[Rarebooks] FS: The First Newspaper For Women's Rights, Honolulu, 1855

[Charles Agvent]

 From our new catalog containing 45 items related to WOMEN AND THEIR 
QUEST FOR EQUAL RIGHTS, recently posted on our website: 
http://www.charlesagvent.com

After a long search for this rather obscure item, we discovered two 
copies in the same city on the same weekend.  We have sold one.  This 
one is available:

DAMON, Samuel C., Seamen's Chaplain (Editor). THE FRIEND. A SEMI-MONTHLY 
JOURNAL, DEVOTED TO TEMPERANCE, MARINE AND GENERAL INTELLIGENCE 
containing within the only issue published of THE FOLIO, The First 
Newspaper For Women's Rights. Honolulu, Oahu, HI: Polynesian Press; New 
Era and Argus Office, 1855. First Edition. New Series Volume IV, Old 
Series Volume XII. Quarto (9-1/8" x 11-5/8") bound in recent 
cloth-backed marbled boards; (4), 92, 4 pages. Despite the sub-title, 
the journal was issued monthly. It includes much material of historical 
interest including the funeral of Kamehameha III and inauguration of 
Kamehameha IV, the annexation of the Sandwich Islands, and numerous 
pieces about temperance, whaling, shipwrecks. Bound at the rear is the 
only issued published of THE FOLIO, The First Newspaper For Women's 
Rights and The First Feminist Journal Published West Of The Mississippi. 
According to an article in THE HAWAIIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY (Volume XIX, 
1985)---"The Folio of 1855--A Plea for Women's Rights," by Helen G. 
Chapin and David W. Forbes---the issue "is a blend of older, more 
conventional sentiments of women's natural superiority with more radical 
and newer ideas--in other words, double messages by which women and men 
intellectually and emotionally encompass ambiguities. Nevertheless, the 
total effect is one of a vigorous feminism." The first words of the 
paper are based on the Declaration of Sentiments of the Seneca Falls 
women's rights statement: "When, in the course of human events, it 
becomes necessary for a person or class of persons to sever the ties 
with which nature or society has bound them to a certain position or 
line of conduct.... We hold it to be a self-evident fact, that man 
[italics] is possessed of certain inalienable rights, and in the 
beginning, we declare ourselves free and independent of any disposition 
to invade those rights." The tone then softens a bit and the manifesto 
declares that women will claim their rights "not with tongue or sword, 
but pen." The articles in THE FOLIO were anonymously written, but 
research indicates that the authors were likely Julia Damon, the Rev. 
Damon's wife, and Catherine Whitney, wife of Henry Whitney, editor of 
the PACIFIC COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER. The articles within include verses, 
prayers, and stories about superior women who were wives and 
mothers--even one who saved a ship at sea when her husband the captain 
suddenly became ill. In one piece the author wittily warns men about the 
volcanic fires of Mauna Loa avenging women. Light and occasional 
browning and foxing. An old dampstain affects most of the bottom half in 
some of the text, mostly toward the rear and including THE FOLIO. Still 
Near Fine and quite scarce.

This single-issue newspaper was originally designed as a handout for a 
fair sponsored by the "Ladies of the Protestant Mission" and was 
subsequently reprinted and distributed to subscribers of the FRIEND in 
its next issue, with a circulation of about 1000 copies, as represented 
here. No example of the original handout is known to have survived. 
Another 25 years passed before a women's newspaper appeared again in 
Hawaii, and it too was a single issue only and was both more 
conventional and less interesting than its forerunner. An argument can 
be made that THE FOLIO is the very first newspaper dedicated to women's 
rights published anywhere as Amelia Bloomer's THE LILY, which was first 
published in 1849, began as a temperance journal and only later began 
including articles on women's rights. (#016176)        $12,500.00

See an image of this item here:

http://home.ptd.net/~chagvent/016176.jpg

-- 
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