The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV

Susan B. (Susan Brownell) Anthony, Ida Husted Harper

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• Publié par: ebbi
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 45
• Langue: English
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Project Gutenberg's The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV, by Various
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Title: The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV
Author: Various
Editor: Susan B. Anthony
Ida Husted Harper
Release Date: August 31, 2009 [EBook #29870]
Language: English
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T H E H I S T O R Y
O F
W OMAN S UFFRAGE
EDITED BYSUSAN B. ANTHONY &
IDA HUSTED HARPER
ILLUSTRATED WITH COPPERPLATE AND PHOTOGRAVURE
ENGRAVINGS
IN FOUR VOLUMES
VOL. IV.
1883-1900
"PERFECT EQUALITY OF RIGHTS FOR WOMAN, CIVIL, LEGAL
AND POLITICAL"
SUSAN B. ANTHONY
17 MADISON STREET, ROCHESTER, N. Y.
COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY SUSAN B. ANTHONY
THE HOLLENBECK PRESS
INDIANAPOLIS* * * * Make me respect my material so much that I dare
not slight my work. Help me to deal very honestly with
words and with people, because they are both alive.
Show me that, as in a river, so in writing, clearness is
the best quality, and a little that is pure is worth more
than much that is mixed. Teach me to see the local
color without being blind to the inner light. Give me an
ideal that will stand the strain of weaving into human
stuff on the loom of the real. Keep me from caring more
for books than for folks, for art than for life. Steady me to
do my full stint of work as well as I can, and when that
is done, stop me, pay me what wages thou wilt, and
help me to say from a quiet heart a grateful Amen.
HENRY VAN DYKE.
[Pg v]
PREFACE
After the movement for woman suffrage, which commenced about the middle of
the nineteenth century, had continued for twenty-five years, the feeling became
strongly impressed upon its active promoters, Miss Susan B. Anthony and Mrs.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, that the records connected with it should be secured to
posterity. With Miss Anthony, indeed, the idea had been ever present, and from
the beginning she had carefully preserved as far as possible the letters,
speeches and newspaper clippings, accounts of conventions and legislative
and congressional reports. By 1876 they were convinced through variouscircumstances that the time had come for writing the history. So little did they
foresee the magnitude which this labor would assume that they made a mutual
agreement to accept no engagements for four months, expecting to finish it
within that time, as they contemplated nothing more than a small volume,
probably a pamphlet of a few hundred pages. Miss Anthony packed in trunks
and boxes the accumulations of the years and shipped them to Mrs. Stanton's
home in Tenafly, N. J., where the two women went cheerfully to work.
Mrs. Stanton was the matchless writer, Miss Anthony the collector of material,
the searcher of statistics, the business manager, the keen critic, the detector of
omissions, chronological flaws and discrepancies in statement such as are
unavoidable even with the most careful historian. On many occasions they
called to their aid for historical facts Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage, one of the most
logical, scientific and fearless writers of her day. To Mrs. Gage Vol. I of the
History of Woman Suffrage is wholly indebted for the first two chapters
—Preceding Causes and Woman in Newspapers, and for the last chapter
—Woman, Church and State, which she later amplified in a book; and Vol. II for
the first chapter—Woman's Patriotism in the Civil War.
[Pg vi]When the allotted time had expired the work had far exceeded its original limits
and yet seemed hardly begun. Its authors were amazed at the amount of history
which already had been made and still more deeply impressed with the
desirability of preserving the story of the early struggle, but both were in the
regular employ of lecture bureaus and henceforth could give only vacations to
the task. They were entirely without the assistance of stenographers and
typewriters, who at the present day relieve brain workers of so large a part of
the physical strain. A labor which was to consume four months eventually
extended through ten years and was not completed until the closing days of
1885. The pamphlet of a few hundred pages had expanded into three great
volumes of 1,000 pages each, and enough material remained unused to fill
[1]another.
It was almost wholly due to Miss Anthony's clear foresight and painstaking
habits that the materials were gathered and preserved during all the years, and
it was entirely owing to her unequaled determination and persistence that the
History was written. The demand for Mrs. Stanton on the platform and the cares
of a large family made this vast amount of writing a most heroic effort, and one
which doubtless she would have been tempted to evade had it not been for the
relentless mentor at her side, helping to bear her burdens and overcome the
obstacles, and continually pointing out the necessity that the history of this
movement for the emancipation of women should be recorded, in justice to
those who carried it forward and as an inspiration to the workers of the future.
And so together, for a long decade, these two great souls toiled in the solitude
of home just as together they fought in the open field, not for personal gain or
glory, but for the sake of a cause to which they had consecrated their lives. Had
it not been for their patient and unselfish labor the story of the hard conditions
under which the pioneers struggled to lift woman out of her subjection, the
bitterness of the prejudice, the cruelty of the persecution, never would have
[Pg vii]been told. In all the years that have passed no one else has attempted to tell it,
and should any one desire to do so it is doubtful if, even at this early date,
enough of the records could be found for the most superficial account. In not a
library can the student who wishes to trace this movement to its beginning
obtain the necessary data except in these three volumes, which will become
still more valuable as the years go by and it nears success.
Miss Anthony began this work in 1876 without a dollar in hand for its
publication. She never had the money in advance for any of her undertakings,
but she went forward and accomplished them, and when the people saw thatthey were good they usually repaid the amount she had advanced from her
own small store. In this case she resolved to use the whole of it and all she
could earn in the future rather than not publish the History. Mrs. Elizabeth
Thompson, of New York, a generous patron of good works, gave her the first
$1,000 in 1880, but this did not cover the expenses that had been actually
incurred thus far in its preparation. She was in nowise discouraged, however,
but kept steadily on during every moment which could be spared by Mrs.
Stanton and herself, absolutely confident that in some way the necessary funds
would be obtained. Her strong faith was justified, for the first week of 1882
came a notice from Wendell Phillips that Mrs. Eliza Jackson Eddy, of Boston,
had left her a large legacy to be used according to her own judgment "for the
advancement of woman's cause." Litigation by an indirect heir deprived her of
this money for over three years, but in April, 1885, she received $24,125.
The first volume of the History had been issued in May, 1881, and the second
in April, 1882. In June, 1885, Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony set resolutely to
work and labored without ceasing until the next November, when the third
volume was sent to the publishers. With the bequest Miss Anthony paid the
debts that had been incurred, replaced her own fund, of which every dollar had
been used, and brought out this last volume. All were published at a time when
paper and other materials were at a high price. The fine steel engravings alone
cost $5,000. On account of the engagements of the editors it was necessary to
employ proofreaders and indexers, and because of the many years over which
[Pg viii]the work had stretched an immense number of changes had to be made in
composition, so that a large part of the legacy was consumed.
The money which Miss Anthony now had enabled her to carry out her
longcherished project to put this History free of charge in the public libraries. It was
thus placed in twelve hundred in the United States and Europe. Mrs. Stanton<