On This Day in… 1842…Anna Elizabeth Dickinson by Donna Schlachter

Anna Dickinson, c. 1855-1865 -- Wikipedia

 

 

 

Anna Elizabeth Dickinson was born on this date in 1842 in Philadelphia. Her parents were Quakers and abolitionists, John and Mary Edmundson Dickinson. Her ancestors emigrated from England, settling with other Quakers near Evanston, Maryland in the 1660s. She was the youngest of three brothers and another sister. Their family went through difficult times and much poverty following her father’s death when she was two years old. Her mother opened a school in their home and rented rooms to boarders to support her family.

Anna was an avid student, hardworking, and whatever money she earned, she used to purchase books. When she was 14, she converted to the Methodist Church, remaining active throughout her life. It was in this same year that her first essay about slavery was published in The Liberator.

When she was 15, she worked as a copyist, replicating legal documents, letters, and more. At 17, she became a teacher in Pennsylvania, and at 19, she became a clerk at the US Mint, one of its first female employees. However, when she spoke out against General George McClellan in a public meeting, she was fired from the mint.

While today we consider the Quakers a conservative denomination, they encouraged women to speak in public at a time when such behavior was frowned upon by most Americans. Anna toured the country, speaking for the Sanitary Commission on such topics as abolition, reconstruction, women’s rights, and temperance.

Her first major speech, a two-hour discussion on women’s rights, occurred in 1861 in Philadelphia. Her mentor, Lucretia Mott, arranged a lecture tour sponsored by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, and Anna’s speeches are credited with helping the Emancipation movement.

During the Civil War, Anna visited hospitals and camps, speaking to the soldiers. During the 1863 US Senate elections and with the Civil War deepening all around her, Anna campaigned for several Republican candidates, speaking eloquently and powerfully in support of that party’s anti-slavery platform and for preservation of the union of the country. She spoke to coal miners in Pennsylvania, convincing many of her abolitionist views.

At a lecture in New York City, she held her 5,000 attendees captive for two hours, and earned a standing ovation for her impassioned speech in 1864 in the US House of Representatives, where President Lincoln was in attendance. She was the first woman to appear before Congress.

Interpines Mansion, where her mother lived, supported by Anna -- Wikipedia

 

Following the Civil War, Anna continued speaking, earning the equivalent of half a million dollars a year and giving most of it to charity, friends, and relatives. It was during this time that she expanded her repertoire of topics to now include African-American rights, venereal diseases, and polygamy. And while she continued to support women’s rights, she did not speak about the suffrage movement.

Mark Twain wrote of her in a letter in 1867: “She talks fast, uses no notes what ever, never hesitates for a word…and has the most perfect confidence in herself.”

Fine praise, indeed, from a similarly famous orator himself.

Anna, c. 1870 -- Wikipedia

 

Unfortunately for Anna, times changed but she didn’t. Audiences were less prone to listen to a lengthy lecture, preferring to be entertained. By 1875, she struggled to support herself through her speaking, and following one performance where she waved a bloody shirt on stage to make her point, bookings dried up and former supporters questioned her sanity.

In 1876, in an attempt to revive her career, she accepted the invitation by Ralph Meeker to visit Colorado, where she promptly climbed Pikes Peak and other mountains, often using mules or horses. She joined an expedition to survey Longs Peak, but when the Boulder County News reported her scandalous donning of trousers, her popularity dropped. However, she was the first white woman on record to climb Gray’s Peak, Lincoln Peak, and Elbert Peak; the second to summit Pike’s Peak.

Boston Music Hall -- Wikipedia

 

As her speaking career declined, she decided to try writing, and in 1868 published the novel, What Answer? that tackled the current opposition to interracial marriage. In 1876, she penned A Paying investment: a Plea for Education that promoted technical training for workers, better treatment of prisoners, assistance for the poor, and education for all children. And, in 1879, she wrote A Ragged Register of People, Places, and Opinions. She wrote several plays, even acting in several, but her performance wasn’t received with favor in New York.

Anna, c. 1901 -- Wikipedia

 

Anna’s final years were no easier than her early growing up had been. At one point, she exhibited signs of paranoia, and her sister had her committed to an insane asylum. After several years, Anna won her freedom and her court case alleging her illegal kidnapping, then she lived with a married couple for more than forty years.

She died in 1932 following a stroke, and is buried at State Hill Cemetery in Goshen, New York.

However, she left a legacy of boldly speaking out against societal wrongs, no matter how unpopular that made her. During the second world war, a Liberty ship was named after her, SS Anna Dickinson. 


 

About Donna:

A hybrid author, Donna writes squeaky clean historical and contemporary suspense. She has been published more than 60 times in books; is a member of several writers' groups; facilitates a critique group; teaches writing classes; and judges in writing contests. She loves history and research, traveling extensively for both, and is an avid oil painter. She is taking all the information she’s learned along the way about the writing and publishing process, and is coaching committed writers eager to tell their story.

www.DonnaSchlachter.com

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Resources:

https://www.joankoster.com/anna-elizabeth-dickinson-americas-shining-star/

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/anna-elizabeth-dickinson.97123/

On This Day in 1839…Frances Willard by Donna Schlachter

Frances Willard as a young woman -- Wikipedia

This month, our highlighted person from history is Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard. Born on this day in 1839, she carried a heavy legacy in her names. Her sister, Elizabeth Caroline, had died the previous year, and her parents bestowed not one but two middle names on the wee girl. She was also named after British novelist Frances (Fanny) Burney, as well as the American poet, Frances Osgood.

Frances Willard had an older brother, Oliver, and a younger sister, Mary. Their father was a farmer, naturalist, and legislator, and her mother was a schoolteacher, meaning that the family was never wealthy, although they weren’t considered destitute, either.

When Frances was two, her family moved to Oberlin, Ohio, so her father could study for the ministry, but by the time she was around seven, her father’s health had taken a turn for the worse. They moved that same year to Janesville, Wisconsin, where they joined the Methodist church, and Frances and her sister attended school. Their final move came when Frances was 19, when they moved to Evanston, Illinois. Her father, his health now recovered, became a banker, finally assuring the family’s stability, both in terms of location and finances.

After graduating from the North Western Female College, Frances held various teaching positions, following in her mother’s footsteps. At the age of 32, she was promoted to president of the brand new Evanston College for Ladies, and when that school became the Women’s College of Northwestern University two years later, she was named the first Dean of Women. However, she left this position the following year after breaking off her engagement with the university’s president.

That same year, she discovered her true calling in the women’s temperance movement, participating in the founding convention where she was elected secretary. In 1876, she became head of their Publications Department, and focused her energies on publishing and building the readership of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) weekly newspaper.

Frances ran for president of the national WCTU and won in 1879, holding that post until her death in 1898. Her tireless efforts for the temperance cause included a 50-day speaking tour in 1874. She traveled an average of 30,000 miles a year and presented an average of 400 lectures for the next 10 years.

As president for the WCTU, Frances also lobbied for women’s suffrage. She believed that empowering women with the right to vote would allow women to fulfill their potential as the companions and counselors of men, rather than simply an incumbrance or a toy.

Frances learning to ride a bike -- from Wikipedia

 

She also became interested in the effect of the international drug trade on homes and families, and took roles in the National Council of Women, serving as president from 1888 to 1890. At the same time, she expanded her role in the World WCTU, again serving as president.

Frances, 1890-1898 -- from Wikipedia

 

Frances passed away at the age of 59 after contracting influenza while preparing to sail for England and France. However, she has not been forgotten.

Frances Willard's and her mother's grave -- from Wikipedia

 

Some of her achievements and legacies: 

•  Supported kindergarten education
•  Supported federally-funded training for teachers
•  Instrumental in the passage of the 18th and 19th Amendments
•  First woman included in Statuary Hall in the United States Capitol
•  Commemorated on a US Postage stamp
•  Inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame
•  Her home has become the headquarters for the WCTU as well as a museum, and is listed on the National Historic Landmark registry
•  A number of schools in the US have been named after her, as well as a street in Chico, California, and a hospital in Chicago
•  Willard Hall at Oklahoma State University, first built as a women’s dormitory, now serves as the home of the College of Education

Frances Willard statue

US Postage stamp 1940 -- National Postal Museum 

About Donna: 

 

A hybrid author, Donna writes squeaky clean historical and contemporary suspense. She has been published more than 60 times in books; is a member of several writers' groups; facilitates a critique group; teaches writing classes; and judges in writing contests. She loves history and research, traveling extensively for both, and is an avid oil painter. She is taking all the information she’s learned along the way about the writing and publishing process, and is coaching committed writers eager to tell their story.



www.DonnaSchlachter.com

Newsletter: https://www.thepurposefullwriter.com/newslettersignup Stay connected so you learn about new releases, preorders, and presales, as well as check out featured authors, book reviews, and a little corner of peace. Plus: Receive 2 free ebooks simply for signing up for our free newsletter!

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Resources:

https://postalmuseum.si.edu/exhibition/women-on-stamps-part-2-education-enriching-lives/frances-elizabeth-willard

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Willard

The Second Great Awakening--and a Giveaway

I’m sure if you believe in God and have for any length of time, you’ve probably experienced the frustration of praying for something without seeing the results you are hoping for. This experience seems to be a right of passage with God, a test that one must pass in order to get to the next level. Very often, God places a promise of something in our hearts long before the promise will be fulfilled.

John Erskine

So is the case of John Erskine of Edinburgh, Scotland. Erskine felt a prompting of God to pray for revival in 1744. He asked many of his friends to join him in a “Concert of Prayer” for the next two years. They prayed every Saturday evening and Sunday morning, as well as the first Tuesday of each new quarter, that God “would appear in His glory...by an abundant effusion of His Holy Spirit...to revive true religion in all parts of Christendom...and fill the whole earth with His glory.” Dutifully, they prayed, and they saw some effect, but not the sweeping moves of God that they hoped for. After a time, the Concerts of Prayer waned, leaving many to feel they’d had no effect.

Years passed. Life carried on. Tensions between Britain and the colonies intensified until the colonies declared independence. War broke out, and people’s focus centered on the crisis at hand. At the end of that conflict, the people of America found themselves far from God and in a state of moral decline. Across the ocean, the French Revolution was in full swing, bringing with it another crisis to keep people’s focus from seeking after God fully. Infidelity and rationalism grew rampant in Europe. The world seemed to be going bad all at once.

Yet God hadn’t forgotten the promise he gave John Erskine for revival.  Once again in 1784—nearly forty years after the initial prompting—Erskine felt the stirring to pray for revival again. This time, he reprinted a call to revival prayer given by Jonathan Edwards, a key player in the Great Awakening of decades earlier. Because of Erskine’s efforts to distribute the booklet and call others to pray, many churches across all denominations, both in Britain and the U. S., agreed to institute Concerts of Prayer each Monday night. They continued this pattern for the next seven years.

In 1791, another central figure from the First Great Awakening, John Wesley, died. Even as churchgoers mourned his death, the stirrings of revival began to break out among the industrial towns of Yorkshire, England. Suddenly, church membership just among the Methodist denomination skyrocketed from 72,000 to nearly 250,000 across the next 20 years. Churches in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland became full—so full that they spilled over into open fields where more people could attend.

Isaac Backus

By 1794, America was sensing the spiritual shift, and twenty-five men in New England gathered to form a Concert of Prayer there. Led by Isaac Backus and Stephen Gano, these men distributed letters calling others to pray on the first Tuesday of each quarter. Within a year, revival broke out, and within four years, it had reached every state. Students attending colleges across the nation began to seek God in droves. In fact, Yale saw half their student body become converted to Christianity during the year of 1795.

Itinerant preachers, known as circuit-riders began to go into less populated or frontier areas and preach to those living in the distant locales. Camp meetings popped up in frontier areas, where residents of a wide region would come to a central area and camp for a week while attending meetings put on by the circuit-riding preacher. They would worship with hymns, hear sermons, and share communion.

Other outcomes of the revival were the inception of many missionary societies, both in Britain and America. Social reforms also took place. Slavery was abolished in Britain, and an abolition movement began in America. Prisons were reformed. Sunday Schools and benevolence institutions were started. Temperance societies were formed, and women’s rights and women’s suffrage became a hot topic of discussion.

By 1800, the awakening reached Switzerland, Scandinavia, and Germany, and before it waned in the 1840’s, it had reached central Europe, South Africa, India, and the Pacific Islands.

It’s your turn. Do you believe there will be another worldwide revival like either the First or Second Great awakenings? If so, do you expect to see it in your lifetime? Leave me a comment to be included in the drawing for my second release—The Convenient Bride Collection.

Jennifer Uhlarik discovered the western genre as a pre-teen, when she swiped the only “horse” book she found on her older brother’s bookshelf. A new love was born. Across the next ten years, she devoured Louis L’Amour westerns and fell in love with the genre. In college at the University of Tampa, she began penning her own story of the Old West. Armed with a B.A. in writing, she has won five writing competitions and finaled in two other competitions. In addition to writing, she has held jobs as a private business owner, a schoolteacher, a marketing director, and her favorite—a full-time homemaker. Jennifer is active in American Christian Fiction Writers and lifetime member of the Florida Writers Association. She lives near Tampa, Florida, with her husband, teenaged son, and four fur children.

National Speaker, Small Town Heroine: Narcissa Kinney

Narcissa Kinney - younger years

 Narcissa Kinney by Janet Chester Bly

One of Gearhart, Oregon's most prominent citizens in the nineteenth century was Narcissa Kinney. A devoted Christian, an active member and remarkable national speaker for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, she insisted the Gearhart City Council proclaim the city a 'dry town.' She had a great heart affected deeply by the wrongs inflicted upon defenseless women and children by the liquor traffic. So powerful was her influence, no liquor could be sold in Gearhart for more than seventy years after her death.

She twice visited the Pacific coast as an orator for temperance and did her most effective work in Oregon and Washington. During these tours, she met Marshall J. Kinney, at that time the proprietor of several of the largest fish canneries on the Columbia River. In 1888 she left the lecture tour to marry Mr. Kinney.

Chautauqua Stamp

Born in 1851 (family members say the date on her stone is wrong) and died in 1901, she passed away a few years before the Gearhart story begins in the Stephen Bly novel Stuart Brannon's Final Shot. However, her influence is felt on most every page. She graduated from the State Normal School of Pennsylvania with high honors and had already distinguished herself as a writer and speaker. She showed such marked ability as a teacher she was elected principal of the training school in Edinboro, Pennsylvania.

In Gearhart, she did more than oppose liquor. She sponsored a Chautauqua, part of the cultural movement of the times. The Chautauqua events brought a broad swath of U.S. intellectual and aesthetic entertainment to the Oregon coast. Narcissa organized 200-acres of prime forest land to be set aside for Gearhart Park. This included an auditorium with arched entrance, belfry, double hip roof and clerestorey, to be used for traveling circuit speakers and amusements of all sorts.

Gearhart, Oregon aerial view

Narcissa was an early day conservationist. She made sure the development scheme for the Chautauqua protected the Ridge Path, a principal byway grande promenade through the area's sand dune meadows, as well as many other natural features.

Because of Narcissa Kinney, Gearhart became the first planned coastal resort community in the state of Oregon.

Gearhart residents and visitors enjoyed classic plays and Broadway hits, opera stars and glee clubs, as well as bands such as John Philip Sousa’s. Fiery orators and activists, crusaders and preachers took advantage of this forum for their diverse messages.

Narcissa Kinney - later years

More than 400 other cities across the country sponsored these same events. President Theodore Roosevelt called them, “the most American thing in America.” This movement thrived in the day before movie theatres and TVs.

Narcissa inspired the fictional Lady Harriet Reed-Fletcher to sponsor her own benevolence project in the city of Gearhart. Lady Harriet and Narcissa compare in strong will, leadership and influence on the men in their lives to get involved in their causes.

Marshall Kinney

Narcissa's husband, Marshall, founded the local links golf course, one of the oldest in the West. I'm sure Narcissa would have been delighted to know Lady Reed-Fletcher sponsored a celebrity tournament at the Gearhart Golf Course in 1905 to raise money for the Willamette Orphan Farm.
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Janet Chester Bly has authored 31 nonfiction and fiction books, 19 she co-authored with Christy Award winning author Stephen Bly. Titles include The Hidden West Series, The Carson City Chronicles, Hope Lives Here, and The Heart of a Runaway. She resides at 4200 ft. elev. on the Idaho Nez Perce Indian Reservation. She and her 3 married sons, Russell, Michael and Aaron, finished Stephen Bly's last novel, Stuart Brannon's Final Shot. For more about the Blys check http://www.BlyBooks.com
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Most of Stuart Brannon's Final Shot happens in or near Gearhart, Oregon in 1905. Find the book here:  http://www.blybooks.com/product_category/historical-western-novels/

Stuart Brannon's Final Shot
by Stephen Bly
with Janet, Russell, Michael & Aaron Bly