Daily Ohio Statesman (Columbus), February 2, 1861

      WOMAN’S RIGHTS ADDRESSES.—The Senate Chamber, last evening, was crowded with a large audience of both ladies and gentlemen, who had assembled to listen to the addresses of Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Cutler and Mrs. Gage, before the Woman’s Rights Committees of the two branches of the Legislature, on an amelioration of the laws in favor of women. So great was the concourse, that many gentlemen, and even ladies were compelled to stand during the delivery of the speeches. Mr. Parish, of Erie, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Woman’s Rights, presided, and introduced the lady speakers to the audience.
      Mrs. Jones made the first address. It was read from manuscript, and was a production of which any man might well be proud. The object was to show that men and women, in regard to property rights, should be placed as nearly as possible upon an equality.
      The next address was made by Mrs. Cutler. She spoke extemporaneously, and in a clear and distinct voice, which could be easily heard in every part of the large Hall. The first part of her address was taken up with a discussion on the propriety of extending the right of suffrage to women, but this point she did not think it judicious to press at the present time. But she contended earnestly that married women, in the guardianship of children and in the property acquired by the joint earnings of themselves and husbands, should have equal rights. Many of her anecdotes and illustrations were pointed, and elicited hearty applause.
      Owing to the lateness of the hour and the crowed state of the Hall, Mrs. Gage, when it came her turn to speak, closed the exercises of the evening in a few very brief, but most appropriate remarks.
      Professor Monroe of the Senate then proposed to return the thanks of the audience to the ladies who had so ably and judiciously advocated the rights of their sex, which met with a unanimous aye from the assembled throng. The crowd then dispersed with expressions of very general satisfaction.

The Ohio Daily Statesman changed hands several times over the years. Throughout most of the paper’s existence it carried a fairly overt Democratic leaning. From 1859-1862 the paper was edited by George Washington Manypenny. Manypenny, a democratic politician, had previously served as the Director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the United States from 1853 to 1857 and later left the paper to manage Ohio Public works.  

Only a few months before the Civil War, women were rallying around the causes of abolition, temperance and women’s rights. The woman’s rights movement had previously gained momentum in the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. It was a rare occurrence for women to speak in public, particularly to men, yet these three women did so not simply to a few at a church, but to the entire Ohio Senate Committee on Woman’s Rights and guests. This went against the traditional private role of women.   

Jane Elizabeth Jones was a New Yorker by birth, and an avid abolitionist and suffragist who spoke throughout Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New England. In an 1850 lecture, she spoke of her desire for the term “women’s rights” to be replaced with human rights for all. Hannah Tracy Cutler was born in Massachusetts and then moved to Rochester, Ohio as a teen. She was a woman of national and international stature and served as the president of the Ohio Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association. While most of her work focused on women’s rights within the United States she also carried her ideas to London while working as correspondent for the Ohio Statesman. Here she gave lectures to the public, parliament members, various organizations, and university students on women’s rights, temperance and physiology. The last woman to speak, Frances Dana Barker Gage of Marietta, Ohio, another well-known women’s rights activist who worked with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton after the close of the Civil War. Central to her beliefs was that of abolition first, women’s rights, second, and temperance third. Frances Gage was an avid writer; she wrote children’s books and poems under the pen name “Aunt Franny” and wrote for numerous journals. Her writings both fiction and nonfiction expressed her values of equality for women and African Americans. She argued that women should have all the rights of men. Under the laws of Coverture married women gave up any right to property and they were considered under the law to not exist. This invisibility under the law and lack of ownership is what Mrs. Hannah Cutler was speaking against. At this time the idea that a woman should be able to hold property and guardianship of her children was more acceptable than her right to vote. Her deliberate conciseness on the topic of woman’s suffrage may have been an attempt to not alienate the senators so they would take their right to property more seriously. It was through these speeches that women influenced legislatures into changing the law to allow married women separated from their husbands to own property and make contracts later in 1861.

Written by Hope Bruce, Class of 2019