Military Service
The connection between military service and citizenship demands constant critique. Yet for someone who finds it incomprehensible why a person would sacrifice their life for ideology, duty, or belonging, no tweet thread can explain it. Soldier 🪖🧵 <br /><br />Vol. II of History of Woman Suffrage appeared 15 years after the end of the Civil War. It devotes pages to the women who served in that war, and notes that of “many thousands with headboards marked ‘Unknown,’ hundreds are those of women…†<br /><br />Sometimes, Anonymous was a woman. <br /><br />Civil war historians estimate at least 400 people assigned female at birth served in the Union army; another 250 in the Confederacy. They fought at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, and were killed in battle at Lookout Mountain. Many served for years; some were decorated and promoted. <br /><br />There are a variety of books about these soldiers, but the absence of a queer lens makes them painfully uncomfortable to read. The one exception is a new children’s book about Albert Cashier, who served 3 years in the Illinois 95th, and lived as a man for the rest of his life.  <br /><br />This is not to say that all cross-dressing soldiers were transgender - but a good historian has to entertain the likelihood that some of them were! Alas, many describe their subjects’ lives as a “masquerade†or a “disguise†hiding their “true identity," without distinction. <br /><br />DailySuffragist has covered some extraordinary and under-appreciated service in the Civil War & WWI. Read about queer and straight patriots like Harriet Tubman, Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, the NAWSA medical corps, and the Black women of the YMCA.
Daily Suffragist
<a href="https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist/status/1301982119678414848" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Original thread</a>
September 04, 2020
<a href="http://t.co/fRwYagFqt5" target="_blank" title="Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’" rel="noreferrer noopener">Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’</a>
<a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-fighting-infantryman-the-story-of-albert-d-j-cashier-transgender-civil-war-soldier/9781499809367" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Fighting Infantryman</a>
Mother's Day/Mothers' Day/Mothers Day
Suffragist Julia Ward Howe popularized Mother's Day as a pacifist holiday after the carnage of the Civil War. Listen to her 1870 proclamation read by @<a href="https://twitter.com/AlfreWoodard" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">AlfreWoodard</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/GloriaSteinem" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">GloriaSteinem</a> & more. <br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/TG73A1SkU1c" frameborder="0"></iframe><br /><br />For more on Mother's Day, @<a href="https://twitter.com/ZinnEdProject" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ZinnEdProject</a> has great history and info on current organizing. For more on Julia Ward Howe - poet, playwright, leader of the American Woman Suffrage Association 👇
Daily Suffragist
<a href="https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist/status/1259474199292362752" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Original thread.</a>
05/10/2020
Petition your government for a redress of grievances
400,000 signatures was 1.3% of the US population in 1864. The equivalent today would be 4.1 million hand-gathered Jane Hancocks. <br /><br />That’s how many signatures Susan B Anthony, ElizCadyStanton and their army of 2,000 women gathered during the Civil War for a petition to end slavery. <br /><br />Their goal was 1 million names; they only quit when the 13th Amdt was ratified. <br /><br />The petition form 👆&👇reflects each of their strengths: Anthony’s instructions to organizers at the top; Stanton’s stirring exhortation on the back. <br /><br />“Women, you cannot vote or fight for your country. Your only way to be a power in the Government is through the exercise of this, one, sacred, Constitutional “Right of Petition;†and we ask you to use it now to the utmost. Go to the rich, the poor, the high, the low, the soldier, the civilian, the white, the black--gather up the names of all who hate slavery--all who love LIBERTY, and would have it the LAW of the land--and lay them at the feet of Congress, your silent but potent vote for human freedom guarded by law.†#Suffrage100 #CenturyofStruggle
Daily Suffragist
<a href="https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist/status/1251725393532456960" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Original thread.</a>
19/04/2020
NAWSA ❤️ the Confederacy
Annual conventions belong in the nation’s capital--at least as far as the National Woman Suffrage Assoc was concerned. <br /><br />But the American WSA had always rotated among states, so a few years after the merger, NAWSA began to alternate: even years in DC, odd years elsewhere. 🧵<br /><br />The first “migratory†convention was Atlanta, 1895. A day in Grant Park that year 👇 <br /><br />The crowd may not have been 100% white, but nearly.<br /><br />The following nugget has so much packed into it: “One handsome young lady, who sat on the platform a good deal of the time, was supposed to be from New England, because she wore her hair short. It turned out, however, that she was from New Orleans and was a cousin of Jefferson Davis. The announcement of this fact caused her to be received by the audience with roars of enthusiasm.†<br /><br />This story appears in volume 4 of History of Woman Suffrage without any further comment. If NAWSA’s founders - radical abolitionists, devoted to the Union through long, bloody years of the Civil War - took offense, they didn't record it for posterity.<br /><br />In fact, the sensible women of the northern & western states seem charmed - almost giddy - about white Southern women’s hospitality and performative femininity. #Suffrage100
Daily Suffragist
<a href="https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist/status/1250221526823157767" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Original thread.</a>
14/04/2020
Eliza Jackson Eddy's $50,000 bequest
Daily Suffragist doesn’t usually go down a genealogy rabbit hole, but a good trusts & estates case is a dangerous trigger. Long thread... <br /><br /><a href="https://dailysuffragist.omeka.net/items/show/278" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Francis Jackson embraced women’s rights after his daughter was stripped of her children.</a> <br /><br />Who was Eliza Jackson’s ex-husband? Did she ever see her children again? I haven’t yet found anything directly on point - nothing about the divorce or his abduction of the children. But I did find all of her children, and both of her husbands. <br /><br />Eliza gave birth to 7 children in 17 years. Two died in infancy. One died a few months after his fourth birthday. I used to wonder if losing a child hurt as badly for the millennia that infant mortality was higher. Then I had children. <br /><br />Eliza married Charles Meriam when she was 20, he was 22. They had 3 children: Francis Jackson, named for his grandfather; Eliza Frances & Charles Levi, who died at 3 months. I haven’t yet found her divorce records, but less than 5 years later Eliza married James Eddy in Boston. <br /><br />Assuming Eliza lost custody of her children before her remarriage, her son would have been no older than 10 and her daughter no more than 7. Eliza and James Eddy moved to Rhode Island and she had 4 more children.<br /><br />Their daughters Amy and Sarah survived to adulthood. Sarah Eddy carried on her family’s suffrage commitment, along w/other causes. She was also an artist who painted Susan B Anthony in 1901. <br /><br /><a href="https://portsmouthhistorynotes.com/2019/11/14/sarah-eddys-suffrage-work/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Read more</a> in Gloria Schmidt’s blog about Portsmouth, RI. <br /><br />When and to what extent Eliza reunited with her 2 oldest children is unknown. Her daughter Eliza “Lizzie” Meriam lived in Boston by 1865. She died at 40, one week after her mother. (Her widower, Mr. Bacon, is the one who contested Mrs. Eddy’s will.) <br /><br />Eliza’s oldest child, Francis Jackson Meriam, was in Virginia in October of 1859. How do I know? He joined John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry. <br /><br />Francis survived the raid and escaped to Canada. During the Civil War he was a captain in the 3d South Carolina Colored Infantry. Alas, he was “erratic and unbalanced,” of “little judgment and in feeble health,” but “generous, brave, and devoted.” <br /><br />Eliza Jackson Eddy left $50,000 to the suffrage movement, and her younger daughters Amy & Sarah supported the bequest. The money enabled the publication of the final volume of the History of Woman Suffrage. Its editors noted their gratitude: We deeply regret that we have been unable to procure a good photograph of our generous benefactor, as it was our intention to make her engraving the frontispiece of this volume…” <br /><br />Here is her photograph.
Daily Suffragist
<a href="https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist/status/1241550914026180616" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Original thread.</a>
21/03/2020
A joint session of Congress, 1864
Initially popular as a curiosity, Anna Dickinson gradually established a reputation as a political thinker whose endorsement was in demand. She stumped for Republicans across four states during the Civil War, the first woman ever paid to campaign. Photo: Mathew Brady c.1863 <br /><br />In gratitude for her successful electioneering, the party invited her to speak to Congress, the first woman ever. <br /><br />On January 16, 1864, with Pres. Lincoln & Mary Todd present, as well as VP Hamlin, Senators, and Representatives, Anna Dickinson spoke for more than an hour. <br /><br />While Lincoln listened, Dickinson enumerated his shortcomings: namely, his generosity to Confederate states and his meager protection for those formerly enslaved. Grandly, she closed by endorsing Lincoln for a second term, as “the Hour” called for a steady hand. <br /><br />Can we take another minute for this? A 21-year-old woman dressed down Abraham Lincoln in front of a joint session of Congress, in the middle of the Civil War. She spoke for 70 minutes without notes while the President listened. And no one’s ever heard of her. #Suffrage100 <br /><br />@<a href="https://twitter.com/DaphneW84611349">DaphneW84611349</a> Yes, definitely. Plus she alienated a lot of people, and had a long, sad end. Stay tuned over the next few days! <br /><br />In Gallman's bio he says that she irritated Stanton & Anthony by siding against them in the 15th Amdt fight. She fought with Frances Willard and refused to support temperance. She was an alcoholic for many years, FWIW. So when things were hard, she had few friends.
Daily Suffragist
<a href="https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist/status/1202278458816180225" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Original thread.</a>
4/12/2020
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving's origin isn't glorification of colonialism. Rather: in 1863 Lincoln proclaimed a day of gratitude for the Union’s victories at Gettysburg & Vicksburg. @<a href="https://twitter.com/VogelMorris" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">VogelMorris</a> has more. TODAY: read @<a href="https://twitter.com/SimonMoyaSmith" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">SimonMoyaSmith</a> on 100 Ways to Support - Not Appropriate From - Native People
Daily Suffragist
<a href="https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist/status/1200082196243132418" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Original thread.</a>
28/11/2019
American Moses
The original Moses didn’t get to the Promised Land, but at least he didn’t have to fight for his pension. His successor, Harriet Tubman, did. (Thread) #Suffrage100 #AfricanAmerican #Harriet #KnowYour19th <br /><br />Harriet is most famous for her 13 daring missions into the south, in which she rescued 70+ people from slavery and never lost a passenger. But I didn’t know of her next chapter as a military hero. <br /><br />She joined the Union Army when the Civil War began, and for three years she served as nurse, spy, and scout. In 1863 she was the first American woman to lead troops into battle - leading an armed raid that freed 700 enslaved people in South Carolina. <br /><br />Her activism continued after the war. She joined the lecture circuit, speaking for suffrage in coordination with ElizabethCadyStanton and Susan B Anthony. In 1896 Tubman helped merge multiple African-American women’s groups into the powerful National Association of Colored Women. <br /><br />After her husband’s death in 1888, Harriet got a widow’s benefit of $8/month. She spent the next decade petitioning Congress to recognize her as a veteran herself + in 1899 was finally awarded her own pension of $20/month. #twitterstorians please say more on Civil War pensions! <br /><br />More than 1,000 people attended her funeral in Auburn, NY in 1913, where she was buried with full military honors - the 1st woman, again. Tubman was revered then and now - she was chosen by the Treasury Dept and by a popular campaign to replace racist Andrew Jackson on the $20. <br /><br />The current administration put the change on hold, but I still expect to pay with “Tubmans” someday. Mural: @<a href="https://twitter.com/TheRealNaturel" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">TheRealNaturel</a> p.s. There’s a movie! @<a href="https://twitter.com/HarrietFilm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">HarrietFilm</a> starring @<a href="https://twitter.com/CynthiaEriVo" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">CynthiaErivo</a> - opens November 1.
Daily Suffragist
<a href="https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist/status/1177373440644435969" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Original thread.</a>
26/09/2019
Dr. Walker part II
PART II. In 1865 Pres. Andrew Johnson awarded Dr. Mary Walker the Medal of Honor. Dr. Walker wore the medal pinned to her suit coat every day for the rest of her life. In 1917, her medal was rescinded along w/those of 911 men, for want of direct combat. <br /><br />She wrote a letter of protest, and simply continued to wear the medal until her death in 1919. Pres. Jimmy Carter reinstated the honor in 1977, thanks to feminist protest. <br /><br />Dr. Walker is still the only woman ever to receive it. <br /><br />Dr. Walker lived a long life, in Washington, Oswego & Albany. <br /><br />She continued to practice medicine and activism. She campaigned for pensions for Civil War nurses and other women who had served, and never stopped urging women to give up corsets & petticoats. <br /><br />She was close to Belva Lockwood, landmark lawyer and presidential candidate; they worked for suffrage thru the 1870s. Walker’s contributions to the movement were all but erased from the record by Stanton & Anthony, who were threatened by her & uncomfortable w/her gender-bending. <br /><br />Was Dr. Walker trans? Genderqueer? A butch? Or just a sensible woman trying to do her job in appropriate clothing? There needn't be only one answer. Gender expression isn't static across one's life. I’ve used the pronoun “she” in these posts b/c Walker did - but with discomfort. <br /><br />In early years she doesn’t try to pass, doesn’t call herself M. Edwards Walker or M.E. In lectures and in writing she regularly describes herself as a woman - a woman willing to challenge convention, and frustrated at how lonely that was. <br /><br />She was arrested repeatedly for her clothing, in New York City & Baltimore. <br /><br />Charged w/disorderly conduct & disturbing the peace, in 1866 she points out to the court that she’s been received by President Lincoln & Justice Salmon P. Chase wearing these clothes. <br /><br />But that’s in 1866, when she was still wearing long hair and women’s collars. <br /><br />Look at what Dr. Walker is wearing <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/omeka-net/53651/archive/files/eecb0518a277a1631beb2ed0c41fcd64.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI3ATG3OSQLO5HGKA&Expires=1596067200&Signature=h4WBF5Lj3wog1SLoOlbIecPladE%3D" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">here</a>. THIS is the kind of outfit that led to arrests. This is how little women could reject gender norms. <br /><br />By the 1870s, Walker cut her hair short and wore unambiguously male clothing for the rest of her life. She sat for photos and had portraits painted in those years - in top hat & dinner jacket, Dr. Walker wanted to be seen clearly for who she was. <br /><br />For queer people, Walker’s portraits offer a jolt of recognition. While she had flirty correspondences with men and women, her biographer says there’s no evidence of any relationship after her brief marriage. But she made an indp & defiantly gender-bending life in the 19th cent. <br /><br />Walker proudly wore pants, ties, and short hair - and wasn’t afraid to say you should too. She wasn’t trying to blend in or disappear - though she could have; plenty of transmen did, and I admire that too. Instead, she stood out and spoke out. <br /><br />That’s what makes her so admirable and so unique to me. She modeled professional excellence in everything she did, and demanded that other women interrogate the prison of convention they lived in. <br /><br />There are at least two children’s books about Dr. Walker: Mary Walker Wears the Pants and Mary Wears What She Wants. <br /><br />But the most fitting tribute hides in plain sight: @<a href="https://twitter.com/whitmanwalker" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">WhitmanWalker</a>, which has been serving the health and well-being of LGBTQ Washington for 42 years. <br /><br />I’m grateful to @<a href="https://twitter.com/UConn" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">uconn</a> prof Sharon Harris’ terrific biography, Dr. Mary Walker: An American Radical, 1832-1919, which is available digitally; to Charlotte @<a href="https://twitter.com/cmclymer" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cmclymer</a> for getting the word out; to @<a href="https://twitter.com/albanymuskrat" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">AlbanyMuskrat</a> & to @<a href="https://twitter.com/VesuviaAdelia" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">VesuviaAdelia</a> for the perfect ending. #Suffrage100
Daily Suffragist
<a href="https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist/status/1217151182294192133" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Original thread</a>
01/14/2020
<a href="https://dailysuffragist.omeka.net/items/show/5" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Dr. Walker part I</a><br /><br /><a href="https://friendsofalbanyhistory.wordpress.com/2019/01/26/dr-mary-walker-recipient-of-the-congressional-medal-of-honor-and-her-time-in-albany/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Dr. Mary Walker, Recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor and her time in Albany I came across this picture, taken on State St. in 1911. It’s photo of Dr. Mary E. Walker. I had one of those lightbulb moments. My Gram used to tell me about a nice old lady in Albany..." [Friends of Albany History]</a><br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Today is <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TransDayOfVisibility?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#TransDayOfVisibility</a> <br /><br />Honor our transgender ancestors - read the 2-part story of Civil War hero & suffragist Dr. Mary Edwards Walker and please share!<br /><br />Part II 👇and Part I in the next tweet. Happy <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TDOV2020?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#TDOV2020</a> ! <a href="https://t.co/9eSnOIuzlS">https://t.co/9eSnOIuzlS</a></p>
— Daily Suffragist (@DailySuffragist) <a href="https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist/status/1244977635823955968?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 31, 2020</a></blockquote>
Dr. Walker, part I
The only woman ever awarded the Medal of Honor - the US military’s highest decoration - was a genderqueer Civil War surgeon named Dr. Mary Edwards Walker.<br /><br />Walker was a suffragist, a veteran and POW, and a talented doctor who challenged convention in every way.<br /><br />She campaigned for dress reform for decades, before & after the war and as an officer of the Dress Reform Assoc. She was deeply disappointed in Lucy Stone, ElizCadyStanton & others who agreed with the cause but gave up on it.<br /><br />She was briefly married to a man, a fellow doctor.<br /><br />They omitted “obey” from their 1855 vows. She kept her name - they hung out a shingle as Drs. Walker & Miller.<br /><br />It took them twice as many years to get divorced as they spent married. Walker fought for divorce reform for the rest of her life.<br /><br />Turned down in her attempts to join the Union army, Walker volunteered at first. She finally got a contract, and proved able and unflappable - but still couldn’t get a formal commission.<br /><br />So she appealed to President Lincoln directly. Referring to herself, she asks:<br /><br />“[T]hat she may render aid in the field hospitals, where her energy, enthusiasm, professional abilities and patriotism will be of the greatest service in inspiring the true soldier never to yield to traitors, and in attending the wounded brave.<br /><br />“She will not shrink from duties under shot and shells, believing that her life is of no value in the country’s greatest peril if by its loss the interests of future generations shall be promoted. - Mary E. Walker, M.D.”<br /><br />Lincoln demurs, but she finds a way. Photo in uniform.<br /><br />The @AmerMedicalAssn tried hard to block her - both b/c of sexism and resistance to “eclectic” or what today we’d call alternative & homeopathic medicine.<br /><br />Recall: traditional medical schools wouldn’t admit women then, so the line between credentialing & sexism is a thin one.<br /><br />Walker challenged the status quo always. Early in her military days she questioned unnecessary amputations, quietly counseling soldiers to refuse if she thought the limb could be saved.<br /><br />She took a 2d degree to study hygiene, which the medical establishment dismissed as fluff.<br /><br />After the war she wanted to be a doctor for the Freedmen’s Bureau, but they weren’t hiring outspoken women.<br /><br />Dr. Walker was famous, which biographer Sharon Harris says is what she wanted - and got, thanks to her "accomplishments, her unique personality, and her appearance."<br /><br />Dr. Walker was a committed suffragist who used her public profile to advance the cause. Like Anna Dickinson in the same period, she was only lightly affiliated with the 2 big movement groups. Walker was wary of both factions, though cooperated w/both Lucy Stone & Stanton/Anthony.<br /><br />Dr. Walker is the first woman known to try and vote in New York, in her hometown of Oswego. It was 1867, early in what becomes known as the New Departure, a strategy of voting as civil disobedience.<br /><br />Tomorrow: So, was Walker queer? Trans?
Daily Suffragist
<a href="https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist/status/1216854671928840197" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Original thread</a>
13/01/2020
<a href="https://dailysuffragist.omeka.net/items/show/6" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Dr. Walker part II</a>