Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
The resolutions presented by Mr. Blackwell, chairman of the committee,
reviewed the wonderful progress made by women since the first
convention whose 60th anniversary they were celebrating. They told of
the progress of suffrage, as outlined in the Call for the convention,
and said: "When that first convention met, one college in the United
States admitted women; now hundreds do so. Then there was not a single
woman physician or ordained minister or lawyer; now there are 7,000
women physicians and surgeons, 3,000 ordained ministers and 1,000
lawyers. Then only a few poorly-paid employments were open to women;
now they are in more than three hundred occupations and comprise 80
per cent. of our school teachers. Then there were scarcely any
organizations of women; now such organizations are numbered by
thousands. Then the few women who dared to speak in public, even on
philanthropic questions, were overwhelmingly condemned by public
opinion; now the women most opposed to woman suffrage travel about the
country making speeches to prove that a woman's only place is at home.
Then a married woman in most of our States could not control her own
person, property or earnings; now in most of them these laws have been
largely amended or repealed and it is only in regard to the ballot
that the fiction of woman's perpetual minority is still kept up."
Mrs. Catt's powerful address was entitled The Battle to the Strong but
nothing is preserved except newspaper clippings. She ended by saying:
"In all history there has been no event fraught with more importance
for the generations to follow than the present uprising of the women
of the world.... Every struggle helps and no movement for right, for
reform in this country or in England but has made the woman's movement
easier in every other land. We have brought the countries of the world
very close together in the last few years. Papers and cables and
telegraph spread the news almost instantly to the centres of the earth
and then to the obscure corners, so that the women of other nations
know what the women here are doing and what they are doing in every
other part of the world.... The suffrage campaign in England has
become the kind of fanaticism that caused the American Revolution.
These women are no longer reformers, they are rebels, and they are
going to win.... Woman's hour has struck at last and all along the
line there is a mobilization of the woman's army ready for service. We
are going forward with flags flying to win. If you are not for us you
are against us. Justice for the women of the world is coming. This is
to be a battle to the strong--strong in faith, strong in courage,
strong in conviction. Women of America, stand up for the citizenship
of our own country and let the world know we are not ashamed of the
Declaration of Independence!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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