Life and writings of Amelia BloomerBloomer, D. C. (Dexter C.)
History
Life and writings of Amelia Bloomer
Bloomer, D. C. (Dexter C.)
Bloomer, Amelia Jenks, 1818-1894; Women's rights -- United States
“The women had friends in the convention who were as determined
on their side that women should be recognized, and so they had
it, each side determined to have it’s way—a dozen men talking at
the same time all over the house, each claiming the floor, each
insisting on being heard—till all became confusion, a perfect babel
of noises. No order could be kept and the president left his chair
in disgust. Time and words fail to give you the details of this
disgraceful meeting. The ringleaders were prominent clergymen of
Albany, Lockport, and Buffalo. Their names and faces are indelibly
engraven on my memory. During this whole day’s quarrel of the
men, no woman said a word, except once Miss Anthony addressed the
chair intending to prefer a request for a donation of temperance
tracts for distribution by our society. She got no farther than
‘Mr. President,’ when she was rudely called to order by one of the
belligerent clergymen and told to sit down. She sat down and no
other woman opened her mouth, though they really were entitled to
all the rights of any delegate, under the call; and the treatment
they received was not only an insult to the women present, but to
the organization that sent them.”
In referring to this incident, on page 488 Vol. I. of History of
Woman Suffrage, it is said: “Rev. Luther Lea offered his church just
before adjournment, and Mr. May announced that Miss Anthony and Mrs.
Bloomer would speak there in the evening. They had a crowded house,
while the conservatives scarcely had fifty. The general feeling was
hostile to the action of the convention. The same battle on the
temperance platform was fought over and over again in various parts
of the state, and the most deadly opposition uniformly came from
the clergy, though a few noble men in that profession ever remained
true to principle through all the conflicts of those days in the
anti-slavery, temperance, and woman’s rights movements.”
CONVENTION IN ALBANY.
In the winter of 1852 and 1853, meetings of both the regular
state Temperance societies were held in Albany for the purpose
of influencing the legislature then in session to pass the Maine
prohibitory law. Mrs. Bloomer attended the women’s convention, and
delivered an elaborate speech in the Baptist church. She herself
gives the following report of the proceedings at the convention:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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