Interview with Sara Catterall

Belt talks to Sara Catterall, author of Amelia Bloomer: Journalist, Suffragist, Anti-Fashion Icon

Why Amelia Bloomer? Tell us where your interest in her began.

When I was working on Ottoman Dress and Design in the West, I was intrigued by a chapter that argued that 18th century women’s rights thinkers in Britain admired the legal rights of Ottoman Turkish women and linked that to the adoption of Turkish dress by European radicals and artists and sanatorium patients. There was also an engraving of Amelia Bloomer in it that was reproduced from a German newspaper. I started to wonder why this outfit got so famous that its image and the name for related garments spread so far and stuck around so long. And what else she did with her life. Everything I found intrigued me more. And then I read her writing, and she turned out to be such a strong character with a great dry sense of humor.

We learn in the book that Bloomer's initial main cause was temperance. How would you explain to modern readers the importance of this cause? Was it a doorway to the suffrage and abolition movements for white women?

The temperance movement in the USA started with Presbyterians and Wesleyan Methodists, and took off after a phase of the heaviest drinking in our history, comparable to our opiate crisis now. Alcohol abuse was perceived as the primary cause of poverty and violence, especially domestic violence. Since women for the most part could not own property or control their incomes or access higher education or most professions, they were completely subject to the men of their families, and divorce was not a social or economic option for most. So temperance was an acceptable cause for women to take up outside of church. 

Abolitionism was on the rise at the same time, and there was a  lot of overlap between the advocates of both. Abolitionism has been regarded as a safer cause for many Northerners because it didn’t involve the same degree of conflict with neighbors and relatives and local businesses. But it wasn’t exactly safe either. The Grimke sisters were some of the earliest women to speak against slavery in public, and a mob burned down a Philadelphia hall that they appeared in while the city firefighters stood by and watched. Bloomer was anti-slavery herself, as was Elizabeth Cady Stanton whose husband was a famous abolitionist. Bloomer met Susan B. Anthony at temperance meetings. Anthony’s father held abolition meetings, and she was first recruited by Frederick Douglass as a speaker, long before she converted to women’s rights. But in time, Anthony and many others came around to the idea of woman suffrage because they wanted temperance legislation and other social reforms, and realized that without the vote, they had no political influence.

Also, temperance was not only a white people’s movement. There were many Native temperance activists, including Little Turtle and William Apess. Frederick Douglass was a temperance man until his death. Sojourner Truth advocated it. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper worked for it, wrote about it, and became a leader in the WTCU. Ida B. Wells, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Booker T. Washington were supporters as well, later on.

Your book is especially timely because of how it covers the history of The Lily, the newspaper Bloomer founded by and for women. Are there ways in which, in the current media landscape, The Lily can inform contemporary citizen journalism?

Trained salaried journalists working for independently owned local papers is the ideal. But there were no USA journalism schools in the nineteenth century. Journalists apprenticed, and learned on the job. The Lily didn't even start with that level of professionalism. It was founded by the women’s temperance committee in Seneca Falls. Bloomer had been writing for temperance papers under pseudonyms, but she had no editing or publishing experience. When the committee got cold feet and backed out of the project after being hit by a con artist, she thought it would look bad for women in general, especially to everyone who had already sent them subscription money. So she went ahead, even though she was alone after the first issue, and didn't plan to publish for more than a year. None of this was promising! But she made The Lily a key information hub and community for women throughout the state and the nation. It never had a huge circulation, and I don't think Bloomer paid her writers, but influential people wrote for it, read it, and depended on it. Don't be intimidated just because you haven’t done it before. None of the women who wrote for The Lily had a college degree, and they were all trained to be afraid of public exposure. If you see a gap, step in. But get your first six months of operating funds in the bank first.

Amelia Bloomer lived in rural Seneca Falls, outside of the bustle of things. What did this mean for her activism?

It’s interesting, I’ve seen a few writers describe Seneca Falls at that time as “sleepy.” It absolutely was not. It was a village of only about 3000 people but it was a rising industrial mill town when Bloomer moved there after her marriage. It was connected to the Erie Canal, and then the railroads to the East and the West. You could get to New York City in a day, and for comparison, it’s a five hour drive now in light traffic. A lot of immigrants and city speculators came to work for and start businesses there. Touring shows and lecturers came through. And it was part of “the burned over district” of Central New York, which was called that because of the waves of intense religious fervor and creativity that went through it in the early 19th century. Specifically, radical Protestant revivalists who promoted the idea of perfectionism, in the sense of creating the kingdom of God on earth rather than focusing on individual salvation and a later reward. A lot of reform movements were inspired by this idea that bad institutions and social systems caused people to sin, and that good Christians should work to improve the world for others rather than only focus on their own souls. A particularly radical abolitionist group of Quakers lived near Seneca Falls. The Seventh Day Adventists developed out of another group. The Church of Latter Day Saints was founded near Bloomer’s husband’s childhood home. So in some ways that part of the state was unusually progressive. Bloomer would comment after a temperance convention in New York City that the women there were more conservative than she was used to.

Also, she and her husband Dexter had opportunities in that smaller pond that might not have come to them in a city. Dexter was a leading newspaper editor in the area, and became postmaster thanks to his support for the Whig party and the Harrison campaign and the spoils system. Amelia talked him into hiring her as his deputy, which was unheard of. Those jobs gave them government salaries, and access to many more newspapers. And Bloomer turned her personal office there into a private reading and discussion room for the women of the town, which helped build a whole new political community. She met Elizabeth Cady Stanton in Seneca Falls, and Susan B. Anthony at regional temperance meetings, and introduced them to each other. It was a good place to be at that time.

Who should read this book?

Anyone who loves history, and especially radical history! And anyone who could use some encouragement for their own political work, especially if they’re not able to do as much as they’d like. Bloomer was chronically ill, and had a lot of domestic responsibilities. She had to take some long breaks due to her health, and due to her isolation when she and Dexter moved to an especially wild town on the Western frontier. But she devoted much of her adult life to her causes, and she mentored the next generation. She never saw women get the vote, she never saw Prohibition. But she did see a lot of good developments in her time, she was amazed by how much influence the women’s movement had on changing even conservative social norms within a couple of decades. And she wasn’t discouraged by the losses. She kept doing the work because she felt it to be right.

Also, I think Bloomer is a good model for engaging with political conflict, internal as well as external. She had a real gift for direct engagement with those she disagreed with, even when they were her friends. She never avoided a principled argument for the sake of keeping things nice or peaceful. She wasn’t perfect, and she lost her temper at times, but for the most part she did not burn bridges. With a few exceptions, she refused to judge people for their life choices. She stayed open to change in others. And she always expressed her respect and friendship for those whose ultimate goals were the same, even when they split over specifics.

What will surprise readers?

I was surprised by so many things in this book! The importance of Iowa and the West in the midcentury women’s movement is one. There was some admiration for the Eastern movement leadership, but also resentment of their attempts to centralize the movement, and the West disagreed on the best path to suffrage and other legislation in their states.

The commitment of many liberal men to women’s rights is another. It makes sense that they aren’t often at the center of these stories, but they were the only ones with concrete political power at the time, and change could not have happened without men who respected and admired women and worked to make them equal citizens with equal opportunities.

Another is the degree to which people built networks of support and information through newspapers. I was reminded of online communities now much more than I thought was possible, for better and worse.

And it is startling to read the 1850s arguments about women’s capabilities and rights in some of the exact same language that is being used about us today. It’s worth knowing about them, to avoid wasting time going in the same circles. Polite logic can only get you so far with opponents who do not consider you fully human.