Victoria Woodhull was shunned by women, in her time period, for being a free thinker. She was shunned for having views that weren’t proper for women at that time. Even though she was a suffrage and worked tirelessly to get us the right to vote, even speaking before the House of Representatives (House Judiciary Committee back then), and almost succeeding – she did not because of her views that differed from other women. While they shared the same suffrage values, they did not share her other values. They made sure SHE was not given credit for giving them the right to vote. Kind of stupid don’t you think? Most women’s arguments are like this: baseless, judgmental, hurtful, insecure and disrespectful. Today, you are expected to appreciate THEIR boundaries, but it doesn’t matter what yours are. Phyllis Chessler, has written an excellent book, that I share all the time. It is called “Women’s Inhumanity to Women.” So, What did Victoria do? How did she cope with constantly being shunned by her own peers. How do we handle in today’s modern society?
All Photos by Nina Russo. Victoria out at a little after 4pm Granville, Ohio (clock is fast). She looks ready to give a speech to onlookers below.
Last week, I had the pleasure of visiting Granville, Ohio for the first time. My childhood friends, Kelly and Nina were with me and wanted to go to the Avery-Downer House and Robbins Hunter Historical home. (Note: Museum link is not secure). I, of course was delighted to, not knowing about the connection to Victoria. This museum is next to the library and across the street from the Worthington Inn. We first determined to go to the writer’s store, Just Write (which also seems to be the gift shop for the home). Yes, this was an interesting journey. Just Write is run by a lovely lady, Stefanie Lauvray, who is a transplant from California, like myself. We had a great time catching up on favorite spots in Northern California. Before I got to the Just Write store though, I saw a placard outside the museum that said Victoria Woodhull. Now, this peaked my interest. I knew she was from Homer, Ohio, so what is this doing here?
There are 12 markers that have been placed, across the country, celebrating the pioneer women who, with their families, made homes. They represent the beginning of settlers in our country. The markers can be found on the national trails road “Route 40.” The sculptures were created and designed by August Leimbach. The upkeep and establishment of these statues are through the National Society of Daughters of the American Revolution. To learn more you can read this article in regard to our Ohio statue in Springfield.
Madonna of the Trail, Springfield, Ohio – Route 40
Maria Longworth Nichols, unknown date but believed between 1880-1885. The American Ceramic Society
Maria Longworth (Nichols) Storer (1849-1932) pushed social boundaries and had a lasting impact on Cincinnati. Maria was a philanthropist and a talented artist who worked in clay to form decorative pottery and tapped beautiful pictures on thin pieces of copper. She was an accomplished pianist who played solos or accompanied other musicians at concerts. She established a successful international business, the Rookwood Pottery Company, in an era when women were to be domestically rather than corporately focused. She became a celebrity because of this enterprise and helped make Cincinnati an art center of the country.
Inspired by Actual Events, New Historical Adventure Novel Celebrates the Role of Women in the Battle for America’s Independence
The contributions of women to the American Revolution are often ignored. Answering Liberty’s Call: Anna Stone’s Daring Ride to Valley Forge, tells the story of one woman’s heroic mission of mercy. The heart-racing novel draws inspiration from actual events experienced by one of the author’s ancestors, and the new, second edition is on sale just in time to celebrate Women’s History Month.
Answering Liberty’s Call is “[A] grand and rollicking revolutionary adventure undertaken by a young mother and brave American patriot.”—Historical Novel Society, Editor’s Choice Selection
As the wife of a preacher-turned-soldier, a healer, and mother of three, Anna knows her place in this world. She tends to things at home while her husband and brothers fight for liberty. But when her loved ones face starvation at Valley Forge, she refuses to sit idly by.
Armed with life-sustaining supplies, Anna strikes out alone on horseback over 200 miles of rough and dangerous terrain. Despite perilous setbacks along the way, sheer determination carries her toward her destination. When she learns of a plot to overthrow General Washington, her mission becomes more important than ever. With the fate of the American Revolution in her hands and one of the conspirators hot on her trail, Anna races to deliver a message of warning to Valley Forge before it’s too late.
Based on events in the life of the author’s sixth-great-grandmother.
Anna Stone and her family moved west after the American Revolution, first to what is now West Virginia, then to Pennsylvania, and finally to Ohio in the early years of the nineteenth century. Her husband, Benjamin, was a Baptist preacher who planted churches on the frontier until he was in his eighties. They lived as far west as Guernsey County before settling near Cadiz. Anna’s children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren would gather around to hear her tell of her adventures during the cold winter of 1778. One of her descendants published an account of her journey in a genealogical journal in 1903. Two of her great-great granddaughters organized a DAR chapter named in her honor in 1923, and Anna’s story was published a second time.
Author Tracy Lawson, a direct descendant of Anna and Benjamin, used the 1923 version of the tale as the basis for Answering Liberty’s Call.
The second edition of this acclaimed historical adventure novel has a brand-new look!
I believe in woman suffrage because I believe that the perfect equality of men and women is founded on Divine Wisdom.
Divine Wisdom, or, in the Greek term, Theosophy, teaches first of all the brotherhood of man without distinction of race, creed, color or sex.
The foundation for such brotherhood lies in the fact that there is but One Life, whatever we may call it, permeating and sustaining the universe. In human beings this life exists in a more highly evolved form; it has become individualized, self-conscious, and we know it as the Ego, the Thinker, the real man.
The body which the man wears is merely a garment, put on today and laid aside tomorrow, the real man is external, like the source from which he sprang, taking on new bodies life after life, for the purpose of gathering that experience which eventually shall make him “more than man.”
Since all human beings partake of this One Life, and since women must be considered human beings, it follows that men and women are the same in essence, differentiated only by the outer garments, the bodies they temporarily wear, and that therefore they have certain duties and certain responsibilities shared by all human beings alike.
Theosophy or Divine Wisdom teaches-as does science-that the purpose *[of the] is growth, evolution, and that all growth is the result of use, exercise, expression; that, in fact, without expression there can be no growth, for muscles long unused become atrophied, and faculties or powers long neglected.
In the light of this knowledge, have women been fairly treated? Has not woman’s lot been largely one of repression, while man had every opportunity for expression?
Women were constantly reminded that they were ruled by their feelings that they lacked logic and reasoning power; they were born and bred in an atmosphere of prejudice and suppression, which could not but have its influence upon them, with the result that they did not use the talents they possessed.
People say: “Women cannot succeed in certain fields.” How do we know what women can do, when we have never yet allowed them to try? No man knows what woman could do, if she were free to develop the powers latent within her, nor does she herself know as yet.
Theosophy further teaches that service is the duty and at the same time the privilege of every human being, for service to humanity is considered a short cut to perfection. Woman’s right to service has never been questioned; rather has she always been expected to serve, but the sphere of service was carefully marked out for her, and never by any chance was she allowed to step our of it.
But times have changed. New conditions have arisen. Women do not do their own milking and churning, their own spinning and weaving any more. Factories and machinery have taken much of woman’s work out of the home, and a large army of women are following their work by going out into the world. However, another army still remains, constituting today the leisure class. Shall we allow these women to become parents? Are we going to take away from them the right to labor and to serve in whatever way may be best suited to their individuality? To do so would be fatal to the race, as Olive Schreiner so forcefully points out in her book on “Woman and Labor.”
Women need today the larger vision and the wider experience which the world’s work would give them. They need that all-around development so essential in the building of character, in order that they may become better wives, better mothers and better home-makers. And the world needs them; it needs its mothers; if we are to enter upon the new era, promised by the teachers of the Divine Wisdom, and earnestly hoped for by every lover of humanity, an era of co-operation, of brotherhood, and of universal peace.
*Brackets above are because I could not see the type and was not sure what she was trying to say specifically. Personally, I would have taken it out but I wanted to give you exactly, to the best I could, what was typed in the paper. This is from a copy on microfiche of that newspaper article. No photo was added to the paper. I am enclosing below.
Pauline Steinem is Gloria Steinem’s grandmother. Born a Jewish woman in Poland on August 4, 1864 and died January 5, 1904. She lived in Toledo, Ohio and was elected to several boards during her time. She helped rescue many of her family from the holocaust.
Katherine Wright, (August 19, 1874 – March 3, 1929; Leo/Hera) was a woman who sacrificed her life for others. It wasn’t until the last few years of her life that she was finally able to have true love, her own life and this was at the cost of her brother abandoning her. Her story is one of dedication to the two famous Wright brothers, Orville and Wilber but also to their lesser known father Bishop Milton Wright.
A graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio, she began her work as a teacher in the classroom. Constantly having positions kept from her, as it appeared her future destiny was being prepared for her. At the same time, her brothers were creating their airplane empire, trying to prove they could make a plane fly and then trying to prove to others it did.
In 1778, war may be men’s business, but that doesn’t stop Anna Stone from getting involved in the fight for liberty. When her soldier husband and brothers face starvation at Valley Forge, Anna is not content to pray and worry. She gets on her horse and strikes out alone over two hundred miles of rough roads to bring them life-sustaining supplies.
Eighty miles from her destination, Anna learns of a plot to overthrow General Washington and replace him with a commander who will surrender. With the fate of the American Revolution in her hands, she agrees to carry a message of warning and races to reach Valley Forge before one of the conspirators, who is in hot pursuit, can intercept her.
Women played no formal role in the American Revolution, yet they were hardly passive observers in the conflict. They took part in public demonstrations against British policies alongside their husbands and brothers and were elemental in the most important protest of all—boycotting British manufactured goods.
The American Revolution changed these women’s lives irrevocably. With their men off to battle, many shouldered the responsibility of running family farms and businesses. They managed their homes, raised children, and mobilized on the home front.
Eschewing manufactured cloth from England, women brought their spinning wheels out of storage, and spinning bees became so popular that they drew spectators. The Boston Evening Post reported on one such event, saying, “the ladies…may vie with the men in contributing to the preservation and prosperity of their country and equally share in the honor of it.”
If honor and glory drove men to the battlefield, the fight for independence must also have ignited women’s pride, tempered thought it was by the pain of loneliness and loss.
Artwork by Larissa Coriell
Anna Stone, the protagonist of Answering Liberty’s Call, dislikes the long separation from her soldier husband, Benjamin, even as she shares his desire for independence. It is her faith in him, in the cause of liberty, and in the military’s leadership that bolster her sense of duty and patriotism:
I didn’t protest when Benjamin joined the Culpeper Minutemen in the fall of 1775, for it was every able-bodied man’s duty to serve in the militia. He was delighted—far more than I, to be honest—when the Virginia Assembly called the Minutemen to defend the arsenal at Williamsburg just before Christmastide. When he returned three months later, he was restless. Even though Governor Dunmore’s expulsion from the colony restored peace to Virginia, Benjamin would not be content until the unrest in all the colonies was resolved.
Though he spent long days in the fields or the orchards, he often rode off after supper to spend a few hours at Edwards’ Ordinary in nearby Fauquier Court House. There, he and his fellows followed the news of the continuing rebellion in the north and rejoiced in the daring exploits of the Sons of Liberty.
Unsure how to make him understand my worry, I settled for pointing out it did not look well when a preacher spent more time in the ordinary than in church.
Between Benjamin’s return from the Culpeper Minutemen’s triumph at the Battle of Great Bridge in December 1775 and his departure with the Third Virginia in October 1776, the focus of the conflict shifted. Once the Continental Congress declared the colonies’ independence from Great Britain, a return to the status quo was no longer an option. The prospect of fighting to establish an independent new nation must have been both exhilarating and terrifying. In the novel, Anna recalls her range of emotions on the Sunday Benjamin read the Declaration of Independence aloud to his congregation:
“Brothers and sisters, surely there is more that binds us as Americans than drives us apart. I ask you, what would you be willing to sacrifice to secure a future free from Crown rule for yourselves and your children?
“It is written, in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, ‘For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.’
“In Thomas Paine’s Epistle to the Quakers, he asserts that all men dislike violence and want peace, but there comes a time when violence is inevitable.”
He unrolled the parchment. “This is a copy of our Continental Congress’s Declaration of Independence. The original is on its way to England and King George. I am privileged to be the one to share this message with you.
“‘In Congress, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America: When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another …’”
As he read, I scanned the faces of the people in the congregation and saw the dawning excitement I experienced a few months before. But now, fear overshadowed my excitement. What would independence from England and Crown rule mean? What would it cost to gain it?
As I watched my husband stand before his congregation, I could almost see the fresh flames burst forth from the smoldering coals of his ideals.
Now, as then, a military spouse clings to a sense of patriotism to make a loved one’s service and sacrifice more tolerable. Anna journeys from her home in Virginia to Valley Forge and witnesses firsthand the disorganization and corruption within Congress and the army, forcing her to confront complex issues that threaten her sense of patriotism and her support for the cause.
***
In the novel, Anna sees the war from both sides. On the home front, she chafes at the lack of news and communication and worries about hers and her children’s futures should Benjamin not return.
But when she hears of the privations at Valley Forge, and then receives word that her brothers are ill–possibly with smallpox–she cannot remain at home.
Anna’s actions have been immortalized in Stone family lore–and though we know her name, she represents the countless unsung women who took action in defense of their country during the fight for American independence.
Artwork by Larissa Coriell
Anna Asbury Stone, my 6x-great grandmother, is counted among Ohio women because her family moved west from Virginia after the American Revolution, eventually settling in Harrison County. A Daughters of the American Revolution chapter in Cambridge, Ohio is named in her honor.
Think you might be a descendant of Anna and Benjamin? It’s highly possible! They had eleven children, and many of them settled in Ohio. My research, both genealogical and historical, is available on my website.
I copied the below information on Mabel from the Alliance Historical Society Website. Take some time to peruse their website and learn more about this family, the home and the city. I don’t see any other information about her online but you might reach out the historical society to see what more they have to offer.
Biography of Mabel Hartzell
Mabel Hartzell was born in Saginaw, Michigan on January 1, 1875 and died in Alliance, Ohio on December 2, 1954.
She came to Alliance with her family when she was eight years old. Her mother died when Mabel was just nine years old. The family was divided and she was adopted by Matthew and Mary Earley, who were friends of the family. The Earleys allowed Mabel to keep the Hartzell name.
Mabel Hartzell was a very well-educated woman and was extremely active in activities in and for the Alliance community.
Visiting the Cleveland Art Museum with my boyfriend, this past September, was a real treat. Not only was it, sadly, very empty but I also learned about a new Ohio woman. Since there were small numbers, we had the luxury of touring the museum like an after hours wealthy dignitary might do, such as a Louis Tiffany in his time. Without a crowd, we did not have to rush viewing the pieces, reading the descriptions and standing and gazing as long as we wished. My boyfriend was interested in viewing the Tiffany’s collection, that I had not noticed since it was behind us walking in. To my surprise, I quickly learned that there was a woman, from Tallmadge, Ohio, who was the actual designer and creator of Tiffany lamps and eventually the jewelry as well. I found a historical fiction book about her, in the museum store, called “Noon at Tiffany’s,” by Echo Heron. I set out to read about Clara Driscoll – the real Tiffany’s, upon my return.
Reflections Inspired by A Course in Miracles, A Course of Love, The Way of Mastery, Choose Only Love, & The Way of the Marys. . .with Celia Hales - https://www.amazon.com/author/celiahales
Mabel Hartzell was born in Saginaw, Michigan on January 1, 1875 and died in Alliance, Ohio on December 2, 1954.
Ohio Women's History 