I put the plates of crustless tea sandwiches and tea cakes on the
wicker table between the lawn chairs. The breeze off the lake cooled the August
heat.
Susan
remarked. “These remind me of the times we spent touring and spreading the news
of our suffrage amendment in New York’s Finger Lake resorts in 1859.”
So you sought to bring woman’s rights and suffrage to the entire nation from New York?
Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration. But we did take advantage of people we could influence where we found them. We had hopes for the states to sign on to woman’s suffrage as the rewrote their state constitutions. Several were engaging in such efforts and so we provided language for them to use. We contacted legislative leaders throughout the country. Antoinette Perry and I happened to meet one such person by happenstance when we spoke at a New York resort in 1861. There we met Judge John Ormond from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. A father with three daughters, and well placed in Alabama political circles, he welcomed and voiced support to our ideas. His later correspondence rejected our plans.She
laughed. “Shall I tell you of the adventure my fellow suffrage activist
Antoinette Perry and I had?
Yes, please. I would love to hear the story.
Yes, please. I would love to hear the story.
After the Woman’s Rights Convention in New York City Nettie Perry
and I set out on a speaking tour. One memorable stop was the main parlor of the
newly built Fort William Henry resort at the head of Lake George in central New
York state. It had rooms for nine hundred guests who could take boat rides on
Lake George, walk the beautiful ornamental grounds, have afternoon tea on the
235-foot veranda facing the lake, and enjoy band concerts. We were part of the
regular fare of evening informational speeches.
View of the Fort William Henry resort on Lake George, New York |
Were you able to meet the guests as well as speaking to them as an
audience?
Yes, We were treated as regular guests. And at breakfast I acted, as I often was wont
to do with determination as a liberated woman. I'm afraid I may have
embarrassed my companions. Nettie described the events and she said it
better than I can report. Nettie, woman’s right's activist William
Powell, and I were seated for in the hotel dining room for our meal.
Here’s what Nettie wrote: “Miss Anthony glanced at her menu and
began to give her order not to Powell in ladylike modesty, but promptly and
energetically to the waiter. He turned a grandiloquent, deaf ear; Powell
fidgeted and studied his newspaper; she persisted, determined that no man should
come between her and her own order for coffee, cornbread and beefsteak. ‘What
do I understand is the full order, sir, for your party?’ demanded the waiter,
doggedly and suggestively. Powell tried to repeat her wishes but stumbled and
stammered and grew red in the face. I put in a working oar to cover the
undercurrent of laughter, while she, coolly unconscious of everything except
that there was not occasion for a ‘middleman,’ since she was entirely competent
to look after her own breakfast, repeated her order, and the waiter, looking
intensely disgusted, concluded to bring something, right or wrong.”
Oh my. Can you tell me who
came to your presentations at resorts such as this one?
Our audience for the evening presentation was composed of people
of means and some political influence from New York, who could afford to spend
a week, or a month away from the city. There were also guests who traveled from
the southern slave-holding states to escape the summer’s suffocating heat. I
was fascinated to meet Judge John Ormond from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and two of
his daughters.
Did you have a particular action you were promoting? Certainly this was well before voting rights
amendments were brought before congress.
Yes. The nation had been continually growing and changing during
the 70 years since the federal Constitution was written in the summer of
1787. Some state legislatures were
considering revising their constitutions. We woman’s right’s activists saw an
opportunity. We wrote a Memorandum for Amendment to those state constitutions.
What was your goal?
We wanted changes enacted in every state of the union and we had
dramatic language to make our point. I was rather pleased to exclaim:
“The mothers of the Revolution bravely shared all dangers, persecutions, and
death; and their daughters now claim an equal share in al the glories and
triumphs of your success. Shall they stand before a body of American
legislators and ask in vain for their right of suffrage—their right of
property—their right to the wages they earn—their right to their children and
their homes—their sacred right to personal liberty—to a trial by a jury of
their peers?”
How did you seek to have these changes made?
We had specific calls to action for amendments or revisions to
state constitutions for both woman and others. These included that “the word
‘male” shall be expurgated, and that henceforth you shall legislate for all
citizens. There can be no privileged classes in a truly democratic government.
There can be no privileged classes in a truly democratic government.” And
finally I stated firmly: “Where, under our Declaration of Independence, does
the white Saxon man get his power to deprive all women and negroes of their
inalienable rights?” We were concerned
with voting, but also issues necessary to providing the rights of full and
equal citizenship to woman: the right to own property, to divorce, to control
her own money, and the rights to her children in the case of marital
separation.
Did you have any following conversations with any members of the
audience?
We were most fortunate the next day. When we took our leave by
stage we joined the party of Judge John Ormond from Alabama.
Who was he?
Judge Ormond was a well-regarded
former member of the Alabama House of Representatives and he also served on the
state’s Supreme Court. He was a trustee of the state university. Living in the
state capitol of Tuscaloosa, Ormond continued to be influential in state
politics and government. He was a widower. He had brought his two younger daughters
Margaret Cornelia aged 17 and her sister Catherine Amanda, who would have been
about 15, to the northern resort to escape the heat. We chatted amiably and exchanged addresses. I
subsequently sent a copy of the Memorandum to the Judge for him to share with
legislators in Alabama. He told
Miss Anthony he had been instrumental in securing many laws favorable to women
in that state and it would be a pleasure to him to see that their memorial
[woman’s rights memorial statement] was presented to the Alabama legislature.
When she reached home she sent it to him with the following letter:
This was in the late summer of 1859? So what happened next? Did the continuing agitation between slave
and free states impact your efforts?
Yes, that’s a good question. The fight for woman’s rights
and the efforts to end slavery were entwined.
In early October, I followed up on our conversation by
sending Judge Ormond a copy of our woman’s right’s memorial. In my letter I
asked him to give me a full report of the action taken upon it? And I sent along wishes for his family
saying: ‘I hope you and your daughters arrived home safe. Say to the elder I
shall be most happy to hear from her when she has fairly inaugurated some noble
life work. I trust each will take to her soul a strong purpose and that on her
tombstone shall be engraved her own name and hew own noble deeds instead of
merely the daughter of Judge Ormond, or the relict of some Honorable or D.D.
When true womanhood shall be attained it will be spoken of and remembered for
itself alone. My kindest regards to them. Accompanied with the most earnest
desire that they shall make truth and freedom the polar star of their lives.’
To this Judge Ormond made a cordial reply on October 17,
1859:
Dear
Madam: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 2nd
inst., with the papers enclosed. The petition to the Legislature will be
presented by the senator from this county and I will apprise you of the action
taken upon it. My daughters are obliged to you for the interest you take in
them. To a certain extent I agree with you as to the duties of woman. I am
greatly in favor of her elevation to her proper sphere as the equal of man as
to her civil rights, the security of her person, the right to her property and,
where there is a separation after marriage, her equal right with the father to
the custody and education of the children. All this as a legislator I have
endeavored to accomplish, making large innovations upon the ancient common law.
So
did Judge Ormond follow through with this progressive action?
Sadly, no. In between our jovial August conversations and our
October correspondence the world changed. On October 16, 1859, anarchist John
Brown raided the arsenal in Harper’s Ferry as an act of insurrection against
slavery.
In December I received another letter from Judge Ormond. The tone
and content were dramatically different from our earlier exchanges. This letter
made it clear that John Brown’s actions and the reaction of many Northerners
had changed everything. The judge wrote, “The atrocity of this act,
countenanced as it manifestly was by a great party at the North, as shown by
the sympathy felt for him and the honors paid to his memory, has extinguished
the last spark of fraternal feeling for the people of the North.”
His words foretold the tragedies of the next years and the cost to
the progress of the woman’s movement for the next twenty years.
I wonder what happened to his daughters. Shall we look?
It didn’t take long to find the Ormond family in Tuscaloosa’s
Greenwood Cemetery. There were the
markers for Judge John Ormond. He died in 1866. Cornelia was there, too.
Her grave marker reads:
Cornelia
Ormond Hays
1842-1910
Wife of Maj. Charles Hays CSA.
Tea Cakes
1 (7-ounce) package dried currants
1 ¾ cup all-purpose flour
¾ cup granulated sugar
½ cup cold butter (1 stick)
1 egg
1 more egg, separated
1 tablespoon brandy or water
Extra flour for rolling dough
Extra sugar for dusting
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
Lightly grease a baking sheet
Chop the currants at least in half, the more finely chopped,
the better. In a medium mixing bowl combine the flour and sugar. Using a pastry cutter, or two knives, cut the
butter into the flour and sugar mixture until it looks like coarse cornmeal. A few larger pieces, are fine. Stir in the currants. In a small bowl,
lightly beat the whole egg and the egg yolk with the tablespoon of brandy or
water. Set the other egg white aside to be brushed on top before baking.
Lightly flour your work surface. Gently pat the dough out
into a rectangle about ¼-inch thick. Cut with a round cutter – the original
recipe called for using a “wine glass” – mine makes a tea cake about 2 ½ inches
in diameter. You can make them smaller
and baking time will be less. Place the
cakes on prepared sheet. Lightly eat the remaining egg white. Brush over the
cookies, sprinkle with a small bit of granulated sugar and prick a couple of
times with a fork. Bake until bottom is
browned and top is beginning to turn brown. About 10 to 15 minutes. The center
will still be soft.
Makes about 2 dozen 2 1/2-inch tea cakes.
Makes about 2 dozen 2 1/2-inch tea cakes.
Adapted from A New
System of Domestic Cookery Maria Eliza Rundell 1859
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