Eighty Years and More; Reminiscences 1815-1897
Angelina Grimké as she looked in her younger days. Everything about the
house and its appointments indicated that it was the abode of genius and
cultivation, and, although Anna was absent, the hospitalities were
gracefully dispensed by her family. Napoleon and Shakespeare seemed to
be Anna's patron saints, looking down, on all sides, from the wall. The
mother amused us with the sore trials her little orator had inflicted on
the members of the household by her vagaries in the world of fame.
On the way to Kennett Square, a young gentleman pointed out to us the
home of Benjamin West, who distinguished himself, to the disgust of
broadbrims generally, as a landscape painter. In commencing his career,
it is said he made use of the tail of a cat in lieu of a brush. Of
course Benjamin's first attempts were on the sly, and he could not ask
paterfamilias for money to buy a brush without encountering the good
man's scorn. Whether, in the hour of his need and fresh enthusiasm, poor
puss was led to the sacrificial altar, or whether he found her reposing
by the roadside, having paid the debt of Nature, our informant could not
say; enough that, in time, he owned a brush and immortalized himself by
his skill in its use. Such erratic ones as Whittier, West, and Anna
Dickinson go to prove that even the prim, proper, perfect Quakers are
subject to like infirmities with the rest of the human family.
I had long heard of the "Progressive Friends" in the region round
Longwood; had read the many bulls they issued from their "yearly
meetings" on every question, on war, capital punishment, temperance,
slavery, woman's rights; had learned that they were turning the cold
shoulder on the dress, habits, and opinions of their Fathers; listening
to the ministrations of such worldlings as William Lloyd Garrison,
Theodore Tilton, and Oliver Johnson, in a new meeting house, all painted
and varnished, with cushions, easy seats, carpets, stoves, a musical
instrument--shade of George Fox, forgive--and three brackets with vases
on the "high seat," and, more than all that, men and women were
indiscriminately seated throughout the house.
All this Miss Anthony and I beheld with our own eyes, and, in company
with Sarah Pugh and Chandler Darlington, did sit together in the high
seat and talk in the congregation of the people. There, too, we met
Hannah Darlington and Dinah Mendenhall,--names long known in every good
work,--and, for the space of one day, did enjoy the blissful serenity of
that earthly paradise. The women of Kennett Square were celebrated not
only for their model housekeeping but also for their rare cultivation on
all subjects of general interest.
In November I again started on one of my Western trips, but, alas! on
the very day the trains were changed, and so I could not make
connections to meet my engagements at Saginaw and Marshall, and just
saved myself at Toledo by going directly from the cars before the
audience, with the dust of twenty-four hours' travel on my garments.
Not being able to reach Saginaw, I went straight to Ann Arbor, and spent
three days most pleasantly in visiting old friends, making new ones, and
surveying the town, with its grand University. I was invited to
Thanksgiving dinner at the home of Mr. Seaman, a highly cultivated
Democratic editor, author of "Progress of Nations." A choice number of
guests gathered round his hospitable board on that occasion, over which
his wife presided with dignity and grace. Woman suffrage was the target
for the combined wit and satire of the company, and, after four hours of
uninterrupted sharpshooting, pyrotechnics, and laughter, we dispersed to
our several abodes, fairly exhausted with the excess of enjoyment.
One gentleman had the moral hardihood to assert that men had more
endurance than women, whereupon a lady remarked that she would like to
see the thirteen hundred young men in the University laced up in
steel-ribbed corsets, with hoops, heavy skirts, trains, high heels,
panniers, chignons, and dozens of hairpins sticking in their scalps,
cooped up in the house year after year, with no exhilarating exercise,
no hopes, aims, nor ambitions in life, and know if they could stand it
as well as the girls. "Nothing," said she, "but the fact that women,
like cats, have nine lives, enables them to survive the present _régime_
to which custom dooms the sex."
While in Ann Arbor I gave my lecture on "Our Girls" in the new Methodist
church--a large building, well lighted, and filled with a brilliant
audience. The students, in large numbers, were there, and strengthened
the threads of my discourse with frequent and generous applause;
especially when I urged on the Regents of the University the duty of
opening its doors to the daughters of the State. There were several
splendid girls in Michigan, at that time, preparing themselves for
admission to the law department. As Judge Cooley, one of the professors,
was a very liberal man, as well as a sound lawyer, and strongly in favor
of opening the college to girls, I had no doubt the women of Michigan
would soon distinguish themselves at the bar. Some said the chief
difficulty in the way of the girls of that day being admitted to the
University was the want of room. That could have been easily obviated by
telling the young men from abroad to betake themselves to the colleges
in their respective States, that Michigan might educate her daughters.
As the women owned a good share of the property of the State, and had
been heavily taxed to build and endow that institution, it was but fair
that they should share in its advantages.
The Michigan University, with its extensive grounds, commodious
buildings, medical and law schools, professors' residences, and the
finest laboratory in the country, was an institution of which the State
was justly proud, and, as the tuition was free, it was worth the trouble
of a long, hard siege by the girls of Michigan to gain admittance there.
I advised them to organize their forces at once, get their minute guns,
battering rams, monitors, projectiles, bombshells, cannon, torpedoes,
and crackers ready, and keep up a brisk cannonading until the grave and
reverend seigniors opened the door, and shouted, "Hold, enough!"
The ladies of Ann Arbor had a fine library of their own, where their
clubs met once a week. They had just formed a suffrage association. My
visit ended with a pleasant reception, at which I was introduced to the
chaplain, several professors, and many ladies and gentlemen ready to
accept the situation. Judge Cooley gave me a glowing account of the laws
of Michigan--how easy it was for wives to get possession of all the
property, and then sunder the marriage tie and leave the poor husband to
the charity of the cold world, with their helpless children about him. I
heard of a rich lady, there, who made a will, giving her husband a
handsome annuity as long as he remained her widower. It was evident that
the poor "white male," sooner or later, was doomed to try for himself
the virtue of the laws he had made for women. I hope, for the sake of
the race, he will not bear oppression with the stupid fortitude we have
for six thousand years.
At Flint I was entertained by Mr. and Mrs. Jenny. Mr. Jenny was a
Democratic editor who believed in progress, and in making smooth paths
for women in this great wilderness of life. His wife was a remarkable
woman. She inaugurated the Ladies' Libraries in Michigan. In Flint they
had a fine brick building and nearly two thousand volumes of choice
books, owned by the association, and money always in the treasury. Here,
too, I had a fine audience and gave my lecture entitled "Open the Door."
At Coldwater, in spite of its name, I found a warm, appreciative
audience. The president of the lyceum was a sensible young man who,
after graduating at Ann Arbor, decided, instead of starving at the law,
to work with his hands and brains at the same time. When all men go to
their legitimate business of creating wealth, developing the resources
of the country, and leave its mere exchange to the weaker sex, we shall
not have so many superfluous women in the world with nothing to do. It
is evident the time has come to hunt man into his appropriate sphere.
Coming from Chicago, I met Governor Fairchild and Senator Williams of
Wisconsin. It was delightful to find them thoroughly grounded in the
faith of woman suffrage. They had been devout readers of the
_Revolution_ ever since Miss Anthony induced them to subscribe, the
winter before, at Madison. Of course a new glow of intelligence
irradiated their fine faces (for they were remarkably handsome men) and
there was a new point to all their words. Senator Williams, like myself,
was on a lecturing tour. "Man" was his theme, for which I was devoutly
thankful; for, if there are any of God's creatures that need lecturing,
it is this one that is forever advising us. I thought of all men, from
Father Gregory down to Horace Bushnell, who had wearied their brains to
describe woman's sphere, and how signally they had failed.
Throughout my lyceum journeys I was of great use to the traveling
public, in keeping the ventilators in the cars open, and the dampers in
fiery stoves shut up, especially in sleeping cars at night. How many
times a day I thought what the sainted Horace Mann tried to impress on
his stupid countrymen, that, inasmuch as the air is forty miles deep
around the globe, it is a useless piece of economy to breathe any number
of cubic feet over more than seven times! The babies, too, need to be
thankful that I was in a position to witness their wrongs. Many, through
my intercessions, received their first drink of water, and were
emancipated from woolen hoods, veils, tight strings under their chins,
and endless swaddling bands. It is a startling assertion, but true,
that I have met few women who know how to take care of a baby. And this
fact led me, on one trip, to lecture to my fair countrywomen on
"Marriage and Maternity," hoping to aid in the inauguration of a new era
of happy, healthy babies.
After twenty-four hours in the express I found myself in a pleasant room
in the International Hotel at La Crosse, looking out on the Great Mother
of Waters, on whose cold bosom the ice and the steamers were struggling
for mastery. Beyond stretched the snow-clad bluffs, sternly looking down
on the Mississippi, as if to say, "'Thus far shalt thou come and no
farther'--though sluggish, you are aggressive, ever pushing where you
should not; but all attempts in this direction are alike vain; since
creation's dawn, we have defied you, and here we stand, to-day, calm,
majestic, immovable. Coquette as you will in other latitudes, with
flowery banks and youthful piers in the busy marts of trade, and
undermine them, one and all, with your deceitful wooings, but bow in
reverence as you gaze on us. We have no eyes for your beauty; no ears
for your endless song; our heads are in the clouds, our hearts commune
with gods; you have no part in the eternal problems of the ages that
fill our thoughts, yours the humble duty to wash our feet, and then pass
on, remembering to keep in your appropriate sphere, within the barks
that wise geographers have seen fit to mark."
As I listened to these complacent hills and watched the poor Mississippi
weeping as she swept along, to lose her sorrows in ocean's depths, I
thought how like the attitude of man to woman. Let these proud hills
remember that they, too, slumbered for centuries in deep valleys down,
down, when, perchance, the sparkling Mississippi rolled above their
heads, and but for some generous outburst, some upheaval of old Mother
Earth, wishing that her rock-ribbed sons, as well as graceful daughters,
might enjoy the light, the sunshine and the shower--but for this soul of