Reminiscences, 1819-1899

by Julia Ward Howe

While I followed, rather unwillingly, this train of thought, an invitation was sent me to attend a parlor meeting to be held with the view of forming a woman's club in Boston. I presented myself at this meeting, and gave a languid assent to the measures proposed. These were to hire a parlor or parlors in some convenient locality, and to furnish and keep them open for the convenience of ladies residing in the city and its suburbs. Out of this small and modest beginning was gradually developed the plan of the New England Woman's Club, a strong and stately association destined, I believe, to last for many years, and leaving behind it, at this time of my writing, a record of three decades of happy and acceptable service.

While our club life was still in its beginning, I was invited and induced to attend a meeting in behalf of woman suffrage. Indeed, I had given my name to the call for this meeting, relying upon the assurance given me by Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, that it would be conducted in a very liberal and friendly spirit, without bitterness or extravagance. The place appointed was Horticultural Hall. The morning was inclement; and as I strayed into the hall in my rainy-day suit, nothing was further from my mind than the thought that I should take any part in the day's proceedings.

I had hoped not to be noticed by the officers of the meeting, and was rather disconcerted when a message reached me requesting me to come up and take a seat on the platform. This I did very reluctantly. I was now face to face with a new order of things. Here, indeed, were some whom I had long known and honored: Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Colonel Higginson, and my dear pastor, James Freeman Clarke. But here was also Lucy Stone, who had long been the object of one of my imaginary dislikes. As I looked into her sweet, womanly face and heard her earnest voice, I felt that the object of my distaste had been a mere phantom, conjured up by silly and senseless misrepresentations. Here stood the true woman, pure, noble, great-hearted, with the light of her good life shining in every feature of her face. Here, too, I saw the husband whose devotion so ably seconded her life-work.

The arguments to which I now listened were simple, strong, and convincing. These champions, who had fought so long and so valiantly for the slave, now turned the searchlight of their intelligence upon the condition of woman, and demanded for the mothers of the community the civil rights which had recently been accorded to the negro. They asked for nothing more and nothing less than the administration of that impartial justice for which, if for anything, a Republican government should stand.

When they requested me to speak, which they did presently, I could only say, "I am with you." I have been with them ever since, and have never seen any reason to go back from the pledge then given. Strangely, as it then seemed to me, the arguments which I had stored up in my mind against the political enfranchisement of women were really so many reasons in its favor. All that I had felt regarding the sacredness and importance of the woman's part in private life now appeared to me equally applicable to the part which she should bear in public life.

LUCY STONE
From a photograph by the Notman Photographic Company.

One of the comforts which I found in the new association was the relief which it afforded me from a sense of isolation and eccentricity. For years past I had felt strongly impelled to lend my voice to the convictions of my heart. I had done this in a way, from time to time, always with the feeling that my course in so doing was held to call for apology and explanation by the men and women with whose opinions I had hitherto been familiar. I now found a sphere of action in which this mode of expression no longer appeared singular or eccentric, but simple, natural, and, under the circumstances, inevitable.

In the little band of workers which I had joined, I was soon called upon to perform yeoman's service. I was expected to attend meetings and to address audiences, at first in the neighborhood of Boston, afterwards in many remote places, Cleveland, Chicago, St. Louis. Among those who led or followed the new movement, I naturally encountered some individuals in whom vanity and personal ambition were conspicuous. But I found mostly among my new associates a great heart of religious conviction and a genuine spirit of selfsacrifice.

My own contributions to the work appeared to me less valuable than I had hoped to find them. I had at first everything to learn with regard to public speaking, and Lucy Stone and Mrs. Livermore were much more at home on the platform than I was. I was called upon to preside over conventions, having never learned the rules of debate. I was obliged to address large audiences, having been accustomed to use my voice only in parlors. Gradually all this bettered itself. I became familiar with the order of proceedings, and learned to modulate my voice. More important even than these things, I learned something of the range of popular sympathies, and of the power of apprehension to be found in average audiences. All of these experiences, the failures, the effort, and the final achievement, were most useful to me.