Who Belongs in National Statuary Hall?

Prior to the movement to include more women among those proud representatives of their individual states among the bronze and marble statues in the National Statuary Hall, only nine women were so honored.  Soon, two outstanding women from the Great Plains will join those nine earlier women to be installed--Nebraska's Willa Cather, the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize and Kansas's Amelia Earhart, the pioneering female pilot.

The women there before them are a group to be admired, some whose names remain familiar and others whose achievements have begun to fade from American memories.  All of them deserve mention.

Frances E. Willard (1839-1898) was a pioneer in the temperance movement and one of the organizers of the Prohibition Party in 1882.  She served as President of the Women's Christian Temperance Union and was President of Evanston College for Women from 1871 to 1874.  She represents Illinois and was the first woman to be chosen for Statuary Hall.  Less well known but perhaps more significant is Esther Hobart Morris (1814-1902) honored by Wyoming.  Orphaned at 11, she supported herself as a seamstress and businesswoman, involving herself in the anti-slavery movement and women's right to vote.  Her influence led to Wyoming giving that right to women in 1869, along with control of their own property and equal pay for women teachers.  Elected Justice of the Peace in 1870, she became the first woman to hold judicial office in America.

Representing Minnesota is educator Maria Sanford (1836-1920), called at the time of her death "the best loved woman of the North Star State."  She championed women's rights, education of blacks, adult education, and was a founder of parent-teacher organizations.  In addition to education, she also led the conservation and beautification program of Minnesota.

Another educator, Jeannette Rankin (1889-1973), honored by Montana, was a social worker and advocate for women's suffrage, as well as a rancher, lecturer, and lobbyist for peace and women's rights.  Probably she is best known for her political positions, as the first woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1916 and in 1940.  She supported the cause of Peace throughout her life and voted against America's entry in World Wars I and II.  She was the only member of Congress to oppose the Declaration of War on Japan.

Colorado's choice was Florence Sabin (1871-1953), a pioneer in science and public health.  She graduated from Smith College and received her medical training at Johns Hopkins Medical School, the first woman to graduate from there.  Her medical career included many achievements, and for the state that honored her she came out of retirement at the request of the Colorado governor to chair the subcommittee on health that modernized the state's public health system with the "Sabin Health Laws."

Two Native American women have been honored by their states.  Sarah Winnemucca (1844-1891) of Nevada and the Paiute tribe, used her skills in languages to assist both the government and Native American people.  She gave speeches, published the first book by a Native American woman, and started a school in which children were taught in both their native language and English.  The second Native American, Sakakawea (ca. 1788-1812) from North Dakota, served as interpreter for Lewis & Clark.  North Dakota honored her as "traveler and guide, a translator, a diplomat, and a wife and mother."

Washington chose Mother Joseph (1823-1902), who entered the Sisters of Charity at the age of 22.  In 1856 she lead five missionaries to the Pacific Northwest where she employed her skills as an architect and artist in the construction of eleven hospitals, five Indian schools, seven academies, and two orphanages, supervising the construction and raising the funds.

Helen Keller

Finally, perhaps the best known woman among those in the National Statuary Hall is Helen Keller (1880-1968) honored by Alabama.  Her statue depicts Helen as a young girl at the water pump when she first understands the connection between her teacher Annie Sullivan's signing in her hand and language.  Although deaf, blind, and unable to speak, she communicated by touch, Braille, and a special typewriter to become a writer and supporter of social causes.

Of particular notice to me as I studied the women honored in Statuary Hall is the common element of service to others.  It was not their personal achievements alone that caused their states to select them but rather their great service to others.  In the push to achieve Equal Visibility Everywhere (EVE), I hope the continuing honors in nominating women will focus on their service to others, as well as their popular fame and personal achievements.

Another observation is that most of the states that have honored women have been from the Western half of America!  Several were born and educated elsewhere, but their service was welcomed and honored by states in the West.  Perhaps the fact that as settlers immigrated westward, women were often partners with husbands and brothers in farming and business.  Women played an active role in the Populist Movement, particularly farm women, while urban women and women in the East were more involved in Suffrage and Women's Rights.  Perhaps, laboring side-by-side on the farm or in other endeavors gained quicker recognition and respect than parades and speeches!

Willa Cather championed women of many types in her writing--Antonia Shirmerda in My Antonia, Alexandra Bergson in  O Pioneers, Thea Kronberg in Song of the Lark--, inspiring readers with fictional heroes as well as inspiring women with her own achievements as an author.  Amelia Earhart showed women not only that they could fly planes but also that just because men had dominated many professions women were not incapable of mastering those professions as well.

Other states are now considering whether to replace earlier statues with individuals from more recent times.  Two governors have already signed legislation to replace male figures with females, with plans to move the statues of these largely forgotten men to a respectful location elsewhere.  In some cases of removal, the men are being replaced because they were chosen for values no longer respected.

The selection of replacements should not be based exclusively on gender, but it does seem appropriate that states give more attention to the ladies than some have in the past!

Prairie Bachelor Reflects on Marriage

In his mid-20s, we know from Isaac's journal not only what he felt about the responsibilities of marriage but also what his future marital plans were.  He wrote:  "According to brother Henry's late letter, the Home boys [in Wernersville, PA] still continue pretty fast-tampering with the cup of Sorrow--till ending in wedlock.  Then simmer down--like a final anchor and enjoy the ups and downs of married life and the animated fruits of their toiling.  While I a thousand miles away, like a Hermit delighting mostly in my ever so dear and trustfull, best companions, Books, and intend continuing so at least for coming 5 or 10 years--no telling though how circumstances unexpected might interfere."

"Circumstances unexpected" do interfere in all of our lives, and in most instances it is how we react to those circumstances that determines the course we take as much or more than the circumstances themselves.  We cannot know all of the romantic opportunities that Isaac allowed to pass by without pursuit, nor can we know of all the romantic ventures he attempted unsuccessfully.  His journal offers clues that have been shared in prior Valentine blogs. (See "A Young Man's Fancy," 2-9-2012 and "Romance on the Prairie, 2-12-2013 in the blog archives.)  He certainly admired some of the young ladies in Rossville, whom he referred to as "Juliets" and "Venuses," but except for some fumbling attempts at flirtation, Isaac seemed not to have had much romance in his life during those years.

Suffragettes Marching in 1912

On the Kansas prairie, he was a thoughtful neighbor to the divorced Mrs. Isabelle Ross, but whether his intentions were romantic or merely neighborly is uncertain.  He called upon the much younger prohibition Lecturerer Miss Blanche Hazelett at the home of Dr. McCann where she lodged, an evening Isaac enjoyed very much but about which we cannot know Miss Hazelett's feelings.  And, he left a cryptic note in his journal, "2nd refusal," which perhaps had a romantic explanation but isn't clarified.

In short, we do not know whether Isaac turned his back on romance or Cupid failed Isaac.  What we can be certain of from entries in his journal is that Isaac was very supportive of Women's Rights, even going so far as to consider becoming a Lecturer in that cause.  The idea of advancing the rights of women was already an active cause when Isaac was born.  Many of the early champions of the women's movement were also opposed to slavery, and when Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were barred from attending the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840 because they were females, they held a Women's Convention in the United States.  The first Women's Rights Convention was held in Seneca Falls, NY in 1848, and in 1850 the first National Women's Rights Convention was held in Worcester, MA.  At that meeting, attended by Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and Sojourner Truth, a strong alliance was formed between Women's Rights and the Abolitionist Movement.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony

In 1868 Kansas Senator S.C. Pomeroy introduced a federal women's suffrage amendment in Congress, but it was the 14th Amendment with citizens and voters defined exclusively as male that was ratified.  When the 15th Amendment gave the vote to Black men in 1870, leaders of the women's suffrage movement felt betrayed by their male Abolitionist colleagues having failed to press for women's right to vote as well.

Disappointed but not defeated, Victoria Woodhull addressed the House Judiciary Committee in 1871 to argue that the 14th Amendment should apply to women, and Susan B. Anthony and Sojourner Truth both appeared at different polling places in the 1872 elections seeking to vote.  Fifteen other women were arrested for illegally voting that year.

Many men opposed women's suffrage because they feared women would use their votes to prohibit the sale of liquor.  When Frances Willard became the head of the Women's Christian Temperance Union in 1876, two years after its founding, she was an out-spoken proponent for women's suffrage.  (See "Before Carrie Nation--Prohibition in Kansas," 9-13-2012 blog archives.)  States began putting women's suffrage on their ballots, with mixed results; however, it was not until 1919 that women finally got the vote with the passage of the 19th Amendment, ratified in 1920.  Isaac, who died in 1895, did not live to see this achievement, nor did most of the early supports of women's rights.

So, ladies, this Valentine's Day as you remember the gentlemen in your lives, pause for a moment to remember the Prairie Bachelor who wanted to see women get the vote, who criticized husbands who treated wives with disrespect, who admired women who assumed roles typically reserved for men, and who never let his support for the social and professional advancement of women cause him to ignore a pretty face!

To read more about the efforts for Women's Suffrage, see the National Women's History Museum Timeline (1840-1920) at http://www.nwhm.org/education-resources/history/woman-sufferage-timeline.

Isaac's Inventive Imagination and the Tricycle

Lady Florence Norman, 1916 London

When a friend shared a photograph of Lady Florence Norman riding to work in London in 1916 on her motor scooter, I thought immediately of Isaac.  Although he was not alive when this suffragette received the scooter as a birthday present from her husband, the journalist and Liberal politician, Sir Henry Norman, Isaac was alive during what is considered the Golden Age of bicycling, or the era of the Bicycle Craze. 

Ad from the County Capital

Because bicycles have existed as long as the memories of most living people, we may tend to assume they were invented much earlier than they, in fact, were.  Unverified history may suggest bicycle-like inventions much earlier, but the first practical 2-wheeled bicycles resembling today's bikes date back only to the 1800s.  Therefore, they were a fairly new invention in Isaac Werner's time.  In their early years bicycles were regarded as more of a toy for adventuresome young men, too dangerous for practical use.  As paving of roads and sidewalks increased and bicycle safety improved, bicycles became more popular.

When Isaac Werner read in the newspaper about a respectable lady riding a tricycle in New York's Central Park, he began to consider the design for a tricycle suitable

Cartoon from Punch

for the prairie.  He recorded in his journal his design, altering the wheels and using knuckle joints in the manufacture.  He not only described the details of his invention in his journal, he also described the image he pictured of ladies riding their prairie bicycles to visit their neighbors, sparing them from the effort of hitching horses to wagons or buggies each time they needed to go for a visit.

[Caption for cartoon reads:  Gertrude:  "My dear Jessie, What on earth is that bicycle suit for!"  Jessie:  "Why, to wear, of course."  Gertrude:  "But you haven't got a bicycle!"  Jessie:  "No, but I've got a sewing machine!"]  Remember, you can enlarge the images by clicking on them.

Isaac's invention never went further than his imagination and the notes in his journal, but bicycles did become popular with the ladies.  Susan B. Anthony said, "I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.  It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance."  WCTU president, Frances Willard learned to ride late in life and praised the benefits of cycling, giving her own bicycle the name "Gladys."  (See "Before Carrie Nation--Prohibition in Kansas," blog archives of 9-13-2012.)

Not everyone appreciated the sight of women astride bicycles.  The story is told of male undergraduates at Cambridge University showing their displeasure about women being admitted to the university by hanging a woman in effigy in the town square.  To express further disgust with the behavior of modern women of 1897, the female effigy was astride a bicycle!

The fact that Isaac approved of women riding bicycles is no surprise.  His journal often expresses his approval and encouragement of the liberation and advancement of women.




[Welcome to all of you now visiting my blog through the link in The Pratt Tribune each week.]

Before Carrie Nation--Prohibition in Kansas

Frances Willard

Ask most Kansans to name the woman who led the crusade against liquor, and they will think of Carrie Nation and her hatchet; however, prohibition in Kansas has a much longer history.

 

When Isaac Werner was a young druggist in Rossville, Illinois, selling liquor was part of his business, and one of the reasons he chose to sell his business was concern about the changing liquor laws.  By the time he arrived in Kansas in 1878 to claim his homestead, he was sympathetic to the prohibition cause, although he was never an active member of the Prohibition Party.

 

In 1880 Kansas voters (which would have meant men at that time) approved an amendment to the Kansas Constitution prohibiting all manufacture and sale of "intoxicating liquors."  The statewide ban went into effect January 1, 1881, and Kansas laws remained among the strictest in the nation for nearly seven decades, the statewide prohibition lifting only in 1948.  That year the Constitution was amended by authorizing the legislature to regulate, license and tax the manufacturing and sale, as well as the possession and transportation of intoxicating liquor, but open saloons were "forever prohibited."  Gradually, liquor laws were changed to bring Kansas more in line with other states.  

 

Despite the strict early laws of the state of Kansas, exceptions allowing sales of liquor for medicinal purposes and original container laws that permitted sales in the original containers under interstate commerce allowed liquor into the state.  During these years, a letter to the editor of the County Capital asked just how it was possible in a prohibition state for anyone so inclined to go to St. John or Stafford and get drunk!

 

While Isaac was living in Kansas, the Prohibition Party was a significant political influence, and at the center of the movement was the Women's Christian Temperance Union led by its second national president, Frances Willard.  Elected in 1879, she held that post for nineteen years.  At a time when women did not have the vote, WCTU women nevertheless championed prohibition through lobbying, petitioning, marching, preaching, publishing, and educating. 

 

Advertisement from the County Capital

The Prohibition Party created problems for the Populist movement, for among the People's Party were members who both favored prohibition and those who saw no reason to oppose responsibile consumption of liquor.  Whether Populist candidates supported prohibition or ignored the issue, they were bound to offend some portion of their members. 

 

In 1888 a young lady named Blanche Hazelett arrived in St. John and made her home with dentist Dr. McCann and his wife.  She had come as a WCTU prohibition lecturer, and when Isaac heard her speak at a meeting in Livingston one evening, he wrote in his journal that despite her youth, she was by far the best speaker of the evening.  It was not long before Isaac paid a social call at the McCann residence, and he recorded in his journal the "social time in pleasant surroundings."  Miss Hazelett became the Democratic candidate for County Superintendent of Schools, and her political biography during the campaign included the fact that she had served as secretary to Frances Willard.  When she lost the election, she resumed her travels as a prohibition lecturer, and Isaac enjoyed no further social calls on Miss Hazelett.

 

Frances Willard expanded the activities of the WCTU beyond prohibition, advocating for education, better working conditions for laborers, improved sanitation and health regulation, child protection laws, and work relief for the poor.  But foremost among her goals was what she called "Home Protection," which she felt could be best achieved by securing the vote for women above the age of twenty-one.  For those women who found the suffragists too strident and unladylike, home protection offered a socially acceptable way to work for enfranchisement.  With the vote, women believed they could impact laws concerning the issues important to protect their homes and families, including stricter laws to enforce prohibition.

 

Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard died in 1898, but the Women's Christian Temperance Union carries forward its mission to this day.




Membership certificate of Ester (Esther) Hoopes

A friend shared this wonderful family document with me after reading this week's post about the WCTU.  The certificate belonged to her great grandmother, and she added the note that her ancestor was buried wearing her Carrie Nation pin.  Anthony, Kansas, where Esther Hoopes lived, is not far from Medicine Lodge, Kansas, home of Carrie Nation.  Thank you, Helen, for this wonderful addition to my post!