THE GREATEST AMERICAN WOMAN LUCRETIA MOTT

THE GREATEST AMERICAN WOMAN LUCRETIA MOTT
by Lloyd C.m.hare

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Text extracted from opening pages of book: THE GR ST AMERICAN WOMAN By LLOYD C. M. HARE THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, INC. NEW YORK, N. Y. 1937 LUGRTCTTA MOTT From a bust by Adelaide Johnson, sculptor of Washington, I & amp; gt;. (\, whose monument, of Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony is in tho Capitol at & quot; Washing ton. Mrs. Johnson s bust of Susan B. Anthony Us a part of the perma nent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. To BRIZAIDE G. HARE 7 IN N the same sense in which the greatest man ever produced in this country was Benjamin Franklin, the greatest woman ever produced in this country is Lucretia Mott& quot; Theodore Tilton & quot; From her mother Lucretia Mott was descended from Peter Folger. , . . He was a remarkable man, the father of the mother of Benjamin Franklin& quot; May Clemmer in & quot; Our Famous Women* 1 In ^ Preface ^ UCRETIA MOTT was the real founder and the soul of e woman s rights movement in America and England. She was the outstanding feminine worker in the struggle . to rid our country of slavery. She advocated labor unions & quot; in a day when they were almost unknown and generally considered illegal She proscribed war and worked diligently for liberal religion. A woman of rare refinement, yet she was not afraid to challenge the evils of her day, or to speak upon the public platform, an act then considered unwomanly and indecent. These achievements, combined with her undeniably beautiful character and innate spirituality, do much to fulfill the author s title, u The Greatest American Woman.& quot; Of her contemporaries Harriet Beecher Stowe and Margaret Fuller were superior writers; Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, and Susan B. Anthony devoted greater energy and longer service to the cause of suffrage, but no woman in American history ever combined so many outstanding talents or par ticipated influentially in so many varied movements, and with such grace of charm, as Lucretia Mott. She was great in deeds, great in womanhood, and great in those attributes of femininity that women strive for, and men demand. In her many controversies she never lost the poise of womanly dignity. She was always essentially true to her sex. We are told she grew old beautifully, so that every wrinkle in her face was the accolade of Time in the ripeness of experience. In reading this book one should keep in mind the fact that, despite all the interests that absorbed her attention, Lucretia Mott was the mother of six children and found time to be & quot; a paragon of house wifely excellence,& quot; as she was once described. The reader need not agree with all the policies that Lucretia Mott propounded to concede the woman s great abilities and the influence of her life upon her own generation, and ours. In her day America, as now, was rocked with a great economic problem slavery defended as entrenched greed always is defended. America had its nation-shaking disputes over the Constitution, its vigilantes, and a Supreme Court controversy that came to a climax with the Dred Scott decision. America had its conservatives, reac tionaries, radicals, liberals and that inert mass of people who talk U p progress until suddenly they discover it cannot be accomplished without ridicule and the sacrifice of social and business prestige, where upon they become suddenly very & quot; sound& quot; in their views and adhere to old abuses. No woman loved approbation more than Lucretia Mott, but pub lic persecution never swerved her from duty as she conceived it. In this modern world torn with dissensions we may look back upon Lucretia Mott as a steady light to make sure the path of progress. We profit from the fact that she adhered to the highest ideals of morality as a cure for the ills of society. She never succumbed to the tempting sophistry that the ends justify the means. Violence as a social solvent she abhorred. Our Nation needs today the enlightened liberalism, the sanity, a

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