Local Support for an Unpopular Cause in 1874

When 19th-century women's rights activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton gave a pro-suffrage speaking tour in Michigan in 1874, the year the state voted on the issue, reactions ranged from warm support to derision. The divided reactions are seen in miniature by reactions within our own town in June of 1874. Ypsilanti's Sentinel newspaper, headed by Charles Woodruff, published anti-suffrage editorials against the movement, some quite scathing. At the Commercial, editor C. R. Pattison spoke out strongly in favor of suffrage, as in the editorial below. In it he criticizes the Detroit Post for its stance against Ms. Stanton [paragraph breaks added for readability].

"The Detroit Post is in tantrums about Mrs. Stanton’s canvass of the State.

"It copies every miserable, slimy slander in regard to her speeches. Mrs. Stanton’s speech in this city was entirely unexceptionable. It was very far from denunciatory; it was mild, persuasive, eloquent, argumentative, and convincing. The bitterest opponents of women suffrage were compelled to admit that her address was eminently adapted to win votes. We believe that this is the case wherever she speaks.

"The fact is, the Post and kindred sheets fear the powerful blows she is striking against the remains of feudalism and prescription of sex. Not possessing the manliness to come out and oppose it in an open above board manner, the Post and a few papers of its class seek to prejudice voters by side issues, and especially exciting prejudice against the ablest canvassers. This attempt will prove an utter failure.

"Wherever Mrs. Stanton speaks the hearers will be watching for the evidence of the slanderous cricicisms heaped upon her, and will be agreeably surprised to find that they are most unjust aspersions, and thus they will the more easily be persuaded to take the right side. So keep on your villianous, insidious, covert slanders. The rebound will make the cause a host of votes.

"Common sensed men will reason that a cause that can only be met by innuendo and misrepresentations must be based on the rock and worthy of their confidence."

Stanton image used under fair use provisos, from http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAWstanton.htm.

Victorian-Era Memorial Photography in the Ypsilanti Archives

It was an era without digital cameras, much less cheap snapshots or even Brownies. Death was prevalent. One early 20th-century census had a column in which to record how many children a woman had had and how many were yet living.

Sometimes families memorialized their departed loved ones with an expensive photo with which to remember them, before consigning them to the grave. The Ypsilanti Archives has examples of such photos. Most are of children. One shows the common method of arranging the child on a bed as if he or she were sleeping. Another shows the child surrounded by flowers in its small coffin. An examination of these poignant artifacts will be published in the Ann Arbor Chronicle tomorrow, assuming they run it.

For now, here's the most ambiguous one in the set. Is this an example of a memorial photo? It was labeled "Mrs. Chas. Woodruff and Tully." Note that I have not yet done the tiniest bit of research on these people; that, and the others, are my afternoon project, plus the mindful effort to write them up in a respectful manner.