“Up to about 1848-9 women had almost no part in all this temperance work. They could attend meetings and listen to the eloquence and arguments of men, and they could pay their money towards the support of temperance lecturers, but such a thing as their having anything to say or do further than this was not thought of. They were fired with zeal after listening to the Washingtonian lecturers and other speakers on temperance who then abounded, and in some instances held little private meetings of their own, organized societies and passed resolutions expressive of their feelings on the great subject. It was at a meeting of this kind in Seneca Falls, N. Y., which was then my home, that the matter of publishing a little temperance paper, for home distribution only, was introduced. The ladies caught at the idea and at once determined on issuing the paper. Editors were selected, a committee appointed to wait on the newspaper offices to learn on what terms the paper could be printed monthly, we furnishing all the copy. The president was to name the paper, the report to be made at next meeting by committee. And so we separated, satisfied and elated with our doings. But on my reporting my proceedings to my husband on my return home he ‘threw cold water’ on the whole thing. He said we women did not know what we were talking about, that it cost a good deal of money to print a paper, and that we could not carry on such an enterprise and would run ourselves into debt, get into trouble and make a failure of it. He advised that I counsel the ladies to abandon all thought of such a movement. At the next meeting I reported all he said, but it was of no avail. The ladies had their hearts set on the paper and they determined to go ahead with it. They were encouraged thereto by a temperance lecturer who was traveling over the state. He promised to get subscribers for them and greatly help them. He kept his word so far as sending us a goodly list of names, but the money did not accompany them and we never saw the man or the money afterwards. This was very discouraging, and the zeal of the ladies abated wonderfully. They began to realize that they had been hasty in incurring a great responsibility for which they were not fitted, and very soon the society decided to give up the enterprise altogether. But meantime we had been getting subscribers and money, had issued a prospectus, and every arrangement was made at the printing office for bringing out the paper January 1, 1849. We had even ordered a head from New York. I could not so lightly throw off responsibility. Our word had gone to the public and we had considerable money on subscriptions. Besides the dishonesty of the thing, people would say it was ‘just like women’; ‘what more could you expect of them?’ As editor of the paper, I threw myself into the work, assumed the entire responsibility, took the entire charge editorially and financially, and carried it successfully through.”
The following is taken from the first editorial in the new paper, written by Mrs. Bloomer:
“It is woman that speaks through The Lily. It is upon an important subject, too, that she comes before the public to be heard. Intemperance is the great foe to her peace and happiness. It is that above all which has made her home desolate and beggared her offspring. It is that above all which has filled to its brim her cup of sorrow and sent her moaning to the grave. Surely she has a right to wield the pen for its suppression. Surely she may, without throwing aside the modest retirement which so much becomes her sex, use her influence to lead her fellow-mortals away from the destroyer’s path. It is this which she proposes to do in the columns of this paper. Like the beautiful flower from which it derives its name, we shall strive to make the Lily the emblem of ‘sweetness and purity;’ and may heaven smile upon our attempt to advocate the great cause of Temperance reform!”
NEW WORK FOR HER.
With the birth of this little journal, a new life opened before Mrs. Bloomer. She was at once initiated into all the mysteries and details of an editor and publisher. She had to make contracts for the printing and publication, to send out circulars to friends asking for their assistance in extending its circulation, place the papers in proper covers and send them to subscribers through the mails, to prepare editorials and other matter for its columns, to read the proofs and, in short, to attend to all the details of newspaper publication. She gave herself heartily and earnestly to the work. Of the first issue of the Lily not over two or three hundred copies were printed, but the number of its subscribers steadily increased. Many friends came forward from different parts of the state to help in adding new names to its lists. Among these none were more zealous and earnest than Miss Susan B. Anthony, then a very competent school-teacher in the city of Rochester, but whose name has since become one of world-wide fame as that of the great leader in the cause of woman’s emancipation. Mrs. Mary C. Vaughan, a most estimable lady and fine writer, also came forward both with her pen and lists of new subscribers to help in the great Temperance reform to which the Lily was devoted.
FIRST IN THE FIELD.
The Lily was very nearly, if not quite, the first journal of any kind published by a woman. Mrs. Nichols, in Vermont, and Mrs. Swishelm, in Pennsylvania, were connected with newspapers published in each case by their husbands, and they wrote vigorous editorials for their papers, but neither of them took upon herself the entire charge of the publication. Mrs. Bloomer did this to the fullest extent, and it therefore may be justly claimed that she was the pioneer woman editor and proprietor. True, her journal was not a very large one, yet it labored zealously in the cause to which it was devoted and prepared the way for other and more pretentious publications to follow, under the charge of women. It showed what women could do when their thoughts and energies were directed to some practical and beneficial purpose, and so made ready for the great advance which has since taken place in opening for her wider fields of usefulness.
Mrs. Bloomer herself writes as follows:
“The Lily was the first paper published devoted to the interests of woman and, so far as I know, the first one owned, edited and published by a woman. It was a novel thing for me to do in those days and I was little fitted for it, but the force of circumstances led me into it and strength was given me to carry it through. It was a needed instrumentality to spread abroad the truth of the new gospel to woman, and I could not withhold my hand to stay the work I had begun. I saw not the end from the beginning and little dreamed whereto my proposition to the society would lead me.”