california history - California Historical Society
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Significant Others:The Defining Domestic Life ofCaroline Seymour SeveranceBy Diana TittleCaroline Seymour Severance, aleading national proponent ofwomen’s rights, is best knownregionally as a pioneering settlerof Los Angeles credited with having establishedthe city’s first kindergarten, first Unitarianchurch, and first women’s club. Yet, only ahandful of scholarly articles—and no biographyto date—document her significant accomplishmentsduring a sixty-year career as an organizerand reformer that began in 1840s Cleveland,Ohio, with her admiring newspaper reviews ofbooks and lectures by New England abolitionistsand literary figures, and ended with her honoraryleadership of California’s suffrage movement inthe early twentieth century.It was in Boston, where Severance lived from1855 to 1875 and worked alongside such wellknownreformers as William Lloyd Garrison,Julia Ward Howe, and Lucy Stone on a variety ofcauses and projects aimed at securing the fullrights of citizenship for all Americans, that shefirst secured her place in history. Inspired bythe critical role female volunteers for the U.S.Sanitary Commission had played in supportingthe Union forces, she conceived of and helpedto establish the New England Women’s Club in1868. Her idea that a “sisterhood of women”could serve as a “striking force for their ownbetterment, and as a bulwark against injustice”spread across the country, giving birth to thousandsof women’s organizations devoted to civicreform and self-improvement and changing thecountry’s socioeconomic landscape forever. 1Severance herself introduced the concept of thewomen’s social-action club to Los Angeles in thelate 1870s. It was her entrepreneurial husband’slast-ditch hopes of striking it rich in Californiathat had brought her, somewhat reluctantly, tothe state in 1875. This finding and other insightsinto how her formative or longtime personalrelationships with her guardians, spouse, andchildren influenced her public life have emergedfrom recent research on the Cleveland Severances—thefamily of progressive Presbyteriansinto which Caroline married in 1840—andare documented in these pages. They paint anespecially vivid portrait of Caroline’s husband,Theodoric Cordenio Severance, to whom sheforthrightly said she owed a great deal of inspi- California History • volume 88 number 1 2010
ation and encouragement, and shed new lighton how the dynamics and tensions of Caroline’sprivate life spurred on the woman who deservesmore prominent recognition than as the “motherof clubs.”A Buoyant PersonalityTheodoric Cordenio Severance was the “mostjolly and genial person imaginable.” Neither thegravitas of his given name nor the tragedy thatmarred his adolescence had affected his “merrydisposition.” The second child of Robert Bruceand Diana Long Severance, he was born inShelburne township in western Massachusettson March 1, 1814. His father, a physician whosePuritan ancestors had come to MassachusettsBay Colony around 1634, named his son inhonor of an accomplished medieval surgeon. Tomake ends meet, Robert Severance operated ageneral store adjoining his home in the hamletof Shelburne Center. The nearest competitor wassix miles away, but Severance’s store never trulythrived. According to his family and friends,Robert’s “whole thought and study was given tohis profession.” 2Theodoric Cordenio and his older brother, SolomonLewis, assisted their father in running thestore. The younger boy soon gained a nickname,T.C., which better suited his buoyant personalityand quick wit.Caroline Seymour Severance (1820–1914) was at theforefront of almost every major progressive reform effortundertaken during the nineteenth century. Yet her name isnot as well known today as those of Lucy Stone, Julia WardHowe, and Susan B. Anthony, her sister abolitionists andwomen’s rights leaders. Though Caroline herself modestlydiscounted her contributions and accomplishments, writingat midlife, “I have done so little to justify my years,” herrole as a trailblazer—particularly for women’s suffrage—distinguishes her as a pioneering California social reformer.Library of Congress1
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Significant Others:The Defining Domestic Life ofCaroline Seymour SeveranceBy Diana TittleCaroline Seymour Severance, aleading national proponent ofwomen’s rights, is best knownregionally as a pioneering settlerof Los Angeles credited with having establishedthe city’s first kindergarten, first Unitarianchurch, and first women’s club. Yet, only ahandful of scholarly articles—and no biographyto date—document her significant accomplishmentsduring a sixty-year career as an organizerand reformer that began in 1840s Cleveland,Ohio, with her admiring newspaper reviews ofbooks and lectures by New England abolitionistsand literary figures, and ended with her honoraryleadership of <strong>California</strong>’s suffrage movement inthe early twentieth century.It was in Boston, where Severance lived from1855 to 1875 and worked alongside such wellknownreformers as William Lloyd Garrison,Julia Ward Howe, and Lucy Stone on a variety ofcauses and projects aimed at securing the fullrights of citizenship for all Americans, that shefirst secured her place in <strong>history</strong>. Inspired bythe critical role female volunteers for the U.S.Sanitary Commission had played in supportingthe Union forces, she conceived of and helpedto establish the New England Women’s Club in1868. Her idea that a “sisterhood of women”could serve as a “striking force for their ownbetterment, and as a bulwark against injustice”spread across the country, giving birth to thousandsof women’s organizations devoted to civicreform and self-improvement and changing thecountry’s socioeconomic landscape forever. 1Severance herself introduced the concept of thewomen’s social-action club to Los Angeles in thelate 1870s. It was her entrepreneurial husband’slast-ditch hopes of striking it rich in <strong>California</strong>that had brought her, somewhat reluctantly, tothe state in 1875. This finding and other insightsinto how her formative or longtime personalrelationships with her guardians, spouse, andchildren influenced her public life have emergedfrom recent research on the Cleveland Severances—thefamily of progressive Presbyteriansinto which Caroline married in 1840—andare documented in these pages. They paint anespecially vivid portrait of Caroline’s husband,Theodoric Cordenio Severance, to whom sheforthrightly said she owed a great deal of inspi- <strong>California</strong> History • volume 88 number 1 2010
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