Anguish in Worcester

Worcester’s long-gone Brinley Hall, built in 1836-37, and where the speech referenced below was given. The first National Women’s Rights Convention was held there on Oct. 26 -27, 1850. 1,000 people from 11 states attended.

Abby Kelley Foster

“Man is wronged, not in London, New York, or Boston alone. Look around you here in Worcester, and see him sitting amidst the dust of his counting room, or behind the counter, his whole soul engaged in dollars and cents, until the Multiplication Table becomes his creed, his Pater noster, and his Decalogue. Society says, keep your daughters, like dolls, in the parlor; they must not do anything to aid in supporting the family. But a certain appearance in society must be maintained. You must keep up the style of the household. You are in fault if your wife do not uphold the condition to which she was bred in her father's house. I put this before men. If we could look under and within the broadcloth and the velvet, we should find as many breaking hearts, and as many sighs and groans, and as much of mental anguish, as we find in the parlor, as we find in the nursery of any house in Worcester. But woman is vain and frivolous, and man is ignorant; and therefore, he is what he is. Had his daughters, had his wife, been educated to feel their responsibilities, they would have taken their rights, and he would have been a happy and contented man, and would not have been reduced to the mere machine for calculating and getting money he now is.’’

From speech by women’s rights advocate and abolitionist Abby Kelley Foster at the first National Women’s Rights Convention.

This was Mrs Foster’s surprisingly grand home in Worcester. It’s still a private residence.