How Did the Rival Temperance Conventions of 1853 Help Forge an Enduring
Alliance between Prohibition and Woman's Rights?

Endnotes

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Introduction

1. See, for example: "Worcester, Mass., Oct. 23, 1850. That motley mingling of abolitionists, socialists, and infidels, of all sexes and colors, called the Woman's Rights Convention, assembled in this city, to-day" was the opening to a story headed WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION. AWFUL COMBINATION OF SOCIALISM, ABOLITIONISM, AND INFIDELITY. The Pantalettes Striking for the Pantaloons. Bible and Constitution Repudiated. The [N.Y.] Herald, October 25, 1850. Even before the Bloomer costume achieved a modest popularity opponents of woman's rights routinely excoriated "women in breeches" or, in this case, in "pantalettes."
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2. Tilden G. Edelstein, Strange Enthusiasm: A Life of Thomas Wentworth Higginson (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968).
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3. Stone was already famous as an orator and activist in both the anti-slavery and woman's rights movements; Brown was the first female ordained minister in the United States; Lucretia Mott was a long-time abolitionist activist who, with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, organized the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848; Abby Kelley Foster was, like Stone, a well-known and highly controversial anti-slavery and woman's rights orator; William Lloyd Garrison, founding editor of The Liberator, was active in numerous other reform movements; Frederick Douglass, famous for his escape from slavery and for his oratorical prowess, was the editor of a reform newspaper, The North Star; Wendell Phillips, another famous orator, devoted his life to an array of reform causes including anti-slavery, temperance, woman's rights, and labor reform. As a group they were among the most famous and radical reform voices in antebellum America. They did not agree on every issue, however. Garrison and Mott, for example, opposed the use of violence to end slavery. Higginson used force in trying to rescue Anthony Burns and supported John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry. An insightful overview is Steven Mintz, Moralists and Modernizers: America's Pre-Civil War Reformers (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995).
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4. Jane Grey Swisshelm, Half A Century (Chicago: Jansen, McClurg and Company, 1880), 2nd ed., p.145. Turkish trowsers referred to the Bloomer costume. Fourierism was the social philosophy named after Charles Fourier (1772-1837). He advocated a reorganization of society into self-sufficient units (phalanstères or phalanxes) that would offer a maximum of both cooperation and choice to members. A number of utopian communities in the United States adopted Fourier's principles. Phonetics was a system of simplified spelling, based on phonetic principles. Pneumonics was a system of breathing exercises for which proponents claimed health values. A caudle is a warm beverage, usually a mixture of wine or ale and eggs, sugar, and spices, given to the sick. "Criminal caudling" was a campaign for prison reform. Magdalenism was a campaign to rescue prostitutes by providing shelter, occupational training, and religious counseling. For more on Swisshelm's opposition to bundling reform efforts and her controversy with Parker Pillsbury over linking woman's rights and anti-slavery, see John F. McClymer, "How Do Contemporary Newspaper Accounts of the 1850 Worcester Woman's Rights Convention Enhance Our Understanding of the Issues Debated at That Meeting?" Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 (2006).
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5. Proceedings of the General Anti-Slavery Convention, London, England, June 1840 (London: British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1841), pp. 23-46. Phillips introduced the resolution to admit female delegates and played the leading role in the ensuing debate. Birney responded:

It has been stated that the right of women to sit and act in all respects as men in our anti-slavery associations, was decided in the affirmative at the annual meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society in May, 1839. It is true the claim was so decided on that occasion, but not by a large majority; whilst it is also true that the majority was swelled by the votes of the women themselves. I have just received a letter from a gentleman in New York [Lewis Tappan], communicating the fact, that the persistence of the friends of promiscuous female representation in pressing that practice on the American Anti-Slavery Society, at its annual meeting on the twelfth of last month, had caused such disagreement among the members present, that he and others who viewed the subject as he did, were then deliberating on measures for seceding from the old organization. (p. 41)


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6. One of the initial resolutions proposed on the first day read: "That the cry, 'The Maine Law is ineffectual,' is raised entirely by those who never desired, or at least never tried to have it otherwise." New York Times, Sept. 2, 1853, p. 1.
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7. Newspapers routinely reprinted stories from papers in other cities, sometimes in full, sometimes edited to fit the space available or the editorial leanings of the publisher. As a result, the audience for a story in a single paper could be far larger than that paper's subscriber list.
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8. Perhaps the most popular of these songs, certainly among the most maudlin, was "Father, Come Home." A search of "America Singing: Nineteenth-Century Song Sheets" at the Library of Congress American Memory site, on June 15, 2012, using "temperance" as the keyword yielded seventy-nine titles, including duplicates, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amsshtml/amsshome.html. Unfortunately, the songs' exact dates of publication cannot be determined.
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9. Circulation reached 200,000 by 1860. Kevin E. O'Donnell, "Book and Periodical Illustration," in American History Through Literature, 1820-1870, ed. Janet Gabler-Hover and Robert D. Sattelmeyer (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2006), pp.144-48, citing Frank Luther Mott, A History of American Magazines, vol. 2, 1850–1865 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1938). See also Richard Rogers Bowker, "Great American Industries VII: The Printed Book," Harper's New Monthly Magazine 75 (July 1887), pp. 165-88.
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10. Ruth Bordin, Woman and Temperance: The Quest for Power and Liberty, 1873-1900 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1981); Marjorie Julian Spruill, ed., One Woman, One Vote: Rediscovering the Woman Suffrage Movement (Troutdale, OR: New Sage Press, 1995); Carol Mattingly, Well-Tempered Women: Nineteenth-Century Temperance Rhetoric (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1998); Holly Berkley Fletcher, Gender and the American Temperance Movement of the Nineteenth Century (New York: Routledge, 2008); and Scott C. Martin, Devil of the Domestic Sphere: Temperance, Gender, and Middle-class Ideology, 1800-1860 (DeKalb, Ill.: Northern Illinois University Press, 2008).
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11. See Theresa Battaglio, "Temperance in the 1850s: Temperance Laws," http://www1.assumption.edu/ahc/Theresa%27s%20Main%20Folder/Web%20page%20folder/Title%20Pages/TempLawsFrameSet.html.
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12. Lori D. Ginsberg, "'Moral Suasion Is Moral Balderdash': Women, Politics, and Social Activism in the 1850s," Journal of American History, 73:3 (Dec. 1986), 601-22.
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13. William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book 1, Chapter 15, "Of Husband and Wife" (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979, reprint of 1765 edition), pp. 442-45. The quotation is on p. 442.
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14. Mary Ann Mason, From Father's Property to Children's Rights: The History of Child Custody in the United States (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994).
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15. See Timothy 2:12: But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. (King James Version)
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16.Some objected on religious grounds.

The Rev. A. Harvey, of Glasgow: It was stated by a brother from America, that with him it is a matter of conscience, and it is a question of conscience with me too. I have certain views in relation to the teaching of the Word of God, and of the particular sphere in which woman is to act. I must say, whether I am right in my interpretations of the Word of God or not, that my own decided convictions are, if I were to give a vote in favor of females, sitting and deliberating in such an assembly as this, that I should be acting in opposition to the plain teaching of the Word of God. I may be wrong, but I have a conscience on the subject, and I am sure there are a number present of the same mind.

Others argued that the British Society hosting the Convention had never intended that its invitation include ladies. See Proceedings of the General Anti-Slavery Convention, 23-46, quotation on p. 38.
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17. See Kathryn Kish Sklar, Women's Rights Emerges within the Anti-Slavery Movement (Boston: Bedford Books, 2000).
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18. The Proceedings of the World's Temperance Convention (Document 11) provided an account of the "Preliminary Meeting" that did not describe the tumult. Instead it only noted that the Credentials Committee reported "that they were unanimously of [the] opinion that it was not intended by those who called this meeting, that names of female delegates should be enrolled." Later on, the Proceedings noted, "The report was accepted and adopted."
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19. See Tyler G. Anbinder, Nativism and Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings and the Politics of the 1850s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). As Anbinder notes, the Know Nothings also were anti-Semitic.
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20. The source of the metaphor is from Matthew, 7:15-20:

15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. (King James Version)


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21. This language echoed that adopted at the first national woman's rights convention held at Worcester in 1850 at which Lucy Stone, Antoinette Brown, Abby Kelley Foster, and Lucretia Mott all played prominent roles. McClymer, "How Do Contemporary Newspaper Accounts of the 1850 Worcester Woman's Rights Convention Enhance Our Understanding of the Issues Debated at That Meeting?"
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22. The reference to "Abolition" is the only acknowledgement the Proceedings made to the decision to ban non-white delegates, such as Frederick Douglass. "Land Reform," so far as I have been able to determine, did not come up in any of the three conventions.
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23. The quotation is from "Macbeth," the banquet scene in which Lady Macbeth accuses her husband of breaking up "the good meeting with most admired disorder."
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24. See Tyler Anbinder, "Isaiah Rynders and the Ironies of Popular Democracy in Antebellum New York," in Contested Democracy: Freedom, Race, and Power in American History, Manisha Sinha and Penny M. Von Eschen, eds. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), pp. 31-53.
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25. This split began with a bill to grant the vote to black male residents of the District of Columbia in 1867 and culminated in the Fifteenth Amendment, which introduced the word "male" into the Constitution.
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26. William S. McFeely, Frederick Douglass (New York: W.W. Norton, 1991), p. 266.
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27. This is an oft-told story. See Eleanor Flexner, Century of Struggle: The Woman's Rights Movement in the United States, enlarged edition (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996), pp. 136-47, and Jean H. Baker, Sisters: The Lives of America's Suffragists (New York: Hill & Wang, 2005), pp. 13-92
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28. The postwar history of the ties binding the two movements is much more fully explored in the historical literature than the antebellum beginnings. See Fletcher, Gender and the American Temperance Movement of the Nineteenth Century and, especially, Martin, Devil of the Domestic Sphere.
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29. This work was probably the most popular temperance publication in the antebellum era. It went through numerous reprintings, and quickly was adapted for the stage where it rivaled Uncle Tom's Cabin in popularity. Most affecting apparently was a "Father, Come Home" scene. Henry C. Work's maudlin song, "Come Home, Father," (1864?) provoked numerous others such as Z. Pope Vose's "Father Has Come Home: Answer to Come home, Father" (1865) and Dexter Smith's "I'm Glad Father's Come: Little Mary's Answer to 'Come Home, Father'" (c. 1865).
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30. See Henry S. Clubb, The Maine Liquor Law: Its Origin, History, and Results Including A Life of Hon. Neal Dow (New York: Fowler and Wells, 1856), pp. 255-56, which reprints Higginson's report on the League's activities in Worcester, Massachusetts:

The Carson League, under the date of October 2, 1854, has reported, as a result of their labors, the following cases: Convictions, 25 single sales, fines and costs . $562 51 [Convictions] 5 common sellers " " " " $549 56 [Total fines and costs] $1,112 07 Cases continued . . . ; 15 single sales (if convicted), say $200 [Cases continued] - 7 common sellers (if convicted) $750 [Grand total fines and costs] $2,062 07

Add to the above the fees paid by liquor-dealers to their counsel in these cases, which probably vary from $10 to $20, and we have a total sum, from $2,800 to $3,000, as the cost to these violators of law. Nearly all this work was done by the Carson League, in about four months, at a cost of about $300 to the members; and the only reason by they have not done more (except for the temporary absence of their agent, Mr. Stowell) has been that they had no more money to spend. . . . Several houses have been entirely broken up, including one of the most notorious for rumselling, gambling, and gross licentiousness. . . . The first operations of the League created a terror among the liquor-dealers, leading to a whole system of concealment. Those who are dissatisfied with the mode in which evidence has been obtained, are not probably aware that the choice lay between that evidence and none. If they are aware of it, they must decide for themselves the question, whether to leave the liquor traffic unchecked, or to have purchases made, for the purpose of obtaining testimony. The simple fact is, that the Carson League is a voluntary police, and no police operation could proceed a day without resorting to such means as are here employed. It was very unwillingly that the officers of the League were convinced of this; but being convinced, there was but one course to pursue, and they have pursued it. But they have taken as much care as possible to employ no agents without careful inquiry into their habits and purposes; and it is believed that no one has been employed who has not acted under a sincere desire to serve the cause of temperance. [February 24, 1855] -- Rev. T. W. Higginson, Secretary

Martin Stowell was temporarily absent because he was in prison accused of murdering a guard in the unsuccessful effort to liberate fugitive slave Anthony Burns that he and Higginson organized in 1854.
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31. Mason, From Father's Property to Children's Rights. pp. 53-58, 63-68.
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32. Marylynn Salmon, Women and the Law of Property in Early America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986).
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Document 1

33. Rev. Dr. Tyng, who gave the major address at the semi-annual meeting of the American Temperance Union in New York City on Jan. 24, 1854, recited part of the poem. New York Times, Jan. 25, 1854, Twenty years later, T.S. Arthur, whose play "Ten Nights in a Barroom" was almost as frequently performed as the stage version of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin," began his history of "the new crusade" with the poem. T.S. Arthur, Women to the Rescue: A Story of the New Crusade (Philadelphia: J.M. Stoddart, 1874), pp. 5-7.
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34. Temperance Jewels, p. 62. For the song see http://www.hymnary.org/text/go_feel_what_i_have_felt.
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Document 2

35. A search of "America Singing: Nineteenth-Century Song Sheets at the Library of Congress American Memory site, on June 6, 2012, using "temperance" as the keyword yielded seventy-nine titles, including duplicates, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amsshtml/amsshome.html.
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36. Scott Gac, Singing for Freedom: The Hutchinson Family Singers and the Nineteenth-century Culture of Antebellum Reform (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007). One of the groups who modeled themselves upon the Hutchinsons was the Amphions who performed at the Whole World's Temperance Convention.
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37. One of the most popular was John Pierpont, Cold Water Melodies and Washingtonian Songster, Revised and Enlarged (Boston: T. Abbott, 1843). The Washingtonians, a group of reformed "drunkards," were the most important temperance organization of the 1840s. The Rev. Pierpont addressed the Whole World Temperance Convention in 1853 (See Document 5, pp. 54-57) and the Woman's Rights Convention the following week. (See Document 15, pp. 77-79)
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38. Perhaps the most famous depiction of the suffering Irish wife and children is Thomas Nast's editorial cartoon for Harper's Weekly, Feb. 17, 1872, in which he portrays Victoria Woodhull as "Mrs. Satan." The woman who resists the temptation of "Free Love" carries her drunken Irish husband and small children on her back.
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Document 9A

39. See Stephen Nissenbaum, Sex, Diet, and Debility in Jacksonian America: Sylvester Graham and Health Reform (Westport, Conn., Greenwood Press, 1980).
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Document 10

40. Robert H. Abzug, Cosmos Crumbling: American Reform and the Religious Imagination (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).
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Document 15

41. Carol A. Kolmerten, The American Life of Ernestine L. Rose (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1999). For Graham, see his obituary in the New York Times, May 20, 1894.
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