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Lucifer: The Light-Bearer
Moses Harman was active in the abolition movement in Missouri before and during the Civil War. He moved to Valley Falls, Kansas, in 1879, and became the editor of The Kansas Liberal, later renamed Lucifer, the Light Bearer. Anti-government and a supporter of eugenics, he published on issues such as women’s rights and birth control and, like Goldman and Margaret Sanger, was targeted by Comstock for distributing obscene literature. He moved the location of Lucifer several times, including to Chicago in 1896. On a lecture tour stop in Chicago in 1897, Goldman made a point of visiting Harman at the Lucifer offices. -
[Portrait of Harriet Beecher Stowe]
Harriet Beecher Stowe rocketed to celebrity with the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), selling 300,000 copies during its first year in print. -
Plas Newydd: Near Llangollen
In the late eighteenth century, aristocrat Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, the young orphaned daughter of Chambre Brabazon Ponsonby, abandoned their lives in Ireland and made a home for themselves in Llangollen, Wales, to the disapproval of both their families. Known as the Ladies of Llangollen, they appeared to have understood their relationship as a marriage. They were part of an emerging culture of relationships between same-sex couples. While they lived a life of rural retreat, the Ladies’ celebrity and social status meant that their home Plas Newydd became a salon. They built an extensive library, and there they hosted many of the intelligentsia of the day, including writers such as Wordsworth, Byron, Lady Caroline Lamb, and Anna Seward; physician Erasmus Darwin; potter Josiah Wedgwood; and the reigning Queen Charlotte. -
The Rt. Honble. Lady Eleanor Butler & Miss Ponsonby
In the late eighteenth century, aristocrat Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, the young orphaned daughter of Chambre Brabazon Ponsonby, abandoned their lives in Ireland and made a home for themselves in Llangollen, Wales, to the disapproval of both their families. Known as the Ladies of Llangollen, they appeared to have understood their relationship as a marriage. They were part of an emerging culture of relationships between same-sex couples. Their friend Lady Mary Parker Leighton painted a series of watercolors of their home Plas Newydd in the 1820s and 1830s. She drew the Ladies in their library, their favored place, both seated at a table, with bookshelves lining the walls. This engraving by Richard James Lane is based on one of Lady Leighton's drawings. Several of Lady Leighton's works are in the National Library of Wales. -
Cosmographie
Bound in a lovely pink, gilt-edged and stamped glazed paper binding, schoolgirl Emma Lascal’s beautifully observed and sensitively drawn cosmography report summarizes the astronomical knowledge of her day. Nineteenth-century advances in the telescope resulted in a heightened popular interest in astronomy across Europe. Lascal, a student at the Convent of Notre Dame in Paris, created this manuscript for her “2eme classe.” She illustrates the phases of the moon, the heavenly constellations, and a comparison of the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems. -
The married woman's private medical companion: embracing the treatment of menstruation, or monthly turns, during their stoppage, irregularity, or entire suppression: pregnancy, and how it may be determined, with the treatment of its various diseases: discovery to prevent pregnancy, the great and important necessity where malformation or inability exists to give birth: to prevent miscarriage or abortion: when proper and necessary to effect miscarriage when attended with entire safety: causes and mode of cure of barrenness, or sterility
English immigrant Anna Trow Lohman, known as Madame Restell, became notorious and financially successful by performing abortions. New York had outlawed abortion unless necessary to save the mother’s life, but abortion practitioners continued to work in the state. Restell was entrepreneurial. She sold patent medicines for birth control and abortion, provided housing for pregnant women, and facilitated adoptions. In 1847, her husband, the radical printer Charles M. Lohman, published a medical companion under the name A. M. Mauriceau. It went through at least nine editions. The book advertised Restell’s patent medicines, as well as condoms. Their business flourished, with branches opening in Philadelphia and Boston. In 1873, the Comstock Law to suppress the circulation of obscene materials was enacted, and in 1878 Restell was personally arrested by Anthony Comstock. Anna Restell committed suicide the morning she was to face charges in court. -
Discourses to Women on Medical Subjects
In 1852, Anna Longshore-Potts, was one of the first graduates of the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. She believed knowledge would lead to prevention of disease, and she dedicated herself to educating women on health and physiology. Between 1876 and 1885 she lectured throughout the United States, New Zealand, Australia, and Great Britain. She often contributed the proceeds from her well-attended lectures in England to local charities. In 1887 her Discourses to Women on Medical Subjects was published, the culmination of her work educating women about gynecological and reproductive health. -
The Rt. Honble. Lady Eleanor Butler & Miss Ponsonby
In the late eighteenth century, aristocrat Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, the young orphaned daughter of Chambre Brabazon Ponsonby, abandoned their lives in Ireland and made a home for themselves in Llangollen, Wales, to the disapproval of both their families. Known as the Ladies of Llangollen, they appeared to have understood their relationship as a marriage. They were part of an emerging culture of relationships between same-sex couples. Their friend Lady Mary Parker Leighton painted a series of watercolors of their home Plas Newydd in the 1820s and 1830s. She drew the Ladies in their library. This engraving by James Henry Lynch is based on one of Lady Leighton's drawings. -
Plates Illustrating the Geology & Scenery of Massachusetts
Orra White Hitchcock’s geological and botanical illustrations were published to accompany her husband Edward Hitchcock’s Report on the Geology, Mineralogy, Botany, and Zoology of Massachusetts, the first state geology published. She began her career teaching young women at Deerfield Academy, where she met Edward, who became a leading geologist and president of Amherst College. Orra’s work was integral to that of her husband, who atypically always gave her credit for her work. As a scientist herself, she observed and drew hundreds of specimens of native plants, mushrooms, and lichen. She was one of the most important American scientific illustrators of the time. -
The Value of Race Literature: An Address Delivered at the First Congress of Colored Women of the United States, at Boston, Mass., July 30th, 1895
Matthews was born into slavery in Georgia in 1861. Her mother fled, but returned to bring her children to New York City. Matthews was self-educated, as she had to work in domestic service to help support her family. By the 1890s, she was a successful journalist and a major figure in the black women’s club and anti-lynching movements. This speech emphasizes the importance of self-representation in black women’s writing to counter negative images in literature generally. Matthews opened the White Rose home for Colored Working Girls in New York in 1897, making sure it contained a library with books representing African Americans. -
Letter to Thomas and Mary Ann McClintock
In this intimate letter to fellow abolitionists and suffragists, Lucretia Mott writes with updates on many colleagues and friends. She mentions a visit to Peterboro-Cazenovia, New York, that included time with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Stanton’s cousin, Gerrit Smith, who was one of the secret six who funded John Brown’s raid. It was over tea at the McClintock house in Waterloo, New York, on 9 July 1848 that Lucretia Mott, Martha Wright (Mott’s sister), Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Elizabeth McClintock, and Mary Ann McClintock decided to organize a women’s rights convention. -
Geburtshilfliches Taschenphantom zur Darstellung des Beckenausgangs-Mechanismus der Kopflagen und der Operationen bei denselben nebst einer Besprechung der Eintheilung, Diagnose, Pathologie und Therapie der Kopflagen
Mueller’s book explicating the various positions of the fetus as it descends through the birth canal during delivery is accompanied by an interactive anatomical model of a female pelvis. It illustrates changes to the fetal head and the use of forceps. Forceps for delivery were first invented in the sixteenth century and new designs were developed over time. Anatomical models were often used for both students and practitioners to learn new methods. In this case, the interactive model allows the reader to train in procedures and positioning of forceps for delivery. -
Te Deum Laudamus
The medieval-inspired illuminations by printer Emily Faithfull’s sister Esther Faithfull Fleet are dazzling. This is one of two books published by Faithfull’s Victoria Press that are printed using chromolithography. Both are illuminated by Fleet. The other, 38 Texts, is also in the collection. The Victoria Press maintained a reputation for excellent work, and Faithfull was appointed Printer and Publisher in Ordinary to the Queen. Te Deum Laudamus was dedicated to Queen Victoria, with her permission. -
Jennie Nuttall autograph album
Lizzie Borden, famously indicted for the murder of her parents, grew up in the rapidly industrializing city of Fall River, Massachusetts, as the daughter of a prominent local family. After leaving high school, she became active in her church and in local women’s clubs, like many respectable young ladies. Perhaps she knew Jennie Nuttall, who owned this autograph book, from one of these contexts. When Borden was accused of killing her parents with an ax, churchwomen, temperance activists, and suffragists came to her defense, finding it impossible to imagine that a Christian lady could have done such a thing. Borden was acquitted.Tags 1800s -
Adeline Mowbray, or The Mother and Daughter
Amelia Opie managed to earn an income from her writing following the death of her husband, the artist John Opie, when she was 38. Her novel Adeline Mowbry is based on the life of Mary Wollstonecraft, despite the fact that Opie did not countenance Wollstonecraft's rejection of marriage. The two met briefly in the last years of Wollstonecraft's life. Opie, a Quaker convert, was involved with charitable works and worked with fellow Quaker Elizabeth Fry on prison reform. She advocated the abolition of slavery and was a delegate to the 1840 Anti-Slavery Convention. Her poem The Negro Boy’s Tale, also in the collection, is an uncompromising condemnation of slavery. -
Susan P. Parrott account book
This account book is signed on the front cover by a small blind embossed stamp on the last page indicating the paper was manufactured in Bath (likely Bath, Maine). The entries provide a compelling view into the activities and finances of a mid-nineteenth century seamstress running a small business. Some entries record payments to the women who did piecework for her, including a few African American women. Work done by Elizabeth Moulton, Frances, Mary Ann Ring, Mary Pettigrew, Elizabeth Hillyard, Catherine Anderson, Dorothy Anna Frisbee, and Elizabeth Akerman are recorded between March and November 1845.Tags 1800s -
Sabbath lessons, or, An abstract of sacred history: to which is annexed, a geographical sketch of the principal places mentioned in sacred history
Eliza Palmer Peabody was a writer and educator. After her marriage, she started a household school that abandoned the rote recitation used in boys’ schools and instead encouraged a conversational model. She instilled in her pupils a belief in women and men’s equal capability as learners and in “the paramount importance of women to American civilization.” The class materials she developed were subsequently published. Her three daughters—Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Sophia Hawthorne, and Mary Peabody Mann—were each notable in their own right. -
Letter to Mrs. Sarah Tighe
In the late eighteenth century, aristocrat Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, the young orphaned daughter of Chambre Brabazon Ponsonby, abandoned their lives in Ireland and made a home for themselves in Llangollen, Wales, to the disapproval of both their families. Known as the Ladies of Llangollen, they appeared to have understood their relationship as a marriage. They were part of an emerging culture of relationships between same-sex couples. When the women eloped, Butler’s annuity was cut off by her disapproving sister-in-law. The women now depended on income supplements from the Butlers and from Ponsonby’s cousin Sarah Tighe, as well as gifts from friends. Ponsonby and Tighe corresponded regularly. In this letter Ponsonby approves Tighe’s decision not to sell the house on Dominick Street in Dublin, where Ponsonby once lived with her sexually predatory guardian Sir William Fownes. In it she refers to Butler as “my Betterhalf.” The Lisa Unger Baskin Collection includes over 350 letters to and from the Ladies. -
Floriana or the Method of Constructing Artificial Flowers
This carefully written and illustrated manuscript teaches in minute detail the methods taught to Matilda St. Clair, now Madame de Rhinfeld, for constructing artificial flowers. Growing up in a convent in France, she was instructed by the nuns in each aspect of creating the flowers: dyeing silks, cutting muslin, and forming each individual petal and leaf. She used this skill to earn her living in England. Her watercolors individually dissect twenty-four different artificial flowers; included is a drawn foldout plate of her tools. The pages of delicately embellished instructions, in floral borders, are accompanied by poetry and commentary related to each flower. -
An Introductory Lecture to a Course on Physiology, will be Delivered by Mary J. Scarlett, M.D.
Quaker Mary J. Scarlett graduated from the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1857 and became Professor of Anatomy at the College in 1862. She practiced amongst the poor and gave lectures on hygiene and health in rural communities. Because hospitals at this time were not open to women for purposes of instruction, the Woman’s Medical College opened the Woman’s Hospital of Philadelphia in 1861. Scarlett served as resident physician at the hospital until 1871.
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