2. Women’s History

Speaking Choir

Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s Declaration of Sentiments
Come to Life at First Universalist Church in Minneapolis

In 1999, the Association of Universalist Women’s Board President, Janet Keysser, and Board member, Pat Gottschalk, discussed the idea of celebrating Women’s Sunday with special church services. As an alternative to a traditional choir, Gottschalk suggested utilizing a women’s speaking chorus. Gottschalk and long-time AUW Board member, Arlene Jacobson, met with Reverend Kate Tucker, associate minister at the First Universalist Church, to discuss the event, which had not been celebrated for several years. For a speaker for the event, Tucker suggested her colleague, Reverend Carol Hepokoski, professor at Meadville Lombard School. Hepokoski was engaged to speak at First Universalist Church on February 20, 2000. Later, Gottschalk communicated with Hepokoski regarding her idea of including a women’s speaking chorus in the service. Hepokoski responded by suggesting that the group use Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s Declaration of Sentiments.

Member of the First Universalist Church and the AUW, Kelli Clement, a professional singer and actor, volunteered to direct the speaking choir. Pat Gottschalk recruited volunteers for the choir and made special efforts to see that it was publicized in several places. Clement and Gottschalk required that participants attend at least three of four rehearsals, in addition to a dress rehearsal and both church services on Women’s Sunday.

More than a just a few women-twenty-six to be exact—joined the speaking choir. The regular practices, in addition to preparing the group for the Sunday services, had the unexpected effect of helping choir participants get to know each other while working for a cause for which they were passionate, and also serving the church. The rehearsals prompted conversation about the document itself and discussions of issues which remain today, more than 150 years after Stanton raised them in the Declaration of Sentiments. Elizabeth Cady Stanton is important as a historical figure for women. However, according to the Unitarian Universalist Women’s Heritage Society, there is no evidence to substantiate the notion that she was a Unitarian or Universalist.

This enjoyable activity included a girl of eleven, Katherine Little, who said she liked doing activities like this because, “I get to spend quality time with my mom and with other girls and women ages five to ninety.” She liked the age range because “at school we just see people exactly our own age. We have a fifth grade hall, a first grade hall, etc. We hardly get to talk to anyone not in our own grade.” When asked what she enjoyed about our five practices and speaking the Sentiments in church, she spoke about the impact of this activity on the congregation and on herself, “I knew I was getting a point across [to the congregation]. I knew that women didn’t have equal rights. It wasn’t always perfect and still isn’t perfect. There are still classes of people—higher and lower. And there isn’t a single women’s football team. There still are a couple of things that women don’t have. Men still have the main job in most offices. The only thing I knew before [about women’s rights in the past], was that they couldn’t vote. Women were considered not as good—or good only for cleaning. Men could do what they wanted and women had to do what they were supposed to do.”

The speaking choir was broken into three sub-choirs, with individuals speaking solo parts in addition to their choir parts. Clement pared down the document and marked participants’ scripts so they would know when to speak and when to take full breaths and pause. She also gave hints regarding diction and speaking in unison. The script used by the speaking choir, shown below, is a pared-down version of the Declaration of Sentiments.

Note: Numbers refer to the three designated “choirs” within the choir, and letters indicate solo parts. Slashes refer to the suggested places to breathe deeply.

#1

When in the course of human events, / it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man / to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied,

#2

but one which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them,

#3

a decent respect to the opinions of mankind / requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to such a course.

ALL

We hold these truths to be self-evident:

#1

That all men and women are created equal;

#2

that they are endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights;

#3

that among these are

A

life,

B

liberty,

C

and the pursuit of happiness.

#1

That to secure these rights governments are instituted, / deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

#2

Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends,

#3

when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, / evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, / it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

ALL

Such has been the patient sufferance of the women under this government, / and Such is now the necessity which constrains them to demand the equal station to Which they are entitled.

Break for minister’s explanation of historical context
of the declaration of sentiments

D

The History of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpation on the part of man toward woman, / having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her.

E

To prove this, let the facts be submitted to a candid world:

F

He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective Franchise.

G

He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no Voice.

H

He has withheld from her, rights which are given to the most ignorant and Degraded men, / both natives and foreigners.

#1

Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elective franchise, / thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, / he has oppressed her on all sides.

I

He has made her, if married, in the eyes of the law, civilly dead.

J

He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns.

K

He has made her, morally, an irresponsible being, as she can commit many crimes With impunity, / provided they be done in the presence of her husband.

L

In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her Husband, / he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her master —

#2

the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty,

#3

and to administer chastisement.

M

He has monopolized nearly all the profitable employments, / and from those she is Permitted to follow, she receives scanty remuneration.

N

He closes against her all the avenues to wealth and distinction, / which he Considers most honorable to himself. / As a teacher of theology, medicine, or law,

O

she is not known. He has denied her the facilities for obtaining through education, / all colleges being closed against her.

P

He allows her in Church, as well as State, but subordinate position, / claiming Apostolic authority for her exclusion from the ministry, / and with some exceptions, from any public participation in the affairs of the Church.

Q

He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to Assign for her a sphere of action, / when that belongs to her conscience and to her God.

R

He has endeavored, in every way that he could, to destroy her confidence in her own powers, / to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life. /

#1

Now, in view of this entire disenfranchisement of one-half of the people of this country, /their social and religious degradation —

ALL

in view of the unjust laws above mentioned.

1 & 2

And because women do feel themselves aggrieved,

#3

oppressed,

2 & 3

and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights,

ALL

we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges / which belong to them as citizens of the United States.

Sermon — Choir sits down

ALL

Resolutions: / Whereas,

#1

the great precept of nature is conceded to be, that man shall pursue his own true and substantial happiness.

#2

Resolved, that all laws which prevent woman from occupying such station in society as her conscience shall dictate, / or which place her in a position inferior to that of man,

#3

are contrary to the great precept of nature, and therefore of no force of authority.

S

Resolved, that woman is man’s equal—was intended to be so by the Creator, / and the highest good of the race demands that she should be recognized as such.

T

Resolved, that the women of this country ought to be enlightened in regard to the laws under which they live, / that they may no longer publish their degradation by declaring themselves satisfied with their present position, / nor their ignorance, by asserting that they have all the rights they want.

ALL

Resolved, that it is this duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred rights to the elective franchise. / Resolved therefore:

#1

That, being invested by the Creator with the same capabilities, and the same consciousness of responsibility for their exercise, / it is demonstrably the right and duty of woman, equally with man, to promote the righteous cause by every righteous means;

#2

and especially in regard to the great subjects of morals and religion, / it is self-evidently her right to participate / with her brother / in teaching them, both in private and in public, / by writing and speaking, by any instrumentalities proper to be used, and in any assemblies proper to be held;

#3

and this being a self-evident truth growing out of the divinely implanted principles of human nature, / any custom or authority adverse to it, whether modern or wearing the hoary sanction of antiquity, / is to be regarded as a self-evident falsehood, and at war with mankind.

#1

Resolved, that the speedy success of our cause depends upon the zealous and untiring effort of both men and women,

#2

for the overthrow of the monopoly of the pulpit,

#3

and for the securing to woman an equal participation with men in the various trades, professions, and commerce.

ALL

Firmly relying upon the final triumph of the Right and the True, we do this day affix our signatures to this declaration.