Primary Resources

Women's Suffrage and Abolition

Courtesy of Andover Historical Society

“Order of Exercises for the Anniversary of the Andover Anti-Slavery Society,” July 4, 1836.  This program contains the lyrics to poems and songs that would be recited at the anniversary festivities.

“Women’s Suffrage Association Convention.”  An advertisement for the Women’s Suffrage Association Convention at Town Hall in Andover.  Suffragists such as Julia Ward Howe and Lucy Stone are slated to speak.

“What Are You Going to do About It?”  This undated flier asks voters to hear Maud Wood Park speak about women’s suffrage so that they can vote intelligently on the question of suffrage.  Though undated, the flier is likely from 1915 when Massachusetts voted by referendum on the question of women’s suffrage.  The following website, http://www.primaryresearch.org/suffrage/ features information about the 1915 referendum including a link to an accounting of Beverly’s votes on the referendum.  This website also includes information and links to the Beverly Beacon (1913) which offers a wide array of articles on women’s suffrage, etc.

Courtesy of Brookline Public Library

Beecher, Henry Ward, 1813-1887.  Woman's Influence in Politics: An Address Delivered by Henry Ward Beecher, at the Cooper Institute, New York, Thursday evening, Feb. 2 1860. Boston: C.K. Whipple, 1869. Call #: STACK 396.3 B39w  Stowe asserts that women should have the right to vote because women’s particular virtues would allow them to reform government and the country.

Bowditch, William I.   Woman Suffrage A Right, Not A Privilege.  Cambridge: University Press, John Wilson & Son, 1879.  Call #: STACK 396.3 B67w.  Bowditch argues that if men derive the right to vote from “the people” (working through legal and Constitutional forms), then women, as part of “the people” should also have the right to vote.  Bowditch also dives into the historical and cultural challenges to women’s suffrage and legal rights.

Corbin, Caroline Fairfield. To The Hon. Henry W. Blair, U.S. Senator From New Hampshire.  No publication information or date.  Call #: STACK 396.3 A93L.  Corbin writes to Blair about Blair’s proposal for women’s suffrage.  This letter was likely written in 1886. 

Crothers, Samuel McChord.  Mediations on Votes for Women Together With Animadversions on the Closely Related Subject of Votes for Men.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1914. Call #: STACK 396.3 C88 
   
Hamilton, Gail.  Letter from Gail Hamilton.  February 9, 1886.  Call #: STACK 396.3 D64L.  Gail Hamilton writes this letter to address what she sees as a misuse of a quotation of her published work, “Woman’s Wrongs.”  Hamilton declares that the ballot is something that women should be happy to avoid.

International Woman Suffrage Conference (1902, Washington, D.C.) Report First International Woman Suffrage Conference Held at Washington, U.S.A., February 12-18, 1902, In Connection With and By Invitation of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Call #: STACK 396.3 I613r. This report from the International Woman Suffrage Conference offers an international context for woman’s suffrage.  Prominent speakers from across the globe offered analysis and rhetoric on woman’s political power in their respective locations.
   
Jacobi, Mary Putnam. "Common Sense" Applied to Woman Suffrage; A Statement of the Reasons Which Justify the Demand to Extend the Suffrage to Women, with Consideration of the Arguments Against Such Enfranchisement, and with Special Reference to the Issues Presented to the New York State Convention of 1894.  New York, NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, Knickerbocker Press, 1894.  Call #: STACK 396.3 J15.  Borrowing its title from Paine’s political pamphlet, Jacobi places the suffrage movement within a broad context of revolutionary movements for individual liberty.

Lord, Robert W., Mrs. Why Should Suffrage Be Imposed on Women?  No publication information or date.  Call #: STACK 396.3 W62.  This succinct work gives many of the reasons that women were against women’s suffrage including the threat posed by single women (mill workers, etc.) who would vote, assaults on women’s dignity and virtue, etc.  While there is not publication information, the reference to Gov. Butler places this document after 1882.          
  
Parkman, Francis.  Some of the Reasons Against Woman Suffrage.  No publication information or date.  Call #: STACK 396.3 P24s.  This succinct work gives many of the reasons that women were against women’s suffrage including either increasing the power of men (by women voting exclusively with their husbands) or causing marital discord by women voting against the wishes of their husbands. 

Robinson, Margaret C. Woman Suffrage: A Menace To Social Reform. Boston: Woman's Anti-Suffrage Association of Massachusetts, 1915.  Call #: STACK 396.3 R565w.  Robinson believes that women’s non-partisan nature makes them a powerful player for social reform.  Suffrage would derail this power without offering anything to replace it.  In fact, Robinson finds that those cities where women had the vote have achieved less reform than Boston where women were still disenfranchised.

Sewall, Samuel E.  The Legal Condition of Women in Massachusetts.  Boston: C.K. Whipple, 1869.  Call #: STACK 396.3 S51L.  Sewall’s pamphlet outlines the laws affecting women in Massachusetts.

Courtesy of Newburyport Public Library

Garrison, Wm. Lloyd.  Address on the Progress of the Abolition Cause; Delivered Before the African Abolition Freehold Society of Boston, July 16, 1832.  Boston: Garrison and Knapp, 1832.  Garrison’s address chronicles the evolution of slavery and antislavery up through 1832.  The address contains wonderful primary sources related to slavery and abolition including a striking poem about the middle passage(taken from James Montgomery’s “The Ocean”) on page 4. 

Courtesy of North Andover Public Library

National Women’s Suffrage Association.  Victory: How Women Won It: A Centennial Symposium.  New York: H.W. Wilson, Co., 1940.   This history of the suffrage movement places the beginning of the movement at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840 where women were unable to participate in the convention alongside men.  We have excerpted this portion and the portion that relates to the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 and the Declaration of Sentiments