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The Congressof Women
HELD IN THE WOMAN'S BUILDING,
WORLD'S Columbian Exposition,
CHICAGO, U. S. A., 1893.
WITH PORTRAITS, BIOGRAPHIES AND ADDRESSES.
PUBLISHED BY AUTHORITY OF THE BOARD OF LADY MANAGERS, MRS. BERTHA M. HONORE PALMER, PRESIDENT. '
EDITED BY
MARY KAVANAUGH OLDHAM EAGLE,
CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON CONGRESSES, OF THE BOARD OF LADY MANAGERS.
OFFICIAL EDITION.
SOLD ONLY BY SUBSCRIPTION.
Entered according to Act of Congress in the year A. D. 1894, by
• W. B. CONKEY COMPANY, In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C.
This work being fully protected by copyright, any infringement will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law
CO/AncnORATIVE
Of the many pleasant and profitable days spent together.
THE COMMITTEE ON CONGRESSES,
By permission, dedicate this work
to the
President
and members of the
Board of Lady A\anagers
of the Columbian Exposition.
PUBLISHERS' PREFACE.
npHE object of the publication of this book is to present an account of some of the ■'■ most important assemblages of women the world has ever known. As a part of the Columbian Exposition; the greatest event of its kind in history, there was a daily gathering of women, who, in a great building devoted to their uses, expressed their ideas regarding the social, business and political affairs of humankind and all that pertains to making a greater future for the human race. This book reproduces the ideas advanced by these women, who represented the civilized world. It is the record of most earnest and potential and practical assemblages of women. What is in these pages indicates what women are to-day. The book contains the addresses made by those representing the more active women of two continents. It is a book every thoughtful woman and every thoughtful man should possess, and must, from its very quality and the circumstances of its production, be part of the important data of future histories. No publishers' preface will aid it much. It is a book which will retain its place because it commands a status as describing an important part of one of the most important events in history. It may be that it was even the most striking part, since among the greatest problems of the times is aggressively prominent that of the relations of men and women in the work of the world and in the division of its profits and its honors.
4
7 ^ '^ir.
MRS. BERTHA M. HONORE PALMER, President nf the Board of Lady Managers.
PREFACE.
THE Columbian Exposition, in its unrivaled physical beauty, has culminated and vanished like the blossoms of a gorgeous Century plant, leaving only a memory of its superb efflorescence and subtle charm. In order that the efforts made in its behalf may not all be lost, and that a reminder of its aesthetic and educational influ- ence may remain with us, Mrs. James P. Eagle, the untiring and devoted chairman, has collected in permanent form the valuable papers secured by herself and her committee for the Congresses in the Woman's Building.
Nothing could be more broadly representative than the catholic presentation given in these Congresses to many important topics from many points of view. The names contained in the list of contributors are in themselves a sufficient guaranty of the great merit of the papers, which were so warmly received at the time of their presentation,
I trust that the final and important service performed by Mrs. Eagle in placing these papers within reach of the public, may receive the indorsement which it merits.
Bertha M. Honore Palmer. President of the Board of Lady Managers.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Pages.
Publisher's Preface 6
Preface .,..,...,,,...., .o ....... . n
Introduction _ 13-14
Index to Authors , 15-16
Index to Subjects 17-19
Index to Illustrations ................................................. 21 -22
Opening Address „ 25-29
Papers Read Before the Congress .........-,....,,„.,.....,..... 30-815
Presentation of Mrs. Palmer's Portrait, ..................... .... .816-819
Closing Address <,.<,,<,........... o ..„.. . 820-824
MRS. MARY K. O. EAGLE, Editor.
INTRODUCTION.
T
HE Congresses held in the Woman's Building were inaugurated under a resolu- tion unanimously passed by the Board of Lady Managers on September 7, 1891, which read as follows:
''Resolved, That a special committee of seven be appointed who shall have charge of arranging for Congresses to be held in the Woman's Building during the Fair."
The president of the board appointed the following committee: Mrs. James P. Eagle, Mrs. Helen M. Barker, Miss Laurette Lovell, Miss Eliza M. Russell, Mrs. L. M. N. Stevens, Mrs^ Susan R. Ashley and Mrs. Jennie Sanford Lewis (now deceased). Mrs. Jno. J. Bagley and Mrs. L. Brace Shattuck were afterward added to the commit- tee, and Mrs. Bagley was elected vice-chairman.
On August 5, 1893, the board adopted a recommendation to publish the Congress papers in book form to be sold for the benefit of the Woman's Memorial Building fund. The chairman of the committee having conducted the correspondence necessary, and arranged the entire program for the Woman's Building Congresses, having also been present and presiding at each of these daily meetings, except on three occasions, when the executive committee, of which she is a member, was in session, was regarded a suitable person to edit the work of the Congresses which is herein presented to the public: Mrs. Potter Palmer, president of the Board of Lady Managers, made the nomination, which was confirmed by the unanimous vote of the committee at a meet- ing held November 7, 1893, when only one member of the committee was absent.
It was considered in the interest of the Board of Lady Managers and the pub- lisher, that this work should not be delayed longer than three months after the close of the Exposition. A contract was entered into with the publisher to that effect. No pains, or money, or diligence has been spared in our efforts to secure the complete representation in this volume of each contributor to the Congress. It is sincerely to be regretted that there are a few women, whose articles should appear in this work, that we have either been unable to reach or unable to secure contributions from on account of previous disposition having been made of their papers, proposed individual publications or the difficulty of reproducing satisfactorily addresses delivered without notes. Over one thousand letters and dozens of telegrams have been sent out in this interest since November loth.
With much gratitude we acknowledge indebtedness to the hundreds of women with whom we have had correspondence, for their unfailing courtesy and particu- larly to those who appeared from time to time on the Congress platform. This inter- course has been altogether pleasant and harmonious throughout the entire Exposi- tion, and has been a most flattering revelation of woman's attainments in grace, cult- ure, thought and literature.
To Mrs. Potter Palmer, president of the Board of Lady Managers, and to many of the members of the board, we tender special thanks for their counsel, encouragement and co-operation in the difficult and laborious task assigned to this committee.
The plan oi the committee was to have a leading address, followed by free dis-
cussion whenever the nature of the subject invited debate. We publish only the addresses.
The courtesy of these pages has been extended to women who prepared papers and were prevented from appearing at the appointed time by bereavements and other good causes, and in a few instances has been accepted.
One of the objects of this work has been to mirror the women of the Columbian year — faithfully reflecting their purposes, plans and powers as they stand the chosen representatives of the various states of this Union and of the nations of the earth. As we succeeded in presenting representatives from thirty states and twenty nations we feel justified in believing that this object has been attained.
Other purposes were to provide for communion and interchange of thought between women engaged in the same and diverse lines of work and the compilation of valuable literary and historical papers to serve as stepping stones to future prog- ress which has also, to the minds of many, been realized.
We have not assumed to direct or dictate the utterances, and will not be expected to indorse all articles admitted without discrimination.
The one thought of the president of the Board of Lady Managers and the entire membership of the board, whether acting as a whole, as individuals or committees, has been to serve well, the women of the present and the future. To the charity of the public we trust the imperfections of our work.
Editor.
INDEX TO AUTHORS.
PAGE.
Abbott, Mrs. Alice Asbury 645
Aberdeen, Lady Ishbel 743
Adams, Mrs. Mary Newbury 342
Alcala de, Senorita Catalina 398
Anthony, Miss Susan B 787
Arcambal de, Mrs. Agnes. L 148
Baird, Mrs. Priscilla 414
Barlow, Miss Florence 797
Bates, Miss Octavia Williams 664
Bay, Mrs. Lillian Cantrell 260
Bayard, Mrs. Mary Temple 435
Bell, Miss Laura 516
Bjorn, Mme. Thora K 740
Blackwell, Rev. Antoinette Brown 633
Blake, Mrs. Lillie Devereux 32
Boyd, Mrs. Gaston 570
Brady, Mrs. Sue Huffman 306
Brazza di, Countess Cora Slocomb 697
Bristol, Rev. Augusta Cooper 80
Brotherton, Mrs. Alice Williams 67
Brown, Dr. M. Augusta 477
Bucklin, Miss Lorain Pearce 450
Bullock, Mrs. Electa 510
Bullock, Mrs. Helen L 143
Cantrell, Mrs. Ellen Harrell 253
Cappiani, Mme. Louisa 500
Chapin, Rev. Augusta J 393
Clark, Mrs. Laura H 512
Cohen, Miss Katherine M 428
Cohen, Mrs. NinaMorais 113
Cole, Miss Annette 600
Conway, Miss Clara 402
Cooper, Mrs. Sarah B 296
Cope, Mrs. Theresa Elizabeth 531
Corbin, Mrs. Caroline Fairfield 326
Corson, Miss Juliet 714
Craig, Mrs. M. K 198
Crawford, Mrs. Emily 87
Cummins, Mrs. Ella Sterling 184
Curwen, Mrs. Mary T. W 165
Devereux, Mrs. C. A. R 752
Dibble, Mrs. Martha Cleveland 704
Dickinson, Mrs. Mary Lowe 637
Dillaye, Miss Blanche 643
Dodd, Mrs. Anna A 754
Donohue, Dr. Mary E 727
Douglas, Mrs. Selwyn 383
Douglass, Mrs. Jean Loughborough 733
Drury, Mrs. J. Wilson 471
Duniway, Mrs. Abigail Scott 90
Eagle, Mrs. James P 15 and 816
Eastman, Mrs. Annis Ford 612
Edwards, Mrs. Amanda M 760
I'AGE.
Fairbanks, Mrs. Caroline Fuller 603
Field, Miss Kate 77
Field (Catherine Cole), Mrs. Martha R 776
Foster, Mrs. J. Ellen 668
Fredericsen, Miss Kirstine 237
Fuller, Mrs. Brainerd 491
Gaddess, Mrs. Mary L 221
Gage, Mrs. Marie Mott : 737
Galloway, Miss Janet A 337
Garrett, Miss Mary S 443
George, Mrs. Jonnie Allen 388
Gohl, Miss Cecile 316
Gordon, Mrs. Laura de Force 74
Gould, Mrs. Minna Gordon 660
Green, Mrs. Anna S 649
Greene, Miss Mary A 41
Grinnel], Mrs. Katherni V 628
Hanna, Mrs. John R 53
Hayes, Miss Mary V 474
Henrotin, Mrs. Charles 348
Hinds, Miss Ida K 438
Hitchcock, Mrs. Romyn 556
Holt, Mrs. Charlotte 190
Howard, Mrs. A. L 463
Howe, Mrs. Julia Ward 102
Howell, Mrs. Mary Seymour 679
Hoxie, Mrs. Vinnie Ream 603
Hull, Mrs. Mary Hess 609
Hultin, Rev. Ida C 788
Jenkins, Mrs. Helen Philleo 686
Johnson, Miss Helen Louise 810
Johnston, Mrs. Adelia A. F 555
Keene, Miss Mary Virginia 194
Kenealy , Miss Annesley , 354
Ketcham, Mrs. Emily Burton 361
Korany, Mme. Hanna K 359
Lake, Mrs. Isabel Wing 574
Lake, Mrs. Leonora Marie 508
Lankton, Dr. Freeda M 268
Lease, Mrs. Mary Elizabeth 412
Lewis, Mrs. Amanda Kerr 371
Lincoln, Mrs. Mary J 138
Lipscomb, Mrs. M. A 469
Lockwood, Mrs. Mary S 816
Lord, Miss Eleanor 281
Louis, Mrs. Minnie D 539
Lundin, Mile. Hulda 104
Magnusson, Mme. Sigrid E 521
Manning, Miss Agnes M 107
Marsden, Miss Kate 213
Marshall, Mme. Marie 211
15
16
INDEX TO AUTHORS.
PAGE.
McDiarmid, Mrs. Clara A 723
McDonald, Prof. Cora M 264
McGee, Miss L. C '-^49
Meriweather, Mrs. Lide 747
Messenger, Mrs. Lillian Rozell 227
Meyer, Mrs. Nicoline Bech 243
Meyer, Mrs. Annie Nathan 135
Miller, Mrs. Kate 0 782
Miller, Mrs. Annie Jenness 695
Mitchell, Miss Alice A 405
Monroe, Mrs. Harriet Earhart 3U
Moore, Miss Aimee K. Osborne 308
Morgan, Miss Anna 597
Mott, Mrs. Emma Pratt 544
Norris, Mrs. Mary E. C 674
Ormsbee, Mrs. E.J 590
Palmer, Mrs. Bertha Honor6 25, 821
Palmer, Mrs. Sarah Eddy 432
Peabody, Mrs. Mary H 205
Peck, Mrs. Maria Purdy 623
Pelham, Lady Arthur 576
Pitblado, Mrs. Effie 793
Pollard, Mrs. Marie Antoinette Nathalie 293
Potter, Miss Jennie O'Neil 682
Potts, Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap 562
Prescott, Mrs. Lydia A 526
Proctor, Miss Mary A 301
Quinton, Mrs. Amelia S 71
Reed, Mrs. Caroline G 240
Reed, Mrs. Elizabeth A 719
Reese, Miss Cara 328
Rich, Mrs. Ellen M 365
Richards, Mrs. Ellen H 713
Riggs, Mrs. Anna R 813
Rogers, Miss May 686
Roman, Mrs. Sallie Rhett 535
Romney, Mrs. Caroline Wescott 579
Salazar, Signora Fanny Zampini 157
Sawyer, Mrs. Winona Branch 273
Schahovskoy, Princess M 569
Schirmaches, Miss Kathe 181
PAGE.
Scull, Mrs. Sarah Amelia 423
Sewall, Mrs. May Wright 771
Shaw, Rev. Anna Howard 152
Sheldon, Miss Elizabeth B 790
Sheldon, Mrs. M. French 131
Sherman, Mrs. Caroline K 764
Sherman, Mrs. Julia Edwards 670
Smith, Miss Marion Couthouy 616
Smith, Mrs. Mary Stuart 408
Smith, Mrs. Wesley 217
Smith. Mrs. Clara Holbrook 332
Smith, Mrs. Virginia Thrall 178
Smith, Mrs. Eva Munson 416
Souville, Mrs. E. M 691
Spence, Mrs. Catherine Helen 458
Spencer, Rev. Anna Garlin 170
Starkweather, Mrs. Louise A 62
Stevenson, Mrs. Matilda Coxe 484
Stevenson, Dr. Sarah Hackett 708
Stone, Mrs. Lucy 58
Stone, Mrs. C. E. Whiton 101
Stone, Mrs. Lucinda H 446
Street, Miss Ida M 286
Sunderland, Mrs. Eliza Read 318
Todd, Mrs. Mary C 39
Trueheart, Mrs. S. C 804
Tutwiler, Miss Julia S 36
Twitchell, Mrs. Eliza Stowe 495
\'illafuerte, Miss Virginia , 406
Ware, Mrs. Eugene 277
Welch, Miss Jane Meade 30
Wheeler, Mrs. Candace 818
Wheelock, Miss Lucy 323
White, Mrs. Jennie F 123
Wilkinson, Mrs. Laura S 233
Wilson, Miss Alisan 488
Wilson, Mrs. Elizabeth M 203
Wilson (n6e Petrie), Mrs. Ashley Carus 651
Windever, Miss Margaret 97
Woolley, Mrs. Celia Parker 763
Wright, Miss Mary P 305
Zacaroff, Mile. Cariclee 618
Zeman, Mrs. Josefa Humpal 127
INDEX TO SUBJECTS.
TITLK. PAGE.
Advantages and Dangers of Organizations. . .
Rev. Anna Garlin Spencer 170
yEsthetic Culture Mrs. Priscilla Baird 414
An African Expedition Mrs. M. French
Sheldon 131
Agriculture Mrs. A. M. Edwards 760
An Appeal of Art to the Lovers of Art
Mrs. Mary Cherry Norris 674
Art Mrs. Emily Crawford 87
Art of Elocution Miss Anna Morgan 597
Art of Living, The Mrs. Ellen M. Rich 365
Art Isms Miss Annette Cole 600
Assyrian Mythology. .Mrs. Elizabeth A. Reed 719 Avocations of English Women. . Mrs. Theresa
Elizabeth Cope 531
Business Woman in Kentucky, A.. Miss Flor- ence Barlow 791
Certain Methods of Studying Drawing. . .Miss
Aimee K. Osborne Moore 380
Changing Ideals in Southern Womanhood. . . .
Mrs. Sue Huffman Brady 306
Characteristics of the Modern Woman
Mrs. Caroline K. Sherman 764
Charles Lamb Mrs. C. A. R. Devereux 752
Chicago Miss Marion Couthouy Smith 616
Chicago Women. .Dr. Sarah Hackett Steven- son 708
Children of the Other Half, The Miss Lucy
Wheelock 323
Cholera in Hamburg, The Miss Annesley
Kenealy 354
Citizens, The Making of Mrs. H. E. Mon- roe 311
Closing Address Mrs. Potter Palmer 821
Columbia's Women Mrs. Amanda Kerr
Lewis .371
Columbus; or. It was Morning. . . . Mrs. Lillian
Rozell Messenger 227
Come South, Young Woman! Mrs. Martha
R. Field 776
Compensation Mrs. Alice Asbury Abbott 645
Complete Freedom for Women. . .Miss Agnes
M. Manning 107
Congratulation on the Possession of Por- trait Mrs. Candace Wheeler 818
Cookery Mrs. Mary J. Lincoln 138
Cooking as an Art . . . Miss Helen Louise John- son 810
Culture; Its P'ruit and Its Price (extracts from)
Mrs. Mav Wright Sewall . 771
D
TITLE. PAGE.
Dawning of the Twentieth Century, The
Mrs. Mary Seymour Howell 679
De Stael, Madame Mrs. Helen Philleo Jen- kins 686
Development in Eastern Washington. ... Mrs. Jennie F. White 123
Dress Improvement Mrs. Annie Jenness
Miller 695
Economic Independence of Woman Mrs.
Lydia A. Prescott .526
Educational Value of Applied Arts, The
Miss Elizabeth B. Sheldon 790
Education of Girls and Women in Glasgow . .
Miss J. A. Galloway. 337
Education of Indian Girls in the West
Mrs. Mary C. Todd 39
Effective Voting, On Miss H. C. Spence 458
Eliot, George Miss Ida M. Street 286
Encouragement of Home Industries. ... Lady
Ishbel Aberdeen 743
English Women of the Eighteenth Century,
Some Mrs. Caroline Fuller Fairbanks 503
Epic Mrs. E. M. Souville 691
Etching Miss Blanche Dillaye 643
Ethics of Social Life, The Mrs. John R.
Hanna .53
Evolution of American Literature Mrs. M.
K.Craig 198
Evolution of Home, The. . .Miss Juliet Corson 714
Faith of Islam, The. . Mrs. Laura H. Clark .... 512
Fate of Republics, The. .Rev. Anna Howard Shaw 152
Feast of Columbia, The . . Mrs. Alice Williams
Brotherton 67
Financial Independence of Women, The. . . .
Mrs. Ellen M. Henrotin -348
Finding of the New World, The.. Miss Jane
Meade Welch 30
Food for Students Mrs. Ellen H Richards 713
Footfree in God's Countrv. . Mrs. Marie An- toinette Nathalie Polla'rd 293
Forgotten Foremothers, Our Mrs. Lillie
Devereaux Blake 32
George Meredith's Novels Miss Margaret
W indeyer 97
Glimpse of Modern Spain, A Miss Laura
Bell 516
Glory of Womanhood, The....Mme. Hanna
K. Koranv 3-59
18
INDEX TO SUBJECTS.
TITLE. PAGE.
God's Thought of Woman Mrs. Anna
Rankin Riggs 813
Goethe and Schiller. .Miss Marv Virginia Keene 194
H
Harmonious Adjustment Through Exercise. .
Mrs. Minna Gordon Gould 660
Harmonious Culture Miss Ida K. Hinds 438
Henrik Ibsen and Bjornstjerne Bjornson
Mrs. Nicoline Bech Meyer 243
Higher Education and the Home. . . . Mrs. E.
R. Sunderland 318
Higher Lessons of the World's Fair
Mrs. Lucinda H. Stone 446
Higher Womanhood, The. .Mrs. Caroline F".
Corbin 326
Historic Women of Egypt. .Mrs. Caroline G.
Reed 240
Home and Its Foundations, The. .Rev. Annis
Ford Eastman 612
Home of the Future, The. . .Miss L. C. McGee 249 Home Side of Progress, The. .Mrs. Clara Hol-
brook Smith .332
Homer and His Poems. . . .Mrs. Nina Morals
Cohen 113
Household Economics. . Mrs. Laura S. Wilkin- son 233
How Can We Aid? Mrs. Agnes L.
d'Arcambal 148
I
Ideal Home for Children, An.. Mrs. Kate O.
Miller 782
Influence of Great Women of the Past. . . Mrs.
Mary Newbury Adams 342
Industrial Revolution of the Last Centurv,
The Mrs. Eliza Stowe Twitchell 495
Industrial Women Mrs. Electa Bullock 510
Intelligent Treatment of the Body. ... Airs.
Marie Mott Gage 737
International Arbitration... Miss Eleanor
Lord 281
Ishmaelite of Oklahoma, The.. Mrs. Selwyn
Douglas 383
Is Woman the Weaker Vessel?. .Mrs. Sarah
Eddy Palmer 432
Italian Women of the Country, The
Countess Cora Slocomb di Brazza 697
Japanese, The Mrs. Romyn Hitchcock 556
Justice and Freedom for All Princess M.
Schahovskoy 569
K
Katharina in the Taming of the Shrew or "The
Rights of Men.". Mrs. Emma Pratt Mott. . 544
Kindergarten as a Character Builder, The. . .
Mrs. Sarah B. Cooper 296
Kindergarten, The Mrs. Virginia Thrall
Smith ; 178
Labor Dignified, Is Mrs. Lenora Marie
Lake 508
Landmarks Rev. Antoinette B. Black- well 633
TITLE. PAGE.
Land We Love, The. .Mrs. Mary L. Gaddess 221
Law and Women Mrs. Maria Purdy Peck 623
Legal Condition of Women in 1492-1892
Miss Mary A. Greene 41
Legal Profession for Women, The Mrs.
Wenona Branch Sawyer 273
Leper, The Mi.ss Kate Marsden 213
Life and Times of Isabelle of Castile Miss
Loraine P. Bucklin 450
Life of an Artist Miss Katherine Cohen 428
Lincoln and Farragut Mrs. Vinnie Ream
Hoxie 608
Literature for Young People. . .Prof. Cora M,
McDonald 264
Looking Backwards Miss Kirstine Fred-
ericsen 237
M
Margaret Fuller.. Mrs. Celia Parker Woolley 763 Medical Profession for Women, The Dr.
Freeda M. Lankton 268
Marriage Prospects in Germany Miss
Kathe Schirmaches 181
Mexico Miss Virginia Villafuerte 406
Monologue as an Entertainment, The. . .Miss
Jennie O'Neil Potter 682
Months in Old Mexico, Four. . .Mrs. Caroline
Wescott Romney 579
Moorish Women as I Found Them. . .Mrs. A.
L. Howard 463
Moors of Spain, The Mrs. Ellen Harrell-
Cantrell 253
Municipal Suffrage for W^omen in Michigan Miss Octavia Williams Bates 664
N
Nationalism Mrs. Lillian Cantrell-Bay 260
Need of a Great College in the South Miss
Clara Conway 402
Needlework as Taught in Stockholm. . . . Mile.
Hulda Lundin 104
Nervous American, The. .Mrs. Martha Cleve- land Dibble 704
New Field for Women, A Mrs. Julia
Edwards Sherman 670
New Liberty Bell, The Miss Alice A.
Mitchell 405
Next Step in the Education of the Deaf, The
Miss Mary S. Garrett 443
Next Thing in Education, The Mrs. Mary
Lowe Dickinson 637
Nineteenth Century, The . . Mrs. Whiton Stone 101 Norway and the Midnight Sun. . Mrs. A. A. F.
Johnston 555
Noted Writers of the South, A Few Mrs. J.
W. Drury 471
Not Things, but Women Mrs. C. B. Pit-
blado 793
Novel as an Educator of the Imagination, The
Miss May Rogers 586
o
Opening Address Mrs. Potter Palmer 25
Organized Motherhood Mrs. Lide Meri-
weather 747
Our Neighbors, the Alaskan Women Mrs.
Clara A. McDiarmid 723
INDEX TO SUBJECTS.
19
TITLE. PAGE.
Pacific Northwest, The Abigail Scott •
Duniway 90
Peace Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Lease 412
Philanthropy for Girls in Paris. ..Mme. Marie
Marshall 211
Piano Playing without Piano Practice. . .Miss
Mary V. Hayes 474
Pioneer Women of Oregon Mrs. Elizabetl
M. Wilson 203
Poetry of the Stars Miss Mary Proctor 301
Portrait of Mrs. Potter Palmer 816
Portrait of Susan B. Anthony 787
Possibilities of the Southern States Mrs.
Sallie Rhett Roman 535
Power and Purposes of Women, The. . . . Mrs.
Helen L. Bullock 143
Presentation of Portrait. ..Mrs. Mary S. Lock- wood 816
Preventive Medicine. . .Dr. Mary E. Donohue 727
Progress of Fifty Years, The . . Mrs. Lucy Stone 58
Samoa; Its People and Their Customs. .. .Mrs.
E. J. Ormsbee 590
Self-Support Problem, A. . .Miss Julia S. Tut-
wiler 36
Serving One Another Mrs. Ashley Carus-
Wilson 651
Signs of the Times Miss Alisan Wilson 488
Sketch of Home Life in Iceland, A. .Mme.
Sirgrid E. Magnusson 521
Spanish-American Neighbors, Our Mrs.
Anna A. Dodd 754
St. Catherine of Siena Hon. Mrs. Arthur
Pelham 576
Study in Goethe's Faust, A Mrs. Mary H.
Peabody 205
Study of Greek Art, A Mrs. Sarah Amelia
Scull 423
Swiss Customs Miss Cecile Gohl 316
Symmetrical Womanhood Mrs. Wesley
Smith 217
Talk, A Miss Kate Field 77
Tempted Woman, The Mrs. Isabel Wing
Lake 574
Turkish Compassionate Fund, The. .Mme. C.
Zacaroff 618
u
University Extension . . Rev. Augusta J. Chapin 393 Unveiling of Portrait. . . . Mrs. James P. Eagle 816
V
V'irginia Women of Our Day, The. .Mrs. Mary
Stuart Smith 408
Vocal Art Mrs. Thora K. Bjorn 740
"Vocal Art," Extracts From.. Dr. M.Augusta
Brown 477
Voice Culture Mme. Louisa Cappiani 500
w
TITLE. PAGE.
We, the Women Miss Cara Reese 328
What the Women of Kansas are Doing To*
day Mrs. Eugene Ware 277
Who Are tlie Builders Mrs. Jonnie Allen
George 388
Wife of Blennerhassett, The Mrs. Mary
T. W. Curwen 165
Woman and I lousehold Labor. . . . Mrs. Mary
Hess Hull 609
Woman and Religion Rev. Ida C. Hultin 788
Woman as a Financier. . Mrs. M. A. Lipscomb 469 Woman as an Investor. . Mrs. Louise A. Stark- weather 62
Woman in an Ideal Governmsnt. .Mrs. K. V.
Grinnell 628
Woman in Journalism. . . . Mrs. Mary Temple
Bayard 435
Woman in Music Mrs. Gaston Boyd 570
Women in Politics Mrs. J. Ellen Foster 668
Woman in the Greek Drama . . Mrs. Julia Ward
Howe 102
Woman, the Inciter to Reform. . Mrs. Minnie
D.Louis 539
Woman, the New Factor in Economics
Rev. Augusta Cooper Bristol 80
Woman Who Has Come, The. . Mrs. Charlotte
Holt 190
Woman's Awakenment. . Mrs. Anna S. Green 649 Woman's Life in Asiatic Turkey. .Miss Mary
P. Wright 305
Woman's Place in the Republic of Letters.
Mrs. Annie Nathan Meyer 135
Woman's Sphere from a Woman's Standpoint
Mrs. Laura de Force Gordon 74
Woman's Work in Kentucky. . .Mrs. Eugenie
Dunlap Potts 562
Women as Political Economists. .Mrs. Brain-
erd Fuller 491
Women Citizens and People? Are Mrs.
Emily B. Ketcham 361
Women in Sacred Song Mrs. Eva Munson
Smith 416
Women of Bohemia, The Madame Josefa
Humpal Zeman 127
Women in Modern Italy Signora Fanny
Zampini Salazar 157
Women's National Indian Association, The. .
Mrs. Amelia S. Quinton 71
Women of the South. . . .Mrs. S. C. Trueheart 804 Women Writers of California, The Mrs.
Ellen Sterling Cummins 184
Wonders of Nature and Art in Spain
Senorita Catalina de Alcala 398
Young Women of the South, The. .Mrs. Jean
Loughborough Douglass 733
Zuni Scalp Ceremonial, The Mrs. Matilda
Coxe Stevenson 484
INDEX TO PORTRAITS.
A PAGE.
Abbott; Mrs. Alice Asbury _ 1545
Aberdeen , Lady Ishbel .._ .- --- 743
Adams, Mrs. Mary Newbury. 342
.\lt)riKlit, Mrs. Franc Luse _ opp. p. 632
Allen, .Airs. E. W opp. p. 502
An^ell, Mrs. Sarah S. (' opp. p. 370
Anthony, Miss Susan B.._ ....787
Arcambal de, Mrs. Agnes L __ -_. -.148
Ashley, Mrs. Susan R 23
Austin, Miss Isabella J opp. p. 632
B
Bagley, Mrs. John J 23— opp. p. 9H
Baird. Mrs. Priscilla A 414
Ball, Mrs. J. Frank _._ opp. p. 1G4
Barker, Mrs. Helen Morton 23— opp. p. 502
Barlow, Miss Florence 797
Bartlett, Mrs. Edward L opp. p. 632
Bates, INIiss Octavia Williams _ 664
Bay, Mrs. Lillian t'antrell _ 260
Bayard, Mrs. Mary Temple 43.5
Beck, Miss E. Nellie opp. p. 232
Beeson, Mrs. Marie P. Harmon opp. p. 632
Bell, Mrs. Mary C opp. p. 232
Bjorn, Mme. Thora K 740
Blackwell, Rev. Antoinette Brown 633
Blake, Mrs. LillieDevereux 32
Boyd, Mrs. (iaston 570
Bradv, Mrs. Sue Huffman 306
Brayton, Mrs. EUery M.._. opp. p. 502
Brazza di, Countess Cora Slocomb 697
BrifjKs, Mrs. JohnS ...opp. p. 370
Bristol, Rev. AugustaCooper _ 80
Brotherton, Mrs. Alice Williams 67
Brown, Mrs. H. F opp. p. 370
Brown, Miss Lillian Mason opp p. 370
Brown, Dr. M. Augusta 477
Bncklin, Miss Loraine Pearce 450
Bullock, Mrs. Electa 510
Bullock, Mrs. Helen L._ 143
Burleigh, Mrs. Edwin C ...opp. p. 304
Busselle, Miss Mary E.. _ opp. p. 434
Butler, Mrs. Thomas J opp. p. 632
C
Cantrell, Mrs. Ellen HarrelL. 253
Cantrill, Mrs. Mary Cecil opp. p. 96
Cappiani, Mme. Louisa 500
Carse, Mrs. Matilda B.__ opp. p. 696
Chandler, Mrs. Ellen M opp. p. 568
Chapin, Rev. Augusta J 393
Clarke, Mrs. Francis B opp. p. 370
Clark, Mrs. Laura H. 512
Clark, Mrs. Whiting S opp. p. 232
Cochran, Mrs. Mary A opp. p. 568
Cohen, Miss Katherine M 428
Cohen, Mrs. Nina Morais 113
Cole, Miss Annette 600
Coleman, Mrs. Robert J opp. p. 164
Conway, Miss Clara 402
Cooke, Mrs. Susan Gale opp. p. 502
Cooper, Mrs. Sarah B 296
Cope, Mrs. Theresa Elizabeth.. .531
Corbin, Mrs. Caroline Fairfield 326
Corson. Miss Juliet 714
Craig, Mrs. M. K 198
Crawford, Mrs. Emily 87
Cummins, Mrs. Ella Sterling.. 184
Cunningham, Miss Floride.. opp. p. 502
Curwen, Mrs. Mary T. W 165
D
Dailey, Miss Charlotte Field.. opp. p. 502
Deane, Mrs. James R opp. p. 164
Delanev, Mrs. A. K opp. p. 632
Devereux, Mrs. C. A. R... 752
PAGB
Dibble, Mrs. Martha Cleveland 704
Dickinson, Frances, M. D opp. p. 69*5
Dickinson, Mrs. Mary Lowe _ . 637
Dillaye, Miss Blanche . .. 643
Dodd, Mrs. Anna A ...7.54
Donohue, Dr. Mary E 727
Doolittle, Jr., Mrs. James R... opp. p. 696
Doty, Master Willie K opp. p. 762
D<in!,'l;is, Mrs. Selwyn... 383
l)iiut;laKs, Mrs. Jean Loughborough 733
Drury, Mrs. J. Wilson 471
Duniway, Mrs. Abigail Scott. __ 90
E
Eagle, Mrs. James P 11 and 23— opp. p. 164
Eastman, .\I rs. Annis Ford _ 612
Ed^ertou, Mrs. Rollin A opp. p. 164
Edwards, Mrs. Amanda H 700
F
Fairbanks, Mrs. ("aroline Fuller ,503
Farnum, Mrs. Anna E. M opp. p. 232
Faulkner, Miss Jean W opp. p. 304
Felton, Mrs. Wm. H opp. p. 232
Field, Miss Kate 77
Field (Catherine Cole), Mrs. Martha R 776
Foley, Mrs. M. D opp. p. 434
Ford, MissEllenA opp. p. 96
Fosdick, Mrs. Anna M opp. p. 164
Foster, Mrs. J. Ellen 668
Fredericsen, Miss Kirstine ..237
French, Mrs Jonas H opp. p. .304
Frost, Mrs. Ruflus S opp. p 304
Fuller, Mrs. Brainard 491
G
Gaddess, Mrs. MaryL 221
Gage, Mrs. Marie Mott 787
Galloway, Miss Janet A 337
Garrett, Miss Mary S 443
George, Mrs. Jonnie Allen 388
Gillespie, Mrs. Laura opp. p. 502
Ginty, Mrs. Flora Beall opp. p. 568
Gohl, MissCecile... 316
Gordon, Mrs. Laura de Force 74
Gould, Mrs. Minna Gordon 660
Greene, Miss Mary A 41
Green. Mrs. Anna S 649
Grinnell, Mrs. Katherni V 628
(juthrie, Mrs. Genevieve opp. p. 632
H
Hale, Mrs. Frances E opp. p. 568
Hall, Mrs. Daniel opp. p. 434
Hanback, Mrs. Hester A.. opp. p. 304
Hanna, Mrs. John R.._ 53
Harrison, Mrs. F. H opp. p. 56S
Harrison, Mrs. Mary S opp. p. 96
Hart, Mrs. Mary P opp. p. 434
Hartpence, Mrs. Walter ...opis. p. 434
Hayes, Miss Mary V... _ 474
Henrotin, Mrs. Charles 348
Hinds, Miss Ida K 438
Hitchcock, Mrs. Romyn 556
Holt, Mrs. Charlotte 190
Hf)oker, Mrs. Isabella Beecher opp. p. 164
Houghton. Mrs. Alice opp. p. 568
Howard, Mrs. A. L 463
Howe. Mrs. Julia Ward 102
Howell, Mrs. Mary Seymour 679
Howes, Mrs. Eliza J. Pendry _ opp. p. 370
Hoxie, Mrs. VinnieReam 603
Hull, Mrs. Mary Hess 609
Hultin, Rev. Ida C 788
Hundley, Miss Hattie Toney.. ..opp. p. 164
I
Ives, Miss Frances S.. opp. p. 164
21
22
INDEX TO PORTRAITS.
J PAOE.
Jackson, Mrs. A. C opp. p. 304
Jackson, Miss Lily Irene.. opp. p. 568
Jenkins, Mrs. Helen Philleo 686
Johnson, Miss Helen Louise 810
Johnston, Mrs. Adelia A. F 555
K
Keene. Bliss Mary Virginia 194
Kenealy, Miss Annesley 354
Ketcham, Mrs. Emily Burton. __ 361
Kidder, Mrs. George Wilson. opp. p. 434
Kinder, IMrs. Mary Richards opp. p. 164
Korany, Mme.HannaK 359
L
Ladd, Mrs. Mira B. F.. opp. p. 434
Lake, Mrs. Isabel Wing 574
Lake, Mrs. Leonora Marie 508
Langworthv, Mrs. E. C opp. p. 370
Lankton, Dr. Freda M 268
Lease, Mrs. Mary Elizabeth 412
Lee, Mrs. James W opp. p. 370
Lewis, Mrs. Amanda Kerr 371
Linch, Mrs. W. Newton opp. p. 568
Lincoln, Mrs. Marj- J 138
Lipscomb, Mrs. M. A 469
Lockwood, Mrs. Mary S opp. p. 96
Logan, Mrs. John A opp. p. 632
Lord, Miss Eleanor 281
Louie, Mrs. Minnie D 539
Lovell, MissLaurette.. 23-opp. p. 632
Lundin. Mile. Halda 104
Lynde. Mrs. William P opp. p. 568
M
Magnusson. Mme. Sigrid E 521
Marsden , Miss Kate 213
Marsliall, Mme. Marie .- 211
McAdow, Mrs. Clara L opp. p. 370
McCandless, Miss Mary E opp. p. 502
Mc('onnel],Mr8. W. B opp. p. 434
McDiarmid. Mrs. Clara A ...723
McDonald, Prof . Cora M 264
Mcftee, Miss L. C --249
McLaughlin, Mrs. S. W opp. p. 434
Meredith, Mrs. Virginia C opp. p. 232
Meri weather. Mrs. Lide 747
Messenger, Mrs. Lillian Rozell.- 227
Meyer, Mrs. Nicoline Beck 243
Meyer, Mrs. Annie Nathan 135
Miller, Mrs. Kate O 782
Miller, Mrs. Annie Jennese 695
Miller, Miss Ora Elizabeth.. opp. p. 232
Minor, Mrs. Katharine L opp. p. 304
Mitchell, Miss Alice A 405
Mitchell, Mrs. Jennie S opp. p. 304
Monroe, Mrs. Harriet Earhart 311
Moore, Miss Aimee K. Osborne 380
Morgan, Miss Anna 597
Mott, Mrs. Emma Pratt 544
Mulligan, Mrs. JamesA opp. p. G96
N
Norris, Mrs. Mary E. C -674
O
Oglesbv, Mrs. Richard J opp. p. 232
Olmstead, Mrs. Charles H opp. p. 232
Ormsbee, Mrs. E. J 590
Opening of the Congress of Women opp. p. 43:)
Owings, Mrs. Melissa D opp. p. 568
P
Palmer, Mrs. Bertha M. Honors... 7, opp. p. 696 and 816
Palmer, Mrs. Sarah Eddy ..-432
Paul, Mrs. K. 8. G opp. p. 568
Payton, Mrs. Mary ._ ._ opp. p. 502
Peabody, Mrs. Mary H 205
Peck, Mrs. Marie Purdy 623
Perkins, Mrs. Belle H.. opp. p. 304
Pierce, Miss Ada opp. p. 762
Pitblado, Mrs.Effie 793
Pollard, Mrs. Marie Antoinette Nathalie 293
Potter. Miss Jennie O Neil 682
Potts, Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap 562
Prescott, Mrs. Lydia A 526
Price, Mrs. Charles .opp. p. 434
Proctor, Miss Mary A 301
Q
Quinton, Mrs. Amelia S - 71
R PAGE.
Reed, Mrs. Caroline G 240
Reed, Mrs. Elizabeth A 719
Reed, Mrs. William opp. p. 304
Reese, Miss Cara. 328
Reitz, Miss Wilhelmine opp. p. 232
Rich, Mrs. Ellen M 365
Richards, Mrs. Ellen H ..713
Rickards, Mrs. Eliza opp. p. 370
Riggs, Mrs. Anna R 813
Rogers, Miss May _ ..586
Roman, Mrs. Sallie Rhett 535
Romney, Mrs. Caroline Wescott ._ 579
Rue, Mrs. Parthenia P opp. p. 164
Russell, Miss Eliza M 23— opp. p. 434
Ryan, Mrs. Rosine opp. p. 96
S
Salazar, Signora Fanny Zampini .157
Salisbury, Mrs. Margaret Blaine opp. p. 632
Sawyer, iVIrs. Winona Branch..- 273
Schahovskoy, Princess M. 569
Scull, Mrs. Sarah Amelia 423
Sewall, Mrs. May Wright 771
Shattuck, Mrs. L. Brace 23— opp. p. 696
Shaw, Rev. Anna Howard 152
Sheldon, Miss Elizabeth B 790
Sheldon, Mrs. M. French 131
Shelton, Mrs. Matilda Hart .- opp. p. 502
Shepard, ]\Irs. Frances Welles.. opp. p. 232
Slurnian, Mrs. Caroline K 764
Siiorman, Mrs. Julia Edwards 670
Smith, Miss Marion Couthouy 616
Smith, Mrs. Mary Stuart... .-.408
Smith, Mrs. Wesley 217
Smith, Mrs. Clara Holbrook 332
Smith, Mrs. Virginia Thrall 178
Smith, Mrs. EvaMunson 416
Souville, Mrs. E. M 691
Spence, Mrs. Catherine Helen 458
Spencer, Rev. Anna Garlin 170
Starkweather, Mrs. Amey M opp. p. 502
Starkweather, Mrs. Louise A 62
St.n..ns, Mrs. L. M. N 23— opp. p. 304
Stevenson, Mrs. Matilda Coxe -484
Stevenson, Dr. Sarah Hackett 708
Stone, Mrs. Leander opp. p. 696
Stone, Mrs. Lucy -.- 58
Stone, Mrs. C. E. Whiton 101
Stone, Mrs. Lncinda H 446
Stone, Mrs. John M opp. p. 370
Straughan, Mrs. Joseph C opp. p. 2.32
Street, Miss Ida M 286
Sunde.-land, Mrs. Eliza Read.. 318
T
Thatcher, Mrs. M. D opp. p. 164
Thatcher, Jr., Mrs. Solomon ...opp. p. 696
Thatcher, Miss Claribel opp. p. 762
Thatcher, Miss Florence opp. p. 762
Thomson, Mrs. Alexander opp. p. 304
Todd, Mrs. Mary C 39
Trantmann, Mrs. Ralph opp. p. 434
Truehart. Mrs. S. C 804
Turner, Mrs. Ida Loving opp. p. 502
Tutwiler, Miss Julia S 36
Twitchell, Mrs. Eliza Stow e 495
V
Verdenal, Mrs. D. F opp. p. 96
Villafuerte, Miss Virginia 406
W
Wallace, Mrs. M. R. M ...opp. p. 696
Ware, Mrs. Eugene 277
Welch, Miss Jane Meade 30
Whalen, Mrs. Thomas A opp. p. 632
Wheelock, Miss Lucy 323
White, Mrs. Jennie F... 123
Wilkins, Mrs. Beriah opp. p. 632
Wilkinson, Mrs. Laura S , 283
Wils(m, Miss Alisan 488
Wilson, Mrs. Elizabeth M 203
Wilson (n6(^ Petrie), Mrs. Ashley Carus 651
Wilson, Mrs. John R opp. p. 502
Windeyer, Miss Margaret.. 97
Wise, Mrs. John Sergeant opp. p. 568
Women's Building frontispiece
Woolley. Mrs. Celia Parker 763
Wright, MissMary P 305
Zacaroff, Mile. (^ariclSe 618
Zeman, Mrs. Josefa Humpal 127
COMMITTEE ON CONGRESSES OF THE BOARD OF LADY MANAGERS.
2. Mrs. Jno. J. Bagley,
Vice-chairman. 4. Miss Eliza M, Russell. 7. Mrs. L, BuAfE Shattick.
1. Mes. James P. Eagle,
Chairman of Committee.
f). Mrs. Helen M. Barker.
3. Mrs. Susan R. Ashley. 6. Mrs. L. M. N. Stevens. 8. Miss Latjeette Lo\ell.
ADDRESS DELIVERED BY MRS. POTTER PALMER,
PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF LADY MANAGERS,
ON THE OCCASION OF THE OPENING OF THE WOMAN'S BUILDING, MAY 1st, 1893.
PUBLISHED BY PERMISSION.
Members of the Board of Lady Managers and Friends: — The moment of fruition has arrived. Hopes which for more than two years have gradually been gaining strength and definiteness now become realities. Today the Exposition opens its gates. On this occasion of the formal opening of the Woman's Building, the Board of Lady Managers is singularly fortunate in having the honor to welcome distinguished official representatives of many of the able foreign committees and of the state boards, which have so effectively co-operated with it in accomplishing the results now to be disclosed to the world.
We have traveled together a hitherto untrodden path, have been subjected to tedious delays and overshadowed by dark clouds, which threatened disaster to our enterprise. We have been obliged to march with peace offerings in our hands, lest hostile motives be ascribed to us. Our burdens have been greatly lightened, how- ever, by the spontaneous sympathy and aid which have reached us from women in every part of the world, and which have proved an added incentive and inspiration. Experience has brought many surprises, not the least of which is an impressive realiza- tion of the unity of human interests, notwithstanding differences of race, government, language, temperament and external conditions. The people of all civilized lands are studying the same problems. Each success and each failure in testing and develop- ing new theories is valuable to the whole world. Social and industrial questions are paramount, and are receiving the thoughtful consideration of statesmen, students, political economists, humanitarians, employers and employed.
The few forward steps which have been taken during our boasted nineteenth cent- ury— the so-called age of invention — have promoted the general use of machinery and economic motive powers with the result of cheapening manufactured articles, but have not afforded the relief to the masses, which was expected. The struggle for bread is as fierce as of old. We find, everywhere, the same picture presented — over- crowded industrial centers, factories surrounded by dense populations of operatives, keen competition, many individuals forced to use such strenuous effort that vitality is drained, in the struggle to maintain life under conditions so uninviting and discour- aging that it scarcely seems worth living. It is a grave reproach to modern enlighten- ment that we seem no nearer the solution of many of these problems than during feudal days.
It is not our province, however, to discuss these weighty questions, except in so far as they affect the compensation paid to wage earners, and more especially that paid to women and children. Of all existing forms of injustice, there is none so cruel and inconsistent as is the position in which women are placed with regard to self-main- tenance— the calm ignoring of their rights and responsibilities, which has gone on for centuries. If the economic conditions are hard for men to meet, subjected as they
25
26 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
are to the constant weeding out of the less expert and steady hands, it is evident that women, thrown upon their own resources, have a frightful struggle to endure, espe- cially as they have always to contend against a public sentiment which discountenances their seeking industrial employment as a means of livelihood.
The theory which exists among the conservative people, that the sphere of woman is her home — that it is unfeminine, even monstrous, for her to wish to take a place beside or to compete with men in the various lucrative industries — tells heavily against her, for manufacturers and producers take advantage of it to disparage her work and obtain her services for a nominal price, thus profiting largely by the necessities and helplessness of their victim. That so many should cling to respectable occupations while starving in following them, and should refuse to yield to discouragement and despair, shows a high quality of steadfastness and principle. These are the real heroines of life, whose handiwork we are proud to install in the Exposition, because it has been produced in factories, workshops and studios under the most adverse con- ditions and with the most sublime patience and endurance.
Men of the finest and most chivalric type, who have poetic theories about the sanctity of the home and the refining, elevating influence of woman in it, theories inherited from the days of romance and chivalry, which we wish might prevail forever - these men have asked many times whether the Board of Lady Managers thinks it well to promote a sentiment which may tend to destroy the home by encour- aging occupations for women which take them out of it. We feel, therefore, obliged to state our belief that every woman, who is presiding over a happy home, is fulfilling her highest and truest function, and could not be lured from it by temptations offered by factories or studios. Would that the eyes of these idealists could be thoroughly opened, that they might see, not the fortunate few of a favored class, with whom they possibly are in daily contact, but the general status of the labor market through- out the world and the relation to it of women. They might be astonished to learn that the conditions under which the vast majority of the " gentler sex " are living, are not so ideal as they assume; that each is not " dwelling in a home of which she is the queen, with a manly and loving arm to shield her from rough contact with life." Because of the impossibility of reconciling their theories with the stern facts, they might possibly consent to forgive the offense of widows with dependent children and those wives of drunkards and criminals who so far forget the high standard established for them as to attempt to earn for themselves daily bread, lacking which they must perish. The necessity for their work under present conditions is too evident and too urgent to be questioned. They must work or they must starve.
We are forced, therefore, to turn from the realm of fancy to meet and deal with existing facts. The absence of a just and general appreciation of the truth concern- ing the position and status of women has caused us to call special attention to it and to make a point of attempting to create, by means of the Exposition, a well defined public sentiment in regard to their rights and duties, and the propriety of their becom- ing not only self-supporting, but able to assist in maintaining their families when nec- essary. We hope that the statistics which the Board of Lady Managers has been so earnestly attempting to secure may give a correct idea of the number of women — not only those without natural protectors, or those thrown suddenly upon their own resources, but the number of wives of mechanics, laborers, artists, artisans and work- men of every degree — who are forced to work shoulder to shoulder with their hus- bands in order to maintain the family.
There are two classes of the community who wish to restrain women from actual participation in the business of the world, and each gives apparently very strong rea- sons in support of its views. These are, first, the idealists, who hold the opinion already mentioned that woman should be tenderly guarded and cherished within the sacred precincts of the home, which alone is her sphere of action; and, second, certain political economists, with whom may be ranged most of the men engaged in the profit- able pursuit of the industries of the world, who object to the competition that would
THK CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 27
result from the participation of women, because they claim that it would reduce the (general scale of wages paid, and lessen the earning power of men, who require their present incomes to maintain their families. Plausible as these theories are, we can not accept them without pausing to inquire, what then would become of all but the very few women who have independent fortunes or are the happy wives of men able and willing to support them? The interests of probably three-fourths of the women in the world are at stake. Are they to be allowed to starve, or to rush to self- destruction? If not permitted to work, what course is open to them?
Our oriental neighbors have seen the logic of the situation far more clearly than \\c and have been consistent enough to meet it, without shrinking from heroic measures when necessary. The question is happily solved in some countries by the practice of polygamy, which allows every man to maintain as many wives as his means permit. In others etiquette requires that a newly made widow be burned on the funeral pyre with, her husband's body, while the Chinese take the precaution to drown surplus female children. It would seem that any of these methods is more logical and less cruel than the system we pursue of permitting the entire female population to live, but mak- ing it impossible for those born to poverty to maintain themselves in comfort, because they are hampered by a caste feeling almost as strong as that ruling India, which will not permit them to work on equal terms with men. These unhappy members of an inferior class must be content to remain in penury, living on the crumbs that fall from tables spread for those of another and higher caste. This relative position has been exacted on the one side, accepted on the other. It has been considered by each an inexorable law.
We shrink with horror from the unjust treatment of child widows and other un- fortunates on the opposite side of the globe, but our own follies and inconsistencies are too close to our eyes for us to see them in proper perspective. Sentimentalists should have reduced their theories to set terms and applied them. They have had ample time and opportunity to provide means by which helpless women could be cherished, protected and removed from the storm and stress of life. Women could have asked nothing better. We have no respect for a theory which touches only the favored few who do not need its protection and leaves unaided the great mass it has assisted to push into the mire. Talk not of it, therefore, until it can be uttered, not only in polite drawing rooms, but also in factories and workshops without a blush of shame for its weakness and inefficiency.
But the sentimentalist again exclaims: " Would you have woman step down from her pedestal in order to enter practical life?" Yes! A thousand times, yes! If we can really find, after a careful search, any women mounted upon pedestals, we should willingly ask them to step down — in order that they may meet and help to uplift their sisters. Freedom and justice for all are infinitely more to be desired than pedestals for a few. I beg leave to state that, personally, I am not a believer in the pedestal theory— never having seen an actual example of it, and that I always suspect the motives of anyone advancing it. It does not represent the natural and fine relation be- tween husband and wife, or between friends. They should stand side by side, the fine qualities of each supplementing and assisting those of the other. Men naturally cher- ish high ideals of womanhood, as women do of manliness and strength. These ideals will dwell with the human race forever without our striving to preserve and protect them.
If we now look at the question from the economic standpoint and decide for good and logical reasons that women should be kept out of industrial fields in order that they may leave the harvest for men, whose duty it is to maintain women and children, then by all the laws of justice and equity these latter should be provided for by their natural protectors, and if deprived of them should become wards of the state, and be maintained in honor and comfort. The acceptance of even this doctrine of tardy justice would not, however, I feel sure, be welcomed by the woman of today who, having had a taste of independence, will never willingly relinquish it. They have no desire to be
28 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
helpless and dependent. Having the full use of their faculties, they rejoice in exercis- ing them. This is entirely in conformity with the trend of modern thought, which is in the direction of establishing proper respect for human individuality and the right of self-development. Our highest aim now is to train each individual to find happiness in the full and healthy exercise of the gifts bestowed by generous nature. Ignorance is too expensive and wasteful to be tolerated. We cannot afford to lose the reserve power of any individual.
We advocate, therefore, the thorough education and training of woman to fit her to meet whatever fate life may bring; not only to prepare her for the factory and workshop, for the professions and arts, but, more important than all else, to prepare her for presiding over the home. It is for this, the highest field of woman's effort, that the broadest training and greatest preparation are required. The illogical, ex- travagant, whimsical, unthrifty mother and housekeeper belongs to the dark ages. She has no place in our present era of enlightenment. No course of study is too elab- orate, no amount of knowledge and culture too abundant to meet the actual require- ments of the wife and mother in dealing with the interests committed to her hands.
The board does not wish to be understood as placing an extravagant or senti- mental value upon the work of any woman because of her sex. It willingly acknowl- edges that the industries, arts and commerce of the world have been for centuries in the hands of men who have carefully trained themselves for the responsibilities de- volving upon them, and who have, consequently, without question, contributed vastly more than women to the valuable thought, research, invention, science, art and liter- ature, which have become the rich heritage of the human race. Notwithstanding their disadvantages, however, a few gifted women have made their value felt, and have rendered exceptional service to the cause of humanity.
Realizing that woman can never hope to receive the proper recompense for her services until her usefulness and success are not only demonstrated but fully under- stood and acknowledged, we have taken advantage of the opportunity presented by the Exposition to bring together such evidences of her skill in the various industries, arts and proressions, as may convince the world that ability is not a matter of sex. Urged by necessity, she has shown that her powers are the same as her brothers', and that like encouragement and fostering care may develop her to an equal point of usefulness.
The fact that the Woman's Building is so small that it can hold only a tithe of the beautiful objects offered, has been a great disadvantage. The character of the ex- hibits and the high standard attained by most of them serve, therefore, only as an in- dex of the quality and range of the material from which we have drawn. When our invitation asking co-operation was sent to foreign lands the commissioners already appointed generally smiled doubtfully and explained that their women were doing noth- ing; that they would not feel inclinecl to help us, and, in many cases, stated that it was not the custom of their country for women to take part in any public effort, that they only attended to social duties. But as soon as these ladies received our message, sent in a brief and formal letter, the free masonry among women proved to be such that they needed no explanation; they understood at once the possibilities. Strong committees were immediately formed of women having large hearts and brains, women who cannot selfishly enjoy the ease of their own lives without giving a thought to their helpless and wretched sisters.
Our unbounded thanks are due to the e.xalted and influential personages who be- came, in their respective countries, patronesses and leaders of the movement inaugur- ated by us to represent what women are doing. They entered with appreciation into our work for the Exposition because they saw an opportunity, which they gracefully and delicately veiled behind the magnificent laces forming the central objects in their superb collections, to aid their women by opening new markets for their industries.
The Exposition will thus benefit women, not alone by means of the material objects brought together, but there will be a more lasting and permanent result through the interchange of thought and sympathy among influential and leading women of all
THE CONGRESS OE WOMEN. 29
countries now for the first time working to^^ether with a common purpose and an established means of communication. Ciovernment recognition and sanction give to these committees of women official character and dignity. Their work has been mag- nificently successful, and the reports which will be made of the conditions found to exist will be placed on record as public documents among the archives of every country. Realizing the needs and responsibilities of the hour, and that this will be the first official utterance of women on behalf of women, we shall weigh well our words, words which should be so judicious and convincing that hereafter they may be treasured among the happy influences which made possible new and better condi- tions.
We rejoice in the possession of this beautiful building, in which we meet today, in its delicacy, symmetry and strength. We honor our architect and the artists who have given not only their hands but their hearts and their genius to its decora- tion. For it women in every part of the world have been exerting their efforts and talents, for it looms have wrought their most delicate fabrics, the needle has flashed in the hands of maidens under tropical suns, the lacemaker has bent over her cushion weaving her most artful web, the brush and chisel have sought to give form and reality to the visions haunting the brain of the artist — all have wrought with the thought of making our building worthy to serve its great end. We thank them all for their successful efforts.
The eloquent President of the Commission last October dedicated the great Exposition buildings to humanity. We now dedicate the Woman's Building to an elevated womanhood — knowing that by so doing we shall best serve the cause of humanity.
THE FINDING OF THE NEW WORLD.""
ByMlSS JANE MEADE WELCH.
In the attempt to connect the New World with the Old in remotest times, it is almost impossible to find a clue that leads to documentary history. Nearly every
European nation claims a hero, or group of heroes, who reached America before Columbus' time, and every eastern Asiatic race makes a similar claim. Of all these alleged pre-Columbian voyages to America, the only one that rests on actual proof is that of the Norsemen. But Leif Ericsson's chance finding of the North American coast somewhere between Cape Breton and Point Judith, led to no permanent coloni- zation, and did not impress itself upon the mind of Europe outside the Scandinavian peninsula. Hence it should not be mentioned in the same breath with Christopher Columbus' heroic venture. He sailed the Sea of Darkness, on the faith of a conviction, and " reunited two streams of human life that had flowed apart since the glacial age," establishing a permanent connection between the eastern and western halves of our planet.
A long chain of circumstances led to his dis- covery of America. The closing of the eastern way to the orient through the taking by the Turks of Constantinople, made it necessary to find a new passage to the Indies. Years were given to the effort to find one by circumnavigating Africa, and one daring captain after another sailed down the gold coast. While these expeditions were going forward, Christopher Columbus, who may have taken part in one of them, was dwelling on the neighboring island of Porto Santo. There, three hundred miles out upon the Sea of Darkness, the idea of sailing due west to the Indies shaped itself in his mind.
The story of Christopher Columbus' repeated rebuffs need not again be re- hearsed. As an example of courage he is pre-eminent, ^nd no ingenuity of argu- ment can take from him his glory. Like Newton in the discovery of the law of gravitation, he did a thing that could be done but once.
When Columbus landed on the island of Guanahani, he there found a new race of human beings whom he described as "gentle and uncovetous." They were of a red- dish hue, with small deep-set eyes, high cheek bones, straight black hair, and almost no beard. Our double continent was truly the great world of the red men, for with the exception of the sub-arctic Eskimo, they were its sole inhabitants. This conti- nent belonged to them. Their houses, while they varied in degrees of develop-
Miss Jane Meade Welch is a native of Buffalo, N. Y. She was born March 11, 1854. Her parents were Thomas Cary Welch and Maria Allen Meade. She was educated at the Buffalo Seminary and Elmira College. She has traveled ex- tensively in America and in Great Britain, France, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland and Germany. Her profession is that of lecturer. She is the regular lecturer on American History at the Buffalo Seminary, St. Margaret's school, Buffalo; Mrs. Sylvanus Reed's school. New York; The Misses Masters' school, Dobbs Ferry, and Ogontz school, Pa. She has also lect- ured at Cornell University. She is the first American woman to lecture* at Cambridge, England, or whose work has been accepted by the British Association. Her address is Buffalo, N. Y.
* [What here appears is a synopsis of the address, the object of which was to present the latest opinions concerning the origin and degree of culture attained by America's early inhabitants.]
30
MISS JANE MEADE WELCH.
THE CONGRESS OE WOMEN. 31
mcnt, were essentially the same, whether they were the skin lodges of the most northern tribes, or the pueblos of the Aztecs. They were communal houses, in which dwelt several, sometimes a great many, related families.
Upon this communal household was built their political fabric. The lowest political unit in ancient America was the exogamous clan, next came the phratry, and tlien the tribe. With the exception of the Iroquois league and the Mexican confed- eracy, the tribe was the highest political organization in ancient America. Accord- ing to the scientific definition of civilization, there was no such thing in ancient Amer- ica. The tribes highest in development, social and political, were those in the Cor- dilleras, running from the New Mexican tableland through Peru. Those lowest in development were found, where many of them are still found, west of the Rocky Mountains, in California, and in the valleys of the Columbia, Yukon and Athabascan rivers. Large unexplored fields yet await the investigation of archaeologists and geologists in both North and South America. But the work thus far accomplished has convinced the majority of historians there never was a pre-historic American civ- ilization. That Aztecs, Mayas and Incas were Indians no less than were Algonquins or Iroquois.
Many of these groups, particularly Peruvians, Mayas and Aztecs, presented strange incongruities of culture, but, tested by strict scientific standards, they were not civilized. As to whence these aborigines came, and how long they had inhabited America before they were found by the Spaniards, and succeeding Portuguese, French and English explorers, science has not yet been able to yield what is to all minds a satisfactory answer. Discoveries made by geologists in the past few years have altered our attitude toward these questions. It is certain, however, that they had been here a long time. The inhabitants of ancient America were indigenous.
OUR FORGOTTEN FOREMOTHERS.
By MRS. LILLIE DEVEREUX BLAKE.
In speaking of " Our Forgotten Foremothers" I shall begin with that great queen who, in some sort, may be considered not only as the foremother of this nation, but
of the whole New World — Isabella of Castile. Her clear intellect first grasped the thought that there might be a continent to be discovered, when her hus- band, her councilors and her courtiers all derided the claims of Columbus as mere idle dreams. Her stead- fastness sustained him through all his vicissitudes, and at last her action gave him the money with which to fit out the expedition. Next after our debt to the in- trepid navigator, this country owes its gratitude to the brave queen. And yet how completely has she been forgotten in all the celebrations and festivities of this commemorative year! Orators speak of the great enterprise of Columbus, poets rhymed in his honor, but Isabella, the woman who made his expedition pos- sible, was scarcely mentioned.
When New York City was arranging for the cele- bration last fall, our City League wished to do honor to the queen by some decorations at the stand we occupied. We tried in vain to find a picture of her. The city was filled with so-called portraits of Colum- bus. He was depicted in every possible way, old and young, bearded and close-shaved, smiling with an amiable fatuity of expression, or frowning as if he hated all worlds, both old and new. But nowhere could we find a likeness of Isabella at any price. High and low through the city and up and down the land, we searched in vain. A lithograph of Columbus could be purchased for two and a half cents, but no presentment of the queen at any price, and we finally had one painted — enlarged from a small picture in a book. Thus was this great woman forgotten.
Last winter, in New York, we honored the memory of the Pilgrim mothers by giving a dinner on the anniversary of the landing on Plymouth Rock. This was the first time in the history of the country that these noble women had been remembered. Year after year, the Sons of the Pilgrims, in the great New England societies of New York and Brooklyn, have never failed to hold a feast in honor of the Pilgrim fathers, but never before had the mothers been remembered. We wished to remind the world of their virtues, and of their daughters', those noblewomen who have made New Eng- land what it is, who carried the piety, the heroism, the devotion of their ancestors to every part of our country. What fortitude, what self-sacrifice was required of those
Mrs. Lillie Devereux iBlake was born in Raleigh, N. C. Her father, George P. Devereux, was a wealthy Southern gentleman, of Irish descent. Her mother, Sarah Elizabeth Johnson, was of old New York and New England families. Mrs. Blake was educated in New Haven, Conn, In 1855 she married Frank G. Q. Umsted, a lawyer of Philadelphia, who died in 1859, leaving his young widow with two children. In 1866 she married Grenfill Blake, of New York. In 1869 she became deeply interested in the movement for the enfranchisement of women, to which she has since so largely devoted her life. In addition to contributing to many other leading periodicals, Mrs. Blake has published several novels, the best known being " Fettered for Life." In 1883 she delivered a series of lectures in reply to the Lenten discourses on women, by the Rev. Morgan Dix, D. D. These lectures attracted much attention and were published under the title of " Woman's Place Today." Her postoffice address is 149 East Forty-fourth street. New York, N. Y.
32
ILLIE DEVEREUX BLAKE.
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 33
first women colonists! Many of them were nobly born and delicately nurtured, when, for conscience' sake, they left home and friends and native land, to brave the dangers of a long voyage, the hardships of an hostile country and of an inhospitable clime. We who are the heirs of their labors and sacrifices should rejoice to render our tribute of honor to the Pilgrim Mothers.
It may be asked why we chose to celebrate the landing of the Pilgrims on the 23d of December instead of the 22d, the day honored by the men. Simply because the 23d was the actual day and date of the landing. You see men cannot even fix a date correctly without the aid of women. I carefully studied the journal of John Brad- ford, who was a young man on board the "Mayflower," afterward the famous Gov- ernor of Massachusetts. He kept a careful record of the events of each day. On the 2ist land having been sighted, a boat was sent to reconnoiter the shore. On the 22d the day being stormy, the ship lay off the coast, and the only event recorded is that a wife, her name is not given, descended into the valley of the shadow of death. On the 23d, the day we celebrated, there landed on Plymouth Rock thirty-two women accompanied by sixty-nine men and children. There was one advantage in holding our feast on the day after the feast given by the men, and that was it gave us the woman's privilege of the last word. I carefully looked over the speeches given at the New England dinners, but as usual could find no mention whatsoever of anything that women had done. A noted educator spoke of New England as "she," which, considering how all things feminine were ignored, seems a piece of presumption. The most appro- priate toast given was that of one honored gentleman whose theme was "Their Selfishness."
This forgetfulness of all that women have done for our country is only of a piece with the usual proceedings at those masculine feasts. Year after year they have assembled to do honor to men alone. Some time ago the late James G. Blaine, in an address at a New England dinner, said: "Men settled and built up the country, men struggled and labored; these good men were the progenitors of a great race." As if men alone did everything — settled the country, founded the families and reared the children.
On that bleak December day, two hundred and seventy-two years ago, one hun- dred and one persons came ashore on the cruel New England coast, of whom only forty-one were men, and yet, with the usual modesty of their sex, in talking of the deeds of these first settlers, their sons have followed the advice given last fall by the leader of one of the political parties and "claimed everything;" whereas, the real heroines and martyrs of those days were the women. What hardships confronted them in the awful winter that followed! Only try to fancy what they must have suffered! Living in a few huts — they could not be called houses — on that ice bound coast. Think of the storms that howled about their frail habitations, the snows that swept over them, the bitter cold that froze them! How helpless they were! On the one hand the inhospitable forest that encircled them, the lurking place of wild beasts and hostile Indians; on the other hand the wide ocean that stretched between them and their former homes. How chill they must have been with only open fires fed with green wood, with no clothing fitted for the rigors of that climate, with not enough food for them and their children! What these women must have had to bear of hardship, misery and home-sickness! No wonder they died and their deaths were scarce recorded. Bradford does not mention even the death of his own wife.
And then it must be remembered, as Fanny Fern long ago wittily said, "These women had not only to endure all that the Pilgrim fathers had to endure, but they had to endure the Pilgrim fathers also." And these worthy men must have been very trying, as all know that a cold house and a poor dinner does not conduce to any man's amiability, and they were so censorious. A later chronicle records with displeas- ure that a certain Mrs. Johnson was "given to unseemly pride of apparel," in that she wore whalebone in her sleeves. The Pilgrim fathers went a ereat deal further than their sons would like to go today, for they sat in solemn conclave to decide how many
(3)
34 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
ribbons a woman might wear. Fancy the city fathers today holding sessions co dis- cuss the width of a sash, and to decide whether or not certain styles of feminine ap- parel are consistent with "a godly walk and conversation."
But to return to the first winter. Despite the effort made then, as now, to sup- press the "skirt brigade," some record has come to us of the deeds, the heroism and the noble self-sacrifice of the Pilgrim mothers. A woman's money fitted out the ships that discovered the New World, and a woman's money fitted out the " Mayflower." Mrs. Winston, a lady of position and influence, gave of her substance to equip the ves- sel. Mrs. Carver's steadfastness nerved her husband, the Rev. John Carver, to join the expedition. If it had not been for this grand woman, their " ghostly adviser", would have let the colonists sail without any ordained minister of the Gospel. Then there was Rose Standish, the dainty beauty of the expedition, a lovely, gentle flower of a noble English home, too delicate to bear the hardships of the cruel life they led, and who failed and died the first winter. But above all others should be mentioned Ann Brewster, who was the very guardian angel of the colonists. A woman of mighty energy and of dauntless courage, whose hope and faith never failed, even in the darkest hours, whose sturdy health sustained her even through the most severe privations, who encouraged the well, nursed the sick and comforted the dying, a heroine who never lost her confidence and her cheerfulness, and also in her tireless regard for others, her patience with illness and her fortitude in the presence of death displayed heroism of a higher order than that of the men who faced only the activities of out- door life.
Yet the sons and the grandsons of these women have forgotten to do them honor. Their deeds have been unchronicled, their names unrecorded, and men have calmly claimed all achievements and all enterprises as their own. The whole history of our country has been written from man's standpoint, and women, however great, how- over noble, have been ignored. Abigail Adams, the wise and witty wife of John Adams, who nerved him to action when he would have been indifferent, who gave him the courage to stand by the struggling nation when he would have deserted it, who is more than suspected of waiting his speeches, is not mentioned. Mercy Otis Warren, the sister of James Otis and wife of General Warren, has no need of praise for her patriotic action in inspiring both brother and husband to do their duty. At a later period the achievements of men in ridding the country of the curse of slavery are vaunted and eulogized, while Lydia Maria Child, Lucretia Mott and Harriet Beecher Stowe have but scant praise. The heroes of the late war have monuments raised high in their honor; where are the tributes to the heroines? Dorothy Dix, Clara Barton and Mother Bickerdyke, the women who by their devotion sustained the army and nursed the soldiers — who remembers them?
Among those of other nations who have come to these shores to make the repub- lic great, the stalwart German women, the thrifty French women, the intrepid Spanish women, where are the records of their deeds? The men of these nationalities have perpetuated their memory by giving their names to mountains and rivers and cities. Wliat are the names of the women whose virtues, whose devotion made them what they are or were ? And we have become so accustomed to this policy of silence that we are prone to submit to it, without even a protest, ourselves even forgetting to give honor where honor is due. We hear much of " self-made men," when often if we looked into the history of such persons we would find that they should more properly be called " wife-made men," for many and many a man has owed his prosperity, his success in life largely to the energy and intellect of his wife, though she, like her foremother, is forgotten.
Probably the culmination of the annihilation of the women of this country was reached in the declaration made by Judge Hoar, of Massachusetts, while presiding at the National Republican Convention in i88o, when he said, " The American people are gentlemen."
Today we will not say that the American people are ladies. That would be toe
THE CONGRESS OE WOMEN. 35
poor a way of puttinf^ it, but we will ask who are these who are thus forgotten? Are they so unworthy that their brave deeds may not entitle them to recognition? Cer- tainly not! We ask that honor be done, not to the foolish and undeserving, but to the mothers of the race.
But turning from the scenes of the past, let us look forward to the swiftly coming time of our emancipation. The forgetfulness of the past is rapidly giving way to the acknowledgments of the present. Already government has honored women by equality of position in the great World's Fair, and the time approaches rapidly when we shall have complete enfranchisement. To recall again the memory of the Pilgrim mothers, we find the contrast between woman's position today and hers two hundred and seventy-two years ago, as great as that between the comforts and luxuries we enjoy and the hardships that the pioneers endured. Where they had cold and dark- ness and wretched habitations, we have warmth and light and the palaces of our great cities. Where our ancestors had oppression and subordination, we have opportunity and almost equality. The end is nearly in sight, and the time will surely come when the deeds and the achievements of the foremothers will be applauded with those of the forefathers, and the daughters and the sons of the Pilgrims will sit side by side in their councils and at their feasts.
>m
A SELF SUPPORT PROBLEM/
By MISS JULIA S. TUTWILER.
Some schools still make a boast in their annual reports that certain pupils have paid all their expenses during the year by work performed out of school — so many
hours in the kitchen, laundry or sewing room. The Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children should expostulate with the ill-judging managers, however well intentioned, of these schools. There is not one girl in a thousand between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five who can do this without danger of becoming a permanent inmate of an insane asylum or a hospital. By all means, if possible, let the mature generation bear the burdens of the rising one until it also is fully matured, thoroughly developed, and carefully trained. We do not allow even our baby rose-trees and infant geraniums to bear blossoms until they are well grown. We do not call on them for production until they have had their due period of nutrition from every kindly exterior influence that we can bring to bear upon them. No, it is not desirable that our girls should assume the burden of self-sup- port during these years, with the accompanying dan- gers of physical and mental injury. But what of the girl who will not accept this decision? who says in answer to our remonstrances that she will gladly shorten her life, or even dedicate it to pain and suf- ering, if she may but be permitted to enter upon her inheritance as the heir of all the ages, if we will but give into her hands the key that opens the Gate Beautiful of the wonderful Paradise of Culture? Are there such girls, and are there so many of them that it is a present duty to spend thought upon them and make such provision for them that they may not be degraded by becoming the recipients of charity to accom- plish their end, nor embittered by going through life with the consciousness of powers undeveloped and warped? Let us see. Katie is a farmer's daughter. She has received all the elementary education which the little country schoolhouse or the village academy can give her. She has a bright, eager intellect, whetted by the little it has received to an appetite for more. Her father has other children, and is one of that large class of worthy citizens who is just able to feed, clothe and physic his family and meet the necessary expenses of keeping up his farm or his business. He has no money with which to pay board for Katie, even at the least expensive school or college. If she were living in the Arcadian daj's of factory-life, when Harriet Mar- Miss Julia Strudvvick Tutwiler is a native of Tuscaloosa, Ala. She was born August 15, 1841. Her parents were Henry Tutwiler, LL. D., of Virginia, and Julia Tutwiler, nee Ashe, of North Carolina. Miss Tutwiler was educated at a French boarding school in Philadelphia, Pa., at Vassar College, at a Normal Seminary in Germany, and has visited Europe three times, remaining at one time three year^ for the purpose of studying and writing. Her special work has been in the interest of the education of girls. At present she is principal of the Alabama Normal College for girls. In religious faith she is a strong believer in Christianity, and is a member of the Presbyterian Church. Miss Tutwiler was a member of three of the World's Congresses which met in Chicago during the summer of 1893 : The Congress of Representative Women, the Educational Congress and the Congress of Charities and Corrections. Her postoffice address is Livingston, Ala.
*The title under which the address was delivered was " Is Self -Support Possible for Girls Daring the Years of Sec- - ondary Edacation. "
36
MISS JULIA S. TUTWILER.
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 37
tineau and Captain Hall visited us and described our institutions, she would take employment in one and earn the money for her further advancement in knowledge. But many things have changed since that time, and Katie must be carefully protected .for some years to come. There is something even more important for her than cult- ure, as her wise mother knows. If her brother Jack has the same ambitions, there is no trouble in his case. He has muscle and bone. These are not ill-paid in this favored land. There are railroads to build, mines to dig, crops to gather at all times. Jack can soon earn enough to take a course of instruction at one of the schools whose advantages have been made so inexpensive by the beneficence of individuals or denominations. But Katie's wage earning powers are very small, and she is too young to go from home for the purpose of making larger gains unless she can have watchful guardianship and protection. Is it possible for her to obtain this?
Katie will spend one-third as much of the year out of college as in college if she is ever so fortunate as to get there. She will have in some places even more than that proportion of leisure time during the year. In my own state, she will have thirty-six weeks in college and sixteen out of college. Now suppose, instead of clos- ing the college buildings for these four months, we were to keep them open, as you so wisely propose to do with your new University — at least to keep open the dormi- tory and refectory ( I have in view the old-fashioned type of college). Suppose a suf- ficient number of college officials to be kept on duty for guardianship and protection, then let all the pupils who need self support engage daily in some profitable industry in buildings belonging to the college and reserved for this purpose. There might also be a night school, for backward pupils who wish to prepare for a particular class, but this feature should be carefully looked after that it may not become an injury, and should never be allowed to occupy more than two hours. No wages should be paid in money. The employes should have board and lodging, and should be credited on their board for next year with the amount of wages which they earn after deducting the actual cost of board and lodging. They should sign a contract, agreeing to these conditions, and to the further one that in case of their not remaining, to obtain pay- ment of their wages in board, these should be forfeited to the college.
But the objection may be m.ade that the capital invested in this industrial plant must lie idle for three-fourths of the year. Even if this should be the case, it would not be nearly such poor economy as the prevailing practice of letting thousands of college buildings remain unemployed for one-fourth of the year. Why have not our practical communities in all these years felt a little trouble at this great waste of the capital invested in that plant? But we will not imitate the college in this respect. We will try to arrange our industrial plant so that there shall be no unnecessary lying idle of capital. There are several ways in which this might be done. I will not stop to enumerate them all, but will only make one or two suggestions. Our industry might be operated by relays of pupils, each having three months of work and nine months of study. The companionship of the workers and students will be helpful to ^oth.
However, there is one industry in which capital necessarily lies idle during the very months in which Katie has leisure. This is the canning factory. If I have been correctly informed but a small capital is needed to establish a canning factory which will emplo}' twenty girls and have an output of five hundred cans daily. Twenty-five acres of tomatoes and a few acres of corn, strawberries and peas will keep this fac- tory busy for four months. The work is light and well suited to girls. In Michigan there are said to be two factories carried on entirely by women without the aid of even a boy. The pay is much more than Katie could earn by housework or sewing, and she has not yet learned any skilled labor. In Michigan I learned that from one dol- lar to a dollar and a half per day is the us.ual wages for girls. If Katie can earn seventy-five dollars during the summer, and if the college is one where she is charged only the actual cost of food and fuel, tuition being free, she will be able to pay by far the greater part of her next term's school expenses. A benevolent
38 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
man or woman is often reported to have given five thousand dollars to found two or three scholarships in some girls' colleges. The same amount invested in an industrial plant to be attached to a college would pay for the education of a hundred girls, or rather would enable them to pay for their own education, a much nobler form of benevolence. Now, here are sisters from the East and West and the North and South, and I ask them to tell me whether such a plan has ever been attempted any- where, and if so, with what success?
I cannot close without expressing my sense of the great blessing to womanhood of this wonderful opportunity of thus taking counsel together and unbosoming our- selves to each other. So many women have schemes for the helping of their sex, or still better, of their race, fermenting in their brains and hearts, and are brain-sick and heart-sick for the lack of advice and sympathy. Here, for the first time, but not, thank God, for the last time, we have come together from the ends of the earth to this magic city to listen to each other's plans and hopes, and give wise warning or kindly encouragement.
eve's vow.
When angels oped at God's command,
With weeping, Eden's portal, And our sad parents, hand in hand.
Forsook its joys immortal. Our mother's deep prophetic soul,
Made wise by pain and sadness. Beheld the coming ages roll.
Bereft of pristine gladness.
She saw our sickness, grief and tears.
Her breast maternal sharing, Each bitter pang through future years
Her race should bear — are bearing. To high resolve that hour gave birth
Her burning tears repressing. She vowed to ope once more for earth
Lost Eden's gates of blessing.
And since to realize her vow
Hath woman ever striven. Each mother to her child till now
This secret task hath given. But man grew jealous as she strove,
And barred her pathway ever, Nor understood what depth of love
Inspired the high endeavor.
Yet still her earnest spirit rose
Above his scorn undaunted To struggle on, till should unclose
Once more the gates enchanted. And give for sickness, grief and tears,
Our mortal lot attending, Succession sweet of blissful years
In life immortal ending.
See, strong Evangelists and brave,
In sight the gates Elysian! The earnest now of all ye crave,
Soon, soon its full fruition!
EDUCATION OF INDIAN GIRLS IN THE WEST.
ffi^ Mw^
By MRS. MARY C. TODD.
The social and business reconstruction which, in the past few years, has taken women from their homes all over the country and placed them in various public
positions of honor and responsibility, positions re- quiring education, intelligence and good business judgment, has left untroubled but one class. With their patient faces, whose pathetic expression is but ^ . theshadowof the down-trodden life they lead, the
J'. - . Indian women have stood aside and have seen other
. women spreading into larger fields, and pluming
their wings for larger flight. Wondering and igno- rant, they have never thought that to them any good might come, or any release from the debase- ment and servitude to which they have been born. Beasts of burden themselves, and accustomed to the slavish position which became theirs at their birth, they have looked for nothing better for their daugh- ters. The rough camp life, the field labor, the un- cleanly and demoralizing ties of "home" (if such it may be called), were accepted. Their sluggish minds looked for no help. But faithful teachers have gradually gathered into the government schools, the young girls; preferring indeed, if they can but get hold of them, children of two or three years of age, hoping that they may grow into civilized ways. Keepmg these children, if their parents will permit, until eighteen years of age, there is but little danger that when released from school life, they will return to savage ways. Those who spend a few years in the schools look with loathing upon the early betrothals and marriages into which they are often forced upon their return to their homes. Many of these young girls beg to be allowed to stay always in the schools, and never to be obliged to go home. For this reason, upon our reservation of school land, a building is being prepared where such as wish may find a happy and civilized home when their school days are ended. In these government schools all the appliances of a thrifty and busy life are at hand. Kitchens and dormitories most beautifully kept; neat tables supplied with wholesome and well-cooked food, all the domestic work performed by these girls from all the western Indian tribes — this is the surprise which awaits those who will visit the government schools. Most delicate and beautiful needle work and well-fitting clothing are the products of the sewing rooms, where, under a skillful teacher, they learn the use of the sewing machine and spend happy days. This training of all kinds has one most excellent effect, and that is the over- coming the shyness and reticence by which their intercourse with white people is
Mrs. Mary C. Todd, 7iee Mary McCabe, was born in Terre Haute, Ind. Her parents were Virginians. In 1858 she married James H. Todd, of Peru, Ind., and in 1869 moved to Kansas. She is the mother of Mrs. Geo. ('. Strong, of Wichita. When a child she attended the Academy of St. Marie des Bois, and afterward Putman Female Seminary, having, as classmate, Mary Hartwell Cathwood, the authoress. Later she was a student at College Hill, Cincinnati. In Kansas she was for a time president of the " Relief Corps " in connection with the "Garfield Post No. 40," and since 1876 has been engaged in literary work, principally newspaper and magazine articles. She has for years been connected with the " Social Science Club," of Kansas and western Missouri, and is a charter member of the " Hypatia," was its president and went as a delegate to the General Federation of Women's Clubs in New York, in 1869. Her postoffice address is Wichita, Kan.
39
MRS. MARY C. TODD.
40 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
always marked, and the almost inaudible tone which they always use. They learn from this association with their teachers, to speak; their minds develop, their thoughts grow, and they learn to clothe them in language. Their affections are developed and they become fond of their teachers. The writer witnessed an unexpected meet- ing of a class of girl's of about fourteen years of age, with a teacher who had been absent over a year. While their manifested pleasure lacked the forwardness of many school girls, their pleasure at meeting her was unquestioned, as they followed her about, seeming unwilling to leave her, their conduct, reminding one of the silent and faithful affection of an animal.
The western schools established and supported by the government are most of them in Kansas, Oklahoma and the Indian Territory. These are mixed schools, and in every sense industrial schools. Shops for the carrying on of every kind of man- ual labor are provided for the boys, and the large grant of land which lies about every school is farmed by them.
The arrangement which the government has recently made with the various tribes for the opening up of their lands for settlement, will go far toward the civilization of the young people. For twenty-five years the government will extend to them its support. At the end of that time it is expected that, from their intercourse with white people, and their school education, they will have become self-supporting. It is hoped that at the end of a girl's school life she may go home to a house instead of a tent; to a permanent residence instead of a nomadic gypsy life; to a family clothed instead of blanketed; to a father and brothers who will serve her instead of exacting servitude. In the past, the years of study and training have been almost lost as the girl returns to the untidy tent upon the bleak and barren ground. What hope is there for her to maintain the tidy and systematic method which she has learned, when surrounded by the sights and sounds and blood-thirsty ways of an Otoe or a Ponca camp?
But surrounded by whites, and encouraged and taught by their teachers and native preachers, surely a bright future is before these poor Indian girls. Surely the dor- mant mind will awaken, and the sluggish energies quicken, when she sees around her the homes of intelligent white women. The education of the Indian girl means the uplifting of the tribes in ev^ery way, and yet it means also and soon, the losing of the races of red men from off the face of the earth.
LEGAL CONDITION OF WOMAN IN 1492-1892.
By MISS MARY A. GREENE.
The condition of the woman of a nation is an index of that nation's civilization. From the days of Hatasu, who, as queen, ruled over Egypt, sixteen centuries before
Christ, down the ages to Isabella, of Spain, the first monarch of a new world, until this year of grace, 1893, when Victoria holds sway over lands which encircle the globe, has it ever been true that that nation which most elevates and honors its women most elevates and honors itself ? The legal condition of woman is but a mirror reflecting her social condition. Laws are framed to meet the necessities of the social environ- ment. It is only when the body of the law has failed to keep step with the social development, that the legal condition of a sex or a class works an injustice. In order, then, to understand the legal condition of woman in any country, or at any era, we must study the social condition that existed at the time the laws were framed. At the date of the discovery of our continent, the dawn of a new civilization was breaking upon Europe. This intellectual awakening of the world awakens women as well as men. Women of gentle birth apply themselves with enthusiasm to the study of Greek and Latin, in order to obtain for themselves the learning of the ancients. So it hap- pens that we know much about the women of the higher classes in 1492. But of the women of the lower classes very little is recorded. They were truly and absolutely " the submerged tenth," not worth the notice of his- torians. Here and there a glimpse is caught, which suggests to us their social bond- age. A wedding custom among the German peasants was that the bride's father should remove her shoes and deliver them to the groom, who tapped the bride's forehead with them, in token of his matrimonial authority over her. The wogian who married a slave could, by law, be put to death by her relatives, or be sold by them at their will.
The civilization of ancient Rome favored the domestic seclusion of woman. The European states, which arose out of the fall of the Roman empire, favored the same idea. Restriction and submission to a higher power was the policy of the middle ages. The laity were to be submissive to the clergy, vassals submissive to their lords, wives submissive to their husbands. In the rude and warlike society of those times, when shut up within his closely fortified castle, the feudal knight poured boiling oil or
Miss Mary Anne Greene was born at Warwick, R. I., in 1857. Her parents were John Waterman Aben Greene and Mary Frances (Low) Greene. She was educated for the legal profession at the Boston University Law School, receiving in 1888 the degree of Bachelor of Laws magna cum laude, and was admitted to the Suffolk Bar in Boston in September, 1888, where she practiced several years. Her principal literary works are articles upon legal subjects, for magazines and papers, such as "The Chautauquan," " The American Law Review," etc. She is the regular lecturer on Business Law for Women, at Lasell Seminary, Auburndale, Mass., and was invited to address the Congress of Jurisprudence and Law Reform, of the World's Congress Auxiliary in August, 1893. She spoke upon "Married Woman's Property Acts in the United States and Needed Reforms Therein." An extremely fragile constitution obliged her to refrain from the active practice of her chosen profession, since her return to her native state, and hence she has never applied for admission to the Rhode Island bar. Miss Greene is a member of the Baptist Church. Her postoffice address is Providence, R. I.
41
MISS MARV A. GREENE.
42 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
shot arrows from his towers upon his neighbors, or sallied forth to encounter like assaults at their hands, the safe seclusion of the castle and the quiet occupations of cooking and spinning were, no doubt, the best for the women of the family. As refinement increased, women were able to come out of their seclusion a little, and to participate to some extent in the social life of the men. The growth of chivalry also helped to elevate the women of the higher classes in feudal days. Religion and gallantry were blended together. The love of God and the ladies was enjoined as a single duty. At the institution of the Order of the Golden Shield, Louis II., Duke of Bourbon, enjoined his knights to honor above all the ladies, " because from them, after God, cornes all the honor that men can acquire." The laws also recognized this chiv- alrous homage and extended their protection. James II., of Aragon, enacted a law "that every man, whether knight or no, who shall be in company with a lady, pass safe and unmolested, unless he be guilty of murder."
With the incoming of the Renaissance and the Reformation, with the new spirit of personal dignity and independence, begotten of a wider knowledge and broader culture, the crudities of chivalry and the restrictions of feudalism began to fade away. Expansion and independence took the place of restriction and submission. Since the condition of the higher classes of women had been tending toward a higher position of esteem and honor under the later feudal system, their advancement could not fail to be rapid under the new order of the new age. This is shown by their educational elevation at the close of the fifteenth century.
Spain and Italy had at that time begun to admit women to the higher education of the universities. The Spanish Arabs were devoted to letters, and many of their high-born women publicly contended for prizes in science and arts at Cordova and Seville. The reign of Isabella counts among its many glories a galaxy of women whose scholarship would have been rare in any age. Isabella herself was learned in the classics, and her Latin instructor was a woman, Dona Beatriz de Galindo, who was called La Latina, on account of her rare acquirements. At the same time the Univer- sity of Salamanca had as lecturer in the Latin classics another learned woman, Dona Lucie de Medrano, while at Alcala, Dona Francisca de Lebrija filled the chair of rhetoric.
In Italy, a century earlier, Dotta, daughter of the celebrated Accursius, gave instruction in law at the University of Bologna, and nearly contemporary with her was Novella, the beautiful daughter of Andrea, who delivered her lectures upon the canon law from behind a curtain, as tradition has it, lest her beauty should distract the young men who were her pupils. These were the earliest of a long line of distinguished Italian women professors, reaching down to our own day, when Dr. Josephine Catani fills the chair of histology in the medical school of the ancient University of Bologna. The political status of woman in 1492 in Continental Europe was a survival of ancient ideas, of Roman jurisprudence. Even under the repression of the feudal system the capacity of woman to be a sovereign, a judge, an advocate and an arbitrator, was not denied. But the Roman law excluded her from all public ofifices, not, however, on the ground of incapacity, but simply on the ground of etiquette and expediency, as the Roman code puts it, " because it is not fitting that women and slaves should hold pub- lic offices." The system of civil law, which was built up in the fifteenth century from the ruins of the Roman code, incorporated this idea, so that we find it declared in the laws of Continental Europe that a woman may not be an advocate or a judge.
In England, where the influence of the Roman law was slight, the capacity and fitness of women for public office was to some extent recognized, and when Queen Mary came to the throne she placed women in judicial office. Lady Berkeley was made a justice of the peace for Gloucestershire, and Lady Rous, as justice of the quorum for Suffolk, " did usually sit on the bench at assizes among the other justices, cincta gladio, girt with the sword." The hereditary office of high sheriff of West- moreland was held at one time by a woman, and women were held to be eligible to election as burgesses, overseers of the poor, constables, sheriffs and marshals, and
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 45
they occasionally occupied these positions. There is no doubt that women land- owners were allowed to vote as well as to hold public office, but the privilege was so very seldom exercised that instances are very rare. Still, in theory, the single woman or widow had a lawful right to cast a vote, while her married sister was rep- resented by the vote of her husband. The capacity of woman to be a sovereign was everywhere recognized, and even where the Salic law excluded woman from the throne her right and ability to rule as regent during the king's minority was fully admitted. Thus, in France, from 1483 to 1491, Anne of Beaujen held the office of regent during the minority of her brother, Charles VIII.
The royal Isabella, ruling in her own right as queen of Castile and Leon, and as co-equal with her husband, Ferdinand, of Aragon, in the government of the united countries, is a sufficient instance of the legal recognition of woman's right to the high- est and most responsible of all public offices.
As our American orator has recently said: " It was a happy omen of the position which woman was to hold in America that the only person who comprehended the majestic scope of his (Columbus') plans and the invincible qualities of his genius was the able and gracious Queen of Castile. Isabella alone, of all the dignitaries of that age, shares with Columbus the honors of his great achievement. She arrayed her kingdom and her private fortunes behind the enthusiasm of this mystic mariner, and posterity pays homage to her wisdom and faith." And in less than a century after Isabella, another woman, Elizabeth, of England, the virgin queen whose flag swept the seas, was the mistress and patroness of the first permanent settlement of her race upon our shores, a race which was destined to possess and dominate this northern continent of the New World.
Turning to the personal and property rights of the woman of 1492, we look at a darker side of the picture. This branch of the law affects rich and poor, high and low, alike. Only the high-born woman would be likely to hold public office, but every woman has a right to protection of her person and property. The laws of England differed from those of the continent of Europe in form and theory, but scarcely in their practical effect upon the woman. The theory of the common law of England, derived from our Germanic forefathers, was that of a division of duties. As the wife had the care of the household, and the responsibility of rearing her family, it was thought unreasonable to subject her to the anno)'ances of a suit at law to protect or defend her rights and to preserve her property. This was laid upon the husband's shoulders. He was to protect her and perform these duties for her. The wife in English law was considered as under the protecting wing of her husband, which cov- ered her from legal annoyance; hence, the old law — French term for a married woman, ^.femme covert, and her legal condition is her coverture. That this is the true theory of the law is evident from the laws governing the queen's consort of Eng- land. Such women, upon marriage, retained all their property and legal capacity to transact business. For as Sir Edward Coke puts it, " The wisdom of the common law would not have the king (whose continual care and study is for the public and area ardiia rcgni) to be troubled and disquieted on account of his wife's domestic affairs; and, therefore, it vests in the queen a power of transacting her own concerns without the intervention of the king, as if she were an unmarried woman."
The theory of the civil law of Continental Europe, coming down from the Roman code, was very different. These laws are based upon the weakness, frailty and in- capacity of the sex. The husband is made the curator of his wife much as the father is made guardian of his minor child. Upon this theory, also, a woman could not in early times be a witness in court, and long after she was made legally competent to testify, her testimony was held to be of slight worth. Whether the English or the Continental laws be considered, the effect upon the married woman was practically the same in respect to her ownership and control of her property. The husband had complete control of the wife's property, and was able to dispose of it at his own pleas- ure, without' her knowledge or consent. She was not capable of making any binding
44 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
contract whatever. The legal custody of the children was in the father, and by feudal law after the father's death, unless he had by his will appointed a guardian, the lord of the manor became the custodian of the person and property of the orphaned child. The consent of the lord was necessary to the marriage of a female ward, and in England the lord could dispose of her in marriage, exacting a heavy fine if she refused to marry according to his commands. Where, as in England, the possession of landed property qualified its owner to vote and hold public office, the husband of a woman who owned land, voted and sat in parliament by right of his joint ownership in his wife's land. This right of the husband has disappeared from American law, except in Rhode Island, where it still lingers only slightly modified by recent legis- lation. The condition of the widow under this regime was truly pitiable. She had no claim whatever upon the personal property of her late husband, not even though she had brought that property to him at her marriage.
In England the widow had from very early times a right to the income of one- third of the deceased husband's lands, during her life, and this life interest, known as "the widow's dower," was all that she could claim, unless, indeed, she had been so fortunate as to possess a marriage settlement. By a deed to trustees before her mar- riage, her property could be preserved to her and her heirs, free from any claim of her husband. This device of the English equity courts relieved in some degree the hardships of the common law, but obviously could only benefit the wealthy women of the kingdom. The widow under the civil law of Europe had no claim upon her deceased husband's property. It all went to his heirs. Under the feudal system, at least in England, a widow could remain for forty da}'s in the mansion house of her husband without paying rent. At the end of this time her dower was assigned and she was then turned adrift upon the world at the mercy of her family and friends. If she married again, the lord of the manor could exact a fine from her for so doing, and it was no uncommon practice for these feudal masters to compel a widow to re-marry, in order to obtain the fine to replenish their exhausted treasuries.
The single woman under English law possessed all the legal rights of a man. On the Continent, the idea of woman's mental incapacity affected the legal condi- tion of the single woman, as well as that of the wife. She had not the freedom of her English spinster sister. .She had very limited contract powers, and could only make contracts to pay in money or in kind for purchases made by her. On the other hand, she had, by reason of this same conception of mental inferiority, less criminal responsibility, and where the English woman suffered the same penalties for her crimes that a man would do, the European woman had but half the penalty. As an old law quaintly says : " A woman shall suffer but half the punishment, where a man suffers the full penalty. * * * * Thus, a woman should not be put in irons, nor sent to the galleys, nor placed in a prison, which might enfeeble her body or wound her, or cause her to lose her memory, for women are frail by nature."
Offenses against the person of woman were not severely punished. One could scarcely expect that they would be when the social inferiority of woman was so clearly marked. A husband could chastise his wife by right of his position as head of the family. The degradation of marriage under the Roman law left its stain upon later generations. The monastic ideas of the middle ages sympathizing with the Roman theory, incorporated into the canon law the principle of the inferiority and subjection of woman.
At the time that the Renaissance began to elevate woman's social condition, the Reformation began to sweep away the errors that had collected around the original ecclesiastical conception of woman's sphere. The advancement of woman was assured when her intellectual and spiritual equality with man began to be perceived. Her social elevation thus secured, her legal enfranchisement must follow.
Let us pause and think how small a portion of this vast globe of ours shared in this great awakening of the fifteenth century. Not more than half of the European Continent saw this light. In Asia, in Africa, in the New World, lying unknown in an
THE CONGRESS OE WOMEN. 45
unknown ocean, in the undiscovered islands of the sea, what intellectual and moral darkness! Can we bear to think of, much less to relate in detail, the social degrada- tion of woman in these dark places of the earth! Even where the heathen civiliza- tion had reached its highest mark, the condition of woman was scarcely one to be desired in point of personal respect and protection.
In the interval between 1492 and 1892 the social and legal development of woman was slow. The leaven of new ideas was working, but the mass of ignorance and prejudice, the accumulation of centuries, was not easily permeated. In England the condition of the widow was improved by granting to her a fraction of her husband's personal property, in addition to her dower in his real estate. The power of the lord over the widow and children of his vassal disappeared with the complete abolition of the feudal system in the seventeenth century. On the Continent the contract capacity of woman was enlarged, and greater personal protection accorded to her by law. A few persistent women secured for themselves the benefit of a liberal education. Italy continued to honor women as professors in her University of Bologna. Mary Somerville in England won recognition for her attainments, and here and there other women less known to fame gave proof of their ability and skill. But the gains of three hundred and sixty years were little compared with those of the last forty years. The long, slow process of seed sowing, the ages of germination, have been crowned in our time by wonderful fruitage. The inventions of science, which have brought together into closest relationship the nations of the earth, have also opened a high- way for the advancement of women.
In order to get any adequate idea of the legal condition of woman in 1892 we must know of her present and past social condition and trace the history of the an- cient laws affecting her. For these ancient laws, some of which are still in force, are responsible for the present anomalies of woman's legal condition. When enacted, they may have justly reflected woman's social condition, but now they should give place to new laws, framed to meet the existing social environment. To go into minute detail is impossible, and this address would become a mere catalogue were it to be at- tempted. We shall consider first the higher education of woman at the present day; secondly, the professions and occupations open to her; thirdly, her political status; fourthly, her personal rights; fifthly, her property rights, and lastly shall attempt to draw some lessons and conclusions from this historical survey of the legal condi- tion of woman.
I. THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
On the Continent of Europe women are admitted to the universities in Italy, France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Spain, Roumania, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland, and may in some of them receive university degrees.
In Great Britain the following are open both for instruction and degrees: The University of London, the universities of Ireland, and the Scottish universities of Edinburgh and of St. Andrews, the two latter very recently.
Women are excluded from the universities by express prohibition of law in Ger- many, Austria and Russia. In the latter country a medical school for women stu- dents, which was for a time suspended on account of political complications, is about to be re-established through the exertions of the czarina. While the conserv- ative universities of Oxford and Cambridge in England do not admit to their lect- ures or degrees, they do permit women to take the university examinations, and we have not yet forgotten the triumph of Philippa Fawcett, who in 1890 over- topped the senior wrangler in the mathematical examinations at Cambridge. Under the shadow of these venerable universities, the colleges for women, Girton Newham and St. Margaret's are distinguished by the high attainments of their students.
In our own land there are over a hundred first class colleges and universities open to women. Some of these, like Vassar, Wellesley. Smith and Bryn Mawr, are for women exclusively; some like Barnard College of Columbia University and the
46 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
Woman's College of Brown have an organic connection with a university for men; some like Tufts College have after establishment opened their doors to women on the same terms as men, while many others, like Michigan University, Boston Uni- versity, Cornell and nearly all the universities and colleges of the Western States, like the youngest of all, the great Chicago University, have been co-educational from their very foundation. Of our older universities. Brown in 1891, and Yale and the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania in 1892, are the latest to open their post-graduate courses and degrees to women. Harvard, the oldest of all, seems to stand alone in its refusal to recognize officially the eligibility of women for the Harvard Annex, so-called, has no official connection with the university.
Nearly all the universities and colleges of Canada are open to women, and all those of Australia. In India the universities of Calcutta, Madras and Bombay. Opportunities are also increasing in Japan for the higher education of women.
Since Oberlin College in Ohio granted, in 1838, apparently the first collegiate diploma ever given to a woman in this country to this time, when in nearly every civilized country women may obtain degrees on the same terms as men, how great has been the advance! And nearly all this advance has been made within thirty years.
II. PROFESSIONS AND OCCUPATIONS OPEN TO WOMEN.
It naturally follows that the professions should be entered by women. Appar- ently the medical profession was the first sought by her. Sixty years ago the first woman medical student began her course of study, and now countless thousands of women practitioners of the healing art are scattered over the world, pursuing their profession with most signal success. In the East Indian zefianas, the homes of the helpless foot-bound Chinese, as in the homes and hospitals of Europe and America, they are doing a work that no man could possibly accomplish.
The profession of theology has attracted fewer women, and it has been less easy for them to obtain recognition as pastors and preachers, but the theological schools of Switzerland, and some of those in the United States, notably those of the Unitarian and Methodist Episcopal churches, admit women as students. There are ordained women preachers in the Baptist, Congregational, Universalist, Unitarian, " Christian," Prot- estant, Methodist, and Primitive Methodist denominations, and over three hundred and fifty women preachers among the Society of Friends. There are perhaps seven hundred women preachers to-day in the United States.
The legal profession was the last of the three so-called learned professions to be opened to women; not because of reluctance on the part of the courts, but because women did not so early apply for admission. Although isolated instances may be cited from the Roman Calphurnia to our own time of women who have pleaded causes in court, it was not till 1869 that a woman was formally admitted as an attor- ney and counselor at law. To the United States belongs this honor. Mrs. Arabella A. Mansfield was admitted without objection to the bar of the Supreme Court of Iowa in that year (1869). About the same time women students were received into the law schools of Washington University, St. Louis, and the Union College of Law at Chicago. There are now not less than eleven law "schools in the United States open to women. Twenty-five States and Territories admit women to the bar. As to the rest we cannot safely say that they exclude women, for as a mtitter of fact no woman has as yet applied, except in Virginia, which has for three years steadfastly refused to grant admission to a lady lawyer. There are probably over two hundred women lawyers in the United States to-day, nine of whom are admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States.
The universities of Paris, Brussels and Zurich have within five or six years gradu- ated women from their law departments. The three graduates at Paris have not applied for admission to the bar. At Zurich Dr. Emilie Kempin, although denied admission to the bar, is a lecturer upon law in the university. Dr. Marie Popelin, a graduate in law at Brussels, has been formally denied admission to the bar. Italy,
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 47
Russia and Denmark have also refused the petition of women for admission as advo- cates at the bar. India, Japan and the Hawaiian Ishmds recognize the woman lawyer. The Royal University of Ireland has reeently conferred the degree of Doctor of Laws upon a woman; and in Canada, in the Province of Ontario, women have very recently been made eligible to admission to the study of the law. In England, no attempt to gjiin admission to the bar has yet been made. Several ladies, practicing as attor- neys and solicitors, are patiently waiting for a change in public sentiment before asking for admission to plead as barristers.
Every known profession, occupation and trade seems now to be open to woman in some part of the civilized world. She can be a minister, doctor, lawyer, professor, lecturer, journalist, mechanic, architect, sculptor, painter, merchant, day-laborer. In fact, whatever she chooses to undertake she is permitted to do, if not in one country then elsewhere. In view of this entire revolution in her social status, should she not logically possess the same civil and legal rights, and be subject to the same civil and legal liabilities as a man in the same position.
III. POLITICAL STATUS OF WOMEN.
After this preliminary glance at the social condition of women in 1192, let us look at her legal condition, and see whether her legal emancipation has kept pace with her social emancipation. The political status of women will first be considered. Women enjoy a more or less extended right of suffrage in a majority of all the civilized nations of the world. In the United States they have full suffrage in Wyoming and municipal suffrage in Kansas. In Montana, women have school suffrage, and if tax- payers, they can vote upon all questions involving the levy or disbursement of moneys for public purposes. In twenty more states they have a right to vote for school offi- cers or upon school matters, and in at least six more states they may vote by petition upon certain local matters, such as local improvements, or the granting of liquor licenses; so that there are at least twenty-nine out of a total of forty-eight states and territories of our Union where women enjoy some form of suffrage. In Canada women can vote for all municipal officers throughout the length and breadth of the Dominion, although no married woman can vote except in Manitoba and British Columbia. The women of all the colonies of Great Britain, from Australia to Canada and from Cape Colony to New Zealand, enjoy municipal suffrage, including the presidencies of Madras and Bombay in India, if taxpayers, and the same is true of the rural districts of British Burmah. In England, Scotland and Wales single women and widows vote for all officers except members of Parliament. In Ireland they vote for guardians of the poor. In Continental Europe women are also to some degree enfranchised. In France women teachers vote for women members of boards of education. In Italy widows and wives separated from their husbands vote by proxy for members of Parliament (law of 1882). In Austria they vote by proxy at all elections, including elections of members of provincial and imperial parliaments. In Russia, and in all Russian Asia, women who are heads of households vote by proxy at municipal and village elections upon all local questions. (Law of 1870.) In Sweden, for many years, women have voted at local elections, and since 1862 they have had municipal suffrage. In Norway they have merely school suffrage. In Finland, all women, except wives living with their husbands, can vote for all elective officers save one. (Law of 1865.) In Iceland, as in Wyoming, and also on the Isle of Man, women enjoy full and equal suffrage with men. (1882.)
Woman's right to the ballot is recognized even in some very conservative countries, countries so conservative that by the same law which extends the franchise to woman she is herself excluded from occupying the offices voted for. This is the case in Italy, Russia, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Austria, except as to a few petty positions.
The general principle of American law seems to be that where no express excep- tion is made by law, the electors for an office are qualified to fill the office. Thus in Wyoming women are eligible to every public office on the same terms as men; in
48 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
Kansas to municipal ofifices, and in the states where women may vote for school officers they are generally eligible to election to the office. Many of the states of the Union admit women to public office even though they refuse to them the ballot. A few of the strictly public offices now held by women in America are county recorder of deeds, assistant register of deeds, notary public, town clerk (Vermont), county clerk (Missouri), assistant clerk of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island, receiver of public moneys in Mississippi, custodian of the Mississippi state capital, mayor of cities in Kansas, and all kinds of school offices. Many offices connected with the public chari- ties are held by women in this country. Thus they are members of state boards of charities in Massachusetts and Connecticut, visitors, managers and trustees of reformatory and penal institutions, physicians, visitors and trustees of state insane hospitals, overseers of the poor, and police matrons. By act of Congress in 1870 the clerkships of the Executive Department of the United States Government were opened to women, who now make up a large percentage of the total number of government clerks.
In England women serve as poor-law guardians, visitors to and physicians in gov- ernment hospitals and insane asylums, as assistant commissioners of the Labor Com- mission, and the position of meteorologist at the Government Observatory at Hong Kong is now held by a lady. In France women are members of the boards of education. In the Austrian provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina women have recently received appointments as government medical officers.
The political condition of woman to day may be briefly summed up thus: While she is not yet admitted to the full exercise of political rights, except in Wyoming and a few small islands, still she possesses very generally some right to vote upon local matters more or less closely affecting her as a citizen, and to hold many executive offi- ces. Legislative and judicial offices are not as yet granted to women, except in a very few countries and states, and even where granted are not actually occupied by women.
IV. PERSONAL RIGHTS OF WOMEN.
With respect to the personal protection of woman by law, there has been a change for the better, as the dignity and sacredness of her person is more com- pletely recognized. Severe punishments are inflicted for offenses against women, but still in many instances they are altogether too slight for the gravity of the offense. The " age of consent," which in many states was placed at the age of ten years, has been raised by very recent legislation to fourteen, sixteen, and in some states, eighteen years. For the better protection of women under arrest, police matrons have been placed m the station-houses of some of our American cities, to take charge of such women during the time of their deten- tion. In New York and Massachusetts, by state legislation, all cities having a stated population must provide police matrons. Much of the recent labor legislation is in favor of women. The laws forbidding women to be employed about dangerous machinery, those requiring shopkeepers to provide seats for saleswomen, and the statutes requiring the appointment of women factory inspectors may be cited. As to the law in many states prohibiting women from making a contract to work more hours a week than the time fixed by law, while by the same law a man is free to contract for as many hours' labor as he chooses, one may question whether it does not really work an injustice, since, by interfering with her individual freedom to contract it places her at a disadvantage. An employer prefers to take an employe who is legally free to make agreements for extra work. Therefore, the woman's wages are likely to be decreased and her opportunities for employment lesseneo by this restriction. A married woman is now protected from the violence of her husband by the legal right given her to prosecute him for assaults upon her. The old theory of the hus- band's right to chastise his wife has disappeared from English and American law.
In the famous Jackson case in England the Lord Chief Justice, in setting free a
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 49
woman whose husband had deprived her of her liberty, said, that he did not believe that it ever was the law of England that a husband could restrain his wife of her liberty, and that it certainly '3 not English law today. In India, under the power of a Christian government, the burning of a widow upon her husband's funeral pyre is forbidden by law, and the day seems not far distant when the seclusion of the zctiana and the prac- tice of child-marriages will also disappear. In Japan, where women are more respected than among many Eastern nations, a wife may still be divorced upon the very slightest grounds, even if she talks too much to suit her lord and master. The codes of Con- tinental Europe fail to do justice to woman in respect to her personal protection in the matter of divorce for certain criminal offenses, where the privileges of the man are greater than those of the woman, making it less easy for her than for him to obtain a divorce. This seems to be a vestige of the ancient conception of woman's inferiority.
V. PROPERTY RIGHTS OF WOMEN.
The subject of the present property rights of women is lastly to be considered.
In England and America the unmarried woman is now, as she was four hundred years ago, possessed of all the property rights of a man. She can buy and sell her property, carry on business, bind herself by her contracts of every kind, make a will, and adopt a child if she chooses, just as her brother may do. She can sue and be sued in court, is a competent witness in all cases, and can be executrix of a will, administra- trix of an estate, and guardian of children. On the Continent of Europe the unmar- ried woman is still hampered in some degree by the former legal conception of the essential frailty and incapacity of woman. She is bound by her contracts and may do business as a public merchant. She can make a will and adopt a child. But she cannot, except in Italy and Russia, sign her name as a witness to any legal document; neither can she, with a few exceptions, be a guardian of children, or act as a legal member of family councils. As to the property rights of the married woman, a most radical change has taken place within the last fifty years. Every state in the Union has passed statutes widening to some extent the legal powers of the married woman; and in England, by the Married Woman's Property Act of 1882, all legal restrictions are removed from the wife, who is capable of holding and transferring property, and can sue and be sued as if unmarried.
Rhode Island appears to have led in this reform in 1841, which gave to a wife coming into the state as a resident, being already separated from her husband, the sole ownership and control of her property. This was followed, in 1844, by an act securing to the wife her own property, including her earnings, so that it could not be taken for the husband's debts, and providing that in case she survived him it was to be her sole and separate property. Massachusetts followed, in 1845, with a similar statute, and New York, in 1848, passed a much more liberal one.
It is impossible to trace the history of or give in detail the law of each state. Only the general features can be presented. In every state of the Union, except Ten- nessee, the wife's property is so far secured to her that it cannot be taken for her hus- band's debts, and if she survives him it becomes her sole and separate property. But many, indeed a majority, of the states go much further than this, and give to the wife the sole ownership and control of her property as if she were unmarried. In nearly all the states, however, the real estate of the wife cannot be sold 'without the joinder of her husband in the deed, both signing it. In California, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, New York and Wisconsin the wife's deed is- good without the husband's signature. All the rest of her property she is free to dispose of as if she were single. In all the states a wife may make a will. In some of these she cannot by any means by her will deprive her husband of the legal share in her property which he would take if she made no will; but in a few, as in Massachusetts, she may cut off her husband's legal claim by securing his written consent thereto. The earnings of the wife belong to her in all but nine states and territories. In
(4)
50 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
these the wife's earnings are either absolutely the husband's, or "subject to his con- trol." The wife's power to do business and make contracts varies greatly in the different states. In most of the states she may be a trader and bind herself by any contract made in her business. In fact, there seems to be but four states which abso- lutely prohibit the married woman from doing business on her own account. These are Wisconsin, Vermont, Rhode Island and Texas, and in the two last named the wife has scarcely any more power to make any kind of a binding contract than she had at common law. The power to sue and be sued in court is a necessary consequence of legal permission to make a contract; so in every state where a wife can independ- ently of her husband make a valid contract, the law furnishes a remedy upon such con- tracts by a right of suit by or against the wife for a breach thereof. An interesting question is. How far can husbands and wives have direct business dealings with each other, so that they may sue each other for breach of an ordinary business contract?
Under the old English equity system, still in force in our country, also, if a wife loaned money to her husband upon his promise to repay, a court of equity would upon her petition compel him to refund the money. This was the only instance where a wife could sue her husband. A court of law would never allow husbands and wives to sue each other, or even to testify for or against each other. But our modern stat- utes are in many states sufficiently broad to allow husbands and wives to contract as freely with each other, and to sue and be sued, as if they were not married. This is especially true of the states west of the Mississippi, but a number of the older states, as New York, Pennsylvania, Mississippi and South Carolina, grant a like freedom.
Although the legal separate existence of the wife is now a fact in our country, the husband is still viewed as the head of the family, the natural guardian of the children, and he alone is liable for the support of the family. In some of our newer western states, all property acquired by either husband or wife during the marriage is the joint property of both, and in such a case the parents are jointly liable for the support of the family. The same is true in a few other states, which hold the parents jointly liable (while not recognizing any joint ownership of property) out of their own separate estates. In but six states of the Union is the mother's right to the guardi- anship of her children recognized by statute as equal to that of the father. These states are Oregon, Washington, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa and New York.
In England the wife has full property rights and contract powers. Turning to the condition of the married woman under the codes of Continental Europe, we see that very much progress has been made. The doctrine of all those countries which have for a fundamental law the code Napoleon, is that of the marital supremacy of the husband and the complete subjection of the wife. It is the old idea of the frailty of the sex. It is true that the code recognizes a common ownership of property, but the complete management and control of the same is in the husband. If the dowry of the wife is imperiled, or the husband's affairs are in a serious condition, the wife may have her property set apart for her out of the common purse. The earnings of the wife belong to the husband, and he can pledge her personal effects for his debts. She may be a merchant, but she must first be authorized by her husband to do so, and even then her contracts are not as absolutely binding upon her as upon a man. She cannot be the guardian of her children. In Italy and Russia these features are somewhat modi- fied, and the wife's property is, as with us, her sole and separate property. In Russia she maintains a completely separate legal existence, and can do business, sue and be sued, independently of her husband. The husband is obliged to support the family, however, and the wife is not bound to do so. In Italy she needs merely a general power of attorney from her husband to enable her to act as a single woman in respect to her property, and not even this is necessary for her to be a merchant, nor in case of the minority, imprisonment or absence of the husband.
The condition of the widow is much changed in England and America. The ancient law of dower, that is, the life interest in one-third the husband's real estate, has been very generally abolished, and instead thereof the widow or the widower is entitled
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 51
to an equal share in the estate of the deceased spouse, with full power to alter the same by will. This is the case in many American states, but still in many others the old common law estates of the widow's dower and the widower's courtesy are even now recognized and cannot be cut off by will. In a few states, too, the old rule of law survives which gives to the widower all his deceased wife's personal property, unless she has otherwise disposed of it by will. In every state the widow and children are entitled to support out of the husband's estate for a length of time varying from forty days in Massachusetts to a year in many western states, and during this time of support the widow may remain in the mansion house without paying rent, and even longer than this in some states. If the laws of the state recognize a homestead estate in the dwelling house of the family, this secures a home to the widow until she marries again, and to the family until the youngest child is twenty-one.
In Europe, exclusive of England and Italy, the widow has a very limited interest in the property of the husband. Under the French and Belgian codes she only receives the husband's property when all heirs to the twelfth degree have failed. In Germany she has a certain portion of his property set apart for her. In Italy the laws resemble those of the most advanced of our United States in giving to either spouse a child's share in the property of the other, and if no children or heirs sur- vive the widow or widower has the whole estate. In England and America a widow, like a single woman, has the legal freedom of a man, and can be executrix of his will, administratrix of his estate, and guardian of her children. In Europe the widow has not full power to be guardian of her children; she must act under the advice of a special council appointed by the father in his will, if he has seen fit to do so, and the widow cannot discipline the children without the concurrence of the two nearest rela- tives on the father's side.
In most of our states a father may appoint, by will, a guardian for his minor chil- dren, but this guardian cannot act as such if considered by the probate court to be an unfit person.
In England a father may appoint by his will a guardian to act conjointly with the mother. The Asiatic and African colonies of European and English nations are slowly receiving the benefit of their laws, as civilization and Christianity advance.
There are still dark spots upon the earth's surface where the condition of woman is no better than it was four hundred years ago; where she is the slave, machine and plaything of the tyrant man, with no hope for the future, either in this life or a life to come, unless she holds the Mohammedan faith of future salvation by a union with man.
In summing up the results of our survey of woman's present legal condition, let us first observe that while theoretically the legal condition of woman is determined by her social condition, yet now, in fact, because of the survival of ancient laws, which are out of joint with woman's present social and intellectual emancipation, the reverse seems to be the case, and woman's social development is hampered by useless legal restrictions. Take for example the law, still existing in some places, that a mar- ried woman shall not do business as a trader. This law is powerless to prevent a married woman from going into any kind of business if she chooses. Its only effect is to encourage her in dishonesty, by absolving her from any legal obligation to pay her just debts incurred in the business. Her employes and creditors are absolutely dependent upon her sense of honor, and cannot compel her in any way to pay them, if she refuses to do so.
This law may have been well enough in the days when no woman could attempt with social propriety to carry on business. It is now demoralizing to the woman it protects, and unjust to those who deal with her. The same is true of the laws exclud- ing woman from public ofifice, those rendering her incompetent to be a witness, to make a valid promissory note, and those denying to her the guardianship of her chil- dren. Women are nearly, if not quite, upon a recognized social equality with men in respect to freedom to labor and earn money, and in justice to men and women alike
52 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
they should be made equally responsible before the law. It is as true as it was four hundred years ago that the condition of the women of a nation is the measure of its culture and civilization. Whether we look at our own land where women may vote, hold office, do business, enter upon any profession as the social equal of man, enjoy- ing respectful consideration and chivalrous treatment; or whether we turn our eyes to our sisters in Eastern lands, shut up in the harems and zenanas of the rich, or toiling like slaves in the hovels of the poor, where woman's social condition is so low that to mention a man's wife in his presence is an insult to him, we shall still find it true that the condition of woman is a true gauge of a people's advancement in civilization. And, lastly, another great truth comes before us, that while intellectual culture and other systems of religion have tended to elevate the women of the higher classes, it is Christianity alone that elevates the women of the lower classes.
Investigate as you will the legal freedom of woman under the civilization of ancient Egypt, her intellectual culture in the palmiest days of Hinduism in India, the courtesy and respect shown to her in Japan, and whatever privileges are accorded to her in China; or turn to the honor paid her in the days of chivalry, and the half heathen civilization of the middle ages — you will find that the light shines only upon the woman of higher birth and gentle breeding, and that a heavy, dark cloud of ignorance, superstition, helplessness and hopelessness weighs down the women of the lower classes. But under our modern Christian civilization the working-woman is recognized as the peer before the law of her wealthier sister, with a legal right to equal advantages of education, to equal protection of person and property, and equal freedom to use her powers for the good of herself and mankind. And where, in fact, woman's equality with man is not yet fully recognized, it is because of the sur- vival of ancient ideas, which are to disappear very speedily. Thus we are more and more closely approaching the time when woman shall be recognized as the full legal and social equal of man, and the ideal of human as of Divine law shall be attained when " there can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, there can be no male or female — for ye are all one man in Christ Jesus."
ETHICS OF SOCIAL LIFE.
By MRS. JNO. R. HANNA.
However we have come by it, we have a code of morals which forms a standard, to which we bring all our fellows for trial, and pronounce them innocent or guilty, as
the case may be. We make due allowance for ignor- ance, in the long run, although in individual cases some personal pique may give us such a bias that we cannot be just. That standard or code has varied in the past, and there seems to be no doubt that it '■ ^ • will continue to change in all future ages. The pivot
on which hangs this code cojisciencc does not change. It is an invariable quantity. It simply declares, "Do the Right;" "Do not the wrong." But what the right or the wrong may be in any given case, it does not pretend to decide.
That is the result of the evolution of the cen- turies, and is only absolutely fixed at any given moment. MatM^K/KKKKK^'^^^ > -^^^ Ethics is social in its nature. Were we
j^^^^l^^T^r^^l^^, isolated beings, there would be no one to injure, no W ' ' one to benefit. The beauty and the heroism of self-
sacrifice could never be seen. Mental qualities now developed by the stimulating contact of mind with mind, and the aspirations of purpose that come from the observation of good deeds, and the spiritual eleva- tion resulting from ennobling association — all would be wanting. The most beautiful thing in the world, real goodness, could never have been born. As all Ethics is social, by its nature, it follows that all acts are to be tried by one standard. The question with regard to each act should be : " Will this act contemplated by me do good or ill to any member of the human race, myself included?"
In that wonderful compendium of the resulting wisdom of human experience, the Bible, we find this saying of St. Paul, which has been true in the past, and will remain true forever. Likening society to the human body, he says: "If one member suffers all members suffer with it."
There is one underlying constructive principle in character, and only one, and all superstructure must be built upon it. It is the constant purpose to do the right, the good, the true, and whatever contravenes or supplants this purpose, destroys rather than constructs.
Man, however, is a swaying creature. At one moment he is actuated by the highest motive; at another he yields to what he knows to be ignoble and unworthy.
Mrs. lone Theresa Hanna is a native of New York, and was born in 1837. Her parents are Lyman Mnuger and Martha S. Whitney Monger, of New England origin. She graduated from the Literary Course at Oberlin College in 1859, after which she taught in Grand River Institute, Austinburg, Ohio, and in the Pennsylvania Female Academy. She married Mr. JohnR. Hanna, of Pennsylvania, in 1851. They removed to Denver, Colo., in 1871. She is one of the original members of the Den- ver Fortnightly Club, and is a director for Colorado of the Association for the Advancement of Women. She traveled abroad in the summer of 1891. On May 1, 1893, she was elected a member of the School Board of East Denver. She is an advocate of Woman Suffrage, and was much interested in the campaigns in Colorado, which terminated successfully, giving women the ballot Nov. 7, 1893. Mrs. Hanna is a member of the Congregational Church. Her postoffice address is 500 Fourteenth St., Denver, Colo.
63
MRS. JNO. R. HANNA.
U THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
So the whole experience of life seems to be for the purpose of unifying him, making him at one with himself and the universe.
Then all our acts are religious acts; all have a moral quality. It then follows that what others have proved to be wise courses of conduct, or what we have discovered ourselves in the experience of life to be acts of wisdom, these are as obligatory upon us as are the commandments of the Mosaic code: " Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother," 'Thou Shalt Not Steal," "Thou Shalt Not Kill," etc.
Now, in the evolution of social life, what wisdom has come to us from the imme- diate past that is yet partially or wholly unheeded?
First, in the matter of dress: How notorious a fact it is that Hygeia and Fashion are goddesses who reign over separate and warring kingdoms! One declares that the feminine form should be given perfect and entire freedom; the other, that every physi- ological law may be set at naught so that the prevailing mode be accepted.
There is another form of servitude that enslaves well-to-do women. It wastes their energies, belittles their lives, and prevents that expansion of mind and thought that is necessary, if they would appropriate and fill the places now so widely opened to them. It is what is termed the " Customs and Usages of Good Society," and includes the matter of dress above referred to. It also imposes upon women the most constant and unremitting attention to the toilet. Ladies must have —
All manner of things that a women can put
On the crown of her head or the sole of her foot;
Or wrap round her shoulders, or fit round her waist,
Or that can be sewed on, or pinned on, or laced;
Or tied on with a string, or stitched on with a bow,
In front, or behind, above, or below;
Bonnets, mantillas, capes, collars or shawls.
Dresses for breakfast, and dinners, and balls;
Dresses to set in, and stand in, and walk in,
Dresses to dance in, and flirt in, and talk in;
Dresses in which to do nothing at all.
Dresses for winter, spring, summer and fall;
All of them different in color and pattern- Silk, muslin and lace, crape, velvet and satin;
Brocade and broadcloth, and other material
Quite as expensive, and much more ethereal;
In short, all things that could ever be thought of,
Or milliner, modiste, or tradesman be bought of;
From ten-thousand-franc robes to twenty-sous frills. This seems like a caricature on the modern fashionable woman; but it can hardly be called so, and remarkable is the memory of the man who from observation, and not from experience, compiled this list with a poetic jingle that is found in most " choice selections of poetry."
If this interminable list of articles of the toilet were left for the possession of the exclusively fashionable woman it would not so much matter; but sensible women, actually busy in the necessary work of the world, are more or less affected by these mandates of fashion. Add to this the series of expensive entertainments, with their wearisome me/ius, and the visits of ceremony which must be received and returned, and life is made so burdensome and artificial that spontaneity and joy is well-nigh dried up. Most women of intelligence deprecate this condition of things, but do not quite see the way of escape from it.
A friend of mine who does not mingle in what is termed general society, and escapes many of its restrictions and limitations, yet feels this bond, and says: "My life is spent in busy idleness;" by which she means that the unreal and unimportant demand the most of her time.
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 55
/Another respect in which modern society is seen to be defective is in the main- tenance of a double standard of morals, one for men and one for women. It is demanded of women that they be absolutely pure and true; but men may be eligible to the best and most intelligent circles of society and yet not be held to the same high standard. It works evil, and only evil, continually to universal society; but its most painful and blighting effects are visited upon women.
There is another double standard in the upper stratum of society, one for men and one for women, which works evil, viz., that of occupation or employment.
A young man may start out boldly into the competitions of business life whether he be rich or poor. He may adopt the calling for which he is fitted, employ his faculties as he shall choose, receive pecuniary compensation therefor, and be confident that he is but fulfilling what a wise public opinion demands of him.
But let a young woman of wealth, who is surrounded by sheltering friends, attempt the same career, and she quickly discovers that the gates are closed. The capital that would be generously bestowed upon her brother is withheld from her through mistaken kindness. Those nearest and dearest to her will prove so many obstacles in her way rather than helps. Even if a father intend to leave his daughter a handsome fortune, he will in the majority of cases educate her to be so helpless as to be absolutely dependent upon her brothers or male relatives for business guidance and control, which is only a shade less bitter than to be dependent for one's daily neces- sities, rather than teach her intelligently to take care of money herself.
On the other hand, she hears the cry from another quarter: "Oh! she is taking away the opportunities of the poor. She is receiving the money that should be given to the less favored."
So it results that custom, the most arbitrary of lawgivers, forbids the daughters of the well-to-do to pursue a calling that will reward them pecuniarily. They may do benevolent or charitable work; they may be domestic and interested in the adorn- ment of the home; they may study provided they do it with no practical end in view; and they may become wives and mothers, which latter position is likely to require all their energies. All these things, the charitable work, the little home services, the study and the marriage, are worthy of one's best effort, but they do not begin to afford a wide enough range of choice. No two human beings are alike, and consequently the field of choice should possess an infinite variety.
I have seen young women not sufificiently developed in character and power of thought and imagination to be interested in philanthropic work, and who were too wide-awake to be quietly centered at home, who perhaps did not care to study without a definite purpose in view, and for whom marriage was an undetermined factor in life. As the customs of society now are, there is nothing for these young women but impatient waiting for somebody or something to turn up, Micawber-like. They become weary, and are perhaps induced to accept a marriage that under more favorable circumstances they would not make, or else they form one of the army of discontented women suffering for an inspiriting occupation, for whom the chances of marriage are daily lessening.
Can it be possible that parents who yield to this tyranny of custom never think what it is to be absolutely without a chosen end and aim in life?
Suppose your daughter is just out of school, where she has been busily occupied preparing for life. She comes home. She tries to adapt herself to her surroundings. She has lofty ideas and needs the healthy struggles involved in carrying out a chosen line of work to perfect her character and to establish her personality. Instead of this she has nothing to induce her to a suf^cient employment of her time and her capabilities. She reads a little. She studies the fashions. She plans her wardrobe. She goes to balls and receptions. She takes a journey, and then she returns to go through the same round again. She gets restless; the monotony is unendurable. She • keeps wishing for something new. You think her ungrateful. You feel she has a great deal to make her happy and to be thankful for, and yet she is miserable and makes
56 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
everybody miserable about her. She constantly seeks change. She is going some- where all the time. Her frame of mind, with the late hours and excitement of society life, rob her of her youthful charms, and her spirit loses its sweetness and fastens unerringly the lines of pain and suffering upon her "face. It is so strange that parents do not see that their daughters, as well as their sons, are really human beings. You wish your son to make a choice of profession or calling. You strive to assist him in every possible way to do so, and feel dissatisfied with him if he continually puts off this choice and seems to center upon nothing. But it is far otherwise with your daughter. The kind of limitation spoken of is what is most often imposed upon her, and a great part of the viciousness of this whole order of things consists in the absolute dependence in which she is placed. These girls are made to feel that their own judgment is not final in any respect; that they are pensioners on the bounty of their father or male relatives; that the services they render have no money value; and it is the surest of methods to produce weakness of judgment, irresponsibility in expenditure, and incapacity for any useful service. What all about us expect from us that is what we are most likely to give; and we either sink or rise to the level of the opinions of our friends concerning us. We are in a world of material things. Our feet are on the solid earth. It seems to be a law of nature that we desire to acquire something that we can call our own.
A young man never makes a success in life until he has some capital of money, profession, or business training. He must be a center, and be capable of gathering and holding something. He does not get a foothold in a community until he accom- plishes this. He does not become conscious of his own possibilities or capabilities until he does it. Neither does the community about him.
Now is it so easy a matter to train the young for life that we can afford to throw away the strength and dignity that come from the acquisition of property, simply because the young man chances to be a young woman. Now I hear some one say, "You are leaving marriage out of the question." No, I am but speaking for those for whom a desirable marriage does not yet appear. I would not ignore marriage, but I would have a young girl so trained and prepared for life that she should enter into it only because of the compelling persuasiveness of a genuine love.
And I think most women would bear me out in the opinion, that the power to acquire and to properly care for money would rather sweeten the path of matri- mony than lessen its advantages.
Anything that is so powerful in the human make-up as the love of possession, the desire to feel "This is mine," and is so inherent in our very nature, we do wrong to cast aside and give no legitimate field of action. Oiir daughters are crippled and dwarfed, and are not the grand and well-rounded women they might become.
Then this extreme dependence we impose upon them causes them to look upon marriage as the only loop-hole of escape from an irksome bondage, and they come to seek marriage as a means to this end. There is something terribly degrading in this attitude in which many of our well-to-do young women of today are placed. In a sneering way it is said, "They are in the market."
How much nobler and finer is the attitude of a woman who prepares herself for some useful profession or calling, and finds enough of interest in the busy activities of life to engross her best energies, to expand her powers, and to make her what God intended her to be — a ministering, self-helpful woman. Then when love speaks, and the love of her own heart answers, is she the less prepared for a happy marriage? I think not.
Many of us have known the genteel lady of poverty and have seen her willing to beg or borrow without the slightest idea of return, rather than do the useful things of life.
A bright friend has suggested that when the stress of need and trouble has come the battle of life is half won; when one's own opinions, which act as suckers upon the roots of strength and energy, are cut down, an open field is left free and clear.
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 57
But can you not see, my friends, that when you allow in yourself, or cultivate in your daughter, the idea that useful labor is degrading, you are preparing for a moral descent in the day of adversity that may include a darker region than the one of unpaid debts.
In this brief essay the effects upon the women themselves who cherish these opinions, and are bound by these customs, have been treated. But they have a wider bearing. They reach out into all grades of life and touch every social center in the land. The discredit that is fastened upon labor for remuneration, if performed by the well-to-do women of our land, extends to the classes of people engaged in such labor, and distinctly builds rather than pulls down the barrier which exists between labor and capital, the rich and the poor. And I believe the difficulties of the labor question can never be soh^ed until this barrier has been melted away by acquaintance, knowl- edge and sympathy. Anything that builds this barrier, that fortifies these walls of separation, is injurious and hurtful. But those philanthropies founded upon the principle that he is my neighbor who most needs me, and which ignore the prevailing artificial conditions and distinctioi>s, are bringing forward the day of "the Parliament of Man, the Federation of the World."
Personal contact, and the love and influence that flows from one to another in the social body, is the only agency that really wins, the only key that opens hearts.
Of late philanthropic institutions have sprung up, founded on this principle, viz., that of constant and free intercourse of the favored and cultured with the more humble and less fortunate.
Hull House, in this city, is a notable and successful example. It is a house planted by two women in the midst of a foreign population, mostly self-supporting, but comparatively destitute of a social life that brings joy and hope. These women in wise and winning ways have reached out socially, and have won their way into the hearts and confidence of the people by proving themselves real friends. No supe- riority has been assumed, but a footing of social equality has been their aim to estab- lish. From the needs of these people, which were many, there has sprung a system of most diverse educational facilities too numerous to mention.
Now if it is good for '' hojnes" to be founded in less favored neighborhoods to carry social life into them, how much more may be accomplished when the natural homes that cover our land extend a helping hand to the needy and less favored?
Now it is quite common for our social life to rest on a commercial basis, receiving so much for so much, and using it as a means for selfish promotion; and interminable calling lists and crowded reception halls are some of the consequences. Wearisome these self-imposed burdens are, and often we feel that we cannot bear them any longer. How much better it would be to bestow ourselves and our hospi- tality on those who need us and whom we can really benefit, and not look for a material reward, but take it in the inward satisfaction such a life would bring. As Browning says: " Give earth yourself, go up for gain above."
THE PROGRESS OF FIFTY YEARS.
/
By MRS. LUCY STONE.
The commencement of the last fifty years is about the beginning of that great change and improvement in the condition of women which exceeds all the gains
of hundreds of years before.
Four years in advance of the last fifty, in 1833, Oberlin College, in Ohio, was founded. Its charter declared its grand object, " To give the most useful education at the least expense of health, time, and money, and to extend the benefits of such education to both sexes and to all classes; and the elevation of the female character by bringing within the reach of the misjudged and neglected sex all the instruct- ive privileges which have hitherto unreasonably dis- tinguished the leading sex from theirs." These were the words of Father Shippen, which, if not heard in form, were heard in fact as widely as the world. The opening of Oberlin to women marked an epoch. In all outward circumstances this beginning was like the coming of the Babe of Bethlehem — in utter poverty. Its first hall was of rough slabs with the bark on still. Other departments corresponded. But a new Messiah had come.
Get but a truth once uttered, and 'tis like A star new born that drops into its place; And which, once circling in its placid round, Not all the tumult of the earth can shake. Henceforth the leaves of the tree of knowledge were for women, and for the heal- ing of the nations. About this time Mary Lyon began a movement to establish Mt. Holyoke Seminary. Amherst College was near by. Its students were educated to be missionaries. They must have educated wives. It was tacitly understood and openly asserted that Mt. Holyoke Seminary was to meet this demand. But, whatever the reason, the idea was born that women could and should be educated. It lifted a mountain load from woman. It shattered the idea, everywhere pervasive as the atmosphere, that women were incapable of education, and would be less womanly, less desirable in every way, if they had it. However much it may have been resented, women accepted the idea of their intellectual inequality. I asked my brother: "Can girls learn Greek?"
The anti-slavery cause had come to break stronger fetters than those that held the slave. The idea of equal rights was in the air. The wail of the slave, his clanking
Mrs. Lucy Stone was a native of Massachusetts. She was born August 13, 1818. Her parents were Francis Stone and Hannah Matthews Stone. She was educated ih the public schools at Monson and Wilbraham Academies, and Mt. Holyoke Seminary and Oberlin College, and has traveled over most of the United States and Canada. She married Henry B. Blackwell in 1855, but she did not change her name, finding that no law required her to do so. Mrs. Stone was a well- known Woman Suffragist. Her principal literary works are editorials in the "Woman's Journal," extending over twenty-two years. In religious faith she was a Hicksit« Quaker or liberal Unitarian. She died October 18, 1893. Her life was a busy and useful one. She lived to see the Columbian Exposition with all its glorious opportunities, and to use them for the good of the cause most dear to her. Mrs. Stone's closing days and hours were blessed and crowned with comfort and tran- quillity, that always rewards a self-sacrificing, noble, Christian life. Almost her last articulate words were : "Make the world better."
58
MRS. LUCY STONE.
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 59
fetters, his utter need, appealed to everybody. Women heard. Angelina and Sarah Grimki and Abby Kelly went out to speak for the slaves. Such a thing had never been heard of. An earthquake shock could hardly have startled the community more. Some of the abolitionists forgot the slave in their efforts to silence the women. The Anti- Slavery Society rent itself in twain over the subject. The Church was moved to its very foundation in opposition. The Association of Congregational Churches issued a "Pastoral Letter" against the public speaking of women. The press, many-tongued, surpassed itself in reproaches upon these women who had so far departed from their sphere as to speak in public. But, with anointed lips and a consecration which put even life itself at stake, these peerless women pursued the even tenor of their way, saying to their opponents only: "Woe is me if I preach not this gospel of freedom for the slave." Over all came the melody of Whittier's:
"When woman's heart is breaking Shall woman's voice be hushed?"
I think, with never-ending gratitude, that the young women of today do not and can never know at what price their right to free speech and to speak at all in public has been earned. Abby Kelly once entered a church only to find herself the subject of the sermon, which was preached from the text: " This Jezebel is come among us also." They jeered at her as she went along the street. They threw stones at her. They pelted her with bad eggs as she stood on the platform. Some of the advocates of the very cause for which she endured all this were ready to drive her from the field, Mr. Gar- rison and Wendell Phillips stood by her. But so great was the opposition that one faction of the abolitionists left and formed a new organization, after a vain effort to put Abby Kelly off from the committee to which she had been nominated.
The right to education and to free speech having been gained for woman, in the long run every other good thing was sure to be obtained.
Half a century ago women were at an infinite disadvantage in regard to their occupations. The idea that their sphere was at home, and only at home, was like a band of steel on society. But the spinning-wheel and the loom, which had given employment to women, had been superseded by machinery, and something else had to take their places. The taking care of the house and children, and the family sewing, and teaching the little summer school at a dollar per week, could not supply the needs nor fill the aspirations of women. But every departure from these conceded things was met with the cry, "You want to get out of your sphere," or, "To take women out of their sphere;" and that was to fly in the face of Providence, to unsex yourself — in short, to be monstrous women, women who, while they orated in public, wanted men to rock the cradle and wash the dishes. We pleaded that whatever was fit to be done at all might with propriety be done by anybody who did it well; that the tools belonged to those who could use them; that the possession of a power presup- posed a right to its use. This was urged from city to city, from state to state. Women were encouraged to try new occupations. We endeavored to create that wholesome discontent in women that would compel them to reach out after far better things. But every new step was a trial and a conflict. Men printers left when women took the type. They formed unions and pledged themselves not to work for men who employed women. But these tools belonged to women, and today a great army of women are printers unquestioned.
When Harriet Hosmer found within herself the artist soul, and sought by the study of anatomy to prepare herself for her work, she was repelled as out of her sphere, and indelicate, and not a medical college in all New England or in the Middle States would admit her. She persevered, aided by her father's wealth and influence. Dr. McDowell, the dean of the medical college in St. Louis, admitted her. The field of art is now open to women, but as late as the time when models for the statue of Charles Sumner were made, although that of Annie Whitney, in the judgment of the committee, took precedence of all the rest, they refused to award her the contract
60 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
for the statue when they knew that the model was the work of a woman. But her beautiful Samuel Adams and Lief Ericsson, and the fine handiwork of other artists, are argument and proof that the field of art belongs to women.
When Mrs. Tyndall, of Philadelphia, assumed her husband's business after his death, importing chinaware, sending her ships to China, enlarging her warehouses and increasing her business, the fact was quoted as a wonder. When Mrs. Young, of Lowell, Mass., opened a shoe-store in Lowell, though she sold only shoes for women and children, people peered curiously in to see how she looked. Today the whole field of trade is open to woman.
When Elizabeth Blackwell studied medicine and put up her sign in New York, she was regarded as fair game, and was called a "she doctor." The college that had admitted her closed its doors afterward against other women, and supposed they were shut out forever. But Dr. Blackwell was a woman of fine intellect, of great personal worth and a level head. How good it was that such a woman was the first doctor! She was well equipped by study at home and abroad, and prepared to con- tend with prejudice and every opposing thing. Dr. Zakrzewska was with her, and Dr. Emily Blackwell soon joined them. At a price the younger women doctors do not know, the way was opened for women physicians.
The first woman minister, Antoinette Brown, had to meet ridicule and oppo- sition that can hardly be conceived to-day. Now there are women ministers, east and west, all over the country.
In Massachusetts, where properly qualified " persons " were allowed to practice law, the Supreme Court decided that a woman was not a " person," and a special act of the legislature had to be passed before Miss Lelia Robinson could be admitted to the bar. But today women are lawyers.
Fifty years ago the legal injustice imposed upon women was appalling. Wives, widows and mothers seemed to have been hunted out by the law on purpose to see in how many ways they could be wronged and made helpless. A wife by her marriage lost all right to any personal property she might have. The income of her land went to her husband, so that she was made absolutely penniless. If a woman earned a dol- lar by scrubbing, her husband had a right to take the dollar and go and get drunk with it and beat her afterwards. It was his dollar. If a woman wrote a book the coj;^'- right of the same belonged to her husband and not to her. The law counted out in many states how many cups and saucers, spoons and knives and chairs a widow might have when her husband died. I have seen many a widow who took the cups she had bought before she was married and bought them again after her husband died, so as to have them legally. The law gave no right to a married woman to any legal exist- ence at all. Her legal existence was suspended during marriage. She could neither sue nor be sued. If she had a child born alive the law gave her husband the use of all her real estate as long as he should live, and called it by the pleasant name of " the estate by courtesy." When the husband died the law gave the widow the use of one- third of the real estate belonging to him, and it was called the "widow's encumbrance." While the law dealt thus with her in regard to her property, it dealt still more hardly with her in regard to her children. No married mother could have any right to her child, and in most of the states of the Union that is the law to-day. But the laws in regard to the personal and property rights of women have been greatly changed and improved, and we are very grateful to the men who have done it.
We have not only gained in the fact that the laws are modified. Women have acquired a certain amount of political power. We have now in twenty states school suffrage for women. Forty years ago there was but one. Kentucky allowed widows with children of school age to vote on school questions. We have also municipal suffrage for women in Kansas, and full suffrage in Wyoming, a state larger than all New England.
The last half century has gained for women the right to the highest education and entrance to all professions and occupations, or nearly all. As a result we have
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 61
women's clubs, the Woman's Congress, women's educational and industrial unions, the moral education societies, the Woman's Relief Corps, police matrons, the Wom- an's Christian Temperance Union, colleges for women, and co-educational colleges and the Harvard Annex, medical schools and medical societies open to women, women's hospitals, women in the pulpit, women as a power in the press, authors, women artists, women's beneficent societies and Helping Hand societies, women school supervisors, and factory inspectors and prison inspectors, women on state boards of charity, the International Council of Women, the Woman's National Council, and last, but not least, the Board of Lady Managers. And not one of these things was allowed women fifty years ag'o, except the opening at Oberlin. By what toil and fatigue and patience and strife and the beautiful law of growth has all this been wrought? These things have not come of themselves. They could not have occurred except as the great movement for women has brought them out and about. They are part of the eternal order, and they have come to stay. Now all we need is to continue to speak the truth fearlessly, and we shall add to our number those who will turn the scale to the side of equal and full justice in all things.
WOMAN AS AN INVESTOR.
By MRS. LOUISE A. STARKWEATHER.
I would hesitate to come before you with a paper upon the unsentimental, and to many, the uninteresting topic of finance, but for the fact that woman is such an import- ant factor in the financial world. Coming as I do from a field of strife, where ambition to attain sudden wealth often wrecks the present and embitters the future lives of men and women whose investments of money are at best attended with a certain degree of hazard, I feel a certain sense of duty to woman in calling her attention to three important branches of investments, which, as far as she is concerned, come in the following order: Insurance, banking and loan associations. There is not an incident in the history of war of cruelty or justice meted out in obedience of some law, as cruel, as cold-blooded, or as heartless as is shown in the history of finance of today. True, hundreds have been swept out of existence in a single hour on fields of battle; but the suffering was soon past, the life gone out was cheerfully given for a cause sacred to the giver and revered by those who mourned their dead. Death is far preferable, as there can be no anguish nor suffering as great as that en- dured by the happy, successful man who suddenly finds himself a beggar; a lifetime of work and savings swept before his helpless eyes and hands, leaving him to witness and share the hardships of those dependent upon him, and perchance his failure may not excite the sincere sympathy of those in whose behalf he risked his all. Censure is too often the rule. The world of finance knows no pity for the man who fails; it has smiles only for the successful man without much inquiry as to the rnodus operandi of his success. Now in this whirlpool of money getting, money losing and money keeping, what of woman?
Read the list of the millionaires of the world and do you not find women as well represented as men? Read the records of any banking institution and who do you find as the principal stock owners? Women! Look over thebooks of any and every suc- cessful Loan and Building Association and who has been the purchasers of stock and builders of homes by this method of Loan? Women! But she is there in name only, as a rule. For many long and weary years she has been clamoring for political rights and political honors, equal suffrage and men's clothing, the pantaloons in particular, if one is to draw a conclusion from the recent dress reform display held here in Chi- cago. It is claimed aloud by some men, and whispered by others, that she has been in possession of the article of apparel just mentioned for all time; be that as it may, my
Mrs. Louise A. Starkweather is a native of West Virginia. She was born March 29, 1858. Her parents were Thomas B. Hall and Sarah A. Hall, of English and Scotch descent. She was educated at Normal Dni varsity, Normal, 111. She spent four years as a teacher and six years as a principal of schools. She has traveled throughout the United States and part of Canada. She married Oakley B. Starkweather in Chicago, April 20, 1889. Her principal literary works are newspaper work over the signature, "Antique," for the papers of Alton, 111., Bloomington, 111., and Chicago. She has been superintendent of the Woman's Department of the Mutual Life Insurance Company, of New York, for several years, and has written some of the largest policies held by women in America. In religious faith she is an Episcopalian. Her postoffice address is 421 Olive Street, St. Louis, Mo.
62
MRS. LOUISE A. STARKWEATHER.
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 63
only wish is that if the disguise of man's clothing would open woman's eyes to her own importance and responsibility in the financial world, I shall not object, but I doubt it. Strange as it may seem coming from a business woman as I am, I do most emphatically assert that woman is the most inconsistent of God's creation. There are women who by inheritance of stock in the great industries and banks of this age might wield a power far more telling, far more vital than anything politics could give, yet they never think of asserting the rights they already have. I shall not take your time in giving a recapitulation of history as to the wealth and power of our revered mater- nal ancestors. The pages of ancient and fnodern history teem with the facts and you may read if you will.
It is my purpose to talk of woman as I find her today, good, honest, earnest and inconsistent! First let us look at the matter of banks and bank stock. Did it ever occur to you that a very large portion of bank stock in the United States is owned by women ? Did it ever occur to those women that they have a vote and voice in the direc- tion and management of a work far more important than the election of a Kansas Senator or a Ward politician? True, there are some women who are holding offices in banks. I met the vice-president of a Texas bank and in a conversation upon her duties learned that she always signed papers when brought to her even though she stopped her bread-making or any other household duties to do so; but as to any knowledge of the securities held, money, markets, etc, she had none further than that her money was in the bank's business and she was notified regularly of the dividends, and had money to use as she chose. But as to whether the dividends were larger or smaller than any preceding year she could not say. Some day that woman will be notified that her stock is not drawing any dividends, then maybe she will look after her interests and exercise her right to the ballot. Men are willing to grant woman all the rights she may have in the financial world, yet they look upon her as a legal prey if she per- sists in remaining ignorant in matters pertaining to her property and prosperity. No- where in the business world is woman more applauded than in this department of economics, and nowhere is she more swindled and wheedled out of her property than right here. As I before stated there is no sentiment in finance, but there is commendation to the successful, be that person man or woman. In Suffolk County, Va., two-thirds of the bank stock is owned by women, yet there is but one bank ofificer a woman, as far as can be learned, and many of these women do not know how to draw a check and can- not discover the difference between a dividend and an assessment and would be as pleased over a notice of one as the other until better informed. Who votes the shares of stock owned by women, do you ask? Some man who by proxy votes as best suits his purpose, and attends to her loans and interests as is most profitable to himself.
A rather amusing story is told of one of the wealthy women of St. Louis, whose husband, tired of attending to her dressmakers' and milliners' bills, decided to give her an account at a bank, so she might attend to these affairs herself. So he handed her a bank book with the account opened, and a good round sum at her credit, also a check book, and told her to pay her bills by checks; shortly after he was notified that his wife's account was overdrawn at the bank. He called her attention to the fact and was assured it could not be. She brought him the check book, saying: "See, there are several checks yet I have not used." Is it any wonder that money left in the hands of such a woman is soon mismanaged by some man who sees her ignor- ance. Woman suddenly finds herself in possession of money, by reason of death of her husband or father, and unless she is on the alert, it will soon be dissipated by bad management. Life insurance has made woman rich, and lawyers have profited by her ignorance in financial matters. The judge of the probate court in one of the counties of New York gives a most startling statement of his observation on the bench. It is this: Eighty per cent of the money left to widows and children in that county dur- ing his term of office was dissipated by mismanagement. Women left with money are looked upon as legitimate prey by a class of men who have over their office
64 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
door the word " Investments." Chicago courts of this year disclosed a most appall- ing state of affairs that women should blush to acknowledge. A firm consisting of four brothers closed their doors one morning, and in the investigation following, this fact was brought out: One of the brothers testified that his duties in the transac- tion of the firm's business was to look up widows and women of means, and by a sys- tem of flattery and attention gain their confidence and a full statement of finances. He claimed a few lunches, a theater party, a ride or other attentions of like nature usu- ally gave him the information desired, and he soon had the management of the woman's property, borrowed her money, and the best account he could give was a memoranda stuck in his vest pocket and afterward destroyed. That women should be such weaklings is a matter of both regret and shame to all the world, and that such a case could be recorded against her good sense and judgment is a great blot upon her.
Very few men would say to their wives or daughters: "Here, take care of the bank or store, or factory; I shall take a trip around the world, and may remain indefinitely. You attend to the affairs and take care of the children's interests." Yet every day we see women thrown in that position, in addition to the grief attendant upon a sudden bereavement. She must take up a work in, which she has had no preparation — and too often no knowledge. She must either see her interests ruined or lay aside her grief and begin where, until now, she was not supposed to have ability or comprehension to warrant even her husband's confidence. This very fact has made woman what she is today, and it will make her the rule, not the exception, in business relations of the future.
Women soon discover that the mysteries of business are not as impenetrable as she supposed. The time has come. She must occupy chairs in directors, meetings; must keep informed on the subject of money making, as well as money spending; must know her check book from her bank book; her deposits from overdrafts; divi- dends from assessments of stock, and be willing and ready to vote and lend her ideas in this branch, as she has elsewhere in the world with such good effect.
Insurance formerly offered to man a contract with two conditions, viz.: First. Payment of a certain sum at a stated time until death. Second. Return to the family a specified sum upon proofs of death being satisfactorily given. It now offers to woman more than that. There are no reforms or changes so marked as in the insur- ance world of today and that of the past. Women are now considered equally as good risks, are carried by companies for the limit of their indemnity, and by this investment may have many opportunities never offered before. For instance, a woman may insure her life and have the policy payable to herself at a certain time. That is, she need not die to win. This policy is as negotiable as a government bond, and may be used in business transactions as are other securities. At the expira- tion of a stated time she may have all the money she has invested in this manner returned to her, together with interest on the same for the time, thereby giving her the same advantages of savings banks with greater security than they can afford, or, if she so desires, she may turn the cash value of her policy into an income for life, thereby providing for the old woman a safe and happy old age, without the worries of business details. This last feature of the investment in insurance is a most import- ant one, for with the continuance of life there is for all of us an old woman for whose care and comfort the younger woman is responsible. Charity, no matter how sweet, is yet a bitter dose to the old. None of us can foresee our peculiarities in the future, and we are too well warned by the fate of old women of our acquaintance to neglect our own declining years. A woman owes it as a duty to herself as well as her child- ren to place herself in that position which will make her not a burden upon any. A son-in-law cannot be expected to love and care for the mother-in-law, unless she is a rich one. A daughter should not be expected to add to her own cares that of help- less imbecility of a husband's relative. We will be as unwilling as the most unwillijig of our relatives to take that which is given under such circumstances. Do you know,
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 65
that by a small saving each year for a period of ten years a woman may place herself beyond the accident of dependence. This is a much happier future to contemplate than the uncertainty of some one's possible care, whether given grudgingly or not. Insurance for women today provides an estate left, in case of death, a savings bank for her money, and a guaranteed annuity for old age; yet there are women who are sentimental enough to not only deny themselves such a provision, but who wall induce husbands to cancel any they may have, and too often live to repent their folly. Let me tell you another story — my stories are all true ones, by the way: A woman of more than ordinary business ability in a western town was approached by a real estate man who knew of her contemplation of investing a sum of money she had received. He suggested the purchase of a three-thousand-dollar piece of property that was then rented at ten per cent of the value, or three hundred dollars a year; he showed her that by a few repairs needed this property would bring her four hundred and fifty dollars a year, or fifteen per cent of her investment. Fifteen per cent on money invested is always a temptation to man and woman both, and our western woman was not an exception. She purchased the property and the agent then set about the repairs and changes required to secure an advance rent. When the new roof was put on, the sides of the house cried out for paint, and when that was done the fence fell down with shame before the new clothes of the house; and so it went. The house was entirely remodeled; time was lost, as the tenants were compelled to move and new ones must be secured. But they were finally secured, and then came the trials of our woman investor in keeping peace between tenants and agent. She resolved herself into a peace committee and lay awake nights thinking out plans to ameliorate the woes of first one and then the other, all the time paying the agent for services ren- dered in keeping her tenants either moving in the house or out of it. Well, to be brief, she cast up her accounts one day last month, and, during the time, two years, she had made a net profit of one dollar and fifty cents upon her investment. I could give you her name and address that you might verify my statement, but you do not need my case, there are hundreds of your own knowledge that are parallel. Had this woman invested one-tenth of her three thousand dollars in some large and secure insurance company two years ago, the dividends of that company would have been almost forty per cent of her investment, and she need not have added lines of care to her face in the endeavor to keep her money making one dollar and fifty cents in two years, besides providing an income for her future that would not require the services of an agent. A wife has as much need to provide an estate for her children by the means of an investment in some insurance company as has the husband. She ought to have a sum of money to leave her children that they might have the advantages she would have given them had she lived. The husband is more helpless when left alone with the children to rear than a wife; he cannot adapt his hours of bread-win- ning and home-making as can a woman when left alone to face the world. Too often children are scattered or given into the care of unwilling relatives to be cared or uncared for, as the case may be; home ties are broken, affections alienated, ignorance encouraged, and crime often follows the loss of a mother's care or the provision she may have made to complete the plans for her children. Every woman in this great and good republic should insure, for has she not the same right to accumulate a com- petence as has man, and in this branch her rights are equal, her returns as great, and her provisions for self and others just as beneficent as man's. Real estate may decline in value and at best brings but small returns, a failure to pay one deferred payment loses all, if an hour of need comes it is a burden; but insurance is co-operation. If you die your children never needed money more than when death and sickness hampers their grief-stricken efforts; they may draw from the accumulated resources of thou- sands of others a fund carefully secured against loss, says one of the wisest business men of the times. Loan associations have enabled poor women to build a home, they have made her pay for it to be sure, and she has struggled through a term of eight to ten years for this end; had death overtaken her all would have been lost unless she
(5)
66 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
carried a policy to cover the mortgage hanging over the home. Without the policy she would have left a debt, an unfinished obligation for those left behind to assume; with a policy the debt is canceled, the home safe, and she has not lived in vain even should she not be able to stand the strain of her duties to those dependent upon her. Did you ever hear of a woman attending the meetings of the directors of a loan asso- ciation and learning anything of its transactions unless she was to become a borrower? I regret that my business has shown me woman's indifference in a matter of so much importance as this of money making. Yet to be truthful I must state facts and urge it upon all to look into your bank accounts, your investments, the money markets and the provision for your old age. An old woman cannot have too much money. The more disagreeable she is the more she will need that which makes all paths smooth and services rendered lighter by a recompense greater than love can buy or importune. This great branch of business, larger by far than the banking systems combined, opens its doors to woman, making her not only the beneficiary as formerly, but owner of the shares of stock and shares in the profits of the vast amounts invested for her future needs. Her age and sex cut no figure here; she is from the insurance point of view equal to man in all things.
THE FEAST OF COLUMBIA. 1493-1893.
By MRS. ALICE WILLIAMS BROTHERTON.
"Hither," Columbia said, With a smile to her daughters four,
"From prairie and gulf and sea Come hither and toil with me. 'Ere the century turns from our door, Let us set a feast for the ancient East Upon the New World's shore."
From the rising sun came one, A sturdy colonial dame, With a rugged, cheery face, Tanned by the wind and sun, And a stately, old-time air, Dark eyes with courage aflame Under her powdered hair.
Of cloth from the whirring looms,
Woven so soft and fine.
Deftly she spread a snowy webb;
Said, "Here is a gift of mine.
But many another thing
To grace your halls I bring,
Marbles, polished and varied and rare,
And granites strong and good;
Fish from my sea beat coasts,
Masts from my tall pine wood,
Yet something better than these I boast,
This ancient blade with the battle nicks.
Lo! here is a pen,
And the musty parchment deed;
Framed in our hour of need
By stalwart, single hearted men
In Seventeen and Seventy-Six."
And the people of the land, From the oldest to the least Cried, "Hail to the steadfast band Who saved for us Freedom's land: Hurrah, Hurrah! Once and again, Hail to the Mother of Men! Hail to the East!"
Mr8. Alice Williams Brotherton is a native of Cambridge, Ind., but has passed nearly all of her life in Ohio. Her parents were Ruth Dodge Johnson Williams and Alfred Baldwin Williams, of Cincinnati, Ohio. She was educated in various private schools, in the St. Louis Eliot Grammar School, and in the Woodward High School, of Cincinnati. She married Mr. William Ernest Brotherton, of Cincinnati. She is the mother of two boys and one girl; the eldest son died in 1890. Her principal literary works are contributions in prose and verse to such periodicals as The Century, The Atlantic, The Independent, and "Beyond the Veil," "The Sailing of KingOlaf," and other poems, and "What the Wind Told," in prose and verse. In religious faith she is a Unitarian of the non-conservative type. Her postoffice address is Ridgeway Avenue, Avon- dale, Cincinnati, Ohio.
67
MRS. ALICE WILLIAMS BROTHERTON.
68 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
Out of the North one paced With a stately step and slow, As one whose going crushed The crispness of the snow. "I bring my flour for the feast From the thousand mills you know, The tasseled ears are torn From my serried ranks of corn. Take them and eat The loaves of the finest wheat.
Here arc copper and lead and iron, Whose bands already environ The world, and lumber to frame The walls of the home, The home that redeems the waste, In whose keeping all life is placed. With these and more I come; Take ye these at their worth, These, my gifts," said the North.
And the people shouted, and said, "Hail to the Queen of the Lakes, From whom the nation takes Grateful, its daily bread! Hail to the North! Once more — To her million beds of ore! To the lumber on her shore! And the wheat she sendeth forth The whole world o'er! Hail to the North!"
And one from the sunset came, With steps as a panther's free. And dusky cheek aflame. "I am the child of the Western wild, And bring my gifts to thee.
Red meat I give you here
From the bison and the deer.
Herds on a thousand hills
Where the sunset shines
Are yours for the feast," said the West.
"But take with these my best Silver and gold from the mine; And a strange new story to read Of an old world in the new. Over canyon written, and mead, Story the Aztecs knew. Of the great new states to be The years shall write for me. Oh, the old is good," quoth she;
"But who shall call it the best? Take the best of my gifts from me," Said the mightv West.
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 69
Then the land rose up with a shout, "Hail to the Westering Star That leads our conquests afar, Most welcome, oh noble guest! Hail to the Prairie Queen With the eagle's plumes for a crest, Pearls of the gulf in her hand And rails of steel for a girdle band!" Where the moccasined foot has pressed The coming millions shall stand. Hail to the West!
Who comes up from the South
With a smile on her full round mouth,
But trace of a tear in her eye?
Who says, twixt smile and sigh,
(Oh sweet as her own south wind her words)
"These my offerings be, look.
The ploughshare beaten from sword,
The spear made pruning-hook,
And the fruits of my pruned vine
Today are thine.
Take what my tillage yields — The cotton-boll from my fields, Tobacco leaf and cane. And snowy rice from the brakes Where the balmy east wind wakes And the noontides reign. My wealth of flowers fair To grace the feast I bear. And a tropical fruitage rare: Oranges ripe — a mimic sun Molded in gold is every one; Bananas that melt in the mouth, Lemons sweetened with sun — Take ye these, all and one My gifts," said the South.
And the people of the land Cried, "This is the harvest fair After the years of drought, And the rain of blood and tears. No land so fruitful appears. And her wheat shall know no tares!" And her sisters pressed anear And they kissed her on the mouth, And the nation shouted and cried: "Hail to the South in her glad new pride Hail to the South!"
Smiled. the Great Mother, and said, "Peace. The old issues are dead. And the wars are over and done. In one sky glitter afar Southern Cross — Northern Star.
70 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
We know from rise to set of sun No North or South, no West or East, No first or last, no best or least. For the many in one are one."
"Come," Columbia said To the nations of the earth,
"See what the rolling years Have wrought in the land of my birth. See what the brain has thought, And the busy hand has wrought. We have gathered from every side All that we hold of worth; Come ye, and see," Columbia cried To the nations of the earth.
"Where the savage war-whoop rang, And the red men hunted the deer. The hammers of labor briskly clang And the city's streets appear. Man from Nature has won the land. And held it this many a year. Where art has pointed the way. And industry wrought with the hand, Come sit at the feast with me today In the center of my land."
"Come," said the world of the West To the great world of the East,
"Join hands across the sea In token of amity. 'Ere the century is done Let us sit down and feast; In all lands shineth one sun. And the world is one."
'm^
THE WOMAN'S NATIONAL INDIAN ASSOCIATION.
By MRS. AMELIA S. QUINTON.
The story of the Woman's National Indian Association is, like that of similar movements, largely a personal story. The work had its rise in individual interest in
Indians, and this, communicated to and shared by others, originated a philanthropy now of national pro- portions. The motives were Christian, and the in- spiration had its birth from the missionary spirit. The history of the Association, therefore, as is natural, is largely a history of missionary activity. Even the first movement, though for five years wholly devoted to gaining political rights for Indians, was as truly from the missionary spirit as was afterward the plant- ing missions in the tribes. In the present brief out- line of the work reference must be made to the above points; to the condition of things among Indians at that date — the spring of 1879 — the home circum- stances of the people aided, their character as then seen, the results of the labors of the Association, and to the important work still remaining to be done.
And first a personal reference. A devoted Chris- tian educator in Philadelphia became specially inter- ested in the Indian race through references in the daily press, related the facts observed therein to a friend, and these two secured the interest of others; an organization was proposed by the friend referred to, and effected after two years of preparatory work which was planned, provided for, and done chiefly by these two. It was seeing "the need" which moved the "com- passion," and the kindred impulse to "go tell" naturally followed. Christians were believed to be millennium bringers by the application of practical righteousness to specific needs, and this "faith justified" itself by the events which were its sequel.
The appeal of the association for united effort to move our government to grant a legal status to Indians, the protection of law, lands in severalty, and education; appeal was made to the Christian press and ministry, to ecclesiastical bodies and to patriots, and soon sixteen states were included in work to these ends. The first appeal was for covenant-keeping with tribes to which solemn pledges had been given, and that no treaty should be abrogated or broken without the free consent of the Indian tribe named in it. It was of this association's service that Senator Dawes, chairman of the Senate Indian Committee, said: "The new government Indian policy was born of and nursed by this woman's association," and it was his own Severalty Bill which became the law of the land in March, 1887, that granted to the Indians of the United States the rights and privileges asked in the petitions of the association.
Mrs. Amelia S. Quinton was born near Syracuse, N. Y. Her parents were Jacob Thompson Stone and Mary Bennett Stone. She was educated in Homer, N. Y., under the tuition of Samuel B. Woolworth, L L.D. She has traveled in every state and territory of the United States but three, and has made several trips to Europe. She is a woman of large experience and much culture, and most gracious manners. She married Rev. James F. Swanson and resided in Georgia several years, and after her widowhood married in London, England, Richard Quinton, A. M. Her special work has been for our North American Indians, in whose interests she organized the Woman's National Indian Association, and has been its president for the last six years. She has for many years prepared the literature of that Association and edited its paper. Mrs. Quinton is a Christian, and a member of the Baptist church. Her postoffice address is 1823 Arch Street, Philadelphia, Pa.
71
MRS. AMELIA S. QUINTON.
72 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
When it became evident that this great reform would be a success, the attention of the association was given to missionary work, to home building, hospital, educational and other work needed among the Indians on the reservations, and soon ten depart- ments of practical work were shared by interested helpers in nearly all the states of the Union, and with encouraging success. During the last nine years, since these lines of effort were undertaken, the society has established directly or indirectly thirty-three mission stations, transferring these to permanent missionary societies when well established, giving with the mission its land, mission cottage, chapel, and all its prop- erty and improvements. The . association has given special education to bright Indians, training them as physicians, nurses, teachers and missionaries to help and lead their people. It has built houses by loans, placing thus about a hundred Indians in civilized and Christian homes, and the loans are being honestly repaid. It has hos- pital, library and industrial departments, and has built twelve missionary cottages, chapels and schoolhouses. During its last year it expended $28,000 sending goods to tribes in special need to the amount of $3,000.
A glance at the oppressions of Indians at the beginning of this work shows them to have been practically without legal rights. They were subject to enforced removals from their own land; they were constantly robbed by marauders' and rufifian frontiers-