Susan B. Anthony Papers
Catalog Record: http://lccn.loc.gov/mm78011049
General International Standard for Archival Description
Manuscript Division Library of Congress Washington, D.C.
Finding aid encoded by Library of Congress Manuscript Division, 1998
Encoded Archival Description
Encoded Archival Description (EAD) Version 2002
collection
Susan B. Anthony Papers1846-1934 (bulk 1846-1906)
Anthony, Susan B. (Susan Brownell), 1820-1906
Biographical History for: Susan B. Anthony Papers1846-1934 (bulk 1846-1906)
Biographical Note Date Event 1820, Feb. 15 Born near Adams, Mass. 1837-1838 Student, Friends seminary near Philadelphia, Pa. 1839 Teacher, Eunice Kenyon's Friends Seminary, New Rochelle, N.Y. 1846 Headmistress, Female Department, Canajoharie Academy, Rochester, N.Y. 1848 Joined the Daughters of Temperance in Canajorarie, N.Y.; by Mar. 1849 had become Presiding Sister of the Montgomery Union, No. 29, of the Daughters of Temperance in Canajoharie, a position she also held after moving to Rochester, N.Y., and joining that city's union in mid-1849 1849 Managed family farm 1851 Met Elizabeth Cady Stanton 1852 Formed the Woman's New York State Temperance Society 1853 Helped organize the “Whole World's Temperance Convention” Helped a group of Rochester, N.Y., seamstresses draft a code of fair wages for working women in the city 1854 Organized and participated in a canvass to obtain signatures on petitions demanding woman suffrage and improvement of the Married Woman's Property Law in New York 1856 Principal New York agent, American Anti-Slavery Society 1866 Corresponding secretary, American Equal Rights Association 1868-1870 Published the Revolution, a weekly periodical edited by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others 1869 Organized a woman's suffrage convention, Washington, D.C. Formed, with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the National Woman Suffrage Association 1872 Voted illegally for president 1876 Presented a “Woman's Declaration of 1876” with two colleagues at the Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia, Pa. 1881-1902 Financed and coedited first four volumes of History of Woman Suffrage (New York, Fowler & Wells, 1881-[1922] 6 vols.) 1888 Founded the International Council of Women 1890 Settled in Rochester, N.Y. Vice president at large, National American Woman Suffrage Association 1892-1900 President, National American Woman Suffrage Association 1892 Trustee, State Industrial School, Rochester, N.Y. 1895-1896 Campaigned in California to secure the vote for women 1898 Collaborated in the preparation of The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Indianapolis, Bowen-Merrill Co., 1898-1908. 3 vols.), by Ida H. Harper 1900 Helped open the University of Rochester, N.Y., to women 1904 Founded, with Carrie Chapman Catt, the International Woman Suffrage Alliance 1906, Mar. 13 Died, Rochester, N.Y.
Scope and Content Note The papers of Susan Brownell Anthony (1820-1906) span the period from 1846 to 1934, although the bulk of the material dates from 1846 to 1906. The papers include correspondence, a daybook, diaries, scrapbooks, speeches, and miscellaneous items. A volume of correspondence is dated 1846-1905 and consists primarily of Anthony's letters to Rachel Foster Avery concerning the details of Anthony's extensive lecture circuit, her finances, the activities of the National Woman Suffrage Association, and her work on the multivolume History of Woman Suffrage which she coedited with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others. The file also includes several letters from Anthony to the Reverend Anna Howard Shaw and letters from Wendell Phillips. Although most letters concern suffrage, a few deal with personal and family matters. A daybook, 1856-1860, records the financial account Anthony kept of her work for the American Anti-Slavery Society, woman's rights, and personal expenditures for postage, room and board, travel, advertising, rent for lecture halls, and other items. Twenty-five volumes of diaries span the period from 1865 to 1906 with some gaps and omissions. For the most part, the diaries contain brief notations of Anthony's activities and a financial record kept in the back of each volume. Other topics noted in the diaries include family matters, African-American and woman suffrage, lecture tours, and important events of the day, such as Lincoln's assassination. Among her associates mentioned in the diaries are Amelia Jenks Bloomer, Lucretia Mott, Parker Pillsbury, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucy Stone. Six scrapbooks assembled by her sister, Mary S. Anthony, contain clippings from newspapers published in all parts of the United States with a heavy concentration of those from New York state and Washington, D.C. Memorabilia for the period 1876-1934 is also included. The scrapbooks primarily document the activities of Susan B. and Mary S. Anthony in behalf of woman suffrage, especially the conventions of the National Woman Suffrage Association and the New York State Woman Suffrage Association. The scrapbooks also contain biographical articles on Anthony and her associates in the suffrage movement and articles on women in higher education and professional employment, particularly in law, medicine, and journalism. Manuscripts of speeches and other writings complete the collection. Anthony's early focus was temperance and abolition as well as women's suffrage and education. The manuscripts date from her first public address in 1848 to 1895 when she was presented with part one of Elizabeth Cady Stanton's The Woman's Bible (New York, European Pub. Co., 1895-1898). Two letters were added to the collection in 1997. A photocopy of a letter dated 1883 from Anthony to Mary Kimball Rogers concerns a speech she thought had been lost in Omaha, Nebraska. A typed letter dated 1896 from Anthony to Adelaide Johnson concerns the charges of illegality that were raised when Johnson's marriage ceremony was performed by a woman. Anthony's lobbying effort to have statues placed in the United States Capitol of herself, Stanton, and Mott as the founders of the woman suffrage movement is also noted in her letter to Johnson.
series
Correspondence, 1846-1905
Letters to and from Anthony.
file
Bound volume
Daybook and Diaries, 1856-1906
One daybook and twenty-five diaries.
Daybook, 1856-1860
Diaries
Scrapbooks, 1876-1934
Six volumes and two folders of clippings and memorabilia.
Clippings, 1890-1934
National American Woman Suffrage Association Convention programs, 1905-1906
Speeches and Writings, 1848-1895
Speeches by Anthony. Also includes The Woman's Bible, part one, by Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
List of speeches
1848, first public address
1852, speech delivered at Batavia, N.Y., in company with Emily Clark (2 copies)
1852, The Church and the Liquor Traffic
Apr. 17, Maine Law
June 27, Expediency
1856, Report on Educating the Sexes Together, written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and delivered by Anthony at the New York State Teachers Convention, Troy, N.Y.
1858, speech, Union Agricultural Society, Yates County Fair, Dundee, N.Y.
undated 1859, Make the Slave's Case Our Own
The No Union with Slave-holders Campaign
What Is American Slavery?
Judge Taney
1862, speech on emancipation
1877, Homes of Single Women
1895, The Woman's Bible (part 1) by Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Addition, 1883-1896
Two letters by Anthony.
Letters, 1883, 1896