The Torch Bearer

The Torch Bearer - A Look Forward and Back at the Woman's Journal, the Organ of the Woman's Movement

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Torch Bearer, by Agnes E. Ryan This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: The Torch Bearer A Look Forward and Back at the Woman's Journal, the Organ of the Woman's Movement
Author: Agnes E. Ryan
Release Date: April 17, 2004 [EBook #12071]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TORCH BEARER ***

Produced by Bill Hershey and PG Distributed Proofreaders

[Illustration: Women's Suffrage.]

=Woman's Journal and Suffrage News=
A weekly paper devoted to the interests of woman, to her educational, industrial, legal and political equality, and especially to her right of suffrage.
Founded in 1870 by Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell
_Editor-in-Chief_ Alice Stone Blackwell
Contributing Editors Mary Johnston Stephen S. Wise Josephine P. Peabody Zona Gale Florence Kelley Witter Bynner Ben B. Lindsey Caroline Bartlett Crane Ellis Meredith Mabel Craft Deering Eliza Calvert Hall Reginald Wright Kauffman
Artists Mayme B. Harwood Fredrikke Palmer Mrs. Oakes Ames
_Deputy Treasurer Assistant Editor Howard L. Blackwell Henry Bailey Stevens
Circulation Manager Advertising Manager Marie Spink Joe B. Hosmer
Finance Managing Editor Mildred Hadden Agnes E. Ryan

=THE TORCH BEARER=
A Look Forward and Back at the Woman's Journal, the Organ of the Woman's Movement
By Agnes E. Ryan

=Contents=
The Torch Bearer
In the Balance
Taken Into Our Confidence
Some Changes
It Speaks for Itself (Editorial Department)
Suffrage Volunteer News Service
The Connecting Link (Circulation Department)
What Papers Live By (Advertising Department)
Prints and Reprints (Literature Department)
The Graveyard (Research and Information Departments)
Holding the Reins (Administration Department)
Capturing the Imagination (Press and Publicity Dept.)
A Word in Time (Field Workers' Department)
The Hope Chest (Finance Department)
Early Stockholders
Present Stockholders
The Journal Goes to 39 Foreign Countries
The Corporation

=List of Illustrations=
Lucy Stone, Henry B. Blackwell Alice Stone Blackwell Charts: Increase in Cost of Publishing Increase in Circulation Propaganda Work The Woman's Journal Staff: Circulation Department The General Staff The Directors: Alice Stone Blackwell, Emma L. Blackwell, Maud Wood Park, Grace A. Johnson, Agnes E. Ryan The Woman's Journal artists: Fredrikke S. Palmer Mrs. Oakes Ames The Woman's Journal Printers: E.L. Grimes, M.J. Grimes, William Grimes Mary A. Livermore William Lloyd Garrison Wendell Phillips Julia Ward Howe Armenia White Margaret Foley Thomas Wentworth Higginson Mrs. David Hunt The Anti and the Snowball

Justice, simple justice is what the world needs. --Lucy Stone
[Illustration: Lucy Stone.]
[Illustration: Henry B Blackwell.]
=Founders of the Woman's Journal=

=The Torch Bearer=
So wonderful are the days in which we are living and so rapidly is the canvas being crowded with the record of achievement in the woman's movement that it is time for readers of the Woman's Journal and for all suffragists to know somewhat intimately and as never before what goes on in the four little rooms in Boston where the organ of the suffrage movement is prepared for its readers each week.
Before telling what has been done and what is planned and hoped, it will perhaps be well to give a little picture of the paper which to many has been the "Suffrage Bible" since it was started over forty-six years ago by Lucy Stone, Henry B. Blackwell and the little band of woman's rights pioneers who saw, almost at the dawn of the movement, the need of an organ.
Before the charter for the Woman's Journal was granted in 1870, $10,000 had to be paid into its treasury. This was at a time when there were few millionaires in the world, and $10,000 then must have looked like as many millions today.
How ardent, then, must have been the few, how eloquent the presentation, to have raised $10,000 with which to start a paper for the sole purpose of advocating equal rights for women! But they were ardent and eloquent, and from the road to martyrdom they have come to us through history as great men and women of their time. The pages of the Woman's Journal are brilliant with their sayings, and the reports of the early stockholders' meetings echo the voices of that pioneer band led by Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe.
Never for a single week since 1870 have the women of the country been without a mouthpiece to voice their needs and wrongs. This has been due chiefly to the fact that the Stone-Blackwell family has continuously given not only of its services in editing and managing the paper, but also has made generous contributions for years to enable the paper to continue.
So much in brief for the forty years from 1870 to 1910. From July 1, 1910, to September 30, 1912, the financial support of the paper was assumed by the National American Woman Suffrage Association. After that it fell