Florence Howe Hall: The Brief History of a Famous Suffragist’s Life and Attachment to High Bridge

by Priscilla Racke, Managing Editor

“It all seemed so simple and so friendly – it was done with much care; one could hardly realize that this was the end of the ‘battle for the ballot,’ for which suffragists had striven against obliquy and scorn during seventy-two years.”

Florence Howe Hall on casting her first vote in High Bridge

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There are some locations in High Bridge where you can catch a view that seems to open a window onto the town’s past. I’ve paused in the course of sunrise ramblings in spots that palpably suggested to me characters met in the course of my research. Sometimes this is a contextual suggestion; how could I traverse Beavers Street without a thought for Peter A. Beavers, the accomplished lawyer and civil servant who single-handedly broke up a tavern riot simple by writing down people’s names? (More on that another time.)

There’s a vantage point at the site of 1 Main Street, looking southward down the incoming rail line, which reminds me of someone else from yesteryear. This person was Florence Howe Hall, a noted suffragist, author, public speaker, club woman. Why it is this spot in particular that invites me to reflect on her life and legacy, I’m not sure, although in her years as a part-time resident of High Bridge, she must have come home to our little borough many times over this stretch of track. I can imagine her gaze directed out of the train window, searching the faces at the station or on the street for her grandchildren. Her arrival in the first days of November 1920 must have held entirely different import for her, as it did for the history of our town: a prominent suffragist, heir to the burdens and blessings of Julia Ward Howe’s campaign for The Vote, coming home to cast her first vote in High Bridge.

The events of Florence’s life and activities in High Bridge have not been remembered through the years. In what follows, I will attempt to recount for you a lost history, rediscovered by the application of only a small measure of the determination and dedication shown by the visionary women who have come before us.

Background and Early Life

“Someone has said that it is hard to live under the shadow of a great name. It has been my privilege and happiness to live, not under the shadow, but in the light of two honored names, those of my father and mother. They were honored and beloved because of their own love for and service to their fellow men.”

Florence Howe Hall, Memories Grave and Gay

Florence Howe Hall (1845-1922) was reared by parents of international significance in a home graced by the social movements of some of the most famous and influential people of the day, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Frederick Douglass, Charles Sumner, Henry Ward Beecher, Lucy Stone, Oliver Wendall Holmes, Edwin Booth, Charles Dickens, and the Agassiz brothers.

Florence’s mother, Julia Ward Howe (author of “Battle Hymn of the Republic”) was an accomplished poet and influential abolitionist, but also one of the earliest architects of the women’s suffrage movement in America, instrumental in founding a few of its most enduring organizations.

Samuel Gridley Howe, Florence’s father, was cool on the subject of women’s advancement, but worked tirelessly against the institution of slavery and persistently made personal sacrifices in causes related to the relief of refugees and oppressed peoples. He is most famous for his success in establishing the first program of language acquisition and education for the deafblind, its efficacy proven in the case of famous pupil Laura Bridgeman and further realized by the remarkable achievements of Anne Sullivan and Helen Keller. He accomplished this great work as a founding director of the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston, where Florence Marion Howe was born.

Florence’s very name reflected her family’s high breeding and international impact. “Florence” was for Florence Nightingale, her godmother.¹ “Marion” was for her ancestor, General Francis Marion (“The Swamp Fox”) of Revolutionary War fame. Florence, or “Flossy,” as she was nicknamed, was educated both at home and in private schools in Boston, including the famed Agassiz school. She was one of five surviving children in the household, all of whom grew to adults of distinction: the sisters in literary and advocacy pursuits, and their brother in an extraordinary scientific career, also significant to High Bridge, as I’ll explain later.

A Career in Public Affairs

Flossy established herself in young adulthood as a worker for charitable causes. After marrying lawyer David Prescott Hall, also of a storied and influential family, she lived with her family for many years in Scotch Plains and then Plainfield, New Jersey. It was the Hall family habit to spend summers in the Howe family establishment, “Oak Glen,” near Pourtsmouth, Rhode Island, as the New Jersey summers were rather too warm for Florence. The couple pursued community improvements together in Scotch Plains, being instrumental in the founding of a public library and the erection of a new school building.²

During these years, Florence established herself as an authority on etiquette and social bearing, on which topics she wrote syndicated articles for papers all over the country. To these she added articles in magazines, material for children, plays and humorous short works, and numerous books on the subjects of social behavior and the history of her parents. A work in this latter vein, a biography of their mother, that she wrote with her sisters earned the three of them the first Pulitzer Prize in Biography in the year 1917, a year in which High Bridge claimed Florence as a part-time resident.³

The occupations that busied her most outside of raising four children and writing were that of Club Woman and Veteran Lecturer. The focus of both of these activities was the advancement of women and the cause of equal suffrage. Florence was engaged in the establishment of numerous vibrant associations, and held high-ranking positions in a dozen or more such organizations (many still in existence today!), including the New Jersey State Suffrage Association, the New Jersey General Federation of Women’s Clubs, city-based Equal Suffrage Leagues, the Continental Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution, the Monday Afternoon Club of Plainfield, the Women’s Auxiliary, The Plainfield Branch of the National Alliance of Unitarian and Other Christian Women, various Women’s Republican Club(s), and the Garden Club of High Bridge, NJ.

She collaborated throughout her adulthood with her sisters but was foremost among her siblings in the suffrage work begun by their mother. Besides the speeches she made directly in pursuit of her club and federation work, Mrs. Florence Howe Hall became something of a household name among progressive families in New Jersey and other states to which she traveled on her lecturing circuit. The Official Register and Directory of the Women’s Clubs in America published for many years a registry of speakers available for lectures in their areas of expertise. From 1911-1918, Florence Howe Hall appeared in this register as a speaker on topics such as “The Citizen and Her Duties,” “Famous Women I Have Met,” “Women and the Peace Movement,” “The Ballot and the Home,” and “The Awakening of Man, our Brother.” For four of these years, Florence’s address was given as High Bridge. These listings document her association with our “picturesque New Jersey borough,” as she wrote of it in her 1918 memoir, Memories Grave and Gay.⁴

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High Bridge Activism

This chapter of her life began at the instigation of her youngest son, John Howe Hall. Having seen her only daughter and two older sons married by 1909, Florence was a widowed empty-nester, feeling lonely. John, a bachelor almost thirty years old, was a metallurgist in the employ of Taylor Iron and Steel. He asked his mother to live with him in High Bridge, and it seems that High Bridge became her principal address until John’s career took him to New York in 1913. She still “summered” elsewhere, as noted in the press. Florence wrote lovingly of High Bridge in her memoir after this period: “One becomes readily attached to the quaint little town.”⁵

From mid-1910 until her death in High Bridge on April 10, 1922, Florence Howe Hall lived off and on in High Bridge, in a home shared with John and his family after he returned from New York and married in 1915. John wrote: “[I] removed to High Bridge with my mother,” and then commenced a swift courtship that resulted in his marriage in November of that year.⁶ From that point forward Florence’s residence in High Bridge was probably intermittent due to the innumerable activities she continued to juggle in New Jersey, New York, and New England.

This constant movement hither and thither was not only a side effect of Florence’s career, but a family trait noted by Florence in her memoir as “The Migratory Habits of the Howe Family.” In that memoir she referred to the years after her husband’s death in 1907 as “The Wander Years.”⁷ Though she was advancing in age when she first came to High Bridge to live, she was still in her prime of lecturing, speech-making, and lobbying. The years 1911 and 1912 seem to have been especially busy for her, and several notable events occurred.

Florence never rested on her laurels at home in High Bridge; in this place, as in all others, she energetically made her mark. By 1912 Florence was president of the High Bridge Garden Club, an organization of High Bridge ladies formed to affect the beautification of the town and its civic development. Besides organizing lectures and entertainments, the Club frequently sent shipments of bouquets by the hundreds to be distributed at hospitals in New York City.The Plainfield Courier-News remarked on her election to the presidency:

The new president of the club, Mrs. Florence Howe Hall, was tendered a reception. She is a resident of High Bridge, but formerly resided in Plainfield. Mrs. Hall is a prominent woman’s club worker and is interested in the suffrage movement for women in the State, being the honorary president of the organization.¹¹

A main focus of the Garden Club during Florence’s time as president was the establishment of the first High Bridge Public library. It was the club’s idea to confer with Taylor-Wharton on hosting the library temporarily on their premises.

Following quickly on the heels of her election to the presidency of that club, Florence delivered the chief address at the 27^th annual convention of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union of Hunterdon County, held in the High Bridge Reformed Church. Her speech was on “The Ballot and the Home.”¹² Florence was speaking regularly here in High Bridge and “almost daily throughout the State at similar gatherings,” reported the Plainfield Courier-News.¹³ It went on to say that she had “been asked to form a league of progressive women in High Bridge.” This statement was elucidated by an item in the High Bridge Gazette on Oct 31, 1912. It says that a “large number of women interested in the Progressive party were entertained” in the L.H. Taylor Hose House, that they heard Florence speak after an address given by Plainfield activist Mrs. E. F. Feickert, and that Florence was then elected chairman.

In addition to this, “Mrs. Hall was asked by Lambert Reed of Lambertville, chairman of the Hunterdon county committee, to correspond with and organize the Progressive women in the other towns of the county.”¹⁴ Unfortunately, the precise name of the organization behind these developments was not explicitly given. Another committee was formed pursuant to Mrs. Feickert’s recommendation that the women be ready to work with the corresponding men’s group in High Bridge, “should their services be desired.” Florence was elected chair to this committee and appointed to the county committee.¹⁵ The Gazette also reported that like-minded women from Plainfield and Somerville were expected to tour Hunterdon County, putting in an appearance at High Bridge in decorated cars, at which time they would distribute literature and make speeches.

Brother and Son

Florence was not the only member of the Howe family active in High Bridge at the time. The Howe connection with High Bridge, now anchored by her feminine influence, actually dated back to 1890, when Florence’s brilliant brother, Dr. Henry Marion Howe, was working on the introduction to the United States of Manganese steel, newly developed in England. The then-head of the Taylor Iron Works, William J. Taylor, met Dr. Howe – and evidently the steel’s inventor as well – at a hotel in Bethlehem, PA. The men discussed a new use for the Manganese steel that eventually resulted in the formation of a new company: the Taylor Iron and Steel Company, or TISCO. Dr. Henry Howe was a founding member and Vice President of TISCO and held many of its shares.¹⁶

Presumably, Dr. Howe’s tie to the company had some part in the beginning of John Howe Hall’s career at TISCO (John was Henry’s nephew), which continued through the formation of Taylor-Wharton while he and his mother were living in High Bridge in September 1912. After leaving Harvard in 1904 John Howe Hall had worked at a couple of steel and casting companies in Pennsylvania and New York before coming to TISCO as a “metallographist” in 1906. John lived near the plant with a handful of other bachelors (in a house colloquially known as the “Crucible Club”) until his mother joined him. He served as a volunteer firefighter for the company and worked his way up to the position of metallurgist “in full charge of laboratories.”¹⁷ By the beginning of 1913, John was ready to try for an advance of his career. He swapped his position in the plant for a consulting job with Taylor-Wharton in engineering and went to New York to deal with other companies and work on his first book, The Steel Foundry.

Wander Years

John’s transition away from High Bridge paused Florence’s association with the borough for the space of a couple of years, though she did not stay away entirely. Remaining the president of the Garden Club, she returned for meetings at least on some occasions. The Plainfield Courier-News reported:

Great regret is expressed at the removal of Mrs. Hall from High Bridge to New York City, and all interested in the club hope she will remain in office. It is a great advantage to the organization to have such an able woman at the head of it. Mrs. Hall is a most energetic worker and during her residence in High Bridge she has always taken a great interest in the Garden Club.¹⁸

Such constant fluctuation of residence would wear on many people, but Florence never seemed to falter. Her exit from High Bridge simply refocused her personal force into the political canvassing of New York City from 1913-1915. She lived periodically at elegant Washington Square addresses, in the home of her son, Dr. Henry Marion Hall, and habitually “folded her tent and moved silently”¹⁹ to Rhode Island on frequent occasions.

From 1915 onward it is likely that Florence considered High Bridge her primary and permanent home. Although she still owned the home at 910 Madison Avenue in Plainfield, her reliance on her youngest son seems to have been the most consistent domestic thread winding through her final years. Through the Plainfield paper, which always maintained an active interest in her activities, one can see that the First World War had her knitting for soldiers and speaking in Liberty Loan drives. In 1918 the Courier-News printed that Mrs. Florence Howe Hall had “been living for some years past at High Bridge, N.J.”²⁰ Still, clues to her presence in other locations pop up here and there, like a reference to the organization of the Newport County Women’s Republican Club in Rhode Island. She was on the Executive Board and later Vice President.

The First Vote

Florence Howe Hall “folded her tent” on perhaps the most monumental occasion of her life when she left Oak Glen on or about Halloween of 1920 to return to High Bridge. It must have been a surreal journey for her, departing the veil of the old family home that held so many memories of her mother, journeying this time not for a speech or convention or club – not for public speaking – but for private speaking of the most cherished kind. She came home to High Bridge to vote. From the Courier-News:

It was a proud moment for her, for all her life she had looked forward to the day when women should vote, having drawn her first inspiration as a suffragist, from her mother, the late Julia Ward Howe, who for fifty years worked and lectured for equal suffrage.

Florence herself wrote:

“’Florence Hall!’ I gave my name thus reduced to its simplest form, to the ballot clerk, sitting at his desk in the voting precinct at High Bridge, N.J. He handed me a folded sheet of paper, with which I retired to the muslin polling booth, and having made twenty crosses in the proper places (as I hope), refolded the ballot and handed it back to the gentleman, who folded it still smaller, and poked it into the ballot box. That was all there was to do.”²¹

Florence Howe Hall, describing the experience of voting

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Final Years

Now seventy-five years old, Florence was within two years of her death, but she wasn’t done working. Herbert Hoover’s humanitarian work in Europe had galvanized American communities to supply foreign relief in the years following WWI. “Hoover Dinners” or “Hooverized” Dinners became a popular method of fundraising. In accordance with Hoover’s recommendations for food conservation, these affairs were almost sure to have been meatless. High Bridge had its own Hoover Dinner on January 26, 1921, netting an impressive $1,000 for the relief of starving children overseas, the Red Cross, and the European Relief Council.²² That sum is about $15,000 in today’s money. A news item out of High Bridge credits the impetus for the dinner to Florence Howe Hall.

Other items relating to Mrs. Hall’s activities for the rest of 1921 indicate that she remained active in some of her geographically scattered clubs, like the Daughters of the American Revolution and Republican Club(s), and probably stayed as busy as could be expected at 76 years of age. It reportedly came as a shock when she died on April 10, 1922 in High Bridge, after a short bout of pneumonia, the same disease that claimed the life of her mother.

Papers all over the country printed the news of her death, many through the Associated Press wire. Florence was always noted for her parentage first, and her work for suffrage second, but papers in New Jersey and Rhode Island were able to eulogize her more personally. They painted a picture of a refined woman who was confident and assertive, yet graceful, humble, and prudent. The High Bridge Gazette had a unique perspective on her contribution to Woman’s advancement:

“She has been a factor of true and progressive education in High Bridge. Many of our daughters, wives, and mothers who looked askance at suffrage have lived to cast their ballot in peace, dignity, and safety, proud to have citizenship with her who was such a loyal and constant advocate of the enfranchisement of women.”²³

The High Bridge Gazette on the death of Florence Howe Hall

The success resulting from her tireless work stands as a monument to her consistency and persistence.

The Woman She was

Florence’s dedication to her cause attests to a great patience and contentedness in her work that was not shared equally among her cohorts in the suffrage movement. Florence seems to have always been an earnest but conciliatory advocate of peaceful methods within the movement, speaking publicly and urgently in opposition to those agitating for extreme or violent measures. She elevated always the pen above the sword, proclaiming that the long application of slow and steady pressure would bring about the desired result.

Her philosophy was in line, not with a militant feminism that vilifies men, but with a kindly view toward them as distinct but equal creatures – neither above nor below women – in their rights. She held a long view on the subject and displayed a wariness of organizations that imposed a segregation of the sexes in their suffrage. Her idea demanded the integration of women into politics with men, not the maintenance of a separate sphere. With this reflection, the Courier-News bid her farewell:

“For all her distinctions the results of her literary attainments, and the honors conferred upon her for her talents, Mrs. Hall was an example of modest bearing, diverting from herself popular acclaim, preferring to do her work quietly with the pen, and let its force be felt for what it was worth in the great outer world. She…leaves a valued heritage of noble memory to her children.”²⁴

With equal tenderness, the High Bridge Gazette reflected:

“A most interesting picture was this lady, past three score and ten, little in structure but large in attainment…. She was a worthy and gifted daughter of great parents, inheriting their qualities of mind and heart. It has been good for her to dwell among us and her going is a great loss to us all.”²⁵

“An Atmosphere All Its Own”

High Bridge is a picturesque New Jersey borough, some fifty-odd miles from New York….To those knowing only the flatlands of eastern Jersey, this region with its rolling country and lovely views comes as a surprise…. High Bridge has an atmosphere all its own. One becomes readily attached to the quaint little town.

Florence Howe Hall, Memories Grave and Gay

Florence Howe Hall’s experience in discovering High Bridge and forming an attachment to it is still common to this day, as new residents join us frequently. But this pocket-sized geographical space, though beautiful and endearing, is inanimate; it is up to us to pour ourselves into it and give it life. As we do, it gives us solid ground to root in, even as it beguiles others to join us in our work here. And our work here now, as it was in Flossy’s time, is to build, support, and enjoy a vibrant community in which we know and honor our history even as we link arms in common hopes for the future. May we, in the words of Florence herself, “pass on to our descendants the lighted torch received from our predecessors, glowing ever brighter with the fervor inspired by the heroic deeds of the present hour… an imperative duty and a splendid privilege.”

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[1] “Mrs. Florence Howe Hall,” The Homemaker: An Illustrated Monthly Mag, Volumes 9-10, 1892, New York Public Library, Digitized Oct. 21, 2014

[2] “Mrs. Florence Howe Hall,” The Homemaker: An Illustrated Monthly Mag, Volumes 9-10, 1892, New York Public Library, Digitized Oct. 21, 2014

[3] Helen M. Winslow, Official Register and Directory of the Women’s Clubs in America. Boston, Mass: Helen M. Winslow, 1922. v. 19 (1917): pgs. 275, 293, 309.

[4] Florence Howe Hall. Memories Grave and Gay. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1918: pg. 316.

[5] Florence Howe Hall. Memories Grave and Gay. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1918: pg. 316.

[6] Harvard College. Class of 1903: Quindecennial Report. Norwood, Mass.: Plimpton Press, 1920: pg. 128.

[7] Florence Howe Hall. Memories Grave and Gay. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1918: Table of Contents.

[8] “Women Ask Governor for View on the Ballot for Women,” Passaic Daily Herald. (Passaic, NJ) 4 Nov 1911.

[9] “Suffragettes at Trenton,” Plainfield Courier-News. (Plainfield, NJ) 13 Mar 1912.

[10] “10,000 March in Suffrage Parade,” The Boston Sunday Globe. 5 May 1912.

[11] “High Bridge,” Plainfield Courier-News. (Plainfield, NJ) 21 Sep 1912.

[12] “High Bridge,” Plainfield Courier-News. (Plainfield, NJ) 19 Sep 1912.

[13] “High Bridge,” Plainfield Courier-News. (Plainfield, NJ) 26 Oct 1912.

[14] “Women Organize,” High Bridge Gazette. (High Bridge, NJ) 31 Oct 1912.

[15] “Women Organize,” High Bridge Gazette. (High Bridge, NJ) 31 Oct 1912.

[16] “Certificate of Organization of Taylor Iron and Steel Company,” 7 Apr 1875.

[17] Harvard College. Class of 1903. Decennial Report. [S.l.: s.n.], 1913. pg. 216.

[18] “High Bridge,” Plainfield Courier-News. (Plainfield, NJ) 13 Feb 1913.

[19] Florence Howe Hall. Memories Grave and Gay. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1918: pg. 13

[20] “Making Her Home in New York,” Plainfield Courier-News (Plainfield, NJ) 06 Dec 1918.

[21] “Florence Howe Hall, Suffragist, Describes Sensation of Voting,” Plainfield Courier-News (Plainfield, NJ) 18 Nov 1920.

[22] “Gave Hoover Party at High Bridge,” Plainfield Courier-News. (Plainfield, NJ) 03 Feb 1921.

[23] “Florence Howe Hall,” High Bridge Gazette (High Bridge, NJ) 13 Apr 1922.

[24] “Pneumonia Fatal to Mrs. F.H. Hall,” Plainfield Courier-News. (Plainfield, NJ) 11 Apr 1922.

[25] “Florence Howe Hall,” High Bridge Gazette (High Bridge, NJ) 13 Apr 1922.