Social Welfare History Project Eras in Social Welfare History Page 6

Women’s Rights Conventions

September 8 -10, 2002 marked the 150th anniversary of the Third National Women’s Rights Convention, held in Syracuse, New York in 1852 to discuss “woman’s social, civil, and religious rights” and a “plan of operation” to secure them. In celebration of the 1852 Convention, a special exhibit, Declarations of Independence: National Women’s Rights Conventions, 1850-1863 was on display in Women’s Rights National Historical Park Visitor Center from September 7 through October 31, 2002.

The Women Who Went to the Field – A Poem

The Women Who Went to the Field Editor’s Note: Clara Barton (founder of the American Red Cross) wrote the following poem as a toast to women who served in the Civil War. It was first presented at a gala dinner held in 1892 by the Woman’s Relief Corps and was later printed in many…

Gage, Matilda (nee, Joslyn) (1826- 1898)

One of the most radical, far-sighted and articulate early feminists, Matilda Joslyn Gage was deliberately written out of history after her death in 1898 by an increasingly conservative suffrage movement. Equal in importance to Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Gage is all but unknown today. (Source: Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation)

Bloomer, Amelia

Originally, The Lily was to be for “home distribution” among members of the Seneca Falls Ladies Temperance Society, which had formed in 1848. Like most local endeavors, the paper encountered several obstacles early on, and the Society’s enthusiasm died out. Bloomer felt a commitment to publish and assumed full responsibility for editing and publishing the paper. Originally, the title page had the legend “Published by a committee of ladies.” But after 1850 – only Bloomer’s name appeared on the masthead.

Nurses and Wartime St. Vincent’s Hospital

St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village was not just a place of employment for nurses, but it was also a place for education. In 1892, forty-three years after the hospital’s opening, the St. Vincent’s School of Nursing opened its doors to women. The school was first directed by Katherine A. Sanborn. Many graduates from this school continued their work at St. Vincent’s hospital. Other graduates went to work elsewhere in New York City, including the New York Foundling Hospital, another institution directed by the Sisters of Charity. Eventually, in the 1930s, St. Vincent’s School of Nursing began to accept men. This produced even more graduates and more St. Vincent’s educated nurses working in the field.

Seneca Falls Convention, July 1848

A report from the convention at Seneca Falls. “Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half the people of this country, their social and religious degradation, – in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of these United States.”

In entering upon the great work before us, we anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule; but we shall use every instrumentality within our power to effect our object. We shall employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the State and national Legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press in our behalf. We hope this Convention will be followed by a series of Conventions, embracing every part of the country.

Declaration of Sentiments – July 1848

In 1848, a convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious conditions and rights of women was convened in Seneca Falls, New York. The convention was organized and run by women who later became influential in the women’s suffrage movement. In the Declaration of Sentiments, the organizers demanded government reform and changes in male roles and behaviors that promoted inequality for women.

Solitude of Self: An Address by E.C. Stanton January, 1892

Shakespeare’s play of Titus and Andronicus contains a terrible satire on woman’s position in the nineteenth century–“Rude men” (the play tells us) “seized the king’s daughter, cut out her tongue, cut off her hands, and then bade her go call for water and wash her hands.” What a picture of woman’s position. Robbed of her natural rights, handicapped by law and custom at every turn, yet compelled to fight her own battles, and in the emergencies of life to fall back on herself for protection.

One Hundred Years toward Suffrage: An Overview

Suffrage is the right or privilege of voting and is frequently incorporated among the rights of citizenship. However, just as not all people in the United States are necessarily granted the privilege of citizenship, not all U.S. citizens have been uniformly endowed with the right to vote. Given the property laws and economic status of citizens at that time, these restrictions meant that most women and persons of color could not vote, and only about “half of the adult white men in the United States were eligible to vote in 1787.”With so few rights, many women drew parallels between their social and political state and that of slaves. This entry notes the dates and events that eventually resulted in the 19th Amendment.

Villard, Oswald Garrison

Oswald Garrison Villard (1872 – 1942): Civil Rights Activist and Editor of the The Nation and the New York Evening Post Oswald Garrison Villard (1872–1949) was an American journalist, pacifist, and civil rights advocate. The son of railroad tycoon Henry Villard and and suffragist Fanny Villard (the daughter of abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison) and…