State House Broch. W/Pockets
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About The State House Women’s Leadership Project The State House Women’s Leadership Project grew out of State Senator Robert Wetmore’s observation that the art collection on display in the Massachusetts State House was unrepresentative of the people of the Commonwealth. MAKING THE WORLD IN EDUCATION, in marriage, in religion, MY STRONGEST DESIRE through life has He noticed that the state’s most important public building contained only a handful of female images. At his urging, in everything, disappointment is the been to be educated. I found the most in l995 the State Senate established a Select Committee “to study the contribution of women to the government of lot of woman. It shall be the business exquisite pleasure in reading, and as we the Commonwealth and to commemorate that contribution.” BETTER: THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUALITY of my life to deepen that disappointment had no library, I read every book which An Advisory Committee was formed and charged with choosing “a woman, who through her actions, has made a IN 19TH CENTURY AMERICA in every woman’s heart until she bows came in my way, and I longed for more. major contribution to the government of our commonwealth or who, through her actions, has represented a group down to it no longer. Again and again mother would endeavor of women who made such a contribution.”The 26 members of this committee recommended that, rather than one — Speech to National Woman’s Rights to have us placed in some private school, woman, six individuals be honored in a work of art to be permanently installed in the State House. Convention, 1855 but being colored we were refused. The Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities was asked to implement the project. After raising private funds to —“A Colored Lady Lecturer,” 1861 match a $120,000 state appropriation, the Foundation commissioned artists Sheila Levrant de Bretteville and Susan Sellers to create a new work of art for the State House. Entitled “Hear Us,” the piece presents the words and images of six Massachusetts women: AND DO NOT TELL US BEFORE WE ARE BORN EVEN, I THOUGHT OF THE GREAT INJUSTICE I DOROTHEA DIX (1802-1887), advocate for the mentally ill, Superintendent of Women Nurses for THAT OUR PROVINCE IS TO PRACTICED UPON ME, AND the Union Army COOK DINNERS, DARN STOCKINGS LONGED FOR SOME POWER TO HELP ME I LUCY STONE (1818-1893), abolitionist, suffrage leader, publisher and editor of the Woman’s Journal AND SEW BUTTONS. CRUSH THOSE WHO THUS ROBBED ME WE WANT RIGHTS. OF MY PERSONAL RIGHTS. I SARAH PARKER REMOND (1824-1894), African-American abolitionist who took the anti-slavery campaign to Great Britain, physician I JOSEPHINE ST. PIERRE RUFFIN (1842-1924), suffragist, leader in national women’s club movement, founder and editor of the Woman’s Era newspaper, civil rights activist I MARY KENNEY O’SULLIVAN (1864-1943), trade unionist, settlement house worker, campaigner for the rights of women workers, factory inspector, pacifist A curriculum packet produced in connection with I FLORENCE LUSCOMB (l887-1985), suffragist, labor organizer, candidate for public office, advocate the State House Women’s Leadership Project and for civil liberties, racial equality, and world peace the installation of HEAR US, a new work of art honoring the contribution of women to public life Written by Ellen K. Rothman and Peter O’Connell with help from Margaret Piatt The graphic design of Making the World Better is based on HEAR US, by Sheila Design: Higgins & Ross Levrant de Bretteville and Susan Sellers. Installed in the Massachusetts State House in in Massachusetts Printer: Mercantile/Image Press, Worcester, MA October 1999, HEAR US is composed of six marble panels, each with a bronze bust Thanks to Ellen Anstey for transcribing and formatting, Andrea Moore Kerr and of an honoree and two quotations from her writings or speeches. The wall behind Alice Collins for research assistance, and teachers Steve Bober, Cheryl Hall, Mike Miller, the panels is covered with a repeating pattern of six official documents chosen to Sally Smith, Thea Tully, and Joseph Zaremba for their interest and advice. represent the causes associated with each woman. The HEAR US wallpaper is also Developed by the Massachusetts Foundation for underprinted on the cover of the curriculum packet. LUCY STONE SARAH PARKER REMOND Photographs courtesy of Houghton Library, Harvard University (Dix—bMS Am 1838 the Humanities and the Tsongas Industrial History (994); Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College (Stone); Peabody Essex Museum of Salem (Remond); Tulane University (Ruffin); Schlesinger Library on the History of Center at the University of Massachusetts Lowell Women, Radcliffe (O’Sullivan and Luscomb). Copyright 1999 Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities 1853 1867 1835 Stone testifies before Stone and Henry Blackwell Remond not allowed 1847 1850 Massachusetts legislature campaign for woman 1869 to attend segregated Stone graduates from Fugitive Slave Act passed on behalf of woman’s rights suffrage in Kansas Woman’s rights movement 1831 Salem High School Oberlin College 1860 splits into two factions 1818 William Lloyd Garrison 1841 First national woman’s Remond refuses to sit 1856 1858 Remond begins study- 1863 1866 Abolitionists and woman’s rights 1871 1879 1920 Lucy Stone born, publishes first issue of Remond family moves Remond family Stone gives first public rights convention held in segregated area of Remond joins anti- Stone gives up ing at Bedford Ladies Emancipation Remond moves supporters form American Equal Stone and her family Remond becomes Massachusetts women win right to 1893 19th Amendment, giving W. Brookfield, MA “The Liberator” to Newport, RI returns to Salem lecture in Gardner, MA in Worcester, MA Boston theater slavery lecture tour lecturing College Proclamation issued to Italy Rights Association move to Boston a physician vote in school board elections Lucy Stone dies in Boston women right to vote, ratified 1824 1832 1838 1844 1848 1852 1855 1857 1859 1861 1865 1868 1870 1877 1890 1894 Sarah Parker Remond Remond’s mother helps Remond’s brother Black community brings Stone hired as lecturer for American Stone first meets Stone marries Henry Stone’s daughter, Alice Remond begins anti- Civil War breaks out Stone returns to lecturing 14th Amendment, Stone begins publishing the Remond marries Lazarro Pintor Two factions of Sarah Parker Remond dies in Italy Susan B. Anthony born, Salem, MA organize Salem Female Charles becomes first an end to segregation Anti-Slavery Society Blackwell but refuses Stone Blackwell, born slavery lecture tour Civil War ends guaranteeing citizenship “Woman’s Journal” woman’s rights Anti-Slavery Society black agent for American in Salem public schools and Elizabeth Cady to take his name of British Isles for African-Americans, movement unite Stone begins lecturing on woman’s rights Stanton Stone refuses to pay 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery, ratified ratified 15th Amendment, giving Anti-Slavery Society taxes because she is not black men the vote, ratified Stone and Stephen Foster attacked by mob Stone begins wearing allowed to vote Massachusetts outlaws discrimination in First woman’s rights convention held “Bloomer” costume public accommodations in Seneca Falls, NY DOROTHEA LYNDE DIX was born on LUCY STONE was one of the very first SARAH PARKER REMOND was the JOSEPHINE ST. PIERRE RUFFIN was MARY KENNEY O’SULLIVAN, the FLORENCE LUSCOMB moved from Making the World Better the Maine frontier when it was still part of Massachusetts women to earn a college degree, granddaughter of a free black man who fought born in Boston.The city’s public schools were daughter of Irish immigrants in Hannibal, Lowell to Boston at the age of two. She was Massachusetts. After an unhappy childhood, graduating in 1847 from Oberlin College in in the Revolutionary War. Her parents owned a segregated, so her parents sent her to Salem, Missouri, got her first factory job at 14. Angry raised by her mother Hannah, an active sup- When Lucy Stone died in l893, the last words she The curriculum packet is designed for maximum she left home at the age of 12 to live with Ohio. She embarked almost immediately on a successful business in Salem.They placed great where the black community had succeeded in about the low wages and poor working condi- porter of woman suffrage, trade unionism, relatives in Boston and Worcester. Although she career as a public speaker—during the week, value on education, but racially segregated desegregating the schools. At the age of 16, tions endured by women workers, she became and other progressive causes. Graduating from spoke to her daughter were, “Make the world better.” flexibility; you may use a few or all of the suggest- had little formal schooling, she spent her teens she lectured against slavery, on the weekends, for schools kept Sarah from getting the formal having completed a Boston finishing school a trade unionist. From 1892-93, she was MIT in 1909, Florence Luscomb was one of and 20s teaching and writing books for young schooling she desperately desired.The Remonds and two years of private tutoring in New York, employed as the first woman organizer for the first women to receive a degree in architec- Like many other women whose accomplishments ed activities and alter the order of the teaching woman’s rights. Over the next few years, she readers. In the 1830s, Dix became seriously earned a good living, and a national reputation, were ardent abolitionists. Sarah’s older brother she married George Lewis Ruffin, a barber the American Federation of Labor, organizing ture; she practiced until WW I brought a halt have gone largely unrecognized and unremem- sequence to suit your own needs.The materials are interested in how the outcasts of society— giving public lectures on the injustices faced by Charles Lenox Remond was the American Anti- who would later graduate from Harvard Law garment workers, printers, binders, carpet to most building.