“They then selected me to take his place. On the morning of the public demonstration, an unthought-of trouble arose. The church which had been engaged to Mr. Bristol was now refused to a woman. Its trustees would not open it for a woman to speak in. This caused a great excitement among the men. They gathered in the lodge-room to consider the situation. They were puzzled to know what to do. They would not give up their speaker. There was talk of going to a grove, but it was too far; talk of speaking in the street, but there was no shade; and the lodge-room was not large enough. Finally the Baptists came to their relief and offered their church, and I did the talking to the immense throng who gathered there.”
IN THE PULPIT.
At the time of the above occurrence it was a new thing indeed for women to appear in public, and especially to stand in the pulpit to deliver their thoughts. All this is now greatly changed. Mrs. Bloomer in writing on this subject in subsequent years says:
“The pulpit was sacred ground, that no woman’s foot must profane. One minister in Syracuse preached a sermon against us and had it printed in pamphlet form. These he sent out by hundreds to ministers of his church throughout the state for them to scatter among the women of their congregations, hoping to head off this new movement of women. Whether these determined opponents of other days who meant to crush the women’s movement in the bud ever became reconciled to the part she has since played in the world’s doings, I don’t know. Some of them, and probably all, have passed to their account where they have learned that God’s ways are not man’s ways. I suppose that we cannot greatly blame them when we remember that, up to that time, the world had been educated to believe woman an inferior creation; that she had been placed by her Creator in an inferior and subordinate position; and that St. Paul’s injunction to the uneducated women of his day to keep silence in the churches was intended for the women of all time, included public halls as well as churches, and political, social, temperance and all other subjects as well as the gospel of Christ, of which women were to know nothing except what they learned from their husbands at home. We find a very different state of things in these days, when the clergy everywhere are ready to listen to women—nay, to welcome and invite them to their desks; and even dismiss their own services that the women may be heard. They must have learned a new gospel, or a new interpretation of the old one. In those early days, ministers before hearing us would refuse to open our meetings with prayer—feeling, I suppose, that we had gotten too far out of our sphere to be benefited by their prayers. Now, they hesitate not to lend us all the aid in their power. There may be here and there one who turns the cold shoulder, but the cause is too far advanced to be affected by anything such can bring against it.”
IN ROCHESTER AGAIN—A CHANGE.
In May, 1853, the annual meeting of the Woman’s State-Temperance Society convened in the city of Rochester. It was very largely attended by many of the prominent Temperance workers in the state. Mrs. Bloomer was present and took an active part in the proceedings. At the convention, the question of admitting men as members came up and excited a great deal of interest. It was agreed that, as both sexes were equally interested in the work, they should all bear an equal responsibility in guiding the doings and sharing in the labor of the society. Those who took this view insisted that it should be placed on the broad grounds of equal rights and equal duties for all. Others thought the time had not yet come for so radical a change in the constitution, but preferred that it should continue to be an exclusively feminine organization. Mrs. Bloomer took this view and so the majority decided, with the result that Mrs. Stanton declined a reëlection as president and Miss Anthony also declined a reëlection as secretary.
In their places, Mrs. Mary C. Vaughan was elected president; Mrs. Angelina Fish, secretary; Mrs. Albro, chairman of the executive committee, and Mrs. Bloomer corresponding secretary. These ladies continued the work of the society with great zeal and fidelity. It kept its lecturers in the field and continued to labor earnestly in promoting its temperance work. Mrs. Bloomer’s connection with it ended with her removal from the state at the end of the year. She always exceedingly regretted that this divergence of views occurred between her and Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony, but their old-time friendship continued on as of old and Mrs. Stanton continued her interesting contributions to the columns of the Lily.
The proceedings of this convention, as also of the Good-Templars meeting at Ithaca, were printed as a double number of the Lily soon after the adjournment of these bodies. Many extra copies were also printed, for which there was a very active demand. Mrs. Bloomer insisted that the work of the Woman’s Temperance Society should go on vigorously, as in the preceding years, and she exerted all her influence to that end as one of its officers. She however did not long remain a resident of New York, and after leaving the state she was no longer responsible for the work. The zeal of some of the workers may have become cold, or rather (which seems to have been the fact) was turned into other channels. Mrs. Bloomer always looked upon her connection with the society as one of the most useful and interesting events of her life.
After the close of the convention Mrs. Bloomer visited Niagara Falls for the first time, accompanied by her husband, spending a couple of days of much needed rest and recreation. While there they looked over nearly all the most noted points, including a visit to Termination Rock under the mighty cataract itself, passing on their way under Table Rock, which has since disappeared.