FIRST IN THE FIELD.
The Lily was very nearly, if not quite, the first journal of any kind published by a woman. Mrs. Nichols, in Vermont, and Mrs. Swishelm, in Pennsylvania, were connected with newspapers published in each case by their husbands, and they wrote vigorous editorials for their papers, but neither of them took upon herself the entire charge of the publication. Mrs. Bloomer did this to the fullest extent, and it therefore may be justly claimed that she was the pioneer woman editor and proprietor. True, her journal was not a very large one, yet it labored zealously in the cause to which it was devoted and prepared the way for other and more pretentious publications to follow, under the charge of women. It showed what women could do when their thoughts and energies were directed to some practical and beneficial purpose, and so made ready for the great advance which has since taken place in opening for her wider fields of usefulness.
Mrs. Bloomer herself writes as follows:
“The Lily was the first paper published devoted to the interests of woman and, so far as I know, the first one owned, edited and published by a woman. It was a novel thing for me to do in those days and I was little fitted for it, but the force of circumstances led me into it and strength was given me to carry it through. It was a needed instrumentality to spread abroad the truth of the new gospel to woman, and I could not withhold my hand to stay the work I had begun. I saw not the end from the beginning and little dreamed whereto my proposition to the society would lead me.”