Part 5

Very poor was the Stowe family in those days. Mrs. Stowe earned a little now and then, by her writings, and from a few boarders. She had now apparently all she could do, with a family of young children whom she herself taught, with her writing, and with caring for the strangers in the house; but even so, she could never get out of her mind those wretched creatures, her brothers and sisters, who were being bought and sold. What could she do for them?

The most frequent topic of conversation everywhere was the proposed law called The Fugitive Slave Act. This law would give the slave-holders of the South the right to bring back into slavery any colored person claimed as a slave, and also commanded the people of the North to assist in the business of pursuit. Public feeling grew more and more heated, but the law was passed. After its passage many pitiable scenes occurred. The Stowe and Beecher families received frequent letters telling of shocking incidents. Families were broken up, children sold and sent far from their parents, while many slaves who ran away perished from cold and hunger.

One day Mrs. Stowe received a letter from her sister-in-law, Mrs. Edward Beecher, which she read to her family. When she came to this passage: _Now, Hattie, if I could use a pen as you can, I would write something that would make the whole nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is_, Mrs. Stowe stood up, an expression upon her face which those who saw it never forgot.

What she said, however, was simply, "I _will_ write something! I will, if I live!"

Some months after this Mrs. Stowe was seated at communion in the college church at Brunswick, when the scene of the death of Uncle Tom passed through her mind as clearly as in a vision. She hastened home, wrote out the chapter on his death, as it now stands, and then read it to her assembled family. Her two sons aged eleven and twelve years burst out crying, saying, "Oh, mamma! Slavery is the most cruel thing in the world!"

When two or three more chapters were ready, she offered it for publication to Dr. Bailey, then in Washington, and _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ was first published as a serial in his paper _The National Era_. For it Mrs. Stowe received three hundred dollars.

When completed, it was published by Jewett of Boston, in March, 1852, meeting with instant success. In ten days ten thousand copies were sold. Thirty different editions appeared in London in six months, and it was translated into twenty foreign languages. It was dramatized, and several theaters were playing it at one time. In less than a year over three hundred thousand copies were sold.

Mrs. Stowe "woke up to find herself famous,"—not to say wealthy. Letters of congratulation poured in upon her from all parts of the world. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert sent hearty thanks. Charles Dickens wrote, "Your book is worthy of any head and any heart that ever inspired a book." Charles Kingsley wrote, "It is perfect!"

The poet Whittier wrote to Garrison, "What a glorious work Harriet Beecher Stowe has wrought! Thanks for the Fugitive Slave Law! Better would it be for slavery if that law had never been enacted, for it gave occasion for _Uncle Tom's Cabin_!"

Longfellow also wrote in praise of the book, and letters were received from most of the noted men who opposed slavery.

The possibility of making money by the publication of this book was quite remote from Mrs. Stowe's disinterested mind. As she wrote in a letter to a friend: "Having been poor all my life, and expecting to be poor for the rest of it, the idea of making money by a book which I wrote just because I could not help it, never occurred to me." But from this time forth she was to be free from the anxieties of poverty. As the first payment of three months' sale, Mrs. Stowe received ten thousand dollars.

The following year Professor and Mrs. Stowe went to Great Britain, having been urgently invited to visit in many Scotch and English houses. Even in foreign lands, Mrs. Stowe found herself known and loved. Crowds greeted her in Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh and London. Children ran ahead of her carriage, throwing flowers to her, and officials of the Anti-Slavery Societies met her and offered hospitality.

A national penny offering, turned into a thousand golden sovereigns, was presented to her on a magnificent silver salver for the advancement of the cause for which she had written. This offering came from all classes of people.

A personal gift which Mrs. Stowe valued highly was a superb gold bracelet presented by the beautiful Duchess of Sutherland who entertained her at Stafford House. It was made in the form of a slave's shackle and bore the inscription, "We trust it is a memorial of a chain that is soon to be broken." On two of the links were already inscribed the dates of the abolition of slave trade and of slavery in the English territories. Years afterward, on the clasp of the bracelet, Mrs. Stowe had engraved the date of the Constitutional Amendment abolishing slavery in the United States.

Upon Mrs. Stowe's return from her visit to Europe in the autumn of 1853, she became very active in public affairs. She supported anti-slavery lectures, established schools for the colored people, assisted in buying ill-treated slaves and setting them free, and arranged public meetings for the advancement of anti-slavery opinions, using the money which had been given to her in England to support the work. In addition, she kept up a correspondence with influential men and women on the subject of the abolition of slavery.

The books she wrote after this were _Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands_; _Dred_, a great anti-slavery story; _The Minister's Wooing_; _Agnes of Sorrento_; _The Pearl of Orr's Island_; and _Old Town Folks_. All have been widely read, but _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, though lacking in literary form and finish, written as it was at white heat and with no thought of anything but its object, remains her greatest work. It made the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law impossible, by making people see slavery in all its inhumanity.

In addition to her books, Mrs. Stowe wrote an appeal to the women of America, in which she set forth the injustice and misery of slavery, begging all thoughtful women to use their influence to have the wicked system abolished. Here are a few paragraphs:

What can the women of a country do? Oh! women of the free states, what did your brave mothers do in the days of the Revolution? Did not liberty in those days feel the strong impulse of woman's heart?

For the sake, then, of our dear children, for the sake of our common country, for the sake of outraged and struggling liberty throughout the world, let every woman of America now do her duty!

Nobly, indeed, did the women of America respond to her call, for during the Civil War, which was begun before the abolition of slavery was an accomplished fact, the women, though they went not to the war themselves, loyally sent out their fathers, husbands and brothers. Who shall say these women were not heroic?

After the close of the Civil War, Mrs. Stowe purchased a home in Florida overlooking the St. John's River, where she lived during the winter, going in summer to her old home in Hartford.

On her seventieth birthday, June 14, 1882, her publishers, Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin Company, of Boston, gave a reception for her in the form of a garden party at the beautiful residence of ex-Governor Claflin of Massachusetts in Newtonville, one of Boston's fine suburbs. Here gathered men and women well known in the literary and artistic world, eager to do honor to the woman whose life had been such an inspiration to others, and whose work of such benefit to mankind. Mr. Houghton made an address of congratulation and welcome, to which Henry Ward Beecher replied. Oliver Wendell Holmes spoke, and many poems and letters from noted persons were read.

This was the last public appearance of Mrs. Stowe. Her husband died in August, 1886, and she herself, passed away July 1, 1896, at Hartford, at the age of eighty-four. She was buried in the cemetery of the Theological Seminary at Andover, Massachusetts, next to her husband.

MARIA MITCHELL

(1818-1889)

"On the cultivation of women's minds depends the wisdom of men."

—_Richard Brinsley Sheridan_

Maria Mitchell was born on the Island of Nantucket, Massachusetts, August 1, 1818, and to-day if you go there, you may see a monument erected to her memory.

Her ancestors were Quakers who had fled hither from Massachusetts because of religious persecution. Nantucket Island then belonged to New York State, and here these good people were free to worship God as they pleased. Almost all of the inhabitants of the Island belonged to the Society of Friends, from which sect have sprung many of our notable men and women, among them John G. Whittier, "the Quaker Poet," who all his life wore the Quaker garb and spoke the language of that religious society.

The Mitchell family were not very strict; that is, they did not wear the plain clothes of the sect, although they probably used the "thee" and "thou." Maria's mother was a woman of great strength of character. Her father was a kindly gentleman, whose affection for his children was so great that he could refuse them nothing. Often Mrs. Mitchell was obliged to check him, fearing they would be spoiled by his indulgence.

The little girls were brought up to be industrious. They learned to make their own clothes by making those of their dolls, and frequently they made their own dolls, too, the eldest sister painting the faces.

Maria received the first rudiments of her education from her mother and an excellent woman teacher, but not until she entered her father's school, at the age of eleven, did she begin to show marked ability as a student.

Mr. Mitchell was greatly interested in the study of astronomy, and owned a small telescope, which he used to examine the heavens at night. Maria was especially fond of her father's pursuit. She also had a taste for mathematics, without which astronomy as a science cannot be mastered, and she watched, patient and absorbed, when her father would compute distances by means of his scientific instruments. There was no school in the country where Maria Mitchell could be taught higher mathematics, so she continued to study with her father.

Every fine night the telescope was placed in Mr. Mitchell's back yard, and the neighbors would come in to gaze through it at the moon and the planets. Little Maria was always on hand listening for scraps of information.

In 1831, and while Maria was still a child, there occurred a total eclipse of the sun at Nantucket. With her father, Maria observed this eclipse through a new Dolland telescope which had been recently purchased and, for the first time in her life, counted the seconds of the eclipse. At that time she was studying with Mr. Cyrus Pierce, who took a great interest in her, and who helped her in her mathematics.

At the age of sixteen she left school, becoming for a while an assistant teacher, but she soon gave up teaching to accept the new position of librarian in the Nantucket Atheneum. This post she continued to fill for twenty years. She had much time while acting as a librarian to study her favorite subject, and she used the opportunity to advantage.

Every evening Miss Mitchell spent on the housetop "sweeping" the heavens. One memorable evening, October 1, 1847, she had put on her old clothes and taken her lantern to the roof as usual. After gazing through her telescope for a few minutes, she observed an object which she concluded must be a comet. Hurriedly she called her father, who also examined the unusual body in the heavens and agreed with her that it was a comet.

He immediately announced the discovery to Professor Bond of Cambridge. It was learned afterward that the same comet had been seen in Rome by an astronomer on October 3, and in England by another on October 7, and still later in Germany. To Maria Mitchell was given the credit of the first discovery, and she received the gold medal which had been promised by the King of Denmark to the first discoverer of a telescopic comet. This brought her letters of congratulation from astronomers in all parts of the world.

Miss Mitchell had always had a desire to travel abroad, and as her tastes were simple she soon saved enough from her small salary to enable her to do so. During her visits in foreign countries, she met many eminent scientists, among them Herschel, Airy, Mrs. Somerville, and Humboldt. The plain Nantucket lady was perfectly at home in the society of these distinguished people, whose tastes and occupations were similar to her own. They all opened their observatories for her inspection and their homes for social intercourse.

The Greenwich Observatory especially interested Miss Mitchell. It stands in Greenwich Park, which comprises a group of hills with many beautiful oak trees which are said to date back to the time of Queen Elizabeth. The observatory was then in charge of Sir George Airy, who showed Miss Mitchell all the treasures of the place, among them the instruments used by the great astronomers Halley, Bradley, and Pond. The meridian of Greenwich is the zero point of longitude for the globe, and you can perhaps imagine the pleasure which Miss Mitchell experienced in being on the spot where time is set for the whole world.

Miss Mitchell became Professor of Astronomy and Director of the Observatory at Vassar College, where her work gave the subject a prominence which it has never had in any other woman's college. She was not only a famous astronomer, but a noble, inspiring woman, much interested in the higher education of women and devoting much of her time to advancing this work. Many a young girl can trace the success of her life work to the impulse she received from Maria Mitchell.

At the age of sixty-nine Miss Mitchell's health began to fail and she resigned her position in the College, going to live at her home in Lynn, Massachusetts, where she died June 28, 1889.

LUCY STONE

(1818-1893)

"Woman is a creation between men and the angels."

—_Honoré de Balzac_

In the town of West Brookfield, Massachusetts, in 1818, lived a farmer, named Francis Stone, and his wife, a gentle and beautiful woman, whose life was spent in devotion to her husband and in aiding him in his work on the farm. Mrs. Stone worked continuously from early morning until late at night, often milking eight cows after the necessary housework was done. The family consisted of seven children. When, on August 18th, the eighth was born, and Mrs. Stone was told that the new baby was a girl, she said, "Oh, dear! I am sorry it is a girl. A woman's life is so hard!"

It seems as if this little girl, who was called Lucy, must have understood her mother's words, for, as she grew up, she showed very clearly that she intended to try to make life easier for all women. Her childhood was spent in doing useful work about the house and on the farm. She cooked, swept, dusted, made butter and soap. She drove the cows, planted seeds, weeded the garden,—in short, was never idle. But all the time she worked in this way, Lucy was thinking deeply and comparing her life with that of her brother at college. She pondered deeply over questions like the following:

Why are not girls permitted to earn their living like their brothers?

Why is it that mother works so hard, and father has all the money?

Why are boys given the great benefits of a college education and girls refused it?

She could think of no satisfactory answers. At last, gathering up her courage, she asked her father to assist her to go to college like her brothers. Mr. Stone was both astonished and angry. He told Lucy that it was enough for her to learn how to read and cipher and write, as her mother did. But Lucy persisted in her determination to gain an education. She earned a little money by picking berries and gathering chestnuts, and with it she bought some books. Her mother could not help her, for, though she worked very hard, she had not a penny to bless herself with. Her husband took all that came in through their joint labors, and spent it as he thought best.

When Lucy had learned enough to fit her for teaching, she got a position in a district school at a salary of one dollar per week. A little later she was earning sixteen dollars a month, and when her brother, who received thirty dollars a month for teaching, became ill, Lucy took his place, receiving sixteen dollars for exactly the same work. The committee said that sixteen dollars was enough for a woman.

Lucy Stone studied for a while at Mt. Holyoke Seminary under Mary Lyon, and also at Wilbraham Academy, and later at Oberlin College, Ohio, which was then the only college in the country willing to admit women,—all the while paying her own tuition fees by means of teaching and doing housework in boarding houses.

When the question of slavery came into prominence, Lucy Stone quickly took her position as a friend of the slave. She taught in a school for colored people, which was established at Oberlin, and her first public speech was made in their behalf. Though severely criticized for her public speaking and obliged to bear unpleasant comment because of it, she never swerved from her idea of what she believed to be right.

Soon she was engaged by the Anti-Slavery Society, in which William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips were officers, to lecture for their cause, and while doing so, traveled over the greater part of the United States, speaking both for woman suffrage and for the abolition of slavery.

But the rights of woman stood first in the heart of Lucy Stone. As a child, she had seen her mother overruled by a stern husband, who never allowed her an opinion contrary to his will, nor a penny to use without his sanction.

It may have been because of this early object lesson that Lucy Stone made up her mind never to marry; or because she thought that she could carry on her work for the advancement of women better by being entirely free. Nevertheless, she did consent to marry Mr. Henry B. Blackwell, a merchant of Cincinnati, Ohio, who overcame her objections by sharing all her views on suffrage and slavery, and they were married by Rev. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, May 1, 1855.

Before their marriage Mr. Blackwell and Lucy signed a protest which read:

We believe that personal independence and equal human rights can never be forfeited except for crime; that marriage should be an equal and permanent partnership and so recognized by law.

This protest was the beginning of much serious thought about the rights of man and woman as individuals, and led the way to improved laws. In most states, to-day, a married woman may own her own property and may will a part of it away from her husband, if she wishes to; she may live an individual life, also, and control equally with her husband the education of their children.

Lucy Stone retained her maiden name, never adopting that of her husband. Their married life proved to be remarkably happy, one child, a daughter, being born to them.

Mrs. Stone helped to organize the American Equal Rights Association, which grew into the American Woman Suffrage Association. William Lloyd Garrison, George William Curtis, Colonel Higginson, Julia Ward Howe, and other prominent people joined in the work with her. She served as President of the New England Woman Suffrage Association, and even studied law that she might learn how to correct legal injustice to women. In 1877, Mrs. Stone and Mr. Blackwell went to Colorado to assist in the Woman Suffrage movement in that state. Sixteen years later the constitutional amendment granting the suffrage to woman was carried by popular vote, and women were given "exactly the same rights as men in exercising the elective franchise."

Lucy Stone did not live to see success in Colorado, but she did see school suffrage gained in twenty-two states, and full suffrage in Wyoming. She lived, also, to see many great colleges admit women.

In the summer of 1893, Mrs. Stone was obliged to rest from her labors. A little later she wrote Mrs. Livermore, her devoted friend and co-worker: "I have dropped out, and you will go on without me! Good-by. If we don't meet again, never mind. We shall meet sometime, somewhere; be sure of that."

She passed away in the presence of her husband and her daughter, Alice, on October 18. Her gentleness and sweetness of character had made her beloved by all, and her great work for the advancement of woman in intellectual, social, and political life will never be forgotten.

JULIA WARD HOWE

(1819-1910)

"We all are architects of fate, Working in these walls of time, Some with massive deeds and great, Some with ornaments of rhyme."

—_Henry W. Longfellow_

Julia Ward Howe was born May 27, 1819, in New York City. Her father, Samuel Ward, was a wealthy banker, and her mother a descendant of the Marions of South Carolina, being a grand-niece of General Marion.

Both parents came from families of refined and scholarly tastes, and little Julia directly inherited her love of good books. Her mother died at an early age, leaving six little children, Julia, the fourth, being then only five years old.

Julia, who from babyhood had given promise of superior intellectual attainments, received special attention from her father. Mr. Ward was anxious that she should know the joy which only true knowledge and right living can give. He did not wish her to become merely a fashionable girl with no thought of doing anything in life but amuse herself. Every advantage was given her, therefore, for reading, and the best teachers in music, German, and Italian were selected for her.

Julia well repaid this care. She showed great fondness for books, and at nine years of age was studying Paley's _Moral Philosophy_ in a class with girls twice her age. At fourteen, she was an accomplished musician. Her friends thought she should devote her life to music, but she was equally fond of literature. At sixteen she wrote her first poem. Her brother, Samuel Ward, Jr., shared in all her tastes, and together the brother and sister enjoyed the society of the most noted musicians and literary men and women of the day, the poet Longfellow being one of their closest friends.

The death of their beloved father brought a change in the home, and the family went to live with an uncle, Mr. John Ward. Julia continued to spend her time in the cultivation of her mind and in the enjoyment of the fine arts. She excelled in the study of the German language, reading Goethe, Schiller, Swedenborg, Kant, and other great German poets and philosophers, and translating much of their work. She wrote many verses and began to dream of publishing a play.

In Boston, Julia Ward was a welcome addition to the circle of distinguished literary people then living there. She met Margaret Fuller, Horace Mann, Charles Sumner, Ralph Waldo Emerson. All were charmed with the brilliant and intellectual young woman from New York. Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, a philanthropist and reformer, was one of this delightful group.

Dr. Howe, a graduate of Brown University, was deeply interested in the Greek War for Independence. He went to Greece to offer his services as a surgeon and for the purpose of organizing hospitals, but later took such an active part in the war that he endeared himself to the Greeks for his assistance and sympathy. Contracting a fever, however, he was obliged to leave Greece for a better climate. For some time he traveled abroad, studying and attending lectures.