A Very Dangerous Woman: Martha Wright and Women's Rights

8. The Convention Circuit

o 8 The Convention Circuit Following Seneca Falls AFTER THE women of New York, along with Lucretia Mott, had set the precedent at Seneca Falls and Rochester in 1848, the 1850s saw a rapid explosion of conventions focused on the revolutionary topic of woman’s rights.1 One was held in Salem, Ohio, in April 1850, and that October, the first “national” woman’s rights convention convened in Worcester, Massachusetts, with Paulina Wright Davis of Providence, Rhode Island, presiding. Representatives came from nine northern states, one from California, and another from Iowa. Lucretia was one of the speakers. The Worcester convention was highly successful, with over a thousand in attendance. It was followed by the second national convention a year later, again in Worcester and again chaired by Davis. Martha’s attention in the years immediately following Seneca Falls was focused mostly on family matters, but the issue of woman’s rights continued to be important to her, as demonstrated in her correspondence. In 1849, two young women had approached Elizabeth Cady Stanton about their ambitions to become silk merchants in Philadelphia. One was twenty-eight-year-old Elizabeth M’Clintock, a signer of the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and daughter of one of the convention organizers. Stanton sought Lucretia’s assistance. “Ah! me those woman’s rights conventions have spoiled our lovely 99 the convention circuit maidens,” Stanton wrote. “Now instead of remaining satisfied with the needle & the school room they would substitute the compass & the exchange.”2 She asked Lucretia to prevail upon her son-in-law, Edward M. Davis, to offer a clerkship to the two young women in his wholesale business. Davis presented the suggestion to his partners and his clerks, but the idea of admitting the women to their business was soundly ridiculed and rejected. The incident generated some satirical writing by Stanton,3 and a letter from Martha to the disappointed Elizabeth M’Clintock that included several disparaging remarks about men, plus the revelation that she was challenging traditional gender roles by teaching her sons to knit. In the stagnation that occurs periodically in those wholesale establishments it is not surprising that your application should have raised a “tempest in a teapot” and set Market Street in a ferment. No doubt they gladly grasped at something exciting. Men are so desperately idle, when business flags a little, having no resources of knitting and sewing to fill up odd moments, that they become inveterate gossips sometimes, to a degree quite painful for women to witness. I love Mrs. Stanton for the ardor and energy she shows in advocating our cause, and envy her the ability to clothe her thoughts in words that burn! I can only stand at a humble distance responding (mentally) most heartily to the sentiments of others, without the power to say anything myself . . . Very sincerely, Your friend, M.C.W. P.S. After a world of patient and impatient teaching as I felt nervous or otherwise, I have taught my little boys to knit. One of them has knit a garter and nearly finished the second; the other has knit three garters, and made a bag to put his marbles in, not sewed exactly like a thread case, but sufficiently neat for a beginning, and quite marvelous considering the slow perceptions of the sterner sex.4 Stanton’s remarkable gift as a writer and a speaker caused Martha to envy her “ability to clothe her thoughts in words that burn.” But Martha perhaps 100 chapter eight displayed a bit of false modesty in claiming that she herself was “without the power to say anything.” It was Martha’s fear of public speaking that kept her in awe of Stanton, her sister Lucretia, and others who had the ability to deliver fiery words effectively to large audiences. As a writer, however, Martha was quite capable herself of clothing thoughts in “words that burn.” Lucretia considered Martha the writer of the family, and Stanton also admired Martha’s writing skills, often seeking Martha’s help with her writing for the public. Stanton also was circulating petitions to promote woman’s rights. In 1850, Martha wrote Lucretia, “I must answer a letter from Mrs. Stanton which I received a few days since, requesting me to take charge of this District and procure signees to a petition for the right of Suffrage for Women. What on earth shall I tell her? I should smile to see myself trotting round with a petition through this...