Part 21

A similar case is that of =Margaret Fuller=, the famous author. Warmly espousing the cause of reform in many directions and making herself the champion of truth and human rights at any cost, she visited prisons and charitable institutions and talked freely with the female inmates. It was on the common ground of womanhood that she approached these degraded of her own sex, true to her unalterable faith in awakening whatever divine spark might be there. She was surprised herself at the results—the touching traits and the possibilities that still survived in beings so forlorn and degraded. Many of them expressed a wish to see her alone, in order to confide to her the secrets of their ruined lives, and their ardent desire to enter a new course whereby they might regain respectability. Thus making herself the friend of the friendless, Margaret Fuller began what we call to-day “settlement work.”

In the matter of prison reform the name of =Elizabeth Guerney Fry= (1780–1845) will likewise be remembered as one of the first women promoters in this line of charity. An accidental visit to Newgate Prison in London disclosed to her the horrible conditions prevailing in this ill-reputed dungeon. Like most prisons at the time it was dark, damp, and cold in winter. The prisoners were usually half-starved, and clad in rags; often loaded with chains, and oftener yet pestered by vermin and rats. The ward, into which Miss Fry penetrated, although strongly dissuaded by the officials, was like a den of wild beasts. It was filled with a hundred and sixty women and children, gambling, fighting, swearing, yelling, dancing. It justly deserved its name of “hell above ground.” The general disorder and abject misery of the women confined there so impressed Miss Fry, that she took immediate and effectual means to relieve them. The first step in the great public work of her life was the forming of “The Association for the Improvement of the Female Prisoners in Newgate,” in April, 1817. Its aim was the establishment of what is now regarded as “prison discipline,” such as entire separation of the sexes, classification of criminals, female supervision for the women, and adequate provision for their religious and secular instruction, as also for their useful employment. Disregarding sarcastic critics, who protested against the “ultra-humanitarianism which sought to make jails too comfortable and tended to pamper criminals,” Miss Fry pursued her way and finally brought about the passing of Acts (1823–24), in which it was laid down that over and above safe custody it was essential to preserve health, improve morals, and enforce useful labor in all prisons. Not content with these results, Miss Fry likewise inspected during the time from 1818 to 1841 the principal prisons of Scotland, Ireland, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Southern Germany, and Denmark, everywhere conferring personally with the leading prison officials. By keeping up a constant correspondence with them she had the satisfaction of hearing from almost every quarter of Europe that the authorities were giving an ever increasing consideration to her suggestions.—

Following the example set by Miss Fry, women in many countries aided in forming societies for the improvement of prison-discipline. They also established reformatories for women and juvenile delinquents. For instance =Mrs. Abbey Hopper Gibbons= assisted in founding the “Women’s Prison Association of New York” in 1844 and the “Isaac T. Hopper Home.” Its objects were: “First, the improvement of the condition of the prisoners, whether detained on trial or finally convicted, or as witnesses; secondly, the support and encouragement of reformed convicts after their discharge, by affording them an opportunity of obtaining an honest livelihood, and sustaining them in their efforts to reform.”

The association employs an executive secretary who visits all the places where women are detained in the State or City of New York, keeps track of the housing conditions and studies the treatment of the prisoners. On the basis of this exact knowledge, the Association has proposed various reforms; for example the establishment of Bedford Reformatory was largely due to the efforts of this society, and the appointment of police matrons in the city station houses. Through the instrumentality of Mrs. Hopper Gibbons the “New York State Reformatory for Women and Girls” was established by the Legislature.

Through the efforts of =Linda Gilbert= various prisons throughout the country were provided with libraries. She also secured the incorporation of the “Gilbert Library and Prisoners’ Aid Society” under the laws of the State of New York. Furthermore she procured employment for thousands of ex-convicts, and aided others in establishing in business in a small way.—

To enumerate what women have contributed to culture as founders and patronesses of infant homes, foundling and orphan asylums, industrial schools and homes for boys and girls, of refuges for unfortunate women, invalids and the aged, of hospitals for destitute children and for people afflicted with tuberculosis, cancer, and incurable diseases, is a task impossible for the limited space of this book. Besides, all information is fragmentary and far too insufficient to give a true idea of the vast sums and immense amount of time, labor, and effort, devoted by women to these works of charity. Constantly on the lookout to alleviate sorrow and provide comfort, they have not forgotten even those lonely men, who do duty in remote light houses and life-saving stations. It was through the efforts of women that these involuntary hermits, who often do not come in touch with other human beings for several months, are regularly provided with interesting books and entertaining games.

=Mrs. Matilde Ziegler= of New York has taken a special interest in the blind. Mrs. Ziegler, at an expense of $20,000 a year, founded a monthly magazine for the blind, which has a printing press of double the capacity of any printing plant for the blind in any other country. Blind girls do all the work connected with this magazine.

=Georgia Trader= in Cincinnati established school classes for the blind and a library with over 25,000 volumes, from which books in raised type are sent to the blind all over the country, free of any charge. She also founded a working-home for blind girls, where they are profitably employed in weaving rugs, and in various artistic work and handicraft.

=Jane Addams= in 1889 opened in Chicago a social settlement, known as “Hull House.” Wonderful work in sociology is done there. Many thousands of men, women and children are instructed in all kinds of handicraft, and directed to places, where they can make an honest and profitable living. They have also access to an excellent library, comfortable club rooms, lecture-halls, kindergarten, play-grounds and other institutions.

Miss Addams is to-day recognized as one of the foremost women in her line of work, and by her example as well as through her public lectures and able books, has probably done more than anybody else for the extension of practical sociology.

Women have also taken charge of thousands of tired working-girls and sent them to the country for a short rest during the summer, thus enabling them to take up their lives of toil with renewed vigor and courage.

Similar organizations have established vacation schools to save children from the demoralization of the long summer idleness, and to secure for them fresh air vacations.

Moved by a sincere desire to improve the conditions of the despised and maltreated American Indians, =Helen Hunt Jackson=, =Alice Fletcher=, and =Mary L. Bonney= succeeded after indefatigable efforts in awakening interest among the legislators in their work. Miss Fletcher, in her valuable book “Indian Civilization and Education,” gave such ample proof of her special qualifications that she was appointed by President Cleveland in 1887 as a special agent of the Government, to allot lands to various Indian tribes. Mary L. Bonney devoted herself principally to educational work and, in 1881, was foremost in the task of organizing the “Indian Treaty-Keeping and Protective Association” by which the many unlawful encroachments of white settlers, and the oppression of the Red Men by government agents were stopped.

In their efforts to alleviate the hard lot of negro slaves, =Lucretia Mott=, =Sarah= and =Angelica Grimke=, =Harriet Beecher Stowe=, and many others, braved criticism, insults and social ostracism.

By organizing societies for the prevention of cruelty to children and animals, women have taken care of those who cannot speak for themselves. In many cities they have likewise provided drinking fountains for men and for animals.

All women members of the “National Association of the Audubon Societies,” that protect bird-life in America, bind themselves never to decorate their hats with plumes and feathers. They have also secured laws that forbid hunters to kill useful birds, and prevent milliners from buying or exhibiting feathers and stuffed skins of such birds.

As generous patronesses of education, science and art many women have set themselves lasting monuments.

=Catherine L. Wolfe= donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York not only her magnificent collection of paintings, but likewise a fund of $200,000 for its preservation and increase. A million dollars was also bequeathed by her to several educational institutions founded by her father and herself. She is also known as the founder of the New York Home for Incurables.

=Mary Tileston Hemenway= supported the so-called Hemenway Expeditions for the archæological exploration of certain regions of Arizona and New Mexico.

=Jane Lathrop Stanford=, wife of Leland Stanford, railway constructor, and U. S. Senator from California, founded in memory of her son the “Leland Stanford Jr. University” at Palo Alto, near San Francisco. At her own expense Mrs. Stanford established a museum, connected with the university, containing objects of art, and many things she had collected during her extensive travels. At her death the entire estate of the Stanfords, amounting to about $50,000,000, was left to endow this great university. Her San Francisco home, on Nob Hill, became an art gallery and museum.

=Phœbe Hearst=, wife of George Hearst, and mother of William Randolph Hearst, made large donations to the University of California. These included $800,000 for the erection and equipment of the Hearst Memorial Mining Building. She also made provision for twenty scholarships for women, and founded a number of free libraries in mining towns with which her husband had been associated. Mrs. Hearst was also actively interested in every kind of organization for the welfare of women. Furthermore she established and maintained two kindergarten schools in San Francisco, and three in Washington, one of which is for colored children. Her most important gift to the District of Columbia was the National Cathedral School for Girls, erected on a beautiful site on the outskirts of the city.

=Margaret Olivia Sage=, the widow of Russell Sage, donated between seventy-five and eighty million dollars for charitable and educational purposes. With ten millions she established in 1907 the “Sage Foundation for Social Betterment.” Its purpose is the improvement of social and living conditions in the United States. It does not attempt to relieve individual or family need, but tries to seek out and eliminate causes of this evil. It furthers education that more directly affects social and living conditions, such as industrial education, education in household arts, and the training of social workers. In the pursuit of these aims the Sage Foundation subsidized worthy activities and organizations; it has established investigational and propagandist departments of its own; invested its funds in activities with a social purpose; and published extensively books and pamphlets on social subjects. Since the work of the Russell Sage Foundation aids social advance for people of every nation, Mrs. Sage became one of the benefactors not only of this country, but of the world.

Among the many donations Mrs. Sage made to other institutions, were $600,000 to the Troy Female Seminary, which was one of the first schools in America for the higher education of girls; $1,600,000 to the Woman’s Hospital of New York; $1,600,000 to the Children’s Aid Society; $1,600,000 to the Metropolitan Museum of Art; $1,600,000 to the American Museum of Natural History; and $1,600,000 to Syracuse University.

The list here given mentions only a few of the innumerable philanthropic works of American women. Similar lists could be made for all other countries, but the material has never been properly collected. Besides, by far the greatest number of such benevolent acts have been performed without public knowledge. But wherever we go, we find women active, helpful, and persevering, always rejoicing in the accomplishment of good.

THE HUNDRED YEARS’ BATTLE FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

“If particular care and attention are not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound to obey any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”—This was the warning directed by =Mrs. John Adams= in March, 1776, to her husband while he was attending the Continental Congress, assembled in Philadelphia to consider the Declaration of Independence.

When this document was framed and adopted without recognizing the rights of women, Mrs. Adams and a number of other women, deeply indignant, made good the threat of Mrs. Adams and opened that most remarkable warfare, which has lasted for more than a hundred years and may be called “=Woman’s Battle for Suffrage=.”

That they were deeply disappointed by the inattention of Congress, may be inferred from a letter by =Hannah Lee=, the sister of General Lee, in which she asks her brother to demand from Congress suffrage for women, as otherwise they would not pay any taxes. The same request was made by various other prominent women, who pointed to the fact that, while their husbands and sons had fought for the inherent rights of men, they had likewise fought for the rights of women. But as at that time American women were not organized their demands failed to make the necessary impression and remained unheeded. Besides, the majority of American women receiving only a very limited education, took little interest in the question, because of their ignorance of its importance. Thus, the subject of woman’s rights and suffrage dragged on until women had discovered, that there is strength in numbers, in federation, and that federation is the preliminary requirement to make victory possible.

The evolution of women’s clubs during the 19th Century is one of the most striking and most important phenomena in woman’s history. The movement began with the sewing or spinning circles of long ago, and made a great stride when the custom was initiated of some members reading while the others sewed. Later on these circles evolved into reading-clubs, which again developed into literary societies and associations for public improvement, aiming at the establishment of public schools and libraries, the erection of hospitals, orphan asylums, the sanitation of the streets, and other public works.

Such women’s clubs were not even afraid to tackle such most difficult problems as the abolition of slavery, which, at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th Century, became the burning question of the time. The hot discussion of this problem split the population of the United States into two hostile factions, of which the South with its partisans in the North made desperate efforts to prevent the free expression of opinion respecting the institution of slavery. In the slave States even the Christian churches used their influence in favor of the maintenance of slavery.

Among the first and strongest advocates of abolition were =Sarah= and =Angelina Grimke=, the daughters of a family of Salzburgers, who during the 18th Century had immigrated into South Carolina and Georgia. Shocked by the inhuman treatment and cruelties inflicted upon the slaves all round, and suffering intensely from the stand taken by their own relatives, the sisters resolved to fight these abuses.

While visiting Philadelphia, Sarah came under the influence of the Quakers, and read the strong protest against slavery, which Pastorius and the settlers of Germantown in 1688 had directed to the Quaker meeting. Returning to her home, Sarah besought her relatives to free their slaves. Failing in this effort, she left her home, joined the Quaker society of the “Friends” in Philadelphia, and in 1835 directed an “Appeal to the Christian Women of the South,” imploring them to become active on behalf of the slaves. This pamphlet aroused such a profound sensation wherever it was read, that when some time afterward Miss Grimke expressed a desire to visit her former home, the mayor of Charleston called upon her mother and informed her that the police had been instructed to prevent her daughter’s landing when the steamer should come into port. He also would see to it that she might not communicate with any person, by letter or otherwise, and that, if she should elude the vigilance of the police and go ashore, she was to be arrested and imprisoned until the return of the vessel. As threats of personal violence were also made, Miss Grimke abandoned her visit, but published soon afterward “An Epistle to the Clergy of the Southern States,” and, at the same time, began to address meetings in Pennsylvania as well as in the New England States, in order to rouse the dormant moral sense of the hearers to protest against the colossal sin of the nation. She was assisted by her sister Angelina and such eloquent speakers as =Lucretia Mott=, =Elizabeth Stanton=, =William Lloyd Garrison= and others. These agitators finally created such a stir, that the conservatives and opponents of abolition decided that they must be silenced. Quite often their meetings were disturbed by mobs; halls were refused them, and violence was threatened. The General Association of Congregational Ministers of Massachusetts passed a resolution censuring the Grimke sisters, and issued a pastoral letter containing a tirade against “female preachers.” But in spite of all efforts, public sentiment in the North in favor of abolition steadily grew, until it became evident that the question could not be settled without an armed conflict.

At a gathering of abolitionists, held on July 19th, 1848, at the home of =Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton= in Seneca, N.Y., the question of women’s rights was eagerly discussed. Mrs. Stanton, the daughter of a lawyer, had found by frequent visits to her father’s office that according to the then existing laws, which had been adopted from England, married women had no right of disposal over their own inherited property, their own income, or their own children, no matter how unfit, degraded, and cruel their husbands might be. There was even no redress for corporal punishment which the husbands might inflict on their wives.

Another woman, present at the gathering, was =Lucretia Mott=, a Quaker teacher. It had been her experience, that female teachers, having paid for their education just as much as the males, obtained, when teaching, only half of the compensation granted to male teachers.

But the indignation of the two women over the inferior position of woman had been especially excited while attending the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention, held in 1840 at London. Both women, together with Mrs. Wendell Phillips, had been appointed delegates by the abolitionists of America, and as they were able speakers, much had been expected from their eloquence. But when the women submitted their credentials, they discovered that the English abolitionists had not reformed their antiquated views of male predominance and would not admit any woman as delegate nor on the platform. When the question was submitted to vote, the women were excluded by a large majority. This flat refusal to recognize woman’s right to an equal participation in all social, political, and religious affairs brought what is termed “the Woman Question” into greater prominence than ever before. The gathering in the Wesleyan chapel, at Seneca Falls, N.Y., Mrs. Stanton’s home, is known as the =First Woman’s Rights Convention=. Held on the 19th and 20th of July, 1848, it was attended by 68 women and 38 men. The simultaneous discussion of the subject of slavery and the natural rights of man had as their logical consequence, on the part of women, the demand of a privilege exercised in many cases by persons far below them in intelligence and education. They asserted that many of their number were taxpayers, that all were interested in good government, and that it would be unjust for women of intelligence to be deprived of a vote while ignorant negroes could have a voice in the government. Furthermore they asserted that the participation of women would have a purifying effect on politics.

At the close of the second day the convention adopted the following:

Declaration of Sentiments.

“The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

“He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise.

“He has compelled her to submit to laws in the formation of which she had no voice.

“He has withheld from her rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded men—both natives and foreigners.

“Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides.

“He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.

“He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns.

“He has so framed the laws of divorce as to what shall be the proper causes, and, in case of separation, to whom the guardianship of the children shall be given, as to be wholly regardless of the happiness of women—the law in all cases going upon a false supposition of the supremacy of man, and giving all power into his hands.

“After depriving her of all rights as a married woman, if single and the owner of property, he has taxed her to support a government which recognizes her only when her property can be made profitable to it.

“He has monopolized nearly all the profitable employments, and from those she is permitted to follow she receives but a scanty remuneration. He closes against her all the avenues of wealth and distinction which he considers most honorable to himself. As a teacher of theology, medicine, or law, she is not known.

“He allows her in church, as well as state, but a subordinate position, claiming Apostolic authority for her exclusion from the ministry and, with some exceptions, from any public participation in the affairs of the church.

“He has created a false public sentiment by giving to the world a different code of morals for men and women, by which moral delinquencies which exclude women from society are not only tolerated but deemed of little account in man.

“He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her conscience and God.

“He has endeavored, in every way that he could, to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life.