Content-Type: text/html

The Farmer's Wife















The Farmer's Wife:
Creating A Sense of Community Among Kansas Women


Amy J. DeVault
Kansas State University

Introduction
 More than fifty years before the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, women's rights leaders worked for woman suffrage in individual states, with Kansas as one of the leaders.  Kansas legislators put a woman suffrage amendment to a popular vote in1867--the first major woman suffrage effort after the Civil War.  Although the amendment did not pass, Kansas remained a leader in the women's movement, and since Kansas helped lead the way in so many areas of women's rights, it seems fitting that a suffrage publication would have emerged from the state.  Although national suffrage publications such as The Revolution and Women's Journal helped make great gains for the women's movement, smaller, more localized publications often made more direct and specific appeals.  Regional suffrage publications could give arguments specific to the women of that area.  Furthermore, some of the influential regional publications were actually publications for other
interest groups.  These publications had readers who were already bonded by some group or interest and then used that common interest to make suffrage appeals.
When Emma and Ira Pack began publishing The Farmer's Wife in 1891, they claimed as their purpose to promote the causes of the Farmer's Alliance and improve the quality of life for rural women.  However, rhetoric of the women's movement quickly emerged and soon dominated the Kansas publication, providing women's rights arguments soundly based on women's duties and responsibilities to both their families and to the Farmer's Alliance.  Editor Emma Pack wrote in 1892:
No man is worthy the name of husband who will not do all in his power to place in woman's hand that great weapon, the ballot, that she may be able to help suppress these terrible wrongs and no American woman who is not dead to all the God given motherly instincts within her will quietly sit with folded hands and say they have all the rights they need.[1]
Suffrage publications as well as other publications that supported the suffrage cause provided one of the leading tools in gaining support for the enfranchisement of women.  Since Kansas was a leader in both the suffrage cause and in the rise of Populism, the Farmer's Wife is an important publication, especially considering the networking ties between the two movements. This study asks: How did The Farmer's Wife attempt to create a sense of community and common identity among women in order to further the women's movement and suffrage cause?

Kansas as a leader in women's rights
A leader in reform during her early years, Kansas proved full of both controversy and progress in areas such as temperance, prohibition, Populism and women's rights.  As Jane O. Underwood notes in "Civilizing Kansas: Women's Organizations, 1880-1920," "Kansas had always been a leader in the campaign for women's rights.  Clarina Howard Nichols lobbied the 1859 Wyandotte Constitutional Convention for woman suffrage, and while she lost the battle, she gained women the unprecedented right to acquire and possess property and to retain equal custody of their children."[2]
Kansas women gained other important rights along the way to full suffrage.  In 1861 Kansas women could vote in school board elections, in 1887 they could vote in municipal elections, and in 1912 they could vote in all state and national elections - eight years before the Nineteenth Amendment granting all women full suffrage.[3]  It took Kansas voters three major campaigns (1867, 1894, and 1912) to pass a woman suffrage amendment, but when they did in 1912, Kansas became only the eighth state to give women the right to vote in all elections.
Kansas gained statehood with more progressive laws regarding women than any other state in the Union.  In 1861 the first state legislature granted Kansas women the right to vote in school board elections. The University of Kansas opened in 1864 as the first university in the United States to "receive both men and women on an equal basis."[4]  In 1867 Kansas legislators, along with those of New York, gave voters the opportunity to pass an amendment to the state constitution, giving women the right to vote in all elections.  If the Kansas amendment had passed, Kansas would have been the first state to grant full suffrage to women.  These early hints of progress for women's rights prompted interest from the most prominent woman suffrage leaders in the United States. Of the 1867 Kansas campaign, Elizabeth Cady Stanton in History of Woman Suffrage wrote, "There never was a more hopeful interest concentrated on the legislation of any single state, than when Kansas submitted the two propositions to her people to take the words 'white' and 'male' from her constitution."[5]
During the 1867 campaign, national suffragist Lucy Stone became the most prominent speaker, traveling the state for four months speaking to anyone who would listen.  Most Kansas newspaper editors met Stone either with antagonism and attack or with no mention at all.[6]  When Susan B. Anthony gave up on her own state of New York, she and fellow suffrage leader Elizabeth Cady Stanton focused their efforts on Kansas, campaigning there for two months leading up to the November 5, 1867 election.[7]  Despite the efforts of local and national suffragists, the white male voters of Kansas defeated the woman suffrage amendment with 9,010 votes for the amendment and 19,857 votes against the amendment.[8]
The loss in Kansas prompted Stanton and Anthony to make two decisions.  First, they decided a newspaper would help them lobby for woman's suffrage.  While in Kansas, they met George Francis Train, who offered to financially support a newspaper.  Stanton and Anthony published the first issue of their weekly newspaper The Revolution  in January 1868.[9]  Secondly, Stanton and Anthony began focusing on a federal constitutional amendment, feeling that state-by-state amendments would prove too slow and inefficient.[10]
Somewhat discouraged, Kansas women put woman suffrage on the back burner for more than a decade, concentrating their efforts on reform, including temperance and prohibition. The first woman suffrage organization in the state was not formed until 1879.  In 1884 Kansas suffragists formed the Kansas Equal Suffrage Association.  Kansas women gained the right to vote in municipal elections in 1887. The same year, the voters of Argonia, Kansas, elected the nation's first woman mayor, Susanna Madora Salter.  One year later, in 1888 the voters of Oskaloosa, Kansas, angry with the management by the town's male city council members, elected an all-female city council with a woman mayor.[11]
With the efforts of newly formed suffrage organizations and the rise of Populism, Kansas voters had their second opportunity for the enfranchisement of women in 1994. The Populist Party gained control of the Kansas House of Representatives in 1891, the same year Ira and Emma Pack began publishing the Farmer's Wife.  At the state conventions in 1894, the parties declared their stand on woman suffrage: Republicans, no stand; Democrats, opposed; Prohibition Party, endorsed suffrage; Populists, adopted a suffrage plank.  With the fierce and heated competition between Kansas Populists and Republicans, after the Populists endorsed woman suffrage, the Republicans refused to endorse it, making the suffrage cause a party issue.  Again, Kansas attracted national suffrage leaders, such as Susan B. Anthony.  Kansas suffrage leaders tried to remain unconnected with any political party; however, it was too late for nonpartisan campaigning.  Wilda Smith argues in "A Half Century of Struggle: Gai
ning Woman Suffrage in Kansas" that "The woman's cause was already linked to the Populist party in the eyes of the Kansas voter, and the success of the amendment depended on the fortunes of that party."[12]  Again, Kansas voters failed to adopt the woman suffrage amendment in 1894.
In 1890, Wyoming gained statehood as the first state to give full voting privileges to women.  Colorado passed a woman suffrage amendment in 1893, followed by Idaho and Utah in 1896.  During the 1911-1912 campaign in Kansas, suffragists made two major changes based on advice from states that successfully gained amendments and on the failures of the last two campaigns in Kansas.  First, they remained nonpartisan, feeling that having ties with any political party hurt their chances of success.  Second, they did most of their own speaking and campaigning.  Following the two previous campaigns, some Kansas men and women argued that the national figures speaking across the state did not know about life in Kansas and did not understand the politics and needs of the people of Kansas. On November 5, 1912, Kansans voted for a woman suffrage amendment to their state constitution, becoming the eighth state to grant full voting rights to women.  A total of seventeen states allowed women voting rights before the rat
ification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920.

Suffrage publications
Unable to vote in the majority of states until 1920, financially dependent on men, ignored and stereotyped by the mainstream media, women for 150 years used the only means available to gain rights.  Women formed organizations, held demonstrations, organized lectures and established their own journalistic publications.[13]  Since women were not in the position to use force to get what they wanted and since they could not vote to achieve their goals, suffragists had to rely on persuasion.  In an attempt to persuade both men and women, suffrage rhetoric took many forms: speeches to the public and later before legislative groups; press coverage of speeches, which was often not favorable; editorials, also often against the movement; and periodicals published and edited by sympathizers.  Through periodicals, leaders "could reach, educate, and inspire scores of women who could not be tapped by other means."[14]
Suffrage periodicals served two main purposes.  First, the editors wanted to gain support for the cause.  For many women in the 1800s, the designated roles of women were so deeply ingrained the notions of the early women's movement were not easily accepted.  Martha Solomon says in "The Role of the Suffrage Press in Woman's Rights Movement":
The early woman's movement emerged from a social context where woman's place was firmly in the home and man's in the public sphere.  Women defined themselves in terms of their domestic roles and were consistently urged to see themselves as emotionally, mentally, and physically unfit for public life.  This common identity allegedly provided a foundation for the social order.[15]
The women's movement began rejecting the stereotypes and definitions of women's roles; however, the suffrage leaders needed to raise the consciousness of all women.  Solomon suggests three main ways suffrage publications helped build a new sense of community and commonality among women.  First, suffragists gave "persuasive analysis" of the common barriers faced by women.  Second, they tried to convince women that they could bring about social change.  Third, they attempted to shape the women into organized groups, working for a common cause.[16]  Suffrage periodicals encouraged women to think of themselves as competent and able persons who could think for themselves and make good decisions.  They encouraged women to read arguments in newspapers and periodicals and then decide for themselves if they agreed or disagreed.
During the nineteenth century, women's place was clearly established and limited to the home.  Barbara Welter has written about American women in the nineteenth century and says, "Woman's role had clearly been defined.  The attributes of True Womanhood, by which a woman judged herself, was judged by her husband, her neighbors and society, could be divided into four cardinal virtues-piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity."[17]  The editors of suffrage publications sought to replace the ideas of the True Woman offered by the mainstream press of the nineteenth century, with their concept of the New Woman.  "To be acceptable to many women acculturated into fixed social roles, this new woman had to evince allegiance to traditional values as she embraced new roles and responsibilities," according to Solomon.[18]  Suffrage supporters needed to have the same sense of identity to help form sisterhood and a cohesive community.  Linda Steiner suggests three distinct ideal types of women emerged in journals of the women's movement: a sensible woman, a strong-minded woman, and a responsible woman.[19]
The second function of suffrage periodicals was to help organize, train and inform movement leaders and participants.  Through their publications, suffrage leaders motivated other leaders and supporters. They provided information, accomplishments, goals, and arguments - the tools needed to further the campaign. The journals kept members informed, provided other suffragists arguments to incorporate into their own work, and frequently reminded readers of the progress already made and the purpose of further work.[20]

The Farmer's Alliance
The Farmer's Alliance movement emerged in the 1880s, initially as a non-political group, and rapidly gained membership in Kansas.  The Alliance created cooperatives to aid farmers in the buying and selling of products and formed a united coalition to fight oppression and work for the progress of farmers.  As membership and meeting attendance grew, the Farmer's Alliance began laying the foundation for the People's Party (also known as Populism), whose members sought to replace the corrupted government officials with those for the people.  By 1890, the Kansas Farmer's Alliance claimed 100,000 members, threatening for the first time the Republican dominance in Kansas government.[21]
 Women became a vital force for the Farmer's Alliance, with two Kansas women emerging as leading orators, both locally and nationally, for the Alliance cause.  Annie L. Diggs became well known nationally as a Populist orator and also worked in temperance reform and woman suffrage.[22]  A prominent contributor to the Farmer's Wife, Diggs remained loyal to the Populist Party, insisting that they would be the party to enfranchise women.  Mary Lease, another contributor to the Farmer's Wife, spoke in Atlanta on August 4, 1891.  As reported by the Farmer's Wife, the Atlanta Constitution said the following about Mrs. Lease:
Mr. Livingston introduced one of the most famous if not altogether the most famous women on earth, Mrs. Mary E. Lease, the friend of all good and the exposer of all corrupt in politics.  She then proceeded to deliver a most eloquent oration; a speech no statesmen might not have been proud to call his own; one which was full of wisdom and strength as it was devoid of malice and bigotry.[23]
  When Ira and Emma D. Pack began publishing the Farmer's Wife in July of 1891, it was to be a paper by and for the women of the Alliance.  In fact from 1882 to 1891, Ira Pack published the City and Farm Record, a Kansas Farmer's Alliance newspaper.  In the first issue of the Farmer's Wife, the flag states that the publication is "consolidated from City and Farm Record and Ladies' Home Journal," published previously in Kansas by Emma Pack.  The first issue was labeled Volume I, Number 1.  The flag changed on the seventh issue, stating "Formerly City and Farm Record" and labeling the issue Volume X, Number 7.  Emma Pack was not actually listed as the editor until the fourth issue, October 1891.  In that issue, Emma Pack announced the formation of the National Women's Alliance.  Along with a list of the organization's officers and constitution, the article listed the Farmer's Wife as the "official organ" of the National Women's Alliance.  Notably, the president, secretary, and treas
urer were all Kansas women and contributors to the Farmer's Wife.
Although initially a voice for Populism and women's involvement in the Alliance, the writers and editor of the Farmer's Wife took the opportunity to promote and celebrate the successes of women all over the world and the involvement of women in the Alliance; eventually, they devoted the publication almost entirely to the advancement of women, specifically gaining the ballot.  Even though officially an Alliance publication, the editor proved in the September 1993 issue that a primary purpose of the publication was to promote the suffrage cause.
Now, be men worthy of the name, and all, black and white alike, put your shoulder to the wheel and let the stars and stripes wave over free women as well as free men.  Will you? If so, let every man who is in favor of the amendment carrying, send us $1.00 and the names of two people, men or women, who are not in favor of suffrage, and we will send The Farmer's Wife and convert them.  We know we can with the host of contributors we have on the suffrage question.  We believe there is no person who will read our paper who can help becoming converted.[24]
When Mrs. Gougar, a national speaker for woman suffrage, spoke at the convention of the equal suffragists, in Kansas City, Kansas, on September 1,1893, she asked how many of the 2,000 in attendance took a suffrage paper.  The Farmer's Wife published excerpts from her speech, including a comment about the Farmer's Wife.  "You have one of the best equal suffrage papers right here in Kansas. It is the Farmer's Wife, published by Mrs. Pack of Topeka.  It is chock full of suffrage news every issue and is only 50 cents a year."[25]
The Farmer's Wife, an eight-page tabloid newspaper, was published monthly from July 1891 to October 1894.  Published in Topeka, Kansas, no circulation records are available.  Calls for subscriptions and numerous letters to the editor suggest that there were at least some out-of-state subscribers.  Though the editor often proclaimed success in subscription numbers, the publication frequently advertised reduced subscription rate specials and discounts for anyone soliciting new subscriptions.   During its final year of publication, an ad proclaimed that the publishers were doing fine financially and that most of the money from subscriptions would go directly to supporting the suffrage cause.
The Farmer's Wife clearly had an agenda; however, the editor and writers worked to form a delicate balance between new ideas of the women's movement and the traditional values and ideals of the women living on Kansas farms, the primary audience.  Linda Steiner, in her study of rhetorical strategies in suffrage publications, wrote, "The woman celebrated in the Farmer's Wife confronted the same moral, political, and social issue described in the Woman's Journal, but the form of the argument was adapted to farm women's interests."[26]
How did the Farmer's Wife attempt to create a sense of community and common identity among Kansas women and what functions did it seek to serve in the advancement of Kansas women?  Through narrative analysis of the content of this monthly publication during its three years of publication, this study will describe how the Farmer's Wife promoted the women's movement and equal suffrage within the context of Kansas Populism.  Twenty-eight issues of the Farmer's Wife, from July 1861 to October 1894, were examined for rhetoric concerning women's roles, education of women, women's work in the Farmer's Alliance, and women's suffrage and equal rights.  A total of 376 articles dealing with these issues were examined.[27]  This study will add to the understanding of the history of alternative and women's media in the United States and of the rhetoric of the women's suffrage movement.
Farmer's Wife
With the common bonds of the Alliance already established, the Farmer's Alliance possessed an ideal opportunity to use those common bonds to alter the concepts of women's roles, identities, and rights.  Emma Pack took advantage of that opportunity.  The Farmer's Wife served three important functions working toward the goals of the women's movement:  changing the identity of women, consciousness-raising and calling both women and men to action.  The rhetoric over the three years of publication changes, beginning with stories about women being educated, accomplishing success and participating in the Alliance, then moving to appeals to the women as mothers needing to protect their family and work for a moral society, and finally encouraging the women readers to claim their natural, God-given rights.
While the majority of the Farmer's Wife was devoted to the Alliance and later to the suffrage amendment, a variety of departments remained throughout the publication's existence that were more typical of the era's mainstream women's magazines.  For example, a fashion department kept readers up to date on the latest trends for both women and young girls.  Most of these articles were reprinted from national women's publications and included advice and tips for creating patterns and sewing these trendy designs.  While the styles usually did not seem to fit the lifestyle of the farm wives as described by the Farmer's Wife, the articles and sketches surely kept Kansas women up to date with society fashions.   The Household department shared recipes, tips for household duties, time saving ideas, and updates on new products and advances in domestic appliances.  For example, it included articles about how to hang-dry rubber boots, how to create a water filter, and how to make the most of
every bit of food available.
Though primarily geared to women, the Farmer's Wife offered reading for other members of the family as well, with departments for both farmers and children.  The Agricultural department "for our rural friends" provided short articles about livestock, crops, new inventions, and business.  The children's departments, For Our Little Folks and Youth Corner, included poetry, short stories, anecdotes and humorous tidbits, usually attempting to teach virtues such as kindness, respect, hard work and charity.
Aside from those constant departments, the articles in the Farmer's Wife dealt with women, their duties and responsibilities, the problems they faced, their work in organizations and the Alliance, and the advancements of women and women's rights.  Almost always true to the Alliance cause, most of the rhetoric for women's rights, especially in the earliest issues, was embedded in the reform movement of the Populist/People's Party.  For example, on the first page of the first issue, July 1891, Bina. A. Otis, wife of congressman John Otis, wrote concerning the reform movement of the Alliance, incorporating women's rights within this movement.
We are on the eve of a revolution equal to that of our forefathers when they rebelled against the tyranny of the mother country.  They fought for the land of the free and the home of the brave, and are we going to permit the same country to become the land of the rich and the home of the slave, and will we leave as a legacy to our children a country so covered with mortgages, bonds and other forms of debt, that all through their lives they will feel that they have a mill-stone around their necks? I say no. Thank God the awakening has come.  The Alliance is to be our leader and will take us safely into the promised land, where the farmers shall have their just dues.  This great reform movement is before us.  It is for the protection of our homes; and who can be more interested in the homes of the country than the American women?[28]
Thus laid the foundation of the arguments for women's rights as offered by the Farmer's Wife.

Women need to be educated
One of the first encouragements offered to women by the Farmer's Wife was to become educated, which could of course, be achieved through the participation in the Farmer's Alliance.  "The educational feature of the Alliance is affording us greater opportunities for self-improvement than did the school days of many of us."[29]  Women's clubs in general, suggested the writers, provided educational opportunities for women, including public speaking, parliamentary procedure, ability to think fast to formulate and communicate ideas.  In addition, the clubs helped replace gossip with deep thinking and purpose[30].  In the third issue, women were urged to study politics and know what was going on in government.   While it was hoped that women would eventually gain full suffrage, even while they did not have it, they were the mothers of future voters.  As the article "Let Women Study Politics" noted in 1891:
For women to be indifferent and ignorant when their own affairs are the subject of legislation, and laws are being formulated concerning their property and their children, their advice in the matter not asked, nor approval sought, is to justify the category in which women are frequently mentioned-women, children and idiots.[31]
Women were also encouraged to study business, and husbands encouraged to teach them.  To be a successful housekeeper, it was suggested, a woman needed to know how to manage certain affairs, including budgeting, to help save money.[32]  Additionally, women needed to be prepared if her husband should die, so that she could manage the affairs without having to employ the help of someone who might cheat her.  "We do not advocate that it is best or wise for a woman to be at the head of the business establishment, but we do advocate the propriety of a woman understanding her husband's business in all its details, so to enable her, if sickness or death comes, to take care of her interests and those of her children."[33]  Pack took care with this early plea not to overstep the traditional boundaries of woman's role, but offered strong arguments why a woman should learn the basics of her husband's business.
Nettie S. Nutt opened an article on the education of women with a story about Napolean asking Mme. De Steal what to do to promote welfare and happiness of the French people.  Her answer to Napolean was to educate the mothers.  Nutt continues, "Educate and enoble the mother and the result will be a nation of powerful intellects, wise, just and human laws, and a prosperous contented people, dwelling in the light of knowledge and liberty."[34]  Especially in the early issues of the Farmer's Wife, articles discussed women being educated and encouraged farm women to do what they could to learn about everything from cooking and mothering skills to business and politics.  Reading and getting involved in organizations such as the Farmer's Alliance were especially encouraged.

Success among women
With women's roles clearly defined to the home and their place firmly established below that of their male counterparts, many women in the nineteenth century did not jump at the chance to change their status.  By providing examples of women being successful in non-traditional roles and endeavors, editors sought to help women learn to accept new ideas about their place in society.  The more they learned about what other women were doing, the more they might accept some of the new ideas and identities.  The writers for the Farmer's Wife gave women the chance to read about achievements, advancements, and successes of other women.
A frequent column was Encouraging Words, full of one or two-sentence descriptions of women in non-traditional roles, such as having jobs, working her own farm or working to become a dentist.  The facts often included women from other countries.  "On Irish railways, women are employed as booking clerks, and in Dublin tickets are almost entirely given by women."[35]  The Farmer's Wife reprinted a brief about women journalists, by Edward W. Bok.
'Let me give you a fact about women as journalists in my office,' said the editor of one of the largest dailies to me a few days ago. 'Five years ago I employed one woman on my staff; to day (sic) I have over twenty, and the best work which appears in our paper is from the pens of our women writers.'[36]
The publication also consistently reported of successes in other states on any issue pertaining to women's rights, from the right of married women to enter a legal contract to the right of women to vote, most notably when Wyoming entered the union with full suffrage and when Colorado passed a suffrage amendment.
The writers also worked to empower farm women with feelings of equality and intelligence.  After hearing enough times that women were intellectually inferior to men, they would have to hear the opposite over and over again before believing it to be true.  As one article argued in 1891:
The women on the farm are intelligent as a class.  They work, and read, and think.  They devote what leisure time they have to reading, instead of fashionable dress and society calls.  Consequently, they are well informed on the leading topics of the day, and many a woman now living on a Kansas farm in her girlhood attended the best schools.  Yet these women are disenfranchised.[37]
 The Farmer's Wife reported news of women organizing events for the state fair and the world's fair, of women doing notable work for churches and schools, and of women helping to elect noble candidates in school district and municipal elections.
Women and the Farmer's Alliance/ People's Party
The Farmer's Wife usually devoted one page each issue to the developments and politics of the People's Party, including proposed legislation, columns written by party leaders and instructions to Alliance and party members.  However, even more space was devoted to the work women were doing and could do for the Alliance.  M.E. Clark wrote in 1891, "Long before I became a member of the Alliance, I heard it said that the Alliance owed its success largely to its women_. In every reform movement that is of importance to the people, you will find none more earnest and vigilant, none more willing and anxious to assist than women."[38]   As much as the women helped the People's Party, they also made it clear they expected to be helped in return.
The People's party is the first big national party born of both men and women.  Keep the sisters in it.  Let no conventions or gatherings of the new party be such that women cannot in decency take part in it.  Give us no candidates woman cannot cheerfully support with her voice til she gets her vote_. Let every action be good enough for her endorsement-for her zealous and spirited espousal in the home and on the political battlefield.[39]
Early articles concerning women and the Alliance focused on issues of economy and farm legislation reform, but as soon as the National Women's Alliance was formed, most of the rhetoric concerning the Alliance dealt first and foremost with gaining the ballot.  In November 1892, the Farmer's Wife announced the possibility of Mary E. Lease being the Populist candidate for United States Senator.  "It is not absolutely certain that the Populists will select the next senator, but granting that they do, it ought not to surprise those who have followed Kansas politics if Mrs. Lease were the fortunate one."[40]  The following issue devoted the entire front page and half of another page to letters endorsing Mary E. Lease for senator.  One of the letters was from Susan B. Anthony: "I see your name mentioned for United States senator.  I hope the new party, the People's party will demonstrate that they believe in practice as well as theory, that women are people; and in no way can they make i
t more clear, in no way more just, than in electing you to the senate."[41]  Anthony also took the opportunity to encourage Lease and other Kansans to secure the ballot for women, encouraging them to secure the support of both major parties.
If you and Mrs. Diggs can secure this from the People's party and Mrs. John secure it from the Republican party-Kansas is sure to be the second state in the union, free and equal for women and we can add to the blue of our flag a second star and have inscribed on it the talismanic name of Kansas, alongside that of the pride and glory of our nation-Wyoming![42]
The Farmer's Wife proudly included the work done for the People's Party by women, suggesting with every issue that the Kansas women had much to do with the success of this new party.

Suffrage rhetoric and arguments
By the eighth issue of Farmer's Wife, a noticeable increase in suffrage rhetoric appeared, occupying most of both the front page and page four, the editorial page.  However, one of the first bold statements for women's suffrage in the Farmer's Wife, printed in the second issue, came in the form of reprinted Fourth of July speech made by Fannie McCormick at Manhattan, Kansas.  "The ladies are here because in this grand republic woman has been accorded more rights and privileges and is more nearly on political equality with man than in any nation on earth.  They still remind their brothers, however, that taxation without representation is not justice, and threaten to throw 'the tea overboard' if full suffrage is not given them."[43]  Speeches and lectures were a major part of the suffrage rhetoric in the Farmer's Wife, especially during the last year of publication, leading up to the popular vote on the suffrage amendment in 1894.
Suffrage leaders and writers for the Farmer's Wife tugged at the motherly heartstrings of women, providing the first key argument for equal voting rights for women.  The arguments drew on old ideas about women's place and women's roles. If woman's first duty is to her home and her family, then is it not her responsibility as a wife and mother to do everything possible to make society of better and moral place to raise her family?  What better and more direct way to make changes than through the ballot?
The destroyers of homes and families are well entrenched-behind the statutes of law, in front by public opinion and flanked on either side by ignorance and credulity.  We are powerless.  We can do nothing while we are shut out, save to look through the windows of the saloon, with feelings that none but a mother can know. _  As a nation we are politically corrupt, and shall it be said we are morally so?  As we revere truth and justice, and all that tends to a higher civilization, we say that both political and moral necessity demands the free and full franchise of all women, both white and black.[44]
Emma Pack's November 1891 editorial offers a concise relationship between the People's Party and woman suffrage.  "Victory for the People's Party means victory for women.  Victory for the women means Prohibition-first, last and all the time.  It is woman's first duty to help her own home.  Can she do it without the ballot?"[45]  If women could gain the ballot, she could ensure prohibition, help elect moral and honest candidates (Populists), thus ending the corruption in government, and help decide legislation that affects her children-all noble and just causes to help make society a better place.
In November 1892, the Farmer's Wife announced that both the Republicans and Populists in Kansas Legislature agreed to submit the question of equal suffrage to the voters.  The question would appear in the next general election, November 1894.  With this announcement, the Farmer's Wife became a full-fledged suffrage publication, increasing the legitimization of equal suffrage for women and encouraging all men and women to support the cause.
Now that the question of equal suffrage is to be submitted it behooves every suffragist to gird on the armor of war to commence at once and not stop until the women of Kansas obtain the full rights of citizenship which our heavenly Father vouch-safe to her from the beginning of time.  The Farmer's Wife will be the leading factor in this fight and we invite all to give us a helping hand to place our mothers, our wives, our daughters and our sisters on an equal footing with men in this great race of life and battle for bread.[46]
The announcement was followed by twenty-four statements from politicians, writers, reform workers, and notable citizens favoring the vote for women.  Readers were encouraged to make sure all political parties supported and endorsed the cause.  However, the Farmer's Wife did remain loyal to the People's Party, claiming it would be the one to win the ballot for Kansas women.
The arguments for woman suffrage became more direct.  Women are people; women are citizens; women should vote.  During the last year of the Farmer's Wife publication, that leading up to the November 1894 general election, the editor and contributors urged women to demand full suffrage.  They continued their arguments based on duty and responsibility, but added the argument of equality as a natural, God-given right.
Until woman's equality with man is legally recognized she can never be a free American citizen and enjoy the natural rights to which she is entitled under our present condition_. The vital question that confronts the women of Kansas at the present time is not whether her kitchen floor shall be scrubbed twice or six times each week, nor whether her daughter's dress shall be elaborate as that of her girl friends, or that her own be made according to the latest fashion, but rather that her daughters shall have the same opportunities to earn an honest and honorable living as her sons, and have a voice in the government she helps to support with her taxes, a voice in laws to which she must be subject.[47]
In addition to bolder arguments, the Farmer's Wife published more endorsements, results of any political party convention, and speeches from the numerous women's organizations in the state, especially the equal suffrage association. The May 1894 Farmer's Wife reported a meeting in Topeka, Kansas, on May 9, that had more than 3,000 in attendance.  Most of that issue was taken up with speeches made by Emma Pack, Bina Otis, Annie Diggs, Susan B. Anthony, and Annie Shaw.
Suffrage leaders hung blue flags at their conventions, with a star on them for each state with full suffrage rights for women. As the November election neared, the Farmer's Wife ran large, front-page ads urging readers to help make Kansas the third star (along with Wyoming and Colorado), as well as essays explaining the absurdity of the arguments against woman suffrage.  Mary Lease wrote one of the strongest rebuttals early, in the October 1891 issue.  She explained that she had the Bible quoted at her as an argument against emancipation of women too many times.  Those using the Bible as an argument against women's equality, Lease explained, only use certain parts, failing to mention strong, important women such as Miriam or Deborah, who was a judge and ruler of Israel.
But the very fact that God created the male first gives him precedence and superiority, we are told.  Well then, we find that God created the fowls of the air, the fishes of the sea, and every creeping thing upon earth; does precedence in creation give them superiority over man?  Rather let us reason that as the improved steam power cylindrical printing press is an improvement over the lumber-some uncouth hand-lever press of a few years ago, so the lower animals were God's experiment, man the culmination of His practice, and woman, because LAST, the crowning masterpiece of HIS workmanship.[48]
In the May 1894 issue, a speech given by Annie Diggs' is printed in which she pokes fun at and shows the absurdity of some of the common objections to woman suffrage.
It is said that the women can't vote and go to the polls without neglecting their babies and household duties.  I notice that we can go to church, or the theater, or a circus, or into society without anybody, not even the editors, howling about the neglected babies.  It doesn't take near as long to go to the polls, but the moment we go there the men for the first time in their lives begin to worry about the little ones_.It is said that we can't go to the polls in safety.  I have gone a great many times and I would rather go there than to the post-office on a crowded day.[49]
The Farmer's Wife equipped readers with rebuttals to almost every objection to woman suffrage imaginable, while continually providing the arguments for woman suffrage.
While the rhetoric in the Farmer's Wife remained positive, assuring readers that Kansas would be the third star, the competition and tension between political parties, especially between the Republicans and Populists, was evident.  For many issues before the political conventions, at which their platforms were determined, the articles in the Farmer's Wife seemed confident that both major parties would endorse woman suffrage.  However, with suffrage as a platform on the Populist ticket, many bitter Republicans seemed to favor voting for their party rather than for a cause-even one so desired by their mothers, wives, sisters and daughters.  In the August 1894 issue, just three months before the election, the Farmer's Wife makes a plea to those Republicans and Democrats.
But for the man who was honestly in favor of the amendment previous to the Populist convention, and now refuses to vote for it simply because the Populists placed it in their platform, places himself in no enviable position before the eyes of a sensible community.  About as silly as some little girls I have known who would not wear their beautiful dress simply because some one whom they did not admire had one of the same pattern.[50]
The Farmer's Wife remained true to the People's Party, not distancing from it even when suffrage leaders saw that the suffrage issue being associated to one political party might prove fatal.  Obviously, the editor and writers felt strongly about both their party and their cause.

Conclusion
In the end, no matter how much the women of Kansas wanted the vote, it was up to the Kansas men to give it to them.  On the editorial page of the Farmer's Wife, June 1894,  Pack pleaded for male voters' help. "The men of this state are usually broad-minded and progressive.  They will vote on the pending Woman Suffrage constitutional amendment on the 6th day of November next.  We, their sisters, mothers, wives, daughters, sweethearts and friends, entreat them to vote 'Yes,' on the amendment."[51]
Honor their wishes the Kansas men did not.  The Farmer's Wife ceased publishing directly after the second unsuccessful campaign for a woman suffrage amendment to the state of Kansas constitution in November 1894.
Suffrage rhetoric appeared in all issues of the Farmer's Wife; however, over the three years of publication, the amount increased significantly and it became more direct.  In the final year of publication, leading up to the general election of 1894, the editor usually devoted all of the front page and the editorial page to suffrage articles, including speeches, essays, letters and reports from conventions and meetings of women's organizations.  During that final year, the arguments for suffrage also became more directly related to women's rights.  Though the writers still mentioned duty and responsibility, they began arguing that women had the natural, God-given right to vote.  Articles addressed women being equal to men, created by God as man's equal partner in life.
While the writers addressed national conventions and efforts, the emphasis remained on Kansas and rural women.  Writers often addressed farm women specifically, offering sympathy for the struggles and difficult conditions.   They reminded farm women that they were not alone-other women understood their struggles and sympathized.   So in addition to building a community of suffragists and women Populists, the Farmer's Wife built a community of farm women who shared common lifestyles and common struggles.  The Farmer's Wife is was just one of many smaller, regional publications that contributed to the advancement of women, particularly woman suffrage.  Much more research should be conducted on these publications and the roles they played in creating community, changing the identity and stereotypes of women, and organizing women to work for their cause.  Their readership may have been small, but collectively they may have had an enormous effect on individual women of a particular reg
ion.
While the true effects of the Farmer's Wife are difficult to assess, the rhetoric served several necessary functions for the women's movement.  Anyone who read the Farmer's Wife, read about women succeeding in roles different from the stereotypes of the time and about women's large role in a successful reform movement and political party. They read about women being intelligent and moral, and about women being educated and involved. All aided in the reshaping of women's identity, shifting away from the ideal of True Woman towards the hope of New Woman.  Women learned of others in similar situations as their own.  Readers learned of women's organizations and the ideas of the women's movement.  Men and women read about suffrage efforts and successes.  Through these consciousness-raising efforts the Farmer's Wife furthered the idea that maybe women should vote and maybe women do have more rights than they are currently allowed.  Finally, the Farmer's Wife called brothers and sisters alike to action for the suffrage cause.  The pages of the Farmer's Wife armed them with arguments for woman suffrage, rebuttals for opposition, chances to join organizations, and finally the urging to vote for the suffrage amendment in November 1894.   All of these efforts helped create a sense of community and common identity among the readers of the Farmer's Wife-a community supportive of the Farmer's Wife slogan, "Equal Rights to All, Special Privilege
to None."

[1]  Emma Pack, "Woman's Rights," Farmer's Wife, March 1882, 3.
[2]  Jane O. Underwood, "Civilizing Kansas: Women's Organizations, 1880-1920," Kansas History 7 (Winter 1984-85): 302.
[3]  Ann Birney and Joyce Thierer, "Shoulder to Shoulder: Kansas Women Win the Vote," Kansas Heritage 3 (Winter 1995): 65.
[4]  Susan A. Madsen, "The Campaign for Woman Suffrage in Kansas: A Study in Rhetorical Situation," PhD. Dissertation, University of Kansas, 1975, 15.
[5]  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage, History of Woman Suffrage, (N.Y.: Fowler & Wells, 1881).
[6]  Madsen, 30.
[7]  Birney and Thierer, 67.
[8]  Madsen, 149.
[9]  Eleanor Flexner, Century of Struggle: The Woman's Rights Movement in the United States, (N.Y.: Athenum, 1973), 149.
[10]  E. Claire Jerry, "The role of Newspapers in the Nineteenth-Century Woman' Movement," in A Voice of Their Own: The Suffrage Press, 1840-1910, ed. Martha Solomon (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1991), 22.
[11]  Birney and Thierer, 67.
[12]  Wilda Smith, "A Half Century of Struggle: Gaining Woman Suffrage in Kansas," Kansas History 4  (Summer 1981): 90.
[13]  Lauren Kessler, The Dissident Press: Alternative Journalism in American History, (New Bury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1984): 74.
[14]  Martha Solomon, "The Role of the Suffrage Press in Woman's Rights Movement," in A Voice of Their Own: The Suffrage Press, 1840-1910, ed. Martha Solomon (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1991): 3.
[15]  Solomon, 6.
[16]  Ibid., 13.
[17]  Barbara Welter, Dimity Convictions: The American Woman in the Nineteenth Century (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1976), 21.
[18]  Solomon, 13.
[19]  Linda Steiner, "Evolving Rhetorical Strategies/Evolving Identities," in A Voice of Their Own: The Suffrage Press, 1840-1910, ed. Martha Solomon, (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press): 185.
[20]  Solomon, 15.
[21]  Maryilyn Brady, "Populism and Feminism in a Newspaper by and for Women of the Kansas Farmers' Alliance, 1891-1894," Kansas History 7 (Winter 1984-85): 280.
[22]  Ibid., 281.
[23]  Atlanta Constitution, reprinted in Farmer's Wife, September 1891, 4.
[24]  Emma Pack, Farmer's Wife, September 1993, 4.
[25]  Gougar, September 1893, 6
[26]  Steiner, 14.
[27]  Under the Farmer's Wife masthead usually appeared one or two columns of briefs concerning women's topics.  Each column of these briefs has been counted as one article.
[28]  Bina A. Otis, "The Reform Movement," Farmer's Wife, July 1891, 1.
[29]  Ibid.
[30]  Maud Pack, "Women in Clubs," Farmer's Wife, July 1891, 3.
[31]  Mary Livermoore, "Let Women Study Politics," Farmer's Wife, September 1891, 1.
[32]  Emma Pack, "Is Knowledge of Business Essential for Women?" Farmer's Wife, October, 1891, 4.
[33]  Ibid.
[34]  Nettie S. Nutt, "Educate the Mother," Farmer's Wife, Feburary 1892, 1.
[35]  "Encouraging Words," Farmer's Wife,  July 1891, 6.
[36]  Edward W. Bok, "A Tribute to Women Journalists," Farmer's Wife, July 1891, 1.
[37]  Fannie McCormick, "A Kansas Farm," Farmer's Wife, September, 1891, 1.
[38]  M. E. Clark, "Women in the Alliance," Farmer's Wife, August, 1891, 1.
[39]  "Keep Woman's Help and Cheer," Farmer's Wife, November, 1891, 4.
[40]  "No Reason Why She Should not be Elected," Farmer's Wife, November 1892, 1.
[41]  Susan B. Anthony, letter to Mary E. Lease, Farmer's Wife, December 1892, 4.
[42]  Ibid.
[43]  Fannie McCormick, "From McCormick's Fourth of July Speech at Manhattan, Kansas," Farmer's Wife, August 1891, 1.
[44]  P. A. Stafford, "The Relation of Woman's Suffrage to Modern Reforms," Farmer's Wife, October 1891, 5.
[45]  Emma Pack, editorial comments, Farmer's Wife, November 1891, 4.
[46]  "She Will Join Wyoming in the Sisterhood of States," Farmer's Wife, November 1892, 1.
[47]  Bina A. Otis, "Address at the Kansas State Fair," Farmer's Wife, October 1893, 1.
[48]  Mary E. Lease, "The Church and Not the Bible," Farmer's Wife, October 1891, 1.
[49]  Annie Diggs, "Mrs. Digg's Speech at Equal Suffrage Meeting," Farmer's Wife, May 1894, 5.
[50]  "Is the Suffrage Amendment a Populist Measure?" Farmer's Wife, August 1894, 1.
[51]  "A Few Leading Questions," Farmer's Wife, June 1894, 4.