Charlotte Woodward
In 1920, seventy-two
years after the Seneca Falls convention, the United States finally passed
the Nineteenth Amendment, giving women the right to vote. Of the sixty-eight
women who signed the Declaration of Sentiments at Seneca Falls in 1848,
only one--Charlotte Woodward Pierce--lived to see that day. "I was
at the first meeting held at Seneca Falls," she remembered, "when
I was but a young girl, little knowing the broad field awaiting laborers."
With such awareness, Charlotte Woodward was delighted when she read the announcement for the woman's rights convention. Historian Rheta Childe Dorr described Charlotte's reaction, based on an interview with her in 1920. She ran from one house to another in her neighborhood, and found other women reading it, some with amusement and incredulity, others with absorbed interest. Half a dozen of Chalotte's intimate friends were interested enough to agree with her that they must attend the convention, at least on the first day when only members of their own sex would be present. . . .Early on the morning of July 19 those country girls started on their long drive, in a democat wagon drawn by fat farm horses. . . . As they drove along they perceived an unusual number of vehicles, family carriages, chaises, surreys, democrats and even farm wagons, turning in from lanes and byways to join the procession on the main high road. Women formed the majority of the passengers, but some of the vehicles were driven by men. When the girls arrived at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls they fund about fifty men waiting to be admitted to a meeting advertised for women only. Mrs. Pierce remembered that it was the presence of these uncommonly liberal men that gave her courage to stay over for the second day's session. Charlotte Woodward
traveled farther than almost anyone else who came to the Seneca Falls
convention. According to the index of the 1850 census, published by the
Mormons, only one Charlotte Woodward lived in New York State in 1850.
She lived in DeWitt, Onondaga County (near Syracuse, about 40 miles east
of Seneca Falls) in the home of Moses and Hannah Chapman, aged 58 and
55. Moses was a farmer, born in Connecticut, who listed his assets Charlotte Woodward eventually married (Newlin? Pierce) and moved to Bristol [Rhode Island?] and later to Philadelphia, where she lived the rest of her life. She joined the American Woman Suffrage Association rather than the National Woman Suffrage Association, which Stanton and Anthony had organized, but, she wrote to Mott in 1871, "our aim is the same, what matter if we do not all choose the same means to accomplish it?" She also became active in the Association for the Advancement of Women. She knew Susan B. Anthony and called her "a great and noble woman." Her conciliatory attitude
toward all branches of the suffrage movement Sadly, Charlotte L.
Woodward Pierce herself never voted. She was ill on election day, 1920,
and by the spring of 1921, her eyesight failing rapidly, she was confined
to her home. "I'm too old," she said. "I'm afraid I'll
never vote." And, as far as we know, she never did. -Judith Wellman, Historian |