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About The North Coast times-eagle. (Wheeler, Oregon) 1971-2007 | View Entire Issue (March 1, 2004)
N O R T H C O A S T T IM E S E A G L E , MARPRIL 2004 In 1825 Scottish-born Frances (Fanny) Wright attempted to abolish slavery with a plan for allowing slaves to work on public land and buy their freedom with the profits. Her attempt at setting up a model plantation failed but four years later she set up a "Hall of Science" in a New York City church and lectured on women's rights. "Until women assume the place in society which good sense and good feeling alike assign to them,"she declared, "human improvement must advance but feebly. It is in vain that we would circumscribe the power of one-half of our race and that by far the most important and influential." (Fanny Wright wrote in 1829, "There is a vulgar persuasion that the ignorance of women, by favoring their subordination, insures their utility. (It's) the same argument employed by the ruling few against the subject many; by the rich against the poor in democracies; by the learned professions against the people in all countries ") The newly formed American Anti-Slavery Society refused to admit woman members in 1833, but 20 white and black women formed the Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Society. In their constitution they underlined that slavery and prejudice violated the laws of God and the Declaration of Independence. Charter members included Lucretia Coffin Mott, Esther Moore, Rebecca Buffum, Grace Bustill Douglass, and Charlotte Forten and her three daughters, Margaretta, Sarah Louise and Harriet. The Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society was threatened by a mob when it scheduled abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison as speaker in 1835. When the Mayor ordered the women to leave, Maria Weston Chapman replied,"If this is the last bulwark of freedom, we may as well die here as anywhere." The women, white and black, joined hands and walked through the mob to Chapman's home. The first Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women was held in New York in May 1837. Of the 200 women who attended, at least 20 were black, and Grace Douglass (wife of escaped slave Frederick Douglass) was elected vice president. The women declared that it was time to move out of their circumscribed limits" and to use their "pens, purses and influence to end slavery." The second convention of the women's antislavery group held in Philadelphia the following year was met by an angry rock throwing mob, which burned down the hall they met in. Lucretia Mott, a convention leader that year, was threatened. But the next day the women declared "the prejudice against color is the very spirit of slavery" and urged all abolitionists to "sit with African Americans in their places of worship, walk with them on the street, and invite them into their homes." The American Anti-Slavery Society finally gave women voting rights in 1839, and the next year Abigail Foster was nominated to the business committee. Several women, including Lucretia Mott, were sent as delegates to an international slavery conference in London but the British refused to accept any of them. They were allowed to attend as spectators only, which outraged Elizabeth Cady Stanton, attending with her husband, a U S. delegate (she had the word obey deleted from her wedding vows earlier that year). Stanton and Mott soon became friends and decided "to hold a convention and form a society to advance the rights of women." In the meantime Angelina Grimk6 published An Appeal to the Women of the Nominally Free States in 1837. Grimkd said in a lecture she and her sister Sarah organized, one of many to large mixed audiences, "I believe it is a woman's right to have a voice in all the laws and regulations by which she is to be governed, whether in Church or State: and that the present arrangements of society, on these points, are a violation of human rights." She added that a woman had as much right as a man “to sit. . . in the Presidential Chair o f the United States." (That same year Sarah Grimk6 published her Letters on the Equality o f the Sexes, and the Condition o f Women, originally written to Mary S. Parker, president of the Boston Female Anti- Slavery Society in response to a Congregational ministers' Pastoral Letter condemning the Grimk6 sisters' speeches: "Men and women are created equal...All I ask our brethren is that they take theii feet off our necks and permit us to stand on the ground which God destined for us to occupy ") Margaret Fuller, a writer and highly regarded intellectual, published her seminal work Women in the 19th Century in 1845. ■ She insisted on woman's need "as a soul to live freely and unimpeded" and called for an end to "even well-meant restrict ions." "We would have every arbitrary barrier thrown down," Fuller wrote. 'We would have every path laid open to Woman as freely as to Man." And in 1848, forty-four women sent a petition demanding that the New York state legislature repeal its laws affecting women. They argued that the Declaration of Independence stated "that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. And as women have never consented to, been represented in, or recognized by this government, it is evident that in justice no allegiance can be claimed from them." In the summer of 1848 the Seneca Falls Convention, perhaps the most famous gathering of American women in the 19th century, was held in Seneca Falls, New York. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Martha Coffin Wright, Jane Hunt and Mary Ann McClintock were the principal organizers and were surprised that almost 300 people, mostly women, attended One of them, Charlotte Woodward (later Pierce), said, "As we reached different crossroads, we saw wagons coming from every part of the country, and long before we reached Seneca Falls, we were a procession." A "Declaration of Sentiments" was drafted by Stanton at the convention modeled after the Declaration of Independence. It condemned women's disenfranchisement, their lack of a voice in the laws they were compelled to obey, restrictions on their education and employment opportunities, their subordination by the church, the use of a moral double standard, and the theft of married women's full property rights. The group then passed a series of general resolutions that called for women's equal rights. A proposal to secure the vote for women narrowly passed after TURN THE PAGE BOOKS 2 2 9 1 4 th STREET ASTORIA, OREGON (5 0 3 ) 3 2 5 -2 8 8 3 D. B. JOHNSON arguments by Stanton and Frederick Douglass, but took more than 70 years to be fulfilled; only one woman who signed the resolution, Charlotte Woodward, lived to cast her ballot. Two weeks after Seneca Falls another meeting in near by Rochester called for women's enfranchisement, revision of existing property laws and delegates pledged to help raise work ing women's wages. Abolitionist women held a women's rights conference in Salem, Ohio in April 1850. Men were not allowed to speak or vote at the two-day meeting (women had requested James Mott preside at Seneca Falls) Men who attempted to voice opinions were ruled out of order. Resolved to claim their rights as "human beings," the women sent a petition to the Ohio Constitutional Convention demanding suffrage and "all other rights extended to men" in the new state constitution. Abolitionist Lucy Stone, criticized for discussing general women's issues in her lectures, helped organize yet another national convention for women's rights in Worcester (Mass) in October 1850. Women from nine states attended, including Susan Brownell Anthony, Antoinette Louisa Brown (later Blackwell), Sojourner Truth and Lecretia Mott. They drafted a resolution demanding suffrage and equality, "without distinction of sex or color." Throughout the 1850s black women encouraged white women and men with words and actions, in particular the dauntless Harriet Tubman who continuously risked her life to lead southern slaves to freedom in the north and Canada. "I had crossed the line of which I had so long been dreaming," she said after escaping slavery in 1849. "I was free; but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom." (William Still described Tubman in his 1872 book about the Underground Railroad as "a woman of no pretensions...(but) in point of courage, shrewdness and disinterested exertions to rescue herfellowmen...she was without her equal.") Sarah Parker Redmond lectured for the American Anti-Slave Society in the United States and Europe. Ann Wood, a fugitive slave, drove a wagonload of armed young blacks out of Virginia on Christmas Eve 1855. When stopped they threatened to keep shooting until they were all dead, and were allowed to escape to Philadelphia. And of course Sojourner Truth, who quieted male hecklers at an Ohio women's rights convention in 1851 with her soon very famous "And Ain't I a Woman” speech: "I have ploughed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman?... I have borne 13 chilern, and seen 'em most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?" PERPETUAL POLITICS BY BUNNY DOAR Thinking about politics? The North Coast Women’s Political Caucus, of which I am a long time member, thinks about politics a//the time. Who is going to be the next county commissioner? Are there any openings on the boards and commissions of Clatsop County, or the cities of Astoria, Seaside, Warrenton, Knappa, Cannon Beach? The purpose of the local caucus, as of caucuses throughout the United States, is to involve women in politics, from the local school board to the White House The caucus does not care whether they are Repub licans, Democrats or Independents...or if they are Libertarians, followers of Ross Perot or members of a Green Party. They are not concerned with age, nationality, race, ethnic background or marital status — except to try to reach every segment of the population. As long as they are feminist women, the caucus wants to recruit them, train them, support and elect them. Feminist women? Yes Meaning those who believe in equality for women — economic, social, political, and in women's right to be heard. As a member of the state steering committee of the Oregon Women's Political Caucus, I can point out some touchstones for women (and some men) supported by the group. They must be pro-choice, without reservations. They must believe in the worth of an Equal Rights Amendment And they must support measures to provide child care, even if it means government subsidies are required The North Coast Caucus meeis on the third Wednes day of each month at 5:30pm at the Flag Room of the Astor Library Guests are always welcome. Bunny Doar wrote this article for the Times Eagle in the summer of 1997 She died in 1998 after a long life of newspaper- ing and political organizing PAGE 13 Women served as nurses, spies and a few posed as men to enlist as regular soldiers on both sides in the Civil War Foreshadowing the World Wars of the next century, women worked in factories to supply the war effort for both the Union and Confederacy. Women also raised money for both armies, organized relief work for wounded and prisoners of war, and helped established nursing as a profession When the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves only in the Confederacy and not in slaveholding Union states during the Civil War, Ernestine Rose, Susan B Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and others, formed the National Woman's Loyal League. They sent bundles of petitions calling for an end to slavery to abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner of Massachu setts, who introduced the 13th Amendment By August 1864 they collected 400,000 signatures. After the war northern women went south as teachers for freed black slaves; later southern women taught in newly estab lished public schools. By the beginning of the 20th century the majority of the nation's teachers were women. At the end of the Civil War women were also firmly entrenched in office work, government service and retail trade. The Civil War, as it did every facet of American society, altered the structure and goals of the feminist movement which began to concentrate primarily on women's suffrage as the process through which every other form of equality would be certified. In May 1866 men and women from the American Anti- Slavery Society and women's rights groups joined forces to form the American Equal Rights Association in New York With Lucretia Mott as president and Susan B. Anthony as correspond ing secretary, the group began a campaign for suffrage for all African-Americans and all women. Thousands of women signed a petition drafted by Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton that demanded Congress initiate a constitutional amendment to "prohibit the several States from disenfranchising any of their citizens on the grounds of sex." (Congress passed the 14th Amendment in 1866, and it was ratified in 1868. It stated that all persons born or naturalized in the United States were citizens and guaranteed due process and equal protection under the laws. However another section referred to voting rights in terms of male citizens — the first time this qualification appeared in the Constitution.) Stanton ran for Congress that year though she was not allowed to vote, and although she received only 24 votes of 12,000 cast, she proved women had the right to campaign for public office. Stanton and Anthony formed the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) to push for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing women the vote in 1869. Later that year Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, and others established a counter group, the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). The two groups were rivals for 20 years. The NWSA was generally the more radical organization, advocating not just the vote but also reforms in women's wages, working conditions, and property and divorce laws. The AWSA focused on women's suffrage, working at the state rather than federal level. In December 1869 Wyoming territory granted women's suffrage in its new constitution. The legislature also guaranteed married women rights to their own property and approved equal pay for male and female teachers. The following year Utah territory gave the vote to women, took it away in 1887 and restored it in 1896. Colorado's women got the vote in 1893 after prominent local socialites joined the state's suffrage movement. By 1896, four contiguous states — Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado and Utah — had full suffrage, but no other state would for 14 more years. (In 1890 Congress attempted to deny Wyoming's application for statehood because it allowed women to vote; but in a close vote admitted it as the only state in which women could vote in a federal election.) Women pushed for their rights to vote in elections all over the country in the late 19th century, and Victoria Woodhull became the first woman to campaign for the Presidency in 1872, forming her own Equal Rights Party. Susan B. Anthony and 16 other women were arrested in Rochester, New York that year when they tried to vote in the Presidential elections Anthony declared. "It is we, the people, not we, the white male citizens, nor we the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed this Union. We formed it not to give the blessings o f liberty but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half o f our posterity, but to the whole people — women as well as men It is downright mockery to talk to women o f their enjoyment of the blessings o f liberty while they are denied the only means of securing them provided by the democratic-republican govern ment — the b a llo t" Anthony and Stanton managed to get Congress to vote on a constitutional suffrage amendment in 1878 Called the ‘Anthony Amendment’, it was reintroduced every year for the next 41years until it finally became the 19th Amendment. It states simply: "The right o f citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account o f sex." The Senate waited nine years to debate and vote on the Anthony Amendment, with 16 for, 34 against, and 26 absent in 1887. The Senate did nothing more until March 1914, when for the first time in 27 years the amendment was brought out of committee, to vote on it again, with 35 for and 34 against That same year activist teacher Harriet Rodman formed the Feminist Alliance which demanded "the removal of all social, political and other discriminations which are based on sex, and the ward of all rights and duties in all fields on the basis of individual capacity alone." After President Woodrow Wilson spoke out in favor of the Stanton Amendment in January 1918, the House passed the measure for the first time, 274 for, 136 against — just the two-thirds required majority; despite a direct plea by Wilson, the Senate defeated it by two votes CONTINUED O N PAGE 14 Bikes & Beyond 1089 MARINE DR. ASTORIA, OREGON )
