York,
lectured in 1843; between 1840 and 1845 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Paulina
Wright (afterwards Davis) and Ernestine L. Rose circulated petitions
for a bill to secure property rights for married women, and several
times addressed committees of the New York Legislature; Margaret Fuller
gave lectures in Massachusetts, in 1845; Lucy Stone spoke for the
rights of women in 1847. The first woman's rights convention was called
by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Martha C. Wright and Mary Ann
McClintock, at Seneca Falls, N.Y., in 1848; Susan B. Anthony made her
first speech on temperance in 1849. From 1850 the number of women
speakers rapidly increased.]

CHAPTER XXII.

MRS. HOOKER'S CONVENTION--THE LECTURE FIELD.

1871.

A large correspondence was conducted in regard to the Third National
Convention, which was to be held in Washington in January, 1871.
Isabella Beecher Hooker, who had all the zeal of a new convert, created
some amusement among the old workers by offering to relieve them of the
entire management of the convention, intimating that she would avoid
the mistakes they had made and put the suffrage work on a more
aristocratic basis. To Mrs. Stanton she wrote:

I have proposed taking the Washington convention into my own hands,
expenses and all; arranging program, and presiding or securing help
in that direction, if I should need it. I shall hope to get Robert
Collyer, and a good many who might not care to speak for "the
Union" but would speak for me. I should want from you a pure
suffrage argument, much like that you made before the committee at
Washington last winter. I know you are tired of this branch, but
you are fitted to do a great work still in that direction.... Won't
you promise to come to my convention, without charge save
travelling expenses, provided I have one? I am waiting to hear from
Susan, Mrs. Pomeroy and you, and then shall get Tilton's approval
and the withdrawal of the society from the work, if they have
undertaken it, and go ahead.

Mrs. Stanton consented gladly and wrote the other friends to do
likewise, saying: "I should like to have Susan for president, as she
has worked and toiled as no other woman has, but if we think best not
to blow her horn, then let us exalt Mrs. Hooker, who thinks she could
manage the cause more discreetly, more genteelly than we do. I am ready
to rest and see the salvation of the Lord." On thei