 CHAPTER 7 MOTHERHOOD We found my sister Harriet in a new home in Clinton Place, 8th Street, New York City, then considered so far uptown that Mr. Eaton's friends were continually asking him why he went so far away from the social center, though in a few months they followed him. Here we passed a week. I especially enjoyed seeing my little niece and nephew, the only grandchildren in the family. The girl was the most beautiful child I ever saw, and the boy the most intelligent and amusing. He was very fond of hearing me recite the poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes, entitled The Height of the Ridiculous, which I did many times, but he always wanted to see the lines that almost killed the man with laughing. He went around to a number of the bookstores one day and inquired for them. I told him afterward they were never published that when Mr. Holmes saw the effect on his servant he suppressed them lest they should produce the same effect on the typesetter's editors and the readers of the Boston newspapers. My explanation never satisfied him. I told him he might write to Mr. Holmes and ask the privilege of reading the original manuscript if it still was or ever had been in existence. As one of my grand-nephews was troubled in exactly the same way, I decided to appeal myself to Dr. Holmes for the enlightenment of this second generation. Thus I wrote him the following letter which he kindly answered, telling us that his wretched man was a myth like the heroes in Mother Goose's melodies. Quote, Dear Dr. Holmes, I have a little nephew to whom I often recite The Height of the Ridiculous, and he invariably asks for the lines that produced the fatal effect on your servant. He visited most of the bookstores in New York City to find them, and nothing but your own word I am sure will ever convince him that the wretched man is but a figment of your imagination. I tried to satisfy him by saying you did not dare to publish the lines lest they should produce a similar effect on the typesetter's editors and the readers of the Boston journals. However, he wishes me to ask you whether you kept a copy of the original manuscript or could reproduce the lines with equal power. If not too much trouble, please send me a few lines on this point, and greatly oblige. You're sincerely Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Quote, My dear Mrs. Stanton, I wish you would explain to your little nephew that the story of the poor fellow who almost died laughing was a kind of a dream of mine, and not a real thing that happened, any more than an old woman lived in a shoe and had so many children she didn't know what to do, or that Jack climbed the beanstalk and found the giant who lived at the top of it. You can explain to him what is meant by imagination, and thus turn my youthful rhymes into a text for a discourse worthy of the Concord School of Philosophy. I have not my poems by me here, but I remember that the height of the ridiculous ended with this verse. Ten days and nights with sleepless eye I watched that wretched man, and since I never dare to write as funny as I can. But tell your nephew he mustn't cry about it any more than because geese go barefoot and bald eagles have no nightcaps. The verses are in all the additions of my poems. Believe me, dear Mrs. Stanton, very truly and respectfully yours, Oliver Wendell Holmes." After spending the holidays in New York City we started for Johnstown in a stage slay conveying the United States mail drawn by a spanking team of four horses up the Hudson River Valley. We were three days going to Albany, stopping overnight at various points, a journey now performed in three hours. The weather was clear and cold, the slaying fine, the scenery grand and our travelling companions most entertaining, so the trip was very enjoyable. From Albany to Sinectady we went in the railway cars, then another slay ride of thirty miles brought us to Johnstown. My native hills, buried under two feet of snow, tinted with the last rays of the setting sun, were a beautiful and familiar sight. Although I had been absent but ten months it seemed like years and I was surprised to find how few changes had occurred since I left. My father and mother, sisters, Madge and Kate, and the old house and furniture, the neighbours all looked precisely the same as when I left them. I had seen so much and been so constantly on the wing that I wondered that all things here should have stood still. I expected to hear of many births, marriages, deaths and social upheavals, but the village news was remarkably meager. This hunger for home news on returning is common, I suppose, to all travellers. Our trunk sun-packed, wardrobes arranged in closets and drawers, the excitement of seeing friends over, we spent some time in making plans for the future. My husband, after some consultation with my father, decided to enter his office and commenced the study of law. As this arrangement kept me under the parental roof I had two added years of pleasure walking, driving and riding on horseback with my sisters. Madge and Kate were dearer to me than ever, as I saw the inevitable separation awaiting us in the near future. In due time they were married and commenced housekeeping. They were married in her husband's house nearby and Kate in Buffalo. All my sisters were peculiarly fortunate in their marriage, their husbands being men of fine presence, liberal education, high moral character and marked ability. These were pleasant and profitable years. I devoted them to reading law, history and political economy with occasional interruptions to take part in some temperance or anti-slavery excitement. Eliza Murray and I had classes of colored children in the Sunday School. On one occasion, when there was to be a festival speaking in the church, a procession through the streets and other public performances for the Sunday School celebration, some narrow-minded bigots objected to the colored children taking part. They approached Miss Murray and me with most persuasive tones on the wisdom of not allowing them to march in the procession to the church. We said, oh, no, it won't do to disappoint the children. They are all dressed with their badges on and looking forward with great pleasure to the festivities of the day. Besides, we would not cater to any of these contemptible prejudices against color. We were all assembled in the courthouse preparatory to forming in the line of march. Some were determined to drive the colored children home. But Miss Murray and I, like two defiant hens, kept our little brood close behind us, determined to conquer or perish in the struggle. At last, milder councils prevailed, and it was agreed that they might march in the rear. We made no objection and fell into line, but when we reached the church door it was promptly closed as the last white child went in. We tried two other doors, but all were guarded. We shed tears of vexation and pity for the poor children, and when they asked us the reason why they could not go in, we were embarrassed and mortified with the explanation we were forced to give. However, I invited them to my father's house, where Miss Murray and I gave them refreshments and entertained them for the rest of the day. The puzzling questions of theology and poverty that had occupied so much of my thoughts now gave place to the practical one. What to do with a baby? No motherhood is the most important of all the professions, requiring more knowledge than any other department in human affairs, yet there is not sufficient attention given to the preparation for this office. If we buy a plant of a horticulturist we ask him many questions as to its needs, whether it thrives best in sunshine or in shade, whether it needs much or little water, what degrees of heat or cold, but when we hold in our arms for the first time a being of infinite possibilities in whose wisdom may rest destiny of a nation, we take it for granted that the laws governing its life, health, and happiness are intuitively understood, that there is nothing new to be learned in regard to it. Yet here is a science to which philosophers have, as yet given but little attention. An important fact has only been discovered and acted upon within the last ten years, that children come into the world tired and not hungry, exhausted with the perilous journey. Instead of being thoroughly bathed and dressed and kept on the rack while the nurse makes a prolonged toilette and feeds at some nostrum supposed to have much needed medicinal influence, the child's face, eyes, and mouth should be hastily washed with warm water and the rest of its body thoroughly oiled, and then it should be slipped into a soft pillow case, wrapped in a blanket, and laid to sleep. Ordinarily, in the proper conditions, with its face uncovered in a cool, pure atmosphere, it will sleep twelve hours. Then it should be bathed, fed, and clothed in a high-necked, long-sleeved silk shirt and blanket, all of which should be done in five minutes. As babies lie still most of the time the first six weeks they need no dressing. I think the nurse was a full hour bathing and dressing my first born, who protested with a melancholy wail every blessed minute. Ignorant myself of the initiative steps on the threshold of time, I suppose this proceeding was approved by the best authorities. However, I had been thinking, reading, observing, and had as little faith in the popular theories in regard to babies as on any other subject. I saw them on all sides ill half the time, pale and peevish, dying early, having no joy in life. I heard parents complaining of weary days and sleepless nights, while each child in turn ran the gauntlet of red gum, jaundice, whooping cough, chicken pox, mumps, measles, scarlet fever, and fits. They all seemed to think these inflections were a part of the eternal plan, that Providence had a kind of Pandora's box from which he scattered those venerable diseases, most liberally among those whom he especially loved. Having gone through the ordeal of bearing a child, I was determined if possible to keep him, so I read everything I could find on the subject. But the literature on this subject was as confusing and unsatisfactory as the longer and shorter catechisms and the thirty-nine articles of our faith. I had recently visited our dear friends Theodore and Angelina Grimke-Weld, and they warned me against books on this subject. They had been so misled by one author, who assured them that the stomach of a child could only hold one tablespoon full, that they nearly starved their first born to death. Though the child dwindled day by day, and at the end of a month looked like a little old man, yet they still stood by the distinguished author. Fortunately they both went off one day and left the child with Sister Sarah, who thought she would make an experiment and see what a child's stomach could hold, as she had grave doubts about the tablespoon theory. To her surprise the baby took a pint bottle full of milk, and had the sweetest sleep thereon he had known in his earthly career. After that he was permitted to take what he wanted, and the author was informed of his libel on the infantine's stomach. So here again I was entirely afloat, launched on the seas of doubt without chart or compass. The life and well-being of the race seemed to hang on the slender thread of such traditions as were handed down by ignorant mothers and nurses. One powerful ray of light illuminated the darkness. It was the work of Andrew Combe on infancy. He had evidently watched some of the manifestations of man in the first stages of his development, and could tell at least as much of babies as naturalists could of beetles and bees. He did give young mothers some hints of what to do and the whys and wherefores of certain lines of procedure during antenatal life, as well as the proper care thereafter. I read several chapters to the nurse. Although out of her ten children she had buried five, she still had too much confidence in her own wisdom and experience to pay much attention to any new idea that might be suggested to her. Among other things Combe said that a child's bath should be regulated by the thermometer in order to be always of the same temperature. She ridiculed the idea and said her elbow was better than any thermometer, and when I insisted on its use she would invariably with a smile of derision put her elbow in first to show how exactly it tallied with the thermometer. When I insisted that the child should not be bandaged she rebelled outright and said she would not take the responsibility of nursing a child without a bandage. I said, Pray sit down, dear nurse, and let us reason together. Do not think I'm setting up my judgment against yours with all your experience. I'm simply trying to act on the opinions of a distinguished physician, who says there should be no pressure on a child anywhere, that the limbs and body should be free, that it is cruel to bandage an infant from hip to armpit, as is usually done in America, or both body and legs, as is done in Europe, or strap them to boards, as is done by savages on both continents. Can you give me one good reason, nurse, why a child should be bandaged? Yes, she said emphatically, I can give you a dozen. I only asked for one, I replied. Well, she said, after much hesitation. The bones of a newborn infant are soft, like cartilage, and unless you pin them up snugly there is danger of their falling apart. It seems to me, I replied, you have given the strongest reason why they should be carefully guarded against the slightest pressure. It is very remarkable that kittens and puppies should be so well put together that they need no artificial bracing, and the human family be left wholly to the mercy of a bandage. Suppose a child was born where you could not get a bandage, what then? Now I think this child will remain intact without a bandage, and if I am willing to take the risk, why should you complain? Because, said she, if the child should die it would injure my name as a nurse. I therefore wash my hands of all these newfangled notions. So she bandaged the child every morning, and I as regularly took it off. It has been fully proved since to be as useless an appendage as the vermaform. She had several cups with various concoctions of herbs standing on the chimney-corner ready for insomnia, colic, indigestion, etc. etc., all of which were spirited away when she was at her dinner. In vain I told her we were homeopathists, and afraid of everything in the animal, vegetable, or mineral kingdoms lower than the two hundredth dilution. I tried to explain the Hanaman system of therapeutics, the philosophy of the principle similia similibus corantur, but she had no capacity for first principles, and did not understand my discourse. I told her that if she would wash the baby's mouth with pure cold water morning and night, and give it a teaspoonful to drink occasionally during the day, there would be no danger of red gum. That if she would keep the blinds open and light in the air and sunshine, keep the temperature of the room at sixty-five degrees, leave the child's head uncovered so that it could breathe freely, stop rocking and trotting it and singing such melancholy hymns as Hark! From the tombs a dull, full sound! The baby and I would both be able to weather the cape without a bandage. I told her I should nurse the child once in two hours and that she must not feed at any of her nostrums in the meantime, that a child's stomach, being made on the same general plan as our own, needed intervals of rest as well as ours. She said it would be racked with colic if the stomach was empty any length of time, and that it would surely have rickets if it were kept too still. I told her if the child had no anodynes nature would regulate its sleep and motions. She said she could not stay in a room with the thermometer at sixty-five degrees, so I told her to sit in the next room and regulate the heat to soothe herself, that I would ring a bell when her services were needed. The reader will wonder, no doubt, that I kept such a cantankerous servant. I could get no other. Dear Mother Monroe, as wise as she was good, and as tender as she was strong, who had nursed two generations of mothers in our village, was engaged at that time, and I was compelled to take an exotic. I had often watched Mother Monroe with admiration, as she turned and twisted my sister's baby. It lay as peacefully in her hands as if they were lined with Eider down. She bathed and dressed it by easy stages, turning the child over and over like a pancake. But she was so full of the magnetism of human love, giving the child all the time the most consoling assurance that the operation was to be a short one, that the whole proceeding was quite entertaining to the observer and seemingly agreeable to the child, though it had a rather surprised look as it took a bird's eye view in quick succession of the ceiling and the floor. Still my nurse had her good points. She was very pleasant when she had her own way. She was neat and tidy, and ready to serve me at any time, night or day. She did not wear false teeth that rattled when she talked, nor boots that squeaked when she walked. She did not snuff nor chew cloves nor speak except one spoken to. Our discussions on various points went on at intervals until I succeeded in planting some ideas in her mind, and when she left me at the end of six weeks she confessed that she had learned some valuable essence. As the baby had slept quietly most of the time, had no crying spells nor colic, and I looked well, she naturally came to the conclusion that pure air, sunshine, proper dressing, and regular feeding were more necessary for babies than herb teas and soothing syrups. Besides the obstinacy of the nurse I had the ignorance of the physicians to contend with. When the child was four days old we discovered that the collar bone was bent. The physician wishing to get a pressure on the shoulder braced the bandage round the wrist. Leave that, he said, ten days and then it will be all right. Soon after he left I noticed that the child's hand was blue, showing that the circulation was impeded. That will never do, said I, nurse, take it off. No indeed, she answered, I shall never interfere with the doctor. So I took it off myself and sent for another doctor who was said to know more of surgery. He expressed great surprise that the first physician called should have put on so severe a bandage. That said he would do for a grown man, but ten days of it on a child would make him a cripple. However he did nearly the same thing, only fastening it round the hand instead of the wrist. I soon saw that the ends of the fingers were all purple and that to leave that on ten days would be as dangerous as the first. So I took that off. What a woman exclaimed the nurse! What do you propose to do? Look out something better myself. So brace me up with some pillows and give the baby to me. She looked at me aghast and said, you'd better trust the doctors or your child will be a helpless cripple. Yes I replied he would be, if we had left either of those bandages on, but I have an idea of something better. Now said I, talking partly to myself and partly to her, what we want is a little pressure on that bone. That is what both those men aimed at. How can we get it without involving the arm, is the question. I'm sure I don't know, said she, rubbing her hands and taking two or three brisk turns round the room. Well, bring me three strips of linen, four double. I then folded one, wet in arnica and water, and laid it on the collarbone. Put two other bands, like a pair of suspenders over the shoulders, crossing them both in front and behind, pinning the ends to the diaper which gave the needed pressure without impeding the circulation anywhere. As I finished she gave me a look of budding confidence and seemed satisfied that all was well. Several times, night and day, we wet the compress and readjusted the bands until all appearances of inflammation had subsided. At the end of ten days the two sons of Escalapius appeared and made their examination and said all was right, whereupon I told them how badly their bandages worked and what I had done myself. They smiled at each other and one said, Well, after all a mother's instinct is better than a man's reason. Thank you, gentlemen. There was no instinct about it. I did some hard thinking before I saw how I could get a pressure on the shoulder without impeding the circulation as you did. Thus in the supreme moment of a young mother's life, when I needed tender care and support, I felt the whole responsibility of my child's supervision. But though uncertain at every step of my own knowledge, I learned another lesson in self-reliance. I trusted neither men nor books absolutely after this, either in regard to the heavens above or the earth beneath, but continued to use my mother's instinct, if reason is too dignified a term to apply to a woman's thoughts. My advice to every mother is, above all other arts and sciences, study first what relates to babyhood as there is no department of human action in which there is such lamentable ignorance. At the end of six weeks my nurse departed and I had a good woman in her place who obeyed my orders. And now a new difficulty arose from an unexpected quarter. My father and husband took it into their heads that the child slept too much. If not awake when they wished to look at him or to show him to their friends, they would pull him up out of his crib on all occasions. When I found neither of them was amenable to reason on this point I locked the door, and no amount of eloquent pleading ever gained them admittance during the time I considered sacred to the baby slumbers. At six months, having as yet had none of the diseases supposed to be inevitable, the boy weighed thirty pounds. Then the stately Peter came again into requisition, and in his strong arms the child spent many of his waking hours. Peter with a long elephantine gait slowly wandered over the town, lingering especially in the busy marts of trade. Peter's curiosity had strengthened with years, and wherever a crowd gathered round a monkey and a hand organ, a vendor's wagon, an auction stand, or the post office at mail time, there stood Peter, black as coal, with a beautiful boy and white, the most conspicuous figure in the crowd. As I told Peter never to let children kiss the baby for fear of some disease, he kept them well aloft, allowing no affectionate manifestations except toward himself. My reading at this time centered on hygiene. I came to the conclusion, after much thought and observation, that children never cried unless they were uncomfortable. A professor at Union College, who used to combat many of my theories, said he gave one of his children a sound spanking at six weeks, and it never disturbed him a night afterward. Another Solomon told me that a very weak preparation of opium would keep a child always quiet and take it through the dangerous period of teething without a ripple on the surface of domestic life. As children cannot tell what ails them, and suffer from many things of which parents are ignorant, the crying of the child should arouse them to an intelligent examination. To spank it for crying is to silence the watchman on the tower through fear. To give soothing syrup is to drug the watchman while the evils go on. Parents may thereby ensure eight hours sleep at the time, but at the risk of greater trouble in the future with sick and dying children. Tom Moore tells us, the heart from love to one grows bountiful to all. I know the care of one child made me thoughtful of all. I never hear a child cry now that I do not feel that I am bound to find out the reason. In my extensive travels on lecturing tours in after years I had many varied experiences with babies. One day in the cars a child was crying near me while the parents were alternately shaking and slapping it. First one would take it with an emphatic jerk and then the other. At last I heard the father say in a spiteful tone, If you don't stop I'll throw you out of the window. One naturally hesitates about interfering between parents and children, so I generally restrain myself as long as I can endure the torture of witnessing such outrageous, but at length I turned and said, Let me take your child and see if I can find out what ails it. Nothing ails it, said the father, but bad temper. The child readily came to me. I felt all round to see if its clothes pinched anywhere or if there were any pins pricking. I took off its hat and cloaked to see if there were any strings cutting its neck or choking it. Then I glanced at the feet and lo! there was the trouble! The boots were at least one size too small. I took them off and the stockings too and found the feet were as cold as ice and the prints of the stockings clearly traced on the tender flesh. We all know the agony of tight boots. I rubbed the feet and held them in my hands until they were warm, when the poor little thing fell asleep. I said to the parents, You are young people I see and this is probably your first child. They said, Yes. You don't intend to be cruel, I know, but if you had thrown those boots out of the window when you threatened to throw the child it would have been wiser. This poor child has suffered ever since it was dressed this morning. I showed them the marks on the feet and called their attention to the fact that the child fell asleep as soon as its pain was relieved. The mother said she knew the boots were tight, as it was with difficulty she could get them on, but the old ones were too shabby for the journey and they had no time to change the others. Well, said the husband, if I had known those boots were tight I would have thrown them out the window. Now, said I, let me give you one rule. When your child cries, remember it is telling you as well as it can that something hurts it, either outside or in, and do not rest until you find what it is. Neither spanking, shaking, or scolding can relieve pain. I have seen women enter the cars with their baby's faces completely covered with a blanket shawl. I have often thought I would like to cover their faces for an hour and see how they would bear it. In such circumstances in order to get the blanket open I have asked to see the baby, and generally found it as red as a beat. Ignorant nurses and mothers have discovered that children sleep longer with their heads covered. They don't know why, nor the injurious effect of breathing over and over the same air that has been thrown off the lungs polluted with carbonic acid gas. This stupefies the child and prolongs the unhealthy slumber. One hot day in the month of May I entered a crowded car at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and took the only empty seat beside a gentleman who seemed very nervous about a crying child. I was scarcely seated when he said, Mother, do you know anything about babies? Oh, yes, I said, smiling, that is a Department of Knowledge on which I especially pride myself. Al said he there is a child that has cried most of the time for the last twenty-four hours. What do you think ales it? Making a random supposition I replied, it probably needs a bath. He promptly rejoined, if you will give it one I will provide the necessary means. I said I will first see if the child will come to me and if the mother is willing. I found the mother only too glad to have a few minutes rest, and the child too tired to care who took it. She gave me a suit of clean clothes throughout. The gentleman spread his blanket shawl on the seat, securing the opposite one for me and the bathing appliances. Then he produced a towel, sponge, and an India rubber bowl full of water, and I gave the child a generous drink and a thorough ablution. It stretched and seemed to enjoy every step of the proceeding, and while I was brushing its golden curls as gently as I could it fell asleep. So I covered it with the towel and blanket shawl not willing to disturb it for dressing. The poor mother too was sound asleep, and the gentleman very happy. He had children of his own, and like me felt great pity for the poor helpless little victim of ignorance and folly. I engaged one of the ladies to dress it when it awoke, as I was soon to leave the train. It slept the two hours I remained, how much longer I never heard. A young man who had witnessed the proceeding got off at the same station and accosted me, saying, I should be very thankful if you would come and see my baby. It is only one month old and cries all the time, and my wife, who is only sixteen years old, is worn out with it, and neither of us know what to do, so we all cry together, and the doctor says he does not see what ails it. So I went on my mission of mercy, and found the child bandaged as tight as a drum. When I took out the pins and unrolled it, it fairly popped like the cork out of a champagne bottle. I rubbed its breast and its back, and soon soothed it to sleep. I remained a long time telling them how to take care of the child and the mother too. I told them everything I could think of in regard to clothes, diet, and pure air. I asked the mother why she bandaged her child as she did. She said her nurse told her that there was danger of hernia unless the abdomen was well bandaged. I told her that the only object of a bandage was to protect the navel for a few days until it was healed, and for that purpose all that was necessary was a piece of linen four inches square, well oiled, folded four times double with the hole in the center, laid over it. I remembered next day that I forgot to tell them to give the child water, so I telegraphed them. Give the baby water six times a day. I heard of that baby afterward. It lived and flourished, and the parents knew how to administer to the ones of the next one. The father was a telegraph operator and had many friends, nights of the key throughout Iowa. For many years afterward, in leisure moments, these nights would call up this parent and say over the wire, Give the baby water six times a day. Thus did they repeat the story and spread the truth from pole to pole. Chapter 8 80 YEARS AND MORE This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org 80 YEARS AND MORE By Elizabeth Cady Stanton Chapter 8 Boston and Chelsea In the autumn of 1843, my husband was admitted to the bar and commenced the practice of law in Boston with Mr. Bowles' brother-in-law of the late General John A. Dix. This gave me the opportunity to make many pleasant acquaintances among the lawyers in Boston and to meet intimately among the noble men and women among reformers whom I had long worshipped at a distance. Here for the first time I met Lydia Maria Child, Abbey Kelly, Alina Wright, Elizabeth Peabody, Maria Chapman and her beautiful sisters, the Mrs. Weston, Oliver and Mary Anna Johnson, Joseph and Thankful Southwick, and their three bright daughters. The home of the Southwicks was always a harbor of rest for the weary, where the anti-slavery hosts were wont to congregate and where one was always sure to meet someone worth knowing. Their hospitality was generous to an extreme and so boundless that they were at last fairly eaten out of house and home. Here too for the first time I met Theodore Parker, John Pierpont, John G. Whittier, Emerson, Alcott, Lowell, Hawthorne, Mr. and Mrs. Samuel E. Sewell, Sidney Howard Gay, Pillsbury, Foster, Frederick Douglass and last, though not least, those noble men Charles Hovey and Francis Jackson, the only men who ever left any money to the cause of woman's suffrage. I also met Miss Jackson, afterward Mrs. Eddy, who left half her fortune fifty thousand dollars for the same purpose. I was a frequent visitor at the home of William Lloyd Garrison, though he had a prolonged battle to fight in the rough outside world, his home was always a haven of rest. Mrs. Garrison was a sweet tempered conscientious woman who tried under all circumstances to do what was right. She had sound judgment and rare common sense, was tall and fine looking, with luxuriant brown hair, large tender blue eyes, delicate features and affable manners. They had an exceptionally fine family of five sons and one daughter. Fanny, now the wife of Henry Villard, the financier, was the favorite and pet. All the children in their mature years have fulfilled the promises of their childhood. Though always in straightened circumstances, the Garrisons were very hospitable. It was next to impossible for Mr. Garrison to meet a friend without inviting him to his house, especially at the close of a convention. I was one of twelve at one of his impromptu tea parties. We all took it for granted that his wife knew we were coming and that her preparations were already made. Surrounded by half a dozen children, she was performing the last act in the opera of Lullaby, wholly unconscious of the invasion downstairs. But Mr. Garrison was equal to every emergency, and after placing his guests at their ease in the parlour, he hastened to the nursery, took off his coat, and rocked the baby until his wife had disposed of the remaining children. Then they had a consultation about the tea, and when basket in hand the good man sallied forth for the desired viands, Mrs. Garrison, having made a hasty toilette, came down to welcome her guests. She was as genial and self-possessed as if all things had been prepared. She made no apologies for what was lacking in the general appearance of the house, nor in the variety of the menu. It was sufficient for her to know that Mr. Garrison was happy and feeling free to invite his friends. The impromptu meal was excellent, and we had a most enjoyable evening. I have no doubt that Mrs. Garrison had more real pleasure than if she had been busy all day making preparations and had been tired out when her guests arrived. The anti-slavery conventions and fairs held every year during the holidays brought many charming people from other states, and made Boston a social centre for the co-agitors of Garrison and Phillips. These conventions surpassed any meetings I had ever attended. The speeches were eloquent, and the debates earnest and forcible. Garrison and Phillips were in their prime, and slavery was a question of national interest. The hall in which the fairs were held under the auspices of Mrs. Chapman and her cohorts was most artistically decorated. There one could purchase whatever the fancy could desire, for English friends stimulated by the appeals of Harriet Martinot and Elizabeth Pease used to send boxes of beautiful things gathered from all parts of the eastern continent. There, too, one could get a most rescherche luncheon in the Society of the Literati of Boston, for however indifferent many were to slavery, per se, they enjoyed these fairs, and all classes flocked there till far into the night. It was a kind of ladies' exchange for the holiday week, where each one was sure to meet her friends. The fair and the annual convention coming in succession intensified the interest in both. I never grew weary of the conventions, though I attended all the sessions, lasting sometimes until eleven o'clock at night. The fiery eloquence of the abolitionists, the amusing episodes that occurred when some crank was suppressed and borne out on the shoulders of his brethren, gave sufficient variety to the proceedings to keep the interest up to high watermark. There was one old man dressed in white, carrying a scythe who imagined himself the personification of time, though called Father Lampson. Occasionally he would bubble over with some prophetic vision, and as he could not be silenced he was carried out. He usually made himself as limp as possible, which added to the difficulty of his exit and the amusement of the audience. A ripple of merriment would unsettle, for a moment even the dignity of the platform, when Abigail Folsom, another crank, would shout from the gallery, Stop not my brother on the order of your going, but go! The abolitionists were making the experiment at this time of a free platform, allowing everyone to speak as moved by the spirit, but they soon found that would not do, as those evidently moved by the spirit of mischief were quite as apt to air their vagaries as those moved by the spirit of truth. However the Garrisonian platform always maintained a certain degree of freedom outside its regular program, and although this involved extra duty in suppressing cranks, yet the meeting gained enthusiasm by some good spontaneous speaking on the floor as well as on the platform. A number of immense mass meetings were held in Fanuel Hall, a large dreary place with its bare walls and innumerable dingy windows. The only attempt at an ornament was the American eagle, with its wings spread and claws firmly set in the middle of the gallery. The guilt was worn off its beak giving it the appearance, as Edmund Quincy said, of having a bad cold in the head. This old hall was sacred to so many memories connected with the early days of the revolution that it was a kind of mecca for the lovers of liberty visiting Boston. The anti-slavery meetings held there were often disturbed by mobs that would hold the most gifted orator at bay hour after hour, and would listen only to the songs of the Hutchinson family. Although these songs were a condensed extract of the whole anti-slavery constitution and bylaws, yet the mob was as peaceful under these piens to liberty as a child under the influence of an anodyne. What a welcome and beautiful vision that was when the four brothers in blue broadcloth and white collars turned down Ola Byron and little sister Abbey and silk soft lace and blue ribbon appeared on the platform to sing their quaint ballads of freedom. Fresh from the hills of New Hampshire, they looked so sturdy, so vigorous, so pure, so true that they seemed fitting representatives of all the cardinal virtues, and even a howling mob could not resist their influence. Perhaps after one of their ballads the mob would listen five minutes to Wendell Phillips or Garrison until he gave some home thrusts when all was uproar again. The northern merchants who made their fortunes out of southern cotton, the politicians who wanted votes, and the ministers who wanted to keep peace in the old churches were all as much opposed to the anti-slavery agitation as were the slaveholders themselves. These were the classes the mob represented, though seemingly composed of gamblers, liquor dealers, and demagogues. For years the anti-slavery struggle at the north was carried on against statecraft, priestcraft, the cupidity of the moneyed classes, and the ignorance of the masses. But in spite of all these forces of evil it triumphed at last. I was in Boston at the time that Lane and Wright, some metaphysical Englishmen, and our own Alcott held their famous philosophical conversations in which Elizabeth Peabody took part. I went to them regularly. I was ambitious to absorb all the wisdom I could, but really I could not give an intelligent report of the points under discussion at any sitting. Oliver Johnson asked me one day if I enjoyed them. I thought from a twinkle in his eye that he thought I did not, so I told him I was ashamed to confess that I did not know what they were talking about. He said, Neither do I. Very few of their hearers do. So you need not be surprised that they are incomprehensible to you, nor think less of your own capacity. I was indebted to Mr. Johnson for several of the greatest pleasures I enjoyed in Boston. He escorted me to an entire course of Theodore Parker's lectures given in Marlboro Chapel. This was soon after the great preacher had given his famous sermon on the permanent and transient in religion, when he was ostracized even by the Unitarians for his radical utterances and not permitted to preach in any of their pulpits. His lectures were deemed still more heterodox than that sermon. He shocked the Orthodox churches of that day more even than Ingersoll has in our times. The lectures, however, were so soul-satisfying to me that I was surprised at the bitter criticisms I heard expressed. Though they were two hours long, I never grew weary and during the course I said to Mr. Johnson, I wish I could hear them over again. Well, you can, said he. Mr. Parker is to repeat them in Cambridge Port, beginning next week. Accordingly we went there and heard them again with equal satisfaction. During the winter in Boston I attended all the lectures, churches, theaters, concerts and temperance, peace and prison reform conventions within my reach. I had never lived in such an enthusiastically literary and reform latitude before, and my mental powers were kept at the highest tension. We went to Chelsea for the summer and boarded with the Baptist minister, the Reverend John Wesley Olmsted, afterward editor of The Watchman and Reflector. He had married my cousin, Mary Livingston, one of the most lovely unselfish characters I ever knew. There I had the opportunity of meeting several of the leading Baptist ministers in New England, and as I was thoroughly imbued with Parker's ideas we had many heated discussions on theology. There too I met Arrestis Bronson, a remarkably well-read man who had gone through every phase of religious experience from blank atheism to the bosom of the Catholic Church where I believe he found repose at the end of his days. He was so arbitrary and dogmatic that most people did not like him. But I appreciated his acquaintance as he was a liberal thinker and had a world of information which he readily imparted to those of a teachable spirit. As I was then in a hungering, thirsting condition for truth on every subject the friendship of such a man was, to me, an inestimable blessing. Reading Theodore Parker's lectures years afterward I was surprised to find how little there was in them to shock anybody, the majority of thinking people having grown up to them. While living in Chelsea two years I used to walk, there being no public conveyances running on Sunday, from the ferry to Marlboro Chapel to hear Mr. Parker preach. It was a long walk over two miles and I was so tired on reaching the chapel that I made it a point to sleep through all the preliminary service so as to be fresh for the sermon, as the friend next to my sat always wakened me in time. One Sunday when my friend was absent, it being a very warm Sunday and I unusually fatigued, I slept until a sexton informed me that he was about to close the doors. In an unwary moment I imparted this fact to my Baptist friends. They made all manner of fun ever afterward of the soothing nature of Mr. Parker's theology and my long walk every Sunday to repose in the shadow of a heterodox altar. Still the loss of the sermon was the only vexatious part of it and I had the benefit of the walk and the refreshing slumber to the music of Mr. Parker's melodious voice and the deep-toned organ. Mrs. Oliver Johnson and I spent two days at the Brook Farm community when in the height of its prosperity there I met the Ripley's, who were I believe the backbone of the experiment. William Henry Channing, Bronson Alcott, Charles A. Dana, Frederick Cabot, William Chase, Mrs. Horace Greeley, who was spending a few days there and many others whose names I cannot recall. Here was a charming family of intelligent men and women doing their own farm and housework with lectures, readings, music, dancing and games when desired, realizing in a measure Edward Bellamy's beautiful vision of the equal conditions of the human family in the year 2000. The story of the beginning and end of this experience of community life has been told so often that I will simply say that its failure was a grave disappointment to those most deeply interested in its success. Mr. Channing told me years after when he was a pastor of the Unitarian Church in Rochester as we were wandering through Mount Hope one day, that when the Roxbury community was dissolved and he was obliged to return to the old life of competition, he would gladly have been laid under the sod as the isolated home seemed so solitary, silent and selfish that the whole atmosphere was oppressive. In 1843 my father moved to Albany to establish my brothers in law, Mr. Wilkerson and Mr. McMartin in the legal profession. That made Albany the family rallying point for a few years. This enabled me to spend several winters at the Capitol and to take an active part in the discussion of the Married Woman's Property Bill, then pending in the legislature. William H. Seward, governor of the state from 1839 to 1843 recommended the bill, and his wife, a woman of rare intelligence, advocated it in society. Together we had the opportunity of talking with many members, both of the Senate and the Assembly, in social circles as well as in their committee rooms. Bills were pending from 1836 until 1848 when the measure finally passed. My second son was born in Albany in March 1844 under more favorable auspices than the first, as I knew then what to do with a baby. Returning to Chelsea we commenced housekeeping, which afforded me another chapter of experience. A new house, newly furnished with beautiful views of Boston Bay, was all I could desire. Mr. Stanton announced to me in starting that his business would occupy all his time, and that I must take entire charge of the housekeeping. So with two good servants and two babies under my sole supervision, my time was pleasantly occupied. When first installed as mistress over an establishment, one has that same feeling of pride and satisfaction that a young minister must have in taking charge of his first congregation. It is a proud moment in a woman's life to reign supreme within four walls, to be the one to whom all questions of domestic pleasure and economy are referred, and to hold in her hand that little family book in which the daily expenses, the outgoings and incomeings are duly registered. I studied up everything pertaining to housekeeping, and enjoyed it all. Even washing-day, that day so many people dread, had its charms for me. The clean clothes on the lines and on the grass looked so white, and smelled so sweet that it was to me a pretty sight to contemplate. I inspired my laundress with an ambition to have her clothes look white and to get them out earlier than our neighbors and have them ironed and put away sooner. As Mr. Stanton did not come home to dinner, we made a picnic of our noon meal on Mondays, and all thoughts and energies were turned to speed the washing. No unnecessary sweeping or dusting, no visiting nor entertaining angels unawares on that day. It was held sacred to soap suds, blue bags, and clothes lines. The children only had no deviation in the regularity of their lives. They had their drives and walks, their naps and rations in quantity and time, as usual. I had all the most approved cookbooks, and spent half my time preserving, pickling, and experimenting in new dishes. I felt the same ambition to excel in all departments of the culinary art that I did at school in the different branches of learning. My love of ordering cleanliness was carried throughout from parlor to kitchen, from the front door to the back. I gave a man an extra shilling to pile the logs of firewood with their smooth ends outward, though I did not have them scoured white, as did our Dutch grandmothers. I tried too to give an artistic touch to everything. The dress of my children and servants included. My dining table was round, always covered with the clean cloth of a pretty pattern and a centerpiece of flowers in their season. Pretty clean silver and set with neatness and care. I put my soul into everything and hence enjoyed it. I never could understand how housekeepers could rest with rubbish all around their back doors, eggshells, broken dishes, tin cans and old shoes scattered round their premises, servants ragged and dirty with their hair in papers and with the kitchen and dining room full of flies. I have never known even artists to be indifferent to their personal appearance and their surroundings. Surely a mother and child tastefully dressed and a pretty home for a framework is as a picture even more attractive than a domestic scene hung on the wall. The love of the beautiful can be illustrated as well in Life is on Canvas. There is such a struggle among women to become artists that I really wish some of their gifts could be illustrated in clean, orderly, beautiful homes. Our house was pleasantly situated on the Chelsea Hills, commanding a fine view of Boston, the harbor and surrounding country. There on the Upper Piazza I spent some of the happiest days of my life, enjoying in turn the beautiful outlook my children and my books. Here under the very shadow of Bunker Hill Monument my third son was born. Shortly after this Garrett Smith and his wife came to spend a few days with us so this boy much against my will was named after my cousin. I did not believe in old family names unless they were peculiarly euphonious. I had a list of beautiful names for sons and daughters from which to designate each newcomer but as yet not one on my list had been used. However I put my foot down at number four and named him Theodore and thus far he has proved himself a veritable gift of God, doing his uttermost in every way possible to fight the battle of freedom for woman. During the visit of my cousin I thought I would venture on a small select dinner party consisting of the Reverend John Pierpont and his wife Charles Sumner, John G. Whittier and Joshua Levitt. I had a new cook, Rose whose Viennes thus far had proved delicious so I had no anxiety on that score. But unfortunately on this occasion I had given her a bottle of wine for the pudding sauce and whipped cream, of which she imbibed too freely and hence there were some glaring blunders in the menu that were exceedingly mortifying. As Mr. Smith and my husband were both good talkers I told them they must cover all defects with their brilliant conversation which they promised to do. Rose had all the points of a good servant, phrenologically and physiologically. She had a good large head with great bumps of caution and order. Her eyes were large and soft and far apart. In selecting her scientifically I had told my husband in triumph several times what a treasure I had found. Shortly after dinner one evening when I was out she held the baby while the nurse was eating her supper and carelessly burned his foot against the stove. Then Mr. Stanton suggested that in selecting the next cook I would better not trust the science but inquire of the family where she lived as to her practical virtues. Poor Rose she wept over her lapses when sober and made fair promises for the future but I did not dare to trust her so we parted. The one drawback to the joys of housekeeping was then as it is now the lack of faithful competent servants, the hope of cooperative housekeeping in the near future gives a some promise of a more harmonious domestic life. One of the books in my library I value most highly is the first volume of Whittier's poems published in 1838 dedicated to Henry B. Stanton as a token of the author's personal friendship and of his respect for the unreserved devotion of exalted talents to the cause of humanity and freedom. Soon after our marriage we spent a few days with our gifted Quaker poet on his farm in Massachusetts. I shall never forget those happy days in June, the long walks and drives and talks under the old trees of anti-slavery experiences and Whittier's mirth and indignation as we described different scenes in the world's anti-slavery convention in London. He laughed immoderately at the Tom Campbell episode. Poor fellow he had taken too much wine that day and when Whittier's verses addressed to the convention were read he criticized them severely and wound up by saying that the soul of a poet was not in him. Mr. Stanton sprang to his feet and recited some of Whittier's stirring stanzas on freedom which electrified the audience and turning to Campbell he said, What do you say to that? Ah, that's real poetry he replied. And John Greenleaf Whittier is its author, said Mr. Stanton. I enjoyed too the morning and evening service when the revered mother read the scriptures and we all bowed our heads in silent worship. There was at times an atmosphere of solemnity pervading everything that was oppressive in the midst of so much that appealed to my higher nature. There was a shade of sadness and even the smile of the mother and sister and a rigid plainness in the house and its surroundings. A depressed look in Whittier himself that the songs of the birds, the sunshine and the bracing New England air seemed powerless to chase away, caused, as I afterward heard, by pecuniary embarrassment and fears in regard to the delicate health of the sister. She too had rare poetical talent and in her Whittier found not only a alien in the practical affairs of life but one who sympathized with him in the highest flights of which his muse was capable. Their worst fears were realized in the death of the sister not long after. In his last volume several of her poems were published which are quite worthy the place the brother's appreciation has given them. Whittier's love and reverence for his mother and sister so marked in every word and look were charming features of his home life. All his poems to our sex breathed the same tender worshipful sentiments. Soon after this visit at Amesbury our noble friend spent a few days with us in Chelsea near Boston. One evening after we had been talking a long time of the unhappy dissensions among anti-slavery friends by way of dissipating the shadows I opened the piano and proposed that we should sing some cheerful songs. Oh, no exclaimed Mr. Stanton. Do not touch a note. You will put every nerve of Whittier's body on edge. It seemed to me so natural for a poet to love music that I was surprised to know that it was a torture to him. From our upper piazza we had a fine view of Boston Harbour sitting there late one moonlight night admiring the outlines of the monument, and the weird effect of the sails and mass of the vessels lying in the harbour, we naturally passed from the romance of our surroundings to those of our lives. I have often noticed that the most reserved people are apt to grow confidential at such an hour. It was under such circumstances that the good poet opened to me a deeply interesting page of his life, a sad romance of love yet be told as some who were interested in the events are still among the living. Whittier's poems were not only one of the most important factors in the anti-slavery war and victory, but they have been equally potent in emancipating the minds of his generation from the gloomy superstitions of the puritanical religion. Oliver Wendell Holmes in his eulogy of Whittier says that his influence on the religious thought of the American people has been far greater than that of the occupant of any pulpit. As my husband's health was delicate and the New England winters proved too severe for him, we left Boston with many regrets and sought a more genial climate in Central New York. End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Eighty years and more This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Eighty years and more by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Chapter 9 The First Woman's Rights Convention In the spring of 1847 we moved to Seneca Falls. Here we spent 16 years of our married life and here our other children, two sons and two daughters were born. Just as we were ready to leave Boston Mr. and Mrs. Eaton and their two children arrived from Europe and we decided to go together to Johnstown. Mr. Eaton being obliged to hurry to New York on business and Mr. Stanton to remain still in Boston a few months. At the last moment my nurse decided she could not leave her friends and go so far away. Accordingly my sister and I started by rail with five children and 17 trunks for Albany where we rested overnight and part of the next day. We had a very fatiguing journey looking after so many trunks and children, for my sister's children persisted in standing on the platform at every opportunity and the younger ones would follow their example. This kept us constantly on the watch. We were thankful when safely landed once more in the old homestead in Johnstown where we arrived at midnight. As our beloved parents had received no warning of our coming the whole household was aroused of us, but now in safe harbor mid familiar scenes and pleasant memories our slumbers were indeed refreshing. How rapidly one throws off all care and anxiety under the parental roof and how at sea one feels no matter what the age may be when the loved ones are gone forever and the home of childhood is but a dream of the past. After a few days of rest I started alone from my new home quite happy with the responsibility of sharing a house and putting all things in order. I was already acquainted with many of the people and the surroundings in Seneca Falls as my sister, Mrs. Baird had lived there several years and I had frequently made her long visits. We had quite a magnetic circle of reformers too in Central New York. At Rochester were William Henry Channing, Frederick Douglass, the Anthony's, Posts, Hallowell, Stebbins and some grand old Quaker families as well. The Sedgwick's, May's, Mills and Matilda Jocelyn Gage at Syracuse, Garrett Smith at Peterborough and Bariah Green at Whitesboro. The house we were to occupy had been closed for some years and needed many repairs and the grounds comprising five acres were overgrown with weeds. My father gave me a check and said with a smile, you believe in women's capacity to do and dare, now go ahead and put your place in order. When I was in the house and due consultation with one or two sons of Adam, I set the carpenters, painters, paper hangers and gardeners at work, built a new kitchen and woodhouse and in one month took possession. Having left my children with my mother there were no impediments to a full display of my executive ability. In the purchase of brick, timber, paint, etc. and in making bargains with workmen I was in frequent consultation with Judge Sackett and Mr. Bascom. The latter was a member of the Constitutional Convention then in session in Albany and as he used to walk down whenever he was at home to see how my work progressed we had long talks sitting on boxes in the midst of tools and shavings on the status of women. I urged him to propose an amendment to Article II, Section III of the State Constitution striking out the word male which limits the suffrage to men. But while he fully agreed with all I had to say on the political equality of women he had not the courage to make himself the laughing stock of the Convention. Whenever I cornered him on this point manlike he turned the conversation to the painters and carpenters. However these conversations had the effect of bringing him into the First Woman's Convention where he did us good service. In Seneca Falls my life was comparatively solitary and the change from Boston was somewhat depressing. There all my immediate friends were reformers. I had near neighbors, a new home with all the modern conveniences and well-trained servants. Here our residence was on the outskirts of the town, roads very often muddy and no sidewalks most of the way. Mr. Stanton was frequently from home. I had poor servants and an increasing number of children. To keep a house and grounds in good order purchase every article for daily use keep the wardrobes of half a dozen human beings in proper trim take the children to dentists, shoemakers and different schools or find teachers at home altogether made sufficient work to keep one brain busy as well as all the hands I could impress into the service. Then too the novelty of housekeeping had passed away and much that was once attractive in domestic life was now irksome. I had so many cares that the company I needed for intellectual stimulus was a trial rather than a pleasure. There was quite an Irish settlement at a short distance and continual complaints were coming to me that my boys threw stones at their pigs, cows and the roofs of their houses. This involved constant diplomatic relations in the settlement of various difficulties in which I was so successful that at length they constituted me a kind of umpire in all their own quarrels. If a drunken husband was pounding his wife the children would run for me. Hastening to the scene of action I would take Patrick by the collar and much to his surprise and shame make him sit down and promise to behave himself. I never had one of them offer the least resistance and in time they all came to regard me as one having authority. I strengthened my influence by cultivating good feeling. I lent the men papers to read and invited their children into our grounds giving them fruit of which we had abundance and my children's old clothes, books and toys. I was their physician also. With my box of homeopathic medicines I took charge of the men, women and children in sickness. Thus the most amicable relations were established and in any emergency these poor neighbors were good friends and always ready to serve me. But I found police duty rather irksome especially when called out dark nights to prevent drunken fathers from disturbing their sleeping children or to minister to poor mothers in the pangs of maternity. Alas! Alas! Who can measure the mountains of sorrow and suffering endured in unwelcome motherhood in the abodes of ignorance, poverty and vice where terror-stricken women and children are the victims of strong men frenzied with passion and intoxicating drink? Up to this time life had glided by with comparative ease but now the real struggle was upon me. My duties were too numerous and varied and none sufficiently exhilarating or intellectual to bring into play my higher faculties. I suffered with mental hunger which like an empty stomach is very depressing. I had books but no stimulating companionship. To add to my general dissatisfaction at the change from Boston I found that Seneca Falls was a malarial region and in due time all the children were attacked with chills and fever which under homeopathic treatment in those days lasted three months. The servants were afflicted in the same way. Cleanliness, order, the love of the beautiful and artistic all faded away in the struggle to accomplish what was absolutely necessary from hour to hour. Now I understood as I never had before how women could sit down and rest in the midst of general disorder. Housekeeping under such conditions was impossible so I packed our clothes, locked up the house and went to that harbor of safety, home as I did ever after in stress of the weather. I now fully understood the practical difficulties most women had to contend with in the isolated household and the impossibility of women's best development if in contact the chief part of her life with servants and children. Four years, Falson's Dairy Community Life and Cooperative Households had a new significance for me. Emerson says, quote, a healthy discontent is the first step to progress, unquote. The general discontent I felt with women's portion as wife, mother, housekeeper, physician and spiritual guide, the chaotic conditions into which everything fell without her constant supervision and the wearied anxious look of the majority of women impressed me with a strong feeling that some active measures should be taken to remedy the wrongs of society in general and of women in particular. My experience at the World's Anti-Slavery Convention all I had read of the legal status of women and the oppression I saw everywhere together swept across my soul intensified now by many personal experiences. It seemed as if all the elements had conspired to impel me to some onward step. I could not see what to do or where to begin. My only thought was a public meeting for protest and discussion. In this tempest-toss condition of mind I received an invitation to spend the day with Lucretia Mott at Richard Hunt's in Waterloo. There I met several members of different families of friends, earnest, thoughtful women. I poured out that day the torrent of my long-accumulating discontent with such vehemence and indignation that I stirred myself as well as the rest of the party to do and dare anything. My discontent, according to Emerson must have been healthy, for it moved us all to prompt action and we decided then and there to call a Woman's Rights Convention. We wrote the call that evening and published it in the Seneca County Courier the next day, the 14th of July, 1848, giving only five days' notice as the convention was to be held on the 19th and 20th. The call was inserted without signatures. In fact, it was a mere announcement of a meeting. But the chief movers and managers were Lucretia Mott, Mary Ann McClintock, Jane Hunt, Martha C. Wright, and myself. The convention which was held two days in the Methodist Church was in every way a grand success. The house was crowded at every session. The speaking good and a religious earnestness dignified all the proceedings. These were the hasty initiative steps of, quote, the most momentous reform that had yet been launched on the world, the first organized protest against the injustice which had brooded for ages over the character and destiny of one half the race, unquote. No words could express our astonishment on finding a few days afterward that what seemed to us so timely, so rational, so sacred should be a subject for sarcasm and ridicule to the entire press of the nation. With our declaration of rights and resolutions for a text, it seemed as if every man who could wield a pen prepared a homily on women's sphere. All the journals from Maine to Texas seemed to strive with each other to see which could make our movement appear the most ridiculous. The anti-slavery paper stood by us manfully and so did Frederick Douglass both in the convention and in his paper, The North Star. But so pronounced was the popular voice against us in the parlor, press and pulpit that most of the ladies who had attended the convention and signed the declaration one by one withdrew their names and influence and joined our persecutors. Our friends gave us the cold shoulder and felt themselves disgraced by the whole proceeding. If I had had the slightest premonition of all that was to follow that convention, I fear I should not have had the courage to risk it but I must confess it was with fear and trembling that I consented to another one month afterward in Rochester. Fortunately the first one seemed to have drawn all the fire and of the second but little was said but we had set the ball in motion and now in quick succession conventions were held in Ohio, Indiana, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and in the city of New York and have been kept up nearly every year since. The most noteworthy of the early conventions were those held in Massachusetts in which such men as Garrison, Phillips, Channing, Parker and Emerson took part. It was one of these that first attracted the attention of Mrs. John Stuart Mill and drew from her pen that able article on the enfranchisement of women in the Westminster Review of October 1852. The same year of the convention the Married Woman's Property Bill which had given rise to some discussion in New York had passed the legislature. This encouraged action on the part of women as the reflection naturally arose that if the men who make the laws were ready for some onward step surely the women themselves should express some interest in the legislation. Ernestine L. Ross, Paulina Wright, Davis and I had spoken before committees of the legislature years before demanding equal property rights for women. We had circulated petitions for the Married Woman's Property Bill for many years and so also had the leaders of the Dutch aristocracy who desired to see their lifelong accumulations to send to their daughters and grandchildren rather than pass into the hands of the dissipated thriftless sons-in-law. Judge Hurtel, Judge Fine and Mr. Getty's of Syracuse prepared and championed the several bills at different times before the legislature. Hence the demands made in the convention were not entirely new to the reading and thinking of New York, the first state to take any action on the question. As New York was the first state to put the word male in her constitution in 1778, it was fitting that she should be the first in more liberal legislation. The effect of the convention on my own mind was most salutary. The discussions had cleared my ideas as to the primal steps to be taken for women's and franchisement and the opportunity of expressing myself fully and freely on a subject I felt so deeply about was a great relief. I think all women who attended the convention felt better for the statement of their wrongs believing that the first step had been taken to right them. Soon after this I was invited to speak at several points in the neighborhood. One night, in the Quaker meeting-house at Farmington, I invited as usual discussion and questions when I had finished. We all waited in silence for a long time. At length a middle-aged man with a broad-brimmed hat arose and responded in a sing-song tone. All I have to say is if a hen can crow, let her crow! Emphasizing crow with an upward inflection on several notes of the gamut, the meeting adjourned with mingled feelings of surprise and merriment. I confessed that I felt so much aggrieved in having what I considered my unanswerable arguments so summarily disposed of and the serious impression I had made on the audience so speedily dissipated. The good man intended no disrespect as he told me afterward. He simply put the whole argument in a nutshell. Let a woman do whatever she can. With these new duties and interest and a broader outlook on human life my petty domestic annoyances gradually took a subordinate place. Now I began to write articles for the press, letters to conventions held in other states and private letters to friends to arouse them and to thought on this question. The pastor of the Presbyterian Church, Mr. Bogue, preached several sermons on the woman's fear, criticizing the action of the conventions in Seneca Falls and Rochester. Elizabeth McClintock and I took notes and answered them in the county papers. Gradually we extended our labors and attacked our opponents in the New York Tribune whose columns were open to us in the early days, Mr. Greeley being at that time one of our most experienced historians. In answering all the attacks we were compelled to study canon and civil law, constitutions, bibles, science, philosophy and history, sacred and profane. Now my mind as well as my hands was fully occupied and instead of mourning as I had done over what I had lost in leaving Boston I tried in every way to make the most of life in Seneca Falls. Seeing that elaborate refreshments prevented many social gatherings I often gave an evening entertainment without any. I told the young people whenever they wanted a little dance or a merry time to make our house their rallying point and I would light up and give them a glass of water and some cake. In that way we had many placent informal gatherings. Then in imitation of Margaret Fuller's conversational we started one which lasted several years. We selected a subject each week on which we all read each in turn preparing an essay ten minutes in length. These were held at different homes Saturday of each week. On coming together we chose a presiding officer for the evening who called the meeting to order and introduced the essayist. That finished he asked each member in turn what he or she had read or thought on the subject and if any had criticisms to make on the essay. Everyone was expected to contribute something. All the ladies as well as the gentlemen presided in turn and so became familiar with parliamentary rules. The evening ended with music dancing and a general chat. In this way we read and thought over a wide range of subjects and brought together the best minds in the community. Many young men and women who did not belong to what was considered the first circle. For in every little country village there is always a small clique that constitutes the aristocracy had the advantages of a social life otherwise denied them. I think that all who took part in this conversation club would testify to its many good influences. I had three quite intimate young friends in the village who spent much of their spare time with me and who added much to my happiness. Francis Hoskins who was principal of the girls department in the academy with whom we discussed politics and religion. Mary Baskham a good talker on the topics of the day and Mary Cronin Shield who played well on the piano. As I was very fond of music Mary's coming was always hailed with delight. Her mother too was a dear friend of mine a woman of rare intelligence refinement and conversational talent. She was a shiler and belonged to the Dutch aristocracy in Albany. She died suddenly after short illness. I was with her in the last hours and held her hand until the gradually fading spark of life went out. Her son is captain A.S. Cronin Shield of our Navy. My nearest neighbors were a very agreeable intelligent family of sons and daughters but I always felt that the men of that household were given to domineering. As the mother was very amiable and self-sacrificing the daughters found it difficult to rebel. One summer after general house cleaning when fresh paint and paper had made even the kitchen look too dainty for the summer invasion of flies the queens of the household decided to move the somber cook stove into a spacious wood house where it maintained its dignity one week in the absence of the head of the home. The mothers and daughters were delighted with the change and wondered why they had not made it before during the summer months. But their pleasure was short-lived. Father and sons rose early and drove back to its old place. When the wife and daughters came down to get their breakfast, for they did all their own work they were filled with grief and disappointment. The breakfast was eaten in silence the women humbled with a sense of their helplessness and the men gratified with a sense of their power. These men would probably all have said home is woman's fear though they took the liberty of regulating everything in her sphere. Chapter 10 80 YEARS AND MORE This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org 80 YEARS AND MORE by Elizabeth Cady Stanton Chapter 10 Susan B. Anthony The reports of the conventions held in Seneca Falls and Rochester, New York in 1848 attracted the attention of one destined to take a most important part in the new movement Susan B. Anthony who for her courage and executive ability was speciously called by William Henry Channing the Napoleon of our struggle. At this time she was teaching in the academy at Cana Johari a little village in the beautiful valley of the Mohawk. The woman's declaration of independence issued from those conventions startled and amused her and she laughed heartily at the novelty and presumption of the demand. But on returning home to spend her vacation she was surprised to find that her sober Quaker parents and sister having attended the Rochester meetings regarded them as very profitable and interesting and the demands made as proper and reasonable. She was already interested in the anti-slavery and temperance reforms was an active member of an organization called the Daughters of Temperance and had spoken a few times in their public meetings. But the new gospel of woman's rights found a ready response in her mind and from that time her best efforts have been given to the enfranchisement of women. As from this time my friend is closely associated with my narrative and will frequently appear therein a sketch of her seems appropriate. Lord Bacon has well said he that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune for they are impediments to great enterprises either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works and of greatest merit for the public have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men which both in affection and means have married and endowed the public. This bit of Baconian philosophy as a like applicable to women was the subject of not long sense of a conversation with a remarkably gifted English woman. She was absorbed in many public interests and had conscientiously resolved never to marry lest the cares necessarily involved in matrimony should make inroads upon her time and thought to the detriment of the public good. Unless, said she, some women dedicate themselves to the public service society is robbed of needed guardians for the special ones of the weak and unfortunate. There should be in the secular world certain orders corresponding in a measure to the grand sisterhoods of the Catholic Church to the members of which as freely as to men all offices, civic and ecclesiastical should be open. That this ideal will be realized may be inferred from the fact that exceptional women have in all ages been leaders in great projects of charity and reform and that now many stand waiting only the sanction of their century ready for wide altruistic labours. The world has ever had its Vestal Virgins, its Holy Women, mothers of ideas rather than of men, its Marys as well as its Marthas, who rather than be busy housewives preferred to sit at the feet of divine wisdom and ponder the mysteries of the unknown. All hail to Maria Mitchell, Harriet Hosmer, Charlotte Cushman, Alice and Phoebe Gary, Lisa Alcott, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, Francis Willard and Clara Barton. All honour to the noble women who have devoted earnest lives to the intellectual and moral needs of mankind. Susan B. Anthony was of sturdy New England stock and it was at the foot of old Greylock, South Adams, Massachusetts that she gave forth her first rebellious cry. There the baby steps were taken and at the village school the first stitches were learned and the ABC duly mastered. When five winters had passed over Susan's head there came a time of great domestic commotion and in her small way the child sees the idea that permanence is not the rule of life. The family moved to Battenville, New York where Mr. Anthony became one of the wealthiest men in Washington County. Susan can still recall the stately coldness of the great house, how large the bare rooms with their yellow painted floors seemed in contrast with her own diminutiveness and the outlook of the school room where for so many years with her brothers and sisters she pursued her studies under private tutors. Mr. Anthony was a stern, hick-site quaker. In Susan's early life he objected on principle to all forms of frivolous amusement such as music, dancing or novel reading while even pictures were regarded as meaningless luxuries. Such puritanical convictions might have easily degenerated into mere cant, but underlying all was a broad and firm basis of wholesome respect for individual freedom and a brave adherence to truth. He was a man of good business capacity and a thorough manager of his wide and lucrative interests. He saw that compensation and not chance ruled in the court, and he believed in the same just, though often severe, law in the sphere of morals. Such a man was not apt to walk humbly in the path mapped out by his religious sect. He early offended by choosing a Baptist for a wife. For this offense he was disowned and, according to Quaker usage, could only be received into fellowship again by declaring himself sorry for his crime in full meeting. He was full of devout thankfulness for the good woman by his side and destined to be thankful to the very end for this companion, so calm, so just, so far seeing. He rose in meeting and said he was sorry that the rules of the society were such that in marrying the woman he loved he had committed a fence. He admitted that he was sorry for something, so was taken back into the body of the faithful. But his faith had begun to weaken any minor points of discipline. His coat soon became a cause of offense and called forth another reproof from those buttoned up in conforming garments. The petty forms of Quakerism began to lose their weight with him altogether and he was finally disowned for allowing the village youth to be taught dancing in an upper room of his dwelling. He was applied to for this favour on the ground that young men were under great temptation to drink and being a rigid temperance man he readily consented, though his principles in regard to dancing would not allow his own sons and daughters to join in the amusement. But the society could accept no such discrimination in what it deemed sin, nor such compromise with worldly frivolity and so Mr. Anthony was seen no more in meeting. But in later years in Rochester he was an attentive listener to Reverend William Henry Channing. The effect of all this on Susan is the question of interest. No doubt she early weighed the comparative moral effects of coats cut with capes and those cut without of purely Quaker conjugal love and that deteriorated with Baptist affection. Susan had an earnest soul and a conscience tending to morbidity, but a strong well-balanced body and simple family life soothed her too active moral nature and gave the world, instead of a religious fanatic, a sincere concentrated worker. Every household art was taught her by her mother and so great was her ability that the duty demanding a special care was always given into her hands. But ever amid school and household tasks her daydream was that in time she might be a high-seat Quaker. Each Sunday up to the time of the third disobedience Mr. Anthony went to the Quaker Meeting House some thirteen miles from home his wife and children usually accompanying him though as non-members they were rigidly excluded from all business discussions. Exclusion was very pleasant in the bright days of summer but on one occasion in December decidedly unpleasant for the seven-year-old Susan. When the blinds were drawn at the close of the religious meeting and non-members retired soon she saw a thin old lady with blue goggles come down from the high seat approaching her, the Quakerist said softly the is not a member the must go out No, my mother told me not to go out in the cold was the child's firm response yes, but the must go out the is not a member but my father is a member the is not a member and Susan felt as if the spirit was in her and soon found herself in outer coldness fingers and toes becoming numb and a bright fire in a cottage over the way beckoning warmly to her the exile from the chapel resolved to seek secular shelter but alas she was confronted by a huge dog and just escaped with whole skin though capeless jacket we may be sure there was much talk that night at the home fireside and the good Baptist wife declared that no child of hers should attend meeting again till made a member thereafter by request of her father Susan became a member of the Quaker Church later definite convictions took root in Miss Anthony's heart hers is indeed a sincerely religious nature to be a simple earnest Quaker was the aspiration of her girlhood but she shrank from adopting the formal language in plain dress dark hours of conflict for all this and she interpreted her disinclination as evidence of unworthiness poor little Susan as we look back with the knowledge of our later life we translate the heart burnings as unconscious protests against labeling your free soul against testing your reasoning conviction of tomorrow by any shibboleth of today's belief we hail this child intuition as a prophecy of the uncompromising truthfulness of the mature woman Susan Anthony was taught simply that she must enter into the holy of holies of her own self meet herself and be true to the revelation she first found words to express her convictions in listening to Reverend William Henry Channing whose teaching had a lasting spiritual influence upon her today Miss Anthony is an agnostic as to the nature of the Godhead and of the life beyond her horizon profess to know anything every energy of her soul is centered upon the needs of this world to her work is worship she has not stood aside shivering in the cold shadows of uncertainty but has moved on with the whirling world has done the good given her to do and thus in darkest hours has been sustained by an unaltering faith in the final perfection of all things her belief is not orthodox but it is religious in ancient Greece she would have been a stoic in the era of the Reformation a Calvinist in King Charles's time a Puritan but in this 19th century by the very laws of her being she is a reformer for the arduous work that awaited Miss Anthony her years of young womanhood had given preparation her father though a man of wealth and made it a matter of conscience to train his girls as well as his boys to self support accordingly Susan chose the profession of teacher and made her first essay during a summer vacation in a school her father had established for the children of his employees her success was so marked not only in imparting knowledge but also as a disciplinarian that she followed this career steadily for 15 years with the exception of some months she was given in Philadelphia to her own training of the many school rebellions which she overcame one rises before me prominent in its ludicrous aspect this was in the district school at center falls in the year 1839 bad reports were current there of male teachers driven out by a certain strapping lad rumor next told of a Quaker maiden coming to teach a Quaker maiden of peace principles anticipated day and Susan arrived she looked very meek to the barbarian of 15 so he soon began his antics he was called to the platform told to lay aside his jacket and thereupon with much astonishment received from the mild Quaker maiden with a birch rod applied calmly but with precision an exposition of the argumentum ad hominem based on the a posteriori method of reasoning thus Susan departed from her principles but not from the school about the year 1850 Susan B. Anthony hid her feral away temperance, anti-slavery woman suffrage three pregnant questions presented themselves demanding her consideration higher ever higher rose their appeals until she resolved to dedicate her energy and thought to the burning needs of the hour owing to early experience of the disabilities of her sex the first demand for equal rights for women found echo in Susan's heart and though she was in the beginning startled to hear that women had actually met in convention and by speeches and resolutions had declared themselves man's peer in political rights and had urged radical changes in state constitutions and the whole system of American jurisprudence yet the most casual review convinced her that these claims were but the logical outgrowth of the fundamental theories of our Republic at this stage of her development I met my future friend and co-agitor for the first time how well I remember the day George Thompson and William Lloyd Garrison having announced an anti-slavery meeting in Seneca Falls Miss Anthony came to attend it these gentlemen were my guests walking home after the adjournment we met Mrs. Bloomer and Miss Anthony on the corner of the street waiting to greet us there she stood with her good earnest face and genial smile dressed in gray delaying hat and all the same color relieved with pale blue ribbons the perfection of neatness and sobriety I liked her thoroughly and why I did not at once invite her home with me to dinner I do not know she accuses me of that neglect and has never forgiven me as she wished to see and hear all that she could of our noble friends my mind was full of what I had heard or my coming dinner or the probable behavior of three mischievous boys who had been busily exploring the premises while I was at the meeting that I had abundant cause for anxiety in regard to the philosophical experiments these young savages might try the reader will admit when informed of some of their performances Henry imagined himself possessed of rare powers of invention an ancestral weakness for generations and so made a life preserver of corks and tested its virtues on his brother who was about eighteen months old accompanied by a troupe of expectant boys the baby was drawn in his carriage to the banks of the Seneca stripped and string of corks tied under his arms and set afloat in the river the philosopher and his satellites in a rowboat watching the experiment the baby accustomed to a morning bath in a large tub splashed about joyfully keeping his head above water he was as blue as indigo and as cold as a frog when rescued by his anxious mother the next day the same victimized infant was seen by a passing friend seated on the chimney on the highest peak of the house without alarming anyone the friend hurried up to the housetop and rescued the child another time the three elder brothers entered into a conspiracy and locked up the fourth Theodore in the smoke house he sounded the alarm loud and clear and was set free in safety whereupon the three were imprisoned in a garret with two barred windows they summarily kicked out the bars and sliding down on the lightning rod we took themselves to the barn for liberty the youngest boy, Garrett then only five years old skinned his hands on the descent this is a fair sample of the quiet happiness I enjoyed in the first years of motherhood it was amid such exhilarating scenes that Miss Anthony and I wrote addresses for temperance anti-slavery, educational and women's rights conventions here we forged resolutions protest, appeals, petitions agricultural reports and constitutional arguments for we made it a matter of conscience to accept every invitation to speak on every question in order to maintain women's right to do so to this end we took turns on the domestic watchtowers directing amusements, settling disputes protecting the weak against the strong and trying to secure equal rights to all in the home as well as the nation I can recall many a stern encounter between my friend and the young experimenter it is pleasant to remember that he never seriously injured any of his victims and only once came near fatally shooting himself with a pistol the ball went through his hand happily a brass button prevented it from penetrating his heart it is often said by those who know Miss Anthony best that she has been my good angel always pushing and goading me to work and that but for her pertinacity I should never have accomplished the little I have on the other hand it has been said that I forged the thunderbolts and she fired them perhaps all this is in a measure true with the cares of a large family I might in time like too many women have become wholly absorbed in a narrow family selfishness had not my friend been continually exploring new fields for missionary labors her description of a body of men on any platform complacently deciding questions in which women had an equal interest without an equal voice readily roused me to a determination to throw a firebrand into the midst of their assembly thus whenever I saw that stately Quaker girl coming across my lawn I knew that some happy convocation of the sons of Adam was to be set by the ears by one of our appeals or resolutions the little portmanteau stuffed with facts was opened and there we had what the Reverend John Smith and Honorable Richard Rowe had said false interpretations of Bible text the statistics of women robbed of their property shut out of some college half paid for their work the reports of some disgraceful trial injustice enough to turn any woman's thoughts from stockings and puddings then we would get out our pens and write articles for papers or a petition to the legislature indite letters to the faithful here and there stir up the women in Ohio Pennsylvania or Massachusetts call on the lily the una the liberator the standard to remember our wrongs as well as those of the slave we never met without issuing a pronuncia mento on some question in thought and sympathy we were one and in the division of we exactly complimented each other in writing we did better work than either could alone while she is slow and analytical in composition I am rapid in synthetic I am the better writer she the better critic she supplied the facts and statistics I the philosophy and rhetoric and together we have made arguments that have stood unshaken through the storms of long years arguments that no one has answered our speeches to be considered the united product of our two brains so entirely one are we that in all our associations ever side by side on the same platform not one feeling of envy or jealousy has ever shadowed our lives we have indulged freely in criticism of each other one alone and hotly contended whenever we have differed but in our friendship of years there has never been the break of one hour to the world and we always seem to agree and uniformly reflect each other like husband and wife each has the feeling that we must have no differences in public thus united at an early day we began to survey the state and nation the future field of our labors we read with critical eyes the proceedings of congress and legislatures of general assemblies and synods of conferences and conventions and discovered that in all like the existence of woman was entirely ignored night after night by an old fashioned fireplace we plotted and planned the coming agitation how when and where each entering wedge could be driven by which women might be recognized and their rights secured speedily the state was aflame with disturbances in temperance and teachers conventions and the press heralded the news far and near that women delegates had suddenly appeared demanding admission in men's conventions that their rights had been hotly contested session after session by liberal men on the one side the clergy and learned professors on the other an overwhelming majority rejecting the women with terrible anathemas and denunciations such battles were fought over and over in the chief cities of many of the northern states until the bigotry of men in all the reforms and professions were thoroughly exposed every right achieved to enter college to study a profession to labor in some new industry or to advocate a reform measure was contended for inch by inch many of those enjoying all these blessings now complacently say if these pioneers in reform had only pressed their measures more judiciously in a more lady like manner in more choice language attitude the gentleman could not have behaved so rudely I give in these pages enough of the characteristics of these women of the sentiments they expressed of their education ancestry and position to show that no power could have met the prejudice and bigotry of that period more successfully than they did who so bravely and persistently fought and conquered them Miss Anthony first carried her flag of rebellion into the state conventions of teachers and their fought almost single-handed the battle for equality at the close of the first decade she had compelled conservatism to yield its ground so far as to permit women to participate in all debates deliver essays, vote and hold honored positions as officers she labored as sincerely in the temperance movement until convinced that women's moral power amounted to little as a civil agent until backed by ballot and coined into state law she still never loses an occasion to defend coeducation and prohibition and solves every difficulty with the refrain woman's suffrage as persistent as the never more of Poe's raven End of Chapter 10