Votes for Women

Of all the reforms that came out of the progressive era, women's suffrage has the longest history. This forty-eight-page album recovers some of the lost chapters of that history and commemorates the seventy-fifth anniversary of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Photographs, posters, postcards, and letters presented in the book—most from holdings of the Huntington Library—illustrate the story of two generations of activists. Votes for Women presents not only the familiar story of the eastern suffragists but also the less-familiar stories of the western campaigns and the struggles of women in other countries.

Among the items featured are a letter from Susan B. Anthony in which she describes her joy at voting (albeit illegally) in 1872; photographs of suffrage marches in New York and California; advertisements linking various products to votes for women; and suffrage leaflets in German, French, and Italian.

The book describes the Huntington's extensive woman suffrage holdings, including the one-thousand-piece Susan B. Anthony Memorial Collection.