ES WRIGHT, LUCRETIA MOTT, HARRIET MARTINEAU, LYDIA MARIA CHILD,
MARGARET FULLER, SARAH AND ANGELINA GRIMKE, JOSEPHINE S. GRIFFING,
MARTHA C. WRIGHT, HARRIOT K. HUNT, M.D., MARIANA W. JOHNSON,
ALICE AND PHEBE CAREY, ANN PRESTON, M.D., LYDIA MOTT,
ELIZA W. FARNHAM, LYDIA F. FOWLER, M.D.,
PAULINA WRIGHT DAVIS,

Whose Earnest Lives and Fearless Words, in Demanding
Political Rights for Women, have been,
in the Preparation of these Pages,
a Constant Inspiration

TO

The Editors.

PREFACE.

In preparing this work, our object has been to put into permanent
shape the few scattered reports of the Woman Suffrage Movement still
to be found, and to make it an arsenal of facts for those who are
beginning to inquire into the demands and arguments of the leaders of
this reform. Although the continued discussion of the political rights
of woman during the last thirty years, forms a most important link in
the chain of influences tending to her emancipation, no attempt at its
history has been made. In giving the inception and progress of this
agitation, we who have undertaken the task have been moved by the
consideration that many of oar co-workers have already fallen asleep,
and that in a few years all who could tell the story will have passed
away.

In collecting material for these volumes, most of those of whom we
solicited facts have expressed themselves deeply interested in our
undertaking, and have gladly contributed all they could, feeling that
those identified with this reform were better qualified to prepare a
faithful history with greater patience and pleasure, than those of
another generation possibly could.

A few have replied, "It is too early to write the history of this
movement; wait until our object is attained; the actors themselves can
not write an impartial history; they have had their discords,
divisions, personal hostilities, that unfit them for the work."
Viewing the enfranchisement of woman as the most important demand of
the century, we have felt no temptation to linger over individual
differences. These occur in all associations, and may be regarded in
this case as an evidence of the growing self-assertion and
individualism in woman.

Woven with the threads of this history, we have given some personal
reminiscences and b