USA > Wisconsin > Centennial records of the women of Wisconsin > Part 13
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Victor Hugo says: ' Woman is the problem of the nineteenth century." We have reason to anticipate that the new era will be one full of interest and prolific in development for woman. Let us be awake to the interests involved - making ourselves sharers in the establishment of all that is pure and true for ourselves and our country. Let women express themselves by their contributions, in ways that call into action their higher faculties. However small the tribute in a financial sense, let it be heartily and gracefully given, as at a loving family reunion. Let all our decorations be suggestive of ideas and sentiments, and we shall find our- selves in the prosecution of our work, in sympathy with the most cultured thought of the world, able to understand and appreciate the inspirations of master minds in the realms of art. While we do not presume to suggest methods in detail for localities,
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we hope to take each other by the hand and go "forward." Let us all embark to- gether with the noble purpose of giving and receiving in accordance with the great law of compensation which God has established. Our bark is a small one and will make but a faint ripple upon the great national and international current which is daily and hourly surging with the inflowing tide of multiplied tributaries. But we look forward to the time when with song and cheer, the American people will unitedly and proudly launch their grand old ship of State upon its broad bo- som with all its precious freightage, culled from every land and clime. The spirit of liberty which inspired and sustained our forefathers as they landed from the Mayflower and knelt upon Plymouth Rock, is still, thank God, our presiding genius. They gave us a prophetic symbol, a grand tableau rirant, unconsciously delineating mental and moral qualities which have and will distinguish America's sons and daughters, from independence, seventeen hundred and seventy-six to cen- tennial, eighteen hundred and seventy-six, and from century to century. The firmness and power evinced by men, the suffering and endurance of women these hundred years have silently witnessed. We are again brought face to face with these persons and scenes, and the finger of God is pointing out to us with renewed significance our obligations as the inheritors of a destiny so dearly bought. Let us give new allegiance to the worth and grandeur embodied in the simplicity, faith and integrity, which are the treasures of our royal birthright. Let its beautiful heraldry be painted upon canvas, wronght in needlework, carved in wood and sculptured in marble by the men and women of to-day, as loving mementoes to be preserved in our national archives for those of the next century to behold and emulate, as we now review and hallow the spirit and genius of seventy-six. May our names and memories be as dear to our posterity by the sacred influences of faith in God and love to humanity, as are those of our Pilgrim fathers and mothi- ers to us and our children; as the drum beat of the rereille upon the ear of the sleeping soldier is the voice of our jubilee falling with musical cadence upon our awakening sensibilities. The centuries are clasping hands, currents of thought and inspiration are mingling, until the surging air is vital with holy enthusiasm. The women of the world are invited to aid in swelling the commemorative offerings of this glad era. Men have wrought, struggled and achieved, always inspired, and in times of great national emergency, they have been directly aided by women. But we have nevertheless been passing through the iron age-its pres- sure is still upon us, and we are weary with the weight. We find ourselves to- day standing upon the threshold of a more enlightened order of civilization, where different combinations are required to nobler ends, as God reveals the way. We need not stop to analyze critically; we have only to advance, heeding our best im-
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pulses without fear; for He whom by faith we discern goeth before us and is suffi- cient for us. In the true elevation of woman in her emancipation from the thrall- dom of fashion and the dissipations of social life, in adherence to right standards of education and in fidelity to true domestic relations lies the still undemonstrated problem of our country's prospective glory. The treasures of material and intel- lectual wealth embraced within her first centennial cycle and cemented by the love and loyalty of a united people, will symbolize to us and to the world the great Arc de Triomphe of American liberty. Its entablatures inscribed with the names and deeds of her honored heroes; its decorations, the emblems and insignia of pro- gress in the arts and sciences, and its open portals lead into the broad avenues and pleasant pathways of a purer and grander epoch, whose influences are already stirring our minds and hearts.
At its close, Col. C. D. ROBINSON spoke at some length, offer- ing a resolution of thanks to Mrs. THORP for her kindness in meeting us, and the pleasure she had given those who had listened to her eloquent and elegant address, which was enthusi- asticly adopted. An informal and general conversation about the details of the work done and proposed followed, and the meeting closed at a late hour by singing, amid general expres- sions of pleasure at meeting, and sorrow at taking leave of the ladies from Madison and Beloit who had done so much to start and give an impetus to the centennial movement here; the mem- bers of the club separated to meet again when the exigencies of the work shall require.
THE CENTENNIAL AT APPLETON.
The ladies of Appleton assembled at the Methodist Church, Wednesday afternoon, January 19, for the purpose of deter- mining what part they should take in the preparation of the state for the coming Centennial at Philadelphia. They were favored wit i the presence of Miss MARTHIA PEET, of Beloit,
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vice state chairman, who was introduced by Mrs. Dr. STEELE. Miss PEET briefly stated the object of the meeting and called upon Mrs. STEELE to lead in prayer,-after which she gave an interesting account of the origin and progress of the "woman's work" in Wisconsin, and what is being done by means of Centennial Clubs in various localities. All were greatly inter- ested in her remarks, and measures were taken at once toward the organization of a club in our city.
The ladies then adjourned to meet again in the evening, in the parlors of Dr. STEELE, where they received the official recog- nition of Mrs. J. G. THORP, of Madison. The evening was most delightfully spent in conversation, and in listening to a resume of the work. Mrs. THORP, who has been the inspira- tion of the work from the beginning, and was the originator of the plan -deserving the greatest praise, - read a very interest- ing paper setting forth her views of the importance and sig- nificance of the movement to every woman in the state.
Miss PEET also gave much valuable information in regard to the work accomplished in Beloit, Racine, Green Bay and other places.
Hon. A. L. SMITH, who was present, made some remarks, indorsing most heartily the action of the women, and pledging himself to do all in his power to aid them.
Judge BOYD, being called on, said that though his gallantry would, of course, lead him to indorse the ladies and their work, yet he was placed in somewhat of a dilemma, as it painfully reminded him of the thrashing his ancestors received one hun- dred years ago! (He being of English descent.)
Dr. STEELE said some earnest words heartily indorsing and encouraging this work.
All departed feeling that they had not only spent a delightful
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social occasion, but had received fresh thoughts and inspirations for work, and gratitude for the glorious results that had been wrought out by the grand actions and heroic lives of those who have lived during the hundred years of our national existence.
The names of two honored and honorable women, whose praise is in all the land, were selected as Appleton's contribution to the "memorial shrine," first and foremost in every good work and word. the beloved Mrs. Dr. G. M. STEELE and the honored mother of the lamented Justice Dixo, Madame DIXON.
MRS. M. F. PAGE, Chen Cen. Ex. Com.
Appleton has had an efficient organization, and contributed handsomely to the centennial fund.
WOMEN'S CENTENNIAL CLUB OF OSHKOSH, WIS- CONSIN.
[OFFICIAL REPORT.]
In answer to a call published in the Oshkosh Daily North- western for January 20, 1876, a large number of ladies assembled Monday afternoon, January 24, to meet Miss MARTHA PEET, of Beloit, vice state chairman.
Miss PEET was introduced by the local chairman, Mrs. JAMES LANKTON, and proceeded to give an account of the organization, and a synopsis of the work undertaken by Centennial Clubs in other cities of the state. In quick and generous response ler hearers manifested their appreciation of the beauty and propriety of Wisconsin, one of the great sisterhood of states, combining through the systematized efforts of local clubs, to give expression to their interest in the one hundredth anniversary of the history of the Republic.
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The enthusiasm culminated in the organization of a Woman's Centennial Club. After accepting an invitation to unite in a reception of Mrs. J. G. THORP, chairman of the state committee, Wednesday evening, at the residence of Mrs. Judge G. W. WASHI- BURN, the club adjourned.
Wednesday evening, January 26, the hospitable doors of the WASHBURN mansion were thrown open to a large and brilliant company, it being the occasion of a reception to Mrs. J. G. THORP, of Madison, by the Oshkosh Centennial Club.
The spacious parlors were handsomely decorated with the na- tional colors, tastefully combined with evergreen. Music lent its charm to the evening, the banner-hung walls reverberating again and again the strains of patriotic song, varied with the no less patriotic utterances of those who addressed the assembly.
Mrs. THORP was formally introduced by Miss PEET, and gave official recognition to the club, by welcoming its members, through the executive committee, as coworkers in the centennial field. One hundred dollars was paid into the general fund of the Women's State Centennial Executive Committee, leaving a fair remainder in the treasury, thus denoting a large membership.
Mrs. THORP then enchained the attention of her delighted anditors by the following able and appropriate address, which she had prepared expressly for the occasion:
Ladies and Gentlemen: As your invitation was kindly extended to me in my official capacity, I thank you for the honor you confer upon me, my associates, and the cause we represent. In this sense I may be supposed to understand definitely, the relation we bear to the national movement, in which we have, almost nncon- sciously, become active participants. You may expect me to point out the way, judging that I have given time and thought to the subject which you, in the mul- tiplicity of your daily cares, have not had the leisure to bestow upon it. I com- menced this work, as you will now probably do, influenced by sentiments of affec- tion and loyalty to my country. The voice that summoned us has from the first
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been vague, so far as method and definite plans of operation are concerned. In another and higher sense it is, I conceive, full of meaning to you and to me, as women of the nineteenth century. In this view of the subject, I gladly respond to your invitation. My own heart is stirred, and my mind awake to what I regard the magnitude of issues involved. I do not speak to you to dwell upon the value and meaning of historical reminiscences chiefly-hallowed as they are by ancestral associations, to many of us - but rather to speak of soul stirrings and aspirations which we all feel, in a greater or less degree, to be the spirit of the present, and which none of us can fully define. God, who inspired our forefathers to for- sake home and country, to exchange convenience and luxury for privation and suffering, who sustained them amid the rigors of climate, in their contests with the mother country, and with each other, had an infinite plan, which we as a na- tion are fullfilling. Religious freedom was their watchword; for this they suffered and died. But the principles they brought with them still live, and have seeded the centuries that have intervened. Golden harvests of material prosperity wave in the broad sunlight of our advancing civilization. Vineyards of surpassing luxu- riance and beauty gladden its hillsides. The fatness of the olive, and the glory of the palm tree, may be used to symbolize the wealth and victory, which make us a recognized power among the nations of the world, who are to join with us in our offerings of thanksgiving and praise. We are no longer impelled by the stern law of necessity: we find ourselves, instead, cradled in ease, and soothed by the sweet minstrelsy of peace. But underlying these, is heard a still small voice, emphasizing, upon the eve of our approaching anniversary, the value of our rich inheritance by reminding us of the fearful price which has from time to time been paid for it. When God led his chosen people out of the wilderness into the prom- ised land, their deliverences and memorial days were marked by offerings of their choicest and best. We have at length awakened to the consciousness that in pro- portion as we estimate our homes and liberties, shall we express in some suita- ble form, our love and gratitude, as a thank offering to the God of nations, by whom, and for whom, they have been bestowed and thus far maintained. Our material wealth, brilliant with the polish which the labor of the centuries has bestowed, must still be grouped in designs and woven into forms of artistic beauty to represent the grandest conceptions and aspirations of the age. The genius of this sphere of labor is love. The strength that has wrought, and the intelligence that has reared the monuments of our national greatness, must now be permeated by this inner life and light in the consecration of all our treasures to their highest and holiest uses.
The grand Moloch of unsanctified ambition which obscures and blights all that
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is tender and lovely does not represent the true type of American civilization. which was bought by blood and treasure, through faith in God. As we have recognized this truth, in times of deepest and darkest experience have our deliverances been the most signal. " When there was no eye to pity and no arm to save," and we in our madness, were tearing down and desecrating the holy temple of our united brotherhood, God sent us one, who through faith in Him. was annointed to save. We were then taught, as never before, that our strength was not in our statesmen or our cabinets, but in the arm of the Lord. Our jubi- lee notes, in sweeter and grander rhythm, will swell the chorus, in the same sacred song. Those who conceived and are carrying forward the project of a Centennial and International Exhibition, saw in the early days of its inception that the ani- mating principle of love was lacking. They saw that a refined and cultured en- thusiasm, begotten by the cordial cooperation of mind and heart, reason and affection, must be aroused, and its influences brought to bear upon the dormant and materialistic minds of the great body of the people, who are reached only in masses and emergencies. This necessity, opened the door and paved the way for woman, whose sensitive and intense nature responds more readily to spiritual than literal incentives. Hers is the prescience that discerns " the cloud no bigger than a man's hand," at the very circumference of the horizon. She feels and acts from impulse, before her logic has wrought ont, link by link, the chain of ar- gument that joins cause and effect. This is the magic of her influence and power which every enlightened mind comprehends, and by means of which, in the sanctity of true relations, the machinery of human life works smoothly and effect- ively. In the early days of our Republic, when physical and material com- binations were necessarily primary, the position of woman was comparatively, a negative one. While her elements were as thoroughly incorporated as they ever can be, it has been mostly in the way of absorption in the domestic, social and religious spheres. Hers has been the leaven that has silently wrought and lifted our generation into the range of its present possibilities. As the light of Christianity and the laws of progress are better understood, the saving influ- ences of true womanhood are more fully appreciated. "The signs of the times " indicate that the period has arrived when this law of absorption must give place to the higher law of spiritual responsibility, individually and unitedly, when women must represent their own peculiar powers in all the relations of life, in such ways as God shall open up to them. This does not, by any means, imply separation of interests, but, on the contrary, a more harmonions arrangement of the forces He has ordained shall act together, in their true order, within the scope of His divine purpose.
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Many phases of life, for which women are especially responsible, remain as yet, comparatively undeveloped and the world looks and waits, " As step by step we're mounting up the rounds of nobler fame." The present movement among the women of the nation has in this view a significance, based as it is upon "union of sentiment and cooperative effort, " which I repeat as the watchword of our order. Its moral influence is its real animus, rather than the limited results we expect to ac- complish in a literal sense. But while we are elaborating true sentiments. it is fit- ting that we clothe them in garments of loveliness. Let ns represent grand ideas, with womanly grace and elegance, indicating that this is to be the tone and character of all our feminine publicities. We shall not hesitate and shrink as now, when we have learned these lessons more perfectly, and tried our powers in this direction more fully. Women do not as a rule represent money, or material power in any line, therefore, there is need of greater effort, to carry forward the plans which we con- template to successful issues. This lesson, in the ascending scale of womanhood, will go far in testing our ability to participate actively in " every good word and work." We delight in family reunions and have multiplied wedding days from the wooden to the diamond period of connubial bliss. To these we invite our dearest friends, and attach special value to the offerings in which most of their love has been woven; we cherish them evermore as graceful mementoes of the years and scenes when our hearts were emitting from their unsealed fountains sparkling jets of youthful joy and confidence. In our great family reunion, states and nations are honored guests, bearing with them tokens of allegiance and respect for the fair matron, whom the ages shall crown with perrennial yonth. Here fountains are touched whose crystal depths reflect a brilliant galaxy of her honored heroes, and we have reason to anticipate that the holy influences of love and loyalty, which are being newly kindled will purify the sources of our national corruption, and reveal higher truths in political economy. It is no small thing to bear ever so humble a part in this memorial anniversary, and to have our names inscribed among those who love their country. This is the view in which I ask you to receive and indorse the centennial enterprise; so far as the women of Wisconsin understand and have undertaken to share in it. We do not .affilliate with any other movement. We criticise none and accept none, but are willing that our aims "be known and read of all." We unite with the women of the world to aid ourselves and each other, as the surest way to elevate and bless humanity.
We have, as a nation, reached a point in our progress. where the excess of con- veniences and luxuries we enjoy must be wrested from the grasp of vulgarity and meaningless display, and made to subserve true culture. Loving and appre-
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ciative tributes to modest worth and patient endurance are aids and incentives to higher attainments. The vain glory, whose expressions are better suited to the license of dissipation than to the sanctuary of the well ordered home; whose graces are those of conventional flirtation and finical pretension, whose wisdom is summed up in the phraseology of lisping platitudes, will be quietly ignored, in the more healthful sentiment which will be strengthened by our international reunion. Its decorations and suggestions must have the merit of utility or beauty to recom- mend them. We can only understand and define our position and progress, as step by step, we gradually but surely enter in to the penetralia of the Divine pur- pose, feeling and partaking of the spirit which the opening century is already dif- fusing. Our fathers had the foreshadowing of this day, but their children received a baptism of blood before the first bulwarks of political liberty were partially set. The years of another century were almost told, when we were summoned to the great tribunal of adjustment, and paid in priceless treasure for their failure to comprehend the full meaning of their errand and mission to this new world. Since that time we are beginning to understand what God means by liberty. The power to see and comprehend the issues of to-day involves the obligation to act. It also implies the power to influence and control, as in the early days of our republic, when men and women joined hands and hearts in the good work. While we love to watch and interpret in the secret places of communion with our own souls, the ways in which God is leading us, we should not at the same time be passive or indifferent spectators in the fields of active labor which are for the first time open- ing to us. We must originate and maintain our own methods for ourselves, working in harmony with men for the best interests of the family, society, church and state, equally responsible for our share and our power of accomplishment in each and all. We believe the present opportunity to be one which it is well for us to accept as an earnest that the coming centennial cycle will reveal more abundant treasures and grander facilities suited to the refined and delicate powers of woman. As Aurora. preceding the golden chariot of the morning, let us hope that she shall henceforth go forward, attended by the sweet graces of Christian- ity, scattering through all its circling years, the freshness and fragrance of her love, and crowning it at last with achievements which shall illustrate the glory and beauty of her emancipated powers.
The congratulations which greeted the eloquent lady, on clos- ing, were interrupted only to listen to addresses from some of the gentlemen present, who, although not allowed to join in the work of the club, are cordially invited to participate in its social
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pleasures. H. B. JACKSON, Esq., spoke at some length in his usual happy style, expressing his interest in the object for which the club had been organized, and wishing it God-speed in its undertaking. Judge WASHBURN followed, in some practical and encouraging remarks, which were received with marked appro- bation. After the spirited rendering of some patriotic songs by Mrs. LANKTON, Mrs. GORDON and Mrs. HATCH, the club was fa- vored with a short address by Miss ANNA W. MOODY. preceptress in the Oshkosh State Normal School. She spoke understand- ingly and eloquently of woman's work. not only in this centen- nial year, but in all the years of all the centuries; of her capa- bilities, and of the wider field of occupation and usefulness opening slowly but surely before her willing feet. At the close, Mrs. THORP greeted the speaker with a congratulatory clasp of the hand and a few earnest words of encouragement. The at- tention of the club was then given to Miss PEET, who described at length the commemorative work of art and the memorial shrine which are to be prominent features of the exhibit of the Women of Wisconsin in the international exposition at Phila- delphia. After some time spent in pleasant social intercouse, the whole company joined enthusiastically in singing, to the beautiful and time-honored air of " Auld Lang Syne," an origi- nal centennial hymn. Thus concluded the festivities of an ยท evening which will ever retain a shining place among the asso- ciations of this centennial year.
Mrs. JOHN HICKS, Secretary of Executive Committee.
The Oshkosh Centennial Club, beside the usual quota of $100 to the central fund, voted to order an expensive picture for the art easel, from a home artist of state reputation. They also
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