Mrs. Gardner"s name was retained on the ward voting list, and she voted every year until she left the city for the education of her children.
Before the University at Ann Arbor was opened to girls in 1869, there had been several attempts to establish seminaries for girls alone.[319] But they were not successful for several reasons. As the State would not endow these private inst.i.tutions, it made the education of daughters very expensive, and fathers with daughters, seeing their neighbors" sons in the State University educated at the public expense, from financial considerations were readily converted to the theory of coeducation. Again the general drift of thought was in favor of coeducation throughout the young western States. Then inst.i.tutions of learning were too expensive to build separate establishments for girls and boys, and the number of boys able to attend through a collegiate course could not fill the colleges ready for their reception. Hence from all considerations it was a double advantage both to the State and the girls, to admit them to the universities.
James A. B. Stone and Mrs. Lucinda H. Stone went to Kalamazoo in 1843, immediately after his election to take charge of the Literary Inst.i.tute. The name was afterwards changed to Kalamazoo College. It is the oldest collegiate inst.i.tute in the State, having been chartered in 1833, and was designed from the outset for both s.e.xes. In the beginning it did not confer degrees, but was the first, after Oberlin, to give diplomas to women.
Kalamazoo was an object of derision with some of the professors of the University, because it was, they averred, of doubtful gender. But a liberal-minded public grew more and more in favor of epicene colleges. Literary seminaries had been established for coeducation at Albion, Olivet, Adrian and Hillsdale, but some of their charters were not exactly of a collegiate grade, and it was doubtful whether under the new const.i.tution, new college charters would be granted, so that Kalamazoo and Ann Arbor had the field.
In January, 1845, a bill was introduced in the legislature to organize literary inst.i.tutions under a general law, no collegiate degrees being allowed, unless on the completion of a curriculum equal to that of the State University. The championship of this bill fell to Dr. Stone, for while it would have no special effect on Kalamazoo, it concerned the cause of coeducation in the State, and the friends of the University made it a kind of test of what the State policy should be in reference to the higher learning for women. Dr. Tappan, then the able president of the University, appeared at Lansing, supported by Rev. Dr. Duffield and a force of able lawyers, to oppose it, and the far-seeing friends of education in the legislature and in the lobby, rallied with Dr.
Stone for its support. For several weeks the contest was carried on with earnestness, almost with bitterness, before the legislative committees, before public meetings called in the capitol for discussion, and on the floor of both houses. Dr.
Tappan made frantic appeals to Michigan statesmen not to disgrace the State by such a law, which he prophesied would result in "preparatory schools for matrimony," and, shocking to contemplate, young men would marry their cla.s.smates. Among the friends of the measure present, were President Fairfield, Professor Hosford, and Hon. Mr. Edsell, of Otsego, all graduates of Oberlin, who had married their cla.s.smates, and "been glad ever since." They replied, "What of it? Are not those who have met daily in the recitation-room for four years, as well prepared to judge of each other"s fitness for life-companionship, as if they had only met a few times at a ball, a dress party, or in private interview?" The legislature was an intelligent one, and the bill pa.s.sed amid great excitement, crowds of interested spectators listening to the final discussions in the lower House. Governor Bingham was friendly to the bill from the first. After its pa.s.sage, he sent a handsome copy signed by himself and other officers, to Dr. and Mrs. Stone, at Kalamazoo, to be preserved as a record of the Thermopylae fight for coeducation in Michigan.
Rev. E. O. Havens succeeded Dr. Tappan in the presidency, and was supposed to be less strong in his prejudices, but when efforts were made to open the doors to both s.e.xes, he reported it difficult and inexpedient, if not impossible. But he counted without the broad-minded people of Michigan. A growing conviction that the legislature would stop the appropriations to the University unless justice was done to the daughters of the State, finally brought about, at Ann Arbor, a change of policy. Under the light that broke in upon their minds, the professors found there was really no law against the admission of women to that very liberal seat of learning. "To be sure, they never had admitted women, but none had formally applied." This, though somewhat disingenuous, was received in good faith, and soon tested by Miss Madeline Stockwell, who had completed half her course at Kalamazoo, and was persuaded by Mrs. Stone to make application at Ann Arbor. Mrs. Stone knew her to be a thorough scholar, as far as she had gone, especially in Greek, which some had supposed that women could not master. When she presented herself for examination some members of the faculty were far from cordial, but they were just, and she entered in the grade for which she applied. She sustained herself ably in all her studies, and when examined for her degree--the first woman graduate from the literary department--she was commended as the peer of any of her cla.s.s-mates, and took an honorable part in the commencement exercises. Moreover, she fulfilled the doleful prophecy of Dr.
Tappan, as women in other schools had done before her, and married her cla.s.s-mate, Mr. Turner, an able lawyer.
The statement by the faculty, or regents, that "no woman had formally applied," was untrue, as we shall see. The University was opened to them in 1869; eleven years before, Miss Sarah Burger, now Mrs. Stearns, made the resolve, the preparation, and the application to enter the University of Michigan; and young as she was, her clear-sightedness and courage called forth our admiration. As a child, in Ann Arbor, from 1845, to 1852, she had often attended the commencement exercises of the University, and on those occasions had felt very unhappy, because all the culture given to mind and heart and soul by this inst.i.tution was given to young men alone. It seemed a cruel injustice to young women that they could not be there with their brothers, enjoying the same.
In connection with her efforts and those of her friends to enter those enchanted portals, she bears grateful testimony to the discussions on the question of woman"s rights, as follows:
When it was my blessed privilege to attend a women"s rights convention at Cleveland, Ohio, in 1853,--and it was a grand meeting--where dear Lucretia Mott, Ernestine L. Rose, Frances D. Gage, Antoinette Brown, Lucy Stone, and others, dwelt upon the manifold wrongs suffered by women, and called upon them to awake and use their powers to secure justice to all, I felt their words to mean that the Michigan University as well as all others, should be opened to girls, and that women themselves should first move in the matter.
Thus aroused, though but sixteen years old, she resolved at once to make application for admission to the State University. Early in the autumn of 1856, she entered the high school at Ann Arbor, and studied Greek and Latin two years, preparatory to taking the cla.s.sical course. Four young ladies besides herself, recited with the boys who were preparing for college, and they were all declared by a university professor who had attended frequent examinations, to stand head and shoulders in scholarship above many of the young men. Miss Burger wishing as large a cla.s.s as possible to appeal for admission, wrote to a number of cla.s.sical schools for young women, asking cooperation, and secured the names of eleven[320] who would gladly apply with her. In the spring of 1858, she sent a note to the regents, saying a cla.s.s of twelve young ladies would apply in June, for admission to the University in September. A reporter said "a certain Miss B. had sent the regents warning of the momentous event." At the board meeting in June, the young ladies presented their promised letter of application, and received as reply, that the board should have _more time to consider_. In September their reply was, that it seemed inexpedient for the University to admit ladies at present.
In the meantime, a great deal had been said and done on the subject; some members of the faculty had spoken in favor, some against. University students, and citizens of Ann Arbor also joined in the general discussion. The subject was widely discussed in the press and on the platform; members of the faculty and board of regents applied to the presidents of universities east and west, for their opinions. The people of Michigan, thus brought to consider the injustice of the exclusion of their daughters from this State inst.i.tution, there was offered for signature during the winter of 1859, the following pet.i.tion:
_To the Regents of the University of Michigan:_
The undersigned, inhabitants of ----, in the county of ----, and State of Michigan, respectfully request that young women may be admitted as students in the University, for the following among other reasons: _First_--It is inc.u.mbent on the State to give equal educational advantages to both s.e.xes. _Second_--All can be educated in the State University with but little more expense than is necessary to educate young men alone. _Third_--It will save the State from the expenditure of half a million of dollars, necessary to furnish young ladies in a separate inst.i.tution with the advantages now enjoyed by young men. _Fourth_--It will admit young ladies at once to the benefits of the highest educational privileges of the State.
Among the most active in lectures, debates, circulation of pet.i.tions and general advocacy were James B. Gott, Judge Edwin Lawrence, Giles B. Stebbins and O. P. Stearns, the last at that time a student, since a lawyer, and the husband of Mrs. Sarah Burger Stearns of Minnesota.
In the spring of 1859 formal application was again made to the regents by a cla.s.s of young ladies, only to receive the same answer. But the discussion was not dropped; indeed, that was impossible. Some of the most intelligent on this question believe that the final admission of women to the University was due to a resolve on the part of the people of the State to place upon the board of regents, as the terms of old members expired, men well known to be favorable. On the election of Professor Estabrook of the State Normal School there was one more n.o.ble man "for us,"
who, with other new members, made a majority in favor of justice.
In the autumn of that year (1869) young women were admitted to full privileges in Michigan University, and, like political freedom in Wyoming, it has for years been confessed to have yielded only beneficent results. As long ago, however, as the first application was made (1858) women were permitted to attend certain lectures. They could not join a cla.s.s or read a book, but it was the custom for them to go and listen to the beautiful and highly instructive lectures by Professor Andrew D. White on history, sculpture, and mediaeval architecture, and they highly appreciated the privilege.
In March, 1869, President Havens said in the House of Representatives at Lansing, "he believed the University should be opened to those who desired to obtain the benefit of the branches of education which they could not obtain elsewhere." The Rev.
Gilbert Haven wrote to the American Society"s meeting held in Detroit, in 1874: "I have been identified with your cause through its evil report, and, I was going to add, good report, but that part has not yet very largely set in. I also had the honor to preside over the first ecclesiastical body that has, just now, p.r.o.nounced in your favor." This church a.s.sembly was the Methodist State a.s.sociation, which adopted the following in October, 1874, without a negative vote, though several of the delegates refused to vote:
WHEREAS, The legislature of Michigan, at its recent session, has submitted to the electors of the State a proposition to change the State const.i.tution so as to admit the women of Michigan to the elective franchise; therefore,
_Resolved_, That this convention recognizes the action of the legislature as a step toward a higher and purer administration of the government of our country, and we hope the provision will be adopted.
But the above was not the strongest utterance of Bishop Gilbert Haven. Once at an equal rights society convention in the Academy of Music, Brooklyn, where from floor to ceiling was gathered an admirable and immense audience, with profound respect I heard these memorable words:
"I shall never be satisfied until a _black woman_ is seated in the presidential chair of the United States," than which no more advanced claim for the complete legal recognition of woman has been made in our country.
In February, 1879, a spirited debate took place in the legislature upon an amendment to the Episcopal Church bill, which struck out the word "male" from the qualification of voters. The Detroit _Post and Tribune_ says a vigorous effort was made to defeat the measure, but without success. The justice of allowing women to take part in church government was recognized, and the amendment carried.
We have written persistently to leading women all over the State for facts in regard to their local societies, and such responses as have been received are embodied in this chapter. We give interesting reports of a few of the county societies in which much has been accomplished.
Of the work in Quincy Mrs. Sarah Turner says:
We never organized a woman suffrage society, although our literary club has done much for the cause in a general way.
We had crowded houses on the occasions of a very able speech from Elizabeth Cady Stanton and a most spirited one from Miss Phoebe Couzins. For the past eight years a dozen tax-paying women of this town have availed themselves of the privilege granted them years ago, and voted at the school meetings; and two years ago a woman was elected member of the school-board.
Lansing reports for January, 1871, Mrs. Livermore"s lecture on "The Reasons Why" [women should be enfranchised]; the organization of a city society with sixty members at the close of the annual meeting of the State a.s.sociation held in that city in March; a lecture from Mrs. Stanton before the Young Men"s a.s.sociation; the adoption of a declaration of rights by the Ingham County Society, March, 1872, signed by 169 of the best people of the county. In 1874, of the many meetings held those of Mrs. Stanton and Miss Couzins are specially mentioned.
The St. Johns society, formed in 1872 with six members, reported sixty at the State annual meeting of 1874, and also $171.71, raised by fees and sociables, mainly expended in the circulation of tracts and doc.u.ments throughout the county.
From Manistee Mrs. Fannie Holden Fowler writes:
In the campaign of 1874 Hon. S. W. Fowler, one of the committee for Northern Michigan appointed by the State Society, canva.s.sed Manistee county and advocated the cause through his paper, the _Times and Standard_. The election showed the good of educational work, as a large vote was polled in the towns canva.s.sed by Mr. Fowler, two of them giving a majority for the amendment. In an editorial, after the election, Mr. Fowler said: "The combined forces of ignorance, vice and prejudice have blocked the wheels of advancing civilization, and Michigan, once the proudest of the sisterhood of States, has lost the opportunity of inaugurating a reform; now let the women organize for a final onset." However, no active suffrage work was done until December 3, 1879, when Susan B. Anthony was induced to stop over on her way from Frankfort to Ludington and give her lecture, "Woman Wants Bread; Not the Ballot." She was our guest, and urged the formation of a society, and through her influence a "Woman"s Department" was added to the _Times and Standard_, which is still a feature of the paper. In the following spring (April, 1880), Elizabeth Cady Stanton gave her lecture, "Our Girls," with two "conversations," before the temperance women and others, which revived the courage of the few who had been considering the question of organization. A call was issued, to which twenty-three responded, and the society was formed June 8, 1880,[321]
adopting the const.i.tution of the National and electing delegates to attend a convention to be held under the auspices of that a.s.sociation the following week at Grand Rapids. The society at once made a thorough canva.s.s of the city, which resulted in the attendance of seventy tax-paying women at the school election in September, when the first woman"s vote was cast in Manistee county. Each succeeding year has witnessed more women at the school election, until, in 1883, they outnumbered the men, and would have elected their ticket but for a fraud perpetrated by the old school-board, which made the election void.
In August 1881, Mrs. May Wright Sewall delivered two lectures in Manistee. In February 1882, a social, celebrating Miss Anthony"s birthday, was given by the a.s.sociation at the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Fowler, and was voted a success. Through the untiring efforts of Mrs. Lucy T. Stansell, who was also a member of the Ladies" Lever League, Mrs. Elizabeth Boynton Harbert gave a Manistee audience a rich treat in her "Homes of Representative Women," and her conversation on suffrage elicited much interest.
During the autumn of 1882, pet.i.tions asking for munic.i.p.al suffrage were circulated. The venerable Josiah R. Holden of Grand Rapids, father of Mrs. Fowler, then in his 88th year, obtained the largest number of signatures to his pet.i.tion of any one in the State. A bill granting munic.i.p.al suffrage to women was drawn by Mrs. Fowler, introduced in the legislature by Hon. George J. Robinson, and afterwards tabled. At the session of 1885 a similar bill came within a few votes of being carried.
In Grand Rapids there was no revival of systematic work until 1880, when the National a.s.sociation held a very successful two days" convention in the city. In response to a pet.i.tion from the society, the legislature in the winter of 1885 pa.s.sed a law, giving to the tax-paying women of the city the right to vote on school questions at the charter elections. At the first meeting a hundred women were present, and hundreds availed themselves of their new power and voted at the first election.
The State Society held its annual meeting at Grand Rapids, October 7, 8, 9, 1885, at which the address of welcome was given by Mrs. Loraine Immen, president of the City Society,[322] and responded to by Mrs. Stebbins of Detroit.[323]
The only religious sect in the world, unless we except the Quakers, that has recognized the equality of woman, is the Spiritualists. They have always a.s.sumed that woman may be a medium of communication from heaven to earth, that the spirits of the universe may breathe through her lips messages of loving kindness and mercy to the children of earth. The Spiritualists in our country are not an organized body, but they are more or less numerous in every State and Territory from ocean to ocean. Their opinions on woman suffrage and equal rights in all respects must be learned from the utterances of their leading speakers and writers of books, from their weekly journals, from resolutions pa.s.sed at large meetings, and from their usage and methods. A reliable person widely familiar with Spiritualism since its beginning in 1848, says that he has known but very few Spiritualists who were not in favor of woman suffrage; that all their representative men and women, and all their journals advocate it, and have always done so; that expressions in its favor in public meetings meet with hearty approval, and that men and women have spoken on their platforms, and held official places as co-workers in their societies through all of these thirty-seven years. All this has taken place with very little argument or discussion, but from an intuitive sense of the justice and consequent benefits of such a course. A single testimony, of many that might be given from their writings, must suffice. In the _Religio-Philosophical Journal_, Chicago, Ill., November 22, 1884, its editor, J. C. Bundy, says: "Although not especially published in the interest of woman, this journal is a stalwart advocate of woman"s rights, and has for years given weekly s.p.a.ce to "Woman and the Household," a department under the care of Mrs. Hester M. Poole, who has done much to encourage women to renewed and persistent effort for their own advancement."
It has been the custom of some of our journals to ask for letters of greeting from distinguished people for New Year"s day. We find the following in the _Inter-Ocean_: "Sojourner Truth, the Miriam of the later Exodus, sends us this remarkable letter. She is the most wonderful woman the colored race has ever produced, and thus conveys her New Year"s greeting to our readers:
"DEAR FRIENDS: More than a hundred New Years have I seen before this one, and I send a New Year"s greeting to one and all. We talk of a beginning, but there is no beginning but the beginning of a wrong. All else is from G.o.d, and is from everlasting to everlasting. All that has a beginning will have an ending. G.o.d is without end, and all that is good is without end. We shall never see G.o.d, only as we see him in one another. He is a great ocean of love, and we live and move in Him as the fishes in the sea, filled with His love and spirit, and His throne is in the hearts of His people.
Jesus, the Son of G.o.d, will be as we are, if we are pure, and we will be like him. There will be no distinction. He will be like the sun and shine upon us, and we will be like the sun and shine upon him; all filled with glory. We are the children of one Father, and he is G.o.d; and Jesus will be one among us. G.o.d is no respecter of persons, and we will be as one. If it were not so, there would be jealousy. These ideas have come to me since I was a hundred years old, and if you, my friends, live to be a hundred years old, too, you may have greater ideas than these. This has become a new world. These thoughts I speak of because they come to me, and for you to consider and look at. We should grow in wisdom as we grow older, and new ideas will come to us about G.o.d and ourselves, and we will get more and more the wisdom of G.o.d. I am glad to be remembered by you, and to be able to send my thoughts; hoping they may multiply and bear fruit.
If I should live to see another New Year"s Day I hope to be able to send more new thoughts.
SOJOURNER TRUTH.
"_Grand Rapids, Mich._, Dec. 26, 1880."
This was accompanied by a note from her most faithful friend, Mrs. Frances W. t.i.tus, relating matters of interest as to her present circ.u.mstances. She also said: "We have recently another proof that she is over one hundred years old. Mention of the "dark day" May 19, 1780, was made in her presence, when she said, "I remember the dark day"; and gave a description of that wonderful phenomenon. As the narrative of Sojourner"s life has long been before the public, we prefer to anything this latest thought of hers, standing then on the verge of the life of the spirit."
Sojourner was long a resident and laborer in reform in Michigan, from which State she went out to the District of Columbia to befriend her people, as well as to other distant fields. She went to help feed and clothe the refugees in Kansas in 1879-80, and in reaching one locality she rode nearly a hundred miles in a lumber wagon. She closed her eventful life in Battle Creek, where she pa.s.sed her last days, having reached the great age of one hundred and ten years.
Mrs. Laura C. Haviland is another n.o.ble woman worthy of mention. She has given a busy life to mitigating the miseries of the unfortunate. She helped many a fugitive to elude the kidnappers; she nursed the suffering soldiers, fed the starving freedmen, following them into Kansas,[324] and traveled thousands of miles with orphan children to find them places in western homes. She and her husband at an early day opened a manual-labor school, beginning by taking nine children from the county-house, to educate them with their own on a farm near Adrian. Out of her repeated experiments, and pet.i.tions to the legislature for State aid, grew at last the State school for homeless children at Coldwater, where for years she gave her services to train girls in various industries.
Mrs. Sybil Lawrence, a woman of strong character, and charming social qualities, exerted a powerful influence for many years in Ann Arbor. Being in sympathy with the suffrage movement, and in favor of coeducation, she did all in her power to make the experiment a success, by her aid and counsels to the girls who first entered the University. Her mother, sister, and nieces made a charming household of earnest women ready for every good work. Their services in the war were indispensable, and their sympathies during the trying period of reconstruction were all on the side of liberty and justice.
There are many other n.o.ble women in Michigan worthy of mention did s.p.a.ce permit, such as Miss Emily Ward, a woman of remarkable force of character and great benevolence; Mrs. Lucy L. Stout, who has written many beautiful sentiments in prose and verse: Eliza Legget and Florence Mayhew, identified with all reform movements; Mrs. Tenney, the State librarian; and Mrs. Euphemia Cochrane, a Scotch woman by birth, who loved justice and liberty, a staunch friend alike of the slave and the unfortunate of her own s.e.x.
Under her roof the advocates of abolition and woman suffrage always found a haven of rest. Henry C. Wright, Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, Sojourner Truth, Theodore Tilton, Frederick Dougla.s.s, Abbey Kelley and Stephen Foster could all bear testimony to her generous and graceful hospitality. She was president of the Detroit Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation at the time she pa.s.sed from earth to a higher life.
FOOTNOTES:
[305] Having made many lyceum trips through Michigan, I have had several opportunities of meeting Mrs. Stone in her own quiet home, and I can readily understand the wide influence she exerted on the women of that State, and what a benediction her presence must have been in all the reform a.s.sociations in which she took an active part. I always felt that Michigan would be a grand State in which to make the experiment of woman suffrage, especially as in Mrs. Stone we had an enthusiastic coadjutor. In paying this well-deserved tribute to Mrs. Stone, I must not forget to mention that Mrs. Janney of Flint, a woman of great executive ability, started the first woman"s reading-room and library many years ago.--[E. C. S.
[306] A sketch of this brilliant Polish woman, who has taken such an active part in the woman suffrage movement, both in this country and England, will be found in Volume I., page 95.
[307] The speakers at the Battle Creek convention were Miriam M.
Cole, editor of _The Woman"s Advocate_, Dayton, Ohio; Mary A.