Volume III Part 59 (1/2)

Day; _Franklin_, none; _Grand Isle_, Miss I. Montgomery; _La Moille_, Carrie P. Carroll, Miss C. A. Parker; _Orange_, Miss F. H.

Graves, Miss A. A. Clement, Miss V. L. Farnham, Miss F. Martin; _Orleans_, none; _Rutland_, Mrs. I. C. Adams, Miss H. M.

Bromley, Miss M. A. Mills, Lillian Tarbell, Mrs. H. M. Crowley; _Was.h.i.+ngton_, none; _Windham_, Mrs. J. M. Powers, Mrs. J. E.

Phelps; _Windsor_, Mrs. E. G. White, Miss C. A. Lamb, Mrs. H. F.

VanCor, Clara E. Perkins, Mrs. E. M. Lovejoy, Mrs. L. M. Hall.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

NEW YORK--1860-1885.

Saratoga Convention, July 13, 14, 1869--State Society Formed, Martha C. Wright, President--_The Revolution_ Established, 1868--Educational Movement--New York City Society, 1870, Charlotte B. Wilbour, President--Presidential Campaign, 1872--Hearings at Albany, 1873--Const.i.tutional Commission--An Effort to Open Columbia College, President Barnard in Favor--Centennial Celebration, 1876--School Officers--Senator Emerson of Monroe, 1877--Gov. Robinson's Veto--School Suffrage, 1880--Gov. Cornell Recommended it in his Message--Stewart's Home for Working Women--Women as Police--An Act to Prohibit Disfranchis.e.m.e.nt--Attorney-General Russell's Adverse Opinion--The Power of the Legislature to Extend Suffrage--Great Demonstration in Chickering Hall, March 7, 1884--Hearing at Albany, 1885--Mrs.

Blake, Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Rogers, Mrs. Howell, Gov. Hoyt of Wyoming.

The New York chapter in Volume I. closes with an account of some retrogressive legislation on the rights of married women,[200]

showing that until woman herself has a voice in legislation her rights may be conceded or withheld at the option of the ruling powers, and that her only safety is in direct representation. The chapter on ”Trials and Decisions” in Volume II., shows the injustice women have suffered in the courts, where they have never yet enjoyed the sacred right of trial by a jury of their own peers.

After many years of persistent effort for the adjustment of special grievances, many of the leaders, seeing by what an uncertain tenure their civil rights were maintained by the legislative and judicial authorities, ceased to look to the State for redress, and turned to the general government for protection in the right of suffrage, the fundamental right by which all minor privileges and immunities are protected. Hence the annual meeting of the National a.s.sociation, which had been regularly held in New York as one of the May anniversaries, was, from 1869, supplemented by a semi-annual convention in Was.h.i.+ngton for special influence upon congress.

Until the war the work in New York was conducted by a central committee; but in the summer of 1869, the following call was issued for a convention at Saratoga Springs, to organize a State Society:

The advocates of woman suffrage will hold a State convention at Saratoga Springs on the thirteenth and fourteenth of July, 1869.

The specific business of this convention will be to effect a permanent organization for the State of New York. Our friends in the several congressional districts should at once elect their delegates, in order that the whole State may be represented in the convention. In districts where delegates cannot be elected, any person can const.i.tute himself or herself a representative.

The convention will be attended by the ablest advocates of suffrage for woman, and addresses may be expected from Elizabeth Cady Stanton, president of the National a.s.sociation, Celia Burleigh, president of the Brooklyn Equal Rights a.s.sociation, Matilda Joslyn Gage, advisory counsel for the State, Susan B.

Anthony, of _The Revolution_, Charlotte B. Wilbour of New York city, and others. Every woman interested for her personal freedom should attend this convention, and by her presence, influence and money, aid the movement for the restoration of the rights of her s.e.x.

Mrs. ELIZABETH B. PHELPS, _Vice-President for the State of New York_.

MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE, _Advisory Counsel_.

The opening session of the convention was held in the s.p.a.cious parlors of Congress Hall the audience composed chiefly of fas.h.i.+onable ladies[201] from all parts of the country, who listened with evident interest and purchased the tracts intended for distribution. The remaining sessions were held in Hawthorn Hall, Matilda Joslyn Gage presiding. A series of spirited resolutions was adopted, also a plan of organization presented by Charlotte B.

Wilbour, for a State a.s.sociation.[202] Many able speakers[203] were present. The formation of this society was the result of a very general agitation in different localities on several vital questions in the preceding year:

_First_--On taxation. Women being large property holders, had felt the pressure during the war, especially of the tax on incomes, and had resolved on resistance: Accordingly, large meetings[204] were called at various points, in 1868. While women of wealth were organizing to resist taxation, the working women[205] were uniting to defend their earnings, and secure better wages. It seemed for a few months as if they were in a chronic condition of rebellion. But after many vain struggles for redress in the iron teeth of the law, and equally vain appeals to have unjust laws amended, the women learned the hopelessness of all efforts made by disfranchised cla.s.ses.

_Second_--On prost.i.tution. For the first time in the history of the government, a bill was presented in the New York legislature, in 1868, proposing to license prost.i.tution. This showed the degradation of woman's position as no other act of legislation could have done, and although the editors of _The Revolution_ were the only women who publicly opposed the bill (which they did both before the committee of the legislature, and in their journal), yet there was in the minds of many, a deep undercurrent of resistance to the odious provisions of that bill. Horace Greeley, too, in his editorials in the New York _Tribune_, denounced the proposition in such unmeasured terms that, although pressed at three different legislative sessions, no member of the committee could be found with sufficient moral hardihood to present the bill.

In connection with this question, the necessity of ”women as police,” was for some time a topic of discussion. They had proved so efficient in many cases, that it was seriously proposed to have a standing force in New York and Brooklyn, to look after young girls,[206] new to the temptations and dangers of city life. In _The Revolution_ of March 26, 1868, we find the following:

It is often asked, would you make women police officers? It has already been done. At least a society of women exists in this country, for the discovery of crimes, conspiracies and such things. The chief of this band was Mrs. Kate Warn, a native of this State, who lately died in Chicago. She was engaged in this business, fifteen years ago, by Mr. Pinkerton, of the National Police Agency. She did good service for many years in watching, waylaying, exploring and detecting; especially on the critical occasion of President Lincoln's journey to Was.h.i.+ngton in 1861. In 1865 she was sent to New Orleans, as head of the Female Police Department there.

There was a general movement in these years for the more liberal education of women in various departments of art and industry, as well as in letters. First on the list stands Va.s.sar College, founded in 1861, richly endowed with fine grounds and s.p.a.cious buildings. We cannot estimate the civilizing influence of the thousands of young women graduating at that inst.i.tution, now, as cultivated wives and mothers, presiding in households all over this land. Cornell University[207] was opened to girls in 1872, more richly endowed than Va.s.sar, and in every way superior in its environments; beautifully situated on the banks of Cayuga Lake, with the added advantage and stimulus of the system of coeducation.

To Andrew D. White, its president, all women owe a debt of grat.i.tude for his able and persevering advocacy of the benefits to both s.e.xes, of coeducation. The university at Syracuse, in which Lima College was incorporated, is also open alike to boys and girls. Rochester University,[208] Brown, Columbia, Union, Hamilton, and Hobart College at Geneva, still keep their doors barred against the daughters of the State, and the three last, in the small number of their students, and their gradual decline, show the need of the very influence they exclude. Could all the girls desiring an education in and around Rochester, Geneva,[209] Clinton and Schenectady, enter these inst.i.tutions, the added funds and enthusiasm they would thus receive would soon bring them renewed life and vigor.

Peter Cooper and Catharine Beecher's efforts for the working cla.s.ses of women were equally praiseworthy. Miss Beecher formed ”The American Woman's Educational a.s.sociation,” for the purpose of establis.h.i.+ng schools all over the country for training girls in the rudiments of learning and practical work. The Cooper Inst.i.tute, founded in 1854, by Peter Cooper, has been invaluable in its benefits to the poorer cla.s.ses of girls, in giving them advantages in the arts and sciences, in evening as well as day cla.s.ses. Here both boys and girls have free admission into all departments, including its valuable reading-room and library. It had long been a cherished desire of Mr. Cooper to found an inst.i.tution to be devoted forever to the union of art and science in their application to the useful purposes of life. The School of Design is specially for women.

The Ladies Art a.s.sociation of New York was founded in 1867, now numbering over one hundred members. One of the most important things accomplished by this society has been the preparation of thoroughly educated teachers, many of whom are now filling positions in Southern and Western colleges.