Frances Dana Barker Gage

Frances Dana Barker Gage

Frances Dana Barker Gage (born October 12, 1808 in Marietta, Ohio ; died November 10, 1884 in Greenwich, Connecticut ) was a leading reformer, feminist, and abolitionist in the United States. She worked closely with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other leaders of the early women's movement. She was among the first to advocate voting rights for all citizens regardless of race or gender, and was an outspoken supporter of giving the newly liberated Afro-American women during the reconstruction era as well as Afro-American men who had previously been slaves the right to vote .

Youth and education

The "Colonel Joseph Barker House" in April 2010. It is the house in which Gage grew up.

Frances Dana Barker was born on October 12, 1808 near Marietta, Ohio . She was the daughter of farmers Elizabeth Dana (1771-1835) and Colonel Joseph Barker (1765-1843). The family residence still exists and has been declared a protected historical monument. Frances was the tenth of eleven children. The Barkers left New Hampshire in 1788 and crossed the Alleghenies along with Rufus Putnam. They were among the first to settle in the Northwest Territory of the United States. On January 1, 1829, she married James L. Gage (1800–1863), an abolistic lawyer from McConnelsville . He was a universalist and a friend of evangelism preacher Stephen R. Smith. Wandering universalism preachers like George Rogers and Nathaniel Stacy were frequent guests in the Gage household.

Career

activities

Gage wrote that her efforts towards women's suffrage began at the age of 10. In 1818 she helped her father make barrels, and her work was so well done that the father praised her work and then lamented "the misfortune of her sex". Gage wrote that this was a turning point for her, it was the occasion that aroused in her hatred of the limitations of gender and laid the foundation for her later activism.

Although Gage was inspired at an early age, she did not begin her activist work until 1848. In 1850 she organized a meeting in McConnelsville , Ohio, attended by 70 people. Those gathered at this convention campaigned to have race and gender removed from the eligibility requirements for citizenship and the right to vote in the Ohio Constitution . Your efforts were unsuccessful.

She became an activist in the Temperenzler movement, in the anti-slavery and women's rights movements. In 1851, she presided over a women's suffrage convention in Akron , Ohio, where she received much attention with her opening address introducing Sojourner Truth . Twelve years later, in 1863, she recorded her memories of Truth's address, "Ain't I a Woman?" Gage's version differs significantly from the reports of 1851, because it lengthened the speech, inserted the often repeated "ain't I a woman" like a refrain and thus an imitation of a minstrel in the manner of slaves from the south did - with language peculiarities Truth did not have since she grew up in New York and spoke Dutch . Despite its dubious historical origins and racist overtones, their version became the standard text and account of this famous speech.

In 1853 she moved to St. Louis , Missouri, where she was often threatened with violence because of her anti-slavery views. Six months after moving, she was elected chairman of the National Women's Rights Convention in Cleveland , held in October. In 1857 she visited Cuba, the US Virgin Island of Saint Thomas and Santo Domingo ; on her return she wrote and gave lectures. Gage's radicalism had little success in a slave state like Missouri. She moved to Columbus, Ohio with her family in 1860 . James 'health deteriorated and the family survived three mysterious fires, believed to have been started because of Frances' abilitionist views.

In 1860 Gage became the editor of the "ladies section" of the Ohio Cultivator magazine , where she campaigned for feminists and abolitionists. She also tried to sway legislation towards a "law for married women" that would give them the same property rights as men, but was unsuccessful.

When the Civil War began, she was employed by the Western Sanitary Commission; she traveled down the Mississippi to help the wounded in Vicksburg , Natchez, and Memphis . From 1863 to 1864 she was superintendent, under General Rufus Saxton, on Parris Island , South Carolina, a health facility for over 500 freed slaves. There she met Clara Barton , a nurse who worked nearby, and became friends with her. They compared their childhoods and discussed universalism and literature. In 1863, Gage joined the American Equal Rights Association as a paid lobbyist and writer.

Although she emerged crippled from a carriage accident in Galesburg, Illinois in 1865 , she continued to hold lectures. Her subjects dealt with the so-called "triune problem": first, abolitionism, second, women's rights, and third, moderation in relation to alcohol. Women's rights activists and friends like Elizabeth Cady Stanton , Susan B. Anthony , Amelia Bloomer , Lucy Stone, and Antoinette Brown encouraged her to be the women's rights ambassador to the Midwest . Her lecture tours have taken her to Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee. In 1867 she spoke on the first anniversary of the American Equal Rights Association .

Among other things, she said:

"When we hold the ballot, we shall stand just there. Men will forget to tell us that politics are degrading. They will bow low, and actually respect the women to whom they now talk platitudes; and silly flatteries, sparkling eyes, rosy cheeks , pearly teeth, ruby ​​lips, the soft and delicate hands of refinement and beauty, will not be the burden of their song; but the strength, the power, the energy, the force, the intellect and the nerve, which the womanhood of this country will bring to bear, and which will infuse itself through all the ranks of society, must make all its men and women wiser and better. "

(German: When we stand in front of the ballot box to vote, we are in exactly the right place. The men will forget to tell us that politics is something degrading. They will bow deeply and actually respect the women with whom they are now only exchange platitudes. And stupid flatteries, sparkling eyes, rosy cheeks, pearly teeth, ruby ​​red lips, the gentle and delicate hands full of refinement and beauty will no longer burden your chants, but the strength, the force, the energy, the power of Intellect and the strength of nerves that the femininity of this country places on them as a burden, and that will seep into all strata of society and must make all their men and women wiser and better. )

Publications

• Gage wrote children's books and poetry under the pseudonym "Aunt Fanny" (Aunt Fanny). These include Fanny at School , Fanny's Birthday, and Fanny's Journey .
• She has written in The Ohio Cultivator and other regional journals; she presented herself as a warm, homely person who offered advice and help to the lonely, isolated housewives of Ohio.
• She wrote essays, letters, poetry and novels. She has also published in Western Literary Magazine , New York's Independent , Missouri Democrat , Cincinnati's The Ladies' Repository , Field Notes, and The National Anti-Slavery Standard .
• She was one of the first to contribute to the Saturday Review , she published "Poems" (1867); "Elsie Magoon, or the Old Still-House in the Hollow: A Tale of the Past " (1872); "Steps Upward" (1873) and "Gertie's Sacrifice, or Glimpses of Two Lives" (1869). And she published "A Hundred Years Hence," a hymn by her and first sung in 1875:

Oppression and war will be heard of no more
Nor the blood of a slave leave his print on our shore,
Conventions will then be a useless expense,
For we'll all go free suffrage, a hundred years hence.

Rejection of universalism

She did not practice her religion throughout her life. In her late life she wrote: "

"There came a time when Universalists refused to go with me as an abolitionist, an advocate for the rights of women, for earnest temperance pleaders. (...) Then it came to me that Christ's death as an atonement for sinners was not truth, but he had died for what he believed to be truth. Then came the war, then trouble, then paralysis, and for 14 years I have not listened to a sermon because I am too great a cripple. I have read much, thought much, and feel that life is too precious to be given to doctrines. "

(German: There came a time when the universalists refused to join me: as an abolitionist, as an advocate for women's rights and as a serious advocate of moderation. (...) Then the thought came over me that the death of Christ should be reassuring was not the truth for sinners, he died for his belief in the truth. Then came the war, then the worries, then the paralysis. And I haven't listened to a sermon for 14 years because I'm too disabled I have read a lot, thought a lot, and feel that life is too precious to be sacrificed to the tenets. )

Private life

Frances married James L. Gage on New Years Day, 1829. During their 35 year marriage, James supported Frances efforts to serve others. They raised eight children together. Four of her sons fought in the Union Army during the Civil War . In the fall of 1862, Frances and her daughter Mary traveled to the Sea Islands in South Carolina to train ex-slaves. In 1863 James Gage became terminally ill and died in Columbus, Ohio . He was buried in Woodland Cemetery, McHenry, Illinois . Frances Gage suffered a stroke in 1867 that made her a nursing care requirement. She died in Greenwich, Connecticut on November 10, 1884.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Edward T. James (Ed.): Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary, Volume II. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (1971). S. 2. ISBN 0-674-62734-2
2. ^ Ellen Carol Dubois: Feminism & Suffrage: The Emergence of an Independent Women's Movement in America, 1848–1869. Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press 1999. p. 68. ISBN 0-8014-8641-6
3. ↑ Lorrie K. Owen, (Ed.): Dictionary of Ohio Historic Places . Volume 2. St. Clair Shores (Michigan), Somerset, 1999, 1389.
4. ^ Yvonne Johnson: Feminist Frontiers: Women Who Shaped the Midwest . Kirksville , Missouri, Truman State University Press 2010
5. ↑ Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography, Abolitionists and Civil Rights Activists ( Memento of the original from October 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 27, 2019 
6. ^ Yvonne Johnson: Feminist Frontiers: Women Who Shaped the Midwest. Kirksville, Missouri: Truman State University Press 2010.
7. ^ Yvonne Johnson: Feminist Frontiers: Women Who Shaped the Midwest. Kirksville, Missouri: Truman State University Press 2010.
8. ↑ Corona Brezina: Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a woman?" speech: a primary source investigation . The Rosen Publishing Group 2004. p. 32. ISBN 978-1-4042-0154-5
9. ^ Maxine Leeds Craig: Ain't IA Beauty Queen: Black Women, Beauty, and the Politics of Race . Oxford University Press USA, 2002, p. 7. ISBN 0-19-515262-X
10. ^ Sojourner Truth's speech.Retrieved March 27, 2019
11. ^ Short biography of Frances Dana Gage.Retrieved March 27, 2019
12. ^ Short biography of Frances Dana Gage.Retrieved March 27, 2019
13. ^ Yvonne Johnson: Feminist Frontiers: Women Who Shaped the Midwest. Kirksville, Missouri: Truman State University Press 2010.
14. ^ Yvonne Johnson: Feminist Frontiers: Women Who Shaped the Midwest. Kirksville, Missouri: Truman State University Press 2010.
15. ^ Library of Congress: Address of Frances D. Gage at loc.gov, accessed March 31, 2019
16. ^ "Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography". Abolitionists and Civil Rights Activists. Retrieved March 27, 2019.
17. ↑ Frances Dana Gage, Woman in the Civil War from the website of "www.civilwarwomenblog.com", accessed on March 27, 2019
18. ↑ Grave of James Lamson Gage. Retrieved from Find a Grave website on March 27, 2019
19. ↑ Retrieved March 27, 2019 from the Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography website
20. ↑ Grave of Frances Dana Gage. Retrieved from Find a Grave website on March 27, 2019

Web links

• Article by Sandra Parker, on Unitarian Universalist History & Heritage Society (UUHHS)
• Short biography of Frances Dana Gage in Virtualology