Beschreibung:

ANTHONY, SUSAN BROWNELL. Autograph letter signed ("Susan B. Anthony") to Senator Henry William Blair in Washington; Philadelphia, 7 January 1888. 6 pages, 8vo, on printed stationery of the National Woman Suffrage Association, with original stamped envelope addressed by Anthony (frayed and slightly dampstained), a few short fold breaks, three repaired with tape, margins very slightly discolored . FEMINISM BEHIND THE SCENES A unusually detailed political letter, exemplifying the necessarily indirect methods by which the women's suffrage movement worked to obtain the vote by a Constitutional amendment: "I see you presented our Bill the first thing--Now who will prepare the report, if not yourself? I have not written Senator Chase or Bowen about the matter, because I didn't think it would look a bit pretty, for me to interfere with what is really our honored Chairman's business--Hence, if you feel that you cannot prepare it, or that you want one of the others to take turn-about , you will yourself propose it to the one you choose, but really, I do not think for Senator Bowen to do it will add weight to the testimony... But of course I leave the matter wholly with you. I would say, however, confidentially that I do not believe any one of the Com. can do any better than your own self... But my main point in writing you is to urge that you present the report at an early day, and then ask or give notice that you'll call it up for discussion & vote, at the earliest reasonable day. What I want to make sure of this session of this Congress is that both Houses bring our 16th Am[endmen]t bill to a discussion & vote, without fail, so as to give the women of the country, not only woman suffrage women, but the Prohibition Party woman , is to give the Republicans a chance to show their hand on the woman suffrage question, as a party. I know nothing will do so much to ensure their, the womens, prayers & tears on the Republican side, as such showing... "I see too that Mr. [Thomas Brackett] Reed has presented our bill [in the House of Representatives]. It isn't worth while for us to have a hearing before the Committee. Do you think it is? Won't you send me a Congressional Directory or Record, with the House Committees... But the main thing now is to get the Com's [ sic ] of both Houses to report at once. I wish I could make the Repub.s in Congress & State Legislatures see & believe how much good would come to their party by speaking & acting as I have indicated to several of them". The National Woman Suffrage Association (which later merged with a rival group to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association), was founded by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony in 1869 with the aim of obtaining a sixteenth amendment to the constitution enfranchising women. The "Anthony Woman Suffrage Amendment" was introduced in 1870, and through the efforts of progressive Republican congressmen like Senator Blair of New Hampshire and Congressman Reed of Maine, Speaker of the House from 1892 to his resignation in 1899, received yearly congressional hearings for the next half a century. At the time of this letter only the Wyoming territory allowed women to vote; the Nineteenth Amendment was not finally passed until 1920.