The Elizabeth Smith Miller and Anne Fitzhugh Miller Scrapbooks
Between 1897 and 1911 Anne Fitzhugh Miller (1865-1912) and her mother, Elizabeth Smith Miller (1822-1911), filled seven large scrapbooks with convention programs, letters, press clippings, photographs, pins, ribbons, banners, and other memorabilia. The scrapbooks were created primarily to document the activities of the Geneva Political Equality Club, which the Millers founded in Geneva, New York, in 1897. They also record some of the persistent efforts of a growing number of dedicated women and men working for woman suffrage at the state, national, and international levels. These scrapbooks capture the spirit of this suffrage struggle and provide a unique opportunity to share in the personal frustrations and niggardly victories of a cause in progress.
The NAWSA Collection
The Elizabeth Smith Miller and Anne Fitzhugh Miller 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 formed NAWSA's reference library and includes books, pamphlets, serials, memorials, scrapbooks, and convention proceedings of various women's organizations. Some of the materials 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.
