Independent
November 4, 1957
Women's Suffrage, 1756 - 1850
This week is the anniversary of a few important events in Women's Suffrage in the U.S., and I thought it would be a good opportunity to foster some discussion on the subject. Today, I'm going to take a look at a few key events in American history prior to Susan B. Anthony's historic work.
A Historical Perspective
The first woman to vote in America was Lydia Chapin Taft, who received her late husbands proxy to vote in a town meeting in Uxbridge, Massachusetts on October 30, 1756 - 164 years prior to the signing of the Nineteenth Amendment. In the 1820's, Frances Wright gave a series of lectures on women's rights and other reformist ideals, garnering the ill-will of many men at the time: "Miss Wright, who has formed a settlement in Tennessee with purchased [African Americans], intends to liberate them as soon as the purchase money with interest, is refunded by their labor," reported The Sandusky Clarion on July 26, 1828. "She proposes an amalgamation of the white and black population of our country. Miss Wright has drunk deeply of the spirit of infidelity, and coincides with the licentious opinion of the famous Robert Owen, of New Harmony, that the institution of marriage ought to be abolished; it is understood, that many once favorable to the enterprise and the avowed philanthropy of this female, are now completely disgusted with her licentious opinions and projects." Wright did free the slaves in 1830, and accompanied them to the newly-freed Haiti.
In 1848, another wall was struck down when Lucretia Mott was nominated as the vice-presidential candidate for the Liberty Party. More importantly, she helped form the Seneca Falls Convention on women's rights, a precursor to the National Women's Rights Convention of 1850. After her death in 1880, the Logansport Journal printed this worthy tribute: "To the Editor: On last Sunday there was buried, near Philadelphia, the remains of a little old Quaker woman whose name will never die while human freedom remains a characteristic feature of the Government. Lucretia Mott was one among the first persons in the United States who endeavored by positive law to make actual that romance in the Declaration of Independence, which said, 'That all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights.'"
The first National Women's Rights Convention - the beginning of an organized fight for Women's rights in America - took place in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1850. "Miss [Pauline] Davis on taking the chair, read a very elaborate address on the wrongs and rights of women. She presented the restraints under which women were bound down to slavery in a most touching manner," explained The Daily Sanduskian on October 29, 1850. " She asserted the equality of women by nature, contending that she was entitled to equality with nature's lords, in politics, legislature and every thing else. Women wanted an equal chance to unfold her great capacities, and she was bound to have it. She stated that society would remain in profound barbarism while it denied to women equal rights in everything under the sun."
The Daily Sanduskian
October 29, 1850
Independent
November 3, 1976
1913: U.S. introduces income tax
Many American citizens received information regarding a national income tax today. "A married man living with his wife, who is in receipt of an income of $5,000 pays only $10 a year to the government, and if his income is $10,000 he pays only $60 - the exemption in each case being $4,000. For the bachelor or the widower or the married man living apart from his wife, the exemption is $1,000 less, and therefore his tax is $10 in excess of that of the married man with the larger exemption," explained The Syracuse Herald on November 4, 1913. NOTE: Reactions to the income tax were mixed, with some believing the tax was equitable and others expressing that a tax should only be charged in a time of national need, such as during war times.
The Racine Journal-News
November 3, 1913