Ten American Girls from HistorySweetser, Kate Dickinson
History
Ten American Girls from History
Sweetser, Kate Dickinson
United States -- Biography; Women -- Biography
"'She is medium in height, slight in form, graceful in movement, her
head, well poised, adorned with heavy dark hair, displaying to
advantage a pleasant face which has all the signs of nervous force and
of vigorous mental life. In manner she is unembarrassed, without a
shade of boldness; her gestures are simple, her voice is of wonderful
power, penetrating rather than loud, as clear as the tone of metal,
and yet with a reed-like softness. Her vocabulary is simple, and in no
instance has there been seen a straining after effective expressions;
yet her skill in using ordinary language is so great that with a
single phrase she presents a picture and delivers a poem in a
sentence.'"
At the close of the meeting, which had been opened by Henry Ward
Beecher, he rose and said, with real emotion, "Let no man open his
lips here to-night; music is the only fitting accompaniment to the
eloquent utterances we have heard." Then the famous Hutchinson family
sang and closed the meeting with the John Brown song, in which the
vast audience joined with thrilling effect.
From that Cooper Institute meeting Anna received almost one thousand
dollars, an incredible amount for a simple speech to her unmercenary
spirit, but one which was to be duplicated many times before her
career was over.
After that meeting in New York her reputation as a public speaker was
established, despite the carping critics, and she continued to win
fresh laurels, not only for herself, but for vital issues. When doing
more campaigning in Pennsylvania she had to travel through the mining
districts, where her frank words were often ridiculed and she was
pelted with stones, rotten eggs, and other unpleasant missiles. But
she bore it all like a warrior, and made a remarkable record for
speeches in parts of the State where no man dared to go. Despite this
and the fact that the victorious party owed its success largely to the
young orator, the committee never paid her one cent for her
services--to their great discredit, probably having spent all their
campaign funds in some other less legitimate way and thinking they
could more easily defraud a girl than a more shrewd man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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