this date, and until 1828, there is no record to be found, of any public expression here upon this subject.

In 1828 Frances Wright, an educated Scotchwoman, came to this country to lecture upon the "Moral and Political Questions of the Day, including Woman's Rights." This gifted lady was an able exponent of the doctrines of her eminent country-woman, Mary Wollstonecraft, as set forth in her celebrated book, the "Vindication of the Rights of Woman." Ernestine L. Rose, a beautiful Polish lady, lectured in 1836, in New York and other States, upon the Equal Rights of Women. In 1837, Mary S. Gove spoke upon the same subject, especially upon woman's right to a thorough medical education. About this time Sarah and Angelina Grimké, daughters of a wealthy planter in South Carolina, emancipated their, slaves, and came North to live, and they lectured on the evils of slavery.

In 1838, Abby Kelley, a young Quakeress, made her first appearance upon the anti-slavery platform. She was the first Massachusetts woman who spoke to mixed audiences of men and

women in the State. As agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society, Abby Kelley followed in the footsteps of Angelina Grimké; speaking to the people, in school houses and churches, upon the horrors of slavery. The churches were alarmed at such an innovation, and both men and women were expelled from their body for going to hear them, especially on Sunday! Had not St. Paul said that women were to keep silent in the churches? It unsexed them, the church dignitaries had said in a Pastoral Letter, written by the General Association of Congregational Ministers in Massachusetts (in 1837), and it was unnatural that woman should assume the place and tone of man as a public reformer.

This "Clerical Bull," as it was called, was ably answered by Sarah Grimké, in a series of letters to Mary S. Parker (President of the

Poor old Abby Folsom deserves some mention, as a martyr to woman's right to speak in public. She was notorious as a "woman's righter," and the boys followed and hooted her along the street. She was one of the first women to speak in anti-slavery meetings. Emerson called her the "Fica of Conventions." But for this impaling on the pen of his genius, her name would have been long ago lost in her forgotten grave.

Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society), and in spite of its interdict, Abby Kelley, and Sarah and Angelina Grimké continued to speak in public, and bring the rights of their sex more and more into the Anti-Slavery Conventions. In the annual report of the American Anti-Slavery Society, for 1839, the question of woman's right to speak upon the platform was endorsed by an "immense majority" in spite of an attempt on the part of some members to "strike out so much as related to the subject." Though women were members of this society, and were permitted to aid in raising money, and in doing a large proportion of the work, they had never been permitted to vote in the conventions, or serve upon its committees.

In the same year a resolution was passed at the annual Convention of the New England AntiSlavery Society, inviting all persons, whether men or women, who agreed in sentiment on the subject of slavery, to become members and participate in the proceedings. A protest against this resolution was offered, containing reasons why women should not be permitted to speak

and vote in Conventions; one of which was, that such an "irrelevant innovation" would be "injurious to the cause of the slave." By a strange anomaly, one of the seven signers of this "Protest" against personal liberty was Charles T. Torrey, who was afterwards a martyr to the cause of negro emancipation.

In 1840, woman's right to serve on the board of officers of anti-slavery societies was estab lished, Abby Kelley being put on the business committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society, with the full right to speak a.id vote upon all questions. This was done in the annual Convention, and some of the members were so exasperated, that a portion of them left the meeting. Of their number were eight clergymen of the same denomination as that which had fulminated the "Clerical Bull." By this event the American Anti-Slavery Society was divided from centre to circumference. But the "Garrisonian wing," as it came afterwards to be called, stood on the right side of the question, and firmly espoused the equal rights of all American citizens, irrespective of sex.

At the World's Anti-Slavery Convention, held in 1840, a similar scene was enacted. The women delegates from America were refused seats in the Convention, and this "insane innovation, this woman-intruding delusion," was severely rebuked by the leading English Anti-Slavery members. Some of the men delegates from America sided with the women; George Bradburn, Wendell Phillips, James Mott, William Adam, Isaac Winslow, J. P. Miller, Henry B. Stanton and others, openly protested. Mr. Garrison, who arrived late, refused to take his seat unless all delegates, women as well as men, could be admitted to their rightful privilege.

These and similar experiences, taught some of the Anti-Slavery people that there was still another class of human beings, besides the black men, who had rights a "white man was bound to respect;" and from that time began the real work for the equal rights of woman. Lydia Maria Child (the first woman journalist in the country), through her able articles in the Anti

• For the World's Anti-Slavery Convention, see Ap pendix B.

Slavery Standard, which she edited, began to infuse into the public mind a little leaven of this doctrine.

Abby Kelley never failed, in her speeches upon the Anti-Slavery platform, to make a tacit appeal for the rights of her sex. It was said of her: "She acted like a gentle hero, with her mild decision, and womanly calmness." Angelina and Sarah Grimké, the one with her voice, the other with her pen, eloquently pleaded; and in the "Garrisonian wing" were many men who helped to sow the seeds of this reform. It is enough to say, that the leaders in the Anti-Slavery movement in Massachusetts were also leaders in the early Woman's Rights movement, and that their voices, if still heard upon the earth, have continued to be identified with the cause.

There were two social influences at work in Massachusetts, in 1840, creating public sentiment concerning this new reform. Leading writers of the time, who belonged to what was then called the Transcendental School, took up the theme. Notable among these was Margaret Fuller, who, in her article entitled "The Great Lawsuit," The Dial, 1844.