Suffrage Saturday: Frances Willard Postcard

Frances Willard Postcard
Frances Willard Postcard, c 1912

Frances Willard Postcard-Reverse

Frances Willard Postcard-Reverse

[Editor’s Note: It may seem silly to post the back of the card especially when it does not have an address or note, but postcard enthusiasts can date and sometimes even determine manufacturer of the card by the way the back is divided, typeface, stamp box, etc.]

Frances was able to support herself on lecture fees, and she traveled to every state then in the Union in 1883. She traveled 30,000 miles per year (before airplanes!) and gave an average of 400 lectures per year for  period of about ten years. In 1886, the WCTU provided her a salary to continue her work. The WCTU was the largest organized group of women in the 19th century.

The platform used by Willard to gain acceptance of women’s suffrage by the average woman was “Home Protection.” By having the right to vote, women could protect their home and family from the “devastation” caused by legal, strong drink. Additionally, if women had a voice in choosing civic leaders and therefore the laws they made, men would not be able to so easily get leniency for the crimes they committed against women and children. Patriarchal ministers, press, and society tried to turn women away from the suffrage movement, but Frances also used her interpretation of Scripture to argue for equality between the sexes: “God sets male and female side by side throughout his realm of law.”

Politics was a world that women should be a part of, per many of the speeches Frances gave. About 1893, a large painting was commissioned that showed Frances with an American Indian, an “idiot” or mentally disabled man, a convict, and an insane man. It was entitled “American Woman and Her Political Peers.” Henrietta Briggs-Wall, a Kansas suffrage and temperance advocate, had commissioned the painting, and exhibited it at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. In 1894 she said, of its display:

“It strikes the women every time. They do not realize that we are classed with idiots, criminals, and the insane as they do when they see that picture. Shocking? Well, it takes a shock to arouse some people to a sense of injustice and degradation.”

Frances learned to ride the bicycle in the 1893, when she was 53- quite a rebellious feat for a woman in those days!  (How did they kept those long skirts out of the way??) She wrote a sweet little book about it, which shows us that the bicycle was a key to freedom for many women, as well as men. She felt that mastery of the bicycle would help women to gain mastery over their lives- the ‘wheel within a wheel’concept.

A popular speaker around the world, and especially in England, Frances also drew attention to the international drug trade with the “Polyglot Petition.”

Trips to Europe and new Socialist thought intrigued Frances, and she became a Socialist in her later years. Her political and social thoughts again paralleled those of Edward B. Payne- he declared himself a Socialist as well in the 1890s.

The work of Frances Willard was pivotal in the passage of the 18th (Prohibition) and 19th (Women’s Suffrage) Amendments. Sadly, she did not live to see the passage of either, as she died of influenza in 1898 in New York City while waiting to embark upon a ship for a lecture tour in England and France.

In 1905, a statue of Frances Willard was submitted by the state of Illinois (she lived in Evanston for many years) to Statuary Hall in the US Capitol. It was the only statue of a woman in the hall until 1958. Today, there are just eight women represented among the 100 official statues placed in Statuary Hall and throughout the Capitol.

"Statue of Frances Willard in the US Capitol" by RadioFan at English Wikipedia. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Statue_of_Frances_Willard_in_the_US_Capitol.JPG#mediaviewer/File:Statue_of_Frances_Willard_in_the_US_Capitol.JPG
“Statue of Frances Willard in the US Capitol” by RadioFan at English Wikipedia. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1) Frances Willard entry in the Encyclopedia Brittanica: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/643926/Frances-Willard

2) http://www.franceswillardhouse.org

3) Wheel within a Wheel. How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle with some reflections by the way. Frances Willard, 1895.Fleming H. Revel Company. https://archive.org/details/wheelwithinwheel00williala

Republished in 1991 as How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle: Reflections of an Influential 19th Century Woman, Carol O’Hare, editor.

A short book that really is about learning to ride a bicycle- sounds silly, but in the 1890s that was a really outrageous thing for a woman to do! The first 10 pages or so give quite a glimpse into life as it was for women. The “Wheel within a Wheel” portion of the title has to do with a Bible verse in Ezekiel, showing the many layers of an action or spirituality.

4) Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Willard_(suffragist)

5) American Woman and Her Political Peers: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004681894/

http://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/cool-things-american-woman-and-her-political-peers-painting/10294

6) Statue of Frances Willard: “Statue of Frances Willard in the US Capitol” by RadioFan at English Wikipedia. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Statue_of_Frances_Willard_in_the_US_Capitol.JPG#mediaviewer/File:Statue_of_Frances_Willard_in_the_US_Capitol.JPG

7) The featured postcard is owned by the author. It is one of a trio of postcards on American suffragists. (Would love to own the other two!) The seller of this postcard was kind enough to send me scans of those two in her collection, and has given permission for them to be posted in an upcoming “Suffrage Saturday” post.

 

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