Chenoweth Women Seek Equal Opportunities for Women in Government

Late last year, I was contacted by Ms Johnstone of Australia who was doing research on historical documented cases of discrimination against women. She had run across just such an instance in the case of Caroline B. Van Deusen, the wife of Bernard Peel Chenoweth. The Harris book describes much of the life of Bernard Peel in some detail on pages 235-6. It is an interesting story. Briefly, Bernard supported the Union and served as an Officer in the Union Army. Upon returning to civilian life he found his personal holdings devastated by the war and himself a pauper estranged from most of his family. He used the opportunity of the election of US Grant to the Presidency to seek an appointment in the Foreign Service. Granted his request, Bernard took his family to Canton, China, but soon died. Caroline was asked by the local US merchants to continue his duties, but was denied the position because she was a woman. She returned to the US to become a successful professor of English Literature at Smith College, authoring many books and articles. Three of the several documents kindly sent me by Ms Johnstone are included below. They paint a wonderfully rich picture of the tenor of the times and circumstances. I doubt if much I could add would enhance the story they tell.

Bernard Peel was the son of Alfred Griffith, a Methodist Minster and a descendant of Arthur's son John, a branch of the family that was the wealthiest and most substantial of any of the early Chenoweth families. We know nothing about what happened to Oramel Goddard Chenoweth, he appears to be alive when Caroline left China and he is last seen with her in the 1880 Census of Massachusetts. Thanks to a World Family Tree submittal we know that Ernest Bernard Chenoweth married and had one daughter before he died at the young age of 32. The daughter, Mary-Lewis Chenoweth, married Ralph Fletcher and reviewing this material renewed my interest in trying to track down one of her descendants. I was recently able to locate her grandson, Darryl B. Denison in Vancouver, WA

Caroline had an equally accomplished sister-in-law in Bernard's sister, Alice Chenoweth Day, a novelist who wrote under the penname Helen Gardener. A bio of her is included at the end of this article, describing her as a "consummate feminist, constantly finding ways to make federal service a more accessible and equitable career for women." Perhaps part of her incentive was the treatment her sister-in-law Caroline had received at the hands of the US Government.

BERNARD PEEL6 CHENOWETH (ALFRED GRIFFITH5, JOHN4, JOHN3, ARTHUR2, JOHN1) was born August 18, 1836 in Greenbrier Co., VA (now WV), and died June 21, 1870 in Canton, CHINA. He married CAROLINE B. VAN DEUSEN March 19, 1863 in Jefferson Co., IN, daughter of CHARLES VAN DUESEN and MARY HUNTINGTON. She was born December 29, 1846 in New Albany, Floyd Co., IN, and died May 12, 1917 in Worcester Co., MA.

Children of BERNARD CHENOWETH and CAROLINE VAN DEUSEN are:

1. ERNEST BERNARD7 CHENOWETH, b. July 26, 1865, St. Charles Co., MO; d. May 21, 1897, Leicester, Worcester Co., MA; m. EDITH FANNY WAY, April 18, 1892, Boston, Suffolk Co., MA; b. May 08, 1866, Roxbury, Suffolk Co., MA; d. November 12, 1905, Jamaica Plains, MA.
2. ORAMEL GODDARD CHENOWETH, b. July 25, 1867, Worchester Co., MA.

Washington DC
March 16, 1869

To the Honorable Hamilton Fisk
Secretary of State

The undersigned would respectfully represent that at the breaking out of the war he was a resident of Missouri where he was publishing a Republican newspaper, and in the possession of a comfortable property. After the first election of Mr. Lincoln, public excitement ran so high that he was indicted by the rebels for publishing incendiary articles. The legal penalty was five years in the State prison, the probable penalty was death on the streets if he should be arrested. He escaped into Kansas but continued to issue the paper on the opposite side of the Missouri River at his former office, St Joseph, MO. At the fall of Fort Sumter and the call for troops, he discontinued the paper and raised in ten hours and partially clothed and equipped a company of eighty-five men. He furnished this clothing, etc because the government was at this time unable to do so from the stores at Fort Leavenworth. He has never asked for or received a dollar in return for this outlay.

Early in the war he was detailed as an Insp Gener'l on the staff of Gen'l G. M. Dodge, late member of the House of Rep. from Iowa. It is proper to state here that he was mustered into the service as a ranking captain of the First Kansas Regt. A year and a half elapsed; he had been serving for sometime on Gen Dodges staff, and before and during that time inferior officers had been promoted over his head both in his own regiment and to fill appointments in new ones. His friend Gen'l A. L. Lee the Chief of Cavalry in the staff of Gen'l Banks, Dept of the Gulf, found means to offer him a colonalcy in that Dept and got permission from Gen'l Grant for him to go, but after the order directing him to report to Gen'l Banks had been made out, it was suppressed on the grounds stated in the following extracts from a letter of Gen'l Lees, the original of which the subscriber still has in his possession. "He" (Gen'l Grant) "informed me that after I had left Vicksburg, Lt. Col Wislon, his Insp Gen'l made so strong remonstrances against your removal from your present position - himself extolling you so highly and showing letters of strong commendation from Gen'l Dodge - that he countermanded the order. He said you were an officer of too much value to him in your present capacity to be spared. I could not induce him to consent to your absence from his Dept and your present position. Gen'l Thomas who was by, offered to commission you as Col on the spot if Gen'l Grant would consent"

The undersigned received this news with disappointment, but that disappointment was softened and rendered almost welcome by the handsome compliment from his great chief. Gen'l Grant had the kindness both to telegraph and to write to him through Gen'l Wislon that his (Gen'l Grants) action had been induced by a regard for the good of the service, and that he would take care of the interest of the undersigned in future. The latter therefore rested content. Soon another offer of a Lt Colonalcy came from the same source. This time the General, for strong reasons adduced, gave permission for its acceptance, but before the acceptance could be made known to the proper authorities another man had been commissioned to the place. Gen'l Grant soon honored him by a detail to serve on his own staff. As to his record there, which was but a short one, the accompanying letter (copy) of the General will testify. The term of service of the 1st Kansas in which he held his commission, expired and he was mustered out with the same rank with which he entered the army more than 3 years before. He returned to civil life to find his large influential family, all Virginians, but some branches residing in Missouri, violently and bitterly estranged from him on account of his stand in the war and previously. To find his own property in ashes, not a vestige of it remaining, to find his wife's handsome estate which unfortunately happened to be in money in New Orleans at the beginning of the war having just been converted into cash by the executor who probably paid it into the Confederate Treasury, a total loss and to find himself a pauper with a wife brought up in affluence and a little child. He feared to return to the South, and especially to Virginia which had been his home until manhood, and where both branches of his family had resided for nearly two hundred years. He went to Worcester, Mass, where he knew one man. A generous people soon gave him the responsible office of Supt of Public Schools, which he held nearly 3 years. His record there is shown by the accompanying endorsement from Hon. Geo F. Hoar, M.C., but failing health compelled him to resign such a laborious post in an uncongenial climate, and six months ago he returned to Virginia, his mother state with the purpose of remaining there through life. He has no property and no means whatever of supporting himself and family and he is compelled by stern necessity to ask through you of his old chief and beloved General some help to begin the world anew. First he asks for the position of Minister to Japan, next for the Consulate general at Shanghai, and next for the Consulate at Canton, China or some similar position in a genial climate. Very respectfully yours,

B. P. Chenoweth

US Military Telegraph
Pilaski, Dec 12, 1863
By telegraph from Chattanooga, 12, 1863

To Brig Genl G. M. Godge

Genl

By a communication from Capt B. H. Chenoweth to genl Wilson of my staff I learn that the Capt is offered a Lieut Cononelcy of an African Regiment at New Orleans. You are authorized to give him leave to proceed to that front in view of the facts set forth I think it best for him to accept. I will gladly do anything I can to further advance his interests

U.S. Grant
Maj Genl

Elbilt House, Nov 9th, 1872

To the President of the United States

Sir,

The Hon Secy of State refuses to consider for a moment the question of appointing a woman to any Foreign Consulate.

He kindly admits that I mastered the duties of the Consulate at Canton while I had charge of that office, but while he does not doubt my ability to perform the regular consular work would oppose such an appointment upon the ground that questions are liable to arise which it would be impossible for a woman to discuss. In answer to my plea that such questions had never yet arisen, he replied that they might. Upon this remote possibility I am set aside and am left to wonder why I need be denied this position under a Government which it has already been proven can intelligently serve - and for whose sake the life so necessary to myself and family was cheerfully sacrificed. Am I to consider that Mt. Fish's views decide my final answer, or may I still have my application before yourself with permission to resume it should a more favorable opportunity ever offer.

I am yours most respectfully

C.V.D. Chenoweth

Women in World History. A Biographical Encyclopedia." Volume 6, GAB-HARP. Anne Commire, Editor, Deborah Klezmer, Associate Editor, Yorkin Publications. Copyright 2000. ISBN # 0-7876-4065-4. Pages 55-57.

Gardener, Helen Hamilton (1853-1925)

American Author, feminist, suffragist, and federal civil service commissioner. Name variations: Alice Chenoweth: Alice Smart. Born Alice Chenoweth in Winchester, Virginia on January 21, 1853; died in Washington D.C. on July 26, 1925; third daughter and youngest of six children of Reverend Alfred G. and Katherine A. (Peel) Chenoweth; attended high school in Cincinnati: graduated from the Cincinnati Normal School, 1873; studied biology at Columbia University; married Charles S. Smart (school commissioner of Ohio), in 1875 (died 1901); married Colonel Selden Allen Day (a retired army officer), on April 9, 1902 (died 1919); no children.

The daughter of an abolitionist and itinerant Methodist preacher, Helen Gardener was born Alice Chenoweth in Winchester, Virginia on January 21, 1853. She grew up in Washington, D.C., Greencastle, Indiana and Cincinnati, Ohio, where she attended high school and graduated from the Cincinnati Normal School. A brief career as a schoolteacher was followed by her marriage in 1875 to Charles Smart, then school commissioner of Ohio. In 1878, the couple moved to New York, where Smart entered the insurance business and Gardener studied biology at Columbia University, lectured in sociology at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, and contributed articles on sundry subjects to newspapers (using various masculine pseudonyms). At this time, her friendship with renowned agnostic Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll and his wife had a great impact on her life, and at Ingersoll's urging Gardener began giving a series of freethinking lectures, which were heavily influenced by her new mentor. In 1885, the lectures were published as "Men, Women, and Gods, and Other Lectures" (1885) under the name of Helen Hamilton Gardener, a mysterious pseudonym that Gardener eventually adopted as her legal name.

Gardener came to the attention of feminists in 1888 with her famous essay "Sex in Brain," a refutation of a widely publicized claim by Dr. William A Hammond, a New York neurologist and former U.S. surgeon general, that female brains were inherently and measurably inferior to male brains. Gardener's well-researched rebuttal argued that Hammond's findings were invalid because all of the male brains he had studied were from intelligent, accomplished men, while the female brains in his study had come from indigents and criminals. To provide a suitable specimen for future research of this sort, Gardener magnanimously bequeathed her own brain to Cornell University.

Gardener achieved her greatest popularity with her novel "This is Your Son, My Lord?" (1890), an outspoken attack on legalized prostitution, and the ridiculously low legal age at which girls were considered to be at the age of consent, told through the melodramatic story of a young girl's demise at the hands of seemingly respectable men. The book sold 25,000 copies in five months and was the shock and controversy among critics and readers alike. Gardener's next novel, "Pray You Sir, Whose Daughter?" (1892), with which she hoped to repeat her earlier success, dealt with the inferior status imposed upon married women. Gardener digressed somewhat in her next book, a fictional biography of her father, "An Unofficial Patriot" (1884), which is considered by some to be her best work. In 1899, it was successfully dramatized by playwright James A. Herne as Griffith Davenport, Circuit Rider. In two collections of short stories, A Thoughtless Yes (1890) and Pushed by Unseen Hands (1892), she returned to challenge the status quo, and her articles on social issues, which appeared in numerous journals, were collected in Facts and Fictions of Life (1893). A long-time contributor to the reform magazine Arena, Gardener was its co-author in 1897. (Her husband Charles Smart served as Arena's business manager for several years.)

After the death of Smart in 1901, and her second marriage to Selden Allen Day, a retired army officer, Gardener spent five years in world travel, during which time her interest in reform cooled somewhat. The couple settled in Washington in 1907, after which Gardener was called upon by suffragists to use her wide social contacts with government figures to advance their cause. In 1913, after members of the Congressional Committee of the National American Woman Suffrage Association resigned to back Alice Paul's militant Congressional Union, Gardener was appointed to reorganize the association. She became its vice president in 1917, and through her personal contacts with President Woodrow Wilson and Speaker of the House Champ Clark, she was a central figure in steering the federal suffrage amendment to eventual ratification in 1920. That same year, at age 67, Gardener was appointed by Wilson to the U.S. Civil Service Commission, thus becoming the first woman to hold so high a federal position. Serving in the post until her death in 1925, Helen Gardener remained the consummate feminist, constantly finding ways to make federal service a more accessible and equitable career for women.

Do you have some Chenoweth Family photos that you wish to share with everyone? Than this is your opportunity. William "Bill" Chenoweth of Virginia has been maintaining an online Photo Album of the Chenoweth Family. Individuals are encouraged to add photos to this location. As Bill states "Historic photos would be most appreciative but even photos of current individuals will someday be historic". This is a chance to preserve visual Chenoweth Family history.