Jul

2023

“The idea that the husband is the political representative of his wife is a fallacious one.”

Lavinia Goodell, May 1871

In another of her series of articles refuting commonly held beliefs about why women should not be allowed to vote, Lavinia Goodell rebutted the notions that there was no need for women to have the franchise because men already represented their views and that allowing women to participate in political decisions would create dissension in the home. She began:

As to the notion that man represents woman, Lavinia said that this was just another theory “added to the already too numerous ones for lowering the standard of marriage” since women would then be tempted to wed, not just to gain a home, social position, or financial support, “but for the object of securing a representative in the government.” She found the idea that a husband is, or can be, the political representative of his wife a fallacious one since representatives are chosen for a short term of office to insure obedience to the will of the people he represents. Marriage, she said, was a different institution altogether:

Since it will scarcely be considered practicable for a woman to change husbands every year, or every few years, it will be perceived that the fundamental principles of matrimony and of representation are totally different from and inconsistent with each other.
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Jul

2023

“Whether woman needs the ballot or not, the ballot needs her.”

Lavinia Goodell, June 1871

In 1871, shortly before she gave up her job at Harper’s Bazar in New York City and moved to Wisconsin to look after her elderly parents,

Lavinia Goodell wrote a series of articles for the Woman’s Journal dispelling common myths on why women should not vote. In a piece that appeared in the June 23, 1871 issue of the Woman’s Journal, refuted the notions that women already held such broad influence that they did not need the franchise; that suffrage would do working women no good; and that women did not actually want to vote. She began:

Lavinia said women did need the ballot, particularly women of little means. “The women who possess the greatest social influence are those who need it least for the protection of their interests…. The poor working women, the widows and orphans, whose facts are worn with care and anxiety, and whose clothing is plain and meager, possess little of this influence. These are they who need the protection of the ballot.”

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May

2023

“Ignorance is always dangerous.”

Lavinia Goodell, May 1871

In the second installment of her series of Woman’s Journal articles rebutting commonly touted reasons why women should not vote (read the about the first installment here), Lavinia Goodell focused on the claim that voting would disrupt the tranquility of the home and take women away from their traditional duties. Rubbish! declared Lavinia.

Lavinia queried how much of a woman’s time would be spent in voting and what important duties would she be neglecting while doing so? She pointed out that no one seemed bothered that men, too, had to step away from their jobs to vote. “The mechanic, in voting, does not neglect his workshop, the merchant his counting room, nor the farmer his fields. Neither would woman forsake the kitchen and the nursery. The duties of a husband and father in providing for his family are as numerous as those of the wife and mother in her position as housekeeper. Yet experience teaches that the exercise of his duties as a citizen do not interfere with them. Neither would woman’s interfere with her home duties.”

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May

2023

“A woman does not become unwomanly by entering fields in which man has heretofore been the principal worker.”

Lavinia Goodell, April 1871

Lavinia Goodell was a lifelong proponent of woman’s suffrage. Although American women did not win the right to the ballot until forty years after her death, during her lifetime Lavinia wrote many articles promoting suffrage. In April 1871, a few months before she left her job at Harper’s Bazar and moved to Wisconsin, Lavinia wrote the first of a series of articles on the topic for the recently launched Woman’s Journal, which was published by Lavinia’s mentor Lucy Stone. The series appeared under the title “Womanhood Suffrage – a Review of Objections.”

The article began by noting that one popular objection to women gaining the franchise was that it would result in women “unsexing themselves.” Lavinia responded:

Why a consideration of measures to promote the well-being of thousands of her fellow creatures would convert a lovely and conscientious woman into a monster of selfishness and hardness, while ignorance or carelessness of any interest outside her own and those of her family and immediate circle of friends would keep her gentle and unselfish, we are not told. The assertion … rests upon the assumption that a woman under the same conditions with a man would develop manlike qualities. This is a mistake. A sunflower and a rose may grow in the same soil, and be nourished by the same showers and sunshine yet the sunflower does not become a rose, nor the rose a sunflower.
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May

2023

“The love of the aged is glorious.”

Lavinia Goodell, 1860

Lavinia Goodell was an astute observer, and she enjoyed writing about peoples’ relationships. In the summer of 1860, twenty-one year old Lavinia wrote a short story titled “Old Lovers” for her father’s newspaper, the Principia. The narrator of the story, a young woman, meets an elderly couple in the ladies’ sitting room of the train station in the “little village of C” in western New York. (“C” perhaps stood for Canastota, where the Goodells had relatives.)

Lavinia began, “Youthful love has been all worked up in verses and stories and essays,” “but O, why do we not hear more of old lovers? Are they so few? Does love die out with youth? Does the hard, and actual of life so over-sweep the ideal? Is love so weak, so easily overcome? Not always.”

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Feb

2023

“There is going to be a big time here in N.Y. when the 15th Amendment has become a law.”

“There is going to be a big time here in N.Y. when the 15^th Amendment has become a law.”

Lavinia Goodell, March 6, 1870

The 15^th Amendment, which provides, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude,” was ratified in early 1870. Lavinia Goodell had grown up in a staunchly abolitionist family and had assisted her father in publishing the anti-slavery newspaper the Principia during the Civil War. The Goodells found the passage of the 15th Amendment a great cause for celebration.

Lavinia wrote to her parents, “There is going to be a big time here in N.Y. when the 15^th Amendment has become a law.”

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Jan

2023

“Getting married is not the great object of life.”

Lavinia Goodell, May 1860

In the sixth and final chapter of her series (posts about the earlier chapters may be found here: part one, part two, part three, part four, and part five) titled “Chapters to Young Men, on How to Win a Wife,” Lavinia Goodell offered one final piece of advice: men should not make finding a wife their primary life’s ambition.

After saying that she hoped gentlemen were taking the advice offered in her previous columns, Lavinia wrote:

I have an additional word of exhortation. . . . [Y]ou mustn’t be all these good things merely for the sake of “winning a wife,” but for their own sake. Getting married is not the great object of life. . . . Everything is viewed through the lens of “matrimony.” A certain amount of effort and money is devoted to the business of wife-getting. . . . Would such a girl make a good wife? If not, it is no use wasting any time and money on her! The idea that people may associate for the purpose of enjoying each other’s society, as friends, for mutual improvement and happiness is unknown. . . . They experiment very carefully and economically, till they make a selection, and then draw their chosen one from the group and don’t care a whistle for everybody else in the world. . . . Now I hope you don’t entertain any such narrow views of life!

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Dec

2022

“I am getting to like Dickens.”

Lavinia Goodell, March 1, 1866

At this time of year many people have a tradition of either reading A Christmas Carol or watching one of the many screen adaptations. From 1867 until she moved to Janesville, Wisconsin in 1871, Lavinia Goodell worked at Harper’s Bazar, a fashion magazine that was part of the prestigious Harper & Brothers publishing empire. Harpers had many well-known writers in its stable, including A Christmas Carol’s author, Charles Dickens.

Lavinia Goodell was an avid reader and her letters often mentioned her current reading choice. She mentioned Dickens multiple times. In 1862 she reported that she had finished reading Pickwick Papers and planned to read Great Expectations when time permitted. In 1866 she praised David Copperfield, saying “really am quite interested in it. It is better than anything else of his I ever read.” (In the summer of 1867 for some reason Lavinia seemed less enchanted with the British author, telling her sister that she liked Thackeray “even less than Dickens, though he doesn’t indulge so much in low characters.”)

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