Treacherous Texts


Treacherous Texts

U.S. Suffrage Literature, 1846–1946

Edited by
M a ry C h a p m a n
Angela Mills

rutgers university press

new brunswick, new jersey, and london
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Treacherous texts : U.S. suffrage literature, 1846–1946 / edited by Mary Chapman
and Angela Mills.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8135-4959-0 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Women—Suffrage—United States—History—Sources. I. Chapman, Mary, 1962–
II. Mills, Angela, 1973–
JK1896.T74 2010
324.6⬘230973—dc22
2010028685
A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.
Copyright © 2011 by Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Introduction and scholarly apparatus © 2011 by Mary Chapman and Angela Mills
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission
from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 100 Joyce Kilmer Avenue,
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Manufactured in the United States of America
 CONTENTS

Acknowledgments ix
Chronology of the U.S. Woman Suffrage Campaign xi

Introduction 1

PA R T I
Declaring Sentiments, 1846–1891

Introduction 10
“Petition for Woman’s Rights” (1846)
Eleanor Vincent, Susan Ormsby, Lydia Williams,
Amy Ormsby, Lydia Osborn, and Anna Bishop 18
“Declaration of Sentiments” (1848)
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frederick Douglass, and others 20
Speech at Akron, Ohio, Woman’s Rights Convention (1851)
Sojourner Truth 24
Christine, or, Woman’s Trials and Triumphs (1856)
Laura J. Curtis [Bullard] 26
“Independence” (1859)
“Shall Women Vote?” (1860)
Fanny Fern [Sara Willis Parton] 41
“Woman and the Ballot” (1870)
Frederick Douglass 43
“Aunt Chloe’s Politics” (1871)
“John and Jacob—A Dialogue on Woman’s Rights” (1885)
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper 47
My Wife and I; or, Harry Henderson’s History (1871)
Harriet Beecher Stowe 51
v
vi contents

“Cupid and Chow-Chow” (1872)

Louisa May Alcott 62
“Trotty’s Lecture Bureau” (1877)
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps 74
“How I went to ’lection” (1877)
Marietta Holley 77
Fettered for Life, or, Lord and Master (1874)
“A Divided Republic: An Allegory of the Future” (1885)
Lillie Devereux Blake 86
“Another Chapter of ‘The Bostonians’” (1887)
Henrietta James [Celia B. Whitehead] 100
Wynema: A Child of the Forest (1891)
Sophia Alice Callahan 108

PA R T I I
Searching for Sisterhood: Two Case Studies of
Transnational Feminism, 1907–1914

Introduction 114

Interactions between U.S. and British Campaigns 119

Votes for Women (1907)
Elizabeth Robins 120
“The March of the Women” (1911)
Dame Ethel Smyth and Cicely Hamilton 133
“The Diary of a Newsy” (1911)
Jessie Anthony 135
Julia France and Her Times (1912)
Gertrude Atherton 138
“How it Feels to be Forcibly Fed” (1914)
Djuna Barnes 148

Interactions between U.S. and Chinese Campaigns 152

“The Inferior Woman” (1910)
Sui Sin Far [Edith Maude Eaton] 153
“The Oppression of Women” (1915)
“In All Earnestness, I speak to all my sisters” (1915)
Anonymous 163
“Catching Up with China” Banner (1912)
New York Suffrage Party 165
“Heathen Chinee” Cartoon (1912)
Anonymous 167
contents vii

PA R T I I I
Making Woman New! 1897–1920

Introduction 170
“Women Do Not Want It” (1897)
“The Anti-Suffragists” (1898)
“The Socialist and the Suffragist” (1911)
Charlotte Perkins Gilman 177
“The Australian Ballot System” (1898)
Mabel Clare Ervin 182
Portia Politics (1911–1912)
Edith Bailey 186
“Disfranchisement” from Mother Goose as a Suffragette (1912)
“Taffy” from Mother Goose as a Suffragette (1912)
New York Woman Suffrage Party 190
“Women March” (1912)
Mary Alden Hopkins 193
“The Arrest of Suffrage” (1912)
Ethel Whitehead 200
“Brother Baptis’ on Woman Suffrage” (1912)
Rosalie Jonas 206
“Mirandy on ‘Why Women Can’t Vote’” (1912)
Dorothy Dix [Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer] 207
Hagar (1913)
Mary Johnston 211
“The Parade: A Suffrage Playlet in One Act and an After-Act” (1913)
Mrs. Allan Dawson [Nell Perkins Dawson] 220
“The Woman with Empty Hands: The Evolution of a Suffragette” (1913)
Anonymous [Marion Hamilton Carter] 225
“How it Feels to be the Husband of a Suffragette” (1914)
Anonymous 231
“Our Own Twelve Anti-Suffragist Reasons” (1914)
“Representation” (1914)
“The Revolt of Mother” (1915)
“A Consistent Anti to Her Son” (1915)
Alice Duer Miller 235
“A Plea for Suffrage” (1915)
Miss M. M. [Marianne Moore] 239
“The President’s Valentine” (1916)
Nina E. Allender 241
Fanny Herself (1917)
Edna Ferber 243
viii contents

The Sturdy Oak, chapter 7 (1917)

Anne O’Hagan 254
For Rent—One Pedestal (1917)
Marjorie Shuler 263
“President Wilson says ‘Godspeed to the Cause’” Cartoon (1917)
“Come to Mother” Cartoon (1917)
Nina E. Allender 270
“President Wilson’s War Message” Banner (1917)
Anonymous [National Woman’s Party members] 273
“Telling the Truth at the White House” (1917)
Marie Jenney Howe and Paula Jakobi 275
“We Worried Woody Wood” (1917)
Anonymous [Jailed members of the National Woman’s Party] 280
“Prison Notes, Smuggled to Friends from the District Jail” (1917)
Rose Winslow [Ruza Wenclawska] 282
“Switchboard Suffrage” (1920)
Oreola Williams Haskell 284

PA R T I V
Carrying the Suffrage Torch, 1920–1946

Introduction 290
Jailed For Freedom (1920)
Doris Stevens 294
“Upon this marble bust that is not I” (1923)
Edna St. Vincent Millay 298
“The Suffrage Torch: Memories of a Militant” (1929)
Louisine W. Havemeyer 300
The Mother of Us All (1946)
Gertrude Stein 306

Notes 311
Selected Bibliography of U.S. Suffrage Literature 321
Index 325
 ACKNOWLED GMENTS

An anthology like this relies on the generosity of many scholars, librarians,

and institutions. We thank Cally Gurley, curator of the Maine Women Writers
Collection; Karen V. Kukil, associate curator of Special Collections, William Allan
Neilson Library, Smith College; Lorett Treese at the Bryn Mawr College Special
Collections; Jennifer Krafchik at the Sewall-Belmont House; Barbara Bair, Library
of Congress; and Patrick Dunn and David Truelove, Interlibrary Loans, University
of British Columbia. Thanks also to Ann Ardis, Paula Bernat Bennett, Lucy Delap,
Maria DiCenzo, Ellen Gruber Garvey, Barbara Green, and Jean Lutes for providing
feedback and community; to Leslie Paris for being a wonderful interlocutor and
reader; to Brook Houglum, Rose Casey, Laila Ferreira, Alyssa Maclean, Meaghan
McAneeley, Jacky Shin, and Victoria Tang, for help with research, proofreading,
and permissions; to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of
Canada and the University of British Columbia for funding the project; to the
members of the Northeast American Women Writers Study Group for reading and
talking about many of the texts; and to colleagues who nudged the project along
with their questions and comments, especially Laura Moss, sounding board extra-
ordinaire, and Janet Giltrow. And finally, special thanks to Leslie Mitchner who
encouraged the project from the beginning.
Special thanks to Jeffrey, Jasper, and William for giving me time to pursue these
“treacherous texts.” M.C.
And, a thank you to Troy and Clara, for making room for a labor of love. A.M.

ix
 CHRONOLO GY OF
T H E U. S. W O M A N
SUFFRAGE CAMPAIGN

1777 Women lose the right to vote in New York State.

1780 Women lose the right to vote in Massachusetts.
1784 Women lose the right to vote in New Hampshire.
1787 U.S. Constitutional Convention places voting qualifications in the hands of
the states. Women in all states except New Jersey lose the right to vote.
1792–1838 The constitutions of Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, New
Jersey, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia exclude African Americans from
voting but expand white male suffrage.
1807 Women lose the right to vote in New Jersey.
1834 In a petition to the federal government regarding the abolition of slavery in
Washington, D.C., Ohio farmwomen request “the immediate enfranchisement of
every human being that shall tread this soil.”
1846 Women of Jefferson County, New York, submit a petition to the New York
state legislature requesting woman suffrage.
1848 Seneca Falls Convention adopts a “Declaration of Sentiments” that demands,
among other rights, the “sacred right to the elective franchise” for women. New
York state legislature passes a Married Women’s Property Law, enabling married
women to own property.
1850 First annual National Woman’s Rights Convention is held in Worcester,
Massachusetts, with representatives from eleven states attending.
1855 Elizabeth Cady Stanton appears before the New York state legislature to
advocate for an expanded Married Women’s Property Law.
1867 Kansas holds the world’s first referendum on woman suffrage. It is defeated.

xi
xii chronology

1868 The Fourteenth Amendment (whose second section effectively defines

citizens as “male”) is ratified. Stanton and Anthony found The Revolution, a weekly
suffrage newspaper. To test judicial interpretations of the Fourteenth Amendment
172 New Jersey women attempt to vote. In subsequent elections throughout the
1870s, Anthony and other women try to vote. The Fifteenth Amendment, enfran-
chising black men, passes Congress.

1869 Lucy Stone, Henry Ward Beecher, Henry Blackwell, Frederick Douglass,
and others work for the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment; they form the
American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). Anthony and Stanton refuse to
work for the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment; they form the National
Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA). Wyoming Territory grants full voting rights
to women. Anthony encourages women to move en masse to Wyoming.

1870 Utah Territory grants full voting rights to women. The Fifteenth Amendment
prohibits states from denying citizens the vote based on “race, color, or previous
condition of servitude.” AWSA founds The Woman’s Journal, the longest running
suffrage journal in the United States.

1871 Anthony campaigns in the Pacific Northwest. African American activist Mary
Ann Shadd Carey addresses the House Judiciary Committee on Suffrage.

1872 Free love advocate Victoria Woodhull runs for president. Anthony is arrested
for voting.

1874 Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is formed.

1878 A woman suffrage amendment, authored by Anthony and Stanton and

requesting that “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied
or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex,” is introduced in
Congress for first time.

1880 Mary Ann Shadd Carey organizes the Colored Women’s Progressive
Franchise Association in Washington, D.C.

1882 House and Senate committees on woman suffrage report favorably on

proposed amendment.

1883 Washington Territory grants full voting rights to women; the WCTU formally
endorses woman suffrage.

1884 Senate reports on the woman suffrage amendment with favorable majority.

1886 Proposed suffrage amendment is defeated in the Senate.

1887 Congress rescinds woman suffrage in Utah. Washington Territory’s Supreme

Court rescinds woman suffrage.

1888 Washington Territory legislature grants women the right to vote, but the
territory’s Supreme Court rescinds that right, for the second time.
chronology xiii

1889 The new state of Washington defeats woman suffrage in a state referendum.
1890 NWSA and ASWA merge to form the National American Woman Suffrage
Association (NAWSA) after several years of negotiating. Wyoming enters Union as
first state with full woman suffrage. South Dakota’s suffrage referendum fails. New
Zealand becomes first nation to grant women full suffrage.
1893 Colorado state referendum grants full voting rights to women.
1894 Woman suffrage petition with more than 600,000 signatures is ignored by
the New York state legislature. Colorado voters elect three female state legislators,
the first in U.S. history.
1895 The new state of Utah grants full voting rights to women.
1896 Idaho grants full voting rights to women. California referendum is defeated
by a large majority. The “doldrums” begin—no state suffrage referendum succeeds
for the next fourteen years. Frances E.W. Harper helps found the National
Association of Colored Women.
1900 Carrie Chapman Catt becomes president of NAWSA.
1907 Spectacular suffrage tactics—parades, street speakers, pickets—inspired by
British militants are introduced to the U.S. campaign.
1910 Washington state referendum approves full suffrage for women and breaks
the fourteen-year hiatus in state referendum victories.
1911 California referendum approves full voting rights for women.
1912 Oregon, Kansas, and Arizona referenda approve full voting rights for women.
The Progressive Party includes a woman suffrage plank in its platform. Wisconsin
woman suffrage referendum is defeated.
1913 The congressional committee of NAWSA, led by Alice Paul, organizes a huge
parade in Washington on the eve of Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration as president.
Alaska Territory grants woman suffrage. The Illinois legislature grants municipal
and presidential but not state suffrage to women.
1914 The congressional committee separates from NAWSA to become the
Congressional Union. Montana and Nevada referenda approve full suffrage for
women. NAWSA presents Congress with a petition, signed by more than 500,000
people, asking for woman suffrage. Suffrage amendment is defeated in the Senate
by a margin of 35 to 34.
1915 New York state woman suffrage referendum is defeated by significant majority.
1916 Jeanette Rankin of Montana is the first woman to win a seat in the House of
Representatives. NAWSA President Catt introduces her “winning plan,” which
combines state suffrage referenda with lobbying the federal government for a
constitutional amendment. Members of the Congressional Union and Women’s
Political Union join to form the National Woman’s Party.
xiv chronology

1917 National Woman’s Party members picket the White House daily, beginning in
January. More than 500 are arrested; 168 are jailed. In November, the campaign
achieves a significant victory in a large eastern state when the New York referendum
succeeds. North Dakota, Nebraska, and Rhode Island grant women right to parti-
cipate in presidential elections. Arkansas grants suffrage in primary elections.
1918 Michigan, South Dakota, and Oklahoma referenda grant full suffrage to
women. President Wilson votes personally for woman suffrage in New Jersey state
referendum but continues to insist that suffrage is a state concern. The House of
Representatives is willing to pass the amendment, but the Senate defeats it by two
votes.
1919 The House of Representatives and Senate pass the amendment. Nine addi-
tional states approve women’s right to participate in presidential elections.
1920 Nineteenth Amendment wins the support of three-quarters of the state
legislatures when Tennessee ratifies it. While the amendment prohibits denying
any American citizen the vote on the basis of gender, it does not ensure voting
rights for Native Americans, Chinese immigrants, and others.
1924 The Indian Citizenship Act grants citizenship to Native American Indians,
but many western states continue to prohibit them from voting.
1943 Chinese Exclusion Act is repealed, making people of Chinese ancestry eligible
for U.S. citizenship and the franchise.
1952 Walter-McCarran Act grants all people of Asian ancestry the right to become
citizens.
1965 Voting Rights Act outlaws discriminatory and intimidating practices at the
polls, thereby encouraging more African Americans to vote.
Treacherous Texts

 R
Introduction

The story of the achievement of woman suffrage in the United States is a story
worth telling, perhaps most significantly because what began as private conversa-
tions among women (and men) grew into one of the largest propaganda campaigns
in the world: a campaign that culminated in the effective doubling of the number
of eligible voters in one of the largest democracies in the world. By some estimates,
as many as twenty million U.S. women were enfranchised when the Nineteenth
Amendment was ratified in August 1920. Never before or since has an act of legis-
lation enfranchised so many people. It is true that only one-third of the eligible
women voted in the presidential election that immediately followed their enfran-
chisement and many women of color were quickly disenfranchised. Still, in recent
presidential elections, more women than men vote, a trend suggesting that the
ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment marked both the end of a long, challenging
campaign to enfranchise women and the beginning of a movement to involve women
more fully in national politics.
The most familiar narrative of the U.S. woman suffrage movement originated
in The History of Woman Suffrage, the first volumes of which were assembled by
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, two of the movement’s most active
nineteenth-century leaders and orators. Their history focused primarily on white,
middle-class, Protestant reformers from the northeastern states, who came to the
woman’s rights cause through their involvement in antislavery and temperance
organizations. These reformers gave public lectures, organized conventions, authored
woman’s rights manifestoes and petitions, and addressed state legislatures to lobby
for constitutional changes at both state and federal levels. Their efforts were
rewarded after their deaths, when the Nineteenth Amendment, which made it ille-
gal to deny or abridge any citizen’s right to vote “on account of sex,” was ratified by
three-quarters of the state legislatures in 1920.
As compelling as this homogeneous narrative is, it has been complicated in the
past twenty-five years by feminist scholars working in diverse disciplines including
history, women’s studies, rhetorical studies, political science, and cognate disciplines.

1
2 introduction

Many scholars have challenged the designation of the 1848 Seneca Falls, New York,
Woman’s Rights convention, organized by Stanton and other women, as the move-
ment’s starting point.1 Others have exposed the racial, religious, class, and regional
diversity of the participants in this movement. Informed by “bottom-up” history
and by “differences” feminism, they have documented the participation of African
American, Asian American, Jewish, working-class, and immigrant suffragists.2 In
the process, scholars have also acknowledged the racist, nativist, and elitist tenden-
cies of the movement’s best known leaders3 as well as the uneven developments that
kept thousands of nonwhite women disenfranchised even after the ratification of
the Nineteenth Amendment.4 Recent studies have broadened the geographic scope
of research on woman suffrage to attend to the regional specificities of campaigns
as they unfolded in the West, Midwest, and South.5 At the same time, scholars
have also moved outside the U.S. context to acknowledge the inspiring exchanges
between U.S. suffragists and women engaged in national suffrage campaigns around
the world.6
This effort to revise the narrative of suffrage has been enabled by the project of
recovering an impressive array of primary documents produced by the campaign.
These documents—which include speeches, petitions, and polemic—were written
not only to educate and to convert women to the Cause but also to persuade both
men voting in state suffrage referenda and legislators debating the merits of a
constitutional amendment to recognize women’s right to the vote. These recovered
documents articulate the primary arguments for suffrage—that the vote is a natu-
ral right and that women’s particular moral nature makes it expedient to enfran-
chise them; at the same time they demonstrate women’s fitness for the franchise
by displaying the incontrovertible logic, brilliant rhetorical strategizing, and calcu-
lated tactics through which several generations of U.S. women moved a resistant
population to accept women’s participation in the public sphere.7
These modes of persuasion were not, however, the only rhetorical forms
deployed by the U.S. suffrage movement over its complex, rich, and varied history.
At the same time that many of the best-known leaders were crafting brilliant
orations, other suffrage supporters were developing more creative forms of propa-
ganda, including pageants, parades, songs, and even silent films!8 These performa-
tive rhetorical forms were complemented by popular literary works—novels, short
stories, poems, plays, autobiographies and journalistic sketches—written and cir-
culated in the service of the suffrage campaign. From the mid-nineteenth century
until the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, U.S. women (and men) from
a variety of racial, ethnic, and class backgrounds published hundreds of literary
works advocating women’s suffrage. For every woman who dared stand on a
podium and address an audience about the importance of enfranchising women,
many others wrote popular literary works in support of suffrage. Some were ama-
teurs moved to write because they cared deeply about the Cause; others were estab-
lished professional writers, many of whom we now recognize as central figures in
the American literary canon. Nineteenth-century sentimental women writers such
as Harriet Beecher Stowe and Louisa May Alcott, western regionalists such as
introduction 3

Gertrude Atherton, Brand Whitlock, Zona Gale, and Hamlin Garland, and middle-
brow modernists such as Edna Ferber wrote prosuffrage fiction; African American
authors including Frances Harper, Rosalie Jonas, and W.E.B. Du Bois, and mod-
ernists, such as Marianne Moore and Edna St. Vincent Millay, wrote suffrage
poetry. Avant-gardist Gertrude Stein even wrote an opera libretto memorializing
Susan B. Anthony.9 Although many other feminist themes and campaigns are also
central elements of this literary tradition, women’s achievement of political voice is
a deeply embedded theme in works within the tradition of women’s literature that
foregrounds women’s achievement of literary voice.
Nineteenth-century writers published their literary works in woman’s rights
journals. Modern suffrage writers found a ready market for their work in main-
stream newspapers and magazines greedy for content that would interest a growing
female readership; many magazines—including The Crisis, Harper’s Weekly, Puck,
Life, and The Masses—sponsored special issues on suffrage that incorporated
creative works as well as polemical pieces. Modern suffrage writers were also able to
take advantage of an extensive infrastructure of suffrage publishing that emerged
in the Progressive Era, which included numerous new advocacy journals and news-
papers such as the New York Woman Suffrage Party’s The Woman Voter and the
National Woman’s Party’s The Suffragist, as well as suffrage presses like the National
Woman Suffrage Publishing Company (a company created to solicit and distribute
literary and policy materials for the movement).10 Through these print cultural
networks, rhetorically powerful literary works reached millions of Americans and
persuaded many of them not only to support the movement but also, in some
cases, to raise funds for the campaign.
From the very beginning of the campaign, suffrage organizers emphasized the
persuasive power of literature and imagined its potential effect on the suffrage
campaign. In an 1853 issue of The Una, the very first U.S. journal devoted to
woman’s rights, a contributor noted how popular fiction could be brought “into
the service of a favorite principle” because it could demonstrate the “force and
beauty” of an idea.11 Thirty-five years later, The Woman’s Journal (sponsored by
the American Woman Suffrage Association) encouraged readers to publish
original suffrage plays in its pages.12 In 1892, National American Woman Suffrage
Association President Elizabeth Cady Stanton expressed her longing for a woman
writer to “do for her sex what [Harriet Beecher] Stowe did for the black race in
‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ a book that did more to rouse the national conscience than
all the glowing appeals and constitutional arguments that agitated our people dur-
ing half a century”.13 Invoking the popular mid-nineteenth-century sentimental
novel that had encouraged northern white women to identify with the plight of
oppressed slave mothers and to agitate for abolition, Stanton called on prosuffrage
writers to craft popular fiction that could move people to consider a new, more
public role for women. And in 1916, the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage
sent more than one thousand rhyming valentines to congressmen, hoping to use
this romantic form of suasion to “woo” legislators to support a constitutional
amendment before Congress. The creator of the valentine campaign claimed that
4 introduction

the “eloquence of the soap box, cart tail, and back of an automobile variety” had
had little impact on legislators, forcing suffragists to consider alternative forms of
persuasion. “We hope that rhymes may influence the politicians where the other
forces did not.”14
These recurring invocations suggest that throughout the campaign, suffragists
were well aware of the subtly registered but highly persuasive power of popular
fiction, drama, and poetry: its appeal to emotion more than logic; its ability to
personalize political conflict and struggle through characterization; its ability to
insinuate argument without alarming readers; and its capacity to supplement the
rich rhetoric elaborated in traditional rhetorical forms, particularly when oratory
failed. These texts, written primarily by women, representing diverse racial and
class backgrounds and geographical regions, depicted new feminist political
strategies and produced supporters of the cause while experimenting with a range
of aesthetics.
The tradition of suffrage literature in the United States is vast, creative, and sty-
listically interesting, but it has not yet received adequate attention from historians,
rhetoric scholars, or literary critics because the tradition has been obscured and
individual texts are out of print.15 Although a few popular suffrage novels have been
reissued and some suffrage plays have been collected, most are not available.16
Short fiction, poetry, literary journalism, and autobiographical works originally
published in mainstream and advocacy journals are buried in nonindexed micro-
film. As a consequence, the creative tactics of literary texts that contributed to the
eventual success of the suffrage campaign have been largely forgotten, and an excit-
ing aspect of U.S. print culture—creative literature written in the service of a
reform movement—has been almost entirely overlooked. While the recuperation
of other American literatures of reform (for example, temperance and antislavery
literature) has been ongoing in recent decades, scholarship is required to establish
how creative literature, written in the service of the U.S. suffrage campaign and
published in the popular press, functioned as an integral part of the art of politics.17
Thus, although the history of U.S. woman suffrage itself is well documented, exist-
ing collections and studies of U.S. suffrage “documents” have not represented the
complete story.
Treacherous Texts: U.S. Suffrage Literature, 1846–1946 intends to promote this
recognition by identifying and making available a representative sampling of the
plentiful array of fiction, poetry, drama, essays, and autobiography published in
the service of the U.S. suffrage campaign, as well as more unusual forms of print
cultural propaganda—including valentines, banners, petitions, and cartoons—that
were in circulation, particularly in the modern period. Print cultural artifacts took
the suffrage message to the streets, theaters, and markets, as well as to the halls of
Congress. The volume and variety of print culture material, its responsiveness to
political developments and opponents’ attacks, as well as its versatility in form,
suggest its creators’ protomodern and modern sensibilities: blanket marketing a
brand and keeping a message—in multiple, eye-catching guises—relentlessly
before the public. Treacherous Texts is inspired by scholarship in literature, rhetoric,
introduction 5

and history and by three scholarly interventions: the recent recovery of an impres-
sive tradition of British suffrage literature,18 rhetorical studies’ redefinition of
rhetorical “text” to include nontraditional aspects of rhetorical action,19 and femi-
nist literary scholars’ efforts to recuperate a popular tradition of American literary
texts that “perform cultural work.”20
Designed as a classroom resource and scholarly intervention, Treacherous Texts
showcases an innovative literary campaign sustained by smart, savvy, creative writ-
ers that complemented the rhetorical campaign waged by the movement’s most
effective orators and polemicists from the year of the first suffrage petition through
the memorializing decades following the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.
These creative writers used literature as a rhetorical form to challenge women’s
exclusion from public rhetoric. Decade after decade, they exercised their wits and
experimented with aesthetics in an effort to sway both men and women to embrace
their cause. They found political self-expression through creative literary forms
that in turn worked to persuade others of the wisdom and necessity of enfranchis-
ing women. In the process, they generated a literary and rhetorical tradition that
formulated a serious political argument through humor, stylistic experimentation,
and sex appeal. The title of this anthology is inspired by the “Treacherous Texts”
section of Alice Duer Miller’s suffrage poetry book Are Women People? Miller’s
adjective “treacherous” invokes the complex counterculture—always critical, but at
times even treasonous!—that writers created to challenge a dominant culture that
sought to exclude women from the public sphere.
Introducing a twenty-first-century audience to texts that were popular and
persuasive in their day but have been, by and large, relegated to archival obscurity
requires an argument for reframing the very structures of critical evaluation that
dismissed them in the first place, particularly literary studies’ New Critical para-
digm, an approach that has actively policed the boundary between propaganda and
literature. The New Critical propensity for valuing only particular kinds of formal
experimentation has tended to mask the strategic thinking behind many suffrage
writers’ conscious engagements with more traditional forms. Many selections in
Treacherous Texts defy conventional understandings of genre and period; others’
seeming unambiguousness confounds usual approaches to literary close reading;
all have been written with an overt political agenda, a fact that chafes against per-
sistent critical assumptions that politics makes poor art. Yet closer scrutiny reveals
that suffrage literature is neither simplistic nor aesthetically deficient. Following
the lead of recent scholarship that has uncovered rich affinities between literature
and propaganda, Treacherous Texts chronicles the shifting strategies of suffragists
determined to have a “say” in the public sphere, despite the limitations of artistic or
political form that compounded their political voicelessness.21
Treacherous Texts compiles more than sixty selections from the tradition of U.S.
suffrage literature, chosen on the bases of both their attention to suffrage and more
particular considerations, including various arguments and rhetorical strategies,
diversity of contributors (including voices from various generations, genders,
races, classes, politics, sexualities, and regions), aesthetic power (creativity, stylistic
6 introduction

inventiveness, popular appeal), and formal features (representing the range of

genres and tropes prosuffrage writers employed). Each selection is prefaced by a
brief bio-bibliographical note to situate the selection historically or culturally and,
where necessary, to locate an excerpt within the context of the larger narrative from
which it has been taken. Textual selections are arranged in four chronological sec-
tions, each featuring an introduction outlining the pertinent social, political, and
aesthetic developments within that section’s historical period.
The chronological ordering and temporal scope of the selections bespeak, in
themselves, something of the project’s overarching objectives: to trace the develop-
ment of a heretofore neglected tradition of intersecting activism and art and to
illustrate the inventiveness of writers/activists who, over the course of a long and
multifaceted campaign for suffrage, adapted and innovated strategies in response
to changing political and social realities. Conveying the ingenuity and diversity of
the creative campaign for U.S. woman suffrage in terms of authors, genres, and
strategies, the texts collected here point to the depth and breadth of intellectual and
creative energy invested in the protracted, hard-fought woman suffrage campaign.
The texts also highlight how this campaign relied on writing in its many guises—
creative as well as informational and hortatory—to persuade an often recalcitrant
populace of women’s right to vote.
“Declaring Sentiments, 1846–1891” samples suffrage literature written in the
decades between the emergence of a woman’s rights movement in the late 1840s
and the founding of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA)
in 1890. During these years, woman suffrage was transformed from a mere fantasy
of a small group of northeastern reformers to a national lobby involving numerous
regional and national organizations. “Declaring Sentiments” demonstrates how
popular writers, particularly women, constructed literature as a less threatening,
more “womanly” alternative to political oratory by figuring their writing as an
extension of female influence in the domestic realm. Inspired by the persuasive
impact that popular literature had wrought on the abolitionist movement, suffrage
writers used fiction (sentimental, sensational, utopian, and juvenile), humor writ-
ing, dialect verse, and journalistic sketches to move readers toward both sympathy
with the plight of the disenfranchised woman and belief in a public sphere
improved by her enfranchisement.
“Searching for Sisterhood: Two Case Studies of Transnational Feminism,
1907–1914” registers U.S. suffragists’ complex reactions to progress made in the
international suffrage movement, particularly during a seven-year period in which
U.S. suffragist engagement with other national campaigns was at its peak. It brings
together texts from two national contexts and U.S. responses to these texts: the
British campaign, which was actively militant between 1907 and the beginning of
World War I in 1914, and the Chinese reform movement in the years leading up to
the Chinese Revolution (1911), as it was understood by diasporic Chinese living on
the West coast of the United States. While U.S. suffragists were inspired by the
spectacularity and militancy of Britain’s Women’s Social and Political Union,
adopting several of its key texts as their own, they reacted more problematically
introduction 7

to the progress of feminism in China, responding to the temporary achievement of

woman suffrage in Guangdong Province in 1912 with racist banners and cartoons.
“Making Woman New! 1897–1920” samples literary and print cultural works
produced during the final decades of the campaign, from the fourteen-year
“doldrums” during which no state referendum succeeded to the ratification of the
Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. “Making Woman New!” explores the modern
suffragist campaign’s engagement with many aspects of the “new”: New Women
and the new tactics they deployed to agitate for suffrage, as well as new literary
modes and print cultural genres that contributed to the campaign during this period.
The texts in this section document how a new generation of college-educated,
professionally experienced women, in collaboration with society women, working-
class women, and trade union organizers, transformed U.S. suffragist agitation
dramatically by organizing spectacular large-scale demonstrations and media
campaigns and by generating similarly spectacular literature and print culture.
“Carrying the Suffrage Torch, 1920–1946” samples texts written in the wake of
the campaign’s success—a success whose magnitude was questioned all too quickly
as women’s limited presence at the polls in the 1920 and 1924 presidential elections
and the continued disenfranchisement of southern black women and other women
of color raised doubts about what, exactly, the Nineteenth Amendment had accom-
plished for women and for American democracy. These texts commemorate the
movement but also suggest the challenges of putting the protracted, multifaceted
campaign and its result into perspective. Together, the texts excerpted in this sec-
tion intimate something of how the campaign’s participants and observers worked
to shape public memory, often obscuring difference and dissension within the
movement by focusing on the heroic sacrifices of a select group of women or by
delineating a fully cooperative undertaking involving women from various classes,
races, ethnicities, and occupations.
Treacherous Texts concludes with an excerpt from an opera libretto by Gertude
Stein, which is fitting because Stein’s The Mother of Us All complicates aesthetically
our sense of the possibilities for meaning-making and meaning-taking from his-
torical narratives. Although the subject of the opera is, ostensibly, America’s most
celebrated and studied suffragist heroine, Susan B. Anthony, we learn little about
her politics or positions. The words that proliferate around “Susan B.” only make
her more of a cipher, one to return to again, with new questions. It is the aim of
Treacherous Texts to provoke a similar appreciation of the richness and complexity
of American suffrage literature.
 PA RT I


Declaring
Sentiments, 1846–1891
 R
introduction

The story of American women’s efforts to obtain the vote begins in the colonial
period when individual women requested suffrage. In 1647, Margaret Brent
requested a “place and voyce” in the assembly of colonial Maryland when she was
appointed the governor’s executor and heir.1 More than a century later, Lydia
Chapin Taft, a wealthy Massachusetts landowner’s widow, was permitted to vote at
a town meeting as her husband’s proxy.2 And, in 1776, Abigail Adams begged her
husband John Adams, a member of the Continental Congress, to “Remember the
Ladies” in the code of laws the Congress was drafting for the new nation.3 Most
scholars agree, however, that a more collective effort to obtain woman suffrage did
not emerge until the 1840s; during that exciting decade, antislavery and temperance
reformers banded together to assert women’s right to participate in the public
sphere as a way of furthering their reformist goals.
Early arguments for woman suffrage were made within the context of broader
appeals to recognize social, civil, and religious rights for women, including greater
property rights for married women, the right to their earnings, the right to enter
into contracts, the right to divorce, and the right to custody of their children. Early
woman’s rights reformers were inspired by the same natural rights philosophy that
had motivated the nation’s founders and by a desire to extend to women and
African Americans the rights that most white men already enjoyed in the demo-
cratic polity. Like African Americans, though without the brutalities of enslave-
ment, white women in antebellum America were “fettered” by their subordinate
legal status. Nineteenth-century gender ideology focused primarily on middle-class
white Americans and constructed woman as a dependent (feme covert) who relied
on male relatives for protection, rather than as an individual subject and citizen.
These middle-class white men and women were understood to have distinct skills
and aptitudes for separate spheres of activity: rational and competitive men
deployed these qualities in the public, political sphere; emotional and moral
women could use their finer sensibilities to govern the private, domestic sphere.
Early reformers made several radical assertions that fundamentally challenged this
10
declaring sentiments 11

gender framework: that God had created men and women as equals; that females
should receive the same education as males; that women had a natural right to par-
ticipate in the public sphere as citizens, voters, and even holders of political office,
especially because government decisions directly affected the domestic sphere; and,
that the nation was violating its founding principles both by not possessing the
“consent of the governed” and by tolerating taxation without representation.
In the antebellum period and later, these arguments, made in public lectures, at
conventions, and through petitions to legislatures, were quite threatening. Even
Lucretia Mott, woman’s rights orator and co-organizer of the 1848 Seneca Falls
Woman’s Rights Convention, worried that reformers might be asking for too
much, too soon, by including women’s enfranchisement in the list of resolutions in
their “Declaration of Sentiments.”4 The message of woman’s rights became only
more threatening when women asserted it publicly through oratory. To use repub-
lican oratorical traditions was, by definition, to participate in the political processes
and institutions of the United States, something women were not yet empowered
to do. Oratory was understood in nineteenth-century America as a means of both
securing and exercising political rights. When a woman, therefore, addressed a
“promiscuous” (mixed sex) audience on a political topic, she implicitly claimed
her fitness for both citizenship and the franchise. However, nineteenth-century
U.S. culture defined the model orator—the independent thinking individual
who expressed an opinion and spoke to persuade others of the wisdom of that
opinion—as male. “Quite simply,” rhetorical historian Karlyn Kohrs Campbell
writes, “in nineteenth-century America, femininity and rhetorical action were seen
as mutually exclusive. No ‘true woman’ could be a public persuader.”5 Although
women had preached in America since the mid-eighteenth century, they were
mostly excluded from the oratorical realm, particularly the realm of political
oratory.6 Women’s public speaking, according to opponents, “threatened [the]
female character with widespread and permanent injury—the vine usurps the role
of the elm.”7 Critics regarded standing up in public and demanding the attention of
an audience to assert an opinion and argue a position as unwomanly, exceeding the
female “sphere.”
Because of inherited beliefs about the unwomanliness of public speaking,
particularly when a female speaker also demanded the vote, many woman’s rights
orators who took to the podium in the 1830s were pelted with rotten eggs, hymn-
books, tobacco plugs, and pepper. The hall in which antislavery and woman’s rights
orator Angelina Grimké spoke was burned to the ground by an angry mob.8 While
some groups—most notably the Society of Friends, or Quakers, and particular
African American religious traditions—recognized women’s right to preach, most
Americans found female public speaking abhorrent on both religious and political
grounds. An editorial in the New York Tribune labeled the third annual National
Woman’s Rights Convention, which took place in Syracuse, “a farce” involving a
lunatic fringe of “badly mated” and “mannish” women and “old maids” who threat-
ened to overturn society by consigning men to housekeeping duties while women
legislators periodically interrupted their professional duties to give birth on the
12 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

“floor of Congress”!9 Even as the woman’s rights movement gained momentum

and more women took to the podium to give speeches to state legislatures and the
public, demonstrating their tremendous oratorical talent, the majority of women,
including some supporters, feared that public speaking to obtain greater civil rights
for women risked making them appear as “hens that crow.”10 Thus the opposition
female orators provoked was prompted as much by their embodied, gendered pres-
ence in physical public spaces traditionally reserved for men as by the revolutionary
content of their orations.
As a consequence, it was initially very difficult for suffrage oratory to be persua-
sive. How could a female orator persuade others to accept women’s political equal-
ity without appearing masculine—that is, embodying the very thing opponents
feared: the woman turned man by the franchise? One solution to this conundrum
for female orators was to adopt what was understood as a more “feminine” style of
oratory.11 By affiliating their public speaking more closely with preaching than
politicking and their objectives more with communal caretaking than female
empowerment, woman’s rights orators like Sojourner Truth grounded their rhetor-
ical acts in religious or moral authority, produced a credible ethos, and assuaged
fears that woman suffrage would turn women into men. This feminine style of
public speaking—less oratory than conversation—was personal in tone and relied
on individual experience, anecdotes, and examples. It was structured inductively,
inviting audience participation and identification with the speaker. As such, these
rhetorical appeals functioned as extensions of womanly influence. In addition, by
adopting an extremely modest, feminine style of dress instead of the controversial
“bloomers” associated with “woman righters,” female orators could defuse the
threat they posed;12 Angelina Grimké, for example, mollified listeners by wearing
modest Quaker dress that evoked both the domestic and religious spheres.
Another response to the pervasive hostility to women’s public speech was to
eschew oratory entirely and use alternative rhetorical forms of popular creative
literature that could persuade the broader public about woman’s rights without
compromising women’s femininity. Unlike oratory, literature did not contravene
nineteenth-century gender norms because nineteenth-century women authors,
who dominated the popular U.S. literature market after 1850, constructed author-
ship as a womanly role similar to that of the Republican mother: developing read-
ers’ characters and capacities for democratic sympathy. After a considerable struggle,
authorship was finally accepted as a womanly endeavor, particularly when writers
like Louisa May Alcott, Lillie Devereux Blake, and Fanny Fern used their earnings
to support their families. The genres women writers excelled at—domestic novels,
sentimental fiction, children’s literature and poetry—were all traditionally focused
on the domestic rather than the national sphere, on families rather than individuals,
and on interior emotions rather than public reason and political debate. However,
as scholars who have recuperated a nineteenth-century American women’s literary
tradition have amply demonstrated, many popular women writers used these
domestically focused genres to write persuasively about controversial public topics
ranging from Indian removal to abolition to woman’s rights.13 Creative literature
declaring sentiments 13

was an ideal forum for persuasion for nineteenth-century women because it per-
mitted a popular, best-selling author to remain a “private woman” while occupying a
“public stage” and to exercise a kind of indirect womanly influence over her readers.14
The paradigmatic example of the womanly literary text that influenced readers’
perspectives on a controversial issue is Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 abolitionist
novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.15 Stowe’s sentimental narrative depicted the sufferings of
African American families under slavery. Subtitled “The Man Who Was a Thing,”
the novel moved hundreds of thousands of readers, particularly in northern states,
to “feel right” about slavery. By encouraging readers to identify sympathetically
with black characters with whom they shared a love of family, nation, and God, the
novel prompted readers to recognize African Americans’ humanity and to advocate
abolition. Indeed, legend has it that Uncle Tom’s Cabin was so politically powerful
that Abraham Lincoln claimed that its writer had “made this big war.”
The power of Stowe’s novel to effect a “radical transformation” of society
through sentiment made two things clear:16 popular literature could be as effective
a form of persuasion as oratory, and women, barred from the podium by prevail-
ing gender norms, could use popular literature as a more “feminine” alternative to
oratory, one that extended maternal influence into a wider civic realm. Beginning
in the 1850s, woman’s rights supporters wrote creative texts to persuade readers to
recognize the full humanity of women and to support their enfranchisement.
Between 1856 and 1891, U.S. writers produced scores of novels, short stories, poems,
and plays about the “woman question,” many of which, like Laura Curtis Bullard’s
Christine (1856) and Lillie Devereux Blake’s Fettered for Life (1874), emulated
Stowe’s sentimental, moral appeal as well as her examination of political questions
through a narrative focus on the domestic sphere. Through popular literature
published in woman’s rights journals like The Una, The Lily, The Revolution, The
Woman’s Journal, and The New Northwest, as well as in sympathetic mainstream
publications, woman’s rights sympathizers addressed large public audiences while
retaining their status as “private women.”
This section samples a larger inventory of creative texts written in the decades
between the emergence of a national woman’s rights movement in the late 1840s
and the founding of a modern movement after 1890, when the National Woman
Suffrage Association (NWSA) and the American Woman Suffrage Association
(AWSA) merged to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association
(NAWSA). “Declaring Sentiments” opens by showcasing foundational examples of
three nonliterary genres of the suffrage movement—the petition, manifesto, and
oration—that articulate the broader arguments for woman’s rights and exemplify
the diversity of women’s rhetorical power in the years just prior to the emergence
of a suffrage literary tradition. The 1846 suffrage petition authored by women
from upstate New York, the 1848 “Declaration of Sentiments” penned by Elizabeth
Cady Stanton and others, and Sojourner Truth’s 1851 speech given at the Woman’s
Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, all model a womanly mode of rhetoric while at
the same time making radical claims for women’s equality. The literary texts that
follow these more documentary examples reflect the stylistic creativity, generic
14 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

variety, and rhetorical diversity of suffrage literature as it emerged in the North,

South, and West in the second half of the nineteenth century.
Nineteenth-century America was, in Abraham Lincoln’s words, “a house
divided.”17 Before the Civil War, the nation was wracked by economic and political
divisions between North and South over the slavery question, by racial divides
between African Americans and whites, and by emotional divides within families
between those willing to imagine new roles for women and those tied to inherited
and unquestioned understandings of gender. After the war, the nation continued
to struggle with how to create a unified identity and polity. Suffragists were simi-
larly divided, engaging in debates over national priorities and tactics during
Reconstruction: Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and their followers wanted Congress
to pass a constitutional amendment that would simultaneously enfranchise African
Americans and women; other reformers, including Frederick Douglass, Lucy
Stone, and Henry Blackwell, considered the immediate enfranchisement of African
American men more expedient, having more widespread political support. After
Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment in 1868, which enfranchised African
American men but not women, the suffrage movement split into two groups: the
more radical New York-based NWSA that focused on achieving a parallel constitu-
tional amendment to enfranchise women and the more moderate Boston-based
AWSA that focused on petitioning state legislatures to enfranchise women. Before
the Civil War, the nation had been divided between North and South over the
slavery question; following it, as new western territories and states joined the union
and many approved legal rights, including voting rights, for women, the nation was
divided increasingly between East and West over the suffrage question.18
Selections in “Declaring Sentiments” register these political, emotional, and
regional tensions while also demonstrating the efforts of prosuffrage writers to
cultivate support for their views, often through sentiment. These works of fiction,
journalism, poetry, and polemic are efforts to span divides, in many cases building
on the tradition of sentimental literature to encourage identification with and sym-
pathy for others. In the same way that Uncle Tom’s Cabin encouraged northern
white mothers to empathize with enslaved African American families, sentimental
suffrage texts moved their readers—men as well as women—to identify with
female characters who suffer because they lack the protection of the vote. Their
stories document the profound vulnerability of nineteenth-century U.S. women to
male intemperance, violence, and sexual assault; to marital infidelity, spousal abuse,
and chronic poverty; and to political corruption at every level. Readers who might
be disposed to dismiss suffrage supporters as “mannish women” or “hens that
crow” are encouraged to identify with a range of prosuffrage characters: the devout
orator Christine, who is disowned and institutionalized by her father and aunt in
Christine; the self-supporting Laura, who is kidnapped and poisoned by a lascivi-
ous and corrupt judge in Fettered for Life; the loving wife and mother Verena, who
is abandoned by her reactionary husband in “Another Chapter of The Bostonians”;
the bright Native American heroine whose western community suffers the effects
of alcoholism in Wynema; and the hard-working Chloe, who feels betrayed by men
declaring sentiments 15

in her African American community who sell their hard-won votes in “Aunt
Chloe’s Politics.” In all of these texts, suffragists are portrayed as sympathetic, wom-
anly heroines who will use the vote to promote legislation to protect themselves
from autocratic patriarchs, pervasive violence, and political corruption. Their
“activism” is troped as commensurable with traditional femininity—with wom-
anly influence, piety, and rectitude—a natural extension of the public roles women
already played in churches, lyceums, and local communities.
Most texts featured in “Declaring Sentiments” do not argue as directly and
overtly as oratory, but they all offer multiple reasons why women deserve and even
require the vote. Most offer some combination of the natural rights argument (that
men and women are essentially the same and therefore should share the franchise)
and the expedience argument (that women’s gendered difference from men,
particularly their moral superiority, would enrich politics). Frederick Douglass, for
example, invokes a natural rights argument when he compares women to slaves,
claiming that they are “fettered” until their “enforced exclusion from the elective
franchise” is terminated in the same way that African American men’s disenfran-
chisement has been remedied by the Fifteenth Amendment. At the same time,
however, Douglass identifies women’s “instinctual” pacifism as a quality that would
strengthen the nation if women were enfranchised, particularly in the aftermath of
the bloody internecine war just concluded. Such arguments of expediency were
comfortable for nineteenth-century writers to make because they did not directly
challenge prevailing ideals of true womanhood but relied on them.
Even as most of the texts collected in “Declaring Sentiments” offer sympathetic
representations of suffragists as moral, pious, and pacifist, several also offer carica-
tures of extreme prosuffrage characters. Stowe’s aggressive magazine editor Audacia
Dangyereyes, for example, and Louisa May Alcott’s humorless, emotionally distant
Aunt Susan make more moderate figures like Stowe’s aspiring doctor Ida Van
Arsdel and Bullard’s pious orator Christine appear less threatening to the main-
stream. And although sympathetic minor characters featured in these texts
undertake acts considered extremely radical for most nineteenth-century women—
including public speaking and cross-dressing—most of the suffragist subjectivities
represented sympathetically are moderate.
Formally, the perspectives included in “Declaring Sentiments” offer a dialogic
contrast to the self-expressive, authoritative “voice” cultivated by the male orator.
Instead of crafting an assertive, opinionated voice that, if exercised by a woman, might
limit its popularity, many of the authors sampled here develop more modest per-
sonae. For example, Frances E.W. Harper speaks through an elderly former slave in
“Aunt Chloe’s Politics,” and the rustic, church-going Samantha narrates Marietta
Holley’s “How I went to ’lection.” Both Chloe and Samantha assume a folksy, non-
threatening style of public speaking in their texts. Paradoxically, their plain-spoken
analyses of corruption among men in politics carry authority precisely because
they claim so little for themselves. The women’s dialects insist on their racial and
class (as well as gender) differences from respected male orators and consequently
suggest that the judgments they render may be more trustworthy: less ornamental
16 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

and more sincere than the “honey-fugling” speeches of more accomplished orators,
preachers, and politicians. Indeed, abstractions such as “freedom,” “liberty,” and
“independence”—ubiquitous in American political oratory from this period—
come across in these straightforward texts as just that: abstractions that have yet to
be grounded in the U.S. polity. Sara Willis’s persona “Fanny Fern,” for instance,
voices suspicion of high-blown rhetoric in “Independence” when she invokes a
one-word touchstone of American democratic thought—“Free!”—only to follow it
with the expressive expletive, “Humph!”
Plain-talking suffragist characters are not the only personae represented in these
nineteenth-century texts, however. Stowe’s My Wife and I, like her prosuffrage
“Christopher Crowfield” essays collected in Chimney Corner, uses a male narrator
to convey a positive, if somewhat disengaged, perspective on woman’s rights. By
contrast, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps’s “Trotty’s Lecture Bureau” gleefully parodies
antisuffragism through a child who parrots its ignorant, petulant arguments.
In addition to the use of personae, many of the texts sampled here also challenge
the self-expressive model of voice typically exercised in oratory by making their
prosuffrage claims more dialogically. Sophia Alice Callahan’s Wynema, Harper’s
“John and Jacob,” and Stowe’s My Wife and I feature extended conversations about
suffrage that present different sides of the “woman question,” though without
appearing to favor a position, or they ventriloquize extreme prosuffragist and anti-
suffragist positions to finally advance a more moderate but still prosuffrage stance.
The lively encounter between the extreme suffragist Audacia and the mild-mannered
narrator Henry in My Wife and I, moreover, distinguishes Stowe’s gradualist pro-
suffrage stance from the more radical, immediatist elements of the movement and
thereby increases sympathy for it. Similarly, the childlike exchanges between the
independent Chow-chow, whose suffragist mother has taught her to have
no time for “love, domestic life, [and] feminine accomplishments,” and the more
affectionate Cupid, whose mother exemplifies those “trifles,” reach a valuable
compromise.
Other texts achieve dialogism intertextually. In Phelps’s “Trotty’s Lecture
Bureau,” for example, Trotty’s “harangue” is represented comically as a palimpsest
of parroted antisuffrage diatribe written over formulaic phrases in a French gram-
mar book. In this way, Phelps likens inherited gender codes to a grammar bound by
tradition more than logic or nature. In “Another Chapter of The Bostonians,” Celia
B. Whitehead, using the pseudonym “Henrietta James,” quotes and extends James’s
antisuffragist novel to address its problematic closure—marriage between a suf-
frage orator and a violent antisuffragist. In “A Divided Republic,” Blake rewrites
Aristophanes’ Lysistrata—a classical drama about women who withhold sexual
privileges until their lovers negotiate peace—as a utopian fantasy in which disen-
franchised eastern U.S. women relocate, en masse, to western territories and states
where women are enfranchised. The eastern women do not return until their lovers
agree to pass a constitutional amendment to give women the vote. The effect of this
intertextuality is the production of an alternative model of rhetoric that is more
declaring sentiments 17

participatory than one-sided, thereby encouraging readers’ involvement in the

broader debate, regardless of their class, race, gender, or politics.
This encouragement of readers’ engagement may also reflect the desire for
community that existed among early activists. One theme that pervades these sam-
pled texts is the unspeakable loneliness of woman’s rights activists during the early
years of the movement, before there were significant numbers of local and state
organizations for prosuffrage women. Bullard’s Christine, for example, experiences
her loneliness as “homelessness”: she is estranged from her family and has few
friends with whom she can share her suffragist sentiments. Blake’s “Frank” succeeds
as a journalist, but the cross-dressing required to achieve this success separates
her permanently from intimacy and even from the company of most women.
Moments of tremendous feminine community, however, also appear in these texts;
for example, the enduring friendship depicted in Whitehead’s revision of The
Bostonians and the bonds between young women and the older women who men-
tor them in Wynema and Fettered for Life provide sustaining connections among
individuals whose objectives were not widely shared by the general public. These
nineteenth-century texts work to imagine or conjure a community in which women
could begin to be understood not as isolated individuals but as a political group
with tremendous collective power to lobby for the franchise in the modern period.
 R
“PETITION FOR WOMAN’S
RIGHTS” (1846)
s i g nat o r i e s : e l e a n o r v i n c e n t,
s u s a n o r m s b y, ly d i a w i l l i a m s ,
a m y o r m s b y, ly d i a o s b o r n ,
a n d a n na b i s h o p

At New York State’s 1846 constitutional convention, a male delegate was charged
with presenting this petition on behalf of six middle-aged women from Jefferson
County. Though little is known of the memorialists or of the convention’s
response, the petition’s existence recasts the “Declaration of Sentiments,” which
was presented at the Seneca Falls Woman’s Rights convention two years later,
as a key but not inaugural demand for woman suffrage. Beginning in the 1830s,
petitioning became a popular means of lobbying state and federal governments,
and the antislavery movement in particular accepted, then embraced, women’s
involvement. Women’s experience in crafting petitions, signing them, circulating
them, and defending both the cause and their right to participate in that cause
cultivated a sense of political identity and engagement. What is startling about
this petition, however, is its direct, unequivocal demand for full citizenship rights
for women.19 Unlike earlier women’s petitions, its tone is neither diffident nor
deferential: it emphatically claims a right to what has been wrongfully denied.
The petition also eschews discussion of women as caretakers in favor of a
“self-evident” natural rights argument.

To the Constitutional Convention of the State of New York:

Your Memorialists, inhabitants of Jefferson county, believing that civil
government has its foundation in the laws of our existence, as moral and social
beings, that the specific object and end of civil government is to protect all in the
exercise of all their natural rights, by combining the strength of society for the
defense of the individual—believing that the province of civil government is not

18
declaring sentiments 19

to create new rights, but to declare and enforce those which originally existed.
Believing likewise that all governments must derive their just powers from the
consent of the governed, “from the great body of society, and not from a favored
class, although that favored class may be even a majority of the inhabitants,”
therefore respectfully represent: That the present government of this state has
widely departed from the true democratic principles upon which all just govern-
ments must be based by denying to the female portion of community the right of
suffrage and any participation in forming the government and laws under which
they live, and to which they are amenable, and by imposing upon them burdens
of taxation, both directly and indirectly, without admitting them the right of
representation, thereby striking down the only safeguards of their individual
and personal liberties. Your Memorialists therefore ask your honorable body, to
remove this just cause of complaint, by modifying the present Constitution of
this State, so as to extend to women equal, and civil and political rights with men.
In proposing this change, your petitioners ask you to confer upon them no new
right but only to declare and enforce those which they originally inherited, but
which have ungenerously been withheld from them, rights, which they as citizens
of the state of New York may reasonably and rightfully claim. We might adduce
arguments both numerous and decisive in support of our position, but believing
that a self-evident truth is sufficiently plain without argument, and in view of our
necessarily limited space, we forbear offering any and respectfully submit it for
consideration.
Aug. 8th, 1846.

Source: From Lori D. Ginzberg, Untidy Origins: A Story of Woman’s Rights in Antebellum
New York (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 2–3.
 R
“DECLARATION OF
SENTIMENTS” (1848)
e l i z a b e t h c a d y s ta n t o n
( 1 8 1 5 – 1 9 02 ) , f r e d e r i c k d o u g l a s s
(circa 1818–1895), and others

Drafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “The Declaration of Sentiments” took as its

frame “The Declaration of Independence,” asserting, in essence, that the nation
imagined and instantiated by America’s most cherished text had not fully real-
ized one of its noblest ideals: human equality. Yet this declaration, presented at
the first U.S. woman’s rights convention, held in Seneca Falls, New York, in July
1848, is as inventive as it is derivative.20 Naming as the first of its grievances
against man that “He has never permitted [woman] to exercise her inalienable
right to the elective franchise,” the Declaration casts suffrage as the sine qua non
not only of woman’s rights but also of her contentment. The “abuses and usurpa-
tions” produced by the delimitation of woman’s political identity shaped her per-
sonal life—marriage, motherhood, and vocation—and quashed her confidence,
capacity, and well-being. The resolutions and concluding lines of the Declaration
map the terrain of the fight to come for those seeking the overthrow of patriar-
chal tyranny. Opponents’ weapons, like ridicule and misrepresentation, will be
met by more words: by tracts and petitions, in the press and the pulpit.

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the
family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from
that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of
nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires
that they should declare the causes that impel them to such a course.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created
equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these
rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of
20
declaring sentiments 21

the governed. Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these

ends, it is the right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist
upon the institution of a new government, laying its foundation on such principles,
and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect
their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long
established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly
all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are
sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are
accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably
the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is
their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their
future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of the women under this
government, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to demand the
equal station to which they are entitled.
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 made her, morally, an irresponsible bring, as she can commit many
crimes with impunity, provided they be done in the presence of her husband. In the
covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he
becoming, to all intents and purposes, her master—the law giving him power to
deprive her of her liberty, and to administer chastisement.
He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what shall be the proper causes of
divorce; 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 the 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.
22 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

He closes against her all the avenues to wealth and distinction, which he consid-
ers most honorable to himself. As a teacher of theology, medicine, or law, she is not
known.
He has denied her the facilities for obtaining a thorough education—all colleges
being closed against her.
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 her 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.
Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half the people of this
country, their social and religious degradation,—in view of the unjust laws above
mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and
fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immedi-
ate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of
these United States.
In entering upon the great work before us, we anticipate no small amount of
misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule; but we shall use every instrumen-
tality within our power to effect our object. We shall employ agents, circulate tracts,
petition the State and National Legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and
the press in our behalf. We hope this Convention will be followed by a series of
Conventions, embracing every part of the country.
WHEREAS, The great precept of nature is conceded to be, that “man shall
pursue his own true and substantial happiness.” Blackstone in his Commentaries
remarks, that this law of Nature being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God
himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the
globe, in all countries and at all times; no human laws are of any validity if contrary
to this, and such of them as are valid, derive all their force, and all their validity, and
all their authority, mediately and immediately, from this original; therefore,
Resolved, That such laws as conflict, in any way, with the true and substantial
happiness of woman, are contrary to the great precept of nature and of no validity,
for this is “superior in obligation to any other.”
Resolved, That all laws which prevent woman from occupying such a station in
society as her conscience shall dictate, or which place her in a position inferior to
that of man, are contrary to the great precept of nature, and therefore of no force
or authority.
Resolved, That woman is man’s equal—was intended to be so by the Creator, and
the highest good of the race demands that she should be recognized as such.
declaring sentiments 23

Resolved, That the women of this country ought to be enlightened in regard to

the laws under which they live, that they may no longer publish their degradation
by declaring themselves satisfied with their present position, nor their ignorance,
by asserting that they have all the rights they want.
Resolved, That inasmuch as man, while claiming for himself intellectual superior-
ity, does accord to woman moral superiority, it is pre-eminently his duty to encour-
age her to speak and teach, as she has an opportunity, in all religious assemblies.
Resolved, That the same amount of virtue, delicacy, and refinement of behavior
that is required of woman in the social state, should also be required of man, and
the same transgressions should be visited with equal severity on both man and
woman.
Resolved, That the objection of indelicacy and impropriety, which is so often
brought against woman when she addresses a public audience, comes with a very
ill-grace from those who encourage, by their attendance, her appearance on the
stage, in the concert, or in feats of the circus.
Resolved, That woman has too long rested satisfied in the circumscribed limits
which corrupt customs and a perverted application of the scriptures have marked
out for her, and that it is time she should move in the enlarged sphere which her
great Creator has assigned her.
Resolved, That it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves
their sacred right to the elective franchise.
Resolved, That the equality of human rights results necessarily from the fact of
the identity of the race in capabilities and responsibilities.
Resolved, therefore, That, being invested by the Creator with the same capabili-
ties, and the same consciousness of responsibility for their exercise, it is demon-
strably the right and duty of woman, equally with man, to promote every righteous
cause by every righteous means; and especially in regard to the great subjects of
morals and religion, it is self-evidently her right to participate with her brother in
teaching them, both in private and in public, by writing and by speaking, by any
instrumentalities proper to be used, and in any assemblies proper to be held; and
this being a self-evident truth growing out of the divinely implanted principles of
human nature, any custom or authority adverse to it, whether modern or wearing
the hoary sanction of antiquity, is to be regarded as a self-evident falsehood, and at
war with mankind.
Resolved, That the speedy success of our cause depends upon the zealous and
untiring efforts of both men and women, for the overthrow of the monopoly of
the pulpit, and for the securing to woman an equal participation with men in the
various trades, professions, and commerce.

Source: “Declaration of Sentiments,” in History of Woman Suffrage Vol. 1, ed. Elizabeth

Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage (Rochester, N.Y.: Fowler and
Wells, 1889), 70–73.
 R
SPEECH AT AKRON, OHIO,
WOMAN’S RIGHTS
CONVENTION (1851)
s o j o u r n e r t ru t h ( 1 7 9 7 – 1 8 8 3 )

Born Isabella Baumfree, a slave in New York State, Sojourner Truth recreated
herself as a free adult, choosing a new cognomen and becoming a preacher,
abolitionist, and woman’s rights advocate. The speech she gave at an Akron,
Ohio, woman’s rights convention is one of the best-known, best-loved texts to
have emerged from the early woman’s rights movement, but it is also one of the
most contested: several accounts of the speech exist, and each figures Truth and
the words she spoke differently. The most familiar version—rendered in south-
ern dialect (even though Truth was raised speaking Dutch in the North) and
including the compelling refrain, “Ain’t I a woman?”—was recorded twelve years
after the event by Frances Gage, a temperance crusader, abolitionist, suffragist,
and creative writer. While Gage’s version provides a dynamic frame that mediates
even as it seems to heighten the power of the African American woman’s words
to an audience of predominantly white women, scholars agree that reporter
Marius Robinson’s account, published weeks after Truth’s speech, provides a
more credible record of Truth’s words.21

I want to say a few words about this matter. I am a woman’s rights. I have as much
muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and
reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than
that? I have heard much about the sexes being equal; I can carry as much as any
man, and can eat as much too, if I can get it. I am as strong as any man that is
now. As for intellect, all I can say is, if a woman have a pint and man a quart—
why can’t she have her little pint full? You need not be afraid to give us our rights
for fear we will take too much,—for we can’t take more than our pint’ll hold.

24
declaring sentiments 25

The poor men seem to be all in confusion, and don’t know what to do. Why chil-
dren, if you have woman’s rights, give it to her and you will feel better. You will
have your own rights, and they won’t be so much trouble. I can’t read, but I can
hear. I have heard the bible and have learned that Eve caused man to sin. Well, if
woman upset the world, do give her a chance to set it right side up again. The lady
has spoken about Jesus, how he never spurned woman from him, and she was
right. When Lazarus died, Mary and Martha came to him with faith and love and
besought him to raise their brother. And Jesus wept—and Lazarus came forth.
And how came Jesus into the world? Through God who created him and woman
who bore him. Man, where is your part? But the women are coming up blessed
by God and a few of the men are coming up with them. But man is in a tight
place, the poor slave is on him, woman is coming on him, he is surely between
a hawk and a buzzard.

Source: Marius Robinson, Salem Anti-Slavery Bugle, 21 June 1851, n.p., in Nell Irvin
Painter, Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol (New York: W.W. Norton, 1996), 125–26.
 R
CHRISTINE, OR, WOMAN’S
TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS (1856)
l au r a j . c u r t i s [ b u l l a r d ] ( 1 8 3 1 – 1 9 1 2 )

Handsome, intelligent, and wealthy, Bullard brought literary talent and market-
place savvy to the woman’s rights movement. Achieving early success with her
second novel Christine, Bullard also edited her own newspaper, The Ladies
Visitor, and Drawing Room Companion. A close friend of Anthony and Stanton,
Bullard was well-connected within the NWSA and served as its corresponding
secretary when she traveled in Europe. In 1870, she replaced Anthony as editor-
in-chief of The Revolution, the NWSA’s weekly political newspaper. Bullard’s
novels and short fiction generally countered conventional plots of the day and
advocated egalitarian marriage.22 Christine chronicles the development of a
talented suffrage orator, highlighting the personal price paid by many early
advocates. The chapters excerpted here recount a significant “trial” in the heroine’s
life, one that results less in “triumph” than in simple survival: incarcerated in an
asylum through the machinations of her aunt, Julia Frothingham, and father,
Farmer John Elliot, Christine presses the bounds of both her sanity and her
commitment to the cause.

Chapter XXIV: Helen and Her Husband

More than two years had passed, during which the name of Christine Elliot had
become known far and wide. She had toiled on unshrinkingly, undaunted by the
obstacles that she encountered, and they were not few, sustained through all dis-
couragements by the high hopes which she cherished of accomplishing her darling
object, of seeing her sex placed, in all respects, on an equality with her brother man.
To this one aim she bent all her energies; on this one altar she sacrificed all
personal considerations.
It had not been without a struggle that she had realized that she must lay all her
home affections on that shrine, and again and again she had written letters full of

26
declaring sentiments 27

the highest eloquence, because fresh from the heart, to the dear inmates of the old
homestead, only to feel a keener pang of disappointment on receiving them again,
with the seals unbroken. At last she had given up the hopeless task of effecting a
reconciliation, and endeavored to bury all painful recollections under the weight
of duties which crowded every day more and more thickly upon her.
Nor was her time alone occupied in preparing her lectures; she wrote, she
studied, giving herself no relaxation, till her thin cheek and hollow eyes told too
plainly that she was overtasking herself.
In the hours not devoted to study, she sought out the poor, the sick, and the sor-
rowing; she listened to their tales of woe—she poured the oil of consolation into
their wounded hearts—she gave them of her penury, for she did not find it easy to
get more money than she required for her expenses,—and what was of more value
even than material aid, she gave of her abundance, sympathy, kind words of hope
and encouragement.
Her hand had withheld many from entering the road that leads to death—her
voice had lured the despairing back to life and hope—and though all this was done
in secret, known to none others than the grateful beings she had rescued from
worse than death, and to her God; though she was met often with revilings and
taunting advice, to help the poor who needed aid, rather than to seek impractica-
ble and useless rights for women, by those who knew nothing of her secret labors;
while she would have shrunk from giving publicity to her good deeds, merely to
exculpate herself from base charges, yet she had a peace within her heart which
passeth understanding. Verily, she had her reward. . . .
She heeded not the ridicule or the coarse and vulgar abuse that abounded in the
columns of nearly every journal in the land; the shafts of malice glanced harmlessly
aside; the filth of low ribaldry could not cling to her white garments, as pure and
unsullied in reputation she walked on steadily to the goal which she was striving so
earnestly to attain.
But powerless as was all this to wound her, it did reach the bosom of her relatives
and rankled there.
Mrs. Frothingham read it with flashing eyes and compressed lips, and Farmer
Elliot’s stern brow grew black with fierce frowns, and through his set teeth he
muttered words that were almost anathemas on his daughter, that she had placed
herself and him in a position where they could be thus assailed.
He had disowned her, but he could not prevent a portion of her disgrace attach-
ing itself to his good name.
His wife and [daughter] Bessie did not dare to mention Christine’s name to
him; together they wept over her infatuation; together they read the comments of
the press upon her, and were in turn grieved, shocked, and angered by what they
read.
As the fall of the year again came around, bringing with it its golden harvests,
its glory of many-colored forests and the softness of the hazy days of the Indian
Summer, the inmates of the farmhouse were surprised by a visit from Mrs.
Frothingham.
28 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

She said little to Mrs. Elliot or Bessie on the subject of Christine’s chosen career,
but she was often closeted with her brother in close consultations, the subject of
which the mother and sister could only guess, since they were not allowed any part
in them. Farmer Elliot would pace the floor during these interviews, his face work-
ing with the violence of his passions, while Mrs. Frothingham, cool and collected,
would talk on in her soft, gentle voice, without ever raising her tones, yet uttering
words that excited her brother to all the more fierce anger against his child.
His wife read this in his manner, which daily grew sterner and more cold; he
rarely addressed her, and when she had resolved to speak to him on the one subject
that engrossed the thoughts of both, his fierce looks would deter her from pro-
ceeding, the words would die away in her throat, and choking sobs that she could
not restrain would take their place, as she turned away to weep on the bosom of her
loving and sympathizing Bessie.
“Julia is only making bad worse,” she would say. “John is growing more and
more angry—oh, why will she harden his heart so against her. She is his child, she
is my child, and, misguided as she is, we are still her father and mother.”
“I wish she would go,” was all the consolation Bessie could offer; and, at last, she
did go, but Farmer Elliot accompanied her.
He made no explanations as to the object of his journey—but, with something
of his old kindness and affection, bade his wife and daughter good-bye, telling
them, as if they had been children, that he would bring them something fine from
town. . . .

Chapter XXV: The Insane Asylum

The evening was bright and beautiful on which Christine was to address the
people of Boston on her usual subject. The stars shone brightly, and the moon’s
pale light fell softly on the leaf-strewn walks of that pride of the Bostonians, the
spacious Common, as Christine, accompanied by [her friends] Mr. Linton and
his wife Helen, crossed it, on her way to the Melodeon, where she was to deliver her
lecture.
The building was brilliantly illuminated, and a thrill of delight, that did not
spring from gratified pride, filled Christine’s heart as she stood before that audi-
ence, composed of the beauty and the fashion of the town. She contrasted it with
her first lecture there, when crowds of low and brutal men had drowned her voice
with cries, stamping, and hissings; and now, as she went on to speak, and found
herself listened to with breathless attention, only interrupted now and then by
murmurs of approval and other tokens of applause, she felt, indeed, that a great
victory had been achieved, and she rejoiced in it, as a sure token that the cause
which she had espoused would yet succeed.
The thought inspired her, and never had she been more eloquent—never had
her eyes beamed with a brighter light, nor her whole heart been more evidently in
her words. She was in the midst of one of her most thrilling appeals to woman, and
quite carried away by her own picture of the future, when suddenly she stopped,
declaring sentiments 29

hesitated, and for a moment seemed unable to go on, for at that instant her eye had
rested on the dark, stern face of her father among the crowd.
That fierce look pierced to her very heart; it checked the words she was about to
utter and quite unnerved her for a few seconds, but by a strong effort she regained
her composure, and pursued her theme as before.
That night she seemed unusually dispirited, as both her friends noticed, though
quite unaware of the cause. She seemed absorbed in thought, was absent and
moody, and did not appear to notice the remarks addressed to her unless repeated.
She went early to her chamber, but not to sleep, for the sight of her father had
brought, in all its freshness, the fact of her homelessness to her mind. She had
read in his face no softening towards her—no pride in the applause which she
had received, though she had watched him narrowly; there he had sat, calm,
cold, and stern during all of her speech; nothing that she had said, though the
audience had been at times convulsed with laughter, or hushed and breathless,
listening to her words with tearful eyes, had been able to vary the expression of his
face; that black, fierce frown haunted her—she felt again that shuddering, chilling
sensation it had caused her when she had first encountered it.
The night wore slowly away, and Christine gladly welcomed the day. She longed
to be away now, to see her dear friend, Mrs. Warner, her more than mother, and
soon she stood in that quiet sitting-room, so rich in associations of pleasure and of
pain. [ . . . ]
While Christine was thus recovering her lightness of heart, and enjoying the
hours, that were passing all too swiftly, with her friend, Mr. Elliot and Mrs.
Frothingham were seated in the parlors of the Revere [Hotel].
“She is not here,” he said, “though she did come here on her first arrival in the
city; but she left to go to Mrs. Linton’s, an old friend!”
“Yes, I know,” replied Mrs. Frothingham. “I had rather she had been anywhere
else; I know Helen Harper [Linton] well. However, we must go there at once.”
“I have a carriage at the door,” said her brother, and together they passed out of
the room.
Not a word escaped the lips of either on their way. Farmer Elliot’s looks did not
invite conversation, and Mrs. Frothingham respected his mood.
“Is Mrs. Linton in?” she asked of the servant who opened the door, as they
reached Helen’s residence.
She was not, she had gone out to be gone all day.
“Very well,” said Julia, in a tone of evident relief. “Is Mr. Linton in?”
He was, and sending up her card, she and her brother entered the parlors. Julia’s
quick eye read Mr. Linton at a glance as he entered the room, and, after introduc-
ing her brother, she exerted all her graces of manner to produce a favorable impres-
sion upon him. It was not in human nature to resist Julia, when she chose to exert
herself; her beauty, great though it was, was far inferior to her grace of manner and
powers of fascination; after she had been talking some time, quite uninterrupted
by Mr. Elliot, who sat silent and moody, she addressed herself in a lower tone to
Mr. Linton.
30 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

“Miss Christine Elliot is, I am told, with you.”

“She has been,” was the reply, “but is now gone for the day, to see her friend,
Mrs. Warner.”
“If she has been with you any time, it is useless to attempt disguise. You must
have seen her unfortunate state of mind. It is indeed a sad blow to us—perhaps you
are not aware that I am her aunt, and that he is her father,” she said, casting a look
at Mr. Elliot, and speaking still lower. “It has nearly killed him,” she added, in a tone
of the deepest apparent feeling.
“Indeed,” replied Mr. Linton, rather confusedly. “I have not the slightest idea to
what you allude. Is it her position as lecturer to which you object?”
“My dear sir,” interrupted Julia. “Is it possible that you have not discovered that
her originally fine mind has lost its balance—that she is insane?”
“Impossible!” cried Mr. Linton, in horror.
“Alas, it is too true!” replied Mrs. Frothingham, pressing her handkerchief to her
eyes. “Insanity is not uncommon in our family, and, for some time past, it has been
developing itself in my unhappy niece. We wish to keep it perfectly quiet. It is grief
enough to see her mind perfectly shattered, without the publicity which the press
would give it; we shall take her away quietly and keep her in quiet, hoping that she may
be restored. May we trust to you to keep her secret, if it is not already too well known?”
“Most assuredly,” replied Linton.
“And may we count on your assistance, my dear sir,” continued Julia, raising her
fine eyes to his face and speaking in her softest tones, “to enable us to remove her
without difficulty or force?”
“Certainly,” replied Will, much moved by her evident distress. “But, what would
you have me do?”
“Nothing more than when she returns, to let me know at once, and tell her that
I shall be here to see her. I will come, then, and take her away.”
“It is very sad,” said Linton,“and singular, that I have discovered nothing of this.”
“Have you not, then, seen anything strange about her, any apparent uncon-
sciousness of what was passing, any wildness of the eye? These are the premonitory
symptoms of her violence.”
Linton sighed. He remembered her abstraction the previous night, and could
say nothing. Mrs. Frothingham rose, her eyes were full of tears, her lip quivered,
and her voice was tremulous, as she bade him good morning; and, with feelings of
the deepest sympathy, he looked after the sad aunt and heart-broken father, as they
drove away.
They had not been long absent when Christine returned; her interview with her
friend had made her very cheerful; she was in high spirits, and laughed and chatted
gaily with Mr. Linton: as he contrasted her manner with that of the previous night,
he sighed deeply, for he had been prepared by Mrs. Frothingham to see signs of
disordered intellect; and these slight alternations of manner, though they would,
probably, have been unnoticed by him, unless put on his guard, now seemed only a
verification of Julia’s words. It is not to the jealous alone, that ‘trifles light as air are
confirmation strong, as proofs of holy writ’.
declaring sentiments 31

Linton immediately dispatched a messenger to Mrs. Frothingham, and awaited

her coming with no little impatience; she came at last; and telling Christine that
her aunt had called to see her, and wished him to say that she would soon call again,
he left the room as Mrs. Frothingham entered.
Christine sprang to meet her, and, reading kindness in her looks, could control
herself no longer. She flung her arms around her neck, and sobbed aloud.
“This is very kind, Aunt Julia,” she said, at last. “I have not dared to hope for so
great a pleasure; with your co-operation I shall soon be restored to the hearts of my
parents. Dear Aunt Julia, your visit has made me very happy. Last night, I felt that a
reconciliation was almost hopeless, when I saw my father in the lecture-room—”
“You saw him, then,” interrupted Julia, sadly, burying her face in her hands,
and apparently much moved, “oh, my brother—my dear brother!”
“Has anything befallen him?” cried Christine, in great agitation. “Is he sick?
Is he dead? Speak—tell me the worst at once. This suspense is horrible.”
“Worse than dead, Christine,” said Julia, and, sinking her voice almost to a
whisper, she added, “he is insane!”
“Oh, heavens!” cried Christine, turning pale and sinking back into a chair, while
an expression of the keenest agony passed over her face. “I have driven him mad!”
she gasped, wringing her hands wildly. “Inhuman daughter that I am!”
Julia was touched by her evident suffering. She leaned over her, and kissed her
brow.
“Poor child,” she said, softly; then continued, “Do not take it too much to heart.
We hope that it will be nothing lasting. He would go to hear you speak, and would
come to see you to-day. I have succeeded in getting away from him for a few
moments, and have come to consult with you. He is moody, but perfectly harmless;
and, if he can be removed to a quiet asylum, far away from all old associations, for
a short time, I trust he may recover. I have come to propose to you that you accom-
pany him with me to the asylum in Augusta. Will you do so, or are your engage-
ments such that you cannot? In that case, I can go alone.”
“No engagements could interfere with such a sacred duty,” said Christine, in a
choking voice, for every word her aunt had spoken had been like a dagger in her
heart. One thought alone filled her mind; her father was insane, and she had made
him so. It was almost more than she could endure. She groaned aloud as she lis-
tened to Julia’s directions for the journey, which must be made immediately, and
gladly availed herself of the assistance which she proffered in getting ready for her
departure.
Mrs. Frothingham suggested that it was not worth while to expose her father’s
misfortunes to the Lintons, to which Christine assented, and left a note for Helen,
telling her that unforeseen circumstances compelled her to depart thus unceremo-
niously, and thanking her for her kindness. Much the same thing she said to
Mr. Linton, who bade her a kind farewell as she left his residence. . . .
On reaching the asylum, the Doctor invited Christine to go and look at the
rooms, and showing her two or three unoccupied, desired her to make a selection.
She did so, and, requesting her to be seated a few moments while he gave a few
32 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

necessary directions to a servant, he left the room. Christine sat quietly there, lost
in thought. Some moments passed and the Doctor did not come; she grew tired of
waiting for him, and imagining he had forgotten her, resolved to go to the parlor;
she could easily find her way, though she had come through rather winding passages.
She walked to the door and tried to open it. It was fastened on the outside. She
heard footsteps in the hall. She knocked at the door; nobody paid any attention to
her rappings. She cried out loudly to be released, that there was a mistake; a harsh
voice bade her keep still. Half frantic, she ran to the window; it was high and
barred. She looked out and saw, just turning a corner, a carriage, and in it she could
plainly distinguish the face of her aunt Julia and of her father.
The truth flashed upon her at once. She had been deceived. She was a prisoner.
In the wildest excitement, she ran to the door. She screamed till she was hoarse for
Dr. Lyman; she shook the door; she beat against it, for a long time to no purpose; at
last footsteps approached, and Dr. Lyman appeared.
With flashing eyes, and in accents tremulous with passion, she began to tell her
story, but he turned contemptuously away. She sprang towards him, and held him
fast as he was about to leave the room, crying, “I am not insane. Indeed I am not.”
“Oh, no; I dare say not,” replied the Doctor. “In fact, we haven’t any insane
people in the house.”
“But, Doctor,” began Christine, “I came to bring my father—he is insane. There
is some mistake.”
“Ah, well, I will inquire into it,” replied the Doctor. “Sit down, now, quietly, and
I will make it all right.”
His words were soothing, but Christine saw that she was not believed. She would
not let him go; she clung to him, determined to go out of her prison with him. He
tried gentleness at first, then, growing weary, wrenched himself dexterously from
her grasp, and in an instant was gone. The door was locked almost instantaneously,
and she was again alone.
“I will not stay here,” she cried, battering furiously at the door, and begging to be
let out, again and again. Ere long her door opened, and admitted the Doctor, with
two assistants, who, in spite of her resistance, slipped on a straight-waistcoat,
saying she was “as mad as a March hare.” The Doctor then told her that unless she
kept quiet she would be confined to a bed.
She saw her mistake; her violence had been so much against her, and, restrain-
ing herself, she began to tell him that she was Christine Elliot; but he turned away
with a shrug of the shoulders, and, exasperated, she began to threaten him for his
unlawful imprisonment of her. He made but little reply to her, and soon left her—
sending a woman into the apartment.
She answered the inquiries that Christine made, so far as to tell her that the lady
and gentleman who brought her had gone away, and listened quite kindly to the
protestations of her sanity which Christine poured forth.
“Well, then,” said the woman, “If you ain’t crazy, don’t act like a crazy critter.”
The advice was good, and Christine determined to restrain herself that she might
the sooner regain her freedom. Months passed, and as she had been uniformly
declaring sentiments 33

gentle, after her first outbreak on her arrival, she was gradually allowed greater free-
dom; she mingled at times with the patients in a large hall and saw occasional visitors.
She had hoped that her quietness of manner might lead to a belief in her cure,
and looked eagerly every day for some word from her physician’s lips that might
denote his perception of her recovery. None came.
She was sitting one day, as usual, in the hall, surrounded by insanity of all char-
acters; there were the sad who wept and moaned, the gay, and the pompous, who
deemed themselves some great personages; these and many others who walked
about, paying little attention to each other, when a visitor entered.
Christine did not look up, but as the physician passed her, she heard him say
“there, too, is a monomaniac, who imagines herself to be Christine Elliot; sane in
all other respects, apparently—quite gentle, yet almost a hopeless case.”
The mystery was then explained; she had been placed there under a fictitious
name, and it was evident that she was to be kept there a long time. Her heart sunk
within her; no gentleness of demeanor could contribute to her escape; a fierce
hatred to the authors of her misery sprung up in her heart, she ground her teeth.
“My turn will come!” she said, fiercely.
She now asked often for pen and paper, and wrote letters to Mrs. Warner, and
Mrs. Linton, again and again. No replies came, for they never reached their desti-
nation, and sometimes fearing that she had no friends, sometimes guessing at the
truth, that her letters were not forwarded to the persons to whom they were
addressed, she passed her time wearily hoping for, but at times almost despairing of
escape.
At times she feared that she might, indeed, become insane; she watched the
operations of her mind narrowly, and was startled at the wild fancies that haunted
her; she endeavored to control herself; to prevent the wandering of her thoughts, to
which she observed a tendency, and the very effort to do so, seemed to increase,
instead of checking the wildness and waywardness of her imaginings; then would
arise the old bitterness with new power against those who had placed her where she
was in such imminent danger of what she dreaded far worse than death; the fear
that had haunted her early years, and which her life of action, by preventing her
morbid dwelling on her own emotions, had, for a time, quite dissipated, now
assumed new strength.
How long was this to last? There was no reply, save her own weary sighs.
She grew thin and pale, for she was experiencing the truth, that, “hope deferred
maketh the heart sick,” and her heart-sickness preyed on her body. . .

Chapter XXVII: On The Rack

Mrs. Frothingham stood alone in her spacious parlors. She was looking out of the
window. . . . Her eyes were fixed upon the distant hills that skirted the horizon, but
she was hardly conscious that she was gazing upon them. The balmy, spring air
tossed the heavy masses of curls that shaded her delicately-tinted cheek, as if to call
her attention to the loveliness around her on every side—but all in vain. . . .
34 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

At last she moved from the window, “It is time,” she said, half aloud, and seating
herself at an elegantly-inlaid writing-desk, she began to write a few words.
“The six months have elapsed, my dear John,” so ran the letter, “and, according
to my promise, I shall go directly to see Christine. I think we may indulge the hope
that, though the remedy has been rather severe, yet a cure has been effected. At
least, I am very sanguine in my expectations.
“I will write you immediately on my return, or, what will be better still, possibly
I may come with our restored patient to your house.
“For the present I must say, Farewell.”
Ere long the letter was dispatched, and Mrs. Frothingham on her way to Augusta.
She went directly to the Asylum, and inquired for Miss Caroline Frothingham, as
under this name Christine had been placed there.
The doctor spoke of her gentleness, but shook his head when asked if this was
not a favorable symptom. He said that the patient seemed still to be in her unhappy
delusion with regard to her personality, and that the letters which she wrote only
confirmed the fact of her insanity, consisting, as they did, of declarations of the
cruelty of her friends in enclosing her, though sane, in a lunatic asylum, begging the
assistance of those to whom they were addressed in obtaining her release, and all
signed Christine Elliot.
Mrs. Frothingham listened with a sigh, and then requested to see her niece.
With a glad heart Christine obeyed the summons to go to the parlor to see a
friend; she had no doubt that at last her letters had reached her friends, and that
either Mrs. Warner or Helen Linton had hastened to see her at once; with her old,
elastic step, she passed quickly to the apartment, and with sparkling eyes and
extended hand approached the lady, who stood a little turned away from her; at the
noise of Christine’s entrance she turned around, but the girl advanced no further;
the flush of joy faded on her cheek, the sparkle of hope died out in her eye, and gave
place to a look of fierce indignation; as Mrs. Frothingham would have taken her
hand, she motioned her aside with a gesture of contempt, folded her arms closely
over her breast, and turned, without a word, to leave the room.
The Doctor, who had followed her, observed Mrs. Frothingham’s look of
apparent distress, and said, in a low tone.
“Do not let this reception discourage you; nothing is more frequent than for
persons in her situation to turn against their nearest friends.”
“But I must speak with her,” said Julia. “Bid her remain.”
“I will not,” said Christine, in reply to his command. “I will not remain in the
same polluted atmosphere with a woman capable of such vileness.”
“Remain!” said the Doctor, with a look and gesture that Christine well understood.
She hesitated; the first feeling of anger had subsided, and she did in reality wish
to know what had brought Julia there, and with a hope, which made her heart
throb exultingly, she turned and seated herself on a sofa.
“I presume you have no objections to my seeing my niece alone,” said Julia.
“Certainly not,” replied the Doctor. “If you should want anything, that bell will
receive instant attention”; so saying, with a bow, he left the room.
declaring sentiments 35

Christine did not speak; she looked fixedly at Julia, who did not seem inclined to
break the silence; at last she could wait no longer.
“To what am I indebted for the honor of this visit?” she said.
“To my interest in your welfare,” replied Julia, calmly.
A flash of anger gleamed in Christine’s eyes. “I ought to be deeply grateful,” she
said, “for an interest which has manifested itself in so many acts of kindness! This
last debt of gratitude will, I fear, be more than I can repay.
“Have you any more favors of a similar character to heap upon me? I am already
overpowered by the benefits I have received at your hands.”
“Pray go on, Christine,” said Julia, as she paused. “Say all that you wish. It is as
rare as pleasant, in this ungrateful world, to meet with such appreciation of one’s
services; indeed, I am happy to find myself so well appreciated.”
“Woman!” cried Christine, exasperated by Julia’s coolness. “I do, indeed, appre-
ciate your character fully, but I lack words to express my detestation of it and you;
you, made up of treachery and deceit—a libel upon your sex—with the face of an
angel and the heart of a fiend—I loathe you! You are beneath hatred, and fit only
for contempt!”
“Go on, my dear,” said Julia, in her softest tones; and, as Christine’s anger
prevented her replying, she added—
“I quite expected it all. This is your first opportunity to spit out the concentrated
venom which has been accumulating for the last six months. Say on. When you
have finished, I will speak; until then, I will be a listener.”
Christine was silent for a moment. At length she said, shortly, “Say what you
have to say, and be gone!”
“Do you wish to leave this place?” asked Julia, without heeding her niece’s anger.
Christine’s eyes flashed.
“I am not surprised,” she said, in a tone of bitter irony, “that you should doubt
my willingness to leave a place to which I was so anxious to come, and where the
society is so very agreeable.”
“I regret, then, to deprive you of the pleasure of a longer sojourn here, since you
have found it so delightful, yet that was my intention when I came here. I can
hardly expect your thanks, however.”
“Thanks!” interrupted Christine, bitterly, “and for what? For my unjust impris-
onment, or for the tardy act of justice in my release? You do well not to expect
thanks, madam. I will leave you now, and make preparations for my departure.
When I am free, we will see if the law cannot reach you, who have dared to confine
me thus.”
“But you are not free yet, my dear,” said Julia, carelessly,“and, even when you are,
I imagine that revenge will not be so sweet to you as to lead you to have less regard
to your reputation than we have had—that you will not care to publish your insan-
ity to the world, who will be ready enough to believe it.”
“I could hardly publish it more widely, than the fact of my being in an asylum
would do!” exclaimed Christine. “It is already known, and I owe it to myself to
prove that it is not so.”
36 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

“I beg your pardon, Miss Christine, but the papers have long since announced
the severe illness of Christine Elliot, and, of course, her necessary retirement
for awhile from public life, and here, Miss Caroline Frothingham only, has been
considered insane.
“So, as I said before, even when you are free, I should suppose that common
prudence would dictate the policy of your keeping quiet. There are always
people enough ready to believe ill of anybody, if there is the least occasion.”
Christine was silent. She saw that Julia was right, and that the fact of her having
been in an asylum would, if known, greatly lessen her influence. She bit her lip, and
turned angrily away.
“Allow me to suggest to you,” said Julia, in her mildest tones, “before you go to
your room, as you seem to be on the point of doing, that there are certain condi-
tions to which you must subscribe, before you leave this pleasant spot.”
“Conditions!” repeated Christine. “Dare you propose conditions? No, madam.
I demand release as an act of justice, and I will never submit to make terms
with you.”
“Very well, then,” said Julia, coolly. “If that is your determination, I will resign
Miss Frothingham to the care of her keeper,” and she laid her hand upon the bell.
“Oh, heavens!” cried Christine, in the wildest excitement, springing forward and
grasping her aunt’s hand. “You cannot be so cruel! You cannot have meant to mock
me with false hopes, only to plunge me into the deeper despair! Take care what you
do. You will drive me mad!”
“It was your own choice,” said Julia. “You can be free by the utterance of only
one word. Only agree to the conditions; but you refused even to hear them.”
“I am in your power,” sighed the girl. “Let me hear them.”
“You must promise, first, never again, by voice or pen, to defend the foolish
doctrines of that ridiculous cause which you have espoused. Next—”
“Stop there,” said Christine, raising herself to her full height, “and hear me now!
I solemnly swear that never will I desert the cause to which I have pledged myself,
till I am convinced that it has no foundation in justice or truth. Never shall any
personal considerations, no matter of what nature they may be, influence me to
give up what is more sacred than life—my convictions of what is right and true.
“I am in your power; but you may keep me here till death or madness in reality
overtakes me, and the guilt will rest on your soul. Life I can lose, but never, never,
so long as life lasts, will I be faithless to that duty to which God has called me. You
have my answer.”
“Then, remain!” cried Julia, fairly exasperated. “You are in your proper place!
If this is not insanity, never was there a case. You shall return to your cell, and there
shall you remain till you promise what I have required.”
“That I shall never do,” repeated Christine, for the moment quite elevated by her
enthusiasm above all thought of the weariness of her imprisonment.
“Then never shall you be released,” retorted Julia.
“Be it so,” answered Christine; “but give me rather perpetual imprisonment,
with none but these hapless wretches about me, so that my soul is unstained, than
declaring sentiments 37

life in the free air, under God’s beautiful heavens, with those I best love, if the price
of that must be dishonor, and treachery to the highest and noblest instincts of my
nature. I do not envy you, madam; hapless as is my fate, I would not exchange
places with you. On earth we may never stand before a tribunal, but there is a bar
before which we all must stand; there is a day of retribution—”
“I will hear no more,” cried Julia, ringing the bell, violently.
A servant instantly appeared, and Doctor Lyman almost immediately entered.
“I had hoped,” said Julia, “that I might have relieved you of your charge, but I
find that she is yet unfit to be removed.”
“You are saying what is false!” cried Christine. “You know that every word you
utter plunges you deeper into perjury.”
“Alas!” sighed Julia; “every sentence that she utters only makes clearer her
misfortunes. It is painful for me to look upon her!”
“Well it may be!” cried Christine, “if you have yet a spark of conscience. Doctor,
ask her if I am not Christine Elliot, and look well at her when she attempts to deny it!”
“Poor girl!” sighed Julia, softly.
“I see that the interview is injurious to her,” said the Doctor. “She looks wild;
her violence may return. I must put an end to it.”
Mrs. Frothingham bowed her head in assent, and Christine, making no resist-
ance, was again placed in her lonely chamber.
How her heart ached as she looked on the four walls that hemmed her in. She
looked out of the window, and longed, oh, how ardently! for freedom. The air that
kissed her fevered brow seemed inviting her to go out into the deep old woods that
she so dearly loved. She almost imagined herself there, sitting, as she had so often
done, on the soft carpet of moss, close by a steep ledge of rocks, while the giant
trees, the growth of centuries, stood like sentinels around her, and the rustling of
their leaves overhead had alone broken the silence. She woke from this pleasant
picture with a start! Alas, how different was the reality! When could she ever, at
her own free will, ramble where she chose?
“Oh, it is horrible!” she cried—“horrible that my young life must be extin-
guished in this prison—that all I have so hoped for should end thus! The birds of
the air can soar as they will; the very lowest of insects are free, and I, a being with
a soul, must pine away here, losing all my strength, all my energy, all my mind.
Oh, it is unjust! Is there a God, and does he allow such horrible wickedness?”
She paced the floor in agony—she gnashed her teeth—she tore her hair, then
suddenly catching a glimpse of herself in a glass, she stood still, horrified.
“Oh, God!” she cried, “I am indeed forsaken. I am losing my senses! Is not that
being, a madwoman, indeed?”
A flood of tears flowed from her eyes; she sunk upon her knees, and in agony
poured out from her whole soul, a prayer that she might not indeed become
mad. . . .
Three months passed slowly by, without any event to break the monotony of her
weary life. She took no interest in the light tasks assigned her; she shrank from any
intercourse with the unfortunate beings around her, and, in fact, seemed sinking
38 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

into that state, the most hopeless of any kind of insanity, that of a gentle, but settled
melancholy; a sad expression lurked around her mouth; her eyes were downcast—
she rarely looked up at any disturbance, never voluntarily addressed any one;
answered briefly, if spoken to by anyone. . . .

Chapter XXIX: Elder Wiggins’ Plot

Both Mrs. Warner and Helen arrived at the time specified, and were met by Elder
Wiggins, who explained the whole affair to them. Mrs. Frothingham soon after
arrived at the same hotel, but the Elder took good care that she should see nothing
of his accomplices, and hurried them off at once to the asylum. Here he unfolded
his whole design to the Doctor, who at first was indignant at such a proceeding, and
when soothed by Helen, who assured him that nothing was further from their
thoughts than to question his sincere belief in the insanity of his patient, laughed
the idea to scorn, and protested that he would have nothing to do with such a
foolish business.
At last, however, through Mrs. Warner’s and Helen’s united influence, he yielded
a reluctant consent to keep their arrival a secret from Mrs. Frothingham, and to
join them in a room from which they could be unseen witnesses of the interview
between the aunt and niece.
The Elder rubbed his hands with delight when this was determined upon, and
could not conceal his exultation at the success of his designs.
Mrs. Warner, Helen, and the Elder, were seated near the folding-doors which
divided the parlors, and through these they could distinctly hear all that passed in
the front parlor, while a small aperture had been left open, through which they
could see all that took place at the interview.
Mrs. Frothingham and Christine were left alone there, and ere long the Doctor
joined the group of listeners in the back parlor.
“I suppose you were somewhat surprised on receiving my note,” said Christine.
“Oh, no,” said Julia, carelessly. “I concluded you would come to your senses at
some time; we could afford to wait your pleasure.”
“Then you were determined to keep me here till I would agree to your condi-
tions, were you?” said Christine.
“Of course we were, my dear Christine,” replied Julia. “As to having a Woman’s
Rights lecturer in our family, that your father and I decided we would not submit
to, and until you promised to give it up, we had no alternative but to keep you here
or in some similar place.”
“Do you hear that?” whispered the Elder, triumphantly, to the Doctor, in so loud
a voice that Helen trembled lest they should be discovered; she laid her finger on
her lips in token of silence, as Christine went on,
“Well, if I sign the papers as you wish, will you tell Dr. Lyman that I have not
been insane?”
“Certainly not,” returned Julia. “I shall do no such foolish thing. It would not
benefit you in the least, as Miss Caroline Frothingham will cease to exist as soon as
declaring sentiments 39

she is removed from this place—and he need not be admitted into our family
secrets at all.”
“Well, if you will not let him know the truth, then, will you give me a paper, stat-
ing that your opposition to my course was so great that you and my father had me
placed in an asylum for the insane, though well aware of my sanity, and set me free
when your object was attained, my abjuring all further participation in public life?”
“No, my dear Christine,” said Julia, calmly. “I beg to be excused from putting
myself thus into your power.”
“And yet you admit it is true. Haven’t I stated the case just as it is?”
“Certainly, my sweet niece,” returned Julia.
The Elder could hardly restrain himself.
“Aha!” he whispered. “Do you hear that?”
Helen shook her head. “Hush!” she breathed, softly, as Mrs. Frothingham
continued.
“Once, for all, let me assure you that you need expect no documents that you
could use against us; your release is all the recompense you will obtain for giving up
your wild-goose project. I have the conditions here; shall I read them?”
She read distinctly a solemn renunciation of all future participation in any way
in the Woman’s Rights Movement, and, at its close, said, drawing a pencil from her
pocket.
“Sign this and you are free. I am ready.”
“But I am not,” returned Christine; “neither now, nor at any future time, will I
sign such a document; on the contrary, so soon as I am free, I will devote myself,
with all my energies, with heart, mind, soul, and strength, to that great cause.”
The Elder rubbed his hands in great delight at this declaration; not that he
sympathized with her enthusiasm, but he liked the spirit which dictated it.
“Girl!” exclaimed Julia, in a voice of passion. “What did you mean by bringing
me here on a fool’s errand? How did you dare to deceive me in this manner? Speak!
What did you mean?”
“That I defy you and your power, Mrs. Frothingham; that it is my turn now to
triumph, for much as you feared committing yourself, and excellent as were your
plans, you are committed and your plans are defeated.”
“That’s a fact!” cried the Elder, in his loudest voice. “Bless the Lord, the wicked
shall not always flourish, neither shall the horn of the ungodly be exalted for ever.”
He flung open the doors as he spoke, and entered the apartment, followed by
Helen, Mrs. Warner, and Doctor Lyman.
“Out of thine own mouth will I condemn thee,” began the Elder, while Helen and
Mrs. Warner, with the most heartfelt delight, embraced Christine again and again.
Julia was horror-struck. She could not speak for a moment—she grew red and
pale by turns, for she saw that all was discovered.
“Be silent, man!” she said, at last, to the Elder, who had continued to address her
in Scriptural language, but not in the most flattering terms. “From such as you I
might have expected nothing better than playing the part of a listener and spy, but
I had hardly looked for such treatment from a gentleman like Dr. Lyman.”
40 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

“It was with great reluctance, madam, that I lent myself to such a scheme,”
returned Lyman, “but the result has perfectly justified me in the course which I
pursued. I need hardly tell you my opinion of the inhuman outrage to which your
niece has been subjected, nor can you expect much sympathy from a man whom
you have made your tool in carrying out your cruel plans. When a lady stoops to
such base ends, and baser means, she forfeits all claims to be treated as such by a
gentleman.”
“Will Dr. Lyman order my carriage?” was Julia’s only reply, as she rose from
her seat.
He bowed, and withdrew. She approached Christine.
“In all this,” she said, “I have sought what I considered your highest good.”
A groan from the Elder interrupted her, but she heeded it not.
“You were in the broad road to destruction, and your father and I deemed it our
duty, however unpleasant, to place such obstacles in your way as might check your
downward career. You have broken through them, and will rush on headlong to
ruin. Remonstrances are useless, but, in justice to ourselves, I have said thus much.
We can do no more.”
Without waiting for a reply, she turned, and dropping a profound curtsy, swept
from the room.
“Waal, I declare!” exclaimed the Elder. “Ef that don’t beat all!”
Helen broke into a hearty laugh, and Mrs. Warner’s looks betrayed her astonish-
ment at what had passed.
“Dear me, what an ungrateful girl you are, Christine,” said Helen. “Here you
have been placed in a position of perfect safety and peace, and yet struggle to get
out of it, and, not only that, but worse than all, you haven’t the slightest gratitude
for such a blessed boon as withdrawing your feet from the downward path. Why,
I’m horrified at such insensibility.”
Christine smiled faintly.

Source: From Laura Curtis Bullard, Christine, or Woman’s Trials and Triumphs
(New York: DeWitt and Davenport, 1856).
 R
“INDEPENDENCE” (1859)
“Shall Women Vote?” (1860)
fa n n y f e r n
[ s a r a w i l l i s pa r t o n ] ( 1 8 1 1 – 1 8 7 2 )

As Ruth Hall, the autobiographical novella for which she is best known, attests,
hardship drove Parton to writing: her first husband’s death, her family’s subse-
quent failure to support her and her daughters, and a disastrous second marriage
and divorce compelled Parton to self-sufficiency. Under the pseudonym “Fanny
Fern,” Parton contributed amusing, incisive pieces to newspapers. When she
moved to the New York Ledger, a weekly publication with a large female reader-
ship, she became the highest-paid newspaper writer in the United States, one who
advocated, fittingly, education and financial independence for women.23 The
columns reproduced here reflect the style that made Fern famous: confident,
direct, and often acerbic, the speaker takes delight in exposing both the irony of
celebrating independence in a land where women are not free and the illogic of
trying to “protect” women by keeping them from the polls.

“Independence”
“Fourth of July.” Well—I don’t feel patriotic. Perhaps I might if they would stop
that deafening racket. Washington was very well, if he couldn’t spell, and I’m glad
we are all free; but as a woman—I shouldn’t know it, didn’t some orator tell me.
Can I go out of an evening without a hat at my side? Can I go out with one on my
head without danger of a station-house? Can I clap my hands at some public
speaker when I am nearly bursting with delight? Can I signify the contrary when
my hair stands on end with vexation? Can I stand up in the cars “like a gentleman”
without being immediately invited “to sit down”? Can I get into an omnibus with-
out having my sixpence taken from my hand and given to the driver? Can I cross
Broadway without having a policeman tackled to my helpless elbow?
Can I go to see anything pleasant, like an execution or a dissection? Can I drive
that splendid “Lantern,” distancing—like his owner—all competitors? Can I have
41
42 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

the nomination for “Governor of Vermont,” like our other contributor, John G.
Saxe? Can I be a Senator, that I may hurry up that millennial International
Copyright Law? Can I even be President?
Bah—you know I can’t. “Free!” Humph!

Source: Fanny Fern. “Independence,” New York Ledger, 30 July 1859, in Ruth Hall and Other
Writings, ed. Joyce W. Warren (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1986), 314–15.

“Shall Women Vote?”

The principal objection made by conservatives to their doing so, is on the score of
their being thrown into rowdy company of both sexes. Admitting this necessity
(though, by the way, I don’t do it! because if incompetent men-voters are ruled out,
it would follow incompetent women should be also), I cannot sufficiently admire
the objection; when a good-looking woman, wife or sister, whom husbands and
brothers allow, without a demur, to walk our public thoroughfares unattended, can
scarcely do it without being jostled, and ogled at street corners, by squads of gam-
blers, and often times followed whole blocks, and even spoken to by well-dressed
villains; when these ladies often have their toes and elbows nudged by them in
omnibuses and cars, or an impertinent hand dropped on their shoulder or waist as
if by accident. When two ladies, though leaning on the arm of a gentleman, cannot
return from the Opera late at night, to a ferry-boat, without being insulted by the
wretched of their own sex, or the rascals who make them such. I admire that, when
a husband thinks it quite the thing for his wife to explore all sorts of localities, in
search of articles needed for family consumption, because “he has not time to
attend to it.” I like that, when he coolly permits his wife and daughters to waltz at
public places, with the chance male acquaintance of a week or a day. I admire that,
when his serenity is undisturbed, though Tom, Dick and Harry, tear the crinoline
from their backs, in the struggle to secure seats for an hour’s enjoyment of the
latest nine-day, New York wonder.
Pshaw! all such talk is humbug, as the men themselves very well know. We are
always “dear—delicate fragile creatures,” who should be immediately gagged with
this sugar plum whenever we talk about that of which it is their interest to keep us
ignorant. It won’t do, gentlemen; the sugar-plum game is well nigh “played out.”
Women will assuredly vote some day; meanwhile the majority of them will “keep up
a considerable of a thinking.” The whole truth about the male creatures’ dislike to
it is embodied in a remark of “Mr. Tulliver’s,” in a late admirable work. This gentle-
man, with more honesty than is usual with the sex, having admitted that from out
a bunch of sisters, he selected his milk-and-water wife “because he was not going to
be told the right of things by his own fireside!” I take particular pleasure in passing
this sentiment round, because editors who have quoted largely and approvingly
from this book, somehow or other, have never seemed to see this passage!

Source: Fanny Fern, “Shall Women Vote?” New York Ledger, 30 June 1860, in Ruth Hall,
ed. Warren, 316–17.
 R
“WOMAN AND THE
BALLOT” (1870)
frederick douglass (circa 1818–1895)

A lifelong advocate of full citizenship rights for African Americans and women,
escaped slave and community leader Frederick Douglass used voice and pen to
promote universal suffrage as well as abolition. He spoke persuasively at the 1848
Seneca Falls convention in support of the Declaration of Sentiment’s controver-
sial demand for the franchise for women, and his North Star first printed the
“Report of the Woman’s Rights Convention” containing the Declaration. Then, in
1866 he joined Stanton and Anthony in founding the American Equal Rights
Association. Their relationship was challenged, however, by the white women’s
racism and dissolved when Douglass supported the Fifteenth Amendment, which
enfranchised African American men but not women. As “Woman and the Ballot”
indicates, however, Douglass remained committed to woman suffrage despite his
break with Stanton and Anthony.24 Albeit somewhat less impassioned than some
of his other reform writing, the essay’s arguments are reasoned and articulate—
trademarks of Douglass’s style. And though essentialist thinking undergirds
particular claims about women’s “nature” and the influence women might exert
on politics, Douglass is uncompromising in his belief in the political, social, and
psychological power of the ballot and in his sense of women’s right to it.

In the number preceding the present the natural right of woman to a voice in the
Government under which she lives and to which she is assumed to owe allegiance,
and for the support of which she is compelled like male citizens to pay taxes, was
briefly discussed. It is proposed now to adduce some reasons resting on other facts
why woman should be allowed to exercise her indisputable natural right to parti-
cipate in government through the same channels and instrumentalities employed
by men. That society has a right to employ for its preservation and success all the
mental, moral, and physical power it thus possesses and can make available, is a
43
44 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

truth requiring no argument to make it clear. Not less clear is it, at least to some
minds, that society, through its forms of government, ought to exercise that right.
It has many rights and duties; but the right and duty to cripple and maim itself, or
to deprive itself of any power it naturally possesses, are not among them. A man
may cut off his arms and feet, pluck out his eyes, and society may deprive itself of
its natural powers for guidance and well-being, but enlightened reason assents nei-
ther to the action of the one nor of the other. In this respect nations and individu-
als stand upon the same footing. The highest good is the supreme law for both, and
each after his kind must bear the penalty attached to transgression. The Chinese
woman may cripple her feet in obedience to custom, and the Hindoo woman throw
herself in the consuming flame for superstition, but nature’s laws exact their full
measure of pain from whatever motive or through whatever motive or through
whatever ignorance her mandates are violated.
The grand idea of American liberty is coupled with that of universal suffrage;
and universal suffrage is suggested and asserted by universal intelligence. Without
the latter the former falls to the ground; and unless suffrage is made co-extensive
with intelligence something of the natural power of society essential to its guidance
and well-being is lost. To deny that woman is capable of forming an intelligent
judgment concerning public men and public measures, equally with men, does not
meet the case; for, even if it were granted, the fact remains the same that woman,
equally with men, possesses such intelligence; and that such as it is, and because it
is such as it is, woman, in her own proper person has a right for herself to make it
effective. To deprive her of this right is to deprive her of a part of her natural
dignity, and the State of a part of its mental power of direction, prosperity, and
safety; and thus a double wrong is perpetuated.
Man in his arrogance has hitherto felt himself fully equal to the work of govern-
ing the world without the help of woman. He has kept the reins of power securely
in his hands, and the history of nations and the present experience of the world
show the woeful work he has made of governing. He has made human history a
history of war and blood even until now. The world today seems as fierce, savage,
and bloody as a thousand years ago, and there is not one of all the civilized nations
of the earth which has not mortgaged the energies of unborn generations to pay
debts contracted by the crimes and blunders of its Government. Whether the case
would have been different had woman’s voice been allowed in national affairs,
admits of little debate. War is among the greatest calamities incident to the lives of
nations. They arrest the progress of civilization, corrupt the sources of morality,
destroy all proper sense of the sacredness of human life, perpetuate the national
hate, and weigh down the necks of after-coming generations with the burdens of
debt. To nothing more than to war is woman more instinctively opposed. If the
voices of wives, sisters, and mothers could be heard no standing armies would
menace the peace of the world today, and France and Prussia would not be bathing
their hands in each other’s warm blood. Napoleon told us the “Empire means
peace,” and we say that Republics mean peace, but neither Empires, Republics, nor
Monarchies can mean peace while men alone control them. The vote of women is
declaring sentiments 45

essential to the peace of the world. Her hand and voice naturally rise against the
shedding of human blood. Against this conclusion cases may be cited, but they are
exceptional and abnormal. Woman as woman, far more than man as man, is for
peace. That slavery imparted something of its own blood-thirsty spirit to the
women of the South—that superstition and fanaticism have led some women to
consent to the slaughter of their children and to the destruction of themselves—
cannot be taken against the natural gentleness and forbearance of the sex as a
whole. She naturally shudders at the thought of subjecting her loved ones to the
perils and horrors of war, and her vote would be a peace guaranty to the world.
While society consents to exclude women from all participation in the guidance
of its Government, it must consent to standing armies, preparations for war
calculated to bring them on, and smite itself into blood and death.
But whatever may be thought as to the consequences of allowing women to
vote, it is plain that women themselves are divested of a large measure of their nat-
ural dignity by their exclusion from such participation in Government. Power is
the highest object of human respect. Wisdom, virtue, and all great moral qualities
command respect only as powers. Knowledge and wealth are nought but powers.
Take from money its purchasing power, and it ceases to be the same object of
respect. We pity the impotent and respect the powerful everywhere. To deny
woman her vote is to abridge her natural and social power, and deprive her of a cer-
tain measure of respect. Everybody knows that a woman’s opinion of any lawmaker
would command a larger measure of attention had she the means of making opin-
ion effective at the ballot-box. We despise the weak and respect the strong. Such is
human nature. Woman herself loses in her own estimation by her enforced exclu-
sion from the elective franchise just as slaves doubted their own fitness for freedom,
from the fact of being looked upon as only fit for slaves. While, of course, woman
has not fallen so low as the slave in the scale of being (her education and her natu-
ral relation to the ruling power rendering such degradation impossible), it is plain
that, with the ballot in her hand, she will ascend a higher elevation in her own
thoughts, and even in the thoughts of men, than without that symbol of power. She
has power now—mental and moral power—but they are fettered. Nobody is afraid
of a chained lion or an empty gun.
It may be said that woman does already exercise political power—that she does
this through her husband, her father and others related to her, and hence there is no
necessity for extending suffrage to her, and allowing her to hold office. This objec-
tion to the extension of suffrage is true in the same sense that every disfranchised
people, especially if intelligent, must exert some influence and compel a certain
degree of consideration among governing classes, but it is no conclusive argument.
If a man is represented in part by another, there is no reason in that why he may not
represent himself as a whole, or if he is represented by another, there is no reason
in that why he may not represent himself—and the same is true of woman. The
claim is that she is represented by man, and that she does therefore indirectly par-
ticipate in Government. Suppose she does, and the question at once comes if it be
right for woman to participate in government indirectly how can it be wrong for
46 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

her to do so directly? That which is right in itself is equally right whether done by
the principal or the agent, especially if equally well done. So far as ability to per-
form the mere act of voting is concerned woman is as well qualified to do that as to
drop a letter in the post office, or to receive one at the window. Let her represent
herself. This is the simplest and surest mode of representation. The old slavehold-
ers used to represent the slaves, the rich landowners of other countries represent
the poor, and the men in our country claim to represent woman, but the true doc-
trine of American liberty plainly is, that each class and each individual of a class
should be allowed to represent himself—that taxation and representation should
go together. Woman having intelligence, capable of an intelligent preference for the
kind of men who shall make the laws under which she is to live, her natural dignity
and self-respect coupled with the full enjoyment of all her rights as a citizen,
her welfare and happiness equally the objects of solicitude to her as to others,
affected as deeply by the errors, blunders, mistakes and crimes committed by the
Government, as any part of society, especially suffering from the evils of war,
drunkenness and immoralities of every kind, instinctively gentle, tender, peaceful,
and orderly. She needs the ballot for her own protection, and men as well as women
need its concession to her for the protection of the whole. Long deprived of the bal-
lot, long branded as an inferior race—long reputed as incapable of exercising the
elective franchise, and only recently lifted into the privileges of complete American
citizenship, we cannot join with those who would refuse the ballot to women or to
any others of mature age and proper residence, who bear the burdens of the
Government and are obedient to the laws.

Source: Frederick Douglass, “Woman and the Ballot,” The New National Era, 27
Oct. 1870.
 R
“AUNT CHLOE’S POLITICS”
(1871)
“JOHN AND JACOB—A
DIALOGUE ON WOMAN’S
RIGHTS” (1885)
f r a n c e s e l l e n wat k i n s h a r p e r
( 1 82 5 – 1 9 1 1 )

A popular poet and author of Iola Leroy and other novels, Harper was one of the
few black women to become involved with predominantly white women’s associ-
ations, including the AWSA and the National Council of Women. Her interest in
suffrage increased when she traveled throughout the South after the Civil War
and spoke to black women who had recently been emancipated but were still
disenfranchised. At a time when the Fifteenth Amendment antagonized many
white suffragists, Harper supported voting rights based on moral and educational
qualifications, without regard to gender or race. In 1896, she helped found the
National Association of Colored Women and became its vice-president the
following year.25 “Aunt Chloe’s Politics,” featuring a no-nonsense sixty-year-old
former slave as its speaker, reflects Harper’s sense of the stakes of voting rights:
its final verses intimate a link between the “buying up” of men’s votes and the
buying up of men. The dialogue “John and Jacob,” published more than a decade
later, is equally direct, rebutting objections to woman suffrage as characteristic of
the kinds of thinking that perpetuated slavery.

“Aunt Chloe’s Politics”

Of course, I don’t know very much
About these politics,

47
48 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

But I think that some who run ’em,

Do mighty ugly tricks.

I’ve seen ’em honey-fugle round,

And talk so awful sweet,
That you’d think them full of kindness,
As an egg is full of meat.

Now I don’t believe in looking

Honest people in the face,
And saying when you’re doing wrong,
That “I haven’t sold my race.”

When we want to school our children,

If the money isn’t there,
Whether black or white have took it,
The loss we all must share.

And this buying up each other

Is something worse than mean,
Though I thinks a heap of voting,
I go for voting clean.

Source: Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, “Aunt Chloe’s Politics,” from Sketches of Southern
Life (1871), in A Brighter Coming Day: A Frances Ellen Watkins Harper Reader, ed.
Frances Smith Foster (New York: Feminist Press, 1990), 204–205.

“John and Jacob—A Dialogue on Woman’s Rights”

Jacob
I don’t believe a single bit
In those new-fangled ways
Of women running to the polls
And voting now adays.
I like the good old-fashioned times
When women used to spin,
And when you came home from work you knew
Your wife was always in.
Now there’s my Betsy, just as good
As any wife need be,
Who sits and tells me day by day
That women are not free;
And when I smile and say to her,
“You surely make me laff;
This talk about your rights and wrongs
Is nothing else but chaff.”
declaring sentiments 49

John
Now, Jacob, I don’t think like you;
I think that Betsy Ann
Has just as good a right to vote
As you or any man.

Jacob
Now, John, do you believe for true
In women running round,
And when you come to look for them
They are not to be found?
Pray, who would stay at home to nurse,
To cook, to wash, and sew,
While women marched unto the polls?
That’s what I want to know.

John
Who stays at home when Betsy Ann
Goes out day after day
To wash and iron, cook and sew,
Because she gets her pay?
I’m sure she wouldn’t take quite so long
To vote and go her way,
As when she leaves the little ones
And works out day by day.

Jacob
Well, I declare, that is the truth!
To vote, it don’t take long;
But, then, I kind of think somehow
That women’s voting’s wrong.

John
The masters thought before the war
That slavery was right:
But we who felt the heavy yoke
Didn’t see it in that light.
Some thought that it would never do
For us in Southern lands,
To change the fetters on our wrists
For the ballot in our hands.
Now if you don’t believe ’twas right
To crowd us from the track,
How can you push your wife aside
And try to hold her back?
50 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

Jacob
But, John, I think for women’s feet
The poll’s a dreadful place;
To vote with rough and brutal men
Seems like a deep disgrace.

John
But, Jacob, if the polls are vile
Where women shouldn’t be seen
Why not invite them in to help
Us men to make them clean?

Jacob
Well, wrong is wrong, and right is right,
For woman as for man;
I almost think that I will go
And vote with Betsy Ann.

John
I hope you will, and show the world
You can be brave and strong—
A noble man, who scorns to do
The feeblest woman wrong.

Source: Frances Harper, “John and Jacob—A Dialogue on Women’s Rights” (1885), in
A Brighter Day, ed. Foster, 240–42.
 R
MY WIFE AND I; OR,
HARRY HENDERSON’S
HISTORY (1871)
har r iet beecher stowe (1811–1896)

While her fame rests securely on her abolitionist sentimental novel Uncle Tom’s
Cabin (1852), Stowe was a prolific writer of fiction, sketches, and essays, and her
interest in the reform movements of her era was wide-ranging. Her complex rela-
tionship with woman’s rights, in particular, is reflected in part in the familial
debate that surrounded her. Stowe’s older sister Catharine Beecher was a self-
styled authority on domestic economy and a defender of women’s domestic roles;
in 1871 she published an antisuffrage treatise, Woman Suffrage and Woman’s
Profession. At the other pole was Stowe’s stepsister, Isabella Beecher Hooker, who
helped establish woman suffrage associations in New England and developed
close ties to Stanton, Anthony, and the NWSA. Anthony thought highly enough of
Stowe’s suffrage sentiments that she invited her to be a corresponding editor of
The Revolution, but Stowe declined when Anthony refused to change the
journal’s title.26 Stowe’s sentimental novel My Wife and I is narrated by an
open-minded male journalist and has a foot in each sister’s camp: though sup-
portive of the principle of woman suffrage, the novel—primarily through the
character of Ida—evinces a profound mistrust of radical activism and immediate
enfranchisement, arguing instead for a gradual introduction of women to the
political process. The stereotyped suffragist characters—the aggressive Audacia
Dangyereyes (modeled after the infamous free love advocate, presidential
candidate, and newspaper editor Victoria Woodhull) and the naive Mrs. Cerulean
(perhaps a caricature of Hooker)—as well as the narrative’s class discourses, owe
as much to antisuffrage as to prosuffrage rhetoric.

51
52 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

Chapter XXIII: I Receive a Moral Shower-Bath

[A]s I was sitting in my room, busy writing, I heard a light footstep on the stairs,
and a voice saying, “Oh yes! this is Mr. Henderson’s room—thank you,” and the
next moment a jaunty, dashing young woman, with bold blue eyes, and curling
brown hair, with a little wicked looking cap with nodding cock’s-feather set askew
on her head, came marching up and seated herself at my writing-table. I gazed in
blank amazement. The apparition burst out laughing, and seizing me frankly by
the hand, said—
“Look here, Hal! don’t you know me? Well, my dear fellow, if you don’t it’s time
you did! I read your last ‘thingumajig’ in the Milky Way, and came round to make
your acquaintance.”
I gazed in dumb amazement while she went on,
“My dear fellow, I have come to enlighten you,”—and as she said this she drew
somewhat near to me, and laid her arm confidingly on my shoulder, and looked
coaxingly in my face. The look of amazement which I gave, under these circum-
stances, seemed to cause her great amusement.
“Ha! ha!” she said, “didn’t I tell ’em so? You ain’t half out of the shell yet. You
ain’t really hatched. You go for the emancipation of woman; but bless you, boy, you
haven’t the least idea what it means—not a bit of it, sonny, have you now? Confess!”
she said, stroking my shoulder caressingly.
“Really, madam—I confess,” I said, hesitatingly, “I haven’t the honor—”
“Not the honor of my acquaintance, you was going to say; well, that’s exactly
what you’re getting now. I read your piece in the Milky Way, and, said I, that boy’s
in heathen darkness yet, and I’m going round to enlighten him. You mean well,
Hal! but this is a great subject. You haven’t seen through it. Lord bless you, child!
you ain’t a woman, and I am—that’s just the difference.”
Now, I ask any of my readers, what is a modest young man, in this nineteenth
century,—having been brought up to adore and reverence woman as a goddess—
to do, when he finds himself suddenly vis-à-vis with her, in such embarrassing rela-
tions as mine were becoming? I had heard before of Miss Audacia Dangyereyes, as
a somewhat noted character in New York circles, but did not expect to be brought
so unceremoniously, and without the least preparation of mind, into such very
intimate relations with her.
“Now, look here, bub!” she said, “I’m just a-going to prove to you, in five min-
utes, that you’ve been writing about what you don’t know anything about. You’ve
been asserting; in your blind way, the rights of woman to liberty and equality; the
rights of women, in short, to do anything that men do. Well, here comes a woman
to your room who takes her rights, practically, and does just what a man would do.
I claim my right to smoke, if I please, and to drink if I please; and to come up into
your room and make you a call, and have a good time with you, if I please, and tell
you that I like your looks, as I do. Furthermore, to invite you to come and call on
me at my room. Here’s my card. . . .
declaring sentiments 53

“Come round and take a smoke with me, this evening, won’t you? I’ve got the
nicest little chamber that ever you saw. What rent do you pay for yours? Say, will
you come round?”
“Indeed—thank you, miss—”
“Call me ’Dacia for short. I don’t stand on ceremony. Just look on me as another
fellow. And now confess that you’ve been tied and fettered by those vapid conven-
tionalities which bind down women till there is no strength in ’em. You visit in
those false, artificial circles, where women are slaves, kept like canary birds in gilded
cages. And you are afraid of your own principles when you see them carried out in
a real free woman. Now, I’m a woman that not only dares say, but I dare do. Why
hasn’t a woman as much a right to go round and make herself agreeable to men, as
to sit still at home and wait for men to come and make themselves agreeable to her?
I know you don’t like this, I can see you don’t, but it’s only because you are a slave
to old prejudices. But I’m going to make you like me in spite of yourself. Come,
now, be consistent with your principles; allow me my equality as a woman, a
human being.”
I was in such a state of blank amazement by this time as seemed to deprive me
of all power of self-possession. At this moment the door opened, and [my friend
and fellow journalist] Jim Fellows appeared. A most ludicrous grimace passed over
his face as he saw the position and he cut a silent pirouette in the air, behind her.
She turned her head, and he advanced.
“Fairest of the sex! (with some slight exceptions)—to what happy accident are
we to attribute this meeting?”
“Hallo, Jim! is this you?” she replied.
“Oh, certainly, it’s me,” said Jim, seating himself familiarly. “How is the brightest
star of womanhood—the Northern Light; the Aurora Borealis; the fairest of the
fair? Bless its little heart, has it got its rights yet? Did it want to drink and smoke?
Come along with Jim, now, and let’s have a social cocktail.”
“Keep your distance, sir,” said she, giving him a slight box on his ear. “I prefer to
do my own courting. I have been trying to show your friend here how little he
knows of the true equality of women, and of the good time coming, when we shall
have our rights, and do just as we darn please, as you do. I’ll bet now there ain’t one
of those Van Arsdel girls that would dare to do as I’m doing. But we’re opening the
way sir, we’re opening the way. The time will come when all women will be just as
free to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as men.”
“Good heavens!” said I, under my breath.
“My beloved Audacia,” said Jim, “allow me to remark one little thing, and that is,
that men also must be left free to the pursuit of happiness, and also, as the Scripture
says, new wine must not be put into old bottles. Now my friend Hal—begging his
pardon—is an old bottle, and I think you have already put as much new wine into
him as his constitution will bear. And as he and I both have got to make our living
by scratching, and tempus fugit, and we’ve got articles to write, and there is always,
so to speak, the devil after us folks that write for the press, may I humbly request
54 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

that you will withdraw the confusing light of your bright eyes from us for the
present, and, in short, take your divine self somewhere else?”
As Jim spoke these words, he passed his arm round Miss Audacia’s waist, and
drew her to the door of apartment, which he threw open, and handed her out,
bowing with great ceremony.
“Stop!” she cried, “I ain’t going to be put out that way. I haven’t done what
I came for. You both of you have got to subscribe for my paper, The Emancipated
Woman.” . . .
“Come, Hal,” she said, crossing once more to me, and sitting down by me and
taking my hand, “write your name there, there’s a good fellow.”
I wrote my name in desperation, while Jim stood by, laughing.
“Jim,” I said, “come, put yours down quick, and let’s have it over.”
“Well, now,” said she, “fork out the stamps—five dollars each.”
We both obeyed mechanically.
“Well, well,” said she, good naturedly, “that’ll do for this time, good morning,”
and she vanished from the apartment with a jaunty toss of the head and a nod of
the cock’s feathers in her hat. . . .
“Mercy upon us! Jim,” said I, “who, and what is this creature?”
“Oh, one of the harbingers of the new millennium,” said Jim. “Won’t it be jolly
when all the girls are like her? But we shall have to keep our doors locked then.”
“But,” said I, “is it possible, Jim, that this is a respectable woman?”
“She’s precisely what you see,” said Jim; “whether that’s respectable is a matter of
opinion. There’s a woman that’s undertaken, in good faith, to run and jostle in all
the ways that men run in. Her principle is, that whatever a young fellow in New
York could do, she’ll do.”
“Good heavens!” said I, “what would the Van Arsdels think of us, if they should
know that she had been in our company?”
“It’s lucky that they don’t and can’t,” said Jim. “But you see what you get for
belonging to the New Dispensation.”
“Boys, what’s all this fuss?” said Bolton, coming in at this moment.
“Oh, nothing, only Dacia Dangyereyes has been here,” said Jim, “and poor Hal is
ready to faint away and sink through the floor. He isn’t up to snuff yet, for all he
writes such magnificent articles about the nineteenth century.”
“Well,” said I, “it was woman as woman that I was speaking of, and not this kind
of creature. If I believed that granting larger liberty and wider opportunities was
going to change the women we reverence to things like these, you would never find
me advocating it.”
“Well, my dear Hal,” said Bolton, “be comforted; you’re not the first reformer
that has had to cry out, ‘Deliver me from my friends.’ Always, when the waters of
any noble, generous enthusiasm rise and overflow their banks, there must come down
the drift-wood—the wood, hay, and stubble. Luther had more trouble with the
fanatics of his day, who ran his principles into the ground, as they say, than he had
with the Pope and the Emperor, both together. As to this Miss Audacia, she is one
of the phenomenal creations of our times; this time, when every kind of practical
declaring sentiments 55

experiment in life has got to be tried, and stand or fall on its own merits. So don’t
be ashamed of having spoken the truth because crazy people and fools caricature
it. It is true, as you have said, that women ought to be allowed a freer, stronger, and
more generous education and scope for their faculties. It is true that they ought,
everywhere, to have equal privileges with men; and because some crack-brained
women draw false inferences from this, it is none the less true. For my part, I always
said that one must have a strong conviction for a cause, if he could stand the things
its friends say for it, or read a weekly paper devoted to it. If I could have been made
a proslavery man, it would have been by reading antislavery papers, and vice versa.
I had to keep myself on a good diet of proslavery papers, to keep my zeal up.” . . .

Chapter XXV: A Discussion of the

Woman Question from All Points
The bold intrusion of Miss Audacia Dangyereyes into my apartment had left a most
disagreeable impression on my mind. This was not lessened by the reception of her
paper, which came to hand in due course of next mail and which I found to be an
exposition of all the wildest principles of modern French communism. It consisted
of attacks directed about equally against Christianity, marriage, the family state, and
all human laws and standing order, whatsoever. It was much the same kind of writ-
ing with which the populace of France was indoctrinated and leavened in the era
preceding the first revolution, and which in time bore fruit in blood. In those days,
as now, such doctrines were toyed with in literary salons and aristocratic circles,
where their novelty formed an agreeable stimulus in the vapid commonplace of
fashionable life. They were then, as now, embraced with enthusiasm by fair illumi-
nati, who fancied that they saw in them a dawn of some millennial glory, and were
awakened from their dream, like Madame Roland, at the foot of the guillotine, bow-
ing their heads to death and crying, “O Liberty, what things are done in thy name!”
The principal difference between the writers on the Emancipated Woman and
those of the French illuminati was that the French prototypes were men and
women of elegance, culture, and education, whereas their American imitators,
though not wanting in a certain vigor and cleverness, were both coarse in expres-
sion, narrow in education, and wholly devoid of common decency in their manner
of putting things. It was a paper that a man who reverenced his mother and sisters
could scarcely read alone in his own apartments without blushing with indignation
and vexation.
Every holy secret of human nature, all those subjects of which the grace and the
power consist in their exquisite delicacy and tender refinement, were here handled
with coarse fingers. Society assumed the aspect of a pack of breeding animals, and
all its laws and institutions were to return to the mere animal basis. . . .
My trepidation may then be guessed on having the subject [of the Emancipated
Woman] at once proposed to me by Mr. Van Arsdel that evening as I was sitting with
him and Ida in her study.“I want to know, Mr. Henderson,” he said,“if you are a sub-
scriber for the Emancipated Woman, the new organ of the Woman’s Rights party?”
56 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

“Now, papa,” said Ida, “that is a little unjust! It only professes to be an organ of
the party, but it is not recognized by us.”
“Have you seen the paper?” said Mr. Van Arsdel to me. Like a true Yankee I
avoided the question by asking another.
“Have you subscribed to it, Mr. Van Arsdel?”
“Well, yes,” said he, laughing, “I confess I have; and a pretty mess I have made of
it. It is not a paper that any decent man ought to have in his house. But the woman
came herself into my counting-room and, actually, she badgered me into it; I
couldn’t get her out. I didn’t know what to do with her. I never had a woman go on
so with me before. I was flustered, and gave her my five dollars to get rid of her.
If she had been a man I’d have knocked her down.”
“Oh, papa,” said Ida, “I’ll tell you what you should have done; you should have
called me. She’d have got no money and no subscriptions out of me, nor you either
if I’d been there.”
“Now, Mr. Henderson, misery loves company; has she been to your room?” said
Mr. Van Arsdel.
“I confess she has,” said I, “and that I have done just what you did—yielded at
once.”
“Mr. Henderson, all this sort of proceeding is thoroughly vexatious and dis-
agreeable,” said Ida; “and all the more so that it tends directly to injure all women
who are trying to be self-supporting and independent. It destroys that delicacy and
refinement of feeling which men, and American men especially, cherish toward
women, and will make the paths of self-support terribly hard to those who have to
tread them. There really is not the slightest reason why a woman should cease to be
a woman because she chooses to be independent and pursue a self-supporting
career. And claiming a right to dispense with womanly decorums and act like a man
is just as ridiculous as it would be for a man to claim the right to wear woman’s
clothes. Even if we supposed that society were so altered as to give to woman every
legal and every social right that man has, and if all the customs of society should
allow her to do the utmost that she can for herself, in the way of self-support, still,
women will be relatively weaker than men, and there will be the same propriety in
their being treated with consideration and delicacy and gentleness that there now
is. And the assumptions of these hoydens and bullies have a tendency to destroy
that feeling of chivalry and delicacy on the part of men. It is especially annoying
and galling to me because I do propose to myself a path different from that in
which young women in my position generally have walked, and such reasoners as
Aunt Maria and all the ladies of her circle will not fail to confound Miss Audacia’s
proceedings and opinions, and mine, as all belonging to the same class. As to the
opinions of the paper, it is mainly by the half truths that are in it that it does mis-
chief. If there were not real evils to be corrected, and real mistakes in society, this
kind of thing would have no power. As it is, I have no doubt that it will acquire
a certain popularity and do immense mischief. I think the elements of mischief
and confusion in our republic are gathering as fast as they did in France before the
Revolution.”
declaring sentiments 57

“And,” said I, “after all, republics are on trial before the world. Our experiment
is not yet two hundred years old, and we have all sorts of clouds and storms
gathering—the labor question, the foreign immigration question, the woman
question, the monopoly and corporation question, all have grave aspects.”
“You see, Mr. Henderson,” said Ida, “as to this woman question, the moderate
party to which I belong is just at that disadvantage that people always are when
there is a party on ahead of them who hold some of their principles and are carry-
ing them to every ridiculous extreme. They have to uphold a truth that is con-
stantly being brought into disrepute and made ridiculous by these ultra advocates.
For my part, all I can do is to go quietly on with what I knew was right before. What
is right is right, and remains right no matter how much ultraists may caricature it.”
“Yes, my daughter,” said Mr. Van Arsdel, “but what would become of our coun-
try if all the women could vote, and people like Miss Audacia Dangyereyes should
stump the country as candidates for election?”
“Well, I am sure,” said Ida, “we should have very disagreeable times, and a great
deal to shock us.”
“It is not merely that,” said Mr. Van Arsdel; “the influence of such women on
young men would be demoralizing.”
“When I think of such dangers,” said Ida, “I am, on the whole, very well pleased
that there is no immediate prospect of the suffrage being granted to women until a
generation with superior education and better balanced minds and better habits of
consecutive thought shall have grown up among us. I think the gift of the ballot will
come at last as the result of a superior culture and education. And I am in no hurry
for it before.”
“What is all this that you are talking about?” said Eva, who came into the room
just at this moment. “Ma and Aunt Maria are in such a state about that paper that
papa has just brought home! They say there are most horrid things in it,
Mr. Henderson; and they say that it belongs to the party which you, and Ida, and
all your progressive people are in.”
“It is an excrescence of the party,” said I,“a diseased growth, and neither Miss Ida
nor I will accept of it as any expression of our opinion, though it does hold some
things which we believe.”
“Well,” said Eva, “I am curious to see it, just because they don’t want I should.
What can there be in it so very bad?”
“You may as well keep out of it, chick,” said her father, caressing her. “And now,
I’ll tell you, Ida, just what I think; you good women are not fit to govern the world
because you do not know, and you oughtn’t to know, the wickedness that you have
got to govern. We men have to know all about the rogues, and the sharpers, and
the pickpockets, and the bullies; we have to grow hard and sharp, and ‘cut our eye-
teeth,’ as the saying is, so that at last we come to not having much faith in anybody.
The rule is, pretty much, not to believe anybody that you meet, and to take for
granted that every man that you have dealings with will cheat you if he can. That’s
bad enough, but when it comes to feeling that every woman will cheat you if she
can, when women cut their eye-teeth, and get to be sharp, and hard, and tricky, as
58 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

men are, then I say, Look out for yourself, and deliver me from having anything to
do with them.”
“Why, really!” said Eva, “papa is getting to be quite an orator. I never heard him
talk so much before. Papa, why don’t you go on to the platform at the next Woman’s
Rights Convention, and give them a good blast?”
“Oh, I’ll let them alone,” said Mr. Van Arsdel; “I don’t want to be mixed up with
them, and I don’t want my girls to be, either. Now, I do not object to what Ida is
doing, and going to do. I think there is real sense in that, although Mother and Aunt
Maria feel so dreadfully about it. I like to see a woman have pluck, and set herself to
be good for something in the world. And I don’t see why there shouldn’t be women
doctors; it is just the thing there ought to be. But I don’t go for all this hurrah and
hullaballoo, and pitching women head-first into politics, and sending them to
legislatures, and making them candidates for Congress, and for the Presidency, and
nobody knows what else.”
“Well,” said I, “why not a woman President as well as a woman Queen of
England?”
“Because,” said he, “look at the difference. The woman Queen in England comes
to it quietly; she is born to it, and there is no fuss about it. But whoever is set up to
be President of the United States is just set up to have his character torn off from
his back in shreds, and to be mauled, pummeled, and covered with dirt by every
filthy paper all over the country. And no woman that was not willing to be draggled
through every kennel, and slopped into every dirty pail of water, like an old mop,
would ever consent to run as a candidate. Why, it’s an ordeal that kills a man. . . .
And what sort of a brazen tramp of a woman would it be that could stand it, and
come out of it without being killed? Would it be any kind of a woman that
we should want to see at the head of our government? I tell you, it’s quite another
thing to be President of a democratic republic, from what it is to be hereditary
Queen.”
“Good for you, papa!” said Eva, clapping her hands. “Why, how you go on! I
never did hear such eloquence. No, Ida, set your mind at rest, you shan’t be run for
President of the United States. You are a great deal too good for that.”
“Now,” said Mr. Van Arsdel, “there’s your friend, Mrs. Cerulean, tackled me the
other night, and made a convert of me, she said. Bless me! she’s a handsome
woman, and I like to hear her talk. And if we didn’t live in the world we do, and
things weren’t in any respect what they are, nothing would be nicer than to let her
govern the world. But in the great rough round of business she’s nothing but a
pretty baby after all,—nothing else in the world. We let such women convert us
because we like to have them around. It amuses us, and don’t hurt them. But you
can’t let your baby play with matches and gunpowder, if it wants to ever so much.
Women are famous for setting things a-going that they don’t know anything about.
And then, when the explosion comes, they don’t know what did it, and run scream-
ing to the men.” . . .
“For my part,” said Ida, “I never was disposed to insist on the immediate grant-
ing of political rights to women. I think that they are rights, and that it is very
declaring sentiments 59

important for the good of society that these rights should finally be respected. But
I am perfectly willing, for my part, to wait and come to them in the way, and at the
time, that will be best for the general good. I would a great deal rather come to
them by gradual evolution than by destructive revolution. I do not want them to be
forced upon society, when there is so little preparation among women that they will
do themselves no credit by it. All history shows that the most natural and undeni-
able human rights may be granted and maintained in a way that will just defeat
themselves, and bring discredit on all the supporters of them, just as was the case
with the principles of democratic liberty in the first French Revolution. I do not
want the political rights of woman advocated in a manner that will create similar
disturbances, and bring a lasting scandal on what really is the truth. I do not want
women to have the ballot till they will do themselves credit and improve society by
it. I like to have the subject proposed, and argued, and agitated, and kept up, in
hopes that a generation of women will be educated for it. And I think it is a great
deal better and safer, where it can be done, to have people educated for the ballot,
than to have them educated by the ballot.”
“Well, Ida, there’s more sense in you than in the most of ’em,” said Mr. Van
Arsdel.
“Yes,” said Ida, . . . “I hope never to see women in public life till we have had a
generation of women who have some practical familiarity with the great subjects
which are to be considered, about which now the best instructed women know
comparatively nothing. The question which mainly interests me at present is a
humanitarian one. It’s an absolute fact that a great portion of womankind have
their own living to get; and they do it now, as a general rule, with many of the laws
and institutions of society against them. The reason of this is, that all these laws and
institutions have been made by men, without any consent or concurrence of theirs.
Now, as women are different from men, and have altogether a different class of feel-
ings and wants and necessities, it certainly is right and proper that they should have
some share in making the laws with which they are to be governed. It is true that the
laws have been made by fathers and brothers and husbands; but no man, however
near, ever comprehends fully the necessities and feelings of women. And it seems to
me that a State where all the laws are made by men, without women, is just like a
family that is managed entirely by fathers and brothers, without any concurrence of
mothers and sisters. That’s my testimony, and my view of the matter.” . . .
At this moment our conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Jim
Fellows. He seemed quite out of breath and excited. . . .
“Well,” said he, “Hal, I have just come from the Police Court, where there’s a
precious row. Our friend Dacia Dangyereyes is up for blackmailing and swindling;
and there’s a terrible wash of dirty linen going on. I was just in time to get the very
earliest notes for our paper.”
“Good!” said Mr. Van Arsdel. “I hope the creature is caught at last.”
“Never believe that,” said Jim. “She has as many lives as a cat. They never’ll get a
hold on her. She’ll talk ’em all round.”
“Disgusting!” said Ida.
60 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

“Ah!” said Jim, “it’s part of the world as it goes. She’ll come off with flying
colors, doubtless, and her cock’s feathers will be flaunting all the merrier for it.”
“How horribly disagreeable,” said Eva, “to have such women around. It makes
one ashamed of one’s sex.”
“I think,” said Ida, “there is not sufficient resemblance to a real woman in her to
make much trouble on her account. She’s an amphibious animal, belonging to a
transition period of human society.”
“Well,” said Jim, “if you’ll believe it, Mrs. Cerulean and two or three of the ladies
of her set are actually going to invite Dacia to their salon and patronize her.”
“Impossible!” said Ida, flushing crimson; “it cannot be!”
“Oh, you don’t know Mrs. Cerulean,” said Jim; “Dacia called on her with her
newspaper, and conducted herself in a most sweet and winning manner, and cast
herself at her feet for patronage; and Mrs. Cerulean, regarding her through those
glory spectacles which she usually wears, took her up immediately as a promising
candidate for the latter-day. Mrs. Cerulean don’t see anything in Dacia’s paper that,
properly interpreted, need make any trouble; because, you see, as she says, every-
thing ought to be love, everywhere, above and below, under and over, up and down,
top and side and bottom, ought to be love, LOVE. And then when there’s general
all-overness and all-throughness, and an entire mixed-up-ativeness, then the infi-
nite will come down into the finite, and the finite will overflow into the infinite,
and, in short, Miss Dacia’s cock’s feathers will sail right straight up into heaven, and
we shall see her cheek by jowl with the angel Gabriel, promenading the streets of
the new Jerusalem. That’s the programme. . . .
“I asked Mrs. Cerulean what if my friend Dacia should rip an oath in the midst
of one of her salons—you know the little wretch does swear like a pirate; and you
ought to see how serenely she looked over my head into the far distant future, and
answered me so tenderly, as if I had been a two hours’ chicken peeping to her. ‘Oh,
James,’ says she, ‘there are many opinions yet to be expressed on the subject of what
is commonly called profanity. I have arrived at the conclusion myself, that in
impassioned natures what is called profanity is only the state of prophetic exalta-
tion which naturally seeks vent in intensified language. I shouldn’t think the worse
of this fine vigorous creature if, in a moment’s inspired frenzy, she should burst the
tame boundaries of ordinary language. It is true, the vulgar might call it profane. It
requires anointed eyes to see such things truly. When we have risen to these heights
where we now stand, we behold all things purified. There is around us a new heaven
and a new earth.’ And so you see, Dacia Dangyereyes turns out a tip-top angel of the
New Dispensation.”
“Well,” said Ida, rising, with heightened color, “this, of course, ends my inter-
course with Mrs. Cerulean, if it be true.”
“But,” said Eva, “how can they bear the scandal of this disgraceful trial? This
certainly will open their eyes.”
“Oh,” said Jim, “you will see, Mrs. Cerulean will adhere all the closer for this.
It’s persecution, and virtue in all ages has been persecuted; therefore, all who are
persecuted are virtuous. Don’t you see the logical consistency? And then, don’t
declaring sentiments 61

the Bible say, ‘Blessed are ye when men persecute you, and say all manner of evil
against you?’ ”
“It don’t appear to me,” said Ida, “that she can so far go against all common
sense.”
“Common sense!” said Jim; “Mrs. Cerulean and her clique have long since risen
above anything like common sense; all their sense is of the most uncommon kind,
and relates to a region somewhere up in the clouds, where everything is made to
match. They live in an imaginary world, and reason with imaginary reasons, and
see people through imaginary spectacles, and have glorious good times all the
while.” . . .
“But the fact is,” said Mr. Van Arsdel, “Mrs. Cerulean is a respectable woman, of
respectable family, and this girl is a tramp; that’s what she is; and it is absolutely
impossible that Mrs. Cerulean can know what she is about.”
“Well, I delicately suggested some such thing to Mrs. Cerulean,” said Jim; “but,
bless me! the way she set me down! Says she, ‘Do you men ever inquire into the
character of people that you unite with to carry your purposes? You join with
anybody that will help you, without regard to antecedents!’ ”
“She don’t speak the truth,” said Mr. Van Arsdel. “We men are very particular
about the record of those we join with to carry our purposes. You wouldn’t find a
board of bankers taking a man that had a record for swindling, or a man that edited
a paper arguing against all rights of property. Doctors won’t admit a man among
them who has the record of a quack or a malpractitioner. Clergymen won’t admit a
man among them who has a record of licentiousness or infidel sentiments. And if
women will admit women in utter disregard of their record of chastity or their lax
principles as to the family, they act on lower principles than any body of men.”
“Besides,” said I, “that kind of tolerance cuts the very ground from under the
whole woman movement; for the main argument for proposing it was to introduce
into politics that superior delicacy and purity which women manifest in family life.
But if women are going to be less careful about delicacy and decorum and family
purity than men are, the quagmire of politics, foul enough now, will become
putrid.”
“Oh, come,” said Eva, “the subject does get too dreadful; I can’t bear to think of
it, and I move that we have a game of whist, and put an end to it. Come, now, do
let’s sit down sociably, and have something agreeable.”

Source: From Harriet Beecher Stowe, My Wife and I: or, Harry Henderson’s History
(New York: J. B. Ford and Company, 1871).
 R
“CUPID AND CHOW-CHOW”
(1872)
l o u i s a m ay a l c o t t ( 1 8 3 2 – 1 8 8 8 )

Although Alcott is best known for Little Women, she was also a prolific writer of
adult fiction and became one of the most famous and well-remunerated writers
of her generation. Influenced by her parents, she supported various reform
causes and was particularly interested in abolition and woman’s rights. Alcott’s
conception of woman’s rights was grounded in a “conviction that sexual equality
is not the cause of a political faction but a tenet of common sense.”27 For this
reason, perhaps, Alcott participated little in activist organizations dedicated to
woman’s rights, but she did contribute periodically to the Woman’s Journal,
the AWSA’s official publication. “Cupid and Chow-Chow” first appeared in the
children’s pages of Hearth and Home, a magazine edited by Stowe and Donald
Grant Mitchell. The story reflects Alcott’s cautious support of woman suffrage
as well as her diffidence about activism—its potential for rhetorical and behavi-
oral excesses that overwhelm larger principle.

Mamma began it by calling her rosy, dimpled, year-old baby Cupid, and as he grew
up the name became more and more appropriate, for the pretty boy loved every
one, every one loved him, and he made those about him fond of one another, like
a regular little god of love.
Especially beautiful and attractive did he look as he pranced on the doorsteps
one afternoon while awaiting the arrival of a little cousin. Our Cupid’s costume was
modernized out of regard to the prejudices of society, and instead of wings, band-
age, bow and arrow, he was gorgeous to behold in small buckled shoes, purple silk
hose, black velvet knickerbockers, and jacket with a lace collar, which, with his
yellow hair cut straight across the forehead, and falling in long, curling love-locks
behind, made him look like an old picture of a young cavalier. . . .
Cupid had made up his mind to love Chow-chow very much, both because she
was his cousin, and because she must be interesting if all papa’s stories of her were
62
declaring sentiments 63

true. Her very name was pleasing to him, for it suggested Indian sweetmeats,
though papa said it was given to her because she was such a mixture of sweet and
sour that one never knew whether he would get his tongue bitten by a hot bit of
ginger, or find a candied plum melting in his mouth when he tried that little jar of
Chow-chow.
“I know I shall like her, and of course she will like me lots, ’cause everybody
does,” thought Cupid, settling his love-locks and surveying his purple legs like a
contented young peacock.
Just then a carriage drove up the avenue, stopped at the foot of the steps, and
out skipped a tall, brown man, a small, pale lady, and a child, who whisked away to
the pond so rapidly that no one could see what she was like. A great kissing and
hand-shaking went on between the papas and mammas, and Cupid came in for a
large share, but did not enjoy it as much as usual, for the little girl had fled and he
must get at her. So the instant Aunt Susan let him go he ran after the truant, quite
panting with eagerness and all aglow with amiable intentions, for he was a
hospitable little soul, and he loved to do the honors of his pleasant home like a
gentleman.
A little figure, dressed in a brown linen frock, with dusty boots below it, and
above it a head of wild black hair, tied up with a large scarlet bow, stood by the
pond throwing stones at the swans, who ruffled their feathers in stately anger at
such treatment. Suddenly a pair of velvet arms embraced her, and half turning she
looked up into a rosy, smiling face, with two red lips suggestively puckered for a
hearty kiss.
Chow-chow’s black eyes sparkled, and her little brown face flushed red as her
ribbon as she tried to push the boy away with a shrill scream.
“Don’t be frightened. I’m Cupid. I must kiss you. I truly must. I always do when
people come, and I like you very much.”
With this soothing remark, the velvet arms pressed her firmly, and the lips gave
her several soft kisses, which, owing to her struggles, lit upon her nose, chin, top-
knot, and ear; for, having begun, Cupid did not know when to leave off.
But Chow-chow’s wrath was great, her vengeance swift, and getting one hand
free she flung the gravel it held full in the flushed and smiling face of this bold boy
who had dared to kiss her without leave.
Poor Cupid fell back blinded and heart-broken at such a return for his warm
welcome, and while he stood trying to clear his smarting eyes, a fierce little voice
said close by,—
“Does it hurt?”
“Oh! dreadfully!”
“I’m glad of it.”
“Then you don’t love me?”
“I hate you!”
“I don’t see why.”
“I don’t like to be hugged and kissed. I don’t let anybody but papa and mamma
do it, ever,—so, now!”
64 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

“But I’m your cousin, and you must love me. Won’t you please?” besought
Cupid, with one eye open and a great tear on his nose.
“I’ll see about it. I don’t like crying boys,” returned the hard-hearted damsel. . . .
[Later, w]hen Cupid, with red eyes and a sad countenance, made his appear-
ance, he found Chow-chow on her father’s knee. . . . She had told the story, and
now from the safe stronghold of papa’s arm condescended to smile upon the
conquered youth.
Cupid went to mamma, and in one long whisper told his woes; then sat upon
the cushion at her feet, and soon forgot them all in the mingled joys of eating
macaroons and giving Chow-chow smile for smile across the hearth-rug.
“I predict that we shall be much amused and edified by the progress of the
friendship just begun,” said Cupid’s papa, a quiet man, who loved children and
observed them with affectionate interest.
“And I predict a hard time of it for your young man, if he attempts to tame my
strong-minded little woman here. Her mother’s ideas are peculiar, and she wants to
bring Chow-chow up according to the new lights,—with contempt for dress and all
frivolous pursuits; to make her hardy, independent, and quite above caring for such
trifles as love, domestic life, or the feminine accomplishments we used to find so
charming.”
As Chow-chow’s papa spoke, he looked from the child in her ugly gray frock,
thick boots, and mop of hair tied up in a style neither pretty nor becoming, to his
wife in her plain dress, with her knob of hair, decided mouth, sarcastic nose, and
restless eyes that seemed always on the watch to find some new wrong and protest
against it.
“Now, George, how can you misrepresent my views and principles so? But it’s
no use trying to convince or out-talk you. We never get a chance, and our only
hope is to bring up our girls so that they may not be put down as we are,” returned
Mrs. Susan, with a decided air.
“Show us how you are going to defend your sex and conquer ours, Chow-chow;
give us your views generally. Now, then, who is in favor of the Elective Franchise?”
said Uncle George, with a twinkle of the eye.
Up went Aunt Susan’s hand, and to the great amusement of all up went Chow-
chow’s also; and, scrambling to her feet on papa’s knee, she burst into a harangue
which convulsed her hearers, for in it the child’s voice made queer work with the
long words, and the red bow wagged belligerently as she laid down the law with
energy, and defined her views, closing with a stamp of her foot.
“This is our platform: Free speech, free love, free soil, free every thing; and
Woman’s Puckerage for ever!”
Even Aunt Susan had to laugh at that burst, for it was delivered with such vigor
that the speaker would have fallen on her nose if she had not been sustained by a
strong arm.
Cupid laughed because the rest did, and then turned his big eyes full of wonder
on his mother, asking what it all meant.
“Only fun, my dear.”
declaring sentiments 65

“Now, Ellen, that’s very wrong. Why don’t you explain this great subject to him,
and prepare him to take a nobler part in the coming struggle than those who have
gone before him have done?” said Mrs. Susan, with a stern look at her husband,
who was petting the little daughter, who evidently loved him best.
“I don’t care to disturb his happy childhood with quarrels beyond his compre-
hension. I shall teach him to be as good and just a man as his father, and feel quite
sure that no woman will suffer wrong at his hands,” returned Mrs. Ellen, smiling at
Cupid’s papa, who nodded back as if they quite understood one another.
“We never did agree and we never shall, so I will say no more; but we shall see
what a good effect my girl’s strength of character will have upon your boy, who has
been petted and spoiled by too much tenderness.”
So Aunt Susan settled the matter; and as the days went on, the elder people fell
into the way of observing how the little pair got on together, and were much
amused by the vicissitudes of that nursery romance.
In the beginning Chow-chow rode over Cupid rough-shod, quite trampled
upon him in fact; and he bore it, because he wanted her to like him. . . . But when
he got no reward for his long-suffering patience he was sometimes tempted to
rebel, and probably would have done so if he had not had mamma to comfort and
sustain him. Chow-chow was very quick at spying out the weaknesses of her friends
and alarmingly frank in proclaiming her discoveries; so poor Cupid’s little faults
were seen and proclaimed very soon, and life made a burden to him, until he found
out the best way of silencing his tormentor was by mending the faults.
“My papa says you are a dandy-prat, and you are,” said Chow-chow, one day
when the desire to improve her race was very strong upon her.
“What is a dandy-prat?” asked Cupid, looking troubled at the new accusation.
“I asked him, and he said a vain fellow; and you are vain,—so now!”
“Am I?” and Cupid stopped to think it over.
“Yes; you’re horrid vain of your hair, and your velvet clothes, and the dimple in
your chin. I know it, ’cause you always look in the glass when you are dressed up,
and keep feeling of that ugly hole in your chin, and I see you brush your hair ever
so much.”
Poor Cupid colored up with shame, and turned his back to the mirror, as the
sharp-tongued young monitor went on:—
“My mamma said if you were her boy she’d cut off your curls, put you in a plain
suit, and stick some court-plaster over that place till you forgot all about it.”
Chow-chow expected an explosion of grief or anger after that last slap; but to
her amazement the boy walked out of the room without a word. Going up to his
mother as she sat busy with a letter, he asked in a very earnest voice,—
“Mamma, am I vain?”
“I’m afraid you are a little, my dear,” answered mamma, deep in her letter.
With a sad but resolute face Cupid went back to Chow-chow, bearing a pair of
shears in one hand and a bit of court-plaster in the other.
“You may cut my hair off, if you want to. I ain’t going to be a dandy-prat
anymore,” he said, offering the fatal shears with the calmness of a hero.
66 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

Chow-chow was much surprised, but charmed with the idea of shearing this
meek sheep, so she snipped and slashed until the golden locks lay shining on the
floor, and Cupid’s head looked as if rats had been gnawing his hair.
“Do you like me better now?” he asked, looking in her eyes as his only mirror,
and seeing there the most approving glance they had ever vouchsafed him.
“Yes, I do; girl-boys are hateful.”
He might have retorted, “So are boy-girls,” but he was a gentleman, so he only
smiled and held up his chin for her to cover the offending dimple, which she did
with half a square of black plaster. . . .
Chow-chow was quite affable for some days after this prank, and treated her
slave with more gentleness, evidently feeling that, though belonging to an inferior
race, he deserved a trifle of regard for his obedience to her teachings. But her love
of power grew by what it fed on and soon brought fresh woe to faithful Cupid, who
adored her, though she frowned upon his little passion and gave him no hope.
“You are a ’fraid-cat,” asserted her majesty, one afternoon as they played in the
stable, and Cupid declined to be kicked by the horse Chow-chow was teasing.
“No, I ain’t; but I don’t like to be hurt, and it’s wrong to fret Charley, and I won’t
poke him with my hoe.”
“Well, it isn’t wrong to turn this thing, but you don’t dare to put your finger on
that wheel and let me pinch it a little bit,” added Chow-chow, pointing to some sort
of hay-cutting machine that stood near by.
“What for?” asked Cupid, who did object to being hurt in any way.
“To show you ain’t a ’fraid-cat. I know you are. I’m not, see there,” and Chow-
chow gave her own finger a very gentle squeeze.
“I can bear it harder than that,” and devoted Cupid laid his plump forefinger
between two wheels, bent on proving his courage at all costs.
Chow-chow gave a brisk turn to the handle, slipped in doing so, and brought the
whole weight of the cruel cogs on the tender little finger, crushing the top quite flat.
Blood flowed, Chow-chow stopped aghast; and Cupid, with one cry of pain, caught
and reversed the handle, drew out the poor finger, walked unsteadily in to mamma,
saying, with dizzy eyes and white lips, “She didn’t mean to do it,” and then fainted
quite away in a little heap at her feet.
The doctor came flying, shook his head over the wound, and drew out a case of
dreadful instruments that made even strong-minded Aunt Susan turn away her
head, and bound up the little hand that might never be whole and strong again.
Chow-chow stood by quite white and still until it was all over and Cupid asleep in
his mother’s arms; then she dived under the sofa and sobbed there, refusing to be
comforted until her father came home. What that misguided man said to her no
one ever knew, but when Cupid was propped up on the couch at tea-time, Chow-
chow begged piteously to be allowed to feed him.
The wounded hero, with his arm in a sling, permitted her to minister to him;
and she did it so gently, so patiently, that her father said low to Mrs. Ellen,—
“I have hopes of her yet, for all the woman is not taken out of her, in spite of the
new lights.”
declaring sentiments 67

When they parted for the evening, Cupid, who had often sued for a good-night
kiss and sued in vain, was charmed to see the red top-knot bending over him, and
to hear Chow-chow whisper, with a penitent kiss, “I truly didn’t mean to, Coopy.”
The well arm held her fast as the martyr whispered back, “Just say I ain’t a ’fraid-
cat, and I don’t mind smashing my finger.”
Chow-chow said it that night and thought it next day and for many following
days, for each morning, when the doctor came to dress the “smashed” finger, she
insisted on being by as a sort of penance. She forced herself to watch the bright
instruments without shivering, she ran for warm water, she begged to spread the salve
on the bandage, to hold the smelling-bottle, and to pick all the lint that was used. . . .
“It is a good lesson in surgery and nursing for her. I intend to have her study
medicine if she shows any fondness for it,” said Aunt Susan.
“It is a good lesson in true courage, and I am glad to have her learn it early,”
added Uncle George, who now called Cupid a “trump” instead of a “dandy-prat.”
“It is a good lesson in loving and serving others for love’s sake, as all women
must learn to do soon or late,” said gentle Mrs. Ellen.
“It is teaching them both how to bear and forbear, to teach and help, and com-
fort one another, and take the pains and pleasures of life as they should do
together,” concluded Cupid’s papa, watching the little couple with the wise kind
eyes that saw a pretty story in their daily lives.
Slowly the finger healed, and to every one’s surprise was not much disfigured,
which Cupid insisted was entirely owing to Chow-chow’s superior skill in spread-
ing salve and picking lint. Before this time, however, Chow-chow, touched by his
brave patience, his generous refusal to blame her for the mishap, and his faithful
affection, had in a tender moment confessed to her little lover that she did “like him
a great deal,” and consented to go and live in the old swan-house on the island in
the pond as soon as he was well enough.
But no sooner had she enraptured him by these promises than she dashed his
joy by adding certain worldly conditions which she had heard discussed by her
mamma and her friends.
“But we can’t be married until we have a lot of money. Nobody does, and we
must have ever so much to buy things with.”
“Yes, but papa said he’d give us some little furniture to put in our house, and
mamma will let us have as much cake and milk-tea as we want, and I shall be very
fond of you, and what’s the use of money?” asked the enamoured Cupid, who
believed in love in a cottage, or swan-house rather.
“I shan’t marry a poor boy, so now!” was the mercenary Chow-chow’s decision.
“Well, I’ll see how much I’ve got; but I should think you would like me just as
well without,” and Cupid went away to inspect his property with as much anxiety
as any man preparing for matrimony. . . .
When he had strained every nerve and tried every wile, he counted up his gains
and found that he had four dollars and a half. That seemed a fortune to the inno-
cent; and, getting it all in bright pennies, he placed it in a new red purse, and with
pardonable pride laid his offering at Chow-chow’s feet.
68 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

But alas for love’s labor lost! the cruel fair crushed all his hopes by saying
coldly,—
“That isn’t half enough. We ought to have ten dollars, and I won’t like you until
you get it.”
“O Chow-chow! I tried so hard; do play it’s enough,” pleaded poor Cupid.
“No, I shan’t. I don’t care much for the old swan-house now, and you ain’t half
so pretty as you used to be.”
“You made me cut my hair off, and now you don’t love me ’cause I’m ugly,” cried
the afflicted little swain, indignant at such injustice.
But Chow-chow was in a naughty mood, so she swung on the gate, and would
not relent in spite of prayers and blandishments.
“I’ll get some more money somehow, if you will wait. Will you, please?”
“I’ll see ’bout it.”
And with that awful uncertainty weighing upon his soul, poor Cupid went away
to wrestle with circumstances. . . .
How long matters would have gone on in this unsatisfactory way no one knows;
but a rainy day came, and the experiences it gave the little pair brought things to a
crisis.
The morning was devoted to pasting pictures and playing horse all over the
house, with frequent pauses for refreshment and an occasional squabble. After
dinner, as the mammas sat sewing and the papas talking or reading in one room,
the children played in the other, quite unconscious that they were affording both
amusement and instruction to their elders.
“Let’s play house,” suggested Cupid, who was of a domestic turn, and thought a
little rehearsal would not be amiss.
“Well, I will,” consented Chow-chow, who was rather subdued by the violent
exercises of the morning.
So a palatial mansion was made of chairs, the dolls’ furniture arranged, the
stores laid in, and housekeeping begun.
“Now, you must go off to your business while I ’tend to my work,” said Chow-
chow, after they had breakfasted off a seed-cake and sugar and water tea in the
bosom of their family.
Cupid obediently put on papa’s hat, took a large book under his arm, and went
away to look at pictures behind curtains, while Mrs. C. bestirred herself at home
in a most energetic manner, spanking her nine dolls until their cries rent the air,
rattling her dishes with perilous activity, and going to market with the coal-hod for
her purchases.
Mr. Cupid returned to dinner rather early, and was scolded for so doing, but
pacified his spouse by praising her dessert,—a sandwich of sliced apple, bread, and
salt, which he ate like a martyr.
A ride on the rocking-horse with his entire family about him filled the soul of
Mr. Cupid with joy, though the trip was rendered a little fatiguing by his having to
dismount frequently to pick up the various darlings as they fell out of his pockets
or their mother’s arms as she sat behind him on a pillion.
declaring sentiments 69

“Isn’t this beautiful?” he asked, as they swung to and fro,—Mrs. Cupid leaning
her head on his shoulder, and dear little Claribel Maud peeping out of his breast-
pocket, while Walter Hornblower and Rosie Ruth, the twins, sat up between the
horse’s ears, their china faces beaming in a way to fill a father’s heart with pride.
“It will be much nicer if the horse runs away and we all go smash. I’ll pull out his
tail, then he’ll rear, and we must tumble off,” proposed the restless Mrs. C., whose
dramatic soul delighted in tragic adventures.
So the little papa’s happy moment was speedily banished as he dutifully precipi-
tated himself and blooming family upon the floor, to be gathered up and doctored
with chalk and ink, and plasters of paper stuck all over their faces.
When this excitement subsided, it was evening, and Mrs. Cupid bundled her
children off to bed, saying,—
“Now, you must go to your club, and I am going to my lecture.”
“But I thought you’d sew now and let me read to you, and have our little candles
burn, and be all cosey, like papa and mamma,” answered Cupid, who already felt
the discomfort of a strong-minded wife.
“My papa and mamma don’t do so. He always goes to the club, and smokes and
reads papers and plays chess, and mamma goes to Woman’s Puckerage meetings,—
so I must.”
“Let me go too; I never saw a Puckerage lecture, and I’d like to,” said Cupid, who
felt that a walk arm-in-arm with his idol would make any sort of meeting
endurable.
“No, you can’t! Papa never goes; he says they are all gabble and nonsense, and
mamma says his club is all smoke and slang, and they never go together.”
Chow-chow locked the door, and the little pair went their separate ways; while
the older pair in the other room laughed at the joke, yet felt that Cupid’s plan was
the best, and wondered how Ellen and her husband managed to get on so well.
Chow-chow’s lecture did not seem to be very interesting, for she was soon at
home again. But Mr. Cupid, after smoking a lamp-lighter with his feet up, fell to
reading a story that interested him, and forgot to go home until he finished it.
Then, to his great surprise, he was told that it was morning, that he had been out all
night, and couldn’t have any breakfast. This ruffled him, and he told madam she
was a bad wife, and he wouldn’t love her if she did not instantly give him his share
of the little pie presented by cook, as a bribe to keep them out of the kitchen.
Mrs. C. sternly refused, and locked up the pie, declaring that she hated house-
keeping and wouldn’t live with him any more, which threat she made good by quit-
ting the house, vowing not to speak to him again that day, but to play alone, free
and happy.
The deserted husband sat down among his infants with despair in his soul, while
the spirited wife, in an immense bonnet, pranced about the room, waving the key
of the pie-closet and rejoicing in her freedom. Yes, it was truly pathetic to see poor
Mr. Cupid’s efforts at housekeeping and baby-tending; for, feeling that they had a
double claim upon him now, he tried to do his duty by his children. But he soon
gave it up, piled them all into one bed, and covered them with a black cloth, saying
70 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

mournfully, “I’ll play they all died of mumps, then I can sell the house and go away.
I can’t bear to stay here when she is gone.”
The house was sold, the dead infants buried under the sofa, and then the for-
saken man was a homeless wanderer. He tried in many ways to amuse himself. He
travelled to China on the tailless horse, went to California in a balloon, and sailed
around the world on a raft made of two chairs and the hearth-brush. But these
wanderings always ended near the ruins of his home, and he always sat down for a
moment to watch the erratic movements of his wife.
That sprightly lady fared better than he, for her inventive fancy kept her sup-
plied with interesting plays, though a secret sense of remorse for her naughtiness
weighed upon her spirits at times. She had a concert, and sang surprising medleys,
with drum accompaniments. She rode five horses in a circus, and jumped over
chairs and foot-stools in the most approved manner. She had a fair, a fire, and a
shipwreck; hunted lions, fished for crocodiles, and played be a monkey in a style
that would have charmed Darwin.
But somehow none of these festive games had their usual relish. There was no
ardent admirer to applaud her music, no two-legged horse to help her circus with
wild prancings and life-like neighs, no devoted friend and defender to save her
from the perils of flood and fire, no comrade to hunt with her, no fellow-monkey
to skip from perch to perch with social jabberings, as they cracked their cocoa-nuts
among imaginary palms. All was dull and tiresome.
A strong sense of loneliness fell upon her, and for the first time she appreciated
her faithful little friend. Then the pie weighed upon her conscience; there it was,
wasting its sweetness in the closet, and no one ate it. She had not the face to devour
it alone; she could not make up her mind to give it to Cupid; and after her fierce
renunciation of him, how could she ask him to forgive her? Gradually her spirits
declined, and about the time that the other wanderer got back from his last trip she
sat down to consider her position.
Hearing no noise in the other room, Uncle George peeped in and saw the
divided pair sitting in opposite corners, looking askance at each other, evidently
feeling that a wide gulf lay between them, and longing to cross it, yet not quite
knowing how. A solemn and yet a comical sight, so Uncle George beckoned the
others to come and look.
“My boy will give in first. See how beseechingly he looks at the little witch!”
whispered Mrs. Ellen, laughing softly.
“No, he won’t; she hurt his feelings very much by leaving him, and he won’t relent
until she goes back; then he’ll forgive and forget like a man,” said Cupid’s papa.
“I hope my girl will remain true to her principles,” began Aunt Susan.
“She’ll be a miserable baby if she does,” muttered Uncle George.
“I was going to say that, finding she has done wrong, I hope she will have the
courage to say so, hard as it is, and so expiate her fault and try to do better,” added
Aunt Susan, fast and low, with a soft look in her eyes, as she watched the little girl
sitting alone, while so much honest affection was waiting for her close by, if pride
would let her take it.
declaring sentiments 71

Somehow Uncle George’s arm went round her waist when she said that, and he
gave a quick nod, as if something pleased him very much.
“Shall I speak, and help the dears bridge over their little trouble?” asked Mrs. Ellen,
pretending not to see the older children making up their differences behind her.
“No; let them work it out for themselves. I’m curious to see how they will man-
age,” said papa, hoping that his boy’s first little love would prosper in spite of thorns
among the roses.
So they waited, and presently the affair was settled in a way no one expected.
As if she could not bear the silence any longer, Chow-chow suddenly bustled up,
saying to herself,—
“I haven’t played lecture. I always like that, and here’s a nice place.”
Pulling out the drawers of a secretary like steps, she slowly mounted to the wide
ledge atop, and began the droll preachment her father had taught her in ridicule of
mamma’s hobby.
“Do stop her, George; it’s so absurd,” whispered Mrs. Susan.
“Glad you think so, my dear,” laughed Uncle George.
“There is some sense in it, and I have no doubt the real and true will come to
pass when we women learn how far to go, and how to fit ourselves for the new
duties by doing the old ones well,” said Mrs. Ellen, who found good in all things,
and kept herself so womanly sweet and strong that no one could deny her any right
she chose to claim.
“She is like so many of those who mount your hobby, Susan, and ride away into
confusions of all sorts, leaving empty homes behind them. The happy, womanly
women will have the most influence after all, and do the most to help the bitter,
sour, discontented ones. They need help, God knows, and I shall be glad to lend a
hand toward giving them their rights in all things.”
As papa spoke, Chow-chow, who had caught sight of the peeping faces, and was
excited thereby, burst into a tremendous harangue, waving her hands, stamping her
feet, and dancing about on her perch as if her wrongs had upset her wits. All of a
sudden the whole secretary lurched forward, out fell the drawers, open flew the
doors, down went Chow-chow with a screech, and the marble slab came sliding
after, as if to silence the irrepressible little orator forever. How he did it no one
knew, but before the top fell Cupid was under it, received it on his shoulders, and
held it up with all his might, while Chow-chow scrambled out from the ruins with
no hurt but a bump on the forehead. Papa had his boy out in a twinkling, and both
mammas fell upon their rescued darlings with equal alarm and tenderness; for
Mrs. Susan got her little girl in her arms before Mr. George could reach her, and
Chow-chow clung there, sobbing away her fright and pain as if the maternal
purring was a new and pleasant solace.
“I’ll never play that nasty old puckerage any more,” she declared, feeling of the
purple lump on her brow.
“Nor I either, in that way,” whispered her mamma, with a look that made
Chow-chow ask curiously,—
“Why, did you hurt yourself too?”
72 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

“I am afraid I did.”
“Be sure that your platform is all right before you try again, Poppet, else it will
let you down when you least expect it, and damage your best friends as well as
yourself,” said Mr. George, setting up the fallen rostrum.
“I’m not going to have any flatporm; I’m going to be good and play with Coopy,
if he’ll let me,” added the penitent Chow-chow, glancing with shy, wet eyes at
Cupid, who stood near with a torn jacket and a bruise on the already wounded
hand.
His only answer was to draw her out of her mother’s arms, embrace her warmly,
and seat her beside him on the little bench he loved to share with her. This ready
and eloquent forgiveness touched Chow-chow’s heart, and the lofty top-knot went
down upon Cupid’s shoulder as if the little fortress lowered its colors in token of
entire surrender. Cupid’s only sign of triumph was a gentle pat on the wild, black
head, and a nod towards the spectators, as he said, smiling all over his chubby
face,—
“Every thing is nice and happy now, and we don’t mind the bumps.”
“Let us sheer off, we are only in the way,” said Mr. George, and the elders retired,
but found it impossible to resist occasional peeps at the little pair, as the reconcili-
ation scene went on.
“O Coopy! I was so bad, I don’t think you can love me anymore,” began the
repentant one with a sob.
“Oh yes I can; and just as soon as I get money enough, we’ll go and live in the
swan-house, won’t we?” returned the faithful lover, making the most of this melt-
ing mood.
“I’ll go right away to-morrow, I don’t care about the money. I like the nice bright
pennies, and we don’t need much, and I’ve got my new saucepan to begin with,”
cried Chow-chow in a burst of generosity, for, like a true woman, though she
demanded impossibilities at first, yet when her heart was won she asked nothing
but love, and was content with a saucepan.
“O Goody! and I’ve got my drum,” returned the enraptured Cupid, as ready as
the immortal Traddles to go to housekeeping with a toasting fork and a bird-cage,
or some such useful trifles.
“But I was bad about the pie,” cried Chow-chow as her sins kept rising before
her; and, burning to make atonement for this one, she ran to the closet, tore out the
pie, and, thrusting it into Cupid’s hands, said in a tone of heroic resolution, “There,
you eat it all, and I won’t taste a bit.”
“No, you eat it all, I’d like to see you. I don’t care for it, truly, ’cause I love you
more than a million pies,” protested Cupid, offering back the treasure in a some-
what ruinous state after its various vicissitudes.
“Then give me a tiny bit, and you have the rest,” said Chow-chow, bent on self-
chastisement.
“The fairest way is to cut it ’zactly in halves, and each have a piece. Mamma says
that’s the right thing to do always.” And Cupid, producing a jack-knife, proceeded
to settle the matter with masculine justice.
declaring sentiments 73

So side by side they devoured the little bone of contention, chattering amicably
about their plans; and as the last crumb vanished, Cupid said persuasively, as if the
league was not quite perfect without that childish ceremony,—
“Now let’s kiss and be friends, and never quarrel any more.”
As the rosy mouths met in a kiss of peace, the sound was echoed from the other
room, for Mr. George’s eyes made the same proposal, and his wife answered it as
tenderly as Chow-chow did Cupid. Not a word was said, for grown people do not
“’fess” and forgive with the sweet frankness of children; but both felt that the future
would be happier than the past, thanks to the lesson they had learned from the
little romance of Cupid and Chow-chow.

Source: From Louisa May Alcott, “Cupid and Chow-Chow,” in Aunt Jo’s Scrap Bag,
vol. 3 (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1880), 5–40.
 R
“TROTTY’S LECTURE
BUREAU” (1877)
e l i z a b e t h s t ua r t p h e l p s ( 1 8 4 4 – 1 9 1 1 )

Christened Mary Gray Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps adopted her mother’s
name as well as her interest in middle-class women’s struggles with domesticity
and vocational limitation. Her novels The Silent Partner (1871), The Story of Avis
(1877), and Dr. Zay (1882) foreground female characters who are drawn to but
struggle with pursuits outside the home as artists, reformers, or professionals.
Articles published in The Woman’s Journal and The Independent between 1871
and 1874 affirmed Phelps’s belief in woman’s right to education and occupation,
and, though she was never an active advocate, she endorsed woman suffrage and
lent her name to the Massachusetts campaign.28 “Trotty’s Lecture Bureau,” like
Alcott’s “Cupid and Chow-Chow,” broaches the issue in a form seemingly
ill-suited to political material: children’s fiction. The tale’s playful tenor, however,
may have allowed Phelps a venue for tongue-in-cheek commentary. Focusing on
a young boy’s imperfect parroting of his elders’ perspectives on woman’s suffer-
ings and suffrage (interspersed with French grammar), the story parodically
engages both the formulaic postures of public polemic and the heated rhetoric
around woman suffrage. Trotty’s mortifying upset from his pulpit may offer a
reflection on the soundness of the antisuffrage platform.

“Our peoples do,” said Trotty. That was reason sufficient to Trotty’s mind for doing
anything; and whether “our peoples” were three times as big as Trotty and thirty
times as wise, or not, was a matter of not the slightest consequence in this young
gentleman’s view of things.
“Our peoples have a lecture bureau,” urged Trotty. “I want the spare-’oom
bureau, mamma, vat’s got a marble top. Nita said it better have a marble top, and
Nate, he said he’d just as lieve play int’ the spare-’oom as out the tool-house. My
lecture is wroten and ready,” argued Trotty, persuasively. “I wrotened it on some old
ongvellopes I found in you’ table-drawer while you’d gone to meeting!”
74
declaring sentiments 75

This final argument did not have exactly the effect Trotty had anticipated. He
not only did not get a marble lecture bureau on that occasion, but his very MS. was
unceremoniously taken away from him, and an old French grammar serenely
offered to him instead,—this not five minutes before the advertised hour of one’s
lecture, was, as anyone will see, an interference with free speech difficult for calmer
minds than Trotty’s to tolerate.
“Trotty,” said his mother, with some solemnity, “I cannot yet bring my mind to
let you take your papa’s love-letters.”
“Poo’ dear dead papa!” interrupted Trotty, softly; “but I didn’t know he wroten
his letters in you’ table-drawer.”
“Papa’s love-letters for a lyceum bureau!” proceeded mamma. “You may have
the French grammar, and there’s an old bureau out in the tool-house with two
casters off. That will do for a lecture bureau. Don’t tumble off. Give me back the
letters. Send Nate downstairs, and now run away!”
So Trotty sent Nate downstairs and ran away, and the boys told Nita about the
bureau, and she said she’d rather have had the marble-top, but this would do; so
Trotty climbed upon the bureau, and Nate and Nita sat down upon a wheelbarrow,
and they shut the door of the tool-house, and Trotty opened the French grammar
and delivered the opening lecture of the course as follows:

“My Lecture Bureau

Lecture the First: Woman’s Sufferings
My subject, gentlemen and a few ladies, is woman’s sufferings. Conjugation the
first.
Vis lecture bureau is a little rickety, and I’ll be obliged to you, ladies and gentle-
man, if Nate wouldn’t just sit giggling. You can’t laugh, too, unless you have four
casters. It isn’t very safe.
Woman’s sufferings. Hem! Ho—haw—hem! Woman’s sufferings, my friends, is
an awful subject,—a norful subject. It has been wroten on. It has been lectured to.
I’ve heard ministers pray to it, and my brother Max makes fun of it. [Pause.]
I never heard it lectured at on such a rickety old bureau as this.
My brethren, women should never vote!—should nev-er vote, gentlemen and
ladies. Vey don’t know enough. Vey ain’t strong enough. Vey can-not go to war,
ladies and gentlemen!
My papa went to war. But he died. But he wasn’t a woman.
My friends, I tell you girls ain’t grown to vote. They wear dresses. They can’t play
baseball. Once I knew a girl tried to spin a top, but she couldn’t. It wasn’t Nita; she
needn’t fink. Nita was married to me. She knows better. Brethren, I tell you vis on
purposely,—women can-not vote, I tell you!
My friends, vis is a solemn subject. Let me say a few words to you as a momen-
tum of this matter. My brother Max, he gave me a nold bad cent once as a momen-
tum of him, but I frew it down the well, you’d better fink! My brother Max says if
women should vote, vis country would go to—
76 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

If the gentleman in vis audience don’t stop frowing paper balls at vis lecture
bureau, I will never assume this subject without four casters!
Brethren, ‘If the donkey of my brother should carry the pink silk umbrella of my
sister-in-law’—oh, hum!—could woman leave her baby crying in the cradle, I ax
you?
Vat about the donkey is printed in the book, but I don’t seem to stand very
straight without jiggling, and ven you hit you’ head against the cobwebs on top,
I fink this lecture is most frough.
Gentlemen, I appeal to you! If—oh—well—if ‘the hat of my father-in-law is in
the cage of the monkey of my great-grandmother,’ ven, I’d like to know, when
woman should voted, if vis country would not go to smash, sir! I ax you, fellow-
citizens and hearers, in the irregular declension and indicative case, if—I ax you
if—ladies and brethren and fellow-gentlemen, whether vis country——”
There was a pause, and then a noise. It was a solemn pause. It was a dreadful
noise. What, under the depressing circumstance pictured by the lecturer, will
become of the country, I cannot say. But what became of the bureau is quite clear.
If the country does not go to smash, that lecture bureau did.
Trotty says it was Nate, Nate says it was Nita. Nita says Trotty stood on one foot
too long. Perhaps that one foot was the trouble. At all events, in the midst of an
impressive gesture with the left sole of the other, over went bureau—lecturer—the
monkey of his great-grandmother—the hat of his father-in-law—and woman’s
sufferings in one stupendous whole upon the tool-house floor.
Nate picked him up. Nita jumped up and down and cried. The poor little
lecturer was dusty and crumpled, and there was blood about his face from
somewhere—nobody knew where. All the bureau drawers had tumbled out.
Nate thought they’d better shut him in one till he got better. But Nita thought
they’d better call his mother.
So his mother came out and picked him up, and washed him off, and dusted
him off, and tied him up, and kissed him up, and then they found he was about as
good as new, and nothing much the worse for the lecture bureau.
“I fink,” said Trotty, with the air of a martyr who had narrowly escaped transla-
tion, “if I’d had a tumbler lemonade and a zhinger-snap, I wouldn’t care as much
’bout woman’s sufferings without the casters.”
So Trotty and Nate and Nita had a little tumbler of lemonade and a ginger-snap
all around, in the dining-room, and mamma locked the tool-house door upon the
ruins of Trotty’s lecture bureau.

Source: Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, “Trotty’s Lecture Bureau (Not a Trotty Story, but a
Trotty Scrap. Told for Trotty’s Friends.),” St. Nicholas Magazine 4, no. 7 (May 1877):
454–55.
 R
“How I Went to
’lection” (1877)
m a r i e t ta h o l l e y ( 1 8 3 6 – 1 9 2 6 )

Much of Holley’s prolific career was defined by her character Samantha: a plain-
speaking, rustic woman whose common-sense logic humorously challenges
patriarchal culture and its gender hierarchy. Holley’s “Samantha” books employ
distinctive dialect, humor, and satire, drawing upon the figure of the country
philosopher. In “How I Went to ’lection,” Samantha’s homely speech and appar-
ent traditionalism cleverly disguise her radical assertion of female strength
while also contradicting the familiar trope of delicate feminine passivity. In this
excerpt, Samantha gradually works herself into high dudgeon—progressing
from quiet “s’posen” about what it would be like to vote and conscious deploy-
ment of “genteel tones” to mask her indignation over men’s shenanigans at the
ballot box to outright denunciation of her husband’s pronouncements on
women’s inadequacy for the franchise. Though neither Samantha’s seemingly
compliant silence nor her condemnation in “dretful axents” has the least effect on
the story’s male characters, her voice gives readers the last laugh at a portrait of
unrepentant male hypocrisy.

I was a makin’ Josiah some cotton flannel shirts, and I lacked enough for the
gussets and one shoulder band. I had also run out of shirt buttons. . . .
Josiah looked up from the World, and says he:
“I am goin’ to Jonesville to ’lection bime by, Samantha; you’d better ride down,
and get the stuff for my shirts.” Says he, “The Town Hall, as you know, is bein’ fixed,
and the pole is sot up right in the store. It will be handy, and you can go jest as well
as not.”
But I looked my companion in the face with a icy, curious mean, and says I in
low, strange tones:
“Wouldn’t it be revoltin’ to the finer feelin’s of your sole, to see a tender woman,
your companion, a crowdin’ and elboin’ her way amongst the rude throng of men

77
78 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

surroundin’ the pole; to have her hear the immodest and almost dangerous lan-
guage, the oaths and swearin’; to see her a plungin’ down in the vortex of political
warfare, and the arena of corruption?” Says I, “How is the shrinkin’ modesty and
delicacy of my sect a goin’ to stand firm a jostlin’ its way amongst the rude masses,
and you there to see it?” Says I, “Aint it a goin’ to be awful revoltin’ to you, Josiah
Allen?”
“Oh no!” says he in calm gentle axents, “not if you was a goin’ for shirt buttons.”
“Oh!” says I almost wildly, “a woman can plunge up head first ag’inst the pole,
and be unharmed if she is in search of cotton flannel; she can pursue shirt buttons
into the very vortex of political life, into the pool of corruption, and the mirey clay,
and come out white as snow, and modest as a lily of the valley. But let her step in
them very tracks, a follerin’ liberty and freedom, and justice, and right, and truth
and temperance, and she comes out black as a coal.” And says I in a almost rapped
way, liftin’ up my eyes to the ceelin’: “Why are these things so?”
“Yes,” says the Widder Doodle, “that is jest what Mr. Doodle used to say. He said
it would make a woman’s reputation black as a coal, would spile her modesty
entirely to go to the pole, and be too wearin’ on her. Says he, “Dolly it would spile
you, and I would rather give my best cow than to see you spilte.” Poor Mr. Doodle!
there was a heavy mortgage on old Lineback then—it was a cow I brought to him
when we was married, and Mr. Doodle was obleeged to mortgage her to git his
tobacco through the winter; it was foreclosed in the spring, and had to go, but his
speakin’ as he did, and bein’ so willin’ to give up my cow, showed jest how much he
thought of me. Oh! he almost worshipped me, Mr. Doodle did.”
Jest at that very minute, Josiah laid down the World, and says he: “I am a goin’ to
hitch up the old mare, Samantha. I guess you had better go, for I am a sufferin’ for
them shirts; my old ones are a gettin’ so thin; I am cold as a frog.”
I braided my hair and done it up, and then I made a good cup of coffee, and
brought out a cherry pie, and some bread, and butter, and cheese, and cold meat.
We all eat a little, and then sister Doodle bein’ anxious about the shirts, and dretful
tickled about my goin’, offered to wash up the dishes.
Josiah said we’d got to stop to the barn for the buffalo skin; he come out with it
all rolled up in a curious way, and I see there was a middlin’ sized bundle in it, that
he slipped under the seat. He seemed so anxious for me not to see it that I never let
on that I did; but I kep’ my eye on it. I didn’t like the looks of things; Josiah acted
strange, but he acted dretful affectionate towards me. But all the while I was on my
tower towards ’lection—and the old mare went slow, all the time—though my face
was calm, my mind was worked up and agitated and felt strange, and I kep’ s’posen
things. I said to myself, here I be started for ’lection, my companion settin’ by my
side, affection on his face, sweetness and peace throned onto his eyebrow, and at
home is a Widder Doodle a helpin’ me off to ’lection. Everything is peace and har-
mony and gay, because I am a goin’ to ’lection after buttons and gussets for men’s
shirts. And then I’d s’pose t’other way; s’posen I was a settin’ off with my mind all
boyed up with enthusiasm in the cause of Right, a earnest tryin’ to do my full duty
to God and man, pledgin’ my life and sacred honor to help the good cause forred
declaring sentiments 79

and put my shoulder blades to the wheel; s’posen I was on my way to vote,—and it
wouldn’t take me half so long as it would to pick out the shirt buttons, and things—
my Josiah’s face would look black as a thunder cloud, anger and gloom would be
throned on his eyebrow, his mean would be fierce and warlike: I should be an out-
cast from Isreal, and sister Doodle wouldn’t have washed a dish.
And so I kep’ s’posen things till we got clear to the store door and Josiah went to
help me out; and then thinkin’ what my companion had warned me about so many
times—about how dangerous and awful it was for wimmen to go near the pole—I
says to him, in middlin’ quiet tones:
“Josiah I guess I’ll set in the buggy till you hitch the old mare, and then you can
go in with me, so’s to kinder keep between me and the pole.”
But he says in excited tones:
“Oh shaw! Samantha; what fools wimmen can be, when they set out to! Who do
you s’pose is a goin’ to hurt you? Do you s’pose Elder Minkley is a goin’ to burgle
you, or old Bobbet asalt and batter you? There haint a man there but what you have
been to meetin’ with. You wasn’t afraid last Sunday was you? Go in and get your
buttons and things, so’s to be ready by the time I am for once,—wimmen are always
so slow.”
I didn’t argue with him, I only said in cold tones:
“I wanted to be on the safe side, Josiah.”
But oh! how I kep’ s’posen things, as he lifted me out right in front of the pole,
and left me there alone.
Josiah had business on his mind and it made him more worrysome; but I didn’t
know what it was till afterwards. As I was a goin’ up the store steps I kinder looked
back, and I see him take that bundle out of the wagon in a dretful sly way, and
kinder meach off with it. I didn’t like the looks of things; he acted guilty, strange,
and curious.
As I went into the store, I see sister Minkley up to the counter by the front
winder, and I was glad to see her. The store was a big one and quite a lot of men was
goin’ up and votin’. But good land! there wasn’t nothin’ frightful about it, I’ve seen
three times as many men together, time and again. I wasn’t skairt a mite, nor sister
Minkley wasn’t nuther. Two men was a swearin’, some, as I went in, but we heerd
’em swear as hard again 4th of July’s and common days; but the minute they
catched sight of sister Minkley and me, they stopped off right in the middle of a
swear, and looked as mild as protracted meetin’s, and took up some sticks and went
to whittlin’ as peaceable as two sheeps.
Sister Minkley said she shouldn’t thought she could have come out that day, she
had such a cold in her head, if her husband hadn’t urged her so, to come on his
business. “His heart seemed to be so sot on Kentucky Jane—”
“Jane who?” says I in awful axents, for I couldn’t hardly believe my ears—my
faith in that man’s morals was so high, it was like a steeple to my soul, and always
had been ever sense I had known him—and I thought to myself if I have got to give
up Elder Wesley Minkley, if his morals have got to totterin’ and swayin’ to and fro,
a tottlin’ off after Janes and other wimmen, and if he is mean enough to send his
80 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

wife off after ’em, I declare for’t I don’t know but I shall mistrust my Josiah. I know
I looked wild and glarin’ out of my eyes, and horror was on my mean, as I asked her
again in still more stern tones: “Jane who?” . . .
“Why Kentucky Jane for overhauls, he thought my judgment on Janes was bet-
ter than hisen.”
“Oh!” says I in dretful relieved tones, for my heart would have sung for joy if it
had understood the notes, it was that joyful, and thankful. Says I, “They have got a
piece here that wears like iron, Josiah has got a frock offen it.”
Well, we stood there by the counter, a feelin’ of Jane, and tryin’ the thickness and
color of it, and talkin’ together—as wimmen will—when who should come in but
the Editor of the Auger’ses wife. She is a woman that is liked better on further
acquaintance. She is thought a sight on in Jonesville; more’n her husband is, ten
times over. She’s had two pair of twins sense she was married; I never see such a
hand for twins as the Editor is. He’s had three pair and a half sense I knew him.
Well, as I was a sayin’, she came in, and called for some cigars. She told us he sent
her to git ’em, the two biggest twins bein’ to school, and there bein’ nobody to come
only jest him or her. She had walked afoot, and looked tired enough to sink; they
lived about a mile and a half out of the village.
She said the Editor could not come himself for he was writin’ a long article on
“The Imprudence, Impurity, and Impiety of Woman’s Appearance at the Pole.”
She said, he said he was goin’ to make a great effort; he was goin’ to present the
indecency and immorality of woman’s goin’ to ’lection, in such a masterly way that
it would set the matter to rest forever. It was for to-morrow’s paper, and bein’
obleeged to use up so much brain, as he had to in the effort, he felt he must have
some cigars, and a codfish; you know fish is dretful nourishin’ to the mind, and
he is fond of it; he told her to get the biggest codfish she could get, and bile it up.
And she was goin’ to.
I didn’t say much in reply to her, truly, as the poet says, “The least said is the
soonest mended.” I only told her in a kind of a blind way, that if codfish was good
for common sense, not to stent him on it. And jest then the store-keeper came back
from down suller with the fish.
“Good land!” says I the minute I laid eyes on it; “haint you made a mistake?”
“What mistake?” says he.
Says I, “Haint it a whale?”
“Oh no,” says he, “it is a codfish; but it is a pretty sizeable one.”
“I should think as much,” says I. For as true as I live, when the Editor of the
Auger’ses wife laid it over her arm, it touched the floor head and tail; and it made
her fairly lean over it was so heavy. And I thought to myself that I could have tack-
led the biggest political question of the day, easier than I could tackle that whale,
and carry it a mile and a half. And so the Editor of the Auger’ses wife went home
from ’lection, luggin’ a whale, and walkin’ afoot.
I picked out my buttons, five cents a dozen, and bought my cotton flannel, and
no Josiah. I felt worried in my mind. I thought of that mysterious bundle, and
my companion’s strange and curious looks as he brought it out from the barn,
declaring sentiments 81

seemin’ly unbeknown to me, and his dretful curious actions about it as he meached
out of the buggy with it. And I felt worried, and almost by the side of myself. But I
kep’ a cool demeanor on the outside of me—it is my way in the time of trouble to
be calm, and put my best foot forred.
Jest then a man came up to me that I never laid eyes on before. He was a poor
lookin’ shack; his eyes was white mostly, and stood out of his head as if in search for
some of the sense he never could git holt of, and his mouth was about half open. A
dretful shiftless lookin’ critter, and ragged as a Jew—all but his coat, and I’ll be
hanged if that didn’t look worse than if his clothes was all of a piece. It was a blue
broadcloth coat, swaller tailed, and had been a dretful genteel coat in the day of it—
which I should judge was some fifty or sixty years previous to date. It was awful
long waisted, and small round, and what they call single breasted; it turned back at
the breast in a low, genteel way over his old ragged vest; and ragged, red woolen
shirt, and pinched him in at the bottom of his waist like a pismire, and the tails
floated down behind, so polite over his pantaloons, which was fairly rags and
tatters. As I said, I never laid eyes on him before, and still as he come up, and stood
before me, I felt a curious, and strange feelin’ go most through me; sunthin’ in the
arrer way. . . .
Says the man, says he; “I beg your parding mom, for speaking to you, but you
have got such a dretful good look to your face, somehow— . . . that I want to ask
your advice.”
Says I kindly, “I am a Promiscuous Advisor by trade; advisin’ is my mission and
my theme. Ask me any advice my honest man, that you feel called to ask, and I will
proceed to perform about my mission.”
He handed me a ticket, with a awful dirty hand, every finger nail of which was
seemin’ly in the deepest of mournin’ for the pen-knife and nail-brushes they never
had seen; and says he, “Will you tell me mom, whether that ticket is a democrat
ticket, or the t’other one?”
I put on my specks, and says I, “It is the t’other one.”
“Good Gracious!” says he; “Christopher Columbus! Pocahontas! Jim Crow and
Jehosiphat!” says he. But I interrupted of him coldly, and says I:
“Stop swearin’, instantly and this minute; and if you want my advice, proceed,
and go on.”
Says he, “There I have voted that ticket seventeen times, and I was paid to vote
the democrat.” Says he, “I am a man of my word, I am a poor man but a honest one.
And here I have,”—says he in a mournful tone—“here I have voted the wrong
ticket seventeen times.” Says he in a bitter tone, “I had ruther have give half a cent
than to had this happen.” Says he, “I am a poor man, I haint no capital to live on,
and have got to depend on my honesty and principles for a livin’. And if this gets
out, I am a ruined man;” says he in awful bitter tones, “what would the man that
hired me say, if he should hear of it?”
“What did he give you?” says I, and as I said this, that strange, curious feelin’
came over me again, as strange a feelin’ as I ever felt.
Says he, “He give me this coat.”
82 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

Then I knew it all. Then the cast-iron entered my sole, the arrer that had been a
diggin’ into me, unbeknown to me as it was, went clear through me, and come out
on the other side. . . . It was Father Allen’s coat—one that had fell to Josiah. Then I
knew the meanin’ of my companion’s mysterious demeanor, as he bore the bundle
from the barn. His plottin’s the week before, and his drawin’s onto my sympathy, to
keep me from puttin’ it into the carpet rags, when I was fairly sufferin for blue in
the fancy stripe, and refrained from takin’ it, because he said it would hurt his
feelin’s so. Oh the fearful agony of that half a moment. What a storm was a ragin’
on the inside of my mind. But with a almost terrible effort, I controlled myself, and
kep’ considerable calm on the outside. Truly, everybody has their own private col-
lection of skeletons; but that haint no sign they should go abroad in public a rattlin’
their bones; it don’t help the skeletons any nor their owners, and it haint nothin’
highlarious and happyfyin’ to the public. . . .
“What made you vote the wrong ticket?” Says I, “can’t you read?”
“No,” says he, “we can’t none of us read, my father, nor my brothers; there is nine
of us in all. My father and mother was first cousins,” says he in a confidential tone;
“and the rest of my brothers don’t know only jest enough to keep out of the fire.
I am the only smart one in the family. But,” says he, “my brothers will all do jest
as father and I tell ’em to, and they will all vote a good many times a day, every
’lection; and we are all willin’ to do the fair thing and vote for the one that will pay
us the most. But not knowin’ how to read, we git cheated,” says he with that bitter
look, “there is so much corruption in politics now-a-days.”
“I should think as much,” says I. And almost overcome by my emotions, I spoke
my mind out loud. “There couldn’t be much worse goin’s on, anyway, if wimmen
voted.”
“Wimmen vote!” says he in a awful scornful tone. “Wimmen!”
“Then you don’t believe in their votin’,” says I mekanically (as it were) for I was
agitated, very.
“No I don’t,” says he, in a bold, hauty tone. “Wimmen don’t know enough to
vote.”
I wouldn’t contend with him, and to tell the truth, though I haint hauty, and
never was called so, I was fairly ashamed to be catched talkin’ with him, he looked
so low and worthless. And I was glad enough that that very minute brother Wesley
Minkley came up a holdin’ out his hand, and says he:
“How do you do sister Allen? Seems to me you look some cast down. How do
you feel in your mind today, sister Allen?”
Bein’ very truthful, I was jest a goin’ to tell him that I felt considerable strange.
But I was glad indeed that he forgot to wait for my answer, but went on, and says he:
“I heard the words the poor man uttered as I drew near, and I must say that
although he had the outward appearance of bein’ a shack—an idiotic shiftless
shack, as you may say,—still he uttered my sentiments. We will wave the subject,
however, of wimmen’s incapacity to vote.”
Elder Minkley is a perfect gentleman at heart, and he wouldn’t for anything, tell
me right out to my face that I didn’t know enough to vote. I too am very ladylike
declaring sentiments 83

when I set out, and I wasn’t goin’ to be outdone by him, so I told him in a genteel
tone, that I should think he would want to wave off the subject, after perusin’ such
a specimen of male sufferage as had jest disappeared from our vision. . . .
But jest at that very minute my Josiah came up and says he:
“Come Samantha! haint you about ready to go?”
“Yes,” says I, for truly principle had tuckered me out. . . .
I don’t know as I ever see Josiah Allen in any better spirits, than he was, as we
started off on our tower homewards. He had been to the clothin’ store and bought
him a new Sentinal necktie, red, white and blue. It was too young for him by forty
years, and I told him so; but he said he liked it the minute he sot his eyes on it, it was
so dressy. The man is vain. And then ’lection bid fair to go the way he wanted it to.
He was awful animated, his face was almost wreathed in a smile, and before the old
mare had gone several rods, he begun what a neat thing it was, and what a lucky hit
for the nation, that wimmen couldn’t vote. And he kep’ on a talkin’, that man did,
as he was a carryin’ me home from ’lection, about how it would break a woman’s
modesty down to go to the pole, and how it would devour her time and so 4th. . . .
And I was that tired out and fatigued a talkin’ to sister Minkley that I let him go on
for more’n a mile, and never put in my note at all. Good land! I’d heerd it all over
from him, word for word, more’n a hundred times, and so I sot still. I s’pose he
never thought how it was my lungs that ailed me, that I had used ’em almost com-
pletely up in principle, how I was almost entirely out of wind. And though a
woman’s will may be good, and her principles lofty, still she can’t talk without
wind. For truly in the words of a poem, I once perused:
“What’s Paul, or Pollus, when a sinner’s dead? dead for want of breath.”
I don’t s’pose he thought of my bein’ tuckered out, but honestly s’pose he
thought he was convincin’ of me; for his mean grew gradually sort of overbearin’
like, and contemptible, till he got to be more big feelin’ and hauty in his mean than
I had ever known him to be, and independenter. And he ended up as follers:
“Now, we have purity, and honesty, and unswervin’ virtue, and incorruptible
patriotism at the pole. Now, if corruption tries to stalk, honest, firm, lofty minded
men stand ready to grip it by the throat. How can it stalk, when it is a chokin’?
Wimmen haint got the knowledge, the deep wisdom and insight into things that we
men have. They haint got the lofty idees of national honor, and purity, that we men
have. Wimmen may mean well—”
He was feelin’ so neat that he felt kinder clever towards the hull world, hemale
and female. “Wimmen may mean well, and for arguments sake, we’ll say they do
mean well. But that haint the pint, the pint is here—”
And he pinted his forefinger right towards the old mare. Josiah can’t gesture
worth a cent. He wouldn’t make a oriter, if he should learn the trade for years. But
ever sense he has been to the Debatin’ school, he has seemed to have a hankerin’
that way. “The pint is here. Not knowin’ so much as we men know, not bein’ so firm
and lofty minded as we be, if wimmen should vote corruption would stalk; they not
havin’ a firm enough grip to choke it off. They would in the language of the ’postle
be ‘blowed about by every windy doctor.’ They would be tempted by filthy lucre to
84 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

‘sell their birth-right for a mess of pottery,’ or crockery, I s’pose the text means.
They haint got firmness; they are whifflin’, their minds haint stabled. And if that
black hour should ever come to the nation, that wimmen should ever go to the
pole—where would be the lofty virtue, the firm high-minded honesty, the uncor-
ruptible patriotism that now shines forth from politics? Where would be the purity
of the pole? Where? oh! where?”
I’ll be hanged if I could stand it another minute, and my lungs havin’ got con-
siderable rested, I spoke up, and says I:
“You seem to be havin’ a kind of a enquiry meetin’ in politics, Josiah Allen, and
I’ll get up in my mind, and speak in meetin’.” And then I jest let loose that eloquent
tone I keep by me expressly for the cause of principle; I used the very loftiest and
awfulest one I had by me, as I fastened my specks immovably on hisen. “Where is
that swaller tailed coat of Father Allen’s?”
And in slower, sterner, colder tones, I added:
“With the brass buttons. Where is it Josiah Allen? Where? oh! where?”
Oh! What a change came over my companion’s mean. Oh, how his feathers
drooped and draggled on the ground speakin’ in a rooster and allegory way.
Oh, what a meachin’ look covered him like a garment from head to foot. I
declare for’t if his boots didn’t look meachin’, and his hat and his vest. I never seen
a meachener lookin’ vest than hisen, as I went on:
“I’d talk Josiah Allen about men bein’ so pure-minded, and honest. I’d talk
about wimmens bein’ whifflin’ and their minds not stabled. I’d talk about the
purity of the pole. I’d love to see Josiah Allen’s wife buyin’ votes; bribin’ Miss
Gowdey or sister Minkley away from the paths of honesty and virtue, with a petti-
coat or a bib apron. I’d love to see George Washington offerin’ his jack knife to
Patrick Henry to get him to vote his ticket; or Benjamin Franklin, or Thomas
Jefferson sellin’ their votes for store clothes. I should be ashamed to go to the
Sentinal Josiah Allen, if I was in your place. I should be perfectly ashamed to set my
eyes on that little hatchet that George Washington couldn’t tell a lie with. I should
think that hatchet would cut your conscience clear to the bone—if you have got a
conscience, Josiah Allen.
“Oh! Did I ever expect to see the companion of my youth and middle age,
betrayin’ his country’s honor; trafficin’ in bribery and sin; dickerin’ with dishonesty;
tradin’ in treason; buyin’ corruption; and payin’ for it with a swaller tailed coat,
with his old father’s blue swaller tailed coat that his lawful pardner wanted for car-
pet rags. Oh, the agony of this half an hour, Josiah Allen! Oh, the feelin’s that I feel.”
But Josiah had begun to pick up his crumbs again. Truly it is hard work to keep
men down in the valley of humiliation. You can’t keep ’em worked up and morti-
fied for any great length of time, do the best you can. But I continued on in almost
dretful axents.
“You ort to repent in sackcloth and ashes, Josiah Allen.”
“We haint got no sackcloth Samantha,” says he, “and we have sold our ashes.
Probable the man wouldn’t want me to be a repentin’ in ’em. It would be apt to
leach ’em, too much lie for ’em.”
declaring sentiments 85

“I’d try to turn it off into a joke, Josiah Allen, I’d laugh if I was in your place
about lyin’. Your tears ort to flow like a leach barrell. Oh if you could realize as I do
the wickedness of your act. Destroyin’ your country’s honor. Sellin’ your father’s
coat when I wanted it for carpet rags.” Says I, “I am as good a mind as I ever was to
eat, to color the hull thing black, warp and all, makin’ a mournin’ carpet of it, to set
down and bewail my pardner’s wickedness from year to year.”
“It would look pretty solemn Samantha.” I see the idee worried him.
“It wouldn’t look no solemner than I feel, Josiah Allen.”
And then I kep’ perfectly still for a number of minutes, for silence is the solemn
temple with its roof as high as the heavens, convenient for the human soul to retire
into, at any time, unbeknown to anybody; to offer up thanksgivin’s, or repent of
iniquities. And I thought my Josiah was repentin’ of hisen.
But truly as I said men’s consciences are like ingy rubber, dretful easy and
stretchy, and almost impossible to break like a bruised reed. For while I was a hopin’
that my companion was a repentin’, and thought mebby he would burst out a
cryin’, overcome by a realizin’ sense of his depravities; and I was a thinkin’ that if he
did, I should take up a corner of his bandanna handkerchief and cry on it too—that
man for all his back slidin’s is so oncommon dear to me—he spoke out in jest as
chirp a way as I ever seen him, and for all the world, jest as if he hadn’t done
nothin’:
“I wonder if sister Doodle will have supper ready, Samantha. I meant to have
told her to fried a little o’ that beef.”

Source: From Marietta Holley, Josiah Allen’s Wife as a P.A. and P.I.: Samantha at the
Centennial (Hartford, Conn.: American Pub. Co., 1888).
 R
FETTERED FOR LIFE, OR,
LORD AND MASTER (1874)
“A DIVIDED REPUBLIC:
AN ALLEGORY OF THE
FUTURE” (1885)
lillie devereux blake
(1833–1913)

Blake scandalized her upper-class New York social circle when, in 1870, she began
lecturing in support of woman suffrage. From 1855 to 1869 Blake had channeled
her ambition into work as a war correspondent and fiction writer, but she found
in campaigning for suffrage an ideal outlet for her talents as a speaker, organizer,
and writer. Positioned on the radical end of the movement’s spectrum, Blake
worked the pen and stump not only for suffrage but also for educational oppor-
tunities for women, wage parity, and the rights to divorce and joint custody. During
the last third of the nineteenth century, Blake served as president of the New York
State Woman Suffrage Association and the New York City Woman Suffrage
League, and she was active in the NWSA and NAWSA. In 1900 she lost a bid to
replace Anthony as NAWSA president.29 The two selections here present a study
in literary contrast suggestive of the breadth of Blake’s sympathies, dreams, and
disappointments. Fettered for Life is a coming-of-age story punctuated by
realistic—even sensational—episodes of physical, psychological, and emotional
abuse of women. Laura’s victimization when she moves to the city—by men such
as the aggressive Judge Swinton—is checked by the interventions of her friends,
journalist Frank Heywood and suffragist doctor Mrs. D’Arcy. “A Divided
Republic,” however, though replete with references to contemporary politics,
particularly the enfranchisement of women in Washington Territory in 1883,

86
declaring sentiments 87

is an exercise of pure imagination—a utopian fantasy in which women are

united in their thinking and will-to-action and successful in their bid for equal
citizenship.

Fettered for Life, or Lord and Master

Chapter XX: New Year’s Day
. . . When [Laura] reached the house the door was opened for her by Mr. Moulder,
who was in an unusually amiable frame of mind, and looked quite beaming; attired
in his very best clothes, and with his red face redder than usual, from the frequent
potations of his New Year’s calls.
“Ah, Miss Stanley,” he said, in a very impressive manner, “I am glad you have
come; there is a visitor waiting for you.”
“Indeed! who?”
“Judge Swinton.” . . .
Mr. Moulder got himself out of the room, after a hearty grip of his honor’s
hand, and Laura was alone with this man, whom she had so long dreaded. It
seemed as if now that he was thus unrestrained with her, he could hardly control
himself; he approached her with an expression in his eyes that made his mere look
an insult, and bent towards her, till she could perceive the thick odor of wine and
tobacco that hung about him.
If it had been possible for him to be aware of the utter loathing with which he
inspired this young lady, he would perhaps have gone out from her presence
hastily; but such a nature as his can no more comprehend such a nature as hers,
than the black beetle that crawls on the ground can understand the emotion of the
bright bird that floats in the sunshine.
A man of this stamp imagines that every woman is at heart like himself, sensual,
mercenary, false; that the apparent difference is one of manner only, and that he
can easily find a responsive chord, which must vibrate to the touch of a being so
charming as he believes himself to be. Full of some such thought, this ornament of
the New York Bench bent down, and strove to take Laura’s hand. She sprang to her
feet on the instant.
“You said you had a message from my father!” she said, as she drew back a step.
“That was only a blind,” explained the judge, with a knowing wink; “I haven’t
heard from your father at all; I only wanted to get Moulder out of the way; you’ll
forgive me, won’t you? All’s fair in love and war, you know.”
He attempted to draw near her as he spoke, but Laura retreated as he advanced, till
she reached the limits of the small room, and stood with her back to the mantle-piece.
“If you have no message for me, I’ll bid you goodnight,” she said coldly; and she
attempted to go towards the door.
The judge interposed himself, hastily. “No, don’t run away,” he urged; “I have
something to say to you, Laura, you little beauty! You must know how I love you!”
And he put out his hand to seize her.
88 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

“Stand back!” exclaimed Laura, imperiously; “you are forgetting yourself, Judge
Swinton!”
“No, I ain’t! you little wretch! I mean every word I say!” drawing still nearer; “say
you’ll be mine; I’ll marry you!” he whispered, with an irrepressible tremor in his
voice. “That’s square, now; come, you beauty, give me a kiss!”
He was quite close to her; an unctuous smile on his lips, a leer of triumph in his
eyes; his arms outstretched, almost clasping her. An irrepressible angry disgust
seized Laura; she felt that the contamination of his touch was not to be endured,
and as he would have caught her, she drew back, her gray eyes flashing fire, her fine
face set in resolute defiance, and pushing away his hand, passed him suddenly.
At college, Laura had been a practiced gymnast, and there was a strength one
would not suspect in that shapely hand and slender wrist. The judge drew back a
pace in utter astonishment, and before he could get over his surprise, she had
escaped from the room.
He recovered in a moment, and hurried in pursuit; but there was no one in the
entry, and when he reached the foot of the stairs, there was only the sound of light
footsteps ascending, and the faint rustle of silk, which ceased a moment after, as a
door closed sharply.
The man went back to the parlor, but the flush had faded from his face, and his
eyes had grown hard and cruel. He took up his hat, put on his overcoat, and went
out, walking quickly, like one who has a fixed purpose. . . .
It was quite late now; the air was cold with the intense chill of midnight; . . . the
wheels of the few passing vehicles rang with a metallic chime against the pavement.
But though the narrow streets seemed somewhat deserted, when [Judge Swinton]
turned into a wider thoroughfare, there was enough of noise and tumult. Groups
of men, unsteady on their feet, were staggering along, filling the night with discor-
dant songs, shouted words, and coarse laughter; and a few women, evil-eyed and
hollow-cheeked, were among them. The disorder seemed to culminate at a corner,
where was a brilliantly-lighted shop; a place with many bottles and casks, piled high
in the window. . . .
Within there was a score of men, leaning over the bar, sitting at tables, or sprawl-
ing over seats, all more or less intoxicated, all disreputable-looking, heavy-browed,
noisy. The judge passed in, and made his way to Bludgett, who was engaged in a
loud conversation with two men; bullet-headed, ugly-looking fellows, with flat
noses, small eyes, and square shoulders.
“Ah! here’s the boss, now!” exclaimed Bludgett; a smile of pride expanding his
swarthy features, and relaxing his thick black eyebrows. . . .
“I’d like to see you about a little business. Can you spare time?”
“Certainly, Judge, certainly,” replied Bludgett, with alacrity. . . . .
Bludgett led Judge Swinton into a small room in the rear of the shop. Here
there stood a table, much stained with suggestive rings, and several chairs in great
disorder.
“Some of the boys been in here,” said Bludgett; “and things ain’t been put to
rights.”
declaring sentiments 89

The judge accepted the apology graciously, and drawing a chair, the two men
were soon engaged in earnest conversation. It did not last long, and as the judge
rose to go he said:
“I may depend upon you, then, Bludgett? For mind you, I’m resolved upon
this!” his eyes flashing vindictively.
“It’s a dangerous game,” Bludgett replied; “but I’ll stand by you, Judge; you make
your plan, and I’ll find the men to carry it out.” . . .

Chapter XXIV: Further Experiences

. . . The shadows were deepening; the streets were very full of men, and Laura’s first
anger changed slowly to a feeling of utter loneliness and sadness. The surging
throng around her seemed so many enemies, any one of whom would wound her
or hunt her. Among all these strong, pushing, busy men, there seemed no place, and
no hope for a woman to expect justice or mercy. These resolute-browed, swift-
going, strong-limbed animals, who represented the great brute force of nature, its
resistless power, its relentless will, could crush out so easily the gentler, more spiri-
tual being, who represented the beauty, the grace, the harmony of creation! Among
these tough-fibred, hard-headed creatures, pressing onward in the eager chase for
wealth and place, would there ever be any way made for the delicate ones, who yet
were entitled equally with them to a fair chance in the battle of life?
. . . It was nearly six o’clock now, and Laura was faint and hungry from her long
fast; but she left the car a block before it reached Twentieth Street, and made her
purchases. . . . Coming along armed with her bundle, she never noticed a man
lounging on the corner, who gave a quick start as he caught sight of her, and sig-
nalled to another man, who was on the box of a carriage, that was drawn up near
the sidewalk. This person at once became alert, and gathered up his reins and whip;
while the first man climbed to a seat beside him, and the vehicle moved on quickly
in front of the young lady.
When Laura reached Mr. Moulder’s house, she was surprised to see a carriage
standing before it, and a man on the steps talking with Minnie, who held the door
open.
“Here is Miss Stanley, now!” exclaimed the little maid, as Laura came up the
walk.
“What is it?” asked Laura.
The man, who was an ill-looking person, answered: “A note from Mrs. D’Arcy”;
holding out a letter.
“From Mrs. D’Arcy!” exclaimed Laura, in surprise; and she took the proffered
missive, and stepped into the hall to read it. Opening it near the gaslight, she found
it contained these words:
“I am requested by Mrs. D’Arcy to inform Miss Stanley that Mrs. D’Arcy is very
ill, and would like to see Miss Stanley at once.
“MARY COLTON, M. D.”
The name was that of a lady-physician, whom Laura had met at the doctor’s,
and she never doubted the genuineness of the letter.
90 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

. . . Laura hurried out and entered the carriage; the man shut the door with a
bang, and climbed up beside his companion.
“She was easily caught,” he said, as they drove away; “I never did see anybody
walk into a trap with their eyes open quite so slick!”

Chapter XXV: An Abduction, and its Consequences

About ten minutes after Laura went away, Frank Heywood pulled the door-bell at
Mr. Moulder’s. . . .
It seemed to Frank, in his anxious impatience, a terribly long time before
Minnie opened the door, though really only a few moments passed until she
appeared.
“Is Miss Stanley in?”
“No.”
“Hasn’t she come home yet?”
“Yes; she came home a little while ago, but went right off again.”
“Alone?”
“No; in a carriage that Mrs. D’Arcy sent for her.”
“Mrs. D’Arcy’s own carriage?” he questioned, breathlessly.
“No, a hack, I think. But what is it, Mr. Heywood? What is the matter?” for
Frank’s manner alarmed Minnie.
“Something is very wrong, I’m afraid, Minnie: but I can’t stop now to explain it
to you. Who came for Miss Stanley? Any of Mrs. D’Arcy’s people?”
“Well, no,” replied Minnie; “two men came, and they weren’t nice men, either;
rough and horrid-looking, I thought.”
This confirmed the worst suspicions, and Heywood said quickly: “I am afraid
that Miss Stanley has been deceived in some way. I have no time to tell you how;
but, Minnie, try to remember all you can about this carriage; what sort of an one it
was, and what color the horses were, so that I could recognize it again.”
Minnie, who was a quick-witted little creature, seemed to catch his meaning at
once. “It was a dark close carriage; there were two men on the box, and it had one
white and one brown horse.”
“And which way did it go?”
“Towards Ninth Avenue: I noticed that because I thought it wasn’t the right way
to go to Mrs. D’Arcy’s.”
“Thank you, Minnie, thank you; I will try to bring Miss Stanley home”; and
hurrying back to his own conveyance, Frank jumped up beside the driver, and
started on what seemed an almost hopeless quest.
Meantime Laura, who had at first been so absorbed in anxious thought that she
did not notice in which direction she was being taken, began presently to think that
she must be near her friend’s house, and looked out eagerly. To her surprise, she
was in a part of the town which she did not know. She could see through the dark-
ness that there were low ugly-looking houses on each side of her, and just beyond
these, on the one hand, she could dimly catch a glimpse of shipping, towering
masts, and black smokestacks, coming into view at the street-crossings. Amazed at
declaring sentiments 91

so stupid a blunder, . . . she knocked on the front window to attract the attention of
her driver, and tell him to change his course.
The man paid no manner of heed to this, except that he seemed to be urging his
horses forward. Finding it useless to try to attract his attention in this way, Laura
leaned out of the window, and called:
“Driver! Driver!”
“See here, Bangs; this ain’t a-going to do”; said the man who held the reins;
“she’s got to be quieted somehow.”
Laura resolved not to be carried out of the way in this high-handed fashion, and,
still without a suspicion of anything beyond stupidity on the part of her conductor,
shouted again:
“Driver! Stop! Driver!”
This time her words appeared to produce an effect; the carriage came to a stand-
still, and one of the men got down and came to the door. Laura turned to speak to
him; but before she could utter a word, he drew up the glass on that side, and then
came quickly around to the other door.
“Thought it might be cold,” he muttered; “Now then, ma’am, what is it as you
wants?”
“You are taking me the wrong way—” Laura began, leaning towards him; but
before she could finish her sentence, a cloth was flung over her head; she was
conscious of a strong sickly odor; there was a rushing sound in her ears, as of a
thousand hammers pounding heavily; she could feel the blood beating in her brain;
she struggled for a moment, groping in the air blindly with her hands; then her
head sank back, and total insensibility overwhelmed her.
The man drew up the other glass of the carriage, and climbed up again beside
his companion.
“She won’t make no fuss for awhile,” he said, grimly, and the driver whipping up
his horses, the vehicle proceeded more rapidly up the river-side avenue.
It was just at this moment that Frank Heywood caught sight of the carriage. The
direction which the coach containing Laura had taken, together with a knowledge of
where some of the evil resorts of the city were, had led the young journalist to think
that she might be carried off to this quarter of the town, and here he came in pursuit.
He had explained his object to the coachman, a warm-hearted son of Erin, who, with
the chivalry of a true Irishman, was fired with a desire to aid in securing the young lady.
“And do ye think that’s the coach?” he asked, with much interest, as they came in
sight of the vehicle.
“I do, Mike,” replied Frank; “it looks like it to me. Drive as near as you can to the
side of the avenue, so that we can get a good view of it.”
“I’ll do that,” answered Mike, suiting the action to the word.
“There! Don’t you see?” cried Heywood. “There are two men on the box; there is
a light and a dark horse; a close carriage too, and both windows shut!” he added,
under his breath; a new horror coming over him.
“The bloody scamps!” exclaimed the coachman, in great excitement; “Shure, I’ll
stand by you, captain, to put an ind to their divil’s game!”
92 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

“Thank you, Mike,” said Frank cordially; “I may need your help.”
“And ye’ll get it shure,” protested the coachman heartily, and dropping his voice,
he added: “If you want one of thim raskils knocked over, captain, say the word, and
I’m your man.”
Heywood smiled a little. “I hope it won’t come to that, Mike; but I’ll tell you
what we will do; put your horses to their speed, and drive right across in front of
the carriage; then when the men speak to you, as they probably will, answer them
back; you can give as good as you get, I suppose?”
“I can that,” replied Mike.
“Well, keep their attention occupied with what you have to say, and leave the rest
to me; only be ready to follow the carriage again, if I give the signal.”
“I’ll do that, thin, captain; will I go at onst?”
“Yes.”
In a moment Mike had whipped up his horses and was running a race with the
closed carriage. It lasted only a brief time; he turned his horses’ heads suddenly,
directly across the avenue, and both vehicles came to a stop, amid a storm of oaths
from the two men, and rejoinders from Mike, so ingeniously and scientifically
aggravating as to keep the full attention of his enemies concentrated for some
minutes on himself.
Frank watched the collision with set teeth and braced sinews. His face was
unusually pale, as it always was under circumstances of violent emotion, and his
eyes shone with a glitter of excitement. As the two conveyances became entangled,
he swung himself down with wonderful dexterity from his place, and quick as
thought glided to the carriage where Laura lay, and unperceived by anyone in the
darkness and confusion, opened the door and sprang in beside her.
In another second the closed coach had swung ahead and was going on with
increased speed. Indeed, all this had passed so rapidly that Mike stared in amaze-
ment to see what had become of his late companion. A white hand suddenly
appearing and beckoning from the rear window of the other coach appeared to
reassure him, however, and he followed it at a short distance. . . .
None too soon, the vehicle going on swiftly, turned suddenly up a cross-street
and drew up before a gloomy looking house, standing by itself, and surrounded by
a waste of jagged rocks that had been blasted into all sorts of ugly shapes.
As the carriage stopped, the door of the house opened, and Judge Swinton
appeared, a dim light following out from the hall, his large figure and square head,
on which a wide hat was slouched.
“All right, Bangs?” he asked, anxiously, as he approached the door.
“All right,” replied that worthy, who had sprung down from the box, and stepped
to the carriage-door. “I’ve got her safe; had to chloroform her, though, judge, but
you’ll find her quiet as a lamb—”
He stopped short; a sudden change came over him; his jaw fell, his eye started,
till, small as they were, they seemed likely to leave their sockets; while Judge
Swinton, partaking of his consternation, stood staring as if paralyzed.
declaring sentiments 93

Before Bangs could touch the door, it was opened from the inside, and they saw,
not a pale and swooning girl, but Frank Heywood’s alert figure and sparkling eyes.
“Who the devil are you?” demanded Judge Swinton, recovering after a moment
from his first stupor.
“I am a reporter for the New York Trumpeter,” replied Frank, as he sprang out.
“And I’ll make an item of this for the paper if you like, Judge,” he added, with a
mocking smile.
His honor’s only reply was the utterance of a very ugly word, which he gave under
his breath, but with great force as he turned on his heel and reentered the house.
“Now, Miss Stanley, if you’ll take my carriage, I’ll see you home,” said Heywood,
as he assisted Laura to alight.
Mike was close by with his coach, and a few moments later the two young
people were seated in it. Neither Bangs nor his companion, who had been watching
the judge for instructions, appeared to think it wise to interfere. . . .

Chapter XLIX: Frank’s Story

“Laura,” [Frank] said, “I am so much attached to you—I trust you so entirely, that
I think I can confide in you.”
“I hope so, Frank,” [said Laura,] looking at him in surprise.
“Have you never guessed my secret?” he asked, turning upon her the full light of
those strange eyes; “you have told me more than once that I was like a brother to
you; if you had said a sister, it would have been nearer the truth.”
Laura regarded her companion for a moment with an astonished gaze; then a
hundred little circumstances rushed to her memory—“You are a woman!” she
cried, clapping her hands in delight; “that is glorious!” and she caught Frank
around the neck with a hearty kiss.
The young journalist looked really happy, and laughed light heartedly. “It is
rather a large practical joke isn’t it! Sometimes I keenly enjoy it.”
“It’s grand!” cried Laura; “Perfectly grand! To think of you being one of the
editors of ‘the Trumpeter!’ And going all over town as you please! . . . And rescuing
me from Judge Swinton! And voting, I dare say!” As a grand climax—“Oh, it’s
delicious!”
“And you never suspected me?”
“Never; I thought you were entirely different from any man I ever knew; so
gentle, so refined, seeming to understand my feelings so completely; I loved you,
I have often thought, as I might have loved a woman. But I never dreamed of this!”
. . . “I hope I shall be able to carry out my career as I have planned it. I think it
involves some self-denial.”
“Of course it does,” replied Laura gravely; “very great self-denial, you dear
Frank! But do tell me how you came to disguise yourself so; I have often wanted to
know more of your life than you have ever told me.”
“You shall hear,” replied Frank. “I was born at the south, as you know. I was
the only child and my mother died in giving me birth. My father, who loved her
94 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

passionately, never remarried, but devoted himself to my education. I lived with

him on a lonely plantation and, less restrained by conventionalities than most girls,
was his companion in his rides, his walks, and even in the athletic sports of which
he was unusually fond so that I grew up remarkably strong and vigorous. The war
came, and after a time my father went away to fight, as he believed, for freedom. He
was killed; the negroes were free, our property was worthless, and I found myself at
twenty, alone in the world, with no protector and no home! I had an uncle, himself
already burdened with the care of a large family, and I determined not to be
dependent on him. Full of a romantic belief in my own possibilities of work, I took
what little money I could raise from the sale of the furniture of the house and came
to New York. I suppose I can say it now,” the young journalist went on with a smile;
“I was a very good looking girl.”
“I can readily believe it,” said Laura; “you are a very handsome young man.”
“Thanks. Well, my beauty, such as it was, did me no good”; gloomily—“I had no
friends, I was entirely unprotected. I was insulted, refused work, unless I would
comply with the disgraceful propositions of my employers; in short, I had the expe-
rience which so many young women have in the great city; poverty, temptation,
cruelty. I was resolved not to sink where so many had fallen; but it was hard work
sometimes. There was one man in particular who persecuted me so persistently,
that at last I scarcely dared to go out, lest he should carry me off to some hopeless
pit. Then I grew desperate, and as much to avoid him as for any other purpose,
I pawned my last article of value—my father’s watch—which I had kept securely
till then, and which, by the way, I have since redeemed; and with the money thus
obtained, bought a suit of boy’s clothes. The change was delightful! You can never
imagine what it was! My limbs were free; I could move untrammelled, and my
actions were free; I could go about unquestioned. No man insulted me, and when
I asked for work, I was not offered outrage.”
“I know what that is,” said Laura, recalling her own experiences. . . .
“At first, I thought I would only wear the dress for a short time; but one day
I read in the papers an account of that physician who recently died in Edinburgh,
and who, after a long life of honor, wide practice and the enjoyment of many dig-
nities, was discovered to be a woman, when death had ended her career. Had her
sex been known she could not even have studied her profession—she began forty
years ago—she would never have been acknowledged as capable, and would not
have received a single one of the marks of distinction which were given to her. Her
story moved me to attempt a like success; I resolved to carve out for myself a place
in the world as a man, and let death alone reveal my secret and prove what a woman
can do;” with a resolute light in those deep eyes.
“You have set yourself a grand task!” Laura said, enthusiastically.
“Yes, and thus far I have been able to carry it out according to my hopes. At
first I had hard work, of course. I began as a news-seller; studying at night to
learn shorthand; then I got employment on an evening paper, and at last on
‘the Trumpeter.’ Of course my dress enabled me to go to places and scenes which I
could not have visited in the garb of my sex, and I have seen a great many odd and
declaring sentiments 95

terrible things in that way. But thus far, [only one person] has ever suspected my
secret.”
“But I don’t understand that dear little moustache,” said Laura, who had been
studying her companion closely.
“That is only a cunningly-devised fiction,” laughed Frank.
“A very clever one, certainly,” said Laura; “and do you vote at the election?”
“Undoubtedly; I have never missed one since I have been a man, and now you
understand why I so thoroughly believe in woman suffrage.” . . .
At the depot in New York they found Mrs. D’Arcy’s carriage waiting for Laura;
but Frank could only go with her to the door, where they parted, as the copy for
the paper must be taken down as soon as possible, and Frank must hire a swift
conveyance and go at once to the office.
Laura looked after the slight figure as it disappeared in the darkness, and
thought that if there were some trials in the young journalist’s life, there must
surely be some compensations also.

Source: From Lillie Devereux Blake, Fettered for Life, or Lord and Master (New York:
Sheldon & Co., 1874).

“A Divided Republic: An Allegory of the Future”

The forty-ninth Congress adjourned without enfranchising the women of the
Republic, and many State legislatures, where pleas were made for justice, refused to
listen to the suppliants. The women of the nation grew more and more indignant
over the denial of equality. Great conventions were held and monster mass meet-
ings took place all over the land. But although men had been declaring that so soon
as women wanted to vote they would be allowed to, they still continued to assert in
the face of all those efforts that only a few agitators were making the demand. An
enormous petition was sent to the 50th Congress containing the signatures of
twenty millions of women praying for suffrage, and still Senator Edmunds and
Senator Vest insisted that the best women would not vote if they could.
Matters began actually to grow worse for women. The more honors they carried
off at college the less were they allowed to hold places of public trust or given equal
pay for equal work. Taxes of oppressive magnitude were imposed on women, for a
new idea had seized the masculine brains of the country. They wanted to fortify our
sea-coast. The women protested in vain; they said they did not want war, that they
never would permit war, and that all difficulties with foreign nations, if any arose,
should be settled by arbitration.
The men paid no attention whatever to their protests, but went right on levying
heavy taxes and imposing a high tariff on foreign goods, and spending the money
in monstrous forts and bristling cannon that looked out over the wide waters of the
Atlantic in useless menace.
Drunkenness, too, increased in the land. It is true that sometimes women
were able to procure the passage of some law to restrain the sale of liquors, but the
96 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

enactments were always dead letters; the men would not enforce the laws they
themselves had made, and mothers saw their sons led away and their families
broken up, and still no man heeded their protests.
The murmurs of discontent among women grew louder and deeper, and a
grand national council was called.
Now the great leader among women in this time was Volumnia, a matron of
noble appearance, whose guidance the women gladly followed. When the great
council met at Washington every state was represented by the foremost women of
the day, and all were eager for some radical action that should force the men of the
nation to give them a voice in the laws.
All were assembled, and the great hall filled to its utmost limit by eager dele-
gates, when Volumnia arose to speak. “Women of America,” she said, “we have
borne enough! We have appealed to the men to set us free. They have refused. We
have protested against the imposition of taxes. They have increased them. We have
implored them to protect our homes from the curse of intemperance. They have
passed prohibition laws on one day, and permitted saloons to be opened the next.
We are tired of argument, entreaty and persuasion. Patience is no longer becoming
in the women of America. The time for action has come.”
And this vast assemblage of women, stirred to the utmost, shouted
“ACTION!”
“I have a proposal to make to you,” she continued, “the result of long study and
consultation with the profoundest female minds of the country. It is this:
“Within the limits of this so-called Republic there is one spot where the women
are free. I mean in Washington Territory, that great state that has been refused
admission to the Union, solely because women there are voters. I have communi-
cated with the leading women of that region; some of them are here to speak for
themselves, and others are here from the sister Territory of Wyoming. With their
approval and aid I propose that all the women of the United States leave the East,
where ancient customs oppress us and where old fogyism prevails, and emigrate in
a body to the free West, the lofty heights of the mountains and the broad slopes on
the coast of the majestic Pacific.”
Wild and tumultuous applause followed this proposal, which was at once
enthusiastically adopted by the assembled multitude, who after a few days of dis-
cussion as to the means to carry out these designs, dispersed to their homes to
make preparations for the greatest exodus of modern times. . . .
It must not be supposed that their departure took place without protest on the
part of the men. Some of them were greatly dismayed when they heard that wife
and daughters were going away, and essayed remonstrance, but the women had
borne so much so long that they were inexorable—not always without a pang,
however.
Volumnia had long been a widow, and therefore owed allegiance to no man; but
she had a young daughter named Rose, who was as pretty as she was accomplished,
and who cherished a fondness for a young man who admired her. . . .
“Stay, love, stay!” entreated Flavius.
declaring sentiments 97

She hesitated and raised her eyes; they were swimming with tears; “I can not,”
she said, “honor before love,”—then she drew a little nearer—“but you can help to
bring us back—obtain justice!” . . .
Volumnia’s great co-worker was a certain lady called Cecilia, and to her also
there was a trial in parting. Her father was elderly and infirm, and although pos-
sessed of ample means, he depended much on the companionship of his daughter.
For a brief moment she hesitated to leave him; then she said sternly: “The Roman
father sacrificed his child; Jephtha gave up his daughter at the call of his country;
then so will I leave my father for the demands of my sex and of humanity.”
Then despite all entreaties and expostulations and even threats, which the men
at some points vainly tried, the women every one departed, and after a few days in
all the great Atlantic seaboard, from the pine forests of Maine to the wave-washed
Florida Keys, there was not a woman to be seen.
At first most of the men pretended that they were glad.
“We can go to the club whenever we like,” said a certain married man.
“And no one will find fault with us if we drop into a saloon,” added another.
“Or say that tobacco is nasty stuff,” suggested a third. . . .
There was much rejoicing among the writers also. Mr. [William Dean] Howells
remarked that now he could describe New England girls just as he pleased and no
one would find fault with him; and Mr. Henry James was certain that the men
would all buy the “Bostonians,” which proved so conclusively that no matter how
much of a stick a man might be, it was far better for a woman to marry him than to
follow even the most brilliant career. . . .
Meantime Volumnia and her hosts had swept across the Rocky Mountains and
taken possession of the Pacific slope. Not Wyoming and Washington alone, but
Idaho and Montana, and all the region between the two enfranchised territories.
By an arrangement previously made with the women who dwelt in these lands
the few men were sent eastward, and in all that wide expanse of territory there were
only women to be seen.
Under these circumstances they made such laws as suited them. The Territorial
Legislature, consisting wholly of women, speedily passed bills giving women the
right to vote. There was no need to pass prohibition measures, as the saloon-
keepers had gone East. Peace and tranquility prevailed through all the borders of
the feminine Republic. There were no policemen, for there was no disorder, but
thrift, sobriety and decorum ruled, and the days passed in calm monotony.
Very different was the condition of affairs on the Eastern coast. The men for a
while after the departure of the women went bravely about their vocations,
many of them, as we have seen, pretending that they were glad that the women were
gone. But presently signs of a change appeared. While the saloons did a roaring
business, the barber shops were deserted—men began to say there was no use in
shaving as there were no women to see how they looked; the tailors also suffered,
for the men grew careless in their dress; what was the use of fresh linen and
gorgeous cravats with never a pretty girl to smile at them? White shirts rapidly
gave place to red and gray flannel ones; old hats were worn with calm indifference,
98 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

even on Fifth Avenue, and after a time men went up and down to business
unshaven, and slouchy.
Within the house there was also a marked change. One of the first sources of
rejoicing among men had been that now they would be rid of the slavery of dusters
and brooms, and after the women were gone the houses were allowed to fall into
confusion. As no one objected that the curtains would be ruined, the men smoked
in drawing-room and parlor as well as study, and knocked the ashes from cigar or
pipe on the carpet without fearing a remonstrance. At the end of some months
affairs grew worse. The amount of liquor consumed was enormous, the police force
was doubled, and then was inefficient because it was impossible to find policemen
who would not drink. Brawling was incessant; the men had become cross and
sulky, and murderous rows were of constant occurrence. Burglaries and other vio-
lent crimes increased and the jails were over-crowded with inmates.
. . . Matters went rapidly from bad to worse after this. John Sullivan was elected
President. The men were about to declare war against all the world, so as to have a
chance to use their new fortifications, when Flavius, who had never ceased to long
for Rose, called a secret council at the house of Cecilia’s father and proposed that a
deputation should be sent with a flag of truce to the women. To his astonishment
and delight the idea was received with wild enthusiasm, and he and the host were
appointed a committee to lay the question before Congress.
On their appearance at the Capitol, Senate and House of Representatives were
hastily assembled in joint session to receive them, and as they entered the hall the
air rang with cries and cheers. It was with great difficulty that General Blair, who
had been chosen to preside, could put the motion, which was carried with a wild
hurrah of applause, and for many moments thereafter the noise and cheering con-
tinued; men hugged each other with delight; some tore off their coats to wave them
in the air; many wept tears of joy—in short, the scene of enthusiasm exceeded that
which is sometimes witnessed at a Presidential nominating convention when a
favorite candidate has been selected. . . .
Meantime, in the feminine Republic matters moved on serenely, but it must be
confessed a little slowly. The most absolute order prevailed; the homes were
scrupulously tidy; the streets of the city were always clean. The public money,
which was no longer needed for the support of police officers and jails, was
spent in the construction of schoolhouses, and other beautiful public buildings.
Artificers of all sorts had been found among the women whose natural talents
had heretofore been suppressed. Female architects designed houses with innu-
merable closets. Female contractors built them without developing a female
Buddensi[e]ck,30 and female plumbers repaired pipes and presented only moderate
bills. . . .
Certain great advantages had undoubtedly flowed from the new order of things.
Women thrown wholly on their own resources had grown self-reliant, their
imposed out-door lives had developed them physically. A complete revolution in
dress had taken place; compressed waists had totally disappeared, and loose gar-
ments were invariably worn. For out-door labors blouse waists, short skirts and
declaring sentiments 99

long boots were in fashion; for home life graceful and flowing ones of Grecian
design were worn. Common-sense shoes were universal. The schools under the
care of feminine Boards of Education were brought to great perfection; the build-
ings, large and well-ventilated, offered ample accommodation, as over-crowding
was not permitted. Individual character was carefully studied and each child was
trained to develop a special gift. Ethical instruction was daily given and children
were rewarded for good conduct even more than for proficiency in study.
Music was carefully taught, and, undismayed by men, women wrote operas and
oratorios. Free lectures were given on all branches of knowledge by scientific
women who were supported by the State, and debating societies met nightly for the
discussion of questions of public policy.
Still, despite all this the women, as we have seen, sent many a thought across the
rocky barrier that separated them from the East, and under the leadership of Rose
some of the younger ones had formed a league having for its object the opening of
communication with husbands and brothers in the masculine Republic.
Thus matters stood when on a soft June morning word came to the Capital from
the sentinels on the watch-towers of the mountains, that a great horde of men was
advancing up the South Pass. Now across this road, the most convenient to the
other world, there had been built a wall, in the center of which was a massive gate
of silver, and at this point the masculine army had halted. The news of the arrival
of the men occasioned great commotion, and a joyful host of women started forth
to meet them, so that when Volumnia and the other dignitaries of the State reached
the Pass, the heights above were filled with a great throng of women who, recog-
nizing in the crowd below sons and brothers, husbands and fathers, were waving
joyous greetings, which were answered by the men with every demonstration of
delight. . . .
If the women would only return to their homes the men promised that all
wage-workers should have equal pay for equal work; that women should be equally
eligible with men to all official positions; that the fortifications should be turned
into schoolhouses; that the control of the sale of liquors should be in the hands of
women, and that universal suffrage, without regard to sex, should be everywhere
established.
When the women heard these words they raised a chorus that was caught up
and re-echoed by the crowd outside. . . .
After this there followed a mighty movement, in prairie and forest, by lakeside
and river. Over all the land, homes were rebuilt, and society reconstructed. The
divided States, now reunited formed a Republic where all the people were in reality
free.

Source: Lillie Devereux Blake, “A Divided Republic: An Allegory of the Future,” in A

Daring Experiment and Other Stories (New York: Lovell, Coryell, 1892), 346–360.
 R
“ANOTHER CHAPTER OF
‘THE BOSTONIANS’” (1887)
h e n r i e t ta ja m e s
[celia b. whitehead] (1844–1932?)

Christian and feminist, Whitehead was an active, sometimes radical reformer.

In addition to participating in New Jersey’s suffrage agitation and championing
dress reform, she contributed regularly to Lucifer the Light Bearer, a free love
periodical that openly discussed sexuality, reproduction, and contraception,
thereby flouting the Comstock Laws. In this excerpt from a twenty-seven-page
pamphlet, Whitehead responds to Henry James’s unsatisfactory portrayal of
women’s rights activists in his 1886 novel The Bostonians. James’s novel ends
when a talented suffrage orator is forced by her conservative suitor to give up her
career to marry him. Parodying James’s style—often quoting from his novel
verbatim—Whitehead supplies an additional chapter in which Verena, after she
and her child are abandoned by her husband Ransom, reunites with her activist
mentor Olive.

introduction
Inasmuch as Mr. James left the hero and heroines of his remarkable story at the
most interesting period of their existence it seemed good to me to take them up
and write “Another Chapter,” which I commend even at this late day to the
thoughtful perusal of all who read the earlier chapters of “The Bostonians.”
Henrietta James.

Another Chapter of “The Bostonians”

“I am going to be hissed, hooted and insulted,” were the last words Olive Chancellor
said before she ascended the platform and faced the Boston audience which had
gathered to listen to Verena Tarrant. She began by telling the people who still filled
the hall the circumstances that had deprived them of their anticipated pleasure.

100
declaring sentiments 101

She kept nothing back. The fact that Basil Ransom had persuaded Verena to the dis-
honorable act of breaking her engagement, and at the last moment “by muscular
force wrenched her away,” was dwelt on as a new proof of man’s selfishness, and
strong emphasis was laid on his desire that the woman he professed to love should
violate her obligations to others. Olive begged them to remember Antony and
Cleopatra, and reflect that women are not the only ones who “succumb to the uni-
versal passion” and sacrifice honor and duty—that if it should be said of woman
that “a man had only to whistle for her and she was delighted to come and kneel at
his feet,” all history shows that man can claim no pre-eminence as being superior in
this respect. Then she went on, with a growing fervor, a new sense of power and
responsibility, and a passionate enthusiasm, to tell them what Verena Tarrant
would have told them. Her father had remarked, as she was being coaxed and car-
ried off by Basil Ransom, that “she had prepared a lovely address,” and Olive knew
every word and intonation of it by heart; but not until Mrs. Farrinder had flung at
her, in passing out of the hall, “Well, Miss Chancellor, if this is the way you are going
to reinstate our sex!” had she ever dreamed she could stand there before that audi-
ence and deliver that address. She could and she did. The theme absorbed her and
she spoke with an earnestness and pathos never felt by Verena Tarrant.
The audience sat spellbound. When, at the close, Mr. Filer came on to the plat-
form, from which all the occupants had fled before the gathering tempest of the
wrathful crowd, and told the people that all who felt that they had been defrauded
could have their money back, there was a momentary silence as of surprise. Then
somebody called for Miss Chancellor, and when she appeared there was long and
loud applause, as if to make up for the neglect, or, rather, the too close attention,
while she was speaking.
In the silence of her chamber that night Olive looked back over the past and saw
that in trying to prepare Verena for this work she had been preparing herself.
Perhaps it could not have been done in any other way. From that night she was a
changed woman. If before she had been consecrated to the enfranchisement of
woman, how much more now. The memory of the friend who had been so much to
her and was now gone out of her life filled her with a pitying sweetness before
unknown. Now there was no more hesitation, no more pushing and urging others
forward. She went forward herself, and those who had known her before marveled
at the change, and all who listened to her thrilled with the words she spoke. No woman
who heard her ever felt sure again that in “giving herself to a man”—in the classic and
expressive phraseology of the celebrated novelist James—she was performing her
highest duty. No man listening to her was ever quite at ease again with the old doctrine
of the whole world for man’s sphere and so much of it for woman’s as he thinks best.
And where was Verena? She was in tears when last we saw her, and when Basil
Ransom discovered this he said: “Damnation! Verena; what are you crying about?
Are you sorry you did not give yourself to that rabble?” With her usual generosity,
when she saw her tears annoyed him she drove them back to her heart.
They went to New York and found a “duly authorized clergyman” and gave
him five dollars to make them “man and wife.” There are always individuals of this
102 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

vocation conveniently at hand to perform these little services without any question
as to their effect on the future of the parties themselves or their posterity. And so
Verena Tarrant became the sharer of Basil Ransom’s bed and board.
As we have seen in several instances through “The Bostonians,” Verena knew
that Basil would occasionally swear at her, and as we have been told that “she knew
him thoroughly and adored him,” she was not surprised at profane language, nor
that he spent money very freely for cigars without any clear idea of where their
bread was to come from. But it did surprise and grieve her that somehow there
seemed in him a feeling of disappointment. She had ceased to defend her “cause,”
yielded to his arguments, left her work for him; he had taken legal possession of
her—what more was to be said or done? There was a lull, a blank, a dreadful noth-
ingness that was oppressive to both. They had no mutual acquaintances, their liter-
ary tastes were as divergent as can well be imagined. So the days were very dull for
Verena. She could not say now as once before: “You always want me to come out,”
for now he seemed very willing to have her stay in. And so it came to pass that with
a dull present and no definite future, our bright little girl began living on the past.
She could remember almost word for word the talks she and Basil had gone
through. She remembered she had asked him once, after he had persuaded her to
marry him and give up public speaking: “Well, if it’s all a mere delusion, why should
this facility have been given me—why should I have been saddled with a superflu-
ous talent? I don’t care much about it—I don’t mind telling you that; but I confess
I should like to know what is to become of all that part of me, if I retire into private
life and live, as you say, simply to be charming for you. I shall be like a singer with
a beautiful voice (you have told me yourself my voice is beautiful,) who has
accepted some decree of never raising a note. Isn’t that a great waste, a great viola-
tion of nature? Were not our talents given us to use, and have we any right to
smother them and deprive our fellow creatures of such pleasure as they may con-
fer? I don’t see what provision is made for my poor, dear little disfranchised elo-
quence. It is all very well to be charming to you, but there are people who have told
me that once I get on a platform, I am charming to all the world. There is no harm
in my speaking of that, because you have told me so yourself. Perhaps you intend to
have a platform erected in our front parlor, where I can address you every evening,
and put you to sleep after your work. I say our front parlor, as if it were certain we
should have two! It doesn’t look now as if our means would permit that—and we
must have some place to dine, if there is to be a platform in our sitting room.”
And Basil had replied: “My dear young woman, it will be easy to solve the diffi-
culty: the dining table itself shall be our platform and you shall mount on top of
that. Charming to me, charming to all the world? What will become of your
charm?—is that what you want to know? It will be about five thousand times
greater than it is now; that’s what will become of it. We shall find plenty of room for
your facility; it will lubricate our whole existence.”
When she thought over these things and reflected that she had not even a dining
table to “mount” and that she was not as “charming” as she had been led to believe
she would be, she could not help wondering more and more why it was that he had
declaring sentiments 103

told her that he “wanted her to give up all her work, her faith, her future, every-
thing, never to give another address, never to open her lips in public.” . . .
Sometimes Ransom wished that Verena would take up the old argument,
hoping it would call back the old charm; but if she ever did so, even remotely, he
grew impatient and “wanted to know if that business hadn’t all been settled.”
At such times it is quite possible Verena thought of what he had told her the night
he carried her away from the Music Hall audience—“Keep your soothing words for
me—you will have need of them all in our coming time,” and if she added, “All, and
more too,” is it strange?
It cannot be supposed than an impecunious young man who would spend his
time “smoking innumerable cigars, and lounging,” while trying to win for his wife
a girl who could earn a good living if left to herself, would make a very bountiful
provider. They were even poorer than he had told Verena they should be. One day
he became aware of a fact which made him feel, more than ever, that the acceptance
and commendation of a magazine article was insufficient basis for assuming the
responsibility of supporting a family. The twenty-five dollars he received quarterly
for rehashing and refining stale barbarisms to prove that the mission of woman was
to save and bless some man who fancied he would like to own her, and the small
sums he had picked up at his “office” had not kept them luxuriously. Revolving
these matters in his mind he thought of the life of luxury and ease he might have
lived with Mrs. Luna. He reflected also that with Mrs. Luna he should not be under
the necessity of being “tremendously nice,” inasmuch as she would not have been
persuaded away from any “work,” seduced from any “cause,” nor promised exercise
for a “gift of charming.” Then he thought of “Newton’s education” and wondered if
Mrs. Luna had gone to Europe. He remembered sundry phrases of hers, such as
“common people,” “preposterous doctrines,” “ranting, attitudinizing actress,”
“disgusting infatuation,”“such frantic drivel as Miss Tarrant’s,” with so little resent-
ment and so little shame for the absence of it, that he was ashamed of not being
ashamed.
Nevertheless he called on Mrs. Luna, found she had not gone to Europe and was
still solicitous about Newton’s education. Mrs. Luna seemed to have had an inspi-
ration; for once in her life she held her tongue. She did not make him a scene; there
had been no question of an explanation; she received him as if he had been there
the day before, with the addition of a spice of mysterious melancholy. She made no
inquiry about his affairs, did not mention Verena, never asked if he had been busy
and prosperous; and this reticence struck him as unexpectedly delicate and dis-
creet. There was a simplicity in him which permitted him to wonder whether she
had not improved.
Ransom had not a high standard of comfort, and noticed little, usually, how
people’s houses were furnished—it was only when they were very pretty that he
observed. Here the lamplight was soft, the fire crackled pleasantly, everything
betrayed a woman’s taste and touch. Mrs. Luna had taken up her bit of crochet;—
he remembered vaguely that he had never seen Verena with this pretty toy in her
hands—she was sitting opposite to him on the other side of the fire. Her white
104 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

hands moved with little jerks as she took her stitches, and her rings flashed and
twinkled in the light of the hearth. Her head fell a little to one side, exhibiting the
plumpness of her chin and neck, and her dropped eyes (it gave her a little modest
air) rested quietly on her work. A silence of a few moments had fallen upon their
talk. Adeline, decidedly, had improved, and the place, curtained and cushioned in
perfection, delightfully private and personal, was the picture of a well-appointed
home that appealed irresistibly to his starved senses; and he felt again that Adeline
had improved. Then he gave himself a little imperceptible shake and renewed his
inquiries about her son’s education, and before leaving Mr. Basil Ransom had
undertaken the education of Mrs. Adeline Luna’s son for a salary large enough to
support him and Verena in more comfort than they had before experienced.
Verena, true to her innocent, frank, generous nature, blessed Mrs. Luna as a
fairy god mother; but Basil Ransom said nothing. Newton had grown into a more
tractable youth than would have been anticipated, and really showed signs of devel-
oping some intellectual power, which, as he was a boy, and therefore to become a
man, was very pleasing to his fond mother, whose gratitude there for sometimes
caused an overflow of the preceptor’s stipulated salary.
And Mrs. Luna, after the lessons were done, often sat opposite to him with her
bit of crochet, and the fire crackled pleasantly, and the lamplight was soft. . . .
But why should we repaint and linger over these delightful pictures? We know
Basil Ransom’s idea of women; we know he did not pretend not to be selfish, we
know that when he had convinced Verena that she was made for him that fact (?) lost
its interest; we know that loving and generous as Verena was in the duller life that
followed her marriage she could not forget all her previous life, could not fail to see
that her charm for Basil Ransom had been her ability to show the wrong and falsity
of woman’s position, and that debarred from doing this she was simply common-
place; we know she could not help wondering why he had made so hard the condi-
tion of her acceptance of him, why he could not have loved and married her as she
was without wishing her fixed over to fit his pattern for womanhood; we know that
under these circumstances and the total lack of intellectual sympathy between these
two they must inevitably live their real lives apart and that their union was a sham.
Knowing these things we ought not to be surprised and shocked to know that Basil
Ransom said some of them in a note he left for Verena, telling her that he had gone
to Europe with Mrs. Luna to complete Newton’s education, and that she would now
be free to exercise her “gift for public speaking,” which he had been mistaken in sup-
posing not a part of her “essence,” and that he was convinced that his theory that he
“knew much more about her natural bent than she herself knew” was incorrect.
Verena read the note, looked over at her little girl baby and saw no more for
many days. Then she came back to her sorrowful self. It could not be said now that
“it was absolutely not in her power to look haggard.” Was this the end of her life
with Basil Ransom? What had it been that she should regret its close? She remem-
bered the hopes he had raised in her of what she might do for him; she knew again,
how beautiful her scheme had been, but how it had all rested on an illusion, the
very thought of which made her feel sick and faint. . . .
declaring sentiments 105

Did Verena reflect that as soon as he really “got hold” of her she had ceased to
“please him very much”? And as she thought of Olive did she feel that the world
was all a great trap or trick of which women were ever the punctual dupes, so that
it was the worst of the curse that rested upon them, that they must most humiliate
those who had most their cause at heart? Did she say to herself, that their weakness
was not only lamentable, but hideous—hideous their predestined subjection to
man’s larger and grosser insistence? Did she ask herself if women must forever be
the sport of men’s selfishness and avidity? Did she ask why she had consented to
be bound to please one individual and failed even to please him thus, when, free,
she could be “charming to all the world”?
These are mysteries into which I shall not attempt to enter, speculations with
which I have no concern; it is sufficient for us to know that all human effort never
seemed to her so barren and thankless. The sense of regret for her baffled hopes
burned within her like a fire and the joy of the vision over which the curtain of
mourning now was dropped, brought to her eyes slow, still tears—tears that came
one by one, neither easing her nerves nor lightening her load of pain. And all the
time she thought of her and felt that even thus Olive had suffered for the blighting
of her hopes.
No message had passed between them since the night Ransom had carried her
away from the waiting audience in Music Hall; but she had read of Olive’s success
in the work planned for her, and had seen that Ransom was angry because she had
rejoiced in it.
And now she longed again to see the friend of the old days, and she wondered
how Olive could so know and feel the real sorrows of woman without personal
experience of them. A proud woman would have died sooner than go back to one
she had so hurt; but we know Verena was not proud, and that she knew the
supreme compassion that had always dwelt in Olive’s heart for the suffering sister-
hood. So she felt that Olive would receive and love her still, and now she would
name the baby “Olive” as she had once asked its father’s permission to do. Nothing
could have been more tender, more exquisite than the way she put this appeal, but
it was answered with “Balderdash!”
She went back, and found Olive with a desire to take her friend in her arms again
on any terms—and the baby too. Since Olive had taken up active work and had
given public voice to the fierce sense of wrong and bitterness and humiliation that
had been “like fire shut up in her bones” her compassion had sweetened and mel-
lowed into an exquisite tenderness. Verena felt this with the first touch of her hand,
the first kiss of her lips. She felt that all the old intensity and constraint were gone
and a sense of freedom, security, and repose, that she had felt the want of ever since
the fateful night at Miss Birdseye’s when she first met Olive Chancellor and Basil
Ransom, came to her.
But the weary months in which she had been learning how selfish a man could
be, and the final act in the Ransom tragedy had told even on this sunny, elastic-
spirited girl; and now that the strain was over and she felt herself again in loving
arms, she gave way utterly to her prostration and lay for days silent and still,
106 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

seeming to care for nothing. She appeared not even to wish to hear the sound of her
own voice. Her silence itself was an appeal—an appeal to Olive to ask no questions;
only to wait till she could lift up her head again.
Many weeks went by before she could tell Olive of her life with Ransom. Then
he was again the chief topic, as in the old days, till all the pitiful story was told. They
both agreed that Basil Ransom was better than some men, inasmuch as some men,
a good many men, would not have gone away and left Verena but would have staid
with her and made her miserable all her life. Of course she would be miserable all
her life, she was sure, but not with the same terrible misery as if he had stayed with
her; nobody had ever been unkind to her before; and she shuddered as she said over
the words of Basil Ransom that before she had married him seemed to make him
all the more adorable—“She’s mine or she isn’t, and if she’s mine, she’s all mine.”
Why had he insisted on her giving up all her work? Without that she was nothing.
And so she mourned and questioned, and Olive would say: “My poor dove; do you
remember I told you that tenderness would be incapable of requiring the sacrifice
he was not ashamed to ask?” And had he not showed himself utterly destitute of
honor or any thought for anybody’s comfort but his own when he told Verena “He
didn’t care for her engagements, her campaign or all the expectancy of her friends;
to smash all that at a stroke was the dearest wish of his heart. It would represent to
him his own success. It would symbolize his victory.” And Verena would sigh and
say sadly: “Yes, ‘victory,’ that was all he ever cared for.” . . .
The days and weeks and months went by, and Olive thought she saw in Verena
that which would sooner or later take her back to her old work; but she said noth-
ing, for she had determined with herself that Verena should be free—that no sort of
pressure should be put upon her. The shine in her eyes told volumes, when one
night as she was to address a meeting, Verena expressed a desire to go with her; and
Verena reading aright put her arms around her friend’s neck and cried softly and
told her she had “been so kind and patient to wait so long.”
Olive’s time had come. All this time she had kept the notes of the first address
she had heard from Verena and tonight she spoke them to her audience with as lit-
tle variation as circumstances allowed; watching Verena’s face all the time. How it
kindled and glowed and shaded and saddened by turns; how it paled and sickened.
Sometimes Olive feared for her friend, so passionate and intense, so unlike her for-
mer self did her face become, as she listened to Olive, all the time with a look as of
one who sees in reality something dreamed of before. And this was what she heard
at the last: “When I see the dreadful misery of mankind, and think of the suffering
of which at any hour, at any moment, the world is full, I say that if this is the best
they can do by themselves, they had better let us come in a little and see what we
can do. We could not possibly make it worse, could we? If we had done only this, we
should not boast of it. Poverty and ignorance and crime, disease and wickedness
and wars! Wars, always more wars and always more and more. Blood, blood—the
world is drenched with blood! To kill each other, with all sorts of expensive
and perfected instruments, that is the most brilliant thing they have been able
to invent. It seems to me that we might stop it, we might invent something better.
declaring sentiments 107

The cruelty—the cruelty; there is so much, so much! Why shouldn’t tenderness

come in? Why should our woman’s hearts be so full of it, and all so wasted and
withered,”—as Olive said this the great heartbreaking wave of sorrow that broke in
a sob over Verena’s face almost unnerved her. But she steadied herself and kept
on—“while armies and prisons and helpless miseries grow greater all the while?
There are some things I feel though I do not know them—it seems to me as if I had
been born to feel them; they are in my ears in the stillness of the night and before
my face in the visions of the darkness. It is what the great sisterhood of women
might do if they should all join hands and lift up their voices above the brutal
uproar of the world, in which it is so hard for the plea of mercy or of justice, the
moan of weakness and suffering to be heard. We should quench it, we should make
it still, and the sound of our lips would become the voice of universal peace! For
this we must trust one another, we must be true and gentle and kind. We must
remember that the world is ours, too, ours—little as we have ever had to say about
anything!—and that the question is not yet definitely settled whether it shall be a
place of injustice or a place of love!”
Olive saw as the sound of her voice died away at the close, that all she had hoped
had come to pass. The girl had been touched again with the spirit of their most
confident hours, had flamed upward with the faith that no narrow personal joy
could compare in sweetness with the idea of doing something for those who had
always suffered and who waited still. “I knew it, my darling,” was the answer she
made to Verena’s announcement that as soon as an engagement could be made for
her she was ready to take up her old work. . . .

Source: Henrietta James [Celia B. Whitehead], “Another Chapter of ‘The Bostonians’”

(Bloomfield, N.J.: S. Morris Hulin, 1887).
 R
WYNEMA: A CHILD OF
THE FOREST (1891)
sophia alice callahan (1868–1894)

Born to a white mother and part-Muscogee father, Callahan enjoyed the

privileges of her family’s wealth and prominence within their Native American
community, including an excellent education. Her father was active in politics,
serving in several tribal roles and acting as the representative of the Muscogee
and Seminole peoples in the Confederate Congress. In 1891, Callahan published
her only book, Wynema—the first known novel written by a Native American
woman.31 In this excerpt, non-Native American Genevieve Weir returns home to
her brother Robin and sisters Bessie (“Toots”) and Winnie from her teaching
post in Indian Territory, bringing her prized student Wynema with her. Like her
teacher, Wynema is a passionate advocate of political rights for women as well as
for Native Americans, but the narrative insists that white women will have to
“lead the way” to political equality for women. Weir’s brother Robin takes a
romantic interest in the assimilated Wynema and eventually marries her.

Chapter 11: In the Old Home

“Oh, how nice it is to be home again!” cried Genevieve, looking into every remem-
bered nook and cranny about the place.“Nothing changed, but everything seems to
nod a familiar ‘How d’ye do.’ I declare, I don’t feel a day older than when I ran up
the attic stairs and crawled out of the window into the old elm tree, where Robin
and I had our ‘Robinson Crusoe’s house,’ and I was the ‘man Friday.’ Do you
remember the day you fell out, Robin, when the bear got after you and you climbed
out on the bough, when it broke? It would seem as yesterday if Robin were not such
a tall, broad-shouldered fellow, really towering over us all; and I, a cross-grained,
wrinkled spinster; and Toots putting on young lady’s airs—I suppose we shall have
to call her Bessie, now; and even Winnie, our dear, little baby, is laying aside her
dolls and—I do really believe it, Miss—is smiling at Charley or Willie or Ted. Ah,

108
declaring sentiments 109

no wonder the little Mith feels so ancient when she views such a group of grown
folks and realizes they are her children. But let’s hear a report of yourselves, and I’ll
satisfy the baby’s curiosity to see my Indian relics,”—and a laughing, happy group,
they recount experiences, compare notes and enjoy themselves generally.
Back at the old home, Genevieve is the light-hearted girl of long ago, to be teased
and petted, and to tease and pet in return. And in all this merriment and happiness
is our little Indian friend [Wynema] forgotten or pushed aside because of her dark
skin and savage manners? Ah, no; she is the friend of their dear one, and for that
reason, at first, she was warmly welcomed and graciously entertained, and after-
ward she was loved for her own good qualities. Many were the rambles and rides,
the drives and picnics these young people enjoyed. Generally Robin, Bessie and
Wynema formed these excursion parties, for Genevieve preferred remaining at
home or had a “previous engagement.”
After “the visitor,”—as Winnie still called Wynema much to her discomfiture
and amusement—had been with them for some weeks, she and Robin, with
Winnie for propriety, for Bessie was detained at home, were out rowing on the bay,
when Robin glancing up at his companion, asked: “Doesn’t the rippling of the
waves make your head swim? make you ‘drunk’ as Winnie says?”
“No, I am accustomed to being on the water; I often row alone. I don’t ever
remember of feeling ‘drunk.’ What kind of a feeling is it?” she smiled inquiringly.
“Oh, I can’t tell exactly—only you feel as if the ground were slipping from under
you, and the world and everything therein, spinning like a top for your amusement.
It isn’t a pleasant feeling, I assure you,” and he put his hand to his head as if he were
then experiencing the feeling.
“No, I presume not, from your description. But where and how did you gain so
much information about it? Personal experience?” [she asked] mischievously.
“No,” Winnie spoke up in defense of her favorite, “Robin never was drunk. But
Mr. Snifer, oh, he gets just awful drunk, and he just falls down, and fights his wife,
and I’m awful afraid of him,” clasping her hands earnestly.
“Thank you, Pet, for defending my character,” said her brother lovingly. . . .
“I am sure of one thing,” said Wynema, taking the child’s hand; “that is, though
this little maid may not be perfectly correct in the use of words, she will never be
deficient in the depth of her affection. Dear, I am sorry your neighbor is such a
beastly man; but that reminds me of some of my people when they become
intoxicated—‘get drunk,’ as you term it—only my people act much worse. They
ride through the streets, firing pistols and whooping loudly, and often kill many
people. ‘Firewater’ is an awful thing among your people who are more civilized
than we are, and you can imagine what a terrible influence it exerts among my
people.” The child shuddered and shut her eyes. . . .
“Well, but Wynema, I thought it was against the law of the United States to carry
whisky or any intoxicant into your country,” Robin said surprisedly.
“So it is against the treaty made by the U.S. government with the Indians; but,
notwithstanding all this, the whisky is brought into our country and sold to our
people.”
110 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

“Are not the smugglers ever apprehended and punished?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, often; but that does not materially affect the unholy and unlawful
practice. Only last Christmas, as your sister can tell you better than I, drunken
Indians and white men were to be seen on the streets of all our towns. Oh, it is
terrible,” [she said,] shuddering. “The only way I can see of exterminating the evil
is to pull it up by the roots; stop the manufacture and of necessity the sale of it will
be stopped.”
“I believe you would make a staunch Woman’s Christian Temperance Unionist,
for that is their argument,” he replied admiringly.
“Indeed, I am a member of that union. We have a small union in our town and
do all we can against the great evil intemperance; but what can a little band of
women, prohibited from voting against the ruin of their husbands, sons and
firesides, do, when even the great government of Uncle Sam is set at defiance?”
Wynema waxed eloquent in defense of her “hobby.”
“I am afraid you are a regular suffragist!” Robin said, shrugging his shoulders.
“So I am,” [she replied] emphatically; “but it does me very little good, only for
the principle’s sake. Still, I believe that, one day, the ‘inferior of man,’ the ‘weaker
vessel’ shall stand grandly by the side of that ‘noble lord of creation,’ his equal in
every respect.”
“Hear! Hear! How much the ‘cause’ loses by not having you to publicly advocate
it! Say, didn’t Sister teach you all this along with the rest? I think you must
have imbibed those strong suffrage principles and ideas from her,” said Robin,
teasingly.
[Wynema] went on earnestly, ignoring his jesting manner: “Your sister and I hold
many opinions in common, and doubtless, I have imbibed some of hers, as I have
the greatest respect for her opinions: but the idea of freedom and liberty was born
in me. It is true the women of my country have no voice in the councils; we do not
speak in any public gathering, nor even in our churches; but we are waiting for our
more civilized white sisters to gain their liberty, and thus set us an example which
we shall not be slow to follow.” She finished, her cheeks flushed and her eyes
sparkling with earnestness and animation. Robin looked at her with admiration
shining in his dark blue eyes.
“I am sure of that, if you are a fair representative of your people,” he said. “But I
will not jest the matter any longer, for I am as truly interested in it as you are. I think
it will only be a matter of time, and a short time, too, when the question as to
whether our women may participate in our liberties, help choose our officers, even
our presidents, will be settled in their favor—at least, I hope so. There is no man
who is enterprising and keeps well up with the times but confesses that the women
of today are in every respect, except political liberty, equal to the men. It could not
be successfully denied, for college statistics prove it by showing the number of
women who have borne off the honors, even when public sentiment was against
them and in favor of their brother-competitors. And not alone in an intellectual
sense are you women our equals, but you have the energy and ambition, and far
more morality than we can claim. Then you know so well how to put your learning
declaring sentiments 111

in practice. See the college graduates who make successful farmers, vintners, etc.
Indeed, you women can do anything you wish,” he said, in a burst of admiration.
“Except to vote,” she replied quietly.
“And you would do that if I had my way,” Robin said warmly.
“It seems to me somebody else would make a splendid lecturer on Woman’s
Rights. You had better enlist,” [she said] tauntingly.
“By taking one of the women? I should like to,” and he looked into her eyes his
deep meaning.

Source: From Sophia Alice Callahan, Wynema: A Child of the Forest (1891; Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press, 1997).
 PA RT I I


Searching for
Sisterhood: Two
Case Studies of
Transnational
Feminism, 1907–1914
 R
introduction

The U.S. suffrage movement has been transnational from the beginning. Until
recently, however, its history has been represented as a “profoundly, even founda-
tionally, national story.”1 By focusing on the progress of either the federal campaign
for a constitutional amendment or the state referendum campaigns, some scholars
have lost sight of the complex interactions between the many campaigns taking
place around the world at the same time. Recent studies have begun to document
how suffragists in the United States both inspired and were inspired by interna-
tional campaigns.2 Several of the earliest women’s rights speakers, for example,
came from Europe: Frances Wright, the first woman to lecture in the United States
on the theme of women’s equality, was born in Scotland, and Ernestine Rose, a
popular orator in the 1830s, was born in Poland, to cite just two examples. In the
1890s, U.S. suffragists watched with intense interest as New Zealand and several
Australian states approved suffrage for women. They were even more interested in
the campaign of Britain, which was geographically and culturally closer. As British
suffragist leader Sylvia Pankhurst noted in 1911, “[a]ll over America the Suffragists
declare that they have gained hope and inspiration from our own great British
movement. . . . Our movements act and react on each other.”3 At the same time,
U.S. suffragists struggled to overcome the underlying racism of a predominantly
white, middle-class movement; only if they achieved an unbiased attitude could
they productively collaborate with nonwhite suffragists in Asia and other parts of
the world through organizations such as the International Woman Suffrage
Alliance founded in 1902 by U.S. suffrage leader Carrie Chapman Catt.
This section considers two very different transnational contexts in order to
showcase U.S. suffragists’ complex reactions to progress made in the international
suffrage movement. The first case study samples texts that document or promote
Americans’ positive engagement with the modern militant suffrage campaign in
Britain; the second case study features texts and images that expose Americans’
more ambivalent stance regarding the less well-known modern Chinese suffrage
campaign. These complementary examples gesture toward the ways in which U.S.
114
searching for sisterhood 115

suffragists alternately learned from and rejected lessons provided by the examples
of suffrage movements in other parts of the globe.

The British Example

Writing in 1913, U.S. suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt identified England as the
“storm center” of the international suffrage movement, the site of a campaign that
inspired suffragists from around the world.4 The relationship between U.S. and
British woman’s rights activists was initiated at the 1840 World Anti-Slavery
Convention in London, where women delegates elected by their national abolition
organizations were not seated or permitted to address the assembly. U.S. reformers
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, with British reformer Anne Knight,
were outraged by the sexism of the event. Stanton and Mott resolved to hold a
woman’s rights convention as soon as they returned to the United States. This
resolution led to the 1848 meeting at Seneca Falls at which “The Declaration of
Sentiments” (See page 20) was introduced. Friendships between U.S. and British
women’s rights activists, continuing throughout the century, prompted discussions
in the 1880s about the possibility of organizing an international woman suffrage
movement.
The years between the 1880s and the outbreak of World War One—a period
characterized by lively correspondence, ideational exchange, and transatlantic
lecture tours—produced intense, fertile connections between U.S. and British
suffrage movements. Many U.S. women heard lectures by visiting British suffra-
gists, including Ethel Snowden, Sylvia Pankhurst, and Emmeline Pankhurst, or read
about them in the press. Other U.S. women visited or were living in Britain just
when woman suffrage became revitalized by the spectacular and militant activism
of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). Americans Harriet Stanton
Blatch (Stanton’s daughter), Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, and Inez Milholland all joined
British suffrage organizations while living in England. Through their British expe-
riences marching in parades, lecturing, and even hunger-striking, a new generation
of U.S. leaders apprenticed in British methods of suffrage campaigning. Blatch,
after twenty years of working with Britain’s Women’s Franchise League, returned to
the United States in 1902 to found the Equality League of Self-supporting Women
(later called the Women’s Political Union), a suffragist organization that recruited
New York women of both working and professional classes while also courting the
support of society women such as millionaire Alva Belmont. The Women’s Political
Union was instrumental in introducing British-style spectacle—for example,
parades, open-air meetings, advocacy papers, and broadsides—to the U.S. cam-
paign. A few years later, Paul and Burns returned to the United States after working
for the WSPU; they were determined to shift the U.S. campaign away from its focus
on state referenda, which were expensive and largely unsuccessful, toward the
revival of Susan B. Anthony’s dream of enfranchising all U.S. women at one time
through a constitutional amendment. Paul convinced the National American
Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) to let the congressional committee, which
116 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

Paul chaired, organize an attention-grabbing parade in Washington, D.C., on the

eve of Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration in 1913. Later, Paul and Burns broke with
NAWSA to form a militant organization called the Congressional Union (later
National Woman’s Party), which adopted the WSPU’s strategic spectacularity as
well as its militant tactics of civil disobedience and hunger-striking.
The periodical print culture and literature produced in both Britain and the
United States during these active decades demonstrates the spirit of sisterhood
achieved between the two movements: British suffragist journals like The
Freewoman, The Vote, The Suffragette, Votes for Women, and Common Cause
frequently featured news of the U.S. campaign and were read eagerly by U.S.
subscribers; similarly, modern U.S. suffrage journals like The American Suffragette,
The Woman Voter, and The Suffragist regularly reported on the achievements of
the British campaign in order to inspire the U.S. campaign’s progress. Drama was
an accessible and entertaining form of propaganda deployed in both campaigns.
Plays that documented English campaign tactics, such as U.S. actress-playwright
Elizabeth Robins’s Votes for Women and Cicely Hamilton and Christopher St. John’s
How the Vote Was Won, were frequently performed in the United States as a way of
educating U.S. activists about open-air rallies and other British methods of culti-
vating interest in suffrage. American novels, such as Gertrude Atherton’s Julia
France and Her Times, documented the participation of U.S. suffragists in the
militant British campaign. Marching songs like “The March of Women,” sung by
both British and U.S. activists, identified international suffragists as “comrades” in
their shared effort to enfranchise women around the globe. And autobiographical
works about Americans’ hawking Votes for Women on London streets or volunteering
to be force-fed in solidarity with British hunger-strikers fostered empathy between
U.S. suffragists and their British “sisters.”

The Chinese Example

American interactions with the Chinese movement and with diasporic Chinese
living in the United States were more complex. Like the much-studied unrealized
“sisterhood” between white women’s rights activists and African American women,
the relationship between white U.S. suffragists and Chinese women was deeply
ambivalent—at once identifying on the basis of gender and evincing hierarchy on
the basis of race. Beginning in the 1830s, an era in which there were no actual
Chinese women in the United States, U.S. woman’s rights activists exploited affini-
ties between the symbolic Chinese woman—domestically confined, sexually
exploited, and patriarchally oppressed—and the American woman restricted by
the ideology of separate spheres. For nineteenth-century U.S. woman’s rights
advocates, the bound feet of the Chinese woman symbolized all women’s
constrained mobility—both physical and social—under patriarchy.5 This symbolic
affinity between Chinese and U.S. women culminated in the early twentieth
century when suffragists compared antisuffragism to Chinese men’s enforcement
of foot-binding: “You men are fixing an artificial limit to the life and development
searching for sisterhood 117

of American women. In China, they are doing the same,” one suffragist wrote.6
Inspired by U.S. imperialist rhetoric, some Progressive Era U.S. suffragists used
bound feet as a metonym for both China—its status as a weak, cloistered nation
protected by a virile, masculine America—and its “unprogressive” women. The
symbolic subservient and immobilized Chinese woman served less as an allegory of
oppressed femininity worldwide than as a measure of the achievements of U.S.
feminism when competitively compared with the stalled progress of other national
women’s movements.
By the late 1890s, however, the symbolic constructs created by U.S. suffragists
began to be complicated by Chinese reformers’ to moves both outlaw foot-binding
and to establish enhanced educational and employment opportunities and the
franchise for women. A decade later, hundreds of Chinese women asserted their
claim to citizenship by participating in the Chinese Revolution as bomb carriers,
assassins, spies, and lobbyists; others worked as teachers, doctors, publishers, and
journalists while volunteering for Chinese suffrage organizations. In 1912, China’s
Woman Suffrage Alliance petitioned the provisional parliament in Nanking for
woman suffrage and, when they were not taken seriously, smashed parliament
building windows in imitation of their militant British sisters in the WSPU.7
Chinese women living in the United States followed the feminist aspects of China’s
reform movement closely by reading Chinese feminist magazines such as China’s New
Woman’s World as well as the women’s coverage in Chinese-language U.S. news-
papers.8 They also attended lectures by visiting female revolutionaries who called for
“their countrymen to win the ballot in China by the sword, to overthrow the Manchu
dynasty and [to] install a republican form of government in its place.”9 The anony-
mous feminist poetry featured in this section was probably written by such women.
Ironically, U.S. suffragists paid more attention to foot-bound women in
a far-away land—and therefore convenient fodder for symbolic overlay—than to
diasporic Chinese suffrage supporters living in the United States. U.S. suffrage
leaders mostly ignored immigrant Chinese women as potential supporters because,
as noncitizens, they would be ineligible to vote even if U.S. women were enfran-
chised. However, U.S. suffragists were quick to blame the defeat of the 1896
California suffrage referendum on enfranchised Chinese men. As suffrage leader
Anna Howard Shaw inaccurately claimed, “every Chinese vote was against us.”10
The 1911 California and 1910 Washington referendum campaign debates were
similarly shaped by white labor unions’ opposition to laws that increased the
availability of Chinese workers in those states.11
Unsurprisingly, when woman suffrage was temporarily granted in China’s
Guangdong province in March 1912, suffragists across the United States expressed
deep ambivalence about this development: on the one hand, they celebrated the
global advancement of the suffragist cause; on the other, they felt embarrassment
that the campaign in their model democratic nation lagged behind the campaign
in a nation that many U.S. suffragists considered backward.
The revolutionary poetry featured in Chinese-American publications and
sampled in this section showcases the strong feminist sentiments of Chinese
118 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

immigrants living in the United States during the Progressive Era. A story by
Chinese North American author Sui Sin Far (Edith Eaton) underlines the exclu-
siveness of the U.S. suffrage campaign in terms of class while also implying a deep
connection between the working-class U.S. woman and the Chinese immigrant,
both of whom were considered inferior by elite modern suffragists because they
lacked formal education. A banner carried in a New York suffrage parade and a
cartoon reprinted in a suffrage journal, both responses to the enfranchisement
of women in Guangdong Province, bespeak the ambivalence of mainstream U.S.
suffragists to the progress of the Chinese campaign.
 R
i n t e r ac t i o n s b e t w e e n u . s .
a n d b r i t i s h c a m pa i g n s
 R
FROM VOTES FOR WOMEN
(1907)
e l i z a b e t h r o b i n s ( 1862– 1952)

Popular U.S. actress, playwright, and novelist Elizabeth Robins moved to

England in 1888, where she introduced audiences to Ibsen’s “New Woman” dra-
mas. She also worked for the WSPU, organized the Actresses’ Franchise League
and Women Writers’ Suffrage League, and contributed to British suffrage publi-
cations and mainstream newspapers. Her Votes for Women was praised for
blending Victorian parlor drama and documentary theatre, particularly in the
dynamic open-air scene excerpted here, which enacts the “discourse of interrup-
tion” that literary scholar Jane Marcus says characterizes suffragist expression.12
In this excerpt, Vida Levering gives her first speech to a crowd that includes
the young heiress Jean, her aunt Lady John, and Jean’s fiancé Geoffrey Stonor,
a middle-aged senatorial candidate. Vida’s speech powerfully alludes to an
abortion she underwent when (the audience learns later) Stonor abandoned her
because his father would have disinherited him if he’d had an illegitimate child.
British activist spectacles, such as the meeting dramatized in Votes for Women as
well as dramatic pageants and parades, inspired U.S. suffragists to incorporate
more spectacle into their campaign. Votes for Women was one of the most
frequently performed suffrage dramas in the United States during the 1910s.

Act Two
Scene: The north side of the Nelson Column in Trafalgar Square [London]. The
Curtain rises on an uproar. The crowd . . . is composed chiefly of weedy youths and
wastrel old men and ‘beery’ out-o’works. Against the middle of the Column, where
it rises above the stone platform, is a great red banner . . . —“VOTES FOR
WOMEN” in immense white letters. . . . [A] working-class woman . . . is waving her
arms and talking very earnestly, her VOICE for the moment blurred in the
uproar. . . . At her side is the Chairman. . . . Behind these two, . . . , are several other
carelessly dressed women. . . .

120
searching for sisterhood 121

Working Woman: (voice raised shriller now above the tumult) I’ve got boys
o’ me own and we laugh at all sorts o’ things, but I should be ashymed and so
would they if ever they was to be’yve as you’re doin’ tod’y. (In laughter the
noise dies.) People ’ave been sayin’ this is a middle-class woman’s movement.
It’s a libel. I’m a workin’ woman myself, the wife of a working man. (Voice:
‘Pore devil!’) I’m a Poor Law Guardian and a—
Noisy Young Man: Think of that, now—gracious me! (Laughter and
interruption)
Old Newsvendor: (to the noisy young man . . .) Oh, shut up, cawn’t yer?
Noisy Young Man: Not fur you!
Voice: Go ’ome and darn yer old man’s stockens!
Voice: Just clean yer own doorstep!
Working Woman: It’s a pore sort of ’ousekeeper that leaves ’er doorstep till
Sunday afternoon. Maybe that’s when you would do your doorstep. I do mine
in the mornin’ before you men are awake.
Old Newsvendor: It’s true, wot she says!—every word.
Working Woman: You say we women have got no business servin’ on boards
and thinkin’ about politics. Wot’s politics? (A derisive roar) It’s just ’ouse-
keepin’ on a big scyle. ’Oo among you workin’ men ’as the most comfortable
’omes? Those of you that gives yer wives yer wyges. (Loud laughter and jeers)
Voices: That’s it! Wantin’ our money. Lord ’Igh ’Ousekeeper of England.
Working Woman: If it wus only to use fur our comfort, d’ye think many o’ you
workin’ men would be found turnin’ over their wyges to their wives? No! Wot’s
the reason thousands do—and the best and the soberest! Because the workin’
man knows that wot’s a pound to ’im, is twenty shillin’s to ’is wife. And she’ll
myke every penny in every one o’ them shillin’s tell. She gets more fur ’im out
of ’is wyges than wot ’e can! Some o’ you know wot the ’omes is like w’ere
the men don’t let the women manage. Well, the Poor Laws and the ’ole
Government is just in the syme muddle because the men ’ave tried to do the
national ’ousekeepin’ without the women. (Roar) But, like I told you before, it’s
a libel to say it’s only the well-off women wot’s wantin’ the vote. Wot about the
96,000 textile workers? Wot about the Yorkshire tailoresses? I can tell you wot
plenty o’ the poor women think about it. I’m one of them, and I can tell you we
see there’s reforms needed. We ought to ’ave the vote (jeers), and we know ’ow
to appreciate the other women ’oo go to prison fur tryin’ to get it fur us!

([T]he murmur in the crowd grows into distinct phrases. ‘They get their ’air cut free,’
‘Naow they don’t, that’s only us!’ ‘Silly Suffragettes!’ ‘Stop at ’ome!’ ‘“Inderin’ police-
men—mykin’ rows in the streets!’)

Voice: (louder than the others) They sees yer ain’t fit t’ave—
Other Voices: ‘Ha, ha!’ ‘Shut up!’ ‘Keep quiet, cawn’t yer!’ (General uproar)
Chairman: You evidently don’t know what had to be done by men before the
extension of the Suffrage in ’67. If it hadn’t been for demonstrations of
violence—(His voice is drowned.)
122 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

Working Woman: (coming forward again . . .) You s’y woman’s plyce is ’ome!
Don’t you know there’s a third of the women o’ this country can’t afford the
luxury of stayin’ in their ’omes? They got to go out and ’elp make money to
p’y the rent and keep the ’ome from bein’ sold up. Then there’s all the women
that ’aven’t got even miseerable ’omes. They ’aven’t got any ’omes at all.
Noisy Young Man: You said you got one. W’y don’t you stop in it?
Working Woman: Yes, that’s like a man. If one o’ you is all right, he thinks the
rest don’t matter. We women—
Noisy Young Man: The lydies! God bless ’em! (Voices drown her and the
Chairman.)
Old Newsvendor: (to Noisy Young Man) Oh, take that extra ’alf pint ’ome and
sleep it off !
Working Woman: P’r’aps your ’omes are all right. P’r’aps you aren’t livin’, old
and young, married and single, in one room. I come from a plyce where many
families ’ave to live like that if they’re to go on livin’ at all. If you don’t believe
me, come and let me show you! . . . Come with me to Canning Town! . . . No.
You won’t even think about the overworked women and the underfed children
and the ’ovels they live in. And you want that we shouldn’t think neither—
A Vagrant: We’ll do the thinkin’. You go ’ome and nuss the byby.
Working Woman: I do nurse my byby! I’ve nursed seven. What ’ave you
done for yours? P’r’aps your children never goes ’ungry, and maybe you’re
satisfied—though I must say I wouldn’t a’ thought it from the look o’ you. . . .
But we women are not satisfied. We don’t only want better things for our own
children. We want better things for all. Every child is our child. We know in
our ’earts we oughtn’t to rest till we’ve mothered ’em everyone.
Voice: ‘Women’—‘children’—wot about the men? Are they all ’appy? (Derisive
laughter and ‘No! no!,’ ‘Not precisely,’ ‘ ’Appy? Lord!’)
Working Woman: No, there’s lots o’ you men I’m sorry for (Shrill Voice:
‘Thanks awfully!’), an’ we’ll ’elp you if you let us.
Voice: ‘Elp us! You tyke the bread out of our mouths. You women are black-
leggin’ the men!
Working Woman: W’y does any woman tyke less wyges than a man for the
same work? Only because we can’t get anything better. That’s part the reason w’y
we’re yere tod’y. Do you reely think we tyke them there low wyges because we
got a lykin’ for low wyges? No. We’re just like you. We want as much as ever we
can get. (‘’Ear! ’Ear!’ and laughter) We got a gryte deal to do with our wyges,
we women has. We got the children to think about. And w’en we get our rights,
a woman’s flesh and blood won’t be so much cheaper than a man’s that employ-
ers can get rich on keepin’ you out o’ work, and sweatin’ us. If you men only
could see it, we got the syme cause, and if you ’elped us you’d be ’elpin yerselves.
Voices: ‘Rot!’ ‘Drivel!’
Old Newsvendor: True as gospel!

(. . . She retires against the banner. There is some applause. . . .)

searching for sisterhood 123

Chairman: . . . Miss Ernestine Blunt will now address you.

(Applause, chiefly ironic, laughter, a general moving closer and knitting up of atten-
tion. Ernestine Blunt is about twenty-four, but looks younger.

Ernestine Blunt: Perhaps I’d better begin by explaining a little about our
‘tactics.’ (Cries of ‘Tactics! We know!’ ‘Mykin’ trouble!’ ‘Public scandal’!) To
make you understand what we’ve done, I must remind you of what others
have done. Perhaps you don’t know that women first petitioned Parliament
for the Franchise as long ago as 1866.
Voice: How do you know? . . .
Voice: You wasn’t there!
Voice: That was the trouble. Haw! haw!
Ernestine Blunt: And the petition was presented—
Voice: Give ’er a ’earin’ now she ’as got out of ’er crydle.
Ernestine Blunt:—presented to the House of Commons by that great
Liberal, John Stuart Mill. (Voice: Mill? Who is he when he’s at home?) Bills or
Resolutions have been before the House on and off for the last thirty-six years.
That, roughly, is our history. We found ourselves, towards the close of the year
1905, with no assurance that if we went on in the same way any girl born into
the world in this generation would live to exercise the rights of citizenship,
though she lived to be a hundred. So we said all this has been in vain. We must
try some other way. How did the working man get the Suffrage, we asked our-
selves? Well, we turned up the records, and we saw—
Voices: ‘Not by scratching people’s faces’! ‘Disraeli give it ’em!’ ‘Dizzy? Get out!’
‘Cahnty Cahncil scholarships!’ ‘Oh, Lord, this education!’ ‘Chartist riots, she’s
thinkin’ of!” (Noise in the crowd)
Ernestine Blunt: But we don’t want to follow such a violent example. We
would much rather not—but if that’s the only way we can make the country
see we’re in earnest, we are prepared to show them.
Voice: An’ they’ll show you!—Give you another month ’ard.
Ernestine Blunt: Don’t think that going to prison has any fears for us. We’d
go for life if by doing that we could get freedom for the rest of the women.
Voices: ‘Hear, hear!’ ‘Rot!’ ‘W’y don’t the men ’elp ye to get your rights?’
Ernestine Blunt: Here’s someone asking why the men don’t help. It’s partly
they don’t understand yet—they will before we’ve done! (Laughter) Partly
they don’t understand yet what’s at stake—
Respectable Old Man: (chuckling) Lord, they’re a ’educatin’ of us! . . .
Ernestine Blunt:—and, partly that the bravest man is afraid of ridicule. Oh,
yes; we’ve heard a great deal all our lives about the timidity and the sensitiveness
of women. And it’s true. We are sensitive. But I tell you, ridicule crumples a man
up. It steels a woman. . . . We’ve come to know the value of ridicule. We’ve edu-
cated ourselves so that we welcome ridicule. We owe our sincerest thanks to the
comic writers. The cartoonist is our unconscious friend. Who cartoons people
who are of no importance? What advertisement is so sure of being remembered?
124 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

Poetic Young Man: I admit that.

Ernestine Blunt: If we didn’t know it by any other sign, the comic papers
would tell us we’ve arrived! But our greatest debt of gratitude we owe, to the
man who called us female hooligans. (The crowd bursts into laughter.) We
aren’t hooligans, but we hope the fact will be overlooked. If everybody said we
were nice, well-behaved women, who’d come to hear us? Not the men. (Roars)
Men tell us it isn’t womanly for us to care about politics. How do they know
what’s womanly? It’s for women to decide that. Let the men attend to being
manly. It will take them all their time.
Voice: Are we down-’earted? Oh no!
Ernestine Blunt: And they say it would be dreadful if we got the votes
because then we’d be pitted against men in the economic struggle. But that’s
come about already. Do you know that out of every hundred women in this
country eighty-two are wage-earning women? It used to be thought unfemi-
nine for women to be students and to aspire to the arts—that bring fame and
fortune. But nobody has ever said it was unfeminine for women to do the heavy
drudgery that’s badly paid. That kind of work had to be done by somebody—
and the men didn’t hanker after it. Oh, no. (Laughter and interruption)
A Man on the Outer Fringe: She can talk—the little one can.
Another: Oh, they can all ‘talk.’
A Beery, Dirty Fellow of Fifty: I wouldn’t like to be ’er ’usban.’ Think o’
comin’ ’ome to that! . . .
Ernestine Blunt: . . . Oh, no! Let the women scrub and cook and wash. That’s
all right! But if they want to try their hand at the better paid work of the
liberal professions—oh, very unfeminine indeed! Then there’s another thing.
Now I want you to listen to this, because it’s very important. Men say if we
persist in competing with them for the bigger prizes, they’re dreadfully afraid
we’d lose the beautiful protecting chivalry that—Yes, I don’t wonder you
laugh. We laugh. (. . .) But the women I found at the Ferry Tin Works working
for five shillings a week—I didn’t see them laughing. The beautiful chivalry of
the employers of women doesn’t prevent them from paying women tenpence
a day for sorting coal and loading and unloading carts—doesn’t prevent them
from forcing women to earn bread in ways worse still. So we won’t talk about
chivalry. It’s being over-sarcastic. We’ll just let this poor ghost of chivalry go—
in exchange for a little plain justice.
Voice: If the House of Commons won’t give you justice, why don’t you go to the
House of Lords?
Ernestine Blunt: What?
Voice: Better ’urry up. Case of early closin’. (Laughter. A man at the back asks the
speaker something.)
Ernestine Blunt: (unable to hear) You’ll be allowed to ask any question you
like at the end of the meeting. . . .

(She is about to resume, but above the general noise the voice of a man at the back
reaches her indistinct but insistent. She leans forward trying to catch what he says.
searching for sisterhood 125

While the indistinguishable murmur has been going on Geoffrey Stonor has
appeared on the edge of the crowd, followed by Jean and Lady John in motor veils.)

Jean: (pressing forward eagerly and raising her veil) Is she one of them? That
little thing!
Stonor: (doubtfully) I—I suppose so.
Jean: Oh, ask some one, Geoffrey. I’m so disappointed. I did so hope we’d hear
one of the—the worst.
Ernestine Blunt: (to the interrupter— . . .) What? What do you say? (She . . .
puts a hand up to her ear. A few indistinguishable words between her and
the man)
Lady John: . . . (turns to a working man beside her) Can you tell me, my man,
which are the ones that—a—that make the disturbances?
Working Man: The one that’s doing the talking—she’s the disturbingest
o’ the lot.
Jean: (. . .) Not that nice little—
Working Man: Don’t you be took in, Miss.
Ernestine Blunt: Oh, yes—I see. There’s a man over here asking—
Young Man: I’ve got a question, too. Are—you—married?
Another: (. . .) Quick! There’s yer chawnce. ’E’s a bachelor. (Laughter)
Ernestine Blunt: (goes straight on as if she had not heard)—man asking: if the
women get full citizenship, and a war is declared, will the women fight?
Poetic Young Man: No, really—no, really, now! (The Crowd: ’Haw! . . . ,
‘Yes, how about that?’)
Ernestine Blunt: (smiling) Well, you know, some people say the whole trou-
ble about us is that we do fight. But it is only hard necessity makes us do that.
We don’t want to fight—as men seem to—just for fighting’s sake. Women are
for peace . . . . And when we have a share in public affairs there’ll be less like-
lihood of war. But that’s not to say women can’t fight. The Boer women did.
The Russian women face conflicts worse than any battlefield can show. (. . .)
But we women know all that is evil, and we’re for peace. Our part—we’re
proud to remember it—our part has been to go about after you men in war-
time, and—pick up the pieces! (A great shout) Yes—seems funny, doesn’t it?
You men blow them to bits, and then we come along and put them together
again. If you know anything about military nursing, you know a good deal of
our work has been done in the face of danger—but it’s always been done.
Old New Vendor: That’s so. That’s so.
Ernestine Blunt: You complain that more and more we’re taking away from
you men the work that’s always been yours. You can’t any longer keep women
out of the industries. The only question is upon what terms shall she continue
to be in? As long as she’s in on bad terms, she’s not only hurting herself—she’s
hurting you. But if you’re feeling discouraged about our competing with you,
we’re willing to leave you your trade in war. Let the men take life! We give life!
(. . .) No one will pretend ours isn’t one of the dangerous trades either. I won’t
say any more to you now because we’ve got others to speak to you, and a new
126 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

woman-helper that I want you to hear. (She retires to the sound of clapping.
There’s a hurried consultation between her and the Chairman. Voices in the
Crowd: ‘The little ’un’s all right’, ‘Ernestine’s a corker’, etc.)
Jean: (looking at Stonor to see how he’s taken it) Well?
Stonor: (smiling down at her) Well—
Jean: Nothing reprehensible in what she said, was there?
Stonor: (shrugs) Oh, reprehensible!
Jean: It makes me rather miserable all the same.
Stonor: (draws her hand protectingly through his arm) You mustn’t take it as
much to heart as all that.
Jean: I can’t help it—I can’t indeed, Geoffrey. I shall never be able to make a
speech like that!
Stonor: (taken aback) I hope not, indeed.
Jean: Why, I thought you said you wanted me—
Stonor: (smiling) To make nice little speeches with composure—so I did!—So
I—(seems to lose his thread as he looks at her)
Jean: (with a little frown) You said—
Stonor: That you have very pink cheeks? Well, I stick to that.
Jean: (smiling) Sh! Don’t tell everybody.
Stonor: And you’re the only female creature I ever saw who didn’t look a fright
in motor things.
Jean: (melted and smiling) I’m glad you don’t think me a fright.

. . . (Miss Blunt goes R with alacrity, saying audibly . . . as she passes, ‘Here she is,’
and proceeds to offer her hand helping some one to get up the improvised steps.
Laughter and interruption in the crowd.)

Lady John: Now, there’s another woman going to speak.

Jean: Oh, is she? Who? Which? I do hope she’ll be one of the wild ones. . . .
Stonor: (staring R, one dazed instant, at the face of the new arrival, his own
changes. Jean withdraws her arm from his and quite suddenly presses a shade
nearer the platform. Stonor moves forwards and takes her by the arm.) We’re
going now.
Jean: Not yet—oh, please not yet. (Breathless, looking back) Why I—I do
believe—
Stonor: (to Lady John, with decision) I’m going to take Jean out of this mob.
Will you come?
Lady John: What? Oh yes, if you thin—(Another look through her glasses) But
isn’t that—surely it’s—!!!

(Vida Levering comes forward R. She wears a long, plain, dark green dust-cloak.
Stands talking to Ernestine Blunt and glancing a little apprehensively at the
crowd.)

Jean: Geoffrey!
Stonor: (trying to draw Jean away) Lady John’s tired—
searching for sisterhood 127

Jean: But you don’t see who it is, Geoffrey—! (Looks into his face, and is arrested
by the look she finds there.)

(Lady John has pushed in front of them amazed. . . . Stonor restrains a gesture of
annoyance, and withdraws behind two big policemen. Jean from time to time turns
to look at him with a face of perplexity. . . .)

Chairman: (harassed and trying to create a diversion) Someone suggests—and

it’s such a good idea I’d like you to listen to it—(noise dies down) that a
clause shall be inserted in the next Suffrage Bill that shall expressly reserve
to each Cabinet Minister, and to any respectable man, the power to prevent
the Franchise being given to the female members of his family on his
public declaration of their lack of sufficient intelligence to entitle them
to vote.
Voices: Oh! oh!
Chairman: Now, I ask you to listen, as quietly as you can, to a lady who is not
accustomed to speaking—a—in Trafalgar Square—or a . . . as a matter of fact,
at all.
Voices: ‘A dumb lady,’ ‘Hooray!’ ‘Three cheers for the dumb lady!’
Chairman: A lady who, as I’ve said, will tell you, if you’ll behave yourselves, her
impressions of the administration of police-court justice in this country.

Jean looks wondering at Stonor’s sphinx-like face as Vida Levering comes to the edge
of the platform.

Miss Levering: Mr. Chairman, men and women—

Voices: (off ) Speak up.

(She flushes, comes quite to the edge of the platform and raises her voice a little.)

Miss Levering: I just wanted to tell you that I was—I was—present in the
police-court when the women were charged for creating a disturbance.
Voice: Y’oughtn’t t’ get mixed up in wot didn’t concern you.
Miss Levering: I—I—(Stumbles and stops)

(Talking and laughing increases. ‘Wot’s ’er name?’ ‘Mrs. or Miss?’ ‘Ain’t seen this
one before.’)

Chairman: (anxiously) Now, see here, men; don’t interrupt—

A Girl: (shrilly) I like this one’s ’at. Ye can see she ain’t one of ’em.
Miss Levering: (trying to recommence) I—
Voice: They’re a disgrace—them women be’ind yer.
A Man With a Fatherly Air: It’s the w’y they goes on as mykes the
Government keep ye from gettin’ yer rights.
Chairman: (losing his temper) It’s the way you go on that—

(Noise increases. . . . Miss Levering discouraged, turns and looks at Ernestine Blunt
and pantomimes ‘It’s no good. I can’t go on.’ Ernestine Blunt comes forward . . .)
128 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

Ernestine Blunt: (facing the crowd) Look here. If the Government withhold
the vote because they don’t like the way some of us ask for it—let them give it
to the Quiet Ones. Does the Government want to punish all women because
they don’t like the manners of a handful? Perhaps that’s you men’s notion of
justice. It isn’t women’s.
Voices: Haw! haw!
Miss Levering: Yes. Th-this is the first time I’ve ever ‘gone on,’ as you call it,
but they never gave me a vote.
Ernestine Blunt: (with energy) No! And there are one—two—three—four
women on this platform. Now, we all want the vote, as you know. Well, we’d
agree to be disfranchised all our lives, if they’d give the vote to all the other
women.
Voice: Look here, you made one speech, give the lady a chawnce.
Ernestine Blunt: (. . .) That’s just what I wanted you to [say]!
Miss Levering: Perhaps you—you don’t know—you don’t know—
Voice: (sarcastic) ’Ow’re we goin’ to know if you can’t tell us?
Miss Levering: (flushing and smiling) Thank you for that. We couldn’t have a
better motto. How are you to know if we can’t somehow manage to tell you?
(. . .) Well, I certainly didn’t know before that the sergeants and policemen are
instructed to deceive the people as to the time such cases are heard. You ask,
and you’re sent to Marlborough Police Court instead of to Marylebone.
Voice: They ought ter sent yer to ’Olloway—do y’ good.
Old Newsvendor: You go on, Miss, don’t mind ’im.
Voice: Wot d’you expect from a pig but a grunt?
Miss Levering: You’re told the case will be at two o’clock, and it’s really called
for eleven. Well, I took a great deal of trouble, and I didn’t believe what I was
told—(Warming a little to her task) Yes, that’s almost the first thing we have to
learn—to get over our touching faith that, because a man tells us something,
it’s true. I got to the right court, and I was so anxious not to be late, I was too
early. The case before the Women’s was just coming on. I heard a noise. At the
door I saw the helmets of two policemen, and I said to myself: ‘What sort of
crime shall I have to sit and hear about? Is this a burglar coming along
between the two big policemen, or will it be a murderer? What sort of felon is
to stand in the dock before the women whose crime is they ask for the vote?’
But, try as I would, I couldn’t see the prisoner. My heart misgave me. Is it a
woman, I wondered? Then the policemen got nearer, and I saw (. . .) a little,
thin, half-starved boy. What do you think he was charged with? Stealing. What
had he been stealing—that small criminal? Milk. It seemed to me as I sat there
looking on, that the men who had the affairs of the world in their hands from
the beginning, and who’ve made so poor a business of it—
Voices: Oh! Oh! Pore benighted man! Are we down-’earted? Oh, no!
Miss Levering:—so poor a business of it as to have the poor and the unem-
ployed in the condition they’re in today—when your only remedy for a starv-
ing child is to hale him off to the police-court—because he had managed to
searching for sisterhood 129

get a little milk—well, I did wonder that the men refuse to be helped with a
problem they’ve so notoriously failed at. I began to say to myself: ‘Isn’t it time
the women lent a hand?’
Voices: Would you have women magistrates? (. . .) Haw! Haw! Magistrates!
Another: Women! Let ’em prove first they deserve—
Shabby Art Student: . . . They study music by thousands; where’s their
Beethoven? Where’s their Plato? Where’s the woman Shakespeare?
Another: Yes—what ’a’ they ever done? (. . .)
Miss Levering: (. . .) These questions are quite proper! They are often asked else-
where; and I would like to ask in return: Since when was human society held to
exist for its handful of geniuses? How many Platos are there here in this crowd?
A Voice: (. . .) Divil a wan! (Laughter)
Miss Levering: Not one. Yet that doesn’t keep you men off the register. How
many Shakespeares are there in all England today? Not one. Yet the State
doesn’t tumble to pieces. Railroads and ships are built—homes are kept
going, and babies are born. The world goes on! (. . .) It goes on by virtue of its
common people.
Voices: (subdued) Hear! hear!
Miss Levering: I am not concerned that you should think we women can
paint great pictures, or compose immortal music, or write good books. I am
content that we should be classed with the common people—who keep the
world going. But (. . .), I’d like the world to go a great deal better. We were
talking about justice. I have been inquiring into the kind of lodging the
poorest class of homeless women can get in this town of London. I find that
only the men of that class are provided for. Some measure to establish Rowton
Houses for women has been before the London County Council. They looked
into the question ‘very carefully,’ so their apologists say. And what did they
decide? They decided that they could do nothing.
Lady John: (having forced her way to Stonor’s side) Is that true?
Stonor: (speaking through Miss Levering’s next words) I don’t know.
Miss Levering: Why could that great, all-powerful body do nothing? Because,
if these cheap and decent houses were opened, they said, the homeless women
in the streets would make use of them! You’ll think I’m not in earnest. But that
was actually the decision and the reason given for it. Women that the bitter
struggle for existence has forced into a life of horror—
Stonor: (sternly to Lady John) You think this is the kind of thing—(A motion of
the head towards Jean)
Miss Levering: —the outcast women might take advantage of the shelter these
decent, cheap places offered. But the men, I said! Are all who avail themselves
of Lord Rowton’s hostels, are they all angels? Or does wrongdoing in a man not
matter? Yet women are recommended to depend on the chivalry of men.

(The two policemen, who at first had been strolling about, have stood during this
scene in front of Geoffrey Stonor. They turn now and walk away, leaving Stonor
130 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

exposed. He, embarrassed, moves uneasily, and Vida Levering’s eye falls upon his big
figure. He still has the collar of his motor coat turned up to his ears. A change passes
over her face, and her nerve fails her an instant.)

Miss Levering: Justice and chivalry!! (she steadies her voice and hurries on)—
they both remind me of what those of you who read the police-court news—
(I have begun only lately to do that)—but you’ve seen the accounts of the girl
who’s been tried in Manchester lately for the murder of her child. Not pleas-
ant reading. Even if we’d noticed it, we wouldn’t speak of it in my world. A few
months ago I should have turned away my eyes and forgotten even the head-
line as quickly as I could. But since that morning in the police-court, I read
these things. This, as you’ll remember, was about a little working girl—an
orphan of eighteen—who crawled with the dead body of her new-born child
to her master’s back-door, and left the baby there. She dragged herself a little
way off and fainted. A few days later she found herself in court, being tried
for the murder of her child. Her master—a married man—had of course
reported the ‘find’ at his back-door to the police, and he had been summoned
to give evidence. The girl cried out to him in the open court, ‘You are the
father!’ He couldn’t deny it. The Coroner at the jury’s request censured the
man, and regretted that the law didn’t make him responsible. But he went
scot-free. And that girl is now serving her sentence in Strangeways Gaol. (. . .)
Jean: (who has wormed her way to Stonor’s side) Why do you dislike her so?
Stonor: I? Why should you think—
Jean: (with a vaguely frightened air) I never saw you look as you did—as you do.
Chairman: Order, please—give the lady a fair—
Miss Levering: (signing to him ‘It’s all right’) Men make boast that an English
citizen is tried by his peers. What woman is tried by hers? (. . .) A woman is
arrested by a man, brought before a man judge, tried by a jury of men, con-
demned by men, taken to prison by a man, and by a man she’s hanged! Where
in all this were her ‘peers’? Why did men so long ago insist on trial by ‘a jury of
their peers’? So that justice shouldn’t miscarry—wasn’t it? A man’s peers
would best understand his circumstances, his temptation, the degree of his
guilt. Yet there’s no such unlikeness between different classes of men as exists
between man and woman. What man has the knowledge that makes him a fit
judge of woman’s deeds at that time of anguish—that hour—(lowers her voice
and bends over the crowd)—that hour that some woman struggled through to
put each man here into the world. I noticed when a previous speaker quoted
the Labour Party you applauded. Some of you here—I gather—call yourselves
Labour men. Every woman who has borne a child is a Labour woman. No
man among you can judge what she goes through in her hour of darkness—
Jean: (with frightened eyes on her lover’s set, white face, whispers) Geoffrey—
Miss Levering: (catching her fluttering breath, goes on very low)—in that great
agony when, even under the best conditions that money and devotion can
buy, many a woman falls into temporary mania, and not a few go down to
searching for sisterhood 131

death. In the case of this poor little abandoned working girl, what man can be
the fit judge of her deeds in that awful moment of half-crazed temptation?
Women know of these things as those know burning who have walked
through fire. (Stonor makes a motion towards Jean and she turns away fronting
the audience. Her hands go up to her throat as though she suffered a choking sen-
sation. It is in her face that she ’knows.’ Miss Levering leans over the platform and
speaks with a low and thrilling earnestness) I would say in conclusion to
the women here, it’s not enough to be sorry for these our unfortunate
sisters. We must get the conditions of life made fairer. We women must organ-
ise. We must learn to work together. We have all (rich and poor, happy
and unhappy) worked so long and so exclusively for men, we hardly know
how to work for one another. But we must learn. Those who can, may give
money—
Voices: (grumbling) Oh, yes—Money! Money!
Miss Levering: Those who haven’t pennies to give—even those people aren’t
so poor they can’t give some part of their labour—some share of their sym-
pathy and support. (Turns to hear something the Chairman is whispering
to her)
Jean: (low to Lady John) Oh, I’m glad I’ve got power!
Lady John: (bewildered) Power!—you?
Jean: Yes, all that money—

(Lady John tries to make her way to Stonor.)

Miss Levering: (suddenly turning from the Chairman to the crowd) Oh, yes,
I hope you’ll all join the Union. Come up after the meeting and give your
names.
Loud Voice: You won’t get many men.
Miss Levering: (. . .) Then it’s to the women I appeal! (She is about to retire
when, with a sudden gleam in her lit eyes, she turns for the last time to the crowd,
silencing the general murmur and holding the people by the sudden concentra-
tion of passion in her face) I don’t mean to say it wouldn’t be better if men and
women did this work together—shoulder to shoulder. But the mass of men
won’t have it so. I only hope they’ll realise in time the good they’ve renounced
and the spirit they’ve aroused. For I know as well as any man could tell me, it
would be a bad day for England if all women felt about all men as I do.

(She retires in a tumult. . . . Jean tries to make her way through the knot of people
surging round her)

Stonor: (calls) Here!—Follow me!

Jean: No—no—I—
Stonor: You’re going the wrong way.
Jean: This is the way I must go.
Stonor: You can get out quicker on this side.
Jean: I don’t want to get out.
132 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

Stonor: What! Where are you going?

Jean: To ask that woman to let me have the honour of working with her. (She
disappears in the crowd.)

Curtain
Source: From Elizabeth Robins, Votes for Women, in The New Woman and Other
Emancipated Woman Plays, ed. Jean Chothia (London: Oxford University Press, 1998).
 R
“THE MARCH OF THE
WOMEN” (1911)
m u s i c b y da m e e t h e l s m y t h ( 1862– 1951)
wo r d s b y c i c e ly h a m i lt o n ( 1872– 1952)

This WSPU anthem, with music by composer Smyth and “workable doggerel” by
actress Hamilton (the author of How the Vote Was Won, a British suffrage play
frequently performed in the United States) was a popular rallying cry for both
British and U.S. suffragists. It premiered at a 1911 rally at London’s Albert Hall
and, legend has it, was sung by suffragists in Britain’s Holloway Prison; Smyth
conducted with her toothbrush. In the United States, the song was reprinted in
The Suffragist and sung by both marchers in parades and NWP suffragists
imprisoned at Occoquan Workhouse three years later.

Dedicated to the Women’s Social and Political

Union, England
Shout, shout, up with your song!
Cry with the wind, for the dawn is breaking;
March, march, swing you along,
Wide blows our banner, and hope is waking.
Song with its story, dreams with their glory
Lo! they call, and glad is their word!
Loud and louder it swells,
Thunder of freedom, the voice of the Lord!

Long, Long—we in the past

Cowered in dread from the light of heaven,
Strong, strong—stand we at last,
Fearless in faith and with sight new given.
Strength with its beauty, Life with its duty,
(Hear the voice, oh hear and obey!)

133
134 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

These, these—beckon us on!

Open your eyes to the blaze of day.

Comrades—ye who have dared

First in the battle to strive and sorrow!
Scorned, spurned—nought have ye cared,
Rising your eyes to a wider morrow.
Ways that are weary, days that are dreary,
Toil and pain by faith ye have borne;
Hail, hail—victors ye stand,
Wearing the wreath that the brave have worn.

Life, strife—these two are one,

Naught can ye win but by faith and daring.
On, on—that ye have done
But for the work of to-day preparing.
Firm in reliance, laugh a defiance,
(Laugh in hope, for sure is the end),
March, march—many as one,
Shoulder to shoulder and friend to friend.

Source: “The March of the Women” (London: J. Curwen and Songs Ltd., 1911).
 R
“THE DIARY OF A NEWSY”
(1911)
j e s s i e a n t h o n y (1856– 1916)

Susan B. Anthony’s second cousin was one of many Americans who went to the
United Kingdom both to contribute to and to learn from the example of the
British suffrage campaign. In London in 1911, Jessie Anthony kept a diary about
her experiences selling the WSPU organ Votes for Women.13 This excerpt demon-
strates her anxiety over selling papers on the street and her sense of humor about
converting suffrage’s adversaries.

London, July 7, 1911

I have promised to sell “Votes for Women” Fridays and think will keep a little record
of whatever seems interesting to me and am positive couldn’t find a better use for
this little notebook that came in a steamer letter from Florence. M. Florence is an
anti suffragist.
“Votes for Women” is published by Mr. and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, and part of
the suffrage propaganda of the Women’s Social and Political Union, of which I
became a member last evening. [The WSPU] is selling it on the streets wearing a
huge placard announcing the leading editorial and this morning in company with
Mrs. J[?] of New York, started out under the leadership of Miss Kelley, the cham-
pion paper seller and [we] were assigned to different corners of the Strand.
Was not much of a success as [I] thought we were not allowed to cry our wares so
stood there dumbly holding out the paper. On one side, standing in the gutter, as it
is against the law in London for street vendors to stand on the pavement, was a shoe-
string peddler, on the other a pencil man and a woman selling flowers, . . . and when
I couldn’t make the right change the one-legged shoestring man helped me out. . . .

Friday July 21, 1911

Oh, I’m wicked but do take a fiendish delight in offering “Votes for Women” to the
clergy. . . . But the looks of some are blacker than their clothes. However, they are

135
136 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

not all alike, and I nearly swooned today when one very pleasantly said he would
like one of my papers.
And now I must chronicle that the Kodak fiend was around. . . . I noticed two
young men standing against the building in front of me but as they did not look as
though they were going to buy promptly forgot them. When next I turned in that
direction there was the Kodak. Quick as a flash [I] raised the paper in my hand to
the level of my hat and kept it there. In a second or two a voice very pleasantly and
apologetically said, “Pardon me; but we are only trying to get a good snap at the
wording in that placard.” Oh, I said, and immediately pulled the huge thing around
in better view. He thanked me and in another moment they were both scurrying
across the street. Idiot that I was, how could they take that placard without taking
the whole outfit? . . . [I]f I ever see either of them again I’ll stone them . . .

Friday July 28, 1911

As usual this morning found me at my allotted post at Charing Cross Station
with my bundle of “Votes for Women.” As far as weather goes am certainly down
on my luck for the hottest days of this hot season have been the Fridays and
Saturdays of each week. A man not half a block away was overcome with heat, and
as I saw him being carried away was almost tempted to take a vacation. . . .
The papers did not sell as quickly as last week, everybody seemed hurrying to get
under cover.
The first woman who approached me was not a customer but a very tall gaunt
creature bareheaded, wearing a ragged shawl and shabby black skirt. Gathered up
in her apron were pieces of straw, sticks and old paper, something to cook a bit of
supper over I suppose. Her grievance was the wrongs suffered by the poor. I tell
you, she said, it is not the rich that help the poor, the poor support the rich; they get
their living off the lives of us, and her eyes blazed and her voice fairly shrieked and
had a note of challenge in it. It made me sick at heart there was so much truth in it,
and I put my hand on her thin old shoulder and said, I know; but I am sure there
will be better laws after a while when women help make them. Her face softened a
little, and she slowly walked away.
The first paper sold was to a young woman who said she belonged to the Actress
Franchise League. The next was a girl with such a sad face you wanted to put your
arms around her and ask if you couldn’t do something.
Then came four such happy looking middle-aged women with their Kodak and
Baedeker who [I] am sure came from a middle sized town somewhere in the mid-
dle west and were just having the biggest sized time of their lives. They were very
eager about suffrage and delighted to find an American. They bought two papers
and were so glad to hear about the Monday afternoon meetings at Piccadilly
Pavilion and the opportunity to hear Miss Christabel Pankhurst. . . .
Then there was the over friendly postcard peddler with breath reeking with
whiskey who assured me the “loidies were every bit as smart as the men,” and he
tapped me on the shoulder and stood so close [I] was mortally afraid of him but
searching for sisterhood 137

I never budged and said, won’t you please move on so I can sell my papers and on
he ambled.

Source: From Jessie Anthony, “The Diary of a Newsy,” in Susan B. Anthony Papers
(AF2). This text is reproduced by permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino,
California.
 R
JULIA FRANCE AND
HER TIMES (1912)
g e r t ru d e at h e r t o n ( 1857– 1948)

In 1909, popular novelist Gertrude Atherton overcame her reluctance to support

suffrage and began using her fame to promote California’s suffrage campaign;
she wrote articles, gave interviews, and, agreed to write a suffrage play. To
research her text, Atherton spent three months studying the British militant
suffrage movement; on her return to the United States, she created the character
of Julia, a beautiful aristocratic North American woman who joins the WSPU to
escape an unhappy marriage. Although Atherton’s drama closed after one per-
formance, the novel adaptation published afterward was an immediate success.14
These excerpts juxtapose two acts of public speaking: in the first, as the WSPU’s
recently elected president, Julia addresses Yorkshire working women but regrets
the sacrifices she has made in her personal life; the second depicts a rally at
Albert’s Hall, followed by Julia’s reunion with her charismatic Californian suitor
Daniel Tay.

Book IV: Hadji Sadrä: Chapter X

. . . After dinner, [Julia] started for the moor. She wanted a spray of white heather
and to walk in the paths of the Brontës. The long crooked street of [the village of
Haworth] was deserted, the good people lingering over their Sunday meal. But Julia
felt little interest in them. As she reached the end of the street and looked out over
the great purple expanse undulating away until it melted into the low pale sky
brushed with white, she was wondering which of these narrow paths had been
Charlotte’s and trying to conjure up the tragic figure of Emily, one of her literary
loves. She walked for several miles and managed to find the nook in the glen which
she had been told by the landlady of the Black Bull was the spot where Charlotte
had sat so often to dream the books that must have transformed her bleak life into
wonderland. . . . Julia, whose ego was enjoying a brief recrudescence, felt that it was
138
searching for sisterhood 139

a small thing to be half starved and lonely, afflicted by a drunken brother, and
sisters dying of consumption, when consoled with an imagination that not only
swamped life for this poor sickly little mortal, but must have whispered to her of
undying fame. And she had contributed her share to the cause of which this devo-
tee at her shrine was a symbol, vastly different from all that is modern as she had
been; for had she not been of the few to make the world recognize the genius of
woman? She had, in truth, been one of the flaming torches.
Julia climbed out of the glen and started to return. After she had traversed
several of the knolls, she saw that the moor down by the village was alive with
people. The landlady had told her that all Haworth took its Sunday afternoon walk
on the moor, but she still felt no interest in them, and renewed her search for
white heather.
She passed the first group and nodded, as she had a habit of doing, for she had
come to feel as if the toilers of England were her especial charge. They smiled in
return, and one stared and whispered to the others. Julia guessed that she had been
at the meeting in Keighley the night before. The crowd became thicker, and she was
soon in the midst of it. She would have been stared at in any case, for strangers were
rare in Haworth. . . .
Julia looked and saw that the whole company was streaming toward her. They
paused, held a hurried conference, and then one of the younger women came
directly up to the stranger.
“We are thinking,” she said diffidently, “that you may be Mrs. France, who spoke
last night at Keighley, and has been speaking all over the north.”
“Yes, I am Mrs. France,” said Julia, wondering what was coming.
“And you really are a suffragette?”
“That is what they call us.”
“We’ve never seen one, only one or two of us who were at the meeting last night.
The rest of us didn’t go, we was that tired, and we’re wondering if you wouldn’t give
us a speech here.”
“Oh—really—I rarely speak on Sunday, and even suffragettes must rest, you
know.”
The woman’s face fell, but she said politely, “Of course. We know what work is.
But we may never have another chance—and we’re that curious. We’d like to know
what it’s all about.”
Julia hesitated. What right had she to refuse this simple request? It was her busi-
ness to advance the cause of Suffrage and make converts wherever she could. Nor
was she tired. She was merely in a dreaming mood, and wanted to think of the
Brontës; to anticipate, as she realized in a flash of annoyance, the rereading of
[Daniel] Tay’s letter. She had deliberately been trying to forget it.
“I will speak with pleasure,” she said. “Have you something I could stand on? I’m
not very tall, you know.” . . .
[A] man was even now stalking up the moor with a kitchen table balanced on
his head. As Julia walked toward the smiling company she felt once more the ardent
propagandist.
140 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

“If I may, ma’am,” said a tall young man. He lifted her lightly and stood her on
the table.
“Now,” said Julia, smiling down into several hundred faces, a few set in disdain,
but for the most part friendly, “what is it you wish me to tell you? How much do
you know of this great movement?”
“Well,” said one of the older women, “we read a lot about militants, and suffra-
gettes, and fighting the police, and going to prison, and big meetings all over
England, and we’d like to know what it’s all about. That’s all.”
“You might begin,” said one of the men, with a faint accent of sarcasm, “by
telling us what good the vote’ll do you when you get it.”
Julia began by reminding them of the interest that so many of the factory
women of the north had taken in the enfranchisement of their sex for several years
before the militant movement began, and of the many Annie Kenneys whose eyes
were opened to the injustice of the absence of a minimum wage for women. One of
the men interrupted her.
“Yes, ma’am, and if you raise women’s wages so that they can no longer under-
cut men, the lot of ’em’ll be kicked out.”
“Not all. The best will be retained, for the best are as efficient as the men. The
inferior ones will find other employment, or be taken care of by men, who will then
be able to support their families. They can return to their place in the home, that
woman’s sphere of which we hear so much.”
This was received with cheers, but the man growled:—“It’ll take time. It’ll take
time. Better let well enough alone.”
“As it is the women that suffer, it is for them to say whether it is well enough. Of
course it will take time. We do not promise Utopia in a day nor ever, for that mat-
ter. But, if you will take the trouble to observe, it is the women of this country that
are waging war on poverty, not the men. Without the ballot they are forced to
advance at a snail’s pace. On all the boards to which they are admitted they do the
work, and the men, who outnumber them, defeat every project for the betterment
of the poor that would force the ratepayers to disgorge a few more shillings.
Doctors, and all thinking and humane men, for that matter, would be thankful if
these boards were composed entirely of women, for they alone understand the
needs of other women and of children. Man lacks the instinct, to begin with, and
has long since grown callous to the sources of his income. Higher wages mean
smaller dividends, and he chooses to close his eyes to the fact that his dividends are
largely due to the toil of wornout women and stunted children; of women that have
all the duties of their households to discharge after they come home from the mills,
children whose minds must remain as undeveloped as their ill-nourished bodies.”
“You want to go to Parliament, and right all that, I suppose?”
“We have not even thought of it. What we want is the power to send men to
Parliament, who will be forced to keep their election promises if they would be
returned a second time. Doubtless an ultimate result of the ballot would be a
Woman’s Parliament which would deal exclusively with the Poor Laws. Then the
men who oppose us now will be profoundly relieved that they no longer are obliged
searching for sisterhood 141

to waste valuable hours solemnly sitting upon such questions as the proper sort of
nursing bottles to be adopted for pauper children, what shall be done with milk, or
whether cabbage is a normal breakfast for school children. Do you know that if the
House sat day and night for 365 days of the year, they could not begin to dispose of
all the bills brought before it, and that many of these bills are of a pressing domes-
tic nature? However well disposed, they cannot deal adequately with the Poor Laws,
and that they do not welcome the assistance of women is but one more evidence of
that conservatism in men’s minds which is a logical result of having had their own
way, uncriticised, too long. Their fear of us is childish. They would not be thrown
out of business. Every day they are confronted by questions of the gravest nature—
questions of national and international policy which require their best faculties
and all of their time. Women have more time than man ever thinks he has, in any
case; and we have the maternal instincts and the nagging conscience which would
force us to discharge our duties to the poor.
“Let me add that the women of this new militant movement have eliminated
from their compositions all the old sentimentality and bathos which weakened the
Suffrage cause for so many years. Sentimentality is sympathy run amok. It roused
that distrust of men we are fighting to-day, and made many of their public utter-
ances asinine. You will hear no frantic protests to-day that women want the vote
because they have as much right to it as men. That is a good argument in itself, but
the women of to-day have progressed far beyond that or even of the old war cry,
‘Taxation without representation.’ They are animated, in their greater experience,
by one purpose only, the desire to eliminate poverty and all the evils, moral and
physical, that are always its partners; to reduce the hours of work and increase
wages, to give every child good food, a decent education, and a comfortable home.
The millions must work, but we are determined that they shall work for their own
comfort as well as for that of their employers, that they shall have a reasonable
amount of leisure and of the pleasures of life, cease to be machines whose only
object in living is to contribute to the comfort and idleness of the thousands above
them. . . . Given strong bodies and a fair education, many would rise in the world
and have respectable if not distinguished careers. What we further desire is to give
these exceptional boys and girls a chance, the same chance they would have if born
in the middle class. . . . The point now is, not only that the misery in this country
is appalling, but that these boys and girls have no chance of rising out of the
rut unless possessed of positive genius. Hundreds have latent talent, thousands a
certain amount of ability which would raise them above the station in which they
were born—”
“Are you a Socialist?” demanded an abrupt voice.
“Yes, and England is already half socialistic in her institutions, only the pill has
been gilded with less offensive names, so that she need not recognize it. But that
old-time Socialism, which was only a weak step-sister of anarchy, no longer exists
save in the minds of the old and tired theorists. The younger men and women who
are giving their brains and time to the question would do nothing so futile as to
divide the wealth of the world into small and equal shares. The modern Socialists
142 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

would have as little mercy on the idle and vicious and lazy as Society has. All must
work, and if the confiscation of much land forces the aristocrat to work, so much
the better for him. All will be given the chance to work, to rise. . . . Socialism per-
fected is neither more nor less than the primal law of Nature re-established, rescued
from the vagaries of a blundering civilization and crystallized into brain. Man will
work, do his share, or go out into the by-ways, lie down and die.
“A word as to our much-abused Militant Tactics. Although we are women we are
by no means too proud to learn from men. If you will glance back to that time
when the laboring men of England were demanding the franchise,—in the ’30s,—
you may recall that they did not confine themselves to heckling, holding indigna-
tion meetings, forcing their way into halls where great men were speaking, and
demanding their rights. They arose and smashed things. They burned the Mansion
House in Bristol, the Custom House, the Bishop’s Palace, the Excise Office, three
prisons, four toll houses, and forty-two private dwellings, and they set several
towns on fire. So far we have borrowed only the mildest of their tactics. We have
hurt no one physically, and we have been moderate in all our demonstrations; but
because we are women we are as severely criticised as if we had blown up the entire
Cabinet and set fire to London. . . . [W]e hope we never shall have to resort to
measures so extreme. We hope to educate the average mind out of its conservatism.
If we fail, then of course we shall have to forget that we are women and emulate the
great sex which now thinks it despises us, but is proving every day how much it
fears us. As yet, it does not fear us enough. That is the whole trouble at present.”
Although she had too much tact and experience to talk down to any audience,
however humble, she knew when to drop the abstract and divert with anecdote and
illustration. Her address had been listened to respectfully, and interrupted with
many a “Hear! Hear!” and when she paused, flung out her hands, smiled, and said,
“Now let me tell you the true story of several of our adventures with the police,”
they clapped and cheered. She talked for ten minutes longer, and her anecdotes,
while making them laugh delightedly, inspired as much indignation as if they had
been delivered with solemn passion; no doubt more so. When she finally leaped
down, they escorted her in a body to the inn, where those that were not too bashful
shook hands with her heartily; and many vowed they would “turn it over” and “pass
the word on” to those that had not had the good fortune to hear her.

Book V: Daniel Tay: Chapter I

The great amphitheatre of the Albert Hall was filled from arena to dome: some ten
thousand women and three hundred men, exclusive of police. Slim young women
in the white uniform of stewards and decorated with the badges of their unions
stood at the back of the gangways. On the platform, against flowers and banners,
sat the officials of the Woman’s Social and Political Union and of the several unions
it had inspired. Of the most important of these, Julia France had been elected
president eighteen months before, and tonight sat at the right of Mrs. Pethick
Lawrence, who occupied the chair in the absence of Mrs. Pankhurst.
searching for sisterhood 143

The great rally had a fourfold purpose: to celebrate the victory of the Militants
in the general election, during which they had fought the Liberals in forty con-
stituencies; their energy, cleverness, and resource being not the least of the factors
which had transferred eighteen seats to the Conservatives (thus throwing the
Government upon the Labor and Irish vote for support); to protest once more
against the inhuman treatment of the hunger strikers in Holloway gaol; to add to
the £100,000 fund; and to listen to Mrs. France’s account of her three months’
lecture tour in the United States.
When Julia had risen to speak, she had been greeted by a magnificent demon-
stration. Every woman in the audience had sprung to her feet, cheered, and waved
her banner for five minutes. This enthusiasm was not inspired by Julia’s notable
tour only, nor to the money she had brought back with her, but to her four years’
record of steadfast and valuable work in the Militant cause, the large number of
recruits she had brought in by her personal efforts, the many Liberal candidates she
had helped to defeat at by-elections, her religious devotion to a work for which
nothing in her previous life would seem to have prepared her, and above all, to the
great gift for leadership she had displayed during the last year and a half. . . . Julia
was a favorite with all of them: she was picturesque without being sensational,
a brilliant powerful persuasive speaker, and a lovely picture on the platform.
Moreover, she possessed (and desperately clung to) the priceless gift of humor, and
humor in suffragette ranks was rare. Mrs. Pankhurst and her daughters, great
speakers as they were, had not a ray of it; and even Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, the most
genial of women, fell under the spell of the world’s tragedy the moment she rose
to speak.
Tonight, Julia, knowing that most of the minds present were oppressed by
the sufferings in Holloway, made the account of her American experiences as
diverting as possible, although she finished with a passionate denunciation of the
Government, and an appeal to her audience to proselytize unceasingly, until their
numbers were irresistible.
When she sat down, Mrs. Lawrence, preparatory to making her appeal for funds,
gave a graphic and terrible picture of the hunger strikers, who, forcibly fed through
the nose and throat with surgical instruments of torture, were now having a dose
of martyrdom that compared favorably with any in the records of the Inquisition.
Julia, too well acquainted with the horrible details, glanced over the House and
nodded to her friend Bridgit Maundrell, seated in a box. Bridgit, severely tailored,
albeit in velvet, was sitting forward tensely, her eyes flashing at the iniquities of
man. Julia noted with amusement that [her politician-husband] Maundrell was
behind her, and listening with an expression no less indignant. Maundrell was not
only complaisant, but converted. To have lived with Bridgit for three years and
failed to be impressed by that burning and immovable faith would have stamped
him superman, and the next step was to surrender to a cause capable of making
such an apostle. He already had made a number of speeches, in and out of the
House, advocating the extension of the franchise to a limited number of women,
and, as he was a man of distinguished abilities, there was much rejoicing in Suffrage
144 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

ranks. He had even permitted his wife to take part in the last great raid on the
House, although, without her knowledge, he had circled near her, and diverted the
attention of the police when she had been too eager for trouble. He had no inten-
tion of letting her go to gaol and ruin her health.
But the Westminster police avoided arresting women of Mrs. Maundrell’s posi-
tion unless their official faces were slapped. For that matter they were growing
more and more averse from arresting women at all, and had been heard to wish
that the Parliamentarians would come out and do their own dirty work. The
women had so far won their liking and respect that when the Government wanted
them knocked about, they were forced to order up reserves from the slums.
The Westminster officers formed woman-proof cordons about the Houses of
Parliament, effectively protecting the men within, but repulsed their assailants
good-naturedly, only making arrests when the women were inexorable. When Julia,
determined upon arrest in one of the raids of 1909, made a technical assault upon
a tall policeman’s chin, he had whispered: “Harder, Mrs. France. Give me a good
crack on me cheek. That’ll be assault, as the Inspector’s looking this way, and I’ll
have to arrest ye.”
The great number of Militants arrested, the injustice of their trials and sen-
tences, the severity of their treatment in gaol, had succeeded as nothing else had
done in arousing the women of Great Britain. Very nearly a million had declared
themselves in favor of Suffrage, and many of these had joined one or other of the
forty-one societies and unions.
Only the mean-spirited, the hopelessly old-fashioned, and the sex idolaters had
failed to rally to their cause. Never in the history of England had there been such
monster mass-meetings, such impressive parades, such a widespread upheaval. If
these rebels had been Socialists, or any other body of men demanding concessions,
they would have won their battle long since.
Mrs. Lawrence passed on to her favorite subject, the injustice of visiting the
penalties of the law upon desperate girls for infanticide, while ignoring her partner
in crime. Julia, whose mind had wandered to her own prison experiences, happily
over before the hunger strike was organized, and the devices to which she had
resorted before she had compelled arrest in spite of the duke’s vigilance, suddenly,
without an instant’s transition, began to think vividly of Daniel Tay. . . .
During their long but irregular correspondence—often conducted on his
part by cable—she had thought of him exclusively while writing, or reading his
characteristic letters, and then dismissed him from her mind. There was always
a certain excitement in “talking” confidentially into a mind on the other side of
the globe, and his epistles, however brief, were sympathetic. He had long since
given up his attempt to turn her from her purpose; he recognized her as a force,
and asserted that he was proud of her. She fancied that he no longer cared to
meet her again, but found his own amusement in the novelty of the correspon-
dence; and she too no longer experienced tremors at sight of his handwriting. But
she was conscious of a bond and welcomed an occasional vibration from the other
end of the line.
searching for sisterhood 145

And now she suddenly found herself thinking of him intensely. She peered
out into that acre of faces. Could he be present? . . . No, he could not be present,
but she stirred uneasily, nevertheless. She was highly organized, and quick to
respond to the concentration of another mind upon her own. Once more she
searched that mass of faces, but they seemed to melt into one. She banished Tay
from her mind. He returned promptly. She frowned, but gave it up and let her
mind drift.
Mrs. Lawrence had made her usual stirring appeal for an addition to the grow-
ing fund, and the money was rolling in. The girl stewards were running back and
forth, and Mrs. Lawrence was reading aloud the promise cards as they were handed
up, while her husband made the additions on the score board. Some £5000 had
been subscribed amidst continuous applause, when Julia forgot Tay and almost
laughed aloud as she heard Mrs. Winstone’s name read out to the tune of £20.
“Alas!” this convert had cried plaintively to Julia, a few days before. “What will you?
Haven’t I always said that one secret of lookin’ young was to dress in the fashion of
the moment, not have any silly style of your own? And you’ve got to keep your
mind dressed up to date as well as your figger. I’m not goin’ to gaol and ruin what
complexion I’ve got left, but I’ve taken a box at Albert Hall and I’m havin’ meetings
in my drawin’-room. It’s a God-send to have a new fad, anyway. All the old ones
were motheaten.”
Julia lost her breath. She felt her body cold and rigid, and all its blood flown to
her face.
“Daniel Tay, £200,” read Mrs. Lawrence.
And the women cheered, as they always did when a man offered himself up for
encouragement.
Julia stared at her hands and tried to close her lips!
So! He was here! She was furious with herself for her agitation; she also cast a
hasty glance over her costume. . . . She had hardly been aware of the color or
fashion of her gown until this moment of searching investigation, and was gratified
to observe that it was of white chiffon cloth and gentian blue velvet; made with
simplicity, but long of line, and moulded to her round slim young figure. She wore
a long chain of blue tourmalines and moonstones, the colors of her Union, and
presented by her American admirers. Her abundant flame-colored locks were
braided about her head . . . , little curls escaping on her brow and neck.
Her self-possession returned, and looking out, she deliberately smiled, a very
hospitably sisterly smile. She believed that Tay would move, change his seat
abruptly; but everybody was moving, and many were standing. To recognize him
would be impossible unless he came directly up to the platform. She rather won-
dered that he did not, being an informal creature. Then she looked forward confi-
dently to finding him at the stage door.
The meeting broke up, amidst renewed cheers and waving of flags. Tay was not
at the stage door. After lingering for a few moments in conversation, she went
round to the front entrance . . . , into a cab, and drove to Clement’s Inn with her
black brows in a straight line. She excogitated until the brilliant idea struggled out
146 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

that Tay had intrusted his donation to some friend, who had recklessly unchained
himself from his desk in that unhappy city of San Francisco.

Chapter II
When she had entered her flat she sat down at her desk and scowled more deeply
still. She was angry not only at her past agitation but at her present disappoint-
ment. For seven years now, save for brief lapses, almost forgotten, she had
been complete mistress of herself. During the last four she had so far sunk her
personality into the great impersonal cause of her adoption that she had had no
time to moon about herself after the fashion of idle women.
Work! Had that been the secret? How commonplace, and how expositive! Who,
indeed, when speaking, planning, fighting, proselytizing, writing innumerable
leaflets, newspaper and magazine articles, drilling recruits, attending thousands of
meetings, to say nothing of organizing her own Union and fighting army, would
find a moment’s time to cast a thought to man save as present enemy and future
coworker. Even when in gaol, from which she had been mysteriously released both
times at the end of a week, she had deliberately slept when not writing articles in
her head. In America she had not gone farther west than Chicago, but she suddenly
realized that if the question of including California [Tay’s home state] in the itiner-
ary had arisen she should have felt something like panic . . . . Well, indeed, that Tay
had sent his contribution. She had no desire to have her work interrupted, nor to
go through any female throes. To know that she was still hospitable to them was
bad enough. Switch him out! She took her typewriter from its case, haughtily
refusing to sleep.
The telephone beside her rang. She put the receiver to her ear, wondering who
dared interrupt her at night. . . .
A man’s voice answered her “Hello!”
“Who is it?”
“Guess!”
“I—I can’t.”
“Well, I hope my voice has changed some.”
“Oh—so you are here. How generous of you to give us those £200!”
“Generous nothing. You fired me up so with that speech that I came near sub-
scribing my entire letter of credit, and then borrowing back enough to pay my hotel
bill and get out.”
“Why didn’t you come up to the platform afterward, or wait for me in the
lobby?”
“Frightened out of my wits. I’m never shy at the other end of the telephone, so
thought I’d meet you this way first. If you’d made the usual female speech, I should
have remained quite myself. But with all your wit and fire, you’re so finished, so
polished—and you look that way, too. My teeth are still chattering. Somehow, in
spite of everything, I suddenly realized that I’d always remembered you as the little
princess on the tower.”
searching for sisterhood 147

(“And I in the fatal young thirties!”) “Nonsense! I’ve merely worked hard these
last four years. No one ever dreamed of being afraid of me. Of course you’ll call
to-morrow?”
“I think I might summon up courage if you would infuse a little cordiality into
your voice. You’ve thawed a bit, but not too much.”
“You took me so completely by surprise. I had just made up my mind that you
had asked some friend to make that donation in your name.”
“Never should have thought of such a thing, although you could have had all
I’ve got at any moment. What time may I call to-morrow?”
“When did you arrive?”
“This morning. Saw at once that you were going to speak, and thought I’d see
what you were like before I ventured. What time may I call to-morrow morning?”
“Let me think—I’ve always a thousand things to attend to in the morning—”
“Please cut them out. You need a rest, anyhow. I’d like to call at eleven.”
“Well—why not? We might go to the National Gallery—”
“What! You’re not going to begin on that? . . . I’d like to talk to you for twelve
hours on end, and take you out to lunch and dinner, but I’ll go to no morgues!”
“Oh, very well. It will be quite delightful. But as it will be what you call a stren-
uous day, perhaps I’d better go to bed now. Good night.”
“Good night, Militant Princess.”
When Julia hung up the receiver she was still smiling. Then, to show how com-
pletely mistress of herself she was, she went to bed and slept.

Source: From Gertrude Atherton, Julia France and Her Times (New York: Macmillan,
1912).
 R
“HOW IT FEELS TO BE
FORCIBLY FED” (1914)
d j u na b a r n e s ( 1892– 1982)

Although best known for her experimental novel Nightwood, Barnes began her
career writing “stunt-girl” journalism, placing herself in extreme situations and
describing “how it felt.” Following the well-publicized forcible feeding of hunger-
striking British suffragists, Djuna Barnes published in the sensational New York
World this impressionistic account of her own empathetic staged forcible feeding
that is poised at “the intersection of performative journalism and feminist
activism.”15

1. Photograph of Djuna Barnes, being forcibly fed, from New York World. Item 2.27,
Djuna Barnes Papers, Special Collections, University of Maryland Libraries.

148
searching for sisterhood 149

I have been forcibly fed!

In just what relation to the other incidents in my life does this one stand? For
me it was an experiment. It was only tragic in my imagination. But it offered
sensations sufficiently poignant to compel comprehension of certain of the day’s
phenomena.
The hall they took me down was long and faintly lighted. I could hear the
doctor walking ahead of me, stepping as all doctors step, with that little confiding
gait that horses must have returning from funerals. It is not a sad or mournful step;
perhaps it suggests suppressed satisfaction.
Every now and then one of the four men that followed turned his head to look
at me; a woman by the stairs gazed wonderingly—or was it contemptuously—as I
passed.
They brought me into a great room. A table loomed before me; my mind sensed
it pregnant with the pains of the future—it was the table whereon I must lie.
The doctor opened his bag, took out a heavy, white gown, a small white cap, a
sheet, and laid them all upon the table.
Out across the city, in a flat, frail, coherent yet incoherent monotone, resounded
the song of a million machines doing their bit in the universal whole. And the
murmur was vital and confounding, for what was before me knew no song.
I shall be strictly professional, I assured myself. If it be an ordeal, it is familiar
to my sex at this time; other women have suffered it in acute reality. Surely I have
as much nerve as my English sisters? Then I held myself steady. I thought so, and
I caught sight of my face in the glass. It was quite white; and I was swallowing
convulsively.
And then I knew my soul stood terrified before a little yard of red rubber tubing.
The doctor was saying, “Help her upon the table.”
He was tying thin, twisted tapes about his arm; he was testing his instruments.
He took the loose end of the sheet and began to bind me: he wrapped it round and
round me, my arms tight to my sides, wrapped it up to my throat so that I could not
move. I lay in as long and unbroken lines as any corpse—unbroken, definite lines
that stretched away beyond my vision, for I saw only the skylight. My eyes wan-
dered, outcasts in a world they knew.
It was the most concentrated moment of my life.
Three of the men approached me. The fourth stood at a distance, looking at the
slow, crawling hands of a watch. The three took me not unkindly, but quite without
compassion, one by the head, one by the feet; one sprawled above me, holding my
hands down at my hips.
All life’s problems had now been reduced to one simple act—to swallow or to
choke. As I lay in passive revolt, a quizzical thought wandered across my belea-
guered mind: This, at least, is one picture that will never go into the family
album. . . .
Yet how imagination can obsess! It is the truth that the lights of the windows—
pictures of a city’s skyline—the walls, the men, all went out into a great blank as the
doctor leaned down. Then suddenly the dark broke into a blotch of light, as he
150 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

trailed the electric bulb up and down and across my face, stopping to examine my
throat to make sure I was fully capable of swallowing.
He sprayed both nostrils with a mixture of cocaine and disinfectant. As it
reached my throat, it burned and burned.
There was no progress on this pilgrimage. Now I abandoned myself. I was in the
valley, and it seemed years that I lay there watching the pitcher as it rose in the hand
of the doctor and hung, a devilish, inhuman menace. In it was the liquid food I was
to have. It was milk, but I could not tell what it was, for all things are alike when
they reach the stomach by a rubber tube.
He had inserted the red tubing, with the funnel at the end, through my nose into
the passages of the throat. It is utterly impossible to describe the anguish of it.
The hands above my head tightened into a vise, and like answering vises the
hands at my hips and those at my feet grew rigid and secure.
Unbidden visions of remote horrors danced madly through my mind. There arose
the hideous thought of being gripped in the tentacles of some monster devil fish in the
depths of a tropic sea, as the liquid slowly sensed its way along innumerable endless
passages that seemed to traverse my nose, my ears, the inner interstices of my throb-
bing head. Unsuspected nerves thrilled pain tidings that racked the area of my face and
bosom. They seared along my spine. They set my heart at catapultic plunging.
An instant that was an hour, and the liquid had reached my throat. It was ice
cold, and sweat as cold broke out upon my forehead.
Still my heart plunged on with the irregular, meaningless motion that sunlight
reflected from a mirror casts upon a wall. A dull ache grew and spread from my
shoulders into the whole area of my back and through my chest.
The pit of my stomach had lapsed long ago, had gone out into absolute vacancy.
Things around began to move lethargically; the electric light to my left took a hazy
step or two toward the clock, which lurched forward to meet it; the windows could
not keep still. I, too, was detached and moved as the room moved. The doctor’s eyes
were always just before me. And I knew then that I was fainting. I struggled against
surrender. It was the futile defiance of nightmare. My utter hopelessness was a pain.
I was conscious only of head and feet and that spot where someone was holding me
by the hips.
Still the liquid trickled irresistibly down the tubing into my throat; every drop
seemed a quart, and every quart slid over and down into space. I had lapsed into a
physical mechanism without power to oppose or resent the outrage to my will.
The spirit was betrayed by the body’s weakness. There it is—the outraged will. If
I, playacting, felt my being burning with revolt at this brutal usurpation of my own
functions, how they who actually suffered the ordeal in its acutest horror must have
flamed at the violation of the sanctuaries of their spirits.
I saw in my hysteria a vision of a hundred women in grim prison hospitals,
bound and shrouded on tables just like this, held in the rough grip of callous
warders while white-robed doctors thrust rubber tubing into the delicate inter-
stices of their nostrils and forced into their helpless bodies the crude fuel to sustain
the life they longed to sacrifice.
searching for sisterhood 151

Science had at last, then, deprived us of the right to die.

Still the liquid trickled irresistibly down the tubing into my throat.
Was my body so inept, I asked myself, as to be incapable of further struggle? Was
the will powerless to so constrict that narrow passage to the life reservoir as to dam
the hated flow? The thought flashed a defiant command to supine muscles. They
gripped my throat with strangling bonds. Ominous shivers shook my body.
“Be careful—you’ll choke,” shouted the doctor in my ear.
One could still choke, then. At least one could if the nerves did not betray.
And if one insisted on choking—what then? Would they—the callous warders
and the servile doctors—ruthlessly persist, even with grim death at their elbow?
Think of the paradox: those white robes assumed for the work of prolonging life
would then be no better than shrouds; the linen envelope encasing the defiant
victim a winding sheet.
Limits surely there are to the subservience even of those who must sternly exe-
cute the law. At least I have never heard of a militant choking herself into eternity.
It was over. I stood up, swaying in the returning light; I had shared the greatest
experience of the bravest of my sex. The torture and outrage of it burned in my
mind; a dull, shapeless, wordless anger arose to my lips, but I only smiled. The
doctor had removed the towel about his face. [His] mustache . . . was drawn out in
a line of pleasant understanding. He had forgotten all but the play. The four men,
having finished their minor roles in one minor tragedy, were already filing out at
the door.
“Isn’t there any other way of tying a person up?” I asked. “That thing looks
like—”
“Yes, I know,” he said, gently.

Source: Djuna Barnes, “How It Feels to Be Forcibly Fed,” New York World Magazine,
6 Sept. 1914, 5, 17.
 R
i n t e r ac t i o n s b e t w e e n u . s .
a n d c h i n e s e c a m pa i g n s
 R
“THE INFERIOR WOMAN”
(1910)
s u i s i n fa r [ e d i t h m au d e e at o n ]
( 1865– 1914)

Chinese-American author Sui Sin Far experienced first-hand the deeply ambiva-
lent relationship between discourses of U.S. suffrage and Chinese modernization
during the Progressive Era. Between 1896 and her death in 1914, Sui Sin Far pub-
lished fiction, essays, and journalism that focused on diasporic Chinese women’s
collisions with Western feminism, their efforts to preserve their culture amid
philanthropic campaigns to “Americanize” them, and their painful reactions to
the anti-Asian policies of the U.S. government. Stories such as “The Inferior
Woman” and “The White Woman Who Married a Chinese” appear to be opposed
to suffrage because they depict white suffragists as individualist, classist, and
racist. However, much of Sui Sin Far’s journalism (for example, “Leung Ki Chu
and His Wife,” a profile of a visiting Chinese reform leader) champions the
Chinese reform movement that had, among its goals, the enfranchisement of
women. In addition, her works manifest great sympathy for the U.S. working
woman who, like the self-made, uneducated Chinese immigrant, is considered
“inferior” by the dominant class.16 Some of this sympathy was “edited out” of
“The Inferior Woman” when Sui Sin Far republished it in Mrs. Spring Fragrance
in 1912. The edition reprinted here has the original (Hampton’s) ending in which
the Chinese “New Woman” protagonist hopes that her daughter will “walk in the
groove of the ‘Inferior Woman’” instead of “in the groove of the ‘Superior
Woman.’”

I
Mrs. Spring Fragrance walked through the park, admiring the flowers and listening
to the birds singing. It was a beautiful afternoon, with the warmth from the sun
cooled by a refreshing breeze. As she walked along, she meditated upon a book
153
154 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

which she had some notion of writing. Many American women wrote books. Why
should not a Chinese? She would write a book about Americans for her Chinese
women friends. The American people were so interesting and mysterious. . . .
As she turned down a by-path, she saw Will Carman, her American neighbor’s
son, coming towards her; and by his side a young girl. . . . They were talking very
earnestly and the eyes of the young man were on the girl’s face.
“Ah!” murmured Mrs. Spring Fragrance, after one swift glance. “It is love.”
Retreating behind a syringa bush, which completely screened her from view, she
watched the young couple go up the winding path.
“It is love,” repeated Mrs. Spring Fragrance, “and it is the ‘Inferior Woman.’”
After tea that evening, Mrs. Spring Fragrance stood musing at her front window.
The sun hovered over the Olympic mountains like a great golden red-bird with
dark purple wings, its long tail of light trailing underneath in the waters of Puget
Sound.
“How very beautiful!” exclaimed Mrs. Spring Fragrance; then she sighed.
“Why do you sigh?” asked Mr. Spring Fragrance.
“My heart is sad,” answered his wife. . . . “It is our neighbors. The sorrow of the
Carman household is that the mother desires for her son the Superior Woman, and
his heart enshrines but the Inferior. I have seen them together to-day, and I know.”
“What do you know?”
“That the Inferior Woman is the mate for young Carman.” . . .
Just then young Carman came strolling up the path, and Mr. Spring Fragrance
opened the door to him.
“Come in, neighbor,” said he. “I have received some new books from Shanghai.”
“Good,” replied young Carman, who was interested in Chinese literature.
While he and Mr. Spring Fragrance discussed the “Odes of Chow” and the “Sorrows
of Han,” Mrs. Spring Fragrance studied her visitor’s countenance. . . . “He is
no longer a boy,” mused she. “He is a man, and it is the work of the ‘Inferior
Woman.’”
“And when, Mr. Carman,” she inquired,“will you bring home a daughter to your
mother?”
“And when, Mrs. Spring Fragrance, do you think I should?” returned the
young man.
Mrs. Spring Fragrance spread wide her fan and gazed thoughtfully over its silver
edge.
“The summer moons will soon be over,” said she. “You should not wait until the
grass is yellow.”
“The woodmen’s blows responsive ring.
As on the trees they fall,
And when the birds their sweet notes sing.
They to each other call.
From the dark valley comes a bird,
And seeks the lofty tree,
searching for sisterhood 155

Ying goes its voice, and thus it cries:

‘Companion, come to me.’
The bird, although a creature small
Upon its mate depends,
And shall we men, who rank o’er all,
Not seek to have our friends?”

quoted Mr. Spring Fragrance.

“I perceive,” said young Carman, “that you are both allied against my peace.”
“It is for your mother,” replied Mrs. Spring Fragrance soothingly. “She will be
happy when she knows that your affections are fixed by marriage.”
There was a gleam of amusement in the young man’s eyes as he answered: “But
if my mother has no wish for a daughter, at least no wish for the daughter I would
want to give her—”
“When I first came to America,” returned Mrs. Spring Fragrance, “my husband
desired me to wear the American dress. I protested and declared that never would I
so appear. But one day he brought home a gown fit for a fairy, and ever since then
I have worn and adored the American dress.”
“Mrs. Spring Fragrance,” declared young Carman, “your argument is incontro-
vertible.”

II
Whether Will took her argument seriously to heart or not, the following evening
found him standing outside the door of a little cottage perched upon a bluff over-
looking the sound. The chill sea air was sweet with the scent of roses.
“Are you not surprised to see me?” he inquired of the young person who opened
the door.
“Not at all,” replied the young person, demurely.
“I wish I could make you feel,” said he.
She laughed—a pretty infectious laugh which exorcised all his gloom. He
looked down upon her as they stood together under the cluster of electric lights in
her cozy little sitting-room. Such a slender girlish figure! Such a soft cheek, red
mouth, and firm little chin! Often in his dreams of her he had taken her into his
arms and coaxed her into a good humor. But, alas! dreams are not realities, and the
calm friendliness of this young person made any demonstration of tenderness
well-nigh impossible. But for the shy regard of her eyes, he might have been no
more to her than a friendly acquaintance.
“I hear,” said she, taking up some needlework, “that your Welland case comes on
to-morrow.”
“Yes,” he answered, “and I have all my witnesses ready.”
He drew his chair a little nearer to her side and turned over the pages of a book
lying on her work table. On the fly-leaf was inscribed in a man’s writing: “To the
dear little woman whose friendship is worth a fortune.” . . .
156 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

Will Carman pushed aside this evidence of his sweetheart’s popularity with his
own kind and leaned across the table.
“Alice,” said he, “once upon a time you admitted that you loved me.”
A blush suffused her countenance.
“Did I?” she queried.
“You did, indeed.”
“Oh, please!” protested the girl, covering her ears with her hands.
“I will please,” asserted the young man. “I have come here to-night, Alice, to ask
you to marry me—and at once.”
“Deary me!” exclaimed the young person; but she let her needlework fall into
her lap, as her lover laid his arm around her shoulders and pleaded his most impor-
tant case.
If, for a moment, the small mouth quivered, the firm little chin lost its firmness,
and the proud little head yielded to the pressure of a lover’s arm, it was only for a
moment so brief and fleeting that Will Carman had hardly become aware of it
before it had passed.
“No,” said the young person sorrowfully but decidedly. She had arisen and was
standing on the other side of the table facing him. “I cannot marry you while your
mother regards me as beneath you.”
“When she knows you, she will acknowledge you are above me. But I am not
asking you to come to my mother; I am asking you to come to me, dear. If you will
put your hand in mine and trust to me through all the coming years, no man or
woman born can come between us.”
But the young person shook her head.
“No,” she repeated. “I will not be your wife unless your mother welcomes me
with pride and with pleasure.”
He pleaded and argued in vain. Alice would not alter her decision, and at last he
left her in anger. . . .

III
“Will Carman has failed to snare his bird,” said Mr. Spring Fragrance to Mrs. Spring
Fragrance a few days later.
Their neighbor’s son had just passed their veranda without turning to bestow
upon them his usual cheerful greeting.
“It is too bad,” sighed Mrs. Spring Fragrance, sympathetically. She clasped her
hands together and exclaimed:
“Ah, these Americans! These mysterious, inscrutable, incomprehensible
Americans! . . . I would put them into an immortal book! . . .”
Mr. Spring Fragrance eyed her for a moment with suspicion.
“As I have told you, O Great Man,” continued Mrs. Spring Fragrance, “I desire to
write an immortal book. My first subject will be ‘The Inferior Woman of America.’
Please advise me how I shall best inform myself concerning her.”
searching for sisterhood 157

Mr. Spring Fragrance, perceiving that his wife was now serious, rubbed his head.
After thinking for a few moments, he replied:
“It is the way in America when a person is to be illustrated for the illustrator to
interview the person’s friends. Perhaps, my dear, you had better confer with the
‘Superior Woman.’”
“Surely,” cried Mrs. Spring Fragrance, “no sage was ever so wise as my Great
Man!”
Mr. Spring Fragrance laughed heartily.
“You are no Chinese woman,” he teased, “you are an American.”
“Please bring me my parasol and my folding fan,” said Mrs. Spring Fragrance.
“I am going out for a walk.”
And Mr. Spring Fragrance obeyed her.

IV
She started out with no direct purpose in view, but as she walked, sniffing the rose-
heavy air delicately, Mr. Spring Fragrance’s advice about visiting the “Superior
Woman” came to her mind, and she hastened, sedately, to call on her friend Miss
Evebrook. As she climbed the veranda steps, she overheard Mrs. Evebrook and her
daughter talking.
“This is from Mary Carman, who is in Portland,” Mrs. Evebrook was saying,
looking up from a letter she was reading.
“Indeed,” carelessly responded Miss Evebrook.
“Yes, it’s chiefly about Will.”
“Oh, is it? Well, read it then, dear. I’m interested in Will Carman because of Alice
Winthrop.”
“I had hoped, Ethel, at one time that you would have been interested in him for
his own sake. However, this is what she writes:
“I came here chiefly to rid myself of a melancholy mood which has taken posses-
sion of me lately, and also because I cannot bear to see my boy so changed
towards me, owing to his infatuation for Alice Winthrop. It is incomprehensible
to me how a son of mine can find any pleasure whatever in the society of such a
girl. I have traced her history, and find that she is not only uneducated in the
ordinary sense, but her environment from childhood up has been the sordid and
demoralizing one of extreme poverty and ignorance. Her parents were of the
class who allow their children to do pretty much as they please, so long as they
were not called upon to provide for them. This girl, Alice, entered a law office at
the age of fourteen. Now, after seven years in business, through the friendship
and influence of men far above her socially, she holds the position of private
secretary to the most influential man in Washington—a position which by rights
belongs only to a well-educated young woman of good family. Many such
applied. I, myself, sought to have Jane Walker appointed. Is it not disheartening
to our Woman’s Cause to be compelled to realize that girls such as this one can
158 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

win men over to be their friends and lovers, when there are so many splendid
young women who have been carefully trained to be the companions and com-
rades of educated men?”

“Pardon me, mother,” interrupted Miss Evebrook, “but I have heard enough.
Mrs. Carman is your friend and a well-meaning woman sometimes; but a woman
suffragist, in the true sense, she certainly is not. Mark my words: If any young man
had accomplished for himself what Alice Winthrop has accomplished, Mrs. Carman
could not have said enough in his praise. It is women such as Alice Winthrop who,
in spite of every drawback, have raised themselves to the level of those who have
had every advantage, who are the pride and glory of America. There are thousands
of them, all over this land. Women such as I, who are called the ’Superior Women
of America,’ are, after all, nothing but schoolgirls in comparison.”
Mrs. Evebrook eyed her daughter mutinously. “I don’t see why you should feel
like that,” said she. “Alice is a dear, bright child, and it is prejudice engendered by
Mary Carman’s disappointment about you and Will which is the real cause of poor
Mary’s bitterness towards her; but to my mind, Alice does not compare with my
daughter. She would be frightened to death if she had to make a speech.”
“You foolish mother!” rallied Miss Evebrook. “To stand upon a platform at
woman suffrage meetings and exploit myself is certainly a great recompense to you
and father for all the sacrifices you have made in my behalf. But since it pleases you,
I do it with pleasure even on the nights when my beau should ‘come a courting.’”
“There is many a one who would like to come, Ethel. You’re the handsomest girl
in this town, and you know it.”
“Stop that, mother. You know very well I have set my mind upon having ten
years’ freedom; ten years in which to love, live, suffer, see the world, and learn about
men (not schoolboys), before I choose one.”
“Alice Winthrop is the same age as you are and looks like a child beside you.”
“Physically, maybe, but her heart and mind are better developed. She has been
out in the world all her life, I only a few months.”
“Your lecture last week on ‘The Opposite Sex’ was splendid.”
“Of course. I have studied one hundred books on the subject and attended fifty
lectures. All that was necessary was to repeat in an original manner what was not by
any means original.”
Miss Evebrook picked up a letter from her desk.
“This is a letter from Alice which I want to read you,” she said. “I wrote her ask-
ing her to come to the suffrage meeting next week to speak to us, using her own
experiences as illustration, on the suppression and oppression of women by men.
Strange to say, Alice and I have never talked of this. If we had, I would not have
written her as I did. Listen:
“I should dearly love to please you, but I am afraid that my experiences, if related,
would not help the cause. It may be, as you say, that men prevent women from
rising to their level; but if there are such men, I have not met them. Ever since,
when a little girl, I walked into a law office and asked for work, and the senior
searching for sisterhood 159

member kindly looked me over through his spectacles and inquired if I thought
I could learn to index books, and the junior member glanced under my hat and
said: ‘This is a pretty little girl and we must be pretty to her,’ I have loved and
respected the men among whom I have worked and wherever I have worked. I
may have been exceptionally fortunate, but I know this: the men for whom I have
worked and among whom I have spent my life, whether they have been business
or professional men, students or great lawyers and politicians, all alike, have
upheld me, inspired me, advised me, taught me, given me a broad outlook upon
life for a woman, interested me in themselves and in their work. As to corrupting
my mind and my morals, as you say so many men do when they have young and
innocent girls to deal with, I look back over my years spent among business and
professional men, and see myself, as I was at first, an impressionable, ignorant
little girl, born a Bohemian, easy to lead and easy to win, but borne aloft and
morally supported by the goodness of my brother men—the men among whom
I worked. That is why, dear Ethel, you will have to forgive me, because I cannot
carry out your design, and help your work, as otherwise I would like to do.”

“That, mother,” declared Miss Evebrook, “answers all Mrs. Carman’s insinuations
and should make her ashamed of herself. Can anyone know the sentiments which
little Alice entertains and wonder at her winning out as she has?”
Mrs. Evebrook was about to make reply, when her glance happening to stray out
of the window, she noticed a pink parasol.
“Mrs. Spring Fragrance!” she ejaculated, while her daughter went to the door
and invited in the owner of the pink parasol, who was seated in a veranda rocker
calmly writing in a note-book.
“I’m so sorry that we did not hear your ring, Mrs. Spring Fragrance,” said she.
“There is no necessity for you to sorrow,” replied the little Chinese woman. “I
did not expect you to hear a ring which rang not. I failed to pull the bell. . . . I have
pleasure . . . in confiding to you. I have an ambition to accomplish an immortal
book about the Americans, and the conversation I heard through the window was
so interesting to me that I thought I would take some of it down for the book before
I intruded myself. With your kind permission I will translate for your correction.”
“I shall be delighted—honored,” said Miss Evebrook, her cheeks glowing and
her laugh rippling, “if you will promise me that you will also translate for our
friend, Mrs. Carman.”
“Ah, yes, poor Mrs. Carman! My heart is so sad for her,” murmured the little
Chinese woman. And during the week that followed, she thought much of her
friend.
When the mother of Will Carman returned from Portland, the first person upon
whom she called was Mrs. Spring Fragrance. Having lived in China while her late
husband was in the customs service there, Mrs. Carman’s prejudices did not extend
to the Chinese, and ever since the Spring Fragrances had become the occupants
of the villa beside the Carmans, Mrs. Carman and Mrs. Spring Fragrance had
been great friends. Indeed, Mrs. Carman was wont to declare that among all her
160 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

acquaintances there was not one more congenial and interesting than little Mrs.
Spring Fragrance. So after she had sipped a cup of delicious tea, tasted some
piquant candied limes, and told Mrs. Spring Fragrance all about her visit to the
Oregon city and the Chinese people she had met there, she reverted to a personal
trouble confided to Mrs. Spring Fragrance some months before and dwelt upon it
for more than half an hour. Then she checked herself, and gazed at Mrs. Spring
Fragrance in surprise. Hitherto she had found the little Chinese woman sympa-
thetic and consoling. Chinese ideas of filial duty chimed in with her own. But
to-day Mrs. Spring Fragrance seemed strangely uninterested and unresponsive.
“Perhaps,” gently suggested the American woman, who was nothing if not sen-
sitive, “you have some trouble yourself. If so, my dear, tell me all about it.”
“Oh, no!” answered Mrs. Spring Fragrance brightly. “I have no troubles to tell;
but all the while I am thinking about the book I am writing.”
“A book!”
“Yes, a book about Americans, an immortal book.”
“My dear Mrs. Spring Fragrance!” exclaimed her visitor in amazement.
“The American woman writes books about the Chinese. Why not a Chinese
woman write books about the Americans?”
“Now I see what you mean. What an original idea!”
“Yes, I think that is what it is. My book, I shall take from the words of others.”
“What do you mean, my dear?”
“I listen to what is said, I apprehend, I write it down. Let me illustrate by the
‘Inferior Woman’ subject. The ‘Inferior Woman’ is most interesting to me because
you have told me that your son is in much love with her. My husband advised me
to learn about the ‘Inferior Woman’ from the ‘Superior Woman.’ I go to see the
‘Superior Woman.’ I sit on the veranda of the ‘Superior Woman’s’ house. I listen to
her converse with her mother about the ‘Inferior Woman.’ With the speed of
flames, I write down all I hear. When I enter the house, the ‘Superior Woman’
advises me that what I write is correct. May I read to you?”
“Yes, yes, do please.”
There was eagerness in Mrs. Carman’s voice. What could Ethel Evebrook have to
say about that girl!
When Mrs. Spring Fragrance had finished reading, she looked up into the face
of her American friend—a face in which there was nothing now but tenderness.
“Mrs. Mary Carman,” said she, “you are so good as to admire my husband
because he is what the Americans call ‘a man who has made himself.’ Why, then,
do you not admire the ‘Inferior Woman’ who is a woman who has made herself?”
“I think I do,” said Mrs. Carman slowly.
It was an evening that invited to reverie. The far stretches of the sea were gray
with mist, and the city itself, lying around the sweep of the bay, seemed dusky and
distant. From her cottage window Alice Winthrop looked silently at the world
around her. It seemed a long time since she had heard Will Carman’s whistle. She
wondered if he were still angry with her. She was sorry that he had left her in anger,
and yet not sorry. If she had not made him believe that she was proud and selfish,
searching for sisterhood 161

the parting would have been much harder, and perhaps had he known the truth
and realized that it was for his sake and not for her own that she was sending him
away from her, he might have refused to leave her at all. His was such an imperious
nature! And then they would have married—right away.
Alice caught her breath a little, and then she sighed. But they would not have
been happy. No, that could not have been possible if his mother did not like her.
When a gulf of prejudice lies between the wife and mother of a man, that man’s life
is not what it should be. And even supposing she and Will could have lost them-
selves in each other and been able to imagine themselves perfectly satisfied with life
together, would it have been right?
The question of right and wrong was a very real one to Alice Winthrop. She put
herself in the place of the mother of her lover—a lonely elderly woman, a widow
with an only son, upon whom she had expended all her love and care, ever since in
her early youth she had been bereaved of his father. What anguish of heart would
be hers if that son deserted her for one whom she, his mother, deemed unworthy!
“Yes,” said she aloud to herself, and though she knew it not, there was an infinite
pathos in such philosophy from one so young, “if life cannot be bright and beauti-
ful for me, at least it can be peaceful and contented.”
The light behind the hills died away; darkness crept over the sea. Alice withdrew
from the window and knelt before the open fire in her sitting-room. Her cottage
companion, the young woman who rented the place with her, had not yet returned
from town.
Alice did not turn on the light. She was seeing pictures in the fire, and in every pic-
ture was the same face and form—the face and form of a man with love and hope in
his eyes. No, not always love and hope. In the last picture of all, there was an expression
which she wished she could forget. And yet she would remember—ever—always—.
When she had told him she loved him, she had not dreamed that her love for
him, and his for her, would estrange him from one who, before ever she had come
to this world, had pillowed his head on her breast.
Suddenly this girl, so practical, so humorous, so clever in everyday life, covered
her face with her hands and sobbed like a child. Two roads of life had lain before
her, and she had chosen the hardest.
The warning bell of an automobile passing the cross-roads checked her tears. That
reminded her that Nellie Blake would soon be home. She turned on the light and
went to bathe her eyes. Nellie must have forgotten her key. There she was knocking.
The chill sea air was sweet with the scent of roses as Mary Carman stood upon
the threshold of the little cottage.
“I have come, Miss Winthrop,” she said, “to beg of you to return home with me.
Will met with a slight accident while out shooting, so he could not come for you
himself. He has told me that he loves you, and if you love him, I want to arrange for
the prettiest wedding of the season. Come, dear!”

“I am so glad,” said Mrs. Spring Fragrance, “that Will Carman’s bird is in his nest
and his felicity is assured.”
162 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

“What about the ‘Superior Woman’?” asked Mr. Spring Fragrance.

“Ah, the ‘Superior Woman’! Radiantly beautiful and gifted with the divine right
of learning! I love well the ‘Superior Woman,’ but, O Great Man, when we have a
daughter, may Heaven ordain that she walk in the groove of the ‘Inferior Woman!’”

Source: Sui Sin Far, “The Inferior Woman,” Hampton’s 24 (May 1910): 727–31.
 R
“THE OPPRESSION OF
WOMEN” (1915)
“IN ALL EARNESTNESS,
I SPEAK TO ALL MY
SISTERS” (1915)
anony mous

These vernacular poems, published in an anthology of San Francisco Chinatown

poetry, demonstrate how invested in notions of women’s equality Chinese
immigrants to the United States were in the years after the successful California
suffrage referendum. Both poems praise the new ideas about gender, which both
the East and the West were entertaining.

The Oppression of Women

The oppression of women has been around for a long, long time.
So many women live in sorrow.
Progress and civilization are gradually removing the restrictions.
So, let’s stretch out and free our minds; no more suffocation!
Wisdom unfolds,
Acquiring knowledge of East and West through education.
Equality has been won, and must be maintained.
How can we tolerate the confines of those dated moral conventions?

Source: “The Oppression of Women,” in Songs of Gold Mountain: Cantonese Rhymes

from San Francisco Chinatown, ed. Marlon K. Hom (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1987), 220.

163
164 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

In all Earnestness, I speak to all my sisters

In all earnestness, I speak to all my sisters:
Why be so easily discouraged?
From now on, superior talents will arise among us women;
Men and women will have equal rights, and that will not change!
Won’t that be wonderful?
A life without oppression!
We can choose our own mate, be he a wise man or a fool.
Even our parents can’t interfere with us anymore!

Source: “In All Earnestness, I speak to all my sisters,” in Songs of Gold Mountain:
Cantonese Rhymes from San Francisco Chinatown, ed. Marlon K. Hom (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1987), 222.
 R
“CATCHING UP WITH
CHINA” BANNER (1912)
n e w yo r k s u f f r ag e pa r t y

In March 1912, U.S. newspapers reported that suffrage had been granted to
Chinese women. Although this news was not entirely inaccurate—women had
been enfranchised only in Guangdong Province, and they were disenfranchised
soon afterward when the postrevolutionary government took hold—the news
both irritated and encouraged U.S. suffragists who had believed that they were
going to “bring” suffrage to “backward” nations. On May 5, 1912, in the largest
New York City suffrage parade ever, suffragist veteran Anna Howard Shaw
carried this banner, while Canton-born Mabel Lee (a Chinese woman studying at
Barnard) paraded on horseback.

Source: “Catching Up With China” banner, From the Susan B. Anthony Collection
ephSBA Box 13, Huntington Library. This image is reproduced by permission of The
Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

165
2. NAWSA “Catching Up with China” banner.
 R
“HEATHEN CHINEE”
CARTOON (1912)
anony mous

In August 1912, The Woman’s Journal reprinted a cartoon from the Cleveland
Plain Dealer that telescoped white U.S. suffragists’ complex feelings about
Chinese women’s progress. The drawing depicts U.S. women wearing hobble
skirts and tiny incapacitating shoes while they observe a Chinese woman take
large steps in oversized boots that poke out from under her traditional gown; on
the boots “EQUAL SUFFRAGE GRANTED” is boldly printed.

3. “The Heathen Chinee” cartoon from The Woman’s Journal, 31 August 1912, 274.

Source: “Heathen Chinee” from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, reprinted in The Woman’s
Journal 31 (August 1912): 274. Digital image courtesy of the NAWSA Collection of the
Library of Congress, Rare Book Division.

167
 PA RT I I I


making womAn
new! 1897–1920
 R
introduction

In 1897, the future looked promising for the cause of woman suffrage. Almost
everything demanded nearly fifty years earlier in the “Declaration of
Sentiments”—a woman’s right to personal freedom, to education, to earn a living
and claim her wages, to own property, to make contracts, to obtain divorce, and to
retain custody of children—had been achieved in the intervening years. The sole
exception was the enfranchisement of women, and, even on this radical claim, sub-
stantial progress had been made. The National Woman Suffrage Association and
the American Woman Suffrage Association had resolved their historic differences
over the enfranchisement of African American men before that of women, and
the two groups had merged to form the National American Woman Suffrage
Association (NAWSA) in 1890. Working as one national organization intent on
securing the vote for women by appropriate state and national legislation, NAWSA
had already achieved significant successes in western states: In 1890, Wyoming
Territory, where women had been enfranchised since 1869, joined the union and
became the first state with full woman suffrage; by 1895, three additional western
states—Colorado, Utah, and Idaho—had also granted full suffrage to women fol-
lowing successful state referenda. Moreover, as women’s access to college education
and employment opportunities expanded toward the end of the century, activists
identified suffrage as both a logical extension of women’s broadening participation
in public life and a necessary means for resolving the host of economic and social
challenges that still confronted women.
Just as success seemed foreseeable, however, momentum faltered, owing in part
to the emergence of an organized antisuffrage movement, underwritten by the
United States Brewers Association and other liquor interests that encouraged or
bribed men, including illiterates and immigrants, to oppose suffrage referenda.1
Because of these combined forces, the movement entered the “doldrums,” a fourteen-
year period (1896–1910) in which every state referendum proposing woman
suffrage was defeated and NAWSA’s congressional committee in Washington was
largely inactive. With the deaths of pioneer leaders such as Lucy Stone (in 1893),
170
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 171

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (in 1902), and Susan B. Anthony (in 1906), the suffrage
campaign was “in a rut run deeper and deeper”; by 1906, “it bored its adherents and
repelled its opponents.”2 The older generation had fought its final campaign, and it
would take several years for a modern campaign to take shape, with new energy
and new strategies.
A younger generation of American suffragists inspired by the militancy of
Britain’s Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) began to coalesce in 1907,
when a scrappy, short-lived militant group—the Progressive Woman Suffrage
Union—introduced New Yorkers to a feisty U.S. version of the WSPU’s open-air
street meetings; by 1909, photogenic “newsies” were selling the Union’s bold new
magazine The American Suffragette on street corners. When Harriot Stanton Blatch
returned from living in England, where she had been active in suffragist circles, she
founded New York’s Equality League of Self-Supporting Women, another group
inspired by the WSPU’s pageantry. In 1910, the Equality League (later known as
the Women’s Political Union) launched the spectacular phase of the modern U.S.
suffrage campaign through a visually moving suffrage parade down Fifth Avenue
that brought together a coalition of “New Women”—women’s college graduates,
self-supporting women, trade unionists, club women, society women, and women
artists—as well as men, from several local organizations. The parade, like all subse-
quent modern suffrage publicity stunts, made its radical claims largely through
imagery: the women organizers demonstrated leadership and militancy, qualities
usually gendered male, while through their numbers the women marching in the
streets conveyed their collective power and solidarity.
The local example of the Women’s Political Union (WPU) inspired two national
suffrage organizations—first, a militant offshoot of NAWSA that became the
National Woman’s Party (NWP) led by Alice Paul, and later, a reinvigorated
NAWSA led by Carrie Chapman Catt—to transform their organizations into smart
and colorful propaganda machines that charged beyond formal orations, parlor
gatherings, and other nineteenth-century tactics to harness the aesthetic power of
public spectacle. Although the previous generation of women’s rights activists had
resisted the idea of “reform[ing] the world aesthetically,” modern suffrage leaders
such as Blatch, Paul, and Catt recognized that an aesthetically appealing campaign
that caught the attention of the public and the mass media while igniting the
passions of a new generation of suffrage workers would ultimately have broader
appeal and be much more effective than oratorical argument.3 Between 1910 and
1920, the WPU, the NWP, and NAWSA commandeered hundreds of actresses,
musicians, artists, and others to stage parades, torchlight processions, pageants,
tableaux, street theatre, “voiceless speeches,” and myriad other publicity stunts that
packaged threatening ideas of women’s political potential within visually attractive,
media-friendly forms. These spectacles moved suffrage to national newspapers’
front pages while also working to unsettle the dominant antisuffragist stereotypes
of these women as either bitter, nagging shrews or venerable-if-fusty old ladies;
instead, the movement sought to promote a modern image of the suffragist as the
young, energetic, attractive, and marriageable “New Woman.”
172 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

Modern mass print culture enabled this spectacular style of campaigning. New
print technologies like the linotype, typewriter, and wire service enabled faster
reporting of “news”; new features like multicolumn, multidecked headlines, better
graphics, photography, and color created hierarchies of information and more
appealing designs. In addition, lower newsprint costs and higher advertising pro-
portions made newspapers affordable for all except the very poor. As advocacy
journals became less expensive to produce, dozens of boldly designed, attention-
grabbing publications—irregular broadsides like the WPU’s Votes for Women,
monthly magazines like the New York Suffrage Party’s Woman Voter, and national
weeklies like the NWP’s The Suffragist—emerged. These publications documented
spectacular suffrage strategies, announced parades and other publicity stunts, and
featured attractive photographs and illustrations of the movement. Because these
journals were sold by photogenic “newsies,” their appearance was greeted with
much fanfare and coverage from more mainstream publications. Suffragists who
had acquired significant amateur and professional experience as writers, editors,
and journalists promoted suffrage in all forms of modern media: they contributed
their talents to suffrage periodicals, wrote prosuffrage copy for “women’s pages,”
and even guest-edited “suffrage editions” of popular daily newspapers to draw
attention to the suffrage issue. High modernist poet Marianne Moore’s first publi-
cations, for example, were pseudonymous suffrage propaganda in her local news-
paper. Collaborating with artists and graphic designers, writers also produced
cartoons, posters, calendars, cookbooks, and valentines, and designed boldly
lettered sandwich boards, banners, and voiceless speech placards that were key
elements of print cultural acts of political protest.
Creative literature was another important element in the modern strategy of
harnessing the persuasive power of aesthetic forms while attracting and educating
suffrage supporters. Like parades and pageantry, popular literature could reach large
audiences and appeal to their emotions; it could also personalize a complex political
and social situation through characterization. In the final stages of the campaign,
U.S. writers published many works of fiction, poetry, drama, literary journalism,
and autobiography that explored the same arguments and sentiments that suffrage
oratory and other expository forms explored, but such authors did so with more
empathy and humor. Some pieces, written as deliberate propaganda by suffragist
organizers, were published in suffrage advocacy journals or other sympathetic
periodicals. The compositely authored novel The Sturdy Oak, published serially
during the 1917 New York State suffrage referendum campaign, was the brainchild of
the publicity committee of the Empire State Suffrage Campaign. For Rent—One
Pedestal was written by a NAWSA member and published by the fledgling National
Woman Suffrage Publishing Company. Other literary works were written by writers
not actively affiliated with the suffrage cause who capitalized on the appetites of more
mainstream publications like The Saturday Evening Post, Good Housekeeping, and
Collier’s for works that addressed an issue clearly growing in popularity. Popular jour-
nals sought stories about what people were talking about and, increasingly, people
were talking about woman suffrage. Literature helped generate and feed this “buzz.”
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 173

“Making Woman New! 1897–1920” explores the “newness” of the early twentieth-
century stage of the suffrage campaign by examining its innovative literature and
print culture. Although retaining, in many selections, the sentimental emotional
appeal and realism that characterized rhetorically powerful nineteenth-century
women’s novels, the texts sampled in “Making Woman New!” also represent a
significant departure from the previous generation’s literary production, particu-
larly in terms of characterization, setting, form, and voice. Whereas the focus of
nineteenth-century U.S. women’s literature was primarily domestic, and hence pri-
vate, the texts collected in “Making Woman New!” are intensely public: they depict
new individual and collective subjectivities that women accessed as they performed
public activities in public spaces. Echoing, in part, modernist poet Ezra Pound’s
call for literary innovation—“Make it new!”—this section also explores how mod-
ern suffrage literature documents new forms of utterance, forms that are produced
for the public or that revise traditionally private forms and genres to access a
rhetorically persuasive form of feminine public speech.
Most of these texts represent a new kind of woman, one who is already, even
without the vote, actively public. Whereas many female characters represented in
selections in “Declaring Sentiments” take considerable risks to move outside the
private sphere, the more modern suffragists featured in “Making Woman New!” are
already contributing to the public sphere: as consumers, workers, and members of
organizations. Several of the texts depict women in the process of adopting the
even more public roles of activist-citizens. Self-supporting women from across the
class spectrum—immigrant textile workers, laundresses, cleaners, typewriter girls,
teachers, and switchboard operators—collaborate with privileged housewives and
society women to advance their cause. Texts published early in this modern period
represent characters only tentatively experimenting with activist practice: For
example, as a stunt, a mischievous typewriter girl temporarily cross-dresses in
order to vote in “The Australian Ballot System” while an apolitical mother is
momentarily moved by the band’s music to march in “The Parade.” However, texts
such as “Telling the Truth at the White House,” “We Worried Woody Wood,” and
“Prison Notes” written in the final years of the campaign explore a deeper ideolog-
ical commitment to suffrage militancy in representations of women participating
in public (and widely publicized) acts of protest; consider, for example, the NWP
members’ picketing of the White House and then hunger-striking to call attention
to their status as political prisoners during their incarceration.
Modern suffrage characters differ significantly from the family-centered protag-
onists of earlier women’s fiction.4 Betty in Sturdy Oak, Delight in For Rent, and
Fanny in Fanny Herself are orphans, and the eponymous “woman with empty
hands” finds herself suddenly both widowed and childless. The lack of nuclear fam-
ilies in these texts suggests that the modern suffrage movement invites women to
imagine themselves as members of collectives other than those provided by mar-
riage and motherhood: as college alumnae, as members of unions, assembly dis-
tricts, political parties, or suffrage organizations, and even as citizens. These new
affiliations, as represented in these texts, can also transcend class, ethnicity, and age
174 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

in daring ways. At the same time, texts such as Hagar and Portia Politics register
the inevitable tensions between modern suffragists and their families or broader
regional cultures; they simultaneously test the strength of new alliances between
college-educated and working-class activists.
These modern suffragist subjectivities move beyond the typical domestic set-
tings of nineteenth-century women’s popular literature—kitchens, parlors, and
other intimate, familial spaces—to public urban settings like workplaces, boarding
houses, parks, streets, and fairgrounds. These sites function as spaces of self-
expression and agency where women work together to revise the cliché “Woman’s
Place is in the Home” so that women’s domestic duties include “municipal house-
keeping.” Ironically, the extent of suffragists’ success in revising women’s subjectiv-
ities into public identities within public spaces can be seen in the tactics adopted by
antisuffragists in response to the suffrage threat. Self-consciously or not, antisuf-
fragists themselves revised definitions of their “proper sphere” when they moved
outside their domestic roles to lobby government leaders and campaign for public
support. Among the texts sampled here, several (most notably “Taffy”) delight in
depicting antisuffragists’ self-contradiction in their insistence that women be
restricted to the private sphere while making this argument through public
speeches, meetings, and door-to-door campaigns.
In the same way that many of the texts reproduced here expand the private
sphere to encompass sites traditionally associated with the public sphere, they also
work to politicize literary genres traditionally associated with domesticity or inti-
macy, capitalizing on the activist potential of private conversations made public.
Suffragist authors playfully combine forms focused on private, intimate relation-
ships (such as melodrama and romance) with more public forms (such as political
or historical fiction) to shape narratives of attractive suffragist heroines who suc-
cessfully balance personal, professional, and civic roles. Like many silent suffrage
films and plays of the period, several modern suffrage novels excerpted here feature
attractive heroines who update nineteenth-century “womanly influence” by using
both sentiment and logic to convert their antisuffrage politician lovers to the cause.5
Many early twentieth-century texts excerpted here appropriate forms of utter-
ance typically associated with the private sphere (for example, the lyric poem,
the valentine, the private note, and the confession) and turn them into forms of
propaganda that mediate between the private sphere of emotion and the public
sphere of politics; by so doing these “private” texts achieve more rhetorical force
than a more univocally public text (like an oration) might produce. These texts
work to persuade not only the individuals to whom they are addressed but also a
broad segment of the population who encounter these “private” texts in the public
contexts of the periodicals in which they appeared. For example, valentines sent by
the NWP to President Wilson and other legislators drew on the influence women
exert in courtship to “woo” congressmen to support a woman suffrage amend-
ment, but when these valentines were reproduced in advocacy journals and main-
stream newspapers, they also “wooed” male voters to consider suffragists and the
suffrage cause in a new and attractive light. Thus, the most private of conversations
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 175

was turned to public ends. The valentines’ reversal of the usual romantic trope of
man pursuing woman’s favor also reflects the potential that some modern suffra-
gists found in flirtation and sex appeal to market their cause.6
Several texts sampled here also explore the ways in which modern transmission
and inscription technologies were dramatically changing the relationship between
the public and private spheres, at the same time as they were complicating the idea
of a singular authorial voice, just as many more experimental modernist texts were
doing. Typewriting and stenography subject the private “voice” to systemic eaves-
dropping as a “typewriter girl” routinely listens to her employer’s private thoughts
and then prepares them for public circulation. Instead of a singular voice, type-
writing and stenography produce a collaborative voice that combines the voices of
the male employer who dictates and the female employee who transcribes.
Similarly, telephony foregrounds dialogue over monologue. The suffrage worker
depicted in “Switchboard Suffrage,” an experimental prose piece entirely composed
of the fragmented patter of a switchboard operator, for example, mediates and
directs so many telephone calls that she appears to coordinate the operation of the
larger public sphere. It is significant that women characters identify themselves as
“early adopters” and capable deployers of these modern technologies of communi-
cation; through these emerging technologies, they locate opportunities for political
self-expression.7
These technological developments in “voice” find their formal equivalents in
works produced through collaborative authorship. Coauthored works like “Telling
the Truth at the White House” and The Sturdy Oak enact a public sphere that
involves a broad spectrum of voices representing multiple class and gender per-
spectives. As a Sturdy Oak character proclaims, “It isn’t that women . . . could run
the world better. . . . It’s that men and women have got to work together to do the
things that need doing”—a comment that captures, at once, the novel’s collabora-
tive effect and the utopian democratic sphere it imagines.8 In single-authored
poems that feature dialogue (such as Gilman’s “The Socialist and the Suffragist”) or
that parody, quote, or ventriloquize other voices (such as many of Miller’s poems),
the interplay of voices in the modern public sphere is also audible.
At the same time, some texts maintain the primacy of the solitary speaker in
order to celebrate the diversity of first-person voices that have not typically held the
suffrage podium: the Irish immigrant laundress, the “suffragette” husband, and the
African American “Brother” and mammy. Of course, suffragist print culture makes
some voices more audible than others; although Rosalie Jonas’s poem “Brother
Baptis’ on Woman Suffrage” asserts a solidarity between women and African
Americans, the stereotyped representation of African American women on trial in
“Telling the Truth at the White House” belies this solidarity by dramatizing the
racism of the predominantly middle-class white organization that convinced many
non-white women that their needs were less important to the campaign.
One could read several aesthetic innovations featured here as anticipating and
approximating the signature tropes of what literary scholars define as “high mod-
ernism,” an argument that has already been made regarding literature written
176 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

about the modern British campaign.9 For example, Miller’s unrhymed, numbered
“Our Own Twelve Anti-Suffragist Reasons,” when contrasted with her more con-
ventional rhyming verse, could be read as an early example of modernist free verse;
her reliance on quoted epigraphs and ventriloquized perspectives could be seen as
anticipating modern poetry’s intertextuality.10 Similarly, “Telling the Truth at the
White House,” based on the transcript of the NWP pickets’ trial, anticipates the
documentary theatre form believed not to have emerged until a decade later.11 And
novels, like The Sturdy Oak, with their daring blend of progressive political issues
and mainstream consumer culture, seem to anticipate the “middlebrow modern”
novels that emerged during the interwar period.
The texts collected in “Making Woman New!” generated a rich modern literary
and rhetorical tradition beyond stump-speaking, a tradition that formulated a seri-
ous political argument through, among other things, humor, stylistic experimenta-
tion, and sex appeal. By bringing modern women into the public sphere and
sampling their voices (angry, comic, sarcastic, saucy, cheeky, coquettish), these texts
encouraged contemporaneous readers to imagine their own vocal contributions to
a renovated public sphere.
 R
“WOMEN DO NOT
WANT IT” (1897)
“THE ANTI-SUFFRAGISTS”
(1898)
“THE SOCIALIST AND THE
SUFFRAGIST” (1911)
charlot te perkins
gilman (1860–1935)

Writer, sociologist, and publisher of a reform magazine The Forerunner, Gilman

was a social critic who challenged conventional thought about women’s needs
and place in society. Perceiving women’s political and social subjugation from a
wide perspective, Gilman’s writings addressed an array of issues, including edu-
cational deficits, economic inequities, reproductive burdens, intellectual and
emotional deprivations, and both employment and domestic overwork. Her
overarching objective was the dismantling of gender constructs that denied
fundamental similarities between men and women. The poems reproduced
here are marked by the wry humor and edged impatience of a speaker con-
fronting barriers to basic, necessary social progression. “The Socialist and the
Suffragist” concludes that socialists and suffragists sacrifice the larger “game” by
contesting divergent means to consonant ends. “The Anti-Suffragists” chastises
women for being their own worst enemies, and “Women Do Not Want It”
responds sharply to men’s supposed deference to popular opinion rather than
fairness or logic.

177
178 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

Women Do Not Want It

When the woman suffrage argument first stood upon its legs,
They answered it with cabbages, they answered it with eggs,
They answered it with ridicule, they answered it with scorn,
They thought it a monstrosity that should not have been born.

When the woman suffrage argument grew vigorous and wise,

And was not to be answered by these opposite replies,
They turned their opposition into reasoning severe
Upon the limitations of our God-appointed sphere.

We were told of disabilities—a long array of these,

Till one could think that womanhood was merely a disease;
And “the maternal sacrifice” was added to the plan
Of the various sacrifices we have always made—to man.

Religionists and scientists, in amity and bliss,

However else they disagreed, could all agree on this,
And the gist of all their discourse, when you got down in it,
Was—we could not have the ballot because we were not fit!

They would not hear the reason, they would not fairly yield,
They would not own their arguments were beaten in the field;
But time passed on, and some way, we need not ask them how,
Whatever ails those arguments—we do not hear them now!

You may talk of suffrage now with an educated man,

And he agrees with all you say, as sweetly as he can:
“T would be better for us all, of course, if womanhood was free;
But ‘the women do not want it’—and so it must not be!”

’T is such a tender thoughtfulness! So exquisite a care!

Not to pile on our frail shoulders what we do not wish to bear!
But, oh, most generous brother! Let us look a little more—
Have we women always wanted what you gave to us before?

Did we ask for veils and harems in the Oriental races?

Did we beseech to be “unclean,” shut out of sacred places?
Did we beg for scolding bridles and ducking stools to come?
And clamour for the beating stick no thicker than your thumb?

Did we ask to be forbidden from all the trades that pay?

Did we claim the lower wages for a man’s full work today?
Have we petitioned for the laws wherein our shame is shown:
That not a woman’s child—nor her own body—is her own?

What women want has never been a strongly acting cause,

When woman has been wronged by man in churches, customs, laws;
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 179

Why should he find this preference so largely in his way,

When he himself admits the right of what we ask today?

Source: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “Women Do Not Want It,” Woman’s Journal 28
(23 January 1897).

The Anti-Suffragists
Fashionable women in luxurious homes,
With men to feed them, clothe them, pay their bills,
Bow, doff the hat, and fetch the handkerchief;
Hostess or guest; and always so supplied
With graceful deference and courtesy;
Surrounded by their horses, servants, dogs–
These tell us they have all the rights they want.

Successful women who have won their way

Alone, with strength of their unaided arm,
Or helped by friends, or softly climbing up
By the sweet aid of “woman’s influence”;
Successful any way, and caring naught
For any other woman’s unsuccess—
These tell us they have all the rights they want.

Religious women of the feebler sort—

Not the religion of a righteous world,
A free, enlightened, upward-reaching world,
But the religion that considers life
As something to back out of!—whose ideal
Is to renounce, submit, and sacrifice.
Counting on being patted on the head
And given a high chair when they get to heaven—
These tell us they have all the rights they want.

Ignorant women—college bred sometimes,

But ignorant of life’s realities
And principles of righteous government,
And how the privileges they enjoy
Were won with blood and tears by those before—
Those they condemn, whose ways they now oppose;
Saying, “Why not let well enough alone?
Our world is very pleasant as it is”—
These tell us they have all the rights they want.

And selfish women—pigs in petticoats—

Rich, poor, wise, unwise, top or bottom round,
180 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

But all sublimely innocent of thought,

And guiltless of ambition, save the one
Deep, voiceless aspiration—to be fed!
These have no use for rights or duties more.
Duties today are more than they can meet,
And law insures their right to clothes and food—
These tell us they have all the rights they want.

And, more’s the pity, some good women too;

Good, conscientious women with ideas;
Who think—or think they think—that woman’s cause
Is best advanced by letting it alone;
That she somehow is not a human thing,
And not to be helped on by human means,
Just added to humanity—an “L”—
A wing, a branch, an extra, not mankind—
These tell us they have all the rights they want.

And out of these has come a monstrous thing,

A strange, down-sucking whirlpool of disgrace,
Women uniting against womanhood,
And using that great name to hide their sin!
Vain are their words as that old king’s command
Who set his will against the rising tide.
But who shall measure the historic shame
Of these poor traitors—traitors are they all—
To great Democracy and Womanhood!

Source: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Anti-Suffragists,” in In This Our World

(New York: Small, Maynard & Co., 1898).

The Socialist and the Suffragist

Said the Socialist to the Suffragist:
“My cause is greater than yours!
You only work for a Special Class,
We work for the gain of the General Mass,
Which every good ensures!”

Said the Suffragist to the Socialist:

“You underrate my Cause!
While women remain a Subject Class,
You never can move the General Mass,
With your Economic Laws!”
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 181

Said the Socialist to the Suffragist:

“You misinterpret facts!
There is no room for doubt or schism
In Economic Determinism—
It governs all our acts!”

Said the Suffragist to the Socialist:

“You men will always find
That this old world will never move
More swiftly in its ancient groove
While women stay behind!”

“A lifted world lifts women up,”

The Socialist explained.
“You cannot lift the world at all
While half of it is kept so small,”
The Suffragist maintained.

The world awoke, and tartly spoke:

“Your work is all the same:
Work together or work apart,
Work, each of you, with all your heart—
Just get into the game!”

Source: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Socialist and the Suffragist,” in Suffrage Songs
and Verses (New York: Charlton, 1911).
 R
“THE AUSTRALIAN BALLOT
SYSTEM” (1898)
m a b e l c l a r e e rv i n ( n . d . )

Ervin published a series of stories including “The Australian Ballot System” in

The Chicago Chronicle before collecting them in As Told by The Typewriter Girl.
Although self-supporting, skilled, and efficient, the “typewriter girl” represented
in the period’s fiction was subordinated across several hierarchies: in terms of
gender, enfranchisement, and originality.12 Wearing men’s clothes, however, enables
Madge (like Fettered for Life’s Frank, see page 93) to take advantage of the newly
introduced secret (“Australian”) ballot system and to assert her right to the fran-
chise. Ervin’s breezy style mirrors the modern efficiency of the typewriter girl.

. . . [The Brunette and I] have met someone who looks exactly like me, and clothes
have nothing to do with it, for he is a boy.
He came to live at our lodgings, and the first time we met was at the dinner-
table. He was given a seat beside me, and as I took my chair a murmur of pleased
surprise went up from the Brunette. She looked in his face and in mine and then
remarked:
“You have no idea how much you and Mr. Hart look alike, Madge.”
I smiled in a dreary way and tried to look pleased, but really wasn’t, for I couldn’t
get a good look at the fellow and only knew he was very short and slim. I met him
on the stairs the next evening and he said: “Miss Madge, let’s step in the parlor
and see if we do look alike. That is all I’ve heard since I came here. Everyone is at
dinner, and they’ll never know.”
Standing side by side before the glass, we looked like brother and sister. He is
short for a man and I tall for a woman, so our shoulders were even. His hair is a
soft auburn, the same as mine, only his is worn parted in the centre and mine
pompadour. Laughingly I said: “You’d look just like me dressed in my clothes.”
The Brunette and several others came in and caught us standing together and
joked us, but it only served to make us better friends. We were good fellows at once,

182
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 183

Dickie Hart, the Brunette, and I. Some day we are going to dress Dickie up in my
clothes and send him down to dinner as me. He is letting his hair grow long for the
occasion.
The day before registration Dickie was twenty-one, but he is so small and looks
so young he was obliged to make an affidavit before he was permitted to register.
Naturally, Dickie was very proud of being old enough to cast his first vote and
had a great deal to say about election laws, airing this newly acquired knowledge
exultingly.
The night before election we three were sitting in the parlor, the Brunette and
I listening to Dickie’s views concerning the candidates. Dickie is a Republican and
so is the Brunette, while I am a Democrat, for my father was once congressman
from his district on the Democratic ticket, so I know the Democracy is all right.
But I kept still, and I’m glad now I did. At length the Australian [secret] ballot
system entered into the talk, and they could not praise it enough.
“An illegal vote cannot possibly be cast,” Dickie said, and the Brunette echoed,
“Can’t possibly be cast!” . . .
“Why? Because you say so?” I asked.
“No. Because the system of voting is so managed a person who has no right to
vote is not allowed to do so.”
“He can if he’s sly,” I said.
“I repeat, an illegal vote cannot be cast.”
“Yes, it can,” I said, “and I’ll cast it.”
“You!” both Dickie and the Brunette cried in horror. “You can’t.”
Putting my hands behind me and leaning up against the wall, as I’ve seen boys
do, I tried to look just like one as I said: “What’ll you bet?
“A two-pound box of chocolates,” said the Brunette.
I put my head on one side and said, “Too cheap.”
“I’ll add dinner for three at Kinsley’s,” Dickie whispered.
“A box of candy and dinner at Kinsley’s. Great reward for laying myself open to
arrest.”
“I’ll give you my new red belt, Madge; you know you want it.”
“Yes,” said Dickie, “and we’ll go to the play after dinner.” . . .
“And you and the Brunette will help me do it and go with me?”
“Oh, yes,” they said. I was afraid to strike for more, for fear I’d lose the game.
I said: “You won’t lose your vote, Dickie; but you can’t cast it.”
“Why?” he said, as his big violet eyes opened in anxiety.
“Because I’m going to cast it.”
They stared at me in wonder.
“Don’t you see, Dickie? I look just like you, and if I was dressed in your clothes
and parted my hair in the middle and voted your vote, no one would be the wiser.
I’ll cast an illegal vote and win my bet.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Yes, I do,” I said. “No one knows you in this precinct, and I’ll vote early in the
morning.” . . .
184 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

My audacity charmed Dickie, but frightened the Brunette. “What will you do
with your hair?” she asked. “They’ll know you are a girl by that?”
“No, they will not. Trust Madge. . . . I’m ready to vote the Republican ticket by
proxy any day if Madge is willing,” [said Dickie].
“I must learn to speak an octave lower before morning,” I said, as we hurried to
our room. It was arranged that we would get up early and be at the polls by six
o’clock; that I should cast my vote, or Dickie’s, rather; then we would return to our
lodgings, I would remove my manly apparel, and we three would eat our breakfast
together and keep still on the fun.
Dickie brought in a suit of light gray, short top-coat of tan with big pearl
buttons, a white college hat, a percale shirt of light blue and white collar and cuffs,
and a black string tie.
“Your shoes and gloves, Dickie,” I said, as we were looking over the clothes to see
if everything was there.
“Oh, yes,” he said, and brought some dark tan gloves and a pair of pretty tan
shoes.
....
“Now, hurry up,” he said, as we left the room. “It is twenty minutes of six.”
Hurry! I flew, never stopping to see how I looked until I was ready for the waist-
coat. Then the Brunette, clapping her hands together, exclaimed: “Madge, they fit
you better than they do him. You look perfectly lovely.”
I glanced carelessly in the glass, tightening the collar band as I did so.
“Your hair, Madge. What will you do with it?”
I let it down and parted it in the centre, brushing it all to the back of my neck,
where I tied it firmly but not tightly, for I pulled it out and let the short ends
fall about my face, boy fashion. Then I poked every bit of that back hair down my
shirt, and when I put on my collar my hair looked just like a boy’s. I got a good
twist to my tie and, glancing down, discovered I had forgotten the shoes. I sat on
a chair while the Brunette put them on me; then she gave me the coat and
waistcoat.
As I walked back and forth before the glass she said: “I wish Dickie had as pretty
a walk. You are so careless and graceful.”
I was delighted, of course, and set the college hat jauntily on my head and posed
again.
At that moment Dickie’s knock sounded at the door. “It’s just six, girls,” he said.
I gallantly assisted the Brunette with her wraps, pressed her hands tenderly,
and picked up the top coat and put it on. “Come, little girl,” I said. “Brother will be
waiting for us.”
Dickie was in the hall below. I ran lightly downstairs and, slapping him on the
shoulder, cried: “How are you, old man? Voted yet?”
“Jove, you look swell!” He caught hold of my hands and held me at arm’s length
as he looked me over. . . .
I withdrew from him and held the door open for the Brunette. Then I assisted
her down the stairs and across the road. I was in high spirits, but did not do much
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 185

talking for fear someone would find me out. Dickie spent his time telling me how
I would know the Republican ticket and where to put my cross, while I paid great
attention to the Brunette and flirted with every girl we passed. At last we reached
the polling place. A crowd of men was in line, and I took my place at the end.
My cheeks were flushed with excitement, and occasionally I glanced at Dickie and
the Brunette, waiting outside. A rough man who had just voted stepped up to me
and said:
“Throw this kid out. What are you doing here?”
Everyone looked at me. I thought I was done for, but with great daring
exclaimed:
“I am here to cast a vote for a Republican assessor.”
Instantly every Republican in line was my friend. “You are not old enough to
vote,” the rough man continued.
“Yes, he is,” cried a dozen or more Republicans. “I know him; he’s all right.” One
went further and said, “He lives next door to me.”
So I was permitted to vote. As I took the ticket I spoke my name in manly tones,
“Dickenson R. Hart,” and passed into the little room partitioned off from the men.
There I glanced at the ticket. Dickie said I must vote Republican, all but one candi-
date, that for the council, and there must “cut.” . . . I recalled Dickie’s instructions,
reread the ticket, then took my pencil and cast a straight Democratic vote. Why
shouldn’t I? I will never vote again, and I’m a Democrat.
I watched the man drop my ticket in the box, then rejoined Dickie and the
Brunette. We hurried home, and as I removed the topcoat the Brunette threw her
arms about me and cried: “Madge, you are lovely; so handsome, so polite! I’m
falling in love with you.”
. . . Dickie simply could not get through talking of the escapade.
“It was fun,” he said. “You are so daring, Madge. And, after all, it made no differ-
ence, you know. You did the thing for me and put in a good Republican vote.”
The joke was too good to keep, so I said:
“Oh, no, Dickie; just the reverse. I’m a Democrat, you know.”

Source: Mabel Clare Ervin, “The Australian Ballot System,” in As Told by The Typewriter
Girl (New York: E. R. Herrick and Co., 1898), 30–39.
 R
PORTIA POLITICS (1911–1912)
edith bailey (n.d.)

Bailey’s illustrated poem serialized in The Woman Voter dramatizes how bore-
dom and cross-class friendship inspired wealthy women to contribute to the
modern campaign. Bailey’s character Portia is inspired as much by society
suffragist Portia Willis as by Shakespeare’s heroine and other curious, eloquent
women, from Eve to Bluebeard’s wife.

I
When Portia Primrose was scarce ten, her father grieved to find
She had an active reasoning, and too inquiring mind.
The “Constitution” she read through, and never skipped a page.
“It is unseemly,” smiled Papa, “for both your sex and age.”

“But, father, please explain to me”—her father stroked her curls—

“Such books are writ for men and boys, not dainty little girls.
Cherish your pretty bloom, my dear, and keep within your place,
Don’t strive to be a ‘suffragette’—a menace to the race!”

“But, Papa, are not all those laws for little girls, as well
As Brother Tom and Cousin Dick, and Uncle Harry Bell?”
“The laws for all (including girls) we ‘knowing’ men have made—
If women were to study them, they might not be obeyed.

“For little girls and women, too, must keep within their sphere;
Their place is in the Home, and not the ballot-booth my dear.”
“Why, father, is the ballot-booth a naughty place to go?”
“The circus-booth is best for you, and front seats at the show.”

“Come, here’s Mamma to take you to dancing school, my child,

A lady’s chiefest charms are grace, good clothes and manners mild.
In this your coat so soft and warm, how thankful you should be
A coat all made of finest wool belongs to Portia P.!”

186
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 187

“Yes, but poor Nell Naught’s Winter coat, it has no warmth at all.
It’s made of ‘shoddy,’ Nellie says, not even fit for Fall.
Only the rich can wear pure wool—if Nellie had the vote
She says she’d cut the ‘Tariff ’ and wear a warmer coat.”

“Tut-tut my child, you must not talk in such a silly way—

What would become of poor Papa, if Nellie had her say?
He manufactures woolen goods, and so, do you not see
Without the tariff, where, oh, where, would our fast autos be?

“Meanwhile, in order to be kind, not charity we shirk,

Poor Nellie gets your broken dolls, her mother lots of work.
But they are never satisfied, they’d seize our every dime,
To keep us rich and keep them poor, I’m working overtime.”

“Oh, yes, Papa,” purred Portia, “I know they’re often rude,

Poor people who go thinly clad and clamor after food.
They’re not content with favors; they fight and strike and fret
And clamor for their ‘human rights’ like any suffragette.”

III—The Wedding Bells

Her wedding bells rang merrily, the bride was passing fair;
The pearls were big as marbles, a Bishop blessed the pair;
Poor Nellie Naught stood on the curb to see the pageant near:
“My, ain’t she like a fairy queen, to never shed a tear.”

At first, of course, it was great fun, and then a deadly bore;

Portia saw clearly that her life was emptier than before;
She sought the “Question Mark” and said, “Dan, dear, I long to do
Some work that’s worth a while in the world; now why can’t I help you?”

“Help me, go in for politics? tut, tut, my lovely one,

You soon would find the game I play is not your kind of fun.
You are a queen, my Portia, the Queen job is your fate.”
“I’m tired of the Queen job, and thrones are out of date.

“I often envy Nellie Naught who makes our windows shine,

She’s married now to Peter Poor, a switchman on the line;
While I am moping through the day, a useless idle sinner—
Nell works and sings and then goes home to cook her Peter’s dinner.

“And we dine out and sit apart, as is deemed most polite;

I chatter social nothings, to my partners left and right;
When I wake in the morning, you’ve started off downtown.
I’m lonelier than a widow,” and Portia paused to frown.
188 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

“Some work! The streets are dirty, I’d like to use a broom,
I’d like to clean a city as a woman cleans her home;
Upon the Park Commission I wish you’d put me, pray;
Was it not in a garden woman had first her stay?

“And then the schools, the children, they are a woman’s care;
Put me up on the school board.” Dan cried, “I’m not the mayor;
Portia, my dear, are you quite mad with all this modern slush
Of women wandering forth to make of public life a mush?

“Remember Blue Beard’s wife, my dear, defiant of his law,

When in the closet closed she looked, remember what she saw.”
“It was quite time,” scoffed Portia, “that door was opened wide
And that room disinfected, and cleaned out well beside.”

Her husband turned upon her in sad and angry fret.

“Heavens,” he cried, “and I am wed to a wild suffragette?
You seemed a tender flower, blooming man’s lot to cheer
Who ne’er would wish to wander from your appointed ‘sphere.’”

VI—Portia at the Fair

‘Twas a morning bright in June, a cloudless Summer day,
And Portia, with her girls and boys, was raking in the hay,
When from the house came Bridget upon a breathless run—
“Madam,” she cried, “long distance, you’re wanted on the ‘phun.”

“What, Mrs. Tabitha Von Cott, to speak at the State Fair,

To crowds of farmers and their wives, ah me, I’d never dare!
‘Make holiday of duty, and take the children, too,’
And Nellie Poor as ‘barker,’ what does a ‘barker’ do?”

Portia chose out her two twin sons to squire her to the Fair,
But Nellie left her triplets home within her mother’s care.
The motor was bedeckt with yellow ribbons bright and gay,
While Nellie “barked” through megaphone to “all, please, step this way.”

“My friends,” quoth Portia, “here you see some women far from home
Believe me, it is not because those women love to roam,
But home, we think, is not four walls, but all our country wide,
My children are not only those here standing by my side.

“’Neath labor’s Juggernaut young lives are crushed beyond repair;

My motherhood must feel their wrongs, those children are my care;
When fatherhood was scarce a name, the woman’s sheltering arms
Guarded her darlings from the wolves, and from all threatening harms.
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 189

“Give women voice in laws that guard the children of the State
We know what burdens they can bear, what prudence they dictate.
On children hang our destiny, our nation’s future weal—
Let mothers sit in the Child’s Court to judge their mute appeal.

“As God beheld the world was good, he gave it to a pair,

A man and woman, and he meant that both alike should share;
But times were evil, women weak, she narrowed to a ‘sphere,’
As in a trap a mouse is caught to squeak out his despair.

“Open the mouse-trap Modern Man, and do not be afraid

To let God set the boundless sphere for creature that he made,
And Women, lift your eyes and see—the more you do, the more
Is ever at your hand to do. Ask for the open door.

Source: Portia Politics, The Woman Voter 2, no. 11 (December 1911): 6–7; 2, no. 12
(January 1912): 8–9; 3, no. 1 (February 1912): 10–11; 3, no. 2 (March 1912): 6–7; 3, no. 3
(April 1912): 16–17; 3, no. 4 (May 1912): 16–17.
 R
“DISFRANCHISEMENT” (1912)
“TAFFY” (1912)
n e w yo r k wo m a n s u f f r ag e pa r t y

These illustrated parodies of Mother Goose rhymes were initially published in

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle and then issued in booklet form by the New York
Woman Suffrage Party. Like Miller’s rhymes (see page 235), these poems put
radical messages in familiar containers by humorously drawing attention to
both the unfairness of placing women in the same category as convicts and
lunatics and the contradictions of antisuffragist behavior.

190
4. Disfranchisement illustration from Mother Goose as a Suffragette (Hollis Call 324.3
M91). Digital image courtesy of The Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard
Library.
5. “Taffy” illustration from Mother Goose as a Suffragette (Hollis Call 324.3 M91). Digital
image courtesy of The Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard Library.

Source: From New York League of Woman Voters, Mother Goose as a Suffragette
(Brooklyn: Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 1912).
 R
“WOMEN MARCH” (1912)
m a ry a l d e n h o p k i n s ( 1 8 7 6 – 1 9 6 0 )

Hopkins was the quintessential “New Woman”: audacious, educated, and self-
supporting, she disdained “all established institutions.” Hopkins studied at
Wellesley College and at Columbia where she earned an M.A. before entering
New York activist circles.13 As a journalist and essayist, she published polemical
pieces in both mainstream and special-interest journals on labor reform, dress
reform, birth control, pacifism, vegetarianism, and suffrage. Her creative writing
was equally shaped by her politics: she wrote poems, for instance, about peace
and suffrage and coauthored a novella about sanitation and disease. In “Women
March,” Hopkins renders the rich spectacle and buoyant spirit characterizing a
suffrage parade; she concludes, however, with a nod to a suffrage stalwart whose
work is necessary if unspectacular.

On Saturday afternoon, May 4, in New York City, ten thousand women and men
swung up Fifth Avenue from Washington Square toward Carnegie Hall in a spring
time of hyacinthine bloom. Have you ever seen a crocus bed five women wide and
two hours long? Flags and pennants and banners streamed over their heads like
irises, jonquils, tulips, and the green of lily leaves—all in yellow sunshine. The lilia-
cious color swayed to familiar music. Footsteps fell like the meter of old ballads—
“Will ye tell me, Shaun O’Farrell, Where the meeting is to be?”
The procession formed in Washington Square around the broad, green grass
plot and in the side streets among red brick, respectable-faced old homes and the
churches with dark squat turrets. It swung up the avenue, between loft buildings,
high, narrow, like children’s blocks set on end: the fronts many-windowed, sides
blank, spattered with block letters. The crowd here was like a log jam in a spring
freshet. The buildings could not give an inch to accommodate the people, [who . . .]
overflowed the sidewalks into the roadway. The police flung themselves upon the
mass, kneading it like dough. Pressed in at one point, it bulged at another.
Perhaps it was the kneading which made violent antis of the young chaps wear-
ing flat derbies over blank, silly faces. After whetting sharp tongues on “Here come
the Loidy Boilermakers’ Union” and vituperating some very correct park riding

193
194 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

costumes as the mannish result of wanting to vote, they fell in a pack upon the
Men’s League.
A bulbous man with features lost in a round pincushion of flesh, hat comfortably
back, thumbs pompously in waistcoat pockets, inquired jocosely out of the corner
of his mouth, not blocked by a rakish cigar, addressing a world-famous scholar:
“Say, Mary, where’d yer leave th’ baby?”
A companion, with a die-away chin and a pimple on his nose, selected a Wall
Street broker for the scathing query:
“Aw, Susie, be them dishes washed?” . . .
Above Twenty-third Street in the blocks where shop windows are curio cabinets
in color, where rude scaffolding crowd cathedral spires, where club windows are
crowded with connoisseurs’ faces—in this part of the town comment was of a very
different sort.
On either side banked faces sloped up steps and terraces. They were crowded as
close as the pinhead figures in the bowls which seafarers used to bring home from
China, called “thousand wise men” ware. Above, windows were gay with leaning
women, waving handkerchiefs and bright scarfs.
Men, cheering boys, dull-toned women, and rainbow women were all crowding
toward the curb, peering over the shoulders of the police who held them back,
craning to see, whispering with faces close together, tense with eagerness at gaze.
Down this living lane the other women walked in serried ranks, quick,
rhythmic, unceasing as the beating of throbbing hearts. They were in striking
contrast to the sidewalk crowds. Most of them wore white suits, the others dark.
Unobtrusive frocks—all of them were dressed with extreme plainness. They had
stripped themselves of frippery; they were bare of gewgaws. They longed to wipe
out all distinguishing class marks; to express “the solidarity of women,” or, in the
old words—sisterhood.
Except in a few instances, the sidewalk crowd watched the procession in an
extraordinary silence. So lovely in its color, winding like a flexible rainbow, up
and down as far as one could see—and yet, so serious. Like a medieval pageant in
some far-away city of the past—and yet, so very new. From the window of a great
political club men watched with serious eyes and silent lips.
“Why don’t they say something?” cried a resentful flag-waving woman.
“Madam,” replied an old gentleman, who leaned shaking hands on his heavy
staff, “they do not speak because they are too busy thinking. Your parade is making
men think.”
A very beautiful woman came out of a shop. She was tall, and her gray frock
clung round her in knots and folds like a soft rain cloud. . . .She was an exquisite
creature who had flowered perfectly in happiness and wealth and wisdom. As she
stood, caught in the crowd, unable to reach her motor, she watched the parade,
a wise, slight smile on her lips. A man beside her was speaking in German . . . :
“I do not allow my wife to make a fool of herself like this. Cooking and children
are women’s business. I have been three months in America. The women here care
only for clothes. The American women disgust me.”
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 195

The wise, slight smile faded from the woman’s lips. She turned imperiously. For
the first time in all her well-ordered life she addressed a strange man. She said,
speaking also in German:
“Cooking, yes. And children, yes. But the brain—and the soul? For us, too, exists
the ideal. When you have been longer in America, you will understand better the
American woman.”
While the man still stared at her with open mouth, she swept her draperies
off the pavement and stepped into the roadway to march beside her sister
women.
Newspaper photographers stood in a shifting bunch in the open space where the
avenue crosses Broadway. . . . The photographers darted about, putting in plates,
cranking films, pulling out shutters, clicking buttons, leaping forward, poising in a
position suggesting horrid pain, to grip cameras firmly in the pit of their stomachs,
as the cavalcade trotted into view.
First came the line of mounted police. . . . They were followed by the “suffrage
cavalry,” some fifty horsewomen, wearing black hats cockaded in green and
purple—and the parade was on. The women marched by occupation or club or
political district; the men marched by sex—except some who preferred to be with
their wives. You see, conditions were reversed from the usual. The official program
of the first part of the procession read like a business directory—doctors, lawyers,
teachers, students, buyers, sellers, traders, agents, players, writers, sculptors,
farmers, nurses, tailors, cooks. Learned ladies and drudges and craftswomen—
workwomen all.
Club groups followed the guilds. A flock of high school girls in gym skirts,
middie blouses, and red ties braced themselves, arms extended, to hold a great flag
carried flat. “All This,” says a banner, “Is the Natural Consequence of Teaching Girls
to Read.” Quaker ladies in soft gray gowns and bonnets rustled along. Again there
was a band of women carrying yellow Chinese parasols and a banner with the
device: “Catching Up with China.” College graduates . . . wore caps and gowns. . . .
In the Trades-Union League many of the workers were girls in short skirts with hair
bobbed up with big ribbon bows; short, stocky children who walk heavily, as if
wearily, even when they are not weary at all. They carried a black banner on which
was printed in white letters: “We Want the Vote for Our Protection.” The same girls
carried this banner a year ago in a very different procession. That terrible day the
marchers linked arms to support the fainting ones as they tramped in pouring
rain, through deserted streets, in memory of their comrades dying horribly in the
Triangle fire.
One white-frocked section chose blue for its banners and scarfs and ribbons.
When this group halted for a minute in Madison Square, it seemed suddenly as if
white and blue leaped out of the background. Above was a mackerel sky, schools
of fleecy white clouds swimming in blue depths. Behind, the great tower was dead
white against blue. . . .
Here stand a mother and child watching. The child is a dot of a creature, chiefly
white legs and a huge hat. The mother is a buxom young matron in white. She has
196 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

cleverly pushed her plumpness up onto her shoulders and covered it with a lich-
gate hat. Says the small white mushroom to the large white puff ball:
“Mommer, I want to see the lantern-jawed sisters popper said we’d see!
Mommer, these ain’t no lantern-jawed sisters!”
Near the corner of one street, on the curb at the edge of the crowd, stood a
white-haired old gentleman holding his hat in his hand with an attitude of the
utmost respect. As the procession paused a moment in front of him, a girl bearing
a banner caught his eye and smiled. He raised his hat higher and said: “God bless
you, dear ladies. God bless you.”
Two carriages, driven by women, carried white-haired, sweet-faced “suffrage
veterans.” They who fought on foot for weary years are now placed in seats of
honor; are now lovingly tended by women not born when the fight began. As the
oldest of them all, the Rev. Antoinette Blackwell, bent from her flower-wreathed
carriage, benignly smiling into eager, upturned faces, she seemed the gentle grand-
mother of all suffragists.
A group of women from Norway, Sweden, and Finland were led by a half dozen
in peasant costume—red skirts, short, full, swinging: laced bodices; caps as light as
large snowflakes.
A white-bearded old gentleman, attracted by the bouquet of color, asked who
were these women.
“They are women who could vote in their own countries—but not here,” replied
a marshal.
The old gentleman nodded his head understandingly. “Oh, yes,” he said,
“I understand—those are free women.”
Enfranchised citizens from Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Washington, and
California were the first in the line to carry the United States flag.
Delegations came from Kansas, Maryland, Connecticut, Massachusetts,
Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, District of Columbia,
and Virginia. New Jersey women came in squads under the names of their towns.
New York State women were by towns . . . and by counties. . . .
A sweet little Southern woman, with her golden curls escaping from under her
suffrage hat, which she had succeeded in giving a charming air of coquetry, turned
to her companion and said with big, serious blue eyes: “You know to me suffrage is
almost a religion,” and she meant it.
The city women who had not already passed in their trade groups or their clubs
now followed, divided according to their Assembly Districts. A week before the
parade a dainty girl in a slimsy glimmering silk dress, a tilted hat, and hair cropped
in wavy love locks against soft cheeks, after “signing up,” debated aloud—should
she walk with the musicians or should she walk with the actresses, or—there were
the artists.
The businesslike clerk holding her pen suspended between inky fingers, though
impressed by this confusion of talent, was still logical. She inquired with matter-of-
fact directness:
“Which are you, actress, musician, or painter?”
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 197

“Oh,” replied the soft-cheeked one in scarlet distress, “I’m not any of them.
I’m just—just—Oh, I’m nothing but a married woman!”
“You are a member of the ____ Assembly District,” replied the businesslike
clerk, jabbing pen to list. “You will walk with your district to educate your Senator.”
Thousands of “just married women”—women whom the census classes as
dependent females because they get no pay envelope of a Saturday night after seven
days of broiling steak, nicking dishes, running sewing machines, and nursing
mumpy children—thousands of these industrious housekeepers marched in a
glory of yellow splendor. The sun slanting across high roofs flung a golden light
on the Metropolitan Tower, a great, pale reflection of the deep chrome massed in
the street below.
On the broad stone balustrade of the Public Library terrace is a suffrage family—
a “hand-tailored” father with broad eyeglass ribbon, a comfortable-looking father
with pleasant eyes and pickaback shoulders. Margie and Jack and the baby are
perched on the stone coping in front of him; Jack in an Indian playsuit, excitedly
kicking his clumsy, puppy-dog feet; Margie with hair freshly pony-cut and rib-
boned, dangling, slim brown legs; between the two, baby, an adored mass of gur-
gling flesh in white lawn.
Mother, we learn from the conversation, is marching with her district. If women
get the vote before Margie grows up, can she never march in a parade? Mother’s got
on her new white serge and looks just grand. If Jack threw stones at the grocer’s
window would it help women get the vote? Oh, baby mustn’t poke his flag in the
gentleman’s eyes! Here comes our Assembly District, and in a minute everyone
within earshot has picked out mother, looking just grand in her new white serge,
a little heavy on her feet, a little short of breath, but—mother . . . , marching for the
Cause! . . .
As the Woman Suffrage Party division passed the home of Mrs. Russell Sage,
who has paid the rent of the executive offices of that organization for many
months, the banner of each Assembly District was dipped in salutation.
The Socialists were the last group: Socialists scarfed in red—deep, warm red: the
red of heart’s blood. Men and women marched together as a matter of course. In
the Socialist party no one says “man suffrage” and “woman suffrage,” but simply
“suffrage.” This group struck a different note from the earlier ones. For the others
votes-for-women was the overwhelming thought; to the Socialist it was but one
thought among many. They struck a note of gayety. It was as if they said: “Votes for
women is coming fast—why be solemn when it’s so near!” When they reached the
upper end of the avenue, where large closed mansions with blind eyes are elbowed
by upstart apartment houses and stupendous hotels, darkness had fallen suddenly.
The women on the ends burned red fire, waving the flaring torches in the measure
of the music. The red ranks, lit up by the warm, red glow, marched on buoyantly,
joyously, singing the “Marseillaise” in low, familiar voices, as mothers at nightfall
sing the well-loved lullabies.
The impatient automobiles, long penned in the cross streets, came rolling down
the avenue, nose to tonneau, wheeling, darting for an opening, heavy, noiseless, swift.
198 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

At Altman’s corner a suffragist slipped from the curb into the poured-out
stream of motion. She was small, alert, light on her feet. Her eyes were fixed on
universal suffrage; she scorned the rushing motors.
The tall, lean policeman, stationed like a semaphore in the center of traffic, sig-
naling with long arms stiffly raised and lowered, caught sight of her as she breasted
the main current on the Waldorf side and flung a saving arm about her.
“It’s hurry, hurry, hurry, as if you had just five minutes to live,” he scolded. “You
won’t have five minutes yet if you hurry in front of that green bus,” he warned her.
The suffragette cocked her head from the hollow of his sheltering arm.
“Why don’t you stop the bus? That’s hurrying, too,” she inquired. Her tone was
mildly curious. Her mouth was sweetly sober. In her eyes a flickering daredevil
mocked the big man’s anger.
The policeman, looking down at the birdlike creature, derisive, unafraid, sighed
heavily.
“I ain’t worrying about the busses, ma’m,” he replied gloomily; “I can stop
them by raising my hand—but God Almighty Himself couldn’t hold back the
women!”
Over the city that night the air was tense with suffrage thought. All along
Broadway crowds gathered about the huge, yellow-trimmed automobiles to hear
suffrage sentiments. All up and down Broadway, under the flaring, rippling lights,
women hawked their suffrage paper—“The Woman Voter.” On one corner stood a
tall, young woman dressed in black. A yellow news bag was slung at her side; in her
extended hand she offered a yellow-covered magazine to each passer-by. Her voice
stamped her a Virginian: “Buy a ‘Vot-ah’? ‘Woman vot-ah’? Five cents.”
As her eyes touched each vanishing face, she knew a different public from the
genial crowds drawn about the automobiles; a different public from the one that
stood for hours patiently waiting the parade. Here on Broadway was the public that
blocks the way of suffrage: cold, indifferent, insolent, angry. Elaborately coiffured
women, theatre-going with their husbands, looked at her as at a creature of a
different breed; others turned aside as from something unpleasant to see; a too-
perfectly dressed man slanted at her a syrupy glance. . . . Two girls strayed from
Sixth Avenue and paused to gape vacantly. They wore tight skirts, coarse ruffles,
blatant hats; their hair was too yellow, eyebrows too black, skin too white, cheeks
too pink; their hollow faces were modeled too tight to the skull by disease’s sculp-
turing thumb; rank, poisonous weeds, deadly to touch, dying of their own poison.
To these as to all the Virginian offered the yellow-covered magazine, calling in
her gentle voice: “Buy a ‘Vot-ah’? ‘Woman Vo-tah’? Five cents.”
Hundreds of passing men ignored her with conscious unconsciousness. A stout
fatherly tyrant burst out: “No, I won’t buy a ‘Voter’! You ought to be ashamed of
yourself! You ought to be at home doing—doing—er—er—”
He couldn’t think of a pressing duty at eight-thirty in the evening. His scolding
died away in a fat sputter.
A street sweeper, stunted, unshaven, dirtily white, wheeled his dust barrow up to
the curb for a friendly word: “Sure, the missis was there!”
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 199

An almost terrifyingly severe woman approached. An indefinable something

flashed across her furrowed face. Her eyes leaped to the Virginian’s. She passed—
and on the lips of each woman a smile twitched—the smile of one who has greeted
a loved kinswoman.

Source: Mary Alden Hopkins, “Women March,” Collier’s: The National Weekly 49, no. 9
(18 May 1912): 13, 30–31.
 R
“THE ARREST OF
SUFFRAGE” (1912)
ethel whitehead (1872–?)

Whitehead immigrated to California from England in 1895 and began activist work
soon after her arrival. In 1908, she was elected president of the Woman’s Socialist
Union of California (WSUC). Though the practice was discouraged by socialist
leaders, the WSUC cooperated with nonsocialist groups advocating women’s rights
and won substantial support for suffrage in California’s successful 1911 referendum
campaign, particularly among male unionists. “The Arrest of Suffrage” affirms
the shared interest of working- and middle-class women in citizenship, but the
play also references the challenges posed when activist groups with different con-
stituencies and agendas cooperate. Mrs. Smythe, an “anti,” alludes to the electoral
failures of socialist candidates as indicative of fundamental divisions between suf-
fragists and socialists. The contrast, moreover, between the “respectably dressed”
newsy Adelaide and her working-class ally Molly is stark. Simultaneously evoking
and defying Irish stereotypes, Molly disrupts the speech of the urbane “antis” and
counters their condescension with a bullish, unrefined rectitude. To her, suffrage
is a necessity for women unprotected by either the material privileges or the ideo-
logical comforts of middle-class femininity.

Scene: A Park in any Large City. Park Benches

are Disposed about the Stage
Time: Late Afternoon in Early Summer

(As curtain rises Adelaide enters. She is quietly but tastefully dressed, wears a large
yellow rosette, “votes for women” pin, and carries a bundle of Woman’s Journals
and Progressive Woman. She crosses to center as if to pass out, pauses, and looks at
benches.)

200
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 201

Adelaide: I might just as well get rid of these; there is no one about. (She puts a
paper on each bench.) There! Oh, how warm it is! (Sits on bench L at back.)

(Enter Molly at L. She is shabbily dressed, though neat and tidy, and carries a large
bundle of dirty clothes. She crosses wearily to R and drops on bench R. F. Sees paper;
picks it up.)

Molly: The Woman’s Journal. Shure, an’ that’s the paper!

(Enter Mrs. Browne and Mrs. Smythe at R. They are both dressed in the height of
fashion. . . .)

Mrs. Browne: . . . I tell you, something must be done to arrest this suffrage
movement.
Mrs. Smythe: Well, don’t get so excited; it’s too warm. I think we should
continue our nonresistant policy.
Mrs. D.: I tell you, something has to be done. (See papers.) Look here. (Crosses
to bench L; picks up papers; Mrs. Smythe follows.)
Mrs. S.: What is it?
Mrs. B: What is it! A copy of the Woman’s Journal. And what’s this? Progressive
Woman, Suffrage Edition! I tell you, those women are determined to thrust
the ballot upon us, to destroy our peace and quiet. How can we develop those
womanly characteristics that appeal to men, that will uplift the race, that—
Oh! (Crumples papers savagely.)
Molly: (aside) appeal to min, it is? Och!
Mrs. S.: (who has seated herself on bench) Come and sit down and get cool.
Mrs. B: Cool! Really, Nita, you are dreadfully annoying. Here is our peace and
security threatened—
Mrs. S.: Oh, do sit down! . . . Now, be reasonable. There are too many womanly
women, too many chivalrous men, for this to happen.
Mrs. B.: Oh, look at them all over the seats, and that woman reading one. (Crosses
to Molly) My good woman, don’t read that; read this. (Offers her an “anti” leaflet.)
Molly: (taking it) Shure, an’ I’m much obliged to yer, mem. I’ll rade them both.
Mrs. B.: Oh, but you mustn’t read those others; they are atrocious.
Molly: (eyeing her whimsically) Shure, an I allers rade atrocious things, mem.
Mrs. B.: My good woman, you don’t know what you are doing—
Mrs. S.: (annoyed) Fanny, do come and sit down!
Molly: Yer see, mem, my pace an’ quiet are already disthroyed, so p’raps it don’t
matther.
Mrs. B.: You must not read those papers, you poor, ignorant thing! Give them
to me. (Tries to take papers.)
Molly: (resisting) Ignorant! It’s yerself that’s ignorant, I’m thinking. I’ll throu-
ble yer to lave go thim papers.
Mrs. S.: (who has risen, laying hand on Mrs. B.’s shoulder) Fanny, have you taken
leave of your senses? The next thing there will be a crowd here, and you will be
making a speech.
202 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

Mrs. B.: (apologetically) Well, it’s disgraceful. Whoever dared put those papers
here? I don’t want to vote, and I’ll have to if those women keep on. I wish I had
hold of the shameless creature that put these papers here.
Adelaide: (rising and coming forward, much amused) How do you do, Mrs.
Browne.
Mrs. B.: Oh, good afternoon, Miss Walton.
Adelaide: You seem to be upset.
Mrs. B.: I should say so—all these papers on the seat here! It’s disgraceful!
Adelaide: I suppose the fact that you couldn’t get your resolution passed at the
meeting this afternoon has nothing to do with your excitement.
Mrs. B.: Of course it has! It’s abominable! (Suddenly an idea dawns on her; she
turns and looks sharply, at Adelaide.) I expect you know something about these
papers.
Adelaide: I do. I am the shameless creature.
Molly: Shure, an’ it’s the lady herse’f ought to be ashamed thrying to kape a
dacent woman from rading a paper. . . .
Mrs. S.: (crossing to her and putting hand on her arm) Fanny, really, I am
surprised at you making such a scene.
Mrs. B: Oh, be quiet! I don’t care! Adelaide Walton, it is a pity you haven’t
a husband to prevent your doing such things.
Molly: Prevint her! Shure, an’ I’d like to see anyone thryin’ to prevint her—or
me, ayther!
Mrs. S.: Fanny, if you do not come I shall go without you.
Mrs. B.: Oh, wait a minute! We’ve been trying nonresistance long enough.
I can’t think, Adelaide, how you can have the audacity to want to thrust a
responsibility upon us we do not want.
Molly: Och! Thrust nothing! Yer don’t have to vote if yer don’t want to.
Mrs. B.: How dare you!
Molly: Dare I! Dare, is it! Shure, an’ didn’t yer addrhess me fhurst?
Mrs. S.: Really, this is disgraceful! Come along, Fanny. I am sure Miss—er—
Walton is welcome to plaster the seats or anything else with her ridiculous
papers. They can’t do any harm; even the radicals are turning against them,
now they see how the women defeated them in Milwaukee and Los Angeles.
Adelaide: (warmly) That is not fair to charge that to the women. In both cases
it was the two parties combining that defeated them. In Los Angeles it was the
first time women voted. The men had a chance to vote at the primaries and
win out, and they didn’t. Don’t blame the women; it’s not fair. They very
nearly doubled the vote.
Mrs. S.: Well, I don’t see how you can expect the support of radicals. Everyone
knows that women are not progressive.
Molly: Shrue, an’ that’s a noice thing fer a woman to say.
Adelaide: Really, Mrs. Smythe, I don’t think you are very well posted. In Australia
and New Zealand women always vote for progressive measures, and in our own
country facts show that women always look to the welfare of the community.
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 203

Mrs. S.: Well, perhaps they do. I don’t care! Come along, Fanny. Just look at all
those people listening!
Mrs. B.: Wait! I believe you are right about that, Adelaide; but, oh, think of the
sanctity of our home, the sacredness of motherhood; think of our sacrificing
our womanly attributes to vote, to jostle against the rough men. No, no!
Women should be protected, cherished; our husbands and brothers must
shield us; they are competent to do so. Women are as tender flowers, to be
shielded from the ills of life—
Molly: (interrupting) An’ who is going to protect this tinder flower?
Mrs. B: My good woman—
Molly: Shure, an’ I suppose it doesn’t matther about me. What about all thim
tinder flowers that scrub floors, an’ wash clothes, work in factories, an’ kill
thimsilves so that you may have things? I s’pose they’re different.
Mrs. B.: Why, of course, that is not right; but they should stay home, and voting
won’t remedy it.
Molly: Stay home, is it? An’ s’pose yer ain’t got a home; s’pose yer have to git out
an’ work to keep a roof over yer head. What is going to remedy it? It’s the only
way yer can express yerself to amount to anything—by votin’.
Adelaide: You seem to have caught a Tartar, Fanny.
Mrs. B.: (embarrassed)—The woman is impertinent. You know very well,
Adelaide, it is a woman’s sacred duty to uplift the race. If it is at the expense of
some it can’t be helped. We need peace and quiet—
Molly: (who can stand it no longer, rising to her feet and gesticulating) Pace an’
quiet, is it! An’ it can’t be hilped if it hurts some! What sort o’ pace an’ quiet is
that? So long as yer let others suffer you can’t never till but what the same
thing’ll grab you. Pace an’ quiet! I know you both. You are Mrs. Smythe on the
avenue, and you are Mrs. Browne on the boulevard. I know yer. Shure, an’
don’t I wash thim delicate frills fer yer, and spind me toime an’ twist me back
a-ironin’ thim? I ain’t no toime fer swate white dresses meself, but this very
minit yer wearin’ things I stood up all noight to iron. Pace an’ quiet? An’ yer
don’t want responsibility! Shure, and phwat about me? Here I wurrk an’
wurrk, an’ save an’ pay off on me little home, an’ thin me ould man gits drunk
an’ sells it.
Mrs. B.: Oh, he couldn’t!
Molly: Och! Shure he couldn’t! But he did! He’s a voter, yer see, an’ I ain’t.
I niver hilped make the laws, but, begorra, I has to sthand thim!
Mrs. S.: (finding her voice) You impertinent creature—you! You’ll never wash
clothes for me again. (She tries to go, but the crowd has her hemmed in.)
Molly: Thrue for you—I wouldn’t soil me hands!
Mrs. B.: My good woman, you don’t understand this question.
Molly: Och, shure, an’ me hide’s thicker than a tin pan, but I can understhand
some things whin they are rammed in. Understhand! Shure, I understhand.
Yer too lazy, too afraid to sile yer hands. Yer willin’ I should, though. Yer afraid
to face things, yer don’t want responsibility, so yer want to thry an’ stop me
204 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

from gittin’ a chance to vote for better things for meself an’ for you. Yer
deprive me of my rights just because you haven’t spunk enough to face things!
Mrs. B.: Not at all.
Molly: Wouldn’t yer?
Adelaide: You see, these ladies think we women haven’t got the force to be able
to enforce the vote if we had it.
Molly: Force, is it! Force! An’ phwat force is it we want? Shure, an’ whin me ould
man come home afther sellin’ the house he sthruck agin force. I tell yer. (The
crowd howls.) . . .

(Mrs. S. and Mrs. B. are edging out of crowd; Molly steps in front of them.)

Molly: Wait a minit, ma’am, while I finish. I’m a washerwoman; you never sile
yer dainty hands. You an’ her don’t know phwat it is to go out in the worrld to
fight for yerself an’ yer childer, an’ yer sneak off an’ talk about not wanting
responsibility thrust on yer. Bah! Let me till yer, yer can’t escape responsibil-
ity. If women nade pace an’ quiet, women nade it. Come with me, an’ I’ll show
yer homes where there’s divil a bit ov pace an’ quiet; it’s all worrk, worrk. It’s
yersilf has a quiet home, an’ all the money yer nade, an’ all the harrd work
done for yer. But what about us that does all the worrk? Och! Bad scran to yer;
we make it possible for yer to have all the noice things, an’ yer howl as if yer
were kilt entoirely, because yer afraid yer’ll have to vote. Shure, an’ yer don’t
have to ef yer don’t want to; but we women who wurrk, we are the force that
kapes things going. No force! Why, labor is phwat makes everything, an’ the
force that builds up the world should have a vote. We nade it as much as a man
who works. The pace an’ quiet yer have is at the expense of thousands of
sufferin’ men, women an’ children, an—

(Enter Policeman.)

Policeman: Here, what’s this? No speaking allowed here. Have you a permit?
Molly: Permit—permit, is it? No. Can’t a body indulge in a little quiet conver-
sation?
Policeman: You are standing up, waving your hands an’ talking loud. You must
stop.
Molly: Oh! Ef I sit down an’ spake quiet an’ don’t use me hands, I can spake, can I?
Policeman: Here, move on! . . . Move on, I tell you! No speaking without
a permit. . . .
Molly: Och! Git along wid yer. It’s not spakin’ I am. Shure, an’ I can’t help it if
all these payple foind me conversation so intherestin’.
Policeman: Move on, now, or I’ll arrest you.
Molly: Arrest me! Arrest me, is it?
Policeman: Come, move on or I will.
Molly: Och ! Don’t be gittin’ excoited, policeman, dahrlin’. Shure, an’ I’ll move
on. I’ve unburdened me moind. (Crosses over to center.) I’d just have yer know,
mem, yer can’t arrest the suffrage movement; it—
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 205

Policeman: (crossing to her threateningly) Move on, will you, or I’ll have to
arrest you.
Molly: Och. I’m goin’. (Crosses to R.) I just want to tell yer, yer can arrest me if
yer loike, but yer can’t arrest the suffrage movement. . . .

(Molly exits. . . .Crowd breaks up as curtain falls. . . .)

Slow Curtain
Source: Ethel Whitehead, “The Arrest of Suffrage,” The Progressive Woman 7, no. 64
(October 1912): 14, 16.
 R
“BROTHER BAPTIS’ ON
WOMAN SUFFRAGE” (1912)
r o s a l i e j o na s ( n . d . )

Jonas was an African American poet who contributed dialect verse to main-
stream progressive journals like McClure’s as well as the African American mag-
azine The Crisis, which devoted several issues (September 1912, August 1915, and
November 1917) to suffrage. The August 1915 “Votes for Women” number staged a
symposium with contributions by many prominent African American feminists
and intellectuals, including Charles Chesnutt, Mary Church Terrell, Josephine St.
Pierre Ruffin, and Adella Hunt Logan.

When hit come ter de question er de female vote,

De ladies an’ de cullud folks is in de same boat.
Ef de Boss feelin’ good, an’ we eats out his han’,
We kin shout fur freedom, an’ foller de ban’.
We kin play at freedom, so long’s we play.
But ef we gits thinkin’, an’ comes out an’ say:
Case one’s borned a female, an’ one’s borned black,

Is dat any reason fur sottin’ way back!

Is dat any reason fur sottin’ da-put!
You kin betcher bottom dollar dat de Boss’s fut
Gwine ter sprout big claws, till dey comes clar thoo,
An’ he climps hit heavy on bofe us two.
Case de tears er de mudder, nur de sign er de cross,
Ain’t shame all de debbil yit, outen de Boss!

Source: Rosalie Jonas, “Brother Baptis’ on Woman Suffrage,” The Crisis (September
1912): 247.

206
 R
“MIRANDY ON ‘WHY
WOMEN CAN’T VOTE’” (1912)
d orothy dix [elizabeth
meriwether gilmer] (1861–1951)

Obliged by her husband’s illness to support herself, Gilmer established a career

as a writer under the pseudonym Dorothy Dix. Known in part for her “sob-sister”
coverage of sensational murder trials, Gilmer’s reputation was made primarily
as an advice columnist. At her height, she was the best-paid newspaper writer in
the United States and boasted more than sixty million readers worldwide.14 This
story is from “The Mirandy Stories,” published in Good Housekeeping. Narrated
in dialect by a feisty mammy, the tale takes humorous aim at women’s resistance
to militant tactics in their quest for the vote—a topical issue in 1912. Groups like
the Congressional Union (later the NWP) were formed during this period, but
they remained frustrated by the slow progress of state-by-state campaigning for
referenda and legislative action. Mirandy’s exhortation to women to “git up an’
heave brickbats” stakes an extreme position for radical action; such a display,
however, may be informed by Gilmer’s early experience of reporting on hatchet-
wielding temperance crusader Carrie Nation.

“De reason dat women ain’t got no say so in de government,” said Mirandy, “is
becaze you has got to wuk dish heah votin’ machine wid yo’ spine, an’ women ain’t
got no mo’ spine dan a fishin’ worm. The trouble wid women is dat dey ain’t got no
backbone, an’ dey ain’t to blame for dat becaze hit’s a long of de way dat dey was
made. Now last night Brer Jenkins preached in our chu’ch ‘bout dat man down in
Egypt, or some odder foreign city, what is a diggin’ around in de place whar de
Gyarden of Eden was, an’ he say dat ef dis man ain’t discovered de bone dat Eve was
made out of he’s done found de next thing to hit. He’s done found de place whar
hit come from. He says dat de men what lived befo’ Adam had one mo’ rib dan dem
has got what lives after him, an’ ef dat missin’ rib ain’t in women, whar is hit? Dat’s
what I wants to know. Whar is hit? . . .

207
208 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

“But I ain’t never had no trouble in believin’ dat woman was made out of man’s
rib. What worries me is why de Lawd’s choice fell on de rib which ain’t nothin’ but
a sort of rafter to hold up a man’s chist an’ swell hit out, an’ make him look proud,
but dat ain’t nowise important in hitself, an’ dat is about de easiest thing dat he can
spare widout missin’ hit.
“Cose I ain’t a presumin’ to criticise de Good Marster, but hit does look lak to me
dat when he was a creatin’ woman, an’ had de whole man to cut from, dat he could
a saved us a lot of trouble ef He had made Eve out of a few jints of Adam’s back-
bone, insted of dat rib.
“Yassurn, dat’s so, for ain’t a rib de easiest squashed thing in de whole human
body? An’ when you goes to de market an’ wants to git de tenderest roast don’t you
buy de rib roast?
“Yassum, dat’s de trouble wid women down to dis very day. . . . Hit’s becaze
woman was made out of man’s rib—an’ from de way she acts hit looks lak she was
made out of a floatin’ rib at dat—an’ man was left wid all of his backbone, dat he’s
got de comeupance over woman. An’ dat’s de reason dat we women sets down an’
cries when we ought to git up an’ heave brickbats.
“Yassum, most of women’s troubles in dis worl’ come of dere not havin’ no back-
bone, an’ I don’t know nothin’ dat makes you want to cry out of one side of yo’
mouf an’ laugh out of de odder mo’ dan is de fact dat most of de women in de worl’
is down on dere knees prayin’ for miracles to happen dat dey could make happen
dereselfs ef dey’d git up on dere hindlegs an’ make jest one good fight for ‘em. I ain’t
a sayin’ nothin’ aginst dem Anti societies. I ‘spects dey does lots of good, but I done
took notice dat dem reforms reform most and quickest what you goes after wid a
axe when yo’ dander is up.
“I know how dat is myself. When me an’ Ike fust got married, after he got tired
of holdin’ my hand, he begun to segasuate off de straight an’ narrow path, away
from home, an’ back to de crap game, an’ de corner saloon. Cose dis makes a
mighty talk, an’ some of de sisters in Iseral comes to me an’ axes, ‘Did I want de
prayers of de chu’ch for him,’ an’ I says, not ontil after my right arm gave out. So dat
night when Ike got home, he found his lovin’ wife awaitin’ up for him wid de rollin’
pin in one hand, an’ de stove lifter in de odder, an’ by de time he got out of de
horspital hit looked lak he kinder lost his interest in wanderin’ away from his own
fireside. Leastways when he sort of looks wishful towards de do’ of a night, an’ he
catches my eye he says he believes he feels too tired to go out, anyway.
“Yassum, dey talks ‘bout de difference between men an’ women, but de
biggest difference is in dis matter of de backbone, an’ hit’s what keeps women
good, an’ gives men de right to be bad, for dere ain’t no foolishness dat a man will
stand from a woman, an’ dere ain’t no foolishness dat a woman won’t stand from
a man.
“Jest look at Sis Susana, what loves a dram as well as de next one, but what
catches up her skirts an’ fairly flies by de fambly entrance to de saloon, for she
knows dat ef she was to come home drunk Brer Eben would fling her clothes out of
de do’, an’ tell her to git out an’ git. But what does Sis Susana do when Brer Eben
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 209

comes home dat tanked up wid Red Eye dat hit takes two brother lodge members
to fetch him home? She does jest lak a million odder spineless wives. She gits up an’
opens de do’ for him wid a sad, sweet smile, an’ she spends de night a puttin’ ice
cloths on his fevered brow, an’ makin’ him hot coffee an’ cookin’ him somethin’ dat
he thinks he can eat. . . . An’ dere’s Sis Alviry whose husband run off wid a yallow
gal wid a straight front figger, an’ a three story pompadour, an’ jay bird heeled
shoes. What does Sis Alviry do when dat onery, low flung nigger come back home
agin an’ settled down on her to support him? Did she sick de dogs on him lak he
would a done on her ef she’d run off an’ come back? Nawm. Instead of moanin’ an’
groanin’ becaze she’s got one mo’ to feed, she go out an’ buy a dinner wid chicken
fixin’s an’ invites in her friends to celebrate, becaze dat loafer has done come back
to her. . . .
“An’ whats de reason dat we women can’t vote, an ain’t got no say so ’bout
makin’ de laws dat bosses us? Ain’t we got de right on our side? Yassir, we’se got de
right on our side, but we ain’t got de backbone in us to jest retch out an’ grab dat
ballot.
“Dere ain’t nobody sputin’ de fact dat we’se got to scrape up de money to pay de
tax collector, even ef we does have to go down into a skirt pocket insted of pants
pocket, to git hit, an’ our belongin’ to de angel sect ain’t gwine to keep us out of de
jail ef we gits in a fight wid anodder lady, or we swipes a ruffled petticoat off de
clothes line next do’.
“Furdermo’ when de meat trust puts up de price of po’k chops hit’s de women
dat has got to squeeze de eagle on de dollar until hit hollers a little louder. Hit’s
women dat has got to patch dere husband’s britches, an’ turn dere old dresses one
times mo’, if de tariff puts up de price of clothes. Hit’s women dat has got to send
dere sons out to fight ef a war comes on de country. Hit’s women dat has got to see
dere babies sicken an’ die ef de milk is watered an’ de streets ain’t clean. Hit’s
women dat has got to send dere little chillen into factories to wuk at what ought to
be de play time of life, if times gits harder, an’ so we women is des a achin’ to have a
finger in dat government pie an’ see if we can’t put a little mo’ sweetenin’ in hit, an’
make hit a little lighter so dat hit won’t set so heavy an’ ondigestable on de stomachs
of dem what ain’t millionaires.
“Yassir, we’se jest a hoanin’ for de franchise, an’ we might have had hit any time
dese last forty years ef we had enough backbone to riz up an’ fight one good fight
for hit, but insted of dat we set around a holdin’ our hands, an’ all we’se done is to
say in a meek voice, ‘Please sir, I don’t lak to trouble you, but ef you’d kindly pass
me de ballot hit sho’ly would be agreeable to me.’
“An’ insted of givin’ hit to us men has kinder winked one eye at each odder an’
said, ‘Lawd, she don’t want hit, or else she’d make a fuss about hit. Dats de way we
did. We didn’t go after de right to vote wid our pink tea manners on. Cose we’se got
to give hit to her some time but we won’t hand her out her sheer of de estate ontil
she gits hay on her horns an’ to rowin’ about hit.’
“Yassir, dats de true word an’ you listen to me—de day dat women spunks up,
an’ rolls up dere sleeves, an’ says to dere husbands dat dere ain’t gwine to be no mo’
210 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

cookin’ in dis house, nor darnin’ of socks, nor patchin’ of britches, ontel dere is
some female votin’ doin, why, dat day de ballot will be fetched home to women
on a silver salver. All dat stands between woman an’ suffrage is de lack of a spinal
column. . . .”

Source: Dorothy Dix, “Mirandy on ‘Why Women Can’t Vote,’” Good Housekeeping 54,
no. 1 (February 1912): 285–87.
 R
HAGAR (1913)
m a ry j o h n s t o n ( 1 8 7 0 – 1 9 3 6 )

Critically acclaimed and best-selling author of more than twenty novels (mostly
historical romances of the Colonial South), Johnston was also a prominent
suffragist. With writer Ellen Glasgow, she founded Virginia’s Equal Suffrage
League in 1909; throughout the 1910s, she marched in parades, contributed to
publications like The Woman’s Journal, and addressed state legislatures and
women’s colleges to promote the cause. Johnston’s semi-autobiographical Hagar,
her only novel set in the present, exposes tensions between the Southern Lady
and the New Woman. In these excerpts, Hagar Ashendyne, named after the bibli-
cal heroine who resists the society that enslaves her, is reprimanded for reading
texts that threaten ideals of Southern Womanhood sacred to her grandfather
Colonel Ashendyne, grandmother Old Miss, spinster Aunt Serena, as well as
family friends Mrs. Legrand and the Bishop who are visiting the Ashendyne
plantation, Gilead Balm. Both Darwin’s evolutionary discourse, which Hagar
encounters as a child, and suffragism’s message of gender equality, which she
hears as a young woman, assert that women (and men) can evolve and access a
fuller humanity than an ideology espousing separate spheres permits.

Chapter III: The Descent of Man

A pool of June sunlight lay on the library floor. . . . The room was by no means
book-lined, but there were four tall mahogany cases, one against each wall, well
filled for the most part with mellow calf. Flanking each case hung Ashendyne por-
traits, in oval, very old gilt frames. Beneath three of these were fixed silhouettes of
Revolutionary Ashendynes; beneath the others, war photographs, cartes de visite, a
dozen in one frame. There was a mahogany escritoire and mahogany chairs and
a mahogany table, and, before the fireplace, a fire-screen done in cross-stitch by a
colonial Ashendyne. . . .
In the parlour, across the hall, Miss Serena had been allowed full power. Here
there was a crocheted macramé lambrequin across the mantel-shelf, and a
plush table-scarf, worked with chenille, and fine thread tidies for the chairs, and a
211
212 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

green-and-white worsted “water-lily” mat for the lamp, and embroidery on the
piano cover. . . . But the Colonel had barred off the library. “Embroider petticoat-
world to the top of your bent—but don’t embroider books!”
The Colonel was not in the library. He had mounted his horse and ridden off
down the river to see a brother-in-law about some piece of business. . . . Captain
Bob was in the stable yard. Muffled, from the parlour, the doors being carefully
closed, came the notes of “Silvery Waves.” Miss Serena was practising. It was rasp-
berry-jam time of year. In the brick kitchen out in the yard Old Miss spent the
morning with her knitting, superintending operations. A great copper kettle sat on
the stove. Between it and the window had been placed a barrel, and here perched a
half-grown negro boy, in his hands a pole with a paddle-like cross piece at the fur-
ther end. With this he slowly stirred, round and round, the bubbling, viscous mass
in the copper kettle. Kitchen doors and windows were wide, and in came the hum of
bees and the fresh June air, and out floated delectable odours of raspberry jam. . . .
The Bishop—who was a bishop from another state—was writing letters.
Mrs. LeGrand had taken her novel out to the hammock beneath the cedars.
Upstairs, in her own room, in a big four-poster bed, lay [Hagar’s mother] Maria, ill
with a low fever. Dr. Bude came every other day, and he said that he hoped it was
nothing much but that he couldn’t tell yet: Mrs. Ashendyne must lie quiet and take
the draught he left, and her room must be kept still and cool, and he would suggest
that . . . there be no disturbing conversation, and that, indeed, she be left in the
greatest quiet. . . .
Maria lay in the four-poster bed, making images of the light and shadow in the
room. Sometimes she asked for Hagar, and sometimes for hours she seemed to for-
get that Hagar existed. Old Miss, coming into the room at one of these times, and
seeing her push the child from her with a frightened air and a stammering “I don’t
know you”—Old Miss, later in the day, took Hagar into her own room, set her in a
chair beside her, taught her a new knitting-stitch, and explained that it would be
kinder to remain out of her mother’s room, seeing that her presence there evidently
troubled her mother.
“It troubles her sometimes,” said Hagar, “but it doesn’t trouble her most times.
Most times she likes me there.”
“I do not think you can judge of that,” said her grandmother. “At any rate, I think
it best that you should stay out of the room. You can, of course, go in to say good-
morning and good-night.—Throw the thread over your finger like that. Mimy is
making sugar-cakes this morning, and if you want to you can help her cut them out.”
“Grandmother, please let me go four times a day—”
“No. I do not consider it best for either of you. You heard the doctor say that
your mother must not be agitated, and you saw yourself, a while ago, that she did
not seem to want you. . . . Be a good, obedient child! Bring me the bag yonder, and
let’s see if we can’t find enough pink worsted for a doll’s afghan.”
. . . . Hagar went, morning and evening, to her mother’s room, and sometimes
Maria knew her and held her hands and played with her hair, and sometimes
she did not seem to know her and ignored her or talked to her as a stranger. Her
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 213

grandmother told her to pray for her mother’s recovery. She did not need the
telling; she loved her mother, and her petitions were frequent. Sometimes she got
down on her knees to make them; sometimes she just made them walking around.
“O God, save my mother. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.”—“O God, let my mother get well.
For Jesus’ sake. Amen.”—She had finished the pink afghan, and she had done the
dusting and errands her grandmother appointed her. This morning they had let
her arrange the flowers in the bowls and vases. She always liked to do that, and she
had been happy for almost an hour—but then the feeling came back. . . .
The bright pool on the library floor did not reach to the bookcases. They were
all in the gold-dust powdered umber of the rest of the room. Hagar standing
before one of them, first on a hassock, and then, for the upper shelves, on a chair,
hunted something to read. “Ministering Children”—she had read it. “Stepping
Heavenward” . . . , “Home Influence,” and “Mother’s Recompense”—she had read
them. Mrs. Sherwood—she had read . . . many volumes of Mrs. Sherwood. In after
life it was only by a violent effort that she dismissed, in favour of any other India,
the spectre of Mrs. Sherwood’s India. “Parent’s Assistant and Moral Tales”—she
knew . . . them by heart. “Rasselas”—she had read it. “Scottish Chiefs”—she had
read it. . . . There wasn’t anything on that shelf she wanted. She called it the blue
and green and red shelf because the books were bound in those colours. Miss
Serena’s name was in most of these volumes.
The shelf that she undertook next had another air. To Hagar each case had its
own air, and each shelf its own air, and each book its own air. “Blair’s Rhetoric”—
she had read some of that, but she didn’t want it to-day. “Pilgrim’s Progress”—she
knew that by heart. “Burke’s Speeches” . . . she had read “Junius,” as she had read
many another thing simply because it was there, and a book was a book. She had
read it without much understanding, but she liked the language. Milton—she knew
a great part of Milton, but to-day she didn’t want poetry. Poetry was for when you
were happy. Scott—on another day Scott might have sufficed, but to-day she
wanted something new—so new and so interesting that it would make the hard,
unhappy feeling go away. She stepped from the hassock upon the chair and began
to study the titles of the books on almost the top shelf. . . .There was one in the cor-
ner, quite out of sight unless you were on a chair, right up here, face to face with the
shelf. The book was even pushed back as though it had retired—or had been
retired—behind its fellows so as to be out of danger, or, perhaps, out of the way of
being dangerous. Hagar put in her slender, sun-browned hand and drew it forward
until she could read the legend on the back—“The Descent of Man.” She drew it
quite forth and, bringing both hands into play, opened it. “By Charles Darwin.” She
turned the leaves. There were woodcuts—cuts that exercised a fascination. She
glanced at the first page: “He who wishes to decide whether man is the modified
descendant of some preëxisting form—”
Hagar turned upon the chair and looked about her. The room was a desert for
solitude and balmy quiet. Distantly, through the closed parlour doors, came Miss
Serena’s rendering of “Monastery Bells.” She knew that her grandfather was down
the river, and that her grandmother was making raspberry jam. . . . She may have
214 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

hesitated one moment, but no more. She got down from the chair, put it back
against the wall, closed the bookcase door, and taking the “Descent of Man” with
her went over to the old, worn horsehair sofa and curled herself up at the end in a
cool and slippery hollow. A gold-dust shaft, slipping through the window, lit her
hair, the printed page, and the slim, long-fingered hand that clasped it.
Hagar knew quite well what she was doing. She was going to read a book which,
if her course were known, she would be forbidden to read. It had happened before
now that she had read books under the ban of Gilead Balm. But heretofore she had
always been able to say that she had not known that they were so, had not known
she was doing wrong. That could not be said in this case. Aunt Serena had distinctly
told her that Charles Darwin was a wicked and irreligious man, and that no lady
would read his books. . . .But then Aunt Serena had unsparingly condemned other
books which Hagar’s mind yet refused to condemn. She had condemned “The
Scarlet Letter.” When Gilead Balm discovered Hagar at the last page of that book,
there had ensued a family discussion. Miss Serena said that she blushed when
she thought of the things that Hagar was learning. The Colonel had not blushed,
but he said that such books unsettled all received notions, and while he supported
her he wasn’t going to have [his son’s] child imbibing damned anarchical senti-
ments of any type. Old Miss said a number of things, most of which tended toward
Maria. The latter had defended her daughter, but afterwards she told Hagar that in
this world, even if you didn’t think you were doing wrong, it made for all the
happiness there seemed to be not to do what other people thought you ought not
to do. . . . But Hagar didn’t believe yet that there was anything wrong in reading
“The Scarlet Letter.” She had been passionately sorry for Hester, and she had felt—
she did not know why—a kind of terrified pity for Mr. Dimmesdale, and she
had loved little Pearl. She had intended asking her mother what the red-cloth
letter that Hester Prynne wore meant, but it had gone out of her mind. The chap-
ter she liked best was the one with little Pearl playing in the wood. . . .Perhaps Aunt
Serena, having been mistaken about that book, was mistaken, too, about Charles
Darwin.
Neither now nor later did she in any wise love the feel of wrong-doing.
Forbidden fruit did not appeal to her merely because it was forbidden. But if there
was no inner forbidding, if she truly doubted the justice or authority or abstract
rightness of the restraining hand, she was capable of attaining the fruit whether
forbidden or no. There was always the check of great native kindliness. If what she
wanted to do was going—no matter how senselessly—to trouble or hurt other peo-
ple’s feelings, on the whole she wouldn’t do it. In the case of this June day and the
“Descent of Man” the library was empty. She only wanted to look at the pictures
and to run over the reading enough to see what it was about—then she would put
it back on the top shelf. She was not by nature indirect or secretive. She preferred to
go straightforwardly, to act in the open. But if the wall of not-agreed-in objection
stood too high and thick before her, she was capable of stealing forth in the dusk
and seeking a way around it. Coiled now in the cool hollow of the sofa, half in and
half out of the shaft of sunshine, she began to read. . . .
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 215

Chapter IV: The Convict

“My dear Bishop!” exclaimed Mrs. LeGrand; “won’t you come here and talk to this
little girl?”
“To Hagar?” answered the Bishop. “What is the trouble with Hagar? Have you
broken your doll, poor dear?” He came easily across to the horsehair sofa, a good
man, by definition, as ever was. “What’s grieving you, little girl?”
“I think that it is Hagar who may come to grieve others,” said Mrs. LeGrand. “I
do not suppose it is my business to interfere,—as I should interfere were she in my
charge at Eglantine [School for Young Ladies],—but I cannot but see in my daily
task how difficult it is to eradicate from a youthful mind the stain that has been left
by an improper book—”
“An improper book! What are you doing, Hagar, with an improper book?”
The Bishop put out his hand and took it. He looked at the title and at the
author’s name beneath, turned over a dozen pages, closed the book, and put it from
him on the cold, bare mahogany table. “It was not for this that I christened you,” he
said. Miss Serena joined the group
“Serena,” appealed Mrs. LeGrand, “do you think Hagar ought to be allowed to
contaminate her mind by a book like that?”
Miss Serena looked. “That child!—She’s been reading Darwin!”
A slow colour came into her cheeks. The book was shocking, but the truly shock-
ing thing was how absolutely Hagar had disobeyed. Miss Serena’s soul was soft as
wax, pliant as a reed to the authorities her world ranged before her. By an inevitable
reaction stiffness showed in the few cases where she herself held the orb of authority.
To be disobeyed was very grievous to her. Where it was only negligence in regard to
some command of her own,—direction to a servant, commands in her Sunday-
School class,—she had often to put up with it, though always with a swelling sense
of injury. But when things combined, when disobedience to Serena Ashendyne was
also disobedience to the constituted authorities, Miss Serena became adamant.
Now she looked at Hagar with a little gasp, and then, seeing through the open
door the elder Mrs. Ashendyne entering from the kitchen, she called to her.
“Mother, come here a moment!” . . .
“If she had said that she was sorry,” pronounced the Bishop, “you might forgive
her, I think, this time. But if she is going to harden her heart like that, you had best
let her see that all sin, in whatever degree, brings suffering. And I should suit, I
think, the punishment to the offence. Hagar told me only yesterday that she had
rather read a book than gather cherries or play with dolls, or go visiting, or any-
thing. I think I should forbid her to open any book at all for a week. . . .

Chapter XXVII: A Difference of Opinion

But the great Gilead Balm explosion came three days later.
It was nearly sunset, and they were all upon the wide, front porch—the Colonel,
Old Miss, Miss Serena, . . . Mrs. LeGrand, Hagar. . . . Gilead Balm sat and enjoyed
216 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

the cool, golden, winey afternoon, the shadows lengthening over the hills, the
swallows overhead, the tinkle of the cow-bells. . . . The porch held rather silent than
otherwise. Mrs. LeGrand could, indeed, keep up a smooth, slow flow of talk, but
Mrs. LeGrand had been packing to return to Eglantine which would “open” in
another week, and she was somewhat fatigued. The Colonel, pending the arrival of
yesterday’s newspaper, was reviewing that of the day before yesterday. . . . Old
Miss knitted. Miss Serena ran a strawberry emery bag through and through with
her embroidery needle. Hagar had a book, but she was not reading. . . . A mulatto
boy appeared with the mail-bag. “Ha!” said the Colonel, and stretched out his
hand.
There was a small table beside him. He opened the bag and turned the contents
out upon this, then began to sort them. No one—it was a Gilead Balm way—
claimed letter or paper until the Colonel had made as many little heaps as there
were individuals and had placed every jot and tittle of mail accruing, ending by
shaking out the empty bag. He did all this to-day. . . . [N]o letters for Old Miss—a
good deal of forwarded mail for Mrs. LeGrand—the Colonel’s own—letters and
papers for Hagar. The Colonel handled each piece, glanced at superscription, put it
in the proper heap. He shook out the bag; then, gathering up Mrs. LeGrand’s mail,
gave it to her with a smile and a small courtly bow. Miss Serena rose, work in hand,
and took hers from the table. . . . The Colonel’s shrunken long fingers took up
Hagar’s rather large amount and held it out to her “Here, Gipsy”—the last time for
many a day that he called her Gipsy. A letter slipped from the packet to the floor.
Bending, the Colonel picked it up, and in doing so for the first time regarded the
printing on the upper left-hand comer—Return in five days to the——Equal
Suffrage League. The envelope turned in his hand. On its reverse, across the flap,
was boldly stamped—VOTES FOR WOMEN.
Colonel Argall Ashendyne straightened himself with a jerk. “Hagar!—What is
that? How do you happen to get letters like that?—Answer!”
His granddaughter, who had risen to take her mail, regarded first the letter and
then the Colonel with some astonishment. “What do you mean, grandfather? The
letter’s from my friend, Elizabeth Eden. I wonder if you don’t remember her, that
summer long ago at the New Springs?”
The Colonel’s forefinger stabbed the three words on the back of the envelope.
“You don’t have friends and correspondents who are working for that?”
“Why not? I propose presently actively to work for it myself.”
Apoplectic silence on the part of the Colonel. The suddenly arisen storm darted
an electric feeler from one to the other upon the porch. . . .
Old Miss, who had not clearly caught the Colonel’s words, yet felt the tension
and put in an authoritative foot. “What have you done now, Hagar? Who’s been
writing to you? What is it, Colonel?” . . .
“Get me a glass of water, Serena!” breathed the Colonel. He still held the letter.
“My dear friend, let me fan you!” exclaimed Mrs. LeGrand, and moved to where
she could see the offending epistle. “VOTES FOR—oh, Hagar, you surely aren’t one
of those women!”
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 217

Miss Serena, who had flown for the water, returned. The Colonel drank, and the
blood receded from his face. The physical shock passed, there could be seen gather-
ing the mental lightning. Miss Serena, too, read over his shoulder “VOTES—. . .
Oh, Hagar!”
Hagar laughed—a cool, gay, rippling sound. “Why, how round-eyed you all are!
It isn’t murder and forgery. Is the word ‘rebellion’ so strange to you? May I have my
letter, grandfather?”
The Colonel released the letter, but not the situation. “Either you retire from
such a position and such activities or you cease to be granddaughter of mine—”
Old Miss, enlightened by an aside from Mrs. LeGrand, came into action. “She
doesn’t mean that she’s friends with those brazen women who want to be men?
What’s that? She says she’s going to work with them? I don’t believe it! I don’t
believe that even of Maria’s daughter. Going around speaking and screaming and
tying themselves to Houses of Parliament and interrupting policemen! If I believed
it I don’t think I’d ever speak to her again in this life! Women Righters and
Abolitionists!—doing their best to drench the country with blood, kill our people
and bring the carpet-baggers upon us! Wearing bloomers and cutting their hair
short and speaking in town-halls and wanting to change the marriage service!—
Yes, they do wear bloomers! I saw one doing it in New York in 1885, when I was there
with grandfather. And she had short hair—”
Mrs. LeGrand, as the principal of a School for Young Ladies, always recognized
her responsibility to truth. She stood up for veracity. “Dear Mrs. Ashendyne, it is
not just like that now. There are a great many more suffragists now—so many that
society has agreed not to ostracize them. Some of them are pretty and dress well
and have a good position. I was at a tea in Baltimore, and there were several there.
I’ve even heard women in Virginia—women that you’d think ought to know
better—say that they believed in it and that sooner or later we’d have a movement
here. Of course, you don’t hear that kind of talk, but I can assure you there’s a good
deal of it. Of course, I myself think it is perfectly dreadful. Woman’s place is the
home. And we can surely trust everything to the chivalry of our Southern men. I am
sure Hagar has only to think a little—The whole thing seems to me so—so—so
vulgar!”
Miss Serena broke out passionately. “It’s against the Bible! I don’t see how any
religious woman—”
. . . Hagar spoke. “I should like, if I may, to tell you quietly and reasonably
why—” her eyes were upon her grandfather.
“I wish to hear neither your excuses nor your reasons,” said the Colonel. “I want
to hear a retraction and a promise.” Hagar turned slightly, “Grandmother—”
“Don’t,” said Old Miss, “talk to me! When you’re wrong, you’re wrong, and that’s
all there is to it! Maria used to try to explain, and then she stopped and I was glad
of it.”
Hagar leaned back in her chair and regarded the circle of her relatives. She felt
for a moment more like Maria than Hagar. She felt trapped. Then she realized that
she was not trapped, and she smiled. Thanks to the evolving whole, thanks to the
218 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

years and to her eternal self pacing now through a larger moment than those
moments of old, she was not by position Maria, she was not by position Miss
Serena. Before her, quiet and fair, opened her Fourth dimension. Inner freedom,
ability to work, personal independence, courage and sense of humour and a
sanguine mind, breadth and height of vision, tenderness and hope, her waiting
friends, . . . —her work, the story now hovering in her brain, what other and
different might rise above the horizon—the passion to help, help largely, lift with-
out thinking if it were or were not her share of the weight—the universe of the
mind, the growing spirit and the wings of the morning . . . there was her land of
escape, real as the hills of Gilead Balm. She crossed the border with ease; she was
not trapped. Even now her subtle self was serenely over. And the Hagar Ashendyne
appearing to others upon this porch was not chained there, was not riveted to
Gilead Balm. Next week, indeed, she would be gone.
A tenderness came over Hagar for her people. All her childhood was surrounded
by them; they were dear, deep among the roots of things. She wanted to talk to
them; she longed that they should understand. “If you’d listen,” she said, “perhaps
you’d see it a little differently.”
The Colonel spoke with harshness. “There is no need to see it differently. It is
you who should see it differently.”
“It comes of the kind of things you’ve always read!” cried Miss Serena. “Books
that I wouldn’t touch!”
“Yes, Maria was always reading, too,” said Old Miss. For her it was less Hagar
than Maria sitting there. . . .
“If it was anything we didn’t know, we would, of course, listen to you, Hagar
dear,” said Mrs. LeGrand. “I should be glad to listen anyhow, just as I listened to
those two women in Baltimore. But I must say their arguments sounded to me very
foolish. Ladies in the South certainly don’t need to come into contact with the
horrors they talked about. And I cannot consider the discussion of such subjects
delicate. I should certainly consider it disastrous if my girls at Eglantine gained
any such knowledge. To talk about their being white slaves and things like that—it
was nauseating!”
. . . “All these theories that you women are advancing now-a-days—if they paid,
if you stood to gain anything by them, if by advancing them you didn’t, so it seems
to me, always come out at the little end of the horn—people ridiculing you, society
raising its eyebrows, men afraid to marry you—! My dear Hagar, men, collectively
speaking—men don’t want women to exhibit mind in all directions. They don’t
object to their showing it in certain directions, but when it comes to women show-
ing it all around the circle they do object, and from my point of view quite prop-
erly! Men naturally require a certain complaisance and deference from women.
There’s no need to overdo it, but a certain amount of physical and mental depend-
ence they certainly do want! Well, what’s the use of a woman quarrelling with the
world as it’s made? Between doing without independent thinking and doing with-
out an establishment and someone to provide for you—! So you see,” said
Mrs. LeGrand, smoothly argumentative, “what’s the use of stirring up the bottoms
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 219

of things? And it isn’t as though we weren’t really fond of the men. We are. I’ve
always been fonder of a man, every time, than of a woman. I must confess I can’t
see any reason at all for all this strenuous crying out against good old usage! Of
course a woman with considerable mental power may find it a little limiting, but
there are a lot of women, I assure you, who never think of it. If there’s a little hum-
bug and if some women suffer, why those things are in the dish, that’s all! The dish
isn’t all poisoned, and a woman who knows what she is about can pick and choose
and turn everything to account. I wouldn’t know what to do,” said Mrs. LeGrand,
“with the dish that people like you would set before us. All this crying out about
evolution and development and higher forms doesn’t touch me in the least! I like
the forms we’ve got. Perhaps they’re imperfect, but the thing is, I feel at home with
imperfection.”
She leaned back, in good humour. Hagar had given her an opportunity to
express herself very well.“Don’t you, too,” she asked,“feel at home with the dear old
imperfection?”
Hagar met her eyes. “No,” she said.
Mrs. LeGrand shrugged. “Oh, well!” she said, “I suppose each will fight for the
place that is home.”
Hagar looked beyond her, to her kindred. “You’re all opponents,” she said. “Alike
you worship God as Man, and you worship a static God, never to be questioned nor
surpassed. You have shut an iron door upon yourselves. . . . One day you who shut
it, you alone—you will open it, you alone. But I see that the day is somewhat far.”
She rose. “I was going anyhow you know, grandfather, in four days. But I can
take the morning train if you’d rather?”
But Colonel Ashendyne said stiffly that if she had forgotten her duty, he had
not his, and that the hospitality of Gilead Balm would be hers, of course, for the
four days.
Hagar listened to him, and then she looked once more around the circle. A smile
hovered on her lips and in her eyes. It broadened, became warm and sweet. “I’ll
accept for a time the partial estrangement, but I don’t ever mean that it shall be
complete! It takes two to make an estrangement.” She went up to her grandmother
and kissed her, said that she was going for a walk. . . .
She went down the porch steps, and moved away in the evening glow. The black
cedars swallowed her up; then upon the other side, beyond the gate, she was seen
mounting the hill to the right. The sun was down, but the hilltop rested against
rose-suffused air, and above it swam the evening star.
....
Mrs. LeGrand again opened her fan. “I am very fond, of course, of dear Hagar,
but I must say that she seems to me intensely unwomanly!”

Source: From Mary Johnston, Hagar (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin
Co., 1913).
 R
“THE PARADE: A SUFFRAGE
PLAYLET IN ONE ACT AND
AN AFTER-ACT” (1913)
m r s . a l l a n daws o n
[ n e l l p e r k i n s daws o n ] ( 1 8 7 0 – 1 9 2 3 )

Dawson followed a family tradition by entering the publishing world. Her earliest
work appeared in the Des Moines Leader, but she built a twenty-year career as a
literary critic with the New York Globe.15 While in New York, she served on the
publicity subcommittee of the Votes for Women Empire State Committee and
contributed “The Parade” to The Woman Voter—the official journal of the New
York Woman Suffrage Party. Set on May 6, 1912, the date of an important suffrage
parade, the play references the detailed orchestration involved in suffrage specta-
cles and renders something of the rhetorical power they exerted. Though the
characters differ in age, disposition, and responsibility, their shared exhilaration
in being caught up in the parade underscores their capacity for solidarity. Their
excitement provides only half the drama, however; the larger significance of the
women’s experience—as the parade enters the parlor—remains to be contested
after the arrival of antisuffragist “Father.”

Scene: Sitting-room. . . .
Time: After Lunch on the Afternoon of
the Suffrage Parade

(As the curtain rises Mother is seen sitting by table examining dress samples. Mary
stands by her, also looking at samples. Kitty sprawls on the couch, looking at a fash-
ion magazine. . . .)

220
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 221

Mother: I’m sure I don’t see how you are going to march even a few blocks
in the suffrage parade if we are to be ready for [the seamstress] Miss McCarty
to-morrow. The last thing she said last night was, “Now do have everything in
the house, and I’ll get along so much faster.” You know how it is when one of
us has to stop every five minutes to rush downtown for a spool of thread or
something—I do wish you would give up the parade, Mary? Besides, I don’t
know how your father is going to take it, I am sure.
Mary and Kitty: (Together.) But, mother, we promised!
Mary: I told them at the last meeting, definitely, that Kitty and I would both be
on hand for the start anyway and that Kitty would march with the Barnard
[College graduate]s, and I with the Twenty-fifth. It’s the Principle—
Mother: (Grimly) Yes, your father says it’s Principle that makes him feel the way
he does—But come, girls, we must get started. Remember! Not later than four
at Newman’s silk counter! That will give us the better part of two hours—
But I do wish the parade had been another day, or Miss Mac were not coming
to-morrow.
Mary: Go on, Kitty, and get ready. You are always behind.
Kitty: (Expostulating.) But I haven’t much to do. I’m almost ready.
Mother: Kitty, you are never going to wear those pumps in that parade!
Kitty: But my shoes look so shabby, mother, and (twiddling her toes), these are
per-fect-ly comfortable.
Mary: Who is going to look at your shoes, Kit? You don’t seem to realize what
a crowd there’s going to be.
Kitty: (Mournfully.) Addie Barnes went all through Europe last summer in
pumps, even over the Alps, she says.
Mary: Well, at least you mustn’t wear your big hat. You know what I told you
they said at the meeting—small hats, and no willow plumes! They made quite
a point of willow plumes.
Kitty: My plumes aren’t willow—I wish they were. And I look a perfect fright in
my other hat, you know I do. (Going out the door, Kitty returns with very large
plumed hat. She puts it on before the glass and looks at herself. Then, turning to
Mary, wistfully)—You don’t really think it’s too large, do you Mol? O, I do
wish they would march without hats. Don’t you think that would have been
perfectly sweet, Mary, with our hair all blowing—
Mary: (Hesitating.) Well, I don’t know. The women in the Labor parade didn’t
wear any hats—
Mother: (Breaking in.) No, they wore puffs! But you girls talk as if you were
going to march in Trimble’s parade of fashion models, instead of suffragettes.
(Sighing.) I’m not sure but your father would prefer the models.
Kitty: (Enthusiastically.) O, mother, I wish you were going to march, too! Just
a little way? It would be such fun, and such a joke on father.
Mother: (Dubiously.) H-m-m. I don’t think your father would consider it a
joke, Kitty. I feel a little guilty about you girls as it is. But you know I’ve never
222 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

been one to believe in putting a halter on young folks. Let each generation
decide for itself; that’s been my motto. As for me, I’m an old-fashioned
woman, and I’ve enough to do without voting. So run along. You haven’t too
much time. But (anxiously), Mary, dear, be sure and drop out before you reach
Newman’s if you feel the least bit tired. You know you’re not strong. And,
Kitty, remember you ARE fat, and get excited and out of breath so easily. You
might have a stroke! You don’t want to die for the Cause, do you?
Kitty: No (viciously), and I don’t want to look a fright for the Cause, either. So
I AM going to wear this hat. (She jabs in the pins before the mirror.)
Mary: (To Kitty.) Well. I’m glad you don’t march in my division. (To Mother.)
See you at four, Mother. (Goes out.)
Kitty: Good-bye. Mom. (Follows Mary, while Mother gathers up samples and
also prepares to leave the room.)

After-Act
Scene: Same as opening act
Time: Several hours later—about six o’clock, in fact

Kitty: (Enters blown and breathless, limping slightly, and dragging a “Votes
for Women” banner. Rushes to the telephone.) Hello! Hello!—Madison—
Two-hundred-two-—What?—Yes, two-double O-two—I never can remember
how to say it—Yes, 2-0–0-2—Newman’s, you know—Department store—
How’s that?—Is this Newman’s—Well (ingratiatingly), would you mind going
to the silk counter, and if there’s anybody there waiting for me—(Sharply) I’ll
tell you who I am if you give me time—(Amazed) More than one silk
counter?—THE silk counter, right in the middle, you know—(Imploringly),
O, please, wait a minute, please—Can’t you connect me—
Mary: (Enters looking pale and tired, but exalted, and also carrying a banner.
Starts when she sees Kitty, and Kitty puts up the receiver.) O, Kitty, did you and
Mother wait? I simply had to go on. It was wonderful, wonderful! I wouldn’t
have missed the experience for the world. I felt like Joan of Arc. I felt
like Ariane leading the wives, up, up, into the sunlight out of Bluebeard’s
dungeon.
Kitty: Mary! You never marched all the way?
Mary: (Walking excitedly up and down.) Yes, Kitty, yes. I felt as if I could go on
forever. Of course I thought of you and Mother. (Sweetly) Did you get every-
thing for Miss McCarty, Kitty? I hope you didn’t wait too long for me. . . .
Is Mother upstairs?
Kitty: (Whose astonishment has been growing.) But, Mary! I haven’t been with
Mother. I haven’t seen her! O, where do you suppose she is? (Going to window
and looking out.) And it is getting dark.
Mary: (Severely.) Kitty, didn’t you meet Mother at Newman’s?
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 223

Kitty: No, I didn’t—I thought you would—And anyway you never let me
decide anything—And so—well, I thought I might as well go on!
Mary: Kitty, you never marched the whole way?
Kitty: But I just did! (Kitty goes to the mirror and looks at herself. Then, roguishly,
to Mary.) Don’t you think I’m thinner, Mol? I felt as if I were walking on air.
Of course, my heels did flop a little—
Mother: (Enters quietly. Her hat is over one ear. Looks a little shamefaced when
she sees her daughters. But on the whole looks pleased with herself and a little
excited.)
Mary and Kitty: (Together.) Mother, we’re so sorry!
Mother: Sorry for what?
Mary: Not to have met you—
Mother: (Collecting herself.) You don’t mean to tell me you girls didn’t go to
Newman’s at all?
Kitty: Why, you see, Mother—
Mary: The fact is, the Parade wasn’t over until about a half hour ago—
Kitty: And I tried to get you on the telephone at Newman’s the minute I
came in—
Mother: (Beginning to understand.) So you both marched by and left your
mother waiting at the silk counter!
Mary: Of course, I thought Kitty—
Kitty: And I thought Mary—
Mother: Well, for once, girls, you didn’t get ahead of your mother. I didn’t go to
Newman’s, either. I marched!
Kitty: (Jumping up and down and hugging her mother.) Mother, you darling!
Mary: (Seizing her mother’s hand.) Mother, I’m proud of you!
Kitty: Wasn’t it per-fect-ly grand?
Mary: (The three, laughing, saying, “Right foot, left foot,” march up and down the
stage. Mother and Kitty limping a little.) Didn’t you feel uplifted, Mother?
Mother: (Stopping suddenly and sarcastically to Mary.) Well, I don’t know how
uplifted I felt, my dear. (Sinking into a chair, and turning to Kitty.) There’s a
good Kitten, just undo that right shoe a little. (Sighs with relief as Kitty loosens
the shoe.) But I can tell you what, girls. I haven’t had such a good time—no,
not since I married your father—Or—or, since you were born, my dears. I just
couldn’t help it. I was standing on the sidewalk, you see, and just then a band
came along—You know I always DID have a weakness for bands—and then
that bunch of mothers! And I wondered if there were any mothers marching
in that Parade who had a better right than I? Who thought more of their chil-
dren than I do? Then suddenly I thought, if there’s anything in this “votes for
women” business, anything that is going to make things better, easier, for one’s
children, didn’t I want it for my girls? And before I knew what I was doing I
was out there among them. And I heard someone behind me say, “Right foot
there in front!” And I fell into step—Such a pleasant lot of women I never
have met—
224 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

Kitty: (Interrupting.) And weren’t the policemen per-fect-ly sweet?

Mary: You almost felt like a policeman yourself—holding up your hand and
having everything stop for you. It did seem too good, didn’t it, Mother, to have
the avenue all to yourself, no automobiles or anything?
Mother: After all, it wasn’t so very different from those big Sunday school
parades they have over in Brooklyn every year. And I am sure nobody ever
found any fault with them, or called them unfeminine or anything of that
sort. Brooklyn is a very lady-like town. But (groaning) what WILL your father
say? I saw him, girls, with his face glued to the window. He looked too dis-
gusted and puzzled for words. And how do you suppose he would have looked
if he had seen your mother! He doesn’t pretend to keep up with you girls. But
I know he has always thought he could count on me—
Kitty: (Interrupting.) You didn’t march all the way, Mother?
Mother: What do you take me for! Was I ever a shirker? Of course I marched all
the way. And I could have gone on down to the Battery and back up to Bronx
Park. I would like you to know I’ve done a day’s washing in my time, my dears.
I didn’t get the least bit tired. . . . . I never noticed that right heel rubbing until
we stopped. Your father will never believe it. He has never worried particularly
about the number of steps I take around the house every day. But he will be
completely flabbergasted when I tell him I marched the whole length of that
Suffrage parade. For (firmly) I shall tell him!
Kitty: O, Mother, do you think he will be very angry?
Mary: Perhaps, Mother, dear, you would rather I would break it to him?
Mother: (Dryly.) No, thank you, Mary, I prefer to tell him myself. And he will
be here any minute now. I telephoned before I started home. I was so afraid he
would get here before I did. (Bell rings.) Sh-h! Here he is! Clear out, girls, and
leave your father to me! (Mary and Kitty leave stealthily by one door while
Mother, standing up, and with a smile on her face as if she had killed Cock Robin
but wasn’t half sorry, faces the other door at which Father will come in.)

Source: Mrs. Allan Dawson, “The Parade: A Suffrage Playlet in One Act and an After-
Act,” The Woman Voter 20 (May 1913): 15–16, 20.
 R
THE WOMAN WITH EMPTY
HANDS: THE EVOLUTION OF
A SUFFRAGETTE (1913)
a n o n y m o u s [ m a r i o n h a m i lt o n
carter] (n.d.)

Carter was a muckraking journalist, novelist, and children’s author as well as

the writer of an undergraduate thesis on Darwin’s rhetoric. Her anonymous
“conversion narrative”—it’s unclear whether it is fiction or autobiography—
tells the moving story of the “evolution” of a southern elite woman from wife
and mother to “suffragette” after the deaths of her husband and son.

I
“How did you—you of all women—ever become a Suffragette?”
The words, in tones of sad indignation, were flung into my face at a street
corner by a friend I had not seen for years, and his reproaching eyes and the entire
pose of his lank body said what his tongue was too polite to utter—that he was
cruelly disappointed in me; that I had fallen in his esteem and carried down with
me many of his cherished ideals.
He was a Southern gentleman of the old school, chivalrous and elderly, and I,
once a respected and admired young friend, now stood with my character
displayed in glaring colours at a windswept curb on lower Broadway, doing my
humble duty for the Great Cause, crying out to passers-by: “‘The Woman Voter’!—
here. Buy a ‘Voter’? Votes for Women!” and offering the sheet with an ingratiating
smile. Not recognising him at the moment I had addressed him unawares—of all
men I should have chosen to avoid, for I knew in advance what I’d be likely to get
from him!
“You, — —,” calling me by my maiden name, “to be doing this on the street!
Your father’s and mother’s daughter—”

225
226 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

Words failed him at the thought of my parents, and he had time to take in a
little more of me while I stopped the conversation to sell a paper and pocket the
nickel. At which he became aghast and told me so.
And yet the way he measured the gulf he thought I’d fallen into from a previous
lofty estate, measured for me the heights to which I thought I’d risen from a lowly
one! . . . Only later, after I had explained to his exasperated ears and he had left me
to my fate—since I would have none of his advice to return to “woman’s proper
sphere, shedding abroad the beneficent influence of the home”—I thought over the
pictures he must have been carrying of me in his mind all those years: To him I stood
as the daughter of an esteemed old Virginia family; the youthful centre of attention
and gaiety; the bride, staid and serious under her new responsibilities; the mother,
holding a child to him for his inspection, listening with bright eyes as he exclaimed:
“Another Southern gentleman to carry on our traditions!” and acquiescing.
And then—to find me selling papers on the street and drumming up votes for
women besides! No wonder it shocked the dear old gentleman’s finer sensibilities
and outraged all his preconceived ideals of womanhood! Poor man! He died a few
months later . . . so he never had the gleam of an understanding of the true inward-
ness of my conversion, or what it brought me to; he saw only the surface— . . . but
he did not know that the real change in me was so great that when my mind harked
back to the days when he knew me, those early years felt like another incarnation in
another world.
That world!—so conventional; so serene; so sheltered and secure; so good, as the
world reckons good; and—so smug. Truly, without exaggeration, I think I must
have been the smuggest young thing in Richmond, and everybody took it as a
matter of course that a girl in my position should be. And oh, how beautifully
satisfied I was with the easy way of thousands of my class—making a man and child
happy; . . . making happy a choice, small circle of friends—“shedding abroad the
influence of home”—and giving nothing but passing thoughts to anything outside
my little fenced-in life. Just that for eight blessed years . . . steeped in affection and
appreciation from the two I held most dear. And then within twenty-four hours of
each other both husband and child were stricken with scarlet fever in its worst form.
The man died; the child lived only by a miracle. But little more than his bare life
remained in my keeping, for he was left with kidney trouble that developed into
diabetes. It is a disease almost invariably fatal to a child, and the doctor warned me
that except for a second miracle the end was not far off.
I must work that miracle. . . .The boy claimed all of me. Every mouthful of food
he ate had to be especially prepared . . . by his mother’s hands and hers alone. None
other seemed good enough, or devoted enough to touch it. Everything that was
done for him, except his washing, was done by me. . . .
For more than two years I kept my boy with me. I was nurse, cook, comforter,
entertainer, playmate, mother, rolled into one, and my supreme reward was that he
could not bear me out of his sight. The last year of it I never knew what it was to
have two consecutive hours of rest, and I rejoiced in my service of love and wished
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 227

I might find means to give him more. My own life contained but a single object—
my boy’s life; and to it I devoted every waking hour and my dreams.
She may expect it hourly for years, but a mother is never prepared for the death
of her only son. . . .
The end came suddenly at dawn. Nature found me numb with long watching
and mercifully left me so. While the small wasted body lay in its narrow satin bed
there was still something for my hands to do—flowers to arrange, little nothings
here and there. I shed no tears; not even as the falling earth drummed the last roll-
call on the casket that numbered him irrevocably with the shadows of memory.
“Dust to dust—,” the words struck no answering spark in my intelligence, he was
mine through so inalienable a right to him.
All was over, and I was still numb. I slept a drugged sleep that night, rose early as
I had for so long and hurried with my clothes, brushing my hair with rapid strokes
before the glass, yet hardly noticing myself.
A voice spoke: “Why are you hurrying so?”
With poised, uplifted arm stopped in mid-air, my mind repeated to myself:
“Why are you hurrying so? What have you to hurry for? No one needs you now!”
The brush clattered to the floor. I stood there, petrified. I looked at my hands—
my empty hands—and the words burst from me aloud, “No one needs me
now!” . . . . My work was done, and I still in the prime of life! All my ability as nurse
and mother, all my stories, my songs and verses, all the amusements, the toys I had
learned to make out of paper, all my gifts of cheer and comfort were no better than
so much human waste. For now no little hands would reach out—“Oh, mamma!
Give me!”—when soldiers, horses, Indians or funny animals grew under my deft
scissors; no little eyes would sparkle with the light of fairyland because of me. All
was over.
I heard myself whisper: “Now I know there is a hell and it is this desolation. Life
has cast me out. Nobody needs me, and yet I am denied death that I may follow my
husband and son. . . .”
I felt as if . . . some deep, supporting tide of inner warmth, will, energy slowly
forsook me, melted out of my flesh and very bones and oozed away. It was like a
subterranean spring whose existence I for the first time became conscious of
through its sudden absence. A sense of cessation took possession of me—the whole
interior machinery of my being appeared stopped at once. The voice was right—
why should I hurry? Why should I even dress, now or ever again? Why go through
all the meaningless antics of a meaningless day? Why even live? Why—O Lord!—
let me not depart in peace, the woman with the empty hands?
How long I remained standing in this strange mental condition—this sense of
illumination on life’s austere, unmitigated meanings—I do not know. . . . The
thought came to me: “This is a large world with millions of people. How grotesque
it would be if there is no one in it who needs just me. There must be someone,
somewhere.” The idea spurred me. Again I hurried with my dressing. I would find
that someone who needed me.
228 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

After I had eaten I went out and walked. I looked for young children of my boy’s
age, but there seemed to be none roaming the streets. I suppose they were in school.
Mothers with little children I passed quickly—they did not need me.
I went into a department store. Polite clerks asked: “Anything I can show you,
madam?” . . . .
I returned to the street. A Salvation Army lassie passed—a little, austere figure
that seemed to say, “All these things for which you people struggle, surging to and
fro, are but vanity of the flesh and joyless mockery of the spirit. Think of the souls
to save!”
Ah, she could help me! She could tell me where to find someone who needed
just me! I turned and looked after her, but long before I had made up my mind to
speak she was out of sight.
I passed a Catholic church and saw a woman entering. She was shabby and poor
and old. Didn’t she need a friend? Or was she finding all she needed behind that
swinging door? Perhaps—who knew?—I might find something there. I walked
around the block twice; then slowly followed the woman into the hushed silence.
She was kneeling, telling her beads before a picture of the Mater Dolorosa. I
knelt beside her and my heart cried out: “O Mother of Sorrows, you, too, knew the
meaning of empty hands!” . . . I could not bear it and went out hastily without
speaking. . . .

III
How small a circumstance determines a life’s trend when the auspicious hour
arrives! My new trend was given me by four men, running. They elbowed me; one
flung me roughly out of his way. A hand caught me as I was falling. A pleasing voice
asked, “Are you hurt?”
I thanked the voice, and looked into a pair of very beautiful grey eyes under a
fluff of auburn hair.
Next: “Buy a ‘Voter’?” asked the pleasing voice, and the rescuing hand held a
paper toward me. “I’m sure you’re interested in votes for women. This is our offi-
cial organ.”
I recoiled. Votes for women! I “interested” in the shrieking sisterhood? Heaven
forbid! But since the little lady had saved me a possible broken bone or two by her
prompt action at a critical moment, I was bound to be civil; so I shook my head and
replied politely:
“I’m afraid I’m not interested. I’m a Virginian, and you know we Southern
women are brought up to believe a woman’s place is in her home. We think if she
takes proper care of that and her husband and children, she has her hands full
enough with the duties God has called her to.”
“Yes, of course she has,” admitted the voice just as politely, and I was given a
charming smile.“We believe that too—if a woman has a home. If she has a husband
and children and work enough to occupy her from morning till night, she isn’t
called to active work in the suffrage movement.
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 229

“But, you see, thousands of women haven’t homes—not as you understand the
word. Their homes are dark tenements, attics, cellars; they have drunken husbands,
ragged children, and not even sufficient food to feed them. We feel called on to help
those just because we have comfortable homes.
“And then there are the tens of thousands of matrimonially superfluous women.
Who is to look after their interests if they don’t do it themselves? Did you know that
in Massachusetts alone there are thirty thousand more women of marriageable age
than men—women who can’t have husbands there simply because there aren’t
husbands enough to go round?
“Still, if your husband and children take all your time, don’t you see you can
help us in other ways? We need every woman we can get to join the ranks of those
demanding the suffrage.”
My husband and children! I left her hastily. I almost ran away from her. The
irony of my words! The banality of my argument! Parrotlike, I had repeated the
manmade platitude of a bygone generation on the “home and making some good
man happy”—I, who hadn’t so much as a parrot to make happy with a crust!
I found myself presently at the Battery, looking into the water, listening to the
plash-plash of little wavelets telling me the futility of my life and its specious argu-
ments. I was ashamed then of the way I had deceived those honest grey eyes and
had let the little lady think me something other and better than I was—I who was
only a woman utterly empty-handed in the world at large.
And why had I scurried away? Was I afraid, or ashamed to be taken for a woman
with an interest in other women’s interests? Was it so much nobler to be taken—as
I had allowed myself to be taken by the grey-eyed lady—for a woman whose only
interest was men? Or, perhaps, nothing at all! But what had she said about “matri-
monially superfluous women”—thirty thousand? Impossible! I had misunder-
stood her—she must have said three thousand. Why, thirty thousand would be an
army . . . !
The whole idea of “superfluous” women was a brand-new one to me, and after I
recovered from the sting of my personal feelings I experienced a sense of fellowship
with women as a class larger than anything I had felt before. Those thirty thousand
left-overs somehow belonged as a chapter in my sisterhood of widows and were,
oh, so much more to be pitied because they had never known the blessing of a good
man’s love and protection. . . . If they simply can’t get husbands to look after their
legal interests, who does it for them? Some other woman’s husband, who doesn’t
care a rap about them personally—or oughtn’t to?
In one minute, . . . my life-long cherished view of the whole question of marry-
ing and getting in marriage underwent reconstruction; and that was the precise
minute when I began to be a suffragist! The tide of my mind flowed on from sis-
terhood to votes for women as the natural consequence of insufficient husbands.
For the first time in my life I appreciated the real meaning of “Taxation without
representation.”
Within another minute or so I had thought of a dozen questions to put to the
grey-eyed girl. I retraced my steps faster even than I had hurried off, but she was
230 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

nowhere to be seen. All through the neighbourhood I walked. . . . For about two
weeks I industriously tramped the neighbourhood where I had first seen her . . .
and I finally discovered her standing on a soap-box! She was addressing a small
gathering, mostly women that seemed to be of the better paid classes, stenogra-
phers, cashiers, and so forth.
I wormed my way through the circle, pushing right and left, until I reached a
place directly in front of her. Our eyes met. She recognised me, smiled and slightly
bowed, and went on: “ . . . You say: ‘I am only one. One doesn’t count’; and so you
don’t enroll with us. Oh, friends, everyone does count! Our ranks are made of one
and one, and we need every one. Others of you say: ‘But I’m so busy; it’s all I can do
to get along myself. I have no time for anything outside my regular work.’ Are there
any here too busy for interest in the Cause, in the great woman movement? We need
numbers, of course, but still more do we need enthusiastic interest, moral support,
public sentiment; and you, friends, are part of that. . . . Our ideals to-day will be the
realities of to-morrow. Only let us work for them—work together as one great
sisterhood, without class prejudice, or class distinction. . . .
“Every woman is needed, the Southern gentlewoman as much as any.” Her eyes
were earnestly searching my face, and I saw she was appealing especially to me; then
she leaned a little forward and spoke directly to me—“Oh, my friend, the cause of
woman needs you!”
A light that was lightness of spirit, of heart and of understanding broke upon
me. I was needed at last! Countless women, or rather women’s lives, seemed press-
ing around me from all quarters of the globe; women with toil-worn hands and
aching backs, carrying the burdens of maternity; lives starved and weary with the
struggle for bare existence on the planet; lonely women who could never find a
mate; friendless women and cripples—a vast sisterhood of all the women in the
world, and I was one of them.
Instantly after, I felt appalled and ashamed that I should be able to live at ease
and bemuse myself with grief, while hundreds of thousands—women like me—
must work incessantly to keep bread in their mouths; and at the same time I felt
exultant that I was called to help; that I was still in a world that could help. . . .
A salvation feeling flooded me, lifted me out of myself and carried me aloft on
its wings. I can think of no other word than “salvation” for what I then experienced.
I had the vivifying sense of a changed life.
I lost count of time and flowing words until I saw my little grey-eyed friend
coming toward me with outstretched hand. I laid mine in hers and said: “I’m so
glad! Use me any way you can.”
She has told me since the tears were rolling down my cheeks. I did not know it.
She slipped her arm through mine and took me with her.

Source: From Anonymous [Marion Hamilton Carter], “The Woman With Empty
Hands: The Evolution of a Suffragette,” Saturday Evening Post (25 January 1913): 13–16.
 R
“HOW IT FEELS TO BE THE
HUSBAND OF A
SUFFRAGETTE” (1914)
anony mous

Written anonymously, probably by Arthur Brown, husband of suffragist leader

Gertrude Foster Brown,“How It Feels to be the Husband of a Suffragette” invokes
the confessional form that Barnes uses in “How It Feels to be Forcibly Fed” (see
page 148) to convince his male readers to support their wives’ and lovers’ com-
mitment to suffrage. The narrator begins by addressing those who insulted the
men who marched in a 1913 New York suffrage parade.

You are the party aimed at. You who stood on the sidewalk and urged passionately
that we who marched go home and wash the dishes or mind the baby. Nobody
answered you then. To be frank, you didn’t say much that sounded worth consider-
ing; besides, it’s not good form for a procession to indulge in acrimony. But don’t
you think for a moment that the forlorn little corporal’s guard marching at the tail
end of the first suffrage parade down Fifth Avenue didn’t feel acutely every hostile
taunt. It takes a good deal better man than I’ve met yet to face the mirth of a mob
without some of it getting under his hide.
Out in the middle of Fifth Avenue’s width we felt a heap isolated; it even went
farther than that—we felt ostracized. Tagging after the girls—that’s what we were
doing; and nobody would let us forget it.
If you can go back to your kid days and remember how the gang at some time
sat in judgment on you and, for alleged failure on your part to shine in the full
glory of a budding male, rounded up on you, called you “cry baby,” and callously
bade you “go play with the girls,” you’ll get a little of the sensation we had out
there, unchaperoned, entirely surrounded by empty asphalt, with two or three
hundred thousand people earnestly cracking their larynxes calling us “sis” or
“henpeck.”
231
232 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

I don’t want to be misunderstood—this is not going to be a defense, an apology,

or a confession—merely a frank statement. After a man has lived in the same house
with a suffragette for a number of years, he is likely to have a severe disesteem for
all forms of excuse or apology.
Someone said once: “It’s far more important that a man make good than be
good, and this applies with special force to husbands.”
You can safely add that to the husbands of suffragettes it applies clear through,
and buttons down the back.
For while the suffrage lady has been reading, she has also been observing. She
has a fuller and franker knowledge of the motives that move the world than her
grandmother ever let on to have had.
Grandmother had it pounded into her, from the cradle to the finishing school,
that it would be money out of her pocket if she ever confessed to knowledge of any
human mystery deeper than the compounding of custard-pie.
Here, by way of proof, is a quotation from a time-honored volume pertaining
to women:
A lady should appear to think well of books, rather than to speak well of them.
She may show the engaging light that good taste and sensibility always diffuses
over conversation; she may give instances of great and affecting passages because
they show the fineness of her imagination or the goodness of her heart; but all
criticism beyond this sits awkwardly upon her. She should, by habit, form her
mind to the noble and pathetic, and she should have an acquaintance with the
fine arts because they enrich and beautify the imagination; but she should care-
fully keep them out of view in the shape of learning and let them run through the
easy vein of unpremeditated thought. For this reason she should seldom use and
not always appear to understand the terms of art. The gentleman will occasion-
ally explain them to her.

This gem of purest ray serene is from a work called “THE AMERICAN BOOK OF
BEAUTY, OR FRIENDSHIP’S TOKEN,” published in Hartford, Conn., in 1851, and
given to grandmother by a very attentive young gentleman, who accompanied it
with one of those nice little, old-fashioned, lace-edged valentine letters, every word
of which breathed his ardent and reverential devotion to grandmama.
Wasn’t the editor grand? Can you see grandmama sitting at home alone, care-
fully cultivating the noble and pathetic, while grandpa hooted around town nights
with the boys, finding the noble and pathetic utterly unnecessary in his business?
And that little touch—“The gentleman will occasionally explain them to her”—
isn’t that delicate?
Please visualize the gentleman occasionally explaining some perfectly immate-
rial proposition and fondly hoping that he is successfully diverting grandmama’s
mind from some of the basic facts of life?
There is still extant an extremely lovely daguerreotype of grandmama, at
twenty-two, at the time of the presentation of the book; and, looking into the beau-
tiful young face, sparkling with intelligence, you are almost tempted to think that
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 233

possibly grandmamma knew a thing or two not set down in the editor’s
prescription.
At any rate, granddaughter, the suffragette, refuses to fall for “the noble and
pathetic.” If she has attended one of the big colleges for girls, she is likely to know
just as much about art as her gentleman friend. She talks some before she is
married, and more afterward, and she talks very much to the point.
Mr. Husband has got to be prepared to stand the gaff, and if he is indiscreet
enough to come weaving in at three A. M., he might just as well talk straight. Those
diaphanous X-ray effects in excuses are out of style. His best chance is to look the
judge right in the eye and announce that he stayed out because he didn’t want to
come home; that he thought a little cessation of domesticity would expand his
moral nature. He had better trust for protection to the fact that he has at one time
rowed a boat or lifted weights—if it comes to actual physical violence; because if he
starts to duck he is liable to get something for contempt of court.
So you can put it down as the first mile-stone to observe on the road to
being a suffragette’s husband, that a reasonable amount of frankness—just an
ordinary quantity of common or garden truth-telling—is a healthful and exhila-
rating occupation, and will conduce, as the Good Book says, to “make your days
long in the land,” although it may possibly shorten up your “nights out” a trifle at
times.
Getting a suffragette for a wife is no different from obtaining any other kind of
a wife. The formula is the same in both cases. There’s a certain excitement, though,
in the fact that you don’t always know she is going to be a suffragette until after you
have got her. But that, happily, is getting rarer and rarer. The new crop is finding out
that advertising pays, and it is pretty hard nowadays to pick out a discreet and
docile suffragette who will absolutely refrain from confiding the fact to you, if you
sit up with her long enough.
Personally, we—I and mine—fell into suffrage together and practically made
only one splash; but it was long after we were married. You notice that I said mine.
I meant it. Sharing some common things in common doesn’t necessarily prevent
the lady from being all yours.
We had been at a nice little dinner party in a smart suburban town. The dinner
was all it should be, with one exception: the star guest refused to perform for the
benefit of the company. He was a very clever Irish lawyer, with a name for wit. He
came accompanied by a rarely beautiful wife, and her efforts during the evening to
have husband jump through the hoop and lie down and roll over and play dead
were pathetic. Something had gone wrong business-wise during the day, and
Melancholia had claimed him for her own. He would do nothing but grunt and
grump.
After dinner, when all were comfortable in the smoking-room library, the host-
ess made a last stab to draw him out. The papers at that moment were full of the
first dispatches telling of the astounding performances of the English militants, and
the hostess said in her sweetest coo:
“Oh, Mr. Blank, do you think women should vote?”
234 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

And in a voice that carried more grouch than any previous grunt during the
evening, he answered: “Of course I do, course I do; and if they hadn’t been such
damn fools, they would have been doing it long ago.”
On the way to the station the lady who controls my destinies repeated the
hostess’s question:
“Do you believe women should vote?”
It was an awful question to have put to one in the darkness and mystery of
a station hack. It was so sudden that, I am ashamed to confess, I dived in the hope
of avoiding it.
I went down like a mud-hen, deep enough, as I trusted, to let an ocean liner go
over my head.
When I came up there was the same old question with both barrels trained full
on me.
Did I believe that women should vote?
What did I know about it?
Had I ever given it a single second’s thought?

Source: From “One,” “How It Feels to be the Husband of a Suffragette,” Everybody’s

Magazine 30, no. 1 (January 1914): 55–63.
 R
“OUR OWN TWELVE
ANTI-SUFFRAGIST
REASONS” (1914)
“REPRESENTATION” (1914)
“THE REVOLT OF
MOTHER” (1915)
“A CONSISTENT ANTI
TO HER SON” (1915)
a l i c e d u e r m i l l e r ( 1 8 74 – 1 9 4 2 )

Poet laureate of the suffrage cause, Miller published more than three hundred
poems in a weekly suffrage poetry newspaper column at the height of New York
State’s suffrage referendum campaign (1914–1917). Her “Are Women People?”
column was inspired by contradictions between America’s foundational rhetoric
of democracy and the government’s policy of disenfranchising women; more
specifically, it responded to President Wilson’s rhetoric of “bring[ing] the gov-
ernment back to the people.”16 Miller’s column is explicitly about the limits and
possibilities of female speech in a culture that does not permit women to actively
participate in the public sphere.17 Some poems allude to familiar texts or use
poetic forms as entertaining “containers” for radical messages; others quote or
ventriloquize the ludicrous perspectives of antisuffragists. In these selections,
Miller exposes the vote, as it is currently defined, not as individuated utterance
but as ventriloquizing act.

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Our Own Twelve Anti-Suffragist Reasons

1. Because no woman will leave her domestic duties to vote.
2. Because no woman who may vote will attend to her domestic duties.
3. Because it will make dissension between husband and wife.
4. Because every woman will vote as her husband tells her to.
5. Because bad women will corrupt politics.
6. Because bad politics will corrupt women.
7. Because women have no power of organization.
8. Because women will form a solid party and outvote men.
9. Because men and women are so different that they must stick to different
duties.
10. Because men and women are so much alike that men, with one vote each, can
represent their own views and ours too.
11. Because women cannot use force.
12. Because the militants did use force.

Source: “Are Women People?” New York Tribune, 29 March 1914, 13.

Representation
(“My wife is against suffrage, and that settles me.”
—Vice-president Marshall.)

I
My wife dislikes the income tax,
And so I cannot pay it;
She thinks that golf all interest lacks,
So now I never play it;
She is opposed to tolls repeal
(Though why I cannot say)
But woman’s duty is to feel,
And man’s is to obey.

II
I’m in a hard position for a perfect gentleman,
I want to please the ladies, but I don’t see how I can,
My present wife’s a suffragist, and counts on my support,
But my mother is an anti, of a rather biting sort;
One grandmother is on the fence, the other much opposed,
And my sister lives in Oregon, and thinks the Question’s closed;
Each one is counting on my vote to represent her view.
Now what should you think proper for a gentleman to do?

Source: “Are Women People?” New York Tribune, 7 June 1914, 10.
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 237

The Revolt of Mother

(“Every true woman feels—”
—Speech of almost any congressman.)

I am old-fashioned, and I think it right

That man should know by Nature’s laws eternal,
The proper way to rule, to earn, to fight,
And exercise those functions called paternal;
But even I a little bit rebel
At finding that he knows my job as well.

At least he’s always ready to expound it,

Especially in legislative hall,
The joys, the cares, the halos that surround it,
“How women feel”—he knows that best of all.
In fact his thesis is that no one can
Know what is womanly except a man.

I am old-fashioned, and I am content

When he explains the world of art and science
And government—to him divinely sent—
I drink it in with ladylike compliance.
But cannot listen—no, I’m only human—
While he instructs me how to be a woman.

Source: Alice Duer Miller “Are Women People?” New York Tribune, 7 March 1915, III: 13.

A Consistent Anti to Her Son

(“Look at the hazards, the risks, the physical danger
that ladies would be exposed to at the polls”
—Anti-suffrage speech.)

You’re twenty-one to-day, Willie,

And a danger lurks at the door,
I’ve known about it always,
But I never spoke before;
When you were only a baby
It seemed so very remote,
But you’re twenty-one to-day, Willie,
And old enough to vote.

You must not go to the polls, Willie,

Never go to the polls,
They’re dark and dreadful places
Where many lose their souls;
...
238 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

If you’ve a boyish fancy

For any measure or man,
Tell me, and I’ll tell Father,
He’ll vote for it, if he can.
He casts my vote, and Louisa’s
And Sarah, and dear Aunt Clo;
Wouldn’t you let him vote for you?
Father, who loves you so?

Source: Alice Duer Miller “Are Women People?” New York Tribune, 21 March 1915,
III: 13.
 R
“A PLEA FOR SUFFRAGE” (1915)
miss m. m. [marianne moore]
(1887–1972)

Modernist poet Marianne Moore majored in history, economics, and politics.

While at Bryn Mawr (1905–1909) and during Pennsylvania’s 1915 suffrage referen-
dum campaign, Moore attended suffrage lectures, distributed leaflets, and
marched in suffrage parades. She also wrote propaganda. This pseudonymously
signed “Letter to the Editor,” published in a Carlisle, Pennsylvania, newspaper,
is almost definitely by Moore, whose personal letters from Autumn 1915 mention
delivering suffrage “notices” to the local papers.18 Like her poetry, this letter
demonstrates Moore’s modernist technique of quoting familiar clichés and
sentiments in order to question or reframe them.

To the Editor of the Sentinel, Sir:—

The following has appeared as a suffrage argument in some papers, and I should
like to see it in The Sentinel:
“Among unthinking citizens, the antisuffrage slogan, “Woman’s place is in the
home,” is regarded as a clinching reason for not giving her the vote. When one
stops to analyze that catch phrase, however, the fact which it sets forth—that
woman’s place is in the home—makes it one of the strongest possible reasons for
giving her a voice in the government. For during the past fifty years the home inter-
ests have been projected into politics in so many different ways that to deny woman
the protection of the ballot is to deprive her of the most effective weapon that exists
for preserving the onslaughts of the corrupt and the vicious.
“There may be those who will deny that there is any direct association between
politics and the home, but they, again, are the unthinking ones. Every sane and fair-
minded citizen knows that politics comes into our homes every hour of the day
and every day of the year. Let us consider just a few of the ways that politics enters:
“Politics comes in with the butcher when he brings the meat for dinner. This
meat, instead of being butchered and cured on our own property, as was done in
the days of our great-grandparents, has been prepared for us by the big “beef trust,”
under conditions controlled by politics, and if politics are corrupt or careless the
239
240 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

chances are that we are getting tainted meat that will bring sickness to some mem-
bers of the family.
“Politics comes into the home with every pipe line of water. When we turn on
the water spigot a whole stream of politics flows into our home. Having no voice in
politics, the women cannot say whether it shall be a clean stream or a dirty stream,
but if it is a dirty stream and brings typhoid germs to the children, it is up to the
mother to nurse them through the fever—and sometimes to see them die.
“But that is not all.
“Politics comes into our homes with every ready-made garment manufactured
in some city factory and possibly finished in a tenement sweatshop by some child
suffering from scarlet fever, measles or even tuberculosis. If there be those who
consider that this danger is exaggerated it may be interesting for them to learn that
the United States Public Health Service, which has just finished an investigation of
conditions in New York shops where garments are made, found only two percent of
the 3,000 workers examined free from physical defects or disease.
Are mothers not vitally interested in such matters?
“Why, then, continue to deny them a voice in the making of the laws that con-
trol such conditions?”

Miss M. M.
Source: Miss M. M., “A Plea for Suffrage,” Carlisle Evening Sentinel, 8 October 1915: 2.
 R
“THE PRESIDENT’S
VALENTINE” (1916)
n i na e . a l l e n d e r ( 1 8 7 2 – 1 9 5 7 )

On February 14, 1916 (Susan B. Anthony’s birthday), National Woman’s Party

members distributed more than one thousand original valentines to legislators
and reproduced several of them in The Suffragist. Colorfully illustrated and clev-
erly designed, these witty valentines “courted” congressional support for a fed-
eral suffrage amendment. According to the instigator of the valentine campaign,
“we have tried reasoning, eloquence of the soap box, cart tail, and back of an
automobile variety, and we hope that rhymes may influence the politicians where
the other forces did not.”19 Although President Wilson personally voted for suf-
frage in the 1915 New Jersey referendum, he opposed a constitutional amendment
and insisted that suffrage was a state issue. In this valentine, by Suffragist
cartoonist Nina Allender, suffragists encourage Wilson to support their cause; in
exchange, suffragists in western states where women are enfranchised will work
to re-elect him in the Fall.

241
6. The President’s Valentine, SB001824. Courtesy of the historic National Woman’s Party,
Sewall-Belmont House and Museum, Washington, D.C.

Source: National Woman’s Party Archives, Sewall-Belmont House.

 R
FANNY HERSELF (1917)
e d na f e r b e r ( 1 8 8 5 – 1 9 6 8 )

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for So Big (1924), Ferber was a popular as well as crit-
ically acclaimed novelist; several of her novels were made into hit musicals and
movies, including Show Boat, Cimarron, and Giant. Her semi-autobiographical
Fanny Herself recounts the story of a midwestern Jewish girl who makes good in
the schmatte business as a buyer working for Michael Fenger of the Haynes-
Cooper Company but cannot avoid confrontation with the systemic oppression
of women and ethnic minorities. When she is caught in a suffrage parade, six
hours and forty thousand women strong, she spies within the “sheer, crude force
of numbers” a Jewish immigrant factory girl who emblematizes that oppression.
In Fanny’s perceptions, Ferber exposes connections between the plights of
women and Jews in the Western world. In the young garment-factory worker’s
face is written extraordinary historical suffering, pogroms, and poverty, yet there
is also the peculiar strength and hope that sustains assailed peoples. When Fanny
thinks “these are my people,” she does not specify whether she is referring to
suffrage marchers or to Jews. Both groups are, in her mind, one and the same.

The first week in June found [Fanny] back in New York. That month of absence had
worked a subtle change. The two weeks spent in crossing and recrossing had pro-
vided her with a let-down that had been almost jarring in its completeness.
Everything competitive had seemed to fade away with the receding shore, and to
loom up again only when the skyline became a thing of smoke-banks, spires, and
shafts. She had had only two weeks for the actual transaction of her business. She
must have been something of a revelation to those Paris and Berlin manufacturers,
accustomed though they were to the brisk and irresistible methods of the American
business woman. She was, after all, absurdly young to be talking in terms of mil-
lions, and she was amazingly well dressed. This last passed unnoticed or was taken
for granted in Paris, but in Berlin, home of the frump and the flour-sack
figure, she was stared at, appreciatively. Her business, except for one or two unim-
portant side lines, had to do with two factories on whose product the Haynes-
Cooper company had long had a covetous eye. Quantity, as usual, was the keynote
243
244 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

of their demand, and Fanny’s task was that of talking in six-figure terms to these
conservative and over-wary foreign manufacturers. That she had successfully
accomplished this, and that she had managed to impress them also with the impor-
tant part that time and promptness in delivery played in a swift-moving machine
like the Haynes-Cooper concern, was due to many things beside her natural business
ability. Self-confidence was there, and physical vigor, and diplomacy. But above all
there was that sheer love of the game; the dramatic sense that enabled her to see
herself in the part. That alone precluded the possibility of failure. She knew how
youthful she looked, and how glowing. She anticipated the look that came into
their faces when she left polite small-talk behind and soared up into the cold,
rarefied atmosphere of business. She delighted in seeing the admiring and tolerant
smirk vanish and give way to a startled and defensive attentiveness.
It might be mentioned that she managed, somehow, to spend almost half a day
in Petticoat Lane, and its squalid surroundings, while in London. She actually
prowled, alone, at night, in the evil-smelling, narrow streets of the poorer quarter
of Paris, and how she escaped unharmed is a mystery that never bothered her
because she had never known fear of streets. She had always walked on the streets
of Winnebago, Wisconsin, alone. It never occurred to her not to do the same in the
streets of Chicago, or New York, or London, or Paris. She found Berlin, with . . . its
appalling cleanliness, its overfed populace, and its omnipresent Kaiser forever
scudding up and down Unter den Linden in his chocolate-colored car, incredibly
dull, and unpicturesque. Something she had temporarily lost there in the busy
atmosphere of the Haynes-Cooper plant seemed to have returned, miraculously.
New York, on her return, was something of a shock. She remembered how
vividly fresh it had looked to her on the day of that first visit, months before. Now,
to eyes fresh from the crisp immaculateness of Paris and Berlin, Fifth Avenue
looked almost grimy, and certainly shabby in spots.
[Friend and fellow buyer] Ella Monahan, cheerful, congratulatory, beaming,
met her at the pier, and Fanny was startled at her own sensation of happiness as she
saw that pink, good-natured face looking up at her from the crowd below. The
month that had gone by since last she saw Ella standing just so seemed to slip away
and fade into nothingness.
“I waited over a day,” said Ella, “just to see you. My, you look grand! I know
where you got that hat. Galeries Lafayette. How much?”
“I don’t expect you to believe it. Thirty-five francs. Seven dollars. I couldn’t get
it for twenty-five here.”
They were soon clear of the customs. Ella had engaged a room for her at the
hotel they always used. As they rode uptown together, happily, Ella opened her bag
and laid a little packet of telegrams and letters in Fanny’s lap.
“I guess Fenger’s pleased, all right, if telegrams mean anything. Not that I know
they’re from him. But he said—”
But Fanny was looking up from one of them with a startled expression.
“He’s here. Fenger’s here.”
“In New York?” asked Ella, rather dully.
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 245

“Yes.” She ripped open another letter. It was from [her brother] Theodore. He
was coming to New York in August. The Russian tour had been a brilliant success.
They had arranged a series of concerts for him in the United States. He could give
his concerto there. It was impossible in Russia, Munich, even Berlin, because it was
distinctly Jewish in theme. . . . They would have none of it in Europe. Prejudice was
too strong. But in America! He was happier than he had been in years. . . .
“Well!” exclaimed Fanny, her eyes shining. She read bits of the letter aloud to
Ella. Ella was such a satisfactory sort of person to whom to read a letter aloud. She
exclaimed in all the right places. . . . They both had forgotten all about Fenger, their
Chief. But they had been in their hotel scarcely a half hour, and Ella had not done
exclaiming over the bag that Fanny had brought her from Paris, when his telephone
call came.
He wasted very little time on preliminaries.
“I’ll call for you at four. We’ll drive through the park, and out by the river, and
have tea somewhere.”
“That would be wonderful. That is, if Ella’s free. I’ll ask her.”
“Ella?”
“Yes. She’s right here. Hold the wire, will you?” She turned away from the tele-
phone to face Ella. “It’s Mr. Fenger. He wants to take us both driving this afternoon.
You can go, can’t you?”
“I certainly can,” replied Miss Monahan, with what might have appeared to be
undue force.
Fanny turned back to the telephone. “Yes, thanks. We can both go. We’ll be ready
at four.”
Fanny decided that Fenger’s muttered reply couldn’t have been what she
thought it was. . . .
“I’ll be running along to my own room now. I’ll be out for lunch, but back at
four, for that airing Fenger’s so wild to have me take. If I were you I’d lie down for
an hour, till you get your land-legs.” [Ella] poked her head in at the door again.
“Not that you look as if you needed it. You’ve got a different look, somehow. Kind
of rested. After all, there’s nothing like an ocean voyage.”
She was gone. Fanny stood a moment, in the center of the room. There was
nothing relaxed or inert about her. Had you seen her standing there, motionless,
you would still have got a sense of action from her. She looked so splendidly alive.
She walked to the window, now, and stood looking down upon New York in early
June. Summer had not yet turned the city into a cauldron of stone and steel. From
her height she could glimpse the green of the park, with a glint of silver in its heart,
that was the lake. Her mind was milling around, aimlessly, in a manner far removed
from its usual orderly functioning. Now she thought of Theodore, her little
brother—his promised return. . . . Fenger. He had said, “Damn!” when she had told
him about Ella. And his voice had been—well—she pushed that thought outside
her mind . . . .
Fanny turned away from the window. She decided she must be tired, after all.
Because here she was, with everything to make her happy: Theodore coming
246 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

home; her foreign trip a success; Ella and Fenger to praise her and make much of
her; a drive and tea this afternoon (she wasn’t above these creature comforts)—
and still she felt unexhilarated, dull. She decided to go down for a bit of lunch,
and perhaps a stroll of ten or fifteen minutes, just to see what Fifth Avenue was
showing. It was half-past one when she reached that ordinarily well-regulated
thoroughfare. She found its sidewalks packed solid, up and down, as far as the eye
could see, with a quiet, orderly, expectant mass of people. Squads of mounted
police clattered up and down, keeping the middle of the street cleared. Whatever
it was that had called forth that incredible mass was scheduled to proceed uptown
from far downtown, and that very soon. Heads were turned that way. Fanny,
wedged in the crowd, stood a-tiptoe, but she could see nothing. It brought to her
mind the Circus Day of her Winnebago childhood, with Elm Street packed with
townspeople and farmers, all straining their eyes up toward Cherry street, the first
turn in the line of march. Then, far away, the blare of a band. “Here they
come!”. . . .
“What is it?” Fanny asked a woman against whom she found herself close-packed.
“What are they waiting for?”
“It’s the suffrage parade,” replied the woman. “The big suffrage parade. Don’t
you know?”
“No. I haven’t been here.” Fanny was a little disappointed. The crowd had surged
forward, so that it was impossible for her to extricate herself. She found herself near
the curb. She could see down the broad street now, and below Twenty-third Street
it was a moving, glittering mass, pennants, banners, streamers flying. The woman
next her volunteered additional information.
“The mayor refused permission to let them march. But they fought it, and they
say it’s the greatest suffrage parade ever held. I’d march myself, only—”
“Only what?”
“I don’t know. I’m scared to, I think. I’m not a New Yorker.”
“Neither am I,” said Fanny. Fanny always became friendly with the woman next
her in a crowd. That was her mother in her. One could hear the music of the band,
now. Fanny glanced at her watch. It was not quite two. Oh, well, she would wait and
see some of it. Her mind was still too freshly packed with European impressions to
receive any real idea of the value of this pageant, she told herself. She knew she did
not feel particularly interested. But she waited.
Another surging forward. It was no longer “Here they come!” but “Here they
are!”. . . A squad of mounted police, on very prancy horses. The men looked very
ruddy and well set-up and imposing. Fanny had always thrilled to anything in uni-
form, given sufficient numbers of them. Another police squad. A brass band, on
foot. And then, in white, on a snow-white charger, holding a white banner aloft, her
eyes looking straight ahead, her face very serious and youthful, the famous beauty
and suffrage leader, Mildred Inness. One of the few famous beauties who actually
was a beauty. And after that women, women, women! Hundreds of them, thou-
sands of them, a river of them flowing up Fifth Avenue to the park. More bands.
More horses. Women! Women! They bore banners. This section, that section.
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 247

Artists. School teachers. Lawyers. Doctors. Writers. Women in college caps and
gowns. Women in white, from shoes to hats. Young women. Girls. Gray-haired
women. A woman in a wheel chair, smiling. A man next to Fanny began to jeer. He
was a red-faced young man, with a coarse, blotchy skin, and thick lips. He smoked
a cigar, and called to the women in a falsetto voice, “Hello, Sadie!” he called. “Hello,
kid!” And the women marched on, serious-faced, calm-eyed. There came floats;
elaborate affairs, with girls in Greek robes. Fanny did not care for these. More solid
ranks. And then a strange and pitiful and tragic and eloquent group. Their banner
said, “Garment Workers. Infants’ Wear Section.” And at their head marched a girl,
carrying a banner. I don’t know how she attained that honor. I think she must have
been one of those fiery, eloquent leaders in her factory clique. The banner she car-
ried was a large one, and it flapped prodigiously in the breeze, and its pole was thick
and heavy. She was a very small girl, even in that group of pale-faced, under-sized,
under-fed girls. A Russian Jewess, evidently. Her shoes were ludicrous. They curled
up at the toes, and the heels were run down. Her dress was a sort of parody on the
prevailing fashion. But on her face, as she trudged along, hugging the pole of the
great pennant that flapped in the breeze, was stamped a look!—well, you see that
same look in some pictures of Joan of Arc. It wasn’t merely a look. It was a story. It
was tragedy. It was the history of a people. You saw in it that which told of centuries
of oppression in Russia. You saw eager groups of student intellectuals, gathered in
secret places for low-voiced, fiery talk. There was in it the unspeakable misery of
Siberia. It spoke eloquently of pogroms, of massacres, of Kiev and its sister-horror,
Kishineff. You saw mean and narrow streets, and carefully darkened windows, and,
on the other side of those windows the warm yellow glow of the seven-branched
Shabbos light. Above this there shone the courage of a race serene in the knowledge
that it cannot die. And illuminating all, so that her pinched face, beneath the flap-
ping pennant, was the rapt, uplifted countenance of the Crusader, there blazed the
great glow of hope. This woman movement, spoken of so glibly as Suffrage, was, to
the mind of this over-read, under-fed, emotional, dreamy little Russian garment
worker the glorious means to a long hoped for end. She had idealized it, with the
imagery of her kind. She had endowed it with promise that it would never actually
hold for her, perhaps. And so she marched on, down the great, glittering avenue,
proudly clutching her unwieldy banner, a stunted, grotesque, magnificent figure.
More than a figure. A symbol.
Fanny’s eyes followed her until she passed out of sight. She put up her hand to
her cheek, and her face was wet. She stood there, and the parade went on, endlessly,
it seemed, and she saw it through a haze. Bands. More bands. Pennants. Floats.
Women. Women. Women.
“I always cry at parades,” said Fanny, to the woman who stood next her—the
woman who wanted to march, but was scared to.
“That’s all right,” said the woman. “That’s all right.” And she laughed because
she was crying, too. And then she did a surprising thing. She elbowed her way to the
edge of the crowd, past the red-faced man with the cigar, out to the street, and fell
into line, and marched on up the street, shoulders squared, head high.
248 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

Fanny glanced down at her watch. It was quarter after four. With a little gasp she
turned to work her way through the close-packed crowd. It was an actual physical
struggle, from which she emerged disheveled, breathless, uncomfortably warm,
and minus her handkerchief, but she had gained the comparative quiet of the side
street, and she made the short distance that lay between the Avenue and her hotel a
matter of little more than a minute. In the hotel corridor stood Ella and Fenger, the
former looking worried, the latter savage.
“Where in the world—” began Ella.
“Caught in the jam. And I didn’t want to get out. It was—it was—glorious!” She
was shaking hands with Fenger and realizing for the first time that she must be look-
ing decidedly sketchy and that she had lost her handkerchief. She fished for it in her
bag, hopelessly, when Fenger released her hand. He had not spoken. Now he said:
“What’s the matter with your eyes?”
“I’ve been crying,” Fanny confessed cheerfully.
“Crying!”
“The parade. There was a little girl in it—” she stopped. Fenger would not be
interested in that little girl, . . . but Ella broke in on that thought.
“I guess you don’t realize that out in front of this hotel there’s a kind of a glori-
fied taxi waiting, with the top rolled back, and it’s been there half an hour. I never
expect to see the time when I could enjoy keeping a taxi waiting. It goes against me.”
“I’m sorry. Really. Let’s go. I’m ready.”
“You are not. Your hair’s a sight; and those eyes!” Fenger put a hand on her arm.
“Go on up and powder your nose, Miss Brandeis. And don’t hurry. I want you to
enjoy this drive.” . . . .
When she rejoined them she was freshly bloused and gloved and all traces of
the tell-tale red had vanished from her eyelids. Fifth Avenue was impossible.
Their car sped up Madison Avenue and made for the Park. The Plaza was a jam
of tired marchers. They dispersed from there, but there seemed no end to the line
that still flowed up Fifth Avenue. Fenger seemed scarcely to see it. He had plunged
at once into talk of the European trip. Fanny gave him every detail, omitting
nothing. She repeated all that her letters and cables had told. Fenger was more
excited than she had ever seen him. He questioned, cross-questioned, criticized,
probed, exacted an account of every conversation. Usually it was not method that
interested him, but results. Fanny, having accomplished the thing she had set out
to do, had lost interest in it now. The actual millions so glibly bandied in the
Haynes-Cooper plant had never thrilled her. The methods by which they were
made possible had.
Ella had been listening with the shrewd comprehension of one who admires the
superior art of a fellow craftsman.
“I’ll say this, Mr. Fenger. If I could make you look like that, by going to Europe
and putting it over those foreign boys, I’d feel I’d earned a year’s salary right there,
and quit. Not to speak of the cross-examination you’re putting her through.”
Fenger laughed, a little self-consciously. “It’s just that I want to be sure it’s real.
I needn’t tell you how important this trick is that Miss Brandeis has just turned.”
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 249

He turned to Fanny, with a boyish laugh. “Now don’t pose. You know you can’t be
as bored as you look.” . . . .
They had tea at Claremont, at a table overlooking the river and the Palisades. . . .
After tea they drove out along the river and came back in the cool of the evening.
Fanny was very quiet now. Fenger followed her mood. Ella sustained the conversa-
tion, somewhat doggedly. It was almost seven when they reached the plaza exit.
And there Fanny, sitting forward suddenly, gave a little cry.
“Why—they’re marching yet!” she said, and her voice was high with wonder.
“They’re marching yet! All the time we’ve been driving and teaing, they’ve been
marching.”
And so they had. Thousands upon thousands, they had bowed along as relent-
lessly and seemingly as endlessly as a river. They were marching yet. For six hours
the thousands had poured up that street, making it a moving mass of white.
And the end was not yet. What pen, and tongue, and sense of justice had failed to
do, they were doing now by sheer, crude force of numbers. The red-faced hooligan,
who had stood next to Fanny in the crowd hours before, had long ago ceased his
jibes and slunk away, bored, if not impressed. After all, one might jeer at ten, or fifty,
or a hundred women, or even five hundred. But not at forty thousand.
Their car turned down Madison Avenue, and Fenger twisted about for a last
look at the throng in the plaza. He was plainly impressed. The magnitude of the
thing appealed to him. To a Haynes-Cooper-trained mind, forty thousand women,
marching for whatever the cause, must be impressive. Forty thousand of anything
had the respect of Michael Fenger. His eyes narrowed, thoughtfully.
“They seem to have put it over,” he said. “And yet, what’s the idea? Oh, I’m for
suffrage, of course. Naturally. And all those thousands of women, in white—still,
a thing as huge as this parade has to be reduced to a common denominator, to be
really successful. If somebody could take the whole thing, boil it down, and make
the country see what this huge demonstration stands for.”
Fanny leaned forward suddenly. “Tell the man to stop. I want to get out.”
Fenger and Ella stared. “What for?” But Fenger obeyed.
“I want to get something at this stationer’s shop.” She had jumped down almost
before the motor had stopped at the curb.
“But let me get it.”
“No. You can’t. Wait here.” She disappeared within the shop. She was back in five
minutes, a flat, loosely wrapped square under her arm. “Cardboard,” she explained
briefly, in answer to their questions.
Fenger, about to leave them at their hotel, presented his plans for the evening.
Fanny, looking up at him, her head full of other plans, thought he looked and
sounded very much like Big Business. And, for the moment at least, Fanny Brandeis
loathed Big Business and all that it stood for.
“It’s almost seven,” Fenger was saying. “We’ll be rubes in New York, this evening.
You girls will just have time to freshen up a bit—I suppose you want to—and then
we’ll have dinner, and go to the theater, and to supper afterward. What do you want
to see?”
250 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

Ella looked at Fanny. And Fanny shook her head, “Thanks. You’re awfully kind.
But—no.”
“Why not?” demanded Fenger, gruffly.
“Perhaps because I’m tired. And there’s something else I must do.”
Ella looked relieved. Fenger’s eyes bore down upon Fanny, but she seemed not to
feel them. She held out her hand. . . .
“Good-by. It’s been a glorious drive. I feel quite rested.”
“You just said you were tired.”
The elevator door clanged, shutting out the sight of Fenger’s resentful frown.
“He’s as sensitive as a soubrette,” said Ella. “I’m glad you decided not to go out.
I’m dead, myself. . . .”
Fanny seemed scarcely to hear her. With a nod she left Ella and entered her own
room. There she wasted no time. She threw her hat and coat on the bed. Her suit-
case was on the baggage stand. She turned on all the lights, swung the closed suit-
case up to the table, shoved the table against the wall, up-ended the suitcase so that
its leather side presented a smooth surface, and propped a firm sheet of white card-
board against the impromptu rack. She brought her chair up close, fumbled in her
bag for the pens she had just purchased. Her eyes were on the blank white surface
of the paper. The table was the kind that has a subshelf. It prevented Fanny from
crossing her legs under it, and that bothered her. While she fitted her pens, and
blocked her paper, she kept on barking her shins in unconscious protest against the
uncomfortable conditions under which she must work.
She sat staring at the paper now, after having marked it off into blocks, with
a pencil. She got up, and walked across the room, aimlessly, and stood there a
moment, and came back. She picked up a thread on the floor. Sat down again.
Picked up her pencil, rolled it a moment in her palms, then, catching her toes
behind either foreleg of her chair, in an attitude that was as workmanlike as it was
ungraceful, she began to draw, nervously, tentatively at first, but gaining in firmness
and assurance as she went on.
If you had been standing behind her chair you would have seen, emerging mira-
culously from the white surface under Fanny’s pencil, a thin, undersized little figure
in sleazy black and white, whose face, under the cheap hat, was upturned and raptur-
ous. Her skirts were wind-blown, and the wind tugged, too, at the banner whose pole
she hugged so tightly in her arms. Dimly you could see the crowds that lined the street
on either side. Vaguely, too, you saw the faces and stunted figures of the little group of
girls she led. But she, the central figure, stood out among all the rest. Fanny Brandeis,
the artist, and Fanny Brandeis, the salesman, combined shrewdly to omit no telling
detail. The wrong kind of feet in the wrong kind of shoes; the absurd hat; the shabby
skirt—every bit of grotesquerie was there, serving to emphasize the glory of the face.
Fanny Brandeis’s face, as the figure grew, line by line, was a glorious thing, too.
She was working rapidly. She laid down her pencil, now, and leaned back,
squinting her eyes critically. She looked grimly pleased. Her hair was rather rum-
pled, and her cheeks very pink. She took up her pen, now, and began to ink her
drawing with firm black strokes. . . .
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 251

There sounded a smart little double knock at her door. Fanny did not heed it. She
did not hear it. Her toes were caught behind the chair-legs again. She was slumped
down on the middle of her spine. She had brought the table, with its ridiculously
up-ended suitcase, very near, so that she worked with a minimum of effort. The
door opened. Fanny did not turn her head. Ella Monahan came in, yawning. . . .
“Well, what in the world—” she began, and yawned again, luxuriously. She
stopped behind Fanny’s chair and glanced over her shoulder. The yawn died. She
craned her neck a little and leaned forward. And the little girl went marching by,
in her cheap and crooked shoes, and her short and sleazy skirt, with the banner
tugging, tugging in the breeze. Fanny Brandeis had done her with that economy of
line and absence of sentimentality which is the test separating the artist from the
draughtsman.
Silence, except for the scratching of Fanny Brandeis’s pen.
“Why—the poor little kike!” said Ella Monahan. Then, after another moment of
silence, “I didn’t know you could draw like that.”
Fanny laid down her pen. “Like what?” She pushed back her chair, and rose,
stiffly. The drawing, still wet, was propped up against the suitcase. Fanny walked
across the room. Ella dropped into her chair, so that when Fanny came back to the
table it was she who looked over Ella’s shoulder. Into Ella’s shrewd and heavy face
there had come a certain look.
“They don’t get a square deal, do they? They don’t get a square deal.”
The two looked at the girl a moment longer, in silence. Then Fanny went over to
the bed, and picked up her hat and coat. She smoothed her hair, deftly, powdered
her nose with care, and adjusted her hat at the smart angle approved by the Galeries
Lafayette. She came back to the table, picked up her pen, and beneath the drawing
wrote, in large print:

The Marcher
She picked up the drawing, still wet, opened the door, and with a smile at the bewil-
dered Ella, was gone.
It was after eight o’clock when she reached the Star building. She asked for
Lasker’s office, and sent in her card. . . . Now, Fanny Brandeis knew that the average
young woman, standing outside the office of a man like Lasker, unknown and at
the mercy of office boy or secretary, continues to stand outside until she leaves in
discouragement. But Fanny knew, too, that she was not an average young woman.
She had, on the surface, an air of authority und distinction. She had that quiet
assurance of one accustomed to deference. She had youth, and beauty, and charm.
She had a hat and suit bought in Paris, France; and a secretary is only human.
Carl Lasker’s private office was the bare, bright, newspaper-strewn room of a
man who is not only a newspaper proprietor, but a newspaper man. There’s a dif-
ference. Carl Lasker had sold papers on the street when he was ten. He had slept on
burlap sacks, paper stuffed, in the basement of a newspaper office. Ink flowed with
the blood in his veins. He could operate a press. He could manipulate a linotype
252 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

machine (that almost humanly intelligent piece of mechanism). He could make up

a paper single handed, and had done it. He knew the newspaper game, did Carl
Lasker, from the composing room to the street, and he was a very great man in his
line. And so he was easy to reach, and simple to talk to, as are all great men . . . .
Fanny entered. Lasker laid down her card. “Brandeis. That’s a good name.” He
extended his hand. He wore evening clothes, with a white flower in his buttonhole.
He must have just come from a dinner, or he was to attend a late affair, somewhere.
Perhaps Fanny, taken aback, unconsciously showed her surprise because Lasker
grinned, as he waved her to a chair. His quick mind had interpreted her thought.
“Sit down, Miss Brandeis. You think I’m gotten up like the newspaper man in
a Richard Harding Davis short story, don’t you? What can I do for you?”
Fanny wasted no words. “I saw the parade this afternoon. I did a picture. I think
it’s good. If you think so too, I wish you’d use it.”
She laid it, face up, on Lasker’s desk. Lasker picked it up in his two hands, held it
off, and scrutinized it. All the drama in the world is concentrated in the confines of
a newspaper office every day in the year, and so you hear very few dramatic excla-
mations in such a place. Men like Lasker do not show emotion when impressed.
It is too wearing on the mechanism. Besides, they are trained to self-control. So
Lasker said, now:
“Yes, I think it’s pretty good, too.” Then, raising his voice to a sudden bellow,
“Boy!” He handed the drawing to a boy, gave a few brief orders, and turned back to
Fanny. “To-morrow morning every other paper in New York will have pictures
showing Mildred Inness, the beauty, on her snow-white charger, or Sophronisba
A. Bannister, A.B., Ph.D., in her cap and gown, or Mrs. William Van der Welt as
Liberty. We’ll have that little rat with the banner, and it’ll get ‘em. They’ll talk about
it.” His eyes narrowed a little. “Do you always get that angle?”
“Yes.”
“There isn’t a woman cartoonist in New York who does that human stuff. Did
you know that?”
“Yes.”
“Want a job?”
“N-no.”
His knowing eye missed no detail of the suit, the hat, the gloves, the shoes.
“What’s your salary now?”
“Ten thousand.”
“Satisfied?”
“No.”
“You’ve hit the heart of that parade. I don’t know whether you could do that
every day, or not. But if you struck twelve half the time, it would be enough. When
you want a job, come back.”
“Thanks,” said Fanny quietly. And held out her hand.
She returned in the subway. It was a Bronx train, full of sagging faces, lusterless eyes,
grizzled beards; of heavy, black-eyed girls in soiled white shoes; of stoop-shouldered
men, poring over newspapers in Hebrew script; of smells and sounds and glaring light.
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 253

And though to-morrow would bring its reaction, and common sense would
have her again in its cold grip, she was radiant to-night and glowing with the exal-
tation that comes with creation. And over and over a voice within her was saying:
These are my people! These are my people!

Source: From Edna Ferber, Fanny Herself (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company,
1917).
 R
THE STURDY OAK (1917)
a n n e o’ h ag a n ( 1 8 6 9 – 1 9 3 4 )

Serialized in Collier’s and published in book form, The Sturdy Oak was authored
by fourteen popular writers, each of whom contributed a chapter, and edited by
Elizabeth Jordan as a fundraiser for the 1917 New York State referendum
campaign. The novel follows the romance plot of many suffrage narratives;
Genevieve becomes sympathetic to the cause and then moves her political candi-
date husband George to reconsider his inherited beliefs. George’s troubles
begin when he publishes an antisuffragist statement, proclaiming men’s role as
woman’s chivalrous protector, causing disasters on the home front and the cam-
paign trail. Two simpering unmarried cousins take George at his word and move
into his home, and, in this chapter, Anne O’Hagan writes of suffragist organizers
who reframe George’s naïve statements in a “voiceless speech,” one of the most
innovative print cultural publicity stunts of the American campaign.

Mr. Benjamin Doolittle, . . . the manager of Mr. George Remington’s campaign, sat
in his candidate’s private office, and from time to time restrained himself from
hasty speech by the diplomatic and dexterous use of a quid of tobacco.
He found it difficult to preserve his philosophy in the face of George
Remington’s agitations over the woman’s suffrage issue.
“It’s the last time,” he had frequently informed his political cronies since the
opening of the campaign, “that I’ll wet-nurse a new-fledged candidate. They’ve got
at least to have their milk teeth through if they want Benjamin Doolittle after this.”
To George, itchingly aware through all his rasped nerves of Mrs. Herrington’s
letter in that morning’s Sentinel asking him to refute, if he could, an abominable
half column of statistics in regard to legislation in the Woman Suffrage States, the
furniture dealer was drawling pacifically:
“Now, George, you made a mistake in letting the women get your goat. Don’t
pay any attention to them. Of course their game’s fair enough. I will say that you
gave them their opening; you stood yourself for a target with that letter of
yours. . . .
254
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 255

“Let ’em write; let ’em ask questions in the papers; let ’em heckle you on the
stump. All that you’ve got to say is that you’ve expressed your personal convictions
already, and that you’ve stood by those convictions in your private life, and that as
you ain’t up for legislator, the question don’t really concern your candidacy. And
that, as you’re running for district attorney, you will, with their kind permission,
proceed to the subjects that do concern you there—the condition of the court
calendar of Whitewater County, the prosecution of the racetrack gamblers out at
Erie Oval, and so forth and so forth.
“You laid yourself open, George, but you ain’t obligated in law or equity to keep
on presenting your bare chest for their outrageous slings and arrows.”
“Of course what you say about their total irrelevancy is quite true,” said George,
making the concession so that it had all the belligerency of a challenge. “But I would
never have consented to run for office at the price of muzzling my convictions.”
Mr. Doolittle wearily agreed that that was more than could be expected from
any candidate of the high moral worth of George Remington. And then he went
over a list of places throughout the county where George was to speak during the
next week and intimated dolefully that the committee could use a little more
money if it had it.
He expressed it thus: “A few more contributions wouldn’t put any strain to speak
of on our pants’ pockets. Anything more to be got out of [your uncle] old Martin
Jaffry? Don’t he realize that blood’s thicker than water?”
“I’ll speak to him,” growled George. He hated Mr. Benjamin Doolittle’s collo-
quialisms, though once he had declared them amusing, racy, of the soil, and had
rebuked Genevieve’s fastidious criticisms of them on an occasion when she had
interpreted her role of helpmeet to include that of hostess to Mr. and Mrs.
Doolittle—oh, not in her own home, of course—at luncheon at the Country Club!
“Well, I guess that’s about all for to-day.”
Mr. Doolittle brought the conference to a close, hoisting himself by links from
his chair.
“It takes $3000 every time you circularize the constituency, you know—” He
lounged toward the window and looked out again upon the pleasant, mellow,
autumnal scene around Fountain Square. And with the look his affectation of
bucolic calm dropped from him. He turned abruptly.
“What’s that going on at McMonigal’s corner?” he demanded sharply.
“I don’t know, I am sure,” said George indifferently, still bent upon teaching his
manager that he was a free and independent citizen, in leading strings to no man.
“It’s been vacant since the fire in March when Petrosini’s fish market and Miss
Letterblair’s hat st—”
He had reached the window himself by this time, and the sentence was destined
to remain forever unfinished.
From the low, old-fashioned brick building on the northeast corner of Fountain
Square, whose boarded eyes had stared blindly across toward the glittering orbs of
its towering neighbor, the Jaffry Building, for six months a series of great placards
flared.
256 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

Planks had been removed from the windows, plate glass restored, and behind it
he read in great irritation:

“Some Questions for Candidate Remington”

A foot high, an inch broad, black as Erebus, the letters shouted at him against an
orange background.
Every window of the second story contained a placard. On the first story, in the
show window where Petrosini had been wont to ravish epicurean eyes by shad and
red snapper, perch and trout, cunningly embedded in ice blocks upon a marble
slab—in that window, framed now in the hated orange-and-black, stood a woman.
She was turning backward for the benefit of onlookers, who pressed close to the
glass, the leaves of a mammoth pad resting upon an easel.
From their point of vantage in the second story of the Jaffry Building the candi-
date and his manager could see that each sheet bore that horrid headline:

“Questions for Candidate Remington”

The whole population of Whitewater, it seemed to George, crowded about that
corner.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” said Benjie Doolittle, disappearing through the private
office door with the black tails of his coat achieving a true horizontal behind him.
As statesman and as undertaker Mr. Doolittle never swerved from the garment
which keeps green the memory of the late Prince Consort.
As the door opened the much-tried George Remington had a glimpse of that
pleasing industrial unit Betty Sheridan, searching through the file for the copy of
the letter to the Cummunipaw Steel works which he had recently demanded to see.
He pressed the buzzer imperiously, and Betty responded with duteous haste. He
pointed through the window to the crowd in front of McMonigal’s block.
“Perhaps,” he said, with what seemed to him Spartan self-restraint, “you can
explain the meaning of that scene.”
Betty looked out with an air of intelligent interest.
“Oh, yes!” she said vivaciously. “I think I can. It’s a Voiceless Speech.”
“A voicel—” George’s own face was a voiceless speech as he repeated two
syllables of his stenographer’s explanation.
“Yes. Don’t you know about voiceless speeches? It’s antiquated to try to run any
sort of a campaign without them nowadays.”
“Perhaps you also know who that—female—” again George’s power of utterance
failed him. Betty came closer to the window and peered out.
“It’s Frances Herrington who is turning the leaves now,” she said amiably.
“I know her by that ducky toque.”
“Frances Herrington! What Harvey Herrington is thinking of to allow—”
George’s emotion constrained him to broken utterance. “And we’re dining there
tonight! She has no sense of the decencies—the—the—the hospitality of existence.
We won’t go—I’ll telephone Genevieve—”
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 257

“Fie, fie Georgie!” observed Betty. “Why be personal over a mere detail of a

political campaign?”
But before George could tell her why his indignation against his prospective
hostess was impersonal and unemotional, the long figure of Mr. Doolittle again
projected itself upon the scene.
Betty effaced herself, gliding from the inner office, and George turned a look of
inquiry upon his manager.
“Well?” the monosyllable had all the force of profanity.
“Wel, the women, durn them, have brought suffrage into your campaign.”
“How?”
“How? They’ve got a list of every blamed law on the statute book relating to
women and children and they’re asking on that sheet of leaves over there, if you
mean to proceed against all who are breaking those laws here in Whitewater
County. And right opposite your own office! It’s—it’s damn smart. You ought to
have got that Herrington woman on your committee.”
“It’s indelicate, unwomanly, indecent. It shows into what unsexed degradation
politics will drag woman. But I’m relieved that that’s all they’re asking. Of course I
shall enforce the law for the protection of every class in our community with all the
power of the—”
“Oh shucks! There’s nobody here but me. You needn’t unfurl Old Glory,” coun-
seled Mr. Doolittle, a trifle impatiently. “They’re asking real questions, not blowing
off hot-air. Oh, I say, who owns McMonigal’s block since the old man died? We’ll
have the owner stop this circus. That’s the first thing to do.”
“I’ll telephone [real estate agent] Allen. He’ll know.”
Allen’s office was very obliging and would report on the ownership on
McMonigal’s block in ten minutes.
Mr. Doolittle employed the interval in repeating to George some of the
“Questions for Candidate Remington,” illegible from the latter’s window.
“ ‘You believe that ‘woman’s place is in the home.’ Will you enforce the law
against woman’s night work in the factories? Over nine hundred women of
Whitewater County are doing night work in the munition plants of Airport,
Whitewater, and Ondegonk. What do you mean to do about it?’
“You ‘desire to conserve the threatened flower of womanhood.’ ”
A critical listener would have caught a note of ribald scorn in Mr. Doolittle’s
drawl as he quoted from his candidate’s letter, via the voiceless speech placards.
“To conserve the threatened flower of womanhood the grape canneries of
Omega and Onicrom Townships are employing children of five and six years in
defiance of the Child Labor Law of this State. Are you going to proceed against
them?”
“‘Woman is man’s rarest heritage.’ Do you think man ought to burn her
alive? Remember the Livingston Loomis-Ladd collar factory fire?—fourteen
women killed, forty-eight maimed. In how many of the factories in Whitewater, in
which women work, are the fire laws obeyed? Do you mean to enforce them?”
The telephone interrupted Mr. Doolittle’s hateful litany.
258 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

Allen’s bright young man begged to report that McMonigal’s block was held in
fee simple by the widow of the late Michael McMonigal.
Mr. Doolittle juggled the leaves of the telephone directory with the dazzling
swiftness of a Japanese ball thrower, and in a few seconds he was speaking to the
relict of the late Michael.
George watched him with fevered eyes, listened with fevered ears. The conversa-
tion, it was easy to gather, did not proceed as Mr. Doolittle wished.
“Oh, in entire charge—E. Eliot. Oh, in sympathy yourself? Oh, come now, Mrs.
McMonigal—”
But Mrs. McMonigal did not come now. The campaign manager frowned as he
replaced the receiver.
“Widow owns the place. That Eliot woman is the agent. The suffrage gang has
the owner’s permission to use the building from now on to election. She says she’s
in sympathy. Well, we’ll have to think of something—”
“It’s easy enough,” declared George. “I’ll simply have a set of posters printed
answering their questions. And we’ll engage sandwich men to carry them in front
of McMonigal’s windows. Certainly I mean to enforce the law. I’ll give the order to
the Sentinel press now for the answers—definite, dignified answers.”
“See here, George,” Mr. Doolittle interrupted him with unusual weightiness of
manner. “It’s too far along in the campaign for you to go flying off on your own.
You’ve got to consult your managers. This is your first campaign; it’s my thirty-first.
You’ve got to take advice—”
“I will not be muzzled.”
“Shucks! Who wants to muzzle anybody! But you can’t say everything that’s inside
of you, can you? There’s got to be some choosing. We’ve got to help you choose.
“The silly questions the women are displaying over there—you can’t answer
’em in a word or in two words. This city is having a boom; every valve factory in the
valley, every needle and pin factory, is making munitions today—valves and nee-
dles and pins all gone by the board for the time being. Money’s never been so plenty
in Whitewater County, and this city is feeling the benefits of it. People are buying
things—clothes, flour, furniture, victrolas, automobiles, rum.
“There ain’t a merchant of any description in this county but his business is
booming on account of the work in the factories. You can’t antagonize the whole
population of the place. Why, I dare say, some of your own money and
Mrs. Remington’s is earning three times what it was two years ago. The First
National has just declared a 15 percent dividend, and Martin Jaffry owns 54 percent
of the stock.
“You don’t want to put brakes on prosperity. It ain’t decent citizenship to try it;
it ain’t neighborly. Think of the lean years we’ve known. You can’t do it. This war
won’t last forever”—Mr. Doolittle’s voice was tinged with regret—“and it will be
time enough to go in for playing the deuce with business when business gets slack
again. That’s the time for reforms, George; when things are dull.”
George was silent, the very presentment of a sorely harassed young man. He had
not, even in a year when blamelessness rather than experience was his party’s
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 259

supreme need in a candidate, become its banner bearer without possessing certain
political apperceptions. He knew, as Benjie Doolittle spoke, that Benjie spoke the
truth—Whitewater city and county would never elect a man who had too convinc-
ingly promised to interfere with the prosperity of the city and county.
“Better stick to the gambling out at Erie Oval, George,” counseled the campaign
manager. “They’re mostly New Yorkers that are interested in that, anyway.”
“I’ll not reply without due consideration and—er—notice,” George sullenly
conceded to his manager and to necessity. But he hated both Doolittle and neces-
sity at the moment.
That sun-bright vision of himself which so splendidly and sustainingly com-
panioned him, which spoke in his most sonorous periods, which so completely and
satisfyingly commanded the reverence of Genevieve—that George Remington of
his brave imaginings would not thus have answered Benjamin Doolittle.
Through the silence following the furniture man’s departure, Betty, at the type-
writer, clicked upon George’s ears. An evil impulse assailed him—impolitic, too, as
he realized—impolitic but irresistible. It was the easiest way in which Candidate
Remington, heckled by suffragists, overridden by his campaign committee, morti-
fyingly tormented by a feeling of inadequacy, could reestablish himself in his own
esteem as a man of prompt and righteous decisions.
He might not be able to run his campaign to suit himself, but, by Jove, his office
was his own!
He went into Betty’s quarters and suggested to her that a due sense of the eter-
nal fitness of things would cause her to offer him her resignation, which his own
sense of the eternal fitness of things would lead him at once to accept.
It seemed, he said, highly indecorous of her to remain in the employ of
Remington & Evans the while she was busily engaged in trying to thwart the ambi-
tions of the senior partner; he marveled that woman’s boasted sensitiveness had
not already led her to perceive this for herself.
For a second, Betty seemed startled, even hurt. She colored deeply, and her eyes
darkened. Then the flush of surprise and of wounded feeling died. She looked at
him blankly and asked how soon it would be possible for him to replace her. She
would leave as soon as he desired.
In her bearing, so much quieter than usual, in the look in her face, George read
a whole volume. He read that up to this time Betty had regarded her presence in the
ranks of his political enemies as she would have regarded being opposed to him in
a tennis match. He read that he, with that biting little speech which he already
wished unspoken, had given her a sudden, sinister illumination upon the relations
of working women to their employers.
He read the question in the back of her mind. Suppose (so it ran in his construc-
tive fancy) that instead of being a prosperous protective young woman, playing the
wage-earner more or less as Marie Antoinette had played the milkmaid, she had been
Mamie Riley across the hall, whose work was bitter earnest, whose earnings were not
pin money but bread and meat and brother’s schooling and mother’s health. Would
George still have made the stifling of her views the price of her position?
260 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

And if George—George, the kind, friendly, clean-minded man—would drive

that bargain, what bargain might not other men, less generous, less noble, drive?
All this George’s unhappily sensitized conscience read into Betty Sheridan’s look
even as the imp who urged him on bade him tell her that she could leave at her own
convenience; at once, if she pleased; the supply of stenographers in Whitewater was
adequate at demand.
He rather wished that [his law partner Penfield] Evans would come in; Penny
would doubtless take a high hand with him concerning the episode, and there was
nothing which George Remington would have welcomed like an antagonist of his
own size and sex.
But Penny did not appear, and the afternoon passed draggingly for the candi-
date of the district attorneyship. He tried to busy himself with the affairs of his
clients, but even when he could keep away from his windows he was aware of the
crowds in front of McMonigal’s block, of Frances Herrington, her “ducky” toque,
and her infernal voiceless speech.
And when, for a second, he was able to forget these, he heard from the outer
office the unmistakable sounds of a desk being permanently cleared of its present
incumbent’s belongings.
After a while, Betty bade him a too courteous good-by, still with that abom-
inable new air of gravely readjusting her old impressions of him. And then there
was nothing to do but to go home and make ready for dinner at the Herringtons’,
unless he could induce Genevieve to have an opportune headache.
Of course Betty had been right. Not upon his masculine shoulders should there
be laid the absurd burden of political chagrin strong enough to break a social
engagement.
Genevieve was in her room. The library was given over to cousins Alys Brewster-
Smith [and] Emelene Brand, two rusty callers, and the tea things. Before the
drawing-room fire, Hanna slept in Maltese proprietorship. George longed with
passion to kick the cat.
Genevieve, as he saw through the open door, sat by the window. She had, it
appeared, but recently come in. She still wore her hat and coat; she had not even
drawn off her gloves. And, seeing her thus, absorbed in some problem, George’s
sense of his wrongs grew greater.
He had, he told himself, hurried home out of the jar and fret of a man’s day to
find balm, to feel the cool fingers of peace pressed upon hot eye-lids, to drink
strengthening drafts of refreshment from his wife’s unquestioning belief, from the
completeness of her absorption in him. And here she sat thinking of something
else.
Genevieve arose, a little startled, as he snapped on the lights and grunted out
something which optimism might translate into an affectionate husbandly greet-
ing. She came dutifully forward and raised her face, still exquisite and cool from the
outer air, for her lord’s homecoming kiss. That resolved itself into a slovenly peck.
“Been out?” asked George unnecessarily. He tried to quell the unreasonable
inclination to find her lacking in wifely devotion because she had been out.
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 261

“Yes. There was a meeting at the Woman’s Forum this afternoon,” she answered.
She was unpinning her hat before the pier glass, and in it he could see the reflection
of her eyes turned upon his image with a questioning look.
“The ladies seem to be having a busy day of it.”
He struggled, not quite successfully, to be facetious over the pretty, negligible
activities of his wife’s sex. “What mighty theme engaged your attention to-day?”
“That Miss Eliot—the real-estate woman, you know—” George stiffened into
an attitude of close attention—“spoke about the conditions under which women
are working in the mills in this city and in the rest of the county—” Genevieve
averted her mirrored eyes from his mirrored face. She moved toward her dressing
table.
“Oh, she did! And is the Woman’s Forum going to come to grips with the indus-
trial monster and bring in the millennium by the first of the year?”
But George was painfully aware that light banter which fails to be convincingly
light is but a snarl.
Genevieve colored slightly as she studied the condition of a pair of long white
gloves which she had taken from a drawer.
“Of course the Woman’s Forum is only for discussion,” she said mildly. “It doesn’t
initiate any action.” Then she raised her eyes to his face, and George felt his universe
reel about him.
For his wife’s beautiful eyes were turned upon him, not in limpid adoration, not
in perfect acceptance of all his views, unheard, unweighed, but with a question in
their blue depths.
The horrid clairvoyance which harassment and self-distrust had given him that
afternoon enabled him, he thought, to translate that look. The Eliot woman, in her
speech before the Woman’s Forum, had doubtless placed the responsibility for the
continuation of those factory conditions upon the district attorney’s office, had
doubtless repeated those foolish, impractical questions which the suffragists were
displaying in McMonigal’s windows.
And Genevieve was asking them in her mind! Genevieve was questioning him,
his motives, his standards, his intentions! Genevieve was not intellectually a charm-
ing mechanical doll who would always answer “yes” and “no” as he pressed the
strings, and maintain a comfortable vacuity when he was not at hand to perform
the kindly act. Genevieve was thinking on her own account.
What, he wondered angrily, as he dressed—for he could not bring himself to ask
her aid in escaping the Herringtons, and indeed was suddenly balky at the thought,
of the intimacies of a domestic evening—what was she thinking? She was not such
an imbecile as to be unaware how large a share of her comfortable fortune was
invested in the local industry. Why, her father had been head of the Livingston
Loomis-Ladd Collar Company when that dreadful fire—!And she certainly knew
that his uncle, Martin Jaffry, was the chief stockholder in the Jaffry-Bradshaw
Company.
What was the question in Genevieve’s eyes? Was she asking if he were the
knight of those women who worked and sweated and burned, or of her and the
262 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

comfortable women of her class, of Alys Brewster-Smith with her little [rental] cot-
tages, of Cousin Emelene with her little stocks, of masquerading Betty Sheridan
whose sortie of independence was from the safe, vantage-grounds of entrenched
privilege?
And all that evening as he watched his wife across the crystal and the roses of the
Herrington table, trying to interpret the question that had been in her eyes, trying
to interpret her careful silence, he realized what every husband sooner or later
awakes to realize—that he had married a stranger.
He did not know her. He did not know what ambitions, what aspirations apart
from him, ruled the spirit behind that charming surface of flesh.
Of course she was good, of course she was tender, of course she was high-
minded! But how wide-enveloping was the cloak of her goodness? How far did her
tenderness reach out? Was her high-mindedness of the practical or impractical
variety?
From time to time, he caught her eyes in turn upon him, with that curious little
look of re-examination in their depths. She could look at him like that! She could
look at him as though appraisals were possible from a wife to a husband!
They avoided industrial Whitewater County as a topic when they left the
Herringtons’. They talked with great animation and interest of the people at the
party. Arrived at home, George, pleading press of work, went down into the library
while Genevieve went to bed. Carefully they postponed the moment of making
articulate all that, remaining unspoken, might be ignored.
It was one o’clock, and he had not moved a paper for an hour, when the library
door opened.
Genevieve stood there. She had sometimes come before when he had worked at
night, to chide him for neglecting sleep, to bring bouillon or chocolate. But tonight
she did neither.
She did not come far into the room, but, standing near the door and looking at
him with a new expression—patient, tender, the everlasting eternal look—said: “I
couldn’t sleep either. I came down to say something, George. Don’t interrupt
me—” for he was coming toward her with sounds of affectionate protest at her
being out of bed. “Don’t speak! I want to say—whatever you do, whatever you
decide—now—always—I love you. Even if I don’t agree, I love you.”
She turned and went swiftly away.
George stood looking at the place where she had stood,—this strange, new
Genevieve, who, promising to love, reserved the right to judge.

Source: From Anne O’Hagan, “Chapter Seven,” in The Sturdy Oak: A Novel of American
Politics, ed. Elizabeth Jordan (New York: H. Holt and Co., 1917).
 R
FOR RENT—ONE PEDESTAL
(1917)
marjorie shuler (1893–?)

Daughter of NAWSA leader Nettie Shuler, Marjorie Shuler came to suffrage

campaigning late but enthusiastic. From 1917, she served as publicity director for
NAWSA. Her novel, For Rent—One Pedestal, was published during the 1917 New
York State referendum campaign. Modeled after popular epistolary novels such
as Jean Webster’s Daddy-Long-Legs, it collects the letters of Delight Dennison to
a prosuffrage college friend, informing her about her conversion and her increas-
ingly audacious exploits for the cause as well as her budding romance. The exhil-
aration of campaigning that overlays Delight’s serious commitment to suffrage
reflects the spirit of the final campaign, during which older organizers and ener-
getic young women threw themselves into completing the turn of the tide.

July 8.

Barbara, My Dear:
Behold me, Delight Dennison of Verner College and nowhere, with a manner
befitting the ladies of Cranford. Fortified with a pair of tortoise-shell rimmed
spectacles. They make me look heaps older. Swathed in a linen waist with chok-
ing collar. “Young ladies, young ladies,” shrills the principal of this school, “teach-
ers should never wear low collars in the school room.” Perish the thought that
once I broke a record at hurdle jumping.
For ten days I have patiently wiped the nose of Little Italy. I have extracted
yards of raffia from the blouse of thieving Young Poland. One hundred times
have I demanded that Rosalie keep in line. Forty times a day I have showed Yetta
which is her right foot.
Can you imagine me? But last night was worst of all. If only you could have
beheld me! Perched on two yielding boards that had once encased Brown’s
Naphtha soap and protested ominously at call to further duty. Waving a yellow
banner. Speaking, yes actually speaking, at a suffrage street meeting.

263
264 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

Open not your arms in welcome; lift not your voice in thanksgiving. All who
suffer are not suffragettes. My anti-principles are as firmly embedded as when
you first began to tug at them back in our freshmen days.
But such things have I seen in Canton, this State, that I would mount the
housetops to shout them forth. And by stepping no higher than a soap-box
suffragists can get an audience. Ergo, I stepped.
It’s the result of my daily promenade through the factory section of Canton
toward my place of toil. There are some sights to which one may become accus-
tomed, but I do not number among them a dead pig, a very dead pig. Each morn-
ing I have talked to myself about that pig. I have spent valuable time assuring
myself that I could pass it with my head averted. But my nostrils have defied my
most stern commands.
This afternoon I came down the street. I saw the four familiar saloons on the
corners. Swarming in the filth were hundreds of children—covered with mud
and slime—and little else. On the corner the pig. I hesitated. Then a fight erupt-
ing from one of the saloons sent me flying toward a street car and the safety of my
hideous pay-as-you-enter boarding-house.
If you had seen that picture you would not wonder that as the car swung up
the beautiful shaded avenue I shook from head to foot. Suddenly a clear, low
voice spoke my name. For the first time I realized that the other half of my seat
was in the possession of Mrs. [Lucia] Morton, the Mrs. Morton, main topic of my
last epistle to you. Babs, she’s just as fascinating as I imagined.
It took me a minute to swallow my amazement that she had even noticed me
at the opposite end of the boarding-house table. Then I was telling her what I had
seen, with a wealth of detail which you have been spared. We talked on and on
and were at the end of the car-line before we thought to get off. It was a refreshed
person who responded eagerly to her suggestion of walking back.
While we were still out in the fields, she startled me by remarking: “Some of us
hope to make conditions better by giving women the suffrage.”
To my utter dismay she continued, “We are to have a street meeting to-night.
Will you help?” I smiled as I thought how I’ve ridiculed your interest in the “Caws.”
But I would agree to a balloon ascension if that would arouse the people of Canton.
One of the women at the meeting told me that Mrs. Morton is the suffrage
leader for the district. It seems that the men of the state are to vote in November
on sharing with the women the ballot-box, or whatever it is that votes are put in.
I should think they would mobilize an army for its protection if the way
Mrs. Morton swept me up on that soap-box is evidence of her methods.
“Just tell what you saw. I’ll point out the changes women would make,” and
she shoved me forward. At first I could only see faces and faces and more faces.
Finally I got started, and I talked for hours. Mrs. Morton said just ten minutes,
but I never did believe in wrist-watch time. The crowd appeared to listen. I am not
sure about the impression that I made. The woman who appeared most intent sidled
up after the meeting. With profuse apologies she pointed to Mrs. Morton’s young
face and whispered, “Please won’t you tell me how you got your hair so white?”
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 265

Don’t reproach me for taking advantage of your precious suffragists. I promise

to turn back into a proper school ma’mish person when the first bell rings tomor-
row morning. I am trying hard to make good at this vacation school work, with
a strong hope of a regular position in the fall. I realize my propensity for getting
into scrapes, as well as you, oh, long-suffering roommate. If I had been ignorant,
I would have been enlightened by the private little commencement address Dean
Stanton offered me with this position.
Please understand that my coming to that castle you call a dump is out of the
question. Ask your ducky parent to make no further suggestions about trans-
portation. A few privileges are denied even a millionaire. I will not come again
until I can pay my own railroad fare. . . .
Delight.

August 6.

Dear Babs:
I’ve been in jail. By special invitation of Big Tim. He suggested thirty days.
I only stayed three hours, and 5,000 persons have been yelling themselves hoarse
over my escape. It was more thrilling than any football game I ever saw.
For a week I’ve racked my brains for a startling scheme. Something to bring the
public clamoring for admission to the school mass meeting last evening. Wednesday
night on the street car I saw a funny poem advertising soap and the idea came.
Ten women were willing to carry it out; ten courageous human billboards.
All day long they rode in the street cars, holding before them signs of complaint
against the school conditions and announcements of this evening’s meeting.
Some of their adventures were remarkable, but none equaled mine.
It was my old propensity for getting into scrapes that did it. I didn’t recognize
it as such. I looked out at the six o’clock home-going crowds. Why stay on a
crowded car and be observed by a few? It seemed much more sensible to walk
down Main Street where I could show my sign to hundreds.
Before I had gone a block I was surrounded. My progress was somewhat ham-
pered. Not so much that I felt the need of assistance by the burly policeman who
forced his way toward me. However, I’ve learned to smile at policemen. I offered
a most winning one and started through the avenue he had made.
His hand descended on my shoulder. I looked up miles to his face and heard
a voice like a clap of thunder, “You’re under arrest, miss.”
The crowd seemed to think it a joke. So did I until I caught a glimpse of Big
Tim [Jordan]’s face. It was in his automobile that we went to the station, and he
was the chief figure in the hasty trial which followed.
A violation of the traffic law the judge pronounced it, and he ended with
a demand for five hundred dollars cash bail.
I protested that I couldn’t get such a sum after banking hours. Two policemen
marched me down a long corridor to the filthiest spot I have ever seen. They
called it a cell.
266 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

I began to think more clearly. Even Boss Jordan could scarcely expect to have
me sent to the penitentiary, but his idea of cash bail would keep me from inform-
ing the mass meeting of some idiosyncrasies of Canton’s delightful government.
I had asked that Lucia be informed of my arrest. In the midst of my musings a
grinning policeman presented Mrs. Morton’s regrets. She was too busy arranging
the mass meeting to come to the jail. He shoved an unspeakable tray through the
door, turned the key with much unnecessary grating I thought and departed.
I groaned. Could such a message be sent anywhere but in modern America?
I looked at the awful tray and tried to remember all I had read about forcible
feeding of the English militants.
Would they keep me long? Would Professor Armstrong deem it his duty to
come and read to me on visitors’ afternoons? The newspapers print such thrilling
pictures of prisoners clinging to their bars on such occasions. I was just deciding
what to do in case they tried to substitute prison clothing for mine, when the cell
door opened.
Another hearing. But with Big Tim absent and the judge much perturbed.
An efficient male person insisted that the judge need not delay over accepting
the money. Then I saw the money. More money than I had known there was in
all the world, piled high before my eyes on an automobile rug. Three men in plain
clothes chuckled over the heap, and half a dozen policemen looked as though
they wished they might.
“Have her before the court at 2 o’clock tomorrow afternoon,” the judge said,
and I was free.
The efficient person proved to be Mr. Kirtling, Canton’s biggest lawyer. His
three companions finally tore themselves away from their amused contemplation
of the money, and we rode in Mr. Kirtling’s automobile to the meeting.
On the way he explained that the story of the women billboards spread like
fire. An hour before the meeting the hall was packed. Lucia knew better than to
allow my predicament to distract her attention from the meeting. She went ahead
with the preparations and opened the programme by telling of my arrest. There
was an outpouring of pockets. The collection baskets yielded more than $500.
Never again do I expect to see such enthusiasm as greeted my appearance.
Never again will I speak to such a responsive audience. In fact, my speech was a
feeble accompaniment to the cheering.
Altogether I call it a fortunate happening. I’ve acquired a fairly intimate knowl-
edge of Canton’s jail with which to adorn my street speeches. The mass meeting
was a huge success. Sympathy has been created for us. Best of all, when its service
as bail is over, the collection will provide sinews of war for the suffragists.
The most surprising thing about the whole occurrence was Professor
Armstrong’s attitude. I thought he considered jail the proper place for all suffra-
gists.
After the meeting I felt wound up for eight days at least. It didn’t seem that
four walls could possibly hold such exuberance. I stood in the door wondering
where I could go to make another speech.
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 267

“You’re coming with me, if you please,” said a voice behind me, and Professor
Armstrong swept me off the curb toward his roadster.
“But Mrs. Morton—” I began. “Mrs. Morton knows all about it,” he cut in.
I was so tired that I couldn’t resist. Then it struck me so funny that I laughed.
Professor Armstrong kidnapping a suffragist.
. . . Want me to telegraph you the result of my trial this afternoon? I get a day
off to go to it.
Your ex-convict friend.
Delight.

Saturday [in October].

“This has been such a success. Why didn’t you have another one earlier?” That
was the cheerful remark which fell like a lash upon our exhaustion today after the
parade. I am sure the speaker will turn into an antisuffragist, for Lucia turned
away without answering, and I sat down on a heap of banners and laughed until
they had to bring me a glass of water.
The speaker was such a beautifully-gowned woman, brown and rosy from her
summer in the country. She drove her automobile to headquarters in the last five
minutes of mad preparation. Nothing left in the way of decorations suited her.
After haggling for three of the precious minutes, she turned to me with, “There’s
nothing to be so flurried about. Why aren’t you more calm?”
It requires some thought to realize calmness after six hours of stretching arms
to canopy automobiles with bunting. Perching doves of peace over women who
are squabbling as to who shall sit before and who shall sit behind. Plastering an
automobile with “Our mothers want the vote,” while convincing the woman in
charge that the public might not appreciate her philanthropic intention of sub-
stituting for fluffy little girls whose mothers own automobiles a squad of orphans
to whom the ride would be a treat.
It did seem a bit ironical to ask Lucia, the calm and dignified, to keep cool after
her struggle with the feminine vanity of the marchers.
In order that the parade might present a uniform appearance and be as beau-
tiful as possible, we asked the women to wear white frocks and hats alike. We
bought the hats in quantity. Now I know the feelings of the sales girl, who assures
a coy customer that “It looks perfectly sweet on you. Yes, the flower belongs on
that side. No, I don’t think it would look better turned up further in the back. No,
you can’t wear the flower on the right side. All the hats are to be alike with the
trimming at the left. No, you can’t turn the hat back to front. Yes, it really looks
lovely on you.”
Today was hardest of all. No matter how clearly a parade is organized on
paper, the actuality is chaos. Finally every daisy wreath was in place. The deco-
rated automobiles were in line. The women were divided into sections with the
symbols of their occupations from the brooms and shiny pans of the housewives
to the caps and gowns of the college professors. Over all fluttered yellow silk flags
on gilded staffs wreathed with daisies, glistening in the sunshine like pure gold.
268 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

It was vanity that brought down the final crushing blow. As the last decorated
car started off to take its place in line, I grabbed my smudged skirt, turned and
almost collided with Wyoming. Her big state shield lay in the dirt, and she was
sobbing forlornly.
“You lead the line of enfranchised states, and they go first. Hurry, hurry,”
I exclaimed, as I pushed her toward the street.
Then I realized that she was saying over and over, “I won’t, I won’t.”
Afraid? No, indeed. She came in a dark skirt, and Columbia on the leading
front loaned her the white skirt she had worn downtown. It was an inch or so
longer than Wyoming was accustomed to wearing. She absolutely refused to go
into the parade. There was nothing for me to do but grab her state sash and shield
and go forth with my head high, trying to forget the grease and mud on my own
skirt.
There are no words to tell the story of effort that makes a parade. To most of
the onlookers it was just a beautiful big demonstration. But they all grasped the
essential fact, that suffragists have not horns. They are sane, sensible, normal
human beings just like other human beings.
The women who marched to show their faith in a cause, to them the honor and
the glory. Their dignity was worthy of the name of womanhood, eyes straight
ahead, faces shining as though they beheld the Grail. It was the spirit of the crusades.

Delight.

Election Morning.
Oh for two minutes of the mother I can scarcely remember! Sorrow has never
filled me with such a poignant desire for her, as does the happiness I wish I might
whisper now in her ear. I have told you all the little happenings of these months
since we left college. To-night I am writing you the greatest event of all my life.
I couldn’t go to bed, even if there were time. As I have to start my watchers to
the polls in two hours, I shall sit here by the window and tell you all about it. Every
few minutes my hands drop in my lap, and I sit and dream away astounding
stretches of time. The man in the moon winks at me, “Suffrage will win to-day.”
The stars seem to dance around, but perhaps that is because I feel so funny inside.
The Marathon is the most successful thing we’ve done. That doesn’t keep me
awake. Thousands of persons heard us. Hundreds stood before the automobile
all day. To-night I kept a good-sized audience in a drizzling rain while the elec-
tion parade passed a block away. But it is not pride that gives me quivery thrills.
All morning a poor little male creature with a pink necktie gave out antisuf-
frage literature to our perfectly good audience. “Look at these women,” he kept
saying. “Women should be shielded and protected. But these suffragists think
they can go anywhere.” When I made my closing speech tonight I pointed out
that my would-be protector is not as tall as my shoulder. No country would
accept one of his physique for war duty. Nor would I as lieve trust to his right arm
as my own in time of need.
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 269

The women he represented, he said, would not come out on Canton street
corners and degrade themselves as the suffragists were doing.
“How degrade themselves, gentleman?” I asked. “By contact with you? I don’t
feel in the least degraded. I have not seen the American man whose presence on
a street corner I need to fear. If street speaking has done nothing else, it has
taught American women that American men can be trusted on street corners as
well as in drawing-rooms.”
Then happened the most wonderful thing in the world. As a type of the
American man who thinks that American women should vote, I introduced
Professor William Miller Armstrong, professor of economy and political science
in the Amos Danbury College of Canton.
“Mine is an old-fashioned conversion,” he smiled down at the crowd, as
though he had always made street speeches. “Because I stood by the traditions of
women’s place in the world, I have closed my ears to the call of progress. I have
heard suffrage lectures before, but I asked to talk to you to-night because all
my convictions were swept away only this morning as I listened to one of your
speakers.”
He looked over the heads of the crowd right into my eyes. I felt my heart turn
right over.
I have no idea what nonsense I said, as I tossed to the crowd all that was left of
our supply of flags and banners. I only knew that after it was all over, I was
forcibly separated from the empty market-basket from which I had handed out
8,000 pieces of literature during the day. Somehow my face was unscrewed from
its set smile. My lips that were puckered to say “Can’t I give you some of our
literature” were straightened back. But that happened on a dark corner while
I hung doorknobs with votes-for-women tags to greet the voters this morning.
The least said about its method of accomplishment the better. I don’t want
anyone else to lose confidence in the dignity of a college professor.
The stars still twinkle their message of cheer. The man in the moon still winks,
though wanly.
I start for the polls.
Delight.

Source: From Marjorie Shuler, For Rent—One Pedestal (New York: National Woman
Suffrage Publishing Company, 1917).
 R
“PRESIDENT WILSON SAYS
‘GODSPEED TO THE
CAUSE’” (1917)
“COME TO MOTHER” (1917)
n i na e . a l l e n d e r ( 1 8 7 2 – 1 9 5 7 )

Invited by Alice Paul to contribute to the NWP’s weekly The Suffragist, Allender,
like other suffrage cartoonists, added rhetorical punch to suffrage papers’ efforts
to sway public opinion. A trained artist, Allender helped counter the standard
stuff of antisuffragist visual art, which figured suffragists as mannish and
monstrous—soured spinsters and howling harridans—and women, generally, as
too fine, frivolous, or domestically preoccupied for the franchise.20 By contrast,
the suffragist that takes shape under Allender’s pen exudes competence, energy,
and femininity. Allender’s respectful portrayal of women, generally, undergirded
her power as a suffrage cartoonist. She drew sympathetic portraits of poor
women politically powerless to change their lot as well as inspiring portraits
of feminine poise and courage; she also infused humor into her sketches. In
“Godspeed to the Cause,” three young, beautiful NWP pickets gaze out from
behind bars, implicitly questioning their positioning as criminals. “Come to
Mother” depicts the proposed suffrage amendment as a little girl reaching for a
maternal Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress. Clearly, the suf-
fragist here is no threatening figure: she’s handsome, prepared, and nurturing—
eminently capable of shepherding the hope and potential represented by the
constitutional amendment.

270
 “President Wilson Says ‘Godspeed to the Cause’ ” 1917.

7. “President Wilson Says ‘Godspeed to the Cause,’” cartoon by Nina E. Allender, from
The Suffragist, 3 November 1917. Courtesy of the historic National Woman's Party, Sewall-
Belmont House and Museum, Washington, D.C.

Source: Nina Allender, “President Wilson Says ‘Godspeed to the Cause,’” The Suffragist,
3 November 1917, 1.
 “Come to Mother” 1917.

8. “Come to Mother,” cartoon by Nina E. Allender, from The Suffragist, 31 March 1917.
Courtesy of the historic National Woman's Party, Sewall-Belmont House and Museum,
Washington, D.C.

Source: Nina Allender, “Come to Mother,” The Suffragist, 31 March 1917, 1.

 R
“PRESIDENT WILSON’S WAR
MESSAGE” BANNER (1917)
anony mous
[ nat i o na l wo m a n ’s pa r t y m e m b e r s ]

“Silent sentinels” from the NWP picketed the White House beginning in early
1917 after President Wilson refused to declare himself in favor of the proposed
suffrage amendment. Although their earliest banners—which featured ques-
tions such as “Mr. President, what will you do for woman suffrage?”—attracted
modest attention, later banners that quoted Wilson and other antisuffragist
legislators caused a public outcry, particularly when the United States entered
World War I and Congress deemed speaking against government policies a
treasonous offense. When this banner, which quotes language from Wilson’s
April 1917 War Message in order to frame suffragist activity as patriotic and
democratic, was displayed, an angry crowd tore it to shreds and two pickets were
arrested. Ironic quotation—of foundational American democratic documents—
was a popular and powerful tactic of the suffragist campaign, beginning with the
“Declaration of Sentiments” that quoted the “Declaration of Independence.”

273
9. Photograph of “President Wilson’s War Message” banner. Digital image courtesy of
Library of Congress, Rare Books and Special Collections Division.
“we shall fight for the things which
we have always carried nearest our hearts—
for democracy.
for the rights of those who submit to authority
to have a voice in their government.”
president wilson’s war message
april 2nd 1917

Source: Library of Congress.

 R
“TELLING THE TRUTH AT
THE WHITE HOUSE” (1917)
mar ie jenney howe (1870–1934)
a n d pau l a ja ko b i ( 1 8 7 0 – ? )

This play—a very early example of documentary theatre—represents the legal

charade effected when NWP members were arrested for “obstructing traffic”
while picketing the White House and carrying banners that quoted President
Wilson’s hypocritical rhetoric. Jakobi, who led the Twenty-fifth Assembly
District of the New York City Woman Suffrage Party and spent thirty days in
Occoquan Workhouse, and Howe, who founded New York’s suffrage theatre com-
pany, depict how officials who attempted to demonstrate the rule of law by arrest-
ing the pickets ended up staging a spectacle of oppression. Characters are based
on actual people; that is, “Vera Hollenden” is suffrage martyr Inez Milholland’s
sister Vida and “Lucy Barnes” is NWP leader Lucy Burns.

Scene: Court room. Audience hall crowded with curious

throng. Loud whispers
Officer: (raps his club authoritatively) Silence! Silence in the name of the law!

(Enter thirteen prisoners bearing suffrage banners, two other white women and two
colored women. . . .)

First Colored Woman: Say, they’s a lot o’ white folks heah today! What they
in foh? They been drinkin’?
Second Colored Woman: No, you nigger! They don’t drink.
First C.W.: (intently) They been anykine disorderly?—fightin’ maybe?
Second C.W.: Not that I knows of—Say, I ain’t God Almighty!
First C.W.: (edges over to white prisoner seated next to her on the bench; she has
been looking very thoughtful) Doan’ mine, Honey! doan’ mine! You ain’t never
been there before? ‘Tain’t bad I tells you! You can get anything you like ef you
got the price, scusin whiskey!

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276 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

(The white prisoner smiles at her.)

Second C.W.: (hums) “Miss Lizzie King’s a coal black lady. Her husband’s a
colod man!”
Officer: (tapping vigorously) Order in the court!

(The Judge and the District Attorney enter . . . .)

Judge O’Neil: What is on the docket today?

Clerk: Your Honor, these 13 women . . .
Judge O’Neil: And these? (indicating the two negresses) We’ll have these two
cases first. . . .
Clerk: (indicates First C.W. Officer makes her rise) Drunk and disorderly.
Judge O’Neil: 14 days in the workhouse. Next case.
Clerk: (indicates Second C.W. Officer makes her rise) Drunk and disorderly.
Judge O’Neil: 14 days in the workhouse. Next case.
Clerk: Your Honor, these 13 women have been arrested for obstructing the traffic.
District Attorney: Your Honor, let me request that you do not hear these
cases separately. If you do you will hear 11 suffrage speeches. . . .
Mrs. Hewis: Your Honor, we insist that our cases be tried separately.
Judge O’Neil: Well, really, ladies, really—I want you to regard me as your
friend. I wish to help you, but 11 suffrage speeches—really!
Mrs. Hewis: We demand separate trial. Each woman will act as her own
attorney.

(Judge makes a gesture of resignation and taps on his desk.)

Judge O’Neil: Proceed with the prosecution!

D. Attorney: These women stood on the sidewalk obstructing the traffic, to
the great annoyance of the President of the U.S.A.
Mrs. Reed: Your Honor, may I ask a question?
Judge O’Neil: Granted.
Mrs. Reed: Is it not the right of every peaceful citizen to stand on the sidewalk?
D. Attorney: But they carried banners, your Honor . . . .
Mrs. Reed: Has not a citizen the right to carry a banner?
Judge O’Neil: Not unless he moves up and down.
Miss Sturdevant: We did move up and down, your Honor. . . . No matter in
which direction I turned I moved against the chest of a policeman. . . . Then
he arrested me because he got in my way.
Judge O’Neil: Three days’ imprisonment or 25 dollars fine!
Miss Sturdevant: But, your Honor—
Judge O’Neil: Don’t make [it] any harder for me. Can’t you see how I hate to
do this?
D. Attorney: (turning to Vera Hollenden) This woman is guilty of leading the
procession.
Judge O’Neil: State your defense.
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 277

V. Hollenden: On the fourth of March, I led a thousand women around the

White House. No objection was made. Yesterday I led four women a half a
block, and we were all arrested. . . . I don’t understand law.
Judge: (leaning over his desk) Well, law is very difficult to understand. It takes a
special training and a special aptitude. Let me explain the law as it applies in
this case. (Consulting his law-books) The law holds that though you may be
doing nothing illegal, yet if you cause someone else to act illegally you are
guilty; that is, you are the proximate cause. The precedent established goes
back to 1660, at which time a tradesman in Shropshire, England, displayed
goods in his window in so attractive a manner that crowds gathered to stare
and admire. An ox-team was unable to pass by this shop. Were the people guilty
of traffic obstruction? No. The man who caused the trouble was guilty —the
shopkeeper—a clear analogy. The tradesman was arrested for obstructing the
traffic, although he remained unseen inside his shop.
Miss Balderhead: (demurely) Then, your honor, if it was the shopkeeper’s
fault that the crowd collected before the window, by clear deduction it is
the fault of the man who remained inside the White House that the crowd
collected outside its gates.
Judge O’Neil: Silence! This is treason! (Great emotion)
Lucy Barnes: Your Honor, allow me to quote from the English law a precedent
of a much later date. In 1890 a group of Salvation Army workers were followed
by so great a crowd that the traffic was obstructed, but the police arrested not
the Salvation Army but the curious mob.
Judge O’Neil: My dear lady, you do not understand the law. These Salvation
Army people did not know they would be followed by a crowd.
Lucy Barnes: Excuse me, your Honor (reads from the law-book): “The
Salvationists, knowing they were certain to be followed . . . .”
Judge: (mopping his brow, sinks back disconcerted) Well, well—that’s not like any
law I ever studied. (He leans over to the District Attorney and shakes his head)
What shall I do? . . .
Elizabeth Sturdevant: (rises) Let me quote another case, your Honor.
Lucy Barnes: (who has been watching the Judge, pushes the picket back into her
seat, with stage whisper) For heaven’s sake keep still, or we’ll be acquitted.
(Whispering to them all) Not another word. Alice Paul will never forgive us if
we don’t go to jail.
D. Attorney: (trying to prove his case) This young woman when arrested
was carrying a banner on which were printed traitorous and seditious
words.
Judge: (severely) What was printed on your banner? (Picket unfurls banner.
Judge leans forward and reads): “We shall fight for the things we have always
carried nearest our hearts, for democracy, for the right of those who submit to
authority to have a voice in their own governments.” Hm! Hm! Sounds like
anarchy. Who said this?
Picket: The President of the United States.
278 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

Judge O’Neil: (hastily turning to another picket) What was on your ban-
ner? (Picket raises banner. Judge reads): “All just governments derive their
powers from the consent of the governed.” (Sternly) Young ladies, per-
haps you do not realize that these words are taken from the Declaration
of Independence; therefore they should not be displayed on the White
House grounds. These sentiments are appropriate when spoken by a
Fourth-of-July orator, but . . . the Declaration of Independence is too
sacred to be carried on a banner by a woman. During this trial you have
shown clear minds—judicial minds, I might say . . . but I promised—at
least—it is quite clear, that you are guilty. . . . I can’t exactly say of what,
but, to the sorrow of the court, it has decided that you are guilty and it
sentences you to three days or $25. (Imploringly) Now, ladies, I earnestly
recommend that you pay these fines.
Lucille Fields: I shall not pay the fine!
Judge O’Neil: You are not strong enough to go to prison.
Lucille Fields: I shall not pay the fine!
Judge O’Neil: (aside to District Attorney) What shall I do?
Third Picket: Nor I!
Judge: (turning to Third Picket) Your mother paid the fine for you. You are
discharged.
Third Picket: (weeping) How could she? How could she do that to me?
Judge: (turning to the prisoners) You have enough money to pay the fine, and if
you haven’t I’ll loan the money to you. I’ll give you the money. I’ll pay the fine
myself, only don’t go to jail. You’ve no idea, ladies, how the place smells. There
are rats. How can I sleep in my comfortable bed when I think of the cock-
roaches and the—and the—O, ladies, don’t go to jail! . . . You did obstruct the
traffic, you know, now didn’t you?
Mabel Verner: We destroyed no property, we injured no one, and we broke no
law. Therefore, I say it was the police and the police alone who created the
disorder, obstructed the traffic, and disobeyed the law.
Judge O’Neil: But ladies, we have to arrest you, you know, for annoying the
President.
Mabel Verner: But the law under which you arrest us is for obstruction of the
traffic.
Judge O’Neil: Well, you see there isn’t any law yet against ladies annoying the
President. But it’s a grave offense. . . . I want to give you one more chance.
I can’t think of you in prison—the shame—the stigma of having been there—
ten promising lives. . . . If you will promise me not to picket for six months
I will let you off. You can all go home and sleep in your clean sheets and in
your quiet homes and have a comfortable night, and I, too, can enjoy a com-
fortable night.
Lucy Barnes: We make no such promise. It is our duty to protest against
injustice.
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 279

Judge O’Neil: Anyhow, you ladies ought not to annoy the President. He is
overworked and tired.
Mabel Verner: So are we—most awfully overworked and very, very tired. If
we annoy the President he can put an end to the annoyance by calling the
Federal Suffrage amendment a war measure. It will then be voted on by
Congress. Two-thirds of the Republicans are pledged to vote in favor and two-
thirds of the Democrats are ready to vote for the amendment as soon as the
President says the word. The bill would be passed in less than an hour, and the
annoyance be removed from Congress.
Judge O’Neil: Why don’t you put all this energy into some patriotic direction?
Lucy Barnes: We call it essential patriotism to demand a real democracy at
home before we try to give democracy to Europe.
Judge O’Neil: The case is closed. I sentence you to three days in prison, and
I warn you that if you ladies continue this unladylike behavior you will receive
a longer sentence for your next offense.
Pickets: Thank you, your Honor.
Judge: (distractedly) . . . What is it that you say? You thank me? (Sternly) I
understand. The more severe I am, the more I play into your hands. (Sadly)
I am the only one who suffers by the sentence I impose. The court is
adjourned. (The judge leaves the court-room. Matron of the detention house
enters. She is fussy, officious, desirous to please.)
Matron: O, ladies, I hope I’ll make you comfortable. I’ve fixed up everything.
The prisoners are all prepared to be most respectful. (Enter porter with suit-
cases) Here are your clean clothes from home. We hope to provide you with
every comfort. Is Mrs. Belmont here? O, I’m so disappointed. I did so want to
meet her. . . . I understand that Miss Hollenden sings beautifully. I regret that
we have no piano in the cells. The prisoners would be so pleased to hear her
sing. . . . I’m sure I’ll do everything to make you comfortable. . . . O, I forgot.
(Finds a small package and hands it to one of the pickets. Exits.)
Picket: (reading card on the package) Five pounds of Huyler’s candy from Judge
O’Neil!

(Prisoners bearing their banners aloft are ushered from the court-room by the offi-
cers, singing the “Marseillaise.”)

Source: Marie Jenney Howe and Paula Jakobi, “Telling the Truth at the White House,”
Pearson’s Magazine 38, no. 3 (September 1917): 129, 140–41.
 R
“WE WORRIED WOODY
WOOD” (1917)
a n o n y m o u s [ ja i l e d m e m b e r s o f t h e
nat i o na l wo m a n ’s pa r t y ]

Singing suffrage songs written to familiar tunes and parodying familiar lyrics
was an easy way of getting large audiences to voice suffragist beliefs together.
Although NWP pickets jailed for carrying banners that quoted President
“Woody” Wilson were separated by cell walls and not permitted to converse,
they articulated a shared experience by singing this wry song, sung to the tune
of “The Ballad of Captain Kidd”.

We worried Woody-wood,
As we stood, as we stood,
We worried Woody-wood,
As we stood.
We worried Woody-wood
And we worried him right good,
We worried him right good, as we stood.

We asked him for the vote,

As we stood, as we stood.
We asked him for the vote,
As we stood.
We asked him for the vote,
But he’d rather write a note,
He’d rather write a note—so we stood.

We’ll not get out on bail,

Go to jail, go to jail.
We’ll not get out on bail,
Go to jail.
We’ll not get out on bail,

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m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 281

We’d prefer to go to jail,

We’d prefer to go to jail—we’re not frail.

We asked them for a brush,

For our teeth, for our teeth.
We asked them for a brush
For our teeth.
We asked them for a brush,
They said, “There ain’t no rush,”
They said, “There ain’t no rush—darn your teeth.”

We asked them for some air,

As we choked, as we choked.
We asked them for some air,
As we choked.
We asked them for some air,
And they threw us in a lair,
They threw us in a lair, so we choked.

We asked them for our nightie

As we froze, as we froze.
We asked them for our nightie, as we froze.
We asked them for a nightie,
And they looked—hightie-tightie—
They looked hightie-tightie—so we froze.

Now, ladies, take the hint,

As ye stand, as ye stand,
Now, ladies, take the hint,
As ye stand.
Now, ladies, take the hint,
Don’t quote the Presidint,
Don’t quote the Presidint, as ye stand.

Source: Anonymous, “We Worried Woody Wood,” The Suffragist, 10 Nov. 1917, 4.
 R
“PRISON NOTES, SMUGGLED
TO FRIENDS FROM THE
DISTRICT JAIL” (1917)
r o s e w i n s l o w [ ru z a w e n c l aws k a ]
(d. 1977)

A Polish immigrant, Winslow worked in the textile industry from age eleven and
contracted tuberculosis in her late teens. Eventually she worked as a trade union
organizer, NWP speaker, and actress. When imprisoned for picketing the White
House, Winslow and Alice Paul refused to eat or do work; they argued that
suffragists should be considered political prisoners. Winslow’s notes about her
hunger-striking and forcible feeding convey her commitment, even in the face of
her own ill health, to the cause.

If this thing is necessary we will naturally go through with it. Force is so stupid a
weapon. I feel so happy doing my bit for decency—for our war, which is, after all,
real and fundamental.
The women are all so magnificent, so beautiful. Alice Paul is as thin as ever, pale
and large-eyed. We have been in solitary for nine weeks. There is nothing to tell but
that the days go by somehow. I have felt quite feeble the last few days—faint, so that
I could hardly get my hair combed, my arms ached so. But today I am well again.
Alice Paul and I talk back and forth though we are at opposite ends of the building,
and a hall door also shuts us apart. But occasionally—thrills—we escape from
behind our iron-barred doors and visit. Great laughter and rejoicing!
I know you will not get me out. That would be puny. I know you won’t do it. My
fainting probably means nothing except that I am not strong after these weeks.
I know you won’t be alarmed. . . .
Alice Paul is in the psychopathic ward. She dreaded forcible feeding frightfully,
and I hate to think how she must be feeling. I had a nervous time of it, gasping
a long time afterward, and my stomach rejecting during the process. I spent a bad
282
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 283

restless night, but otherwise I am alright. The poor souls who fed me got liberally
besprinkled during the process. I heard myself making the most hideous sounds,
like an animal in pain, and thought how dreadful it was of me to make such horri-
ble sounds. . . . One feels so forsaken when one lies prone and people shove a pipe
down one’s stomach.
This morning but for an astounding tiredness, I am alright, though. I am wait-
ing to see what happens when the President realizes that brutal bullying isn’t quite
a statesmanlike method for settling a demand for justice at home. At least, if men
are supine enough to endure it, women—to their eternal glory—are not. . . .
I fainted again last night. I just fell flop over in the bathroom where I was wash-
ing my hands and was led to bed when I recovered, by a nurse. I lost consciousness
just as I got there again. I felt horribly faint until 12 o’clock, then fell asleep for
awhile. . . .
Miss Paul vomits much. I do, too, except when I’m not nervous, as I have been
every time but one. The feeding gives me a severe headache. My throat aches after-
ward, and I always weep and sob to my great disgust, quite against my will. I try to
be less feeble-minded. It’s the nervous reaction, and I can’t control it much. I don’t
imagine bathing one’s food in tears very good for one.
We think of the coming feeding all day. It is horrible. The doctor thinks I take it
well. I hate the thought of Alice Paul and the others if I take it well. . . .
All the officers here know we are making this hunger strike that women fighting
for liberty may be considered political prisoners; we have told them. God knows
we don’t want other women ever to have to do this over again.

Source: Rose Winslow, “Prison Notes, Smuggled to Friends From the District Jail,”
The Suffragist, 1 December 1917: 6–7.
 R
“SWITCHBOARD
SUFFRAGE” (1920)
oreola w illiams haskell (1875–n.d.)

After completing a philosophy degree at Cornell, where she had written for the
university newspaper, Haskell became a suffrage leader and orator in New York’s
Empire State campaign. In the same year the Nineteenth Amendment was rati-
fied, she published Banner Bearers, a collection of vignettes intended to preserve
an insider’s sense of suffragism’s impact, particularly on suffragists themselves:
she celebrates suffragists’ discovery of their latent talents and the camaraderie
found in pursuing a larger purpose. Banner Bearers depicts suffragism’s “blood-
less battles,” those campaigns that relied equally on greater and lesser contribu-
tions from armies of anonymous women. Some of the suffragists represented
make speeches to rural women from cars and pulpits while others canvass urban
tenements; some maneuver the machines of party politics while others recruit,
assess, and train new activists. Some even bugle! Haskell’s story “Switchboard
Suffrage” recreates the frenetic atmosphere of the modern-era campaign head-
quarters, as a telephone operator responds to callers’ queries and demands. The
lively, opinionated speaker is too busy to take lunch: her work is important,
demanding. Yet it is also, clearly, fun. On the frontlines of the battle, she is profi-
cient and proud to be carrying the suffrage banner.

Come right in, Annie Lee. How’d you dodge your job so early in the day? Haven’t
any at present, so thought you’d drop in and haul me out to lunch? Lunch, hey? In
the midst of a suff campaign; worse than in the midst, along toward the tail end?
Lunch? Sounds pretty if strange. Hello. Yes. Woman Suffrage Party. Miss Hale? Just
a minute. Say, Eva, see whether Miss Hale’s in or out. She’s in, but I think she’s
out to this peach, you know it’s the crank who’s got an A1, rubber-tired plan to
clinch the politicians and ballywhack them in line for suffrage. Hello. Yes.
Stuyvesant 2678? Miss Martin in? Miss Stevens of the City Party calling. Miss
284
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 285

Stevens, here’s your number. Hello. Yes. Woman Suffrage Party. No we don’t send
out any literature to voters, only ten tons a week. Heard from the antis and not from
us? Well, you’ll hear from us fast enough. We’re doing things more thoroughly than
they and it takes longer. If you’ll gimme your name I’ll send you “Do You Know,”
“Ballots Versus Bullets,” and “Western Women in the Political Arena,” our best sell-
ers at present. George W. Strand, 1450 East 99th Street. You see you’re toward the end
of the alphabet and it takes time to get to you. All right, Mr. Strand. Thank you for
calling us up. Goodbye. Wouldn’t George give you a pain. If he wants to read about
suffrage why can’t he give the once over to the daily news—it’s chuck full of us and
our doings and the arguments are all in the magazines.
. . . Lunch did you say Annie Lee? They slide in things from the suff restaurant
here, you know we’ve got one. I get the remnants. Have to use my mouth so much
for calls I’m thinking of going on a liquid diet. If things get worse I’ll get a tube
stuck in somewheres and take the eats in without jaw action.
Hello, hello. Woman Suffrage Party. Howd’ya join the Party? Let me know your
assembly district or your assembly district leader and we’ll put you in communica-
tion with her. Don’t know either and didn’t know there were such things? Twenty-
three assembly districts in Manhattan, madam, and twenty-three suffrage leaders
also. Let me have your name and address and we’ll place you. Mrs. Cameron here
has charge of this work. She’ll look you up on the district map. Yes, I’ll connect you.
Mrs. Cameron, here’s a party for you.
Say, Annie Lee, they’re rolling in like Jordan’s tide. Coming in at the last so’s
they’ll get some of the credit if we win. Most of ’em like to be on the bandwagon,
but isn’t it sickening to think they’ll go about blowing how we won, and here’s the
real workers worn to a frazzle and won’t have enough strength left to brag. Some of
our street speakers, why they can only yell in a whisper now.
Hello, hello. Woman Suffrage Party. The New York Work calling? Want to inter-
view Miss Hale? Want to know what she thinks about women drinking cocktails,
and won’t voting, by giving them more liberty, make ’em drink more? Here I’ll
connect you with our Press and Publicity Department. Mrs. Hannon, the New York
Work on the wire.
He’ll get his interview, I think not. We’ve got some dignity in this joint, I should
hope. Miss Hale should worry about women and cocktails. Honest, there isn’t a
subject known to mortal man or immortal mud Miss Hale hasn’t been asked to
tackle offhand. Now it’s suspender buttons are going out for men—what effect will
women’s voting have on this? Voting once a year will keep women from sewing on
buttons all the rest of the 365 days, of course. Now it is a woman scrubbed the floor
in an election booth out West and four men voted illegally. Doesn’t this show the
demoralizing influence of women in politics? Now it is scientists predict the human
race in the future won’t have either hair or teeth? Will this be the result of political
quarrels of husband and wife? Howd’ya like to reel off snap-shot opinions on such
things as those, Annie Lee, to say nothing of time exposures on “Compare All the
Governments of the Civilized World and Tell Which Is the Best and Why and What
Women Can Do to Improve Them”; or “Give a Brief Sketch of All the Celebrated
286 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

Ginks in History and Tell Why Some Woman Hasn’t Swiped All the Fame from
Them with Her Deeds, Since She Hasn’t, Doesn’t This Show the Inferiority of the
Sex and that Women Shouldn’t Vote?” Whew, I wouldn’t be a suff leader for a for-
tune. You’ve got to be A Guide to Action and an Encyclopedia on all Past, Present
and Future Events. Have to have a quick delivery system for the work and a cold
storage brain for the newspapers.
Hello, hello. Woman Suffrage Party. Want to speak to Mrs. Bullmount? This isn’t
her organization. You want the Pickets, the National Woman’s Party. No, we don’t
picket. It takes all our time to soothe the feelings of those who are offended by such
antics, I mean tactics, that is, the general public. Yes, I’ll give you the number—
Murray Hill 7852. You’re welcome.
Whew! maybe I don’t get tired of that bunch. Every time they give a demonstra-
tion somebody calls up and gives me the dickens . . . .
Do I like to work for women, Annie Lee? Well, you can just bet I do. Not that
suffs are just women, they’re something more if you know what I mean, kind of lost
all their smallnesses and meannesses a-thinking morning, noon and night of some-
thing big. Not that they’re all angels, only Miss Hale. She ought to have a halo, you
can just bet. It would be becoming, too, go fine with her white hair and pearly com-
plexion. My we’re all jealous of that complexion. But take it from me, Annie Lee,
women are all right. Of course, occasionally we have a fireworks temper go off,
spizzing and spuzzing. . . . It’s interesting to study the different kinds that drift in
here, old and young, lively and languid, stupid and smart, well it’s just like a play,
watching ’em perform, that’s why I don’t get tired.
. . . . Hello. Woman Suffrage Party. You want some leaflets sent as you are going
to take part in a debate in your church on woman suffrage? Very well, what is your
name and address? Sarah Penly, 415 Oxford Place. You’re welcome.
Yes, Miss Stevens, you want a free wire for half hour. Shall I call up the numbers?
Oh you’re going to call up ministers and get them to preach suffrage sermons? A
good stunt all right. I’d be glad to help, Miss Stevens. You don’t need me. All right.
Here’s your wire.
Hello, I’m to ring up all the leaders and call them to a conference here tomorrow
afternoon? Tell them it’s very important? All right, Mrs. Tiltney. I’ll get at it as soon
as I can.
She’s our B.C., Annie Lee, and she’s a duck. B.C. means Borough Chairman, of
Manhattan, of course, we’ve got one for every Borough. Why only one? Well I guess
maybe the Boroughs can’t stand any more. The B.C.’s are the commanding officers
you know. They boss the leaders and the leaders boss the captains. Do they all stand
for being bossed? I should say. It’s all like an army and that’s why we’re getting
there, no time wasted in nonsense, everybody on the job.
. . . . Hello. Woman Suffrage Party. You want to know what laws the women
voters of the West have championed? I’ll give you Mrs. Strayer, our information
department. She will be glad to help you.
Lunch did you say? Oh, Annie Lee, don’t say that word. Would you wave a frank-
furter before a starving Hottentot?
m a k i n g wo m a n n e w ! 287

Oh here’s the postman. Some mail. You need a truck, don’t you? Everybody in
the city writes to Miss Hale. Glad I don’t have to wade through those letters. Here,
Eva, you feel strong to-day, totter upstairs with these billets doux. We sent out five
thousand letters ourselves last night so the post office can’t get ahead of us.
Good morning, Miss Wilson. The committee meeting is in the Borough
Chairman’s room. Yes, they’re all here. You’re the last.
Hello. Woman Suffrage Party. Yes, Miss Miller, the Speakers’ Class will be held
here to-night, 8 p.m. You’re to be told what not to say as well as what to say. All
right. Good-bye.
Good idea, Annie Lee, to let ’em know what subjects to avoid so’s not to hurt the
male feelings of N.Y. Say I gave a speech myself last night. There was a street meet-
ing round the corner and I dragged my brother there. “For heavens sakes,” he says,
“don’t you get enough of this blooming thing daytimes but you’ve got to swallow it
in chunks nights?” But after all he got interested. All of us corrupt our families,
Annie. Jim directs envelopes and mails things and does errands and helps me, but
he’d die rather than let on. Well, all went well at the meeting until an anti got up
and did some heckling. He got most of his facts on cross-eyed and when he finished
I couldn’t stand it, so I got up and showed him up. Last week we sent out 100,000
pamphlets. “Facts Versus Theories.” I did enough folding and directing and mailing
to sink a ship and I did some studying too. So I was all primed-up and I just nailed
him. My brother just gasped, “Whew,” he said, “you’re a regular orator. You could
give [Senator] Chauncey M. Depew a point or two,” and my family have been
kinder respectful ever since.
Hello, hello, Woman Suffrage Party. Yes. You think only a minority of the women
want the vote. We’ve got the names and addresses of one million women in the state
who have signed up saying they want to vote. One million, Sir. Yes, you can come
here and look at them. Take a week off any time and come right along. We’ll take
turns showing the pages, we have a large and flourishing staff, and the police are
friendly and could probably send us a platoon or two to help out. Suffs are unsexed?
I’d be careful how I reviled a million women, maybe your mother or your wife
signed up. They wouldn’t? Well, you can’t always tell what a woman’s thinking these
days. Yes, some of them think even if their husbands don’t. Yes, all right, good-bye.
It was a terrible disappointment to Mr. Hot-in-the-Collar to find we had so
many signatures.
Do I believe in Woman Suffrage? Why, Annie Lee, of course I do. We all do from
Minnie, the scrubwoman, up. The time has passed for women to be doormats for
politicians. As our speakers say, aren’t we taxed, and legislated for and against, don’t
we suffer from bad laws and bad conditions, and haven’t we a stake in the govern-
ment the same as men? Sure we have.
But some of us would rather have a steak in the interior regions than a stake in the
government? Don’t mention food, Annie Lee, though Ethel maybe would take the
switchboard a while and let me run out with you. Hello, Ethel, have you had lunch?
You have? Could you help me out for a while. Yes? Oh ain’t it the grand and glorious
feeling to head for a real lunch counter. Just a minute, Annie Lee, I’ll be with you.
288 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

Hello, hello. Woman Suffrage Party. Yes. How do the suffrage leaders feel about
winning the fight? Why, we’re bound to win, absolutely sure. Here, I’ll give you our
Press and Publicity Department. Mrs. Harmon, the Evening Bugle.
Now come, Annie Lee, let’s beat it quick. Good-bye Ethel, be good to the antis,
the reporters, the lunatics, the inquirers, the grand old General Public always
storming the suffrage headquarters. Farewell, until we meet again, sweetheart. Now
for lunch.

Source: Oreola Williams Haskell, “Switchboard Suffrage,” Banner Bearers (Geneva,

New York: W. F. Humphrey, 1920): 292–299.
 PA RT I V


Carrying the
Suffrage Torch,
1920–1946
 R
introduction

When the state of Tennessee ratified the Nineteenth Amendment by the narrowest
of margins on August 18, 1920, the decades-long struggle for woman suffrage
seemed over, history made. As many as twenty-six million U.S. women were
eligible to vote. Assessing the scope of the suffrage movement’s accomplishment,
constitutional historian Akhil Reed Amar affirms, “[i]n terms of sheer numbers,
the Woman Suffrage Amendment represented the single biggest democratizing
event in American history. Even the extraordinary feats of the Founding and
Reconstruction had brought about the electoral empowerment or enfranchise-
ment of people numbering in the hundreds of thousands, not millions.”1
Predictably, the end of the suffrage campaign prompted a desire to celebrate the
movement that had spanned more than seventy years and exacted the courage, tal-
ent, and energy of innumerable women and men. In the 1920s, writers like Oreola
Williams Haskell (excerpted in the previous section), Doris Stevens, and Louisine W.
Havemeyer shared their stories as insiders of the movement, having experienced
first-hand the excitement and camaraderie found among suffragists—at least
within their chosen organizations—in the final years of the campaign. For these
writers, the fundamental importance of the movement’s accomplishment was not
in question; each wrote “as one who. . . has witnessed the unfolding of a drama and
realized its world significance.”2
There had been efforts before 1920 to publicize the movement’s history and to
preserve the legacies of key figures and events, most notably, Anthony, Stanton, and
Gage’s The History of Woman Suffrage, the first volumes of which appeared in 1881
and 1882. The rancorous dispute sparked by this account—which focused only on
early activists who subscribed to more radical, natural-rights ideals and on the
members, objectives, and strategies of the NWSA, which two of its authors had
founded—proved the harbinger of continued contests in the twentieth century
about the story of woman suffrage. After 1920, historians of NAWSA and the
NWP offered very different interpretations of the modern campaign, ones that
reflected the conflicting ideological orientations and strategic preferences of the
290
c a r ry i n g t h e s u f f r ag e t o r c h 291

organizations. How the story of suffrage was shaped for posterity and by whom
became vitally important—every chronicler made choices and offered perspectives
that obfuscated as much as elucidated the complex story of how suffrage was won;
every account, consciously and unconsciously, elided and underemphasized the
contributions of other movement participants. A multiplicity of interpretations of
the movement had always existed, but after 1920, as the façade of unity contingently
adopted by the various suffrage organizations in the final push for ratification was
dropped, deep divisions and rivalries were exposed. The pointed intensity and ulti-
mate euphoria of ratification efforts in the summer of 1920 gave way to divergent
interests. Representatives of the differing camps wrote their versions of the suffrage
movement’s “history,” each jockeying to establish a particular organization, its
leaders and its heroines, as foremost in the suffrage fight. None of them, however,
noted the millions of women—African Americans in the South, Puerto Ricans and
Filipinas in their colonized homelands, American Indian women on numerous
reservations, and Chinese and Mexican immigrants—who remained disfranchised
despite passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.
Two of the earliest accounts of the movement’s achievement were written by
NWP members. In 1920 Doris Stevens’s Jailed For Freedom chronicled the experi-
ence of many rank-and-file members of the NWP; Inez Haynes Irwin’s The Story of
the Woman’s Party, published the following year, focused on the charismatic leader-
ship of Alice Paul. According to a New York Times review of Irwin’s account, “future
generations will inevitably find it fixed in their minds that the Woman’s Party was
what accomplished the vote.”3 Millay’s poetic tribute to martyr Inez Milholland
similarly stressed the magnetism of the NWP leadership. Following these, histories
by NAWSA leader Carrie Chapman Catt and Nettie Rogers Shuler (Woman Suffrage
and Politics, published in 1923), and Maud Wood Park (Front Door Lobby, written in
1920 but not published until 1960), attempted to counter NWP narratives and
establish the tactical genius of what Catt called her “winning plan.”4
Writers affiliated with both parties understood that there was much to be gained
from controlling the narrative of the suffrage campaign. In the short term, estab-
lishing which party had developed the most effective approaches and techniques
would allow the successor organizations to parlay past success into increased
support for future initiatives. In the decade following ratification, the League of
Women Voters, which grew out of NAWSA, committed itself to educating voters
and to lobbying for child labor laws and social welfare measures; the NWP, retain-
ing its name, focused on attempting to further democratic reform through an
Equal Rights Amendment (a measure that won congressional approval in 1972 but
failed to be ratified by a sufficient number of states).5 In the long term, honor and
public memory were at stake.
Although Havemeyer indicates that she did not intend to “write a history of
suffrage” but only to tell of “personal experiences with the movement” (“Suffrage
Torch” 532), both she and Stevens belonged to the leadership of the NWP, and their
accounts reflect their credence in its approach and methods. In the excerpt from
Jailed for Freedom, Stevens describes the moment when a small group of militants
292 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

resolved on picketing the White House as a daring, direct challenge to President

Woodrow Wilson. For these women, as Stevens terms it, “the fight was on,” and
the picketing by and subsequent arrests of the “silent sentinels” were highly effective
in garnering public attention. In recounting her “thrilling experiences,” which
included a publicity stunt in the middle of the Hudson River, Havemeyer imparts
to readers a sense of the excitement and purpose suffragists found in their work. At
the same time, she underscores a recurrent theme in suffrage memoirs and histo-
ries: activism’s development of women’s capacities, its stretching of their limits of
strength and ingenuity. Like Susan B. in Stein’s The Mother of Us All who affirms,
“I speak as loudly as I can, . . . I even speak louder than I can,” Havemeyer asserts that
she learned to make speeches when she had believed she could not, to fundraise
through her own devices, and to maneuver audiences into hearing her message.6
Stevens’s and Havemeyer’s emphasis on dramatic stunts and radical resolve
showcased the merits of the NWP, but their focus on grand, heroic gestures also
owed something to all suffragists’ desire to fix their legacy in the popular imagina-
tion. These former suffragists were, after all, writing in a period of burgeoning
doubt about the significance of their achievement. When only one-third of newly
eligible women voters took to the polls on November 2, 1920 to vote for their
nation’s president, questions emerged—questions that only proliferated when the
1924 presidential election produced similar voter demographics and little evidence
that the women who did exercise their franchise were voting en bloc for candidates
or platforms propounding “women’s interests.”7 Nor did most white suffragists
make any effort to address the process by which southern black women and other
minority and immigrant women were disfranchised alongside the men of their
communities. Perhaps, as Stein’s Susan B. fears, women through their enfranchise-
ment had simply become “like men.”8 These real challenges to the suffrage move-
ment’s legacy combined with difficulties of narrativization. A protracted campaign
of “bloodless battles” that ended in legislative change was hardly the stuff of epic.
Highlighting stirring spectacles and stunts, as Stevens and Havemeyer did, then,
promoted a sense of a dynamic and progressive campaign, just as stories of sacri-
fice and heroism—like the poetic and operatic tributes to Milholland’s martyrdom
and Anthony’s devotion—implicitly underscored the importance of the cause that
had commandeered their strength and focus.
Positioning the movement as working to complete the heroic narrative of
America’s democratic progress was another tactic adopted in modern-era accounts.
As historian Julie Des Jardins explains, suffragists generally saw the “story of the
suffrage movement as an inevitable event along the nation’s upward climb toward
democratic perfection.”9 Certainly, the texts included here render the suffrage
story against the background of U.S. history. Interspersed in Havemeyer’s account,
for instance, are references to suffrage pioneers as “emancipators,” their valor
analogized to that of the rebels who instigated the Boston Tea Party. Moreover,
Havemeyer’s account of using the Liberty Torch and Ship of State as suggestive
props reflects her sense not only of suffragists’ inventiveness in generating publi-
city but also of their desire to make their arguments meaningful to their fellow
c a r ry i n g t h e s u f f r ag e t o r c h 293

Americans through reference to shared history and rhetorical and iconic touch-
stones. Similarly, Stevens is pointed in noting that the location of the Washington
memorial service for Milholland was “Statuary Hall under the dome of the
Capitol—the scene of memorial services for Lincoln and Garfield.” The symbolism
was key; suffragists “wanted in”—into full American citizenship, into the halls of
legislative power (both literally and metaphorically), and into U.S. history.
Collective memory, however, has still not fully embraced woman suffrage as a
signal chapter in the story of democracy. The fate of Adelaide Johnson’s “Portrait
Monument” (depicting Anthony, Stanton, and Lucretia Mott) is a case in point.
Commissioned by the NWP and presented to Congress in 1921, “The Portrait
Monument” was the first statue of women to be displayed in the Capitol’s Rotunda,
in the very halls of political might that the Nineteenth Amendment had opened to
women. However, the monument’s sojourn in the Rotunda was brief; after only
two days, an all-male Congress relegated the massive marble to a storage room.
In 1928, 1932, and 1950, Congress rejected bills proposing its return to the Rotunda.
The sculpture remained in the “Crypt” for seventy-six years, until the late 1990s,
when Congress—after heated debate involving attacks on the monument’s
aesthetic as well as historical value—agreed to relocate it to the Rotunda for a
minimum of one year. Even then, the sculpture, which was not displayed under the
name Johnson had given to it, “The Woman Movement,” was the subject of
deep dispute. Its depiction of three white women inspired critiques from African
American and other feminists who sought to recognize the multi-racial character
of the long fight for women’s rights. The monument and its fate focalize the
challenges inherent in commemorating woman suffrage when no consensus exists
about the nature and scope of the campaign or about its place within the national
narrative.10
In the years following the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, writers
told stories of the suffrage movement for many purposes: to fix in the collective
memory the story of suffrage as a hard-won victory through sustained, heroic
effort; to establish the movement’s significance in the history of American achieve-
ment; to encourage readers to view one suffrage faction’s contributions as more
effective than another’s; and to prompt newly enfranchised citizens to take up the
torch and continue to work toward more democratic and social reform. Decisions
made by Stevens, Havemeyer, Millay, Stein, and others about what is valuable and
how that material is framed inevitably leave innumerable facets untold and many
contributors unheralded in suffrage history. The work of suffrage scholars over the
past thirty years has helped enhance posterity’s understanding of suffrage history
by making it bigger, more complex; these scholars have probed the elisions, filled
the gaps, troubled the assumptions, and questioned the agendas of earlier histori-
ans, memoirists, creative writers, and biographers.
Treacherous Texts, we hope, will contribute to this work by inspiring a return to
forgotten texts and neglected narratives—and to the suffrage story they have to tell.
 R
JAILED FOR FREEDOM (1920)
d o r i s s t e v e n s (1 8 9 2 – 1 9 6 3)

A Nebraska native and Oberlin College graduate, Stevens was a NAWSA

organizer, a cofounder of the Congressional Union, and, finally, a front-line
fighter with the NWP. Jailed for Freedom provides a first-hand account of the
“organized, militant political action” that finally made the woman suffrage
amendment a reality. In this excerpt, Stevens reveals in unvarnished prose how
deeply the NWP understood and how skillfully it worked the levers of emotion to
sway the public and propel suffragists to ever bolder action. She recounts how
leaders memorialized a suffrage martyr within the halls of the Capitol, the seat of
the government that denied women citizenship. Then, when President Wilson
refused—as the NWP leaders knew he would—to heed demands to forward the
“remarkable” Inez Milholland’s cause, they seized their chance. They channeled
their members’ indignation into the White House picketing that became a public
relations disaster for the Wilson administration.

Chapter 3: The Last Deputation to President Wilson

Of the hundreds of women who volunteered for the last Western campaign,
perhaps the most effective in their appeal were the disfranchised Eastern
women.
The most dramatic figure of them all was Inez Milholland Boissevain, the
gallant and beloved crusader who gave her life that the day of women’s freedom
might be hastened. Her last words to the nation as she fell fainting on the platform
in California were, “Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?” . . .
She never recovered from the terrific strain of the campaign which had under-
mined her young strength. Her death touched the heart of the nation; her sacrifice,
made so generously for liberty, lighted anew the fire of rebellion in women, and
aroused from inertia thousands never before interested in the liberation of their
own sex.
Memorial meetings were held throughout the country. . . .

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c a r ry i n g t h e s u f f r ag e t o r c h 295

The most impressive of these memorials was held on Christmas Day in

Washington. In Statuary Hall under the dome of the Capitol—the scene of memorial
services for Lincoln and Garfield—filled with statues of outstanding figures in the
struggle for political and religious liberty in this country, the first memorial service
ever held in the Capitol to honor a woman, was held for this gallant young leader.
Boy choristers singing the magnificent hymn

“Forward through the darkness

Leave behind the night,
Forward out of error,
Forward into light”

led into the hall the procession of young girl banner-bearers. . . .

Miss Maud Younger of California was chosen to make the memorial address on
this occasion. She said in part:

“We are here to pay tribute to Inez Milholland Boissevain, who was our
comrade. . . .
“She stood for no man, no party. She stood only for woman. . . .
“And as she had lived loving liberty, working for liberty, fighting for liberty,
so it was that with this word on her lips she fell. ‘How long must women wait for
liberty?’ she cried and fell—as surely as any soldier upon the field of honor—as
truly as any who ever gave up his life for an ideal.
“As in life she had been the symbol of the woman’s cause so in death she is
the symbol of its sacrifice. The whole daily sacrifice, the pouring out of life and
strength that is the toll of woman’s prolonged struggle.
“. . . Let our tribute be not words which pass, nor song which flies, nor flower
which fades. Let it be this: that we finish the task she could not finish; that with
new strength we take up the struggle in which fighting beside us she fell; that with
new faith we here consecrate ourselves to the cause of woman’s freedom until
that cause is won; that with new devotion we go forth, inspired by her sacrifice,
to . . . achieve full freedom for women, full democracy for the nation.
“Let this be our tribute, imperishable, to Inez Milholland Boissevain.”

. . . The women were in no mood merely to mourn the loss of a comrade-leader.

The government must be shown again its share of responsibility. Another appeal
must be made to the President who, growing steadily in control over the people and
over his Congress, was the one leader powerful enough to direct his party to accept
this reform. But he was busy gathering his power to lead them elsewhere. Again we
would have to compete with pro-war anti-war sentiment. . . .
Following the holiday season a deputation of over three hundred women
carried to the White House the Christmas Day memorial for Inez Milholland and
other memorials from similar services. The President was brought face to face with
the new protest of women against the continued waste of physical and spiritual
energy in their battle. . . .
296 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

[T]he New York memorial [made a particular appeal]:

“This gathering . . . appeals to you, the President of the United States, to end
the outpouring of life and effort that has been made for the enfranchisement of
women for more than seventy years in this country. The death of this lovely and
brave woman symbolizes the whole daily sacrifice that vast numbers of women
have made and are making for the sake of political freedom. . . .
“We ask you with all the fervor and earnestness of our souls to exert your
power over Congress in behalf of the national enfranchisement of women in the
same way you have so successfully used it on other occasions and for far less
important measures.”

. . . [The President responded:]

“Ladies, I had not been apprised that you were coming here to make any
representations that would issue an appeal to me. . . . I, therefore, am not pre-
pared to say anything further than I have said on previous occasions of this sort.
“I do not need to tell you where my own convictions and my own personal
purpose lie, and I need not tell you by what circumscriptions I am bound as
leader of a party. As the leader of a party my commands come from that party
and not from private personal convictions.
“My personal action as a citizen, of course, comes from no source but my own
conviction, and, therefore, my position has been so frequently defined, and I
hope so candidly defined, and it is so impossible for me, until the orders of my
party are changed, to do anything other than I am doing as a party leader, that
I think nothing more is necessary to be said. . . .
. . . In this country, as in every other self-governing country, it is really
through the instrumentality of parties that things can be accomplished. They are
not accomplished by the individual voice but by concerted action, and that
action must come only so fast as you can concert it. I have done my best and
shall continue to do my best to concert it in the interest of a cause in which
I personally believe.”

Dead silence. The President stands for a brief instant at the end of his words as
if waiting for some faint stir of approval which does not come. He has the baffled
air of a disappointed actor who has failed to “get across.” Then he turns abruptly on
his heel and the great doors swallow him up. Silently the women file through the
corridor and into the fresh air.
The women returned to the spacious headquarters across the park all of one
mind. How little the President knew about women! How he underestimated their
intelligence and penetration of things political! Was it possible that he really
thought these earnest champions of liberty would merely carry resolutions of
sorrow and regret to the President?
But this was not the real irony. How lightly had he shifted the responsibility for
getting results to his party. With what coldness he had bade us “concert opinion,” a
thing which he alone could do. That was pretty hard to bear, coming as it did when
c a r ry i n g t h e s u f f r ag e t o r c h 297

countless forms of appeal had been exhausted by which women without sufficient
power could “concert” anything. The movement was almost at the point of
languishing so universal was the belief in the nation that suffrage for women was
inevitable. And yet he and his party remained immovable.
The three hundred women of the memorial deputation became on their return
to headquarters a spirited protest meeting.
Plans of action in the event the President refused to help had been under
consideration by Miss Paul and her executive committee for some time, but they
were now presented for the first time for approval. There was never a more
dramatic moment at which to ask the women if they were ready for drastic action.
Harriot Stanton Blatch . . . voiced the feeling of the entire body when she said,
in a ringing call for action:
“We have gone to Congress, we have gone to the President during the last
four years with great deputations, with small deputations. We have shown the
interest all over the country in self-government for women—something that
the President as a great Democrat ought to understand and respond to instantly.
Yet he tells us today that we must win his party. . . . Why? Never before did the
Democratic Party lie more in the hands of one man than it lies today in the hands
of President Wilson. . . . He controls his party, and I don’t think he is too modest
to know it. He can mold it as he wishes. . . . Yet he is not willing to lay a finger’s
weight on his party today for half the people of the United States. . . . Yet today he
tells us that we must wait more—and more.
“We can’t organize bigger and more influential deputations. We can’t organize
bigger processions. We can’t, women, do anything more in that line. We have got
to take a new departure. We have got to keep the question before him all the time.
We have got to begin and begin immediately.
“Women, it rests with us. We have got to bring to the President, individually,
day by day, week in and week out, the idea that great numbers of women want to
be free, will be free, and want to know what he is going to do about it.
“Won’t you come and join us in standing day after day at the gates of the
White House with banners asking, ‘What will you do, Mr. President, for one-half
the people of this nation?’ Stand there as sentinels—sentinels of liberty, sentinels
of self-government—silent sentinels. Let us stand beside the gateway where he
must pass in and out, so that he can never fail to realize that there is a tremendous
earnestness and insistence back of this measure. Will you not show your
allegiance today to this ideal of liberty? Will you not be a silent sentinel of liberty
and self-government?”

. . . [T]he fight was on.

Source: From Doris Stevens, Jailed for Freedom (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1920).
 R
“UPON THIS MARBLE BUST
THAT IS NOT I” (1923)
e d na s t. v i n c e n t m i l l ay
(1892–1950)

Millay exemplified the spirit of the bohemian New Woman: well-educated,

socially independent, and fiercely individualistic. Achieving literary success
at a young age, she was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry;
she also enjoyed a career as playwright and actress with Greenwich Village’s
Provincetown Players. Writing under a pseudonym, Millay published numerous
articles and sketches in Vanity Fair magazine that demonstrated her keen
perception of the “war between the sexes.” In 1923, Millay married Eugen
Boissevain, the widower of Inez Milholland, the iconic suffragist whom Millay
greatly admired. “Upon this marble bust that is not I” is Millay’s tribute to
Milholland.

To Inez Milholland
Read in Washington, November eighteenth, 1923, at the unveiling of a statue
of three leaders in the cause of Equal Rights for Women
Upon this marble bust that is not I
Lay the round, formal wreath that is not fame;
But in the forum of my silenced cry
Root ye the living tree whose sap is flame.
I, that was proud and valiant, am no more;—
Save as a dream that wanders wide and late,
Save as a wind that rattles the stout door,
Troubling the ashes in the sheltered grate.
The stone will perish; I shall be twice dust.
Only my standard on a taken hill
Can cheat the mildew and the red-brown rust

298
c a r ry i n g t h e s u f f r ag e t o r c h 299

And make immortal my adventurous will.

Even now the silk is tugging at the staff:
Take up the song; forget the epitaph.

Source: Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Upon this marble bust that is not I,” in The Buck in the
Snow (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1928), 66.
Copyright © 1928, 1955, by Edna St. Vincent Millay and Norma Millay Ellis. Reprinted by
permission of Elizabeth Barnett, Literary Executor, The Millay Society.
 R
“THE SUFFRAGE TORCH:
MEMORIES OF A
MILITANT” (1929)
l o u i s i n e w. h av e m e y e r (1 8 5 5 – 1 9 2 9)

A modern art collector, feminist, and philanthropist, Havemeyer joined the

suffrage movement after her sugar-magnate husband’s death in 1907. With Alice
Paul she helped found the NWP. In 1919, she was imprisoned at Occoquan
Workhouse for five days for burning an effigy of President Wilson in front of the
White House. Havemeyer was a witty and dynamic speaker who popularized two
symbols of the campaign: the “Ship of State,” a model of the Mayflower, and the
“Suffrage Torch,” based on the torch carried by the Statue of Liberty.

I was visiting on Long Island about a week later when one morning what was my
surprise to see suffrage leader Mrs. [Harriot Stanton] Blatch’s secretary come to my
hostess’ door, and have her thrust into my hand a piece of wood that looked to
me something like a torch. Well, it was the celebrated Liberty Torch, as great a piece
of campaign publicity work as Mrs. Blatch ever did.
“Here, take it,” said the secretary out of breath. “It has been at Montauk, the
eastern coast, and you are to take it to the western limit of New York State.
Mrs. Blatch wants you to be at the old Academy of Music in the city . . . tomorrow,”
and all in a breath she continued: “Can I get my train back? I have only four min-
utes to catch it; don’t you think I can? . . .” “Sure,” I answered, . . . “there is my car,
jump into it; James”—this to the chauffeur—“don’t miss that train! It may be a
minute late.” They did not even hear my last words, as they were spinning down the
road to the station, and I stood there holding the ugly brown thing in my hand.
“Look,” I said to my hostess, who still stood dumfounded at this little scene, and
holding up the torch; “the paint isn’t dry on it and what has a torch to do with
suffrage anyway?”

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c a r ry i n g t h e s u f f r ag e t o r c h 301

That same question kept my mind busy the next morning as I approached my
destination. Traffic had delayed me a few minutes, and, as I drew near the old
Academy, I saw the familiar “lunch-wagon,” which we used for a speaker’s stand,
and a number of women ran toward me all calling out at once to hurry up, . . . and
“Don’t forget,” they added, “you are to speak on the torch.” As I ran, the torch was
thrust into my hand; I was “boosted” onto the stand, while about thirty cameras
were trying to “snap” me. All I recollect was that I had an intense desire to step out
of the lunch-wagon and walk upon the numberless straw hats that spread out
before me like an endless field of grain. The luncheon-hour had assembled one of
the largest audiences I ever spoke to, and almost every man wore a straw hat. I sup-
pose the new situation excited me; I lifted the torch as high as I could and for once
I did not have to think—the words came to me as if by inspiration. . . . The torch,
I told them, was like the one that lighted up our harbor, like the one held aloft by
the Statue of Liberty—it stood for liberty and for freedom—the freedom we were
seeking—and it greeted the strangers who came to our shores and it did not
welcome men only—no, but rather men and women alike, bidding them welcome
to the land of the free and the home of the brave. . . .
Sunset of that same day saw me rolling along by the upper Hudson, trying to
make [the town of] Beeman, where I was to meet my organizer and to fulfill my
first engagement that very evening.
It had been a long and exciting day, but I thought I should have only a house
or a theatre meeting, which were comparatively easy to do; but to my surprise
that night I was to have my baptism of fire, my first street meeting; I was told
I was to speak at the opera-house. . . . Alas! when we arrived at the opera-house
I was not to speak inside of it but on a busy corner on the outside of it. “And
great was the fall thereof,” I said, as I mounted the “Jewel Box,” the name given my
pretty landaulet, and I began with a few boys and ended with a big crowd. . . .
My other meeting was in the slums; it was the first time we had met the men of the
slums, and I was afraid of them—oh, so afraid! How foolish! for we became the
best of friends, and even at that very meeting a laborer returning from work in
shirt-sleeves and carrying an empty dinner-pail came up to me, and handing me a
bit of silver said to me: “Lady, I do hope you win out.” That fixed the status; after
that they were all my friends.
My organizer was past master at the game, or she could not have averaged seven
speeches a day for ten days, arranged garden-parties where the whole town turned
out with a splendid brass band, have taken me into the very camp of the antis, and
have discomfited them at the State Fair by her tactics on publicity. At Chautauqua
the great gates, contrary to rule, admitted our automobile, and we rolled up to the
immense auditorium, which was generously offered to us and where I spoke to one
of my largest audiences. My organizer had a chain of decorated autos accompany-
ing my “Jewel Box” up and down the Mohawk Valley. She got suffrage into clubs by
clever ruses when the antis tried to keep it out. She would call it a simple luncheon
or an informal reception. . . .
302 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

The torch leaped into notoriety with bounds and strides, and as the paint dried,
although I always maintained it was a clumsy thing to hold, I became deeply
respectful toward it. I was surprised to see how it impressed audiences whose
minds seemed to grasp the visualized analogy of woman’s suffrage to the Liberty
Torch.
To better illustrate my remarks I noticed, when any one took hold of the torch,
it was always lifted up, held high, or waved in the air. My audience left no doubt that
it expressed a big idea to them. In Chautauqua, in the big auditorium, the audience
surged around the platform where I spoke, and as I finished my speech they begged
to be allowed to hold the torch, which they did with deep reverence, causing a delay
of over an hour in our schedule, which it was difficult to make up, although
campaigners are supposed to be indifferent to “hours.”
After the torch had accomplished its purpose in New York State, Mrs. Blatch
planned a very spectacular transfer of it to the New Jersey branch of the
Woman’s Political Union, the transfer to take place in the middle of the Hudson
River under the very shadow of the Statue of Liberty. Unfortunately, Mr. Blatch
died very suddenly just at that time, and Mrs. Blatch was obliged to sail at once
for England. Her last request before sailing was that I should take her place. . . .
I assure you I had no appetite for speechmaking in the mid-waters of the Hudson,
but it had to be done. It meant tremendous publicity, both in press and movies,
and the public were all interested. It was a bright windy day when I presented
myself for duty, the tugs were decorated with our colors, the whistles blew from
shore to shore, and we were finally told to start. While lashed together in the
middle of the river, I, with an appropriate speech, was to deliver the torch to our
sisters in New Jersey, and with another speech our sisters in New Jersey were to
receive it. All went well for a time. I was a bit dizzy trying to dodge cameras, but
when I arrived in mid-stream that dizziness assumed alarming symptoms, and
I began to get anxious about my speech. I knew what a poor sailor I was, and I
was afraid in the increasing wind my condition might prove discreditable to the
suffrage cause.
“Hurry up,” I said anxiously. “Let us get this over with as quickly as possible.
Where is that Jersey boat?” I noticed a look of consternation on the faces of the
committee, and just at that moment a small motor-boat came alongside of the tug,
and someone shouted:
“The party over there forgot to get a license to come out.”
“Good gracious!” I gasped. “Will it be long?”
“No, no,” someone said soothingly; “come and lie down, and you will feel better.”
I did not wait for a second invitation, for we were now tossing wildly about, but
promptly lay down—I don’t know where, for there isn’t any place to lie down on a
tug, but I just lay down. I closed my eyes and tried to think of my speech and of our
great cause! It was no use—I became more wretched every moment, and I was
about ready to commit myself to the waves when a cheery voice said:
“Now, Mrs. Havemeyer, Jersey is here and we are waiting for the speech.” Would
you believe it, friends? I got up and made that speech! I blessed the father of the
c a r ry i n g t h e s u f f r ag e t o r c h 303

great river, and the brave men of the Empire State who were to give us our freedom
in the coming elections, and I confided the sacred token of liberty, the beloved
torch, to our sisters in the neighboring State, and hoped in the coming elections
their mighty men, headed by the President himself, would lead them on to victory!
The whistles screeched, the ferry-boats puffed and wheezed; the crowd cheered, the
press wrote madly, and the camera and movie men ground away like frenzied
hand-organs—the threatened fiasco ended in a glorious finale. I went home despis-
ing myself as an arch-hypocrite, pretending to be seasick and then being able to
make a speech at a moment’s notice, and that without an unpleasant sensation. . . .
“I saw you in the movies; you were on the Hudson River in a boat,” said a friend
to me a short time after, who had just returned from California.
“Did you?” I asked eagerly. “Did I look seasick?”
“Not a bit,” was the answer, and I was still more puzzled.
A day later I crossed the Hudson again. This time to start the torch upon its
career in New Jersey. . . . My audience had “warmed up” before I began, and as I
caught their attention I was congratulating myself that Newark was not as bad as I
feared. Suddenly, from out of the crowd came a tall, raw-boned man full of booze
and talk. He staggered to my car, braced himself up, and said, as respectfully as
hiccoughs would permit:
“I want to shake Mrs. Havemeyer’s hand; I am the father of nine children and
I hope she gets the vote.”
Several men stepped hurriedly from the crowd, took hold of his arm, and
attempted to draw him away. He resisted, of course, and wanted to continue to talk
to me. I saw my opportunity to let him plead the woman’s cause. I drew back and
let him be plainly seen as he continued his drunken chatter. I never saw a crowd of
men more moved or more ashamed. It was a spectacle, and somehow they seemed
to feel responsible for it. They could not escape the question so solemnly put to
them: Was a man or a woman the more worthy to be a citizen, to make the laws
that would at least give a mother equality over her children? At last my visitor was
coaxed away and I had no heart to start in again. I closed by saying:
“Men, look to it that some day your daughters don’t turn upon you and say:
‘Father, oh, father, why didn’t you give us a right to help make the laws which might
protect us, and which must affect every condition under which we live?’ Remember,
it may be their nine children whom they cannot protect because you deny women
the right to vote.”
I carried the suffrage torch through all the great watering-places on the Jersey
coast, and then . . . I returned home, leaving it in the custody of a group of young
campaigners.
“Remember, young ladies,” I called to them, as I motored away; “the torch is not
an easy thing to take care of.”
The very next day it was stolen, and, although we were heart-broken, we at once
tried to make the misfortune count for publicity. The New Jersey branch offered a
large reward; the antis said we had had it stolen; I am not sure we did not hint that
the antis had it stolen themselves, but, as we were about to give it up for lost, it
304 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

appeared at headquarters, brought in by a man who said he found it in a street-car

in Philadelphia. He was handed the promised reward in a check. He said politely
that he was for suffrage and wished for no reward, and . . . he handed it to our
chairman and left, wishing us good luck.
For a long period the torch was our leading lady, and even years later I had to
carry it in a parade in our neighboring State of Connecticut, as well as the still more
popular “Ship of State.”
I was the originator of that emblem, the greatest crowd-gatherer I ever saw, and
it happened in this way. When Mrs. Blatch was obliged to return to England so
suddenly, and leave us to run the party, we all felt a sense of responsibility. It was
growing late in the season, the days were shortening, and the evenings, the only
time we could get hold of the men for a street meeting, were growing very dark.
New York must be held! How could we attract the crowds?
“Ladies, what are we to do?” I asked as I walked into headquarters. “How can we
replace the torch?” No one knew. Just then in walked the torch-maker herself.
Immediately a suggestion came to me.
“How soon can you make me a little ship to replace the torch?” I asked her.
“In about ten days,” she answered.
“All right,” I said. . . .
In about ten days a little ship, whose centreboard tapered into a stick so we could
hold it, was ready. It was made and rigged to look as much as possible like the
Mayflower, and on the end of every spar was an electric light which outlined the
ship so it could be distinctly seen even in the blackest darkness; the port and star-
board beams bore green and red lights, which gave it a finishing touch and made
it seem a very attractive toy. The electric wiring was attached to a battery which
I carried in the bottom of my automobile, and a button gave me control of the
lighting. No matter where I went, from the largest city to the smallest village, I had
but to light my little “Ship of State” to collect a crowd. Wherever I went my organizer
saw that the papers inserted a print of the ship, and the people would come out to
look at it. In the manufacturing towns the small boys would crowd around me and
beg:
“Please show it to us, Mrs. Havemeyer.”
“No! Go get your fathers and mothers, too, to come out. I have something to say
to them and then I will light it up for you,” I would answer and I would soon have
a big crowd about me.
I should tire you if I attempted to tell you of all the arguments that little emblem
enabled me to make. For instance, I would say: “Good women were good ballast on
the Mayflower, why should they not be now on our Ship of State?” Or—“it was a
woman who climbed over the side of that ship, and was the first to put her foot on
Plymouth Rock. She claimed this land as a home for men and women alike, not
men alone.” Or again: “Suppose a man and his wife had paid their passage on a ship
and as they were about to go up the gangplank, they were stopped, and the woman
was told she could not go on board.”
“‘Why not?’ asks the man. ‘Oh, because she is a woman,’ he is told.
c a r ry i n g t h e s u f f r ag e t o r c h 305

“‘But I have paid her way, I have signed all the papers, agreed to every condition.
It is all right, stand aside and let her go up.’
“‘No,’ he is told, ‘she cannot go all board.’
. . . I drive home my argument and say:
“Friends, that is the state of things you men are tolerating to-day. There isn’t a
woman in the land who does not subscribe to and obey the laws. There isn’t a
woman in the land who, if she has property, does not pay her taxes—taxes to sup-
port a government that deprives her of her rights, a woman who in every way
supports the Constitution of the United States, and yet—she is told she cannot go
on board our Ship of State—just because she is a woman.”
That illustration never failed me, and many are the votes it brought to us. Or
again: I hold up the ship without lighting it, and say: “. . . You see there can be no
light where there is no freedom, but when you men give us our freedom in
November, then my ship will look like this,” and as I say it I snap the button and the
thirty-three lights with the red and green ones at its port and starboard sides flash
out in the darkness, and one hears the ohs and the ahs, and great applause follows.
The leading lady of the town was usually asked to sit in my car and snap on the
lights at my signal. It made splendid publicity and often made a friend for the party
or a contributor to our always depleted treasury.

Source: From Louisine W. Havemeyer, “The Suffrage Torch: Memories of a Militant,”

Scribners 71 (1929): 528–39.
 R
THE MOTHER OF
US ALL (1946)
g e r t ru d e s t e i n (1 8 74 – 1 9 4 6)

Stein’s opera presents the story of Susan B. Anthony’s efforts to “speak as loudly
as [she] can” as representative of the efforts of all women to change the world in
which they live. A revered nineteenth-century Quaker suffrage orator seems an
unlikely subject for an experimental Jewish-American expatriate writer like
Stein. Yet Stein’s late modernist project—to find a new literary voice through
a feminist reworking of patriarchal language—had much in common with the
suffragist project to authorize a political voice for women. The Mother of Us All
is about voice: both the musical voice that every opera takes as its medium and
the political voice to which reformers like Anthony and Stein devoted their lives.
In the first excerpt, Susan B. expresses her bitterness following a meeting with
male antislavery reformers, whom she cannot convince to remove the word
“male” from the Fifteenth Amendment; the amendment’s wording ensures that
African American men are enfranchised, but women are not. In the second
excerpt, Susan B. returns after her death to comment on the passage of the
Nineteenth Amendment, her accomplishments, and her regrets.

Act II Scene VII

Susan B. Anthony busy with her housework

Anne: (Comes in) Oh it was wonderful, wonderful, they listen to nobody the
way they listen to you.
Susan B.: Yes it is wonderful as the result of my work for the first time the word
male has been written into the constitution of the United States concerning
suffrage. Yes it is wonderful.
Anne: But
Susan B.: Yes but, what is man, what are men, what are they. I do not say that
they haven’t kind hearts, if I fall down in a faint, they will rush to pick me up,

306
c a r ry i n g t h e s u f f r ag e t o r c h 307

if my house is on fire, they will rush in to put the fire out and help me, yes they
have kind hearts but they are afraid, afraid, they are afraid, they are afraid.
They fear women, they fear each other, they fear their neighbor, they fear
other countries and then they hearten themselves in their fear by crowding
together and following each other, and when they crowd together and follow
each other they are brutes, like animals who stampede, and so they have
written in the name male into the United States constitution, because they are
afraid of black men because they are afraid of women, because they are afraid
afraid. Men are afraid.
Anne: (Timidly) And women.
Susan B.: Ah women often have not any sense of danger, after all a hen screams
pitifully when she sees an eagle but she is only afraid for her children, men are
afraid for themselves, that is the real difference between men and women.
Anne: But Susan B. why do you not say these things out loud.
Susan B.: Why not, because if I did they would not listen they not alone would
not listen they would revenge themselves. Men have kind hearts when they are
not afraid but they are afraid afraid afraid. I say they are afraid, but if I were to
tell them so their kindness would turn to hate. Yes the Quakers are right, they
are not afraid because they do not fight, they do not fight.
Anne: But Susan B. you fight and you are not afraid.
Susan B.: I fight and I am not afraid, I fight but I am not afraid.
Anne: And you will win.
Susan B.: Win what, win what.
Anne: Win the vote for women.
Susan B.: Yes some day some day the women will vote and by that time.
Anne: By that time oh wonderful time.
Susan B.: By that time it will do them no good because having the vote they will
become like men, they will be afraid, having the vote will make them afraid, oh
I know it, but I will fight for the right, for the right to vote for them even
though they become like men, become afraid like men, become like men. . . .

Act II Scene VIII

The Congressional Hall, the replica of the statue of Susan B. Anthony and her
comrades in the suffrage fight. . . . They all bow and smile to the statue. Suddenly
Susan B.’s voice is heard

Susan B.’s Voice: We cannot retrace our steps, going forward may be the
same as going backwards. We cannot retrace our steps, retrace our steps. All
my long life, all my life, we do not retrace our steps, all my long life, but.s

A silence a long silence

But—we do not retrace our steps, all my long life, and here, here we are here,
in marble and gold, did I say gold, yes I said gold, in marble and gold and
where—
308 t r e ac h e r o u s t e x t s

10. Adelaide Johnson’s “The Portrait Monument” portrays three of the suffrage pioneers:
from left to right, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucretia Mott. Digital
image, courtesy of the Architect of the Capitol.

A silence

Where is where. In my long life of effort and strife, dear life, life is strife, in my
long life, it will not come and go, I tell you so, it will stay it will pay but

A long silence

But do I want what we have got, has it not gone, what made it live, has it not gone
because now it is had, in my long life in my long life

Silence

Life is strife, I was a martyr all my life not to what I won but to what was done.

Silence

Do you know because I tell you so, or do you know, do you know.

Silence

My long life, my long life.

c a r ry i n g t h e s u f f r ag e t o r c h 309

Curtain
Source: From Gertrude Stein, The Mother of Us All in Last Operas and Plays,
ed. Carl Van Vechten (1949; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977).
Permission granted by the Estate of Gertrude Stein, through its Literary Executor,
Mr. Stanford Gann, Jr. of Levin & Gann, PA.
 NOTES

introduction
1. See, for example, Nancy Hewitt’s Women’s Activism and Social Change: Rochester, New
York, 1822–1872 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984); Hewitt, “From Seneca Falls to
Suffrage? Reimagining a ‘Master’ Narrative in U.S. Women’s History, in Hewitt, ed., No
Permanent Waves: Recasting Histories of U.S. Feminism (New Brunswick: Rutgers University
Press, 2010): 15–38; Lori Ginzberg, Untidy Origins: A Story of Woman’s Rights in Antebellum
New York (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005); and Julie Des Jardins,
Women and the Historical Enterprise in America: Gender, Race and the Politics of Memory
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003).
2. African Americans’ participation in the suffrage movement—as orators, organizers,
and clubwomen—has been traced by Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, African American Women in the
Struggle for the Vote, 1850–1920 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998); Carla
Peterson, “Doers of the Word”: African-American Women Speakers and Writers in the North
1830–1880 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); and Ann D. Gordon and Bettye Collier-
Thomas, eds., African American Women and the Vote, 1837–1965 (Amherst: University of
Massachusetts Press, 1997). Although diasporic Chinese women were not actively recruited
to participate in the U.S. woman suffrage campaign (with some exceptions), they attended
lectures of visiting Chinese reformers who advocated woman suffrage. See Judy Yung, “The
Social Awakening of Chinese American Women as Reported in Chung Sai Yat Po, 1900–1911,”
in Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Women’s History, ed. Ellen Carol DuBois
and Vicki L. Ruiz (New York: Routledge, 1990), 195–207; and Mary Chapman, “‘Revolution
in Ink’: Sui Sin Far and Chinese Reform,” American Quarterly 60, no. 4 (Dec. 2008): 975–1001.
Working-class women and immigrant women, particularly Jewish women coming from
countries with active trade unions, contributed a great deal to suffrage organizing, particu-
lar in urban centers. See Elinor Lerner, “Jewish Involvement in the New York City Woman
Suffrage Movement,” American Jewish History 70, no. 4 (1981): 442–61; and Ellen C. DuBois,
Harriot Stanton Blatch and the Winning of Woman Suffrage (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1997).
3. Although many early white women’s rights activists were also inspired by the anti-
slavery campaign and sought the enfranchisement of both women and African Americans,
after the Fifteenth Amendment enfranchised African American men while postponing the
enfranchisement of women, the suffrage campaign became dominated by racist and nativist
arguments for an educated middle-class native-born women’s vote. See Louise Michele

311
312 notes

Newman, White Women’s Rights: The Racial Origins of Feminism in the United States (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1999); Newman, “Women’s Rights, Race and Imperialism,
1870–1920,” in Race, Nation and Empire in American History, ed. James Campbell (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 157–180; and Ann Gordon, ed., The Selected
Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony (New Brunswick: Rutgers University
Press, 2000). Several recent works have also underlined the ways in which turn-of-the
century woman suffrage discourse aligned and conflicted with discourses of imperialism
in interesting ways. See Allison L. Sneider, Suffragists in an Imperial Age: U.S. Expansion and
the Woman Question 1870–1929 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008); and Yamila
Azize-Vargas, “The Emergence of Feminism in Puerto Rico, 1870–1930,” in Unequal Sisters:
A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Women’s History, ed. Ellen Carol DuBois and Vicki L. Ruiz
(New York: Routledge, 2000), 268–275.
4. Native Americans on reservations were not enfranchised until the Indian Citizenship
Act was passed in 1924. Chinese immigrants were denied U.S. citizenship and were therefore
disenfranchised until 1943. African American women and men in the southern U.S. did not
have their voting rights secured until the 1965 Voting Rights Act outlawed discriminatory
practices that had kept many away from the polls. Residents of Puerto Rico are still not
permitted to vote in presidential elections.
5. Western campaigns have been explored by Rebecca J. Mead, How the Vote was Won:
Woman Suffrage in the Western United States, 1868–1914 (New York: New York University
Press, 2004); Ellen Carol DuBois and Karen Kearns, ed. Votes for Women: A Seventy-fifth
Anniversary Album. (San Marino, CA: Huntington Library Press, 1995); Sandra Haarsager,
Organized Womanhood: Cultural Politics in the Pacific Northwest, 1840–1920 (Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1997); Gayle Gullett, Becoming Citizens: The Emergence and
Development of the California Women’s Movement, 1880–1911 (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 2000); Susan Scheiber Edelman, “‘A Red Hot Suffrage Campaign’: The Woman
Suffrage Cause in California, 1896,” California Supreme Court Historical Society Yearbook, 2
(1995): 49–131; Carol Cornwall Madsen, ed., Battle for the Ballot: Essays on Woman Suffrage in
Utah, 1870–1896 (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1997); John Putman, “A ‘Test of Chiffon
Politics’: Gender Politics in Seattle, 1897–1917,” Pacific Historical Review 69, no. 4 (2000):
596–616; and Thomas Edwards, Sowing Good Seeds: The Northwest Suffrage Campaigns of
Susan B. Anthony (Portland: Oregon Historical Society Press, 1990). The midwestern cam-
paign has been addressed in several studies, including Steven Buechler, The Transformation
of the Woman Suffrage Movement: The Case of Illinois, 1850–1920 (New Brunswick: Rutgers
University Press, 1986) and Genevieve McBride, On Wisconsin Women: Working for Their
Rights from Settlement to Suffrage (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993).The south-
ern campaign has been examined in several works by Marjorie Spruill Wheeler: New Women
of the New South: The Leaders of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the Southern States (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1993); Votes for Women in Tennessee, the South and the Nation
(Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1995); and One Woman, One Vote: Rediscovering
the Woman Suffrage Movement (Troutdale: New Sage Press, 1995). See also Elna Green,
Southern Strategies: Southern Women and the Woman Suffrage Question (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1997), and Mary Martha Thomas, The New Woman in
Alabama: Social Reforms and Suffrage, 1890–1920 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama
Press, 1992).
6. See our introduction to “Searching for Sisterhood.” 114 ff. in this volume.
7. See Janet Beer, Katherine Joslin, and Ann Trudgill, eds., American Feminism, Key
Source Documents, 1848–1920 (New York: Routledge, 2002); Kathryn Cullen-Dupont, ed.,
American Women Activists’ Writings: An Anthology 1637–2002 (New York: Cooper Square
Press, 2002); Winston Langley and Vivian C. Fox, eds., Women’s Rights in the United States
(New York: Praeger, 1998); Judith Papachristou, Women Together: A History in Documents
notes 313

of the Women’s Movement in the United States (New York: Knopf, 1976); and Miriam
Schneir, ed., Feminism: The Essential Historical Writings (New York: Vintage Books, 1994).
The most important genre of propaganda collected has been oratory. For examples of suf-
frage oratory, see Beth M. Waggenspack, ed., The Search for Self-Sovereignty: The Oratory of
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989); Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, ed.,
Man Cannot Speak for Her (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989); Richard Leeman, ed,.
“Do Everything” Reform: The Oratory of Frances E. Willard (New York: Greenwood Press,
1992); Eileen S. Kraditor, ed., Up From the Pedestal: Selected Writings in the History of
American Feminism (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1968); Shirley Wilson Logan, “We are
Coming”: The Persuasive Discourse of Nineteenth-century Black Women (Carbondale:
Southern Illinois University Press, 1999); Teresa Zackodnik, ed., “We must be up and doing’:
A Reader in Early African American Feminisms (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2010); and
Paula Doress-Worters, ed., Mistress of Herself: Speeches and Letters of Ernestine L. Rose, Early
Women’s Rights Leader (New York: Feminist Press, 2008). For analyses of women’s rights
orators, see Doris G. Yoakum, “Pioneer Women Orators of America,” Quarterly Journal of
Speech 23 (April 1937): 251–259; Lillian O’Connor, Pioneer Women Orators: Rhetoric in the
Antebellum Reform Movement (New York: Columbia University Press, 1954); Wil A. Linkugel
and Martha Solomon, Anna Howard Shaw: Suffrage Orator and Social Reformer (New York:
Greenwood Press, 1990); Beverly Ann Zink-Sawyer, From Preachers to Suffragists: Woman’s
Rights and Religious Conviction in the Lives of Three Nineteenth-century Clergywomen
(Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1989); Lindal Buchanan, Regendering Delivery:
The Fifth Canon and Antebellum Women Rhetors (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University
Press, 2005); Nan Johnson, Gender and Rhetorical Space in American Life, 1866–1910
(Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2002); and Peterson, “Doers of the Word.”
8. On pageantry, see Karen J. Blair, “Pageantry for Women’s Rights: The Career of Hazel
MacKaye, 1913–1923,” Theatre Survey: The Journal of the American Society for Theatre Research
31, no. 1 (May 1990): 23–46. On parades, see Mary Chapman, “Women and Masquerade in
the 1913 Suffrage Demonstration in Washington,” Amerikastudien 44, no. 3 (1999): 343–55.
On suffrage songs, see Danny O. Crew, Suffragette Sheet Music: An Illustrated Catalogue
(Jefferson: McFarland and Co., 2002); and Janna MacAuslan, “Protest Songs of the Suffrage
Era,” Hot Wire: The Journal of Women’s Music and Culture 7, no. 3 (Sep. 1991): 12–13. On film,
see Kay Sloan, “Sexual Warfare in the Silent Cinema: Comedies and Melodramas of Women
Suffragism,” American Quarterly 33, no. 4 (Autumn 1981): 412–436; and Amy Shore, “Suffrage
Stars,” Camera Obscura 63 21, no. 3 (2006): 1–34.
9. See selections by Stowe, Alcott, Ferber, Gilman, Moore, Millay, Stein, and Harper in this
volume. See Select Bibliography for works by Whitlock, Gale, Garland, Glasgow, and
DuBois. 323 ff. in this volume.
10. On suffrage periodical culture, see Margaret Finnegan, Selling Suffrage: Consumer
Culture and Votes for Women (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999); Sherilyn Cox
Bennion, Equal to the Occasion: Women Editors of the Nineteenth-century West (Reno:
University of Nevada Press, 1990); Aleta Feinsod Cane and Susan Alves, eds., “The Only
Efficient Instrument”: American Women Writers and the Periodical 1837–1916 (Iowa City:
University of Iowa Press, 2001); Ann Russo and Cheris Kramarae, The Radical Women’s Press
of the 1850s (New York: Routledge, 1991); Martha Solomon, ed., A Voice of Their Own: Woman
Suffrage Press 1840–1910 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1991); and Jean M. Ward,
ed., “Yours for Liberty”: Selections from Abigail Scott Duniway’s Suffrage Newspaper (Corvallis:
Oregon State University Press, 2000). On cartoons, see Anne Biller Clark, My Dear Mrs.
Ames: A Study of Suffragist Cartoonist Blanche Ames (New York: Peter Lang, 2001); and Alice
Sheppard, Cartooning for Suffrage (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994).
11. Quoted in Leslie Petty, Romancing the Vote: Feminist Activism in American Fiction,
1870–1920 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2006), 4.
314 notes

12. Mrs. J.W. Smith, et al., “Dramatic Entertainment,” The Woman’s Journal, 8 Nov.
1884, 360.
13. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “Preface” in Helen Hamilton Gardener, Pray You, Sir, Whose
Daughter? (Boston: Arena Press, 1892), vi–vii.
14. “Suffragists Use Valentines in the Campaign for the Ballot” Worcester Post, 14 Feb.
1916. n.p.
15. With the exceptions of Bettina Friedl’s edited collection On to Victory: Propaganda
Plays of the Suffrage Movement (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1990), no collections
of U.S. suffrage literature exist, although a few literary selections are included in
collections of more documentary forms (letters, essays, speeches), such as Jeanne Boydston,
et al., eds., The Limits of Sisterhood: The Beecher Sisters on Women’s Rights and Woman’s Sphere
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), and Kraditor’s Up from the Pedestal.
On U.S. fiction with a suffragist or feminist theme, see Barbara Bardes and Susan Gossett,
Declarations of Independence: Women and Political Power in Nineteenth-century Fiction
(New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1990); Petty, Romancing the Vote; Caroline
Levander, Voices of the Nation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); and a special
issue of Canadian Review of American Studies 36, no. 1 (2006) on suffrage literature edited by
Mary Chapman and Angela Mills.
16. See recent editions of Elizabeth Jordan’s 1917 edited composite novel The Sturdy Oak
(Ohio University Press, 1998); Mary Johnston’s 1913 novel Hagar (Richmond: University
Press of Virginia, 1994); Lillie Devereux Blake’s 1874 novel Fettered for Life (New York:
Feminist Press, 1996); and Laura Curtis Bullard’s Christine, or Woman’s Trials and
Triumphs (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011). Digitization projects such as
Project Gutenberg and Google Books are making other out-of-print texts more readily
available.
17. Carol Mattingly has collected examples of temperance literature in Water Drops from
Women Writers: A Temperance Reader (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press,
2001). The Antislavery Literature Project http://antislavery.eserver.org/ makes available
many creative literary texts written in the service of the antislavery movement.
18. For scholarship on British suffrage literature, see Ann Ardis,“Organizing Women: New
Woman Writers, New Woman Readers, and Suffrage Feminism,” in Victorian Woman Writers
and the Woman Question, ed. Nicola Diane Thompson (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1999), 189–203; Maroula Joannou, “Suffragette Fiction and the Fictions of Suffrage,” in
The Women’s Suffrage Movement: New Feminist Perspectives, ed. Joannou and June Purvis
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998), 101–116; Lucy Delap, The Feminist Avant-
Garde: Transatlantic Encounters of the Early Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2007); Janet Lyon, Manifestoes: Provocations of the Modern (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1999); Jane Miller, Rebel Women: Feminism, Modernism and the Edwardian
Novel (London: Virago, 1994); Caroline J. Howlett, “Writing on the Body? Representation
and Resistance in British Suffrage Accounts of Forcible Feeding,” in Bodies of Writing: Bodies
in Performance, ed. Thomas Foster, Carol Siegel, and Ellen E. Berry (New York: New York
University Press, 1996); Barbara Green, Spectacular Confessions: Autobiography, Performative
Activism and the Sites of Suffrage, 1905–1938 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997); Eileen
Sypher, Wisps of Violence: Producing Public and Private Politics in the Turn-of-the-Century
British Novel (London: Verso, 1993); Sowon S. Park, “Suffrage Fiction: A Political Discourse
in the Marketplace,” English Literature in Transition (1880–1920) 39, no. 4 (1996): 450–61;
Park, “The First Professional: The Women Writers’ Suffrage League,” Modern Language
Quarterly: A Journal of Literary History 58, no. 2 (June 1997): 185–200; and Sheila Stowell,
A Stage of Their Own: Feminist Playwrights of the Suffrage Era (Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 1992). British suffrage literature anthologies include Glenda Norquay, ed.,
Voices & Votes: A Literary Anthology of the Women’s Suffrage Campaign (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1995); Glenda Norquay, Sowon Park, and Katherine Cockin,
notes 315

eds., Women’s Suffrage Literature (London: Routledge, 2007); Lucy Delap, Maria DiCenzo,
and Leila Ryan, eds., Feminism and the Periodical Press 1900–1918 (London: Routledge, 2006);
Jean Chothia, ed., New Women and Other Emancipated Woman Plays (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1998); and Carolyn Christensen-Nelson, ed., Literature of the Woman
Suffrage Campaign (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2004).
19. Carol Mattingly’s Appropriate(ing) Dress, which examines clothing as a rhetorical text,
is a example of this recent trend in rhetorical studies.
20. Jane Tompkins’s 1985 Sensational Designs began this recovery project by exposing the
ways in which nineteenth-century U.S. women’s popular fiction addressed contemporary
political issues such as slavery, Indian removal, and temperance.
21. See Mark Wollaeger, Modernism, Media and Propaganda: British Narrative from 1900 to
1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), and Lyon, Manifestoes of the Modern.

part i — declaring sentiments

1. Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper, eds., History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4
(Indianapolis: Hollenbeck Press, 1902), 695.
2. Judge Henry Chapin, “Address Delivered at the Unitarian Church in Uxbridge, 1864”
(Worcester, Massachusetts: Charles Hamilton Press, 1881), 172. http://books.google.com/
books?id⫽ua-pgcKRY2QC&pg⫽RA1-PA172&lpg⫽RA1-PA172&dq⫽address⫹
delivered⫹at⫹unitarian⫽church⫹chapin⫹henry⫹first⫹woman⫹voter&source⫽web&
ots⫽7ee5DY_fWW&sig⫽zwP9Z01uzpEadUVGB_b9XeA0QTw.
3. Abigail Adams to John Adams, letter 31, March 1776, in L. H. Butterfield, ed., Adams
Family Correspondence, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
1963–1993), 369.
4. Apparently, when Stanton proposed including a resolution about women’s suffrage,
Mott said “Lizzie, thee will make us ridiculous.” Qtd. in Richard Hofstadter, The American
Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It (New York: Knopf, 1948), 131.
5. Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, ed., Man Cannot Speak for Her. A Critical Study of Early
Feminist Rhetoric, vol. 1 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989), 9.
6. For an account of more than one hundred white and black women who preached in the
United States between 1740 and 1845, see Catherine A. Brekus, Strangers and Pilgrims: Female
Preaching in America, 1740–1845 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998).
7. “The Pastoral letter of the General Association of Congregational Ministers of
Massachusetts” (1837) in Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, eds., History of
Woman Suffrage, vol. 1, 81.
8. Carrie Chapman Catt and Nettie Rogers Shuler, Woman Suffrage and Politics: The Inner
Story of the Suffrage Movement (1923; Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1970), 114.
9. “The Woman’s Rights Convention—The Last Act of the Drama,” New York Herald, 12
Sept. 1852. In Aileen S. Kraditor, ed., Up from the Pedestal (Chicago: Quadrangle Books,
1968), 189–190.
10. James Gordon Bennett, New York Herald, 6 Sept. 1853, 4.
11. See Lindal Buchanan, Regendering Delivery: The Fifth Canon and Antebellum Women
Rhetors (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University, 2005); Carol Mattingly, Appropriate(ing)
Dress: Women’s Rhetorical Style in Nineteenth-century America (Carbondale: Southern
Illinois University Press, 2002); and Nan Johnson, Gender and Rhetorical Space in American
Life, 1866–1910 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2002).
12. See Mattingly, Appropriate(ing) Dress.
13. Lydia Maria Child’s 1824 sentimental novel Hobomok (New Brunswick: Rutgers
University Press, 1988) and Catharine Maria Sedgwick’s 1827 sentimental novel Hope Leslie
(New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1987) are two early examples of U.S. women
writers’ treatment of political questions in “women’s” fiction; both questioned the policy of
Indian removal.
316 notes

14. This phrase is borrowed from historian Mary Kelley’s study of nineteenth-century
women fiction writers, Private Woman, Public Stage: Literary Domesticity in Nineteenth-
century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984).
15. Jane Tompkins’s Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790–1860
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1985) was one of the first scholarly works to recognize
the sentimental novel’s power to perform “cultural work.” The phrase “radical transforma-
tion” appears on p. 145 of Tompkins’ book.
16. Ibid., 145.
17. Abraham Lincoln used the “house divided” as an image of the nation divided over the
issue of slavery in a speech he gave in June 1858.
18. Wyoming, Utah, and Washington territories enfranchised women in 1869, 1870, and
1883 respectively.
19. Lori Ginzberg, Untidy Origins: A Story of Woman’s Rights in Antebellum New York
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005).
20. Penny A. Weiss, Canon Fodder: Historical Women Political Thinkers (State College:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009).
21. See, in particular, Carleton Mabee with Susan Mabee Newhouse, Sojourner Truth:
Slave, Prophet, Legend (New York: New York University Press, 1995), and Nell Irvin Painter,
Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol (New York: Norton & Company, 1996).
22. Denise M. Kohn, “Laura Jane Curtis Bullard,” Legacy 21, no. 1 (2004): 74–82.
23. Laura Laffrado, “‘I Thought from the Way You Writ, That You Were a Great Six-Footer
of a Woman’: Gender and the Public Voice in Fanny Fern’s Newspaper Essays,” in In Her
Own Voice: Nineteenth-Century American Women Essayists (New York: Garland, 1997),
81–96.
24. Philip Foner, ed. Frederick Douglass on Women’s Rights (Westport: Greenwood Press,
1976).
25. Melba Joyce Boyd, Discarded Legacy: Politics in the Life of Frances E. W. Harper,
1825–1911 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994).
26. Jeanne Boydston, Mary Kelley, and Anne Margolis, eds,. The Limits of Sisterhood: The
Beecher Sisters on Women’s Rights and Woman’s Sphere (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1988).
27. John Matteson, Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father
(New York: Norton, 2007) 361.
28. Carol Farley Kessler, “A Literary Legacy: Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Mother and
Daughter.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies 5, no. 3 (Autumn 1980): 28–33.
29. Grace Farrell, Lillie Devereux Blake: Retracing a Life Erased (Amherst: University of
Massachusetts Press, 2002).
30. Blake alludes to a contemporary scandal involving New York City builders Buddensieck
and Franck who were accused of using inadequate materials and practicing poor workman-
ship, and charged with manslaughter, when a building they were constructing collapsed and
killed a man in 1885. “Buddensieck” became, for a time, shorthand for substandard construc-
tion. See Auburn’s The Weekly (24 April 1885).
31. A. LaVonne Brown Ruoff, “Justice for Indians and Women: The Protest Fiction of Alice
Callahan and Pauline Johnson,” World Literature Today 66, no. 2 (Spring 1992): 249–255.

part ii — searching for sisterhood

1. Allison Sneider, Suffragists in an Imperial Age: U.S. Expansion and the Woman Question,
1870–1929 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 5.
2. For transatlantic connections, see Margaret H. McFadden, Golden Cables of Sympathy:
The Transatlantic Sources of Nineteenth-Century Feminism (Lexington: University of
Kentucky Press, 1999); Bonnie Anderson, Joyous Greetings, The First International Women’s
notes 317

Movement, 1830–1860 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000); Patricia Harrison
Greenwood, Connecting Links: the British and American Woman Suffrage Movements,
1900–1914 (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2000); and Lucy Delap, The Feminist Avant-Garde:
Transatlantic Encounters of the Early Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2007). For considerations of transpacific interaction, see Sneider, Suffragists in an
Imperial Age. For a comparative discussion of suffrage in the Americas, see Sneider, and
Tracy Kulba and Victoria Lamont, “The Periodical Press and Western Woman’s Suffrage
Movements in Canada and the United States: A Comparative Study,” Women’s Studies
International Forum 29, no. 3 (May 2006): 265–278. For a broad international perspective, see
Leila J. Rupp, Worlds of Women: The Making of An International Women’s Movement
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997); and Caroline Daley and Melanie Nolan, eds.,
Suffrage and Beyond: International Feminist Perspectives (New York: New York University
Press, 1994).
3. Quoted in Greenwood, Connecting Links, 123.
4. Quoted in Greenwood, Connecting Links, 80.
5. See Douglass in this volume (43); Lydia Maria Child, “Chinese Women,” in A History
of the Condition of Women in Various Ages and Nations, vol. 1 (Boston: John Allen &
Company, 1835); and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “A Slave’s Appeal” (Speech to the Judiciary
Committee, New York State Legislature, 1860) in Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, ed., Man Cannot
Speak for Her: Key Texts of the Early Feminists, vol. 2 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989),
167–186.
6. Harriet Burton Laidlaw, “Vote Will Humanize Woman,” New York Times, 26 May
1912: X5.
7. See chapter three of Louise Edwards, Gender, Politics and Democracy: Women’s Suffrage
in China (Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2008).
8. See Judy Yung, “The Social Awakening of Chinese American Women as Reported in
Chung Sai Yat Po, 1900–1911”, in Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Women’s
History, ed. Ellen Carol DuBois and Vicki L. Ruiz (New York: Routledge, 1990), 195–207; and
Mary Chapman, “‘Revolution in Ink’: Sui Sin Far and Chinese Reform,” American Quarterly
(December 2008): 975–1001.
9. “War Urged By Chinese Women,” San Francisco Call, 13 February 1911: 1.
10. Quoted in Susan Scheiber Edelman, “‘A Red Hot Suffrage Campaign’: The Woman
Suffrage Cause in California, 1896,” California Supreme Court Historical Society Yearbook,
vol. 2 (1995), 88.
11. See Edelman, “A Red Hot Suffrage Campaign”; Gayle Gullett, “Constructing the
Woman Citizen and Struggling for the Vote in California, 1896–1911,” Pacific Historical
Review 69, no. 4 (2000): 573–594; Gullett, Becoming Citizens: The Emergence and
Development of the California Women’s Movement, 1880–1911 (Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 2000); Rebecca Mead, How the Vote Was Won: Woman Suffrage in the
Western United States, 1868–1914 (New York: New York University Press, 2004); and John C.
Putman, Class and Gender Politics in Progressive-Era Seattle (Reno: University of Nevada
Press, 2008).
12. Jane Marcus, ed., “Introduction,” Suffrage and the Pankhursts (London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 1987), 9.
13. Michelle Tusan, Women Making News: Gender and Journalism in Modern Britain
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005), 3.
14. Emily Wortis Leider, California’s Daughter: Gertrude Atherton and Her Times
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991).
15. Barbara Green, Spectacular Confessions: Autobiography, Performative Activism, and the
Sites of Suffrage, 1905–1938 (New York: St. Martin’s, 1997).
16. Chapman, “‘Revolution in Ink,’” 978.
318 notes

part iii — making woman new

1. Carrie Chapman Catt and Nettie Shuler make this point most strongly in chapters nine
and ten of Woman Suffrage and Politics (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1923).
2. Quoted in Leslie Petty, Romancing the Vote: Feminist Activism in American Fiction,
1870–1920 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2006), 103; Harriot Stanton Blatch with
Alma Lutz, Challenging Years: The Memoirs of Harriot Stanton Blatch (New York: G. P.
Putnams, 1940), 92.
3. Anthony is quoted in Ida Husted Harper, ed., Life and Works of Susan B. Anthony, vol. 2
(1898; Indianapolis: Bowen-Merrill, 1983), 605.
4. For an analysis of the suffrage movement’s imagining of roles for women outside of the
family, see Ellen C. DuBois, “The Radicalism of the Woman Suffrage Movement,” in Woman
Suffrage & Women’s Rights (New York: New York University Press, 1998).
5. See Kay Sloan, “Sexual Warfare in the Silent Cinema: Comedies and Melodramas of
Women Suffragism,” American Quarterly 33, no. 4 (Autumn 1981): 412–436.
6. Many suffrage journals and texts cultivated an image of the modern suffragist as pretty
and even somewhat risqué in her daring engagement of the public’s interest and courting of
its favor. It is no accident that the newsies hired to distribute suffrage journals were attrac-
tive young women, their personal allure serving as the bridge between potential readers and
the journals’ propaganda.
7. For more on the agency that women exercise through the technology of typewriting,
see Victoria Olwell, “Typewriters and the Vote,” SIGNS 29 (Autumn 2003): 55–83; and
Friedrich Kittler, Gramophone, Film, Typewriter (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999).
8. Elizabeth Garver Jordan, ed., The Sturdy Oak (New York: Henry Holt and Company,
1917), 71.
9. Cultural critics have read the twentieth-century suffrage movement in relation to the
development of the various cultures of modernity (democratic, aesthetic, visual, advertising,
and commodity cultures), and the existence of a feminist literary culture in relation to
the emergence of literary modernism. Recent criticism has noticed a number of historical
and formal connections between British suffrage literature and modernism. See Caroline J.
Howlett, “Writing on the Body? Representation and Resistance in British Suffrage Accounts
of Forcible Feeding,” in Bodies of Writing: Bodies in Performance, ed. Thomas Foster, Carol
Siegel, and Ellen E. Berry (New York: New York University Press, 1996); Howlett, “Femininity
Slashed: Suffrage Militancy, Modernism and Gender,”in Modernist Sexualities, ed. Hugh
Stevens and Caroline Howlett (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), 72–91; Rita
Felski, The Gender of Modernity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995); Janet Lyon,
Manifestoes: Provocations of the Modern (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999); Jane
Eldridge Miller, Rebel Women: Feminism, Modernism and the Edwardian Novel (London:
Virago, 1994); Barbara Green, “Advertising Feminism: Ornamental Bodies/Docile Bodies
and the Discourse of Suffrage,” in Marketing Modernisms: Self-Promotion, Canonization,
Rereading, ed. Kevin J. H. Dettmar and Stephen Watt (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 1996), 191–220; Green, Spectacular Confessions: Autobiography, Performative Activism,
and the Sites of Suffrage (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997); and Maroula Joannou,
“Suffragette Fiction and the Fictions of Suffrage,” in The Women’s Suffrage Movement: New
Feminist Perspectives, ed. Maroula Joannou and June Purvis (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1998), 101–116.
10. In Changing Voices: The Modern Quoting Poem, Diepeveen identifies quotation, or the
incorporation of “alien texture,” as one of the most important developments in the poetry
that emerged beginning in 1914. Unlike allusion, an important feature of poetry from its
beginnings, verbatim quotation produces a disruption of a poem’s tone and diction.
Diepeveen reads the modernist use of quoted material as the verbal, poetic equivalent of the
more documented modernist visual art technique of incorporating fragments into a collage
notes 319

or assemblage. Indeed, Diepeveen notes, “appropriation of previously existing material may

well be the aesthetic of this century” (viii). Diepeveen observes this modernist poetic tech-
nique of quotation in the works of several modernist poets including T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound,
Marianne Moore, e. e. cummings, Louis Zukofsky, and William Carlos Williams. The pres-
ence of quotations disperses the speaker function of the lyric, making it hard to identify a
single speaker; in turn, quotations challenge the cultural authority of a solitary speaker’s
perspective.
11. The modern form of documentary theatre—foregrounding sociopolitical content—
was not pioneered by Bertolt Brecht and Erwin Piscator until the 1920s. See John Willett, The
Theatre of Erwin Piscator: Half a Century of Politics in the Theatre (London: Methuen, 1978).
12. Victoria Olwell, “The Typewriter and the Vote,” SIGNS 29, no. 1 (Autumn 2003): 56.
13. Mary Alden Hopkins, “Why I Earn My Own Living,” in These Modern Women:
Autobiographical Essays from the Twenties, ed. Elaine Showalter (New York: Feminist Press,
1978), 44.
14. Roger D. Haney, “Dorothy Dix,” in Women in Communication: A Biographical Source
Book, ed. Nancy Signorielli (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1996), 124–134.
15. Robert S. Crawford, ed., The Wisconsin Alumni Magazine 24, no. 9 (July 1923): 302–304.
16. Woodrow Wilson, The New Freedom: A Call for the Emancipation of the Generous
Energies of a People (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1961) 57.
17. Mary Chapman, “‘Are Women People?’: Alice Duer Miller’s Poetry and Politics,”
American Literary History 18, no. 1 (Spring 2006): 59–85.
18. Mary Chapman, “Miss M. M: ‘Bulldoggy’ on Suffrage” (forthcoming).
19. “Suffragists Use Valentines in the Campaign for the Ballot,” Worcester Post, 14 Feb.
1916. n.p.
20. Alice Sheppard, Cartooning for Suffrage (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico
Press, 1994).

part iv — carrying the suffrage torch

1. Akhil Reed Amar, “How Women Won the Vote,” The Wilson Quarterly 29, no. 3
(2005): 30–34. Estimates of the number of women enfranchised varies. Amar puts the
number at ten million; other scholars, like Eleanor Clift (Founding Sisters and the 19th
Amendment [Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2003]), quote twenty-six million; contempora-
neous newspaper sources, like the New York Times, quote numbers between eight and ten
million.
2. Ida Husted Harper, “Foreward,” in Oreola Williams Haskell, Banner Bearers (Geneva:
W. F. Humphrey, 1920).
3. “Mrs. Irwin Tells the Story of the Woman’s Party” New York Times. 3 April 1921, 43.
4. For an examination of the many shifts in how the history of woman suffrage was writ-
ten both in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, see chapter six of Des Jardins’s Women
and the Historical Enterprise: Gender, Race, and the Politics of Memory, 1880–1945 (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003).
5. See Nancy Cott’s Grounding of Modern Feminism (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1989) and “Feminist Politics in the 1920s: The National Woman’s Party” Journal of American
History 76, no. 1 (June 1984): 43–68, for fuller explorations of the conflict between the League
of Woman Voters and the NWP in the 1920s.
6. Gertrude Stein, The Mother of Us All, Interlude, in Last Operas and Plays, ed. Carl Van
Vechten (1949; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977), 168.
7. Writing for the New York Times, William L. Chenery asserted of the 1920 presidential
election, “it has been plain that while women achieved nothing revolutionary, their strength
in a slightly greater degree than that of men was thrown to the support of ‘reform’ candi-
dates” (“One in Three Women Vote,” New York Times, 19 Dec. 1920, x12).
320 notes

8. In Act II, Scene VII of The Mother of Us All, Susan B. sings: “having the vote they will
become like men, they will be afraid, having the vote will make them afraid, oh I know it, but
I will fight for the right, for the right to vote for them even though they become like men,
become afraid like men, become like men.”
9. Des Jardins, Women and the Historical Enterprise, 179.
10. For fuller discussions of the debate created by the monument in 1920 and again in
1997, see Courtney Workman, “The Woman Movement: Memorial to Women’s Rights
Leaders and the Perceived Images of the Women’s Movement,” in Myth, Memory, and the
Making of the American Landscape, ed. Paul A. Shacke (Gainesville: University Press of
Florida, 2001), 47–66; and Michael G. Kammer, Visual Shock: A History of Art Controversies
in American Culture (New York: Vintage, 2007).
 SELECTED BIBLIO GRAPHY
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Braley, Berton. Sonnets of a Suffragette. Chicago: Brown and Howell Company, 1913.
Brown, Leando. Mrs. Raford, Humanist. New York: L. E. Landone, 1912.
Cary, Alice. “The Born Thrall.” In The Revolution. Serialized and incomplete, beginning
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Cooper, Anna Julia. A Voice from the South. 1892. Reprint, New York: Oxford University
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Curtis, Emma Ghent. The Administratrix. New York: John B. Alden, 1889.
Day, Dorothy. The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of Dorothy Day. New York: Harper &
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Douglass, Frederick. Frederick Douglass on Women’s Rights. Edited by Philip S. Foner.
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Du Bois, W. E. B. “The Riddle of the Sphinx.” In Darkwater: Voices from the Veil. New York:
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Duniway, Abigail Scott. Edna and John. 1876. Reprint, Pullman: Washington State University
Press, 2000.
———. Captain Gray’s Company, or, Crossing the plains and living in Oregon. Portland: S. J.
McCormick, 1859. Wright American Fiction Database http://purl.dlib. indiana.edu/iudl/
wright2/wright2-0804
Fairbank, Janet Ayer. Rich Man, Poor Man. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1936.
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Poets of the Nineteenth Century. Edited by Janet Gray. Iowa: University of Iowa Press, 1997.
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Forman, Justus Miles. The Opening Door: A Story of the Woman’s Movement. New York:
Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1913.
Forrest, Marie Moore. “A Pageant: The Victory Goal.” The Suffragist. October 1920.
248–49.
Friedl, Bettina, ed. On to Victory: Propaganda Plays of the Woman Suffrage Movement.
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Fuller, Margaret. “Woman in the Nineteenth Century.” In The Essential Margaret Fuller.
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322 biblio g raphy

Gale, Zona. “Friday.” Century Magazine 88, no. 4 (August 1914): 521–24.
———. Mothers to Men. New York: Macmillan, 1911.
———. Peace in Friendship Village. New York: Macmillan, 1919.
Garland, Hamlin. A Spoil of Office. Boston: Arena, 1892.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. In This Our World. 1899. Reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1974.
———. “Something to Vote For.” The Forerunner. June 1911. 143–53.
———. “Three Women.” The Forerunner. May 1911. 115–23, 134.
———. “Two Storks.” The Forerunner. February 1910. 12–13.
Glasgow, Ellen. “The Call.” In Suffrage in the Southern States. Edited by Ida Clyde Clarke.
Nashville: Williams Printing, 1914.
Harbert, Elizabeth Boynton. Out of Her Sphere. Des Moines: Mills & Co., 1871.
Harper, Frances E.W. “The Deliverance.” In Sketches of Southern Life. Philadelphia: Ferguson
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———. Sowing and Reaping. Excerpted in Water Drops from Women Writers: A Temperance
Reader. Edited by Carol Mattingly. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2001.
Herrick, Robert. One Woman’s Life. New York: Macmillan, 1913.
Holley, Marietta. Samantha Rastles with the Woman Question. 1886. Reprint, New York:
Fleming H. Revell, 1913.
Hooker, Isabella Beecher. “Letters on Woman Suffrage.” Putnam’s Magazine 1868. 701–ff.
Hopkins, Mary Alden. Woman’s Place. New York: National Woman Suffrage, 1910. 1.
Kirkland, Caroline. Forest Life. New York: C. S. Francis & Co. 1842.
Lee, Mary E. Ashe. “Afmerica.” In Nineteenth-Century American Women Poets. Edited by
Paula Bernat Bennett. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998. 466–471.
Lewis, Emily Sargent. Election Day: A Suffrage Play. 1912. Alexandria, Va.: Alexander Street
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Miller, Alice Duer. Are Women People? A Book of Rhymes for Suffrage Times. New York:
George H. Doran and Co., 1915.
Park, Maud Wood. Front Door Lobby. Boston: Beacon Press, 1960.
Petition of the Women of Harrisville, Ohio, for Abolition of Slavery in the District of
Columbia and Immediate Enfranchisement, June 13, 1834. HR23A-HRG4.3, Record Group
233, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
Price, Hannah J. The Closed Door. Tennessee: Knoxville Lithographing, 1913.
Reimensnyder, Helen Martin. “Mrs. Gladfelter’s Revolt [1923].” In Between Mothers and
Daughters: Stories Across a Generation. Edited by Susan Koppelman. New York: Feminist
Press, 1985, 129–140.
Sedgwick, Catharine Maria. Means and Ends: or, Self-Training. Boston: Marsh, Capen, Lyon,
and Webb, 1840.
Sminck, Kathryn. “American Clothes.” Plainfield Daily Press, 2 May 1914, 8.
Solomon, Selina. The Girl From Colorado or The Conversion of Aunty Suffridge. San
Francisco: Votes-For-Women Publishing, 1911.
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. “Solitude of Self.” Congressional Judiciary Committee. Washington,
D.C., 18 January 1892. Ashfield, Mass.: Paris Press, 2001.
Stevens, Isaac N. An American Suffragette. New York: William Rickey, 1911.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher [Christopher Crowfield]. “The Woman Question: or, What Will You
Do With Her?” In “The Chimney Corner.” Atlantic Monthly. November and December
1865, 567–575, 672–683.
The Suffragist. 1917–1920. Poems by various authors printed throughout issues.
Taylor, Bayard. Hannah Thurston: A Story of American Life. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons,
1883.
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Woolson, Constance Fenimore. “King David.” In Rodman the Keeper: Southern Sketches.
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Wheeler, L. May. Booklet of Song: A Collection of Suffrage and Temperance Melodies.
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Whitlock, Brand. Her Infinite Variety. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1904.
Winslow, Helen M. A Woman for Mayor. Chicago: The Reilly & Briton Co., 1909.
 INDEX
abduction: Christine, 31–32; Fettered for
Life, 90
abolition, xi; and blood-thirsty spirit of
women of South, 45; Frederick Douglass,
43; Uncle Tom’s Cabin and, 13.
See also antislavery movement
abortion: Votes for Women, 120
Actresses’ Franchise League, 120
advocacy journals, 3, 26, 54–56, 116, 135, 138,
171–172, 193, 200, 225
African Americans: “Aunt Chloe’s Politics,”
47–48; “Brother Baptis’,” 206; compared to
white woman without vote, 10;
disenfranchisement of, 312n. 4; Fifteenth
Amendment enfranchises men, 43;
Frances E.W. Harper, 47–50; Frederick
Douglass, xii, 14, 15, 20–23, 43–46; “John
and Jacob—A Dialogue,” 48–50; humanity
portrayed in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 13; Mary
Ann Shadd Carey, xii; “Mirandy on ‘Why
Women Can’t Vote,’” 207–210;
participation in suffrage movement, 21,
311n. 2; Rosalie Jonas, 206; Sojourner
Truth, 24; Voting Rights Act and, xiv;
white suffragists’ ambivalent relationship
with, 116; “Woman and the Ballot,” 43;
women preaching, recognition of, 11.
Alcott, Louisa May, 2, 12, 62–73
Allender, Nina E., 241, 270, 271, 272
Alves, Susan, 313n. 10
Amar, Akhil Reed, 290, 319n. 1
American Equal Rights Association, 43
American Suffragette, The, 171
American Woman Suffrage Association
(AWSA), 47, 170; establishment of, xii;
moderate agenda of, 14
Anderson, Bonnie, 316n. 2
“Another Chapter of ‘The Bostonians’”
(James/Whitehead), 100–107
Antislavery Literature Project,
314n. 17
antislavery movement: women’s
involvement in, 1, 18, 24–25. See also
abolition
Anthony, Jessie, 135
Anthony, Susan B., 171, 293, 294, 315nn. 1, 7,
320n. 8; The History of Woman Suffrage,
1, 292; The Mother of Us All, 306–309
antisuffragism: “The Anti-Suffragists,”
179–180; “The Arrest of Suffrage,”
200–205; compared to Chinese
foot-binding, 116–117; Hagar, 216–219;
emergence of organized movement, 170;
intertextual dialogism and, 16–17; “John
and Jacob—A Dialogue,” 48–50; in
literary works, 16; “Our Own Twelve
Anti-Suffragist Reasons,” 236; “Taffy,” 192;
“Trotty’s Lecture Bureau,” 75–76;
“Women Do Not Want It,” 178–179;
“Women March,” 193–194
antisuffragists: self-contradiction of,
174, 192
“Anti-Suffragists, The” (Gilman), 179–180
Ardis, Ann, 314n. 18
“Arrest of Suffrage, The” (Whitehead),
200–205
arrests: British women, 144; in “The Arrest
of Suffrage,” 200–205; in For Rent—One
Pedestal, 265–266; of women picketing
White House, 275–279
Atherton, Gertrude, 3, 116, 138–147
“Aunt Chloe’s Politics” (Harper), 47–48
“Australian Ballot system, The” (Ervin),
182–185
325
326
authorship: as approved womanly role, 12;
collaborative, 175; composite, 172–173
autobiographies, 2, 116; “Diary of a Newsy,”
135–137; “How It Feels to Be Forcibly Fed,”
148–151; “How It Feels to Be the Husband
of a Suffragette,” 231–234; Jailed for
Freedom, 294–297; “Prison Notes,
Smuggled to Friends,” 282–283; “The
Suffrage Torch: Memories of a Militant,”
300–305; The Woman With Empty Hands,
225–230
Azize-Vargas, Yamila, 312n. 3
Bailey, Edith, 186–189
Banner Bearers, 284–289
banners: “Catching Up with China,”
165–166; “President Wilson’s War
Message,” 274
Bardes, Barbara, 314n. 15
Barnes, Djuna, 148–151
Baumfree, Isabella. See Truth, Sojourner
Beecher, Catherine, 51
Beecher, Henry Ward, xii
Beer, Janet, 312n. 7
Belmont, Alva, 115
Bennett, James Gordon, 315n. 10
Bennion, Sherilyn Cox, 313n. 10
Berry, Ellen E., 314n. 18
Bishop, Anna, 18–19
Blackwell, Henry, xii, 14
Blair, Karen J., 313n. 8
Blake, Lillie Devereux, 12; Fettered for Life,
86–95; “A Divided Republic,” 95–99,
314n. 16
Blatch, Harriot Stanton, 115, 171, 297,
300–305, 318n. 2
Boissevain, Inez Milholland, see
Milholland, Inez
Boyd, Melba Joyce, 316n. 25
Boydston, Jeanne, 314n. 15, 316n. 26
Brekus, Catherine A., 315n. 6
Brent, Margaret, 10
British woman suffrage movement, 115–116;
arresting protesters, 144; civil
disobedience, 116; connections with U.S.
movement, 115–116; “The Diary of a
Newsy,” 135–137; forcible feeding, 143,
148–151; fundraising, 145; hunger strikes,
116, 143; Julia France and Her Times,
138–147; justice over chivalry, 124, 129;
“The March of the Women” (anthem),
133–134; militant tactics, 142, 143; plays as
propaganda, 116; prison, prepared for, 123;
sentimentality, elimination of, 141;
socialist members, 141–142; violence, 123;
Votes for Women, 120–132; WSPU anthem,
133–134
index
“Brother Baptis’ on Woman Suffrage”
(Jonas), 206
Brown, Arthur, 231
Brown, Gertrude Foster, 231
Buchanan, Lindal, 313n. 7, 315n. 11
Buechler, Steven, 312n. 5
Bullard, Laura J. Curtis, 13, 26–40,
314n. 16
Burns, Lucy, 115, 116
Callahan, Sophia Alice, 108, 109–111
Campbell, James, 312n. 3
Campbell, Karlyn Kohrs, 11, 313n. 7, 315n. 5
Cane, Aleta, 313n. 10
Carey, Mary Ann Shadd, xii
Carter, Marion Hamilton, 225–230
cartoons: “Come to Mother,” 272; “Heathen
Chinee,” 167; in Fanny Herself, 250–253;
“President Wilson Says ‘Godspeed to the
Cause,’” 271
“Catching Up with China” (banner),
165–166
Catt, Carrie Chapman, xiii, 114, 115, 171, 291,
315n. 8
Chapin, Judge Henry, 315n. 2
Chapman, Mary, 311n. 2, 313n. 8, 314n. 15,
319nn. 17, 18
Chenery, William L., 319n. 7
Child, Lydia Maria, 315n. 13, 317n. 5
children’s stories: “Cupid and Chow-
Chow,” 62–73; “Trotty’s Lecture Bureau,”
74–76. See also stories
Chinese Exclusion Act, xiv
Chinese immigrants: disenfranchisement
of, 312n. 4. See also immigrant women,
Chinese
Chinese woman suffrage movement,
116–118; footbound Chinese women as
symbol for U.S. suffragists, 117;
interactions with American movement,
153–167; reforms achieved, 117
Chinese-American suffragists, 117, 311n. 2.
See also immigrant women, Chinese
Chothia, Jean, 132
Christensen-Nelson, Carolyn, 315n. 18
Christine, Or,Woman’s Trials and Triumphs
(Curtis/Bullard), 26–40
civil disobedience, 116
Clark, Anne Biller, 313n. 10
Collier’s, 172
Collier-Thomas, Bettye, 311n. 2
Colored Women’s Progressive Franchise
Association: founding of, xii
“Come to Mother” (Allender), 270, 272
Common Cause (British), 116
Congressional Union, 116, 207. See also
National Woman’s Party
index
“Consistent Anti to Her Son, A” (Miller),
237–238
constitutional amendment as means of
enfranchising women (Anthony), 115.
See also U.S. Constitution
contraception, 110
contracts, right to make, 170
conversion narratives: For Rent—One
Pedestal, 263–269; “How It Feels to Be the
Husband of a Suffragette,” 231–234; The
Woman with Empty Hands: The Evolution
of a Suffragette, 225–230
Cott, Nancy, 319n. 5
Crawford, Robert S., 319n. 15
Crew, Danny O., 313n. 8
Crisis, The, 3, 206
cross-dressing: “The Australian Ballot
System,” 173, 182–185; Fettered for Life,
93–95
Cullen-Dupont, Kathryn, 312n. 7
“Cupid and Chow-Chow” (Alcott), 62–73
Curtis, Laura J. See Bullard, Laura J. Curtis
custody of children, 21, 170
Daley, Caroline, 317n. 2
Darwin, Charles, 211, 213, 214, 215
Dawson, Mrs. Allan (Nell Perkins), 220–224
“Declaration of Independence” as model
for “Declaration of Sentiments,” 20
“Declaration of Sentiments” (Stanton
et al.), 13, 20–23; men’s injuries against
women, 22–23
Delap, Lucy, 314n. 18, 315n. 18, 317n. 2
democracy: women’s enfranchisement as
chapter in history of, 292–293
Des Jardins, Julie, 292, 311n. 1
Descent of Man, The (Darwin), 213, 214
Dettmar, Kevin J.H., 318n. 9
dialogues: “John and Jacob—A Dialogue
on Woman’s Rights,” 48–50; “The
Socialist and the Suffragist,” 180–181
diaries: “The Diary of a Newsy,” 135–137;
“Prison Notes, Smuggled to Friends from
the District Jail,” 282–283
“Diary of a Newsy, The” (Anthony), 135–137
DiCenzo, Maria, 315n. 18
Diepeveen, Leonard, 318–319n. 10
discourse of interruption (Marcus), 120
“Disfranchisement” (parody), 190, 191
“Divided Republic, A: An Allegory of the
Future” (Blake), 95–99
divorce, 86, 170; favoring men’s rights over
women’s, 21
Dix, Dorothy, 207–210
documentary theatre, 319n. 11; “Telling the
Truth at the White House,” 275–279; Votes
for Women, 120–132
327
domestic sphere: as focus of nineteenth-
century women’s literature, 12, 13, 173;
Portia Politics, 186
Doress-Worters, Paula, 313n. 7
Douglass, Frederick, xii, 14, 15; “Declaration
of Sentiments,” 20–23; “Woman and the
Ballot,” 43–46; American Equal Rights
Association, 43
drama. See plays
dress, rhetoric of, 12
drunkenness, 2–3, 87–89, 109–110, 203,
208–209
DuBois, Ellen Carol, 311n. 2, 312nn. 3, 5, 318n. 4
Du Bois, W.E.B., 3
Eaton, Edith Maude. See Sui Sin Far
Edelman, Susan Scheiber, 312n. 5
education: of women, 94, 110, 157, 174, 186
Edwards, Louise, 317n. 7
Edwards, Thomas, 312n. 5
employment: expanded opportunities, 170;
monopolized by men, 21
Equal Rights Amendment, 291
Equality League of Self-Supporting Women,
115. See also Women’s Political Union
Ervin, Mabel Clare, 182–185
exodus of women: “A Divided Republic,”
96–99
Fanny Herself (Ferber), 243–253
Farrell, Grace, 316n. 29
Felski, Rita, 318n. 9
feminism, transnational, 114–168
Ferber, Edna, 3, 243–253
Fern, Fanny, 12, 41–42
Fettered for Life, Or, Lord and Master
(Blake), 86–95
Fifteenth Amendment, 14; Frederick
Douglass’ support of, 43; passing of, xii;
white suffragists antagonized by, 47, 311n. 3
Finnegan, Margaret, 313n. 10
Foner, Philip, 316n. 24
For Rent—One Pedestal (Shuler), 172, 263–269
forcible feeding: British woman suffrage
movement, 143; “How It Feels to Be
Forcibly Fed,” 145–181; “Prison Notes
Smuggled to Friends from the District
Jail,” 282–283
Foster, Thomas, 314n. 18
Fourteenth Amendment: ratification of, xii
Fox, Vivian C., 312n. 7
Freewoman, The (Britain), 116
Friedl, Bettina, 314n. 15
Front Door Lobby, 291
Gage, Frances, 24
Gale, Zona, 3
328
Gardener, Helen Hamilton, 314n. 13
Garland, Hamlin, 3
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, 177–181
Gilmer, Elizabeth Meriwether. See Dix,
Dorothy
Ginzberg, Lori, 311n. 1, 316n. 19
Glasgow, Ellen, 211
Good Housekeeping, 172
Gordon, Ann D., 311n. 2, 312n. 3
Gossett, Susan, 314n. 15
Green, Barbara, 314n. 18
Green, Elna, 312n. 5
Greenwood, Patricia Harrison, 317n. 2
Grimké, Angelina, 11, 12
Gullett, Gayle, 312n. 5, 317n. 11
Haarsager, Sandra, 312n. 5
Hagar (Johnston), 211–219
Hamilton, Cicely, 116, 133
Haney, Roger D., 319n. 14
Harper, Frances E.W., xiii, 3, 15, 47–50
Harper, Ida Husted, 315n. 1, 318n. 3, 319n. 2
Harper’s Weekly, 3
Haskell, Oreola Williams, 284–288, 290
Havemeyer, Louisine W., 290, 291–292,
300–305
“Heathen Chinee” (cartoon), 167
Hewitt, Nancy, 311n. 1
histories of the suffrage movement, 1–2,
290–291; completing America’s
democratic narrative, 292–293;
controlling the narrative of, 291;
The History of Woman Suffrage, 1, 290;
Jailed for Freedom, 291, 292; shaping the
story, 291; The Story of the Woman’s Party,
291; “The Suffrage Torch: Memories of a
Militant,” 300–305
Hofstadter, Richard, 315n. 4
Holley, Marietta, 15, 77–85
Hooker, Isabella Beecher, 51
Hopkins, Mary Alden: “Women March,”
193–199, 319n. 13
“How It Feels to Be Forcibly Fed” (Barnes),
148–151
“How It Feels to Be the Husband of a
Suffragette”(Anonymous) 231–234
“How I Went to ’lection” (Holley), 77–85
How the Vote Was Won (British play), 116
Howe, Marie Jenney, 275–279
Howlett, Caroline J., 314n. 18, 318n. 9
hunger strikes: British woman suffrage
movement: 116, 143; “How It Feels to Be
Forcibly Fed,” 148–151; “Prison Notes
Smuggled to Friends from the District
Jail,” 282–283
husbands: sympathetic to suffragist wives,
48–50, 143–144, 231–234. See also men
index
hypocrisy: “How I Went to ’lection,” 77–85;
“The Inferior Woman,” 153–162; “Our Own
Twelve Anti-Suffragist Reasons,” 236; “Taffy,”
192; “Women Do Not Want It,” 178–179
immigrant women: Chinese, 117, 163–164,
311n. 2, 312n. 4; Fanny Herself, 243–253;
“The Arrest of Suffrage,” 201–205
“In All Earnestness, I Speak to All My
Sisters,” 164
“Independence” (Fern/Parton), 41–42
Indian Citizenship Act, xiv, 312n. 4
Indians, American. See Native Americans
infanticide: British women, among, 130, 144
“Inferior Woman, The” (Sui Sin Far/
Eaton), 153–162
International Woman Suffrage Alliance, 114
Irish women, 200–205
Irwin, Inez Haynes, 291
Jailed for Freedom (Stevens), 291–292,
294–297
Jakobi, Paula, 275–279
James, Henrietta. See Whitehead, Celia B.
James, Henry, 100
Jewish women, 311n. 2; Fanny Herself,
243–253
Joannou, Maroula, 314n. 18, 318n. 9
“John and Jacob—A Dialogue on Woman’s
Rights” (Harper), 48–50
Johnson, Adelaide, 293, 309
Johnson, Nan, 313n. 7, 315n. 11
Johnston, Mary, 211–219, 314n. 16
Jonas, Rosalie, 3, 206
Jordan, Elizabeth, 254, 314n. 16
Joslin, Katherine, 312n. 7
journalism, 2; “How It Feels to Be Forcibly
Fed,” 148–151; “How It Feels to Be the
Husband of a Suffragette,” 231–234;
“Independence,” 41–42; “Shall Women
Vote?” 42; “Woman and the Ballot,”
43–46; “Women March,” 193–199
Julia France and Her Times (Atherton),
138–147
Kammer, Michael G., 320n.10
Kearns, Karen, 312n. 5
Kelley, Mary, 316nn. 14, 26
Kessler, Carol Farley, 316n. 28
Knight, Anne, 115
Kohn, Denise M., 316n. 22
Kraditor, Eileen S., 313n. 7, 315n. 9
Kramarae, Cheris, 313n. 10
Kulba, Tracy, 317n. 2
Laffrado, Laura, 316n. 23
Laidlaw, Harriet Burton, 317n. 6
index
Lamont, Victoria, 317n. 2
Langley, Winston, 312n. 7
Lawrence, Emmeline Pethick, 135, 142, 143
laws: change needed to support women,
59; women excluded from making,
21, 59. See also legal treatment of
women
League of Women Voters, 291
lectures: by British suffragists, 115; by
visiting Chinese revolutionaries, 117.
See also oratory; preaching; public
speaking: rhetoric
Lee, Mabel, 165
Leeman, Richard, 313n. 7
legal treatment of women: British courts,
128–129; White House pickets, 275–279
Leider, Emily Wortis, 317n. 14
Lerner, Elinor, 311n. 2
letters to the editor: “A Plea for Suffrage,”
239–240
Life Magazine, 3
Lincoln, Abraham, 13, 14, 293, 316n. 17
Linkugel, Wil A., 313n. 7
literature: domestic focus of women’s
writing, 12; intertextual dialogism, 16–17;
overt political agenda of, 5; persuasive
power of, 3–4; as propaganda, 172–176;
reform and, 4; rhetoric, as type of, 2–3, 5;
and sisterhood between U.S. and British
movements, 116; women’s genres, 12.
See also suffrage literature
lobbying. See petitions
Logan, Shirley Wilson, 313n. 7
Lucifer the Light Bearer, 100
Lutz, Alma, 318n. 2
Lyon, Janet, 314n. 18, 315n. 21, 318n. 9
Mabee, Carleton, 316n. 21
MacAuslan, Janna, 313n. 8
McBride, Genevieve, 312n. 5
McFadden, Margaret H., 316n. 2
Madsen, Carol Cornwall, 312n. 5
manifestoes: as nonliterary suffrage
writing, 13; “Declaration of Sentiments,”
20–23
“March of the Women, The” (British
WSPU anthem), 133–134
Marcus, Jane, 120, 317n. 12
Margolis, Anne, 316n. 26
marriage: “Another Chapter of ‘The
Bostonians,’ ” 100–107 ; “Cupid and
Chow-Chow,” 62–73; “Declaration of
Sentiments,” 20–23; dissatisfaction with,
102; “A Divided Republic,” 95–99;
“How It Feels to Be the Husband of a
Suffragette,” 231–234; “How I Went to
’lection,” 77–85; “John and Jacob—A
329
Dialogue on Women’s Rights,” 48–50;
“Mirandy on ‘Why Women Can’t Vote,’ ”
207–210; My Wife and I, 51–61; “The
Parade: A Suffrage Playlet in One Act and
an After-Act,” 220–224; Portia Politics,
187–188; “superfluous women,” 229; The
Woman With Empty Hands, 225–230
Married Women’s Property Law (N.Y.), xi
Masses, The, 3
Matteson, John, 316n. 27
Mattingly, Carol, 314n. 17, 315n. 11
Mead, Rebecca J., 312n. 5
men: “Brother Baptis’,” 206; buying up
of votes, 47, 48, 81–83; “A Divided
Republic,” 95–99; drunkenness among,
110; Fettered for Life, 86–95; Hagar,
211–219; “How It Feels to Be the Husband
of a Suffragette,” 231–234; “John and
Jacob—A Dialogue on Women’s Rights,”
48–50; My Wife and I, 51–61; “The Parade:
A Suffrage Playlet in One Act
and an After-Act,” 220–224; Portia Politics,
187–188; ruling by excluding women,
44–45; Votes for Women (play), 120–132;
“Woman and the Ballot,” 43–46; The
Woman with Empty Hands, 225–230;
women’s grievances against, 20, 21.
See also husbands; hypocrisy
middle class: dominant in suffrage
movement, 114; in nineteenth
century, 10–11; vs. working class, 200–205
Milholland, Inez, 115, 291, 293, 294, 295,
298, 299
Militancy: “A Divided Republic,” 95–99;
“The Arrest of Suffrage,” 200–205; British
woman suffrage movement, 142; “How It
Feels to Be Forcibly Fed,” 148–151;
“Mirandy on ‘Why Women Can’t Vote,’”
207–210; Jailed for Freedom, 291–292,
294–295; “Prison Notes, Smuggled to
Friends,” 282–283; The Sturdy Oak,
254–262; twentieth-century literary
characters, 173; U.S. woman suffrage
movement, 171; Votes for Women, 120–132;
“We Worried Woody Wood,” 280–281.
See also forcible feeding; hunger strikes
Millay, Edna St. Vincent, 3, 291, 298–299
Miller, Alice Duer, 5, 235–238
Miller, Jane, 314n. 18
Mills, Angela, 314n. 15
“Mirandy on ‘Why Women Can’t Vote’”
(Dix/Gilmer), 207–210
Mitchell, Donald Grant, 62
modernism: “A Plea for Suffrage,” 239–240;
high, suffrage literature anticipating,
175–176, 318n. 9; “How It Feels to Be
Forcibly Fed,” 148–151;
330
modernism (continued)
mass print culture and, 172; “new
woman” suffrage characters, 173–174;
publicity stunts, 171–172; public replacing
private sphere, 174–175
Moore, Marianne, 3, 172, 239–240
moral nature of women: “Declaration of
Sentiments,” 23; and fitness to govern,
57–58; naiveté, 58; pacifism of, 15, 125;
politics too dirty for, 58; “Woman and
the Ballot,” 43–46; Wynema: A Child of
the Forest, 110
Mother of Us All, The (Stein), 292, 306–309
Mott, Lucretia, 11, 115, 293
My Wife and I; Or, Harry Henderson’s
History (Stowe), 51–61
Nation, Carrie, 207
National American Woman Suffrage
Association (NAWSA): formation of, xiii,
170; parade, organizing, 115–116. See also
Catt, Carrie Chapman
National Association of Colored Women,
47; founding of, xiii
National Council of Women, 47
National Woman Suffrage Association
(NWSA), 26; founding of, xii; merging
with the American Woman Suffrage
Association, 170; more radical agenda, 14
National Woman Suffrage Publishing
Company, 3, 172
National Woman’s Party (NWP), 133, 171,
292; formation of, xiii; pickets White
house, xiv, 273, 275–279; “We Worried
Woody Wood,” 280–281
National Woman’s Rights convention:
first annual, xi
Native Americans: citizenship, granting to,
xiv, 312n. 4; drunkenness among men,
109–110; enfranchisement of, 312n. 4;
Wynema: A Child of the Forest, 108–111.
See also Indian Citizenship Act
natural rights argument for suffrage, 15;
“Declaration of Sentiments” (1848), 20–21,
23; Petitions for Woman’s Rights (1846),
18–19; “Woman and the Ballot,” 2, 43–46
New Critical paradigm, 5
Newhouse, Susan Mabee, 316n. 21
Newman, Louise Michele, 311–312n. 3
New Woman, 120, 170–176; “The Inferior
Woman,” 153–162; “Making Women
New!” 170–176; Mary Alden Hopkins, 193;
vs. Southern Lady, 211–219
New Woman’s World (China), 117
New York Suffrage Party, 165–166, 172
New York Woman Suffrage Party: Mother
Goose parodies, 190, 191, 192
index
New Zealand, 114; woman’s suffrage, first
nation to grant, xiii
newspapers: suffrage editions, 172; The
Suffragist, 3, 172; technological advances,
172; Votes for Women, 172; Woman Voter, 3,
172. See also advocacy journals;
journalism
Nineteenth Amendment, xiv; ratification
of, 1, 290
Nolan, Melanie, 317n. 2
Norquay, Glenda, 314n.18
novels, 2; Christine, Or, Woman’s Trials
and Triumphs, 26–40; collaborative
authorship, 172–173, 175; Fanny Herself,
243–253; Fettered for Life, Or, Lord and
Master, 95–99; For Rent—One Pedestal,
263–269; Hagar, 211–219; Julia France and
Her Times, 138–147; My Wife and I; Or,
Harry Henderson’s History, 51–61;
The Sturdy Oak, 254–262; Wynema:
A Child of the Forest, 108–111
O’Connor, Lillian, 313n. 7
O’Hagan, Anne, 254–262
Olwell, Victoria, 318n. 7
open-air meetings, 115, 116; Votes for
Women, 120–132
opera: The Mother of Us All, 306–309
“Oppression of Women, The,” 163
oratory, 11; “Arrest of Suffrage,” 204–205;
Christine, Or, Woman’s Trials and
Triumphs, 26–40; “Cupid and
Chow-Chow,” 62–73; “Declaration of
Sentiments,” 20–23; feminine style
developed, 12; Julia France and Her Times,
138–147; as nonliterary form of suffrage
rhetoric, 13, 16; political rights and, 11;
Portia Politics, 188–189; “Speech at Akron,
Ohio, Woman’s Rights Convention,”
24–25; The Sturdy Oak, 259–262; suffrage,
examples of, 313n. 7; “Suffrage Torch,”
300–305; “Trotty’s Lecture Bureau,” 74–76;
women excluded from, 11. See also
lectures; preaching; public speaking;
rhetoric; speeches
Ormsby, Amy, 18–19
Ormsby, Susan, 18–19
Osborn, Lydia, 18–19
“Our Own Twelve Anti-Suffragist Reasons”
(Miller), 235, 236
pacifism: “A Divided Republic,” 95; British
women, 125; women’s, as part of
expedience argument, 15. See also moral
nature of women
Painter, Nell Irvin, 316n. 21
Pankhurst, Emmeline, 115
index
Pankhurst, Sylvia, 115; on American
suffragism, 114
Papachristou, Judith, 313n. 7
“Parade, The: A Suffrage Playlet in One Act
and an After-Act” (Dawson), 220–224
parades, 2, 116; Fanny Herself, 243–253;
Fifth Avenue, 171; “The Parade: A
Suffrage Playlet in One Act and an
After-Act,” 220–224; The Sturdy Oak,
259–262; “Women March,” 193–199
Park, Maud Wood, 291
Park, Sowon S., 314n. 18
parodies: “Another Chapter of ‘The
Bostonians,’” 100–107; “Declaration of
Sentiments,” 20–23; “Disfranchisement,”
191; Mother Goose rhymes, of, 191, 192;
“Taffy,” 192; “Trotty’s Lecture Bureau,”
74–76
Parton, Sara Willis. See Fern, Fanny
Paul, Alice, xiii, 115–116, 171, 291; forcible
feeding, 282–283
periodicals. See advocacy journals;
journalism
persuasion: creative literature as ideal form,
12–13; failure of suffrage oratory, 12;
literature, powers of, 3–4; rhetorical forms
used for, 2–3; Uncle Tom’s Cabin and, 13
Peterson, Carla, 311n. 2, 313n. 7
Pethick Lawrence, Emmeline, 135, 142, 143
“Petition for Woman’s Rights” (Vincent
et al.), 18–19
petitions: for abolition of slavery, xi; as
lobbying tool, 18; as nonliterary suffrage
writing, 13; New York (1846), 13; “Petition
for Woman’s Rights” (1846), 18–19
Petty, Leslie, 313n. 11, 314n. 15
Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart (Mary Gray
Phelps), 74–75
picketing: White House, by National
Woman’s Party, xiii, 270, 273
plays, 2; as propaganda, 116; “The Arrest of
Suffrage,” 200–205; documentary theatre,
319n. 11; “Telling the Truth at the White
House,” 275–279; “The Parade: A Suffrage
Playlet in One Act and an After-Act,”
220–224; Votes for Women, 120–132
“Plea for Suffrage, A” (Moore), 239–240
poetry, 2; “The Anti-Suffragists,” 179–180;
“Aunt Chloe’s Politics,” 47–48; “Brother
Baptis’,” 206; Chinese, 117–118, 163–164;
“A Consistent Anti to Her Son,” 237–238;
“In All Earnestness, I Speak to All My
Sisters,” 164; “John and Jacob–A Dialogue
on Woman’s Rights,” 48–50; lyric, 174;
“The March of the Women,” 133–134;
The Mother of Us All, 306–309; “The
Oppression of Women,” 163; “Our Own
331
Twelve Anti-Suffragist Reasons,” 236;
Portia Politics, 186–189; quotation (alien
texture), 318–319n. 10; “Representation,”
236; “The Revolt of Mother,” 237; “The
Socialist and the Suffragist,” 180–181;
“Upon this marble bust that is not I,”
298–299; “We Worried Woody Wood,”
280–281; “Women Do Not Want It,”
178–179
political oratory. See oratory
politics: and the home, 239–240; too dirty
for women, 58
Portia Politics (Bailey), 186–189
“Portrait Monument, The” (Johnson), 308;
treatment of, 293
Pound, Ezra, 173
poverty: British suffrage aim to eliminate,
141; British women, 129–131,136, 140–141;
Portia Politics, 187
power, political: right to vote and, 5, 21;
women’s indirect exercise of, 45–46
preaching: limited recognition of women’s
right to, 11
“President’s Valentine, The” (Allender), 241,
242
“President Wilson Says ‘Godspeed to the
Cause’” (Allender), 270, 271
“President Wilson’s War Message”
(banner), 273, 274
print culture: new technology enabling
modern campaign practices, 172;
propaganda, 4–5; and sisterhood between
U.S. and British movements, 116
print technologies, 172. See also technology
“Prison Notes Smuggled to Friends from
the District Jail” (Winslow/Wenclawska),
282–283
private note, 174; “Prison Notes, Smuggled
to Friends,” 282–283
Progressive Woman Suffrage Union, 171
propaganda: drama as, 116; flirtation and,
175; literary and print cultural, 4–5;
literature and, 5; private texts, using as,
174; sex appeal and, 175; suffrage
organizations’ use of, 171–172. See also
persuasion; rhetoric.
property: right to hold, 21, 170
public speaking: Christine, 28–29; feminine
style adopted, 12, 15; For Rent—One
Pedestal, 263, 264, 266; giving up career in
(Verena Tarrant), 102–107; Julia France
and Her Times, 138–147; opposition
provoked by women’s rights reformers,
11–12; responses to hostility, 12;
Votes for Women, 120–132; women’s
right to (“Declaration of
Sentiments”), 23
332
public vs. private sphere in literature,
173–174
publicity stunts, 171–172; “The Suffrage
Torch: Memories of a Militant,” 300–305.
See also banners; parades; picketing;
voiceless speech
Puck, 3
Puerto Ricans: disenfranchisement of,
312n. 4
Putman, John, 312n. 5, 317n. 11
quotation: Alice Duer Miller, 236–238; as
alien texture, 318–319n. 10; “The Inferior
Woman,” 159–160; modernism and,
239–240; “President Wilson’s War
Message,” 273; “Telling the Truth
at the White House,” 275–279;
“We Worried Woody Wood,” 280–281;
“Women Do Not Want It,” 177.
See also parodies
racism: after Fifteenth Amendment, 311n. 3;
of middle-class white women suffragists,
43, 114, 175; perceptions of American
suffragists by Chinese women, 153;
perceptions of Chinese by American
suffragists, 116–117; 165–167
Rankin, Jeanette, xiii, 270, 273
referenda: Colorado, success of, 170; defeats
blamed on Chinese immigrants, 117;
Idaho, success of, 170; New York, xiv, 254,
263; Kansas, xi–xii; state, defeats of, 115,
170; Utah, success of, 170
“Representation” (Miller), 236
republic, feminine: “A Divided Republic,”
96–99
“Revolt of Mother, The” (Miller), 237
Revolution, The, 26, 51; founding of, xii
rhetoric: “Cupid and Chow-Chow,” 62–73;
literature as, 4–5; modern, creating, 176;
and nonliterary suffrage writings, 13;
oratory limited to men, 11; participatory
vs. one-sided, 16–17; performative, 2;
private texts used as propaganda, 174;
religious/moral authority as ground for,
12; used by U.S. woman suffrage
movement, 2–3, 170–176 passim, 235
right to vote: loss of, various states, xi.
See also suffrage
Robins, Elizabeth, 120–132
Robinson, Marius, 24
Rose, Ernestine, 114
Ruiz, Vicki L., 311n. 2, 312n. 3
Ruoff, A. LaVonne Brown, 316n. 31
Rupp, Leila J., 317n. 2
Russo, Ann, 313n. 10
Ryan, Leila, 315n. 18
index
St. John, Christopher, 116
Saturday Evening Post, 172
Schneir, Miriam, 313n. 7
Sedgwick, Catharine Maria, 315n. 13
self-supporting women: 193; British, 124;
characters in twentieth-century
literature, 173; Fanny Herself, 243–253;
Fettered for Life, 94; “The Inferior
Woman,” 153–162; no legal support for, 59;
typewriter girls, 153–162, 182–185
Seneca Falls Woman’s Rights convention, 2,
11; genesis of, 115
sensational fiction: Fettered for Life, 86
sentimental novels: My Wife and I;
Or, Harry Henderson’s History,
51–61
sentimentality: as method of persuasion, 13,
14; elimination from British suffrage
compositions, 141
sexual harassment: British women, 130;
Fettered for Life, 87–95; “Shall Women
Vote?” 42
Shacke, Paul A., 320n. 10
“Shall Women Vote?” (Fern/Parton), 42
Shaw, Anna Howard, 117, 165
Sheppard, Alice, 313n. 10
Shuler, Marjorie, 263–269
Shuler, Nettie Rogers, 291, 315n. 8
Siegel, Carol, 314n. 18
silent films, 2, 174
slavery. See abolition; antislavery
movement
Sloan, Kay, 313n. 8
Smith, J.W., 314n. 12
Smyth, Dame Ethel, 133–134
Sneider, Allison, 312n. 3, 316n. 1
Snowden, Ethel, 115
socialism, 200; “The Arrest of Suffrage,”
200–205; among British suffragists,
141–142; “The Socialist and the
Suffragist,” 180–181; “Women March,” 197
“Socialist and the Suffragist, The”
(Gilman), 180–181
Solomon, Martha, 313nn. 7, 10
songs, 2; marching, 116; “The March of the
Women,” 33–34; “We Worried Woody
Wood,” 280–281
spectacle: British suffrage movement, 115,
120; U.S. suffrage movement, 120,
171–172
speeches, 13; at Akron, Ohio woman’s
rights convention (Sojourner Truth),
24–25; voiceless (The Sturdy Oak),
254–262; Votes for Women, 120–132.
See also lectures; public speaking
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 3, 171, 293,
314n. 13, 315n. 7, 317n. 5; appearance before
index
New York state legislature, xi;
“Declaration of Sentiments,” 20–23;
The History of Woman Suffrage, 1; World
Anti-Slavery Convention, 115
Stein, Gertrude, 7, 292, 306–309,
319n. 6
Stevens, Doris, 290, 291–292, 294–297
Stevens, Hugh, 318n. 9
Stone, Lucy, xii, 14, 170
stories: “The Australian Ballot System,”
182–185; “A Divided Republic,” 95–99;
“Cupid and Chow-Chow,” 62–73;
“How I Went to ’lection,” 77–85; “The
Inferior Woman,” 153–162; “Mirandy on
‘Why Women Can’t Vote,’” 207–210;
“Switchboard Suffrage,” 284–288.
See also children’s stories
Story of the Woman’s Party, The, 291
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 2, 12, 51–61
Stowell, Sheila, 314n. 18
Sturdy Oak, The (O’Hagan), 172,
254–262
suffrage: equality and, 20; expedience
argument for, 44–45; lack of, and slavery
compared, 48–50; lack of, and women’s
exclusion from power, 45; liberty and,
44; literary works supporting, 2–3;
natural rights argument for, 15; states
granting, 170; women’s contentment
and, 20
suffrage journals. See advocacy journals
suffrage literature (British), 5, 114–148
suffrage literature (U.S.): early writing, 6;
in final decades of campaign, 7;
representations of international suffrage
movement, 6–7; and nonliterary genres,
13; objectives, 6; and the sentimental
mode, 13, 14. See also literature
“Suffrage Torch, The: Memories of a
Militant” (Havemeyer), 300–305
Suffragette, The (British), 116
Suffragist, The (U.S.), 3, 116
suffragists: community, desire for, 17;
deaths of pioneer leaders, 170–171;
loneliness of, 17, 29; modest dress,
adoption of, 12; struggles of early,
26–27
suffragists in literature, 15, 55, 284–288:
attractive women, portrayed as, 318n. 6;
betrayal of, 30; caricatures of, 15; loyalty
to cause, 36–37; men’s injuries against
women, 21–22; moderate views
represented, 15, 54–55, 56, 59; sympathetic
portrayal of, 15–16; wealthy women as,
187–188; working women as, 153–162,
182–185, 200–205, 243–253, 284–288
Sui Sin Far, 118, 153–162
333
“Switchboard Suffrage” (Haskell), 284–288
Sypher, Eileen, 314n. 18
“Taffy” (parody), 190, 192
technology: effect on relations between
private and public spheres, 175; printing,
new types of, 172; women as early
adopters, 175
telephone, 175; “Switchboard Suffrage,”
284–288
“Telling the Truth at the White House”
(Howe/Jakobi), 275–279
temperance: “A Divided Republic,” 95–96
Terborg-Penn, Rosalyn, 311n. 2
Thomas, Mary Martha, 312n. 5
Thompson, Nicola Diane, 314n. 18
Tompkins, Jane, 315n. 20, 316n. 15
transnational woman suffrage movement,
114–118; British movement, 115–116;
Chinese movement, 116–118
“Trotty’s Lecture Bureau” (Phelps), 74–76
Trudgill, Ann, 312n. 7
Truth, Sojourner: speech at Akron, Ohio
woman’s rights convention, 24–25
Tusan, Michelle, 317n. 13
typewriter girl: 153–162, 256–260; “The
Australian Ballot System” 182–185; “The
Inferior Women,” 153–162; changing
private voice to public voice, 175;
cross-dressing, 173
“Upon this marble bust that is not I”
(Millay), 298–299
Una, The, 3
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 13
United States Brewers Association, 170
U.S. Constitution: Fifteenth Amendment,
xii, 14, 43, 47, 306, 311n. 3; Fourteenth
Amendment, xii; Nineteenth
Amendment, xiv, 1, 290
utopia: “A Divided Republic,” 95–99;
feminine, 97–98; future, vision of, 96
valentines, 3, 174–175; “The President’s
Valentine,” 242
Vincent, Eleanor, 18–19
voiceless speech (The Sturdy Oak), 254–262
vote: failure to exercise, 292. See also
suffrage
Votes for Women (magazine), 116
Votes for Women (play) (Robins), 120–132
votes, selling: 47, 48; “How I Went to
’lection,” 81–82
Voting Rights Act, xiv
wage parity, 86
Waggenspack, Beth M., 313n. 7
334
Walter-McCarran Act, xiv
Ward, Jean M., 313n. 10
Watt, Stephen, 318n. 9
Wenclawska, Ruza. See Winslow, Rose
Weiss, Penny A., 316n. 20
“We Worried Woody Wood” (song),
280–281
Wheeler, Marjorie Spruill, 312n. 5
White House: treatment of women
picketing, 275–279; picketing, 292
white women: failure to address other
women’s disenfranchisement, 292; gender
ideology and, 10–11; as perceived leaders,
108, 110; racism of, 43, 114, 175; at World
Anti-Slavery Convention, 115
Whitehead, Celia B., 16, 100–107
Whitehead, Ethel, 200–205
Whitlock, Brand, 3
Williams, Lydia, 18–19
Wilson, President Woodrow, 241, 319n. 16;
constitutional amendment granting
suffrage, opposed to, 241; picketers meant
to challenge, 292; “President Wilson says
‘Godspeed to the Cause,’ ” 270–271;
“President Wilson’s War Message”
banner, 274; “The President’s Valentine,”
241, 242; “We Worried Woody Wood,”
280–281
Winslow, Rose, 282–283
Wollaeger, Mark, 315n. 21
“Woman and the Ballot” (Douglass), 43–46
“Woman with Empty Hands, The: The
Evolution of a Suffragette” (Carter),
225–230
woman suffrage: arguments for, 2; British
campaigns, 6; Chinese reform movement,
6–7; early arguments for, 10–11; early
efforts to win, 10; expedience argument
for, 2; natural rights argument for, 2;
“Woman and the Ballot,” 43–46. See also
right to vote; suffrage; suffragists
woman suffrage movement: ambivalent
relationship with Chinese movement,
116–117; British, 115–116, 171; challenges to
official narrative of, 1–2; divisions
and rivalries in, 291; doldrums, 170–171;
end of campaign, 290; histories of, 1,
index
291–292; legacy of, 292; “New Women,”
171; primary documents, recovery of, 2;
revitalization of, 171; shifts in direction
of, 319n. 4; tensions within, 14; western
campaigns, 312n. 5. See also transnational
woman suffrage movement
Woman Suffrage and Politics, 291
Woman Voter, The (U.S.), 3, 116, 220
Woman’s Journal, The, 3, 62; founding
of: xii
woman’s rights journals, 3. See also
advocacy journals
Woman’s Suffrage Alliance (China), 117
“Women Do Not Want It” (Gilman),
178–179
“Women March” (Hopkins), 193–199
Women Writers’ Suffrage League, 120
Women’s Christian Temperance Union
(WCTU), 110; founding of, xii
Women’s Franchise League (British), 115
Women’s Political Union (WPU), 115, 171,
172
women’s rights: claiming, 52, 53;
conventions, xi, 24
Women’s Social and Political Union
(WSPU), 115, 138, 171; “The Diary of a
Newsy,” 135–137; “The March of the
Women” (anthem), 133–134
Women’s Socialist Union of California
(WSUC), 200
Woodhull, Victoria, xii, 51
working-class women, 311n. 2; “The Arrest
of Suffrage,” 200–205; Fanny Herself,
243–253; Votes for Women, 120–132
Workman, Courtney, 320n. 10
World Anti-Slavery Convention (1840), 115
Wright, Frances, 114
Wynema: A Child of the Forest (Callahan),
108–111
Wyoming Territory: enfranchisement of
women, 170
Yoakum, Doris G., 313n. 7
Yung, Judy, 311n. 2, 317n. 8
Zackodnik, Teresa, 313n. 7
Zink-Sawyer, Beverly Ann, 313n. 7
 AB OUT THE EDITORS

Mary Chapman is an associate professor of English at the University of British

Columbia. She is the editor of Sentimental Men: Masculinity and the Politics of
Affect in American Culture (1999) and the author of articles in American Literary
History, Wide Angle, American Quarterly, American Transcendental Quarterly, and
Legacy. Her current book projects are a study of American suffrage print culture
and modernism and an edition of the uncollected works of Sui Sin Far.
Angela Mills is an editor in Ottawa, Ontario, and a former assistant professor of
American Literature at Brock University. She has published essays in Studies
in American Humor, American Transcendental Quarterly, and Canadian Review
of American Studies.