ng assistance to the States whenever a special campaign
has been at hand or help has been needed in organizing, convention or
legislative work. The following chapters are confined wholly to the
situation in the various States and are subdivided into Organization,
Legislative Action, Laws, Suffrage, Office-Holding, Occupations and
Education. Their object is to give a general idea of the status of
woman at the close of the nineteenth century and the manifold changes
of which it is the result. It is desired also to put on record the
part which women themselves have had in the steady advance which will
be observed.

The account of only the past seventeen years is given, as the three
preceding volumes of this History relate in detail the pioneer work
and the gains made previous to 1884. Unfortunately it is inevitable in
a recital of this kind that many names should be omitted which are
quite as worthy of mention as those that find place, for in some
instances the records are imperfectly kept and in others the list is
so long as to forbid reproduction.[151] It has been necessary to bar
compliments in order to avoid unjust discrimination and to meet the
demands of limited space. To posterity the work is of more importance
than the workers, and those who have engaged in the efforts to improve
the condition of women necessarily have had to possess a spirit of
self-abnegation and self-sacrifice which neither expected nor desired
personal rewards.

The subject of Organization in most of the States is treated in the
briefest possible manner, the intention being merely to show that in
every State and Territory there has been some attempt to gather into a
working force the scattered individuals who believe in the justice of
woman suffrage and wish to obtain it. More extended mention of course
is due to the older States, where there has been continuous organized
work for many years, and where the societies have remained intact and
held their regular meetings in spite of such defeats and
discouragements as never have had to be faced by any other cause. It
is most difficult to form and maintain an association which has not a
concrete object to labor for, and when a campaign for an amendment is
not actually in progress, the suffrage in the distant future appears
largely as an abstraction. The early days of the movement necessarily
had to be given to creating the sentiment which would later be
organized, and it is only within the past d