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| D4:
Dorthea Dix, House Chamber and Committee Rooms State House, Third Floor  Women
were considered citizens with the right to petition long before they gained
the right to vote in 1920. Abolitionist Angelina Grimké (1805-1879),
who was raised by a slave-holding family in the South, spoke out against slavery
on a tour of New England with her sister Sarah in 1837. In 1838, she presented
a women's anti-slavery petition with 20,000 signatures to a committee of the
state legislature and became the first woman to publicly address the legislature.In 1843, after an 18-month survey of jails and poorhouses in Massachusetts, Dorothea Dix (1802-1887) prepared a Memorial for the state legislature. "I come to place before the legislature of Massachusetts the condition of the miserable, the desolate, the outcast," Dix began, as she charged extreme cruelty in the treatment of the mentally ill. The state appropriated funds to improve one facility and she continued her investigations in many other states. During the Civil War, Dix was the superintendent of army nurses for the Union. |
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D5: The Boston Athenæum 10 1/2 Beacon Street  Many
women played a role in the history of The Boston Athenæum, a library supported
by memberships and thought to be the oldest library in America. Poet and celebrity
Amy Lowell (1874-1925) was the first woman to be appointed to the Board of Directors.
As a girl, Lowell had free run of the Athenæum. In 1903 when the trustees
threatened to tear down the building, Amy Lowell led the protest. Her poetry
flourished when, during a sojourn in Paris, she discovered French symbolism
as expressed in the branch of poetry called "Imagism." She edited works of poetry
as well as bringing out collections of her own work.The Athenæum's art collection includes: Puck and Owl, a sculpture by Harriet Hosmer (1830-1908); a portrait of Hannah Adams (1755-1831), a scholar who was the first woman to be given reading privileges at the library; and a portrait by John Singer Sargent of Annie Adams Fields (1834-1915). Fields, a noted writer, poet, and social philanthropist, conducted a literary salon at her home at 148 Charles Street for the authors published by her husband's firm, Ticknor & Fields (see D17). In her will, she left $40,000 to Associated Charities of Boston. |
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D6: Woman's Journal and 9 to 5 Office Workers' Union 5 Park Street  The
offices of the Woman's Journal, the newspaper published by the American Woman
Suffrage Association and the New England Women's Club, one of the first clubs
for women in the country, were in another building on this site. Edited by Lucy
Stone (1818-1893), the Journal chose office space as close to the seat of power
- the State House - as possible. Stone petitioned annually for woman suffrage.
In 1879 she testified: "In this very State House, how often have women looked
down from the gallery while our law-makers voted down our rights, and heard
them say, 'Half an hour is time enough to waste on it,' ... [and then] turn
eagerly to consider such a question as what shall be the size of a barrel of
cranberries ... [taking] plenty of time to consider that." Stone had been the
first Massachusetts woman to receive a college degree when she graduated from
Oberlin College in 1847. When she married Henry Blackwell she became the first
married woman to officially keep her maiden name, leading to the late 19th-century
coining of the term "a Lucy Stoner" to mean a woman who stood up for her rights.
Alice Stone Blackwell (1857-1950), Stone's daughter, edited the Journal in a
building on Copley Square (see BB6) for 25 years until suffrage was granted
in 1920.In 1973, a trade union for women office workers named "9 to 5" held its first monthly meetings in this building now owned by the Paulist Fathers. A member decided to organize after her boss walked into the office and said, "Well, I guess there's no one here." 9 to 5 now meets at 145 Tremont Street and shares space with Local 925 of the Services Employees Union.
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