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| Newspaper sketch of Imogene C. Fales, delegate to the 1896 Populist Party Convention. The first women delegates to the Republican and Democratic party conventions were seated in 1900. |
One morning in September 1902, an auctioneer named P.H. McMahon arrived at 126 Macon Street, Brooklyn, to sell the contents of the home of Imogene Fales, who had died one month earlier.
Bric-a-Brac, Turkish Parlor
Suite, Pier Mirrors, Cyl-desk,
Library Dwarf Bookcases with volumes of books, Hair Mattresses,
Refrigerator, Crockery, Velvet Carpets. . .
Library Dwarf Bookcases with volumes of books, Hair Mattresses,
Refrigerator, Crockery, Velvet Carpets. . .
Imagine those volumes of
books – sociology, religion, politics, philosophy – for their owner had been a
19th century reformer.
Imogene Corinne Franciscus Fales (1830[?]-1902) worked closely with Elizabeth Cady Stanton
in the suffrage movement. She helped lead the U.S. co-operative movement, which
promoted shared production and profits; as she put it, “public ownership of
public necessities.”
She wrote
about utopia and industrialization and lectured on Darwin and the cosmos. An
adherent of New Age ideas and editor of a brief-lived journal called New Commonwealth, she participated in
numerous organizations including the Association for the Advancement of Women,
the National American Woman Suffrage Association, the Brooklyn Metaphysical
League, the Women’s National Progressive Political League, and perhaps the most
prestigious women’s club of the nineteenth century, Sorosis.*
In 1894, a New York Times story titled “Open-Air
Meeting a Fizzle” counted Imogene Fales among the speakers:
“All the old
agitators who have been denouncing capitalists in Union Square for years.”
(I love that!)
The last house she occupied still
stands with its carved oak front door and filigree iron fence and gate
bordering the sidewalk, in the neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant. From here and
other homes in Brooklyn, Imogene Fales conducted the business of her life.
She flourished within a large
circle of vibrant women who lived in New York City during the second half of
the nineteenth century. In Brooklyn, these included the author Laura Holloway
Langford; businesswoman & children’s advocate Rebecca Talbot-Perkins; “suffrage
hiker” & educator “Colonel” Ida Craft; and Girls High School principal
Catherine B. Le Row.**
These ladies were good
company, impassioned about achieving influence and power for women. Their interests
often converged; for example, Imogene lectured on “The Value of Industrial Art
to Women” at the School of Industrial Art for Women, founded by educator and
carpet designer, Florence E. Cory. Each did not necessarily embrace all of her
friends’ causes, however.
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| From the Light of Truth Album, Photographs of Prominent Workers in the Cause of Spiritualism (1897) |
When Imogene was a little girl, her family moved from Baltimore to New York City where she was educated privately. In 1850 she married Edward Spaulding Fales and moved to New Bedford.
Her husband
had been born in Matanzas, Cuba, in 1833. He came to the U.S. as a child. The
well-liked Fales spoke nine languages and became editor of the New Bedford Mercury at age 17. He
studied law and traveled through Mexico and Central America before settling in
Rio de Janeiro where he represented the firm Lanman & Kemp, wholesale
druggists known for their beauty products.***
In between Edward’s voyages, he and Imogene moved to
Brooklyn with their two sons. Edward died prematurely in 1875. After that,
Imogene sprang into action, laying plans for the Sociologic Society of America.
Formally organized in 1882 with Imogene as its president, the society issued a
statement:
What
is needed is, not so much an advance in wages, as the concession of the right
of Labor to share in profits. In other words, to introduce a new industrial
system, where Capital is restricted to a fixed rate of interest, and Labor,
over and above the market rate of wages, is allowed a share in the profits of
the business.
Imogene called it Industrial
Partnership or Co-operation. The cause would preoccupy her for the rest of her
life. But there was more – suffrage and the arts and her three children.
The eldest, William E. S.
Fales, a bon vivant, lawyer, editor,
poet, diplomat, and occasional poser, fully inhabited a Gilded Age life. In the middle,
Harrison Colby Fales became a fur merchant. Daughter Ethel, reportedly a gifted
singer on the verge of a great career, died at age 21 in 1889.
After
Ethel’s death, Imogene fled to a cottage in York Harbor, Maine, where she
grieved deeply. A year later, she returned to Brooklyn, picking up where she
left off.
Elected a delegate to the
National Populist Convention in 1896, Imogene traveled to St. Louis where the
People’s Party ensured its own demise by endorsing William Jennings Bryan as the
Democratic candidate. That was 120 years ago this summer.
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| Imogene C. Fales delivered a paper at an 1884 meeting of Sorosis. (Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College) |
See post about William E. S. Fales, 1/25/17
*Sorosis was the first U.S. women’s professional study club, founded in 1868 by journalist Jennie June Croly, who also established the Woman’s Press Club and General Federation of Women’s Clubs.
*Sorosis was the first U.S. women’s professional study club, founded in 1868 by journalist Jennie June Croly, who also established the Woman’s Press Club and General Federation of Women’s Clubs.
**Ida Craft,
a militant member of the Suffrage Pilgrim Party, routinely walked from city to
city leading an army of suffragists.
***Now known
as Lanman & Kemp-Barclay, the firm still manufactures its famous Florida
Water.
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