• Battle for Women's Rights
Battle for Women's Rights Hannah Whitall Smith was knocked down by a relentless series of blows in her latter years, but she was never down for long. There was a resilient quality in this pioneer of women's rights in the nineteenth century. Although motherhood was always her number one commitment, she found time to go to temperance meetings, to preach, teach, and speak on all kinds of social issues.
Deeply upset about the position of wives in Victorian society, she joined with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth
Cady Stanton (famous early advocates of women's rights) and gave stirring speeches advocating women's suffrage, appalled that women were not considered responsible enough adults to vote.
She believed intensely that if women had the right to develop their minds, liberation would follow. "Girls should be made to go to college at bayonet point," she once remarked. Hannah advocated everything short of blackmail to force the consent of reluctant fathers of nineteenthcentury women, who usually considered higher education for their daughters to be not only superfluous but a downright drawback to their marriage potential. What husband would want to be "saddled" with an educated wife?
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Her most successful convert was her niece, Martha Carey Thomas, the eldest daughter of her sister Mary and Dr.
James Carey Thomas. "Minnie," as Hannah called Carey, was very close to her aunt as she was growing up, and showed considerable intelligence at an early age. By the time she was 17, she was determined to go to college.
Carey's father, more liberal than most Victorian men, was still aghast that a daughter of his wanted to ruin her life by pursuing an advanced course of study. In 1874, no reputable young lady would even think of destroying her chances for a good marriage by becoming educated. Members of his family sympathized with him in his refusal to consent to a university for Carey. Dr. Thomas remonstrated with Carey. He told her he didn't have the money to send her to college and was already overburdened with the support of eight children.
There must have been something in the Whitall family that encouraged independence of thought. Mary Whitall
Thomas was quieter and less vocal than her famous sister Hannah, but she too believed in women's rights. Carey therefore had a very staunch ally in her mother. Mother and daughter begged. They pleaded. They cajoled. Carey offered to complete four years of study in two years to save her father money.
Dr. Thomas refused. He had said no and he meant no.
Had the education of a son been in question, the funds would have been found some way, but it was a foolish waste of money to educate a daughter.
Carey and her mother appeared to be beaten. What could they do next? Mary Thomas resorted to a final desperate strategy.
"Nothing is left for us but tears," she told Carey. "I have used every argument I can think of in talking with thy father. Reason will not move him. Now we shall see whether he can stand out against our weeping. We shall both have to cry day and night, thee as well as I."
Carey was ready even for that. So together and sepa-
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rately, they wept. And they wept. Her father pleaded with them, lost his temper, called them unfair, shut himself up, stayed away from home—all to no purpose. They accepted his reproaches in silence and in silence continued to weep whenever he appeared. Worried and distressed beyond endurance by their red eyes and wet faces, Carey's father surrendered at last.
Carey went to Cornell University, graduating in two years by a herculean effort, as she had promised. She continued on to Zurich University in Switzerland to do graduate work and won the first summa cum laude to be granted to a woman there. She was appointed first dean and then president of Bryn Mawr College and became a legendary figure. She was one of the first women in this country to become president of an institution of higher learning.
Hannah would not be regarded as a genuine radical by today's feminists. She was too maternal ever to sacrifice her children to a career. But she was a crusader at heart and fought tirelessly against the evils of marriages as they existed in Victorian times.
Many problems of Victorian wives could be traced to what they called "demon rum," because husbands under the influence often turned into demonic brutes, abusing their families and drinking up the family income.
In April 1877, Hannah was attending a temperance meeting with a woman friend when she noticed a welldressed young man coming in to the gathering. He stood at the back of the room, obviously quite sloshed, but his unfocused eyes were glued to the speaker. Apparently he was taking it all in.
When the speaker concluded with a heart-stirring plea, urging all present to sign the temperance pledge, the young man lurched up the aisle and signed. Then he collapsed on a front seat, sobbing piteously. Hannah and her friend immediately went to him.
"Does thee think we could take the poor fellow home?" whispered the other woman.
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Hannah studied his face. He had an open, honest look despite a couple of days' stubble of beard. "Bring him along," she murmured.
And so the two middle-class ladies escorted the drunk to the Smiths' home in the very respectable section of Philadelphia. Hannah hoped fervently that none of her neighbors were looking out of the windows.
"Thank you so much for what you are doing for me."
His voice was slurred, and he ended his sentence with an unmistakable hiccup.
"The Lord loves thee dearly and wants to see thee make a new start in life," Hannah replied firmly.
The three of them slowly ascended the outside porch stairs, one lady on each side of the dazed man, who was still quite unsteady on his feet. Once inside, the children appeared from everywhere and stared wide-eyed. Never before had they seen a house guest who was "under the influence."
First, Hannah and her friend fed him two hearty bowls of beef stew. The children lingered in the background utterly fascinated by the spectacle of a drunken person in their house. When the poor man began to sober up, the two women took him to the parlor.
The women got down on their knees and Hannah prayed. Completely undone by the pathos and fervor of her prayer, the man started crying again—great, maudlin sobs.
Hannah got up and handed him her handkerchief and he gasped out a prayer himself. "Oh, Lord, I want to stop drinking; remove this curse from me." At that he stopped and blew his nose loudly before he went on. "Oh, God,
I want to be good. Please, Jesus, make me good." 2
Hannah and her friend were so affected by the young man's sincerity and brokenness that they asked the children to fetch blankets and pillows. After completing this task, the youngsters watched spellbound as the guest was tucked into bed on the parlor sofa. They all tiptoed out, and soon loud snores could be heard coming from that direc-
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tion. When the man awoke, the temperance ladies were able to counsel and guide him toward a life of sobriety.
In November 1879, Hannah went to the national Women's Christian Temperance Union Convention in Chicago and helped elect her good friend, Frances Willard, as the president of the W.C.T.U. How much of a role Hannah played as a politician is not clear.
Susan B. Anthony joined them at one luncheon. How the air must have sparkled and crackled with the exchange of ideas among three of the greatest American women of the nineteenth century—Frances Willard, Susan B. Anthony, and the lesser known but equally potent personality,
Hannah Whitall Smith.
Hannah took a preaching tour through the South early in 1884. On the first day of March she preached three times in Jacksonville, Florida. At 52, her energy and enthusiasm showed no signs of abating. Considering the fact that in Victorian times, very few women ever lectured publicly, much less preached, Hannah Whitall Smith must be regarded as both a daring innovator as well as a pioneer in women's rights.