B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S W O M E N S H I S T O R Y 2 0 2 4 Women's History Month 1 EXCEPTIONAL AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED BY SUSAN B. ANTHONY 1. ANTHONY, Susan B. Autograph letter signed. WITH: Envelope stamped, postmarked “Mar 4,1894,” autograph return address. WITH: The National Bulletin, January, 1894, autograph marginalia. Rochester, NY; Washington, D.C. 1894. Three items. ALS, card (2-7/8 by 5-3/8 inches); rnvelope (3 by 5-1/2 inches); National Bulletin, (6 by 8-1/2; pp. 4). Housed in a custom clamshell box. $9000 Rare 1894 collection of autograph materials signed by Susan B. Anthony, featuring a fascinating one-page March 4, 1894 autograph letter signed by her, a stamped envelope containing an 1894 postmark with her signed name and the return address of her Rochester home, along with a January 4, 1894 issue of the National Bulletin containing her autograph marginalia—together presenting a vital record of Anthony’s dedicated spirit and resolve in the long struggle for suffrage. In the final years of the 19th century, Susan B. Anthony and other leaders in the fight for suffrage again marshaled their efforts, this time in anticipation of an upcoming NY State Constitutional Convention. “To get the word ‘male’ in effect out of the [US] Constitution cost the women of the country 52 years of pauseless campaign… they were forced to conduct 56 campaigns of referenda to male voters; 480 campaigns to get legislatures to submit suffrage amendments to voters; 47 campaigns to get state constitutional conventions to write woman suffrage into state constitutions; 277 campaigns to get state party conventions to include woman suffrage planks; 30 campaigns to get presidential party conventions to adopt woman suffrage planks in party platforms, and 19 campaigns with 19 successive Congresses” (Catt & Shuler, Woman Suffrage and Politics). In this rare collection of autograph materials the focus is an upcoming 1894 NY State Constitutional Convention that had already “drawn attention from as early as 1887, when voters approved the need to revise the state constitution.” “The NY Woman Suffrage Association members organized a campaign, holding mass meetings in every NY county and securing 600,000 signatures out of a state population of roughly 2,500,000… In May 1894 the president of the NY State Constitutional Convention appointed a committee in charge of suffrage amendments. Anthony and Jean Brooks Greenleaf... spoke to that committee on May 24, 1894. Despite the suffragists’ efforts, the petitions and committee hearings failed to bring about a suffrage amendment to the 1894 constitution” (Tarlton Law Library). Prominent is a March 4, 1894 autograph letter on ivory card stock, which reads: "We now have two genuine republican Commonwealths—Wyoming & Colorado—and I trust, Nov. 6, 1894—will bring us two more—New York & Kansas— so that our Woman Suffrage flag may have four stars on its field of blue—where we now have only two!! Rochester NY, March 4, 1894, [signed] Susan B. Anthony, Rochester NY." It is accompanied by a January 4, 1894 four-page issue of the National Bulletin with Anthony’s autograph marginalia. The envelope, with its cancelled "Two-Cent" stamp, is postmarked "New York, NY, Mar 4 10 PM." It is addressed to: "Remington Ward, Newport, R.I.." A very rare, exceptional near-fine collection of Susan B. Anthony autograph materials.
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