Woman's Column, The. (broken run of vol. III)
Blackwell, Alice Stone, Ed. The Woman’s Column. Published Weekly by the American Woman Suffrage Association, at 3 Park Street, Boston. Boston: American Woman Suffrage Association, 1890.
25 vols., 4to., each one leaf folded to make four pages, all sides printed; tender at horizontal crease; some pencil annotations.
A broken run of volume III: 25 issues; 2, 5, 7-9, 11, 14-23, 25-28, 41, 45, 48-50.
Although described as “edited by Alice Stone Blackwell,” Blackwell used her weekly The Woman’s Column (1888-1904) to mount her pro-suffrage platform in a purely editorial voice, buttressed by like-minded works by others. Each issue of The Woman’s Column prints editorials, poetry, announcements, letters, quotes by suffragists, short news stories, plays, and fiction. Contributors—male and female—for this 1890 run include Esther Morris, ex-Justice of the Peace; Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell, co-founders and editors of The Woman’s Journal, its sister publication; Frances E. Willard, the Superintendent for the Promotion of Social Purity; and the Hon. John D. Long, who contributed a piece titled, “Woman Suffrage is Right.” Suffrage events are regularly promoted, for example on the verso of the May 10 installment: “Anniversary Week. New England Annual Convention and Festival. The twenty-second annual meeting of the New England Woman Suffrage Association,” featuring Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, Anna Garlin Spencer and Laura Ormiston Chant, of London, as speakers. Also scheduled in the festivities are “choice instrumental music” and a dinner.
In the February 22 issue a contemporary pro-suffrage reader circled in pencil the article titled “The Ballot for Working Women,” which he or she apparently loaned out; his or her note in the margin reads, “[ ] please return.” A similar note appears in the March 1 issue next to an article about an address by the Honorable W.D. Foulke of NAWSA. In the April 19 issue the reader has circled the article titled, “Because She is a Woman,” and commented in the margin, “this may help you to answer your opponents arguments if he can find any.” (The article touches upon the inanity of the familiar arguments that women should not vote since they do not fight or serve on juries. In response, the author argues, “But you ask women by the hundreds and thousands to do the housework every day, which is a good deal more severe than serving on juries.” The author then writes that more than 60,000 boys who fight in the militia are not entitled to vote and an even greater number of men are too old to fight but are still given the vote. In conclusion:
We ought to be able to say to her that she shall have the right, as every man has, to utter her voice as to what disposition shall be made of her property. Women cannot fight, it is true. Men are not all required to fight. We are learning to govern this world not by fighting, but by arts of peace; and if woman cannot fight, what a peacemaker she is! We are learning to govern by arbitration, by leaning towards the things that make for peace; and in that attitude woman ought to be, as she might be, the prevailing influence in our government.
Other circled articles include “The Ballot: A Protection” (June 7) and “A Wise Girle” (November 8).
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