The following ladies were appointed delegates to the Woman's Industrial Congress called to meet at Berlin: Ernestine L. Rose, Laura C. Bullard, New York; Kate N. Doggett, Mary J. Safford, Illinois; Mary Peckenpaugh, Missouri. A letter from Mrs. Bullard[1] was listened to with interest.
During the Autumn of this year there was a secession from our ranks, and the preliminary steps were taken for another organization. Aside from the divisions growing out of a difference of opinion on the amendments, there were some personal hostilities among the leaders of the movement that culminated in two Societies, which were generally spoken of as the New York and Boston wings of the Woman Suffrage reform. The former, as already stated, called the "National Woman Suffrage Association," with Elizabeth Cady Stanton for President, organized in May; the latter called "The American Woman Suffrage Association," with Henry Ward Beecher for President, organized the following November. Most of those who inaugurated the reform remained in the National Association—Lucretia Mott, Martha C. Wright, Ernestine Rose, Clarina Howard Nichols, Paulina Wright Davis, Sarah Pugh, Amy Post, Mary H. Hallowell, Lydia Mott, Catharine A. F. Stebbins, Adeline Thomson, Josephine S. Griffing, Clemence S. Lozier, Rev. Olympia Brown, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony—and continued to work harmoniously together.
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London, July 18, 1869.
Mrs. President and Members of the Woman's National Suffrage Association:
I send an account of the first woman suffrage meeting ever held in London. But if we may judge anything of the prospects of the movement from the list of men and women who have interested themselves in the cause, it will not be the last. When such men as John Stuart Mill, Charles Kingsley, Prof. Newman, and their peers, put the shoulder to the wheel, a cause is bound to move on and crush all obstacles in the way of its progress. No old stumbling blocks of prejudice, or deep ruts of conventionality can impede the onward movement. As in America, I find that intellect, genius, wealth, and fashion even, are beginning in England to fall into the ranks and push on the woman suffrage question. Miss Frances Power Cobbe writes me: "The uprising of a sex throughout the civilized world, is certainly an unique fact in history, and can hardly fail of some important results."
With the confident expectation that her prophecy will find a speedy and perhaps grander fulfillment than she or any of us dream of now, I remain yours, respectfully,Laura C. Bullard, Cor. Sec'y N. W. S. Association.
