Lowell Offering,* edited by Harriot F. Curtis and Harriet Farley. Not only was this publication edited, but all its contributions were written by young women, actively employed in the Lowell cotton mills. This was without doubt the first magazine in the country conducted solely by women. It reached a very different class of readers from those of the Dial, but it also advocated woman's right to independence of thought and of action. Its influence in Massachusetts and in New England was wide-spread. It found its way into lonely villages and farm-houses, and set the women to thinking, and thus it added its little leaven of progressive thought, to the times in which it lived.

Says Taine: "In order to be developed, an idea must be in harmony with surrounding civilization, and the whole age must co-operate with it." It was necessary that the preceding influences, so briefly mentioned, should be at work, in order that the idea of woman's equality with man could become enough developed to demand some public expression on the subject. It had been three

* For a history of this Magazine, see Appendix C.

quarters of a century since the first Massachusetts woman had dared offer a gentle plea for the rights of her sex. The time had come when the voices of many women, in her own and in other states, were to be heard to declare themselves no longer willing to be "bound by any laws in which they had no voice, or representation."

The first Convention to discuss woman's rights and duties was planned by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, and was held at Seneca Falls, New York, on the 19th and 20th of July, 1848. The members of this Convention based the claims of woman on the Declaration of Independence, demanded equal rights, and published their sentiments over their own names. There were present sixty-eight women and thirty-eight men. At the head of the list were the names of James and Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frederick Douglass (not yet emancipated), Martha C. Wright, and Amy Post. Near the close of the meeting, the members finding that there was still a great deal to be said upon the subject, adjourned for two weeks, and held a similar Convention, in Rochester, New York, on the second of August.

In May, 1850, a third Woman's Rights Convention was held in Salem, Ohio. It was quite well attended and its proceedings were discussed in the columns of the New York Tribune.

The first National Woman's Rights Convention was held in Worcester, Massachusetts, October 23 and 24, 1850. This is the fourth convention in order held in the United States to discuss the question of woman's right to equality before the law, to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

"If there be a word of truth in history, wo been always and still are, over the greater part of humble companions, playthings, captives, me beasts of burden."

MA

T an Anti-Slavery meeting held in

AT

in 1850, an invitation was given f speaker's desk, to all those who felt in in a plan for a National Woman's Righ vention, to meet in the ante-room. Nine women responded, and went into the da dingy room to consult together. Out o number a committee of seven was chosen a Convention in Massachusetts. The na this committee were Harriot K. Hunt, E Kenney, Lucy Stone, Abby Kelley Foster, F Wright Davis, Dora Taft (Father Taylor's

ter), and Eliza J. Taft. The call was issued, signed by the names of prominent men and women from Massachusetts and different parts of the United States.*

It had been hoped that Margaret Fuller could be prevailed upon to preside at this Convention, and a letter had been written to her, asking her to become a leader in the movement, but

had carried her far beyond the reach of all earthly voices. The Convention was held in Brinley Hall, Worcester, Oct. 23 and 24, 1850, and was called to order by Sarah H. Earle of Worcester, and presided over by Paulina Wright Davis of Rhode Island. Representative men and women were present from the different states, but of the two hundred and sixty-eight names of those who signed themselves members, one hundred and eighty-six were from Massachusetts.

Conspicuous among the speakers were the old Anti-Slavery leaders, Wendell Phillips, William

*For call, and names of members of this Convention, see Appendix D.