LETTER: ALS to Quimby on the 25th anniversary of Seneca Falls.
MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE
ON THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SENECA FALLS CONVENTION
Gage, Matilda Joslyn. Autograph Letter Signed “Matilda Joslyn Gage” to “Mrs. Ann L. Quimby.” Fayetteville, New York. 03/28/1873; one 7 ¾ x 9 ¾ -inch leaf “National Woman Suffrage Association” letterhead; writing on both sides; creased where folded from mail.
American suffragette Matilda Joslyn Gage writes to Ann Quimby, likely a member or leader of a local suffrage chapter, enclosing “the call for the Spring [National Woman’s Rights] convention which I hope you will give as wide publicity as possible by having re-published and calling special attention to it.” Gage goes on, “[I] hope you will be able to be present at the convention as this is the Twenty Fifth Anniversary and in view of Susan’s trial will be a very important meeting.” Gage ends with a request for copies of newspaper announcements on the convention and a post-script about where to send contributions or membership fees.
The 25th anniversary of the landmark 1848 Seneca Falls National Women’s Rights Convention coincided with Susan B. Anthony’s trial (United States v. Susan B. Anthony), in which Anthony was tried for illegally voting in a November 1872 election in Rochester, New York; Anthony would be found guilty and fined $100.
Gage (1826-1898) was a suffragist and abolitionist who, after spending her early years fighting for slaves’ rights, joined the woman’s movement, serving as the National Woman Suffrage Association’s president from 1875 to 1876, and its Chair of the Executive Committee or Vice President for an additional 20 years. A prolific writer, Gage was editor of the publications The National Citizen and Ballot Box and The Liberal Thinker, as well as co-authoring The History of Woman Suffrage with Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Considered more “radical” than her suffragette contemporaries, Gage was also a vocal critic of the Christian church and opposed the woman’s movement’s conservative shift, establishing the Women's National Liberal Union (WNLU) in 1890 (The Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation).
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