Once again my kitchen was filled with delicious cooking
aromas. My table was scattered with yellowed letters written in now-faded ink.
My grandmother’s wooden recipe file box stood open with several spattered
recipe cards pulled halfway up. For this
special meal I’d selected her meat loaf. Her cooking was legendary. She got
this recipe in 1912 from her soon-to-be mother-in-law. I’d also pulled the card
for her best friend Kate’s sour-milk devil’s food cake recipe. Its ingredients
were ready to stir up. I hoped I’d stir
up the spirits of those women and my new, spirited, friend as well, for one
last conversation. Luck was with me.
What is that old letter you’re reading?
Oh, I'm so glad you’ve come. I wanted to share this letter
with you. My grandmother wrote it to her mother back home on the Pennsylvania
farm. It is dated November 3, 1920. The "Herbert" she writes about was my grandfather.
“Hurrah for Harding!
I helped elect the new President. I went
with Herbert at 6:45. They have voting machines here for the first time for
this election. They voted a little more than 60 an hour.”
Oh, how wonderful.
So there’s the impact of your effort. The result of the more
than fifty years of hardship and struggle.
Susan quickly interrupted me.
I do not look back upon a hard life. I was continually at
work because I enjoyed being busy. Had this never-ending toil made me wretched
in mind or body, I have no doubt that in some way I would have gotten out of
it. And I wasn’t alone.
True, at first there were just a few of us. Mrs. Stanton and
Lucretia Mott began with their 1848 Seneca Falls Convention that brought us the
Declaration of Sentiments toward woman’s rights and was signed by sixty-eight
women and thirty-two men. Over the years more and more woman joined in the
struggles. The Grimke sisters, Sarah and Angelina, were very early supporters.
Later Lucy Stone, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Anna Shaw Howard, Rachel Avery,
Ida B. Wells, Carrie Chapman Catt, Alice Paul, and as the years passed,
hundreds, even thousands, more women and some men joined as they worked in
their communities and for the national effort.
What was the turning point in your work for woman’s
suffrage?
Certainly, when states that entered the Union allowed
woman’s suffrage. First we had Wyoming, which awarded women full suffrage as a
territory in 1869 and refused to enter the Union as a state in 1890 unless
women were allowed to keep the vote. Other states joined with fully
enfranchised women during that decade—Utah, Colorado, and then Idaho.
What about the formation of the National-American Woman
Suffrage Association?
Ah yes. It was good to have the long-standing internal
discomfort settled when the two wings of the suffrage movement finally merged
back into one strong group. There had been a division shortly after the Civil
War. Questions over approach and tactics led to discord. Leaders of the New
England-based American Woman Suffrage Association practically shunned the
National Woman Suffrage Association that Mrs. Stanton and I headed. Finally we joined ranks in 1890. Our joint
membership was seven thousand. I headed this NAWSA until 1900. Membership kept
growing and growing.
How did it feel to retire from active leadership of the
group you founded?
Retirement from the presidency was an 80th birthday
present to myself. As I said at the time, I wished people could realize with
what joy and relief I stepped down. I said that, although I was good for
another decade of work for the cause, still I had been telling myself for a
couple of years : “Let it go ... let go … let go.”
So I did let go of the machinery part but not of the
spiritual part. I had been in this movement for nearly fifty years and gained a
certain notoriety, at least. That reputation enabled me to get a hearing before
the annual conventions of many great national bodies to urge upon them the
passage of resolutions asking Congress to submit a Sixteenth Amendment
forbidding disenfranchisement on account of sex. This is the work to which I meant
to devote myself henceforward.
So what happened to the organizational part?
Carrie Chapman Catt was unanimously chosen to be the new
president. We confidently voted to put the work in her younger hands. The
progress of the movement could not now be impeded either by the going out of
one person or the coming in of another. It would go ahead by its own momentum.
We established a fine headquarters on the twentieth floor of the American Tract
Society building at Nassau and Spruce Streets in lower Manhattan. It was a new structure, completed in 1895.
Looking ahead, what are your views on women and their roles?
Susan chuckled.
I think what I said at the turn of the nineteenth century
still rings true. There is still work to be done. This article appeared in the Rochester
Democrat and Chronicle newspaper on January 2, 1901. Here’s what I said. “We
women will be up and doing. I can hardly sit still when I think of all the
great work waiting to be done. Above all women must be in earnest, we must be
thorough, and fit ourselves for every emergency. We must be trained and
carefully prepare ourselves for the place we wish to hold in the world. More
and more does the world demand specialists, and woman must rise to her
opportunities as never before.
“The Twentieth Century will see as great a change in the
position and progress of woman in the world as had been accomplished in this
century. But it will cease to cause comment, and will be accepted as a matter
of course. There will be nothing in the realm of ethics in which woman will not
have her own recognized place, and all political questions and all the laws
which govern us will have a feminine side, for woman and her influence in
making and shaping affairs will have to be reckoned with.”
May I ask you one last question? What did you want to
accomplish the most?
My greatest ambition was to assure the right to vote. And I
wanted to see discrimination against women eliminated. I wanted to see a tidal
wave sweep us over, even though it might sweep us back. Our work was exactly
like the tide of the ocean. We are swept forward and back. I found that the older I got, the greater
power I had to help the world. Our movement is like a snowball—the farther it
is rolled, the more it gains.
We little dreamed when we began this contest, optimistic
with the hope and buoyancy of youth, that half a century later we would be
compelled to leave the finish of the battle to another generation of women.
These strong young women took our place and completed our work. There is army
of them where we were just a handful.
Mother-in-Law Beef Loaf 1912
2 pounds coarsely chopped “ground” beef
2 tablespoons suet, bacon, or butter, finely chopped
pepper and salt to taste
16 saltine crackers rolled fine
1 cup milk, 3/4 cup half-and-half, OR 1/2 cup cream
2 beaten eggs
NOTE: If you can’t get your butcher to coarsely grind the
beef for you. You can chop it in a food processor.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. In a medium mixing bowl combine the beef, cold
suet, bacon, or butter, salt, and
pepper. In a small bowl combine the
crackers, milk, and eggs and then add to meat. Form into a loaf and place in
baking dish large enough to have space around the sides to accommodate the
addition of boiling water. Dust the top with flour and pour boiling water
around, to come 1/2-inch deep. Bake until done, about 1 1/2 hours.
Kate’s Devil’s Food Cake and Basic Icing May 1914
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vinegar
1/2 ounce square unsweetened baking chocolate
1/4 cup boiling water
1/4 cup very soft butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 cup flour
To make one layer. Double recipe for a two layer cake.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour one 9-inch
round cake pan. In a measuring cup combine
the milk and vinegar and set aside for the milk to sour. Roughly chop the
chocolate and combine with the boiling water. Set aside for the chocolate to
melt. In a medium mixing bowl stir the soft butter, sugar, and egg until well
blended. Stir in the baking soda and flour.
Stir in the chocolate and water and finally the soured milk. Spoon the batter into the pan and bake until
the center is firm to the touch and the cake has begun to just pull back from
the sides of the pan, about 20 minutes. Cool in pan for about 5 minutes, then
remove from pan and finish cooling on a cake rack. Note: This is a very
delicate cake, so take care when removing from the pan.
Frost as desired.
Kate's Basic Icing—makes enough to frost the top of single layer
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups confectioner’s sugar, or a bit more
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
In a 2-quart saucepan combine the milk and butter. Heat until
the butter is just melted. Remove from heat and gradually stir in the confectioner’s sugar and beat
until the icing is smooth. Stir in the vanilla extract.
Alternate flavors
Fruit-- Use fruit juice instead of milk
Coffee—use prepared coffee instead of milk
Chocolate—melt 1 ounce semi-sweet chocolate with the butter.
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