LETTER: ALS to Editor [of the] Utica Herald.
WALKER TO THE EDITOR OF THE UTICA HERALD
Walker, Mary Edwards. Autograph letter signed, “Mary E. Walker, M.D.”, to the editor of the Utica Herald, no date [ca. 1860]; one leaf of ruled paper, verso and recto; folding creases; short closed tear.
A letter from dress reformer, lecturer, women’s advocate, and medical doctor, Mary E. Walker, asking the editor of a newspaper to promote her upcoming lectures. The letter reads in full,
Part of this is private.
Editor Utica Herald:
Dear Sir –
I give an extra Lecture in the Oneida “Course of Lectures,” as you will see by enclosed poster.
Please give me a good notice without referring to my legal matters, and if it is possible influence the Utica “Lecturing Association” to hire me for some evening next week, & I shall be under great obligation to you. I should be pleased to submit my Lecture to your approval, if I succeed in getting an engagement for an extra Lecture, in the “Utica Course.” My legal matters will be completed in my favor in a few days, before Judge Bacon. He can show you the papers if he will.
Yours truly,
Mary E. Walker, M.D.
Walker began lecturing in 1858 as a way to supplement her income, but it soon became her chief means of financial support. As her biographer Dale L. Walker writes, the topics of her lectures “ran the gamut – or gauntlet – of the most contentious issues of her era. She spoke on the evils of alcohol and tobacco, on love, marriage, divorce, labor laws, religion, immorality, politics, ‘morally unfortunate women,’ venereal disease, war, diet, abortion, and inhumane prison conditions” (Mary Edwards Walker: Above and Beyond. New York: Forge, 2005, p. 70).
It is possible that Walker was appearing before Judge Bacon following one of her many arrests for dressing in men’s clothing. As a champion of dress reform, Walker was unshakable; even after Amelia Bloomer, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony had abandoned wearing Bloomer’s innovative trousers for women because they felt they drew attention away from more important women’s issues, Walker continued to wear styles associated with men, including a black broadcloth suit and top hat. Walker also designed several garments for women, such as
a pantsuit which, she said, would “improve female health and discourage seduction”: a linen “undersuit” with a high neck, loose waist, long sleeves and wristbands, and “whole drawers” folded over the ankles with the stockings adjusted over them. . . . Over the undersuit were trousers “made like men’s, either buttoned to the waist of the undershirt or arranged with the usual suspenders.” (ibid p. 180)
Utica and Oneida, in upstate New York, were not far from Walker’s hometown and longtime base of operations, Oswego, New York.
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