Discourse on Woman.
Mott, Lucretia. Discourse On Woman, by Lucretia Mott. Delivered at the Assembly Buildings, December 17, 1849. Being a Full Phonographic Report, Revised by the Author. Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson, 1850.
8vo.; 5-1/2 x 8-1/8", 20 pp.; sewn wrappers; lacking original wrappers; disbound (from a larger volume); discreet institutional stamp at reverse; mild dampstaining (truly mild) at upper margin (1" at left to 2" at right); about very good.
First edition. In 1849, prominent author and lecturer Richard Dana Sr. crisscrossed the country delivering addresses on the present status of women concurrent with meditations on Shakespearean heroines. The Convention of Seneca Falls the previous year had stirred up wide public commentary on women's rights to which Dana could not resist contributing. As History of Woman Suffrage recounts: "He ridiculed the new demand of American women for civil and political rights, and for a larger sphere of action, and eulogized Shakespeare's women, especially Desdemona, Ophelia, and Juliet, and recommended them to his dissatisfied countrymen as models of innocence, tenderness, and confiding love in man, for their study and imitation." When Dana gave his lecture in Philadelphia, Lucretia Mott was in the audience. Mott quietly went up to Dana after the lecture and while admiring some of his remarks dissented from his assessment of woman's character. To her astonishment, Dana sputtered a word or two and then unceremoniously bolted from the hall. Fellow Philadelphians proposed to Mott that she answer Dana with a lecture of her own to which she eagerly agreed.
In Discourse on Woman, Mott canvasses why women deserve equality in civil, political and religious matters. Her central argument to which she returns throughout is simple: woman, like man, has been endowed with abilities, but throughout history custom has denied and repressed her abilities. It is not that women want to become more like men; rather, they want to realize all their native gifts and powers as women: "We deny that the present position of woman is her true sphere of usefulness; nor will she attain to this sphere, until the disabilities and disadvantages, religious, civil and social, which impede her progress, are removed out of her way. These restrictions have enervated her mind and paralyzed her powers." Perhaps the most chilling, penetrating comment she offers is her explanation of why so many women accept the restrictions placed upon them: "...like those still more degraded by personal bondage, she hugs her chains." She cites an impressive range of authorities, from Blackstone to Catharine Beecher, but it is Mott's clarity and directness that make discourse so effective.
She delivered this speech, as usual, extempore. A reporter in the audience recorded the speech and, as the printer points out, Mott looked over the transcription before Discourse went to press. The printing was for private distribution only. It was almost another two decades before Discourse received a regular trade printing (in 1869). Though now available in microform, the original form of Discourse remains scarce. Discourse on Woman, with Margaret Fuller's Woman in the Nineteenth Century and John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Woman, is one of the great 19th century statements on the subject of women's rights. At the time she delivered this address, Mott would have been considered the most important figure in the women's rights movement.
A foundation women’s rights document.
Franklin, p. 18.
History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. I, by Stanton, et al., pp. 367-375.
Krichmar 1858.
Lucretia Mott, by Otelia Cromwell, pp. 149-153.
Valient Friend: The Life of Lucretia Mott, by Margaret Hope Bacon, pp. 134-136.
(#5415)
Print Inquire
