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.

Females & Finance in the late 1800s

Image from the County Capital, the newspaper to which Isaac subscribed

 

Two of homesteader Isaac Werner's closest neighbors were single women with claims of their own.  He was friendly and supportive of both his unmarried "spinster" neighbor Persis Vosburgh and his divorced mother of four neighbor Isabel Ross.  I will write more about the surprising number of single, female homesteaders in a later post, but this week's post is about Women and Wall street.  While doing research in the actual copies of the County Capital available at the Stafford County Historical Society, I discovered the wonderful image and story shown above.  Isaac would certainly have seen this story, and one of the things about which he was most certain was women's rights, something the Populist Movement supported more than the other political parties of that time, Republican or Democrat. 

 

Ironically, among the individuals Isaac and the People's Party most disliked were speculators and Wall Streeters.  Therefore, while Isaac would have had no problem with the general idea of women being capable of doing whatever they chose to do, because he disliked the entire class of speculators and Wall Streeters, it would have been interesting to have seen his reaction to this story.

 

The story reads in part, "The fever of Wall street speculation has reached the women of New York.  There are at present enough women gamblers in stocks to make it profitable to run a stock broker's office exclusively for women."  (Remember, you can click on the image to enlarge it in order to read more of the story.)  This story, published in a Populist newspaper, used the derogatory term "gamblers" rather than "stock investors."  The image is from an 1890 newspaper.

 

The history of the New York Stock Exchange goes back to May 17, 1792, when 24 stockbrokers gathered under a buttonwood tree and signed an agreement to establish rules for buying and selling bonds and shares of companies.  The name by which it is currently known was shortened from the original name in 1863.  You can read more about the history of the NYSE at http://www.nyx.com/who-we-are/history/new-york.      

 

The exact location of the "cozy room made attractive to the feminine eye and equiped with all the accessories usually found in the downtown broker's office" is not identified in the story.  According to a Bloomberg article by Kristin Aguilera, the first women to own a Wall Street brokerage were sisters, Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin, whose firm was known as Woodhull, Claflin & Co.  A New York Times story published in 1870 about the opening of their business predicted "a short, speedy winding up of the firm."

 

Aguilera's article cites Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2010 stating that "women held 53.2 % of the financial management positions in the U.S. and 37.7 % of the financial analyst positions."   At the time of writing the article, Kristin Aguilera was the deputy director of the Museum of American Finance and the editor of Financial History magazine.  You can read the full article at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2011-12-28/a-history-of-wall-street-s-women-echoes.html.

 

While it may surprise many that women were active traders on Wall Street so early, full acceptance of women did not come for decades.  The first woman to own a seat on the NYSE was Muriel "Mickie" Siebert who joined 1,365 men at the exchange as the sole woman on December 28, 1967.  Two endorsements are required on the application to become a member, and Siebert was turned down by nine prospective sponsors before finding two men willing to sign for her.

 

The anomosity Isaac felt toward speculators and Wall Streeters was caused largely by his beliefs about two things:  manipulation of commodity prices to keep famers from receiving a fair price for the crops and livestock they raised and political power that enabled the wealthy to control Senators and Congressmen, both state and federal, to enact laws that favored the wealthy.  Today, many farmers use commodity markets to protect themselves from wide price fluctuations for the crops they raise, and agri-business controls powerful lobbying of politicians.  Neither of the present political parties has exculsively attracted the laborers, miners, and farmers that comprised the old People's Party of Isaac's day, but the perception of the wealthy exerting disproportionate political power remains.  We are left to wonder what Isaac would have thought of today's voter alignment and of women on Wall Street.