“Don’t try to be a man.”

Maria Frost to Lavinia Goodell, April 13, 1858

In the spring of 1858, shortly before she graduated from the Brooklyn Heights Seminary, Lavinia Goodell was unsure what the next chapter of her life should hold, so she asked her sister for advice, saying:

I must have some life plan. I don’t believe in living to get married, if that comes along in the natural course of events, very well, but to make it virtually my end and aim, to square all my plans to it, and study and learn for no other purpose, does not suit my ideas.  … I would be dependent on my own exertions, be firmly established on my own basis.  I would study, investigate, try to do good.   I would aim at the highest. I think the study of law would be pleasant, but the practice attendant with many embarrassments.  Indeed, I fear it would be utterly impractical. Our folks would not hear of my going to college; I should not dare to mention it…. In all probability I must teach, that is all a woman can do.

On April 12, 1858, Maria Frost penned a lengthy response which made it clear she did not look kindly on Lavinia’s aspirations to enter any male dominated profession.

Black Lives Mattered to the Goodells

Lavinia Goodell grew up in a staunch abolitionist family. In 1833, her father William Goodell assisted in organizing the American Anti-Slavery Society. He started the “Emancipator” newspaper and in later years edited other similar papers, including “The Friend of Man,” “The Radical Abolitionist” and “The Principia,” on which Lavinia worked alongside him.

Even in the north, abolitionists were frequently persecuted and mobbed and their lives threatened. According to the In Memoriam pamphlet written by his daughters after his death in 1878:

Mr. Goodell was at one time obliged to leave his home in Brooklyn, with his family, and seek shelter in an obscure locality of New York, till the feeling of the mob-oligarchy had spent itself; at another time he barely escaped the grasp of an incoming mob, who clamorously offered a price for his head, as they put to rout an anti-slavery meeting being quietly held in a public hall in New York.

Happy Birthday, Vinnie!

Rhoda Lavinia Goodell was born on May 2, 1839. In celebration of her birthday, we are highlighting some family lore about her personality and escapades as a baby and young child. If hindsight is 20-20, then it was clear early on that Vinnie (as her family and close friends called her) would grow into a trailblazer for women’s rights and other social reforms.

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Lavinia’s birth: “the voice of the newcomer”

On May 2, 1839, William and Clarissa Goodell, aged 47 and 42, welcomed a new baby girl to their family. Their only other living child, Maria, was 12. Clarissa’s advanced maternal age and previous, difficult childbirths were cause for concern. So William hastened to send his father-in-law details of Clarissa’s health, the new babe, and the family’s joy to assure him that all was well.

May 15, 1839

Dear Father,

 . . . On Thursday morning, May 2, at about half past 3 o’clock, the Lord was pleased to bless us with another fine daughter, who is doing well thus far, and her mother is comfortable, and in a fair way to recover in safety. Thus, when we feared evil, the Lord has covered us with the mantle of his Goodness and mercy.

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