Before Equal Suffrage: Women in Partisan Politics from Colonial Times to 1920

A study of women in partisan politics before the suffrage amendment is no easy task, for there are no general works on the subject. It therefore becomes necessary to consult a wide variety of primary and secondary sources in order to cull out needed pieces of information. Most important among the available primary materials are the abundant collections of daily and weekly newspapers from the pre-1920 period, whose issues occasionally contain items of great interest regarding women's partisan political activities. For the half-century after 1870, the best newspaper source is the Woman's Journal, edited by suffragists Lucy Stone and her husband Henry Blackwell, and subsequently by their daughter Alice Stone Blackwell. For several years, Ms. Blackwell also edited the Woman's Column, a similar publication. Although both were concerned mainly with woman suffrage, there are often valuable references to partisan political matters, especially during presidential election years. In addition to newspapers, certain collections of contemporary documents and commentary provide significant material. Most notable is the multivolume account of the woman suffrage movement edited by Elizabeth Cady Stanton , Susan B. Anthony, Matilda J. Gage, and Ida H. Harper , A History of Woman Suffrage ( Rochester and New York, 1881- 1922). Also revealing are the various manuals put out by the suffrage groups such as Frances M. Bjorkman and Annie Porritt, comp., Woman Suffrage: History, Arguments, and Results ( New York, 1917). However, some of the contents of these publications may be biased and must be used with caution.

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