Fiction and Poetry in the Revolution and the Woman’s Journal: Clarifying History

Abstract

The literary works that appeared in almost every issue of the Revolution, the organ of the National Woman Suffrage Association, and in the Woman’s Journal, the organ of the American Woman Suffrage Association, enrich our understanding of these two organizations. Contextualized readings of the fiction and poetry reveal that these pieces played an integral, polemical role within the journals as they articulated and advocated each organization’s particular view of new womanhood and the changes needed to advance women. These literary works also elucidate how the two group’s disparate views on divorce and the reforms most needed to improve women’s position within marriage were crucial in defeating a call for union in 1870.

Notes

1 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, preface to Pray You Sir, Whose Daughter?, ed. Helen H. Gardener (Boston: Arena, 1892), 1.

2 For example, Lana F. Rakow and Cheris Kramarae’s edited source volume of the Revolution reflects well its major themes but does not include a single poem, story, or novel excerpt. Lana Rakow and Cheris Kramarae, eds., The Revolution in Words: Righting Women 1868–1871 (New York: Routledge, 1990). Likewise, no scholarship on the Woman’s Journal looks at its poetry or short stories.

3 See Mary Chapman, Making Noise, Making News: Suffrage Print Culture and US Modernism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014); Mary Chapman and Angela Mills, Treacherous Texts: US Suffrage Literature, 1846–1946 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2011); Leslie Petty, Romancing the Vote: Feminist Activism in American Fiction, 1870–1929 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2006); Elizabeth Gray, “Poetry and Politics in The Women’s Penny Paper/Woman’s Herald, 1888–1893,” Victorian Periodicals Review 45, no. 2 (Summer 2012): 134–57.

4 On the Revolution, see Bonnie J. Dow, “The Revolution, 1868–1870: Expanding the Woman Suffrage Agenda,” in A Voice of Their Own: The Woman Suffrage Press, 1840–1910, ed. Martha M Solomon (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1991), 71–86; Lynne Masel-Walters, “Their Rights and Nothing More: A History of The Revolution, 1868–1872,” Journalism Quarterly 53 (Summer 1976): 242–51. On the Woman’s Journal, see Katharine Rodier, “Lucy Stone and The Woman’s Journal,” in Blue Pencils and Hidden Hands: Women Editing Periodicals, 1830–1910, ed. Sharon M. Harris and Ellen Gruber Garvey (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2004): 99–120; Susan Schultz Huxman, “The Woman’s Journal, 1870–1890: The Torchbearer for Suffrage,” in Voice of Their Own, ed. Martha Watson (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1991), 87–109; Lynne Masel-Walters, “A Burning Cloud by Day: The History and Content of the Woman’s Journal,” Journalism History 3, no. 4 (Winter 1977): 103–10.

5 Maria DiCenzo, Lucy Delap, and Leila Ryann, Feminist Media History: Suffrage, Periodicals, and the Public Sphere (Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan), 15, 73–74.

6 For more, see Ellen Carol DuBois, Feminism and Suffrage: The Emergence of an Independent Women’s Movement in America, 1848–1869 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1978), 162–202.

7 For more, see DuBois, Feminism and Suffrage, 168–202; Lisa Tetrault, The Myth of Seneca Falls: Memory and the Women’s Suffrage Movement, 1848–1898 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014), 27–35.

8 For a thorough discussion, see Faye E. Dudden, Fighting Chance: The Struggle over Woman Suffrage and Black Suffrage in Reconstruction America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 133–60.

9 Linda Steiner, “Finding Community in Nineteenth Century Suffrage Periodicals,” American Journalism 1, no. 1 (Summer 1983), 9; Linda Steiner, “Evolving Rhetorical Strategies/Evolving Identities,” Voice of Their Own, ed. Martha Watson (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1991), 189.

10 For good overviews, see Rakow and Kramarae, Revolution in Words, 1–11; Dow, “Revolution, 1868–1870,” 71–86.

11 For good overviews, see Huxman, “Woman’s Journal, 1870–1890,” 87–109; Masel-Walters, “Burning Cloud,” 103–10.

12 Steiner, “Evolving Rhetorical Strategies,” 191.

13 “Why Demand Suffrage Alone?” Woman’s Journal 1, no. 28 (July 1870), 220.

14 For the Woman’s Journal, see, for example, T. W. Higginson, “Feather and Birds,” Woman’s Journal 2, no. 41 (October 1870), 321. For the Revolution, see, for example, “A Change in the Aspect of the Woman Question,” Revolution 6, no. 13 (September 1870), 200.

15 See Cheryl Walker, American Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century an Anthology (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1992), xxvii.

16 Revolution 3, no. 24 (June 1869), 385.

17 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “The Third Volume,” Revolution 3, no. 26 (July 1869), 401.

18 Phebe Cary, “Was He Hen-pecked?” Revolution 4, no. 2 (July 1869), 18.

19 “The Husband of To-day,” Revolution 4, no. 1 (July 1869), 3.

20 William Shakespeare, “True Marriage,” Revolution 4, no. 13 (September 1869), 193.

21 Nancy S. Nasby, “Mrs. Petroleum v. Nasby,” Revolution 4, no. 13 (September 1869), 193.

22 “The Moral of the Byron Case,” Revolution 4, no. 10 (September 1869), 152.

23 Adelaide Ann Proctor, “A Woman’s Question,” Revolution 4, no. 12 (September 1869), 177.

24 Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “A Man’s Requirements,” Revolution 4, no. 15 (October 1869), 225.

25 Michael C. Cohen, The Social Lives of Poems in Nineteenth-century America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), 159–63, 200.

26 Henrietta Payne, “One Convert,” Revolution 5, no. 3 (January 1870), 35–36.

27 Eleanor Kirk, “From Life; or, A Broadside from Maine,” Revolution 4, no. 9 (September 1869), 130–31; Isabella Grant Meredith, “Joan,” Revolution 4, no. 22 (December 1869), 338–39.

28 Kirk, “From Life,” 131.

29 Dr. Mary P. Sawtell, “My Reasons,” Revolution 4, no. 10 (September 1869), 146–47; Sawtell, “My Reasons: Concluded,” Revolution 4, no. 11 (September 1869), 164–65.

30 Sawtell, “My Reasons,” 147.

31 Isabella Grant Meredith, “Joan: Chapter II,” Revolution 4, no. 23 (December 1869), 355.

32 Kirk, “From Life,” 131.

33 Despite Cady Stanton’s positive depiction of her own marriage, her writings, lectures, and activism reveal this to be a primary concern of hers. See Ellen Carol DuBois, “‘The Pivot of the Marriage Relation’: Cady Stanton’s Analysis of Women’s Subordination in Marriage,” in Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Feminist as Thinker, ed. Ellen Carol DuBois and Richard Candida Smith (New York: New York University Press, 2007), 82–92; Sue Davis, The Political Thought of Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Women’s Rights and the American Political Tradition (New York: New York University Press, 2008), 170–72.

34 Up Broadway began its serial run on March 4, 1869, and it concluded July 22, 1869.

35 Eleanor Kirk, Up Broadway, and Its Sequel: A Life Story (New York: Carleton & Co, 1870), 109.

36 Born Thrall began its serial run on January 6, 1870 and concluded abruptly in May 1870 when Cary became ill. She passed away February 1871.

37 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “The Born Thrall,” Revolution 4, no. 23 (December 1869), 408.

38 See, for example, Laura Curtis Bullard, “A Change in the Aspect of the Woman Question,” Revolution 6, no. 13 (September 1870), 200.

39 This percentage remains fairly constant throughout the nineteenth century.

40 Steiner, “Evolving Rhetorical Strategies,” 191–92.

41 Lucy Stone, “Letters,” Woman’s Journal 2, no. 30 (July 1871), 236.

42 F. B. Sanborn, “Anathemata,” Woman’s Journal 1, no. 1 (January 1870), 1.

43 Nelly Mackay Hutchinson, “My Saint,” Woman’s Journal 1, no. 1 (January 1870), 1.

44 Rebecca Harding Davis, “A November Afternoon,” Woman’s Journal 1, no. 4 (January 1870), 30–31.

45 “Farmer Brown’s Wash Day,” Woman’s Journal 1, no. 26 (July 1870), 202–3.

46 Mrs. Robert Dale Owen, “Half the World’s Work,” Woman’s Journal 1, no. 13 (April 1870), 102.

47 Louise Chandler Moulton, “The Story of an Old Young Man,” Woman’s Journal 1, no. 3 (January 1870), 22–23.

48 John G. Whittier, “Wedded Love,” Woman’s Journal 1, no. 16 (April 1870), 126.

49 See, for example, “The Husband of To-day,” Revolution 4, no. 1 (July 1869), 3; Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “Editorial Correspondence,” Revolution 4, no. 4 (July 1869), 50; “The Slavery of Women,” Revolution 4, no. 10 (September 1869), 155.

50 Andre Leo, “Woman and Manners: Liberty or Monarchy,” Revolution 4, no. 17 (October 1869), 260.

51 “The Kernel of the Question,” Revolution 4, no. 18 (November 1869), 280.

52 See, for example, Lucy Stone, “Marriage and Divorce,” Woman’s Journal 1, no. 44 (November 1870), 348.

53 Henry Black Beecher, “The Question Settled,” Woman’s Journal 1, no. 48 (December 1870), 380.

54 See, for example, “Legal Status of Woman No. 5,” Woman’s Journal 1, no. 50 (December 1870), 393; “Legal Status of Woman No. 2,” Woman’s Journal 1, no. 43 (October 1870), 337.

55 For instance, Eleanor Flexner never mentions the UWSA, sidestepping the issue in one sentence: “Except for one or two abortive attempts at reconciliation, the two suffrage associations continued to operate independently of one another for twenty years” (156). Flexner, Century of Struggle: The Woman’s Rights Movement in the United States (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1959). The UWSA is also not mentioned in any of the previously cited articles focusing on either of the journals.

56 Victoria Woodhull was a highly controversial activist who advocated for free love and made public AWSA President Henry Ward Beecher’s affair with Elizabeth Tilton, wife of UWSA President Theodore Tilton. The Beecher-Tilton sexual scandal aligned, in the public’s mind, the doctrine of free love and woman suffrage. For more, see Davis, Political Thought, 172–77.

57 See Tetrault, Myth of Seneca Falls, 35–37.

58 See, for example, Tetrault, 36–37.

59 Woman’s Journal 1, no. 48 (December 1870), 380–81, 384.

60 “From Mrs. Lydia Maria Child,” Woman’s Journal 1, no. 48 (December 1870), 381.

61 Quote cited in Henry Browne Blackwell, “Question Settled,” Woman’s Journal 1, no. 48 (December 1870), 380.

62 T. W. Higginson, “Cleveland Convention,” Woman’s Journal 1, no. 48 (December 1870), 380.