Susan B. Anthony Journals
Journals from Susan B. Anthony's three visits to Oregon in 1871, 1896, and 1905. Originals are held by the Library of Congress, MS #175559.
National American Woman Suffrage Association Convention program
The National American Woman Suffrage Association’s 37th Convention, held in Portland, Oregon, June 29 to July 5, 1905, coincided with the Lewis & Clark Exposition, which opened on June 1. Held in Portland’s First Congregational Church, the NAWSA convention drew such notables as Honorary President Susan B. Anthony, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Alice Stone Blackwell, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Anna Howard Shaw, Carrie Chapman Catt, Henry B. Blackwell, and Florence Kelley. Anthony was scheduled to give the closing benediction. In failing health, she was accompanied and cared for by her “sympathetic sister,” Mary Anthony, who maintained her own diary for 1905. (See Diary of Mary S. Anthony, 1905. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Massachusetts.) The convention program shows that Abigail Scott Duniway’s “Centennial Ode” was shared with the participants, and a prominent advertisement announced Duniway’s novel, <em>From the West to the West</em>, published in 1905, by A.C. McClurg, of Chicago.
1905
Susan B. Anthony Scrapbook, April 12-July 6, 1905
The National American Woman Suffrage Association’s 37th Convention, held in Portland, Oregon, June 29 to July 5, 1905, coincided with the Lewis & Clark Exposition, which opened on June 1. Held in Portland’s First Congregational Church, the NAWSA convention drew such notables as Honorary President Susan B. Anthony, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Alice Stone Blackwell, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Anna Howard Shaw, Carrie Chapman Catt, Henry B. Blackwell, and Florence Kelley. Anthony was scheduled to give the closing benediction. In failing health, she was accompanied and cared for by her “sympathetic sister,” Mary Anthony, who maintained her own diary for 1905. (See Diary of Mary S. Anthony, 1905. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Massachusetts.) The convention program shows that Abigail Scott Duniway’s “Centennial Ode” was shared with the participants, and a prominent advertisement announced Duniway’s novel, <em>From the West to the West</em>, published in 1905, by A.C. McClurg, of Chicago. The Scrapbook materials for April 12 to July 6, 1905, probably collected, at least in part, by Mary Anthony, include Grover Cleveland’s controversial attitudes toward women’s clubs, travel to Oregon for the NAWSA Convention, and press coverage of the event. A standing ovation was given when Susan B. Anthony was introduced at the convention, and another highlight was her brief address at the unveiling of Alice Cooper’s bronze statue of Sacajawea, the figure made prominent by Oregon author Eva Emery Dye. Within eight months of this last visit to Oregon, Susan B. Anthony died, on March 13, 1906, at age eighty-six.
1905 April 12-July 6
Susan B. Anthony Journal, March 11, 1896-June 15, 1896
In June of 1896, in the midst of an economic depression and after campaigning in California for several months, Susan B. Anthony made her second trip to the Pacific Northwest, including Portland, where she participated in the Oregon Woman’s Congress. This series of diary entries begins in California, where Anthony, often accompanied by Ellen Clark Sargent, Sarah B. Cooper, Anna Howard Shaw and other suffrage leaders, attended and spoke at mass meetings, and participated in the California Women’s Press Association meeting in San Francisco, the Woman’s Congress of the Pacific Coast, and the Populist State Convention at Sacramento. Although some diary entries are sketchy, or even missing, Anthony included enough specifics to show how active she was during this extended California visit, which began in March and ended in November, when California voters defeated an amendment to give women the ballot. In the midst of the California campaign, Anthony accepted an invitation to come to Oregon to help organize support for a referendum on woman suffrage, originally scheduled for 1897 but later delayed until 1900. She traveled by rail, first to Seattle, Washington, where the Woman’s Century Club hosted a two-day conference, and she arrived in Portland on Sunday, June 7, to be greeted as the houseguest of Abigail Scott Duniway and her family. During the next week, Anthony spoke at every session of the three-day Congress and enjoyed the “splendid audiences and profusion of flowers” that marked the event, which was held at Portland’s Taylor Street Methodist Episcopal Church. At the end of the week, Anthony spoke in Vancouver, Washington, attended a Portland Woman’s Club reception on June 12, and departed the next day for California, reaching Sacramento on June 15.
1896 March 11- June 15
Susan B. Anthony Journal, October 31-December 1, 1871
In the late summer of 1871, after spending several weeks lecturing in California with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony accepted an invitation from Abigail Scott Duniway for Stanton or Anthony to come to Oregon and help launch a Pacific Northwest campaign for woman suffrage. This series of diary entries opens on August 7, with Anthony at the Grand Hotel, San Francisco, moves through Anthony’s unpleasant sea voyage to Oregon on the steamship <em>Idaho,</em> where she “staggered” to the deck, dressed “in calico wrapper,” and marks her arrival on August 31, in Portland, where she was greeted by Duniway, the “pleasant faced” editor of <em>The New Northwest</em>. With Duniway as manager for her lecture tour and Portland as her base, Anthony first traveled up the east side of the Willamette Valley to Salem, Oregon; went by steamboat and stagecoach to The Dalles, Oregon, and Walla Walla, Washington Territory; returned to the Willamette Valley to visit communities west of the Willamette River and camp out at the Oregon State Fair in Salem; traveled north to Puget Sound, Washington Territory, and visited Victoria, B.C., before returning to Portland. With the help of women such as Duniway and Dr. Mary Anna Cooke Thompson, Anthony organized the Multnomah County Woman Suffrage Association at Portland’s Oro Fino Hall. She left Portland on November 17 for Oregon City and traveled overland to California, speaking along the way to audiences south of Albany, Oregon. On November 27, Anthony reached Yreka, and this series of entries ends December 1, with Anthony at Chico, California.
1871 October 31-December 1
Susan B. Anthony Journal, October 1-30, 1871
In the late summer of 1871, after spending several weeks lecturing in California with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony accepted an invitation from Abigail Scott Duniway for Stanton or Anthony to come to Oregon and help launch a Pacific Northwest campaign for woman suffrage. This series of diary entries opens on August 7, with Anthony at the Grand Hotel, San Francisco, moves through Anthony’s unpleasant sea voyage to Oregon on the steamship <em>Idaho,</em> where she “staggered” to the deck, dressed “in calico wrapper,” and marks her arrival on August 31, in Portland, where she was greeted by Duniway, the “pleasant faced” editor of <em>The New Northwest</em>. With Duniway as manager for her lecture tour and Portland as her base, Anthony first traveled up the east side of the Willamette Valley to Salem, Oregon; went by steamboat and stagecoach to The Dalles, Oregon, and Walla Walla, Washington Territory; returned to the Willamette Valley to visit communities west of the Willamette River and camp out at the Oregon State Fair in Salem; traveled north to Puget Sound, Washington Territory, and visited Victoria, B.C., before returning to Portland. With the help of women such as Duniway and Dr. Mary Anna Cooke Thompson, Anthony organized the Multnomah County Woman Suffrage Association at Portland’s Oro Fino Hall. She left Portland on November 17 for Oregon City and traveled overland to California, speaking along the way to audiences south of Albany, Oregon. On November 27, Anthony reached Yreka, and this series of entries ends December 1, with Anthony at Chico, California.
1871 October 1-30
Susan B. Anthony Journal, September 1-30, 1871
In the late summer of 1871, after spending several weeks lecturing in California with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony accepted an invitation from Abigail Scott Duniway for Stanton or Anthony to come to Oregon and help launch a Pacific Northwest campaign for woman suffrage. This series of diary entries opens on August 7, with Anthony at the Grand Hotel, San Francisco, moves through Anthony’s unpleasant sea voyage to Oregon on the steamship <em>Idaho,</em> where she “staggered” to the deck, dressed “in calico wrapper,” and marks her arrival on August 31, in Portland, where she was greeted by Duniway, the “pleasant faced” editor of <em>The New Northwest</em>. With Duniway as manager for her lecture tour and Portland as her base, Anthony first traveled up the east side of the Willamette Valley to Salem, Oregon; went by steamboat and stagecoach to The Dalles, Oregon, and Walla Walla, Washington Territory; returned to the Willamette Valley to visit communities west of the Willamette River and camp out at the Oregon State Fair in Salem; traveled north to Puget Sound, Washington Territory, and visited Victoria, B.C., before returning to Portland. With the help of women such as Duniway and Dr. Mary Anna Cooke Thompson, Anthony organized the Multnomah County Woman Suffrage Association at Portland’s Oro Fino Hall. She left Portland on November 17 for Oregon City and traveled overland to California, speaking along the way to audiences south of Albany, Oregon. On November 27, Anthony reached Yreka, and this series of entries ends December 1, with Anthony at Chico, California.
1871 September 1-30
Susan B. Anthony Journal, August 3-31, 1871
In the late summer of 1871, after spending several weeks lecturing in California with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony accepted an invitation from Abigail Scott Duniway for Stanton or Anthony to come to Oregon and help launch a Pacific Northwest campaign for woman suffrage. This series of diary entries opens on August 7, with Anthony at the Grand Hotel, San Francisco, moves through Anthony’s unpleasant sea voyage to Oregon on the steamship <em>Idaho,</em> where she “staggered” to the deck, dressed “in calico wrapper,” and marks her arrival on August 31, in Portland, where she was greeted by Duniway, the “pleasant faced” editor of <em>The New Northwest</em>. With Duniway as manager for her lecture tour and Portland as her base, Anthony first traveled up the east side of the Willamette Valley to Salem, Oregon; went by steamboat and stagecoach to The Dalles, Oregon, and Walla Walla, Washington Territory; returned to the Willamette Valley to visit communities west of the Willamette River and camp out at the Oregon State Fair in Salem; traveled north to Puget Sound, Washington Territory, and visited Victoria, B.C., before returning to Portland. With the help of women such as Duniway and Dr. Mary Anna Cooke Thompson, Anthony organized the Multnomah County Woman Suffrage Association at Portland’s Oro Fino Hall. She left Portland on November 17 for Oregon City and traveled overland to California, speaking along the way to audiences south of Albany, Oregon. On November 27, Anthony reached Yreka, and this series of entries ends December 1, with Anthony at Chico, California.
1871 August 3-31