USA > Rhode Island > Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. II > Part 88
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Though encountering many discouragements and seeming defeats, this society feels that its work has been most useful to the advancement of women. It has not obtained the ballot for the disfranchised sex, but it rejoices in a marked change in public sentiment which has taken place since the time of its inception, and in a remarkable advance in the status of women, not in this state only, but throughout the nation. . . . Women serve on boards of control of some of the state institutions. . . . Remarkable progress in women suffrage sentiment has also been made as a result of the temperance agitation. . . . Since 1868 great advances have been made in the political standing of women in many parts of the civilized world. . . . Every year enlarged rights in one country or another, are added to those already possessed, thus indicating that real progress is being made in this great reform. The latest development of the agitation of the woman question has been the opening of the doors of several of the older colleges to women. Among those is Brown University, which now has the unique honor of possessing the first scholarship which ever bore a woman's name. The funds securing this scholarship were raised for its use by women, and through small contributions from women, in honor of the one whose name is given to it. Forty girls are now enjoying instructions within the classic pre- cincts of this university. A building has been devoted to their use, which is known as the Woman's College. The immediate work of this association is to secure, if possible, some radical changes in the statute law con- cerning the rights of married women in regard to their property and children. The old theory of the common law is that by marriage a woman loses her separate legal existence, it being merged with that of her husband. Many abuses resulted from the carrying out of this theory. Great changes have been made in the statute law, modifying but not destroying the fundamental principle upon which it was founded. As a result, women occupy an anomalous position under the law, granted rights, under some enactments, which they could not possess, logically, under the theoretical position which they are otherwise forced to occupy.
Mrs. Chace, although remaining as president of the suffrage association until her death in 1899, was unable after 1889 to continue active leadership. The work was taken up by the vice-president, Anna Garlin Spencer, until 1896, and Mrs. Ardelia Cook Dewing thereafter. The succeeding presidents were Mrs. Dewing, 1899-1905; Mrs. Jeannette D. French, 1905- 1907; Mrs. Rowena Tingley, 1907-1909; Elizabeth Upham Yates, 1909-1914; Mrs. Agnes M. Jenks, 1914-1918; Mary Borden Anthony, 1918-1921. Mrs. French published the "Woman Citizen" for ten years. A committee of the General Assembly to which a suffrage bill had been referred in 1914 heard Senator Works of California and Congressman Mondell of Wyoming advocate woman suffrage.
SUFFRAGE AND ANTI-SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATIONS-Meanwhile two other associations had been organized -- the College Suffrage League, in December, 1907, and the Rhode Island Woman's Suffrage Party, 1913. The three organizations amalgamated in 1915 under the name of the Rhode Island Equal Suffrage Association. The combined membership of the three associations was approximately 5000 in 1916. The activities favorable to woman suffrage, which in earlier years had been confined for the most part to Newport and Providence, had been extended through the state in an effort to obtain an organization in every representative dis- trict. While the suffrage cause at that time claimed such women as Mrs. Carl Barus, who had been influential in promoting laws restricting child labor ; Alice W. Hunt, a worker in many fields for the promotion of public welfare; Elizabeth Upham Yates, prominent as an advocate
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of laws repealing discrimination against women, particularly those affecting inheritance ; Mrs. Maude Howe Elliot, daughter of Julia Ward Howe, and herself a brilliant writer and an able exponent of any cause which appealed to her ; Mrs. E. H. Barney, leader of the movement to obtain the appointment of police matrons ; Mrs. Gustav G. Radeke, associated with the devel- opment of Rhode Island School of Design, and many others; the strength of the suffrage organization had suggested measures to offset its influence, including the founding of an anti-suffrage association, which became as active almost as the other. A suffrage leader referred to the "antis" in 1916 thus :
The "antis" in Rhode Island form a vigorous organization, and have among their leaders some of the wealthiest women of the state. In fact, the personnel of the members is composed largely of those who have found existing conditions of society so favorable to their personal interests that they are adverse to any change. Some of them are very excellent and useful members of society in many particulars, but they show an astonishing moral obliquity when it comes to anti-suffrage propaganda. . . . The suffrage organization has a booth at the annual food fair in Providence, where it circulates literature and obtains members. This has provoked similar endeavors on the part of the "antis," and on such occasions they distribute leaflets con- taining the same misleading and false statements that characterize their publications everywhere. It is diffi- cult to counteract their pernicious activities.
The facts were that women who were opposed to suffrage, either because they were unwilling to undertake the responsibilities of political citizenship, or because they believed that the status of woman would not be improved by possession of the ballot, or because of other reasons, had established a formidable organization, and were meeting the suffragists' efforts by counter measures. In public hearings on suffrage women appeared to argue for the ballot, and others to oppose woman suffrage. Both sides circulated pamphlets and leaflets, and both contributed articles to public newspapers and other publications. Legislators who had been opposed to suffrage were confirmed in opposition by the "anti" evidence that women did not wish to vote; legislators who were doubtful were in dismay because the counter argu- ments indicated no solution; and some who had been in favor wavered. The anti-suffragist movement had possibilities of becoming very dangerous for the cause, when, perchance, its activity should have the effect of forcing woman suffrage into focus as a dominating issue.
The Democratic state convention of 1914 placed a woman suffrage plank in its party plat- form, and in 1916 nine of ten delegates to the Democratic convention at St. Louis voted for a national party declaration for woman suffrage. A Rhode Island suffrage leader summarized the situation within the state in 1916 thus :
Some of the leading members of the Republican party are persuaded of its* justice, but the party as a whole blocks every measure we present to the Legislature. . . . It is impossible for these not familiar with the actual conditions in Rhode Island to appreciate the difficulties with which the suffrage movement has to contend. The smallest state in the Union-with every facility of travel to reach its condensed population- would seem to present an easy field for successful propaganda. An understanding of the problem must be sought in fundamental conditions and the peculiar characteristics of the people. The state has always been conspicuous for its conservatism. . . . Its industrial interests dominate politics, and all laws in the least inimical to the vast financial interests are bitterly opposed. . . . Our wealthy manufacturers are largely represented on the board of trustees of Brown University, and the President and many of its faculty are emphatically opposed to woman suffrage. . . . The conservative tendencies of the people are evinced in the fact that, although there are suffragists among the leading officers and members of the Rhode Island General Federation of Women's Clubs, yet it will not pass a resolution indorsing suffrage, nor admit the Rhode Island Equal Suffrage Association to membership. Furthermore, the Association of Collegiate Alumnae of Rhode Island instructed its delegates to vote against the indorsement of women suffrage at the meeting of the National Association of Collegiate Alumnae, in spite of the protest of a minority of its members, who are among the more brilliant suffrage workers in the State.
* Suffrage.
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WOMAN SUFFRAGE ACHIEVED-The solution was nearer in 1916 probably than the friends of suffrage dared to hope. The General Assembly in 1917 enacted legislation granting presi- dential suffrage beginning with the election of 1920, and the registration of women as electors began on July 1, 1920. Congress in 1919 by the constitutional majority required proposed the nineteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, sometimes called the "Susan B. Anthony amendment," which forbids discrimination because of sex in establishing the qualifications of electors. There was little doubt that the amendment would be ratified by the States ; indeed, there was almost a race by States to ratify among the first thirty-six. Governor Beeckman was not favorably inclined when requested to call a special session of the General Assembly in the summer of 1919, assuring the committee of women who called upon him that he entertained no doubt that the General Assembly would ratify the amendment early in the January session of 1920. The Assembly, already organized in the preceding year of the biennium, ratified the amendment in the first day of session, January 6, 1920. Governor Beeckman presented the gold pen with which he signed the measure to Mary B. Anthony, president of the Rhode Island Equal Suffrage Association. Its purpose achieved, the Rhode Island Woman Suffrage Association disbanded in 1921.
The League of Woman Voters was organized as a department of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1919, with the purpose of educating women to use the ballot effectively. A Rhode Island branch was established in 1920 under the name "The United League of Women Voters," suggested by the purpose of uniting all suffrage groups. The name was changed subsequently to Rhode Island League of Women Voters. The presidents have been Mrs. Helen K. Cheeseman, 1920-1924; Mrs. Harriet H. P. Crooker, 1924-1929; Mrs. Marian F. Taft, 1929 -. The league has carried on a work paralleling the program of the national organization, and has also advocated various reforms in Rhode Island, including changes in the caucus laws. It has conducted "schools of politics," principally to assist its members and other women to learn the intricacies of the political system, and to promote the discussion of public questions. Its attitude in partisan politics is related to "our high ambition to be an aid to good government. . . . . We are establishing our place in the sun, our right to be. . . . The parties could not see what this new place might, indeed, be. But we persevered in telling them that as an organization we were non-partisan, but that our members were bidden to go into the parties of their choice and work intelligently and not as rubber stamps." The Rhode Island League of Women Voters on the tenth anniversary of the National League of Women Voters, 1930, proposed for a National Honor Roll, Elizabeth Buffum Chace and Paulina Wright Davis, and for a State Honor Roll, Annie Howes Barus, Mary Rathbun Ballou, Deborah Knox Livingston, Harriet E. Thomas, and Grace Mather Hanchett, all of whom had been active as members of suffrage associations or of the league, besides in other social movements. All of the names proposed were of women who had died ; it is possible and probable that other names might be chosen had there been an inclination to include on the honor roll women who were still alive when the selection was made.
EFFECTS OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE-The effects of woman suffrage in Rhode Island may scarcely be measured in experience limited to ten years. The number of electors has been approximately doubled, without affecting materially the distribution of party strength as de- termined by a percentage analysis of the vote cast for Governor. Election statistics reveal nothing that indicates any increase or decrease in the proportion of "independent" voters. The Democratic party elected the first woman member of the General Assembly in 1922; the Republican party elected a woman as Representative in 1926, and advanced her to the Sen- . ate in 1928. There will be a Democratic woman Senator in 1931. Both women have been unwavering supporters of party policies, voting invariably with the party on divisions. The one woman candidate selected by the Democratic party for general state office-Secretary of
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State-was far behind the remainder of the ticket. Women had served on school committees earlier than the granting of equal suffrage, under the prevailing interpretation of the Con- stitution of Rhode Island that a school committee member need not be a qualified elector. The number of women serving on school committees has increased since 1920. Otherwise little encouragement has been given to women as candidates for municipal offices, although the town councilwoman has made her initial appearance in a few towns. Places have been found for women on several state boards and commissions.
On the other hand, there can be no doubt that women have been more influential since 1920 than ever before in obtaining legislation favorable to woman or advocated by women. A valuable achievement was the program for a revision of the laws relating to children carried through as a children's code in 1926. The primary election laws have been revised with the purpose of affording opportunity for the larger electorate, including women, to participate in selection of candidates for office, and the number of polling places for use on election day has been increased because of a recognition of convenience. Women serve on political committees and as delegates to party conventions. In some instances the membership of committees and delegations has been doubled, in order to provide equal representation for women in party councils. Women's party clubs have been organized as effective agents for establishing party allegiance and for campaigning among women voters. The experience of ten years seems to indi- cate that women have accepted the existing party organizations and have entered therein, in response, it should be added, to the very cordial invitations extended by men. The willingness of the existing parties to support legislation requested by women, and the very conscious, ever solicitous effort to balance political committees or to assure recognition of women, tends to prove that the men who are most influential in party management are not yet so certain that the status quo is lasting as to venture to neglect woman's wishes. These questions remain to be answered from ripened experience: (1) Whether or not women ever can regain the solidarity which was assumed to precede suffrage and which is rapidly disintegrating as party ties become stronger and women are submerged in the membership of political parties still dominated by men; (2) whether women can gain more or less through party affiliation and effort within and through existing parties than through holding themselves aloof in essentially the position of a non-partisan bloc supporting from time to time one or the other party as seems expedient : (3) whether or not there is genuine sex solidarity otherwise than in the imagina- tion of the Greek who invented the tale of the War of the Amazons and in the minds of those social philosophers who had builded their theories upon the Greek fable. In the extension of suffrage it has been found generally true that a new class of voters distributes itself within a few years by entering the ranks of the old parties; and that racial solidarity is uncertain in America as a factor determining party affiliations. Possibly the same general principles may be found to apply to women.
EDUCATION OF WOMEN-There was little suggestion in the earliest public provision for common school education in Rhode Island that less was intended for girls than for boys. The Potter school at Newport, conducted under the direction of the trustees of Long Wharf, was a boys' school exclusively ; and in the organized public schools at Newport in 1827 boys and girls were segregated in separate classrooms. In Providence the rules and regulations adopted in 1800 for the public schools forbade hearing boys and girls recite their lessons in the same classes, but otherwise did not stipulate a separation of the sexes. Francis Wayland's report in 1828 of of the survey of the schools of Providence in that year included a recommendation that a high school for boys be established, and outlined a course of study for boys. The high school was to teach navigation and commercial subjects, along with others related to these two, besides a few for general culture ; and the plan aimed definitely at furnishing an educa- tion that would prepare boys for commerce in ships or on shore, that, is, for the occupations
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which they probably would enter. Wayland was not narrow in his views on education, and his report indicated the desirability of a high school for girls also, to follow the establishment for boys, which Wayland urged as justified immediately. Action favorable to a high school was delayed for nearly a dozen years ; the high school voted by the city council in 1839, when completed, was opened for boys and girls. In the development of the institution separate courses and eventually three departments were defined: English and scientific, for boys not preparing for college; classical, for boys preparing to enter college; and girls department, offering the studies at that time sufficient for a finished education for women. Later the third course was modified with a view to preparing for teaching, entering the city's teacher-training classes, or the Rhode Island Normal School.
The Rhode Island Normal School in its earlier years included a preparatory department for students from towns that did not maintain high schools, and for many years gave ad- vanced standing to graduates of high schools. Few young women went to college, and of those who went fewer still received their earlier education in public schools. When girls entering high school requested preparation for admission to the few colleges admitting women as students earlier than 1890, they were permitted, by special dispensation, to attend classes in the classical department. Unconditional enrollment of girls in the classical department of Providence High School was postponed until Brown University opened its doors to women. Providence may serve as an index of conditions throughout Rhode Island, and the United States generally.
The idea of college education for women is distinctly modern; it was radical before 1875, and entertained by only a few before 1890. A more conservative president of Brown Univer- sity than E. Benjamin Andrews would not have promoted college education for women as Andrews did; another would have followed the path of least resistance and delayed, whereas Andrews risked his own money and repudiation by the college corporation of his action in admitting women as students. Andrews became president in 1889. Two years later, in 1891, the Women's College was founded, the university extending only the privileges of examination and certification. The university in 1893 definitely opened its doors to women, who were per- mitted to enroll in undergraduate and graduate courses as candidates for degrees. Before Andrews resigned the Women's College had become, by action of the corporation in 1897, a department of the university under a dean. The Rhode Island Society for the Collegiate Education of Women, which promoted the project for the Women's College and had built Pembroke Hall as the first building for women, transferred Pembroke Hall to Brown Uni- versity in 1897. College education for women had become a fact in Rhode Island before the end of the nineteenth century ; it was destined for remarkable development in the twentieth with three Rhode Island colleges open to women-Rhode Island State College, Rhode Island College of Education, and Brown University-and enrolling 1300 young women as under- graduate students, besides others as graduate students, and other hundreds in extension courses, probably not less than 2500 in the last. While the emphasis in this relation is upon the opening of Brown University to women, it should not be forgotten that both of the publicly maintained colleges received women as students in their earliest classes. The victory at Brown University lay in battering down the tradition that excluded women from liberal education in the arts and sciences, other than so much of both as were available in the state colleges main- tained, in each instance, for a particular purpose, which tended to limit the curriculum to voca- tional or professional subjects principally. The first baccalaureate degree awarded in Rhode Island to a woman who had completed the prescribed undergraduate course was the degree of Bachelor of Science awarded to Helen Mary Clark of Rhode Island State College on June 13, 1894. Miss Clark was a member of the first class graduated at the State College after its
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reorganization as Rhode Island College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. One week later, on June 20, 1894, Brown University conferred baccalaureate degrees on Anne Weeden and Mary E. Woolley.
WOMEN'S CLUBS-So early as the middle of the nineteenth century a beginning of the type of thorough education offered through modern extension departments of colleges had been made in language and literary subjects by lectures to groups of women. The groups were of two kinds: (1) "classes" recruited by men and women calling themselves "professors," usually detached and itinerant "soldiers of fortune," modern Sophists, although sometimes, like the Sophists who swarmed into Athens after the battle of Salamis, brilliant teachers ; and (2) organized women's clubs, which hired a lecturer with an established reputation to "give a course," or which arranged a series of lectures on varied subjects to be delivered by several different speakers in a season. The women's educational clubs were forerunners of the large number of women's clubs which were established in later years as women with some leisure sought to obtain education which had not been available for women in the days of their youth. The Rhode Island Women's Club was organized in 1876 to provide courses of public lectures and concerts for the instruction and entertainment of working women. Mrs. Elizabeth K. Churchill was an active leader in the Rhode Island Women's Club, which raised the Churchill memorial fund for the support of its projects. The work of the early clubs included "the read- ing and study of Shakespeare and other standard authors, courses of history, practice in reading in a foreign language," exerting "an excellent influence in elevating the popular taste and stim- ulating a desire for intellectual culture." The women's clubs were serious in purpose and earnest in effort ; they were doing, after all, much the same work that men had undertaken a generation or two earlier through the establishment of lyceums and debating societies, the. programs of which usually included lectures on a variety of subjects.
Women's clubs had a remarkable development in number and membership, and many passed from the type that was characterized as a group receiving instruction to organizations of women cooperating for improvement through research and study, and encouraging literary and other scholarly undertakings by the members, most of whom became actual contributors to club programs. The club furnished the incentive for effort, and became the forum and audience in and before which the finished product was displayed and discussed. Under the leadership of Rhode Island Women's Club, of which Amelia S. Knight was president, the club and six others-Coventry Women's Club of Anthony, Current Topics Club of Newport, Olla Podrida Club of Woonsocket, Sarah E. Doyle Club of Providence, Woonsocket Fort- nightly Club and Woonsocket Round Table Club-organized the Rhode Island State Feder- eration of Women's Clubs in 1894. The federation was incorporated in 1906 "for the purpose of mutual help, intellectual improvement and social union-for definite practical work, and in case of need, united action along civic and philanthropic lines." The object of the federation, as stated in the by-laws is "to bring the various clubs and organizations of women throughout the state, formed for the purpose of promoting higher intellectual, social, moral and physical conditions, into relations of mutual helpfulness and cooperation." Two years earlier Churchill House Corporation was formed to build a house which should be the center of activities. The corporation erected Churchill House, on Angell Street, in Providence. The Rhode Island State Federation, and one-third of the federated clubs, are affiliated with the General Federation of Women's Clubs, a national organization; and the state federation is a member of the New England Conference of State Federations of Women's Clubs.
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