Talk:Henry Browne Blackwell

proposed addition to article
To identify Henry Blackwell's family, I propose this section be added at the end of the article.Jmillionjpostma (talk) 20:17, 13 July 2013 (UTC)


 * The following list format would be best presented as prose. Binksternet (talk) 01:33, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Blackwell siblings
Anna Blackwell (1816-1900) poet, translator, and journalist. She was a member of the Brook Farm community in 1845 but settled in France thereafter.

Marian Blackwell (1818-1897), a semi-invalid who lived with and looked after family members.

Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910) first woman to earn a medical degree in the United States. In 1853 she founded the New York Dispensary for Poor Women and Children, and in 1857, with sister Emily and Maria Zakrzewska, the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children

Emily Blackwell (1826-1910) third woman to earn a medical degree in the United States. She co-founded with sister Elizabeth and Maria Zakrzewska the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children, which became the New York Downtown Hospital.

(Sarah) Ellen Blackwell (1828-1901) artist who studied in Paris and London, biographer of Anna Ella Carroll, and activist in the anti-vivisection movement.

Samuel Charles Blackwell (1823-1901), bookkeeper and businessman, husband of Antoinette (Brown) Blackwell, the first woman ordained as a minister in the United States and prominent speaker and suffragist.

Henry Browne Blackwell (1825-1909)

Howard Blackwell (ca. 1830-1866) returned to England to work in iron manufacturing in England with a cousin and then joined the East India Company. Died at age 36.

George Washington Blackwell (1832-1912), the only Blackwell sibling born in the United States, became a land agent in the 1850s, studied law in New York City, and took over Henry Blackwell’s real estate business in the late 1860s.

Jmillionjpostma (talk) 20:17, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Early life
Henry Blackwell was born May 4, 1832, in Bristol, England, the seventh of nine children of Samuel Blackwell and Hannah Lane Blackwell. Blackwell’s father, a sugar refiner whose livelihood conflicted with his abolitionist principles, experimented with making beet sugar as an alternative to slave-grown cane sugar. In 1832, the family– including eight children and their father’s sister Mary– emigrated from England. The family settled first in New York, where Blackwell’s father established a sugar refinery and the ninth child was born, and then in Jersey City, just outside New York.

After the Panic of 1837 destroyed his father’s sugar business, the family moved to Cincinnati in 1838. Within months of their arrival, Blackwell’s father died, leaving the family destitute. Blackwell’s mother, aunt, and three elder sisters opened a school in their home, while thirteen-year-old Henry and his brother Sam took clerking jobs. In 1840 Blackwell was sent to Kemper College in Saint Louis with the intent that he should become a lawyer. But financial difficulties forced him to return home and resume clerking. Around 1845 he became a partner in a flour mill business, in which he managed operations of three mills. Within a year he had made enough profit to purchase a small brick house in Cincinnati’s Walnut Hill section, which remained the Blackwell family home until they moved east in 1856.

Seeking a business in which he might achieve financial independence, Blackwell next tried sugar refining, but when that failed a visiting English cousin persuaded him to accept a loan with which he and brother Sam purchased half interest in a Cincinnati wholesale hardware business. In 1850, at the age of twenty-four, Blackwell became the traveling partner of Coombs, Ryland, and Blackwells, making semi-annual two-month-long horseback journeys through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, selling hardware to country merchants and collecting payments due the firm.

Blackwell’s parents imbued their children with a philosophy of personal improvement and a deep interest in literature, languages, music, and art. Possessing a special passion for literature, Henry Blackwell wrote poetry in his spare time and always carried several books with him to make every spare moment “useful” and “self-improving.” He joined the Literary Club of Cincinnati during its first year of existence, where members read and discussed literature and debated issues of the day. He and fellow club member Ainsworth R. Spofford made business trips together, during which they relieved the tedium of slow travel by reading aloud to each other the works of Bacon, Shakespeare, Aristotle, and Plato. Through this club, whose early members included not only Spofford, who would become chief librarian of the Library of Congress, but also Rutherford B. Hayes and Salmon P. Chase, Blackwell formed lasting friendships with men who played prominent roles in the history of Ohio and the nation. Jmillionjpostma (talk) 23:03, 13 July 2013 (UTC)


 * The suggested text looks good to me. This article is in dire need of expansion with text such as this. Binksternet (talk) 01:33, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Courtship and marriage
Blackwell was smitten by Lucy Stone when he heard her speak at an antislavery meeting in New York in May 1853, in a speech that moved her audience to tears with what became known as her “fugitive mother” speech. He followed her to Massachusetts, attended her hearing before the state’s Constitutional Convention, obtained a formal letter of introduction from William Lloyd Garrison, and then called on her at her home in West Brookfield, asking to be accepted as a suitor. Although Stone gladly accepted him as a friend, she rejected him as a suitor because she believed marriage would require her to surrender control over her self and prevent her from pursuing her chosen work. But Blackwell, not having been rejected personally, determined to convince Stone that marriage to him would require sacrifice of neither individuality nor career. He maintained that a marriage based on equality would enable each of them to accomplish more than they could alone. Then, eager to demonstrate how he could help her accomplish more, Blackwell offered to arrange a lecture tour for her in the west. She accepted, and he wrote to business acquaintances to engage halls and place newspaper notice while personally printing and mailing broadsides to be posted. From mid-October 1853 through the first week of January 1854, Stone lectured on women’s rights in more than ten cities in five states, including Cincinnati, Louisville, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Chicago. Newspaper reports described her enthusiastic reception by the largest audiences ever assembled in some of the cities, as well as the deep influence she was having. During an intimate rendezvous before she returned east, Stone expressed not only her deep gratitude to Blackwell for making the success possible, but also a genuine affection. Nevertheless, she remained resolute about never placing herself in the legal position occupied by a married woman.

As the long-distance courtship continued, Blackwell shifted his arguments to how couples could shape their own marriages, regardless of society’s laws, and Stone began to believe it might be possible to claim for herself the “intimate companionship and gentle loving influences” of a “true love marriage.” After nine additional months of correspondence and brief meetings, Blackwell met Stone in Pittsburgh for a clandestine three-day rendezvous. Shortly thereafter, Stone agreed to marry him.

Through continued correspondence the couple set the terms of a private agreement aimed at preserving Stone’s financial independence and personal liberty. Blackwell proposed that their marriage be like a business partnership in monetary matters, with husband and wife being “joint proprietors of everything except the results of previous labors.” Neither would have claim to lands belonging to the other, nor any obligation for the other’s costs of holding them. While married and living together they would share earnings, but if they should separate, they would relinquish claim to the other’s subsequent earnings. Each would have the right to will their property to whomever they pleased unless they had children. Blackwell advised Stone to secure all her money in the hands of a trustee for her benefit. Stone agreed to everything except the issue of marital support. She refused to be supported by Blackwell and insisted on paying half of their mutual expenses. Despite Blackwell’s strenuous objection, Stone remained adamant.

In addition to financial independence, Blackwell and Stone agreed that each would enjoy personal independence and autonomy: “Neither partner shall attempt to fix the residence, employment, or habits of the other, nor shall either partner feel bound to live together any longer than is agreeable to both.” And Blackwell agreed that Stone would choose “when, where and how often” she would “become a mother.” This was Blackwell’s way of agreeing that Stone would control their sexual relations as advocated by Henry C. Wright, a copy of whose book Marriage and Parentage; Or, The Reproductive Element in Man, as a Means to His Elevation and Happiness, Stone had earlier given to Blackwell and asked him to accept its principles as what she considered the relationship between husband and wife should be.

In addition to formulating their private marriage agreement, Blackwell drafted a protest against laws that gave husbands “unjust powers” over their wives. As part of their marriage ceremony, he wanted to “renounce all the privileges which the law confers upon me which are not strictly mutual” and “pledge myself to never avail myself of them under any circumstances.”

The wedding took place at Stone’s home in Westbrookfield, Massachusetts, on May 1, 1855, with Stone’s close friend and coworker Thomas Wentworth Higginson officiating. As part of the ceremony, Blackwell read the protest that both had signed:


 * While acknowledging our mutual affection by publicly assuming the relationship of husband and wife, yet in justice to ourselves and a great principle, we deem it our duty to declare that this act on our part implies no sanction of or promise of voluntary obedience to such of the present laws of marriage as refuse to recognize the wife as an independent, rational being, while they confer upon the husband an injurious and unnatural superiority, investing him with legal powers which no honorable man should possess. We protest especially against the laws which give the husband:
 * 1. The custody of the wife’s person.
 * 2. The exclusive control and guardianship of their children.
 * 3. The sole ownership of her personal and use of her real estate, unless previously settled upon her or placed in the hands of trustees, as in the case of minors, idiots, and lunatics.
 * 4. The absolute right to the product of her industry.
 * 5. Also against laws which give to the widower so much larger and more permanent interest in the property of the deceased wife than they give to the widow in that of the deceased husband.
 * 6. Finally, against the whole system by which the legal existence of the wife is suspended during marriage, so that, in most States, she neither has a legal part in the choice of her residence, nor can she make a will, nor sue or be sued in her own name, nor inherit property.
 * We believe that personal independence and equal human rights can never be forfeited except for crime; that marriage should be an equal and permanent partnership and so recognized by law; that until it is so recognized, married partners should provide against the radical injustice of present laws by every means in their power.
 * We believe that where domestic difficulties arise, no appeal should be made to legal tribunals under existing laws, but that all difficulties should be submitted to the equitable adjustment of arbitrators mutually chosen.
 * Thus, reverencing law, we enter our protest against rules and customs which are unworthy of the name since they violate justice, the essence of law.

News of the Stone-Blackwell marriage flashed across the country after Higginson sent an announcement and copy of their protest to the Worcester Spy. While it drew amused ridicule from some commentators who viewed it as a protest against marriage itself, others agreed that no woman should resign her legal existence without such formal protest against the despotism that forced her to forgo marriage and motherhood or submit to the oppressive degradation in which law placed a married woman. It inspired other couples to make similar protests part of their wedding ceremonies.

On Sunday, September 14, 1857, Blackwell was at home for the birth of the couple’s daughter, Alice, delivered by Blackwell’s sister Emily. Two years later, while the family was living temporarily in Chicago, Stone miscarried and they lost a baby boy.

Business and investments
In January 1856, Blackwell and his brother Sam sold their interests in the company, and the entire family moved East. In October, Blackwell took a position with C. M. Saxton and Company, publisher of agricultural books. During his first year with the company, as he traveled through the west selling books to farmers’ libraries, he developed a new venture for the company – selling a collection of books suitable as a basic library for district schools. After consulting with the Illinois superintendent of schools, he compiled a list of appropriate books, arranged for special terms from publishers, and obtained a contract from the state of Illinois authorizing the firm to sell to school districts. However, when the Panic of 1857 threatened the firm’s survival, Blackwell withdrew until the company could reorganize. During the interlude, he worked as a bookkeeper for the Vanderbilt steamship line. When he returned to the book company at the end of August 1857, Augustus Moore had taken sole ownership and the firm was renamed the A.O. Moore Company. Moore put Blackwell in charge of the “school libraries” enterprise, and in the spring of 1858 Blackwell established an office in Chicago from which he obtained endorsements, arranged publicity, corresponded with school officials in each of the state’s one hundred counties, and hired agents to canvass the state. So successful was the venture that Blackwell contacted school officials in other states about introducing the books there and Moore doubled his salary to $3,000. The following year, Stone and their daughter accompanied him to Chicago, where the family lived for nine months while Blackwell managed the school libraries venture. When they returned in the fall of 1859, Moore’s failing health forced him to sell the company, and Blackwell left as well.

During the 1850s, the entire Blackwell family were avid land speculators. Having lived on the edge of poverty after their father’s death, the Blackwell brothers and sisters were intent on establishing their financial security. So along with thousands of other Americans during the land boom of the 1850s, the siblings channeled their spare dollars into western land purchases. In December 1853, a group of Cincinnati businessmen hired Blackwell to be their agent in purchasing 640-acre sections of land in Wisconsin, which the government was selling on easy terms. As compensation, Blackwell received ten percent of the land he registered. By the time he married in the spring of 1855, in addition to land he had himself purchased, Blackwell was the owner of more than forty-eight hundred acres of land in Wisconsin.

When Lucy Stone married into the Blackwell family, she became an eager investor too. Both Blackwell and Stone purchased land in Wisconsin and Iowa, diligently keeping their purchases and accounts separate. While the couple was “land rich,” they were “cash poor,” and frequently helped each other meet annual tax and interest obligations. When they purchased a house in Orange, New Jersey, in 1857, they took equal ownership, Blackwell trading western lands for his half and Stone surrendering a note she held against Blackwell for funds invested in the hardware firm. In a later trade with Blackwell, Stone became sole owner of this house. Having agreed that they wanted a simple life on a farm where they could provide their own needs, they subsequently sold Stone’s house to make a down payment on a farm in Montclair, New Jersey, while Blackwell traded western lands to purchase a large neighboring tract.

After their return from Illinois in September 1859, Blackwell opened a real estate business, through which, in addition to selling and trading for clients, he traded western land for eastern properties. In this way he became the owner of a string of rental properties, and to raise cash for tax and interest payments, he briefly sold kitchen stoves manufactured by fellow abolitionist Cornelius Bramhill and then, from 1862 to 1864, was bookkeeper for the sugar refining business of Dennis Harris, one of his father’s former employees under whom he himself had learned about refining in 1848. Having absorbed his father’s interest in finding an alternative to slave-grown cane sugar, Blackwell persuaded Harris to try producing beet sugar. Blackwell recruited farmers to produce the beets and oversaw production of the line, which turned a profit within two years.

In the summer of 1864, Blackwell sold a large property whose proceeds allowed him to pay off all his debt, including the mortgage on a house he and brother George had purchased for their mother, purchase property on Martha's Vineyard, and still invest a large sum in government bonds. With additional sales later that year and income from their rental properties, Blackwell and Stone achieved the long-sought financial independence that permitted them to devote their lives to reform without concern for earning a living. They continued to live simply and did not flaunt their wealth, and Blackwell continued to dabble in business. But sometime in the 1870s Stone told Francis J. Garrison in confidence that they could live on their income and could “cheerfully give” their time and effort to the Woman’s Journal. In 1872, Blackwell estimated that he and Stone were each worth $50,000.

Jmillionjpostma (talk) 23:02, 13 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Again, this article is too brief and would really benefit from additions such as this. Binksternet (talk) 01:33, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Images
This article needs at least one other image of Blackwell, preferably one which shows him in his youth or the prime of life. With more text being added, there is more room on the page for images. Binksternet (talk) 17:18, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I am searching for my files pertaining to the illustrations I used in my book (we've moved twice since its publication and I am surprised not to find them in the box I thought they were in). The photo of Blackwell as a young man is from the Library of Congress and in the public domain. The photo of him in 1865/6 is at Schlesinger Library, and permission would be required to use it. Another possible image is a broadside advertising Blackwell and Stone's meeting for the Equal Rights Movement at Vineland, NJ, on Tuesday, Dec. 4 [1866]. That image is also at the Library of Congress (Blackwell Family Papers, reel 68 frame 178 of the microfilm edition). I'll be happy to order it, after I determine if I need to reorder the other photo as well. Jmillionjpostma (talk) 23:01, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

"Founder of the Republican party?"
The intro claims "He was one of the founders of the Republican party," but (1) the statement is not supported by a citation, (2) the article mentions Blackwell's involvement in Republican politics but nothing about founding the party, and (3) Blackwell is not mentioned anywhere in the Republican Party (United States) article. Going to remove the claim unless anyone wants to find something concrete. Theturbolemming (talk) 15:59, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Actually, for that matter, neither this article nor the American Women Suffrage Association article describes Blackwell being a founder of the AWSA either, though he was an officer. Changing the sentence to describe his involvement rather than his being a founder. Theturbolemming (talk) 16:26, 30 December 2023 (UTC)