seventy-five per cent. on
those prices.”

Except among a few German settlers in Pennsylvania, no attempt was made
for many years to change stocking-making from a domestic into a factory
industry. Until 1826 the manufacture of stockings remained woman’s
almost exclusive province. Then knitting-machines were set up in several
of the States, but, as if there was some peculiar fitness in this
remaining woman’s department, the employees in knitting-works have
always been, even down to 1889, “nearly all women and children.”

Never did women work harder than during this domestic period of labor.
The slave women of the South, in addition to going through all the
processes of manufacturing woolen and cotton cloth, which they afterward
cut and made into garments, attended to both in and out-of-door labor.
They tilled the rice fields, planted tobacco, sowed the cotton seed, and
helped with the harvesting. The women in the North, though not “put into
the ground,” as the early adventurers termed field-work, engaged
energetically in other industries. History tells of women who helped
build their own homes, wielding the ax and carrying the water to mix
mortar with which to build chimneys. On the farms, it was women who
raised the garden truck of vegetables and herbs, attended to poultry
breeding, milked the cows, made butter and cheese, did the sewing, and
performed all the household chores now classed in industrial statistics
as “domestic service.”

Outside the strictly necessary occupations of manufacture, household
service, clothing, and garden-work, from quite early times women in
America turned their attention to speculative labor and to trade. When
James the First, thinking to utilize mulberry trees that were indigenous
to our soil, forwarded silkworm cocoons to America, when dazzling dreams
of wealth to come from the successful culture of the silkworm were
indulged in by people on both sides of the Atlantic, and when bounties
of money and tobacco were offered for spun and woven silk, according to
its weight and width, most of these prizes were obtained by women. The
success obtained by women in feeding the worms, and reeling, spinning,
and weaving the silk, caused this industry, during the varying fortunes
that preceded the establishment of silk-weaving as a factory industry,
to be carried on mainly by them. History has preserved the names of
three women famous before the Revolution as silk-growers and weavers:
Mrs. Pinckney, Grace Fisher, and Susanna Wright. While silkworm culture
was a failure in spite of all the fostering care bestowed upon it, and
none of the pioneers realized any of the golden visions of rivaling the
productions of Spain and the Indies, the efforts made by them paved the
way for future cultivation.

Along with the silk industry, another of scarcely less importance was
growing up quietly in New England. This was the manufacture of straw
goods, the products of which now amount to many millions annually.
Straw, applied to so many purposes to-day, owes its origin as an article
of manufacture to a young Massachusetts girl. In 1789 Miss Betsy Metcalf
discovered the secret of bleaching and braiding the meadowgrass of her
native town of Dedham, and of ingeniously making this braid into a
bonnet. Although scarcely more than a child, the chronicles tell that
she taught others to do what she had done, and started a business by
which the want of bonnets and hats for summer-wear was supplied. From
using straw for head-gear, its manufacture spread to other things, and
developed an industry that, in 1880, employed nearly eleven thousand
operatives. Of these over seven thousand were women.

Whether it was the active out-door life led by the American women of the
eighteenth century, or the wide-awake interest circumstances obliged
them to take in the concerns of the family and of men; whether the
stirring times in which they moved, or the deferential attitude of men
stimulated them to do things that the women of other nations were not
doing, it is certain that the American women of a century ago were far
in advance of their times in all things except a knowledge of light
literature, which the circulating libraries of Europe placed within the
reach of women there, and a scarcity of books denied them here. That
this was more of a gain than loss, by giving women time to think, is
shown in the energy with which they went to work in helping to build up
the nation. They engaged in mercantile affairs with such success that,
it is said, “many Boston fortunes owed their rise to women.” The active
interest taken by them in politics gave, even before the Revolution,
some representative women to journalism. Out of the seventy-eight
newspapers published in the colonies, sixteen were edited by women, and
all but two of them championed the cause of liberty and justice. The
first paper to publish the Declaration of Independence was edited and
printed by a Mrs. Reid. In medicine, women confined themselves into
distilling herbs into remedies which it was said “could kill or cure
with any of the faculty.” In the practice of midwifery, history has
preserved the name of a Mrs. Robinson, of New London, who continued to
practice to an advanced age, and who “delivered twelve hundred mothers
without losing a patient.”

The inventive faculty, so distinctive a trait in the character of the
American man, was also a gift of the American woman. How many women were
inventors will never be known, as they timidly shielded their identity
behind men. This is said to have been the case with the cotton-gin.
Credited through all the years to Eli Whitney, modern writers claim that
it was the fruit of the inventive powers of Mrs. Nathaniel Green,[172]
widow of Gen. Green of revolutionary fame. The story runs that Mrs.
Green, a native of Rhode Island and familiar with the working of the
anchor forge belonging to her husband’s father, set her wits to work
while visiting her Georgia plantations, to lessen the labor of cleansing
the cotton. When this difficulty was solved, she permitted Mr. Whitney
to claim the patent, through fear of the ridicule of her friends and
loss of social position recognition of her work might have entailed.

By whomever invented, no other instrument has been so fruitful of
consequences. In 1793, when the cotton-gin was made, cotton, instead of
being King, was a humble garden plant, grown for home consumption in the
regions from Georgia to New Jersey. When its snowy blossoms ripened,
women gathered them, plucked the seeds from the fiber, and got it ready
for spinning. So difficult was this process, that to remove the seed
from one pound was considered a good day’s work. By the operation of the
cotton-gin, in the time it had taken to cleanse one pound, three
hundred-weight could be got ready for market. By this, cotton was
transformed at once into a valuable commercial product that required for
its successful cultivation an enormous increase of land and labor. It
instilled such new life into the almost dying institution of slavery
that the cotton-gin may well be said to have been the foster-mother of
slavery in America.

As the immediate effect of the cotton-gin in the South was to give an
enormous value to the slave, its invention was followed in the North by
the cotton factory. The cotton factory was the northern complement of
the cotton-gin. To women it had the momentous results of transferring
them from the home to the factory; of taking them out of the family
farm-house to the manufacturing towns and villages, and, by making them
for the first time the wage-earning competitors of men, altering their
whole status in the labor market of America.

With the factory came a new epoch for women in America. The War of the
Revolution and the War of 1812 had been ended long enough to induce a
general feeling of security concerning the future of the republic. For a
large number of people, the hard work and deprivations of the past were
as a dream; peace and plenty promised to abound. Wealth came flowing
from all directions in a steady stream into the country through the
various channels of commerce and agriculture. Numerous business
enterprises were undertaken, principal among which were the factories
for weaving cotton and wool into cloth. The earliest of these was built
in Massachusetts, where numerous swift-flowing rivers abound, capable of
being utilized for moving machinery. Through the energetic, progressive
spirit of the descendants of the Puritans, it was not long before New
England began to rival Old England in manufacturing the increased
production of cotton grown in the United States. The first cotton mill
erected in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1822, was followed so quickly by
others, that by 1839 there were in Lowell ten companies incorporated
with a capital of $13,000,000. These produced 2,463,000 yards of cloth
per week, of which all but 91,000 were cotton. The number of operatives
employed were 12,507, and in the cotton mills the majority of these were
women. From the amount of capital invested and the number of operatives
employed, Lowell was termed, in the period between 1840 and 1850, “the
Manchester of America.”

But in nothing—except that Lowell and Manchester were places filled with
the hum of machinery tended by human workers for their own livelihood
and the profits of others—was there any resemblance between Manchester
and Lowell. The recorded condition of the English operatives, especially
women, at that time reads like a page torn from some canto of Dante’s
“Inferno;” while that of Lowell, pictured by women who worked as
ordinary mill-hands in the Lowell factories, seems in comparison like a
Utopian idyl evolved from the brain of dreamers.

According to writers, the women operatives who entered the Lowell mills
came from the New England farms, not from stress of circumstances, but
to get wage-money to help lift a mortgage from the family farm, or to
assist some son or brother in obtaining an otherwise impossible
university education. A large majority entered the mills to secure
independence, or household and dress adornments. Not a few entered so as
to be near circulating libraries and schools, with the opportunities for
self-culture which these afforded. Coming from the agricultural class,
which considered itself among the aristocracy of America,[173] no class
distinctions were made, and the factory young women were welcomed into
the best social circles of Lowell. Well but simply dressed, as was the
fashion of the times, they were to be seen at church, Sunday-schools,
and social gatherings at the parsonages and elsewhere, receiving the
same consideration as those whom circumstances had placed above the need
of work. The girls themselves felt no loss of caste or diminution of
self-respect. Most of them expected to marry—many did—and withdraw from
the factory, and failing this, when factory work became disagreeable, to
retire to the family home. The factory was an episode, not, as it later
became too frequently elsewhere, the burden of this chapter in woman’s
life.

The factories _per se_ were as remarkable as the women who operated
them. Kept as clean as the nature of the work would admit, with plants
growing in the windows trained to shade the glass, the rooms seemed
redolent of the country. Fronting one side of the building were the
banks and waters of the swift-flowing Merrimac, which, as it hastened on
to meet the sea, turned the wheels of the machinery, ignorant as yet of
steam. On the other was the bright, new village, looking, as Dickens
said in 1843, “as if every kind of store had taken down its shutters for
the first time and started in business yesterday.” Standing on the hill
was the prettiest building in the place, which was the hospital where
girls when sick were tenderly cared for. Those unable to pay the weekly
charge of three dollars, had it provided for them by the corporations.
Seldom were the latter put to this expense, for Yankee girls had a
horror of being placed under money obligations. Boarding-houses, erected
by the mill-owners, were given in charge of reputable women. The charge
for board in them, including the mid-day meal,—which was taken in
civilized fashion at the boarding-house tables,—and washing to a certain
extent, was fixed at the small sum of $1.50. Wages, counting in those of
the little doffers, averaged $3.75 per week. Weavers, drawing-in girls,
warpers, and spinners, who tended extra work, could earn from six to
eight dollars per week. These wages, with the low price of board and the
economical style of dress common in those days, enabled the mill
operatives to place a large part of their earnings in the savings bank
established for their use by the corporations. In 1841, one hundred
thousand dollars, a sum which was a source of pride to all concerned,
was deposited to the credit of the girls of Lowell.

Happy in their social position, and in the good feeling existing between
employers and employed, free from pecuniary care for the necessities of
life and in command of some of the best luxuries, the Lowell girls
reached an intellectual height unique in the history of industrial
workers. When the twelve or fourteen hours that then constituted a day’s
work were ended, buoyant with the health of generations of out-door
workers, the Lowell women were fresh enough to enjoy in various ways
what was left of their evenings. In most of the boarding-houses there
were pianos, the joint property of the girls. Some played, others sang.
Books were read, topics discussed, and poems, stories, and essays
written. These formed the pages of the “Lowell Offering,” a monthly
magazine composed entirely of articles by the girls. The literary merit
of these articles astonished people from abroad. Harriet Martineau
republished some of them in England under the title of “Mind among the
Spindles,” while Dickens claimed that, independent of the fact that the
articles were written by girls after a long, hard day’s work in
factories, they “compared favorably with those of many English
periodicals.” In character, the stories differed from the sentimental
love-tales common to women’s writings of that period. Simple in style,
they were mostly descriptive of human life and the beauties of nature
that the girls had left behind them, and what was best in their Lowell
environments. Among the contributors, who attained national reputation,
were Lucy Larcom, the poet; Margaret Foley, the sculptor, and Mrs. H. H.
Robinson, the author.[174] These women always spoke with affectionate
respect of their factory experiences. Mrs. Robinson, at the
International Council of Women, held at Washington in 1888, after
telling how she had entered the Lowell mills as a “doffer” when a child,
and remained there until she married in 1848, said: “I consider the
Lowell mills my _alma mater_, and am as proud of them as most girls of
the colleges in which they have been educated.”

When factory towns sprang up in the suburbs of the large cities of New
York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, etc., they did so under conditions
different from those of Lowell, and, of course, had other results. There
was no need in these places for corporations to offer exceptional wages
and treatment to women to induce them to enter the mills. Already at
hand, and eager to accept any conditions, were the thousands of women
who had been deposited on the shores of America by the tidal wave of
immigration, which set in from Europe during the decade of 1845–55. For
these women, who labored for bread and butter and not for knick-knacks,
no effort was made, as in Lowell, to surround them with a favorable
social atmosphere. How women spent their evenings, what were their
pleasures or sorrows and how they lived, in a country where the
necessities of life were dear, on their weekly wages of $2.63 to $4.99
per week (the average wages of factory women from 1850 to 1860), was
inquired into by none. Employers and employed both felt that all
responsibilities began and ended with the money given and received on
pay-days.

This indifference concerning working-women was not confined to the
factory, but was so general that even the National Census Report did not
take the trouble to classify woman’s work separately from man’s, until
it was found that in some departments of industry women exceeded men in
point of numbers almost in the ratio of two to one. In the cotton
factories of twenty-five States, in 1850, the number of women employed
was 62,661, against 32,295 men. In 1860, the average number employed in
the cotton factories was, according to official returns, 75,169 women
against 46,859 men. It was computed that in the woolen goods
manufactories of the six New England States, there were 29,886 men and
51,517 women employed. Hosiery, an industry belonging to women since
days when Homer wrote of

The knitters in the sun,
And the free maids who weave their thread with bones,

employed in 1860 almost three times as many women as men. Large numbers
of women made rubber clothing. Half as many women as men were engaged in
the manufacture of paper. Women filled places in bookbinderies, printing
offices, and newspaper establishments. The number of women engaged in
domestic service (never an exactly ascertainable quantity) formed a bulk
equal to the factory population; while the ranks of needle-women were,
as usual, larger than all of those industries combined, excepting
domestic service. In 1850, the number of women engaged in the making of
men’s and boys’ clothing alone numbered 61,500; the number of men being
35,061. In 1860, owing to the invention of the sewing-machine, these
figures were partially reversed; the number of women employed was
diminished and that of men increased.

The sewing-machine was one of several factors that about 1860
inaugurated for women another industrial period. From its invention by
Elias Howe the sewing-machine properly belonged to 1846, but the
business of making and selling them was not fairly started before 1853.
Then the sales of all the manufacturers amounted to only 2529. In 1860
they had reached to about 50,000. This increase showed that the
sewing-machine results must be dated from the year of its acceptance
into popular favor. Mr. Howe’s invention, like all other labor-saving
machines, intended to be a blessing by lightening the burdens of
workers, proved a curse by taking away their accustomed pursuit from
those who depended on the skill by which they drove

The patient needle through the woven threads.

Brought into competition with machines that could do more and better
work in one day than was possible for six women, working twenty hours
apiece, to accomplish, these had either to starve, or force their way
into some other wage-earning industry. An example of how this
displacement affected needle-women can be gleaned from Appleton’s
Cyclopædia for 1862, which cites a single establishment in New York,
employing four hundred machines and producing about ten thousand shirts
a week, whose estimated savings (in wages) were about $240,000 per
annum. In the same year, the following sums were saved in wage-time by
the sewing-machines in the manufacturing industries:

Men’s and boys’ clothing in New York City $7,500,000
Hats and caps 462,500
Shirt bosoms 832,750

Calculating that each machine did the work of six girls, and estimating
that one girl operated each machine, there were 73,290 women displaced
by the machines on which these savings were made.

Contemporary with the general acceptance of the sewing-machine, and
intensifying the distress of the wage-worker, was the Civil War, which,
in 1860, began to decimate the ranks of men and to convert into
wage-earners large numbers of women who had been wage-expenders.
Delicate women in the South, reared in affluence, waited upon by slaves,
were thrown, by losses of male relatives and property, among the
bread-winners. Numbers of these journeyed to Northern cities to hide
their poverty as well as to gain entrance into the larger field of
industries the North was supposed to offer. But here they were met by
thousands of other women, native to the North, who, like their sisters
of the South, through the death of those who had hitherto fought the
battle of life for them, were obliged to become producers in the place
of being consumers.

The distress experienced by workers of this class wrought that great
revolution in thought which involved the education of women. This is one
of the accepted factors of the present period. At that time agitation
was rife as to what should be done for the advancement of women as
workers. Miss Virginia Penny, in a book called “Think and Act,”[175]
advocated the entrance of women into the trades and professions that
were monopolized by men. “Apprentice,” she says, “ten thousand women to
watchmakers; train ten thousand for teachers to the young; make ten
thousand good accountants; put ten thousand more to be deaconesses
trained by Florence Nightingale; put some thousands in the electric
telegraph offices all over the country; educate one thousand lecturers
for mechanics’ institutes; one thousand to read the best books to the
working-people; train up ten thousand to manage washing-machines,
sewing-machines, etc. Then the distressed needle-woman will vanish, the
decayed gentlewoman and broken-down governess cease to exist.”

Writers like Gail Hamilton in the North and Catherine Cole in the South
urged the higher education of women; their right to be educated the same
as man; “to enter the same pursuits, receive the same wages, occupy the
same posts and professions, wield the same influence, and, in a word, be
independent of man as a means of support.”

These strangely reasonable, though novel propositions, met with as much
public condemnation at the time as though, in place of being suggestions
for elevating women into skillful, rational workers, they had advocated
turning them into gamblers and drunkards. The fact was ignored that the
majority of women had always been engaged in carrying on some kind of
necessary industry, if only in untaught, helpless ways. Hence it became
fashionable to say that “woman as a worker was a product of modern
times.” Her entrance into the ranks of wealth-producers and wage-earners
was called the “New Departure,” and was deplored by writers as
calculated, by thwarting nature’s evident design in making her
child-bearer, child-trainer, and house-mother, to rob her of special
gifts of grace, beauty, and tenderness. The error of the day, it was
argued, lay in the thought that woman should be self-supporting, and she
was implored to stop and consider what homes would become,

Where woman reigns, the mother, daughter, wife,
Strews with fresh flowers the narrow way of life,

if “woman was to take her place beside man in every field of coarse,
rough toil.”

The peculiarity of these arguments, intended to dissuade women from
being workers, was, that while poets, philosophers, and essayists were
picturing women as weak, tender creatures, clinging for protection to
man as the vine to the oak, the lovely presiding geniuses of homes, the
expenders of wealth produced by man, there were, according to the census
of 1860, one million women working by the side of men in various domains
of “coarse, rough toil.” These writers, clergymen for the most part,
made the mistake, common to people in comfortable circumstances, of
looking on the small, glittering world of dazzling drawing-rooms and
boudoirs, where an elegant, dainty womanhood presides, as “woman’s
world.” Living in this, they became blinded to that other, larger world
of women without homes, with no time for the cultivation of the graces
or personal adornment, who were obliged to work if they would live.

According to the newspapers of 1867 and of 1870, out of seventy thousand
women (wage-earners) in the city of New York, not including domestics,
twenty thousand were in a constant fight with starvation and pauperism.
Seven thousand lived in cellars. Those who got sewing to do worked from
seven in the morning until midnight making shirts at six cents apiece.
The most rapid workers could scarcely, even with those long hours, make
one dozen shirts and thus earn their seventy-two cents per day. The pay
for drawers, undershirts, and blouses was in proportion. We read that in
Boston there were, in 1868, “twenty thousand women working at starvation
rates; eight thousand workers at twenty to twenty-five cents per day,
twelve thousand workers for less than fifty cents, and even at these
rates there was little work.” These women lived at times, it is said,
“on one cracker a day for breakfast, dinner, and supper,” working from
“dawn to dawn” to “get one mouthful of food.” In this same year, the New
York journals reported thirty thousand girls struggling in that city
with starvation and cold, making shirts and furnishing the thread at
sixpence each. The condition of seventy-five thousand working women in
the city beggared description. The New York _Herald_ described them as
living in “nasty tenement houses, in cellars unfit for human habitation,
in pools of foulness, where every impurity is matured and every vice
flourishes.” Women who could get sewing-machines worked at them for
$2.50 per week, and the forty-one cents per day that they earned
represented the work, if not the wages, of six other women.

The helplessness, the misery, the degradation of womanhood, laboring and
starving on beggarly wages in rich and prosperous cities, arrested the
attention of the thinking class to woman’s needs as it has never been
arrested before. How to help woman to better her condition became, in
1868, one of the burning questions of the day. Gail Hamilton, Mrs.
Stephens, Miss Penny, and others, attributed the distress of the factory
and needle-women to the lack of educational training which obliged women
to crowd into occupations requiring little, if any, skill. To remedy
this, the establishment of industrial schools was advocated. Men, it was
reasoned, had their trades’ apprenticeship system, schools, and
universities, by which they were educated into a knowledge of many
things; and by applying the same method to women, giving some thousands
of them a professional training in each of the various trades, arts, and
sciences useful to mankind, the ranks of the factory-seekers and
needle-women in search of employment would be thinned sufficiently to
cause the anomaly to vanish of millions of adult human beings laboring
as men for the pay of children, and yet paying as men for whatever they
got. Other remedies agitated were those of woman suffrage and the
organization of women into societies for mutual protection and benefit.

Small private attempts at industrial schools for the advancement of
women, such as the “Wilson Industrial School” in New York, had been
started by the benevolence of individuals as early as 1856; but the
first serious attempt to give practical shape to the question of higher
education for women was undertaken when Peter Cooper made the advantages
of the institute founded by him and bearing his name, free in all its
departments, to women as to men. The Cooper Institute, opened to the
public in 1859, had its free art classes for women, where art was taught
in its application to the industries. The Cooper Art School is said to
be, even now, “the largest in the world for women.” From its inception a
few women were found ready to avail themselves of the opportunity given
them to study art in its various income-producing forms. But not until
after the close of the war, when conditions made it urgent upon women to
work on new lines, did the classes increase to any extent. (Then
hundreds more than could be accommodated applied for admission.) Names
were placed in the roll-book a year ahead, and the classes, through
their increased size, overflowed into rooms not intended for their use.
The number of students in the free art classes, for the season of
1889–90, was 310. For this season there were 693 applicants for
admission to the free art classes. The accommodations do not admit of
but few over 300.

In this one phase of work accomplished for women in the United States,
there was much that was attractive to the class drawn into the Cooper
Institute, a class that belonged neither to the rich nor to the
extremely poor. The large, light, airy rooms were formed, many of them,
into charming studios, filled with tasteful studies, articles of
bric-a-brac, stuffs, and, occasionally, growing plants. Books, pictures,
and engravings on art were supplied them in the art rooms. Descending
three flights of broad stone steps, lined on each side with studies in
plaster and on paper, there was the free library, a room of magnificent
proportions, 125 × 30 feet, glass-domed, and containing 21,276 bound
volumes, nearly 5000 unbound, and having always on file 189 magazines
and 393 of the best newspapers, American and foreign. It can be imagined
what godsends these treasures of art and literature were to women of
talent, whose work had hitherto been conducted without any, or the most
meager, advantages. To add to their value, the work of training pupils
was intrusted to teachers capable of drawing out latent possibilities.
The line of industrial work done in the Cooper Institute consisted of
the arts of design as applied to making patterns for stained glass,
wall-papers, oilcloths, textile fabrics, carpets, and adapting the
patterns of Oriental rugs for the American market. Other forms of art
consisted in coloring photographs, portrait crayon drawing, and in late
years wood-engraving, for which women developed an unusual aptitude.
When pupils attained sufficient proficiency in any of these branches,
they were permitted to add to their incomes by executing orders from
business firms for pay. Profits from this source almost maintained some
of the most expert during their last school years. The students in 1889,
and the graduates of May, 1888, earned in this way, during the year,
$17,805.

A wise discretionary power given the trustees of the Cooper Institute,
“to add such other art or trade to the curriculum as would tend to
furnish women with suitable employment,” led to the establishment, in
1869, of a class in telegraphy and in 1884, of a stenographic and
type-writing class. Both of these combined, educated about one hundred
women yearly in those professions. The expense of carrying on all the
departments of woman’s work was, in 1889, one-fifth of the whole
expenses of the building, and barely reached $10,000—an outlay
surprisingly small for the equipment of about four hundred women,
educated to maintain themselves, and influence, by teaching and example,
the minds of the many with whom they come into contact.

Significant as was the work performed by this institution, devoted to
art and science, it was, nevertheless, felt by charitable individuals
that something more was needed in the way of instruction for the mass of
women who toiled without chance of coming within the sphere of its
beautiful influence. Wealthy philanthropists, whose sympathies were
touched by the lives of the workers, sought to help women in many other
ways. The Young Women’s Christian Association of New York recognized
early the necessity of educating self-supporting women in many of the
skilled industries. This association, which, of late years, has become a
power for good in almost all the large cities of the United States,
instituted in New York, as part of its plan of work, free classes for
training women in commercial arithmetic, penmanship, book-keeping, and
type-writing. An industrial department was created for teaching
dressmaking in all its branches of cutting, fitting, hand and machine
sewing. In imitation of the Cooper, art classes were formed for teaching
the retouching of photo-negatives, photo-coloring, mechanical and
free-hand drawing, modeling, and design. To still further carry out its
program “to care for the temporal, mental, and moral welfare of the
self-supporting women of New York City,” a free library was attached to
the building and a series of free concerts, readings, and lectures
provided for. Through these and other means of physical culture, Bible
and choir classes, employment bureaus, board directories, and a
department for the sale of goods made in sewing-classes, about five
thousand persons were reached during the year of 1887. The number of
pupils in all classes was reported as 965. But with the best intentions,
this organization, like the Cooper, failed to reach the women who live
and work in the city’s slums. Its applicants were those who had first
graduated from the public schools and then, helpless as babes, had
availed themselves of the splendid opportunity it offered for gratuitous
instruction in some wage-earning industry. When Miss Graffenried, of the
United States Labor Bureau for 1889, went among the women in tenements,
factories, and shops, out of three thousand interviewed, she said, “Not
one was known to have come under the influence of this noble
organization.”

Besides schools such as the Cooper and the Woman’s Christian Union, that
were specially designed for educating women in industrial trades, so
many other ways were thought out for bettering their condition, that one
might well call the years from 1868 on, the philanthropic era for women.
So numerous were the societies started for their relief that scarcely a
need existed that an organization of some kind did not attempt to fill,
and each in its particular way emphasized Emerson’s truth, “there is
more kindness in the world than ever was spoken.” Through the efforts of
a few liberal-minded, energetic men and women, there was established in
New York, in 1868, a society called the “Working Woman’s Protective
Union,” that purposed to provide “women with legal protection against
the frauds and impositions of unscrupulous employers, to assist them in
procuring employment, and to secure them such suitable departments of
labor as are not occupied by them.” From the start, the novel work done
by this society was appreciated by the class it was intended to help.
Perfectly unsectarian, with all its services _gratis_, the rooms, first
on Bleecker Street, and for the past twenty years on Clinton Place, were
thronged by women in distress desirous of legal counsel, matronly
advice, or help to better work. At all times chance visitors could see
women waiting in the front room, while the superintendent gave
sympathetic ear in the rear apartment to some earlier comer. One day in
each week was known as “complaint day.” On that day the legal
representative of the Union received and examined the complaints that
the superintendent deemed worthy of prosecution. What the society has
done in the twenty-five years of its existence is summed up in the
statement that on an annual outlay of $5000 it has fought and won the
legal battles of 12,000 women, who would otherwise have been defrauded
of their hard-earned wages by unscrupulous employers. It has collected
by legal processes $41,000, in sums averaging $4 each, and supplied in
twenty-five years more than 300,000 applicants with employment, advice,
or relief. As many of these applications were made by the same person
three or four different times, there were represented, perhaps, 10,000
applicants annually. It was of this society that Henry Ward Beecher said
the Union’s greatest and best work was “the mere fact of its existence,”
as this fact made employers more careful in withholding from the
working-woman her just dues.

When a plan to redress a wrong succeeds, it is sure to have imitators.
Societies in other cities followed the example of the Woman’s Protective
Union, and some of these branched out in directions unthought of by the
founders of the parent institution. The Woman’s Educational and
Industrial Union, in Boston, besides securing wages unjustly withheld
from working-women, added the task of investigating advertisements for
work to be done at home, and, if found fraudulent, warning women against
them. It procured situations for the unemployed; sold on commission the
fruits of woman’s work; opened a lunch-room where women could have
varied bills of fare at moderate prices, or where they could sit and eat
the luncheons brought from home. It included in its scope the
instruction of women in various points of law, such as those regarding
the relations between employer and employed, the hiring of rooms, and
the detention of property. It detailed agents to look up titles to
furniture that, by means of mortgage or insufficient payment of the
installments, might not belong to the seller. A feature was made of
holding lectures and mothers’ meetings, the purpose of the talks being
to lead women into higher planes of thought and action. One of the most
active endeavors was made in the line of securing the appointment of
police matrons in large cities.[176]

The honor of originating the parent Woman’s Protective Union in New York
belongs to men; but the establishment of both similar and widely
different societies in the United States is due to the zealous energy of
women themselves. The Woman’s Club in Chicago instituted, in 1866, a
Protective Agency that had for its objects the protection of woman’s
purity and honor, and her deliverance from swindlers and extortionists.
In the first year of its existence, it examined 156 complaints,
fifty-one of which were claims for money,—chiefly wages. These
aggregated $992.89. It is said to be the design of this agency “to
establish in the near future a loan fund for the benefit of those in
need of temporary assistance, and who, under existing conditions, are
obliged to pay usurious interest for money.”

Better than anything else, philanthropic work undertaken by women in
America shows the difference between past and present generations. A few
decades ago, woman’s attention was absorbed in organizing small, local,
sectarian sewing societies, Sunday-school classes, and church fairs.
After the Civil War these few circumscribed channels no longer sufficed
for woman’s activity, and an expansion took place that made itself felt
in the organization of societies for working-women. These took no heed
of sects, restricted in no way the compass of the schools designed for
them, and worked for humanity as a whole. In their management of these
institutions, women displayed an amount of executive ability and
enlightened interest in public need that surprised men. Because they had
never attempted organization on a large scale, they were supposed to
lack constructive talent. Some, with true conceptions of what society
should be as a whole, endeavored here and there to take away from the
institutions they founded, and over which they presided, the semblance
of that offensive charity which plumed itself formerly in making
petticoats for the poor,—

Because we are of one flesh after all.
And need one flannel (with a proper sense
Of difference in the quality),

or distributing stale bread and thin soup, together with homilies on the
virtues of contentment and the blessing of poverty and work. Along with
men, they fell into the swim of modern thought which attempted to render
institutions self-supporting through the co-operative efforts of those
availing themselves of their privileges. It was on these broad lines of
non-sectarianism, diversity of teaching for a sisterhood of women, and
the co-operative society in which there is strength, that there was
built up for the use of the working-women the various boarding-homes,
industrial schools, and stores for the disposal of woman’s handiwork. To
soften the harshest experiences of women thrown upon their own resources
for necessities of food and shelter, philanthropic women, and men, too,
made it their business to establish “boarding-homes,” where the price of
entrance was fixed at sums low enough to come within the reach of the
average wage-earning woman. The clean, quiet streets usually chosen for
these homes, contrasted with the filthy, crowded thoroughfares where the
cheap lodging-houses—the only resorts the average friendless
working-woman could afford—were most apt to be situated. The difference
within was as great as without. In place of the cold, comfortless rooms
which, as a rule, were destitute of fire or carpet, and where there was
neither reception-room for visitors, nor bath nor laundry for inmates;
the model boarding-houses had spacious, well-ventilated bedrooms
attractively adorned, with a neat parlor, usually a library or
reading-room, well warmed, brightly lighted, and inviting. Privileges of
bath-rooms and laundries were added to increase the comforts of the
boarders. Two of the best of these homes are to be found in Boston, one
on Warrenton, the other on Berkeley Street. These structures, built
under the auspices of the Woman’s Christian Association, are provided
with electric bells, ventilating appliances, and safeguards against
fire. Both houses have, besides offices and attendants, handsome
parlors, well-stocked reading-rooms, libraries, and lecture halls. One
of them possesses a fine gymnasium. The price for board and lodging
varies from $3 to $5.50 per week, but more than one-half of the guests
pay from $3 to $4 per week. In the two homes there exist accommodations
for about three hundred women. The sums named secure pleasant rooms,
well-prepared and neatly served meals, and include, besides washing and
ironing, heating and lighting of rooms, the use of reading-rooms,
library, parlor, and admission to all entertainments of the association.

In thirteen other cities in the United States there have been
established, by the same energetic society, one “home,” smaller, but
similar in character to the Boston homes. Connected with all of these,
and adding greatly to their usefulness, are departments for giving
instruction in sewing, teaching the art of dressmaking, and training
woman in housework. Chautauqua circles were organized among the
residents, and classes gotten up in which, for nominal sums, girls could
be taught the languages, book-keeping, type-writing, stenography,
painting, drawing, calisthenics, etc. Employment bureaus were attached,
which, by personal application or through correspondence, obtained
situations for those who were on its registers for services to be given,
or received. To still further extend their helpfulness, another
department, called the “Travelers’ Aid,” employed agents to meet
incoming steamers and direct unprotected girls to the Association Homes,
advise them as to the best and most economical means of transportation,
and the best way to secure employment. Several smaller organizations,
such as the “Helping Hand,” “Girls’ Friendly Society,” etc., instituted
homes that were carried on in much the same way. The benefits of
ventilation, cleanliness, and decent behavior were rigidly enforced,
while in general the most strenuous efforts were put forth to make the
homes so far self-supporting that their residents could look on them as
co-operative enterprises, in which, by combination and judicious
management, the funds each expended singly, brought them all unitedly,
comforts which would have been impossible without such action.

To propagate the idea of the value of co-operation among women, whether
workers or not, was perhaps the most useful thing accomplished by the
boarding-home societies. So far the number of these institutions has
been limited, so that they suggest what could be done rather than
indicate what has been accomplished in brightening the lives of the
great mass of homeless working-women. In Boston, where these “homes” are
most numerous, there are, for a population of eighty thousand
wage-earning women, but six of these dwellings. Altogether, the limit of
their accommodations is about 387 boarders. In these meager results, for
so much energetic, philanthropic work, the abortiveness is shown of
private individualistic attempts to supplant by means of model
co-operative boarding-homes, the cheap and nasty tenement
lodging-houses, situated too often in close proximity to gin-shops,
gambling dens and brothels. By the numbers who vainly seek admission
into the few boarding-homes that have been established in various large
cities, the fact is proved that were the idea of co-operative homes
carried out to largest national issues and placed everywhere within
reach of wage-earning women, all but the most debased would avail
themselves of their privileges, and thus secure the comforts and good
living enjoyed so rarely by women whom circumstances compel to labor.

Another phase of work initiated by women, and which, like the
boarding-homes, needs only to be carried out on the broad and liberal
lines of a national co-operation to become a power for universal good,
were the exchanges, or stores, instituted for the purpose of selling
hand or machine-made articles of woman’s manufacture, and which gave the
maker the full price they brought, less a ten per cent. commission and a
membership fee of $5 for maintaining the establishment. In this way, the
founder of the Woman’s Exchange hoped to solve the ever-perplexing
problem of finding a remunerative market for the work that women had
been taught to do in the various art and industrial schools. At the time
the first exchange was planned in New York, some ten years ago,
thousands of women, graduates from the various art schools, were at work
in stores and factories decorating china, painting household adornments
such as portières, screens, wall-hangings, and doing all kinds of fancy
work at prices but little, if any, beyond the wages of the average
worker on men’s and women’s clothing. To direct this work into a
channel, where the maker and not the employer would receive the profit,
was what the originator of the exchange proposed to do for women pressed
by poverty into the ranks of the bread-winners.

From the first, the exchange became popular with a certain class, and
had a most phenomenal growth, forty having come into existence during
the last decade, all of which are working successfully on the same
general plan. A walk through the rooms of the parent institution, now
established in a handsome building at 329 Fifth Avenue, shows the number
and variety of workers who availed themselves of its privileges. In the
salesrooms, hand-painted and embroidered tapestries hang on the walls;
artistic screens, painted or embroidered on all conceivable materials,
stand in every nook and corner; elaborately decorated china for ornament
or table use lies piled on shelves; while textile fabrics of all kinds,
made up into articles for wall decorations, bed and table use, or
personal wear, are tastefully arranged on counters or within glass
cases. On the upper floors in the building, women are kept constantly at
work inspecting, marking, and ticketing goods sent in by consignees. In
the basement are the storehouse and restaurant for receiving and selling
cakes, pickles, preserves, and other edibles, sent to be disposed of for
the benefit of the makers.

In this one establishment the sales for the year 1888 amounted to
$51,180.26. The aggregate sold in the cake and preserve department
amounted to $13,256.89. One consignee of chicken jelly, etc., got during
the year $1,256.89. Of two consignees in the cake and preserve
department one received $1,019.73, the other $772.42. Things sent to the
lunch-room for Sunday night teas brought one consignee the comfortable
little income of $965.78. From the sale of children’s wrappers alone,
one consignee received $548.66, and one woman for screens, decorated
frames, etc., $1105.71. One consignee received during the spring and
fall months $217.35 for articles which she had previously made for
manufacturers at $2.50 apiece, and which were sold for $35 each. In the
order department connected with the exchange, the work done consisted of
1263 pieces of plain sewing, 1784 pieces of English embroidery, 1100
painted articles, and 2033 fancy articles. From the forty other
societies then in existence the reports showed a grand aggregate of over
one million dollars from sales during the year.

These figures demonstrate how thoroughly practical the scheme is of
sending hand-made articles to special magazines to be disposed of for
the makers’ benefit. The woman who, by sending her work to the exchange,
got $35 for what she, as a wage-earner, had received $2.50 from the
manufacturer, got the profit that had previously gone to swell the
bank-account of the manufacturer, middle men, and retail dealers. This
was the same with all contributors to the exchanges; by employing their
own labor they accumulated the premiums which, under the old factory and
store system, inured to the benefit of their employers. In establishing
the woman’s exchanges, the difficulty was to secure enough women of
intelligence to be their own employers and to interest enough women in
woman’s work to become patrons of the exchanges instead of the stores.
For instance, to meet the expenses of the Fifth Avenue establishment in
1888, the income from all sources was $13,589.56, while the expenses of
carrying on the business amounted to $16,318.48. This left a deficit of
$2723.92 that had to be met by donations, and which kept the institution
on a partly charitable instead of wholly self-supporting basis. As this
deficit had lessened with each year, some optimistic thinkers began to
hope that the time was coming when it would disappear altogether, and
thus allow them to become strictly co-operative instead of philanthropic
concerns. A conclusion reached was, that were they once to become
independent of charitable donations, they would branch out largely
enough in most of the worst paid departments of woman’s work so as to
force out those employed on such labor for the vast retail stores. But
it was found that an insuperable obstacle to the extension of the
exchanges lay in the utter lack of system with which contributors
worked. In the matter of production, the regular stores had but little
system; still some attempt was made in them to regulate the supply of
manufactured goods to meet a possible or expected demand. Contributors
to the exchanges had no such guide. Those who made and sent articles for
sale could have no opportunity for knowing what others were making and
sending. The result was that women living near or afar off in town and
country worked completely in the dark. With no finger on the public
pulse in the matter of supply and demand for goods, they were obliged
for this haphazard work to purchase their own material in small
quantities in the retail markets, while the merchant-manufacturers
bought theirs in bulk in the cheapest. This could only mean more
failures than successes in the disposal of goods made under such
conditions. Again, only women possessed of some means could afford to
lay out money for materials and wait the uncertain chances of its
returning to them with a profit. In consequence, most of those
contributing articles to the exchanges for sale were “reduced
gentlewomen,” who made use of this means of becoming their own
employers, not so much for support, as to better their conditions of
living, without the publicity consequent upon working for manufacturers.
This in itself made it impossible for the exchanges (as was claimed by
their supporters) to have “_helped women in general to have hushed the
‘Song of the Shirt.’_”[177] To the women of the proletariat, the
exchanges were not only unknown mediums by reason of their situation in
fashionable thoroughfares, but forbidden factors because of their
attendant risks and expenses. The number of sewing women helped in them
to increased earnings was too insignificant to warrant any hope that the
co-operative principles underlying their business methods would ever
spread far enough to leave any impress upon prevailing modes of work in
the business world. Like all other remedies, instituted by wealthy
philanthropists to assist the working-women, they were palliatives for
the ills of a few, not curatives for the sufferings of the many.

Much more satisfactory than anything which had been accomplished in the
name of philanthropy or charity for working-women were the labor
organizations founded by the proletariat and sustained by their own
energy and contributions. About 1870, associations of working-people
(including women) were inaugurated for the purpose of gaining better
social conditions. These were more attractive and beneficial to the
laboring class because they lacked that element of restitution of a
modicum of withheld wages which tainted all that wealth did for the
alleviation of the condition of wage-earning women,[178] and, moreover,
was built upon the sounder philosophy of an endeavor to organize into
bodies capable of striving collectively for their own deliverance, that
class of women whom the industrial schools, women’s exchanges, etc.,
could not reach. The most important of these bodies was the Knights of
Labor. Organized openly in 1881 at the Detroit Convention, but more
secretly some years before, this body welcomed women into its ranks on
the ground of seeking “to gather into one fold all branches of honorable
toil, without regard to nationality, sex, creed, or color.” Trade
assemblies, composed entirely of working-women, were formed, and the
members were taught the beautiful principles on which the order was
founded. In amalgamating with knights, women assumed the duties of the
new chivalry. Engaging as equals in the undertaking, helping with time
and money to carry out the new mission, they sought by Agitation,
Education, and Organization to lighten the burden of toil, and to
elevate the moral and social condition of mankind. In 1883, one local
assembly, composed entirely of women, counted fifteen hundred members.
These must all have given adherence to that order’s doctrine of “Equal
pay for equal work,” and “woman’s equitable consideration with man in
the Nation’s government.” Mrs. Leonora Barry, who had been a factory
worker for some years in Central New York, became the chief officer of a
trade assembly of nine hundred and twenty-seven women. Later, in 1886,
she was elected a delegate to the general assembly, by which she was
commissioned “to go forth and educate her sister working-women and the
public generally as to their needs and necessities.”

The open declaration of this powerful organization,—that women possessed
equal rights with men,—showed, as much as anything else, the advance of
public sentiment in regard to women. Its educational influence extended
outside the ranks of the order. Most of the women members were drawn
from the employees in factories producing clothing, textile fabrics,
food, tobacco, etc., and from the trades of typography, telegraphy, and
stenography. In the mixed local assemblies women have an equal chance
with men to express their views upon subjects bearing on the labor
question. And even where women sat quiet, as most frequently happened,
without taking share in the debates, one of the valuable purposes of the
order was said to be served by the information and larger views which
came to them through these discussions. In assemblies composed entirely
of women, of whom not one, perhaps, could boast of more than a minor
part of a common school education, ideas were advanced for their
financial as well as educational benefit. Factory operatives, coming
under their influence, became shareholders in co-operative concerns.
Co-operative shirt factories, conducted solely by women, were
established in Baltimore and New York. A co-operative knitting mill was
set up at Little Falls, N. Y., while other co-operative industries
throughout the land came, through co-operative principles, into the
possession of the workers. A co-operative tailoring establishment in
Chicago had its rise in the lock-out of a few factory girls who attended
a labor parade without permission. With the luck that comes with pluck,
they became possessed of $400, through soliciting subscriptions. With
this they went into business and succeeded. It is claimed, that inside
of nine months they had done $36,000 worth of business, besides having
the gratification of being their own employers.

This departure from the custom prevailing among the proletariat to sell
their services for wage-hire, was due largely to the demand made in the
nineteenth plank of the platform of the Knights of Labor for the
abolition of the wage system and a national system of co-operation in
lieu thereof. The insertion of such a demand proved the founders of the
order to have been thinkers radical enough to go a step beyond the old
idea of trades organizations with their petty notions of each trade
working solely in its own interests. In comparison with the broad and
lofty conception of the Knights of Labor, which sought to include in its
benefits all women and men engaged in every department of industrial
work, other organizations, such as the American Federation of Labor,
which is a mere rope of sand, showed themselves away in the rear-guard
of progressive civilization by placing themselves solely on the old
competitive and selfish trades union basis.

The next largest organization that took women into its body on terms of
equality was “The Granger Association of Western Farmers.”[179] Founded
in 1870, this association of the agriculturists of the country proposed
to do for women on the farms what the societies had done for them in the
other industries. They formulated as a principle “that no Grange should
be organized, or exist, without women.” This act was held to be the
emancipation of women on the farms, as that of the Knight of Labor had
been in the trades. In their public meetings, women were invited to take
part in the discussions of plans for mutual benefit, for usefulness and
culture. The principles of co-operation, which brought them together,
extended to the buying of all descriptions of goods in bulk. This, by
increasing the purchasing power of limited incomes, increased the
comforts and attractions of homes that would otherwise have been
deprived of them. The women who entered the Granges held a conspicuous
place in the national census of agricultural operators and producers of
national wealth. They were engaged in the farm labors of milking, making
butter and cheese, raising poultry, preserving eggs, and gathering honey
for market and home consumption. Vegetable gardens, fruit orchards,
viticulture, berry plants, and shrubs of many millions’ value were
largely attended to by them; while planting, weeding, haying,
harvesting, tilling the soil, and caring for live-stock were rapidly
added to the list of women’s occupations on the farm. To bring a new
brightness into the lives of these toilers was an avowed object of the
Grange. It proposed, by bringing men and women together with communities
of interests, to effect a great moral and social good, and thus elevate
them from slaves and drudges into a “better and higher manhood and
womanhood.”

As “the thoughts of men were widened by the processes of the suns,” the
idea gained ground that if organization was good for women in one
direction, it might be good in all. Men began, about 1884, to receive
women into their trades’ unions, and a few energetic women in various
States started working-women’s unions that comprised the members of
different trades. The Cigar and Typographical Unions were among the
first to admit women into their bodies. The Cigar-Makers’ Union of
Denver, a branch of the International Cigar-Makers’ Union, admitted
women to membership and made no distinction on account of color. Through
the efforts of the union, the hours of labor were reduced from ten to
eight, and the rate of wages, as they expressed it, “raised from a mere
pittance to respectable living wages.” Typographical unions were much
praised for their gallantry in forcing employers to agree to their terms
of “Equal work, equal pay, equal terms of apprenticeship for both
sexes.” This chivalric aspect was somewhat dimmed by the refusal
afterward of some union men to work in the same offices with women.
Employers were frequently given the option of choosing between having
all men or all women at the cases, and the struggle usually ended in
favor of the men. How this worked to the disadvantage of women can be
seen by referring to the California Bureau of Labor Statistics for 1889,
where the statement is that the book and job printing houses in San
Francisco employing union help had only three women in three separate
printing establishments as against one hundred and nineteen men; while
in the non-union, the proportion was forty-eight women against
eighty-five men. Since the investigations of the Bureau, the number of
union women employed is said to be “much increased.” This in regard to
wages means a great deal to women, as the unions have a fixed scale
which ranges from eighteen to thirty dollars for week or time work. In
one of the largest printing establishments in San Francisco, women
compositors not in the unions received as wages nine dollars per week as
against fifteen dollars for men; proof-readers, nine dollars against
eighteen dollars for men. Forewomen and foremen were paid in the same
ratio. Discrepancies like these, of fifty per cent. difference in the
wages of women, because they were women, proved the value of an
association that insisted upon the justice of “equal pay for equal
work.”

Trade organizations composed exclusively of women were instituted
timidly and tentatively in the large cities.[180] Though protective
rather than educational, the instruction given in the few trades unions
established by and for women possessed a very broadening character. Able
speakers, frequenting the meetings, familiarized the members with the
economic theories advanced as to the value of the co-operative
principle, the duties owed by the strong to the weak, and the
correlation between woman’s best interests and the interests of the
State. The experience of the trades unions proved the absurd fallacy of
the time-worn objection against women’s guilds, “that it would unsex
them,” for the effect of their organizations was to make their members
more unselfish and more womanly, more apt to think of the good of all
than of a part, and, through the importance of being one of a large body
working for some common weal, less inclined to frivolous ends.

To wage-working women, one important practical result of labor
combinations was the concession made by legislators, through fear of
losing the labor vote, to the demand for Bureaus of Labor Statistics,
which should show the actual condition of men and women engaged in any
and every department of labor. Massachusetts, always first in the field
of reform, established such a bureau of labor statistics in 1869. Other
States followed slowly in her wake. By 1887 twenty-two States had
recognized the importance of having similar bureaus. Among them was “the
Department of Labor,” instituted in Washington in 1885, for the purpose
of doing collectively for the whole people what the individual States
were to accomplish separately. When the Massachusetts Labor Bureau went
into operation, its chief, General Henry K. Oliver, a man of liberal
views, endeavored to ascertain the conditions under which industrial
women worked. The means employed were:

I. Personal investigation.

II. Distribution of printed forms with blanks for employed and employers
to fill.

III. Summons to witnesses from the employed and employing classes to
testify.

IV. Soliciting information through correspondence.

Through the recommendation of ladies interested in the question of
ascertaining the conditions of working-women, General Oliver associated
one of their own sex, Miss Adeline Bryant, with the work of the bureau.
In the third year of the bureau’s existence five women were placed on
the staff of helpers. The precedent set by Massachusetts of employing
women as investigators was followed in turn by the other State bureaus
and by the “Department of Labor” at Washington.

The investigations of the bureau of 1869 covered the thirty-five
industries in which the working-women of Massachusetts were then
engaged. Published in 1870, the report of the bureau corroborated the
accounts given by the press of that year concerning the low wages, long
hours of work, and miserable state of living that was the lot of the
wage-earning women in the manufacturing towns of Massachusetts. General
Oliver himself assisted in the personal investigation carried on in
Boston. Accompanied by the Chief of Police, he visited the homes of
“poor-paid laborers,”—women and men,—and found that the homes of the
laborers are a pretty accurate index of the social, industrial,
sanitary, educational, and moral standard of the laborers themselves.
The result of his work was a recommendation for further and more
thorough research. “Such investigations,” he said, “will reveal a state
of things at which the people of Massachusetts will gaze with amazement,
disgust, and anger, and demand a bettering of the wrong.”

Investigations by blanks and by summons to witnesses was less successful
than the personal interview. The mass of the people were ignorant of
what the bureau sought to accomplish by their questions; hence not more
than twenty per cent. of the employers and thirty-three per cent. of the
employed addressed returned replies. A dread on the part of
manufacturers and shopkeepers, lest “out of their own mouths they should
be condemned,” prevented them from answering, and those under them were
restrained to silence through fear of losing employment. In spite of the
risk, courageous women replied to the blanks and gave personal testimony
sufficient to enable the commission to form a partial estimate of the
social and economic conditions of the whole. The statistics presented by
the bureau were said to have reached “the very verge of human society.”
Said Mrs. Atkinson, speaking of the reports on the working-women, “The
stern fact, the thrilling incident, the woeful spectacle, the harrowing
sight of squalor and wretchedness are marshaled before our eyes in a
great and terrible array.” The subjects investigated were: Housework,
Hotel and Saloon work, Home work, Store work. Under the Home work was
classified sale work; under Store work, clerks, accountants, saleswomen,
and cash girls. All that could be found out concerning women in these
employments was printed and presented by General Oliver to the
Legislature and to the public, without any of the softening touches
common to later reports.

The next extended investigation into the occupations and history of
wage-earning women was made in 1884, at the instigation of Mr. Carroll
D. Wright, who, in 1874, had superseded General Oliver as chief of the
Massachusetts Bureau. The research undertaken by Mr. Wright had for its
object the ascertainment of the “moral, sanitary, physical, and
economical” condition of all wage-earning women in Boston, except those
employed in domestic service. This was a larger field than that covered
in 1869. Woman’s occupations had multiplied in the earlier year
five-fold over what they were in 1840, when, to Harriet Martineau’s
surprise, seven vocations, outside of housework, were all into which the
women of the United States had entered. In 1884 they were more than ten
times seven. Methods of working had also become more difficult to
classify. One by one domestic industries were relegated from the home to
the factory. And in most of these, what had been done by one person had
become differentiated into numerous parts, requiring the co-operation of
many workers. Thus, in the occupation of making men’s and women’s
clothing, there were classified in 1884 as many as 103 subdivisions.
Altogether, in the seventy distinct industries catalogued, there were
354 subdivisions of industries, and each one of these parts employed a
different set of workers. It was important that a number of
representative women should be interviewed in each of these departments;
for, even where each branch formed part of a distinct whole, each worker
in those branches had interests at variance with the others.

The force of women engaged in the industries of Boston had also
seemingly almost doubled in the five years from 1880 to 1885. Exclusive
of domestic service, the number of women in all other industries was
estimated in the United States census of 1880 at 20,000; in the
Massachusetts Census Report for 1885 at 39,647. With this apparent
doubling of the population, the amount distributed in wages had not
doubled, and so all that had been bad in the conditions of wage-earning
women in previous years was heightened because there was nothing to
relieve it. On account of all this, the appearance of the report of 1884
was anxiously looked for by large numbers of persons who had become
familiar with the line of work of the bureaus. Great, therefore, was the
public surprise at finding the whole report so biased in favor of the
law-making, shop-keeping, manufacturing class as to prove valueless as
an investigation into the condition of women dependent on wages for
their living. The statistical information it contained, although
arranged in the formidable manner common to the expert statistician,
needed no careful scrutiny of its figures to establish the truth of
Disraeli’s proposition that “nothing is so unreliable as facts, unless
it is figures.”

However, the work done by the Boston Bureau, although misleading in
itself, had the good effect of stimulating similar research in other
places. In the following year, 1885, the first part of the Third New
York Report was devoted to an investigation of the condition of the
working-women of New York City. It was estimated that in that year over
two hundred thousand women were employed in the various trades of that
city, exclusive of those in Brooklyn. The number of industries,
exclusive of domestic service, and without counting subdivisions, was
ninety. Scarcely any European city offered so wide and diversified a
field for inquiry as this; and yet the commissioner, Mr. Charles F.
Peck, claimed that, through lack of time, in place of any close and
searching inquiry “into special conditions of the effects of these
employments on the physical development of women and its relation to the
social, commercial, and industrial prosperity of the State,” he was
obliged to content himself “with a general survey, instead of that
minute and detailed examination which the subject would justify.”

Mr. Peck discovered, as his predecessors in Massachusetts had done, that
at all times the questions involved in the conditions of working-women
resolved themselves into those of “wages, hours, health, and morals.”
With regard to the first, he found that the wages of women, as a rule,
were, in 1885 as in 1869, less than one-half that obtained by men,—the
remuneration being widely different even where the work performed was
the same. In those professions or trades in which women were organized,
and for equal work received equal pay with men,—as printers,
cigar-makers, and hatters,—the men themselves received very low pay. In
the tenement-house factories, the women engaged in cigar-making numbered
four thousand. These were employed in the branches paying the lowest
wages, as stripping and binding. For these, the pay seldom averaged $5
per week, and then was not steady the year round. The manufacturers gave
as reason for hiring so many women, “That they could get them for fifty
per cent. less than men.” Capmakers earned from $3 to $4.50 per week;
compositors all the way from $8 to $16 per week. One of the new branches
of work into which women had entered was that of polishing marble. The
manager of the Niagara Marble Works testified that they employed from
twenty-five to thirty women, whose wages averaged from $4.50 to $8 per
week, men getting for the same kind of work from $1.50 to $3 per day.
When asked if “they could get men to work for the same wages as women?”
the reply was, “Hardly, unless they were boys, and then they would not
be so skillful.”

But it was in the class of work that has always been called “woman’s
work” that the bureaus found the most beggarly wages paid. A
manufacturer of pants, vests, shirts, and overalls testified that he
gave from fifteen to thirty-five cents apiece for making vests;
seventy-five cents to $1.50 per dozen for shirts, and from twelve and a
half cents to twenty-five cents a pair for pants. Boy’s gingham waists,
with trimming on neck and sleeves, were paid for at the rate of two and
a half cents each. By working steadily at the machine from six o’clock
in the morning until one at night, the seamstress could make twenty-five
cents a day at this “shop work.” The inmates of several charitable
institutions in the city were found by the commissioner crocheting
ladies’ shawls for twenty-five cents apiece. An expert, he was told,
could finish one in two days. This was all that the several Blanks & Co.
would pay, because competition for this kind of work was so great they
were able to get the work done for almost any price.[181] On woman’s
wear, the wages had been so reduced that it was alleged that a full
day’s work on a cloak brought from fifty to sixty cents. The visits of
the commissioner to some of the attic tenement-house rookeries, where
this work was carried on under the direction of “sweaters,” disclosed
numbers of cloak-makers working sixteen hours a day for fifty cents. In
those dens he saw stacks of cloaks piled on the floors ready to be sewn
together by women scantily clad, with hair unkempt, and whose pale,
abject countenances formed such pictures of physical suffering and want
as he trusted “he might never again be compelled to look upon.” The
style and quality of the cloaks upon which these women toiled were of
the latest and best. They were lined with quilted silk or satin and
trimmed with sealskin or other expensive material, and found ready sale
in the largest retail stores in the city at from thirty-five to
seventy-five dollars each.

To give some idea of how the cloak-makers lived on this pittance the
bureau gave a realistic engraving, done from a drawing taken on the
spot, in which it was endeavored to reproduce the outlines of one room
(as a sample exhibit of the rest) where six women sat at work under the
directions of sweaters. In size the room might possibly have measured
twelve by fourteen feet, and perhaps nine feet high. The atmosphere was
next to suffocating and dense with impurities. On one end of a table, at
which four of the women sat, was a dinner-pail partially filled with
soup (that is what they called it) and a loaf of well-seasoned bread.
These two courses, served with one spoon and one knife, satiated the
thirst and hunger of four working-women. In an adjoining side room,
without means for ventilation or light, the deadly sewer gas rose in
clouds from a sink. On the floor lay a mattress which partook in
appearance of the general filth found throughout the building. On this
mattress the cloak-makers, tired out by the long day’s work and faint
for want of food, threw themselves down and awaited the coming day’s
awful toil for bread. This, it was claimed, was neither a fanciful nor
exceptional picture; that a degree of want, misery, and degradation
existed among the working-women living in tenement houses next to
impossible to describe. “Certainly,” said the commissioner, “no words of
mine can convey to the public any adequate conception of the truly awful
condition of thousands of these suffering people. Formerly,” he wrote,
“Hood’s ‘Song of the Shirt’ gave sentimental celebrity to the wrongs of
the sewing-women, but it is not the shirt (alone) now, but the woman’s
cloak and the man’s coat or pants that draw tears and groans from the
overdone sewing-woman.”

Testimony elicited as to the workers in some of the trades, particularly
tobacco, was even more revolting than that concerning the sewing-woman.
In the report, wood-cuts were given of rooms such as a large proportion
of cigar-makers worked, lived, ate, and slept in. “These people,” it was
said, “worked till twelve P. M. or one o’clock A. M., then slept by the
machine a few hours, and commenced work again.” The description of women
sitting “surrounded by filth, with children waddling in it, whose hands,
faces, and bodies were covered with sores,” were sickening. Cankerous
sores were “even on the lips of the workers, they all the time handling
the tobacco that was made into cigars.” In the scale of sanitary
conditions of homes and workrooms, the cigar-makers were among the
lowest. Of bunch-makers and rollers, who replied to the questions of the
sanitary condition of their homes, but two out of 118 answered, “good.”
All of the rest wrote, “bad,” “very bad,” the “worst you ever saw,”
“miserable,” and “poor.” As to their workrooms, out of one hundred and
thirty, one hundred and three were without means for free circulation of
air. _One_ only possessed no offensive odors. The unhealthfulness of the
workrooms of the cigar-makers, the coat-makers, the tailoresses, and the
cloak-makers was about the same. Among this latter class of seamstresses
38 out of 41 answered that their surroundings were very offensive
through being “near offensive stables.” The order of the day was,
“general filth, water-closets, bad sewerage, dirty neighborhoods,
overcrowding, and poor ventilation.” Similar complaints came from
compositors in printing-offices, women in type-foundries, kid-glove
sewers, carpet-factory operators, and silk weavers.

While in many of the large factories the sanitary conditions were good
and proper, ventilation being secured,—when it did not interfere with
the work carried on,—there were other features that if less injurious to
health were quite as objectionable to the wage-worker. In the carpet and
silk factories, women were obliged to stand all day, as, though seats
were provided in many instances, fines were exacted from those using
them. It was the same with washing facilities; women employed in silk
establishments in weaving light-colored or white silks were fined as
high as fifty cents for washing their hands, and fines were also imposed
if spots got on the goods. Women testified that they were fined “if
discovered reading a letter, or a paper, or spoke to one another.” The
proprietor of one of these factories stated that the fines he collected
in this way he gave away in “charity,” and, “That five dollars a week
was enough for a girl to live on.” In some carpet factories the system
of fines was even more excessive. Women were docked as much as five
dollars if any accident happened to the machinery, which they were
compelled to clean while it was in motion. In one mill, they were “not
allowed to talk to one another during working hours or at noon, under
penalty of being docked or discharged.” The fine in some places for
being five minutes late was twenty-five cents, while a half-hour
over-time was exacted. How disproportionate this punishment was is
evident; those women who were fined at the rate of thirty dollars per
day, were being paid at the rate of eight cents an hour. When women were
not fined for being five minutes behind time, they were “locked out” for
two hours. These were the hands employed on piece work, and the loss of
two hours made, as it was intended, a large hole in the day’s earnings.
In most cases it was claimed that the amount of fines exacted was
optional with the foreman or superintendent, and that frequently they
were so excessive as to affect the whole pay of employees for weeks
ahead.

The tyranny of the strong and powerful over the weak and helpless,—which
found expression in the exaction of fines from those who were termed
variously “white slaves,” “slave girls,” “prisoners of poverty,”
etc.,—existed in another form in the long hours of labor demanded by the
Legrees of the industrial world from the wage-working women. While in
many factories the legal limit of sixty hours per week for minors, and
women under twenty-one, was observed, there were grave and numerous
exceptions to this rule among tobacco-workers, seamstresses, bakery
employees, etc., etc. In the cigar factories, the great majority of
bunch-makers and rollers, whether employed at home or in the factory
proper, were worked fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and even eighteen hours
a day. Operatives on clothing worked from nine to sixteen hours per day.
In the collar, cuff, and shirt-making factories in Troy, as well as the
laundries in that place, the hours were uniformly ten, and in New York
from eight to twelve. Milliners worked nine hours in factories and from
fourteen to sixteen at home. Feather-workers in factories nine to ten.
Operatives on ladies’ underwear eight to ten in factories; twelve to
fourteen hours at home. While this made a good showing for the factories
engaged in these industries, it must be remembered that much of the work
quoted as done “_at home_” was only a continuation of factory labor, as
work was in many cases taken home from these, either to supplement the
day’s earnings, or to oblige (?) employers, who withheld extra
compensation for the extra work exacted. In occupations requiring a
different kind of skill, or impossible at home, the hours were found to
be sometimes less than the legal limit. Those for compositors were from
eight to ten. Type-foundry operatives, seven and a half to nine.
Stenographers, telegraphers, and typewriters, from five and a half to
six, seven, and eight. Saleswomen, again, worked many hours over-time in
all except the largest houses, and during the holiday season these
largest stores were no longer exceptions. In fancy-goods stores,
millinery shops, bakeries, candy stores, etc., etc., no limit was placed
through the holidays,—that were in no sense holidays to
employees,—except the limit of physical endurance. In return no portion
of the extra profit this extra work brought was shared by proprietors
with their overtaxed employees.

Economically speaking, the worst of all the evils society perpetrated
against the working-women was that of forcing her into long hours of
continuous labor; for, whether standing at the looms and in the stores,
or sitting at the sewing-machine, specific diseases of the sexual organs
were induced, causing marriage to be followed by miscarriage or sickly
children. No original statistics were collected by the bureau to show
how far the health and morals of women engaged in industries were
affected by their employments, and what relation this influence exerted
in reference to woman’s position in the State. While this prevented the
report from being of full service to the political economist, to the
historian its pages were valuable as forming a succession of _genre_
pictures, otherwise unattainable, of the proletarian women, as they
lived, labored, and suffered in New York City in 1885.

An epidemic of investigation into women’s condition as wage-workers
followed the New York report. Five States—Maine, California, Colorado,
Iowa, and Minnesota—prepared separate chapters on the subject of the
working-women for their Bureaus of Labor Statistics for 1887–1888. In
New Jersey, although no original investigation was made by the State,
the bureau reprinted in 1887 a large portion of an excellent report on
“Woman’s Work and Wages,” gathered by Mrs. Barry in 1886 by order of the
Knights of Labor. The latest, and what should have been the best report,
was a national research into the social and economic environments of
wage-earning women in twenty-two of the largest and most representative
cities in the United States. This investigation, conducted under the
auspices of the Central Bureau at Washington, comprehended statistics
gained through interviewing and questioning personally 17,427 women
engaged in industrial pursuits. Undertaken in 1888, this national report
was printed in 1889, under the title of “Working-women in Large Cities.”
It formed a volume of 631 pages, mostly statistical tables, framed so as
to seem to cover the most important points concerning women as
industrial workers.

To two grades of readers these bureau publications were most welcome.
First, to the more intelligent among the working-class, “in whose humble
cabins,” it was said,[182] “complete sets of Bureau Reports could be
found preserved in calico covers having as many colors as ‘Joseph’s
coat,’ and presenting as much evidence of constant use as the old-time
spelling-book in a country school-house that was passed from scholar to
scholar until it has made the round of the school.” Second, to the
students of sociology, who pored over their pages, hoping to gain clear
ideas of what was going on in the working world of men and women.
Excellent though they were, these reports were nevertheless
disappointing, at least as far as they related to facts concerning
woman’s industrial position. The first and greatest disappointment for
readers was the fact that the number of wage-earning women interviewed
in any one place by the bureau agents was too small to give even an
approximate idea of the whole; e. g. the statistical tables of all
industries for New York City were founded on the testimony alone of 2984
women, while at that period (1889) the number of wage-earning women in
that city and Brooklyn was estimated at 300,000.(?) As this method of
taking one per cent. of the population of women as a guide by which to
estimate the conditions of all the others prevailed everywhere,
conclusions drawn from the presented statistics were, of necessity,
vitiated. To a certain extent they had to be accepted with allowance.

With all that this limitation implies, the bureau statistics are,
nevertheless, interesting as comprising the best data we have on which
to base assumptions of the industrial status of wage-earning women. In
regard to wages, the conclusions, though obviously inexact, still show
plainly enough that wages were regulated everywhere by the prices of
rent and food, and that only so much was paid as would keep life in the
worker. In the appended table, taken from the National Report for 1889,
it will be seen that in the South, where living is comparatively cheap,
wages are lower than in the West, where life’s necessaries come higher.
In the East they are a mean between the two.

AVERAGE WEEKLY EARNINGS, BY CITIES.
═════════════╤════════════════════════
CITIES. │AVERAGE WEEKLY EARNINGS.
─────────────┼────────────────────────
Atlanta │ $4.05
Baltimore │ 4.18
Boston │ 5.64
Brooklyn │ 5.76
Buffalo │ 4.27
Charleston │ 4.22
Chicago │ 5.74
Cincinnati │ 4.59
Cleveland │ 4.63
Indianapolis │ 4.67
Louisville. │ 4.51
Newark │ 5.10
New Orleans │ 4.31
New York │ 5.85
Philadelphia │ 5.34
Providence │ 5.51
Richmond │ 3.93
St. Louis │ 5.19
St. Paul │ 6.02
San Francisco│ 6.91
San Jose │ 6.11
Savannah │ 4.99
│ ————
All Cities │ $5.24
─────────────┴────────────────────────

In the 343 industries named in this report, for 1889, it will be seen
that the conditions under which women gained their livelihood had not
been bettered, and that, on the contrary, the testimony as published in
the other State reports disclosed a state of affairs similar to that
which Engels[183] described as existing among the same class of laboring
women in England in 1844. Nothing worse can be found in any of Engels’
descriptions than the following account (given in the New Jersey Report
for 1887–1888) of the tyranny practiced upon the linen thread spinners
of Paterson: “In one branch of this industry,” it is said, “women are
compelled to stand on a stone floor in water the year round, most of the
time barefoot, with a spray of water from a revolving cylinder flying
constantly against the breast; and the coldest night in winter, as well
as the warmest in summer, these poor creatures must go to their homes
with water dripping from their underclothing along their path, because
there could not be space or a few moments allowed them wherein to change
their clothing.”[184] Another account, which calls up the experiences at
Leeds and Lancaster in 1844, is taken from the Wisconsin Report for
1888. In the prosperous city of Janesville, in that highly favored State
described as a paradise for workers, the report tells of a factory “in
which some three hundred women and children are employed, who work
eleven and a half to twelve hours per day and night, the night being the
time most of the children are employed.” Although eight hours is the
legal working day in Wisconsin, and fourteen years the age limit at
which children may be employed, “many of the children are under fourteen
years of age, and all have to work eleven and a half hours.” The
thermometer averages, in the heated season, about 108 degrees ... and
loss of health follows women by reason “of the intense heat at night and
insufficient sleep in the day-time.”

These by no means exceptional cases show how conditions of work for
laboring women were increasing in intensity in the United States. That
they were becoming worse in other ways was evidenced in New England
manufacturing towns, where employment of women and children as the
cheaper wage-taking element was gradually extinguishing the male
operative.[185] In the manufacturing towns of Fall River, Lawrence,
Lowell, etc., the family life was so demoralized that men were obliged
to be supported in idleness by mothers, wives, or sisters or children,
because no work was to be had for them in the mills. It was said that
some of these men, displaced by the light-running machinery that a
child’s hand might guide, remained at home and did the housework and
minded the children, while the women went forth as the bread-winners;
others, less patient, took to loafing, and ended generally in prisons.
“This,” as Engels termed it, “insane state of things” affected all
unfavorably. Women learned to care so little for themselves that it was
said “a girl in Fall River comes out of the mill with bare feet and a
shawl thrown over her head, and all she cares for is a loaf of bread and
a mug of beer.” Children, going too early into the mills, were
corrupted, morally and physically; yet mothers, unable from their own
slender wages to support the family, were tempted to swear “false oaths
in regard to their children’s ages, so as to get them into the mills and
thus make more money.”

This Moloch of cheap labor, which demanded both women and children, did
not stop at making mothers commit perjury for the sake of bread; it
rifled the eleemosynary institutions of little ones left there for safe
keeping, and sent them in ship or car loads to the West.[186] The claim
was made in New York in 1888 that[187] “during the last forty years not
less than two hundred thousand children had been sent into the Western
States, many of whom had been sold outright,” by managers of asylums,
who refused to allow the names of these little ones to be known, for
fear that parents or relatives, who had surrendered them in seasons of
distress, might wish to reclaim them when fortunate enough to procure
work. These children, not sold in the open market as their black
brothers and sisters had been, but disposed of in the name of _Charity_,
had their identity concealed by change of name; cases are on record
where brothers and sisters have grown up, met, and married, and “after
marriage learned to their horror that they were children of the same
parents.”

Thus factory and farm-house had begun to stand in the United States as
they had in England from Queen Elizabeth’s days—as the fabled ogre’s
castles of ancient legend, which drew women and children into them to
serve and suffer hopelessly, unless relieved from captivity and death by
a stronger power. History repeated itself in this exploitation of women
and children and in the plans made for their relief. The broad system of
factory legislation, inspired in England by the revelations of the
cruelty practiced upon the most hapless portions of its population,
began to be imitated in the United States. Massachusetts, the pioneer
State in introducing salutary reforms, took the initiative, and in 1874
forced its Legislature to recognize that it was the duty of the State to
regulate the hours of labor of women and children engaged in the
manufactures. In that year, after a long series of discussions between
radicals and conservatives, the Ten-hour Factory Bill was passed. It is
doubtful if the radicals would have triumphed even then, had they not
been able to demonstrate that there was “a limit to human endurance,
which, once transgressed, was not only disastrous to the operative but
unprofitable to the mill-owners.”

Having once committed itself to the precedent of interfering to protect
the weak against the strong, Massachusetts had no alternative but to
advance in the same direction. By degrees, twenty-four distinct points
were covered by factory legislation.[188] Nine other States followed
Massachusetts in the enaction of factory laws, and all made provision
for bureaus of factory inspection to see that the laws were obeyed.
These factory laws, as far as they concerned women, besides limiting the
hours of labor, obliged “employers to provide seats for women and grant
them permission to use them when not actively engaged in the duties for
which they were employed.” Fire-escapes were to be provided, and proper
safeguards thrown around machinery. Women under twenty-one years were
not to be allowed to clean machinery while in motion. Suitable
wash-rooms and other conveniences were to be furnished them. Forty-five
minutes were to be given for the noon-day meal at a uniform and proper
time. Locking of doors—that travesty upon free labor—was prohibited
during working-hours. Sanitary regulations of workrooms and weekly
payments were to be enforced. The trusteeing of wages was abolished.
Cellars were forbidden to be used as workrooms. “No plea,” it was said,
“and no subterfuge should be permitted to justify the use of any
underground apartment for purposes of human habitation.”

Delegating to States the privileges of exercising supervision over
manufactories, etc., for the benefit of labor, was a long step forward
in the path of progress; a signal triumph of radicalism over
conservative obstructionists denying the right of the State to protect
its citizens. But if the reformer gained his points, the manufacturer
contrived, as far as possible, to make the victory an empty one. Only so
far as employers could not prevent was labor legislation effective. With
the ten-hour working day, while employers complied with the letter of
the law, a large majority defied the spirit. No fact was better known
than that the ten-hour law for women and children was disregarded
whenever possible. In factories where notice was given that ten hours
would constitute a day’s work, the clause “unless otherwise ordered,”
usually accompanied it; and the “otherwise ordered” came whenever the
manufacturer’s convenience demanded it. Other factory legislation fared
little better. When, according to law, seats were placed in mills,
factories, shops, and stores, women were, in general, forbidden to use
them, under penalty of discharge. Locking of doors, when employees were
at work, although less common, was still continued. Labor commissioners,
wishing to enter factories employing many women, “had much difficulty in
getting inside, so securely was every gate and door locked and barred.”
Sanitary workrooms remained the exceptions; underground places continued
to be used for human habitations, workshops, and salesrooms. Cellars
were converted into bazaars in which hundreds of women and children were
employed, and where they lived the year round in the glare of electric
lights, never seeing daylight except in the morning hours, on Saturday
half-holidays, and Sundays. One obvious reason why factory laws were
disregarded so flagrantly was that the working force of factory
inspectors in every State but Massachusetts was so limited as to make it
impossible for them to visit even once during the year half the
factories under their supervision. In many cases their powers were so
restricted that when they caught an offender against the laws, they had
to act on Dogberry’s advice “to take no note of him, but let him go.”

Despite the fact that laws, made for the protection of women in the
industries, were not always enforced,—enough good resulted from them to
increase the tendency everywhere of looking to the State for further
legislation. In the pages of the labor reports containing the replies
made by working-women to the question of what, in their opinion, would
remedy the wrongs of industrial workers, one response was, “The power to
vote, as the right of suffrage, will place the services of women on an
economic basis with those of men.” Women working in factories asked to
have inspectors appointed of their own sex, on the ground that women
could understand and protect the interests of women better than men. In
States where the statutory age for protection under the eight or ten
hour factory law was below twenty-one, women over twenty-one desired the
law extended so as to embrace those of all ages. Employees in mercantile
houses doing duty as clerks, cashiers, saleswomen, etc., desired “that
the same protection given to women in factories be extended to them, as
their duties are fully as onerous as those of the average female in the
mill or factory.”

As almost all reforms have originated with the educated, and have
gathered strength for fruition by rolling onward among the people, the
value of these suggestions was enhanced by reason of being the
expression of the most intelligent of the working-women interviewed by
the Labor Bureau agents. Private philanthropic efforts of all kinds had
yielded no effectual help to women, and it was small wonder if the more
thoughtful among them turned to the power of the State as the only
adequate means for relief from conditions which new inventions of
machinery—dispensing with men and employing women and children as
guides—and a mania for money-getting at the expense of the proletariat,
had rendered intolerable. Though a few stenographers, telegraphers,
typewriters, teachers, with some workers in the industrial arts, had
gained better breathing-places upon the middle rungs of what was called
the “social ladder,” the struggle for life had been constantly growing
fiercer among those crowded _en masse_ at the bottom. Everywhere
production was carried on with less regard for the life, health, and
comfort of the working-women. Women were employed in even greater
numbers in the poisonous, dusty, dangerous, and laborious industries,
all of which were much more injurious to them, as child-bearers, than to
men. The long hours of exhaustive work, destructive of family ties; the
starvation wages obtained during seasons of work; the misery of seasons
of lock-outs from work, led too frequently to the chaffering of their
bodies on the street corners for bread, or the finding of a refuge from
starvation in a leap from some house-top or a plunge into the river. The
stories of the suffering endured by women engaged in the industrial
occupations of the country, as told by capable investigators like Helen
Campbell, proved that everything made by women, not excepting the
whitest, daintiest robes, had crimson spots on them,—the blood-splashes
of the toilers,—that, although unseen, no cleansing could wash away. Not
a shop-made garment, a web of silk, cotton, or flax, or wool, a pair of
gloves, shoes or stockings, any knitted thing,—machine or hand-made,—a
woven carpet or piece of furniture, an artificial flower, feather, or
piece of lace, a hat for a man or bonnet for a woman, a piece of
table-glass, pottery, or cutlery, a lucifer match, an article of
jewelry, or even a printed book, but over them all flitted the ghosts of
women twice murdered in their making: once by their own pangs, and again
by the sufferings of the little children, flesh of their own flesh, who
toiled beside them wearily—

Weeping (working) in the play-time of the others,
In the country of the free.

The publication of Helen Campbell’s “Prisoners of Poverty,” with
frequent repetitions, from other sources, of the wrongs endured by
industrial women, caused a great wave of indignation to sweep over
society. Many good men and women carried on crusades against the
purchase of ready-made garments—sad misnomer for things so hardly made.
One of their war-cries was, “An honest woman’s back is not the place for
a dishonestly manufactured article,” and another that, “It is better for
a woman to wear a coat with a hole in it than one with the stain on it
of blood-guiltiness.” Economically unwise and impossible of success as
this crusade was, it was important as showing that a higher ideal of
Justice had begun to enter into woman’s mind. Hitherto people had
partaken of the fruits of labor unthinkingly. Now the time was seen to
have come when an awakened public began to question the propriety of
purchasing and using things made through the abuse of their
fellow-beings. As Emerson said of his charity-given dollar that “it was
a wicked dollar he would yet learn to withhold,” so women were teaching
themselves to withstand desires for articles which helped to perpetuate
wicked systems of work.

To the political economist, the part that woman was taking in the
country’s industries became a subject of national importance. After
frequent investigations into the nature of their occupations, the
question was propounded, “Whether it would not be expedient, for the
good of the State, to altogether forbid the employment of women in
factories?” The position taken by Mr. Wright, the leading authority in
American labor statistics,—not prominent, however, as an advanced
reformer,—was “that married women ought not to be tolerated in the mills
at all,” as “the employment of mothers is the most harmful wrong done to
the race.” “Vital science,” he observes, “will one day demand their
exclusion, as the effect of such employment is an evil that is sapping
the life of our operative population and must, sooner or later, be
regulated, or more probably, stopped.”[189]

It will be seen at once that this suggestion of Mr. Wright lies directly
on the plane of modern socialism or nationalism. To advocate taking two
million women forcibly from certain harmful occupations is a tacit
admission that the individual has no right to dispose of herself to the
disadvantage of the State. Physicians had long sounded notes of warning
of a race deterioration that was going on in consequence of the
employment of women under bad conditions of labor, and the claim was
made that “at all hazards the State must protect itself.” To do this,
however, involved consequences that the advisers, perhaps, foresaw. As
legislation excluding women and children from factories would interfere
directly with their support, the logical conclusion would be that the
State, to keep them from actual starvation, would be bound to interfere
again to the extent of furnishing them with such means of living as
would make them—what the State wanted—happy, healthy, capable mothers of
the race. And, as it would be obviously impossible to discriminate
between those engaged in one pursuit at the expense of those employed in
others, it would follow that the State, by supporting the factory
workers, would place itself under obligations to clothe, feed, shelter,
and educate all women.

This second proposition is so necessary a corollary of the first as to
make Mr. Wright’s suggestion almost conclusive evidence that his
investigations had led him to accept the nationalistic theory of State
interference with the liberty of labor, as the sole remedy for the evils
sapping the life of our female operative population. And as no student
of practical economics would consent to the entire withdrawal from the
productive industries of so large and capable a body of workers as the
three millions women now engaged in them, Mr. Wright must have also
given acceptance to that other part of the nationalistic creed—growing
so fast into popular favor—of its being the duty of the State to
regulate the hours of labor so that work may be the promoter of health
in women in place of being its destroyer.

Even if the results of Mr. Wright’s investigations into the hard facts
of woman’s industrial condition in America had been to throw him into
accord with what is termed “scientific socialism,”[190] his experience
would have been simply that of most honest investigators. Helen
Campbell, converted to socialism while gathering material for her books
illustrative of women as workers, claimed in her latest volume that “In
socialism ... in its highest interpretation, lies the only solution for
every problem on either side the great sea, between the eastern and
western worker.” Instances of similar experience might be multiplied,
but are rendered unnecessary by the rapidity with which the doctrine has
spread in the past ten years throughout Europe and America, and the
honored names which have become identified with its support. According
to its adherents, one phase of applied socialism will consist in a
consolidation of the splendid processes of organization and co-operation
inaugurated by the various labor societies and speculative enterprises
of to-day. In its results, it aims to benefit woman: (1) by recognizing
woman as the perfect equal of man, politically and socially; (2) by
fixing woman’s means of support by the State so as to render her
independent of man, and thus insure her that freedom and dignity which
is hers of right as the mothers of the race; (3) by permitting them to
withdraw from maleficent industries; (4) by shortening the legal working
day so as to afford her leisure for the higher things of life. As women
are also in greatest measure the teachers of the race, socialism
victorious would secure for them a complete system of technical, art,
and professional schools, so as to make the education of women universal
and rounded in place of partial and incomplete. To-day, scarcely
one-third of the population has been taught so much as to read and write
understandingly.

The students of woman’s present position in and outside the named
industries make the claim that nothing less radical than such reforms as
are contemplated by the socialists will avail to better their condition.
A charge made and sustained by them is that existing labor legislation,
as well as charitable donations of schools, libraries, etc., built by
bourgeois manufacturers out of the “skimped” wages of employees, have
all been futile. Whatever has been done, the fact remains, as Victor
Hugo tersely put it, “The paradise of the rich is made out of the hell
of the poor.” Dives grows richer with the years, the purple and linen of
his wives and daughters more costly, their fare more sumptuous. While
Lazarus, with his women, whose toil supplies the fine raiment and choice
delicacies, crouches outside the gates in rags, grown more beggarly, and
whose food becomes daily more loathsome and scant.

Nationalism proposes to call this injustice to a halt. With Herbert
Spencer it says, that “One [woman] will not be suffered to enjoy without
working that which another produces without enjoying.” It preaches the
brotherhood of man, the sisterhood of women; the creed heroic in its
grandeur of the abolition of alms-giving Charity, and the substitution
for this outgrown goddess of past ages a divine spirit of Justice, whose
fiat is to be obeyed though the heavens fall. “The growth within the
mass of the population of these principles is,” says a recent writer in
the _Forum_, “one of the most formidable symptoms of the ‘times.’” In
this remark there lies all the pungency of truth. Earnest men and women
are preaching the doctrines of Nationalism with all that intensity of
faith which characterized the disciples of the anti-chattel slavery
movement. To most, its tenets have become a religious as well as a
political belief. To hasten the time of its adoption, women’s voices are
being heard in lecture halls and wayside inns, in meeting-houses, in the
school-room, at the hearth-stone, and through the medium of the
printing-press—speaking with the same enthusiasm for the redemption of
the white slave as the Lucy Stones and Harriet Beecher Stowes did before
1866 for the enfranchisement of the black slave. That woman’s duty to
woman is taking this noble shape of pleading the cause of humanity, as
though every industrial worker in factory, field, mill, and shop were
her own mother, children, sisters, brothers, is the light in the heavens
showing that the darkest hour before dawn has been reached, and is
passing away from the horizon of the industrial population.

XII.
CHARITY.

JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL.

To make even a superficial study of the work done and being done by
American women to help their suffering fellow-beings must fill the heart
with gratitude for the wisdom and devotion displayed, and with a
rejoicing hope for the future. To know that all over this vast
continent, intelligent and unwearying women are thinking and working and
praying for the needy, the wicked, the ignorant, the weak, and the
down-trodden, is a joy and an inspiration.

Necessarily, everything that is attempted is not accomplished, nor are
all the attempts wise, but, nevertheless, it is encouraging to find, in
looking over the whole field, that it has been very uncommon for any
women, in this country, to rest content to feed the body of their
suffering fellow-creatures, ignoring the wants of the brain, the heart,
and the soul. However imperfectly accomplished, there always seems at
least an attempt to reach beyond the material need and minister to some
higher want; to add at least a little to the character of those they
have sought to help, and where the ministering to the higher wants has
been made the real aim of the work, where the command, “Seek ye first
the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness,” has been followed, the
results are, as I have said, full of encouragement.

It would be impossible in this article to give a detailed history of the
charitable work of American women, nor would it be especially useful,
because in each community very much the same course is followed, and
nothing would be gained by describing what is so well known. I shall,
therefore, attempt nothing beyond a general sketch of the usual fields
of women’s work, pausing to give a more careful description only of such
enterprises as seem to me to contain something original, and which may
serve as an inspiration and example. Nor can I dwell at length even upon
these.

Apart from those who compose our own circle of family and friends, there
are four classes of our fellow-men upon whom we may exercise our
“Charity,”—that is, whom we may serve.

I. Those who have already reached the lowest depths, who have given up
even the pretense of independence, who are housed in “public
institutions,” in poorhouses, prisons, insane asylums. Much may be done
for these to render their lives more bearable, to help them to accept
the hard lessons of their purgatory, and to learn, before they die, that
one lesson which no other experience of life has succeeded in teaching
them, the lesson of self-control. This has been recognized by women for
years, and they have carried comfort and help, both physical and
spiritual, to these unhappy beings. It has not been common, however, for
women, until within a few years, to concern themselves with the
management of the public institutions themselves, and although Miss
Dorothea Dix began very early to devote herself to this work and spent
her life in bringing about reforms in the insane asylums of many
different States, still it is scarcely twenty years since such work has
been generally considered to be within the sphere of women. There are
now four States, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and Wisconsin, in
which women have accepted positions on the State Boards of Charity, and
they have in these positions been very useful in bringing their critical
and criticising powers and their knowledge of detail to bear upon the
management of State and County institutions, besides forcing into
prominence the moral aspects of the questions dealt with by the official
Boards of which they are members.

The first volunteer association established to visit and improve the
public institutions (as distinguished from the individual inmates), and
the agency which first turned the attention of women generally to their
duty in this direction, and convinced men that it was one which women
were competent to perform, was the State Charities Aid Association of
New York, founded in 1872 by a woman, who, during the war, had
discovered and proved the working powers of women in the societies
auxiliary to the Sanitary Commission. The Association consists of a
central body of men and women, giving much time and thought to the study
of the theory and history of all questions relating to the public care
of the suffering and dependent, and of an associated committee in each
county of the State, engaged in active inspection of the local method of
caring for these unfortunates. These County Committees appeal to the
central body for advice and instruction as to the best means to overcome
the evils they discover, and furnish it with facts and figures to aid
its study of general principles.

An immense good has been accomplished all through the State of New York
by the Association by means of the public opinion aroused in relation to
matters concerning which, before its formation, the public conscience
seemed to be dead. All matters relating to the causes and prevention of
pauperism are dealt with by it; it deserves the thanks of the whole
country for having been the means of establishing the first
training-school for nurses ever opened here, and it was very active in
securing the passage of the New York law forbidding the detention of
children between the ages of two and sixteen years in poorhouses.

In New Jersey there is a similar association, working upon very much the
same plan, and modeled upon that of New York.

In Pennsylvania the saving of children from the contamination of the
vile associations of the poorhouse was also due to women, and they have
founded a society to take charge of those children who would, but for
their labors, be public dependents.

The following extracts from the reports for 1885 and 1886 of the
Pennsylvania Children’s Aid Society will suffice to show its objects and
methods, and also, let us hope, to incite other women in other States,
where it is still neglected, to take up the work of gathering together
and turning into the noble river of working humanity the little rills,
which, if left to trickle into the great slough of pauperism and vice,
only serve to increase its slimy foulness, and require deep and
expensive channels to carry them off after they have become corrupt and
poisonous in its depths.

The _object_ of the Children’s Aid Society is to provide for the
welfare of destitute and neglected children by such means as shall be
best for them and for the community. Our _method_ of accomplishing
this object is:

1. By placing such children in carefully selected private families,
mostly in the country, paying a moderate rate of board where
necessary, and following up each case with such inquiry and
supervision as may secure to the child the conditions of physical and
moral well-being.

2. By utilizing existing institutions for children as temporary homes,
while permanent family places are being sought.

3. By putting, so far as possible, the support of a child upon its
relatives or parents, legitimate or otherwise, and by preventing the
needless separation of mothers and children.

4. By keeping an open office (39 South Seventeenth Street,
Philadelphia), where any citizen can receive free information about
public provision and private opportunities for homeless children.

5. By organizing, in the cities and counties of Pennsylvania,
auxiliary societies under the direction of capable and willing women,
who will not only help find good country homes for the poor children
of Philadelphia, but will also care for the destitute and pauper
children of their own localities.

Our experience and observation abundantly confirm the following
conclusions:

1. That there is no need of any more public institutions for the care
of destitute children, and that much of the money now devoted to
orphanages, etc., might be more usefully spent in securing homes for
such children in private families and paying their board.

2. That there is no serious difficulty in finding suitable private
homes, on the boarding-out plan, for all homeless children, excepting
such as require treatment in hospitals or training in idiot asylums.

3. That children brought up in institutions are not so well fitted for
their later life outside such institutions as those reared in
families. Congregated in large numbers, they run greater risks of
contagious disease; they lead an unnatural life of monotony or
stimulation; they must all be treated alike, with a minimum of
personal regard; they are often at the mercy of hired care-takers with
little parental feeling.

4. Child-caring institutions are nevertheless important as temporary
homes, or as receiving and forwarding houses for the children, while
permanent places are being found.

5. The law forbidding the detention of children in almshouses can best
be carried out by the co-operation of the Directors of the Poor, with
voluntary associations of discreet and benevolent women, who are
willing to find places for the children, look after their welfare, and
report to the Directors. It is for the interest of the tax-payers that
these children be taken out of the pauper class as soon as possible
and absorbed in the community.

6. In a county where such an association exists, and where the
Directors make fair allowance for the support of the children, there
is no excuse for detaining any child in the headquarters for paupers
and no need for creating an institution for pauper children.... A very
important and constantly increasing feature of our work seeks the
welfare of the child by promoting that of the mother. Almost every day
women bring their babies to the office with a pitiful tale of poverty,
misfortune, and alas! often of crime, asking sometimes to have their
little ones taken and provided for either to save themselves the
burden, or to conceal their own disgrace.

The Society has always felt and endeavored to perform its solemn duty
in such cases, which consists in keeping the child and mother
together, making each the guardian of the other, and preserving the
tie as the strongest incentive to a better life on the part of the
mother. The interests of the child demand this, unless its natural
protector should prove herself totally unfit for the simplest duties
of motherhood.

Many respectable families in the country are glad to receive the
services of an able-bodied, though inefficient woman, in return for
low wages, and the privilege of allowing a small child to run about
the house. In this way, these poor creatures are encouraged to regain
the path of honesty and virtue, and, as the child grows older, its
love and helpless demands form the strongest barrier which can
surround the mother’s life.

The work of placing these women at service has increased to such an
extent that the entire attention of one person might be given to this
department.

Besides the mother and her child the Society deals with a third member
of this caricature of family life, namely, the father. Here the strong
arm of the law is required to fix the responsibility, secure support
for the child, and, if possible, to punish the wrong-doer. The
services of our Solicitor are in constant requisition for this
retributive task....

The Children’s Aid Society of Pennsylvania has forty-four County
Committees, besides its Central Board in Philadelphia.

In Connecticut, County Homes have been opened (under Laws of 1883–4–5)
to receive temporarily children dependent upon the public, and
committees, composed almost exclusively of women, appointed to supervise
these Homes and find permanent homes in families for the children.

In Massachusetts, women are appointed as members of the Board of
Managers of the State schools for delinquent and dependent children, and
a very important work for women has been developed in caring for such
children outside the schools. In order not to injure the boy or girl by
longer retention in the school than is absolutely required for training,
each one is, at the earliest moment when his progress warrants the
trial, placed in a family to work; but that the trial may be as
favorable as possible, for each child so placed, a volunteer friend is
found by the Board in the neighborhood, who is to watch over and give
advice and assistance both to the child and its guardian. There are at
present (October, 1889) eighty-four of these women visitors, officially
appointed and recognized by the State as part of its system of caring
for dependent and delinquent children. Of these children, thus freed
from the weakening influence of a too long extended institution life,
there are now in Massachusetts 1063 boys and girls under this State
care.

This special work (of taking dependent children from poorhouses and
other public institutions and placing them in private families, thus
returning to a natural and happy life those who, but for such
transplanting, would have been doomed to grow up tainted with pauperism
and vice) owes its inception to the personal devotion and the labor of
years of individual women in certain counties of Massachusetts,
Connecticut, and New York. But for the proof of its wisdom and
practicability which they gave by their successful work, it would never
have assumed the position it now holds. These women have not only saved
the individual children whom they took from vile surroundings, amid the
contaminating companionship of the lowest of men and women, but they
have set an example which is spreading over the country and which will
change for the better the future of whole States.

The Women’s Prison Association of New York visits the prisons of New
York and Brooklyn, and within a few years the Women’s Christian
Temperance Union has organized a department of prison work, which will
be spoken of elsewhere in this book,[191] but until their attention was
thus called to the horrible evils of the county jails of this country,
its women, with the rarest exceptions, seemed absolutely ignorant of
this great national wickedness. In Massachusetts women are, and have
been for a few years, members of the Prison Board, and in Massachusetts,
Indiana, and New York, there are State prisons and reformatories for
women under the charge of women officers.

Women are peculiarly fitted for the work of inspecting public
institutions, and it would be much better if, in every community,
instead of starting so many private institutions of charity, they would
give their attention to the oversight of the public institutions,
already necessarily existing, and which, too often, by their
mismanagement, very much increase, not only the sufferings of the
miserable people already in them, but also the number of those who will
hereafter have to be supported as inmates.

II. Another class of sufferers needing tender care are the inmates of
private Homes for old people, convalescents, and incurables; and of
hospitals, reformatories, and asylums for children. Such institutions as
these are usually established and managed by women, excepting the
hospitals, which, though under the care of men, often have an associate
board of women to take the oversight of the daily comfort of the
patients.

The Homes for the aged in our cities are many of them established by
churches for their dependent members, and in almost all an entrance fee
is required. There are Homes for aged married couples in some of our
cities, and in many, also, a free Home for old men and women, maintained
by the Roman Catholic Little Sisters of the Poor, who receive inmates,
however, of every faith.

Of Homes for convalescents and incurables there are very few,
comparatively, though it would seem as if the hard lot of these two
classes of sufferers would appeal most strongly to tender-hearted women.
In no one community, however, have we adequate provision for them, and
they languish, unwelcome inmates of hospitals and poorhouses. There is a
small Home for Incurables in Boston, founded by a young Roman Catholic
Irishwoman, who earned her daily bread by hair-dressing, and who for
four years had given all her spare time and money to the care of one
dying girl after another, until she was enabled, by the help of friends
for whom she worked, to open the Channing Home, which from that time to
this (now long after her death) has been a refuge for poor consumptive
girls and crippled women.

Reformatories for women are, strangely enough, often established by men.
It would seem as if no work could be more appropriate to women, and as
if there were no field which they should more quickly have occupied
entirely to the exclusion of men; but although there are a number of
such institutions for both girls and women in different parts of the
country, to whose management good women have devoted themselves, there
is still room for many more, in which women (especially young women) who
are a danger to themselves and others, ought to be shut away from
temptation and the opportunity to tempt.

Women’s work in hospitals and in care for the sick is to be treated
elsewhere in this book.

The Homes for children, which abound in almost every part of the
country, have all had their growth in less than ninety years, the very
first one established being the Boston Female Asylum, opened in 1800,
and incorporated in 1803, established by women whose granddaughters and
great-granddaughters are now numbered among the managers.

There is a great deal of devoted, earnest work given both by the outside
Boards who control these Homes and by the officers who take the daily
care of the thousands of children in them; there is the wish to do real
good, and, especially among the Sisterhoods, whose whole lives are given
up to the work of ministering to these children, there is often absolute
self-sacrifice; but it is too frequently open to question whether the
real benefit done is equal to the benevolence which prompts the doing.
In these institutions the children are generally treated kindly, but the
managers, unfortunately, too often fail to see the bad effects of the
institution life both upon the child and upon society as a whole; and,
though they may suspect their existence, they usually feel helpless to
remedy these evils, scarcely having courage to enter on new ways of
caring for their charges.

One institution, which for thirty-one years had continued in the old
way, was closed under circumstances most creditable to the managers, and
the history of the Union Temporary Home of Philadelphia deserves a place
in this article as an example to the management of other similar
institutions.

At the thirty-first annual meeting in January, 1887, the following
resolution was adopted:

_Resolved_, That in the judgment of this meeting it is advisable that
our building be closed at an early day; that all our property be
converted into an income-bearing fund; that under the direction of a
special executive committee chosen from the Council, or the Board of
Managers, or both, said income shall be applied, according to the
declared object of our constitution, in paying for the temporary board
and care of “children of the poor;” that the term “Home” be construed
to include any house or household in which such children are placed;
and that the machinery of the Children’s Aid Society be used for
obtaining, investigating, and supervising such boarding-homes; that
all the rights of parents be duly respected, and they still be held to
pay a share, wherever practicable; and that our Board of Managers, or
such committees as they may appoint, represent this corporation in
carrying out these arrangements, and in the performances of whatever
duties may be required to secure the execution of our trust and the
welfare of the children.

Some of the reasons for this action are given in the following extracts
from a paper submitted by the managers to the meeting:

In taking action which looks toward co-operation with another body, we
have been moved by considerations which affect profoundly three
interests: (1) Those of the parents and guardians of the children
admitted to the Home; (2) those of the public which is asked to give
it support; (3) most of all, those of the children.

I. Since the Home was started, thirty years ago, the population of
Philadelphia has increased from about 500,000 to nearly 1,000,000. In
such a vast and dense mass of human beings, personal relations between
giver and receiver have become more difficult, and the indiscriminate
charity which encourages pauperism has been a cause of growing
concern. A habit of dependence, which takes advantage of every
opportunity to live by public or private charity, is widespread; and
the growth of false, communistic views makes necessary more guarded
methods than those which may serve in smaller communities, with
simpler social conditions.

The history of our own institution, as the managers well know, shows a
constant pressure for the admission of children whose parents are able
to support them, but are naturally disposed to do this at the lowest
possible cost, and that we have also been furnishing easy facilities
for those who desire, for selfish reasons, to rid themselves of the
presence and care of their little ones. The charitable feature of the
institution, or the fact that a part of the expense is borne by our
contributors, is disguised by the fact that we are accustomed to
charge $1.25 to $1.50 a week for each child, so that the institution
is regarded by such parents simply _as a cheap boarding-house for
children_. We believe that many, who could themselves bear the entire
cost with no serious hardship, are tempted to magnify their own
disability by the fatal facilities afforded by a well-meant charity.
Some of this class are doubtless in need of help, but it should not
come in this delusive form. They may want friendly counsel and wise
direction in finding suitable homes; and they may sometimes be
assisted by kindly oversight of these homes and of their children. It
is in our power to secure for them these advantages, with added
pecuniary assistance where needed, by utilizing the methods of the
Children’s Aid Society, which is also a Bureau of Information.

* * * * *

III. The most important consideration relates to the children. No mere
saving of money would justify a change which threatened injury to the
least of these little ones. But a majority of the managers are
convinced, by observation and experience, that life in the average
institution is not so good for children as life in the average
household. None can realize that so fully as those who are best
acquainted with the inner workings and vicissitudes of child-caring
institutions. We have sought to guard our children from the worst
effects by providing a kindergarten for the younger ones, and by
sending the elder to the public schools; and they have enjoyed the
care and kindness of an exceptionally competent and faithful matron;
but the total result has compelled us to the same conclusion with many
tried workers in charity,—viz.: that the children can best be fitted
for the life they must live in the world by being placed in good
families.

The testimony of two gentlemen on our Board of Council, both
experienced as heads of great industrial enterprises, is that
institution boys are generally the least desirable apprentices. They
have been dulled in faculty by not having been daily exercised in the
use of themselves in small ways ... have had all particulars of life
arranged for them, and, as a consequence, they wait for some one else
to arrange every piece of work, and are never ready for emergencies or
able to “take hold.”

One great evil of institutions for children is quite overlooked—the
effect on the parents of relieving them of the care of their
children,—because the attention of the managers is almost exclusively
devoted to the care of the children while in the institution; they do
not think it part of their duty to study the family from which the child
was taken, or the influences which surrounded it before it came under
their charge; nor do they, with rare exceptions, follow the children’s
lives with any systematic care after they leave them. They thus know
nothing of the results of their own work, and may be doing great evil,
where they wish only to do good.

In Dorchester, Mass., there is a small “Industrial School for Girls,”
which seems to be especially distinguished from most other Homes of the
kind, by the thorough and systematic manner in which the children who
have left the school are watched over. Besides the standing committee on
“placing out,” which is required to report to the managers once in three
months concerning the girls under its charge (those who, having been
fitted in the school for household work, have been put into places to
earn their living), a “Committee on Friendly Guardianship” has been
created, whose duties are thus described in the report of the school for
the year 1887: “To keep a list of all girls leaving the school, who,
through the expiration of the papers placing them under our care, are no
longer formally wards of the school; to keep up a knowledge of these
girls and to report concerning their welfare twice a year, such report
to be added to the secretary’s records. The term Friendly Guardianship
is used to distinguish this oversight, which does not carry with it any
formal authority, from the usual school guardianship of girls who are
placed under our care for a period beyond that passed at school, and
which is recognized as authoritative by the girls themselves and by
their relatives, if they have any.”

In the report for 1888, it is stated that there are thirty-four girls
under direct school guardianship, thirty-five under the charge of the
Friendly Guardianship Committee, and an account is given of the present
condition of fifty-eight earlier school graduates. The following
reflection, found in the report, applies equally to other institutions
of the same character:

“The expense of caring for a child at the Industrial School is large as
compared with the cost of boarding in a private family, and this expense
can only be justified by keeping up a high standard in the school, and
by adding a large amount of personal work outside and beyond the school
for the girls who have gone out from it.”

Another Boston society (in whose establishment and management women have
always had a large part) is also distinguished for the continued
oversight of its charges after they have quitted the institutions it has
established. The Boston Children’s Aid Society maintains three distinct
farm schools for boys, in each of which a small number of boys (it is
the intention never to have more than thirty in any one school) are
under the care of a farmer and his wife, who teach them to work, while
they receive a common school education from a teacher in the house. The
majority of the boys, when received, are either under arrest, or are
threatened with arrest, and they are committed to the care of the
society for reformation. After such a term of training, as seems needed
in each case, the boys are generally sent to work in the country, and a
paid agent (a lady) has the oversight of them, writing to them and
visiting them. For the boys who have returned to Boston, a club has been
formed “to afford opportunities for studying the careers of the boys,
noting their progress, learning the plans of such as had plans, and
stimulating those who had none to form them, and in general arousing the
boys to a livelier sense of their duties and opportunities.”

The Boston Children’s Aid Society has also a certain number of girls
under its care, either at work or boarded in private families. The aim
of the society is to put the children in its charge into private
families as soon as they are fitted for such a life, and it had in 1888
more children outside its farm schools than in them to take care of.

We have so far been speaking of people living in institutions, living,
that is, under unnatural conditions, uprooted, as it were, from their
own place in life, and set in artificial surroundings. There are a third
and fourth class still to consider.

III. The third class are those who neither support themselves entirely
in self-respecting independence, nor are subject to the discipline of an
institution, those who are constantly being tempted to depend upon
others, to think their circumstances too hard for them, to regard as
unattainable the heights of self-support which the mass of mankind
reach,—the weak, the inefficient, the unwise, the self-indulgent,—in a
word, those who are unequal to the demands of life. They need all the
“help” they can get, but not of the kind which is usually given to them,
not that which enervates them, which encourages all their weaknesses,
which makes the dependent more dependent, the inefficient more
inefficient, the self-indulgent more self-indulgent. They need _real
help_, help to stand upon their own feet, help to respect themselves,
help to play their part in life with energy and intelligence, help to be
men and women, strong, self-dependent, ready to help others.

The “relief” which is poured out indiscriminately simply serves to check
their efforts at self-support, and to turn all their energies to the
pursuit of more “relief.” It is not that they are different from other
people; no human being will put forth greater exertion to sustain
himself in the way he likes than is required for that purpose. No man
will devote more time or more labor than is necessary to maintain
himself and his family at his own standard. If his standard is so low
that what comes to him in “relief” is enough for him, why should he
spend time and strength in getting more? But if his standard is so low,
then the help he needs is that which will raise his standard, but not
his standard of physical life only; far more important is it to raise
his moral standard,—to raise his character, so that degrading
surroundings cannot be endured, so that they cannot exist.

By the different kinds of “help” offered to those in want, they may be
trampled down into the mire and left, body and soul degraded, a curse to
themselves and others, or they may be lifted into the healthy,
self-respecting life of the men and women who do the work of the world,
of the mass of the people, who lead hard lives of struggle and
self-sacrifice, but whose intellects are strengthened, whose characters
are strengthened, whose souls are strengthened, by the daily and hourly
trials they meet and overcome.

The account of the way in which American women have dealt with these
suffering people, those upon whom most of the experiments of the
benevolent are tried, is not, as I have already said, entirely
discouraging. In all their dealings with them, they always seem to have
had a latent consciousness at least that they had minds and souls, and
not bodies only. I think women have seldom been responsible for the
“charities” which were satisfied to give one meal to a hungry
fellow-being and then turn from him with no further sense of
responsibility for any subsequent meal. They have usually sought to
enter into some sort of human relation with those they tried to help, to
make material relief the vehicle for moral and spiritual relief, and
even when the material relief was actually doing far more harm in
undermining character and self-dependence than could be counteracted by
all the teaching given, still this sad fact was not recognized, or at
least not realized, and the intention was far better than the
performance.

Within the past ten or fifteen years, all over the country, an awakening
of conscience in regard to these subjects has been taking place, and in
almost all the larger cities and in many of the towns of our country
there are already formed associations whose object it is to cure and
prevent pauperism. This movement is in this country due in a great
degree to women, and in all the sixty or seventy societies which now
exist men and women work together, and in many of them women take the
lead. The “old charity” sought mainly to relieve physical suffering by
physical relief; the “new charity” seeks to relieve physical suffering
by raising the character of the sufferer and by discovering the
underlying causes of the suffering both in himself and in his
surroundings.

IV. The fourth class whom we can serve are the people who are generally
thought to need no “charity” at all, and who indeed get but little of
it, either by word or deed—the wage-earners of the world—those who dig
and hammer, who sew and scrub, who toil and sweat, to feed and clothe
themselves and all the world besides.

Fortunately, there has, within the past few years, grown up a strong
conviction among those who seek to serve their kind, that to help these
men and women, to strengthen them, to teach them, is the real means of
lifting the race, and hence have been developed (especially by women,
and for women and children) many plans for making their lives not only
easier, but richer and nobler, and more what a human life should be.

In all such plans education is involved, and there are many inspiring
instances of really great changes wrought by women in the system of
education in our large cities, whose influence for good will never
cease. The introduction of kindergarten teaching for little children,
which many of those who study the dark problems of pauperism and crime
believe will do more to destroy the misery of mankind than any other one
educational agency, was due to Miss Elizabeth Peabody, herself a teacher
in her youth, who in her middle age was filled with enthusiasm by the
beautiful new teaching, and has lived to see it, in her old age,
incorporated, mainly by the exertions of women, into the public school
system of many of our large cities, where the need of the reform was
greatest.

In St. Louis, the first city to adopt the kindergarten, it was a woman
who proposed it. In Boston, one woman herself established and maintained
for nearly ten years thirty-one kindergartens, and finally, having by
this long experience proved their value, persuaded the Board of
Education to accept them as part of the public school system.

In Philadelphia, another woman, inspired by the good she saw
accomplished in Boston by the kindergartens established by her friend,
in 1879 opened one in that city, and gradually, following her example
and under her leadership, others were opened; and in 1881 the
Sub-Primary School Society was incorporated for the purpose of
establishing and maintaining kindergartens in Philadelphia, and
continued its work until in December, 1886, this was consummated, when
it presented to the Board of Education thirty-two kindergartens, to be
in future carried on as part of the school system.

In California, the Golden Gate Association has founded, by the help of a
few rich people who have given money, and of many devoted women who have
watched over the enterprise and given time and thought to its success, a
large number of free kindergartens, and the same is true of many other
cities in the country.

In other ways, also, the public schools have been benefited by the
volunteer work of women, not only as members of School Boards, which
position they have accepted in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, but
especially in leading the way in demonstrating the possibilities and
value of industrial education.

In New York, the Industrial Education Association was founded by men and
women for the purpose of bringing this most important subject before the
public, and of training teachers for all branches of manual education.

Industrial schools have been established and carried on by women in many
different localities,[192] and all over the country church societies
conduct sewing classes, and classes in domestic training for girls. In
many of our cities, women have established vacation schools to save the
children from the demoralization of the long summer idleness, and have,
in some places, obtained the use of the public school buildings for this
purpose. In Boston “The Emergency and Hygiene Association” (composed of
men and women) has a “Committee on Playgrounds,” which, in the summer
vacation of 1888, opened seven of the public school yards as play
grounds for children, and three more as “sand-gardens.” In each a matron
was present to oversee the games of the children, and in the playgrounds
they were supplied with “sand-heaps and shovels, balls, tops, skipping
ropes, sand bags, building blocks, flags to march under, and transparent
slates to draw on,” while in the “sand-gardens” there was only the
pleasure of digging in sand heaps. Thus for three hours a day, on four
fair days of each week during the vacation, hundreds of children spent
happy and healthful hours.

The “fresh air work,” the “country week,” the excursions of every kind,
are chiefly carried on by the devotion of women, and all will
undoubtedly accomplish a greater good than the temporary benefit to the
health and spirits of city children, by implanting a love for country
life in many of the little visitors, which may prove in the future an
influence to counteract the strange taste which now leads so many people
to prefer a crowded tenement to a farm-house and makes them “feel
lonesome” within a stone’s throw of a dozen neighbors.

Nor have women, although devoting so much of their time to the training
of children, neglected those past the age of schooling, those who have
grown up without privilege or advantage, especially the young girls who
have to work for their living and struggle with untrained hands and
brains to support themselves and perhaps many others dependent on them.
In almost all our cities women have formed associations especially to
help self-supporting young women and girls, and the aim of all is to
give happiness and added pleasure, besides the opportunity of
development in every direction. The Women’s Christian Associations,[193]
of which there are more than fifty in the country, open rooms for
evening entertainment and study, give instruction in intellectual and
manual branches, find situations for those who need them, help working
girls in every way, and many are the women who have leisure and
education who devote both to efforts to help and succor women who have
neither. Most of these associations have Homes for working women, where
the inmates are guarded and watched over with kindly care. In other
cities the Young Women’s Christian Association have no Homes of their
own, but select safe boarding places for young women, and direct them to
them, and keep boarding registers.

One of the women who knows most of the condition of working women in our
cities, says of the “Homes:” “The few hundreds sheltered are in most
cases really friendless and deserving women to whom the chief boon is
not the cheap board, but the respectable surroundings, which could not
be had at all in ordinary lodgings.... The safeguards thrown about women
in these Homes are most desirable.... My objections to them are that
they are not radical enough in their reforms, and really bar the truly
needy factory girl of the slums; and that by furnishing so many comforts
and privileges at low rates they create false expectations and
standards. Were the advantages made dependent on co-operative
management, were the inmates themselves responsible for the adornment
and conduct of the Homes, suffering for extravagance and bad judgment,
profiting by foresight and experience, valuable educational training
would be secured, and a far more home-like interest.”

The Boston Young Women’s Christian Association (founded in 1866) in its
twenty-third annual report, after describing the employment department,
gymnasium, library, entertainments, the travelers’ aid, the industrial
training department, the evening classes for intellectual work, says:

“Another important work, which has been carried on for some years, is
the training of girls for domestic service.... They remain three
months.... They are instructed in the best possible way, practically, by
doing all varieties of domestic work. As this educational work
progressed, there opened out another need, and this was an opportunity
for preparation on the part of women of intelligence and education, by
which they could fit themselves for positions as matrons, housekeepers,
teachers of domestic economy, etc. For this end a normal class has been
organized, and they are now pursuing a course of instruction.”

The New York Young Women’s Christian Association, founded in 1872,
offers to self-supporting women the following privileges:

I. The Bible class.

II. Free concerts, lectures, readings, etc.

III. Free classes for instruction in writing, commercial arithmetic,
book-keeping, business training, phonography, type-writing, retouching
photo-negatives, photo-color, mechanical and free-hand drawing, clay
modeling, applied design, choir music, and physical culture.

IV. Free circulating library, reference library, and reading-rooms.

V. Employment bureau.

VI. Needlework department, salesroom, order department, free classes
in machine and hand-sewing, classes in cutting and fitting.

VII. Free board directory.

In the year 1883 was incorporated the Baltimore Young Women’s Christian
Association, “having in view the improvement of the condition of the
working women of Baltimore by providing for them a reading-room, and
such other departments as may be found necessary.”

I quote from a description, lately written, some account of the work of
this association:

“The educating influences of the Young Women’s Christian Association has
been chiefly social and practical.... Classes in reading, writing,
book-keeping, and singing were early instituted.... English literature
has been taught in simple and effective ways by reading aloud from good
authors to appreciative groups of young women, and also by introducing
the co-operative method of reading, one girl taking one book by a given
author, another girl another, and all reporting on their individual
readings to the assembled class....

“Another excellent branch of committee work is to see that girls who
come to the lunch-rooms have proper boarding places. Ladies visit girls
in their lodgings. A female physician has lent her services in caring
for the sick, and has made herself very useful by keeping a careful
watch upon the sanitary condition of shops where girls are employed....”

Several of the Women’s Christian Associations have under their care
other branches of charitable work than those above enumerated, and as a
rule their benefits seem to be confined more or less strictly to
Protestants. There are other organizations for the befriending of young
women and girls (helping hands, girls’ friendly societies, church
societies in great numbers, etc., etc.) which have the same limitation,
but there are still others intended to receive all who will join them.

The “Women’s Educational and Industrial Unions,” existing in
thirteen cities of the United States, have for their objects
“increasing fellowship among women, in order to promote the best
practical methods for securing their educational, industrial, and
social advancement.”[194]

The following are extracts from a circular issued by the original Union,
founded in Boston, in 1877:

This institution may be regarded as a social centre, a place of
welcome. Any woman, resident or stranger, by coming to the Union will
find herself among friends. Its placards in railway stations often
bring to us strangers from various parts of the country and from
abroad. It invites all women to its reading-room and parlors. It
provides lectures, classes, and entertainments. Some of the classes
are industrial. It has “Mother’s Meetings” and “Talks with Young
Girls” from women with high reputation. It affords opportunities for
interchange of thought upon the vital questions of the day. It
receives and preserves reports of women’s associations both near and
distant. It is a centre of local information. It gathers in the best
ideas and suggestions, and weaves them into plans for the benefit of
humanity. It befriends the friendless. It is a tower of strength for
the helpless. It secures dues unjustly withheld from working women. It
investigates fraudulent advertisements, and publicly warns women
against them. So far as practicable, it secures situations for the
unemployed. In its salesrooms are found the products of women’s
industries.... Wise thinkers have the opinion that for removing the
ills of humanity primary work is better than after work. The methods
of the latter are charities, reformatory crusades, and penal
enactments. The evils contended with,—pauperism, drunkenness, vice,
crime,—are simply inward conditions becoming apparent in conduct.
These conditions are ignorance, selfishness, undeveloped faculties,
false rating of values, lack of self-respect and of self-restraint.
The effective work is to change such conditions by a kind of education
that shall develop the highest and best, thus enabling the individual
to stand upright of himself, instead of being held in position by
charities, reforms, or penalties.

In New York, in 1879, was founded a Girls’ Club, which consisted of the
founder, a woman of education and wealth, and ten or twelve factory and
shop girls, who met in an upper room in a Tenth Avenue tenement house.
During the past ten years, that club has increased to a membership of
several hundred, and twenty-two kindred clubs have been formed in New
York, eleven in Brooklyn, and eight in Boston and in other cities. These
clubs are mainly self-supporting, and their work is the education and
elevation of the members in every possible direction—physical,
industrial, mental, and moral. They supply a common ground of meeting
for young women who have had the privileges of education, money and
leisure, with those who have had the privileges of self-denying,
hard-working lives, and the benefits are mutual.[195]

Women have, in various cities, opened restaurants where good food is
provided at moderate prices, for the purpose not only of saving money to
those who patronize them, but to give decent and attractive surroundings
and a freedom from temptation to drink. In some of these restaurants are
rooms where working-girls may eat lunch which they bring from their own
homes, and in some the decent toilet provision is spoken of as a great
boon to these girls, who work in shops and factories where every
requirement of decency is neglected or violated in that particular.

In New York City a small band of educated women have jointly hired a
tenement house in the very worst district of the city, politically and
morally, and there they intend to live, for the purpose of doing what
they can to elevate the tone of the neighborhood. Most of them have
their daily avocations, but in the evenings they will give their time to
such efforts as they find best suited to attain their end.[196] Some of
them have already taken part in the work of the “Neighborhood Guild,”
the spirit of which is thus described in its last published circular:

We do not look upon our work as done by one class of society for
another class of society; not as up-town residents, nor from the
height of proud superiority to our fellow-men in any regard do we go
down to labor in the tenement-house district. All sorts and conditions
of men are brought into contact in the Neighborhood Guild. All both
give and receive; all are both teachers and taught; and the lesson for
all is the brotherhood of man. The Guild is not connected with any
church or society, whatsoever. But persons of various beliefs are
connected with the Guild, and the sense of the brotherhood of all men
is their bond of union. The work of the Guild, except in the
kindergarten, is done by faithful volunteers, several of whom have
resided for many months in the tenement-house district. The spirit of
the Guild is against unnecessary absenteeism in good works. It would
bring all sorts of men together close enough to feel one another’s
heart-throbs. It believes in a communism of mental and spiritual
possessions.

A somewhat similar society, established both by men and women, in
Philadelphia, gives the following account of itself:

The object of this unsectarian association is to establish, in
localities most needing them, and chiefly for the benefit of
workingmen and their families, convenient centers for social
intercourse, amusement, reading, study, restaurant accommodation,
etc., without the accompaniment of any demoralizing features.

Our first experiment was to open, on Saturday evenings, the hall on
the corner of Twenty-third and Hamilton streets, which seats nearly
three hundred people. This was furnished with tables for refreshments,
and here we gave a series of light entertainments, sometimes for five
cents, sometimes ten cents admission. The next step was to open the
house at 2134 Vine street, and start a neighborhood society under the
title of Family Guild, No. 1. In order to secure to the house at the
start the character desired, we admitted to its privileges, under
proper conditions, men, women, and children, and instead of separating
families, offered special inducements to father, mother, and children
to come together.

The advantages of membership are a library, reading-room (with
magazines, weekly and daily papers), rooms for games, music classes,
accommodations for business and social meetings, etc. The price is one
dollar a year for adults, fifty cents for those under seventeen, while
a family ticket including father, mother, and all children under
seventeen, is one dollar and fifty cents. Class instruction is extra,
five and ten cents a lesson, except the manual training, which is
free, and the dancing, which is fifteen cents.

The most popular classes last year were cooking, singing, and
dressmaking. The cooking class numbered sixteen, dressmaking ten,
singing thirty. The number of members enrolled last winter was one
hundred and fifty. This does not include all attending classes, some
of whom were not members of the Guild.

The experiment of associating the sexes both in study and recreation
has proved a success. The class in manual training, which now numbers
forty, is composed about equally of young men and women, and the
teachers say it is much easier with such a class to keep order and to
secure attention to work.

Besides the regular social evenings devoted to plays, singing,
dancing, etc., it is not unusual for the members of the evening
classes which close at nine to adjourn to the play-room and take a
little time for amusement. The managers have naturally kept an anxious
watch over these occasions and have found nothing to complain of in
the conduct of the young people....

There will be certain hours of each afternoon devoted to the children
of the neighborhood, with the object of teaching them quieter and less
brutal ways of playing than they learn on the streets. We also hope to
establish a day nursery, which shall obviate the dreadful necessity
among working women of locking their children alone in a room for the
day....

In Illinois, women have organized associations for the protection of
women and children which seem to be more far-reaching than any such in
other States.

The second article of “The Protective Agency for Women and Children of
Chicago” reads as follows:

Its objects are to secure protection from all offenses and crimes
against the purity and virtue of women and children; protection
against any injustice to women or children of a financial character,
such as withholding of wages, exacting of exorbitant interest,
violation of contract, or fraudulent advertisements of any kind;
enforcement of existing laws, and efforts toward the enactment of
better ones, for the protection of women and children against wrongs
and abuses, of whatever nature; the extension of a wholesome moral
support to women and children who have been wronged, discriminating
wisely between misfortune and guilt.

For three years the agency has fulfilled its objects and has carried out
the wish expressed in its first annual report in the following words:
“Justice is better than charity, and we wish to be a terror to
evil-doers as well as a good Samaritan to the unfortunate.”

The Agency is carried on by a governing board consisting of delegates
from sixteen different associations of women in Chicago, and it has
taken its stand by the side of the poor and oppressed and demanded and
obtained justice for them in the courts. In its third annual report it
publishes the following extracts from a letter of John P. Altgelt, Judge
of Superior Court of Cook County: “... I wish to express my high
appreciation of the work the Agency is doing.... You have rendered a
double service to the courts and have materially aided in the
administration of justice.” In Peoria, Ill., there is also such an
Agency, and a National Association has been formed “for the purpose of
establishing, or helping to establish, similar societies in different
parts of the country.”

Another important woman’s society is the “Illinois Woman’s Alliance,”
which declares its objects to be: “1. To agitate for the enforcement of
all existing laws and ordinances that have been enacted for the
protection of women and children, as the factory ordinances and the
compulsory education law. 2. To secure the enactment of such laws as
shall be found necessary. 3. To investigate all business establishments
and factories where women and children are employed, and public
institutions where women and children are maintained. 4. To procure the
appointment of women as inspectors and as members of boards of education
and to serve on boards of management of public institutions.”

The Woman’s Alliance has already been “largely instrumental in procuring
the passage of a compulsory education law, and has secured the
appointment of women factory inspectors.”

Another branch of work taken up by women in some of our cities is the
owning and hiring of tenement houses, for the purpose of improving the
houses and thereby serving the tenants and the public. This is done both
by individuals, who undertake the oversight of the houses and the
collecting of rents themselves (following the example of Miss Octavia
Hill in London), and by associations such as the Co-operative Building
Association of Boston, which is a joint stock company of men and women,
who buy and build houses and oversee their property by means of
committees of their own number. The object is to raise the standard of
the houses for working people in any given locality, and also to show
that such houses, when managed for the benefit of the tenants, may be
made to pay a fair return to the owners. This work seems peculiarly
fitting for women, who carry sympathy and conscience into their business
relations.

Indeed, the work of women seems to be unending, and it is impossible to
compute its value. The only feeling evoked by the study of the reports
of what is going on all over the country is that of deep gratitude, and
of regret that the whole cannot be spread out for the encouragement and
inspiration of others, and that so meager an account as this must
suffice.

It is strange to remember that all this activity has had its rise in
less than a hundred years. The simple story of the first organized
charitable work ever done, so far as we know, by women in this country
is thus told in an account of the “Female Society of Philadelphia for
the Relief and Employment of the Poor:”

“It will be remembered that in the year 1793, the yellow fever made an
awful and depopulating visitation to our city, and those who were spared
its ravages were left in much distress. Anne Parish, and some other
young women, having devoted considerable time and strength in relieving
the sufferers, felt called upon to continue their labors when the deadly
scourge had passed, as the following minutes, the first on the books,
will show:

“‘A number of young women, having been induced to believe from
observations they have made that they could afford some assistance to
their suffering fellow-creatures, particularly _widows_ and _orphans_,
by entering into a subscription for their relief, visiting them in their
solitary dwellings without distinction of nation or color, sympathizing
in their afflictions, and, as far as their ability extends, alleviating
them, have for this purpose associated together. Their views being
humble and funds inconsiderable, yet seeking neither honor nor applause,
they only ask a blessing on their feeble efforts, sensible of the
obligations they are under to an Almighty Giver for the comforts they
enjoy, are desirous of making a grateful acknowledgment by endeavoring
to adopt the precept He taught, to visit the sick, feed the hungry, and
clothe the naked. They propose to nominate a treasurer, to appoint a
committee to visit the poor, and discover their necessities either for
immediate relief, or to give them employment.’”

This was in 1795, and it was this same young Quaker woman, Anne Parish,
who, in that, or the following year, believing that “ignorance was one
great cause of vice and the calamities attendant thereon, and that a
guarded education would tend greatly to the future usefulness and
respectability of the rising youth,” with two friends, opened the first
charity school for girls in the United States, teaching them “some of
the most useful branches of learning, viz.: spelling, reading, writing,
arithmetic, and sewing.”

These two little societies, both founded by one young woman, were the
pioneers in the work for the desolate and oppressed now being carried on
by hundreds of associations and by thousands of women all over our
country, and we can only thank God that so many are seeking “to comfort
and help the weak-hearted, to raise up those who fall, and to strengthen
such as do stand.”

XIII.
CARE OF THE SICK.
HOSPITALS AND TRAINING SCHOOLS FOR NURSES MANAGED WHOLLY OR IN PART BY
WOMEN.

EDNAH DOW CHENEY.

So soon as the human being emerged from barbarism, and life became
precious, the restoration of the sick to health must have engaged
attention. The original idea of the hospital was wholly charitable, as
it was an obvious duty to take care of the sick, who were unable to help
themselves, and under many circumstances this work could be better done
in an establishment for that special purpose than in a private home.

Such establishments have existed in very early times and in various
countries, and women have always borne their part in the work as nurses,
if not as physicians or managers.

Although the hospital, in some form, was not unknown before the
establishment of the Christian church, yet that church certainly took
the care of the sick as a special province, and found in its orders of
monks and nuns very convenient instruments for carrying it on. It was an
important adjunct of religion, for the mind and heart, during sickness
and convalescence, are open to religious and moral influences, and the
grateful patient often became a zealous convert to the church which had
given him help in the hour of suffering. The old proverb recognized
this:

When the Devil was sick, the Devil a monk would be;
When the Devil was well, the devil a monk was he.

The earliest known hospital for the sick was founded in the latter part
of the fourth century at Cæsarea; St. Chrysostom built one at his own
expense at Constantinople, and Fabiola, the friend of St. Jerome,
founded one at Rome.

Many of the present great European hospitals, as the “Hôtel Dieu” of
Paris, “St. Bartholomew” of London, etc., owe their existence to
religious foundations, and the sisters of various orders made it their
especial work to labor in them.

Women assisted in these good works. In the old hospital of the Savoy in
London, thirteen sisters are on the pay roll. “Queen Mary tried to
restore this hospital, and the ladies of the court and maidens of honor
stored the same with two beds, bedding, and furniture in very ample
manner.” The work of the sisters of charity is familiar to all, and
Protestants have imitated it by establishing orders of women who devote
themselves to the care of the sick.

In addition to the ordinary needs of human life, war brought its large
increase of wounds and sickness, which made military hospitals a
necessity, and women did not hesitate to follow men to the camp and
field to minister to their fellow-beings in distress. In these scenes of
war Florence Nightingale began her great work, which has raised nursing
to the rank of a skillful profession. Private charity also extended help
to the sick, and King James’s favorite goldsmith, George Heriot, secured
an honorable remembrance in Edinburgh by founding the large hospital
which bears his name. Neither has the State forgotten its duty to the
sick, not only in providing infirmaries, almshouses, and other
institutions, but certainly, in later times, in furnishing hospitals for
the poor at the public expense.

In time of war, or when great epidemics devastated cities, the hospitals
often became excessively crowded, and offered scenes of misery and
horror which justified the dread and disgust felt for them in the
popular mind, so that to “die in a hospital” was an expression for the
extreme of human misery.

Through all these years women took an active part in hospital work as
nurses, and, in the case of infirmaries connected with female convents,
must have had charge of the administration; but it is not until our own
day that hospitals have been established especially for the benefit of
women, and mainly under their own control. As the science of medicine
advanced, and physicians were not solitary students but became a body of
educated men united in their work and deeply interested in the
advancement of their science, the hospital came to be regarded not
exclusively as a charity, but also as a school in which the student of
medicine could gain experience and knowledge by intimate acquaintance
with various forms of disease and the means employed to remove it. This
created a vulgar prejudice that the sick were considered only subjects
of experiment, without regard to their own good. But, in fact, the
constant presence of bodies of intelligent students in hospitals has
done much to raise their character and to reform abuses. As Dr. Finlay
says, “Clinical teaching benefits the patient, secures careful
investigation of his case, and has a bracing effect on the work done in
the hospital.”

It is in this relation that hospitals have become especially important
to women during the last thirty years.

The woman physician was not wholly unknown in America before this time.
Anne Hutchinson, of Boston, was doctor as well as preacher. Ruth Barnaby
practiced the profession of midwifery forty years, and this branch of
practice was fully recognized as belonging to women.[197] But while the
standard of education for women was very low, these were only
individuals carrying out the impulses of their genius or their hearts,
having no relation to each other and no thorough systematic education.

When Elizabeth Blackwell took her stand for thorough medical education
for women, she felt the imperative need of clinical instruction for
them. No hospital in America would give to women students of medicine
any opportunity to see the work done in it.

The other hospitals, which have been established since these pioneers,
have followed their plans so nearly that but few exceptions need be made
to the general account. While I cannot be sure that my list is complete,
I give the following names of hospitals known to me, similar in
character and methods:

New York Infirmary, 1857.[198]
Women’s Hospital of Philadelphia, 1860.
New England Hospital for Women and Children, 1862.[198]
Chicago Hospital for Women and Children, 1865.
Pacific Dispensary and Hospital for Women and Children.
Ohio Hospital.
Northwestern Hospital, Minneapolis.

The hospital in Chicago, like other promising children of the East
transplanted to the West, has outgrown its parents, and is now the
largest institution of its kind in this country, and probably in the
world. It has eighty beds.

The Massachusetts Homœopathic Hospital was not established for the
special benefit of women, but in connection with the medical school of
Boston University, but it received the funds of the old Female Medical
School, and it has women professors and students, and admits women to
the hospital as _internes_.

The hospitals have dispensaries connected with them which are very
important aids to the work, both of charity and education. These
dispensaries afford the students a wider range of observation and
experience than they could gain in the hospitals, since the patients are
numbered by thousands, and they bring the poor sick women to the
acquaintance of women physicians, to whom they can often confide their
troubles more freely than to men. Cases which need the treatment of the
hospital are secured admittance to it. In all this hospital work, and
especially in that of the dispensary, as indeed in all charitable work,
it has been found necessary to guard against the danger of pauperizing
those who should be helped. For this reason a small charge is made to
dispensary patients, except in cases of known destitution. The patients
willingly pay it, feeling their own self-respect increased thereby, and
the dispensary may be thus made nearly or quite self-supporting.

The surgical department of hospitals is of special importance to the
poor, as it is almost impossible for them to have the conditions in
their homes necessary to insure a fair chance of success and recovery in
cases of operations. Remarkable success has been attained in this
department in some of the hospitals I have named, where the greatest of
abdominal operations are performed by surgeons connected with the
hospital, with a percentage of recovery equal to that of other good
hospitals here or in Europe. This branch of work is of absolute
importance to the _internes_, and of the greatest value to the nurses.

Not less interesting or successful is the maternity work of these
hospitals. A great deal of the chronic trouble from which working women
suffer so severely comes from want of proper care while they are
exercising the functions of childbearing. The poor applicant to the
maternity department is seen by the woman physician, who gives her
advice as to previous care of herself, and she has in the hospital that
thorough rest and care which are indispensable to full restoration to
health.

A great moral question forces itself on the consideration of the
managers of these hospitals. The applicants to the maternity are very
often unmarried girls. Does true humanity require us to refuse help to
such women? It is evident that care must be exercised to give no
encouragement to immorality, while we must not refuse the aid which is
so often absolutely necessary to save life. The problem is a difficult
one, but the managers have tried to meet it. They usually make a
distinction between the first offense—which is often rather due to
weakness and folly than to depravity—and confirmed habits of immorality,
and do not receive unmarried women a second time. In one hospital, at
least, the directors find the greatest assistance from a committee of
ladies who look after the maternity patients, both before they enter and
after they leave the hospital. They endeavor to procure work for the
mother, and watch over her welfare and that of the child. But they make
it their invariable rule to give aid only on condition that the mother
makes every effort to fulfill her maternal duties; for they believe
there is a regenerating power in motherhood, and that care for her child
is the surest safeguard against a mother’s committing a second fault.

To many women of good position the maternity is a great blessing, if
they have not comfortable homes and friends to care for them. The
expense in the hospital is much less than the price for which good
medical attendance and nursing can be secured at home.

I need only say of the medical care of women by their own sex in
hospitals that its value has been fully proved. Women of all classes
seek this aid eagerly, and show full confidence in their physicians and
obey them quite as implicitly as they do those of the other sex. Women
often say that they have suffered for years without medical or surgical
assistance, that might have relieved them, from unwillingness to reveal
their troubles to men. The greater freedom of the relation between
patients and physicians of the same sex, enables the doctors to exercise
much influence over their patients, who learn many good sanitary lessons
in housekeeping. A physician was surprised to find the sick room of a
poor patient carefully aired: “Why, you know they always do so at the
hospital,” was the explanation given.

These hospitals have also done much to dispel among the poor the fear of
going to hospitals.[199] Finding their friends kindly ministered to by
their own sex, they come to regard the hospital as a kindly refuge in
sickness, not as the last resort of a homeless and deserted sufferer who
will die unfriended and alone.

Besides these hospitals, especially adapted to assist in the medical
education of women, are others established by women mainly in the
interests of charity. I have, for instance, the twelfth annual report of
“The Home of Mercy,” in Pittsfield, Mass. It contains about thirteen
beds, and the number of patients in a year was one hundred. It was
established by a small body of women who felt the need of a place for
the victims of accident or disease. Sixty-eight per cent. of the
patients are women, and all the officers but the physicians. This
institution seems to present a good model for smaller cities and towns
where, especially among a manufacturing population, hospital
accommodations are often much needed. A training school for nurses is
added to its work.

Another step has been taken in the medical education of women in the
employment of women physicians, (made obligatory by the Legislature in
some States) in State institutions, thus giving them management of the
women’s infirmary. At the Reformatory prison at Sherburne, Mass., the
resident physician has charge of the health of two hundred prisoners.
The good care and treatment given them is apparent in the improvement of
the health of prisoners during their stay, and in the small number of
deaths.

The employment of women physicians in insane asylums is a very valuable
measure from which we may hope great good in the future. At present, the
most interesting instance of such work that has come to my notice is in
the State Hospital for the Insane at Norristown, Pa., where Dr. Alice
Bennett, with two women assistants, has charge of over eight hundred
patients. Her carefully tabulated statistics throw much light on
important questions regarding the causes of insanity and the probability
of restoration. Dr. Bennett has introduced beneficial improvements in
the treatment of patients in the direction of more freedom and more
social life and opportunity of employment. She says in her last report,
“No mechanical restraint (by which is meant enforced limitation of free
movements of the body by means of jackets, muffs, straps, etc.) is at
any time made use of in this department.... There are times in the
history of many cases, when temporary separation from external cause of
irritation is beneficial and necessary.... Brush making, basket making,
sewing and mending, kindergarten occupations for the feebler-minded and
melancholy, and the ever-present “housework,” in all its forms, engage
about half the whole number of patients at one time or another. The
officers and patients have also organized a ‘Lend a Hand Club.’ Dr.
Bennett has arranged for a large number of patients to take their meals
together, and finds the arrangement very beneficial.”

Some of those who are working for the sick have preferred the name of
“Hospital Association.” Such is the St. Luke’s hospital in Jacksonville,
Fla., said to be the first one in the State. The officers are women, but
the physicians and a board of trustees are men. The main purpose of this
association seems to be to relieve the wants of strangers, who so often
go to Florida seeking health, but sometimes in vain.

The Women’s Homœopathic Association of Pennsylvania was formed for a
distinctively reformatory purpose. Its government is composed of women,
with the exception of an advisory board of men. The medical faculty is
composed of both men and women. This account is given of its origin:

“The motive of starting a women’s association was, largely, to correct
the abuses that grow out of institutions managed by men. It is here now
and has been for many years the custom for hospital or other charitable
institutions to have an auxiliary board of women managers, whose duties
are to look after the housekeeping department and raise money either by
giving entertainments or begging—the expenditure of the money so raised,
and general management of hospital work, is considered beyond a woman’s
ability. This prevents a voice in the higher administration. Some of the
women, whose names appear as incorporators of the hospital of this
association, desired to open an institution where women could, when in
sickness and sorrow, be in the care of women. Out of 213 patients cared
for during 1888, 153 were charity cases, 45 partial pay, and 15 cases
full pay.”

The “Philadelphia Home for Incurables” was established by women, but its
bounty is not confined to them; it admits men as patients. With the
exception of a superintendent of the men’s department, the management is
entirely in the hands of women. This is an effort to meet the crying
need of a home for chronic sufferers. Each patient pays one hundred
dollars and is kept during her life.

Much other work of the same nature as that I have described is,
doubtless, doing in our vast country, of which no account has reached
us. One of the many “Women’s Clubs” has taken the subject of hospitals
into serious consideration. While rejoicing in every such effort, I
would like to add a word of caution that every enterprise should be most
carefully considered, and the work never allowed to fall below the
recognized standard of merit.

When the pioneer hospitals were opened, no other clinical advantages
were free to women; now the hospitals are beginning to open their doors
to them. The report of the city hospital of Boston says, “The propriety
of women practicing as physicians or surgeons, and their comparative
ability and fitness to pursue this profession, are not questions for the
trustees to consider in the official management of the hospital; they
must recognize the fact that women are becoming practitioners in all the
schools of medicine; that they are admitted to the Massachusetts Medical
and other State societies, and are recognized as practitioners by the
community at large; and that they are admitted in common with male
students to other leading hospitals of the country. The trustees
therefore feel that there is no sufficient reason why women should not
be admitted to the public instruction in the amphitheater on the same
terms as men, except as to certain operations from which a reasonable
sense or regard for propriety may exclude them.” This advance in public
opinion is most gratifying; but, even when all hospitals are open to
women students, the value of those of which I have spoken will not be
lost; they will still have special work to do, both in education and
charity.

This movement for the clinical education of women in hospitals begun in
America, has extended to Great Britain, Switzerland, and Germany, and is
now being rapidly introduced into India, where the Women’s Hospital is
found to be a most important agent in educating and elevating the women
of India.

The lamented Dr. Amandibai Joshee, who was the pioneer of medical
education for Hindoo women, was a student at the Philadelphia college
and an _interne_ at the New England Hospital.

An excellent hospital in Burlington, Vt., was planned and endowed by a
woman (Miss Mary Fletcher), who gave it her personal supervision. It had
no direct bearing on women’s education, but was open to all classes of
patients. Since Miss Fletcher’s death it is called by her name. It is
mainly intended for residents of the State, although other patients are
received if it is not full. It has no women physicians, but a board of
women visitors. It has an amphitheater for clinical instruction, and its
buildings are large and convenient.

All these hospitals maintain the principle that those who are treated in
them should pay for the care they receive according to their ability.
The price of board and treatment varies from five to forty dollars per
week, according to the service required and other circumstances; but in
all the institutions are free beds, endowed or supported by charity.

Out of this hospital work has grown another very important branch of
service in the training schools for nurses. While estimating this new
departure at its full value, I wish to pause a moment to pay a deserved
tribute to the “old-fashioned nurse.” In New England, especially in our
country towns, and I presume no less in other parts of the country, the
nurse was an important and honored member of society. Although not
regularly trained according to the modern demands, she was generally a
woman deeply read in the great school of life; often a widowed mother,
who earned her bread by giving to others the fruits of her own blighted
family life; sometimes a maiden, who, losing the hope of a home of her
own, found a wide and useful sphere for her energies and affections in
care of the sick; sometimes the girl who had wrecked her life by
youthful indiscretion (like Mrs. Gaskell’s “Ruth”), in the ministry of
help to others found a life which soothed her own sorrows and restored
her to the respect of society. The nurse then gathered her knowledge as
she could, watching through long winter nights with sick friends, and
visiting among the poor when disease came upon them. Dickens has drawn
cruel portraits of the nurse of olden time, true, perhaps, to flagrant
instances, but forming a pitiful caricature of the whole class. The old
nurse was more often the true friend of the family, summoned in every
time of trouble, and loving the children whose birth she had watched,
almost as if they were her own.

But with the advance of scientific medical practice it became necessary
that the physician should have an assistant fitted to carry out his
views skillfully as well as faithfully; and the trained nurse was called
into being. She, as well as the physician, must have clinical education.
How strongly this need was felt is shown by the almost simultaneous
establishment of training schools in various countries. To Miss
Nightingale is due the impulse which started the general movement.

The New England Hospital claims priority in this country, in announcing
the training of nurses as an important part of its work in 1863; but its
school was not fully established until the return of Dr. Dimock from
Europe in 1869, who placed it on its present foundation. The methods
pursued in the various training schools now in operation are very
similar, showing that the work has been carefully considered and is
being satisfactorily done. Similar difficulties presented themselves to
those found in all industrial education, of which one of the greatest
was the impossibility of finding teachers trained for the work. Such
women as I have described might be very valuable nurses, but they had
not acquired their knowledge systematically, and were not skilled in the
art of teaching. The doctor knows what qualities are wanted in a nurse,
but cannot always give the instruction and discipline which will secure
their development. The women physicians had some advantage in this
respect. The very general employment of women as teachers has helped to
supply this need. A young woman who had a natural aptitude for nursing,
and the high moral qualities necessary for a superintendent of nurses,
and who also had the experience of a few years of teaching, became well
adapted to the new profession, and after a few years the training
schools began to furnish graduates who could carry on the work as
teachers.

Another difficulty was in the amount of time required for thorough
training. The pupils seldom had resources to support them during one or
two years of training. It is quite necessary, therefore, to pay the
pupils a small salary, after their first month of probation, in addition
to their board and lodging. This is sufficient to provide for their
inexpensive clothing and all other necessary expenses, so that the
graduate leaves the school without arrears of debt and able to look
cheerfully forward to the exercise of her profession. A great step has
been gained for women in thus raising this humble labor to the dignity
of a profession. The woman who has given one or two years to preparation
for her life-work, looks upon it very differently from one who has taken
it up only on the pressure of necessity and has to learn her business in
the doing of it. She feels a conscious strength in her position, which
ought to stimulate her intellectual powers and elevate her moral
character. It is true that the school gives her only the preparation for
her work, and she must get the best part of her education from life, but
she goes to her task with tools well sharpened for use, and a trained
power of observation which should make every experience doubly valuable.
Let her not lose in the pride of her acquisition the lovelier spirit and
conscientious fidelity which made the old nurse the useful and trusted
friend of the family.

The well-trained nurse is like another eye and hand to the physician.
She notes with reliable accuracy the changes of pulse and temperature,
keeps the record of nourishment and sleep, watches every vital function
with a practiced eye, and thus can give to the medical attendant a
photographic picture of all that has occurred since his last visit. She
carries out his directions intelligently, and thus enables him to
calculate on strict application of the means he wishes to use.

In 1886, by the report of the Bureau of Education, there were 29
training schools for nurses, 139 instructors, 837 pupils, 349 graduates,
in twelve different States and the District of Columbia. Some of these
schools are connected with public hospitals, others with private
charities. In a few cases the schools are independent of any
institution, but the pupils are employed both in hospitals and private
families.

The rules of admission are very similar in all schools. The minimum age
ranges from twenty to twenty-five, the maximum from thirty-five to
forty. As a general rule, twenty-five is a good age at which to enter a
training school; the constitution should be well established, the
character formed, and some experience of life gained before entering
upon this difficult work. Good education and character are required, and
in most cases certificates of good health and ability for the work.

The wages paid to pupils vary from seven dollars per month the first
year, and twelve dollars the second year, to sixteen dollars per month
for the highest grade of nurse, in a New York hospital. The time
required for study ranges from one to two years, the last being the rule
in a majority of cases. The Philadelphia school, which demands only one
year, has an additional course of one year to train superintendents.

The expense of supplying the nursing of the hospital by a training
school, in the only case known to me, is found to be about the same as
by the old method of hired nurses. Trained nurses receive good pay in
comparison with that of the ordinary employments of women, ranging from
ten dollars per week upward to twenty, thirty, or even forty dollars,
according to the difficulty of the case. While these prices are by no
means higher than should reward a nurse who has given years to
preparation for her profession and who works faithfully in it, they are
yet burdensome to many families. A surgeon will sometimes refuse to take
a case unless he can have the skilled nursing that he believes essential
to success, and yet the pay of the nurse will take all the earnings of
the father, on which the family rely for support.

But, on the other hand, the saving of expense in the number of
physician’s visits is to be considered, since he can trust the report of
the nurse, and so the patient is better cared for, without additional
expense. During the last months of study, the nurse’s work is among the
poor, under the direction of the dispensary physicians. Not only are the
patients much helped by this arrangement, but the experience is of great
value to the nurses, as they see a greater variety of work than they can
in a hospital and under differing conditions of life, and are thus
fitted to meet what comes to them in their future practice.

Societies are also formed by women for supplying nurses to the sick
poor. Such associations employ a number of trained nurses in attendance
on patients who are unable to pay full price. They work both in
connection with dispensaries and independently of them. Usually a nurse
makes two visits a day to her patient, doing for her whatever members of
the household cannot do, but she is always required to instruct some of
the family, if possible, in the simple methods of care of the sick. She
also uses her opportunity to enforce common rules of hygiene and
sanitary care on all the household. In this way it is hoped that much
may be done for the prevention of disease as well at its cure.

The “Visiting Nurse Society, of Philadelphia,” may serve for a good
model of such associations.[200]

While it has been impossible in limited space to do full justice to all
the good work now doing in the training of nurses, there are yet two
directions, of which I wish to speak, in which it should be extended. It
is desirable that women should be especially trained for the care of
insane patients, who need peculiar care both in institutions and in
private life. The extreme watchfulness and the power of control required
for this service seem to demand a special training, which would be
unnecessary or even prejudicial in ordinary nursing. This subject is
already engaging the attention of those having the care of the insane,
and I doubt not they will find means to carry out their ideas.

Again, I believe that nursing would afford a wide field of usefulness
for the colored women of our Southern States. Their qualities of
patience, sweetness, and affection are well adapted to this profession,
and when to these is added the intellectual education which is now
within the reach of many of them, there is no reason why, with good
training, they should not do excellent service. Many of the best nurses
in our Southern cities are of this class. The University of Atlanta,
Ga., has made some attempt to introduce nursing into its practical
education, and I hope other experiments will soon be made. So far as I
know the New England Hospital is the only one that admits colored pupils
to its training school. Here this measure has been entirely successful,
and no disagreeable feeling has arisen on the part of patients or any
one else. The colored students have maintained a fair average in their
standing, and some have been superior. A good education is the most
important prerequisite to the entrance of colored women into this field.

While my fruitful theme is by no means exhausted, I wish in conclusion
to add one thought, viz., that however decidedly these hospitals of
which I have spoken owe their existence to women, either as originating
or endowing them, in every case within my knowledge there is a union of
both sexes in the management of the institution. The arrangements are
very various; in some cases the managers are all women and the
physicians are men; in others all the physicians but the consulting
staff are women, while the board of management is divided between the
sexes; in others we find the women have full charge, with an advisory
board of men. This proves that women have been more anxious to secure
good management than to establish their own claims. It is an earnest of
future improvement when both sexes shall work together in all
departments of life, each bringing her or his peculiar talents to the
work, either as individuals or as representing a part of the community.

XIV.
CARE OF THE CRIMINAL.

SUSAN HAMMOND BARNEY.

When Elizabeth Fry, in 1815, rapped at the prison doors in England, she
not only summoned the turnkey, but sounded a call to women in other
lands to enter upon a most Christlike mission. The reports of her work
in Great Britain and on the Continent, published at intervals during
several succeeding years, extracts of which found their way into
American papers, not only awakened admiration for the fearless courage
manifested in the self-denying efforts, but marvel at what she was able
to accomplish, and, from the reading, a few women in our land arose to
ask the question, “Lord, what will _Thou_ have me to do?” and in the
answer found new light upon the words, “I was in prison and ye visited
me.”

There was no talk about “going to work,” but, from their knees, two or
three women in New York, as early as 1830, began in the quietest manner
possible to visit the district lock-ups and prisons, making careful
inquiries concerning these places and their inmates, thus gathering up
food for thought, which sent them back to their prayers with something
definite to ask for.

In 1834 these women, with a few others, organized “The New York Moral
Reform Society,” with Margaret Prior for their first missionary, and
they made systematic prison visitation a part of their regular work.
From their own records, “Our Golden Jubilee, 1834–1884,” we quote: “Our
prisons were at that time in a sadly demoralized condition,—as our
missionaries went through these public institutions, gathering facts
relative to the spiritual condition of the inmates, they saw an urgent
necessity of reform and gave themselves no rest till it was
accomplished.” To their memorials, petitions, and personal appeals, the
State Legislature at length responded, and several reforms were
inaugurated, among them better arrangements for separation of the sexes
and the placing of matrons over the female departments. At this time
Mrs. Dora Foster was given charge of women at the Tombs, then used as a
police district lock-up, and she proved of such exceptionable character
and qualifications as to continue in favor and in office more than forty
years. A great change in the moral atmosphere of the place was effected
by her discreet management, and many and sore evils were prevented.

SPREAD OF WORK.

Reports of the work were taken to other cities, and in 1839 the society
became national in name, with vice-presidents in seventeen different
States, and in the next few years, particularly in New York,
Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, we find the
women prominent in anti-slavery and other reforms, giving special
thought and personal efforts, toward the amelioration of the condition
of persons confined in our various institutions. Thus quietly was the
leaven working in many places, hindered, hampered, and limited by
prejudice against woman’s work, and the fear of their seeing too much,
if once admitted and allowed the privilege of inspection.

It is recorded, that on one of the ladies being denied the opportunity
which she sought of seeing and ministering to a sick _female_ prisoner,
while a minister was allowed to go in and on his asking the reason of
it, “Why,” said the official, “it wouldn’t have done, she’s too sharp;
_she_ wouldn’t have come in here and just prayed and gone away about her
business as you have; _she’d wanted to know the cause_”; and another
time when those in authority had been solicited by a public-spirited
gentleman to grant permission for women to go in and out these places on
their errands of mercy, they explained their refusal by saying, “That
until the State was ready to expend money enough for several changes, it
would only be inviting trouble to have such women spying round and
seeing everything, as they were sure to do.”

NEW YORK PRISON ASSOCIATION.

On November 23, 1844, a company of gentlemen gathered in a private
parlor in New York City “to take into consideration the destitute
condition of discharged convicts”; then a circular was issued, calling
for a public meeting on December 6, at which time the following
resolution, among others, was offered by Isaac T. Hopper: “_Resolved_,
That in the foundation of such a society (the New York Prison
Association), it would be proper to have a female department to be
especially regardful of the interests and welfare of prisoners of that
sex.”

Public meetings were held, and in June, 1845, a house was taken, two
matrons placed in charge, and a committee of ladies organized to
superintend and control its operations. A sewing department and school
were established, and at a later day a laundry.

In 1854 the women dissolved all connection with the New York Prison
Association, and were incorporated as “The Women’s Prison Association
and Home.” Up to this time the Home had averaged about 150 inmates per
year. We quote from one of their reports: “We will not dwell upon the
many years of up-hill work through every possible discouragement, but
proceed at once to the results of a pre-determined endeavor to take by
the hand the unfortunate of our sex and lead them to a better life,
where by patient industry they might earn an honest livelihood.”

In 1859 the association adopted as a distinctive name for its house
department that of “The Isaac T. Hopper Home.” The work has gone
steadily on, the women of the association having been to the front in
every effort for prevention of crime, and reform of the criminal girls
and women, and in their forty-fourth annual report, we find, “During the
year 119 women have been sent to service in families in the State, and
31 out of the State; 4 were returned to friends.” Only those who can
read between the lines can understand all that these items mean. To
those who talk glibly about “abandoned women” and the “utter
hopelessness of trying to save them,” the subjoined lines from the same
report might seem “mere sentiment,” but to those with clearer vision it
is the secret of their success. “We believe that woman, in her deepest
degradation, holds something sacred, something undefiled; and, like the
diamond in the dark, retains some quenchless gleams of the celestial
light.”

The prison committee, through its chairman, gave in 1887 an exhaustive
report upon the condition of prisons and station houses, and in 1888,
through their prison visitor, a female M.D., a careful report, both of
which contain items which are strange reading for nineteenth century
civilization and progress.

PERSONAL WORK.

In the autumn of 1844, Margaret Fuller Ossoli accepted a position on the
New York _Tribune_, and became an inmate of the Greeley mansion. The
prison on Blackwell’s Island was on the opposite side of the river, at a
distance easily reached by boat, and Sing Sing was not far off. Margaret
was to “write up” these places, and gladly took the first opportunity to
visit them. Her biographer says: “She had consorted hitherto with the
_élite_ of her sex, she now made acquaintance with the outcasts to whom
the elements of womanhood are scarcely recognizable. For both she had
one gospel, that of high hope and divine love. She seemed to have found
herself as much at home in the office of encouraging the fallen as she
had been, when it was her duty to arouse the best spirit in women
sheltered from the knowledge and experience of evil by every favoring
circumstance.” She herself said of a meeting where she addressed the
female prisoners, “All passed, indeed, as in one of my Boston classes.”
This was after Mrs. Farnum had been appointed matron, a woman of
uncommon character and ability, and the women already showed the results
of her intelligent and kindly treatment. Through the letters published
in the _Tribune_, on “Prison Discipline,” “Appeal for an Asylum for
Discharged Female Prisoners,” “Capital Punishment,” and others, public
attention and interest were awakened, and Mr. Greeley says, “I doubt
that our various reformatory institutions had ever before received such
wise and discriminating commendation to the favor of the rich as they
did from Margaret’s pen during her connection with us.”

Dorothea Dix, of blessed memory, whose specialty seemed the caring for
the insane, gave much thought and gracious ministry to those in bonds;
and many were indebted to her personal efforts in their behalf, both
while in prison and in the trying time of their release. She was also
fearless in lifting up her voice against abuses, and in favor of needed
reforms. She was so persistent in reiterating her protests, that
attention had to be given, and her demands secured changes which are
thankfully remembered.

In Rhode Island, as early as 1830, a young and gifted woman, whose heart
had been stirred by accounts given by her father, a prominent lawyer,
began to visit the institutions of the State; and through a long and
eventful life has continued her ministrations. Even now, in her
ninety-first year, she has not entirely laid down her work. By voice and
pen she has appealed stoutly against wrongs and abuses, and while she
has been the spiritual mother of numberless men and women, she has not
neglected the financial aid so important to those who emerge from prison
life. She was the originator of the “Rhode Island Prisoners’ Aid
Association,” and the founder of the “Temporary Industrial Home” for
released female prisoners, which was opened in 1880, and bears her name,
“The Sophia Little Home.”

Among the special workers should be named Miss Linda Gilbert of New
York, who has devoted much time to prison work, and in fifteen years
has procured employment for over six thousand ex-convicts; six hundred
of the better class of these she has by her own individual aid
established in business in a small way, and in speaking of the results
of her ventures in thus assisting them, she says, “I am happy to state
that not ten per cent. of the number thus aided have turned out
unsatisfactorily.” She has also presented twenty-two libraries to
prisons in six different States, and among other projects which she
hopes to accomplish is the establishing of a national industrial home
for ex-convicts, where various branches of labor can be taught and the
inmates put in the way of becoming self-supporting. When a little girl
of only eight or nine years, she used to visit the prison nearest her
home and take some little gift, if only a few flowers, to cheer the
prisoners, who learned to look upon her visits to their dark abode as
they would a stray sunbeam from heaven.

Elizabeth Comstock, of Michigan, upon whose head in childhood Elizabeth
Fry placed her hand as she said the kindly words, “Remember what I tell
thee, dear Elizabeth; to be Christ’s messenger to those who know him
not, that is the happiest life,” has so well carried out her avowed
purpose, “To bear our Father’s message of love and mercy to the largest
household on earth, the household of affliction,” that in thirty years,
mid duties urgent and varied, she has visited over 120,000 prisoners,
awakening hope and giving direction to many lives.

A long list of other names might be added, but our space is otherwise
needed.

REFORMATORY PRISONS FOR WOMEN.

In the year of 1873 startling revelations concerning immoralities
connected with the Indiana Southern Prison led to the immediate
occupancy of the buildings in Indianapolis, which had been under way for
two years and which were to be known as “The Reformatory Prison for
Women and Girls.” The institution was officered entirely by women, with
Mrs. Sarah J. Smith, one of its chief founders, for Superintendent. The
project was looked upon as a doubtful experiment, and the speedy
relinquishment of the idea prophesied. The board of managers consisted
at first of three gentlemen and two lady visitors. In 1887 Governor
Williams approved an act of the Legislature by which the general
supervision and government were vested in a board of women managers.
This was, at that time, and we believe still is, the only governmental
prison known, either in the United States or in Europe, under the entire
management of women.

The safe transfer of the women prisoners, seventeen in number, under the
charge of warden, chaplain, and matron of the Jeffersonville prison, was
considered a great event, “as two were dangerous and others below hope.”
The present Superintendent says: “We have no weapons of defense, not a
gun or pistol about the premises. Kind words and gentleness of manner
are almost sure to win. We have eleven lady officers, women of
refinement and Christian character, lending every thought to the
uplifting of their sex.” The financial showing in the seventeenth annual
report reflects great credit upon the management, while the large
percentage claimed as “permanently reformed,” attests to the
thoroughness of work and wisdom of methods.

In 1870 a number of influential ladies of Eastern Massachusetts—among
whom was Mrs. E. C. Johnson, the present Superintendent of the
reformatory—petitioned the Legislature for a separate institution for
the reformation of female prisoners, but it was not until the fall of
1874 that ground was broken at Sherborn for the erection of the
buildings. In September, 1877, these were occupied, and the work has
been eminently successful from the start. The system of grading adopted
in 1881 has proved very satisfactory, and over two hundred and thirty
inmates, ranging from fifteen to seventy-five years of age, find in it
an incentive to order and decorum. The aim is to prepare them, if found
trustworthy, to do good work as servants, and this is so far a success
that the demand is greater than the supply.

No one familiar with the old régime in connection with women prisoners
but would hail with thankfulness the improvements shown under the
present administration. Said an English critic after a visit: “I
remarked, ‘These people are almost of a hopeless type’; the reply came
quickly, ‘_Hopeless_ is not a permitted word here, we hope for all.’ I
came away glad to have seen such an experiment, hopeful for its success,
and confident that women had undertaken for women a beneficent work.”

Women in other States are agitating the question of separate prisons for
women, and in several feel assured of success in the near future.

In 1887 at Hudson, N. Y., The House of Refuge for Women was opened, and
an efficient lady superintendent placed in charge. The results reached,
even at this short period, have been encouraging in the highest degree,
and emphasize the wisdom of the arrangements, which are largely due to
the persistent efforts of women in philanthropic circles. We quote from
report of “Standing Committee on Reformatories,” of which Josephine Shaw
Lowell is a member: “To any who have visited even once one of the county
jails in this State, and know the condition of young women in them, kept
in idleness, in the midst of degraded companions, under the charge of
male keepers, frequently not out of sound, sometimes not out of sight of
the male prisoners, nothing can be more affecting than to see the young
women in the House of Refuge, neatly dressed, always occupied, and
constantly under the care of refined and conscientious women.”

WOMEN ON STATE BOARDS.

In New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Wisconsin there are women
on the State Board of Charities.[201] In Pennsylvania, the board
appoints women visitors to public institutions, and in Rhode Island the
Governor appoints a board of women visitors to all institutions caring
for women and girls. Massachusetts stands alone in the honor of having
women on “Boards of Commissioners of Prisons.” This was inaugurated in
1880, and their gracious womanly influence is felt in all the
institutions of the State.

In some other States women are coming to be recognized factors in these
lines of work, and are cordially invited to fill places of trust. The
_Journal of Prison Discipline and Philanthropy_, published by the
Pennsylvania Prison Association, in its issue of 1886 says: “This
society has profited largely by the recent admission of competent women
into the acting committee. Their suggestions have proved of marked
advantage, and with the time, intelligence, and high moral force they
have given to the work, both in and out of the prison, there has been a
gain which promises incalculable good.”

DEPARTMENT OF PRISON, JAIL, AND POLICE WORK OF THE NATIONAL WOMAN’S
CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNION.

This department is in the eleventh year of organized work, which, under
the same Superintendent, Mrs. S. H. Barney, of Providence, has steadily
increased until now her parish is the entire country. The plan of
national, State, and local superintendents insures system and
supervision all along the lines, and brings out annually the general
summary of work attempted and work accomplished.

In the spirit of the department’s motto, “_Not willing that any should
perish_,” the investigations have extended to State prisons,
penitentiaries, convict camps, city prisons and jails, houses of
correction or refuge, police stations and lock-ups, and reformatories
for adults and juveniles.

In many of these places were found a brutality and neglect of the common
decencies of life which were disgraceful beyond description. Criminals
of all grades herded together irrespective of age, sex, or degrees in
vice. Youths of both sexes confined with those hardened in crime, while
awaiting trial, became schooled in vice. Thousands, who for some first
and trivial offense were lodged in the calaboose or the county jail,
exposed to the contaminating influences of indiscriminate companionship,
became hardened, and lost all self-respect as they yielded, day by day,
to this mind-poisoning, moral miasma.

The first visits of the women to many of these places, where they went
unheralded, were unwelcome, and they were sometimes repulsed by
officials with, “We don’t ’low any women round here; leastwise, only
them that’s sentenced.” Entrance at last secured, it would have been a
picture worthy of some master hand when these women stepped, pale-faced
but brave-hearted, into those miserable, crowded corridors. The lewd and
profane conversation was hushed, but it could _be felt_, as plainly as
could be seen the vilest of obscene prints and the most dangerous kinds
of literature.

Nothing was more disheartening than the condition of _women_ in these
places. Having become criminals, they were generally deemed hopeless,
and, on being released, it was expected they would drift back again
after a longer or shorter period.

The _call_ to the work gained emphasis as it was realized how little
this age of boasted civilization and philanthropy had done for
unfortunate and degraded women. Arrested by men, given into the hands of
men to be searched and cared for, tried by men, sentenced by men, and
committed to our various institutions for months and even years, where
only men officials had access to them, and where, in sickness or direst
need, no womanly help or visitation was expected or allowed.

In one of the New York cities, in a jail, eleven women were found to be
in the care of men, and the keys of “the women’s quarters” in the hands
of one of the _male convicts_. The women, with the intent of being ready
for their release, which was near, had removed most of their clothing
“for the wash,” and were in a semi-nude condition.

A visitor to a county jail in Pennsylvania, writes: “The scene that met
our gaze when we entered the jail was indescribable. The
prisoners—twenty-six men and two women—were allowed to associate in the
open space between the vestibule and the cells. In appearance, they
might have been a gang of bandits in a cave. The men were in groups,
playing cards on low boxes on the floor. The jail was deficient in
ventilation, also in light and cleanliness.”

In a New England jail two boys were found under fourteen years of age.
The months which would elapse before their trial would be ample time to
complete their crime education under the tutelage thus provided for
them. Similar sights may be seen in many of the prisons and jails of our
land, proving conclusively the need of womanly forethought in these
matters, which from a merely economical standpoint need prompt
attention. The better care of our juvenile offenders cannot be deferred
without irreparable loss, for in a few years we shall have missed our
chance to save them, so they will then be found in the ranks of
confirmed criminals. Perhaps no work of the department will prove more
fruitful in results than the effort to secure _Matrons for the Police
Stations_. The movement began in 1877 and has been adopted in one or
more cities in twenty States, while in Massachusetts, New York, and
Pennsylvania all cities over a given number of inhabitants are required
by law to provide matrons to care for arrested women. We quote from an
article furnished the _International Review_ in 1888 by the present
writer:

POLICE MATRONS.

Shall we have police matrons? seems no longer an open question. With the
reform inaugurated in twenty cities, and under advisement in as many
more, the _idea_ may be said to be established. How wide is to be the
influence of such an officer, and how effective her work, depend upon
the place and the woman. “The place” should be central, with requisite
accommodations for the comfort and convenience of the matron, in order
that she may economize her time and strength. Official recognition of
her work and its importance, with ready co-operation in various ways,
will necessarily have much to do with its success; and these have
sometimes been won under very trying circumstances. Other points, more
or less essential, will occur to those interested, for every conceivable
objection and obstacle will be presented, emphasized, and duly magnified
while the effort is being made to secure a place.

That secured, then comes the question, “Where is the woman to fill it?”
There will be applicants enough, and for them “friends at court” to push
their claims, but “the right woman” will have to be sought; and it is
better to wait for her, than to inaugurate the movement under too great
disadvantages. A middle-aged woman, scrupulously clean in person and
dress, with a face to commend her and manner to compel respect; quiet,
calm, observant, with faith in God, and hope for humanity; a woman
fertile in resources, patient and sympathetic. She could hardly be all
this without possessing a generous endowment of “good common sense,” and
she cannot possibly do the work required unless that is sanctified. It
will be seen at once that “the place” is indeed, in a very real sense,
“missionary ground,” and that “the woman” must necessarily have these
qualifications and spirit in order to fill it and meet the demands of
the time. Competent and conscientious, the influence of such a woman, in
such a position, can hardly be overestimated. Her duties, serious and
responsible, but legitimate to the office, will naturally develop as she
is given opportunity to work out the problem, “What can be done for
women in police stations?” under methods demanded by Christian
civilization.

Of course, she will be “on call,” and every woman brought to the station
will be committed at once into her care, and every duty connected with
search, locking-up, and necessary attendance, will be performed by her.
The cells for women (entirely separate from the men) will be in her
charge, and she will be accountable for them and their occupants. Just
what she will need to do in every case, no one could possibly outline.
Said the chief of police in ——: “I wish you to state definitely all the
duties of a police woman.” For answer, I said: “Will you first describe
to me the duties of a policeman?” “Impossible,” was the reply; “he must
be ready for everything.” Just so, within the limitations of her office,
must the matron be ready for everything.

Women brought to stations are not all drunk, or even bad. Girls or women
suddenly set adrift; one who has lost her train and is penniless; or who
finds herself deserted; or who, by reason of sudden illness, fainting,
or temporary aberration, cannot give her name and residence; the
partially insane; attempted suicides; persons arrested on suspicion (and
frequently found innocent); young girls taken up for disorderly conduct
or because found in questionable company,—all these are liable to be
brought to the station-house, a place which officials represent as
“wholly unfit for a decent woman.” These arrested women are often
irresponsible for the time being, careless of their person, and
regardless of the commonest laws of decency. Their clothing is often
disarranged and unfastened, and they are liable to be in a condition
totally unfit for appearance in court. The matron should be provided
with such articles as womanly thought will suggest, and she should
accompany her charge to the court room and remain by her until release
or sentence removes her from her care. Among these will be found some
for whom the matron may intercede, and who, upon her representation, may
be taken to some “home,” and life for them thus receive an upward lift,
instead of the almost fatal plunge downward of the police court. There
will be children of varying ages, from the babe born in the
station-house to the poor child in short dresses, the victim of home
neglect or of some one’s vile lust; and drunken women with infants in
their arms, who need some woman to rescue them, for the time being, from
their own unmotherly grasp, and to prevent them from nursing the
alcoholized milk which would be offered them. Night will sometimes be
made hideous by women raving with drunken delirium, or maddened by the
fiery draught to foulest deeds of rage and shame; but “the right woman”
will not fail in such emergencies or be dismayed by such depths of
degradation, but rather see in it the _why of her calling_. Any one of
the classes named will be better off for the matron’s presence, and the
worst will be found more amenable to her touch and voice than to the
average policeman, be he ever so well disposed. How far police duty and
supervision may be combined with the missionary work needed, both in the
station and in following up special cases, will depend, of course,
largely upon the locality, the number of arrests, and the general
demands of the service.

Whatever else may seem uncertain at the beginning of the work, there is
one thing sure—“the right woman” will find her time occupied, and
exercise for all her tact, patience, and consecration; and any one who
takes the position merely for the salary or from sentimental notions,
will pretty surely resign at the end of the first quarter, or those
interested in the success of the movement will seek for some one else to
fill the place. Difficult as it may seem to secure one who combines
these qualifications, yet it will doubtless prove, as in many another
important position where much is demanded, that the best available
person is selected who, under the emergency, develops unexpected
fitness, and who in time comes to compel approval and indorsement even
from those who hesitated in committing to her this trust.

In every city where the appointment of a police matron is secured, there
should be a committee from the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, upon
whom the matron can rely for such help as she will assuredly need, and
an “Open Door” or “Temporary Refuge” will prove an absolute necessity if
much rescue work, which was the primary thought in the reform, is to be
undertaken.

In time, there will be womanly supervision in the transportation of
women to the various institutions to which they are consigned; and the
police matron will hasten the day, by her womanly forethought, for the
women passing from her care, besides strengthening her influence over
them. Indeed, _the presence_ of the police matron will often prevent
carelessness on many points, and deliberate wrong in others. Ten years
ago the movement was sneered at; ten years hence no city will be without
one or more such officers.

All along the lines of the National Department advanced plans are yearly
sent forth, and every State and Territory made some attempt to carry
them out. During the last year hundreds of services have been held in
hitherto neglected places. These were of a varied nature, preaching,
prayer and conference meetings, Bible classes, Sunday schools, literary
and musical entertainments; in some of which young people and children
assisted. Said the keeper of one of the most desolate places: “It’s
funny to see how the men try to clean up for the women’s meetings.”

One of the convicts told an officer, “I can stand the chaplains
preaching, but those women, with their tearful pleading, break me all
up; home and mother seem realities again.”

The Prison Flower Mission, cared for and directed by Jennie Carsuday,
from her sick room in Louisville, Ky., has proved a blessed ministry to
hundreds, and an opening wedge for the gospel message of hope and help.

Great numbers of bibles, testaments, helps for Bible study, prayer,
hymn, school, and library books have been supplied, and millions of
pages of gospel and temperance leaflets and papers distributed, thus
displacing dime novels and cards. Book-cases, wall-rolls, illuminated
mottoes, and pledge cards have been furnished, with Christmas boxes and
Easter offerings by the thousands. Organs have been given, and others
loaned for chapel services.

Petitions for needed reforms have been widely circulated, co-operation
with other organizations gladly given, and scores of articles furnished
the press, all of which have helped to arouse to action those not
identified with the W. C. T. Union, and who perhaps had larger influence
in certain directions.

Letter writing, to and for the inmates, has proved helpful. Visiting the
friends of prisoners, giving sympathy, advice, and aid, have proved a
practical illustration of the words, “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and
_so_ fulfill the law of Christ.”

Several States have inaugurated the “Prison Gate Mission,” which is an
important branch, and aims to have its missionaries meet the prisoners
on their release, with _help_ and _hope_, in the most practical ways.
“Temporary Homes” and “Open-Doors” are offering shelter and work, and
thousands of lives redeemed attest the genuineness of these varied
efforts put forth in quietness but with great faith.

Many of the State superintendents of this department have given years of
untiring labor, often furnishing their own supplies at great personal
sacrifice. Brave, true-hearted, and practical, they have disarmed
criticism, walked unharmed in dangerous places; never dropping into
sentiment or refusing attention to established rules, they have won
recognition from all right-minded officials and citizens.

PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE.

Thus, glancing backward, and passing in hasty review what has been
attempted and accomplished since 1830, we catch a glimpse of what is now
waiting to be done, and the call is so imperative, that we must express
our thanksgiving for the past by bringing all the force of combined
action to bear upon needed reforms in the present. We believe that woman
has special endowments for these lines of work, and that her absence
from them has been a source of weakness and failure.

We must familiarize ourselves with the questions of penology, the
relation of the State to its vicious and dependent classes; contract
labor and the lessee system with their attendant evils; congregate and
separate imprisonment; prison discipline, with reformatory measures and
institutions.

We should demand the absolute separation of the sexes, and juvenile from
older offenders; also _matrons_ to care for women arrested or committed.

Visit unannounced police stations and courts, with county jails, where
women are under care of men, or “left to themselves,” and compare their
looks and manners with those in similar places where the right kind of
matron bears sway with a firm hand and dignified presence. Women should
be associated with men as prison inspectors, and women physicians on
boards to care for women and children. Greater efforts should be put
forth in the lines of _reclamation_, opening the way to a return to
honesty and self-support; but double diligence should be given to
_removing the varied causes_ of _crime_, thus proving ourselves wise
citizens in the truest sense of the word.

XV.
CARE OF THE INDIAN.

AMELIA STONE QUINTON.

The work of women for the Indians within our national limits has been
important and of many kinds. It would require much more than the space
of a single volume at all fitly to describe the labor, self-sacrifice,
and heroism of women in connection with the various missionary
organizations in behalf of the red man. Some of the stories of such work
read like heroic romance, are worthy to be recorded in an epic, and glow
with delineations that reveal exalted unselfishness,[202] divine
self-devotement, and sometimes a success that seems a fitting crown for
such labor, albeit the crown, as so often to high souls in any vocation,
comes after the martyrdom.[203] In the East, in the Southwest, and in
the Northwest thrilling annals might be gathered from two centuries,
oftenest of those unknown to fame and without even public recognition,
who have laid down life in work for the Christianization of Indians, and
of some women who as overworked secretaries or other officials have no
less laid down life in labor to sustain such missionaries. But this is a
realm for the biographer and for the historian of Christian missions,
and must not be entered upon or even gleaned from in a sketch so limited
as the present one must be.

In the educational work of various types done for the native Indians,
noble women have been engaged, and this is notably true of the Hampton,
Virginia, and Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Indian schools, where gifted women
of high culture have devoted some of their best years to the elevation
of the red race. It would seem invidious to name a few where many have
wrought so well, and this department of labor, like that of missionary
effort, should be chronicled elsewhere.

A few women have made philological, ethnographic, and archæological
studies among North American Indians and have added the results to the
aggregate of scientific knowledge, doing also more or less to preserve
Indian records and material objects of value connected therewith, thus
increasing the sum of human interest in the red man, and, by the same,
his self-respect and therefore his elevation and progress. But the
request for this paper was for one regarding the late and general
philanthropic work of women in behalf of Indians rather than for one
giving the data referred to above, and which are less familiar to the
writer.

The name of Helen Hunt Jackson deservedly stands first in the literary
world as connected with modern effort by women for the deliverance of
our native American Indians from oppression and injustice, as shameful
as have been endured in any civilized land or by any race under the
guardianship or power of any civilized government. The first letters and
articles on this subject from her fascinating and popular pen were in
the New York _Tribune_, the _Christian Union_, and other religious and
secular newspapers and magazines, and were the outcry of a just and
humane soul quivering with a poet’s intense feeling and outraged
sensibility at the discovery and realization of the unspeakable
suffering of a capable and naturally brave race in a position where, to
put the case comprehensively, no human right is treated as sacred, and
where greed and passion alternately rob and destroy among their victims.
Her quotations, from government documents and of proved facts, startled
thoughtful readers, and her appeals rang like clarions through the souls
of those who really heard them, and with peals whose vibrations have not
yet ceased. Soon after she seriously took up the subject she visited, in
Philadelphia, the officers of the Women’s Indian Association, and
expressed herself as delighted and still further inspired to find a
group of earnest women already at work to make the facts of the Indian
situation known, with the object of moving the people to demand of the
government enacted justice for the wronged race. She wrote “A Century of
Dishonor,”[204] a book which every patriotic and intelligent American
should read, a condensed library on the Indian question and largely made
up of quotations from public and official records, and introduced the
book to the press and pulpit of the country. She had a copy of it placed
on the desk of every member of Congress the day but one before the
second annual petition of the Women’s Indian Association, of which she
became a member, was presented to that body, January 27, 1881, and the
writer, at the time also a guest of Miss Seward, vividly remembers with
what anxious interest she noted quotations made from her book in the
Senate Speeches to which both listened during the four or five days
which followed. But the reception of this book was a disappointment to
its author, and she said, later, in letters to and in conversation with
the writer: “It is not read as I hoped it would be; I can count upon
certain thousands who will read what I write because it is mine; but not
even all of these will read this book, and they _must_ read something on
the Indian question. I will write an Indian story.” To this resolve her
facile pen, her poetic fire, and her genius for graphic delineation and
clear, strong statement were given, and the story of “Ramona,” the data
of which were procured among the Indians of California while she was a
government inspector among them, was given to idyllic, classic romance,
to the American conscience, and to the humane of all civilized society.
She poured her heart into the story and her heart’s blood out through
its pages. She put the labor of the working years of an average
life-time into that half-decade of toil for a hunted race, and so it was
again, as not infrequently in this world’s story, that the righteous
zeal and the intense compassion of a quick spirit “ate up” the life, and
another consecrated genius fell, another great heart broke. The massive
cone of rocks, cast by loving hands from every State in our Union upon
the lonely mountain grave which she asked for among the Indian haunts of
Colorado, fitly marks the resting place of her dust, but her “soul is
marching on,” still rallying, still inspiring unselfish souls to the
cause she died for. The life given for others is a sacred life.

Another woman worker who has wrought with entire devotion and with the
ability of genius for the Indian race, who began that work a year or two
after “H. H.” felt her first inspiration, is Miss Alice C. Fletcher.
Already a student accustomed to research she first went among Indians,
in the summer of 1882, in the interests of scientific observation.
Perceiving at once the wrongs and needs of the race, she became their
enthusiastic friend, laid aside her scientific pen and pencil, and made
a serious study of the situation of the people among whom her labors
began, the Omahas of Nebraska. Representing their case to governmental
authorities in Washington, and successfully awakening interest in their
behalf among legislators, she drafted a bill and had the satisfaction of
seeing its passage, and then of allotting their lands under it to these
Indians in 1883–84. Nor was this all or even the chief part of her work.
Her scientific researches since then, treating in monographs of Indian
traditions, customs, ceremonies, music, and other subjects ethnographic,
biological, or archæological, have been original and valuable. It was
during the period covered by this work that she brought a party of
thirty-six young Indians to the Carlisle and Hampton Indian schools,
herself raising $1800 with which to meet the expenses of other Indians
who begged to join the party and seek an education. She persuaded
General Armstrong to undertake at the Hampton school, the training of
young Indian married couples, in cottages built by funds she raised for
their training, and by the success of this experiment introduced the
department of Indian Home Building into the Women’s National Indian
Association, of which she is an earnest member, and for which department
she has raised in all more than two thousand dollars, since expended in
building Indian homes, such loan-funds being in various instances
returned to the association and reloaned to other Indian beneficiaries.
An exhibit of civilized Indian industries for the Exhibition of 1884–85,
at New Orleans, was also prepared by Miss Fletcher, and a diploma of
honor was awarded her for this labor and for the lectures she gave upon
the exhibit during the exposition. Her book, entitled “Indian
Civilization and Education,” prepared in answer to a Senate resolution
of February 23, 1885, under the direction of the Commissioner of
Education, is an extended and valuable work, and was supplemented by her
late journey to Alaska in behalf of Indian education there. Since that
time she has, as a special agent of government, allotted lands in
severalty to the Winnebagoes of Nebraska, and is at this date (January
1891) engaged among the Nez Percés of Idaho, having been first for such
work an appointee of President Cleveland, July, 1887, and the only woman
till recently so commissioned. In addition to these greater services she
has rendered many others, such as starting the education of the first
Indian woman physician,[205] and of several Indian students at law or in
some course of special training; inciting others to build here a chapel
and there a school; doing with unstinted energy and enthusiasm the great
service which lay before her, and letting no chance slip to render the
smaller aid. Possessed of a quick scientific perception, keen sagacity,
great executive ability, of undaunted and tenacious purpose, of clear
judgment and strong mental grasp, her heroic labors have accomplished
important and lasting results for the benefit of the Indian race.

But another chapter of Indian work began six months before “H. H.”
commenced earnestly to think or write on the Indian question, as she
herself told the writer, when a noble woman in Philadelphia, whose
attention was just then specially called to the wrongs of the red race
by items in the daily press, brought these facts to the notice of a
small group of Christian workers. This was Mary L. Bonney,—later the
wife of Rev. Thomas Rambaut, D.D., LL.D.,—whose life had been given to
educational work, who had liberally aided many Christian and
philanthropic enterprises, who had an important share in inaugurating
the Women’s Union Missionary Society, and who had given largely for the
training of young men, both white and colored, for the Christian
ministry. President of a missionary circle,[206] she brought to its
monthly meeting, April, 1879, facts regarding the efforts of railroad
companies having roads through the Indian Territory, and of western
senators and others, to press Congress to open that Territory to white
settlement, and to set up there a United States territorial government,
though solemn treaties with the civilized tribes bound the nation never
to do this without their consent. Her sense of justice was shocked, and
she felt that so gross dishonesty must be a vast hindrance to Indian
missions, as well as a great injury to the moral sense of our nation.
The story of what followed is an interesting one as furnishing another
marked illustration of the fact that the human family is but one, and
that when any branch of it suffers, the others, upon knowledge of the
fact, will rise to the rescue; and that leaders and groups of workers
are separately and individually moved upon in accordance with one great
over-plan and its clearly apparent, all-including, redemptive design.
Miss Bonney printed a petition to the government, and copies were
distributed in an anniversary meeting, but from pressure of business
these were left unnoticed in the pews; the missionary circle adjourned
for the summer, and there the matter seemed to end. But, as Miss Bonney
states in a sketch of the beginnings of the movement, “she presented,” a
month later, “the facts she had gathered to her friend,” and “the two
entered into covenant” and “formed their plan of action.”[207] Miss
Bonney as the senior principal of the Chestnut Street Female Seminary of
Philadelphia, one of the most excellent and widely-known educational
institutions for young ladies in the country, originated by herself
twenty-nine years before, and which became, in 1883, the Ogontz School,
had little time for detailed investigation of wrongs to Indians or to
use the avails of such study for arousing the public to their redress;
but she had the means required and the heart generously to use these,
while her friend the writer, deeply moved on behalf of Indians by the
facts of their great wrongs, investigated the subject and gave herself
to the work. Seven thousand copies of an enlarged petition,[208] with a
leaflet appeal to accompany it, were circulated during the summer in
fifteen States by this volunteer committee of two, and those whom they
interested, and the result in the autumn was a petition roll, three
hundred feet long, containing the signatures of thousands of citizens.
This memorial was carried to the White House, February 14, 1880, by Miss
Bonney and two ladies, whom she invited to accompany her; Mrs. George
Dana Boardman, who presented the petition to President Hayes, and Mrs.
Mariné J. Chase, who arranged the interview, and it was presented by
Judge Kelly in the House of Representatives the 20th of that month, with
the memorial letter written by Miss Bonney, the central thought of which
was the binding obligation of treaties. It said, “We would express that
when a treaty is changed or modified the free consent of both parties is
necessary”; and it urged faithfulness in the case, “because we are
strong and the Indians are weak.” Both the petition and letter were
placed upon the records of Congress. Another petition and various
leaflets were prepared and circulated the next year, Miss Bonney at
first meeting all expenses, her gifts to the cause during the first two
years being nearly $500, while those of all others,—and all were at her
solicitation,—were less than $200, and during the first four years
amounting to nearly $1400, while those from all other sources were less
than $2000. In May, 1880, at her suggestion, two other ladies, Mrs.
Boardman and Mrs. Chase, were added by the missionary circle to the
volunteer committee of two, the four being then appointed, as its
minutes say, “a committee of ways and means to act in the distribution
of the petitions and tracts.” At the first formal meeting of this
committee,—this was in December, 1880,—its members, and the society
indorsing them, having approved the plea of the writer that this work
should be unsectarian and national, four other ladies of different
denominations were invited to join it, and it became thenceforth
undenominational and independent. At this first meeting, at Miss
Bonney’s request, Mrs. Chase was made chairman, retaining the office for
three months, Mrs. Boardman was elected treasurer, and the writer,
secretary, reporting her work and the publications from May 1879. This
previous work, according to the minutes of that date, “included the
circulation of the petitions of 1879 and of the present year [1880]; the
preparation and circulation of the literature published to accompany
these petitions; the presentation of the aims and work of the committee
in missionary and other meetings; at anniversaries, associations, and
pastors’ conferences, in this and other States; the securing promises
for two popular meetings and the presentation in them of our petition,
with the general subject of Indian wrongs, and the preparing articles
for the press, with other writing, traveling, and visiting in aid of
some or all of these lines of work.”

The eight ladies of this committee were Miss Bonney, Mrs. Boardman, Mrs.
Chase, Miss Fanny Lea, Mrs. Mary C. Jones, Mrs. Margaretta Sheppard,
Mrs. Edward Cope, and the writer.

The second popular petition,[209] then already gathered from all the
States and several of the Territories of the Union, and representing
fifty thousand citizens, was carried the next month, January, 1881, by
the chairman and secretary of the committee to Washington, where, with
the memorial letter prepared by the secretary,[210] it was presented by
the Honorable H. L. Dawes, United States Senator, to the Senate on the
27th of that month, and on the 31st, by the Honorable Gilbert De La
Matyr, to the House of Representatives, all being placed upon the
records of Congress, and the proceedings, with the speech of Senator
Dawes being widely published.

In March, 1881, at the fourth meeting, Mrs. Chase resigning connection
with the committee, Miss Mary L. Bonney, “the originator and most
generous patron of the work, was,” as the minutes state, “unanimously
elected chairman.” In June, 1881, with five additional members, the
committee adopted its first written constitution and changed its name to
“The Indian Treaty-keeping and Protective Association.” Adding other
representative ladies, the work of organization, as foreshadowed and
provided for in the constitution, went forward. The association was to
be composed of this central executive committee and of consenting
“Associate Committees” in the various States and Territories, and the
writer, thenceforth designated the general secretary, with a _carte
blanche_ as always in lieu of instructions other than those suggested by
herself, began her pilgrimage beyond State limits, seeking and finding
individual and groups of workers, with editorial and ecclesiastical
helpers for the cause, organizing thirteen associate committees in five
different States before the year ended,—those in the ten great cities of
the country having the rank of State committees,—addressing meetings
large and small at Chautauqua, Ocean Grove, and other centers, where
leaders for work in various places were found, corresponding with these
and with government officers regarding the interests of Indians,
publishing reports, appeals, and circulars, and closing the year with
importunate requests for committees on editorial, financial,
publication, and State work. At the opening of 1882, under the revised
constitution, the associate committees were reorganized by the general
secretary as permanent auxiliaries, and new ones were added in other
States. The third annual petition,[211] representing more than one
hundred thousand citizens, was, with the memorial letter, presented to
President Arthur, at the White House, by Mrs. Hawley, the devoted and
lamented president of the Washington Auxiliary and wife of the
Connecticut Senator; Mrs. Keifer, wife of the Speaker of the House, and
the secretary of the association, the chairman of the committee. This
was on February 21, 1882, and Senator Dawes introduced the petition and
letter in the Senate on the same day, both being presented to the House
of Representatives on the 25th, and the proceedings and debate on these
occasions occupied several pages of the _Congressional Record_. The
discussion of Senators, hotly expressing on the one hand Western
impatience with Indians, and antagonism to Eastern sympathy, and on the
other hand the moral sense of Christian men and women of many States,
was closed by Senator Dawes in a brilliant speech of thrilling
eloquence, giving telling facts of outrages upon Indians by the
Government and white settlers, and the speech was received with
prolonged applause. Later, the ladies of the committee were introduced
to the speakers in the Marble Room, and the subject was there continued
in an animated conversation representing both sets of speakers.
Enthusiastic popular meetings in various cities were next secured, and
the organization, already of national proportions, received many
testimonies to and proofs of its power, and that it had really
influenced legislation. Before the close of the year the name of the
society was changed to “The National Indian Association,” and its
intention soon to begin educational and missionary work among unprovided
Indian tribes was announced.

At the end of 1883 the word “Women’s” was introduced into the name of
the association in recognition of and compliment to the new “Indian
Rights Association” of gentlemen, the amended constitution,
substantially as it still remains, was adopted, and preparation was made
for the new work of missions. An extract from the annual report of that
year indicates the growth of the organization to that date: “During this
history twenty-six auxiliaries have been gained, while we have still
vice-presidents and helpers in States not organized. Besides circulating
and presenting the three petitions named, a million pages of information
and appeal have been circulated, many great and small societies,
ministerial conferences, assemblies, and anniversaries have been visited
and have responded, indorsing our work and appeals to Government, while
hundreds of articles concerning our objects have been secured in the
secular and religious press, and hundreds of meetings have been
addressed by your secretary and others regarding justice to Indians.”
The kind of work done by auxiliaries will be more fully seen by
referring to the report of that year.[212]

Miss Bonney’s presidency over the association closed November, 1884, but
her ardent interest still remains, and she has continued to be largely
the financial provider for the department of organization. Her noble
character, broad spirit, wise counsels, generous gifts, wide reputation,
and devotion to this as to all redemptive work, made her a constant
power for the cause and association, and though her more active share in
its labors ceased with her official duties, she is still its beloved
honorary president.

The second chairman of the society was the accomplished and well-known
writer, Mrs. Mary Lowe Dickinson, who, upon a unanimous election,
accepted the presidency November, 1884, and for three years discharged
the duties of her office with great ability. Possessing rare literary
talents and culture, being a natural and enthusiastic leader and a
charming speaker, and having a wide circle of friends, she brought much
to the aid of the enterprise. Her thoughtful addresses, her strong
articles in magazine and journal, her poems replete with deep religious
feeling, her graceful presiding, her wise suggestions, tact, and, above
all, her earnest interest in the cause of Indian emancipation and
elevation constituted her a leader of unusual value, and it was with
great regret that the association was forced, because of her then
impaired health, to accept her resignation, October, 1887.

Upon the retirement of Mrs. Dickinson, the writer, who had continued to
do the work of general secretary until that date, was, by the executive
board, made president, receiving the unanimous election of the
association at its following annual meeting, November, 1887; an office
which she still holds, having been four times re-elected.

The later growth of the association is revealed in the following facts:
The annual report of 1885 reported fifty-six branches in twenty-seven
States, and $3880 raised for the cause; that of 1886 registered
eighty-three branches, showing much advance for a yet unpopular cause,
and that $6793 were expended. In the report of 1887 the collections had
grown to $10,690; in 1888 to $11,336; in 1889 to $16,300, and in 1890 to
$16,500. During one year the Connecticut auxiliary raised over $4000,
and the Massachusetts association put into the treasury of the national
association $3000, a third of which was designated for missionary
purposes and the rest for loans for Indian Home Building, and gifts for
educational and legal work. These two are the strongest auxiliaries,
though there are now branches and helpers or officers in thirty-four
States and Territories of the Union.

Nor has the advance of ideas been less marked than the increase of the
numbers and receipts of the association. The first impulse of the first
partnership of means and work, which began the active movement,
resulting in the organization of a national society, was an impulse of
protection for Indians and their lands from the robberies and horrors of
enforced removals, and it voiced itself in pleas for treaty-keeping and
the honest observance of all compacts with the Indians until their real
consent to changes should be justly won. The impulse was one of common
humanity, and recognized the manhood and womanhood of Indians, and their
claims in common with all men because human beings. The facts gained
from the first investigations, given in the first leaflets, and sent
forth into many States, laid hold upon the minds of free white men and
women by revealing to their consciences the responsibility of silence
while our native Indians were still the victims of wholesale robbery by
military ejectment from their own territory, often to be sent to
unwholesome, non-supporting lands, into utter helplessness, or out of
perishing need into wars for mere subsistence. The facts popularly made
known that Indians were practically under the supreme control of the
United States agent over them; that they could not sue or be sued,[213]
make contracts, sell their lumber, or work their mines; that they had no
law; that it was legally not a crime to kill an Indian; that Indian
women and girls could be and often were appropriated to become mothers
of agricultural slaves to till their master’s soil,—all these facts,
startling to republican minds, thrilling to humane hearts, and
thundering out appeals to Christian consciences, led to this impulse of
protection. But soon the question of “How most wisely to protect” led to
still more thoughtful study of the situation, and to the rapidly grown
conviction that only law, education, and citizenship could be the real
cure of such oppressions. This conviction was embodied in petitions for
law, land in severalty, education, and citizenship, while yet the
popular idea was that Indians could not be civilized and were not worth
civilizing, and while even some so-called Christian ministers still
counseled treating them as Israel of old felt commanded to treat the
Canaanites. That the quiet but far-reaching work of the association, as
has often been said by those publicly and conspicuously devoted to
Indian welfare, has probably done more than the work of any other one
organization for Indian liberation and elevation, no one familiar with
its quality and quantity can well doubt. Its members recall the many
testimonies to this effect, and, with grateful pride, that the Honorable
H. L. Dawes, Chairman of the Indian Committee of the United States
Senate, author of the long-needed Severalty Bill which became law in
March, 1887, and ever the faithful friend of the women’s work, stated in
a public speech that the “new Indian policy,” to-day everywhere
approved, was “born of and nursed by the women of this association.”
And, indeed, all the features of the new policy are found in the early
petitions[214] and literature of the society. That the Indian Rights
Association, the evening that it was organized, just as the women’s
association, was ready to present its fourth annual petition,
crystallized its plans of work, after reading the constitution of the
women’s society, and adopted its lines and methods of work; that the
Boston Indian Citizenship Committee, and that the new Commissioner of
Indian Affairs and the present administration have but done and are
doing, what the association’s literature and petitions have for years
advocated is a sufficient testimony to the principles and aims of the
association. That its leaders have been divinely led many humbly and
gratefully feel, for, as said the venerable Bishop Whipple, “The women
have builded better than they knew;” and as said Hannah Whitall Smith,
now of London, England, well known on two continents as an uplifting
writer and speaker on religious subjects, one of the early treasurers
and still a patron of the association, “This Indian work is but the
Christian motherhood of the nation obeying its instincts toward our
native heathen.” It would require a portly volume to mention the names
and deeds of the earnest and eminent women who have had share in this
work for the aborigines of our country. Among its honorary officers and
members, as seen in its annual reports and those of its auxiliaries, are
names distinguished in the world of letters and in political and social
circles, as well as those known in philanthropic and Christian work,
while many in its corps of active officers and in its executive board
are widely known and honored. But the temptation to catalogue these in
this chapter, must manifestly be resisted or restricted to incumbents of
the leading offices and to the chairmen of departments. Among those most
active in State work, Mrs. Sara Thomson Kinney, president of the
Connecticut auxiliary, and now first vice-president of the national
association, has given very largely of time, thought, and labor, has
compactly organized her State with branches in its leading towns, has
inaugurated in her association a variety of important work and brought
it to its present standard of excellence. Under Miss Fletcher’s
inspiration she introduced Indian Home Building by loan funds and is
chairman of that department in the national association, forty or fifty
Indian homes having, under her management, been built or remodeled in
civilized fashion, and among ten or fifteen tribes. Many smaller loans
she has also made, enabling individual Indians to adopt civilized and
self-supporting industries. Mrs. Elizabeth Elliot Bullard, president of
the Massachusetts auxiliary, and chairman of the new national Committee
on Special Education of bright individual Indians brought to her
association influence and new friends, and has, with the aid of a corps
of eminent women, achieved large results, having in her society more
branches than are to be found in any other State, her association having
been also the largest and most enthusiastic supporter of the Missionary
Department. In New York City an admirable board of officers, led by the
accomplished Mrs. Theodore Irving and Mrs. Edward Elliott, are
supporting a new station of the Ramona Missions, and are meeting with
other new successes, as is the Brooklyn association, which, under the
leadership of Mrs. Lyman Abbott, assisted by the former president of
that society, Mrs. Jerome Plummer, inaugurated the Kiowa Mission and is
preparing to open a station among the Piegans of Montana. Miss Sarah M.
Taylor, of Philadelphia, a devoted and far-seeing worker and generous
giver, is now chairman of the Missionary Department which, in six years,
has planted directly or indirectly, missions in twenty different tribes,
building four missionary cottages and four chapels in these,
transferring them, one after another, when well established, to the care
of the permanent denominational societies. Miss Kate Foote, president of
the auxiliary at the national capital, whose bright letters from that
city and whose charming magazine articles are so widely enjoyed, is
chairman of the Department of Indian Legislation, her racy reports of
laws secured, and notices of the more numerous ones needed, having both
a popular and legislative value, while her prescient watchfulness is
constantly achieving other and important help for Indians. The
supplemental work for Indian civilization at Crow Creek Agency, Dakota,
for furnishing on the reservation, to returned Indian students,
civilized employments and continued religious nurture, thus making them
self-supporting and an aid to their entire tribes, led to the election
of Miss Grace Howard, of New York, who originated, successfully
inaugurated, and continues it, as chairman of the association’s
department of Indian Civilization Work. The Young People’s Department
has for chairman Miss Marie E. Ives, of New Haven, whose first effort so
inspired a quartet of young girls in New York City that their first
entertainment placed $327 in the treasury for the association’s new
Seminole Mission, and, naturally, awakened large hope for the success of
this important division of work. The chairman of the committee on Indian
Libraries, Miss Frances C. Sparhawk, of Massachusetts, originated and is
vigorously serving her own department, while the latest committee, that
on hospital work, is led by Miss Laura E. Tileston, of Virginia, though
the first hospital, for which funds are already in hand, will soon be
built by the National Missionary Committee for the Omahas. The devotion
of our corresponding secretary, Miss Helen R. Foote; of our late
recording secretary, Mrs. Rachel N. Taylor; the generous service of our
recent treasurer, Mrs. Harriet L. Wilbur, and of the present one, Miss
Anna Bennett, and the labors of other workers in different sections of
the country come up in remembrance, and it would be a pleasure to record
the names of all these did space permit. Many women have wrought well
during and since the inauguration of the new Indian policy, by the
influence of which already more than one third of the forty-eight
thousand Indian pupils are in the various government and other schools,
and under which the people of more than twenty tribes are receiving
lands in severalty. By the success of this policy, developed with the
aid of all officials, individuals, and organizations friendly to them,
the quarter of a million Indians of our country are, by taking
individual farms or by adopting civilized avocations, at last really
passing out of barbarism into civilization, and from the oppressions,
disabilities, and helplessness of the reservation system into the
freedom, protection, and development of United States citizenship. The
work of the association for these ends has been pressed with all the
vigor which its numbers and means permitted, and it has given its whole
thought to the accomplishment of its purposes. Not contemplating a
permanent existence, it has given small though adequate attention to
mere form. One of its members, a poet, Indian educator, an able writer
on Indian topics, and now a government superintendent of Indian schools,
Miss Elaine Goodale, says: “This association stretches out sympathetic
hands and loses itself in all other good work for the Indians so that
the measure of its influence may not be expressed in any rows of figures
however significant, or set down in any report however complete. The
striking and hopeful feature, after all, of this Women’s National Indian
Association is, as its president constantly reminds us, that it is not
intended as a permanent organization. The women have undertaken to meet
a particular crisis, to bridge a dangerous gap. As fast as the regular
missionary societies are ready to accept its independent missions, these
are placed entirely in their hands. As soon as our rich and powerful
Government comprehends and faithfully discharges its duty to the Indians
the women will cease to urge their needs and their rights, and the
association will cease to exist. Its work will have been done. Its
demand is not for its own honor or extension but that the object for
which alone it lives may speedily be accomplished.”

Until this object is gained, The Women’s National Indian Association
will not sound retreat nor its great company of consecrated workers
disband. It is possible that its best and longest record may be made in
the future and its work be finished by wholly new laborers. God grant
that this may be so if the work, political, educational, industrial, and
religious, still so imperatively demanded by justice for our native
Indian Americans, cannot otherwise be done.

XVI.
WORK OF ANTI-SLAVERY WOMEN.

LILLIE B. CHACE WYMAN.

Prudence Crandall, a Quaker school teacher in Canterbury, Conn., was the
woman whose name we encounter in the earliest records of anti-slavery
labor in this country. She took counsel with Mr. Garrison in 1833, and
opened a school for colored pupils, which she bravely maintained for
over a year, although she was subjected therefore to a great amount of
persecution. She was arrested, and even thrown temporarily into jail,
and her house and its inmates were made the mark for every species of
insult and outrage which her neighbors dared to perpetrate. She married
the Rev. Calvin Philleo, and still survives him, living in Kansas. The
Legislature of Connecticut, a few years ago, granted her a pension in
atonement for the wrongs she formerly suffered in that State.

Hatred of slavery was the motive which first called women in this
country into public life. Sarah and Angelina Grimké were two sisters
belonging to a prominent slaveholding family in South Carolina. As a
child, Sarah was shocked by the cruelties practised upon the slaves
around her, but her first deep interest in early life was in religious
questions. The family were Episcopalians, and she remained for many
years of the same faith. She made a visit to the North, came under
Quaker influences, and finally joined the Society of Friends, and this
led to her going to live in Philadelphia, in 1821. Angelina, who was
twelve years younger than Sarah, remained in Charleston. She manifested,
like Sarah, a tendency to extreme asceticism in dress and manner, and
she became a Presbyterian. She detested the evils of slavery, but she
does not seem to have thought slaveholding sinful in itself, till after
she had visited Philadelphia in 1828, when she was twenty-three years
old. After that, she grew to feel more and more keenly that she was
living amid a great wrong, and she suffered intensely at the
participation in it of her family. She entreated and argued, begged her
brother to be merciful to his slaves, besought her mother and sisters to
feel as she did. In May, 1829, she wrote in her diary, “May it not be
laid down as an axiom, that that system must be radically wrong, which
can only be supported by transgressing the laws of God.” A little later,
she determined to leave her home, because of her inability to do any
good there in regard to the slaves, and she writes, “I cannot but be
pained at the thought of leaving mother.... I do not think, dear sister,
I will ever see her again until she is willing to give up slavery.” In
the autumn of 1829 she left Charleston and her mother, whom she never
saw again.

She went to Philadelphia and joined the Society of Friends. After some
years of comparatively quiet life, Angelina wrote in 1835 a sympathetic
letter to Wm. Lloyd Garrison, which he published in _The Liberator_. She
wrote next “An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South,” a pamphlet
which “produced,” says Mrs. Birney, “the most profound sensation
wherever it was read.” Not long afterward “the city authorities of
Charleston learned,” writes Mr. Theodore D. Weld, “that Miss Grimké was
intending to visit her mother and sisters, and pass the winter with
them. Thereupon the mayor called upon Mrs. Grimké and desired her to
inform her daughter that the police had been instructed to prevent her
landing while the steamer remained in port, and to see to it that she
should not communicate, by letter or otherwise, with any persons in the
city; and further, that if she should elude their vigilance and go on
shore, she would be arrested and imprisoned until the return of the
vessel.” Threats of personal violence were also made, should she come.

A year later Sarah published “An Epistle to the Clergy of the Southern
States,” and the sisters began to address meetings of women on the
subject of slavery. They proposed at first to hold parlor meetings, but
found it necessary at once to engage the session room of a Baptist
Church in New York. The gathering there was “the first assembly of
women, not Quakers, in a public place in America, addressed by American
women.” Two clergymen performed the opening ceremonies, offered prayer
and made an address of welcome, and then left, so that none but women
should hear women speak. Similar assemblies were held afterward, and in
a letter dated “second month, 4th, 1837,” Angelina writes, that one man
had got into the last meeting, and people thought he must be a Southern
spy. She says, “somehow, I did not feel his presence embarrassing at
all, and went on just as though he had not been there.”

After this, the sisters went to New England to pursue their labors. In
Dorchester two or three men “slyly slid” into the back seats of the hall
and listened to the speakers, and one of them “afterward took great
pains to prove that it was unscriptural for a woman to speak in public.”
From this time a few men were generally present at the gatherings, and
on the 21st of July, 1837, Angelina wrote, “In the evening of the same
day addressed our first _mixed_ audience. Over one thousand present.”
“The opposers of abolitionism, and especially the clergy, began to be
alarmed,” says Mrs. Birney. The sisters were denounced, halls were
refused them, the Society of Friends condemned their course, and
violence was threatened; but Sarah writes, “They think to frighten us
from the field of duty; but they do not move us.” Even some of the
Abolitionists doubted the propriety of their labors, and the question of
Womans’ Rights was fairly launched on the tide of the anti-slavery
movement.

The General Association of Congregational Ministers of Massachusetts
passed a resolution censuring the sisters, and issued a pastoral letter,
containing “a tirade against female preachers.”

Sarah next published letters on “The Province of Woman.”

In February, 1838, Angelina addressed a committee of the Massachusetts
Legislature on the subject of slavery. She wrote of this memorable
occasion, “My heart never quailed before, but it almost died within me
at that hour.” She was given two hearings, and she says “We abolition
women are turning the world upside down, for during the whole meeting
there was sister seated up in the speaker’s chair of State.”

Angelina was the more eloquent of the two sisters, and although Sarah
spoke, she preferred to serve the cause by writing.

In May, 1838, Angelina married Theodore D. Weld, who was an earnest and
eloquent abolition orator. After this marriage she spoke once again, and
then was obliged to relinquish all public work on account of her health,
while Mr. Weld’s loss of voice, prevented him from continuing his
lecturing service. They never faltered, however, or relaxed in their
principles. They were all three engaged in schoolwork and received
colored pupils as readily as white ones. When the war came, and slavery
was abolished, some peculiar family trials fell to the lot of the Grimké
sisters, and old wounds were reopened. They bore these renewed
sufferings with fortitude, and with patient and loving spirits. They
succored their impoverished kindred, who had long been alienated from
them, and they fulfilled some difficult and delicate duties which grew
out of the old ties which their Southern relatives had discarded.

Lucretia Mott was a Quakeress, and a very beautiful woman. She exercised
a singular power over people with whom she came in contact, influencing
and inspiring them to all high and holy purposes. She became an
Abolitionist in early life, and was sent as a delegate to the World’s
Anti-Slavery Convention, held in London, in 1840.[215] Like the other
women who were delegates, she was refused admission to the body, and
attended its sessions only as an outsider.

She was an eloquent and persuasive speaker in anti-slavery and religious
meetings. She, with other Philadelphia women, used to attend the courts
whenever a fugitive slave case was tried, in the hope that the silent
protest of their presence, would have some effect on judges and juries,
who were inclined to be subservient to the slave power. On one occasion,
she and her companions sat all night in the court-room, the commissioner
deferring his sentence, thinking that the women would be tired out, and
would leave and, finally, unable to get rid of them, he availed himself
of a legal quibble, and ordered the fugitive to be set free. Years
later, when the Civil War came, the lawyer who acted in this affair on
behalf of the slaveholder, and who had been an ardent supporter of the
interests of slavery, wheeled around, and gave in his allegiance to the
Union party. Some one asked him how he dared thus oppose all his former
friends, and he replied that the man who had endured to sit all night
before Lucretia Mott and knew what she was thinking of him all the time,
would fear nothing else on earth.

She was herself brave, and once, when an old colored woman was refused a
seat in a horse-car, and forced to ride on the front platform, exposed
to a pelting winter storm, she went out and stood by her side, and rode
for nearly an hour, in all the bitter weather.

She was very charming, and she retained her great personal beauty to the
last, dying finally in 1880, at the age of eighty-seven.

Abby Kelley was a New England girl, a Quaker, and a school-teacher. She
began her anti-slavery work by giving half of all she earned to the
cause. Afterward she decided that it was her duty to lecture and talk to
people about slavery. She received no salary from the anti-slavery
societies for her labor, but went from town to town, staying with
friends when it was possible, going by private conveyance if she could,
getting up meetings, and everywhere, in season and out, pleading for the
slave. When her clothes were worn out, she went to a sister’s and did
housework, till she had earned enough money to get what she needed, and
then she started again on her mission. She encountered great opposition
from press and pulpit. Every epithet was hurled at her which was most
calculated to wound the spirit of a sensitive woman. Nothing overcame
her. The cry of the slave mother sounded in her ears and drowned the
clamor about herself. She pursued her way, fighting, as it were, for
every inch of the ground she traversed.

It is no exaggeration to say that what she did and suffered, has made
the path easier for every woman, since her day, who has sought to work
in any public manner in America. The Grimké sisters retired early from
the field, and Abby Kelley bore the brunt of a long and painful contest
with prejudice and opposition, which were directed not only against the
anti-slavery cause, but against her personally, for doing what women had
not till then done.

Abby Kelley married Stephen S. Foster, an Abolitionist, so resolute,
unflinching and uncompromising as to be a fit mate for her. They
established a home, but both of them often went from it on anti-slavery
lecturing trips, until she had entirely worn out her voice, and was
obliged to refrain from using it in public. Once in a while, however, in
later life, she addressed some convention for a few minutes at a time,
when the impulse to speak in behalf of something she thought right,
proved too strong to be resisted. A hoarse whisper was all that remained
to her from the young voice, with which she had once challenged the
scorn of men and the timid contempt of women, but her listeners almost
hushed their hearts to hear these faint breathings, remembering
reverently all the sacrifice and pain she had endured.

Mrs. Foster lived in all respects a conscientious life. She was a
careful housekeeper and a devoted wife and mother. She and her husband
were ardent Woman Suffragists and they protested against the payment of
taxes to a government which allowed her no representation. Their home
was in Worcester, Mass., and they both lived to see slavery abolished.
She survived him for several years, without abating her interest in the
general principles to which their lives had been consecrated.

Sallie Holley was one of the later anti-slavery speakers. She was
generally accompanied in her lecturing trips by a friend, Miss Caroline
F. Putnam, and after the war the two went to Virginia to live and work
among the freed people.

Lucy Stone and Susan B. Anthony were also anti-slavery speakers before
the Civil War. Anna Dickinson made a few speeches in her very early
girlhood as agent of one of the anti-slavery societies. There were also
women employed by the societies as workers in other ways, such as
circulating petitions, raising money, distributing tracts, and talking
with people in private ways.

Miss Mary Grew, of Philadelphia, occasionally addressed meetings. Miss
Grew was one of a large number of women all over the North, who gave all
their energies to anti-slavery work. These women helped fugitive slaves,
cared for Abolition speakers, raised money, arranged meetings,
distributed papers and pamphlets, corresponded, wrote articles for
newspapers, sewed for fairs, went without luxuries and even necessities
so as to be able to give to the cause, and spent themselves in body and
brain without stint, and without asking any reward but the achievement
of the end they sought. Mrs. Sidney Lewis, of Philadelphia, kept the
anti-slavery office in that city. It would be impossible to name the
half of these silent workers.

Lydia Maria Child[216] was one of the foremost literary women of her
day, when she avowed herself to be an Abolitionist, and her popularity
was greatly injured thereby. She edited the _Anti-Slavery Standard_ for
two years, and did noble work. During the war there was a last outbreak
of pro-slavery fury in Northern cities, and mobs assaulted Wendell
Phillips in Boston. One night, after an anti-slavery meeting, the crowd
threatened to kill him, and she took his arm and walked serenely by his
side through the raging multitude, and it was considered that her
presence with him awed them to such an extent that she really saved his
life.

Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,”[217] when public
sentiment was beginning to turn against slavery, and the book went all
over the world, and was translated into many tongues, to make all men
feel the wickedness of an institution which needed that the Fugitive
Slave Law should be enacted and enforced for its support. The effect of
the book was incalculable.

Maria Weston Chapman and her sisters brought grace, beauty, and wit, in
social circles, to the aid of the Abolitionists in the very first years
of the long moral warfare. They became so unpopular in Boston, in
consequence of their course, that Mrs. Chapman told a friend that she
feared to walk alone on Washington Street, because the very clerks in
the stores would insult her as she passed. She was very energetic in
getting up anti-slavery fairs on a scale which seemed large in those
days, and she enlisted the sympathy of people in England, and secured
large contributions from them.

Ann Green Phillips, the wife of Wendell Phillips, was a life-long
invalid, but she first converted him to anti-slavery opinions, and then
inspired and sustained him, and from her sick bed sent him forth to do
the work she could not do.

Helen E. Garrison, the wife of Wm. Lloyd Garrison, the shyest and most
modest of women, encouraged her husband, and by her unselfish devotion
at home, made it possible for him to use his time and strength combating
the system which he held to be “the sum of all villainies.” When the mob
dragged him through the streets of Boston, in 1835, and word was brought
to this beautiful young woman, who was then a recent bride, that his
life was in danger, her spirit rose at the tidings, and she proudly
said, “I do not believe my husband will be untrue to his principles.”

XVII.
WORK OF THE W. C. T. U.

FRANCES E. WILLARD.

Let me try to set forth the sequel of that modern Pentecost called the
“Woman’s Crusade.” That women should thus dare was the wonder after they
had so long endured, while the manner of their doing left us who looked
on bewildered between laughter and tears. Woman-like, they took their
knitting, their zephyr work, or their embroidery, and simply swarmed
into the drink-shops, seated themselves, and watched the proceedings.
Usually they came in a long procession from their rendezvous at some
church where they had held morning prayer-meeting, entered the saloon
with kind faces, and the sweet songs of church and home upon their lips,
while some Madonna-like leader with the Gospel in her looks, took her
stand beside the bar, and gently asked if she might read God’s word and
offer prayer.

Women gave of their best during the two months of that wonderful
uprising. All other engagements were laid aside; elegant women of
society walked beside quiet women of home, school, and shop, in the
strange processions that soon lined the chief streets, not only of
nearly every town and village in the State that was its birth
place,[218] but of leading cities there and elsewhere; and voices
trained in Paris and Berlin sang “Rock of Ages, cleft for me,” in the
malodorous air of liquor-rooms and beer-halls. Meanwhile, where were the
men who patronized these places? Thousands of them signed the pledge
these women brought, and accepted their invitation to go back with them
to the churches, whose doors, for once, stood open all day long; others
slunk out of sight, and a few cursed the women openly; but even of these
it might be said, that those who came to curse remained to pray. Soon
the saloon-keepers surrendered in large numbers, the statement being
made by a well-known observer that the liquor traffic was temporarily
driven out of two hundred and fifty towns and villages in Ohio and the
adjoining States, to which the Temperance Crusade extended. There are
photographs extant representing the stirring scenes when, amid the
ringing of church bells, the contents of every barrel, cask, and bottle
in a saloon were sent gurgling into the gutter, the owner insisting that
women’s hands alone should do this work, perhaps with some dim thought
in his muddled head of the poetic justice due to the Nemesis he thus
invoked. And so it came about that soft and often jeweled hands grasped
axe and hammer, while the whole town assembled to rejoice in this new
fashion of exorcising the evil spirits. In Cincinnati, a city long
dominated by the liquor trade, a procession of women, including the
wives of leading pastors, were arrested and locked up in jail; in
Cleveland dogs were set on the Crusaders, and in a single instance a
blunderbuss was pointed at them, while in several places they were
smoked out, or had the hose turned on them. But the arrested women
marched through the streets singing, and held a temperance meeting in
the prison; the one assailed by dogs laid her hands upon their heads and
prayed; and the group menaced by a gun marched up to its mouth singing,
“Never be afraid to work for Jesus.” The annals of heroism have few
pages so bright as the annals of that strange crusade, spreading as if
by magic through all the Northern States, across the sea, and to the
Orient itself. Everywhere it went, the attendance at church increased
incalculably, and the crime record was in like manner shortened. Men say
there was a spirit in the air such as they never knew before; a sense of
God and human brotherhood.

But after fifty days or more, all this seemed to pass away. The women
could not keep up such work; it took them too much from their homes;
saloons reopened; men gathered as before behind their sheltering
screens, and swore “those silly women had done more harm than good,”
while with ribald words they drank the health of “the defunct crusade.”

Perhaps the most significant outcome of this movement was the knowledge
of their own power gained by the conservative women of the churches.
They had never seen a “woman’s rights convention,” and had been held
aloof from the “suffragists” by fears as to their orthodoxy; but now
there were women, prominent in all church cares and duties, eager to
clasp hands for a more aggressive work than such women had ever before
dreamed of undertaking.

Nothing is more suggestive in all the national gatherings of the Women’s
Christian Temperance Union, that sober second thought of the crusade,
than the wide difference between these meetings and any held by men. The
beauty of decoration is specially noticeable; banners of silk, satin and
velvet, usually made by the women themselves, adorn the wall; the
handsome shields of States; the great vases bearing aloft grains, fruits
and flowers; the moss-covered well with its old bucket; or the setting
of a platform to present an interior as cozy and delightful as a parlor
could afford, are features of the pleasant scene. The rapidity of
movement with which business is conducted, the spontaneity of manner,
the originality of plan, the perpetual freshness and ingenuity of the
convention, its thousand unexpectednesses, its quips and turns, its wit
and pathos, its impromptu eloquence and its perpetual good nature—all
these elements, brought into condensed view in the National Convention,
are an object lesson of the new force and the unique method that
womanhood has contributed to the consideration of the greatest reform in
Christendom. It is really the crusade over again; the home going forth
into the world. Its manner is not that of the street, the court, the
mart, or the office; it is the manner of the home. Men take one line,
and travel onward to success; with them discursiveness is at a discount.
But women in the home must be mistresses as well as maids of all work;
they have learned well the lesson of unity in diversity; hence, by
inheritance and by environment, women are varied in their methods; they
are born to be “branchers-out.” Men have been in the organized
temperance work not less than eighty years—women not quite fifteen. Men
pursued it at first along the line of temperance, then total abstinence;
license, then prohibition; while women have already over forty distinct
departments of work, classified under the heads of preventive,
educational, evangelistic, social, and legal. Women think in the
concrete. The crusade showed them the drinking man, and they began upon
him directly to get him to sign the pledge and “seek the Lord behind the
pledge.” The crusade showed them the selling man, and they prayed over
him, and persuaded him to give up his bad business, often buying him
out, and setting him up in the better occupation of baker, grocer, or
keeper of the reading-room, into which they converted his saloon after
converting him from the error of his ways.

But oftentimes the drinking man went back to his cups, and the selling
man fell from his grace; the first one declaring, “I can’t break the
habit I formed when a boy;” and the last averring, “Somebody’s bound to
sell, and I might as well make the profit.” Upon this the women, still
with their concrete ways of thinking, said, “To be sure, we must train
our boys; and not only ours but everybody’s; what institution reaches
all?—the public schools.” Under the leadership of Mrs. Mary H. Hunt they
have secured laws requiring scientific temperance instruction in the
public school system of thirty States.

To the inane excuse of the seller that he might as well do it since
somebody would, the quick and practical reply was, “To be sure; but
suppose the people could be persuaded not to let anybody sell? why, then
that would be God’s answer to our crusade prayers.” So they began with
petitions to municipalities, to legislatures, and to Congress,
laboriously gathering up, doubtless, not fewer than ten million names in
the great aggregate, and through fourteen years. Thus the Woman’s
Christian Temperance Union stands as the strongest bulwark of
Prohibition, State and national, by constitutional amendment and by
statute. Meanwhile, it was inevitable that their motherly hearts should
devise other methods for the protection of their homes. Knowing the
terrors and the blessings of inheritance, they set about the systematic
study of heredity, founding a journal for that purpose. Learning the
relation of diet to the drink habit, they arranged to study hygiene
also; desiring children to know that the Bible is on the side of total
abstinence, they induced the International Sunday School Convention to
prepare a plan for lessons on this subject; perceiving the limitless
power of the Press, they did their best to subsidize it by sending out
their bulletins of temperance facts and news items, thick as the leaves
of Vallambrosa, and incorporated a publishing company of women.

It is curious to watch the development of the women who entered the
saloons in 1874 as a gentle, well-dressed, and altogether peaceable mob.
They have become an army, drilled and disciplined. They have a method of
organization, the simplest yet the most substantial known to temperance
annals. It is the same for the smallest local union as for the national
society with its ten thousand auxiliaries. Committees have been
abolished, except the executive, made up of the general officers, and
“superintendencies” substituted, making each woman responsible for a
single line of work in the local, State, and national society. This puts
a premium upon personality, develops a negative into a positive with the
least loss of time, and increases beyond all computation the aggregate
of work accomplished. Women with specialties have thus been multiplied
by tens of thousands, and the temperance reform introduced into
strongholds of power hitherto neglected or unthought of. Is an
exposition to be held, or a State or county fair? there is a woman in
the locality who knows that it is her business to see that the W. C. T.
U. has an attractive booth with temperance literature and temperance
drinks; and that, besides all this, it is her duty to secure laws and
by-laws requiring the teetotal absence of intoxicants from grounds and
buildings. Is there an institution for the dependent or delinquent
classes? there is a woman in the locality who knows that it is her duty
to see that temperance literature is circulated, temperance talking and
singing done, and that flowers with appropriate sentiments attached are
sent to the inmates by young ladies banded for that purpose. Is there a
convocation of ministers, doctors, teachers, editors, voters, or any
other class of opinion-manufacturers announced to meet in any town or
city? there is a woman thereabouts who knows it is her business to
secure, through some one of the delegates to these influential
gatherings, a resolution favoring the temperance movement and pledging
it support along the line of work then and there represented. Is there a
legislature anywhere about to meet, or is Congress in session? there is
a woman near at hand who knows it is her business to make the air heavy
with the white, hovering wings of prohibition for the better protection
of women and girls, for the preventing of the sale of tobacco to minors,
for the enforcement of the Sabbath or for the enfranchisement of women.
Thus have the manifold relationships of the mighty temperance movement
been studied out by women in the training-school afforded by the real
work and daily object-lessons of the W. C. T. U. Its aim is everywhere
to bring women and temperance in contact with the problem of humanity’s
heart-break and sin, to protect the home by prohibiting the saloon; and
to police the State with men and women voters committed to the
enforcement of righteous law. The women saw, as years passed on, that
not one, but three curses were pronounced upon their sons by the
nineteenth century civilization; the curse of the narcotic poisons,
alcohol and nicotine; the curse of gambling; the curse of social sin,
deadlier than all; and that these three are part and parcel of each
other. And so, “distinct like the billows, but one like the sea,” is
their unwearied warfare against each and all. They have learned, by the
logic of defeat, that the mother-heart must be enthroned in all places
of power before its edicts will be heeded. For this reason they have
been educated up to the level of the equal suffrage movement. For the
first time in history the women of the South have clasped hands with
their Northern sisters in faith and fealty wearing the white ribbon
emblem of patriotism, purity and peace, and inscribing on their banners
the motto of the organized crusade, “For God and Home and Native Land.”

“No sectarianism in religion,” “no sectionalism in politics,” “no sex in
citizenship,”—these are the battle cries of this relentless but peaceful
warfare. We believe that woman will bless and brighten every place she
enters, and that she will enter every place on the round earth. We
believe in prohibition by law, prohibition by politics, and prohibition
by woman’s ballot. After ten years’ experience, the women of the crusade
became convinced that until the people of this country divide at the
ballot box, on the foregoing issue, America can never be nationally
delivered from the dram-shop. They therefore publicly announced their
devotion to the Prohibition party, and promised to lend it their
influence, which, with the exception of a very small minority, they have
since most sedulously done. Since then they have not ceased beseeching
voters to cast their ballots first of all to help elect an issue rather
than a man. For this they have been vilified as if it were a crime; but
they have gone on their way kindly as sunshine, steadfast as
gravitation, and persistent as a hero’s faith. While their enemy has
brewed beer, they have brewed public opinion; while he distilled whisky,
they distilled sentiment; while he rectified spirits, they rectified the
spirit that is in man. They have had good words of cheer alike for North
and South, for Catholic and Protestant, for home and foreign born, for
white and black, but gave words of criticism for the liquor traffic and
the parties that it dominates as its servants and allies.

While the specific aims of the white ribbon women everywhere are
directed against the manufacture, sale, and use of alcoholic beverages,
it is sufficiently apparent that the indirect line of their progress is,
perhaps, equally rapid, and involves social, governmental and
ecclesiastical equality between women and men. By this is meant such
financial independence on the part of women as will enable them to hold
men to the same high standards of personal purity in the habitudes of
life as they have required of women such a participation in the affairs
of government as shall renovate politics and make home questions the
paramount issue of the State, and such equality in all church relations
as shall fulfill the gospel declaration, “There is neither male nor
female, but ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”

The cultivation of specialties, and the development of _esprit de corps_
among women, all predict the day, when, through this might-conserving
force of motherhood introduced into every department of human activity,
the common weal shall be the individual care; war shall rank among the
lost arts; nationality shall mean what Edward Bellamy’s wonderful book,
entitled “Looking Backward,” sets before us as the fulfillment of man’s
highest earthly dream; and Brotherhood shall become the talismanic word
and realized estate of all humanity.

In concluding this portion of my article I cannot better express my view
of what we are, and what we may be, than by the following quotation from
my address before the Woman’s Congress at its meeting in Des Moines,
Ia., 1885:

Humanly speaking, such success as we have attained has resulted from the
following policy and methods:

1. The simplicity and unity of the organization. The local union is a
miniature of the national, having similar officiary and plan of work. It
is a military company carefully mustered, officered, and drilled. The
county union is but an aggregation of the locals and the district of the
counties, while each State is a regiment, and the national itself is
womanhood’s “Grand Army of the Republic.”

2. Individual responsibility is everywhere urged. “Committees are
obsolete to us, and each distinct line of work has one person, called a
superintendent, who is responsible for its success in the local, and
another in the State, and a third in the National union. She may secure
such lieutenants as she likes, but the union looks to her for results,
and holds her accountable for failures.

3. The quick and cordial recognition of talent is another secret of W.
C. T. U. success. Women, young or old, who can speak, write, conduct
meetings, organize, keep accounts, interest children, talk with the
drinking man, get up entertainments, or carry flowers to the sick or
imprisoned, are all pressed into the service. There has been also in our
work an immense amount of digging in the earth to find one’s own buried
talent, to rub off the rust and to put it out at interest. Perhaps that
is, after all, its most significant feature, considered as a movement.

4. Subordination of the financial phase has helped, not hindered us.
Lack of funds has not barred out even the poorest from our sisterhood. A
penny per week is our basis of membership; of which a fraction goes to
the State, and ten cents to the National W. C. T. U. Money has been, and
I hope may be, a consideration altogether secondary. Of wealth we have
had incomputable stores; indeed, I question if America has a richer
corporation to-day than ours; wealth of faith, of enthusiasm, of
experience, of brain, of speech, of common sense—this is a capital stock
that can never depreciate, needs no insurance, requires no combination
lock or bonded custodian, and puts us under no temptation to tack our
course or trim our sails.

5. Nothing has helped us more than the entire freedom of our society
from the influence or dictation of capitalists, politicians, or
corporations of any sort whatever. This cannot be too strongly
emphasized as one of the best elements of power. Indeed, it may be truly
said that this vast and systematic work has been in no wise guided,
molded, or controlled by men. “It has not even occurred to them to offer
advice until within a year, and to accept advise has never occurred to
us, and I hope never will. While a great many noble men are ‘honorary
members,’ and in one or two sporadic instances men have acted
temporarily as presidents of local unions at the South, I am confident
our grand constituency of temperance brothers rejoice almost as much as
we do in the fact that we women have from the beginning gone our own
gait and acted according to our own sweet will. They would bear witness,
I am sure, to the fact that we have never done this flippantly, or in a
spirit of bravado, but with great seriousness, asking the help of God. I
can say personally what I believe our leaders would also state as their
experience, that so strongly do good men seem to be impressed that the
call to Christian women in the Crusade was of God, and not of man, that
in the eleven years of my almost uninterrupted connection with the
National W. C. T. U. I have hardly received a letter of advice or a
verbal exhortation from minister or layman, and I would mildly but
firmly say that I have not sought their counsel.” The hierarchies of the
land will be ransacked in vain for the letterheads of the W. C. T. U. We
have sought, it is true, the help of almost every influential society in
the nation, both religious and secular; we have realized how greatly
this help was needed by us, and grandly has it been accorded; but what
we asked for was an indorsement of plans already made and work already
done. Thus may we always be a society “of the women, by the women,” but
for humanity.

6. The freedom from red-tape and the keeping out of ruts is another
element of power. We practice a certain amount of parliamentary usage,
and strongly urge the study of it as a part of the routine of local
unions. We have good, strong “constitutions,” and by-laws to match;
blanks for reports; rolls for membership; pledges in various styles of
art; badges, ribbons, and banners, and hand-books of our work, are all
to be had at “national headquarters,” but we will not come under a yoke
of bondage to the paraphernalia of the movement. We are always moving
on. “Time cannot dull nor custom stale our infinite variety.” We are
exceedingly apt to break out in a new phase. Here we lop off an old
department, and there we add two new ones. Our “new departures” are
frequent and oftentimes most unexpected. Indeed, we exhibit the
characteristics of an army on the march rather than an army in camp or
hospital.

The marked _esprit de corps_ is to be included among the secrets of
success. The W. C. T. U. has invented a phrase to express this, and it
is “comradeship among women.” So generous and so cherished has this
comradeship become that ours is often called a “mutual admiration
society.” We believe in each other, stand by each other, and have plenty
of emulation without envy. Sometimes a State or an individual says to
another, “The laurels of Miltiades will not suffer me to sleep;” but
there is no staying awake to belittle success; we do not detract from
any worker’s rightful meed of praise. So much for the “hidings of power”
in the W. C. T. U.

There are two indirect results of this organized work among women,
concerning which I wish to speak.

First. It is a strong nationalizing influence. Its method and spirit
differ very little, whether you study them on the border of Puget Sound
or the Gulf of Mexico. In San Francisco and Baltimore white ribbon women
speak the same vernacular, tell of their gospel meetings and petitions,
discuss the _Union Signal_ editorials, and wonder “what will be the
action of our next annual convention.”

Almost all other groups of women workers that dot the continent are
circumscribed by denominational lines, and act largely under the advice
of ecclesiastical leaders. The W. C. T. U. feels no such limitation.
North and South are strictly separate in the women’s missionary work of
the churches, but Mississippi and Maine, Texas and Oregon, Massachusetts
and Georgia, sit side by side around the yearly camp-fires of the W. C.
T. U. The Southern women have learned to love us of the North, and our
hearts are true to them; while to us all who fight in peaceful ranks
unbroken, “For God and Home and Native Land,” the Nation is a sacred
name.

Second. Our W. C. T. U. is a school, not founded in that thought or for
that purpose, but sure to fit us for the sacred duties of patriots in
the realm that lies just beyond the horizon of the coming century.

Here we try our wings that yonder our flight may be strong and steady.
Here we prove our capacity for great deeds; there we shall perform them.
Here we make our experience and pass our novitiate that yonder we may
calmly take our places and prove to the world that what is needed most
was “two heads in counsel” as well as “two beside the hearth.” When that
day comes the nation shall no longer miss, as now, the influence of half
its wisdom more than half its purity, and nearly all its gentleness, in
courts of justice and halls of legislation. Then shall one code of
morals—and that the highest—govern both men and women; then shall the
Sabbath be respected, the rights of the poor be recognized, the liquor
traffic banished, and the home protected from all its foes.

Born of such a visitation of God’s spirit as the world has not known
since tongues of fire sat upon the wondering group at Pentecost, cradled
in a faith high as the hope of a saint, and deep as the depths of a
drunkard’s despair, and baptized in the beauty of holiness, the Crusade
determined the ultimate goal of its teachable child, the W. C. T. U.,
which has one steadfast aim, and that none other than the regnancy of
Christ, not in form but in fact; not in substance but in essence; not
ecclesiastically, but truly in the hearts of men. To this end its
methods are varied, changing, manifold; but its unwavering faith these
words express: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the
Lord of Hosts.”

The Woman’s National Christian Temperance Union has a publishing house
in Chicago that in 1889 sent out 130,000,000 pages of temperance
literature; employs 146 men and women, mostly women; pays a dividend of
seven per cent. on money invested; is the proprietor of its own presses
and of its machinery, including an electrotyping department. It
publishes the _Union Signal_, organ of the World’s and National W. C. T.
U., with a weekly circulation of 85,000 copies; also four other papers
for the young people, children, and Germans; and has connected with it a
large job office for general printing. The directors of this great
establishment are all women, and the editors women. No one can hold
stock except a white ribbon woman that is a member of the W. C. T. U.
This enterprise constantly enlarges because it has a sure foundation in
the ten thousand local unions of the W. C. T. U.

The National W. C. T. U. has also founded a woman’s temperance hospital
in Chicago, conducted throughout by women, its object being to prove
experimentally that alcoholics have no necessary place in medicine.

A woman’s temperance temple, to cost over a million of dollars, was
projected by Mrs. Matilda B. Carse, president of the W. C. T. U., of
Chicago, and is now in course of erection. While the national society is
in no wise responsible for this movement, it has done much to help it
forward, and hopes in the course of time to have headquarters here for
its publishing department, etc., a large hall for public meetings, a
kindergarten, restaurant, and all the paraphernalia of a great
temperance headquarters. Besides this it expects to realize from the
rentals, as the building is located in the heart of the city, a large
annual endowment for its various lines of work.

A Woman’s Lecture Bureau has been established in Chicago, which is
constantly sending out speakers to all parts of the United States and
Canada. These speakers may be men or women, but the management is in the
hands of white ribboners.

Some local unions do as much work as a whole State society: for
instance, the Chicago Union, which last year sheltered 60,000 friendless
men in its great lodging house; which maintains a temperance restaurant,
an anchorage for degraded men and women, where 5,000 were cared for last
year, a kindergarten, daily gospel meetings, and many other forms of
Christian philanthropy.

In 1883, on the suggestion of the National President of the W. C. T. U.,
a World’s Union was projected, and Mrs. Mary Clement Leavitt, of Boston,
started out to organize all civilized countries. She has now (1890) been
seven years absent, and is reaching a greater variety of nationalities
than any woman who ever lived. She has thus far traveled over fifty
thousand miles; held over a thousand meetings; more than eleven thousand
pages have been written; she has spoken, through interpreters, to people
in twenty-three languages. Other missionaries are constantly being sent
to follow Mrs. Leavitt, and the white ribbon is acclimated in every
country in the world. Its methods are the universal circulation of a
pledge against the legalizing of the sale of brain poisons, including of
course, and chiefly, alcoholics and opium. This is to be presented to
all governments by a deputation of women to which the petition will be
entrusted when the number of signatures reaches two millions, and they
will carry it round the world. The methods of the National W. C. T. U.
have been universally adopted, of which the principal ones are total
abstinence for the individual, and the effort to secure total
prohibition for the State. The noon hour of prayer is everywhere
observed, asking God’s blessing on the work and workers. The white
ribbon—emblem of purity, prohibition, patriotism, and philanthropy—is
the badge worn, and the motto, “For God and Home and Every Land.”

The first president of the World’s W. C. T. U. was Mrs. Margaret Bright
Lucas, sister of John Bright, and president of the Woman’s Temperance
Association of Great Britain. The second and present president is
Frances E. Willard.

Australia is organized, also Japan, China, Ceylon, Madagascar, the
civilized portions of Africa, Scandinavia, Great Britain, Canada, and
the United States. In continental Europe the progress is slow, as
drinking habits are well nigh universal; but much progress has been made
in Switzerland, also in Berlin. In the former country through the
efforts of Miss Charlotte Gray, in the latter city through Mrs. Mary
Bannister Willard, of the Home School for Girls.

A World’s W. C. T. U. convention is to be held in connection with the
World’s Fair in Chicago, in 1893.

Wherever white ribboners are found, will be found friends of woman’s
complete enfranchisement and admission to all professions and trades, on
the ground that no artificial barrier should be thrown in her way, but
that she should be freely permitted and welcomed to enter every place
where she has capacity to succeed. Perhaps no motto of the W. C. T. U.
is more frequently quoted than the following: “Woman will bless and
brighten every place she enters, and she will enter every place.”

XVIII.
THE ORIGIN AND APPLICATION OF THE RED CROSS.

CLARA BARTON.

In no way, perhaps, is more clearly proven the just necessity for some
explanation concerning the subject of the Red Cross than by the fact
that I am asked to make these explanations as a contribution to woman’s
work, when, in fact, every original idea of the humanities sought to be
organized, and the methods of relief ordained, were, like the terrible
and needless cruelties which led to them, the work of men, and have
largely continued to be such.[219]

It would scarcely be conceded that, because many women have found a
place to work, and work well, in the United States Treasury, Patent, and
Pension Bureaus, that these departments themselves should be exclusively
classed as woman’s work.

If, in our rapid march of progress over newly acquired territory, we
should be found appropriating to ourselves some of the old landmarks and
strongholds, a philosophical solution may perhaps be found in the
familiar principles of the angles of incidence and reflection. It might
be added that, presumably, the circumstance of the leadership (if so
presumptuous a term may be allowed) of the Red Cross in this country
having incidentally fallen to a woman’s hands has had a tendency to
mislead in this direction.

Considering how very little has yet been definitely comprehended of the
characteristics of this young child of their adoption, the tones of
parental kindness and good feeling in which it is spoken by the people
of the entire country, is touching to us who watch its course and
destiny. Their very natural endeavors to square its habits and methods
by those of ordinary charitable organizations, are not unfrequently
perplexing to them and embarrassing to us; and their consternation at
times, when this strange duckling suddenly takes to the water, is
suggestive of other scenes.

The mass of correspondence constantly pouring in, asking how one shall
become a member of the “order,” or proposing to organize a “chapter,” or
a “branch,” or “corps,” or “section,” independent, for special use,
calling for copies of the constitution and by-laws of the national to
aid in forming their own, so they can go on by _themselves_, reveals a
vagueness of ideas concerning the subject which a few words might serve
to render more clear and definite. First, the Red Cross is not an
“order,” and has no tendency in that direction any more than the medical
department of an army, which it was instituted to assist, is an “order”;
or the great movement toward the general peace of mankind through
arbitration and kindly fellowship, to which it is both an advance guard
and a stepping-stone, is an “order.” It is not a “secret society” any
more than is the Association of Charities and Correction, Adams Express,
the Western Union Telegraph, a railroad corporation or a fire company,
all of which the nature of its work at times assimilates. While
societies, as usually existing, seek the advancement of ideas and the
general progress of the world intellectually, morally, or religiously,
mainly by expression of thought and opinions analogous to their subject,
the Red Cross, by its relation, must deal in _active_ ways, mentally and
physically, with people direct, and become responsible for their welfare
as for funds and material for their use; and while it may properly have
been designated as the culmination of the best humanities of the warring
agencies of the past, finding possible expression in the latter half of
the nineteenth century, it still needs to be explained that this medium
of expression was the Treaty of Geneva of 1864 for the relief of the
wounded and sick of armies. The Red Cross _means_, then, the people’s
help for suffering through military necessities (a help hitherto mainly
ignored), and it _is_ the result and the direct outgrowth of an
international treaty, entered into by the civilized nations of the world
for the mitigation of the sufferings from war, by first eliminating from
its code all needless cruelties and old-time barbarities; and, secondly,
by rendering neutral and exempt from capture all disabled soldiers
requiring aid, all appliances, all material, and all personnel designed
for them.

It is to be borne in mind, and not for an instant lost sight of, that
while other methods leading up to these points have been always the
outgrowth of the grandest human sentiments of mankind, they still
remained _sentiments_, usually individual, and, beyond this, binding on
no one; or, if organized for the moment, were lost as soon; while the
Red Cross, embodying all these humanities, organizes and pledges the
entire world, through its governments, to the one purpose and effort,
and binds the whole by the stern sacredness of an international treaty,
which no government will ever be found reckless and indecent enough to
violate. The non-fellowship of the world would follow such an act.
Indeed, no nation has a treaty it would hold so sacred in time of need.

Following a preliminary conference of 1863, a convention, composed of
delegates appointed by and representing the heads of all the governments
of the world, was held at Geneva, Switzerland, for the purpose of
considering some method for mitigating the horrors of war, if wars must
be.

And however disdainfully we at the present moment may curl our lips over
the uselessness of such a consideration in the light of better methods,
however scorn every thought of any effort in behalf of the woes of those
who consent to deluge the world in blood, it is to be remembered that we
ourselves at _that_ moment were not altogether exempt from the
perplexing problem of war, and did not, as now, present to the world the
grand and beautiful “Christian example” of arbitration and peace, of
which we are at present the most advisory and conspicuous of advocates.
Indeed, whoever will take down from the shelves one of the volumes of
decisions of our then Minister of State, Mr. Seward, will find there
recorded that the reason given for the United States having declined
official representation in the Convention of Geneva was _not_ on the
ground of high moral elevation, advanced views and consequent
disapproval, but rather in this wise, that we were _ourselves_ in the
midst of a cruel and relentless war, which did not admit of time for
considerations of that kind. This decision was the first block over
which a woman ungracefully stumbled, when, thirteen years later, an
attempt was made to officially call the attention of our government to
the knowledge even of the existence of such a treaty among other
nations.

This convention, which occupied several days, discussed as never before
the great question of an international agreement for the neutralizing of
certain departments of all fields of battle, and the protection of all
the personnel and material designed for them.

The establishment, as it were, of a goal in the midst of the most
relentless field of animosity and strife, where those who could no
longer run could touch and be safe; as if, in the midst of the wildest
storm at sea, a haven could be established in mid-ocean where the
disabled ships might find a harbor and rest.

The councils of this convention resulted in the formulation of a code of
ten articles, which, upon solemn acceptance by the heads of each
government, became the treaty of Geneva. These articles were as follows:

ARTICLE 1. Ambulances (field hospitals) and military hospitals shall
be acknowledged to be neutral, and as such shall be protected and
respected by belligerents so long as any sick or wounded may be
therein. Such neutrality shall cease if the ambulances or hospitals
should be held by a military force.

ARTICLE 2. Persons employed in hospitals and ambulances, comprising
the staff for superintendence, medical service, administration,
transport of wounded, as well as chaplains, shall participate in the
benefit of neutrality while so employed, and so long as there remain
any to bring in or to succor.

ARTICLE 3. The persons designated in the preceding article may, even
after occupation by the enemy, continue to fulfill their duties in the
hospital or ambulance which they may have, or may withdraw in order to
regain the corps to which they belong. Under such circumstances, when
the persons shall cease from their functions, they shall be delivered
by the occupying army to the outposts of the enemy. They shall have
specially the right of sending a representative to the headquarters of
their respective armies.

ARTICLE 4. As the equipment of military hospitals remains subject to
the laws of war, persons attached to such hospitals cannot, on
withdrawing, carry away any articles but such as are their private
property. Under the same circumstances an ambulance shall, on the
contrary, retain its equipment.

ARTICLE 5. Inhabitants of the country who may bring help to the
wounded shall be respected and shall remain free. The generals of the
belligerent powers shall make it their care to inform the inhabitants
of the appeal addressed to their humanity, and of the neutrality which
will be the consequence of it. Any wounded man, entertained and taken
care of in a house, shall be considered as a protection thereto. Any
inhabitant, who shall have entertained wounded men in his house, shall
be exempted from the quartering of troops as well as from a part of
the contributions of war which may be imposed.

ARTICLE 6. Wounded or sick soldiers shall be entertained and taken
care of to whatever nation they may belong. Commanders-in-chief shall
have the power to deliver immediately to the outposts of the enemy
soldiers who have been wounded in an engagement, when circumstances
permit this to be done, and with the consent of both parties. Those
who are recognized, after they are healed, as incapable of serving,
shall be sent back to their country. The others may also be sent back
on condition of not again bearing arms during the continuance of the
war. Evacuations, together with the persons under whose directions
they take place, shall be protected by an absolute neutrality.

ARTICLE 7. A distinctive and uniform flag shall be adopted for
hospitals, ambulances, and evacuations. It must on every occasion be
accompanied by the national flag. An arm badge [_brassard_] shall also
be allowed for individuals neutralized, but the delivery thereof shall
be left to military authority. The flag and arm badge shall bear a red
cross on a white ground.

ARTICLE 8. The details of execution of the present convention shall be
regulated by the commanders-in-chief of belligerent armies, according
to the instructions of their respective government and in conformity
with the general principles laid down in this convention.

ARTICLE 9. The high contracting powers have agreed to communicate the
present convention to those governments which have not found it
convenient to send plenipotentiaries to the international convention
at Geneva, with an invitation to accede thereto; the protocol is, for
that purpose, left open.

ARTICLE 10. The present convention shall be ratified, and the
ratification shall be exchanged at Berne, in four months, or sooner if
possible.

The nations adopting the Treaty are:

France, September 22, 1864.
Belgium, October 14, 1864.
Italy, December 4, 1864.
Sweden and Norway, Dec. 13, 1864.
Baden, December 16, 1864.
Great Britain, February 18, 1865.
Prussia, June 22, 1865.
Wurtemberg, June 2, 1866.
Bavaria, June 30, 1866.
Portugal, August 9, 1866.
Russia, May 22, 1867.
Roumania, November 30, 1874.
San Salvador, December 30, 1874.
Servia, March 24, 1876.
Chili, November 15, 1879
Peru, April 22, 1880.
Bulgaria, March 1, 1884.
Luxembourg, October 5, 1888.
Switzerland, October 1, 1864.
Netherlands, November 29, 1864.
Spain, December 5, 1864.
Denmark, December 15, 1864.
Greece, January 17, 1865.
Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Mar. 9, 1865.
Turkey, July 5, 1865.
Hesse Darmstadt, June 22, 1866.
Austria, July 21, 1866.
Saxony, October 25, 1866.
Pontifical States, May 9, 1868.
Persia, December 5, 1874.
Montenegro, November 29, 1875.
Bolivia, October 16, 1879.
Argentine Republic, Nov. 25, 1879.
United States, March 1, 1882.
Japan, June 5, 1886.

The United States of America was the thirty-second in order. This treaty
has changed not only the methods of procedure of the medical and
hospital departments of all armies, but their insignia, flags, etc.
There is but one military hospital flag in the world to-day. The
commander who knows his own, knows that of the enemy, and he breaks an
international treaty if he knowingly turns even a gun or a stray shot
upon it. The convoy of prisoners under escort bearing that sign is safe;
no officer can fire upon that unarmed and defenseless body of men by
“mistake”; no “mistake” can be made nor pretend to be made. No captured
men can longer suffer for lack of food; the _world_ is pledged to supply
this want, and the way is opened to do it. No fields nor hospitals can
lack attendance, nursing, nor the necessaries of life; to this relief
the way is opened. No wounded men can lie unattended upon a field, and
no attendant upon them can be captured. No distinction can be made in
the care of the sick and wounded. By the articles of the treaty, all are
non-combatants, all neutrals, and hence one common relation for all.

At the conclusion of the convention, the body of gentlemen of
Switzerland who had convened it were designated by choice of the
governments as the international head by whom all general intercourse
between nations upon the subject of war-relief should be directed, and
through whom all communications should be made. This is the
“International Committee of Geneva.”

The first action of a country after the adoption of the treaty, is to
form a National Society, or committee, through which the International
Committee may communicate with the government of that country. To this
National Society is committed the care of all communications from the
International Committee to the government of a country, whether relating
to the work of war relief in other nations, or to their methods of
advancement, _e.g._ to observe if the provisions of the treaty are duly
regarded by its military departments; if the suitable orders are given
for the spread of such knowledge among the troops at the field; if the
appropriate insignia is worn by them; the arrangement for attendance
upon international conferences in which the government is represented,
and reports to foreign powers on such occasions. Naturally, but one
National Society or body of administration in a country is, or can be,
recognized, either by the government at home, or the international
authorities abroad, on the same principle that but one Department of
War, or State, could be recognized. To this body is submitted the
direction of such aid as shall be rendered by its country for the relief
of suffering from the calamities of war in other countries, such aid
always passing through the neutral hands of the “International
Committee” for application; thus wisely avoiding national jealousies.
The best inventions and most improved machinery and methods for the
convenient handling, nursing, and treatment of disabled persons from
whatever cause, in either military or civil life, for the last
twenty-five years, are directly traceable to the thought and endeavors
of the Red Cross, through its wise encouragement thereof, and the
necessities revealed upon the fields of war which it sought to relieve.

To turn now to the little part taken by our government and people in
this world-wide humanity, we shall find ourselves subjects for the adage
of the “short horse soon curried.” As previously remarked, it was
thirteen years, namely, from 1863 to 1877, before the attention of our
government was awakened to the existence of such a treaty among nations,
and its adhesion seriously recommended. Our great commissions, sanitary
and Christian, had died and passed into history, and it was not realized
that their embalmed memory would not be sufficient for all future
exigencies,—old Egypt, relying upon its catacombs, great, but silent and
past! It required five other years, namely, from 1877 to 1882, to bring
the government to a clear comprehension of the subject, when, by a
unanimous vote of both Houses of Congress, the Treaty of Geneva of 1864
was adopted and became a law, immediately receiving the signature of
President Arthur, fully carrying out the decision of his lamented
predecessor, Garfield, who had recommended it in his first message to
Congress. The treaty was next sent to the Congress of Berne,
Switzerland, which, by consent of all governments, is made the ratifying
power for the treaties of the nations as they adhere. When ratified, it
was proclaimed by the President of the United States, and directions
duly given to the departments of the government to take the necessary
steps for conforming to its provisions.

It is this which has changed all military hospital flags in our country
to a red cross on a white ground; the same for ambulances, supplies, and
attendants, and has instituted this insignia throughout the medical
departments of the regular army, and gives the present impetus to the
movement of the National Guard in that direction as well. Previous to
the actual adoption of the treaty by the United States, but in view of
it, our National Society had been founded at the instance of President
Garfield, and the honor of its presidency unanimously tendered to him.
This courtesy was declined by him in favor of its present president,
who, without change of original officers, and with their concurrence,
has conducted the affairs of the society from that time, July, 1881. In
forming the constitution of the National Society of the United States,
it was decided by the framers, in view of our liability to great
national calamities, and non-liability to the exigencies of war, to ask
of the ratifying powers of the treaty to accept the National Society of
America, with power to extend its scope to the relief of great national
calamities other than war. This was granted, constituting the only
national society under the treaty having such privilege, and known among
other nations as the “American Amendment to the Red Cross.” It is under
this provision, or grant, alone, that the work of the Red Cross in
national calamities in this country during the last nine years has been
done. Within that time it has afforded relief at twelve fields of
national distress. And while these scenes of active labor constitute
mainly all that appears to the public eye as the work of the society,
they are in reality the smaller and by far the less difficult and
painstaking. The over-laden desks, translations from all languages,
international correspondence, advices sought, and decisions to be wisely
and delicately rendered, tell a different tale to the thought-burdened,
weary officers at Red Cross headquarters.

In the early days, a few societies were allowed (but never invited) to
form as auxiliaries, more for the purpose of familiarizing the people
with the subject than for aid really expected; for after all, it is the
entire people whom the Red Cross is designed to serve; they have direct
and individual access to it; it is their servant at the moment of woe,
which falls on all alike. With a National Red Cross on a field, the way
is open to all; no special avenues are needed; and the capable
personages as individual aids the country over, which it is constantly
gathering to itself, ready for instant response to any call, leave no
lack of help even for a day. However well auxiliary societies might do,
and some have done grandly, it was the people at large, over the entire
country, who solicited the Red Cross to become the almoner of their
bounties in Johnstown. The great manufacturing companies which asked of
it to put their tens of thousands of dollars worth of new furniture into
the homes which had not one article left, were not Red Cross societies.
The great lumber companies, shipping the material thousands of miles to
construct new homes almost before the old ones had reached the bottom of
the stream which bore them away, were not Red Cross societies nor ever
sought to be. They wished to serve humanity, wanted their gifts to reach
the needy in some direct and practical way, and chose their avenue. In
this same spirit of self-forgetfulness, the Red Cross accepted and
applied, faithfully we know, and acceptably we hope, with the only
desire, under heaven, of safely and wisely transmitting those
substantial tokens of sympathy and love from a pitying world to a
homeless, bereaved, and terror-stricken people as a present help in time
of trouble. It went to them in the same spirit, with the same
regulations, and under the same discipline as if those thousands had
fallen in human rather than elemental conflict. It found the military at
the field, and reported for duty the same as at a field of battle. The
relations thus at once established were incalculable in their benefits.
Every courtesy from headquarters was extended; as by _right_, not favor;
all passes, countersigns, and facilities of movement of any kind were
given without asking. The character of the work was from the first
understood to be in accord with the government and discipline of the
field, and not a separate dynasty set up in its individual or ambitious
and unskilled effort, to be guarded against, lest it commit some
egotistical indiscretion which could not be tolerated. The same
advantages over unrecognized aid were realized here as are enjoyed by
the Red Cross on a field of battle. The work of the Red Cross in this
country has thus far been rather a test than otherwise of its
efficiency, usefulness, and possibilities; and so fully has it met, and
even surpassed, all early expectations, that any limited description
like the present seems rather an annoyance, leaving the subject where
its best interests should commence; and although in our land we may
never have need of its protecting arm on the fields of human warfare, it
is enough for us to know that we _have_ needed it as no words can tell.
Only the low lonely graves, the desolate homes speak more eloquently
than words.

APPENDICES.

APPENDIX A.

_Historical Memoranda for Reference to Article II., on Education in the
Eastern States._

CO-EDUCATIONAL COLLEGES.
═════════════╤════════════╤═══════════╤═════════════╤════════╤═══════════╤═════════
STATE. │ NAME. │ LOCALITY. │DENOMINATION.│ADMITTED│ NO. OF │ NO. OF
│ │ │ │ WOMEN. │ STUDENTS, │STUDENTS,
│ │ │ │ │ REGULAR │ TOTAL.
│ │ │ │ │COLLEGIATE.│
─────────────┼────────────┼───────────┼─────────────┼────────┼───────────┼─────────
Maine │Bates │Lewiston │Baptist │ (When │ 33│ 33
│ College │ │ │opened),│ │
│ │ │ │ 1863 │ │
│Colby │Waterville │Baptist │ 1871 │ 18│ 18
│ University│ │ │ │ │
Vermont │University │Burlington │Non-sectarian│ 1871 │ 20│ 20
│ of Vermont│ │ │ │ │
│Middlebury │Middlebury │Non-sectarian│ │ 8│ 8
│ College │ │ │ │ │
Massachusetts│Boston │Boston │Methodist │ (When │ 163│ 207
│ University│ │ │opened),│ │
│ │ │ │ 1869 │ │
│Mass. Inst. │Boston │Non-sectarian│ 1883 │ 33│ 33
│ Technology│ │ │ │ │
Connecticut │Wesleyan │Middletown │Meth. Epis. │ 1872 │ 15│ 16
│ College │ │ │ │ │
New York │Cornell │Ithaca │Non-sectarian│ (When │ 109│ 139
│ University│ │ │opened),│ │
│ │ │ │ 1862 │ │
│Syracuse │Syracuse │Meth. Epis. │ (When │ 63│ 244
│ University│ │ │opened),│ │
│ │ │ │ 1870 │ │
Pennsylvania │Swarthmore │Swarthmore │Society │ (When │ 55│ 79
│ │ │ Friends │opened),│ │
│ │ │ │ 1869 │ │
─────────────┴────────────┴───────────┴─────────────┴────────┴───────────┴─────────
COLLEGES FOR WOMEN.
─────────────┬────────────┬───────────┬─────────────┬────────┬───────────┬─────────
Massachusetts│Mount │So. Hadley │Non-sectarian│Founded │ 85│ 188
│ Holyoke │ │ │ 1836 │ │
│Smith │Northampt’n│Non-sectarian│Founded │ 448│ 551
│ College │ │ │ 1871 │ │
│Wellesley │Wellesley │Non-sectarian│Founded │ 595│ 694
│ │ │ │ 1875 │ │
New York │Vassar │Po’keepsie │Baptist │Founded │ 227│ 326
│ College │ │ │ 1865 │ │
Pennsylvania │Bryn Mawr │Bryn Mawr │Society │Founded │ 124│ 4
│ │ │ Friends │ 1880 │ │
─────────────┴────────────┴───────────┴─────────────┴────────┴───────────┴─────────
AFFILIATED COLLEGES.
─────────────┬────────────┬───────────┬─────────────┬────────┬───────────┬─────────
Massachusetts│Harvard │Cambridge │Non-sectarian│Founded │ 71│ 168
│ Annex │ │ │ 1879 │ │
New Jersey │Evelyn │Princeton │Presbyterian │Founded │ 7│ 25
│ College │ │ │ 1888 │ │
New York │Barnard │New York │Non-sectarian│Founded │ 24│ 45
│ College │ │ │ 1889 │ │
─────────────┴────────────┴───────────┴─────────────┴────────┴───────────┴─────────

APPENDIX B.—TABLE I.

_Historical Memoranda for Reference to Article III., on Education in
West._

OHIO.—Incorporated in the Northwest Territory in 1787. Admitted as the
State of Ohio in 1802.

INDIANA.—Incorporated in the Northwest Territory in 1787. Territory of
Indiana in 1800. State of Indiana in 1816.

ILLINOIS.—Incorporated in Northwest Territory in 1787. Territory of
Indiana in 1800. Territory of Illinois in 1809. State of Illinois in
1818.

MISSOURI.—Territory of Missouri 1812. Admitted as a State in 1821.
(French Cession.)

MICHIGAN.—Incorporated in Northwest Territory in 1787. Territory of
Indiana in 1800. Territory of Michigan in 1805. State of Michigan
1837.

IOWA.—Territory of Michigan 1834. Territory of Wisconsin 1836.
Territory of Iowa 1838. State of Iowa 1846. (French Cession.)

WISCONSIN.—Incorporated in the Northwest Territory 1787. Territory of
Indiana 1800. Territory of Illinois 1809. Territory of Michigan 1818.
Territory of Wisconsin 1836. State of Wisconsin 1848.

CALIFORNIA.—Ceded by Mexico 1848. Admitted as State 1850.

MINNESOTA.—Territory of Michigan 1834. Territory of Wisconsin 1836.
Territory of Iowa 1838. Territory of Minnesota 1849. State of
Minnesota 1858. (French Cession.)

OREGON.—Territory of Oregon 1848. State of Oregon 1859.

KANSAS.—Territory of Kansas 1854. State of Kansas 1861. (French
Cession.)

NEVADA.—Ceded by Mexico 1848. Territory of Utah 1850. Territory of
Nevada 1861. State of Nevada 1864.

NEBRASKA.—Territory of Nebraska 1854. State Of Nebraska 1867. (French
Cession.)

COLORADO.—Territory of Colorado 1861. State of Colorado 1876. (French
and Mexican Cessions.)

NORTH DAKOTA.—Territory of Michigan 1834. Territory of Wisconsin 1836.
Territory of Iowa 1838. Territory of Minnesota 1849. Territory of
Dakota 1861. State of North Dakota 1889. (French Cession.)

SOUTH DAKOTA.—Same as North Dakota.

MONTANA.—Territory of Nebraska 1854. Territory of Dakota 1861.
Territory of Idaho 1863. Territory of Montana 1864. State of Montana
1889. (French Cession.)

WASHINGTON.—Territory of Oregon 1848. Territory of Washington 1853.
State of Washington 1889.

IDAHO.—Territory of Oregon 1848. Territory of Washington 1853.
Territory of Idaho 1863. State of Idaho 1890.

WYOMING.—After several transfers Territory of Wyoming 1868. State of
Wyoming 1890. (French Cession mainly.)

UTAH.—Ceded by Mexico 1848. Territory of Utah 1850.

APPENDIX B.—TABLE II.

═════════════╤═════════════════╤═══════════════╤══════════════════╤═══════╤══════
LOCATION. │ NAME. │ │ │ │OPENED
│ │ │ NUMBER OF FEMALE │ │ TO
│ │ DENOMINATION. │ STUDENTS. │OPENED.│WOMEN.
─────────────┼─────────────────┼───────────────┼───────────┬──────┼───────┼──────
„ │ „ │ „ │Collegiate.│Total.│ „ │ „
─────────────┼─────────────────┼───────────────┼───────────┼──────┼───────┼──────
_Ohio_— │ │ │ │ │ │
Akron │Buchtel College │Universalist │ 44│ 112│ 1872 │
Alliance │Mount Union │ │ │ │ │
│ College │M. E. │ 21│ 205│ 1858 │ 1858
Ashland │Ashland │ │ │ │ │
│ College[220] │Brethren │ │ 13│ 1879 │
Athens │Ohio University │Non-sectarian │ 20│ 50│ 1809 │ 1871
Berea │Baldwin │ │ │ │ │
│ University[220]│M. E. │ 8│ 73│ 1846 │ 1846
Berea │German Wallace │ │ │ │ │
│ College │M. E. │ 2│ 16│ 1864 │ 1864
Cincinnati │University of │ │ │ │ │
│ Cincinnati │Non-sectarian │ 35│ 36│ 1874 │ 1874
Cleveland │Adelbert College │ │ │ │ │
│ of Western │ │ │ │ │
│Reserve │ │ │ │ │
│ University │Non-sectarian │ 6│ 59│ 1888 │ 1888
Cleveland │Calvin College │Reformed │ 8│ 37│ 1883 │ 1883
College Hill │Belmont │ │ │ │ │
│ College[220] │Non-sectarian │ 6│ 41│ 1846 │
Columbus │Ohio State │ │ │ │ │
│ University │Non-sectarian │ 29│ 47│ 1873 │ 1873
Delaware │Ohio Wesleyan │ │ │ │ │
│ University │M. E. │ 176│ 372│ 1844 │ 1876
Findlay │Findlay College │Church of God │ 8│ 159│ 1886 │
Germantown │Twin Valley │ │ │ │ │
│ College │Non-sectarian │ │ 18│ 1886 │ 1886
Granville │Denison │ │ │ │ │
│ University │Baptist │ │ 44│ 1831 │
Hiram │Hiram College │Christian │ 15│ 97│ 1850 │ 1850
New Athens │Franklin College │Non-sectarian │ │ 40│ 1825 │ 1856
New Concord │Muskingum College│Un. Presb. │ 12│ 29│ 1837 │ 1854
Oberlin │Oberlin College │Non-sectarian │ 353│ 821│ 1833 │ 1833
Oxford │Miami University │Non-sectarian │ 2│ 2│ 1816 │
Richmond │Richmond College │Non-sectarian │ 1│ 42│ 1843 │ 1843
Rio Grande │Rio Grande │ │ │ │ │
│ College │Baptist │ 5│ 38│ 1876 │ 1876
Scio │Scio College │M. E. │ 108│ 144│ 1866 │ 1866
Springfield │Wittenberg │ │ │ │ │
│ College │Lutheran │ │ │ 1845 │
Tiffin │Heidelberg │ │ │ │ │
│ College[220] │Reformed │ 19│ 96│ 1850 │ 1850
Urbana │Urbana University│New Church │ 1│ 15│ 1851 │ 1851
Westerville │Otterbein │ │ │ │ │
│ University │U. B. │ 16│ 122│ 1847 │ 1847
Wilberforce │Wilberforce │ │ │ │ │
│ University │ │ │ │ 1856 │ 1856
Wilmington │Wilmington │ │ │ │ │
│ College[220] │Friends │ 15│ 15│ 1871 │ 1871
Wooster │University of │ │ │ │ │
│ Wooster │Presbyterian │ 42│ 201│ 1870 │ 1870
Yellow │Antioch College │ │ │ │ │
Springs │ │Non-sectarian │ 15│ 106│ 1852 │ 1852
│ │ │ │ │ │
_Indiana_— │ │ │ │ │ │
Bloomington │Indiana │ │ │ │ │
│ University │Non-sectarian │ 82│ 131│ 1824 │ 1867
Franklin │Franklin College │Baptist │ 40│ 113│ 1837 │ 1866
Greencastle │De Pauw │ │ │ │ │
│ University │M. E. │ │ │ 1837 │ 1867
Hanover │Hanover College │Presbyterian │ 25│ 39│ 1828 │ 1880
Hartsville │Hartsville │ │ │ │ │
│ College │U. B. │ 12│ 34│ 1849 │ 1849
Irvington │Butler University│Christian │ 20│ 49│ 1855 │ 1855
Merom │Union Christian │ │ │ │ │
│ College[220] │Christian │ │ 46│ 1859 │ 1859
La Fayette │Purdue University│Non-sectarian │ 58│ 114│ 1874 │ 1874
Moore’s Hill │Moore’s Hill │ │ │ │ │
│ College │M. E. │ 12│ 55│ 1854 │ 1854
Richmond │Earlham College │Friends │ 66│ 114│ 1859 │ 1859
Ridgeville │Ridgeville │ │ │ │ │
│ College │Baptist │ 1│ 39│ 1867 │ 1867
│ │ │ │ │ │
_Illinois_— │ │ │ │ │ │
Abingdon │Hedding College │M. E. │ 10│ 50│ 1855 │ 1855
Bloomington │Illinois Wesleyan│ │ │ │ │
│ University │M. E. │ 37│ 225│ 1853 │ 1870
Carlinville │Blackburn │ │ │ │ │
│ University │ │ │ │ │
Carthage │Carthage College │Lutheran │ 10│ 39│ 1869 │
Champaign │University of │ │ │ │ │
│ Illinois │Non-sectarian │ 57│ 72│ 1868 │ 1871
Eureka │Eureka College │Christian │ 25│ 86│ 1849 │ 1849
Evanston │North-Western │ │ │ │ │
│ University │M. E. │ 119│ 340│ 1855 │ 1869
Ewing │Ewing College │Baptist │ 11│ 34│ 1867 │ 1867
Galena │German-English │ │ │ │ │
│ College │M. E. │ 7│ 30│ 1868 │ 1868
Galesburgh │Knox College[221]│Non-sectarian │ 55│ 123│ 1841 │ 1872
Galesburgh │Lombard │ │ │ │ │
│ University │Universalist │ 24│ 55│ 1852 │
Lake Forest │Lake Forest │ │ │ │ │
│ University │Presbyterian │ │ 90│ 1876 │ 1876
Lebanon │McKendree College│M. E. │ 9│ 31│ 1828 │ 1869
Lincoln │Lincoln │ │ │ │ │
│ University │Cumb. Presb. │ 15│ 74│ 1866 │ 1866
Monmouth │Monmouth College │Un. Presb. │ 61│ 187│ 1856 │ 1856
Naperville │North-Western │ │ │ │ │
│ College │Ev. Association│ 19│ 62│ 1861 │ 1861
Quincy │Chaddock College │M. E. │ 10│ 74│ 1876 │ 1876
Rock Island │Augustana College│Lutheran │ 1│ 32│ 1860 │ 1883
Upper Alton │Shurtleff College│Baptist │ 15│ 72│ 1827 │ 1867
Westfield │Westfield College│U. B. │ 21│ 76│ 1865 │
Wheaton │Wheaton College │Congregational │ │ │ 1860 │ 1860
│ │ │ │ │ │
_Michigan_— │ │ │ │ │ │
Adrian │Adrian College │Meth. Prot. │ 11│ 77│ 1859 │ 1859
Albion │Albion College │M. E. │ 39│ 229│ 1861 │ 1861
Ann Arbor │University of │ │ │ │ │
│ Michigan │Non-sectarian │ 194│ 207│ 1841 │ 1870
Agricultural │Michigan │ │ │ │ │
College │ Agricultural │ │ │ │ │
│ College │Non-sectarian │ 16│ 16│ 1857 │ 1870
Battle Creek │Battle Creek │ │ │ │ │
│ College[221] │7th Day Adven. │ │ 165│ 1874 │ 1874
Benzonia │Grand Traverse │ │ │ │ │
│ College[221] │Congregational │ │ 24│ 1863 │
Hillsdale │Hillsdale College│Baptist │ 37│ 139│ 1855 │ 1855
Holland │Hope College │Reformed │ 2│ 103│ 1865 │ 1878
Kalamazoo │Kalamazoo │ │ │ │ │
│ College[221] │Baptist │ 18│ 55│ 1833 │
Olivet │Olivet │ │ │ │ │
│ College[221] │Cong and Presb.│ 42│ 117│ 1859 │ 1859
│ │ │ │ │ │
_Wisconsin_— │ │ │ │ │ │
Appleton │Lawrence │ │ │ │ │
│ University │M E │ 24│ 94│ 1849 │
Galesville │Galesville │ │ │ │ │
│ University[221]│Presbyterian │ 1│ 21│ 1859 │ 1859
Madison │University of │ │ │ │ │
│ Wisconsin │Non-sectarian │ 139│ 140│ 1850 │ 1871
Milton │Milton College │Baptist │ 33│ 110│ 1867 │ 1867
Ripon │Ripon College │Congregational │ 16│ 129│ 1863 │ 1863
│ │ │ │ │ │
_Minnesota_— │ │ │ │ │ │
Hamline │Hamline │ │ │ │ │
│ University[221]│M E │ 26│ 126│ 1854 │ 1854
Macalester │Macalester │ │ │ │ │
│ College[221] │Presbyterian │ 0│ 3│ 1884 │
Minneapolis │University of │ │ │ │ │
│ Minnesota │Non-sectarian │ 67│ 155│ 1868 │ 1868
Northfield │Carleton College │Congregational │ 32│ 178│ 1867 │ 1867
Northfield │St Olaf College │Lutheran │ 0│ 23│ 1875 │ 1875
│ │ │ │ │ │
_Iowa_— │ │ │ │ │ │
Ames │Iowa State │ │ │ │ │
│ Agricultural │ │ │ │ │
│ College │Non-sectarian │ 83│ 83│ 1869 │ 1869
Cedar Rapids │Coe College │Presbyterian │ 8│ 48│ 1881 │ 1881
College │Amity College │ │ │ │ │
Springs │ │Non-sectarian │ 17│ 139│ 1871 │ 1871
Davenport │Griswold College │Prot Epis │ 0│ 98│ 1859 │
Des Moines │Drake │ │ │ │ │
│ University[221]│Christian │ 26│ 186│ 1882 │ 1882
Des Moines │Des Moines │ │ │ │ │
│ College │Baptist │ 6│ 28│ 1865 │ 1865
Fairfield │Parsons College │Presbyterian │ 40│ 80│ 1875 │ 1875
Fayette │Upper Iowa │ │ │ │ │
│ University │M E │ 24│ 164│ 1857 │ 1857
Grinnell │Iowa College │Congregational │ 130│ │ 1847 │
Hopkinton │Lenox College │Presbyterian │ 42│ 74│ 1859 │ 1859
Indianola │Simpson College │M. E. │ 29│ 169│ 1867 │ 1867
Iowa City │State University │ │ │ │ │
│ of Iowa │Non-sectarian │ 87│ 87│ 1860 │ 1860
Mt. Pleasant │German College │M. E. │ 2│ 52│ 1873 │ 1873
Mt. Pleasant │Iowa Wesleyan │ │ │ │ │
│ University │M. E. │ 28│ 161│ 1855 │ 1855
Mt. Vernon │Cornell College │M. E. │ 66│ 272│ 1857 │ 1857
Oskaloosa │Oskaloosa College│Christian │ 27│ 78│ 1863 │ 1863
Oskaloosa │Penn College │Friends │ 33│ 77│ 1872 │ 1872
Pella │Central │ │ │ │ │
│ University of │ │ │ │ │
│ Iowa │Baptist │ 8│ 50│ 1854 │ 1854
Tabor │Tabor College │Congregational │ 31│ 82│ 1866 │ 1866
Toledo │Western College │U. B. │ 23│ 59│ 1856 │ 1856
│ │ │ │ │ │
_Dakota_— │ │ │ │ │ │
Brookings │Dakota │ │ │ │ │
│ Agricultural │ │ │ │ │
│ College │Non-sectarian │ │ │ 1884 │ 1884
East Pierre │Pierre University│Presbyterian │ 9│ 25│ 1883 │ 1883
Fargo │Fargo College │Congregational │ 1│ 85│ 1887 │ 1887
Grand Forks │University of │ │ │ │ │
│ North Dakota │Non-sectarian │ 7│ 83│ 1884 │ 1884
Mitchell │Dakota University│M. E. │ │ 50│ 1885 │ 1885
Rapid City │Dakota School of │ │ │ │ │
│ Mines │Non-sectarian │ 8│ 9│ 1887 │ 1887
Vermillion │University of │ │ │ │ │
│ Dakota │Non-sectarian │ 14│ 201│ 1883 │ 1883
Yankton │Yankton College │Non-sectarian │ │ 102│ 1882 │ 1882
│ │ │ │ │ │
_Nebraska_— │ │ │ │ │ │
Bellevue │Bellevue College │Presbyterian │ 2│ 25│ 1883 │ 1883
Central City │Nebraska Central │ │ │ │ │
│ College[222] │Non-sectarian │ 40│ 53│ 1885 │
Crete │Doane College │Congregational │ 13│ 97│ 1872 │
Lincoln │University of │ │ │ │ │
│ Nebraska │Non-sectarian │ 73│ 206│ 1871 │ 1871
Neligh │Gates College │Congregational │ 3│ 54│ 1882 │ 1882
│ │ │ │ │ │
_Kansas_— │ │ │ │ │ │
Atchison │Midland College │Lutheran │ 8│ 23│ 1887 │ 1887
Baldwin │Baker University │M. E. │ 40│ 177│ 1858 │ 1858
Emporia │College of │ │ │ │ │
│ Emporia │Presbyterian │ 7│ 59│ 1882 │ 1882
Highland │Highland │ │ │ │ │
│ University[222]│Presbyterian │ 9│ 47│ 1867 │ 1867
Holton │Campbell │ │ │ │ │
│ University │Non-sectarian │ │ 268│ 1882 │ 1882
Lawrence │University of │ │ │ │ │
│ Kansas │Non-sectarian │ 35│ 168│ 1866 │ 1866
Lecompton │Lane University │U. B. │ 12│ │ 1862 │
Lindsborg │Bethany College │Lutheran │ 2│ 76│ 1882 │ 1882
Manhattan │Kansas State │ │ │ │ │
│ Agricultural │ │ │ │ │
│ College │Non-sectarian │ 176│ 177│ 1863 │ 1863
Ottawa │Ottawa University│Baptist │ 15│ 140│ 1869 │ 1869
Salina │Kansas Wesleyan │ │ │ │ │
│ University │M. E. │ 2│ 65│ 1886 │
Sterling │Cooper Memorial │ │ │ │ │
│ College │Un. Presb │ │ 59│ 1887 │
Topeka │Washburn │ │ │ │ │
│ College[222] │Congregational │ 12│ 103│ 1865 │
Wichita │Garfield │ │ │ │ │
│ University │Christian │ 17│ 356│ 1887 │ 1887
│ │ │ │ │ │
_Montana_— │ │ │ │ │ │
Deer Lodge │College of │ │ │ │ │
│ Montana │Presbyterian │ 17│ 72│ 1883 │ 1883
│ │ │ │ │ │
_Colorado_— │ │ │ │ │ │
Boulder │University of │ │ │ │ │
│ Colorado │Non-sectarian │ 13│ 49│ 1877 │ 1877
Colorado │Colorado College │ │ │ │ │
Springs │ │Non-sectarian │ 20│ 20│ 1875 │ 1875
Denver │University of │ │ │ │ │
│ Denver │M. E. │ 3│ 199│ 1880 │ 1880
Fort Collins │State │ │ │ │ │
│ Agricultural │ │ │ │ │
│ College │Non-sectarian │ 29│ 41│ 1879 │ 1879
│ │ │ │ │ │
_Utah_— │ │ │ │ │ │
Salt Lake │University of │ │ │ │ │
City │ Deseret │Non-sectarian │ │ 129│ 1850 │ 1850
│ │ │ │ │ │
_Nevada_— │ │ │ │ │ │
Reno │State University │ │ │ │ │
│ of Nevada │Non-sectarian │ 18│ 77│ 1874 │ 1874
│ │ │ │ │ │
_Washington_—│ │ │ │ │ │
Seattle │University of │ │ │ │ │
│ Washington │Non-sectarian │ 18│ 112│ 1862 │
Walla Walla │Whitman College │Congregational │ 62│ 110│ 1882 │ 1882
│ │ │ │ │ │
_Oregon_— │ │ │ │ │ │
Corvallis │Oregon State │ │ │ │ │
│ Agricultural │ │ │ │ │
│ College │Non-sectarian │ 23│ 33│ 1888 │ 1888
Eugene City │University of │ │ │ │ │
│ Oregon │Non-sectarian │ 62│ 62│ 1876 │
Forest Grove │Pacific │ │ │ │ │
│ University[223]│Congregational │ 5│ 41│ 1854 │ 1854
McMinnville │McMinnville │ │ │ │ │
│ College │Baptist │ 2│ 42│ 1860 │ 1860
Salem │Willamette │ │ │ │ │
│ University │M. E. │ 7│ 98│ 1844 │ 1844
│ │ │ │ │ │
_California_—│ │ │ │ │ │
Berkeley │University of │ │ │ │ │
│ California │Non-sectarian │ 72│ 72│ 1869 │ 1869
College City │Pierce Christian │ │ │ │ │
│ College[223] │Christian │ 22│ 44│ 1874 │ 1874
Los Angeles │University of │ │ │ │ │
│ Southern │ │ │ │ │
│ California │M. E. │ 8│ 161│ 1880 │
Napa City │Napa College │M. E. │ 1│ 87│ 1872 │ 1872
Oakland │California │ │ │ │ │
│ College │Baptist │ 26│ 50│ 1887 │ 1887
College Park │University of the│ │ │ │ │
│ Pacific │M. E. │ 47│ 226│ 1852 │
Santa Rosa │Pacific Methodist│ │ │ │ │
│ College │M. E., South │ 30│ 46│ 1861 │ 1868
Woodbridge │San Joaquin │ │ │ │ │
│ Valley College │U. B. │ 11│ 41│ 1879 │ 1879
Woodland │Hesperian College│Christian │ 25│ 120│ 1860 │ 1860
│ │ │ │ │ │
_Missouri_— │ │ │ │ │ │
Avalon │Avalon College │United Brethren│ 11│ 70│ 1873 │ 1873
Bolivar │Southwest Baptist│ │ │ │ │
│ College │Baptist │ │ │ 1879 │ 1879
Canton │Christian │ │ │ │ │
│ University │Christian │ 36│ 39│ 1857 │ 1867
Columbia │University of │ │ │ │ │
│ Missouri │Non-sectarian │ 125│ │ 1843 │ 1870
Edinburg │Grand River │ │ │ │ │
│ College │Baptist │ 30│ 50│ 1850 │ 1850
Glasgow │Lewis │ │ │ │ │
│ College[224] │M. E. │ 19│ 24│ 1867 │
Glasgow │Pritchett School │ │ │ │ │
│ Institute │Non-sectarian │ 26│ 26│ 1866 │ 1866
La Grange │La Grange College│Baptist │ │ 51│ 1866 │
St. Louis │Washington │ │ │ │ │
│ University │Non-sectarian │ 9│ 9│ 1858 │ 1870
Springfield │Drury College │Congregational │ 11│ 73│ 1873 │ 1873
Tarkio │Tarkio │ │ │ │ │
│ College[223] │United Presb. │ 4│ 38│ 1884 │ 1884
Warrenton │Central Wesleyan │ │ │ │ │
│ College │Ger. M. E. │ 4│ 47│ 1864 │ 1864
Neosho │Scarritt │ │ │ │ │
│ Collegiate │ │ │ │ │
│ Institute │M. E., South │ │ 80│ 1878 │ 1878
─────────────┴─────────────────┴───────────────┴───────────┴──────┴───────┴──────

APPENDIX C.—TABLE I.

_To Article IV.—Education in the Southern States._

CO-EDUCATIONAL COLLEGES IN THE SOUTHERN STATES.
══════════════╤══════════════════════╤══════════════╤══════════════════
LOCATION. │ NAME. │DENOMINATION. │ NUMBER OF WOMEN
│ │ │ STUDENTS.
──────────────┼──────────────────────┼──────────────┼───────────┬──────
„ │ „ │ „ │Collegiate.│Total.
──────────────┼──────────────────────┼──────────────┼───────────┼──────
_Alabama_— │ │ │ │
Greensborough │Southern University │M. E., South │ 1│ 1
Selma │Selma │Baptist │ 3│ 225
│ University[225][226]│ │ │
│ │ │ │
_Arkansas_— │ │ │ │
Batesville │Arkansas College │Presbyterian │ │ 25
Boonsborough │Cane Hill College │Presbyterian │ 3│ 63
Little Rock │Little Rock │Meth. Epis. │ 8│ 69
│ University[226] │ │ │
Little Rock │Philander Smith │Meth. Epis. │ 5│ 75
│ College[226] │ │ │
Fayetteville │Arkansas Industrial │Non-sectarian │ 22│ 164
│ University │ │ │
│ │ │ │
_District of │ │ │ │
Columbia_— │ │ │ │
Washington │National Deaf-Mute │Non-sectarian │ 3│ 8
│ College │ │ │
Washington │Howard University[226]│Non-sectarian │ 0│ 58
Washington │Columbian University │Baptist │ 25│ 25
│ │ │ │
_Florida_— │ │ │ │
De Land │John B. Stetson │Baptist │ 1│ 62
│ University │ │ │
Orange City │St. John’s River │Meth. Epis. │ 0│ 45
│ Conference College │ │ │
Leesburg │Florida Conference │M. E., South │ 20│ 49
│ College │ │ │
Winter Park │Rollins College │Congregational│ 4│ 39
│ │ │ │
_Georgia_— │ │ │ │
Atlanta │Atlanta │Non-sectarian │ 1│ 252
│ University[226] │ │ │
Atlanta │Clark University[226] │Meth. Epis. │ 2│ 30
Bowdon │Bowdon College[225] │Non-sectarian │ 30│ 52
Macon │Mercer University │ │ │
│ │ │ │
_Kentucky_— │ │ │ │
Berea │Berea College[227] │Non-sectarian │ 7│ 147
Eminence │Eminence College │Christian │ 56│ 71
Hopkinsville │South Kentucky College│Christian │ 52│ 60
Murray │Murray Male and Female│Non-sectarian │ │ 81
│ Institute │ │ │
New Liberty │Concord College │ │ │
North │Kentucky Classical and│Christian │ 44│ 57
Middletown │ Business │ │ │
│ College[225] │ │ │
Lexington │Agricultural and │Non-sectarian │ 24│ 44
│ Mechanical College │ │ │
│ of Kentucky │ │ │
│ │ │ │
_Louisiana_— │ │ │ │
Keachie │Keachie College │Baptist │ 34│ 84
New Orleans │Leland University[226]│Baptist │ │
New Orleans │New Orleans │Meth. Epis. │ 3│ 156
│ University[226] │ │ │
New Orleans │Southern │Non-sectarian │ 4│ 242
│ University[226] │ │ │
New Orleans │Straight │Non-sectarian │ 10│ 260
│ University[226] │ │ │
New Orleans │Tulane University │Non-sectarian │ 77│ 282
│ │ │ │
_Maryland_— │ │ │ │
New Windsor │New Windsor │Presbyterian │ 25│ 51
│ College[228] │ │ │
Westminster │Western Maryland │Meth. Prot. │ 52│ 71
│ College │ │ │
│ │ │ │
_Mississippi_—│ │ │ │
Holly Springs │Rust │Meth. Epis. │ │ 182
│ University[228][229]│ │ │
Holmesville │Kavanaugh College │Non-sectarian │ 37│ 57
University │University of │Non-sectarian │ 11│ 11
│ Mississippi │ │ │
Rodney │Alcorn A. and M. │Non-sectarian │ 3│ 10
│ College[229] │ │ │
│ │ │ │
_North │ │ │ │
Carolina_— │ │ │ │
Raleigh │Shaw │Baptist │ 7│ 146
│ University[228][229]│ │ │
Rutherford │Rutherford College │Non-sectarian │ 53│ 53
Salisbury │Livingstone │A. M. E. Zion │ 2│ 111
│ College[229] │ │ │
│ │ │ │
_South │ │ │ │
Carolina_— │ │ │ │
Clinton │Presbyterian College │Presbyterian │ 10│ 40
│ of South Carolina │ │ │
Columbia │Allen University[229] │Meth. Epis. │ 0│ 140
Orangeburg │Claflin │ │ 2│ 379
│ University[229] │ │ │
│ │ │ │
_Tennessee_— │ │ │ │
Athens, │U. S. Grant University│Meth. Epis. │ │ 169
Chattanooga,│ │ │ │
McKenzie │Bethel College │Cumb. Presb. │ │ 134
Maryville │Maryville College │Presbyterian │ 34│ 109
Milligan │Milligan College │Christian │ 16│ 41
Mossy Creek │Carson and Newman │Baptist │ 28│ 147
│ College │ │ │
Nashville │Central Tennessee │Meth. Epis. │ 1│ 264
│ College[229] │ │ │
Nashville │Fisk University[229] │Congregational│ 5│ 268
Nashville │Roger Williams │Baptist │ 3│ 130
│ University[229] │ │ │
Tusculum │Greenville and │Presbyterian │ 10│ 46
│ Tusculum College │ │ │
│ │ │ │
_Texas_— │ │ │ │
Austin │University of Texas │Non-sectarian │ 40│ 40
Fort Worth │Fort Worth University │Meth. Epis. │ 20│ 125
Georgetown │Southwestern │M. E., South │ 70│ 138
│ University │ │ │
Italy │Hope Institute │Christian │ 40│ 67
Marshall │Wiley University │Meth. Epis. │ 123│
Salado │Salado College[228] │Non-sectarian │ 11│ 44
Tehuacana │Trinity │Cumb. Pres. │ 40│ 112
│ University[228] │ │ │
Waco │Baylor University │Baptist │ 175│ 267
│ │ │ │
_West │ │ │ │
Virginia_— │ │ │ │
Bethany │Bethany College │Christian │ 32│ 32
Flemington │West Virginia College │F. W. Baptist │ 1│ 12
──────────────┴──────────────────────┴──────────────┴───────────┴──────

APPENDIX C.—TABLE II.

THE SEMI-COLLEGES.

_Alabama_—
Marion, Judson Institute.

_Georgia_—
Athens, Lucy Cobb Institute.
Covington, Methodist Female College.
Lagrange, Female College.
Macon, Wesleyan Female College.
Marietta, Harwood Seminary.
Rome, Shorter College.

_Kentucky_—
Bowling Green, Pleasant J. Potter College.
Cedar Bluff, Female College.
Georgetown, Female Seminary.
Hopkinsville, Bethel Female College.
Millersburg, Female College.

_Louisiana_—
Clinton, Silliman Collegiate Institute.

_Maryland_—
Frederick, Female Seminary.

_Mississippi_—
Starkville, Female Institute.
Oxford, Union Female College.

_North Carolina_—
Greensborough, Female College.

_South Carolina_—
Anderson, Female College.

_Tennessee_—
Nashville, College for Young Ladies.
Winchester, Mary Sharp College.

_West Virginia_—
Wheeling, Female College.

APPENDIX C.—TABLE III.

_The Schools for Superior Instruction._

═══════════╤════════╤══════════════════════════════════════════════════════
STATES. │ NUMBER │ DENOMINATIONS.
│ OF │
│SCHOOLS.│
│ │
│ │
│ │
│ │
───────────┼────────┼──────────┬─────────────┬────────┬──────────┬─────────
„ │ „ │ Meth. │Presbyterian.│Baptist.│Christian.│ Roman
│ │Episcopal.│ │ │ │Catholic.
───────────┼────────┼──────────┼─────────────┼────────┼──────────┼─────────
Alabama │ 10│ 3│ 2│ 2│ │
Georgia │ 13│ 5│ │ 4│ │
Kentucky │ 19│ 3│ 3│ 3│ 1│ 1
Louisiana │ 3│ 1│ 1│ │ │
Maryland │ 5│ │ │ │ │ 1
Mississippi│ 13│ 3│ 1│ 4│ │
Missouri │ 14│ 1│ 4│ 2│ 2│ 1
North │ 12│ 3│ 3│ 3│ │
Carolina │ │ │ │ │ │
South │ 4│ 1│ │ 1│ │
Carolina │ │ │ │ │ │
Tennessee │ 13│ 4│ │ 2│ │ 1
Texas │ 4│ 2│ │ │ │ 1
Virginia │ 14│ 3│ │ 3│ │
West │ 3│ │ │ 1│ │
Virginia │ │ │ │ │ │
───────────┼────────┼──────────┼─────────────┼────────┼──────────┼─────────
│ 127│ 29│ 14│ 25│ 3│ 5
───────────┴────────┴──────────┴─────────────┴────────┴──────────┴─────────

═══════════╤══════════════════════════════════════════╤
STATES. │ DENOMINATIONS. │
│ │
│ │
│ │
│ │
│ │
│ │
───────────┼─────────┬──────┬──────────┬──────────────┼
„ │Lutheran.│Cumb. │ Prot. │Non-sectarian.│
│ │Presb.│Episcopal.│ │
───────────┼─────────┼──────┼──────────┼──────────────┼
Alabama │ │ │ │ 3│
Georgia │ │ │ │ 4│
Kentucky │ │ │ │ 8│
Louisiana │ │ │ │ 1│
Maryland │ 1│ │ │ 3│
Mississippi│ │ 1│ │ 4│
Missouri │ │ │ │ 4│
North │ │ │ 1│ 2│
Carolina │ │ │ │ │
South │ │ │ │ 2│
Carolina │ │ │ │ │
Tennessee │ │ 1│ │ 5│
Texas │ │ │ │ 1│
Virginia │ 2│ │ 1│ 5│
West │ │ │ │ 2│
Virginia │ │ │ │ │
───────────┼─────────┼──────┼──────────┼──────────────┼
│ 3│ 2│ 2│ 44│
───────────┴─────────┴──────┴──────────┴──────────────┴

═══════════╤═══════════╤══════════╤════════
STATES. │ NUMBER OF │ NUMBER │INCOME.
│STUDENTS IN│AUTHORIZED│
│COLLEGIATE │BY LAW TO │
│DEPARTMENT,│ CONFER │
│ INCLUDING │ DEGREES. │
│ RESIDENT │ │
│GRADUATES. │ │
───────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────
„ │ „ │ „ │ „
│ │ │
───────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────
Alabama │ 543│ 6│ $43,952
Georgia │ 1,055│ 9│ 11,404
Kentucky │ 1,127│ 15│ 45,044
Louisiana │ 186│ 2│ 5,000
Maryland │ 363│ 3│ 16,100
Mississippi│ 904│ 8│ 42,822
Missouri │ 588│ 9│ 44,400
North │ 850│ 5│ 22,848
Carolina │ │ │
South │ 416│ 3│ 8,700
Carolina │ │ │
Tennessee │ 860│ 11│ 35,380
Texas │ 217│ 2│ 14,855
Virginia │ 727│ 12│ 42,785
West │ 78│ 3│ 2,000
Virginia │ │ │
───────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────
│ 7,914│ 88│$335,290
───────────┴───────────┴──────────┴────────

APPENDIX C.—TABLE IV.—_Secondary Instruction for 1886–87._

═══════════╤══════════════════════════════════════════════
STATES. │ PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
───────────┼─────────┬─────────────┬──────────────────────
„ │NUMBER OF│ Number of │No. of Female Students
│SCHOOLS. │ Students. │preparing for College.
───────────┼─────────┼─────┬───────┼──────────┬───────────
„ │ „ │Male.│Female.│Classical.│Scientific.
───────────┼─────────┼─────┼───────┼──────────┼───────────
Alabama │ │ │ │ │
Arkansas │ 2│ 57│ 91│ │
│ │ │ │ │
District of│ 1│ 302│ 506│ 20│ 7
Columbia │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
Florida │ 2│ 40│ 60│ │
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
Georgia │ 4│ 319│ 512│ 160│ 50
│ │ │ │ │
Kentucky │ 3│ 139│ 613│ 2│ 2
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
Louisiana │ 1│ 146│ 344│ │
Maryland │ 4│ 46│ 769│ │
│ │ │ │ │
Mississippi│ 2│ 85│ 85│ │
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
North │ 2│ 80│ 79│ │
Carolina │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
South │ 1│ 40│ 27│ 2│
Carolina │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
Tennessee │ 6│ 339│ 449│ 11│ 20
│ │ │ │ │
Texas │ 6│ 140│ 368│ 1│
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
Virginia │ 6│ 400│ 806│ 23│
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
West │ 1│ 80│ 95│ │
Virginia │ │ │ │ │
───────────┼─────────┼─────┼───────┼──────────┼───────────
│ 41│2,163│ 4,806│ 219│ 79
───────────┴─────────┴─────┴───────┴──────────┴───────────

═══════════╤══════════════════════════════════════════════
STATES. │ PARTLY PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
───────────┼─────────┬─────────────┬──────────────────────
„ │NUMBER OF│ Number of │No. of Female Students
│SCHOOLS. │ Students. │preparing for College.
───────────┼─────────┼─────┬───────┼──────────┬───────────
„ │ „ │Male.│Female.│Classical.│Scientific.
───────────┼─────────┼─────┼───────┼──────────┼───────────
Alabama │ 6│ 436│ 333│ 69│ 10
Arkansas │ 4│ 220│ 218│ 14│ 15
│ │ │ │ │
District of│ │ │ │ │
Columbia │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
Florida │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
Georgia │ 35│1,821│ 1,715│ 50│ 5
│ │ │ │ │
Kentucky │ 5│ 342│ 352│ 13│ 14
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
Louisiana │ 1│ 53│ │ │
Maryland │ 2│ 144│ │ 1│
│ │ │ │ │
Mississippi│ 7│ 222│ 388│ 6│
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
North │ 6│ 238│ 248│ 5│
Carolina │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
South │ 3│ 163│ 140│ 10│
Carolina │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
Tennessee │ 7│ 549│ 439│ 7│
│ │ │ │ │
Texas │ 6│ 462│ 482│ 5│
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
Virginia │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
West │ │ │ │ │
Virginia │ │ │ │ │
───────────┼─────────┼─────┼───────┼──────────┼───────────
│ 82│4,650│ 4,315│ 180│ 44
───────────┴─────────┴─────┴───────┴──────────┴───────────

═══════════╤═══════════════════════════════════════════════
STATES. │ PRIVATE SCHOOLS.
───────────┼─────────┬──────────────┬──────────────────────
„ │NUMBER OF│ Number of │No. of Female Students
│SCHOOLS. │ Students. │preparing for College.
───────────┼─────────┼──────┬───────┼──────────┬───────────
„ │ „ │Male. │Female.│Classical.│Scientific.
───────────┼─────────┼──────┼───────┼──────────┼───────────
Alabama │ 20│ 753│ 880│ │
Arkansas │ 5│ 371│ 412│ │
│ │ │ │ │
District of│ 10│ (20)│ 328│ │ 6
Columbia │ │ 458│ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
Florida │ 8│ (70)│ 671│ │
│ │ 280│ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
Georgia │ 39│ 2,238│ 2,703│ │
│ │ │ │ │
Kentucky │ 31│ (810)│ 1,829│ │
│ │ 950│ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
Louisiana │ 10│ 652│ 373│ │
Maryland │ 23│ 1,115│ 588│ │
│ │ │ │ │
Mississippi│ 10│ (271)│ 562│ │
│ │ 638│ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
North │ 54│ (127)│ 1,859│ │
Carolina │ │ 2,692│ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
South │ 10│ (135)│ 782│ 7│
Carolina │ │ 834│ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
Tennessee │ 25│ 1,191│ 1,523│ 20│ 50
│ │ │ │ │
Texas │ 16│ (200)│ 1,236│ │
│ │ 1,055│ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
Virginia │ 22│ (225)│ 553│ 5│ 6
│ │ 978│ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
West │ 5│ (113)│ 162│ │
Virginia │ │ 81│ │ │
───────────┼─────────┼──────┼───────┼──────────┼───────────
│ 288│14,286│ 14,561│ 32│ 62
───────────┴─────────┴──────┴───────┴──────────┴───────────

APPENDIX D.

_To Article VII.—Woman in Medicine._

LIST OF MEDICAL ESSAYS AND COMMUNICATIONS WRITTEN BY WOMEN PHYSICIANS
BETWEEN 1872 AND 1890.

Abdominal section, a case of. Anita Tyng.

Æsthesiometry, with new instrument. Grace Peckham.—_N. Y. Med.
Record_, 1885.

Alexander’s operation, two cases.—_N. Y. Med. Record_, 1888.

Amyl Nitrite in dysmenorrhœa. Mary Putnam Jacobi.—_Record_, 1875.

Anal occlusion, an unusual case. Susan Dimock.—_Record_, 1875.

Anencephalous monster. Mary Putnam.—_Archives_ Brown-Sequard, 1872.

Antagonism of medicines. _Ibid._—_Archives of Medicine_, 1881.

Aphasia, with special loss of nouns. _Ibid._—_Journal Mental and
Nervous Dis._, 1886.

Apoplexia neonatorum. Sarah McNutt.—_Am. Jour. Obstet._, 1885.

Apostoli’s clinic, report of. Mary Hobart.—_Boston Med. and Surg.
Jour._, 1889.

Apostoli’s clinic, report of. Alice T. Beall.—_Am. Jour. Obstet._,
1889.

Atropine, lecture on. Mary Putnam Jacobi.—_Record_, 1873.

Blood, is it a living fluid? Frances Emily White.—_Record_, 1883.

Botanical notes. Mary K. Curran.—_Proceedings California Academy of
Sciences_, 1889.

Basilar kyphosis, its relations to certain cerebral deformities. Sara
A. Post.—_Record_, 1889.

Bacteria, their rôle in fermentation and putrefaction. Emma Sutro
Merritt. _Trans. Med. Soc. California_, 1890.

Biology, practical study in. Mary Putnam Jacobi, address at
Massachusetts State Med. Soc.—_Boston Med. and Surg. Journal_, 1889.

Brain tumor. _Ibid._—_Wood’s Reference Handbook Medical Sciences._

Catamenial decidua, microscopic examination of. Jeannette Greene.—_Am.
Jour. Obstet._, 1882.

Cerebrum, multiple tumors of, case of in a child. Sarah J.
McNutt.—_Trans. Am. Neurological Ass’n._

Cirrhosis liver with splenic tumor in a child. Mary Putnam
Jacobi.—_Archives Pediat._, 1889.

Cold pack and massage in treatment of anæmia. Mary Putnam Jacobi and
Victoria White.—_Archives of Medicine_, 1880.

Colpo-hysterectomy for cancer. Sara A. Post.—_Am. Jour. Med.
Sciences_, 1886.

Conjunctivitis, new method of treating. Elizabeth Sargent.—_Trans.
Med. Soc. of California_, 1890.

Cutaneous irritation and effect on pulse. Sara A. Post.—_N. Y. Med.
Record_, 1883.

Chlorine in diphtheria. Caroline Conkey.—_Record_, 1884.

Camphor, case of fatal poisoning by. Mary J. Finley.—_Record_, 1887.

Cerebro-spinal meningitis, case of. Mary Putnam Jacobi.—_Record_,
1877.

Cocculus indicus, an experimental study. _Ibid._—_N. Y. Med. Jour._,
1887.

Deformities, brain and cord. Sara A. Post.—_Keating’s Cyclopœdia
Children’s Diseases._

Dermoid cysts, two cases aspiration followed by inflammation. Mary
Putnam Jacobi.—_Am. Jour. Obstet._, 1883.

Diphtheria and croup, comparison. _Ibid._—_Record_, 1877.

Digestibility as test of food value. Sara A. Post.—_Diet Gazette_,
1888.

Diseases of children, classification by development. Mary Putnam
Jacobi.—_Boston Med. and Surg. Jour._, 1881.

Endometritis, studies in. Mary Putnam Jacobi.—_Am. Jour. Obstet._,
1885.

Empyema, a case of, with new device for measuring chest by plaster
casts. _Ibid._—_Med. News_, 1890.

Electricity in obstetrics. Mary W. Moody.—_Trans. Med. Soc.
California_, 1888.

Episiotomy, a plea for. Anna Broomall.—_Am. Jour. Obstet._, 1878.

Epithelioma vulva, following long-standing pruritus, operative cure.
Elizabeth Cushier.—_Record_, 1879.

Exercise for women, as illustrated by a study of circus riders. Sara
A. Post.—_Record_, 1884.

Fibroid tumor of uterus removed by Thomas’s scoop. Mary Putnam
Jacobi.—_Am. Jour. Med. Sciences_, 1880.

Fibroid tumor successfully treated by electricity. _Ibid._—_Am. Jour.
Obstet._, 1888.

Fatty degeneration of new-born children (Buhl’s disease). _Ibid._—_Am.
Jour. Obstet._, 1878.

Hernia of diaphragm, congenital. Anna Broomall.—_Am. Jour. Obstet._,
1879.

Hot and cold drinks. Sara A. Post.—_Record_, 1888.

Hysterectomies, recent, for cancer. _Ibid._—_Am. Jour. Obstet._, 1888.

Hydrocele in a female. Ellen A. Ingersol.—_Am. Jour. Obstet._, 1882.

Hydro-nephrosis, fatal case in a parturient woman. Helen
Bissell.—_Record_, 1887.

Hysteria, some considerations on. Mary Putnam Jacobi. 1888.

Hysteria, post-epileptic. _Ibid._—_Journal Nervous and Ment. Disease_,
1888.

Hysterical locomotor ataxia. _Ibid._—_Archives of Medicine_, 1883.

Hysterical fever. _Ibid._—_Journal Nervous and Mental Diseases_, 1890.

Hygiene as basis of morals. Francis Emily White.—_Popular Science
Monthly_, 1889.

Hysterical coma, case. Elizabeth Peck.—_N. Y. Med. Record_, 1888.

Heart, anomalous malformation of. Mary Putnam.—_Record_, 1872.

Hæmatocele, anterior, case. Fanny Berlin.—_Am. Jour. Obstet._, 1888.

Influence of city life on health and development. Grace
Peckham.—_Journal Social Science Assoc._

Infancy in the city.—_Popular Science Monthly_, 1886.

Inflated ring pessary. Sara A. Post.—_Med. Record_, 1887.

Instruments for electro-massage. _Ibid._—_Record_, 1880.

Iodoform in diabetes. _Ibid._—_Archives of Medicine_, 1884

Intra-cranial hæmorrhage. Sarah J. McNutt.—_Quarterly Bulletin
Post-Graduate Clinical Society_, August, 1884.

Infantile paralysis, pathogeny of. Mary Putnam Jacobi.—_Am. Jour.
Obstet._, 1874.

Infantile paralysis. _Ibid._—_Pepper’s Archives of Medicine_,
Philadelphia, 1885.

Intra-uterine therapeutics. _Ibid._—_Am. Jour. Obstet._, 1889.

Inversion uterus, acute spontaneous. Araminta V. Scott.—_Am. Jour.
Obstet._, 1880.

Intestinal obstruction, rare case of. Mary Putnam.—_Record_, 1872.

Kinesio neuroses of childhood. Grace Peckham.—_Journal Mental and
Nervous Dis._, 1884.

Knee-chest position. Mary S. Whelstone.—_Am. Jour. Obst._, 1886.

Language study, physiological place for, in curriculum education. Mary
Putnam Jacobi.—_Journal Psychology_, 1888.

Local reflex symptoms in uterine disease (analysis 2000 cases) Grace
Peckham.—_Record_, 1888.

Lupus or esthiomene of the vulva, a case. _Ibid._—_Am. Jour. Obstet._,
1887.

Loco weed, its toxicity. Mary G. Day.—_N. Y. Med. Jour._, 1889.

Mania, acute, after operations. Mary Putnam Jacobi.—_Record_, 1889.

Macerated fœtus as complication of labor. Sara A. Post.—_Record_,
1889.

Mastitis. Julia A. Post.—_Record_, 1885.

Matter and mind. Frances Emily White.—_Popular Science Monthly_, 1887.

Muscle and mind. _Ibid._—_Ibid._, 1889.

Morals, evolution of. _Ibid._—_Open Court_, 1889.

Moner to man. _Ibid._—_Popular Science Monthly_, 1884.

Mechanical restraint of the insane. Alice Bennett.—_Medico-Legal
Journal_, 1883.

Meningocele, rare case of. Sarah J. McNutt.—_Quarterly Bulletin
Post-Graduate Clinical Society_, 1887.

Menstrual subinvolution or metritis of non-parturient uterus. Mary
Putnam Jacobi.—_Am. Jour. Obstet._, 1885.

Metritis, chronic, and parturient subinvolution. _Ibid._—_Ibid._
August, 1885.

Menstruation, new theory of. _Ibid._—_Ibid._, June, 1885.

Menstruation, question of rest in. Theory. Boylston prize essay,
1876.—_Ibid._

Miliary tuberculosis and endometritis, case of. _Ibid._—_Record_,
1875.

Microcephalus, case of. _Ibid._—_Record._

Menstrual bodies, anomalous in oöphoritis. Mary Dixon Jones.—_N. Y.
Med. Jour._, 1890.

Metallo-therapy. Grace Peckham.—_Archives of Medicine_, 1883.

Mirror writing. _Ibid._—_Record_, 1886.

Mineral water in diseases of children. Isabel Lowry.—_N. Y. Med.
Record_, 1888.

Midwifery cases, analysis of 187 in private practice. Marie
Zakrzewska.—_Boston Med. and Surg. Journal_, Dec., 1889.

Myoma, uterine, 13 lbs., removal. Mary Dixon Jones.—_Am. Jour.
Obstet._

Myxœdema, case of, with microscopic examination of cord. Elizabeth
Cushier.—_Archives Med._, 1882.

Nephritis, acute diffuse, following intestinal catarrh. Sarah J.
McNutt.—_Archives Pediatrics_, 1885.

Nervousness of Americans. Grace Peckham.—_Journal Social Science._

Negative pulse of veins. Sara A. Post.—_Record_, 1883.

Ovarian complications of endometritis. Mary Putnam Jacobi.—_Am. Jour.
Obstet._, 1886.

Ovaries, hemorrhage into. _Ibid._—_Record_, 1872.

Ovariotomy for double ovarian tumor with tubercular peritonitis. Mary
S. Whelstone.—_Am. Jour. Obstet._, 1886.

Ovaries and tubes, support in treatment of. Sara A. Post.—_N. Y. Med.
Jour._, 1887.

Paquelin cautery, value of. Sarah A. Dolley.—_Trans. Monroe Co. Med.
Soc._, 1879.

Paralysis in puerperal state, two cases. Imogene Bassett.—_Jour. Nerv.
Dis._, 1880.

Parovarian cyst with twisted pedicle attended by persistent uterine
hemorrhage. Elizabeth Cushier.—_N. Y. Med. Jour._, 1884.

Pemphigus neonatorum, epidemic of. Eleanor Kilham.—_Am. Jour.
Obstet._, 1889.

Pericarditis in a child. Mary Putnam Jacobi.—_Record_, 1873.

Perineo-rectal laceration, extensive, of 32 years’ standing, cure by
operation. Victoria A. Scott.—_Am. Jour. Obstet._, 1883.

Pontine tumor, or diffuse brain sclerosis? Mary Putnam Jacobi.—_Jour.
Nerv. Dis._, 1889.

Placenta, waxy degeneration of. Jeannette Greene.—_Am. Jour. Obstet._,
1880.

Placenta, hyaline degeneration. Sara A. Post.—_Trans. Am. Gyn.
Assoc._, 1888.

Poisoning by sulphate of iron, case. Lucy M. Hall.—_N. Y. Med. Jour._,
1883.

Prolapsus, complete, and Lefort’s operation, three cases. Fanny
Berlin.—_Am. Jour. Obstet._, 1881.

Prophylaxis of insanity. Mary Putnam Jacobi.—_Archives Med._, 1881.

Pseudo-muscular hypertrophy. _Ibid._—_Pepper’s Archives._

Pseudo-negative sphygmographic trace. Sara A. Post.—_Archives of
Medicine_, 1884.

Persistence in individual consciousness. Frances Emily White.—_Penn.
Monthly_, 1878.

Protoplasm. _Ibid._—_Popular Science Monthly_, 1881.

Pulse tracing, showing cardiac inhibition during sudden pain. Mary
Putnam Jacobi.—_Archives Medicine_, 1879.

Psychical Society, English; critical digest of proceeding. Grace
Peckham.—_Jour. Ment. Dis._, 1888.

Periodical insanity among women. Alice Bennett.—_Medico-Legal Jour._,
1883.

Primary Education. Mary Putnam Jacobi.—_Popular Science Monthly_,
1886.

Quinine, effect of, on cerebral circulation. Mary Putnam
Jacobi.—_Archives of Medicine_, 1879.

Quinine, indications for, in pneumonia. _Ibid._—_N. Y. Med. Jour._,
1887.

Relations of the sexes. Frances Emily White.—_Westminster Review_,
1879.

Restiform body, section of. Mary Putnam Jacobi.—_Record_, 1873.

Rhythmical myoclonus. Grace Peckham.—_Archives Med._, 1883.

Rotary spasm, nocturnal, a case. Mary Putnam Jacobi.—_Jour. Ment.
Dis._, 1880.

Salpingitis, etiology and treatment of. Marie Mergler.—_Trans.
Illinois State Med. Soc._, 1888.

Septicæmia and pyæmia. Mary Putnam.—_Record_, 1872.

Sternum, trephining, case of. _Ibid._—_Am. Jour. Obstet._, 1881.

Specialism in medicine. _Ibid._—_Archives of Medicine_, 1882.

Spinal myelitis and meningitis in children. _Ibid._—_Keating’s
Cyclopædia_, 1890.

Spastic double hemiplegia of cerebral origin. Sarah J. McNutt.—_Am.
Jour. Med. Science_, 1885.

Surgical notes in hospital for women and children. Charlotte Blake
Brown.—_Pacific Med. Jour._, 1889.

Syphilitic brain disease, a case, with autopsy. Lucy M. Hall.—_N. Y.
Med. Jour._, 1884.

Therapeutics children’s diseases. Sarah J. McNutt.—_Quarterly Bulletin
Post-grad. Clin. Soc._, 1884.

Typhoid fever, two peculiar cases. Mary Putnam Jacobi.—_Archives
Med._, 1884.

Urethra, rare case of absence of. Sara A. Post.—_Am. Jour. Obstet._,
1885.

Uterus, rudimentary, two cases of. Susan Dimock.—_Record_, 1874.

Uterine appendages, removal of, five cases. Mary Dixon Jones.—_Am.
Jour. Obstet._, 1888.

do. _Ibid._—_Record_, 1885–1886.

Woman’s place in nature. Francis Emily White.—_Pop. Science Monthly_,
1875.

Women in professions. _Ibid._—_Penn Monthly._

Wormian bones, their effect in childbirth. Grace Peckham.—_Record_,
1888.

do. _Ibid._—_Wood’s Handbook Medical Sciences._

APPENDIX E.

_To Article X.—Woman in the State._

THE CIVIL RIGHTS OF WOMEN.

Women born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the
jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State
wherein they reside. The right of suffrage is regulated in each State by
its own law, subject to Article XV. of the Amendments to the
constitution of the United States. When the right to vote is denied to
any of the male inhabitants of a State, being twenty-one years of age
and citizens of the United States, except for participation in rebellion
or crime, the representation of such State in Congress is
proportionately reduced; but there is no penalty attached to the denial
of the right of suffrage to women. The constitutions of all the States,
except Wyoming, specify that the elective franchise is confined to
males. This relates to the right of voting for the federal electors and
the State legislature and executive, and statutes permitting women to
vote in local elections are deemed to be constitutional. In many States
women may vote at the election of school officers or upon any measure
relating to schools. In Wyoming and in the Territory of Utah women vote
in all respects like men. Woman suffrage also existed in the Territory
of Washington, but was rejected at the election for the adoption of the
constitution, when Washington became a State. The right of women to vote
is by the constitution of South Dakota to be submitted by the
legislature to the electors at the first general election after the
admission of the State. The constitutions of Colorado, Wisconsin, and
North Dakota provide that the legislature may at any time extend the
right of suffrage to women, such enactment to take effect, if approved
by a majority of the electors, at a general election.

In the absence of special statute or of the necessity for special
license, it would seem that there is nothing to prevent an unmarried
woman from engaging in any occupation she may choose. In Georgia and
Louisiana, however, the statute declares that women cannot hold any
civil office or perform any civil functions, unless specially authorized
by law. The constitution of California provides that no person shall on
account of sex be disqualified from entering upon or pursuing any lawful
business, vocation, or profession; and in Illinois there is a law that
no person shall be debarred or precluded from any occupation,
employment, or profession (except military) on account of sex. But this
does not extend or modify the right of women to hold office, nor does it
enable or require them to serve on juries or to labor in the streets.
Military, jury, police, patrol, and road duties are generally
specifically confined to males. The constitution of Missouri specifies
that the Governor and members of the legislature must be male, and in
other States such a restriction follows from the requirement that
office-holders shall be chosen from among electors. Certain offices,
such as that of recorder of deeds, notary public, etc., may in many
States be held by women, and in many States women may hold any office
under the school law. In Massachusetts, the office of overseer of the
poor may be held by a woman.

At common law, a married woman, however, had in general no capacity to
contract, and hence could not engage in business or follow an
independent vocation; but the common law disabilities, imposed upon
married women, have been very generally removed by statutes. In
Louisiana and North Carolina, however, the contracts of a married woman
are declared to be generally void, and so says a statute of Georgia,
which seems, however, to be overruled by constitutional provision, as
judicially construed. In Alabama and New Mexico a married woman may
contract, provided she have her husband’s assent, and in certain cases
this is allowed in Louisiana. In Illinois a wife may make all kinds of
contracts, except that she may not enter into a partnership without her
husband’s consent, and in South Carolina it is held that the law does
not empower a married woman to enter into a partnership. But in most of
the States, a married woman may as a general rule make all kinds of
contracts as if she were unmarried. In Mississippi, Oregon, and
Washington, all the civil disabilities peculiar to married women, except
as to voting and holding office, have been expressly swept away. In
about a dozen States there is a certain process, such as recording a
certificate, etc., by which a married woman can become a “sole trader,”
or carry on business in her own name; but in as many other States she
can do this without any formalities. In all the States, the real
property of a woman, and in most of the States her personal property,
upon her marriage, remain her separate property; and so generally
remains all property acquired by the wife after marriage; and over this
separate property a married woman has now, in nearly all the States,
more or less complete control. Louisiana, however, is peculiarly
conservative in this respect, and in Texas, Florida, and Idaho, the
husband has the management and control of all the wife’s separate
property. The property claimed by married women must, by the laws of
several States, be specially registered. In many States a married woman
can convey her own real estate, without her husband joining in the
conveyance; but in a narrow majority of the States the husband must, as
a rule, join with the wife to make a valid transfer. In most of the
States a married woman may prosecute or defend suits concerning her own
property, as if unmarried; and in about half of the States she may in
all cases sue and be sued without joining the husband. As a prevailing
rule, the husband is not liable for the debts of the wife, except those
incurred for necessaries for herself or the family, nor is he now liable
for her torts; neither is the wife’s property liable for the debts of
the husband, but her own debts may be enforced against her own property.
In many States contracts between husband and wife are now valid, though
in some States they are still void at law.

Married women have, as a rule, the same right to dispose of their
property by last will and testament as they have to convey it during
their life-time; but in some States, as Maryland, their right so to do
is restricted in certain respects. In many States a wife cannot by her
will deprive her husband of a certain share of her property. The laws of
descent and of intestate succession vary diversely in the several
States. In Tennessee it is expressly provided that absolute equality
shall be observed in the division of estates of deceased persons dying
intestate, and no difference of sex is known in the laws of succession
in North Carolina and Louisiana. In many States the distributive shares
of husband and widow, and their respective rights of curtesy and dower,
are similar; but in other States there are complicated differences; in
New York, for instance, the husband being favored with respect to
personal property, and the wife being better protected with regard to
real estate. In Louisiana women are declared incapable of being
witnesses to wills.

The laws of California, the Dakotas, Georgia, New Mexico, Ohio, and
Idaho expressly enact that the husband is the head of the family, and
that the wife is subject to him. The constitution of Kansas, however,
declares that the legislature shall provide for women equal rights with
the husband in the possession of their children. Such equality is also
provided by the laws of Washington. In Maine, California, the Dakotas,
and Georgia, the father is declared to have the right to the custody of
his minor child. In Louisiana, in case of difference between the
parents, the authority of the father prevails. The common law authority
of the husband and father is, with modifications, upheld in most of the
States, at least until abandonment, separation, or divorce.

The duty of the husband at common law to support the wife finds further
statutory recognition in acts making the husband’s failure to support
the wife cause for absolute or limited divorce. Alimony is usually
granted to the wife on a divorce for the husband’s fault. In North
Carolina, Kentucky, and Texas, divorce is granted for adultery only when
committed by the wife, unless the husband abandon the wife and live in
adultery with another woman.

While women, and particularly married women, still in the world of
activity, often labor under disabilities imposed upon them by law for
their protection and benefit—“so great a favorite is the female sex of
the laws of England”—it must be admitted that in the course of a century
woman has made a great advance in the direction of personal freedom.
When Blackstone wrote, the husband became entitled by marriage to all
the personal property of the wife, and to the rents and profits of her
lands, and the very being or legal existence of the woman was suspended
during marriage, or at least was incorporated and consolidated into that
of the husband, under whose wing, protection, and _cover_ she performed
everything. The emancipation of married women has been gradually,
silently, successfully accomplished.—ED.

APPENDIX F.—BIBLIOGRAPHY.

_The following works will be found useful by those who wish to pursue
further the subjects treated in the foregoing chapters._

ADAMS, OSCAR FAY

Handbook of American Authors. Boston, 1884.

BOONE, RICHARD G.

Education in the United States. New York, 1889.

BRACKETT, ANNA C. AND OTHERS

Education of American Girls. New York, 1886.

CAMPBELL, HELEN

Prisoners of Poverty. Boston, 1887.

Anne Bradstreet. Boston, 1891.

CLARKE, E. H.

Sex in Education. Boston, 1873.

DALL, CAROLINE H.

Life of Dr. Marie Zakrzewska; a Practical Illustration of Woman’s
Right to Labor. Boston.

DODGE, COLONEL RICHARD IRVING

Our Wild Indians. Hartford, 1882.

ELLET, E. F.

Women of the American Revolution. Philadelphia, 1853.

ENGLES, FREDERICK

Condition of the Working Classes in England in 1844. Translated by
Florence Kelly Wischnewetsky. New York, 1887.

GREELEY, HORACE

Recollections of a Busy Life. New York, 1867.

GRISWOLD, R. W.

Female Poets of America. New York, 1849.

D’HERICOURT, MME.

La Femme Affranchie. Paris.

HIGGINSON, THOMAS WENTWORTH

Common Sense about Women. Boston, 1882.

Women and Men. New York, 1887.

HOWE, JULIA WARD AND OTHERS

Sex and Education. Boston, 1874.

JACKSON, HELEN HUNT (“H. H.”)

A Century of Dishonor. New York, 1881.

JACKSON, SHELDON, D.D.

Alaska. New York, 1880.

LARCOM, LUCY

The Story of a New England Girlhood. Boston, 1889.

LEAKE, GENERAL G. B.

Protection of Law for Indians.

LIVERMORE, MARY A.

My Story of the War. Hartford, 1888.

LOWELL OFFERING

MANYPENNY, COLONEL GEORGE

Our Indian Wards. Cincinnati, 1880.

MARTINEAU, HARRIET

Society in America. New York, 1837.

MILL, JOHN STUART

Subjection of Women. New York, 1870.

OWEN, G. W.

The Indian Question.

PANCOAST, HENRY S.

The Indian before the Law.

PENNY, VIRGINIA

Think and Act: Men and Women: Work and Wages. Philadelphia, 1868.

REPORT OF INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF WOMEN HELD IN WASHINGTON, D. C.,
1888. Washington, 1888.

RIGGS, REV. STEPHEN R., D.D.

Mary and I. Chicago, 1880.

ROBINSON, H. H.

Massachusetts in Woman Suffrage Movement. Boston, 1881.

SEDGWICK, C. M.

Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home. New York, 1841.

SIMS, MARION

Story of My Life. New York, 1884.

STANTON, THEODORE

The Woman Question in Europe. New York, 1884.

STEDMAN, E. C.

Poets of America. Boston, 1885.

STEDMAN, E. C. AND HUTCHINSON, E. M.

Library of American Literature. New York, 1887–1890.

TIFFANY, REV.

Life of Dorothea Dix. Boston, 1889.

WILLARD, FRANCES E.

Autobiography.

WOLLSTONECRAFT

The Rights of Women. Boston, 1890.

INDEX.

Abolitionists, character of, 261.
_See_ Garrison, Wm. Lloyd

Adams, Abigail, 257;
quoted, 5, 15;
on intellectual opportunities for girls in her time, 13;
rare abilities of, 15

Adams, Charles F., quoted on co-education, 26

Adams, Hannah, 108

Adamson, Sarah, 158

Affiliated college, the, 41, _note_, 42, _note_.
_See_ Collegiate instruction for women; Evelyn College; Barnard
College

Agricultural College Act, the, 57

Albert Lea College, 64, _note_

Alcott, Abby May, 265

Alcott, Louisa M., 123

American Revolution, woman in, 255

Angell, President, quoted on co-education, 78

Anthony, Susan B., 132, 264, 269, 397

Antioch College, 38, 70

Anti-Slavery women, Work of, 392

Aspasia, 249

Associations:
Co-operative Building, of Boston, 343
New York Moral Reform, 359
Society of Ethical Culture, Relief Works of, 357, _note_
Visiting Nurse Society, 357

Astell, Mary, 253

Avila, Saint, and the educated woman of to-day, 53

Bar Associations, woman’s international, 243

Barbauld, Mrs., quoted on education of women, 28

Barnard College, 40, _note_, 41, _note_;
history of, 44

Barney, Susan Hammond, 365;
chapter by, 359

Bartlett, President, quoted on co-education, 26

Barton, Clara, 266;
chapter by, 411;
life of, 411, _note_

Bascom, John, quoted on co-education, 80

Beecher, Henry Ward, and woman suffrage, 265

Bittenbender, Ada M., chapter by, 218

Blackwell, Rev. Antoinette Brown, 130, 264, 267;
first woman ordained, 212, _note_

Blackwell, Dr. Elizabeth, 147, 149, 150, 151, 156, 170, 172, 266, 348;
first woman of modern times to receive medical diploma, 152

Blackwell, Emily, 149, 152, 154, 156, 170, 172

Bologna, University of, admission of women to, 253;
women in, 13

Bonney, Mary L., 377, 385

Boone, Richard G., quoted, 13

Booth, Mary L., 132

Boston Athenæum open to women, 27

Boston Lyceum open to women, 27

Boston University, 39

Botta, Anna Lynch, 124

Bowles, Rev. Ada C., chapter by, 206

Bradstreet, Anne, 108

Bradwell, Myra, 222

Brent, Margaret, 220

Brooks, Rev. Charles T., 37

Brooks, Maria Gowen, 111

Bryn Mawr College, 49

Bryn Mawr Preparatory School, the, 103

Burnett, Frances Hodgson, 121

Call, Emma, 188

Campbell, Helen, 318;
quoted, 320

Cary, Alice, 124

Channing, Rev. William H., and woman suffrage, 265

Chapman, Maria Weston, 398

Charity, necessity for discrimination, 333;
old and new methods compared, 334

Cheney, Ednah Dow, 265;
chapter by, 346

Child, Lydia Maria, 111, 128, 262, 397

Children’s Aid Society, the, of Boston, 332;
of Pennsylvania, 325

Christian Association, Young Women’s, 290, 337

Cincinnati Wesleyan Woman’s College, the, 62

Civilization, three curses on, 403

Civil War, effect of, 265;
influence on education in South, 93;
on the wage-worker, 285

Cleveland, Emmeline, 157, 162

Clubs, girl’s, 339.
_See_ Associations; Unions

Co-education, arguments against, 78;
at Columbian University, 96;
at Cornell University, 79;
at Massachusetts Inst. Technology, 52;
at University of Michigan, 78;
at Northwestern University, 80;
at University of Mississippi, 96;
at University of Wisconsin, 80;
at Tulane University, 97;
at Vanderbilt University, 98;
conditions of pioneer life favorable to, 71;
in graduate study, 176, _note_;
in medical schools, 173;
in medicine, 176;
in West, 61, 65;
social effects and tendencies of, 81;
number of students in Southern colleges, 98

College, the, influence of, in community, 60

College degrees and State legislatures, 41, _note_

College faculties, absence of women in, 87

College settlement, 340.
_See_ Neighborhood Guild

Colleges for women, function of, 64;
in the South, 101;
in the West, 61

Collegiate Alumnæ, Association of, standard adopted by, 83, 94

Collegiate Instruction for Women, Society for, 39, 40, _note_, 41,
_note_

Columbia College, and education of women, 41;
chartered, 260, _note_

Columbian University, 95

Comstock, Elizabeth, 363

Cone, Helen Gray, chapter by, 107

Cooke, Rose Terry, 124

Co-operation among women, value of, 295

Co-operative industries, 300

Cooper Institute, 288

Cornell University, 47

Corporations, women in, 251

Corson, Dr. Hiram, 178

Cotton-gin, influence of, 280;
invention of, 279

County Medical Society of Philadelphia, 177

Craddock, Charles Egbert. _See_ Murfree, Miss

Crandall, Prudence, 392

Craper, Margaret, 128

Criminals, care of, 359

Croly, Mrs. D. G., 131

Cummings, Joseph, quoted on co-education, 80

Dame-school, the, 7

Davis, Rebecca Harding, 120

Dawes, Hon. H. L., 387

Deaconesses, order of, 357, _note_

Deland, Margaret, 119

Dickinson, Anna, 266, 397

Dickinson, Mary Lowe, 385

Dickinson, Susan E., chapter by, 128

Dimock, Susan, 166

Dix, Dorothea, 193, 324, 362

Dodge, Mary Mapes, 123, 137

Eastman, Mary F., chapter by, 3

Education, prime motive to the encouragement of, in America, 5;
in West, relation of government to, 55

Education, Woman in, Daniel Defoe on, 253;
in the Eastern States, 3;
in the Southern States, 89;
in the Western States, 52

Elective system of education, influence on co-education, 76

Eliot, President, quoted on co-education, 26

Elizabeth, Queen, 253

Elizabethan era, woman in, 254

Ellet, Elizabeth F., 128

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, quoted on education of women, 30;
and woman suffrage, 264

Evelyn College, 41, _note_

Everett, Prof. William, quoted on co-education, 26

Exchanges, woman’s, of New York, 295

Factory, the influence of, 280;
laws, disregard of, 316

Farmers’ Alliance, the, 300, _note_

Fletcher, Alice C., 375

Foley, Margaret, 283

Foltz, Clara S., 237

Foote, Mary Hallock, 121

Foster, Abby Kelly, 396

Foster, Hannah Webster, 109

Franklin, Christine Ladd, chapter by, 89

Free schools, admission of girls to, 5;
first in United States, 12;
founding of the system, 5;
not originated in America, 12;

French and Indian wars, woman in, 255

Fry, Elizabeth, 359, 363

Fuller, Margaret. _See_ Ossoli

Gage, Mrs. Frances D., 130

Garrison, Helen E., 398

Garrison, William Lloyd, 261, 263, 269

Geneva, Treaty of, code, 416;
nations adopting, list of, 417

Gilbert, Linda, 363

Gilder, Jeannette L., 137

Goodale, Elaine, quoted, 390

Goodell, R. Lavinia, 226, 232

Gordon, Laura de Force, 239

Granger Association of Western Farmers, 300

Green, Mrs. Nathaniel, the inventor of cotton-gin, 280

Greenwood, Grace, 129

Gregory, Samuel, 142

Grew, Mary, 397

Grey, Lady Jane, quoted, 6

Grimké sisters, 128, 262, 392

Gymnasiums. _See_ Physical Culture

Hamilton, Gail, 286

Hale, Sarah Josepha, 128

Hall, Mary, 229

Harvard Annex, the. _See_ Collegiate Instruction for Women

Harvard College, founding of, 4, 260, _note_

Harvard Medical School, 185

Heck, Barbara, 208, 209

H. H. _See_ Jackson, Helen Hunt

Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 269;
and woman suffrage, 265

Higher education, defects of, in West, 83;
for women in the South, 93

Homes for working women, 293

Homes for unfortunates, 328

Hopper, Isaac T., Home, 361

Hospitals, admission of women students to, 189, 190, _note_;
admission of women physicians to, 191, 192, 353;
admitting women students, list of, 348;
earliest known, 346;
Mt. Sinai, first to appoint woman physician, 190;
New England, 156, 165, 354;
for women, Chicago, 167;
first in world, 153;
Minneapolis, 168;
New York Infirmary, 153;
Philadelphia, 165;
San Francisco, 168

Howard, Blanche Willis, 121

Howard, Caroline, 110

Howard, Grace, 389

Howe, Elias, inventor of the sewing-machine, 285

Howe, Julia Ward, 124, 132, 215, 269;
introduction by, 1

Hunt, Harriet K., 147, 148

Huntingdon, Countess of, 209

Hutchinson, Anne, 348;
begins work of women in Christian ministry, 206

Huxley, quoted on education, 38

“Hypatia,” 249

Indian Association, national, 384

Indian petition, 380

Indian Treaty-keeping and Protective Association, organization of, 381

Indiana, University of, admission of women to, 72

Indians, care of, 373

Industrial education in the South, 104;
New York association, 336

Industrial schools for girls, Dorchester, Mass., 331;
the Wilson, 288.
_See_ Cooper Institute

Industry, woman in, 276;
arguments against, 287;
average weekly earnings of, in cities, 312;
condition of, 303;
state interference in condition of wage-earners, 315;
state legislation for protection of, 319

Insane asylums, admission of women physicians to, 193, 194;
women physicians in, 195, 351

Inventive faculty, the, a gift of the American woman, 279

Italy, women in, 13

Jackson, Helen Hunt, 121, 374

Jacobi, Dr. Mary Putnam, 191;
chapter by, 139;
first woman admitted to the Paris _École de Médecine_, 184, _note_

Johnson, Mrs. E. C., 364

Joshee, Dr. Amandibai, 353

Journal, first medical, 141, _note_

Journalism, woman in, 128

Jurors, women as, 244

Kempin, Dr. Emile, 234

Kepley, Ada H., first woman graduate of law school, 233

Kilgore, Carrie Burnham, 235

Kindergarten system, the history of, in America, 335

Knights of Labor, the, women in, 299

Labor, a respect for, the foundation of democracy, 1

Lamb, Martha J., 17

Larcom, Lucy, 124, 283

Latin School for Girls, the, 23;
opening of, 27

Law, woman in, 218;
admission to Supreme Court, 225;
and the Roman Forum, 218;
in England, 219;
influence at bar, 243

Law schools for women, admission to, 233, 238

Lazarus, Emma, 125

Lee, Ann, 208

Leicester Academy, first for girls in New England, 18

Literature, woman in, 107

Livermore, Mary A., 132, 269;
chapter by, 245

Lockwood, Belva Ann, 224, 239

London University, women admitted to medical school, 148, _note_

Longevity, of college graduates, statistics of, 35

Lowell, Josephine Shaw, 365;
chapter by, 323

Lowell, Maria White, 124

Lowell Mills, the, 281;
contrasted with factories in large cities, 283

Lutes, Annie Cronise, 236

Luther. _See_ Reformation

Lyon, Mary, a pupil of Emerson, 30;
biographical sketch of, 34

Man-midwifery, crusade against, 142

Mann, Horace, and co-education, 38, 70;
and normal schools, 37

Mansfield, Arabella A., first woman to obtain admission to the bar, 221

Martia, Queen of London, 250

Martineau, Harriet, 29, 268

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 52

McNutt, Dr. Sarah, 191

Medical Education Society, Female, 151

Medical schools, first to admit women, 145;
co-education in, _See_ Co-education

Medical schools for women:
Baltimore, 175
Boston University, 146
Buffalo, 175
Chicago, 173
Cooper, 175
Johns Hopkins, 176
New York, 170
Pennsylvania, 146
Philadelphia, 157
Syracuse University, 175
University of Michigan, 173

Medical Society, Philadelphia County, passes resolutions of
excommunication, 162

Medicine, woman in, 139;
annual incomes, 200;
capacity for surgery, 202;
census of 1880, number registered, 197;
characteristics of, 201.
_See_ Surgery, woman in, Hospitals, Insane asylums

Methodism, founder of American. _See_ Heck, Barbara

Methodists, progressiveness of, in education, 61

Methodist University, the, 99

Meyer, Annie Nathan, 44

Midwifery, exclusive control of, by women, 140;
relation of men to, 140

Ministry, woman in, 206;
admission to theological schools, 212, 214, 215, 217;
ministerial conference, 215;
opening of Hartford Theological Seminary, 212;
order of deaconesses, 212;
order of sisterhoods, 213;
in the primitive Church, 216;
recognition in Methodist Episcopal Church, 210,
in Baptist Church, 211,
in German Lutheran Church, 212,
in Methodism, 209,
in Roman Catholic Church, 208,
in Universalist Church, 214,
in Presbyterian Church, 211.
_See_ Oberlin College

Mississippi, University of, 95

Missouri, University of, 75

Mitchell, Prof. Maria, 45, 91, _note_

Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, quoted, 6

Moravian Brethren, the, found first private institution in America to
give girls better advantages than common schools, 17;
and secondary education of girls, 92

More, Hannah, and female education, 29

Mott, Lucretia, 207, 262, 263, 264, 395

Moulton, Louise Chandler, 132

Mount Holyoke Seminary, 149;
founding of, 35

Murfree, Miss, 122

Nashville College for young Ladies, the, 100

Nationalism explained, 321

National Woman Suffrage Convention, the first, 264

Neighborhood Guild, the, 340

Nicholson, Mrs. E. J., 133

Nightingale, Florence, 347, 354

New York Infirmary. _See_ Hospitals for women

Normal schools, defect of, in West, 85;
history of system in America, 37;
importance of, 36;
in the South, 104;
primitive beginnings in West, 73

Northwestern University, 76

Nurses, and colored women in South, 358;
past and present contrasted, 354;
training schools for, 354;
training schools for, statistics of, 356

Oberlin College, 266; admits women theological students, 212.
_See_ Co-education

Ossoli, Margaret Fuller, 114, 129;
work for prison reform, 361

Pacific Dispensary. _See_ Hospitals for women

Palmer, Alice Freeman, 47

Parish, Anne, 344

Parker, Theodore, and woman suffrage, 264

Peabody, Elizabeth, 335

Penn Charter School, the, 17

Pennsylvania, University of, admission of women to, 50

Penny, Virginia, 286

Perry, M. Fredrika, 233

Philanthropy—woman in, care of the criminal, 359;
care of the Indian, 373;
care of the sick, 346;
charity, 323;
difference between past and present methods, 293

Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart, 119

Phelps, Mrs. Lincoln, 91

Phillips, Ann Green, 398

Phillips, Wendell, and woman suffrage, 265

Physical Culture, Normal Institute for, 38

Physicians, women, in State institutions, 351;
in insane asylums, 193

Police matrons, 367, 368

Porter, President, quoted on co-education, 26

Postmasters, women as, 230

Preparatory departments, connection with colleges deplored, 71

Press Association, Woman’s International, 133;
Woman’s National, 135

Prescott, Harriet, 118

Preston, Anne, 157, 163, 165

Prison Association, New York, 328, 360;
Rhode Island, 362

Prisons, reformatory at Sherburne, 351, 364;
reformatory for women and girls, 363

Professions, the keystone to the arch of woman’s liberty, 2

Public speaking by women, first in America, 393;
protests against, 394

Quakers, influence of, 207

Quincy, Josiah, quoted, 21

Quinton, Amelia Stone, 385;
chapter by, 373

Red Cross Society, American amendment to, 419;
not an order, 413;
Origin and Application of, 411

Reformation, influence of, 254

Ripon College, 59

Rhine, Alice Hyneman, chapter by, 276

Robinson, Lelia J., 228

Robinson, Mrs. H. H., 283

Rowson, Susanna, 109

Sanitary Commission, organization of, 166

Schools for girls, first grammar school, 9;
for Indians, 373

School suffrage, States conferring, 271

Secondary instruction in the South, 103

Sectarianism in the college, 59

Sedgwick, Catherine, 115

Semi-colleges, 94, 99

Sewall, Lucy, 166

Sewall, May Wright, 135;
chapter by, 52

Sewing-machine, the influence of, 285

Seymour, Mary F., 137

Shakers, essential doctrines of, 208

Sick, care of, 346

Sigourney, Lydia H., 110

Silk industry in America, 278

Smith College, 46

Smith, Hannah Whitall, quoted, 388

Smith, Sydney, quoted on education of women, 29

Socialism defined, 320, _note_

Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 132, 263, 269

State boards, women on, 324, 365

State Charities Aid Association, the, of New York, 324

State medical societies admitting women, summary of, 188;
of Massachusetts, admission of women to, 187;
of Philadelphia, admission of women to, 183

State recognition, value of, 173

State universities, argument for, 88;
origin in, 56;
democracy of, 56;
in West, table of, 57

State, Woman in the, 245

Stephens, Ann S., 128

Stevenson, Dr. Sarah Hackett, 183, 192

Stoddard, Mrs., 118

Stone, Lucy, 132, 264, 269, 397

Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 116, 397

Straw industry, the, 278

Stuarts, reign of, in England, and disrespect for womanly intelligence,
6

Sullivan, Margaret Buchanan, 134

Surgery, women in, list of operations performed by, 203.
_See_ Medicine, woman in

Swarthmore College, 50

Sweden, education in, 13

Swisshelm, Jane G., 129, 264

Syracuse University, 48

Teachers, first recognition of women, 11

Temperance Union, Woman’s Christian, 137, 270, 399;
and the public school, 402;
character of meetings, 401;
methods of organization, 402;
prison department of, 365

Terhune, Mrs., 120

Texas, University of, 95

Thompson, Mary H., 167, 174

Troy Female Seminary, 149;
founding of, 33

Tulane University, 95

Tyler, Moses Coit, quoted on co-education, 79

Unions: Illinois Woman’s Alliance, 343;
Protective Agency for Women and Children, of Chicago, 342;
Woman’s National Industrial, 137;
women’s educational and industrial, 339;
Working Woman’s Protective, 291

Unions, trades, influence on women workers, 303;
women in, 301

Universalist Church first to open theological schools to women, 214

University Education of Women, the, Massachusetts Society for, 25.
_See_ Higher Education

Vassar College, 45, 266

Virginia, University of, 95

Walter, Dr. Josephine, 190, 357, _note_

Wanzer, Lucy, 175

Warren, Mrs. Mercy, 108, 256

Washington, George, quoted, 88

Wellesley College, 46

Wesley, Susanna, 208

Wesleyan Female College, the, 92

Western States and Territories, order of admission into Union, 55

Wheatley, Phillis, 108

White, Andrew D., quoted on co-education, 80

Wilkins, Mary, 120

Willard, Emma Hart, 91;
biographical sketch of, 30

Willard, Frances E., 270;
chapter by, 399

Willets, Mary, 184

William and Mary College, chartered, 260, _note_

Willis, Rev. Olympia Brown, 214

Wisconsin, University of, 74

Wollstonecraft, Mary, 28, 150, 260

-----

Footnote 1:

With the exception of the chapter on England, which is divided into
three parts.

Footnote 2:

I do not mean for an instant to imply that these principles required
emphasizing.

Footnote 3:

See also accounts of early education of American women authors in
chapter on Woman in Literature.—ED.

Footnote 4:

The graduates of the Harvard Annex are given a certificate issued by
The Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women. Although the work
of the “Annex” students is acknowledged to be the same as that of the
students of the University, and the instruction is given by the
University professors, the degrees that are bestowed on the graduates
of the University are refused to the graduates of the “Annex.” It
would certainly seem a more consistent position on the part of that
august institution if it disclaimed all belief in the collegiate
education of women. But Harvard smiles upon its Annex to the extent,
at least, of permitting its professors to give their valuable time to
instructing “the gentle sex.” Harvard apparently acknowledges the
capacity of the female mind to attain to the heights of Harvard
culture, but strangely enough it withholds the only proper recognition
which surely is due, and fitting.

The following certificate issued by The Society for the Collegiate
Instruction of Women will some day, let us hope, be preserved only as
a curious relic of an archaic past:

THE SOCIETY FOR THE COLLEGIATE INSTRUCTION OF WOMEN.

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS.

WE HEREBY CERTIFY _that under the supervision of this Society,
has pursued a course of study equivalent in amount and quality to that
for which the_ DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS _is conferred in Harvard
College, and has passed in a satisfactory manner examinations on that
course, corresponding to the College examinations_.

IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF _we have caused these presents to be signed by
our President and Secretary and by the Chairman of the Academic Board,
this day of in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight
hundred and_

_President._
_Secretary._

_Chairman of the Academic Board._

It may be added as a commentary that the Sargent prize for 1890–91 was
won by a student of the “Annex.” This prize is offered to
“Undergraduates of Harvard College and students pursuing courses of
instruction in Cambridge, under the direction of The Society for the
Collegiate Instruction of Women,” and was awarded for, “The best
metrical version of the ninth ode of the fourth Book of Horace.”—ED.

Footnote 5:

The Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women, being duly
incorporated, could also be authorized to confer degrees. But it
wisely prefers to await the time when Harvard College will bestow the
University degree; meanwhile doing what lies in its power to establish
the identity of the work done in the two colleges. In the same way as
Evelyn, Barnard College is duly incorporated and is authorized by the
Regents of New York State to confer upon its graduates a degree of its
own. But Barnard prefers to waive its right and to accept the degree
from the parent University, Columbia College.

There is too much pluming of one’s self in this country, on the right
to confer a college degree, a right granted by State Legislatures in a
lamentably superficial manner. I have received many communications
gravely announcing that the degrees conferred by certain colleges are
every way equal to those of the greatest and oldest institutions of
learning in the country—as the State Legislature—by a special act—“has
made them so”(!) I have always failed to see the connection between
acts of legislative bodies, and the true greatness of universities.

The trustees of Evelyn College decided to give a separate degree not
because Princeton College refused to officially recognize the work of
the students of Evelyn, but because thus far (December, 1890) no
candidate has been received for a college course answering in every
way to that for which the Princeton degree is given. The trustees of
Evelyn College gives its graduates a degree which is granted for less
work than is demanded by Princeton: (Music and Art are made regular
electives, and Greek is not demanded even for entrance examinations).

Even at the risk of repetition, I will here state the relative
standing of the three American affiliated colleges. I include the
following colleges in the term Affiliated College, because each seeks
in some way to extend to women the advantages that are offered to men
by another (neighboring) college. Some one has given the _raison
d’être_ of the affiliated college to be “the economy which applies to
a new purpose resources already organized and tested.”

Harvard Annex, founded in 1879, instruction received from Faculty of
Harvard College, admits special students in all departments, gives no
degree to its own graduates, prefers to await official recognition
from Harvard College.

Evelyn College, founded in 1888, instructions received from Faculty of
Princeton College, admits special students, gives its own degree, has
never asked for the Princeton degree.

Barnard College, founded in 1889, instruction received from Faculty of
Columbia College, no special students admitted except in Laboratory
work and Graduate department, degrees conferred by Columbia College.
The only affiliated college in the world, so far as I can learn, that
has received _full official sanction_ and recognition from the
University with which it is affiliated.—ED.

Footnote 6:

Although this remark was made by the late President Barnard, it did
not voice the sentiment of those who inaugurated the movement to
establish Barnard College. The affiliated college is not always a mere
“step toward co-education”; there are many that believe that
institutions such as the affiliated colleges, Girton and Newnham (were
their graduates entitled to the University degree), best solve the
problem of the collegiate education of women to-day. Instruction in
undergraduate work is given at the women’s colleges, and is obtained
not only from university professors, but also from some able women
instructors. But in graduate work, which is the real work of the
University, men and women are most properly allowed to attend the
lectures together at the University. The vexed problem of co-education
becomes a different question as it deals with the undergraduate work
of young men and women, or with the university and professional
studies of men and women of mature age.—ED.

Footnote 7:

These courses of examinations were offered by Columbia College for the
laudable purpose of “raising the standard of female education.”
[Extract from the minutes of the Board of Trustees; Report of the
Select Committee, March 5, 1883.] Notwithstanding the criticism and
eloquent expostulation of some women aimed at the “conservative” Board
of Trustees of Columbia College, we must not forget that Columbia has
never refused _equal recognition for equal work_. It saw no logical
pause between the acknowledgement that women could follow the
collegiate course and the conferring of official sanction upon such a
course.

The same Report goes on to say: “and offering suitable academic honors
and distinctions to any who, on examination, shall be found to have
pursued such courses of study with success.—ED.

Footnote 8:

See article by Mrs. Annie Nathan Meyer in _The Nation_, January 21,
1888. The petition to the Columbia Board for official sanction to open
Barnard College was largely based on this article.

Footnote 9:

See article by Annie Nathan Meyer, in _University_, February 22, 1888.

Footnote 10:

As the Cincinnati Wesleyan College is an example of the best that
Methodism has done for the separate education of women, so Albert Lea
College in Minnesota, founded and controlled by the synod of that
State, would appear to be the most ambitious attempt of the
Presbyterian Church to aid the separate higher education of women in
the West. This college was founded in 1882, and opened to students in
1885. Its president makes for it, with relation to the country west of
the Alleghanies, the same claim that the president of the Wesleyan
made in its behalf with relation to the entire country, forty-eight
years ago. Its president, Dr. R. B. Abbott, writes: “This is the only
real college for women west of the Alleghany Mountains. There are
female seminaries in abundance, some of which are named college, but
are without a full college curriculum and without authority to confer
the degrees of Bachelor and Master of Arts. Albert Lea is a college in
fact as well as in name.”

Albert Lea is now in only its fifth year. I have not been able to
obtain its latest catalogue. The above quotation from its president’s
letter indicates its promise. Should it redeem this promise in its
spirit and word, it would be a great blessing to the West; not so much
young because women in this part of the country need another college
within their easy reach, but because the entire community needs to
have the difference between the nominal and the real college
continually emphasized.

If Albert Lea draws sharp and visible lines between its standards and
tests of scholarship, between its quality and methods of instruction
and those of the majority of institutions in the above list, its
influence will be potent in securing greater harmony between names and
things in matters pertaining to education.

Footnote 11:

Appendix B, Table II., gives a table by which is shown when each of
these colleges was founded, when opened, and when opened to women.

Footnote 12:

Prepared by May Wright Sewall at the request of the commissioners for
Indiana, for the Indiana Department of the New Orleans Exposition.—ED.

Footnote 13:

It is only fair to add that one of its graduates became a college
president—Miss Alice Freeman, president of Wellesley College during
six years, now Mrs. Alice F. Palmer, member of the Massachusetts State
Board of Education.—ED.

Footnote 14:

Read before the Historical Society of South Carolina, August 6, 1883,
and reprinted by the Bureau of Education, Circular of Information No.
3, 1888.

Footnote 15:

Mention is made of a charitable school for girls, which they were not
allowed to attend after the age of twelve, and of a school, apparently
for boys, kept open by Mrs. Gaston, the wife of Justice John Gaston,
at Fishing Creek.

Footnote 16:

See chapter “Education in the East.”—ED.

Footnote 17:

See chapter “Education in the East.”—ED.

Footnote 18:

Quoted in the _Am. Jour. of Education_, September, 1868, p. 622.

Footnote 19:

Mrs. Phelps, Mrs. Willard, and Maria Mitchell were the first three
women members of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science.

Footnote 20:

The first college to grant real degrees to women was Oberlin. See
chapter “Education in the West.”—ED.

Footnote 21:

Bureau of Education, 1888.

Footnote 22:

Historical Sketch in the catalogue for 1888–9.

Footnote 23:

The Bureau of Education has been extremely kind in placing its
collections at my disposal, and in making extracts for me from its
manuscript statistics for 1889–90, which will not be published for two
years to come.

Footnote 24:

An equivalent amount of French or German may be substituted for Greek.

Footnote 25:

Interesting on account of an extract from a letter from a Virginia
girl.

Footnote 26:

Catalogue.

Footnote 27:

Vassar was not opened until 1865. See chapter on Education in
East.—ED.

Footnote 28:

A Kentucky mother who had taken the trouble to send her daughter to
Helmuth College in Canada, found that she was carrying on sixteen
studies at the same time, and that she gave one half hour a week to
geometry, during which the teacher gave the demonstrations and did not
permit the class to ask any questions.

Footnote 29:

The tuition is $150 a year.

Footnote 30:

Report of the Peabody Education Fund, 1889.

Footnote 31:

Bureau of Education Report, 1887–88.

Footnote 32:

See the arguments interchanged in open letters,—learned essays,
between Prof. Bischoff attacking, and Prof. Hermann defending, the
admission of women to the University of Zurich. See also the address
made last year by Prof. Waldeyer, before the Society of German
Physicians and Naturalists.

Footnote 33:

“It is scarcely more than half a century, since among us, females were
almost the only accoucheurs.”—“Remarks on the employment of Females as
Practitioners in Midwifery,” by a Physician. Boston, 1820. See also
collections Maine Historical Society; Proceedings General Court held
at Wells, July 6, 1646, to “present” Frances Rayns for presuming to
act the part of midwife. Also, Blake’s Annals of the town of
Dorchester. Record of death, in 1705, of Mrs. Wiat, aged 94 years,
having as midwife assisted at the births of 1100 and odd children.
Also Thomson’s History of Vermont, sketching the career of Mrs. Thomas
Whitmore in town of Marlboro, 1765. In the town records of Rehoboth is
mentioned the arrival, on July 3, 1663, of Dr. Sam Fuller and his
mother, he to practice medicine,—she as midwife, “to answer to the
town’s necessity, which was great.” So also Mrs. Elizabeth Phillips
settled in Charleston in 1718. Anne Hutchinson began her career as a
midwife. It will be remembered that the mother of William Lloyd
Garrison practiced midwifery in Baltimore, and thereby supported
herself and two children, after she had been mysteriously deserted by
her husband.

Footnote 34:

This sturdy woman lived to be eighty-seven years of age; an ironical
comment on the theory of necessarily deficiency of endurance in the
female sex.

Footnote 35:

“More than 150 years elapsed after the first settlement, before a
single effort was made either by public authority or by the enterprise
of individuals, for the education of physicians, or for improving the
practice of medicine.... No medical journal was published in America,
until toward the close of the 18th century.... The first anatomical
dissection was made in New York, in 1750.—Thacher, _Am. Med. Biog._
1828, p. 16.

Footnote 36:

“It would be shocking to humanity to relate the history of our general
hospital in the years 1777 and 1778, when it swallowed up at least one
half our army, ... by crowding and consequent infection.”... “At
Bethlehem, out of 40 men who came sick from one regiment,—not three
returned alive.”—Tilton on Military Hospitals (quoted by Tower,
“Medical Men of the Revolution.” Address 1876, p. 77.)

Footnote 37:

“It was one of the first and happiest fruits of improved medical
education in America, that females were excluded from practice; and
this has only been effected by the united and persevering efforts of
some of the most distinguished individuals of the profession.”—Remarks
of a Boston physician, cited _ut supra_.

Footnote 38:

The suppression of midwives was more immediately due to the
development of obstetrical science in England, whither the more
ambitious among the colonial physicians were beginning to travel for
instruction, and where their intellects were quickened by direct
contact with the minds of men of genius. In 1752 Dr. James Lloyd,
returning after two years’ study in England, began to practice
obstetrics in Boston: In 1762, Dr. Shippen, similarly prepared, began
to lecture on obstetrics in Philadelphia. (“Hist. of Art of
Midwifery,” Lecture by Dr. Augustus Gardner, 1851). These actions
sounded the professional death-knell of the poor midwives. Organized
knowledge must invariably triumph over unorganized ignorance, even
though tradition, decorum, and religion be all on the losing side.

Footnote 39:

“Man-midwifery Espoused and Corrected; or, The Employment of Men to
attend Women in Childbirth, shown to be a modern innovation,
unnecessary, unnatural, and injurious to the physical welfare of the
Community, and pernicious in its influence on Professional and public
Morality.” By Samuel Gregory, A.M., Lecturer on Physiology. Boston,
1848.

Footnote 40:

Is it possible not to seem to hear, from some quiet corner of
dispassionate observation, the echo of the immortal “Fudge!” which so
disturbed the complacency of the innocent Vicar of Wakefield?

Footnote 41:

“To Massachusetts is due the credit of establishing the first medical
school for women in the world.”—Chadwick, “The Study and Practice of
Medicine by Women,” _International Review_, October, 1879.

Footnote 42:

On two other occasions did these fortunes become associated with those
of homœopaths. When in 1869 the State University of Michigan opened
its medical department to women, the Legislature simultaneously ruled
that two professors of homœopathic medicine must be appointed in the
school. And when in 1886 the trustees of the Boston City Hospital
inquired into the propriety of admitting female medical students, they
reported at the same time upon the application of homœopathic
physicians, to be appointed in the medical service of the wards. At
this point, however, the fortunes of the two classes of applicants
diverged: the first request was granted; the second refused.

The class of 1890 of the Boston University School only contains nine
women.

Footnote 43:

Thus in France,—docteur en médecine, officier de santé, sage femme; in
England,—physician, surgeon, apothecary. The midwife in England, was,
until recently, assumed not to exist; but as she existed nevertheless,
she became all the more dangerous because uncontrolled. “At present
date, 60 per cent. of poor women are attended in their confinements by
midwives, uninstructed and uncultivated,—probably 10,000 in number.
The fatal results to both mothers and children arising from the
ignorance of these midwives is notorious. They must either be
annihilated or instructed.”—Dr. Aveling, writing to Gen. Med. Council,
1873.

The Obstetrical Society of London now undertakes to instruct and
examine midwives.

Footnote 44:

Drs. Jacob Bigelow and James Jackson voted in the negative. The latter
had been the physician to introduce into Boston the midwife, Mrs.
Janet Alexander. So it would seem that his objection was not to women,
but to _educated_ women, who might aspire to rank among regularly
educated men physicians.

Footnote 45:

The details of Miss Hunt’s application to Harvard are dispassionately
related by Dr. Chadwick, _loc. cit._ When, in 1872, the London
University, after a two years’ bitter controversy, declared women
eligible to its degrees, the journals were flooded with letters from
indignant physicians, who declared that by this action their own
diplomas, previously obtained, had been lowered in value, their
contracts violated, and their most sacred property rights invaded.

Footnote 46:

Address at Chickering Hall, New York, March 18, 1888, by Dr. Emily
Blackwell.

Footnote 47:

Mt. Holyoke was founded by Mary Lyon in 1837.

Footnote 48:

Address of Emily Blackwell, _cit. ut supra._

Footnote 49:

Elizabeth Blackwell, like Tennyson’s Princess,

“Shuddered but to dream that maids should ape
Those monstrous males that carve the living hound.”

And also like the Princess, it was

“through many a weary moon
She learned the craft of healing.”

Footnote 50:

“Medicine as a Profession for Women.” Address by Elizabeth and Emily
Blackwell, delivered Dec. 2, 1859.

Footnote 51:

Miss Blackwell was of English birth and family, but had come to
Cincinnati at the age of twelve.

Footnote 52:

Dr. Robert Weir.

Footnote 53:

Miss Blackwell earned money by several years’ work at school teaching,
the great resource of American girls.

Footnote 54:

“It was the first time that a unanimous vote was ever cast in the
board.”—_Personal letter from Dr. Blackwell._

Footnote 55:

Especially St. Bartholomew, through the influence of Dr., afterwards
Sir James, Paget.

Footnote 56:

The “ancient and modern languages,” comprised Latin, Greek, French,
German, and Italian,—an unusual list of accomplishments for a
self-taught, Western bred girl of those days. Miss Blackwell
particularly charmed Dr. Simpson by translating for him into English
(or Scotch) some Latin versions of old Arabic medical treatises.

Footnote 57:

For modern obstetrics is almost as new a sphere as gynæcology.

Footnote 58:

“Story of My Life,” by Marion Sims, p. 299.

It must be said that Dr. Sims was subsequently president of the
American Medical Association, at the meeting which received its first
woman delegate; and doubtless his influence contributed toward her
favorable reception.

Footnote 59:

It will be remembered what were the conditions of graduation in New
York in 1855.

Footnote 60:

“This was the thirtieth operation performed on Anarcha.” (1849.—Sims,
_loc. cit._ p. 246.) 1849, foundation date of American gynæcology, was
the date of the year when Elizabeth Blackwell received her diploma.

Footnote 61:

Dr. Sims, in his autobiography, complains that he was denounced as a
quack by the “conservative” surgeons of New York, some of whom did not
hesitate to secretly try to dissuade the ladies from doing anything
about the Woman’s Hospital, and urging that the New York Hospital
already accomplished every purpose.

Thus whatever _is_, invariably seeks to strangle in the birth that
which is about to be!

Footnote 62:

Dr. Zakzrewska’s life has been sketched in outline down to the above
date, in a little volume entitled “Practical Illustration of Woman’s
Right to Labor,” by Caroline Dall.

Footnote 63:

A petition for the emancipation of negro slaves was presented to
Congress by a group of Quaker gentlemen, within a few years after the
framing of the Constitution.—Van Holst, _Constitutional History of
America_.

Footnote 64:

Hannah Richardson and Rebecca White.

Footnote 65:

See _ut supra_, p. 13, note.

Footnote 66:

_Galaxy_, 1868. The innocent young Quaker girl did not find this “a
disgusting preliminary!”

Footnote 67:

Personal letter.

Footnote 68:

To them were born two children, a son who died in early childhood; a
daughter who lived to grow up and became educated as a physician.

Footnote 69:

Out of 189 graduates of the Philadelphia College whose status was
reported in 1881, 56 were married women. The total number of graduates
at that time was 276. (Rachel Bodley, “The College Story,”
Commencement address, 1881.)

Footnote 70:

There were eight graduates. The first medical class that ever
graduated in Philadelphia about a century before consisted of a single
number.

Footnote 71:

Quite a group of bystanders collected to hear the discussion, which
was animated by opposing cheers and hisses.

Footnote 72:

“To be addressed in public as doctor,” writes Dr. Zakzrewrka, “was
painful, for all heads would turn to look at the woman thus
stigmatized.” (Personal letter.) “Women,” said Dr. Blackwell at this
time, “occupy an anomalous position, standing alone in medicine,—often
opposed or ignored by the profession, not acknowledged by society, and
separated from the usual pursuits and interests of women.”—(“An Appeal
in behalf of the Medical Education of Women.” New York: 1856).

Footnote 73:

Personal letter of niece.—_R. L. Fussell._

Footnote 74:

Annual Catalogue, 1854.

Footnote 75:

“Every woman will be narrowly watched and severely criticised because
she is a woman. If she bear not herself wisely and well, many will
suffer for her sake. Gentleness of manner, the adornment of a quiet
spirit, are as important to the physician as the woman.... I too have
felt the hopes and the aspirations after a fuller and more satisfying
life, which have arisen in the souls of some of you.... The office of
healing is Christlike.... Your business is, not to war with words, but
to make good your position by deeds of healing.... Probity,
simplicity, modesty, hope, patience, benevolence, prudence,—are needed
alike by the woman and the physician. All the brave, struggling women,
who, in various walks of life, are laboring for small compensations,
will be benefited by a movement which opens to women another
department of remunerative and honorable activity.”

Contrast with these modest statements of the gentle Philadelphia
Quakeress the aggressive self-consciousness of the emancipated French
woman, who rushes into the arena, with a little red flag waving in
every sentence: “À nos lectrices, à nos lecteurs, à nos
collaborateurs, à nos amis connus et inconnus, à tous ceux qui
s’interessent à notre entreprise. Salut!... Nous voyons tous les jours
des professeurs qui ont étudié dans leurs moindres détails, tous les
êtres organises qui forment la série zoologique, et qui semblent
ignorer absolument ce qu’est cet être qui tient tant de place dans
l’humanité, la femme. Faisons-nous connaître, et quand ils sauront ce
que nous valons, ils nous apprecieront comme nous le meritons.”—Mme.
C. Renooz, _Revue Scientifique des femmes_. Paris, Mai, 1888.

The _Revue_ is already extinguished after a year’s existence. The
college survives and prospers after forty years of struggle.

Footnote 76:

The celebrated Dr. Camman, who for many years held a clinic for heart
and lung diseases at the Demilt, gave valuable instruction to the
women students.

Footnote 77:

This innovation (for it was one) was effected during the residentship
of Dr. Elizabeth Cushier, who has contributed immensely to the
building up of the hospital.

Footnote 78:

This is an increase of 100 patients over the preceding year.

Footnote 79:

In the chapter on “Women in Hospitals,” in this volume, Mrs. Ednah
Cheney gives the details of the early formation of the New England
Hospital.—ED.

Footnote 80:

“She was as fresh and girlish as if such qualities had never been
pronounced incompatible with medical attainments. She had, indeed, a
certain flower-like beauty, a peculiar softness and elegance of
appearance and manner. I have wondered whether she did not resemble
Angelica Kaufman. Underneath this softness, however, lay a decision of
purpose, a Puritan austerity of character that made itself felt,
though unseen. “She ruled the hospital like a little Napoleon,” said a
lady who had been there.... Both the surgical talents and surgical
training of Dr. Dimock are certainly at the present date (1875),
exceptional among women. It is on this account that our loss is
irreparable, for at this moment there seems to be no one to take her
place. Many battles have been lost from such a cause. But although
ours be ultimately won, we would not, if we could, grieve less loyally
for this girl, so brilliant and so gentle, so single of purpose and so
wide of aim, whose life had been thus ruthlessly uprooted and thrown
upon the waves at the very moment it touched upon fruition.”—M. P.
Jacobi in _New York Medical Record_, 1875.

Dr. Dimock, like so many of the early gynæcological surgeons of
America, was a Southerner, born in North Carolina.

Footnote 81:

Nineteenth Annual Report Chicago Hospital for Women and Children,
1884.

Footnote 82:

Report, _loc. cit._

Footnote 83:

“To the fixedness and honesty of purpose of Dr. Mary H. Thompson, may
be credited these satisfactory results of nineteen years’ work. They
mean a devotion and self-sacrifice on her part that few can
estimate.”—_Report of results from 1884 to 1888_.

Footnote 84:

_Medical News_, 1885. Reprint of address at Birmingham by Lawson Tait.

Footnote 85:

The establishment of such schools, professing to further the education
of women, has continued to be the greatest bane to the movement for
their effective education. So late as the current year (1890), a lady
writes from Cincinnati: “The college already in existence is one of
the unpardonable sins against a confiding public.”

Footnote 86:

Memorial of Trustees of Women’s Medical College of N. Y. Infirmary,
1887.

Footnote 87:

The same thing had happened at Harvard, when it raised its standard of
requirements.

Footnote 88:

Memorial Trustees, _loc. cit._

Footnote 89:

_Ibid._

Footnote 90:

See history of the founding of the University of Michigan, chapter
Education in the Western States.—ED.

Footnote 91:

Letter from Chicago in _Boston Med. and Surg. Journal_, July, 1878.

Footnote 92:

“History of Competitive Examinations for the Woman’s Medical College
of Chicago.” Read before its Alumnæ Association, April 1, 1889, by Dr.
Marie Mergler.

Footnote 93:

These early experiences were, as has already been hinted, common to
all the schools ever established independently for women. Until very
recently, the gentlemen who have professed to teach surgery have never
persuaded themselves to take their subject seriously.

Footnote 94:

Dr. Sutro Merritt, daughter of the famous engineer, and who married a
fellow student from the University of California; and the twin
sisters, Agnes and Isabel Lowry.

Footnote 95:

“The education of the college is a conquered standpoint: what remains
is to make the post-collegiate education equally easy of access to
women. To duplicate the great laboratories and the great
professorships of the two or three colleges which give adequate
post-graduate instruction, would be foolish in the extreme. It is
little less than silly to suppose that seriously minded men and women
could not brave the associations of the lecture room without danger of
impropriety. What possible reason can Columbia College, or Clark
University, or the Johns Hopkins urge for not throwing open their
post-graduate courses to women? What more graceful act could be
imagined with which to mark this memorable year, when Vassar College
celebrates her first quarter of a century and when Phillipa Fawcett is
four hundred marks ahead of the senior wrangler, than for these
universities, without further wheedling or coaxing or bribing, to open
to women the opportunities for hard work which women covet, and which
the sense of justice of men, tardy though it be, will not permit them
much longer to refuse.”—Editorial in _New York Evening Post_, June 17,
1890.

Footnote 96:

_New York Medical Record_, June 24, 1885.

Footnote 97:

Of which sixteen admit women. There are altogether thirty-five
co-educational medical schools. See _Record_, _loc. cit._

Footnote 98:

_Ut supra_, p. 106.

Footnote 99:

_Phil. Med. and Surg. Reporter_, 1867, vol. 16.

Footnote 100:

The distinguished ovariotomist, one of the earliest in the country.

Footnote 101:

Quite a number of the members of the Society defied the authority of
its resolution, and “consulted” with women or even taught them. Among
the latter, Dr. Hartshorne, who became an able professor of the
Woman’s College, was the only one who took the trouble to withdraw
from the County Medical Society on account of his relations with the
woman’s school.

Footnote 102:

_Boston Medical and Surgical Journal_, May 25, 1871.

Footnote 103:

The matter had apparently first been brought forward in 1868, at a
meeting held at Washington, D. C., by a resolution offered by Dr.
Bowditch of Boston.—_N. Y. Med. Record_, 1868.

Footnote 104:

_New York Medical Record_, June 10, 1876.

Footnote 105:

“History of Proceedings to procure the Recognition of Women Physicians
by the Medical Profession of the State.” By Dr. Hiram Corson.
Philadelphia, 1888.

Footnote 106:

“It must be acknowledged that the strictly regular instruction
imparted in the principal medical schools for women has excited
respect, and greatly tended to overcome former prejudices. The
admission of women is now a fixed fact.”—_Phil. Med. Times_, 1883.

Footnote 107:

This society no longer exists; but it can hardly be said to have died
from the admission of women, as it never had but three female members.

Footnote 108:

Mary Putnam, who was in fact the first woman to be admitted to the
Paris School, though Miss Garrett of London was the first to graduate
from it. The paper read before the New York Society was on Septicæmia,
and seems to have been the first read by a woman physician in the
United States, before a medical society.

Footnote 109:

Miss Putnam’s graduating thesis had moreover secured a bronze medal,
the second prize awarded.

Footnote 110:

Drs. Cushier, McNutt, Withington, Dixon Jones.

Footnote 111:

Drs. Peckham, Fiske-Bryson.

Footnote 112:

Dr. McNutt.

Footnote 113:

Drs. Peckham, Cushier.

Footnote 114:

Dr. Cushier.

Footnote 115:

In 1876, the Boylston Prize, conferred every two years by Harvard
University for a medical essay, was won by Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi. The
prizes were awarded in ignorance of the names of the writers, and
consequently of their sex; but this was the first occasion on which a
woman had competed. The subject was, “The Question of Rest for Women
during Menstruation.”

Dr. Boylston, the founder of the prize, had been the first colonial
physician to practice inoculation, after this had been suggested by
Cotton Mather.

Footnote 116:

The committee consisted of Prof. Alexander Agassiz chairman, Dr.
Morrill Wyman, President Eliot, Mr. J. Elliott Cabot, Dr. Le Baron
Russell.

Footnote 117:

_Boston Medical and Surgical Journal_, May 22, 1879. The editor
expresses surprise at “so frank a confession of inferiority.” Although
it was only a few years since women physicians were ostracised on the
ostensible ground of the necessary inferiority of their means of
education, the Boston editor now, in order to confute the claim of
necessity for the Harvard education, passes in most flattering review
the existing schools for women at New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago,
and insists that these offer all the advantages any reasonable woman
can want. Thus (this in 1879):

Philadelphia, 29th year, class 90 students.

New York, 10th year, class 47 students.

Chicago, 9th year, class 32 students.

“Answers to letters of inquiry show that these schools for women are
looked on with great favor.”

Footnote 118:

Chadwick, “Admission of Women to the Massachusetts Medical Society,”
_Boston Medical and Surgical Journal_, 1881.

Footnote 119:

The editor of the _Boston Medical and Surgical Journal_ announced this
decision with great regret. The writer declared it “to be impossible
that women can frequent our public meetings or lecture-rooms when
certain topics are discussed, without breaking through barriers which
decency has built up, and which it is for the interest of every lady
and gentleman to preserve.... The moral tone of the society will soon
be perceptibly lowered.”—(_Loc. cit._, October, 1879.)

The success of the movement was due to the chivalrous energy of a
group of younger members, especially Drs. James and Charles Putnam,
Dr. Chadwick, Dr. Cabot, and Dr. Derby.

Footnote 120:

It will be remembered that it was the experience gained in the rude
hospitals of the Revolutionary War, which, by affording American
physicians for collective observation of the sick on a large scale,
first breathed some scientific spirit into the profession. Similar
experience was afterwards gained in the epidemics of yellow fever and
of spotted fever, that at different times ravaged the country. An
analogous influence was exercised by the Civil War, which influence is
becoming most distinct a quarter of a century after its close.

Footnote 121:

It was also ruled that “any cases deemed improper for a mixed audience
should be reserved for the end of the lecture, and that the surgeon
before proceeding with them may require the withdrawal of all male or
female students as the case may be”; further, “No female patient shall
be taken into the amphitheatre without the attendance of a female
nurse: and no operation upon a female patient requiring special
exposure shall be performed in the presence of male visiting
students.”

In this simple and even-handed manner were adjudged the vexed
questions that had been declared so insoluble.

Footnote 122:

_New York Medical Record_, Jan. 1, 1870.

Footnote 123:

These inadequacies might be rectified, without necessarily introducing
into clinical practice the brutalities that so often disfigure the
European treatment of hospital patients.

Footnote 124:

Including Dr. Jacobi, Dr. Emil Krackowizer, Dr. Guhleke. The two
former were German radicals of 1848, and in this action remained
consistent with philosophic principles of their youth.

Footnote 125:

It has been said that if any woman was admitted on the staff of
internes, all the patients would demand her for the personal services
now rendered by young men, and which are now accepted, though under
protest, for the sake of the special skill of the distinguished
visiting surgeons of the institution.

Footnote 126:

Elizabeth Blackwell in 1848.

Footnote 127:

Dr. Mary P. Root.

Footnote 128:

Dr. Marie Mergler, _loc. cit._

Footnote 129:

Dr. Mary H. Stinson, of Norristown, Pa.

Footnote 130:

Dr. Hiram Corson, Dr. A. Nebinger, Dr. R. L. Sibbett.

Footnote 131:

It was signed first by Dr. Kirkbride, superintendent of the
Pennsylvania Insane Asylum, and then by the surgeons and physicians,
the consultants and the assistants, the indoor and out-door staff of
thirteen colleges and hospitals, of which only one received insane
patients, the Blockley. In addition were the names of nineteen
physicians unconnected with any institution.

Footnote 132:

Dr. Bennett’s nomination was indorsed by eminent physicians from
Philadelphia, Drs. Joseph Leidy, Wm. Pepper, S. Weir Mitchell, H. C.
Wood, W. W. Keen, S. D. Gross. The latter venerable surgeon had
formerly been bitterly opposed to women physicians.

Footnote 133:

“The only regret and wonder are that a provision so humane and natural
and consoling for these unfortunate wards of the State, has not yet
been made law.”—_Harper’s Weekly_, 1890.

Footnote 134:

_Woman’s Journal_, April 26, 1890.

Footnote 135:

Rhoda Wilkins, in 1885, a graduate of the New York Infirmary School.

Footnote 136:

The following is a partial list of the women now or recently holding
such positions, in addition to those already named: Helen Bissell,
Kalamazoo, Michigan; Alice M. Farnham, Hart’s Island, New York City;
Alice Wakeman and Augusta Steadman, Blackwell’s Island, New York; Jane
Garver, Harrisburg, Pa.; Amelia Gilman, Blockley Insane Hospital,
Philadelphia; Laura Hulme, Worcester, Mass.; Martha Morgan,
Harrisburg, Pa.; F. McQuaide, Norristown, Pa.; Martha Perry, Taunton,
Mass.; Alice Rogers, Taunton, Mass.; Julia K. Cary, Danvers, Mass.;
and others in Maine, Minnesota, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, and
California.

Footnote 137:

“It was a great step for Virginia, thus taken by the trustees, and
required considerable effort on the part of some members of the
board.... Massachusetts is the only State where it is absolutely
required by law that every such hospital shall employ one woman
assistant physician.”—_Springfield Republican._

Footnote 138:

The Directors of the Woman’s Educational and Industrial Union of
Buffalo wrote to the superintendents of insane asylums in 38 States,
asking their opinion on the law pending in the New York Legislature
during its session of 1889–1890. Forty-six answers were received from
32 States, of which 33 favored the law, 5 were opposed, 5
non-committal, and 3 not prejudiced.

Footnote 139:

“The Practice of Medicine by Women in the United States.” Paper read
before Social Science Association, by Emily H. Pope, M.D., Sept. 7,
1881; and “The College Story,”—address at Woman’s Medical College of
Philadelphia, by Dean Rachel Bodley, March 17, 1881.

Footnote 140:

Dr. Bodley sent circulars only to the graduates of the Philadelphia
school, of whom, in 1881, there had been 276. Of these, 189 answered
the circular. Dr. Pope sent circulars to 470 graduates of all schools,
and received 390 answers, many, however, duplicating those of the
Philadelphia circular of March.

Footnote 141:

$2907.30 exactly.

Footnote 142:

The writer knows personally of two women physicians, one in large
general practice including much surgery, the other at the head of a
Sanitarium, who have each brought up and educated twelve children. One
of these ladies was a widow, with one child, when she began to study
medicine; the other was never married. A very large number of
childless women adopt children, or contribute to the education of the
children of brothers or sisters.

Footnote 143:

A distinguished surgeon recently wrote to a woman physician, when he
had confirmed her diagnosis in a serious case, where the family then
requested the presence of the consultant at the operation the woman
physician was to perform: “I shall be out of town for a week; you had
better not wait for me—go ahead and operate yourself.” Which she did
successfully.

Footnote 144:

The above form of consultation has greatly extended the facilities of
medical treatment for unmarried women and young girls.

Footnote 145:

“I believe that the department of medicine in which the great and
beneficent influence of women may be especially exerted, is that of
the family physician. Not as specialists, but as the trusted guides
and wise counselors in all that concerns the physical welfare of the
family, they will find their most congenial field of labor.” Elizabeth
Blackwell, “The Influence of Women in the Profession of Medicine.”
Address before London Medical School for Women, 1889.

Footnote 146:

See Tenon’s report on the Hôtel Dieu of Paris, made to the National
Assembly in 1789. He describes the usage of the time, which eight
centuries of hospital existence had not taught how to improve.

Footnote 147:

Dr. Sims, in his treatise on Uterine Surgery, declared that the local
treatment of uterine diseases was, almost always, surgical.

Footnote 148:

During this year Dr. Broomall has gone to Asia, to make a tour of the
different missionary stations where there are women physicians, and
there perform capital operations on the cases which have been
accumulating. This is an expedition unique of its kind in history.

Footnote 149:

At the meeting of the Philadelphia Alumnæ Association, held in March,
1889, six successful cases of capital operations in abdominal surgery
were reported by members, including two Cæsarean sections and one
hysterectomy. Sixteen laparotomies were further reported from the
Woman’s Hospital, but these have been included in the statistical
table.

Footnote 150:

See APPENDIX D.

Footnote 151:

Centenary of American Methodism.

Footnote 152:

Centenary American Methodism.

Footnote 153:

Rev. Annie H. Shaw.

Footnote 154:

Christian Womanhood, W. C. Black, D.D.

Footnote 155:

Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, the first woman ordained in this
country.

Mrs. Blackwell writes: “At the time of my ordination I was pastor of
the church of ‘South Butler and Savannah,’ New York State. The church
called a council to ordain me and install me as the regular minister.
It was an orthodox society in good and regular standing among other
Congregational churches, and the ordination was quite according to
precedent; though doubtless the Congregational body as a whole never
would have ordained a woman either then, thirty-seven years ago, nor
yet to-day.”—ED. note.

Footnote 156:

Rev. Louise S. Baker, pastor of the Orthodox Congregational Church, in
Nantucket, Mass., was ordained by the deacons of that church in 1884,
two of the four deacons being women.

Footnote 157:

Report of the Dedication of the Mary J. Drexel Home and Mother-house
of Deaconesses, December 6, 1888. In 1887 Mrs. Lucy Rider Meyer, M.D.,
connected with the Chicago Training School, with a few women to
assist, gave the first impulse to the Deaconess movement in the
Methodist Episcopal Church, which has resulted in the establishment of
Mother-houses in Chicago, New York, Boston and other large cities. The
church, seeing the measureless opportunities offered by such an
institution, has wisely been prompt to adopt it, and this will
doubtless encourage the adoption of the order by other denominations.

Footnote 158:

The Grace House Training School for Deaconesses was opened for the
admission of candidates October (1890), in New York, adjoining Grace
Church. The General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in
October, 1889, provided that every candidate for the office of
Deaconess, before she is set apart, shall have had “an adequate
preparation for her work, both technical and religious, which
preparation shall cover the period of two years.” The Grace House
Training School is provided to furnish this preparation.—ED.

Footnote 159:

Rev. Olympia Brown Willis.

Footnote 160:

“Biography of Distinguished Women,” Sarah J. Hale.

Footnote 161:

Dr. Kempin writes: The Law School for women was a private undertaking,
but founded with the aim to connect it with an already existing
institution after having proven its vitality. With the help of the
Women’s Legal Education Society, an incorporated body of women
interested in the higher education of their sex, the Law School
succeeded in connecting itself with the University of the City of New
York. In response to a request of the Women’s Legal Education Society
the doors of the Law Department of the University were thrown open to
women on the same terms as to men, and a lectureship created to which
I was selected as a lecturer on the same footing as other lecturers in
the Law Department and especially to instruct classes of
non-matriculating students who desire a knowledge of law for practical
guidance and general culture.—ED.

Footnote 162:

Harvard chartered 1650; Yale, 1701; Columbia, 1754; William and Mary,
1693.—ED.

Footnote 163:

See chapter on The Work of Antislavery Women.—ED.

Footnote 164:

See chapter on Red Cross.

Footnote 165:

See chapters on Woman in the Ministry, Woman in Law, Woman in
Medicine.—ED.

Footnote 166:

See chapter Hospitals and Training Schools managed by Women.—ED.

Footnote 167:

See chapter Woman in Journalism.—ED.

Footnote 168:

See chapter on Woman’s Work in the W. C. T. U.—ED.

Footnote 169:

See APPENDIX E, for Civil Rights of Women.—ED.

Footnote 170:

Wyoming was admitted to statehood, with equal suffrage for men and
women incorporated in her constitution, by an Act of Congress, July,
1890.

Footnote 171:

And yet co-education had its birth in Ohio (Oberlin, 1833).—ED.

Footnote 172:

“Women as Inventors.” Mrs. Gage, _North American Review_, 1883, p.
478.

Footnote 173:

“For generations,” writes Johnstone, in his ‘History of Connecticut,’
“merchants and mechanics had been outranked by farmers.”

Footnote 174:

Material for the account of Lowell has been taken from Mrs. H. H.
Robinson’s interesting paper on Early Factory Life in New England,
Dickens’s American Notes, Lowell Offering, and Appleton’s American
Cyclopædia.

Footnote 175:

“Think and Act,” “Men and Women,” “Work and Wages.” Virginia Penny,
1869.

Footnote 176:

See chapter, Aid for the Criminal Classes.—ED.

Footnote 177:

Speech of Mr. Frederic Coudert at the Lenox Lyceum, April 7, 1890.

Footnote 178:

This thought of the greater benefit to be derived from the
organizations of labor as opposed to the philanthropic work done by
the employing classes for the people who work, has been ably carried
out in a paper read by Mrs. Florence Kelley Wischnewtzky before the
New York Association of Collegiate Alumni, May 14, 1887, entitled “The
Need of Theoretical Preparations for Philanthropic Work.” This essay
will appear in an early number of the Boston “Nationalist.”

Footnote 179:

Since the Grangers were first organized, that body has amalgamated its
efforts with those of the Farmers Alliances and these again with the
Knights of Labor. The Alliances are in many respects more socialistic
than the Socialists, inasmuch as the last-named have only proposed, by
a transitional and constitutional method, to arrive at the demands now
made by the Alliances, and these only after the altruistic and
industrial planks in their platform have been gradually conceded by
National and State Legislatures. The Farmers Alliances, which number
possibly 5,000,000 members, demand the immediate ownership by the
people of all the means of transportation and communication, railways,
canals, telegraphs, telephones, etc. But more than this, their
platform calls upon the nation through Congress and the Treasury
department for a system of sub-treasuries, which have to aid directly
in the purchase, storage, and distribution of the products of farms
and plantations—that is of all grain, tobacco, and cotton.

Footnote 180:

The first one established of any note was that of the Daughters of
Crispin, in Massachusetts, an organization of shoemakers, incorporated
in 1872.

Footnote 181:

One evil that shirt-makers and seamstresses of all kinds had to
contend with was that the work was given out to contractors, families,
and institutions, principally to the Roman Catholic Protectory and the
House of the Good Shepherd.

Footnote 182:

Ohio Report for 1887. L. McHugh, commissioner.

Footnote 183:

Condition of the Working Classes in England in 1844, Frederick Engels.
Translated by Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky.

Footnote 184:

In England this outrage on humanity was forbidden, in 1878, by Clause
No. 35 of the Factory Bill, which provided that “no young person, or
woman, shall be employed in any part of a factory in which the wet
spinning of flax, hemp, jute, or tow is carried on, unless sufficient
means be employed and continued for protecting the workers from being
wetted, and, where hot water is used, for preventing the escape of
steam into the room occupied by the workers.”

Footnote 185:

Fall River, Lowell, and Lawrence. Thirteenth Annual Report,
Massachusetts Bureau Statistics of Labor.

Footnote 186:

Public attention was first directed to this hideous phase of the child
labor question through the discovery of the fact that large numbers of
orphan children, varying from eleven to fourteen years of age, were
being exported from St. John’s Asylum, Brooklyn, N. Y., to the glass
factories of Fostoria and Findlay, O. Other asylums, including the
organization known as the Children’s Aid Society, were said to be
equally guilty with St. John’s Home in carrying on the business of
child trading for a money consideration.

Footnote 187:

New York newspapers November 23–26, 1888; _Brooklyn Citizen_, November
23, 1888; Correspondence of Factory Inspectors, Harry Dorn, Ohio,
November, 1888; Correspondence of Factory Inspectors, John Franey,
Albany, N. Y., November, 1888.

Footnote 188:

New Jersey, 1883; Ohio, 1884; New York, 1886; Wisconsin, Rhode Island,
1887; Connecticut, 1888; Maine, 1888; State factory inspection in
Pennsylvania in 1889; municipal factory ordinance in Chicago, 1889.

Footnote 189:

Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1875, pp. 183–84.

Footnote 190:

Whenever “socialism” is referred to in this essay, by the term should
be simply understood the meaning given to the word in recent editions
of Webster’s “Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language,” viz.: “A
theory of society which advocates a more precise, orderly, and
harmonious arrangement of the social relations of mankind than that
which has hitherto prevailed.” This necessarily is the very opposite
of anarchy, described, in the same authority, as “The state of society
where there is no law or supreme power, or where the laws are not
efficient and individuals do what they please with impunity.”
Socialism is therefore the antithesis of anarchism. The former is
constructive and altruistic, the latter destructive, and the absolute
sovereignty of the individual, consequently, disregard of others. Nor
is by socialism meant communism. Socialism recognizes the right of the
individual to the product of his own labor and certainly not the
division thereof; whereas communism means that common ownership of
property which has only been successfully carried out in the
conventual orders of the Roman Catholic Church and in the Buddhistic
Lamaseries. This is the position taken in a recently published article
from the pen of the well-known social-economist Charles Sotheran,
formerly literary editor of the New York _Star_, but better known
under his _noms-de-plume_ of “Colmolyn” and “Southernwood.”

Footnote 191:

See chapter, Work for the Criminal Classes.—ED.

Footnote 192:

See chapter on Woman in Industry.—ED.

Footnote 193:

See chapter, Woman in Industry.—ED.

Footnote 194:

See chapter, Woman in Industry.—ED.

Footnote 195:

The Association of Working Girls’ Societies was formed February, 1884,
with the following objects:

1. To strengthen, to knit together, and to protect the interests of
the several societies.

2. To hold meetings, when reports of the societies shall be presented,
and to make more generally known their aims and advantages.

3. To promote the general adoption of the principles upon which the
societies have been formed.

4. To secure the services, by co-operation, of good teachers, lady
physicians, and lecturers.

5. To keep the several societies informed of such classes and schemes
as are proved valuable.

6. To encourage and assist in the establishment of new societies.

In April, 1890, a convention was held under the auspices of the New
York, Boston, and Brooklyn Associations of Working Girls’ Societies,
and the Philadelphia New Century Working Women’s Guild. Two hundred
and twenty-five delegates, representing ninety-six clubs, and from
thirty-eight different cities and towns, were present.—ED.

Footnote 196:

The effort above referred to has during the year taken shape as the
“College Settlement,” and on September 1, 1890, its first annual
report closes with the following words:

“What are the ‘results?’ Certainly the residents are recognized as the
friends of those about them. The children turn to them with the joy of
every acquisition and the grief of every loss. The club boys of
sixteen and seventeen years are proud of their connection with the
house and eager rivals in its good opinion. Even some of the older
women turn to the residents as friends upon whom they can rely. Those
who know the work best do not look for results other than this
friendly relation in any near future. The work, if it is anything, is
a process of education. Character is not formed in a year. In all the
club work the object constantly sought is helpful, personal contact.
All methods are simply a means to this end. For this reason the number
of members in each club is limited. If the higher is ever to give an
uplift to the lower, must it not be through this method of friendship?
Such a relation implies giving and taking on both sides, and the
workers at the Settlement find one of the strongest points gained by
residence to be, that their neighbors have a chance to do something
for them, a chance which is often improved. The Settlement is one of
the influences which go to form the lives of the people in Rivington
Street. If it shall create any higher ideals or quicken any
aspirations, if it shall awaken one soul to any sense of its own
nature, the object of the College Settlement will surely be attained.”

Footnote 197:

See chapter, Woman in Medicine.—ED.

Footnote 198:

The story of the founding of the New York Infirmary, and the New
England Hospital for Women and Children, is told in the chapter on
Woman in Medicine.—ED.

Footnote 199:

NOTE.—I do not mean to claim that this result, which is very evident
in the community, is entirely due to the establishment of women’s
hospitals, for it is the consequence of a broader feeling for humanity
in all institutions; but it is certainly a marked feature of women’s
hospitals. This note will apply to all that I have said of hospitals.
My subject is women’s hospitals, but I would gladly do justice to the
good work done in all hospitals, if it were not too broad a field.

Footnote 200:

In New York city the Woman’s Branch of the New York City Mission sends
out five nurses among the poor. These nurses have all had a full
course of training at some hospital. This mission claims to be the
first society in America to have introduced trained nurses in its
work.

The Department of United Relief Works of the Society of Ethical
Culture, organized in 1879, furnishes nurses to Demilt and New York
Dispensaries. During the year 1888–1889 these nurses paid on an
average 2800 visits to about 700 patients, including all diseases,
even of the most infectious nature, and quite irrespective of creed
and nationality.

The Mt. Sinai Training School supplies, at its own expense (being at
present a separate organization from the hospital) from among its
nurses not yet graduated, but experienced in hospital training, a
nurse who administers to the sick irrespective of creed, nationality,
or disease, under the direction of physicians attached to what is
called “District Poor Service” of Mt. Sinai Hospital. Among the corps
of physicians, all of whom give their services free, is one woman, Dr.
Josephine Walter, who devotes on an average four mornings a week to
this work in some of the poorest and most miserable districts of the
city.

The order of Deaconesses, referred to in the chapter on Woman in
Ministry, also act in the capacity of nurse. Among them are many
regularly trained nurses who serve in the hospitals closely connected
with the church.—ED. note.

Footnote 201:

See chapter on Charity.—ED.

Footnote 202:

See the story of Mrs. McFarland’s work, in “Alaska,” by Rev. Sheldon
Jackson, D.D.

Footnote 203:

See “Mary and I,” by Rev. Dr. Stephen R. Riggs.

Footnote 204:

The latest and best edition is by Roberts Brothers, Boston, Mass.

Footnote 205:

This was Susan La Flesche, a sister of “Bright Eyes.”

Footnote 206:

This was The Women’s Home Mission Society of the First Baptist Church
of Philadelphia, that of the Rev. George Dana Boardman, D.D., a
society organized by the efforts of Mrs. Boardman, the gifted wife of
that distinguished preacher and author, and largely in the interests
of Indians.

Footnote 207:

See also the “Sketch and Plans” of The Indian Treaty-keeping and
Protective Association, July, 1881, and “The Official Record” of The
National Indian Association for 1882.

Footnote 208:

The petition was as follows:

_To the President of the United States, and to the Senate and House
of Representatives_:

We, the undersigned men and women of the United States, resident in or
near ——, do most respectfully but most earnestly request the President
and the Houses of Congress to take all needful steps to prevent the
encroachments of white settlers upon the Indian Territory, and to
guard the Indians in the enjoyment of all the rights which have been
guaranteed them on the faith of the nation.

Footnote 209:

This was as follows:

_To the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress Assembled_:

We, the undersigned men and women of these United States, resident in
or near ——, do most respectfully, but most earnestly pray the Houses
of Congress to take all needful steps to prevent the encroachments of
white settlers upon the Indian Territory, and upon _all_ Indian
reservations; also to keep all treaties with the Indians until they
are changed by the mutual and free consent of both parties, and to
guard them in the enjoyment of _all_ the rights which have been
guaranteed them upon the faith of the nation.

Footnote 210:

MEMORIAL LETTER.[211]

ACCOMPANYING THE INDIAN PETITION OF 1881.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress Assembled_:

The men and women of this nation herewith present their second
petition to your Honorable Body for the faithful fulfillment of
treaties and other guarantees given by our government to the different
tribes of Indians within our borders. Your petitioners do not suggest
any political policy to be pursued, leaving such matters to wise
statesmanship. They come with but one thought, conviction, prayer. The
thought recognizes the _moral obligation_ of nations, as of
individuals, to keep compacts. The conviction is that recognized moral
obligation should result in the _fulfillment_ of such obligation. The
prayer is for such fulfillment as being ever, we believe, the _highest
political wisdom_, the truest national safety.

An objection has been made by some to treaty-keeping with Indians, on
the ground that the Indian tribes among us were never “nations,” and
that, therefore, so-called “treaties” with them were never _real_
treaties. Your petitioners, with deep feeling recall the fact that
_our government_ has for a hundred years recognized these tribes as
“nations,” in its hundreds of compacts with them calling the latter
“treaties,” and has, by Acts of Congress, bound itself faithfully to
observe all such made in the past, though deciding to make no new
treaties with Indians. Your petitioners, therefore, pray, for the sake
of national honor, which demands honest dealing with all men, that the
terms “nation” and “treaty” may be kept to the heart as they have
hitherto been made and explained to the ear.

Again it has been urged that the law of _eminent domain_ nullifies
these treaties, and requires our government to take legal jurisdiction
of Indian lands, to divide the same in severalty, and to open the
remainder for white settlement. Your petitioners are deeply impressed
that for any government to apply the law of eminent domain to the
property of others than its own citizens, is to necessitate, if there
be resistance, a war of conquest,—a measure wholly opposed to the
fundamental principles of this government,—and that Indians, with few
exceptions, are not citizens of the United States, but are under their
own legislative and executive authority, as in the Indian Territory,
and this by the terms of our sales of territory to them, and their
titles to the same.

Your petitioners therefore present their memorial to your honorable
body, feeling that the plea for treaty-keeping is a protest against
any enactment of Congress which would extend legal jurisdiction over
territory not under the control of this government, and which would do
this, as for example the Oklahoma Bill proposes, contrary to explicit
treaty stipulations.

Finally, your petitioners would express the earnest conviction that
the nation, which has spent five hundred millions of dollars on Indian
wars growing out of the _violation_ of treaties, can best afford to
make it to the interest of the Indian tribes among us _voluntarily_ to
become citizens of the United States, and not by the coercion of Acts
of our Congress.

Our petition of last year was from fifteen States; that of the present
year represents every State of the Union and several of the
Territories; and has many more than double the number of last year’s
signatures. The work of circulating the petition, and accompanying
pamphlets, has been done by few persons, and chiefly by Christian
women already busy in benevolent work; yet the roll contains the names
of people of all occupations and in all ranks of society; of great
business firms and manufacturers; of distinguished men and officials;
of judges, governors, and ambassadors to foreign courts; of authors
and editors; of the faculties and students of not a few of our most
noted collegiate and theological institutions, and of literary and art
associations. Besides all these, the roll includes the signatures of
women’s mission boards, Christian associations, and other benevolent
societies; the names of pastors and bishops of the churches; also the
records of the indorsement of a rising vote from various
church-meetings of different denominations; of meetings held specially
to consider the Indian question; of minister’s unions in different
towns and cities, and of various other bodies. All these and many
other evidences reveal the fact that the _moral sentiment_ of those
classes who largely make and control public opinion already requires
governmental faithfulness to our Indian treaties. For this your
petitioners most earnestly and respectfully pray.

AMELIA S. QUINTON.
_Secretary of Indian Treaty-Keeping Committee._

Footnote 211:

This said:

_To the President of the United States, and to the Senate and House of
Representatives in Congress Assembled_:

We, the undersigned men and women of these United States, do most
respectfully but most earnestly pray our President and your honorable
body:

1. To maintain all treaties with Indians with scrupulous fidelity
until these compacts are modified or abrogated by the free and
well-considered consent of the Indian tribes who were also parties to
these treaties.

2. That since the number of Indian children within the limits of the
United States does not probably exceed sixty thousand, or one-third
the number of children in the public schools of some of our larger
cities; and since treaties with many tribes already bind our
government to provide a teacher for every thirty Indian children among
these tribes: therefore we pray that a number of common schools,
sufficient for the education of every child of every tribe, may be
provided upon their reservations, and that industrial schools also may
be established among them.

3. We pray that a title in fee-simple to at least one hundred and
sixty acres of land may be granted to any Indian within the
reservation occupied by his tribe, when he desires to hold land in
severalty, and that said land shall be inalienable for twenty years.

4. We also earnestly pray for the recognition of Indian personalty and
rights under the law, giving to Indians the protection of the law of
the United States for their persons and property, and holding them
strictly amenable to these laws; also giving them increased
encouragements to industry, and opportunity to trade, and securing to
them full religious liberty.

MEMORIAL LETTER OF THE INDIAN TREATY-KEEPING AND PROTECTIVE
ASSOCIATION, PRESENTED WITH THEIR PETITION FOR 1882.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress Assembled_:

Again the women of a national Indian association beg leave to present
to your honorable body the petition they have circulated and received
again from the people of the United States. Their roll represents, at
a low estimate, considerably more than a hundred thousand
citizens,—instead of thirteen thousand as did their first, three years
ago,—and is an earnest plea for a righteous, speedy, and permanent
settlement of the Indian question.

Among the petitioners are many hundreds of churches, which have
adopted the petition by a unanimous rising vote, this often having
been taken at a regular Sabbath service; various popular meetings have
also here presented their plea, similarly expressed; while the roll
contains names of members of legislative bodies, of governors, judges,
and lawyers; names of bishops and of many hundreds of the clergy—among
the latter the entire ministry of three denominations in the city of
Philadelphia and numbering nearly three hundred; names of the
professors and students of theological seminaries like those at
Hartford, Cambridge, Rochester, and Upland; colleges and universities
like Yale, Harvard, Brown, Cornell, Rochester, Washington, and Lee;
names of editors of leading periodicals; the boards of hundreds of
missionary and other benevolent societies, not a few of these being
national ones; with names of art, literary, and social clubs. Besides
all these, the roll contains the signatures of hundreds of business
and manufacturing firms, who control capital to the amount of many
millions of dollars, and who employ many thousand operatives—all
showing that not only has there been a rapid growth of sentiment among
the religious and intellectual leaders of the community, demanding
legislation which shall end oppression of Indians and secure to them
full opportunity for industrial, mental, and religious development,
but that the commercial interests of our land also are fast coming to
demand a just and speedy settlement of the Indian question.

Permit an expression from the association who to-day present to your
honorable body their third annual petition,—an association having
sixteen State committees and one in each of the larger cities, with
helpers in every State, all these committees being composed of
patriotic Christian women; permit these to say that into their ears
and hearts comes the cry of suffering, undefended, ever-endangered,
Indian women and children, and that this cry is our appeal to you to
secure for them legal protection; that the plea of Indian women for
the sacred shield of law is the plea of the sisters, wives, and
mothers of this nation for them, the plea of all womanhood, indeed, on
their behalf to you as legislators and as men. Permit us also to say,
that in laboring by every means in our power to fill our land with a
knowledge of the present condition of Indians, and of our national
obligations to them, we most deeply feel, that while justice demands
the recognition of Indian personalty before the law, thus most surely
and simply, it seems to us, securing to Indians protection and
fostering care, we yet feel that legislation securing this recognition
will be an honor to the present Congress and to our beloved country.
For this legislation we most earnestly and respectfully pray.

Footnote 212:

One paragraph will perhaps be an encouragement to those organizing
similar women’s movements hereafter: “Under the head of ‘Meetings
Held,’ the New Hampshire branch reports twelve ladies’ meetings and a
crowded mass-meeting; the Massachusetts Association reports eleven
ladies’ meetings and a very successful mass-meeting in Tremont Temple;
Connecticut reports fourteen ladies’ meetings and two mass-meetings;
New York City has had various ladies’ meetings and a mass-meeting in
Rev. Dr. Hall’s church; Brooklyn has had thirteen ladies’ meetings and
two mass-meetings; Philadelphia, including local auxiliaries and
meetings of the National Executive Board, has had about forty ladies’
meetings and five mass-meetings; Baltimore has had eight ladies’
meetings and two mass-meetings, and Washington sixteen ladies’
meetings and four mass-meetings. Regarding the distribution of
leaflets, New Hampshire reports 5500 sent out, with 401 petitions;
Connecticut 5000 leaflets, and petitions sent to all her towns;
Maryland has sent leaflets to fifty towns and secured petitions
representing 21,000 citizens. Of articles in the press, New Hampshire
has sent sixty, and Philadelphia over a hundred. Brooklyn has raised
$325; New York, $405; Boston, $724, and, naturally, being the home of
the movement, Philadelphia has raised more than these and all other
auxiliaries combined.”

Footnote 213:

See “Protection of Law for Indians,” by General J. B. Leake; “The
Indian before the Law,” by H. S. Pancoast, Esq.; “Our Indian Wards,”
by Col. George Manypenny, and “Our Wild Indians,” by Col. Richard J.
Dodge; “The Indian Question,” by G. W. Owen, pages 90–97 and 639–650.

Footnote 214:

That of January, 1883, said:

We, the undersigned citizens of the United States, resident in or near
——, viewing the results of our past national Indian policy; viewing
also the present positions and relations of the white and Indian races
within our borders, and being convinced by many considerations, both
moral and political, that only that Indian policy is just, and
therefore wise, which has for its ultimate aim citizenship for
Indians, through the abolition of the reservation system by granting
to all Indians, not now under the Indian Government of the Indian
Territory, lands in severalty, with the same titles, law protection,
property rights, common school education, and religious liberty
enjoyed by other races among us:

Now, therefore, we do respectfully but most earnestly pray that such a
policy as above suggested may be adopted and in future pursued, having
due regard to the principles of equity and justice involved in past
treaties with Indians, yet granting to them upon their present
reservations as fast as individuals so desire (and we pray that our
Government will generously allure them to this desire).

FIRST: Lands in severalty, with fee-simple titles, inalienable for
thirty years.

SECOND: The same law-protection, legal personalty and citizenship that
white men and black men enjoy.

THIRD: Adequate common-school and industrial education upon their
present reservations, and,

FOURTH: Full religious liberty.

Footnote 215:

See chapter Woman in the State.—ED.

Footnote 216:

See chapter Woman in Literature.—ED.

Footnote 217:

See chapter Woman in Literature.—ED.

Footnote 218:

Ohio.—ED.

Footnote 219:

I have steadily refrained from adding biographical notes on the
authors of the chapters of this book, notwithstanding the fact that
they themselves, in having accomplished so very much on the very lines
of progress which they have set about to describe, have deprived us of
much that could have been gracefully added, had they been less fully
identified with their subjects. Between the lines, however, much may
be gleaned; and to relate the lives of such women is to presume
ignorance on the part of the reader; a presumption of which a discreet
editor would never be guilty.

But when, through excess of modesty, the ignorance of the editor of
this book is delicately held up as a proof of the lamentably universal
ignorance on the subject of the Red Cross, the awful dignity of the
editor is aroused! Without the following explanation or extenuation,
moreover, I do not see how the chapter in question could have any
place in the book. “Woman’s Work in America” can hardly be made up of
histories of work which is emphasized as “_the work of men_,” no
matter how gracefully apologized for.

Therefore the following little sketch of a _woman’s_ work in the
direction of originating and applying the methods of the Red Cross in
this country, written by one connected officially with the society is
presented, with the editor’s apologies to the modesty of the President
of the Red Cross: “It is with great pleasure I am permitted to add a
few words of explanation to Miss Barton’s story of the Red Cross, and
in as brief a space as possible present the colossal magnitude of this
remarkable woman’s work on Battlefield, in Hospital, amid Cyclone,
Fire, and Flood; Standing ‘_alone_’ among women even as a Napoleon or
a Lincoln does among men.

“Endowed by nature with a dual being, as it were; possessing the
strong, reasoning, powerful brain of a leader and the gentle, tender,
loving heart of the most delicate of women, Clara Barton stands before
us a symbol of what woman might be when she bursts the bonds that
dictate to her ‘woman’s work.’

“Confined in this note to the relation of Miss Barton with the ‘Red
Cross work,’ I still consider it fitting to suggest that the services
rendered by her in the war for the Union, in organizing, conducting,
and leading the service of field nurses upon actual battle-fields, in
directing hospital organization, in managing other details of field
relief, and, more than all, in conceiving and carrying out the great
work of tracing and recording the fate of many thousands of missing
soldiers, were naturally and necessarily a proper prelude to the great
service she has since rendered in European combat, in presenting the
Geneva Treaty to her own government, and in so broadening its field of
service as to include that of help in great natural and national
calamities.

“Miss Barton has herself explained the object of the Geneva
International Committee; and has given an account of the long-delayed
acceptance of the Treaty by the United States.

“In 1870 Miss Barton joined the Red Cross workers in the
Franco-Prussian War. We see her leading in beneficence in Strassburg;
working day and night organizing the frightened and bewildered women
and children; not doling out charities, but vitalizing and making them
self-reliant by work; presenting the truest of all ways of helping
themselves by helping others. In sober words, Miss Barton’s work in
Strassburg was the founding of workshops and the employment of women
and others to labor therein. So successful was she that when Metz
passed into German hands, with loaded cars, bearing clothes and food,
she entered that city again to help the stricken inhabitants;
afterward in Paris, at that awful hour when the ‘Commune fell,’ and
the streets were black with fire and red with blood, we see this
American woman reaching the stricken city with her train of garments,
ready for the naked; hope and comfort following in her path; healing
and binding wounded bodies and minds. She was called on by Monsieur
Thiers himself, and honored as few men are. The cross of the Legion of
Honor should be among her rewards, but the law governing its bestowal
is that it be formally solicited by the one by whom it might be
received.

“Clara Barton has never sought it. In 1873, invalided and entirely
prostrated, Miss Barton returned to America, promising to use her
influence with the government to open the Red Cross treaty. Her health
entirely failing her, it was 1877 when she was able to call for the
documents lying unused in our State Department; the communications
were all in foreign languages, and they seemed almost incomprehensible
to the American mind.

“From the year 1877 to 1881, we see Miss Barton in a new rôle. She
translated, wrote, published, and lectured, all at her own expense,
trying to educate some minds into the work of the Red Cross. In
constant communication with the heads of foreign governments, with the
eyes of all of them watching and waiting for the success of this
patient, earnest, pleading woman with her stubborn nation, ready to
publish the least progress in her task, it was not until 1881, at the
commencement of President Garfield’s administration, that her labors
had any success. President Garfield and his Cabinet listened,
comprehended, and approved.

“President Arthur faithfully carried out his noble predecessor’s idea.
After one year’s consideration, during which Miss Barton personally
explained, before the Senate and House Committees on Foreign Affairs
and Relations, the work of the Red Cross, the United States
unanimously acceded to the Treaty of Geneva.

“Since the adhesion of the United States to this treaty, there have
been two International Conferences, to which Congress appointed Miss
Barton as chief delegate to represent the United States. The
conferences were composed of delegates sent by the heads of the
nations adhering to the treaty. The first conference met in Paris, the
second in Berlin, the third in Geneva, the fourth in Carlsruhe. Miss
Barton was present at the two latter.

“The legal application of the Red Cross to great national calamities,
already referred to as the American Amendment to the Red Cross, is the
work of Clara Barton.

“The practical demonstrations of the administrations of the American
Amendment, which Miss Barton has had to lead in and carry on, are:
First, in the relief work of the Michigan forest fires; second, in the
overflow of the Mississippi River in 1882; third, in the cyclone of
Louisiana in 1883, and the floods of the Ohio River in the same year;
fifth, in the overflow of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers in 1884. In
the drought of Texas in 1886. In the Mount Vernon cyclone, Ill., in
1887. In the yellow fever pestilence of Florida. And in 1889, when the
world received the shock of the Johnstown horror, we see this
wonderful being, like some subtle, silent, force, appearing
noiselessly on a scene of such horrors as a Dante never conceived, and
by the power of her will and a remarkable endurance, as if by the hand
of an enchantress, work order out of horror and chaos, restoring life
and comfort where all was before desolation and death!

“These feeble words are all I can now say in this brief way of the
work of Clara Barton—_The Woman_ in the Red Cross!”

Footnote 220:

Statistics of 1887–88.

Footnote 221:

Statistics of 1887–88.

Footnote 222:

Statistics of 1887–88.

Footnote 223:

Statistics of 1887–88.

Footnote 224:

Statistics of 1886–87.

Footnote 225:

Statistics of 1887–88.

Footnote 226:

Colored.

Footnote 227:

Majority of the pupils are colored.

Footnote 228:

Statistics of 1887–88.

Footnote 229:

Colored.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
● Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last
chapter.
● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
● The caret (^) serves as a superscript indicator, applicable to
individual characters (like 2^d) and even entire phrases (like
1^{st}).

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