Scrapbook: "Woman Suffrage Reports".
Scrapbook: "Woman Suffrage Reports.” [Newtown, Pa.: ca. 1899-1920].
Scrapbook: 8"x 10-3/4"; catalogue for the DeLong Hook and Eye Company to which has been pasted (or laid in) newspaper articles; dark green cloth covers; a piece of paper has been glued over the catalogue title and stamped "Votes for Women" with "Woman Suffrage Reports" in pencil also; newspaper articles darkened and brittle. See attached for detailed listing of contents of the scrapbook.
The scrapbook records the suffrage activities of Abbie Rice, her daughter Maud Rice Stuckert, and of Lydretta Rice and of other key Pennsylvania suffragists such as Anna Howard Shaw, Mrs. Blankenburg, Inez Milholland and Mary Winsor. Articles regarding meetings, conventions, speeches, pro- and anti-suffrage opinions, the death of Susan B. Anthony and Julia Ward Howe, a visit by Lady Cook (Tennessee Claflin) to the United States, the controversy over suffragette tactics in Great Britain, suffrage parades and rallies vividly reflect the growth of pro-suffrage organizations in Pennsylvania and the intense interest with which national and international suffrage events were followed. Abbie and/or Maud also clipped articles regarding the Mormons, the W.C.T.U., the Friends (they were Quakers), and women's rights under the law. The right of women to serve on school boards (school directors in the state of Pennsylvania) was a particular concern to Abbie and to Maud, the latter especially since she herself had been a teacher and school administrator. The clippings track the right of women to vote and serve on school boards, to discussion of the possible impact of women on school policies, to a final article recording the election of nearly a score of women to Pennsylvania school boards.
The scrapbook, through its numerous clippings, provides the details of suffragist activity at the grass-roots level on up; from the evolution of the Newtown Equal Suffrage Association out of the local W.C.T.U. in 1899 through the tremendous growth of the state organization during the first decade of the 20th century, the national convention in Philadelphia, the campaign for a state suffrage amendment in 1915, to the successful passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. The newspaper articles document participants, their words, music and, often, directly or indirectly, public sentiment. More than anything else, the scrapbook captures the determination of woman suffrage groups to sway the public and the press and their growing success in doing precisely that.
(#5027)
Print Inquire