INDEX.

[1]. With the exception of the chapter on England, which is divided into three parts.

[2]. I do not mean for an instant to imply that these principles required emphasizing.

[3]. See also accounts of early education of American women authors in chapter on Woman in Literature.—Ed.

[4]. The graduates of the Harvard Annex are given a certificate issued by The Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women. Although the work of the “Annex” students is acknowledged to be the same as that of the students of the University, and the instruction is given by the University professors, the degrees that are bestowed on the graduates of the University are refused to the graduates of the “Annex.” It would certainly seem a more consistent position on the part of that august institution if it disclaimed all belief in the collegiate education of women. But Harvard smiles upon its Annex to the extent, at least, of permitting its professors to give their valuable time to instructing “the gentle sex.” Harvard apparently acknowledges the capacity of the female mind to attain to the heights of Harvard culture, but strangely enough it withholds the only proper recognition which surely is due, and fitting.

The following certificate issued by The Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women will some day, let us hope, be preserved only as a curious relic of an archaic past:

THE SOCIETY FOR THE COLLEGIATE INSTRUCTION OF WOMEN.

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS.

We Hereby Certify that under the supervision of this Society,        has pursued a course of study equivalent in amount and quality to that for which the Degree of Bachelor of Arts is conferred in Harvard College, and has passed in a satisfactory manner examinations on that course, corresponding to the College examinations.

In Testimony Whereof we have caused these presents to be signed by our President and Secretary and by the Chairman of the Academic Board, this day of               in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and

President.

Secretary.

Chairman of the Academic Board.

It may be added as a commentary that the Sargent prize for 1890–91 was won by a student of the “Annex.” This prize is offered to “Undergraduates of Harvard College and students pursuing courses of instruction in Cambridge, under the direction of The Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women,” and was awarded for, “The best metrical version of the ninth ode of the fourth Book of Horace.”—Ed.

[5]. The Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women, being duly incorporated, could also be authorized to confer degrees. But it wisely prefers to await the time when Harvard College will bestow the University degree; meanwhile doing what lies in its power to establish the identity of the work done in the two colleges. In the same way as Evelyn, Barnard College is duly incorporated and is authorized by the Regents of New York State to confer upon its graduates a degree of its own. But Barnard prefers to waive its right and to accept the degree from the parent University, Columbia College.

There is too much pluming of one’s self in this country, on the right to confer a college degree, a right granted by State Legislatures in a lamentably superficial manner. I have received many communications gravely announcing that the degrees conferred by certain colleges are every way equal to those of the greatest and oldest institutions of learning in the country—as the State Legislature—by a special act—“has made them so”(!) I have always failed to see the connection between acts of legislative bodies, and the true greatness of universities.

The trustees of Evelyn College decided to give a separate degree not because Princeton College refused to officially recognize the work of the students of Evelyn, but because thus far (December, 1890) no candidate has been received for a college course answering in every way to that for which the Princeton degree is given. The trustees of Evelyn College gives its graduates a degree which is granted for less work than is demanded by Princeton: (Music and Art are made regular electives, and Greek is not demanded even for entrance examinations).

Even at the risk of repetition, I will here state the relative standing of the three American affiliated colleges. I include the following colleges in the term Affiliated College, because each seeks in some way to extend to women the advantages that are offered to men by another (neighboring) college. Some one has given the raison d’être of the affiliated college to be “the economy which applies to a new purpose resources already organized and tested.”

Harvard Annex, founded in 1879, instruction received from Faculty of Harvard College, admits special students in all departments, gives no degree to its own graduates, prefers to await official recognition from Harvard College.

Evelyn College, founded in 1888, instructions received from Faculty of Princeton College, admits special students, gives its own degree, has never asked for the Princeton degree.

Barnard College, founded in 1889, instruction received from Faculty of Columbia College, no special students admitted except in Laboratory work and Graduate department, degrees conferred by Columbia College. The only affiliated college in the world, so far as I can learn, that has received full official sanction and recognition from the University with which it is affiliated.—Ed.

[6]. Although this remark was made by the late President Barnard, it did not voice the sentiment of those who inaugurated the movement to establish Barnard College. The affiliated college is not always a mere “step toward co-education”; there are many that believe that institutions such as the affiliated colleges, Girton and Newnham (were their graduates entitled to the University degree), best solve the problem of the collegiate education of women to-day. Instruction in undergraduate work is given at the women’s colleges, and is obtained not only from university professors, but also from some able women instructors. But in graduate work, which is the real work of the University, men and women are most properly allowed to attend the lectures together at the University. The vexed problem of co-education becomes a different question as it deals with the undergraduate work of young men and women, or with the university and professional studies of men and women of mature age.—Ed.

[7]. These courses of examinations were offered by Columbia College for the laudable purpose of “raising the standard of female education.” [Extract from the minutes of the Board of Trustees; Report of the Select Committee, March 5, 1883.] Notwithstanding the criticism and eloquent expostulation of some women aimed at the “conservative” Board of Trustees of Columbia College, we must not forget that Columbia has never refused equal recognition for equal work. It saw no logical pause between the acknowledgement that women could follow the collegiate course and the conferring of official sanction upon such a course.

The same Report goes on to say: “and offering suitable academic honors and distinctions to any who, on examination, shall be found to have pursued such courses of study with success.—Ed.

[8]. See article by Mrs. Annie Nathan Meyer in The Nation, January 21, 1888. The petition to the Columbia Board for official sanction to open Barnard College was largely based on this article.

[9]. See article by Annie Nathan Meyer, in University, February 22, 1888.

[10]. As the Cincinnati Wesleyan College is an example of the best that Methodism has done for the separate education of women, so Albert Lea College in Minnesota, founded and controlled by the synod of that State, would appear to be the most ambitious attempt of the Presbyterian Church to aid the separate higher education of women in the West. This college was founded in 1882, and opened to students in 1885. Its president makes for it, with relation to the country west of the Alleghanies, the same claim that the president of the Wesleyan made in its behalf with relation to the entire country, forty-eight years ago. Its president, Dr. R. B. Abbott, writes: “This is the only real college for women west of the Alleghany Mountains. There are female seminaries in abundance, some of which are named college, but are without a full college curriculum and without authority to confer the degrees of Bachelor and Master of Arts. Albert Lea is a college in fact as well as in name.”

Albert Lea is now in only its fifth year. I have not been able to obtain its latest catalogue. The above quotation from its president’s letter indicates its promise. Should it redeem this promise in its spirit and word, it would be a great blessing to the West; not so much young because women in this part of the country need another college within their easy reach, but because the entire community needs to have the difference between the nominal and the real college continually emphasized.

If Albert Lea draws sharp and visible lines between its standards and tests of scholarship, between its quality and methods of instruction and those of the majority of institutions in the above list, its influence will be potent in securing greater harmony between names and things in matters pertaining to education.

[11]. Appendix B, Table II., gives a table by which is shown when each of these colleges was founded, when opened, and when opened to women.

[12]. Prepared by May Wright Sewall at the request of the commissioners for Indiana, for the Indiana Department of the New Orleans Exposition.—Ed.

[13]. It is only fair to add that one of its graduates became a college president—Miss Alice Freeman, president of Wellesley College during six years, now Mrs. Alice F. Palmer, member of the Massachusetts State Board of Education.—Ed.

[14]. Read before the Historical Society of South Carolina, August 6, 1883, and reprinted by the Bureau of Education, Circular of Information No. 3, 1888.

[15]. Mention is made of a charitable school for girls, which they were not allowed to attend after the age of twelve, and of a school, apparently for boys, kept open by Mrs. Gaston, the wife of Justice John Gaston, at Fishing Creek.

[16]. See chapter “Education in the East.”—Ed.

[17]. See chapter “Education in the East.”—Ed.

[18]. Quoted in the Am. Jour. of Education, September, 1868, p. 622.

[19]. Mrs. Phelps, Mrs. Willard, and Maria Mitchell were the first three women members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

[20]. The first college to grant real degrees to women was Oberlin. See chapter “Education in the West.”—Ed.

[21]. Bureau of Education, 1888.

[22]. Historical Sketch in the catalogue for 1888–9.

[23]. The Bureau of Education has been extremely kind in placing its collections at my disposal, and in making extracts for me from its manuscript statistics for 1889–90, which will not be published for two years to come.

[24]. An equivalent amount of French or German may be substituted for Greek.

[25]. Interesting on account of an extract from a letter from a Virginia girl.

[26]. Catalogue.

[27]. Vassar was not opened until 1865. See chapter on Education in East.—Ed.

[28]. A Kentucky mother who had taken the trouble to send her daughter to Helmuth College in Canada, found that she was carrying on sixteen studies at the same time, and that she gave one half hour a week to geometry, during which the teacher gave the demonstrations and did not permit the class to ask any questions.

[29]. The tuition is $150 a year.

[30]. Report of the Peabody Education Fund, 1889.

[31]. Bureau of Education Report, 1887–88.

[32]. See the arguments interchanged in open letters,—learned essays, between Prof. Bischoff attacking, and Prof. Hermann defending, the admission of women to the University of Zurich. See also the address made last year by Prof. Waldeyer, before the Society of German Physicians and Naturalists.

[33]. “It is scarcely more than half a century, since among us, females were almost the only accoucheurs.”—“Remarks on the employment of Females as Practitioners in Midwifery,” by a Physician. Boston, 1820. See also collections Maine Historical Society; Proceedings General Court held at Wells, July 6, 1646, to “present” Frances Rayns for presuming to act the part of midwife. Also, Blake’s Annals of the town of Dorchester. Record of death, in 1705, of Mrs. Wiat, aged 94 years, having as midwife assisted at the births of 1100 and odd children. Also Thomson’s History of Vermont, sketching the career of Mrs. Thomas Whitmore in town of Marlboro, 1765. In the town records of Rehoboth is mentioned the arrival, on July 3, 1663, of Dr. Sam Fuller and his mother, he to practice medicine,—she as midwife, “to answer to the town’s necessity, which was great.” So also Mrs. Elizabeth Phillips settled in Charleston in 1718. Anne Hutchinson began her career as a midwife. It will be remembered that the mother of William Lloyd Garrison practiced midwifery in Baltimore, and thereby supported herself and two children, after she had been mysteriously deserted by her husband.

[34]. This sturdy woman lived to be eighty-seven years of age; an ironical comment on the theory of necessarily deficiency of endurance in the female sex.

[35]. “More than 150 years elapsed after the first settlement, before a single effort was made either by public authority or by the enterprise of individuals, for the education of physicians, or for improving the practice of medicine.... No medical journal was published in America, until toward the close of the 18th century.... The first anatomical dissection was made in New York, in 1750.—Thacher, Am. Med. Biog. 1828, p. 16.

[36]. “It would be shocking to humanity to relate the history of our general hospital in the years 1777 and 1778, when it swallowed up at least one half our army, ... by crowding and consequent infection.”... “At Bethlehem, out of 40 men who came sick from one regiment,—not three returned alive.”—Tilton on Military Hospitals (quoted by Tower, “Medical Men of the Revolution.” Address 1876, p. 77.)

[37]. “It was one of the first and happiest fruits of improved medical education in America, that females were excluded from practice; and this has only been effected by the united and persevering efforts of some of the most distinguished individuals of the profession.”—Remarks of a Boston physician, cited ut supra.

[38]. The suppression of midwives was more immediately due to the development of obstetrical science in England, whither the more ambitious among the colonial physicians were beginning to travel for instruction, and where their intellects were quickened by direct contact with the minds of men of genius. In 1752 Dr. James Lloyd, returning after two years’ study in England, began to practice obstetrics in Boston: In 1762, Dr. Shippen, similarly prepared, began to lecture on obstetrics in Philadelphia. (“Hist. of Art of Midwifery,” Lecture by Dr. Augustus Gardner, 1851). These actions sounded the professional death-knell of the poor midwives. Organized knowledge must invariably triumph over unorganized ignorance, even though tradition, decorum, and religion be all on the losing side.

[39]. “Man-midwifery Espoused and Corrected; or, The Employment of Men to attend Women in Childbirth, shown to be a modern innovation, unnecessary, unnatural, and injurious to the physical welfare of the Community, and pernicious in its influence on Professional and public Morality.” By Samuel Gregory, A.M., Lecturer on Physiology. Boston, 1848.

[40]. Is it possible not to seem to hear, from some quiet corner of dispassionate observation, the echo of the immortal “Fudge!” which so disturbed the complacency of the innocent Vicar of Wakefield?

[41]. “To Massachusetts is due the credit of establishing the first medical school for women in the world.”—Chadwick, “The Study and Practice of Medicine by Women,” International Review, October, 1879.

[42]. On two other occasions did these fortunes become associated with those of homœopaths. When in 1869 the State University of Michigan opened its medical department to women, the Legislature simultaneously ruled that two professors of homœopathic medicine must be appointed in the school. And when in 1886 the trustees of the Boston City Hospital inquired into the propriety of admitting female medical students, they reported at the same time upon the application of homœopathic physicians, to be appointed in the medical service of the wards. At this point, however, the fortunes of the two classes of applicants diverged: the first request was granted; the second refused.

The class of 1890 of the Boston University School only contains nine women.

[43]. Thus in France,—docteur en médecine, officier de santé, sage femme; in England,—physician, surgeon, apothecary. The midwife in England, was, until recently, assumed not to exist; but as she existed nevertheless, she became all the more dangerous because uncontrolled. “At present date, 60 per cent. of poor women are attended in their confinements by midwives, uninstructed and uncultivated,—probably 10,000 in number. The fatal results to both mothers and children arising from the ignorance of these midwives is notorious. They must either be annihilated or instructed.”—Dr. Aveling, writing to Gen. Med. Council, 1873.

The Obstetrical Society of London now undertakes to instruct and examine midwives.

[44]. Drs. Jacob Bigelow and James Jackson voted in the negative. The latter had been the physician to introduce into Boston the midwife, Mrs. Janet Alexander. So it would seem that his objection was not to women, but to educated women, who might aspire to rank among regularly educated men physicians.

[45]. The details of Miss Hunt’s application to Harvard are dispassionately related by Dr. Chadwick, loc. cit. When, in 1872, the London University, after a two years’ bitter controversy, declared women eligible to its degrees, the journals were flooded with letters from indignant physicians, who declared that by this action their own diplomas, previously obtained, had been lowered in value, their contracts violated, and their most sacred property rights invaded.

[46]. Address at Chickering Hall, New York, March 18, 1888, by Dr. Emily Blackwell.

[47]. Mt. Holyoke was founded by Mary Lyon in 1837.

[48]. Address of Emily Blackwell, cit. ut supra.

[49]. Elizabeth Blackwell, like Tennyson’s Princess,

“Shuddered but to dream that maids should ape

Those monstrous males that carve the living hound.”

And also like the Princess, it was

“through many a weary moon

She learned the craft of healing.”

[50]. “Medicine as a Profession for Women.” Address by Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell, delivered Dec. 2, 1859.

[51]. Miss Blackwell was of English birth and family, but had come to Cincinnati at the age of twelve.

[52]. Dr. Robert Weir.

[53]. Miss Blackwell earned money by several years’ work at school teaching, the great resource of American girls.

[54]. “It was the first time that a unanimous vote was ever cast in the board.”—Personal letter from Dr. Blackwell.

[55]. Especially St. Bartholomew, through the influence of Dr., afterwards Sir James, Paget.

[56]. The “ancient and modern languages,” comprised Latin, Greek, French, German, and Italian,—an unusual list of accomplishments for a self-taught, Western bred girl of those days. Miss Blackwell particularly charmed Dr. Simpson by translating for him into English (or Scotch) some Latin versions of old Arabic medical treatises.

[57]. For modern obstetrics is almost as new a sphere as gynæcology.

[58]. “Story of My Life,” by Marion Sims, p. 299.

It must be said that Dr. Sims was subsequently president of the American Medical Association, at the meeting which received its first woman delegate; and doubtless his influence contributed toward her favorable reception.

[59]. It will be remembered what were the conditions of graduation in New York in 1855.

[60]. “This was the thirtieth operation performed on Anarcha.” (1849.—Sims, loc. cit. p. 246.) 1849, foundation date of American gynæcology, was the date of the year when Elizabeth Blackwell received her diploma.

[61]. Dr. Sims, in his autobiography, complains that he was denounced as a quack by the “conservative” surgeons of New York, some of whom did not hesitate to secretly try to dissuade the ladies from doing anything about the Woman’s Hospital, and urging that the New York Hospital already accomplished every purpose.

Thus whatever is, invariably seeks to strangle in the birth that which is about to be!

[62]. Dr. Zakzrewska’s life has been sketched in outline down to the above date, in a little volume entitled “Practical Illustration of Woman’s Right to Labor,” by Caroline Dall.

[63]. A petition for the emancipation of negro slaves was presented to Congress by a group of Quaker gentlemen, within a few years after the framing of the Constitution.—Van Holst, Constitutional History of America.

[64]. Hannah Richardson and Rebecca White.

[65]. See ut supra, p. 13, note.

[66]. Galaxy, 1868. The innocent young Quaker girl did not find this “a disgusting preliminary!”

[67]. Personal letter.

[68]. To them were born two children, a son who died in early childhood; a daughter who lived to grow up and became educated as a physician.

[69]. Out of 189 graduates of the Philadelphia College whose status was reported in 1881, 56 were married women. The total number of graduates at that time was 276. (Rachel Bodley, “The College Story,” Commencement address, 1881.)

[70]. There were eight graduates. The first medical class that ever graduated in Philadelphia about a century before consisted of a single number.

[71]. Quite a group of bystanders collected to hear the discussion, which was animated by opposing cheers and hisses.

[72]. “To be addressed in public as doctor,” writes Dr. Zakzrewrka, “was painful, for all heads would turn to look at the woman thus stigmatized.” (Personal letter.) “Women,” said Dr. Blackwell at this time, “occupy an anomalous position, standing alone in medicine,—often opposed or ignored by the profession, not acknowledged by society, and separated from the usual pursuits and interests of women.”—(“An Appeal in behalf of the Medical Education of Women.” New York: 1856).

[73]. Personal letter of niece.—R. L. Fussell.

[74]. Annual Catalogue, 1854.

[75]. “Every woman will be narrowly watched and severely criticised because she is a woman. If she bear not herself wisely and well, many will suffer for her sake. Gentleness of manner, the adornment of a quiet spirit, are as important to the physician as the woman.... I too have felt the hopes and the aspirations after a fuller and more satisfying life, which have arisen in the souls of some of you.... The office of healing is Christlike.... Your business is, not to war with words, but to make good your position by deeds of healing.... Probity, simplicity, modesty, hope, patience, benevolence, prudence,—are needed alike by the woman and the physician. All the brave, struggling women, who, in various walks of life, are laboring for small compensations, will be benefited by a movement which opens to women another department of remunerative and honorable activity.”

Contrast with these modest statements of the gentle Philadelphia Quakeress the aggressive self-consciousness of the emancipated French woman, who rushes into the arena, with a little red flag waving in every sentence: “À nos lectrices, à nos lecteurs, à nos collaborateurs, à nos amis connus et inconnus, à tous ceux qui s’interessent à notre entreprise. Salut!... Nous voyons tous les jours des professeurs qui ont étudié dans leurs moindres détails, tous les êtres organises qui forment la série zoologique, et qui semblent ignorer absolument ce qu’est cet être qui tient tant de place dans l’humanité, la femme. Faisons-nous connaître, et quand ils sauront ce que nous valons, ils nous apprecieront comme nous le meritons.”—Mme. C. Renooz, Revue Scientifique des femmes. Paris, Mai, 1888.

The Revue is already extinguished after a year’s existence. The college survives and prospers after forty years of struggle.

[76]. The celebrated Dr. Camman, who for many years held a clinic for heart and lung diseases at the Demilt, gave valuable instruction to the women students.

[77]. This innovation (for it was one) was effected during the residentship of Dr. Elizabeth Cushier, who has contributed immensely to the building up of the hospital.

[78]. This is an increase of 100 patients over the preceding year.

[79]. In the chapter on “Women in Hospitals,” in this volume, Mrs. Ednah Cheney gives the details of the early formation of the New England Hospital.—Ed.

[80]. “She was as fresh and girlish as if such qualities had never been pronounced incompatible with medical attainments. She had, indeed, a certain flower-like beauty, a peculiar softness and elegance of appearance and manner. I have wondered whether she did not resemble Angelica Kaufman. Underneath this softness, however, lay a decision of purpose, a Puritan austerity of character that made itself felt, though unseen. “She ruled the hospital like a little Napoleon,” said a lady who had been there.... Both the surgical talents and surgical training of Dr. Dimock are certainly at the present date (1875), exceptional among women. It is on this account that our loss is irreparable, for at this moment there seems to be no one to take her place. Many battles have been lost from such a cause. But although ours be ultimately won, we would not, if we could, grieve less loyally for this girl, so brilliant and so gentle, so single of purpose and so wide of aim, whose life had been thus ruthlessly uprooted and thrown upon the waves at the very moment it touched upon fruition.”—M. P. Jacobi in New York Medical Record, 1875.

Dr. Dimock, like so many of the early gynæcological surgeons of America, was a Southerner, born in North Carolina.

[81]. Nineteenth Annual Report Chicago Hospital for Women and Children, 1884.

[82]. Report, loc. cit.

[83]. “To the fixedness and honesty of purpose of Dr. Mary H. Thompson, may be credited these satisfactory results of nineteen years’ work. They mean a devotion and self-sacrifice on her part that few can estimate.”—Report of results from 1884 to 1888.

[84]. Medical News, 1885. Reprint of address at Birmingham by Lawson Tait.

[85]. The establishment of such schools, professing to further the education of women, has continued to be the greatest bane to the movement for their effective education. So late as the current year (1890), a lady writes from Cincinnati: “The college already in existence is one of the unpardonable sins against a confiding public.”

[86]. Memorial of Trustees of Women’s Medical College of N. Y. Infirmary, 1887.

[87]. The same thing had happened at Harvard, when it raised its standard of requirements.

[88]. Memorial Trustees, loc. cit.

[89]. Ibid.

[90]. See history of the founding of the University of Michigan, chapter Education in the Western States.—Ed.

[91]. Letter from Chicago in Boston Med. and Surg. Journal, July, 1878.

[92]. “History of Competitive Examinations for the Woman’s Medical College of Chicago.” Read before its Alumnæ Association, April 1, 1889, by Dr. Marie Mergler.

[93]. These early experiences were, as has already been hinted, common to all the schools ever established independently for women. Until very recently, the gentlemen who have professed to teach surgery have never persuaded themselves to take their subject seriously.

[94]. Dr. Sutro Merritt, daughter of the famous engineer, and who married a fellow student from the University of California; and the twin sisters, Agnes and Isabel Lowry.

[95]. “The education of the college is a conquered standpoint: what remains is to make the post-collegiate education equally easy of access to women. To duplicate the great laboratories and the great professorships of the two or three colleges which give adequate post-graduate instruction, would be foolish in the extreme. It is little less than silly to suppose that seriously minded men and women could not brave the associations of the lecture room without danger of impropriety. What possible reason can Columbia College, or Clark University, or the Johns Hopkins urge for not throwing open their post-graduate courses to women? What more graceful act could be imagined with which to mark this memorable year, when Vassar College celebrates her first quarter of a century and when Phillipa Fawcett is four hundred marks ahead of the senior wrangler, than for these universities, without further wheedling or coaxing or bribing, to open to women the opportunities for hard work which women covet, and which the sense of justice of men, tardy though it be, will not permit them much longer to refuse.”—Editorial in New York Evening Post, June 17, 1890.

[96]. New York Medical Record, June 24, 1885.

[97]. Of which sixteen admit women. There are altogether thirty-five co-educational medical schools. See Record, loc. cit.

[98]. Ut supra, p. 106.

[99]. Phil. Med. and Surg. Reporter, 1867, vol. 16.

[100]. The distinguished ovariotomist, one of the earliest in the country.

[101]. Quite a number of the members of the Society defied the authority of its resolution, and “consulted” with women or even taught them. Among the latter, Dr. Hartshorne, who became an able professor of the Woman’s College, was the only one who took the trouble to withdraw from the County Medical Society on account of his relations with the woman’s school.

[102]. Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, May 25, 1871.

[103]. The matter had apparently first been brought forward in 1868, at a meeting held at Washington, D. C., by a resolution offered by Dr. Bowditch of Boston.—N. Y. Med. Record, 1868.

[104]. New York Medical Record, June 10, 1876.

[105]. “History of Proceedings to procure the Recognition of Women Physicians by the Medical Profession of the State.” By Dr. Hiram Corson. Philadelphia, 1888.

[106]. “It must be acknowledged that the strictly regular instruction imparted in the principal medical schools for women has excited respect, and greatly tended to overcome former prejudices. The admission of women is now a fixed fact.”—Phil. Med. Times, 1883.

[107]. This society no longer exists; but it can hardly be said to have died from the admission of women, as it never had but three female members.

[108]. Mary Putnam, who was in fact the first woman to be admitted to the Paris School, though Miss Garrett of London was the first to graduate from it. The paper read before the New York Society was on Septicæmia, and seems to have been the first read by a woman physician in the United States, before a medical society.

[109]. Miss Putnam’s graduating thesis had moreover secured a bronze medal, the second prize awarded.

[110]. Drs. Cushier, McNutt, Withington, Dixon Jones.

[111]. Drs. Peckham, Fiske-Bryson.

[112]. Dr. McNutt.

[113]. Drs. Peckham, Cushier.

[114]. Dr. Cushier.

[115]. In 1876, the Boylston Prize, conferred every two years by Harvard University for a medical essay, was won by Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi. The prizes were awarded in ignorance of the names of the writers, and consequently of their sex; but this was the first occasion on which a woman had competed. The subject was, “The Question of Rest for Women during Menstruation.”

Dr. Boylston, the founder of the prize, had been the first colonial physician to practice inoculation, after this had been suggested by Cotton Mather.

[116]. The committee consisted of Prof. Alexander Agassiz chairman, Dr. Morrill Wyman, President Eliot, Mr. J. Elliott Cabot, Dr. Le Baron Russell.

[117]. Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, May 22, 1879. The editor expresses surprise at “so frank a confession of inferiority.” Although it was only a few years since women physicians were ostracised on the ostensible ground of the necessary inferiority of their means of education, the Boston editor now, in order to confute the claim of necessity for the Harvard education, passes in most flattering review the existing schools for women at New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago, and insists that these offer all the advantages any reasonable woman can want. Thus (this in 1879):

Philadelphia, 29th year, class 90 students.

New York, 10th year, class 47 students.

Chicago, 9th year, class 32 students.

“Answers to letters of inquiry show that these schools for women are looked on with great favor.”

[118]. Chadwick, “Admission of Women to the Massachusetts Medical Society,” Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 1881.

[119]. The editor of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal announced this decision with great regret. The writer declared it “to be impossible that women can frequent our public meetings or lecture-rooms when certain topics are discussed, without breaking through barriers which decency has built up, and which it is for the interest of every lady and gentleman to preserve.... The moral tone of the society will soon be perceptibly lowered.”—(Loc. cit., October, 1879.)

The success of the movement was due to the chivalrous energy of a group of younger members, especially Drs. James and Charles Putnam, Dr. Chadwick, Dr. Cabot, and Dr. Derby.

[120]. It will be remembered that it was the experience gained in the rude hospitals of the Revolutionary War, which, by affording American physicians for collective observation of the sick on a large scale, first breathed some scientific spirit into the profession. Similar experience was afterwards gained in the epidemics of yellow fever and of spotted fever, that at different times ravaged the country. An analogous influence was exercised by the Civil War, which influence is becoming most distinct a quarter of a century after its close.

[121]. It was also ruled that “any cases deemed improper for a mixed audience should be reserved for the end of the lecture, and that the surgeon before proceeding with them may require the withdrawal of all male or female students as the case may be”; further, “No female patient shall be taken into the amphitheatre without the attendance of a female nurse: and no operation upon a female patient requiring special exposure shall be performed in the presence of male visiting students.”

In this simple and even-handed manner were adjudged the vexed questions that had been declared so insoluble.

[122]. New York Medical Record, Jan. 1, 1870.

[123]. These inadequacies might be rectified, without necessarily introducing into clinical practice the brutalities that so often disfigure the European treatment of hospital patients.

[124]. Including Dr. Jacobi, Dr. Emil Krackowizer, Dr. Guhleke. The two former were German radicals of 1848, and in this action remained consistent with philosophic principles of their youth.

[125]. It has been said that if any woman was admitted on the staff of internes, all the patients would demand her for the personal services now rendered by young men, and which are now accepted, though under protest, for the sake of the special skill of the distinguished visiting surgeons of the institution.

[126]. Elizabeth Blackwell in 1848.

[127]. Dr. Mary P. Root.

[128]. Dr. Marie Mergler, loc. cit.

[129]. Dr. Mary H. Stinson, of Norristown, Pa.

[130]. Dr. Hiram Corson, Dr. A. Nebinger, Dr. R. L. Sibbett.

[131]. It was signed first by Dr. Kirkbride, superintendent of the Pennsylvania Insane Asylum, and then by the surgeons and physicians, the consultants and the assistants, the indoor and out-door staff of thirteen colleges and hospitals, of which only one received insane patients, the Blockley. In addition were the names of nineteen physicians unconnected with any institution.

[132]. Dr. Bennett’s nomination was indorsed by eminent physicians from Philadelphia, Drs. Joseph Leidy, Wm. Pepper, S. Weir Mitchell, H. C. Wood, W. W. Keen, S. D. Gross. The latter venerable surgeon had formerly been bitterly opposed to women physicians.

[133]. “The only regret and wonder are that a provision so humane and natural and consoling for these unfortunate wards of the State, has not yet been made law.”—Harper’s Weekly, 1890.

[134]. Woman’s Journal, April 26, 1890.

[135]. Rhoda Wilkins, in 1885, a graduate of the New York Infirmary School.

[136]. The following is a partial list of the women now or recently holding such positions, in addition to those already named: Helen Bissell, Kalamazoo, Michigan; Alice M. Farnham, Hart’s Island, New York City; Alice Wakeman and Augusta Steadman, Blackwell’s Island, New York; Jane Garver, Harrisburg, Pa.; Amelia Gilman, Blockley Insane Hospital, Philadelphia; Laura Hulme, Worcester, Mass.; Martha Morgan, Harrisburg, Pa.; F. McQuaide, Norristown, Pa.; Martha Perry, Taunton, Mass.; Alice Rogers, Taunton, Mass.; Julia K. Cary, Danvers, Mass.; and others in Maine, Minnesota, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, and California.

[137]. “It was a great step for Virginia, thus taken by the trustees, and required considerable effort on the part of some members of the board.... Massachusetts is the only State where it is absolutely required by law that every such hospital shall employ one woman assistant physician.”—Springfield Republican.

[138]. The Directors of the Woman’s Educational and Industrial Union of Buffalo wrote to the superintendents of insane asylums in 38 States, asking their opinion on the law pending in the New York Legislature during its session of 1889–1890. Forty-six answers were received from 32 States, of which 33 favored the law, 5 were opposed, 5 non-committal, and 3 not prejudiced.

[139]. “The Practice of Medicine by Women in the United States.” Paper read before Social Science Association, by Emily H. Pope, M.D., Sept. 7, 1881; and “The College Story,”—address at Woman’s Medical College of Philadelphia, by Dean Rachel Bodley, March 17, 1881.

[140]. Dr. Bodley sent circulars only to the graduates of the Philadelphia school, of whom, in 1881, there had been 276. Of these, 189 answered the circular. Dr. Pope sent circulars to 470 graduates of all schools, and received 390 answers, many, however, duplicating those of the Philadelphia circular of March.

[141]. $2907.30 exactly.

[142]. The writer knows personally of two women physicians, one in large general practice including much surgery, the other at the head of a Sanitarium, who have each brought up and educated twelve children. One of these ladies was a widow, with one child, when she began to study medicine; the other was never married. A very large number of childless women adopt children, or contribute to the education of the children of brothers or sisters.

[143]. A distinguished surgeon recently wrote to a woman physician, when he had confirmed her diagnosis in a serious case, where the family then requested the presence of the consultant at the operation the woman physician was to perform: “I shall be out of town for a week; you had better not wait for me—go ahead and operate yourself.” Which she did successfully.

[144]. The above form of consultation has greatly extended the facilities of medical treatment for unmarried women and young girls.

[145]. “I believe that the department of medicine in which the great and beneficent influence of women may be especially exerted, is that of the family physician. Not as specialists, but as the trusted guides and wise counselors in all that concerns the physical welfare of the family, they will find their most congenial field of labor.” Elizabeth Blackwell, “The Influence of Women in the Profession of Medicine.” Address before London Medical School for Women, 1889.

[146]. See Tenon’s report on the Hôtel Dieu of Paris, made to the National Assembly in 1789. He describes the usage of the time, which eight centuries of hospital existence had not taught how to improve.

[147]. Dr. Sims, in his treatise on Uterine Surgery, declared that the local treatment of uterine diseases was, almost always, surgical.

[148]. During this year Dr. Broomall has gone to Asia, to make a tour of the different missionary stations where there are women physicians, and there perform capital operations on the cases which have been accumulating. This is an expedition unique of its kind in history.

[149]. At the meeting of the Philadelphia Alumnæ Association, held in March, 1889, six successful cases of capital operations in abdominal surgery were reported by members, including two Cæsarean sections and one hysterectomy. Sixteen laparotomies were further reported from the Woman’s Hospital, but these have been included in the statistical table.

[150]. See Appendix D.

[151]. Centenary of American Methodism.

[152]. Centenary American Methodism.

[153]. Rev. Annie H. Shaw.

[154]. Christian Womanhood, W. C. Black, D.D.

[155]. Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, the first woman ordained in this country.

Mrs. Blackwell writes: “At the time of my ordination I was pastor of the church of ‘South Butler and Savannah,’ New York State. The church called a council to ordain me and install me as the regular minister. It was an orthodox society in good and regular standing among other Congregational churches, and the ordination was quite according to precedent; though doubtless the Congregational body as a whole never would have ordained a woman either then, thirty-seven years ago, nor yet to-day.”—Ed. note.

[156]. Rev. Louise S. Baker, pastor of the Orthodox Congregational Church, in Nantucket, Mass., was ordained by the deacons of that church in 1884, two of the four deacons being women.

[157]. Report of the Dedication of the Mary J. Drexel Home and Mother-house of Deaconesses, December 6, 1888. In 1887 Mrs. Lucy Rider Meyer, M.D., connected with the Chicago Training School, with a few women to assist, gave the first impulse to the Deaconess movement in the Methodist Episcopal Church, which has resulted in the establishment of Mother-houses in Chicago, New York, Boston and other large cities. The church, seeing the measureless opportunities offered by such an institution, has wisely been prompt to adopt it, and this will doubtless encourage the adoption of the order by other denominations.

[158]. The Grace House Training School for Deaconesses was opened for the admission of candidates October (1890), in New York, adjoining Grace Church. The General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in October, 1889, provided that every candidate for the office of Deaconess, before she is set apart, shall have had “an adequate preparation for her work, both technical and religious, which preparation shall cover the period of two years.” The Grace House Training School is provided to furnish this preparation.—Ed.

[159]. Rev. Olympia Brown Willis.

[160]. “Biography of Distinguished Women,” Sarah J. Hale.

[161]. Dr. Kempin writes: The Law School for women was a private undertaking, but founded with the aim to connect it with an already existing institution after having proven its vitality. With the help of the Women’s Legal Education Society, an incorporated body of women interested in the higher education of their sex, the Law School succeeded in connecting itself with the University of the City of New York. In response to a request of the Women’s Legal Education Society the doors of the Law Department of the University were thrown open to women on the same terms as to men, and a lectureship created to which I was selected as a lecturer on the same footing as other lecturers in the Law Department and especially to instruct classes of non-matriculating students who desire a knowledge of law for practical guidance and general culture.—Ed.

[162]. Harvard chartered 1650; Yale, 1701; Columbia, 1754; William and Mary, 1693.—Ed.

[163]. See chapter on The Work of Antislavery Women.—Ed.

[164]. See chapter on Red Cross.

[165]. See chapters on Woman in the Ministry, Woman in Law, Woman in Medicine.—Ed.

[166]. See chapter Hospitals and Training Schools managed by Women.—Ed.

[167]. See chapter Woman in Journalism.—Ed.

[168]. See chapter on Woman’s Work in the W. C. T. U.—Ed.

[169]. See Appendix E, for Civil Rights of Women.—Ed.

[170]. Wyoming was admitted to statehood, with equal suffrage for men and women incorporated in her constitution, by an Act of Congress, July, 1890.

[171]. And yet co-education had its birth in Ohio (Oberlin, 1833).—Ed.

[172]. “Women as Inventors.” Mrs. Gage, North American Review, 1883, p. 478.

[173]. “For generations,” writes Johnstone, in his ‘History of Connecticut,’ “merchants and mechanics had been outranked by farmers.”

[174]. Material for the account of Lowell has been taken from Mrs. H. H. Robinson’s interesting paper on Early Factory Life in New England, Dickens’s American Notes, Lowell Offering, and Appleton’s American Cyclopædia.

[175]. “Think and Act,” “Men and Women,” “Work and Wages.” Virginia Penny, 1869.

[176]. See chapter, Aid for the Criminal Classes.—Ed.

[177]. Speech of Mr. Frederic Coudert at the Lenox Lyceum, April 7, 1890.

[178]. This thought of the greater benefit to be derived from the organizations of labor as opposed to the philanthropic work done by the employing classes for the people who work, has been ably carried out in a paper read by Mrs. Florence Kelley Wischnewtzky before the New York Association of Collegiate Alumni, May 14, 1887, entitled “The Need of Theoretical Preparations for Philanthropic Work.” This essay will appear in an early number of the Boston “Nationalist.”

[179]. Since the Grangers were first organized, that body has amalgamated its efforts with those of the Farmers Alliances and these again with the Knights of Labor. The Alliances are in many respects more socialistic than the Socialists, inasmuch as the last-named have only proposed, by a transitional and constitutional method, to arrive at the demands now made by the Alliances, and these only after the altruistic and industrial planks in their platform have been gradually conceded by National and State Legislatures. The Farmers Alliances, which number possibly 5,000,000 members, demand the immediate ownership by the people of all the means of transportation and communication, railways, canals, telegraphs, telephones, etc. But more than this, their platform calls upon the nation through Congress and the Treasury department for a system of sub-treasuries, which have to aid directly in the purchase, storage, and distribution of the products of farms and plantations—that is of all grain, tobacco, and cotton.

[180]. The first one established of any note was that of the Daughters of Crispin, in Massachusetts, an organization of shoemakers, incorporated in 1872.

[181]. One evil that shirt-makers and seamstresses of all kinds had to contend with was that the work was given out to contractors, families, and institutions, principally to the Roman Catholic Protectory and the House of the Good Shepherd.

[182]. Ohio Report for 1887. L. McHugh, commissioner.

[183]. Condition of the Working Classes in England in 1844, Frederick Engels. Translated by Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky.

[184]. In England this outrage on humanity was forbidden, in 1878, by Clause No. 35 of the Factory Bill, which provided that “no young person, or woman, shall be employed in any part of a factory in which the wet spinning of flax, hemp, jute, or tow is carried on, unless sufficient means be employed and continued for protecting the workers from being wetted, and, where hot water is used, for preventing the escape of steam into the room occupied by the workers.”

[185]. Fall River, Lowell, and Lawrence. Thirteenth Annual Report, Massachusetts Bureau Statistics of Labor.

[186]. Public attention was first directed to this hideous phase of the child labor question through the discovery of the fact that large numbers of orphan children, varying from eleven to fourteen years of age, were being exported from St. John’s Asylum, Brooklyn, N. Y., to the glass factories of Fostoria and Findlay, O. Other asylums, including the organization known as the Children’s Aid Society, were said to be equally guilty with St. John’s Home in carrying on the business of child trading for a money consideration.

[187]. New York newspapers November 23–26, 1888; Brooklyn Citizen, November 23, 1888; Correspondence of Factory Inspectors, Harry Dorn, Ohio, November, 1888; Correspondence of Factory Inspectors, John Franey, Albany, N. Y., November, 1888.

[188]. New Jersey, 1883; Ohio, 1884; New York, 1886; Wisconsin, Rhode Island, 1887; Connecticut, 1888; Maine, 1888; State factory inspection in Pennsylvania in 1889; municipal factory ordinance in Chicago, 1889.

[189]. Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1875, pp. 183–84.

[190]. Whenever “socialism” is referred to in this essay, by the term should be simply understood the meaning given to the word in recent editions of Webster’s “Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language,” viz.: “A theory of society which advocates a more precise, orderly, and harmonious arrangement of the social relations of mankind than that which has hitherto prevailed.” This necessarily is the very opposite of anarchy, described, in the same authority, as “The state of society where there is no law or supreme power, or where the laws are not efficient and individuals do what they please with impunity.” Socialism is therefore the antithesis of anarchism. The former is constructive and altruistic, the latter destructive, and the absolute sovereignty of the individual, consequently, disregard of others. Nor is by socialism meant communism. Socialism recognizes the right of the individual to the product of his own labor and certainly not the division thereof; whereas communism means that common ownership of property which has only been successfully carried out in the conventual orders of the Roman Catholic Church and in the Buddhistic Lamaseries. This is the position taken in a recently published article from the pen of the well-known social-economist Charles Sotheran, formerly literary editor of the New York Star, but better known under his noms-de-plume of “Colmolyn” and “Southernwood.”

[191]. See chapter, Work for the Criminal Classes.—Ed.

[192]. See chapter on Woman in Industry.—Ed.

[193]. See chapter, Woman in Industry.—Ed.

[194]. See chapter, Woman in Industry.—Ed.

[195]. The Association of Working Girls’ Societies was formed February, 1884, with the following objects:

1. To strengthen, to knit together, and to protect the interests of the several societies.

2. To hold meetings, when reports of the societies shall be presented, and to make more generally known their aims and advantages.

3. To promote the general adoption of the principles upon which the societies have been formed.

4. To secure the services, by co-operation, of good teachers, lady physicians, and lecturers.

5. To keep the several societies informed of such classes and schemes as are proved valuable.

6. To encourage and assist in the establishment of new societies.

In April, 1890, a convention was held under the auspices of the New York, Boston, and Brooklyn Associations of Working Girls’ Societies, and the Philadelphia New Century Working Women’s Guild. Two hundred and twenty-five delegates, representing ninety-six clubs, and from thirty-eight different cities and towns, were present.—Ed.

[196]. The effort above referred to has during the year taken shape as the “College Settlement,” and on September 1, 1890, its first annual report closes with the following words:

“What are the ‘results?’ Certainly the residents are recognized as the friends of those about them. The children turn to them with the joy of every acquisition and the grief of every loss. The club boys of sixteen and seventeen years are proud of their connection with the house and eager rivals in its good opinion. Even some of the older women turn to the residents as friends upon whom they can rely. Those who know the work best do not look for results other than this friendly relation in any near future. The work, if it is anything, is a process of education. Character is not formed in a year. In all the club work the object constantly sought is helpful, personal contact. All methods are simply a means to this end. For this reason the number of members in each club is limited. If the higher is ever to give an uplift to the lower, must it not be through this method of friendship? Such a relation implies giving and taking on both sides, and the workers at the Settlement find one of the strongest points gained by residence to be, that their neighbors have a chance to do something for them, a chance which is often improved. The Settlement is one of the influences which go to form the lives of the people in Rivington Street. If it shall create any higher ideals or quicken any aspirations, if it shall awaken one soul to any sense of its own nature, the object of the College Settlement will surely be attained.”

[197]. See chapter, Woman in Medicine.—Ed.

[198]. The story of the founding of the New York Infirmary, and the New England Hospital for Women and Children, is told in the chapter on Woman in Medicine.—Ed.

[199]. Note.—I do not mean to claim that this result, which is very evident in the community, is entirely due to the establishment of women’s hospitals, for it is the consequence of a broader feeling for humanity in all institutions; but it is certainly a marked feature of women’s hospitals. This note will apply to all that I have said of hospitals. My subject is women’s hospitals, but I would gladly do justice to the good work done in all hospitals, if it were not too broad a field.

[200]. In New York city the Woman’s Branch of the New York City Mission sends out five nurses among the poor. These nurses have all had a full course of training at some hospital. This mission claims to be the first society in America to have introduced trained nurses in its work.

The Department of United Relief Works of the Society of Ethical Culture, organized in 1879, furnishes nurses to Demilt and New York Dispensaries. During the year 1888–1889 these nurses paid on an average 2800 visits to about 700 patients, including all diseases, even of the most infectious nature, and quite irrespective of creed and nationality.

The Mt. Sinai Training School supplies, at its own expense (being at present a separate organization from the hospital) from among its nurses not yet graduated, but experienced in hospital training, a nurse who administers to the sick irrespective of creed, nationality, or disease, under the direction of physicians attached to what is called “District Poor Service” of Mt. Sinai Hospital. Among the corps of physicians, all of whom give their services free, is one woman, Dr. Josephine Walter, who devotes on an average four mornings a week to this work in some of the poorest and most miserable districts of the city.

The order of Deaconesses, referred to in the chapter on Woman in Ministry, also act in the capacity of nurse. Among them are many regularly trained nurses who serve in the hospitals closely connected with the church.—Ed. note.

[201]. See chapter on Charity.—Ed.

[202]. See the story of Mrs. McFarland’s work, in “Alaska,” by Rev. Sheldon Jackson, D.D.

[203]. See “Mary and I,” by Rev. Dr. Stephen R. Riggs.

[204]. The latest and best edition is by Roberts Brothers, Boston, Mass.

[205]. This was Susan La Flesche, a sister of “Bright Eyes.”

[206]. This was The Women’s Home Mission Society of the First Baptist Church of Philadelphia, that of the Rev. George Dana Boardman, D.D., a society organized by the efforts of Mrs. Boardman, the gifted wife of that distinguished preacher and author, and largely in the interests of Indians.

[207]. See also the “Sketch and Plans” of The Indian Treaty-keeping and Protective Association, July, 1881, and “The Official Record” of The National Indian Association for 1882.

[208]. The petition was as follows:

To the President of the United States, and to the Senate and House of Representatives:

We, the undersigned men and women of the United States, resident in or near ——, do most respectfully but most earnestly request the President and the Houses of Congress to take all needful steps to prevent the encroachments of white settlers upon the Indian Territory, and to guard the Indians in the enjoyment of all the rights which have been guaranteed them on the faith of the nation.

[209]. This was as follows:

To the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress Assembled:

We, the undersigned men and women of these United States, resident in or near ——, do most respectfully, but most earnestly pray the Houses of Congress to take all needful steps to prevent the encroachments of white settlers upon the Indian Territory, and upon all Indian reservations; also to keep all treaties with the Indians until they are changed by the mutual and free consent of both parties, and to guard them in the enjoyment of all the rights which have been guaranteed them upon the faith of the nation.

[210].

MEMORIAL LETTER.[[211]]

ACCOMPANYING THE INDIAN PETITION OF 1881.

To the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress Assembled:

The men and women of this nation herewith present their second petition to your Honorable Body for the faithful fulfillment of treaties and other guarantees given by our government to the different tribes of Indians within our borders. Your petitioners do not suggest any political policy to be pursued, leaving such matters to wise statesmanship. They come with but one thought, conviction, prayer. The thought recognizes the moral obligation of nations, as of individuals, to keep compacts. The conviction is that recognized moral obligation should result in the fulfillment of such obligation. The prayer is for such fulfillment as being ever, we believe, the highest political wisdom, the truest national safety.

An objection has been made by some to treaty-keeping with Indians, on the ground that the Indian tribes among us were never “nations,” and that, therefore, so-called “treaties” with them were never real treaties. Your petitioners, with deep feeling recall the fact that our government has for a hundred years recognized these tribes as “nations,” in its hundreds of compacts with them calling the latter “treaties,” and has, by Acts of Congress, bound itself faithfully to observe all such made in the past, though deciding to make no new treaties with Indians. Your petitioners, therefore, pray, for the sake of national honor, which demands honest dealing with all men, that the terms “nation” and “treaty” may be kept to the heart as they have hitherto been made and explained to the ear.

Again it has been urged that the law of eminent domain nullifies these treaties, and requires our government to take legal jurisdiction of Indian lands, to divide the same in severalty, and to open the remainder for white settlement. Your petitioners are deeply impressed that for any government to apply the law of eminent domain to the property of others than its own citizens, is to necessitate, if there be resistance, a war of conquest,—a measure wholly opposed to the fundamental principles of this government,—and that Indians, with few exceptions, are not citizens of the United States, but are under their own legislative and executive authority, as in the Indian Territory, and this by the terms of our sales of territory to them, and their titles to the same.

Your petitioners therefore present their memorial to your honorable body, feeling that the plea for treaty-keeping is a protest against any enactment of Congress which would extend legal jurisdiction over territory not under the control of this government, and which would do this, as for example the Oklahoma Bill proposes, contrary to explicit treaty stipulations.

Finally, your petitioners would express the earnest conviction that the nation, which has spent five hundred millions of dollars on Indian wars growing out of the violation of treaties, can best afford to make it to the interest of the Indian tribes among us voluntarily to become citizens of the United States, and not by the coercion of Acts of our Congress.

Our petition of last year was from fifteen States; that of the present year represents every State of the Union and several of the Territories; and has many more than double the number of last year’s signatures. The work of circulating the petition, and accompanying pamphlets, has been done by few persons, and chiefly by Christian women already busy in benevolent work; yet the roll contains the names of people of all occupations and in all ranks of society; of great business firms and manufacturers; of distinguished men and officials; of judges, governors, and ambassadors to foreign courts; of authors and editors; of the faculties and students of not a few of our most noted collegiate and theological institutions, and of literary and art associations. Besides all these, the roll includes the signatures of women’s mission boards, Christian associations, and other benevolent societies; the names of pastors and bishops of the churches; also the records of the indorsement of a rising vote from various church-meetings of different denominations; of meetings held specially to consider the Indian question; of minister’s unions in different towns and cities, and of various other bodies. All these and many other evidences reveal the fact that the moral sentiment of those classes who largely make and control public opinion already requires governmental faithfulness to our Indian treaties. For this your petitioners most earnestly and respectfully pray.

Amelia S. Quinton.

Secretary of Indian Treaty-Keeping Committee.

[211]. This said:

To the President of the United States, and to the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress Assembled:

We, the undersigned men and women of these United States, do most respectfully but most earnestly pray our President and your honorable body:

1. To maintain all treaties with Indians with scrupulous fidelity until these compacts are modified or abrogated by the free and well-considered consent of the Indian tribes who were also parties to these treaties.

2. That since the number of Indian children within the limits of the United States does not probably exceed sixty thousand, or one-third the number of children in the public schools of some of our larger cities; and since treaties with many tribes already bind our government to provide a teacher for every thirty Indian children among these tribes: therefore we pray that a number of common schools, sufficient for the education of every child of every tribe, may be provided upon their reservations, and that industrial schools also may be established among them.

3. We pray that a title in fee-simple to at least one hundred and sixty acres of land may be granted to any Indian within the reservation occupied by his tribe, when he desires to hold land in severalty, and that said land shall be inalienable for twenty years.

4. We also earnestly pray for the recognition of Indian personalty and rights under the law, giving to Indians the protection of the law of the United States for their persons and property, and holding them strictly amenable to these laws; also giving them increased encouragements to industry, and opportunity to trade, and securing to them full religious liberty.

MEMORIAL LETTER OF THE INDIAN TREATY-KEEPING AND PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION, PRESENTED WITH THEIR PETITION FOR 1882.

To the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress Assembled:

Again the women of a national Indian association beg leave to present to your honorable body the petition they have circulated and received again from the people of the United States. Their roll represents, at a low estimate, considerably more than a hundred thousand citizens,—instead of thirteen thousand as did their first, three years ago,—and is an earnest plea for a righteous, speedy, and permanent settlement of the Indian question.

Among the petitioners are many hundreds of churches, which have adopted the petition by a unanimous rising vote, this often having been taken at a regular Sabbath service; various popular meetings have also here presented their plea, similarly expressed; while the roll contains names of members of legislative bodies, of governors, judges, and lawyers; names of bishops and of many hundreds of the clergy—among the latter the entire ministry of three denominations in the city of Philadelphia and numbering nearly three hundred; names of the professors and students of theological seminaries like those at Hartford, Cambridge, Rochester, and Upland; colleges and universities like Yale, Harvard, Brown, Cornell, Rochester, Washington, and Lee; names of editors of leading periodicals; the boards of hundreds of missionary and other benevolent societies, not a few of these being national ones; with names of art, literary, and social clubs. Besides all these, the roll contains the signatures of hundreds of business and manufacturing firms, who control capital to the amount of many millions of dollars, and who employ many thousand operatives—all showing that not only has there been a rapid growth of sentiment among the religious and intellectual leaders of the community, demanding legislation which shall end oppression of Indians and secure to them full opportunity for industrial, mental, and religious development, but that the commercial interests of our land also are fast coming to demand a just and speedy settlement of the Indian question.

Permit an expression from the association who to-day present to your honorable body their third annual petition,—an association having sixteen State committees and one in each of the larger cities, with helpers in every State, all these committees being composed of patriotic Christian women; permit these to say that into their ears and hearts comes the cry of suffering, undefended, ever-endangered, Indian women and children, and that this cry is our appeal to you to secure for them legal protection; that the plea of Indian women for the sacred shield of law is the plea of the sisters, wives, and mothers of this nation for them, the plea of all womanhood, indeed, on their behalf to you as legislators and as men. Permit us also to say, that in laboring by every means in our power to fill our land with a knowledge of the present condition of Indians, and of our national obligations to them, we most deeply feel, that while justice demands the recognition of Indian personalty before the law, thus most surely and simply, it seems to us, securing to Indians protection and fostering care, we yet feel that legislation securing this recognition will be an honor to the present Congress and to our beloved country. For this legislation we most earnestly and respectfully pray.

[212]. One paragraph will perhaps be an encouragement to those organizing similar women’s movements hereafter: “Under the head of ‘Meetings Held,’ the New Hampshire branch reports twelve ladies’ meetings and a crowded mass-meeting; the Massachusetts Association reports eleven ladies’ meetings and a very successful mass-meeting in Tremont Temple; Connecticut reports fourteen ladies’ meetings and two mass-meetings; New York City has had various ladies’ meetings and a mass-meeting in Rev. Dr. Hall’s church; Brooklyn has had thirteen ladies’ meetings and two mass-meetings; Philadelphia, including local auxiliaries and meetings of the National Executive Board, has had about forty ladies’ meetings and five mass-meetings; Baltimore has had eight ladies’ meetings and two mass-meetings, and Washington sixteen ladies’ meetings and four mass-meetings. Regarding the distribution of leaflets, New Hampshire reports 5500 sent out, with 401 petitions; Connecticut 5000 leaflets, and petitions sent to all her towns; Maryland has sent leaflets to fifty towns and secured petitions representing 21,000 citizens. Of articles in the press, New Hampshire has sent sixty, and Philadelphia over a hundred. Brooklyn has raised $325; New York, $405; Boston, $724, and, naturally, being the home of the movement, Philadelphia has raised more than these and all other auxiliaries combined.”

[213]. See “Protection of Law for Indians,” by General J. B. Leake; “The Indian before the Law,” by H. S. Pancoast, Esq.; “Our Indian Wards,” by Col. George Manypenny, and “Our Wild Indians,” by Col. Richard J. Dodge; “The Indian Question,” by G. W. Owen, pages 90–97 and 639–650.

[214]. That of January, 1883, said:

We, the undersigned citizens of the United States, resident in or near ——, viewing the results of our past national Indian policy; viewing also the present positions and relations of the white and Indian races within our borders, and being convinced by many considerations, both moral and political, that only that Indian policy is just, and therefore wise, which has for its ultimate aim citizenship for Indians, through the abolition of the reservation system by granting to all Indians, not now under the Indian Government of the Indian Territory, lands in severalty, with the same titles, law protection, property rights, common school education, and religious liberty enjoyed by other races among us:

Now, therefore, we do respectfully but most earnestly pray that such a policy as above suggested may be adopted and in future pursued, having due regard to the principles of equity and justice involved in past treaties with Indians, yet granting to them upon their present reservations as fast as individuals so desire (and we pray that our Government will generously allure them to this desire).

First: Lands in severalty, with fee-simple titles, inalienable for thirty years.

Second: The same law-protection, legal personalty and citizenship that white men and black men enjoy.

Third: Adequate common-school and industrial education upon their present reservations, and,

Fourth: Full religious liberty.

[215]. See chapter Woman in the State.—Ed.

[216]. See chapter Woman in Literature.—Ed.

[217]. See chapter Woman in Literature.—Ed.

[218]. Ohio.—Ed.

[219]. I have steadily refrained from adding biographical notes on the authors of the chapters of this book, notwithstanding the fact that they themselves, in having accomplished so very much on the very lines of progress which they have set about to describe, have deprived us of much that could have been gracefully added, had they been less fully identified with their subjects. Between the lines, however, much may be gleaned; and to relate the lives of such women is to presume ignorance on the part of the reader; a presumption of which a discreet editor would never be guilty.

But when, through excess of modesty, the ignorance of the editor of this book is delicately held up as a proof of the lamentably universal ignorance on the subject of the Red Cross, the awful dignity of the editor is aroused! Without the following explanation or extenuation, moreover, I do not see how the chapter in question could have any place in the book. “Woman’s Work in America” can hardly be made up of histories of work which is emphasized as “the work of men,” no matter how gracefully apologized for.

Therefore the following little sketch of a woman’s work in the direction of originating and applying the methods of the Red Cross in this country, written by one connected officially with the society is presented, with the editor’s apologies to the modesty of the President of the Red Cross: “It is with great pleasure I am permitted to add a few words of explanation to Miss Barton’s story of the Red Cross, and in as brief a space as possible present the colossal magnitude of this remarkable woman’s work on Battlefield, in Hospital, amid Cyclone, Fire, and Flood; Standing ‘alone’ among women even as a Napoleon or a Lincoln does among men.

“Endowed by nature with a dual being, as it were; possessing the strong, reasoning, powerful brain of a leader and the gentle, tender, loving heart of the most delicate of women, Clara Barton stands before us a symbol of what woman might be when she bursts the bonds that dictate to her ‘woman’s work.’

“Confined in this note to the relation of Miss Barton with the ‘Red Cross work,’ I still consider it fitting to suggest that the services rendered by her in the war for the Union, in organizing, conducting, and leading the service of field nurses upon actual battle-fields, in directing hospital organization, in managing other details of field relief, and, more than all, in conceiving and carrying out the great work of tracing and recording the fate of many thousands of missing soldiers, were naturally and necessarily a proper prelude to the great service she has since rendered in European combat, in presenting the Geneva Treaty to her own government, and in so broadening its field of service as to include that of help in great natural and national calamities.

“Miss Barton has herself explained the object of the Geneva International Committee; and has given an account of the long-delayed acceptance of the Treaty by the United States.

“In 1870 Miss Barton joined the Red Cross workers in the Franco-Prussian War. We see her leading in beneficence in Strassburg; working day and night organizing the frightened and bewildered women and children; not doling out charities, but vitalizing and making them self-reliant by work; presenting the truest of all ways of helping themselves by helping others. In sober words, Miss Barton’s work in Strassburg was the founding of workshops and the employment of women and others to labor therein. So successful was she that when Metz passed into German hands, with loaded cars, bearing clothes and food, she entered that city again to help the stricken inhabitants; afterward in Paris, at that awful hour when the ‘Commune fell,’ and the streets were black with fire and red with blood, we see this American woman reaching the stricken city with her train of garments, ready for the naked; hope and comfort following in her path; healing and binding wounded bodies and minds. She was called on by Monsieur Thiers himself, and honored as few men are. The cross of the Legion of Honor should be among her rewards, but the law governing its bestowal is that it be formally solicited by the one by whom it might be received.

“Clara Barton has never sought it. In 1873, invalided and entirely prostrated, Miss Barton returned to America, promising to use her influence with the government to open the Red Cross treaty. Her health entirely failing her, it was 1877 when she was able to call for the documents lying unused in our State Department; the communications were all in foreign languages, and they seemed almost incomprehensible to the American mind.

“From the year 1877 to 1881, we see Miss Barton in a new rôle. She translated, wrote, published, and lectured, all at her own expense, trying to educate some minds into the work of the Red Cross. In constant communication with the heads of foreign governments, with the eyes of all of them watching and waiting for the success of this patient, earnest, pleading woman with her stubborn nation, ready to publish the least progress in her task, it was not until 1881, at the commencement of President Garfield’s administration, that her labors had any success. President Garfield and his Cabinet listened, comprehended, and approved.

“President Arthur faithfully carried out his noble predecessor’s idea. After one year’s consideration, during which Miss Barton personally explained, before the Senate and House Committees on Foreign Affairs and Relations, the work of the Red Cross, the United States unanimously acceded to the Treaty of Geneva.

“Since the adhesion of the United States to this treaty, there have been two International Conferences, to which Congress appointed Miss Barton as chief delegate to represent the United States. The conferences were composed of delegates sent by the heads of the nations adhering to the treaty. The first conference met in Paris, the second in Berlin, the third in Geneva, the fourth in Carlsruhe. Miss Barton was present at the two latter.

“The legal application of the Red Cross to great national calamities, already referred to as the American Amendment to the Red Cross, is the work of Clara Barton.

“The practical demonstrations of the administrations of the American Amendment, which Miss Barton has had to lead in and carry on, are: First, in the relief work of the Michigan forest fires; second, in the overflow of the Mississippi River in 1882; third, in the cyclone of Louisiana in 1883, and the floods of the Ohio River in the same year; fifth, in the overflow of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers in 1884. In the drought of Texas in 1886. In the Mount Vernon cyclone, Ill., in 1887. In the yellow fever pestilence of Florida. And in 1889, when the world received the shock of the Johnstown horror, we see this wonderful being, like some subtle, silent, force, appearing noiselessly on a scene of such horrors as a Dante never conceived, and by the power of her will and a remarkable endurance, as if by the hand of an enchantress, work order out of horror and chaos, restoring life and comfort where all was before desolation and death!

“These feeble words are all I can now say in this brief way of the work of Clara Barton—The Woman in the Red Cross!”

[220]. Statistics of 1887–88.

[221]. Statistics of 1887–88.

[222]. Statistics of 1887–88.

[223]. Statistics of 1887–88.

[224]. Statistics of 1886–87.

[225]. Statistics of 1887–88.

[226]. Colored.

[227]. Majority of the pupils are colored.

[228]. Statistics of 1887–88.

[229]. Colored.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES