Daily Times [Leavenworth, KS], September 17, 1860
To the Honorable, the Mayor and Commoners of Leavenworth’s City, Greeting:
We, the undersigned residents and assistant tax-payers of this most beautiful city, respectfully petition and entreat your honorable body to so amend, alter, and repair the foundations on which we tread when exposing ourselves to the piercing gaze of corner loungers, lager bier loafers, and general street gabblers, that we shall not be cruelly compelled to elevate the lower part of our garments. Now there is but one alternative with us, either to raise our skirts full ankle high (which we dislike to do and which is very unladylike) or submit to have them torn from our persons by the protruding nails, and spikes, splinters and broken corners of the slabs, you permit to be used and called pavements. We are willing to do all in our power to beautify and adorn your city, but we will not submit that our schooled graces, and the beauties of our persons shall be made common things, and thereby lose their charms, by their inevitably frequent use when walking the streets. We cannot submit to that gentlemen; we won’t submit to it. We are no woman’s rights women; if we were we would shoulder our axe and quickly make a different sidewalk from the one you have given us; but we are not, and we freely allow you to do as you please.
If you have any regard for our happiness; if you have any regard for our long, graceful, flowing robes; if you have any regard for our pure modesty; if you expect to continue to receive the smiles and joys of our gladdened hearts; if you intend that our husbands shall not be made bankrupts by an excess of pin money for shoes and skirt binding, and finally if you have any regard for your women, you will certainly grant us the prayer of this our petition.
Yours in perfect love,
Mrs. Rose Stone,
Mrs. Blackesell Lucy,
and 98 others.
P. S.—We will keep in the house until our petition is granted.