Free Thought Magazine (3 vols.).
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. “The Effects of Woman Suffrage on Questions of Moral and Religion” [Vol. XIV, No. 8, August, 1896]; “The Degraded Status of Woman in the Bible” [Vol. XIV, No. 9, September, 1896]; “The Christian Church and Woman” [Vol. XIV, No. 11, November, 1896]. Chicago, ILL: Free Thought Magazine, 1896.
3 vols., 8vo., pp. 477-480; pp. 539-544; pp. 673-682; printed light brown wrappers printed in black; frontispiece portrait of Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the September issue; some chipping to covers; 1/2” stain at rear cover/spine of the November issue; discreet institutional stamp at upper margins; generally very good — fresh and firm; in a specially made cloth slipcase.
First appearance of these three articles in which Elizabeth Cady Stanton defends her Woman’s Bible. In 1895 Elizabeth Cady Stanton published the first part of the Woman’s Bible in which she sought to demonstrate that its text was more patriarchal bias than sacred writ. The work was received with howls of disapproval — at the same time it became a bestseller, going through seven printings in six months. Fellow suffragists anguished over the furor provoked by the book; and, at their annual convention in January, 1896 — despite the objections of Susan B. Anthony — passed a censure resolution declaring the NAWSA “has no official connection with the so-called Woman’s Bible...” Stung at the betrayal of the organization she had co-founded and headed for so many years, Stanton refused to be cowed. She continued to defend the Woman’s Bible and to link the political, social and religious rights of woman. These three articles published in the fall of 1896 as controversy roiled the suffrage movement reiterate in ever-stronger language that women must no longer allow themselves to be humiliated in the name of faith. Her last words both challenge and rebuke: “There is nothing more pathetic in all history than the hopeless resignation of woman to the outrages she has been taught to believe are ordained by God.” Subsequently, the three articles were published as a leaflet. One of the magazine’s editorial contributors was Helen Hamilton Gardener (1853-1925), writer, freethinker, suffragist and feminist, who served on Mrs. Stanton’s advisory committee for the Woman’s Bible; presumably Gardener was instrumental in Free Thought Magazine’s decision to publish. Each issue opens with the Stanton article, obviously the major focus. As collateral to the Woman’s Bible, the pieces are significant and, in our experience, exceedingly scarce in either format. (In Her Own Right, by Griffiths, pp. 210-213.)
(#5373)
Print Inquire
