Elizabeth Cady Stanton, seated, and Susan B. Anthony, standing, [between 1880 and 1902]. LC-USZ61-791 (b&w film copy neg.) Prints and Photographs Division.
The Susan B. Anthony Collection includes printed speeches, pamphlets, convention proceedings, serials, and scrapbooks that document the formative years of
the suffrage movement and complement the personal papers held in the Manuscript Division. Particularly illuminating is Anthony's annotated copy of An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony, on the Charge of Illegal Voting, at the Presidential Election
in Nov. 1872 (Rochester, N.Y., 1874; JK1899.A6 A5 Anthony)
[full item], which documents Anthony's efforts to test the citizenship clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, as to whether it guaranteed
universal suffrage.
The collection is of interest both to those investigating the history of the movement and those interested in Anthony herself.
Anthony's scrapbooks are particularly significant as they chronicle the history and progress of the suffrage movement and
demonstrate the gradual change in public opinion from 1848 to 1900 through newspaper clippings, programs, trial reports, letters,
and memorabilia. Thirty-three volumes of
Anthony's scrapbooks, as well as one volume compiled by her sister, Mary Anthony, are also available on microfilm (Microfilm
42106 MicRR .
Many of Anthony's 272 books are inscribed to her by the author or donor and later by her to the Library of Congress. Her inscriptions
highlight the importance of the book in her life and work. For example, Anthony's copy of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh (New York and Boston: C.S. Francis & Co., 1857; PR4185.A1 1857a Anthony) , celebrating a woman's choice of career over marriage, was given to her by her mother. Anthony notes that she had carried
it about in her satchel, read and reread it, and “always cherished it above all other books.”
Harriet Tubman, full-length portrait. 1911. Illus. in JK1881. N357 sec. 16, No. 9. Rare Book and Special Collections Division.
Anthony's inscriptions include comments about her niece and “right hand” assistant Rachel Foster Avery, as well as Lydia
Maria Child, Paulina Davis, Frances Ellen Harper, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Tubman [full item]. Elizabeth Cady Stanton inscribed her autobiography, Eighty Years and More (New York: European Publishing Co., 1898; JK1899.S7 A3 c. 3 Anthony)
, to Anthony in a bold hand: “We cement our friendship of half a century with an exchange of our autobiographies . . . 1899.”5
