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15 speeches atthe newYork state Woman’s rights Convention (“the Mob Convention”) By Ernestine L. Rose, Mathilde Franzisca Anneke, and Others September 9, 1853 New York, New York In the fall of 1853, New York City was crowded with visitors to the first “World’s Fair” to be held in the United States, at a newly constructed Crystal Palace inspired by the famous structure in London. In September of that year, three reform conventions were held in close proximity to one another: the World’s Temperance Convention organized by Susan B. Anthony, an abolitionist convention, and the New York Woman’s Rights Convention. Although women were an important constituency of the temperance movement, they were not allowed to speak at this World’s Temperance Convention. This fact may have represented a turning point for Susan B. Anthony, helping convince her to fully commit her energies thereafter to the women’s rights movement. Because these reform movements had overlapping constituencies, the conventions were positioned so that reformers could attend all three. Organizers may also have hoped to attract new people by holding their conventions during this period of expanded tourism. The conventions were overrun with attendees ranging from curiosity seekers to violent opponents of rights for women and African Americans . At the Woman’s Right Convention, held at the Broadway Tabernacle in Manhattan on September 8 and 9, the audience caused so much disruption that it was dubbed “the Mob Convention.” In her Farewell Letter of May 1856, Rose remembered this convention as one of the most violent and threatening meetings she had ever attended. Ernestine Rose made the Married Women’s Property laws in New York State the focus of her prepared speech on September 9, since the convention provided a prime opportunity to reach state legislators by means of energizing New York residents. In her speech, Rose satirized the existing laws governing married women’s property and widow’s inheritance, to the great amusement of some in the crowd, and the consternation of others. That evening, at the convention’s final session, its president, Lucretia Mott, turned the chair over to Ernestine L. Rose. Were police intervention required to maintain control, Mott, as a pacifist Quaker could not, in conscience, call for forcible action, while Rose, as a person who believed in laws to remedy social problems, was willing to do so to protect public safety. It is not clear from the printed proceedings of the convention whether any police actually arrived, although the document does note: “Owing to the tumult and noise which prevailed during the greater part of the proceedings, it is quite possible that some portion of the speakers’ words were lost, and other portions incorrectly heard. The Report will be found as accurate as the circumstances permitted.” During this final session, Rose extemporaneously translated the speech of 154 ernestIne l.rose Madame Mathilde Franzisca Anneke, who had immigrated to the United States following the failed uprisings of 1848 in Germany. In the United States, she was editor of a German-language newspaper for women called the Frauen-Zeitung, published in Newark, New Jersey, and later in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Rose has been called the translator of the women’s rights movement because of her knowledge of French, German , and Polish (Anderson 2000, 20–21). n sPeeCh On MarriedWOMen’s PrOPertY LaWs As to the personal property, after all debts and liabilities are discharged, the widow receives one-half of it; and, in addition, the law kindly allows her her own wearing apparel, her own ornaments, proper to her station, one bed, with appurtenances for the same; a stove, the Bible, family pictures , and all the school-books; also, all spinning-wheels and weavinglooms , one table, six chairs, tea cups and saucers, one tea-pot, one sugar dish, and six spoons. (Much laughter.) But the law does not inform us whether they are to be tea or table spoons; nor does the law make any provision for kettles, sauce-pans, and all such necessary things. But the presumption seems to be that the spoons meant are teaspoons; for, as ladies are generally considered very delicate, the law presumed that a widow might live on tea only; but spinning-wheels and weaving-looms are very necessary articles for ladies nowadays. (Hissing and great confusion.) Why, you need not hiss, for I am expounding the law. These wise law-makers, who seem to have lived somewhere about the time of the flood, did not dream of spinning and weaving...

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