AT

in 1850, an invitation was given from the speaker's desk, to all those who felt interested in a plan for a National Woman's Rights Convention, to meet in the ante-room. Nine solitary women responded, and went into the dark and dingy room to consult together. Out of their number a committee of seven was chosen to call a Convention in Massachusetts. The names of this committee were Harriot K. Hunt, Eliza J. Kenney, Lucy Stone, Abby Kelley Foster, Paulina Wright Davis, Dora Taft (Father Taylor's daugh

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.

Lloyd Garrison, C. C. Burleigh, W. H. Channing and Stephen S. Foster. Among the women who spoke were Abby Kelley Foster, Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Antoinette L. Brown (whom the newspapers called a "beautiful orthodox Oberlin priestess "), Abby H. Price (the first of those large-hearted women to speak in public on the social question), Harriot K. Hunt (the first Massachusetts woman to protest in public against "taxation without representation"), Eliza J. Kenney (the first woman whose name had led a petition to the Massachusetts Legislature, asking for the equal rights of her sex), and last but not least, Lucy Stone. This eloquent advocate of woman's rights made her first speech on the subject in 1847. The newspapers of that date said of her: "She is young, has a silvery voice, and a heart warm with enthusiasm." Letters addressed to the Convention were read from Samuel J. May, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Gerrit Smith and many others.

In the rank and file of the members were also found Anti-Slavery workers, and many others who • For Dr. Hunt's protest, see Appendix E

had come long distances to listen, or be converted to the new doctrine of woman's rights and duties. What sacrifices, domestic and social, did not some of these devoted souls make, that they might show the faith that was in them! Many of them are forgotten, and their names have travelled "the way to dusty death," but the flame they helped to kindle, like a "Candlestick set in a low place, has given light as faithfully, where it was needed, as that upon the hill." It is well to keep the "memory green" of those who thus early took up the cross when it was a cross, in this weak, and as it was then often called, ridiculous movement. Their voices sounded the notes of preparation, for the woman's hour that was to be.

Tidings of this and of the Ohio Convention travelled across the ocean, and their deliberations were ably discussed by Harriet Taylor, in the Westminster Review, and great attention was aroused thereby as to the importance of the subject. It is not too much to say, that the whole Woman's Rights agitation in Old England, as well as in Massachusetts, and in New England, may be dated from these conventions of 1850.

The newspapers

of our own State did not follow

the lead of the great English Quarterly in its treatment of the new movement, but found this "Hen Convention," as they jocosely called it, a fruitful theme for ridicule. They even went so far as to say that some of the women had voices that sounded like the cackling of hens! So far as known, only four newspapers in Massachusetts treated the subject with sympathy or respect. These were the Lynn Pioneer, edited by George Bradburn; the Liberator, edited by William Lloyd Garrison; the Carpet Bag, a humorous Boston newspaper, whose writers treated the matter sportively but in a kindly spirit, and the Lowell American, a little Free Soil newspaper edited and published by William S. Robinson, afterwards so well known in journalism under the nom de plume of "Warrington."

Many well remembered anecdotes might be related, to show the drift of opinion of the time, as to the real meaning of this new departure for women. With crude minds the hen or rooster argument was considered even more conclusive or convincing, than the sphere reasoning is to-day.

The central idea of the Woman's Rights movement was supposed to be a desire on the part of some women to wear men's clothes, and learn to crow; but whether like men, or like barn-yard When bipeds, was never very clearly defined. Lucy Stone went to Malden (a suburban town near Boston) to speak for the Anti-Slavery cause, a certain clergyman announced the proposed meeting from his pulpit, in these words: "This evening, at the Town Hall, a hen will attempt to crow!" This was thought to be a huge joke!

A second Convention was held in Worcester, in the same hall as before, on Oct. 15 and 16, 1851. Mrs. Davis again presided, and many of the speakers and members of the Convention of 1850 were present. The new speakers were Elizabeth Oakes Smith of New York, Dr. O. Martin, Mehitable Haskell, Charles List and Sarah Redlon of Massachusetts, Mrs. C. I. H. Nichols of Vermont, Emma R. Coe of Ohio, Dr. Longshore of Philadelphia, and Rebecca Spring of Brooklyn. Letters were received from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Ward Beecher, Horace