HomeGood morning!
Happy Mother’s Day!
Today I am taking a look at women and Unitarianism, and then specifically at women and this congregation. I hope that the connection to Mother’s Day is clear.
The women’s movement of the 19th Century arose at a time when the proper role of a woman was seen to be that of mother, and little else.
Now, “mother” is much; but women were largely believed to be incapable of doing anything else. The idea of a woman voting or running for office or pursuing a professional career was one that was derided by many as unnatural.
Many women, including many Unitarian women, wished for social equality and therefore strove to open doors.
In 1856, the year of the founding of this congregation, Lucy Stone presided at the Seventh National Woman's Rights Convention in New York City.
A fascinating aside here: Lucy Stone married one Harry Blackwell but kept her maiden name. She is often credited with being the first woman to do so. Harry Blackwell had two sisters; one was Elizabeth and the other Emily. Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman in the United States to earn her medical degree, and therefore was the first woman in the United States to be a medical doctor. Emily Blackwell also became a doctor. Harry, Elizabeth and Emily had a brother named Samuel, who married on Antoinette Brown. Antoinette Brown Blackwell was long credited with being the first woman in the United States to be ordained by an official denominational body the Congregationalists. Not long after her ordination, she switched to the Unitarians. What an astonishing group of women. Lucy Stone working at the political level to change women’s lives; Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell breaking open the doors of the medical profession for women, and Antoinette Brown Blackwell opening up the professional clergy to women. I want to say one word of admiration for Harry and Samuel Blackwell. I also want to point to the Blackwell parents; they raised their children well. Their daughters were imbued with enough personal strength and character and self-assurance to overcome social barriers and their sons were open-minded and brave in their own right.
Back to some mention of the Women’s movement: In 1858 and 1859 it was Susan B. Anthony who presided over the National Women’s Rights Conventions; again, in New York City. And in 1858 Susan B. Anthony placed a proposal to provide equal educational opportunities for women before the New York State Teacher's Convention in Binghamton, which was defeated.
And in 1872 Susan B. Anthony was arrested in Rochester, NY for voting in the national election, an illegal act for a woman.
I mention these events because they occurred close by and because three of the women I have just named, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Lucy Stone and Susan B. Anthony, were Unitarians.
On the broader stage, among the women struggling for equality were Elizabeth Cady Stanton—born Episcopalian, converted to Unitarian, the back to Episcopalian; Lydia Maria Child who moved in and out of Unitarianism; Caroline Dall; Margaret Fuller; Francis Harper; the Peabody sisters; Maria Mitchell; Caroline Severance; and Louisa May Alcott, Unitarians all.
Among the men who supported the movement were William Henry Channing, Samuel J. May, John Greenleaf Whittier, Ralph Waldo Emerson, each of these a Unitarian at least for some part of their lives.
I have not listed any of the Universalists involved in the movement as I am focusing on our history and this was then a Unitarian Church; the merger not occurring until 1961.
On another front, out in what was then called the West, out in states such as Indiana, Iowa, and Colorado there was a group of women called the Iowa Sisterhood. This was a group of twelve or more women, all Unitarian ministers, who established and served Unitarian Churches throughout the region. After the nineteen-twenties it became difficult for women to be ordained in our movement, and it was not until the nineteen-seventies that women began moving once again into our ministry in large numbers. A few years ago it became the case that we now have more women than men in our UU ministry.
The purpose of all the name dropping that I did is to point out the fact that the Women’s Suffrage movement would not have been likely to have gone unnoticed by the members of this congregation.
In fact, we had several direct connections to some of these women. Joseph May, the minister of this congregation (Dates: 1865 to) was first cousin to Louisa May Alcott. Joseph May’s father, Samuel J. May, who preached at Joseph May’s installation as minister of this congregation, was a social activist who had fled an upstate town with Susan B. Anthony to escape an anti-Abolitionist mob.
These people all knew each other. The May family was closely connected with the social group living in Concord and Boston Massachusetts: Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Channing and so many more.
Now, with that long list of Unitarians who supported the Women’s movement one could stop and say, “Weren’t we great; and aren’t we great; once again we Unitarian Universalists were right there on the forefront of the movement for freedom and equality”. In reality, it would once again be more accurate to state—as it was of abolition--that while many individual Unitarians were in the forefront of social reform, the Unitarians as a whole were more divided.
Let us turn our attention to this congregation:
“November 9, 1871
The President brought to the attention of the Board a request by Miss Leidy Devereaux Blake and other persons, for the use of the church for a discussion of the woman’s rights question.
No definite action was taken upon this matter further than to request the President to communicate to the parties the opinion of the Board that other places in the village would be more suited to their purpose.”
The question of who gets to use our space and for what purpose is an important one. For example, I would not want us to allow our facilities to be used by those who work to undermine religious freedom or who work to deny human rights or equality to others. But here was a case, twenty three years after the Seneca Falls convention and in the midst of the struggle for human rights, where I believe the congregation failed. If we were not to be a place where this issue could be put forth, then where was the place for it? And what of the women in our congregation? What did rejecting this meeting say to them?
Women’s involvement in the congregation:
Yonkers, June 3, 1884
[A vote to replace Mr. Pelham Warren, whose term on the Board had expired; selections from the minutes. Mr. Warren declined nomination, but still won the first ballot over a Mr. Woolley.—DB] “Mr. Warren positively declined. A second ballot was ordered. Nothing in the bylaws prohibiting a woman serving on the Board, Mrs. Gane was nominated. Eight votes were cast resulting in Mrs. Gane 4, Mr. Woolley 4, being a tie. Mrs. Warren was nominated and the third ballot [resulted in] her election.
Yonkers, June 16, 1884
A special meeting of the Society called to elect a trustee to fill the vacancy caused by Mrs. Warren’s non-acceptance of the office.”
Mrs. Gane was the first woman nominated to office here; Mrs. Warren was the first to win. Let us acknowledge the achievements of each of them. Let us also respect the congregation for moving so quickly and apparently smoothly in accepting the possibility of a woman serving on the Board. The Bylaws were checked and there being no barrier, a woman was elected, all in one evening; though there may have been some preparatory work done that is not reflected in the minutes.
Something else to note: whoever Mr. Woolley was, he lost first to Mr. Warren who was not running, he then tied with the first woman to be nominated as Trustee, and then lost convincingly to the second woman to be nominated as Trustee. Only on the fourth ballot, against a Mr. Bellows, did he win election by nine votes to seven. Were I he I would not have felt good about finally ascending to office. Perhaps the congregation merely held less antipathy towards the women’s movement than it did towards Mr. Woolley.
A footnote to this, (remember that it was Mr. Warren’s term that had expired):
Yonkers, September 18, 1884 (three months later)
“A regular meeting of the Board of Trustees…Mr. Warren was elected secretary.”
Poor Mr. Woolley.
From the Richardson history of 1931, referring to 1886, only two years after the preceding events, “In that year the Society elected as trustee the first woman who would agree to serve. This was Miss Emma Herzog...She held that office and also that of clerk until 1893.
She was the only woman to hold any office until 1916.”
[My first reaction: Oh, sure, give the job of secretary to a woman; but I believe that Clerks then, in the 1800’s, were men! It was seen as a man’s job. If I am reading this correctly, if Secretary and Clerk are interchangeable titles (and they may not be), then she took Mr. Warren’s place.—DB]
Miss Herzog was elected in 1886. Why was it then thirty years until the next woman was elected to the Board? Why was there a period of twenty three years, from 1893 to 1916, when no woman served on the Board? I do not know the answer to those questions.
The first woman President of this congregation was Miss Louisa May Greeley. I do not know when she was elected, but she was in office in 1952 when Rev. Graham resigned. Louisa May Greeley—I have wondered whether she was connected to the May, Alcott and Greeley families of fame, but I could not find any evidence of that.
And finally, the first woman minister of this congregation was Rev. Betty Doty (Dates?).
I have already spent too long a time on this sermon, it has been a long historical narrative and there is much I have not said. I will speak more about the Iowa Sisterhood and about women in our ministry sometime next year.
For today
May we acknowledge those women who struggled to survive, to raise children, to vote and to be full participants in the life of their nation and communities.
Let us acknowledge and give praise to those who gave birth to freedom and equality, those who gave birth to us physically, those who gave birth to us spiritually, those who raised or and nurtured us,
And to us when we rebirth ourselves.
May we be more open in the present and in the future to the voice of history or of justice or of the Divine when it calls us to change and reform of society or of ourselves; may we be more open to calls for freedom and equality, recognizing in them the call to heed our own highest ideals and values; may we be more open to calls for acts of courage in the service of love and inclusion.
Return to
Home
Return to Sermons Index