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20 - Susan B. Anthony Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian by Alma Lutz · Susan B. Anthony Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian

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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty of Susan b. Anthony by all Maluts. This
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter twenty Recording
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  Speaker 1: Women's History. Recording women's history for future generations was a
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  Speaker 1: project that had been in the minds of both Susan
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  Speaker 1: and missus Stanton for a long time. Both looked upon
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  Speaker 1: women's struggle for a share in government as a potent
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  Speaker 1: force in strengthening democracy and one to be emphasized in history.
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  Speaker 1: Men had always been the historians, and had, as a
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  Speaker 1: matter of course, extolled men's exploits, passing over women's record
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  Speaker 1: as negligible. Susan intended to remedy this, and she was
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  Speaker 1: convinced that if women close to the facts did not
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  Speaker 1: record them now, they would be forgotten or misinterpreted by
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  Speaker 1: future historians. Already, many of the old workers had died,
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  Speaker 1: Martha C. Wright, Lydia Mott, whom Susan had nursed in
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  Speaker 1: her last illness, Lucretia Mott, and William Lloyd Garrison. There
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  Speaker 1: was no time to be lost. In the spring of
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  Speaker 1: eighteen eighty, Susan's mother died, and it was no longer
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  Speaker 1: necessary for her to fit into her schedule frequent visits
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  Speaker 1: to Rochester. Her sister Mary, busy with her teaching, was
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  Speaker 1: sharing her home with her two widowed brothers in law
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  Speaker 1: and two nieces whose education she was supervising. Missus Stanton
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  Speaker 1: had just given up the strenuous life of a Lyceum
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  Speaker 1: lecturer and welcomed work that would keep her at home. Susan,
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  Speaker 1: who had managed to save four thousand, five hundred dollars
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  Speaker 1: out of her lecture fees, felt she could afford to
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  Speaker 1: devote at least a year to the history. She now
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  Speaker 1: shipped several boxes of letters, clippings and documents to the
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  Speaker 1: Stanton home in Tenafly, New Jersey. As they planned their book,
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  Speaker 1: it soon became obvious that the one volume, which they
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  Speaker 1: had hoped to finish in a few months, would extend
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  Speaker 1: to two or three volumes and take many years to write.
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  Speaker 1: They called in Matilda Jostly Engage to help them, and
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  Speaker 1: the three of them signed a contract to share the
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  Speaker 1: work and the profits. The history presented a publishing problem
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  Speaker 1: as well as a writing ordeal, and Susan, interviewing New
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  Speaker 1: York publishers, found the subject had little appeal. Finally, however,
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  Speaker 1: she signed a contract with Fowler and Wells, under which
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  Speaker 1: the authors agreed to pay the cost of composition, stereotyping
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  Speaker 1: and engravings, and as usual, she raised the necessary funds.
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  Speaker 1: Returning to Tenafly as to a second home, Susan usually
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  Speaker 1: found Missus Stanton beaming a welcome from the piazza, and
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  Speaker 1: Margaret and Harriet running to the gate to meet her.
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  Speaker 1: The Stanton children were fond of Susan. It was a comfortable,
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  Speaker 1: happy household, and Susan, thoroughly enjoying Missus Stanton's companionship, attacked
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  Speaker 1: the history with vigor. Sitting opposite each other at a
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  Speaker 1: big table in the sunny tower room, they spent long
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  Speaker 1: hours at work. Susan, thin and wiry, her graying hair
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  Speaker 1: neatly smoothed back over her ears, sat up very straight
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  Speaker 1: as she rapidly sorted old clippings and letters and outlined chapters,
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  Speaker 1: while Missus Stanton, stout and placid, her white curls beautifully arranged,
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  Speaker 1: wrote steadily and happily, transforming masses of notes into readable,
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  Speaker 1: easy prose. Having sent appeals for information to colleagues in
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  Speaker 1: all parts of the country, Susan, as the contributions began
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  Speaker 1: to come in struggled to decipher the often almost illegible
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  Speaker 1: handwritten manuscripts, many of them careless and inexact about dates
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  Speaker 1: and facts. To their request for data about her, Lucy
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  Speaker 1: Stone curtly replied, I have never kept a diary or
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  Speaker 1: any record of my work, and so am unable to
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  Speaker 1: furnish you the required dates you say I must be
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  Speaker 1: referred to in the history you are writing. I cannot
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  Speaker 1: furnish a biographical sketch, and trust you will not try
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  Speaker 1: to make one yours. With ceaseless regret that any wing
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  Speaker 1: of suffragists should attempt to write the history of the other.
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  Speaker 1: The greater part of the writing fell upon missus Stanton
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  Speaker 1: Matilda Jostly Engage contributed the chapters preceding Causes Women in
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  Speaker 1: Newspapers and Women Church and State. Susan carefully selected the
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  Speaker 1: material and checked the facts. She helped with the copying
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  Speaker 1: of the handwritten manuscript and with the proof reading. Believing
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  Speaker 1: that pictures of the early workers were almost as important
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  Speaker 1: for the history as the subject matter itself, she tried
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  Speaker 1: to provide them, but they presented a financial problem with
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  Speaker 1: which it was hard to cope. For each engraving cost
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  Speaker 1: one hundred dollars. When the first volume of the History
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  Speaker 1: of Women's Suffrage came off the press in May eighteen
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  Speaker 1: eighty one, she proudly and lovingly scanned its eight hundred
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  Speaker 1: seventy eight pages, which told the story of women's progress
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  Speaker 1: in the United States up to the Civil War. She
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  Speaker 1: was well aware that the history was not a literary achievement,
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  Speaker 1: but the facts were there as accurate as humanly possible.
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  Speaker 1: All the eloquent, stirring speeches were there a proof of
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  Speaker 1: the caliber and high intelligence of the pioneers, and out
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  Speaker 1: of the otherwise dull record of meetings, conventions, and petitions,
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  Speaker 1: a spirit of independence and zeal for freedom shown forth,
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  Speaker 1: highlighted occasionally by dramatic episodes. As Missus Stanton so aptly
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  Speaker 1: expressed it, we have furnished the bricks and mortar for
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  Speaker 1: some future architect to rear a beautiful edifice. The distribution
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  Speaker 1: of the book was very much on Susan's mind, for
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  Speaker 1: she realized that it would not be in great demand
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  Speaker 1: because of its cost, bulk and subject matter, nor could
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  Speaker 1: she at this time present it to libraries as she wished.
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  Speaker 1: For she he had already spent her savings on the illustrations.
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  Speaker 1: It ought to be in every school library, she wrote,
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  Speaker 1: Amelia Bloomer, where every boy and girl of the nation
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  Speaker 1: could see and read and learn what women have done
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  Speaker 1: to secure equality of rights and chances for girls and women.
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  Speaker 1: So much material had been collected while Volume one was
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  Speaker 1: in preparation that both Susan and missus Stanton felt they
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  Speaker 1: should immediately undertake volume two. After a summer of lecturing
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  Speaker 1: to help finance its publication, Susan returned to Tenafly to
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  Speaker 1: the monotonous work of compilation. I am just sick to
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  Speaker 1: death of it, she wrote her young friend Rachel Foster.
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  Speaker 1: I had rather wash or whitewasher, do any possible hard
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  Speaker 1: work than sit here and go digging into the dusty
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  Speaker 1: records of the past. That is, rather make history than
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  Speaker 1: write it. Yet she never entirely gave up making history,
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  Speaker 1: for she was always planning for the future, and Rachel
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  Speaker 1: Foster was now her able lieutenant, relieving her of details,
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  Speaker 1: doing the spade work for the annual Washington Conventions, and
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  Speaker 1: arranging for an occasional lecture engagement. Susan would not leave
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  Speaker 1: Tenafly for a lecture fee of less than fifty dollars
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  Speaker 1: she took this intelligent young girl to her heart, as
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  Speaker 1: she had Anna E. Dickinson in the past. Rachel, however,
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  Speaker 1: had none of Anna's dramatic temperament or love of the limelight,
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  Speaker 1: but in her orderly, business like way, was eager to
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  Speaker 1: serve Susan, whom she had admired ever since as a
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  Speaker 1: child she had heard her speak for woman's suffrage in
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  Speaker 1: her mother's drawing room. While Susan was pondering the win
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  Speaker 1: and means of financing another volume of the history, the
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  Speaker 1: light broke through in a letter from Wendell Phillips announcing
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  Speaker 1: the astonishing news that she and Lucy Stone had inherited
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  Speaker 1: approximately twenty five thousand dollars each for the Woman's cause
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  Speaker 1: under the will of Eliza Eddy, the daughter of their
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  Speaker 1: former benefactor, Francis Jackson. Although the legacy was not paid
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  Speaker 1: until eighteen eighty five because of litigation, its promise lightened
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  Speaker 1: considerably Susan's financial burden, and she knew that Volumes two
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  Speaker 1: and three were assured, her gratitude to Eliza Eddy was unbounded,
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  Speaker 1: and better still, she read between the lines the good
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  Speaker 1: will of Wendell Phillips, who had been Eliza Eddy's legal
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  Speaker 1: adviser that he, whom she admired above all men, should,
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  Speaker 1: after their many differences, still regard her as worthy of
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  Speaker 1: This trust meant as much to her as the legacy itself.
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  Speaker 1: In May eighteen eighty two, she had the satisfaction of
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  Speaker 1: seeing the second volume of the History of Women's Suffrage
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  Speaker 1: in print, carrying woman's record through eighteen seventy five. Volume
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  Speaker 1: three was not completed until eighteen eighty five. Woman's response
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  Speaker 1: to their own history was a disappointment. Only a few
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  Speaker 1: realized its value for the future, among them Mary L. Booth,
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  Speaker 1: editor of Harper's Bazaar. The majority were indifferent and some
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  Speaker 1: even critical. When missus Stanton offered the three volumes to
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  Speaker 1: the Vasser College Library, they were refused. Nevertheless, every time
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  Speaker 1: Susan looked at the three large volumes on her shelves,
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  Speaker 1: she was happy. For now she was assured that woman's
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  Speaker 1: struggle for citizenship and freedom would live in print through
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  Speaker 1: the years. To libraries in the United States and Europe,
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  Speaker 1: she presented well over a thousand copies, grateful that the
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  Speaker 1: Eliza Edy legacy now made this possible. In eighteen eighty three,
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  Speaker 1: Susan surprised everyone by taking a vacation in Europe. Soon
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  Speaker 1: after Volume two of the History had been completed, missus
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  Speaker 1: Stanton had left for Europe with her daughter Harriet. Her
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  Speaker 1: letters to Susan reported not only Harriet's marriage to an Englishman,
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  Speaker 1: William Henry Blatch, but also encouraging talks with the forward
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  Speaker 1: looking women of England and France, whom she hoped to
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  Speaker 1: interest in an international organization. Repeatedly she urged Susan to
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  Speaker 1: join her, to meet these women and to rest for
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  Speaker 1: a while from her strenuous labors. The possibility of forming
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  Speaker 1: an international organization of women was a greater attraction to
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  Speaker 1: Susan than Europe itself, and when Rachel Foster suggested that
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  Speaker 1: she make the journey with her, she readily consented. She
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  Speaker 1: goes abroad a Republican queen, observed the Kansas City Journal, uncrowned,
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  Speaker 1: to be sure, but nonetheless of the blood royal, and
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  Speaker 1: we have faith that the noblest men and women of
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  Speaker 1: Europe will at once recognize and welcome her as their equal.
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  Speaker 1: In London, Susan met missus Stanton, her face beaming and
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  Speaker 1: her white curls as lovely as ever. Then, after talking
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  Speaker 1: with English suffragists, and her two old friends, William Henry
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  Speaker 1: Channing and Ernestine Rose, now living in England. Susan traveled
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  Speaker 1: with Rachel through Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and France, where a
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  Speaker 1: whole new world opened before her. She thoroughly enjoyed its beauty,
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  Speaker 1: yet there was much that distressed her, and she found
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  Speaker 1: herself far more interested in the people, their customs, and
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  Speaker 1: living conditions than in the treasures of art. It is
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  Speaker 1: good for our young civilization, she wrote Daniel, to see
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  Speaker 1: and study that of the old world, and observe the
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  Speaker 1: hopelessness of lifting the masses into freedom and freedom's industry, honesty,
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  Speaker 1: and integrity. How any American, any lover of our free
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  Speaker 1: institutions based on equality of rights for all, can settle
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  Speaker 1: down and live here is more than I can comprehend.
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  Speaker 1: It will only be by overturning the powers that education
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  Speaker 1: and equal chances, ever can come to the rank and file.
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  Speaker 1: The hope of the world. The world is indeed our republic.
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  Speaker 1: To a friend, she reported, amidst it all, my head
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  Speaker 1: and heart turned to our battle for women at home.
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  Speaker 1: Here in the old world, with its utter blotting out
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  Speaker 1: of women as an equal, there is no hope, no
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  Speaker 1: possibility of changing her condition. So I looked to our
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  Speaker 1: own land of equality for men and partial equality for
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  Speaker 1: women as the only one for hope or work. Back
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  Speaker 1: in London again, she allowed herself a few luxuries, such
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  Speaker 1: as an expensive India shawl, and more social life than
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  Speaker 1: she had had in many a year, and she longed
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  Speaker 1: to have Mary enjoy it all with her. She visited
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  Speaker 1: suffragists in Scotland and Ireland, as well as in England,
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  Speaker 1: and occasionally spoke at their meetings. Here, as in America,
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  Speaker 1: suffragists differed over the best way to when the vote,
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  Speaker 1: and even the most radical among them were more conservative
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  Speaker 1: and cautious than American women. But she admired them all
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  Speaker 1: and tried to understand the very different problems they faced.
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  Speaker 1: Gradually she interested a few of them in an international
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  Speaker 1: conference of women, and before she sailed back to America
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  Speaker 1: with missus Stanton in November eighteen eighty three, she had
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  Speaker 1: their promise of co operation. The newspapers welcomed her home.
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  Speaker 1: Susan B. Anthony is back from Europe, announced the Cleveland Leader,
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  Speaker 1: and is here for a winter's fight on behalf of
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  Speaker 1: women's suffrage. She seems remarkably well, and has gained fifteen
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  Speaker 1: pounds since she left last spring. She is sixty three,
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  Speaker 1: but looks just the same as twenty years ago. There
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  Speaker 1: is perhaps an extra wrinkle in her face, a little
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  Speaker 1: more silver in her hair, but her blue eyes are
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  Speaker 1: just as bright, her mouth as serious, and her step
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  Speaker 1: as active as when she was forty. She would attract
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  Speaker 1: attention in any crowd Susan came back to an indifferent Congress.
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  Speaker 1: All would fall flat and dead if some one were
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  Speaker 1: not here to keep them in mind of their duty
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  Speaker 1: to us. She wrote a friend at this time, and
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  Speaker 1: to her diary she confided, it is perfectly disheartening that
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  Speaker 1: no member feels any especial interest or earnest determination in
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  Speaker 1: pushing this question of women's suffrage to all men, only
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  Speaker 1: a side issue. End of Chapter twenty