e
lady occupies three times as much space in the world as a gentleman.
It has thus appeared to the married gentlemen of your committee, being
a majority ... that if there is any inequality or oppression in the
case, the gentlemen are the sufferers. They, however, have presented
no petitions for redress, having doubtless made up their minds to
yield to an inevitable destiny."[67]

Why, Susan wondered sadly, were woman's rights only a joke to most
men--something to be laughed at even in the face of glaring proofs of
the law's injustice.

There was encouragement, however, in the letters which now came from
Lucy Stone in Ohio: "Hurrah Susan! Last week this State Legislature
passed a law giving wives equal property rights, and to mothers equal
baby rights with fathers. So much is gained. The petitions which I set
on foot in Wisconsin for suffrage have been presented, made a rousing
discussion, and then were tabled with three men to defend them!... In
Nebraska too, the bill for suffrage passed the House.... The world
moves!"[68]

The world was moving in Great Britain as well, for as Susan read in
her newspaper, women there were petitioning Parliament for married
women's property rights, and among the petitioners were her
well-beloved Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Harriet Martineau, Mrs.
Gaskell, and Charlotte Cushman. Better still, Harriet Taylor, inspired
by the example of woman's rights conventions in America, had written
for the _Westminster Review_ an article advocating the enfranchisement
of women.

All this reassured Susan, even if New York legislators laughed at her
efforts.

FOOTNOTES:

[43] Judge William Hay of Saratoga Springs, New York.

[44] Feb. 19, 1854, Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers, Library of
Congress.

[45] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 116. Among those who wore the bloomer
costume were Angelina and Sarah Grimke, many women in sanitoriums and
some of the Lowell, Mass. mill workers. In Ohio, the bloomer was so
popular that 60 women in Akron wore it at a ball, and in Battle Creek,
Michigan, 31 attended a Fourth of July celebration in the bloomer.
Amelia Bloomer, moving to the West wore it for eight years. Garrison,
Phillips, and William Henry Channing disapproved of the bloomer
costume, but Gerrit Smith continued to champion it and his daughter
wore it at fashionable receptions in Washington during his term in
Congress.

[46] _History of Woman Suffrage_, I, p. 608.

[47] 1854 (copy), Blackwell Paper