Mrs. Bloomer’s activities during the year had been so unremitting that she now needed rest. Small in person and fragile in health, she had been enabled to endure so much only by her indomitable courage and the spirit of perseverance which ever controlled all her actions. This needed rest she therefore sought at Dr. Jackson’s water cure, on the beautiful shores of Skaneateles Lake. Here secluded from public gaze she spent some weeks in retirement; and yet not entirely so, for she was there invited and consented to deliver her lecture on Woman’s Enfranchisement to the inmates of the cure.
NEW LECTURES.
This lecture had been prepared during the early months of the year and the closing months of 1852. She delivered it on many occasions in subsequent years in various parts of the country, rewriting it several times in whole or in part for that purpose. Towards the closing years of her life she revised it once more, fully setting forth her ideas and convictions on the subject of woman suffrage; and in this completed form it is printed in full in the Appendix of this work. It is believed to be one of the strongest arguments that has ever been written in favor of woman’s right to the ballot. Mrs. Bloomer also prepared lectures on woman’s right to employment and education as fully in all respects as that enjoyed by the other sex. These lectures, she delivered to audiences in different parts of the country as occasion offered. They were radical in their claims for equality for woman in all the employments and acquirements of life with man, for at that time this claim was only just beginning to be discussed. No colleges were then open to women. No universities offered her the literary advantages of their halls and lecture rooms, and the general opinion was entertained among the mass of the people that the three studies of reading, writing and arithmetic were enough for her. So also there was little for women to do but to sew and stitch, and occasionally teach school for wages far below those paid to men. There were no women lawyers, no women preachers, except among the Quakers, no typewriters, no clerks in the stores, no public offices filled by women. Mrs. Bloomer in her lectures insisted that all this was wrong. She argued that the schoolroom, the workshop, the public office, the lawyer’s forum and the sacred desk should be opened to her sex on entire equality with man. These were then unpopular doctrines to promulgate either in the public press or on the lecturer’s platform; but Mrs. Bloomer was spared long enough to see her rather radical ideas on this subject brought into practical application, for at the end of 1894 woman’s right to both education and employment on an equality with man had come to be almost universally recognized.
A CLUB OF TALKERS.
Mrs. Bloomer derived much mental culture from attending the conversation-club which had been organized through Mrs. Stanton’s exertions and was led by her. It followed largely the line of thought and action set forth in the Life of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, published about that time, who had conducted clubs of like character some years before in Boston. It met from time to time in the parlors of prominent residents of the village and many questions social, literary and even political were freely discussed at its meetings, each member being required to take some part in the conversation. It was not exactly a ladies’ club, for gentlemen also were invited to attend and did so to some extent; but the attendance and discussions were mainly confined to the other sex. Mrs. Stanton was eminently qualified to lead the club as she was and is a woman of great general information, of large culture and literary attainments, and an excellent talker. Occasionally an essay was read by some member previously appointed, and on the whole the club added greatly to the mental attainments of its members. Seneca Falls as a village was noted at that time for its liberality in all reformatory movements. It was the residence of Mrs. Stanton, of Bascom, of Tellman, and other leaders in liberal thought, to say nothing of the Bloomers.
CHAPTER SIXTH.
AT THE WORLD’S CONVENTION.
In September, Mrs. Bloomer attended the two great temperance conventions held in that month in the city of New York. During her stay of ten days she was the guest of Mrs. L. N. Fowler, where for the first time she met her old correspondent, Mrs. Frances D. Gage, between whom and Mrs. Bloomer there existed for many years and until Mrs. Gage’s decease the warmest friendship. She also here again met her old co-laborers in temperance and other reform work, Miss Lucy Stone and Miss Antoinette L. Brown. When the World’s Temperance Convention met in Metropolitan Hall a most bitter wrangle at once commenced over the question of admitting women to seats in the convention, and after one or two days spent in its discussion it was decided in the negative. The Whole World’s Temperance Convention then followed, over which Rev. T. W. Higginson presided. To this convention both men and women were admitted as delegates, and the proceedings throughout were intensely interesting. A public meeting held in the Tabernacle was interrupted to some extent by a noisy demonstration whenever a man attempted to speak, but the women were listened to without interruption. Among the speakers were Miss Stone, Miss Brown, Mrs. Gage, and Wendell Phillips. Mrs. Bloomer was an intensely interested participant in all these meetings, and in a quiet way took part in them, speaking briefly from the platform in Metropolitan Hall. She also delivered a temperance address in Broadway Tabernacle to a very large audience, Miss Emily Clark and Mrs. Mary C. Vaughan being the other speakers. While in the city Mrs. Bloomer also attended the Crystal Palace exhibition then open to the public. It was a very interesting presentation of the progress of the world up to that time in the several departments of human skill, industry and the fine arts, but has been far exceeded in extent and variety in subsequent years. One of the curious things occurring at these gatherings was a vegetarian banquet held in the Metropolitan Hall in which, it was said by the newspapers of the day, were gathered all the reformers of every description then in the city. The table was abundantly supplied with all kinds of fruit and vegetable productions, but every form of animal food was strictly excluded. Some speeches were made; but, on the whole, the affair was not esteemed a very great success. On the following day Rev. Miss Brown delivered a sermon from the platform in the same hall to a fair congregation on that old subject, “The exceeding sinfulness of sin.”
Of the Whole World’s Temperance Convention Mrs. Bloomer wrote as follows:
“It was largely attended, and passed off most happily. There were no old fogies present to raise a disturbance and guy the speakers; no questioning the right of each individual, whether man or woman, to utter his thoughts on the great subject which they had met to consider. All was peace and harmony and it did the heart good to be there.