Something for Women Better than the Ballot.” IN Woman: Her Rights, Wrongs, Privileges, and Responsibilities.
Beecher, Catharine E. “Something for Women Better than the Ballot.” Appendix A in Woman: Her Rights, Wrongs, Privileges, and Responsibilities. By L.P. Brockett, M.D. Hartford, CT/Cincinnati, OH: L. Stebbins/Henry Howe, 1870.
8vo.; 20 full-page illustrations; library plate to front pastedown; front endpaper rebacked; brown cloth, stamped in gilt; library number on spine; spine severely sunned.
First edition, printing as an Appendix the essay Beecher read before the National Educational Convention at Trenton, N.J., August 1869, and subsequently published in Appleton’s Journal. Krichmar 1489. Brockett notes in his introduction to Beecher’s piece that it is
in the main, so pertinent to the topics discussed in this work, and presents so strongly the need of a better, practical, and industrial education for women, as something of far greater advantage to them than the possession of the suffrage, that we felt we could not better aid in carrying out the philanthropic purposes of its author than by giving it the advantage of the extensive circulation of our work.
The rather tall order Brockett attempts to fill with this text is adumbrated on the title page:
Containing a sketch of her condition in all ages and countries, from her creation and fall in Eden to the present time: her present legal status in England, France, and the United States: her relations to man, physiological, social, moral, and intellectual: her ability to fill the enlarged sphere of duties and privileges claimed for her: her true position in education, professional life, employments, and wages, considered. Woman Suffrage, its folly and inexpediency, and the injury and deterioration which it would cause in her character, shown, and the best means for her real advancement and elevation demonstrated.
He does so with a combination of text and illustration, with the latter depicting such scenes as “Woman Degraded to a Level with the Beast,” “Women Engaged in the Fine Arts,” “Female Physicians Making a Midnight Call,” “Women in the Army; the Dress Parade,” “The Wife and Mother at a Primary—The Father stays at Home Attending to the Children,” “Kitchen Education,” and many others.
The first few chapters offer a chronological history of the condition of women. Later chapters analyze her relations in society, for example: to men, to the law, to education, and to employment. Chapters are devoted to women with specific callings, such as medicine, teaching, and writing, with six final chapters spent on various aspects of the suffrage question. Brockett also provides essays by others as appendices: A, Miss Beecher’s Essay; B, The Marriage Question; and C, Recent English works on this subject.
Linus Pierpont Brockett (1820-1893), a descendant of one of the founders of the New Haven Colony, practiced medicine for less than a year before deciding to teach. He was professor of physiology and anatomy at Georgetown College, Kentucky, for only slightly longer, before giving over medicine entirely in favor of historical and political writing. His fifty or so books range from church history to geography, but his favorite topic was the Civil War and its leaders, a subject he sometimes wrote on under the pen-name “Capt. Powers Hazelton.” Woman: Her Rights, Wrongs, Privileges, and Responsibilities is counted along with his more important works, along with Woman’s Work in the Civil War (with Mary C. Vaughan, 1867).
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