Mrs. Bloomer, as corresponding secretary of the new society, was brought into immediate and close connection with its agents and friends. Her home was at all times open to them, and they often visited and consulted with her and Mrs. Stanton, who resided in the same village. Mrs. Vaughan, Mrs. Albro, and Miss Emily Clark, besides Miss Anthony, were earnest workers in the good cause. Mrs. Bloomer’s correspondence was also very extensive; but in her removals from place to place it has been mostly destroyed, and the death of nearly all her correspondents renders it impracticable to procure copies of her letters to them.
THE WOMEN REJECTED AT SYRACUSE.
At the Rochester convention Gerrit Smith, Mrs. Bloomer, and Miss Anthony were appointed delegates to the state convention then soon to meet in Syracuse. The call was to all temperance organizations to send delegates to it, and clearly included the Woman’s Temperance Society. Mrs. Bloomer and Miss Anthony accepted the appointment and attended; but their simple appearance caused a tremendous hubbub, and after a whole day spent by the men in discussing the question of their admission they were excluded. Mrs. Bloomer describes the scene as follows:
“The women had friends in the convention who were as determined on their side that women should be recognized, and so they had it, each side determined to have it’s way—a dozen men talking at the same time all over the house, each claiming the floor, each insisting on being heard—till all became confusion, a perfect babel of noises. No order could be kept and the president left his chair in disgust. Time and words fail to give you the details of this disgraceful meeting. The ringleaders were prominent clergymen of Albany, Lockport, and Buffalo. Their names and faces are indelibly engraven on my memory. During this whole day’s quarrel of the men, no woman said a word, except once Miss Anthony addressed the chair intending to prefer a request for a donation of temperance tracts for distribution by our society. She got no farther than ‘Mr. President,’ when she was rudely called to order by one of the belligerent clergymen and told to sit down. She sat down and no other woman opened her mouth, though they really were entitled to all the rights of any delegate, under the call; and the treatment they received was not only an insult to the women present, but to the organization that sent them.”
In referring to this incident, on page 488 Vol. I. of History of Woman Suffrage, it is said: “Rev. Luther Lea offered his church just before adjournment, and Mr. May announced that Miss Anthony and Mrs. Bloomer would speak there in the evening. They had a crowded house, while the conservatives scarcely had fifty. The general feeling was hostile to the action of the convention. The same battle on the temperance platform was fought over and over again in various parts of the state, and the most deadly opposition uniformly came from the clergy, though a few noble men in that profession ever remained true to principle through all the conflicts of those days in the anti-slavery, temperance, and woman’s rights movements.”
CONVENTION IN ALBANY.
In the winter of 1852 and 1853, meetings of both the regular state Temperance societies were held in Albany for the purpose of influencing the legislature then in session to pass the Maine prohibitory law. Mrs. Bloomer attended the women’s convention, and delivered an elaborate speech in the Baptist church. She herself gives the following report of the proceedings at the convention:
“The ladies were there with their officers and lecturers. During the day they held meetings in the large Baptist church which was packed, seats and aisles, to its utmost capacity. During the morning session a committee of three ladies, previously appointed, slipped out through a back entrance and wended their way to the capitol bearing between them a large basket filled with petitions from 30,000 women of the state, each petition neatly rolled and tied with ribbon and bearing upon it the name of the place from which it came, and the number of names it contained. We were met at the state-house door by Hon. Silas M. Burroughs, of Orleans, according to previous arrangement, and escorted by him within the bar of the house. Mr. Burroughs then said: ‘Mr. Speaker, there is a deputation of ladies in this house with a petition of 30,000 women for a prohibitory law, and I request that the deputation may present the petition in person.’ He moved a suspension of the rules for that purpose. Some objection was raised by two or three members who sneered at the idea of granting such privileges to women, but the vote was taken and carried; and then the committee and the big basket, carried by two of us by the handles at each end, passed up in front of the speaker’s desk, when one of our number made a little speech appealing for prohibition and protection from the rum power in the name of the 30,000 women of the state whom we represented. The petitions were sent up to the clerk’s desk, while we retired again to the bar where we were surrounded and received congratulations of members. We soon after retired and returned to the meeting at the church. On the announcement being made to the meeting of what we had done and our success, it was received with a perfect shout of congratulation by the vast audience. It was an unheard-of thing for women to do, and our reception augured success to the hopes of temperance people for a prohibitory law. But alas! Our petitions availed us nothing, as we learned in due time. Those 30,000 petitioners were only women; and what cared our so-called representatives for the petitions of a disfranchised class? Our meetings were kept up during the day and evening, women doing all the talking though men composed full half the audience. In the evening, in addition to the Baptist church meetings were held in another church and in the representatives’ hall, the capitol having been placed at our service, our lady speakers separating and going by twos and threes to each house; and all were crowded, every foot of standing room being occupied.”
It should be added, that Mrs. Bloomer was one of the Committee of Three who appeared before the legislature and presented the petitions. The other members were Miss Emily Clark and Mrs. Albro.