Association of Illinois, showing the gratifying progress of public opinion on this question in that State. In 1851-52, Indiana, Pennsylvania and others of the States, had begun to follow the good example of New York, Ohio, and Massachusetts, in agitating the new reform.

In October, 1853, a Fourth National Woman's Rights Convention was held in Cleveland, Ohio. Lucretia Mott, the former President of the association, called the meeting to order. Frances D. Gage of Missouri was chosen President, and a fervent prayer was offered by Rev. Antoinette Brown. Massachusetts was represented by Stephen S. and Abby Kelley Foster, Lucy Stone and Wm. Lloyd Garrison. Ernestine L. Rose was chairman of the Business Committee, and Susan B. Anthony of the Finance Committee. William H. Channing, in a letter proposed a Woman's Declaration of Rights, which, with a similar one passed at Seneca Falls, was referred to a committee for final action.

This is not the first time an attempt was made to form a Woman's Declaration of Independence. In a letter from Mr. Francis Cogswell, of Bed

ford, to E. R. Hoar, President of the Concord (Mass.) celebration of 1850, may be found the fol lowing: "In the recent Female Declaration of Independence, framed and signed by the immortal thirty-two ladies of Cambridge, may be found the following significant language: 'We offer,' say the fair rebels, 'as an apology for this our first manifesto, the fact that we have too long been regarded as political cyphers, and that we have sacredly resolved to make the year 1850, memorable as the commencement of a new era in politics." This letter was written in April of the same year that the first Woman's Rights Convention was held in Massachusetts. Who the "immortal thirty-two ladies," who framed this document were, has not yet been discovered.

The notable persons who first appeared at the 1853 Woman's Rights Convention, were Joshua R. Giddings ("Old Gid ") the great Ohio Free Soil leader, and Henry B. Blackwell. This latter gentleman made a memorable speech upon woman's right to freedom, personal and political. After enumerating the many causes, which led to woman's degradation, he said that even her dress,

he advised any gentleman present, who did not agree with him as to the cramped condition in which woman was placed, even in the matter of clothing, to try to live one day in her habiliments. In the social position of woman, she found herself still more bound and restrained. Was it any wonder that woman suffered thus fettered and confined from the cradle to the grave? For himself he would not accept life on such conditions.

The Bloomer costume, as it was called, had appeared a few years before, and several leading women-Lucy Stone among them—had adopted the fashion. The credit of originating this costume, afterwards made so famous, belongs to Mrs. E. S. Miller, a daughter of Gerrit Smith of New York. She lived in the country near her father's home, and was in the habit of going every day, in all weather, to visit him. Her long dresses were so much of an inconvenience, in walking over the country roads to his residence, that she determined to adopt a costume she had seen Mrs. Fanny Kemble wear on some mountain excursions. She at once proceeded to cut off one of

her long dresses just below the knee and with the material thus gained, she made Turkish trowsers, and this, with the addition of a short sack, completed the suit. Afterwards, by one of the caprices of history, this dress, so originated, was named for Mrs. Amelia Bloomer, a lady who also adopted it.

At

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mrs. Miller's cousin, was the second lady to adopt this fashion. tempts were made to introduce the reform dress generally, among women. Conventions and parlor meetings were held, to discuss the project, and the "Bloomerites" in one city at least, (Lowell), appeared in public, as a part of the Fourth of July procession of 1851, dressed in their unique and striking costume. They were nearly two hundred in number, fair young working girls, from the Lowell Cotton Mills, and if they did not look like "liveried angels," (as they were said to have looked on a similar occasion, when dressed in white, with gay parasols, they walked in procession in honor of Andrew Jackson,) they were a pretty sight, and made a choice subject for the illustrated newspapers of the time. Even the

The

London Punch thought the "American Bloomerites" worthy the attention of its artist. reform dress though worn several years by leading and progressive women, was finally done to death like many a better fashion, by the ridicule of the newspapers and the boys in the streets.

To return. In Mr. Blackwell's speech, after he had finished his remarks upon the subject of woman's dress, he endorsed the Bloomer costume and spoke of its peculiarities as follows: "When I first heard about it, it commended itself to my reason, but when I first saw it, I confess my taste recoiled from the novelty. I felt a shock, in spite of myself, as a figure, which seemed neither man nor woman, approached me." "But," he continued earnestly, "I feel so no longer." History must tell that he soon passed beyond the enduring stage in his conversion, and that a certain little rosy cheeked reformer who wore the "short dress," soon after became to him the dearest woman in the world.

Two years later (1855), Henry B. Blackwell and his wife, Lucy Stone, made their protest against the marriage laws, as then existing, and

enunciated their belief, that though married, they were still individuals, with distinct and separate rights; that woman, as wife, could not be absorbed in the husband, or extinguished by the marriage ceremony, and that she should still continue to hold her own property, and keep her own name as before marriage. For twenty-five years Lucy Stone and her husband have maintained these opinions.

In 1879, desiring to vote under the new law allowing women to vote for school committees, she applied for registration under her own name, of Lucy Stone. The Registrar of voters gave the opinion that as her married name was Blackwell, her request could not be granted, and the matter being referred to the City Solicitor of Boston, he confirmed this view of the subject. Not willing to make this concession of principle to an old tradition, Lucy Stone has not yet become a voter. T. W. Higginson of Massachusetts wrote memorable letters to the 1853 Conventions.

Yet she could not have been registered as Mrs. Henry B. Blackwell! The question seems to be, which of her busband's names did she marry?