Rochester: Susan B. Anthony, 1902.
Octavo, 24.5x15cm. 1144pp.
Incribed by the author on the first free endpaper. Volume 4 only in maroon cloth with spine stamped in gilt. Boards rubbed and bumped and the spine edges are worn. Both hinges are loose but holding. Edges of the text block are toned. Good. jjt.
This last volume of The History of Woman Suffrage is an extraordinarily comprehensive and detailed work. In 1903, at the time this book was presented, there were forty-five states in the Union and only three of them had granted full suffrage to women: Ohio (1893), Utah and Idaho (both 1896). Several other states had passed suffrage referendums that allowed women to vote on school matters, local offices, or bond issues. But there would not be another state granting full suffrage until 1910 with the passage in Washington state.
Anthony was a longstanding Republican, but by 1896 she had become disillusioned with partisanship as a strategy for winning the vote. With the Utah and Idaho campaigns, the suffrage movement began the effort of enlisting the aid of "club women," women who belonged to organized social clubs. They wanted to move out of the fray of partisan politics and stop aligning themselves with particular political parties like Populists or Prohibitionists. There is a Eunice Paul Athey (same person? close relation?) who compiled a directory of the club women of Idaho and helped recruit interest and involvement through these avenues. The women of organized clubs soon became the backbone of the suffrage movement in the West.
Eunice Pond Athey worked in Idaho for the movement, writing the official state report for the Suffrage Association's National Convention of 1897. She then went on to Portland, Oregon where she eventually served as assistant secretary in the State Association, as mentioned on page 892.
The battle for women's suffrage in Oregon was long and laborious. Oregon's stubborn male voters rejected suffrage for women a total of five times from 1884 to 1910 before finally passing a suffrage measure in 1912 granting women full voting rights.
This is an extremely scarce book, with only one other inscribed volume on the market at present. Given Athey's involvement in the movement, and Anthony's heartfelt and determined sentiment expressed in the inscription, this copy is quite a rare find. Rebecca Weakley, Powells.com
