The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2): Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty YearsHarper, Ida Husted
History
The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2): Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years
Harper, Ida Husted
Anthony, Susan B. (Susan Brownell), 1820-1906
and ready to put aside all personal feeling in the matter, Miss Anthony
appealed to Lucy Stone, who answered:
Now, Susan, it is all fudge for anybody to pretend that a cause
which deserves to live is impeded by the length of your skirt. I
know, from having tried through half the Union, that audiences
listen and assent just as well to one who speaks truth in a short
as in a long dress; but I am annoyed to death by people who
recognize me by my clothes, and when I travel get a seat by me and
bore me for a whole day with the stupidest stuff in the world. Then
again, when I go to each new city a horde of boys pursue me and
destroy all comfort. I have bought a nice new dress, which I have
had a month, and it is not made because I can't decide whether to
make it long or short. Not that I think any cause will suffer, but
simply to save myself a great deal of annoyance and not feel when I
am a guest in a family that they are mortified if other persons
happen to come in. I was at Lucretia Mott's a few weeks ago, and
her daughters took up a regular labor with me to make me abandon
the dress. They said they would not go in the street with me, and
when Grace Greenwood called and others like her, I think it would
have been a real relief to them if I had not been there. James and
Lucretia defended me bravely.
This was received by Miss Anthony while at the Albany convention, and
she wrote:
Your letter caused a bursting of the floods, long pent up, and
after a good cry I went straight to Mrs. Stanton and read it to
her. She has had a most bitter experience in the short dress, and
says she now feels a mental freedom among her friends that she has
not known for two years past. If Lucy Stone, with all her power of
eloquence, her loveliness of character, who wins all that hear the
sound of her voice, can not bear the martyrdom of the dress, who
can? Mrs. Stanton's parting words were, "Let the hem out of your
dress to-day, before to-morrow night's meeting." I have not obeyed
her but have been in the streets and printing offices all day long,
had rude, vulgar men stare me out of countenance and heard them say
as I opened the door, "There comes my Bloomer!" O, hated name! I
have been compelled to attend to all the business here, as at
Rochester. There every one knew me, knew my father and brother, and
treated me accordingly, but here I am known only as one of the
women who ape men--coarse brutal men! Oh, I can not, can not bear
it any longer.
To this Lucy Stone replied:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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