In Her Own Right : The Life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton (54 page)

46
. ECS diary, 22 and 17 Nov. 1883,
Letters
, 213.

47
. ECS to SBA, [Jan. and Feb. 1884], and 23 Feb. 1884, TS-DL.

48
. SBA to ECS, [Jan. 1884], Harper,
Anthony
, 2:586.

49
. Clipping files, JPL;
80Y
, 379; ECS diary entries,
Letters
, 216–19.

50
.
HWS
, 4:58–60.

51
. Ibid. For Colby see
NAW
, article by Norma Kidd Green.

52
. ECS to ESM, 27 Jan. [1885], TS-DL; ECS to SBA, 29 Jan. 1885,
Letters
, 224.

53
. ECS diary, 20 Feb. and 30 Sept. 1885,
Letters
, 225–27.

54
. Stanton’s intellectual debt to the British secularist Annie Besant is a theme of Ellen DuBois, “The Limitations of Sisterhood: Stanton’s Political Leadership, 1875–1901” (paper presented at the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, VC, June 1981).

55
. Copies of articles in ECS-LC. See also ECS diary, 27 April 1886,
Letters
, 232.

56
. HBS,
Recollections
, 3d ed., 68.

57
.
80Y
, 385; Rice, “Henry Stanton,” 471; ECS to Theodore Weld, 2 Feb. 1881, Weld-Grimké MSS, Clements Library. ECS had no photograph of her husband: “He was always averse to being photographed or painted and but one very poor picture of him is extant, which . . . does him great injustice. . . . He was a very handsome man in youth and very bright and youthful in age.” ECS to [D. Phillips], 29 July 1896, AL-VC.

58
.
80Y
, 385, 389. HBS comes and goes in ECS’s diary and correspondence.

59
. ECS to ESM, [1885], TS-DL; HBS to George W. Curtis, 22 March 1886, Curtis MSS, HH.

60
. Call for celebration,
New Era
1 (Oct. 1885):313.

61
.
80Y
, 387; ECS to Elizabeth B. Harbert, [Nov. 1885], Harbert MSS, HEHL. For Lozier see
NAW
article by Milton Cantor; ECS entry in “In Memoriam: Mrs. Clemence Sophia Lozier, M.D.” (1888), AES.

62
. Obituary,
New York Times
, 15 Jan. 1887; ECS diary, 12 Jan. 1887,
Letters
, 236. The incorrect dating of the entry suggests that ECS wrote it long after the event or that she was too shaken to concentrate. She had also mistaken the date of their marriage.

63
. HBS to Margaret Stanton, 16 Jan. 1857, ECS-LC: “Tell your mother that I have seen a throng of handsome ladies, but that I had rather see her than the whole of them; but I intend to cut her acquaintance unless she writes me a letter.” Although she was flattered by the attention of male admirers, there is no indication that ECS had any extramarital affairs.

64
. ECS to ESM, 30 June 1878, TS-DL.

65
. ECS to R. L. Stanton, [May 1887],
CE
, 266; Lawrence, “Sketch,” 107.

66
. ECS diary, 27 Nov. and
6
March 1887,
Letters
, 242, 237; ECS to ESM, 5 March [1887], TS-DL.

1
. W. Andrew Achenbaum, “The Obsolescence of Old Age in America, 1865–1910,”
Journal of Social History
8 (Fall 1974): 48–62.

2
. Social learning theory confirms the important influence on development of an individual’s “private vision of a future self.” See Alice B. Rossi, “Feminist History in Perspective: Sociological Contributions to Biographic Analysis,” in
A Sampler of Women’s Studies
, ed. Dorothy McGuigan (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 1973), 93.

3
.
HWS
, 4:85–111; ECS diary, 12 Jan. 1887,
Letters
, 239; ECS to SBA, [Jan. 1888], Harper,
Anthony
, 2:635.

4
. SBA diary, [Nov. 1887],
CE
, 268; SBA to ESM, 26 Jan. 1888, ESM-NYPL.

5
. Harper,
Anthony
, 2:636;
80Y
, 413. ECS claimed to have been permitted a daily drive.

6
.
HWS
, 4:125; Harper,
Anthony
2:126.

7
.
HWS
, 4:134.

8
.
80Y
, 413.

9
. ECS diary, 4 April 1888,
Letters
, 250–51.

10
. ECS to Clara Colby, [1896?],
CE
, 296; ECS diary, 9 Jan. 1889,
Letters
, 254.

11
.
80Y
, 414–17; ECS diary, 20 Aug. 1888 and 20 July 1889,
Letters
, 251–52, 259; ECS to ESM, 11 Sept. 1888, TS-DL.

12
.
80Y
, 416; ECS to ESM, 11 Sept. 1888, TS-DL.

13
. “Grand Old Woman of America,”
New York American
, 1896, ECS-LC;
International Council of Women Report
(N.p., 1888), 339.

14
. Douglas,
Feminization of American Culture
, 74.

15
.
80Y
, 419. ECS chose the Dansville Sanitorium because she had known the senior Dr. Jackson, who had been a member of Gerrit Smith’s Peterboro circle.

16
. ECS to SBA, 1 March 1853, TS-DL; ECS to ESM, 24 June 1860, Autograph Collection, VC, courtesy of Ellen DuBois; ECS to ESM, 11 Sept. 1888, TS-DL.

17
. Harper,
Anthony, 2:659
.

18
. ECS to Wisconsin Woman’s Suffrage Assocition [late 1889],
CE
, 277.

19
. Harper,
Anthony
, 2:627.

20
. ECS diary, 9 Jan. 1889,
Letters
, 253–54.

21
. ECS diary, 2 Jan. 1890, ibid., 260; ECS to ESM, 12 Feb. 1890, AL-VC.

22
.
HWS
, 4:158.

23
. Harper,
Anthony
, 2:667, 951.

24
.
Woman’s Tribune
, 22 Feb. 1890;
CE
, 278–79; Harper,
Anthony
, 2:631.

25
.
CE
, 281–82.

26
. Ibid., 285; ECS to Clara Colby, 6 March 1890, Colby MSS, HEHL.

27
. ECS diary, 25 Feb., 30 Aug., 4 Nov. 1890,
Letters
, 262, 264, 268;
80Y
, 421; ECS to ESM, 21 March [1890], TS-DL.

28
. Delavan, “Stanton,” 5; Hemon, “Stanton,” 6; Lawrence, “Sketch,” 38; ECS diary, 7 Oct. 1881,
Letters
, 186–87; ECS to ESM, 29 May 1890, TS-DL.

29
.
80Y
, 426, 428–31; ECS to ESM, 31 July 1890, TS-DL; Harper,
Anthony
, 2:712.

30
. SBA to ECS, [summer 1891?], and tribute to Anthony (paraphrasing Emerson), 15 Feb. 1890, Harper,
Anthony
, 2:712, 667.

31
.
80Y
, 432.

32
. Dolores Hayden, “Two Utopian Feminists and Their Campaign for Kitchenless Houses,”
Signs
4 (Winter 1978): 274–90.

33
. Lawrence, “Sketch,” 116.

34
. ECS diary, 3 Jan. 1891,
Letters
, 271;
HWS
, 4:176–78; “
The Matriarchate
,” ECS-LC; ECS to SBA, [Jan. 1892], Harper,
Anthony
, 2:717.

35
.
HWS
, 4:189–91. This section and subsequent quotations from the speech text.

36
. Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, “Stanton’s ‘The Solitude of Self’: A Rationale for Feminism,”
Quarterly Journal of Speech
66 (1980):304–12, provides an insightful analysis of the speech in terms of its lyric style and feminist content.

37
. ECS to Olympia Brown, 8 May 1888, Brown MSS, AES.

38
. ECS to Lillie Devereux Blake, 19 February 1901, Blake MSS, Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Mo.; ECS diary, 16 Feb. 1900,
Letters
, 348.

39
. See Aileen S. Kraditor, ed.,
The Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement,
1890–1920
(New York: Doubleday, 1971), for a discussion of the righteousness argument.

40
.
Letters
, 346.

41
. Speeches in ECS-LC. Regarding the Spanish-American War, Stanton wrote: “I am strongly in favor of this new departure in American foreign policy. What would this continent have been if left to the Indians?” ECS to William Lloyd Garrison II, 27 July 1898, WLG-SSC.

42
. ECS diary, 1 Nov. 1892,
Letters
, 289–90.

43
. ECS to ESM, 18 Oct. [1892?], TS-DL; Robert Collyer to “Sweet Heart” (ECS), 9 May 1900, and others, ECS-LC; ECS to W. L. Garrison II, 6 Jan. 1896, WLG-SSC. On her seventy-eighth birthday, ECS described her daily routine: “A half dozen articles . . . have been written by me this month. I keep in good physical condition because I act rationally. Every pleasant day I take a drive in the park, and indulge in short naps thrown in between my reading and writing. I mingle good novels with other reading. The half dozen letters—there are sometimes more—which I write daily are disposed of at intervals during the day. A half hour before retiring for the night, I play a few games of backgammon.” ECS diary, 12 Nov. 1893,
Letters
, 300.

44
. ECS diary, 23 July 1893,
Letters
, 284–85.

45
. SBA to ESM, 15 Feb. 1892, ESM-NYPL; ECS diary, 1 Aug. 1893,
Letters
, 293; Harper,
Anthony
, 2:712.

46
.
80Y
, 441; ECS diary, 16 Oct. and 11 July 1893, and 29 Aug. 1897,
Letters
, 298, 293, 327.

47
. Wills of Tryphena Cady Bayard and Daniel Cady Stanton, both probated 1891, County of New York, Surrogate’s Court. No copy of Henry Stanton’s will has been located. Robert Stanton published
80Y
because the publishing house with which ECS had contracted asked her to change one sentence and she refused. The sentence referred to William Jennings Bryan’s campaign for the presidency in 1896: “I heard the clarion call of the coming revolution.” Lawrence, “Sketch,” 128–29.

48
. ECS to Ellen Wright Osborne, 10 March [?], WLG-SSC; ECS diary, 17 Aug. 1894 and 23 Dec. 1893,
Letters
, 307–8, 301–2.

49
. Delavan, “Stanton,” 14–15;
CE
, 292; AL,
Anthony
, 293; Harper,
Anthony
, 2:847.

50
. R. B. Stanton, “Reminiscences.” Henry’s nephew had never been an admirer of his aunt and may have purposely described a melancholy old woman rather than a triumphant feminist.

51
. ECS to E. H. Slagle, 10 Dec. 1885, TS-DL; Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Revising Committee,
The Woman’s Bible
(Seattle: Coalition Task Force on Women and Religion, 1974), 7–13. Another useful reprint of
The Woman’s Bible
is
The Original Feminist Attack on the Bible
, introd. Barbara Welter (New York: Arno, 1974).

52
. ECS diary, 25 Nov. 1882,
Letters
, 198.

53
.
80Y
, 382, 389–92; ECS diary, 31 Aug. 1886, 13 and 16 March 1895,
Letters
, 233, 312;
CE
, 302; Mary Gray Peck,
Carrie Chapman Catt: A Biography
(New York: H. W. Wilson, 1944), 87–88. For Catt see
NAW
article by Eleanor Flexner.

54
. The others were Rev. Phebe Hanaford, Ellen B. Dietrich, Ursula Gestafield, Louisa Southworth, and Frances E. Burr; none were prominent either as feminists or as scholars.

55
. ECS to Antoinette Brown Blackwell, 27 April 1896, Blackwell MSS, AES.

56
. ECS to Clara Colby [Jan. 1896],
CE
, 302.

57
.
HWS
, 4:263–64.

58
. Harper,
Anthony
, 2:856; AL,
Anthony
, 280.

59
. ECS to SBA, [July 1895], Harper,
Anthony
, 2:842.

60
. ECS to SBA, [1897], ibid., 951–52. SBA to ECS, [Dec. 1897?],
Letters
, 328 (ECS wrote two of the requested speeches, see
HWS
, 4:316–18); ECS diary, 7 Feb. 1896,
Letters
, 321–22.

61
. SBA to ESM, 12 March 1897, ESM-NYPL; ECS diary, 8 June 1901,
Letters
, 357–58; ECS to Ida Husted Harper, 30 Sept. 1902, Harper MSS, HEHL.

62
. SBA to Clara Colby, 20 Nov. 1899, Harper MSS, HEHL. For Blake, see
NAW
article by William A. Taylor.

63
. ECS to Lillie Devereux Blake, 12 June 1899, Blake MSS, Missouri Historical Society.

64
. ECS to Elizabeth B. Harbert, 25 July 1901, Harbert MSS, HEHL.

65
. ECS to Clara Colby [early 1895], CE, 297;
80Y
, 450; ECS diary, 3 Dec. 1900,
Letters
, 354. About playing chess, ECS wrote, “In my younger days, chess was thought to be a necessary accomplishment. But now you seldom meet a woman who knows the game. They all say it is too hard work as if thinking were not one of the pleasures of life.” ECS to Grace Greenwood [Sarah J. Lippincott], 30 May 1873,
Letters
, 141–42.

66
. ECS diary, 20 May 1896,
Letters
, 318; see also newspaper clippings, ECS-LC.

67
. ECS diary, 25 Aug. 1901,
Letters
, 358.

68
. ECS diary, 1 April 1897,
Letters
, 325. ECS’s granddaughter, Nora Blatch Barney, also went blind in her old age. There were other shared family traits: Stanton’s relatives and descendants were robust and rotund, had good teeth and low blood pressure. Several had weak knees and varicose veins in their left legs. Rhoda Barney Jenkins, telephone interview, 26 Feb. 1981. ECS asked visitors to read to her as well, but as each selected his own favorite book, the result was “‘mixed drinks,’ as my menfolk would say, and I believe this is never good.” ECS diary, 20 July 1896,
Letters
, 320.

69
. ECS to Harriot Stanton Blatch, 20 Aug. 1880, TS-DL; ECS to Theodore Stanton, 25 Oct. 1896, ibid.: “There is nothing like work to heal all our sorrow.” ECS to H. S. Blatch, 11 March 1877,
Letters
, 150–51; ECS diary, 4 Feb. 1899,
Letters
, 337.