TOP 10 REASONS WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE - #1

- In the 90th anniversary year of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, is there any better way that we could celebrate - THAN TO VOTE !!!!!

TOP 10 REASONS WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE - #2

- despite arrests and violent treatment in prison, women continued to picket the White House during 1917, until President Woodrow Wilson agreed to support the "right to vote amendment." Remember these women and their courage. VOTE TOMORROW!

TOP 10 REASONS WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE - #3

- in a country where we can travel to the polls and vote in perfect safety, it is silly not to!

TOP 10 REASONS WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE - #4

- in the 72 years it took to achieve the right to vote many invested blood sweat and tears. Remember them as you vote on Tuesday.

TOP 10 REASONS WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE - #5

- It is completely non-fattening to vote on Tuesday!

TOP 10 REASONS WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE - #6

- There is a lot at stake. Weigh in and VOTE!!!

TOP 10 REASONS WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE - #7

- It is something you can do completely on your own, with no one looking over your shoulder!

TOP 10 REASONS FOR WOMEN TO VOTE - #8

It is more fun than paying taxes! - of the 2 responsibilities we have as citizens.

TOP 10 REASONS FOR WOMEN TO VOTE - #9

- YOU CAN INFLUENCE the makeup of your Congressional District for the next TEN years by who you vote for.

TOP 10 REASONS WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE - #10

- It is a stake in YOUR future!

COURTED BY PRESIDENTS, Part 3

At the age of 2, Jane Addams lost her mother. At 4 she contracted tuberculosis of the spine, which caused a curvature in her spine and health problems the rest of her life. She was inspired by those who worked with the poor and wanted to be a doctor. After graduating from nearby Rockford Female Seminary at 21, her father died. The following fall, she along with her sister Alice, her husband and their step mother went to Philadelphia so the 3 young people could attend medical school. They only managed a year before the step mother’s health required them to return home.
The next year, her brother in law, already a doctor, did surgery to improve her spine. She traveled for 2 years and then returned home, struggling to find focus for her life. She strongly resisted the expectation that the role for all women was to marry and devote their lives to their family, as set forth by John Stuart Mill, in his book “The Subjection of Women.”
She'd had a nervous breakdown after her father’s death and at this point she struggled with depression. But reading had always given her strength. She became a Christian at 26, and set about exploring how religion and her interests might enable a life worthy of her. It took three years, but when she came home from Europe, she knew where her life was headed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Addams

COURTED BY PRESIDENTS, Part 2

Jane Addams,of Hull House, was the first President of a group called the International Women's Congress for Peace and Freedom, organized in 1915 to call for suffrage for women, and mediation to bring about the end of wars. At “their 2nd international congress, held in Zürich in 1919, ICWPP denounced the final terms of the peace treaty ending World War I as a scheme of revenge of the victors over the vanquished that would sow the seeds of another world war.”
The group moved to Zurich to work with the new League of Nations, and changed their name to Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. It was because of this work that Jane Addams was the first woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_International_League_for_Peace_and_Freedom

COURTED BY PRESIDENTS, Part 1

An avid reader from childhood and scholar in many fields, Jane Addams, founder of Hull House in Chicago, was a Christian, an advocate for human rights, and could hold her own in local, national and international affairs.
“Addams worked with labor as well as other reform groups toward goals including the first juvenile-court law, tenement-house regulation, an eight-hour working day for women, factory inspection, and workers' compensation. She advocated research aimed at determining the causes of poverty and crime, and supported women's suffrage. She was a strong advocate of justice for immigrants and blacks, becoming a charter member of the NAACP. Among the projects that the members of the Hull House opened were the Immigrants' Protective League, the Juvenile Protective Association, the first juvenile court in the United States, and a Juvenile Psychopathic Clinic.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Addams

HOW DO YOU KEEP FIT?

Tomorrow is National Women’s Health and Fitness Day.

It is the “9th annual event to promote the value of health and fitness for women of all ages,” according to answers.com If you are not doing anything on a regular basis, maybe it’s the opportunity to start.

http://www.examiner.com/healthy-living-in-richmond/national-womens-health-and-fitness-day-is-september-29-2010

BALANCE IN MARRIAGE Part 2

In the 19th century, there was a full spectrum of marriages from ones where the wives were literally servants, needing to account for every minute of their time and little more than sexual slaves, to husbands like Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s who were loving and supportive, a real partner to thei...r wives in every sense of the word.The suffragists, who knew they were fortunate in their lives, were fighting for the improvement of the lives of the “marriage slaves” or others only slightly better off. They were fighting for the right of women to make decisions about their own lives, not just the right to vote.

BALANCE IN MARRIAGE Part 1

In the 19th century, there was lots of tension and even fear among both men and women over the idea of changing the balance between men's and women's roles in marriage. Men feared the loss of control over their households and thus their lives. Women feared the freedom and thus the loss of structure, routine and ultimately security that might come with change.
So it was that women fighting for women's rights found themselves fighting against women as well as men. Perhaps some saw their less than equal lives as the price they had to pay for security and the right to be able to bring up their own children. It was not a legal foregone conclusion that their mother should care for them. Men had all the rights and final say over their children's lives and how they were raised. At the time there were cases of men, who could afford child care arrangements, throwing out their wives and preventing her children from seeing her ever again.

Women's Equality Day, 2010

The President has seen fit to remember and reminds us all that on Aug. 26, 1920 a long struggle finally bore fruit with the completion of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution - granting women the right to vote.
He acknowleges that while we celebrate this achievement, he recognizes there is a lot still to do. I like the words used - " Standing on the shoulders of these trailblazers, we pay tribute to the brave women who dot the pages of our history books, and to those who have quietly broken barriers in our workplaces, communities, and society."
While we have, for the first time in history, three women on the high court, others areas of our society lag behind and fail to adequately represent more than half of our population.
ONE OF THE REASONS I WRITE THIS IS TO HELP US REMEMBER AND NOT TAKE OUR PROGRESS FOR GRANTED, BUT ALSO TO REALIZE WE HAVE WORK TO DO YET!


http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/08/26/presidential-proclamation-womens-equality-day-2010

WHO IS GOOD ENOUGH?

In an editorial linked below, Wm. M. King reminds us of how elusive our freedom can be. Frederick Douglass reminded his listeners that even though the Constitution had been ratified in 1788, we were no closer as a nation in 1852 to making true the enterprise that “all men are created equal.”
That of course also included women. It took many more years to accomplish these goals and yet we forget the long time and much effort that it required. So when another situation of discrimination comes along we need the reminders of the past to help us deal with the present.
As we hear of hatred in the news pertaining to new religious and national prejudice, we must all remember we are inheritors of our freedoms and therefore we can only be humbly grateful for them and be willing to be generous with what we did not earn.

http://www.boulderweekly.com/article-2887-the-myth-of-a-post-racial-america.html

ANGELINA GRIMKE’S CONCERN

‘Sisters in Christ I feel an interest in you, and often has the secret prayer arisen on your behalf, Lord "open thou their eyes that they may see wondrous things out of thy Law"—It is then, because I do feel and do pray for you, . . .’
She was appealing to the better natures of southern women in the midst of a culture that more or less accepted slavery in her “APPEAL TO THE CHRISTIAN WOMEN OF THE SOUTH” a personal crusade she was waging in 1836. She joined her voice with her sister Sarah’s in a courageous effort.

http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/abesaegat.html

VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965

On this day, 45 years ago, this passed into law. It was the culmination of years of struggle to enact the right to vote, for former slaves, first granted in the 15th Amendment in 1870.
Local and state authorities had used many ways to prevent or delay former slaves from voting. Law suits had not worked to open up the process and encourage voter registration. Following the murders surrounding the Selma to Montgomery March in Alabama, Congress found the will to overcome the opposition and bring this issue to become law. It took 95 years!

Our whole nation is better for having more of us involved in the voting process!

http://www.justice.gov/crt/voting/intro/intro_b.php

WOMEN AND LEISURE TIME IN EARLY 1800’S

Those who lived in cities and towns might work a 10 hour day for 6 days a week. Then at home there was a full complement of household chores including cleaning, cooking, shopping for food, and making and repairing clothing. Sunday was the only relief in long hours of work, and that had its own requirements for those in God fearing households. Along with attending worship, there were people who were sick or in need in other ways to visit. Those in authority in the communities knew there was little likelihood of crime. Women had no time to be independent or worry about their rights.

Lizzie Stanton and other suffragists had a hard time ahead of them to convince most women that things could be different.

RULE THE AIR

I usually resist marketing ploys, but there is an ad out there that impresses me, not for the product but the young women’s presence. It is for a prominent cell phone carrier. The message it carries puts forth the idea that these young women want to excel at what they do, and that is always a good idea. I cannot quote, but it begins with the idea that Air has no prejudice; it doesn’t care about your age, sex or color. Then it gets better by talking about how their words can be powerful if they are wise, infectious if they are worthy, and can lead an army that will follow. WHAT A THING FOR YOUNG WOMEN TO ASPIRE TO!
Words can be very powerful, especially if they are precise. I pray that is an idea we could regain!

http://phones.verizonwireless.com/ruletheair/#/landing

TWO ANNE PARRISHES

The first was born in 1760, a Quaker who out of gratitude for her parents surviving yellow fever, opened the first charitable organization for women in the US, in Philadelphia in 1795. It was The House of Industry which supplied jobs to poor women. The next year she founded the Aimwell School for needy girls. She was its first teacher and it continued until 1923.
The second Anne, a writer, came from a family of writers. She was born in 1888 and wrote both children’s books and adult fiction until her death in 1957.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/444579/Anne-Parrish

AN ENTERPRISING WOMAN

Mary Katherine Goddard accomplished several firsts – in Providence Rhode Island in 1766 she, along with her mother, became the first woman publisher; in 1775 in Baltimore, she became the first woman postmaster; and in 1777, one year after the Declaration of Independence was signed, she became the first printer to make available copies of the famous document with the signers names. In 1789 she opened a book store, also in Baltimore. She was a very enterprising woman, at a time when woman did not take on those roles in society. She made it a little easier for women after her to do the same.

http://www.distinguishedwomen.com/biographies/goddard-mk.html

FIRST WOMEN RELIGIOUS IN THE STATES

Maryland was home to a number of firsts in the history of accomplishments by women. In 1790 the first convent was established by Mother Bernardina Matthews, a Carmelite nun. These cloistered nuns settled near Port Tobacco at the southern end of the Chesapeake and southeast of Washington, DC. Think of the courage it took these praying sisters to come to a very young country, and live a life of prayer in a closed community.

http://www.factmonster.com/spot/womensfirsts1.html

ANNE HUTCHINSON DARED TO SPEAK HER MIND

Her greatest crime in 1637 seems to have been that she had an opinion – first about her faith, and second concerning an ecclesiastical hot topic of the day. As a minister’s daughter, she must have been better educated than most of the women in her weekly discussion group, and could do biblical exegesis as well as most ministers. This probably gave her the confidence to express informed opinions on church matters that ultimately got her banished from Massachusetts. She was accused of renouncing her traditional role of woman, and usurping the role of husband, magistrate and minister – roles reserved ONLY for men.

Hutchinson, Ann, Trials Of - Founding Mothers and Fathers, Making Heretics: The Free Grace Controversy In Massachusetts, 1636–1639

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF WOMEN’S RIGHT TO VOTE

“Resolved, that it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise.”
As she wrote the resolutions in preparation for the Seneca Falls Convention, Lizzie Stanton added this one despite the objection of many. To attain the full rights and responsibilities of citizenship, she knew it must include the vote. Since it took over 70 years to gain, we should consider it valuable and EXERCISE IT!

http://www.usconstitution.net/sentiments.html

SENECA FALLS, DAY 2

The rights we as women all enjoy today, that day took a giant leap toward coming true! BE GRATEFUL to all those men and women!
It was agreed that on the first day, only women would speak. On the morning of day 2, men joined the discussion.
“The Convention assembled at the hour appointed, JAMES MOTT, of Philadelphia, in the Chair. The minutes of the previous day having been read, [Lizzie] E. C. STANTON again read the Declaration of Sentiments, which was freely discussed by LUCRETIA MOTT, ANSEL BASCOM, S. E. WOODWORTH, THOMAS AND MARY ANN MCCLINTOCK, FREDERICK DOUGLASS, AMY POST, CATHARINE STEBBINS, AND ELIZABETH C. STANTON, and was unanimously adopted,…”

From the minutes of the Convention - http://www.nps.gov/wori/historyculture/report-of-the-womans-rights-convention.htm

SENECA FALLS WOMEN’S RIGHTS CONFERENCE- JULY 19-20, 1848

Around 300 attended, most were women. Over the two days there were six sessions including one on law, one humorous and discussions on women’s role in society. A famous Quaker speaker from Boston, Lucretia Mott was not originally in favor of women voting, but Frederick Douglass was persuasive in convincing the group to include it in the list of resolutions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneca_Falls_Convention

WORDS TO LIVE BY

"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind” - Dr. Seuss
Suffragists lived long before he said this but it certainly describes how they were committed to living their lives, as they fought to change the laws that constrained the lives of all women.

ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF THE FIGHT STILL NEEDING TO BE FAUGHT

"Pope Benedict has said the question of ordaining women – often raised as an antidote to the priest shortage and to bring about more gender equality – is not up for discussion." From the Huffington Post today.

In the 19th century, local ministers were some of the strongest opponents of the changing status of women.
At the risk of upsetting my RC friends, I find it incomprehensible that any human finds it possible to deny over half the population [women] as ineligible for ordination just on the basis of their sex. It seems the height of arrogance to think God would not consider women as well as men.

Is it a problem with accepting that a calling from God comes with the authority to preach with confidence?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/15/vatican-ordination-of-wom_n_647296.html

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

Writer and Prophetic Witness is the notation on July 1 for her inclusion in the Calendar of Saints of the Episcopal Church in the USA. She is credited with bringing the plight of slaves to Americans. She and her siblings had departed from their father’s anti-abolitionist thinking, and became an outspoken proponent of abolition and changing the conditions for slaves. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was only the most prominent of her efforts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar_of_saints_(Episcopal_Church_in_the_United_States_of_America)

FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT OF 1850

This law enraged and at the same time made abolitionists fearful of being put in jail. Suddenly law enforcement personnel were required to aid the capture and return of all runaway slaves, or risk a $1000 fine. Any citizens providing food or shelter to fugitive slaves were also liable for a $1000 fine and 6 months in jail. It is said that this law inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Sojourner Truth and others considered it more of a nuisance, and made it a little more dangerous, but did not diminish their commitment to the cause of justice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugitive_Slave_Act_of_1850

LIZZIE STANTON

As a young girl she would sit in a corner of her father’s home office and learn about how unjust the law and how lacking in compassion her father was. He administered the law with no interest in improving it for the sake of women, despite Lizzie’s many complaints. He was cold as stone regarding his three daughters, preferring his four sons who all died in childhood. She excelled in her accomplishments to earn her father’s approval, only to have him say to her at 16, “If only you were a boy.”
This must have hurt her deeply, but also must have severely damaged her father’s credibility.
At the advanced age of 24, her father forbade her marrying because Henry Stanton was an abolitionist, was 10 years older and therefore too old, and could not support her well enough. She acquiesced for a short while, but finally rebelled and eloped so she and Henry could attend the World Abolition Conference in London in 1840.
That event turned out to be pivotal to the rest of her life. She met many women who were also interested in improving women’s lives and became her allies in the battle to improve women’s rights.

THE FEMALE WRITER – GEORGE SAND, 1804-1876

She lost the last of her family, her grandmother, and inherited her family fortune at 17. In the next year she was married and realized it was a mistake. Her husband took over all rights to her property. Like many women writers in this country, this English woman expressed her frustration and outrage at the injustice.
“Women are forced to lead a life of imbecility, and are blamed for doing so. If they are ignorant they are despised, if learned, mocked. In love they are reduced to the status of whores. As wives they are treated more as servants than companions. Men do not love them: they make use of them, they exploit them, and expect in that way, to make them subject to the law of fidelity.”
She expressed much of the bitterness and frustration felt by countless numbers both here and in England. Fortunately for her, she had the talent to support herself, despite the loss of her fortune to her husband.

MODERN FORCE AGAINST DISCRIMINATION OF WOMEN

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a Supreme Court Justice, has worked throughout her legal career to decrease discriminatory practices against women. After being part of Harvard and Columbia Law Reviews and finishing at the top of her class at Columbia, she was rejected for the top clerkships because she was a woman.

Her career has been distinguished, including becoming the first tenured female professor at Columbia Law, writing the definitive law textbook on sex discrimination, cofounding the Women's Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, and successfully arguing before the Supreme Court.

Her victories called into question many federal laws as discriminatory. Her career has set an admirable pattern for the increasing number of women lawyers, and has begun a process that will inspire many in the future to continue her battle against discrimination.

http://www.answers.com/topic/ruth-bader-ginsburg

“The Meaning of the Fourth of July to the Negro”

FREDERICK DOUGLASS originally gave this speech on this day in 1852. “Fellow-citizens,” he began, “why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?”
Since then there have been many readings of Douglass’s speech on or near this date, including this recent one in Springfield, Massachusetts. Douglass was a steadfast supporter of women’s rights and involved from 1848 until his death.

http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2010/06/springfield_to_celebrate_frede.html
http://www.boulderweekly.com/article-2887-the-myth-of-a-post-racial-america.html

The full text of his speech www.masshumanities.org.

ABOLITIONISTS AND WOMEN WORKED TOGETHER

Many of the women and men, who worked for the establishment of women’s rights, were also committed to abolition and the establishment of human rights for slaves. So it is appropriate and poignant that the 14th Amendment advanced the rights of both groups.

http://www.archives.gov/legislative/features/suffrage/index.html
http://www.archives.gov/legislative/features/suffrage/index.html

SOME STEPS IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

So far, these posts have concentrated on how the documents written at the founding of our republic did not uphold the rights of all its citizens. But it was a starting place, and a foundation on which to work for better understanding.

For more than 200 years, God has prompted many to put their own liberty on the line in order that others might gain their own previously denied rights. Our whole nation has gained whenever those disenfranchised individuals are able to live lives of opportunity.

Peggy Gunness has described how liberty is a faith issue for those who believe in God. “…God needs us to be partners with Him in bringing this world and the peoples of this world to the fullness of life for which we were all created.”

We do not yet live in a perfect country, but I am thankful for any progress we have made so far!

http://www.explorefaith.org/chron_070200.html

SARAH GRIMKE, BRILLIANT BUT ALAS A WOMAN

Like others before them, the Grimke sisters attempted to vote in 1870 when Sarah was nearly 80. This was only another in a lifetime of daring and courageous acts. She and her sister Angelina were the first women to speak before the Massachusetts Legislature in 1838. She had taught herself, using her brother’s books, until her mother and father put a stop to it. Fortunately for history it was too late. She had already ignited the brilliant mind within herself. Even her father admitted she had the potential to become foremost among the legal minds of that era, HAD SHE NOT BEEN A WOMAN. She used her brains and her voice in both public speaking and in writing, at a time in this country when doing those things was an open challenge to the authority of a male dominated society, who did not want to consider that women had anything of consequence to say and SHOULD NOT BE HEARD!

http://www.answers.com/topic/sarah-grimk-1

ANGELINA EMILY GRIMKE

She and her sister Sarah were outspoken Quakers from Charleston, SC. Their father, a prominent judge, was strongly in favor of slavery and owned hundreds himself. Having observed the cruelty doled out to slaves at close hand, they became committed abolitionists.
Angelina gained notoriety in the early 1830’s when she sent a letter to William Lloyd Garrison, abolitionist and publisher of The Liberator. When it was printed without her permission, she was criticized by the Quakers and given an ultimatum. She refused to recant and was contacted by the abolitionists. Both sisters chose their path and began a life of accomplished distinction.
In the link below she shows what a fine analytical mind she could employ in her argument. Using scripture herself to refute the justification of slavery, she argues against God’s ability to bless any such institution as slavery, and uses Jewish Law to cut down any arguments that were used to justify it. There is no doubt that both sisters had inherited their father’s great legal mind, much to his consternation.

http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/abesaegat.html

CATHERINE BEECHER

By 1837, more and more women were being published, in order to influence public thought. They did not have the freedom to speak in public, so this was their best alternative. Catherine, the older sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe, like her brothers and sister was passionate concerning the abolition of slavery. She wrote... a now famous essay addressed to Angelina Emily Grimke, herself a well-known advocate of abolition, along with her sister Sarah.
http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/abesceba2t.htmlSee More

This is the source for the documents between Beecher and Grimke.

http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/grimkehp.html

HER HOME WAS A PRISON

Legally and culturally, women were tied to their homes. She had no rights of her own, and so could not make her own decisions. A woman was not allowed to do anything alone. She was always accompanied in public. Her freedom to converse with others had strict boundaries, and she was never allowed to speak in a public forum. This was a problem as the Seneca Falls Meeting was planned. These prohibitions had started to change in the 1840’s, but women had no experience speaking in public. Fortunately, they had male supporters like Frederick Douglass. And they had been successful in issues of social change like abolition. You can hear that dedication and passion for justice in Mrs. Stanton’s words from “The Declaration of Sentiments.” Imagine the courage it took to assert the idea that women should be involved in public issues, and more importantly tell women they had a stake in the issues.

“Resolved, therefore, that, being invested by the Creator with the same capabilities and same consciousness of responsibility for their exercise, it is demonstrably the right and duty of woman, equally with man, to promote every righteous cause by every righteous means; and especially in regard to the great subjects of morals and religion, it is self-evidently her right to participate with her brother in teaching them, both in private and in public, by writing and by speaking, by any instrumentalities proper to be used, and in any assemblies proper to be held; and this being a self-evident truth growing out of the divinely implanted principles of human nature, any custom or authority adverse to it, whether modern or wearing the hoary sanction of antiquity, is to be regarded as a self-evident falsehood, and at war with mankind.”

http://www.usconstitution.net/sentiments.html

PERSIA ABOLISHED SLAVERY IN 539 BC

Thanks to Cyrus the Great, slavery was ended and the captives were sent home to Israel. Cyrus even helped them rebuild their homeland. A replica of the stone cylinder where this edict was written hangs in the UN headquarters, as an example of an ancient act of human rights.
I would hope that modern day Iran and Israel would take note.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline

MRS. STANTON’S SENTIMENTS ON EQUALITY IN LIFE

Even in the 1840’s Elizabeth Cady Stanton was raising the issue of double standards of behavior for men and women. In many situations, the burden still seems to be on women to expect or even demand civility and respect from men. Sadly the media supports the “fun” in reversion as soon as women’s backs are turned. Thank you to the men who ALWAYS love and respect women.

“Resolved, that the same amount of virtue, delicacy, and refinement of behavior that is required of woman in the social state also be required of man, and the same transgressions should be visited with equal severity on both man and woman.”

http://www.usconstitution.net/sentiments.html

SINGLE WOMEN WERE REALLY NEEDED

Men had been struggling in overseas missionary work for over fifty years, and they had to admit that it was not going as well as it should. A missionary in China admitted that the need for work among women was necessary to help their predicaments of childbirth, childhood arranged marriages and prevention of any education. Meanwhile women had organized their own Missionary groups to support single women in the mission field. Women in the field did not threaten pagan men, and they were thus more open to listen to the Gospel message. Their humility and benevolence won the day in foreign lands, like men could not.

http://www.ucc.org/about-us/hidden-histories/womens-work-and-womens.html

TODAY MARKS 200 YEARS OF FOREIGN MISSIONS

When the General Association of Massachusetts listened to a group of young seminary students, the course of the Congregational Church [a combination of Puritans and Pilgrims] took a revolutionary turn. Three days later, these young men dedicated their lives to God and foreign missionary work. The church required them to be married before they went. Many of the wives invested themselves as much as they could and still care for their husbands and children, but by the 1860’s it was even obvious to men that the work was not going as well as it might.
Since the beginning of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, local women’s groups had financially supported the work. They were not content to just pay for the work. There were those who also wanted to make it their own life’s work. [more tomorrow]

http://www.ucc.org/about-us/hidden-histories/womens-work-and-womens.html

HUMAN RIGHTS AS MRS. STANTON SAW THEM

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;” from the Declaration of Sentiments, written by Eliz. Cady Stanton for the First Womens' Rights Convention, held in Seneca Falls, NY on July 19th and 20th, 1848.

This was patterned after the Declaration of Independence. Many would wish that the original document had included women in those rights.

“He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her conscience and to her God.”
http://www.usconstitution.net/sentiments.html

WOMEN COULD VOTE IN WYOMING TERRITORY

The first paragraph of the 14th Amendment would seem to grant rights to ALL citizens. However this is a federal document and the right to vote is up to the several states. Even though it says the states may not deprive anyone, they spent decades trying to do just that. Women found ways of exploiting local laws that did not prohibit their voting, until the laws were then changed. The Wisconsin Territory, however allowed women the vote in 1869. Colorado men voted in 1893 to allow women to vote. Utah and Idaho followed in 1895 and 96. Large groups of women worked in local communities and states to raise awareness and very slowly sentiments changed.
http://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_Am14.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_women%27s_suffrage_in_the_United_States

WOMEN’S RIGHTS AND ABOLITION TOGETHER

Many of the women and men, who worked for the establishment of women’s rights, were also committed to abolition and the establishment of human rights for slaves. [See 6/13 &14] So it is appropriate and poignant that the 14th Amendment advanced the rights of both groups. However, during the work for the 15th Amendment there came a time when some women had to choose between women’s suffrage and advancing the rights of former slaves. Unfortunately, the climate was not right for advancing the rights of both.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

DESIRE FOR LOVE AND ACCEPTANCE

Beyond anything else, we all have the basic need for love and acceptance from someone. For some of us, that need is fulfilled by God and the grace that is offered. But we also need recognition from people around us. When our basic human rights are not recognized by others, and more importantly not even by our own country, the heart and soul cries out for justice.
That may help us all understand why women joined the fight against slavery, and abolitionist men and women joined the fight for women’s rights!
It is this basic human need for acceptance that gay and lesbians folks desire from both their country and its citizens today.

http://www.deepspring.org/library_books/library_books_aaron/Aaron_32.html

THE FIRST WOMAN MISSIONARY, Part 2

Today is the anniversary of the arrival of Ann Hasseltine Judson and her husband Adoniram in Calcutta, India, in 1812. They were not welcomed by the government, and having been asked to leave, instead went to Rangoon, Burma, now Myanmar. She was a writer and felt she was living out her own calling to ministry. She helped her husband translate the Bible into Burmese, and strived to educate women, who had no rights other than the ones their husbands would grant them. The Baptist’s Judson Press and a number of Judson Colleges are named after her husband but one is named after Ann. Their Bible translation is still used today in that country.

http://www.historyswomen.com/womenoffaith/AnnJudson.htm

THE FIRST WOMAN MISSIONARY, Part 1

Ann Hasseltine, born in 1789, grew up in my husband’s home church, First Church of Christ, Congregational in Bradford, Massachusetts, where her father was a deacon. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the first group in the US to send missionaries overseas, began in that church building in 1810. She was a part of the event because her father was the host. Attending were young seminary students from Andover Theological Seminary, [where my husband also went.] Probably Ann and her future husband met then, because on Feb. 5, 1812 they were married and left for the mission field of India. It would take them more than 4 months to make the voyage. [More tomorrow.]

http://www.judson.edu/content.asp?id=84653

THE FIRST ORDAINED WOMAN MINISTER

Antoinette Brown expressed interest in ministry at the age of 9. When she entered Oberlin in 1846 women were not allowed to walk with the opposite sex or speak in public. When she finished her studies in theology she was allowed to preach but was not given a diploma. While at school she became a life-long friend of Lucy Stone, another suffragist and abolitionist. Three years later, in 1853, she was ordained to serve a Congregational Church in NY state. In 1908 Oberlin conferred on her an honorary Doctor of Divinity. She and others helped to refute the idea that women had neither the intellect nor the disposition for learning.

http://www.yourdictionary.com/biography/antoinette-brown-blackwell

See this reference also: Friends and Sisters: Letters between Lucy Stone and Antoinette Brown Blackwell, 1846-93 (Women in American History)Amazon

OBERLIN COLLEGE – AFRICAN AMERICAN AND WOMEN’S RIGHTS

Oberlin was the first to regularly admit African American students in 1835 and women in 1837. Mary Jane Patterson was the first African American woman in 1862 to earn a B.A. degree.

The college was active in the Underground Railroad. In 1858 they were involved in the rescue of a fugitive slave that was nationally covered in the press.

Clearly the ministers that developed Oberlin College set up an institution with a passion for justice.

SUPPORT FROM A FORMER SLAVE

It took the persuasion of Frederick Douglas, a former slave, abolitionist and editor of the Rochester [NY] North Star newspaper to convince the body at the 1848 meeting in Seneca Falls to pass the resolution on Women’s Suffrage. It was a new and very controversial idea that many ministers preached against from their pulpit. A few days later, the press reported on the proceedings. Mrs. Stanton reacted that it was still getting the ideas out there, despite their negative treatment. It would still get women and men thinking about these new ideas. I doubt she imagined it would take so long. She did not live to see their victory.

Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902)

http://www.npg.si.edu/col/seneca/senfalls1.htm

The Denial That Began the Fire For Change

The real inspiration for increasing women’s rights may have begun in London in 1840. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott were both attending the World Anti-slavery Convention, with their husbands. Mrs. Mott and other women wanted to be seated as delegates, but were prevented. The denial had the effect of firing up some of them. It was the start of a profound change in the lives of women.

http://www.npg.si.edu/col/seneca/senfalls1.htm

Alliances for Human Rights

The 14th was ratified during reconstruction, which W. E. B. Dubois called "a splendid failure." Former slaves had demonstrated their ability to be full citizens, and thus upset the stereotype of white citizens that slaves were sub-human. Some believed they were unable to learn. Similar misconceptions existed regarding women being less intelligent. Just as abolitionists and women’s suffragists had formed alliances before the Civil War, women and former slaves during Reconstruction found mutual self-interest in working together for the adoption of amendments to the Constitution that supported human rights.

http://www.amazon.com/Forever-Free-Story-Emancipation-Reconstruction/dp/0375702741/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276222840&sr=1-1

She Tried To Vote

If you read the second sentence of the 14th Amendment below you may think, as Susan B. Anthony did, that it at last allowed former slaves and women the right to vote. So as a test she voted in the presidential election of 1872. She was promptly arrested, tried before a judge, and convicted. She refused to pay the fine, and the case was never taken to a higher court.

“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Ratified in 1868.


http://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_Am14.html

Loss of Herself as an Individual

Until 1868, when a woman married she lost all her legal rights and even the distinction of being an individual. She became one with her husband and so was subject to what he would allow. [Some places like Virginia allowed widows some rights of property.] This is probably why, until recent years, women were only known by their husband's name and not their own. What happened in 1868? The 14th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified. More tomorrow. PEACE

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/awlaw3/property.html

When I became a minister's wife in 1964, everyone would only call me Mrs. and would not use my own name. I had to know someone for a long time before they would use my given name. For years in womens groups that I joined, they only used Mrs. and their husband's names. As I observed these women, some could find who they were as people, and others did not feel permission to dare to be an individual. The worst judgement usually came from other women.

How Old Is Your Wife?

If you are feeling sorry for yourself on any day, the article below talks about girls from the Roman Empire onward in time being MARRIED FROM THE AGE OF 12! Womens' political and property rights varied in different cultures, but generally they had limited or no right to own property and no right to vote. Thank you to... the women and, yes, men who secured those rights for us.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wife

Failure Is Impossible

FAILURE IS IMPOSSIBLE As you can imagine history brought together some extraordinary people to win the right for women to vote. In 1995 The National Archives celebrated the ratification of the 19th Amendment with a script that brought together the voices of many who made it happen. PEACE

http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/woman-suffrage/script.html

Link for Posting below

http://www.npg.si.edu/col/seneca/senfalls1.htm

Mrs. Stanton's Level of Frustration

SHE found herself releasing "the torrent of my long-accumulating discontent, with such vehemence and indignation, that I stirred myself as well as the rest of the party to do and to dare anything." The quote is Elizabeth Cady Stanton's noted in the book THE LADIES OF SENECA FALLS by Miriam Gurko. This was the impetus for the convention in July of 1848 that began the fight for the rights of women – to vote, speak our minds, and determine the direction of our own lives. At this time women had few unquestioned rights. The laws varied, but social convention kept most women in check until the day that Mrs. Stanton’s frustration boiled over.



http://www.amazon.com/Ladies-Seneca-Falls-Studies-Women/dp/0805205454/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275778550&sr=8-1

15th Amendment to the Constitution

It was in 1870 that the 15th Amendment granted African American MEN the rights of citizens to vote. However with poll taxes, literacy tests and in other ways most were prevented from registering to vote until the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Do you know when women won the right to vote? I say won because it was a long fight. Watch tomorrow to learn how long it took.

http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/15thamendment.html

A RULE OF THUMB

A RULE OF THUMB - is a general principle that night be applied in many and varied situations based on experience. It may not work across the board.

The reason I include it here is because of a mistake. There is a widely held understanding that it refers to an English law which allowed a man to beat his wife with a stick no bigger than the mans thumb. THIS IS NOT TRUE. THERE NEVER WAS SUCH A LAW!

A satirical cartoon from 1783 seems to have fostered this huge misunderstanding. Since that time it has justified cruelty and bad judgement. We should all know that there is NO reason to abuse another person.

Its always important to do research and learn the truth. It turns out it does not mean what I and a lot of others thought. IT IS A MISTAKE THAT HAS BEEN PASSED ON SINCE 1783. YIKES!!!

Please share ths with friends and family.

PEACE

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/rule-of-thumb.html

Welcome All

Welcome to my new blog, History of Hope. The goal is to share tidbits of history women should know - because it affects our lives today. It will include little known tidbits of history and forgotten stories of those who have gone before us - to whom we owe so much of what we have today.