n and expansion of business,
was followed by heavy losses, failures and panic. The whole year of
1857 was one continued struggle and vain effort to ward off the
impending crisis. To make the situation still more trying the winter
was one of great severity, so it is not surprising, accustomed though
she was to hardships and disappointments, that Miss Anthony should have
found this series of meetings the most disheartening experience of her
life. She engaged Stephen and Abby Foster, Parker Pillsbury, Aaron M.
Powell, Benjamin and Elizabeth Jones, Charles Remond and his sister
Sarah, the last two educated and refined colored people; marked out
routes, planned the meetings, kept three companies of speakers
constantly employed, and spared herself no labor, no exposure, no
annoyance. She found that envy, jealousy and other disagreeable traits
were not confined to one sex, but that it required quite as much tact
and judgment to deal with men as with women. She had the usual
experience of a manager, speakers complaining of their routes, refusing
to go where sent, falling ill at the most critical times, and continual
fault-finding from the people who stayed at home and did nothing.

She had been working for the public long enough to expect all this, but
was distressed beyond measure because she could not make the meetings
pay for themselves. For reasons already mentioned the audiences were
small and collections still smaller. At her woman's rights lectures she
had encountered indifference and ridicule; now she was met with open
hostility. In every town a few friends rallied around and extended
hospitality and support, but the ordeal was of that kind which leaves
ineffaceable marks on the soul. For all this she was paid $10 a week
and expenses; not through any desire to be unjust, but because the
committee were having a hard struggle to secure the necessary funds to
carry on their vast work. Her last woman's rights campaign had left her
in debt and she could not provide herself with a new wardrobe for this
tour, but records in her diary at the beginning of winter: "A
double-faced merino, which I bought at Canajoharie ten years ago, I
have had colored dark green and a skirt made of it. I bought some green
cloth to match for a basque, and it makes a handsome suit. With my
Siberian squirrel cape I shall be very comfortable."

Lucy Stone wrote: "I know how you feel with all the burden of these
conventions and it is not just that you