Click here to return to Table of Contents
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, (November 12,1815-October 26,1902), born Elizabeth Cady in Johnstown, New York, was a graduate of Emma Willard's seminary in the same state (Merrill V 156). She and Susan Brownell Anthony (February 15, 1820-March 13, 1906) were the most famous women's rights leaders of their time (Frost 423).
In 1840 Stanton was a delegate to the World's Anti-Slavery Convention in London. However, as has been stated before, the host society refused to seat the women delegates. When Wendell Phillips, failing to get a majority vote in favor of permitting the women to vote and take part in the deliberations of the convention, gave in so easily, saying that he was certain that the women would take as much interest in the convention from the gallery to which they were relegated and that he, representing them, had merely sought an expression of opinion on the subject, Elizabeth Cady Stantion was very much distrubed. She wondered whether Phillips could have so thoroughly misunderstood the women's feelings "'as to have told a Convention of men who had just trampled on their most sacred rights that 'they would no doubt sit with as much interest'" in the gallery as they would have if they had been seated in the convention itself (Sterling 112-113). It was here that she met Lucretia Mott (1793-1880), a liberal Quaker abolitionist minister and women's rights advocate, who had a lasting influence on her. Lucretia had also been an official delegate to the convention. After that convention and as a direct result of the treatment of women delegates there, Stanton dedicated her life to women's rights even more than to the antislavery movement, being convinced of women's equality. Lucretia Mott's involvement in the women's movement also dated from the affront to women at that convention (Sterling 113; Merrill V 156; Frost 420; Kraditor 66-67 n).
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was the "guiding spirit" (Merrill V 156) of the movement.
The Stantons had moved to Seneca Falls, New York, in 1847. When in 1848 Elizabeth learned that Lucretia Mott was visiting near there, she drove over to a nearby village to see her. These two and some other women present discussed the need for a women's rights convention and made plans for it. In accordance with their plans this first such convention was held in the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York, from July 19 to July 20, 1848, effectively launching the women's rights movement. In 1851 she became associated with Susan B. Anthony in the movement, and the two worked for the cause as long as they lived (Sterling 185-186; Merrill V 156; Webster 941).
Early in the 1850s the women's movement, whose leaders at that time were Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone, and Susan B. Anthony, focused especially on the legal and economic disabilities of women. In some ways their rights in these areas were similar to those of the slaves. At that time married women had just begun to have the right to possess their own property. In most states they still had no legal right to their own earnings or to sue in court (Bailyn 557).
In 1854 Stanton addressed a joint session of the New York legislature on the subject of a broader law covering married women's property rights. This law, passed in 1860, gave married women the right to their own wages and to have custody of their children (Frost 423).
Stanton continued to give some attention to the antislavery movement. In 1851, for example, she helped Abby Kelley Foster make arrangements for an antislavery meeting in Seneca Falls (Sterling 271). During the Civil War Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony formed a women's organization to work for the abolition of slavery and the passage of an amendment to the Constitution that would provide a legal guarantee of freedom to the enslaved. This group, called the Woman's Loyal National League, was organized in New York in 1863. A thousand women attended. Elizabeth was elected president and Susan, secretary. The women in the convention pledged themselves to collect a million signatures on a petition to Congress asking for the passage of a thirteenth amendment to the Constitution, which would "outlaw slavery everywhere in the United States." By the summer of 1864 the women had collected 400,000 signatures. The rolls of the petition, arranged by states, were carried by two black men and placed on the desk of Senator Charles Sumner. The amendment to the Constitution was passed in early 1865 (Sterling 336-338). Sumner, senator from Massachusetts from 1851-1874, was an antislavery man (Ruchames IV 301 n).
Stanton became the first president of the National Woman Suffrage Association, a position which she held from 1860-90. In the 1880s she, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Gage compiled the History of Woman Suffrage (Webster 941).
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Parker Pillsbury edited the Revolution (1868-70), a militant feminist magazine founded by Susan B. Anthony. This periodical pushed for improvements in working conditions in addition to the issue of suffrage (Merrill V 157; Hart 798).
On the other hand, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton opposed the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution, which gave the vote to black men, because it did not do the same for women (Sterling 3).
In the 1870s the women's rights movement was divided into two groups: The National Woman Suffrage Association with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton at its head, and the American Woman Suffrage Association headed by Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and Julia Ward Howe.
While the National Association lobbied Congress for a sixteenth amendment granting women the right to vote, sponsored demonstrations at the polls, and spoke on other women's issues such as wages, working conditions, education, marriage, and divorce, the American Association simply worked to gain suffrage state by state (Sterling 364-365).
As was mentioned in chapter 22, Elizabeth Cady Stantion and Gerrit Smith were related. Gerrit Smith's daughter, Elizabeth Smith Miller, designed the famous bloomer dress, which consisted of a loosely belted tunic, a knee-length skirt, and pantaloons to the ankle. Her cousin, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, adopted this dress enthusiastically as did Lucy Stone and Susan B. Anthony. The style of dress is named for Amelia Bloomer, who had recommended it in her temperance paper, the Lily (Sterling 271 n).
Victoria Claflin Woodhull (September 23,1838-June 10,1927) (Frost 426), the subject of a letter from Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Milo Townsend, was born in Homer, Ohio. She was the daughter of Reuben Buckman Claflin, who kept a tavern, and Roxana Hummel Claflin, who was an itinerant worker. She and her sister, Tennessee Celeste Claflin(1846-1923), had attended school very little . However, the sisters early displayed psychic powers which their parents exploited in a traveling medicine and fortune-telling show (Blain 1184). Victoria married Dr. Canning Woodhull in 1853 and divorced him in 1864. In 1868 she and her sister went to New York, where they so impressed Cornelius Vanderbilt, who had a strong interest in Spiritualism, that he backed them in opening a successful brokerage firm in 1870 (Webster 1070; Women Who Dared 1993 calendar, October). Victoria began publication of the Woodhull and Claflin's Weekly in 1870 and continued to publish it with some interruptions for six years (Frost 426). Among the views she promoted in it were a single moral standard, free love, Spiritualism, women's suffrage, labor rights, legalized prostitution, and dress reform. She published the first American translation of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' Communist Manifesto (Blain 1184).
Woodhull ran for President of the United States on the Equal Rights ballot in 1870. She and her sister were jailed for violation of obscenity laws, as they had published an article attacking Henry Ward Beecher on a morals charge (1184).
Victoria moved to England in 1877 (Webster 1070), where she married for a third time, lectured, and published a journal on eugenics from 1892 to 1901 (Frost 426). Interestingly, she also patronized early aviation (Women Who Dared ).
Letter 41
from Elizabeth Cady Stanton
April 5th, '71
Milo A. Townsend
Dear Sir,
Have just returned from Philadelphia where I visited Lucretia Mott. Mrs. Woodhull had just spoken there and visited with many of your Quaker friends and me. We were charmed with her. I have not been associated with Mrs. W. as all my time this winter has been passed in the west, but all the women most interested in our cause feel that she's a valuable addition. Neither Anna Dickinson1 or Kate Field2 has thought enough of our movement to make a speech on our platform; it ill becomes them to question the wisdom of Susan B. Anthony or myself in welcoming any one to our ranks who is ready to share our labors.
In regard to all the gossip about Mrs. W, I have one reply to my gentlemen friends. When the men who make laws for us in Washington can stand forth before all Israel and the sun and declare themselves pure, unspotted from all the sins mentioned in the Decalogue, then we will demand that any woman who makes a constitutional argument on our platform shall be as chaste as Diana. If all "they say" is true, Mrs. Woodhull is better than nine tenths of our Fathers, Husbands, sons, and woman's purity amounts to little in the regeneration of the race as long as man is vile. Now if our good men will only trouble themselves as much about the purity of their own sex, as they do about ours, if they will make one moral code for men and women, we shall have a nobler type of manhood and womanhood in another generation than the world has yet seen.
When our soldiers went to fight the battles of freedom of the late war, did they stop to inquire into the antecedents of everybody by their side?
The war would never have been finished if they had.
Now although I believe Mrs. Woodhull to be a grand woman, I should be glad to have her work for her own enfranchisement if she were not. I think she would become a better woman by thus working and by assuming all the rights, privileges, and amenities of an American citizen.
Yours sincerely,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
1For Anna Elizabeth Dickinson see chapter 7.
2Kate Field (1838-1896) was a journalist, lecturer, spiritualist, actress, and dramatist (Blain 369).
In Milo Townsend's scrapbooks is an undated newspaper clipping reporting on a Stanton lecture in Pittsburgh.
The closing lecture of the season was delivered in the Academy of Music last evening by Mrs. E. Cady Stanton, under the auspices of the G.A.R. The audience in attendance was unusually large and creditable to the reputation of the lecturess. Mrs. Stanton appeared upon the stage about eight o'clock and talked till after nine to "Our Young Girls" and others of both sexes present. Her theme simply afforded a text for a dissertation upon the fashions and follies of the present style of female dressing, the errors made in their education and the great need they had for the cultivation of themselves, mentally, morally, physically, so as to be independent creatures, if occasion required. The lecture was happily wound up with a prediction in regard to it, and a strong argument in favor of female suffrage as the best means of elevating women. Mrs. Stanton writes and talks with a simplicity and easy elegance, which makes her discourses irresistibly charming. She rarely swerves from a conversational tone, and speaks as though she were talking in a drawing room to friends, rather than on a public platform; yet there is with it such a peculiar winsome style, and the thought is so happily and pleasantly expressed, without rant or affectation that the hour passes rapidly by, and the listener feels that an exceedingly enjoyable entertainment, or rather tete a tete has ended with the closing words. Very few lecturers have such a faculty of attracting an audience and securing without effort their heartiest attention and sympathy.
Wit and pathos and logic, and above all a practical common sense marked the lecture throughout. One great beauty, was the entire absence of anything like scolding or the cheap rant, which now-a-days is affected, for want of brains, by so many platform speakers. Mrs. Stanton evidently understands her subject thoroughly and then has sufficient cultivation to express her views calmly and kindly as a cultivated and refined woman, which not at all detracts from their force. She made a very favorable impression, and will be gladly welcomed again to Pittsburgh by every one who had the pleasure of hearing and seeing her for the first time last night
(Scrapbook V 57).
Milo Townsend's scrapbooks also include various defenses of Mrs. Woodhull. Among these is an article signed E.H.G.C., which appeared in the Tory Whig . Excerpts from this follow:
I went yesterday to see Mrs. Woodhull--prompted, I confess, by the most vulgar curiosity.... I had never been more violently prejudiced against any person, man or woman. It was not alone that I considered her impure in character. Private immorality may be viewed with pity, sometimes with contempt. But accepting, with Stuart Mill and Beecher, the principle of Woman's Rights, I loathed Mrs. Woodhull for disgracing a good cause for brazenly hitching this cause, as I supposed, to the business card of a tramping broker. A thousand things in the general press, and some things in that chaotic sheet, WOODHULL & CLAFLIN'S WEEKLY, seemed to justify this conviction....
Doubtless no person in America has lately been so misjudged as this young woman. Everybody has written harshly of her. I have done so with the rest....
Mrs. Woodhull is certainly not what is called a "well-balanced mind." To use the common word-- she is "crazy"-- a little so, but in the same sense in which Joan of Arc and Swedenborg were "out of their heads." But she is not coarse, not vain, not selfish; she is not even self-conscious in the meaning of ordinary egotism. She has just the reverse of all these qualities. She is simply an enthusiast-- the most wrapt idealist I have ever met. In conversation she never seems to think of herself, and scarcely of her listener; she is entirely lost, absorbed heart and soul, in the ideas she advocates. Her very financial schemes seem a crusade against Wall Street, rather than endeavors to prosper by its vicious gambling....
Her face is not sensuously attractive, but its intellectual beauty is much more than remarkable. I know of no other public character with such a transparent expression of impassioned thought. Even Anna Dickinson, whose moral earnestness is almost the whole secret of her power, has an inexpressive face compared with this sibyl of politics and Spiritualism.
I should hesitate a long time before joining the "Victoria League." The country can probably do very well without Mrs. Woodhull for President. She would be scarcely superior in that position to Horace Greeley himself....
...She is an abnormal growth of democratic institutions-- thoroughly sincere, partly insane and fitted to exaggerate great truths, like self-denying love, into free-love and some practical mischief.
But now that Mr. Tilton [author of a Woodhull biography] has shown her personal character to be as pure as that of any woman married after divorce; now that the story of her two husbands has been exploded, in all but the most generous pity and charity for the outcast Woodhull, American editors should heal the wound they have caused by their ignorant slanders. If the press of this nation has not settled into a hopeless oligarchy of gossips, a "coward's castle" filled with blackguards, it will make the atonement that common decency demands. E.H.G.C. (Scrapbook V 91).
In June, 1871, Milo wrote a letter to Victoria Woodhull, excerpts from which follow:
Victoria C. Woodhull:
My Dear Friend--
Although personally a stranger, I thus address you, because, being the friend of humanity, you are my friend also.
I have had my righteous indignation stirred at the mean and scurrilous treatment meted out to you by the secular and religious (?) press, as well as by some intelligent advocates of woman suffrage. With one of the latter class, for nearly two months past, I have been having quite a spirited controversial correspondence concerning yourself.
I have felt that great injustice has been done you, and it is my nature to "stand up" for those who are wronged, and to instinctively take sides with the persecuted and oppressed. In a letter to your assailant above referred to-- a female-- I thus remark:
"As to Victoria Woodhull's being guilty of 'black-mailing,' it remains to be proven, and I will not believe it until it is. More infamous lies and slanders were never uttered against any woman than against Abby Kelley during the period of the anti-slavery conflict. And a more noble, radiant, royal woman never stood up in 'the eye of day,' and God and the angels will crown her with everlasting glory and honor.
"Admitting that Mrs. Woodhull is not perfect-- (who is?)-- if it be left to those only who are immaculate, who are 'without sin to cast the first' vote , how many will be cast? Does it follow that because a man or woman has moral imperfections or irregularities, they may not be used as instruments to carry bread to the hungry or to strike the shackles of oppression from their fellow-men? I cannot so see it. We are all far from perfect, and I believe that God and the angels use the most available instruments within their reach to accomplish their purposes, and I believe their standard of right and wrong is very different from ours, and that they see that the condemner is often worse than the condemned."
I have also an excellent letter from Mrs. Stanton, who takes broad and cosmopolitan views of things, and who vindicates your worth and nobility of soul.
A friend of mine [Arthur Bullus Bradford], of liberal views, at one time a foreign minister, having read portions of my defense of you, writes as follows:
"If you were a lawyer and I were in a bad fix, I would at any cost have you in my employ, for you are a very Quaker bulldog to hang on in defense of your friends and those you admire. I like your heroism in defending Victoria, and while I think she has made out a strong case in her own defense, her advocacy of any unpopular cause-- especially that of woman's suffrage, must in this present condition of things hinder instead of help."
....I was educated a Quaker, and nearly all my relations are connected with that quiet and unaggressive sect; and yet, I must confess, it does me good and harmonizes with my sense of justice (of which phrenologists say I have a large share) to read an excoriation like that which you give the Independent, because it seems justly merited, and is but the hearty utterances of your honest and outraged nature.
I would speak charitably and gently of the poor man who steals a loaf of bread for his starving family, or of any of the more obscure and unfortunate victims of a selfish and semibarbarous civilization, who are more often sinned against than "sinning." But for those gigantic robbers, despoilers and tyrants of the race, there should be no honeyed words....
Orpheus (Scrapbook I 24, 25)
On March 4, 1873, Milo again addressed Victoria Woodhull as follows:
Beaver Falls, Pa., March 4, 1873
Victoria C. Woodhull--
My spirit has gone out to you in sympathy. Dear sister-- Oh, how often!-- during the terrible trials to which you have been so unrighteously subjected. I have tried to remember you in bonds as bound with you; and yet, like many more of my best friends, I was powerless to aid you.
But, "with thee go the blessings, for thee rise the prayers of noble hearts all over the world, as thou goest forth steadfastly to tread the wine-press prepared by Destiny for thy feet-- knowing not the wine that shall come, only that it shall make glad the hearts of men."
And how noble, how sublime, is such a career!
Nothing used so much to inspire my admiration, or fill me with such lofty emotions of enthusiasm or exaltation, as to read the wonderful career of Joan of Arc-- how that lovely and heroic girl went forth, in the majesty and sublimity of truth, to do what she conceived to be her duty, and to battle with the principalities and powers of the darkness of this world-- suffering, at last, her beautiful form to be burnt at the stake, rather than renounce her faith in the guardianship of the immortals.
And, dear sister, allow me to say I see no other character in history of whom you so often remind me as the brave and glorious Joan. Whether men bear, or whether they forbear; whether foes increase, or friends forsake, I rejoice that you are enabled to go on bravely, serenely, even cheerfully, forward-- though your path lead through perils, indignities, or even death itself-- to do your duty, and to proclaim the most vital truths that can possibly interest the mind of man.. "The world is perishing for the want of knowledge," and that very knowledge, too, which you and your noble sister are striving to teach-- the true relation of the sexes, which is to ultimate in a new and improved race, when none but forms of symmetry and beauty shall walk the earth.
Standing, as you do, the representative of Free Thought, Free Speech, a Free Press and a Higher Destiny for man, I cannot see how any Spiritualist, Liberal or Progressive mind can turn you "the cold shoulder," and take sides with your persecutors and with the enemies of humanity. Suppose they may not like you or your sentiments in every respect-- nevertheless, when such great issues are at stake, when liberty and justice are invaded in your person, then, it seems to me that every true soul and every well-wisher of humanity, would rally around you and defend you and the great principles and issues you represent, if needs be through storm and blood and fire. Is it not astonishing that tyranny, bigotry, moneyedism... should stand so aghast at the advent of one delicate woman? No, after all it is not astonishing, for the mighty truths she utters are destined to sweep away "the refuge of lies" and to turn and overturn the sandy foundations on which injustice, tyranny and hypocrisy ever base their dominion. Let the truth run and be glorified, and let tyrants, money-mongers, monopolists and mobiliers prepare to meet their doom, for "the day of judgment" is at hand, and the redemption of humanity draweth nigh....
Yours, through endless cycles,
Milo A. Townsend (Scrapbook I 29, 30)
Milo's defense of Victoria Woodhull called forth written comments from some of his friends and from others whom he had not known. In addition, the subject apparently formed a part of his regular correspondence. A few of the more interesting replies to his published defense and to his letters follow.
On March 20, 1873, William Watson, wrote,
In answer to your questions, "What are you doing these days?" and "Do you receive Woodhulls Weekly?" I would say that the principal business of my life is receiving and reading and admiring the Weekly-- I read it with an interest that I never felt in any other journal. Other reforms seem like hopping off the benches, and still leaving the world a hell, but the reform so nobly and bravely advocated by Victoria and her coadjutors seems to me to go to the root, or first cause of existing evils and in importance to make every thing else dwindle into insignificance. Can you and I be mistaken? Others see nothing in it but 'free lust' and the consequent evil. But is not this the result or consequence of the teaching and belief in human depravity? That man is inclined to evil and only evil and that continually has been taught until there is no faith in man, and many good people think that if the present barriers of love, relating to the sexes are taken away the consequence would be terrible. But it does not seem so to me. It would only be substituting the laws of God for the laws of men, which have always proved a failure-- and then let the people be taught that if they do wrong, they must suffer for it themselves, instead of substitutes, and the good in man will begin to control him. You think that the friends of humanity and freedom ought to speak out. I think so too, and have done so to some extent, and have written a note of encouragement to Victoria and Tennie.... But to come out fully is rather a problem because with some, the wife is so much opposed to Mrs. Woodhull that she will not read or listen to any thing she says.
A neighbor woman has done what she could to excite prejudice. I called on her a few days ago, and had a talk. She was terribly severe on Mrs. Woodhull, and did most of the talking for some time. I finally told her some things that she had not heard of before, but she said it was all false. I then read some extracts from newspapers proving my points. She then took the ground that it was all the evidence of loose characters who were all on Mrs. Woodhull's side. I then asked her if I might read some articles written by Mrs. W-- "Why, yes," she said, "I am not afraid to hear any thing." I then read several of Mrs. W's articles in the Weekly and she was apparently dumbfounded and silenced and surprised. I then left her to reflect....
Milo's June 1, 1873, reply to an old friend probably appeared first in the Beaver Radical , to which he refers in the article which follows, and later in the Woodhull and Claflin Weekly .
Mrs Woodhull-- an old-time friend, in writing to me recently, says:
"I am quite surprised that a man of your general good sense and intelligence should write such a strong letter of sympathy to Mrs. Woodhull, which I see copied into a late number of the Beaver Radical. If we can believe the press and pulpit, Mrs. Woodhull is one of the vilest women of the vile."
In answer to that letter, I responded as follows, which I have thought well to send to you:
"You express surprise that I should write a letter of sympathy to Mrs. Woodhull. I will briefly give you a few of my reasons.
"If a man should stand passively by and witness a ruffian strike a refined and intelligent woman to the earth-- of, indeed any woman-- and did not protest against the devilish deed, what would be your opinion of his chivalry, or sense of justice, or honor?
":A noble woman, for telling the truth, for demanding equal justice for all women, as well as for all men, and the same code of morals for both sexes-- that if a woman's name is rendered infamous for certain acts, a man's should be also for the same acts, for urging with intense earnestness and with rare eloquence and power the importance of discussing the science of marriage and the production of a higher order of human beings-- for these things, coupled with her denunciations of that insatiable spirit of greed and monopoly which rides roughshod over humanity, for denouncing in the name of justice these money-mongering lunatics and remorseless legalized robbers and oppressors, who have been in all ages, and are still, a curse and a scourge to humanity, beneath whose heavy hands the rights of the toiling millions, the hopes of widows and orphans, have been blasted, until the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain, and until an influx of light from the celestial worlds is wellnigh cut off, and the very atmosphere of earth is poisoned by the vile magnetism escaping from these human vultures, who care not who sinks so that they swim-- for rebuking such men, and their allies generally, and prophetically pronouncing their doom, Mrs. Woodhull is dragged off to prison....
Whether a person endorse Mrs. Woodhull's sentiments relating to love, marriage and parentage or not, one would suppose that as the rights of free discussion, free thought, and a free press are involved in her case, and are struck down in her person, that every friend of freedom and fair dealing (to say nothing of chivalry) would speak out in words not to be misunderstood, and that the press especially would be not as "the muzzled ox that treadeth out the corn," but would vindicate her right to be heard. Who is so blind as not to see the perils that threaten us as a people; and that if both press and pulpit are muzzled, and fail to speak out against wrong and injustice, in high places as well as low, then a nation's funeral knell is rung.
All honor to the Troy and Syracuse press, and to the few score of others of the editorial fraternity who have spoken with no uncertain sound against the imprisonment of Mrs. Woodhull and her three heroic friends. And thrice honored be the name of that grand old moral hero, Parker Pillsbury, who, almost solitary and alone of the old-time friends of freedom, now proves himself "the noblest Roman of them all," by lifting up his voice like a trumpet against this act of injustice and inhumanity.
You say, "If we can believe the press and pulpit, Mrs. Woodhull is one of the vilest women of the vile."
Would to heaven, my friend, we could believe the press and pulpit when they speak in reference to any unpopular truth or any movement that has for its object the enlightenment, elevation and liberation of men and women from mental, social and physical bondage. With a few noble exceptions, they are the first to oppose and the last to concede any newly-discovered truth, or to aid any humanitarian enterprise.... How important that the press and pulpit should be free.
Before we can hope for any great change for the better, the whole structure of society and the present plans of doing business, which engender antagonism and a spirit of venality, must cease; when woman shall be emancipated, when a general co-operation in all the interests of life and a working for each other, instead of against each other, shall be inaugurated. Then and not before, may we expect the kingdom of harmony and happiness on the earth... (Scrapbook I 31-33).
In response to this article, Hugo Andriessen of Beaver, Pennsylvania, wrote to Milo on June 17, 1873, as follows:
My dear Sir,
Although a stranger to you, permit me to thank you for the noble sympathetic words in regard to Mrs. Victoria C. Woodhull! The last Weekly contains your reply to an old friend-- I also was compelled several times to give my reasons for endorsing Victoria's cause; I generally succeed admirably by merely handing to my inquirers a copy of the "Principles of Social Freedom" or a number of the "Weekly," and I was certain that justice would be done. The great evil consists in the fact that most people have been influenced by such one sided newspaper reports which give only disconnected extracts from Mrs. Woodhull's speeches.
Andriessen goes on to say that he would like very much to hear Mr. Bradford's views on the subject.
Hugo Andriessen, born June 14, 1843, in Germany, was a pharmacist in Beaver, Pennsylvania. A political radical, he contributed to scientific and philosophical journals and to German literary publications (Warner 620).
In a letter from Philadelphia dated September 12, 1873, William McDonald, a friend of Milo's, refers to having seen Milo's defense of Mrs. Woodhull in the Woodhull and Claflin paper. While approving his friend's defense of the woman, he expressed himself less than satisfied with some of her views. He wrote as follows:
I was quite pleased with your fervid defense of the downtrodden one, though I rather think her views a little too latitudinarian. I think that marriage is the result merely of a bargain, & men and women are bound to stick to it-- unless it becomes a hell & then they can separate. The idea of expecting marriage to be such a relation as poets feign-- a life-long billing & cooing-- is a false one. We are at best commonplace creatures, & when we are thrown together day after day, we become tired of each other unless we are engaged together in some scheme of divine use & benevolence to keep the atmosphere of our lives pure & wholesome. Let us learn to bear the cross, bear each others' weaknesses, shortcomings & beastlinesses, until we lay aside this mortal exercise....
One aspect of women's inequality to be found among Milo's other correspondence is evident in the salaries of educators. In an undated letter from a Mr. Gilmore in which he inquires as to Milo's qualifications for teaching high school subjects and becoming principal of a school, the salary quoted is $400 a year for a man, but only $200 a year for a woman. This was probably based on need. The man who taught might be married and have to support his family, while the woman presumably would be unmarried and have only herself to support.
The women who began the work for women's suffrage at the 1848 Seneca Falls convention would not live to see the success of the suffrage article that they had placed in their Declaration of Rights and Sentiments, for almost seventy years would go by before passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920, but other rights approved at the convention would be attained within the lifetime of many signers.