the question of woman suffrage. The occasion which inspired the second paragraph may be readily inferred. It seems "profitable for the instruction" of the future to preserve a few extracts like the above, that it may be seen how weak and wild, strength itself becomes, when the ally of prejudice and precedent.
The Indiana Farmer, exceptionally well edited, having a wide circulation in the agricultural sections of the State, and enjoying there a powerful influence, is an outspoken advocate of equal suffrage. From statistics regarding papers published outside of Indianapolis, it may be safe to say that two hundred of them favor, with varying degrees of constancy, giving the ballot to women. On the staff of nearly all the papers whose status is above given, are women, who in their respective departments faithfully serve the common cause. During the last few years, efforts have been directed to the capture of the local press, and many of the county papers now have a department edited by women. In most instances this work is done gratuitously, and their success in this new line, entering upon it as they have without previous training, illustrates the versatility of woman's powers. Mrs. M. E. Price of Kokomo, Mrs. Sarah P. Franklin of Anderson, Mrs. Laura Sandafur of Franklin, and Mrs. Ida M. Harper of Terre Haute, deserve especial mention for their admirable work in the papers of their respective towns. Mrs. Laura C. Arnold is the chief editor of the Columbus Democrat, and is the only woman in the State having editorial charge of a political party paper, Our Herald, under the able editorial management of Mrs. Helen M. Gougar, was a weekly published at Lafayette. It was devoted to securing the re-passage and adoption of the woman suffrage and prohibition amendments. It was a strong, aggressive sheet, and deserved its almost unparalleled success.[1]
In closing this able report for Indiana a few facts in regard to the author may interest the general reader as well as the student of history.
Mrs. May Wright Sewall has been well known for many years in Indianapolis in the higher departments of education, and has recently crowned her efforts as a teacher by establishing a model classical school for girls, in which she is not only training their minds to vigorous thought, but taking the initiative steps to secure for them an equally vigorous physical development. Her pupils are required to wear a comfortable gymnastic costume, all their garments loosely resting on their shoulders; corsets, tight waists and high-heeled boots forbidden, for deep thinking requires deep breathing. The whole upper floor of her new building is a spacious gymnasium, where her pupils exercise every
- ↑ Our Herald did royal service in the campaign of 1882; it subsequently became a monthly and in addition to other admirable efforts, undertook to introduce leading western women to the larger world by publishing a series of biographical sketches of the most prominent. In the winter of 1885 Mrs. Gougar sold Our Herald to Mrs. Harbert, who published it in Chicago as the The New Era.
