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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. -
Deed of emancipation, Court held for Norfolk County, Virginia
This deed attests that Thomas Smith used Susannah Mallory’s own money to purchase her freedom from attorney Charles King Mallory of Elizabeth City County, Virginia. Susannah Mallory paid sixty dollars to emancipate herself. Some enslaved persons in Virginia were permitted by their masters to earn money from work done on their personal time, including hiring out their labor. Smith notes he acted only as her “Friendly agent,” and he resigns any legal right to her service. Susannah was then about fifty-five years old. -
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. -
Fanaticism: its source and influence, illustrated by the simple narrative of Isbella, in the case of Matthias, Mr. and Mrs. B. Folger, Mr. Pierson, Mr. Mills, Catherine, Isabella, &c. &c.: a reply to W.L. Stone, with descriptive portraits of all the parties, while at Sing-Sing and at Third street, containing the whole truth, and nothing but the truth
Feminist and abolitionist Sojourner Truth was one of the towering figures of nineteenth-century America. She was born into slavery in 1797 on a rural farm in Ulster County, New York. At age thirty, she drew strength from her Christian faith and found the courage to escape with her infant daughter. A spiritualist, in 1843 she had a vision and changed her name from Isabella Baumfree to Sojourner Truth. In 1842, she came under the influence of a self-styled prophet, Robert Matthews, who established his “Kingdom of Matthias” on an estate in Sing Sing, New York. It was a questionable enterprise. Isabella was attracted by Matthias’ spiritualism and the promise of egalitarianism, which was unfulfilled. The community disbanded after a trial for murder and sexual impropriety. -
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. -
Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin's mother Mary Wollstonecraft died following her birth. She was largely educated by her father William Godwin. She was not quite seventeen when she eloped with Percy Bysshe Shelley. Frankenstein is considered to be the first work of science fiction. In this third edition, she recounts for the first time the story of its origin during a ghost story writing contest in a villa on Lake Geneva. The novel explores what it means to be human and the ethical implications of scientific research. This edition is the first with a preface by Mary Shelley and the first with illustrations. -
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. -
Geography for beginners, or, The instructer's assistant in giving first lessons from maps in the style of familiar conversation, accompanied with an atlas: being intended as the first, or introductory book, to a series of geographical works, by William C. Woodbridge, and Emma Willard, of which, the second book is entitled "The rudiments of geography," the third book, "Universal geography"
Following her husband’s financial losses, historian, educator, and writer Emma Willard established a boarding school in her home in Middlebury, Vermont. In 1821 she opened the Troy Female Seminary, offering women a college preparatory education on par with that available to men. The curriculum included science, mathematics, geography and philosophy. The school remains open today as The Emma Willard School. -
Glorious Deeds of Women!
This broadside was likely written for Queen Caroline, wife to King George IV. In 1797, Princess Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel had married the Prince of Wales, who unbeknownst to her was already married to Mrs. Fitzherbert, his mistress. Caroline became a symbol of the oppression of women, a figure popular with her subjects who largely condemned her husband’s libertine behavior. -
History of Pennsylvania Hall Which Was Destroyed by a Mob On the 17th of May, 1838
Abolitionists had difficulty finding a place to meet in Philadelphia, and so they raised funds to build a building of their own. It was one of the largest and grandest structures in the city. In 1838 the Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women met twice in the building, insisting that their meetings be attended by black and white participants. This was the second national meeting to be held by women in America. The first, the Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women, was held in New York in 1837, eleven years before the Seneca Falls Convention. Four days after the ceremonies dedicating Pennsylvania Hall, following a speech by Lucretia Mott, a mob burned the building to the ground. -
I Sell the Shadow to Support the Substance [cabinet card]
Feminist and abolitionist Sojourner Truth was one of the towering figures of nineteenth-century America. She was born into slavery in 1797 on a rural farm in Ulster County, New York. At age thirty, she drew strength from her Christian faith and found the courage to escape with her infant daughter. By the 1860s, Sojourner Truth had moved to Battle Creek, Michigan. Between 1863 and 1875, Truth had at least fourteen different photographic portraits made. She sold them to provide income for herself. These cartes-de-visite and cabinet cards were portable and far cheaper to produce than copies of her Narrative. She controlled every aspect of the way she is depicted in these images—genteelly, in cap and shawl, often with her knitting, a book or photograph in her lap, obscuring her disabled right hand. -
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 -
Legends of North Wales and Reminiscenes of a Short Visit to the Vale of 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 intelligensia of the day, including poets such as Wordsworth, Byron, and Anna Seward; physician Erasmus Darwin; potter Josiah Wedgwood; and the reigning Queen Charlotte. In the nineteenth century there was a thriving industry producing and selling objects commemorating the Ladies of Llangollen. -
Letter to Ellen Nussey
Charlotte Brontë begins this letter to her lifelong friend with an update on her efforts to secure work as a governess. She goes on to relate a visit from the wife of a curate whose husband ruined their family through his drinking and “treated her and her child savagely.” Brontë attests to her own distaste for the curate even before she knew about his abusive character. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell quotes this section of the letter in her biography of Brontë, noting that it “shows her instinctive aversion to a particular class of men, whose vices some have supposed she looked upon with indulgence.” -
Letter to Judge Henry R. Selden
Judge Henry R. Selden had advised Susan B. Anthony that she had the right to vote. When she was subsequently arrested for voting, Selden represented her in court. In this letter, Anthony urges him to send the text of his argument so that it could be published in time for the upcoming National Woman Suffrage Association convention. She wrote the postscript to the letter on a flyer for a mass meeting of the New York Woman’s Suffrage Society. The collection includes Judge Selden’s own copy of the final printed version of his argument. -
Letter to Mr. Strickland
Child replies to Strickland’s request for her autograph and information about John Brown, noting, “The only letter I ever received from John Brown I gave to a Sanitary Commission Fair in time of the war. They Sold it for $25.” About Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry she writes, “Noble old man! His foray into Virginia seemed a wild project, but the feeling that impelled him was grand: and I know of nothing in History more sublime than his conduct in prison, and at the place of execution. I shall never again witness such moral heroism as was brought out by the struggle of Freedom with Slavery.” -
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. -
Letter to Robert Adams
In 1842 schoolteacher Sophia Foord moved to Northampton, Massachusetts, to join the recently formed utopian Northampton Association of Education and Industry. Founded to promote social reform through cooperative work, the NAEI was race-, class-, gender-and religion-equal. Foord writes that “this has become quite a depot for fugitives,” noting that “the slaves escape so frequently that their masters say . . . the Abolitionists must have ‘a railroad under ground.’” She also describes rather sarcastically a visit to writer and abolitionist Lydia Maria Child. -
Letter to Sarah M’Clintock
Mary Ann M’Clintock was a Quaker and founded the Western New York Anti-Slavery Society. Her house in Waterloo, New York, was a stop on the underground railroad. In her home, over tea, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth M’Clintock, Martha Coffin Wright, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton met in 1848 and decided to call a convention for Women’s Rights. They drafted the Declaration of Sentiments on M’Clintock’s tea table over the course of two days. At the end of this letter to M’Clintock’s daughter, Stanton inquires “Would you sell the table on which the Declaration was written and what would you ask for it?” She did purchase the table. -
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.
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