TWENTY-THREE
Getting Ducks in Order
1871
_______
She loved the smell of the ink that prickled the nose hairs and its viscosity, the consistency of Johnny cake batter. Willis spread the ink across the wooden tubes, preparing the presses. Abigail admired the tiny type raised in the wood that eleven-year-old Hubert’s little fingers set into the box where the ink would highlight and transfer to the paper. He was an excellent speller and didn’t seem fazed by the typeface being backward so it would print correctly on the stock. She loved the feel of the paper—she used good quality so people would be willing to pay money in expectation of getting something worthy that was easy to read. Even the crispness of the paper cuts, it all appealed to her. The rumble of the presses, rattling the chandelier on the first floor while the presses rolled the newspaper out on the second.
She’d rented a house on First and Washington with room for the family downstairs (along with a millinery that Clara would manage). She’d hired a foreman to help them learn the printing business, borrowed $3000 from Jacob Mayer to be paid back over time. He didn’t charge her interest and she never sent him a bill for his ads.
On May 5, 1871, Abigail and Ben together turned the handle for the first edition. Like magic, the words appeared on paper, her words, the first newspaper a sort of memoir of how “we” had come to write a paper, how “we” began scribbling while as a farmer’s wife, and about the business failures (she wrote that her novel had been a failure) and the successes (teaching, boarding, and dressmaking—and hopefully, newspapering). She editorialized that it was women’s lack of political and consequent “pecuniary and moral responsibility” that resulted in the public being opposed to “strong-minded women,” as she had once been herself. But now, she saw—and hoped her readers would see—that society kept “half the population overtaxed and underpaid, struggling, while another group of women acted frivolous, were idle and expensive.” Both conditions, she contended, were “wrong,” and the goal of the paper was “to elevate women, that thereby herself and son and brother man may be benefited and the world made better, purer, and happier, is the aim of this publication.”
It was a lofty goal, she knew that. And they’d risked all they had and went into debt for this cause. But it was what her heart had told her, what that beam of light had illuminated about her life’s mission being not only to be a good wife and mother but to advance women’s God-given gifts and talents in addition to household roles. Abigail had managed so far to keep her dignity and the love of her family while being willing to be mocked and chastised for stepping out. If she could do it, she hoped other women and men would see how each would benefit by the advancing of women. Or at least not standing in a woman’s way.
She watched Clara Belle speaking to a customer purchasing a reticule at the millinery. Such a gorgeous daughter, so charming and without a vitriolic bone in her body. How had Abigail raised such a gentle soul when she was such a torrent? It’s Ben’s influence. Thank goodness for Ben.
“When you’ve finished, come join us,” Abigail told her daughter. “The first press run is finished, and I want you to be there when we lift them up and get them on the streets. I’ve had six months of selling subscriptions ahead of time, and today they’ll be delivered.” Even southern Oregon would be getting papers, as Bethenia Owens, her millinery friend from Roseburg, had been promoting the paper, readying people for this grand adventure.
“Coming, Momma.” Clara Belle locked the outside millinery door to join the family upstairs.
They had to wait until the ink dried. Meanwhile, using turpentine to remove stains from their fingers, the boys gathered up the pages, Ben spoke a prayer over the venture, and Abigail felt tears form in her eyes as she watched her family head out their Portland door to sell the New Northwest on the street. Even nine-year-old Wilkie could charm a dime from a grumpy man looking for someone to blame for his bad day. He held the hand of his older brother to cross the street and join the business of the Duniway Publishing Company.
Abigail found invigoration in this newspapering thing, and yes, she told herself, in the assurance of Ben’s steady income that surprisingly took strain from her days. It was all in the family sphere, not unlike farming had been, but with less physical pain. Ben’s sacrifice and job had made the difference in her constant chasing away the demons of foreclosure and debtor’s prison. Ben had been right. Something always did come along in the end . . . she just had to trust that if she was on the right path, doing what needed to be done, they’d be all right. How ironic that it was Harvey who turned out to be a part of that answer to a prayer.
A Journal for the People
Devoted to the Interests of Humanity
Independent in Politics and Religion
Alive to all Live Issues and Thoroughly
Radical in Opposing and Exposing the
Wrongs of the Masses.
Abigail capitalized every other word, used language like “Live Issues.” Kate had said it was a bit flamboyant, but it was also her style. It was the masthead, at least for now, reminding people of what the New Northwest was about. She showed it to Ben. “I want people to see it as a different kind of newspaper, because it is. I sent Susan B. Anthony a copy and she’s pleased. And Ben, I boldly asked her to come west to do a speaking tour.” They’d been in production for three months.
“Abigail—”
“Now, I would only arrange the performances, introduce her, collect the donations, et cetera. We’ll split the income after expenses. I wouldn’t be speaking beyond that.” When Ben had called her back from California, she had assumed it was to speak of his new job, but she hadn’t actually asked if he would have approved her speaking. Maybe I don’t want to know. “I’d try to book us at the Oregon State Fair. We could all camp out together. That’s very suitable. Families back east are camping all the time. The fashion industry has even introduced clothing that keeps women proper, of course, but a little freer to hike and take in the sunshine.”
“You two women are not going to camp out across Oregon.”
“No, no. I just meant at the fair. We’ll stay in respectable hotels or at the homes of like-minded women on the tour. Think of the good copy such an adventure would offer my readers and encourage women starved for entertainment in the rural areas. I think she’s quite a remarkable woman. I can pluck her thoughts about newspapering as we ride in the stage or walk a few miles.”
Ben sighed. “I’ve come this far. I guess it’s not much farther to have both a newspapering wife and a public-speaking one. I’ll be busy at the customhouse, so you’ll have to tend the home fires. I like a good campout now and then.” He stretched his back, winced. “Besides, working inside a building all day long, I’ll need some nights out in a tent for my sanity.”
“At least you aren’t suggesting that I’m the one challenging your sanity.”
“I was being diplomatic.” Ben grinned. “Something I need to be in the customhouse.”
“One of us should be,” Abigail said, and kissed him. “Lord knows I’m a lost cause when it comes to that. Perhaps our travel from here to Victoria, British Columbia, and east to Idaho will give me lessons in discretion.”
Ben smiled. “We can hope.”
“Hubert, put that straw over there, against that tent side. Ben, do we have the carpet ready to roll out? Oh, isn’t this grand!” Abigail fluttered about the tent at the Oregon State Fair. It was October, one of the most glorious months in the Willamette Valley, with harvested fields golden next to maples and oaks flashing their reds and greens, flirting with pure blue skies. The evenings were cool, the days hot but dry.
The family—most of it, along with sister Sarah Maria and her husband and of course the guest of honor, Susan B. Anthony—would spend the week at the fair. It was the end of the grand tour the women had made to Washington, Idaho, British Columbia, and throughout Oregon. Aunt Susan, as Abigail referred to her, had been a warrior in the wilds. For the first half of the tour, Clara Belle joined them to sing and, if a piano was present, to play music as people gathered. Then Abigail gave the introduction, which amounted to a speech of her own. She couldn’t help herself. She loved the audience responses to her presentations, often saying, “I never imagined when I first declaimed to my father’s grazing mules that, one day, I’d be asked to speak to legislators, which Miss Anthony and I did last week.” Then she’d add: “Not such a very different audience, regardless of whether those mules in the pasture were looking toward me or away.” There’d be a pause and then the crowd would laugh. Jokes at legislators’ expense seemed to go over well with the masses, Abigail decided.
At the fair, they’d be competing with men hawking games that gents could play to earn trinkets for their mates. Musicians and ventriloquists along with banjo-playing farmers would perform on an outdoor stage next to them. People would wander by, heading to the tent restaurant that the Aurora Colony men and women operated, to the delight of the Duniways and others who could purchase food right on site and not have to pack for a week.
Best of all, the Duniway family enjoyed the company of the famous suffragist.
Susan B. Anthony was a tall woman, slender, who had deliberate movements, including settling down onto the straw bed in the fair-tent like a stork slowly clucking over her eggs. Abigail, on the other hand, would just plop, which she did, wincing as she sat next to her famous friend. “Clara Belle, dear, are you going to sing for us as the opening tonight? We should have a big crowd.”
“Yes, Momma. In fact, I think I’ll find a quiet place to practice. It is getting stuffy in here.”
Abigail hesitated. “Be careful out there. There are scoundrels.”
“I’ll come with you. See if I can find James.” Sarah Maria’s husband was a law officer on duty looking for pickpockets and inebriates. “He can protect two damsels if we get in distress.”
“Sing your way out into the world, now.” Ben started up—a routine he’d taught his children from the time they were little. Ben sang and Maria grabbed Clara Belle’s hand and pulled her toward the opening, voices brimming with good cheer. The younger boys were all that were left of the children, and Ben said he’d take them to the restaurant if the women needed some privacy to prepare for their presentation that evening.
“Won’t you remember this western trip for the rest of your life?” Abigail nudged Aunt Susan. Abigail poked her with her elbow as the girls left.
“It’s my first and I suspect my last camping experience. We’re stuffed in here like herrings.”
“I know. Isn’t it cozy? No need to shout to express thoughts or share a story.”
“I confess, I prefer your Chemeketa House and the Oregon Supreme Court as audiences, though you Duniways I suspect are better to sleep with.”
Abigail laughed with her. She’d grown quite fond of the eastern suffragist and her ability to adapt to the primitive conditions she’d been exposed to. They’d been heckled out of hotels with their ideas. They’d been asked to leave a home where they’d been invited when the woman’s husband chastised his wife in front of them for failing to seek approval before extending the invitation. Out they went. Churches were often closed to them—pool halls and saloons, open, mostly to mock any presentations they made outside them. But in Pendleton, in a light rain, they had hesitated.
“Ben will be dismayed if it’s reported that we spoke inside a saloon,” Abigail said.
“No one ever made any gains without ruffling a few feathers.”
“I know, but being married—”
“It’s why I never did. I have enough to manage myself without the additional weight of family.”
“They aren’t exactly a burden. Do I make it sound that way? It’s that I have to consider them in what I do, Ben especially. I never want to lose his support.”
“From what I see, that wouldn’t be possible. He adores you.”
“Yes. He does.” But he might have his limits. “Let’s not speak in the saloon. Let’s make our presentation outside it. We might gain more votes one day that way than forcing ourselves into the bar. And women on the streets can hear us. Our umbrellas and our ideas will give us something to share with our audience.”
They collected money for their expenses and sometimes shared the take with those who needed it, leaving them barely able to cover their meals and hotel lodging when they couldn’t secure a bed from a sympathetic suffragist in Olympia, Washington, or in a tiny frontier town like Umatilla, Oregon. In every village, Abigail sold subscriptions to her New Northwest, and at every rest stop, sharing beds with children or with Aunt Susan, Abigail wrote, telegramming her reports from the field for the paper to Kate, whom she’d contracted to do the layout. Sometimes they were in an actual field when she prepared her articles. She also wrote chapters for a long poem she serialized and created a rhythm for corresponding while on the road, her arthritic fingers scribbling away well into the night. She was writing with a purpose, covering their trip and experiences and advancing a cause.
She’d feel depleted by a short and interrupted night’s sleep, exhausted by the stage or wagon box that took them to the next town, frustrated by changes in where they’d be allowed to speak once they arrived, at times a little frightened by the vitriol spewed by both men and women who were threatened by what they stood for: change.
But once they stood onstage, Abigail would feel something coming to her from the crowd. Her spine would tingle as she stood before a mass of mostly women who hungered for the hope Abigail and Aunt Susan’s presence inspired.
Abigail was counting on this evening of the fair being a grand finale to the tour. She’d had posters printed and the boys handed them out. She hoped they’d get a couple of hundred people to attend that evening. She wanted the tour to do Oregon proud for her eastern friend. Of all the Northwest states, she hoped Oregon women would be the first to vote, and she saw this canvasing in the Northwest and her newspaper as in service to that goal. This event at the fair was to be the crown on their royal trip.
“How many do you think were there, Ben?” Abigail shook the quilts, then placed them back over straw to freshen the beds. It had been a long but satisfying evening.
“We sold a lot of subscriptions to the paper,” Willis said. At fourteen, he towered over his mother and stood nearly head to head with Ben.
“Imagine having a thousand people hear about the importance of freedom and the vote for women.” Abigail placed a shawl around Susan Anthony’s bony shoulders as the night had chilled. Musicians played in the background, and one could still hear the murmuring of fairgoers chattering as they made their way toward the exits. “Could you ever have imagined a crowd like this when I was writing my ‘Farmer’s Wife’ letters?”
Ben nodded. “I knew you were destined for bigger things the day I met you.”
“Your invitation to speak to the Oregon legislature as the first woman to do so may take the cause further than our presentation this evening,” Susan said. “That’s quite an accomplishment. And you quadrupled the influence by being able to write about it in your paper.”
“Five hundred subscribers and climbing. My Clara and Willis and even Hubert are quite the newsboys. News-people.” She ruffled eleven-year-old Hubert’s curls. “Who can refuse that smile.”
“Your paper probably has a wider audience, but flesh and blood coming out to hear, that word of mouth will bring you more readers than smiling sons, good hawkers that they are,” Susan said.
“The anti-suffrage crowd was out too.” Clara heated up tea on their little camp stove. “But I think they only had forty or so attend. I slipped in the back just to check. You and Aunt Susan are the novelty.” Her sister Sarah Maria had started a suffrage group in Forest Grove where James was the sheriff and Kate taught school. And the sisters also acted as agents for subscriptions or ad sales, working from Albany or Forest Grove or wherever they lived. Even relatives back in Illinois had been conscripted to read the New Northwest and find new subscribers.
“Women of many persuasions are being allowed to speak in public,” Susan said. “And that is an advancement as well. We cannot push the rights of some women. We must work for all, even those who resist our efforts to improve their lives.”
“That is a paradox, isn’t it? To have women not want more freedoms?” Sarah Maria shook her head.
“They think they’ll be taken care of by their husbands and fathers, and many will. But they’ll never know what they might have been able to accomplish if they had the opportunity.”
“One can be both a good wife and a promoter of a worthy cause,” Abigail said. “Somehow, in our writings we must make the case for issues other than the vote. It’s a means to an end, not the end itself, that’s the story that matters.”
“Well spoken, Abigail. If we can advocate for improved property rights, for legal protections for women, the journey to those reforms will be the underpinnings of the suffrage fight and perhaps keep our organizations from tromping in the mud over issues like temperance and prohibition.” Susan sounded like she was still on the platform. She stopped herself, then added, “I think you may be right, my friend, about not having our eastern groups come into Oregon with a campaign. The Northwest is unique. You can promote that singularity in your newspaper and your ‘still hunt’ attitude. We have to employ a number of methods to reach our goal. And we have a huge roadblock before us.” She cleared her throat and this time did pontificate as though on a stage. “The Supreme Court just wrote this: ‘The paramount destiny and mission of women are to fulfill the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator.’”
“So if we operate outside that, we are defying God’s laws?” Even Sarah Maria sounded aghast.
“So the court has ruled.”
Abigail thought of the verse in Jeremiah about God having plans for everyone’s life. Shouldn’t a woman discover what her own destiny and mission were in order to be in step with Scripture, even if that meant stepping outside of her home?
“We can challenge that in the newspaper, mine and yours.”
Susan blinked several times. “Did I not tell you? I had to close Revolution. My newspaper has, as they say in the West, ‘bit the dust.’”
“I didn’t know.”
“It was one of the reasons I undertook the tour, to make a little money to dissolve my debt.”
A bitter taste of reality made Abigail swallow. She was entering in to risk larger than what Ben had put them in by signing the notes those years before. He had done it to help a friend. If I’m doing it for something greater than myself, will that guarantee that all will turn out well? She didn’t say those words out loud. Instead she said, “And still you gave more than half your share of the gate in Olympia for the victims of the Chicago fire.”
“‘Give, and it shall be given unto you,’ as Scripture says.” Susan sighed. “It hasn’t failed me yet. Look here what luxury has come my way since I gave away my take: friends to share tea and shelter with and a straw bed on which to lay my head.”
Abigail exchanged a glance with Ben, wondering if he might be thinking what she was. If the famous Susan B. Anthony couldn’t succeed with a newspaper with the large subscription base in the populous East, a newspaper that captured the action of the political capital of the country, with renewals easy to come by, however would her little paper make it in the West, where horses and cattle far outmatched readers living in sparsely settled areas. To move forward, she’d have to believe that something was worth doing no matter how it turned out.