Exhibits
Meet Maine Here.
The Maine Story
Women’s Rights – More than Voting
“Slavery of our women … is the very illustration of taxation without representation, which our fathers struggled against.”John Neal, 1832
John Neal
John Neal, a Portland writer and activist, made his comments at a July 4, 1832 event in Portland, drawing on language of the American Revolution. Like other women’s rights advocates who emerged during the 1830 and 1840s, he also opposed slavery.
Women’s rights were about more than voting, though. For example, in 1844, Sarah N. Mace of Farmington, successfully petitioned the legislature to grant married women the right to own property in their own name — a right being sought across the country.
Over the next several decades, the legislature also granted women rights to control their wages and enter into contracts — but not equal voting rights. Sen. Thomas M. Hayes of Saco was the first to raise the issue in 1854 — but hardly the last.
February 18, 1869, Lewiston Evening Journal
Questions of women’s rights were in the air — lectures in communities including Augusta, Bangor, Ellsworth, and Portland in the 1850s drew crowds. Newspapers carried numerous articles and commentary about women’s rights.
The agitation largely paused during the Civil War, but resumed after the war ended in 1865. While anti–slavery and women’s rights advocates had worked together on rights for all, they split in 1869, largely over whether formerly enslaved men should get rights before any women. Several new national organizations that focused on woman suffrage emerged.
In 1869, the Snow sisters of Rockland formed what was probably the first post–war rights group in Maine, and college debate clubs, temperance groups, and other organizations discussed the issue.
