Freedom of Speech

Freedom of Speech for Women. In the advancement of their causes, of
whatever kind, women of necessity had to make public appeals and take
part in open meetings. Here they encountered difficulties. The
appearance of women on the platform was new and strange. Naturally it
was widely resented. Antoinette Brown, although she had credentials as a
delegate, was driven off the platform of a temperance convention in New
York City simply because she was a woman. James Russell Lowell, editor
of the "Atlantic Monthly," declined a poem from Julia Ward Howe on the
theory that no woman could write a poem; but he added on second thought
that he might consider an article in prose. Nathaniel Hawthorne,
another editor, even objected to something in prose because to him "all
ink-stained women were equally detestable." To the natural resentment
against their intrusion into new fields was added that aroused by their
ideas and methods. As temperance reformers, they criticized in a caustic
manner those who would not accept their opinions. As opponents of
slavery they were especially bitter. One of their conventions, held at
Philadelphia in 1833, passed a resolution calling on all women to leave
those churches that would not condemn every form of human bondage. This
stirred against them many of the clergy who, accustomed to having women
sit silent during services, were in no mood to treat such a revolt leniently. Then came the last straw. Women decided that they would preach, out of the pulpit first, and finally in it.

Women in Industry. The period of this ferment was also the age of the
industrial revolution in America, the rise of the factory system, and
the growth of mill towns. The labor of women was transferred from the
homes to the factories. Then arose many questions: the hours of labor,
the sanitary conditions of the mills, the pressure of foreign
immigration on native labor, the wages of women as compared with those
of men, and the right of married women to their own earnings. Labor
organizations sprang up among working women. The mill girls of Lowell,
Massachusetts, mainly the daughters of New England farmers, published a
magazine, "The Lowell Offering." So excellent were their writings that
the French statesman, Thiers, carried a copy of their paper into the
Chamber of Deputies to show what working women could achieve in a
republic. As women were now admittedly earning their own way in the
world by their own labor, they began to talk of their "economic
independence."


The World Shaken by Revolution. Such was the quickening of women's
minds in 1848 when the world was startled once more by a revolution in
France which spread to Germany, Poland, Austria, Hungary, and Italy.
Once more the people of the earth began to explore the principles of
democracy and expound human rights. Women, now better educated and more
"advanced" in their ideas, played a role of still greater importance in
that revolution. They led in agitations and uprisings. They suffered
from reaction and persecution. From their prison in France, two of them
who had been jailed for too much insistence on women's rights exchanged
greetings with American women who were raising the same issue here. By
this time the women had more supporters among the men. Horace Greeley,
editor of the New York _Tribune_, though he afterwards recanted, used
his powerful pen in their behalf. Anti-slavery leaders welcomed their
aid and repaid them by urging the enfranchisement of women.