most daring and important innovations. The call for this meeting was issued in June, 1887:
The first public demand for equal educational, industrial, professional and political rights for women was made in a convention held at Seneca Falls, New York, in the year 1848.
To celebrate the Fortieth Anniversary of this event, an International Council of Women will be convened under the auspices of the National Woman Suffrage Association, in Albaugh's opera house, Washington, D. C., on March 25, 1888.
It is impossible to overestimate the far-reaching influence of such a Council. An interchange of opinions on the great questions now agitating the world will rouse women to new thought, will intensify their love of liberty and will give them a realizing sense of the power of combination.
However the governments, religions, laws and customs of nations may differ, all are agreed on one point, namely: man's sovereignty in the State, in the Church and in the Home. In an International Council women may hope to devise new and more effective methods for securing in these three institutions the equality and justice which they have so long and so earnestly sought. Such a Council will impress the important lesson that the position of women anywhere affects their position everywhere. Much is said of universal brotherhood, but for weal or woe, more subtle and more binding is universal sisterhood.
Women recognizing the disparity between their achievements and their labors, will no doubt agree that they have been trammeled by their political subordination. Those active in great philanthropic enterprises sooner or later realize that, so long as women are not acknowledged to be the political equals of men, their judgment on political questions will have but little weight.
It is, however, neither intended nor desired that discussions in the International Council shall be limited to questions touching the political rights of women. Formal invitations requesting the appointment of delegates will be issued to representative organizations in every department of woman's work. Literary Clubs, Art Unions, Temperance Unions, Labor Leagues, Missionary, Peace and Moral Purity Societies, Charitable, Professional, Educational and Industrial Associations will thus be offered equal opportunity with Suffrage Societies to be represented in what should be the ablest and most imposing body of women ever assembled.
The Council will continue eight days, and its sixteen public sessions will afford ample opportunity for reporting the various phases of woman's work and progress in all parts of the world, during the past forty years. It is hoped that all friends of the advancement of women will lend their support to this undertaking.
On behalf of the National Woman Suffrage Association:
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, President.
Susan B. Anthony, First Vice-Pres.
Matilda Joslyn Gage, Second Vice-Pres.
Rachel G. Foster, Corresponding Sec'y.
Ellen H. Sheldon, Recording Sec'y.
Jane H. Spofford, Treasurer.
May Wright Sewall, Chairman Ex. Com.
"All of the intervening months from June until the next March were spent in the extensive preparations necessary to the success of a convention which proposed to assemble delegates and speakers from many parts of the world. As the funds had to be raised wholly by private subscription, no bureau with an expensive pay-roll was established but the entire burden was carried by a few individuals, who contributed their services."65
Fifty-three organizations of women, national in character, of a religious, patriotic, charitable, reform, literary and political nature, were represented on the platform by eighty speakers and forty-nine delegates, from England, Ireland, France, Norway, Denmark, Finland, India, Canada and the United States. Among the subjects discussed were Education, Philanthropies, Temperance, Industries, Professions, Organizations, Social Purity, Legal, Political and Religious Conditions. While no restriction was placed upon the fullest expression of the most widely divergent views upon these vital questions of the age, the sessions, both executive and public, were absolutely without friction.
A complete stenographic report of these fifty-three meetings was transcribed and furnished to the press by a thoroughly organized corps of women under the direction of Miss Mary F. Seymour of New York City, an unexcelled if not an unparalleled feat.66 The management of the Council by the different committees was perfect in every detail, and the eight days' proceedings passed without a break, a jar or an unpleasant circumstance.
Saturday evening, March 23, Mr. and Mrs. Spofford, of the Riggs House, gave a reception to enable the people of Washington to meet the distinguished speakers and delegates. The large parlors were thrown open and finally the big dining-room, but the throng was so dense that it was almost impossible to move from one room to another.
President and Mrs. Grover Cleveland received the Council Friday afternoon. Monday evening a reception was given by Senator and Mrs. Thomas W. Palmer of Michigan, for which eight hundred invitations were sent to foreign legations, prominent officials and the members of the Council. Senator and Mrs. Leland Stanford opened their elegant home on Tuesday afternoon in honor of the pioneers in the woman suffrage movement. In addition to these many special entertainments were given for the women lawyers, physicians, ministers, collegiate alumnae, etc., and those of a semi-private nature were far too numerous for mention.
Albaugh's Opera House was crowded to its capacity at all of the sixteen sessions. Religious services were held on both Sundays, conducted entirely by women representing many different creeds. Some of the old-time hymns were sung, but many were from modern writers—Whittier, Samuel Longfellow, John W. Chadwick, Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, Julia Mills Dunn, etc. The assisting ministers for the first Sunday were the Reverends Phebe A. Hanaford, Ada C. Bowles, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Amanda Deyo. The Rev. Anna Howard Shaw gave the sermon, a matchless discourse on The Heavenly Vision.
"Whereupon, O, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision." Acts, xxvi:19.
In the beauty of his Oriental home the Psalmist caught the vision of the events in the midst of which you and I are living to-day. And though he wrought the vision into the wonderful prophecy of the 68th Psalm, yet so new and strange were the thoughts to men, that for thousands of years they failed to catch its spirit and understand its power.
The vision which appeared to David was a world lost in sin. He heard its cry for deliverance, he saw its uplifted hands. Everywhere the eyes of good men were turned toward the skies for help. For ages had they striven against the forces of evil; they had sought by every device to turn back the flood-tide of base passion and avarice, but to no purpose. It seemed as if all men were engulfed in one common ruin. Patient, sphinx-like, sat woman, limited by sin, limited by social custom, limited by false theories, limited by bigotry and by creeds, listening to the tramp of the weary millions as they passed on through the centuries, patiently toiling and waiting, humbly bearing the pain and weariness which fell to her lot.
Century after century came forth from the divine life only to pass into the great eternity—and still she toiled and still she waited. At last, in the mute agony of despair, she lifted her eyes above the earth to heaven and away from the jarring strifes which surrounded her, and that which dawned upon her gaze was so full of wonder that her soul burst its prison-house of bondage as she beheld the vision of true womanhood. She knew then it was not the purpose of the Divine that she should crouch beneath the bonds of custom and ignorance. She learned that she was created not from the side of man, but rather by the side of man. The world had suffered because she had not kept her divinely-appointed place. Then she remembered the words of prophecy, that salvation was to come to the race not through the man, but through the descendant of the woman. Recognizing her mission at last, she cried out: "Speak now, Lord, for thy servant heareth thee." And the answer came: "The Lord giveth the Word, and the women that publish the tidings are a great host."
To-day the vision is a reality. From every land the voice of woman is heard proclaiming the word which is given her, and the wondering world, which for a moment stopped its busy wheel of life that it might smite and jeer her, has learned