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From National Citizen and Ballot Box for April 1880:

CARLOTTA GUILLARD, was the first French woman who followed printing for a business. She carried on this trade from 1506 to 1567, a period of sixty years and was famous for the beauty and correctness of her work.

LAKSHMI BAEI, the Rani, or Queen of Jhansi, headed her troops in person in the war with England. She dressed as a cavalry officer, and her wonderful generalship held the whole British army in check, until she was killed upon the field of battle.

MADAME DE MAINTENON was the secret wife of Louis XIV. This king was for more than half a century, the central figure in Europe, but after his marriage to Mme. de Maintenon, who was much his senior, he fell entirely under her influence, a power she retained until his death, some thirty years later. Though of good family, she was born in prison and cradled in poverty. Her face was beautiful, her form exquisite, her manners captivating, and her tact great. For many years she controlled the destinies of France, ruling Church and State and Society, selecting generals and ministers, laying plans for the cabinet, directing church action, repressing court licentiousness, ruling France “vigorously and with an iron hand.” She lived to be eighty-four, keeping her faculties to the last. Love of power was the mainspring of her action; for its sake she lived a lie to the world as mistress of the king instead of wife.

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(The New Citizen/March 1910) No thoughtful woman, and especially no woman so thoughtful as to be identified with the vast club organization of the enterprising women of the nation for the mutual benefit of the individual and of society through the individual, can be indifferent to the thrill in the air of the effort of the equal suffrage organizations for full political freedom for women, in order that having by interchange of ideas discovered the things to be desired for human betterment they may help to attain them through direct influence upon the laws.

None can ignore the fact that men by securing political power have been able to improve their condition from the time of Magna Charta to today. Women as a body have in the past been quiescent for obvious reasons, timidity, lack of organization and initiative until the last half centry, since the Civil War forced them out into the world to solve the problem of existence for themselves and often for the families left by the war to their support. [women] (more…)

(The Womans Tribune/March 30., 1907) When I was a boy I used to be told: “Now, John, when you get married marry some woman who will look up to you.” I went on that quest for some years but could not find what I wanted, so I began to look up, and have been looking up ever since. But that is not the reason of my belief in woman suffrage.

I have been a teacher for many years and I have found that the young women are being better educated than the young men. We never have any trouble about having women enough for the Phi Beta Kappa; there are usually ten or fifteen surplus; but it is hard to find men who can attain the degree.

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