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Lucy W. Hayes and the New Women of the 1880s 

BY EMILY APT GEER 

Volume III, No. 1-2 
Spring and Fall, 1980

The term “new woman” or “new women” frequently appears in American popular literature during periods of accelerative change in industrial, social, and intellectual life. The Philadelphia Centennial of 1876, which coincided with the election of Rutherford B. Hayes to the Presidency, marked the beginning of such an era in American economic and cultural history. 

 For the new woman of the late 1870s and 1880s, independence, a sense of achievement, and the ability to compete successfully with men constituted the essence of living. Consciousness raised by the campaigns of the suffragettes had convinced most of these women that the permanence of their personal and economic gains depended upon securing the right to vote. In 1879, the Washington Post aptly characterized the new woman as one who liked to take care of herself, who had a “prejudice in favor of independence.”1 Even women generally satisfied with their status felt the excitement in the air. Eliza Given Davis, the wife of a prominent Cincinnati physician (Dr. John Davis) and a woman active in community affairs, wrote to her close friend, Lucy Hayes, “Women are moving now a days and there is no telling where it will stop.”2 

Since it is impossible to discuss all the new women of the period, the focus will be on those who had some contact with Lucy Hayes. Mrs. Hayes served as First Lady from 1877-1881, and continued to be a center of attention until her death in 1889. Representative women from various vocational groups are included, but newspaper reporters naturally vociferous, receive the most attention. Also, the mutuality of interests between the new women of 1880 and the new women of 1980 will be noted. 

The “ladies of the press” welcomed Lucy Hayes to Washington as a representative of the new woman era.3 They based their confidence on her better-than-average education – (she was the first President’s wife to have earned a college degree), her genuine interest in human welfare, and her experience as the wife of a congressman and three-term governor of Ohio. 

Mary Clemmer Ames, the acknowledged dean and the most prolific of the Washington correspondents, soon became a favorite of Lucy Hayes. Doubtless, it pleased Lucy to have Mrs. Ames state, with apparent sincerity, that “a woman’s place was in the home.” Mary C. Ames, however, did not lead the kind of life that she advocated. After her divorce from her husband, she earned her living as a reporter and as the author of a number of books. Her well-known “Woman’s Letter from Washington,” written for the Independent, a New York weekly, entertained and enlightened readers for almost two decades.4 At the time of Rutherford’s inauguration, Ames further endeared herself to Lucy Hayes by writing, “Mr. and Mrs. Hayes are the finest-looking type of man and woman I have ever seen take up their abode in the White House.”5 

During the early years of the Hayes presidency, Mrs. Ames criticized the Southern policy of his administration, but her admiration for Lucy Hayes never wavered, and, in time, deepened into a strong affection. Lucy helped maintain the pleasant relationship by sending Mrs. Ames and her elderly mother bouquets and choice flowers from the White House conservatories. After a morning spent with Lucy Hayes in 1880, Mary Clemmer Ames described herself as Lucy’s most “appreciative” and “devoted friend.”6 

In her last letter to the Independent, published six months before her death in 1884, Mrs. Ames noted that despite ridicule over the Hayes liquor policy, which prohibited the serving of intoxicating beverages at White House social functions, Mrs. Hayes had set the fashion. “Liquor, as a rule,” Ames wrote, “was banished from all ‘receiving tables,’ even the most elegant in Washington on New Year’s Day.”7 

Mrs. Ames favored woman suffrage but took little part in the woman’s rights movement. Deeply distressed by the unequal status accorded women, she cautiously predicted that if she returned in one hundred years, she would discover that opportunities for women equaled those for men.8 

Emily Edson Briggs, a Washington journalist known as “Olivia,” was almost as famous as Mary Ames. In an era when little cooperation existed between female journalists, Mrs. Briggs worked for the professional advancement of her sex. She also served as the first president of the Woman’s National Press Association.9 Mrs. Briggs’ militant stance regarding political issues of concern to women apparently affected her relations with Lucy and Rutherford Hayes. In January 1878, Mrs. Briggs asked Lucy to intercede with the President after he had rejected “strong endorsements” by the Commissioners of the District of Columbia to appoint Briggs to represent American Womanhood at the Paris Exposition. Briggs also mentioned in this letter that she thought women had a right to know whether Lucy approved “the progress of women in the high road of civilization.”10 Olivia’s later criticism of Lucy Hayes probably indicated that she did not receive a satisfactory answer to this letter.

After 1880, Mrs. Briggs devoted less time to writing and more time to entertaining in her Capitol Hill mansion. Finally, in 1906, she published a book entitled, The Olivia Letters, Being Some History of Washington City for Forty Years as Told by the Letters of a Newspaper Correspondent. A letter in this volume, dated February 18, 1881, complained about the “prodigious” size of the table used for the Hayes State dinners and the long six-course repasts served without the assuasive properties of wine. Her most scathing remarks, however, were reserved for the china service Lucy Hayes selected for the White House.11 This Haviland dinner set featured realistic (and sometimes gruesome) scenes from American flora and fauna. 

Olivia was one of the few persons to criticize Lucy Hayes’ ability as a hostess. Generally, newspaper accounts described the Hayes receptions, as pleasant and well-planned events. Washington social leaders as different as Julia Foraker and Mrs. George Bancroft agreed that Lucy Hayes excelled as a hostess.12 

Lucy and Rutherford Hayes approved of Austine Snead and her mother, Fayette Snead. Under the non de plume, “Miss Grundy,” Austine wrote articles and columns for a number of newspapers, including the New York Graphic, the New York Herald, the Philadelphia Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Star, the Hartford Evening Post, and the Louisville Courier-Journal. Some of her articles were published in Harper’s Bazaar. Fayette Snead, whose weekly letter to the Louisville Courier-Journal bore the signature “Fay,” worked part-time for the Treasury Department. With equal fervor, Austine praised the brilliance of the Hayes’ receptions and the beauty of the roses Lucy sent from the White House conservatories. 

When Lucy and Rutherford Hayes left the White House, Austine tried to correspond with Lucy in Fremont, but, after Rutherford explained that his wife did not like to write letters, Austine addressed her communications to him. Occasionally Fayette Snead wrote to Lucy Hayes. Both Lucy and Rutherford looked forward to Austine’s letters which kept them informed about behind-the-scene activities in Washington – Rutherford called it “seeing Washington with the lid off.”13 Austine’s praise of Lucy’s expertise as a hostess also endeared her to the Hayes family.14 

Austine’s letters discussed a number of constitutional issues with Rutherford, plus problems irksome to female members of the press – unfair competition from men and a tendency by editors to favor masculine reporters.15 She also bemoaned the difficulty of collecting from some newspapers. In answer to Rutherford’s question, Austine said that her income averaged $1200 a year. This added to the $825 which her mother received from her part-time job at the Treasury and limited amounts for her newspaper work barely paid for their living expenses.16 Fortunately, railroad passes enabled the Sneads to leave Washington during the hot summer months. 

The highlights of Austine and Fayette Snead’s vacations in 1882, 1885, and 1886 were late-summer trips to the Hayes home at Spiegel Grove in Fremont, Ohio. The calmness and serenity of life at the Grove in 1886 helped Austine overcome a depression caused by her loss of a long-time connection with the Louisville Courier-Journal. Enraged by Austine’s efforts to help the Louisville postmistress, a Mrs. Thompson, secure reappointment, the editor of the Kentucky newspaper ordered Austine “to write no more for his paper.”17 

Austine died in Washington of pneumonia in March 1888. Her grief-stricken mother wrote that flowers and letters of condolence from President and Mrs. Cleveland, a number of senators, the Speaker of the House, and others expressed love and appreciation for Austine and sympathy for her mother.18  Austine’s interest in a wide-range of topics set her apart from many of the social reporters of the period. She exemplified, more than most female journalists, the new woman of the future, and thus deserved more attention from historians than many of her contemporaries. 

Shortly after the death of Austine Snead, another talented writer, Elizabeth Cochrane, destined to be remembered as the most famous female investigative reporter of the 1880s, visited Fremont. Cochrane, better known as “Nellie Bly,” assumed various roles, such as an inmate of a mental institution or a garment worker, to gather material for her stories. Lucy Hayes was absent, probably because she disapproved of women who used bizarre tactics to secure information, when Nellie Bly drove up to the Hayes home in Spiegel Grove. Lucy Elliot Keeler, Rutherford’s cousin and Mrs. Hayes’ part-time secretary, related anecdotes about Lucy Hayes as she showed the reporter through the house and grounds. Bly’s subsequent article for the New York World, “Out First Ladies: Women Who Have Graced the White House,” included an interesting account of Lucy Hayes’ life in Fremont.19 A year later Nellie Bly’s highly publicized trip around the world in 72 days added to her fame. This eclipsed the record set by Jules Verne’s fictional hero, Phileas Fogg.20 

Another journalist, Laura Holloway, gained attention through publication of her book, The Ladies of the White House. Earlier she had been on the editorial staff of the Brooklyn Eagle and had edited the Home Library Magazine in Chicago. In addition to her account of First Ladies, her published works included titles as diversified as The Home in Poetry and The Buddhist Diet Book.21 

Although Webb Hayes, the second son of Rutherford and Lucy, suggested changes in the 1880 edition of The Ladies of the White House, which Holloway apparently ignored, comments about his mother in that and the editions of 1882 and 1886 were complimentary. Holloway wrote, “She [Mrs. Hayes] represents the new woman era, and stands as the first of the women of the Third Period… Her strong, healthful influence gives the world assurance of what the next century women will be.”22 

Other well-known journalists of the late 1870s and 1880s, who had little contact with Lucy Hayes, included Grace Greenwood (Sarah C. Lippincott), Gail Hamilton (Mary A. Dodge), and Kate Field. Most, but not all, the writings of Black women correspondents in the 1880s appeared in Black journals. Lucy Wilmot Smith writing in 1889 in The Journalist, a trade publication, stated, “The educated Negro woman occupies a vantage ground over the Caucasian woman in America.” She explained that Black men were willing to accord recognition to female journalists because they were accustomed to working side-by-side with Black women.23 

Women journalists did not have sole claim to the title “new women.” Reformers such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Phoebe Couzins, Belva Ann Lockwood, and Frances Willard advocated principles ahead of the accepted mores of their time. Elizabeth C. Stanton and Susan B. Anthony collaborated for over fifty years in the cause of women’s suffrage. Mrs. Stanton’s eloquence as a speaker and forcefulness as a writer supplemented Miss Anthony’s organizational skills and zeal for campaigning. 

Elizabeth Stanton was president of the National Woman Suffrage Association when it assembled in Washington for its eleventh convention on January 8, 1879. The convention appointed a committee to call at the White House to present a memorial to the President. This document asked him to recommend in his next State of the Union message that the millions of “disenfranchised women” be given civil and political rights equal to men. Hayes listened courteously and promised “sincere consideration” of the memorial. He also introduced them to Mrs. Hayes who showed them through the mansion.24 Lucy did not comment on the topic of woman suffrage. Evidently, she agreed with Rutherford that the demands of maternity made it difficult for women to exercise the political duties of citizenship.25 

The following year, with Susan B. Anthony presiding, the N.W.S.A. again met in Washington. For the first time, Southern women were present. As before, the convention called for an Amendment that would permit women to vote. It also emphasized the need for women to have a right to dispose of their property and to serve as guardians of their children.26

Phoebe Couzins, a famous feminist on the nineteenth century, refused to contribute to a memorial for Mrs. Hayes because of Lucy’s reluctance to support woman suffrage. Couzins’ answer to the Illinois temperance organization’s request for the donation exemplified the concern and frustration suffragettes often felt about their efforts to secure the franchise to vote. Couzins wrote, “Insomuch, as there are so few helping onward the great cause of woman suffrage, I feel that all my efforts and contributions must go in that direction.”27 

It is interesting to note that women from a wide variety of backgrounds and economic classes supported woman suffrage. An aunt of Lucy Hayes, Phebe McKell, the wife of a prominent business man in Chillicothe, Ohio and the mother of a large family, wrote to her niece in the White House, “There is but one cause in which my whole soul is engaged & that is Woman Suffrage and if ever my influence is of any avail it will be in that cause.”28 

Belva Ann Lockwood, a staunch feminist, served as a role model for women interested in law and politics. Seeking a broader field than that of teaching, Mrs. Lockwood applied for admittance to the law schools in Washington, D.C. After being denied admission by Columbian College (later George Washington University), Georgetown, and Howard Universities, she was accepted by the newly formed National University Law School. Although she successfully completed the course in 1873, her diploma was delayed until President Ulysses S. Grant intervened in her behalf. During the Hayes administration, Mrs. Lockwood played a major role in securing passage of a bill that entitled qualified women to practice before the United States Supreme Court.29 

In 1884, Belva Ann Lockwood, now a respectable lawyer and an advocate of woman’s rights, ran for President of the United States. As the candidate of the National Equal Rights Party, she received over four thousand votes in six states and claimed to have been defrauded of more. She ran again in 1888, but received less attention than in the previous election.30 

Susan B. Anthony opposed Lockwood’s candidacy for the presidency on the grounds that it would hinder the movement for woman suffrage. Anthony, however, lobbied tirelessly for a bill that permitted Lockwood to practice before the Supreme Court. After the Senate had passed this measure, Anthony wrote to Lucy Hayes asking her to remind Rutherford to sign it. In the same letter, she complimented Lucy Hayes for banning the serving of intoxicating beverages at White House parties. She said that Lucy deserved the “respect and admiration” of all true women.”31 

The national Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, led by Frances Willard from 1879 until her death in 1898, not only promoted temperance but a broad range of reforms affecting women. This included woman suffrage, labor reform, city welfare work, prison reform, and a number of other measures. Miss Willard also established the practice of exchanging convention delegates between the W.C.T.U. and similar organizations.32 Along with her other activities, Frances Willard inspired the W.C.T.U. to collect money for a portrait of Lucy Hayes, as a memorial to her stand on temperance. Lucy Hayes did not object to a picture of herself in the White House, but Willard’s call for a nationwide donation of ten cents or more embarrassed her, as did the revelation that only one-fourth of the amount collected would be used for the portrait. The balance was earmarked for the publication and dissemination of temperance literature.33 Lucy agreed with her friend Mary Clemmer Ames, who wrote in her column that a portrait should be “a tribute to Mrs. Hayes… Not to any one thing she had done but to herself, for all that she is.”34 

Toward the end of her term as First Lady, Lucy Hayes reluctantly accepted the presidency of the newly formed Woman’s Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. She tried to limit the society’s efforts to the avowed purpose of its founders—to improve the home life and conditions of women in the United States.35 In line with this commitment and Lucy Hayes’ ever-present desire for social harmony, Lucy’s answer to Anthony’s request to send delegates from the W.H.M.S. to a meeting of the International Council of Women in Washington (1888) came as no surprise. Lucy wrote that this would be impossible without a vote by the whole society.36 Meanwhile, in a memorandum to the officers of the missionary society, Mrs. Hayes advised them not to introduce resolutions to approve activities of the National Woman Suffrage Association and comparable organizations. Lucy ended her memorandum with this advice, “We will do well to adhere to our Constitutional Mission.”37 

Although Rachel L. Bodley was not as well known as the reporters and suffrage leaders of the 1880s, she deserved recognition as a “new woman” because of her distinguished career as a botanist, chemist and progressive dean of the Woman’s Medical College of Philadelphia. As a dean, she received credit for lengthening the course of instruction at the college, expanding opportunities for clinical training, and attracting competent physicians to the staff. The college awarded her an honorary medical degree in 1879.38 

Rachel Bodley’s name first appeared in the Lucy W. Hayes papers when, as secretary of the Young Ladies Lyceum of Cincinnati Wesleyan Female College, she informed a fellow student, Lucy Webb (Hayes), of her election to the society.39 Early in the Hayes administration, Rachel reminded Lucy that as the “representative of genuine educated Christian women,” she should encourage women to undertake professional studies.40 In 1880, she thanked Lucy Hayes for her example of “right thinking and pure living” which Bodley believed had fostered “new currents of womanly thought and opinion…”41 

Sarah Winnemucca, a member of the Paiute nation and one of the most remarkable Indian women in the annals of American history, also had contacts with Lucy Hayes. In January 1880, Sarah, her father, and brother journeyed to Washington to try to persuade the Federal government to transfer peaceful Paiutes from forced detention in the Yakima Reservation in Washington Territory to the Malheur Agency in eastern Oregon, where they had been contented and happy. Secretary of the Interior, Carl Schurz, encouraged the Paiute delegation to believe this could be accomplished. Sarah also had a brief interview with President Hayes at the White House, where she met Lucy Hayes and several other guests, including the famous educator, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody. All of the women expressed sympathy for Sarah’s cause.42 Later that year, Sarah again talked to Rutherford and Lucy Hayes when they traveled through the West and visited Vancouver Barracks on the Columbia River. Lucy appeared to be “deeply touched” by Sarah’s account of the misery of her people and Rutherford promised to do something about their detention in the territory, but no immediate assistance arrived from Washington.43

Encouragement for Sarah Winnemucca to continue her efforts to help the Paiutes came instead from Elizabeth Peabody and he sister Mary Mann, widow of the eminent educator, Horace Mann. They arranged for Sarah to speak throughout the East and to write her autobiography, Life Among the Paiutes: Their Wrongs and Claims (1883). Mrs. Mann, who edited the book, noted in the preface that it was “the first outbreak of the American Indian in human literature.”44 

Only a small number of those who could be defined as new women of the 1880s are included in this account. But they represent several vocations, different age groups, and had some type of contact with Lucy Hayes. 

Lucy Hayes’ perception of her role prevented her from meeting the expectations of many of the new women in the late 1870s and 1880s. She believed she should promote, as much as possible, social harmony, while her husband fulfilled his role as a political spokesman and leader. Lucy’s example, however, of “right thinking” and “pure living” and her competence as a White House hostess added to the prestige of the position of First Lady. Also the Woman’s Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Church thrived under her leadership. These accomplishments help substantiate Holloway’s contention that Lucy Hayes was the outstanding First Lady of the third period of the nineteenth century. 

A modern magazine called New Woman, which appears on the newsstand every other month, defines the new woman of the 1980s in much the same terms as did the Washington Post in 1879.45 The greatest differences are in the levels of expectations rather than in the basic desires for independence, achievement, and the ability to earn a living. The new woman of today has greater confidence in her skills and abilities and she feels freer to act aggressively than her sister of the 1880s. This should not obscure the debt that the new women of the 1980s owe to Mary Clemmer Ames, Austine Snead, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Frances Willard, Belva Ann Lockwood, Rachel Bodley Sarah Winnemucca, and the other new women of the 1880s. 

Notes 

1Washington Post, January 2, 1879. 

2Eliza G. Davis to Lucy Webb Hayes, December 15, 1880, R.B. Hayes Library, hereinafter cited as RBHL. 

3Laura C. Holloway, The Ladies of the White House (Cincinnati: Forse & Makin, 1880), 560. 

4Maurine H. Beasley, “Mary Clemmer Ames: A Victorian Woman Journalist,” Hayes Historical Journal, II, 1 (Spring 1978), 57-58. 

5Mary Clemmer, “A Woman’s Letter from Washington,” The Independent, March 15, 1877. After her divorce, Mary Clemmer dropped the name Ames. The year before her death in 1884, she married Edmund Hudson, a noted Washington journalist. J. Cutler Andrews, “Mary E. Clemmer Ames,” Notable American Women, 1607-1950 (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1971), I, 42. 

6Mary C. Ames to LWH, April 9, 1880, RBHL. 

7Clemmer Collection in RBHL. 

8Ames, The Independent, December 27, 1877. 

9Maurine Beasley, The First Women Washington Correspondents, GW Washington Studies. Monograph No. 4 (Washington, D.C.: George Washington University, January 1976), 12-14. 

10Emily Edson Briggs to LWH, January 20, 1878, RBHL. 

11Briggs, The Olivia Letters (New York: the Neale Publishing Co., 1906), 414-415. 

12Julia Bundy Foraker, I Would Live It Again (New York: Harper and Bros., 1932). 60-70; Hayes, Diary, September 1, 1885, RBHL. 

13Hayes, Diary, September 5, 1882, RBHL. 

14Ibid., September 1, 1885. 

15Austine Snead to RBH, December 20, 1886 and January 10, 1887, RBHL. There are over 80 letters in the Austine and Fayette Snead collection in the RBH Library. 

16A. Snead to RBH, September 25, 1886, RBHL. 

17Ibid., April 25, 1886. 

18Fayette Snead to RBH [April 1888], RBHL. 

19Elizabeth Cochrane, “Nellie Bly Visits Spiegel Grove: Mrs. Rutherford B. Hayes’ Quiet Home in Fremont, Ohio,” with explanatory notes by the editor, Hayes Historical Journal, I, 2 (Fall 1976), 133-144. 

20Ishbel Ross, Ladies of the Press: The Story of Women in Journalism by an Insider (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1936), 48. 

21Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, edited by James G. Wilson and John Fiske (Detroit, Mich.: Gale Research Co., 1968), III, 238. Originally printed in New York by D. Appleton & Co., 1888. 

22Holloway, Ladies of the White House, 560-561. 

23Maurine Beasley and Sheila Silver, Women in Media: A Documentary Source Book (Washington, D.C.: Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press, 1977), 39. 

24Elizabeth C. Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda J. Gage, eds. History of Woman Suffrage, 1876-1885 (Rochester, N.Y.: Charles Mann, 1887) III, 83, 89, 129, n129; National Republican, January 14, 1879. 

25Hayes, Diary, April 27, 1870, RBHL. 

26Washington Post, January 22, 1880. 

27Phoebe Couzins to Mrs. S.S. Scott, January 22, 1881, Annie Tressler Scott Collection, RBHL. 

28Phebe McKell to LWH, March 13, 1877, RBHL. 

29Louis Filler, “Belva Ann Bennett McNall Lockwood,” Notable American Women, II, 414. 

30 Ibid., 414-415. 

31Susan B. Anthony to LWH, February 9, 1879, RBHL. 

32Mary Earhart Dillon, “Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard,” Notable American Women, III, 616-617. 

33LWH to Birchard A. Hayes, August 15 [1880]; William A. Dodge to LWH, August 24, 1880, RBHL. 

34Mary C. Ames, The Independent, December 9, 1880. 

35“Missions in Our Land” [1880], a circular letter. 

36S.B. Anthony to LWH, January 16, 1888; LWH to SBA [1888]. 

37LWH to officers of the WHMS, ca. 1888 (in the handwriting of RBH), RBHL. 

38Gulielma Fell Alsop, “Rachel Littler Bodley,” Notable American Women, III, 187. 

39Rachel L. Bodley to LWH, January 7, 1850, RBHL. 

40Bodley to LWH, January 28, 1878, RBHL. 

41Ibid., August 11, 1880, RBHL. 

42Washington Post, January 22, 1880; Katherine Gehm, Sarah Winnemucca: Most Extraordinary Woman of the Paiute Nation (Phoenix, Arizona: O’Sullivan Woodside & Co., 1975), 21-22. 

43Gehm, 162. 

44Eventually most of the Paiutes were allowed to drift away from the Yakima Reservation. Recent court battles have led to the recovery of some of their ancestral land around Pyramid Lake in the northwestern Nevada. Elinor Richey wrote that their “lively princess” bequeathed them their tradition of courage without bloodshed. Elinor Richey, Eminent Women of the West (Berkeley, Calif.: Howell North Books, 1975), 150-151. 

45“Publisher’s Platform,” New Woman, 1970.