Basic Information
Clarina Irene Howard Nichols, known to some as the “Forgotten Feminist” (Gambone, 2019), was born January 25, 1810 in Townshend, Windham County, Vermont. She gained notoriety for her journalism, her activism, and her eloquence. She was a suffragist, an abolitionist, and a frontier settler. Despite her early entrance to the fight for women’s rights, she has been relatively unheard of in modern times (Gambone, 2019).
Background Information
Clarina Nichols, the daughter of Chapin and Birsha (Smith) Howard, grew up in Townshend, Vermont where her grandfather had purchased land and opened a tannery in 1775 (James, James, Boyer & Radcliffe College, 1971). She was part of a wealthy, white, protestant family. Her father, Chapin Howard (formerly Hayward) was a deacon in the Baptist church and benefactor of Lelome Seminary in Townshend, Vermont. He was pivotal in the establishment of the seminary and in the religious, educational and social development of the Townshend community (Chapin, 1924). Growing up in Townshend, Vermont, she attended the local public school for most of her school years. However, she spent one year at a select private school and was instructed by Timothy B. Cressy, an Amherst graduate (James et al., 1971). After graduation, Nichols became a teacher and worked in both private and public schools in Vermont until 1830 (Gambone, 2019).
April 21, 1830, Nichols married Justin Carpenter, a Baptist preacher and moved to western New York to work at Brockport Academy (Gambone, 2019). Soon after she gave birth to their first child, a daughter, named Birsha. By 1836, she had three young children, her daughter and two sons, Chapin Howard and Aurelius Ormando Carpenter. However, her marriage to Carpenter was an unhappy one. She ended up being the primary financial provider because her husband failed to provide. He became unreliable and emotionally abusive. She “struggled to feed and clothe the children” (Blackwell & Oertel, 2010, p. 41). In the midst of caring for three young children, Nichols opened a seminary for young ladies in Herkimer, New York (James et al, 1971). She continued in this work until, concerned for the well-being of her children, she separated from Carpenter and returned to Vermont to stay with her parents in 1839 (Blackwell & Oertel, 2010, p. 41). After her return home, she became a journalist for the Windham County Democrat (Gambone, 2019). Her fear of losing her children to their father likely pushed her to fight for equal parental rights for women.
On March 6, 1843 she married George W. Nichols, the editor and publisher for the Democrat (Gambone, 2019). They had another child, George Bainbridge Nichols. Clarina Nichols soon became the primary provider again, when her second husband fell ill. She took over as editor of the newspaper and with her focus on abolition, prohibition, suffrage and Fourierism, the Windham Daily Democrat grew in readership (Gambone, 2019). It is during this time that she truly began her work for the Woman’s Rights Movement.
Contributions to the First Wave
At 17, during her graduation ceremony, Clarina Nichols was already speaking out about the mistreatment of women, when she gave a speech titled, “Comparative of a Scientific and an Ornamental Education for Females” (Gambone, 2019). Even before she had really begun her work for women’s rights, she knew that it was necessary for women to have access to equal, quality education.
After enduring a difficult first marriage, Nichols became very vocal about the need for women to retain their own property, to receive a decent education and to be able to separate from an unhealthy or unsafe marriage without losing custody of her children. In 1847, persuaded by Nichols editorials, Hon. Larkin Mead introduced a bill to the Vermont senate that when passed, gave women the right to keep sole ownership of property that was owned before marriage, inherited property, and bequeathed property (James et al., 1971). He had been motivated by a series of articles in the Windham Daily Democrat in which Nichols described as “setting forth the injustices and miserable economy of the property disabilities of women” (Anthony, Stanton, & Gage, 1886). In 1850, women won the right in Vermont to insure their husband’s life (James et al., 1971). In 1852, Nichols obtained more than 200 signatures from successful business men, “including the staunchest conservatives, and tax-paying widows of Battleboro” (Gambone, 2019) to petition the state legislature for women to have the right to vote in school district meetings. Worried that the chairmen of the education committee, who was editor of the Rutland Herald and a vehement opponent of Woman’s Rights, would taint peoples’ feelings towards the bill, she prevailed upon Judge Thompson, an ally of the Woman’s Rights Movement, to influence the House and the Education Committee on her behalf. Her efforts were rewarded with an invitation to Montpelier, Vermont to speak before the House concerning her petition (Anthony et al, 1886). She was so clever with her wording, so persuasive, that she won the support of many that day, including a large group of conservative women who had until this time been against the Woman’s Rights Movement (Stanton et al., 1886). Though the petition did not pass, it succeeded in gaining more support for the movement.
From 1850 to 1854, Nichols traveled around Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts speaking and participating in debates. She frequently debated ministers, who by the end of the debate were endorsing the Woman’s Rights Movement due to her talent for rhetoric (Gambone, 2019). One such clergy begged Clarina Nichols’ husband, “Let your wife go all she can. She is breaking down prejudices and making friends for your paper” (Stanton et al., 1886, p.175). Even as she traveled, she continued to write and edit for the Daily Democrat until about 1854. At this time, fed up with conservative Vermont, and her struggle to make advancements in women’s rights in her home state, Clarina decided to move to Kansas and take her husband and her two oldest sons with her. They moved for many reasons, but the two most important were to fight against the spread of slavery and to introduce women suffrage at the beginning of the state’s formation.
“We are the best judges of the duties, as well as the qualifications of labor; and should hold in our own hands, in our own right, means for acquiring the one and comprehending the other.”
~ Clarina Irene Howard Nichols (Gambone, 2019, par. 13)
Analysis and Conclusion
Clarina Nichols greatest strength was her quick wit and her ability to appeal to the most unlikely audiences. She was fortunate in that her family was well connected and well-respected. Though this did not always make things easier for her. Her family were primarily members of the Whig party and did not support her suffrage movement activities. Still, she managed to maintain a reputation for her femininity, despite speaking to crowds of men and women about politics and morality. It is likely that her Christian devotion and focus on women’s purity and motherly nature influenced this view of her. However, it is her combination of good humor, gentle spirit and cool, calm logic that really drew people to her and to the Woman’s Rights Movement. She seemed to make people feel at ease, when listening to topics that were controversial. Nichols knew how to rope people in with her moral attitude and her womanhood, while at the same time doing things that were considered very unfeminine. When Nichols and her family moved to Kansas, it was she who made this major decision, not her husband. After moving to Kansas, she began speaking more about the woman’s sphere, but in the context of outdoor, frontier life. Despite her conservative upbringing, Clarina Howard Nichols was a believer in freedom for women and African Americans and she acted on her beliefs until she died in 1871 (Blackwell & Oertel, 2010).
References
Blackwell, M., & Oertel, K. (2010). Frontier feminist : Clarina Howard Nichols and the politics of motherhood. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
Chapin, G. (1924). The Chopin Book of Genealogical Data: With Biographical Sketches, of the Descendants of Deacon Samuel Chopin (Vol. 1). Hartford: Chapin Family Association. Retrieved 2019 from https://archive.org/details/chapingenealogyc1862chap/page/n6
Gambone, J. (2019). The Forgotten Feminist of Kansas I. Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains, 39, pp. 12-57. Retrieved 2019 from https://www.kshs.org/p/the-forgotten-feminist-of-kansas-1/13232
James, J., James, E., & Boyer, P. (1971). Notable American Women, 1607-1950: A Biographical Dictionary (Vol. 2). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Stanton, C., Anthony, S., & Gage, M. (1886). History of Woman’s Suffrage (Vol. 1). Rochester: Charles Mann. Retrieved October 31, 2019 from https://archive.org/details/historyofwomansu01stanuoft/page/172
Stanton, C., Anthony, S., & Gage, M. (1886). Clarina Irene Howard Nichols. (photograph). History of Woman Suffrage. (Vol. 1). Rochester: Charles Mann. Retrieved October 31, 2019 from https://archive.org/details/historyofwomansu01stanuoft/page/n209