founding of a college, and Horace Greeley
stood out against them, his babylike face, fringed with throat
whiskers, getting redder by the moment as he begged them not to
agitate the question.

The people's college did not materialize, but out of this meeting grew
a friendship between Susan, Elizabeth Stanton, and Lucy Stone, which
developed the woman's rights movement in the United States. Susan
discovered at once that Lucy, like Mrs. Stanton, was an ardent
advocate of woman's rights. Brought up in a large family on a farm in
western Massachusetts where a woman's lot was an unending round of
hard work with no rights over her children or property, Lucy had seen
much to make her rebellious. Resolving to free herself from this
bondage, she had worked hard for an education, finally reaching
Oberlin College. Here she held out for equal rights in education, and
now as she went through the country, pleading for the abolition of
slavery, she was not only putting into practice woman's right to
express herself on public affairs, but was scattering woman's rights
doctrine wherever she went. Listening to this rosy-cheeked,
enthusiastic young woman with her little snub nose and soulful gray
eyes, Susan began to realize how little opposition in comparison she
herself had met because she was a woman. Not only had her father
encouraged her to become a teacher, but he had actually aroused her
interest in such causes as abolition, temperance, and woman's rights,
while both Lucy and Mrs. Stanton had met disapproval and resistance
all the way.

[Illustration: Lucy Stone]

She found Lucy, as well as Mrs. Stanton, in the bloomer dress,
praising its convenience. As Lucy traveled about lecturing, in all
kinds of weather, climbing on trains, into carriages, and walking on
muddy streets, she found it much more practical and comfortable than
the fashionable long full skirts. Nevertheless, there was discomfort
in being stared at on the streets and in the chagrin of her friends.
This reform was much on their minds and they discussed it pro and con,
for Mrs. Stanton was facing real persecution in Seneca Falls, with
boys screaming "breeches" at her when she appeared in the street and
with her husband's political opponents ridiculing her costume in their
campaign speeches. Both women, however, felt it their duty to bear
this cross to free women from the bondage of cumbersome clothing,
hoping always that the bloomer, because of its utility, would wi