Life and writings of Amelia Bloomer

by D. C. Bloomer

We now copy again from Mrs. Bloomer’s writings:

“In the Spring of 1852 a few of the daughters [of Temperance] celebrated an open two-days temperance meeting at Rochester, N. Y. It was very largely attended, between four and five hundred women being present at the first session. The numbers increased, and at the later sessions the large hall, which would contain 1,800, was packed to the platform with eager, earnest temperance men and women. This meeting was not only not secret, it was not exclusive,—men forming a large part of it and doing their share of talking. It was at this meeting that I first let my voice be heard in public after much persuasion. Able men came to our aid—among them I remember the Rev. William H. Channing (the younger), an eloquent divine of those days; and the meeting was very enthusiastic, and was the beginning of much in the same direction that followed. This convention resulted in organizing a woman’s state Temperance Society, which became very effective and had much to do in breaking down the barriers and introducing women into temperance and other work. Some half-dozen women were employed by the society as agents on salaries of twenty-five dollars per month and their expenses. These lecturers traveled through the state, holding meetings, and securing membership to the society and signatures to the pledge, and petitions to the legislature. They were well received on all sides, partly because of the novelty of a woman speaking, and partly because the principle of total abstinence and Washingtonian temperance was stirring all hearts. Up to these times no woman had thought of speaking in public outside a Quaker meeting-house. To have attempted such a thing at an earlier day would have called down upon her much censure, and St. Paul would have been freely quoted to silence her. Now, however, women took matters Into their own hands and acted as their own impulses prompted and their consciences approved. And it was surprising how public sentiment changed and how the zeal of temperance men and women helped on the new movement of women.”

Mrs. Bloomer and Miss Anthony were secretaries of this convention, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton president; in the final organization Mrs. Stanton was made president, Mrs. Bloomer corresponding secretary, and Miss Anthony and Mary C. Vaughan recording secretaries.

MRS. BLOOMER ON DIVORCE.

At this convention, Senator Gale used very strong language in regard to women who had petitioned the legislature for a Maine Law. Mrs. Bloomer criticised him for saying in a sneering way “that representatives were not accustomed to listen to the voice of women in legislating upon great public questions.” A resolution was proposed in the convention that “no woman should remain in the relation of wife to the confirmed drunkard, and that no drunkard should be father of her children.” On this Mrs. Bloomer said:

“We believe the teachings which have been given to the drunkard’s wife, inculcating duty—the commendable examples of angelic wives which she has been exhorted to follow—have done much to continue and aggravate the vices and crimes of society growing out of intemperance. Drunkenness is ground for divorce, and every woman who is tied to a confirmed drunkard should sunder the ties: and if she do it not otherwise, the law should compel it, especially if she have children.

“We are told that such sentiments are exceptional, abhorrent, that the moral sense of society is shocked and outraged by their promulgation. Can it be possible that the moral sense of a people is more shocked at the idea of a pure-minded, gentle woman sundering the tie which binds her to a loathsome mass of corruption, than it is to see her dragging out her days in misery tied to his besotted and filthy carcass? Are the morals of society less endangered by the drunkard’s wife continuing to live in companionship with him, giving birth to a large family of children who inherit nothing but poverty and disgrace, and who will grow up criminal and vicious, filling our prisons and penitentiaries and corrupting and endangering the purity and peace of the community, than they would be should she separate from him and strive to win for herself and her children comfort and respectability? The statistics of our prisons, poorhouses, and lunatic asylums teach us a fearful lesson on this subject of morals!

“The idea of living with a drunkard is so abhorrent, so revolting to all the finer feelings of our nature, that a woman must fall very low before she can endure such companionship. Every pure-minded person must look with loathing and disgust upon such a union of virtue and vice; and he who would compel her to it, or dissuade the drunkard’s wife from separating herself from such wretchedness and degradation, is doing much to perpetuate drunkenness and crime and is wanting in the noblest feelings of human nature. Thanks to our legislature, if they have not given us the Maine law they are deliberating on giving to wives of drunkards and tyrants a loophole of escape from the brutal cruelty of their self-styled lords and masters. A bill of this kind has passed the house, but may be lost in the senate. Should it not pass now, it will be brought up again and passed at no distant day. Then, if women have any spirit, they will free themselves from much of the depression and wrong which they have hitherto by necessity borne.”

CONVENTION INFLUENCE.

Probably, no single event ever had so great an influence in promoting the cause of woman’s enlargement as this Rochester convention. It opened the door wide for women to enter. It brought out a number of faithful workers in that cause, as well as in the cause of Temperance, who from that time devoted their lives to the work. Some took a wider view of their work than others, but all devoted themselves with a singular fidelity and earnestness to the noble aims before them. Nor was the influence confined solely to women who took part in that convention. Others, in every part of the country, soon enlisted in the cause and became zealous advocates of woman’s redemption from the thralldom of evil habits and unjust laws. Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony continued a tower of strength for half a century and upwards, and Mrs. Bloomer nearly as long, but in the latter years of her life not so prominently; and there came to their aid Lucy Stone, Frances D. Gage, Mrs. C. H. Nichols, Antoinette L. Brown, Mary A. Livermore, Lydia A. Fowler, and many more who might be mentioned.