Historical Document

Fifty years ago woman in the United States was without a recognized individuality in any department of life. No provision was made in public or private schools for her education in anything beyond the rudimentary branches. An educated woman was a rarity, and was gazed upon with something akin to awe. The women who were known in the world of letters, in the entire country, could be easily counted upon the ten fingers. Margaret Fuller, educated by her father, a Harvard graduate and distinguished lawyer, stood preeminently at the head, and challenged the admiration of such men as Emerson, Channing, and Greeley.

In those days the women of the family were kept closely at home, carding, spinning, and weaving, making the butter and cheese, knitting and sewing, working by day and night, planning and economizing, to educate the boys of the family. Thus the girls toiled so long as they remained under the home roof, their services belonging to the father by law and by custom. Any kind of career for a woman was a thing undreamed of. Among the poorer families the girls might go about among the neighbors and earn a miserable pittance at housework or sewing. When the boy was twenty-one, the father agreed to pay him a fixed sum per annum, thenceforth, for his services, or, in default of this, he was free to carry his labor where it would receive a financial reward. No such agreement ever was made with the girls of the family. They continued to work without wages after they were twenty-one, exactly as they did before. When they married, their services were transferred to the husband, and were considered to be bountifully rewarded by food, shelter, and usually a very scanty supply of clothes. Any wages the wife might earn outside of the home belonged by law to the husband. No matter how drunken and improvident he might be; no matter how great her necessities and those of the children, if the employer paid the money to her he could be prosecuted by the husband and compelled to pay it again to him.

Cases were frequent where fathers willed all of their property to the sons, entirely cutting the daughters out. Where, however, the daughters received property, it passed directly into the sole possession of the husband, and all the rents and profits belonged to him to use as he pleased. At his death he could dispose of it by will, dispose of it by will, depriving the wife of all but what was called the “widow’s dower,” a life interest in one-third of that which was by right her own property. She lost not only the right to her earnings and her property, but also the right to the custody of her person and her children. The husband could apprentice the children at an early age, in spite of the mother’s protest, and at his death could dispose of the children by will, even an unborn child. The wife could neither sue nor be sued, nor testify in the courts. The phrase in constant use in legal decisions was, “The wife is dead in law,” or, “Husband and wife are one, and that one the husband.” According to the English common law, which then prevailed in every State in the Union except Louisiana, a man might beat his wife up to the point of endangering her life, without being liable to prosecution.

Fifty years ago no occupations were open to women except cooking, sewing, teaching, and factory work. Very few women were sufficiently educated to teach, but those who could do so received from $4 to $8 a month and “boarded ’round,” while men, for exactly the same service, received $30 a month and board. Every woman must marry, either with or without love, for the sake of support, or be doomed to a life of utter dependence, living, after the death of parents, in the home of a married brother or sister, the drudge and burden-bearer of the family, without any financial recompense, and usually looked upon with disrespect by the children. Women might work like galley slaves for their own relatives, receiving only their board and clothes, and hold their social position in the community; but the moment they stepped outside of the home and became wage-earners, thus securing pecuniary independence, they lost caste and were rigidly barred out from the quilting bees, the apple-parings, and all the society functions of the neighborhood. Is it any wonder that a sour and crabbed disposition was universally ascribed to spinsterhood, or that those women should be regarded as most unfortunate, doomed to a loveless, aimless, and dependent existence,—universally considered as having made a failure of life?…

Such was the helpless, dependent, fettered condition of women when the first Women’s Rights Convention was called just forty-nine years ago, at Seneca Falls, N. Y., by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. Half a century before this, Mary Wollstonecraft had written her “Vindication of the Rights of Women,” that matchless plea for the equality of the sexes. A quarter of century before, Frances Wright, in connection with addresses upon other subjects, demanded equal rights for women. In 1835, Ernestine L. Rose and Paulina Wright Davis circulated the first petition for property rights for women, and during the next ten years Mrs. Rose addressed the New York Legislature a number of times asking political equality. Mrs. Stanton also had circulated petitions and addressed the Legislature during this period. In 1847, Lucy Stone, on her return from Oberlin College, made her first women’s rights address in her brother’s church in Gardner, Mass.

While there had been individual demands, from time to time, the first organized body to formulate a declaration of the rights of women was the one which met at Seneca Falls, July 19–20, 1848, and adjourned to meet at Rochester two weeks later. In the Declaration of Sentiments and the Resolutions there framed, every point was covered that, down to the present day, has been contended for by the advocates of equal rights for women. Every inequality of the existing laws and customs was carefully considered and a thorough and complete readjustment demanded. The only resolution that was not unanimously adopted was the one urging the elective franchise for women. Those who opposed it did so only because they feared it would make the movement ridiculous. But Mrs. Stanton and Frederick Douglass, seeing that the power to make laws and choose rulers was the right by which all others could be secured, persistently advocated the resolution and at last carried it by a good majority….

There is not space to follow the history of the last fifty years and study the methods by which these victories have been gained, but there is not one foot of advanced ground upon which women stand to-day that has not been obtained through the hard-fought battles of other women. The close of this nineteenth century finds every trade, vocation, and profession open to women, and every opportunity at their command for preparing themselves to follow these occupations. The girls as well as the boys of a family now fit themselves for such careers as their tastes and abilities permit. A vast amount of the household drudgery, that once monopolized the whole time and strength of the mother and daughters, has been taken outside and turned over to machinery in vast establishments. A money value is placed upon the labor of women. The ban of social ostracism has been largely removed from the woman wage-earner. She who can make for herself a place of distinction in any line of work receives commendation instead of condemnation. Woman is no longer compelled to marry for support, but may herself make her own home and earn her own financial independence.

With but few exceptions, the highest institutions of learning in the land are as freely opened to girls as to boys, and they may receive their degrees as legal, medical, and theological colleges, and practise their professions without hindrance. In the world of literature and art women divide the honors with men; and our civil-service rules have secured for them many thousands of remunerative positions under the Government….

There has been a radical revolution in the legal status of women. In most States the old common law has been annulled by legislative enactment, through which partial justice, at least, has been done to married women. In nearly every State they may retain and control property owned at marriage and all they may receive by gift or inheritance thereafter, and also their earnings outside the home. They may sue and be sued, testify in the courts, and carry on business in their own name, but in no State have wives any ownership in the joint earnings. In six or seven State have equal guardianship of the children. While in most States the divorce laws are the same for men and women, they never can bear equally upon both while all the property earned during marriage belongs wholly to the husband. There has been such a modification in public sentiment, however, that, in most cases, courts and juries show a marked leniency toward women.

The department of politics has been slowest to give admission to women. Suffrage is the pivotal rights, and if it could have been secured at the beginning, women would not have been half a century in gaining the privileges enumerated above, for privileges they must be called so long as others may either give or take them away. If women could make the laws or elect those who make them, they would be in the position of sovereigns instead of subjects. Were they the political peers of man they could command instead of having to beg, petition, and pray. Can it be possible it is for this reason that men have been so determined in their opposition to grant to women political power?

But even this stronghold is beginning to yield to the long and steady pressure. In twenty-five States women possess suffrage in school matters; in four States they have a limited suffrage in local affairs; in one State they have municipal suffrage; in four States they have full suffrage, local, State, and national. Women are becoming more and more interested in political questions and public affairs. Every campaign sees greater numbers in attendance at the meetings, and able woman speakers are now found upon the platforms of all parties. Especial efforts are made by politicians to obtain the support of women, and during the last campaign one of the Presidential candidates held special meetings for women in the large cities throughout the country. Some of the finest political writing in the great newspapers of the day is done by women, and the papers are extensively read by women of all classes. In many of the large cities women have formed civic clubs and are exercising a distinctive influence in municipal matters. In most of the States of the Union woman are eligible for many offices, State and County Superintendents, Registers of Deeds, etc. They are Deputies to State, County, and City officials, notaries public, State Librarians, and enrolling and engrossing clerks in the Legislatures.

It follows, as a natural result, that in the States where women vote they are eligible to all offices. They have been sent as delegates to National Conventions, made Presidential electors, and are sitting to-day as members in both the Upper and Lower Houses of the Legislatures. In some towns all the offices are filled by women. These radical changes have been effected without any social upheaval or domestic earthquakes, family relations have suffered no disastrous changes, and the men of the States where women vote furnish the strongest testimony in favor of woman suffrage….

From that little convention at Seneca Falls, with a following of a handful of women scattered through half-a-dozen different States, we have now the great National Association, with headquarters in New York City, and auxiliaries in almost every State in the Union. These State bodies are effecting a thorough system of county and local organizations for the purpose of securing legislation favorable to women, and especially to obtain amendments to their State Constitutions. As evidence of the progress of public opinion, more than half of the Legislatures in session, during the past winter, have discussed and voted upon bills for the enfranchisement of women, and in most of them they were adopted by one branch and lost by a very small majority in the other. The Legislatures of Washington and South Dakota have submitted woman-suffrage amendments to their electors for 1898, and vigorous campaigns will be made in those States during the next two years. For a quarter of a century Wyoming has stood as a conspicuous object-lesson in woman suffrage, and is now reinforced by the three neighboring States of Colorado, Utah, and Idaho. With this central group, standing on the very crest of the Rocky Mountains, the spirit of justice and freedom for women cannot fail to descend upon all the Western and Northwestern States. No one who makes a careful study of this question can help but believe that, in a very few years, all the States west of the Mississippi river will have enfranchised their women.

While the efforts of each State are concentrated upon its own Legislature, all of the States combined in the national organization are directing their energies toward securing a Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The demands of this body have been received with respectful and encouraging attention from Congress. Hearings have been granted by the Committees of both Houses, resulting, in a number of instances, in favorable reports. Upon one occasion the question was brought to a discussion in the Senate, and received the affirmative vote of one-third of the members.

Until woman has obtained “that right protective of all other rights—the ballot,” this agitation must still go on, absorbing the time and the energy of our best and strongest women. Who can measure the advantages that would result if the magnificent abilities of these women could be devoted to the needs of government, society, home, instead of being consumed in the struggle to obtain their birthright of individual freedom? Until this be gained we can never know, we cannot even prophesy, the capacity and power of woman for the uplifting of humanity. It may be delayed longer than we think, it may be here sooner than we expect, but the day will come when man will recognize woman as his peer, not only at the fireside, but in the councils of the nation. Then, and not until then, will there be the perfect comradeship, the ideal union between the sexes, that shall result in the highest development of the race. What this shall be we may not attempt to define, but this we know, that only good can come to the individual or the nation through the rendering of exact justice.

Glossary

carding: brushing fabric in order to disentangle fibers

common law: law based primarily on past legal judgments, rather than on statutes passed by a legislative body such as the U.S. Congress

electors: elected representatives from each state whose vote, in the Electoral College, decides presidential elections

engrossing: preparing official documents according to precise legal procedures

Mary Wollstonecraft: prominent English feminist (1759–1797) whose daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, wrote Frankenstein

spinsterhood: a term, common in the time before the sexual revolution of the 1960s, for the situation of a woman who will never be married

suffrage: the right to vote

the race: not a reference to “race” as it is commonly understood today but rather to the human race

the world of letters: the world of literature

Upper and Lower Houses of the Legislature: common divisions within parliamentary democracies such as the United States, in which the Senate and House of Representatives are the upper and lower house, respectively