You ask when I first wrote or spoke for the ballot. My first venture in that line was in 1853. I was then at the age of twenty-two, living with my sister in Cleveland, O., and had never given any attention to the subject of woman suffrage, and cared nothing about it any further than the spirit of rebellion—born with me—against everything unjust, might be said to have made me a radical by nature. In the fall of that year a woman's rights convention met in Cleveland, and I attended it alone, none of the rest of the family caring to go. In my old journal I find this entry:
October 7, 1853. Attended a woman's rights convention which has met here. Never saw anything of the kind before. A Mr. Barker spent most of the morning trying to prove that woman's rights and the Bible cannot agree. The Rev. Antoinette L. Brown replied in the afternoon in defense of the Bible. She says the Bible favors woman's rights. Miss Brown is the best-looking woman in the convention. They appear to have a number of original and pleasing characters upon their platform, among them Miss Lucy Stone—hair short and rolled under like a man's; a tight-fitting velvet waist and linen collar at the throat; bombazine skirt just reaching the knees, and trousers of the same. She is independent in manner and advocates woman's rights in the strongest terms:—scorns the idea of woman asking rights of man, but says she must boldly assert her own rights, and take them in her own strength. Mrs. Ernestine L. Rose, a Polish lady with black eyes and curls, and rosy cheeks, manifests the independent spirit also. She is graceful and witty, and is ready with sharp replies on all occasions. Mrs. Lucretia Mott, a Philadelphia Quaker, is meek in dress but not in spirit. She gets up and hammers away at woman's rights, politics and the Bible, with much vigor, then quietly resumes her knitting, to which she industriously applies herself when not speaking to the audience. She wears the plain Quaker dress and close-fitting white cap. Mrs. Frances D. Gage, the president, is a woman of sound sense and a good writer of prose and poetry. Mrs. Caroline Severance has an easy, pleasing way of speaking. Mr. Charles Burleigh, a Quaker, appears to be an original character. He has long hair, parted in the middle like a woman's, and hanging down his back. He and Miss Stone seem to reverse the usual order of things.
My first speech in public, I find by my old journal—which serves me better than I thought it would—was given in Music Hall in this city in November, 1870. This meeting was held under the auspices of the State association, and was presided over by the Rev. Olympia Brown. I find that in the winter of 1871 I made addresses in various parts of the State. The journal also tells of a good deal of trotting about to get signatures to petitions, for I had more time to do that thing then than I have now.
The first woman suffrage meeting ever held in Hartford, and the first, probably, in Connecticut, was the one you and Mrs. Stanton held in Allyn Hall in December, 1867. Our State Suffrage Association was organized in October, 1869. The signers[1]to the call for that convention were quite influential persons.
- ↑ John Hooker, Isabella B. Hooker, the Rev. N. J. Burton, Rachel C. Burton, Franklin Chamberlin, Francis Gillette, Eliza D. Gillette, Frances Ellen Burr, Catharine E. Beecher, Esther E. Jewell, Calvin E. Stowe, Harriet Beecher Stowe and others, Hartford; Joseph Cummings, Middletown, President of Wesleyan University; Thomas Elmes, Lucy R. Elmes, Derby; Charles Atwater, New Haven; Thomas T. Stone, Laura Stone, Brooklyn. The officers elected for the Association were: President, the Rev. N. J. Burton, Hartford; Secretary, Frances Ellen Burr; Executive Committee, Isabella B. Hooker; Mrs. Lucy R. Elmes, Derby; Mrs. J. G. Parsons, Miss Emily Manning, M. C., Hartford; Mr. Charles Atwater, New Haven; Mr. Ward Cheney, Mrs. Susan J. Cheney, South Manchester; Mrs. Virginia Smith, Hartford. Treasurer, William B. Smith, Hartford. There was a long list of vice-presidents, which I presume you do not care for, nor for the other names that were added as changes had to be made in the years that followed.
