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4. 14 January 1896: SBA to Frances E. Willard
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^ 7 21–22 december 1895 Expansion, 1860–1898 [Ithaca, N.Y., 1963], 242–83; Charles S. Campbell, The Transformation of American Foreign Relations, 1865–1900 [New York, 1976], 194–221.) 4. Mary H. Post Hallowell (1823–1913) was one of SBA’s close friends and an activist for woman’s rights since the convention at Seneca Falls in 1848. Sarah L. Kirby Hallowell Willis (1818–1914), mentioned below, was a member of the same extended family of reformers in Rochester and also attended the convention at Seneca Falls. (Quaker Genealogy, 3:434, 483, 489, 507; William F. Peck, History of Rochester and Monroe County, New York, from the Earliest Times to the Beginning of 1907 [New York, 1908], 2:1242–44; Nancy A. Hewitt, Women’s Activism and Social Change: Rochester, New York, 1822–1872 [Ithaca, N.Y., 1984], passim; Hewitt, “Amy Kirby Post,” University of Rochester Library Bulletin 37 [1984]: 4–21. See also Papers 1–5.) 5. SBA probably refers to Isabella Hart Pyott (1841–1917), the wife of Henry Harrison Pyott, a nephew of the late William R. Hallowell from Pennsylvania. Harry Pyott, as he was known, had moved to Rochester to work in his uncle’s wool business. (Henry C. Conrad, 1683–1891. Thones Kunders and His Children [Wilmington, Del., 1891], 61, 98; city directory, 1895; gravestones, Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester.) 6. William Hallowell Stout (1858–1931), another nephew of the late William Hallowell, was raised near Philadelphia but moved to Rochester to live with his aunt and uncle before 1880. After his marriage in 1894, he continued to board at the Hallowell house on Plymouth Avenue with his wife,Edith Greenslage Stout (c. 1874–1958). (Thaddeus Stevens Kenderdine,The Kenderdines of America; Being a Genealogical and Historical Account of the Descendants of Thomas Kenderdine, of Montgomery Shire, Wales [Doylestown, Pa., 1901], 167–68; Federal Census, 1880; city directory, 1895; Mt. Hope and Riverside Cemetery Interment Records.) Y Excelsior Diary 1895, n.p., SBA Papers, DLC. ••••••••• 4 Y SBA to Frances E. Willard1 [Rochester] Tuesday a.m. Jan. 14/[96]—2 My Dear Frances Last evening my sister attended our City W.C.T.U’s annual meeting— and one of its members made a most earnest speech for nthep Bible in our public schools—3 Of course if you persist in taking your National W.C.T.U. to California next October—this sort of talk will be had—& thus the Catholics will be repelled from woman suffrage—4 If you only 8 & opposed the amendment—& resolved & prayed & argued that to carry it would defeat every end you most desired—then your Convention over there might help to draw votes to the amendment!!— Of all the states— there is not one in which your Con. would so militate against carrying a suffrage amendment—as in California— The thought of your having a thought of thrusting W.C.T.U.ism into our California Suffrage Campaign had never crossed my mind—until I met your letter in the San Francisco Papers—5 I am simply appalled— distressed—faint at the very heart—because of your I am sure thoughtless placing of your Con— I cannot believe it possible that you willing knowingly—thinkingly—wish to block the way for the California women’s getting the ballot— Well—it makes me heart sick—that at the close of my fifty years hard work—just when we seem to be reaching the goal—that my—our best friends—the woman—the women—who claim to want the ballot should now so ruthlessly dash the cup from our lips!— Now do—I pray you—as you love justice to woman—change the state—don’t thrust men’s pet vices to the fore—when we are trying to persuade them to vote to give us the political power to make, shape & control all governmental & social conditions— U S. B. A. Y ALS draft, on NAWSA letterhead, Emma B. Sweet Papers, NRU. 1. Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard (1839–1898) presided over the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union from 1879 until her death. She and SBA enjoyed a strong friendship despite the fact that the temperance union’s members often worked at cross purposes to SBA’s ideal of campaigning for the ballot without regard to its uses. (NAW; ANB. See also Papers 3–5.) 2. SBA’s use of “/95” in her date is corrected based on the date of Frances Willard ’s reply in 1896. 3. The only meeting of...