“Something has to happen to people’s souls before they are going to give the rights of citizenship to all the people of our country, regardless of color or creed. That does not mean you have to ask them to dinner. It only means giving them the rights that go with citizenship.”

“she bore her accumulated miseries with a serene resignation, an intrepid fortitude, a true heroism of soul, of which the history of the world does not afford a brighter example.”

This poster declared, “If You Want Women to Vote in 1920 Cast Your ($.10 1.00 10.00) Ballot Now.” This poster likely urged supporters of the National Woman’s Party to donate a dime, dollar or ten dollars to support their efforts to gain passage of the 19^th Amendment before the November 1920 presidential and congressional elections.

“I believe in suffrage…. I believe in the great awakening by the womanly soul a conscience which will rise up like a flood, & sweep away the petty & effete prejudices....”

This biography of Julia Ward Howe by two of her daughters, assisted by a third, is illustrated with plates and portraits, including a facsimile manuscript of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” It won the 1917 Pulitzer Prize for Biography. Special edition, including a page handwritten by Howe on women’s suffrage. Howe refers to her first interest in suffrage “about fourteen years ago.”  She helped found the New England Woman Suffrage Association in 1868, so we date it as ca. 1892, 14 years later. But she might consider her interest in suffrage to have started a bit earlier, right around the end of the Civil War.

“I suppose you can say that anything which is obligatory is in some degree similar to communism or fascism. The only difference here is that we the people, are consulted and it is our representatives through whom we speak… I think you are a trifle emotional when you call 18 year old men, children. I think they should be allowed to vote…. Of course there are inequalities and injustices in any big undertaking.”

“I am sorry if you feel that you can not trust your government…. You can not expect always to have one man who will carry the burdens of the whole democracy and express their thinking for them. Now we have to do it for ourselves.”

“We are not alone in Korea, many nations are represented … but we have to bear the brunt … because we were spared during the last war from war in our own country and therefore today we are the strongest nation in the world.”

“A mothers’ rebellion would certainly be a novel and interesting undertaking because there would be a division even among the mothers. I do not know, nor could I tell you exactly how you could find out how many men in Congress have eighteen year old sons but I am sure there are a great many who have.”

A rich and fascinating letter by one of the twentieth century’s most powerful first ladies.

This southern broadsheet opposes women’s suffrage because of its association with racial egalitarianism and anti-Christian views. It includes photographs of Susan B. Anthony’s “Three Immediate Women Friends”—Carrie Chapman Catt, the President of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA); Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, a female Methodist minister who preceded Catt as the President of NAWSA; and Mrs. R. Jerome Jeffrey, a black resident of Rochester, who was frequently a guest at Anthony’s home. It also includes two controversial quotations by Catt and Anthony. Catt said, “Suffrage Democracy Knows no Bias of Race, Color, Creed or Sex.” In volume 2 of their History of Woman Suffrage, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony quoted the a May 1864 report of the Executive Committee of the Loyal Women’s National League, on which they both served: “Look not to Greece or Rome for heroes, nor to Jerusalem or Mecca for saints, but for the highest virtues of heroism, let us WORSHIP the black man at our feet.”[1]

The second and third pages are a reprint of an article entitled “Some Strange History” by James Callaway, first published in the Macon Daily Telegraph (Georgia) of May 26, 1918.

“From their own talk it is easy to see that it was mainly a gathering of uncomfortable females—some of whom by their own avowal are infidels—consisting of disappointed spinsters (who never spin)—disaffected wives (who want to be husbands) and widows of ‘uneasy virtue’ and more uneasy ambition, whose wants are not exactly understood by themselves.”

This issue includes a front-page reprint of a Burlington Sentinel (Vermont) article scoffing at the first national “Woman’s Rights Convention” held in Worcester, Massachusetts.

“The gates to political enfranchisement have swung open. The women are inside.”

Susan B. Anthony addresses an envelope from the National Woman Suffrage Association headquarters in Philadelphia to prominent Kansas suffragist Mary Tenney Gray. The pointed questions on this envelope urged women’s claims to suffrage as an essential part of their being citizens of the Republic. On July 4, 1876, Susan B. Anthony read The Declaration for the Rights of Women from a podium in front of the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia to a cheering crowd.

“it is clear that woman suffrage should be discarded for the following reasons: First. It disrupts the home.... Second. The woman is physically unfit for certain offices.... Third. Politics is the most corrupt game of the age.... Fourth. The right to vote does imply the right to become eligible to nomination or election to public offices.... Fifth. The influence of the woman should be of a persuasive nature, and should be exercised at home.... Sixth. Jealousy would destroy domestic happiness.... Seventh. Women voters are unnecessary.... Eighth. Women could never control men, on account of weaker physical conditions.... Ninth. The needs of the family would be increased while incomes would decrease.... Tenth. When the woman is with child, she is liable to suffer as a result of any emotion or abuse....” (p74-76)

Gigliotti, a naturalized Italian-American attorney in Chicago, declares limited women’s suffrage as a failure in reforming politics and even opposes separate ownership of property by women, because husbands use their wives to hide their assets.

“In all the equal suffrage states women teachers and women in public service get equal pay for equal work.”

Small broadsheet issued by the National American Woman Suffrage Association highlighting positive experience of states and countries that had given women full or partial franchise.

This pamphlet, issued by the New York State Woman Suffrage Party, quoted speeches and letters by President Woodrow Wilson to urge New York men to vote for woman suffrage on November 6, 1917.

This “ticket” allowed male voters to express their belief that “the vote should be granted to the Women of New York.”

“Men of New York State don’t wait until the war is over to admit the justice and necessity of woman suffrage here. For the sake of the strength it will add to the nation, vote for woman Suffrage November 6.”

The New York State Woman Suffrage Party draws on international examples and women’s contributions to the war effort to urge New York men to vote for woman suffrage.