Emily Parmely Collins
{{Short description| American woman suffragist and writer (1814–1909)}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Emily Parmely Peltier Collins
| image = EMILY PARMELY COLLINS.jpg
| caption = "A Woman of the Century"
| pseudonym = "Justitia"
| birth_name = Emily Parmely
| birth_date = August 11, 1814
| birth_place = Bristol, New York, U.S.
| death_date = April 14, 1909
| death_place = Quincy, Massachusetts, U.S.
| resting_place = Cedar Hill Cemetery, Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.
| occupation = {{hlist|suffragist|activist|writer}}
| language = English
| spouse ={{hlist|{{marriage|Charles Peltier|1835|end=died}}|{{marriage|Simri Bradley Collins|1841|1878|end=died}}}}
| children = 2 sons
}}
Emily Parmely Collins ({{nee}}, Parmely; after first marriage, Peltier; after second marriage, Collins; pen name, Justitia; August 11, 1814 – April 14, 1909) was an American woman suffragist, women's rights activist, and writer of the long nineteenth century. She was the first woman in the United States to establish a society focused on woman suffrage and women's rights, in South Bristol, New York, in 1848. She was an early participant in the abolitionism movement,{{sfn|Willard|Livermore|1893|p=193}} the temperance movement {{sfn|Daughters of the American Revolution|1905|p=429}} as well as a pioneer in the women's suffrage movement in the United States. She believed that the full development of a woman's capacities to be of supreme importance to the well-being of humanity; and advocated through the press for woman's educational, industrial and political rights.{{sfn|Daughters of the American Revolution|1905|p=429}} Collins died in 1909.
Early life
Emily Parmely was born in Bristol, New York, on August 11, 1814, to James Parmely and Lydia Robbins Donelson who were early settlers of the "Genesee Country".{{sfn|Willard|Livermore|1893|p=193}} Her ancestors on her father's side came from Kent County England and settled in Guilford, Connecticut, in 1639. Her father fought during the Revolutionary War in the 9th Connecticut Regiment.{{sfn|Daughters of the American Revolution|1919|p=149}}
As a child Emily Parmely was sensitive and shy, preferring to be alone with her pets and books.{{sfn|Daughters of the American Revolution|1905|p=428}} Early on, she became an industrious reader, especially of history and poetry.{{sfn|Willard|Livermore|1893|p=193}}
Career
=Pre-war=
At age 16, Collins became a teacher of district number 11 in Burbee Hollow, Bristol, New York.{{cite web |title=Suffrage – Bristol |url=http://www.ochs.org/suffrage-bristol/ |publisher=Ontario Country Historical Society |access-date=3 January 2019}} She received a salary equal to male teachers, which was considered unusual at the time.{{sfn|Daughters of the American Revolution|1905|p=428}}
File:Pierre Desnoyers Peltier 01.png
In 1832, she removed to Michigan with a brother where she taught in a log schoolhouse in the vicinity of Port Huron. On January 8, 1835, she married Charles Peltier, a merchant. They soon went to Detroit to live. Charles served as Post Trader at Fort Gratiot, and afterward Comptroller and Justice of the peace in Detroit, holding office through several administrations. They had one son, Pierre Desnoyers Peltier, M.D. (1835–1906).{{sfn|Herndon|1898|p=103}} Charles died in Detroit.{{sfn|Daughters of the American Revolution|1905|p=428}}
Her second husband was Simri Bradley Collins (1800–1878), whom she married July 4, 1841. Simri was the son of Rev. Naron Coobe Collins, D. D., formerly of Connecticut, later of East Bloomfield, New York.{{sfn|Daughters of the American Revolution|1905|p=428}} They had one son, Emmett Burke Collins (1842–1872).{{sfn|Daughters of the American Revolution|1905|p=428}}{{sfn|Stanton|Gordon|1997|p=415}}
In 1848, she returned to Bristol, New York. She attended the Seneca Falls Convention in July. On October 19, she organized the first woman suffrage society in the world: the Woman's Equal Rights Union (alternately called the Equal Suffrage Society or the Equal Rights Association). In the same year, she sent the first petition to the legislature.{{sfn|Daughters of the American Revolution|1905|p=429}}{{sfn|Willard|Livermore|1893|p=194}}{{cite news |title=Emily Parmely Collins |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/14932986/emily_parmely_collins/ |access-date=3 January 2019 |work=The Times-Picayune |date=21 June 1881 |location=New Orleans, Louisiana |page=2|edition=Public domain|via=Newspapers.com}} {{open access}}{{sfn|Stanton|Gordon|1997|p=415}} In 1858, the family removed to Rochester, New York, remaining until 1869. Here, she was a member of the Unitarian church.
=Civil War=
{{Quote box
| quote = "All through the Anti-slavery struggle, every word of denunciation of the wrongs of the southern slave, was, I felt, equally applicable to the wrongs of my own sex. Every argument for the emancipation of the colored man, was equally one for that of woman; and I was surprised that all Abolitionists did not see the similarity in the condition of the two classes."{{cite web |title=Emily Parmely Collins (1814 – 1909) |url=http://cedarhillfoundation.org/notable-residents/emily-parmely-collins/ |publisher=Cedar Hill Cemetery Foundation |access-date=3 January 2019}}
| width =25%
| align =right
}}
Collins was a volunteer nurse in Virginia. Her two sons, one a surgeon, the other a lawyer who had just been admitted to the bar, accompanying her. She wrote:— "I served as a volunteer nurse through the campaign of 1864 at the front in the Shenandoah Valley, with both of my sons, Dr. P. D. Peltier and Captain E. Burke Collins.{{sfn|Daughters of the American Revolution|1905|p=428}}{{sfn|Willard|Livermore|1893|p=194}}
=Louisiana=
In 1869, the family removed to Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, where Collins buried her second husband in 1876. Her second son, Captain E. Burke Collins, died in 1872. She was a resident of Louisiana for ten years.{{sfn|Daughters of the American Revolution|1905|p=428}} With Elizabeth Lisle Saxon, she continued her suffragist work.
In 1879, as a new State constitution was being framed, a paper from Collins, giving her ideas of what a just constitution should be, was read to the delegates and elicited praise from the New Orleans press.{{sfn|Willard|Livermore|1893|p=194}} {{sfn|Daughters of the American Revolution|1905|p=428}}
=Connecticut=
In the same year, having leased her plantation, she removed to Hartford, Connecticut, to live with her son, Pierre.{{sfn|Stanton|Gordon|1997|p=415}} In 1885, with Frances Ellen Burr and others, she organized the Hartford Equal Rights Club, and was for many years its president, and later its honorary president.{{sfn|Daughters of the American Revolution|1905|p=429}}
File:Emily Parmely Collins (age, 90).png
She wrote occasional stories, to illustrate some principle, for the Pacific Rural and other journals. Not ambitious to acquire a literary reputation, and shrinking from publicity, she seldom appended her name. For several years, she wrote each week for the Hartford Journal, under the pen-name "Justitia", a column or two in support of human rights, especially the rights of woman. She also urged the same before each legislature of Connecticut. As a solution of the temperance issue, she advocated in the Hartford Examiner the exclusive manufacture and sale of liquor at cost by the government. She also urged a change from the electoral system to that of proportional representation, and industrial cooperation in place of competition. {{sfn|Willard|Livermore|1893|p=194}}
Personal life
Collins was a member of the Massachusetts Referendum League and of the Woman's Relief Corps. She spoke year after year before the legislature in support of the petition for woman suffrage, and addressed many audiences on various subjects.{{sfn|Daughters of the American Revolution|1905|p=429}} She became a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Hannah Woodruff Chapter, of Southington, Connecticut, in October 1904. Her national number was 48316, and hers was the one hundredth name on the membership roll of "Real Daughters" in Connecticut.{{sfn|Daughters of the American Revolution|1905|p=425}}
She died on April 14, 1909, and was buried at Cedar Hill Cemetery, Hartford, Connecticut.{{sfn|Stanton|Gordon|1997|p=415}}{{cite web |title=Emily P. Collins |url=https://rrlc.org/winningthevote/biographies/emily-p-collins/ |publisher=Rochester Regional Library Council |access-date=3 January 2019}} In addition to her sons, she had three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.{{sfn|Daughters of the American Revolution|1905|p=430}}
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
=Attribution=
- {{Source-attribution| {{cite book|author=Daughters of the American Revolution|title=The American Monthly Magazine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Df4KAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA425|edition=Public domain|volume=28|year=1905|publisher=R.R. Bowker Company}} }}
- {{Source-attribution| {{cite book|author=Daughters of the American Revolution|title=Lineage Book - National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L2sZAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA149|edition=Public domain|year=1919|publisher=Daughters of the American Revolution}} }}
- {{Source-attribution| {{cite book|last=Herndon|first=Richard|editor=Richard Burton|title=Men of progress ; biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in and of the state of Connecticut|url=https://archive.org/details/menprogressbiog00burtgoog|page=[https://archive.org/details/menprogressbiog00burtgoog/page/n113 103]|edition=Public domain|year=1898|publisher=New England magazine}} }}
- {{Source-attribution| {{cite book|last1=Willard|first1=Frances Elizabeth|last2=Livermore|first2=Mary Ashton Rice|title=A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life|chapter=Emily Parmely Collins |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Woman_of_the_Century/Emily_Parmely_Collins|edition=Public domain|year=1893|publisher=Moulton}} }}
=Bibliography=
- {{cite book|last1=Stanton|first1=Elizabeth Cady|last2=Gordon|first2=Ann Dexter|title=The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: When clowns make laws for queens, 1880-1887|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=swByA6qRq6AC&pg=PA415|year=1997|publisher=Rutgers University Press|isbn=978-0-8135-2320-0}}
External links
- {{Internet Archive author |sname=Emily Parmely Collins}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Collins, Emily Parmely}}
Category:Abolitionists from New York (state)
Category:Temperance activists from New York (state)
Category:19th-century American educators
Category:19th-century American women educators
Category:19th-century American writers
Category:19th-century American women writers
Category:American women's rights activists
Category:Burials at Cedar Hill Cemetery (Hartford, Connecticut)
Category:Daughters of the American Revolution people
Category:People from Ontario County, New York
Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from A Woman of the Century