Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
Ex-Governor Long presided at a memorial meeting for Henry B.
Blackwell, with addresses by Edwin D. Mead, Julia Ward Howe, the Rev.
Charles G. Ames, Professor Sumichrast, Moses H. Gulesian, Francis J.
Garrison, James H. Stark of the Victorian Club, Meyer Bloomfield and
Mrs. Isabel C. Barrows. Mr. Blackwell was called by Mrs. Catt "one of
the world's most heroic men." He was the only man of large abilities
who devoted his life to securing equal rights for women. In his youth
a reward of $10,000 was offered for his head at a public meeting in
the South because of his leading part in the rescue of a young slave
girl. He made his first speech for woman's rights at a suffrage
convention in Cleveland in 1853. Two years later he married Lucy
Stone. She had meant never to marry but to devote herself wholly to
the women's cause but he promised to devote himself to the same cause.
He was the unpaid secretary of the American Woman Suffrage Association
for twenty years, of the Massachusetts association for thirty years
and of the New England association for nearly forty years. He traveled
all over the country organizing suffrage societies, getting up
conventions and addressing Legislatures. He attended the Republican
national conventions year after year trying to get a suffrage plank
and in 1872 secured a mild one in the national platform and a strong
one in that of Massachusetts. He took part in constitutional amendment
campaigns in Kansas, Vermont, Colorado, Michigan, Rhode Island and
South Dakota. In 1889, when Washington, Montana and North Dakota were
about to enter the Union as States, he attended the constitutional
convention of each to urge equal suffrage. He was an editor of the
_Woman's Journal_ from its founding in 1870 till his death. An able
writer, an eloquent speaker, he was widely beloved for his kindness,
humor and geniality.
Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst, the leader of the "militant" suffragettes of
England, visited Boston this year. She was met at the station by the
suffragists with automobiles and flags and was taken through the
streets to the headquarters--Boston's first suffrage procession--and
later addressed in Tremont Temple a huge audience, critical at first,
highly enthusiastic at the close. A reception was given by prominent
suffragists to Miss Ethel M. Arnold of England, and there were
lectures by her and Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman; a series of
"petition teas" and meetings addressed by Dr. Shaw, Miss Leonora
O'Reilly, a labor leader of New York; Judge Ben Lindsey of Denver;
Charles Edward Russell, the Rev. Thomas Cuthbert Hall; and by Mrs.
Snowden, Dr. Stanton Coit and the Misses Rendell and Costello, all of
England.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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