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supporters of a woman serving as the president of the meeting. They had James Mott, a fine-looking man, to preside at Seneca Falls, but his head fell at the hands of my old friends Amy Post, Rhoda DeGarmo and Sarah Fish, who at once commenced laboring with me to prove the hour had come when a woman could preside and led me into the church. Amy proposed my name as president. It was accepted at once, and from that hour I seemed endowed as from on high to serve through two [
343:, and by the early 1850s, Abigail Bush joined him with their children. The family settled on a 600 acre ranch just south of the then border of Martinez, California in Contra Costa County, about 20 miles east of San Francisco. Her husband died in the late 1870s, at which time she sold the northern portion of the ranch to the Christian Brothers, who built a seminary and began their wine making business.
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regarding her role at the 1848 convention in
Rochester to say "I had not been able to meet in council at all with the friends, on account of sickness in my family until I met them in the hall as the congregation were gathering & then fell into the hands of those who urged me to take part with the
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and without experience in holding public meetings, serve as president? Stanton, Mott and M'Clintock "were on the verge of leaving the
Convention in disgust" when Post, Fish and DeGarmo convinced them that it could work. Bush was elected after a vote was taken among the audience, making her the first
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Friends, we present ourselves here before you, as an oppressed class, with trembling frames and faltering tongues, and we do not expect to be able to speak so as to be heard by all at first, but we trust we shall have the sympathy of the audience, and that you will bear with our weakness now in the
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Bush presided over all three sessions of the one day of convention. At a late hour, Bush adjourned the meeting "with hearts overflowing with gratitude." Lucretia Mott approached Bush and hugged her warmly, thanking her for presiding. Stanton apologized for her own "foolish conduct" in doubting the
246:) in 1833. Henry and his brother were stove manufacturers and radical abolitionists. Within five years, Abigail Bush's name stopped appearing in association with Brick Church activities. Over the next thirteen years, Bush went through childbirth six times, with four children living past infancy.
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and
Lucretia Mott were strongly against the idea of a woman president, not wanting a poor showing by women officers to give a bad public image to the new women's rights movement. They had been among the organizers of the Seneca Falls Convention, which had followed tradition by electing a man to
350:(NWSA) convention in Rochester congratulating the women's movement on the 30th anniversary of the Seneca Falls and Rochester conventions: "Say to your convention my full heart is with them in all their deliberations and counsels, and I trust great good to women will come of their efforts."
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Abigail Norton was born on March 19, 1810, attended the orthodox First
Presbyterian Church in Rochester, New York, and helped her mother with charitable works. In 1831, she converted to become a "Brick Church perfectionist" in the wake of popular evangelical revival meetings featuring
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minister, one of the convention's three secretaries read the minutes of the previous Seneca Falls
Convention. Cries of "louder, louder" were heard from audience members who could not discern the weakly sounded words of the secretary. Bush took the platform and said
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In 1898, NWSA celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Seneca Falls and
Rochester conventions, and honored Bush's early courage and strength during a session entitled "Pioneer's Evening". Bush was then 88 years old and still living in California; she wrote to
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In late
December 1848, Bush was a member of the business committee of the Western New York Anti-Slavery Society. Her contribution, and that of two other Rochester women, served to fulfill the Society's tenet of equal social participation of women.
230:. After conversion, she attended the Second Presbyterian Church, known as the "Brick Church", and worked with the Rochester Female Charitable Society, an organization that provided care for the poor and ill.
257:, and withdrew in 1843 from the Brick Church to become active in the Western New York Anti-Slavery Society. Bush was at that time the most prominent ex-Evangelical woman in radical circles.
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In
Rochester, an Arrangements Committee was chosen to organize the convention, and a small nominating committee was formed within it for the purpose of choosing convention officers.
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When Bush took her position as president, Mott and
Stanton left their places of honor on the platform and took seats in the audience. After an opening prayer by a male
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to order and read the suggested slate of officers. The proposal for a woman to be the president of the convention met with immediate opposition.
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ability of Bush to succeed. From that point forward, women were always chosen president of women's rights conventions in the United States.
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in July 1848, convention-goers from
Rochester (Bush did not attend) were moved to hold a similar convention of their own. They convinced
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met in the evening of August 1, 1848, to select a roster of officers composed wholly of females, with Abigail Bush to be president.
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to stay in New York long enough to be the featured speaker at their convention, as she had been at Seneca Falls.
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In 1849 or 1850, Henry Bush, stung by years of business losses, headed west to seek his fortune in the
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infancy of the movement. Our trust in the omnipotency of right is our only faith that we shall succeed.
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398:"Upstate New York and the Women's Rights Movement: The Seneca Falls and Rochester Conventions"
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Upstate New York and the Women's Rights Movement: The Seneca Falls and Rochester Conventions
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In a split among abolitionists in 1840, Henry Bush chose to remain with the
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Bush died shortly after writing this letter, on December 10, 1898, in
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Stanton, Elizabeth Cady; Anthony, Susan B.; Gage, Matilda Joslyn.
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preside. Stanton asked how could a woman, without knowledge of
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Seneca Falls and the origins of the women's rights movement.
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365:] day's meetings and three sessions per day."
238:Abigail Norton married Henry Bush, the brother of
504:University of Rochester. River Campus Libraries.
16:American abolitionist and women's rights advocate
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593:, University of North Carolina Press, 1998.
197:(March 19, 1810 – December 10, 1898) was an
146:First woman to preside over a public meeting
619:Moses, Claire Goldberg; Hartmann, Heidi I.
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641:, covering 1848–1861. Copyright 1881.
138:Western New York Anti-Slavery Society
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438:. Rochester Regional Library Council
670:Abolitionists from New York (state)
638:History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I
348:National Woman Suffrage Association
346:In 1878, Bush sent a letter to the
293:Rochester Women's Rights Convention
211:Rochester Women's Rights Convention
136:Rochester Female Charitable Society
665:Activists from Rochester, New York
571:Women's activism and social change
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690:American women's rights activists
685:Suffragists from New York (state)
400:. University of Rochester Library
209:. She served as president of the
625:, University of Illinois, 1995.
680:People from Cambridge, New York
609:Oxford University Press, 2008.
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251:American Anti-Slavery Society
436:Western New York Suffragists
242:(great-great grandfather of
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547:Hewitt, 2001, pp. 137–138.
463:Hewitt, 2001, pp. 121–122.
289:Rochester Unitarian Church
244:President George H.W. Bush
603:McMillen, Sally Gregory.
574:, Lexington Books, 2001.
87:Alhambra Pioneer Cemetery
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511:Retrieved on May 1, 2009
228:Charles Grandison Finney
556:McMillen, 2008, p. 267.
306:parliamentary procedure
267:Seneca Falls Convention
215:Seneca Falls Convention
127:Women's Rights Movement
622:U.S. women in struggle
538:McMillen, 2008, p. 96.
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529:Stanton, 1881, p. 87.
520:Stanton, 1881, p. 76.
488:Isenberg, 1998, p. 79
479:Stanton, 1881, p. 75.
370:Vacaville, California
77:Vacaville, California
341:California Gold Rush
280:, Rhoda DeGarmo and
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418:Moses, 1995, p. 32.
301:Mary Ann M'Clintock
234:Marriage and family
207:Rochester, New York
195:Abigail Norton Bush
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59:Cambridge, New York
35:Abigail Norton Bush
675:American feminists
396:Mary Huth (1995).
265:At the end of the
188:(through marriage)
112:38.0182; -122.1452
568:Hewitt, Nancy A.
314:Free Will Baptist
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84:Burial place
71:(1898-12-10)
23:Abigail Bush
695:Bush family
660:1898 deaths
655:1810 births
186:Bush family
110: /
98:122°08′43″W
649:Categories
442:October 6,
404:October 4,
376:References
221:Early life
156:Henry Bush
95:38°01′06″N
51:1810-03-19
331:Afterward
182:Relatives
278:Amy Post
174:Children
563:Sources
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381:Notes
162:(
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627:ISBN
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444:2016
406:2016
201:and
66:Died
41:Born
362:sic
123:Era
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
