Founding mothers of social justice: The Women's Educational and Industrial Union of Boston, 1877-1892

Historical Journal of Massachusetts, Summer 1999 by Harth, Erica

By December 1880, Clisby had formally resigned. A letter from Cannes, dated December 17, expresses her deep regret at the necessity of her absence. At the inaugural meeting for second president Abby Morton Diaz in February of 1881, several women spoke in tribute to Clisby, among them Mary Safford, who had known her in New York. Safford called her a "grand, fine, earnest, true woman," with a "spirit of the true philanthropist -- that of beginning in a small way and willing to wait patiently for results."43 The 1881 Annual Report records only that Clisby departed "hoping to regain her health".

Clisby did come back in 1882, and although she continued to serve the Union in various capacities, she never again took on the presidency. She saw herself as a mover, not a leader. "I was there," she recalled (perhaps in part by way of apology), "to give birth to the work and to start it, but I never had the idea that I was to remain as its presiding officer for any length of time." In 1885, she went to Geneva, where she founded a "Union des Femmes." She returned to Boston in 1888, and her name figures on the Hygiene and Moral and Spiritual Development Committees until 1894. But she may have spent much time in Europe during that period, which ended with her permanent departure for England and the continent.

Abby Morton Diaz (1821-1904), WEIU president until 1892, was an appropriate successor to Clisby, for she was fired with the spirit of transcendentalism. Diaz's career as a writer of children's books attests to her fundamental belief in the molding of character through education as a response to social problems. To a greater extent than Clisby, she emphasized the "Educational" side of the WEIU. In her presidential address of 1882, she envisioned a Union that would function mainly to prepare women for motherhood.

Character is to a very great degree determined by woman. Is there nothing more to follow? It would seem that so think the oracles. These assert, `It is a woman's vocation to train up her children,' with a tone of satisfaction, as if this were the end of the matter, whereas it is only the beginning. Why, if so tremendous a responsibility rests with woman, prepare her to meet it. Educate her, enlighten her, bring her up to the highest possible plane morally, intellectually, spiritually, and, by opening to her many avenues of industry, give her the strength which comes of self-helpfulness.45

She later repeated this message in her two major writings on women, A Domestic Problem. Work and Culture in the Household (1875) and Only a Flock of Women (1893). Under her presidency, the Union organized free "Mother's meetings" "to discuss the best methods of training children.'"4 The idea of these meetings may have been borrowed from the Mother's Club of Cambridge, started in 1878. But whereas the eight founding members of the Cambridge club were educated young women seeking intellectual stimulation as well as a forum in which to discuss raising their children, the Union's initiative seems to have had a broader aim of social and moral uplift through education on mothering.47