60
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
for the statue when they knew that the model was the work of a woman. But her beautiful Samuel Adams and Lief Ericsson, and the fine handiwork of other artists, are argument and proof that the field of art belongs to women.
When Mrs. Tyndall, of Philadelphia, assumed her husband’s business after his death, importing chinaware, sending her ships to China, enlarging her warehouses and increasing her business, the fact was quoted as a wonder. When Mrs. Young, of Lowell, Mass., opened a shoe-store in Lowell, though she sold only shoes for women and children, people peered curiously in to see how she looked. Today the whole field of trade is open to woman.
When Elizabeth Blackwell studied medicine and put up her sign in New York, she was regarded as fair game, and was called a “ she doctor.” The college that had admitted her closed its doors afterward against other women, and supposed they were shut out forever. But Dr. Blackwell was a woman of fine intellect, of great personal worth and a level head. How good it was that such a woman was the first doctor! She was well equipped by study at home and abroad, and prepared to contend with prejudice and every opposing thing. Dr. Zakrzewska was with her, and Dr. Emily Blackwell soon joined them. At a price the younger women doctors do not know, the way was opened for women physicians.
The first woman minister, Antoinette Brown, had to meet ridicule and opposition that can hardly be conceived to-day. Now there are women ministers, east and west, all over the country.
In Massachusetts, where properly qualified “ persons ” were allowed to practice law, the Supreme Court decided that a woman was not a “ person,” and a special act of the legislature had to be passed before Miss Lelia Robinson could be admitted to the bar. But today women are lawyers.
Fifty years ago the legal injustice imposed upon women was appalling. Wives, widow's and mothers seemed to have been hunted out by the law on purpose to see in how many ways they could be wronged and made helpless. A wife by her marriage lost all right to any personal property she might have. The income of her land went to her husband, so that she was made absolutely penniless. If a woman earned a dollar by scrubbing, her husband had a right to take the dollar and go and get drunk with it and beat her afterwards. It was his dollar. If a woman wrote a book the copyright of the same belonged to her husband and not to her. The law counted out in many states how many cups and saucers, spoons and knives and chairs a widow might have when her husband died. I have seen many a widow who took the cups she had bought before she was married and bought them again after her husband died, so as to have them legally. The law gave no right to a married woman to any legal existence at all. Her legal existence was suspended during marriage. She could neither sue nor be sued. If she had a child born alive the law gave her husband the use of all her real estate as long as he should live, and called it by the pleasant name of “ the estate by courtesy.” When the husband died the law gave the widow the use of one- third of the real estate belonging to him, and it was called the “widow’s encumbrance.” While the law dealt thus with her in regard to her property, it dealt still more hardly with her in regard to her children. No married mother could have any right to her child, and in most of the states of the Union that is the law to-day. But the laws in regard to the personal and property rights of women have been greatly changed and improved, and we are very grateful to the men who have done it.
We have not only gained in the fact that the laws are modified. Women have acquired a certain amount of political power. We have now in twenty states school suffrage for women. Forty years ago there was but one. Kentucky allowed widows with children of school age to vote on school questions. We have also municipal suffrage for women in Kansas, and full suffrage in Wyoming, a state larger than all New England.
The last half century has gained for women the right to the highest education and entrance to all professions and occupations, or nearly all. As a result we have