Davis, Paulina Kellogg Wright. Letter to [?] Coe.

Title

Davis, Paulina Kellogg Wright. Letter to [?] Coe.

Creator

Davis, Paulina Kellogg Wright

Contributor

[?] Coe

Date

1851 ?

Description

Handwritten letter from Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis to [?] Coe, n.d. Davis describes the preparations for an upcoming woman's rights convention.

Subject

Davis, Paulina W. (Paulina Wright), 1813-1876

Is Part Of

Isaac and Amy Post Family Papers

Rights

The organization that has made the Item available believes that the Item is in the Public Domain under the laws of the United States, but a determination was not made as to its copyright status under the copyright laws of other countries. The Item may not be in the Public Domain under the laws of other countries. Please refer to the organization that has made the Item available for more information. http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/

Identifier

38

Location

Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation, River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester

Transcription

(Page 1)
                                August 17^th
My dear Mrs Coe
               I wrote you some weeks since
at Durham but receiving no answer I have
come to the conclusion that you must be in
Buffaloe [sic].                   The call for our Conven
tion will appear this week and will be in Worcester
I presume.           The committee are very desirous
that you should be here not only at the time of
the convention but a short time previous
and after to gather up its fruits. When will
be your best time for lecturing in New Eng
land.                     The Rochester women have
written me about having the convention
there or in Syracuse, as I could not well
controll [sic] our scattering Committee I have
written to Rochester urging them not to appoint
a convention at or near the same time. Some
of the friends ^here^ would undoubtedly attend a conven
tion there a few months later if it were deferred
either till winter or spring if held in the spring
I would attend it.                             You have I suppose
been written to about the Bloomer Festival
in New York. Your name I know was announced
as well as mine to speak at that time but I
shall not go. Though the reform in dress is impor
tant it is but a fragment of the great work and

(Page 2)

will I believe he the best promoted by unfettering
the minds on the broad platform of our rights
Mrs Oaks Smith spent the first week of july with
me and Lectured.        Her style substance and all
were beautiful very beautiful,    she is a worshiper
of beauty, but there must be a John the Baptist
to go before and prepare the way.    She cannot
cry down the [rough] ^rugged^ mountains of prejudice or
fill the valleys of apathy and stupid indifference
She will fertilize and beautify   and give grace and
elegance to our movement- And we must have
the idealist as well as the utilitarian both are
alike demanded or both would not have been brought
to see the same need and it seems to me that my
work is to stand midway and harmonize these
elements.      I do not mean that nature would
not do this work but circumstances have denied
the two and held them so long assunder [sic] that each
fears the other now.           If you come east, [then?]
let me hear from you previous and be assured
of a cordial welcome to my house and heart. I
shall be glad to have you feel that you have a
home with me just as long as you are in NE a
starting point a place to come back to to rest
I know your toils and anxieties and can sympathize
in them all.                         I am just now preparing
my report for the Convention on Education    .
Wendell P will give a report on the Political relations
that I think will be worth hearing

(Page 3)

Oliver is coming next saturday to spend sunday
with us. Will you allow us to say in our
notice of the convention that you will be there.
we are in hopes to have Mrs. Oaks Smith to preside

Yours most cordially
Paulina W Davis

PS if you have not made other arangements [sic] for
Alice I will take care of her for you while you are
here. Have just received a letter from Harriet
Martineau worthy to be embalmed so noble ^strong^ in
thought so lofty in sentiment

Annotations

Paulina Wright Davis, a woman's rights activist is writing to Mrs. Coe, presumably Emma B. Coe.

Davis presumes Coe is in Buffalo, New York. Davis refers to a "Bloomer Festival", which may be a reference to the growing popularity in New York with the bloomer costume made famous by fellow woman's rights activist, Amelia Bloomer. Elizabeth Oaks Smith was a poet and an activist. Wendell Phillips was an abolitionist and woman's rights activist, as was Oliver Johnson. Harriet Martineau was an English social theorist.

Tags

Education; Personal; Women's Rights

Collection

D.93 Isaac and Amy Post Family Papers

Citation

Davis, Paulina Kellogg Wright, “Davis, Paulina Kellogg Wright. Letter to [?] Coe.,” RBSCP Exhibits, accessed November 21, 2024, https://rbscpexhibits.lib.rochester.edu/items/show/2340.

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