Lavinia Goodell

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We are delighted to illuminate the important work of Lavinia Goodell. This blog shares significant moments in Lavinia’s life and excerpts from her personal papers. You may browse the posts or use the Table of Contents to find posts that interest you. Please subscribe and help spread the word about Wisconsin's first woman lawyer.

Sep

2022

“Trees, en masse, are like humanity en masse”

Lavinia Goodell, June 1861

During the Civil War years, when Lavinia Goodell assisted her father in publishing his anti-slavery newspaper, the Principia, she wrote a large number of pieces for the paper. (Some of them are featured here, here, and here.) None of Lavinia’s contributions bear her full name, and many are signed only “L” or “L.G.” The anonymity allowed Lavinia to assume the identity of a man or an older woman, depending on the subject of the piece. In letters to her sister, Lavinia said she enjoyed the fact that no one would know she was the author. The lack of attribution also allowed Lavinia to try out various literary forms, including poetry, short stories, and inspirational pieces.

The June 1, 1861 issue of the Principia featured a Lavinia piece titled “Analogies,” a light-hearted article that compared people to trees.

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Aug

2022

“Put up at Park Hotel. Quite a stylish place.”

Lavinia Goodell, December 20, 1875

During the time Lavinia Goodell lived in Janesville, Wisconsin in the 1870s, she would occasionally have to take the train to Madison, the state’s capitol, for business. When she needed to stay overnight in Madison, she chose the Park Hotel.

The Park Hotel, at the corner of Main and Carroll Streets on the capitol square, opened in August of 1871 and cost $125,000 to construct. The day before its grand opening, the Wisconsin State Journal reported:

The site chosen is so superior, that even those who first objected to it, now express entire satisfaction with it, and most of them admit that it is the best that could have been found.
It is built of Milwaukee pressed cream colored brick, with trimmings of the best of Madison stone…; is four stories high, with Mansard roof of elaborate finish…. The exterior of the building presents a most pleasing appearance, and is greatly admired by all who see it.

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Aug

2022

“The Gazette is on the side of the people.”

Wisconsin State Journal, July 12, 1875

1870s Janesville, Wisconsin was not a large city, and its residents frequently encountered one another in both business and social settings. During her years in Janesville, Lavinia Goodell developed a very cordial relationship with the proprietors of the Janesville Gazette, both the local editor, Nicholas Smith, and the paper’s co-owner and editor-in-chief, General James Bintliff.

General James Bintliff (Photo courtesy of Wisconsin Historical Society)

Bintliff was born in Halifax, England in 1824. He came to New York City in 1842 and in 1851 moved to Monroe, Wisconsin where he took a job at a bank. While in Monroe he was elected the Green County register of deeds and in 1859 he was admitted to the bar. In 1860 he became part owner of the Monroe Sentinel newspaper. Bintliff was a passionate abolitionist and helped found Wisconsin’s Republican party.

In 1862, Bintliff recruited a company of Monroe soldiers and was elected their captain. In 1863, his company was attacked and captured by Confederate forces in Tennessee and imprisoned. A few months later the men were freed as part of a prisoner exchange. In 1864, Bintliff was promoted to serve as colonel of the 38^th Wisconsin Infantry. In 1865, he was brevetted Brigadier General for leading a successful charge upon Fort Mahone in Virginia. After the war, he returned to Monroe and resumed publication of the Sentinel.

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Aug

2022

“The heavy, barred gates of the professions creak on their hinges.”

Lavinia Goodell, November 1875

In November of 1875, the seventh annual meeting of the American Woman Suffrage Association was held at Steinway Hall in New York. Over 200 delegates, both men and women, attended.

Lavinia Goodell was unable to attend, but she wrote a letter for the occasion, and her friend and mentor, Lucy Stone, chairman of the executive committee, read it to the group. The letter was published in the Woman’s Journal, Lucy Stone’s publication, in early December.

Lucy Stone’s own address apparently caused a stir. The New York Daily Herald reported that it “was an exposition of what she considers the indecorum and absurdity of the Centennial celebration of independence by men who deny to one-half of the citizens of the United States the right of self-government, and urged all women to refuse to participate in the mockery.” A male delegate from Pennsylvania took issue with Lucy Stone on this issue and said while it was true that the Revolution did not enfranchise women, the new government was based upon principles which would naturally and inevitably lead to woman’s suffrage, so women should join in the Centennial celebration.

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Aug

2022

“Mr. Sale was District Attorney & made a very kind and gentlemanly opposing counsel.”

Lavinia Goodell, November 18, 1875

While practicing law in Janesville, Wisconsin in the 1870s, Lavinia Goodell had the good fortune to deal with other attorneys who were good practitioners and good citizens. John W. Sale was one of them.

John Sale was one year Lavinia’s junior, born in Indiana in 1840. His parents moved to Rock County when he was an infant. Sale attended the Evansville seminary, taught school for five years, then began to study law in the office of Harmon Conger, who was the circuit court judge who admitted Lavinia to the practice of law in 1874. Sale attended Michigan University and graduated from its law department. He returned to Janesville in the late 1860s and began to practice law. He had a number of partners, including John Bennett In the early 1870s he served as Janesville’s city attorney for several years. In 1874, he became Rock County’s district attorney, and it was in that professional capacity that Lavinia dealt with him.

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Jul

2022

“I have proved my strong mindedness by climbing into the trees.”

Lavinia Goodell, July 13, 1873

Because of global transportation, refrigeration, and food preservation methods, modern grocery shoppers have year round access to a virtually unlimited variety of food. Lacking those conveniences, the fare available to people in the nineteenth century was often quite limited. Lavinia Goodell’s extensive correspondence with family members frequently recounted what they were eating, particularly when they were able to enjoy seasonal delicacies such as fresh fruit. Cherries were apparently one of Lavinia’s favorites.

In a letter to her cousin written in the summer of 1873, Lavinia described taking precious time away from her legal studies to pick cherries at the Goodells’ home on South Academy Street in Janesville:

Since I wrote you I have resumed my study which has been interrupted only by seasons of cherry picking in the mornings when I have proved my strong mindedness by climbing into the trees. Also getting out onto the roof to reach some of the branches. Have got all but a few which are beyond my reach but are visible and look provokingly tempting from my bedroom window.

The image of a slender young woman in her mid-thirties, wearing a floor length dress and high top shoes, climbing trees or crawling out her bedroom window onto the roof in order to capture the ripe fruit is rather amusing.

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Jul

2022

“Lewis has come, but no horse.”

Maria Frost, July 12, 1854

Life in the mid eighteenth century was often both hard and unpredictable.

In the summer of 1853, fourteen-year-old Lavinia Goodell and her parents had recently moved to Brooklyn. Lavinia’s older sister and brother-in-law, Maria and Lewis Frost, lived in Bristol, New York, a town thirty miles southeast of Rochester. Lewis Frost was a Congregational preacher who, at that time, did not have his own church but rather filled in as needed at churches in the surrounding area.

In June 1853, Maria had written to Lavinia and her parents saying that she felt discouraged and worn out, but begged her family “not be anxious about me as I shall let you know if I am worse so you may consider all right, unless you hear to the contrary.”

The following month Maria reported more bad news: their horse had run away.

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Jul

2022

“Do your part in the world’s work.”

Lavinia Goodell, December 1861

Lavinia Goodell had a strong work ethic and was rarely idle. In 1853, at age fourteen, she was already helping her father publish and distribute an anti-slavery publication and was very proud to report to her sister that after deducting the cost of ferry and stage expenses she had cleared over $7.00 for sixteen days of work and felt quite rich.

In 1861, Lavinia was twenty-two years old and was assisting her father in publishing the Principia, another anti-slavery paper.

In the December 7, 1861 issue she wrote a short piece titled “Labor the Duty of All,” which chided everyone “with stout bodies and active brains,” whether rich or poor, to put their talents to use. She said, “You owe that world your vigorous limbs and active muscles, your thinking brain, and beating heart, and if you withhold them, you are guilty!”