USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > The Congress of Women : held in the Woman's building, World's Columbian exposition, Chicago, U.S.A., 1893 : with portraits, biographies and addresses > Part 3
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Our unbounded thanks are due to the exalted and influential personages who be- came, in their respective countries, patronesses and leaders of the movement inaugur- ated by us to represent what women are doing. They entered with appreciation into our work for the Exposition because they saw an opportunity, which they gracefully and delicately veiled behind the magnificent laces forming the central objects in their superb collections, to aid their women by opening new markets for their industries.
The Exposition will thus benefit women, not alone by means of the material objects brought together, but there will be a more lasting and permanent result through the interchange of thought and sympathy among influential and leading women of all
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countries now for the first time working together with a common purpose and an established means of communication. Government recognition and sanction give to these committees of women official character and dignity. Their work has been mag- nificently successful, and the reports which will be made of the conditions found to exist will be placed on record as public documents among the archives of every country. Realizing the needs and responsibilities of the hour, and that this will be the first official utterance of women on behalf of women, we shall weigh well our words, words which should be so judicious and convincing that hereafter they may be treasured among the happy influences which made possible new and better condi- tions.
We rejoice in the possession of this beautiful building, in which we meet today, in its delicacy, symmetry and strength. We honor our architect and the artists who have given not only their hands but their hearts and their genius to its decora- tion. For it women in every part of the world have been exerting their efforts and talents, for it looms have wrought their most delicate fabrics, the needle has flashed in the hands of maidens under tropical suns, the lacemaker has bent over her cushion weaving her most artful web, the brush and chisel have sought to give form and reality to the visions haunting the brain of the artist-all have wrought with the thought of making our building worthy to serve its great end. We thank them all for their successful efforts.
The eloquent President of the Commission last October dedicated the great Exposition buildings to humanity. We now dedicate the Woman's Building to an elevated womanhood-knowing that by so doing we shall best serve the cause of humanity.
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THE FINDING OF THE NEW WORLD .* By MISS JANE MEADE WELCH.
In the attempt to connect the New World with the Old in remotest times, it is almost impossible to find a clue that leads to documentary history. Nearly every European nation claims a hero, or group of heroes, who reached America before Columbus' time, and every eastern Asiatic race makes a similar claim. Of all these alleged pre-Columbian voyages to America, the only one that rests on actual proof is that of the Norsemen. But Leif Ericsson's chance finding of the North American coast somewhere between Cape Breton and Point Judith, led to no permanent coloni- zation, and did not impress itself upon the mind of Europe outside the Scandinavian peninsula. Hence it should not be mentioned in the same breath with Christopher Columbus' heroic venture. He sailed the Sea of Darkness, on the faith of a conviction, and " reunited two streams of human life that had flowed apart since the glacial age," establishing a permanent connection between the castern and western halves of our planet.
A long chain of circumstances led to his dis- covery of America. The closing of the eastern way to the orient through the taking by the Turks of Constantinople, made it necessary to find a new MISS JANE MEADE WELCH. passage to the Indies. Years were given to the effort to find one by circumnavigating Africa, and one daring captain after another sailed down the gold coast. While these expeditions were going forward, Christopher Columbus, who may have taken part in one of them, was dwelling on the neighboring island of Porto Santo. There, three hundred miles out upon the Sea of Darkness, the idea of sailing due west to the Indies shaped itself in his mind.
The story of Christopher Columbus' repeated rebuffs need not again be re- hearsed. As an example of courage he is pre-eminent, and no ingenuity of argu- ment can take from him his glory. Like Newton in the discovery of the law of gravitation, he did a thing that could be done but once.
When Columbus landed on the island of Guanahani, he there found a new race of human beings whom he described as "gentle and uncovetous." They were of a red- dish hue, with small deep-set eyes, high cheek bones, straight black hair, and almost no beard. Our double continent was truly the great world of the red men, for with the exception of the sub-arctic Eskimo, they were its sole inhabitants. This conti- nent belonged to them. Their houses, while they varied in degrees of develop-
Miss Jane Meade Welch is a native of Buffalo, N. Y. She was born March 11, 1854. Her parents were Thomas Cary Welch and Maria Allen Meade. She was educated at the Buffalo Seminary and Elmira College. She has traveled ex- tensively in America and in Great Britain, France, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland and Germany. Her profession is that of lecturer. She is the regular lecturer on American History at the Buffalo Seminary, St. Margaret's school, Buffalo; Mrs. Sylvanus Reed's school, New York; The Misses Masters' school, Dobbs Ferry, and Ogontz school, Pa. She has also lect- ured at Cornell University. She is the first American woman to lecture at Cambridge, England, or whose work has been accepted by the British Association. Her address is Buffalo, N. Y.
* [What here appears is a synopsis of the address, the object of which was to present the latest opinions concerning the origin and degree of culture attained by America's early inhabitants. ]
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ment, were essentially the same, whether they were the skin lodges of the most northern tribes, or the pueblos of the Aztecs. They were communal houses, in which dwelt several, sometimes a great many, related families.
Upon this communal household was built their political fabric. The lowest political unit in ancient America was the exogamous clan, next came the phratry, and then the tribe. With the exception of the Iroquois league and the Mexican confed- eracy, the tribe was the highest political organization in ancient America. Accord- ing to the scientific definition of civilization, there was no such thing in ancient Amer- ica. The tribes highest in development, social and political, were those in the Cor- dilleras, running from the New Mexican tableland through Peru. Those lowest in development were found, where many of them are still found, west of the Rocky Mountains, in California, and in the valleys of the Columbia, Yukon and Athabascan rivers. Large unexplored fields yet await the investigation of archaeologists and geologists in both North and South America. But the work thus far accomplished has convinced the majority of historians there never was a pre-historic American civ- ilization. That Aztecs, Mayas and Incas were Indians no less than were Algonquins or Iroquois.
Many of these groups, particularly Peruvians, Mayas and Aztecs, presented strange incongruities of culture, but, tested by strict scientific standards, they were not civilized. As to whence these aborigines came, and how long they had inhabited America before they were found by the Spaniards, and succeeding Portuguese, French and English explorers, science has not yet been able to yield what is to all minds a satisfactory answer. Discoveries made by geologists in the past few years have altered our attitude toward these questions. It is certain, however, that they had been here a long time. The inhabitants of ancient America were indigenous.
OUR FORGOTTEN FOREMOTHERS.
By MRS. LILLIE DEVEREUX BLAKE.
In speaking of "Our Forgotten Foremothers" I shall begin with that great queen who, in some sort, may be considered not only as the foremother of this nation, but of the whole New World-Isabella of Castile. Her clear intellect first grasped the thought that there might be a continent to be discovered, when her hus- band, her councilors and her courtiers all derided the claims of Columbus as mere idle dreams. Her stead- fastness sustained him through all his vicissitudes, and at last her action gave him the money with which to fit out the expedition. Next after our debt to the in- trepid navigator, this country owes its gratitude to
the brave queen. And yet how completely has she been forgotten in all the celebrations and festivities of this commemorative year! Orators speak of the great enterprise of Columbus, poets rhymed in his honor, but Isabella, the woman who made his expedition pos- sible, was scarcely mentioned.
When New York City was arranging for the cele- bration last fall, our City League wished to do honor to the queen by some decorations at the stand we occupied. We tried in vain to find a picture of her. The city was filled with so-called portraits of Colum- bus. He was depicted in every possible way, old and MRS. LILLIE DEVEREUX BLAKE. young, bearded and close-shaved, smiling with an amiable fatuity of expression, or frowning as if he hated all worlds, both old and new. But nowhere could we find a likeness of Isabella at any price. High and low through the city and up and down the land, we searched in vain. A lithograph of Columbus could be purchased for two and a half cents, but no presentment of the queen at any price, and we finally had one painted-enlarged from a small picture in a book. Thus was this great woman forgotten.
Last winter, in New York, we honored the memory of the Pilgrim mothers by giving a dinner on the anniversary of the landing on Plymouth Rock. This was the first time in the history of the country that these noble women had been remembered. Year after year, the Sons of the Pilgrims, in the great New England societies of New York and Brooklyn, have never failed to hold a feast in honor of the Pilgrim fathers, but never before had the mothers been remembered. We wished to remind the world of their virtues, and of their daughters', those noble women who have made New Eng- land what it is, who carried the piety, the heroism, the devotion of their ancestors to every part of our country. What fortitude, what self-sacrifice was required of those
Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake was born in Raleigh, N. C. Her father, George P. Deverenx, was a wealthy Southern gentleman, of Irish descent. Her mother, Sarah Elizabeth Johnson, was of old New York and New England families. Mrs. Blake was edncated in New Haven, Conn. In 1855 she married Frank G. Q. Umsted, a lawyer of Philadelphia, who died in 1859, leaving his yonng widow with two children. In 1866 she married Grenfill Blake, of New York. In 1869 she became deeply interested in the movement for the enfranchisement of women, to which she has since so largely devoted her life. In addition to contributing to many other leading periodicals, Mrs. Blake has published several novels, the best known being " Fettered for Life." In 1883 she delivered a series of lectures in reply to the Lenten discourses on women, by the Rev. Morgan Dix, D. D. These lectures attracted much attention and were published under the title of " Woman's Place Today." Her postoffice address is 149 East Forty-fourth street, New York, N. Y.
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first women colonists! Many of them were nobly born and delicately nurtured, when, for conscience' sake, they left home and friends and native land, to brave the dangers of a long voyage, the hardships of an hostile country and of an inhospitable clime. We who are the heirs of their labors and sacrifices should rejoice to render our tribute of honor to the Pilgrim Mothers.
It may be asked why we chose to celebrate the landing of the Pilgrims on the 23d of December instead of the 22d, the day honored by the men. Simply because the 23d was the actual day and date of the landing. You see men cannot even fix a date correctly without the aid of women. I carefully studied the journal of John Brad- ford, who was a young man on board the "Mayflower," afterward the famous Gov- ernor of Massachusetts. He kept a careful record of the events of each day. On the 2Ist land having been sighted, a boat was sent to reconnoiter the shore. On the 22d the day being stormy, the ship lay off the coast, and the only event recorded is that a wife, her name is not given, descended into the valley of the shadow of death. On the 23d, the day we celebrated, there landed on Plymouth Rock thirty-two women accompanied by sixty-nine men and children. There was one advantage in holding our feast on the day after the feast given by the men, and that was it gave us the woman's privilege of the last word. I carefully looked over the speeches given at the New England dinners, but as usual could find no mention whatsoever of anything that women had done. A noted educator spoke of New England as "she," which, considering how all things feminine were ignored, seems a piece of presumption. The most appro- priate toast given was that of one honored gentleman whose theme was "Their Selfishness."
This forgetfulness of all that women have done for our country is only of a piece with the usual proceedings at those masculine feasts. Year after year they have assembled to do honor to men alone. Some time ago the late James G. Blaine, in an address at a New England dinner, said: "Men settled and built up the country, men struggled and labored; these good men were the progenitors of a great race." As if men alone did everything-settled the country, founded the families and reared the children.
On that bleak December day, two hundred and seventy-two years ago, one hun- dred and one persons came ashore on the cruel New England coast, of whom only forty-one were men, and yet, with the usual modesty of their sex, in talking of the deeds of these first settlers, their sons have followed the advice given last fall by the leader of one of the political parties and "claimed everything;" whereas, the real heroines and martyrs of those days were the women. What hardships confronted them in the awful winter that followed! Only try to fancy what they must have suffered! Living in a few huts-they could not be called houses-on that ice bound coast. Think of the storms that howled about their frail habitations, the snows that swept over them, the bitter cold that froze them! How helpless they were! On the one hand the inhospitable forest that encircled them, the lurking place of wild beasts and hostile Indians; on the other hand the wide ocean that stretched between them and their former homes. . How chill they must have been with only open fires fed with green wood, with no clothing fitted for the rigors of that climate, with not enough food for them and their children! What these women must have had to bear of hardship, misery and home-sickness! No wonder they died and their deaths were scarce recorded. Bradford does not mention even the death of his own wife.
And then it must be remembered, as Fanny Fern long ago wittily said, "These women had not only to endure all that the Pilgrim fathers had to endure, but they had to endure the Pilgrim fathers also." And these worthy men must have been very trying, as all know that a cold house and a poor dinner does not conduce to any man's amiability, and they were so censorious. A later chronicle records with displeas- ure that a certain Mrs. Johnson was "given to unseemly pride of apparel," in that she wore whalebone in her sleeves. The Pilgrim fathers went a great deal further than their sons would like to go today, for they sat in solemn conclave to decide how many
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ribbons a woman might wear. Fancy the city fathers today holding sessions to dis- cuss the width of a sash, and to decide whether or not certain styles of feminine ap- parel are consistent with "a godly walk and conversation."
But to return to the first winter. Despite the effort made then, as now, to sup- press the "skirt brigade," some record has come to us of the deeds, the heroism and the noble self-sacrifice of the Pilgrim mothers. A woman's money fitted out the ships that discovered the New World, and a woman's money fitted out the " Mayflower." Mrs. Winston, a lady of position and influence, gave of her substance to equip the ves- sel. Mrs. Carver's steadfastness nerved her husband, the Rev. John Carver, to join the expedition. If it had not been for this grand woman, their "ghostly adviser" would have let the colonists sail without any ordained minister of the Gospel. Then there was Rose Standish, the dainty beauty of the expedition, a lovely, gentle flower of a noble English home, too delicate to bear the hardships of the cruel life they led, and who failed and died the first winter. But above all others should be mentioned Ann Brewster, who was the very guardian angel of the colonists. A woman of mighty energy and of dauntless courage, whose hope and faith never failed, even in the darkest hours, whose sturdy health sustained her even through the most severe privations, who encouraged the well, nursed the sick and comforted the dying, a heroine who never lost her confidence and her cheerfulness, and also in her tireless regard for others, her patience with illness and her fortitude in the presence of death displayed heroism of a higher order than that of the men who faced only the activities of out- door life.
Yet the sons and the grandsons of these women have forgotten to do them honor. Their deeds have been unchronicled, their names unrecorded, and men have calmly claimed all achievements and all enterprises as their own. The whole history of our country has been written from man's standpoint, and women, however great, how- over noble, have been ignored. Abigail Adams, the wise and witty wife of John Adams, who nerved him to action when he would have been indifferent, who gave him the courage to stand by the struggling nation when he would have deserted it, who is more than suspected of writing his speeches, is not mentioned. Mercy Otis Warren, the sister of James Otis and wife of General Warren, has no need of praise for her patriotic action in inspiring both brother and husband to do their duty. At a later period the achievements of men in ridding the country of the curse of slavery are vaunted and culogized, while Lydia Maria Child, Lucretia Mott and Harrict Beecher Stowe have but scant praise. The heroes of the late war have monuments raised high in their honor; where are the tributes to the heroines? Dorothy Dix, Clara Barton and Mother Bickerdyke, the women who by their devotion sustained the army and nursed the soldiers-who remembers them?
Among those of other nations who have come to these shores to make the repub- lic great, the stalwart German women, the thrifty French women, the intrepid Spanish women, where are the records of their deeds? The men of these nationalities have perpetuated their memory by giving their names to mountains and rivers and cities. What are the names of the women whose virtues, whose devotion made them what they are or were ? And we have become so accustomed to this policy of silence that we are prone to submit to it, without even a protest, ourselves even forgetting to give honor where honor is due. We hear much of " self-made men," when often if we looked into the history of such persons we would find that they should more properly be called " wife-made men," for many and many a man has owed his prosperity, his success in life largely to the energy and intellect of his wife, though she, like her foremother, is forgotten.
Probably the culmination of the annihilation of the women of this country was reached in the declaration made by Judge Hoar, of Massachusetts, while presiding at the National Republican Convention in 1880, when he said, " The American people are gentlemen.'
Today we will not say that the American people are ladics. That would be toc
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poor a way of putting it, but we will ask who are these who are thus forgotten? Are they so unworthy that their brave deeds may not entitle them to recognition? Cer- tainly not! We ask that honor be done, not to the foolish and undeserving, but to the mothers of the race.
But turning from the scenes of the past, let us look forward to the swiftly coming time of our emancipation. The forgetfulness of the past is rapidly giving way to the acknowledgments of the present. Already government has honored women by equality of position in the great World's Fair, and the time approaches rapidly when we shall have complete enfranchisement. To recall again the memory of the Pilgrim mothers, we find the contrast between woman's position today and hers two hundred and seventy-two years ago, as great as that between the comforts and luxuries we enjoy and the hardships that the pioneers endured. Where they had cold and dark- ness and wretched habitations, we have warmth and light and the palaces of our great cities. Where our ancestors 'had oppression and subordination, we have opportunity and almost equality. The end is nearly in sight, and the time will surely come when the deeds and the achievements of the foremothers will be applauded with those of the forefathers, and the daughters and the sons of the Pilgrims will sit side by side in their councils and at their feasts.
A SELF SUPPORT PROBLEM .* By MISS JULIA S. TUTWILER.
Some schools still make a boast in their annual reports that certain pupils have paid all their expenses during the year by work performed out of school -- so many hours in the kitchen, laundry or sewing room. The Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children should expostulate with the ill-judging managers, however well intentioned, of these schools. There is not one girl in a thousand between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five who can do this without danger of becoming a permanent inmate of an insane asylum or a hospital. By all means, if possible, let the mature generation bear the burdens of the rising one until it also is fully matured, thoroughly developed, and carefully trained. We do not allow even our baby rose-trees and infant geraniums to bear blossoms until they are well grown. We do not call on them for production until they have had their due period of nutrition from every kindly exterior influence that we can bring to bear upon them. No, it is not desirable that our girls should assume the burden of self-sup- port during these years, with the accompanying dan- gers of physical and mental injury. But what of the girl who will not accept this decision? who says in MISS JULIA S. TUTWILER. answer to our remonstrances that she will gladly shorten her life, or even dedicate it to pain and suf- ering, if she may but be permitted to enter upon her inheritance as the heir of all the ages, if we will but give into her hands the key that opens the Gate Beautiful of the wonderful Paradise of Culture? Are there such girls, and are there so many of them that it is a present duty to spend thought upon them and make such provision for them that they may not be degraded by becoming the recipients of charity to accom- plish their end, nor embittered by going through life with the consciousness of powers undeveloped and warped? Let us see. Katie is a farmer's daughter. She has received all the elementary education which the little country schoolhouse or the village academy can give her. She has a bright, cager intellect, whetted by the little it has received to an appetite for more. Her father has other children, and is one of that large class of worthy citizens who is just able to feed, clothe and physic his family and meet the necessary expenses of keeping up his farm or his business. He has no money with which to pay board for Katie, even at the least expensive school or college. If she were living in the Arcadian days of factory-life, when Harriet Mar-
Miss Julia Strudwick Tntwiler is a native of Tuscaloosa, Ala. She was born August 15, 1841. Her parents were Henry Tutwiler, LL. D., of Virginia, and Julia Tutwiler, nee Ashe, of North Carolina. Miss Tutwiler was educated at a French boarding school in Philadelphia, Pa., at Vassar College, at a Normal Seminary in Germany, and has visited Europe three times, remaining at one time three years for the purpose of studying and writing. Her special work has been in the interest of the erincation of girls. At present she is principal of the Alabama Normal College for girls. In religions faith she is a strong believer in Christianity, and is a member of the Presbyterian Church. Miss Tutwiler was a member of three of the World's Congresses which met in Chicago during the summer of 1893: The Congress of Representative Women, the Educational Congress and the Congress of Charities and Corrections. Her postoffice address is Livingston, Ala.
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