Queer
Places:
Colonel Joseph Barker House, Halycon Dr & Ferncliff Dr, Devola, OH 45750
New Burial Grounds Association Cemetery
Greenwich, Fairfield County, Connecticut, USA
Frances Dana Barker Gage (October 12, 1808 – November 10, 1884) was a
leading American reformer, feminist and abolitionist. She worked closely with Susan B. Anthony and
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, along with other leaders of the early women's
rights movement in the United States.[1]
She was among the first to champion voting rights for all citizens without
regard to race or gender and was a particularly outspoken supporter of giving
newly freed African American women the franchise during Reconstruction, along
with African American men who had formerly been slaves.[2]
Frances Dana Barker was born near
Marietta, Ohio on October 12, 1808, the daughter of farmers Elizabeth Dana
(1771–1835) and Col. Joseph Barker (1765–1843);
her family's house is still in existence and has been
designated a historic site.[3]
Frances was the tenth of eleven children.[4]
In 1788 the Barkers left New Hampshire and crossed the
Alleghenies with
Rufus Putnam, and were among the first settlers in the United States
Northwest Territory.[5]
On January 1, 1829 she married James L. Gage (1800–1863), an abolitionist
lawyer from
McConnelsville, Ohio. He was a
Universalist and a friend of the
evangelist Stephen R. Smith. Traveling Universalist preachers, like George
Rogers and Nathaniel Stacy, often stayed in the Gage household.
Gage wrote that her woman suffrage work began when she was ten years old,
in 1818. She helped her father make barrels and her work was so well executed
that her father praised her work, but then lamented her "accident of gender."
Gage wrote that this was a turning point for her, the incident bringing up
hatred to the limitations of sex and laying the foundation for her later
activism.[4]
Though Gage was inspired at an early age, she did not begin her activist
work until after 1848. In 1850, she held a convention in McConnelsville, Ohio,
which seventy people attended. Those at the convention fought to have race and
gender removed from requirements for state citizenship and voting rights in
the Ohio Constitution. Their work was not successful.[4]
At the end of her studies Hannah
Tracy Cutler accepted the position of matron of the Deaf and Dumb Asylum at Columbus, Ohio. She met Gage,
another abolitionist and feminist; both were interested in advancing the Free
Soil Party with its anti-slavery platform.
Gage was an activist in the
temperance, anti-slavery, and woman's-rights movements, and in 1851
presided over a woman's-rights convention in
Akron,
Ohio, where her opening speech introducing
Sojourner Truth attracted much attention. Twelve years later, in 1863,
Gage recorded her recollection of Truth's speech, "Ain't
I a Woman?." Gage's version notably differs from 1851 accounts,[6]
lengthening the speech, adding the oft-repeated "ain't I a woman" refrain,[7]
and rendering it in a minstrel-like imitation of the speech of Southern slaves
- speech patterns which Truth, having grown up in New York speaking Dutch, did
not possess.[8][9]
Despite its dubious historicity and racist undertones, her version has become
the standard text and account of that famous speech.
In 1853 she moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where she was often threatened
with violence due to her anti-slavery views.[10]
Six months after moving to St. Louis, she was elected chair of the National
Woman's Rights Convention in Cleveland in October.[4]
In 1857 she visited Cuba,
Saint Thomas and
Santo Domingo, and returned to write and lecture.[10]
Gage's radicalism had limited outlets in a slave state, such as Missouri. She
and her family moved back to Columbus, Ohio in 1860. James' health was
declining and the family had survived three mysterious fires, likely brought
on by Frances' abolitionist views.[4]
In 1860, Gage became editor of the Ladies Department for the Ohio
Cultivator where she advocated for feminists and abolitionists. She also
lobbied for an Ohio law for married women to have the same property rights as
men, but she was unsuccessful.[4]
When the
American Civil War began she was employed by the
Western Sanitary Commission; she traveled down the Mississippi River to
help the injured in
Vicksburg,
Natchez and
Memphis. From 1863 to 1864 she was the superintendent, under General
Rufus Saxton, in charge of
Parris Island, South Carolina, a refuge for over 500 freed slaves. While
there she met and became friends with nurse
Clara Barton, who was working nearby. They compared their childhoods, and
discussed Universalism and literature.[5]
Gage joined the American Equal Rights Association in 1863 as a paid lobbyist
and writer.[4]
Although in 1865 Gage was crippled when her carriage overturned in
Galesburg, Illinois, she continued to lecture. Her addresses covered her
"triune cause": first, abolition; second, women's rights; and third,
temperance. The women's rights leaders and friends like
Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Susan B. Anthony,
Amelia Bloomer, Lucy
Stone and
Antoinette Brown encouraged Gage to be the women's rights emissary in
America's
midwest.[5]
Her lecture circuit included Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, Missouri,
Nebraska, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Mississippi, and
Tennessee. In 1867 she spoke at the First Anniversary of the
American Equal Rights Association.[11]
Gage wrote children's books and poems, under the pen name of "Aunt Fanny."
Her books include Fanny at School, Fanny's Birthday, and
Fanny's Journey. She wrote for The Ohio Cultivator and other
regional journals; she portrayed herself as a warm, domestic persona who
offered advice and guidance to isolated housewives in Ohio. She wrote essays,
letters, poetry, and novels. Among the other publications to which she
contributed were the Western Literary Magazine, New York's
Independent, Missouri Democrat, Cincinnati's
The Ladies' Repository, Field Notes, and The National
Anti-Slavery Standard. She was an early contributor to the Saturday
Review, and published "Poems" (1867); "Elsie Magoon, or the
Old Still-House in the Hollow: A Tale of the Past" (1872); "Steps Upward"
(1873); and "Gertie's Sacrifice, or Glimpses of Two Lives" (1869). "A Hundred
Years Hence" was a hymn composed by Gage and first sung in 1875.
Frances married James L. Gage on New Year's Day in 1829.[4]
Throughout their marriage of 35 years, James supported Frances' commitment to
help others. They raised eight children. Four of their sons fought for the
Union
Army during the American Civil War.[12]
In the autumn of 1862, Frances and her daughter Mary traveled to the Sea
Islands in South Carolina to train ex-slaves. In 1863, James Gage became critically ill and
died in
Columbus, Ohio. He was buried in Woodland Cemetery, McHenry,
Illinois.[13]
Frances Gage suffered a debilitating stroke in 1867.[14]
She died in Greenwich, Connecticut on November 10, 1884.[15]
My published books:
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