In honor of Women’s History Month, the Library of Congress has produced a new webcast, titled “Catch the Suffragists’ Spirit: The Millers’ Suffrage Scrapbooks” (www.loc.gov/webcasts/).
The 21-minute video features Rosemary Fry Plakas, American History specialist in the Library’s Rare Book and Special Collections Division, discussing seven suffrage scrapbooks compiled between 1897 and 1911 by Anne Fitzhugh Miller (1856-1912) and her mother Elizabeth Smith Miller (1822-1911).
The Millers’ Scrapbooks
The scrapbooks were created primarily to document the activities of the Geneva Political Equality Club (GPEC), the Millers’ local suffrage group, which they founded in Geneva, N.Y., in 1897. In doing so, the Millers also documented the persistent efforts of women and men working at the state, national and international levels to win the vote for women. The materials they preserved offer a unique look at the political and social atmosphere of the time as well as chronicling the efforts of two women who were major participants in the suffrage movement.
Creator of the less-restrictive women’s wear known as “bloomers,” Elizabeth Miller was the daughter of the abolitionist Gerrit Smith and a cousin of famed suffragist leader Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
The Millers represented the GPEC at New York State and national suffrage conventions and parades. They were often hosts to national and international suffrage leaders, including British suffragists Emmeline and Sylvia Pankhurst. In addition to their leadership in the suffrage cause, the Millers were active supporters of higher education for women.
Anne Miller emerged as a spokesperson for the suffrage cause at the New York State Constitutional Convention, held in 1894. There, she gave a speech advocating women’s suffrage. She attended most state suffrage conventions from that time on until her death in 1912 and was regarded as one of Ontario County’s leading suffragists. Under Miller’s leadership, the GPEC served as a model for the formation of other local Political Equality Clubs in Ontario County. In 1903, Miller helped to establish the Ontario County Political Equality Association. She acted as president of this association from its inception until 1907. She represented New York State at U.S. Senate hearings in 1906 and 1908 regarding the submission of a woman suffrage amendment to the United States Constitution.
The Millers’ scrapbooks contain much more than clippings. They filled their pages with programs, photographs, pins and ribbons and other artifacts and memorabilia from years of local organizing, lobbying, and national involvement, as well as correspondence with influential people and government officials such as President Theodore Roosevelt and New York Gov. Charles E. Hughes.
To view an online presentation about the Millers’ scrapbooks go to http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/millerscrapbooks/.
By 1896 there were four “stars” on the woman suffrage flag. Women could vote in four western states—Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and Idaho. The fifth “star,” Washington State, was not secured until 1910.
The intervening years in the suffrage movement have sometimes been called “the doldrums.” Suffrage referenda in Oregon, Washington, South Dakota and New Hampshire all failed. In New York, annual attempts to pass a state suffrage amendment were blocked in a legislative committee. U.S. congressmen repeatedly ignored the suffragists’ pleas for a federal constitutional amendment. The traditional tactics of petitioning and letter-writing were ineffective. Older suffrage leaders were dying—Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1902, Susan B. Anthony in 1906 and Julia Ward Howe in 1910. And anti-suffragists were becoming more vocal.
Yet during these years positive changes were taking place that strengthened the movement. More women were becoming wage-earners. College-educated women were generating new energy and ideas. Such women recognized practical reasons for voting to protect their particular interests and to reform society’s ills. New organizations expanded the suffrage support base by experimenting with more aggressive tactics such as outdoor meetings and parades. The involvement of wealthy socialites brought greater press coverage and sorely needed funds. More men became visible supporters. Speaking tours across the United States by British suffragists deepened the bonds among “sisters” around the world who were fighting for a common cause.
It was during these intervening years at the turn of the century that Elizabeth Smith Miller and her daughter Anne became more active in the suffrage cause. Their scrapbooks chronicle a 14-year period in the movement that ended less than decade before the passage of the landmark amendment that in 1920 gave women in the U.S. the right to vote.
The NAWSA Collection
The Millers’ scrapbooks are a part of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) Collection in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. This collection was donated to the Library of Congress in 1938 by the organization’s last president, Carrie Chapman Catt.
NAWSA was formed in 1890 as the result of a merger between two rival factions—the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, and the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA), led by Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell and Julia Ward Howe.
This collection of 750 titles comprises NAWSA’s reference library and includes books, pamphlets, serials, memorials, scrapbooks and convention proceedings of various women’s organizations. Some of the volumes were donated to the NAWSA Collection from the personal libraries of members and officers, including Carrie Chapman Catt, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, Alice Stone Blackwell, Julia Ward Howe, Elizabeth Smith Miller and Mary A. Livermore.
The original arrangement of the NAWSA Collection has been retained, divided into 16 sections under one classification number: JK1881.N357. Although primarily documenting the American suffrage movement from the point of view of its white middle- and upper-class leadership, there are sections on working women, biographies of women of various nationalities and time periods, and material on the suffrage movement in England.
Selections from the NAWSA Collection may be viewed online at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/naw/nawshome.html.
Other Online Resources
Teachers and students can use the Millers’ scrapbooks in the classroom by viewing a new webcast and through a web presentation on the Library’s Learning Page at http://memory.loc.gov/learn/collections/miller/thinking.html. This presentation and others are available on the Learning Page’s “Collection Connections” site, which provides historical context and ideas for using Library of Congress primary-source collections in the classroom.
Selected images from the Prints and Photographs Division that document the suffrage movement can be viewed at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/vfwhtml/vfwhome.html.
“American Women: A Gateway to Library of Congress Resources for the Study of Women’s Culture and History in the United States” is accessible online at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/. A 500-page volume is also available for purchase at www.loc.gov/shop/ or (888) 682-3557.
Rosemary Fry Plakas of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division contributed to this story.